Understanding Consciousness

(This differs somewhat from my review in the Journal of Consciousness Studies from 10 years ago.)This is a fine book. In what has become a crowded field, it stands out as direct, deep, and daring. It should place Max Velmans amongst the stars in the field like Chalmers, Dennett, Searle, and Churchland who are most commonly referenced in consciousness studies books and articles. It is direct in that the de rigueur history and review of the body-mind problem is illuminating and concise. It is deep in that Velmans deconstructs the usual idea of an objective world as distinct from our experienced world. It is daring in that in his last chapter he comes out on the side of consciousness co-evolving with the universe rather than arising at some point within it (though he insists that such speculation is beyond the more empirical intent of his earlier chapters). His views on a 'physicalism' with mental qualities predate the now popular views of Galen Strawson, who says much the same thing without giving Velmans credit.Anti-reductionism. Velmans, like others, insists that the phenomenology of consciousness is just as important as any theories about consciousness. First person experience is vital to any understanding of consciousness. After all, the phenomenal world cannot exist without an observer. The brain itself is part of the experienced world and this is one the reasons he makes it clear that any sort of reductionism, including functionalism, just won't do as a prospective account of consciousness. He calls for an ontological monism, the universe, with a dual epistemology, the first- and third-person perspectives within it. Several times he denies that neural processes can be identical to consciousness even if they cause or correlate with them. His mantra is "correlation and causation do not establish ontological identity." As perceived, the world cannot help but be subjective. Even the world as revealed through scientific instruments is interpreted and theorized over by conscious minds. In this way, separating subjective and objective realities creates a false dichotomy. The world as experienced is intersubjectively verified and it is this we accept as reality. This world is not the thing-in-itself, as Kant forever made clear. It is not knowable in itself. That world seems to consist of energy exchanges and every perceptive-cognitive system creates a unique reality from it.Reflexive monism. There simply is no reality to be experienced without an experiencing consciousness. At this point, it may seem he has idealized the mind and its place in existence, but those who hope for such a perspective may be slightly disappointed. Noting that most of the information processing of the mind is non-conscious or pre-conscious, he finds little for consciousness to actually do. Consciousness, he suggests, may be either the result of focal-attentive processing or, similarly, the result of inhibiting less important processing from achieving conscious attention. He notes the time-delay, made famous by Libet, in actual awareness of decisions already pre-consciously made. But, contra Libet, he also contends that even seemingly "spontaneous" conscious vetoes must have been preceded by some sort of pre-conscious processing. The universe is, as physics has taught us, a closed physical system so, on occasion, Velmans appears to come out on the side of determined causation in the free-will debate, yet other times he speaks for a larger freely-willing mind of which consciousness is but the tail end.This is strong medicine from one who so valorizes consciousness and the absolutely vital role it plays in giving us a reality. Without consciousness, there would be nothing, no existence for anything. Yet, according to Velmans, consciousness most often has no actual role to play in determining reality. A more interesting corollary of his reflexive monism is that consciousness itself did not appear as the result of evolutionary processes -- except in the sense that its form has changed along with that of the material entities which carry it -- but in some essential sense was always present. This appears to put Velmans in the panpsychist school of thought, but, if so, that school of thought is only strengthened by his clear, consistent, and insightful approach.Though Velmans attempts to excuse his last chapter as speculative, his notion of consciousness being coterminous (he calls it "continuous") with the physical universe is refreshing, but opens the usual conceptual quagmire of dualism that he is in danger of collapsing into. He spends a good deal of time attacking the formulation of David Chalmers, even though Chalmers has also suggested that experience may be a natural, universal property. He notes that Chalmers simultaneously claims consciousness as an emergent supervenience on the brain which Velmans sees as a contradiction to Chalmers's "panpsychofunctionalism" (Velmans' term). What Velmans does not deal with is how he can avoid the double-aspect nature of any physicalism that is also experiencing. Still, his support of panpsychism is bold and praiseworthy and should not be ignored -- and, again, its form is almost exactly copied in Galen Strawson's physicalist panpsychism.Conclusion. My quibbles are intellectual and minor and are overwhelmed by the strength of his major argument for an ontological, reflexive monism that includes awareness. His epistemological dualism remains a double-aspect dualism, but he makes a convincing argument for overcoming it by calling for asymmetrical but complementary perspectives of first- and third-person on conscious phenomena. He could have noted that both perspectives are subject to the consensus negotiations of the second-person. All in all, a stimulating read which emphasizes some fundamental truths which are too often overlooked in consciousness studies. It is also important in that it opens channels to discussion about matters which have been excluded by mainstream science on faith in objective materialism (mechanistic physicalism) alone.