Consciousness

• seCtIon one: tHe PRoBLem
  physical organisation of the brain. On this view, we will understand consciousness
  only when we have a new theory of information.
  Others appeal to fundamental physics or to quantum theory. For example, the
  British mathematician Chris Clarke (1995) treats mind as inherently non-local, like
  some phenomena in quantum physics. In his view, mind is the key aspect of the
  universe and emerges prior to space and time: ‘mind and the quantum operator
  algebras are the enjoyed and contemplated aspects [i.e. the subjective and objec-
  tive aspects] of the same thing’ (1995, p. 240). Chalmers’s and Clarke’s are both
  dual-aspect theories and are close to panpsychism.
  The British mathematician Roger Penrose (1989) argues that consciousness
  depends on non-algorithmic processes – that is, processes which cannot be car-
  ried out by a digital computer, or computed using describable procedures (Chap-
  ter  12). With anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, he has developed a theory that
  treats experience as a quality of space-time and relates it to quantum coherence
  in the microtubules of nerve cells (Hameroff and Penrose, 2014) (Chapter 5).

All these theories assume that the hard problem is soluble, but only with a funda-

mental rethink of the nature of the universe.

3 TACKLE THE EASY PROBLEMS

There are many theories of consciousness that attempt to answer questions

about attention, learning, memory, or perception, but do not directly address the

question of subjectivity. Chalmers (1995b) gives as an example Crick and Koch’s

theory of visual binding. This theory uses synchronised oscillations to explain how

the different attributes of a perceived object become bound together to make

a perceptual whole (Chapter  6). ‘But why’, asks Chalmers, ‘should synchronized

oscillations give rise to a visual experience, no matter how much integration is

taking place?’ (p. 64). Synchronised oscillations are offered as an ‘extra ingredient’

(1995a), but why should that particular ingredient account for consciousness?

He concludes that Crick and Koch’s is a theory of the easy problems. If you are

convinced, as Chalmers is, that the hard problem is quite distinct from the easy

problems, then many if not most theories of consciousness are like this, includ-

ing theatre metaphors of processing capacity and attention (Chapters  5 and 7),

evolutionary theories based on the selective advantages of introspection or the

function of qualia (Chapter 11), and theories that deal with the neural correlates

of consciousness (Chapter 4). In all these cases one might still ask: ‘But what about

subjectivity? How does this explain the actual phenomenology?’

Crick and Koch themselves say that the most difficult aspect of the problem of

consciousness is the problem of qualia. From one perspective this sounds like

a tautology: the most difficult thing about the problem of consciousness is the

problem of consciousness. From their perspective, however, it makes perfect

sense to split the problem up into harder and easier bits, and tackle the easier

bits first. ‘The history of the past three millennia has shown’, they say, ‘that it is

fruitless to approach this problem head-on’. So instead of carrying on trying to

explain how

the painfulness of pain or the redness of red arises from, or is identical

to, the actions of the brain [. . .] we are attempting to find the neural

‘The hard problem is a

hard problem, but there

is no reason to believe

that it will remain

permanently unsolved’

(Chalmers, 1995a, p. 218)