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

To get started let’s lay what is really in question on the table.

First it seems to me that when we talk about there being only one God we can be talking about two possibilities. (1) that there is only one person who is God or (2) there is some extra-mental (i.e. real) unity to multiple persons that is God.

Now if one accepts (1) then one has to reject the divinity of Jesus in any normal sense. Very, very few Mormons would accept (1). I’d have said there were none who accept (1) but then I met a few the past while who surprisingly did. Note that (1) is not saying that there is nothing special about the person of the Father versus the person of Jesus. Even in the traditional Trinitarian formula one can make ontological distinctions between the persons.

By and large I think the controversy is over (2) and not (1). Which isn’t to say there aren’t lots of questions about the properties of particular divine beings. (Blake and I probably disagree there as well) For now though I want to focus on (2).

Probably the most popular view of 20th century Mormon theology is that the unity of the Father and Son consists of shared ideas. The basis for this view goes back at least to Joseph Smith and his June 16, 1844 sermon at the Nauvoo temple grounds. There he preached about a plurality of Gods. In theological terms the focus is on the persons of the Godhead and he is largely attacking a strawman with regards to the Trinity. When he says there is but “one God pertaining to us” I think it important to note that he’s speaking of persons and not the unity. The question though is whether this is also a rejection of any substantial unity to the Godhead. It is, afterall, here that Joseph presents the most oft repeated view of the unity of the Godhead found in LDS writings.

it is a great subject I am dwelling on—the word Eloiheam ought to be in the plural all the way through– Gods—the heads of the Gods appointed one God for us–& when you take a view of the subject it sets one free to see all the beauty holiness & perfection of the God–all I want is to get the simple truth–naked & the whole truth–Men say there is one God–the Far. Son & the H. G. are only 1 God–it is a strange God any how 3 in 1 & 1 in 3. it is a curious thing any how–Far. I pray not for the world but I pray for those that thou givest me &c &c all are to be crammed into 1 God–it wod. make the biggest God in all the world–he is a wonderful big God–he would be a Giant. (Bullock Report account)

The Scripture Say I and my father are one & again that the father son & holy ghost are one I John 5 ch. 7 vers But these three agree in the Same thing & did the Saviour pray to the father. I pray not for the world but those home [whom] he gave me out of the world that we might be one, or to Say be of one mind in the unity of the faith.

but Every one being a different or Separate person & So is god & is god & Jesus Christ & the holy ghost. Separate persons but the all agree in one or the Self Same thing. (Laub Journal account)

Talmage in Articles of Faith put it as, “the Godhead is a type of unity in the attributes, powers, and purposes of its members.” (1984, 49) This view has been oft repeated since. However it is important to note that in official statements they have always come far short of saying this is all that the unity consists of. The main concern is a concern against modalism. That is the view that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost share a single substance or being. Often when the Trinity is referenced it is attacking this notion of a single substance. Yet the way it is attacked clearly presumes a modern view of substance.

The problem goes back to Orson Pratt who felt there was a substantial unity in the Godhead consisting of The Spirit which was a spiritual fluid in which the qualities of Godness were found. Individuals who became divine did so by being in harmony with this fluid.

This boundless ocean of spirit possesses in every part, however minute, a will, a self-moving power, knowledge, wisdom, love, goodness, holiness, justice, mercy, and every intellectual and moral attribute possessed by the Father and the Son. Each particle of this Holy Spirit knows, every instant, how to act upon the other materials of nature with which it is immediately associated…

…Man has been accustomed to associate wisdom, knowledge, love, joy, and all the other faculties and passions, with an organized being or personality. Therefore, when he is informed that the Holy Spirit possesses all these attributes, he, from habit, supposes it to be a person; but there is no necessary connection between these attributes and a personality. Indeed, there is no reason why these attributes may not also belong to a fluid substance. We see life and voluntary motion exhibited by beings of every conceivable shape and magnitude, from man down through every grade of existence to the microscopic animalcules. Many of these inconceivably small beings appear to be merely minute globules or particles of living substance. Such being the case, why may not the still smaller particles of the Holy Spirit be alive also? (The Seer, 53)

In opposition to Pratt’s view Brigham Young issued an official proclamation denying this view. The main argument of Young’s can be found here:

…some of the statements, if pursued to their legitimate conclusion, would convey the idea that the physical and spiritual organization of a human being conferred no additional powers or benefits on the creature thus organized, but that any single atom of the “spiritual fluid,” however minute, possessed every attribute that an organized being could possess. Yet it will readily be perceived, upon reflection, that attributes never can be made manifest in any world except through organized beings.

The main difference then is that the only substance that can have divine attributes are persons. Note though that this is assuming substance in the sense of thing or entity. Yet one can talk about substance without this more modernist conception of what being or substance is. That is one can talk about being without adopting a more nominalistic conception of being that is characteristic of the modern era since Descartes.

The problem is that when most Mormons talk about the unity of God they either think in terms of substance as material substance ala Pratt which leads to weird thinking or else to modalism (the idea of three personaes in one person).

If we reject the idea of a Pratt like material substance as constituting the unity of God is there anything left for a common mind-independent being for God? I think there is. Let’s get some definitions clear though.

Realism – the existence of something doesn’t depend upon what any finite number of minds think about it.

Anti-realism – the existence of something depends upon what some minds think about it.

An example of an anti-realist entity is the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes. While we can talk about Holmes as existing in books really the existence depends upon minds (since without a mind the book is just a bunch of ink with no meaning). Now the typical view of the unity of God is an anti-realist view. That is because if the unity of God consists of shared desires, aims, purposes and beliefs each of those entities depend for their existence on the mind that holds them. Pratt’s view was a realist view since there was a spiritual fluid that existed independent of any mind thinking about it. The question is whether we can conceive of an entity which doesn’t depend upon a mind for its existence but which also isn’t a material substance the way modern science thinks of substances.

I’ll hold off addressing Blake’s comments until a subsequent post. I just want to make clear what I take the issues to be.

Related posts:

1. Reading Club: Ostler 2 – My Views
2. Peirce on Substance
3. Reading Club: Ostler 1

My own view towards theology in general is quite different from Blake’s. Blake tends to focus on what I’ll call a positive stance towards theology. That is argue for a particular view. My own emphasis is, for lack of a better term, a more negative stance. That is I want to focus on the range of possibilities compatible with LDS theology and see their strengths and weaknesses. Of course I’ll also make positive moves since I see some philosophical positions as more plausible than others. Yet I think there is that difference of emphasis that is pretty important. I see theology as essentially vague and the study of theology in part the recognizing of this vagueness. Positive theological postulates are ultimately about seeing what we don’t know rather than making our theology more determinate.

With regards to the Godhead I’m thus pretty open. I think there is a very robust unity within the Godhead but I don’t think we can really say what it is. I tend to be most sympathetic to the unity being quite strong and real. That is an unity that goes beyond mere agreement over values, beliefs and the like. (That position, common to Bruce R. McConkie and others can be said to be a nominalistic view since there is no real and thus mind-independent unity between the persons)

However while favoring a position of strong unity I’m very aware that there isn’t strong evidence to really make a determination. So I’m open to many other positions ranging from variants on Orson Pratt’s odd unity via a spiritual ‘fluid’ to the nominalistic views, to other more fanciful views.

The other issue in the debate about the Godhead within LDS theology is the nature of the plurality of gods. (The persons) Blake’s view is that there is one first absolute God who is always greatest. The traditional LDS view, which I tend to be most sympathetic to, is that there is an infinite regress of persons. Thus there never is an Aristotilean “first cause” nor a first God such as one finds in Blake’s view. Jesus had a Father in Heaven who is ultimate head of this creation. There will be a further creation in the future where Jesus takes that role and his Son will act as a savior to that new creation and so forth forever.

There are a few other views but I think the main debate is between a beginning verses an endless regress of beings. And that’s the main controversy in the first chapter.

Related posts:

1. Reading Club: Ostler 2
2. Reading Club: Ostler 1
3. Ostler Reading Club: Of God and Gods

Probably the best place to start the discussion is on page 3 where Blake outlines what I take to be fairly uncontroversial claims arising out of these sermons.

1. The creation occurred by organizing the world not “from nothing” but from preexisting matter.
2. There was a grand council consisting of a plurality of gods in the beginning of the creation of this earth.
3. There was a head God who presided over the council of gods.
4. The council of gods, under the direction of the head God, appointed on God to preside over us in the work of creation and redemption.
5. Among these gods in the pre-earth council were intelligences who existed eternally without creation before they became mortal
6. Humans have the potential to be gods because they are the same kind as God.

Now many of these claims can be found in traditional non-Mormon scholarship. However the particular extent of the claims is often not found in them or at least has to be drawn out. Further the ontological thrust Mormons often give it typically isn’t found in the scholarship. Blake’s own views aren’t exactly the typical thrust either so whether you agree or disagree with him the way he uses the scholarship is interesting. Put an other way it pays to pay close attention to what appears to only be apologetics.

The trick to all this is to recognize that the Judaism of the Greek and Roman eras which we associate with strict monotheism that becomes an ontological monotheism isn’t the Judaism of the pre-exilic period. Scholarship especially since the late 80′s has really drawn out a lot of the beliefs of this era. Now some of it, especially in a religious context, can be controversial. Especially since to many the appeal to surrounding cultures (especially Babylonian and Canaanite) seems incompatible with the notion of an unique revelation. Likewise the beliefs are quite at odds with both the traditional monotheism of Judaism not to mention the Trinity. However they do tend to be pretty similar to many Mormon beliefs.

The other major thing discussed in this first chapter is the question of what is eternal in intelligence. I’ll not discuss that too much. I think most readers are familiar with the different views of intelligence within the history of Mormon thought. What is common to all Mormon thought is Joseph’s teaching that creation (bara in Hebrew) isn’t an ex nihlo creation but an organization. More like how a potter creates a pot than something metaphysical.

The controversial debate is over the nature of the relation of the persons in the Godhead. (This starts on page 18 in Blake’s book) Blake takes the position that there is a head God who is also the permanent, ontologically speaking, head God. The more traditional reading that Blake’s is arguing against is the idea of an endless regress of gods, with one head God in each creation. Blake’s reading, in this chapter, of the Sermon in the Grove is probably the most controversial part of the book. And I feel that many of his readings depend upon not distinguishing between a creation and all creations. But I’ll hold off on that until the next post.

Related posts:

1. Reading Club: Ostler 2 – My Views
2. Ostler Reading Club: Of God and Gods
3. Misc: Reading Club on Ostler

But I’m caught up now (for the most part) and will post the first entry tonight. Hopefully many of you have lots of comments. My plan is one chapter per week although I may do more than one post per chapter. If any other blogs do posts please let us know and I’ll link to them. It’s a great way to get your blog noticed too.

Related posts:

1. Ostler Reading Club: Of God and Gods
2. Reading Club: Ostler 1
3. Reading Club: Ostler 2 – My Views