- seCtIon tHRee: BoDY AnD WoRLD
In the nineteenth century, as physiologists began to under-
stand reflex arcs and nerve function, this problem loomed
even larger. Shadworth Hodgson declared that feelings,
however intensely they may be felt, can have no causal
efficacy whatever. He likened the states of the nervous
system to the stones of a mosaic, and feelings, or ‘states
of consciousness’, to the colours on the stones (1870, i, p.
336). All the work of holding the mosaic in place is done by
the stones, not by the colours. In other words, conscious
states are epiphenomena. This was similar to Thomas
Huxley’s claim that we humans are ‘conscious automata’
(Chapter 1). James, however, objected that ‘to urge the
automaton-theory upon us [. . .] is an unwarrantable imper-
tinence in the present state of psychology’ (1890, i, p. 138).
But his reasons for saying so were, as much as anything,
about acknowledging our ignorance and appealing to the
idea of common sense – which we have already seen can
be misleading.
James predicted that for years to come, we would have to
infer what happens in the brain by making inferences from
our feelings or behaviours: ‘The organ will be for us a sort
of vat in which feelings and motions somehow go on stewing together, and
in which innumerable things happen of which we catch but the statistical
result’ (p. 138). More than a century later, brain imaging and other technol-
ogies have given us far greater knowledge of the stew pot or the sandwich
filling. But the conundrum is far from resolved, and may even have become
worse, perhaps in part because of an overly tight focus on the brain in isola-
tion. We may think that our subjective feelings and conscious volitions cause
our actions, yet when we study the intricate workings of the brain there is no
room for them to do anything at all. Information enters the nervous system
through the senses, flows through numerous parallel pathways to various
brain areas, and ultimately affects a person’s speech and other actions. But
where do the conscious sensations and volitions come in? How could they
intervene – or why should they – in such a continuous physical process? As
Kim (2007, p. 407) puts it: ‘Aren’t the underlying physical/neural processes
ultimately doing all the actual pushing and pulling, with no work left for con-
sciousness to do?’
For Max Velmans, ‘consciousness presents a Causal Paradox’. As he points out:
‘Viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness appears to be necessary
for most forms of complex or novel processing. But, viewed from a third-person
perspective, consciousness does not appear to be necessary for any form of
processing’ (2009, p. 300). Taking an example from medicine, he notes that we
take all four possible causal links between physical and mental for granted (bio-
medical interventions, neurosurgery and psychoactive drugs, psychotherapy,
and psychosomatic medicine). An adequate theory of consciousness, he says,
must make sense of these causal interactions and so resolve the paradox with-
out violating either our intuitions about our own experiences or the findings of
science.‘to urge the automaton-
theory upon us [. . .]
is an unwarrantable
impertinence in the present
state of psychology’
(James, 1890, i, p. 138)
‘from a third-person
perspective, phenomenal
consciousness appears
to play no causal role in
mental life, while from a
first-person perspective it
appears to be central’
(Velmans, 2009, p. 315)
FIGURE 8.3 • Descartes tried to explain reflex
responses, like removing your foot
from a hot fire, in purely mechanical
terms. He believed that the fire
affected the skin and pulled a tiny
thread which opened a pore in the
brain’s ventricle and caused animal
spirits to flow. But where does
consciousness come in? It is tempting
to think that a signal must come ‘into
consciousness’ before we can decide
to act on it. But is this right?