Steve Watson

Three Illusions of Consciousness

No inner monologue

Here‘s an interesting (short!) interview with a girl who says she has no internal monologue. The interviewer is trying to comprehend what that could be like and how it could be possible. 

I think a good way to start thinking about it is to realise that there is no actual little voice in anyone’s head, so what’s happening when we think that there is?

No inner imagery

Here’s a news release reporting on a study involving people who report that they can form no mental images. The report talks about how this is devastating for philosophers of mind (citing such contemporary analysts as David Hume) and indicating that it upends our ideas of abstraction formation.

I think a good way to start thinking about it is to realise (as philosophers have done for centuries) that there is no actual little image in anyone’s head, so what’s happening when we think that there is?

No inner reasoning

Usually cited as an argument against Free Will, the Libet experiment equally indicates that consciousness of a decision is not simultaneous with the neurological indicator that a decision has been made, thus conscious reasoning is not what produces the decision.

But consciousness is not where the work is done, any more than a committee’s report is where it’s work is done.