6-28 Consciousness can be implemented in a functional system.
. . . is disputed by . . .
6-49 Consciousness is an information bearing medium.
The claim (Bruce Mangan, 1993)
Consciousness is an information-bearing medium. Consciousness
bears cognitive information similar to the way DNA bears genetic
information. Thorough understanding of biological information-bearing
media can only be gained by examining both the information carried
by any given medium (e.g., the information carried by DNA), and
the medium that carries the information (e.g., the DNA itself).
But if consciousness is an information-bearing medium, and if
information-bearing media are not multiply instantiable (although
the information carried is), then consciousness is not multiply
instantiable. Functionalism is then false, because it claims that
consciousness is multiply instantiable.
The Mangan argument
Bruce Mangan presents his idea this way: "I propose to formalize
the notion of consciousness in a slightly new way: consciousness
is simply one information bearing medium, among many others, at
work in our organism. In general, scientific analysis of a biological
information bearing medium (e.g., of DNA or the fluid in the cochlea)
aim to answer at least two related but different questions: (1)
what information does the medium bear? and (2) in what specific
*way* does the medium bear its information? The 'information'
asked for in the first question can be instantiated in a great
many other media, natural or man made. But for the second question
this freedom of instantiation is largely beside the point, for
the second question asks about the *particular* characteristics
of of a given medium that allow it to bears its information in
a *particular* way. Answering the first question lets us assert
that something belongs to the *genus* information bearing medium,
answering the second lets us assert its uniqueness as a subordinate
*species*. Common sense notions about consciousness usually emphasize
its unique aspect, while cognitive science usually does the opposite,
treating consciousness as if its generic aspect as an information
bearing medium is all that we need to consider. But each stance
tacitly recognizes the other in many cases, and I believe that
there is no necessary conflict between them. My own candidates
for answering consciousness' genus and species questions are:
(1) consciousness tends to bear information that is relevant to
novel evaluations either expected or at hand; (2) consciousness
bears its information as experience (or 'qualia', but I try to
avoid this term). Note that the general species/genus proposal
is independent of this particular way of fleshing it out. The
great complication here is functionalism. The functionalist intuition
about consciousness (e.g., Dennett's) simply cannot allow consciousness
to be interpreted as a distinct information bearing medium. For
if consciousness is a distinct medium, the notion of a 'conscious
content' is medium dependent. Other media could still bear precisely
the same information consciousness bears. , but this, by itself,
would neither make such media, nor any information born by them,
conscious. One thing is clear: *If* consciousness is a distinct
information bearing medium, functionalism is wrong. So the medium
interpretation at least sharpens the dispute between functionalism
and its enemies. Another consequence may be to show a way out
of one research dead end around the notion of 'qualia,' now used
as if no other more fundamental intuition about conscious experience
is possible" (B. Mangan, 1996, p. 32).
References
Mangan, Bruce. 1996. Consciousness as a information bearing medium.
From Journal of Consciousness Studies series,Consciousness
Research Abstracts . The Tucson II conference: Toward a Science
of Consciousness 1996, p. 32.
For full paper is published as: Mangan, Bruce. 1998. Against functionalism: consciousness as an information bearing medium. In Toward a Science of Consciousness II The Second Tucson Discussions and Debates, edited by S. R. Hameroff, A. W. Kaszniak, and A. C. Scott, p. 135-141.