The Mystery of Consciousness

Today I stumbled upon this quote,

How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djinn, when Aladdin rubbed his lamp. - Thomas Huxley

... accompanited by the following statement,

This is the situation I'm in. I would like it if consciousness made sense in the same way that a steam engine or car engine makes sense. But if I'm honest, it doesn't. It's simply boggles the mind.

The steam engine only "makes sense" when you refrain from looking at it too closely. At some point, nothing "makes sense", and that one event causes another is "just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djinn, when Aladdin rubbed his lamp". I think, perhaps, that consciousness makes sense in precisely the same way that the steam engine "makes sense" i.e. it doesn't, at least when you delve deep enough--stuff just happens.

The mystery of consciousness is not so much about consciousness, as it is about how thinkers have attempted to explain consciousness, and the implicit criteria which they adopt when evaluating what should count as "making sense". I think that the problem dissolves when it is recognised that these criteria, by which problems and their solutions are identified, never made much sense to begin with. In other words, a problem is a problem relative to some standard, and perennial or insoluble problems, are only problems relative to standards which are impossible to satisfy.

The correct move is not to live with the problem, but to reevaluate the standards by which you recognise problems and solutions, so that "making sense" begins to make a little more sense.

Comments

[Günther Greindl]

It is actually quite easy to come to grips with consciousness once you get rid of the dualistic fallacy which is so deeply ingrained in all of us.

A wonderful paper arguing for this position is Galen Strawson's:

Realistic monism: why physicalism entails panpsychism
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/philosophy/people/strawson/rmwpep.pdf

Do not let yourself be put off by the word "panpsychism" :-))

Cheers,
Günther