Why Isn't Consciousness Empirically Observable? Emotional Purposes As Basis For Self-Organization
ABSTRACT: Most versions of the knowledge argument say that if a scientist observing my brain does not know what my consciousness 'is like,' then consciousness is not identical with physical brain processes. This unwarrantedly equates 'physical' with 'empirically observable.' However, we can conclude only that consciousness is not identical with anything empirically observable. Still, given the intimate connection between each conscious event (C) and a corresponding empirically observable physiological event (P), what P-C relation could render C empirically unobservable? Some suggest that C is a relation among Ps which is distinguishable because it is multi-realizable; that is, C could have been realized by P2 rather than P1 and still have been the same relation. C might even be a 'self-organizing' process, appropriating and replacing its own material substrata. How can this account explain the empirical unobservability of consciousness? Because the emotions motivating attention direction, partly constitutive of phenomenal states, are executed, not undergone, by organisms. Organisms-self-organizing processes actively appropriating their needed physical substrata-feel motivations by generating them. Thus, experiencing someone's consciousness entails executing his or her motivations.
That there is something empirically unobservable about phenomenal consciousness follows from a modified knowledge argument. Traditional versions (Jackson 1986; Robinson 1982; Noren 1979) hold that if experiencing were equivalent with physical brain states, then complete empirical knowledge of brain states should constitute knowledge of everything about my experiencing; but complete empirical knowledge of brain states would not constitute knowledge of everything about experiencing (those alone wouldn't reveal 'what it's like' to have that experience); therefore, experiencing is not equivalent with physical brain states. This argument can be criticized for unwarrantedly assuming that everything 'physical' is empirically observable (from an experimenter's standpoint). E.g., Jackson assumes that the 'what it's like' aspect isn't "expressible in physical language" (291), but the reason for granting this assumption is that 'what it's like' is inexpressible in terms of possible empirical observations. Without the assumption that everything 'physical' is empirically observable, we can conclude, not that consciousness is non-physical (since there might be 'physical' processes that are observationally inaccessible), but simply that consciousness isn't identical with anything empirically observable. Still, given the intimate connection between each conscious event (C) and a corresponding empirically observable physiological event (P), what P-C relationship could render C empirically unobservable? If identical, they should be equally observable. I.e., if P ® EO and C ® not-EO, then P¹C.
Jackson’s Knowledge Argument, while relying on the validity of epiphenomenalism, manages to stand to arguments of physicalism. The ability of conceivable ‘zombies’ to register qualia without experiencing it responds to the claims of acquaintance arguments. Furthermore, beliefs that qualia would provoke physical changes and reactions are accompanied by flawed assertions of attempting to capture the nature of causation. Qualia and the necessity of non-physical knowledge to their existence provide valid arguments to upholding dualist beliefs.
Frank, Anne. The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.
Perhaps the most famous personal interpretation of the Holocaust, The Diary of Anne Frank was written in Amsterdam in the years 1942 and 1944. The story is based on a Jewish family, originally from Germany, and was forced to move to the Netherlands to escape Nazi massacre. The Franks family lived in relative peace until 1940, when Germany occupied the Netherlands and enforced rigorous anti-Semitic laws. These extreme measures prohibited Jews from riding streetcars, forced Jews to attend separate schools, imposed boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, and required Jews to wear yellow stars to identify themselves as Jewish. The essence of life of even highly intellectual Jews, like the Franks, became ambiguous. Two years after these anti-Semitic laws were enforced, the Nazis harassed, arrested, and sent many Jews in the Netherlands to concentration camps where they were herded together and assassinated. The Franks immediately went into hiding and Anne Frank kept a diary of all the events that had occurred during the war. She recorded every page with grisly details about t...
One may be able to conceive consciousness in the absence of higher-order states, but this does not mean that we can explain consciousness in the absence of higher-order states.
The story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, written by Charlotte Gilman, is a story of a woman overcome by depression after giving birth to her first child. Her husband John, a physician, diagnoses the condition as womanly hysteria. John, being “practical in the extreme” (284), takes charge of the means to her recovery through his knowledge and power over his wife. Due to the way he exercises his high status as a man, John is consequently more of a factor in his wife’s mental decline than the condition itself.
Renner, T., Feldman, R., Majors, M., Morrissey, J., & Mae, L. (2011). States of Consciousness. Psychsmart (pp. 99-107). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Anne Frank was just a young average girl when the Holocaust began. The Franks were forced into hiding when the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, demanded all Jews to be eliminated. In fact, many of them were sent to concentration camps to work, or to be gassed to death. The Frank family went into hiding with the Van Daans in a secret Annex in Otto Frank’s workplace. There were exceedingly strict rules, they were not to talk, move, or use the restroom. Once it hit six o’clock in the morning, when everyone left the building, they were able to do what they needed to do. This is how Anne and her family had to live for the next two years. While the Franks were hiding, Anne kept a diary during this painful time. Thanks to Anne, we now have a glimpse of what it was like to be in hiding during the Holocaust.
Anne Frank went into hiding during the holocaust in an annex for two years, in Amsterdam, with her family, the Van Daans, and with a guy named Mr. Dussel. Miep Gies and Victor Kugler also known as Mr. Kraler helped Anne Frank and everyone else in the annex during World War 2. Anne Frank kept a diary with her and wrote in it the two years she was in the annex. Anne Frank was a girl who hated to be treated like a little girl, Anne and her mom didn’t really get along well. Anne loved her father very much she listened to him more than she listened to her mom. Anne wanted to be treated like an adult, she hated how she always got yelled at, but her sister Margot never got yelled at, Anne wanted to be treated like her older sister Margot. Mr. Frank is a nice guy, he loves his family a lot and he takes care of them. Mr. Frank let the Van Daans and Mr. Dussel stay in the annex with them.
Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: the diary of a young girl. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. Print.
After the invasion the Frank family went into hiding in the “Secret Annexe” with the help of Mr. Franks colleagues. This is where her two-year journey of fear begins for Anne. I am sure that such repression and fear of life would make almost any teenager completely depressed and miserable. However, Anne managed to keep her hope for a better tomorrow and man...
"The Yellow Wallpaper," by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman's descent into madness as a result of the "rest and ignore the problem cure" that is frequently prescribed to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women. More importantly, the story is about control and attacks the role of women in society. The narrator of the story is symbolic for all women in the late 1800s, a prisoner of a confining society. Women are expected to bear children, keep house and do only as they are told. Since men are privileged enough to have education, they hold jobs and make all the decisions. Thus, women are cast into the prison of acquiescence because they live in a world dominated by men. Since men suppress women, John, the narrator's husband, is presumed to have control over the protagonist. Gilman, however, suggests otherwise. She implies that it is a combination of society's control as well as the woman's personal weakness that contribute to the suppression of women. These two factors result in the woman's inability to make her own decisions and voice opposition to men.
LARSON, THOMAS. "'In Spite of Everything': The Definitive Indefinite Anne Frank." The Antioch Review Winter 2000: 40. Student Edition. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
The Yellow Paper is a short story published in 1892, and written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte tells of a disheartening tale of a woman who struggles to free herself from postpartum depression. The Yellow Paper gives an account of an emotionally and intellectual deteriorated woman struggles to break free from a mental prison her husband had put her into, in order to find peace. The woman lived in a male dominated society and wanted indictment from it as she had been driven crazy, because of the Victorian “rest-cure” (Gilman 45). Her husband decided to force her to have a strict bed rest by separating her from her only child. He took her to recuperate in an isolated country estate all alone. The bed rest her husband forced into made her mental state develop from bad to worst. The Yellow Paper is a story that warns the readers about the consequences of fixed gender roles in a male-dominated world. In The Yellow Paper, a woman’s role was to be a dutiful wife and she should not question her husband’s authority and even whereabouts. Whereas, a man’s role was to be a husband, main decision maker, rational thinker and his authority was not to be questioned by the wife.
Drake, Robert. "The Bleeding Stinking Mad Shadow of Jesus in the Fiction of Flannery O?Connor. Comparative Literature Studies. University of Illinois. 1966. Vol. 3. 183-196.
On June 12, 1929, at 7:30 AM, a baby girl was born in Frankfort, Germany. No one realized that this infant, who was Jewish, was destined to become one of the worlds most famous victims of World War II. Her name was Anne Frank. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank and B.M. Mooyaart, was actually the real diary of Anne Frank. Anne was a girl who lived with her family during the time while the Nazis took power over Germany. Because they were Jewish, Otto, Edith, Margot, and Anne Frank immigrated to Holland in 1933. Hitler invaded Holland on May 10, 1940, a month before Anne?s eleventh birthday. In July 1942, Anne's family went into hiding in the Prinsengracht building. Anne and her family called it the 'Secret Annex'. Life there was not easy at all. They had to wake up at 6:45 every morning. Nobody could go outside, nor turn on lights at night. Anne mostly spent her time reading books, writing stories, and of course, making daily entries in her diary. She only kept her diary while hiding from the Nazis. This diary told the story of the excitement and horror in this young girl's life during the Holocaust. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl reveals the life of a young innocent girl who is forced into hiding from the Nazis because of her religion, Judaism. This book is very informing and enlightening. It introduces a time period of discrimination, unfair judgment, and power-crazed individuals, and with this, it shows the effect on the defenseless.