OUT OF OUR HEADS Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness ALVA NOE w A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Wang, New York' AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS no less Iwe are to pape \d conventi4 OUT OF OUR HEADS day to the next, they ceased to be le- my brain but a id interaction with the on pens so brain, just as di- gestion m According to ms lives—the for us—is n produces images in a calculates and infers and so that we act. We really fe at most robotic tools at our a gra ibits? Is le concep identity vast asse AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS Are You Your Brain?OUT OF OUR HEADS osophy. They hav ‘As Crick AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS 7 more apt to venagers, neuroscience is in Tt would b the more so to be to that makes you conscious becaus side of you that makes you c side you that happens in us, ething we do, as aki book I advance id consciousness in ward, into the Took to the ways in ‘on the processes of liv world around us. body: You are you are.our OF OUR HEADS ANote on Terminology, and the Thesis Restated sciousness AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS 8 ‘The question o whether an episode is thing itis like to be seious is to. ask wh what we say and do and want and plan and so on Other distinctions abound. To be c experience by virtue of which our exper ences have a kind o! our own, or so some th ikers have m they do, TMl try to be careful to be ¢ ring to. The problem of conscio hat of understanding our nature who feel, and for whom a world shows up. here, is words“ found in the head and con the nervous system. It ind “brain,10 OUT OF OUR HEADS may, ne concept of brain ea mind i important to reali and the concept of we a mind. To have Brains don't have woman body! He sets, AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS " \d svelte Dolores Be sdict (played by ymer). ‘The joke is that, unbeknownst to him, the self she re- id unattrac- covers from the brain transplant, she’s morbidly tively obese. (He loves her anyway!) dom of the culture at sy to take seriously the idea of ourselves—as dependent on our brains in a special sort of way, very different from the way we eta have heart, yes. But itis the thing we are—beings wh see—Is accom Task Reiner’s movie casts this question, The film itself needs to present yetween the e-jar. But how to capture the fact that the king brain is that it has the brain? What makes them silly but chrony with its spoken12 OUT OF OUR HEADS newhat confused acessity. 1s ks a face. That's why, tragi ly find it difficule to empathize with Parkinson's patier fe grown masklike. And that’s why, in alove scene vith Two Brains, the Steve Martin character puts base of his love’ brain-in-a-cookie jar, a hat ‘ght red candy-was lips on the front. Wi at itis only of what looks and behaves like s, thinks, feels. The problem with a nd b have like a person. Consciousness in a Petri Dish? then it isness in a petri a petri dish neuroscience establishment is righ le, to have consci ed for consciousnes: the cells be ater My own view is that the suggestion that cells in adi be conseious—or that you could have a conscious brai vat—is absurd; its time to overhaul our starting about what consciousness is if they Consider, first of all, that the vat, or petri dis van Thompson and Diego Cosmelli have to supply energy to AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS ta ntally situated body. If ie details of this thought d very well turn ou at, you'd have to have nt work ss of the brui Do we have14 OUT OF OUR HEADS ir brain-in-a-vat fantasies 1a stand on what surely n't merely aca t she was unlikely to regain a time, diagnosed her state (PVS). One of the crite or track a moving object wit stroke ng regained full conse overheard was worth todie, sistent vegetative state al ci + someone is uncomfortable, or in pain. In how we feel fin in our faces AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS 15 as th n. They are its natu there are probably good evolutionary reason smstances are not m1 -e of the normal behavioral markers The po Obvion of consciousness does not id, she quickly recovered. Oth loss of speech have not been so lucky. For old Julia Tavalaro spent six years16 out OF ouR HEADS al shots you see the impassive and inert face of ly. The camera slowly xe are also known cases of total locked-in syndron rect diagnosis of total locked-in syndro typical eye-movement locked-in synd is than physicians. S ly all patients with locked-in syn- likely ton lacking all senti slow and painful deaths by starvation, There are very few d ‘This in itself is a nented cases of tot fright fg fact. ‘One does not need to turn to extreme forms of brain injury n syndrome to appreciate the practical impor- we are isolating, When my four-year-old ital for a hernia operation, before mnesthesiologist ot suffer any at there ly monitor August's ly for signs of dis ta son August was in the Locked-in syndrome, and the medical practice of anesthesi- ray, are forceful reminders that doctors can't afford to rely AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS 7 lone on behavioral expressions of tative state, in contrast, serves to rem persistent vegetative state is thought to be a co fulness without consciousness. But itis not unco tients in this condition to respond to sounds, to sit up an their eyes, to shout out, to grimace, to lang pose it is your beloved who lies there jum the door slamming, her eyes darting around cout in seeming rage or p would convince you that your she has become a vegetable? Whereas with locked-in ‘we are challenged to believe that behind t intellect at work, with persistent vegetative state we struggle to take seriously the thought that there is an ab- sence of feeling and su pressive face. ies of patients with locked-in syndrome—positron tomography (PET), that patients ves. Tt is much harder, th patients in the persistent w us is not so much di evidence of the as the absence of normal brain-imaging findings, Does the ab- sence of normal brain profiles in patients in the persistent vege-out OF OUR HEADS t or not? of the us decide whether they are senti sence of normal patterns of neural activity logies such as fMRI or prick, We al y little more than a roduced patient in tative state hel d the 1 leled by functional imaging tec isfy you that your loved « things are more complicated. Although patients in vegetative state show markedly reduced global ep andl patients ever help surgery patients We don't know how to ab ple in slow-wave m, so do pe eral anesthesia. But sleepers ai > and resume normal consciousness, whereas patients in persistent vegetative state rarely do. Remarkably, in the number of cases in which brain imaging has been at- tempted in patients who have recovered from the persistent vege~ ing full consciousness, it would appear main low even after full recovery. is or pinpricks produced ave to deal: or medic discussed global metabolic levels external nt increases in Moreove! jow strike cortical 1 vegetative patients connections between dis hey show that in metabolic etween brain regions are restored, These fi in the direction of a deeper underst tat present we are not use brain imaging to get a look inside x there is consciousness or not, Con- a for example, the pai the prick of a pin? Does she hear20 OUT OF OUR HEADS things are different now, or so itis widel logics © functional imag black box Brain imaging provides colorful pictures of the brain, enabling, ction as it performs its func g—now ability to tind. But thisis all the more reason to pause and step back from unresolved methodological problems PET and fMRI yield multicolored images. The colors are meant to correspond to levels of neural activity in arcas where activity is believed to Is of activity. It is easy to overlook the fact that images of this sort made by MRI and ot actually pictures of the br . pattern of indicates the ce the process whereby artist produces a drawing of a suspect based on nber of different witnesses. Such drawings srmation about the criminal, to be su composite rather than a is nothing in ¢ sketch reflects a conjecture or hypoth ; the perpetrator. Indeed, keness. sd by PET AN ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS au pheno they represent a ut what we think is going on in the bi ider that we face a pro ngs would have been in the brain ifyou hadn't th vty by virtue of which these t how do we decide what the brain at re that are critically involved in22 out OF OUR HEADS -s for the place in the brain where the takes place. is cogent and it holds promise. itis worth stressing that its reliability depends mber not all of which are unproblematic, Van Orden and Kenneth R. Paap have convincingly \e comparison back between what th 1 when we make a rhyming judgment and w is doing when we perceive the words. If there is i J follow that overlapping method ass factor. As a matter of fact, itis highly likely in the brain during perception, for example, is ty is characterized by loops wg back eural re are even more ould not be surprising. hear a sound that you are ex- pathways Consider how easier it is that you are not expecting, ‘The assumption back in the neural circuitry is the flip side of tion that we ean factor the cognitive act itself perceiving the words (on the one its about whether they thy the other). Jaim about the character and elves and certainly not some- jodular acts 0 » want to bring out is that brain s is going on when we nd judge. Ina gut feedback in the brain and cogni- guided, What I simply show us w tive won't show ‘can we be sure exactly ar events unfol ite) to detect wged neural activity has no set | For this reason, scientists project t ized, stock brain. The pictures we see brain-imaging systems based on the detect ight waves) that are believed to be re activity. For example,our OF OUR HEADS. posed to corre late to significant menta ree steps of \ge may con- ted to a cog: 2 CONSCIOUS LIFE My attitude towards him isan attitude towards a so not of the opinion th sou Ludwig Wittgenstein problem the minds of others? How do we we fice is a thi one: how to acquire knowledge of a other's mind on the basis of wh 1 doing sor tached stance on others that is inco science of the mind: science requires de- d can only come into focus if we take up 3 tude, Does this me: le? No. There is a way for- ward for science. The solution comes when we recognize th. ‘ altogether science of cis a rigorously emp26 our oF OUR HEADS xy on the other. ‘This is the perspective of biology Other Minds | consciousness? Th conscious LIFE ar ar whether results of a brain s ought ever to convince us that our day ing person ast to appear to respond to sounds and touch. If what people say and do, ‘wh especially when she measurem to go on, then it w others is philosophically nngrounded, a Pethaps we have simply evolved to se imate what is n Heider and M: startling exa triangle—moved Heider and found that ked to describe what was on displ “anthropomorphize” th is, to attribute genders a goals, intenti attitudes su that most people viewing this ns of actions of animat and her colleagues in Rodney Brooks's sy to use and with people ed to detect objects of interest (faces or toys) and to “ex: is desig press ness, surprise, pleasnre, boredom,28 OUT OF OUR HEADS equipped with syn to understand anything, she will respond to conversationally appropriate sounds and tones, though without words Now, we all know that it is easy to project fe and pets and dumb objects—some of us are old en nember pet rocks!—but what is remarkable is the degree to which interaction with Kismet affords the pleasures of human interaction. The illusion of attention, interest, and presence is so strong that Kismet captures and holds the attention of the grad- uate students who participate eagerly in extended conversation with her, Of course, Kismet says nothing, feels nothing, knows ng. She isn't made to fool us, but she’s made in such a way ‘teven worry too much about being fooled. Itis hard to imagine a more powerful demonstration that we human be- ings have something like a will to experience mind whether itis there or not. It is not difficult to think up an evolutionary rationale for the ssion of this trait of overly liberal attribution of mind. Bet- ve false positives and overattribute mind to pup- pes than that we be caught unaware in our ancestral forest. But the question of interest for us is: Is my confidence that you are a real locus of thought and feeling any better founded than my belief that Kismet is? Given the impoverished ns to others— ndicators of mental activity plus what 4 do—it can come to seem inescapable that what re- ot our knowledge of other minds but nided idea that we can know what an- mother thinks or ss onto dolls e able to make attribr they say res explanation is rather our entirely ung other thinks or feels or wants, or even whether feels or wants at all CONScious LIFE 29 “Theory of Mind” ite from the drawer where ook for the four or five, it yw its new Suppose I take the choco and put it someplace else. Where willy you get home? Child will rarely get this right. When que: nistakenly, will tion. They don’t appreciate that your actions will he governed by your false belief that the chocolate is where yon left it, rather han, as if this were possible, by the chocolate its! points of view. At gin to s when children acquire what isc a conception of the mind as an unobservab] ident in whi about the age of five preciate that they can predict and are vectors with belief cording to some scientists, theory of n cognitive technology: nonhuman p never get it; they'll make predications about other chimpanzee, but they will not do so on assessmnent of what that other chimpanzee sees and believe: impanzees, like young children, are behaviorists, ased on what they ean ob- of mind. An, aire the20 out OF OUR HEADS esas, lke th acting out of psychologically potent motiv ‘The idea that of other stance for predicting and explai ‘we witness can be thought of asa kind of skeptical solv ids. It takes for granted from the lable to us is the mere bel minds are hidden and pi inds of others are real for us only as a kind of concepti start ‘a planet that we do perceive, so we ppace-time path that domain of unperceived, merely hypo- words, you open the drawer because yo false belief that that is where the and have chocolate igs ss the false-belief test. This fi ints respond to the look, caretakers; and they are made uncomfortable when that e: CONSCIOUS LIFE at experi observation demonstrates is essed he mother’s part, The child robots not alt thought, 1 perspective, t shared feeling and e other itis never ere gostur32 OUT OF ouR HEADS conscious LIFE 33 way tl In this respect, the y the attention-grab yced by others as itis experienced by them. But far from show- ids of others, this e air: it is, in part, mind and Baby's mind come to be edness that ofac tains toward the ot! to the alive consci id speak not of a c practical co we are involved with ¢ secures work together. This line of reaso no sane pers gestion that our knowledge of other minds is n living consciousness ids of others. That my wife asked what jazz Intimacy and co theoretical wonder whet! just as I cannot dance w remember what comes next. A cert incompatible with is because1e point of each ather’s ¢ Precisely what is n as these is the question of the other sh rctical, or jous person is ahvays a moral 1 justification to believe—even if it conscious LIFE 35 It is just this newus betwee which “repl of slaves. According to the do -produced robots—| ogy, repli e; they are protected hat is at stake is hn not Man's Best Friend spe it was not uncommon for domestic pigs and asses—to be tried36 OUT OF ouR HEADS desire to save another pig from slaughter. Sev squealed during the general at pigs were caps action? Or was this some sort wate, indirect way of punishing the pigs’ owner? Or per- haps they were e a scapegoat (or rather, seapepig) trying to ma do find it very mi case of dogs somewhat further, Dogs have ry. Dogs, good at getting along with conscious LIFE human gaze better than Dogs are ugh reward and pu nent and reward are likely to 37ag.the 1930s anel 1940s was the willing- pjectified, f many to take up precisely such a attitude t beings, as if'a human being were be melted down and expl ak experience. Once we do t s—onee we take go, collaborative working, thought subjects of « iat we do not take skey it seems eady occupy ther sense, y alters those we care ther nondos detached stance s species of other, we giv and the crimes of tt the Jews, consisted in t! hentic hut conscious LIFE 38 stances we can take to thi impossible to doubt the itis impossible to acknowledge it. ‘The Paradox of Mind and Science We now confront a paradox. Science views its arises. 1 sense th40 UT OF OUR HEADS ies of atoms to 2 bacteria greater inten- is not merely a process, ests. It wants and needs sugar. Granted nderstatement, It doesn’t un- x being, once we appreciate its in- carer of interests and needs. act. To understand take up that is at once narrative and historical perspective its life 1d also ecolog- , were more ve to reproduce—t it that trait. AS a of a fitness-enhancing trait in populations al- se, What this sort of approach to the animal's the bearer of the ti its traits. Nor sho conscious LiFe a themselves as p Dawkins. The trans the mecl attitude to the orga When we do also The prol brings mechanism Andl once you see the o an just a process, you are, in effect, agency, its possession of intere42 out oF OUR HEADS conscious LIFE 43 powers of not think of con- ‘The mind of the the way itis ing, ecological d Monkeys and apes, for exai communities: they occupy social worlds. All able to recognize food sources, to seek out pl portunities for mat and avoid predators For monkeys living in social groups, there are social realities that make a huge difference These factor .$ too. Conscious ings have worlds sense that the world shows up den with value: sugar! light! sex! Ki is, consists im its for rest and op- for them as thy such at i ude age, e bacterium | situation, participates. And so itis for conscious ils of animal ak only about the br: enntist Francisco V: ar attention to the way and world to- mpson, we Other Minds, Other Worlds attack a44 UT OF OUR HEADS y’s kin, There are other striking exa respond ighting, Th other offspring pairs and even when mother-offspring ances (e.g,, adult mothers and ult offspring, etc.). Simi- ined to distinguish sibling- er-oflspring pairs, and unrelated pairs. What is Il these to show not only differentiate th ases is that they wi fy kin pairs, and fami- intragroup competition, re other. The only fe bonds formed. kinship (or a mat lacked knowledge or under- ies? I mkey could conscious Lire 45 s misses the ps st describe ips are structured, as we won monkey, Life is tl where we wil ity of artificial robot prised if46 out OF OUR HEADS a THE DYNAMICS OF CONSCIOUSNESS ich we do not lieve that it has none, We wake life is not mn to the brain and to th 1 show that ting in wh erstal Hv does consciousnes nce that it does not. We « saying that itis . sciousness. I propose that the brain’s job is that of facilitating a 1 world.128 OUT OF OUR HEADS 6 THE GRAND ILLUSION ‘other modes of cog. our actual called cognitive b of argument for thi any force. In fact, the world isa grand illus The Creator Brain brain is the power that Some neuroscientists believe that creates the world and that it does so according to its own con- in vats, that is, we are brains in ception. We ourselves are bra jologically evolved vats of skin and bone. And we are an illusion on a grand scale, for when we see and touch jdedly take ourselves to be in con! \gs are here and now before us. y scientists savor these contra im them confidently. What we in discoveries and py of is never more130 our OF OUR HEADS parts. In scat ously but separately move n of objects, th fore putting together an i [Therefore] the appearance of \d precise neuroscientist, echoes Up the Mind. The Ts.a Fantasy.” narrative au- c it? Is there as the neuro- cctually emp scientists cited above would seem to suggest? Vision: A Case Study ntists seek to dazzle aud 1¢ hypothesis that the world is 1g to which the world is a jor us” by onr brains), they invariably turn to visual phe~ he science of the THE GRAND ILLUSION 131 oomed with the birt It has even senses. Where: jects and events themselves Vision ide: at we see far exceeds what we re% in the192 our OF OUR HEADS paney between wl is discrepancy. The brain's .¢ impoverished visual stin general style of argument—the appeal to th betwe the character of our sé is bent ler de a focus. In partic wage is necessarily inverted: he eye's optic ig to at we manage to set wee ofthe world is upside-down? when we consider fi re Jy one, retinal images. And these two upside- -e not identical. Why don’t things THE GRAND ILLUSION 133 form ing them a word too.) Try as ha the peripher ture ofits own mal orse by tl tthe eyes ws a second they jitter aneS 134 OUT OF OUR HEADS THE GRAND ILLUSION 135 , the projection of an object y ‘The Third Dimension is around on your eyeball, Have you ever had the experience of ound of @ ina while lawn mower down joving object, its image stays still on your reti only to at what you ac- that of the stationary background races across your eyes. Again, tually hear is a mosquito buzzing near your ear? The eye is vu Jer to explain how we manage to experience a stable vi- nerable to this kind of mistake object » snal world, we need to suppose, it seems, that the stabil ‘can project the same pattern of retinal sti | ject at a distance. All we are dimensional image. How | two possible, It would seem, at if we do in fact see sp ng of achi sional projection? Yo! yco—we don't do so di- iat is given to us. jons—if we can see size and dist ‘Tho Blind Spot r here there are no photorecep- rectly. That information just isn't there in experience no gap or discontinuity inthe visual | ook at a uniform expanse of color—at tors. And yet we field, Close one eye and Color We noticed already that ther ceptors (cones) at the periphery of the visual field, Nevertheless, tive photore- ust be the result, or so the ling ic material float freely inthe eye its nd distort the passage of light on its way to the retina, Strangest ofall, the reti ast wend its way throu s. And yet none of this shows because it takes time for the light fro to travel the mous di ices necessary for it to reach us. It is less well-136 OUT OF OUR HEADS that the process of changes in our sensory each illustrate the way ur experience sei r is directs us to precise do: it is ge. Somehow, on the basis of two, tiny, ere between THE GRAND ILLUSION boils down to ex igh-resoluti sights tions—on what attentional blindn at least fail to notice that we see, a g senses is138 out OF OUR HEADS pose some powerful den ically replaced the person sitt every time you blinked, Would you notice? you would! Mo occurs, the ch flickers oceur when we blinking? Like the say, “Hey, what’! fry. Unless you catch me in here was a heaping mw absence of one fry woul percept sare not readily nan stops an older, professorial-looking gen- 1d asks for directions, The ve he rofessor a map indicating wi essor is giving directions, a group of ween the professor directions and at the student nt and that he was ob- ‘needs to go. Wh and the st n go their separate w federates the workers took the stu prof ways, It tums THE GRAN by the seured momentarily late nineties.) Other examples—this f You watch a video of kids to tsiven the task of eou ticular exchange the could have the task of arra ult but it takes changing, What do these pl tional bl have suggested that th dence that the visual world is fenders of this idea emph our internal pieture of the Jong time be ndness—tell us D ILLUSION 139 ‘The profess ice that a person different from the his experiment was performed by at Harvard University that you ample: You are given pattern depicted ft your gaze from the he right place, he task diffi- fore you realize sggests an eve thesis. According to140 OUT OF OUR HEADS nk we experience all the world in sharp focus and uniform de- not. Ifthe old skepti- the new more than n the standpoint of the new skepticism, vision science takes a new shape. The old theory had it that the topic of vision science is understanding how the brain builds up an internal pie- wre, The sub ng why it fact it does not the new visio brain does this, when “The World Is Its Own Model” n has been ably defended by Daniel D rs. But it makes a utset. It does not seem to us perceivers del of the world; rat seems to me to b ut to the world. What I see is never the content of a mental snapshot; the world does not seem to be reproduced inside me Rather—and this is the key—the world seems available to me. What guarantees its availability is, rst of all, its actually being sessing the skills needed to gain access toit. [gather th as I need it by turning my head or 1g my attention. Granted, I do have a sense now that the enti we is present: it doesn’t scem to me as if the scene is brought to being by the fact that now T am looking at it. But what ex- ns this is that although I don’t now represent all the visible se THE GRAND ILLUSION 141 S present all at once shows mp as within rea present. indness doesn’t show detail we seem to see. It ity to sustain perceptual ot just a matter brains; rather,142 our OF OUR HEADS all, our percept and evolu Our percept yws up for us in robust and that we enjoy detailed, external world. But 1 ‘we do. Itis the world that is d 1m to usas does it our perceptual co brain but We are, tumed to the world iit a product of our own conscious efforts. It is there for us; in it. The is not inside a kind of we are her would be better fixes world is ofagra THE GRAND ILLUSION 143, vision is an activity p a represental nce. This is the 1e basic stat of scenes corres al organizing principle; med that the data for vi nings—are to be found ‘y selves. Seeing is a process, then, that unfolds between # nd the back of ing-we-know-not-what. ‘Once we give up this assumptio supposedly dazzling demonst workings fail to give any support whatsoever to the any reason to thi wvant to the question of how th the sense of a pieture—or ifit i, ty 1ow it reads, plays no role in its perfor logical job description. Once we appreciate that rat we see, we lose a grip even 6 upside-down. U st ask, relative to what? Who’ to say what upside-down in th vous system? sa picture that re, For every s144 OUT OF OUR HEADS owing quote from Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessel book: “The super s projected onto the sual field is projected onto the superior (or dorsal) half of the they add, in parentheses, as if requiring no he brain of course adjusts this inversfon.” hard to see why one would even think that there is a or puzzle regarding the retinal image, let alone any wwersion,” if one has really and ion that the retinal image probl yeed for the brain to “adjust th truly jettiso misguided as pseudoproblem, one that rests, ultimately, on the idea prain learns about the world by scrutinizing the retinal image. Cyclopean eye. retinal images, the fact that there would be two retinal dreds, makes no difference to what we see. Or co ce of a radi- ian we are supposing when we wonder how swe manage to see a unified world when we have two eyes. Or consider the problem presented by the fact rience the vis iarply focused and uniformly de- tailed even though the eye, by dint of its nonuniform resolving power, cannot create such a representation, at least not without the brain’ help. Again, we don’t experience the retinal image; swe don’t experience any image, in that sense. We expertence the world. And we do so not by depicti iternally but by secu ing access. What is true, certainly, is that if you fix on a point or on single thing, then you can't itwhat is on the periph- ery: But to say «what is on the periphery ce we don't see al world as you can’t make THE GRAND ILLUSION 145 is not to say that you have a ows up for your head; in (Indeed, ev unless we take for granted that in represents motion in the world is by of a code ac- cording to which \ge correspond to moven evidence is there to think that the bra acode? The theory of vision starts, as we sumption that the task for vision science is to explain how brain transforms the retinal image into the percept. And # assumption nount to the view that vision is an inte ke digestion. Par fi we various puzzles are th facts of this starting assumption, WI tion, we lose the feeling of puzzlement we give up the ass!146 OUT OF OUR HEADS Doing Without the Creation Myth the idea of a G of scientists. In a similar way, many tive n to present this he world, one that f our embodi- carried o1 ne and ive in on the basis of common sense is mi science can teach us that tissue is made up THE GRAND ILLUSION 147 Conclusion: Giving Up the Grand Illusion ‘The “grand ilk cognitive science that supposedly provides evidence in its favor is bad sei- ence. Excellent work in perceptual psy