# Consciousness Studies/The Philosophical Problem Continued#The problem of space

## The problem of space

The problem of Relationalism and Substantivalism has been discussed
earlier. In this section the concept of space will be explored in more
depth.

Space is apparent to us all. It is the existence of many simultaneous
things at an instant. If we see a ship and hear a dog barking on our
left there is space. If we look at a checkerboard there is space. This
occurrence of space in phenomenal experience is similar to the
measurement of space in the world: things that are simultaneously at the
ends of a metre rule are a metre apart; if there is more than one object
at a given instant the objects are separated by space.

Physicists have found that the mathematics of **vector spaces**
describes much of the arrangement of things in the world. In a vector
space the independent directions for arranging things are called
**dimensions**. At any instant physical space has three clearly
observable dimensions.

It has been known for millennia that the three dimensions observable at
an instant are interrelated by **Pythagoras\' Theorem**:

Pythagoras\' theorem on a plane shows that the length of any
displacement is related to the sum of the squares of the displacements
in the independent directions (x and y):

$h^2 = x^2 + y^2$

Pythagoras\' theorem in three dimensions is:

$h^2 = x^2 + y^2 + z^2$

The advances in geometry in the nineteenth century showed that
Pythagoras\' theorem was a special case of a **metric**, an equation
that describes displacements in terms of the dimensions available. In
the twentieth century it was realised that time was another independent
direction for arranging things that was interrelated to the other three
dimensions. The world is now described as a **four dimensional
manifold**.

The illustration below shows how different numbers of dimensions affect
the arrangement of things.

![](constudspace2.gif "constudspace2.gif")

It is sometimes suggested that our idea of space is due to some sort of
memory that is read out sequentially. This is unlikely because, at any
instant a one dimensional form cannot be made to overlie a two
dimensional form and a two dimensional form cannot overlie a three
dimensional form etc. One dimensional forms are not *congruent* with two
dimensional forms. This means that a one dimensional form such as
*virtual memory* cannot, at any instant, overlie two dimensional forms
such as occur in phenomenal experience and hence experience does not
supervene on the idea of virtual memory (See section on functionalism
as a one dimensional Turing
Machine).

Curiously the idea of *mental space* is often denied. McGinn(1995) gives
such a denial:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}We perceive, by our various sense
organs, a variety of material objects laid out in space, taking up
certain volumes and separated by certain distances. We thus conceive of
these perceptual objects as spatial entities; perception informs us
directly of their spatiality. But conscious subjects and their mental
states are not in this way perceptual objects. We do not see or hear or
smell or touch them, and a fortiori do not perceive them as spatially
individuated.(2) This holds both for the first- and third-person
perspectives. Since we do not observe our own states of consciousness,
nor those of others, we do not apprehend these states as spatial.
`</font>`{=html} McGinn(1995).

This denial is strange because it begins by describing phenomenal
experience as clearly spatial and then proceeds to argue that there is
some other thing, the \"mental state\", which is non-spatial. This seems
to contradict our everday life where our experience is our experience,
there is no other experience. The issue is whether this experience is
things in themselves (Direct Realism) or some other form in the brain
(Indirect Realism). The illustration below shows how space occurs in
phenomenal experience; it sidesteps the issue of the location of the
contents of phenomenal consciousness.

![](constudspace.gif "constudspace.gif")

McGinn (1995) gives a description of how phenomenal experience cannot be
overlaid by a 3D model of events in the brain:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}\"Consider a visual experience, E,
as of a yellow flash. Associated with E in the cortex is a complex of
neural structures and events, N, which does admit of spatial
description. N occurs, say, an inch from the back of the head; it
extends over some specific area of the cortex; it has some kind of
configuration or contour; it is composed of spatial parts that aggregate
into a structured whole; it exists in three spatial dimensions; it
excludes other neural complexes from its spatial location. N is a
regular denizen of space, as much as any other physical entity. But E
seems not to have any of these spatial characteristics: it is not
located at any specific place; it takes up no particular volume of
space; it has no shape; it is not made up of spatially distributed
parts; it has no spatial dimensionality; it is not solid. Even to ask
for its spatial properties is to commit some sort of category mistake,
analogous to asking for the spatial properties of numbers. E seems not
to be the kind of thing that falls under spatial predicates. It falls
under temporal predicates\... `</font>`{=html}McGinn(1995)

He concludes that a 3D form can only be rearranged into the form of the
things in experience over a succession of instants (\"It falls under
temporal predicates\"). This is highly suggestive of phenomenal
experience having more than three dimensions in the same way as an
ordinary physical thing or field has more than three dimensions.

## The problem of qualia

A quality of an object such as its colour, roughness, temperature etc.
is known as a **quale**, the plural of quale is **qualia**. Qualia are
the contents of phenomenal consciousness. The term \"qualia\" is
sometimes extended to all mental aspects of an object such as roundness,
size and even relative position.

### The physics of qualia

According to physicalism qualia must be things in the universe. But what
are \"things in the universe\" and which of these are qualia?

If we wish to explain phenomenal experience we must first decide whether
experience is a measurement or things themselves. Measurement begins
with a quantum mechanical interaction between an instrument and a set of
particles, this then creates a *signal* which is a change in the state
of the instrument. As an example, a mercury thermometer interacts with
the fluid around it which results in a signal in the form of a moving
column of mercury in the thermometer. As another example, a measuring
rule is aligned with the two ends of an object by a servomechanism that
interacts with photons from the rule and the object, the signal being
the markings that align with the end of the object.

The signal can be a flow of charge or photons or a chemical change etc.
Sensory experience begins with the interaction between an object that
acts as a measuring instrument and a set of particles such as photons or
scent molecules etc. In the Direct Realist case the signal would be the
change at the interface between the bulk of a material (a crude
measuring device) and a set of particles such as photons, in the
Indirect Realist case it would be some signal in the brain derived from
the initial signal. In either case phenomenal consciousness would be
some form, an arrangement of the set of signals themselves.

The signals in measuring events arise as a result of interactions
between QM phenomena and a measuring apparatus composed of relatively
large structures. These structures (called *the environment*) produce
signals at definite locations. This chain of fixing positions is known
as **decoherence** (see Zurek (2003) or Bacciagaluppi (2004) for a
review). This means that measuring events fix the positions of signals
and these represent the positions of QM events. (Some physical particles
such as photons are subject to little decoherence during propagation,
even in water (cf: Anglin & Zurek (1996)).)

So signals in measuring devices usually have highly restrained
positions. Now consider the final signals, the one\'s in phenomenal
consciousness. To an observer of the brain they should be, very nearly,
in their classical positions within the brain unless they consist of
photons or are subject to some special effect such as has been proposed
for microtubules. The brain acts as a measuring device causing
decoherence. But despite this even signals composed of sodium ions,
which should decohere rapidly in water, have a tiny, but finite,
probability of remaining in a coherent state.

If your conscious experience is the signals and not the fabric of the
brain are you the set of signals that interacts with the brain fabric
almost immediately, the set that interacts after a minute or the set
that almost never interacts? To an outside observer you must be the main
chance, the rapidly interacting signals, but to the signals themselves
all possibilities exist. Which one are you? Certainly any interaction
between the signals and the mutually observed world must involve
decoherence but the external observer would find it difficult to
determine whether a particular interaction was due to signals that had
interacted immediately or ones that were delayed (or delayed in an
alternate QM reality). This problem is part of the *preferred basis
problem* that will be discussed later.

Zurek (2003)assumes that phenomenal experience is identical to
measurements. The observer is then both the signal and the apparatus
that encloses the signal. He summarises the resultant idea of the
completely determined observer who is fully integrated into the measured
world:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}The 'higher functions' of
observers - e.g., consciousness, etc. - may be at present poorly
understood, but it is safe to assume that they reflect physical
processes in the information processing hardware of the brain. Hence,
mental processes are in effect objective, as they leave an indelible
imprint on the environment: The observer has no chance of perceiving
either his memory, or any other macroscopic part of the Universe in some
arbitrary superposition. \"`</font>`{=html} Zurek (2003)

Notice the phrase \"perceiving .. his memory\" - as neuroscientists we
must ask \"how\"? By more measurements? There are no more measurements
when things are arranged in phenomenal consciousness, the information
has nowhere else to go. However, according to the empiricist
philosophers the arrangements of the signals in phenomenal consciousness
do extend through time in a definite order at any instant. Is it this
order that determines the positions of signals in the brain or is it the
brain that determines this order?

Physicalism leads us to an idea of the content of consciousness as an
arrangement of quantum fields like the content of the brain or the
content of the world. The arrangement of the quantum fields at an
instant in experience is probably related to the arrangement of measured
events at a succession of instants in the world.

According to the account given above, the contents of conscious
experience, the qualia, are signals derived from the world that compose
conscious experience with the interesting problem that they are
themselves the experience and are not fixed in space and time by further
measurement.

### The philosophy of qualia

The term \"qualia\" was introduced by C.I. Lewis in 1929:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}This given element in a single
experience of an object is what will be meant by \"a presentation.\"
Such a presentation is, obviously, an event and historically unique. But
for most of the purposes of analyzing knowledge one presentation of a
half-dollar held at right angles to the line of vision, etc., will be as
good as another. If, then, I speak of \" the presentation\" of this or
that, it will be on the supposition that the reader can provide his own
illustration. No identification of the event itself with the repeatable
content of it is intended.`</font>`{=html}

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}In any presentation, this content
is either a specific quale (such as the immediacy of redness or
loudness) or something analyzable into a complex of such. The
presentation as an event is, of course, unique, but the qualia which
make it up are not. They are recognizable from one to another
experience.(CI Lewis, *Mind and the World Order*, 1941 edition Chapter
2)`</font>`{=html}

Tye (2003) gives the following definition of qualia:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}\"Experiences vary widely. For
example, I run my fingers over sandpaper, smell a skunk, feel a sharp
pain in my finger, seem to see bright purple, become extremely angry. In
each of these cases, I am the subject of a mental state with a very
distinctive subjective character. There is something it is like for me
to undergo each state, some phenomenology that it has. Philosophers
often use the term \'qualia\' to refer to the introspectively accessible
properties of experiences that characterize what it is like to have
them. In this standard, broad sense of the term, it is very difficult to
deny that there are qualia.\"`</font>`{=html} Tye(2003).

In philosophy objects are considered to have perceived features such as
shape and colour, weight and texture which are called sensible
qualities. Sensible qualities are divided into intrinsic, or primary,
qualities that are properties of the object itself and extrinsic, or
secondary, qualities which are related to the sensations produced in the
observer. Shape is generally considered to be a primary quality whereas
colour is often considered to be a secondary quality. It is generally
considered that secondary qualities correspond to qualia (Smith 1990,
Shoemaker 1990) and the two terms are often used synonymously. Although
secondary qualities may be qualia, the term \"qualia\" may include
things other than perceptions such as pain etc. that are, arguably, not
secondary qualities. Primary qualities might also give rise to
experience that is distinct from, say, the shape of an object itself.

Although \"qualia\" is a recent term, the philosophical debate about the
nature of secondary qualities, such as colours, and the nature of
conscious experience itself has been around for millennia.

It seems that the visual system gives rise to experience even in the
absence of previous visual stimulation. For example, when someone
recovers from blindness they have an experience that contains shapes and
colours even though these have little meaning:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}\"When he first saw, he was so far
from making any judgement of distances, that he thought all object
whatever touched his eyes\.... he knew not the shape of anything, nor
any one thing from another, however different in shape and magnitude..
We thought he soon knew what pictures represented, which were shewed to
him, but we found afterwards we were mistaken; for about two months
after he was couched, he discovered at once they represented solid
bodiess, when to that time he considered them only as party-coloured
panes, or surfaces diversified with variety of paint.\"`</font>`{=html}
William Cheselden (1728)

Qualia are the components of experience, whatever the mode of input to
that experience. Strawson (1994) includes content such as accompanies
suddenly remembering or thinking of something as examples of qualia.

There is thought to be an *explanatory gap* associated with qualia
(Levine 1983), as an example it is hard to imagine how the experience
called pain could be a set of impulses in the brain.

Some philosophers have attempted to bridge this gap by invoking Direct
Realism, proposing that our experience is in some way \'transparent\' so
that we experience the world or the injured limb directly (i.e.: there
is an assumption that things flow within phenomenal experience into a
centre point and we see right through this flow!). This idea has led to
a deduction that phenomenal experience is a set of things and qualities
are these things, not deductions about or experiences based on these
things. As Tye (2003) puts it:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}These observations suggest that
qualia, conceived of as the immediately \'felt\' qualities of
experiences of which we are cognizant when we attend to them
introspectively, do not really exist. The qualities of which we are
aware are not qualities of experiences at all, but rather qualities
that, if they are qualities of anything, are qualities of things in the
world (as in the case of perceptual experiences) or of regions of our
bodies (as in the case of bodily sensations). This is not to say that
experiences do not have qualia. The point is that qualia are not
qualities of experiences. `</font>`{=html}

However, the outstanding issue for Tye\'s analysis is where in the world
the thing that is called a quale exists - on a thing in the world beyond
the body, on the retina, in the cortex, in the thalamus? Tye seems to be
suggesting that \"in the world\" can only be beyond the retina but given
that a television can have a colour and a retina can have a colour why
should we insist that the colour in conscious experience is always *of*
the thing being represented via the DVD or videotape? That colour should
always be a property of an original coloured object seems strange, why
is it not a property of the pigment in a photo of the object, a property
of an led in a computer screen displaying an image of the photo, a
property of the pigments in the retina viewing the computer, the
impulses in the visual cortex etc.?

As was seen in the previous section, only signals are available in the
classical world of conscious observation. The \"reality\" of the things
that generate signals is not available. So whether experience is a
signal at the position of what we call an \"oak tree\" or a signal in
the eye due to photons reflected from the tree or a signal in the brain
the same sort of phenomena would apply. Qualia would be a field, an
arrangement of signals, not processes based on these signals.

Some philosophers hold that qualia are a field of signals derived from
the original signals that are next to the quantum phenomena that compose
an object. In other words they propose that qualia are not the first
signals in the chain from whatever composes an object to the observer.
These philosophers are known as Representationalists and the emphasis on
secondary signals allows a contribution from the brain etc. to the field
of signals that is conscious experience. Modern representationalists
such as Tye (1995), Lehar(2003) and Dretske(2003) emphasise the idea
that qualia are actual things that represent objects rather than
concepts or experiences of things. As Dretske puts it:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}\"..the features that define what
it is like to have an experience are properties that the objects we
experience (not our experience of them) have.`</font>`{=html}(Dretske
2003).

Lehar(2003) uses modern language to express the empiricist notion that
the signals that comprise qualia are more likely to be in our brains
than elsewhere, according to Lehar the objects we experience must be
informational replicas in our heads:

`<font face="times new roman">`{=html}\"The central message of Gestalt
theory therefore is that the primary function of perceptual processing
is the generation of a miniature, virtual-reality replica of the
external world inside our head, and that the world we see around us is
not the real external world, but is exactly that miniature internal
replica\" (Lehar 2003).`</font>`{=html}

Direct Realists and Representationalists share the same view that qualia
are an actual, physical field of things somewhere in the world. Some
functionalists and eliminativists take a different view, believing that
qualia do not exist except as judgements of properties that are used in
interactions (i.e.: as disembodied information - see the section on
Direct Realism).

Lewis, C.I. (1929) Mind and the World-Order.
<http://www.ditext.com/lewis/mwo2.html> Smith, A.D. (1990) Of Primary
and Secondary Qualities, Philosophical Review 99 (1990).

### More about qualia

