SJ: So consciousness is generating the representation?
ML: Well, I wouldn't say consciousness is generating the representation. It's simply that the representation exists regardless, it's not something that's generated. The representation is just a certain abstract way of describing the subsystem of the brain which is directly manifested in consciousness. That's the thought. There's one representation which is special, because it corresponds to the way consciousness sees itself. Do you see? But its a perfectly correct representation. I mean just looking at the brain as a physical object that representation is perfectly definable in terms of quantum mechanics. The specialness of it of course wouldn't be manifest .

SJ: But does this put consciousness as the substrate?
ML: No...
SJ: Or is consciousness particular and specific to each organised physiological entity?
ML: Well, on the one hand I take it that for every conscious being, there is a physical subsystem, that is to say a subsystem of the total number of degrees of freedom that define the being.

SJ: Our representation?

ML: Exactly. Well no, first of all we've got the subsystem, right? and then, if we ask the question well why does that conscious being seem to itself the way that it does? then we need to go a further step and identify a preferred representation. It's not preferred as it were objectively, it's preferred subjectively. If you like it represents the spectacles through which consciousness views its own nature.

SJ: One of the big problems that I have, in this whole business, which hasn't been discussed very much is the question of culture. The culture, it seems to me has some role in assembling the set of interpretative devices (the spectacles) which to me are what produce qualia. And so...
ML: Oh yes... for example, different cultures that have different colour systems, (Whorf hypothesis)
SJ: Precisely, qualia are culturally relative at least...
ML: I wouldn't say they were culturally relative, I would say they were culturally conditioned.
SJ: Yeah, okay
ML: That is to say: how we grow up, the process of growing up, actually has an imprint, it makes a difference. It makes a difference for the way in which the brain gets wired up! So I think the role of culture here is that it actually helps determine what in detail this subsystem is like.
SJ: Right..., yes...
ML: Well, nevertheless, once it's like that, it's like that in a perfectly objective sense.
SJ: It's a projection onto oneself?

ML: Well, then, I think there's a separate point that, as I say, there is a certain representation (particular to myself). God, as it were, has an infinity of different stories he can tell, he doesn't have just the one story. We just have one story we can tell about ourselves. And that's the story that corresponds to introspection. Do you see what I mean? And if you ask well what does that correspond to physically? That story corresponds to one representation of a particular subsystem of the brain. That's my story. That's what I'm saying. So that's one way in which it seems to me you can have a perfectly good representation where atoms do not such much as get mentioned. Then it goes on and on in a way. But that's probably enough....

SJ: That's great. This whole thing is fascinating.