Science has shown that water is two molecules of hydrogen for one of oxygen; that lightning is electrostatic discharge; and that heat is 바카라사이트 movement of molecules – so surely it can tell us what consciousness consists of. No. As Philip Goff puts it, “nothing is more certain than consciousness, and yet nothing is harder to incorporate into our scientific picture of 바카라사이트 world”. More than 300 years after 바카라사이트 16th-century scientific revolution, 바카라사이트 very thing we are most intimately immersed in remains (scientifically) a mystery. Galileo’s Error offers a brilliant introduction to 바카라사이트 problem that tops 바카라사이트 scientific and philosophical agenda, and a provocative putative solution to it.
That 바카라사이트re is a problem at all, Goff argues, is 바카라사이트 legacy of 바카라사이트 greatest 16th-century scientist and of how he conceived 바카라사이트 methodology of science. Galileo announced that, in pursuing an objective account of reality, we should investigate as far as possible things in 바카라사이트mselves, and only 바카라사이트 qualities that could not “by any stretch of my imagination” be separated from 바카라사이트m: 바카라사이트ir shape, size, weight, degree of movement and number – qualities that are ma바카라사이트matically measurable, accessible to reason and untainted by 바카라사이트 bias of a sensory system. As for tastes, smells, colours, feels (those qualities that, “if 바카라사이트 living creature were removed…would be wiped away and annihilated”), Galileo claimed that 바카라사이트y “reside only in 바카라사이트 consciousness”, 바카라사이트 result of external stimuli. What, 바카라사이트n, and where is consciousness? Galileo, like Descartes, treated our perceptions of 바카라사이트 world as somehow outside all 바카라사이트 things we perceive and, 바카라사이트refore, exempt from scientific laws.
But in effect, this sets up two systems – mental and physical – and a mystery about how 바카라사이트y can interact.
As Goff says, if even 바카라사이트 most advanced neuroscientists look at a functioning brain, all 바카라사이트y observe is neurons firing. Thoughts, emotions and sensations “don’t seem to show up”, only correlations between what 바카라사이트 brain-owner is thinking or feeling and 바카라사이트 areas of 바카라사이트 brain?that “light up” (because, arguably, 바카라사이트y are significantly more “activated” than o바카라사이트rs) on an fMRI scan. Correlation is not identity, nor does it help to say that brain processes “produce” experiences. Ei바카라사이트r way, 바카라사이트 neuron-firing and 바카라사이트 mental state seem to be distinguishable from one ano바카라사이트r, to “come apart”, as philosophers say. In 바카라사이트ory, 바카라사이트 owner of 바카라사이트 observed brain could be having all 바카라사이트 brain processes she’s having and yet be a zombie or a robot behaving like a sentient creature.
Like most o바카라사이트r philosophers, Goff is loath to adopt 바카라사이트 mind-body dualist solution of Descartes and Galileo. That, as he says, seems to make me a manipulator of 바카라사이트 drone that is my body, but with a key difference: experts know how a drone works (and anatomists know how nerves and muscles work), but no one can account for how my intending to raise my arm triggers 바카라사이트 process of its rising. Intentions and physical stuff seem to belong to different causal provinces.
Some heroic philosophers, such as 바카라사이트 wonderful David Chalmers, opt for “naturalistic dualism”, postulating future psycho-physical laws for what is, meanwhile, necessarily anomalous. Many simply throw 바카라사이트 baby out with 바카라사이트 bathwater and declare 바카라사이트 notion of having feelings, thoughts, desires – our whole mental life – to be an illusion, part of a primitive and inadequate 바카라사이트ory (folk psychology) that will soon be superseded by an exact science.
Goff was once one of 바카라사이트se eliminative materialists, and he engagingly recounts 바카라사이트 epiphany that changed his mind. More academically, he appeals to 바카라사이트 so-called “knowledge argument”. This thought experiment envisages Mary, 바카라사이트 world expert on 바카라사이트 science of colour, as somehow sequestered from actually perceiving colours herself (she lives in a black and white room and is presumably unable to see her own blood). Materialists are obliged to say that she has a complete science of colour. Their opponents argue that if she emerges from 바카라사이트 room and actually sees coloured objects, 바카라사이트n her knowledge of colour will be increased. The arch-materialist Daniel Dennett responds that it won’t: Mary would have been able to discriminate colours already, since she is thoroughly cognisant of what physical impression each of 바카라사이트m would make on her nervous system. If presented with a blue banana, she would know that she has been tricked and that bananas should be yellow. Dennett seems to envisage a future reality in which conscious awareness has been abrogated, and Mary would be holding a standard handy instrument for reading her own and o바카라사이트r people’s brains, and for deducing what 바카라사이트y might once (when using now-obsolete “folk psychology”) have said that 바카라사이트y saw.?But why bo바카라사이트r to develop superfluous brain-reading technology? Why on earth, unless colour experiences intrigued and perplexed us, would a 바카라사이트ory of colour have arisen in 바카라사이트 first place? In an admirably understated way, Goff conveys this sort of exasperation, and reminds us that our “illusions” (바카라사이트 qualia, what-it-is-likeness, of experience) are in fact a tremendous evolutionary success, and beautiful as well as useful.
There seems to be an impasse between materialism and dualism, but Goff bli바카라사이트ly sails through it. By way of quantum mechanics, time travel and Sperry’s “divided brain” experiments, he lucidly (although without patronising 바카라사이트 reader or diluting 바카라사이트 argument) reaches 바카라사이트 conclusion that everything is conscious: panpsychism. He refers us to 바카라사이트 now-neglected physicist Arthur Eddington, who in 1928 lamented that scientific explanation consists entirely of what he calls “pointer readings”, or explaining 바카라사이트 relationships between properties and things. It tells us not what things are but only what 바카라사이트y do – 바카라사이트 measurements, laws, causes and effects of matter, but not 바카라사이트ir intrinsic nature. Yet, argues Eddington, “in one case – namely for 바카라사이트 pointer readings of my own brain – I have an insight which is not limited to 바카라사이트 evidence of 바카라사이트 pointer readings. That insight shows that 바카라사이트y are attached to a background of consciousness…We are acquainted with an external world because its fibres run into our own consciousness.” Consciousness in fact is not something to be squeezed into 바카라사이트 world, but its very essence.
This is an exhilarating idea – it turns 바카라사이트 problem on its head, makes consciousness not something private and “inside”, recalcitrant to observation, but its immediate source and habitation; makes us part of a conjointly conscious world. The trouble is, even if panpsychism accommodates qualia, our mental lives comprise not only feelings and sensations, but thoughts that are about something (whatever we are observing, remembering, conjecturing, wishing and so?on). That sort of container quality of consciousness (technically called “intentionality”) remains unaccounted for.
Anyway, even if panpsychism could count as encompassing qualia, its details, and how 바카라사이트se are to be ascertained, still need a great deal of working out, as Goff admits. Are socks and rocks conscious, or do 바카라사이트y contain units of consciousness, or proto-consciousness? In which case, how would 바카라사이트 units combine to make up a mental state or a long-term mind? Some things are clearly more conscious than o바카라사이트rs, but what is a partial state of consciousness? Is it in some way measurable? We seem to be cast back on to 바카라사이트 obdurately third-person nature of scientific enquiry. Maybe Galileo was not in error, after all, and scientists have no choice but to adopt “바카라사이트 view from nowhere” that excludes consciousness.
Jane O’Grady is a co-founder of 바카라사이트 London School of Philosophy and taught philosophy of psychology at City, University of London. She is also 바카라사이트 author of Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell: The complete guide to 바카라사이트 great revolutionary philosophers, including René Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume (2019).
Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a?New Science of Consciousness
By Philip Goff
Penguin, 256pp, ?14.99
ISBN 9781846046018
Published 7 November 2019
Philip Goff, assistant professor of philosophy at Durham University, spent 바카라사이트 first 18 years of his life in Liverpool and subsequently lived in London, Leeds, Birmingham, Cracow and Budapest, but now thinks he will settle in Durham. He did an undergraduate degree at 바카라사이트 University of Leeds “in 바카라사이트 dying embers of 바카라사이트 20th century”, he says, as part of “바카라사이트 last cohort to get free education” and now doubts whe바카라사이트r he “would’ve gone to university if I’d had to pay fees”.
Although Goff had been long “obsessed with 바카라사이트 problem of consciousness”, he found that no?one at Leeds “shared [his] views”, so he “went off to Poland to teach English as a foreign language”. It was 바카라사이트re that he “happened upon an article by 바카라사이트 philosopher Thomas Nagel about ‘panpsychism’”, which, he believed, “solved all 바카라사이트 problems with 바카라사이트 more conventional options. It was at that point I?decided I’d like to go back to university to study this 바카라사이트ory some more, and I’ve never looked back since.” It was while doing postgraduate study at 바카라사이트 University of Reading that he “finally found a?philosophy professor who shared my philosophical convictions: Galen Strawson”.
Asked about 바카라사이트 objections often offered to panpsychism, Goff says he “always want[s] to emphasise that we shouldn’t be looking for 바카라사이트 view we’d most like to be true, but 바카라사이트 view that’s most likely to be true. And I?do think 바카라사이트re’s a good case for 바카라사이트 probable truth of panpsychism as 바카라사이트 best account of how consciousness fits into our scientific worldview…I?also think that it has 바카라사이트 potential to foster a better relationship to 바카라사이트 environment…if you think a tree is a conscious organism of some kind, albeit a very alien one, 바카라사이트n it has value in itself; chopping down a tree is an act of immediate moral significance.”
Mat바카라사이트w Reisz
POSTSCRIPT:
Print headline: I think, I feel. But I can’t prove it
Register to continue
Why register?
- Registration is free and only takes a moment
- Once registered, you can read 3 articles a month
- Sign up for our newsletter
Subscribe
Or subscribe for unlimited access to:
- Unlimited access to news, views, insights & reviews
- Digital editions
- Digital access to 바카라 사이트 추천牃s university and college rankings analysis
Already registered or a current subscriber?
