MIND

Before getting to the business of this review, there are certain confessions I must make.

First, I felt the book's cover strange and oddly repulsive. I've seen the cover on several occasions in different places. Each time I encountered it, I was dissuaded from buying the book. In the end, I bought the book at a discount because it is germane to my current project, Moral Agents. Having read the book, I still don't understand the significance of the green apple. Are we being tempted to take a bite? In that case, did Searle pluck it from the garden of Eden? Is it Newton's apple? Or is it a mockery of Apple's Mac? Why does this green fruit obscure the face of the well dressed man, someone we might know? In any event, I feel the cover does not reveal much about the contents.

My second disclosure is that I was an on and off graduate student in Berkeley's Department of Philosophy (1963-1966) just before and after the Free Speech Movement (FSM). The Philosophy Department was a hotbed of student activism during the 1960s, and I was an activist.  Prof. Searle was a Philosophy professor at that time. I did not take any of his courses. I have mixed feelings about him because he was appointed to the Administration for the purpose of ending the student rebellion. His appointment was successful in part because he was seen as being somewhat sympathetic to student and faculty causes of the time. As I understand it (but I could be wrong), he has since recanted that sympathy and moved to a considerably different point of view. I find that strange as I believe History vindicates those students who rebelled under the FSM banner and who protested the Vietnam War. The underlying issue for students and faculty, Clark Kerr's "Multiversity," is still an issue today. While Prof. Searle and I may agree more about Academia than this paragraph suggests, the question is still open: What is the purpose of the University, Who does it serve?

Thirdly, I put Searle's book in that subdivision of philosophy called Metaphysics, the (so-called) science of Being. As I have written before, metaphysics is my least favorite kind of philosophy because it proposes to explain ontology, whereas I don't think anyone can explain what is because it just is. While existence is the basis of having experience - presumably non-existent things aren't sentient - and certainly required for the operation of physical laws, the "in itself" (Kant's noumena) is only known by its effects, Plato's appearances or Kant's phenomena. That is, in observing my typing on the computer screen, I assume the existence of typing and computer screens. If challenged about those things, I can explain my experience and the theory of operation. I can point out the things in question to you or anyone else. But, I cannot convince you or anyone that any of it is real, actually existing. The existence of something is a fact one has to accept. It is a tentative, but strong, conclusion drawn from observables.

That said, Prof. Searle has written an excellent "introductory" text in the Philosophy of Mind, derived, as he says, from lectures given at Berkeley. The text is clear. He avoided use of technical terms which, in other hands, often fail to specify or clarify the issues. One of the reasons his writing seems straightforward is his decision to throw out the concretions of conventional language (hence, thinking) which he alleges encase the subject. Searle proposes to give us an entirely new look at Mind, which he believes is introductory to any further progress. (Note: This book is not "introductory" in the sense of Philosophy 101.)

Searle's book is current. He continues to mix it up with other philosophers of Mind. Most recently, he wrote a review, "Minding the Brain," of Nicholas Humphrey's Seeing Red: A Study in Consciousness. Searle summarizes very well in that review,

"... what we want a theory of consciousness to account for:

1. Consciousness is real and ineliminable. It cannot be dismissed as some kind of an illusion, or reduced to some other phenomenon. ... Consciousness exists subjectively, in the sense that it only occurs as experienced by a human or animal subject, and therefore, it cannot be reduced to—cannot be shown to be nothing but—an objective or third-person phenomenon.

2. Consciousness is entirely caused by brain processes. ...

3. Consciousness comes in several different forms and performs many functions. Among the most important functions are those performed by "perceptual" consciousness, the kind that gives us information about the world and enables us to coordinate perception with the actions we perform."

... Let the neuroscientists go to work on the brain, and find out how it causes consciousness, where exactly consciousness occurs in the brain, and how it functions causally. In the end, I think that is exactly the right approach.

I think the concluding remarks in Searle's review fairly describe the current status of Mind:

"Some traditional philosophical problems, though unfortunately not very many, can eventually receive a scientific solution. This actually happened with the problem of what constitutes life. We cannot now today recover the passions with which mechanists and vitalists debated whether a "mechanical" account of life could be given. The point is not so much that the mechanists won and the vitalists lost, but that we got a much richer conception of the mechanisms. I think we are in a similar situation today with the problem of consciousness. It will, I predict, eventually receive a scientific solution. But like other scientific solutions in biology, it will have to give us a causal account. It will have to explain how brain processes cause conscious experiences, and this may well require a much richer conception of brain functioning than we now have."

Searle doesn't think Humphrey's account succeeds in providing the philosophical foundations of a future science of consciousness. Of course, he has his own, different account presented in this book, MIND. In his book, Searle doesn't tell us his views until nearly the end. We have to struggle through the chapters to find out what he is driving at. (In my writing, I try to state my conclusions first, and then explain how I arrived at them.) Thus, I recommend his New York Review of Books article as a very helpful preliminary to reading this book. I like to know where we are going.

After the obligatory summary of modern work in this field, starting with Descartes, he puts the various philosophies in perspective using a diagram. (p. 75) He spends Chapter Three on "Arguments Against Materialism" because, for at least a century, most philosophers (including this writer) are convicted materialists. But Searle believes that both dualists and materialists are wrong in their explications of Mind. He claims to be neither; his philosophy is "biological naturalism." We don't learn until the end that biological naturalism is also naive realism.

In confronting the non-Searlian metaphysics of Mind, Prof. Searle is particularly adamant that Computer Functionalism, or Strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) as he labels it, is erroneous. He has held this view for some time, maybe more than 20 years. As stated in the previously reviewed The Turing Test, he does not believe the Turing Test will ever identify an intelligent computer. He spends most of Chapter Three, "Arguments Against Materialism," in refuting Strong AI. He defines the core mission of functionalists of whatever stripe as "... to analyze mental phenomena  in a way that avoids any reference to anything intrinsically subjective and nonphysical." (p. 84) Now, to me, that sounds like a worthwhile program,  but Searle is determined to rip it up. He reviews some 8 or 9 objections to the functionalist program, starting with the claim the "Conscious experiences have a qualitative aspect." (p. 84) Functionalism is false, because it leaves out the qualia. I object to that argument because nothing in Searle's book convinces me there are any qualia or, if there are, I am still confused about what "qualitative" means. At the very least, I have not learned from Searle what is "qualitative" about my experiences as I have them. I just have them. Am I missing something?

For me, the most interesting anti-functionalist argument starts with Thomas Nagel's question, "What is like to be a bat?" The answer is, of course, that a bat knows what is like to be one. A translation of this question arrives in testing brains. Suppose we are attempting to locate the site of various parts or processes of consciousness in the brain. For starters, we don't know whether a particular piece of consciousness is located here every time, or whether it moves about. We don't know whether that piece is represented in a static piece of brain, or whether it is a process; i.e., whether it is hardwired or programmed. Consciousness is, of course, something I experience about myself. Your consciousness is not something I experience directly, although I have some guesses about it, assuming you are somewhat like me. Therefore, if we are going to figure out how my or your consciousness works, the only way we are going to do it is by some sort of self-observation. When you diddle some part of my brain, I will say, 'Oh, yes, I saw a bright light,' 'Or, I am speechless with delight!' But, if you diddle with a really basic part of whatever makes me what I am, it is very likely I won't be able to report on it at all. You will have stopped my consciousness. If I am lucky enough, your intervention is only temporary: I recover my consciousness soon enough. This sort of thing happens all the time when patients are anesthetized, only to wake up much later when medical procedures are completed. The normal situation is that the unconscious cannot tell what was different about things, plus or minus a certain brain part or process. This could only happen if we had a second, intact consciousness communicating with the first so they could reference each other. Thus, by substitution of variables,. Nagel's question becomes "What's it like to be like me?"

But, do these arguments prove Strong AI is false? I don't think so. They just mean that we cannot establish that a creature is intelligent and conscious by the techniques proposed. Nonetheless, Searle is convinced by his own argument, the Chinese Room (p. 89 ff), which supposes that the computer undergoing a Turing Test is replaced by a person. This person does not understand Chinese, but is asked to translate Chinese texts and answer questions presented in Chinese characters. The translator may use a rule book which shows how to hand out characters based on the supplied characters. According to Searle, the fact that the translator could succeed in the assigned task shows that the Turing Test does not test intelligence, because the translator supplies acceptable answers without ever understanding Chinese.

I think there are at least two things wrong with Searle's Chinese Room argument. First, substituting a person for the computer really changes nothing about the Turing Test. At first glance, this may seem to be in Searle's favor, as it is an innocent substitution of variables allowing the introduction of parameters [let x = f (x,t) ...]. The point of the Turing Test is to examine putative intelligences fairly, by making of them "black boxes." All that we know is the input and output of the black box; i.e., we know it entirely at its interface with an exterior world. When testing intelligences presented as black boxes, only the inputs and outputs matter, so to consider the output acceptably intelligent is to judge the black box intelligent. In this sense, the Turing Test is contradiction of the old saw, 'you can't judge a book by its cover,' whereas Searle would have us read between the covers. What is wrong with Searle's urgings is that this book by design has no pages, just covers, so introducing content (internal parameters) is to ask us to read a different book. Thus, while Searle tells a good story about someone in the Chinese Room, it is irrelevant to the Turing Test. If there is an error in the Turing Test, it is the generalization examiners make, when they declare examinees intelligent based on limited evidence. But that error also convicts all human knowledge, which is only limited and probable. Thus, the first error in Searle's argument is that it is based on a proposed knowledge of internals not contained in the problem. When dealing with black boxes, we are not privy to their internals.

Second, Searle's method is just covertly to deny the test, not to disprove its effectiveness. The Turing Test sets up a double blind situation, with a computer in one room and a person in another. Searle proposes to insert a person inside the computer. This plainly defies the conditions of the Test, as the result would be a test of a person behind each blind. It is difficult to understand how a person could be put "inside" the computer, while still calling what is tested a computer. It is generally understood that the Turing Test applies to things which are computers through and through, things which are human manufactures. The Turing Test does not apply to human-machine symbionts ("brain transplants") or other almalgams ("neuron copying"). That is why introducing a person inside the machine is substitution of the person for the machine, which transforms the problem into a different problem.

Searle invented the Chinese Room argument decades ago, and has been a persistent non-believer in Strong AI. But, without help from philosophers, GOOGLE has deployed a web page translation program. I have used it to translate some of my work in English into French, German and Italian. The result appears to be reasonable translations of my writings most of the time. Some German, Chinese and Japanese readers of this website also use the GOOGLE translator. Thus, it is no longer necessary to put a person in the Chinese Room: computer software does an excellent job of fulfilling Searle's task. Are GOOGLE's computers intelligent? In a general sense, probably not. But, are they smart? In the particular, definitely so. In making translations, GOOGLE's software demonstrates both sensitivity and intelligence, which is the result of combining a sophisticated rule book and software that invents and tests rules. GOOGLE's software is a working expert system that does just what Searle had his person inside the Chinese Room do.

Now that a person is no longer necessary to carry out Searle's Chinese Room argument, the power of the argument falls away. We are no longer awed by the difficulty of, say, translating. When comparing GOOGLE's everyday results with human translations, I and others believe the automated version is satisfactory. This makes computers at least as intelligent as humans in some applications. If intelligence can broken into parts, Turing was right about computers proving their intelligence about a half century after he invented the Imitation Game, now called the Turing Test, in 1950. It is interesting that Searle would stick to his Chinese Room argument in the face of the increasing competence of computers. Of course, MIND was published in 2004, just as GOOGLE was becoming a behemoth and, among other things, introducing  its translation software.

The central doctrine of this book is Searle's solution of the Mind-Body problem, which he labels "biological naturalism." It is stated in four points:

"1. Conscious states, with their subjective, first-person ontology, are real phenomena in the real word. ...

"2. Conscious states are entirely caused by lower level neurobiological processes in the brain. Conscious states are thus causally reducible to neurobiological processes. ...

"3. Conscious states are realized in the brain as features of the brain system, and thus exist at a level higher than that of neurons and synapses. Individual neurons are not conscious, but portions of the brain system composed of neurons are conscious.

"4. Because conscious states are real features of the real world, they function causally. ..."

(pp. 113-114)

In Searle's recent book review, cited above, these four points are truncated to three. In the review, he minimizes point 3 above, that consciousness is a system level function. Curiously, that is essentially "The Combination Reply (Berkeley-Stanford)" Searle describes in The Turing Machine. These shadings and shiftings of position, make it difficult to analyze Searle's position. But, he restates this point: "The consciousness in the brain  is not [a] separate entity or property; it is just the state that the brain is in." (p. 208) A few paragraphs later, he reiterates the systemic nature of consciousness. I think I agree with Searle on these points, assuming I correctly understand his explanation.

I have problems or maybe just misunderstandings, when Searle declares consciousness "real."  What is real? I think I am conscious; i.e., I am self-conscious. Self-consciousness is real enough to me, so I assert not only that I have an "I", but I am I. Nonetheless, that "I" is not the fingers I see typing, nor the body I see sitting in the chair, nor even the body I feel is mine. The "I" seems to reside "behind" my eyes, the ghost in the machine, but is not found anywhere in the physical world.. I believe in the reality of my self-consciousness, but not a self that is the same as things. How can I reconcile that sort of belief with the monistic, materialist world?

I hope my interpretation of Searle's "real" consciousness corresponds to what he is saying. I agree that consciousness is literally just the state the brain is in. My "I" seems just as real as the characters in the movie I am watching on TV, and no more so. Unlike the keyboard and terminal before me, I cannot grab the movie, its  characters or my "I." Nor can I grab Entropy or atoms or gravity. We consider physical forces quite real, because we understand them to make things happen. I feel the force of gravity whenever, in my old age, I drag myself up from my seat. But, according to relativity, gravity itself is not real; what I am experiencing is a distortion of space-time. It seems to me consciousness is the same sort of thing as the other common sense things I use to construct my world. It is just as real as Hamlet conjured up from  marks on paper.

It's much easier to see how all this is so when I examine you, or you me. Researchers can put heads into CAT scanners. Using PET and other techniques, the activity of the patient's brain is obvious when it is seeing this or that, or grasping something. In other words, modern medical techniques reveal the physiological processes corresponding to conscious states. It is easy for others to observe the physiological correlate of my experience, but what I have is the experience. They only reason others know I have the experience so that they can mark the correlative, is that I told them so. That is, the critical step connecting my consciousness to third person observation is my first person report. I then observe what others do, seemingly in response to the report, which both reinforces my belief in third parties and undermines my belief in the separate non-material existence of a self.

The upshot of these musings is that selfhood has the same status as the things of mathematics and physics. Is the number One real?  Space? Time? Self? All of those notions except Self are public, so they coexist with a material Universe. Self, considered as an observed entity, is public, but it also has a unique, private character. Without Self, this writing would not exist, nor would any of the other notions. The material Universe is whatever it is, without need of Time or Space or Self. So, Searle's book is a uniquely human production, just as the problem of Mind is a human problem.

If this is a human problem, Searle's conclusion about free will, stated at the beginning of Chapter Eight, concedes defeat: "... I am unable to see my way to a solution." (p. 215) Given that admission, I am not sure why I read the rest of the chapter which purports to " ... explain what the issues are and what the possible solutions might be." (p. 215) Twenty pages later, " ... there is still the question of whether or not we really do have freedom." (p. 235)

I picked up Searle's work, hoping it would shed light not only on consciousness, but, more importantly, on "free will." In that, I was disappointed. But, I was pleased that my thoughts had independently converged with Searle's, along the lines of "biological naturalism." That does not mean I have settled in Searle's camp, although I may have a tent on its outskirts. I have not yet kowtowed to Searle's notion of "real," as I am confused by his explication of it. The quarrels about free will and reality will go on for a long time. Nonetheless, I think we have a common ground for talking about consciousness with respect to its biological basis.

I highly recommend this book to those interested in the philosophy of Mind.