Abstract
Calls for first-person approaches are common in
consciousness studies today, but what do they mean? The idea of
“first-person science” is nonsensical, partly because science is
necessarily a collective endeavour, and partly because any data
collected must, by being written down or shared, become third-person
data. However, there may still be valuable roles for first-person
practice in a science of consciousness. One possibility is that
personal practice can help scientists and theoreticians to escape from
the everyday illusions that keep them trapped in false ideas of
subjective experience.
Most theories of consciousness, although their
proponents deny it, are forms of Cartesian materialism (as defined by
Dennett). This is revealed in such phrases as “the contents of
consciousness”, “enters consciousness”, “in consciousness”
and more explicitly in the popular Global Workspace theories. While
consciousness is conceived of as a container, through which a stream
of experiences passes, we remain stuck with (a) the hard problem and
(b) a “magic difference” between similar physical brain processes
some of which are said to be “in conscious” and others not. Why
are these theories so popular in spite of such serious problems? I
suggest that it is only because they fit with the illusions of
ordinary experience.
Perhaps the key is to change our experience, and
this is where personal practice comes in. With practice it is possible
to drop the intuitions that fuel these impossible theories of
consciousness, including the metaphors of the stream of consciousness,
the theatre of the mind, and the idea that there cannot be experiences
without an experiencer.
I have been practicing Zen for over twenty years
and have recently worked on a number of questions that directly
address the issues discussed above. I shall discuss three of them:
1.
Am I conscious now?
2.
What was I conscious of a moment ago?
3.
Who is asking the question?
I shall describe the changes that take place through
asking these questions, and suggest that long practice with them
destroys the appeal of most contemporary theories of consciousness.
