Author: Bill Vallicella

Suppose You Build a Conscious Robot. . .

 . . . would that solve the mind-body problem?

One aspect of the mind-body problem is the problem of the subjectivity of conscious experience. As I have argued on numerous occasions, the subjectivity of conscious experience and the manner in which it  connects to its physical substratum in the brain cannot be rendered intelligible from an objectifying 3rd-person point of view. Even if we had in our possession a completed neuroscience, we would not be able to understand how conscious experiences arise from the wetware of the brain.

But suppose someone objects as follows:

Robotics is making tremendous strides. In the future we may be able to build robots that are behaviorally indistinguishable from human beings. They will walk, talk, and look like human beings. One can even imagine them being made so human-like that a superficial physical examination would not reveal their robotic status. Imagine a 'female' robot that could pass a cursory gynecological     examination and fool a gynecologist or a 'male' robot that could pass a superficial prostate exam and fool a urologist . . .

Suppose further that such a robot not only passes all linguistic and non-linguistic behavioral  tests for being conscious, but really is conscious, really does feel ill at ease in the physician's office, even though the  physical substratum of the feelings is silicon-based. Suppose, in other words, that consciousness and indeed self-consciousness  emerge in this robot.

We will then have an answer to the mind-body problem: we will know that consciousness is nothing special and nothing mysterious. We will know that it does not have a higher, meta-physical or super-natural origin, but is simply the byproduct of the functioning of a sufficiently complex machine, whether the machine be an artifact of a human artificer or the 'artifact' of natural selection.

But if we think about this carefully, we realize that even if this sci-fi scenario were realized, we would still not have a solution to the mind-body problem. For the problem is to render intelligible to   ourselves, to understand, HOW consciousness can arise from matter. Building a robot in which consciousness DOES arise or manifest itself  does nothing to render understandable how the arisal occurs.  Nor does it show that the arisal is an emergence from matter.    The mere fact of consciousness is no proof that it has emerged from a physical substratum, and the mere claim that it has so emerged is an empty asseveration unless the exact mechanism of the emergence can be laid bare.  And good luck with that.

Suppose that there is a group of philosophizing robots.  These machines are so sophisticated that they ask Big Questions.  One of the problems under discussion might well be the mind-body problem in robots. The fact that they know that they had been constructed by human robotics engineers in Palo Alto, California would do nothing to alleviate their puzzlement. In fact, one of the philosophizing robots could propose the theory that the emergence of consciousness in their silicon brains is not to be interpreted as an emergence from matter  or as a dependence of consciousness on matter, but as a Cartesian mind's becoming embodied  in them: at a point of sufficient complexity, a Cartesian mind embodies itself in the robot.

In other words, what could stop a philosophizing robot from rejecting emergentism and being a substance dualist? He knows his origin, or at least the origin of his body; but how does knowing that he is a robot, and thus a human artifact prevent his considering himself to be an artifact housing a Cartesian mind?  He might trot out all the standard dualist arguments. 

Our philosophizing  robot would be able to exclude this Cartesian possibility only if he understood HOW consciousness arises from matter. If he knew that, he would know that he does not have a higher origin.  And let's not forget that our philosophizing robot is very smart: so smart that he sees right  through the stupidity of eliminative materialism.

In sum, even if we knew how to build (really) conscious machines, such know-how would not be the knowledge necessary to solve the mind-body problem.

Saying and Showing

Again, show what?  'There are objects' is nonsense.  One cannot say that there are objects.  This is shown by the use of variables.  But what is shown if not that there are objects?  There, I've said it!

Ray Monk reports on a discussion between Wittgenstein and Russell.  L. W. balked at Russell's 'There are at least three things in the world.'  So Russell took a sheet of white paper and made three ink spots on it.  'There are three ink spots on this sheet.'  L. W. refused to budge.  He granted 'There are three ink spots on the sheet' but balked at the inference to 'There are at least three things in the world.'

W's perspective is broadly Kantian.  The transcendental conditions of possible experience are not themselves objects of possible experience.  They cannot be on pain of infinite regress.  But he goes Kant one better: it is not just that the transcendental conditions cannot be experienced or known; they cannot be sensibly talked about. Among them is the world as the ultimate context of all experiencing and naming and predicating and counting.  As transcendental, the world cannot be sensibly talked about as if it were just another thing in the world like the piece of paper with its three spots.  And so, given that what cannot be said clearly cannot be said at all but must be passed over in silence, one cannot say that the world is such that it has at least three things it it.  So W. balked and went silent when R. tried to get him to negotiate the above inference.

What goes for 'world' also goes for 'thing.'  You can't count things.  How many things on my desk?  The question has no clear sense.  It is not like asking how many pens are on my desk.  So Wittgenstein is on to something.  His nonsense is deep and important.

The Inexpressible

The Tractarian Wittgenstein says that there is the Inexpressible.   But what is inexpressible?  Presumably, if there is the Inexpressible then there must be a quid answering to the est.  Could there be truths that cannot be expressed? A truth is a true truth-bearer, a true sentence, proposition, judgment, statement, assertion, belief, asseveration, belief, claim, etc.  But these all — different as they are among themselves — involve expression, articulation, objectification.  An inexpressible truth amounts to an inexpressible expression.  More precisely: an inexpressible truth is something that is both expressible inasmuch as it is a truth but also inexpressible inasmuch as it is — inexpressible.

And therein lies a problem for our mystical positivist.  In this connection Theodor Adorno speaks of Wittgenstein's indescribable spiritual vulgarity.

Wittgenstein on Darwin

One thing I definitely applaud in Wittgenstein is his opposition to scientism.   M. O'C. Drury in Conversations with Wittgenstein, ed. Rush Rhees (Oxford, 1984), pp. 160-161:

     One day, walking in the Zoological Gardens, we admired the immense
     variety of flowers, shrubs, trees, and the similar multiplicity of
     birds, reptiles, animals.

     WITTGENSTEIN: I have always thought that Darwin was wrong: his
     theory does not account for all the variety of species. It hasn't
     the necessary multiplicity. Nowadays some people are fond of saying
     that at last evolution has produced a species that is able to
     understand the whole process which gave it birth. Now that you
     can't say.

     DRURY: You could say that now there has evolved a strange animal
     that collects other animals and puts them in gardens. But you can't
     bring the concepts of knowledge and understanding into this series.
     They are different categories entirely.

     WITTGENSTEIN: Yes, you could put it that way.

To imagine that evolutionary theory could cast light on the concepts of knowledge and understanding involves a massive metabasis eis allo genos, to use a a favorite Greek phrase of Kierkegaard.

‘Foolish’ Songs for April Fool’s Day

Last night I foolishly failed to save my drafts of my Saturday Night at the Oldies post replete with a load of links to songs, and a temporary TypePad outage banished the post to cyber-oblivion.  Well, here are some of them, da capo, in celebration or bemoanment of human folly the chief instance of which is romantic love.  Who has never been played for a fool by a charming member of the opposite sex?

Elvis Presley, A Fool Such as I
Ricky Nelson, Poor Little Fool.  Those "carefree devil eyes" will do it every time. 
Brenda Lee, Fool #1
The Shirelles, Foolish Little Girl
Ricky Nelson, Fools Rush In.  "Fools rush in/Where wise men never go/But wise men never fall in love/So how are they to know?" 
Sam Cooke, Fool's Paradise. Sage advice
Elvin Bishop, Fooled Around and Fell in Love
Kingston Trio, Some Fool Made a Soldier of Me
Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool
Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, My Foolish Heart
Bill Evans, Foolish Heart

Frege Meets Aquinas: A Passage from De Ente et Essentia

Here is a passage from Chapter 3 of Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence (tr. Robert T. Miller, emphasis added):

The nature, however, or the essence thus understood can be considered in two ways. First, we can consider it according to its proper notion, and this is to consider it absolutely. In this way, nothing is true of the essence except what pertains to it absolutely: thus everything else that may be attributed to it will be attributed falsely. For example, to man, in that which he is a man, pertains animal and rational and the other things that fall in his definition; white or black or whatever else of this kind that is not in the notion of humanity does not pertain to man in that which he is a man. Hence, if it is asked whether this nature, considered in this way, can be said to be one or many, we should concede neither alternative, for both are beyond the concept of humanity, and either may befall the conception of man. If plurality were in the concept of this nature, it could never be one, but nevertheless it is one as it exists in Socrates. Similarly, if unity were in the notion of this nature, then it would be one and the same in Socrates and Plato, and it could not be made many in the many individuals. Second, we can also consider the existence the essence has in this thing or in that: in this way something can be predicated of the essence accidentally by reason of what the essence is in, as when we say that man is white because Socrates is white, although this does not pertain to man in that which he is a man.

What intrigues me about this passage is the following argument that it contains:

1. A nature can be considered absolutely (in the abstract) or according to the being it has in this or that individual.
2. If a nature is considered absolutely, then it is not one.  For if oneness were included in the nature of humanity, e.g., then humanity could not exist in many human beings.
3. If a nature is considered absolutely, then it is not many. For if manyness were included in the nature of humanity, e.g., then humanity could not exist in one man, say, Socrates.
Therefore
4. If a nature is considered absolutely, then it is neither one nor many, neither singular nor plural.

I find this argument intriguing because I find it extremely hard to evaluate, and because I find the conclusion to be highly counterintuitive.  It seems to me obvious that a nature or essence such as humanity is one, not many, and therefore not neither one nor many!

The following is clear.  There are many instances of humanity, many human beings.  Therefore, there can be many such instances. It follows that there is nothing in the nature of humanity to preclude there being many such instances.  But there is also nothing in the nature of humanity to require that there be many instances of humanity, or even one instance.  We can express this by saying that the nature humanity neither requires nor precludes its being instantiated. This nature, considered absolutely, logically allows multiple instantiation, single instantiation, and no instantiation.  It logically allows that there be many men, just one man, or no men.

But surely it does not follow that the nature humanity is neither one nor many.  What Aquinas is doing above is confusing what Frege calls a mark (Merkmal) of a concept with a property (Eigenschaft)  of a concept.  The marks of a concept are the subconcepts which are included within it.  Thus man has animal and rational as marks.  But these are not properties of the concept man since no concept is an animal or is rational.  Being instantiated is an example of a property of man, a property that cannot be a mark of man.   In general, the marks of a concept are not properties thereof, and vice versa.  Exercise for the reader:  find a counterexample, a concept which is such that one of its marks is also a property of it.

Aquinas has an insight which can be expressed in Fregean jargon as follows.  Being singly instantiated — one in reality —  and being multiply instantiated — many in reality — are not marks (Merkmale) of the nature humanity.  But because he (along with everyone else prior to 1884) confuses marks with properties (Eigenschaften), he concludes that the nature itself cannot be either one or many.

To put it another way, Aquinas confuses the 'is' of predication ('Socrates is a man') with the 'is' of subordination ('Man is an animal').  Man is predicable of Socrates, but animal is not predicable of man, pace Aristotle, Categories 3b5: no concept or nature is an animal.  Socrates falls under man; Animal falls within man.  Animal is superordinate to man while man is subordinate to animal.

For these reasons I do not find the argument from De Ente et Essentia compelling.  But perhaps there is a good Thomist response.

Blanshard on Santayana’s Prose Style

Brand Blanshard, On Philosophical Style (Indiana University Press, 1967), pp. 49-50. Originally appeared in 1954. Emphasis added.
   
The most distinguished recent example of imaginative prose in  philosophy is certainly George Santayana. Santayana was no man's copy, either in thought or in style. He consistently refused to
adopt the prosaic medium in which most of his colleagues were writing. To read him is to be conducted in urbane and almost courtly fashion about the spacious house he occupies, moving noiselessly always on a richly figured carpet of prose. Is it a satisfying experience as one looks back on it? Yes, undoubtedly, if one has been able to surrender to it uncritically. But that, as it happens, is something the philosophical reader is not very likely to do. Philosophy is, in the main, an attempt to establish     something by argument, and the reader who reads for philosophy will be impatient to know just what thesis is being urged, and what precisely is the evidence for it. To such a reader Santayana seems  to have a divided mind, and his doubleness of intent clogs the intellectual movement. He is, of course, genuinely intent on reaching a philosophic conclusion, but it is as if, on his journey there, he were so much interested also in the flowers that line the wayside that he is perpetually pausing to add one to his buttonhole. The style is not, as philosophic style should be, so transparent a medium that one looks straight through it at the object, forgetting that it is there; it is too much like a window of stained glass which, because of its very richness, diverts attention to itself.

There is no reason why a person should not be a devotee of both truth and beauty; but unless in his writing he is prepared to make one the completely unobtrusive servant of the other, they are sure to get in each other's way. Hence ornament for its own beautiful irrelevant sake must be placed under interdict. Someone has put the matter more compactly: "Style is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the hat."

It seems to me that far too much Continental philosophy is plagued by the same "divided mind" and "doubleness of intent."

A Sucker is Born Every Minute

And so is a hustler.  Before you rush out and buy Richard Lustig's book about winning the lottery, ask yourself a simple question: why is this guy hawking a book if he has the winning lottery method?  Writing a book is a lot more work than buying lottery tickets.  His surname smacks of an aptronym: lustig in German means 'merry.'  One imagines him laughing all the way to the bank with his book receipts. 

The lottery is a fool's 'investment,' a self-imposed fool's tax: you willingly fork over money to the government beyond what they coercively take so that they will have even more  wherewithal for all their wise and wonderful projects.  And it is regressive: it affects mainly the the poor and innumerate, thereby insuring that they will remain poor and innumerate.

There are moral questions as well.  It would be nice if we could agree on the principle primum non nocere, first do no harm, and nicer still if we could agree that that applies to the state as well as to individuals. State-run lotteries harm the populace as I have argued many times over the years.  State-run casinos are even worse.  But I know I am but a vox clamantis in deserto in a country filled with idiots becoming stupider and cruder by the minute.

Geach on the Real Distinction II: The Argument from Intentionality

See Geach on the Real Distinction I for some background on the distinctio realis.  This post lays out the argument from intentionality to the real distinction.

A theory of intentionality ought to explain how the objective reference or object-directedness of our thoughts and perceptions is possible. Suppose I am thinking about a cat, a particular cat of my acquaintance whom I have named 'Max Black.' How are we to understand the relation between the mental act of my thinking, which is a transient datable event in my mental life, and its object, namely the cat I am thinking of? What makes my thinking of Max a thinking of Max?  Or perhaps Max is in front of me and I am seeing him.  What makes my seeing a seeing of him?

Here is what Peter Geach has to say, glossing Aquinas:

What makes a sensation or thought of an X to be of an X is that it is an individual occurrence of that very form or nature which occurs in X — it is thus that our mind 'reaches right up to the reality'; what makes it to be a sensation or thought of an X rather than an actual X or an actual X-ness is that X-ness here occurs in the special way called esse intentionale and not in the 'ordinary' way called esse naturale. This solution resolves the difficulty. It shows how being of an X is not a relation in which the thought or sensation stands, but is simply what the thought or sensation is . . . .(Three Philosophers, Cornell UP, 1961, p. 95)

Geach But what the devil does that mean? Allow me to explain. The main point here is that ofness or aboutness is not a relation between a mental act and its object. Thus intentionality is not a relation that relates my thinking of Max and Max. My thinking of Max just is the mental occurrence of the very same form or nature — felinity — which occurs physically in Max. Max is a hylomorphic compound, a compound of form and (signate) matter. Old Max himself, fleas and all, is of course not in my mind. It is his form that is in my mind. But if felinity informs my mind, why isn't my mind a cat? Here is where the distinction between esse intentionale and esse naturale comes in. One and the same form — felinity — exists in two different modes. Its mode of being in my mind is esse intentionale while its mode of being in Max is esse naturale.

Because my thought of Max just is the intentional occurrence of the same form or nature that occurs naturally in Max, there is no problem about how my thought reaches Max. One could call this an identity theory of intentionality.

What if Max were, unbeknownst to me, to cease to exist while I was thinking about him? My thinking would be unaffected: it would still be about Max in exactly the way it was about him before. The Thomist theory would account for this by saying that while the form occurs with esse intentionale in my mind, it does not occur outside my mind with esse reale.

That in a nutshell is the Thomist theory of intentionality. If you can see your way clear to accepting it as the only adequate account of intentionality, then it supplies a reason for the real distinction.  For the account requires that there be two distinct modes of esse, an immaterial mode, esse intentionale, and a material mode, esse naturale. Now if F-ness can exist in two different modes, then it cannot be identical to either and must be really distinct from both. (Cf. "Form and Existence" in God and the Soul, pp. 62-64.)

This argument for the real dstinction is only as good as the Thomist theory of intentionality which in turn rests on the notion of a common nature, felinity, say, which is indifferent to existence inasmuch as it can exist with esse naturale in Max and with esse intentionale in a Max-thinker, but taken in itself  and absolutely is neither material nor mental, neither many nor one.

The aporetics of common natures will be taken up in subsequent posts.