Sue Blackmore

Abstract. Calls for first-person approaches are common in consciousness
studies today, but what do they mean? The idea of "first-person science" is
nonsensical, partly because science is necessarily a collective endeavour,
and partly because any data collected must, by being written down or
shared, become third-person data. However, there may still be valuable
roles for first-person practice in a science of consciousness. One
possibility is that personal practice can help scientists and theoreticians
to escape from the everyday illusions that keep them trapped in false ideas
of subjective experience.

Most theories of consciousness, although their proponents deny it, are
forms of Cartesian materialism (as defined by Dennett). This is revealed in
such phrases as "the contents of consciousness", "enters consciousness",
"in consciousness" and more explicitly in the popular Global Workspace
theories. While consciousness is conceived of as a container, through which
a stream of experiences passes, we remain stuck with (a) the hard problem
and (b) a "magic difference" between similar physical brain processes some
of which are said to be "in conscious" and others not. Why are these
theories so popular in spite of such serious problems? I suggest that it is
only because they fit with the illusions of ordinary experience.

Perhaps the key is to change our experience, and this is where personal
practice comes in. With practice it is possible to drop the intuitions that
fuel these impossible theories of consciousness, including the metaphors of
the stream of consciousness, the theatre of the mind, and the idea that
there cannot be experiences without an experiencer.

I have been practicing Zen for over twenty years and have recently worked
on a number of questions that directly address the issues discussed above.
I shall discuss three of them:

1. Am I conscious now?

2. What was I conscious of a moment ago?

3. Who is asking the question?

I shall describe the changes that take place through asking these
questions, and suggest that long practice with them destroys the appeal of
most contemporary theories of consciousness.