Consciousness

• seCtIon tWo: tHe BRAIn
  even in a unified way, can feel like something. This is tackled most directly by
  sensorimotor theory (O’Regan and Noë, 2001, Chapter 3), in which the feeling of
  sensations comes about while we are acting; being conscious is actively master-
  ing the contingencies between the external world and what we can do with it.
  What it’s like is not something that has to be mysteriously generated; it is naturally
  constituted by the fact of being engaged in exercising a sensorimotor skill, and
  specific what-it’s-likes can be characterised in terms of dimensions like richness
  (how much information is available), bodiliness (how bodily movements cause
  sensory changes), insubordinateness (how sensory input changes without the
  observer’s voluntary control), and grabbiness (how events grab our cognitive
  systems). Like IIT, this model tries to capture why sensory experiences feel differ-
  ent from each other, but also why each one feels unified – in this case as part of
  embodied action (O’Regan, 2011, e.g. p. 165).

UNITY AS ILLUSION

Finally, some people reject the notion that consciousness is unified at all. James

asked of consciousness, ‘does it only seem continuous to itself by an illusion’?

(1890, i, p. 200). We have questioned whether the stream of conscious vision

could be an illusion. Could the apparent unity of consciousness be an illusion

too? This question is complicated by the fact that whenever we ask ourselves ‘am

I conscious now?’, the answer always seems to be ‘yes’. We cannot catch ourselves

out not being conscious, and when we do find ourselves being conscious there

seems to be one me and one unified experience. But what is it like the rest of the

time?

One possibility is that there is nothing it is like for me most of the time (Blackmore,

2002, 2011). Rather, there are multiple parallel streams of processing going on,

as in Dennett’s theory of multiple drafts. None of these is ‘in’ consciousness or

‘out’ of consciousness; none has a magic extra something that

the others lack; none has been rendered explicit or brought into

consciousness; but all are phenomenally conscious to the extent

that they create some sort of phenomenal world. They arise and

fall away but with no one who experiences them. Then, every so

often, something different happens. Maybe we want to describe

what is going on to ourselves or someone else; or a dramatic

event, like a near miss while driving, makes us review our recent

experience; or the sudden stop of a ticking clock redirects our

attention towards what was or is going on. Then, and only then,

is an experiencing self and a briefly unified stream of experi-

ences concocted, making it seem as though we have been con-

scious all along. At these times, recent events from memory (of

the street or the ticking clock, for example) are brought together

by paying attention to them, and the appearance of a unified

self having unified experiences is created. As soon as attention

lapses, the unity falls apart and things carry on as normal. Just

as the fridge door is usually closed, so we are usually in a state

of parallel multiple drafts. Only when we briefly open the door is

the illusion created that the light is always on.

FIGURE 6.5 • Is the light always on inside the fridge?
Is my consciousness always there even when I’m not
asking the question?