Epigraph

“Consciousness is a biological phenomenon, like photosynthesis, digestion, and mitosis. You know all the biological phenomena. And once you accept that, most, though not all, of the hard problems about consciousness simply evaporate.” — John Searle

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

If you have come here, to keep you here, let me quote Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), one of the leading figures in natural philosophy and scientific methodology during the transition from the Renaissance to the early modern era. “Read not to contradict … but to weigh and consider.”

My exclusive claim based on a few verses of the Quran and study of all the contemporary literature on consciousness is that humans will never have a complete understanding of our consciousness. The main verse is from Surah Bani Israel and discussion of all the verses will be in an upcoming book. Here, is the verse from Surah Bani Israel:

And they ask you concerning the soul. Say, ‘The soul is by the command of my Lord; and of the knowledge thereof you have been given but a little.’ (Al Quran 17:85)

You are reading this and only access you have to my consciousness is through these words. Even if we meet in person, I have no direct access to your subjective consciousness, except what you say and reveal through your body language and vice versa. There is an insurmountable barrier in one person accessing the consciousness of the other and no amount of present day best technology has penetrated the barrier to the slightest degree. Only you exclusively experience your profound emotions of love, joy, hate, jealousy or ecstasy.

John Rogers Searle (July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language and Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, until June 2019.

Searle has extensively explored the nature of consciousness, emphasizing its subjective experience and biological underpinnings. He asserts that consciousness is an inherent feature of the brain’s biological processes.  He believes consciousness to be very real and refutes the illusionists. His criticism of panpsychists is tackled in that section.  He also believes that present day computers cannot be conscious and rejects the notion that it can be fully explained through computational models.

The other contemporary mainstream positions on consciousness are those who say that it is an illusion and those who say that everything in the universe even the fundamental particles or quanta have proto consciousness. These are easily refuted as articulate philosophers like John Searle come to our rescue. But when we are dealing with his position or other similar positions that draw life blood from the success of science and biology in the last few centuries, we have very little help. The claim of such materialists’ position, which is founded on future hope and past success of biology in elucidating the function of kidney and liver in purely physical terms, I find myself fairly alone in refuting Searle and like.

If we can do it reasonably well, we are off to a good start!

Searle has very high hopes for our understanding of biology and of consciousness through it.  He believes that as we have completely understood how kidneys make urine one day biologists will completely understand how brain creates consciousness.

Consciousness as a Real Phenomenon

Rejecting both dualism and reductionist materialism, Searle contends that consciousness is a real and irreducible feature of our world. In so doing he is refuting the illusionists, the best known among them is Daniel Dennett. Searle asserts that any attempt to deny the existence of consciousness is self-refuting, as the very act of denial presupposes a conscious agent. He emphasizes that “where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality.” en.wikipedia.org

Biological Naturalism

Central to Searle’s philosophy is “biological naturalism,” which posits that consciousness arises only from biological processes within the brain. I believe that brain is necessary, but more may be needed, possible extra-dimensions of physics for a complete understanding. This claim will be elaborated further in my upcoming book. Searle argues that while mental states are higher-level features of the brain, they are entirely caused by lower-level neurobiological processes. Searle clarifies that this does not imply that only brains can be conscious; rather, any system with the right causal powers could, in principle, produce consciousness. en.wikipedia.org

Critique of Computational Models

Searle is critical of the view that consciousness can be replicated through computational means alone. He illustrates this with the “Chinese Room” thought experiment, arguing that executing a program, no matter how complex, does not equate to understanding or consciousness. He states, “I will argue that in the literal sense the programmed computer understands what the car and the adding machine understand, namely, exactly nothing.” azquotes.com

His Dilemma: Subjectivity Versus Objectivity of Consciousness

Sometimes, Searle emphasizes the intrinsic subjectivity of conscious experience, stating, “Where conscious subjectivity is concerned, there is no distinction between the observation and the thing observed.” This highlights his view that consciousness is inherently first-person and cannot be fully captured from an external, objective perspective. azquotes.com

On other occasions he believes that objective science of the subjective experiences can be built. In the above Ted talk he nicely critiques philosophers with other positions on consciousness, but goes wrong towards the end of the talk, when he claims:

You can have a completely objective science, a science where you make objectively true claims about a domain whose existence is subjective, whose existence is in the human brain consisting of subjective states of sentience. Sentience or feeling or awareness. So the objection that you can’t have an objective science of consciousness because it’s subjective and science is objective, that’s a pun.
That’s a bad pun on objectivity and subjectivity. You can make objective claims about a domain that is subjective in its mode of existence, and indeed, that’s what neurologists do. I mean, you have patients that actually suffer pains, and you try to get an objective science of that.

This view is demonstrably wrong on two counts:

Firstly, third person may make some objective claims about first person’s subjective experience, like some medications can reduced the severity of pain, but have no real insight into the subjective experience of pain itself. We examined this briefly in the beginning and we can confirm that from the philosophical possibility of solipsism.

Solipsism is a philosophical theory asserting that only one’s own mind is certain to exist, and that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mental states is uncertain.

The philosophical idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. In modern discussions, solipsism intersects with debates on consciousness and the “problem of other minds.” The challenge lies in understanding how one can be certain of the existence of other conscious beings, given that subjective experience is inherently private. scientificamerican.com Solipsism presents a profound challenge to assumptions about reality and knowledge. While it underscores the centrality of personal experience, it also confronts us with questions about the existence of an external world and other minds—questions that continue to provoke philosophical inquiry.

Secondly, here in this video he is expressing high hopes for biology, but, he himself has extensively critiqued the mind-brain identity theory, which posits that mental states are identical to brain states. Searle acknowledges that while mental phenomena are indeed caused by neurobiological processes, they cannot be simply reduced to these processes. He emphasizes that consciousness possesses a first-person ontology, meaning it is inherently subjective and experienced from a first-person perspective. This subjectivity cannot be fully captured by objective descriptions of brain states. Searle’s perspective, known as biological naturalism, asserts that consciousness is both caused by and realized in the brain’s biological processes, yet it maintains its own distinct properties that are not reducible to mere physical explanations. nybooks.com

In his critique of identity theory, Searle argues that equating mental states directly with brain states overlooks the qualitative aspects of conscious experience. He contends that while brain processes are essential for consciousness, the experiential qualities—what it feels like to have a particular experience—are not identical to the physical processes themselves. This distinction highlights the limitations of identity theory in accounting for the richness of subjective experience. nybooks.com

Searle’s biological naturalism offers an alternative to strict identity theory by acknowledging that while mental states are grounded in neurobiology, they also possess emergent properties that warrant distinct consideration. This view maintains that understanding consciousness requires both an appreciation of its biological underpinnings and a recognition of its unique subjective character. nybooks.com

In summary, John Searle’s critique of identity theory centers on its inability to account for the subjective nature of consciousness. He advocates for a more nuanced approach that recognizes consciousness as a real, emergent feature of biological processes, emphasizing the importance of both objective and subjective perspectives in understanding the mind.

Can I respectfully say that here he is being simply wishful? My only but demonstrable exhibit is a complete failure of science for three centuries since Rene Descartes to get access to subjectivity of first person by the third persons, meaning the scientific community.

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