The Dawn Treader

Given all the posting I have been doing on consciousness recently, I found Emily Singer's article, Raising Consciousness, rather timely.  Singer is the biotechnology and life sciences editor of Technology Review.

Singer describes the difference between a "minimally conscious state" (MCS) and a vegetative state.  After a severe brain injury, a patient enters a coma.  After days or weeks in a coma, a surviving patient can enter a vegetative state (completely unaware) or a minimally conscious state (partially aware).  A patient could remain in a minimally conscious state for years.  Some estimates put the number of MCS patients as high as 25,000 ... nearly 10 times the number of vegetative patients.  I had no idea the number was that high.

"MY OWN VIEW IS THAT THIS IS backward: the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It's not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests of other beings--the core of morality."

Steven Pinker, Time Magazine.

"Determinism, therefore, cannot be true, because if it was, we should not take the determinists' arguments as being really arguments, but as being only conditioned reflexes.  Their statements should not be regarded as really claiming to be true, but only as seeking to cause us to respond in some way desired by them."

J.R. Lucas

There are two problems with Pinker's view that consciousness is solely a brain thing and that the soul does not exist.  The first is a philosophical one.  The second is an existential one.

Let's unpack the philosophical problem together in this this post.

Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

"Scientists have excorised the ghost from the machine not because they are mechanistic killjoys but because they have amassed evidence that every aspect of consciousness can be tied to the brain. "

Steven Pinker, Time Magazine Artice.

One of my areas of interest is the mind-body problem.  This is an area of philosophy that explores the relationship of the mind to the body.  Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at Harvard, published an interesting article in TIME this week called The Mystery Of Consciousness.  If Wiki is accurate on Pinker, then he was raised Jewish and became an atheist at age 13.  Time magazine named Pinker as one of its 100 most influential people in 2004.  His views ought to be taken seriously.  I hope to comment on his essay this week on The Dawn Treader.  If you are interested in this topic, please go read Pinker's article.