clipped from: www.seedmagazine.com   
seedmagazine.com


To understand consciousness and its evolution, we need to ask the right questions.


by Nicholas Humphrey


any of us might very well innocently ask the (bad) question: "How can we explain the existence of this triangle as we perceive it?" Only later—indeed only once we have seen the object from a different viewpoint (Fig. 2), and realized that the "triangle as we perceive it" is an illusion—will it occur to us to ask the (good) question: "How can we explain the fact we have been tricked into perceiving it this way?"

it will only be if we undergo a radical shift in perspective and realize that the "qualia as we experience them" could be a mental fantasy, that we shall move on to asking

How can we explain why we have the impression that such fantastic qualia exist even if they do not?

In the case of consciousness, we cannot simply change our perspective to see the solution. We are all stuck with the first-person point of view.