Thought Experiment #1
If you were to undergo surgery that swapped your brain with someone else’s, what would you experience after the operation?
- You are in a new body?
- You are in your old body?
- “You” would be gone and a new “you” with all your memories would carry on?
- There is no such thing as “you”? (the question is invalid)
- Something else?
July 31st, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Mmmm - don’t think kids can try that one for science fair!
But - I reckon you’d be in a new body - so if you and I swapped brains,I’d have all my memories etc but I’d be struggling with the lack of hair on a cold day like this! I’d carry on and so would you.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
That’s what beanies are for!
Thanks Jack. I’m not 100% sure where I stand on this question. For me, I would say that #2 is out but the other three trouble me for various reasons.
I’m hoping this thought experiment (and the two to come) will help clear things up for me.
July 31st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
The answer isn’t any one, but a combination of 1 - 3.
Choice #1: Off the cuff, it seems like “you” would wake up in a new body since the seat of consciousness is in the brain.
Choice #2: On closer examination, when we talk about the brain, we are really trying to define where the seat of consciousness (the mind) is; we are trying to delineate its boundary is. The first problem is that we have to cut the brain stem at some point. The nerves in the brain stem go deep into the brain, and deep into the spinal columns. Are the nerves in the brain stem part of the brain or the body. Or we might ask what exact point along the brain stem is the brain and what part is the body? The second problem is: does the mind reside only in the brain or does it reside in the entire nervous system? In other words, are the optical nerves in the eyes any less a part of vision processing than the visual cortex? Finally the coup de grace: moods, emotions, desires, etc. are effected by the endocrine system which is distributed throughout the body. So “you” might “feel” like a different person in another body - so even if you still think you’re “you”, “you” are not really the same “you” as you were in your original body.
Choice #3: Choice #’s 1 & 2 might be moot. The average age of the cells in your body is just 7 to 10 years (cells that line the gut can live up to 16 years). So if you’re at least 16, then your original body that you were born with has already died and “you” are a new person with old memories. Aside from total cell replacement, are you the same person that you remember that you were as a child? Is the child still alive or is a new adult with the child’s memories alive? Introspection suggests that the child is no longer alive. Though you might remember childhood episodes, you no longer experience the child’s “self” in the same way that you have your “self” right now. You know where I’m going with this, right?
…wait for it…
You no longer experience yesterday’s “self” in the same way that you experience your “self” right now. In fact, you no longer experience you moment-ago “self” in the same way that you experience your “self” right now. There is a continuity of memory, but no continuity of self at all.
I think I need a drink.
Choice #4: there is definitely a “me” as Descartes eloquently deduces.
Choice #5a: consciousness (the “you”) is not a product of the body/brain, but exists independently of it and is connected with it in some way (I think we can argue convincingly that this is baseless… but it’s still another choice to consider for completeness)
Choice #5b: there is no physical body or physical anything; only consciousness (the “you”); all else is the delusion of this consciousness (e.g., brain in a jar).
August 1st, 2008 at 12:03 am
Excellent breakdown A3! (Although forgive me for being skeptical of the confidence of your opening sentence).
Would you be kind enough to elaborate as to why you think that there definitely is a “me” as per your #4. Are you talking about a “me” in the context of an illusion that the physical body generates or of an actual internal observer in the Cartesian Theatre manner?
And perhaps show how #5a is baseless for those who imagine that there is an invisible component that affects (and is affected) by the body? I’d be interested to hear your angle on this.
Where I think I’m at at the moment is that I think that half of the trick is that we perceive that our “self” projects into the future and this can cause us to ask the wrong questions. Which you’ve addressed well with point #3. I suspect our feeling of “self” is something like a feedback loop created when our brain tries to model itself and we feel like we can project this entity forward or back in time but all we really have are the (imperfect) memories of our experiences and it all grinds to a halt without the physical brain (plus perhaps other bits of the body).
But I also suspect that I’m still a long way off and am interested to wring the thoughts out of your head because it sounds like you’ve already dwelt on this. Have you studied consciousness?
August 1st, 2008 at 2:40 am
Good catch regarding the confident tone in my opening statement. I should clarify: the part I’m confident about is only the first half: that the answer does not lie in any one single choice but rather a combination (as already described). I’m less confident that the choices are precisely choices 1 - 3 to the exclusion of all others.
Regarding Choice #4, that “I” truly exist, I was referring to Descartes’ argument where he says:
In other words, the fact that there is one, e.g. “me”, who contemplates the question, “do I exist”, is in itself proof that in fact “I” exist since “I” am the one contemplating (whoever “I” may be). Contemplation is an action and by definition, the actor must exist in order to act. In fact, the experience of “I” is the only first-hand experience the mind has. All other knowledge derives from sensory perception - the existence of which we have no such strong proof (since sensory perception could be an invention of a disembodied mind as far as we know).
I don’t think this is the same as the Cartesian Theater dilemma - the dilemma of the Cartesian Theater shows that the requiring that the controller and the controlled must be distinct leads to infinite regression. For example, if the mind (the controller) is distinct from the body (the controlled) and causes the body to act, then the mind itself is acting when it controls the body (because causing the body to act is in itself an action). Therefore we must subsequently ask: “what is the controller of the mind that causes it to act?” (which is the infinite regression). The Cartesian Theater dilemma doesn’t refute the existence of self, it simply refutes dualism. Decartes’ argument doesn’t address the relationship of the mind with the body, it simply posits that the mind must exist.
Regarding Choice #5a, that consciousness in independent of the mind: we observe that the quality of conscious directly depends on the function of the brain. If the brain is injured or chemically altered, then consciousness is altered in a predictable way (in so much as medical science understands the functions of various parts of the brain). When the brain is anesthetized, there is no consciousness at all. So consciousness seems to depend on the brains ability to function. But we don’t see brains that seem physically normal that are not able to function, so we can’t say that we see brains that are affected by a malfunctioning consciousness. Even more to the point, while we observe brains with no consciousness, we never observe a consciousness with no brain.
If consciousness were separate from the brain, it would be conceivable that the conscious mind could perceive the physical brain. So far so good: “we” perceive our physical brain. But what is it that perceives the conscious mind? Now we are proposing the Cartesian Theater dilemma.
If our consciousness is defined by the function of our brain (our memories, our emotions, etc.), then there is no meaning to a statement that consciousness is something other than the function of the brain. For example, let’s suppose for a moment that your consciousness inhabited another brain before you were born. But you perceptions are limited to the memories, etc., of the person you currently are. Then the assertion that consciousness is separate from your brain is not necessarily false, but it is meaningless because it is an equivocation of what we mean by the term consciousness.
(end comment: “Regarding Choice #5a” - in case it wasn’t obvious) :p
I suspect you’re right about the feedback loop. But that answer still leaves me wanting (nothing personal - all answers I’ve heard so far, both physical and spiritual leave me wanting). It seems like a machine can reflect (have a feedback loop which changes the behavior of the feedback loop) and still not be conscious. There seems like there is more to it, but no one has a good answer for what more to it there is :))
I’ve never studied consciousness per se but it’s an area that I’m fascinated by and I’ve read bits and pieces here and there. The biggest problem seems to be coming up with a workable definition of what consciousness even is. Only then can you ask what causes it or where does it come from. I suspect as in most other cases, formulating the right question is most of the work of finding the answer.
One thing I’ve contemplated along the lines of a definition is that all things function and are therefore conscious. And the level of consciousness is proportional to the complexity of function. The idea is intriguing at first because it seems to work toward a usable definition. For one thing, it disentangles the notion of self-reflection (I “realize” that I’m conscious) from consciousness itself: I think a cat is conscious but the cat doesn’t contemplate its consciousness (…well, one of mine might!) :)) I think an ant is conscious at a much lower level. Is a tree conscious? According to this notion, it is, but on a much lower level since the function an ant’s nervous system is far more complex than the function of any part of the plant. The problem is that the notion does create an insurmountable problem: at a certain level, like when we ask if a plant or even a rock is conscious, we must equivocate the meaning of “consciousness” in order to say that they are. Perhaps the idea is sound but we need to better define what we mean by “complexity” - or maybe “complexity” is not the right attribute at all. Just some ramblings…
August 1st, 2008 at 3:29 am
I was reading over what I wrote and noticed something I should unpack (which makes me wonder why I didn’t just read it over before posting it!) :))
I said:
When I asked “what is it that perceives the conscious mind”, I meant: is it the brain? If consciousness is separate from the brain, then the brain doesn’t “perceive” anything (because consciousness - by definition the thing that perceives - lies outside the brain). Then perception is not the result of any action on the part of the brain but the action of the consciousness which is separate from the brain. Then the mind is the controller of the brain; not the other way around since mind perceives the brain but the brain can’t perceive mind. So if you say that “mind perceives the brain”, then asking “what perceives the mind?” is an invitation into the Cartesian Theater dilemma. You can avoid the dilemma by saying that the mind perceives itself, but then you’ve lost the basis for requiring a separate mind since, if a mind independent of the brain can perceive itself, then a mind dependent on the brain could also perceive itself. So perception is no indication of a mind independent of the brain.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:30 am
Thank you A3.
I like where you are going with your thoughts on consciousness. But here’s my problem with it: the word ‘consciousness’ seems to become too watered down when we get to the level of plants even though, by your definition, they need to be included. This is likely to be down to how we define consciousness in the first place.
I still quite like the definition of consciousness as being the ability of a system to reflect or model itself. With this as a working definition we’re not necessarily bound to define consciousness to ‘living’ but more an occasional function of some living things whilst leaving the definition open enough to include machines or other, complex systems. That way:
Yours is quite an inclusive definition of consciousness and mine is limited to occasional instances of some complex systems. One of the problems with yours is that it feels like we’re smearing the definition a little thin across simpler forms of life and one of my problems is that the onus is now on me to define specifically the mechanisms of these occasions where my idea of consciousness is experienced.
Thoughts?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:39 am
I totally agree. That’s what I was thinking when I was said:
I don’t think “complexity” is really the right attribute because of problems like plants and rocks, but I think it may end up being something like complexity - but maybe a more specific type of complexity. For example, I think you need a brain to be conscious. The thing that makes brains special is their complexity, but not just any type of complexity - a certain type of complexity. Is there a way to classify this type of complexity? That might be a good start.
Your comment about plants not being conscious made me think of something I hadn’t considered before: should we define consciousness based on a preconceived notion of what things are conscious (I don’t think plants or rocks are conscious either) or would that be circular reasoning? In other words, are we saying that plants aren’t conscious because they don’t belong to the set of conscious things, but they don’t belong to the set of conscious things because they are not conscious? I’m not sure but I suspect we might be.
Maybe we could start with a method for recognizing consciousness. If we accept Decartes’ proof that we ourselves are conscious (when he says that “I exist”, the “I” is not the physical body but consciousness - whether that consciousness is dependent on the physical body or not), then we still have the problem of recognizing consciousness in others. The reason you believe that I am conscious is that you believe you are conscious, and that I am very much like you in most ways. If you don’t believe me, try to devise a way to know for sure that I am conscious without invoking our similarity! I don’t think you can. Still, invoking similarity (e.g., analogy) is valuable since it tells us which objects (I say “objects because I’m being careful not to exclude rocks prematurely!) are a good bet to accept as conscious.
So we have at least some method for recognizing conscious objects, however imperfect. Though it makes sense to accept that similar objects (i.e., you and me) have like attributes (i.e., consciousness), it doesn’t follow that dissimilar objects (me and a rock) do not share at least some attributes (perhaps consciousness?). So we also need a way to recognize the lack of consciousness. But we can’t do that until we have a working definition of what we mean by consciousness and how consciousness can be recognized.
We might break the circularity if we were able to enumerate measurable elements or attributes of consciousness (warning: this is at least as hard as defining consciousness), then we could determine which things are conscious by observation and measurement. For example, an attribute could be to feel, as in feeling pleasure or pain - but defining “feel” is just as hard as defining consciousness (so is defining pleasure and pain for that matter) and measuring it is even harder - but I think it’s still a step in the right direction. An amoeba is a good illustration of why pain is hard to define: this one-celled animal has no nervous system but shies away from harmful chemicals or radiation. Is it a pain response or simply biochemical? A brain scan shows activity when the human subject is pricked with a needle - is the brain activity an indication of feeling pain, or is it also just simply a “blind” biochemical response? We can say by analogy that the brain feels the pain. But how do we know if the amoeba feels? Does the human nerve cell that was excited by the pin prick “feel” pain? A good test for our definition might be: if were to try to create a machine that is conscious, how would we know if we succeeded?
So the bottom line is: I don’t think a rock is conscious, but how sound is my assessment? Until I know what consciousness really is, I don’t think it’s very sound.
I’m raising more questions that I am answering - but formulating the right question is usually most of the work of finding the answer!
Sorry for the long ramble - but you asked some really good questions and you’re raising interesting points.
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Thanks A3 and sorry about the delay; I’ve been ‘mulling’.
I think a large part of the problem is that “consciousness” is a word we humans have made up to describe one or more phenomenons that we experience. And we don’t have a very clear definition at that.
A lot of it seems to rely on an ability to report a feeling that we can relate to (like you said) and it seems that being able to report that you are conscious being a qualifier for consciousness is circular.
Perhaps an amoeba is really does have the same mechanisms or building blocks that we do but that it lacks the complexity to analyse and report its experiences which means it fails to qualify for our fuzzy definition of being conscious.
Have you ever heard a good definition of consciousness? Something that’s not circular?
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:34 am
I haven’t even heard even as much as a good description, must less a good definition (beyond using Descartes logic as a sort of a description). And therein lies the real problem. I think you are spot on in concluding that consciousness is a broad-sweeping term that we use for describing our experience of consciousness, but it doesn’t begin to define the nature of it or its physical processes. Actually, that may be one of the best descriptions I’ve heard to date!
Maybe the term “consciousness” is a lot like the the color “red”. We can describe “red” in terms of physics (electromagnetic waves with a certain min and max waive length) but that doesn’t even begin to describe the experience of seeing the color red - which is really what we commonly use the word “red” to describe. The more I think about it, the more I think you are really on to something: we need to disentangle our experience of consciousness with the mechanisms of consciousness in order to ask questions like: are rocks conscious. Later, armed with a better understanding of the mechanisms of consciousness, then we can return to the question of how the mechanisms produce our experience.