Wanting to Be Understood Explains the Meta-Problem of Consciousness

Humans are strongly motivated to be understood, leading them to create external representations such as language, art, and mime to share inner states. These external representations are necessary for access consciousness—the global availability of information for reasoning. However, the bandwidth of access consciousness is far smaller than the richness of raw experience, so no external representation can fully reproduce that richness. Ordinarily, explaining an experience only requires an audience to grasp the pattern, not relive it. But the drive to be understood and the low-level sensorimotor capacities for grasping are so strong that the demand for explaining the feel of experience cannot be satisfactory.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Because we are highly motivated to be understood, we created public external representations -- mime, language, art -- to externalise our inner states. We argue that such external representations are a pre-condition for access consciousness, the global availability of information for reasoning. Yet the bandwidth of access consciousness is tiny compared with the richness of `raw experience', so no external representation can reproduce that richness in full. Ordinarily an explanation of experience need only let an audience `grasp' the relevant pattern, not relive the phenomenon. But our drive to be understood, and our low level sensorimotor capacities for `grasping' so rich, that the demand for an explanation of the feel of experience cannot be ``satisfactory''. That inflated epistemic demand (the preeminence of our expectation that we could be perfectly understood by another or ourselves) rather than an irreducible metaphysical gulf -- keeps the hard problem of consciousness alive. But on the plus side, it seems we will simply never give up creating new ways to communicate and think about our experiences. In this view, to be consciously aware is to strive to have one's agency understood by oneself and others.