What a Pain

Shanahan (p. 228-229) disagrees with Lamme’s suggestion that recurrent processing is sufficient for phenomenal consciousness and introduces an interesting thought experiment to support the view that introspective reporting is very important. Suppose, he suggests, that a company develops a drug to relieve pain only at stage 4. In clinical trials patients report that the medication relieves pain. The FDA, however, refuses to license the drug because it does not affect level 3 processing which means that “pain is still present” (p. 229). This seems absurd. The point is fairly clear—the only relevant form of consciousness is found at stage 4.

Lamme’s reply to this is not very helpful. He wonders how much can be taken away from pain before it is no longer pain (p. 235). He suggests that we could take away the fear associated with pain, or the memories that accompany it, but, he says, “wouldn’t it still be pain?” (p. 235). He allows that when “enough has been stripped away, pain may turn into something categorically different, like an itch” (p. 235). He adds that this will go along with a change in the stage 3 representation (p. 235). He concludes that it is “all about context, about perceptual organization, about combining information” (p. 235). He compares it to viewing 600nm as either orange or red, noting that which color we see is a matter of lighting (p. 235).

This thought experiment is provocative and I do not think that Lamme’s reply fully addresses it. Are you still phenomenally experiencing pain if you are not aware of it? To me, this seems ridiculous. I asked several other people (very scientific methodology) and some of them suggested that, when one is taking a pain killer or Novocain, one is still in pain—it just can’t be felt while the medication is working. This sounds similar to Lamme’s claim. Indeed, anyone who has had dental work knows that one minute you may feel fine and the next you can be in agony which suggests the underlying pain cause is still present. This, to me, does not mean, however, that you are in pain. Pain is a potent phenomenal state that may or may not be causally linked to an underlying pathology. In many cases, the pain can be masked by a drug while the underlying pathology remains. If one is not actually experiencing the pain, though, it would be nonsensical to say one is in pain. In summary, if stage 3 processes register pain but one does not feel it, (this has not been shown but would be an interesting experiment) then it decisively shows that stage 3 processing is not relevant to phenomenal awareness. To suggest that one is in pain without feeling it, I believe, is certainly a case of philosophical chicanery.*


*Lamme could cite the Vuilleumier et al. (2001) experiment to show that in some cases of neglect, visual illusions “coming from the neglected hemifield still “work” to influence the percepts that are reported by the patient from the intact hemifield” (p. 211). This would support the claim that one can have phenomenology without access or reportability. It could be replied,

Not so HOT...

With an incredulous gasp Matthias read the final lines of Rosenthal’s article. He then set to work typing the following hyperbolic blurb all the while referring to himself in the third person… Just kidding, he wouldn’t do that to you. (Sorry for posting on your blog Louie)

In the course of his “Varieties of Higher-Order Theory,” Rosenthal argues that we need to rely on higher-order theories to explain how we can be conscious of conscious states. This consciousness of conscious states refers to our capacity for introspection. We can think about what we are thinking about, we can reflect upon our visual field. Rosenthal seems to think the only explanation for such experiences is a higher-order theory—specifically a higher-order thought (HOT) model. A HOT is essentially attached experiences in which “we are introspectively conscious of a state… in a deliberate attentively focused way” (24). Rosenthal initially characterizes the experience of conscious introspection as very ordinary (who hasn’t felt the sting of self-consciousness at a middle school dance?) but quickly asserts that “introspection involves actually being aware that we are conscious of those [mental] states” (24). Since the mental states themselves are conscious (in the state rather than transitive/introspective sense of consciousness) it sounds as though Rosenthal is embracing a third level of consciousness -awareness of consciously attending to conscious mental states. Though he is quick to recognize the potential for regress in higher-order theories, Rosenthal believes a variant of the HOT model escapes this worry. In doing so, he seems to mystify HOT consciousness, claiming that we aren’t typically conscious of any HOTs (33), and that we “are rarely conscious of that higher-order awareness” (37).
The retreat from the commonness of the experience of introspection seems in part motivated by a phenomenological argument. In an intuitively appealing passage, Rosenthal gives an account of the argument that leads many theorists to reject higher-order theories;

“When a state is conscious, we are conscious of that state. But, except for the
special case of introspective consciousness, we are not also conscious of being
conscious of the state; it seems subjectively that we are conscious of only one
state. So, if one relied on consciousness to reveal mental functioning, one would
conclude that, when a state is conscious, there aren’t two states but only
one” (31)

But Rosenthal claims this argument incorrectly assumes mental functioning is revealed to us by consciousness. The example he uses is that when viewing Warhol’s repetitions of Marilyn Monroe’s portrait, we subjectively seem to see the various portraits with the same degree of clarity, which we know empirically to be false. From Rosenthal’s perspective this proves that consciousness doesn’t accurately reveal mental functioning. The empirical fact that we don’t always consciously represent the world accurately seems irrelevant to the argument. Proving that subjective experience isn’t always accurate does little to advance Rosenthal’s argument. At most it shows that we shouldn’t rely entirely on introspection in our investigation of consciousness. It does not show that we need a higher-order theory to explain the phenomena of introspectable mental states. Through the article, Rosenthal has back-peddled on introspection turning it into a rare experience, partly because a phenomenal investigation of introspection doesn’t reveal a state of consciousness of a state of consciousness. Calling HOTs rare and saying that subjective experience is fallible doesn’t amount to a persuasive argument for the existence of HOT’s.

Popping Out Versus Filling In

Although the details differ, Clark shares Block’s claim of the existence of awareness/attention-free phenomenal properties (Clark 2006: 9-10). In addition, Clark – again, like Block – attempts to utilize empirical data to bolster said claim. One example utilized by Clark is that of the “popping out” effect revealed by such visual curiosities as the Kanizsa square (Ibid. 12). What follows is an attempt to undermine Clark’s case based upon the notion that what Clark calls a “pop out” effect in the visual processing of the Kanizsa square is actually a “filling in.” Moreover, “filling in” does not show what Clark claims “popping out” does.

Clark’s case, in short, is as follows. Empirical data supports the notion that vision is a serial process resulting from the combination of distinct/modular systems. The detection of features such as “edge level” occur previous to reportable awareness (Ibid. 5). That the lines of a square are reportable in the Kanizsa square where no such lines actually exist, but are nonetheless reportable, is according to Clark an example of pre-awareness phenomenal properties. This “popping out” “indicates a special kind of ‘preattentive’ processing” (Ibid. 3). The ability to report the awareness of the line is an “example of good, clean, traditional talk of phenomenal properties” (Ibid. 13). Thus, if attention is necessarily present along with the occurrence of phenomenal properties, then, based upon the empirical evidence of the visual system, humans ought not be able to report being able to see the lines of the Kanizsa square.

The empirical data, however, does not demonstrate what Clark thinks it does. “Popping out” in such cases as the Kanizsa square demonstrates that the visual system of humans can “fill in” their phenomenally laden awareness without the stimuli in the world that corresponds to the reported experience. In the case of the Kanizsa square, the lines of a square are “filled in” where no such lines exist in the world. One need not look to such visual curiosities as Kanizsa squares to find evidence of “filling in.” During the entire life of an awake human with normal visual functions is the “filling in” present in the form of the filled in blind spot. Humans do not have a phenomenal free zone where the optic nerve connects to the eyeball, and yet phenomenal properties are there to be reported. What Clark calls the “pop out” effect is actually “filling in.” The appearance of the lines of the Kanizsa square lends support to the idea that humans can “fill in” their visual field, i.e., have awareness with phenomenal properties, without external stimuli, and not that humans can have phenomenal properties without awareness.

Blindsight Video

Greetings,

The following link is to a video of a subject with blindsight navigating around obstacles:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?lineup=1406165298&id=79566940001

I thought it helpful to contemplate Block's notion of phenomenal consciousness overflowing cognitive accessibility in relation to a case such as the one demonstrated in the video.

Enjoy.

Passing the Buck to Many Little Men

Baars presents the Global Workspace (GW) as an empirically testable model of consciousness. Moreover, Baars presents the GW as an “expansion” of Crick’s research on visual attention and the “searchlight of attention” metaphor (Baars 2003: 1114 and 1118). Baars, pace Crick, believes that the GW overcomes philosophical criticisms such as those that accuse other theories of consciousness of being merely another form of the “Cartesian theatre” (Ibid. 1114). Theories of consciousness that are accused of being Cartesian theatres are found lacking because they posit a single point in the brain/mind where information, perception, representations, etc. come together. This is problematic because it suggests that there is a single perceiver in the brain/mind for whom said data is presented. Often, this perceiver is called the homunculus, and the fallacy is so too named. Cartesian theatre and homunculus-like explanations of consciousness are problematic because they fall into a regress: “Well, if conscious experience is for the audience in the theater or for the homunculus, then how do we explain how the audience or homunculus experiences a unified conscious experience?”

Baars’ response to the above criticism is as follows. The GW is not a Cartesian theater and there is no homunculus because, “In the Global Workspace theory the single homunculus is replaced by a large ‘audience of experts,’” whereby there is, "no fixed, subordinate observer. Individual modules can pay as much or as little attention as suits them, based upon their particular expertise” (Newman, Baars, and Cho 2003: 1132). One need not be a nitpicking philosopher or an expert in logic to realize an obvious flaw in Baars’ reply to the above criticisms. In positing an “audience of experts” as a solution to the Cartesian theatre and/or homunculus challenges, Baars is merely shifting the burden of explanation from one audience/homunculus to many members of an audience/expert homunculi. In other words, Baars is passing the buck to many little men. Instead of explaining how one little man in the head perceives a “bound” perceptual experience, Baars’ GW now has the burden of explaining how each of the little expert men do their perceiving, and how their separate perceptions are unified into a single conscious experience.

Baars explains that useful metaphors in science “should help organize existing evidence, yield testable hypotheses and suggest conceptual clarifications” (p. 1115). Baars believes the theater metaphor, characteristic of the global workspace (GW) model fulfills these requirements. I think the theater metaphor, particularly the role of the director, however, is somewhat confusing and not entirely helpful in understanding attention and consciousness. More specifically, I think Baar’s theater metaphor fails to capture an aspect of attention and consciousness, and it also fails to accurately capture the concept if a stage director

The spotlight metaphor is prima facie appealing. It is a metaphor commonly used (see Gopnik’s reply to Block for an example) and is an intuitively appealing description of attention. When you attend to something, it is as though the object of attention is highlighted. The stage metaphor incorporates this particular sub-metaphor well and, additionally, highlights the cooperative (or even competitive) nature of brain function.

That being said, I think the stage metaphor, in general, suggests a counter-intuitive view of attention. Stage productions tend to be highly planned. Each lighting cue is worked out in advance, each exit and each entrance is timed and rehearsed (this is not always the case, but it often is). Consciousness and attention appear to be much more dynamic. The “spotlight” can switch suddenly from one object (a book) to another one (a loud noise) for a variety of reasons.

This dissimilarity is further demonstrated in Baars’ discussion of the stage director. He explains that the “left-brain “narrative-interpreter” receives its own sensory inflow from the right visual field, so that it “observes” a conscious flow of visual information” (p. 1119). He continues saying that “each interpretive system can control its own voluntary motor functions and thus there is an obvious analogy with a stage director, who observes events on stage and orders changes where needed” (p. 1119-1120). The director, though, does a great deal of his work in advance. The director guides a production (in various ways) to meet his particular vision of the play. This would include deciding what the lighting would be like and so on. The situation Baars is describing sounds more like an orchestra conductor or even a head coach or manager whose role is more dynamic and unfolds in real time.

These ambiguities and disanalogies make it difficult to imagine exactly what determines where the spotlight is directed. Does the audience of experts decide or does the director, who is perhaps more like a conductor, direct the spotlight to whatever the audience might find interesting or important? I think the theater metaphor needs some modification (some modifications are made in Newman et al.) to be useful in investigating attention and consciousness.

Premature Speculation

Block is premature in arguing that the allegedly relevant empirical data shows that phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility (481). Although they state that they agree with Block’s point, Koch and Tsuchiya undermine a key portion of Block’s chosen empirical data (509). Koch and Tsuchiya cite Block’s utilization of fMRI data, particularly data on the fusiform face area, which is alleged to demonstrate phenomenal consciousness without cognitive access (510). Koch and Tsuchiya object to this evidence on the grounds that “vigorous” fMRI signals are not enough to account for consciousness. As they note, the relationship among the signals measured by fMRI is “very complex” (510). At most, activity in the fusiform face area is correlated with conscious face recognition. Moreover, even Block notes that, “Mere correlation is too weak” and that, “At a minimum, one wants the neural underpinnings of a match of content between the mental and neural state” (483).

Perhaps, it can be argued, Block’s point remains potent even if the fMRI data on the fusiform face area is speculative at best. Unfortunately for Block, if data such as the aforementioned are undermined, then so is his overall case. Block is counting on the empirical data to support his distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness. It is far too early in the neuroscience game to make such strong claims as Block’s that phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive access. As Koch and Tsuchiya’s criticism of the fusiform face area fMRI data demonstrate, Block’s utilization of his chosen empirical data overextends said data’s power of explanation. When, or if, a mature neuroscience of consciousness comes to fruition, that is, one that does not merely correlate phenomenology with brute neural activity but posits clear and evidenced explanations, then such hypotheses as overflowing phenomenal consciousness can compellingly be tested. Until then, Block is exploiting data that is correlative at best or just plain wrong at worst.