Q: Why do you think enquiring into the nature of knowledge is important?
A: Science, enormously successful in generating reliable information about natural world, lead us to conclude consciousness is an illusion. Our fascination with objectivity has resulted in erasing ourselves off the world picture. There must be a mistake somewhere. Is phenomenal consciousness unreal? An enquiry into the origin of scientific knowledge might help us find out how we arrived at this absurd result.
Q: You are making too many assumptions. ‘Consciousness is an illusion’ is not a scientific theory. It is a philosophical position and only a small minority of philosophers accept it.
A: I would say only a small minority is brave enough to accept this inevitable conclusion. ‘Consciousness is an illusion’ can never be popular because consciousness is self-evident. It is the most certain datum about being human. At the same time, physical processes generating phenomenal consciousness is inconceivable.
Consciousness from matter?
Q: Why is it inconceivable? Consciousness has actually evolved in nature. We do not yet know how exactly, but consciousness has been around for some time!
A: The fact that we are conscious is not a good reason to accept it must have evolved from what we call ‘matter’.
Q: Why is it not a good reason? Where else could consciousness come from?
A: There are other possibilities. May be we do not understand what matter is. May be our knowledge of evolution has huge gaps. It is important to enquire into the nature of scientific knowledge to find out. What does it mean to say we know something? I believe this is the only way to reconcile the reality of consciousness with our inability to know its ‘mechanism’.
Q: You haven’t explained why consciousness emerging from matter is inconceivable.
A: Matter or material interactions do not have phenomenal properties. There is no reason why some physical processes, such as in our brain, are associated with phenomenality. Nothing changes in our description of neuronal processes if phenomenality is absent.
Another reason is the difficulty of explaining how consciousness could have evolved through natural selection. Phenomenality has no causal power and it could not have produced variations for natural selection to act upon.
Then there is the problem of intrinsic nature. Our descriptions of matter are based on externally observable behaviour. There is no place for intrinsic properties in scientific descriptions. Phenomenal consciousness by definition is intrinsic so it cannot be explained through externally observable patterns of behaviour.
If we assume there is ‘something’ in matter that give rise to consciousness, that ‘something’ is excluded from scientific descriptions. We will go into this in more detail later.
Emergence and panpsychism
Q: Hm… I see your point. Consciousness has to be an illusion if physicalism is right.
A: It is the only possible conclusion if we religiously stick to physicalism to explain life. Most philosophers find this result hard to swallow. Only a small minority hold their breath and accept the inevitable, forced by logic and the need to maintain self-consistency in their arguments.
Q: Why can’t we consider consciousness as a fundamental property of the universe?
A: Both panpsychism and emergence are example of desperate measures in the philosophy of mind. Logical conclusion from physicalism, that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion, is so repulsive, many thinkers resort to desperate measures to save physicalism.
Q: Desperate measures to save physicalism?
A: Reality of consciousness is the most certain fact about human existence. Physicalism, applied to life, contradict this fact. There are no two ways about it. Some physicalists accept this as inevitable and resort to verbal acrobatics. They make claims such as ‘we think we are conscious but actually we are not’. Others find illusionism unacceptable (rightly!) and speculate consciousness must be a fundamental property of matter like mass or electric charge.
Q: Why do you rule out panpsychism?
A: There are several reasons. Explaining how the elemental consciousnesses combine to form a unified consciousness is one challenge. But I dislike the very idea of defining consciousness as a property of matter. Any ‘property of matter’ is something conceived in consciousness, so how can consciousness itself be a property?
Q: What is your position? Do you accept consciousness is real? If so how could we study it?
A: Phenomenal consciousness is real but outside the scope of physicalism. This is a consequence of the way we acquire knowledge. We need to take a meta view of the process of knowing to get to the bottom of this confusion.
Q: What do you mean by ‘meta view of the process of knowing’?
A: Look at knowledge from ‘outside’. Don’t bother about the inner mechanism of knowing, but treat it as any other natural phenomenon and study its evolutionary trajectory.
Q: Are you proposing a brand new theory of consciousness?
A: We don’t need another theory. Consciousness is real but unlike the stuff of science, it eludes all attempts to be contained with a conceptual model. We have no idea how to acquire reliable knowledge about phenomenal consciousness. It cannot be ’known’ as we ‘know’ stuff in science. It appears non-existent when we attempt grasp it the scientific way. So we should ask ‘what does it mean to ‘know’ stuff in science?’
The importance of being responsible physicalists
Q: How do you propose to do that? We acquire knowledge using our minds and no one knows what minds are. Isn’t that another epistemological trap?
A: Philosophy of mind is not going to lead us anywhere. We need to stick to science and ask questions about the process of knowing itself.
Q: But physicalism will lead us to conclude ‘mind’ in the sense of phenomenal consciousness is unreal. You said earlier this is the only logical conclusion possible from the facts of science.
A: Physicalism provides a solid platform to launch our enquiry. We must hold onto physicalism with all our might! Hold tight until it crumbles under the force of our embrace! It surely will crumble because it is hollow, it doesn’t have an ‘inside’.
Q: Why do you say physicalism is hollow?
A: Objective knowledge is the view from outside. It is about measurable external behaviour with no room for the inner, experiential dimension. This hollowness is its strength and weakness at the same time.
Q: But physicalism is self-consistent and enormously successful in predicting the outcome of complex physical processes. Why do you think it will give way if we hold onto it tightly?
A: It has to give way because it contradict the most certain fact about existence, phenomenal consciousness. Let us leave it as an ‘article of faith’ for now and proceed with our enquiry.
Two simplifying assumptions
Q: How do we proceed from clear facts of science to the fuzzy questions of ‘mind’ and ‘knowledge’?
A: Firstly, let us re-define ‘knowledge’ for the sake of clarity. This word assumes entirely different meanings depending on its usage. For example, ‘knowledge about the structure of water molecule’ has a precise meaning in scientific discussions. It stands for a well-defined relationship between hydrogen and oxygen atoms. On the other hand, philosophical debates on consciousness often refer to an unquantifiable experiential factor. Adding to the confusion, ‘knowledge’ in everyday usage means something in between, a convenient mix of the experiential and representational. Therefore it is important to make a fresh start and ask this question: “What exactly do we mean by knowledge?”
Q: I will agree there are multiple meanings attached to the word ‘knowledge’. That makes the question ‘what is knowledge’ very difficult!
A: Let us go step by step. Knowledge itself is a fuzzy term as we discussed. Let us try to look for a little clarity. Is there anything uncomplicated amongst multiple shades of ‘knowledge’?
Q: I don’t see anything easy about ‘knowledge’.
A: Of all kinds of knowledge claims, there is one that is relatively approachable – scientific knowledge. Science is about verifiable knowledge. Its claims are objective, demonstrably independent of the person making the claim.
Q: Hmm.. I can agree it is a good starting point. Are you suggesting scientific knowledge alone is worthy of serious attention?
A: No. We are restricting our definition of knowledge to one kind, objective knowledge, for the sake of clarity. We make no judgement on the validity of other kinds of knowledge claims at this point.
Consider this analogy. Suppose you want to learn swimming. You go to the swimming pool but hesitate to jump in. Then you notice one end of the pool is not deep. You decide to enter the shallow end and start splashing.
Q: I see your point. Objective knowledge could be shallow but it is firm and dependable.
A: Exactly. All the fun might be at the deeper end of the pool but going there requires patience. It could even be dangerous to give up the comfort of solid ground under your feet without enough practice.
Q: I agree with re-defining knowledge to mean objective knowledge for the sake of clarity. But science too is a product of human mind and we don’t know what minds are. How can we trust knowledge of such dubious origin?
A: That leads us to the next important step. We should avoid using ‘mind’ to explain knowledge.
Q: You mean we should assume there isn’t any mind?
A: No, we should acknowledge our ignorance about the nature of mind. We don’t know enough to talk about minds meaningfully, so being responsible physicalists, we should find another way, without denying or accepting the reality of mind.
Q: But I am absolutely certain I have a mind. Whatever I know is in my mind.
A: What exactly is this mind you are so sure about? Has anyone seen or measured it? Analyzing the brain reveals a complex network of neurons and electrochemical activity but no ‘mind’ stuff.
Q: How the brain generates consciousness is a question for science. Let neuroscientists work on that problem. Perhaps it might take another 100 years, but this is not a good reason to doubt the reality of mind.
A: You are right. We cannot doubt the reality of mind. But at the same time, we do not know how to talk about minds unambiguously. This is the challenge we are trying to address. How could well understood chemical processes and natural selection produce something so weird as first-person experience? Only the bravest of philosophers take this problem all the way to the end and declare phenomenal consciousness is an illusion. I am suggesting we should accept this conclusion as legitimate but incorrect, then go on to ask how it can be legitimate and incorrect at the same time.
Q: Aren’t you contradicting yourself? What exactly is your stand on the reality of mind/consciousness?
A: I am being practical. There appears to be a contradiction. Let us begin our enquiry in to the nature of knowledge with firm ground under our feet. All questions will be cleared as we progress.
Q: I don’t see how. We agreed not to use mind to explain knowledge. How else will we explain knowledge? I want to see how you could conclude anything other than ‘consciousness is an illusion’ starting from the firm ground of physicalism.
Meta view of the knowing process through history
A: Follow the lead of science and take an outside view of the knowing process. Remember we agreed to focus on objective knowledge and stay away from all other types of knowledge claims. Humans are the only form of life that generate objective knowledge. Look at the history of ‘knowledge generation process’ without bothering about intrinsic qualities of any kind. A meta-view of knowledge evolution in our 3.4 billion years long history is the way out.
Q: How do you know humans are the only form of life with objective knowledge?
A: Remember we are talking about the kind of knowledge that can be represented and communicated unambiguously.
Q: I suspect other animals too use representational knowledge. For example, dogs wag their tail to represent specific emotions and other dogs understand it. How do we know this is not the case with animal signalling behaviour in general?
A: The essence of representational knowledge is the detachment of meaning from the symbolism of communication. Animals do communicate through different kinds of signals, but such signalling and its meaning are not differentiated. Knowing and being are the same. A dog cannot make a ‘tail-wagging-sign’ on the ground and make other dogs understand this is what it intends to do when the owner arrives. Objective knowledge is about representing ‘states of being of the universe’ in abstract forms, independent of the subject and detached from the meaning communicated. Another person (who knows the rules of representation) understand the meaning by looking at the symbols.
Q: But humans could not have become ‘knowledge-enabled’ one fine morning! There must have been a gradual development of this ability over the course of evolution.
A: I agree. Transition from the state of ‘being’ to ‘knowing’ must have happened over tens of thousands years of human pre-history. Development of languages must have played a crucial role in this giant leap.
Q: We use words to represent ‘states of being’. Is language a form of objective knowledge in that sense?
A: We will go in to the role of language in the next section. Looking back into the evolutionary history of our species, we can clearly differentiate a ‘knowledge-less’ state, from the beginning of life until very recent past, and a ‘knowledge-capable’ state. The transition between these two states took several hundred thousand years, an enormous time span based on our meagre 70+ years of earthly life, but an eye-wink on evolutionary time scale.
Q: Hmm.. you are looking at human evolution as a way to understand knowledge..
A: Yes. Humans are the only knowledge capable life form and we know a fair bit about how humans came into existence from evolutionary biology. That opens a way to study how ‘knowing’ began and progressed in the history of our species.
Q: Without introducing ‘mind’?
A: There is no mind or thinking process in evolution, only complex arrangements of inert matter, continuously changing and getting better at persistence with accumulation of fortuitous variations.
Q: I understand that. But how do we bring in the function of ‘knowledge generation’? It is not something oozing out of complex molecular networks.
‘Knower’ as a black box
A: Exactly. Knowledge generation is impossible without minds and we have agreed not to use mind to explain knowledge. How do we proceed? Scientific knowledge is indeed real as the success of science and technology in the past 300 years testify. Therefore we are forced to introduce the ‘knower’, a naturally evolved function like vision or hearing to account for knowledge.
Q: We decided to give up the word ‘mind’ due to lack of clarity and now you introduce another term ‘knower’. Isn’t it bringing in mind through the backdoor? Why is this new word better than good old mind?
A: ‘Knower’ is a black box with a well-defined function: generation of (objective) knowledge. It can be thought of as another sense organ, like the eye or ear, evolved through natural selection. Knower takes in sensory inputs and generates knowledge. We do not know how it works but its reality cannot be doubted because objective knowledge is real.
Q: How is it different from saying ‘brain generates knowledge, but we don’t yet know the mechanism’?
A: Material brain taking in sensory inputs and generating knowledge out of physical processes is the original problem we are trying to solve. There is an unbridgeable gap between physical processes and ideas in the mind. No conceivable mechanism can bridge this gap. Here we introduce a black box that somehow generates non-physical from physical. Next step will be to study the evolutionary history of this black box.
Q: What if I say your ‘black box’ generating ideas out of physical stuff is pure fiction?
A: It isn’t fiction because knowledge generation is happening all the time. True, we have no clue how this transformation occurs. It is a mystery. Normally we bypass this mystery by assuming there is something called ‘mind’ inside our heads. But mind is an extremely slippery subject because of historical baggage and the many things it is supposed to be doing, knowing is just one of its tasks. All such difficulties are avoided if we assume a specialized evolutionary function ‘knower’, in charge of producing objective knowledge from sensory inputs.
Q: What if the physicalist come back to say your mysterious black box, knower is another illusion?
A: Then the physicalist will be shooting herself in the foot. Reality of objective knowledge itself will be in question. How can material brain by itself generate knowledge? What is the mechanism involved? Knowledge is indeed real and it must have a source. Real stuff cannot appear from nowhere.
Physicalists can still claim neuronal processes ‘somehow’ generate knowledge and the puzzle will be solved in due course. I am convinced such ‘promissory materialism’ is extremely dangerous. Human race is unlikely to survive another 100 years without solving the ‘problem of life’. It is not necessary to wait for 100 years. The solution is already at our doorstep. We just need to see the facts of science from a different vantage point.
Mind, Evolution and Meaning 
I share your dislike of “the very idea of defining consciousness as a property of matter.” Panpsychism is easily misunderstood as an extension of physicalist science, as if by simply adding consciousness as a property of matter, we could overcome the inherent limitations of the mode of enquiry.
A more radical form of panpsychism holds that matter is, in effect, a property of consciousness. What we call “matter” is one of the things that happens as the world unfolds. Some unfoldings, and some levels of unfoldings, are highly predictable and monotonous; others are not. Physicalist science is well-equipped to understand the more predictable aspects of the unfolding, but with regard to other aspects it is at sea; it has no way to grasp the nature of the unfolding behind these simple manifestations. At that level there is pure choice. Things pop in and out of existence and we don’t know why. People or animals or plants or paramecea do specifically this or that, and we don’t know specifically why. We have only probabilities concerning what is likely to happen. Behind them, inaccessible to physical science, is the veiled reality of the other.
This is not an attempt to convert you to some theory of mine. I have no fixed ideas, no theory; like you, I have questions. I simply wanted to point out another interpretation of panpsychism, along lines suggested by Whitehead in Process and Reality. I have my own doubts about it, because as a method of understanding it shares similarities with physicalism. It is an expression of the same way of knowing. I have to say that your “black box” proposal for approaching the question seems to share the same weakness, but it’s too soon to say. Meanwhile, there is more to learn from Whitehead, for example in his book Modes of Thought, about other ways of approaching the world.
You mention “the difficulty of explaining how consciousness could have evolved through natural selection.” I agree with your assessment, but Tim Kueper’s blog The Motive Power of Firemakes a strong case for this type of explanation. My own thoughts on the subject are conveyed in a recent post at my own blog, “Hearing the Music with Both Ears,” which I think might be interesting for your line of enquiry.
There are many similarities between our views. My attempt is see how far we can go starting with reliable knowledge as in science. ‘Knower’ is only an explanatory device to account for ‘objective knowing’. Exploring knower’s genesis and relationship with rest of nature could help to understand the knowing process better.
Both ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ could be viewed as things that happen as reality unfolds. It needs some explanation and I hope do that in coming weeks.
Your thoughts on panpsychism being a “desperate measure” ring true. But I can’t help being sympathetic to the underlying thrust of panpsychism. Whatever the merits of thinking about consciousness as a property of matter, the theory in my view represents an acknowledgement and affirmation that we are physical beings and that our consciousness is the consciousness of physical things at some deep fundamental level, not merely a characteristic of advanced biological entities. That also rings true to me.
I have my own ideas on a modified form of panpsychism based on consciousness arising from fundamental processes in the universe, but that is a topic for another day. (And one that you are likely familiar with in you have read Penrose.) You might call it another “desperate measure” to save physicalism, but it makes sense to me that consciousness and free will are built into the engineering of the cosmos, not mere accidental developments or supernatural occurrences. We are the way the universe constructed us to be.
I’m enjoying reading your thoughts on these topics.
Thank you. I will agree consciousness is a fundamental property of reality. But this ‘reality’ cannot be completely captured in objective descriptions. Some aspects of it has to be ‘directly experienced’. I think panpsychism is an attempt to objectively describe the unknowable aspects of reality.
A far more rewarding approach might be to focus on the process of objective knowing and study its evolutionary history. This path would lead us to a view of fundamental reality as unknowable, which is projected as matter and mind through the act of knowing.
You may be right, but I want to know the unknowable. I can’t help myself. So I still hope for some knowable resolution to the matter/mind problem. Looking forward to reading more of your work.