Experiential Location and Points of View
A Review of Max Velmans' Understanding Consciousness
William S. Robinson
Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies
Iowa State University
445 Carrie Chapman Catt Hall
Ames, Iowa 50011-1306
U.S.A.
wsrob@iastate.edu
Copyright (c) William S. Robinson 2002
PSYCHE, 8(06), September 2002
Peeviously held: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v8/psyche-8-06-robinson.html
KEYWORDS: Epiphenomenalism, explanatory gap, information processing, phenomenal objects, projection, representation, unconscious processes.
:REVIEW OF Max Velmans. (2000). Understanding Consciousness.
London: Routledge. $35 pbk. 296 pp. ISBN: 0415224926.
ABSTRACT: Understanding Consciousness offers both a useful introduction to problems of consciousness and an explanation and defense of Velmans' own view. Two distinctive aspects of the latter are full recognition of the spatial character of many of our experiences, and equal respect for first- and third-person points of view. These features underlie a neo-Kantian view of representation of objects, and lead Velmans to reject epiphenomenalism despite advancing arguments to show that, from a third-person point of view, consciousness makes no causal contribution to behavior. Difficulties attend several of Velmans' points, among them his way of rejecting of epiphenomenalism, and his use of the concept of representation. But some of his arguments contain ideas that are likely to prove important in the development of the study of consciousness.
Although Understanding Consciousness is nominally divided into three
parts, it is more usefully regarded as falling into two divisions, one
for beginners in consciousness studies, and one for those who are
already afficionados. This review will focus on the latter division,
corresponding mainly to chapters 6 through 9, and chapter 11. Let us,
however, begin with the earlier material.
The first five chapters form a roughly chronologically ordered
presentation of the problems of philosophy of mind, from Cartesian
dualism to the views of Dennett and Searle. These chapters could
profitably be assigned as a way of giving beginning graduate students in
philosophy of mind an overview of major theories and major objections,
and it would help them to understand how the field has arrived at its
present state. The writing is clear and accessible, and would also be
invaluable to nonphilosophers who seek to understand the perspective
through which philosophers approach consciousness studies.
A key point in these early chapters is the tripartite distinction among
identity ("ontological identity", in Velmans' phrasing), correlation,
and causation. This distinction is already well understood by many
thinkers, but Velmans (p. 36) has a very clear way of stating it. The
distinction figures prominently in later discussions in which Velmans
takes psychologists and others to task for moving from well grounded
correlational claims to unjustified causal or identity claims.
The presentation of Velmans' own theory begins in Chapter 6. The key
point of this chapter, and perhaps the most important contribution of
the book, is a phenomenological one. The actual character of our
experience is held to be three dimensional, for vision and audition, and
bodily-locational for bodily sensations. Velmans argues that it is a
misrepresentation of experience itself to say that experience is located
in the brain, or in the head, or that visual experience is merely two
dimensional. Our experience of, say, a cat, is experience of a cat --
not of a cat-percept. The experienced cat is not in the head, with its
distal location merely added by an inference; instead, the experience
itself has depth, and the cat is located in the experience right where
we take the cat to be located in space. Similarly, a pain is not felt
"in the head" and merely inferred to be caused by, say, a cut in one's
finger; instead, the experience of pain is an experience of pain in the
finger. In Velmans' view, "the physical world as perceived is part of
the contents of consciousness. . . . [I]n terms of phenomenology no
clear separation exists between what we normally think of as the
"physical world", the "phenomenal world" and the "world as perceived". .
. . [W]ith our eyes open, what we normally call the "physical world"
just is what we experience. There is no additional experience of
the world "in the mind or brain" (pp. 125 -126; emphases in original.)
Velmans sometimes expresses this view in terms of "perceptual
projection" of colors, sounds, and bodily sensations, and he also
encapsulates the view by saying that experience is representational.
A cat as experienced is the physical cat of common sense, located "over
there", for example on the sofa. But, of course, we do not experience
all there is to a cat. We think of the cat as having insides that we do
not see, and as being made of molecules or atoms which, again, are not
in visual (or any other sensory) experience. These reflections naturally
lead to the question of how the experienced cat is related to the cat as
understood by physics. In answer, Velmans adopts (in Chapter 7) an
explicit neo-Kantianism. Experience is one representation of the thing
itself, and the cat as described by physics is another representation of
the thing itself. "Like experienced/observed phenomena, theories may
provide useful representations of what the world is like, but they are
not the thing itself" (p. 163).
In Chapter 8, Velmans turns to the question of how a science of
consciousness is possible. A key point here is that experimenters in
psychological science are in the same position as subjects, with respect
to observation of stimuli. That is, experimenters observe a stimulus,
e.g., a light bulb, and record the publicly observable fact that such a
stimulus is presented. The subject reports seeing the light bulb, and
this is taken as a report of the subject's experience. These records
play different roles (record of experimental setup versus experiential
report); but both are experiences of the light bulb, and as
experiences both are the same. Each is just as much about the
(objective) world as the other. In Velmans' view, this symmetry of
experimenters' and subjects' experiences is a key to understanding how
"subjective" experience can be part of an intersubjectively shared
science, and to understanding how consciousness can be investigated
without first being reduced to (or identified with) a set of events
describable from a strictly third- person point of view.
Besides the question of the relation between experienced cats and cats
as described in physics, there are the questions (1) of the relation
between experienced cats and events in the brain caused by the action of
the cat (as described by physics) upon the sense organs and their
associated neural structures; and (2) the relation between experiences
and subsequent brain activities. The answer to the first question is
implicit in what we have already seen: the brain events caused by
impingements on our sense organs in turn cause the perceptual projection
of the world as we experience it. This projection is an effect of, and
therefore not identical with, the brain events that cause it.
The answer to the second question is that, from a third-person point of
view, consciousness makes no causal contribution to our behavior or our
thinking. This view is argued for in detail in Chapter 9 (which follows
the line developed in Velmans, 1991). Many easily understood examples
are introduced in order to support the key point, which is that
consciousness arises too late to causally contribute to events that it
is often supposed to have the function of bringing about. Evidence from
psychological studies is adduced in support of the claim that
consciousness takes about 200 ms to arise after an input has arrived at
the cortical surface. By this time, a large amount of sophisticated
information processing has already taken place, which shows that
consciousness is not necessary for such processing. (The correlation
of consciousness with such processing does not, of course, show causal
contribution -- see above.) Consider, by way of example, what happens
when we read the following sentence out loud, or to ourselves in silent
soliloquy.
If we don't increase the dustmen's wages, they will refuse to take the
refuse.
Presumably, readers pronounce the first occurrence of "refuse"
differently from the second. But, given the above figure for time for
consciousness to arise, and given the rate at which we normally read,
the rather complex processing that produces the (correct) pronunciation
of the first occurrence must have occurred before the phonemic
representation of that pronunciation enters consciousness.
These observations naturally lead to the allegation that, according to
Velmans' view, consciousness is epiphenomenal. Epiphenomenalism for
consciousness is, indeed, the conclusion that should logically be drawn
by those who accept Velmans' account of how matters stand in the third
person point of view and who do not accept Velmans' further remarks.
Velmans himself, however, propounds a "Causal Paradox". "Viewed from a
first-person perspective, consciousness appears to be necessary for most
forms of complex or novel processing. But viewed from a third-person
perspective, consciousness does not appear to be necessary for any form
of processing. I submit that it does not make sense to reject either
perspective" (p. 219).
Chapter 9 further contributes to the understanding of the lack of causal
role for consciousness in the third-person perspective by offering a
distinction among three senses in which a process might be conscious.
These senses are, roughly, (i) a process of which one is conscious; (ii)
a process that is accompanied by consciousness (of its results); and
(iii) a process to which consciousness causally contributes. There are
many examples of the second kind, few examples of the first, and no
examples of the third. But confusion of the second sense with the
others, largely due to ignoring the distinction between association
(i.e., correlation) and causation, is alleged to mislead thinkers into
false affirmations of cases of the first and third kinds.
The first half of Chapter 11 ("What Consciousness Does") concerns itself
with the shape of a science of the neural correlates of consciousness.
It is in the second half, however, that key parts of Velmans' analysis
are offered. The explanatory gap is claimed to be bridged by adopting an
ontological monism together with an epistemological dualism. We have
already encountered the epistemological dualism -- it is the dualism of
the first-person and third-person perspectives. The thing known through
these different perspectives is now labeled the "nature of mind" (p.
249). About this nature, Velmans conjectures that "mind can be thought
of as a form of information processing" (p. 249). Minds "viewed from the
outside" are brains; viewed from the first-person perspective, they take
the form of conscious experiences. Electromagnetism is invoked as a
(limited) analogy: electromagnetism takes the form of electricity under
certain conditions, magnetism under others. Neither form is reducible to
the other, but they are not independent forces that "interact" --
instead, they are dual aspects of the same fundamental form of energy
(p. 250). This view is alleged to provide a resolution of the Causal
Paradox (see above). The main move in this explanation appears to be
that the "information encoded in your experiences and their neural
correlates is identical. Consequently, first- and third-person accounts
of the causal roles of such information need not conflict. They may
simply be accounts of the same underlying process developing over time,
viewed in two complementary ways" (p. 254).
As to what consciousness does, the answer, in the end, is that it makes
events and processes subjectively real. Without consciousness, there
would be only processing in a dark world.
With Chapter 11 we come to the end of the main development of Velmans'
ideas. There is one further chapter of frankly speculative intent. This
chapter also attempts a critique of Chalmers' (1996) theory.
Unfortunately, its representation of Chalmers' views is seriously
incomplete in some respects and inaccurate in others; as a result, the
critique flies very wide of its intended mark.
In this reviewer's opinion, Understanding Consciousness offers many
insights, and both the phenomenological point of chapter 6 and the
third-person causal irrelevance of consciousness to behavior argued for
in chapter 9 are of special importance. Our ability to switch points of
view upon the same experience (counting it as an observation of the
world or as an observation of our experience of the world) is also
salutary. There are, however, a number of limitations, some evident from
the foregoing summary, some not. Among the most important of these
limitations are the following. (1) Velmans states many points in terms
of representation -- representing is supposed to be a key property of
conscious experiences. But Velmans offers no theory of representation;
thus it is often not clear what key statements using this term really
come to. Velmans (p. 260) cites Tye (1995) as having defended a
representational view, and Tye does offer a theory of representation;
thus one might think that Velmans can render his analysis more complete
simply by taking over Tye's account. But Tye's account explains
representation by reference to tracking, and it does not seem that
Velmans can say that conscious experiences track either things
themselves, or things as represented in physical theories, or the nature
of mind. Thus, the lack of a theory of representation in Velmans' book
is a matter of serious moment, even for so much as understanding
Velmans' view. (2) Speaking of the contents of normal phenomenal
consciousness, Velmans says "these contents define and fill
three-dimensional space as they are none other than the everyday
world, or universe, as experienced" (p. 228; emphases in original).
Without its last two words, this remark seems to be acutely in need of
explication. With its last two words included, this pressure for
explication seems somewhat reduced; however, with those words included,
the remark is either nearly tautologous or radically unclear in its
meaning. Unfortunately, many of Velmans' remarks, even some that are
essential parts of key explanations, have this same character of being
unhelpful, if read in one plausible way, and unclear in their import if
they are not to be read in that way. (3) Although I have tried to
present Velmans' resolution of the Causal Paradox in a sympathetic way,
it does not seem clear that reference to the first-person perspective
actually resolves any difficulties. Velmans remarks that "from the
perspective of an external observer, it [the material world] appears to
be causally closed" (p. 253). This formulation is consistent with
Velmans' view that third-person and first- person perspectives deserve
equal respect. Most thinkers, however, will view the causal closure of
the material world as more than merely an appearance. According to our
best theories, such causal closure is a fact; the material world not
only appears to be, but is causally closed. If conscious events are not
identical with some subset of the sufficient material causes of our
behavior, then they are not causally contributory to it. Respect for a
point of view in which they appear to be causally contributory will
not explain how to save this appearance from being a mere, i.e.,
erroneous, appearance.
In sum: Understanding Consciousness has substantial problems that
prevent it from fulfilling the promise of its title. (This is, surely,
no surprise.) At the same time, it contains ideas with which students of
consciousness must acquaint themselves, and that seem likely to form a
part of the most satisfying views of consciousness that are likely to be
developed in the foreseeable future.
References
Chalmers, D. J. (1996) The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental
Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tye, M. (1995) Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory
of the Phenomenal Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Velmans M (1991) Is human information processing conscious? Behavioral
and Brain Sciences, 14, 651-726. (Includes Open Peer Commentary by
several commentators and Author's Response.)
