Michael Graziano: Are We Really Conscious?

He raises the question in the New York Times Sunday Review:

I believe a major change in our perspective on consciousness may be necessary, a shift from a credulous and egocentric viewpoint to a skeptical and slightly disconcerting one: namely, that we don’t actually have inner feelings in the way most of us think we do…

How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn’t. The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong…

You might object that this is a paradox. If awareness is an erroneous impression, isn’t it still an impression? And isn’t an impression a form of awareness?

But the argument here is that there is no subjective impression; there is only information in a data-processing device. When we look at a red apple, the brain computes information about color. It also computes information about the self and about a (physically incoherent) property of subjective experience. The brain’s cognitive machinery accesses that interlinked information and derives several conclusions: There is a self, a me; there is a red thing nearby; there is such a thing as subjective experience; and I have an experience of that red thing. Cognition is captive to those internal models. Such a brain would inescapably conclude it has subjective experience.

I agree that our intuitions about consciousness are likely to be faulty, but I don’t think that Graziano has resolved the paradox he mentions. My brain models other people as having subjective experiences, but this obviously has no bearing on whether they really do, or don’t, have those experiences. Given that, why should the fact that my brain models me as having subjective experiences suddenly become magically relevant to the question of whether I really do, or don’t, have those experiences?

317 thoughts on “Michael Graziano: Are We Really Conscious?

  1. I’d settle for someone explaining Neil’s ATTEMPTED solution to me–whether it’s any good (or anybody but Neil likes it) or not.

  2. walto,

    It can’t really be done, or at least it cannot be done in the way that you would want.

    As Chalmers has posed it, the “hard problem” is the problem if giving a fully objective account of the subjective. But if we can give a fully objective account of something, that would show that the something is itself objective. So a solution to the Chalmers problem would show that the subjective is really objective. And that seems obviously wrong.

    I’ve been doing the reverse. I’ve been studying (or theorizing about) how an infant learns about the world. And that amounts to starting with the subjective, and somehow producing an objective account of the world that is derived from the subjective. And studying that does tell me a lot about the subjective, but it won’t solve the Chalmers problem.

    Perhaps, more important, is that it tells me a lot about objectivity. In particular, it tells me that what we consider to be objective cannot be fully objective. A fully objective language would have no intentionality so would not be able to say anything about the world. Our connection to the world is unavoidably dependent on the subjective.

  3. I’m observing my third infant. It seems obvious to me that science is just a formalization of what infants do. Try, test, note the consequences, repeat.

    The trying part is what I find most interesting. If we could build a computer that knew how to try, that would be interesting. Adults might call it model building or hypothesis forming. Or induction. Whatever.

    It’s beyond the grasp of any machine, even IBM’s best and brightest.

  4. petrushka: I’m observing my third infant. It seems obvious to me that science is just a formalization of what infants do. Try, test, note the consequences, repeat.

    I’d call that propensity to explore what’s around you curiosity. Not exclusive to humans. Foraging for food must involve some risk-taking. Stay where you are and starve when the immediate food source runs out; explore and you never know what might turn up.

  5. How simple can a brain be to be curious? C. elegans the soil-dwelling nematode has exactly 302 neurons in the adult hermaphrodite form. It’s an active grazer on bacteria. I’m hoping Steve Schaffner might find time to comment.

    ETA

    Here is a brief overview of C. elegans nervous system.

  6. Oh how could I forget to mention Julian Jaynes’s *The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind*. His basic thesis is that language formed consciousness as we know it, that is self-consciousness.

  7. Alan Fox: I’d call that propensity to explore what’s around you curiosity. Not exclusive to humans. Foraging for food must involve some risk-taking. Stay where you are and starve when the immediate food source runs out; explore and you never know what might turn up.

    It’s easy enough to make a machine that explores and learns.

    I could say all we have to do is keep improving such devices.

    The problem is that such machines tax our computing architecture to its limits. there’s a broad understanding of this problem, and both CalTech and IBM have devised alternative hardware. Time will tell if they are on a productive track.

    But there is simply so much wiring already done by evolution. Babies of all species are not blank slates. And evolution seems to take time.

    As a side note, I can envision an evolved silicon AI that could pass the Turing test at any level of intensity, a device invented and constructed by humans, that we understand no better than we understand wetware.

  8. BruceS,

    I’ve been motivated by the above discussion to download the kindle version of Graziano’s Consciousness and the Social Brain. Reading the introduction and first chapter, Graziano seems not so much denying consciousness but rather sidestepping it and concentrating on awareness.

    Would it not make sense to continue discussing Graziano’s theory on the dedicated thread?

    ETA moved from “Obscurantism”.

  9. I now have Graziano’s Consciousness and the Social Brain.

    petrushka: But there is simply so much wiring already done by evolution. Babies of all species are not blank slates. And evolution seems to take time.

    We can always take bite-sized pieces of the problem, work in parallel top-down and bottom-up, maybe even meet in the middle.

    Start with something simpler. C. elegans the nematode worm is anatomically described to the last cell, every neurone is counted (302) but not much seems to be known of its lifestyle in the wild.

  10. It’s worth pointing out that Chalmers would almost certainly say that Graziano has not even touched upon “the hard problem of consciousness.” Perhaps Chalmers would allow that Graziano is giving us a theory (and who knows? maybe even the correct theory!) of the easy problem of consciousness: how to think about information-processing and information-access in terms of neurological structure and function. Chalmers’ point is that one can solve the easy problem without even touching upon the so-called “hard problem of consciousness”, which is about the qualia.

    As Chalmers sees it, for any explanation of consciousness in terms of structure and function, the question can always be asked, “yeah, but why is that kind of structure-and-function correlated with qualia?” Structure-and-function explanations — that is, objective explanations — will always fall short of explaining qualia because there will always be room for that question.

    Whether or not there is a hard question at all, or if the hard question is the result of a philosophical error, is precisely what’s at stake in Chalmers’ debates with Dennett. Graziano’s theory of consciousness, as a theory of “the easy problem of consciousness”, is all there is to say about consciousness if Dennett is right but not if Chalmers is right.

  11. I re-read the quote from Graziano above, and I think I’ve been misinterpreting him.

    When he denies that there is “subjective experience”, he’s not (necessarily) denying that there is experience — he’s denying that there is a thing, “the subject”, whose experience it is. He’s denying that there is an ego, self, or subject. (It would be interesting to compare Graziano’s book with The User Illusion in this regard.)

    Put otherwise, the sense that one is a subject who has experiences of objects is an artifact of how the brain processes information, and more precisely, a side-effect of the causal processes whereby the brain models it environment but cannot model its own modeling, or represent within itself the very processes that produce representations.

    petrushka: I’m observing my third infant. It seems obvious to me that science is just a formalization of what infants do. Try, test, note the consequences, repeat.

    That seems right to me. The idea that babies and children are natural scientists, and that most formal schooling just knocks it out of them, is central to Dewey’s theory of eduction. The Montessori schools educate kids by encouraging them to explore and reflect. Gopnik’s The Philosophical Baby also seems quite intriguing. I haven’t read it but I’ve read reviews.

  12. Alan Fox,

    As I read the chapter around the diagram you reproduce, Graziano is limiting the scope of his book to discuss simply awareness as (what he claims is) a common factor in all first person experience. He is excluding the contents of awareness and how that contents causes individual experiences to differ.

    That is, he is talking about what is in common between the experience of blue sky, the experience of back pain, and the experience of “bringing to mind” someone’s name when you see his or her face. But he is not talking about the differences in the three.

    So in the diagram, the first bubble “awareness” is the scope of the book. The second bubble “the information of which one is aware” is outside the scope, although he does not deny corresponding individualized experience exists.

    I am unable to determine why the consciousness bubble is bigger than those two together. Is there some other aspect to consciousnesss that he mentions that is not in those two?

    How do you read him?

  13. The opening chapter of the book talks about a magic show and how the book is like explaining how a magic trick works. That reminds me of a Dennett quote, which starts with Dennett quoting someone writing a book on magic:

    “‘I’m [that is, Dennett’s friend] writing a book on magic’, I explain, and I’m asked, ‘Real magic’? By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. ‘No’, I answer: ‘Conjuring tricks, not real magic’. Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic. ”

    I think the point of that quote is related to the disagreements in this thread about what Graziano is saying. Yes, consciousness is not “real magic”, it is the magic that can be done.

  14. Kantian Naturalist:
    I re-read the quote from Graziano above, and I think I’ve been misinterpreting him.

    I suspect you are projecting your own philosophical sophistication into a lowly neuroscientist..

    It’s been a while since I read the book, but looking for “self” in the index yields mostly material about him criticizing the social model of consciousness. He says that theory states that consciousness arose when our pre-conscious but social ancestors applied the theory of mind for others they (unconsciously) had to themselves.

    There was nothing I saw in this book on the “Is the self real?” topic one sometimes sees in other books on consciousness.

    I’m not saying that he is not motivated by the types of considerations you raise. But it appears those motivations, if they exist, are unconscious.

    (OK, I was reaching for that one. Better call it a day.)

  15. If consciousness were driving humans, we would be able to modify our motivations to comport with our best interests. In particular we would be able to modify our cravings for food and drugs as we discover their long term consequences.

  16. petrushka,

    If consciousness were driving humans, we would be able to modify our motivations to comport with our best interests. In particular we would be able to modify our cravings for food and drugs as we discover their long term consequences.

    I don’t think that follows. Consciousness does not imply control — think of “locked-in syndrome”.

  17. I have not read Graziano, but I know from an online article that he uses a metaphor that comes from a rather sophisticated mystical source. However, he uses it in a way that suggests he might have found it in a roundabout way.

    Another mystical source on consciousness is neuroscientist Sam Harris. In an interview on meditation he deems it important to emphasize that self is not real http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/taming-the-mind

  18. petrushka,

    Wait, not that this proves consciousness drives us, but even heroin addicts can quit. (I’m hoping someone will come up with addiction breaking drugs. Ibogaine was advertised as such for a while.)

  19. keiths:
    petrushka,
    I don’t think that follows.Consciousness does not imply control — think of “locked-in syndrome”.

    But I wasn’t referring to motor control.

    Let’s try a thought experiment. Consider designing human 2.0.

    Wouldn’t it be nice to have thermostats within reach to modify our desire for sweets, or tobacco, or anything else which we discover to be harmful in the long run? This does not seem conceptually different from wearing clothes to stabilize temperature, Or building houses. We already attempt this with drugs and medicine.

    We have the ability to discover consequences that didn’t affect our genetic makeup. We have the rather odd expression — will power — to describe the conflict between our hard wired desires and the desires implied by our rational understanding of consequences.

    But what if we could simply raise and lower our desire thermostats the way we raise and lower our arms.

    Are you suggesting that our inability to manage our motivations is analogous to being paralyzed?

  20. Paul Amrhein:
    petrushka,
    Wait, not that this proves consciousness drives us, but even heroin addicts can quit. (I’m hoping someone will come up with addiction breaking drugs. Ibogaine was advertised as such for a while.)

    Yes, but they cannot simply shut down the craving.

    And Heroin is rather easy to give up compared to tobacco or overeating. Judging from long term studies.

  21. What I’m saying is that there is a rather important part of “us” that is outside of conscious control. Keiths’ comment has prompted me to think about this as akin to losing the sense of touch or the ability to move a limb.

    I can think of no law of physics that would prevent a system from tweaking its appetites in the same way we tweak our position on a chair. It’s just another feedback and control loop.

  22. When we have had discussions of free will, I have tried to ask what is the “I” that is free or not free.

    I am free to stand up and move about the room. Free to have chocolate or fried chicken to eat. But what is it that possesses that freedom? What would the question of free will look like in a century from now, presuming we invent the ability to modify our own motivations?

    As I have mentioned, we are already attempting this with drugs and therapies.

  23. petrushka:

    What I’m saying is that there is a rather important part of “us” that is outside of conscious control.

    Absolutely. And somewhat ironically, even our thoughts themselves are largely outside of our conscious control. Anyone who sits down to meditate for the first time discovers that very quickly.

    I can think of no law of physics that would prevent a system from tweaking its appetites in the same way we tweak our position on a chair. It’s just another feedback and control loop.

    I agree. The fact that we don’t have absolute control over our appetites is a contingent consequence of evolution, not of physics itself.

  24. petrushka: When we have had discussions of free will, I have tried to ask what is the “I” that is free or not free.

    The Buddhists deny that there is such an “I.” The Vedantist’s consider the “ego” an illusion. I don’t know how this helps. At least it means you’re hardly alone in having doubts about the “I.”

  25. I don’t have doubts about the “I”. It’s a mystery, but like awareness, it exists.

    But now I’m thinking about a science fiction future in which we have implants or whatever that act on our subconscious the way implants (under development) act on paralyzed or prosthetic limbs.

    What would it be like to be able to adjust our appetites, or to be able to modify our affection or desire for another person? Is this an infinite regress, or is it something that will seem normal and natural? It would certainly have legal implications.

  26. Bruce, in the other thread:

    Similarly, I personally don’t find it helpful to look for the single telling quotation to understand the nature of an author’s ideas on a complex topic.

    Come on, Bruce. You know perfectly well that I’m not basing my claim on a single quotation. The New York Times piece as a whole confirms my view, as does the Aeon essay.

    When Graziano goes out of his way to make a point, reiterates it, acknowledges the apparent paradox but reiterates his point again, just in case you didn’t get the message, I’m inclined to think that he means what he says.

    The fact that you or I don’t share his opinion is irrelevant. Let the man speak for himself.

    Later today I’ll show in greater detail, with quotes taken from throughout his article, that Graziano really does mean what he says when he denies the reality of subjective experience.

  27. My claim is that Graziano denies the reality of subjective experience, and Bruce disagrees.

    I started collecting supporting quotations from the Aeon essay and the New York Times article, but I was cutting and pasting so much that I was practically reproducing the two pieces here. That seemed senseless since you all can read them for yourselves:

    Aeon essay

    New York Times article

    So instead of copying and pasting a huge number of quotes in support of my position, I think a better approach is for Bruce (or anyone else who disagrees with me) to point to specific passages that they see as contradicting my claim. I’ll address them as they are brought to my attention.

  28. keiths:…instead of copying and pasting a huge number of quotes in support of my position, I think a better approach is for Bruce (or anyone else who disagrees with me) to point to specific passages that they see as contradicting my claim. I’ll address them as they are brought to my attention.

    It might be helpful for you to put a statement of your claim in a separate comment, so it is clear to everyone else what the precise claim (your position) is.

  29. Here is a piece by Professor Graziano in the Huffington post, following up on reaction to his article in Aeon.

  30. Alan,

    Did you see that? Under ‘Recent Comments’ on the front page, there was a comment listed from an ‘M Graziano’. When I clicked on it, it took me to this thread but to no particular comment.

    I thought maybe his (assuming it’s Michael Graziano’s) comment might be stuck in the moderation queue, but I checked the Dashboard and there are no comments listed as pending. Then when I returned to the front page, the M Graziano comment link was gone.

    Do you know what happened? Can you check to see if an M Graziano just registered?

  31. keiths: Let the man speak for himself.

    I agree. So I emailed Professor Graziano, letting him know about the discussion here. Let’s hope he can find time between doing science, writing novels, composing and playing music, for a quick response!

  32. keiths,

    Sorry to cause unnecessary excitement. In the vain hope Professor Graziano does decide to comment here, when I emailed him I set up an account for him, passed on login details and posted a test comment so any comment he did decide to make would not be held in moderation.

  33. Continuing to read Consciousness and the Social Brain, I get the impression Graziano is dismissing the “hard problem” of consciousness and being optimistic that there is a physical explanation for what makes us us and not dismissing “consciousness” itself. Sure he thinks there are woolly definitions, many religiously skewed. A bit like not needing a definition of “life” to study aspects of biology.

  34. Alan,

    It might be helpful for you to put a statement of your claim in a separate comment, so it is clear to everyone else what the precise claim (your position) is.

    Okay. My claim is that Graziano really means it when he says this…

    How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn’t. The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong.

    …and this:

    You might object that this is a paradox. If awareness is an erroneous impression, isn’t it still an impression? And isn’t an impression a form of awareness?

    But the argument here is that there is no subjective impression; there is only information in a data-processing device.

    When he says “there is no subjective impression; there is only information in a data-processing device”, he means it. He is denying the reality of subjective experience.

    Here’s more confirmation:

    It [the brain] also computes information about the self and about a (physically incoherent) property of subjective experience. The brain’s cognitive machinery accesses that interlinked information and derives several conclusions: There is a self, a me; there is a red thing nearby; there is such a thing as subjective experience; and I have an experience of that red thing. Cognition is captive to those internal models. Such a brain would inescapably conclude it has subjective experience.

    Graziano is saying that the brain concludes that it has subjective experience, and that it is wrong about that.

  35. Alan,

    Continuing to read Consciousness and the Social Brain, I get the impression Graziano is dismissing the “hard problem” of consciousness…

    Yes. This is from the Aeon essay:

    In the computer age, it is not hard to imagine how a computing machine might construct, store and spit out the information that ‘I am alive, I am a person, I have memories, the wind is cold, the grass is green,’ and so on. But how does a brain become aware of those propositions? The philosopher David Chalmers has claimed that the first question, how a brain computes information about itself and the surrounding world, is the ‘easy’ problem of consciousness. The second question, how a brain becomes aware of all that computed stuff, is the ‘hard’ problem.

    I believe that the easy and the hard problems have gotten switched around. The sheer scale and complexity of the brain’s vast computations makes the easy problem monumentally hard to figure out. How the brain attributes the property of awareness to itself is, by contrast, much easier.

  36. keiths:

    So instead of copying and pasting a huge number of quotes in support of my position, I think a better approach is for Bruce (or anyone else who disagrees with me) to point to specific passages that they see as contradicting my claim.I’ll address them as they are brought to my attention.

    Keith:

    I’m not interested in quote collection per se. For one thing, it can degenerate into quote mining ( I am NOT accusing you of that here!). But more importantly, I think one can only truly understand something when one can paraphrase it without extensive quotations. So I try to do posts where there is much more of my text and much less quotes.

    My first post in this thread was an attempt to do this.

    I agree with you the he is denying subjective experience, but I add the proviso that he is denying it is the thing that ordinary people take it to be, namely something “magical” or “ethereal”. He knows that goes against what most people think, and so that is why he uses strong language like “myth” or “illusion” in his popular posts. The Huffington link on reactions to hie Aeon article that Alan provided can be read, I think, partly as attempt to clarify what his target is and why he uses strong language.

    But yet in the book he still writes a whole chapter to try to explain why we have vivid internal experiences (he says: “when you at a green apple, you experience a vivid experience of green”). Why would he write that if he did not think there was something to explain?

    If you want to get away from the popularizations, his original paper and his reply to his critics are on his publications page (the 2011 stuff with Kastner). I have not read it yet, but a quick pdf search did not turn up any of “magic”, “myth”, “illusion” which I take as support from my contention that these are words for popularizations. He does devote a section of the paper to “Challenge 1: How Can the Inner ‘Feeling’ of Awareness Be Explained”.

    So I agree he is denying the existence of subjective experience in any dualist sense. I frankly take that as a given starting point for a scientist (possibly I am committing a “No True Scotsman fallacy” however – eg Sheldrake).*

    But he is not denying that we have subjective feelings; rather he is explaining them as information processing in the brain of a specific type. His contribution is to provide a some initial ideas on a specific model of what that information processing is.

    In the book, he does look at other neuroscientists theories of consciousness (eg Integrated Information). But I saw no detailed discussion of philosophical issues, like type versus token supervenience, or the Dennett-type of deflation of philosophers’ concepts of qualia. These types of discussions tend to be more about what it means to be real in the sense of having causal powers. So if you are looking for that, I could not find it in the book.

    ———————-
    * Note: This is the obligatory BruceS joke for this post*.

  37. Alan Fox:

    Sorry to cause unnecessary excitement. In the vain hope Professor Graziano does decide to comment here, when I emailed him I set up an account for him, passed on login details and posted a test comment so any comment he did decide to make would not be held in moderation.

    It would be great if he were willing to stick around for a couple of days to respond to questions. We shall see.

    Even better would be if he wanted to replace Dr Liddle as neuroscientist-in-residence at TSZ. But I suspect that would be too much like his day job (which, come to think of it, might also be one reason why Dr L. prefers the lighter banter at other forums).

    Are you going to say more about your thoughts on the picture? Of course, if Dr G shows up, we can just ask him. But still I think it is helpful to write one’s thoughts down first. It is like essay questions versus multiple choice questions.

  38. BruceS: It would be great if he were willing to stick around for a couple of days to respond to questions. We shall see.

    I’ve been surprised in the past at who found the time to respond to my emails. Richard Lenski and Jack Szostaz are among those who responded helpfully to queries.

    Even better would be if he wanted to replace Dr Liddle as neuroscientist-in-residence at TSZ. But I suspect that would be too much like his day job (which, come to think of it, might also be one reason why Dr L. prefers the lighter banter at other forums).

    Are you going to say more about your thoughts on the picture? Of course, if Dr G shows up, we can just ask him. But still I think it is helpful to write one’s thoughts down first. It is like essay questions versus multiple choice questions.

    I did look for your previous comment again but seem to be confused about the location. I’m still working through the book. I don’t have a kindle reader so I’m using my smartphone and desktop as opportunities arise. The trouble is I keep losing the thread! I’m not seeing anything to disagree with in any of your comments on Graziano. I think he suggests the “hard problem” is illusory and there may indeed be a physical explanation of consciousness – at least as he regards consciousness. Just quickly glancing on kindle page 18* he says “how can we solve the hard problem? The answer may be that there is no hard problem.”

    I sent Lizzie a headsup as I thought Graziano’s ideas may interest her enough to reappear. So we have more than one thing to look forward to.

    * Not worked out yet how the page numbers work on the phone display so this might be approximate!

  39. BruceS:
    Alan Fox,

    As I read the chapter around the diagram you reproduce, Graziano is limiting the scope of his book to discuss simply awareness as (what he claims is) a common factor in all first person experience.He is excluding the contents of awareness and how that contents causes individual experiences to differ.

    No wonder I didn’t find your comment. I didn’t think to look in this thread! Exactly as I see it. He’s saying “consciousness” is a messy concept at best and he works with “awareness” and “attention” as sub-domains of consciousness.

    That is, he is talking about what is in common between the experience of blue sky, the experience of back pain, and the experience of “bringing to mind” someone’s name when you see his or her face.But he is not talking about the differences in the three.

    Yes, I got that too. Awareness plus the information about what one is aware of equals consciousness.

    So in the diagram, the first bubble “awareness” is the scope of the book.The second bubble “the information of which one is aware” is outside the scope, although he does not deny corresponding individualized experience exists.

    I think he is just concentrating on the awareness as the object of awareness – that particular information – is treated (in his view) in a similar way no matter what. Simplification caveat here!

    I am unable to determine why the consciousness bubble is bigger than those two together.Is there some other aspect to consciousnesss that he mentions that is not in those two?

    Judging by the quality of some of the other diagrams, I wouldn’t read any significance into it.

    How do you read him?

    Slowly. It requires effort.

    ETA bolded text (phew)

  40. Didn’t expect such a prompt response!

    Alan,
    I will definitely give a try at getting on your site. I hope I have time in the next day or two; you’ll have to be patient!

    Here’s a preliminary reply which you are welcome to post, or anything else you wish:

    I’m always leery of the word “consciousness.” This hesitation comes from the ambiguity of the word itself. It’s a linguistic concern. The word has so many definitions that it can impede communication. Different people have radically different notions of what I’m talking about when I use that word. Many (but by no means all) people use “consciousness” and “awareness” synonymously. But “awareness” is a better word for me because it has fewer meanings. It’s clear that there is a person (or other entity) X, there is a thing Y, and X is aware of Y, in the sense of having a mental possession of, or a subjective experience, of, Y. Whatever you call that, awareness or consciousness, this is what I am working on.

    There is an entirely separate question: does awareness even exist? My answer in my book is that it’s like the delusional guy who thought he had a squirrel in his head. There is no squirrel. Not literally anyway. I suppose the squirrel exists in a sense, but only as information in that man’s brain. He is certain he has a squirrel because his brain has computed that informational self model and attached a high degree of certainty to it. We can understand how his brain makes those computations, but it is nonsensical to ask how his brain produces an actual squirrel. If you replace the word “squirrel” with the word “awareness” in the previous sentences in this paragraph, you’ve got one of the main points I’m trying to make. I tried to make this point both in my book and the NYT article.
    If there seems to be a difference of opinion between the book and the recent NYT article, I recommend going with the book. An 800 word, heavily-edited Times article will always be a little reductive. But I thought I did a pretty good job of getting across the main points, in a very stripped down way.

    I hope this helps to clarify!

    Michael Graziano

  41. In case anyone wonders if I asked loaded questions, this is my email to Professor Graziano:

    Hi Professor Graziano

    Excuse this email out of the blue from a random fellow human. I’m reading (and enjoying!) Consciousness and the Social Brain at the moment because your attention schema theory has come up on “The Skeptical Zone”, a website I help run (Dr. Elizabeth Liddle, a British neuroscientist, set it up to encourage dialogue across disciplines and ideologies).

    On first impressions, though you use “consciousness” freely in the book, you seem to find the concept vague and unhelpful and focus on “awareness” as a more definable workable idea. Other commenters in the discussion go further and suggest that you dismiss consciousness as a coherent concept altogether. Does your recent article in Sunday Review indicate a hardening of attitude against consciousness? I’m wondering if you could find time for a brief comment as it would be much appreciated. Would you be happy for me to publish any response you might make in email on the site? Otherwise it would be wonderful to have a “Marshall McLuhan” moment. (The Woodie Allen movie where he produces McLluhan to correct the misrepresentation of some guy in a cinema queue).

    Again, apologies for taking up your time and in the fond hope of hearing from you
    Cordially
    Alan Fox

    [Details about registration snipped.]

  42. Recalling fellow commenter, Kantian Naturalist, had recommended the work of another psychologist, Michael Tomasello, I am struck by some coincidences between Graziano and Tomasello.

    Both US-born and trained psychologists, both worked/working with primates, both have first name “Michael”, both have Italian surname! How spooky is that?

    @ Professor Graziano,

    Seriously, I note there are a couple of references to Tomasello’s papers in your book and you mention his work on cognition in chimps. According to the Wikipedia entry “Tomasello explains how humans have developed unique cognitive abilities by proposing the cultural intelligence hypothesis, which states that humans develop these unique abilities because they are able to use social-cognitive skills to exchange knowledge in cultural groups.”

    How does your theory dovetail with or build on Tomasello’s work, if at all?

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