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Some believe that consciousness is the realm of unconditional certainty. For example, I cannot be wrong about whether I am in pain or not. But what about experiments that say otherwise, as well as philosophical arguments against the validity of consciousness? Anton Kuznetsov, a researcher at the Moscow Center for the Study of Consciousness at the Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University, and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vadim Vasiliev, oppose radical skepticism and explain why those who call consciousness an illusion should not be trusted.
How do I know I'm in pain? The question seems strange: if I feel pain, then it hurts - that's all.
For philosophers, as for ordinary people, the very fact of the existence of consciousness is not questioned. It seems that we can doubt everything, even the existence of the external world - but we cannot doubt the existence of consciousness!
True, there are many pitfalls here. For example, we may be mistaken in the presence of consciousness or assert that consciousness is to some extent not the domain of the obvious and certain. As famed Oxford philosopher Timothy Williamson says, our belief that consciousness is the home of our knowledge can be shaken.
Does the outside world exist?
In addition to the problem of the existence of consciousness in philosophy, there is also the problem of substantiating the existence of an "external" world independent of us: are there things that do not depend on our perception, is there something objectively in opposition to the subjective? This is an important question, because the entire scientific picture of the world is built on the assumption of the possibility of an objective judgment. It seems that there is a parallel between these two problems (consciousness and the world): after all, in one and in the other case there can be a mistake - we can be mistaken both about our inner world and about the outer one.
The problem of the existence of the world "external" in relation to our consciousness arises as follows. We admit that some objects external to consciousness act on our "I", as a result of this influence, subjective sensations - phenomena appear. The phenomena themselves are assumed as some objectively existing given. But let's think about it: after all, these phenomena that we assume in posing the question of the external world are objects of introspection. It is, of course, possible to ask how these phenomena are given, but the answer has already been described in the scheme of the work of the external feeling.
In other words, when thinking about the problem of the external world, we doubt where the phenomena came from - but at the same time it is absurd to ask about the existence of these phenomena themselves: they are already simply assumed as data.
It turns out that there is no parallel between the problem of the existence of the external world and the problem of the existence of consciousness. Therefore, consciousness can be wrong, and skepticism, skepticism towards it, is acceptable, but not on a fundamental level.
With some reservations, we can agree that knowledge about consciousness is the foundation of our knowledge in general. After all, it is impossible to imagine knowledge that is not based on some data. This raw data is, in one way or another, the sphere of consciousness.
And if we say that there is no certainty in the question of the existence of human consciousness, then all human knowledge will collapse: this is precisely the channel of our subjective givenness through which any knowledge passes. If this channel does not work well, all trust in the results of cognition throughout human history crumbles.
You can ask the question differently: why is the impact on the subject generally accompanied by the appearance of some phenomena - sensations and experiences? But this is already an ontological problem, which is called the difficult problem of consciousness. And nobody solved it.
Shrinking before our eyes: how we are wrong about our consciousness
Consider examples of memory errors associated with confabulation or cryptomnesia - states in which a person mixes up the events of the past and the present or adds some elements to memories that were not there in reality. Or Anton Babinsky's syndrome - the neglect of cognitive deficits caused by neurological damage to the brain, when a person who has lost their eyesight claims to see. But it seems to us that if I have consciousness and assert that I see, then how can I be wrong about this?
There are psychological experiments that cause distrust in people, despite the fact that they are well verified and have long been confirmed. And this only emphasizes that we do not know ourselves well enough.
The simplest experiment is the Ames room.
Imagine that there is a person sitting in front of you who has not been in this room and has never heard of it, but who represents how perception works. If you say to him: “In this room I am standing opposite you, against the wall. The distance between us is two or three meters. There are no screens or mirrors. I walk along this wall and shrink before your eyes, "- then a person may consider you crazy. But when he gets into Ames's room, he will be able to see everything with his own eyes and will not be very surprised.
By this example, one can judge that a person does not understand well how his perception works, and does not fully understand himself. These are just a few examples of the illusions that populate our consciousness, our "inner world".
Unmeasurable triangle: why you shouldn't be skeptical
But how, then, to keep the ground underfoot? How can it be argued that the facts of consciousness have any degree of certainty - even in spite of these errors?
When people in general, or philosophers in particular, learn about mistakes about their own consciousness, they can become extremely skeptical. Skeptics might be encouraged to think of the triangle example.
Imagine that you have a triangle in front of you. You may ask, "How long are the sides of this triangle?" You will start measuring, but obviously you cannot measure accurately. The fact is that a physical measurement is an approximate matter: it always has an error. That is, the ruler will only give you the approximate length of the sides.
You can take more and more accurate measuring instruments - but still you will have an approximate (that is, erroneous) result. The triangle will lie in front of you, and you will be powerless to measure its exact parameters.
But you can know with full accuracy the aspect ratio of a triangle if it is rectangular. Why with complete precision? Because here we are not measuring a specific triangle with a ruler, but using deduction. We know the law of geometry: in a triangle, the sum of the angles is 180˚ - this is absolutely certain. So when you know that one angle is 90˚ and the other two angles are equal to each other, you can name the absolute value.
You do not suffer from the fact that you cannot accurately measure the triangle that is in front of you, nor because you will inevitably be mistaken in calculating the length of its sides. It doesn't even prevent you from gaining accurate knowledge about it based on the laws of geometry. It's the same here.
Despite these mistakes, consciousness remains a rather important foundation of knowledge for us, and we cannot globally be mistaken in its presence and in knowing about ourselves.
Looking at our own inner world, we are really mistaken in many ways and cannot always achieve accurate results. And we can establish some invariants, correlations of our fundamental beliefs with very high accuracy.
For example, we may ask the question: How are the beliefs that the external world exists and that every event has a cause related? To answer, we need to think about why we believe that some things do not cease to exist after we cease to perceive them. We believe that objects do not disappear as soon as we turn away, when we are sure that there is nothing in the environment of the object that could destroy it. Only if something really threatens its existence, we fully allow it to disappear. This is how these two beliefs are connected - and this we can know a priori and with absolute accuracy.
Mirror box: we are wrong not in consciousness, but in interpretation
Consider now an example of the illusion of a mirror box in a 1963 experiment: a person places a gloved hand in a mirror box and is instructed to draw a line with his hand. Then it turns out that his hand does not seem to obey. And the person not only says: “What is it? What's going on with my hand? " - but has difficulty in controlling his own limb and makes involuntary movements.
It turns out that in the second phase of the experiment, the subject sees the reflection not of his own hand, but of the assistant's hand. But consciousness still mistakenly gives him the wrong information about the location of his hands, although it seems that he cannot be mistaken in this.
All examples of errors in relation to consciousness do not really refer to the very fact of having consciousness - but rather to the facts behind states of consciousness and to the interpretation of those facts. But the state of consciousness itself is always reliably known to us.
In this sense, introspection is no different from external perception (although there are still many discussions on this topic in modern philosophy). Just as in a dark room you can be mistaken in recognizing this or that object, so in your confused inner world you easily make some mistakes of perception. You can mix some memories with reality, confuse different experiences into one. The more vague the facts, the greater the likelihood of error, both in the external feeling and in the internal one.
Another example is the ball counting experiment, which is experiencing selective attention. If you haven't participated in this experiment yet, watch the next video before reading on.
The subject watches a video in which two teams of three people in white and black T-shirts pass balls to each other. The goal is to count the number of passes of the White team. As a rule, everyone calls the correct number, but does not see the person in the gorilla costume coming out in the middle of the stage during the video.
But we are not mistaken here regarding our own consciousness. We had no attention for this gorilla because it was busy with another task. We were mistaken in the perception and interpretation of the facts.
I'm cold when I'm hot. Anti-luminescence argument
Suppose I have a snake in front of me - is it an illusion or a reality? I could be wrong about this and confuse a snake with a rope. But I cannot confuse the feeling of pain with anything: if I feel pain, then it is.
In this regard, it is worth discussing the anti-luminescence argument of the already mentioned Timothy Williamson.
We are convinced that our states of consciousness are obvious to us - as if they are "highlighted". For example, if I am experiencing pain, then I know that I am experiencing it and what exactly this feeling is. In other words, if I have some kind of conscious state, then I always know about it.
But Williamson has an argument against this "glow" of consciousness. This argument is paradoxical at first glance and is similar in spirit to the famous aporia of Achilles and the tortoise, which is designed to prove the impossibility of movement, although all our experience says otherwise. Williamson suggests pretending to be cold and gradually getting warmer. Every millisecond the change is so small that you cannot register it. If we keep the report from millisecond to millisecond, then every time you will have to say that you are cold, because it is impossible to catch such insignificant warming. But at the end of a certain period of time (let's say it's five minutes), the temperature will change so much that you will become hot. If I believe that consciousness "shines", then I will have to assert absurd things: for example, that I am cold when I am hot. Williamson's argument here is much stronger than empirical arguments, for the reason that it strikes precisely at the very reliability of consciousness.
Williamson argues that if we assume that our states of consciousness are really luminescent (that is, we always know if we are in some kind of mental state), then we come to a paradox: we begin to assert that we are cold, when in reality it is warm - and all because these changes occur so imperceptibly that we are unable to register them. Williamson says: since we have come to such a paradox, it means that consciousness is still not luminescent, and, being in some kind of conscious state, we are not able to know it.
Leaving aside the logical structure of the argument, let us note that Williamson probably has a misconception about the work of consciousness in this argument.
What is the problem?
First, when at some point in time we are aware of something, we do it not only in the context of immediately preceding moments (as, apparently, the philosopher suggests), but also in the context of more distant moments. Therefore, even if we cannot subjectively distinguish the state at time t 1 from the state immediately following it at time t 2 , then we may well notice the difference between the state at time t 2 from the state at the initial time t 0 , from which the experiment began. Because we, as it were, hold the moments of consciousness, carry out retention, as Husserl said, of a whole time series.
Mental events always have some background, and in constant comparison with it, the changes no longer seem tiny - so we can notice them. So Williamson's whole argument falls apart.
Second, Williamson argues that the processes of consciousness are atomistic: as if there are some "atoms" of conscious states that organize the entire course of consciousness. This statement is also debatable.
Williamson's suggestion that I know my state of consciousness at any given time can be viewed as dubious. How to confirm this? Let's go back to the example of the invisible gorilla in the selective attention test. Check out the second version of this test:
In half of the cases, beginners see a gorilla. But even those who know that at some point you need to see a gorilla, they still do not notice something. For example, few people can later remember that the red background turns yellow, and the captain of the “black” team disappears. Because the attention is focused on another task.
But if you think about whether we really do not notice the change in the color of the curtains, the answer will be this: our eyes see them, which means that information about this through the visual neurons enters the brain - but since our attention is occupied by others, we cannot give a subjective report on this information. Williamson's argument is based on the assertion that at any given time, if we are conscious, then we must be sensitive to change, but this is not the case.
Third, Williamson associates the "glow" of consciousness with the ability to track changes. But you can argue with him and say that the ability to track changes in the conscious state and the luminescence of consciousness are two different things. When I am conscious, it as a whole really makes itself felt to me. But my ability to register the smallest changes does not follow from this property of consciousness "to glow".
The whole world is an illusion: the inconsistency of the theory of the illusion of consciousness
There is such a theory of consciousness as illusionism. This materialistic theory asserts that our concept of consciousness is wrong precisely because we can make mistakes.
But it can be assumed that the theory of illusionism is only conceptual confusion. Of course, illusions about the inner world can arise, just as illusions about the outer world can arise. You have confused the rope with a snake, and you have an illusory idea.
But when we say that consciousness is an illusion, then by the word "illusion" we mean something completely different. Theorists who talk about this do not mean our erroneous judgments, but the reality about which we make a judgment. And talking about the illusory nature of consciousness in this sense is the same as talking about the illusory nature of physical given.
If we defend this position to the end, then the illusionists should, following Schopenhauer and the supporters of the Indian philosophy of Vedanta, say that the whole world is Maya, a great illusion. However, the illusionists are not ready to go that far. They believe that physical reality really exists, and consciousness is illusory. And here they make a serious conceptual miscalculation.
Introspection - the mechanism of knowledge about consciousness
Introspection can be understood as the ability through which we recognize the modes of the given phenomena. Simply put, it allows us to understand what we are experiencing: sensory perception of an external object, a figment of our own imagination, or this is a memory.
Imagine: you see a table. You can be aware not only of the table itself, but the very process of seeing - your inner act. Then you understand that you are standing and seeing the table in reality. But you can recognize a table as a product of the imagination: you don't have a table, and you are wondering which table would look good in your - while empty - room. Or you can recognize it all as a memory: you once saw the table, and now you remember it. Recognizing how this table appears in your mind is introspection.
In such recognition, of course, errors are possible - as in any intellectual activity. Therefore, we can confidently say about introspection:
Thus, we have achieved a certain philosophical optimism regarding our knowledge of consciousness and the confidence that we are not globally wrong about its existence. But this philosophical optimism does not at all lead us to psychological optimism.
The possibility of reliable knowledge about consciousness does not at all mean that we also know everything about ourselves as individuals and that we are transparent to ourselves. Consciousness is reliable, but we can be mistaken in interpreting its phenomena and as a person we are opaque to ourselves.
How do I know I'm in pain? The question seems strange: if I feel pain, then it hurts - that's all.
For philosophers, as for ordinary people, the very fact of the existence of consciousness is not questioned. It seems that we can doubt everything, even the existence of the external world - but we cannot doubt the existence of consciousness!
True, there are many pitfalls here. For example, we may be mistaken in the presence of consciousness or assert that consciousness is to some extent not the domain of the obvious and certain. As famed Oxford philosopher Timothy Williamson says, our belief that consciousness is the home of our knowledge can be shaken.
Does the outside world exist?
In addition to the problem of the existence of consciousness in philosophy, there is also the problem of substantiating the existence of an "external" world independent of us: are there things that do not depend on our perception, is there something objectively in opposition to the subjective? This is an important question, because the entire scientific picture of the world is built on the assumption of the possibility of an objective judgment. It seems that there is a parallel between these two problems (consciousness and the world): after all, in one and in the other case there can be a mistake - we can be mistaken both about our inner world and about the outer one.
The problem of the existence of the world "external" in relation to our consciousness arises as follows. We admit that some objects external to consciousness act on our "I", as a result of this influence, subjective sensations - phenomena appear. The phenomena themselves are assumed as some objectively existing given. But let's think about it: after all, these phenomena that we assume in posing the question of the external world are objects of introspection. It is, of course, possible to ask how these phenomena are given, but the answer has already been described in the scheme of the work of the external feeling.
In other words, when thinking about the problem of the external world, we doubt where the phenomena came from - but at the same time it is absurd to ask about the existence of these phenomena themselves: they are already simply assumed as data.
It turns out that there is no parallel between the problem of the existence of the external world and the problem of the existence of consciousness. Therefore, consciousness can be wrong, and skepticism, skepticism towards it, is acceptable, but not on a fundamental level.
With some reservations, we can agree that knowledge about consciousness is the foundation of our knowledge in general. After all, it is impossible to imagine knowledge that is not based on some data. This raw data is, in one way or another, the sphere of consciousness.
And if we say that there is no certainty in the question of the existence of human consciousness, then all human knowledge will collapse: this is precisely the channel of our subjective givenness through which any knowledge passes. If this channel does not work well, all trust in the results of cognition throughout human history crumbles.
You can ask the question differently: why is the impact on the subject generally accompanied by the appearance of some phenomena - sensations and experiences? But this is already an ontological problem, which is called the difficult problem of consciousness. And nobody solved it.
Shrinking before our eyes: how we are wrong about our consciousness
Consider examples of memory errors associated with confabulation or cryptomnesia - states in which a person mixes up the events of the past and the present or adds some elements to memories that were not there in reality. Or Anton Babinsky's syndrome - the neglect of cognitive deficits caused by neurological damage to the brain, when a person who has lost their eyesight claims to see. But it seems to us that if I have consciousness and assert that I see, then how can I be wrong about this?
There are psychological experiments that cause distrust in people, despite the fact that they are well verified and have long been confirmed. And this only emphasizes that we do not know ourselves well enough.
The simplest experiment is the Ames room.
Imagine that there is a person sitting in front of you who has not been in this room and has never heard of it, but who represents how perception works. If you say to him: “In this room I am standing opposite you, against the wall. The distance between us is two or three meters. There are no screens or mirrors. I walk along this wall and shrink before your eyes, "- then a person may consider you crazy. But when he gets into Ames's room, he will be able to see everything with his own eyes and will not be very surprised.
By this example, one can judge that a person does not understand well how his perception works, and does not fully understand himself. These are just a few examples of the illusions that populate our consciousness, our "inner world".
Unmeasurable triangle: why you shouldn't be skeptical
But how, then, to keep the ground underfoot? How can it be argued that the facts of consciousness have any degree of certainty - even in spite of these errors?
When people in general, or philosophers in particular, learn about mistakes about their own consciousness, they can become extremely skeptical. Skeptics might be encouraged to think of the triangle example.
Imagine that you have a triangle in front of you. You may ask, "How long are the sides of this triangle?" You will start measuring, but obviously you cannot measure accurately. The fact is that a physical measurement is an approximate matter: it always has an error. That is, the ruler will only give you the approximate length of the sides.
You can take more and more accurate measuring instruments - but still you will have an approximate (that is, erroneous) result. The triangle will lie in front of you, and you will be powerless to measure its exact parameters.
But you can know with full accuracy the aspect ratio of a triangle if it is rectangular. Why with complete precision? Because here we are not measuring a specific triangle with a ruler, but using deduction. We know the law of geometry: in a triangle, the sum of the angles is 180˚ - this is absolutely certain. So when you know that one angle is 90˚ and the other two angles are equal to each other, you can name the absolute value.
You do not suffer from the fact that you cannot accurately measure the triangle that is in front of you, nor because you will inevitably be mistaken in calculating the length of its sides. It doesn't even prevent you from gaining accurate knowledge about it based on the laws of geometry. It's the same here.
Despite these mistakes, consciousness remains a rather important foundation of knowledge for us, and we cannot globally be mistaken in its presence and in knowing about ourselves.
Looking at our own inner world, we are really mistaken in many ways and cannot always achieve accurate results. And we can establish some invariants, correlations of our fundamental beliefs with very high accuracy.
For example, we may ask the question: How are the beliefs that the external world exists and that every event has a cause related? To answer, we need to think about why we believe that some things do not cease to exist after we cease to perceive them. We believe that objects do not disappear as soon as we turn away, when we are sure that there is nothing in the environment of the object that could destroy it. Only if something really threatens its existence, we fully allow it to disappear. This is how these two beliefs are connected - and this we can know a priori and with absolute accuracy.
Mirror box: we are wrong not in consciousness, but in interpretation
Consider now an example of the illusion of a mirror box in a 1963 experiment: a person places a gloved hand in a mirror box and is instructed to draw a line with his hand. Then it turns out that his hand does not seem to obey. And the person not only says: “What is it? What's going on with my hand? " - but has difficulty in controlling his own limb and makes involuntary movements.
It turns out that in the second phase of the experiment, the subject sees the reflection not of his own hand, but of the assistant's hand. But consciousness still mistakenly gives him the wrong information about the location of his hands, although it seems that he cannot be mistaken in this.
All examples of errors in relation to consciousness do not really refer to the very fact of having consciousness - but rather to the facts behind states of consciousness and to the interpretation of those facts. But the state of consciousness itself is always reliably known to us.
In this sense, introspection is no different from external perception (although there are still many discussions on this topic in modern philosophy). Just as in a dark room you can be mistaken in recognizing this or that object, so in your confused inner world you easily make some mistakes of perception. You can mix some memories with reality, confuse different experiences into one. The more vague the facts, the greater the likelihood of error, both in the external feeling and in the internal one.
Another example is the ball counting experiment, which is experiencing selective attention. If you haven't participated in this experiment yet, watch the next video before reading on.
The subject watches a video in which two teams of three people in white and black T-shirts pass balls to each other. The goal is to count the number of passes of the White team. As a rule, everyone calls the correct number, but does not see the person in the gorilla costume coming out in the middle of the stage during the video.
But we are not mistaken here regarding our own consciousness. We had no attention for this gorilla because it was busy with another task. We were mistaken in the perception and interpretation of the facts.
I'm cold when I'm hot. Anti-luminescence argument
Suppose I have a snake in front of me - is it an illusion or a reality? I could be wrong about this and confuse a snake with a rope. But I cannot confuse the feeling of pain with anything: if I feel pain, then it is.
In this regard, it is worth discussing the anti-luminescence argument of the already mentioned Timothy Williamson.
We are convinced that our states of consciousness are obvious to us - as if they are "highlighted". For example, if I am experiencing pain, then I know that I am experiencing it and what exactly this feeling is. In other words, if I have some kind of conscious state, then I always know about it.
But Williamson has an argument against this "glow" of consciousness. This argument is paradoxical at first glance and is similar in spirit to the famous aporia of Achilles and the tortoise, which is designed to prove the impossibility of movement, although all our experience says otherwise. Williamson suggests pretending to be cold and gradually getting warmer. Every millisecond the change is so small that you cannot register it. If we keep the report from millisecond to millisecond, then every time you will have to say that you are cold, because it is impossible to catch such insignificant warming. But at the end of a certain period of time (let's say it's five minutes), the temperature will change so much that you will become hot. If I believe that consciousness "shines", then I will have to assert absurd things: for example, that I am cold when I am hot. Williamson's argument here is much stronger than empirical arguments, for the reason that it strikes precisely at the very reliability of consciousness.
Williamson argues that if we assume that our states of consciousness are really luminescent (that is, we always know if we are in some kind of mental state), then we come to a paradox: we begin to assert that we are cold, when in reality it is warm - and all because these changes occur so imperceptibly that we are unable to register them. Williamson says: since we have come to such a paradox, it means that consciousness is still not luminescent, and, being in some kind of conscious state, we are not able to know it.
Leaving aside the logical structure of the argument, let us note that Williamson probably has a misconception about the work of consciousness in this argument.
What is the problem?
First, when at some point in time we are aware of something, we do it not only in the context of immediately preceding moments (as, apparently, the philosopher suggests), but also in the context of more distant moments. Therefore, even if we cannot subjectively distinguish the state at time t 1 from the state immediately following it at time t 2 , then we may well notice the difference between the state at time t 2 from the state at the initial time t 0 , from which the experiment began. Because we, as it were, hold the moments of consciousness, carry out retention, as Husserl said, of a whole time series.
Mental events always have some background, and in constant comparison with it, the changes no longer seem tiny - so we can notice them. So Williamson's whole argument falls apart.
Second, Williamson argues that the processes of consciousness are atomistic: as if there are some "atoms" of conscious states that organize the entire course of consciousness. This statement is also debatable.
Williamson's suggestion that I know my state of consciousness at any given time can be viewed as dubious. How to confirm this? Let's go back to the example of the invisible gorilla in the selective attention test. Check out the second version of this test:
In half of the cases, beginners see a gorilla. But even those who know that at some point you need to see a gorilla, they still do not notice something. For example, few people can later remember that the red background turns yellow, and the captain of the “black” team disappears. Because the attention is focused on another task.
But if you think about whether we really do not notice the change in the color of the curtains, the answer will be this: our eyes see them, which means that information about this through the visual neurons enters the brain - but since our attention is occupied by others, we cannot give a subjective report on this information. Williamson's argument is based on the assertion that at any given time, if we are conscious, then we must be sensitive to change, but this is not the case.
Third, Williamson associates the "glow" of consciousness with the ability to track changes. But you can argue with him and say that the ability to track changes in the conscious state and the luminescence of consciousness are two different things. When I am conscious, it as a whole really makes itself felt to me. But my ability to register the smallest changes does not follow from this property of consciousness "to glow".
The whole world is an illusion: the inconsistency of the theory of the illusion of consciousness
There is such a theory of consciousness as illusionism. This materialistic theory asserts that our concept of consciousness is wrong precisely because we can make mistakes.
But it can be assumed that the theory of illusionism is only conceptual confusion. Of course, illusions about the inner world can arise, just as illusions about the outer world can arise. You have confused the rope with a snake, and you have an illusory idea.
But when we say that consciousness is an illusion, then by the word "illusion" we mean something completely different. Theorists who talk about this do not mean our erroneous judgments, but the reality about which we make a judgment. And talking about the illusory nature of consciousness in this sense is the same as talking about the illusory nature of physical given.
If we defend this position to the end, then the illusionists should, following Schopenhauer and the supporters of the Indian philosophy of Vedanta, say that the whole world is Maya, a great illusion. However, the illusionists are not ready to go that far. They believe that physical reality really exists, and consciousness is illusory. And here they make a serious conceptual miscalculation.
Introspection - the mechanism of knowledge about consciousness
Introspection can be understood as the ability through which we recognize the modes of the given phenomena. Simply put, it allows us to understand what we are experiencing: sensory perception of an external object, a figment of our own imagination, or this is a memory.
Imagine: you see a table. You can be aware not only of the table itself, but the very process of seeing - your inner act. Then you understand that you are standing and seeing the table in reality. But you can recognize a table as a product of the imagination: you don't have a table, and you are wondering which table would look good in your - while empty - room. Or you can recognize it all as a memory: you once saw the table, and now you remember it. Recognizing how this table appears in your mind is introspection.
In such recognition, of course, errors are possible - as in any intellectual activity. Therefore, we can confidently say about introspection:
- firstly, there is a rational principle in it, the ability to judge;
- secondly, the less distinct the phenomena, the higher the probability of errors in recognition.
Thus, we have achieved a certain philosophical optimism regarding our knowledge of consciousness and the confidence that we are not globally wrong about its existence. But this philosophical optimism does not at all lead us to psychological optimism.
The possibility of reliable knowledge about consciousness does not at all mean that we also know everything about ourselves as individuals and that we are transparent to ourselves. Consciousness is reliable, but we can be mistaken in interpreting its phenomena and as a person we are opaque to ourselves.
