Rey Cogitans: The Unquestionability of Consciousness

Abstract

Consciousness is an embarrassment to functionalism and to the computational-representational theory of mind. Whatever the causal and/or computational role of a mental state, it seems that same function might be performed without consciousness. So functionalism or computationalism which would identify a mental state with its causal or computational role cannot account for consciousness. (Unless it can be shown that being conscious changes the causal or computational role of a mental state.) It would be convenient, then, for the functionalist or computationalist, if someone could show that consciousness does not exist.

Misc

When people speak of “consciousness”, Wittgenstein counselled, language has gone on holiday. Au contraire: When people speak against consciousness, consciousness has gone on a holiday. When philosophers question the existence of consciousness, they are out of touch with human experience. Theorizing has cut them off from a basic feature of even their own experience - viz., consciousness. Their position is intellectually schizoid.