Tag Archives: consciousness

Consciousness is not a Phenomenon, Part 2: Other People’s Windows

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Last week, we saw that phenomenal consciousness, which is the “stage” upon which the world reveals itself to us as phenomena, is itself not a phenomenon, which makes any account of it—especially in material(ist) terms—exceedingly difficult. But to see just how serious the issue is, we need to move from a consideration of our own consciousness to how we might learn about the phenomenality of other people.

Red things just appear red to me, of course. But let’s say that we set up a little experiment. We find a hallway with a 90° turn. I sit at the corner itself and look down one leg of the hallway. I put a paint swatch at the other end of the hall, but I don’t tell you what color it is. You sit in the other leg of the hallway and look at me. I stare at the paint swatch, focusing on its color (spoiler warning: it’s green).

But what do you see? You see my head, and you see me staring intently. Within my brain, complex neurological activity is happening, which involves information processing that allows my brain-body complex to recognize the color green (understood as a specific hertz value of the electromagnetic radiation that struck my retina). This involves my eyes, the optic nerves, and probably many different sections of my brain. This is complicated, but not fundamentally mysterious. We can describe the process, beginning with the light bouncing off the swatch and ending with a brain state of “seeing green”, and we can describe it in purely mathematical terms. Meanwhile, also, this same process (somehow) results in my consciousness hosting the appearance of the quality of greenness (among many other things).

But where does the quality of greenness occur? Let’s say we isolate the part of my brain that actually process visual information and does the green-seeing. If we were able to install a little transparent window on the side of my head, would we expect to see that part of my brain glowing green?

Continue reading at: https://open.substack.com/pub/phenomenologyeastandwest/p/consciousness-is-not-a-phenomenon-f8a

Consciousness is not a Phenomenon, Part 1: Forgetting Our Window

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The question of what consciousness is has long interested—and perplexed—philosophers. Plato’s dialogue in the Phaedo, for example, is (in part) an effort to work out what consciousness might be. But the quest for an understanding of consciousness intensified in the latter part of the 20th century, at least within English-language philosophy. Contemporary Philosophy of mind developed in order to make sense of consciousness, to explain how consciousness could be fitted into the materialist ontology which had, by that time, become unquestionably dominant within most of academic philosophy.

However, after many decades of earnest work, the effort to arrive at a decisive answer to the question of how consciousness might arise from the brain seems no closer to success today than it did in 1950; indeed, in many ways, the pendulum seems to have shifted. More and more philosophers seem dubious that any materialist explanation of consciousness will be forthcoming.1

Now, there is much to say about all of this, both in making sense of the materialist strategies in philosophy of mind (eliminativism, epiphenomenalism, and “constitutivism”) as well as in the premises, assumptions, and biases that informed those efforts, and the fact that non-materialist or semi-materialist efforts to develop a philosophy of mind have not necessarily been any more successful (at least, so far). Philosophy of mind is an extremely complex and confusing group of discourses. I intend to write about it plenty in this space, but I will have to make sure I only bite off as much as I can chew each week.

So today I want to offer a general remark about a fundamental confusion that I see in much of philosophy of mind discourse—materialist or otherwise. It’s a confusion that I think helps to explain why so much of the writing on this subject is so often so fruitless and opaque.

Continue reading at: https://open.substack.com/pub/phenomenologyeastandwest/p/consciousness-is-not-a-phenomenon

Non-Dualism vs. Non-Dualism vs. Non-Dualism vs. Monism

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Last week, we dove into the turbulent waters of dualism. I focused my time there pointing out that “dualism” is, as the smart kids say, an overdetermined term: there are (at least!) four different meanings to dualism: what I called 1) ontological dualism, 2) theological dualism, ditheism style, 3) theological dualism, Barthian style, and 4) phenomenological1 dualism.

Attentive readers may remember, however, that I began that post on dualism asking a question about something else entirely—non-dualism. Although I did touch on non-dualist responses to the various modes of dualism outlined, we didn’t dig deeply into it there—so we shall today.

As I pointed out at the top of last week’s post, non-dualism is a trendy, popular word today, especially in many spiritual-but-not-religious spaces who are looking for alternative approaches to spirituality. Many in the west today, both conservative and liberal, tend to act as if the only options are mega-church Christianity or new Atheism. Non-dualism, with its air of mystery, seems to offer a refreshing alternative to both.

Considering that we offered 4 different modes of dualism, one might assume/worry that we will have to investigate 4 different modes of non-dualism here. Fortunately for you, my intrepid but time-strapped reader, things aren’t as bleak as that. Although there are non-dualist philosophical approaches to all 4 modes of dualism outlined, here I want to focus on just two.

Continue reading on my Substack, Phenomenology, East & West.

Dualism vs. Dualism vs. Dualism vs. Dualism

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Has anyone ever extolled the virtues of non-dualism to you? Many westerners who are interested in “Eastern” spirituality and mysticism tend to think that non-dualism is the key to unlock spirituality for us mundane Westerners. Anyone interested in Vedanta philosophy, in particular, will surely spend a lot of time considering non-dualism. Richard Rohr, undoubtedly one of the most popular Christian contemplative writers, speaks constantly about non-dualism. Why, even YouTube anarchists are getting in on the action. Non-dualism is interesting and trendy—but what, exactly, is it?

As we will see, that’s both a great question for anyone interested in phenomenology (I’m hoping that’s you!), but it’s also a complicated question. Indeed, I don’t think we can answer this question without first answering a related but distinct one: before we figure out what non-dualism is, surely we first need to figure out what dualism itself is.

Again, though, things get complicated quickly: there is no one thing called dualism. Today, I want to outline the three four common meanings of dualism, and explore how they are both related but also distinct. Only then will we be able to come back and figure out what non-dualism might be.

Click here or on the image below to keep reading on my new SubStack.