Tearing the Fabric: a Critique of Materialism

One of the long-standing questions in the field of philosophy of mind is called the mind-body problem.The problem is this: given that minds and mental properties appear to be vastly different thanphysical objects and physical properties, how can the mind and body relate to and interact with eachother? Materialism is the currently preferred response to philosophy’s classic mind-body problem.Most contemporary philosophers of mind accept a materialist perspective with respect to the natureof reality. They believe that there is one reality and it is physical. One of the primary problemswith materialism has to do with the issue of physical reduction, that is, if everything is physical,how does the mental reduce to the physical? I argue that the materialistic model is problematicbecause it cannot sufficiently explain the reduction problem. Specifically, the materialist model doesnot account for our subjective experience, including qualia. I also consider the question of why thematerialist stance is so entrenched, given all the problems with the reduction problem that havebeen raised. I argue that the paradigmatic influence of materialism explains the puzzling conclusionsdrawn by philosophers. In closing, I argue that the failure of materialist perspectives to explainreduction is our invitation to take a fresh look at the alternatives. In support of my position, I will consider the reduction problem in two sections. In the first section I will present some contemporary arguments put forth by Jaegwon Kim, Ned Block, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, David Chalmers, Frank Jackson and Roger Penrose. These contemporary arguments address four different reduction problems. Although the arguments presented by Kim, Block, Searle, Nagel, Chalmers, Jackson and Penrose are compelling, I will argue that their arguments have not succeeded in altering the mainstream materialist viewpoint. In the second section of this paper, I will address three of my concerns regarding the reduction issue, i.e., 1) concerns regarding unresolved issues with respect to the reduction problem, 2) concerns that materialism cannot account for common characteristics of our mental experience 3) concerns regarding the validity of the materialist stance in general. In closing, I will argue that the failure of materialist perspectives to conclusively explain mind and consciousness is our invitation to take a fresh look at the alternatives. mind-body problem; materialism; physical reduction; qualia; point-of-view

Ned Block “El Funcionalismo”

Traducción. Título original: “Functionalism”. En: D. Borchert (ed.) (1996). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Supplement. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Why and how access consciousness can account for phenomenal consciousness

According to a popular distinction proposed by the philosopher Ned Block in 1995, our conscious experience would overflow the very limited set of what we can consciously report to ourselves and to others. He proposed to coin this limited consciousness ‘Access Consciousness' (A-Cs) and to define ‘Phenomenal Consciousness’ as a much richer subjective experience that is not accessed but that would still delineate the extent of consciousness. In this article, I review and develop five major problems raised by this theory, and show how a strict A-Cs theory can account for our conscious experience. I illustrate such an A-Cs account within the global workspace (GW) theoretical framework, and revisit some seminal empirical findings and neuropsychological syndromes. In this strict A-Cs perspective, subjective reports are not conceived as the mere passive broadcasting of information to the GW, but as resulting from a dynamic and active chain of internal processes that notably include interpretative and belief attribution stages. Finally, I list a set of testable predictions, of unsolved questions and of some counterintuitive hypotheses. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

Phenomenal consciousness and cognitive access

In consciousness research, it is common to distinguish between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness. Recently, a number of scientists have attempted to show that phenomenal content can be empirically separated from cognitive access and, accordingly, that the mental content that is accessed is not (always) identical to the content that is experienced. One notable position is that of Ned Block who suggests that phenomenal content overflows cognitive access. I will review the evidence and show that existing data, in fact, do not demonstrate overflow. I will further argue that overflow is theoretically possible—yet highly difficult to empirically demonstrate—under the condition that ‘cognitive access’ is defined as working memory or attention. However, if ‘access’ is defined as information becoming ‘cognitively available’, in a broader sense, I will argue that a separation between subjective experience and access is impossible. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

Wittgenstein y la hipótesis del espectro visual invertido

Un caso de inversión peligrosa del espectro visual es aquél en el que dos personas tienen impresiones visuales distintas cuando ven el mismo objeto y sin embargo coinciden al afirmar que el objeto es, por ejemplo, rojo. De acuerdo con Ned Block, si los casos de inversión del espectro visual son concebibles, entonces puede construirse un argumento a favor de la existencia de los qualia: si dos sujetos tienen distintas impresiones visuales, entonces deben estar diciendo cosas distintas cuando profieren "esto es rojo" al describir su modo de ver el mismo objeto. Según Block, Wittgenstein se comprometió con la posibilidad de un tipo de inversión del espectro visual que permite defender la existencia de los qualia y, sin embargo, Wittgenstein parece oponerse a la idea de los qualia, luego hay una incoherencia en su pensamiento. Nuestra tesis en este trabajo es que el argumento de Block no es un problema para la posición de Wittgenstein con respecto al significado de los términos relativos a la percepción y que tal incoherencia en su pensamiento es solo aparente. TITLE: Wittgenstein and the Inverted Spectrum HypothesisABSTRACTA case of dangerous inverted spectrum is that one in which two subjects have different impressions when they see the same object and both claim, for example, that the object is red. According to Ned Block, if cases of dangerous inverted spectrum are conceivable, then we can offer an argument in favour of existence of qualia: two subjects with inverted spectrum don’t mean the same when they utter that the object is red. According to Block, Wittgenstein accepted the possibility of a kind of case of inverted spectrum that allows to defend the existence of qualia, and nevertheless Wittgenstein seems to be opposed to the idea of qualia. There is thus, it seems, an incoherence in the Wittgensteinian thought. Our thesis in this paper is that Wittgensteinian’ discussion about the inverted spectrum hypothesis is a particular discussion about the grammar of perceptual terms that pretends to show the irrelevance of our sensations in determining the meaning of perceptual terms. From this interpretation, the discussion of a case of inverted spectrum does not mean the commitment with the possibility of that case, and then such incoherence on Wittgenstein’ thought is only apparent.

Does Perceptual Consciousness Overflow Cognitive Access? The Challenge from Probabilistic, Hierarchical Processes

Does perceptual consciousness require cognitive access? Ned Block argues it does not. Central to his case are visual memory experiments that employ post-stimulus cueing—in particular, Sperling’s classic partial report studies, change-detection work by Lamme and colleagues, and a recent paper by Bronfman and colleagues that exploits our perception of ‘gist’ properties. We argue contra Block that these experiments do not support his claim. Our reinterpretations differ from previous critics’ in challenging as well a longstanding and common view of visual memory as involving declining capacity across a series of stores. We conclude by discussing the relation of probabilistic perceptual representations and phenomenal consciousness.

Tecendo uma teia: aquisição de conceitos e papel inferencial

Teorias dos conceitos e da aquisição de conceitos são mutua-mente vinculados. O modo como encaramos a aquisição de conceitos depende tanto do que tomamos por conceitos e das habilidades que em-pregamos para adquiri-los. Eu argumento que a abordagem cognitivista da aquisição de novos conceitos proposta por Ned Block não é compatível com a sua concepção semântica de papel conceitual. Se os conceitos são definidos pelos seus papéis conceituais, então a aquisição de novos conceitos mudará os papéis conceituais de conceitos empregados em qualquer forma de formação de hipótese e de aprendizagem de confirmação. Isso quebra a co-nexão que evidencia entre conceitos adquiridos e a evidência utilizada para justificar suas aplicações subsequentes. Consequentemente, a semântica de papel conceitual não pode beneficiar-se das abordagens cognitivistas para a aquisição de conceitos. A despeito disso, elas podem, entretanto, explicar a natureza aparentemente racional da aquisição de conceitos.