Chapter
Two
What is it like to be.. .?
measure of their needs, nor of their ideas, nor of their pains, and
since human speech is like a cracked cauldron where we beat tunes
to make bears dance, when we would like to melt the stars.
(Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 1856, our translation)Yet even our firmest intuitions can be horribly wrong and lead us astray. So, are
there really two kinds of consciousness, or only one? Many theorists reject the
distinction (e.g. Baars, 1988; Dennett, 2005; Carruthers, 2015); some say there is
only the reportable stuff (e.g. Nunn, 2009); and others agree with Block that there
are two distinct kinds (e.g. Alter, 2010; Raffone and Pantani, 2010). We will return
to this distinction (Chapters 8 and 17) and attempts to study it experimentally,
but for now ‘phenomenal consciousness’ is what this book is all about.
So, what is it like to be you now? Everything we have said so far implies that
there is, uncontroversially, something it is like to be you now – that the problems
only begin when you start trying to say in words exactly what it is like for you, or
asking about what it is like to be someone or something else. But is this right?
A thoroughly sceptical approach would mean questioning even that apparently
obvious starting point: your own what-it’s-like. We urge you to do this chapter’s
‘practice’ and become a little more familiar with what it is like to be you.
PRACTICE 2.1
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE ME NOW?As many times as you can, every day, ask yourself ‘What is it like to be
me now?’ If you practised the previous exercise, ‘Am I conscious now?’,
you will have got used to remembering the task, and perhaps to opening
your mind a little to watch your own awareness.
This new question is important because so many arguments assume that we
know, unproblematically, what our own experience is like, that we know
our own qualia directly, and that of course we know what it is like to be
‘me’ now. The only way to have an informed opinion on this important
point is to look carefully. What is it really like for you, now?SUBJECTIVITY AND QUALIA
Let us suppose that you are, right now, getting the unmistakable smell of fresh
coffee drifting in from the kitchen. The smell may be caused by chemicals enter-
ing your nose and reacting with receptors there, but as far as you are concerned
the experience is nothing to do with chemicals. It is a . . . well, what is it? You
probably cannot describe it even to yourself. It is just how fresh coffee smells.
The experience is private, ineffable, and has a quality all its own. These qualities
are known, in philosophy, as qualia. The feel of the wind on your cheeks as you