Brain-states and Subjectivity

Brain states and subjectivity

Koch’s analysis of the relationship between brain states and the subjective feeling of agency has only two possible solutions, one of which he rejects. The apparent options are that either further search will prove an unbridgeable gap between consciousness and physical science, or the progress of neuro-science will explain away the feeling of agency as nothing but the behavior of molecules. Koch considers the first option as the defeat of science.

The attitude of, “science” as expressed by practicing scientists as well as philosophers of science is that science is always unfinished, but there are no caps on what it can discover in the future. The question is whether further progress must lead to either a dualism that defeats physical science, or a complete reductionism that reduces consciousness to an illusion. A third possibility is a development of science that includes and surpasses the present state of science, but which sheds the philosophical assumptions of contemporary materialism.    

Koch, for one, offers a proposed direction of science that leaves contemporary materialism behind. He sets out to develop a theory that explains how and why the physical world can generate consciousness. After explaining the concept of “emergence,” and asserting that life is an emergent phenomenon of chemistry and physics, he asserts: “Subjectivity is too radically different from anything physical for it to be an emergent phenomenon” (119). The example that he offers to illustrate his point is the experience of a shade of blue, which is radically different from all of the electrical activity in the brain of a person who experiences the blue. Although he re-affirms the materialist premise that something such as the perception of a color cannot take place without the activity of the eye’s cone photoreceptors, he also acknowledges that the experience cannot be reduced to its physical cause. He takes a giant step if not a leap when he states, “I believe that consciousness is a fundamental, an elementary, property of matter.”119 The conventional attitude of most scientists and other modern thinkers is that the elements of the universe are unconscious until evolution accidently produces an animal with a relatively complex nervous system. Koch affirms that this is the attitude of most scientists, based on many conversations with fellow scientists.

Koch, however,  maintains that consciousness is immanent in all organized pieces of matter. The higher the organization, the greater the consciousness. Consciousness stands as a property of the organization of the elements and cannot be reduced to the elements themselves. According to his thinking, the organized matter need not be organic. Artificial consciousness in complex machines, designed by humans, looms as a distinct possibility.

Along with his late friend and mentor, Francis Crick, Koch attributes his insight to a theory devised by Giulio Tononi called integrated information. Tononi’s premises are that “Each conscious state is extraordinarily informative, extraordinarily differentiated and highly integrated. 125. Consciousness comes with organized chunks of matter. It is immanent in the organization of the system. “120.

            Since the word “information” generally means stuff that we know, the deeper scientific and philosophical meaning of the term “information” stands in need of clarification. Koch provides such a clarification beginning with the observation that when we describe every state of consciousness as “informative” we mean that its quality of differentiation makes it absolutely unique so that it can never be repeated. Its uniqueness differentiates it from every other conscious state. 

In addition to being differentiated, every conscious state is integrated. We cannot experience components of a state of consciousness apart from the whole. For example, if we are looking at a colorful landscape, we cannot experience it as black and white. While an artist may sketch the landscape using only black pencils, our experience of the sketch would be a different state of consciousness from that of seeing the landscape. If the areas of brain activity, which interact in a state of consciousness, become fragmented, as happens under anesthesia, consciousness fades. Also, if there is little specific information as happens in sleep, consciousness also fades. Consciousness requires a rich supply of differentiated information integrated in a single system. 125   “Any conscious system must be a single integrated entity with a large repertoire of highly integrated states.” 126

The implications of integrated information include the affirmation that consciousness constitutes a property of the universe that pervades every integrated system beginning with sub-atomic particles and becoming ever more prevalent in more complex molecules, and more obvious with the evolution of life and higher organisms.  Koch connects this conclusion with the ancient belief in pan-psychism, the belief that all matter is to some degree sentient. More specifically, he draws the parallels between integrated information and the belief of the Jesuit paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1954), whose law of complexification “…asserts that matter has an inherent compulsion to assemble into ever more complex groupings. And complexity breeds consciousness.”

            Although Koch affirms that consciousness constitutes a property of the universe that is distinct from matter and that cannot be reduced to matter or an emergent property of matter, he does not deviate from his reductionist stand that consciousness cannot exist without matter.  As he sums it up: “But without some carrier, some mechanism, integrated information can’t exist. Put succinctly: no matter; never mind.” Nevertheless, he affirms a Socratic-like scientific humility reminiscent of William James who said, “Our science is a drop, our ignorance the sea.” In Koch’s words, “Our knowledge is but a fire lighting up the vast darkness around us, flickering in the wind. So let us be open to alternative, rational explanations in the quest for the sources of consciousness.” 135.

Koch’s research and his interpretation seem to be more compatible with a teleological than a mechanistic view of the universe. Rather than consciousness being an accidental and insignificant by-product of matter, matter seems to be moving purposively toward the development of consciousness. Although Koch rejects the notion of a soul that can subsist without the brain and also rejects the religious notion of God, he affirms a trust, some might call it a faith, that the universe is not meaningless. Part of this attitude is a faith in science, specifically that it is poised to solve the mind-body problem. But he rejects the temptation to think of science as the final and absolute form of knowledge. “I do not know what will come afterward, if there is an afterward in the usual sense of the word, but whatever it is, I know in my bones that everything is for the best.” “I do believe that some deep and elemental organizing principle created the universe and set it in motion for a purpose that I cannot comprehend.” If his hunch is right on the last two statements, then consciousness, not human consciousness, but consciousness, has a priority over matter. Not everything is lost with the inevitable disintegration of the physical universe and there is a pathway for dealing with the problem of the good.

            As stated at the beginning of these posts, consciousness while the most universal and familiar of topic, eludes attempts to provide analytical understanding. Yet, consciousness stands out as the most essential condition for anything that we might call good. Materialism reduces consciousness and therefore all good, to an accidental product of blind, indifferent, unconsciousness physical events. But my thesis affirms the reasonableness of holding that consciousness precedes the evolution of the human brain, which becomes a channel of consciousness. If this view, as opposed to the materialist view is correct, then goodness is real and the meaning of our life consists of promoting that which is good aesthetically and ethically   In the following posts, I will strive to show what the priority of consciousness has to do with Biblical religion, how it can also provide meaning for those without religion, and how it enhances our understanding of environmental, economic, and social ethics.