|
Bernard Baars' book In the Theater of Consciousness may be purchased
from Amazon.Com |
 |
|---|
Delineating Conscious and Unconscious Processes:
Commentary on Baars on Contrastive Analysis
John A. Allen
Department of Psychology
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia 22030. USA
jalle7@gmu.edu
Copyright (c) John A. Allen 1994
PSYCHE, 1(9), August 1994
http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-1-9-allen.html
Keywords: automaticity, Thomas Nagel, conscious, contrastive analysis,
awareness, subjective experience, global workspace theory,
phenomenology, unconscious.
Abstract: In a recent paper, Baars (1994) examines five empirically- based
areas that illustrate the effectiveness of applying a method that he calls
contrastive analysis. It is suggested that although the identification
and analysis of these areas are useful and instructive, a number of major
and minor conceptual weaknesses and assumptions weaken its overall impact.
Among them: failure to adequately address the differences between neural
vs. mental representation, a curious avoidance of the concept of awareness,
and a rather limited view of the role of consciousness in general.
1 Introduction
1.1 In A Thoroughly Empirical Approach to Consciousness, Baars (1994)
suggests that somewhere between a strict denial of consciousness
(e.g. radical behaviorism) and criteria that are too demanding (e.g. Nagel,
1974) reasonable starting points for studying conscious processes can be
established. He argues that there is a need to first delineate what we
mean by conscious processes as opposed to unconscious processes. That is,
we need to establish and agree on boundaries for conscious events. As a
general strategy, he suggests that the well-known scientific method of
operationalizing a construct by specifying the conditions under which it
occurs and those under which it does not occur. The bulk of the paper is
devoted to the presentation and discussion of five general categories of
otherwise comparable pairs of empirically-based phenomena that appear to
differ only in the fact that one is typically conscious while the other is
not (i.e. unconscious), a method that he calls, ``contrastive analysis.''
1.2 On balance, the author is to be commended for his attempt to challenge
the problem of consciousness and its definition by offering a practical and
potentially constructive means of identifying its invariant features.
Specific methods and approaches aimed at reducing the long-standing
confusion and frustration associated with the mind and its phenomena are
particularly refreshing in view of the current flurry of posturing that one
finds within the area. His survey and analysis of mental phenomena and
processes across a wide range of domains and his attempts to derive a
meaningful taxonomic structure are especially welcome. Despite the appeal
and potential usefulness of his approach, however, there are a number of
both serious and minor problems that remain.
2 Consciousness vs. Awareness
2.1 First, throughout the manuscript I got the impression that the author
carefully tried to avoid the term, awareness, even though in many cases
it could have been easily substituted for conscious. Indeed, the same was
true for unaware. One can only guess that such a zealous avoidance
reflected the author's desire to stay clear of having to deal with the
issues of self, self-consciousness, and in general, those problems of
definition that plague ``what's it like to be...'' questions. But the
conspicuous failure to at least clarify the reasons why awareness and
unawareness were not used was curious. In his introduction Baars states
that one of the problems with Nagel's Bat criterion is that it forces us
to define and deal with two major theoretical constructs (i.e.
consciousness and the self) simultaneously. But to my mind that may be
just what we will ultimately have to do. In any case, I do not believe
that contrastive analysis allows us to avoid this problem. That being
the case, it is hard to see how their occasional substitution of awareness
for conscious or unaware for unconscious would have substantially harmed or
altered the overall usefulness of the analysis. As it was, I found myself
frequently wanting to introduce the concept of awareness as I read through
the manuscript.
3 Neural vs. Mental Representation
3.1 A more serious problem concerns the apparent confusion, or worse,
disregard of the differences between neural and mental representation.
Although the aim of paper was not to differentiate between these modes of
representation, I believe that the ultimate understanding of what it means
for something to be conscious or unconscious must address the differences
and their implications. In any case, at times the author seems to equate
unconscious with neural representation and mechanisms while at others he
seems to be saying that unconscious material is represented somewhere
within the mental sphere. In either case, of course, what is represented
could be inaccessible, but the mechanisms would no doubt be quite
different. Unconscious contents or processes represented in neural
mechanisms may, as Searle (1992) has suggested, be more appropriately
termed nonconscious, or more accurately nonmental. They may, at
various times, simply not be available to mental experience. They may out
of reach, i.e., inaccessible.
3.2 It is possible to conceive of two kinds of representation,
representation within the mental sphere and representation within the
neural sphere. While events may be conscious or unconscious within the
mental world, they can be only nonmental and nonconscious when they are
represented exclusively within the neural world of physical processes. It
therefore makes little conceptual sense to speak of unconscious materials
within the physical mechanisms of the brain. Only within the mental world
does it make any sense to speak of conscious and unconscious events,
content, and processes. Instead, it would seem to be more appropriate to
think of potentially conscious or unconscious events as those that are
either represented within the mind itself or as neural processes that are
nonconscious but that under certain conditions generate mental experiences
that may be conscious or unconscious.
4 Perception as Conscious Stimulus Representation
4.1 Third, the author unequivocally states, ``There is little disagreement
that `perception' is conscious stimulus representation'' (Section 3.1).
Surely, the author did not mean to ignore all of those situations where we
are obviously ``perceive'' the world of objects, object properties, and
events but are not conscious (or aware) of those objects, properties, and
events! That perception involves the registration and representation of
information about the world is a moot point, but to imply that one is
always has conscious awareness of those representations does not jibe with
the facts of ordinary everyday experience. Anyone who has safely driven
along an interstate highway for hours in a daze only to realize later that
they must have perceived the automobiles around them can validate this
point.
5 Internal Consistency and Competition
5.1 According to Baars, conscious events are mental representations that
are global, informative, and internally consistent in the sense that
processes compete for a place in consciousness. The latter property, of
course, represents a traditional and popular view that, in the present
author's opinion, needs to be replaced by one more in tune with the fact
that different products of neural and mental processes go in and out of
awareness. The idea ofcompetition between processes places
intelligence in places where it is neither needed nor appropriate.
6 Consciousness as a Property
6.1 Another point of concern centers around Baars' tendency to ascribe
consciousness to lower-level processes as though it was one of their
properties. To me, it makes more sense to think of consciousness as a
higher-order, multi-levelled integrative property of the mind itself that
reorganizes lower-level structures like perception, memory, thinking, and
so on in such a way that certain material, events, and processes become
conscious while others do not. With regard to perception, for example,
though we may be aware or unaware of a stimulus at a particular moment, it
does not follow that the property that makes a stimulus conscious or
unconscious resides at the level of the perceptual structure itself.
Perceptual structures have many properties, but the property of
consciousness is not one of them. The same may be said for memory and
thinking. The phrase, conscious perceptual process, is common enough,
but in my view this may represent a kind of dangerous shorthand for the
idea that in the top-down process of organizing information, certain
stimuli, processes, or events, etc. may be experienced consciously while
others may not. The same might be said for certain expectations. Indeed,
Baars' discussion of the Ames room studies as an example of unaccessed
interpretations of ambiguous stimuli makes this latter point very well.
7 Conclusion
7.1 Finally, I believe that Baars' approach to delineating the boundaries
and conditions under which mental representations become aware is a
reasonable and potentially fruitful one. Moreover, his identification and
analysis of some of empirical findings that must be handled by theories of
conscious processes is instructive. However, while I applaud him on these
contributions, I have some concerns about the some of the assumptions and
conceptual shortcomings that guided his analysis. Among these I would
include: (1) the implicit assumption that the avoidance of the concept of
awareness somehow simplifies the problem of classifying conscious and
unconscious processes by ruling out (i.e. controlling) the interdependent
nature of consciousness and self; (2) the failure to adequately distinguish
between neural vs. mental representations and their implications for
conscious and unconscious processes and accessibility and inaccessibility;
(3) a rather naive and sometimes casual approach to and analysis of
perception and its products; (4) an occasional tendency to discuss processes
in rather loose and vitalistic terms (e.g. competition); and (5) a
general failure to appreciate the multi-leveled nature of consciousness and
its integrative nature.
References
Baars, B. J. (1994) A thoroughly empirical approach to consciousness.
PSYCHE, 1(6), [80 paragraphs]
Filename: psyche-94-1-6-contrastive-1-baars
Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? In N. Block (Ed.),
Readings in the Philosophy of Science. (pp. 159-170). Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Searle, John R. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
