Susan Blackmore, Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. P. 2005. Chapters 6-8. [Comments in square brackets are my own thoughts.] Ch. 6: CONSCIOUS WILL ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The theme in this chapter is that our intuitive notions of how our willing an action relates to the occurrence of the action are rather faulty [though personally I think the notion of deciding to do something, and hence doing it, serves us pretty well -- it's an abstraction from lower-level processes.] Neural pathway for intentional action (p.82-84) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ prefrontal -> premotor -> primary motor cortex (and other regions) Ethical issues, hard problem ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ethical/social significance of "free will" (ancient Greeks, Hume) and apparent conflict with determinism; no quantum loophole; compatibilists -- appeal to chaos/complexity (p.84-5) [Is it repugnant to suppose: I don't make choices freely, in the sense of "arbitrarily" -- I make the choices that seem most rewarding (while balancing short-term and long-term reward), as best I can in the time available to make them; much of this is unconscious -- e.g., I may make some impulsive decisions, not quite knowing the source of the impulse. It has also been pointed out that if a person misbehaves on the grounds that outside forces are determining his actions, the judge and jailer can similarly argue that they can't help but inflict punishment.] The Hard Problem arises here if we view our will as a kind of causal force -- then we have the problem that from a third- person perspective, no such causal element is required. Libet's lagging will (p.86-90) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Libet, again: report position of moving dot when wrist-flexing decision was made: "the brain processes planning the movement began over 1/3 of a second before the person had the conscious desire to move". [Isn't the delay even greater? Our perception of where the dot was is 1/2 or 1/3 a second off anyway (Libet's delay). So the dot was actually further along than reported, by a 1/3-1/2-second's movement -- so didn't the "willing" in fact start, say, .7 seconds after the start of the readiness potential?] One reaction: Movement decisions relatively unimportant Libet: "conscious veto" ("free won't"); "conscious mental field theory" -- generated by brain, in turn acting on it. [One question: what if we told the subject to decide a few moments *ahead of time* at what dot position s/he would flex the wrist? (Say, when the dot reaches 12 o'clock or so, make a decision whether to flex at 1, 2, or 3 o'clock.) Wouldn't we then see neural activity corresponding to the decision-making *before* the readiness potential (perhaps in brain regions other than the prefrontal->premotor->primary motor areas)? If not, wouldn't this show that the decision- making is too dispersed or too subtle to be detectable by fmri? And in that case couldn't the decision have been made earlier in Libet's experiments, but mis-reported? Mis-reporting wouldn't be surprising if we view self-reported "acts of will" as high-level symbolic abstractions -- part of our self-modelling -- that require some time to compute and so come some time after the start of decision-making neural activity.] Examples of mistaken feelings of not being responsible: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Seances and Michael Faraday -- subjects push, but unknowingly (p.90-92) Similarly Ouija boards -- small involuntary individual actions become group actions. Schizophrenia: actions not self-ascribed, but to hallucinated voices; William Grey Walter's slide projector: beating the subjects to it, before they themselves could carry out the intended action Examples of mistaken feelings of being responsible (p.93-8): ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Theory of mind -- an inherited endowment: attributing intentions, etc., to active things (the "intentional stance" towards such entities). Turned inward (self-modelling), sometimes leads to error. E.g., someone thinks of their friend and she rings -- sense of having caused the call. Wegner thinks free will is always an illusion because [I would say] the abstraction always lags behind the beginning of neural activity. His experiment: object selection on a screen, via a mouse controlled jointly by 2 people (one, a confederate, unbeknownst to the real subject). If the subject heard the word at which the cursor subsequently stopped, s/he claimed responsibility. (Done over earphones -- the confederate got separate instructions where to stop.) Blackmore concludes with Wegner that free will is an illusion. [I think once we abandon the idea that "free" means "arbitrary" or "capricious", we can easily live with the idea that our awareness of having made up our minds lags somewhat behind the (the most recent part of) the decision-making process...] Ch. 7: ALTERED STATES ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ All the altered states of consciousness discussed here collectively reinforce the idea that consciousness is a physical phenomenon, very dependent on brain states and brain chemistry. Sleep and dreams (p. 99-104) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 5 phases of sleep: 1-4, and REM. Everyone dreams (REM) but recall varies; They take about the time they seem to; Consciousness seems normal *during* them, but not in retrospect; in telling, we do some selecting and tidying; Lucid dreams -- knowing you're dreaming, may even take control; False awakening; REM paralysis (fig 21, p.102 very apt); incubus (male sexual demon) and succubus (female sexual demon). Drugs and consciousness (p.104-8) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It's awkward to maintain that mind is independent of matter, and survives the body, considering the effects of drugs; - anaesthetics [the memory-abolishing ones bother me, somehow] effect is generally global, not on some "consciousness center" - antipsychotics, antidepressants, tranquilizers, stimulants, depressants, narcotics, hallucinogens. - hallucinogens produce pseudo-hallucinations (not thought real) - cannabis (hemp). etc. - most hallucinogens resemble one of the 4 major neurotransmitters (acetylcholine, noradrenaline, dopamine, serotonin) & interfere with their function; LSD: color enhancement, fantastic forms [qualia affected!] - religious & mystical experiences similar to drug-induced ones; Out-of-body and near-death experiences (p.108-111) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ OBE: No "astral bodies", or ability to see concealed numbers have been detected; can be produced artifially by stimulating part of right temporal lobe associated with body image. NDE: bright light at end of tunnel, OBEs, "being of light", acceptance, floods of memories, religious visions pertinent to the believer's faith, etc. But we know stress, fear, lack of oxygen trigger endorphin release; and we know stimulation of visual cortex (& some hallucinogen) can produce tunnels, spirals, and lights; temporal lobe stimulation can produce floods of memories; Mystical experiences -- similar (visions, ineffable insights, etc) Meditation: postures avoid sleep & discomfort, letting unwanted thoughts go; or using a mantra, or breath-observation as a minimally demanding mental activity. Physical measurements suggest just relaxing or listening to music are just as stress-reducing or more so; exercise would be a better investment. However, long-term practice can lead to partial control of autonomic system. Zen seeks to dispel illusion of a self separate from "the one who acts" [sounds right to me from the outset! But at the end she also says Zen seeks to detach exprerience entirely from any experiencer, time, or place -- and that's something I have no sympathy for.] Blackmore wonders whether such re-conceptions of the self have neural correlates. [I'd be surprised; imagine trying to understand a program running on a computer by seeing what circuitry is active at what times.] Ch. 8: EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS (p.116-133) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The plant & animal world, and speculations about "what it's like to be...". "Any viable theory of consciousness ought to specify which creatures [I would add 'or robots'] are conscious, in what way, and why." (p.119). Marian Stamp Dawkins' experiments -- whether chickens would bother to push through a heavy plastic curtain to get to a litter where they could scratch: negative results. [But maybe they just can't pre-evaluate the results of actions open to them! I think you'd have to steer them through the curtain many times, so that they make an associative connection between pushing through the curtain and the reward. Maybe something like that was done?] Mirror test, theory of mind, and language (p.120-123) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Only apes and a few other animals recognize their mirror image as being of themselves (e.g., reaching for a red sticker surreptitiously placed on their face, when they see themselves in the mirror). Cats, dogs, rabbits, monkeys don't manage it. Dolphins and elephants have been shown within the last couple of years to manage it. I wonder about macaws and other smart birds...; also octopuses. Do chimps have a theory of mind? Experiments concerning deception/distraction/hiding for illicit behavior are equivocal. Also they beg for food even from someone with a bucket on their head, who "obviously" can't see the begging. [But aren't humans like "magical food providers" for chimps -- i.e., they have all kinds of powers beyond those of chimps, so why should a bucket impair them?] Chimps and other apes learn some basic language (e.g., Koko), but they don't get beyond simple declarations/requests, mostly for food. So if language is essential to consciousness (as some argue), then chimps aren't very conscious. Function and evolution of consciousness (p.123-8) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - If consciousness is epiphenomenal, then it couldn't have given selective advantage to creatures possessing it - If it's an adaptation with real advantages, the question is how subjective experience could provide those advantages (as we can give an account free of subjectivity). [Here, again, I think we have alternative ways of viewing the role of consciousness -- we can say the hominid averts his eyes from the sun because he finds it painfully bright, or we can use a third-person perspective in which "pain" and "brightness" are rephrased in terms of neural activation, I don't think either prespective invalidates the other.] - If consciousness is an inevitable byproduct of our mental capabilities (perception, thinking, etc.), how exactly do those faculties bring it about? [Definitely an unsolved problem.] - Boxed text on "memes", last paragraph: the self as a meme complex (p.128), strengthened by the use of "I". Blackmore says underneath the box that the assumption that experiences happen to someone has to be thrown out. [I think this is one of those sanity-check moments -- if you reach a conclusion like that, maybe the reasoning went astray somewhere. It went astray, I think, in the confusion between the self and the self-concept. The self is *us*, body & brain, while the self-concept is an internal symbol (*not* an "inner self") to which we attach knowledge about ourselves and our relation to the world -- our self-*model*.] - Blackmore also reiterates her conclusion that the stream of consciousness is an illusion [a conclusion based on neglecting the role of storage & recall of perceptual information -- just because we have poor recall of what we just saw doesn't mean we weren't *really* conscious of it in the first place.] She says we have the illusion of consciousness because it seems to be there whenever we self-inquire about it. [Isn't that like saying the chair is only there when I look at it?] - On p.132 she asks whether computers could be conscious, and concludes that if they had our mental faculties, including the capacity for introspective theorizing, they would fall prey to the same delusion that they are conscious! - Final remarks about Zen-like enlightenment [My reaction is that achieving a state where there is experience but no experiencer and no time and no place is more like cognitive self-amputation than enlightenment. Sure, it follows from (exists x: (x experience[n]) (I experience[v] x)) that (exists x (x experience[n])), (i.e., ignoring the experiencer, me), but why on earth should this neglect of the experiencer be a step forward? Maybe someone in the class can provide a more sympathetic perspective.] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- HOWEVER, I like the book because of its engaging style, its quite comprehensive and balanced coverage -- and because the conclusions Blackmore reaches are reached honestly. I claim to see flaws in the reasoning, but there is a serious effort to avoid them, and no detectable tendency towards rationalization, i.e., towards reaching conclusions she would *like* to reach.