# Consciousness Studies/The Conflict#The regression argument

*This section is about how regression and recursion seem to undermine
the idea of conscious experience being anywhere in the universe.*.

## The conflict - supervenience and the location of the contents of phenomenal consciousness

When we touch something or look at a view what we are probably touching
or seeing is a thing in the world, out there, beyond our bodies. Many
philosophers and almost all scientists would agree with this surmise.
But is our conscious experience itself directly the things we touch or
more like a picture of those things on television or something else
entirely? Furthermore, can we really be certain that what we believe we
experience truly occurs?

Suppose for the moment that our experience truly does occur and consists
of things laid out in time and space. Conscious experience appears to be
a simultaneous set of things (i.e.: things arranged in space) but where
are these things and what is this space? The things that occur in
conscious experience could be a virtual reality in the brain based on
the world beyond the body, or they could be the things themselves,
viewed directly through some unknown phenomenon or it has even been
suggested that they could be something non-physical.

The problem of where the contents of conscious experience are located
has provoked some of the fiercest battles in the philosophy of
consciousness. There are three broad positions, the first is Direct
Realism in which it is held that the contents of conscious experience
are directly things in the world, the second is Indirect Realism where
it is proposed that the contents of conscious experience are
representations, usually in the physical brain, based on things \'out
there\' in the world and the third is idealism where it is held that
there is no physical world, only non-physical conscious experience.
These three classifications overlap considerably, for instance some
Natural Dualists believe that the contents of sensory experience are
directly the world beyond the body but some thoughts are based in a
non-physical soul and some philosophers introduce the dualist notion of
a \"logical space\" containing disembodied information.

Philosophers often use the concept of \'supervenience\' to examine the
location of the contents of consciousness. Supervenience is the relation
between two sets of properties. Supervenience can be simple; for example
a golden ring supervenes on a piece of the metal gold. Supervenience can
also be quite complex such as the idea that life supervenes on the
biological processes in a cell. The most difficult cases of
supervenience are where a high level description is related to simpler
physical properties such as form and content. There are formal
statements of supervenience:

`The properties of A supervene on the properties of B if no two possible`\
`situations are identical with respect to the properties of A while`\
`differing with respect to the properties of B (after Chalmers 1996).`

Lewis gives a simpler, if less technical, definition of supervenience:

`A dot-matrix picture has global properties -- it is symmetrical, `\
`it is cluttered, and whatnot -- and yet all there is to the picture `\
`is dots and non-dots at each point of the matrix. The global `\
`properties are nothing but patterns in the dots. They supervene: no `\
`two pictures could differ in their global properties without `\
`differing, somewhere, in whether there is or there isn't a dot". `\
`Lewis, D., 1986, On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Blackwell`

One set of properties is said to supervene *locally* on another set of
properties if the second set is determined by the first. Shape is an
example of local supervenience; for instance a gold wire forged in a
circle determines a gold ring. A set of properties is said to supervene
*globally* on another if the entire context of the properties must be
included; for instance, two organisms could be physically identical but
demonstrate different behaviours in different environments. In this case
the physical form of an organism does not totally determine the
behaviour. Philosophers also divide supervenience into logical
supervenience and natural supervenience. Logical supervenience deals
with possible relations in possible worlds while natural supervenience
deals with relations that occur in the natural world.

See elementary information
theory
for a discussion of supervenience in information systems.

A particular problem posed by consciousness studies is whether conscious
phenomenal experience supervenes on the physical world and, if so,
where. To answer these questions philosophers and neuroscientists must
have a good understanding of physics. They should be aware of elementary
physical ontology such as kinetic energy being the relativistic mass
increase of a particle in a four dimensional universe and Newton\'s laws
being due to the exploration of all paths in space-time. Without a good
knowledge of physics there is the danger that we will be asking whether
phenomenal consciousness supervenes on an abstract model of the world
which does not supervene on the world itself (i.e.: *we may be asking if
conscious phenomenal experience supervenes on Newtonian physics or
supervenes on information systems theory rather than asking how
phenomenal consciousness might supervene on the natural world*).

The possibility that conscious experience does not really occur, at
least in the form that we believe it occurs, is known as the problem of
the \"Incorrigibility of the cogito\" (Harrison 1984). If Descartes\'
idea that \"I think therefore I am\" is not beyond question
(incorrigible) then the idea of phenomenal consciousness may be
incorrect.

(See for instance:

Special relativity for beginners

Special relativity for
beginners

Quantum physics explains Newton's laws of motion

<http://www.eftaylor.com/pub/OgbornTaylor.pdf> )

## The problem of regression

The philosopher Gilbert Ryle was concerned with what he called the
intellectualist legend which requires intelligent acts to be the product
of the conscious application of mental rules. The intellectualist legend
is also known as the \"Dogma of the Ghost in the Machine,\" the
\"Two-Lives Legend,\" the \"Two-Worlds Story,\" or the \"Double-Life
Legend\". Ralph Waldo Emerson summarised the intellectualist legend in
the statement that \"The ancestor of every action is a thought.\" Ryle
argued against the idea that every action requires a conscious thought
and showed that this \'intellectualist legend\' results in an infinite
regress of thought:

`"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything `\
`intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal `\
`act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his `\
`practical problem. [...] Must we then say that for the hero's `\
`reflections how to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how `\
`best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress `\
`shows that the application of the criterion of appropriateness does `\
`not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion."`\
`(The Concept of Mind (1949)) `

image:constudregress.gif

`"The crucial objection to the intellectualist legend is this. The `\
`consideration of propositions is itself an operation the execution `\
`of which can be more or less intelligent, less or more stupid. But if, `\
`for any operation to be intelligently executed, a prior theoretical `\
`operation had first to be performed and performed intelligently, it `\
`would be a logical impossibility for anyone ever to break into the `\
`circle." `

Variants of Ryle\'s regress are commonly aimed at cognitivist theories.
For instance, in order to explain the behavior of rats, Edward Tolman
suggested that the rats were constructing a \"cognitive map\" that
helped them locate reinforcers, and he used intentional terms (e.g.,
expectancies, purposes, meanings) to describe their behavior. This led
to a famous attack on Tolman\'s work by Guthrie who pointed out that if
one was implying that every action must be preceded by a cognitive
\'action\' (a \'thought\' or \'schema\' or \'script\' or whatever), then
what \'causes\' this act? Clearly it must be preceded by another
cognitive action, which must in turn must be preceded by another and so
on, in an infinite regress unless an external input occurs at some
stage.

As a further example, we may take note of the following statement from
The Concept of Mind (1949):

\"The main object of this chapter is to show that there are many
activities which directly display qualities of mind, yet are neither
themselves intellectual operations nor yet effects of intellectual
operations. Intelligent practice is not a step-child of theory. On the
contrary theorizing is one practice amongst others and is itself
intelligently or stupidly conducted.\"

Ryle noted that \"theorizing is one practice amongst others.\" and hence
would translate the statement by Emerson into, \"The ancestor of every
action is an action.\" or \"The ancestor of every behavior is a
behavior,\". Each behaviour would require yet another behavior to
preface it as its ancestor, and an infinite regress would occur.

It should be noted that Ryle's regress is a critique of cognitivism
which arises from the Behaviorist tradition. Near the end of The Concept
of Mind, Ryle states, \"The Behaviorists' methodological program has
been of revolutionary importance to the program of psychology. But more,
it has been one of the main sources of the philosophical suspicion that
the two-worlds story is a myth.\" But Ryle's brand of logical
behaviorism is not to be confused with the radical behaviorism of B. F.
Skinner or the methodological behaviorism of John B. Watson. For as Alex
Byrne noted, \"Ryle was indeed, as he reportedly said, 'only one arm and
one leg a behaviorist'.\"

Arguments that involve regress are well known in philosophy. In fact any
reflexive, or self referencing process or argument will involve a
regress if there is no external input. This applies whether the agent
that engages in the process is a digital computer or intelligent agent
(cf: Smith (1986), Yates (1991)).

Ryle\'s regress suggests that intelligent acts are not created within
phenomenal consciousness. They may have non-conscious components or even
be entirely non-conscious. Ryle argued that this might mean that
consciousness is just a \"ghost in the machine\" of the brain because
consciousness would be epiphenomenal if it is not the creator of
intelligent acts. However, as will be seen below, this conclusion may be
premature and certainly cannot be used to dismiss phenomenal
consciousness as non-existent or not present in the brain.

## The Subject-Object paradox

This paradox was clearly enunciated by William James in 1904:

\"Throughout the history of philosophy the subject and its object have
been treated as absolutely discontinuous entities; and thereupon the
presence of the latter to the former, or the \'apprehension\' by the
former of the latter, has assumed a paradoxical character which all
sorts of theories had to be invented to overcome.\" James (1904).

The Subject-Object paradox points out that a conscious subject appears
to observe itself as an object. But if it observes itself as an object
then, as an object it cannot be a subject. As Bermudez(1998) puts it:

\"Any theory that tries to elucidate the capacity to think first-person
thoughts through linguistic mastery of the first-person pronoun will be
circular, because the explanandum is part of the explanans..\"

Thomas Reid uses this paradox to suggest that everything that is
observed must be external to the soul and hence proposed that experience
was the world itself.

Wittgenstein (1949) offers a way out of the paradox by denying the
existence of the subject:

`<span style="font-family:times new roman;">`{=html}\"5.63 1. The
thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing. If I wrote a book
The World as I Found It, I should also have therein to report on my body
and say which members obey my will and which do not, etc. This then
would be a method of isolating the subject or rather of showing that in
an important sense there is no subject: that is to say, of it alone in
this book mention could not be made. 5.632. The subject does not belong
to the world but it is a limit of the world. 5.633. Where in the world
is a metaphysical subject to be noted? You say that this case is
altogether like that of the eye and the field of sight. But you do not
really see the eye. And from nothing in the field of sight can it be
concluded that it is seen from an eye\... 5.64 1. \...The philosophical
I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which
psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit --- not a
part of the world.\"`</span>`{=html}(Wittgenstein 1949).

Wittgenstein\'s view is similar to that voiced by Green (2002) in which
there is nothing at the point centre of the manifold of events (there is
no point eye). James (1904), Lektorsky (1980) and many others have also
attempted to resolve the paradox by proposing that there is really no
observer, only the observation or \'reflexive act\' of perception. This
idea reaches its zenith in Brentano\'s concept of \"intentionality\" in
which the subject and object are fused into a form of \"aboutness\":

`<span style="font-family:times new roman;">`{=html}\"Every psychical
phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages
called the intentional (or sometimes the mental) inexistence of an
object, and what we should like to call, although not quite
unambiguously, the reference (Beziehung) to a content, the directedness
(Richtung) toward an object (which in this context is not to be
understood as something real) or the immanent-object quality (immanente
Gegenständlichkeit). Each contains something as its object, though not
each in the same manner. In the representation (Vorstellung) something
is represented, in the judgment something is acknowledged or rejected,
in desiring it is desired, etc. This intentional inexistence is peculiar
alone to psychical phenomena. No physical phenomenon shows anything like
it. And thus we can define psychical phenomena by saying that they are
such phenomena as contain objects in themselves by way of intention
(intentional).\"`</span>`{=html} Brentano, F. (1874).

These authors have all identified the content of perception with either
the world itself, the manifold of events or a synthetic \'about\' the
world itself in an attempt at avoiding the paradox, however, as will be
seen later, there are other solutions to the paradox.

Bermúdez, J. (1998), The Paradox of Self-Consciousness, Bradford/MIT
Press.

Brentano, F. (1874). Psychology from an empirical standpoint. Vol1.
<http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/brentano.htm>

William James (1904). A World of Pure Experience. First published in
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 1, 533-543,
561-570. <http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/experience.htm>

## The homunculus fallacy in philosophy of mind

A Homunculus argument accounts for a phenomenon in terms of the very
phenomenon that it is supposed to explain (Richard Gregory (1987)).
Homunculus arguments are always fallacious. In the psychology and
philosophy of mind \'homunculus arguments\' are extremely useful for
detecting where theories of mind fail or are incomplete.

Homunculus arguments are common in the theory of vision. Imagine a
person watching a movie. He sees the images as something separate from
himself, projected on the screen. How is this done? A simple theory
might propose that the light from the screen forms an image on the
retinas in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these as if they
are the screen. The Homunculus Argument shows this is not a full
explanation because all that has been done is to place an entire person,
or homunculus, behind the eye who gazes at the retinas. A more
sophisticated argument might propose that the images on the retinas are
transferred to the visual cortex where it is scanned. Again this cannot
be a full explanation because all that has been done is to place a
little person in the brain behind the cortex. In the theory of vision
the Homunculus Argument invalidates theories that do not explain
\'projection\', the experience that the viewing point is separate from
the things that are seen. (Adapted from Gregory (1987), (1990)).

In the case of vision it is sometimes suggested that each homunculus
would need a homunculus inside it ad infinitum. This is the
**recursion** form of the homunculus concept. Notice that, unlike the
case of regress, the recursion would occur after the event.

An homunculus argument should be phrased in such a way that the
conclusion is always that if a homunculus is required then the theory is
wrong. After all, homunculi do not exist.

Very few people would propose that there actually is a little man in the
brain looking at brain activity. However, this proposal has been used as
a \'straw man\' in theories of mind. Gilbert Ryle (1949) proposed that
the human mind is known by its intelligent acts. (see Ryle\'s Regress).
He argued that if there is an inner being inside the brain that could
steer its own thoughts then this would lead to an absurd repetitive
cycle or \'regress\' before a thought could occur:

\"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything
intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal act
of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his practical
problem.\"

\"\.... Must we then say that for the ..\[agent\'s\].. reflections how
to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how best to reflect how
to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the
application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a
process of considering this criterion.\"

The homunculus argument and the regress argument are often considered to
be the same but this is not the case. The homunculus argument says that
if there is a need for a \'little man\' to complete a theory then the
theory is wrong. The regress argument says that an intelligent agent
would need to think before it could have a thought.

Ryle\'s theory is that intelligent acts cannot be a property of an inner
being or mind, if such a thing were to exist.

The idea that conscious experience is a flow of information into an
unextended place (a point eye) leaves itself open to the charge of
inserting an homunculus beyond the point eye. On careful reading few, if
any, real theories actually propose a flow through the point eye but
suggest some sort of nebulous direct relation with the information in
front of the eye. For instance, Descartes has a point soul directly
considering the contents of the common sense and Reid has a point eye
directly considering the world itself.

`<span style="font-size:x-small;">`{=html}Questions: It might be said
that the homunculus fallacy means that either the materialist
interpretation of conscious experience is wrong or conscious experience
does not exist: discuss. Physicalism is not materialism, discuss. Could
physical phenomena such as entanglement or space-time theories of
observation, where the observed vectors are constrained to the manifold,
avoid the homunculus fallacy?`</span>`{=html}

## Berkeley\'s \"passive ideas\"

Ryle\'s regress, when applied to consciousness, is based on an analysis
of conscious intellectual activity as a succession of states. At any
moment the conscious intellect contains one state such as \'I will think
of a word\'. This means that either the state has just popped into mind
or there was a previous state that gave rise to it such as \'I will
think of thinking of a word\'. Descartes and other empiricists have
noted that thoughts do indeed just pop into mind. So if we transfer
Ryle\'s analysis to the real world we discover that the regress is
avoided by removing the starting point of a series of thoughts from
conscious phenomenal experience. A train of thought just begins, it has
no conscious origin and Descartes\' implication is that it has probably
been synthesised non-consciously.

Suppose Descartes and our own experience are correct, suppose thoughts
do just pop into mind, if this happens can there still be a conscious
intellectual agent or are intellectual agents largely non-conscious? One
of the simplest intellectual processes is a test for equality i.e.:
\'does A equal B?\' and a routing of flow as a result of the test i.e.:
\'if A = B then goto\'. Can an intellectual agent perform an equality
test in conscious phenomenal experience?

Consider the test of whether \'A = A\', you attend to the left \'A\'
then the right \'A\' and declare them equal. What have you actually
done? The feeling that the symbols are equal just pops into mind.
Psychologists and philosophers use the word \'intuition\' for this
popping of answers into mind (Kant 1781). It is usually accompanied by
emotional experience (Damasio 1994, Bierman 2004).

If intellectual activity is actually a succession of things that just
pop into phenomenal consciousness then Ryle\'s conclusion that
phenomenal consciousness is like a \"ghost in the machine\" of the brain
would to some extent justified. Phenomenal consciousness would not be
intellectual activity. Phenomenal consciousness would contain the
stages, or succession of states, of intellectual activity but would not
contain the processes that connect these stages. This observation that
conscious experience is a succession of **passive ideas** is well known
in philosophy (cf: George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, 25).

## More on the conflict

Click above for more on Phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness,
Direct Realism, Indirect Realism, Dualism, Idealism and Panpsychism.

## References

-   Harrison, J. (1984). The incorrigibility of the cogito. Mind: New
    Series, Vol. 93, No. XCIII, 1984.

The problem of regression

-   Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind. The University of Chicago
    Press, 1949.

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-   Smith, Q. (1986). The infinite regress of temporal attributions. The
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    <http://web.archive.org/web/20060507144913/http://www.qsmithwmu.com/the_infinite_regress.htm>

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-   Yates, S. (1991). Self referential arguments in philosophy. Reason
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The homunculus argument

-   Gregory, R.L. (1990) Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford
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-   Gregory, T.L. (1987). The Oxford Companion to Mind. Oxford
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Subject-object paradox

-   James, W. (1904)Does \'Consciousness\' Exist? Journal of
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-   Velmans, M. (1996) Consciousness and the \"Casual Paradox\".
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Ontological status

-   Bierman, D.J. (2004) Non Conscious Processes Preceding Intuitive
    decisions
    <http://m0134.fmg.uva.nl/~djb/publications/2004/Intuition_bialsymp2004.pdf>

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-   Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes\' error: Emotion, reason and the
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-   Kant, I. Critique of Pure Reason
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Direct Realism

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<http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/maydede/pain.pdf>

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-   Dennett, D. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown

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-   Gibson, J. J. (1966) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems.
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-   Gibson, J. J. (1979) Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.:
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-   Oliveira, André L. G. and Oliveira, Luis F. (2002) Toward an
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-   Skinner, B. F. Science and Human Behavior . New York: Macmillan,
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-   Skinner, B. F. 1971. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Knopf.

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