It seems to me (based only on looking through your report and having read one or two books in the field) that the way many of the better theories of consciousness (e.g. multiple drafts) were formed by philosophers was through the following process:
Introspect and notice a phenomena occurring in their conscious experience that they don’t believe to have any known explanation
Propose a cognitive mechanism to explain it
Call this their explanation of consciousness
Firstly, does this seem like an accurate characterisation of how some of the stronger consciousness theories have been produced?
Secondly, do I correctly understand your hypothetical ‘agenda for producing a theory of consciousness’ (from Appendix B) to be iterating the first two steps of this process, with the idea that in the limit it should account for all the explanda of consciousness (whilst significantly improving the process by (a) writing a program that fits the theory (b) using said program to make predictions, and, instead of largely introspecting yourselves (c) gathering the mass introspections of many people)?
I think the strategy you outline is, very roughly, one of the most common strategies for coming up with cognitive theories of consciousness, or at least for coming up with cognitive theories of particular features of consciousness.
However, upon reading a given paper or book of this sort, I’m often left unsure whether the author thinks they’ve “explained consciousness,” or whether they think what they’ve done so far is more like “gesturing in the right direction.” Indeed, Dennett called his 1991 book Consciousness Explained, but even as late as 2011 is saying that some of his favorite theories are “merely the beginning, rather than the end, of the study of consciousness” (Cohen & Dennett 2011).
And of course, many theories of consciousness — including some of the most popular ones — don’t appeal to cognitive mechanisms at all.
As for your last paragraph: I’m not sure what you mean by “using said program to make predictions, and, instead of largely introspecting yourselves (c) gathering the mass introspections of many people)?” Could you elaborate on what you’re asking, there?
It seems to me (based only on looking through your report and having read one or two books in the field) that the way many of the better theories of consciousness (e.g. multiple drafts) were formed by philosophers was through the following process:
Introspect and notice a phenomena occurring in their conscious experience that they don’t believe to have any known explanation
Propose a cognitive mechanism to explain it
Call this their explanation of consciousness
Firstly, does this seem like an accurate characterisation of how some of the stronger consciousness theories have been produced?
Secondly, do I correctly understand your hypothetical ‘agenda for producing a theory of consciousness’ (from Appendix B) to be iterating the first two steps of this process, with the idea that in the limit it should account for all the explanda of consciousness (whilst significantly improving the process by (a) writing a program that fits the theory (b) using said program to make predictions, and, instead of largely introspecting yourselves (c) gathering the mass introspections of many people)?
I think the strategy you outline is, very roughly, one of the most common strategies for coming up with cognitive theories of consciousness, or at least for coming up with cognitive theories of particular features of consciousness.
However, upon reading a given paper or book of this sort, I’m often left unsure whether the author thinks they’ve “explained consciousness,” or whether they think what they’ve done so far is more like “gesturing in the right direction.” Indeed, Dennett called his 1991 book Consciousness Explained, but even as late as 2011 is saying that some of his favorite theories are “merely the beginning, rather than the end, of the study of consciousness” (Cohen & Dennett 2011).
And of course, many theories of consciousness — including some of the most popular ones — don’t appeal to cognitive mechanisms at all.
As for your last paragraph: I’m not sure what you mean by “using said program to make predictions, and, instead of largely introspecting yourselves (c) gathering the mass introspections of many people)?” Could you elaborate on what you’re asking, there?