Analyzing Mental Demonstratives

Analyzing Mental DemonstrativesAuthor(s): Greg JarrettSource: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the AnalyticTradition, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Oct., 1996), pp. 49-62Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4320705 .

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GREG JARRETT

ANALYZING MENTAL DEMONSTRATIVES

(Received in revised form 1 1 July 1995)

PHENOMENAL CONCEPTS

I want to consider the implications of a certain view of phenomenal concepts which has achieved considerable success.' This is the view that such concepts are essentially demonstrative in nature; that pain is any state which feels like that. I, like, you, have a brute capacity to recognize various sensory experiences, such as pain, simply in the having of them. Given that I have such a recognition capacity, I can adopt a first-person concept of pain as that kind of state. This is a type-demonstrative or recognitional concept, which refers to the kind of sensory event to which I respond. This is not a vacuous sort of mental pointing, since a type-demonstrative presupposes a successful re-identification of some repeatable event; it is substantive and capable of being misapplied.

The reference of the concept, we presume, is some state or property of the brain, but the content of the concept will be irreducible to the content of external, third-person descriptions of brain states. My idea of pain may be conceptually simple, and yet be formed in response to a complex neurological event. By analogy, think of a small child's ability to recognize a face, even when she may have no concepts corresponding to the various features facilitating the recognition, such a the space between the nose and the upper lip, the wrinkles in the forehead, etc. Her idea of thatface may be conceptually simple ("daddy"), and yet be based on a complex recognitional ability. Let us reify this capacity and say that I have an internal pain-detector Pain, then, is just that state which my pain-detector detects.

In addition to directly capturing the intuitive phenomena, Brian Loar has argued that this sort of analysis of phenomenal concepts

Philosophical Studies 84: 49-62, 1996. ? 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.



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delivers a unified response to a number of traditional puzzles about qualia and physicalism. Given the demonstrative analysis, we can assume that the concept refers to some physical state, without assuming that the concept is, or is reducible to, some physical concept. Is it conceivable that there could be conscious states without the corresponding brain states, and vice versa? Sure, but this only shows conceptual possibility, or lack of conceptual connection. Nothing follows about the metaphysical distinctness of the properties picked out by these concepts. Would black-and-white Mary (who knows all physical facts) learn some new fact when she first sees a ripe tomato? Well, yes and no. She would learn a new concept about red-sensations (that they feel like that), and so she could form a new thought about such states, but she would not have learned about some previously unknown state of affairs. Could a completed neuro- science successfully explain or predict what it is like to be a bat? Well, ideally such a science would leave no relevant fact unpre- dicted. But in absence of an accepted identity theory, it could not entail any propositions couched in terms of our first-person concepts about such facts.2 For a complete account of this line of argument, see Loar ( 1 990).

Suppose we accept this sort of account of phenomenal concepts as being essentially demonstrative in nature. Any further analysis may seem pointless, since demonstratives by nature have very little artic- ulable content to analyze. We may have many strong beliefs about sensory states - even about their essential natures - but these beliefs are independent of the causal facts which determine the reference. Pain is just that state to which my (properly functioning) pain- detector responds. Just what that is, we should expect, is a matter which must be deferred to the appropriate authorities in the brain- science. Given this, why should we continue to take seriously our introspective discriminations, gut intuitions, and a priori thought- experiments about such properties? In short, should we think there is any further role for philosophy in advancing our understanding of sensory consciousness, or should we resign ourselves to a quiet agnosticism?

While a certain amount of agnosticism is warranted, I still think that there is both a need for a priori analysis, and that there is reason to take it seriously. There is a need because if philosophers must be



ANALYZING MENTAL DEMONSTRATIVES 51

agnostic, then so too must the scientists. No amount of brain-science alone will be able to answer the question of what phenomenal properties really are. The functionalist and the type-materialist hypotheses are (supposedly) neutral with regard to the empirical facts about brains. So even given widespread agreement about the 'location' of the relevant sensory events, to treat this question as a matter of empirical discovery is a non-starter. Suppose that I point to this thing (a wooden chair) and I ask a physicist to describe its true nature, such that I will be able to classify other objects in the world as being one of those. In particular I want to know whether it is essentially a piece of wood, or whether anything with that general shape will count. It is absurd to think that a detailed study of the microstructure alone will answer the question, since the question itself is indeterminate unless I get clearer on what I mean by that thing. In fact, it would be a matter of politeness even to feign agnosticism about this issue. My first point, then, is just that the demonstrative account itself generates a need for further conceptual analysis.

Further, I think there is reason to think that a priori analysis may be less than utterly hopeless in this field. The fact that our phenomenal concepts are essentially demonstrative, and that they cannot be analyzed into physical concepts, does not mean that they must resist analysis altogether. As shown by the example of the chair, any use of "that" must be constrained by other concepts (the user's intentions) in order to successfully pick out a kind. Arguably, our naive concept of water is just of that sort of stuff. In this case, we can successfully defer to empirical science to discover what water really is. We can do this because in this case it is part of the concept - part of our referential intention - that we mean to pick out a natural kind. How do we know that water is "really" a natural kind, and that it is not just any clear, flavorless ... liquid? We know because this is how we intend to use the concept, as is bom out in endless Twin-Earth thought experiments. Of course we also have functional concepts, and this is reflected in our tendency to agree that the residents of Twin-Earth would really have shoes, knives, and perhaps even water-skis.

My second point, then, is that any determinate demonstrative concept will be supported by background intentions which constrain the reference, and which should at least in principle be discoverable



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a priori. This suggests that the use of phenomenal demonstratives will be similarly constrained, since surely there is a fact of the matter as to whether phenomenal properties are natural or functional. At very least, we think there is a fact of the matter, and so it is fair to analyze what is involved in thinking this. I will give an analysis of sensory concepts in the next section - the current goal is just to explain, in advance, how such a project is even possible.

The reference of mental demonstratives will depend on how we intend to use them. Clearly, we intend to pick out that phenomenal type, but what does this mean? I will argue that it is part of the concept of a phenomenal state that it is something manifest to first- person recognition, and thus that the internal demonstrative is best understood (very roughly) as that introspectively salient property. Some simple thought-experiments will show how these concepts behave very differently from natural kind terms, and that they are best understood as picking out a functional kind. Discovering the functional essence of phenomenal states, however, will still be a matter deferred to empirical science.

THE ERSATZ PAIN HYPOTHESIS

Consider the following thought experiment: Suppose that all of the neurons in my pain-center (my c-fiber structure) were replaced with artificial neurons which exactly mimic the causality of the originals at the level of neurology. This does not mean that artificial neurons would have all the same causal properties as genuine neurons - for instance, they may look different under a microscope, or they may taste different when served on a cracker. What I mean is that each artificial neuron would support a highly similar set of counterfactual relations to other neurons (real or otherwise). We are to suppose that the remainder of my brain is left exactly the same, and that my ordinary cognitive faculties are left intact. Let us call this possibility a case of surrogate pain, where the term "surrogate" is meant to be neutral with regards to phenomenology. I don't know whether or not such a state is physically possible, but I will assume that the conceptual possibility of surrogate pain is straightforward. The interesting question is whether the surrogate would be genuinely painful, or if it might only be an ersatz pain, which lacks the char-




acteristic feel of the real thing. Let us call the following the ersatz pain hypothesis:

(EPH) It would be possible for my pain-center to be replaced by a surrogate which embodies qualitatively empty ('q-less') ersatz pains.

It is tempting to think that we could test whether a given surrogate is real or ersatz simply by plugging it into a subject, and asking her what it is like - or for a more "first-person" approach, you might prefer to plug it into your own brain. But in fact this is not an empirical issue. The surrogate pain, by hypothesis, has the very same neurological effects, and so it surely must have the same behavioral and psychological effects. My noticing the difference (saying, or even thinking, "Oh, that's just not the same") violates the assumption that the artificial neurons exactly reproduce the neurological effects of the originals (at least if we assume some minimally phys- icalist view). I don't mean to insist on a behavioral definition of "noticing" here. All I need is an intuitive idea of noticing, which is not epiphenomenal. I am supposing that the recognitional state (at least) supervenes on the neurological facts - and that this state is typically caused by pains. This means that the recognitional state can be described as a typical (complex) neurological effect of pain. So if our new state fails to produce a similar effect, then we know we have botched the job of constructing a proper surrogate. So it should be uncontroversial that the q-less replacement would not be noticeably different (through introspection). The only remaining question is whether this fact is compatible with there being a genuine phenomenological difference.

But surely one would notice if the characteristic phenomenal quality was missing from one's pain-states. This is not to deny that I might fail to notice the difference if it was of minuscule proportions, or if I was not paying attention at the time to my internal states. Nor do I need to deny that I could be drugged, or that my brain could be rewired in such a way that I could not tell a pain from a pole-cat. But surely if there was a genuine phenomenal difference between the cases, then there would in principle be some way for me to recognize this fact. I will defend the following discernability thesis:



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(DT) Any difference which I cannot in principle detect through introspection - when my introspective faculties are intact, and my inability to detect the difference is not due to the minuteness of the phenomenon, inattentiveness, memory failure, or any other defect in my actual internal detectors - cannot be a phenomenal difference.

If DT (or something like it) is true than EPH is false. This is because ersatz pain would have to be first-person indistinguishable from genuine pain if it is to play the same neurological role. DT seems obviously true, but it will be worth while making some comments in its defense.

THE DISCERNABILITY THESIS

While the idea behind DT may have strong intuitive pull, how would we know that this thesis is really true? And even if it were true in the actual world, why should we suppose anything about the reliability of our faculties in such science-fiction scenarios? Isn't this just metaphysical speculation, or perhaps wishful thinking?

No, this is just conceptual analysis. It would be astounding for a philosopher to attempt an a priori analysis of the chemistry of water, or to predict how this substance must behave in various science- fiction scenarios. However it is not at all astounding for her to argue that the stuff on twin-Earth wouldn't really be water. My project is of this latter sort. The claim is that it is part of the concept of a phenomenal property that we would be able to tell if it was missing (assuming that nothing is wrong with our faculties). It is not part of the concept that the state is of any particular material composition, nor even that it has any specific necessary psychological/behavioral role. But it is part of the concept that it is discernible in the way suggested. When I refer to that feeling, I intend to refer to that property which is phenomenologically salient in such a way that it would be fairly obvious if it were missing - to that, insofar as it is eminently recognizable. But this intuition may need to be brought out into the open.

Consider the following elaboration on the original thought- experiment. Suppose we have a button such that the experimenter can instantaneously switch back and forth between stimulations of




my surrogate pain center and the biological original, without my noticing any difference. Now suppose that the experimenter (who I believe to be completely sincere) tells me: "This is a genuine pain which is phenomenally salient, and then this is a fake one, which doesn't really feel like anything". In order for me to believe him, I would have to think that his use of "phenomenal" or "feeling" differs from mine, because I would use these terms to cover both case. To see this yet more vividly, suppose that the experimenter decides to go on a lunch break. It has taken considerable effort to set up the experiment, so he tells me that he has to leave me in one state or the other for the next hour. He is a considerate fellow, so he asks me which I prefer. But obviously I would not prefer one to the other. I tell him just take me out of this painful state. "Oh" he responds, "so you would prefer the surrogate." Here I would conclude that he is just missing the point. What I meant was that I would prefer not to be in that sort of state, whatever its realization. My referential intention is to pick out a kind of state of which both the surrogate and the original are instances. I think this point is extremely important: It is not that I amfooled into thinking the cases are identical - I know they are different, but I don't care about the difference because it is not salient in the recognizable character of the state. Thus I will intend to refer to both cases as thatfeeling in full knowledge of the material difference. Further, it is important that my referential intention here is no different than in the ordinary case, as when I currently think of that feeling. Thus the proper extension of my ordinary phenomenal concept is a functional kind.

This thesis needs to be discussed further, but before proceeding, I want to pause and consider why this argument - if it works - does not support functionalism as it is typically understood.

THE ABSENT QUALIA HYPOTHESIS

I have been arguing that EPH is false. If this is so, then type- materialism is untenable. But it is important to distinguish EPH from the familiar and related absent qualia hypothesis (AQH). AQH affirms the possibility of a creature (a 'blockhead') who is a non- conscious (q-less) functional duplicate of a normal human described at the psychological/behavioral level. Ordinary (psychological) func-



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tionalism needs to deny AQH as well as EPH. In my opinion, these propositions have not always been adequately distinguished in the literature.

There are several important differences between EPH and AQH. One difference is that AQH need not involve a case of a surrogate pain at all. Remember that a surrogate pain is a neurological duplicate. The blockhead may have a radically different basis underlying its psychology, so its pain-like state need not mimic any specific neurological effects. With EPH we are assuming that the rest of my brain is left intact, and so the surrogate must stimulate the same neural connections to the rest of my brain, including those involving verbal and avoidance-behavior, and more importantly, the fine- grained complex, which is discriminated by my internal pain- detector.

This brings up another key difference between AQH and EPH; that a world where I am a blockhead would be a world where I lack my actual pain-detector, so I should not be expected to recognize the difference if I were a blockhead. I should only have to notice the difference in cases where my difference-detecting faculties are intact [the fact that I would not recognize the difference if I were a poached egg, for example, does not violate the spirit of DT]. There is no reason to think that my actual detector would respond properly to the blockhead's state, so there is no reason to think he has genuine pain. In this way AQH does not violate DT. EPH, on the other hand, involves a fine-grained property which perfectly 'fits' the scrutiny of my actual pain-detector [as in Dennett's analogy of the fit between two halves of a torn Jello-box]. So an EPH-world would be a world where my actual introspective faculties are intact and (intrinsically) in perfect working order - and still I would not be able to notice the difference.

Finally, there is an important difference insofar as EPH involves a case where the subject is in a position to make normal intermodal comparisons, inspecting the surrogate pain along side other uncon- troversially genuine sensory states - after all, we should assume that the subject's normal capacity to experience colors and sweets is unimpaired. The subject then should have some basis for judging whether or not the surrogate state ought to be classified in the family of sensations. On the other hand, the blockhead by hypothesis has no




genuine experiences at all, and so (at best) could only compare his pain-state with other non-conscious states. Thus there is no authority in his disposition to classify his pain as 'real'.

For these reasons, if my argument works it cannot be extended as a defense of psychological functionalism. It is coherent to affirm AQH while denying EPH. This doesn't show that psychological functionalism is false - just that it is not a conceptual truth.3

If it is indeed the case that EPH (but not AQH) is conceptually false, then we have non-speculative a priori grounds for rejecting the material identity theory. But we do not thereby have grounds for adopting the notoriously counterintuitive psychological versions of functionalism. The most my argument can establish is that any state which plays the neurological role of pain, is pain in the fullest sense. The safest or most conservative view which is compatible with the discernability thesis will say that sensory types are determined by their neurofunctional roles. I endorse such a view, which I will label "neurofunctionalism".4

ASSESSING THE ARGUMENT

Now back to the argument against the possibility of ersatz pain, which went like this:

1. Suppose EPH - i.e., suppose that I could have a q-less surrogate pain even when the rest of my brain is left intact.

2. If so, then there would be in principle no way for me to tell the difference on the basis of introspection.

3. But if my pain-like state was q-less, then I would be able to tell the difference, given that my basic powers of dis- crimination are still intact (DT).

4. Thus the supposition (EPH) is false.

The first premise is just the supposition that my position is false. It does require the conceptual possibility of surrogate pain, but this seems straightforward. The second premise might appear to be loaded, but its denial goes against the supposition that we have a case of surrogate pain, which by hypothesis plays the same neurological role as normal pain - I assume here that it is absurd to suppose that



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two states could have identical neurological effects in my brain, yet I respond to them differently.

So it seems that the only premise which can realistically be challenged is (3). I see two ways to challenge this premise. One might deny DT. Alternatively, one might accept DT and deny the supposition that the subject's introspective faculties would be intact. I will take these points in order.

Even if DT is conceded to be an important ingredient of phenomenal concepts, isn't it still possible that in reality the surrogate would be q-less in the metaphysically interesting sense? Why should we suppose that the content of the concept guarantees the reliability of the corresponding faculties? Isn't it possible that I would be mistaken in thinking that the states are relevantly similar?

Of course it is possible to be mistaken. My position is not that there is no interesting distinction between how p feels to S, and how S judges p to feel. DT is filled with sufficient caveats to allow for these facts to come apart in a number of legitimate ways. Rather the position is that when we use phenomenal concepts we intend to refer to something which could be discerned from an imposter.

In rejecting EPH I am not denying any imaginable or conceivable propositions. Can you imagine having an ersatz pain? Put yourself in the above described experiment. Imagine being in one state, then the (q-less) other. Did you imagine the cases differently? If so, then you got it wrong, for you were supposed to imagine a case where you don't recognize the difference. To properly itnagine the case, one might imagine comparing the biological and the surrogate cases side by side such that (a) there is a genuine, salient, phenomenological difference, and yet such that (b) this difference is not manifest to the first-person point of view. I can't do this, and I don't think this is merely a shortcoming of my imaginative faculties, since I can imagine a case satisfying each condition (a) and (b) separately; I just can't imagine a case which satisfies both. The best I can do is to imagine that there is a real difference, and then instantaneously forgetting the previous case; or I can imagine recognizing the difference, yet being unable to report this fact because I am somehow a captive of my mechanistic brain-processes which continue to issue utterances of "it's just the same". But clearly in either of these sce-




narios I am not imagining a case where my normal faculties are intact.

Now we need not take the failure of imagination as infallible evidence for impossibility. But my opponent needs some reason to think ersatz pain is possible. And it's hard to see just what this reason could be, if not the imaginability of the case. However, even if the case is not strictly imaginable, it still may seem to be a conceptual or logical possibility - i.e., the thought may be coherent.

The thought isn't coherent, but it is easily confused with the following thought which is perfectly coherent: that pain is not a neurofunctional state (or more generally, that phenomenal states are not identical to neurofunctional states). This thought is coherent, but not strictly relevant to the conceivability to ersatz pain. The thought is coherent because it is not a conceptual truth that pain admits of a neurological description, much less that it plays such-and-such particular neurological role. I have not argued that phenomenal concepts are equivalent to neurofunctional concepts. Obviously, one will never discover the concept of a neuron contained in the first- person concept of pain, nor will one discover any information about the complex organizational structures of neurons. So in defending neurofunctionalism, I am making a number of empirical assumptions about human brains which can coherently be doubted. And even if we accept these assumption as beyond question, still there will not be a strict meaning equivalence between "pain" and the appropriate neurofunctional description. For this reason there will always be an appearance of contingency.

The relevant question is whether we can conceive of the possibility when we form the thought as a first-person demonstrative; that this state (in the presence of a suitable surrogate) does not feel like pain. I claim that this thought cannot be coherently formed without abandoning the intuitively interesting conception of phenomenal similarity.

INTROSPECTION AND INTACTNESS

My argument presupposes a particular model of introspection, wherein it is assumed that the act of introspection is "extrasensational" or wholly distinct from the property introspected - and this model can be called into question. Perhaps the right model for intro-



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spection, in the 'deep' sense, involves an activity which includes the sensuous quality itself, under the state of recognition. If so, then the appeal of DT is illicit, since it assumes that I would still be capable of introspection.

Another way to form this objection is to challenge the assumption that my introspective faculties would be intact. I assumed this because the rest of my brain would be just as it was before. But this only guarantees that my extrasensational faculties would be in order. If the capacity to introspect my pain is not wholly distinct from my capacity to be in pain, then it begs the question to assume that such faculties are (completely) intact. Here is yet another way to express what is much the same objection: My capacity to recognize pain cannot be individuated independently of the property it detects. If so, then it begs the question to assume that I would still have a pain- rather than an ersatz-pain detector. Of course all of these models are perfectly compatible with the truth of neurofunctionalism, but the question is whether I can just assume in advance that I would still have the same recognitional faculties, and that they would be in proper working order.

This sort of objection merely relocates the absurdity of EPH. The suggestion is now that it would be impossible in principle for the subject to recognize whether or not her current state is genuinely introspectable - even when the cases can be compared side-by-side, and even when they can be intermodally compared with other types of (genuine) conscious states, such as colors and sounds. Surely in such a case, the subject would be in an authoritative position to make the call.

Of course, it is common nowadays to challenge the often exag- gerated appeals to first-person authority concerning one's conscious states. I would be willing to abandon my convictions about authority on this point if, and to the extent that, this is an empirical issue. To the extent that one's judgments have genuine empirical content, it will always be possible to be mistaken. I do not suppose that the subject is an expert on the empirical issue of whether her faculties are functioning normally. But the question of whether functionally identical faculties are to be counted as relevantly similar is, ulti- mately, not an empirical issue. Given this, I do not see where the




subject could go wrong in judging that the surrogate pain is fully accessible to introspection. In what fact would she be mistaken?

It might be tempting to suppose there is some property - a phenomenal property - which accompanies the biological, but not the surrogate case. If so, then it makes sense to say that I am mistaken in my judgment, and we can coherently deny that I am the ultimate authority on the issue. But this is metaphysical dualism.' If we deny this possibility then it is senseless to think that any contingent facts are being disputed here, any more than in Twin-Earth cases. The only issue is how our concepts carve up the existing facts. And since every informed and competent user would be disposed to classify functionally similar cases as phenomenally similar - even in full knowledge of the material difference - then we agree about all the conceptual facts as well as the physical facts. And beyond these facts there is simply no logical space for controversy.

NOTES

1I would like to thank Janet Levin and Brian Loar for their indispensable contri- butions in discussing this paper, and in making it possible. 2 But even if the concepts co-refer, mustn't they do this via distinct modes ofpre- sentation, hence via distinct properties of the referent? If modes of presentation are psychological or linguistic entities, wholly distinct from the referent, then no realist could accept as a necessary truth that distinct modes entail distinct properties - even if it turns out that as a matter of fact the cases are highly correlated. On the other hand, if modes of presentation are properties of the referent itself, then it begs the question to assume that we have distinct modes. 3 I believe that Sidney Shoemaker (1975) was the first to attempt an a priori connection between first-person access and functional role. The present paper owes considerable influence to this work. However taken as a defense of psychological- role functionalism, I think Shoemaker's attempt fails (for reasons discussed elsewhere). 4 The name "neurofunctionalism" was suggested by Brian Loar, who directed my attention to a similar position defended by Tom Cuda (1985). 5 Dualism would allow that there is some independent fact as to how the state feels. Unfortunately, it requires thinking of the phenomenal quality as playing no role in first-person recognition - even in the ordinary case - and this is equally absurd.



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REFERENCES

Cuda, T.: 1985. "Against Neural Chauvinism",Philosophical Studies, 48, pp. 11 1- 128.

Dennett, D.: 1988. "Quining Qualia" in Marcel, A. and Bisiach, E., eds., Consciousness in Contemporary Science. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 42-77.

Loar, B.: 1990. "Phenomenal States", in Tomberlin, J.E., ed., Philosophical Perspectives 4; Action Theory and Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Bradford Books, MIT, pp. 81-108.

Shoemaker, S.: 1975, "Functionalism and Qualia", Philosophical Studies, 27, pp. 291-315.

School of Philosophy University of Southern California Los Angeles CA 90089 USA



Analyzing Mental Demonstratives

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