As many know I love This Week in Mathematical Physics. I find it a great way to keep up on the most recent topics and papers in theoretical physics. I'm also convinced that theoretical physics has more to do with revolutionizing how we think about reality than philosophy ever has. One of the best popularizations of advanced quantum gravity is by Lee Smolin, who also is one of the main researchers in quantum loop thoeory. His book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity is a must read to see what has happened in advanced fundamental physics the past few years.
I've been pleasantly surprised to find that Smolin is highly influenced by Peirce. This makes a fair deal of sense as Peirce believed that all physical laws evolved and changed, becoming more determinate. Indeed many of Peirce's writings could almost have been about many modern cosmological theories wherein the universe moves from indeterminacy to our current form as matter aquires more "habits" which are the physical laws describing matter.
A few other useful articles on this topic are the following:
Short popular article on time by Smolin.
Interview/essay with Smolin by The Edge
Those interested in the relationship of Peircean philosophy to physics might also be interested in some of Peder Christiansen's papers which he has available at his web site. He's done some very interesting studies on investigating quantum mechanics from a more semiotic point of view.
Those not familiar with Peirce might wish to consult some of the links I have on the right hand side of my site. One of the more useful ones is an online dictionary of his terminology. Basically just significant quotes from Peirce's writings on those topics. But it can be helpful when reading about semiotics or related topics. The Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms.
I recently was discussing Davidson and Quine, two of the great analytic philosophers of the 20th century. I mentioned in passing that some of their pragmatic projects were quite similar to Derrida. Now I'm sure some reading that were a tad shocked. After all, Quine was one of the signatories in 1992 objecting to Derrida getting an honorary degree from Cambridge University. The letter, sent to the London Times, said that Derrida's work "does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigor." It seems odd to compare two rather different philosophers.
I discovered today that I'm hardly alone in noticing their similarities.
Certainly their styles are quite different. Especially in his latter work Derrida's prose is rather difficult to understand unless you are already familiar with his project. Further he typically writes in a demonstrative fashion, writing to demonstrate his critique of some philosophical position. This can be maddening to those expecting a more traditional philosophical exchange. Witness, for example, the debate, or perhaps "non-debate" between Searle and Derrida over Speech Act theory. Searle was so incensed that he refused to allow his papers to be reprinted in the collection of the essays in the exchange called Limited Inc.. Derrida certainly can be difficult to those who've not already understood his approach. Further Derrida's works assume a rather broad reading of philosophy and literature. He make numerous references, cites, and mentions of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas, Freud, Husserl, Hegel, and Kant among others. If one isn't already familiar with these sources it can be easy to miss what is going on. His early works are definitely the place to start - but only if you already have a fair grasp of the history of philosophy up to the 1960s.
Anyway, I came across a rather interesting paper by David Golumbia analyzing the commonalities of the basic approach to philosophy of Quine and Derrida. Quite to my surprise I found that he agreed quite closely to my own thoughts. Derrida, largely following Heidegger, sees that the task of philosophy isn't to close questions or arrive at fixed, stable positions. Rather it is to open questions and try to keep a certain openness. (One might see in this a certain echo of Socrates and the Greek skeptics) Quine, influenced more by American pragmatism than German phenomenology, sees that language and reference is underdetermined by the evidence of our experiences. Quine's famous theory of the indeterminacy of translation has a very similar consequence of keeping all our meanings, understandings, and thereby philosophy potentially open. In many ways it hearkens back to Peirce's doctrine of fallibilism.
Beyond these broad approaches, Golumbia notes that Quine's famous "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" functions as a deconstruction of Kant's famous distinction of syntehtic and analytic truths.
The notion of emergence is a very important one in Mormon metaphysics. While not all utilize it, emergence is used to explain the relationship between spirit and body to create a "soul." It is often used in a manner akin to social trinitarianism to explain the nature of the Godhead. It also it used in a manner akin to modern philosophy of consciousness to explain the very nature of our existence and awareness. Of course not all are aware of these tactics in Mormon theology. So I thought a short primer might be in order.
Most of us are aware of emergent properties even if we've never heard the term before. For instance we all recognize water as a unique substance with properties we're all familiar with. We also are familiar with the general idea of molecules and atoms. We understand on some level that the water we encounter emerges out of the interactions of individual atoms and molecules. This is all that emergence is. It is the idea that unique properties emerge out of a "collection" of individuals with the whole having properties that individuals don't. The properties are thus emergent.
If we view emergence as moving from individuals to groups, we can go the other direction as well. This is called reductionism. For instance chemists can reduce the properties of water to the relational properties of water ions. In physics it is often assumed that all the laws of the universe can be reduced to physics. Thus all chemistry can be seen as emergent laws that ultimately reduce to the basic laws of physics.
Biology has always been the lone holdout against the notion of reductionism. Many people are very uncomfortable with the idea that life can be reduced to the "mere" interactions of atoms. One frequent criticism is that biology uses what is called teleogical explanations while physics and chemistry do not. Teleological explanations are explanations made in terms of end goals. For instance a biologist might say that a behavior evolved to do something. Teleological explanations are typically not appreciated in physics and many biologists would say that what we think are such explanations really just are statistics at work making things appear like there are true intentions and end goals. Their opponents often accuse such scientists and philosophers of reductionism - for thinking that they can reduce life to mere mechanism.
I don't want to get too far into the debate within science and the nature of acceptable scientific explanation. I do want to highlight how this difference brings out two kinds of emergence. The first kind of emergence is the one I've already discussed. Properties at a high level "emerge" but can be reduced to the properties of interacting parts in a certain structure. These kinds of emergent properties would be properties like liquidity, hot, cold and other such physical phenomena. Many would say that thermodynamics itself are emergent laws based upon statistical mechanics. The second kind of emergence is called radical emergence. This is basically the conjecture that there are properties that emerge out of the collection of entities making it up but which can't be fully explained by its parts. We don't know of any example of radically emergent properties, but a lot of people believe that consciousness is a radically emergent property.
Why do people want to call consciousness a radically emergent property? Well, in part it goes back to that anger and fear regarding the encroachment of physics into notions of "life." People don't want to think that they are only autotama with no real choice or goals. (Even if that is a bit of a characature of what scientists argue) Likewise they point out that our subjective experience seems to suggest something that can't be reduced to mechanism. Clealry (in their minds) life transcends the parts.
I'll probably bring up emergence in discussing Orson Pratt over the next few weeks. But I wanted to explain it a bit for those possible not up on the discussions. To aid here are a few good articles on the topic.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Emergent Properties
Explaining Emergence from Journal of General Philosophy of Science
Emergence and Efficacy
Consciousness, Information and Panpsychism
I recently explained a bit about emergence. What I want to do is touch on one aspect of this subject in a little more depth. I'd discussed how there were two forms of emergent properties which we might call causal emergence and radical emergence. Causally emergent properties are properties that can be explained by the properties of the individual members of a system, their relations, and the state of the system. So, for instance, ice can be explained in terms of water ions, the electric attaction between them, the energy they have, and then the particular crystal structure they are in. Radical emergence is simply emergent properties which can't be explained in terms of its parts and their relation. Put more carefully, a property is radically emergent if it interacts causally in a way that can't be explained by the causal interaction of its parts.
When we consider consciousness, assuming that it is some sort of emergent property, then that means we have two choices. The first is that we embrace the notion of radical emergence. The problem with that choice is that, outside of claims about minds, we have absolutely no example of radical emergence. It seems a place in which Ockham's Razor is particularly appropriate. Why should we create a new category without need and without evidence?
If we reject radical emergence (and clearly not all do) then what are we left with? Well it would seem to follow that if the aggregate is a mind then at least some of the parts must have mind-like properties. This doesn't necessarily mean that there is some small mind particle. (Which is how some see the Mormon notion of a spirit - a spirit is something both physical like and mind like. Basically a Cartesian soul with extension.) It may well be that all individual elements of reality have some mind-like property. The notion that regular matter has mind-like properties is called panpsychism and is a fairly old tradition in philosophy. The Stoics are the most famous panpsychics. However Leibniz, Peirce, Whitehead and a few others have adopted panpsychic positions.
In Mormon thought panpsychism has a fairly long history. The most famous source for the notion is Orson Pratt. In the tract "The Absurdities of Materialism" he defended a notion in which the universe was filled with infinite number of extended impenetrable atoms, each of which was intelligent in some fashion. Any individual was a composite of these individual atoms, paralleling in certain ways Leibniz' similar notion with monads. Of course Leibniz' monads were immaterial while Pratt's atoms were extended object in the universe. (For Leibniz space was an emergent property arising out of the relations of monads, somewhat akin to Einstein's theory of relativity)
I don't want to say that Pratt's views were correct. Clearly his notion of atoms is incorrect. Nor does one have to adopt the kind of materialism that Pratt did to accept a panpsychic view of the universe. One interesting approach is that of C. S. Peirce who saw matter as "effete mind." Peirce's position is sometimes called semiotic realism or sometimes discursive realism. Peirce's position is basically the idea that discourse is in some sense real and thus reality is composed of signs. I don't want to delve into Peirce's often neglected writings too much, although those interested might find the paper "Peirce's Discursive Realism" quite interesting.
A good history of panpsychic ideas in the ancient and modern eras can be found in the following thesis by David Skrbina:
Panpsychism in the Ancient World
Panpsychism in the Modern World
I should hasten to add that not all or even most philosophy of mind involves emergence. The main view tends to be identity theories of mind. Identity theories basically state that mental states and processes are identical to states and processes of the brain. This can be seen as our causal emergence, but without the "mental-like" component to matter. I should also say that there are some philosophers who adopt views similar to identity theories but which are probably actually closer to panpsychism. Roger Penrose's notion of mind emerging out of quantum mechanics basically treats the contituents of quantum theory as panpsychic entities, even if he typically doesn't use that terminology. In this view the "randomness" of quantum mechanics is equivalent to independent freedom and proto-consciousness which becomes mind in certain aggregates. There are many parallels between Penrose's views and Orson Pratt's particular approach to mind/matter.
Over on LDS-Phil the past week people have been discussing the notion of atonement. A lot of discussion relates to the notion of penalties and whether the atonement is simply substituting Christ for us in terms of punishment. There are numerous philosophical issues with this which I'll not go into. (Those interested might wish to read Dennis Potter's paper "Did Christ Pay for Our Sins?" - I'm not sure Dennis' views are standard but they are interesting in illustrating the problems. Blake Ostler has a forthcoming book on the topic of the Atonement in LDS thought as well.)
The one approach which I didn't see raised by anyone else was the issue of the atonement as a literal at-one-ment. I think we must be cautious with discussions regarding "what notion of substitution?" If we take the notion of atonement seriously, then we may have something different from the traditional assumptions regarding substitution. (i.e. one in place of another) It may be something more of one person being in and through all things such that there is a unity between two beings letting the one act for the other. This is less substitution as "replacement" than substitution as "co-place."
I recognize that some might say that this latter sense isn't really a substitution at all in the typical sense of the word. That's rather my point.
The symbolism of sacrifice, including Abraham's, seems more complex than we often take it as. I think that the Christian interpretations of Abraham have biased us somewhat to that account of sacrifice. In the sacrifice we have a deferral (at the moment of sacrifice the sacrifice is deferred) as well as a kind of target change. Yet for the change of target to act as such, there is an implied unity between Jacob and the beast. This isn't the beast substituted for Jacob. Rather this is the beast as Jacob. And it is that which gets lost, I feel. When we consider substitution we consider it a full and total replacement. We lose that sense of "acting as."
Someone brought up the point that guilt is something that cannot be transferred. Either you are guilty for it or your aren't. This is key, I think, for Blake Ostler's view of Atonement. Blake takes this as an implication of the third article of our faith. (We are punished for our own sins and not Adam's transgression)
In one sense I think this is correct, but in an other important sense it is not. I also think that when we appeal to this or related scriptures we neglect the why of why we aren't guilty for Adam's sin. This "independence" is possible because of Christ (Mosiah 3:11). The judgment for only our own sins is possible because of Christ's atonement. It is his atonement which lets him judge us based upon how we relate to him. Appeal to our independence to understand the atonement seem essentially circular unless we are very careful in our analysis.
It seems to me that there are two judgments. The one is the initial "existential" judgment that is overcome by Christ. But it is Christ's atonement that opens up the secondary kind of judgment that is the judgment of how we've turned to Christ. This is, I suspect, where the infinite atonement comes in. Christ must buy all and then he can judge them.
But my main point relates to a deeper problem in our "independence of guilt." This is the problem of an "individual self." I reject the notion that one can't be guilty for what an other does. Such a view assumes a kind of "act atomism" which I reject. If no man is an island, then all our acts are interrelated. Consider for instance a parent and a child who breaks a window. Is the parent simply being merciful in taking partial responsibility? Or does it arise out of the fact that the child and parent are part of a larger unit of family? The same sort of "larger emergent entity" arises in many organizations. We can attempt to analyze such entities as merely the aggregate of their component parts (people). I think though that this will fundamentally distort the nature of such organizations. There is a holism that resists such reductions.
I think that there is a kind of holism implicit in the atonement (at-one-ment) that entails being in each other. In one sense my wife and I are two people. In an other sense we are one "person." Given such unity, to say that only one person is guilty is akin to saying only the hand and brain is guilty of any act of violence I might commit. It seems clear that the unity of the body entails that the body as a whole is guilty. In the same way, strong unities between people also enable guilt to be shared between all members. Put simply, these analysis of individual guilt are possible only if there are absolute barriers between people that make us absolute individuals.
I don't think I believe that there are such barriers. Indeed I think that the fundamental act of the atonement is to make us one with Christ. As such substitution is not really substitution, but unification.
I've put online Orson Pratt's "The Absurdities of Immaterialism." Those of you who are interested in LDS theology but haven't read it really should. It is somewhat long and its fairly naive to a modern philosopher. But it is the most important document outside of the King Follet Discourse and D&C 93 in terms of setting the basic shape of Mormon theology.
This isn't to say that it is followed exactly. Pratt adopts a fairly naive version of Newtonian atomism which is incompatible with modern science. But the approach, based largely on his readings of Joseph Smith teachings, is quite interesting. While Pratt attempts to place the form in the scientific thinking he was familiar with - largely that of Scottish Realism, the underlying shape is fairly neoPlatonic in scope. Unfortunately this results in a bit of a mismash of schemes. Hopefully in future days I can sketch out here some of the basic approaches to cosmology that Pratt took.
I should also add that I put up a few weeks ago some digitized quotes related to the influences on Pratt's thought. I think most agree that while the kind of materialism out of Scottish Realism, the rest comes from Joseph Smith's teachings. Teachings would had their form within a more hermetic culture.
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