Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-smskv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-06-15T13:12:07.757Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adaptive Complexity and Phenomenal Consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Shaun Nichols  and
Todd Grantham
Shaun Nichols
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, College of Charleston
Todd Grantham
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, College of Charleston
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Arguments about the evolutionary function of phenomenal consciousness are beset by the problem of epiphenomenalism. For if it is not clear whether phenomenal consciousness has a causal role, then it is difficult to begin an argument for the evolutionary role of phenomenal consciousness. We argue that complexity arguments offer a way around this problem. According to evolutionary biology, the structural complexity of a given organ can provide evidence that the organ is an adaptation, even if nothing is known about the causal role of the organ. Evidence from cognitive neuropsychology suggests that phenomenal consciousness is structurally complex in the relevant way, and this provides prima facie evidence that phenomenal consciousness is an adaptation. Furthermore, we argue that the complexity of phenomenal consciousness might also provide clues about the causal role of phenomenal consciousness.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , December 2000 , pp. 648 - 670
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to Shaun Nichols, Department of Philosophy, College of Charleston, 66 George St, Charleston, SC 29424.

‡

We would like to thank Valerie Hardcastle, Anthony Marcel, Brian McLaughlin, Elizabeth Meny, Martin Perlmutter, Vic Peterson, Thomas Polger, Brian Scholl, and Lawrence Weiskrantz for discussion and comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We would also like to thank two anonymous referees for very useful suggestions. This research was partly supported by NIH grant PHST32MH19975 (Nichols) and NSF grant SES-9818397 (Grantham).

References

Block, Ned J. (1995), “On a Confusion about a Function of Consciousness”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18: 227–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandon, Robert N. (1997), Concepts and Methods in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Braun, Christopher B. and Northcutt, R. Glenn (1998), “Cutaneous Exteroreceptors and Their Innervation in Hagfishes”, in Jorgenson, J., Lomholt, J., Weber, R., and Malte, H. (eds.), The Biology of Hagfishes. New York: Chapman and Hall, 510–530.Google Scholar
Caplan, David (1992), Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Chalmers, David (1996), The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Curio, E. (1973), “Towards a Methodology of Teleonomy”, Experientia 29: 1045–1058.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dennett, Daniel C. (1991), Consciousness Explained. Little Brown.Google Scholar
Farah, Martha J. and Feinberg, Todd E. (1997), “Perception and Awareness”, in Feinberg, T. and Farah, M. (eds.), Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 357–368.Google Scholar
Flanagan, Owen (1992), Consciousness Reconsidered. Cambridge, MA: MIT.Google Scholar
Flanagan, Owen. (1995), “Consciousness and the Natural Method”, Neuropsychologia 33: 1103–1115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flanagan, Owen and Polger, Thomas (1995), “Zombies and the Function of Consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2: 313–21.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A. (1983), Modularity of Mind. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grantham, Todd and Nichols, Shaun (1999), “Evolutionary Psychology: Ultimate Explanations and Panglossian Predictions”, in Hardcastle, V. (ed.), Biology Meets Psychology: Connections, Constraints, Conjectures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 47–66.Google Scholar
Harcourt, Alexander H., Harvey, Paul. H., Larson, Susan G., and Short, Roger V. (1981), “Testis Weight, Body Weight and Breeding System in Primates”, Nature 293: 55–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harvey, Paul H. and Pagel, Mark D. (1991), The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hauser, Marc and Carey, Susan (1998), “Building a Cognitive Creature from Set of Primitives: Evolutionary and Developmental Insights”, in Cummins, D. and Allen, C. (eds.), The Evolution of Mind. New York: Oxford, 51–106.Google Scholar
Humphrey, Nicholas (1974), “Vision in a Monkey without a Striate Cortex: A Case Study”, Perception 3: 241–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphrey, Nicholas. (1995), “Blocking Out the Distinction between Sensation and Perception: Superblindsight and the Case of Helen”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18: 257–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauffman, Stuart (1995), At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Krebs, J. R. and Davies, Nicholas B. (eds.) (1984), Behavioural Ecology, (2nd ed). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lauder, George V. (1996), “The Argument from Design”, in Rose and Lauder 1996, 55–91.Google Scholar
Marcel, Anthony (1986), “Consciousness and Processing: Choosing and Testing a Null Hypothesis”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 9: 40–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, John C. and Halligan, Peter W. (1988), “Blindsight and Insight in Visuo-Spatial Neglect”, Nature 336: 766–767.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maynard Smith, John (1978), “Optimization Theory in Evolution”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9: 31–56. Reprinted in Sober 1994, 91–117. Page references to Sober.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McShea, Daniel (1997), “Complexity in Evolution: A Skeptical Assessment”, Philosophica 59:79–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michel, F. and Peronnet, F. (1980), “A Case of Cortical Deafness: Clinical and Electrophysiological Data”, Brain Language 10: 367–377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Milner, A. D. and Goodale, Melvyn A. (1995), The Visual Brain in Action. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paillard, Jacques, Michel, F., and Stelmach, George E. (1983), “Localization without Content: A Tactile Analog of ‘Blind Sight’ “, Archives of Neurology 40: 548–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pesetsky, David and Block, Ned J. (1990), “Complexity and Adaptation”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13: 750–752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven and Bloom, Paul (1990), “Natural Language and Natural Selection”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13: 707–784.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polger, Thomas and Flanagan, Owen (forthcoming), “Consciousness, Adaptation, and Epiphenomenalism”, in Mulhausen, G. (ed.), Evolving Consciousness. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Purves, W., Orians, G., and Heller, H. (1992), Life: The Science of Biology. Sinauer.Google Scholar
Rafal, Robert D. (1997), “Balint Syndrome”, in Feinberg, T. and Farah, M. (eds.), Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 337–356.Google Scholar
Ridley, Mark (1993), Evolution. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rose, Michael R. and Lauder, George V. (1996), Adaptation. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rossetti, Yves, Rode, Gilles, and Boisson, Dominique (1995), “Implicit Processing of Somaesthetic Information: A Dissociation between Where and How?”, NeuroReport 6: 506–510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Searle, John (1992), The Rediscovery of Mind. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Myrna F., Saffran, Eleanor M., and Marin, Oscar S. (1980), “The Word Order Problem in Agrammatism”, Brain and Language 10: 249–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shallice, Tim (1988), From Neuropsychology to Mental Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanks, Niall and Joplin, Karl (1999), “Redundant Complexity: A Critical Analysis of Intelligent Design in Biochemistry”, Philosophy of Science 66: 268–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney (1981), “Absent Qualia Are Impossible – A Reply to Block”, Philosophical Review 90: 481–499.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sober, Elliott (ed.) (1994), Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stich, Stephen P. (1978), “Beliefs and Subdoxastic States”, Philosophy of Science 45: 499–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swinney, David (1979), “Lexical Access during Sentence Comprehension: (Re)consideration of Context Effects”, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18: 645–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uller, Claudia, Xu, Fei, Carey, Susan, and Hauser, Marc (1997), “Is Language Needed for Constructing Sortal Concepts? A Study with Nonhuman Primates”, Proceedings of the 21 st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, vol. 2. 665–677.Google Scholar
Van Gulick, Robert (1989), “What Difference Does Consciousness Make?” Philosophical Topics 17: 211–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volpe, Bruce T., LeDoux, Joseph, and Gazzaniga, Michael (1979), “Information Processing of Visual Stimuli in an ‘Extinguished’ Field”, Nature 282, 722–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiskrantz, Lawrence (1988), “Some Contributions of Neuropsychology of Vision and Memory to the Problem of Consciousness”, in Marcel, A. and Bisiach, E. (eds.), Consciousness in Contemporary Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 183–199.Google Scholar
Weiskrantz, Lawrence. (1997), Consciousness Lost and Found. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wimsatt, William (1974), “Complexity and Organization”, in Greene, M. and Mendelsohn, E. (eds.), Topics in the Philosophy of Biology. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 174–193.Google Scholar
Young, Andrew W. (1994), “Neuropsychology of Awareness”, in Revonsuo, A. and Kamppinen, M. (eds.), Consciousness in Philosophy and Cognitive Neuroscience. Hillsdale, NJ: LEA, 173–203.Google Scholar
Young, Andrew W. (1998), Face and Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar