There is a lot of interesting material at the Consciousness Online conference currently underway. One paper I enjoyed reading was Barbara Montero’s entry on the Russellian theory of mind: “Russellian Physicalism”. In addition to Montero’s paper and powerpoint slides, there are links to responses by Emmett Holman and Daniel Stoljar, who have both also written on this topic in the past (see my old posts here and here).
Montero reminds us that the Russellian approach is a non-dualistic strategy for dissolving the conceivability argument against physicalism/materialism (most famously depicted as the “zombie” argument). David Chalmers' most recent paper updating the conceivability argument had as its conclusion: “materialism is false or Russellian monism is true.”
Russellian monism argues (roughly) that our knowledge of the physical world is only of its extrinsic or dispositional (causal) aspects. Physical entities also have intrinsic or categorical aspects. These hidden aspects are those responsible for consciousness. When we try to conceive of zombies, we fail because we are not conceiving of all relevant aspects of the physical world.
Montero’s paper focuses on the fact that while Russellian monism can be interpreted as a form of panpsychism (the intrinsic aspects are in some fashion mental or experiential in nature), it can also be cast as a variety of physicalism (where the intrinsic aspects are not to be seen as themselves mental).
I'll note parenthetically that both versions face further challenges. In the case of the physicalist version, it can be argued that the explanatory gap between the mental and the physical still isn’t bridged (even though the formal conceivability argument is defeated). In the panpsychist version, we arguably address the gap, but we are left with the “combination” problem: how do micro-phenomenal entities or properties combine to form macroscopic minds like ours?
The responses by Stoljar and Holman and further discussion in the comments mostly revolve around thorny issues of terminology. What do we mean by “physical”, “mental” etc. as it relates to these hidden intrinsic aspects of nature? I tend to like the approach Stoljar took in his book (finally out in paperback), where he threw out these terms and used experiential and non-experiential. Holman proposes using “subjective unity” as the key feature to distinguish things.
I enjoyed the discussion (which continues in the comments), and I hope that philosophers of mind continue to focus on this topic.
Postscript: I have a general quibble, which is that I think this all becomes clearer if you go back and read Bertrand Russell himself (Montero, taking Chalmers as her starting point, includes just one short quote from Russell). Russell’s approach, beginning in his Analysis of Matter, is distinctive for his careful critique of physical theorizing and for his use of a causal event ontology. Russell reminds us that physical theory consists of describing a causal structure connecting the experiential events which occur when we conduct empirical research. The physicists create mathematical models to allow them to generalize and extrapolate to describe events beyond our direct experience. He then argues that it is a philosophical mistake to ascribe reality to the mathematical models themselves (what Whitehead called the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”). The causally connected events are the reality. We have no good reason to think the “physical” events which we infer have a different character from the events we experience directly. At a minimum we can be confident that an event is ontologically more than just a point in a mathematical model. Whether we think all events are experiential (leading to panpsychism) or not is something for further debate. Russell himself took the conservative option here, and was reluctant to posit panpsychism, while his former collaborator Whitehead went ahead and took the panpsychist step in formulating his process metaphysics (see also my post on Carey Carlson’s book on Russell and Whitehead).
Showing posts with label Physicalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Physicalism. Show all posts
Monday, February 23, 2009
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Should a Russellian be a Panpsychist?
Emmett Holman has an interesting article in the latest Journal of Consciousness Studies that’s also very timely in light of the discussion in the prior post. Surveying several approaches to a Russellian theory of mind (RTM, to use his abbreviation), Holman observes that most have been panpsychist, but at least one is presented as a version of physicalism, and some are neutral monist interpretations. Holman takes a look at the landscape to see what the advantages of competing approaches might be. He doesn’t come to a strong conclusion, but thinks that it’s not clear that a panpsychist approach should be preferred.
Setting the stage, Holman outlines the basis for interest in RTM: “The advertising for RTM is that it constitutes just the insight needed to break (what many see as) the current impasse on the mind-body problem.” He explains in particular that RTM is a response to dissatisfaction with “mainstream” physicalism, defined as the stance that “the mental supervenes on the physical as the physical is characterized by physical theory” (emphasis original).
According to RTM, the problem is that physical theory characterizes the entities in its domain strictly extrinsically, in terms of causal, functional and other relations in which they stand to each other and to our experience. Nowhere does physical theory inform us as to the intrinsic nature of the entities; and it can only be in virtue of this intrinsic nature that the entities have the causal powers or dispositional properties they exhibit. The question arises: can we know what this intrinsic nature is?
Well, the Russellian notes that conscious experience acquaints us with intrinsic phenomenal properties. In taking this point further, there are several possible views to take of the intrinsic nature of basic entities.
1. First, a monistic panpsychism posits that this intrinsic nature is essentially mental or phenomenal, and thus the mental dimension of human experience derives from the inherent mental quality of all nature.
2. A Russellian version of physicalism might say that the mental emerges or otherwise is a consequence of a configuration of physical (defined here minimally as non-mental) intrinsic properties.
3. Finally, a neutral monist would say the mental derives from basic intrinsic properties that themselves are neither mental nor physical.
Looking critically initially at the second (physicalist) option, Holman notes the objection that it might be seen to offer an epistemic gap just as large as conventional mental/physical gap. Well, perhaps not, since a combination of non-mental intrinsic properties giving rise to mental intrinsic properties may be seen as superior to trying to get mental intrinsic properties from non-mental extrinsic ones.
Still, isn’t the panpsychist option superior? Here, however, Holman looks critically upon another “gap” faced by this option. Since the idea of an elementary particle having mental states like we have seems ridiculous, advocates of panpsychist theories typically speak of the basic intrinsic properties as “proto-phenomenal” or “proto-experiential” etc. Elementary entities are sometimes said to have a “low-level” version of experience or mentality, or have properties that are in some way just analogous to human mentality. As long as we lack an account of how the simpler properties give rise to the more robust ones, a troubling gap persists here.
How about a neutral monism? Holman sketches his own version of how a neutral monist approach to the nature of these intrinsic properties might go. “The relevant fundamental intrinsic property [would be] a determinable property which is itself neither experiential nor non-experiential”(emphasis original). Its determinates can manifest degrees of experientiality along a zero to one scale.
Before pursuing this line of thought further, Holman circles back to see if any panpsychist accounts introduced concepts more amenable to coming in degrees than simply the concepts of the phenomenal, the experiential, or the like. One concept he sees which may have promise is the notion of “subjective unity”, which he finds, among other places, in Gregg Rosenberg’s work. Conscious states differ from the rest of nature in that they have (quoting Rosenberg) a “complex but not composite” character. Conscious states can be very rich and diverse (including various sensory modalities) yet they have a special kind of unity which binds them together. They can’t be simply decomposed into parts the way physical systems can be. The components can only exist as part of the unified state.
If this idea has merit, then maybe subjective unity can be “scaled down” gradually or in degrees in way that appears more intelligible than was the case for the notions of mentality or experience as such. In fact this could perhaps support a neutral monism in the following sense: the most basic entity considered alone has no experiential value. But once multiple entities are considered, they can be participants in a subjective unity with an attendant degree of experientiality.
Holman doesn’t take this past a sketch, and he also considers some other variations very briefly. He concludes that more work needs to be done on Russellian theories and it is not clear to him which avenue is superior. But he maintains that it is not clear to him from his survey that panpsychist versions are inherently to be preferred. At the same time, he doesn’t’ think much of the “physicalist” option either. Holman’s sympathies appear to lie with neutral monism, but he awaits a more full-fledged theory to consider here.
Postscript 1: Like many others who have written about this subject, Holman’s main references to Russell himself are to 1927’s Analysis of Matter. I note that Carey Carlson’s book relies much more on 1948’s Human Knowledge, which I have not read. I wonder if Carlson’s much greater emphasis on the importance of viewing RTM though the lens of an event ontology vs. an object ontology can be linked at least in part to this fact. I’ll have to get the book.
{UPDATE 14 June 2008: Having read both books -- the event ontology is firmly in place in both. The basic framework did not change from 1927 to 1948. To pick up the neutral monism from Russell without picking up the event ontology on which it rests is simply to miss too much of the point.]
Postscript 2: Note that Holman’s lone example of the “physicalist” version of RTM is from an older paper from Daniel Stoljar. Stoljar’s position in his more recent book (Ignorance and Imagination) has evolved and he doesn’t specifically champion this version of RTM. His endorsement of physicalism in the book relies on the epistemic argument that we just don’t know enough to say that the non-mental couldn’t be the supervenience base for the mental. The unknown “experience-relevant non-experiential facts” could be intrinsic, extrinsic or both. I have a series of posts on this book under the label Stoljar.
Setting the stage, Holman outlines the basis for interest in RTM: “The advertising for RTM is that it constitutes just the insight needed to break (what many see as) the current impasse on the mind-body problem.” He explains in particular that RTM is a response to dissatisfaction with “mainstream” physicalism, defined as the stance that “the mental supervenes on the physical as the physical is characterized by physical theory” (emphasis original).
According to RTM, the problem is that physical theory characterizes the entities in its domain strictly extrinsically, in terms of causal, functional and other relations in which they stand to each other and to our experience. Nowhere does physical theory inform us as to the intrinsic nature of the entities; and it can only be in virtue of this intrinsic nature that the entities have the causal powers or dispositional properties they exhibit. The question arises: can we know what this intrinsic nature is?
Well, the Russellian notes that conscious experience acquaints us with intrinsic phenomenal properties. In taking this point further, there are several possible views to take of the intrinsic nature of basic entities.
1. First, a monistic panpsychism posits that this intrinsic nature is essentially mental or phenomenal, and thus the mental dimension of human experience derives from the inherent mental quality of all nature.
2. A Russellian version of physicalism might say that the mental emerges or otherwise is a consequence of a configuration of physical (defined here minimally as non-mental) intrinsic properties.
3. Finally, a neutral monist would say the mental derives from basic intrinsic properties that themselves are neither mental nor physical.
Looking critically initially at the second (physicalist) option, Holman notes the objection that it might be seen to offer an epistemic gap just as large as conventional mental/physical gap. Well, perhaps not, since a combination of non-mental intrinsic properties giving rise to mental intrinsic properties may be seen as superior to trying to get mental intrinsic properties from non-mental extrinsic ones.
Still, isn’t the panpsychist option superior? Here, however, Holman looks critically upon another “gap” faced by this option. Since the idea of an elementary particle having mental states like we have seems ridiculous, advocates of panpsychist theories typically speak of the basic intrinsic properties as “proto-phenomenal” or “proto-experiential” etc. Elementary entities are sometimes said to have a “low-level” version of experience or mentality, or have properties that are in some way just analogous to human mentality. As long as we lack an account of how the simpler properties give rise to the more robust ones, a troubling gap persists here.
How about a neutral monism? Holman sketches his own version of how a neutral monist approach to the nature of these intrinsic properties might go. “The relevant fundamental intrinsic property [would be] a determinable property which is itself neither experiential nor non-experiential”(emphasis original). Its determinates can manifest degrees of experientiality along a zero to one scale.
Before pursuing this line of thought further, Holman circles back to see if any panpsychist accounts introduced concepts more amenable to coming in degrees than simply the concepts of the phenomenal, the experiential, or the like. One concept he sees which may have promise is the notion of “subjective unity”, which he finds, among other places, in Gregg Rosenberg’s work. Conscious states differ from the rest of nature in that they have (quoting Rosenberg) a “complex but not composite” character. Conscious states can be very rich and diverse (including various sensory modalities) yet they have a special kind of unity which binds them together. They can’t be simply decomposed into parts the way physical systems can be. The components can only exist as part of the unified state.
If this idea has merit, then maybe subjective unity can be “scaled down” gradually or in degrees in way that appears more intelligible than was the case for the notions of mentality or experience as such. In fact this could perhaps support a neutral monism in the following sense: the most basic entity considered alone has no experiential value. But once multiple entities are considered, they can be participants in a subjective unity with an attendant degree of experientiality.
Holman doesn’t take this past a sketch, and he also considers some other variations very briefly. He concludes that more work needs to be done on Russellian theories and it is not clear to him which avenue is superior. But he maintains that it is not clear to him from his survey that panpsychist versions are inherently to be preferred. At the same time, he doesn’t’ think much of the “physicalist” option either. Holman’s sympathies appear to lie with neutral monism, but he awaits a more full-fledged theory to consider here.
Postscript 1: Like many others who have written about this subject, Holman’s main references to Russell himself are to 1927’s Analysis of Matter. I note that Carey Carlson’s book relies much more on 1948’s Human Knowledge, which I have not read. I wonder if Carlson’s much greater emphasis on the importance of viewing RTM though the lens of an event ontology vs. an object ontology can be linked at least in part to this fact. I’ll have to get the book.
{UPDATE 14 June 2008: Having read both books -- the event ontology is firmly in place in both. The basic framework did not change from 1927 to 1948. To pick up the neutral monism from Russell without picking up the event ontology on which it rests is simply to miss too much of the point.]
Postscript 2: Note that Holman’s lone example of the “physicalist” version of RTM is from an older paper from Daniel Stoljar. Stoljar’s position in his more recent book (Ignorance and Imagination) has evolved and he doesn’t specifically champion this version of RTM. His endorsement of physicalism in the book relies on the epistemic argument that we just don’t know enough to say that the non-mental couldn’t be the supervenience base for the mental. The unknown “experience-relevant non-experiential facts” could be intrinsic, extrinsic or both. I have a series of posts on this book under the label Stoljar.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
The Russellian Stance & Concluding Thoughts
(This is the final post in a series, for background see the previous posts.) There is a well-known philosophical argument regarding the limits of our knowledge of physical objects and the relevance of this for the problem of consciousness. This argument is most prominently associated with Bertrand Russell, although there are connections with the work of many other philosophers. The argument has two parts. The first part asserts that we only know physical objects by their dispositional, relational, or extrinsic nature. Our knowledge of physical phenomena leaves untouched their categorical, non-relational, or intrinsic nature. In his book, Daniel Stoljar refers to this as the categorical argument. The second part of the argument draws a connection between the (hidden) intrinsic aspect of physical phenomena and the seemingly intrinsic quality of the phenomenal properties of first-person experience. (For other discussions online, see the “Type-F monism” section of this Chalmers paper; an earlier treatment of the view -- “o-physicalism” – in this Stoljar paper; and, for a more extended treatment of related philosophical theories, see this SEP article by Leopold Stubenberg. Also, Chapter 2 of Gregg Rosenberg’s book employs a creative argument in this vein).
Stoljar briefly gives his own account of the categorical argument. He divides physical truths into three exhaustive categories: spatio-temporal truths, truths about secondary qualities, and truths about primary qualities (note that properties from our physical theories like mass and charge would fall into this grouping). He discusses ways these individually or in combination can be seen to fail to tell the whole story about physical objects and specifically only tell a dispositional story about physical things. While some of the details could be contentious, the categorical argument's conclusion appears plausible.
There are two ways to take this argument further. For the first, note how the terrain here overlaps the discussion of the “structure and dynamics” objection which was the topic of my earlier post (although in Stoljar’s book, it comes in a later chapter). One could argue that the categorical argument leads directly to this thesis (Interpretation 1):
1. All non-experiential truths are (and will always be) dispositional.
2. Experience concerns categorical truths.
3. Therefore, non-experiential truths cannot entail experiential truths.
Stoljar’s epistemic thesis would be false – there cannot be non-experiential truths of which we are ignorant which are relevant to experience.
I should note that for a composite system (like a human), it can be said that our experience depends on both dispositional and categorical truths rather than exclusively categorical truths; but the above argument would still hold.
Stoljar argues differently. He wants to extend the categorical argument into a "categorical ignorance hypothesis" akin to, but more specific than, his own view. The key to this is an assertion that non-experiential truths could encompass both dispositional and categorical physical truths. Just because we don’t know of any examples of non-experiential categorical truths doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Note that Stoljar wouldn’t think it relevant even if our ignorance of this latter putative type of truth was chronic. Given this assumption, we have Interpretation 2:
1. Known non-experiential truths are dispositional
2. We are ignorant of categorical truths
3. Categorical truths may be both non-experiential and relevant to experience.
The resulting “Russellian version” of Stoljar’s epistemic view does dissolve CA and KA, and thus solves the logical problem of consciousness. (Note that Stoljar does not positively recommend this version of the Russellian view, rather he is advancing the more general version of the epistemic argument and is using the Russellian version to show an example of how the more general version could be fleshed out).
Analysis
Stoljar’s thesis is difficult to defeat, because it is often easier to sow doubt about the adequacy of our knowledge than it is to defend positive assertions (like the statement above saying “all non-experiential truths are dispositional”).
In responding to Stoljar, I think the best strategy is to look more closely at how the paired terms non-experiential/experiential, dispositional/categorical, and objective/subjective are used and how they relate to each other. To do this, I will employ what I intend to be a minimal description of the world which must obtain to make sense of how these terms apply to it.
I start with the objective/subjective pair, because I think it is easiest to agree upon what these terms mean. In my last post I argued that objective and subjective truths are exhaustive of all truths. In essence, I’m saying that this is a dichotomy which describes our world. This doesn’t mean the world is described by a fundamental dualism like that of Descartes: both kinds of truth could supervene on an underlying common ground (neutral monism). On the other hand, a pluralism is implied, of course: The world contains individuated natural systems, and one type of truth obtains when a system participates in an event (subjective truth), and another type of truth obtains when such event is indirectly encountered (objective truth). There are as many “subjective” points-of-view as there are natural systems.
If you grant me this much, then the most natural interpretation of experiential truths is to identify them with subjective truths, while non-experiential truths are identified with objective truths. As discussed in the last post, such an interpretation defeats Stoljar’s thesis.
With regard to dispositional versus categorical truths, the terms are a bit more obscure, but the analysis leads to a similar result. A system’s indirect non-participatory knowledge of truths about other systems will only be of dispositional truths. We can only know them by how they interact with further entities. Another way to see this is to use the synonyms “relational” or “extrinsic” as alternative pointers to the same concept. The most straightforward interpretation would likewise identify non-dispositional (i.e. categorical) truths with those known through direct participation. The idea of a "non-experiential categorical truth" appealed to by Stoljar above has no room to fit into this picture and is not a well motivated concept.
Concluding Thoughts
Stoljar’s book was valuable to me not only for his interesting thesis, but for how useful it was as a touchstone for reflecting on the debates in (analytic) philosophy of mind which I’ve been reading about for around 15 years now. Within this philosophical domain, I have been most persuaded by the views I’ve discussed in these posts: a version of the Russellian stance, bolstered by arguments primarily associated with Chalmers and Nagel.
But, of course, consensus is far off. I haven’t discussed the parts of Stoljar’s book where he argues against competing physicalist perspectives on the problem of consciousness (arguments one agrees with always generate less scrutiny!). But many philosophers still subscribe to these arguments.
It seems that a significant move toward consensus will probably require input from outside philosophy of mind. Even in my “minimal description of the world” outlined above I was essentially “cheating” by bringing in ontological assertions about the existence of natural systems and how they relate to each other. But I think some sort of “triangulation” is necessary to make progress. Consciousness needs to fit into an improved metaphysical portrait. As an example, this is what appealed to me about Gregg Rosenberg’s thesis (see posts here), which combined insights from an analysis of causation and the composition of natural individuals to find the right “place for consciousness” in the world. It is also the reason I continue to be very interested in the philosophical interpretation of foundations of physics.
It seems right that a deeper understanding of consciousness will go hand in hand with a deeper understanding of nature.
Stoljar briefly gives his own account of the categorical argument. He divides physical truths into three exhaustive categories: spatio-temporal truths, truths about secondary qualities, and truths about primary qualities (note that properties from our physical theories like mass and charge would fall into this grouping). He discusses ways these individually or in combination can be seen to fail to tell the whole story about physical objects and specifically only tell a dispositional story about physical things. While some of the details could be contentious, the categorical argument's conclusion appears plausible.
There are two ways to take this argument further. For the first, note how the terrain here overlaps the discussion of the “structure and dynamics” objection which was the topic of my earlier post (although in Stoljar’s book, it comes in a later chapter). One could argue that the categorical argument leads directly to this thesis (Interpretation 1):
1. All non-experiential truths are (and will always be) dispositional.
2. Experience concerns categorical truths.
3. Therefore, non-experiential truths cannot entail experiential truths.
Stoljar’s epistemic thesis would be false – there cannot be non-experiential truths of which we are ignorant which are relevant to experience.
I should note that for a composite system (like a human), it can be said that our experience depends on both dispositional and categorical truths rather than exclusively categorical truths; but the above argument would still hold.
Stoljar argues differently. He wants to extend the categorical argument into a "categorical ignorance hypothesis" akin to, but more specific than, his own view. The key to this is an assertion that non-experiential truths could encompass both dispositional and categorical physical truths. Just because we don’t know of any examples of non-experiential categorical truths doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Note that Stoljar wouldn’t think it relevant even if our ignorance of this latter putative type of truth was chronic. Given this assumption, we have Interpretation 2:
1. Known non-experiential truths are dispositional
2. We are ignorant of categorical truths
3. Categorical truths may be both non-experiential and relevant to experience.
The resulting “Russellian version” of Stoljar’s epistemic view does dissolve CA and KA, and thus solves the logical problem of consciousness. (Note that Stoljar does not positively recommend this version of the Russellian view, rather he is advancing the more general version of the epistemic argument and is using the Russellian version to show an example of how the more general version could be fleshed out).
Analysis
Stoljar’s thesis is difficult to defeat, because it is often easier to sow doubt about the adequacy of our knowledge than it is to defend positive assertions (like the statement above saying “all non-experiential truths are dispositional”).
In responding to Stoljar, I think the best strategy is to look more closely at how the paired terms non-experiential/experiential, dispositional/categorical, and objective/subjective are used and how they relate to each other. To do this, I will employ what I intend to be a minimal description of the world which must obtain to make sense of how these terms apply to it.
I start with the objective/subjective pair, because I think it is easiest to agree upon what these terms mean. In my last post I argued that objective and subjective truths are exhaustive of all truths. In essence, I’m saying that this is a dichotomy which describes our world. This doesn’t mean the world is described by a fundamental dualism like that of Descartes: both kinds of truth could supervene on an underlying common ground (neutral monism). On the other hand, a pluralism is implied, of course: The world contains individuated natural systems, and one type of truth obtains when a system participates in an event (subjective truth), and another type of truth obtains when such event is indirectly encountered (objective truth). There are as many “subjective” points-of-view as there are natural systems.
If you grant me this much, then the most natural interpretation of experiential truths is to identify them with subjective truths, while non-experiential truths are identified with objective truths. As discussed in the last post, such an interpretation defeats Stoljar’s thesis.
With regard to dispositional versus categorical truths, the terms are a bit more obscure, but the analysis leads to a similar result. A system’s indirect non-participatory knowledge of truths about other systems will only be of dispositional truths. We can only know them by how they interact with further entities. Another way to see this is to use the synonyms “relational” or “extrinsic” as alternative pointers to the same concept. The most straightforward interpretation would likewise identify non-dispositional (i.e. categorical) truths with those known through direct participation. The idea of a "non-experiential categorical truth" appealed to by Stoljar above has no room to fit into this picture and is not a well motivated concept.
Concluding Thoughts
Stoljar’s book was valuable to me not only for his interesting thesis, but for how useful it was as a touchstone for reflecting on the debates in (analytic) philosophy of mind which I’ve been reading about for around 15 years now. Within this philosophical domain, I have been most persuaded by the views I’ve discussed in these posts: a version of the Russellian stance, bolstered by arguments primarily associated with Chalmers and Nagel.
But, of course, consensus is far off. I haven’t discussed the parts of Stoljar’s book where he argues against competing physicalist perspectives on the problem of consciousness (arguments one agrees with always generate less scrutiny!). But many philosophers still subscribe to these arguments.
It seems that a significant move toward consensus will probably require input from outside philosophy of mind. Even in my “minimal description of the world” outlined above I was essentially “cheating” by bringing in ontological assertions about the existence of natural systems and how they relate to each other. But I think some sort of “triangulation” is necessary to make progress. Consciousness needs to fit into an improved metaphysical portrait. As an example, this is what appealed to me about Gregg Rosenberg’s thesis (see posts here), which combined insights from an analysis of causation and the composition of natural individuals to find the right “place for consciousness” in the world. It is also the reason I continue to be very interested in the philosophical interpretation of foundations of physics.
It seems right that a deeper understanding of consciousness will go hand in hand with a deeper understanding of nature.
Friday, September 08, 2006
The Objection from Objectivity
(This is the second post in a series; please see the previous post for background). The second objection considered by Daniel Stoljar in Chapter 8 of his book employs the idea of objectivity as the “Factor X” which characterizes non-experiential truths. Stoljar paraphrases this objection, which relates to an argument prominently associated with Thomas Nagel, as saying that non-experiential truths are and will always be objective (third-person) truths, and the problem of consciousness will always re-emerge since experiential truths are subjective (first-person) truths. I should declare my antecedent bias here that I have always found this argument to be extremely persuasive myself. If we invoke Nagel’s example of the bat: once I know all the objective truths about a bat, what it is like to be the bat is a further truth.
Now the way this objection is framed (that is, non-experiential truths are those known via the objective point of view and experiential truths are defined as those known through the subjective point of view) poses a challenge for Stoljar. He cannot argue against the following statement:
1. Even if you were to know all the objective (non-experiential) truths you would still not thereby know the subjective (experiential) truths.
Stoljar notes that this statement is analytic and flows from the terms of the objection. So he will try to form a reply by arguing that the following seemingly natural inference from statement #1 actually does not follow:
2. Even if you were to know all the objective facts, there will still appear to you to be an element of contingency in the relation between the objective and subjective facts.
It is this appearance of contingency or lack of entailment that is the basis for a third statement:
3. CA and KA will continue to be forceful no matter how many objective facts we learn.
Stoljar’s wants reject the inference from #1 to #2. His first strategy for doing this is to set up in parallel a counterexample thus:
4. John is in pain
This, he explains, is clearly a subjective truth. Then, since #4 is subjective then it negation must be as well:
5. John is not in pain
Next we have:
6. If John is a number, then he is not in pain.
Note this is a necessary truth. And since the antecedent of #6:
7. John is a number
is an objective truth, then we have an example where an objective truth entails a subjective truth. Putting this all in a form which mimics (1) and (2) above, we have:
8. Even if I were to know that John is a number, I would not thereby know that he is not in pain.
9. Even if I were to know that John is a number, there would still appear to me to be an element of contingency in the relation between John’s being a number and his not being in pain.
The inference from #8 to #9 is invalid, since #8 is true and #9 is false. Since this parallels #1 and #2, Stoljar says that inference is also false. When I read this the first time, I found the form of the counterexample fine, but its content was so different than #1 and #2 that I didn’t feel its force. I should also note he says we could use the slightly less strange “If John does not exist, then he is not in pain” as a substitute statement #6. But Stoljar senses the reader will need more help to flesh this all out.
So, continuing the discussion, Stoljar says he wants to distinguish the idea that the objective facts entail the subjective facts from the idea that understanding all the objective facts entails an understanding of the subjective ones. He introduces the idea that {if A then B} could be necessary but not synthesizable. Here’s his definition of synthesizable: “{If A then B} is synthesizable if and only if in every possible world in which S understands A, then S understands (or is in a position to understand) B – for short, if and only if understanding A entails understanding B.” Stoljar says the statement #1 above shows that subjective facts are not synthesizable from objective facts, but does not entail statement #2 – the relation could still be necessary and could appear to us as necessary, given future lifting of the veil of ignorance. To show that something could be not synthesizable but still appear necessary, Stoljar offers further examples such as this: if x is colored, then x is extended. Understanding about x being colored doesn’t entail understanding about what it is for it to be extended, but we can see that the conditional statement indeed describes a necessary relation given our possession of all the relevant facts. Again, in reading this, I found the content of Stoljar’s example to be different enough from that of #1 and #2 that I began to contemplate what could be faulty about the parallel.
For me, despite the examples, it was difficult to see that that one could ever concede the non-synthesizability of the subjective facts from the objective facts but come to find them appearing nonetheless entailed by them. But – and here again that is what makes the epistemic view slippery – Stoljar might say my feeling on this is just due to my ignorance! Can I flesh out a specific disanalogy in Stoljar’s examples which makes them lose force? I’ll give it a try.
The difference is that in the original case the two types of truths (objective and subjective) are presumed by definition to be exhaustive of all truths. In the cases of Stoljar’s examples, the additional facts which led us to see that {if A then B} could be necessary even when not synthesizable invoked other types of facts beyond the types represented by A and B. In the original counterexample #8 and #9 I need to know about abstract and concrete objects and what kind of objects can have pain. These facts were the “new” facts beyond just knowing everything there was to know about the antecedent “numberish” facts. But in the original objection, there are no new types of facts beyond the objective facts that could help me erase the appearance of contingency, because objective and subjective facts exhaust all facts.
I would note that I am not criticizing the distinction between a relation of necessity and one of synthesizability per se. Stoljar has used this effectively elsewhere (as in this paper). I just think it doesn’t do the job in this particular case.
Now I’d be grateful if anyone finds fault with my analysis here. For now, though, the reply Stoljar offers in this section was a rare passage in a clearly argued book which I found unconvincing.
Conclusion:
The somewhat complicated reply to the objection from objectivity was unconvincing to me. I think there is still room to believe that the evident dichotomy of all truths into subjective and objective truths remains a key obstacle to dissolving the logical problem of consciousness in favor of a materialist stance.
Now the way this objection is framed (that is, non-experiential truths are those known via the objective point of view and experiential truths are defined as those known through the subjective point of view) poses a challenge for Stoljar. He cannot argue against the following statement:
1. Even if you were to know all the objective (non-experiential) truths you would still not thereby know the subjective (experiential) truths.
Stoljar notes that this statement is analytic and flows from the terms of the objection. So he will try to form a reply by arguing that the following seemingly natural inference from statement #1 actually does not follow:
2. Even if you were to know all the objective facts, there will still appear to you to be an element of contingency in the relation between the objective and subjective facts.
It is this appearance of contingency or lack of entailment that is the basis for a third statement:
3. CA and KA will continue to be forceful no matter how many objective facts we learn.
Stoljar’s wants reject the inference from #1 to #2. His first strategy for doing this is to set up in parallel a counterexample thus:
4. John is in pain
This, he explains, is clearly a subjective truth. Then, since #4 is subjective then it negation must be as well:
5. John is not in pain
Next we have:
6. If John is a number, then he is not in pain.
Note this is a necessary truth. And since the antecedent of #6:
7. John is a number
is an objective truth, then we have an example where an objective truth entails a subjective truth. Putting this all in a form which mimics (1) and (2) above, we have:
8. Even if I were to know that John is a number, I would not thereby know that he is not in pain.
9. Even if I were to know that John is a number, there would still appear to me to be an element of contingency in the relation between John’s being a number and his not being in pain.
The inference from #8 to #9 is invalid, since #8 is true and #9 is false. Since this parallels #1 and #2, Stoljar says that inference is also false. When I read this the first time, I found the form of the counterexample fine, but its content was so different than #1 and #2 that I didn’t feel its force. I should also note he says we could use the slightly less strange “If John does not exist, then he is not in pain” as a substitute statement #6. But Stoljar senses the reader will need more help to flesh this all out.
So, continuing the discussion, Stoljar says he wants to distinguish the idea that the objective facts entail the subjective facts from the idea that understanding all the objective facts entails an understanding of the subjective ones. He introduces the idea that {if A then B} could be necessary but not synthesizable. Here’s his definition of synthesizable: “{If A then B} is synthesizable if and only if in every possible world in which S understands A, then S understands (or is in a position to understand) B – for short, if and only if understanding A entails understanding B.” Stoljar says the statement #1 above shows that subjective facts are not synthesizable from objective facts, but does not entail statement #2 – the relation could still be necessary and could appear to us as necessary, given future lifting of the veil of ignorance. To show that something could be not synthesizable but still appear necessary, Stoljar offers further examples such as this: if x is colored, then x is extended. Understanding about x being colored doesn’t entail understanding about what it is for it to be extended, but we can see that the conditional statement indeed describes a necessary relation given our possession of all the relevant facts. Again, in reading this, I found the content of Stoljar’s example to be different enough from that of #1 and #2 that I began to contemplate what could be faulty about the parallel.
For me, despite the examples, it was difficult to see that that one could ever concede the non-synthesizability of the subjective facts from the objective facts but come to find them appearing nonetheless entailed by them. But – and here again that is what makes the epistemic view slippery – Stoljar might say my feeling on this is just due to my ignorance! Can I flesh out a specific disanalogy in Stoljar’s examples which makes them lose force? I’ll give it a try.
The difference is that in the original case the two types of truths (objective and subjective) are presumed by definition to be exhaustive of all truths. In the cases of Stoljar’s examples, the additional facts which led us to see that {if A then B} could be necessary even when not synthesizable invoked other types of facts beyond the types represented by A and B. In the original counterexample #8 and #9 I need to know about abstract and concrete objects and what kind of objects can have pain. These facts were the “new” facts beyond just knowing everything there was to know about the antecedent “numberish” facts. But in the original objection, there are no new types of facts beyond the objective facts that could help me erase the appearance of contingency, because objective and subjective facts exhaust all facts.
I would note that I am not criticizing the distinction between a relation of necessity and one of synthesizability per se. Stoljar has used this effectively elsewhere (as in this paper). I just think it doesn’t do the job in this particular case.
Now I’d be grateful if anyone finds fault with my analysis here. For now, though, the reply Stoljar offers in this section was a rare passage in a clearly argued book which I found unconvincing.
Conclusion:
The somewhat complicated reply to the objection from objectivity was unconvincing to me. I think there is still room to believe that the evident dichotomy of all truths into subjective and objective truths remains a key obstacle to dissolving the logical problem of consciousness in favor of a materialist stance.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
The Objection from Structure and Dynamics
This is the first in a series of three posts which take a closer look at certain sections of Daniel Stoljar’s book Ignorance and Imagination: The Epistemic Origin of the Problem of Consciousness. In his Chapter 8 he discusses and replies to 2 possible objections to his thesis, and these will be the focus of this post and the next. In another follow-up post I want to discuss his treatment of the Russellian (“neutral monist”) stance.
Backdrop:
To review, Stoljar usefully frames the logical problem of consciousness as follows. We have reason to endorse a triad of inconsistent statements:
1. There are experiential truths.
2. If there are experiential truths, every experiential truth is entailed by some non-experiential truth.
3. If there are experiential truths, NOT every experiential truth is entailed by some non-experiential truth.
Briefly and roughly, experiential truths are events of phenomenal and subjective character for which it is like something to undergo them. Stoljar (rightly in my opinion) takes #1 above to be obvious and does not spend much time on it. We have reason to believe #2 above given the track record of explaining manifest or folk truths in terms of scientific descriptions (which, to-date, all seem to coherently supervene on ground-level truths of physical theory). We might reasonably expect a correct treatment of experience in terms of non-experiential scientific truths to follow in due course. Someone holding to the philosophical position of physicalism (or materialism, to use the older term) accepts #2 and rejects #3. As an aside, I think Stoljar’s choice of using the term “non-experiential” rather than “physical” where possible is helpful, since it is always possible to get distracted in defining “physical” – although there are times where you need to revisit this.
We have reason to believe #3 above due to a number of related arguments, especially those known as the conceivability and knowledge arguments (“CA” and “KA”). For the purposes of my posts, I will presume familiarity with these; for a quick reference on these as well for the objection to Stoljar considered below, see David Chalmer’s paper Consciousness and its Place in Nature (this is also the paper which has his useful taxonomy of positions on the problem – Stoljar’s would be a form of “Type-C” materialism); for a more recent extended treatment of CA from Chalmers, see this paper. Dualists and other critics of physicalism accept #3 and reject #2.
In his book, Stoljar considers and rejects criticisms of CA/KA in the literature with the exception of his own, which he argues is successful. His (disarmingly modest-seeming) stance is an epistemic one, arguing CA/KA fail because we are ignorant of a type of “experience-relevant non-experiential truth”. It is only this ignorance which gives CA and KA their force, and if all the facts were known, we would all reject #3 and accept #2.
In his Chapter 8, Stoljar considers some possible objections and offers replies. He gives a general form of an objection (a master argument) as follows (some paraphrasing): we know we’re ignorant of many things, but we know enough to know that any relevant non-experiential truth is going to be characterized by some Factor X. The problem we have now which leads to the reasonableness of #3 will always re-emerge when we consider these new truths as a result.
Now, let me digress and admit that in similar discussions in the past I might have already given into a temptation to stop and protest: “how can it be that experiential truths can ever be entailed by (or “emerge” from) non-experiential truths? Isn’t the idea of “experience-relevant non-experiential truth incoherent?” Similar sentiments abounded in the Galen Strawson paper I praised and linked to a short while ago (btw, Stoljar has recently posted a response to the Strawson paper). But, in terms of Stoljar’s explicitly epistemic argument, one is not entitled to this response at this point. If the view is correct, then the notion only seems incoherent because of my ignorance. So, we must soldier on and put more flesh on what it is about non-experiential truths (Factor X) which has and will continue to make them incapable of appearing to entail experiential truths.
The Objection from “Structure and Dynamics”
The first candidate for Factor X Stoljar considers, stemming from Chalmers, invokes the idea that physical descriptions invariably characterize phenomena in terms of “structure and dynamics” (sometimes “structure and function” – see the first paper linked to above as well as Chapter 3, section 2 of The Conscious Mind). For any structural or functional explanation of consciousness, we’ll always be able to further ask why such a structure or function is accompanied by experience. Experience will not be entailed by the structural/functional explanation.
Stoljar, reading and interpreting Chalmers, says structure involves either a spatiotemporal relation or the property of playing a certain causal role – in other words what philosophers might also call dispositional or relational properties. Dynamics refers to how the system changes its dispositional or relational properties through time. So, instead of structure and dynamics, one could say “relations and dispositions”. Yet another way to put it is to say that we are referring to extrinsic properties. It is then asserted that these cannot be said to entail intrinsic properties, and experiential truths concern intrinsic properties. In replying to Chalmers, Stoljar refers to structure and dynamics, but says his reply would still hold force if we utilize these other terms.
Stoljar’s first reply to the objection is to say that while we can categorize physical descriptions in term of non-experiential structure and dynamics there also are experiential structure and dynamics. The experiential field has varying degrees of intensity, unity and dispositional qualities (such as a pain getting worse if I move a certain way). So, Stoljar asserts that if one knew everything about structure and dynamics, one would also know about some experiential structure and dynamics. Now, Chalmers might say that knowing about physical structure and dynamics will not help with the distinctively experiential variety of these. But why not? I think Stoljar’s response is effective up to this point.
Chalmers or his stand-in might say next, however, that experiential truths necessarily include another type of truth untouched by structure and dynamics. If so, Stoljar needs to know what this is so as not to beg the original question. A candidate might be intrinsic (non-relational, non-dispositional) properties. Stoljar next replies to this suggestion. He says while it seems that experiences have intrinsic properties (such as the blueness of an expanse of blue sky), it is really the representation of the sky which has the intrinsic property not the experience itself. I thought this was a weak response. It invokes a distinct and controversial argument regarding the representational nature of experience which is orthogonal to the debate at hand.
But Stoljar then offers a second reply to this revised version of the objection (to recapitulate: the idea is that experiential truths sometimes involve intrinsic properties, non-experiential truths never do, and you can’t get derive intrinsic truths from extrinsic ones). He offers examples such as the following: being a husband is an extrinsic (relational) property of Jack Spratt; and being a wife is an extrinsic property of Jack's wife; but being married is an intrinsic property of them as a pair. So the intrinsic fact of the whole did indeed derive from the relational facts of the parts. But, one might respond that this part/whole discussion misses the point when it is argued that it is the extrinsic description of a single thing that will fail to entail the intrinsic nature of that same thing. But, Stoljar seems comfortable to leave things here, thinking one can always assert a relational parts->intrinsic whole for any complex object, and since our starting point is the experience of a complex human individual, this reply has some force. The objector has just one defense left: he could assert that the world has an intrinsic nature at its most basic indivisible level. At this point, the dialectic stops, since the idea that all physical reality has an intrinsic nature relates to the Russellian view that Stoljar treats separately (as will I).
Conclusion
I think Stoljar’s reply to the objection from structure and dynamics is successful up to a point. He pushes the objector toward arguing for an intrinsic nature at the basic level of the world, rather than for a composite individual such as a human per se.
Backdrop:
To review, Stoljar usefully frames the logical problem of consciousness as follows. We have reason to endorse a triad of inconsistent statements:
1. There are experiential truths.
2. If there are experiential truths, every experiential truth is entailed by some non-experiential truth.
3. If there are experiential truths, NOT every experiential truth is entailed by some non-experiential truth.
Briefly and roughly, experiential truths are events of phenomenal and subjective character for which it is like something to undergo them. Stoljar (rightly in my opinion) takes #1 above to be obvious and does not spend much time on it. We have reason to believe #2 above given the track record of explaining manifest or folk truths in terms of scientific descriptions (which, to-date, all seem to coherently supervene on ground-level truths of physical theory). We might reasonably expect a correct treatment of experience in terms of non-experiential scientific truths to follow in due course. Someone holding to the philosophical position of physicalism (or materialism, to use the older term) accepts #2 and rejects #3. As an aside, I think Stoljar’s choice of using the term “non-experiential” rather than “physical” where possible is helpful, since it is always possible to get distracted in defining “physical” – although there are times where you need to revisit this.
We have reason to believe #3 above due to a number of related arguments, especially those known as the conceivability and knowledge arguments (“CA” and “KA”). For the purposes of my posts, I will presume familiarity with these; for a quick reference on these as well for the objection to Stoljar considered below, see David Chalmer’s paper Consciousness and its Place in Nature (this is also the paper which has his useful taxonomy of positions on the problem – Stoljar’s would be a form of “Type-C” materialism); for a more recent extended treatment of CA from Chalmers, see this paper. Dualists and other critics of physicalism accept #3 and reject #2.
In his book, Stoljar considers and rejects criticisms of CA/KA in the literature with the exception of his own, which he argues is successful. His (disarmingly modest-seeming) stance is an epistemic one, arguing CA/KA fail because we are ignorant of a type of “experience-relevant non-experiential truth”. It is only this ignorance which gives CA and KA their force, and if all the facts were known, we would all reject #3 and accept #2.
In his Chapter 8, Stoljar considers some possible objections and offers replies. He gives a general form of an objection (a master argument) as follows (some paraphrasing): we know we’re ignorant of many things, but we know enough to know that any relevant non-experiential truth is going to be characterized by some Factor X. The problem we have now which leads to the reasonableness of #3 will always re-emerge when we consider these new truths as a result.
Now, let me digress and admit that in similar discussions in the past I might have already given into a temptation to stop and protest: “how can it be that experiential truths can ever be entailed by (or “emerge” from) non-experiential truths? Isn’t the idea of “experience-relevant non-experiential truth incoherent?” Similar sentiments abounded in the Galen Strawson paper I praised and linked to a short while ago (btw, Stoljar has recently posted a response to the Strawson paper). But, in terms of Stoljar’s explicitly epistemic argument, one is not entitled to this response at this point. If the view is correct, then the notion only seems incoherent because of my ignorance. So, we must soldier on and put more flesh on what it is about non-experiential truths (Factor X) which has and will continue to make them incapable of appearing to entail experiential truths.
The Objection from “Structure and Dynamics”
The first candidate for Factor X Stoljar considers, stemming from Chalmers, invokes the idea that physical descriptions invariably characterize phenomena in terms of “structure and dynamics” (sometimes “structure and function” – see the first paper linked to above as well as Chapter 3, section 2 of The Conscious Mind). For any structural or functional explanation of consciousness, we’ll always be able to further ask why such a structure or function is accompanied by experience. Experience will not be entailed by the structural/functional explanation.
Stoljar, reading and interpreting Chalmers, says structure involves either a spatiotemporal relation or the property of playing a certain causal role – in other words what philosophers might also call dispositional or relational properties. Dynamics refers to how the system changes its dispositional or relational properties through time. So, instead of structure and dynamics, one could say “relations and dispositions”. Yet another way to put it is to say that we are referring to extrinsic properties. It is then asserted that these cannot be said to entail intrinsic properties, and experiential truths concern intrinsic properties. In replying to Chalmers, Stoljar refers to structure and dynamics, but says his reply would still hold force if we utilize these other terms.
Stoljar’s first reply to the objection is to say that while we can categorize physical descriptions in term of non-experiential structure and dynamics there also are experiential structure and dynamics. The experiential field has varying degrees of intensity, unity and dispositional qualities (such as a pain getting worse if I move a certain way). So, Stoljar asserts that if one knew everything about structure and dynamics, one would also know about some experiential structure and dynamics. Now, Chalmers might say that knowing about physical structure and dynamics will not help with the distinctively experiential variety of these. But why not? I think Stoljar’s response is effective up to this point.
Chalmers or his stand-in might say next, however, that experiential truths necessarily include another type of truth untouched by structure and dynamics. If so, Stoljar needs to know what this is so as not to beg the original question. A candidate might be intrinsic (non-relational, non-dispositional) properties. Stoljar next replies to this suggestion. He says while it seems that experiences have intrinsic properties (such as the blueness of an expanse of blue sky), it is really the representation of the sky which has the intrinsic property not the experience itself. I thought this was a weak response. It invokes a distinct and controversial argument regarding the representational nature of experience which is orthogonal to the debate at hand.
But Stoljar then offers a second reply to this revised version of the objection (to recapitulate: the idea is that experiential truths sometimes involve intrinsic properties, non-experiential truths never do, and you can’t get derive intrinsic truths from extrinsic ones). He offers examples such as the following: being a husband is an extrinsic (relational) property of Jack Spratt; and being a wife is an extrinsic property of Jack's wife; but being married is an intrinsic property of them as a pair. So the intrinsic fact of the whole did indeed derive from the relational facts of the parts. But, one might respond that this part/whole discussion misses the point when it is argued that it is the extrinsic description of a single thing that will fail to entail the intrinsic nature of that same thing. But, Stoljar seems comfortable to leave things here, thinking one can always assert a relational parts->intrinsic whole for any complex object, and since our starting point is the experience of a complex human individual, this reply has some force. The objector has just one defense left: he could assert that the world has an intrinsic nature at its most basic indivisible level. At this point, the dialectic stops, since the idea that all physical reality has an intrinsic nature relates to the Russellian view that Stoljar treats separately (as will I).
Conclusion
I think Stoljar’s reply to the objection from structure and dynamics is successful up to a point. He pushes the objector toward arguing for an intrinsic nature at the basic level of the world, rather than for a composite individual such as a human per se.
Friday, August 11, 2006
The Facts Are Not All In
I benefited from reading Daniel Stoljar’s book, Ignorance and Imagination: The Epistemic Origin of the Problem of Consciousness. The book defends the thesis that the problem of phenomenal conscious experience in contemporary philosophy of mind is rooted in our ignorance of a type of “experience-relevant non-experiential truth”. (See the brief blurb from David Chalmer’s blog here and also visit Conscious Entities and scroll down to see the recent review there[UPDATE 22 Feb.2007: the permalink is here]).
In defending his thesis, Stoljar does a great job reviewing and summarizing many of the debates of the last couple of decades. He invariably takes complicated arguments and simplifies their language and structure as he moves his discussion along. The book is valuable for this aspect alone.
In terms of his position, it’s a fairly modest idea – we’re ignorant about something relevant but of course he can’t say what it is! It does, however, seem a reasonable position to hold. He argues that this epistemic view of the problem is successful in undermining the conceivability and knowledge arguments which conclude that experiential truths are not all entailed by the non-experiential truths. Importantly, though, he is also arguing that none of the various philosophical/conceptual refutations of these arguments work. According to Stoljar the problem of consciousness is not one where the debate can be won “from the armchair” within the confines of philosophy of mind at the present time.
I’m sympathetic to this since I also think we need to triangulate on the problem using other considerations. At the same time, given the imperfect terms of the debate, I don’t think Stoljar is entitled to the conclusion that our ignorance is specifically of non-experiential truths. It is equally plausible, for instance, that the new truths would not be considered “non-experiential”, but as truths upon which both experiential and non-experiential truths (as we currently conceive of them) supervene. He considers a view very much like this (due to Russell), but concludes (wrongly in my humble opinion) that it is best thought of as an instance of his epistemic view.
I have some more thoughts provoked from my reading which I’ll try to develop into another post, but for now let me reiterate my admiration for the book: it’s very well written and is recommended for those who follow these debates.
In defending his thesis, Stoljar does a great job reviewing and summarizing many of the debates of the last couple of decades. He invariably takes complicated arguments and simplifies their language and structure as he moves his discussion along. The book is valuable for this aspect alone.
In terms of his position, it’s a fairly modest idea – we’re ignorant about something relevant but of course he can’t say what it is! It does, however, seem a reasonable position to hold. He argues that this epistemic view of the problem is successful in undermining the conceivability and knowledge arguments which conclude that experiential truths are not all entailed by the non-experiential truths. Importantly, though, he is also arguing that none of the various philosophical/conceptual refutations of these arguments work. According to Stoljar the problem of consciousness is not one where the debate can be won “from the armchair” within the confines of philosophy of mind at the present time.
I’m sympathetic to this since I also think we need to triangulate on the problem using other considerations. At the same time, given the imperfect terms of the debate, I don’t think Stoljar is entitled to the conclusion that our ignorance is specifically of non-experiential truths. It is equally plausible, for instance, that the new truths would not be considered “non-experiential”, but as truths upon which both experiential and non-experiential truths (as we currently conceive of them) supervene. He considers a view very much like this (due to Russell), but concludes (wrongly in my humble opinion) that it is best thought of as an instance of his epistemic view.
I have some more thoughts provoked from my reading which I’ll try to develop into another post, but for now let me reiterate my admiration for the book: it’s very well written and is recommended for those who follow these debates.
Friday, June 09, 2006
What Physicalism Can't Allow
A couple of posts ago I said “…an account of genuine ontological emergence…must fail, given an assumption of physicalism.” Fortuitously, this issue was explored in depth in a paper posted by Terry Horgan in the last week of the recent Online Philosophy Conference entitled Materialism: Matters of Definition, Defense, and Deconstruction. There was also an interesting commentary on the paper by Thomas W. Polger. Of the several related topics explored in Horgan’s paper, one crucial issue was whether necessary “inter-level” metaphysical relations which go beyond physics are allowed or not for the materialist. (Please note that “materialism” and “physicalism” refer to the same thing – the older term has been ‘winning out’ in recent times it seems).
In the first part of his paper, Horgan sets out to take the pre-theoretic conception of materialism which he thinks most people share and create a rigorous definition.
I’m going to summarize the first parts of his formulation quickly, so please refer to the paper for the real thing. His effort is in the spirit of ideas from David Lewis and Frank Jackson, among others. Horgan utilizes “physically possible worlds”, which are possible worlds which have the same physical laws and entities as the actual world (“worlds” here mean maximal propositions: the actual world instantiates a possible world). Then to help screen out physically possible worlds that have superfluous non-physical stuff, he utilizes also uses the notion of a “minimal physical duplicate” of a world, which duplicates a world’s physical stuff but contains nothing beyond whatever is needed for it to be a physical duplicate. His definition of materialism then says that the actual world is such a minimal physical duplicate of itself, and for any 2 physically possible worlds, their minimal duplicates are identical. So, the actual world has no extra non-physical stuff; further, all physically possible worlds (which like the actual one lack superfluous non-physical stuff) must be the same in all respects.
[UPDATE/CORRECTION - JAN 26,2007: A helpful e-mail correspondent has pointed out a couple of problems in the the last two sentences of my summary above. First, where I say "for any 2 physically possible worlds, their minimal duplicates are identical" -- this will only be true only if the worlds selected are alike in all physical detail, not just laws and types of entities (Horgan's text doesn't say this, but it is implied) Then my last sentence has two mistakes: I should not have said all physically possible worlds must be the same in all respects; further, while the definition specifies that the actual world doesn't have superflous stuff (since it is a minimal duplicate of itself), there is no attempt here to rule out superfluous stuff at all physically possible worlds. I apologize for the errors.]
Horgan further adds a loophole-closer ruling out worlds having more than one spatio-temporal regions within them which are physically identical but otherwise differ.
So far this is somewhat familiar territory, but Horgan next explores one of the thorniest and most interesting aspects of defining physicalism.
Even the formulation given above isn’t enough to meet our pre-theoretic concept of materialism, says Horgan, and he adds a final part to his formulation. He worries that someone could propose a necessary metaphysical supervenience connection between certain high level non-physical properties and low level physical properties where such connection is brute and could not be derived from other facts. Such a “strong emergentist” proposal is not ruled out by the modal appeal to minimal physical-duplicate worlds in the definition (the necessary connections would exist in all worlds).
So he adds another clause to his formulation of materialism which says: “there are no brute inter-level relations of metaphysical necessitation linking physical particulars or properties to non-physical particulars or properties.”
Polger wonders if this clause amounts to “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.” Horgan is led to the clause by considering some examples of strong emergence which seem obviously unacceptable to the physicalist. These include G.E. Moore’s meta-ethical position that “intrinsic goodness” necessarily supervenes on the physical; and, of course the example of immaterial Cartesian minds brutely and necessarily emerging when a human brain is formed. Polger says: “is it generally true that being a relata of a metaphysically fundamental necessitation relation disqualifies a property from being physically acceptable? I don’t think so.” He then lists some examples which he thinks would be OK. These include: causal relata; the whole individual’s relations to its parts; identity relations between higher level and lower level concepts (water and H2O). Polger argues that just because some examples of brute metaphysical relations are not compatible with physicalism doesn’t mean they all are.
Polger concludes that the extra clause goes too far. He concedes it would remain an interesting and important question which metaphysical relations are physically “kosher” and which are not, and how we decide this. Further he says it remains a particularly difficult problem to see how phenomenal consciousness will be made to fit into the picture. “But it should be clear enough that we need not answer that question by consulting physics alone…Why think that physics itself could be the source of not only the basic entities and properties but also the source of all ontological relations?”
Well, I think that most materialists/physicalists do think physics itself is (or will be) adequate and therefore Horgan is right to include his additional clause. I find Polger’s objection to be very interesting because, apart from serious metaphysicians themselves, one never sees advocates of materialism conceding that it is an inadequate metaphysics without explicitly adding relations (or entities) which go beyond current or contemplated physics. While scholars continue to debate competing theories of causality and ontology, most folks appear to assume one can be a materialist without troubling too much about these difficult topics.
There is a good deal more to Horgan’s paper (also Polger’s response) than what I have discussed here; the heart of the paper concerns how one can go about defending materialism as defined, and what are the prospects for success. This focuses on finding “kosher” or materialist-friendly ways to conceptualize the phenomena in the world which we describe using non-physical vocabulary. He notes how difficult this is especially when it comes to phenomenal concepts, and concludes that philosophers have yet to successfully defend materialism by providing adequate accounts of these concepts.
In the first part of his paper, Horgan sets out to take the pre-theoretic conception of materialism which he thinks most people share and create a rigorous definition.
I’m going to summarize the first parts of his formulation quickly, so please refer to the paper for the real thing. His effort is in the spirit of ideas from David Lewis and Frank Jackson, among others. Horgan utilizes “physically possible worlds”, which are possible worlds which have the same physical laws and entities as the actual world (“worlds” here mean maximal propositions: the actual world instantiates a possible world). Then to help screen out physically possible worlds that have superfluous non-physical stuff, he utilizes also uses the notion of a “minimal physical duplicate” of a world, which duplicates a world’s physical stuff but contains nothing beyond whatever is needed for it to be a physical duplicate. His definition of materialism then says that the actual world is such a minimal physical duplicate of itself, and for any 2 physically possible worlds, their minimal duplicates are identical. So, the actual world has no extra non-physical stuff; further, all physically possible worlds (which like the actual one lack superfluous non-physical stuff) must be the same in all respects.
[UPDATE/CORRECTION - JAN 26,2007: A helpful e-mail correspondent has pointed out a couple of problems in the the last two sentences of my summary above. First, where I say "for any 2 physically possible worlds, their minimal duplicates are identical" -- this will only be true only if the worlds selected are alike in all physical detail, not just laws and types of entities (Horgan's text doesn't say this, but it is implied) Then my last sentence has two mistakes: I should not have said all physically possible worlds must be the same in all respects; further, while the definition specifies that the actual world doesn't have superflous stuff (since it is a minimal duplicate of itself), there is no attempt here to rule out superfluous stuff at all physically possible worlds. I apologize for the errors.]
Horgan further adds a loophole-closer ruling out worlds having more than one spatio-temporal regions within them which are physically identical but otherwise differ.
So far this is somewhat familiar territory, but Horgan next explores one of the thorniest and most interesting aspects of defining physicalism.
Even the formulation given above isn’t enough to meet our pre-theoretic concept of materialism, says Horgan, and he adds a final part to his formulation. He worries that someone could propose a necessary metaphysical supervenience connection between certain high level non-physical properties and low level physical properties where such connection is brute and could not be derived from other facts. Such a “strong emergentist” proposal is not ruled out by the modal appeal to minimal physical-duplicate worlds in the definition (the necessary connections would exist in all worlds).
So he adds another clause to his formulation of materialism which says: “there are no brute inter-level relations of metaphysical necessitation linking physical particulars or properties to non-physical particulars or properties.”
Polger wonders if this clause amounts to “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.” Horgan is led to the clause by considering some examples of strong emergence which seem obviously unacceptable to the physicalist. These include G.E. Moore’s meta-ethical position that “intrinsic goodness” necessarily supervenes on the physical; and, of course the example of immaterial Cartesian minds brutely and necessarily emerging when a human brain is formed. Polger says: “is it generally true that being a relata of a metaphysically fundamental necessitation relation disqualifies a property from being physically acceptable? I don’t think so.” He then lists some examples which he thinks would be OK. These include: causal relata; the whole individual’s relations to its parts; identity relations between higher level and lower level concepts (water and H2O). Polger argues that just because some examples of brute metaphysical relations are not compatible with physicalism doesn’t mean they all are.
Polger concludes that the extra clause goes too far. He concedes it would remain an interesting and important question which metaphysical relations are physically “kosher” and which are not, and how we decide this. Further he says it remains a particularly difficult problem to see how phenomenal consciousness will be made to fit into the picture. “But it should be clear enough that we need not answer that question by consulting physics alone…Why think that physics itself could be the source of not only the basic entities and properties but also the source of all ontological relations?”
Well, I think that most materialists/physicalists do think physics itself is (or will be) adequate and therefore Horgan is right to include his additional clause. I find Polger’s objection to be very interesting because, apart from serious metaphysicians themselves, one never sees advocates of materialism conceding that it is an inadequate metaphysics without explicitly adding relations (or entities) which go beyond current or contemplated physics. While scholars continue to debate competing theories of causality and ontology, most folks appear to assume one can be a materialist without troubling too much about these difficult topics.
There is a good deal more to Horgan’s paper (also Polger’s response) than what I have discussed here; the heart of the paper concerns how one can go about defending materialism as defined, and what are the prospects for success. This focuses on finding “kosher” or materialist-friendly ways to conceptualize the phenomena in the world which we describe using non-physical vocabulary. He notes how difficult this is especially when it comes to phenomenal concepts, and concludes that philosophers have yet to successfully defend materialism by providing adequate accounts of these concepts.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Materialists Missing the Point
I want to discuss 2 strategies I see used by advocates of materialism when trying to counter the devastating objection that materialism cannot account for the existence of first-person phenomenal experience. Both of the strategies make an insightful point, but then overstate the traction of this point on the essential problem thereby showing the materialists don’t really "get" the problem.
The first strategy is to improve upon the traditional materialist argument that experiential states are necessarily identical to brain states (“internalist materialism”). Rather, we should identify the contents of experience with external happenings. Here, brain states represent contents which themselves are external to the body (e.g. the impact of light waves on the surface of the apple). I just saw a reference to this strategy in this review of Gregg Rosenberg’s book by Paul Skokowski. Skokowski misses the point. Arguing that (at least some of) the contents of consciousness (“qualia”) are outside the cranium is a good idea, but experience itself is not thereby reduced to a material explanation. First off, I still believe the contents have a qualitative character which resists reduction; but perhaps more importantly, qualia are only one aspect of the 2-sided nature of experience itself: phenomenal contents exist only in order to be subjectively experienced. As Rosenberg explains better than I can here, experience is a process which by its nature has inseparable dual aspects of an experiencer as well as the experienced. Even if you could reduce one aspect of the process (qualia) to the physical, you cannot reduce both aspects of the process to the physical without effectively eliminating experience from your world-model altogether. Now, to repeat my point from above, I do think the externalist concept of qualia is an important insight to consider. The best description of this I have read is from Max Velmans, whose book Understanding Consciousness I recommend. Because Velmans truly understands the issues here, however, he is not a materialist.
The second strategy is most famously included in Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained. It is a straw man argument which tries to show that the experiencer doesn’t exist. It proceeds by first arguing that the common sense notion of our first-person experience requires the existence of a homunculus which is the observer of qualia (thus breaking into distinct parts what really is an intrinsically dual-aspect process). Then it proceeds to show that our everyday idea of the self (which is like a homunculus) is an illusory concept. Here, the valid insight is that our reflective, introspective sense of self is a fragile and flawed construct which is at least one step removed from experience itself. Many studies show the “self” to be less unified and robust than we tend to think, and Libet’s experiments even put into question whether this self-construct has the ability to impact our actions! But while careful phenomenology will concur that the reflective (deliberative, introspective) self is a psychological construct of sorts (see for instance this post), it has as its precedent and its foundation real and unmediated first-person experience. So the argument that our naïve idea of self is a flawed concept has no impact on the reality of experience itself.
Note on Terminology: I’ve been noticing that both advocates and critics are returning to the use of the term “materialism” rather than “physicalism” to label the position. The idea is that even though we know that the word “material” is unable to do justice to the nature of the phenomena described by present day physics, materialism seems an easier and less obscure term compared to physicalism. BTW, while the incidence of this may be declining, I continue to emphasize that it is a mistake to conflate materialism with naturalism. Naturalism is a broader term which includes materialism as a sub-theory but can also encompass theories which expand upon the entities and/or processes of physics without invoking traditionally “supernatural” entities or processes such as mind/spirit substances or ad hoc divine interventions.
The first strategy is to improve upon the traditional materialist argument that experiential states are necessarily identical to brain states (“internalist materialism”). Rather, we should identify the contents of experience with external happenings. Here, brain states represent contents which themselves are external to the body (e.g. the impact of light waves on the surface of the apple). I just saw a reference to this strategy in this review of Gregg Rosenberg’s book by Paul Skokowski. Skokowski misses the point. Arguing that (at least some of) the contents of consciousness (“qualia”) are outside the cranium is a good idea, but experience itself is not thereby reduced to a material explanation. First off, I still believe the contents have a qualitative character which resists reduction; but perhaps more importantly, qualia are only one aspect of the 2-sided nature of experience itself: phenomenal contents exist only in order to be subjectively experienced. As Rosenberg explains better than I can here, experience is a process which by its nature has inseparable dual aspects of an experiencer as well as the experienced. Even if you could reduce one aspect of the process (qualia) to the physical, you cannot reduce both aspects of the process to the physical without effectively eliminating experience from your world-model altogether. Now, to repeat my point from above, I do think the externalist concept of qualia is an important insight to consider. The best description of this I have read is from Max Velmans, whose book Understanding Consciousness I recommend. Because Velmans truly understands the issues here, however, he is not a materialist.
The second strategy is most famously included in Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained. It is a straw man argument which tries to show that the experiencer doesn’t exist. It proceeds by first arguing that the common sense notion of our first-person experience requires the existence of a homunculus which is the observer of qualia (thus breaking into distinct parts what really is an intrinsically dual-aspect process). Then it proceeds to show that our everyday idea of the self (which is like a homunculus) is an illusory concept. Here, the valid insight is that our reflective, introspective sense of self is a fragile and flawed construct which is at least one step removed from experience itself. Many studies show the “self” to be less unified and robust than we tend to think, and Libet’s experiments even put into question whether this self-construct has the ability to impact our actions! But while careful phenomenology will concur that the reflective (deliberative, introspective) self is a psychological construct of sorts (see for instance this post), it has as its precedent and its foundation real and unmediated first-person experience. So the argument that our naïve idea of self is a flawed concept has no impact on the reality of experience itself.
Note on Terminology: I’ve been noticing that both advocates and critics are returning to the use of the term “materialism” rather than “physicalism” to label the position. The idea is that even though we know that the word “material” is unable to do justice to the nature of the phenomena described by present day physics, materialism seems an easier and less obscure term compared to physicalism. BTW, while the incidence of this may be declining, I continue to emphasize that it is a mistake to conflate materialism with naturalism. Naturalism is a broader term which includes materialism as a sub-theory but can also encompass theories which expand upon the entities and/or processes of physics without invoking traditionally “supernatural” entities or processes such as mind/spirit substances or ad hoc divine interventions.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Chalmers Still on the Case
David Chalmers (home page, blog) has a new paper (The Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism) which provides a definitive and comprehensive update of his work on the “conceivability argument” and related issues. Defense of this argument over the last decade has led him to broaden the turf: the bulk of the paper goes beyond the mind/body issue to a general defense of the premise that conceivability implies metaphysical possibility; in other words, an epistemic premise (about what one can conceive) can lead to a modal conclusion (about what is possible).
I won’t try to summarize the paper in this post (other than a bare-bones sketch of the original conceivability and 2-dimensional arguments below). It is very thorough and I found the cumulative impact of Chalmer’s responses to various critics to be powerful.
I also think a section tucked in late in the paper is thought provoking(Section 10 – Modal Rationalism). Here he steps back and wonders about the implications of his defense of the premise that conceivability implies possibility. He talks about the crucial role modality plays in our capacity for rational thought. We need modal concepts to analyze various phenomena rationally -- he says you might call this logical modality and make use of logically possible worlds. And given Chalmer’s analysis in the body of the paper, there is no reason to think logically possible worlds and metaphysically possible worlds are different animals. Interesting stuff. I wonder, as always, about the ontological implications of this also. By virtue of what outside of ourselves is our capacity for rational modal thought based?
Sketch of conceivability and 2-dimensional arguments:
The conceivability argument has 3 premises (my paraphrase of the basic argument – the argument is presented in iterations of increasing precision over the course of the new paper): 1. A world physically just like ours with no first-person conscious experience is conceivable. 2. If such a world is conceivable, it is metaphysically possible. 3. If it is metaphysically possible, than materialism is false, since materialism is a metaphysical thesis which says physical facts necessarily entail all other facts, including experiential ones. The paper responds to a wide variety of objections posed, but most of the attention is on the second premise.
Let me just mention that the two-dimensional argument of the title (a version of which was already included in Chalmer’s 1996 book) was constructed to respond to what was the most common sort of this objection to the second premise. It is one of this sort (exemplified by using an example of Kripke’s): we can conceive of a world where water is not H2O, but it isn’t metaphysically possible -- we know that water is H2O. Chalmers breaks down the idea that {“water is not H2O” is conceivable} into two senses: the first (primary) is that there is a possible world where there is watery stuff (doing the job of water) which is not H2O. This is clearly conceivable. The secondary sense is that the stuff in the possible world isn’t watery stuff – it really is water! – then it is not conceivable that this water is not H2O. It is the primary sense of conceivability which we utilize in Chalmer’s second premise.
I won’t try to summarize the paper in this post (other than a bare-bones sketch of the original conceivability and 2-dimensional arguments below). It is very thorough and I found the cumulative impact of Chalmer’s responses to various critics to be powerful.
I also think a section tucked in late in the paper is thought provoking(Section 10 – Modal Rationalism). Here he steps back and wonders about the implications of his defense of the premise that conceivability implies possibility. He talks about the crucial role modality plays in our capacity for rational thought. We need modal concepts to analyze various phenomena rationally -- he says you might call this logical modality and make use of logically possible worlds. And given Chalmer’s analysis in the body of the paper, there is no reason to think logically possible worlds and metaphysically possible worlds are different animals. Interesting stuff. I wonder, as always, about the ontological implications of this also. By virtue of what outside of ourselves is our capacity for rational modal thought based?
Sketch of conceivability and 2-dimensional arguments:
The conceivability argument has 3 premises (my paraphrase of the basic argument – the argument is presented in iterations of increasing precision over the course of the new paper): 1. A world physically just like ours with no first-person conscious experience is conceivable. 2. If such a world is conceivable, it is metaphysically possible. 3. If it is metaphysically possible, than materialism is false, since materialism is a metaphysical thesis which says physical facts necessarily entail all other facts, including experiential ones. The paper responds to a wide variety of objections posed, but most of the attention is on the second premise.
Let me just mention that the two-dimensional argument of the title (a version of which was already included in Chalmer’s 1996 book) was constructed to respond to what was the most common sort of this objection to the second premise. It is one of this sort (exemplified by using an example of Kripke’s): we can conceive of a world where water is not H2O, but it isn’t metaphysically possible -- we know that water is H2O. Chalmers breaks down the idea that {“water is not H2O” is conceivable} into two senses: the first (primary) is that there is a possible world where there is watery stuff (doing the job of water) which is not H2O. This is clearly conceivable. The secondary sense is that the stuff in the possible world isn’t watery stuff – it really is water! – then it is not conceivable that this water is not H2O. It is the primary sense of conceivability which we utilize in Chalmer’s second premise.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Emergence Revisited
I want to update an opinion I’ve had about whether or not first-person subjective experience (FPE) -- the “hard” to explain aspect of consciousness -- is essentially an emergent phenomenon. In the past I believed that FPE is too radically unique a phenomenon to have just suddenly popped into the natural world because, say, the human nervous system reached some threshold level of complexity or functional organization. Even if human-style consciousness is uniquely robust in the natural world, I didn’t think FPE itself could arise in a world lacking some fundamental feature which was a precursor or building block.
It is this belief that helped set me off on the “road” to panexperientialism: the theory that an experiential aspect must be present in all of nature (the term is due to process philosopher David Ray Griffin).
Here is a counter-argument: emergent phenomena of all sorts are ubiquitous in nature, and this should make an account of FPE as emergent more plausible.
On this topic, I recently read A Different Universe, by physicist Robert B. Laughlin. The book is an extended essay stressing the role of emergent organizing laws in nature generally and in physics in particular (where we assume reductionist approaches have had their greatest success). Laughlin argues (compellingly I thought) that the world is constituted by a hierarchy of physical principles of organization, which often cannot be derived from principles governing the parts, and which furthermore are sometimes insensitive to compositional detail. Laughlin presents examples starting with phase organization of materials, from the more mundane (water) to the exotic (involving superfluidity and superconductivity). He then goes on to argue, more controversially, that systems of physical description up to and including relativity are descriptions of collective or emergent organizational principles. Emergence is not just about biology and social sciences, it’s about physics.
So, if “collective principles of organization are not just a quaint side show but everything – the true source of physical law”, what should we take from that? Well, I think it means we lack a well developed modern philosophical system (metaphysics) which is consistent with what we’ve learned about the natural world. The dominant metaphysical interpretation of naturalism is physicalism (the older version was materialism). While there is a vast literature on physicalism which makes generalizing dangerous, I find physicalist accounts to be typically inspired by reductionism and the analogy of mechanism. Emergent phenomena are not to be separately explained, but rather are asserted to supervene on lower level phenomena, and it is further assumed that the lowest level of nature is fully deterministic and causally closed. The fact that quantum physics is not conventionally deterministic doesn’t change this for most physicalists (although it should); they assume it adds a bit of randomizing, but doesn’t otherwise impact the story. I conclude that physicalism doesn’t explain well a world in which emergent phenomena exist at multiple levels of nature.
So, looking back, when I rejected the idea of first-person experience as a true emergent phenomenon, I was assuming that if it were (ontologically) emergent, it would be uniquely so in a world otherwise well explained by reductionist accounts. Therefore I sought an explanation of FPE in terms of simpler experiential ingredients – basically a reductionist account of experience to be (somehow) integrated with the paradigm account of the physical world. But if reductionist accounts are actually inadequate for physical phenomena, then the project is a different one. The goal is to develop a new metaphysics which is consistent with ubiquitous emergence, and then explain FPE in this new context.
In fact, I think it would be most productive to assume all natural systems above the quantum level are emergent – to be a natural system is to have been actualized from an underlying potential. As I recently discussed on this blog (here), the hierarchy of natural systems in the world may be made more explicable by utilizing an event ontology which has two poles: the set of potential realizable properties, and also an actualizing property which binds these into systems. And again I must plug Gregg Rosenberg’s excellent A Place for Consciousness, which presents a detailed proposal in this spirit (my original posts on the book are here and here). By the way, it turns out that his approach, while taking a different road than my old one, still entails a form of panexperientialism!
[As an aside, I recommend the Laughlin book for those interested in this subject matter, but I'll warn that I found it a bit annoying to read. I was put off by the many digressions and modestly amusing anecdotes and also some poor analogies (all meant to increase accessibility to the lay audience, I guess). Part of the problem is that I simultaneously started the latest Richard Dawkins book, which was spoiling me in terms of truly great science writing.]
It is this belief that helped set me off on the “road” to panexperientialism: the theory that an experiential aspect must be present in all of nature (the term is due to process philosopher David Ray Griffin).
Here is a counter-argument: emergent phenomena of all sorts are ubiquitous in nature, and this should make an account of FPE as emergent more plausible.
On this topic, I recently read A Different Universe, by physicist Robert B. Laughlin. The book is an extended essay stressing the role of emergent organizing laws in nature generally and in physics in particular (where we assume reductionist approaches have had their greatest success). Laughlin argues (compellingly I thought) that the world is constituted by a hierarchy of physical principles of organization, which often cannot be derived from principles governing the parts, and which furthermore are sometimes insensitive to compositional detail. Laughlin presents examples starting with phase organization of materials, from the more mundane (water) to the exotic (involving superfluidity and superconductivity). He then goes on to argue, more controversially, that systems of physical description up to and including relativity are descriptions of collective or emergent organizational principles. Emergence is not just about biology and social sciences, it’s about physics.
So, if “collective principles of organization are not just a quaint side show but everything – the true source of physical law”, what should we take from that? Well, I think it means we lack a well developed modern philosophical system (metaphysics) which is consistent with what we’ve learned about the natural world. The dominant metaphysical interpretation of naturalism is physicalism (the older version was materialism). While there is a vast literature on physicalism which makes generalizing dangerous, I find physicalist accounts to be typically inspired by reductionism and the analogy of mechanism. Emergent phenomena are not to be separately explained, but rather are asserted to supervene on lower level phenomena, and it is further assumed that the lowest level of nature is fully deterministic and causally closed. The fact that quantum physics is not conventionally deterministic doesn’t change this for most physicalists (although it should); they assume it adds a bit of randomizing, but doesn’t otherwise impact the story. I conclude that physicalism doesn’t explain well a world in which emergent phenomena exist at multiple levels of nature.
So, looking back, when I rejected the idea of first-person experience as a true emergent phenomenon, I was assuming that if it were (ontologically) emergent, it would be uniquely so in a world otherwise well explained by reductionist accounts. Therefore I sought an explanation of FPE in terms of simpler experiential ingredients – basically a reductionist account of experience to be (somehow) integrated with the paradigm account of the physical world. But if reductionist accounts are actually inadequate for physical phenomena, then the project is a different one. The goal is to develop a new metaphysics which is consistent with ubiquitous emergence, and then explain FPE in this new context.
In fact, I think it would be most productive to assume all natural systems above the quantum level are emergent – to be a natural system is to have been actualized from an underlying potential. As I recently discussed on this blog (here), the hierarchy of natural systems in the world may be made more explicable by utilizing an event ontology which has two poles: the set of potential realizable properties, and also an actualizing property which binds these into systems. And again I must plug Gregg Rosenberg’s excellent A Place for Consciousness, which presents a detailed proposal in this spirit (my original posts on the book are here and here). By the way, it turns out that his approach, while taking a different road than my old one, still entails a form of panexperientialism!
[As an aside, I recommend the Laughlin book for those interested in this subject matter, but I'll warn that I found it a bit annoying to read. I was put off by the many digressions and modestly amusing anecdotes and also some poor analogies (all meant to increase accessibility to the lay audience, I guess). Part of the problem is that I simultaneously started the latest Richard Dawkins book, which was spoiling me in terms of truly great science writing.]
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