“Consciousness makes us believe that we are unique”

Consciousness is an illusion, says psychologist Nicholas Humphrey. But it is thanks to this illusion that we can understand each other, create masterpieces of art and complex scientific theories.

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In November 2015, the British psychologist Nicholas Humphrey gave a lecture in Moscow entitled “The Invention of Consciousness”. Before the start of the lecture organized by the Moscow Center for the Study of Consciousness1, he shared with Psychologies his ideas about how consciousness arose in us and how its appearance radically changed our lives.

1. Consciousness is a product of human evolution

The simplest definition of consciousness is a state of mind to which we have introspective access (that is, we can track it through self-observation). I assume that this ability developed at a certain point in evolution. Our brain has learned not to respond directly to external stimuli, but to store in a virtual (imaginary) mode the knowledge of how it would react in a given situation. As a result, an internal observer was formed in the brain, able to monitor not only what is happening to us, but also our own reactions and thoughts about what is happening. The more reactions began to take place in such an indirect, virtual mode, the more difficult our inner life became, hidden from an outside observer. In this sense, we are the only beings who are endowed with consciousness.

“The main goal of our lectures is to develop the ability of the audience to think critically,” says Dmitry Volkov, co-director of the Moscow Center for the Study of Consciousness, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences. – This is very important not only for scientists and philosophers, but also for any person. Over the past few years, we have managed to organize performances in Moscow by famous scientists and philosophers who deal with the mystery of consciousness. Among them are Daniel Dannett, John Searle, and now Nicholas Humphrey. We very much look forward to the arrival of David Chalmers, one of the highest paid and most sought-after philosophers in the world. It was he who formulated the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness.

2. Through consciousness, we can understand others

Watching our own mind at work allows us to understand how it works. We can predict how he will behave. And most importantly, if we can create this model of the mind, we can apply it to other people. That is, if I know how my mind works, I can make assumptions about how another person’s mind works. In psychology, this is called a “theory of mind.” The most important part of our life is other people. Therefore, it is especially important for us to understand their motivations, feelings, attitude towards us and anticipate what they will do.

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3. The main mystery of consciousness is our sensations of reality

Our brain is filled not only with thoughts, but also with subjective sensations. Philosophers call these sensations the Latin word “qualia” (qualia, pl. from quale – “what sort / kind”). Qualia are qualitative aspects of experience, such as how we feel salty or red. We cannot get an accurate representation of someone else’s subjective experience. Philosopher Thomas Nagel described this as the question, “What is it like to be a bat?” We will not get an answer to this question, even if we learn everything about the work of her brain. That is why the Australian philosopher David Chalmers called the question of the nature of qualia the “hard problem” of consciousness.

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4. Explaining the nature of consciousness is more difficult than studying how the brain works.

It seems that qualia are not necessary for the existence of the mind. Many years ago I discovered the phenomenon of blind vision. In the lab, we saw a monkey that had a damaged section of the posterior cortex. The monkey was completely blind. But I noticed a very strange feature of her behavior: she could see, but did not know it. She could navigate in space, and over time she got better and better at it. But she had no sense of sight. If translated into the language of philosophy: she did not have any qualia, but this did not prevent her from receiving information about the world.

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5. Consciousness gives us a sense of the value of our lives

First of all, consciousness is an illusion. This does not mean that it does not exist. I like to draw an analogy with the impossible Penrose triangle. Its existence defies the laws of physics, but we can imagine and even draw it. Consciousness is a magical representation that is created by the brain. But for what? My friend, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, argues that qualia have no effect on the outside world. I think qualia are more of a work of art. They enchant the world we live in. Thanks to qualia, we feel our own importance and worth. We attach great importance to our experiences, sensations, our unique experience. This is what allows us to “put our soul” into what we do. The idea that each of us has a soul has transformed the entire human society. Each of us creates our own universe, “the space of the soul.” The main engine of our accomplishments is in the consciousness of our own exclusivity.

Nicholas Humphrey is a British psychologist, philosopher, and author of numerous articles and books, including the recently translated into Russian book Consciousness is the Pollen of the Soul (Career Press, 2014).

1 The Moscow Center for Consciousness Research (MCRS) at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University was founded in 2009 by Dmitry Volkov, co-founder of the international investment holding SDVentures, and Vadim Vasiliev, Doctor of Philosophy, Head of the Department of History of Foreign Philosophy of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov.

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