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sensory properties of nonconscious sensations resemble and differ in just the ways that
those of conscious sensations resemble and differ. (1997, 733)
What Rosenthal seems to be saying is this. Qualitative character is whatever it is that we
use to classify sensations. Since we classify sensations by what they're like for us, it
might appear that qualia are essentially objects of awareness. However, according to
Rosenthal, this is a confusion. Of course we classify by how sensory qualities appear to
us when conscious, but that doesn't mean that the properties we are aware of are
themselves essentially objects of awareness. Both when we are aware of them and when
we're not, the properties at issue are individuated by their place in the relevant similarity
space, of the sort proposed by Clark (1993), discussed above. Thus the notion of a non-
conscious state's being reddish makes perfect sense.19
If indeed a quale could be identified with a location in a similarity space, then I think
Rosenthal's reply to the objection might work.20 If what I'm aware of when I'm having a
reddish conscious experience is that I'm in a state that occupies a certain position in the
relevant similarity space, then it makes sense to suppose that the property I'm aware of is
a property that the state very well could have in the absence of any awareness. But, as
argued in the previous section, I deny that that's what I'm aware of. Rather, it seems clear
that I have a more determinate and substantive conception of what it is to be reddish, a
conception that is not exhausted, or adequately captured by the rather formal description
of a location in a similarity space. Again, this is why the idea of inverted (or absent)
qualia makes clear sense.
Of course it doesn't follow immediately from the fact, assuming it to be a fact, that
reddishness is an intrinsic property, that consciousness is also an intrinsic property. What
Rosenthal is concerned to deny is the latter claim. What's at stake is whether being
conscious is a property of the conscious state, essential to its having the qualitative
character it has, or whether its having the qualitative character it has is one thing and its
being an object of conscious awareness another. Merely claiming that reddishness is itself
intrinsic doesn't settle this question.
However, my claim is not just that the particular relational analysis of qualitative
character suggested by Rosenthal doesn't work. It's also clear that no intrinsic property of
an internal state will do, either, again for the reasons discussed above. Rather, when we
contemplate what this determinate idea of reddishness is that we have, we see quite
clearly that it is an idea of an experiential property; reddishness, as I think of it, is a way
things appear to be, where that it's an appearance, and thus for a subject, is intrinsic to
what it is. This is even clearer with feelings like pain. It isn't, as Rosenthal suggests
(1997, 732), merely a semantic fact about our use of the word feeling (though no doubt
the word does imply awareness). There really is something about our conception of the
property itself, the pain itself, that makes it essentially a mode or kind of experience.21
Another way to see what's wrong with the HO strategy of dividing consciousness, or
subjectivity, from qualitative character is to consider an objection of Karen Neander's
(1998).22 Neander argues that there is a basic problem with what she terms the strategy of
dividing phenomenal labor. The problem can be brought out with the following
example. Suppose I am looking at my red diskette case, and therefore my visual system is
in state R. According to HO, this is not sufficient for my having a conscious experience
of red. It's also necessary that I occupy a higher-order state, say HR, which represents my
being in state R, and thus constitutes my being aware of having the reddish visual
experience. So far so good.
The problem is this. Whenever we are dealing with a representational relation between
two states, the possibility of misrepresentation looms. Suppose, because of some neural
misfiring (or whatever), I go into higher-order state HG, rather than HR. HG is the state
whose representational content is that I'm having a greenish experience, what I normally
have when in state G. The question is, what is the nature of my conscious experience in
this case? My visual system is in state R, the normal response to red, but my higher-order
state is HG, the normal response to being in state G, itself the normal response to green.
Is my consciousness of the reddish or greenish variety?
Whatever one answers, there is a problem. Suppose we say that my experience is of a
greenish sort, because that is what I'm aware of, in the sense that my higher-order state is
so representing my experience. Well, then it looks as if the first-order state plays no
genuine role in determining the qualitative character of experience, and in a sense HO
now collapses qualitative character and subjectivity back together again. On the other
hand, if we say that the qualitative character of the conscious experience is still reddish,
despite the misrepresentation at the level of the higher-order state, then it looks as if
we've collapsed the two together again as well, this time back onto the first-order state.
After all, we now have a reddish conscious experience, the consciousness of which could
not be constituted by the mistaken higher-order state.
There are other options, of course. One is to say that when this sort of case occurs, there
is no consciousness at all. This seems ad hoc, and not really well motivated even within
the context of HO theory itself. A better option is to ensure correct representation by
pinning the content of the higher-order state directly to the first-order state, say by
endowing it with a demonstrative content. If the higher-order state says, in effect, I'm
now in that
end p.108
state, pointing to R (in our case), then the sort of mistake we're imagining couldn't
occur.23
But there are two problems with this move. First, what if the higher-order state is
triggered randomly, so that there's no first-order sensory state it's pointing at? Would that
entail a sort of free-floating conscious state without a determinate character? Second, and
more crucial, it's not clear how this really overcomes the basic problem. What Neander's
objection shows, I think, is that it just doesn't work to divide phenomenal labor. We have
a reddish experience, a certain state of consciousness that has a determinate character.
The character is a feature of the state of consciousness. What HO tries to do is split off
the character from what it is the character of. We've seen that when you do this by putting
a representation of the character into the higher-order state, you just get the character
itself back into the same state.
On the other hand, if you opt for this demonstrative move, what's not clear is how the
character that is outside the state of consciousness itself is supposed to now get into it.
The very problem we saw earlier in chapter 3, the problem that attends various E-type
attempts to account for the special character of phenomenal concepts, attends the
demonstrative move on the part of the HO theorist. Whatever there is on the other side of
the demonstrative, the higher-order state only has an indeterminate, pointing content.
What we need an account of, and what it's unclear HO can deliver an account of, is how
the fact that there is an R-state being demonstrated, as opposed to a G-state (or none at
all), is supposed to make a cognitive, and conscious, difference.24 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
sensory properties of nonconscious sensations resemble and differ in just the ways that
those of conscious sensations resemble and differ. (1997, 733)
What Rosenthal seems to be saying is this. Qualitative character is whatever it is that we
use to classify sensations. Since we classify sensations by what they're like for us, it
might appear that qualia are essentially objects of awareness. However, according to
Rosenthal, this is a confusion. Of course we classify by how sensory qualities appear to
us when conscious, but that doesn't mean that the properties we are aware of are
themselves essentially objects of awareness. Both when we are aware of them and when
we're not, the properties at issue are individuated by their place in the relevant similarity
space, of the sort proposed by Clark (1993), discussed above. Thus the notion of a non-
conscious state's being reddish makes perfect sense.19
If indeed a quale could be identified with a location in a similarity space, then I think
Rosenthal's reply to the objection might work.20 If what I'm aware of when I'm having a
reddish conscious experience is that I'm in a state that occupies a certain position in the
relevant similarity space, then it makes sense to suppose that the property I'm aware of is
a property that the state very well could have in the absence of any awareness. But, as
argued in the previous section, I deny that that's what I'm aware of. Rather, it seems clear
that I have a more determinate and substantive conception of what it is to be reddish, a
conception that is not exhausted, or adequately captured by the rather formal description
of a location in a similarity space. Again, this is why the idea of inverted (or absent)
qualia makes clear sense.
Of course it doesn't follow immediately from the fact, assuming it to be a fact, that
reddishness is an intrinsic property, that consciousness is also an intrinsic property. What
Rosenthal is concerned to deny is the latter claim. What's at stake is whether being
conscious is a property of the conscious state, essential to its having the qualitative
character it has, or whether its having the qualitative character it has is one thing and its
being an object of conscious awareness another. Merely claiming that reddishness is itself
intrinsic doesn't settle this question.
However, my claim is not just that the particular relational analysis of qualitative
character suggested by Rosenthal doesn't work. It's also clear that no intrinsic property of
an internal state will do, either, again for the reasons discussed above. Rather, when we
contemplate what this determinate idea of reddishness is that we have, we see quite
clearly that it is an idea of an experiential property; reddishness, as I think of it, is a way
things appear to be, where that it's an appearance, and thus for a subject, is intrinsic to
what it is. This is even clearer with feelings like pain. It isn't, as Rosenthal suggests
(1997, 732), merely a semantic fact about our use of the word feeling (though no doubt
the word does imply awareness). There really is something about our conception of the
property itself, the pain itself, that makes it essentially a mode or kind of experience.21
Another way to see what's wrong with the HO strategy of dividing consciousness, or
subjectivity, from qualitative character is to consider an objection of Karen Neander's
(1998).22 Neander argues that there is a basic problem with what she terms the strategy of
dividing phenomenal labor. The problem can be brought out with the following
example. Suppose I am looking at my red diskette case, and therefore my visual system is
in state R. According to HO, this is not sufficient for my having a conscious experience
of red. It's also necessary that I occupy a higher-order state, say HR, which represents my
being in state R, and thus constitutes my being aware of having the reddish visual
experience. So far so good.
The problem is this. Whenever we are dealing with a representational relation between
two states, the possibility of misrepresentation looms. Suppose, because of some neural
misfiring (or whatever), I go into higher-order state HG, rather than HR. HG is the state
whose representational content is that I'm having a greenish experience, what I normally
have when in state G. The question is, what is the nature of my conscious experience in
this case? My visual system is in state R, the normal response to red, but my higher-order
state is HG, the normal response to being in state G, itself the normal response to green.
Is my consciousness of the reddish or greenish variety?
Whatever one answers, there is a problem. Suppose we say that my experience is of a
greenish sort, because that is what I'm aware of, in the sense that my higher-order state is
so representing my experience. Well, then it looks as if the first-order state plays no
genuine role in determining the qualitative character of experience, and in a sense HO
now collapses qualitative character and subjectivity back together again. On the other
hand, if we say that the qualitative character of the conscious experience is still reddish,
despite the misrepresentation at the level of the higher-order state, then it looks as if
we've collapsed the two together again as well, this time back onto the first-order state.
After all, we now have a reddish conscious experience, the consciousness of which could
not be constituted by the mistaken higher-order state.
There are other options, of course. One is to say that when this sort of case occurs, there
is no consciousness at all. This seems ad hoc, and not really well motivated even within
the context of HO theory itself. A better option is to ensure correct representation by
pinning the content of the higher-order state directly to the first-order state, say by
endowing it with a demonstrative content. If the higher-order state says, in effect, I'm
now in that
end p.108
state, pointing to R (in our case), then the sort of mistake we're imagining couldn't
occur.23
But there are two problems with this move. First, what if the higher-order state is
triggered randomly, so that there's no first-order sensory state it's pointing at? Would that
entail a sort of free-floating conscious state without a determinate character? Second, and
more crucial, it's not clear how this really overcomes the basic problem. What Neander's
objection shows, I think, is that it just doesn't work to divide phenomenal labor. We have
a reddish experience, a certain state of consciousness that has a determinate character.
The character is a feature of the state of consciousness. What HO tries to do is split off
the character from what it is the character of. We've seen that when you do this by putting
a representation of the character into the higher-order state, you just get the character
itself back into the same state.
On the other hand, if you opt for this demonstrative move, what's not clear is how the
character that is outside the state of consciousness itself is supposed to now get into it.
The very problem we saw earlier in chapter 3, the problem that attends various E-type
attempts to account for the special character of phenomenal concepts, attends the
demonstrative move on the part of the HO theorist. Whatever there is on the other side of
the demonstrative, the higher-order state only has an indeterminate, pointing content.
What we need an account of, and what it's unclear HO can deliver an account of, is how
the fact that there is an R-state being demonstrated, as opposed to a G-state (or none at
all), is supposed to make a cognitive, and conscious, difference.24 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]