Category: Mind

On Mental Properties and the Subject of Experience

From a U. K. reader:

I'm currently reading up on my substance dualism for a philosophy of mind course, and thought I'd pose a question to you. I heartily agree with your frequent calls to eschew the parody of dualism as positing a kind of soul-stuff, but given this, I wonder how you think of the ontological status of mental properties. Most physicalists claim that such properties inhere in a physical substance, but if we avoid talk of substance in preference of a subject (as you have, in my opinion rightly, done  in the past) how are these mental properties a) grounded (to avoid a Humean bundle view) and b) ontologically possible. I remember you suggesting that say, the property of being odd was not based on a material substance, as it was associated with a non-material number. But presumably both properties and subjects (however these are related) are concreta. And I find it hard to see how that method works for them.

1. The reader asks about the ontological status of mental properties and how they are related to the items that instantiate them. First some examples.  If I say 'I am feeling anxious,' I self-ascribe the non-intentional mental property of feeling anxious.  If I say, 'I see a coyote,' I self-ascribe the intentional mental property of seeing a coyote. If I say, 'I weigh 180 lbs.,' I self-ascribe the physical property of weighing 180 lbs.  Properties in general can be defined in terms of instantiation: properties are instantiable entities. Thus:

P is a property =df P is possibly such that it is instantiated.

Not all entities are instantiable: neither Socrates nor his singleton are instantiable. I assume that properties are universals where universals are repeatable entities and particulars are not.  That properties are universals  is of course controversial and will be denied by trope theorists.  To maintain that properties are universals is to reject that form of nominalism according to which everything that exists is a particular.  I also reject the form of nominalism according to which properties are linguistic in nature.  What's more, I reject the conceptualist theory that properties are mental in nature.  Thus I tend to think that both physical and mental  properties are universals that can exist uninstantiated, and whose existence  is independent of the existence of any (finite) mind.  Mental properties are not 'in the mind' if what this means is that mental properties exist only as accusatives of mental acts.  Nor do mental properties require for their existence the existence of any (finite) minds.

I should also say something about 'abstract' and 'concrete' inasmuch as my reader speaks of concreta. ('Concreta' is the plural of 'concretum' the latter referring to any concrete item.)  I suggest the following definition:

X is concrete (abstract)  =df  X is (is not) causally active/passive.

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Consciousness and the Conservation of Energy

This just over the transom:

 I've been reading your blog recently and find it to be very good. [. . .] Since you question mortalism, a doctrine I've had some doubts about myself, I thought you might find a use for some ideas of mine on the matter.

Posting on machineslikeus.com,  I encountered someone who argued that belief in a 'future state' (Hume's term, not his) was irrational. His illustration was telling:

'We never ask, "Where did the 60 Miles Per Hour go after the car hit the cement pylon?"'
This got my attention because I have suspected for a while that belief in a future state may be like belief in potential energy; no-one can SEE potential energy, but various rational concerns suggest that it completes what we see. Just as we have confidence that potential energy always 'completes' the evident kinetic energy in a closed system, we should also believe that our consciousness, being truly real, cannot be annihilated. Each time I hear mortalism stated, the arguments used seem to agree with my analysis; mortalists often claim that they expect to be annihilated or to 'cease to exist'. Hume himself, I think, is credited with expecting 'annihilation' at death. Doesn't basic physics suggest that this is impossible, however? No-one speaks of this happening to energy, so why should it happen to consciousness?

Here is the relevant part of my response from the site:

'We never ask, "Where did the 60 Miles Per Hour go after the car hit the cement pylon?"'

That's not a very good example. We do, in fact, ask where the '60 Miles Per Hour' went, in the sense of asking questions about the transfer of kinetic energy. As most people know, when a car slows down its kintetic energy is transferred into heat, sound, energy in other bodies and so on. Asking 'where the speed went', or, more accurately, where the energy went, is a legitimate question.

If anything, your example highlights something important by a mistake that erodes your case. When people wonder 'where did the consciousness go?' they are implicitly appealing to the Principle of Conservation in much the same way that a scientist appeals to it when they wonder about energy being transferred. There's nothing immediately stupid about that.

Given this, I think that we face a stark choice about consciousness as follows:

1 Consciousness is real and the Principle of Conservation is universal. Therefore, consciousness is permanent and is always conserved in some form, though not necessarily a visible or obvious form. Just because we cannot see consciousness after death doesn't mean it no longer exists; our trust in the Principle of Conservation should override this.

2 Consciousness is real but the Principle of Conservation is not universal. It only applies to certain things. (Which things, and why?) Therefore, consciousness is not necessarily conserved.

3 Consciousness is not real. It never existed in the first place.

Since my thoughts on the topic are still developing, I'd be interested in your input.

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Consciousness, Free Will, and Illusion

This just over the transom:

I'm an occasional reader of your wonderful blog, "Maverick Philosopher".  I was wondering if I could probe you a bit regarding an argument you make in your post, "Could Freedom of the Will be an Illusion?"

You make the statement, "An illusion is an illusion to consciousness, so that if there is no consciousness there are no illusions either."  I know this logic is not unique to you, as Descartes used similar reasoning to conclude that he exists.  I firmly believe that free will is not an illusion, but I'm having trouble convincing myself of this particular argument.

As a computer programmer, I can write a program that tries to comprehend things in its environment (identifies animals from images, for example).  It might come across a particularly tricky image, and get the wrong answer.  I could then say that the program was tricked by an illusion.  But, the program does not have consciousness. 

Is there something wrong with this example?

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Modern Materialism as Essentially Cartesian

Arthur W. Collins, The Nature of Mental Things, Notre Dame 1987, pp. 61-62:

Modern materialists have been so profoundly convinced by the general structure of Cartesian thinking about the mind that they manage to promote only a materialist version of a philosophy of mind that is essentially Cartesian in its underlying attitudes and its extensive matters of detail.  Contemporary mind-brain materialism is a body-body dualism  Materialists typically accept the Cartesian idea of an inner mental realm.  Contemporary repudiation of  dualism is generally a consequence of the extension of scientific knowledge in the biological field and the acceptance of a comprehensive evolutionary naturalism.  Many thinkers now sympathize with the materialist rejection of mental substance.  Impenetrable mysteries will be a part of the the understanding of the mind as long as a ghostly substratum for consciousness and mental activity is tolerated.

[. . .]

Materialism is on the wrong track because the trouble with Cartesian philosophy of mind lies in its conception of  a realm of inner mental things and events comprising conscious mentality.  This is the aspect of Cartesianism that is retained by materialists to this very day.  So the chief defect of materialism, in my view, is that it is a species of Cartesian philosophy of mind.

Collins' beef is with the notion of a "realm of inner mental things."  But what exactly is his problem?  Isn't there a tolerably clear sense in which memories, for example, are inner?  It's a metaphor of course; we are not speaking of spatial interiority.  Memories and such are not spatially inside of anything, which is why mind = brain materialism is absurd.    That thoughts are literally in the head is Unsinn.  That we sometimes talk this way cuts no ice, e.g., "He got it into his head to take up golf." And surely behaviorism is dead as a dog and out for the count:  beliefs, desires , memories, etc. cannot be understood  in terms of behavior or dispositions to behave.  I'll have to read more of Collins to see what he is driving at.  But I suspect I will no more fully understand what he is driving at than I ever understood what Wittgenstein was driving at.

I agree with Collins that contemporary materialism  is dualistic in that it is a brain-body dualism, or as he says, a "body-body dualism."  And I agree that it is absurd to attempt to identify thoughts with events in a hunk of intracranial meat.  But once the absurdity of behaviorism is appreciated, how avoid some notion of inner goings-on?

 

A Hylomorphic Solution to the Interaction Problem?

Interactionist substance dualism in the philosophy of mind is supposed to face a devastating objection, the interaction objection. In the first part of this post I will present this objection in its traditional form and suggest that it is not all that serious. In the second part, however, I take the objection seriously and consider whether Aristotelian- Thomistic hylomorphism has the resources to counter it.

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The Pairing Objection to Substance Dualism

As I understand the  Pairing Objection to substance dualism it goes like this.  Let m1 and m2 be mental tokens of type M and b1 and b2 brain tokens of type B, and suppose that M-type events cause B-type events. Suppose m1 and m2 both occur at time t, and b1 and b2 both occur at a slightly later time t*. Suppose further that m1 is in Tim's mind, m2 in Tom's mind, b1 in Tim's brain and b2 in Tom's brain. What makes it the case that m1 causes b1 rather than b2, and that m2 causes b2 rather than b1? What insures that m1 is paired with b1 and m2 with b2? How, on dualist interactionist assumptions, can we insure that the picture looks like this:


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Supervenience, Emergence, Mind, and Magic

Peter Lupu has come out in favor of emergentism in the philosophy of mind.  Here is an argument he could use to defend the thesis that mental properties are emergent properties:

1. Materialistic Anti-Dualism: Human beings are nothing more than complex material systems.

2. Anti-Reductivism: Mental properties are not identical to physical properties, nor do the former logically imply the latter.

3. Anti-Eliminativism: Human beings do in fact instantiate mental properties.

4. Anti-Panpsychism:  The basic constituents of the physical world do not have mental properties.

Therefore

5. Mental properties are emergent properties, which implies that there are emergent properties. 

The cases for (2) are (3) are overwhelming, so I consider them 'off the table.'  Peter agrees.  Panpsychism ought to be investigated, but Peter finds it highly implausible, so let's assume it to be false for the sake of this discussion.  The crucial premise — the dialectical bone of contention if you will — between Peter and me is (1).  He accepts (1) while I reject it.  It is worth noting that there are at least three ways of rejecting (1): by being a substance dualist, or an idealist (see John Foster's work), or a Thomistic hylomorphic dualist.  So I would argue from ~(5) to ~(1).  But for now we assume that (1) is true.

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Does Substance Dualism Explain Subjectivity? The Nagel-McGinn Parity Argument

In my humble opinion, materialist theories of mind are all of them quite hopeless. All of them founder on the reef of irreducible subjectivity. But is substance dualism in a better position than materialism when it comes to explaining the subjectivity of conscious experience?

Colin McGinn, drawing on Thomas Nagel, thinks that the same problem that afflicts the materialist returns to haunt the substance dualist. Now what was that problem again?

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Classical Theism and Global Supervenience Physicalism

This is a paper I read at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, Massachusetts,  August 10-15, 1998. It explains the notions of strong and global supervenience, notions which will serve as foils in getting a handle on the concept of emergence.

ABSTRACT: Could a classical theist be a physicalist? Although a negative answer to this question may seem obvious, it turns out that a case can be made for the consistency of a variant of classical theism and global supervenience physicalism. Although intriguing, the case ultimately fails due to the weakness of global supervenience as an account of the dependence of mental on physical properties.

Physicalism is popular these days, and to a lesser extent so is classical theism. It should therefore come as no surprise that a number of theists are bent on combining theism with physicalism. But could a classical theist be a physicalist? Is this a coherent doctrinal combination? The classical theist affirms the metaphysically necessary existence of a concrete, purely spiritual being upon which every other concrete being is ontologically dependent. The physicalist, however, is committed to the proposition that everything, or at least everything concrete, is either physical or determined by the physical. To be a bit more precise, physicalism is usefully viewed as the conjunction of an 'inventory thesis' which specifies physicalistically admissible individuals and a 'determination thesis' which specifies physicalistically admissible properties.(1) What the inventory thesis says, at a first approximation, is that every concretum is either a physical item or composed of physical items. As for the determination thesis, what it says is that physical property-instantiations determine all other property-instantiations; equivalently, every nonphysical property-instantiation supervenes on physical property-instantiations. These rough characterizations suggest that theism and physicalism logically exclude one another. If God as classically conceived exists, then the inventory thesis is violated: not every concrete entity is either physical or composed of physical items. And if God exists, it would also appear that the determination thesis is flouted: God's instantiation of his omni-attributes does not supervene on His instantiation of any physical properties: He has none. So at first glance it seems almost crashingly obvious that the classical theist cannot be a physicalist.

But this talk cannot end just yet. For when we get down to the details of formulating precise versions of both the inventory and determination theses, it turns out that there is a way to attempt the reconciliation of theism and physicalism. It is the viability of this way that I aim to explore. But first some background.

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Could I Be a Brain-Body Composite?

The upshot of an earlier argument was that I cannot be a soul-body composite. So if I have a soul, then I am identical with it. This is a conclusion that Roderick Chisholm also arrived at:

If we say that (1) I am a thinking being and (2) that thinking beings and souls are the same, then we should also say (3) that I am a soul; and therefore (if we take 'have' in its ordinary sense) we should say (4) that I do not have a soul. ("On the Simplicity of the Soul," Philosophical Perspectives 5, 1991, p. 178)

If this is right, then hylomorphic dualism is untenable as well as any substance-dualist position according to which I am a composite of two substances. If I have a soul, speaking loosely, then I don't have it, speaking strictly, but am identical to it. But why suppose that one either has or is a soul? Why can't one be a brain-body composite? For essentially the same reasons that I gave last time for my not being a soul-body composite.

First an argument to the conclusion that I am not identical to a brain-body composite, then an argument that I am not identical to my brain.

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Could I Have Parts?

A strange question, but one to which sense can be attached. What I am asking is whether or not the self can be a composite entity, a whole of parts. Or am I a simple entity? The question has a dualist, a materialist, and an idealist form. Dualist: Could I be a mind-body or soul-body composite? Materialist: Could I be a brain-body composite? Idealist: Could I be a composite of items that are all of them of a spiritual nature? And if one is a dualist, the problem occurs in a compound form: given that both soul and body are composites, how can I be a composite of these two composites?

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Could Freedom of the Will be an Illusion?

Could freedom of the will in the strong or unconditional 'could have done otherwise' sense be an illusion?

Suppose A and B are incompatible but possible courses of action, and I am deliberating as to whether I should do A or B. (Should I continue with this blogging business, or devote more time to less ephemeral pursuits?) Deliberating, I have the sense that it is up to me what happens. I have the sense that it is not the case that events prior to my birth, together with the laws of nature, necessitate that I do what I end up doing. Seriously deliberating, I presuppose the falsity of determinism. Determinism is the thesis that, given the actual past, and the actual laws of nature, there is only one possible future. When I seriously deliberate, however, my deliberation behavior manifests the belief that there is more than one possible future, and that it is up to me which of these possible futures becomes actual. There is the possible future in which I hike tomorrow morning and blog in the afternoon and the equipossible future in which I blog tomorrow morning and hike in the afternoon. And which becomes actual depends on me.

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