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WITTGENSTEIN AND THE PROBLEM
OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Oswald Hanfling
You have a rich inner life of conscious experiences.
For example, you have pains and other sensations.
And you have sensory experiences, such as that pro-
duced by chewing on something bitter. Scientists are
currently puzzling over how to explain this inner life in
scientific terms. Can we, for example, ‘explain’ con-
sciousness by appealing to certain facts about our
brains?
Here, Oswald Hanfling explains why he believes the
scientific ‘problem’ of ‘explaining’ consciousness is
ultimately a pseudo-problem. There is no problem!
The problem of the problem
The ‘problem of consciousness’ has caught the attention
of the public as never before. Almost daily we hear or read
discussions of it, and new books and articles on it are ap-
pearing even as I write. Distinguished people from the worlds
of philosophy, psychology, brain science and computer sci-
ence are taking part in the debate. Some people believe
that, though exceptionally difficult, the problem will finally
yield to a scientific solution, but others think that it will never
be granted to human beings to get to the bottom of it.
But what exactly is the problem? What is special about
consciousness? Consciousness, it has been said, is ‘the
last surviving mystery’ (Dennett, p. 25). Suppose we were
told that everything has been explained, with one excep-
tion: consciousness. Then we might wonder why this should
be so: it would be a mystery. However, the suggestion that
everything has been explained is obviously absurd. Let us
try the idea that everything, except consciousness, can be
explained. Then we might wonder why, as it has been put,
‘consciousness should be the one thing that can’t be ex-
plained. Solids, liquids and gases can be explained’, etc.
(Dennett, p. 455). Now the suggestion that everything (other
than consciousness) can be explained does not seem very
plausible either. But if we are willing to make that sugges-
tion, why should consciousness be excluded? Why not sim-
ply suppose that consciousness, like everything else, can
be explained? We are after all, merely speculating. No one
is claiming, absurdly, that everything (except conscious-
ness) has actually been explained.
Let us try the idea that where things are explicable, they
are always (except, again, in the case of consciousness)
explicable in a particular kind of way – that in which we
explain the behaviour of physical substances (including ‘sol-
ids, liquids and gases’, etc.). Consciousness might then
appear as an ‘odd one out’: perhaps it could never be ex-
plained in that way. But is it plausible to think that there is
one particular way in which everything (other than conscious-
ness) is to be explained? Think of the different ways in which
things are explained. There is biology, ethology, anthropol-
ogy, economics, history, art criticism, psychology, etc. Each
of these disciplines has its own terminology, methods of
enquiry and explanatory aims.
Consider also how we explain human behaviour in every-
day life. Why is Joanna laughing? Because she heard this
joke about... This is a perfect explanation: we now under-
stand why she was laughing. The other day I read that ‘sci-
entists have discovered what makes people laugh.’ But didn’t
we know what makes people laugh? Sometimes, it is true,
we can’t make out why someone is laughing. But what we
need in that case is not a scientific explanation.
Let’s see whether this makes you laugh: A man bursts
into a bank and rushes up to the counter shouting ‘It’s a
mess-up!’ – ‘Excuse me,’ says the cashier, ‘don’t you mean
a hold-up?’ – ‘No,’ shouts the man, ‘I mean a mess-up. I
forgot to bring my gun!’ I hope this joke didn’t need explain-
ing. But if it did, then what you needed was to be told the
point of the joke, and not a scientific account of what goes
on in your brain or body when you laugh.
Here is another attempt to introduce a problem of con-
sciousness. How, it may be asked, did consciousness
evolve? How did life without it evolve into life with it? Con-
sider the difference between an animal with eyes and ears,
etc. and its distant, primitive ancestors, which had no such
organs or faculties. The first, when awake, is able to be
conscious of its surroundings – food, predators, etc.; while
the primitive ancestors were not. What we have here is the
evolution of sense-perception. Now it is true that this evolu-
tion – the details of this story – may present problems for
biologists, as may the evolution of any other aspect of life.
But they are not ‘deep’ problems, to be contrasted with oth-
ers with which evolutionary biologist are concerned. There
is nothing special about consciousness in this respect.
Is there some other way of identifying ‘the problem of con-
sciousness’? I doubt it; but instead of going on with the
attempt, I shall make two suggestions to explain the feeling
of mystery that is liable to surround the concept of con-
sciousness.
Are brains conscious?
The first is about the assumption, common nowadays,
that consciousness is a property of the brain. It has been
known for a long time that the brain is more closely corre-
lated with mental processes than other parts of the body,
but in recent times there has been much scientific interest
in this correlation and in the relevant processes and struc-
tures of the brain. At the same time the view has become
prevalent that mental processes are nothing other than brain
processes, and that thinking, feeling, reasoning and con-
sciousness itself are really properties of the brain. Now the
‘problem of consciousness’ is often expressed in such ques-
tions as ‘What makes brains conscious?’; and this is in-
deed a puzzling question. But does the question make
sense?
You will agree, I suppose, that consciousness cannot be
ascribed to anything whatever. You can’t say of a chair, a
wheelbarrow, or a fingernail that they are, or might be, con-
scious. That would be nonsense. But you can say of a hu-
man being or a blackbird that they are conscious, or con-
scious of something or other. Indeed you need, on suitable
occasions, to say such things. But what about brains? Many
writers today attribute consciousness to the brain. Brains,
according to them, have thoughts and feelings, receive in-
formation, arrive at conclusions, etc. But how are we to un-
derstand this? Consider a remark in Wittgenstein’s Investi-
gations:
Only of a living human being and what resembles
(behaves like) a living human being can one say: it
has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is
conscious or unconscious. (Philosophical Investiga-
tions, part I, section 281)
Now if this is right, then such questions as ‘What makes
brains conscious?’ embody a nonsensical presupposition,
since the brain does not in the least resemble or behave like
a living human being. In this respect it is no better than any
other bodily organ. But if such questions really are non-
sense, then we should not be surprised if they seem intrac-
table and even mysterious.
But are they really nonsense? Why should we accept
Wittgenstein’s statement rather than those of the other writ-
ers? Well, one thing that can’t be questioned is that we do
ascribe consciousness – thoughts and feelings, etc. – to
people. We say that Bill has a toothache, Belinda sees a
blackbird, Beryl is unconscious (asleep, perhaps), etc. But
could we not ascribe them to brains as well? Why shouldn’t
I say that my brain thinks and feels, considers information,
reaches conclusions, etc.? Here are two problems for this
view:
(i) Suppose you, a ‘living human being’, arrive at the con-
clusion that it is time to go home. Should we say that your
brain also arrived at this conclusion? But then, might not
your brain arrive at a different conclusion? How would you
know?
(ii) Suppose you felt a pain in your foot. According to the
above view, that feeling would also be in your brain. Hence
you would be suffering two pains: one, in your foot, of which
you were conscious; the other, in your brain, of which you
were not. But does it make sense to speak of a pain (say a
severe pain) of which one is not conscious?
According to some writers, the brain is the real location of
pain and other feelings. But if this were so, might one not be
mistaken about being in pain? (‘Good news! I thought I had
a pain, but the brain-scientist informed me I was wrong.’
Would this make sense?)
I took the example of a pain in my foot from a famous
passage in Descartes’ Sixth Meditation. Descartes ascribed
consciousness (including feelings etc.), to the mind and not
the brain, but the difficulty he faced was similar. In that pas-
sage he supposed he had a pain in his foot. But how could
this be, if feelings really belong to the mind? Somehow, he
maintained, the mind must be ‘intermingled’ with every part
of his body, including his foot, so that the pain would be (as
he put it) ‘in the mind, as it were in the foot’. But how are we
to understand this ‘intermingled’? The mind, according to
Descartes, is a non-physical, non-spatial entity. How can
such a thing be intermingled with the body, which is (as
Descartes also stressed) essentially extended in space?
What is consciousness? Descartes on sponges and
oysters
Now for my second explanation of the aura of mystery
that is liable to surround the idea of consciousness. What,
we may want to ask, is consciousness? There must be
something, we feel – some thing, some entity – that we can
indicate by way of answer. Consciousness, it has been
thought, is a kind of ‘inner’ entity that is hidden from view;
and possession of it makes all the difference between a
human being and a mere zombie. A leading participant in
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