Lecture 2

Consciousness - Lecture 2
B.A. Logic and Metaphysics


An argument from The Explanatory Gap

1 - If a particular headache suffered by someone, Chris, is really some physical state, then positing that state explains why Chris has a headache.

2 - There is no physical state such that positing it will explain why Chris has a headache.

Therefore:
The headache is not a physical state.


Premise 2
Consider the old cliché: this headache is this firing of c-fibres. We can intelligibly say the following: I see that her c-fibres are firing - but why is being in that physical state the same as having a mental state that feels the way a headache does? Why doesn’t it feel like nothing at all to have one’s c-fibres firing?

Here, c-fibres are just standing in for any physical state - however complicated. Specify any kind of physical state of Chris and claim that this is her headache. It is still intelligible to say: but why does being in that state feel like having a headache - rather than feeling like nothing at all?


Other physical accounts of everyday phenomena are not like this (e.g. digestion). This seems to be evidence that a physical account of conscious experiences cannot be right.


However:
Perhaps the Physicalist can respond that conscious experiences are only special in this regard because of the way we can conceptualise them. We can think of them in terms of what they are like to be in. Physical accounts of other everyday phenomena seem more explanatorily satisfying because we conceptualise those phenomena in terms of their causal role.