Here it is! Finally, after 19 1/2 months, I've reached the end of my series on consciousness. This project started on a bit of a whim when I was looking for something interesting to dig into during the Covid lockdown. But I also had a hunch that there were some big evolutionary ideas to uncover about this topic. I had been listening to a lot of podcasts about consciousness and I felt like the time was right for a quick exploration.
Boy was I wrong!
This has been by far the hardest philosophical topic that I've focused on during my 10 years of writing. And after all that, I shared the summary of my evolutionary theory in my last post about consciousness. I think this could really make an important contribution (no one I know of has attempted a Tinbergen analysis of this phenomena before), but did that summary answer all of the questions about this topic? Hardly! So that's what I'm sharing here now to wrap up this series and finally turn my attention to other things.
During my research I gathered a huge list of questions that typically arise about consciousness. I whittled them down and felt they could best be organised into 5 groups: introductory questions, those from impartial sources, those coming from other naturalists, questions coming from those who doubt or disbelieve naturalism, and finally the many questions that have come from David Chalmers. Answering these questions in this order takes us on the best journey, but my answers ended up filling 43 pages with over 23,000 words. That's a lot even for me!
Rather than string these out over several digestible posts, I decided it was better to be able to see all the questions at once. After that, I have provided a pdf version of the answers so you can download them and read them in whatever way you prefer, in whatever order you like, and on as many questions as you care about.
Thanks to everyone who came along with me on this journey. In particular, thanks to Mike, James, and the two Eric's — your attention and expertise kept me going far longer than you ever could have wanted, but it was exactly what I needed to get where I thought I should go.
As always, questions and comments are very much appreciated in the comment section below. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it!
INTRODUCTORY QUESTIONS
1. What would a good definition of consciousness look like?
2. What’s your definition?
QUESTIONS FROM IMPARTIAL SOURCES
3. Why do we think consciousness is a physical phenomenon?
4. How could minds possibly arise from matter?
5. Does consciousness contain non-physical information?
6. And what about Hume’s missing shade of blue?
7. Is consciousness so mysterious that it is beyond our ability to understand it?
8. What about Zombies?
9. How is our conscious experience bound together?
10. What can the neural correlates of consciousness tell us?
11. Are other animals conscious?
12. Can machines be conscious?
13. So, “what is it like” to be conscious?
14. Do we have immortal souls?
15. Do we have free will?
QUESTIONS FROM OTHER NATURALISTS
16. Can’t we just get by with a very rough definition of consciousness?
17. What about the various parts of living systems? Which ones are conscious?
18. Is the United States conscious?
19. How do we know we don’t have “inverted qualia”?
20. How do you solve the mind-evolution problem?
21. Does consciousness have a purpose?
QUESTIONS FROM THOSE WHO DOUBT OR DISBELIEVE NATURALISM
22. Why doesn’t a chair feel my bottom?
23. How can consciousness survive sleep?
24. How could consciousness have possibly emerged from lower organisms?
25. Is conscious experience outside of the realm of science?
26. Are minds everywhere? What about panpsychism?
QUESTIONS FROM DAVID CHALMERS
27. What are the easy problems of consciousness?
28. What is the hard problem of consciousness?
29. What does it take to solve the easy problems of consciousness?
30. Is the hard problem really different than the easy ones?
31. Can we see an example? Is the binding problem hard or easy?
32. How have people tried to answer the hard problem?
33. So, what else is needed and why do physical accounts fail?
34. Is this the same problem we faced with vitalism?
35. So, is consciousness just fundamental?
36. If we accept consciousness is fundamental, then what?
37. Is this fundamental view a sort of dualism?
38. If consciousness is fundamental, shouldn’t it be simple to describe?
39. What about Chalmers’ own theories?
40. Is consciousness all about information processing?
41. So, can we make progress and answer the hard problem of consciousness?
Boy was I wrong!
This has been by far the hardest philosophical topic that I've focused on during my 10 years of writing. And after all that, I shared the summary of my evolutionary theory in my last post about consciousness. I think this could really make an important contribution (no one I know of has attempted a Tinbergen analysis of this phenomena before), but did that summary answer all of the questions about this topic? Hardly! So that's what I'm sharing here now to wrap up this series and finally turn my attention to other things.
During my research I gathered a huge list of questions that typically arise about consciousness. I whittled them down and felt they could best be organised into 5 groups: introductory questions, those from impartial sources, those coming from other naturalists, questions coming from those who doubt or disbelieve naturalism, and finally the many questions that have come from David Chalmers. Answering these questions in this order takes us on the best journey, but my answers ended up filling 43 pages with over 23,000 words. That's a lot even for me!
Rather than string these out over several digestible posts, I decided it was better to be able to see all the questions at once. After that, I have provided a pdf version of the answers so you can download them and read them in whatever way you prefer, in whatever order you like, and on as many questions as you care about.
Thanks to everyone who came along with me on this journey. In particular, thanks to Mike, James, and the two Eric's — your attention and expertise kept me going far longer than you ever could have wanted, but it was exactly what I needed to get where I thought I should go.
As always, questions and comments are very much appreciated in the comment section below. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it!
INTRODUCTORY QUESTIONS
1. What would a good definition of consciousness look like?
2. What’s your definition?
QUESTIONS FROM IMPARTIAL SOURCES
3. Why do we think consciousness is a physical phenomenon?
4. How could minds possibly arise from matter?
5. Does consciousness contain non-physical information?
6. And what about Hume’s missing shade of blue?
7. Is consciousness so mysterious that it is beyond our ability to understand it?
8. What about Zombies?
9. How is our conscious experience bound together?
10. What can the neural correlates of consciousness tell us?
11. Are other animals conscious?
12. Can machines be conscious?
13. So, “what is it like” to be conscious?
14. Do we have immortal souls?
15. Do we have free will?
QUESTIONS FROM OTHER NATURALISTS
16. Can’t we just get by with a very rough definition of consciousness?
17. What about the various parts of living systems? Which ones are conscious?
18. Is the United States conscious?
19. How do we know we don’t have “inverted qualia”?
20. How do you solve the mind-evolution problem?
21. Does consciousness have a purpose?
QUESTIONS FROM THOSE WHO DOUBT OR DISBELIEVE NATURALISM
22. Why doesn’t a chair feel my bottom?
23. How can consciousness survive sleep?
24. How could consciousness have possibly emerged from lower organisms?
25. Is conscious experience outside of the realm of science?
26. Are minds everywhere? What about panpsychism?
QUESTIONS FROM DAVID CHALMERS
27. What are the easy problems of consciousness?
28. What is the hard problem of consciousness?
29. What does it take to solve the easy problems of consciousness?
30. Is the hard problem really different than the easy ones?
31. Can we see an example? Is the binding problem hard or easy?
32. How have people tried to answer the hard problem?
33. So, what else is needed and why do physical accounts fail?
34. Is this the same problem we faced with vitalism?
35. So, is consciousness just fundamental?
36. If we accept consciousness is fundamental, then what?
37. Is this fundamental view a sort of dualism?
38. If consciousness is fundamental, shouldn’t it be simple to describe?
39. What about Chalmers’ own theories?
40. Is consciousness all about information processing?
41. So, can we make progress and answer the hard problem of consciousness?
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Previous Posts in This Series:
Consciousness 1 — Introduction to the Series
Consciousness 2 — The Illusory Self and a Fundamental Mystery
Consciousness 3 — The Hard Problem
Consciousness 4 — Panpsychist Problems With Consciousness
Consciousness 5 — Is It Just An Illusion?
Consciousness 6 — Introducing an Evolutionary Perspective
Consciousness 7 — More On Evolution
Consciousness 8 — Neurophilosophy
Consciousness 9 — Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Consciousness 10 — Mind + Self
Consciousness 11 — Neurobiological Naturalism
Consciousness 12 — The Deep History of Ourselves
Consciousness 13 — (Rethinking) The Attention Schema
Consciousness 14 — Integrated Information Theory
Consciousness 15 — What is a Theory?
Consciousness 16 — A (sorta) Brief History of Its Definitions
Consciousness 17 — From Physics to Chemistry to Biology
Consciousness 18 — Tinbergen's Four Questions
Consciousness 19 — The Functions of Consciousness
Consciousness 20 — The Mechanisms of Consciousness
Consciousness 21 — Development Over a Lifetime (Ontogeny)
Consciousness 22 — Our Shared History (Phylogeny)
Consciousness 23 — Summary of My Evolutionary Theory
Previous Posts in This Series:
Consciousness 1 — Introduction to the Series
Consciousness 2 — The Illusory Self and a Fundamental Mystery
Consciousness 3 — The Hard Problem
Consciousness 4 — Panpsychist Problems With Consciousness
Consciousness 5 — Is It Just An Illusion?
Consciousness 6 — Introducing an Evolutionary Perspective
Consciousness 7 — More On Evolution
Consciousness 8 — Neurophilosophy
Consciousness 9 — Global Neuronal Workspace Theory
Consciousness 10 — Mind + Self
Consciousness 11 — Neurobiological Naturalism
Consciousness 12 — The Deep History of Ourselves
Consciousness 13 — (Rethinking) The Attention Schema
Consciousness 14 — Integrated Information Theory
Consciousness 15 — What is a Theory?
Consciousness 16 — A (sorta) Brief History of Its Definitions
Consciousness 17 — From Physics to Chemistry to Biology
Consciousness 18 — Tinbergen's Four Questions
Consciousness 19 — The Functions of Consciousness
Consciousness 20 — The Mechanisms of Consciousness
Consciousness 21 — Development Over a Lifetime (Ontogeny)
Consciousness 22 — Our Shared History (Phylogeny)
Consciousness 23 — Summary of My Evolutionary Theory
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