PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 17, NO.

2, 2004

Conscious experience, reduction and identity: many explanatory gaps, one solution
LIAM P. DEMPSEY

ABSTRACT This paper considers the so-called explanatory gap between brain activity and conscious experience. A number of different, though closely related, explanatory gaps are distinguished and a monistic account of conscious experience, a version of Herbert Feigls dual-access theory, is advocated as a solution to the problems they are taken to pose for physicalist accounts of mind. Although dual-access theory is a version of the mind-body identity thesis, it in no way eliminates conscious experience; rather, it provides a parsimonious and explanatorily fruitful theory of the consciousness-body relation which faithfully preserves the nature of conscious experience while going quite far in bridging the various explanatory gaps distinguished below.

1. Introduction The phrase explanatory gap has a great deal of currency in the contemporary consciousness literature. Indeed, it is taken by many to suggest the ontological irreducibility or non-physical nature of qualia, but there are a number of senses in which this phrase is used. Coined by Levine (1983), the phrase explanatory gap has what we might call a technical or philosophical sense. Call this the reductive explanatory gap. There is also the more general usage of the phrase meant to refer to the uniquely mysteriousperhaps non-physicalnature of conscious experience. Call this the intuitive explanatory gap. The intuitive gap can itself be divided into at least three closely related types of concerns: epistemic asymmetries, bruteness and incomprehensibility, and seeming differences. In what follows, both explanatory gaps are considered and dual-access theory a version of mind-body identity theoryis proffered as a solution to both. Thus, departing from received wisdom in philosophy of mind and psychology which holds that mind-body identity is not in the cards [1], I advance a view that takes qualia to be identical to certain neurophysiological properties of the human central nervous system. According to such an account, the prima facie problems for qualia-body
Liam P. Dempsey, Dalhousie University, 5252 Tobin Street, Apt. 704, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4K2, email: ldempsey@dal.ca
ISSN 0951-5089/print/ISSN 1465-394X/online/04/02022521 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/0951508042000239057

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identity raised by the explanatory gaps are obviated in a way that faithfully preserves the reality and nature of conscious experience. 2. The reductive gap Levines (1983, 1993) explanatory gap [2] can be seen as a reaction to Kripkes (1980) argument against a materialist account of the mind-body relation. For Kripke, both pain and C-ber rings, like water and H2O, are rigid designators; they designate the same things in every possible world in which they designate at all. Thus, if water and H2O or pain and C-ber rings are identical, they are necessarily identical. Yet, both identities appear to be contingent. This appearance of contingency can be explained away in the case of water but not pain. While it both seems like we can imagine water that is not H2O and excited C-bers that are not painful, in the case of conscious experiences like pain, there is no appearance/reality distinctionthey are what they seem to be, and they dont seem to be brain states. In the case of water/H2O, on the other hand, the appearance of contingency can be explained away when it is realized that what is really being imagined is not that water is not H2O but that waterish stuffstuff that, supercially, is just like wateris not H2O. Of course, waterish stuff is not a rigid designatorit does not designate the same stuff in every possible worldsince it may, in some possible worlds, designate something with the molecular composition XYZ [3]. Again, in the case of pain, this strategy will not work since the appearance of pain just is pain, and so, we cannot explain away the appearance while leaving the reality untouched. According to Kripke, then, mind-body identity is not analogous to other empirical, a posteriori identities. In all a posteriori identities, there is an appearance of contingency that can usually be explained away; but in the case of mind-body identities, this appearance of contingency is both robust and persistent. Unlike Kripke, Levine does not believe any metaphysical consequences follow from this line of reasoning. What it actually shows is that there is an explanatory gap between conscious experience and, say, the neurophysiological activity with which it is co-instantiated. What is needed is a reductive explanation of conscious experience. A reductive explanation, according to Levine and the other proponents of the explanatory gap, provides an epistemic necessitation of the pre-theoretic macro features, of, say, water, from knowledge of the theoretic micro features appealed to in the chemical theory of H2O. Reductive explanations explain the phenomenon being reduced, and, according to Levine (1993, p. 550), a theoretical reduction is justied principally on the basis of its explanatory power. A physicalist theory of qualia, on the other hand, reveals our inability to explain qualitative character in terms of the physical properties of sensory states (Levine, 1993, p. 543). In the case of water and H2O, the identication affords a deeper understanding of what water is by explaining its behavior, whereas in the case of qualia, the subjective character of the qualitative experience is left unexplained (Levine, 1993, p. 550), and thus, our understanding of the experience is incomplete. The basic idea, for Levine (1993, p. 549), is that, Reduction should explain what is reduced, and the way to tell whether this has been accomplished is to see whether the phenomenon to be

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reduced is epistemologically necessitated by the reducing phenomenon. Therefore, what is missing in the case of consciousness, according to Levine, is a necessitation of the facts about the qualitative nature of qualia from the facts about the brain states that underpin them. We do have an epistemic necessitation of the facts about the pretheoretic macro features of water from our knowledge of the chemical theory of H2O molecules. So we can, for example, explain how and why water boils in certain circumstances by appeal to facts about H2O [4]. In this case, we have an example of a macro feature of water being explained by appeal to the chemical theory of the kind of molecules water is identical with; thus the identity of water and H2O is informative and explanatory in a way that the identity of pain and C-ber excitation is not. Despite the fact that reductive explanations are here being employed to explain a posteriori reductions, they have an a priori component; specically, they require a conceptual analysis of the phenomenon to be reduced in terms of its causal role. In general, a reductive explanation is, according to Levine, a two-stage process. First, there is the a priori process of dening the property to be reduced in terms of its causal role, and then there is the a posteriori or empirical work of locating the mechanisms that underlie that causal role. Consider again the reduction of water to H2O. First we determine the causal role of our pretheoretic concept of water. Once it is established that H2O lls the causal role that denes water, we can say that water H2O. In addition, according to Levine, if water can be analyzed in terms of its causal role, then its behavior can be deduced from facts about the chemical theory of the properties that ll that role. In other words, facts about the chemical theory of H2O necessitate facts about the macro properties of water. For example, the fact that, at sea level, water boils at 100(C is deducible from the chemical theory of H2O. In general, if water can be analyzed in this way, we will have the resources to explain all of its macro properties by appealing to the chemical theory of H2O [5]. This reduction strategy will not work in the case of qualia because, according to Levine, there are elements of our concept of qualitative character that are not captured by features of its causal role. And reduction is only explanatory when by reducing an object or property we reveal the mechanisms by which the causal role constitutive of that object or property is realized (Levine, 1993, p. 553). Again, Levine does not draw any metaphysical conclusions from this line of reasoning [6]. His point, it would seem, is that if qualia are physical in nature, we lack an explanation of why something with such and such physical properties should have the phenomenal character it does or, indeed, any phenomenal character at all. The consciousness-body relation remains mysterious, and because qualitative character is left unexplained by the physicalist or functionalist theory that it remains conceivable that a creature should occupy the relevant physical or functional state and yet not experience qualitative character (Levine, 1993, p. 548). 3. The intuitive explanatory gap It is common for people to nd mind-body identity counter-intuitive, especially in the case of conscious experience. The identication of conscious experiences and neural

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activity leaves many with a feeling of nagging mysteriousness. There is a feeling of things unexplained, of questions without satisfactory answers. Explanatory gap, in this looser sense, refers to certain circumstances that motivate intuitions against the physical account of conscious experience. There are at least three areas of concern that contribute to this state of affairs: (1) epistemic asymmetries; (2) bruteness and incomprehensibility; and (3) seeming differences. Each is discussed in turn. 3.1. Epistemic asymmetries There are, of course, the well known epistemic asymmetries inherent in the mindbody relation. Only I have direct access to my own qualia, only I can feel my pain; and while I can observe your pain behavior and can infer many of your sensations, I do not have the sort of direct access to your conscious experiences that I have to my own. Whether conscious experiences are completely private or completely incorrigible is, here at least, beside the point; they are more private, and one is, at least, more sure of them, for while I may often be wrong about what others are feeling, I am rarely wrong about what I am feeling. To put the concern differently, qualia, unlike brain states, are subjective phenomena; and as Block (2002, p. 395) recently queried, [h]ow could one property be both subjective and objective? Consider, then, the sorts of concerns Nagel emphasizes (1973, 1986). Physicalist accounts of phenomena are objective, involving only public phenomena, while conscious experiences are fundamentally subjective. Any physicalist account of qualia, then, will be objective and will necessarily ignore the essential subjective nature of the explanandum. It might be arguedand is argued by Nagelthat these sorts of considerations speak against the adequacy of the physicalist world-view. For our purposes, however, the question is simply, how can qualia be physical, let alone neurophysiological, if they are so fundamentally different from all other physical phenomena? In short, the argument goes, such a radical difference in epistemic access speaks strongly against the identity in question, and shows, at the very least, that neurophysiological accounts of conscious experience lack the resources to explain such epistemic asymmetries. 3.2. Bruteness and incomprehensibility The second set of misgivings involves the apparent bruteness of the relationship. The issue of bruteness would seem to be very closely related to Kripke and Levines concerns over apparent contingency. One suspects that if a reductive explanation account of conscious experience were possible, much of the concern over the apparent bruteness of the qualia-body relation would be alleviated. Indeed, the intuitions that motivate Levine are very similar to the concerns noted here. Consider Levines (1983, p. 357) remark that, The identication of the qualitative side of pain with C-ber ring leaves the connection between it and what we identify it with completely mysterious. One might say, it makes the way pain feels into merely a brute fact. For Levine, then, the identity of quale types with neurophysiological types admits no explanation of why the quale type is identical with the specic

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neurophysiological type in question; their identity, if it is a fact, is seemingly a brute fact, and, according to Levine, this is quite troubling and speaks to the unique mysteriousness of qualia. The seeming bruteness of the qualia-body relation has a long history of confounding the intuitions of those interested in the mind-body problem. Consider the following remarks by two nineteenth-century scientists, T.H. Huxley and John Tyndall [7]. First, Huxleys (1866, p. 193, emphasis added) well-known remark: But what consciousness is, we know not; and how it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as the result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp or as any other ultimate fact of nature. Not only is Huxley impressed by the seeming differences of the two phenomena (see below), but also by the apparent bruteness of their relationship. Why does conscious experience emerge from excited nervous tissue? Why is it nervous tissue that underpins consciousness and not some other physical phenomenon? Apparently, the relation is an ultimate fact of nature for which further explanation is incomprehensible. Tyndall expresses very similar concerns when he writes: Granted that a denite thought, and a denite molecular action in the brain, occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?. The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. (Tyndall, 1868/1898, p. 86) Even when we observe a strong co-variation between a certain conscious experience and a certain type of brain activity, we inevitably lack an explanation of why they co-vary. It wont help, Tyndall contends, to have intimate knowledge of the brain activity that co-varies with an experience, even if that knowledge is at the molecular level, since such knowledge would not speak to the relation itself. Indeed, there is no process of reasoningno epistemic necessitationthat would lead us from facts about the brain to facts about conscious experiences. According to Tyndall, the nature of the relation is seemingly inexplicable by any conceivable process of reasoning. Indeed, in agreement with McGinn (1989), he asserts that we do not even possess the intellectual capacity for such an explanation [8]. Perhaps his concern arises from the empirical (a posteriori) nature of the proposed identities; after all, such identities seemingly allow for the conceivability of dualism and even phenomenal zombies. However, this is, seemingly, not what Tyndall has in mind. Rather, his concern is that while many of the inferences of science are based on empirical association, the case of consciousness is apparently

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unique. Many of the inferences of science, Tyndall (1868/1898, p. 86) explains, are of this characterthe inference, for example, that an electric current, of a given direction, will deect a magnetic needle in a denite way. However, the relationship between consciousness and the brain, he contends, is quite different. An explanation of how a magnet deects a needle, if not demonstrable, is conceivable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the nal mechanical solution of the problem. But the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is inconceivable as a result of mechanics (Tyndall, 1868/1898, p. 86). Tyndalls concern, then, is not the empirical nature of the relation but the apparent inconceivability of any mechanism by which the brain generates conscious experience. Such a mechanism, it would seem, is nothing like the mechanics of the physical world and Tyndall sees no hope of ever explaining it. What is being demanded, then, are answers to the following sorts of questions: First, there are questions such as: how can conscious experience emerge from any physical mechanism? and why does an experiential type emerge from one neurophysiological type and not another? Second, there are questions such as: why is it that certain types of neural activity are conscious experiences for their owners? and why is one experiential type identical with one type of neural activity and not some other type? 3.3. Differences in appearance To paraphrase McGinn (1989), how can a rich color experience arise from gray soggy nervous tissue? How can two things that are seemingly so different in kind be so intimately related, let alone identical? In short, the brain appears to be quite different from the conscious experiences associated with it. Perry (2001) takes this line of reasoning to follow from what he calls the experience gap. The gap between conscious experience and the experience of brain states (through, for example, ones physical senses) is so radical that the identication of the two seems absurd [9]. In a critique of nineteenth-century materialists, A.C. Ewing puts the point this way: Nineteenth-century materialists were inclined to identify mental events with processes in the central nervous system or brain. In order to refute such views I shall suggest your trying an experiment. Heat a piece of iron red-hot, then put your hand on it, and note carefully what you feel. You will have no difculty in observing that it is quite different from anything which a physiologist could observe. The throb of pain experienced will not be like anything described in textbooks of physiology as happening in the nervous system or brain. The physiological and the mental characteristics may conceivably belong to the same substance but at least they are different in qualities, indeed as different in kind as any two sets of qualities. (Ewing, 1962, p. 110) According to Ewing, then, conscious experience and brain activity are as different in appearance as any two things could be. No one would ever mistake a searing pain for the brain state with which it correlates. The neurosurgeon who is operating on

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my brain does not fear that my anesthesia will wear off for her sake! Therefore, the argument goes, qualia must be distinct from the neurophysiological properties with which they co-vary. At the very least, these apparent differences must be explained.

4. Dual-access theory and the explanatory gaps 4.1. Monism and dual-access theory According to Feigls (1958, 1967, 1970) dual-access theory, phenomenal predicates denote the same properties as neurophysiological predicates [10]. The identity of conscious and neurophysiological phenomena is of the a posteriori and extensional sort. In Feigls (1958, p. 445) words, [t]he raw feels of direct experience as we have them, are empirically identiable with the referents of certain concepts of molar behavior theory and these in turn are identiable with the referents of some neurophysiological concepts. The case for qualia-body type identity takes the form of an argument to the best explanation. The identication of qualia with certain neurophysiological processes and properties substantively simplies the ontology of consciousness. Moreover, by locating qualia within the causal economy of sentient organisms, qualia-body identity affords a straightforward explanation of the causal powers of qualia, and by alleviating the threat of epiphenomenalism, the spectre of eliminativism is dispelled. Thus, not only is qualia-body identity parsimonious, it also provides a robust account of the reality of conscious experience, securing its place within the causal web of the natural world. Dual-access theory, then, holds that qualia are type identical with certain neurophysiological properties and processes; for example, (human) pain qualia are identical with certain types of C-ber excitation which are appropriately integrated and situated in a human subjects nervous system. Nevertheless, we have access to pain/excited C-bers from more than one perspective; although I and my neurosurgeon may be focusing on the same thing when she stimulates my C-bers, I am directly acquainted with this stimulation, I am its subject. Call this rst-person access. From the perspective of rst-person access, the raw feels of conscious experience are lived throughenjoyed or suffered (Feigl, 1970, p. 34). Conscious experience, then, involves the possession of certain brain states, brain states that feel like something for their owners. And while my neurosurgeon can observe my qualia, in as much as she can observe any neurophysiological property, she only has direct (rst-person) access to her own qualia. However, it might be objected, does not dual-access theory imply the implausible consequence that while looking at the surface of, say, a red table, one is not experiencing the tables surface, but some region of the brain? No, dual-access theory does not imply this consequence. According to dual-access theory, one is experiencing the tables surface, and not some region of the brain. The object of the experiencethat which is being experiencedis the surface of the table. The experience itself, on the other hand, is a brain state, and one, as the owner of the brain in question, is in a position to have that experience, i.e. to be the subject of that neural activity.

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Dual-access theory, then, ought not be confused with a higher-order thought (HOT) or a higher-order perception (HOP) model of consciousness [11]. According to such views, a rst-order state becomes conscious when there is a HOT or HOP that represents it. I contend, on the other hand, that higher-order thoughts about ones own qualia are the exception, not the rule. According to dual-access theory, while we do sometimes think about, and reect on, our own conscious experiences, we need notand quite often do notthink about, or reect on, them. At least two sorts of rst-person access should be distinguished here; call them phenomenal and cognitive access. Phenomenal access is the sort of access had in rst-order conscious experiences. First-order conscious experiences are experiences one is having but not introspecting, i.e. ones that are not being thought about, reected on, or otherwise referred to by the organism in question. Conscious experiences, then, are phenomenally accessed not in the sense of being perceived or thought about but simply in the sense that one is the subject of them; there need be no intentional act of inner perception or thought that represents the experience. This is not to say that we do not sometimes have higher-order thoughts about our rst-order conscious experiences; this, I take it, is an intuitively plausible construal of introspection and is what I would call cognitive access. We can, it would seem, not only experience the world but also have thoughts about the experiences themselves. Perhaps such cases will inevitably involve introspective mechanisms for focusing on some states and not others. Introspection, however, is the exception, not the rule. According to dual-access theory, we do not need to think about or perceive our conscious experiences in order to have them [12]. Dual-access theorys emphasis on access may remind the reader of the sort of positions propounded by Tye (1995, 2000) and Dretske (1995). Such views reject the need for a HOT or HOP to make a rst-order state conscious. What makes a rst-order state conscious is that it is appropriately accessible to processes of belief-formation, planning, and decision-making. For example, Tye (1995) defends what he calls the PANIC model of qualia: a quale is a sort of abstract non-conceptual intentional content that is poised for use by a cognitive system [13]. On such a view, then, qualia are a sort of intentional property poised for use in belief-formation, decision-making, and planning. Tye also advances a mode of presentation strategy for dealing with the explanatory gap. Put very briey, he distinguishes indexical phenomenal concepts from predicative phenomenal concepts. Indexical phenomenal concepts apply to a percipients own occurrent experiences, e.g., this pain. Thus, upon emerging from her black and white room, Marythe genius color scientist who has never seen colorgains new indexical phenomenal concepts; she is now in a position to say this is what it is like to see red. Tyes response to the perspectival nature of conscious experiences, then, has its roots in Loars (1997) mode of presentation account of phenomenal states, and hence, is in the tradition of Feigls dual-access theory [14]. I agree that qualia are causally relevant in such things as belief-formation, decision-making, and planning. Indeed, the identity thesis places qualia squarely within the causal economy of a sentient organisms nervous system locating them within the causal web that results in such things as planning and the formation of

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beliefs. It is unlikely, however, that Tye would happily embrace dual-access theory since central to his account of qualia is a strong form of representational externalism. As Levine (1997, p. 103) points out, representationalism about qualia can take two forms. The rst holds that qualia are the vehicles of representation, and so, are intrinsic to the organism. This sort of qualia representationalism is consistent with dual-access theory. The second version of qualia representationalism, the one that Tye advances, holds that qualia are (abstract) intentional content properties. On this view, qualia are not intrinsic to an organism; being a function of the distal properties they represent, qualia are relational intentional properties that abstract away from the neurophysiological properties of the central nervous system. Qualia, on Tyes view, are properties of the objects represented in experience, which, in standard cases of perception, are objects in the external environment. Thus, in the spirit of Putnams (1975) well known contention that meaning aint in the head, Tye (1995, p. 151) contends that phenomenology too aint in the head [15]. According to Tye, such a position has many theoretical benets for dealing with the mysterious nature of qualia. However, as Levine (1997, pp. 1045) argues, Tyes qualia externalism does little work for him in resolving the explanatory gap; it is the modes of presentation strategy that is doing any work and it runs as wellif not betteron a view that takes qualia to be neurophysiological properties of, and intrinsic to, the organisms that have them. Indeed, he notes that, Tyes externalism . . . gets him into serious trouble when it comes to dealing with inverted qualia; worse than functionalism generally (Levine 1997, p. 109). Since, on Tyes view, the qualitative character of a conscious experience is a function of the distal properties it represents, any organism that represents, say, the distal properties that co-vary with red experiences in humans, must have qualitatively identical experiences. And this is so even if the organism in question has a radically different neurophysiology, and even radically different sense organs. This, I take it, is highly implausible and Levine develops a number of inverted qualia thought experiments to demonstrate this problematic feature of Tyes account (Levine, 1997, pp. 109 12) [16]. Perhaps we do not have to go so far aeld to see the problem with qualia-externalism. Consider the perception of unique hues. All the hues on a hue circle are red, yellow, green, blue, or some combination of two of them. Some hues are taken to be more elementary than others: a green that is neither yellowish nor bluish is more elementary than a yellowish or bluish green. Elementary hues, like a green that is neither bluish nor yellowish, are unique hues. Interestingly, there is a great deal of variation between normal observers location of unique hues along the wavelength spectrum. Subjects consistently identify a unique huefor example, a green that is neither bluish nor yellowishat different spots on the spectrum. About this phenomenon, Hardin writes, [U]nder carefully controlled conditions, any individual observer can consistently locate his or her unique green on a spectrum with an error of plus or minus three nanometers. But the average settings for 50 normal observers spanned a range of almost thirty nanometers, from 490 nm to 520 nm.

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Most people will see this range of greens as consisting of several distinguishable hues, ranging from bluish green at one end to a yellowish green at the other. (1994, p. 564) [17] A natural way to interpret these results is to take them to reect subtle but discernible qualitative differences in color experiences between normal human observers. In this case, we have the very same distal stimuli systematically evoking different color experiences in different subjects. How, then, can qualitative character be a function of the distal properties in question? If the same distal properties evoke qualitatively distinct color experiences in different subjects, then qualitative character cannot be determined by the distal properties alone. Again, dual-access theory holds that qualia are internal and intrinsic to sentient organisms. They are a sort of neurophysiological activity that feels like something for their owners. That they are neurophysiological properties intrinsic to the organism is, I believe, essential in accounting for their private and subjective nature. Intuition and experience has it that conscious experiences are, in some sense, private and subjective, and that they are of a sort that can be introspected with some degree of privileged access [18]. The neurophysiological properties with which qualia are co-instantiated are also intrinsic to the organism; only I can feel my pain, just as only I can be the subject of my own neural activity. Thus, not only is the qualia-body identity thesis a parsimonious position that gives a straightforward account of the causal relevance of qualia by locating them within the causal economy of the organism, it accords well with the private and subjective nature of conscious experience. As I argue below, the benets that dual-access theory brings to the resolution of the explanatory gaps are impressive. Finally, it should be noted that the sort of access that characterizes the views propounded by Tye and Dretskeaccess to processes of belief-formation and planningis not the sort that I have in mind [19]. Dual-access theory is not concerned with whether or not a quale is accessible to processes of belief formation, per se. The differences in access that we are concerned with here involve two very different perspectives on the same physical propertythe direct access had by the subject of the neural activity in question, and the less direct access had by the neurosurgeon who is studying that neural activity. The access to my conscious experiences had by my neurosurgeon is quite different from my access to my own conscious experiences, and it is this difference in access that will help us resolve the various explanatory gaps.

4.2. The reductive gap (again) Let us suspend judgment on the merits of reductive explanations as a general model of reduction [20]. Even if we allow that there is an epistemic gap in some sense, there are reasons independent of dual-access theory for denying its importance. As noted above, we can (and do) have prima facie compelling reasons (arguments from parsimony, causal efcacy, explanatory force, consciousness-realism) for belief in the identity of conscious experience and certain sorts of neural activity. It should be of

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little surprise that this does not preclude the conceivability of various sorts of dualistic positions, nor require a denition of conscious experiences in terms of their neurophysiological underpinnings: this is, after all, an empirical, a posteriori identity. The doxastic contexts in which phenomenal and neurophysiological descriptions occur are, not surprisingly, referentially opaque; one might, for example, believe that one is in pain without believing that ones C-bers are excited, but this does not imply that pain is not C-ber excitation [21]. In other words, the contexts in which phenomenal and neurophysiological terms occur obscures the fact that the terms may very well refer to the same things. One cannot infer a duality of properties from the phenomenon of referential opacity. As Levine (1993, p. 546) correctly notes, [o]ne cannot infer from a variety of modes of access to a variety of facts being accessed. In fact I do not believe that the identities water H2O and pain C-ber excitation are different in a way that suggests the latter, but not the former, is false or somehow problematic. Again, it might be argued that while the macro properties of water are epistemologically necessitated by facts about H2O, this is not the case with pain and C-ber excitation. However, Block & Stalnaker (1999) have convincingly argued that one could not deduce that water would boil at 100(C from knowledge of the chemistry of H2O alone. Consider someone who does not know anything about how water boils; perhaps she does not even know that water is composed of molecules, or if she does, perhaps she believes that water is composed of XYZ. Suppose one were to present her with theory T (a complete theory of physics), and a description (in microphysical terms) of a water boiling situation. Can she then deduce that if T is true and a situation met conditions C, then the H2O would be boiling? No (Block & Stalnaker, 1999, p. 374). For all she knows, water is composed of XYZ, not H2O, and it is water that boils. Block & Stalnaker continue: Perhaps if she were told, or could gure out, that the theory was actually true of the relevant stuff in her environment, she could then conclude (using her knowledge of the observable behavior of the things in her environment) that H2O is water, and that the relevant microphysical description is a description of boiling, but the additional information is of course not a priori, and the inference from her experience would be inductive. (1999, pp. 3745) The point is that in order for her to deduce from T and the microphysical description that H2O is boiling, she must already know that H2O is water, and this she can only learn through experience, that is, a posteriori. It might be pressed, however, that even if one concedes Block & Stalnakers point, there is a sense in which appeal to the chemical theory of H2O explains (a posteriori) the macro features of waterit provides epistemic ascent from the chemical theory of H2O to the macro features of waterin a way that appeal to the neurophysiology of the brain does not explain the phenomenal features of conscious experiences. The identity of consciousness and, say, pyramidal cell activity [22] does allow for some explanatory ascent. Block & Stalnaker (1999) give the following example: why has Smith lost consciousness? Well, consciousness just is pyramidal

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cell activity and Smith has ingested a substance that causes pyramidal cell activity to cease. Likewise, that water is H2O allows us to infer from the fact that a certain volume of water will douse a certain size re to the fact that the same volume of H2O will douse the same re. But the identity of water and H2O seems to offer more. The chemical theory of H2O allows us to explain why, for example, water is transparent, colorless, liquid, etc., but neurophysiological theory does not seem to provide us with an explanation of why pain feels the way it does or, more generally, why one type of neurophysiological activity feels one way and another type of neurophysiological activity feels another way. If the identity thesis is true, the qualia-brain relation may very well embody a part-whole relation in some ways comparable to the water/H2O identity. Consider that if the identity conscious experience pyramidal cell activity is true, there is a sense in which a given conscious experience involves a potentially wide array of nervous tissue activity; that is, there is a sense in which the relation between the two is a part-whole relation. Searle (1992) has made a similar claim suggesting that consciousness is a macro property of the brain as liquidity is a macro property of H2O. However, the analogy with standard micro-macro relations is far from perfect; while liquidity is an objective and public phenomenon, conscious experience, as accessed in the rst-person, is not. It is not as if while observing the brain one can see qualia and, with a closer inspection, the neurons that constitute them. Consider that what prevents one from directly observing the H2O molecules that constitute water and account for its liquidity is the size of the moleculesbut it is not the size of qualia that seemingly prevents them from being directly accessed by the neurophysiologist, nor is it the limitations of the perceptual capacities of the human eye. Rather, according to dual-access theory, it is a question of perspective; only the owner of a brain can directly access its phenomenal properties. In other words, rather than being a micro-macro reduction as in the identication of water and H2O, this sort of identity is perspectival. Pain and C-ber rings are identical not in the sense that the former is composed of the latter, or that the latter are micro features of the former, or that the latter lls the causal role denitive of the former, but in the sense that they are the same thing apprehended or accessed from two different perspectives. So the claim is not that a pain experience is identical to micro properties of the brainsay, the micro neurophysiological properties that constitute C-bersas water is identical to H2O molecules; instead, a pain experience is identical to the property C-ber excitation which is, itself, a macro property of the brain. In general, then, conscious experiences are identical to certain macro properties of the brain, properties that can be accessed directly by their owners. What I have in mind by perspectival identity is quite commonplace. Perspectival identities are discovered, a posteriori, in doxastic contexts which are, initially, referentially opaque. So, for example, consider a situation in which the same thing or aspect of a thing is perceived from two or more different perspectives, but where the percipient does not know that it is the same thing or aspect of a thing. Fred has recently acquired a new car, a blue Porsche. He has also recently started a new job in a large ofce building in a new city. There is a parking lot on both the north and south sides of the building. Fred parks his car on the south side and believes that his

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ofce faces the north side parking lot. On Freds rst day, he notices a beautiful brand new blue Porsche outside his ofce window. While Fred is duly impressed with the aesthetics of this car, he is a little disappointed with the fact that someone else in the building has a car just like his. Of course, it is not long before Fred realizes that the car outside his window is his car; in other words, the car he drove to work in and the one he now perceives are identical. Similarly, there are striking examples of inter-modal identities; these identities are discovered when it is realized that the same thing or aspect of a thing is being perceived by different senses. For example, a congenitally blind person that recovers her sight will have to learn that things that feel square look the way they do, i.e. square. In this case, the person discovers, a posteriori, that the property she now perceives visually is the same old property she is used to perceiving tangibly. Presumably, babies go through a similar process of learning to identify the objects of sight with the objects of touch, hearing, and so on. According to dual-access theory, we have a similar situation with qualia. Qualia are neurophysiological properties of a certain sort, properties to which their owner can have direct access. But what is being accessed here is the same thing my neurosurgeon can potentially observe; the difference is one of perspective. An appreciation of this point, I believe, alleviates any demand for epistemic ascent from one set of features to another, say, from micro features of the brain to the phenomenal features of conscious experiences. We would not, I believe, demand the sort of epistemic ascent Levine describes in the case of boiling waterleaving aside the issue of whether this ascent is a priori to explain how Samuel Clemens Mark Twain; we do not need to functionalize Mark Twain in order to ground the identity. What is needed is good reason to believe that Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain refer to the same person. Likewise for dual-access theory; what we have in consciousness is a subjects access to conscious experiences that we have good reason to believe are certain sorts of neurophysiological activity. If pain C-ber excitation, this is necessarily so, that is, it is true in at least every nomologically possible world. The claim, then, is that, as a matter of fact, qualia are certain neurophysiological properties. That we can imagine otherwise (in some sense) is of little surprise given the obvious differences in the meanings of the terms involved. Indeed, both terms evoke very different connotations, and Kripke is right that the identity of water and H2O and pain and C-ber excitation are not exactly analogous. Both are empirical identities and both are nomologically necessary; but whereas water H2O involves the identication of pretheoretic macro features and theoretical micro features, pain C-ber excitation involves the recognition that the same property can be accessed from two different perspectives. This is an important difference, but rather than showing that the identity fails, it explains why the two (pain and C-ber excitation) seem different, why we can imagine one without the other, and why, I am suggesting, there is no epistemic ascent from the micro properties of the brain to facts about the qualitative nature of qualia in the way there is in the case of water H2O. In sum, we might say that there remains a reductive explanatory gap in the sense that there is a conceptual gap between the phenomenal language of introspec-

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tion and the language of neurophysiology. But this is a very innocuous sense of explanatory gap. There is no explanatory gap in the sense of a gap between belief in the identity thesis and the reasons that warrant such a belief. Neither does this residual gap imply any metaphysical consequences, as Levine would agree, nor does it demand further explanation; qualia do not admit such explanations, and, I have argued, this is neither surprising nor troubling. 4.3. Epistemic asymmetries (again) Dual-access theory has little trouble accommodating these concerns since it posits different modes of access to the same phenomenon. No one can feel my pain precisely because no one but me has direct access tois the subject ofmy brain activity. Such access often provides its owner with a great deal of epistemic authority even if it falls short of absolute authority. My neurosurgeon, on the other hand, has a different, more mediated access to my brain. What she is directly acquainted with is some activity in her own brain, which, in this case, is representing my brain. In short, the subjective need not be beyond the bounds of the physical sciences; quite to the contrary, conscious processes are physical processes and conscious experiences are those processes viewed from the inside, as it were [23]. The epistemic asymmetries of conscious experience are quite natural and dual-access theory attempts to account for them in a monistic and parsimonious way. 4.4. Bruteness and incomprehensibility (again) The rst set of bruteness questions, as questions addressed to the proponent of dual-access theory, can be quickly dispensed with as misplaced. Given that pain Cber excitation, there is no explanation of why the two correlate, precisely because, in fact, there is no correlation. Neither is there any emergence of qualia from brain activity if emergence implies that the brain is producing something over and above itself. Thus, we need not puzzle over the mechanism by which conscious experience, as such, is generated. As Kim (1998, p. 98) correctly points out, [I]dentity takes away the logical space in which explanatory questions can be formulated. To the question Why is that whenever and wherever Hillary Rodham shows up, the Presidents wife also shows up? there is no better, or conclusive, answer than Hillary Rodham is the Presidents wife [24]. Of course, one might puzzle over the neurophysiological mechanism that brings about pyramidal cell activity, but such is a tractable puzzlement that, it would seem, will be dissolved with further research. With regard to the second set of questions, however, there may remain the troubling appearance of bruteness. Again, while it is relatively clear how the neurophysiological properties underpinning pain experiences cause pain behavior, it might still be asked why those properties feel the way they do; why are they pain qualia and not, say, color qualia? And why are they, say, sharp and not burning pain qualia? As Tyndall queries, [L]et the consciousness of love, for example, be associated with a right-

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handed spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we love, that the motion is in one direction, and when we hate, that the motion is in the other; but the WHY? would remain as unanswerable as before. (Tyndall, 1868/1898, p. 87) Tyndalls concerns here forebode the concerns of the British emergentists; from knowledge of brain activitythe basal conditionsalone, one will be unable to predict the type of feeling that will emerge. Even if one knew that the experience of love co-varies with the right-handed spiral motion of the molecules in the brain and the feeling of hate with a left-handed motion, one is still left with the question, why? There may, however, be a lurking dualism here if the question implies that the brain has both neurophysiological properties and conscious properties as well, and that the latter are produced by the former. Recall Tyndalls example of an unproblematic empirical association, a magnet deecting a needle. The mechanism in this case is clear and there is no lingering puzzlement. But while the magnet example involves two phenomena in a causal relation, dual-access theory denies this sort of dualism. The underpinnings of conscious experience are not neurophysiological states that also have conscious properties; they are the same property instances accessed either from the perspective of the neurosurgeon or from the perspective of their owner. Of course, never having been directly acquainted with the right-hand spirals of love, one might be (pleasantly) surprised that such spirals in ones own brain feel the way they do. This case may again remind the reader of Jacksons (1986) Mary. Our neurophysiologist may have studied the right-hand spiral motions of love for many years. However, according to dual-access theory, it is only when the right-hand spiral motions of love happen in her own brain that she becomes the subject of them, and only then will she nally know what-it-is-like (Nagel, 1974) to be in love. There probably are, as Huxley calls them, ultimate fact[s] of nature and some of the facts about the relation between consciousness and brain activity may be of this sort. I do not believe, however, that there are any troubling brute facts concerning the relationship between qualia and the brain. To see this, consider a case of what I would take to be a troubling brute identity. Suppose that appeal to the chemical theory of H2O told us nothing about the macro features of water; the chemistry of H2O offers us no insight into why water is colorless, liquid, etc. If we were still inclined to identify water and H2O, this lack of epistemic ascent would be very troubling. However, I have argued that this micro-macro model of identity is not appropriate in the case of conscious experience and the brain. In the case of conscious experience, the identity is posited when it is realized that the same things are being accessed from more than one perspective. Given that this is not a micro-macro reduction, the demand for the sort of epistemic ascent had in the reduction of water to H2O is misguided. Thus, the lack of this sort of epistemic ascent in the case of qualia and the brain is in no way troubling. Likewise, there is no troubling bruteness in the identication of the Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain. We simply come to realize, a posteriori, that Samuel Clemens and Mark

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Twain refer to the same person. Similarly, we come to realize, a posteriori, that pain and C-ber excitation refer to the same thing; the difference between the two is one of perspective. 4.5. Differences in appearance (again) It may be useful to reiterate the unique position of qualia as a species of physical phenomena. Physical phenomena are, typically, observed through the mediation of sensory qualia. But one is aware of ones own qualia much more directly; indeed qualia are the only physical properties that can be accessed in a way that is unmediated by other qualia. Thus, as a species of physical phenomena, qualia are unique. But dual-access theory gives a straightforward explanation of any differences in appearance since, on this view, the brain can be accessed from two very different perspectives. Since my neurophysiologist cannot be directly acquainted with my brain, the neural activity that is my conscious experience will seem quite different from her own conscious experiences. Recall Ewings argument that the properties are completely different in kind. He takes himself to be comparing brain states and pains. In effect, however, he is comparing two of his own conscious experiences: a visual experiencewhich results from his mediated observations of anothers brainand a pain experience. Pains and visual experiences are quite different; this, of course, is beside the point. Any seeming differences between excited C-bers and pain experiences, according to dual-access theory, is one of perspective and does not imply a dualistic ontology. The point, for our purposes, is that my pain experience is not contained in the neurophysiologistsor for that matter, my ownvisual experience of my brain. It may be the object of that visual experience, but one does not feel my pain by looking at it. For the neurophysiologist to conclude from this that my pain experiences cannot be brain states would be for her to confuse the object of her observationmy excited C-bers/pain experiencewith her own visual experience of my brain (see also Russell, 1948, p. 229). In sum, not only is dual-access theory a parsimonious, elegant, and explanatorily fruitful hypothesis that faithfully preserves the nature of conscious experience, it goes quite far in addressing the various explanatory gaps distinguished above. Although it departs from popular non-reductivist tendencies, its robust resilience in the face of the explanatory gaps is testament to its utility and intuitive strength. While many questions remain, I believe we have gone far enough to see that some version of dual-access theory will be an important element in any plausible naturalistic account of conscious experience. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Ausonio Marras, Jillian McIntosh, John Nicholas, Andrew Bailey, Chris Viger, Melvin Goodale, Itay Shani, James Sage, Neil Campbell, William Demopolous and the anonymous referee at this journal for helpful comments on early drafts of this paper.

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Notes
[1] It is not only proponents of the explanatory gap that resist the identication of qualia with neurophysiological properties of the human central nervous system; any version of non-reductive physicalism denies the reducibility of mental properties, although it holds that all events or particulars are physical. Some non-reductive physicalists construe the relationship between mental and physical properties as one of supervenience. For instance, Marras (1993, 2000) holds that qualia, like other mental properties, supervene on, but are not identical to, neurophysiological properties. The reasons for the widespread rejection of mind-body reduction are varied; this paper seeks to deal with those who object specically to the reduction of qualia to their neurophysiological co-variants on the basis of the supposed explanatory gap taken to exist between the two sets of properties. Non-reductive physicalists are motivated more by the supposed multiple realizability of the mental: if a mental property is realizable in a wide variety of physically disparate organisms, then it cannot be identical with any one physical property (see also Hill, 1991). [2] Other proponents of what I am calling a reductive explanatory gap include Kim (1998), Chalmers (1996) and Jackson (1993, 1997). For a critique of the sort of reduction scheme used by the advocates of the explanatory gap, see Block & Stalnaker (1999), Hill & McLaughlin (1999) and Marras (2002, 2000). The model of reduction advocated by the above writers has many similarities with the analytic functionalism originally proposed by Lewis (1966) and Armstrong (1968). On this view, mental properties are given a functional denitionare dened in terms of a causal roleand are then identied with whatever (physical) property is found to occupy that role. [3] This is Hillary Putnams (1975) example of a hypothetical molecular composition of twin water: waterish stuff that is identical to real water except for its molecular composition. [4] In Levines words:The story goes something like this. Molecules of H2O move about at various speeds. Some fast-moving molecules that happen to be near the surface of the liquid have sufcient kinetic energy to escape the intermolecular attractive forces that keep the liquid intact. These molecules enter the atmosphere. Thats evaporation. The precise value of the intermolecular attractive forces of H2O molecules determines the vapor pressure of liquid masses of H2O, the pressure exerted by molecules attempting to escape into saturated air. As the average kinetic energy of the molecules increases, so does the vapor pressure. When the vapor pressure reaches the point where it is equal to atmospheric pressure, large bubbles form within the liquid and burst forth at the liquids surface. The water boils. (1997, p. 549) [5] There is a problem, however: folk theory and chemical theory have disparate vocabularies. Boil is not part of chemical theory. How then could the fact that water boils at 100(C be deduced from chemical theory? The language of the folk theory and of the chemical theory must be bridged. Hence, bridge principles (Levine, 1993, p. 550) will be required. These bridge principles take the form of denitions of the terms into the proprietary vocabularies of the theories appealed to in the explanation (Levine, 1993, p. 551). Thus, for Levine, bridge principles allow the causal roles denitive of the pretheoretic macro features of the explanadum to be identied with the underlying chemical mechanisms of the explanans. So, for example, colorlessness is a supercial property of water, but not a chemical property. To explain why water is colorless in terms of its molecular structure, then, we need to reduce colorlessness to a property like having a particular spectral reectance function (Levine, 1993, p. 551). This particular spectral reectance function plays the causal role denitive of colorlessness, and so, since H2O has this spectral reectance function, we have an explanation of why water is colorless: colorlessness is a particular spectral reectance function; water is H2O and H2O has this spectral reectance function. [6] Kim, Chalmers and Jackson, on the other hand, believe that metaphysical consequences follow from this line of reasoning. Kim (1998), for example, gives essentially the same account of reductive explanations, and like Levine, he agrees that such a strategy will not work in the case of qualia. From these sorts of considerations, Kim concludes that qualia are quite likely irreducible epiphenomena. But for Kim, unlike Chalmers (1996), such epiphenomenalism amounts to eliminativism. According to what Kim calls Alexanders Dictum, genuine (non-Cambridge)

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[7] [8]

[9]

[10]

[11] [12]

[13] [14]

[15]

properties must have causal powers and the irreducibility of qualia precludes their causal efcacy. As Kim puts the point, if you stay with physicalism, you come to[a] choice point: either you retain supervenient and yet irreducible (that is, nonfunctionalizable) mental properties, say qualia, but accept their causal impotence, or you embrace mental eliminativism and deny the reality of these irreducible properties. [But] on Alexanders criterion of what is real, eliminativism and epiphenomenalism both come to pretty much the same thing: mental irrealism. (1998, p. 119)So not only might this version of the explanatory gap deny the physical nature of qualia, it may even challenge their reality; the qualities of conscious experience have failed to nd a place in the causal economy of the natural world. Both quotes are taken from Guzelderes (1997, pp. 478) very informative survey of the historical and contemporary consciousness literature; Tyndall is there quoted at greater length. Guzeldere (1997, p. 4) suggests that the puzzlement over the nature of conscious experience is takenby those who feel such puzzlementto be the result of either (1) the limitations of the materialist paradigm or (2) our own cognitive limitations. As Guzeldere (1997, p. 48) points out, Nagel acknowledges the sort of position propounded by McGinn and Tyndall (see Nagel, 1986, pp. 489). In a similar vein, I think, Leibniz (1714) points out that if a brain were made as large as a mill such that one could walk around inside it, one would still not see any thoughts or feelings thoughts and feelings are not the things we see when we observe a brain. For contemporary accounts of the mind-body relation that are similar to Feigls dual-access theory, see Perrys (2001) two-way reexive theory of sentience; see also Loar (1997, fn. 14) who advocates a mode of presentation account of rst-person experience. Although I may demur with some of the details, I agree with the general tack of these approaches. My aim here is to demonstrate how this elegant and parsimonious account of the qualia-body relation dissolves the various explanatory gaps distinguished above. For HOP theory see Armstrong (1968) and Lycan (1997); for HOT theory see Carruthers (2000). Whats more, I am sympathetic with Perrys skepticism concerning the theoretical benets a HOT or HOP theory brings to the mystery of sentience and the resolution of the explanatory gaps. The amazement that a brain state should feel like something for its owner is not, I believe, dissipated by positing a HOT or HOP that represents it. As Perry puts the point:One may say that it is somewhat amazing and mysterious that it can be like something to be in a state. That is correct, but however amazing it may be, it is true. We gain nothing by pushing the mystery somewhere else in the mind. The states of our body, often carrying information about the external world, put our brains in states it is like something to be in. Amazing, but true. The mystery of sentience does not come when we perceive those states, or think about them, or know them; it comes when we are in them. (2001, p. 46)If it were the case that a rst-order state is only conscious when there is a HOT or HOP representing it, then I would be inclined to identify qualiathe raw feels of conscious experiencesnot with the rst-order state, but with the HOT or HOP that makes it conscious. But again, what have we gained by pushing the locus of experience back to the second-order thought or percept? Is it not just as mysterious and amazing that the neural activity underpinning a HOT or HOP should feel like something for its owner? For a review and critique of Tyes PANIC model of consciousness, see Levine (1997). According to Loar, what Mary gains is a new concept, specically a phenomenal concept. Phenomenal concepts are recognitional concepts and they may very well pick out or classify the same things as certain neuro-functional concepts. In defense of his qualia-externalism, Tye points to the apparent transparency of conscious experience. Consider the perception of a red sunset. When we turn our focus to the color experience, Tye contends, we inevitably end up attending to the external object of the experience, not something internal or intrinsic to the percipient. This is why, Tye writes,you cannot nd any technicolor qualia, any raw feels, by peering around inside the brain (with or without a ashlight). They simply are not in there. To discover what its like, you need to look outside the head to what the brain states represent. So systems that are internally physically identical do not

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[16]

[17] [18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22] [23]

[24]

have to be phenomenally identical. (1995, p. 151)In the nal section of this paper, I give the dual-access account of why we apparently do not see any technicolor qualia while peering around the head. However, space does not permit a detailed critique of Tyes argument from transparency. Nonetheless, two points are worthy noting here. First, as Levine (1997) points out, one can recognize the representational nature of sensory qualia without externalizing them. Second, there are many cases in which conscious experiences are had in the absence of perceiving any external objects (e.g. day and night dreams), and indeed, even perceptual experiences can be evoked without any external objects, as when ones brain is stimulated directly by a neurosurgeon. In these cases, it is far from clear that there is any transparency in Tyes sense. For example, Levine (1997, pp. 10912) considers a race of aliens that are neurophysiologically identical to humans except for the fact that they have color-inverting lenseslenses that invert the color information reaching the retina. Because, for Tye, qualitative character is a function of the distal properties it represents, he is committed to the view that these creatures have qualitatively identical color experiences as humans when presented with the same distal stimuli. And, one might query, what of creatures that represent these same distal stimuli through the use of radically distinct sense organs? Arguments from the inverted and absent qualia thought experiments are much more manageable on a view, like dual-access theory, that construes qualia as intrinsic to the organism. Levine (1997, p. 105) makes this point when he writes that, if you opt for a view of qualia as intrinsic physical properties, as the identity theorist does, the inverted and absent qualia arent so much of a problem. It is quite plausible to maintain that physical duplicates must share all of their (intrinsic) properties. By hypothesis, my physical duplicate has C-bers if I do, and if pain excited C-bers, then there is little reason to doubt my physical duplicates capacity for the experience of pain. Hardins remarks are based on experiments rst conducted by Hurvich et al. (1968). Interestingly, Levine (1997, pp. 11112) argues that Tyes qualia externalism leads to some very counter-intuitive consequences concerning ones introspective access to ones own qualia. However, a discussion of these issues goes beyond the scope of this paper. Nor should we confuse dual-access with Blocks (1997) notion of access consciousness which he distinguishes from phenomenal consciousness; it is phenomenal consciousness that we are concerned with here. Marras (2000, 2002) has noted a number of problems with the reductive explanation model, especially Kims (1998) version, and has suggested that, once properly understood, a functional model of reduction is not substantially different from the Nagelian model (Nagel, 1961). Of course, beliefs about our own conscious experiences represent what I have called cognitive access to those experiences. And since referential opacity is only relevant for doxastic contexts, these points about the referential opacity of phenomenal descriptions applies only to cognitive accessto our beliefs about, and descriptions of, our conscious experiences. Pyramidal cell activity is Block & Stalnakers (1999) hypothetical reduction base for conscious experience. To paraphrase the insightful denition of consciousness in Drevers (1964) A Dictionary of Psychology. Of course, the visual metaphor is misleading, except, perhaps, in the case of cognitive access. What is important here is the recognition that some brain states can be accessed from more than one perspective. Block & Stalnaker make this point by analogy when they write that [i]f we believe that heat is correlated with but not identical to molecular kinetic energy, we should regard as legitimate the question of why the correlation exists and what its mechanism is. But once we realize that heat is molecular energy, questions like this will be seen as wrongheaded (Block & Stalnaker, 1999, p. 24).

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