Jack and the Giant Qualia

Twitter Tuesday #14

1.0 Introduction

This Twitter Tuesday continues with recent discussions about consciousness.

Consider this remark: 

Galen Strawson is right: your denial of consciousness is the stupidest position in the history of thought. (Of course you deny that you deny consciousness, but you’re in denial.) One of the most overrated thinkers of the late twentieth century.

This remark is made in response to the following article. Remarks like this are unfortunate. Critics of illusionism could simply and politely reiterate their objections to views like Dennett’s. Instead, what I often see is a kind of contempt and ridicule. In this case, we’re invited to consider Dennett’s position to be the “stupidest position in the history of thought.”

I suspect such people often resort to ridicule when they don’t have good objections, and I suspect this is true of critics of illusionism. As such, I take such ridicule not to be evidence that the position in question is stupid, but that the person criticizing it probably doesn’t have very good objections. If they did, why not simply present them? That would demonstrate that the position in question is stupid, rather than merely assert it.

I don’t think illusionism could earn the title as stupidest idea in the history of thought, though, since I don’t even think illusionism goes far enough. Illusionism grants too much to its critics. It’s not just that phenomenal consciousness doesn’t exist, because qualia or phenomenal states don’t exist. Terms like phenomenal state and qualia, when used to reference the sorts of things illusionists deny, aren’t even meaningful. Qualia quietism goes further than illusionism in that it rejects that such terms can be meaningfully used in our accounts of what the world is like in the first place (Mandik, 2016). I discuss this paper and my concerns with contemporary discussions about qualia here and here, respectively.

I find considerable irony in the fact that critics of views like illusionism can’t even explain what it is that it’s so stupid for us to deny. We’re stupid for denying something that’s supposedly obvious and undeniable. But what is it that’s so obvious and undeniable? Enjoy being treated to:

(a) A mutually interdefining set of equally inscrutable terms: “qualia”, “phenomenal states”, “what-its-likeness”, “feels”, “raw feels”, and so on, none of which helpfully convey anything.

(b) Futile appeals to “examples” that are supposed to illustrate the concept but point to things that an illusionist or qualia quietist could account for without appealing to qualia in the first place. For comparison, imagine someone told you that all pizza was “intrinsically magical.” You ask what they mean, and they say “it means it’s mystical.” you ask what that means, and they say “I can’t say more than that, but I can give examples.” You ask for examples. They point to several pizzas and say “these are examples of magical pizza.” You just see pizza. Nothing magical going on. But apparently the problem is you, and not the person insisting these examples illustrate the magical nature of pizza. This is barely an analogy. This is pretty much exactly what appeals to examples to illustrate qualia seem like to me. The “examples” simply don’t illustrate the concept.

(c) persistent motte-and-bailey as critics constantly equivocate between uses of “qualia” that are (1) unobjectionable, metaphysically neutral, or otherwise consistent with illusionism (and thus aren’t uses of the term we’d deny are meaningful or refer to real phenomena), or so ambiguous or underspecified it’s unclear what’s being stated and (2) the more robust concepts that smuggle in all the features we object to. Enjoy having critics constantly imply you reject (1) when really you only reject (2) as they use language in sloppy and careless ways that give (intentional or not) the pragmatic implication that you’re so stupid you’re denying a bunch of really obvious things you aren’t really denying. I discuss this kind of nonsense here.

(d) Appeals to expertise on the matter, as though being a philosopher and thinking a lot somehow makes your judgments on the matter reliable, something that I’d want to see established prior to considering philosophers experts. What’s strange about these appeals is the uncritical nature of them. People are experts because they have a demonstrated track record of success that involves the shared use of reliable methods. Yet critics like myself are questioning whether philosophers are successful or have reliable methods. Appeals to expertise strike me as getting things backwards: people establish their expertise by successfully employing good methods; we don’t infer they have successful methods because they’ve formed communities that mutually regard one another as experts. I simply don’t grant that analytic philosophers have the relevant sort of “expertise” to trump my judgments on consciousness by appeal to numbers or authority.

(e) Incredulity, often coupled with people suggesting you are stupid, lying, or brain damaged if you don’t accept their invitations to share in the concept. This may be accompanied by suggestions that one is “in denial” or “refuses” to accept the position the critic holds or “really does” have some concept or endorse some view but doesn’t realize it. What these critiques share is a kind of speculative armchair psychologization of their opposition. That is, the goal in these cases is to dismiss sincere opposition to one’s views by denying that the person in question really does deny your position, or, if they do, that they don’t do so for legitimate intellectual reasons but instead do so as a result of their personal idiosyncrasies.

2.0 In the presence of qualia

My experience talking to proponents of qualia is shockingly similar to how it feels to talk to people who claim to “feel the presence of God,” and insist I could do so, too, if I only introspect just right. One is invited to try harder, and if one fails, the problem is corruption in one’s soul, not the fact that God isn’t talking to anyone in the first place.

Just so, my failure to grasp the concept of qualia isn’t taken as an indication that perhaps the person inviting me to do so is subject to some sort of conceptual confusion, but that there is something wrong with me. Suggesting I may be a “p-zombie” wasn’t amusing the first time. I’ve now heard it a few dozen times, though, so perhaps I know “what-it’s-like” to roll my eyes.

I suspect a few things are going on with (a), (b). First, to give the devil it’s due, (a) and (b) often are useful ways of conveying concepts. A person may have a concept but not realize it’s the one you’re referring to or have trouble locating it on introspection. (a) and (b) could help them locate the concept in question. Or they might only grasp the concept when they form enough linkages to more familiar concepts, and (b) could facilitate doing so. I grant all that.

2.1 Pseudo-acquisition

However, there is a risk in both cases of “pseudo-acquisition.” This is speculative on my part, but it is a hypothesis I propose for sketching some of the ways philosophers may spread their confusions like a sort of linguistic and conceptual contagion.

Pseudo-acquisition occurs when a person is presented with a pseudoconcept. A pseudoconcept is a candidate for an actual concept, but fails to be meaningful. Pseudoconcepts appear to be referenced in the same way actual concepts are, via terms, phrases, descriptions, and other communicative acts, but pseudoconcepts are not actual concepts, and only superficially function in some respects, within a language, like a real concept would function. Pseudoconcepts are picked out in much the same way as real concepts are via terms or phrases that purport to refer to genuine, meaningful concepts. Only, in the case of pseudoconcepts, these attempts fail. 

Pseudoconcepts can spread within linguistic communities for, I suspect, a variety of reasons. First, pseudoconcepts are very good at camouflaging themselves by hiding among terms and phrases that are meaningful. They often look especially plausible because people use words that have meaningful uses in ordinary language to refer to them. “Reason” is a good candidate term. The term “reason” is frequently used in everyday English discourse, and exhibits a variety of uses. However, philosophers have coopted this word and employ it in technical contexts, talking about “normative reasons” and various other uses of “reasons” that are inscrutable and probably meaningless. 

How do pseudoconcepts spread? I suspect a few things are going on. 

The first is what I call linguistic decoys. When asked what a term means, one may be presented with words or phrases that purport to mean the same thing or something very similar. Consider an exchange like this:

Exchange #1: Linguistic decoy exchange

Sam: Florps exist.

Alex: What’s a florp?

Sam: It’s a thing that flerps.

Alex: And what’s flerping?

Sam: It’s what zoimpers do.

Alex: …What? What’s a zoimper?

Sam: it’s a florp.

Alex: What?! And what’s a florp?!

Sam: I already told you! Look, you can keep asking me to explain what all these sorts of things mean, but inquiries have to bottom out somewhere…you can’t just go around asking “Why? Why? Why?” like a child and think that if I can’t answer every single question, that therefore what I’m saying is meaningless. Work harder at it, study more, and you’ll eventually get it. There is an entire literature on this topic, and most experts agree that florp is a meaningful term. If you don’t understand it, I’m very sorry, but the problem is you. The vast majority of experts understand what florps are and discuss florps every day.

Has Sam explained what a florp is? Absolutely not. All Sam did was toss a bunch of other equally meaningless nonsense phrases at Alex. Linguistic decoys allow one to “discharge” their responsibility to explain what something means by giving the superficial appearance of having done so, even if they haven’t. They can then leverage the fact that they’ve already done so later in the conversation to dismiss further inquiries as excessive, impertinent, or childish, or to imply that the person who keeps asking is being disingenuous or exhibiting incompetence. To an audience who doesn’t know any better, Sam appears to have answered Alex’s question adequately, and if Alex isn’t satisfied, perhaps the problem is Alex and not Sam. Compare to this exchange:

Exchange #2: No linguistic decoys.

Sam: Florps exist.

Alex: What’s a florp?

Sam: I can’t tell you what a florp is. It’s an unanalyzable concept. But I assure you that it is meaningful and that my colleagues and I know what a florp is.

Alex: So…you can’t tell me what a florp is…like at all?

Sam: I’m afraid not. But it definitely is something.

I suspect many audiences would find this a far less satisfying answer. It is now far more apparent Sam cannot explain what a florp is. Note, though, that Sam never really explained what a florp is in the first exchange. What Sam did is run Alex on a terminological goose chase that circled back around to the original term.

Decoy definitions serve to give the superficial impression that an explanation has been given even when it hasn’t. How do decoy definitions result in pseudo-acquisition? 

Let me illustrate by way of some real-world examples. If you’ve ever had a conversation with another person where there was a potential for misunderstanding, you may have asked them if they understand you. How do people tend to respond to this question?

They usually nod or otherwise affirm that they understood. Have you ever suspected that sometimes they don’t really understand you? In case it’s not obvious, I’m deliberately understating the frequency of situations like these. Of course this occurs, and most of us have had experiences of people seeming to confirm they understood us, only to later discover that they didn’t. 

People feel various forms of social pressure to claim to understand what someone is saying even when they don’t. People want to  be polite, to not appear stupid, to not appear to have not been paying attention, among other social pressures. Furthermore, people also don’t want to feel stupid on introspection. To top this off, we may rely on Gricean maxims, or something very akin to them, that prompts us to assume that our interlocutors are observing the maxims of quality and manner: a person earnestly appearing to explain what a term means is taken to be:

1. Genuinely attempting to explain something they regard as true, and is not intending to mislead us

2. Is intending to be as clear and unambiguous as they reasonably can be

As such, if we still don’t understand them, we may suspect that the problem is us, and not them. This can be further amplified in philosophical contexts because  (i) people may presume that because the person explaining the terms and concepts to them is a philosopher, and philosophy is all about clarity, precision, and rigor, that they are especially likely to be saying something meaningful  (ii) people may simply defer to authority on the matter. If so many experts agree, perhaps you’re stupid or ignorant if you don’t agree.

Like Captain Planet, these forces, coupled with cognitive dissonance, may prompt people to search for any conceptual pretext, no matter how ephemeral, that would allow them to feel as though they got it, and then report that they grasped the concept. 

In short, I am suggesting that people suffer from pseudo-acquisition as a result of social pressure and self-deception, and that this causes people to convince themselves that they “have” a concept even though they really only “have” a pseudoconcept that has no real content at all.

Once acquired, one can then embed the term into the linguistic webs that already exist in the academic literature and the standardized ways others employing these pseudoconcepts speak and write about the pseudoconcepts, and this can create a kind of self-reinforcing feedback: if one appears to be using the term, and using it in a way that matches the patterns of usage one sees among experts, surely it must be meaningful. After all, how could so many super smart people all be confused?

Once pseudoconcepts are employed by enough people, especially those exhibiting qualities that signal competence and intelligence (i.e., academic philosophers), the pseudoconcepts reach a kind of dialectical escape velocity: were such terms to attempt to emerge in isolation, from a single person, others may reject them as nonsense, but once enough people are using them, and they are sufficiently embedded in an ongoing conversation, it may come to appear insane to question whether the terms in question are meaningful, since this would require one to suppose that hundreds or even thousands of people, many of them who are highly regarded as extremely competent experts, are all sharing in the same delusion. One confused philosopher? That’s understandable. But an entire community? That beggars belief.

3.0 Jack and the giant qualia

I have encountered (a) - (e) on numerous occasions, and each is worth addressing at length, but I want to return to the original tweet to illustrate (c) and (e). I’ll save you the trouble of scrolling up and present the tweet again, this time bolding the relevant features that correspond to (c) and (e):

Galen Strawson is right: your denial of consciousness is the stupidest position in the history of thought. (Of course you deny that you deny consciousness, but you’re in denial.) One of the most overrated thinkers of the late twentieth century.

The first involves the careless failure to distinguish a denial of phenomenal consciousness from consciousness. Dennett and illusionists more generally do not deny consciousness. They only deny particular characterizations of consciousness. Namely, that consciousness involves or is characterized by phenomenal states. Those of us who deny that there are phenomenal states only deny particular accounts of consciousness. To say we deny “consciousness” is misleading, since it treats one’s own conception of consciousness as constitutive of the very notion of consciousness, when this is precisely what we’re disputing in the first place. That is, if we are correct, then (a) it is not the case that there is any such things phenomenal consciousness (b) and—and this is important, so I’m going to emphasize it—AND we deny that your characterization of consciousness (i.e., as involving phenomenal states/qualia) is accurate. 

If I say “your account of what X is is confused and mistaken. There are Xs, you’re just wrong about what Xs are like,” it is ridiculous to respond that I deny that there are Xs. 

It’s as though proponents of phenomenal consciousness cannot distinguish their account of consciousness from that which they’re intended to account for: they’re so convinced that their account, or characterization of consciousness, “just is” what consciousness is, that to deny their account is to deny the thing itself. As though we’re somehow barred from disagreeing with their characterization because their characterization is correct…when whether their characterization is correct is precisely the thing we’re doubting!

There is something profoundly silly about this. I could just as readily maintain that unless you endorse some form of qualia eliminativism or quietism, which I believe is necessary to accurately characterize consciousness, that you, yourself, are “denying anyone is conscious.” Illusionists/quietists like me are in just as good of a position to claim that critics who claim we deny consciousness themselves “deny consciousness.” We could even insist that they are in denial about it. If they can substitute their conception of X for X itself, so can we, so I hereby declare that only those of us who reject qualia or phenomenal states actually believe in consciousness, and that people who endorse the hard problem or believe there are qualia or phenomenal states, as a matter of fact, deny that people are really conscious. What a profoundly silly position! They deny people are conscious?! That’s absurd!

Of course, I am being facetious. Such exchanges do nothing but provoke resentment, spread confusion, and undermine our ability to adequately address philosophical questions. Pete Mandik has on occasion alluded to similar concerns by describing an argument over magical beans. I decided to create an exchange that illustrated this problem. 

Alex: I have magic beans. Look.

Sam: I see that you have beans. But they don't appear magical to me.

Alex: What?! You're denying I have beans? But look! They're right here!

Sam: ...I agree that you have beans. I doubt they're magical, though.

Alex: I can't believe this! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Of *course* I have beans.

Sam: Yes, you do have beans. Magical beans, though? I doubt it.

Alex: They're clearly magical. They seem magical to me, and I am justified in believing they're magical unless you can demonstrate that they're not.

Sam: Maybe you are justified in believing they're magical. They don't seem magical to me, though. I'm going to assume these are just regular non-magical beans unless I see them do something magical.

Alex: I can't believe this. I am holding magical beans right in front of your face, and you continue to deny that I have any beans.

Sam: As I've said repeatedly, I agree that you have beans, I just don't think they're magical.

Alex: So you think I don't have any beans.

Sam: No, I said you have beans, but they're not magical.

Alex: But my beans are magical, so if you deny they're magical beans you're saying they don't exist at all.

Sam: No, I'm saying they do exist, but aren't magical.

Alex: But they are magical.

Sam: I don't agree.

Alex: So then you think I have no beans. HEY! Everyone! This *idiot* denies that I have beans, but you can clearly see that I have them right here.

Sam: You don't appear to be understanding me. I'm going to write an entire book about beans and how they're not magical. I'll call it "Beans explained."

[Ten years later]

Alex: I read your book. It was awful. Your entire book denies the existence of beans. Beans explained? More like beans explained AWAY, lmao!

Sam: The book is an account of what beans are, and why they're not magical. The whole point of the book is to explain what beans are really like.

Alex: No. Your book denies the essential magical nature of beans. Since beans are essentially magical, to deny they are magic is to deny that there are beans at all. Since one can clearly see that there are beans, and that I have many of them, this bean denial is one of the most profoundly stupid views in all of the philosophy of legumes. You probably deny that there are lentils and peas, too.

Sam: Oh, there are certainly lentils and peas.

Alex: Aha! So you *do* believe in magic.

Sam: …

Alex: Since peas and lentils are magic, then you acknowledge magic after all. You're confused about beans, but at least you aren't totally anti-legume.

Sam: ...I also don't think peas or lentils are magical.

Alex: Ugh! Really?! And here I thought we could find some common ground. You skeptics just go around holding ridiculous views about everything. First you deny beans are magical. Next its peas and lentils. What's next, are you going to tell me that you don't believe in potatoes or carrots, either?

Sam: Well...there are no *magical* potatoes or carrots

Alex: Holy shit! You just straight up don't believe in vegetables at all! This is unbelievable. You must have a strict commitment to really implausible philosophical views or maybe suffer from profound conceptual errors to not see that potatoes and carrots are clearly magical in nature.

4.0 Conclusion

This is how people treat Dennett and illusionists. As though only their own (we think mistaken) conception of consciousness is a characterization of consciousness at all, so if you deny their characterization of consciousness, you’re denying “consciousness,” full stop.

This is then coupled with the suggestion that we are “in denial” about this. Such remarks once again remind me of the sorts of claims religious people make when engaging with atheists: we really know God exists, God’s laws are written on our hearts, God’s existence is obvious and undeniable, and so on. Atheism is dismissed not because there are good reasons to believe atheism is mistaken, but because atheists aren’t really atheists, they’re just crypto-theists in denial. One need not engage with a supposed “atheist” if one can convince themselves that the person isn’t even an atheist and perhaps that nobody really is.

Even if atheists were all crypto-theists in denial, the arguments for and against theism would stand on their own merits. Even if Dennett, or myself, or anyone else was “in denial,” that still wouldn’t be a good reason to think phenomenal consciousness is a thing. Perhaps it would simply illustrate that mistaken concepts have so strong a grip on our minds that we are incorrigible in spite of the lack of good arguments or evidence for holding such views.

I don’t want to seriously engage with such accusations too much, though. It’s enough on its own to point out, as I have, that they are moot: whether we’re in denial or not is irrelevant with respect to whether the positions we publicly advocate (but are secretly in denial about, supposedly) are true. Yet it’s also worth noting that such accusations are almost never accompanied by any arguments or evidence (or at least any decent ones) that we are in denial. Such accusations are, I suspect, probably the result of the critic’s own incredulity that anyone would have the audacity not to share their philosophical views.

Finally, I want to emphasize that such remarks have a couple more helpful qualities. First, they’re rude. That is, of course, irrelevant to whether they’re true, but it’s still worth noting that such remarks are quite rude. There are probably less rude ways of expressing such views. However, I suspect that might defeat their purpose. I suspect part of the purpose of such remarks isn’t simply to express a sincere view about Dennett or others, even if that is part of the point. I think part of it is to engage in a form of public shaming, where one attempts to undermine a view not by intellectual engagement by simply denigrating it and its proponents.

Second, such remarks harm our ability to have productive exchanges with one another. I typically try to assume that my interlocutors are engaging in good faith, sincerely believe what they claim to believe, and are doing their best to get at the truth. If I were to not only suspect, but publicly claim that people who disagree with me are lying, or in denial, or otherwise don’t really endorse the views they claim to endorse, I contribute to an atmosphere in which we’re not arguing over the merits of our ideas, but pivoting towards a criticism of one another’s characters and competence. Suggesting your interlocutors are “in denial” about their views is a quick way to provoke resentment and reduce one’s chances of a productive and friendly exchange.

References

Mandik, P. (2016). Meta-illusionism and qualia quietism. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23(11-12), 140-148.