Higher Order Thoughts
David Rosenthal
Zoltán Dienes, Conscious and unconscious mental processes, 2006
Creature consciousness
Awake, alert vs asleep, unconscious etc
“Bill is conscious”
Creature consciousness
Awake, alert vs asleep, unconscious etc
“Bill is conscious”
Transitive consciousness
Has an object: “Bill is conscious of the noise” (or “aware of”)
You could be asleep – creature unconscious – and conscious of a
noise.
Creature consciousness
Awake, alert vs asleep, unconscious etc
“Bill is conscious”
Transitive consciousness
Has an object: “Bill is conscious of the noise” (or “aware of”)
You could be asleep – creature unconscious – and conscious of a
noise.
(Mental) State consciousness
A property of a mental state: A desire could be conscious or
unconscious.
You could be asleep and have conscious mental states in your
dreams.
A blindsight patient can be, in a sense, conscious of an object
moving up, but the visual state is unconscious.
HIGHER-ORDER THOUGHT THEORY (Rosenthal, 1986, 2002)
(see also Carruthers, 1992, 2000)
What makes a mental state a conscious mental state?
Central claim:
A conscious mental state is a mental state of which one is conscious.
i.e. state consciousness = transitive consciousness of the state
Seems hard to deny:
A blindsight patient honestly claims not be of conscious of seeing at all
That’s why it is natural to say their seeing is unconscious seeing
0) There can be unconscious mental states (thinking etc).
1) To be conscious of X, one must either perceive X or think about
X. (I can see you being there, or I can close my eyes and think of
you being there.)
2) To be conscious of being in a mental state, one must think that
one is in that mental state
(i.e. have a second order thought: A thought about a thought).
(We can think of mental states; can we perceive them?)
3) A conscious mental state is a mental state of which one is conscious
of being in. (The central claim.)
Therefore,
the necessary and sufficient condition for having a conscious mental
state is to have a second order thought that you are in that mental state.
A thought with the content "there is an apple in front of me" is not a
conscious mental state. (It is just a ‘first order thought’)
It is in virtue of the thought "I see that there is an apple in front of me"
that the first order thought is a conscious thought.
A thought with the content “it is moving up"
makes you conscious of the object moving up
but not consciously aware of it moving up
(cf blindsight)
Being consciously aware of the object moving up requires you are
conscious of the object moving up with a conscious mental state
the thought "I see that it is moving up" makes one consciously aware of
the object moving up
(what a blindsight patient lacks)
“First order mental state”: A mental state about the world
Makes us conscious of the world
First order mental
state
“The tree
is green”
Refers to
The world
Second order thought makes us conscious of
having the first order thought;
Second-order mental
state (higher order
thought)
“I see the
tree is
green”
Makes us consciously aware of the tree being
green
Refers to
“The
tree is
green”
First-order
mental state
Refers to
The world
Note, logically, the second order thought itself
“I see that the tree is green”
is not a conscious thought until one becomes conscious of it – by a
third order thought
e.g. “I am aware that I am seeing that the tree is green”
It is the third order thought that makes one consciously aware
(introspectively aware) that it is *me seeing*.
First order
mental state
second order
mental state
Unconscious
mental state
Conscious
mental state
Conscious
Consciously
of…
aware of…
Or aware of…
third order
mental state
Introspectively
aware of …
Counter arguments to Rosenthal’s theory
1. Does the theory rule out animals and young children being
conscious?
Critic:
To think about being in mental states one needs to have concepts
referring to mental states (not just referring to states of the world).
Children’s understanding of mental states develops dramatically
e.g. prior to age 3-4 they do not fully understand belief because they
fail to understand false belief (Sally Anne task )
They do not understand mental states are representational.
Does that mean they cannot have higher order thoughts? Surely young
children can be consciously aware??
Reply:
One does not need to understand mental states as representational in
order to have some concept of a mental state
Adult’s understanding of mental states continues to develop, but we
still at every point have some concept of a mental state
Children younger than 3-4 clearly have some concept of a mental
state because they talk about mental states. They can use those
concepts in their higher order thoughts.
Critic:
OK, but what about children younger than one year and animals? I
find it hard to believe my dog does not have conscious mental states.
At least, I do not want to rule that possibility out.
Reply:
One can have concepts without language.
All that is needed for a higher order thought is some concept or
representation of a mental state.
Maybe all mammals, for example, have some concept or
representation of (some) mental states (Rosenthal).
Maybe dogs do not have a full concept of ‘see’ nor of ‘I’,
but they may have a representation for ‘I-see-blue’ and a different
one for ‘I-see-yellow’ etc.
They do not realise they are all cases of seeing, nor that when I am
seeing blue, I am in the same type of state as you seeing blue. (These
dog thoughts could be called ‘non-conceptual’.)
But still the dog could think it is in a certain state, hence render that
state conscious.
One’s conscious experience would become more articulate and rich
as one became better at conceptualising. (cf learning to taste wines.)
There need be no evolutionary magic moment when human-like
conscious awareness suddenly appeared from nothing.
Maybe conscious experience gradually emerged as representations and
concepts of mental states emerged in more and more fine grained ways.
We cannot rule out babies and many animals having HOTs!
Contrast:
Carruthers: It is ONLY when one understands mental states as
representational that the right sort of higher order thoughts can be
formed! Babies and animals are not consciously aware!
2. But we don’t seem to have HOTs all the time.
Reply:
By HOT theory, second order thoughts will only be conscious if you
are conscious of having them (with third order thoughts).
Presumably we have third order thoughts a lot more rarely than second
order thoughts.
Thus it follows from HOT theory that we will not be conscious of
having second order thoughts most of the time.
3. Aren’t so many HOTs wasteful? Why would evolution bother?
Reply:
True, we don’t need to consciously see to act on the world. (cf
Milner and Goodale – brain damaged people can be very bad at
reporting how something looks, but act appropriately.)
So we must have acquired our rich repertoire of mental state
concepts for reasons other than simple acting on the world.
Maybe we acquired so many concepts of mental states in order to
explain and predict other people’s behaviour in our richly complex
primate social structure?
(But why are humans in particular endowed with so rich mental
state concepts? Many animals are intricately social.)
Maybe humans in particular have an extraordinary number of HOTs
because of sexual selection (not because it was useful in any other
way).
We evolved to be proficient in talking about mental states in order to
chat each other up? (Miller, 2000)
An indicator of genetic fitness might be how elaborately one can
wax lyrical about mental states in an original way! This takes an
extravagant amount of resources, so people who can do it must be
genetically fit.
Or maybe we have such rich mental state concepts because the
selective pressure was to have rich concepts (for chatting people up).
Richly articulated HOTs were just a by-product of this more general
ability.
4.Why doesn’t thinking about a rock make it conscious?
According to HOT theory the higher order thought must be to the
effect that you yourself are in a certain mental state.
Thinking about rocks does not satisfy the conditions the theory
specifies.
NB: A second order thought ‘makes’ a first order state conscious,
but not by causing it to ‘light up’/change its intrinsic properties.
A first order mental state’s being conscious just is there being a
relevant second order thought.
5. Are not higher order thoughts just about introspective
awareness? What if I am interested in conscious awareness itself,
not the more higher level case of introspection?
Reply:
Introspection is being consciously aware of being in a mental state,
not being consciously aware of simply the world.
A second order thought makes one consciously aware of only the
world.
Introspection requires a third order thought.
Thus, HOT theory is a theory of conscious awareness itself, not just
of introspection.
6. But HOTs are conceptual and intellectual and conscious states are
often fine-grained and qualitative? How can that be?
Many experiences, like visual ones, are qualitative, richly detailed in
ways we lack concepts for. We can see a shade of red we have no word
for and would in any case find hard to remember long enough to
acquire a concept for.
6. But HOTs are conceptual and intellectual and conscious states are
often fine-grained and qualitative? How can that be?
Many experiences, like visual ones, are qualitative, richly detailed in
ways we lack concepts for. We can see a shade of red we have no word
for and would in any case find hard to remember long enough to
acquire a concept for.
Reply:
If you represent yourself as being in a fine grained qualitative state, it
will seem like you are!
If you have a concept for a certain shade of red (call it reda), you can
represent yourself as seeing a red slightly warmer, slightly more
yellow, etc than reda. Thus you can represent yourself as seeing a
certain fine grained qualitative property without having a concept for it
as such.
7. But surely HOTs can misrepresent? What happens then?
Reply:
Yes, HOTs are just representations, just thoughts, so they can
misrepresent.
They may represent that you are in a state you are not in!
It would consciously seem to you that you are in that state!
We will use this property of HOTs in explaining various
psychological phenomena later in the course. This turns out to be a
strength not a weakness of the theory.
8. But what are mental states? Doesn’t the theory beg the question
about what mental states are?
Reply:
No one knows what makes mental states mental states. It is not a
failing of HOT theory that there still remains much to be
explained!
(see Edelman & Tononi (2001) A universe of consciousness. Basic
books. Has some interesting ideas)
Variants of higher order theories:
1. Dispositional vs actual higher order states
Dispositional theory: If a mental state is accompanied by a
disposition to have higher order thoughts about it, it is conscious
(Carruthers, 1996).
Rosenthal: For a mental state to be conscious, there needs to be an
actual existing (‘occurrent’) HOT
2. HOP vs HOT
Higher order perception theory: We can be conscious of mental
states by perceiving that we are in them.
That may help explain how conscious mental states can be
richly qualitative.
But do we have an organ for perceiving mental states? Do we
need more than concepts in the higher order states to explain the
richness of conscious mental experience? In any case, is there
more than a terminological difference between the theories?
Perhaps the putative “Theory of Mind module” might be
considered as a perceptual organ?
Contrasting theory:
First order representationalism:
A first order representation can be conscious if it has various
properties like stability, distinctiveness, etc (e.g. O’Brien and Opie,
1999).
Violates the intuition of the central claim of higher order thought
theory:
A conscious mental state is a mental state of which one is conscious.
If my visual system formed a stable distinctive representation
controlling my actions, but I was not aware of seeing, it seems bizzare
to say I consciously saw.
In this course we will look at the following unconscious mental states:
Memory: Can you use memory and not be aware you are doing so?
Perception: Can you perceive without being aware of perceiving?
Knowledge: Can you be using knowledge and not be aware of
knowing?
Learning: How can you acquire unconscious knowledge?
Volition: Can you intend to think or behave in a certain way and not be
aware of so intending?