Book Review: ‘Galileo’s Error’ A Treat For Consciousness Theorists And The Philosophy-Oriented 

Perhaps, Seth is right that as we learn more about the brain, we will eventually stop worrying where consciousness came from (although there is no sign of this happening yet). But it could equally be that the “Darwin of consciousness” will come along and solve the problem of consciousness in a satisfying way.

When we neglect the role of deep thought in science, we close off options. It is quite possible that progress on our scientific understanding of consciousness will be made not only through observation of the brain — important as that is — but also through radically re-imagining mind and brain, dreaming up new possibilities not so far entertained by our theories.

Like his fellow materialist Patricia Churchland, Dennett has little time for thought experiments, unless they are thought experiments intended to debunk the confused and over-simplistic intuitions that he believes drive most philosophical theories. As you might imagine, he is not prepared to learn lessons about consciousness from the far-fetched tale of Black and White Mary.

… One way for me to attempt to visualise the special quality of experiencing colour is to liken colour to the musical quality of tones, or chroma. Whereas colours have brightness and hue … tones have loudness, pitch, timbre and chroma…. Although the “chroma metaphor” may convey the idea of a special sensory property solely as an abstract thought exercise, it can never depict the actual experience of colours. Colours, like tones and tastes, are firsthand sensory experiences, and no amount of acquired theoretical knowledge can create this experience.

I believe that Mary will be able to sense and discriminate color hues but will not be able to name them on the basis of her knowledge.

The ‘Saiva Siddhanta’ understanding and use of this parable, consistent with its acknowledgement of ultimate reality as the condition which renders possible the being and the knowing of what is, is more positive and less positivistic. The real elephant can be known only by seeing it and so one who is “blind” simply does not know, even if he touches all its parts.

At best, Libet’s experiments prove that the conscious mind is unable to initiate a completely random and meaningless action. But such an action would not be a case of free choice anyway — not in any sense that we care about — and so this result does nothing to undermine the case for genuine freedom.

The materialist assumes that everything that happens in the physical world has a prior cause, which either determines precisely what will happen or — in the case of quantum indeterminacy — determines the objective probability of what will happen. But for the panpsychist, a different model is possible. It could be that past events pressure physical entities in the present to behave in a certain way but that it is always up to present physical entities whether or not to accept that pressure.

As we move to simpler and simpler forms of life, behavior may be more and more predictable...It could be that the animal chose the behavior in response to its inclinations, even if — in the absence of rational deliberation — it was inevitable that the animal would follow its strongest inclinations. It seems to me coherent to suppose that this model also holds in the subatomic realm. Clearly, particles don’t rationally deliberate, and hence don’t “choose” in the sense that human beings “choose.” But it could be that they act through responsiveness to inclinations, inclinations produced in them by prior states of affairs. Like infants and some nonhuman animals, it may be inevitable that particles will follow their inclinations, which accounts for their predictability.

When we shift our gaze from humans to a bonobo or a chimpanzee, we find that the icon of each tells us far less about the conscious world that hides behind it. But as we shift our gaze again, from a chimp to a cat, then to a mouse, an ant, a bacterium, virus, rock, molecule, atom, and quark, each successive icon that appears in our interface tells us less and less about the efflorescence of consciousness behind the icon —again, ‘behind’ in the same sense that a file lies “behind” its desktop icon. With a bacterium, the poverty of our icon makes us suspect that there is, in fact, no such conscious world. With rocks, molecules, atoms, and quarks, our suspicion turns to near certainty. We have been taken in. We have mistaken the limits of our interface for an insight into reality. We have finite capacities of perception and memory. But we are embedded in an infinite network of conscious agents whose complexity exceeds our finite capacities.

The nature of these experiences is, perhaps, most fully articulated in the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta, which traces its roots back to the first millennium BCE but was most prominently defended by the eighth-century scholar Adi Shankara. In ordinary states of consciousness, there is a distinction between the subject and the object of the experience, that is to say between the thing which has the experience (e.g., me or you) and the things which are experienced (e.g., pleasures, pains, sensations, etc.). But in the mystical experience, this division apparently collapses and the mystic enjoys a state of formless consciousness.

The Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, has forcefully pressed this point on Harris, arguing that the only solution is to postulate a God whose commands can serve as the grounds of objective moral truth. This theory has the disadvantage of being both profligate and unsatisfying. For, we now have the question: What makes it the case that God’s commands have moral force? The view of the mystics, in contrast, does provide a satisfying account of the objectivity of ethics. Selfish conduct is rooted in the belief that we are wholly separate and distinct individuals. But according to the mystics, this belief in the total separateness of people is false. According to the testimony of mystics, it is this realization that results in the boundless compassion of the enlightened.

Behind everything the same divinity is existing and out of this comes the basis of morality. Do not injure another. Love everyone as your own self, because the whole universe is one. In injuring another, I am injuring myself; in loving another, I am loving myself. There are moments when every man feels that he is one with the universe, and he rushes forth to express it, whether he knows it or not. This expression of oneness is what we call love and sympathy, and it is the basis of all our ethics and morality. This is summed up in the Vedantic philosophy by the celebrated aphorism, Tat Tvam Asi (Thou art That).

If we were to adopt the panpsychist interpretation of the mystical hypothesis, we could secure these advantages with zero cost, as this theory commits us to nothing beyond the physical universe we all believe in anyway. I am still hesitant about endorsing this view. Its implications have profound significance for the meaning of human life. While I have access to the datum that motivates panpsychism, namely conscious experience, I do not have access to the putative evidence that would make it rational for me to accept the mystical worldview.

If it’s okay for us to trust our sensory experiences, how could it be irrational for mystics to do the same with respect to their mystical experiences? To accuse the mystic of irrationality would be to employ a double standard. The appropriate attitude to mystical experiences, for those who haven’t had them, is probably one of agnosticism, the withholding of belief either that mystical experiences provide genuine insight into the nature of reality, or that they are delusions. Having said that, I can’t help being excited by the possibility that, in a panpsychist worldview, the yearnings of faith and the rationality of science might finally come into harmony. Perhaps, it’s okay to hope. And to keep meditating.