Ted Honderich
Actual Consciousness: A Lecture -- Database, Theory,
Physicalities, Criteria
29 Mar 15
from Actual Consciousness, Oxford University
Press. Whole lecture at: http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/
1. Questions of consciousness in the primary ordinary
sense and of perceptual, cognitive and affective consciousness in particular.
Common sense definition? Our holds on our consciousnesses. Pessimisms of Chomsky,
Nagel, Chalmers, McGinn etc about a theory or analysis of consciousness. Is disagreement etc. about a theory mainly owed
to no adequate initial clarification of subject, not talking about the same
thing?
Help from 5 leading ideas? Qualia
– only conflicted consensus; only part of consciousness; only qualities. Something it's like for a thing to be that
thing – circularity; want of reality. Subjectivity
as metaphysical self/subject – circularity; obscurity. Intentionality or aboutness -- ambiguity etc. re objects; only part
of consciousness. Phenomenality –
miscellany; obscurity. Block on mongrel concept. Chalmers bundle; 5 ideas ‘synonyms’.
But, reassuringly, real thoughts, concepts, impulses in 5 ideas and also elsewhere in past and present
science and philosophy -- despite no adequate initial clarification.
2. A database. Your being conscious now in the primary
ordinary or core sense is:
the having of something, something being had,
hence something being held,
possessed or owned,
your seeing, thinking,
wanting in the ordinary active sense of the verbs,
experience in the sense of
the experiencing of something,
something being met with,
encountered, undergone, in contact,
inattentive awareness of
something,
something being directly or
immediately in touch,
something being apparent,
something not deduced,
inferred, posited, constructed, or got from something else,
something somehow existing,
something being for something,
something being to something,
something being in view, on
view, in a point of view,
something being open, provided,
supplied,
something to which there is some
privileged access,
in the case of perception,
there being the world as it is for something,
what involves or is an object
or content,
an object or content's coming
to us straight-off,
something being given,
hence something existing and
known,
something being present,
something being presented,
something being shown,
revealed or manifest,
something here and now,
something transparent in the sense of being unconveyed
by anything else,
something clear straight-off,
something being open,
in the case of perception,
the openness of a world
something being close,
an occurrent or event, not a
disposition to such events,
something real,
something being vividly
naked,
something being right there.
Consciousness as something being actual -- figurative encapsulation of the above
figurative database. Actual consciousness.
What is actual? Being actual is what? Answers to the questions are first two
criteria of good theory or analysis of consciousness..
3. Theory of abstract
functionalism in fact = traditional and contemporary mind-body dualism. Various
other uniform or flattening theories. General Physicalism, particular
physicalisms, Aboutness, Mentalism, Panpsychism, general externalisms of Burge etc.
Hence all criteria: answers to What is
actual?, Being actual is what?; finding
reality of this consciousness; difference in kind of consciousness from all
else; true subjectivity including a credible or persuasive unity; its three
parts, sides or kinds of elements; naturalism - consciousness being in and of
science; its relations to behaviour and to a brain or other basis and also
other relations.
4. The 5 leading ideas; consciousness
being actual – the ontic & epistemic database; and also the various
theories -- all bring up what it is for
something to be objectively physical – the objective physical world. 16
characteristics, first of physicality and then of objectivity. Left hand column
of the table below. Whole table having to do with more physicality than objective.
Genus, 2 species, 2 sub-species. Concordant likenesses and differences in
columns. Pedestrian v. high-level or only science account.
PHYSICALITY |
/ \
/ \
SUBJECTIVE
PHYSICALITY |
/ /
\
/ / \
|
OBJECTIVE PHYSICAL WORLD |
SUBJECTIVE PHYSICAL WORLDS: Perceptual Consciousness |
SUBJECTIVE PHYSICAL
REPRESENTATIONS: Cognitive and Affective Consciousness |
|
|
|
|
|
ITS PHYSICALITY |
THEIR PHYSICALITY |
THEIR PHYSICALITY |
1 |
in the inventory of science |
in the inventory of science |
in the inventory of science |
2 |
open to the scientific method |
open to the scientific method |
open to the scientific method |
3 |
in space and time |
in space and time |
in space and time |
4 |
in particular lawful connections |
in particular lawful connections |
in particular lawful connections |
5 |
in categorial lawful connections |
in categorial lawful connections, including those with the objective
physical world and the conscious thing |
in categorial lawful connections, including those with the objective
physical world and the conscious thing |
6 |
macroworld perception microworld deduction |
constitutive of macroworld
perception |
not perceived, but dependent on macroworld perception |
7 |
more than one point of view with macroworld |
more than one point of view with perception |
no point of view |
8 |
different from different points of view |
different from different points of view |
no differences from points of view |
9 |
primary and secondary properties |
primary and secondary properties |
no primary and secondary properties |
|
|
|
|
|
ITS OBJECTIVITY |
THEIR SUBJECTIVITY |
THEIR SUBJECTIVITY |
10 |
separate from consciousness |
not separate from consciousness |
not separate from consciousness |
11 |
public |
private |
private |
12 |
common access |
privileged access |
privileged access |
13 |
truth and logic, more subject to? |
truth and logic, less subject to? |
truth and logic, less subject to? |
14 |
open to the scientific method |
open to the scientific method despite doubt |
open to the scientific method, despite doubt |
15 |
includes no self or unity or other such inner fact of subjectivity
inconsistent with the above properties of the
objective physical world |
each subjective physical world is an element in an individuality that
is a unique and large unity of lawful and conceptual dependencies including
much else |
each representation is an element in an individuality that is a unique
and large unity of lawful and conceptual dependencies including much else |
16 |
hesitation about whether objective physicality includes consciousness |
no significant hesitation about taking the above subjective
physicality as being that of actual perceptual consciousness |
no significant hesitation about taking this subjective physicality as
being the nature of actual cognitive and affective consciousness |
5. Perceptual consciousness –
what is actual? Only a subjective physical world, lawfully dependent on the
objective physical world and a perceiver. Whatever other effects on unconscious mentality, consciousness without representations.
6. Its being actual is its being subjectively physical in
given way. Middle column above. 7. Cognitive and affective
consciousness. What is actual? Representations. 8. Their being
actual? Being differently subjectively physical. Right hand column. 9. Zombie objection, changing
tune, individuality, old hat. 10. Actualism’s further merits: (a) Not ‘semantics’.
(b) Pessimisms defeated. (c) Correct representationism. (d) Not Naive Realism. (e) Liberation of science, Copernicanism etc.
(f) Theory fertile, a workplace. (g)
Contribution to old problem of
determinism and freedom. (h) Actual consciousness the right consciousness to
consider? (i) Little
Copernicanism. Hume’s hope.