Chapter
Six
The unity
oRWeLLIAn AnD stALInesQUe
ReVIsIons
Is there a precise moment at which something
‘becomes conscious’ or ‘comes into conscious-
ness’? In Consciousness Explained, Dennett says
no. take the simple example of backwards mask-
ing. A small solid disc is flashed first, followed
quickly by a ring. If the timings and intensities
are just right, the second stimulus masks the first,
and observers say they saw only the ring.
What is happening in consciousness? If you
believe in a time at which a visual experience
‘becomes conscious’ or comes ‘into conscious-
ness’, then you have two explanations to choose
from. Dennett named the first after George
orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which
the ministry of truth rewrote history to prevent
people knowing what had really happened.
According to this orwellian explanation, the per-
son really saw, and was conscious of, the disc,
but then the ring came along and wiped out the memory of
having seen it. so only the ring was reported. the alternative
he named after stalin’s notorious show trials, in which peo-
ple testified to things that never actually happened. on this
explanation, the experience of the disc is somehow delayed
on its way up to consciousness so that before it gets there the
ring can come along and prevent the disc from ever arriving.
the difference hinges on the question – did the disc
become conscious and get forgotten, or did it never reach
consciousness in the first place? Do you think that there
must be an answer to this question?
Dennett (1991, pp. 115–126) argues that there is no way,
even in principle, that we could find out. so the question
is meaningless. He analyses the ways in which orwellian
and stalinesque explanations have been used and shows
that they always end in an impasse. the problem, he says,
is a false assumption. We wrongly assume that there is not
only a real time at which things happen in the brain, but
also a time at which they ‘enter consciousness’ or ‘become
conscious’. If we drop this assumption (difficult as it is to
do so), the problem disappears. According to his multiple
drafts model, different streams of activity may be probed
to elicit various responses, but none is ever either ‘in’ or
‘out’ of consciousness. so the problem does not arise.C
on
C
e
P
t
6.2
FIGURE 6.16 • If the disc is flashed briefly (e.g. 30 msec) and immediately
followed by the ring, superimposed upon it, the participant reports
seeing only the ring. One interpretation is that the ring prevents
the experience of the disc from reaching consciousness, as
though consciousness is delayed and then changed if necessary
(Stalinesque). An alternative is that the disc is consciously
experienced but memory for the experience is wiped out by the
ring (Orwellian). How can we tell which is right? We cannot, says
Dennett. This is a difference that makes no difference.
‘unless there were a
Cartesian theater,
there could not be
a fact of the matter
distinguishing Orwellian
from Stalinesque
content revisions’
(Dennett, 1991, p. 440)