Philosophically, the subject of consciousness is shot through with profound paradox. Some intuitive disciplines (Buddhism, for example) recognise the inherent paradoxicality of consciousness and its study and have addressed this issue succinctly, at least at the practical level. Buddhism seems to deal with consciousness by cheerfully admitting that it is a fundamental paradox and can best, perhaps only, be resolved through unquestioning acceptance. Consciousness simply is, they say. No problem, they say. We in the restless and materialist West, however, abhor enigma and we seem to find this one a thoroughgoing irritant. We fret insistently about it. What is consciousness? What (if anything) is it for? Is it really necessary, or even a Good Idea? Did it really evolve, through natural selection?

There are two questions for science and philosophy to answer, one is easy and one is hard. The ‘easy question’ (it will one day be answered) is how? What mechanisms make consciousness happen? The ‘hard question’ may be unanswerable (some thinkers claim this one will forever be beyond our grasp, almost by definition). It is the why question – why do we have consciousness; what does it do and what is it for?

A & P consciousness: What do I mean by ‘consciousness’, the subject being so bedevilled by the problem of clear definition? Many writers consider there are two of them, two psychologically distinct consciousnesses (e.g. several contributors to Block et al 1997). Many writers distinguish between phenomenal or P consciousness and access or A consciousness. P consciousness is the consciousness of being; the awareness of ourselves, sometimes our awareness of our awareness and even our awareness of our awareness of our awareness. By contrast, A consciousness is the awareness of our immediate circumstances but without self awareness (Damasio 2000). A consciousness is not controversial; it is P consciousness which causes all the debate. (e.g. Block et al 1997, Chalmers 1996, Damasio 2000 & 2004, Edelman & Tononi 2000, Metzinger 1995, Nørretranders 1998, Smith & Jokic 2003.) These notes will consider consciousness to be P consciousness – thinking of which we are aware in the sense of being aware that we are doing it and aware of this awareness. When we are P conscious we experience being a being with thoughts. We are aware of these thoughts but also of being a being who is aware of them. All other mental activity I will call unconscious activity, since we do not become aware of doing it; since we do not do it in a state of self-awareness.

People who suffer petit mal epileptic seizures illustrate the difference between A & P consciousness. They can sometimes, when struck by a mild seizure, continue successfully to drink their tea, walk through crowds or whatever they were doing when the seizure struck (Block, in Block et al 1997, Damasio 2000). They appear objectively to be rather ‘wooden’ at such times and they report subjectively that they lose conscious awareness. They go on doing things quite well but lose the awareness that they are someone who is doing these things. Subjectively they report complete loss of consciousness, in fact. They behave appropriately in the world, but do not ‘know’ they are behaving. They cease to be aware that they are someone doing things. They retain, in other words, A consciousness but they temporarily lose P consciousness. They become, in effect, temporary zombies. A zombie knows about his immediate circumstances, he just doesn’t know that he is a creature who knows about his circumstances. Despite having A consciousness a zombie isn’t what I call conscious. That is why when I say ‘conscious’, hereafter, I will mean ‘P conscious’.

And it is an astonishing, fabulous thing, consciousness. It is astonishing that our brain, which is some 1,500 grams of soggy, grey tissue with the consistency of blancmange, can produce within its apparently so unpromising self a richly imagined, vividly intense world full of colour and sound, beauty or horror, sorrow or joy, reason or passion, pain or ecstasy and the astonishing awareness of these sensations and thoughts and of the self experiencing them. Physical brains and conscious experience are such radically different things that it is an absolutely ‘astonishing hypothesis’ that the one should give rise to the other (Crick 1994). Two questions force themselves upon our attention: why and how? The first is pure philosophy and I cannot do justice to, or even adequately follow, the arguments. My feelings about this aspect of the subject might be distilled into the following quote: ‘There is a feeling of intense confusion, but no clear idea about where the confusion lies.’ (McGinn in Pinker (1997) p. 558). Much reading has left me approximately where I was before I began. All I can do is point you towards some interesting literature, wish you luck and remind you that Pinker (1997) suggests that our species may be inherently incapable of reaching a conclusion to the why of its own mind. This member of the species certainly is. Useful texts include Block et al 1997, Burwood et al 1999, Chalmers 1996, Damasio 1996, 2000 & 2003, Hodgkiss 2001, MacPhail 1998, McCrone 1999, Metzinger 1995, Pinker 1997 & Smith & Jokic 2003 and perhaps especially Wegner 2002.