The paradoxicality of consciousness: a sketch of a theory

Abstract

That consciousness seems to be paradoxical is not only widely agreed on but also the driver behind research into consciousness. Theorists aim to explain away the paradox, typically by invoking neurological and/or conceptual considerations that allegedly show how a non-paradoxical process either (i) gives rise to the appearance of paradoxicality or, worse, (ii) has unfoundedly been construed as paradoxical. One strategy that has not been pursued is to construe consciousness as arising from a process which is itself paradoxical. Given how long the seeming paradoxicality of consciousness has endured as an explanandum, such a strategy counts as an inference to the best explanation – one that can be bolstered further by a proper clarification of the difference between a paradox and a contradiction, and by an argument to the effect that if consciousness is a paradox that requires an explanation, then consciousness requires an explanation that is paradoxical.

Keywords:

• consciousness
• paradox
• realism
• idealism

Notes

1. This has an interesting corollary: inverted spectra arguments are rendered null. Insofar as phenomenal consciousness exists beyond our conceptualisations of it, it billows into reality, in which case green is green, and red is red, whenever anyone is conscious of green or red things. Contraspectivism has many more interesting consequences for the problem of other minds: for instance, the notion of an antinomial identity suggests that there can be no criterion for discerning whether another person or machine is conscious, but such that this lack of a criterion is a straightforward doctrinal implication rather than a source of epistemic despair. I do not have space to go into any of these issues here.