Consciousness and the Social Brain

Information

    In the previous chapter, introducing a rough outline of the theory, I proposed that awareness is information. The proposal initially sounds unlikely. We all know intuitively what awareness is—it is an inner experience and it does not resemble typed words on a page or the ones and zeros of a computer printout. It does not resemble our culturally accepted metaphors for information. How can awareness itself be information? In this chapter I would like to begin again, more systematically, more thoroughly, investigating what awareness is, what its relationship to information may be, and how a brain might make awareness possible.
    To set up the problem, I will begin with a traditional way to think about awareness. Consider again Figure 2.2 . When information is processed in the brain in some specific but as yet undetermined way (Box 1), a subjective experience of awareness emerges (Box 2). Suppose that you are looking at a green apple. First, your visual system computes the approximate reflectance spectrum of the apple, at least as filtered through the limited detectors of the eye. The presence of this information in the brain can be measured directly by inserting electrodes into visual areas and monitoring the activity of neurons. Second, as a result of that information, for unknown reasons, you have a conscious experience of greenness. You are, of course, aware of other features of the apple, such as its shape and smell, but for the moment let us focus on the particular conscious sensation of greenness. One could say that two itemsare relevant to the discussion: the computation that the apple is green (Box 1 in Figure 2.2 ), and the “experienceness” of the green (Box 2).
    Arrow A in Figure 2.2 represents the as-yet unknown process by which the brain generates a conscious experience. Arrow A is the central mystery to which scientists of consciousness have addressed themselves, with no definite answer or common agreement. It is difficult to figure out how a physical machine can produce what is commonly assumed to be a nonphysical feeling. Our inability to conceive of a route from physical process to mental experience is the reason for the persistent tradition of pessimism in the scientific study of consciousness. When Descartes 1 claimed that
res extensa
(the physical substance of the body) can never be used to construct
res cogitans
(mental substance), when Kant 2 indicated that our essential mental abilities simply
are
and have no external explanation, and when Chalmers 3 euphemistically referred to the “hard problem” of consciousness, all of these pessimistic views derive from the sheer human inability to imagine how any Arrow A could possibly get from Box 1 to Box 2.
    What I would like to do, however, is to focus on Arrow B, a process that is relatively (though not entirely) ignored both scientifically and philosophically. Arrow B represents the process by which a subjective conscious experience, an awareness of something, can physically impact the information-processing systems of the brain, allowing us to report that we have the feeling of awareness. It is my contention that much more can be learned about awareness by considering Arrow B than by considering Arrow A. By asking what, specifically, awareness can
do
in the world, what it can affect, what it can physically cause, we gain the leverage of objectivity. Instead of losing ourselves in speculation and subjectivity, we can pin the investigation on something that is verifiable. My claim is that by starting with Arrow B, one can work backward and obtain a possible answer to the question. I will begin with the verbal ability to report that we are aware, and from that observation take four steps back into the brain toward the property of awareness itself.
The Report of Awareness

    Let’s start with the verbal report of awareness. You might say, “The apple is green.” But a simple off-the-shelf wavelength detector could report the same. There is no evidence that the photo device has an inner experience. You, however, can also report, “I have an inner, subjective awareness of green. I don’t merely register the information that the apple is green; I
experience
it.” Whatever that conscious feeling may be, that experiential component to green, it must be something that can in principle cause a verbal report. Of course, most subjective experiences are not verbally reported. It would be incorrect to equate awareness with verbal report.