A little group of neurons in the brain stem starts sending a train of signals to the base of the thalamus. The thalamus ‘wakes up’ and then sends signals to the cortex and the cortex ‘wakes up’. Consciousness is now ‘on’. Later, the brain stem stops sending the train of signals, the thalamus ‘goes to sleep’ and the cortex slowly winds down the ‘goes to sleep’. Consciousness is now ‘off’. Neither on or off was instantaneous or sharply defined. (Dreaming activated the cortex differently at times during sleep but ignore that for now). Descriptions like this (hopefully more detailed and accurate) are the ‘facts of the matter’ not semantic arguments. Why is it that science is OK for understanding physics and astronomy but not for understanding consciousness?
Why is it that science is OK for understanding physics and astronomy but not for understanding consciousness?
Science in some broad sense “is OK… for understanding consciousness”, but unless you’re a behaviorist, you need to be explaining (and first, you need to be describing) the subjective side of consciousness, not just the physiology of it. It’s the facts about subjectivity which make consciousness a different sort of topic from anything in the natural sciences.
Yes we will have to describe the subjective side of consciousness but the physiology has to come first. As an illustration: if you didn’t know the function of the heart or much about its physiology, it would be useless to try and understand it by how it felt. Hence we would have ideas like ‘loving with all my heart’, ‘my heart is not in it’ etc. which come from the pre-biology world. Once we know how and why the heart works the way it does, those feeling are seen differently.
I am certainly not a behaviorist and I do think that consciousness is an extremely important function of the brain/mind. We probably can’t understand how cognition works without understanding how consciousness works. I just do not think introspection gets us closer to understanding, nor do I think that introspection gives us any direct knowledge of our own minds - ‘direct’ being the important word.
A little group of neurons in the brain stem starts sending a train of signals to the base of the thalamus. The thalamus ‘wakes up’ and then sends signals to the cortex and the cortex ‘wakes up’. Consciousness is now ‘on’. Later, the brain stem stops sending the train of signals, the thalamus ‘goes to sleep’ and the cortex slowly winds down the ‘goes to sleep’. Consciousness is now ‘off’. Neither on or off was instantaneous or sharply defined. (Dreaming activated the cortex differently at times during sleep but ignore that for now). Descriptions like this (hopefully more detailed and accurate) are the ‘facts of the matter’ not semantic arguments. Why is it that science is OK for understanding physics and astronomy but not for understanding consciousness?
Science in some broad sense “is OK… for understanding consciousness”, but unless you’re a behaviorist, you need to be explaining (and first, you need to be describing) the subjective side of consciousness, not just the physiology of it. It’s the facts about subjectivity which make consciousness a different sort of topic from anything in the natural sciences.
Yes we will have to describe the subjective side of consciousness but the physiology has to come first. As an illustration: if you didn’t know the function of the heart or much about its physiology, it would be useless to try and understand it by how it felt. Hence we would have ideas like ‘loving with all my heart’, ‘my heart is not in it’ etc. which come from the pre-biology world. Once we know how and why the heart works the way it does, those feeling are seen differently.
I am certainly not a behaviorist and I do think that consciousness is an extremely important function of the brain/mind. We probably can’t understand how cognition works without understanding how consciousness works. I just do not think introspection gets us closer to understanding, nor do I think that introspection gives us any direct knowledge of our own minds - ‘direct’ being the important word.