The 10 point framework and the altogether too hard basket

The large footprints of the Crick/Koch duo at the frontier of knowledge can be a little daunting, which is why I was concerned at the very first paragraph of “A Framework for Consciousness” (1). It says that qualia are too hard and ‘it appears fruitless to approach them head on’. Qualia are then tacitly assumed emergent from the framework presented. I know the work is entitled ‘A’ framework, not ‘The’ framework, but from Crick and Koch it read a little like “Qualia cannot be approached from outside the framework”. I don’t think this was the intent, but it may be that the plausible explanation they need is stopped by the framework.

Beguiling qualia have resisted analysis and experiment for millennia. What sort of blinder remains for qualia in the face of the framework? What sort of blinder remains for qualia in the face of the framework? For the odds are it too may prove vulnerable. One way is where you experiment until the libraries burst with data, you have drawn a line around qualia and you can turn them off and on but have no clue as to their origin. To break the bottleneck in the end, what do you need? To tackle qualia head on. Something we are invited to believe pointless. To illustrate I put myself behind the word processor screen of a future historian thus:

..” in the closing years of the 20th century the problem of qualia was declared ‘hard’ (2) and a few years later ‘fruitless to approach head on’ (1)….. In the absence any plausible theory to guide laboratory work, for [choose 5/10/15/20 years] signs of qualia were missed or logged without realising it.

It was only when [insert Person X of establishment Y] postulated [insert bit of physics/comp-sci/whatever here] that light was shed on the reasons for [ physical evidence X], previously ignored as random or irrelevant. A detailed theory of qualia followed, including anatomical clues. Around the world a flurry of activity poured forth evidence that helped mature the original postulates. Next to arrive was a set of general principles [A,B,C] that subsequently became the underpinnings of a revitalised Neuroscience.

For it turned out that qualia were quite simple things [ with relation Z to consciousness ] and the only reason that they hadn’t been seen before was discipline blindness, something that no amount of lab work would ever uncover. The people in the labs simply did not have the eyes to see qualia for what they are. Like prospectors of old angrily stubbing their toes kicking nickel and uranium ore aside in their search for gold, they could not see what was in front of them.”