CONSCIOUSNESS Frank Jackson, ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’

Supplementary Reading (optional): Papers by Lewis and Dennett. In Chalmers.

Organization 1. Foundations (Dualism, Behaviorism, Central-State Materialism) 2. Functionalism 3. Consciousness 4. Personal Identity 5. Psychological Explanation 3

Next up: John Locke, ‘Of Identity and Diversity’, especially §15 (on p. 44), and §23 (at pp ) In Perry, pp

Topics 1. Epiphenomenalism 2. What Mary Didn’t Know 3. Qualia and Points of View 4. The Problem is Physics

6 there is nothing to prevent it doing what it desires to do Huxley says: the frog is free, in that:

Consider a child that doesn’t have the physical capacity to make anything happen outside it, by its own physical manipulations But usually what it wants happens anyway, because it’s in a friendly environment The child’s desires don’t make anything happen 7

Consider a child that is under the control of some other person, who has a control pad that can make the child’s limbs move however they want The child is like a marionette in this person’s control But however the child’s limbs move, the child says, ‘I wanted that to happen’. 8

Is that freedom? 9 From

10 there is nothing to prevent it doing what it desires to do That’s the situation of the frog

11 That’s our situation There’s nothing blocking our desires But they don’t affect what happens

12 Cell-firings that cause action action conscious intention

13 Are we free?

14 When we try to find out about people’s motivations, about their thoughts and experiences and feelings, we think we’re finding out about the causes of their behavior

15 Suppose you are in a fight with Caesar You kill him You had two motives for doing this: Concern for Rome Personal jealousy What was the motive from which you acted?

16 Any law court spends a lot of time asking: You had a lot of motives you for this action, what was the one that caused you to act? In ordinary social life too. ‘Why did you tell Henry about Wanda?’

17 Epiphenomenalism says: The cause of behavior is never a mental phenomenon

Topics 1. Epiphenomenalism ✔ 2. What Mary Didn’t Know 3. Qualia and Points of View 4. The Problem is Physics

‘The thesis of Physicalism… … all (correct) information is physical information.’ (Jackson’s key move)

‘Mary is a brilliant scientist who, for whatever reason, is forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor.

‘She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like “red”, “blue” and so on.

‘What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room?

‘Will she learn anything or not?

‘It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it.

‘But then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. ‘But she had all the physical information. ‘Ergo there is more to have than that, and physicalism is false.’

‘The thesis of Physicalism… … all (correct) information is physical information.’

These non-physical aspects of the world she has just learned about  Can’t make any difference to physical causation  So they can’t make any difference to what happens in the physical world  So epiphenomenalism is true

‘certain properties of mental states, namely those I’ve called qualia, are such that their possession or absence makes no difference to the physical world.’

It’s not that all mental states are epiphenomenal. E.g. are beliefs and memories qualia? If not, they can still cause physical events.

But the hurtfulness of a pain can’t cause anything physical. (It may cause other mental states, e.g. your belief that you’re in pain.)

Qualia can seem to be causes, in the way that pictures on a screen can seem to be causes. But that’s all.

Topics 1. Epiphenomenalism ✔ 2. What Mary Didn’t Know ✔ 3. Qualia and Points of View 4. The Problem is Physics

Nagel: physical information doesn’t tell you: what it is like to be a bat, how the world is from another point of view.

Jackson’s argument is only about Mary’s lack of knowledge of: The intrinsic character of color experiences, not the ‘point of view’ from which those experiences are had.

The intrinsic characters of other people’s color experiences (pains, joys, fears etc.), are qualia.

you can have knowledge of all the physical facts without having knowledge of qualia hence, facts about qualia aren’t physical facts.

you can have knowledge of all the physical facts without having knowledge of the other person’s point of view

This isn’t a problem about understanding the qualia that the patient is having. It’s a problem about understanding the patient’s point of view, or perspective, on the scene.

point of view qualia

Topics 1. Epiphenomenalism ✔ 2. What Mary Didn’t Know ✔ 3. Qualia and Points of View ✔ 4. The Problem is Physics

Before Physics the world is there, with all its colors and smells and tastes

Before Physics Observer your conscious experience is a relation between you and what’s out there No problem of the inverted spectrum

Before Physics Observer Visual Experience

After Physics The colors and smells and tastes must be just something being caused in the observer Visual Experience configuration of atoms

After Physics Visual Experience configuration of atoms Visual Experience (no consciousness, just a brain state)

Visual Experience (no consciousness, just a brain state) After Physics

all the causation is here, at the mechanical level

Whatever the mind is doing, it can’t be making a difference to anything physical

52 Yet still today, when we try to find out about people’s motivations, about their thoughts and experiences and feelings, we think we’re finding out about the causes of their behavior

Topics 1. Epiphenomenalism ✔ 2. What Mary Didn’t Know ✔ 3. Qualia and Points of View ✔ 4. The Problem is Physics ✔