The Mystery of Consciousness

Rating:
Summary: What is Mind?
Review: A good exposition, via a compilation of past book reviews by John Searle, published over the years in the New York Review of Books, of his views on consciousness and mind, he reiterates here, and in some ways strengthens, his famous Chinese Room argument in examining and denying the claims of the authors of the books under review in this volume.

I think that argument, by the way, while superficially right and useful (as a corrective to those with an overly mechanistic view of mind), ultimately misses the point because Searle presents it as a denial of what he calls "Strong Artificial Intelligence," the position that holds one can build minds, with the sort of consciousness we have, on computers using programs to accomplish this. Relying on the Chinese Room argument, Searle denies "Strong AI" by noting that programs are purely formal, or syntactical as he puts it, and that syntax cannot give meaning which requires a knowing, thinking, aware subject.

The problem with his argument is that the Chinese Room thought experiment -- while demonstrating that we do expect to see a knower at work in acts of "intelligence" (and that computers as presented in his thought experiment do not and cannot know anything) -- still does not demonstrate that computers that have been configured and programmed in certain ways cannot produce, at a "higher" level, just what he wants to deny them, consciousness. That is, syntax may indeed yield semantics in the same way that Searle tells us, elsewhere, that atomic structure can yield hardness or liquidness. But Searle seems never to notice this fundamental flaw in his case.

Searle remains fixated on his idea that consciousness is somehow not explainable via syntactical operations, as seen in computers, and this position keeps cropping up in criticisms of the various writers under review in this book. He's particularly hard on Daniel Dennett (Consciousness Explained), whom he takes to task for suggesting we are all zombie-like and so, says Searle, seems to be denying the qualitative nature of consciousness which the Chinese Room argument demonstrates. Of course, one can read Dennett's claim as being somewhat polemical since it is hard to take Dennett as saying there is no consciousness in the sense that neither he nor the rest of us have it. Dennett's point seems, rather, to be that consciousness is explainable in terms of non-conscious building blocks and that the sense of being a conscious entity that we get is only that, a sense of this.

In fact, Dennett wants to tell us there is no entity per se, only various brain functionalities which combine in certain ways to build the subjectness that we experience as consciousness. But Searle, taking Dennett literally, accuses him of actually arguing that we are all zombies, i.e., unconcious except that we happen to think we're conscious! Such a reading is, of course, a contradiction in terms as Searle suggests. But this does not seem to be a fair interpretation of Dennett's claims.

Searle's Chinese Room argument is right insofar as it shows that the idea of "intelligence" (what we mean by intelligence in creatures like ourselves) requires a subjective knower. But it is wrong insofar as Searle wants to say that it thereby demonstrates why a claim like the one Dennett makes, that consciousness can be built up on a non-organic machine platform (e.g., computers and their programs), is, itself, wrong. In fact, Dennett's claim looks better and better against the weaknesses of the Chinese Room argument when this argument is applied as an attack against "Strong AI" as Searle uses it.

Searle also takes on David Chalmers (The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory) and attacks him for suggesting that consciousness is something that is, in principle, logically divorced from the physicality of the world. As it happens, Chalmers has offered a very useful analysis of the uses we make of mental terms in many cases, showing how we often have two things in mind: a reference to the operational aspects and a reference to the phenomenality that often accompanies the operational aspects, i.e., our experience of having experiences, our subjectness. That we often mean both or one or the other in different contexts seems, in fact, to be quite true. And Chalmers also seems to be right in noting that we often have trouble distinguishing what exactly we are referring to in many actual cases and that the referral function tends to slip and slide over this somewhat icy sheet.

However, Searle rightly suggests that while this may be true of our usages, it doesn't mean that mind and body are two parallel realms as Chalmers seems to be proposing. For Searle this is a matter of how we talk about the phenomena of our experience, i.e., that minds are the functions of brains just as digestion is the function of stomachs, pumping blood is the function of hearts, etc. But Searle thinks Chalmers falls into property dualism while suggesting, simultaneously, that consciousness is irreducible. Searle's position is that it is, indeed, irreducible in terms of levels of speech, but scientifically, he wants to say that we can certainly reduce it to a biological function of brains which, as yet, is beyond our understanding but not, perhaps, forever.

Searle thinks that Chalmers holds a position which could, in principle, suppose that consciousness exists throughout the universe at every level, inanimate as well as animate. Though Chalmers' rebuttal to this reading is included in the book, Searle does not accept the rebuttal as written and insists the conclusion remains implied in Chalmers' arguments.

Searle addresses other writers here as well, including Edelman's work on massively redundant brain processing which he finds quite promising, etc. Because of the limitation of this amazon review format, I can't go much further. But suffice it to say, this is a good book and a useful introduction to the ideas of these thinkers. Searle is a good expositor and has some useful points to make, though I think, in the end, that he has got some things quite wrong, particularly his claim that his Chinese Room argument puts paid to the notion of "Strong AI" which, he tells us, holds that minds can be built out of computers and their programs. His failure to see the weakness in this core claim of his in the end undermines the strength of his criticisms of the other writers presented here.
SWM

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, But Biased and Argumentative
Review: I enjoyed reading most of this book, but found that on too many occasions the author failed to support his statements with explanations, and too often resorted to contemptuous language. His voice resembles that of Donald Rumsfeld, and sometimes his attitude does too. I found, in contrast, David Chalmers' responses to the author more dispassionate, reasoned, and informative. Still, Searles deserves credit for including such replies in the book.

Rating:
Summary: This is thinking?
Review: I picked this book out with hope, as I had problems with Dennet and Penrose's books on the field. Unfortunately, Searle clearly lacks understanding of either of their main points, and his essential objections to both are mutually contradictory.

Case in point: one objection to Penrose was that simulations of neural phenomena could clearly avoid the essential limitations Penrose proposes for algorithmic processes. That is idiotic on its face (how is a simulation any different from other sorts of programs?) Similar inconsistencies and plague his other writings.

This is not serious thought, or indeed writing worthy of republication. I hoped to see writng backed by logical thought and consistency. Instead I found mostly semantic objections that attempt to conceal a deep lack of anything useful to say.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent discussion of the issues
Review: I'm almost in complete agreement with Searle on his position that the mind depends completely on the brain and that the dichotomy between mind and brain in philosophy is false. Although one must be careful not to subscribe to a simple mind/brain psychophysical isomorphism, nevertheless, it is quite obvious at this point as a result of the research of the last 75 years in the brain sciences that the mind depends on, and results from, brain mechanisms and processes.

In this book, Searle discusses and critiques the work of a number of theorists and makes numerous observations related to these points, and I thought I'd add a few more. So I'll just make a few observations about the neuroscience for the road, since that's my specialty, including some interesting work related to the clinical side, since some of it is quite fascinating (especially the "orgasmotronic people" I discuss at the end). :-)

The first area I'd like to discuss relates to the area of emotions and specifically mood disorders, which has focused on the neurochemical and serotonin and dopaminergic issues, especially since these chemicals have a profound influence on the limbic system areas and the areas they connect with, such as the temporal, frontal, and prefrontal cortex. The limbic system is an older area of the mammalian brain that has profound effects on emotional behavior and many aspects of personality. It is well established that chemical imbalances and/or damage, such as through trauma and stroke and so on, can cause various syndromes, ranging from mood and emotional disorders to cognitive deficiencies. We still have a lot to learn about this, but the basic chemical pathways have been worked out. For example, deficits in long-term motivation (which many people have) have been found to be associated with the nerve pathways connecting the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system.

Another avenue of research that looks promising relates to schizophrenia, which is that what we call "consciousness" actually results from the integration of separate and diverse brain areas acting in concert, and that when this integration becomes impaired, there are problems. Of course, it remains to be seen if can be treated some way, but again, our understanding of the possible mechanism is continuing to progress.

Another example of how our emotional life depends on the brain is the finding that 70% of death-row inmates have been found to have abnormal EEGs and brain waves emanating from the amygdala, another important structure in the limbic system. The amygdala is involved in aggressive and even homicidal behavior. In one famous case, a formerly quiet, unassuming man developed an amygdalar tumor and shot 17 people and wounded 30 others before he was stopped. There are now drugs that treat abnormal electrical activity in the brain, and the hope is that someday they may even be able to detect and prevent situations like this.

For another fascinating example, take homosexuality, which many people still think is a form of psychopathology. Freud said it was because the boy didn't have a strong father figure, and so doesn't know better. For years homosexuals were treated with psychoanalysis with no effect. Then about 20 years ago, a scientist at Caltech made the amazing discovery that heterosexuals and homosexuals had different neurochemical and anatomical characteristics in one of the limbic areas known as the neurosecretory zone of the preoptic hypothalamic nucleus. In fact, he was able to get animals to display either heterosexual or homosexual behavior by diffusing neurosynaptic chemicals into the preoptic area. So much for the Freudian theory. This research proves that this aspect of our behavior is due entirely to how are brains are wired from birth, and has nothing to do with old notions of psychopathology.

One of the most fascinating cases I came across was a number of people who had been perfectly normal, but had recently become almost complete "vegetables" and had to be hospitalized. At least so they seemed on the surface. There was nothing wrong with them cognitively, they still had normal reasoning ability and could talk and socialize if they wanted to. They just had no interest in it. They progressively lost interest in their famlies, jobs, friends, everything, and eventually had to be hospitalized.

It was discovered that these people had developed an epileptic seizure focus in the orgasm center in the brain. If I remember right, it had the tongue-twisting name of the nucleus reticularis gigantocellularis. In any case, it was in one of the somatosensory processing areas in the thalamus, which is a structure just below the cortex but above the limbic system. Although this is technically a form of epilepsy, there are no convulsions associated with this syndrome (just as there aren't in the case of temporal-lobe epilepsy, which, since it occurs in the memory and associational area of the brain, can produce intense visions and memories, as well as emotional states).

Now it was obvious why these people weren't interested in anything else in their lives. They had orgasms that went on for several minutes, and due to the intensity of the electrical discharge, were probably 10 to 100 times as intense as a normal person's orgasms. And they kept having them. Especially the women patients said it was better than anything they could experience before. So they just sat there, waiting, yearning, hoping, for that next "seizure."

Anyway, just a few more interesting things to consider relating to our knowledge of the mind and brain. The above facts amply illustrate and further support Searle's theory that the mind is a function of the brain and that the classical mind/brain dichotomy is false.

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction to consciousness studies.
Review: Searle has proposed his own theory of consciousness elsewhere. But this book is a great book because it reviews the work of the most important (arguably) theorists on consciousness studies, an inherently interdisiplinary field (2 philosophers, a physcicists, 2 neuroscientist and a psychologist). First he reviews and critiques Gerald Edelmans theory. He does an adequate job, but as all philospher do, find these first attempts towards an explanation wanting. This is a relatively easy introduction to Edelman's early theories, and from a philosophical standpoint it is valuable.
He also discusses Francis Crick's model. He also does a good job in exposition, but a great job in critique. Admitedly, the 40 hertz theory is quite weak, and lately has fallen out of favour in the race for consciouness. But Searle lights up when it comes to attacking fellow philosophers. Dennett and Chalmers are bombarded with critiques, although I do think he does understand their positions. The replies are replied and the debate grows more and more interesting. This is philosophers game so no conclusions, but more questions, arise. He finally discusse Penrose's theory, and mercilesly (rightly, I think) critiques it. The only strong argument in Penroses model- Godelitis- is found inconclusive. Fewer people in the academia each year consider quantum consciousness as a serious candidate. Finally, he gives space to an often ignored theory -that of David Rosenthals. Although obscure, Rosenthals ideas are stimulating.
Overall, this is one of the best philosphically oriented introductions to consciousness studies. Now some would be uneasy with Searles own views, and I would agree. His biological naturalism seems to imply that only biological matter can be conscious, a weird view from a professed materialist. I have allways thought that to be materialist implies being a functionalist. If everything physically does the same thing as some other thing, the results should be the same, unless you call an extra non physical variable. The chinese room argument does shed light on some important issues, and intentionality is really important. But Searle is by no means holding a clearly defined position.
As for other reviewers, it is easy to see how to hold irreducibility without dualism (cognitive limitations, fundamental laws, too much physical complexity, emergentism, etc...) and it is irrelevant wether somethig is algorithmic or not for consciousness in real or simulated processes. See the Church thesis for one. One reviewer stated that scince consciousness is first person and matter third person then materialistic accouts are "futile". This is plain old stupid. First or third person points of view concern epistemistic access not ontology or metaphysics.

Rating:
Summary: A very good intro to the "Mind-Brain Problem"
Review: Searle is certainly not timid in this collection of essays, based on reviews he wrote in the New York Review of Books. However, Searle is not really combative either - he is rather very straightforward in his argumentation. That, combined with the back-and-forth responses between Searle and some of the reviewed authors is very instructive to introducing one to some of the various philosophical stances toward consciousness and the mind-brain problem.

Searle's own stance is one of 'biological naturalism'. This view is best explicated in Searle's _The Rediscovery of the Mind_. It, roughly speaking, is a view that: 1) consciousness is a real, intrinsically first-person phenomena; 2) consciousness is brain-based - that is, it is physically based; and, 3) by virtue of #1 mind is not a reducible phenomena (since any third-person reduction destroys the essential 1st-person characteristic that makes consciousness what it is). Scientific study of the mind is not thereby discounted - such study need only take these points into account.

Regarding Edelman and Crick, Searle points out that despite that whatever neurological evidence and elaborations they may have come up with (in terms of neurological theories), neither presents a theory of consciousness per se. Whatever the 40Hz theory says, it can only claim a correlative relation, not a causitive relation, to consciousness at this point in its development.
[For my money, _I of the Vortex_ by Rodolfo Llinas is more interesting than Edelman or Crick, and Llinas is somewhat less hyperbolic about his claims.]

Penrose is just tragically out to lunch, poor guy. And, if anything, Searle is overly generous in his treatment of Penrose's Godelian / computational arguments. The role of algorithmic simulation and the Incompleteness Theorems of Godel are grossly misused by Penrose, and Searle lets most of it slide, although he acknowledges that many criticisms along "technical" lines have been posed against Penrose.
[A far more cogent understanding of the mind-brain problem in relation to Godel, simulation, and Church-Turing thesis, is in Robert Rosen's daunting _Essays on Life Itself_].

It is true that one could conceivably agree with Dennett that there is no consciousness and our sense of self-awareness is just illusion. But I think that such a view is neither common-sensically nor neurologically supported, or even suggested, for that matter. And Searle rightly flushes Dennett out from under the latter's evasive handwaving. I agree with Searle that Dennett's view is "pathological". There is a "lively" back-and-forth between the two. :)

Chalmers' supervenience view is next. And I think Searle rightly highlights the errors of this view. The reviewer who says that Searle is the one begging the question by disallowing Chalmer's zombie thought experiment (imagine a world with a physically identical zombie to a person in this world but with no consciousness) is mistaken, in my opinion. Since consciousness is not, a priori, fractionable from a person without causing some physical change in so doing, the onus is on Chalmers to show that such a fractionation is even theoretically possible in =this= world, =before= he poses a thought experiment where such a possible other world is presupposed. Otherwise, his thought experiment is just wishful thinking about some other fantasy world. To allow Chalmers to make such a claim without evidence is to let Chalmers presume his own conclusion.

Finally. the reviewer who commented that Searle implies that biological naturalism says consciousness is only a property of "biological matter", and another reviewer who similarly comments on the "privileged" status of only biological organisms as possibly conscious, both slightly miss Searle's point. Searle says that biological systems are =causally sufficient= to have the property of consciousness: only brains produce consciousness because those are precisely the only systems we know of that have consciousness. He in fact says, "Perhaps it is a feature we could duplicate in silicon or vacuum tubes. At present, we just do not know." (p.203) So, "biological matter" is not somehow privileged per se, or vitalistic in any sense.

Part of the problem is that Searle's own view is presented only in a very compact, piecemeal form in this book. The interested reader will find that reading _The Rediscovery of the Mind_ will make Searle's own theory much clearer, and as a result will also make clearer Searle's objections to the other theories presented in this book of reviews.

Rating:
Summary: Searle: The Dogmatist at it Again
Review: Searle's new book is a compilation of articles previously published in The New York Review of Books, from 1995-1997. While the articles are self-contained, there is a definite theme that runs through them: that recent attempts to explain consciousness are either based on conceptual confusion or offer solutions that are at best promissory notes. Among those singled out for conceptual confusion are Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, and David Chalmers. Those who are in the right ballpark but do not deliver on their claims are Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, and Israel Rosenfeld. Or, to put it more succinctly, the former group is conceptually confused since they do not share Searle's view that consciousness is an irreducible biological property of the brain. The latter group fails to deliver because, while they correctly treat consciousness as a biological phenomenon, they do not explain consciousness in the sense of giving an account of how the brain actually causes conscious states.

Searle's merciless criticisms of recent approaches to consciousness are based on his own original viewpoint proposed in his books Minds, Brains, and Science (1984) and The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992). According to Searle, consciousness is both an irreducibly subjective mental phenomenon and a biological feature of the brain. Searle compares consciousness to digestion in the stomach or the sharpness of a pain, higher-level features of physical structures which are at the same time caused by lower-level micro-features of these structures. The mind/body problem is solved when we repudiate the dogmatic assumption that all properties are exclusively mental or physical. This forced dichotomy has led many philosophers to advocate either dualism, where the mental and the physical are separate phenomena, or materialism, where the mental gets completely eliminated in favor of the physical. Dualism leads to the insoluble problem of mind/body interaction, while materialism ignores the simple fact that we are conscious (most of the time, at any rate), and that consciousness "is the condition that makes it possible for anything to matter to anybody." (xiv) By countenancing consciousness as both mental and physical, Searle delivers us out of this problematic. As a mental phenomenon, consciousness is an irreducible property which is given to us in moments of sentient awareness; and as a biological property, we can (in principle) explain consciousness in terms of the methods of the natural sciences.

From this vantage point, any view that posits a form of materialism or dualism will be accused of conceptual confusion, a failure to see that the "mental" need not stand in opposition to the "physical." Thus Searle is led to dismiss the views of Chalmers (the property dualist) and Dennett (the materalist) without much difficulty. However, Searle's dismissive approach fails to appreciate that these views advance powerful arguments against Searle's own precarious double-aspect view. Take Chalmers' argument first. Chalmers argues that there is a logically possible zombie world physically identical to our own but without any conscious properties. If so, then the conscious facts that obtain in the actual world cannot be logically deduced from the physical facts. As Chalmers concludes, "facts about consciousness are further facts about our world, over and above the physical facts." Searle objects that the argument is question-begging, since it presupposes that an absence of consciousness would not logically entail a change in the physical features of the world. There is a logically possible world where pigs fly, but that would entail a change in the physical facts. Similarly, Searle argues, there is a logically possible world where there is no consciousness, but if consciousness is a physical feature of the world, such a world would require a change in the physical facts. Thus Chalmers' argument only works if he assumes that consciousness is non-physical, which is the very point he is supposed to prove.

Both Chalmers and Searle agree that biological facts are logically supervenient on the physical facts, so that a world which contained the same physical facts would logically entail the same biological facts. Since consciousness is a biological fact, for Searle, he concludes that the physical facts logically entail the conscious facts. Chalmers, however, initially takes it to be an open question whether consciousness is a biological fact; the point of the thought-experiment is to show that there is an important difference between consciousness and biological facts. For we cannot imagine a world physically identical to ours but where no digestion occurs; given identical physical processes in the stomach, digestion must occur in this world as a logical consequence. As Chalmers puts it, "even God could not have created a world that was physically identical to ours but biologically distinct." However, we can imagine a world which is physically identical to ours but where there is no consciousness. Insofar as such a world is coherent, Chalmers is not begging the question by assuming that consciousness is non-physical. For the whole point of the thought-experiment is to demonstrate a disanalogy between consciousness and physical properties. It is clear that it is Searle who is begging the question by just assuming that consciousness is a physical/biological fact and then plugging his ears to Chalmers' thought-experiment based on this assumption. ...[edited for length]

It seems that, no matter what neurophysiological processes are offerred as explanations for co

Rating:
Summary: Searle: Irreducibly Dogmatic, as usual
Review: Searle's new book is a compilation of articles previouslypublished in The New York Review of Books, from 1995-1997. While thearticles are self-contained, there is a definite theme that runsthrough them: that recent attempts to explain consciousness are either based on conceptual confusion or offer solutions that are at best promissory notes. Among those singled out for conceptual confusion are Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, and David Chalmers. Those who are in the right ballpark but do not deliver on their claims are Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, and Israel Rosenfeld. Or, to put it more succinctly, the former group is conceptually confused since they do not share Searle's view that consciousness is an irreducible biological property of the brain. The latter group fails to deliver because, while they correctly treat consciousness as a biological phenomenon, they do not explain consciousness in the sense of giving an account of how the brain actually causes conscious states.

Searle's merciless criticisms of recent approaches to consciousness are based on his own original viewpoint proposed in his books Minds, Brains, and Science (1984) and The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992). According to Searle, consciousness is both an irreducibly subjective mental phenomenon and a biological feature of the brain. Searle compares consciousness to digestion in the stomach or the sharpness of a pain, higher-level features of physical structures which are at the same time caused by lower-level micro-features of these structures. The mind/body problem is solved when we repudiate the dogmatic assumption that all properties are exclusively mental or physical. This forced dichotomy has led many philosophers to advocate either dualism, where the mental and the physical are separate phenomena, or materialism, where the mental gets completely eliminated in favor of the physical. Dualism leads to the insoluble problem of mind/body interaction, while materialism ignores the simple fact that we are conscious (most of the time, at any rate), and that consciousness "is the condition that makes it possible for anything to matter to anybody." (xiv) By countenancing consciousness as both mental and physical, Searle delivers us out of this problematic. As a mental phenomenon, consciousness is an irreducible property which is given to us in moments of sentient awareness; and as a biological property, we can (in principle) explain consciousness in terms of the methods of the natural sciences.

From this vantage point, any view that posits a form of materialism or dualism will be accused of conceptual confusion, a failure to see that the "mental" need not stand in opposition to the "physical." Thus Searle is led to dismiss the views of Chalmers (the property dualist) and Dennett (the materalist) without much difficulty. However, Searle's dismissive approach fails to appreciate that these views advance powerful arguments against Searle's own precarious double-aspect view. Take Chalmers' argument first. Chalmers argues that there is a logically possible zombie world physically identical to our own but without any conscious properties... It is clear that it is Searle who is begging the question by just assuming that consciousness is a physical fact and then plugging his ears to Chalmers' thought-experiment based on this assumption.

This kind of argumentation is characteristic of Searle's entire book. He sets up the debate in his way-- the "right" way-- and then refuses to consider the force of any argument that does not adhere to his own agenda. The treatment of Dennett is symptomatic in this regard. Searle's basic criticism is that Dennett "denies the existence of the data" (p.99) for a theory of consciousness, and hence whatever Dennett is doing, it is not explaining consciousness but rather explaining it away. But Dennett is hardly denying the existence of the data, the phenomenology of pain, vision, thinking, and so forth . What he denies is a false ontological interpretation of this data, that these states refer to independently real entities, "given" to awareness in a self-standing Cartesian realm. Searle assumes that the "data" are the full-blown ontological realities of mental states, but this begs the question against Dennett, who argues that these so-called ontological realities are not the raw data but rather interpretations-- bad interpretations of the data.

Characteristically, Searle's entire argument against Dennett rests on wheeling out his own view that a first-person ontology of mental states is consistent with treating the mind as part of the natural order. He writes:

Dennett has a definition of science which excludes the possibility that science might investigate subjectivity, and he thinks the third-person objectivity of science forces him to this definition. But that is a bad pun on 'objectivity.' The aim of science is to get a systematic account of how the world works. One part of the world consists of ontologically subjective phenomena. (p.114)

This fails to even address Dennett's project, for Dennett devotes 511 pages to working out the possibility of a view where "subjective phenomena" get explained as benign user illusions, similar to treating a face in a mirror as a "real" face, or the game on television as a "real" game. In order for Searle's objection to have any weight against Dennett, he must enter into the details of Dennett's project, and show how these details fail to make the case against the ontological validity of phenomenological states. He cannot simply assume that subjective mental phenomena are ontologically objective and then use this assumption to dismiss Dennett's project.

One might think that Searle would be more sympathetic to projects which do not deny the ontological facts of consciousness and yet try to explain these facts in terms of the neurophysiological workings of the brain. Indeed, Searle maintains that consciousness is a biological property of the brain and so should be studied just like any other biological phenomenon. One might think that, but one would be wrong. For Searle appears equally dismissive of recent projects within the natural sciences to explain consciousness. In his section on Francis Crick, Searle criticizes Crick's hypothesis that consciousness arises from synchronized firings of neurons in the 40 hertz range. Even if Crick were right, the most he has shown is that conscious facts are "correlated" with such neuron firings. What we need to be shown, Searle insists, is some "mechanism" that will explain consciousness in terms of lower-level properties of the brain. As he puts it,

Even if Crick's speculation turns out to be 100 percent correct we still need to know the mechanisms whereby the neural correlates cause the conscious feelings, and we are a long way from even knowing the form such an explanation might take (p.34).

It seems that, no matter what neurophysiological processes are offerred as explanations for consciousness, t

Rating:
Summary: obviously, he doesn't quite understand the issue
Review: this author has spent 15+ years on a topic and still doesn't understand the problem of his chinese room argument and his theory of consciousness (if he ever has one). Clinging himself onto the mysterious 'qualia', he manages to magnify a couple of incorrect intuitions to a whole series of simplistic high level arguments. by sticking forever to ontological subjectivity, one can deny whatever epistemological 'explanation' to be a complete account, simply because there could be no epistemological explanation that could ever encapsulate everyone's subjective feeling of all particular pain. this author never explains 'HOW' but has a habit of dismissing other people's theories without supplying much constructive arguments. he pretty much keeps on saying that as the campus buildings do not have a tag indicating that it is part of the campus hence they are not enough to constitute the whole campus. he doesn't seem to be able to make the necessary leap to fully understand the effects of emergent properties. the book is good for a laugh; 2 stars (not 1) for the repeatitive efforts made; but i would recommend reading d. dennett, a. damasio, g. edelman, o. sacks, s. blackmore, j. ledoux, o. flangan, f. crick, etc instead of john searle.

Rating:
Summary: Consciousness remains a mystery
Review: This book will be of interest to anyone curious about Artificial Intelligence (AI) or the philosophy of mind. It consists of chapters that were originally reviews of books, somewhat rewritten and expanded for this book. Searle believes that consciousness is an emmergent property of the brain, but that, so far at least, AI and attempts to explain the brain as a sort of computer are failures.
Two chapters review the essence, I think of Searle's position. In his review/commentary on Roger Penrose's Shadows of the Mind, he takes issue with Penrose's position that computers cannot possibly be intelligent or conscious like humans or human brains. Penrose claim is based in part of Godel's famous proof that there will always be improvable theorems in any set of mathematical axioms. In short, any formal mathematical system is incomplete because there are true but unprovable statements in it. A computer, which in the final analysis can do nothing but binary addition and subtraction can never know Godel's Proof as we know it. We can understand this because our brains can do something other than arithmetic. Searle says that even if Penrose is right, and not too many experts are convinced by his logic, that it should be possible to program computers to simulate whatever it is that brains do that allows us to be able to comprehend Godel's Proof. These seems to me to be an empirical question, but I would think that a computer made of silicon should be able to duplicate whatever a brain, which is essentially made of Jell-O, can do.
In Consciousness Explained Daniel Dennett takes the position that there is no such thing as consciousness. When we thinkwe are conscious of a feeling of pain, we are mistaken! At least this is what Searle says that Dennett claims. Since Dennett wrote a reply to Searle, which is included in the book, and does not deny it, it would seem to be so. Dennett claims inner states are "unconfirmable" and "unverifiable" and therefore "just obscurantism." From the standpoint of scientific theory he may well be correct. Scientists suppose that human behavior can be explained as a result of brain functioning. It does not seem that a complete description of brain function needs anything more than a description of the parts of the brain and how they work. Everything I could hope to know about a brain would be equally true if the brain was no more conscious than my computer or chair. A scientist can say about consciousness what Laplaise said about God: I have no need of that hypothesis.
But the fly in the ointment is that I, at least, am conscious. And I will do you the courtesy of supposing you are also, but I cannot know that with the same certainty.
And that is the great mystery of consciousness. Is it an emergent property of brain function as Searle believes? Is it part of our immortal soul as most theologians claim? Is it part of the Mind of God as mystics experience it? There is really no way to know.