Temporal Boundaries of Simple Experiences

I. Introduction

A methodology that I believe has some chance of providing us with a better understanding of the nature of consciousness - or of how it could be that consciousness does not exist, if the eliminativists are right - is one in which we study our conception or picture of consciousness. Specifically, I am referring to our conception or picture of phenomenal consciousness - what one has in mind who, e.g., "gets" the mind-body problem, understands the inverted spectrum or absent qualia examples, or Nagel's phrase that it is like something to be conscious, and so on. Such individuals, arguably, are thinking about consciousness in a more or less similar way, exploiting a similar conception or picture, similar conceptual structures. Studying such a conception should be, to a reasonable degree at least, just like studying any other conception in cognitive science. And, as with other conceptions, the effort can be a multidisciplinary one, one to which philosophers can contribute. As I said, I think following this route might lead to progress in our understanding of consciousness itself; but even if it does not, characterizing our conception of phenomenal consciousness has importance at least as a piece of psychology. In any event, it is how I am inclined to pursue the study of consciousness these days. This talk describes a small study within that broader project.

In another paper (1) I have argued that our conception of phenomenal consciousness commits us to the idea that there are simple components or elements that in some sense make up our complex phenomenal experience. Actually, it commits us to holding that either there are simples or that our complex phenomenal experience is such that - roughly put - analysis will always continue ad infinitum, no matter how a complex phenomenal experience gets carved up. The view that there are simples has enough problems - as any scan of the history of thought about the mind will reveal - but the alternative is worse: it is not the least bit plausible, even prima facie, that analysis of phenomenal experience would always continue ad infinitum into ever finer-grained phenomenal elements; and there is not the slightest reason for thinking that the thesis is true. On the other hand, the idea that there are simples has various points in its favor, mainly based on evidence from introspection. So, in short, simples come out the winner. (To repeat, I have argued for this elsewhere, and will not be going over the arguments here.)

So I think our picture of phenomenal consciousness commits us to there being simple phenomenal elements, or simple phenomenal experiences. What I would like to do in this talk is, first, provide a bit more of a sense of what I mean by "simple phenomenal experiences"; and then argue (superficially, I am afraid, given the time constraints) that the temporal boundaries of such simples must be conceived as instantaneous (or at least "maximally sharp", depending on what gets said about the microstructure of time, e.g., about whether there are instants or not; but I shall be ignoring those issues in what follows). Now to the extent that these conclusions about our conception or picture of phenomenal consciousness are taken to correspond to the way consciousness really is, a number of interesting metaphysical conclusions about consciousness follow. In particular, it will follow that any accounts that identify or even temporally correlate phenomenal experiences with neurophysiological events will be mistaken, because the temporal boundaries of neurophysiological events do not appear to be instantaneous. Identity theorists, or dualists who want to temporally correlate, will thus have to seek physical events with sharper temporal boundaries, perhaps at the level of elementary physics. I shall not consider these possible metaphysical conclusions in any detail, but instead will just try to show how our conception of phenomenal consciousness, on the assumption that it is committed to simples, must also be committed to such simples having maximally sharp temporal boundaries.

II. Conceiving Simple Phenomenal Experiences

So what do I mean by a 'simple phenomenal experience'? Let us start with James's image of a stream of consciousness. The total contents of an individual's stream of consciousness at a time t we can take to be "what it is like to be the individual" at t. That could include phenomenal features from the various sensory modalities, phenomenal distinctions within such modalities, as well as whatever other phenomenal kinds there may be (e.g., corresponding to different types of intentional states, if such states have characteristic phenomenal features, or of Jamesian "fringe" experiences, and so on.).

Now the contents of streams of consciousness change and develop through time: at t the phenomenal contents will be one way, and at times later that t the contents will have changed to something else. I think the best way to think about simple phenomenal experiences is to first focus on the contents of a stream of consciousness at a particular point in time - the contents of a time-slice of the stream, if you like. The various phenomenally distinct elements in an individual's stream of consciousness at a time t I shall speak of as phenomenal contents, or phenomenal distinctions, in the slice, at t. (I realize this way of talking might "trouble" some of you, but I ask you to please bear with me.) What we need to do is get some idea of what a simple phenomenal content in a time-slice of a stream of consciousness would be, and then imagine that simple phenomenal content temporally extended through some interval. That, in essence, will be what I mean by a simple phenomenal experience.

Suppose we are omniscient beings discussing the phenomenal contents in a time-slice of someone else's stream of consciousness. If phenomenal experience is continuous through at least some temporal intervals, if it ever fills time - which intuitively it seems to - then during such intervals - again, intuitively - there will be facts about what phenomenal contents are realized at points in time within such intervals. Since we are omniscient, we know what those facts are, and can discuss them. (That does not mean - it is important to point out - that the individual whose experiential time-slice we are discussing could access, through introspection say, the contents of time-slices of his or her own stream of consciousness. And, granted, that appears to leave open the bizarre possibility of there being features of an individual's experience of which that very individual is in some sense not aware. However, I happen to think that is also something that our conception of