Philosophy of Mind

Argument from Semantic Determinacy

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James F. Ross gives an argument that thinking must be a non-physical process because concepts are semantically determinate, whereas no physical thing is determinate.

NOTES

Argument from Semantic Determinacy of Thought

  1. There is a fact of the matter about what concepts mean
  2. There is no fact of the matter about what anything physical means
  3. So, concepts are not physical
  • O1: our thoughts aren't determinate
    • R1: self-defeating
  • O2 (Peter Dillard): in computer science, there is a determinate difference between an and-gate, an or-gate
    • R1: physically determinate, not semantically determinate
  • O3: neuroscience shows connection between thought and brain
    • R1: the physical is necessary, but not sufficient, for thought

Further Reading

Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind" by James Madden

Edward Feser, “Kripke, Ross, and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought," https://www.newdualism.org/papers/E.Feser/Feser-acpq_2013.pdf follow up blog post: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2017/01/revisiting-ross-on-immateriality-of.html

The Plurality Thesis

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The Plurality Thesis is a strange result of physicalism that claims every object is actually billions of overlapping objects. Dualists use this to reject physicalism in philosophy of mind.

NOTES

  • Plurality Thesis
    1. Any physical object, O, will have some particle, P, along its edge which has just as good of a claim to be part of O as to not be part of O
    2. So, O-with-P has just as much of a claim to be the object as O-without-P
    3. So, both are objects that overlap everywhere but at P
    4. There are billions of particles like P around O
    5. So, for every object O, there are billions of overlapping O’s
  • Argument from the Plurality Thesis
  1. PA: Physicalism is true
  2. So, Plurality Thesis
  3. I am in a certain psychological state, E
  4. By (1), my brain, B, is in E
  5. By (2) and (4), there are billions of brains in E
  6. ~(5)
    • S1: I clearly don’t share my psychological states with any other brains, much less billions
  7. So, ~(1)
  8. So, dualism is true
  • N1: this isn't quite true--disproving physicalism leaves it open that you could be an ontological idealist
  • N2: proves substance dualism

Further Reading

Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind" by James Madden

The Difference Argument

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The Difference Argument is used by dualists to show that the mind has properties the brain doesn't and is therefore a different kind of thing.

NOTES

  1. If the mind and some part of the brain, B, are identical, then the mind and B must have all properties in common
  2. The mind has a property, F, and B lacks F
    • S1: intentional aspect of thought
    • S2: sensations
    • S3: first-person experience
    • S4: unity of consciousness
      1. People have a united conscious experience
      2. Complex things cannot have a united consciousness
        • S1: consciousness is not additive
        • S2: a set is not a thing, so it doesn't have properties
      3. A simple physical thing does not have a united consciousness
        • O1: there could be a CPU in the brain that is the locus of all awareness
          • R1: there is no evidence that brains work this way and good evidence they don’t
          • R2: such a module would be complex, leading this argument to regress back to a simple physical particle with united consciousness, which would be strange
      4. So, mind has a property the body doesn’t
  3. So, the mind and B are not identical
  4. So, dualism is true

Further Reading

Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind" by James Madden

Emergentism: Does the mind emerge from the brain?

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In this video, I explore the idea of emergentism as exposited by John Searle.

NOTES

  1. Four assumptions are made in the mind-body problem that must be jettisoned
    1. Assumption: ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ name mutually exclusive ontological categories
      1. Descartes: physical = matter = spatially extended
        • O1: excludes things modern physics accepts as matter
      2. Searle: physical  =
        1. located in space and time
        2. causally explainable by microphysics
        3. function causally
      3. On Searle's definition, there is no reason mental cannot be physical
    2. Assumption: there is only one kind of reduction
      1. ontological reduction: x is ontologically reducible to y = x is real, but is identical to some more fundamental entity, y
      2. causal reduction: x is weakly/causally reducible to y = x is not identical to y, but all of the intrinsic facts about x are explained by (or caused by) facts about y
      3. emergent properties/system-level functions = novel properties of a system that the parts lack which emerge when the system is properly organized
    3. Assumption: causation is always a relation between discrete events ordered in time, where cause precedes effect
      1. discrete causation = occurs between two discreet objects and is ordered in time where cause precedes effect
      2. nondiscrete causation = emergent properties causing and being caused by parts in an arrangement
        1. bottom-up = parts cause the emergent property
        2. top-down = emergent property affects something about the parts
    4. Assumption: identity is unproblematic; everything is identical with itself and nothing else; paradigms of identity are object identities and identities of composition
      1. object identity = two objects are actually just the same one object
      2. identity of composition = a thing is identical to the parts that compose it
      3. Emergent things can be totally dependent on their parts without being identical to them
  2. biological naturalism = sensations and thoughts are system-level features of neurophysiological processes in the CNS
  3. So, sensations and thoughts are causally reducible to and emergent from neurophysiological processes in the CNS
  • C1: frees naturalist from problems of reduction, supervenience, or elimination of psychological phenomena that fly in the face of common experience
  • O1: ad hoc
    • R1: the same emergent properties are found in all kinds of natural systems
  1. Conscious states match Searle’s criteria for physicality
    1. They are located in space and time (i.e., the brain)
    2. They are causally explainable by microphysics (i.e., reducible to neurophysiological processes)
    3. They have physical effects (i.e., downward causation on the brain)
  2. Conscious states are not strictly identical to neurophysiological bases, but all their powers are extensions of the latter, so they are not independent things
  3. So, this is only a pseudo-problem
  4. The only questions left are how the brain does this, which is the job of neuroscience
  • O1: the problem of psycho-physical emergence
    • When any other property of an object emerges, it makes sense how it does so
      • Structural emergence
        • The particles that make up a tire aren't round, but when they come together the property of roundness emerges
        • However, when you look at the laws of nature and the particles, you can understand why the particles cause roundness to emerge
          • You can see how they necessitate it
      • Quantitative emergence
        • Consider a kid’s choir, where each kid is singing softly, but the whole choir is very loud. Has this brought something into reality?
        • Is this mysterious at all?
        • What causes the new property?
    • The emergence of consciousness from brain matter does not make sense
      • We have made tremendous progress in neuroscience
      • By now, we should have some semblance of an idea, but it's not even close
    • The emergence of consciousness from brain matter isn't even intelligible
      • Galen Strawson
      • What makes emergence intelligible is this
      • Take the thing that emerges and that which it emerges from
      • You should be able to characterize them both--describe them both--using conceptually homogeneous concepts
        • Shape of the atoms and shape of the tire
        • Motion of the atoms and motion of the tire
      • No set of conceptually homogeneous concepts could capture both the experiential and the non-experiential
        • Shape of the brain and…what? Shape of consciousness?
        • Electrons in motion and first person experience of red?
    • O1: brute emergence
      • R1: We can't say "It just does"
        • We want to say one thing emerges from another,
        • There must be something about the thing it emerges from which is sufficient for the thing to emerge
        • But this is something would be our explanation that we’re lacking

Further Reading

Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind" by James Madden

Panpsychism: Does everything have a mind?

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Panpsychism is the view that "everything has a mind." In this video, I look at arguments for and against this view

NOTES

  • panpsychism- “everything has a mind”
    • Not that everything can think, but everything has some level of consciousness
    • Not necessarily that every single object has consciousness, but at least the building blocks
  • A1: Problem of Psychophysical Emergence
  • A2: The Intrinsic Nature Argument
    1. Physical objects are known by their extrinsic nature
    2. This doesn't tell us about the intrinsic nature of these objects
    3. Science can only tell us about the extrinsic nature of physical objects
    4. So, science is an incomplete picture of the world
    5. Panpsychist has a proposal: the intrinsic nature of matter is, at least in part, consciousness
  • A3: “simplicity argument” in favor of panpsychism
    • The intrinsic nature of at least some matter is consciousness-involving: namely the matter of brains 
    • This is perhaps our only real clue as to the intrinsic nature of matter in general
    • O1: hasty generalization
  • O1: Deeply counterintuitive
  • O2: The Combination Problem
    • James: Very difficult to make sense of: “little” conscious subjects of experience with their micro-experiences coming together to form a “big” conscious subject with its own experiences
      • Imagine there are a billion conscious particles
      • Push them all together into a brain shape
      • A human consciousness arises
      • That human consciousness would not be a case of additive emergence like the quiet voices making a loud sound
      • It would just be an entirely new consciousness
      • You'd now have 1 billion and 1 consciousnesses
      • In general, a mind isn't something you add up to
    • The Subject-Summing Problem
      • 1. Each subject has a viewpoint that excludes the viewpoints of all other subjects
      • 2. If my point of view and your point of view were to be combined into an “uber-mind”, then that uber-mind would have to have both your experiences to the exclusion of all other experiences and my experiences to the exclusion of all other experiences
      • 3. This seems flatly contradictory
      • Adapted zombie argument
        1. Assume: conceivability = possibility
        2. We can conceive of a human with all its parts being conscious, yet the human not conscious itself
        3. So, it's possible for the parts to be conscious without the self being conscious
        4. If the parts can be conscious without giving rise to the self being conscious, then something else must be causing the self to be conscious
        5. So, panpsychism is false

Further Reading

Epiphenomenalism: Is our mind a byproduct of our brain?

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Epiphenomenalism is a version of property dualism that claims the mind is a byproduct of the brain that is causally inert. In this video, I discuss what that means and some objections to it.

NOTES

Our physical properties generate our mental properties

Emergent mental phenomena are causally inert

O1: counterintuitive

O2: problem of psychophysical emergence

O3: arguments for substance dualism over property dualism

Further Reading

What is dualism?

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In this video, I explain what dualism is, the difference between property and substance dualism, the difference between different kinds of substance dualisms (including Cartesian dualism), and motivations for and against being a dualist.

NOTES

Motivations for and against

  • A1: the mind is the center of personhood, which is not material
    • S1: material body constantly changes, person remains the same
    • S2: personhood isn't quantifiable like matter
  • A2: thinking seems prima facie to be immaterial
    • R1: the brain has a causal effect on thinking
      • O1: damaged equipment
  • A3: sense of transcendence
  • A4: religious
  • O1: makes minds sound like ghosts in a shell
  • O2: doesn’t neuroscience explain everything going on in thinking?
  • O3: mind sounds like soul, and soul is religion
  • O4: scientism

Further Reading