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What is it like to be nonconscious? A defense of Julian Jaynes

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Abstract

I respond to Ned Block’s claim that it is “ridiculous” to suppose that consciousness is a cultural construction based on language and learned in childhood. Block is wrong to dismiss social constructivist theories of consciousness on account of it being “ludicrous” that conscious experience is anything but a biological feature of our animal heritage, characterized by sensory experience, evolved over millions of years. By defending social constructivism in terms of both Julian Jaynes’ behaviorism and J.J. Gibson’s ecological psychology, I draw a distinction between the experience or “what-it-is-like” of nonhuman animals engaging with the environment and the “secret theater of speechless monologue” that is familiar to a linguistically competent human adult. This distinction grounds the argument that consciousness proper should be seen as learned rather than innate and shared with nonhuman animals. Upon establishing this claim, I defend the Jaynesian definition of consciousness as a social–linguistic construct learned in childhood, structured in terms of lexical metaphors and narrative practice. Finally, I employ the Jaynesian distinction between cognition and consciousness to bridge the explanatory gap and deflate the supposed “hard” problem of consciousness.

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Notes

  1. See Merleau-Ponty (1945) for a classic antiCartesian analysis of bodily perspective.

  2. This definition of consciousness is fully fleshed out in the section below, “Metaphor as mark of the mental.”

  3. A corollary of this claim is that an animal could be “aware” of something without being conscious. On my account, an earthworm is aware of certain properties of the environment, but it is, strictly speaking, not “conscious.” Moreover, a distinction can be made between being unconscious and being nonconscious. When unconscious, brain–body activity and interaction with the world is at a minimal level (e.g., a coma); when nonconscious, the brain–body system is actively interacting with the world (e.g., normal reactivity), but there is no interiorized “mind-space” or “workspace” in which executive control (Alvarez andEmory 2006) and internal speech (Morin 2005) operate explicitly.

  4. “Whatever evidence there is for science is sensory evidence…the stimulation of sensory receptors is all the evidence anyone has to go on, ultimately, in arriving at his picture of the world” (Quine 1969, p. 75). As the cognitive scientist Michael Anderson puts it, orthodox visual theory claims that “Conceptually synthesized sensory stimulation is our only epistemically relevant mode of access to the world” (Anderson 2006, p. 126). Perhaps the best example of internalism is Richard Gregory, who agrees with Helmholtz in saying “Perception is but indirectly related to objects, being inferred from fragmentary and often hardly relevant data signaled by the eyes, so requiring inferences from knowledge of the world to make sense of the sensory signals” (1997, p. 1121, emphasis added).

  5. As Gibson says, discussing internalism, “The Causes of the excitation of our nerves…are forever hidden from us. We have only the deliverances of our senses to go by, and we are imprisoned within the limitations of the senses. We have to deduce the causes of our sensations, as Helmholtz put it, for we cannot detect them” (1966, p. 38).

  6. “Orthodox visual theory in this way frames its central problem as that of constructing an internal representation sufficient to support our detailed, high-resolution, gap-free, snapshot-like (Machian) visual experiences of the world despite the imperfections and limitations of the retinal image itself” (Noë 2004, pp. 38–39).

  7. That such theorists would deny there being a literal picture formed on the retina has no bearing on my argument. The point is simply that internalism is committed to the idea that visual perception involves correcting for retinal imperfections. Noë (2004) calls this the “fundamental problem for [classic] visual theory.”

  8. This applies just as strongly to the experiences we have of our body. As Shaun Gallagher nicely puts it, “[In modern neuroscience, the body is sometimes reduced] to its representation in the somatosensory cortex, or is considered important only to the extent that it provides the raw sensory input required for cognitive computations. In other cases, the body is first treated as an intentional object, an image, a mental representation, and then reduced to neural computations. This elimination of the body in favor of the brain is not so unCartesian” (2005, p. 134).

  9. For a detailed account of how Gibsonian ecological optics overcomes the problems associated with methodological solipsism in cognitive science, see Rowlands (1995).

  10. “Yes, the vertebrate nervous system has an input (afferent) and output(efferent) side, which are linked by central and higher structures. But there is simply no reason to believe that these anatomical facts support the psychological theory of association [internalism]” (Reed 1996, p. 95).

  11. In The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979), Gibson goes so far as to dismiss the entire concept of depth perception, saying “The traditional list of cues is worthless if perception does not begin with a flat picture” (p. 149). I agree. On the assumption of an information-based theory of perception, the “problem” of depth perception becomes tractable for there is no “picture” of the world formed in the brain or on the retina, except in a trivially true physiological sense.

  12. As Alva Noë points out, however, the rejection of internal world modeling is compatible with the claim that representations are necessary for perception (2004, p. 22). For example, isomorphic or topographic representations are promising theoretical entities for understanding perceptual processing that do not require any problematic mind/body distinction.

  13. It is important to note that real-time “reaction” does not necessarily mean locomotion or intentional action as neural activity of any kind is a reaction to the environment (and metabolism itself is a way of reacting to the environment). Also, it is important to note that some animals can detect an affordance without acting on it. This is called “scanning” the environment for information.

  14. “Instead of postulating that the brain constructs information from the input of a sensory nerve, we can suppose that the centers of the nervous system, including the brain, resonate to information” (Gibson 1966, p. 267). Consequently, Gibsonian theory requires us to rethink the nature of information processing rather than abandon it altogether. For an interesting Heideggerian/Bergsonian theory of Gibsonian resonance, see Robbins (2006).

  15. Accordingly, I think Alva Noë is right to emphasize the importance of subconscious sensorimotor skills (2004), particularly with respect to saccadic motion and the dynamic causal couplings of the head–eye system (Gibson 1966).

  16. At this point, the internalist might ask how the “problem” of hallucination and illusion is accounted for under a framework of direct realism. I think Gibson is right to respond “[I]t is not one problem but a complex of different problems” (1979, p. 243). Indeed, the problem of information pickup and the problem of how that process can fail are separate explanandums. The reliable perception of information can fail for numerous reasons, including an inability to acquire all available information, deficiencies in the physiological process, etc. As for hallucinations, most people who experience them correctly surmise that they are hallucinating, as with typical psychedelic drug use or perceptual aftereffects. Moreover, true hallucination (in the sense discussed by British empiricism and epistemology) is actually extremely rare; a more common phenomenon is the modification and amplification of normal perceptual processes with full metacognitive awareness that your normal perceptions are being disturbed. The problem then becomes physiological, not epistemological.

  17. The point is not that truck drivers are never conscious of the road, but rather that when they are “zoned out,” truck drivers can still nonconsciously react to the changing road circumstances. See Armstrong (1997) for a discussion of this example.

  18. Heidegger often makes the same point when he critiques sensation-based theories of mind (e.g., 1927/1996, p. 58; 1975/1982, p. 63). This is why he insists that we are always already “outside” of our heads, dwelling-in-the-world. I take it we should read Alva Noë’s controversial claims (2009) similarly.

  19. As a reductio of the internalist theory of consciousness, Jaynes points out that white blood cells perceive bacteria and respond appropriately by chasing them around and devouring them. If we claim that intelligent perceptual reactivity is constitutive for consciousness, then we must conclude that there are billions of unique, conscious entities swirling in our bloodstream.

  20. In how I am using it, cognition is subsumed by perception, attention, and emotion, whereas consciousness depends on verbal language and consists in self-reflective awareness, volition, and metacognition. Clark (1997, 2008), Baars (1997, 2002), Schooler (2002), Zelazo (2004), Wheeler (2007), and Hobson (2009) make a similar distinction.

  21. Jaynes points out that this confusion of perception and consciousness has been endemic since at least 1921 when Bertrand Russell said “We are conscious of anything that we perceive” (1921, p. 12).

  22. The idea of bicamerality is based off the metaphor of a divided house. Two minds in one brain. On one “side,” there is the reactive–receptive human, on the other the commanding–advising gods. The gods are a mechanism of cognitive control during novel breakdown situations such that imperatives are issued from the god-function and experienced in terms of an auditory verbal hallucination. Jaynes speculated that this linguistic control system arose because language is the most efficient way to transfer information across the hemispheres that evolution has ever stumbled upon.

  23. As Jaynes uses the term, “mind-space” refers to the “space” that we are “seeing” when we turn inwards and consciously introspect. He claims that it exists only in a functional sense.

  24. In his recent publications, Block has abandoned the term “phenomenal consciousness” in favor of “phenomenology” to clear up conceptual muddles concerning whether or not phenomenal consciousness is necessary for conscious access.

  25. As well as Dennett (1986).

  26. As Jaynes put it, “To be conscious of elements of speech is to destroy the intention of the speech” (1976, p. 27).

  27. See Deeprose et al. (2004) and Pessiglione et al. (2008).

  28. Based on evidence from the embodied/embedded paradigm in cognitive science, Michael Anderson’s “massive redeployment” hypothesis predicts that redeployment of existing circuits and exploiting evolutionary older brain areas for new functions is common. I take this to be compatible with Jaynes’ hypothesis that “[T]here is nothing in consciousness that is not an analog of something that was in behavior first” (1976, p. 66).

  29. Recent defenders of social-constructivist approaches to conscious self-hood include Charles Taylor (1985, 1989), Daniel Dennett (1986, 1991), Tor Norretranders (1991/1998), J. D. Velleman (2006), Daniel Hutto (2008), John Protevi (2009), and James Austin (2009). For an overview of how Dennett’s “abstract” narrative-self theory overlooks the underlying “embodied self,” see Menary (2008). Also, see John Dewey (1925/1958) and for a progenitor of social–linguistic constructivism.

  30. Unfortunately, even thinkers within the externalist paradigm for perception have overlooked this important point, placing the “mystery” of consciousness in terms of explaining the nonconscious what-it-is-like of phenomenal sensory experience. So while I agree with Alva Noë (2004, 2009) when he argues that visual perception is a process of enactive exploration of the world enabled by automatic sensorimotor skills, when he claims that this body–world interaction fully constitutes the conscious mind, he too is falling into the trap of confusing consciousness with cognition, mistakenly thinking that the latter subsumes the entirety of the former. Moreover, this conflation is so rampant that even when Andy Clark (2009) argues against the notion that we can explain consciousness by recourse to an enactive account of perception, he still buys into the original claim that what needs explaining about the conscious mind is “the elusive ‘what-it-is-likeness’ that seems to characterize a subject’s experience of a certain kind of redness, of a certain voice, or of a pain in her stomach” (pp. 1–2). If Jaynes is right, then such what-it-is-likeness is not what needs explaining in coming to terms with the “mystery” of consciousness. Instead, what needs explaining is narratizing within a functional mind-space through cultural-linguistic conditioning in childhood.

  31. For an excellent overview of empirical research in the psychology of metaphor and the cognitive basis for figurative understanding in general, see Gibbs (1994).

  32. We quite naturally say that “My mind wanders” as if the mind were a person in a terrestrial environment, walking aimlessly along. We often understand ourselves as thinking “step-by-step,” linearly, with ideas and mental contents being separated in space, spatialized in time, and “in” or “on” our minds as if the mind were a storage container for thoughts, with some thoughts being “contained” in the “back” of our minds or on the “top” of our minds (closer to the “surface” of conscious awareness). Complex ideas can go “over our head”; we can hold an idea “in” our minds as if it were being examined like a physical object, from “all sides” as it were. I would wager that practically anywhere you find a description of consciousness or mental life, you will find a metaphor of space and time lurking “within.”

  33. While hallucinatory control initially sounds outlandish on the functional level, there is actually growing empirical support for establishing the existence of vestigial features of such “bicamerality” within our own neuropsychology. Looking at modern neuroimaging data on schizophrenics and auditory hallucination, Olin (1999) says “Jaynes’ bold hypothesis on schizophrenia has been revived.” In a cautious, multidisciplinary overview of the theory, Cavanna et al. (2007) provide empirical support for Jaynes’ theory of bicameral brain structure. Jaynes’ theory of bicameral control is also shaped and corroborated by classic research on “split-brain” patients (Gazzaniga 1970; Roser and Gazzaniga 2004). Moreover, see Sher (2000) and Kuijsten (2009) for an overview of the empirical evidence for Jaynes’ neuroscientific hypotheses, particularly with respect to his implication of the right temporal cortex as the seat of the god-function. That such a function is innate and potential in modern humans is also evidenced in the ubiquity of hallucinated playmates in children. Also, see Kuijsten (2006).

  34. While it is often thought that auditory verbal hallucinations occur only in cases of mental illness, empirical research indicates that they are surprisingly common in nonpsychotics (Ohayon 2000), especially children. See Mertin and Hartwig (2004).

  35. One group of researchers (Lee et al. 2004) found that 53% of schizophrenics experiencing auditory hallucinations hear command hallucinations and reported that rates of behavioral compliance have been found to be between 39% and 84%. On hearing voices, see Jaynes (1986c).

  36. Those who doubt something as complicated as writing could be executed nonconsciously need only recall the nineteenth century experiments on automatic writing and occult possession.

  37. For Jaynes, any attempt to “find” consciousness in the brain through neural correlation will inevitably fail unless you know what you are looking for in the first place. In other words, the study of consciousness must begin from the top rather than the bottom. Jaynes would thus disagree with Crick and Koch (1998) on the issue of defining consciousness before attempting to explain it.

  38. Thomas Metzinger’s notion of a phenomenal self model (2003, 2009) seems to have many structural similarities to Jayne’s notion of the analog “I” and the conscious mind in general.

  39. And because J-consciousness is a culturally learned event, “balanced over the suppressed vestiges of an earlier mentality, then we can see that consciousness, in part, can be culturally unlearned or arrested” (ibid., p. 393), e.g., hypnosis, shamanic trance states, religious/ritualistic possession and glossolalia, poetic inspiration, “flow”, schizophrenic boundary dissolutions (Sass 1987), etc. Moreover, “It is only by rejecting the genetic hypothesis and treating consciousness as a learned cultural ability over the vestigial substrate of an earlier more authoritarian type of behavioral control that such alterations of mind can begin to seem orderly” (ibid., p. 380).

  40. For an overview of social cognitive processes, see Lieberman (2006). On the importance of language for the development of theory of mind, see Pyers and Senghas (2009).

  41. It is only on account of our species’ extreme tendency for anthropomorphic projection that we automatically assume an interiority of mind-space in our preconscious ancestors.

  42. For competing explanations of the role of executive control in mind wandering, see Christoff et al. (2009) and McVay and Kane (2010). Also see Baars (2010).

  43. In addition, executive control itself is a strikingly Jaynesian concept. Defined as “‘higher-level’ cognitive functions involved in the control and regulation of ‘lower-level’ cognitive processes and goal-directed, future-oriented behavior” (Alvarez and Emory 2006, p. 17), executive control has been neurologically associated with voluntary inhibition and switching, sustained and selective attention, working memory, conscious planning, problem solving, and abstract thinking. Such functions are at the heart of J-consciousness.

  44. It is worth nothing that Daniel Hutto, on independent but complementary grounds, argues that “children only come by the requisite framework for [understanding intentional actions in terms of reasons] and master its practical application by being exposed to and engaging in a distinctive kind of narrative practice” (2008, p. x). Moreover, like Jaynes, Hutto argues that folk psychological narrative practice is a “late-developing socioculturally acquired skill” rather than “some kind of ancient endowment” (ibid., p. xvi). In fact, reading Hutto in terms of Jaynes offers the best framework in which to make sense of his otherwise radical claims about self-hood being a social–linguistic construct.

  45. Accordingly, the mental content for pain includes the picking up of meaningful stimulus information regarding the external environment (Does that thing hurt or not?) and not just “the firing of c-fibers” as Levine assumes. The latter is a fact of anatomy, not psychology. And moreover, the perception of heat or cold in an object entails not just the “motion of molecules” but also meaningful information about that object in relation to our bodies, given there is a directional flow of heat at the skin by radiation or conduction in relation to our own (stable) body temperature. Similarly, I agree with Nigel Thomas when he says that “colors (and all other experienced qualities) really exist out there in the world, just as do shape, size, and motion (or whatever properties are sanctioned by the latest physical theories)” (2001, p. 143).

  46. In light of the distinction between cognition and consciousness, I think Dennett (1995) goes too far when he collapses the distinction between P-consciousness and A-consciousness. While I agree with Dennett that there is nothing philosophically “special” about P-consciousness, to dismiss the distinction altogether is to miss sight of the original phenomenological explanandum: an analog “I” narratizing in an introspective mind-space in distinction to mere nonconscious reactivity.

  47. As Jaynes often said, if you want to know what the contents of consciousness are, pick ten people randomly and ask them what they were just thinking about. The answers they give are referring to the denotative contents of consciousness.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jon Cogburn for giving me the idea to defend Jaynes against Block’s criticisms. Thanks are also due to Jan Sleutels, Lee Braver, and Marcel Kuijsten for helpful comments on the draft, as well as to Katie Rose for pointing out a great number of typos. I am also grateful for the anonymous reviewers who helped me significantly tighten my paper and improve my arguments.

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Correspondence to Gary Williams.

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Williams, G. What is it like to be nonconscious? A defense of Julian Jaynes. Phenom Cogn Sci 10, 217–239 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9181-z

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