Clear as Glass

This picture of a stained glass window is from a spherical picture taken in the sanctuary of a church. This particular church is filled with similar windows, and they are seen as one of the defining characteristics of the building.

Stained glass windows are also interesting topics/objects with which to explore the implications of necessity versus sufficiency that was introduced in an earlier essay.

The challenge is to recognize that something may be necessary but still not be sufficient. For example, food is necessary for us to live, but it is not sufficient. We also need air, water, and so on. This example is clear, but sometimes it’s not so obvious. In some cases, we may miss other things that are also needed if we focus on the most obviously important things.

With the striking appearance of a stained glass window, it’s obvious that the craftsmanship of the glass and metal structure is important. A lot of training, artistry, and special materials goes into making the windows, and there is a long history of the art’s development. If anything happens to the glass or the assembly, then the image changes.

Thinking about this a little more, though, it becomes clear that more than just the window is necessary for a truly striking appearance – there also needs to be a light behind the window. Without that, the window would still be beautiful, but we would be missing the striking appearance characteristic of the art. So the window is necessary, but not sufficient.

Perhaps this can be seen as a picture of consciousness, in which the characteristic striking appearance is a picture of consciousness, while the window is the brain. Just like the window, the brain seems to be necessary for creating consciousness, but is it sufficient? We observe that changes to the brain are highly correlated to changes in consciousness, just like changes in the window result in changes to the viewed experience. However, the window requires a light to be fully functional, so the obvious question is whether the brain requires something additional to be fully conscious.

Most researchers seem to assume that the brain is sufficient for consciousness without explicitly looking for the influence of another domain. But it often seems like this is the expression of individual assumptions rather than something indicated by the data, and given the growing number of researchers looking to expand the meaning of physical materialism to include new properties in order to solve this problem, perhaps it would be reasonable to include the possibility of other domains.