Consciousness

• seCtIon FoUR: eVoLUtIon
  that their visual field is filled with uniformly detailed
  information’, or persuading them that they understand
  things they do not (Sloman and Chrisley, 2003, pp. 137–
  138). We might think we would be better off without
  pain, but in fact those few unfortunate individuals who
  cannot feel pain constantly damage themselves. Then
  there is that old chestnut, the redness of red – the ‘raw
  feel’, the quale. This we get completely wrong, says Brit-
  ish physiologist Horace Barlow. When we say ‘This apple
  is red’, we may, from introspection, think that the raw
  sensation of red comes first, when in fact much com-
  putation is required, and the way we experience red
  depends on our whole history of seeing red objects and
  talking about them. Barlow argues that ‘the sensation
  of redness is merely preparing you to communicate the
  fact that something is red; this is another case where introspection is misleading, for
  redness is a carefully cooked product and is never as raw as it seems’ (1987, p. 372).
  This is reminiscent of James’s claim that ‘No one ever had a simple sensation by itself ’
  (1890, i, p. 224). Barlow concludes that consciousness is a social product derived
  from communication and cannot be explained by introspection.
  Another objection is that Humphrey’s notion of consciousness is dualist, that the inner
  eye is a ghost in the machine or an audience of one in its Cartesian theatre, but he
  makes clear that this is not, in spite of the diagram, what he means. Rather, the inner
  eye is an aspect of the way the human brain functions. But how can a brain describe
  itself? Who is the observer inside the brain, and doesn’t this lead to an infinite regress
  of ever more observers? Humphrey says not. Consciousness, he says, is a feature not
  of the whole brain but only of the added self-reflexive loop whose output is part of
  its own input. No regress is implied, he claims. Yet he does admit there is a problem.
  ‘Why this particular arrangement should have what we might call the “transcendent”,
  “other-worldly” qualities of consciousness I do not know’ (2002, p. 75).
  Do Humphrey and Mithen really see consciousness as itself having a function that
  is acted on by natural selection (Type 2 in Concept 11.1), or do they try to explain
  why any creature capable of introspection or self-reflective insight must inevita-
  bly be conscious (Type 3)?
  The answer appears to be the former. Both Humphrey and Mithen describe con-
  sciousness as an emergent property with specific functions on which natural
  selection can act, such as ‘giving the subject a picture of his own brain activity’
  (Humphrey, 2002, p. 76).
  This may leave us with a fundamental doubt. Is consciousness really the kind of
  thing that can be a surface feature or an emergent property, like fur or wetness
  or intelligence? As ever, we must remember that consciousness means subjective
  experience, or ‘what it is like to be’. So the question for these theories is, does
  natural selection act on how it feels to introspect or on the behavioural conse-
  quences of introspection? If you decide the latter, then the subjective experience
  has no evolutionary function in its own right. Both its existence and the reason
  why it evolved remain unexplained.
  Interestingly, Humphrey’s later work tries to avoid this problem and so belongs in
  the next section.

EXPERIENCEINTROSPECTIVEMESSAGESURVIVALVALUE

Pain

Love

Redness

Unpleasantandtobe

avoided

Desire forlifelong

attachment,feelings of

unboundedadmiration,etc.

Attribute of a physicalobject

Minimises injuries

Propagationofthe

humanspecies

Abilityto

communicate about

this attribute

Introspectionon ourexperiences does notdirectlytellus theirsurvival

value

FIGURE 11.7 • According to Barlow, introspection
on our experiences does not
accurately reflect their survival
value (Barlow, 1987, p. 364).