Hirstein’s Mindmelding
William Hirstein argues that it is “the assumption of privacy”—the deep, metaphysical impossibility for one person to ever experience the conscious states of another—that has led philosophers and scientists to claim wrongly that the conscious mind can never be explained in straightforwardly physical terms and thus to “create vexing dualisms, panpsychisms, views that would force changes in our current theories in physics, views that deny the reality of consciousness, or views that claim the problem is insoluble.”
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William Hirstein
Philosopher
William Hirstein is an American philosopher specializing in consciousness and the philosophy of mind, known for his work on the neural basis of self and personal identity. He has contributed significantly to theories explaining the brain’s role in conscious experience.
Key Takeaways
Core Claim
Consciousness isn’t inherently private; it could, in principle, be shared via brain-to-brain links.
How It Works
“Mindmelding” would connect one brain’s control network to another’s sensory processing.
Distinguishing Idea
Undermining privacy shows that consciousness can be fully explained in physical terms.
Hirstein’s Mindmelding
William Hirstein argues that it is “the assumption of privacy”—the deep, metaphysical impossibility for one person to ever experience the conscious states of another—that has led philosophers and scientists to claim wrongly that the conscious mind can never be explained in straightforwardly physical terms and thus to “create vexing dualisms, panpsychisms, views that would force changes in our current theories in physics, views that deny the reality of consciousness, or views that claim the problem is insoluble.”
Hirstein seeks to undermine “the assumption of privacy” by the thought experiment of “mindmelding”: connecting one person's cerebral cortex control network to another person's cerebral cortex visual attention network. This would entail inter-brain rather than the normal intra-brain coupling. Then the first person might correctly say, “Wow, I am experiencing your conscious visual states. Did you know you are color blind?”
The control network functions as a referent for “I”—the subject of the visual states—and the other person's conscious visual states are the referent for “your conscious visual states.” As such, mindmelding would support phenomenal consciousness as entirely physical, realizable in terms of neurobiology, which would be both necessary and sufficient (Hirstein, 2012).
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