Functional Mysterianism

Written in April 2018. I no longer hold this position.

Colin McGinn wrote the following: “I think the time has come to admit candidly that we cannot resolve the mystery [of the mind-body problem]” (McGinn 349). His argument is that our brains are incapable of comprehending consciousness, or in other words, they are cognitively closed, in the same way that certain facts that humans know about existence are cognitively closed to other animals, like monkeys or rats (McGinn 350). I agree with McGinn that there is reason to believe that “the limits of our minds are just not the limits of reality” (McGinn 366). Reaching a similar conclusion, albeit by adopting a functionalist approach, I will argue that consciousness is functionally closed to comprehending the ontology of mind and body. The implication of this is that regardless of how strong a mind is at understanding existence, the functional role of consciousness will ipso facto preclude itself from comprehending itself. In other words, the ontology of the mind and body is not within the grasp of any conscious being, regardless of its cognitive capacity. Consciousness cannot understand itself because such an understanding is beyond its functional role. Functionalism is sometimes seen to be ontologically neutral, but instead it should be seen as incompatible with the very possibility of the development of an ontological theory of mind. Functionalism, taken to its logical conclusion, is that our consciousness cannot be used to identify itself. 

Before I can dive into the specifics of my argument, I need to explain why I accept a weak version of functionalism. Putnam argued that mental states are functional states of the whole organism (Putnam 226).  In other words, a mental state plays a functional role in that it reacts to inputs by producing outputs based on probability (Putnam 227). Therefore, for Putnam, the mental state of pain is any state that establishes this functional input-output role. A mental state of pain can exist for all organisms, regardless of the material constitution of the organism, if the organism is able to adopt the so-called “pain role”. The most popular argument against functionalism, put forward by Ned Block, successfully showed that the functional role of a mental state is not the actual mental state.

Block argued that functionalism classifies systems that lack mentality as having mentality (Block 275). This means that what functionalism requires for a mental state to be a mental state could easily be attributed to things that are very clearly not mental states. He makes us imagine the situation in which instead of having a brain, your head is filled with little men who receive inputs and have instructions to respond to inputs with specific outputs (Block 277). In this example, the pressure of a sharp object on one’s skin would trigger the little men to update the mental state of the person to “being in pain”. Block succeeds in showing that a mind cannot be reduced to a functional role because a functional description can be applied to outrageously false examples, which are very clearly not minds. For instance, if someone says that a chair is something that is wooden and has a flat surface, this would clearly be false since not all wooden and flat objects are chairs. Similarly, functionalism does not capture the ontology of a mental state. However, his argument did not in any way show that having a function role is not a characteristic of mental states.   

 Although the functional role of a mental state might not itself be the mental state, we can safely assume that a functional role is a significant characteristic of mental states. Every mental state does react to some sort of input and based on probability is inclined to produce an output. Every emotion, every belief, and every thought can be described in functional terms, in that they play a functional role in consciousness. But what is the functional role of consciousness as a whole? The answer to finding the functional role of consciousness requires looking at what every mental state has in common. Every mental state involves the collection of information about existence. There is not a single mental state that does not involve information, or knowledge, of existence. All knowledge is either subjective knowledge of existence or objective knowledge of existence. If someone is aware of the Milky Way galaxy, this is a mental state of objective knowledge. If someone is experiencing anger, this is a mental state of subjective knowledge of existence. Subjective knowledge is about the subjective viewpoint that possesses the consciousness, but not the phenomenon of consciousness itself.

All forms of consciousness involve information processing about existence. Every mental state is about some form of information about existence: either existence in general, or of the subject, which exists. Consciousness plays the functional role of collecting the information about existence that appears within it, yet it cannot comprehend consciousness because it is not directly accessible to itself. Consciousness is not directly accessible to itself because having information about itself is beyond its functional role. Consciousness can be described functionally as a measure of existence, as it collects information, in objective and subjective forms, about existence. However, as I will show, consciousness, which has the functional role of collecting objective and subjective information about existence, cannot allow itself to gain knowledge about itself because consciousness is neither objective nor subjective information. 

Consciousness precedes the subjective-objective distinction because it is in consciousness that this distinction occurs. A clear indication of how consciousness precedes this distinction is how consciousness is the only phenomenon to be both objective and subjective and this fact makes it impossible for consciousness to pinpoint itself. Particular experiences in consciousness belong to subjective viewpoints, yet this awareness of experience occurring belongs to every subjective viewpoint and therefore it also appears objectively. For example, you are reading this paper right now and it is an experience that belongs only to you as a subjective viewpoint. There is no other subjective viewpoint that is partaking in this particular vivid experience of reading. Yet, phenomenal consciousness itself does not belong to you because every other subjective viewpoint is aware of the fact that it experiences as well. “Experience” can be used to describe subjective consciousness, whereas “awareness” can be used to describe objective consciousness.

…consciousness, which has the functional role of collecting objective and subjective information about existence, cannot allow itself to gain knowledge about itself because consciousness is neither objective nor subjective information. 

Objectivity and subjectivity are forms of consciousness. Experience is subjective consciousness, yet all subjects are aware of this phenomenal experiencing and so consciousness is also objective. I am not saying that the objective-subjective distinction is faulty. On the contrary, this distinction is clearly how the functional role of information processing works for consciousness. What I am getting at is that consciousness itself, the truth about it, does not fall within either form of information processing. Subjectivity and objectivity are produced by consciousness to collect information about existence, yet consciousness itself is not information that fits within the functional capacity of the information processing forms available to it.  

            A probable response to this definition of the functional role of consciousness might be that “if consciousness plays the functional role of collecting information about existence, should it not be able to collect information about consciousness, which exists?” This question actually elucidates my point. I have no idea whether saying “it exists” is appropriate to describe what consciousness is because the functional role of consciousness is not to know itself; it’s to know everything but itself. That is why the mind-body problem is intractable. My consciousness cannot even comprehend the question ipso facto that it is consciousness.

Subjectivity and objectivity are produced by consciousness to collect information about existence, yet consciousness itself is not information that fits within the functional capacity of the information processing forms available to it.

An analogy that will elucidate my idea is the functional role of a thermometer. The bunch of matter that makes up a thermometer precedes its functional purpose of measuring temperature. The functional role that the thermometer plays, which is to collect information about temperature, limits its information collection to temperature, and therefore it is unable to collect information about itself as a bunch of matter. The mind’s role, whatever the mind may be, is to collect objective or subjective information about existence, and since it cannot do more than this, it cannot grasp what it is that is doing this function. We simply know that consciousness is occurring, and that is the limit of our knowledge about it. The way a thermometer is unable to describe its physical features using its information about temperature is the same way our information about existence cannot describe consciousness. The limit of the functional role of consciousness is ultimately why consciousness is ineffable. Mathematics, language, science, reason, introspection, etc. all enable consciousness to measure existence and not itself, in the same way all things that we know of that serve the function of information processing are able to measure the phenomenon that they are directed towards but cannot measure themselves.

The way a thermometer is unable to describe its physical features using its information about temperature is the same way our information about existence cannot describe consciousness

Both dualists and reductionists find it impossible to agree with each other because they are equally correct in the criticism of each other’s theories: consciousness is neither objective information like reductionists believe nor is it subjective information like anti-reductionists believe. 

In his famous paper “What is it like to be a bat?”, Thomas Nagel made it clear that the ontology of mind and body cannot be comprehended through objective information collection mechanisms like science, mathematics, and language. He argued that “if physicalism is to be defended, the phenomenological features [of experience] must themselves be given a physical account…but when we examine their subjective character it seems that such a result is impossible” (Nagel 437). Objective information, he says, will always abandon the point of view of the experience (Nagel 437). Objective information, like the fact that water is h2o, is objective because it does not depend on subjectivity (Nagel 444). Yet, experience only occurs from a single point of view and so this sort of information acquisition method of leaving the single viewpoint to find the facts about something in existence cannot work for experience itself (Nagel 444).  It is abundantly clear that we cannot leave the human viewpoint to understand consciousness like we can leave the human viewpoint to understand the physical universe.  In other words, he is pointing out that consciousness is not objective information.

Gilbert Harman showed that all subjective knowledge, through experience, is of the properties of an object in experience and not of the properties of experience (Harman 31).  Any time you experience something, such as pain, a tree, another person, etc., you experience the properties of these physical objects, or in other words, you are aware of the object of experience. This is exactly true, since the functional role of consciousness is to access this information. Harman says, “look at a tree and try to turn your attention to intrinsic features of your visual experience…I predict you will find that the only features there to turn your attention to will be features of the present tree” (Harman 39). But what about deeper forms of subjective introspection like meditation? As someone with a lot of experience with meditation, it is evident to me that “the meditative process is not a withdrawal from the presence of the world into some ‘inner sphere’, but a movement into this very presence [of the world]” (Fasching 469). When one partakes in meditation, the object of one’s conscious experience is existence and not consciousness itself. Once again, this is not a surprise if one accepts that the functional role of consciousness is to collect information, or “acquire knowledge” about existence. Gilbert Harman’s paper illuminated that humans cannot directly access their consciousness through introspection because consciousness is not subjective information. 

Thomas Nagel wrote that “it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective” (Nagel 450). This essay has attempted to address this problem.

Consciousness is not itself a functional role, but a functional role is undoubtedly a characteristic of consciousness. If consciousness serves a functional role, it is fair to ask whether this role precludes consciousness from understanding its ontology, or in other words, whether its ontology is within the bounds of its functional role. I have suggested that the functional role of consciousness is to process information about existence. Information about existence that is processed through consciousness seems to be in objective or subjective forms. Conscious knowledge about existence is either awareness about the cosmos (objective) or experience in the cosmos (subjective). Consciousness cannot comprehend itself because information about consciousness is not subjective or objective information. Instead, it precedes the objective-subjective distinction and its functional role is dependent on this distinction. Functionalism, taken to its logical and startling conclusion, is ontological mysterianism. Human beings are functionally able to explore the universe, but solving the mind-body problem will forever be outside of our reach.  

Functionalism, taken to its logical and startling conclusion, is ontological mysterianism. Human beings are functionally able to explore the universe, but solving the mind-body problem will forever be outside of our reach.

Read the Heidegger inspired follow-up to this essay here.

Works Cited

Block, Ned. “Troubles with functionalism.” Readings in philosophy of psychology 1 (1980): 268-305.

Fasching, Wolfgang. “Consciousness, self-consciousness, and meditation.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences7.4 (2008): 463-483.

Harman, Gilbert. “The intrinsic quality of experience.” Philosophical perspectives 4 (1990): 31-52.

McGinn, Colin. “Can We Solve the Mind–Body Problem?.” Mind 98.391 (1989): 349-366.

Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a bat?.” The philosophical review 83.4 (1974): 435-450.

Putnam, Hilary. “The nature of mental states.” Readings in philosophy of psychology 1 (1980): 223-231.