Is The Problem Of Consciousness Likely To Be Solved?

How do you know what you are reading this instance is real? Pinch yourself to see if your really here. Think your senses couldn't deceive you, think again. When you look far into the distance and you think your approaching someone you know, just as you're about to greet them but then realise their not who you thought they were... Didn't your eyes deceive to you then? So how are they not deceiving you now?

Here comes the problem of consciousness - What is the nature of our consciousness? What relationship is there between our conscious experience and the true nature of the physical world?

But first what is consciousness? - Many philosophers have tried to define consciousness, but all have come with different definitions and ideas. - Chalmers (1996) explains "There is nothing that we know more than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain". - Carlson (2007) argues that it is a term to describe a state of awareness of the human mind. It is the ability to be able to communicate to others about ones thoughts, perceptions, memories and feelings. - Descartes (1641) explains the mere fact that you are able to think about your existence means that you are existing. "I think therefore I am". He argues that we cannot doubt the existence of our own self, because we cannot doubt it unless there is a self to doubt.

The problems with consciousness Chalmers (1995) argues that there are easy and hard problems of consciousness. Easy problems are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard model of cognitive science, however, the hard problems are those that resist this method.

Easy problems could include the deliberate control of behaviour, the difference between wakefulness and sleep, the focus of attention and the reportability of mental states, and other phenomena where it can be explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. Chambers argues that these are easy problems and can be resolved by a cognitive or neurophysiological model which can do the explaining. For example, to understand the reportability of mental states, Chambers argues he only needs to specify the mechanism by which information about internal states is retrieved and made available for verbal report. However, the hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. For example, why does a particular wavelength of light stimulate us to experience seeing red and not blue? And why does a shorter wavelength stimulate the experience of seeing blue and not red? Or more importantly what does it actually feel like to be you? Or any other organism in the world? Nagel (1994) argues that consciousness is what makes the mind body problem really intractable. Nagel went on to investigate what it feels like to be like a bat, the easy problem here is that, it can be understood what it is like for a person to behave as a bat but Nagel was interested in what it is like for a bat to be a bat. However, this in itself is seen as a huge problem, as in order to understand what it is like for a bat to be a bat it restricts us to use resources from our own minds, however, these resources are inadequate to the task. Can the problems be solved? Mysterians such as (McGinn 1989) argue that we are "cognitively closed". He explains that as much as a dog is cognitively closed with respect to reading a newspaper, no matter how hard the dog had tried to read, he will never be able to master the concept of reading as it does not have the appropriate brain for it. Furthermore, McGinn states that "consciousness is indeed a deep mystery, the reason for this mystery, I maintain, is that our intelligence is wrongly designed for understanding consciousness". He explains that similarly, humans do not have the right brain to understand the concept of consciousness, and will never be able to master it for this reason. O'hara and Scutt 1996 explain that actually there are no hard problems. They give three reasons why they believe this to be the case. First, they argue that if we know the easy problems, then we should deal with these, second, the solutions to the easy problems will change our understanding of the hard problems. Third, a solution to the hard problem would only be of use if we could recognise it as such, and right now the problem is not well enough understood.

Chalmers (1995) explains that the hard problems of consciousness can be solved in terms of dualism. The dual aspect theory of information is that it has two aspects, the physical and experimental. Therefore, when there is a conscious experience, it is one aspect of an information state and the other aspect lies within the physical organisation of the brain. However, in this view we can only understand conscious when there is a new theory of information.

Naturalists such as Churchland (1996) go on to explain that the hard problems are misconceived. She explains it as a "horns woggle problem" She states that it cannot be predicated which problems are hard and which are easy. She argues that how can we be sure that explaining subjectivity is so much harder than the "easy" problems? Dennett (1988) argues that actually there is no such thing as qualia, he does not however deny the reality of conscious experiences that people may have individually, however, he claims that these private, subjective "raw feels" are the way things seems to us and that is what people call qualia. Dennett explains his theory by reminding people the taste of beer when one tries it for the first time; the person tends to hate it. However, over time he comes to love the taste, however, which taste is he in love with? It cannot be the first taste as it tastes horrible but if it is the second what has changed? Dennett explains that if there are two separate things here then, than the taste is the persons opinion and therefore be able to explain what has changed, but this is not possible. Consequently, Dennett explains that the case gets confusing and hence we should get rid of qualia all together as he states "there are simply no qualia at all". In conclusion, the likeliness that the problem of consciousness will be solved seems like a myth to some, yet others seize to belief it exists at all. It is important first to understand the notion of what consciousness means and weather it exists and further to this, it is then only possible to conclude with an answer. However, these answers can be or will be subjective to the definition one has on consciousness. However, it is interesting to note that Dennet (1996) argues that even if the easy problems such as, reproduction, growth and metabolism were solved there would still be the really hard problem of life itself...