4.1 What is the nature of Consciousness?

“No philosopher and hardly any novelist has ever managed to explain what that weird stuff, human consciousness, is really made of. Body, external objects, darty memories, warm fantasies, other minds, guilt, fear, hesitation, lies, glees, doles, breath-taking pains, a thousand things which words can only fumble at, co-exist, many fused together in a single unit of consciousness”— Iris Murdoch, in The Black Prince. 1973.

What kinds of creatures have consciousness? Does it exist in chimpanzees—or in gorillas, baboons, or orangutans? What about dolphins or elephants? Are frogs, fish, insects, or vegetables aware of themselves to any extent—or is consciousness a singular trait that segregates us from the rest of the beasts?

Although those animals won’t answer questions like, “Are you aware that you exist,” or “ What is your view of what consciousness is,” the answers from people are scarcely more useful. When you ask mystical thinkers how consciousness works, their replies are not highly enlightening.

• Sri Chinmoy: “Consciousness is the inner spark or inner link in us, the golden link within us that connects our highest and most illumined part with our lowest and most unillumined part.”[1]

Some philosophers even insist that there’s no way to look for good answers to this.

• Jerry Fodor: "Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness."[2]

Is consciousness an ‘all-or-none’ trait that has a clear-cut boundary, or does it have different amounts and qualities—the way that a thing can be cold or hot?

Relativist: Everything has some consciousness. An atom has only a little of it. Bigger things must have it in larger degrees— right up to the stars and the galaxies.

Absolutist: We don’t know where consciousness starts and stops, but clearly each thing must be conscious or not—and, clearly, there is no such thing in a rock.

• Computer User: Certain programs seem to me already conscious to some small degree.

Logicist: Before you go on about consciousness, you really ought to define it. Good arguments should start right out by stating precisely what they are about. Otherwise, you'll build on a shaky foundation.

That policy might seem 'logical'—but it’s wrong when it comes to psychology, because it assumes that ‘consciousness’ has a clear and definite meaning. Of course, we don't like to be imprecise—but strict definitions can make things worse, until we’re sure that our ideas are right. For, 'consciousness’ is a word we use for many types of processes, and for different kinds of purposes; we apply it to feelings, emotions, and thoughts—and to how we think and feel about them. It’s the same for most everyday words about minds, such as ‘creativity’ or ‘intelligence’.

So instead of asking what ‘consciousness’ is, or what we mean by ‘being aware,’ we’ll try to examine when and why people use those mysterious words. But why do such questions even arise? What, for that matter, are mysteries?

• Daniel Dennett: “A mystery is a phenomenon that people don't know how to think about—yet. Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. There have been other great mysteries [like those] of the origin of the universe and of time, space, and gravity. ... However, Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist—and hope—that there will never be a demystification of consciousness.” —Consciousness Explained, 1991

Indeed, many of those who ‘insist—and hope’ that consciousness cannot be explained still claim that it alone is the source of most of the virtues of human minds.

• Thinker 1: Consciousness is what unifies our present, past, and future together, by making sense of all our experience.

• Thinker 2: Consciousness makes us 'aware' of ourselves, and gives us our sense of identity; it is what animates our minds and gives us our sense of being alive.

• Thinker 3: Consciousness is what gives things meanings to us; without it, we would not even know we had feelings.

Wow! How could one principle, power, or force endow us with so many faculties? It can’t—and this chapter will argue that there is no reason to suppose that all of those different abilities stem from just one common origin. Indeed, from what we know about brains, it is safer to guess that they’re each based on different machinery.

William Calvin and George Ojeman “Modern discussions of consciousness … usually include such aspects of mental life as focusing your attention, things that you didn't know you knew, mental rehearsal, imagery, thinking, decision making, awareness, altered states of consciousness, voluntary actions, subliminal priming, the development of the concept of self in children, and the narratives we tell ourselves when awake or dreaming.”[3]

All this shows that "consciousness" does not refer to any single idea or thing, but that we use it as a suitcase-word for a great many different activities.