2 Mysterianism
In this section we review all the major arguments which have been presen-
ted in defence ofmysterianism– the doctrine that phenomenal conscious-
ness is, and must forever remain, a mystery. We propose to show that none
of these arguments is compelling. This is in itself no positive argument
againstmysterianism, of course. We shall then turn to the positive project
in section 3, considering various proposed explanations of phenomenal
consciousness.
2.1 Perspectival and subjective facts?Nagel (1986) has emphasised how, when we do science, we try to represent
the world from no particular point of view. When we seek an objective
characterisation of the world and the processes which take place within it,
we try toWnd ways of describing the world which do not depend upon the
particular structure of our sense-organs, or upon our limited, and neces-
sarily partial, perspectives. We also try to describe our own relationship to
the world in essentially the same objective, perspectiveless, vocabulary. So
when we do science, instead of talking about colours we talk about the
reXective properties of surfaces and wavelengths of light; and we try to
explain colour perception in terms of the impact of light rays on the rods
and cones in the retina, and the further neural events which are then caused
to take place in the brain. In Nagel’s phrase, the scientiWc view of the world
isthe view from nowhere.
Nagel argues, however, that there are some facts which are, and must be,
invisibleto science. And since they are invisible to science, they must
inevitably beinexplicable byscience, as well. These are perspectival and
subjective facts. Science can provide (or at least allow for) a perspectiveless
description of the layout of objects in my oYce, for example, but it cannot
account for the fact that the desk is overtherewhile I am sittinghere. For
such facts are inherently perspectival, Nagel thinks. They characterise
places, not objectively, but from the standpoint of a particular perspective
- namely, in this case, mine. Equally, science may one day be able to
provide a complete objective description of what takes place in my brain
when I perceive a red tomato. But what it cannot account for, Nagel
maintains, is what it isliketo see a red tomato – thesubjective feel, or the
phenomenology, of the experience itself. Science can hope to describe the
processes of perception objectively, from the outside, but this leaves out
what these processes are likefor the subject, from the inside.
These claims are not convincing as stated. For they conXate the level
ofreference(the domain of facts) with the level ofsense(the domain of
234 Consciousness: theWnal frontier?