Steven Reidbord (1992) Would you Choose Unremembered Pain?. Psycoloquy: 3(41) Consciousness (22)

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PSYCOLOQUY (ISSN 1055-0143) is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Psycoloquy 3(41): Would you Choose Unremembered Pain?

WOULD YOU CHOOSE UNREMEMBERED PAIN?
Commentary on Bridgeman on Consciousness

Steven Reidbord
Department of Psychiatry
Box CSN-0984 UCSF
San Francisco CA 94143

reidbord@macpsy.ucsf.edu

Abstract

Bridgeman appears to equate epistemology with ontology, but these are different issues. While memory recall may be needed to know or PROVE conscious experience, it does not COMPRISE conscious experience. Conscious experience matters greatly even in the absence of the memory needed to prove that it occurred. An account of consciousness must not establish an epistemology so stringent that ontology gets lost in the process.

Keywords

consciousness, language, plans, motivation, evolution, motor system.
1.0 Bridgeman (1992) holds in his para 1.3 that conscious experience cannot be proved to occur in the absence of memory. He offers the dramatic example of "the perfect general anesthetic" that neither deadens pain nor induces unconsciousness, but merely inhibits motor responses and obliterates any memory of the experience. He states, "It does not matter that the patient experienced the most excruciating pain during the operation, as long as the perception does not become recorded in episodic memory."

1.1 Bridgeman appears to equate epistemology with ontology, but these are different issues. While memory recall may be needed to know or PROVE conscious experience, it does not COMPRISE conscious experience. Imagine you are offered a choice for your upcoming surgery: A conventional anesthetic that (as best anyone can ascertain) prevents awareness of pain as the operation proceeds, or Bridgeman's "perfect" anesthetic. Which would you choose? No one prefers to experience excruciating pain, even with the firm knowledge that it will be forgotten immediately thereafter. For this reason, scopolamine and other amnestic agents are not preferred anesthetics for general use, but compromises selected when some patient awareness is beneficial, as in childbirth.

1.2 Conscious experience matters greatly even in the absence of the memory needed to prove that it occurred. You'd choose the conventional anesthetic whether asked the day before surgery (owing to your assumptions about the continuity of personal identity and experience), or just as the scalpel plunges in. It is only when memory comes into play that the choice seems to lose importance. Memory, necessary for subsequent knowledge of conscious experience, is not the same thing as immediate experience, and may obscure its very nature. An account of consciousness must not establish an epistemology so stringent that ontology gets lost in the process.

REFERENCES

Bridgeman, Bruce (1992) Qualia and Memory. Response to Laming on Bridgeman on Consciousness PSYCOLOQUY 3(24) consciousness.9


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