Natika Newton

This paper argues that phenomenal consciousness arises from the forced blending of components that are incompatible, or even logically contradictory, when combined by direct methods available to the subject; and that it is, as a result, analytically, ostensively and comparatively indefinable. First, I examine a variety of cases in which unpredictable novelties arise from the forced merging of contradictory elements, or at least elements that are unable in human experience to co-occur. The point is to show that the uniqueness of consciousness is comprehensible in terms of a more general kind of emergence. I then argue that phenomenal consciousness essentially involves synchronous activations of representations of ‘identical’ intentional objects with distinct temporal tags, and is thus a case of the emergence of novelty from forced blending of incompatible components. It follows from the general nature of such emergence that consciousness would be indefinable and hence seem mysterious. This analysis will show why phenomenal consciousness would be impossible to resolve into its constituents by the conscious subject. The result is, I hope, a happy blend of physicalist explanation with respectful acknowledgement of the robustness of subjective experience

  Sydney Shoemaker argues that introspection, unlike perception, provides no identification information about the self, and that knowledge of one''s mental states should be conceived as arising in a direct and unmediated fashion from one''s being in those states. I argue that while one does not identify aself as the subject of one''s states, one does frequently identify and misidentify thestates, in ways analogous to the identification of objects in perception, and that in discourse about one''s mental states the self plays the role of external reality in discourse about physical objects. Discourse about any sort of entity or property can be viewed as involving a domain or frame of reference which constrains what can be said about the entities; this view is related to Johnson-Laird''s theory of mental models. On my approach evidence, including sensory evidence, may be involved in decisions about one''s mental states. I conclude that while Shoemaker may well be right about different roles for sense impressions in introspection and perception, the exact differences and their significance remain to be established

John Searle has argued that one can imagine embodying a machine running any computer program without understanding the symbols, and hence that purely computational processes do not yield understanding. The disagreement this argument has generated stems, I hold, from ambiguity in talk of 'understanding'. The concept is analysed as a relation between subjects and symbols having two components: a formal and an intentional. The central question, then becomes whether a machine could possess the intentional component with or without the formal component. I argue that the intentional state of a symbol's being meaningful to a subject is a functionally definable relation between the symbol and certain past and present states of the subject, and that a machine could bear this relation to a symbol. I sketch a machine which could be said to possess, in primitive form, the intentional component of understanding. Even if the machine, in lacking consciousness, lacks full understanding, it contributes to a theory of understanding and constitutes a counterexample to the Chinese Room argument.

A dynamic model of brain mechanisms of consciousness and emotion offers more comprehensive and coherent solutions than the traditional Cartesian model to many traditional puzzles in philosophy of mind. One of these is self-awareness: how is it possible for a conscious being to be reflexively aware of its own consciousness? In this chapter I discuss specific ways this question can be treated using a dynamic model. The discussion has two parts. First, I propose, in general terms, a way in which familiar aspects of conscious emotional states can be viewed as elements of a dynamical system. Second, I show how, on this model, one can be consciously aware of one’s own emotions.