I haven’t gotten into it very far yet–I’m on page xii of the Preface–but for anyone interested in grappling with questions such as, What is consciousness? What is mind? What is/am “I”? How are these related to the brain? What about “soul”? or esoterica of language, the book
by Douglas Hofstadter*
will be of interest.
I know, I’m only on page xii. So if you don’t believe me–here’s a review. Or click on the title link and dip into it on Amazon.
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* For those who might remember it, he wrote “Godel, Escher, Bach” back in 1979
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Consciousness is an ongoing experiment by genes to exploit the environment to improve the odds of replication. I don’t believe it is a divine gift, a mystical force or even all that astounding. All ya need is a functioning brain. But what about human conciousness? Surely, we are special. Nope. Sorry. Well, maybe we are special to us. To quote the great, yet no longer conscious, Doug Adams “Give a monkey a brain and he’ll think he’s the center of the universe.” And it’s not that I undervalue human conciousness. I simply place it equally alongside every other sentient creature’s.
As for Godel,Escher,Bach, the only part I remember was the dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise concerning a destructable phonograph and a record that when played destroyed it. The rest was so mind- numbingly boring that I gave the book to my son in law(philosopher jack ass)who professed a great love for it.
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The dismissive nature of your comment makes me think you are not “interested in questions of mind, consciousness, soul, etc.”, which makes me wonder why you selected this post to read. Nonetheless, let me address a few of your points.
Dennett would disagree with you that consciousness plays any role whatsoever in our ability to survive and replicate. I personally think he (and others who want to deny the siginificance or even reality of consciousness) is full of . . . hmm, I try to keep the more scatological epithets off the blog, so I’ll just say “it”. But the extreme range of opinion about consciousness, and the (in my view) lack of much of a toehold on explaining or understanding its role in our being or biology, bring me to my next point.
Consciousness may or may not be a divine gift or mystical force, but it is mysterious, at least in the sense of not being well-understood. On the one hand, it is the the most obvious of “brute facts” for each of us–the one empirical fact on which all other empirical facts rest. On the other hand, we haven’t a clue about what it really is, or how it is related to the material world. That is, how/why does a “functioning brain” give rise to consciousness? Is “give rise” even the correct phrase to express the relationship between brain and consciousness? What kind of “functioning brain” yields consciousness? Does a turtle’s? Personally, I suspect so, but not the same kind of consciousness as yours or mine–but could I prove it? No. Such questions may not grab you–they are not essential to getting on with the business of living or replicating–and may be dismissed on that basis. But dismissing a question is not the same as addressing it. The best book I’ve read that takes a stab at comprehensively addressing questions of consciousness, without just trying to dismiss the hard parts (which is what I think people such as Dennett do) is “A Mind So Rare: The evolution of human conscsiousness” by Merlin Donald. He draws on multiple fields–cognitive psychology, evolution, linguistics, philosophy, neurobiology, to name the ones I can remember–and doesn’t seem to be grinding too many axes, a refreshing approach in my (admittedly limited) experience.
As for Hofstadter–he is a bit hard to read, I agree. Given your experience with Godel, Escher, Bach, I wouldn’t urge you to read his new book. However, it’s just possible that he does have something worthwhile to say. When I was in grad school, I figured out that when I didn’t “get” something I was reading, there were two possibilities: there wasn’t anything much there to get, or there was and I just wasn’t quite smart enough to get it. Sometimes I was able to decide with some confidence which it was–and sometimes I had to leave it as an unknown. I’ve found remembering this has a salutary effect on my own tendency to place myself at the center of the universe.
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I’m not being dismissive, nor disrespectful. I have always been interested in what consciousness is and where it comes from.
I would compare the evolution of consciousness to the evolution of the eye. Primitive eyes conveyed enormous advantages to to those that had them. As eyes improved from primitive eyespots to eyes with lenses to binocular vision there was a need for improved processing.
I feel brains followed a similar path. Protists(no brains) move towards food. Worms(almost a brain) respond to heat, moisture,etc. Insects(primitive brains) communicate with language. Lizards and fish have emotions. Birds form emotional bonds.(I’ll tell you about my swans later.) And finally mammals. It is my little pet theory that our brains are the result of millions of years of evolution that took the path of information processing as the path of greatest success. The better a brain can decide what is really going on, and the ability to constuct an inner framework of reality, the more likely it is to have progeny. We’re not the only creatures that communicate, we just happen to be the best at it.
I think your choice of “give rise” is perfect. Brains do give rise to consciousness. And again, I’m not being dismissive or trying to be deliberately obtuse. Conciousness is a tool in our genetic toolbox and I think my theory does nothing to diminish the beauty of it. Maybe it’s a guy thing.
I’ll check out “A mind so rare”
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I don’t think anyone disputes the survival value of brains (in general. In American society, pop culture does seem to negatively value brains 🙂 ) But what about consciousness? There’s a very articulate, determined coterie out there that contend that either a) consciousness doesn’t exist, b) consciousness is an illusion, or c) consciousness has no survival value. Personally, I find the first two positions simply incoherent. I’m with Descarte that far–I think I am, therefore I am. Consciousness may contain illusions, and we may be confused about the nature of consciousness–but it can’t be an illusion. What would that even mean? (As you can see–I’m neither Buddhist nor Hindu.) As for (c)–I agree with you, and with Merlin Donald, that it does have survival value–one reason I liked his book. But that still leaves many mysteries.
I was watching a show last night in which the speaker was discussing conscious and non-conscious brain functions, and it occurred to me that the fact that we (apparently) have both raises interesting questions about under what circumstances a brain may “give rise” to consciousness. It seems this may not be automatic. Or that there are different forms of consciousness. Dreams and people with multiple personalities, and some split brain phenomena, to say nothing of drugs, meditation, or simply mundane changes in my own consciousness, also make me wonder about just how consciousness and brains are related.
What I perceived as dismissive in your original comment was a certain “that’s all there is to it” tone that perhaps I only read into it. Yes, consciousness is somehow related to brain. And clearly brain (and, I agree, consciousness) have survival value. But having said that–we haven’t really explained much.
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