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The Problem of Complexity<br />
Consider how it was that science was able to explain warmth, coolness, tepidity and in-<br />
tense heat with reference to a single kinetic property of molecules. The feat was achieved by<br />
placing the former descriptions on a continuous linear scale (‘temperature’) and demon-<br />
strating how position on this scale is directly related to another continuous value – the mean<br />
speed squared at which molecules within a body are moving. All phenomena 7 related to<br />
temperature such as heat transfer and changes between solid, liquid and gaseous states<br />
could then be explained in terms of molecules’ kinetic activity.<br />
To be as successful as the thermodynamic account of heat, a theory of consciousness<br />
would have to perform a similar simplification. But the contents of consciousness are so<br />
much more complex than descriptions of molecular movements and the like that this seems<br />
like an unattainable goal. One can learn a lesson from the attempts of the introspectionist<br />
movement’s to atomise human phenomenology at the start of this century. According to<br />
Güzeldere (1997, 14), there was an<br />
apparently irreconcilable conflict between results coming out of different laboratories… Titch-<br />
ener’s laboratory reported that they discovered a total of “more than 44,435” discriminably dif-<br />
ferent sensations, largely consisting of visual and auditory elements. In contrast, Külpe’s pub-<br />
lished results pointed to a total of fewer than 12,000…<br />
Apart from their inability to come even close to agreement, the breadth of the taxonomy<br />
that each laboratory arrived at highlights the inordinate complexity of phenomenology in<br />
comparison with ordinary physical descriptions of events. It is difficult to imagine how a<br />
simple scientific theory could find connections between physical events and the vast hetero-<br />
geneity of conscious experiences while remaining true to what they are really like.<br />
7 Excluding our experience of temperature, of course.<br />
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