We had some interesting discussions last week on LDS-Phil. Interesting to me at least. They all came out of a discussion on whether Orson Pratt accepted an emergent mind. I don't want to talk about Orson Pratt too much on this matter, but rather my own views since I by and large think Orson is incorrect in his views. Probably the view closest to my own is that of Donald Davidson. Now Davidson is one of the modern pragmatists and could probably be considered fairly close to Peirce, at least in spirit if not necessarily points of philosophy. Davidson's view of mind is best summed up in his own words.
There are no such things as minds but people have mental properties, which is to say that certain psychological predicates are true of them. These properties are constantly changing, and such changes are mental events. ... Mental events are, in my view, physical (which is not, of course, to say that they are not mental). This is a thesis that follows from certain premises, all of which I think are true. The main premises are:
(1) All mental events are causally related to physical events. For example, beliefs and desires cause agents to act, and actions cause changes in the physical world. Events in the physical world often cause us to alter our beliefs, intentions, and desires.
(2) If two events are related as cause and effect, there is a strict law under which they may be subsumed. This means: cause and effect have descriptions which instantiate a strict law. A 'strict' law is on which makes no use of open-ended escape clauses such as 'other things being equal.' Thus such laws must belong to a closed system: whatever can affect the system must be included in it.
(3) There are no strict psychophysical laws (laws connecting mental events under their mental descriptions with physical events under their physical descriptions.
(Donald Davidson, Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, 231)
As Davidson points out, this scheme is remarkably like Spinoza's and therefore Leibniz view of minds, save for (1). Leibniz' monads, for example, were famously windowless. (That is they didn't really interact but only appeared to interact due to "pre-established harmonies" by God) This view of mind is also close to eliminative materialism in that there really aren't minds, merely properties we label as mental. It is "ontologically reductive" in that it doesn't require that there be new kinds of entities in the universe, the way for instance dualism requires there be mind-substances. There is a dualism, but it is a conceptual dualism. In other words we think about events dualistically but recognize them monistically when considered ontologically. What does that mean? Well a good analogy are Mormon views of spirits. We consider there to be a difference between spirits and bodies, but typically consider them to be the same basic "stuff." Because we think of them differently we have a conceptual dualism. But because we think they are ultimately both material, we are monistic. Davidson isn't suggesting quite that kind of dualism since presumably discussions of the flesh and the "mind" might refer to the same stuff and not just the same kind of stuff. But the basic idea is the same.
Now one might ask what does Davidson mean in (3) by there being no psychophysical laws? That is basically the idea that we can take any mental property and "reduce" it to really being about certain pieces of matter in particular states. However Davidson, following Peirce, adopts a holism in which mental properties exist because of their place in a network of other mental properties. Those of you familiar with Semiotics should quickly recognize that this is akin to the idea that any sign obtains its meaning by being in a system of differences. Let's give an example of this. I never have a simple belief. Any belief I have is in terms of other beliefs as well as intentional relationships with entities I encounter. If I have a belief about a pen it isn't just about what is in my head. Rather it is intrinsically related to real pens, others beliefs about pens, my past experiences with pens, the ways I can use pens, and so on. As Davidson puts in, "these relations among the attitudes are essentially logical: the content of an attitude cannot be divorced from what it entails and what is entailed by it." (ibid 232)
Now of course not everyone will agree with this conception of things. Indeed I suspect at least a few Mormons will be quite inclined to adopt B. H. Robert's Cartesian dualism or even the particular form of panpsychicism we find in Orson Pratt. I think, however, that Davidson's anomalous monism offers a lot. First off I think it really keeps up from asking where the mind is. While we all might like to do that, it really is a problematic question for a Mormon. After all we presumably had mental properties when we were spirits in the pre-existence. We have mental properties here. Yet in the spirit world, prior to our birth, we didn't have a brain. We are left with saying that a mind is something separate from our brain, the way Moreland or even Orson Pratt do. Yet it seems clear, given the discoveries of science, that a brain is quite intertwined with what our mind is. Yet this problem really doesn't creep up when we apply Davidson. After all what we really have are complex directed sign-systems. Rather than considering minds we consider mental properties within a system of signs. What constitutes a sign is quite open.
Why would we wish to do this? Well consider the film Memento in which the hero has a particularly troubling sort of amnesia. He tattoos himself to remember, but these tattoos in effect become a part of his thinking. They behave or at least significantly contribute as part of mental properties. When one stops asking about minds and starts to think about mental properties and mental events, we find that mind-like stuff can encompass a lot. It can even encompass things outside of our bodies. For instance is remembering with my brain really that different from remembering with written notes? Does it make sense to distinguish them to the degree we typically do?
I'll not go through all the other advantages I perceive. I'd simply say that I think it enables a lot of the universe to behave "mentally" as well as allowing beings to use the universe as part of their mental properties. Further I just can't think of too many theological problems with the idea. It also certainly avoids the problems that Pratt's or Robert's views of mind entail.
I don't quite know where to go with this or how to state it because I'm not very familiar with the argument, but assuming that the universe is part of a person's mental properties, does that have implications for how Mormons approach the question of the omniscience of God (okay, so omniscience isn't quite the right term to use since I realize that many Mormon thinkers don't believe God is omniscient in the "classical" Christian meaning)? And possibly also the question of if (and how) he progresses?
Obviously, because I'm raising the question, I think it does. I'm just not sure how to explain it.
Hmmm. Maybe something like: God is perfectly aware of the universe, but since that awereness changes as the universe changes, he does progress in knowledge.
I think it may, although one should be very clear that how it is part is different than how many consider it because of the radically different way of approaching the question. When knowledge is considered as internal mental representations of an external world then knowledge is viewed very different than if knowledge is partially part of the external world.
Right. It's a very different conception than the idea I encounter -- that God's mind (and how he can be omniscient -- although, of course, most members are hazy on what that means) is him using 100% of his brain in a glorified body. It's a neat, pseudo-scientific solution, for Mormons, and I suppose it does fulfill one didactic duty -- it helps members be able to buy in to the idea that they could become like God some day -- i.e. it makes him more human, a super-human. But it always seemed a little weird to me. It can't be just that by itself.
Anyway, it seems to me that if God uses the universe as part of his mental properties, that provides some solution to the problems that arise with our understanding of him as an embodied being but still operating in the way that doctrinally and scripturally we say he does.
You cover a lot of ground. I'm troubled by the tendency of LDS thinkers to avail themselves of the advantages of both dualism (we have spirits that aren't bodies) and materialism (matter and spirit are actually all some more "elemental matter") without dealing with the inconsistency.
Likewise, it seems like you both claim minds are separate and independent of brains (because we had minds while spirits in the preexistence) but also highly intertwined, seemingly dependent, on brains (in view of scientific findings). Others struggle with this too, I don't expect you to whip up a complete answer. It seems like this is the hurdle any dualistic view must confront (and I see the LDS system as dualistic, despite the attempt to label it otherwise).
While Mormonism certainly is dualistic in a certain sense and clearly many Mormon thinkers have historically embraced stronger forms of dualism, I don't think Mormon philosophy entails what you suggest. There is, after all, no formal Mormon teaching that minds are independent of brains. Although clearly it depends upon what one means by that. Clearly the Mormon notion of pre-mortal existence requires pre-mortal minds. But does that entail dualism? I don't think it necessarily does, any more than the ability to have a mind even after parts of ones brain are removed entails it. Rather I think it entails that brains be parts of the makeup of ones mind.
I must confess, however, that the very notion of mind, as opposed to mental properties, is problematic. After all even those who avoid Cartesian conceptions of mind still tend to bring in notions of it as a substance. Perhaps a dependent or emergent substance, but a kind of "stuff" all the same.
What I see Davidson doing is making the helpful approach that perhaps we ought to stop talking about mind-stuff and just focus on mental properties. When you speak that way, then it seems more reasonable to assume a spirit can have mental properties, an animal can have mental properties, and enspirited humans can have mental properties. We can perhaps ask how we have mental properties. But to assume that there is a "stuff" that has them seems unnecessary. Further it may well be that different entities can have mental properties and have them in different ways.
Such a way of thinking may actually avail itself to Mormon conceptions of life much better than the alternatives.
Just to add to the above, that I find reading Williamson's recent work on knowledge in light of Davidson's view of mind is very interesting. (See my comments on Williamson here and here.)
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