Mind and Matter: the three non-reductionist alternatives

Posted on January 22, 2009
Filed Under Ostler, Philosophy, Science | 7 Comments

metaphysical head.jpgThe question of the emergence of mind popped up again over at New Cool Thang. I wanted to put up a discussion of the issue but less tied to that particular discussion. Although I do want to use it to discuss some of Blake Ostler’s views and arguments.

I should note that I don’t really have a strong opinion here. I think they call consciousness the hard problem because it really is hard. In my view none of the solutions suggested by philosophers are terribly plausible. However those that reject the reality of first person perspective or reduce it to third person seem the most implausible. So I’ll ignore those in this discussion. That said it seems to me that all of the remaining views that take the first person perspective as ontologically significant all have some “mysterious” step that seems like a bit of metaphysical hand waving. Perhaps that’s why the hard problem is hard. There is simply something about consciousness and causality that we can’t explain. It’s basic.

As I see it you end up with three alternatives.

1. Substance dualism. While true Cartesian dualism is the obvious example of this one should be careful not to assume too much about what the “mind substance” does. Descartes had it as a thinking substance but unarguably a lot of functions Descartes saw in the mind are done by our brain. So consider this a vaguer position where there is some substance that has the 1st person view but interacts with regular matter in some way.

2. Property dualism. Basically you have material stuff that has both 3rd person and 1st person properties. Orson Pratt’s thinking atoms is an example. Note that Leibniz’ monads are not an example. (Despite the close similarities of Leibniz and Spinoza) That’s because Leibniz’ monads are immaterial and probably closer to Berkley’s idealism in many ways.

3. Ontological emergence. The idea that matter in some special configuration “generates” something akin to a new ontological substance. Yet, unlike substance dualism, it isn’t really a separate substance. It is like it in that it has properties the underlying matter plus the laws of physics don’t have. Further there is downward causation meaning that this new ontological “stuff” can affect the stuff it is emergent from in a way unexplainable in other schemes.

Interactions

The classic criticism of these views is how interaction takes place. Descartes made (to me) the inexplicable view that the mind communicates with the body via the pituitary gland. Yet, while it would be a mystery how the immaterial and material interact we should not that it’s not ontologically that much more mysterious than how two material substances interact. In the classic Newtonian view you had the idea that bodies collide but this avoids the question about why they should be impenetrable and how they transfer properties. (i.e. transmit momentum) Ultimately at that time it came down to “God made it that way.” But I’m not sure that’s less mysterious than God made mind and matter interact. Eventually we got rid of God as an explanation and added in the laws of physics as prescriptive. But why not simply say some other prescriptive law allows interactions of matter and the immaterial? So to me this has never seem persuasive.

To the degree it is persuasive it’s because we know material things interact whereas we have no good reason to assume there are immaterial things interacting. (i.e. outside of the claim for mind) The big problem ends up being less interactions than what evidence we have for a separate substance at all.

The property dualist avoids this by saying it’s the same stuff with extra properties. Now some (like Blake) claim that its unexplainable how properties could interact. Yet it seems that this is far less of a problem for the property dualist than the substance dualist. After all we have many examples of different properties interacting in the same substance. So, for instance, two billiard balls might have two properties: velocity and position. A change in one leads to a change in the other. We take this for granted so to charge that there is something mysterious here seems wrong. Now one can quibble with this a bit (arguing that velocity entails change in position and that a change in velocity doesn’t really change that) Yet clearly properties are tied together – even more so in quantum mechanics.

Put an other way, it might be mysterious but no more mysterious than what we already encounter.

The emergentist says that “downward causation” is someone less mysterious than substance dualist interactions. Yet if the whole has properties the parts don’t then those parts have to be affected in some way. There must be a cause in some sense. In effect I can’t see there being any difference here between the mystery of substance dualism and the mystery of emergence. There’s nothing beyond the emergent mind we can point to for an example (unlike property dualism). Emergentists will point to effects like magnetism but this is only as an analogy and not a similar phenomena.

So ultimately we have a causation we don’t find anywhere else (like substance dualism). To me the flaws are the same.

Benefits and Weaknesses

Substance dualism’s biggest benefit is to simply separate out talk of 1st person perspective from 3rd person. Yet beyond that it really offers nothing unless one has a religious commitment to immaterial entities. There is no explanation of why the mind is tied to a particular kind of matter. (i.e. why my mind is tied to my brain) It also has the afore mentioned problem of novelty (we have no other immaterial substances we could point to) and then the related problem of simplicity (why create a new substance at all?)

Ontological emergence biggest benefit is to explain the relationship of matter to mind. Yet it claims (in at least Blake’s form) to explain how mind can move between matter. The analogy is to magnetism where the magnetic field can be maintained even when the underlying matter changes. I think this a very bad analogy for reasons I won’t go into. (It only works the more mysterious magnetism is to you) But beyond that it’s just an analogy. It’s a property assigned ad hoc. There’s no real reason for it.

In effect ontological emergence give one all the functionality and limits of substance dualism but argues it isn’t really a separate substance since it needs a physical substrate to maintain it. But if one were to simply take classic substance dualism and simply add the requirement that the substance never be found separate from matter you’d have ontological emergence in every property. The argument is that there is something special about matter that generates the other substance yet the emergentist can’t specify anything about this “something special.” It’s an ad hoc difference.

As I see it the emergence view should be taken merely as traditional substance dualism with the extra property of an essential tie to matter.

The property dualist’s main strength is simply that there is no extra stuff. We already have reasons to think the stuff we encounter (our bodies) have properties beyond those specified by physics (since we all experience the first person perspective) In effect this position is simply the rejection of the idea that the 1st person can arise out of the 3rd person experience. The strength is that no new properties or interactions are asserted.

The big weakness is in reductionism. Where are these properties found? It seems there are two possibilities. The first is that there are proto-mind properties that aren’t really mind but when enough are put together then the phenomena of mind appears. This is analogous to say temperature and momentum. Temperature isn’t momentum but if you put enough things with momentum together you get temperature. The problem with this view is that there is an “unity of experience” in the first person experience that seems unable to be explained by reduction. The alternative is simply that there is some unified substance that has both properties. It’s merely a “hole” through which the outside is experienced. Thinking takes place in the brain and related matter.

Regular Consciousness

A common issue is to explain our consciousness of things in terms of the above. I’m not sure this is a problem. While the emergentist who claims consciousness is emergent from the brain can say that the neural network determines whether there is consciousness this is problematic for some. (Not all) It would seem that those (like Blake) who follow this line of argument have to say that consciousness (the emergent substance) disappears when one is unconscious. While that’s fine for those who think the brain is all there is it becomes a problem for those who want to apply it to religious situations. (If a slight hit to the brain destroys the emergent mind, why should we assume the mind persists after death? Isn’t the brain destroyed? And if it persists how can we consistently say that the brain damage in a concussion is evidence of anything about emergence?)

I think the stronger view, which I touched upon last week, is simply that consciousness is always consciousness of something. If brain processes aren’t working there’s nothing to be conscious of. Further most of our consciousness involves memory. We consider ourselves conscious not just because we have a window on the outside world but because we have memory to enable a stream of consciousness. Without that ability to remember we would be unable to reflectively recognize we were conscious. Put an other way memory is necessary to be self-aware.

So we lose consciousness simply because memory doesn’t function. We’re still conscious but have no ability to be conscious of anything.

Related posts:

  1. Functionalism and AI
  2. Musings on Matter
  3. Physics *is* Understood
  4. The Extended Mind
  5. Peirce and Consciousness
  6. Vallicella on the Ontology of the Mental

Comments

7 Responses to “Mind and Matter: the three non-reductionist alternatives”

I agree that consciousness is separate, but functions through our brain. I would think that conscience and consciousness are parts of the Light of Christ that dwells within us.

At this time, I am a property dualist of sorts, and believe that the light of Christ entails spiritual matter that interacts with physical matter. When hydrogen and oxygen atoms combine to make water with new and improved capabilities (and memory), it is via the light of Christ that it obtains those extra qualities.

So with the mind/brain.

After reading your blog, I will like to share my work. I have written a book, Man Is A Thought.

http://pothi.com/pothi/book/tarundeep-singh-man-thought

This work tries to establish relationship between scientific theories and theological beliefs. Author explores if

thoughts, their behavior, existence and interaction with mind can be explained with in scientific domain.
Further to this, book also provides insight that why artificial intelligence fails to mimic man’s ability to think,

what limits rational intelligence to attain the status of pinnacle, how thought space can be perceived by humans

etc.

At the end it has been suggested that it is a new beginning for mankind. And I reach at a point where I say:

“A man is an oscillation of an image of thought in Real Time Space.”

Consciousness is usually a hard problem for the materialist. Not being one myself I believe it is a non problem at best. At worst, it is an insoluble problem save by some form of sophistry for Cartesians, materialists and most moderns who simply follow modern philosophies.

Therefore, I believe that you have more than just three alternatives available but first I just want here to offer my own observations on the three alternatives presented and then just try defining the problem in later comments.

The first alternative was called substance dualism and is derived in some way from Descartes involving it appears two types of substance ( I am assuming the 1st person view is something akin to self consciousness?) and that this interacts with regular matter in some way. What is regular matter as opposed to some other types of matter? This alternative assumes that mind is some type of matter but self consciousness and consciousness as well as thought are not physical things. They are non physical. I believe this dualism is simply skirting the first point of evidence that presents itself that what mind refers to is substantially non-material and therefore the question is how or does the non-material arise from the material?

The second, called property dualism, seems to add now that given the difference between the material and non-material; you now have material stuff that has both 3rd person and 1st person properties. I’m not sure what this distinction means in plain English but that somehow there is another type of matter or atoms. I believe this solution suffers from the same difficulties as the first. How do I distinguish between a 1st person atom and a 3rd person atom? Has anyone ever seen this distinction in a laboratory? Are there multiple kinds of matter, if so what are they? If they are material, where has modern physics defined them by experimentation?

The third called, ontological emergence, means that matter in some special configuration “generates” something akin to a new ontological substance. Yet, unlike substance dualism, it isn’t really a separate substance. This appears to suffer from the same difficulty as the first two alternatives yet also adds even greater complexity to the supposed solution. There is a new ontological substance that isn’t really a separate substance? What is it then? This alternative appears to simply substitute substance for matter and then comes up with a new type as do the first two.

The primary problem with all these alternatives is that openly or subtly they are all materialistic, that is they all pre-suppose that mind arises solely from the material but without ever demonstrating how the immaterial can arise from the material or demonstrating that it has ever done so. Obviously they presuppose that all things are physical or are derived directly from the physical but I do not know of any convincing demonstrations that such an a priori principle is correct let alone even feasible to deal with all of reality let alone mind and matter.

I believe that this question would require that we depart from considering the alternatives presented solely by modern philosophy and take a serious look at the works of classical and scholastic philosophy. I have serious doubts that modern philosophers are defining the postulates of the problem correctly let alone stating the problem correctly. If this isn’t done from the beginning then we are solving the wrong problem or even perhaps a non problem.

Initially, I would say that 1) man is a being composed of a body and a soul 2) that while mind bears an intimate life with the matter of the brain, our self consciousness and rationality are more related to the soul than the physical body. I do not believe that consciousness and rational thought arise from the physical. But Aquinas does advance the idea that the soul itself is a substance though non-material.

Especially, I do not see how a great physical complexity alone would give rise to consciousness and rational thought. It is a nice theory simply because we have no way of proving it and those who assert it appear to have no interest in proving it either. As I stated before how could the purely physical attain such a point that it would transform part of itself into a non-physical entity?

Methodical realism alone would tell us that man is a composite being formed of both physical and non physical constituent parts. The unity of experience can be explained that in man body and soul exist in a single being my experience of myself is of a unified being undivided.

“I think the stronger view, which I touched upon last week, is simply that consciousness is always consciousness of something. If brain processes aren’t working there’s nothing to be conscious of. Further most of our consciousness involves memory. We consider ourselves conscious not just because we have a window on the outside world but because we have memory to enable a stream of consciousness.” This is excellent but when you say consciousness is always consciousness of something….it is your next step that suddenly shifts to memory that is I think incorrect.

Wouldn’t it work simpler if we were to say “consciousness is always consciousness of something and then say it is first consciousness of other things and through that consciousness of other things that we upon reflection are conscious of ourselves as distinct selves…?” I believe that works better than jumping over to memory immediately…memory is a body of our experiential history but it can be built up again over time say if we were to lose our memories.

As I gather my thoughts on this I will provide further comments on this subject. But I’d appreciate any comments back as I’m writing this quickly and have probable made many mistakes or left much out. Thanks.

Tom

I think there are more than three possibilities just that I find the others sufficiently implausible (even those some are dominate) that I didn’t list them.

Property dualism need not entail that there is a 1st person atom and a 2cd person atom. Rather one could argue that there are quasi-mental properties to matter from which a 1st person perspective could emerge. (This is Peirce’s position, for instance)

(More later – I have to step out)

OK, on to your specific points.

Just to be clear I’m not saying there aren’t other positions – either idealist or materialist. Just that if we take both first person and third person seriously and adopt some sort of materialism then I’m not sure what other options are open beyond variations on the three positions I listed. That said, one should be careful not to treat materialism as simply naive physicalism. While that is admittedly a common usage that’s not the usage I intend. By materialism as I’m using it I just mean that to exist is to exist within the universe. That is there is no otherworldly realm whether it be conceived of Platonically, Thomistly, Cartesian or otherwise. I leave undetermined the question of whether space is substantial and fundamental with entities within space or the idea of whether space emerges out of relations of entities. (i.e. the question of space-time being substantial or relational)

To your general criticism that one must “demonstrat[e] how the immaterial can arise from the material” I confess I’m not clear on why that must be done in the least. Why can’t one simply deny the immaterial? Or am I simply missing what objects you mean by the material. I assume you mean mental content but it is quite unclear why we should assume thought is immaterial. All the thoughts I encounter are embodied since I’ve never had a thought outside of my body and my thoughts seem essentially tied to matter.

I don’t see how “methodical realism” would tell us man is composed of both physical and non-physical. And what do you mean by methodical realism here? Do you mean a Thomist epistemology?

Perhaps the no definable language, technology,or progressiveness of evolution as yet been reached that can shed light on this subject.The none material MIND can indeed exsist that I feel certain but why and why we attach religeon to it and what are we all here and then ina afterlife (as many believe.well that is a wonder to behold) how the MIND operates and why it may requires a brain too work through is also a huge unknown?
I read on and on and no happy to ponder for now thus come a time when more satisfying evidance validations and research displays something more acceptable than what we have access to now.

http://www.elfindiaries.co.uk/roll.htm

http://www.cfpf.org.uk/

7 Rich Knapton on May 31st, 2009 6:49 am

It would seem that those (like Blake) who follow this line of argument have to say that consciousness (the emergent substance) disappears when one is unconscious. While that’s fine for those who think the brain is all there is it becomes a problem for those who want to apply it to religious situations. (If a slight hit to the brain destroys the emergent mind, why should we assume the mind persists after death? Isn’t the brain destroyed? And if it persists how can we consistently say that the brain damage in a concussion is evidence of anything about emergence?)

I think the way to solve that problem is to break the link between spirit and mind. It has been said that whatever state of knowledge we obtain here on earth rises with us in the next world. Our spirit, while here on earth, may simply function as a memory bank. It is not needed to account for the functioning of our brain. Thus we can go unconscious without this affecting our spirit. The emergence of the mind need not say anything about our spirits.

Rather than emergence of the mind, I prefer to look at the issue in terms of awareness. Your comment “consciousness is always consciousness of something” can be rewritten as consciousness is awareness of something. We can view this process in terms of awareness with several levels of awareness. When we are conscious we can say we are first person externally and internally aware. Or, we can be internally aware as when we are dreaming. Or, externally aware with no memory as when we are sleepwalking. Finally we can have no awareness at all. None of these states would not imply anything about our spirits.

Rich

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