# Consciousness Studies/The Description Of Consciousness

*This section presents the empirical idea of consciousness. What
consciousness is like before theories are applied to explain it. It is
based on descriptions from the Historical Review.*

## The definition and description of phenomenal consciousness

What is it like to be conscious? Before embarking on the analysis of
phenomenal consciousness it is important to have a definition of what it
is that we are attempting to explain. The article below considers
empirical descriptions of phenomenal consciousness. It shows that
phenomenal consciousness is the space, time and content of our minds
(where the content contains intuitions and feelings). As will be seen in
later parts of the book not all philosophers and scientists accept that
this \"phenomenal consciousness\" actually exists.

### Introduction

Empirical descriptions of phenomenal consciousness have been available
in Western literature for centuries and in Eastern literature for
millennia. It is often maintained that no-one can define consciousness
but there is a large body of literature that gives a clear empirical
description of it. Perhaps the claim that no-one can define
consciousness is frustration at the fact that no-one can explain
consciousness.

Weiskrantz (1988) asserted that \"Each of us will have his or her own
idea of what, if anything, is meant by consciousness\...\" and that
insisting upon a precise definition would be a mistake. Koch and Crick
(1999) stated that \"Consciousness is a vague term with many usages and
will, in the fullness of time, be replaced by a vocabulary that more
accurately reflects the contribution of different brain processes.\"

But is consciousness really a \"vague term\" and should we each have our
own idea of what it means? The empirical descriptions of Descartes, Kant
and others are summarised below under the headings of space, time,
qualia and awareness. These descriptions show that consciousness is not
a vague term at all.

### Space and Time

Kant (1781) argued that our minds must be capable of representing
objects in space and time. Experiences presuppose space and time as pure
concepts of reason. Without space, objects could not be differentiated
and would have no properties. Without representation in time, the
concepts of succession of events and simultaneity would be unknown to
us. James(1904) also describes experience as extended in space and says
that the idea that \"inner experience is absolutely inextensive seems to
me little short of absurd\". Descartes (1641, Meditation V, 3) was also
clear that imaginings and perceptions are experiences where things are
arranged in space and time: \"In the first place, I distinctly imagine
that quantity which the philosophers commonly call continuous, or the
extension in length, breadth, and depth that is in this quantity, or
rather in the object to which it is attributed. Further, I can enumerate
in it many diverse parts, and attribute to each of these all sorts of
sizes, figures, situations, and local motions; and, in time, I can
assign to each of these motions all degrees of duration.\" Descartes
was, as was so often the case, well ahead of his time by describing
continuity and dimensionality, the factors that define his view of space
as an actual vector space accessible to mathematical and physical
analysis (See section on
Descartes
for a full discussion.)

Gregory (1966) also pointed out that we see things as if they are
projected into space around us. The idea of projection was implicit in
Kant's and Descartes' descriptions, which are from the viewpoint of an
observer looking out at contents of experience, but Gregory is explicit
(although he believes that explanations based on the projection are
absurd).

Kant and Descartes describe consciousness as something extended in time
but it is Clay and James who draw this fully to our attention. James
(1890) quotes E.R. Clay who coined the term \"specious present\" to
describe how we exist for more than a durationless instant and then goes
on to say: \"In short, the practically cognized present is no
knife-edge, but a saddle-back, with a certain breadth of its own on
which we sit perched, and from which we look in two directions into
time. The unit of composition of our perception of time is a duration,
with a bow and a stern, as it were\--a rearward\--and a forward-looking
end. It is only \[p. 610\] as parts of this duration-block that the
relation of succession of one end to the other is perceived. We do not
first feel one end and then feel the other after it, and from the
perception of the succession infer an interval of time between, but we
seem to feel the interval of time as a whole, with its two ends embedded
in it.\" Notice how James' observer is at an instant but the mind is
stretched over time.

James' mental time is probably not the same as physical time. Hermann
Weyl, the Nobel prize-winning physicist, wrote that reality is a
\"four-dimensional continuum which is neither \'time\' nor \'space.\'
Only the consciousness that passes on in one portion of this world
experiences the detached piece which comes to meet it and passes behind
it, as history, that is, as a process that is going forward in time and
takes place in space\" (Weyl 1918). In other words consciousness has a
way of containing events in the same order as they occur in the world
but seems to use a mental time that is different from physical time.

### Qualia

Qualia are types of things that occur in conscious experience. The
colour purple is a good example of a quale (Tye, 1997). Hume (1739)
pointed out of things in the mind that \"\[t\]here is nothing but the
idea of their colour or tangibility, which can render them conceivable
by the mind;\" in other words, qualia might be things in the mind rather
than attributes. Qualia appear to be exceptional and inexplicable:
Churchland (1988) writes \"How on earth can a feeling of pain result
from ions passing across a membrane?\" Descartes (Meditations VI, 6,
1641) clearly describes qualia.

### Awareness

Descartes, Locke, Hume, Reid and Kant describe conscious phenomena as if
there is an observer in their mind looking out at qualia or feeling
qualia in the space and time around about. Descartes and Kant thought
that the mind must also contain a conceptualisation or intuition of the
meaning of its space, time and content so that the qualia become grouped
into objects, the objects into events and the events into meaning and
expectation.

As Kant put it, we have \"intuitions\" about the relations between
things. In modern parlance our conscious experience appears to contain
the output from an unconscious processor; although Kant\'s term,
\"intuition,\" is a more scientific approach because it is an
observation without assumptions about causes. If the present is extended
in time, or a \"specious\" present as Clay put it, then many moments are
available through which it is possible to apprehend both a question and
its answer: the processor can frame the question and provide the answer.
The observation that our minds extend through time means that this
processor does not need to be recursive to provide the outputs we
experience as intuitions (one moment can contain an intuition about
another whilst both are in the mind).

Descartes (Meditations VI, 10, 1641) considered the origin of
intuitions: \"Further, I cannot doubt but that there is in me a certain
passive faculty of perception, that is, of receiving and taking
knowledge of the ideas of sensible things; but this would be useless to
me, if there did not also exist in me, or in some other thing, another
active faculty capable of forming and producing those ideas. But this
active faculty cannot be in me \[in as far as I am but a thinking
thing\], seeing that it does not presuppose thought, and also that those
ideas are frequently produced in my mind without my contributing to it
in any way, and even frequently contrary to my will.\" Descartes
suspected that the ideas were formed unconsciously, probably in the
brain.

### Types of Consciousness

It is sometimes held that there are many types of consciousness, Antony
(2001) lists: phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness, state
consciousness, creature consciousness, introspective consciousness and
self-consciousness. Antony takes the view that these are all
\'modulations\' of the term consciousness and do not mean that there are
in fact different types of consciousness. In other words these \'types
of consciousness\' are modulations of the intuition of content arranged
in space and time that is the singular consciousness described by Kant
and Descartes. According to this explanation access consciousness is the
time extended form of processes in phenomenal consciousness,
self-consciousness is the time extended form of bodily processes and
inner speech etc.. As an example, if we say a word then think it
soundlessly it is evident that inner speech is whole, time extended
words coming from the vague direction of the vocal chords (or both
ears), when we move a limb much of the whole movement is present in our
experience as a set of displacements at the position of the limb and
extended through time.

The nature of consciousness as described above, i.e. phenomenal or
subjective consciousness, must be distinguished from the type of
consciousness used in Medical clinical states. Clinical consciousness is
determined partly by the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in
the brain stem extending into higher anatomic levels of the brain
including the cortex. Alerting or arousal is the function of the ARAS
and is the doorway to awareness. Failure of this system or its
components results in clinical states ranging from a temporary loss of
consciousness as noted in head injuries (concussion) all the way to
complete coma. The comatose state includes failure of eye opening to
stimulation, a motor response more than just simple reflex withdrawal
movements and lack of verbalization. Coma can be produced by structural
lesions of the brain, metabolic and nutritional disorders, exogenous
toxins, central nervous system infections, seizures, temperature-related
extremes (e.g. hypothermia or hyperthermia) and most commonly trauma.
Included in this extreme are such entities as persistent vegetative
state and the minimally conscious state. The gamut ranges through
stupor, prolonged concussion, and transient concussion. This use of the
term 'consciousness' is not the nature of 'consciousness' as used in
this article and must be distinguished as such.

### Observations and Denials

There can be little doubt that most descriptions of conscious
phenomenology have described the same things although some have used
terms such as \'continuity\' for time and \'representation\' for space.
Our conscious experiences are the experience of being an observer that
has qualia distributed in space and time around a point. This experience
is imbued with intuitions.

Contrary to the views of Weiskrantz and of Koch and Crick there seems to
be no need to await a definition of consciousness. It has been described
for centuries. So why did these authors feel a need to suspend any
definition?

The answer is that over the years there has been no widely accepted
theory of how this empirical consciousness could occur. This led certain
philosophers such as Ryle (1949) to question whether the description of
consciousness was credible.

In most cases this sceptical analysis begins with an explanatory
discussion of consciousness such as: if information travels from the
observation to the observer then the observer contains the information
so there must be another observer within to observe this second set of
information. In this case the conclusion is that this implies an
impossible homunculus or Ryle's \"ghost in the machine\" so observation
and observer's cannot occur in the mind. This is an interesting argument
but it can also be framed to give exactly the opposite result. The
scientific form of the argument would be: the observed form of conscious
experience cannot occur if it relies on information transfer, therefore
the hypothesis that information transfer is all that is required to
explain consciousness is wrong and some other explanation is needed.
(This means that although the content of consciousness is derived from
the senses via signals in neurones, conscious experience is not these
signals flowing into a nexus). In science the observation is paramount
and cannot be discarded because it conflicts with theory.

The process of discounting an observation when an explanation fails also
applies to other aspects of consciousness studies. As Gregory (1988) put
it: \" \'If you can't explain it -- deny it\' is one strategy for
dealing with embarrassing questions such as \'what is consciousness?\'
\". If we discount these denials then the empirical observations of Kant
and Descartes and the other empiricists are the bedrock of consciousness
studies and consciousness can indeed be described as an observation
containing the space, time and content of our minds (where the content
contains intuitions and feelings).

This simple definition of the experience we call consciousness is
internally consistent and can be expressed in mathematical language.
Phenomenal consciousness is a multidimensional manifold with vectors
pointing towards the centre (the apparent observation point). The
content can be both the input and output of processors that are external
to the manifold.

*Adapted from the article The description and definition of
consciousness by
Alex Green in Science and Consciousness Review
(with permission of the author).*

A non-mathematical description of consciousness is: a collection of
events arranged in time and space that form directed elements that all
point at the same place and instant.

### The viewing point and the observer

Green\'s summary of phenomenal consciousness deserves further
elaboration and description. Science begins with empirical descriptions.
To experience phenomenal consciousness simply lean back with your eyes
open and listen. Phenomenal consciousness is the observational space and
time that is occurring and the simultaneous things within it that point
at the apparent viewing point. It includes bodily sensations, inner
speech and the smell on and around things etc. Phenomenal consciousness
is experience itself. If the experience is a lucid dream it may contain
a fantastical image, if it is a perception it may contain information
about something in the world beyond the body. Experience is not usually
an experience **of** the content of experience, experience is already
there, arranged in space and time (see note below).

![](constudgreen1.gif "constudgreen1.gif") The illustrations show the
difference between an actual 3D part of the world, 2D representations of
that part of the world, conscious experience itself and naive realism.

It is well known that a 3D object cannot be shown on a 2D surface. Its
form is specified as sets of coordinates.

![](constudgreen2.gif "constudgreen2.gif")Most visual experiences are
arranged as views. Views are represented on paper using perspective
drawings. Pictures that use perspective are scaled images of the world
as it would appear on the retina of one eye.

![](constudgreen3.gif "constudgreen3.gif")In experience itself things
are arranged as things directed at a point (vectors). Nothing flows into
the point. Experience is a manifold of events that are loosely based on
data from the retinas and other sense organs. It has contents like the
drawing on paper but instead of being a collection of ink particles
confined to 2D it is a set of vectors directed at a point.

![](constudgreen4.gif "constudgreen4.gif")Experience also involves
things arranged in time. Things can be simultaneous and there is
continuity. Arrangements in time are independent of arrangements in
space. The phonemes of a word do not overlap each other and the stages
of a movement do not create a smear. These independent arrangements in
time are akin to the way that things that are arranged left and right do
not overlap things that are arranged up and down. Left and right are
independent of up and down. In a similar way, time seems to be an
independent direction for arranging things.

![](constudgreen5.gif "constudgreen5.gif")Our experience differs from
naive realism. In naive realism experience is believed to be an
impossible physical meeting of light rays at a single point in the eye
that through some unspecified mechanism project back to their source.
**Naive realism is a primitive dynamical interpretation of experience**,
an attempt to explain an empirical geometrical form in terms of flows of
matter. In contrast, in experience there seems to be a set of vectors
directed at a point.

![](constudgreen6.gif "constudgreen6.gif") An intriguing feature of the
empirical form of experience is that things seem to be separated by
angular separations. This allows objects of any size to be represented
and explains how a page of text on our laps and the dome of a
planetarium can be encompassed in the same form.

The apparent viewing point has caused considerable difficulty for many
empiricist philosophers (although the British Empiricists tended to
avoid it). When philosophers have stopped describing conscious
experience and tried to explain the viewing point they have often
resorted to the supernatural: Descartes, Malebranche and Reid all
explained the viewing point in terms of a supernatural soul at a point
that does the seeing or experiencing. But none of the empiricists
describe anything flowing into the viewing point; indeed nothing does
flow or could flow into and through a point. The empirical truth is that
the viewing point is a geometrical phenomenon, not the recipient of some
simultaneous flow of everything in experience. Just look, your viewing
point is where everything in experience is directed but things are not
pouring into it and it, itself, is a point, it cannot and does not
contain anything. This seems to be Aristotle\'s insight when he wrote
\"In every case the mind which is actively thinking is the objects which
it thinks.\"

The field of vectors that are the content of consciousness are also
difficult to interpret; some philosophers believe that they are in the
brain and form a representation of the world whilst others believe that
they are directly attached to things in the world beyond the body.

The empirical description of consciousness allows us to make a sharp
distinction between the scientific activities of measurement and
observation. Measurement is the change in state of a measuring
instrument in response to an event in the environment. Observation is
the occurrence of events in the geometrical manifold that we call our
conscious experience.

This section has used the descriptions provided by generations of
philosophers to characterise the **phenomenon** of consciousness. Many
modern philosophers assume that readers are familiar with these
empirical descriptions and use \"what it is like to be conscious\" as a
shorthand for these empirical reports. From the seventeenth century
onwards it was realised that these descriptions are difficult to explain
using Newtonian physics or elementary information theory.

`<font size=1>`{=html}\* Note: the term \"experience of\" should be
reserved for things that act as a source of the content of experience,
such as the QM fields that constitute the things that are sensed. We
have an \"experience of\" a flower when signals from the flower are
composed into the form of a flower in our experience. Sometimes there is
an \"experience of\" the content of consciousness, for instance when
intuitions about the content occur. See later modules for a
discussion.`</font>`{=html}

### References

-   Antony,M.V. Is \'Consciousness\' Ambiguous? Journal of Consciousness
    Studies 8(2), 2001, 19-44.
    <http://research.haifa.ac.il/~antony/papers/Ambiguous.htm>
-   Block, N. 1995. On a Confusion about a Function of Consciousness,
    The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18, 2 (June 1995): 227-247.
    <http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000231/00/199712004.html>
-   Churchland, P.S. 1988. Reduction and the neurobiological basis of
    consciousness. Chapter 14 in Consciousness in Contemporary Science.
    (Editors: Marcel, A.J. and Bisiach, E.). Oxford Science
    Publications.
-   Descartes, R. 1641. Meditations on First Philosophy
    <http://www.orst.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/descartes/meditations/meditations.html>
-   James, W. 1890. The Principles of Psychology
    <http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin15.htm>
-   James, W. 1904. Does consciousness exist? Journal of Philosophy,
    Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1, 477-491.
    <http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/consciousness.htm>
-   Gregory, R.L. 1966. Eye and Brain. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson.
-   Gregory, R.L. 1988. Consciousness in science and philosophy:
    conscience and con-science. Chapter 12 in Consciousness in
    Contemporary Science. (Editors: Marcel, A.J. and Bisiach, E.).
    Oxford Science Publications.
-   Kant, I. 1781. The Transcendental Aesthetic. Critique of Pure
    Reason. Tr. Norman Kemp-Smith. Macmillan Press Ltd.
    <http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/cpr-open.html> See
    also this link <http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/k/kantmeta.htm>
-   Koch, C and Crick, F. 1999. 116, Consciousness, neural basis of.
    <http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch/Elsevier-NCC.html>
-   McGinn, C. 1995. Consciousness and Space. In: Conscious Experience,
    Thomas Metzinger (Ed). 1995, Imprint Academic.
    <http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness97/papers/ConsciousnessSpace.html>
-   Ryle, G. 1949. The Concept of Mind. Hutchinson & Co. London.
-   Tye, M. 1997. Qualia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
    <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia>
-   Weiskrantz, L. 1988. Some contributions of neuropsychology of vision
    and memory to the problem of consciousness. Chapter 8 in
    Consciousness in Contemporary Science. (Editors: Marcel, A.J. and
    Bisiach, E.). Oxford Science Publications.
-   Weyl, H. 1918. Space Time Matter. Dover Edition 1952, p. 217.


# Consciousness Studies/The Conflict

*This section is about how regression and recursion seem to undermine
the idea of conscious experience being anywhere in the universe.*.

## The conflict - supervenience and the location of the contents of phenomenal consciousness

When we touch something or look at a view what we are probably touching
or seeing is a thing in the world, out there, beyond our bodies. Many
philosophers and almost all scientists would agree with this surmise.
But is our conscious experience itself directly the things we touch or
more like a picture of those things on television or something else
entirely? Furthermore, can we really be certain that what we believe we
experience truly occurs?

Suppose for the moment that our experience truly does occur and consists
of things laid out in time and space. Conscious experience appears to be
a simultaneous set of things (i.e.: things arranged in space) but where
are these things and what is this space? The things that occur in
conscious experience could be a virtual reality in the brain based on
the world beyond the body, or they could be the things themselves,
viewed directly through some unknown phenomenon or it has even been
suggested that they could be something non-physical.

The problem of where the contents of conscious experience are located
has provoked some of the fiercest battles in the philosophy of
consciousness. There are three broad positions, the first is Direct
Realism in which it is held that the contents of conscious experience
are directly things in the world, the second is Indirect Realism where
it is proposed that the contents of conscious experience are
representations, usually in the physical brain, based on things \'out
there\' in the world and the third is idealism where it is held that
there is no physical world, only non-physical conscious experience.
These three classifications overlap considerably, for instance some
Natural Dualists believe that the contents of sensory experience are
directly the world beyond the body but some thoughts are based in a
non-physical soul and some philosophers introduce the dualist notion of
a \"logical space\" containing disembodied information.

Philosophers often use the concept of \'supervenience\' to examine the
location of the contents of consciousness. Supervenience is the relation
between two sets of properties. Supervenience can be simple; for example
a golden ring supervenes on a piece of the metal gold. Supervenience can
also be quite complex such as the idea that life supervenes on the
biological processes in a cell. The most difficult cases of
supervenience are where a high level description is related to simpler
physical properties such as form and content. There are formal
statements of supervenience:

`The properties of A supervene on the properties of B if no two possible`\
`situations are identical with respect to the properties of A while`\
`differing with respect to the properties of B (after Chalmers 1996).`

Lewis gives a simpler, if less technical, definition of supervenience:

`A dot-matrix picture has global properties -- it is symmetrical, `\
`it is cluttered, and whatnot -- and yet all there is to the picture `\
`is dots and non-dots at each point of the matrix. The global `\
`properties are nothing but patterns in the dots. They supervene: no `\
`two pictures could differ in their global properties without `\
`differing, somewhere, in whether there is or there isn't a dot". `\
`Lewis, D., 1986, On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Blackwell`

One set of properties is said to supervene *locally* on another set of
properties if the second set is determined by the first. Shape is an
example of local supervenience; for instance a gold wire forged in a
circle determines a gold ring. A set of properties is said to supervene
*globally* on another if the entire context of the properties must be
included; for instance, two organisms could be physically identical but
demonstrate different behaviours in different environments. In this case
the physical form of an organism does not totally determine the
behaviour. Philosophers also divide supervenience into logical
supervenience and natural supervenience. Logical supervenience deals
with possible relations in possible worlds while natural supervenience
deals with relations that occur in the natural world.

See elementary information
theory
for a discussion of supervenience in information systems.

A particular problem posed by consciousness studies is whether conscious
phenomenal experience supervenes on the physical world and, if so,
where. To answer these questions philosophers and neuroscientists must
have a good understanding of physics. They should be aware of elementary
physical ontology such as kinetic energy being the relativistic mass
increase of a particle in a four dimensional universe and Newton\'s laws
being due to the exploration of all paths in space-time. Without a good
knowledge of physics there is the danger that we will be asking whether
phenomenal consciousness supervenes on an abstract model of the world
which does not supervene on the world itself (i.e.: *we may be asking if
conscious phenomenal experience supervenes on Newtonian physics or
supervenes on information systems theory rather than asking how
phenomenal consciousness might supervene on the natural world*).

The possibility that conscious experience does not really occur, at
least in the form that we believe it occurs, is known as the problem of
the \"Incorrigibility of the cogito\" (Harrison 1984). If Descartes\'
idea that \"I think therefore I am\" is not beyond question
(incorrigible) then the idea of phenomenal consciousness may be
incorrect.

(See for instance:

Special relativity for beginners

Special relativity for
beginners

Quantum physics explains Newton's laws of motion

<http://www.eftaylor.com/pub/OgbornTaylor.pdf> )

## The problem of regression

The philosopher Gilbert Ryle was concerned with what he called the
intellectualist legend which requires intelligent acts to be the product
of the conscious application of mental rules. The intellectualist legend
is also known as the \"Dogma of the Ghost in the Machine,\" the
\"Two-Lives Legend,\" the \"Two-Worlds Story,\" or the \"Double-Life
Legend\". Ralph Waldo Emerson summarised the intellectualist legend in
the statement that \"The ancestor of every action is a thought.\" Ryle
argued against the idea that every action requires a conscious thought
and showed that this \'intellectualist legend\' results in an infinite
regress of thought:

`"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything `\
`intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal `\
`act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his `\
`practical problem. [...] Must we then say that for the hero's `\
`reflections how to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how `\
`best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress `\
`shows that the application of the criterion of appropriateness does `\
`not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion."`\
`(The Concept of Mind (1949)) `

image:constudregress.gif

`"The crucial objection to the intellectualist legend is this. The `\
`consideration of propositions is itself an operation the execution `\
`of which can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if, `\
`for any operation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical `\
`operation had first to be performed and performed intelligently, it `\
`would be a logical impossibility for anyone ever to break into the `\
`circle." `

Variants of Ryle\'s regress are commonly aimed at cognitivist theories.
For instance, in order to explain the behavior of rats, Edward Tolman
suggested that the rats were constructing a \"cognitive map\" that
helped them locate reinforcers, and he used intentional terms (e.g.,
expectancies, purposes, meanings) to describe their behavior. This led
to a famous attack on Tolman\'s work by Guthrie who pointed out that if
one was implying that every action must be preceded by a cognitive
\'action\' (a \'thought\' or \'schema\' or \'script\' or whatever), then
what \'causes\' this act? Clearly it must be preceded by another
cognitive action, which must in turn must be preceded by another and so
on, in an infinite regress unless an external input occurs at some
stage.

As a further example, we may take note of the following statement from
The Concept of Mind (1949):

\"The main object of this chapter is to show that there are many
activities which directly display qualities of mind, yet are neither
themselves intellectual operations nor yet effects of intellectual
operations. Intelligent practice is not a step-child of theory. On the
contrary theorizing is one practice amongst others and is itself
intelligently or stupidly conducted.\"

Ryle noted that \"theorizing is one practice amongst others.\" and hence
would translate the statement by Emerson into, \"The ancestor of every
action is an action.\" or \"The ancestor of every behavior is a
behavior,\". Each behaviour would require yet another behavior to
preface it as its ancestor, and an infinite regress would occur.

It should be noted that Ryle's regress is a critique of cognitivism
which arises from the Behaviorist tradition. Near the end of The Concept
of Mind, Ryle states, \"The Behaviorists' methodological program has
been of revolutionary importance to the program of psychology. But more,
it has been one of the main sources of the philosophical suspicion that
the two-worlds story is a myth.\" But Ryle's brand of logical
behaviorism is not to be confused with the radical behaviorism of B. F.
Skinner or the methodological behaviorism of John B. Watson. For as Alex
Byrne noted, \"Ryle was indeed, as he reportedly said, 'only one arm and
one leg a behaviorist'.\"

Arguments that involve regress are well known in philosophy. In fact any
reflexive, or self referencing process or argument will involve a
regress if there is no external input. This applies whether the agent
that engages in the process is a digital computer or intelligent agent
(cf: Smith (1986), Yates (1991)).

Ryle\'s regress suggests that intelligent acts are not created within
phenomenal consciousness. They may have non-conscious components or even
be entirely non-conscious. Ryle argued that this might mean that
consciousness is just a \"ghost in the machine\" of the brain because
consciousness would be epiphenomenal if it is not the creator of
intelligent acts. However, as will be seen below, this conclusion may be
premature and certainly cannot be used to dismiss phenomenal
consciousness as non-existent or not present in the brain.

## The Subject-Object paradox

This paradox was clearly enunciated by William James in 1904:

\"Throughout the history of philosophy the subject and its object have
been treated as absolutely discontinuous entities; and thereupon the
presence of the latter to the former, or the \'apprehension\' by the
former of the latter, has assumed a paradoxical character which all
sorts of theories had to be invented to overcome.\" James (1904).

The Subject-Object paradox points out that a conscious subject appears
to observe itself as an object. But if it observes itself as an object
then, as an object it cannot be a subject. As Bermudez(1998) puts it:

\"Any theory that tries to elucidate the capacity to think first-person
thoughts through linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun will be
circular, because the explanandum is part of the explanans..\"

Thomas Reid uses this paradox to suggest that everything that is
observed must be external to the soul and hence proposed that experience
was the world itself.

Wittgenstein (1949) offers a way out of the paradox by denying the
existence of the subject:

`<span style="font-family:times new roman;">`{=html}\"5.63 1. The
thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing. If I wrote a book
The World as I Found It, I should also have therein to report on my body
and say which members obey my will and which do not, etc. This then
would be a method of isolating the subject or rather of showing that in
an important sense there is no subject: that is to say, of it alone in
this book mention could not be made. 5.632. The subject does not belong
to the world but it is a limit of the world. 5.633. Where in the world
is a metaphysical subject to be noted? You say that this case is
altogether like that of the eye and the field of sight. But you do not
really see the eye. And from nothing in the field of sight can it be
concluded that it is seen from an eye\... 5.64 1. \...The philosophical
I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which
psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit --- not a
part of the world.\"`</span>`{=html}(Wittgenstein 1949).

Wittgenstein\'s view is similar to that voiced by Green (2002) in which
there is nothing at the point centre of the manifold of events (there is
no point eye). James (1904), Lektorsky (1980) and many others have also
attempted to resolve the paradox by proposing that there is really no
observer, only the observation or \'reflexive act\' of perception. This
idea reaches its zenith in Brentano\'s concept of \"intentionality\" in
which the subject and object are fused into a form of \"aboutness\":

`<span style="font-family:times new roman;">`{=html}\"Every psychical
phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages
called the intentional (or sometimes the mental) inexistence of an
object, and what we should like to call, although not quite
unambiguously, the reference (Beziehung) to a content, the directedness
(Richtung) toward an object (which in this context is not to be
understood as something real) or the immanent-object quality (immanente
Gegenständlichkeit). Each contains something as its object, though not
each in the same manner. In the representation (Vorstellung) something
is represented, in the judgment something is acknowledged or rejected,
in desiring it is desired, etc. This intentional inexistence is peculiar
alone to psychical phenomena. No physical phenomenon shows anything like
it. And thus we can define psychical phenomena by saying that they are
such phenomena as contain objects in themselves by way of intention
(intentional).\"`</span>`{=html} Brentano, F. (1874).

These authors have all identified the content of perception with either
the world itself, the manifold of events or a synthetic \'about\' the
world itself in an attempt at avoiding the paradox, however, as will be
seen later, there are other solutions to the paradox.

Bermúdez, J. (1998), The Paradox of Self-Consciousness, Bradford/MIT
Press.

Brentano, F. (1874). Psychology from an empirical standpoint. Vol1.
<http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/brentano.htm>

William James (1904). A World of Pure Experience. First published in
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1, 533-543,
561-570. <http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/experience.htm>

## The homunculus fallacy in philosophy of mind

A Homunculus argument accounts for a phenomenon in terms of the very
phenomenon that it is supposed to explain (Richard Gregory (1987)).
Homunculus arguments are always fallacious. In the psychology and
philosophy of mind \'homunculus arguments\' are extremely useful for
detecting where theories of mind fail or are incomplete.

Homunculus arguments are common in the theory of vision. Imagine a
person watching a movie. He sees the images as something separate from
himself, projected on the screen. How is this done? A simple theory
might propose that the light from the screen forms an image on the
retinas in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these as if they
are the screen. The Homunculus Argument shows this is not a full
explanation because all that has been done is to place an entire person,
or homunculus, behind the eye who gazes at the retinas. A more
sophisticated argument might propose that the images on the retinas are
transferred to the visual cortex where it is scanned. Again this cannot
be a full explanation because all that has been done is to place a
little person in the brain behind the cortex. In the theory of vision
the Homunculus Argument invalidates theories that do not explain
\'projection\', the experience that the viewing point is separate from
the things that are seen. (Adapted from Gregory (1987), (1990)).

In the case of vision it is sometimes suggested that each homunculus
would need a homunculus inside it ad infinitum. This is the
**recursion** form of the homunculus concept. Notice that, unlike the
case of regress, the recursion would occur after the event.

An homunculus argument should be phrased in such a way that the
conclusion is always that if a homunculus is required then the theory is
wrong. After all, homunculi do not exist.

Very few people would propose that there actually is a little man in the
brain looking at brain activity. However, this proposal has been used as
a \'straw man\' in theories of mind. Gilbert Ryle (1949) proposed that
the human mind is known by its intelligent acts. (see Ryle\'s Regress).
He argued that if there is an inner being inside the brain that could
steer its own thoughts then this would lead to an absurd repetitive
cycle or \'regress\' before a thought could occur:

\"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything
intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal act
of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his practical
problem.\"

\"\.... Must we then say that for the ..\[agent\'s\].. reflections how
to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how best to reflect how
to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the
application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a
process of considering this criterion.\"

The homunculus argument and the regress argument are often considered to
be the same but this is not the case. The homunculus argument says that
if there is a need for a \'little man\' to complete a theory then the
theory is wrong. The regress argument says that an intelligent agent
would need to think before it could have a thought.

Ryle\'s theory is that intelligent acts cannot be a property of an inner
being or mind, if such a thing were to exist.

The idea that conscious experience is a flow of information into an
unextended place (a point eye) leaves itself open to the charge of
inserting an homunculus beyond the point eye. On careful reading few, if
any, real theories actually propose a flow through the point eye but
suggest some sort of nebulous direct relation with the information in
front of the eye. For instance, Descartes has a point soul directly
considering the contents of the common sense and Reid has a point eye
directly considering the world itself.

`<span style="font-size:x-small;">`{=html}Questions: It might be said
that the homunculus fallacy means that either the materialist
interpretation of conscious experience is wrong or conscious experience
does not exist: discuss. Physicalism is not materialism, discuss. Could
physical phenomena such as entanglement or space-time theories of
observation, where the observed vectors are constrained to the manifold,
avoid the homunculus fallacy?`</span>`{=html}

## Berkeley\'s \"passive ideas\"

Ryle\'s regress, when applied to consciousness, is based on an analysis
of conscious intellectual activity as a succession of states. At any
moment the conscious intellect contains one state such as \'I will think
of a word\'. This means that either the state has just popped into mind
or there was a previous state that gave rise to it such as \'I will
think of thinking of a word\'. Descartes and other empiricists have
noted that thoughts do indeed just pop into mind. So if we transfer
Ryle\'s analysis to the real world we discover that the regress is
avoided by removing the starting point of a series of thoughts from
conscious phenomenal experience. A train of thought just begins, it has
no conscious origin and Descartes\' implication is that it has probably
been synthesised non-consciously.

Suppose Descartes and our own experience are correct, suppose thoughts
do just pop into mind, if this happens can there still be a conscious
intellectual agent or are intellectual agents largely non-conscious? One
of the simplest intellectual processes is a test for equality i.e.:
\'does A equal B?\' and a routing of flow as a result of the test i.e.:
\'if A = B then goto\'. Can an intellectual agent perform an equality
test in conscious phenomenal experience?

Consider the test of whether \'A = A\', you attend to the left \'A\'
then the right \'A\' and declare them equal. What have you actually
done? The feeling that the symbols are equal just pops into mind.
Psychologists and philosophers use the word \'intuition\' for this
popping of answers into mind (Kant 1781). It is usually accompanied by
emotional experience (Damasio 1994, Bierman 2004).

If intellectual activity is actually a succession of things that just
pop into phenomenal consciousness then Ryle\'s conclusion that
phenomenal consciousness is like a \"ghost in the machine\" of the brain
would to some extent justified. Phenomenal consciousness would not be
intellectual activity. Phenomenal consciousness would contain the
stages, or succession of states, of intellectual activity but would not
contain the processes that connect these stages. This observation that
conscious experience is a succession of **passive ideas** is well known
in philosophy (cf: George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, 25).

## More on the conflict

Click above for more on Phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness,
Direct Realism, Indirect Realism, Dualism, Idealism and Panpsychism.

## References

-   Harrison, J. (1984). The incorrigibility of the cogito. Mind: New
    Series, Vol. 93, No. XCIII, 1984.

The problem of regression

-   Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind. The University of Chicago
    Press, 1949.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Smith, Q. (1986). The infinite regress of temporal attributions. The
    Southern Journal of Philosophy (1986) Vol. XXIV, No. 3, 383 (Section
    3).
    <http://web.archive.org/web/20060507144913/http://www.qsmithwmu.com/the_infinite_regress.htm>

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Yates, S. (1991). Self referential arguments in philosophy. Reason
    Papers 16. (Fall 1991) 133-164.
    <http://www.mises.org/reasonpapers/pdf/16/rp_16_7.pdf>

The homunculus argument

-   Gregory, R.L. (1990) Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford
    University Press Inc. New York.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Gregory, T.L. (1987). The Oxford Companion to Mind. Oxford
    University Press.

Subject-object paradox

-   James, W. (1904)Does \'Consciousness\' Exist? Journal of
    Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1,
    477-491.
-   Hegel, G.W.F. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND: SECTION I. MIND SUBJECTIVE B.
    PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND CONSCIOUSNESS Part Three of the Encyclopaedia
    of the Philosophical
    Sciences

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Velmans, M. (1996) Consciousness and the \"Casual Paradox\".
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 19 (3):
    538-542.
-   \[Bermudez, J.L. (1999) The Paradox of Self-Consciousness
    (representation and Mind) Psycoloquy:
    10,#35

Ontological status

-   Bierman, D.J. (2004) Non Conscious Processes Preceding Intuitive
    decisions
    <http://m0134.fmg.uva.nl/~djb/publications/2004/Intuition_bialsymp2004.pdf>

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes\' error: Emotion, reason and the
    human brain. New York: Grosset/Putnam Book.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason
    <http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/>

Direct Realism

-   Aydede, M. (2001) Naturalism, introspection, and direct realism
    about pain. Consciousness and Emotion, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2001, pp.
    29-73.

<http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/maydede/pain.pdf>

-   Chapman, C.R., and Y. Nakamura (1999). A Passion of the Soul: An
    Introduction to Pain for Consciousness Researchers. Consciousness
    and Cognition, 8: 391-422.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Fowler C A (1986): "An event approach to the study of speech
    perception from a direct-realist perspective", J of Phonetics
    14(1):3-28.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Gibson, J. J. (1966) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems.
    Houghton Mifflin Company,Boston.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Gibson, J. J. (1979) Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.:
    Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Hillsdate.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Gregory, R.L. 1988. Consciousness in science and philosophy:
    conscience and con-science. Chapter 12 in Consciousness in
    Contemporary Science. (Editors: Marcel, A.J. and Bisiach, E.).
    Oxford Science Publications.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Le Morvan, Pierre (2004). Arguments against direct realism and how
    to counter them. *The American Philosophical Quarterly*, *41*(3),
    221-234.\] (pdf) <http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf>

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Oliveira, André L. G. and Oliveira, Luis F. (2002) Toward an
    ecological conception of timbre. In Proceedings Auditory Perception
    Cognition and Action Meeting 2002, Kansas City.
    <http://cogprints.org/2713/>

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior . New York: Macmillan,
    1953.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Skinner, B. F. 1971. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Knopf.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Skinner, B. F. 1948. Walden Two. New York: Macmillan.

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Tye, M. (2004). ANOTHER LOOK AT REPRESENTATIONALISM ABOUT PAIN.
    Consciousness and Emotion 2004, special issue on pain, edited by
    Murat Aydede (with replies by M. Aydede, N. Block, B. Maund, and P.
    Noordhof
    <http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~phildept/MT/RepresentationalismAndPain.pdf>

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Vygotsky, L.S.(1925) Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of
    behavior. Undiscovered Vygotsky: Etudes on the pre-history of
    cultural-historical psychology (European Studies in the History of
    Science and Ideas. Vol. 8), pp. 251-281. Peter Lang Publishing.
    <http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm>

```{=html}
<!-- -->
```
-   Ziff, Paul. \"About Behaviourism.\" Analysis 18 (1958): 132-136.
    Quoted by Larry Hauser in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    <http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/b/behavior.htm#B>. F. Skinner:
    Radical Behaviorism


# Consciousness Studies/The Conflict#The regression argument

*This section is about how regression and recursion seem to undermine
the idea of conscious experience being anywhere in the universe.*.

## The conflict - supervenience and the location of the contents of phenomenal consciousness

When we touch something or look at a view what we are probably touching
or seeing is a thing in the world, out there, beyond our bodies. Many
philosophers and almost all scientists would agree with this surmise.
But is our conscious experience itself directly the things we touch or
more like a picture of those things on television or something else
entirely? Furthermore, can we really be certain that what we believe we
experience truly occurs?

Suppose for the moment that our experience truly does occur and consists
of things laid out in time and space. Conscious experience appears to be
a simultaneous set of things (i.e.: things arranged in space) but where
are these things and what is this space? The things that occur in
conscious experience could be a virtual reality in the brain based on
the world beyond the body, or they could be the things themselves,
viewed directly through some unknown phenomenon or it has even been
suggested that they could be something non-physical.

The problem of where the contents of conscious experience are located
has provoked some of the fiercest battles in the philosophy of
consciousness. There are three broad positions, the first is Direct
Realism in which it is held that the contents of conscious experience
are directly things in the world, the second is Indirect Realism where
it is proposed that the contents of conscious experience are
representations, usually in the physical brain, based on things \'out
there\' in the world and the third is idealism where it is held that
there is no physical world, only non-physical conscious experience.
These three classifications overlap considerably, for instance some
Natural Dualists believe that the contents of sensory experience are
directly the world beyond the body but some thoughts are based in a
non-physical soul and some philosophers introduce the dualist notion of
a \"logical space\" containing disembodied information.

Philosophers often use the concept of \'supervenience\' to examine the
location of the contents of consciousness. Supervenience is the relation
between two sets of properties. Supervenience can be simple; for example
a golden ring supervenes on a piece of the metal gold. Supervenience can
also be quite complex such as the idea that life supervenes on the
biological processes in a cell. The most difficult cases of
supervenience are where a high level description is related to simpler
physical properties such as form and content. There are formal
statements of supervenience:

`The properties of A supervene on the properties of B if no two possible`\
`situations are identical with respect to the properties of A while`\
`differing with respect to the properties of B (after Chalmers 1996).`

Lewis gives a simpler, if less technical, definition of supervenience:

`A dot-matrix picture has global properties -- it is symmetrical, `\
`it is cluttered, and whatnot -- and yet all there is to the picture `\
`is dots and non-dots at each point of the matrix. The global `\
`properties are nothing but patterns in the dots. They supervene: no `\
`two pictures could differ in their global properties without `\
`differing, somewhere, in whether there is or there isn't a dot". `\
`Lewis, D., 1986, On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Blackwell`

One set of properties is said to supervene *locally* on another set of
properties if the second set is determined by the first. Shape is an
example of local supervenience; for instance a gold wire forged in a
circle determines a gold ring. A set of properties is said to supervene
*globally* on another if the entire context of the properties must be
included; for instance, two organisms could be physically identical but
demonstrate different behaviours in different environments. In this case
the physical form of an organism does not totally determine the
behaviour. Philosophers also divide supervenience into logical
supervenience and natural supervenience. Logical supervenience deals
with possible relations in possible worlds while natural supervenience
deals with relations that occur in the natural world.

See elementary information
theory
for a discussion of supervenience in information systems.

A particular problem posed by consciousness studies is whether conscious
phenomenal experience supervenes on the physical world and, if so,
where. To answer these questions philosophers and neuroscientists must
have a good understanding of physics. They should be aware of elementary
physical ontology such as kinetic energy being the relativistic mass
increase of a particle in a four dimensional universe and Newton\'s laws
being due to the exploration of all paths in space-time. Without a good
knowledge of physics there is the danger that we will be asking whether
phenomenal consciousness supervenes on an abstract model of the world
which does not supervene on the world itself (i.e.: *we may be asking if
conscious phenomenal experience supervenes on Newtonian physics or
supervenes on information systems theory rather than asking how
phenomenal consciousness might supervene on the natural world*).

The possibility that conscious experience does not really occur, at
least in the form that we believe it occurs, is known as the problem of
the \"Incorrigibility of the cogito\" (Harrison 1984). If Descartes\'
idea that \"I think therefore I am\" is not beyond question
(incorrigible) then the idea of phenomenal consciousness may be
incorrect.

(See for instance:

Special relativity for beginners

Special relativity for
beginners

Quantum physics explains Newton's laws of motion

<http://www.eftaylor.com/pub/OgbornTaylor.pdf> )

## The problem of regression

The philosopher Gilbert Ryle was concerned with what he called the
intellectualist legend which requires intelligent acts to be the product
of the conscious application of mental rules. The intellectualist legend
is also known as the \"Dogma of the Ghost in the Machine,\" the
\"Two-Lives Legend,\" the \"Two-Worlds Story,\" or the \"Double-Life
Legend\". Ralph Waldo Emerson summarised the intellectualist legend in
the statement that \"The ancestor of every action is a thought.\" Ryle
argued against the idea that every action requires a conscious thought
and showed that this \'intellectualist legend\' results in an infinite
regress of thought:

`"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything `\
`intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal `\
`act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his `\
`practical problem. [...] Must we then say that for the hero's `\
`reflections how to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how `\
`best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress `\
`shows that the application of the criterion of appropriateness does `\
`not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion."`\
`(The Concept of Mind (1949)) `

image:constudregress.gif

`"The crucial objection to the intellectualist legend is this. The `\
`consideration of propositions is itself an operation the execution `\
`of which can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if, `\
`for any operation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical `\
`operation had first to be performed and performed intelligently, it `\
`would be a logical impossibility for anyone ever to break into the `\
`circle." `

Variants of Ryle\'s regress are commonly aimed at cognitivist theories.
For instance, in order to explain the behavior of rats, Edward Tolman
suggested that the rats were constructing a \"cognitive map\" that
helped them locate reinforcers, and he used intentional terms (e.g.,
expectancies, purposes, meanings) to describe their behavior. This led
to a famous attack on Tolman\'s work by Guthrie who pointed out that if
one was implying that every action must be preceded by a cognitive
\'action\' (a \'thought\' or \'schema\' or \'script\' or whatever), then
what \'causes\' this act? Clearly it must be preceded by another
cognitive action, which must in turn must be preceded by another and so
on, in an infinite regress unless an external input occurs at some
stage.

As a further example, we may take note of the following statement from
The Concept of Mind (1949):

\"The main object of this chapter is to show that there are many
activities which directly display qualities of mind, yet are neither
themselves intellectual operations nor yet effects of intellectual
operations. Intelligent practice is not a step-child of theory. On the
contrary theorizing is one practice amongst others and is itself
intelligently or stupidly conducted.\"

Ryle noted that \"theorizing is one practice amongst others.\" and hence
would translate the statement by Emerson into, \"The ancestor of every
action is an action.\" or \"The ancestor of every behavior is a
behavior,\". Each behaviour would require yet another behavior to
preface it as its ancestor, and an infinite regress would occur.

It should be noted that Ryle's regress is a critique of cognitivism
which arises from the Behaviorist tradition. Near the end of The Concept
of Mind, Ryle states, \"The Behaviorists' methodological program has
been of revolutionary importance to the program of psychology. But more,
it has been one of the main sources of the philosophical suspicion that
the two-worlds story is a myth.\" But Ryle's brand of logical
behaviorism is not to be confused with the radical behaviorism of B. F.
Skinner or the methodological behaviorism of John B. Watson. For as Alex
Byrne noted, \"Ryle was indeed, as he reportedly said, 'only one arm and
one leg a behaviorist'.\"

Arguments that involve regress are well known in philosophy. In fact any
reflexive, or self referencing process or argument will involve a
regress if there is no external input. This applies whether the agent
that engages in the process is a digital computer or intelligent agent
(cf: Smith (1986), Yates (1991)).

Ryle\'s regress suggests that intelligent acts are not created within
phenomenal consciousness. They may have non-conscious components or even
be entirely non-conscious. Ryle argued that this might mean that
consciousness is just a \"ghost in the machine\" of the brain because
consciousness would be epiphenomenal if it is not the creator of
intelligent acts. However, as will be seen below, this conclusion may be
premature and certainly cannot be used to dismiss phenomenal
consciousness as non-existent or not present in the brain.

## The Subject-Object paradox

This paradox was clearly enunciated by William James in 1904:

\"Throughout the history of philosophy the subject and its object have
been treated as absolutely discontinuous entities; and thereupon the
presence of the latter to the former, or the \'apprehension\' by the
former of the latter, has assumed a paradoxical character which all
sorts of theories had to be invented to overcome.\" James (1904).

The Subject-Object paradox points out that a conscious subject appears
to observe itself as an object. But if it observes itself as an object
then, as an object it cannot be a subject. As Bermudez(1998) puts it:

\"Any theory that tries to elucidate the capacity to think first-person
thoughts through linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun will be
circular, because the explanandum is part of the explanans..\"

Thomas Reid uses this paradox to suggest that everything that is
observed must be external to the soul and hence proposed that experience
was the world itself.

Wittgenstein (1949) offers a way out of the paradox by denying the
existence of the subject:

`<span style="font-family:times new roman;">`{=html}\"5.63 1. The
thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing. If I wrote a book
The World as I Found It, I should also have therein to report on my body
and say which members obey my will and which do not, etc. This then
would be a method of isolating the subject or rather of showing that in
an important sense there is no subject: that is to say, of it alone in
this book mention could not be made. 5.632. The subject does not belong
to the world but it is a limit of the world. 5.633. Where in the world
is a metaphysical subject to be noted? You say that this case is
altogether like that of the eye and the field of sight. But you do not
really see the eye. And from nothing in the field of sight can it be
concluded that it is seen from an eye\... 5.64 1. \...The philosophical
I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which
psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit --- not a
part of the world.\"`</span>`{=html}(Wittgenstein 1949).

Wittgenstein\'s view is similar to that voiced by Green (2002) in which
there is nothing at the point centre of the manifold of events (there is
no point eye). James (1904), Lektorsky (1980) and many others have also
attempted to resolve the paradox by proposing that there is really no
observer, only the observation or \'reflexive act\' of perception. This
idea reaches its zenith in Brentano\'s concept of \"intentionality\" in
which the subject and object are fused into a form of \"aboutness\":

`<span style="font-family:times new roman;">`{=html}\"Every psychical
phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages
called the intentional (or sometimes the mental) inexistence of an
object, and what we should like to call, although not quite
unambiguously, the reference (Beziehung) to a content, the directedness
(Richtung) toward an object (which in this context is not to be
understood as something real) or the immanent-object quality (immanente
Gegenständlichkeit). Each contains something as its object, though not
each in the same manner. In the representation (Vorstellung) something
is represented, in the judgment something is acknowledged or rejected,
in desiring it is desired, etc. This intentional inexistence is peculiar
alone to psychical phenomena. No physical phenomenon shows anything like
it. And thus we can define psychical phenomena by saying that they are
such phenomena as contain objects in themselves by way of intention
(intentional).\"`</span>`{=html} Brentano, F. (1874).

These authors have all identified the content of perception with either
the world itself, the manifold of events or a synthetic \'about\' the
world itself in an attempt at avoiding the paradox, however, as will be
seen later, there are other solutions to the paradox.

Bermúdez, J. (1998), The Paradox of Self-Consciousness, Bradford/MIT
Press.

Brentano, F. (1874). Psychology from an empirical standpoint. Vol1.
<http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/brentano.htm>

William James (1904). A World of Pure Experience. First published in
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1, 533-543,
561-570. <http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/experience.htm>

## The homunculus fallacy in philosophy of mind

A Homunculus argument accounts for a phenomenon in terms of the very
phenomenon that it is supposed to explain (Richard Gregory (1987)).
Homunculus arguments are always fallacious. In the psychology and
philosophy of mind \'homunculus arguments\' are extremely useful for
detecting where theories of mind fail or are incomplete.

Homunculus arguments are common in the theory of vision. Imagine a
person watching a movie. He sees the images as something separate from
himself, projected on the screen. How is this done? A simple theory
might propose that the light from the screen forms an image on the
retinas in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these as if they
are the screen. The Homunculus Argument shows this is not a full
explanation because all that has been done is to place an entire person,
or homunculus, behind the eye who gazes at the retinas. A more
sophisticated argument might propose that the images on the retinas are
transferred to the visual cortex where it is scanned. Again this cannot
be a full explanation because all that has been done is to place a
little person in the brain behind the cortex. In the theory of vision
the Homunculus Argument invalidates theories that do not explain
\'projection\', the experience that the viewing point is separate from
the things that are seen. (Adapted from Gregory (1987), (1990)).

In the case of vision it is sometimes suggested that each homunculus
would need a homunculus inside it ad infinitum. This is the
**recursion** form of the homunculus concept. Notice that, unlike the
case of regress, the recursion would occur after the event.

An homunculus argument should be phrased in such a way that the
conclusion is always that if a homunculus is required then the theory is
wrong. After all, homunculi do not exist.

Very few people would propose that there actually is a little man in the
brain looking at brain activity. However, this proposal has been used as
a \'straw man\' in theories of mind. Gilbert Ryle (1949) proposed that
the human mind is known by its intelligent acts. (see Ryle\'s Regress).
He argued that if there is an inner being inside the brain that could
steer its own thoughts then this would lead to an absurd repetitive
cycle or \'regress\' before a thought could occur:

\"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything
intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal act
of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his practical
problem.\"

\"\.... Must we then say that for the ..\[agent\'s\].. reflections how
to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how best to reflect how
to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the
application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a
process of considering this criterion.\"

The homunculus argument and the regress argument are often considered to
be the same but this is not the case. The homunculus argument says that
if there is a need for a \'little man\' to complete a theory then the
theory is wrong. The regress argument says that an intelligent agent
would need to think before it could have a thought.

Ryle\'s theory is that intelligent acts cannot be a property of an inner
being or mind, if such a thing were to exist.

The idea that conscious experience is a flow of information into an
unextended place (a point eye) leaves itself open to the charge of
inserting an homunculus beyond the point eye. On careful reading few, if
any, real theories actually propose a flow through the point eye but
suggest some sort of nebulous direct relation with the information in
front of the eye. For instance, Descartes has a point soul directly
considering the contents of the common sense and Reid has a point eye
directly considering the world itself.

`<span style="font-size:x-small;">`{=html}Questions: It might be said
that the homunculus fallacy means that either the materialist
interpretation of conscious experience is wrong or conscious experience
does not exist: discuss. Physicalism is not materialism, discuss. Could
physical phenomena such as entanglement or space-time theories of
observation, where the observed vectors are constrained to the manifold,
avoid the homunculus fallacy?`</span>`{=html}

## Berkeley\'s \"passive ideas\"

Ryle\'s regress, when applied to consciousness, is based on an analysis
of conscious intellectual activity as a succession of states. At any
moment the conscious intellect contains one state such as \'I will think
of a word\'. This means that either the state has just popped into mind
or there was a previous state that gave rise to it such as \'I will
think of thinking of a word\'. Descartes and other empiricists have
noted that thoughts do indeed just pop into mind. So if we transfer
Ryle\'s analysis to the real world we discover that the regress is
avoided by removing the starting point of a series of thoughts from
conscious phenomenal experience. A train of thought just begins, it has
no conscious origin and Descartes\' implication is that it has probably
been synthesised non-consciously.

Suppose Descartes and our own experience are correct, suppose thoughts
do just pop into mind, if this happens can there still be a conscious
intellectual agent or are intellectual agents largely non-conscious? One
of the simplest intellectual processes is a test for equality i.e.:
\'does A equal B?\' and a routing of flow as a result of the test i.e.:
\'if A = B then goto\'. Can an intellectual agent perform an equality
test in conscious phenomenal experience?

Consider the test of whether \'A = A\', you attend to the left \'A\'
then the right \'A\' and declare them equal. What have you actually
done? The feeling that the symbols are equal just pops into mind.
Psychologists and philosophers use the word \'intuition\' for this
popping of answers into mind (Kant 1781). It is usually accompanied by
emotional experience (Damasio 1994, Bierman 2004).

If intellectual activity is actually a succession of things that just
pop into phenomenal consciousness then Ryle\'s conclusion that
phenomenal consciousness is like a \"ghost in the machine\" of the brain
would to some extent justified. Phenomenal consciousness would not be
intellectual activity. Phenomenal consciousness would contain the
stages, or succession of states, of intellectual activity but would not
contain the processes that connect these stages. This observation that
conscious experience is a succession of **passive ideas** is well known
in philosophy (cf: George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, 25).

## More on the conflict

Click above for more on Phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness,
Direct Realism, Indirect Realism, Dualism, Idealism and Panpsychism.

## References

-   Harrison, J. (1984). The incorrigibility of the cogito. Mind: New
    Series, Vol. 93, No. XCIII, 1984.

The problem of regression

-   Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind. The University of Chicago
    Press, 1949.

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-   Smith, Q. (1986). The infinite regress of temporal attributions. The
    Southern Journal of Philosophy (1986) Vol. XXIV, No. 3, 383 (Section
    3).
    <http://web.archive.org/web/20060507144913/http://www.qsmithwmu.com/the_infinite_regress.htm>

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-   Yates, S. (1991). Self referential arguments in philosophy. Reason
    Papers 16. (Fall 1991) 133-164.
    <http://www.mises.org/reasonpapers/pdf/16/rp_16_7.pdf>

The homunculus argument

-   Gregory, R.L. (1990) Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford
    University Press Inc. New York.

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-   Gregory, T.L. (1987). The Oxford Companion to Mind. Oxford
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Subject-object paradox

-   James, W. (1904)Does \'Consciousness\' Exist? Journal of
    Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1,
    477-491.
-   Hegel, G.W.F. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND: SECTION I. MIND SUBJECTIVE B.
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    of the Philosophical
    Sciences

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-   Velmans, M. (1996) Consciousness and the \"Casual Paradox\".
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 19 (3):
    538-542.
-   \[Bermudez, J.L. (1999) The Paradox of Self-Consciousness
    (representation and Mind) Psycoloquy:
    10,#35

Ontological status

-   Bierman, D.J. (2004) Non Conscious Processes Preceding Intuitive
    decisions
    <http://m0134.fmg.uva.nl/~djb/publications/2004/Intuition_bialsymp2004.pdf>

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-   Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes\' error: Emotion, reason and the
    human brain. New York: Grosset/Putnam Book.

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-   Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason
    <http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Philosophy/Kant/cpr/>

Direct Realism

-   Aydede, M. (2001) Naturalism, introspection, and direct realism
    about pain. Consciousness and Emotion, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2001, pp.
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<http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/maydede/pain.pdf>

-   Chapman, C.R., and Y. Nakamura (1999). A Passion of the Soul: An
    Introduction to Pain for Consciousness Researchers. Consciousness
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-   Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown

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-   Fowler C A (1986): "An event approach to the study of speech
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-   Gibson, J. J. (1966) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems.
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-   Gibson, J. J. (1979) Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.:
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-   Gregory, R.L. 1988. Consciousness in science and philosophy:
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-   Le Morvan, Pierre (2004). Arguments against direct realism and how
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-   Oliveira, André L. G. and Oliveira, Luis F. (2002) Toward an
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    <http://cogprints.org/2713/>

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-   Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior . New York: Macmillan,
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-   Skinner, B. F. 1971. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Knopf.

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-   Skinner, B. F. 1948. Walden Two. New York: Macmillan.

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-   Tye, M. (2004). ANOTHER LOOK AT REPRESENTATIONALISM ABOUT PAIN.
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-   Vygotsky, L.S.(1925) Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of
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-   Ziff, Paul. \"About Behaviourism.\" Analysis 18 (1958): 132-136.
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