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Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178

Dualism revisited
John R. Searle *
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, 94720 CA, USA

Abstract

The problem of consciousness should eventually receive a scientific solution, but there are a number of scientific and philosophical
obstacles along the way. I offer solutions to the philosophical problems and proposals for approaching the scientific problems.
Ó 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Consciousness; Dualism; Materialism; Biological naturalism

Some philosophical problems, but unfortunately not the structure of society (Searle, 1995) and the nature of
very many, can receive a scientific solution. I believe one rationality (Searle, 2002).
of these is the problem of consciousness. The central part The difficulty, however, is that the philosophical prob-
of the problem can be stated quite simply: How exactly lems won’t go away so easily, and as soon as the solution
are conscious states caused by brain processes and how to one is widely accepted a new one crops up. When I first
exactly are they realized in the brain? The two key phrases started working in this area, the mainstream views were
here are ‘‘caused by” and ‘‘realized in” and I will say more versions of ‘‘materialism”, usually ‘‘reductionist”, but
about these later. In the history of philosophy, this has sometimes ‘‘eliminativist”. The idea was that a scientific
been the center of the traditional mind–body problem: account of consciousness would have to reduce it to some-
How exactly does consciousness relate to the brain and thing else, such as computation, or would eliminate it by
to the rest of the physical world? It seems to me in such showing that it does not really exist but is some kind of illu-
cases, where a scientific solution is at least possible, the sion. The idea of the materialists, to put it crudely, was that
philosophical task is to prepare the problem conceptually, if consciousness really exists it must really be something
to get it into a kind of shape where it admits of being trea- else, because if it is not something else it cannot really exist.
ted as a scientific problem. Specifically, a large part of the I will come back to these two versions of materialism later.
philosophical task is to clarify the problem conceptually to Dualism, though widely held by the general public was not
the point that it admits of experimental testing. You have taken seriously by most scientists and philosophers. So
to know what you are testing for and what counts as a most of my argumentative efforts were directed against
positive or a negative result of the test. I think, in short, these two versions of materialism, reductionism and elimin-
that once the problem is cleaned up, the philosophical ativism. According to reductionism, consciousness can be
job is over and the factual empirical issues should be solved reduced to something else such as neuron firings or com-
by lab scientists. I stuck by these principles and some years puter programs. The model here is the standard model of
ago stopped working on the problem of consciousness. I reductionism in science such as for example the reduction
felt I had said what I wanted to say, and to my satisfaction of physical objects to collections of molecules. According
at least I had stated the problem so that it admitted of a sci- to eliminativism, consciousness can be eliminated as an
entific solution. I went to work on other problems such as illusion. It does not really exist, but is a common illusion.
The models here are such phenomena as rainbows and sun-
*
Tel.: +1 510 642 3173; fax: +1 510 642 5160. sets. The rainbow, for example, is not really an arc in the
E-mail address: [email protected] sky, but is rather an illusion produced by the refraction

0928-4257/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

of light waves through water vapor. I think that in the past the shirt around my neck, the sound of my voice, the sight
couple of decades the weaknesses of reductionism and elim- of people around me, but I experience all of those con-
inativism have become apparent to most people who work scious states as part of one large conscious state, my whole
in the field. However, an odd thing has happened: dualism conscious field at the moment.
has gradually come to seem intellectually respectable again. I used to think that these three features, qualitativeness,
One of the main aims of this article is to show the incoher- subjectivity, and unity, were independent of each other, but
ence of dualism. Both dualism and materialism are false, in fact it now seems to me that they are different aspects of
but both are trying to say something true and we need to one composite feature, which is the essence of conscious-
rescue the true part from the false part. ness. There is no way that a system could have qualitative
experiences, in the sense that I have tried to explain, with-
1. The nature of consciousness out subjectivity and a first-person ontology in the way I
described. And there is no way that a state could be quali-
The word ‘‘consciousness” is often said to be hard to tative and subjective without being part of a unified con-
define, but if we are just talking about a common sense def- scious field. You can see this if you try to imagine your
inition that will identify the target of the investigation, present consciousness broken into fifteen pieces. You
rather than a scientific definition of the sort that can only would not have one consciousness with 15 parts, you would
come at the end of the investigation, then it seems to me have 15 different conscious fields. And this, incidentally, is
‘‘consciousness” is not at all hard to define, and I will why the Sperry and Gazzaniga (1985) studies on the split
repeat a definition that I have given elsewhere (Searle, brain patients are philosophically and scientifically so inter-
2004). Consciousness consists of those subjective states of esting. It seems that, in the pathological cases where the
sentience or feeling or awareness that begin when we wake corpus callosum has been cut, there are two conscious
from a dreamless sleep and continue on throughout the day fields that communicate with each other only imperfectly;
until we become unconscious again. Dreams on this defini- and in normal, non pathological cases, the two conscious
tion are a form of consciousness, though of course quite fields coalesce, in the same way that in binocular vision
different from normal waking consciousness. Conscious- our two visual images coalesce.
ness, so defined, does not imply self-consciousness. It is A fourth feature of consciousness, that I won’t have time
possible to be conscious without having a higher order con- to explore in much detail, is probably its most important
sciousness of one’s lower order consciousness. feature. Consciousness is intentional in the sense that typical
When working on a problem like this, it is a good idea to conscious states are about something or refer to something.
remind ourselves of what we know for a fact, what features If I see or think about an object, then my conscious experi-
of consciousness our scientific theory should be able to ence is directed at or about the object; it has that object as its
account for, the data we seek to explain. Of course, we might intentional object. Not all conscious states are intentional.
have to change our conceptions as the research progresses, For example, states of undirected anxiety are not inten-
but it is a good idea to be aware of what data we start with. tional. But most conscious states are intentional, and these
With this objective in mind, we can say that there are four forms of consciousness are most interesting to us, because
features of consciousness that any scientific theory should they mediate our relations with the rest of the world through
attempt to explain. Of course, there are lots of other features, perception, action, memory, intention, belief, desire, emo-
but these four are essential. First, every conscious state is tions and all the rest of our mental lives.
subjective in the sense that it only exists as experienced by
a human or animal subject. For this reason consciousness 2. How consciousness fits into the world
has what I call a ‘‘first-person ontology”. It only exists as
experienced by some ‘‘I”, some human or animal subject. With consciousness so defined, here are the facts, or at
In this respect consciousness is unlike most of the phenom- least the putative facts, that we need to account for.
ena in the world, such as mountains, molecules, and tectonic
plates, that have a third-person ontology. They exist regard- 1. Consciousness so defined is a real phenomenon in the
less of whether or not any one is experiencing them. real world. It really exists and we cannot get rid of it
The second feature of consciousness, so defined, is that by defining it away or reducing it to something else, or
it is qualitative. There is always some qualitative feel to by pretending that it does not really exist. Now why
any conscious state. Some philosophers use the notion of not? Why should consciousness be irreducible in a way
‘‘qualia” to describe this qualitative feel, but I think that that, for example, colors are not irreducible? We think
this word is a source of confusion because it gives us the (or at least many people think) that colors can be reduced
impression that there are two kinds of conscious states, to light reflectances. Why could not we do a similar
the qualitative and the non-qualitative, and that is wrong. reduction with consciousness? In the philosophical liter-
All conscious states by definition are qualitative. ature, as I mentioned earlier, typically a distinction is
A third feature of consciousness is that our conscious made between eliminative and non-eliminative reduc-
states typically come to us as part of a unified conscious tions. Eliminative reductions show that the phenomena
field. So for example I don’t just experience the feeling of never existed at all, but were just an illusion. Rainbows
 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178 171

and sunsets, so the story goes, can be reduced in an elimi- 3. Consciousness, so defined and as caused by brain pro-
native fashion. Another kind of reduction does not show cesses, is entirely realized in the brain. Now what does
that the phenomenon does not exist but that it is really that mean? It means that all conscious states exist in
something else. Thus apparently solidity of objects can the brain as higher level features of the neuronal system.
be reduced to the behavior of molecules. Material objects By ‘‘higher” I mean, for example, that my conscious
can be reduced to their constituent molecules. But we thoughts about my grandmother cannot be a feature
cannot reduce consciousness in either of these ways. of a single neuron but only of a system of neurons.
We cannot show that consciousness is an illusion like We don’t yet know how big the system has to be, but
sunsets or rainbows because, where the very existence we think the thalamocortical system has a special role
of consciousness is concerned, we cannot make the dis- to play in causing and realizing consciousness. The point
tinction between reality and illusion. If I consciously for the present discussion is that consciousness exists as
have the illusion that I am conscious, then I already a feature of the brain without being a feature of any
am conscious. Traditional eliminative reductions rest individual neuron or synapse by itself. Propositions
on a distinction between reality and illusion, but where two and three amount to saying that consciousness is
the existence of consciousness is concerned, the con- both caused by and realized in the brain.
scious illusion is itself the reality of consciousness. 4. Consciousness functions causally in producing bodily
We cannot do a non-eliminative reduction of conscious- movements and other physical effects in the world.
ness to some third-person phenomena, because if we did, Again, this is often denied. There is always some philos-
we would leave out the essential first-person qualitative opher who will tell you that conscious states cannot
character of conscious experiences. Because conscious- affect the physical world. But always remember that
ness has a first-person ontology, it cannot be reduced when I decide to raise my arm the damn thing goes
to anything, such as neuron firings, that has a third- up. And, notice we do not say, ‘‘Well, that is the thing
person ontology. Indeed, for consciousness, we cannot about the old arm. Some days she goes up and some
even make the distinction between eliminative and non- days she doesn’t go up”. My arm goes up when I want
eliminative reductions. The non-eliminative reductions it to go up, when I decide to raise it. To put this more
end up being eliminative, because they deny the essential technically, my conscious intention-in-action causes the
defining characteristic of consciousness. They deny the bodily movement of my arm raising (Searle, 1983).
existence of any qualitative, subjective, unified phenom-
ena; but unified, qualitative subjectivity is the defining Why would anyone want to deny the obvious fact that
feature of consciousness. All reductions of consciousness consciousness functions causally in producing our beha-
to third-person phenomena end up being eliminative, vior? The answer, as usual, is that we are in the grip of cer-
because they eliminate the essential first-person ontology tain traditional philosophical categories. If consciousness is
of consciousness. not reducible to third-person phenomena, then to many
2. All conscious states, without exception, are caused by people it seems that consciousness is not part of the physical
neurobiological processes in the brain. We now have world. But surely, so the story goes, the physical world is, as
an overwhelming amount of evidence for this, and it is they say, ‘‘causally closed”. What does that mean? It means
no use looking for some spiritual or other sort of origin anything nonphysical can never have any effect on the
of consciousness. If the brain processes are functioning physical. But if consciousness really exists as a subjective
right, the subject will be conscious; if not he will not phenomenon and cannot be eliminated or reduced to some-
be conscious. This means that everything in conscious- thing objective, and if for that reason it is a nonphysical
ness, from the taste of the beer, to the sound of the phenomenon, then it seems that it cannot affect physical
music, to feeling the angst of post-industrial man under reality. On this understanding we have a mysterious
late capitalism, is caused by lower level neurobiological ghost-like phenomenon in the world that cannot have any
processes in the brain. This is an amazing fact and we real causal effect on the physical world. And the logical con-
ought to try to appreciate its importance. The key sequence is, to use the jargon of the philosophers, ‘‘epiphe-
notion is the notion of causation. All of our conscious nomenalism”. Consciousness is there alright, but it doesn’t
states are caused by neuronal processes. That means make any real difference to the real physical world. It just
that we can do a causal reduction, but not an ontologi- goes along for the ride. This argument for epiphenomenal-
cal reduction of consciousness. There is nothing to the ism can either be taken to show that, if my account is right,
causal power of consciousness which cannot be then epiphenomenalism follows, or, if you suppose, as I do,
explained by the causal power of the neuronal base. that epiphenomenalism is not true, then my account must
That is why consciousness does not stand apart from be wrong. I want to reject both of these conclusions. I think
the rest of the world but is an ordinary part of our my account is right and I think epiphenomenalism is wrong,
human and animal biology. The causal reduction, how- and I am going to answer this objection later on.
ever, does not lead to an ontological reduction, because The conjunction of these four claims – consciousness is
consciousness, as a first-person phenomenon, cannot be real, it is caused by brain processes, it is realized in the
ontologically reduced to third-person phenomena. brain, and it functions causally – constitute an approach
172 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178

to the mind that I have labeled ‘‘biological naturalism”. be true or false independently of the feelings and attitudes
I don’t set any store by labels, but it is useful to have a of observers, and those that cannot. So if I say ‘‘Rem-
name that distinguishes my view from dualism, material- brandt was born in 1606” that statement is epistemically
ism, etc. The view is biological, because it says the right objective. Its truth or falsity can be established indepen-
level for a scientific account of consciousness is the biolog- dently of the feelings and valuations of observers. But if I
ical level, as opposed for example to the sub-atomic or cul- say ‘‘Rembrandt was a better painter than Vermeer”, well,
tural levels. It is naturalistic because it says that that is, as they say, a matter of subjective opinion. I am not
consciousness is an ordinary part of nature along with life, even sure if it is true. This epistemic distinction should not
digestion, photosynthesis and all the rest of it. be confused with the ontological sense of the objective–
Biological naturalism gives us a fairly clear and well subjective distinction. This sense has to do with the modes
defined scientific problem: figure out exactly how the brain of existence of entities. Most of the things investigated by
works to cause consciousness, how consciousness is reali- science, such things as molecules, tectonic plates and galax-
zed in the brain and how it functions causally in our ies, are ontologically objective. They exist independently of
behavior. The typical pattern in science has consisted of anybody’s experience of them. But some other things in the
three stages. First, we find correlations. In the case of con- world that exist are ontologically subjective, such as pains
sciousness we would like to find a correlation between the and tickles and itches. Such things exist only as experienced
conscious state and the neurobiological processes. This has by a human or animal subject. Now here is the point for
come to be called the ‘‘Neuronal Correlate of Conscious- the present discussion. Science is indeed epistemically
ness”, the NCC. The second step is to check to see whether objective. But epistemic objectivity of a mode of inquiry
or not the correlation is a genuine causal correlation. Do does not preclude such inquiry into a domain that is onto-
the neuronal correlates of consciousness actually cause con- logically subjective. You can have a perfectly objective sci-
scious states? The usual tests for causation, as applied to ence of an ontologically subjective domain.
this problem, would be, first, can you produce conscious- Philosophy and science were seriously blocked from
ness in an unconscious subject by producing the NCC, getting a satisfactory theory of consciousness by the con-
and, second, can you shut down the consciousness of a fusion that led people to suppose that there could not be
conscious subject by shutting down the NCC? All of this a science of anything ontologically subjective. In philoso-
is familiar scientific practice. The third step, and we are a phy, we went through behaviorism, type–type identity the-
long way from reaching this step, is to get a general theo- ory, token–token identity theory and functionalism,
retical account. We want to know not just what the corre- among others. But the worst form of this mistake was
lations are and whether they are causal, but we would like the so-called computational theory of the mind. The idea
to embed all of that information in a theoretical account. was that all there is to consciousness is having a certain
Why should these causes produce these effects? sort of computer program or programs. Maybe it is a
This is typical of the history of the sciences. The germ connectionist program, or maybe it is a traditional von
theory of disease and the DNA theory of heredity are mod- Neumann style program; but whatever style program, it
els for the type of explanatory apparatus we are looking is constitutive of consciousness. As I am about to make
for. some criticisms of computational theory of the mind, it
is important for me to emphasize at the beginning that
3. The failure of materialism I am certainly not opposed to computer modeling in neu-
roscience. It seems to me absolutely crucial. It is as crucial
As I have described it, the search for a scientific theory in the study of the brain as it is in the study of digestion,
of consciousness looks like a typical scientific research pro- for example. Furthermore, it seems to me quite clear that
gram. What are the obstacles to pursuing it? There are a there are levels of description at which we can say that the
number of philosophical and empirical problems. The most brain computes. What then are the objections to the com-
obvious obstacle to a scientific account of consciousness putational theory of the mind? It seems to me there are at
was the ‘‘materialist” attempt to deny the irreducibility of least the following two objections. The first point is that
consciousness. For a long time, literally decades, research the computational level is not sufficient by itself for con-
in consciousness was damaged by certain mistakes moti- sciousness, intentionality, or the rest of the paradigmatic
vated by ‘‘materialism”. Many philosophers and scientists mental phenomena. You don’t, for example, produce pain
felt that science could not account for anything that was by producing a computer simulation of pain. The second
essentially subjective. The argument rested on a bad syllo- objection to computation is not an objection to the
gism that goes as follows: Science is objective. Conscious- activity of computer modeling but a limitation on its
ness is subjective. Therefore, there cannot be a science of explanatory power. The computational description is no
consciousness. This syllogism rests on a fallacy of ambi- substitute for doing the neurobiology. If you describe
guity. The notions of objectivity and subjectivity in our the vestibular ocular reflex (VOR), for example, as solving
culture are ambiguous between an epistemic sense of the a computational problem, and you can indeed so describe
distinction and an ontological sense. Epistemically, the dis- it, you still have to figure out how it works in the actual
tinction is between those propositions that can be known to neurobiology between the semi-circular canals and the
 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178 173

cerebellum. In neurobiology there is no substitute for an observer-relative description of the same sort that
neurobiological levels of description. I will consider each we make when we give observer-relative computational
of these points in order. descriptions of digestive processes in the stomach.
I demonstrated years ago with the so-called Chinese The distinction between observer-independent phenom-
Room Argument (Searle, 1980) that the implementation ena and observer-relative phenomena is also crucial for the
of the computer program is not by itself sufficient for con- use of certain other concepts in cognitive science. I just
sciousness or cognition. Computation is defined purely argued that computation has both an observer-indepen-
formally or syntactically, whereas minds have actual dent and an observer-relative sense, but the same ambi-
mental or semantic contents, and you cannot get from guity afflicts both the notion of ‘‘information”, and the
the syntactical to the semantic just by having the syntac- notion of ‘‘intelligence”. There is a psychologically real
tical operations and nothing else. To put this point observer-independent sense of ‘‘information”, and a psy-
slightly more technically, the notion ‘‘same implemented chologically real observer-independent sense of ‘‘intelli-
program” defines an equivalence class that is specified gence”, but in addition, there are observer-dependent
independently of any specific physical realization. But senses of both of these notions. I have in my head informa-
such a specification necessarily leaves out the biologically tion about how to get from Berkeley to San Jose. That
specific powers of the brain to cause cognitive processes. information is observer-independent or intrinsic to my
A system, me, for example, would not acquire an under- psychological processes. I really know the way to San Jose.
standing of Chinese just by going through the steps of a The map I have in my car also has the information about
computer program that simulated the behavior of a Chi- how to get from Berkeley to San Jose, but in the map the
nese speaker. information is observer-dependent. It is in the eye of the
The second objection, I think, is just as important, but beholder. Intrinsically speaking, the map is just cellulose
it has received less attention than the first. Basic to our fibers with ink stains on it. The map contains information
understanding of nature is the distinction between those only relative to our capacity to so interpret it. Similar
features of the world that are observer-independent, that remarks apply to the notion of ‘‘intelligence”. There is a
exist regardless of what anybody thinks, and those that perfectly good sense in which my present computer is much
are observer-dependent. Observer-independent phenom- smarter, that is, more ‘‘intelligent”, than the computer I
ena would include force, mass, gravitational attraction, had ten years ago. But, I take it, there is no psychological
and tectonic plates. Observer-dependent phenomena reality to that sense, at all. On the other hand, when we say
would include money, property, and marriage. Typically, that humans are more intelligent than some other species
the natural sciences are about observer-independent phe- such as dogs, we are talking about a certain psychological
nomena, and the social sciences are about observer-depen- reality. Questions like this become important when you
dent phenomena. Now what about computation? Is it ask whether or not you could build an intelligent machine.
observer-independent or observer-dependent? Well, if we In one sense, anything that follows laws of nature can be
understand computation as Turing did, in terms of the described as if it were behaving intelligently. I will now
manipulation of symbols, then obviously it is observer- exhibit to you an intelligent machine: I here drop my
dependent. Except for those few cases where an agent is pen and as it falls to the table, it computes the function
actually consciously going through a computational pro- s = ½ gt2, but I take it, there is no psychological reality
cess such as adding one plus one to get two, there are to the operation of the pen.
no observer-independent computational processes in nat- The notion of ‘‘artificial” in ‘‘artificial intelligence” suf-
ure. Something is a symbol only if we treat it or regard fers from an additional ambiguity. An artificial X can be
it or use it as a symbol, and a symbolic process such as either a real X produced artificially, or it can be a simula-
computation only exists as such relative to an interpreta- tion of an X but not a real X. Thus, for example, artificial
tion. So when we are looking for computational processes dyes are real dyes alright, but they are produced in labora-
in the brain, we have to make a very clear distinction tories and factories. Artificial cream, on the other hand, is
between those processes where the agent is intrinsically, not real cream, but a simulation (or imitation) of cream.
in an observer-independent fashion, going through some These ambiguities are quite harmless as long as you do
thought processes that involve symbols, and those cases not confuse them, as long as you do not mistake one sense
where the process can be treated as computation only in of ‘‘artificial intelligence” for another. The notion of ‘‘arti-
an observer-relative sense. There are many processes in ficial intelligence” has for decades suffered from a failure
the brain that we can describe in computational terms, on the part of its users to distinguish between creating a
and it is quite natural to do so. But we should not think simulation of real intelligence artificially and creating real
that this is some kind of a scientific discovery that discov- intelligence artificially. But of course the idea that you
ering a computation is like discovering a new neurotrans- can create real intelligence artificially just by running a
mitter. When we decide to describe the vestibular ocular computer program runs afoul of the point I made earlier:
reflex as a computational process, we should not think The implementation of the program is not by itself suffi-
the agent is intrinsically going through any computing. cient for consciousness in particular or cognition in
When we describe the VOR as computational, this is general.
174 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178

In the early days artificial intelligence was defined as The procedure very well. And there are some remarkable experi-
effort to produce machines that behave in a way that in ments done on the building block model.
humans we would describe as intelligent. But the problem I will discuss three of these types of experiments very
with that definition is that just about anything, and conse- briefly.1 First, binocular rivalry. If you show the left eye
quently any machine, has some level of description where a set of parallel lines and the right eye a set of horizontal
we could describe it as artificial intelligence in that sense. lines, the subject typically does not see a grid, rather the
So, for example, if I am running down a dry stream bed visual system switches back and forth between producing
trying to find the line of least resistance it is going to take a visual experience of parallel lines and a visual experience
a lot of concentration and indeed intelligence on my part. of horizontal lines. There is a rivalry between the two stim-
But let a ‘‘machine”, namely water, into the stream bed ulus pathways, and first, one side wins and then the other
and it immediately finds the line of least resistance, and side wins. Now, if we could find the exact point in the brain
thus behaves ‘‘intelligently”. I hope it is obvious that this where the horizontal lines triumph over the vertical lines,
observer-relative sense of intelligent behavior is of little or where the vertical lines triumph over the horizontal
or no psychological interest. Similarly with computation. lines, it would seem that we have found the NCC for that
Just about anything has some level of description where particular experience.
it can be described as performing computations and this Similar considerations apply to Gestalt switching. If you
is because just about anything can be described as follow- consider Wittgenstein’s famous Duck–Rabbit example
ing natural laws. (Wittgenstein, 1953) (originally due to Jastrow), the stimu-
I have spent so much time on the computational theory lus is held constant, yet now I see a duck, now I see a rab-
because it was the best developed and most ambitious of bit. Once again, if we could find the point in the brain
the materialist theories. I now want to turn to examining where the perception switches from that of the duck to that
some of the difficulties with current neurobiological of the rabbit, it looks like we would have found the NCC
research. for either the perception of the rabbit or the perception
of the duck. In both of these experiments the stimulus is
held constant, yet the same stimulus produces different
4. Difficulties in neurobiological research on consciousness experiences. We want to know exactly where in the brain
the experience occurs, and then exactly how the brain
If I am right that solving the problem of consciousness determines that you will have one experience and not the
ought to be a three step process – find the NCC’s, find other.
out if the correlation is a causal correlation, and get a the- A third sort of experiment, equally famous, is the
ory in which the empirical data can be embedded – then research done by Weiskrantz (1986) and others on blind-
why is progress so slow? Why don’t these researchers get sight. There are patients with damage to visual area 1
busy and figure it out? There are several practical reasons (V1) of the visual cortex which is such that they are unable
for the slowness of the research. One is that the brain is to see in a certain portion of their visual field. Nonetheless,
extremely complicated and we have very crude methods in some experiments the subject can report events occurring
for investigating it. Each new invention, such as CAT scans in the blind portion of his visual field even though he
and PET scans and now fMRI, is hailed as a great break- reports no visual experience of the event. So it seems there
through, but the results are still rather limited. Earlier text must be some pathway in the brain that is producing con-
books used to say that the problem of the research methods scious experience, and another pathway in the brain that is
is that they were ‘‘invasive”. What they mean by ‘‘invasive” giving the subject visual intentionality which is uncon-
is that you either have to kill the animal or make a mess of scious. If we could find the distinctive features of the con-
its brain to investigate it. scious as opposed to the unconscious pathway, it looks
But there is I think a deeper theoretical reason why pro- like, once again, we might have the NCC for that sort of
gress has been slow and that is that much of the research consciousness.
may be barking up the wrong tree. I distinguish for these Finally, of course, the most natural way of pursuing the
purposes, between what I call the ‘‘unified field” conception building block model is simply to follow out the stimulus,
of consciousness and the ‘‘building block” model of con- say, the stimulus of the color red, until it actually produces
sciousness (Searle, 2002). The unified field conception takes the perception, the experience of red (Koch, 2004).
seriously the view that all our conscious states come to us I am very enthusiastic about all these lines of research
as part of a unified conscious field. The ‘‘building block” but I fear they may be making a fundamental mistake: In
model of consciousness treats the conscious field as made all of these cases, the subject is already conscious. That
up of a set of distinct experiential units such as, for exam- is, it is only a conscious subject who can experience binoc-
ple, seeing red, tasting wine or hearing the sound of middle ular rivalry, the Gestalt switch, blind-sight, or the experi-
C. Most of the research I know is based on the building
block model. You try to follow out the path of the stimulus
until it produces a conscious experience in the brain. Chris- 1
For more detailed discussion together with references see (Searle,
tof Koch’s excellent book (Koch, 2004) describes this 2002).
 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178 175

ence of red. And what we really need to know is: How account of the rest of the real world. Dualism postulates
does the brain create the conscious field in the first place? two distinct domains, but on this postulation it becomes
I believe we should think of perception as not so much impossible to explain the relationship between the
creating consciousness, but as modifying the pre-existing domains. This incoherence has a number of consequences.
conscious field. Perhaps most famously, it becomes difficult, if not impossi-
You do not require perception to be conscious. Imagine ble, to explain how brain processes in one ontological
yourself in an absolutely dark room with no sounds coming domain could cause consciousness in another ontological
in. You wake up from a dreamless sleep and you are in a domain. Right now I want to focus on another absurd con-
state of total alertness with only very minimal perceptual sequence that I mentioned earlier: Epiphenomenalism. If
experiences. You might, for example, experience the weight consciousness has the features of qualitativeness, subjectiv-
of the bed clothes on you and the weight of your body ity, unity, and intentionality, but is not a part of the mate-
against the bed. But besides these very marginal perceptual rial or physical world, then how on earth could it possibly
experiences, you are totally awake and alert without any function causally in the physical world? On standard ver-
perceptions. Then you get up and turn on the light and sions of dualism it is hard, if not impossible, to see how
walk around and get dressed, brush your teeth, etc. Are consciousness could have any causal impact in the world,
you creating consciousness? Well in one sense you are yet we know that it does have a causal impact: I decide
because you now have conscious experiences that did not to raise my arm, I form a conscious intention-in-action to
exist before. But I want to suggest that if we take the met- raise my arm, and then the arm goes up. There isn’t any
aphor of the field seriously, we should think of these input doubt that my conscious intention causes the arm to go up.
stimuli as doing something like creating bumps and hill- Suppose in answering this question further we make a
ocks and valleys in the conscious field. We do not populate chart of the world according to dualism, where we list
an empty room with our perceptions, but rather we make the features of consciousness on the left side and the fea-
modifications to the conscious field that already existed. tures of the material world, with which consciousness is
We should think of perception not as creating conscious- supposed to be contrasted, on the right.
ness but as modifying a pre-existing conscious field. Now
this inclines me to think that the line of attack that is most Consciousness Material world
likely to succeed is to figure out how the brain creates the Ontological Ontological objectivity
unified conscious field in the first place. I realize this line subjectivity
of research is likely to be more difficult, because you cannot Qualitativeness Quantitative measurability
rely on single cell recordings and fMRI in the way that you Intentionality No intrinsic intentionality
can on the ‘‘building block” model. Not spatially Has spatial location(s)/dimensions
located/extended
5. What is wrong with dualism? None of force, Force, mass, gravitational attraction
mass, etc. and electrical charge, etc.
It is now time to try to say what exactly is wrong with
dualism. I have already said that consciousness is not onto-
logically reducible to brain processes. Isn’t that already a There are lots of other features of the physical world that
kind of dualism? Isn’t the irreducibility of consciousness are supposed to be contrasted with consciousness. On the
all that dualism amounts to? right hand side of our chart, we have spatial locations
It is important in answering this question to remind our- and spatial dimensions, whereas consciousness is not spa-
selves that I said that consciousness was causally reducible tially located and not extended spatially. Furthermore, on
but not ontologically reducible to neuronal processes. It is the right hand side we have force, mass, gravitational
causally reducible, because there is nothing going on which attraction and electrical charge. Presumably none of those
cannot be causally accounted for by neuronal processes. are supposed to exist on the left hand side. Now, the inco-
But the causal reduction does not lead to an ontological herence is quite obvious: Something that is not spatially lo-
reduction because consciousness has a first-person or sub- cated and has no physical, chemical, etc. powers could
jective ontology, and for that reason cannot be reduced never be capable of moving my arm. But we know that
to something that has a third-person or objective ontology. my conscious intention-in-action does cause the movement
If you try to make the reduction you leave something out, of my arm. So what is the solution to this puzzle? I think
namely the subjectivity of consciousness. But once we the solution is obvious: Move the ontologically subjective
accept the ontological irreducibility of consciousness, why features on the left hand side over to the right hand side,
can’t we just say that that is a form of dualism and then live so that among the ‘‘physical”, ‘‘material” features of the
with it? What is so bad about dualism? world we now list subjectivity, qualitativeness and inten-
The real objection to dualism is that we cannot give a tionality along with force, mass, gravitational attraction,
coherent account of reality on dualist assumptions. We electrical charge, solidity, liquidity, and a very large num-
cannot give an account of reality which makes a part of ber of others. But we will find it embarrassing to say that
the real world – our conscious states – cohere with our subjectivity etc., are ‘‘physical” or ‘‘material” because the
176 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178

terminology of ‘‘physical” and ‘‘material” was designed And we can generalize this for a large number of cases as
precisely to oppose these to ‘‘mental”, ‘‘spiritual”, etc. follows:
So, let us get rid of the terminology, let us get rid of the
apparent contrast and just say that qualitativeness, subjec- (1) Certain mental events cause physical events of bodily
tivity and unity are parts of the real world along with movements.
everything else. (2) Anything that causes such bodily movements in the
Now how can they function causally? To go back to our internal bodily fashion must have electro-chemical
question: How can they ever move my arm? We know the properties.
answer to that question and we have known it for a long Therefore
time. As usual, philosophy consists in large part of remind- (3) Such mental events have electro-chemical properties.
ing ourselves of what we know already, but anyway here is
what we know: None of this is at all mysterious. It is just a routine
A single event in my brain has one level of description example of the fact that events have higher and lower levels
where we can describe it as a conscious intention-in- of description. Just as I can describe the action of my
action, but it also has many other levels of description. engine as the firing of the spark plug with the consequent
We can describe it as involving neurons firings at a certain explosion of the air–fuel mixture in the cylinder, so I can
rate, in certain neuronal architectures. It involves certain also describe it at a lower level as the passage of electrons
specific neurotransmitters. We know acetylcholine is one between copper electrodes, followed by the oxidization of
of them, and there are no doubt others. We know that hydro-carbon-molecules. The same event has both higher
there are certain electrical phenomena that go along with and lower levels of description.
all of the chemical features, and all of that causes my arm The fact that one and the same conscious state has
to go up. ‘‘But are you saying that the conscious state different levels of description, a level of description
itself has electrical charges and has spatial dimensions in where we describe it in terms of its subjective proper-
the brain?” The answer to that question is obviously ties, and another level of description where we describe
‘‘yes”. We know that conscious events have spatial loca- it in terms of its chemical and electromagnetic proper-
tions in the brain. Indeed, with current imaging tech- ties should be no more mysterious to us than the fact
niques, especially with fMRI, we are able to identify the that we describe the behavior of a car engine at differ-
spatial location of many conscious events, and as we dis- ent levels. The chief difference between the two cases, of
cover more about their neurobiological basis, we will be course, is that the mental event has a level of descrip-
able to specify more of their specific electro-chemical tion where it is ontologically subjective and that is not
features. the case with the explosion in the cylinder of the car
Indeed, we can use the alleged problem of epiphenome- engine. We have already accounted for this difference
nalism as an argument against dualism and for biological by saying that the ontological subjectivity of the mental
naturalism. According to biological naturalism, conscious with its consequent ontological irreducibility does not
events have a level of description where they are neurobio- imply that it is causally irreducible. On the contrary:
logical events, and we can prove this with certain very sim- We get a causal reduction of conscious events to neuro-
ple assumptions, as follows: biological events.
Premise (1): My intention-in-action to raise my arm I actually think philosophically or metaphysically the
caused my arm to go up. situation is really that simple. However, neurobiologically
It is typical of human intentional actions that our inten- the whole problem is extremely complicated and we are
tions-in-action cause bodily movements. We have a lifetime nowhere near to getting a neurobiological solution.
of experience to support this and in any case it is not pos- We can summarize these points by saying that the rea-
sible to seriously doubt it. son that consciousness can function causally in a ‘‘physi-
Premise (2): Anything that caused my arm to go up in cal” world is that it has physical properties. Every
that circumstance, must have certain rather specific elec- conscious state is realized in a certain physical structure
tro-chemical properties. in the brain and has the conscious powers of all of these
We know there must have been a sequence of neuron fir- physical structures. The bottom line of this discussion is
ings going from the motor-cortex to the muscles, we know that we know that among the ‘‘physical” events that occur
the neurotransmitter was acetylcholine, and we know the in the world, some have subjectivity, qualitativeness
acetylcholine at the axon-endplates of the motor neurons and intentionality, and these events function causally
activated the ion channels in such a way as to attack the along with any other event that has different levels of
cytoplasm of a muscle-fiber. So we can generalize this as: description.
Anything that caused my arm to go up must have elec- But doesn’t that leave us open to the objection that this
tro-chemical properties. is just the old identity theory in disguise? Aren’t we just
Now from 1 and 2 it follows that saying that conscious states are neurobiological states of
Conclusion (3): my intention-in-action has electro- the brain? Well, in one way it seems to me that so stated
chemical properties. the identity theory is absolutely right and could hardly be
 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178 177

false. However, historically the identity theorists that I traits. Another way to put this argument is to say that
know, with very few exceptions, had a reductionist motive. the problem with all forms of materialism is they are con-
They wanted to get rid of subjectivity. They wanted to say fronted with the question: Are there two kinds of phenom-
that consciousness is nothing but neurobiological states of ena going on in there only one? And the answer has to be:
the brain neurobiologically described in third-person Where consciousness is concerned, there are first-person
terms. I have argued in this article that we know indepen- phenomena and third-person phenomena. Materialism is
dently that that claim is false. forced to say there is only one kind of thing, the third-
But doesn’t that leave us with a puzzle? Why should person phenomena, but we all know from our experiences,
evolution have given us consciousness in the first place? that in addition to the neuron firings, the computer pro-
What is the evolutionary function of consciousness if we grams, the behavior, etc., there are my subjective, qualita-
could imagine that the laws of nature were different so tive conscious states. So far so good. But recently the
that the lower level processes could have their causal zombie argument has been extended in a way that I think
effects without the higher level of consciousness? This is is mistaken. Here is how it goes. You can imagine the
a weird question and it is important to see the strange whole history of the universe, exactly as it is and exactly
presuppositions that underlie it. The crucial part of it is as it has been, particle for particle, molecule for mole-
that we have to imagine that the laws of nature are differ- cule, but minus consciousness. Of course you would
ent. That is, we have to imagine that the world is radically have to imagine that the laws of nature are different in
different in such a way that I can intentionally raise my this state of affairs from what they are in the real
arm without any mental life at all. But of course in the world, but all the same, it looks like consciousness is
real world, consciousness performs a whole family of evo- something added on. It looks like it is some separate
lutionary functions. It enables us to coordinate and phenomenon.
manipulate an enormous volume of information simulta- This argument is sometimes put in the form as an imagi-
neously, consecutively and coherently. So I can imagine ned parable about the creation of the world. Imagine God
that the world can function without consciousness, if I creating the world. First he has to create all the physical
imagine suitable changes in the laws of nature. But that particles. Then he has to add the laws that determine the
is a bit like saying that I can imagine birds flying without behavior of the physical particles. And finally, after He
wings, if I imagine that evolution equipped them all with has done all that, He still has to add consciousness. He
rocket engines and a continuous supply of rocket fuel. might have to add some more laws to get consciousness,
Yes, if the laws of nature were suitably different all kinds but consciousness is something in addition to the physical
of evolutionary functions would not be performed at all particles and physical behavior.
or would be performed by different evolutionary mecha- At the most fundamental level I think this argument is
nisms. But in the world we actually live in, the only mistaken. And the reason is, at the most fundamental
way a beast like me is going to behave intelligently and level, the laws don’t just describe the behavior of indepen-
cope with the world in the way that I do is if it is con- dently existing physical particles, rather satisfying the laws
scious at least some of the time. It is true that lots of is partly constitutive of the particles. So, for example,
my mental phenomena are unconscious, but we under- God does not first create electrons and then decide to give
stand them as ‘‘mental” precisely because we understand them a negative charge, rather the negative charge is part
them as the kind of thing that could be conscious even of the essence of being an electron. The picture, in short,
if in a specific case they are not conscious. that underlies the extended zombie argument is this: a lot
of philosophers like to think of the world as made up of
6. Refutation of the argument for dualism physical particles where the physical particles are like tiny
grains of sand and then the laws of nature determine
There is a standard argument for dualism that, I think, which ways the grains of sand are blowing. On this con-
has become the most popular argument against material- ception, once you have the grains of sand and you have
ism. Indeed, in a weaker and more cautious version I have the laws of nature that determine which way they are
used this argument myself. Here is how it goes. Take any blowing, you still have to add consciousness to the grains
version of materialism, either the identity theory that says of sand. I think there is something fishy about this pic-
the mind is nothing but the brain neurobiologically ture. I know that a lot of philosophers have this picture
described, or the computational theory, or functionalism, and even some physicists talk this way, but I think it is
or pick your favorite materialist theory. Now you could incorrect to think that the particles exist independently
imagine a circumstance in which all of the material predi- of the laws that determine their behavior. Rather, the
cates were satisfied by a system, but none of the mental laws partly define the particles: The laws are partly consti-
predicates were. That is, you might imagine a system that tutive of the particles. On my view, given the constitution
looked just like me and behaved just like me, but was of reality, consciousness has to follow in the same way
unconscious. This is sometimes called the ‘‘zombie argu- that any other biological property, such as mitosis, meio-
ment” because it would be possible for there to be zombies sis, photosynthesis, digestion, lactation, or the secretion of
that behaved just like me, but lacked any of my mental bile, follows.
178 J.R. Searle / Journal of Physiology - Paris 101 (2007) 169–178

7. Conclusion they are part of the ordinary physical world like any other
biological phenomenon.
I said earlier that both materialism and dualism are try-
ing to say something true and we need to rescue the truth
from the urge to falsehood. Materialism tries to say truly References
that the universe is entirely material, that it is made up
entirely of physical particles in fields of force. And dualism Gazzaniga, M., 1985. The Social Brain. Basic Books, New York.
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consciousness, as irreducible, qualitative subjectivity, does For an explanation of intentions-in-action and how they relate to
not exist. Dualism says falsely that irreducible, subjective, intentionality and actions in general, see Searle, J.R., 1983. Intention-
ality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge University
qualitative phenomena are something in addition to, some-
Press, Cambridge (especially chapter 3).
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we can see how to say what is true in both without saying New York.
the false part. The world does indeed consist of physical Searle, J.R., 2002. Rationality in Action. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
particles in fields of force (or whatever the ultimate entities Searle, J.R., 2002. Consciousness, Annual Review of Neuroscience, 23/
2000. Reprinted in: Consciousness and Language. Cambridge Univer-
of the true physics turn out to be). But among the higher
sity Press, Cambridge.
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