tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72476372024-03-07T00:37:25.591-05:00Guide to RealityIdeas and Arguments Toward an Improved WorldviewSteve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.comBlogger348125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-24040683589844564692021-06-12T12:45:00.002-04:002021-06-12T12:45:17.314-04:00New Website<p>I have a <a href="http://stephenesser.com/" target="_blank">new personal website</a>, and new blog posts will appear there. Please visit and let me know if you have any feedback about its format or readability. Thanks!</p>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-60031866297606605242021-06-08T10:56:00.010-04:002021-06-10T10:10:47.475-04:00RQM and Molecular Composition<p><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">According to the <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2021/05/composing-natural-systems.html">last post</a>,
the constitution of complex natural systems should be understood using a theory
of composite causal processes. Composite causal processes are formed from a
pattern of discrete causal interactions among a group of smaller sub-processes.
When the latter sustains a higher rate of in-group versus out-group
interactions, they form a composite. While this account has intuitive
appeal in the case of macroscopic systems, what about more basic building
blocks of nature? Can the same approach work in the microscopic realm? </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
this post, I will make the case that it does, focusing on molecules.</span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A key to reaching this conclusion will be the use of
the conceptual resources of </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/">relational quantum mechanics (RQM)</a>.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFi3rbFW9whQqgRkok6sXUa-VzV2EIfUGuqWd4rAi3_dm6h_Zil5VfoqWmTcGOSKcGg9KhM39FgWCCvBUsLvKzFWt0KqEtp4mQ8onxXqEZeEH8lnh3cBE6njbdmv_Ovcn-H9vC3w/s908/Benzene.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="898" data-original-width="908" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFi3rbFW9whQqgRkok6sXUa-VzV2EIfUGuqWd4rAi3_dm6h_Zil5VfoqWmTcGOSKcGg9KhM39FgWCCvBUsLvKzFWt0KqEtp4mQ8onxXqEZeEH8lnh3cBE6njbdmv_Ovcn-H9vC3w/s320/Benzene.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Background: The Problem of
Molecular Structure<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In
approaching the question of molecular composition, we need to reckon with</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> a
long-standing problem regarding how the structure of molecules—the spatial
organization of component atoms we are all familiar with from chemistry—relates
to quantum theory.</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Modern chemistry uses QM models to
successfully calculate the value of molecular properties: one starts by solving
for the molecular wave function and associated energies using the
time-independent Schrödinger equation </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Ĥ </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">ψ</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">=E</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">ψ.</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
But there are several issues in connecting the quantum formalism to molecular
structure. First and most simply, the quantum description of a multiple
particle system does not “reside” in space at all. The wave function assigns
(complex) numbers to points in a multi-dimensional configuration space (3N
dimensions where N is the number of particles in the system). How do we get
from this to a spatially organized molecule? </span><o:p style="font-size: 12pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In addition to this puzzle,
some of the methods used to estimate ψ in practice raise additional issues. Something
to keep in mind in what follows is that multi-particle atomic and molecular wave
equations are generally computationally intractable.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, simplifying assumptions of some sort will
always be needed. One important strategy normally used is to assume that the
nuclei are stationary in space, and then proceed to estimate the electronic
wave function.</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
Where do we get the assumption for the particular configuration for the nuclei
in the case of a molecule?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> This is typically informed by </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">experimental evidence and/or candidates can be evaluated iteratively, seeking
the lowest equilibrium energy configuration. I’ll discuss the implications of
this assumption shortly.</span><o:p style="font-size: 12pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Next, there are different
techniques used to estimate the electronic wave function. For multi-electron
atoms, one adds additional electrons using hydrogen-like wave functions (called orbitals)
of increasing energy. Chemistry textbooks offer visualizations of these
orbitals for various atoms and we can form some intuitions for how they overlap
to form bonded molecules (but strictly speaking remember the wave functions are
not in 3D space). One approach to molecular wave functions uses hybrid orbitals
based on these overlaps in its calculations.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Another approach skips this process and just proceeds by incrementally
adding the requisite electrons to orbitals calculated for whole molecule at
once.</span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
In this method, the notion of localized atoms linked by bonds is much more elusive,
but this intuitive departure interestingly has no impact on the effectiveness
of the calculation method (this method is frequently more efficient).</span><o:p style="font-size: 12pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Once we have molecular wave
functions, we have an estimate of energies and can derive other properties of interest.
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">We can also use the wave function to calculate the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">electron density distribution</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> for the
system (usually designated by ρ): this gives the number of electrons
one would expect to find at various spatial locations upon
measurement.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This is the counterpart of
the process we use to probabilistically predict the outcome of a measurement for any
quantum system by multiplying the wave function ψ by its complex conjugate ψ* (the
Born rule). Interestingly, another popular technique quantum chemists (and
condensed matter physicists) use to estimate electronic properties uses ρ
instead of ψ as a starting point (called Density Functional Theory).</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Notably, the electron density seems to offer a more promising way to
depict molecular structure in our familiar space, letting us visualize
molecular shape, and pictures of these density distributions are also featured
in textbooks. Theorists have also developed sophisticated ways to correlate
features of ρ with chemical concepts, including bonding relationships.</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
However, here we still need to be careful in our interpretation: </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">while ρ is a function that assigns numbers to
points in our familiar 3D space, it should not be taken to represent an object simply located in space.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’ll have more to say
about interpreting ρ below.</span><o:p style="font-size: 12pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Still, this might all sound
pretty good: we understand that the ball and stick molecules of our school days
don’t actually exist, but we have ways to approximate the classical picture
using the correct (quantum) physics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
this would be too quick—in particular, remember that in performing our physical
calculations we put the most important ingredient of a molecule’s spatial
structure in by hand! As mentioned above, the fixed nuclei spatial configuration
was an assumption, not a derivation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
one tries to calculate wave functions for molecules from scratch with the appropriate
number of nuclei and electrons, one does not recover the particular asymmetries
that distinguish most polyatomic molecules and that are crucial for
understanding their chemical behavior. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This problem is often brought into focus by
highlighting the many examples of molecules with the same atomic constituents (isomers)
that differ crucially in their geometric structure (some even have the same
bonding structure but different geometry). Molecular wave functions would
generally not distinguish these from each other unless the configuration is brutely
added as an assumption.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Getting from QM Models to
Molecular Structure<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So how does spatial molecular
structure arise from a purely quantum world? It seems that two additional
ingredients are needed. The first is to incorporate the role of intra-and extra-molecular interactions. The second is to go beyond the quantum formalism
and incorporate an <i>interpretation</i> of quantum mechanics.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">With regard to the first step,
note that the discussion thus far focused on quantum modeling of isolated
molecules in equilibrium. This is an idealization, since in the actual world, molecules
are usually constantly interacting with other systems in their environment, as well as always being subject to ongoing internal dynamics.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Recognizing this, but staying within orthodox QM, there is research indicating
that applications of decoherence theory can go some way to accounting for the
emergence of molecular shape. Most of this work explores models featuring interactions
between a molecule and an assumed environment. Recently, there has been some
innovative research extending decoherence analysis to include consideration of
the internal environment of the molecule (interaction between the electrons and
the nuclei -- see links in the footnote).</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
More work needs to be done, but there is definitely some prospect that the study
of interactions withing the </span><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/" style="font-size: 12pt;">QM-decoherence framework</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> will shed light on
show molecular structure comes about.</span><o:p style="font-size: 12pt;"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, we can say already
that decoherence will not solve the problem by itself.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can go some way toward accounting for the suppression
of interference and the emergence of classical like-states (“preferred pointer
states”), but multiple possible configurations will remain. These, of course, also
continue be defined in the high-D configuration space context of QM. To fully
account for the actual existence of a particular observed structures in 3D space
requires grappling with the question of interpreting QM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a 100-year-old debate centered on
the problem of how definite values of a system’s properties are realized upon
measurement when the formalism of QM would indicate the existence of a
superposition of multiple possibilities (aka the “measurement problem”).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="https://www.alexanderfranklin.co.uk/" target="_blank">Alexander Franklin</a> & <a href="https://www.vanessa-seifert.com/" target="_blank">Vanessa Seifert</a> have a <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/715148" target="_blank">new paper</a> (<a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/18380/" target="_blank">preprint</a>) that does an excellent job arguing that the problem of molecular structure is an instance of the measurement problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It includes a brief look at how three common
interpretations of QM (the Everett interpretation, Bohmian mechanics, and the
spontaneous collapse approach) would address the issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The authors do not conclude in this paper that
the consideration of molecular structure has any bearing on deciding between
rival QM interpretations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast, I
think the best interpretation is RQM in part because of the way it accounts for molecular
structure: it does so in a way that also allows for these quantum systems to fit into
an independently attractive general theory of how natural systems are composed
(<a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2021/05/composing-natural-systems.html">see the last post</a>).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How RQM Explains Spatial Structure<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To discuss how to approach the problem using RQM, </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">let’s
first return to the interpretation of the electron density distribution (ρ). </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As mentioned above, chemistry
textbooks include pictures of ρ, and, because it is a function assigning (real)
numbers to points in 3D space, there is a temptation to view ρ as depicting the
molecule as a spatial object. The
ability to construct an image of ρ for actual molecules using X-ray
crystallography may encourage this as well. But viewing ρ as a static extended
object in space is clearly inconsistent with its usual statistical meaning in a
QM context. As an alternative intuition, textbooks will point out that if you
imagine a repeated series of position measurements on the molecular electrons,
then one can think of ρ as describing a time-extended pattern of these localizing
“hits”.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But this doesn’t give us a
reason to think molecules have spatial structure in the absence of our
interventions. For this, we would want an interpretation that sees spatial localization
as resulting from naturally occurring interactions involving a molecule’s
internal and external environment (like those explored in decoherence models). We want to envision measurement-like
interactions occurring whenever systems interact, without assuming human agents
or macroscopic measuring devices need to be involved.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is the picture envisioned
by RQM.</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 14.2667px; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> It is a “democratic” interpretation, where the same rules apply universally. In
particular, all interactions between physical systems are “measurement-like”
for those systems directly involved. Assuming these interactions are fairly elastic
(not disruptive) and relatively transitory, then a molecule would naturally incur a pattern
of localizing hits over time. These form its shape in 3D space.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It
would be nice if we could take ρ, as usually estimated, to represent this shape, but this is technically problematic</span>. Per RQM, the quantum formalism cannot be taken as offering an objective
(“view from nowhere”) representation of a system. Both wave functions and interaction
events are perspectival. So, strictly speaking,
we cannot use ρ (derived from a particular ψ) to represent a pattern of hits
resulting from interactions involving multiple partners. However, given a high
level of stability in molecular properties across different contexts, I believe
this view of ρ can still offer a useful approximation of what is happening. It gives a
sense of how, given RQM, a molecule acquires a structure in 3D space as a
result of a natural pattern of internal and environmental interactions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div>
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Putting it All Together</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What this conclusion also allows us
to do is fit microscopic quantum systems into the broader framework discussed in the <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2021/05/composing-natural-systems.html">prior post</a>, where patterns of discrete causal
interactions are the raw material of composition. </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Like
complex macroscopic systems, atoms and molecules are individuated by these patterns, </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">and
RQM offers a bridge from this causal account to our physical representations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Our usual QM models of atoms and molecules describe entangled composite systems, with details determined by
the energy profiles of the constituents. Such models of isolated systems can
be complimented by decoherence analyses involving additional systems in a
theorized environment. RQM tells us that that these models represent the systems
from an external perspective, which co-exists side-by-side with another picture: the internal perspective. This is one that infers the occurence of repeated measurement-like interactions among the constituents, a pattern that is also influenced in part by periodic measurement-like interactions with other systems in its neighborhood. The
theory of composite causal processes connects with this latter perspective. The composition of atoms and molecules, like that of
macroscopic systems, is based on a sustained pattern of causal interactions
among sub-systems, occurring in a larger environmental context.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stepping back, the causal process account presented in these last three posts certainly leaves a number of traditional ontological
questions open. </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In part, this is because
my starting point comes from the philosophy of scientific explanation. I believe
the main virtue of this theory of a causal world-wide-web is that it can
provide a unified underpinning for explanations across a wide range of disciplines,
despite huge variation in research approaches and representational formats.
Scientific understanding is based on our grasp of these explanations, and uncovering a consistent causal framework that helps enable this achievement is a good
way to approach ontology.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><b style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">References</b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Bacciagaluppi,
G. (2020). The Role of Decoherence in Quantum Mechanics. In E.N. Zalta (Ed.), <i>The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i> (Fall 2020 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/qm-decoherence/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Esser,
S. (2019). The Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules and the Interactive
Conception of Chemical Bonding. <i>Philosophy of Science</i>, <i>86</i>(5),
1307-1317.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Franklin,
A., & Seifert, V.A. (forthcoming). The Problem of Molecular Structure Just
Is the Measurement Problem. <i>The British Journal of the Philosophy of Science</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Mátyus,
E. (2019). Pre-Born-Oppenheimer Molecular Structure Theory. <i>Molecular
Physics</i>, <i>117</i>(5), 590-609.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Weisberg,
M., Needham, P., & Hendry, R. (2019). Philosophy of Chemistry. In E. N.
Zalta, (Ed.), <i>The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i> (Spring 2019
Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/chemistry/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> For
background, see sections 4 and 6 of the Stanford Encyclopedia article
“<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chemistry/" target="_blank">Philosophy of Chemistry</a>”. Also, see the nice presentation of the problem of
molecular structure in <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/715148" target="_blank">Franklin & Seifert (forthcoming)</a> (<a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/18380/" target="_blank">preprint</a>); this
paper is discussed later in this post. For a perspective from a theoretical quantum
chemist, see the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>recent paper from <a href="http://www.compchem.hu/pi.html" target="_blank">Edit Mátyus</a>, which also features a good discussion of the background: <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00268976.2018.1530461" target="_blank">Mátyus (2019)</a> (<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.05885" target="_blank">preprint</a>).<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> Here
ψ is the wave function, E is the energy, and Ĥ is the Hamiltonian operator
appropriate for the system. For example, the Hamiltonian for an atom will
contain a kinetic energy term and a potential energy term that is based on the
electrostatic attraction between the electrons and the nucleus (along with
repulsion between electrons).<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> This
assumption is justified by the vast difference in velocity between speedy electrons
and the slower nuclei (an adiabatic approximation). For molecules, this is
typically referred to as the “clamped nuclei” or Born-Oppenheimer approximation.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
These methods are known as the valence bond (VB) and molecular orbital (MO)
techniques. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> The
rationale behind DFT is that it can be demonstrated that for molecules the
ground state energy and other properties can be derived
directly from ρ (Hohenberg-Kohn theorems).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This kind of equivalence between ψ and its associated density is clearly
not generally true for quantum systems, but in this case the existence of a
minimum energy solution allows for the result to be established.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> Of
particular note here is the Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAIM)
research program, initiated by R.W.F. Bader. QTAIM finds links to bonding and
other chemical features via a detailed topological analysis of ρ. I discuss this in a <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/705448" target="_blank">2019 paper</a> (<a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/15289/" target="_blank">preprint</a>).<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
For decoherence studies involving the external environment, see the references
cited in section 3.2 of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00268976.2018.1530461" target="_blank">Mátyus (2019)</a> (<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.05885" target="_blank">preprint</a>). Two recent ArXiv papers from <a name="_Hlk72762191">Mátyus</a> & Cassam-Chennai explore the contribution of
internal dccoherence (see <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.02810" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.10312" target="_blank">here</a>).<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
The present discussion is a specific instance of a more general point that now seems
widely accepted in discussions of the QM interpretations: decoherence helps
explain why quantum interference effects are suppressed when systems interact
with their environments, but it does not solve the quantum measurement problem
(which seeks to understand why definite outcomes are observed upon measurement).
See the excellent <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/" target="_blank">SEP article by Bacciagaluppi</a>.</p></div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
For more, see my <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2021/01/why-i-favor-relational-quantum-mechanics.html" target="_blank">earlier post</a>, which lists a number of good RQM references.</p></div>
</div>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-22705736789310336462021-05-31T10:07:00.005-04:002021-06-01T10:33:13.700-04:00Composing Natural Systems<p><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">An interesting feature of Relational Quantum Mechanics
(RQM) is its implication that </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">discrete
measurement-like interaction events are going on between natural systems (unobserved by us) all the
time.</span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It turns out that this offers a way to incorporate
quantum phenomena into an attractive account of how smaller natural systems </span><i style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">causally
compose </i><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">larger ones.</span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In this post I
will discuss the general approach, including a brief discussion of its
implications for the ideas of reduction and emergence. In a follow-up post, I will discuss the quantum case in more detail with a focus on
molecules.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrLPeQFXbVrlJt382ZyAL-5CKhqtyUeI9yv-Rc2hGENJBzXaPEOCwRS-Gb92BDTx87oIZ9gEN5qSXgAoE64T9X87ksDXsphipNiUJkMwJtqgXiwFxWEnHBI5SgHeRkL9CWfvFug/s2048/alina-grubnyak-ZiQkhI7417A-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXrLPeQFXbVrlJt382ZyAL-5CKhqtyUeI9yv-Rc2hGENJBzXaPEOCwRS-Gb92BDTx87oIZ9gEN5qSXgAoE64T9X87ksDXsphipNiUJkMwJtqgXiwFxWEnHBI5SgHeRkL9CWfvFug/s320/alina-grubnyak-ZiQkhI7417A-unsplash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Composite Causal Processes<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The ontological framework I’m using (discussed in the last section of the <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2021/01/why-i-favor-relational-quantum-mechanics.html" target="_blank">prior post</a>) is a modified version of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wesley-salmon/">Wesley Salmon’</a>s <i>causal process</i> account
(<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691101705/scientific-explanation-and-the-causal-structure-of-the-world">Salmon, 1984</a>). The basic entities are called causal processes, and these
comprise a network characterized by two dimensions of causation, called
propagation and production. Propagation refers to the way an isolated causal
process bears dispositions or propensities toward potential interactions with
other processes--aka its disposition profile.
Production refers to how these profiles are altered in causal interactions with
each other (this is the mutual manifestation of the relevant dispositions).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The entities and properties described by science correspond
to features of this causal web. For example, an electron corresponds to a
causal process, and its properties describe its dispositions to produce change
in interactions with other systems.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Given this picture, we can go on to form an account of how <b>composite</b>
causal processes are formed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is
exciting about the resulting view is that it can provide a framework for
systems spanning the microscopic-macroscopic divide.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For background, I note that neither Salmon nor others who
have explored causal process views provide a detailed account of composition.
Recall that Salmon’s intent was to give a causal theory in service of underpinning
scientific explanations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this
context, he did outline a pertinent distinction between <i>etiological</i>
explanations and <i>constitutive</i> explanations. Etiological explanations
trace the relevant preceding processes and interactions leading up to a
phenomenon. A constitutive explanation, on the other hand, is one that cites
the interactions and processes that compose the phenomenon:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A constitutive explanation is
thoroughly causal, but it does not explain particular facts or general
regularities in terms of causal antecedents. The explanation shows, instead,
that the fact-to-be-explained is constituted by underlying causal mechanisms.
(Salmon, 1984, 270) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">However, while Salmon sketches how one would divide a
causal network into etiological and constitutive elements, he doesn’t provide a
recipe for marking off the boundaries that define which processes/interactions
are “internal” to what is to be explained by the constitutive explanation (see
Salmon 1984, p. 275).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Going beyond Salmon, and drawing on the work of others, we
can offer an account of composition for causal processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They key idea is to propose that a coherent
structure at a higher scale arises from patterns of repeated interactions at a
lower scale. We should pick out composite causal processes and their interactions
by attending to such patterns at the lower scale.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_A._Simon">Herbert Simon’</a>s discussion of complex systems, he notes
that complexity often “takes the form of hierarchy (Simon, 1962, 468)” and
notes the role interactions play in this context:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">In hierarchic systems we can
distinguish between interactions among subsystems, on the one hand, and the
interactions within subsystems—that is, among the parts of those subsystems—on
the other. (Simon, 1996, p.197, emphasis original) <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The suggestion to take from
this is that differential interaction rates give rise to a hierarchy of causal processes.
When a group of processes interacts more with each other than with “outsiders”
then it can form a composite. For example, a social group like a family or a business
can be marked off from others (at a first approximation) by the differential
intensity with which its members interact within vs. outside the group. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">As
part of his discussion of analyzing complex systems, <a href="https://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/wimsatt">Bill Wimsatt</a> also explores
the idea of decomposition based on interactions, i.e., breaking down a system
into subsystems based on the relative strength of intra vs extra-system
interactions. (Wimsatt, 2007, 184-6). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while he describes how different theoretical
concerns lead us to utilize a variety of analytical strategies, Wimsatt makes
it clear that patterns of causal connections are the ultimate basis for understanding
complex systems:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Ontologically, one could take
the primary working matter of the world to be causal relationships, which are
connected to one another in a variety of ways—and together make up patterns of
causal networks…Under some conditions, these networks are organized into larger
patterns that comprise <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">levels of
organization</i> (Wimsatt, 2007, 200, emphasis original).<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Wimsatt
explains that levels of organization are “compositional levels”, characterized
by hierarchical part-whole relations (201). This notion of composition includes
not just the idea of parts, but of parts engaged in certain patterns of causal
interactions, consistent with the approach to composite causal processes suggested
above. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">To
summarize: a <b>composite causal process</b> consists of two or more
sub-processes (the constituting group) that interact with a greater frequency
than each does with other processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just
like any causal process, a composite process carries its own disposition
profile: here the pattern of interacting sub-processes accounts for how
composite processes will themselves interact (what this means for the concepts
of reduction and emergence will be discussed below). Consider social groups
again, perhaps taking the example of smaller, pre-industrial societies. Each may
have its own distinctive dispositions to mutually interact with other,
similarly sized groups (e.g., to share a resource, trade, or to engage in raids
or battle). These would be composed from the dispositions of their constituent members
as they are shaped in the course of structured patterns of in-group interaction.
We can also envision here that the higher scale environmental interactions also
impact the evolution of the composite entity, but its stability is due to
maintaining its characteristic higher-frequency internal processes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Let
me add a couple of further comments about composite processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, as already indicated, a group of constituting sub-processes
may be themselves composite, allowing for a nested hierarchy. Second, the impact
of larger scale external interactions can vary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some may have negligible impact. Other interactions (especially if
regular in nature) can contribute to shaping the ongoing nature of the
composite. At the other extreme, there will be some external interactions that
could disrupt or destroy it. The persistence of a composite would seem to
require a certain robustness in the internal interaction pattern of its components.
Achieving stability (and the associated ability to propagate a characteristic
higher scale disposition profile) may require the differential between intra-process
and extra-process interactions to be particularly high, or else there may need
to have a particular pattern to the repeated interactions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will clearly be vague or boundary cases
as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Why
go to all this trouble of fairly abstract theorizing about a web of causal
processes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because this account fleshes
out the notions that underwrite the causal explanations scientists formulate
in a variety of domains.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In
the physical sciences, the familiar hierarchy of entities, including atoms,
molecules, and condensed matter, all correspond to composite causal processes.
Of course, in physical models, what marks out a composite system might be
described in a number of ways (for example, in terms of the relative strength
of forces or energy-minimizing equilibrium configurations).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I argue this is consistent with the key
being the relative frequency of recurring discrete interactions in-system vs.
out-system. (This will be explored further in the companion post.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In
biology, the complexity of systems may sometimes defy the easy identification
of the boundaries of composites. Also, a researcher’s explanatory aims will
sometimes warrant taking different perspectives on phenomena. In these cases,
scientists will describe theoretical entities that do not necessarily follow a
simple quantitative accounting of intra-process vs. extra-process interactions.
On the one hand, the case of a cell provides a pretty clear paradigm case meeting
the definition of a composite process. On the other hand, many organisms and
groups of organisms present difficult cases that have given rise to a rich
debate in the literature regarding biological individuality. Still, a causal
account of constitution is a useful starting point, as noted here by <a href="http://sober.philosophy.wisc.edu/">ElliottSober</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The individuality of organisms
involves a distinction between self and other—between inside and outside. This
distinction is defined by characteristic causal relations. Parts of the same
organism influence each other in ways that differ from the way that outside
entities influence the organism’s parts. (Sober, 1993, 150)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The
way parts “influence each other”, of course, might involve considerations beyond
a mere quantitative view of interactions, and connotes an entry point where
theoretical concerns can create distance from the basic conception of the
composite causal process. In a biological context, sub-processes and
interactions related to survival and reproduction may, for example, receive
disproportionate attention in creating boundaries around composite entities. Notably,
<a href="https://www.rlm.net/">Roberta Millstein</a> has proposed a definition of a biological population based on just this kind of causal interaction-based concept (Millstein 2009).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">It
is also worth mentioning that constitutive explanations in science will rarely
attempt to explain the entire entity. This would mean accounting all of its
causal properties (aka its entire dispositional profile) in terms of its
interacting sub-processes. It is more common for a scientific explanation to
target one property corresponding to a behavior of interest (corresponding to
one of many features of a disposition profile).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Reduction
and Emergence<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
want to make a few remarks about how this approach to composites sheds light on
the topics of ontological reduction and emergence. In a nutshell, the causal
composition model discussed here gives a straightforward account of these
notions that sidesteps some common confusions and controversies, such as the
“causal exclusion problem.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">When
considering the relationship between phenomena characterized at larger scales
and smaller ones, the key observation is that a larger entity’s properties do
not only depend not only on the properties of smaller composing entities. They also
depend on their pattern of interaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
is in contrast to the usual static framing that posits a metaphysical relationship
(whether expressed in terms of composition or “realization”) between higher-level
properties and lower-level properties at some instant of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This picture is conceptually confused (if
taken seriously as opposed to a being a deliberate simplifying idealization):
there is no reason to think such synchronic relationships characterize our
world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Recall
that, in the present account, a property describes a regular feature of the
disposition profile of a causal process. A composite causal process is made up
of a pattern of interacting sub-processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The disposition profiles of the sub-processes are changing during these
interactions: they are not static.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
dispositions of the composite depend on this matrix of changing sub-processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Note that both the forming of a higher-scale disposition
(and its manifestation in a higher-scale interaction) <i>takes more time</i>
than the equivalents at the smaller scale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i>No composite entity or property exists at an instant</i>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this is a fiction concocted by us facilitate
our understanding. Unfortunately, contemporary metaphysicians have taken this notion
seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is perhaps easiest to see the
problem in the case of a biological system:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>nothing is literally “alive” at an instant of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living things are sustained by temporally
extended processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Less intuitively,
the same is true of inanimate objects.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Emergence
and reduction are clearer, unmysterious notions when based on this dynamic conception
of the composition relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Properties of larger things “emerge” from the interacting group of
smaller things. The “reduction base” includes the interaction pattern of the
components and their (changing) properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The exclusion problem says that since higher-level properties are
realized by lower-level properties at any arbitrary instant of time, they
cannot have causal force of their own (on pain of overdetermination). We can
see why this is a pseudo-problem once a better understanding of composition is
in place. Causal production occurs at multiple scales.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">This take on reduction and
emergence is obviously not unique to the causal process model discussed here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is implied by any approach that recognizes
that properties of composites depend on interacting parts. For example, Wimsatt
discusses at some length how notions of reduction and emergence should be
understood given his understanding of complex systems. He offers a definition
of reductive explanation that shows a similarity to the causal process view of
constitutive explanation:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">A reductive explanation of a
behavior or a property of a system is one that shows it to be mechanistically
explicable in terms of the properties of and interactions among the parts of
the system. (Wimsatt, 207, 275)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">This
approach to reductive explanation is perfectly consistent with a form of
emergence, in the sense that the properties of the whole are intuitively “more
than the sum of its parts (277).” The key idea here, again, is that composition
includes the interactions between the parts. For comparison, Wimsatt introduces
the notion of “aggregativity”, where the properties of the whole are “mere”
aggregates of the properties of its parts. For this to happen, “the system
property would have to depend on the parts’ properties in a very strongly
atomistic manner, under all physically possible decompositions (277-280)”. He
analyzes the conditions needed for this to occur and concludes they are nearly
never met outside of the case of conserved quantities in (idealized) physical
theories.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Simon
had introduced similar notions, describing hypothetical idealized systems where
there are no interactions between parts as “decomposable,” which are then
contrasted to “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nearly decomposable</i>
systems, in which the interactions among the subsystems are weak but not
negligible (Simon, 1996, 197, emphasis original).” To highlight this
distinguishing feature, Simon considers a boundary case: that of gases. Ideal
gases, which assume interactions between molecules are negligible, are, for
Simon, decomposable systems. In the causal process account, we would similarly
point out that an ideal gas doesn’t have a clearly defined constituting group:
the molecules do not have a characteristic pattern of interacting with each
other at any greater frequency than they do with the external system (the
container). An actual, non-ideal gas, on the other hand, with weak but
non-negligible interactions between constituent molecules, would correspond to
the idea of a composite causal process.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Some
contemporary work in metaphysics, focused on dispositions/powers and their role
in causation, has incorporated similar views about composition and emergence. <a href="https://ranilillanjum.com/">Rani Lill Anjum</a> and <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/stephendmumford/">Stephen Mumford</a> describe a “dynamic view” of emergence:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea is that emergent properties are
sustained through the ongoing activity; that is, through the causal process of
interaction of the parts. A static instantaneous constitution view wouldn't
provide this (Anjum & Mumford 2017, 101)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In
their view, higher scale properties are emergent because they depend on lower-level
parts whose causal properties are undergoing transformation as they interact,
consistent with the view discussed here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most recently, <a href="https://rdingthorsson.wordpress.com/">R. D. Ingthorsson</a>'s <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003094241/powerful-particulars-view-causation-ingthorsson">new book</a>, while not discussing emergence and
reduction explicitly, also presents a view of composition based on the causal
interaction of parts which is in the same spirit (Ingthorsson, 2021, Ch. 6). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><b><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I
think composite causal processes provide a good framework for understanding how
natural systems are constituted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
puzzle for the view, however, might arise via its use of patterns of <i>discrete</i>
causal interactions to define composites. How would this work in physics, where
the forces binding together composites, such as the Coulomb (electrostatic) force,
are continuous?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One possible answer is
to point out that physical models employ idealizations, and claim their
depictions can still correspond to the “deeper” ontological picture of causal
processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">But I believe we can find a better and more comprehensive
answer than this.</span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To do so, we must look
more carefully at physical accounts of nature’s building blocks, atoms and
molecules, and see if we can uncover a correspondence with the causal theory. I
think we can, assuming we utilize the RQM interpretation.</span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is the subject of the next post.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><b>References</b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Anjum,
R., & Mumford, S. (2017). Emergence and Demergence. In M. Paolini Paoletti,
& F. Orilia (Eds.), <i>Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on
Downward Causation</i> (pp. 92-109). New York: Routledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Ingthorsson,
R.D. (2021). <i>A<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003094241/powerful-particulars-view-causation-ingthorsson"> Powerful Particulars View of Causation</a></i>. New York:
Routledge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Millstein,
R. L. (2009). Populations as Individuals. <i>Biological Theory, 4</i>(3),
267-273.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Salmon,
W. (1984). <i>Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World</i>.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Simon,
H. (1962). The Architecture of Complexity. <i>Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society, 106</i>(6), 467-482.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Simon,
H. A. (1996). <i>The Sciences of the Artificial</i> (3rd ed.). Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Sober,
E. (1993). <i>Philosophy of Biology.</i> Boulder: Westview Press.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Minion Pro",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Wimsatt,
W. C. (2007). <i>Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings.</i> Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->Photo: Alina Grubnyak via <a href="https://unsplash.com/@alinnnaaaa" target="_blank">Unsplash</a><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
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<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
This passage goes on to mention other, less neat, network patterns: “Under
somewhat different conditions they yield the kinds of systematic slices across
which I have called perspectives. Under some conditions they are so richly
connected that neither perspectives nor levels seem to capture their
organization, and for this condition, I have coined the term causal thickets
(Wimsatt, 2007, 200).”<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-48649656339086786372021-01-28T13:35:00.001-05:002021-05-31T10:12:10.480-04:00Why I Favor Relational Quantum MechanicsI think <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/" target="_blank">Relational Quantum Mechanics</a> (RQM), initially proposed by <a href="http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~rovelli/" target="_blank">Carlo Rovelli</a>, is the best interpretation of quantum mechanics.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup></span> It is important to note right away, however, that I depart from Rovelli’s thinking in one important respect. He takes an anti-realist view of the wave function (or quantum state). As I will discuss below, I endorse a view that sees the wave function as representing something real (even if imperfectly and incompletely).<div><br /></div><div>There are two reasons I prefer RQM. First, I think it makes better sense of QM as a successful scientific endeavor compared to other interpretations. Second, it fits neatly with an attractive ontology for our world.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieXbm3UrKayWM8s4Rxw0Zch94oF1BWC8D6pNru6bGA-FCWWpQj5nY5G95SxpJlwRj1Gz6wZRL71l_mJ-nAGHoIpbIs8MN8CUpzvCzeyn4wbRZbU3IrSVfUHQeg3dGMGzmaRCuMdg/s2048/swans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1262" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieXbm3UrKayWM8s4Rxw0Zch94oF1BWC8D6pNru6bGA-FCWWpQj5nY5G95SxpJlwRj1Gz6wZRL71l_mJ-nAGHoIpbIs8MN8CUpzvCzeyn4wbRZbU3IrSVfUHQeg3dGMGzmaRCuMdg/s320/swans.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Quick Introduction</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Orthodox or “textbook” QM features a closely knit family of mathematical models and recipes for their use. The models describe the state of a microscopic system characterized by certain physical quantities (typically given in the form of a wave function). It gives a formula for calculating how the system evolves in time (the Schrödinger equation). Notably, because of the nature of the mathematical formalism, one typically cannot ascribe definite values to the physical quantities of interest. However, QM also offers a procedure for calculating (probabilistically) the outcomes of particular measurements of these quantities. The problem with taking orthodox QM as a universally applicable physical theory can be described in several ways (this is usually called the measurement problem). One simple way is to note an inconsistency arising from the presence of what appears to be two completely different kinds of interaction.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the absence of any interaction, a system evolves in time as described by the Schrödinger equation. But interactions are handled in two different ways. On the one hand, we have the measurement process (utilizing the Born rule), that is, an interaction between the quantum system under investigation and a scientist’s experimental apparatus. On the other hand, we can also describe an interaction between two systems that are not subject to measurement. In the first kind of interaction, a definite value of a system’s physical quantity is found (we say the wave function of the system collapses). In the second kind of interaction, we represent two (or more) systems, previously considered isolated, as now correlated in a composite system (we say they become entangled). This system evolves in the same fashion as any isolated system. And as such the composite system may be in a superposition of states where no definite values for a given quantity can be ascribed.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a nutshell, the RQM solution is to stipulate that a physical interaction is a measurement-style event. However, this is only true for those systems directly involved: the systems are merely entangled from the standpoint of other “third-party” systems. The appearance of two sorts of interaction arises from a difference in perspective. This is weird, of course, since particular values of the physical quantities revealed in an interaction are manifest only relative to the interaction partner(s) involved. They don’t exist in a fully objective way. All interpretations of QM ask us to accept something unintuitive or revisionary. This is the “ask” made by RQM.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Reason One: RQM Validates Quantum Theory as Successful Science</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Before discussing the interpretation further, I can quickly outline a reason to prefer RQM to many competing approaches. This point is primarily a negative one. In contrast to other approaches, RQM is an interpretation that delivers a satisfying account of QM as a successful scientific theory: one that draws appropriate connections between the results of our experimental investigations and a meaningful picture of the world around us.</div><div><br /></div><div>I obviously won’t be doing a deep dive into all the options, but will quickly sketch why I think RQM is superior. First, for a quick cut in the number of alternatives, I eliminate views that are merely pragmatic, or see QM as only describing what agents experience, believe, or know. I insist that alongside its other aims (such as prediction and practical control), a scientific theory should contribute to our understanding of nature. To do so, the theory should offer successful explanations of worldly phenomena, that is, ones that tell us (broadly speaking) what kind of things are out there and how they hang together. This means, in turn, that at least some of the elements of the mathematical models that we use should represent features of the world (allowing that the fidelity of any given representation is significantly constrained by reasons having to do with the aims of the scientist and the tools employed). I will outline in the next section of this post how I think this works in the case of RQM.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for the remaining alternatives, I will limit the conversation to the three most prominent broadly realist approaches to thinking about QM: Everett-style interpretations, Bohmian mechanics, and objective collapse approaches, such as Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (GRW) theory (the implied ontology of these approaches might be fleshed out in more than one way, but I will not pursue the details here.)</div><div><br /></div><div>For these alternatives, a different issue rises to the fore. An interpretation should not <i>just</i> consider how the features of formal QM models might correspond to reality. It should also respect the status of quantum theory as a hugely successful experimental science. Orthodox or “textbook” QM includes not just the mathematical formalism, but also the recipes for how it is used by investigators and how it connects to our experiences in the laboratory. And here is where I think Everettians and Bohmians in particular fall short.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note first that all three of the alternative approaches depart from orthodox QM by adding to, subtracting from, or modifying its basic elements.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>2</sup></span> GRW changes things by replacing the Schrödinger equation with a new formula that attempts to encompass both continuous evolution and the apparent collapse onto particular outcomes observed in measurement. Bohmian mechanics adds new elements to the picture by associating the quantum state with a configuration of particles in 3D space and adding a new guidance equation for them. Everettian approaches just drop the measurement process and seek to reinterpret what is going on without it.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the Everett framework in particular, I’m not sure the extent of its departure from orthodox QM is always appreciated. It is sometimes claimed to be the simplest version of QM. This is since it works by simply removing what is often seen as a problematic element of the theory. But in doing so it divorces QM from its basis in experimental practice. This is a drastic departure indeed.</div><div><br /></div><div>To see this, note that to endorse Everett is to conclude that the very experiments that prompted the development of QM and have repeatedly corroborated it over nearly a century are <i>illusory</i>. For the Everettian, to take one example, no experimental measurement of the spin of an electron has ever or will ever have a particular outcome (all outcomes happen, even though we’ll never perceive that).</div><div><br /></div><div>Bohmian mechanics also turns our experiments into fictions. For the Bohmian, there is actually no electron and no spin involved in the measurement of an electron’s spin. Rather, there is an orchestrated movement of spinless point particles comprising the system and the laboratory (and the rest of the universe) into the correct spatial positions.</div><div><br /></div><div>GRW-style approaches are different, in that they are testable alternatives to QM. Unfortunately, researchers have been busy gradually ruling them out as empirically adequate alternatives (see, e.g., <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.09782" target="_blank">Vinante et.al, 2020</a>). It is also worth noting, however, that GRW also distorts the usual interpretation of experimental results by stipulating that all collapses are in the position basis.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unlike these approaches, <i>RQM is truly an interpretation, rather than a modification, of orthodox QM</i>, a successful theory that was motivated by experimental findings and is extremely well supported by decades of further testing. The measurement process, in particular, is not some problematic add-on to quantum theory – it is at the heart of it. Human beings and our experiences and interventions are part of the natural world. RQM does justice to this fact by explaining that measurements—the connections between quantum systems and ourselves—are just like any other physical interaction.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Reason Two: RQM Offers an Attractive Ontological Picture</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Laudisa and Rovelli (in <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/" target="_blank">the SEP article</a>) describe RQM’s ontology as a “sparse” one, comprised of the relational interaction events between systems. This event ontology has attractive features (akin to the “flash” ontology sometimes discussed in conjunction with objective collapse interpretations). There is no question of strange higher-dimensional spaces or other worlds: the events happen in spacetime. Also, one of the goals of science-inspired metaphysical work is to foster the potential unification of scientific theories. Importantly, a QM interpretation that features an event ontology offers at least the promise of establishing a rapport with relativity theory, which is typically seen as putting events in the leading role (see a recent discussion by <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.01307" target="_blank">Maccone, 2019</a>).</div><div><br /></div><div>But does giving this role to interaction events preclude a representational role for the wave function? Given that physical properties of systems only take definite values when these events occur, perhaps systems should not be accorded any reality apart from this context. And, in fact, Carlo Rovelli has consistently taken a hard anti-realist stance toward the wave function/quantum state. In his original presentation of RQM he gave it a role only as record of information about one system from the point of view of another, and thought it was possible to reformulate quantum theory using an information-based framework. This conflicts with my insistence above that such anti-realism was inconsistent with the aims of a good scientific theory.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thankfully, there is no need to follow Rovelli on this point. Instead, I concur with a view outlined by <a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/mauro-dorato" target="_blank">Mauro Dorato</a> recently. He suggests that rather than view non-interacting systems as simply having no real properties, they can be characterized as having dispositions:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">In other words, such systems S have intrinsic dispositions to correlate with other systems/observers O, which <i>manifest</i> themselves as the possession of definite properties q relative to those Os. (Dorato, 2016, 239; emphasis original)</div></blockquote><p>As he points out, referencing ideas due to philosopher C.B. Martin, such manifestations only occur as <i>mutual</i> manifestations involving dispositions characterizing two or more systems.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>3</sup></span> Since these manifestations have a probabilistic aspect to them, the dispositions might also be referred to as propensities.</p><div>So, here the wave function has a representational role to play. It represents a systems’s propensities toward interaction with a specified partner system(s). The Schrödinger equation would show how propensities can be described across time in the absence of interaction. Now, it is true that the QM formalism does not offer a full or absolute accounting for a system’s properties, given its relational limitations. But here we should recall that models across the sciences are typically incomplete and imperfect. In addition to employing approximations and idealizations, they approach phenomena from a certain perspective dictated by the nature of the research program. But we can say the wave function represents something real (if incompletely and in an idealized way). Reality has two aspects, non-interacting systems with propensities, and the interaction events that occur in spacetime.</div><div><br /></div><div>The idea that properties are dispositional in nature is one that has been pursued increasingly by philosophers in recent years. It fits well with physics, since both state dependent and independent properties (like mass and charge) are only known via their manifestations in interactions.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>4</sup></span> While advocates disagree about the details, the idea that the basic ontology of the world features objects that bear dispositions/propensities has also been used more widely to address a number of difficult philosophical topics (like modality). Most importantly, perhaps, dispositions and their manifestations provide a good basis for theorizing about causation.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>5</sup></span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Fitting Both Quantum Systems and Scientists Into the Causal Web</b></div><div><br /></div><div>To conclude, I’ll briefly describe how I would flesh out this ontological picture, putting an emphasis on causation.</div><div><br /></div><div>I mentioned above the role representational models play in explanation. To be more specific, scientific explanations are typically causal explanations: they seek to place a phenomenon in a structured causal context. When successful explanations feature models, then, these models represent features of the world’s causal structure. The suggestions above on how to view the ontology associated with RQM fit into a particularly attractive theory of this structure.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is a modified version of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wesley-salmon/" target="_blank">Wesley Salmon</a>’s causal process account (Salmon, 1984). Here the basic entity or object is labeled a <i>causal process</i>, and there are two dimensions of causation: <i>propagation</i> and <i>production</i>. Propagation refers to the evolution of a causal process in the absence of interaction, while production refers to the change that causal processes undergo when an interaction occurs. As described by Ladyman & Ross:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">The metaphysic suggested by process views is effectively one in which the entire universe is a graph of real processes, where the edges are uninterrupted processes, and the vertices the interactions between them (Ladyman & Ross, 2007, 263).</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div>According to Salmon, a propagating causal process carries or “transmits” causal influence from one spacetime point to another. The character of this causal influence is then altered by interactions. I theorize that this causal influence takes the form of a cluster of dispositions or propensities toward mutual interactions (aka a <i>propensity profile</i>). The interactions produce a change in this profile.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>6</sup></span></div><div><br /></div><div>To summarize:</div><div><br /></div><div>1. The web of nature has two aspects: the persisting causal process and the causal interaction event (a discrete change-making interaction between processes).</div><div><br /></div><div>2. The quantum formalism offers a partial representation of the propensity profile of a causal process. It is partial because these are only the propensities toward manifestations that take place in interactions with (one or more) designated reference systems. The Schrödinger equation represents the propagation of these propensities from one interaction to the next.</div><div><br /></div><div>3. All manifestations are mutual, and take the form of a change in the profile of each process involved in the interaction. A quantum measurement is an interaction like any other. Humans may treat the wave function as representing the phenomena we are tracking, but we are also causal processes, as are our measuring devices. It is just that the changes manifest in us in an interaction (our altered propensity profiles) are conceptualized as epistemic.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. Per RQM, when two physical systems interact, they are represented as an entangled composite system from the perspective of a third system. This relational representation of the composite system might in practice be thought of as a limitation on what the third system “knows.” Under certain conditions, however, this entanglement can have a distinctive indirect impact on the third system—interference effects—revealing it is not only epistemic (as always, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-decoherence/" target="_blank">decoherence</a> explains why we rarely experience these effects).</div><div><br /></div><div>There is much more to flesh out, of course. I would add to this summary an account of how composite systems form higher-level propensities of their own, based on the pattern of repeated interactions of their constituents. Also, there is an interesting question of how serious of a (relational or perspectival) scientific realist to be about the properties identified in quantum theory. My preference is to be a realist about the (singular) causal network, but view the formalism as offering only an idealized depiction of regularities in the propensity profiles of the underlying causal processes.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Notes</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>1</sup></span> For background, see the Stanford Encyclopedia article (<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/" target="_blank">Laudisa & Rovelli, 2019</a>). Rovelli’s original paper is (Rovelli, 1996 - <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9609002" target="_blank">arXiv:quant-ph/9609002</a>). Good philosophical discussions include Brown (2009; <a href="https://www.academia.edu/803299/Relational_Quantum_Mechanics_and_the_Determinacy_Problem" target="_blank">link</a> via academia.edu), Van Fraassen (2010; <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/abstract/index.html" target="_blank">link</a> via Van Fraassen website), Dorato (2016; preprint <a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9964/" target="_blank">here</a>, but note final version has significant changes), and Ruyant (2018; preprint <a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/18108/" target="_blank">here</a>).</div><div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>2</sup></span> For a recent attempt to carefully describe the principles of orthodox QM, see Poinat (2020); <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343031095_Quantum_Mechanics_and_Its_Interpretations_A_Defense_of_the_Quantum_Principles" target="_blank">link</a> (researchgate).</div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>3</sup></span> What Martin calls “reciprocal disposition partners.” See <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-mind-in-nature-9780199234103?cc=us&lang=en&" target="_blank">Martin (2008)</a>, especially Ch. 5. </div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>4</sup></span> In addition to contemporary work by Dorato and others, there have been a handful of theorists over the decades since QM was formulated who have employed dispositions/propensities to interpret QM. See <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33260/" target="_blank">Suárez (2007)</a> for a survey of some of these.</div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>5</sup></span> Important work here includes <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/metaphysics-for-scientific-realism/3803FE7EB70D7D9F7D51D43A4CE9E51B#" target="_blank">Chakravartty (2007)</a> and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/getting-causes-from-powers-9780199695614?cc=us&lang=en&" target="_blank">Mumford & Anjum (2011)</a>.</div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><sup>6</sup></span> The main changes from Salmon’s own work are as follows. The first is to be a realist about dispositions/propensities, whereas Salmon’s version of empiricism drove him to reject any suggestion of causal powers. He characterized causal processes in terms of their transmission of an observable “mark” or, in a subsequent version of the theory, the transmission of a conserved physical quantity. The second change is that causal processes cannot be said to propagate <i>in</i> spacetime, as Salmon envisioned, since this would be inconsistent with the non-local character of quantum systems.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Brown, M. J. (2009). Relational Quantum Mechanics and the Determinacy Problem. <i>The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science</i>, 60(4), 679-695.</div><div>Chakravartty, A. (2007). <i>A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</div><div>Dorato, M. (2016). Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics, Anti-Monism, and Quantum Becoming. In A. Marmodoro, & D. Yates (Eds.), <i>The Metaphysics of Relations</i> (pp. 235-262). Oxford: Oxford University Press.</div><div>Ladyman, J., & Ross, D. (2007). <i>Everything Must Go</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</div><div>Laudisa, F., & Rovelli, C. (2019). Relational Quantum Mechanics. Retrieved from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2019 Edition: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/</div><div>Maccone, L. (2019). A Fundamental Problem in Quantizing General Relativity. <i>Foundations of Physics</i>, 49, 1394-1403.</div><div>Martin, C. (2008). <i>The Mind in Nature</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</div><div>Mumford, S., & Anjum, R. L. (2011). <i>Getting Causes from Powers</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</div><div>Poinat, S. (2020). Quantum Mechanics and Its Interpretations: A Defense of the Quantum Principles. <i>Foundations of Physics</i>, 1-18.</div><div>Rovelli, C. (1996). Relational Quantum Mechanics. <i>International Journal of Theoretical Physics</i>, 35, 1637-1678.</div><div>Ruyant, Q. (2018). Can We Make Sense of Relational Quantum Mechanics. <i>Foundations of Physics</i>, 48, 440-455.</div><div>Salmon, W. (1984). <i>Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World</i>. Princeton: Princeton University Press.</div><div>Suárez, M. (2007). Quantum Propensities. <i>Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics</i>, 38, 418-438.</div><div>Van Fraassen, B. (2010). Rovelli's World. <i>Foundations of Physics</i>, 40, 390-417.</div><div>Vinante, A., et.al. (2020) Narrowing the Parameter Space of Collapse Models with Ultracold Layered Force Sensors. <i>Physical Review Letters</i>, 125, 100401-100401.</div>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-79540099239944095402020-04-16T14:14:00.001-04:002020-04-16T14:22:56.405-04:00Metaphysics and the Problem of ConsciousnessIn a <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2020/03/different-approaches-to-subjectivity.html" target="_blank">recent post</a> I talked about different frameworks for addressing the subjective dimension of consciousness. One path used ideas from philosophy of mind, the other looked to evolutionary biology. Of course, many who ponder solving this and related aspects of the mind-body problem take a more overtly metaphysical turn. Here I’ll briefly discuss why I don’t think these efforts are likely to get it right.<br />
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Against “vertical” metaphysical relations<br />
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My <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2020/03/panpsychism.html" target="_blank">first post in this recent series</a> was prompted by reading Philip Goff’s book presenting his panpsychist approach to the problem of consciousness.<sup>1</sup> In the sections where he addresses the combination problem, Goff considers alternative strategies for situating a macro-size conscious subject in the world: several of these involve appeals to “grounding”. To sketch, grounding (in its application to ontology) is a kind of non-causal explanatory metaphysical relation between entities, with things at a more fundamental “level” of reality typically providing a ground for something at a higher level. For example, a metaphysician fleshing out the notion of a physicalist view of reality might appeal to a grounding relationship between, say, fundamental simple micro-physical entities and bigger, more complex macro-size objects. It’s a way of working out the idea that the former <i>account for</i> the latter, or the latter exist <i>in virtue of</i> the former. There are a variety of ways to explicate this kind of idea.<sup>2</sup> Goff presents a version called constitutive grounding. He thinks this faces difficulties in the case of accounting for macro-sized conscious subjects in terms of micro-sized ones, and discusses an alternative approach where the more fundamental thing is at the <i>higher</i> level: he endorses a view where the most fundamental conscious entity is, in fact, the entire cosmos (“cosmopsychism”). In this scenario, human and animal concsciousness can be accounted for via a relation to the cosmos called grounding by subsumption. Goff motivates these various notions of grounding with examples that appeal to how certain of our concepts seem to be linked together, or to how our visual experiences appear to be composed.<br />
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Please read the book for the details.<sup>3</sup> Here, I want to comment on why I don’t find an approach like this to be very illuminating. It is actually a part of a more general methodological concern I have developed over time. Certainly, trying to uncover the metaphysical truth about things is always a somewhat quixotic endeavor! But I think it is extremely likely to go wrong when done via excavation of our intuitions in the absence of close engagement with the relevant sciences.<sup>4</sup> To make a long story short, I’ll just say that here I concur with much of Ladyman and Ross’s infamous critique of analytic metaphysics.<sup>5</sup> But to get more specific, I have a deep skepticism in particular about the whole notion of synchronic (“vertical”) metaphysical relations. Not only panpsychist discussions but a great many philosophy of mind debates are structured around the idea that ontological elements at different “levels” are connected by such relations as part-whole, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/" target="_blank">supervenience</a>, or grounding. Positing these vertical relations, in turn, has contributed to confusion in debates about notions of (ontological) reduction and emergence. The <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/causal-e/" target="_blank">causal exclusion problem</a>, I believe, is misguided to the extent it is premised in part on the existence of these vertical relations.<br />
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I see no evidence that there are any such synchronic relations in the actual world investigated by the natural sciences (although they may characterize some of our idealized models). At arbitrary infinitesimal moments of time there exist no relata to connect: there are no such things as organisms, brains, cells, or even molecules. All these phenomena are temporally extended dynamic processes. Any static conception we employ is an artifact of our cognitive apparatus or our representational schemes. Reifying these static conceptions and then drawing vertical lines between entities at different scales is a mistake. My view is that all relations of composition in nature are diachronic.<br />
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Solve the problem with a new metaphysics of causation?<br />
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Given this, I think questions about how phenomena at different scales relate to each other involve a causal form of composition. So, one might ask whether thinking about the nature of causation help can with the problem of consciousness. Even before doing my own deep dive into research on the topic, I was drawn to those panpsychist approaches that explored this avenue. As mentioned in the earlier post, Russell’s account takes a causal approach to the structuring of subjects, although he himself doesn’t go on to offer a detailed theory.<sup>6</sup> I think Whitehead’s speculative metaphysics can be characterized, at least in part, as an attempt to use a rich metaphysics of causation to account for the integration of mind and world. In more recent times, Gregg Rosenberg developed an account that found a home for consciousness in the nature of causation.<sup>7</sup><br />
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Over time, however, I have also become skeptical of these more expansive causal theories. This is in spite of my view of the central role causation should play in any account of the composition of natural systems. Here, the problem is that these approaches go too far by baking in the answer to the mind-body problem from the beginning. Methodologically, I believe we should resist the urge to invent a causal theory that is so enriched with specific dualistic features that it directly addresses the challenge. For example, in Whitehead’s system every causal event (“actual occasion”) already has in place both a subjective and an objective “pole.” For Rosenberg, two kinds of properties (“effective” and “receptive”) are involved in each causal event, and this ultimately underpins the apparent dualism of the physical and mental. In contrast to these speculative solutions, we should be more conservative and pursue a causal theory that makes sense of our successful scientific explanations of natural phenomena, and then see how that effort might shed light on the mind. I’ll discuss my view on this in a future post.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1 <i>Consciousness and Fundamental Reality.</i> 2017. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2 Here’s the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/" target="_blank">SEP article on grounding</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3 Also, check out <a href="https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/consciousness-and-fundamental-reality/" target="_blank">Daniel Stoljar’s review</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">4 A quite different way metaphysics can go wrong is when those who are truly and deeply engaged with science (specifically physics) succumb to the tendency to (more or less) read ontology off of the mathematical formalism. But that is a discussion for another time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">5 <i>Everything Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized.</i> 2007. James Ladyman & Don Ross. Oxford: Oxford Univerisity Press. See. Ch 1.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">6 At least this is true of <i>The Analysis of Matter</i> (1927), where the view now known as Russellian Monism was most fully developed. In his later <i>Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits</i> (1948), he presents a bit of a theory via his account of “causal lines:” specifically, this comes in the context of an argument that such a conception of causation is needed to account for successful scientific inferences (part VI, chapter V). As an aside: by this time, Russell seemed to come quite a long way toward a reversal of the arguments presented in his (much more cited) “On the Notion of Cause” from 1913. There, Russell argued that the prevailing philosophical view of cause and effect does not play a role in advanced sciences. Someone looking to harmonize the early and late Russell might argue that the disagreement between the two positions is limited: one could say the later Russell is developing causal notions that better suit the practice of science as compared to the more traditional concept that is the focus of criticism in the earlier article. However, I think it is clear that the later book’s perspective is quite a sea change from the earlier paper’s generally dismissive approach to the importance of causation to science.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">7 <i>A Place for Consciousness. </i>2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press. I have some <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2004/12/rosenberg-consciousness-causality-part.html" target="_blank">older posts</a> about the book.</span><br />
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Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-56187017442236083672020-03-31T12:01:00.006-04:002021-06-09T15:01:07.175-04:00A Panpsychist Surprise Ending <span style="font-family: inherit;">While I have been catching up on some reading relating to panpsychism lately (see recent posts <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2020/03/panpsychism.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2020/03/different-approaches-to-subjectivity.html" target="_blank">here</a>), I had turned back to thinking about another topic, the philosophy of quantum theory, when following up on some references led me to a surprise endorsement of panpsychism.<br />
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Specifically, I have long been interested in relational quantum mechanics (RQM), an interpretation first introduced by <a href="http://www.cpt.univ-mrs.fr/~rovelli/rovelli.html" target="_blank">Carlo Rovelli</a> in the 1990’s (good SEP article <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-relational/" target="_blank">here</a>). I now suspect it is the interpretation that best fits with the theory of causation I am attracted to for independent reasons – but I will talk about that another time. A philosopher whose views I find interesting and compatible with my own approach to thinking about quantum theory is <a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/mauro-dorato" target="_blank">Mauro Dorato</a>. He has a fine article discussing some of the philosophical issues raised by RQM (pre-print <a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1309/1309.0132.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>; note there are some differences from the final article).<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></sup><br />
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Dorato, when discussing briefly the general stance that relations might be a fundamental metaphysical category, referenced a paper I had not read (though I imagine it is familiar to many who are interested in structuralism): “The Mathematical Structure of the World: The World as Graph,” published in 1997 (<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2564553?seq=1" target="_blank">link</a>) by <a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/randall-dipert" target="_blank">Randall R. Dipert</a>.<sup>2</sup> Dipert, who passed away just last year (see <a href="http://www.buffalo.edu/cas/philosophy/faculty/memoriam/dipert.html" target="_blank">here</a>), was a scholar focused on a number of areas, including the thought of C.S. Peirce. The paper offers reasons to take (symmetric) relations forming (asymmetric) graphs as metaphysical bedrock (not expressed via logic or set theory, but as fundamental components in and of themselves). In any case, while it is a wide-ranging and fascinating paper, I was surprised by the turn taken in the last paragraph:<br />
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There might at first seem to be no place in these cold graphs for minds, consciousness, and other mental phenomena unless, that is, everything is mental. Although within the dialectic of this essay it is wild and possibly irresponsible speculation, we should perhaps consider seriously the possibility that something like the pan-psychism of Spinoza, Leibniz, or Peirce is true, and that vertices are pure feelings (Peircean "firstnesses"), constituting a distinct thought or object only when connected to other such entities (358).</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">
I take it Peirce was a panpsychist of sorts (see <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#psych" target="_blank">here</a>), and evidently Dipert was as well.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. Dorato, Mauro. 2016. Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics, Anti-Monism, and Quantum Becoming. In <i>The Metaphysics of Relations</i>, ed. Anna Marmodoro and David Yates. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 2. Dipert, Randall R. 1997. The Mathematical Structure of the World: The World as Graph. <i>The Journal of Philosophy</i>, (94) 7, pp. 329-358</span><br />
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Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-47191958380907180692020-03-25T13:54:00.002-04:002021-06-11T15:49:02.322-04:00Different Approaches to SubjectivityIn the <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2020/03/panpsychism.html" target="_blank">last post</a>, I endorsed a Russellian approach to the mind-body problem (specifically the view labeled "panqualityism"), noting that one of the important tasks this framework leaves us with is explaining the subjective dimension of consciousness. This problem arguably requires less of a deep dive into metaphysical waters, but rather a consideration of the ways a naturalistic approach can tackle the phenomenon, once isolated from the other aspects of mind.<br />
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From <a href="https://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com/" target="_blank">Philip Goff</a>’s book, <i>Consciousness and Fundamental Reality</i>, I learned that versions of panqualityism has been recently defended by philosophers <a href="http://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/sam-coleman(7316bb9f-a9e6-4a62-b229-fe6cb4dc9ca1).html" target="_blank">Sam Coleman</a> and <a href="https://tommcclelland.org/research/" target="_blank">Tom McClelland</a>. When it comes to addressing subjectivity, both draw upon what one might call the philosophy of mind toolkit. Philosophers of mind have long been trying to understand conceptually how different aspects of our mental faculties might be understood. The relationship of this activity to work in the relevant sciences (neurobiology, cognitive science) varies: a common approach for the philosopher is to try to keep up with the sciences, avoiding inconsistency, but then to proceed to theorize in advance of what is known (from the proverbial armchair) in pursuit of possible solutions.<br />
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In a recent article defending his approach, Coleman invokes higher-order thought (HOT) theory as a tool to understand the subjective character of conscious experience.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></sup> HOT theory was put forward by <a href="https://www.davidrosenthal.org/" target="_blank">David M. Rosenthal</a>: roughly the main idea is that a mental state is conscious when we also have a thought about that state (the higher-order thought). While HOT theory has faced many objections as an overall approach to consciousness, perhaps it can be applied to solve the relatively stripped-down question of what makes a mental state subjective. McClelland, on the other hand, invokes a self-representation model of subjectivity.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span></sup> Here (referencing work by <a href="https://uriahkriegel.com/" target="_blank">Uriah Kriegel</a>), the idea is that a state is subjective when, in addition to representing something else (say, an aspect of the external world), it also represents itself (unlike HOT theory, there is only one state involved rather than two). The discussion of by the authors about how both ideas work out in conjunction with a Russellian framework is interesting and worth more consideration.<br />
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For now, I want to just make a meta-philosophical point by contrasting these approaches to subjectivity with a very different one. In a <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=ptpbio;c=ptb;c=ptpbio;idno=16039257.0011.001;view=text;rgn=main;xc=1;g=ptpbiog" target="_blank">recent paper</a>, <a href="https://petergodfreysmith.com/" target="_blank">Peter Godfrey-Smith</a> examines the evolution of subjectivity as a biological phenomenon.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span></sup> One of the benefits of having a philosopher of science/biology like Godfrey-Smith working on the problem of mind is that it expands the territory of the possible solution space being considered. This paper is very rich, and includes a great discussion of different biological features that appear relevant to the concept of subjectivity and their role in different kinds of organisms. Given our common intuition that consciousness extends beyond humans at least to some extent, this kind of work can make a critical contribution for philosophy of mind. I think it is especially relevant from the perspective of a divide and conquer strategy like panqualityism: a position that implies subjectivity is an aspect of phenomenal consciousness that should be relatively tractable to scientific explanation.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. “Panpsychism and Neutral Monism: How to make up One's Mind,” In Brüntrup & Jaskolla (eds.), <i>Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives</i>. Oxford University Press (2016). A preprint can be accessed <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/COLPAN" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">2. In “The Neo-Russellian Ignorance Hypothesis: A Hybrid Account of Phenomenal Consciousness”, <i>Journal of Consciousness Studies</i>, 20, No. 3–4, 2013, pp. 125–51.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">3. See (<a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=ptpbio;c=ptb;c=ptpbio;idno=16039257.0011.001;view=text;rgn=main;xc=1;g=ptpbiog" target="_blank">open access</a>) “Evolving Across the Explanatory Gap,” <i>Philosophy, Theory and Practice in Biology</i> (2019) 11:1. See also this paper: "<a href="https://petergodfreysmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Varieties-of-Subjectivity-PSA-2019-preprint.pdf" target="_blank">V</a></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://petergodfreysmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Varieties-of-Subjectivity-PSA-2019-preprint.pdf" target="_blank">a</a></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://petergodfreysmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Varieties-of-Subjectivity-PSA-2019-preprint.pdf" target="_blank">rieties of Subjectivity</a>."</span><br />
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Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-14412662321211742332020-03-20T14:31:00.002-04:002020-09-01T11:46:06.503-04:00Panpsychism!<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been enjoying following some debates about the problem of consciousness on twitter and in blog posts. In particular, philosopher<a href="https://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com/about.html" target="_blank"> Philip Goff</a> has been tirelessly advocating the merits of panpsychism.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">1</span></sup> As usual, this meets with a mixture of principled objections and more ungenerous responses. I thought I would revive my blog to make a few comments, beginning with some reflections about my past thinking. As a caveat, while I earned a PhD in philosophy recently (it's never too late!), it is not on this topic.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span></sup> My remarks are informal and tentative, and I invite corrections and reading suggestions.</span><br />
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My Long History with Panpsychism<br />
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I have always enjoyed puzzling over the mind-body problem. It is one of the things that got me interested in philosophy early on. In the 1990’s in particular, the explosion in attention the subject received (recast as the problem of phenomenal consciousness/the explanatory gap/the “hard” problem) had me riveted. <br />
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When I started my philosophy-oriented blog in 2004, it was one of my main topics, and I was a fan of panpsychist approaches. I reasoned that we <i>know</i> our own conscious experience exists (as well as or better than we know anything), and it doesn’t appear to be the kind of thing that can be scientifically explained using wholly non-experiential ingredients. I embraced the idea that in order to explain the character of our first-person conscious experience we must go beyond the relevant science to philosophically re-assess our assumptions about the fabric of the world.<br />
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“Panexperientialism”<br />
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While panpsychism is the common name for the idea that consciousness is a ubiquitous part of nature, on my blog I originally preferred to use “panexperientialism”.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span></sup> So how does panexperientialism differ from panpsychism? The difference might seem to be just marketing. “Panpsychism” implies that some inanimate things have minds, and that is a big affront to our usual intuitions: conscious minds seem to be something that only humans and some animals possess. Perhaps we can more easily picture “experience” as a phenomenon that might extend in attenuated fashion into the less complex building blocks of nature. A defender of panpsychism would reply by noting that the notion of experience certainly seems to require a subject of experience. And positing the ubiquity of experiencing subjects brings us right back to panpsychism.<br />
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But it seemed to me that there could be a principled difference lurking here. While, despite some efforts at reading Whitehead, I was not well-versed in process philosophy myself, I took to heart the importance of resisting a static view of nature. “Mind” and “subject” have static, object or substance-like connotations, while “experience” conveys the notion that consciousness is an ongoing activity. Panpsychists face a big hurdle (the much discussed “combination problem”) in explaining how small parts of nature that possess minds (particles, neurons) could combine to form a larger mind like ours. But if we view the natural world as a dynamic evolving web of processes, perhaps we can make sense of how a subject of experience could come about by degrees. The question, of course, is whether this suggestion can be fleshed out. In particular, it seems to put an emphasis on the need to understand the relationship of experience to causation (and causal forms of constitution) in the natural world.<br />
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Turning to Russell<br />
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Sometime in the mid-2000’s I went back and took a more careful look at some of Bertrand Russell’s later philosophical work on the problem, which was receiving more and more attention in the contemporary debates. (This was in contrast to the relative lack of attention given to his old collaborator Whitehead’s process metaphysics, which most find very difficult to penetrate and assess).<br />
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Russell set out to show how careful attention to the way physical theories are constructed can reveal a very general common framework connecting what we think of as the physical and mental realms.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">4</span></sup> First, he argues that the subject matter of physics can be interpreted as the abstract description of events and their linkage in causal relations. He then argues that the mental realm can likewise be described in terms of events, and that, given a causal theory of perception, we can view perceptual events (“percepts”) as connecting with physical events. And a key point is that our knowledge of the physical events (which is inferred and ultimately derived from observation) includes nothing which is known to be inconsistent with the mental. Russell speaks of events (or groups of events) as having “intrinsic qualities” or “intrinsic character”. Qualitative character is known to be an aspect of percepts, but is not part of physics, given its abstract structure. Russell doesn’t assert that events described by physics must have qualities like those of percepts – he is agnostic -- but he argues there’s no reason they couldn’t.<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">5</span></sup><br />
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In contemporary debates, these ideas are typically recast in the following way (although I think a bit is lost in this translation). The idea is that physical models seek to represent the relational, extrinsic, or dispositional properties of natural systems, but leave untouched the non-relational, intrinsic or categorical/qualitative properties. This latter sort of property is a fundamental aspect of nature that provides a suitable building block for underpinning consciousness in a way that can’t be done with the resources of a traditional physicalist metaphysics.<br />
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In his recent book defending panpsychism (<i>Consciousness and Fundamental Reality</i><sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">6</span></sup>), Goff takes the Russellian framework to be a more promising alternative to physicalism, then describes how it can be further fleshed out in a number of different ways on the way to offering his preferred solution. These ways include panpsychist theories (the building blocks of nature are conscious subjects), and panprotopsychist theories (the intrinsic properties of the building blocks do not directly involve consciousness but somehow help give rise to consciousness).<br />
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Another view Goff discusses (but does not endorse) is panqualityism: this is the view closest to that of Russell himself. This approach begins by noting that phenomenal consciousness actually has two distinctive problem-causing aspects: its qualitative character and its subjective character. As Russell stressed, physical models, being formal and abstract depictions of a causal “skeleton”, do not capture the intrinsic qualities inherent in natural systems. But we are acquainted with this aspect of nature via consciousness, so we conclude it is ubiquitous. As for the fact that consciousness is something subjective (that is, it is not public or third-person, but rather private or first-person), Russell posits that subjects are constructions from causally linked networks of elementary events (in the same way our familiar macro-objects are constructed). He does not offer a satisfying fleshed-out account of this idea (and in fact gives no theory of causation – a concept he had once famously derided<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">7</span></sup> ), but a deflationary or reductionist approach to the subject is clearly intended. Again, we are pointed to thinking more about the nature of causation and its role in complex natural systems when thinking about the problem of consciousness.<br />
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Panpsychism is Half Right<br />
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Right now, my thinking about the mind-body problem continues to be very much in line with Russell’s. My study of philosophy of science, especially on the nature and use of scientific models, has tended only to reinforce my view that there is something right about the central Russellian insight: a view of nature derived solely from the content of physical theories will fall short of accommodating consciousness because it doesn’t encompass qualities.<br />
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On the other hand, I suspect that some of the recalcitrant intuitions we have about the nature of conscious subjects (e.g. as irreducible things) can be defeased. Questions about which natural systems are subjects and how this works can succumb to scientific inquiry, assisted by an understanding of how successful causal explanations (including constitutive causal explanations) work in the natural sciences. I’ll look to follow up on this topic in a future post.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">1. See <a href="https://twitter.com/Philip_Goff" target="_blank">@Philip_Goff</a> on twitter and the links on his <a href="https://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com/" target="_blank">website</a>. Goff has a new book for a popular audience, called <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Error-Foundations-Science-Consciousness/dp/1524747963/" target="_blank">Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness</a></i>. By coincidence the copy I ordered arrived as I was writing this post. I shall read it shortly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 2. My research is in philosophy of science, with a focus on causation and scientific explanation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 3. The term is due to the Whiteheadian process philosopher David Ray Griffin.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 4. The main source here is <i>The Analysis of Matter</i> (1927), Nottingham: Spokesman. See the SEP article on Russellian Monism <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russellian-monism/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 5. I wrote in a bit more detail on Russell in the draft paper attached to <a href="https://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2013/09/russellian-monism-and-identity-theory.html" target="_blank">this prior post</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 6. <i>Consciousness and Fundamental Reality</i> (2017). Oxford: Oxford University Press. See Chapter six. Contemporary philosophers mentioned by Goff who pursue a panqualityist approach are <a href="http://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/sam-coleman(7316bb9f-a9e6-4a62-b229-fe6cb4dc9ca1).html" target="_blank">Sam Coleman</a> and <a href="https://tommcclelland.org/research/" target="_blank">Tom McClelland</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> 7. In “On the Notion of Cause” (1912-13/1918). In B. Russell, <i>Mysticism and Logic</i> (pp. 142-165). London: Longmans, Green & Co.</span><br />
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Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-85291582872183345182014-09-08T15:30:00.002-04:002017-04-07T11:24:55.958-04:00GPPC Public Issues Forum<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "lucida grande", tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.31px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
UPDATE: For the latest schedule of GPPC-sponsored events please see the <a href="http://www.thegppc.org/" target="_blank">GPPC website</a>.<br />
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Please join us for this GPPC co-sponsored event at <a href="http://www.rosemont.edu/about-us/the-institute/upcoming-events/conferences/index.aspx" target="_blank">Rosemont College</a>, Rosemont, PA. It should be a lively discussion.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: medium;">Ethics in Business: A Public Issues Forum on Corporate Responsibility</span></b></div>
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<b>Saturday, September 27, 2014, 1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.</b></div>
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The Rotwitt Theater of the McShain Performing Arts Center<br />
Dorothy McKenna Brown Science Building<br />
Rosemont College<br />
1400 Montgomery Ave., Rosemont, PA 19010</div>
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This Public Issues Forum will explore the ethical dimensions of the relationship between business and society. Speakers include philosophers and business ethicists whose work has focused on Corporate Responsibility, Stakeholder Theory, Organizational Ethics, Moral Imagination, and Ethics and Capitalism.</div>
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<b><i>Free and Open to the Public. Refreshments will be served.</i></b></div>
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<b>Speakers:</b></div>
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R. Edward Freeman, University Professor and Senior Fellow at the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, University of Virginia: “<i>New Models of Business in Society</i>”</div>
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Patricia Werhane, Wicklander Chair in Business Ethics and Director of the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics, DePaul University: “<i>Globalization and its Challenges to CSR and Industrialized Capitalism</i>”</div>
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Gary Weaver, Professor of Management, University of Delaware.<br />
Topic: Fostering ethical behavior in business organizations</div>
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<b>Chair:</b> Alan Preti, GPPC Board of Directors and Director of the Institute for Ethical Leadership and Social Responsibility at Rosemont College.</div>
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For more information please contact Alan Preti at <a href="tel:610-527-0200%20ext.%202345" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" value="+16105270200">610-527-0200 ext. 2345</a> or <a href="mailto:apreti@rosemont.edu" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">apreti@rosemont.edu</a><br />
This event is co-sponsored by the GPPC and the Institute for Ethical Leadership at Rosemont College.</div>
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Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-43707007789853224412014-08-23T11:02:00.001-04:002022-07-20T09:58:32.066-04:00Wesley Salmon's Early Interest in Whitehead<br />
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I was reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=DYIdAQAAMAAJ" target="_blank">Probability and Causality: Essays in Honor of Wesley C. Salmon</a></i>, and was interested to
see it included an annotated bibliography, where Salmon provides contextual
commentary regarding all of his publications up to that time (1988).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first entry was an interesting
surprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While his post-doctoral work
was squarely in the mid-twentieth century empiricist tradition of philosophy of
science, his MA thesis in 1947 was on the topic “Whitehead’s Conception of
Freedom”, about which he comments:<o:p> </o:p></div>
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“A relic, best forgotten, of the days when I was totally
committed to <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/whitehead/#WM" target="_blank">Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics</a>.”<o:p> </o:p></div>
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In his later career, when stretching his empiricist commitments
in search of a realist approach to causation, Salmon developed his own causal
"process” theory (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=51HGQgAACAAJ" target="_blank">Salmon 1984</a>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
mention of Whitehead, but perhaps some background inspiration?<br />
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Here’s a bit longer autobiographical excerpt from <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=CxQ5uHEKUwsC" target="_blank">Salmon’s book</a> on <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reichenbach/" target="_blank">Hans Reichenbach</a>:</div>
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“On the basis of personal
experience, I can testify to Reichenbach’s qualities both as a teacher and a
man. I was a raw young graduate student with an M.A. in philosophy from the
University of Chicago when first I went to UCLA in 1947 to work for a
doctorate. At Chicago I had been totally immersed in Whitehead’s philosophy;
ironically, Carnap was at Chicago during those years, but I never took a course
from him. My advisors barely acknowledged his existence, and certainly never
recommended taking any of his classes. Upon arrival at UCLA I was totally
unfamiliar with Reichenbach or his works, but during my first semester I was
stimulated and delighted by his course, ‘Philosophy of Nature’, based upon <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Atom and Cosmos</i>. Simultaneously, I
continued my intensive studies of Whitehead’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Process and Reality</i>. A severe intellectual tension emerged in my
mind between Whitehead, the scientifically sophisticated metaphysician, and
Reichenbach, the scientifically sophisticated anti-metaphysician.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the best of my
recollection, the tension grew to crisis proportions when I heard Reichenbach
deliver his masterful Presidential Address, on rationalism and empiricism, to
the Pacific Division of the APA at its meeting in Los Angeles in December of
1947.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This lecture was precisely what I –
as a naïve graduate student – needed to make me face the crucial question: on
what conceivable grounds could one make reasonable judgments concerning the
truth or falsity of Whitehead’s metaphysical claims? When I posed this question
to myself, as well as to teachers and fellow graduate students sympathetic to
Whitehead, I received nothing even approaching a satisfactory answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the end of that academic year I was a
convinced – though still very naïve – logical empiricist.”<o:p></o:p></div>
Salmon, Wesley C. (1979). <em>Hans Reichenbach, Logical Empiricist</em>, Dortrecht: D. Reidel, p.8.</div>
Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-20852846413593637982014-07-09T15:25:00.001-04:002014-07-09T15:26:40.169-04:00Metaphysical Intuitions; Blog Anniversary<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
First a housekeeping comment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turns out that this blog went mostly
dormant when I began full time graduate work in philosophy two years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a wonderful outlet for my thoughts when
I had a different sort of day job, but now I have trouble making time for it. In
any case, I note that its tenth blogiversary recently passed, and I’m grateful
for all who have read or commented over that time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
One thing I’ve been thinking about again is whether our
metaphysical (modal) intuitions are any good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reading Ladyman and Ross (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Every-Thing-Must-Metaphysics-Naturalized/dp/0199573093" target="_blank">Everything Must Go</a></i>) was one trigger for this. Another was reading (but not finishing) Peter
Unger’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/All_the_Power_in_the_World.html?id=OiYmHn9pe2EC" target="_blank">All the Power in the World</a></i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The former included a strong critique of
contemporary metaphysics, making the case that its disconnection from modern
physics renders it futile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter
book can be viewed as L&R’s worst nightmare: a freeform conversion of
imagination into metaphysical conclusions which is completely
unconvincing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(See Katherine Hawley’s
review of L&R <a href="http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~kjh5/OnlinePapers/EveryThingMustGoReview.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>, and Timothy O’Connor’s review of Unger <a href="https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/25237-all-the-power-in-the-world/" target="_blank">here</a> -- obviously
most contemporary analytic metaphysics is much more disciplined and better argued
than Unger’s book).<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Clearly we make mistakes relying on our imagination and common
sense intuitions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What also perhaps could be
better appreciated is the fact that leveraging insights drawn from physics
(implicitly or explicitly) can easily go wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This happens both because the physics is outdated (and is always
provisional anyway), and because the formalisms of physics do not and
arguably cannot represent all the relevant aspects of nature.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Still, along with my other interests, I will do metaphysics
as best I can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> After all, I only have this one shot at trying to </span>understand the world!<o:p></o:p></div>
Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-91454539189736217842013-09-23T16:01:00.003-04:002013-12-08T09:31:17.576-05:00Philadelphia-Area High School Ethics BowlUPDATE: 8 December 2013<br />
<br />
Congratulations to all the teams that took part in the ethics bowl. A team from Cherry Hill High School East won the competition and will represent our region in the national competition in April 2014. It's great that Villanova's Ethics Program, led by Dr. Mark Doorley, again organized the event and that so many volunteer judges and moderators made themselves available.<br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
Also, the second Philadelphia area High School Ethics Bowl will be held on December 7th, again hosted by Villanova University. Contact me if you would like information on volunteering to help with the event (I was a judge last year and it was a great experience).<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/ethics/hsethicsbowl.html">http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/ethics/hsethicsbowl.html</a>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-42559814591070663802013-09-23T11:38:00.001-04:002013-09-23T11:38:30.005-04:00GPPC 2013-2014 Program of Events<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">The Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium 2013-2014 program is up on the website: <a href="http://www.thegppc.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.thegppc.org/</a></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">Please check it out. Looking at the fall schedule, I’d ask you to please make special note of November 16<sup>th </sup>which is the date for our Public Issues event (see below). </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<i><span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">Save the Date</span></i></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<b><span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">GPPC Public Affairs Symposium:</span></b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"><b><i>America the Philosophical</i></b><b> by Carlin Romano and Public Philosophy in the U.S</b></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">Saturday, November 16<sup>th</sup>, 2013 1pm – 4:30 pm</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">Free Library of Philadelphia Central Branch (Main Auditorium)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 Phone: <a href="tel:215-686-5300" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" value="+12156865300">215-686-5300</a></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">Panelists:</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"> Anita Allen, University of Pennsylvania</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"> Peter Catapano Editor, "The Stone," The New York Times</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"> Cheryl Misak, University of Toronto/New York University</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"> Carlin Romano, Ursinus College</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;">Carlin Romano’s book, <i>America the Philosophical,</i> argues that philosophy, has a deep and wide role to play in American intellectual life and culture. The degree to which it fulfills this role today, or should do so in the future, is a question which fits naturally into our long-running Public Issues Forum series. A great panel of speakers will join us, and we hope you will participate as well. (Here is an essay by Carlin summarizing his thesis:<a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Is-America-Philosophical-/131884/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://chronicle.com/article/<wbr></wbr>Is-America-Philosophical-/<wbr></wbr>131884/</a> )</span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<br /></div>
Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-34076662280669584072013-09-02T16:06:00.000-04:002013-09-06T15:56:44.480-04:00Russellian Monism and the Identity Theory of Properties<br />
Here is a draft paper on a topic discussed a fair amount on this blog in the past.<br />
Comments or suggestions are welcome.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<o:p><a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9qlblWFf2EQOGl5ZDZkX0NJN1U/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Russellian Monism and the Identity Theory of Properties</a></o:p><br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p>[UPDATE: 6 Sept. 2013 - Very slightly revised from 2 Sept. version]</o:p></div>
<br />
Here's the introduction:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Russellian Monism is
an attractive approach to the mind/body problem. It promises to put both mental
and physical phenomena on a common ontological ground. By providing a place in
nature for the qualitative properties featured in conscious experience, it disarms
prominent conceivability arguments against materialism. Russell’s approach can
be strengthened by employing elements of a more contemporary metaphysical
framework. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a particularly good
fit with an account of the nature of properties set out by C.B. Martin and John
Heil. Labeled the identity theory of properties, this view posits that properties
are at once dispositional and qualitative.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
This paper is
organized as follows. In section one I offer an overview of Russell’s theory. In
section two I briefly show how a key insight from Russell’s work has figured in
contemporary debates in philosophy of mind. Section three takes a closer look
at Russell’s metaphysics; this prepares the way for seeing how his theory might
be modified in light of more recent work. Section four introduces the idea that
the metaphysics of dispositional and categorical properties can play a role in
a Russell-style account. Section five outlines the identity theory of
properties and argues that its features can strengthen Russellian monism. In
section six I consider objections to the modified theory, and discuss where it
needs to be supplemented in order to more fully address the challenges of
explaining mind.<br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
</div>
Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-66535108186492090962013-05-18T13:06:00.001-04:002013-05-18T13:09:56.499-04:00Spinoza: Notes on Body and Mind[These are notes written as part of an abandoned paper project]<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<strong>Beyond Parallelism: Body, Mind, and Individuation in Part II
of Spinoza’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethics</i></strong><o:p></o:p><br />
(Page references to <a href="http://books.google.ca/books/about/A_Spinoza_Reader.html?id=5yeKQgAACAAJ">Curley, 1994</a>)<br />
<o:p></o:p><br />
<em>Summary: the body is a pattern of unified activity; the mind
is shaped by the interaction of this pattern with its environment.<o:p></o:p></em><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
To begin, the nature of the human body/mind is founded on
the basic individuation of things; here’s IID7:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
And if a number of individuals so
concur in one action that together they are all the cause of one effect, I
consider them all, to that extent, as one singular thing. (p.116)<o:p></o:p></div>
So a composite individual is defined in terms of the
coordinated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">action </i>of its parts.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Following the discussion of the parallelism of mind and body
as modes following from the corresponding attributes of God, Spinoza makes some
surprising claims in IIP12 and 13:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
Nothing can happen in that body
which is not perceived by the mind […] The object of the idea constituting the
human mind is the body…and nothing else. (p.123)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
However, when it comes to human beings, both of these
statements will be superseded by the account which follows.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The key is to understand the nature/form/essence of the
human body as opposed to simple bodies. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here
is the start to the scholium to IIP13:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
From these [propositions] we
understand not only that the human mind is united to the body, but also what
should be understood by the union of mind and body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no one will be able to understand it
adequately, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or</i> distinctly, unless he
first knows adequately the nature of our body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For the things we have shown so far are completely general and do not
pertain more to man than to other individuals, all of which, though in different
degrees, are nevertheless animate. (p.124)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So we need to know more about what distinguishes the human
body from other bodies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Now we move to the interlude on the nature of bodies which follows
IIP13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spinoza discusses bodies in terms
of their motion and rest – it must be said that he does not successfully
present a complete non-circular account of bodies (there is no definition of a
ground level simple body independent of its motion or vice versa).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But overlooking this for present purposes, Spinoza
gives us an account of how a number of bodies can unite to compose a further
composite body or individual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s the
definition following A2``:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
When a number of bodies, whether of
the same or of different size, are so constrained by other bodies that they lie
upon one another, or if they so move, whether with the same degree or different
degrees of speed, that they communicate their motions to each other in a
certain fixed matter; we shall say that those bodies are united with one
another and that they all together compose one body or individual, which is
distinguished from the others by this union of bodies. (p.126)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The nature and form of such an individual is defined in
terms of this union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see here that
the component parts only matter to this nature qua their participation in the unifying
action (consistent with IID7).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
L4 strengthens the point by asserting that this nature or
form will be retained upon substitution of like parts (p.126).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>L5 and L6, by defining the fixed relationship
of motion among the united parts in terms of a ratio of motion of rest, is
intended to convey a notion of yet more flexibility to the composite body to
retain its nature under changing conditions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The scholium to L7 goes further to contemplate second and
third order composite bodies, each of whose components has different natures
(i.e. different patterns of union), which can maintain their form in myriad additional
circumstances:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if we proceed in this way to infinity, we
shall easily conceive that the whole of nature is one individual, whose parts,
that is, all bodies, vary in infinite ways, without any change in the whole
individual. (p.127)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
This passage foreshadows the human striving toward God’s perfection
that we find later in the Ethics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Spinoza concludes in the body postulates that the human body
“is composed of a great many individuals of different natures, each of which is
highly composite.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can “move and
dispose external bodies in a great many ways” (p.128).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
These complex characteristics of the body underlie the
complex nature of the human mind, discussed in IIP14 and IIP15.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our ideas about external objects follow from
the affects these have on our complex body. In fact, the subtlety of the complex
body allows Spinoza to define imagination and memory (IIP16 and IIP17) which
adds a critical temporal dimension to the workings of the associated human
mind.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
With this in place, the subsequent propositions replace the
simple picture of mind/body union which originally followed from the parallelism
of thought and extension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mind is associated
with the complex composite body; and constituted as it is by a unified action
of its many different parts, it does not know the body or itself in any simple
or complete manner (IIP19):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The human mind does not know the human body
itself, nor does it know that it exists, except through ideas of affections by
which the body is affected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(p.131)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I interpret this as follows:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The body is not simple passive thing sitting in a vacuum, but rather has
a nature defined by an enduring pattern of complex activity (which is capable
of acting as a unified higher order cause).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Within the totality of God/Nature, this pattern is defined relative to
all its interactions with the world which lies outside its nature. (Note that this
could include non-essential interactions which take place from “within” the
spatial dimensions of the body as well as “external” bodies.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mind only knows the body (the pattern) as
it is affected.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
In IIP20 and IIP21, another element is introduced which adds
further nuance to the mind, that is, in addition to defining the mind as the
idea of the body, there also exists the idea of the mind (idea of the
idea).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So to the extent the mind knows
the affections of the body, it knows the ideas of these affections (IIP22).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It follows that as the mind only knows the
body via the affections, it only knows itself “insofar as it perceives the
ideas of the affections of the body” (IIP23, p.133).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Looking ahead, IIP23 is cited when S wants to assert we are
“conscious” of our striving to preserve our being (IIIP9)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I think IIP24 is particularly helpful for deepening our
understanding the human mind and the scope of consciousness:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
human mind does not involve adequate knowledge of the parts composing the human
body.</i>” Dem.: The parts composing the human body pertain to the essence of
the human body itself only insofar as they communicate their motions to one
another in a certain fixed manner… and not insofar as they can be considered as
individuals, without relation to the human body. (p.133)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The body’s essence is the unified pattern of action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each part could be separated and interact
with the world in some other manner (and will do so after I die, for instance),
but this has nothing to do with our essence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nevertheless, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">God’s</i> idea of
the part includes its connections with a great many ideas which go beyond the
part’s participation in our body’s essence (and thus with the idea that
constitutes our mind).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hence our mind
does not know its parts as individuals.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The picture of the human being here is not that of a lump of
matter, but that of an activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
only that, but the human <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mind </i>is
shaped by this activity as it continually bumps up against everything else in
its environment. (Again, I note that there can be things “within” the body which
also don’t contribute to the pattern).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
While the derivation of IIIP6 and 7 is debated by scholars,
it is certainly the case that the discussion of the nature of humans/composite
individuals in Part II sets the stage very clearly:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the striving to preserve the unified activity
of its parts is the essence of such an individual.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
(Note: nothing distinguishes humans/living things/other
things in terms of ontological categories: differences are due to degrees of
complexity in pattern and interactions.)</div>
Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-60312261827811534232013-01-07T09:47:00.000-05:002013-05-18T13:09:02.202-04:00Upcoming Public Philosophy Events<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
For those of us in the Philadelphia area, the <a href="http://www.thegppc.org/">GPPC</a> is
sponsoring several events in the coming months which should be enjoyable and
enlightening. Everyone is welcome.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a name='more'></a><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First up is our Community Lecture next month in Cherry
Hill. This is the third year we’ve held
this event, and this year’s talk and discussion should be very special. Professor Winston will be discussing “The
Limits of Forgiveness” in the context of Simon Wiesenthal’s <i>The Sunflower</i>. This is free and open to the public. Pre-register (optional – but it helps us to
gauge headcount) by sending me an <a href="http://www.thegppc.org/2010/09/contact.html">email</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<b>Community Lecture: The Limits of
Forgiveness</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Thursday, February 7, 2013, 7pm to
8:30pm.<br />
Cherry Hill High School East<br />
1750 Kresson Road, Cherry Hill, NJ<br />
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<b>Speaker:</b><br />
Morton Winston, PhD, Professor of Philosophy and Chairman, Department of
Philosophy, Religion and Classical Studies, The College of New Jersey<br />
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<b>Chair:</b> Frank J. Hoffman, West Chester University, Chair, GPPC Board of
Directors<br />
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This event is co-sponsored by the GPPC Board of Governors and the GPPC.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then, in March, we will have our annual Public Issues Forum. This is also free and open to the
public. The motivation for this session
came from reflecting on the ethical lapses in our business and financial
sectors in recent years. We will explore
what light leading philosophers can shed on the challenge of “Morality in the
Marketplace”, including ideas adapted from the tradition of Virtue Ethics. Please join us at Rosemont College.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Public Issues Forum: Morality in
the Marketplace</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Saturday, March 9, 2013, 1pm to
5pm.<br />
Rosemont College, McShain Auditorium, Brown Science Building<br />
1400 Montgomery Ave., Rosemont, PA 19010<br />
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<b>Speakers:</b><br />
Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame<br />
Joe DesJardins, St. John's University<br />
Daryl Koehn, University of St. Thomas<br />
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<b>Chair:</b> Frank J. Hoffman, West Chester University, Chair, GPPC Board of
Directors<br />
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<b>Coordinator:</b> Alan Preti, Rosemont College, GPPC Board of Directors<br />
For further information contact Alan Preti at <a href="mailto:apreti@rosemont.edu">apreti@rosemont.edu</a> or 610.527.0200<br />
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This event is co-sponsored by the GPPC Board of Governors, the GPPC, and the
Institute for Ethical Leadership and Social Responsibility at Rosemont College.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Finally, for the third year we will have a GPPC sponsored film series at the
Bryn Mawr Film Institute. This features
Philadelphia-area philosophers discussing selected films, and has been both insightful
and fun. This year the focus is on
Terrence Malick. Register <a href="http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/education/class.php?id=754">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Philosophy on Film Series: Terrence Malick's World</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Location</b>: Bryn Mawr Film
Institute <br />
824 West Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010<br />
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<b>Dates, Films, and Speakers</b>:<br />
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<u>Thursday, March 21, 2013, 7pm - 10pm.</u><br />
<i>Badlands</i> (1973)<br />
Presenter: Jeremy Millington, Philosophy Department, Temple University<br />
<br />
<u>Thursday, March 28, 2013, 7pm - 10pm.</u><br />
<i>The Thin Red Line</i> (1998)<br />
Presenter: Joe Volpe, PhD, Philosophy Department, La Salle University<br />
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<u>Thursday, April 4, 2013, 7pm - 10pm.</u><br />
<i>The Tree of Life</i>, part 1 (2011)<br />
Presenter: John Hymers, PhD, Philosophy Department, La Salle University<br />
<br />
<u>Thursday, April 11, 2013, 7pm - 10pm.</u><br />
<i>The Tree of Life</i>, part 2 (2011)<br />
Presenter: John Hymers, PhD, Philosophy Department, La Salle University<br />
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<b>Fee:</b> $40.00 per person (for the whole series).<br />
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Registration opens March 1, 2012 on Bryn Mawr Film Institute’s website: <a href="http://brynmawrfilm.org/education/">http://brynmawrfilm.org/education/</a><br />
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This event is sponsored by the GPPC and the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.<o:p></o:p></div>
Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-35252135302410119172012-07-29T13:59:00.001-04:002013-05-15T18:21:43.486-04:00Newman: What Russell’s Structural Argument Needs[UPDATE: 15 May 2013; edited for clarity]<br />
As mentioned earlier <a href="http://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2012/04/russell-and-structural-realism.html">here</a>, Bertrand Russell’s work in his book <i>The Analysis of Matter</i> was dealt a blow by mathematician <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Newman">M.H.A."Max"Newman</a>. Russell had built an argument supporting partial realism about the physical world. He said that while we are only acquainted with our percepts, there are causal connections between these and unperceived events external to the perceiver. He gave reasons to think that as a result, a system of relations among percepts can share the same structure as that of causally connected but unperceived events. We can therefore infer a great deal about the structure of the physical world. Newman pointed out that using conventional set-theoretic definitions of these terms, a shared structure in fact would not offer much information at all about the external world; formally any collection of things (of a sufficient cardinality) can be organized in relations so as to have a given structure.<br />
<br />
Newman’s clearly argued and thoughtful paper, “<a href="http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/content/XXXVII/146/137.full.pdf">Mr. Russell’s Causal Theory of Perception</a>,” (also posted <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/40259458/Russell-Casual-Theory-of-Perception">here</a>) while delivering a negative result on this crucial point, was nonetheless sympathetic toward Russell’s project. Newman offered a suggestion as to what would be required in order to have a more meaningful result. He said we need to have, in addition to our individual percepts and the notion of a shared structure, some direct acquaintance with relations (and he points out that in some passages this sort of “modified theory” is what Russell seems to have in mind):
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<blockquote>
The conclusion that has been reached is that to maintain the view that something besides their existence can be known about the unperceived parts of the world it is necessary to admit direct apprehension of what is meant by the statement that two unperceived events are <i>causally adjoined, i.e.</i>, happen near each other, temporally and spatially, or overlap, or do something of the sort. The central doctrine is then that while of percepts we have a qualitative knowledge, of other events all that can legitimately be inferred is their structure with regard to a certain directly known relation which may be called “causal proximity”(p.148 emphasis original)</blockquote>
In addition to the abstract structure, knowledge of the relation of causal proximity would give us leverage to extend our knowledge to the specific system of causal relations among the unperceived events (though still not their intrinsic qualities, in line with the “clear-cut” unmodified theory).
Newman also points out potential disadvantages of introducing this modification: it adds an additional primitive notion of acquaintance or “direct apprehension” which needs to be better defined; it also might open the door to questioning why we can’t invoke even more sorts of direct knowledge of non-structural aspects of the world.
He concluded the paper in this way:
<br />
<blockquote>
It appears, then, that although a modified form of Mr. Russell’s theory makes an important assertion about our knowledge of the external world, a good deal of further argument will be necessary to show that this assertion is true. (p.148)</blockquote>
Russell wrote a letter to Newman following the publication of this paper (it is included in the second volume of Russell’s <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=4BwRMAEACAAJ">autobiography</a>). In the letter, Russell conceded the argument and went on to say:
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<blockquote>
It was quite clear to me, as I read your article, that I had not really intended to say what in fact I did say, that <i>nothing</i> is known about the physical world except its structure. I had always assumed spacio-temporal continuity with the world of percepts, that is to say, I had assumed that there might be co-punctuality between percepts and non-percepts, and even that one could pass by a finite number of steps from one event to another compresent with it, from one end of the universe to another. And co-punctuality I regarded as a relation which might exist among percepts and is itself perceptible. (p. 259, emphasis original).</blockquote>
Newman’s commentary above sketches a notion of perceiving “causal proximity” or the idea of events being spatio-temporally near each other or perhaps overlapping. Russell singles out the notion of perceiving co-punctuality. If events overlap or are simultaneous, perhaps the notion of directly perceiving a relation between them is explicable.<br />
<br />
As I discussed <a href="http://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2012/05/causal-knowledge-is-primitive-for.html">before</a>, Russell’s later book, <i>Human Knowledge</i>, did conclude that we must have some primitive (“animal” or “biological”) grasp of causation in order to have scientific knowledge. He also reiterated key themes from <i>The Analysis of Matter</i> (including, for example, the role of simultaneity in his theory of compresence). I didn’t see in my reading, though, that he specifically built on the notion of <i>perceiving</i> causal relations via co-punctuality as discussed in his letter to Newman.Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-60292932665233549422012-06-18T11:21:00.000-04:002012-06-18T11:34:38.731-04:00Reduction as IdealizationI cannot remember who tipped me to this 1972 article in <i>Science</i> by physicist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Warren_Anderson">Philip W. Anderson</a> called <span style="background-color: white;">"</span><a href="http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~jay/880/moreisdifferent.pdf">More is Different</a><span style="background-color: white;">"</span><span style="background-color: white;">. It is an exploration of the notions of reduction and emergence. The main thrust of Anderson's argument is familiar:</span><br />
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The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and construct the universe. In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental physical laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems in the rest of science, much less to those of society<br />
The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear...(p.393)</blockquote>
<br />
The article is worthwhile for a number of very nice briefly described examples of symmetry breaking and properties which emerge with scale.<br />
<br />
There is a absurdly simple insight lurking in these sorts of discussions which I now belated appreciate. We all realize that coarse-grained descriptions of phenomena which neglect fine details will be limited in their accuracy by definition. But while reductive analysis of natural systems is extremely fruitful, it is also always an idealization. Experimenters work hard to break down and isolate some phenomenon, and models and theories are constructed to best capture it. The environment needs to be screened out -- it is "noise" which we abstract from. But what is lost in this idealization is not trivial. In nature, there are no isolated systems, no ceteris paribus conditions (in fact, there is absolutely no reason to think the universe as a whole is some sharply bounded closed system). <br />
<br />
When this is considered, emergent properties at higher levels of scale lose the sense of being especially surprising or mysterious.Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-19810133743109089192012-05-31T12:42:00.000-04:002012-07-29T14:08:34.594-04:00Causal Knowledge is Primitive for RussellI was rereading portions of Russell’s <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Human-Knowledge-Its-Scope-Limits/dp/0415083028">Human Knowledge</a></i> (and making comparisons to <i>The Analysis of Matter</i>) with the goal of understanding his arguments regarding the role of structure in linking experience to the physical world. But I was struck by something else. At the end of the book, his conclusions regarding how scientific inferences are justified trace this question back to the prior question of how we gain knowledge of <i>causation</i>. Causation is presumed in science, but causation is itself not explicated or justified within science: it is a pre-scientific concept.<br />
<br />
A main project in <i>Human Knowledge</i> is to identify those unacknowledged postulates which undergird our scientific pursuit of knowledge: “what must we be supposed to know, in addition to particular observed facts, if scientific inferences are to be valid?” (p.513). He ends up with five postulates in total, but notably it turns out all of them “involve the concept of ‘cause’” (p.508).<br />
<br />
How do we know these postulates, then, if indeed we do know them, given their reliance on our knowledge of causation? Russell can only point to our gaining a primitive grasp on cause via our pre-linguistic biological know-how: “Knowledge of general connections between facts has its biological origins in animal expectations “(p.514). It was advantageous in evolutionary terms for our animal expectations to roughly conform to processes in the physical world. The physical world apparently has causal laws, and animal inferences are adapted to these.<br />
<br />
When evaluating the thesis of empiricism, Russell understands that strictly speaking this kind of knowledge is something beyond experience (at least as these terms are usually employed in the debate): “Either, therefore, we know something independently of experience, or science is moonshine” (p.524).Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-61087544454996364132012-04-10T09:40:00.000-04:002012-07-29T14:08:34.611-04:00Russell and Structural RealismMy interest in Russell’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Analysis-Matter-Bertrand-Russell/dp/0851247407"><i>The Analysis of Matter</i></a> came originally from the perspective it offers in sorting through the problem of mind. Recently, thanks to a couple of papers linked to on twitter by <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/LogicalAnalysis">@LogicalAnalysis</a>, I learned about its connection with recent work on Structural Realism in the context of philosophy of science. (This continues a long-standing tradition for me where philosophy of mind serves as a “gateway drug” leading to the exploration of a wide range of philosophical concerns - btw this analogy was inspired by this <a href="http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2012/03/24/Talk-To-Your-Kids.aspx">parody poster</a>).<br />
<br />
Very roughly, Russell said that while we only have access to percepts (units of phenomenal perception), and lack access to external objects, these percepts do lie at the end of causal chains which link them to counterparts in the world. He argued that because of this linkage, the structure of our percepts is shared with that of the counterparts, allowing us to draw inferences about this structure.<br />
<br />
In the 2001 “<a href="http://old.phs.uoa.gr/~psillos/Publications_files/SRPoS2001.pdf">Is Structural Realism Possible</a>” <a href="http://old.phs.uoa.gr/~psillos/">Stathis Psillos</a> discusses the Russellian view as one of several paths toward Structural Realism (SR). Its construction from a starting point of bottom-up empiricism marks it in Psillos’ language as an “upward path” toward SR. The “downward path” characterizes approaches which look to save a broader scientific realism from objections by limiting the realism to certain of the mathematically described structural portions of the theories.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/philosophy/department/staff/JL/jl.html">James Ladyman</a> has a very nice <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism/">SEP entry on SR</a>, which lays out the contemporary research. In his taxonomy, he distinguishes “epistemic” SR (which includes Russell’s given its basis in concerns about knowledge of the external world) from “ontic” SR. Some versions of the latter (including Ladyman's own work) look to make the case that structure is all there is; that is, they take an anti-realist approach to non-structural elements of physical world (e.g. objects), rather than just taking an agnostic approach based on the epistemic difficulties of knowing about them.<br />
<br />
While I have a lot more to read on this topic, I have an initial suspicion that both approaches to SR have a shortcoming which has to do with causation. Russell invokes causal relations as giving rise to structure, but doesn’t provide details regarding how causation works. Without more to the story, he is apparently left with the claim that we can make the appropriate inferences based on logico-mathematical structure. And this left him open to a logically based criticism due to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Newman">M.H.A. "Max" Newman</a> (<a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2249202">1928</a> – see discussion <a href="http://publish.uwo.ca/~wgdemo/Published/PhilSci1985.pdf">in this article</a> by <a href="http://publish.uwo.ca/~wgdemo/index.html">Demopoulos</a> and <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPST/friedman.html">Friedman</a>). This criticism argues that the inference based only on structure fails because a set of relations among any set of units with sufficient cardinality can be shown to be consistent with it (for a paper which concludes this argument lacks force, see a <a href="http://www.votsis.org/PDF/Is_Structure_Not_Enough.pdf">2003 article</a> by <a href="http://www.votsis.org/">Ionnis Votsis</a>).<br />
<br />
When it comes to ontic SR, I think it is pretty clear that the formal mathematical structures in physical theories don’t provide a theory of causation, and such a theory will need to invoke additional ontology (e.g. properties, objects) to serve as part of its explanatory apparatus. Therefore, we can’t conclude structure is “all there is.” Psillos has <a href="http://www.phs.uoa.gr/~psillos/Publications_files/PSA04.pdf">another paper</a> which, in part, argues against ontic SR from this basis.Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-41292396226856094472012-03-12T11:53:00.000-04:002012-04-11T09:31:13.695-04:00Upcoming GPPC events<b>Philosophy on Film Series - Estrangements</b><br />
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The <a href="http://www.thegppc.org/">Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium</a> is sponsoring a film series at the <a href="http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/">Bryn Mawr FilmInstitute</a> again this year featuring commentaries by GPPC philosophers.
There are 3 films on consecutive Thursday evenings beginning March 29<sup>th</sup>.
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Here’s the link with information on the series and how to
register (the cost is $30 for the series):<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/education/class.php?id=455">http://www.brynmawrfilm.org/education/class.php?id=455</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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This series was very enjoyable and informative last year,
and this year’s program looks great. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Also, please note there is a GPPC co-sponsored
conference coming up at St. Joseph’s on Saturday March 24<sup>th</sup>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Aristotle and the Philosophy of Action</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Saturday, March 24, 2012, 1pm to 5:30pm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Haub Center, 5th Floor, McShain Hall<o:p></o:p></div>
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Saint Joseph's University, 5600 City Avenue,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Philadelphia, PA 19131<o:p></o:p></div>
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Speakers:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ursula Coope, Oxford University, "Aristotle on Action
and Teleology"<o:p></o:p></div>
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Scott Sehon, Bowdoin College, "Teleology and Free
Will"<o:p></o:p></div>
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For further information contact <a href="http://www.sju.edu/academics/cas/philosophy/faculty/apayne.html">Andrew Payne</a></div>
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This event is sponsored by the GPPC and Saint Joseph’s
University.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Follow the <a href="http://www.thegppc.org/">GPPC website</a> for updates on Philadelphia area philosophy events.</div>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-7943205044692872192012-02-07T11:21:00.001-05:002012-07-29T14:08:34.614-04:00Causal ConstraintThe notion of dispositional modality, discussed by Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum in <i><a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Mind/?view=usa&ci=9780199695614">Getting Causes from Powers</a></i>, put me in mind of another analysis of the interplay between causation and modality: that of Gregg Rosenberg in <i><a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Psychology/CognitivePsychology/?view=usa&ci=9780195168143">A Place For Consciousness</a></i> (2004).<br />
<br />
Recall (see<a href="http://guidetoreality.blogspot.com/2011/10/dispositional-modality-as-restricted.html"> prior post here</a>) that Mumford and Anjum analyze causation in terms of dispositions, or powers. These powers tend toward (dispose toward) their manifestations -- they do not necessitate them. Necessity is not the modality of causation. In addition, it is argued that dispositional modality is distinct from standard philosophical notions of possibility (logical or metaphysical possibility). Dispositional modality (dispositionality for short) does not involve “pure” possibility, since only certain manifestations are possible. In Chapter 8 of their book, the authors say: “Dispositionality…can be understood as a sort of selection function…that picks out a limited number of outcomes from all those that are merely possible.” Also: “The idea of a selection function is simply one that identifies a subset from a realm of possibilities. (p.189)”<br />
<br />
In his book, Gregg Rosenberg introduced a model of causation which featured a notion which seems related to the idea of the selection function: this was a <i>constraining</i> function on the space of possibilities. Rosenberg, unhappy with both the Humean perspective on causation, as well as the theories of causal responsibility or causal production on offer, endeavored in chapter 9 of his book to strip down the notion of real causation to a bare minimum. This led him to the following notion of “causal significance”: “The <i>causal significance</i> of a thing is the constraint its existence adds to the space of possible ways the world could be…Causal significance shows causation to be an operator on a space of possibility. (p.150 emphasis original)” And: “It is a theory designed to understand how constraints propagate, so it explains how the actual world comes to be just a sliver of what could have been. (p.152)”<br />
<br />
I say they seem like related notions, but constraint could be viewed as the negative image of selection. Selection picks out a few possibilities, while constraint rules out all of the others.<br />
<br />
I find causal constraint to be a beguiling idea. Tentatively, it would seem to leave “pure” possibility in place as the fundamental metaphysical notion, in constrast with Mumford and Anjum’s argument for the irreducibility of dispositional modality.Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-43972432113010461012012-01-15T16:56:00.001-05:002012-07-29T14:08:34.605-04:00Short Review of Getting Causes from PowersIn this <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Causes-Powers-Stephen-Mumford/dp/019969561X">book</a>, <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/stephendmumford/">Stephen Mumford</a> and <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ranilillanjum/home">Rani Lill Anjum</a> present their theory of causal dispositionalism, that is, causation based on dispositional properties, or powers. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the philosophy of causation.<br />
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Powers do the causal work in our world, according to the authors: effects are brought about by powers manifesting themselves, and the manifestation is itself a further power or set of powers.<br />
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A central idea is that powers don't necessitate their manifestations - they dispose toward them. Causality has long been associated with the idea of necessity, and necessity (and the sense of constant conjunction) is too strong to describe causation. The main insight here is that other factors can prevent or interfere with the expected manifestation (and, indeed, they often do).<br />
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To help demonstrate how a disposition can be enhanced or, importantly, hindered by other powers, the authors develop a vector addition diagram. Only when the sum of vectors (with various strengths and directions) exceeds some threshold do we get the manifestation. They extend the model to more complex scenarios to argue that the model is robust enough to explain non-linear and even "emergent" behavior.<br />
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In addition to arguing strongly against necessity, the authors want to overthrow another usual notion. The authors reject as misguided the typical "two-event" conception of causation, where cause is temporally prior to effect, in part because no one has a compelling account of how you get from one to the other. Instead causes and effects are simultaneous - they are two aspects of a temporally extended process which brings about a change.<br />
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An important and creative part of the book explores the distinctive modality of dispositions in more depth. Dispositional modality (weaker than necessity but stronger than "pure" contingency) is the primitive and fundamental modality of nature. We derive necessity and possibility from our prior experience with dispositionality. Mumford and Anjum argue that we do indeed perceive causation, and present what they see as the clearest examples of this in the case of bodily sensation and specifically proprioception.<br />
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The book concludes with a compelling application: showing how the theory fits with processes studied in biology and genetics.Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-88272209122822097792012-01-08T12:11:00.000-05:002012-07-29T14:08:34.616-04:00More on Causation and Reduction to Physics<br />
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I finished reading <i><a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Mind/?view=usa&ci=9780199695614">GettingCauses from Powers</a> </i>by <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/stephendmumford/">Stephen Mumford</a> and <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ranilillanjum/home">Rani Lill Anjum</a>. I recommend the book highly to anyone
interested in causation, and I’ll be thinking about many of its arguments and
themes for a long time to come. </div>
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As touched on at the end of my prior post, one possible
challenge to models of causation, including the thesis of causal
dispositionalism presented in this book, is the fact that causation doesn’t
seem to comport well with physics. The
authors acknowledge this in their first chapter, referencing Russell’s
discussion in his "<a href="http://www.hist-analytic.org/Russellcause.pdf">On the Notion of Cause</a>” (1913). The issue is that dynamical equations
associate states of a system with points in time, but nowhere do they invoke
the idea of causal production. They are
symmetric with regard to time, where causation is not. Mumford and Anjum respond in a couple of
ways. First, they say, the fact that
causation doesn’t appear at the level of physics doesn’t mean it isn’t present
at larger scales: the reducibility of
all phenomena to physics is a controversial idea which we are not compelled to
accept. We don’t know that physics
represents a special fundamental level of reality in any case. And given the provisional nature of scientific
theories, should we let them trump our metaphysical reasoning?</div>
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This issue recurs as the book progresses. In Chapter 4, the authors show how the
composition of powers in causal situations can plausibly model emergent
phenomena in the form of novel powers.
So the theory is robust if it does turn out that reduction of the
phenomena in the special sciences isn’t possible. And the final chapter of the book (ch.10) presents
an interesting and persuasive application of the theory by showing how causal
dispositionalism fits quite well with examples of processes studied in biology
(including genetics).</div>
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Just like the situation in philosophy of mind, one must be
cautious about drawing metaphysical conclusions from the perceived character of
formal physical theory.</div>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7247637.post-11059450623156897922011-12-29T11:53:00.000-05:002012-07-29T14:08:34.578-04:00Determinism Doesn’t Imply Causal Necessity<br />
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A key part of the argument for causal dispositionalism in
Mumford and Anjum’s<a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Philosophy/Mind/?view=usa&ci=9780199695614"> <i>Getting Causes FromPowers</i></a> is the case against causal necessitarianism (chapter 3 in the
book). Causality is commonly thought to
imply a necessary connection between cause and effect: the authors say this is a mistake, and that
the proper modality of causation is dispositional. Causes dispose toward their effects - they
don’t guarantee them. The insight here
is that other factors can prevent or interfere with the expected manifestation
(and in everyday experience, they often do). In fact, such prevention is always possible
in causal situations, and if one moves to evade this fact by stipulating that
prevention or interference is impossible, then the resulting necessity is not
really coming from the causal process itself, but is being imposed in another
way.</div>
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To see this, suppose I specify the causal factors involved
in some manifested effect, and then someone points out another factor which
could possibly interfere (despite my match being dry, a proper striking motion
made and sufficient oxygen being present, a gust of wind might prevent the
match from lighting). Can’t I modify my
scenario to specify that the threatening factor is absent (the wind is
calm)? Leaving aside the potential
problem of listing an absence as a causal factor, the objector might present another
possible interferer (a passing car might splash water on the match as it is
being struck). So, then I, in turn, specify
that there is no nearby traffic, and so on.
In fact, no finite list of factors will ever suffice to rule out every
interferer (however unlikely). And by
the time one is led to propose a “catch-all” condition, covering the whole
state of the universe, we’re really not talking about a process of causal
production anymore.</div>
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The authors note something interesting here. They say that their argument against causal
necessitarianism does not mean they are ruling out <i>determinism</i>. This was a
helpful observation for me because I have been guilty of confusion on this
point. One might think “determinism”
means “causal determinism” which means “causal necessitarianism”. However, determinism can be specified in
other ways (including what might be the most common conception – see
below). Then causal dispositionalism
could be compatible with determinism. There
is a causal process, and while it doesn’t necessitate effects, necessity is
imposed in another way.</div>
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Note, that for the moment, we are leaving aside the idea of irreducibly
probabilistic causation. Such causation
is likely a feature of our world (in fact I think the a posteriori case for it is
nearly airtight), and therefore determinism is false. But disentangling these ideas remains
philosophically valuable.</div>
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As Mumford and Anjum say:
“The core idea in determinism is the fixity of the future by the past
(p.75)” If one wanted to build a model of a deterministic world, causal
necessitarianism is probably not the best tool, since the causal process doesn’t
promise to cover all the possible loopholes - for instance if there are such
things as uncaused events, then they would not be addressed.</div>
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It seems to me that the most common notion of determinism (probably
inspired by classical mechanics) is this:
given a specification of all facts, and given comprehensive deterministic
<i>laws of nature</i>, then the future is
fixed. There is no reason here to even
mention causation – it adds nothing to the scenario. One could be a Humean about causation and
still endorse the deterministic picture.
And given the fact that in this physics-inspired vision the mathematical
depiction of laws is symmetric with regard to time, it would be equally true to
say that the past is fixed by the specification. This is inconsistent with causation, which is
not a symmetric process. One might
believe that the mathematically specified physical laws comprise a model of a
causal world, but the laws themselves don’t constitute a theory of causation,
and may very well be inconsistent with the idea of a causal process.</div>
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On this last point, I recalled a paper I had read a few
years ago by <a href="http://www.icrea.cat/Web/ScientificStaff/Carl-Hoefer-175">Carl Hoefer</a>: “<a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/2071/">Causality and Determinism: Tension, or OutrightConflict.</a>” In this paper, Hoefer defines
a deterministic world specifically as one governed by deterministic
micro-physical laws, and then goes on to argue that this definition is
inconsistent with the presence of causation, using several philosophical
theories from the literature as examples of how causation might be characterized.</div>Steve Esserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03127743863789489392noreply@blogger.com0