Iâve seen Dan Dennett (in effect) argue for it as follows: if a human adult subject reports NOT experiencing something in a lab experiment and weâre sure theyâre sincere, and that they were paying attention to what they were experiencing, that is immediately pretty much 100% proof that they are not having a conscious experience of that thing, no matter what is going on in the purely perceptual (functional) regions of their brains and how much it resembles typical cases of a conscious experience of that thing. The best explanation for this is that its just part of our concept of âconsciousâ that a conscious experience is one that youâre (at least potentially) introspectively aware that youâre having. Indeed (my point not Dennettâs), this is how we found out that there is such a thing as âunconscious perceptionâ, we found out that information about external things can get into the brain through the eye, without the person being aware that that information is there. If we donât think that conscious experiences are ones youâre (at least potentially) introspectively aware of having, itâs not clear why this would be evidence for the existence of unconscious perception. But almost all consciousness scientists and philosophers of mind accept that unconscious perception can happen.
Hereâs Dennett (from a paper co-authored with someone else) in his own words on this, critiquing a particular neuroscientific theory of consciousness:
âIt is easy to imagine what a conversation would sound like between F&L and a patient (P) whose access to the locally recurrent activity for color was somehow surgically removed. F&L: âYou are conscious of the redness of the apple.â P: âI am? I donât see any color. It just looks grey. Why do you think Iâm consciously experiencing red?â F&L: âBecause we can detect recurrent processing in color areas in your visual cortex.â P: âBut I really donât see any color. I see the apple, but nothing colored. Yet you still insist that I am conscious of the color red?â F&L: âYes, because local recurrency correlates with conscious awareness.â P: âDoesnât it mean something that I am telling you Iâm not experiencing red at all? Doesnât that suggest local recurrency itself isnât sufficient for conscious awareness?â
I donât personally endorse Dennettâs view on this, I give to animal causes, and I think it is a big mistake to be so sure of it that you ignore the risk of animal suffering entirely, plus I donât think we can just assume that animals canât be introspectively aware of their own experiences. But I donât think the view itself is crazy or inexplicable, and I have moderate credence (25% maybe?) that it is correct.
Iâve seen Dan Dennett (in effect) argue for it as follows: if a human adult subject reports NOT experiencing something in a lab experiment and weâre sure theyâre sincere, and that they were paying attention to what they were experiencing, that is immediately pretty much 100% proof that they are not having a conscious experience of that thing, no matter what is going on in the purely perceptual (functional) regions of their brains and how much it resembles typical cases of a conscious experience of that thing. The best explanation for this is that its just part of our concept of âconsciousâ that a conscious experience is one that youâre (at least potentially) introspectively aware that youâre having. Indeed (my point not Dennettâs), this is how we found out that there is such a thing as âunconscious perceptionâ, we found out that information about external things can get into the brain through the eye, without the person being aware that that information is there. If we donât think that conscious experiences are ones youâre (at least potentially) introspectively aware of having, itâs not clear why this would be evidence for the existence of unconscious perception. But almost all consciousness scientists and philosophers of mind accept that unconscious perception can happen.
Hereâs Dennett (from a paper co-authored with someone else) in his own words on this, critiquing a particular neuroscientific theory of consciousness:
âIt is easy to imagine what a conversation would sound like between F&L and a patient (P) whose access to the locally recurrent activity for color was somehow surgically removed. F&L: âYou are conscious of the redness of the apple.â P: âI am? I donât see any color. It just looks grey. Why do you think Iâm consciously experiencing red?â F&L: âBecause we can detect recurrent processing in color areas in your visual cortex.â P: âBut I really donât see any color. I see the apple, but nothing colored. Yet you still insist that I am conscious of the color red?â F&L: âYes, because local recurrency correlates with conscious awareness.â P: âDoesnât it mean something that I am telling you Iâm not experiencing red at all? Doesnât that suggest local recurrency itself isnât sufficient for conscious awareness?â
I donât personally endorse Dennettâs view on this, I give to animal causes, and I think it is a big mistake to be so sure of it that you ignore the risk of animal suffering entirely, plus I donât think we can just assume that animals canât be introspectively aware of their own experiences. But I donât think the view itself is crazy or inexplicable, and I have moderate credence (25% maybe?) that it is correct.