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11. Splintered Mind, Russellianism and
Determinism
How to Relegate "Quantum
Zombies"?
The Ineluctability of Indivisible
Mental Subject
Against the Notions of
Subjectless Experience and Compound Mind
In the article
"Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness" (written a year after
"The Conscious Mind") Chalmers develops the argument about
"subtraction of a phenomenal component", and supplements it with some
new considerations favourable to "the Russellian view". The view is
the direction in modern philosophy of mind which is, in fact, panpsychism, but
is most often called "Russellian monism" – in honour of Bertrand
Russell, who has formulated the basic ideas which modern supporters of this
direction try to develop. Chalmers uses a more neutral name "the Russellian
view", as he remarks that in a certain important respect this conception
is dualistic. Further on I will name it "russellianism". In the
context of the current discussion, "russellianism" looks sort of
"the third way" between interactionism and epiphenomenalism: like interactionism,
russellianism (as if) admits the causal efficiency of the mind; but in a
paradoxical way combines this with acceptance of the thesis about the causal
closure of physical reality.
In keeping with his
arguments from "The Conscious Mind" which we have discussed in the
Appendix to the previous chapter, Chalmers suggests that "an appeal to
³nteract³on³st dualism does not really solve the problems of
epiphenomenalism", since "³nteract³on³sm is subject to an
epiphenomenalist worry of its own": "for any given ³nteract³on³st
theory, it seems that we can remove the facts about experience, and still be
left with a coherent causal story." Chalmers illustrates this thesis on
the examples of interactionist theories of J.Eccles and G.Stapp:
“Take Eccles' theory on which
"psychons" in the mind affect physical processes in the brain. Here
one can tell a perfectly coherent causal story about psychons and their effect
on the brain without ever mentioning the fact that psychons are experiential.
On this story, psychons will be viewed as causal entities analogous to
electrons and protons in physical theories, affected by certain physical
entities and affecting them in turn; and just as with protons and electrons,
the fact that psychons have any experiential qualities will be quite
inessential to the dynamic story.”
“Consider Stapp's view… Presumably when this view is filled out, it will say
that certain physical states P give rise to certain experiential states E, and
that these states E bring about physical collapses[1] in turn… Given that physics works
as Stapp suggests, there is a logically possible world with a "quantum
zombie". In this world, instead of P causing experience E which causes
collapse, P causes collapse directly. There is no consciousness in this world,
but all the functions are performed just the same. So there is a sense in which
the fact that experience is associated with collapses in our world is
superfluous.”
From these examples, Chalmers
generalizes:
“one can tell a similar conceptually coherent "zombie" story
for any interactionist picture”.
I think that
this generalization is disputable.
In the examples adduced
by Chalmers, as he describes them in the
above quotations, there is one characteristic common feature:
interactionism is depicted not as a theory about interaction between the brain
and the mental self (the mind) as a unitary indivisible whole, but as a theory
about interaction between the brain and some purported elements of the mind. In the case of Eccles’ theory the
brain is supposed to interact with some entities called psychons; in the case
of what Chalmers thinks “Stapp's
view … will say … presumably when this view is filled out” – with some entities
called "experiences" – as if these "experiences" exist and
interact with the brain on their own, without the experiencer – the subject who
experiences them. (Obviously, we have to do with the influence of the absurd
David Hume’s theory that the self is but a "bundle" of "experiences".
– See section 8.)
Accordingly,
I think that Chalmers’ argument is applicable to those versions of
interactionism which splinter the mind in such a way. But it is doubtful that
the argument is applicable to "holistic" interactionism (such as, for
example, interactionism of R.Descartes and K.Popper, and correctly interpreted
theories Eccles and Stapp[2]), in which
the mental self (the mind) is understood as an indivisible whole, the unitary
mental subject interacting with the brain. It is not obvious at all that for such
interactionism “one can tell a similar conceptually coherent "zombie"
story”.
To see that such a
story-telling is problematical, let us consider a general scheme presupposed by
Chalmers’ reasoning. It concerns with the following causal chain:
1) a physical event A in a physical system S causes a certain mental state;
2) this mental state, in
its turn, effects a certain causal influence C on physical events in system S.
Thus, the mental state
acts in the role of a generator of additional causal dynamics in system S. (Likewise, this role may be acted by
some simple mental entities like Eccles’ psychons.) But the same additional
causal dynamics may be realised just as well by some physical entity.
Prima facie,
it may seem that it makes no principal difference whether the role of mental
generators of physical causality is implemented by mental entities like
psychons or separate simple experiences, or it is implemented by such a mental
entity as a human mind. In any case, there is some physical event as input of
the generator, and some causal physical dynamics as output. As both input and
output are physical, the same transformation could be, in principle,
accomplished by some physical entity. But on a better thought we may see that
there is a difference which makes a principal difference.
To begin with, let us
notice that “a conceptually coherent "zombie"
story” we are interested in should be a story not about a single concrete case (a physical event Art in a certain spatial
region r at a certain moment of time t has caused a certain
experience, which has caused a certain causal physical dynamics Crt), but about an infinite, open multitude of all such cases together.
In “a conceptually coherent "zombie" story” the physical
mediator-generator should be a causally equivalent replacement of the mind not
for one concrete piece of experience associated with one concrete brain, but
for the whole human mind throughout the whole human life. But such a causally
equivalent replacement may well happen to be impossible.
Admittedly,
for any physical description of physical event Àrt and causal dynamics Crt, such a physical entity (or system) is possible that
if it receives Àrt as
input, it generates Crt
as output. But not for any (especially, infinite) multitude of pairs {(Àrt1, Crt1), (Àrt2,
Crt2)..., (Àrtn, Crtn)} such a physical entity (system) is possible. For
example, it is possible that minds of different people, or a mind of one person
at different moments of his/her life react(s) differently on identical input
physical events Àrt1 and,
accordingly, generate(s) different causal dynamics as output; and this happens
not as a matter of chance (chance events could be realized in a physical
system, – for example, by quantum-mechanical processes), but as a consequence
of differences between minds of different people (uniqueness of each person’s
mind), and as a consequence of the dynamics of states and development of a
person’s mind throughout his/her life. That one could tell about all this “a
conceptually coherent "zombie" story”, the physical entity (system)
intended as a causal replacement for the mind should, firstly, be unique for
every person and, secondly, should by means of its own (physical) causality
change-develop in such a way that it would precisely parallel infinitely
complex dynamics of the development and changes of states of an individual
human mind. It is by no means obvious that such a physical entity (system) is
possible.
However,
we need to admit that though such a possibility is problematical, it is
nonetheless not excluded, in principle. In fact, epiphenomenalism is a
hypothesis that such dynamics and development of the physical system of the
brain actually take place, and the mind just passively reflects the dynamics of
processes in the brain. To adjudicate which one of the competing hypotheses –
epiphenomenalism or interactionism – is preferable, additional arguments are
needed; and I propose such arguments (which testify against epiphenomenalism,
in favour of interactionism) in the main part of the previous section. What I
wrote above in this section is not an argument against epiphenomenalism, but a
rebuttal of Chalmers’ argument purported to show that interactionism “does not
really solve the problems of epiphenomenalism”, “is subject to an
epiphenomenalist worry of its own”, since “for any given interactionist theory,
it seems that we can remove the facts about experience, and still be left with
a coherent causal story”. As he/she understands the human self as a
noncompound-indivisible mental subject, an interactionist can avoid “an
epiphenomenalist worry”, since it is very doubtful that that we can remove from
a person’s life-story all the facts about his/her (subjective) sensations,
emotions, thoughts, desires and intentions, and will still be left with a
coherent causal story. (Let us recollect the stories from the main part of the
previous section about Plato, his readers, admirers and critics, about Einstein
and his books on the relativity theory, about theatrical public etc.)
The Conceptual Mess of Russellianism
Chalmers’ further
reasoning, in which he passes from epiphenomenalism to russellianism, are impregnated
with the same mistake – the assumptions of the compound mind and of subjectless
experience.
Chalmers
admits that the interactionist has a reasonable solution to the problem of “an
epiphenomenalist worry”:
“Presumably, the interactionist will respond that some nodes in the
causal network are experiential through and through. Even though one can
tell the causal story about psychons without mentioning experience, for
example, psychons are intrinsically experiential all the same. Subtract
experience, and there is nothing left of the psychon but an empty place-marker
in a causal network, which is arguably to say there is nothing left at all. To
have real causation, one needs something to do the causing; and here, what is
doing the causing is experience.”
Chalmers
admits that this solution is “perfectly reasonable”, but suggests that “the
same solution will work in a causally closed physical world”:
“Just as the interactionist postulates that some nodes in the causal network
are intrinsically experiential, the "epiphenomenalist" can do the
same.”
Let's notice, that in this statement
"epiphenomenalist" is taken in inverted commas. In
fact, epiphenomenalist (without inverted commas) cannot "do the
same", for it won’t be epiphenomenalism any more. By definition,
epiphenomenalism denies causal efficiency of the mental (experiential). From
Chalmers’ further explanations it is clear that an "epiphenomenalist"
he writes about is not an epiphenomenalist, but a russellianist.
Chalmers
proposes to “exploit an idea that was set out by Bertrand Russell (1926), and
which has been developed in recent years by Grover Maxwell (1978) and Michael
Lockwood (1989). This is the idea that physics characterizes its basic
entities only extrinsically, in terms of their causes and effects, and leaves
their intrinsic nature unspecified.” There are some physical entities which
causally interact, but what is their intrinsic nature, what are their intrinsic
properties? The proposed solution is that “the intrinsic properties underlying
physical dispositions are themselves experiential properties, or perhaps
they are some sort of proto-experiential properties that together
constitute conscious experience. This way, we locate experience inside
the causal network that physics describes, rather than outside it as a
dangler.”
Let's try to
examine this idea. Let’s suppose that the physical entities have intrinsic
properties, and that these internal properties are "experiential" or
"protoexperiential" properties. In that case, there is a further
question which needs to be answered: what is the relationship between intrinsic
and extrinsic properties? Logically, there are three possibilities:
1)
Russellianism-idealism. The physical entities have (as ontologically
fundamental) only intrinsic properties; so-called "extrinsic"
properties are but manifestations, appearances of intrinsic properties, – how
they appear to the human mind (as Kant’s phenomena).
2)
Russellianism-epiphenomenalism. The physical entities have both intrinsic and
extrinsic properties. Extrinsic properties of physical entities are other
properties, distinct from intrinsic. All physical causation is defined by
extrinsic properties; this means that intrinsic properties make no contribution
to physical causality. At the best, they may be epiphenomena of extrinsic
properties. In other words, the physical entities have such extrinsic
properties as spatial location, electric charge, mass, etc.; besides, they have also a subjective dimension in which they
experience (protoexperience?) – quite passively – some experiences or
protoexperiences (it may be that their structure reflects the structure of
external interactions). As everything that, as far as we know and can know,
happens with quarks, atoms, molecules, etc.
is explainable in terms of their "extrinsic" properties, such as
spatial location, mass, electric charge, etc.,
and as we know nothing about their "intrinsic" properties, and can’t
know anything about them (have no relevant evidences) – so it seems much more
reasonable to assume that quarks, atoms, molecules etc. have only such properties as spatial location, mass, electric
charge, etc., and have no subjective
experiences! Admittedly, it is possible, in principle, that in each quark there
live a huge multitude of fairies and gnomes; alas, we can’t know anything about
it, for these fairies and gnomes, firstly, are invisible and, secondly, are
tightly closed in their quarks.
3)
Russellianism-interactionism. The physical entities have both intrinsic properties
and extrinsic properties, and these two kinds of properties interact. In other
words, processes which take place in “the subjective dimension” of physical
entities (some analogue of human sensations, emotions, thinking, desires etc.) influence their extrinsic
properties. However, physics says that such properties as weight and electric
charge remain constant. But we can assume (as it was done by some ancient
philosophers) that the attraction and repulsion between physical bodies is a
consequence of the love and hatred which they experience to each other, and
which magnitude happen to obey to a strict mathematical order described by the
laws of physics (such, for example, as the gravitational law of love: the force
of love between two bodies is directly proportional to their masses and
inversely proportional to the squared distance between them☺).
Chalmers’
own attitude with respect to these three alternatives turns out to be confused:
“The Russellian view still qualifies
as a sort of "naturalistic dualism", as it requires us to introduce
experience or proto-experience as fundamental, and it requires a deep duality
between the intrinsic and extrinsic features of physical reality. But
underlying this dualism, there is a deeper monism: we have an integrated world
of intrinsic properties connected by causal relations.”
This
statement makes a contradictory mixture of two different – dualistic and
idealistic – versions of russellianism. The statement about “a deep duality
between the intrinsic and extrinsic features of physical reality” assumes
russellianism-epiphenomenalism or russellianism-interactionism; but it is
incompatible with the statement about “an integrated world of intrinsic
properties connected by causal relations”, which assumes russellianism-idealism.
Anyway, all
these deep metaphysical speculations, unfortunately, help nothing for
understanding of that unique mind (consciousness) about existence and
properties of which we know, – the human mind (consciousness) and its relation
to the body (brain). Whether quarks, atoms and molecules have any minds or not,
this tells nothing about my – or your – mind (if not to take into consideration
the very implausible hypothesis that the human mind-self is a mind-self of some
privileged quark in the human brain).
It has to be
mentioned that Chalmers does not leave this problem unnoticed. He acknowledges
as an obvious difficulty for russellianism “the problem of how fundamental
experiential or proto-experiential properties at the microscopic level somehow
together constitute the sort of complex, unified experience that we
possess.” Chalmers admits also that interactionist dualism avoids this problem:
“instead of trying to constitute our consciousness out of innumerable different
fundamental nodes, there might turn out to be a single node in each case
(or just a few?) which carries the burden. … this avoidance of the constitution
problem may in the end turn out to be the greatest virtue of a quantum
interactionism.”
(Let us correct one inaccuracy: the adjective
"quantum" has no essential bearing to the issue; it has to be
replaced with “holistic” or “unitarian” or "single-noded".)
But Chalmers
supposes that, perhaps, russellianism too can avoid this problem somehow. I think
that it is impossible: “the constitution problem” is just as unsolvable as the
problem of physicalist reduction, for essentially the same reasons. Chalmers
manages not to notice this as he deliberates about experience in an absurd
Humean key – forgetting about the subject of experience, that experience is possible only as someone's
experience, that the very concept of
experience necessarily presupposes the existence
of the subject of this experience. This mistake – let us designate it as
the mistake of subjectless experience – in generally characteristic for
russellianism; and it creates a conceptual mess which allows theorists of this
direction to jump in their reasoning freely and without noticing between
idealism, neutral monism, materialism and dualism.
The mess
arises in two points:
1) Between,
on one hand, the basic idealistic
hypothesis that the physical relations really
are relations between intrinsic
properties (Chalmers: “a deeper monism: we have an integrated world of
intrinsic properties connected by causal relations”), and that these intrinsic
properties are mental
properties-states, and, on the other hand, reasoning about the relationship
between the intrinsic and the extrinsic properties in a dualistic key (Chalmers: “a deep
duality between the intrinsic and extrinsic features of physical reality”);
2) between
the basic hypothesis that the intrinsic properties are experiential
properties-states, and reasoning about "experience" in the Humean key
– as if experience exists without an experiencer, a subject who experiences it.
If we assume the hypothesis that the internal nature of reality is experience,
we take the position of idealism; but arguing about experience as something
subjectless, we slide into the position of materialism. To repeat, the concept
of experience necessarily presupposes the existence of a subject who
experiences it, an experiencer. An experience which is not experienced by
anyone is a sheer nonsense. Reality which exists irrespective of whether
someone experiences it or not, i.e.
independently of the mental subject, is called material or physical reality,
not experience. Using the word "protoexperiential" instead of
"experiential" only obscures the mess: if this
"protoexperience" is subjectively experienced by some mental subject,
then the prefix ("proto-") is needless; if not, then
"protoexperience" is an objective non-mental reality, i.e. material,
physical reality.
After
disentangling this mess we are left with a panpsychist hypothesis that the
physical entities – such as molecules, atoms, electrons, quarks – are both
physical objects and mental subjects experiencing some experiences depending on
their relations (interactions) with other such psychophysical entities. (As was
explained above, three variants of the relationship between the mental and
physical aspects are possible – idealistic, epiphenomenalistic and
interactionist.)
Unfortunately,
as I have already noted, this hypothesis, as well as Eccles’ hypothesis about
the psychons (mental entities interacting with neurons in the brain), gives
absolutely nothing for the explanation of that for the sake of what it all was
thought out – the mind of that unique kind about existence and properties of
which we know, and which creates the mind-body problem – my or your mind-self.
Whether psychons exist or not, whether quarks and atoms have minds or not, –
these are questions about other mental entities and their minds, but in no way
about my (your) mind-self. Subjective experiences of psychons (if they exist),
quarks, atoms, molecules etc. (if
they experience anything) are their subjective experiences (about which neither
me nor you don’t and can’t know anything), not my or your subjective
experiences. Logical transition from a multitude of minds of psychons, quarks
and atoms (more accurately, from a multitude of such hypothetical mental
subjects as psychon-subjects, quark-subjects and atom-subjects, etc.) to my or your mind (more
accurately, to my or your selves as mental subjects) is just as impossible as
logical transition from a multitude of unconscious quarks, atoms, etc. to my or your minds-selves.
In general,
what Chalmers calls “the "combination problem"” or “the
"constitution problem"”, admitting that it “is surely the hardest”
for russellianism, is not simply a difficult problem, but the hard problem in
that specific strong sense in which Chalmers talks of “the hard problem of
consciousness” for materialism (see section 6, subsection “The Hard Problem of
Consciousness”). You need just understand that “the "constitution problem"”
is not a problem of composing complex experience
from simple, and a problem of composing the
mental subject-self. By paraphrasing Chalmers’ formulation of “the hard
problem of consciousness”, we have quite analogously the hard problem of the
self for russellianism (panpsychism):
The really hard problem for Russellianism is
the problem of the self. It is the problem of my or your experience and subjective awareness, the problem
of the existence of me and you (our selves) qua
experiencers and subjects of awareness. Even if we suppose that physical
entities of which our bodies and brains consist (atoms, molecules, neurons and
whatever else) are mental subjects capable of having experiences, there still
remain further unanswered questions: Why do me and you have
experiences and subjective awareness? Why there are me and you qua experiencers
and subjects of awareness? There is an explanatory gap between, on
one side, atoms, molecules, neurons etc.
qua mental subjects and, on the other side, me and you qua mental subjects. The
facts about the existence of me and you qua mental subjects, and about
my and your experiences and subjective awareness, cannot be an automatic
consequence of any account about atoms, molecules, neurons etc. qua mental subjects, and about their
experiences, as it is conceptually coherent that any experiences of
atoms, molecules, neurons etc. could exist without there being me and you qua mental subjects. My and your existence qua mental subjects, our experiences and subjective awareness are not entailed by those of atoms,
molecules, neurons etc.
Surely, a russellianist
(panpsychist) can tread one of the ways quite similar to those which
materialists choose. Like the elimativists of the functionalists a la Dennett – what Chalmers describes
as “type-A materialism” (denying that there is the phenomenal mind as something
which needs explanation besides the functions), – a russellianist can simply
deny or ignore the existence of the mental subject, talk of experience as if it
exists on its own, without an experiencer. Or, like the supporters of the
theory of identity (“type-B materialism” in Chalmers’ terminology), a
russellianist (panpsychist) can postulate a “primitive identity” between the
human self and some system of psychophysical entities (atoms, molecules,
neurons, etc.) composing the brain.
Obviously, these strategies are just as unsatisfactory as the corresponding
materialistic strategies.
In fact, a
panpsychist has yet one possibility with no materialistic analogy. The hard
problem of the self for russellianism (panpsychism) arises so far as the
russellianist tries to explain the self as a composition of some simpler
elements. In principle, a panpsychist can avoid this problem by assuming that
the self is not a composition of "quark-subjects", but one of them, i.e. a subject "embodied" in
one of the fundamental (noncompound-indivisible) (psycho-)physical entities
inside the brain. The problem, however, is that all physical entities
(microparticles) known to modern physics seem obviously inadequate for this
role.
The role of
the most fundamental physical microparticles can be attributed to quarks;
however, modern physics says that they do not exist separately, but only as
parts of other microparticles. There are billions of quarks in the brain, and
there are billions of microparticles of every kind of the next higher level of
organisation – electrons, protons, neutrons, etc. They all interact with other microparticles in the brain in a
rather simple way according to the laws of physics. This makes them obviously
unfit for the role of the self, which is unique and, in the interactionist
version, should interact with the brain in a very complex way which would
correspond to the complexity of the mental structure and dynamics of the self.
Alternatively,
if we admit that the selves are some unknown to modern physics fundamental
entities capable of all the phenomenal complexity of the human mind and
interacting with other (physical) elements of the brain, then attribution of
mentality to physical entities loses any sense, and we arrive at usual
dualism-interactionism.
Interactionism and the Problem of Determinism: How to Relegate Laplace’s
Demon?
The Russian philosopher V.Vasilyev has offered his version of solution
of the mind-body problem which in some sense contrives to combine
interactionism with the causal closure of physical reality.[3]
In fact, this sense essentially differs from what is usually understood by “the
causal closure of the physical”. The gist is as follows. On the one hand, we
are proposed to assume 1) causal efficiency of the mind. On the other hand, we
a proposed to assume 2) determinism as the doctrine that every event is
unequivocally predetermined by previous events (here and further on I am
talking about comprehensive
determinism, which excludes the possibility of any non-predetermined events),
and 3) the thesis (corresponding to the scientific view of the development of
the Universe) that there was a time when no mind existed – there was nothing
but physical reality. If put together, these three assumptions yield the
following result: though the mind is causally efficient, influences physical
events, but its causal contribution is entirely
a necessary consequence of the preceding physical causation (which have
produced the mind and all its various states); so, in fact, all in physical
reality (and in the mind too) is eventually unequivocally predetermined by some
preceding physical causes (events, states).[4]
Laplace’s demon, having learnt all physical facts about the world at some
moment of time before mind has first emerged (for example, after a microsecond
after the Big Bang), and knowing all physical and psychophysical laws of
nature, could exactly predict all – physical and mental alike – events, states
of a physical reality and of all existing minds at any subsequent moment of
time.
V.Vasilyev doesn’t merely propose this as a hypothesis, but contends that
this theory necessarily follows from fundamental, necessary structures
(concepts, presumptions) of human thinking. However, the substantiation of this
claim he offers is, in my opinion, unsound; it contains several mistakes, any
one of which is enough to invalidate the substantiation. I will discuss only
the first of them; firstly, because all further steps of the substantiation are
based on the results of this first (mistaken, in my opinion) step; secondly, because
it is most directly connected with the problem discussed in this subsection.
Vasilyev’s substantiation relies on “analyzing how people conceive of facts”, which “in a general outline … was performed by David Hume way back in the 18th
century”. This
analysis tells that “people …
ascribe different properties to things and living creatures surrounding them”, and this
attribution of properties “boils down to the expectation that some or other thing will
"behave" in an appropriate way under certain circumstances”. In their turn,
“expectations form on the
basis of past experience transferred to the future”, and “this transfer is based on belief in the identity of past and future”, which Hume
considered as “a
primary principle of human nature”.[5] It is a pity
that Vasilyev does not call into question correctness of Hume’s analysis and
conclusions, and does not consider alternative views, – in particular, Karl
Popper's views to which I will address below. Accepting uncritically Hume’s
conclusions, – which are, at least, doubtful, – Vasilyev continues:
“Belief in the past-future identity, as I see it, is a direct expression
of the structure of human consciousness. … we simply have no material for the building of a reliable
image of the future other
than memories of sequences of past events, something that signifies precisely
belief in the identity of past and future. … Since belief in the identity of past and future is necessarily
integrated in the very structure of consciousness, it is inevitable for us.”[6]
All this is doubtful in the higher
measure. From my point of view, the thesis about the identity of past and
future is a foggy philosophical postulate which does not expresses adequately common
human notions about the relations of past and future, as these notions really
are, and, even more so, does not express something necessary, inevitable, such
that all people necessarily believe in it, can not help believing in it.
To begin with, noone of us believes
in the identity of past and future in the literal sense. Future is not past,
and past is not future. Also, noone believes in the identity of past and future
in the sense that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow will be in every respect exactly
the same as yesterday or the day before yesterday. (Rather, we will agree that
every moment of time, if taken in its entirety, is unique and unrepeatable.) When
talking about the identity of past and future, Vasilyev (and Hume) mean
something different. What is it? It turns out, nothing else than determinism:
“… belief in the past-future identity is equivalent to believing that each
event has a cause. … we believe that a repetition of all components of a past event
(including its configuration) will bring in its wake the same combined event as
before.”[7]
Let us notice first, that is
absolutely unclear, what can “a repetition of all components of a past event (including its
configuration)” mean. Such a repetition (at least, within the
history of mankind and all the history of the Universe after the Big Bang)
simply never happens, for “all components of a past event (including its configuration)”
include the whole world.
Now let us consider the questions:
is it really the case that all people believe (and always believed) that “each
event has a cause”? And is it
really the case that this belief is necessary, inevitable for us, so that we all
can’t help believing in it? I think that both these contentions don’t
correspond with reality.
I think that if all people of all
times and cultures were asked the question whether they believe that “each
event has a cause” or, in other
words, that nothing genuinely accidental ever happens, and that all human
desires and actions are predetermined unequivocally down to all the smallest
details by preceding states of the Universe, we would get different answers
from different people. So, if it is a question of conscious belief, then many –
may be, even the majority – of people do not believe in determinism.
But perhaps all people believe in
determinism in the sense of subconscious belief as something they follow involuntarily
in their thinking and actions? It is extremely doubtfully. I think that
unbiased consideration of how common people in their daily life think about
causality, necessity and chance in various cases and situations would show that
this reasoning is often, perhaps even usually, but not always deterministic, that much of this reasoning contains indeterministic
assumptions both in the sense of genuine chance (something that is genuinely
accidental, not just seems accidental in the light of our incomplete knowledge)
and in the sense of a human free will.
Even more obviously false is the
statement that the belief in determinism is necessary, inevitable for the human
person. Many philosophers do reject determinism. Modern microphysics (quantum
mechanics), in its "orthodox interpretation”, as well as in some unorthodox
interpretations, rejects determinism. Vasilyev himself, when writing about
quantum mechanics, admits indeterminism. But if it is possible to believe in
indeterminism at the microlevel, then why can’t one believe that at macrolevel,
too, not everything is entirely
deterministic?!
Logically, there are no reasons to deny the possibility of causeless
events. True, for many people it is hard to understand: how can it be, how is it
possible that something happens so, not somehow otherwise, without any cause at
all? Formerly, this was a problem for me too. It was solved when I have noticed
that in is similar to the situation with logically possible worlds. Let us recollect
Leibnitz: our world is one of the infinite multitude of logically possible
worlds. Suppose, we ask: why our world has happened to be such as it is, not
somehow otherwise how it could be (with some quite different laws of nature and
structure)? – No answer to this question exists. There is no any "because".
It just happened to be such, without any cause
whatever. But if it is possible with respect to the whole Universe, then,
in principle, it may be possible also with respect to some its parts, events, etc.
If so, what is the alternative to Hume’s views about causality? Karl
Popper proposes to consider the concept of causality as derivative from the
concept of regularities or laws of nature.[8]
What we all really necessarily believe in (in the sense of notions by which we are
usually guided in our daily life and thinking), and what is necessary for development
of knowledge (in particular, of science) is 1) the existence of invariable
regularities which operate in past, present and future, irrespective of our
desires, – the laws of nature and 2) our ability in the process “trials and
errors”, “conjectures and refutations” to create and improve theories which rather
well (better and better with new improvements) "grasp" these
regularities-laws. Determination by the laws of nature needn’t necessarily to be
absolutely comprehensive; there are no reasons to exclude the possibility of
some non-predetermined events. (Surely, such epistemology is incompatible with Hume’s
associative psychology; it assumes creative-searching character of the process
of cognition, “the searchlight theory of consciousness”, as opposed to what
Popper criticised under names “observationism” and “the bucket theory of consciousness”.[9])
So, we can see that determinism and belief in it are not necessary at
all. Accordingly, V.Vasilyev’s hypothesis of deterministic interactionism is no
more than a hypothesis. From my point of view, this is not its drawback, for (as
Popper convincingly – for me, at least – argued) nothing more than a hypothesis
exist in philosophy, as well as in empirical science. However, as there is an
alternative, indeterministic hypothesis, so we are to try to form a clear
notions about the available alternatives, estimate pro's and con's each of
them, and in this light to make up our own opinions-preferences.
The main objection against the theory of determinism is that it deprives
of sense the most important – necessary for a meaningful human life and action
– human notions – the notions of freedom as
real possibility of choice and of responsibility
for the choice made. As I have already remarked, from the point of view of
determinism, everything that any person ever did, does or will do is
unequivocally and necessarily predetermined by physical states of the Universe at
any arbitrary moment of time before the emergence of the first consciousness, –
for example, the totality of physical states of the Universe (the totality of
physical facts about the Universe) at the time of a second after the Bing Bang.
Hence, the human person is not really the author of his/her actions, and cannot
be considered as responsible for them. It just seems to a person that he/she
makes choices among really existing possibilities; the truth is that every
his/her choice is predetermined in all the smallest details long before his/her
birth. We all are just puppets who have the illusion of deciding something. Eventually,
the "author" of all that happens, including all human actions, is the
Big Bang; however, the concepts of freedom and responsibility are hardly
applicable to it.
In such a perspective, efficiency of the mind, consciousness is similar
to efficiency of a hammer driving in nails. Really, it is a human person who
drives in nails using the hammer, which he/she or some other human person has
earlier manufactured, as a tool. On assumption of determinism, the mind, consciousness
is such a tool manufactured by physical processes in the brain (or, indirectly,
by the Big Bang) and completely operated by them, though this tool has also subjective-phenomenal
dimension in which it has an illusion that it behaves on its own choice, on its
free will. (Perhaps, it seems to a hammer too that it drives in nails because it
has chosen to do it.)
On the other hand, it seems that indeterminism of a quantum-mechanic
sort (in some situation there is some spectrum of real possibilities with a
certain distribution of predispositions-probabilities of realisation; which of
them will be actually realised is a matter of genuine chance) hardly helps. After
all, if a person does something just accidentally, it has as little to do with freedom
and responsibility as actions of a person-puppet predetermined by the Big Bang.
However it can seem that, logically, no third alternative exists – any action
of a person, or any detail of action is either predetermined, or not.
This alternative consists in that some complex dynamic interweaving of
deterministic and indeterministic events forms a complex qualitative profile
(temperament, character, ideas, knowledge, values, belief) of a human person,
whose choices become causes of his/her actions, and also of the dynamics of his/her
own subsequent development.
Let us begin with the moment of birth. According to one of
non-naturalistic versions of dualism (theistic-creationist dualism), God
creates a person’s soul and accommodates it in a body. According to another
(the theory of reincarnations) – a soul, which has earlier lived through many
other lives in other bodies, gets associated with (embodied in) a new body (and
loses explicit memory of her previous lives). In both versions, a soul, i.e. a human
mental self, from the very birth can possess many individual properties
(dispositions) considerably independent of its body, and generally from any
physical facts. The same is possible also in naturalistic (emergentist) versions
of dualism.
This initial qualitative profile of an individual human person develops subsequently
as a result of complex interactions between its own dispositions and external
factors. This process is regulated-conditioned laws of nature – physical,
psycho-physical (how states and processes in the brain interact with the mind-consciousness-soul-self)
and psychical (regularities within the mind, in relations between mental states),
– but this regulation-conditioning can be not strictly deterministic, but
include elements of chance like those which, according with the notions of
modern physics, occur at the quantum-mechanical microlevel, and also, may be, some
other forms of indeterminism.
In particular, connections between such our mental states as beliefs,
convictions, feelings, moods, desires, and decisions we make, and our actions may
contain considerable elements of indeterminism. Our various mental states may predispose
us in various degrees to different decisions and actions, so that this makes
probability of some decisions and actions high while probability of some others
low; but our decisions and actions are not predetermined unequivocally by preceding
states. The different possibilities between which we choose really exist. In
not just seems to us that we can act so or otherwise, whereas really we cannot
act any other way than we will in fact act. We can really act this way, and can
act otherwise. Preceding states (physical and mental) do not determine a choice
unequivocally, but determine probabilities of this or that choice. In their turn,
those choices we implement become efficient factors which direct changes-development
of our persons.
The supposition of incompleteness of determination of mental states –
not just as "external" determination by physical processes in the
brain, but also as "internal" determination of mental states by other
mental states – accords with the "natural" understanding by people of
how they make decisions, and to their understanding of the concept of freedom. The
opposite, deterministic notion – that a person cannot really act either this or
some other way, that every his/her future act is predetermined in advance (from
the very moment of the emergence of the Universe – the Big Bang), and cannot be
different from what it will in fact turn out to be – is incompatible with that notion
on which any decision-making, all the human activity is necessarily based.
It is important to notice also, that the indeterminism of the dynamics
of the human mind-self can have a qualitatively different character than that of
quantum-mechanical indeterminism or indeterminism in a choice between available
known possibilities. This qualitatively different and higher form of
indeterminism imparts to it a human (as distinct from quantum-mechanical)
character; it is connected with creativity,
discovery by a person of new ideas and possibilities. In this context, it
is appropriate to mention Karl Popper's ideas.
Popper was an adherent of both physical and metaphysical indeterminism.[10]
Physical indeterminism is the view (supported by modern quantum
mechanics) according to which not all
physical events are predetermined
entirely and unequivocally by
preceding physical events. Some physical events which have occurred, might not
occur. In future, some events may occur, and may not occur. There is a spectrum
of possibilities which can be realized. Though in fact only one of them will be
realized, until it is realized different possibilities exist really,
objectively (not just subjectively, in our imagination and thought, as reflection
of the incompleteness of our knowledge). The existence of different
possibilities is not our illusion born of the incompleteness of our knowledge
(about preceding states of the world and the laws of nature); it has not epistemological,
but ontological character; it is a part of how the world really is.
However, Popper noticed that physical indeterminism by itself is not a
solution to the problems of human freedom and creativity. It is just a
"negative" precondition, a condition of possibility for another type of
causality, and also, probably, for another type of indeterminism. For Popper, physical èíäåòåðìèíèçì is important exactly
because it leaves a space for non-physical causality, non-physical
determination, for the interaction between the three "worlds" – the
physical world, the human mind and the world of “objectivated” ideas –
scientific theories, works of art, songs, stories, fairy tales, myths, poetry,
novels etc. Technical inventions,
social institutes, customs, traditions also belong here. This "world-3"
is especially important, for only in relation to it the human life obtains a
genuinely human character; freedom and creativity are possible only in the interaction
between a human person and "world-3".
Meditations of the famous American philosopher and psychologist William
James[11]
are also very much relevant. James contended that it is impossible to prove the
truth or falsity of determinism; in this sense, the choice between determinism
and indeterminism is a matter of faith. But it needn’t be a groundless,
"blind", irrational faith. We have rational grounds to give preference
to one of these alternatives, proceeding from moral considerations: which of
them creates an acceptable picture of reality making sense of the moral
dimension of human life? These James's thoughts have much in common with thoughts
of Kant, who argued that we cannot prove by scientific the existence or non-existence
of freedom, but moral consciousness (practical reason) demands its existence
and, thus, serves as a reason for the belief in it. James argued that
determinism is unacceptable, for it denies the way of thinking about our
actions which is necessary for human life, viz.:
that in a certain situation we really
can (could) act either one way or another. From the point of view of
determinism it only seems to us, that in this or that situation we can (or
could) act somehow otherwise than how we will act (have acted) in fact; really,
all our actions are necessarily predetermined by a preceding course of events (totality
of the conditions which determine these actions); we just do not know how exactly,
and mistakenly take some part of this process of determination for a free
choice.
Explaining the causes of domination of determinism among scientists and
science-oriented philosophers, James remarked, that determinism expresses
"a temper of intellectual absolutism, a demand that the world shall be a solid
block, subject to our control – which temper, which demand, the world may not
be bound to gratify at all". In contrast, indeterminism "gives us a
pluralistic, restless universe, in which no single point of view can ever take
in the whole scene; and to a mind possessed of the love of unity at any cost,
it will, no doubt, remain forever inacceptable".[12]
But the price for the illusion of deterministic unity and control is too
high. Determinism means that everything that happens – including all human decisions
and actions – is necessary-inevitable, predetermined by a preceding course of
events. In particular, the whole human history and all actions of every human
being are unequivocally predetermined by a state of the world before the first human
being existed. Laplace’s demon, having the full information about the state of
the Universe a second after the Big Bang, could calculate all the events in the
Universe after that moment, – in particular, all actions of every human being till
our time and afterwards. If someone somewhere has cruelly murdered a person, he/she
couldn’t help doing this; it was long ago predetermined that he/she will do it.
(On a wider historical scale: Hitler, Stalin and other organizers and executors
of mass murders could not act otherwise.) There are no exceptions from the
deterministic rule. Such a picture of the world is hardly acceptable.
William James' conclusion is: “...while I freely admit that the
pluralism and the restlessness are repugnant and irrational in a certain way, I
find that every alternative to them is irrational in a deeper way. ... Whatever
difficulties may beset the philosophy of objective right and wring, and the
indeterminism it seems to imply, determinism ... contains difficulties that are
greater still.... The world is enigmatic enough in all conscience, whatever
theory we can take up toward it. The indeterminism I defend, the free-will theory
of popular sense based on the judgment of regret, represents that world as vulnerable,
and liable to be injured by certain of its parts if they act wrong. And it
represents their acting wrong as a matter of possibility or accident, neither
inevitable nor yet to be infallibly warded off.”[13]
******
In conclusion, I can’t leave without notice V.Vasilyev's comment about “a reference to the fundamental role of the mental "individual"”, which is
thought of in accordance with such models as Descartes’ “unity of the thinking Ego, or Kant's "original unity of
apperception"”.[14] Vasilyev objects to such a reference on the
following ground:
“In our day and age … it seems obvious that this "unified,"
"self-identical" and "free" Ego is a superficial, not
deep-down, phenomenon, a mental superstructure that can by no means be the
ontological basis of mental states.”[15]
In the same way, an adherent of materialism could declare, without
considering arguments of opponents, that in our day and age it seems obvious
that mental states are a superficial, not deep-down phenomenon, a mental
superstructure that can by no means be ontologically basic. For me, personally,
exactly the opposite seems obvious (irrespective of “our day and age”):
1) The Humean idea of mental states without a mental subject –
sensations which noone experiences, feelings which noone feels, thoughts which
noone thinks, desires which noone desires – is a sheer nonsense. If we admit
the existence of mental states, we should admit the existence of the mental
subject whose mental states they are. Logically, the concept of a mental
subject is primary relative to the concept of mental states; this means that
ontologically the mental subject is primary relative to (his/her) mental states
(surely, on the condition that they exist). In other words, the mental subject is the ontological basis of mental states. Sensations,
feelings, thoughts, desires are not independent entities which can exist by
themselves, without being sensations, feelings, thoughts, desires of some mental subject.
2) The mental subject is unified,
indivisible, self-identical in that simple and obvious sense that all my
(your) sensations, feelings, thoughts, desires are exclusively my (your) sensations, feelings, thoughts, desires, i.e. belong to unconditionally the same mental subject – me (you), my (your)
mental self.
A mental subject is not a conventional
unit that we pick
up out of the whole of reality on some in principle arbitrary considerations, –
as in the case with the physical objects, where we can consider as a distinct
object any aggregate of atoms, molecules, or macrophysical objects, including those
with perpetually changing composition of objects-components (as in the case of
live organisms), if such way of individuation is useful for some our purpose or
convenient in some context. Separateness/individuality of mental subjects is
something unconditionally given. My
sensations, feelings, thought processes and desires are unconditionally mine, – it is not that they are conditionally either
mine, or belonging to some multitude of "partial" subjects that
"inhabit" my brain (a subject S1 has a sensation A, a subject
S2 feels B, a subject S3 thinks C, a subject S4 wills
D, and a subject SN experiences the illusion that he/she has a
sensation A, feels B, thinks C and wills D), or mine together with John,
or belonging to the subject-nation named Ukraine.
In one of his books, V.Vasilev, with reference to Dereck Parfit, makes a
statement that can be interpreted as negation of 2):
“… the identity of a
person, as we now know, is rather conditional (to understand the issue of the
identity of a person we may resort to a simple analogy: whether we will
consider as identical some thing, say, a plasticine cube after we have
transformed it into formless mass? On the one hand, no, on the other hand, yes
insofar as it is made of the same plasticine; the same with a person: after radical
changes of character we can say, on the one hand, that we became other persons,
on the other hand – that we remained the same persons insofar as our present
existence continues a former stream of consciousness; but the identity of our
person in this case is no more substantial, than the identity of plasticine
mass in that example.)”[16]
However, this analogy is either mistaken or irrelevant. Surely, if we
use the word "person" in the sense of a certain set of character
traits, memories, etc., then the
identity of a person is just as conditional as the identity of a piece of
plasticine. But we are concerned not with the identity of set of character
traits, memories, etc., but with the identity of a mental subject. As I have explained
in 2), the “individness” and identity of a subject are unconditional, unlike the
conditional “individness” and identity of a piece of plasticine.
Let's notice that even if someone says about himself/herself: “I have became
entirely another person”, meaning changes of character, values, etc., i.e. of a
"person", such a statement necessarily presupposes the identity of
the subject-self, in the meaning that is very different from the identity of a "person"
(both "persons", the former and the present, belong to the same
subject-self), as well as from the identity of a body.
True, a plasticine piece can conditionally be considered as the same
“insofar as it is made of the same plasticine”. (Though the sameness of
material is not necessary – other physical objects can be considered as the
same even after full change of composition. For example, a human or animal body
can conditionally be considered as the same throughout the life even if it has
retained no single atom that was there at the moment of birth.) However, unlike
a plasticine piece, the mental subject is not made of subjective mental states/processes
(such “madeness” would mean the absurd idea that subjective mental states can
exist on their own, without a subject – a pain that noone feels, subjective thought
that noone thinks etc.); it is logically
and ontologically primary in relation to them.
The same goes for “a stream of consciousness”. Despite Hume, the concept
of "a stream of consciousness” without a mental subject is nonsense. It presupposes
that there are certain particles, elements of consciousness that gather into (conditional)
streams consist, as it is in all cases of physical streams. If so, it should be
clear that particles gathering into streams can also exist on their own; they
don’t need streams for their existence; they are ontologically primary in
relation to (conditional) streams they form. Application of this approach to
consciousness means the absurd idea of subjective mental states that noone
subjectively experiences.