Reaction paper on John Searle's "The Problem of Consciousness"?

Question

i need help on my 500 word reaction paper on John Searle's "The Problem of Consciousness" i need help understanding this thing anyone help

Answer 1

The first basic principle grounding Searle's theory of consciousness is that consciousness is irreducible. For Searle, consciousness is essentially a first-person, subjective phenomenon, and thus talk of conscious states cannot be reduced or eliminated in favor of third-person, objective talk about neural events. Any such attempt at reduction, Searle argues, simply misses the essential features of conscious states -- that is, their subjective qualities. (See also entry on aspectual shape.)

The second basic principle is that consciousness is as much an ordinary biological phenomenon as is digestion. It is from this principle that Searle derives an argument for a non-dualist, causal approach to the problem of consciousness. According to Searle, brain processes at the neural level cause conscious states; accordingly, conscious states just are features of the neurobiological substrate. Searle further argues that if consciousness is to be considered a feature or effect of brain processes, we must be clear to understand that it is not an effect separate from and posterior to the brain processes causing it. For Searle, this view of cause and effect is misleading when applied to consciousness because it unavoidably leads to dualism, which is untenable. Instead, Searle argues that the relation between consciousness and its causal brain processes involves a kind of non-event causation such as would explain the fact that gravity (a non-event) causes an object to exert pressure on an underlying surface. Searle has put the point another way by describing consciousness as an emergent property of brain processes in the same sense that water's liquidity is an emergent property of the behavior of H2O molecules.

It should be noted that Searle's biological naturalism does not entail that brains and only brains can cause consciousness. Searle is careful to point out that while it appears to be the case that certain brain functions are be sufficient for producing conscious states, our current state of neurobiological knowledge prevents us from concluding that they are necessary for producing consciousness.