Consciousness and its Place in New York

The idea of consciousness spans many notions, such as those mechanisms monitoring our internal states and controlling our behavior.  Chalmers identifies a particularly troublesome use of the word, our notion of subjective experience. He labels this idea, that there is something that it is like to be a conscious entity, “the hard problem of consciousness.” Experience seems to escape science, and Cartesian debate wages onward.

Chalmers isn't shy about his controversial stance in the debate, presenting three arguments against materialism: explanatory, conceivability, and knowledge. Tracing the shape of these famous critiques, he demonstrates a shared structure among them and maps their general form:

1. There is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths.

2. If there is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths, then there is an ontological gap, and materialism is false.

   _________

3. Materialism is false.

Chalmers highlights the denial of some epistemic entailment, such as implication, from physical to phenomenal truths. Materialism holds that physical truths ontologically entail, or necessitate, all truth, including those phenomenal, and is falsified by the existence of any ontological gap. Chalmers considers this general argument a useful lens to categorize materialist defenses.

Chalmers identifies three responses to epistemic arguments to construct an immensely useful lexicon. A “type-A” materialist denies the epistemic gap entirely. A “type-B” materialist grants the epistemic gap, but denies an ontological gap. A “type-C” materialist accepts the epistemic gap, but only as temporary. After classifying each type of materialism, Chalmers provides for each a critique. Though there have been many responses in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, including those from devestating intellects like that of Dan Dennett, I believe each materialist critique is sound.

This meticulous rejection of materialism leaves the hard problem unresolved. Answering the problem therefore requires accepting some non-physical ontological primitive. This presents another problem, however, since physical laws are causally closed: How do these phenomenal fundamentals integrate into the closed system.

Chalmers identifies three nonreductionist responses to this question. A “type-D” dualist denies causal closure of the physical. A “type-E” dualist accepts this causal closure, but denies interaction between the phenomenal and physical fundamentals. A “type-F” monist accepts this causal closure, but holds the causality of phenomenal fundamentals through an intrinsic relationship with the physical.

Chalmers defends type-E epiphenomenalism as coherent, though admits it is inelegant and counter-intuitive. 

The most interesting nonreductionist response to the integration of physical and phenomenal fundamentals is type-F monism. Chalmers' monism has two main features. Firstly, type-F supposes that, since only phenomenal fundamentals are directly knowable, physical properties may be inherently phenomenal fundamentals or that both phenomenal and physical properties consist of shared protophenomenal fundamentals. Secondly, neutral monism supposes panpsychism, the idea that “there is a meaningful sense in which everything that exists has a form of 'awareness.'" Chalmers combines these suppositions as panprotopsychism.

Chalmers presents three counterarguments to this model. The first counterargument relies on intuition; certainly, type-F monism sounds alien and ephemeral. Chalmers unfortunately side-steps this critique, appealing to the existence of other counterintuitive oddities in our universe and holding the model's compatibility with observation as more substantive. I am certain the strangeness of panprotopsychism is due more to the incomplete frame of our everyday experience, analogous to the counterintuitive nature of Einsteinian relativity in our similarly limited experiential frame. The second counterargument relies on epistemology; we have no conception of the nature of protophenomenal properties. Chalmers grants this epistemic gap, though holds the gap may be bridged by future understanding or that the epistemic gap does not imply and ontological gap. While I am uncertain about the nature of this glaringly present gap, new physical theories like string theory may hold promise for progress in conceptualizing protophenomenal properties. The final counterargument, proposed by William James, is the combination problem for panpsychism: How do we explain emergence in phenomenal composition? Chalmers admits this is an open problem. Much of my own work centers on this problem, as I build an economic framework for the emergence of phenomenal complexity in systems. As I sharpen my ideas, I am indebted to Chalmers for providing this lexicon, an invaluable tool for collaborating on urgently necessary insights into enormously difficult problems.

quite often doing it within the academic disciplines, so it wouldn't at all surprise me if some radical philosopher or a very creative neuroscientist comes along just as molecular biologists helped solve the problem of understanding genetics. So the purpose of conferences, like the Tuscon conference on consciousness, is to bring together people people from all these fields to see if they can collectively combine their insights in ways that might recombine to creative new directions.”

If there exists a perfect storm where such conceptual revolutions could emerge, it is at this year's Singularity Summit. In early October, Chalmers will give a talk titled “Simulation and the Singularity,” expounding on his paper, The Matrix as Metaphysics. I have no doubt he will also address the hard problem, following a provocative gauntlet of questions on choice and determinism proposed by the influential Gary Drescher. The Summit program includes the foremost minds in an array of disciplines: inventor Ray Kurzweil, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, biogerentologist Aubrey de Grey, theoretical physicist Michael Nielsen, and many more!

Undoubtedly, many big ideas will emerge at this event. My hope is that the conceptual revolutions that will take place will happen in a delightfully unexpected way: that the radical philosophers or creative neuroscientists be undergraduates.