Conversations on Consciousness

  • Susan Blackmore
Oxford University Press: 2005. 288 pp. £18.99, $23 0195179587, 019280622X | ISBN: 0-195-17958-7

The hard kernel of the mind–body problem — how we get first-person experience out of a purely physical object like the brain — was famously articulated by Thomas Nagel in a paper entitled ‘What Is It Like To Be A Bat?’ (Phil. Rev. 83, 435–450; 1974). The question of ‘What is it like?’ concerns the phenomenality and subjectivity of experience, and has come to be known as the hard problem of consciousness. This is the central focus of Susan Blackmore's latest book, Conversations on Consciousness, a compendium of 20 interviews she conducted with major figures in the field of consciousness studies. The illustrious but motley crew includes philosophers of radically different stripe such as David Chalmers, Pat and Paul Churchland, Daniel Dennett and John Searle; psychologists V. S. Ramachandran, Kevin O'Regan and Daniel Wegner; neuroscientists Francis Crick and Christof Koch; and explorer of altered states Stephen LaBerge.

The experience of reading Blackmore's book is the intellectual analogue of what it must be like to participate in the popular institution of speed dating, that maximally efficient method of meeting a potential partner. Blackmore devotes roughly 13 pages to each interview transcript, which reads roughly like a 10- to 15-minute conversation. Just as you might expect when interviewing potential romantic partners, some encounters with Blackmore's interviewees leave you wanting more, whereas others fail to connect and would be excruciating but for their merciful brevity.

Researchers have often wondered how we can get first-person experience from the matter that makes up our bodies. Credit: H. SOCHUREK/CORBIS

In the course of Blackmore's discussions about how subjective experience might result from the operation of the three-pound hunk of meat that is our brain, she explores her subjects' disagreements with others' theories, their views about free will, and their opinions about the value of meditation and Eastern religious practices (the intellectual equivalent, I take it, of “What's your sign?”). She also poses personal questions to the interviewees, such as why they were drawn to studying consciousness in the first place, and whether their work has influenced the way they approach their own personal experiences.

The book best succeeds in providing a very brief survey of the multitude of positions occupied by thinkers in this area. The lack of agreement on any issue, such as whether there really is a hard problem — or if there is, what it is — is striking. Some theorists think that the problem is really hard. Even when we understand how the brain accomplishes its astounding variety of complex tasks, such as visual recognition, memory, planning and so on (the ‘easy problems’ of consciousness), something will be left unexplained: how or why these intelligent behaviours are accompanied in us by conscious states. Those who believe in the hard problem generally believe in the possibility of ‘zombies’ — beings who function exactly as we do, yet lack the mysterious spark of consciousness, so “all is dark inside”. Others think the hard problem isn't really that hard, and that the problem of subjectivity will dissolve once we have a handle on the easy problems. Still others claim that the problem itself is illusory.

Because of the extremely light hand Blackmore takes in editing, the often quirky personalities and mannerisms of the interviewees shine through the text. The effect is magnified when you know the people: I could hear, for instance, Ned Block's enthusiastic voice and Crick's wry quips about philosophers in my mind's ear. This gives the book some added appeal: readers really get a sense of ‘what it is like’ to talk to these people. A few of the interviews with people I've never met made me wish I had a chance to explore their views further over dinner and a good bottle of wine, but others left me cold. Blackmore herself comes across as spunky and clever, and the probing follow-up questions she occasionally asks prevent the interviews from seeming too repetitive and boring.

However, if you are serious about meeting an intellectual soulmate in the quest to understand consciousness, speed dating may not be for you. The book is rather unsatisfying for anyone with a deep interest in the issues, for no position is articulated clearly enough for readers to see the depth of the problems or the breadth of knowledge (or ignorance) that characterizes our current understanding of issues related to consciousness. Despite Blackmore's obvious intelligence and familiarity with the issues, at crucial points she does not press her interviewees hard enough or deeply enough to provide us with truly novel insights.

Conversations on Consciousness provides an introduction to a variety of positions, but is too cursory to make possible their evaluation. For that, one would need to spend a few evenings alone with the works of one or another of the thinkers. Like speed dating, Conversations on Consciousness is low-risk, but ultimately also low-payoff. It is, at best, a good way to guide an interested novice into the field. Second date, anyone?