Kernion Courses

Key Block quotes

• "The concept of consciousness is a hybrid or better, a mongrel concept: the word 'consciosuness' connotes a number of different concepts and denotes a number of different phenomena."

• "Phenomenal consciousness is experience; what makes a state phenomenally conscious is that there is something 'it is like' to b in that state"

• "P-consciousness properties [are] distinct from any cognitive, intentional or functional property"

• "A-consciousness is access-consciousness. A representation is A-conscious if it is broadcast for free use in reasoning and for direct 'rational' control of action (including reporting)."

• "the main point of this paper is that these two concepts of consciousness are distinct and quite likely have different extensions yet are easily confused."

Block's "A-consciousness" and "P-onsciousness"

Block starts things off with this idea that we toss around "consciousness" in imprecise ways, sometimes meaning very different things than one another: "The concept of consciousness is a hybrid or better, a mongrel concept: the word 'consciousness' connotes a number of different concepts and denotes a number of different phenomena."

• Examples: 'sentience', 'awareness', 'sensation', 'self-awareness', 'feeling', 'intelligence' (?)

P-consciousness: "Phenomenal consciousness is experience; what makes a state phenomenally conscious is that there is something 'it is like' (Nagel, 1974) to be in that state"

• P-consciousness properties include the experiential properties of sensations, feelings and perceptions, but I would also include thoughts, wants and emotions.

A-consciousness: "A representation is A conscious if it is broadcast for free use in reasoning and for direct 'rational' control of action (including reporting)."

Paradigmatically, A-consciousness is more thought-like and 'cognitive', while P-consciousness is more 'sensational, perceptual. (Footnote: Although this, of course, is tied up with the whole issue. A philosopher like me thinks: the idea of 'the sensational' already involves some cognitive aspect....)

One intuition: The "conscious states" associated with *thought*, *rationality* are not as "bloody and vivacious" as the conscious states associated with perception and general bodily-awareness. There's less FEELING or OOMPH. Or, at least, that's what someone might feel naturally-inclined to want to say...

Interlude on 'primitive concepts'

A 'primitive concept' is just any concept that cannot be 'fully analyzed' into constituent concepts.

• Ex: "space", "time", "cause", "rational", "morally good" (?) ...

• Maybe like that famous quote about...
   - "jazz": "If you have have to ask..." (?)
   - "porn": "I know it when I see it..." (?)
   - (FTR I have never understoood these examples, but philosophers will sometimes use them, especially w/r/t "consciousness". I am of the view that these examples stem from a misunderstanding about the nature of primitive concepts, but let's not get into that...)

What "fully analyzed" means is a matter of philosophical debate. But many concepts, philosophers think, are clearly not primitive, as they are a 'complex' of underlying concepts.

• Ex: "Bachelor" = "unmarried man"

There's a deep, interesting philosophical problem here: what are so-called 'primitive concepts'? But we won't be getting into that here...

Block's Argument

Block is making a certain kind of argument. He is arguing for a conceptual distinction. And there are certain pre-defined-by-philosophers ways to mark a conceptual distinction. In this case, Block wants to demonstrate the *conceivability* of both "a-consciousness without p-consciousness" and "p-consciousness without a-consciousness".

A-consciousness without P-consciousness: Imagine a subject who has superblindsight (pg. 211)

P-consciousness without A-consciousness: Becoming consciously aware of something that's been in the background for awhile. (Also, animal consciousness?)

The punchline: "P-consciousness properties [are] distinct from any cognitive, intentional or functional property"

• A-consciousness can be understood in mechanistic terms, while P-consciousness cannot, which then *generates* the so called "hard problem"...

• A question that Block intends to leave unresolved: Can these two things actually be separated?

  • (Because he (in my view) is confused about the data and/or how to interpret the data we actually have on this, Block thinks 'yes'.)

Dualism

• Central Claim: The mind is own separate kind of substance/property.
• Ex: Pain is an experience and experiences are not physical things.
• Central Problems: Can you give a good account of what this mind stuff is supposed to be? And how does this mind stuff causally interact with physical stuff?

Logical Behaviorism

• Central claim: Mental states are behavioral dispositions. All ‘mental talk’ can be translated into ‘behavior talk’.
• Ex: ‘Pain’ is a word we use to pick out certain behavioral dispositions.
• Central Problem: Can you be in a mental state without displaying characteristic behavior? (Super-Super Spartans)

Identity Theory

• Central Claim: Mental states are identical with brain states.
• Ex: Pain is the firing of C-fibers in the brain.
• Central Problem: Too Strong. (Multiple Realizability.)

Functionalism

• Central Claim: Mental states are functional states. Mental states are token-identical with whatever state plays a particular causal role.
• Ex: Pain is whatever internal state that is caused by harmful stimuli and (normally) produces shouting, grimacing, etc.
• Central Problem: Too liberal. Under functionalism, certain ‘mindless’ systems might have to count as minds. (Searle’s Chinese Room and Block’s Chinese Nation)

Eliminitivism

• Central Claim: The "mind", like other imaginary things that science has disproven, doesn’t actually exist.
• Ex: While you may think you are experiencing pain when the car door slams down on your hand, that's really just an illusion.
• Central Problems: It has potentially radical consequences. For instance, it becomes difficult to say why "pain" is bad...

Lecture Notes will go here