Will Solving The ‘Hard Problem’ of Consciousness Unweave the Rainbow?
Some say in fifty years or so we'll have enough neuro-scientific evidence to completely describe the functioning of the brain. The question is, will this mountain of evidence be enough to explain the emergence of human consciousness? Consciousness. This familiar yet indescribable experience we all have, an awareness, something we can't physically point to nor experience from another's viewpoint.
Being a hypothetical question about some future state of our knowledge, it has mainly been of academic interest to philosophers. But I actually think it's relevant to all of us because it accesses two fundamental questions about what it means to be human. First, on a practical level, is consciousness amenable to explanation? Second, on a mystical level, if consciousness can be explained, will its essence be lost?
Consciousness: 'easy' and 'hard' problems
An influential approach to consciousness splits the question into the 'easy problems of consciousness' and the 'hard problems of consciousness' (Chalmers, 1995). The so-called 'easy problems' are things like finding out how memory or attention actually work, the nuts and bolts of these functions. And even though these are the easy problems, scientists are still having considerable difficulty with them.
But, argue people like Chalmers, once we've described all these functions, we still won't fully understand consciousness. This is because we won't have addressed the so-called 'hard problem'. This is the feeling of what it is actually like to be you. That ineffable you-ness that no one else can share. Your experience.
Chalmers doesn't represent the most extreme example of this position, there are those who argue we can never truly understand consciousness. At least Chalmers acknowledges there are possibilities, although new conceptual techniques need developing.
There is no 'hard problem'
On the other side of the fence are those who argue the distinction between the 'hard problem' and the 'easy problem' is at best ill-advised and, at worst, plain dangerous. Just because we can't conceive of how consciousness can emerge from the description of the easy problems like attention and memory etc., doesn't mean it never will (Churchland, 1996). Just because we can set up complex philosophical arguments about what might be true in a thought experiment, doesn't mean it explains what is true here and now.
Philosophers of mind like Dennett argue that consciousness emerges from the physical processes of the brain (Dennett, 1996). Effectively he is saying there is no 'hard problem' to explain, some even argue he is saying there is no such thing as consciousness, rather he is redefining consciousness as 'reportability' (Chalmers, 1997).
Unweaving the rainbow
So there's a glance at two views on the so-called 'hard problem' of consciousness. But being a student of psychology, in addition to the actual arguments themselves, I'm naturally drawn to the motivations people might have for which they choose.
While there's a lot of complex discussion in this area, I think it partly comes down to whether you're relaxed about the idea that science might one day be able to explain the essence of human experience. For many people, I think this is an extremely uncomfortable thought. What Keats, talking of Newton's findings, refers to as a fear of 'unweaving the rainbow' - the fear that explaining something might somehow reduce the magic of it - is very real.
What's your view?
You can vote below on whether you think current scientific methods will ever be able to explain consciousness. Of course, it would be great to know your views, so go ahead and post a comment. I'd love to know what you think.
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I think the name 'hard' problem is a useful one. Once there is a map of the functions of the neurons it is likely that it will be possible to track thought processes. The solution to the 'hard' problem will then be understanding which process it is that gives us the impression of being here. Once this is understood and amenable to simulation, then we could say that we understand consciousness. Of course scientific understanding means only that you can predict what the system will do given certain inputs and that you can follow the mechanism that gives the results. Perhaps one day will understand consciousness as much as we understand protons -- in a functional sense, but not in the true essence of its existence.
i tend to agree w/carlo.
'describing' rather than 'explaining' is perhaps the more useful term- as in protons- the 'how' rather than the 'why'.
at some point, the emergent system of consciousness seems to arise from the working of neurons, within a living body. the more we know about the intricate functioning of those neurons, the less vague will be the jump to the next level of complexity.
yes, i think scientific understanding can and will more fully solve the hard problem.
and no, i do not think this will unweave the rainbow.
mk
Hi Carlo and MK, thanks for your comments. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're both still leaving something about consciousness that science won't be able to explain.
Do you see this 'essence' or the 'why' question as something science can't address? Are we onto a more religious/spiritual level here?
In other words: if you ask me why we're all here, I'll reply with an account including the big bang and evolution. For me, the why question has no more meaning than that.
Science almost by definition describes rather than explains; if we go down far enough we will always find a level where we have to say 'why x? no reason, x just is'.
For example, solids are solid because of the way their atoms are arranged. This looks like an explanation, but is it? It is possible to reverse the statement to argue it is really a description of what atoms arranged in a certain way are like at a larger scale.
The 'why' consciousness is as it is Carlo and mk seem to be asking is possibly not answerable by science, in the same sense as we couldn't answer 'why the big bang' -- it just is, perhaps there isn't a cause.
If just is is not an acceptable solution, dig deeper, but I think there will always end up a layer which can only be explained by just is. The universe doesn't need a reason to exist, and I think we will reach this level with consciousness.
Out of curiosity: I note the 'current' in the survey, are we therefore to discard the 'new science' posited by Roger Penrose when considering our answer?
Thanks, incidentally, Jeremy for another thought provoking article. Mike has stated more clearly exactly what I was getting at. Science does describe rather than explain. I do not see this as a weakness, but rather a strength. The genuinely hard problems are beyond our grasp at them moment, but remarkable progress has still been made by exploring questions that we can answer. I believe that the true breakthrough in consciousness will come when it can be demonstrated that consciousness is the result of the interaction of physical entities, the neurons, using well understood physical principals. Like mk, I would not see this as unweaving the rainbow, but rather as an expression that most noble of human tendencies-- the drive to understand our very existence.
I'm not a psychologist, merely a computer scientist, but I'm intrigued by the idea (advanced by John Searle, among others) that consciousness must arise from activities of neurons.
I have a "levels of description" problem with this. It seems to me, that in the physical world, at least -- explanations for different phenomena can arise at different levels. For e.g. it is possible to explain chemical reactions using John Dalton's ideas of combination (the law of constant proportions, etc etc); one does not need to look at a level beneath that of atoms. To explain why chemical reactions take place, on the other hand, one needs to investigate the atoms themselves and therefore go one "level" deeper.
Why couldn't consciousness be a function of some higher level of organization of the brain -- a level higher than that of neurons? Consciousness could still be an emergent phenomenon but maybe at a level of that of different embodied systems interacting -- that model seems more and more plausible to me, based on research in autonomous agents and robotics. See Rodney Brooks' work, for instance.
I have never understood the claim that explanation will "unweave the rainbow." Perhaps it is the feeling that comes when one realizes that Santa Claus is not real, or that the Gypsies' shell game is rigged?
i ever be crazy,maybe for my childish personality like or the nervous character like.
so conscious and subconsciousness is a problem i ever pursued into.
it help me out of my own hysteria.
lol...
Thanks again for your comments. Like Mike, I'm quite surprised by the number of people voting 'yes'. Perhaps I shouldn't be...
Also, a commenter posted the full text of an article. I had to moderate this as it's too lengthy but here's link to "A quantum hypothesis of brain function and consciousness".
Jeremy,
Science will never be able to provide answers to essentialist questions.
I will refer folks to the wonderfully entertaining quasi-scientist Douglas Adams: When the processes of consciousness become better understood scientifically (Adam's "42"), I believe there will be a rather lengthy period of time while we decipher 42.
And of course, one should not assume that that will help understand human behavior (in the specific/predictive sense).
Will it unweave the rainbow? Not any more than the recent understandings of human psychology grounded in evolutionary psychology unwove the rainbow, IMO.
Dr G., anyone quoting Douglas Adams has my vote!
I think therefore I know
The Universe is an elegant musical
chord of consciousness that's vibration can be partly seen and studied by human senses within the electromagnetic spectrum.
The "unweaving the rainbow" attribution is often made in these discussions. But any serious student of philosophy who finds the hard problem legitimate will take offense at this attribution, since it ignores the fact that there are legitimate conceptual problems that need to be addressed here. Generally, argumentation should proceed by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of a given position, rather than trying to write off the position on the grounds that it originates from some psychological deficit.
A pro-hard problem person might counter by saying that the anti-hard problem folks have some fear that we won't be able to unweave every rainbow, counter to their desire for a rational explanation of everything in materialist terms. The conversation could go back and forth ad nauseam with these specious kind of pseudo-psychoanalyses of each side. Or, we could just focus on the actual issues.
I disagree that discussing the motivations for beliefs is specious. Dennett, for example, argues that feeling there is something that requires explaining about consciousness, helps understand the very positing of the 'hard' problem.
When philosophical arguments are this abstract and inaccessible to empirical evidence, a psychologist cannot help but wonder what causes people to adopt one or the other position. You might say your views are built on rational arguments and logic but I would say they are fundamentally motivated by many factors that have nothing to do with logic.
One example I mention here is fearing the 'reduction' of human experience to 'mere' scientific explanation. But this is only one, and no doubt we could come up with a long list.
My point is that the sword cuts both ways. These psychological attributions are often made for the contingent that suspects the hard problem is truly hard in the sense that it is resistent to complete explanation in terms of scientific methods. But rarely, if ever, is a similar kind of analysis put forth for the side that believes the hard problem will eventually succumb to science. This reveals an inherent bias on the part of those who put forth these sorts of arguments.
The point, then, is that we can come up with equally good reasons why someone might be psychologically attuned to be pro- or anti-hard problem, regardless of the argumentation or evidence at hand. So the utility of this approach in settling the issue does not seem very great.
And ultimately, the very bottom line is that regardless of what kinds of psychological biases may exist, the issue must be settled objectively by appeal to reason and evidence. Otherwise we might as well rewrite the history of science, explaining that the discoveries of all the great scientists really just revealed their inherent psychological makeup rather than facts about the world.