Whatever you think, it is not a fact that these are your thoughts: the English scientist, philosopher and writer Keith Frankish tells how the problem of consciousness in psychology and philosophy is being solved today, why we are mistaken about our own beliefs and whether we can even be held responsible for our decisions, if our ideas about our own thoughts and actions are the product of self-interpretation and are often wrong.
Do you think racial stereotypes are false? Are you sure? I am not asking if stereotypes are really false, I am asking if you are sure or not that you are sure. This question may sound strange. We all know what we think, right?
Most philosophers dealing with the problem of consciousness would agree, believing that we have privileged access to our own thoughts, which are largely immune to error. Some argue that we have an “inner feeling” that controls consciousness in the same way that outer senses control the world. However, there are exceptions. The mid-20th century behavioral philosopher Gilbert Ryle believed that we learn about our own consciousness not from our inner feelings, but by observing our own behavior - and that our friends might know our consciousness better than ourselves (Hence the joke: two behaviorists have just had sex, then one turns to the other and says: "You were very good, honey. How about me?"). And modern philosopher Peter Carruthers offers a similar point of view (albeit on different grounds), arguing that our ideas about our own thoughts and decisions are the product of self-interpretation and are often wrong.
Evidence of this can be found in experimental work on social psychology. It is well known that people sometimes think they have beliefs that they don't really have. For example, when presented with a choice between several of the same items, people tend to choose the one on the right. But when a person is asked why he chose this, he begins to invent reasons, claiming that, as he thought, this item had a nicer color or it was of better quality. Likewise, if a person performs an action in response to a previous (and now forgotten) suggestion, he will compose a reason for doing it. It seems that the subjects are participating in unconscious self-interpretation. They have no real explanation for their actions (choosing the right side, suggestion),so they deduce some probable cause and attribute it to themselves. They do not know that they are interpreting, but they explain their behavior as if they are really aware of its causes.
Other studies support this explanation. For example, if people are instructed to nod their heads while listening to a tape (as told to test headphones), they show more agreement with what they hear than if they were asked to shake their heads from side to side. And if they are asked to choose one of two items that they previously rated as equally desirable, they subsequently say that they prefer the one that they chose. Again, they seem to subconsciously interpret their own behavior, mistaking their nodding as an indicator of agreement and their choices as an revealed preference.
Based on this evidence, Carruthers makes a strong case for an interpretive view of self-awareness, as outlined in his book Blurred Minds (2011). It all starts with the assertion that humans (and other primates) have a special mental subsystem for understanding the thoughts of other people, which, based on observations of human behavior, quickly and unconsciously generates knowledge about what others think and feel (data for such a “reading consciousness' systems have a variety of sources, including the rate at which babies develop an understanding of the people around them). Carruthers argues that this same system is responsible for knowing about our own consciousness. People do not develop a second, “mind-reading” system that looks inward (inner feeling); rather, they develop self-knowledge by guiding the system,looking out, at herself. And since the system is directed outward, it only has access to sensory channels and must draw its conclusions based solely on them.
The reason we know our own thoughts better than the thoughts of others is simply because we have more sensory data that we can use - not only the perception of our own speech and behavior, but also our emotional reactions, bodily feelings (pain, position of limbs, etc.), as well as a rich variety of mental images, including a steady stream of internal speech (there is strong evidence that mental images are connected to the same brain mechanisms as perception and are processed like it) … Carruthers calls this the Interpretive Sensory-Access (ISA) theory (ISA), and he confidently cites a huge body of experimental evidence to support it.
The ISA theory has several striking implications. One of them is that (with some exceptions) we have no conscious thoughts and we do not make conscious decisions. For, if they were, we would know about them directly, and not as a result of interpretation. The conscious events we experience are varieties of sensory states, and what we think of as conscious thoughts and decisions are actually sensory images - specifically, episodes of inner speech. These images can express thoughts, but they need interpretation.
Promotional video:
Another consequence is that we may be genuinely mistaken about our own beliefs. Back to my question about racial stereotypes. I think you said that you thought they were false. But if the ISA theory is correct, you cannot be sure that you think so. Research shows that people who honestly say that racial stereotypes are false often continue to behave as if they are true when they don't pay attention to what they are doing. This behavior is usually characterized as a manifestation of a latent disposition that conflicts with the person's explicit beliefs. But ISA theory offers a simpler explanation. People think that stereotypes are true, but they are also convinced that admitting it is unacceptable, and therefore talk about their falsity. Moreover, in their inner speech, they say this to themselves and mistakenly interpret it as their belief. They are hypocrites, but not conscious hypocrites. Maybe we all are.
If all our thoughts and decisions are unconscious, as the ISA theory suggests, then moral philosophers have a lot of work to do. For we tend to think that people cannot be held responsible for their unconscious position. Accepting the ISA theory cannot mean a disclaimer, but it will mean a radical rethinking of the concept.
