The Presidential Metaphor for Consciousness
01-Aug-2013: Original version

The traditional Cartesian Theatre view of consciousness was highly intuitive. However modern science has undermined this view to an extent that is probably fatal. In particular visual illusions such as the colour phi phenomenon investigated by Kolers and von Grunau (Kolers and von Grulau 1976) call into doubt the whole idea of a "stream of consciousness".

Some commentators have used these limitations of the traditional Cartesian Theatre to argue against any form of central consciousness in the traditional sense. In particular Daniel Dennett proposes his multiple drafts model of consciousness as an alternative and goes on to say:

"But since there is not such theater, there is no such audience."
(Dennett 1991)
The Presidential metaphor is an attempt to expand and extend the traditional Cartesian Theatre in a way that can cope with the problems posed by colour phi et al without throwing out the metaphorical baby of consciousness.

In criticising Descartes' suggestion that the pineal gland is the centre of consciousness Dennett says:

"The pineal gland is not only not the fax machine to the Soul; it is also not the Oval Office of the brain, and neither are any of the other portions of the brain."
(Ibid)
I'm not about to race to the defence of the pineal gland, however I am going to use Dennett's idea of "the Oval Office", albeit one not associated with any specific part of the brain. I'm grateful to Dennett for the metaphor, though I doubt he would agree with my use of it!

The Presidential metaphor is not necessarily in opposition to other theories such as Dennett's multiple drafts model (ibid). Instead it extends them and puts back what I consider to be the essential aspects of conscious experience.

The Oval Office of Consciousness

The Presidential metaphor extends the Cartesian Theatre. Instead of a screen on which experience is projected we imagine the Oval Office. Here the President (the conscious self) has access to numerous screens which communicate with the various offices of government. The President can flick between screens at will. Some offices update their datafeeds constantly, others only when a request is received. Some offices provide data in near real time, others need longer to collate and analyse their findings.

Sometimes the offices make mistakes and update their reports later. Some departments will do this honestly with an addendum saying "we were wrong". Others retrospectively change their reports in a manner that Dennett (ibid) describes as "Orwellian". The information the President sees will depend on when the reports are called up to be read.

One important difference between the Oval Office and the Cartesian Theatre is that the Oval Office is not just a viewing room. It's a command and control centre. The President can send out orders to the various offices which will then implement these to the best of their abilities. It's up the the President whether to micro-manage these tasks or just let the offices get on with them. If the President gives no such orders then the offices will continue to operate according to standing orders modified by the last instructions they were given.

The President can choose at any time which if any datafeed to watch and what if any orders to give. Or the President can just ignore all the screens, sit back and continue reading "100 Best Cigar Tricks". The work of government will continue in an automatic fashion.

The Homunculus Pulling the Levers

There are undeniably similarities between this model and the idea of a homunculus in the head pulling levers. However this model is far more sophisticated. In particular "pulling levers" has been replaced by the much more flexible "giving orders" which allows control to be delegated to outer offices that can be smart in their specialist domains without having consciousness.

But what is the homunculus? I don't know. Traditionally it's been represented as a miniature person, however this is misleading and suggests infinite recursion. There is no need to think of the President as human. This image is just a placeholder until we have a better intuitive grasp on the subject of consciousness. Anyone worried by the presence of the homunculus is welcome to visualise the President as a cloud of green gas if that helps. A more accurate visualisation might be as a glowing letter "Q".

Attention

One feature of the Presidential metaphor is that the President chooses which (if any) screen to observe at any one time. The rest may well be churning out information but this is ignored unless the President goes back to it later.

This fits with the phenomenon of conscious attention. At any time we are usually consciously of one thing, the thing which has our attention. This might be the book we are reading, the TV show we are watching, the taste of haggis, etc. We may well be multi-tasking between reading, watching TV and eating but we do not simultaneously pay conscious attention to all three. Instead we flick our attention back and forth between them.

Other sensory data is being recorded, of course. However subjective experience suggests a single-threaded attention.

This is what produces the "stream of consciousness". The nature of that stream and its contents depend on the order in which the President chooses to observes the screen. Even if the President doesn't observe the screens immediately then sensory data is still collected and stored and may be available later (for example the chiming of a clock).

Entities

A possible objection to the Presidential metaphor is that the President is not actually needed. The system will continue on its own regardless. So why do we not apply Occam's razor and get rid of the President?

My answer to this is that we do need the President. Eliminavitist theories of consciousness have not explained subjective observations such as qualia to my satisfaction. Epiphenomenalism fails to incorporate free will.

There is a clear link here with the philosophical zombie concept. If we remove the President from the system then we are left with a functioning zombie that has no qualia and no free will.

Where Is The Oval Office?

So where in the brain is the Oval Office of Consciousness situated? I don't know. The question may not even have an answer.

The Oval Office is not the brain. The brain is the collection of outer offices that report to the brain. There's no reason to say that we need to locate the Oval Office somewhere. Maybe in time we will find its location (possibly even in the pineal gland, though I doubt that). Or maybe it is distributed across the brain. Perhaps it is not even strictly within the brain but is some form of field that interacts with tthe brain.

The location of the Oval Office is only a problem for those who insist that consciousness and physical brain states are equivalent. I would argue that it is that assumption rather than the existence of consciousness that should be jettisoned.

References:
Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained
 Kolers PA & von Grunau M. 1976. Shape and Color in Apparent Motion. Vision Research 16.