[This is work-in-progress.]
Abstract
Do you feel that materialist explanations of consciousness all lack something essential? But you’re equally or even more uncomfortable with dualism and philosophical idealism?
This theory is perfectly compatible with scientific materialism, in fact it does nothing more than just add in that missing element.
Intersubjective panpsychism (ISP) developed out of the subjective/objective aspect theory (see A new dual aspect theory) and is entirely compatible with materialism à la Daniel Dennett (Dennett@Wikipedia). In fact, they’re complementary: not alternatives, but equally important aspects of reality—so this is a dual aspect-type theory.
We really need to appreciate the significance of inter/subjectivity. I use “inter/subjective” to mean “subjective and/or intersubjective”. I say that
- consciousness as individual experience is subjective, and
- the attribution of consciousness to others is intersubjective, and
- attribution is an essential element in the development of self-consciousness, through which we reflect on our individual experience,
- so consciousness overall is inter/subjective.
To say that about consciousness is in no way to diminish it—because inter/subjectivity is just as important as objectivity—so it should be quite acceptable that, objectively, there is nothing but blind mechanism—from that point of view we’re all zombies.
But objectivity’s inappropriate there. When dealing with people—because we’re people too, not the disembodied intellects some of us like to imagine—inter/subjectivity is not just natural (though it is that), but intrinsically superior. So intersubjective panpsychism is simply and precisely just what’s missing from Daniel Dennett’s account. (In general terms, that is: I have a couple of quibbles with his story, in addition to adding ISP to it.)
Depending on the context, it can be appropriate to attribute consciousness to anything or everything (though the less like a person something is, the fewer the situations in which it will be advantageous to treat it as conscious), thus “panpsychism”.
Other keywords describing this approach, besides those already mentioned, are pragmatism and instrumentalism.
Introduction
It has sometimes been suggested that, in order to find a widely acceptable solution to the mind/body problem, or Chalmers’ “hard problem” [2], what is required is a paradigm shift in analytic philosophy. I agree with that and believe I have identified the precise nature of the shift required, which concerns our values: we need to raise the status of inter/subjectivity. This also makes relatively trivial the solution of some other long-standing philosophical problems, notably those identified by Thomas Nagel in his essay Subjective and objective [4] as concerning the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity. Here, however, I focus on the “hard problem.”
As an undergraduate studying philosophy and psychology, with a particular interest in the mind/body problem, my ideological archenemy was Daniel Dennett. I felt honour-bound to defend consciousness against the materialist philosophers who, in my view, tried to diminish its significance and even eliminate it because they could not explain it in material terms, and Dennett was their most formidable representative. My favourite text was Nagel’s What is it like to be a bat? [5], which had been published just a few years earlier. Consciousness was not just the capacity to enjoy pleasure and suffer pain, vital as that is, but had more subtle, spiritual qualities, with altered states including religious experience. It had come to encompass all my ideals—I was very idealistic—and I felt that materialism was a serious threat to core human values. To diminish or deny consciousness was to reduce us to mere mechanism, to inhibit compassion for each other and for members of other species and to drain significance from spirituality.
But now I’m a materialist myself. And an extreme one, in the eyes of some, because I say that we are the zombies: objectively, there is no subjective experience—no will, whether free or determined, because there is no experience of willing, nor of anything else. I believe that the experience of considering a human without projecting the concept of consciousness upon him or her explains the widely-credited plausibility of the zombie scenario, despite the very people who rely most heavily on that plausibility being among those who most firmly reject materialism. Note, however, that on this view consciousness remains inexplicable in material terms—because, in these terms, there is nothing to explain.
If my undergraduate self had been told that he’d eventually adopt such a position—and his incredulity somehow overcome—he’d have been utterly horrified. So what has changed? I was convinced, then, that there must be facts, or at least rational arguments, that would support my values, and all I had to do was find them. Of course, philosophers are not scientists, and considerations of value should not be anathema to them, but values cannot determine matters of fact. I finally accepted materialist metaphysics only when I could see how my most cherished ideals were, in fact, entirely compatible with materialism because they are “merely” subjective, where the only problem is indicated by the word in quotes. If I’d not found that compatibility, however, I’d have continued to resist materialism, despite failing to find any plausible alternative model. I’m still an idealist, you see. The compatibility having been discovered, though, I can yield with good grace to Dennett on most matters of fact and rationality while retaining my values. I do disagree with his eschewal of inter/subjective considerations, which can be highly enlightening, in their place.
Patricia Churchland says we don’t know that Chalmers’ “hard problem” is really any more hard than many others [1, p50-52], and “we don’t know how consciousness is produced in brains” (ibid., p51). I’m convinced that it’s a pseudo-problem, and that consciousness is not produced. Later in the same interview she says “. . . there really are these qualitative experiences. . . ” (ibid., p60). Well of course there are. A common expression in this field is “subjective experience,” in which, surely, “subjective” is strictly redundant, experience being necessarily so, but the word serves as a reminder. The point being that, whether we call it “real” or not, experience can reasonably be considered to actually happen, the word is meaningful and useful, but it is not an objective phenomenon.
I believe that, inter/subjectively (subjectively and/or intersubjectively), consciousness is best considered to be at base an eternal, universal field, that permeates empty space, the interiors of stars and solid rock, just as it does our brains—but outside of brains, it’s really just a potential. (What realises that potential in brains is intentional information.) I call this “intersubjective panpsychism.” I intend to demonstrate that this is perfectly compatible with what, for terminological consistency, we should call “objective materialism,” though of course we take it for granted that materialism is objective. The departure is in raising the status of inter/subjectivity to equal that of objectivity, each in its own domain of appropriate application. Such a move is extremely unconventional, but also extremely simple and powerful. I was started along the path towards it by Thomas Nagel, though of course my current views differ significantly from his, and any errors are entirely my own responsibility.
[1] Susan Blackmore. Conversations on Consciousness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005.
[2] David Chalmers. Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3):200–19, 1995.
[3] Thomas Nagel. Mortal Questions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979.
[4] Thomas Nagel. Subjective and objective. In Mortal Questions [3].
[5] Thomas Nagel. What is it like to be a bat? In Mortal Questions [3]. First published in 1974.
