things to think about

Link to Science Weekly, the interview in question is linked in the second paragraph.

A real mind-blower of an interview (conducted by Susan Blackmore), some proper fireworks-off-in-the-head moments in there. Also, the guy has a fantastic voice that I could quite happily listen to all day.

I’m trying to wrap my head around what exactly he means by qualia. So far, my understanding is that it pertains to the ability to perceive things at an abstract level and make semantic connections between those abstractions.

As I sit here typing this, light is hitting the back of my retinas and forming the image of a square, illuminated object. This is raw, unprocessed sensory input and the same pattern of input would be created whether it was me sat here, or a cat, or a fly, or anything else possessing retinas. The hairs in my ears are picking up sound coming from behind me.

At the next level of processing, my brain is able to use that input to construct an model of my immediate surroundings which I can use to (for instance) know where to put my feet if I want to stand up and prevent me from walking into the walls if I do. Effectively, creating spatial awareness. Arguably, this sense of spatial awareness would also be created from the same sensory input in a cat or a fly, as they too navigate space without crashing into things (very often).

As an aside: an exception to this is the observation we can often make of a fly bashing into a window. I wouldn’t make the same mistake, as I am aware of what a window is, and even though it looks like empty space, it is, in fact, a transparent solid. It would seem that flies are not capable of this level of perception. I’m getting ahead of myself though.

One level up, and I know that the flat, square thing in front of me is a computer screen, and the sound is coming from a television. I have made sense of these images and sounds and understand what they are. Representations of a television and a computer screen have been created in my head from the raw sensory data.

Finally, I can relate this screen to all other computer screens I have seen and know they are all of the same type of object. I know that the television behind me is showing a movie, and that if anyone else is tuned into the same channel right now, they’ll be watching the same movie. This is the level of meta-representation, where the representations created in my head are related at a symbolic level to other semantically-related representations.

The way I understand it, each successive level could be said to posses an increasing amount of qualia; the first level of raw input would have none, and the meta-representation level would be qualia-laden (these are all terms used by Ramachandran in the interview). The interesting thing is, as Ramachandran’s background is in neurology, he relates these processes to the physical structures in the brain that support them and so, by association, these structures can be called qualia-laden too, as they allow these processes to arise. So, what starts off as a fairly standard bit of abstract philosophical rhetoric quickly becomes cemented and inextricably linked with the physical biology of the brain. Fairly compellingly too, as apparently studies exist of patients who have lost some of these levels of reasoning due to damage of the parts of the brain responsible for their processing. Wow.

An interesting parallel springs to mind from my notes on The Selfish Gene so far (which I have yet to type up): in Chapter 4, “The Gene Machine,” Dawkins suggests that consciousness could have arisen when our ancestors had to incorporate themselves into their mental model of the world, and imagination arose as we needed to project those models into the future and run simulations of the possible outcomes of an action. This sounds very like the point of reasoning where qualia begin to come into play; in fact, Ramachandran states in the interview that:

“… at some point in evolution, the sense of self emerged, and that required this meta-representation” 3.28

Could there be a point where raw sensory input and instinctive reaction give way to more complex reasoning? Is that the point where consciousness arises? Would John Gray argue that that’s complete toss?

I mention John Gray because Ramachadran & Blackmore discuss readiness potential and the Libet experiments in this interview, which sounds very similar to something my friend Nick told me whilst he was reading “Straw Dogs,” a book by Gray. Apparently, Gray examines a set of experiments (very probably these same experiments) which seem to prove that much action happens before the decision to carry out that action has been made, and thus the notion of volition and free will is just an elaborate scheme of self-justification after the event carried out by the mind on itself. While this notion is being discussed in the interview, Ramachandran mentions that Daniel Dennet has done some work in this area, a name which was already on my radar due to his being namechecked by Dawkins in the chapter I mentioned above. Chalk up several more areas of study.

Further reading & listening:

• Wikipedia: V.S. Ramachandran
• BBC - Radio 4 - Reith Lectures 2003 - The Emerging Mind

Further action:

• See if anything can be found online about the studies of patients with damaged brains.
• Find out more about readiness potential and the Libet experiments.
• Read Straw Dogs.
• Start looking into Daniel Dennett’s work.