Why Naturalism Cannot Explain Consciousness

[The following is a slightly modified excerpt from'The Emperor's New Clothes: How Our Culture is Nakedly Stupid' by Lewis Ungit (c) 2021. ]

We humans are conscious. And we are conscious of the fact that we are conscious. The great Enlightenment philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes put this at the very center of knowledge. Everything else could be questioned. I could be a butterfly dreaming that I am a human. But one thing I know: "I think, therefore I am." It is impossible to deny this without self-contradiction.

Because of our almost universal acceptance of naturalism, we are inclined to just assume that somehow physical things can become conscious. Humans are just moist computers (as Scott Adams says) and we became conscious. Therefore it follows that electronic brains might become conscious at some point as well.

But conceiving of how physical things might become conscious is an impossible thought experiment. Even hardened atheists like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker acknowledge the greatness of the problem. Dawkins writes (referencing Steven Pinker's work):

"In How the Mind Works Steve elegantly sets out the problem of subjective consciousness, and asks where it comes from and what’s the explanation. Then he’s honest enough to say, ‘Beats the heck out of me.’ That is an honest thing to say, and I echo it."

Many laypersons do not see what Pinker and Dawkins see. For the average person, a computer is a sort of magical thing. We see a box with a bunch of circuit boards and wires in it that produces really cool outputs. Ask your iPhone to marry you and the voice comes back, “Let's just be friends.” That is a witty and funny thing. Almost human. Siri will be conscious soon.

Except ─ no she won't. Wires and circuits are not magic, nor is well-written computer code.

Let me take away the “magic” of your iPhone with a helpful analogy an electrical engineering professor gave me.  My undergraduate degree is in mechanical engineering and my university required me to take a couple of circuits classes just so I would not be totally ignorant. To explain to mechanical engineers how circuits worked, my professor suggested that we think of the flow of electrons through a circuit like water flowing through a complicated canal.

Voltage, he told us, can be thought of as the water level. Amperage could be thought of as the water speed. Resisters can be thought of as sharp bends in the canal. Switches can be thought of as a high wall that stops the flow of water. And motors can be thought of as a mill being turned by the flow of water. It was an imperfect analogy but it was helpful to understand what the various parts did.

But let's take that analogy further. Let's suppose we had the resources to construct a large network of canals. Let’s suppose we could make the canals into a mechanical computer. Imagine switches and different paths through which the water can flow. We could create a computer code with the canals. If the water flows one way, it flips on a light. If it flows another way, it flips on another light. We could, with various water levels, bends, and forks, create a river that functioned as a simple computer. Give it inputs, and it would give outputs. It really is possible if you had a big enough canal and the workers to modify it.

Now ─ make that canal gigantic. Put it on some imaginary planet of almost infinite size (perhaps a Minecraft-sized planet) and cover it completely with canals. You could create a river supercomputer in which the flowing water flips lights on and hits speakers to make pre-programmed noises. You could make that river like Siri. It could make jokes. It could tell you the time. It could tell you the weather forecast.

But would that river and canal system ever be conscious? Of course not. It would just be water flowing through a canal, flipping on lights, and noise-making machines. However cleverly you designed the river, it would still be water running through canals. It would never, never be conscious. For that river to suddenly be able to think, "I am a river," would be something wholly un-mechanical. It would be magic. And rivers are not magic.

Neither are electrons.

It is not that we have not figured out the evolutionary step yet. It is that the step is in another dimension. It’s outside the physical. It’s a step into the spiritual dimension.  This is why Dawkins and Pinker are stumped.

The fact that humans are conscious is a magical thing. It cannot be explained by evolution. It cannot be explained by physical processes. We are rivers of chemicals and electrons who are aware that we are rivers of chemicals and electrons.

After writing the above, I read “Conscious” by Annaka Harris. It is an interesting read and certainly worth checking out. I am not sure if Harris is an atheist or not, but her book certainly rejects any supernatural explanations for consciousness. Interestingly, she largely agrees with my criticisms of most naturalistic explanations for consciousness. She expresses reservations about the idea of consciousness coming as part of evolution, and even does a similar thought experiment to my mechanical computer analogy (using robots instead). But, as I said, as a committed naturalist, she also does not follow me that some sort of supernatural (non-atheist) solution must be appealed to.

Instead, she appears inclined toward an explanation called "panpsychism." Panpsychism is the idea that consciousness is not the result of evolution but instead is inherent in all matter. Every atom has some sort of awareness of being. She is careful to distinguish between a general consciousness and complex thought. A rock might have some level of awareness but, she would argue, it would take a brain (and the senses that come with the human body) to start forming any sort of complex thought. The rock might not think, "I am a rock," but it does have some sort of self-awareness. Everything does.

Harris argues that if panpsychism is true, then some sort of evolution of our consciousness is possible with the conscious and complex thought coming as the brain evolves and is able to process that inherent self-awareness into thoughts and ideas.

First, I want to say that I appreciate Harris's recognition of consciousness as the huge problem that it is for naturalists. I am continually surprised by how many people miss this and happily assume that complex systems/computers will inevitably become conscious. She knows this is faulty thinking.

I also wanted to express appreciation for her observation of how hard it is to tell if other things have consciousness. She notes the “zombie” thought experiment. In this thought experiment, imagine a robot or automaton that can act like humans (expressing grief over the passing of a friend and wonder at the beauty of the rising sun) that is simply following functions designed by its programmer. All the things we typically assume point to as evidence of conscious thought (a frown, a smile, a furrowed brow) are not actually signs of consciousness, but simply descriptions of behavior that happen to coincide with our own experience of consciousness. Consciousness is then completely unobservable and invisible to outside minds. The fact that other people have conscious thought cannot be proven. We have to take it for granted (i.e., I have consciousness thought so others must).

Finally, she does a great job of explaining how idiotic the idea of consciousness being an illusion is. This strange attempt to get around the problem does not work because an illusion is, by definition, something that deceives a conscious mind. Therefore by definition, the idea is flawed. Further, as she explains, the “consciousness is an illusion” solution doesn't answer any questions. Where did the illusion come from?

The book is helpful if for no other reason than to show the flaws of many of the traditional naturalistic arguments and explanations for consciousness.

But I would argue that Harris's attempts at providing her own solutions fall flat. Panpsychism is very problematic for reasons I will detail below. But before I do, I should also note that Harris is tentative with her endorsement of panpsychism. She says at various times that the goal of her book is more to ask questions than to provide solutions. At other times she seems open to some sort of combination of panpsychism and more traditional naturalistic explanations. But one thing she does not appear open to is any sort of traditional religious answer to the question. And I think that this problem will continue to be a problem until a religious solution – some idea of a God and some idea of a soul – is considered.

The case for panpsychism goes something like this:

1) We are conscious

2) This appears to be fundamental to who we are and cannot be explained by evolution

3) Therefore, if consciousness is inherent in ourselves, it might be (must be?) inherent in all things

It does not take a logician to see that #3 does not follow the premises #1 and #2.  No. 3 can only be taken as an article of faith. Panpsychism is not the result of reason or logical deduction.

That doesn't mean it is not true, of course, but it does mean that we should not take it as a logical argument. It is possible that Harris is the only conscious thing in the universe. It is possible that there is no universe and that this is all her imagination. It is possible that she is a butterfly dreaming she is a human.

Like rationality, the existence of other souls (consciousnesses for the atheists out there) needs to be assumed. It cannot be proven.

A second problem with panpsychism is that it solves an incredibly mysterious problem with human existence by saying, “it was always there.” I would argue that this is the scientific equivalent of creationism. Creationists believe that the complexity of the world was there at the beginning — that rather than being built by steps, God created it all in the beginning. Harris’s argument is similar. This incredibly complex and mysterious thing that seems hard to build step by step can be explained by saying it was always like that. It is inherent.

Okay. Fine. Take that on faith. But explain to me why the Aristotelian or Platonic arguments for the existence of God are any less scientific.

Finally, the problem with panpsychism that is most commonly listed is the combination problem. If consciousness is an inherent property of every atom (electron? proton? quark?), why does being close to another thing suddenly create one consciousness? Why would a dog be conscious (as a complete being), but not each individual atom of the dog (or each quark or whatever)? Why is it that if a human being loses a leg or an arm (part of our system), it does not appear to change our sense of consciousness?

Now, Harris does try to answer this in two ways. First, she speculates that maybe the areas of the human body that do not appear to be conscious (kidneys, for example) are conscious in some way but simply are unable to communicate it, and that our brains (being computers capable of complex thought and able to take in sensory input and express thoughts through language) are able to develop the complex thought and express it internally and through language. But this does not solve the combination problem. We still have constituent parts of the brain appearing to join together in a single consciousness.

She attempts to answer this more difficult question by suggesting that the problem lays with the illusion that consciousness and self are tied together. She references split-brain experiments in which, to stop seizures, patients had the two hemispheres of their brain separated and appeared to become two separate consciousnesses. The left hand would fight with the right hand. The left side would do something and the right side would (wrongly) explain why. Further, she discusses LSD experiments where people are conscious but lose their sense of self altogether.  She then goes on to speculate that perhaps if you could meld two brains together that they might become a single consciousness. Without self-being attached to consciousness, she argues, the combination problem goes away.

This is an interesting effort, but it does not solve the problem. First, the hemisphere studies show behavior that might seem like two separate consciousnesses but, as she is good at pointing out, consciousness cannot be observed. So all we can say from these studies is that the patients displayed characteristics that typically would be associated with consciousness that appeared to be split. But to know for sure they were split, you would need to be that person. The person might have had one sense of consciousness that was malfunctioning in various ways. And the LSD studies might give the patients a feeling of losing their sense of self, yet their conscious thoughts did not actually combine with any other brain or any other being. In short, the experience reported is still a human being reporting something that they felt or sensed. It is a self-reporting feeling self-less.

But Harris’s attempt to detach self from consciousness brings up a problem with much of what she has to say about consciousnesses as a whole. Her definition of consciousness is something quite different from what most people experience and know. Consider the following quote:

"Once again, it's important to distinguish between consciousness and complex thought when considering panpsychic views. Postulating that consciousness is fundamental isn't the same as suggesting that complex thoughts are fundamental and magically result in a material realization of those ideas — a common misinterpretation of panpsychism."

Rather than what we usually think of when we consider our own consciousness, she distills it down to the sense of "what it is like to be something."

But this is not what Descartes meant when he argued that the most fundamental element of knowledge was "I think therefore I am." This is not what we think of when we talk about our own minds. This is a definition that is quite distinct from what almost everyone means when we talk about consciousness. When we talk about our own mind, we are talking about self by definition. We are talking about the idea, "I am someone," that comes into our mind.

Harris’s definition, even taken for what it is, does not explain how we get to "I am someone." She connects many little senses and says that somehow (thanks to being in a brain?) these become the complex thought, "I am someone." But it is this very question that we are looking for. How do we go from being electrons flowing through neurons to being a creature that says, "I am someone"? Panpsychism doesn't answer this question.

No thought experiment can bring these things together. And there is no way to measure or even observe them, as she perceptively explains. She ends her book by acknowledging that perhaps science is not equipped to give us the answers.

I commend her for this admission. I would argue that science cannot give us the answers. Something that she (rightly) admits cannot be observed, cannot be studied using a method that requires observation.

A Way Forward

Naturalism is not science. Science is a process of steps (hypothesis, experiment, analysis, conclusion). Naturalism is the assumption that there is no such thing as the supernatural and that what exists must be explained without reference to the Divine. However, historically, most scientists were not naturalists. And in the early days of science, almost all the scientists were committed Christians.

To say that something cannot be explained via natural processes, then, is not anti-science. Science requires observation, and as Harris convincingly argues, consciousness cannot be observed.  That means that by definition the study of the soul must be moved from the scientific realm to the philosophical (or theological) realm.

With science, newer almost always equals better. The latest research is better to read than a study from fifty years ago. But with philosophy, the opposite is usually true. Philosophy depends on logical arguments and rational deduction. The longer a principle stands, the stronger it appears. Something that has stood the test of time is likely true — countless philosophers took shots at it and failed.

With this in mind, let's consider whether any old solutions to the problem of consciousness make sense. What about the religious idea of soul?

Harris dismisses this based on scientific research. We cannot have a soul, she says, because when we mess with the brain (via parasites, brain surgery, brain damage, etc.) weird things happen (our conscious understanding of our actions malfunctions and misinterprets and does other strange things). She even questions whether the conscious mind has any control over our actions at all (noting experiments that show our body knows we are going to do something before our conscious mind decides to do it).

This is an effective defeater of a particular understanding of soul. Specifically, this is an attack on Plato's idea of the ghost in the machine. Plato (with his shadows flickering in the cave) thought that matter was unimportant and evil — that the mind was fundamentally separate from the physical. To the extent that human minds are affected by the body, Plato argued, the effects are negative. The ideal state is disembodied bliss. Heaven, to Plato, was to lose your body and to be a free soul, unencumbered by the physical. But Harris notes that this view runs into major problems based on scientific experiments on the brain. Our conscious thought, far from being a ghost in the machine, appears to be part of the machine.

Harris uses this to dismiss the idea of a soul. But I wonder if she is aware that the Platonic view of the soul is not the Biblical view? The soul as seen in the Hebrew or Christian bibles is quite different. The biblical idea of soul is not one of a ghost in a machine. I highly recommend that Harris read N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope to understand what the Bible says about body and soul. I should note here that her confusion is understandable, given that many Christians misunderstand this as well (so, everyone, please read Wright).

In Surprised by Hope, Wright (a retired Anglican Bishop and New Testament Scholar at the University of St. Andrews) explains that the Jewish/Christian hope has always been one of embodied existence. Humanity was created from matter (Genesis 1) and our final state will not be as ghosts but as resurrected (and embodied) humans on the last day (read 1 Corinthians 15). We worship a creator God (one who delights in the physical and even became physical himself). If there is a disembodied state at all, it is only for a very temporary period as saints wait for the final resurrection. Elsewhere, Wright argues that rather than a ghost in a machine, a better analogy is software on hardware.  In For All the Saints, he quotes another bishop stating that when we die, "God will download our software onto his hardware until the day comes when he gives us new hardware on which to run our software once more.”

If Wright's understanding of the soul is taken, Harris's critiques of the soul fall apart. Take a computer, mess with the hardware and the software will malfunction, wrongly diagnose, and otherwise do weird things. In short, we would act very much like the humans in the many studies she cites act. Our souls are not ghosts driving machines. Humans are integrated beings like computers. Our souls, like software, need hardware to work properly, and malfunctioning hardware messes with our software.

What about Harris's citing of studies that undermine free will? Well, it should be noted that many Christians (Reformed/Calvinists for example) deny the existence of free will also. Read the classic Jonathan Edwards work, Freedom of the Will, for an explanation of this view. Further, while the reformed view of the will maintains a freedom by placing it on the divine (God freely ordains), the naturalistic determinism that Harris’s view would appear to mandate is philosophically untenable. If humans are simply mechanisms that respond to stimuli, then our thoughts cannot be considered rational at all and rational arguments must be illusory.

This creates a huge philosophical problem for naturalists, and is inherently nonsensical. There is no non-circular way to prove that our brains are rational. As soon as you start to provide rational reasons (arguments, logic, etc.) you are committing the logical fallacy of "petition principii" — assuming the thing you are trying to prove. For a system of thought to be rational, it cannot undermine rationality as something that can rightly be assumed. This is a problem for naturalism generally, but especially for any sort of deterministic naturalism.

So, the biblical view of soul appears to solve all the problems with consciousnesses. We are conscious because God gave us minds to know him. We are free to the extent that God made us free (and to the extent that we are not, he is). This is not a naturalistic solution. But it does not conflict with science, it is strong philosophically, and it lacks any fatal flaws.

Naturalism does not work for many reasons. Consciousness is just one of the most glaring holes.