Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. . . . Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless. (T. Nagel, 1979, pp.165–166)]

Necessity of Consciousness isn’t Sufficient to give it a Form

It is from the problem of mind-body dichotomy that mind and body have been conceptualized as different entities. What brings forward this problem is consciousness. Yet most of the viewpoints in this area tackle with many secondary products of the dualism vs. monism conflict, leaving consciousness unexplained by every possible and debatable angle. Consciousness has initiated the mind-body problem but still is undefined to either be a mental or a physical state [hardly anyone considers it to a physical state but it is undefined]. Thomas Nagel has stated that without consciousness the mind-body problem has no substantial grounds to raise questions about dualism or distinct ontological existence of both the mind and body. In other words, what brings in the interest in this issue is the nature of consciousness and its inexplicability, without that most of the other corresponding physical and mental phenomena do not necessitate the mind-body conflict. Yet the very existence of consciousness as a phenomenon leaves many queries in this issue unsolved as much as it raises them. I would support this argument by explaining the pivotal role of consciousness in the mind-body problem, doctrines explaining this problem without necessary consciousness and arguments that hold necessary consciousness and create newer questions in the mind-body problem.

Consciousness in the Mind-Body Problem

The mind-body problem is basically of the nature- dualism as against monism and thus giving rise to emergentism. Both ends accept consciousness; the argument starts form the existence of different physical and mental states of a being. Consciousness is the awareness of having a mind and its functioning. Thus from this argument follows the question- what states of a being give him his identity- physical or mental- and therefore what creates consciousness- where does it lie- what form does it have?

Physical states of our body are known to us; this knowledge about body is not consciousness, as knowing observable facts is not awareness. Awareness is the key word to understanding of consciousness- it is synonymous to wakefulness and responsiveness. Thus it implies a state of interaction: when P is conscious of his thoughts he is aware of his thoughts i.e. he has them not just as memories but reinforces a known route of thinking to a particular thought x and thus knows it actively. E.g. ‘I am aware that I love burgers’ implies that my love for burger is because of certain known reasons and that my love can’t be a dead fact because- love implies certain conditions and the absence of it means no love, therefore it can’t be memory; ‘I love’ implies continuity even though that thought as per its content doesn’t remain in the focus of thinking all the time. Therefore this awareness of having a certain thought is not knowledge through perception- no matter if it’s stored in the brain as memory or is in the focus of thinking i.e. the activity in hypothalamus. It requires necessary to be in a mental state.

Consciousness as a mental state: Now that one knows that consciousness is not reducible to brain states, why should it be a mental state? That is pretty obvious if the point is establishing either existence or inexistence of mind, but the question is how did this problem follow from proposed existence of mind? It would be very cyclical if this is established from the definition of consciousness as it means awareness of having a mind and its functioning. So what are the various senses of consciousness- awareness of existence, awareness of thoughts and awareness of awareness. The first sense seems trivial if we look at it this way- If I know I exist then can I know the same without existing. The complexity lies in the fact that what do I know as my existence- if it implies all by physical states as observed by me, then I haven’t yet observed that ‘I know’. My awareness is thus my belief and a belief is definitely a mental state but not a mental fact. Therefore the necessity of a mind-like entity follows from that. The other sense as in the example of the burger is awareness of having thoughts and not the state of thinking. For instance when it is said that p is morally conscious, he is aware of his thoughts about morality. If someone asks him a question are you aware that you think it is unethical to murder. If an obvious yes doesn’t come from him then he may have forgotten the reasons as to why he accepted that morality in the past, but then reinforcement is possible only when there is memory and loss of memory means need for fresh thought about any issue. If he says he yes, does it simply imply that he remembers- actually it means he still holds it to be valid which makes it a state of mind. Last sense of it is awareness of awareness. Let us continue with the same example- is p aware that he is aware of his thoughts about morality. The answer is – at this instant: no; but when he thinks about it: yes. The issue gets worse as, if there is awareness of awareness which is inactive at a particular instant and gets turned on with thought then, where is it? Is having this kind of awareness a mere belief formed on because of no counterevidence? If we can establish that this thinking in two layers is possible then it is not just a belief but such awareness exists and thus the need of explaining it in terms of mental state.

Subtract consciousness from the idea of mind

Before arguing for the necessity of consciousness in the mind body problem, I would like to discuss the other aspects of the issue and certain doctrines that go against this necessity.

Reasons behind the mind body problem: Given that mind and body have distinct ontological entities [a materialist would deny mind completely, but that very problem has been addressed to, therefore let us analyze between dualism and monism] mind has no empirical evidence. Therefore a dualist would argue that they are different components of the self. Also for instance the process of reasoning is explained by brain states, but what is implied by ‘having rationality’ doesn’t occur anywhere as a state by observing an association formed. Qualia are the subjective characteristics of experience; they are initiated by physical states but aren’t explained by them. So comes the question where do these mental events exist? All these problems also contribute to necessity of mind. The epiphenomenalists [mental states are causally ineffective but both mental states and brain states exist], panpsychists [both physical and mental states exist but only physical states create mental states] and the functionalists [mental states are functional, mind doesn’t exist] give solutions to these problems in a reductive manner. Hence what remains is consciousness.

A mind that requires no consciousness: Parallelism is doctrine that says mind and body function parallely and do not interfere with each other. Therefore if we accept that then there is no question of consciousness as- what is one aware of and who is the one that is aware? If mind and body don’t interact we cannot reach the peripheries of consciousness as every question about this issue doesn’t stand valid. If P sees a green parrot, then his perception is different and his thought of a green parrot isn’t related to that, therefore from where did the thought follow from if the brain state created from perception didn’t create it? How can he think of a green parrot as colour is dispositional in nature though may not be physical reality and why does he call the creature in his thought a parrot if he perceives something called a parrot too. Occasionalism [Malebranche] also argues on similar lines that mind and body have parallel functioning and occurrences of similarity between mental and brain states is because of God’s intervention. The same problem as parallelism persists here along with an assumption of intervention and undefined idea of God.

Mind is accessible to a conscious being. Simple questions revolving around identity of an entity and that unique attribute his beliefs will have is because he is aware of them. The mind body problem without consciousness is a reductionist approach.

Consciousness

If not this reductionist approach, then consciousness is the central problem of mind-body problem. So comes the question why is the problem unresolved because of consciousness again.

- Thomas Nagel explains consciousness to be a subjective character of experience. He puts forth the term- ‘what is it like’nes. By his thought experiment of a bat he explains a bat’s consciousness as only a bat knows what it is like to be one. The unique experiences constitute his character of consciousness and thus only the physical states aren’t sufficient to create the mental state of consciousness. Physical states are common to everyone who can perceive a certain object but there is subjective character to that experience which makes his consciousness. The other minds problem also raises the question that how do we know that a mind other than us thinks like us though we know it to have the same body.

- Hilary Putnam’s multiple realizabilty argues against functionalism by stating that one mental property, state or event can be implemented by different mental properties, states or events. Thus the mental property of consciousness is not functional in nature. This is true because our constant awareness cannot be result of every brain state. Seeing a red book doesn’t necessitate that one is aware of his thoughts [not just one thought about the red book] and aware of being aware.

- The concept of phenomenal consciousness states that phenomenal conscious properties are experiential properties. This argument is monist. It doesn’t explain every sense of consciousness- the awareness of being ware of thought isn’t any experience initiated by physical reality or isn’t purely mental too. Therefore consciousness requires independent mental states.

Any doctrine that doesn’t deny the ontological existence of consciousness cannot support its reducible existence. Yet none of them actually establish consciousness. There is no acceptable theory that explains the nature of every kind of consciousness as in terms of the nature of a mental state. Nagel too has defined consciousness but he establishes the need of it and the unique character of it only. Why is this insufficient then? Putnam’s semantic externalism says that meaning just ain’t in the head. The head implies internal counterpart of meaning of something and not just the brain state but a mind too; but the point is that if consciousness has meaning as understood by us, it has existence as a mental state independent of someone who thinks about it. This problem of consciousness cancels out almost every solution offered to the mind-body problem.

Conclusion

· Consciousness only offers strong grounds for interactionism and creates mind-body problem. Consciousness in every sense of it also goes against reducible monism. Consciousness disproves parallel functioning of the mind and the body.

· Most of the arguments in the mind-body problem have necessitated consciousness and have inclination towards explaining it as a mental state, but do not provide its exact mental form. This is the major reason for the mind-body problem to persist.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it. - Karl Marx

A change because of philosophy

Interpreting for the sake of understanding is why we want to have knowledge. A philosopher’s job however is to verify if our understanding actually helps build knowledge or not: thus they various ways of interpretation. Marx shifts this aim of philosophy to a different one. He focuses on the fact that the end is change: change achieved through right understanding of issues, to detect flaws and alter them. Changing the world is similar to making it a better place to live. The question I would like to discuss about this is that –how can one achieve this through philosophy? And before that- is that what philosophy aims at?

11) What is philosophy???

Etymology and meaning: Philosophy comes from the Greek word philosophia meaning the love for wisdom. Defining philosophy is not very easy for a philosopher because mostly she would already be belonging to a particular school of thought that defines philosophy, in other words restrain its meaning, than another. Everyone who philosophizes don’t really follow a previously established definition of philosophy, rather their varying aims give them different perspectives. The meaning of philosophy doesn’t much follow from its etymology, as ‘love for wisdom’ is rather a state of mind; it is ambiguous in the sense that it doesn’t necessitate a search and after that- passive acceptance of the truth or attaining a better state. This issue lies in the sphere of metaphilosophy to investigate what will be the right kind of philosophy. But someone who knows the different aims of philosophy is hardly in a position to deny one of them.

Aims of philosophy: Taking the example of naturalist philosophy- a naturalist philosopher follows a different definition of philosophy than others and therefore denies supernaturalism. His aim is to give epistemic justification to propositions about natural science only. Such a discipline in philosophy wouldn’t regard the answers to metaphysical questions to be philosophical knowledge unless they were expressed in terms of natural science. Thus a different set of aims originates from a different understanding of philosophy and provides a different perspective to the world and incidentally all the philosophical questions. The notion of interpretation thus is important for philosophers, as every doctrine holds different axioms to be true and gives a world-view. There are paradigm shifts in science but philosophy follows no such patterns- despite better understanding of necessity, propositional and existential, the Cartesian proof of existence of god is still held to be valid by some philosophers. It is difficult refute an argument of a skepticist about objective existence of men by foundherentism, as both doctrines see the world differently. Such unresolved conflicts in philosophy signify the importance of its aim of knowledge. To have knowledge about the world, we need to know the truth.

If philosophers are at loggerheads about the state of an x, how would they change it? But this doesn’t mean that changing the world becomes a secondary aim of philosophy. The fundamental questions in philosophy weren’t conceived in a completely abstract manner; they arose from problems in human understanding like occurrence of something counter-intuitional or difficulty in tracing causality. The questions were created in order to obtain answers. In the simplest sense changing the world is also achieved through attaining a better mental state by finding explanation for what is unexplained. Philosophy, if considered understood by its practical value, is not less than intellectual value. This brings us to our next question- how will this be achieved?

22) Change and philosophy

The philosopher’s job: How do philosophers change the world? By creating ideas. Every individual has more or less access to some kind of knowledge like perceptual knowledge for instance. What remains to question is understood by a philosopher who breaks down what he sees into previously defined terms, provides concrete analogies to abstract concepts and also forms newer conceptions. This understanding created by philosophy is meant for change- it either replaces older ideas with new ones or reinforces the older ones by providing justification for them. What else can be expected from a philosopher? If feminist philosophers start chalking out plans to uplift women, that means they have switched roles from someone who methodically points out flaws in the secondary positioning of women to activists who are always in a course of action by the virtue of what they do- there lies a great difference in thinking and acting. But action is the end of thought- it may be physical or mental. Philosophers are thinkers, when they become actors they are well supported by a belief-system which is created by them unlike a common person.

The notion of change: Mankind has philosophized and in turn initiated numerous changes since ages. Marx’s argument doesn’t limit to this notion of change. His question is analogous to- why spend years to figure out if the glass is half full or half empty, fill the rest with water. The ends of optimism and pessimism as by this classic example is what philosophers always do; some of them even say that the entire glass is full but half with air and half with water; but the very need of perspectives to describe it is because of the obvious perception of that glass. Therefore change it first. This logic is seen to be applied in case of socialism. Material productive forces drive the markets, thus the society is governed by productive force, because this leads to emergence of classes and therefore class conflicts, markets must be state controlled. The Marxist philosophy initiates change in this manner by answering questions about an issue called classism, followed by the concept of MPFs, thereby the change of replacing MPFs. Let us analyze this notion of change by finding out the philosopher’s exact role in it. The philosopher saw class conflict and traced the reason why this happens, therefore operated upon the reason to put an end to class conflict. Let us revise this understanding by going deeper. Class conflict is explained by Marxism in this way that individuals always think in reference to their classes. The other angle to it is of course that material productive forces create diverse economic conditions. But the concept of class, as it has effects on thinking, is defined to be more than economic conditions; thus the corollary of this concept someone who doesn’t pertain to class interests doesn’t belong to that class. A philosopher who knows this wouldn’t uphold the idea of a planned economy where there are no MPFs, as classism doesn’t apply to every individual. The change of notion as described by Marx, in this case considers that socialism follows from Marxism because he thinks of philosophy only in its practical angle, which is acceptable but- Marx sees issue p, comes to the know it follows from a and b, formulates a theory that b if replaced by c gives no p and considers c to be a valid method of change.

Why should this be an acceptable method in philosophy? As in the quote, ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways’- this interpretation is not as inconsequential as it sounds. If a philosopher sees truth, he cannot deny that as it naturally implies that he also has reasons to consider it to be the truth. If the change he aims at isn’t contradictory to what he holds to be true, then it is logical. If it aims for a change to deny a perspective he cannot refute otherwise, it is illogical. Changing the world is necessary, but in what aspects? Can one change natural laws? Can one deny complete rationality? Even such dispositions are derived from the world and thus a philosopher’s job would be to accept them if they are indefeasible and then there is no scope for changing them. The only change in such a process would be change in one’s belief that do not hold material or non-material existence in the objective world. The point of philosophy is change by means of interpretation. Both courses shouldn’t intervene with each other.

33) Conclusion

aa. Philosophy is meant for gaining knowledge about the world. This process follows a particular method in philosophy and requires to be complete.

ab. The aim of philosophy is to abstract knowledge out of the world by interpreting it and this aim is necessitated by the philosopher’s ends of changing.

cc. This change doesn’t necessarily imply changing changes in objects in the world and not change for the sake of change.

Hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, eudaemonism - all these systems that measure the value of things taking into account the pleasure or pain that go along with them, that is to say, according to any non-core condition or facts, are seen as if they do not go in depth and being naive. Any man with his constructive faculty in place and a conscience of an artist can only regard this with irony and pity from a distance.

Objectivity in value determination

Value theory, by the sound of it, should be a consistent system of evaluation based on a belief system. That belief system should define value as a concept; no matter if one thinks of it to be a natural property to objects or the subjective measurement of goodness. As Nietzsche has pointed out various systems in axiology do make such equations that operate on pleasure-pain principle; pleasure and pain, being derived and subjective but still universal despite not being properties of objects, are the central problem in such value-systems. Analysis of human psychology in determining value and explaining what value means and a consistent operational method also goes astray because of such value systems. I would like to point out the differences between subjective and objective value theories, why objective theories pertain to reality and what is the right understanding of objective value determination.

Subjective measurement of value

It sounds inappropriate to talk about measurement of value before defining it, but I would first like to trace the propositions about value according to different schools of thought. Is value intrinsic or instrumental or subjective or objective? All these belief-systems have overlapping sense of value. Intrinsic value theory argues that value is contained within objects; while other theories consider it to be extrinsic of the object. The subjective value theory assigns value according to the utility of an object to an individual; instrumental value is the value of an object as means. This brings us to the major differences within these systems- they equate value to be means or to be the end [though none consider it to be means or ends itself].

Hedonism considers that objects have intrinsic value and only intrinsic value can be pleasure, therefore hedonists operate on the principle of minimize pain-maximize pleasure. Eudaemonists aim at happiness in life by reaching pleasure which is characterized by the absence of pain. Pessimism searches for the negative value present in every object intrinsically. Utilitarianism determines value by the utility an object has in giving pleasure. All of them consider value to be equivalent to pleasure. Pleasure is mental state of experiencing happiness. Therefore does one value a particular good because it gives pleasure or does it give pleasure because it gives value? All the subjective theories of value accept the first condition. Consider this- water has value. The subjectivists would say one ascribes value to the water because it gives pleasure; but we know water to have dietary value and the pleasure it gives is because of that. Let us take another example- a is blind and holds less value for a television, while b who can see does. Rather than saying b values the television because he can see unlike a, I would say he can see [therefore get pleasure, more than a] because television is audio-visual media. The value of the television wouldn’t change even if everyone who has access were blind.

If one takes into account such subjectivity, the process of determining exact value of commodities and non-material entities goes wrong. If giving pleasure is further based on subjective thinking and how can one quantify pleasure to equate it with value? E.g. while calculating market value of a product one considers the rewards to all factors of production and comes a certain value x. If this product is a burger, then a person who despises burgers will think of it to be 0.1x, a famished person would consider it to be 5x. If all consumers of that burger hold its value around 0.2 to 0.5 x then it obviously means that it gives less pleasure to them; but the content of the burger isn’t affected by it.

What is value?

Subjectivity in value gives contradictions about facts about an object, which makes it unacceptable. But then what is value? We speak things like, a is valuable to me, b is more valuable to me than c. we don’t think of value without the ‘I’. What does this imply? Gaining value is an end and value is the property of any object to be able to reach that end. What holds value lies outside us. Even if I value my own thoughts I actually value its contents to be true beliefs irrespective of it being in mind. Nietzsche points out such core facts to be missing in subjective value-theories. They are facts about ‘what’ does one value. And their importance lies in the fact that such facts are unchangeable properties of objects. My belief about x having value doesn’t cause the value creation; this belief of mine is grounded on my other thoughts about x that are in some degree self-evidentially true.

Value is the ultimate end of an action. If we equate content of the action to properties of an object, that would give us understanding why we value things. This understanding is important as a non-subjective equation of value would simply separate the existence of objects from ours- it wouldn’t explain value completely if I say if there were no minds to make sense of values that objects hold they would still have value. Value has no material existence, it doesn’t belong to the objective reality; but the point is- it is derived from objective reality. E.g. a painting depicting beautiful girl gives value that is unique to it as an object to someone who sees it. The painting as an object is equivalent and not equal to its value; even its abstract conception of a beautiful girl had no content value. A painter was required to ascribe value to the abstraction on account of what this content is and the individual who saw it valued it for exactly the same reason- its content [it didn’t matter that the abstract conception had taken a concrete form, what gave the properties still existed- this is important for one can talk about value creation in absence of objects and derive from it that object is equal to the value].

Objective reality and value

As in the above example of the painting, the concept of value is seen to be real yet intangible. The subjective axiological systems have therefore bypassed definition of value in independent terms and expressed it in different terms. Once we establish the error in that the solution is to connect value with objective reality. Nietzsche points that someone with constructive faculty or artist’s conscience sees the subjectivity to be ironical and pitiful. So despite this seemingly simple solution, why does one need constructive faculty to have a complete understanding of value? Value is defined to be property of objects to reach a particular end. The objective reality is not a parameter of ascribing value by its definition. But a person needs to understand that objective reality and the properties of the object cannot be contradictory. Let us bring in the water-diamond paradox. Utilitarianistically water should have more value than diamonds. In fact diamonds shouldn’t hold any value to someone dying of thirst. If such a person is asked do you accept the value of diamond to be 100x and that of water to be x, when he is about to die, he cannot deny that. This paradox is a problem in value-determination that rises out of incomplete definition of value. One would evaluate if he wants to quantify a good in terms of its value and thus he considers it to be an end. This condition is true to the meaning of value and in case of this paradox would resolve it along with other arguments about utility of diamonds and their scarcity, etc. thus the constructive faculty to understand value determination. And the artist’s conscience for thinking that objects have content.

Finally to put everything together, what has to be revised is the question that why does a rational thinker consider objectivity to be the right value system. Many times we operate upon value as measured by its utility. So I would put the question this way -what explains the objective value theory to be operationally accurate and therefore intelligible. As from the quote, it considers the core facts that qualify for value. These facts are real and unaffected by subjective thinking. Thus applying this method of determining value would leave no scope for contradictory values of same objects. This method makes cardinal measurement possible and provides grounds for ascribing worth of goods in quantifiable terms. E.g. an objective value theory is useful in price determination and stability in the market price of a good [a subjective determined price allows drastic rise and fall in price according to consumer demands]. Also painstakingly touching piece of music will have a particular aesthetic value if determined objective irrespective of the fact that the listener wouldn’t choose to listen to it. Thus the connection of the objective reality, from which the core facts and conditions are derived, to the value, is true.

Conclusion

The subjective value theories replace the concept of value with pleasure-pain principles and do not define value irrespective of that.

Value is the end of every action and value lies in the property of objects and those properties do not change.

The objective reality is where one derives value from and that being composed of known facts make objectivity a method of giving true value of things.