First Referee's report on 'The dimensions of conscious experience: a quantitative phenomenology' #1008
This paper touches on many interesting issues. The author advances the view that there is real need, within cognitive science and consciousness studies, for phenomenology. This is a reasonable position and one I'd be inclined to agree with. However, there are several problems with the paper.
Let me say from the outset that a reworked paper on the same themes could make a real contribution. I would, for example, encourage the author to explore further the differences between phenomenology, introspection and psychophysics and to see what conclusions can be drawn from an analysis of these differences. In the form the paper is in now, however, I do not think it merits publication in JCS.
Some details:
(1) The overall argument.
I quite like the author's brief consideration of three accounts of perceptual experience (direct realism, indirect realism and projectivism). I object, however, to the author's claim (p 8) that 'one of these three alternatives must be true, to the exclusion of the other two'. Why must this be the case? [Author's Response] He goes on to say that this issue is by no means inconsequential, 'for these opposing views suggest very different ideas of the function of visual processing, or what all that neural wetware is supposed to actually do. Therefore it is of central importance for psychology to address this issue head-on, and to determine which of these competing hypotheses reflect the truth in visual processing' (p 8). This passage is quite problematic. First, it is unreasonable to treat these three competing theories as theories of visual processing. They may be theories of what vision is, but this leaves open the question whether a characterization of vision requires a discussion of underlying neural wetware. Gibson, for example, whom the author discusses, believes that a visual theorist need not concern him or herself with a discussion of the brain. Vision, for Gibson, does not happen in the brain. So then how does Gibson's view suggest, or imply, or rest on a characterization of what is going on in the wetware? This is a logical point. [Author's Response] (Note also a tension in the author's position. He castigates psychology for having moved away from its concern with subjectivity and consciousness and having moved towards neuroscience, behaviorism, etc. But he here suggests that it is psychology's job to decide what the brain does to enable vision. Why is this psychology's job?) [Author's Response]
The author proposes an interesting perceptual modelling approach. But why does the author think his approach addresses the problem addressed in the earlier part of the paper? He does suggest connections, but these are not, in my view, strong enough or clear enough. [Author's Response]
(2) The equivocation about 'phenomenology'.
This is really another aspect of the problem with the author's argument. Simply put, the author's perceptual modelling approach, his 'objective phenomenology,' sounds an awful lot like psychophysics to me. He says that he's modelling the structure of sense-data or raw conscious experiences, but there is little to reason to think that this is what he is really doing. He notes that his approach is like that which informs the description of phenomenal colour space, and he mentions that his problem neatly side-steps the 'hard problem of consciousness' because it remains safely on the subjective side of the mind/brain barrier (p 11). This is altogether doubtful. First, as argued recently by Palmer in his BBS target article on colour and the inverted spectrum, models of the structure of colour space remain on the objectivity side of the barrier. The model says nothing about the intrinsic quality of colour experiences, only about comparative relations between dimensions of colour. And this, of course, is just to restate the hard problem for this area. The author doesn't have to agree with this, but he has to acknowledge the difficulty: people use just the sort of approach he is advocating to set up the hard problem! Second, although it is true that one needs first-person reports to construct the colour solid, the reports one needs are supplied by psychophysics. This comes up again on p 15 when the author touts the importance of phenomenology. See also the third point below. [Author's Response]
3. Local points.
First, I found the author's historical introduction unconvincing. He says that psychology was originally interested in the subjective side of the brain (p 1). Does this mean that psychology was not originally interested in cognitive functions such as memory? Or are these supposed to be subjective? [Author's Response]
Second, on p 5 he appears to refer to Dennett as a neuroreductionist. Whether this is reasonable or not, Dennett has very sophisticated and elaborate views about the relation between neuroscience and psychology which put him out of reach of the author's criticism, as far as I can tell. See Dennett's paper 'Three kinds of intentional psychology' in The Intentional Stance. [Author's Response]
Third, the author mistakenly refers to Pessoa et al 1998 as advocating that consciousness is an illusion (p 14). Indeed, his subsequent discussion of the filling-in issue shows him to have misunderstood their position. Where Pessoa et al agree with Dennett is on the truth of statements such as that made by the author at the top of p 15 on the need for filling in. To object to that point, however, is not to accept that consciousness is an illusion. That was just Dennett's mistake, according to Pessoa et al. [Author's Response]