The Logical Structure of Consciousness (behavior, personality, rationality, higher order thought, intentionality) Michael Starks Abstract After half a century in oblivion, the nature of consciousness is now the hottest topic in the behavioral sciences and philosophy. Beginning with the pioneering work of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the 1930's (the Blue and Brown Books) and from the 50's to the present by his logical successor John Searle, I have created the following table as an heuristic for furthering this study. The rows show various aspects or ways of studying and the columns show the involuntary processes and voluntary behaviors comprising the two systems (dual processes) of the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), which can also be regarded as the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR-Searle), of behavior (LSB), of personality (LSB), of reality (LSOR), of Intentionality (LSI) -the classical philosophical term, the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DPC) , the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (DPT) –or better, the Language of the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (LDPT), terms introduced here and in my other very recent writings. I will make minimal comments here since those wishing further description may consult my articles and reviews of books by Wittgenstein, Searle and others on academia.edu, philpapers.org, vixra.org and on Amazon. After half a century in oblivion, the nature of consciousness is now the hottest topic in the behavioral sciences and philosophy. Beginning with the pioneering work of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the 1930's (the Blue and Brown Books) and from the 50's to the present by his logical successor John Searle, I have created the following table as an heuristic for furthering this study. The rows show various aspects or ways of studying and the columns show the involuntary processes and voluntary behaviors comprising the two systems (dual processes) of the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), which can also be regarded as the Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR-Searle), of behavior (LSB), of personality (LSB), of reality (LSOR), of Intentionality (LSI) -the classical philosophical term, the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DPC) , the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (DPT) –or better, the Language of the Descriptive Psychology of Thought (LDPT), terms introduced here and in my other very recent writings. I will make minimal comments here since those wishing further description may consult my articles and reviews of books by Wittgenstein, Searle and others on academia.edu, philpapers.orgvixra.org and on Amazon. This table comes from work by Wittgenstein and and a much simpler table by Searle as revised and expanded by myself. The last 9 rows come principally from decision research by Johnathan St. B.T. Evans and colleagues as revised by myself. The Logical Structure of Rationality (LSR), or the Logical Structure of Mind (LSM), the Logical Structure of Behavior (LSB), the Logical Structure of Thought (LST), the Logical Structure of Consciousness (LSC), the Logical Structure of Personality (LSP), the Descriptive Psychology of Consciousness (DSC), the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought (DPHOT), Intentionality-the classical philosophical term. revised by myself. (Involuntary –automated-Rules R1) Thinking (Cognition)(No gaps) (Voluntary-deliberativeRules R2) Willing (Volition)(3 gaps) Dispositions* Emotions Memory Perception Desires PI** IA*** Actions/Words Cause Originates From**** World World World World Mind Mind Mind Mind Causes Changes In***** None Mind Mind Mind None World World World Causally Self Reflexive****** No Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes True or False(Testable) Yes T only T only T only Yes Yes Yes Yes Public Conditions of Satisfaction Yes Yes/No Yes/No No Yes/No Yes No Yes Describe a Mental State No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes/No Yes Evolutionary Priority 5 4 2,3 1 5 3 2 2 Voluntary Content Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes Voluntary Initiation Yes/No No Yes No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive System ******* 2 1 2/1 1 2 / 1 2 1 2 Change Intensity No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Precise Duration No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Time,Place(H+N,T+T)***** *** TT HN HN HN TT TT HN HN Special Quality No Yes No Yes No No No No Localized in Body No No No Yes No No No Yes Bodily Expressions Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Self Contradictions No Yes No No Yes No No No Needs a Self Yes Yes/No No No Yes No No No Needs Language Yes No No No No No No Yes/No FROM DECISION RESEARCH Subliminal Effects No Yes/No Yes Yes No No No Yes/No Associative/Rule Based RB A/RB A A A/RB RB RB RB Context Dependent/Abstract A CD/A CD CD CD/A A CD/A CD/A Serial/Parallel S S/P P P S/P S S S Heuristic/Analytic A H/A H H H/A A A A Needs Working Memory Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes General Intelligence Dependent Yes No No No Yes/No Yes Yes Yes Cognitive Loading Inhibits Yes Yes/No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Arousal Facilitates or Inhibits I F/I F F I I I I Public Conditions of Satisfaction of S2 are often referred to by Searle and others as COS, Representations, truthmakers or meanings (or COS2 by myself), while the automatic results of S1 are designated as presentations by others ( or COS1 by myself). * Aka Inclinations, Capabilities, Preferences, Representations, possible actions etc. ** Searle's Prior Intentions *** Searle's Intention In Action **** Searle's Direction of Fit ***** Searle's Direction of Causation ****** (Mental State instantiates--Causes or Fulfills Itself). Searle formerly call this causally selfreferential. ******* Tversky/Kahneman/Frederick/Evans/Stanovich defined cognitive systems. ******** Here and Now or There and Then It is of interest to compare this with the various tables and charts in Peter Hacker's recent 3 volumes on Human Nature. One should always keep in mind Wittgenstein's discovery that after we have described the possible uses (meanings, truthmakers, Conditions of Satisfaction) of language in a particular context, we have exhausted its interest, and attempts at explanation (i.e., philosophy) only get us further away from the truth. He showed us that there is only one philosophical problem-the use of sentences (language games) in an inappropriate context, and hence only one solution- showing the correct context. EXPLANATION OF THE TABLE System 1 (i.e., emotions, memory, perceptions, reflexes) which parts of the brain present to consciousness, are automated and generally happen in less than 500msec, while System 2 is abilities to perform slow deliberative actions that are represented in conscious deliberation (S2D-my terminology) requiring over 500msec, but frequently repeated S2 actions can also become automated (S2A-my terminology). There is a gradation of consciousness from coma through the stages of sleep to full awareness. Memory includes short term memory (working memory) of system 2 and long term memory of System 1. For volitions one would usually say they are successful or not, rather than true or false. S1 is causally self-reflexive since the description of our perceptual experience-the presentation of our senses to consciousness, can only be described in the same words (as the same COS Searle) as we describe the world, which I prefer to call the percept or COS1 to distinguish it from the representation or public COS2 of S2. Of course the various rows and columns are logically and psychologically connected. E.g., Emotion, Memory and Perception in the True or False row will be True only, will describe a mental state, belong to cognitive system 1, will not generally be initiated voluntarily, are causally self-reflexive, cause originates in the world and causes changes in the mind, have a precise duration, change in intensity, occur here and now, commonly have a special quality, do not need language, are independent of general intelligence and working memory, are not inhibited by cognitive loading, will not have voluntary content, and will not have public conditions of satisfaction etc. There will always be ambiguities because the words (concepts, language games) cannot precisely match the actual complex functions of the brain (behavior), that is, there is a combinatorial explosion of contexts (in sentences and in the world), and this is why it's not possible to reduce higher order behavior to a system of laws which would have to state all the possible contexts –hence Wittgenstein's warnings against theories. About a million years ago primates evolved the ability to use their throat muscles to make complex series of noises (i.e., primitive speech) to describe present events (perceptions, memory, reflexive actions) with some Primary or Primitive Language Games (PLG's). System 1 is comprised of fast, automated, subcortical, nonrepresentational, causally self-referential, intransitive, informationless, true-only mental states with a precise time and location) and over time there evolved in higher cortical centers S2 with the further ability to describe displacements in space and time of events (the past and future and often hypothetical, counterfactual, conditional or fictional preferences, inclinations or dispositions-the Secondary or Sophisticated Language Games (SLG's) of System 2 that are slow, cortical, conscious, information containing, transitive (having public Conditions of Satisfaction-Searle's term for truthmakers or meaning which I divide into COS1 and COS2 for private S1 and public S2), representational (which I again divide into R1 for S1 representations and R2 for S2) , true or false propositional thinking, with all S2 functions having no precise time and being abilities and not mental states. Preferences are Intuitions, Tendencies, Automatic Ontological Rules, Behaviors, Abilities, Cognitive Modules, Personality Traits, Templates, Inference Engines, Inclinations, Emotions (described by Searle as agitated desires), Propositional Attitudes (correct only if used to refer to events in the world and not to propositions), Appraisals, Capacities, Hypotheses. Some Emotions are slowly developing and changing results of S2 dispositions (W Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology V2 p148) while others are typical S1- automatic and fast to appear and disappear. "I believe", "he loves", "they think" are descriptions of possible public acts typically displaced in spacetime. My first person statements about myself are true-only (excluding lying) –i.e. S1, while third person statements about others are true or false –i.e., S2 (see my reviews of Johnston 'Wittgenstein: Rethinking the Inner' and of Budd 'Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology'). "Preferences" as a class of intentional states --opposed to perceptions, reflexive acts and memories-were first clearly described by Wittgenstein (W) in the 1930's and termed "inclinations" or "dispositions". They have commonly been termed "propositional attitudes" since Russell but this is a misleading phrase since believing, intending, knowing , remembering etc., are often not propositionsal nor attitudes, as has been shown e.g., by W and by Searle (e.g., cf Consciousness and Language p118). They are intrinsic, observer independent public representations (as opposed to presentations or representations of System 1 to System 2 – Searle-C+L p53). They are potential acts displaced in time or space, while the evolutionarily more primitive S1 perceptions memories and reflexive actions are always here and now. This is one way to characterize System 2 -the second major advance in vertebrate psychology after System 1-the ability to represent events and to think of them as occurring in another place or time (Searle's third faculty of counterfactual imagination supplementing cognition and volition). S1 'thoughts' (my T1) are potential or unconscious mental states of S1 --Searle-Phil Issues 1:45-66(1991). Perceptions, memories and reflexive (automatic) actions can be described by primary LG's ( PLG's -e.g., I see the dog) and there are, in the normal case, NO TESTS possible so they can be True Only. Dispositions can be described as secondary LG's ( SLG's –e.g. I believe I see the dog) and must also be acted out, even for me in my own case (i.e., how do I KNOW what I believe, think, feel until I act or some event occurs-see my reviews of the well known books on W by Johnston and Budd. Note well that Dispositions become Actions when spoken or written as well as being acted out in other ways, and these ideas are all due to Wittgenstein (mid 1930's) and are NOT Behaviorism (Hintikka & Hintikka 1981, Searle, Hacker, Hutto etc.,). Wittgenstein can be regarded as the founder of evolutionary psychology and his work a unique investigation of the functioning of our axiomatic System 1 psychology and its interaction with System 2. After Wittgenstein laid the groundwork for the Descriptive Psychology of Higher Order Thought in the Blue and Brown Books in the early 30's, it was extended by John Searle, who made a simpler version of this table in his classic book Rationality in Action (2001). It expands on W's survey of the axiomatic structure of evolutionary psychology developed from his very first comments in 1911 and so beautifully laid out in his last work 'On Certainty' (OC) (written in 1950-51). OC is the foundation stone of behavior or epistemology and ontology (arguably the same as are semantics and pragmatics), cognitive linguistics or Higher Order Thought, and in my view (shared e.g., by DMS) the single most important work in philosophy (descriptive psychology) and thus in the study of behavior. Perception, Memory, Reflexive actions and Emotion are primitive partly Subcortical Involuntary Mental States, that can be described in PLG's, in which the mind automatically fits (presents) the world (is Causally Self Reflexive--Searle)--the unquestionable, true-only, axiomatic basis of rationality over which no control is possible). Preferences, Desires, and Intentions are descriptions of slow thinking conscious Voluntary Abilities- that can be described in SLG's-in which the mind tries to fit (represent) the world. Behaviorism and all the other confusions of our default descriptive psychology (philosophy) arise because we cannot see S1 working and describe all actions as SLG's (The Phenomenological Illusion-TPI-Searle). W understood this and described it with unequalled clarity with hundreds of examples of language (the mind) in action throughout his works. Reason has access to memory and so we use consciously apparent but often incorrect reasons to explain behavior (the Two Selves or Systems or Processes of current research). Beliefs and other Dispositions can be described as thoughts which try to match the facts of the world (mind to world direction of fit), while Volitions are intentions to act (Prior Intentions-PI, or Intentions In Action-IAA-Searle) plus acts which try to match the world to the thoughts-world to mind direction of fit-cf. Searle e.g., C+L p145, 190). Sometimes there are gaps in reasoning to arrive at belief and other dispositions. Disposition words can be used as nouns which seem to describe mental states ('my thought is...') or as verbs or adjectives to describe abilities (agents as they act or might act -'I think that...) and are often incorrectly called "Propositional Attitudes". Perceptions become Memories and our innate programs (cognitive modules, templates, inference engines of S1) use these to produce Dispositions-(believing, knowing, understanding, thinking, etc.,-actual or potential public acts (language, thought, mind) also called Inclinations, Preferences, Capabilities, Representations of S2) and Volition -and there is no language (concept, thought) of private mental states for thinking or willing (i.e., no private language, thought or mind). Higher animals can think and will acts and to that extent they have a public psychology. Perceptions: (X is True): Hear, See, Smell, Pain, Touch, temperature Memories: Remembering (X was true) Preferences, Inclinations, Dispositions (X might become True) : CLASS 1: Propositional (True or False) public acts of Believing, Judging, Thinking, Representing, Understanding, Choosing, Deciding, Preferring, Interpreting, Knowing (including skills and abilities), Attending (Learning), Experiencing, Meaning, Remembering, Intending, Considering, Desiring , Expecting, Wishing , Wanting, Hoping( a special class), Seeing As (Aspects), CLASS 2: DECOUPLED MODE-(as if, conditional, hypothetical, fictional) Dreaming , Imagining, Lying, Predicting, Doubting CLASS 3: EMOTIONS: Loving, Hating, Fearing, Sorrow, Joy, Jealousy, Depression. Their function is to modulate Preferences to increase inclusive fitness (expected maximum utility) by facilitating information processing of perceptions and memories for rapid action. There is some separation between S1 emotions such as rage and fear and S2 such as love, hate, disgust and anger. We can think of them as strongly felt or acted out desires. DESIRES: ( I want X to be True-I want to change the world to fit my thoughts) : Longing, Hoping, Expecting, Awaiting, Needing, Requiring, obliged to do INTENTIONS: (I will make X True) Intending ACTIONS (I am making X True) : Acting, Speaking , Reading, Writing, Calculating, Persuading, Showing, Demonstrating, Convincing, Doing Trying, Attempting, Laughing, Playing, Eating, Drinking, Crying, Asserting (Describing, Teaching, Predicting, Reporting), Promising , Making or Using Maps, Books, Drawings, Computer Programs–these are Public and Voluntary and transfer Information to others so they dominate over the Unconscious, Involuntary and Informationless S1 reflexes in explanations of behavior (The Phenomenological Illusion, The Blank Slate or the SSSM). Words express actions having various functions in our life and are not the names of objects nor of a single type of event. The social interactions of humans are governed by cognitive modules-roughly equivalent to the scripts or schemata of social psychology (groups of neurons organized into inference engines), which, with perceptions and memories, lead to the formation of preferences which lead to intentions and then to actions. Intentionality or intentional psychology can be taken to be all these processes or only preferences leading to actions and in the broader sense is the subject of cognitive psychology or cognitive neurosciences when including neurophysiology, neurochemistry and neurogenetics. Evolutionary psychology can be regarded as the study of all the preceding functions or of the operation of the modules which produce behavior, and is then coextensive in evolution, development and individual action with preferences, intentions and actions. Since the axioms (algorithms or cognitive modules) of our psychology are in our genes, we can enlarge our understanding and increase our power by giving clear descriptions of how they work and can extend them (culture) via biology, psychology, philosophy (descriptive psychology), math, logic, physics, and computer programs, thus making them faster and more efficient. Hajek(2003) gives an analysis of dispositions as conditional probabilities which are algorithmatized by R & L(1999), Spohn etc. Intentionality (cognitive or evolutionary psychology) consists of various aspects of behavior which are innately programmed into cognitive modules which create and require consciousness, will and self, and in normal human adults nearly all except perceptions and some memories are purposive, require public acts (e.g., language), and commit us to relationships in order to increase our inclusive fitness (maximum expected utility or Bayesian utility maximization. Bayesianism is highly questionable due to severe underdetermination-i.e., it can 'explain' anything and hence nothing. This occurs via dominance and reciprocal altruism, often resulting in Desire Independent Reasons for Action (Searle)which I divide into DIRA1 and DIRA2 for S1 and S2) and imposes Conditions of Satisfaction on Conditions of Satisfaction (Searle)-(i.e., relate thoughts to the world via public acts (muscle movements) producing math, language, art, music, sex, sports etc. The basics of this were figured out by our greatest natural psychologist Ludwig Wittgenstein from the 1930's to 1951 but with clear foreshadowings back to 1911, and with refinements by many, but above all by John Searle beginning in the 1960's. "The general tree of psychological phenomena. I strive not for exactness but for a view of the whole." RPP Vol 1 p895 cf Z p464. Much of intentionality (e.g., our language games) admits of degrees. As W noted, inclinations are sometimes conscious and deliberative. All our templates (functions, concepts, language games) have fuzzy edges in some contexts as they must to be useful. There are at least two types of thinking (i.e., two language games or ways of using the dispositional verb "thinking")-nonrational without awareness and rational with partial awareness(W), now described as the fast and slow thinking of S1 and S2. It is useful to regard these as language games and not as mere phenomena (W RPP Vol2 p129). Mental phenomena (our subjective or internal "experiences") are epiphenomenal, lack criteria, hence lack info even for oneself and thus can play no role in communication, thinking or mind. Thinking like all dispositions lacks any test, is not a mental state (unlike perceptions of S1), and contains no information until it becomes a public act or event such as in speech, writing or other muscular contractions. Our perceptions and memories can have information (meaning-i.e., a public COS) only when they are manifested in public actions, for only then do thinking, feeling etc. have any meaning (consequences) even for ourselves. Memory and perception are integrated by modules into dispositions which become psychologically effective when they are acted upon-i.e., S1 generates S2. Developing language means manifesting the innate ability of advanced humans to substitute words (fine contractions of oral or manual muscles) for acts (gross contractions of arm and leg muscles). TOM (Theory of Mind ) is much better called UA-Understanding of Agency (my term) and UA1 and UA2 for such functions in S1 and S2 –and can also be called Evolutionary Psychology or Intentionality--the innate genetically programmed production of consciousness, self, and thought which leads to intentions and then to actions by contracting muscles. Thus, "propositional attitude" is an incorrect term for normal intuitive deliberative S2D or automated S2A speech and action. We see that the efforts of cognitive science to understand thinking, emotions etc. by studying neurophysiology is not going to tell us anything more about how the mind (thought, language) works (as opposed to how the brain works) than we already know, because "mind" (thought, language) is already in full public view (W). Any 'phenomena' that are hidden in neurophysiology, biochemistry , genetics, quantum mechanics, or string theory, are as irrelevant to our social life as the fact that a table is composed of atoms which "obey" (can be described by) the laws of physics and chemistry is to having lunch on it. As W so famously said "Nothing is hidden". Everything of interest about the mind (thought, language) is open to view if we only examine carefully the workings of language. Language (mind, public speech connected to potential actions) was evolved to facilitate social interaction and thus the gathering of resources, survival and reproduction. Its grammar (i.e., evolutionary psychology, intentionality) functions automatically and is extremely confusing when we try to analyze it. Words and sentences have multiple uses depending on context. I believe and I eat have profoundly different roles as do I believe and I believed or I believe and he believes. The present tense first person use of inclinational verbs such as "I believe" normally describe my ability to predict my probable acts based on knowledge (i.e., S2) but can also seem (in philosophical contexts) to be descriptive of my mental state and so not based on knowledge or information (W and see my review of the book by Hutto and Myin). In the former S1 sense, it does not describe a truth but makes itself true in the act of saying it --i.e., "I believe it's raining" makes itself true. That is, disposition verbs used in first person present tense can be causally self-reflexive--they instantiate themselves but then they are not testable (i.e., not T or F, not S2). However past or future tense or third person use--"I believed" or "he believes" or "he will believe' contain or can be resolved by information that is true or false, as they describe public acts that are or can become verifiable. Likewise, "I believe it's raining" has no information apart from subsequent actions, even for me, but "I believe it will rain" or "he will think it's raining" are potentially verifiable public acts displaced in spacetime that intend to convey information (or misinformation). Nonreflective or Nonrational (automatic) words spoken without Prior Intent (which I call S2A-i.e., S2D automated by practice) have been called Words as Deeds by W & then by Daniel Moyal-Sharrock in her paper in Philosophical Psychology in 2000). Many so-called Inclinations/Dispositions/Preferences/Tendencies/Capacities/Abilities are Non-Propositional ( NonReflective) Attitudes (far more useful to call them functions or abilities) of System 1 (Tversky and Kahnemann). Prior Intentions are stated by Searle to be Mental States and hence S1, but again I think one must separate PI1 and PI2 since in our normal language our prior intentions are the conscious deliberations of S2. Perceptions, Memories, type 2 Dispositions (e.g., some emotions) and many Type 1 Dispositions are better called Reflexes of S1 and are automatic, nonreflective, NON-Propositional and NON-Attitudinal functioning of the hinges (axioms, algorithms) of our Evolutionary Psychology (Moyal-Sharrock after Wittgenstein).