Chapter 2: What is it like ...?

Being a ...

In 1974, Thomas Nagel came up with the question, "What is it like to be a bat?" He meant that wondering how a mental state is caused if neurons are not the same as understanding how water is H2O. Our consciousness and our subjectivity stand in the way of that concept.

If you compare a stone and a cat, you will quickly say that the stone has no consciousness and the cat does. This is because there are no experiences or forms to a stone. But there is something that makes a cat a cat, a kind of being a cat. So if you say that another organism is a consciousness, you are actually saying that there is a species for that organism.

So, Nagel's definition of consciousness is whether you can ask the question, "What is it like ..." There are some snags in this definition, but as long as you are not trying to be smart and take it out of context, you are on the right track.

Imagine that you are a bat. Bats are very different from humans - they use echolocation, and their ears are much more important than their eyes. As a human being, it is very difficult to imagine what that is like. Bats don't see depth, can you imagine what that is like?

But even if you could turn yourself into a bat and back, even then you wouldn't know what it's like to be a bat, since bats don't speak a language and aren't concerned with philosophical questions.

A distinction is therefore made between P consciousness (phenomenal consciousness) and A consciousness (access consciousness). The P consciousness is the function that makes it a being to be something, and the A consciousness is the presence to think and act.

You would think that we are only talking about P consciousness in this book, but that is not the case. Reporting and realizing everything that you are aware of is also very important. Just think how you would describe colors or life, for example. You can report it, but there will always be a bit more, a bit of consciousness. This is an example of a combination between the two types of consciousness.

This distinction is also regularly rejected, and some philosophers believe that there is only P consciousness, while others only believe that there is A consciousness. Does this sound familiar? Jupp, it is very similar to dualism and monism, huh?

But if there is something to be a bat, then there is also something to be you. Use exercise 1 to think about this.

What are subjectivity and qualia?

If you smell something delicious, it is just chemicals that enter your nose. But this is not entirely true in your mind. That goodies that you smell, that has something special. These qualities are called qualia in philosophy.

Qualia (quale for singular) are the fundamental building blocks of the senses. It is the things that make an experience so unique. In other words, qualia are the subjective experiences of an objective brain. The smell of rain, the feeling of a sunset, they are all qualia. The consciousness, or the idea of ​​consciousness, can therefore also be seen as a kind of quale.

And while it seems strange to deny that the smell of coffee or the feeling of love does not exist, there are people who deny the existence of qualia. Daniel Dennet argued that there is no such thing as a specific trait or emotion. The first time you taste coffee you will probably find it dirty, but not later. Has the characteristic - the taste of the coffee - changed? No, but your opinion about the taste is. So there are no qualia, only opinions. The question remains whether or not the definition of qualia should change instead of its existence.

The problem with qualia is that it makes things look deeper and more mysterious than they are. Qualia is just about how something feels. Qualia cannot be tested statistically either, because they are not something tangible. Indeed, there are thought experiments - such as the ones given in exercise 2. Read this first before you proceed.

The case of Mary, says Frank Jackson, does not mean that qualia have an important value for the world. Mary knows all the facts about the color red, but until she steps outside she will have no idea what it is like to experience red.

But there are also those who say that this is not as good a experiment as it seems. If Mary knows everything there is to know about specific colors, then in theory she also knows what impression a color makes on her eyes, her brain, then in principle she could already recognize a color without ever seeing it. to have.

Dennet (yes, the same as before) suggested seeing Mary as a robot with black and white cameras. If the robot knows everything about color and that it gets normal cameras, is it surprised? No, because the robot already knows everything.

What is the zombie philosopher?

Imagine, there is someone who looks exactly the same as you, does the same as you, talks and moves and laughs the same way you do. The only difference is that this person has no consciousness. It's the you zombie. There is nothing this zombie makes anything, nothing inside that it makes anything to be the zombie. In fact, it is biologically possible, since consciousness has no physical place in the body.

The Zombie has caused even more troubles than the Mary dilemma. For example, Chalmers says that it is quite possible that there is just nothing in the zombie. If you imagine what it is like to be a zombie, then it's just blank, black. There is nothing personal about the zombie.

But some find the opposite. If the zombie laughs and talks and moves, then there must be something that drives it: a consciousness. It is not possible for the zombie to live without an awareness.

The problem with thought experiments is that it contains no truth. Because the situation is imaginary, a possible solution is also imaginary and we are not really getting any further. Some psychologists will even say that thought experiments are useless.

If you take the zombie story one step further, then you also have the zimbo. The zimbo sees mental states, and responds to them without being part of him. So the zimbo thinks he has awareness, although this is not the case. The stupid thing about this experiment is that we can all be a zimbo. (Exercise 3)

What is the "hard" problem?

Consciosuness is what we definte to be a ‘hard’ problem. This is exactly what it sounds like, a problem hard to solve, of which there are many. So, in the case of this book, with the hard problem we mean a problem practically impossible to solve. Such as consciousness.

Looking back at the big and small problems of philosophy (why do we exist vs why do we have a sleep cycle) there are different opinions about consciousness. We now divide this into 5 categories.

1. The problem is unsolvable. This is the idea that it is not possible for us to solve the problem. We don't have the mental capacity for it. So, it is pretty useless to think about it /
2. We solve it. Some philosophers believe there is an answer to the problem. The first step to come to the answer, however, is a significant redefinition of everything we know and start wondering among the smaller things. How does the brain make qualia, is there a location for the mind? And as soon as we know this, we can think further.
3. Address the minor issues. Related to the previous one, these philosophers mainly look at the minor issues such as qualia. It is not necessary to understand the whole concept of consciousness if we understand the small things.
4. Find more major problems. The more difficult problems you find, the fewer minor problems you get. These are included in the difficult problems. (In my opinion this is a very bad counter-productive method, to be honest)
5. There is no major problem. Awareness does not exist. And if it does exist, then it is too early to solve it. Imagine trying to understand a sentence without knowing what the words mean. In this case, the words are the minor problems and the sentence the major problem. But when you understand the words, the sentence suddenly isn't that hard anymore. There is no major problem, only a series of minor problems that are in hierarchy. Others say that we use spiritual words for a bio-physiological problem that we do not yet understand, and therefore we become confused.

Exercises

2.1. For this exercise, ask yourself as often as you succeed; "What is it that makes me at the moment?" What is it like to be a "me"?

2.2. Mary has been studying colors all her life. She knows how people describe colors, how the light waves move for each color, etc. But Mary grew up in a room that is only black and white, all books black and white and the monitor of her computer also black and white. Suppose Mary now walks outside and sees red, for example - what would she say? Would she be surprised or would she already know that something is red because others have described it that way?

2.3. Imagine: what is a question or thought that you may have to know that you are not a zimbo