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6.
Dialectical Materialism and Materialistic Emergentism.
Supervenience
and the Hard Problem of Consciousness
Let's return to the
discussion between Mike and Peter. Now it is joined by Morris who is an
advocate of Marxism, including its doctrine of dialectical materialism (which
in the Soviet Union was officially recognized as the only true philosophy and
was taught in all universities and other institutions of higher education).
This doctrine contains some specific materialistic theories which are discussed
below.
The Reflection Theory of Mind
Morris: Our consciousness reflects the external world. Why don’t accept the
materialistic theory of reflection, which says that consciousness is the
specific form of the universal property of nature – reflection[1]; that it is the highest form of reflection which
evolutionarily develops from lower forms present already in inorganic nature –
such as footprints or reflection in water?[2] The famous German philosopher
of the XIX century, Karl Marx, has written that “the ideal is nothing but the
material transferred into the human head and transformed there”.[3] May be, he is right?
Peter: Let’s consider a simple example. Do
you see, there is an apple on the table?
Morris. Yes, I do.
Peter. It is red and round, isn’t it?
Morris. Yes, it is.
Peter. So when you look at it you have the
sensation of something red and round, haven’t you?
Morris. Yes, ² have.
Peter. But, if we will scan your brain now, will we find there something red
and round, like the apple?
Morris. I think we won’t.[4]
Peter. So, your sensation of red and round isn’t itself red and round?
Morris. Surely, it isn’t.
Peter. If so, how can the idea of apple be
the reflection of the apple? Is the idea of wood wooden?
Morris. Surely, it isn’t.
Peter. Or, maybe the word ‘man’ has a
head, body, arms and legs – like a man? Can the idea of man go to and fro or
speculate about philosophical matters?
Morris. What a nonsense!
Peter. So, I don’t see any sense in the
statement that our feelings and ideas are reflections of things.
Morris. But, you misunderstand the sense of
the theory of reflection. Really, the word ‘reflection’ isn’t to be taken
literally. The theory says that there was evolutionary development from the
simple reflection through irritability and perception to consciousness…
Peter. I think that Ludvig von Mises was
right when he wrote that “the materialist thesis has never yet been proved or
particularized” and that “the materialists have brought forward no more than
analogies and metaphors” which are “insignificant and do not explain anything”[5]! It is all word-juggling instead of explanation.
I just
imagine Karl Marx cutting open somebody’s head, transferring there a red round
apple and saying: “Now it will be transformed and I will see what the idea of
apple is like!”[6] It is a huge progress as
compared with those ‘vulgar’ materialists[7] who vivisected frogs in the search for the soul and
believed that “The brain secretes thought as the stomach secretes gastric
juice, the liver bile, and the kidneys urine.”!
Morris. But let’s return to the reflection theory of mind…
Peter. This theory is really very good, except that it has
one drawback – it doesn’t explain what it pretends to explain.
Morris. Why?
Peter. Because the “explanation” it
allegedly gives is just primitive trickery with words: some word is used to
signify several phenomena of completely different natures (although they are
connected functionally in the living nature), and this is taken as the reason
to declare that these phenomena are various forms of the same phenomenon –
reflection, which is declared to be the universal property of matter.
Let me
remind, that in this theory the word ‘reflection’ signifies:
1) reflection in the proper, literal, narrow sense (pictures, footprints
etc.);
2) physical
processes in the bodies of living beings which arise as reactions to external
physical influences (irritability);
3) mind,
consciousness (sensations, emotions, ideas).
But it is
obvious that footprints, pictures etc.
(reflection in the direct meaning) are something quite different as compared to
the processes of reacting on external physical influences; and that the mind
(consciousness) is something third, quite unlike both the first and the second.
Imprints and
mind-devoid reactions are phenomena of the physical nature – something that can
be seen or imagined on the analogy with visible things and processes. They are
physical bodies, structures, processes characterized by such properties as a
size, form, spatial location, color etc.),
− something that can be described in the physical terms.
Sensations,
emotions, ideas etc. are something
that has no physical properties. They have no size, form, spatial location,
color etc. We can’t be seen or
touched – they can only be subjectively experienced and thought. They constitute
peculiar, non-material reality − the mind, consciousness, the realm of
subjectivity. They belong to “internal worlds” of our mental selves – as
distinct from the external world – physical, material reality.
The
reflection theory of mind doesn’t explain how the phenomenal mind,
consciousness, the realm of subjectivity, mental self with its “internal world”
can ‘develop evolutionary’ from something having no phenomenality,
consciousness, subjectivity, – it merely postulates. It is understandable (in
the general outline) how transformations in the physical world occur, or
changes in the “internal world” of mental self (the mind, consciousness), and
how the one interacts with the other. But it is impossible to understand how
phenomenal mind (consciousness) can ‘evolve’ from matter while having no common
properties with it.
Followers of
the reflection theory unite under one word things which are completely
different by their nature (though their functional connection in the living
nature gives to this operation the appearance of validity) – and they think
that by this verbal trick they have solved the problem and proven that the mind
(consciousness) have the same (material) nature as other “forms of reflection”.
But really this is just word-jugglery. As if calling two different things by
one name turns them into the same thing!
It may be
said that our consciousness reflects the external world, material reality, but
only in a very trivial sense: that it has to do with the external world and can
obtain knowledge about it[8]; that our ideas about the physical world can be true.
‘Reflection’, in this sense, means nothing but correspondence. In any more concrete and ‘material’ sense, the
statement that consciousness is reflection is nonsense.
Dialectical Materialism
A man may call a cat a dog and the sun the moon if it
pleases him. But such a reversal of the usual terminology, which everyone
understands, does no good and only creates misunderstandings.
Ludwig
von Mises[9]
Morris: You proceed from the
assumption that matter is something describable entirely by physical
properties. But you don’t take into consideration the theory of dialectical
materialism that matter has different levels of organization, and on higher
levels it obtains some new properties which are irreducible to physical properties. Aren’t you conversant with
Friedrich Engels’ theory?
Peter: I am. But you better
remind me.
Morris: Engels contended that
matter has several levels of organisation, to which some specific ‘forms of movement’
correspond.[10] He distinguished such levels
of organisation of matter (with their corresponding ‘forms of movement’):
mechanical, physical, chemical, biological, social. Social level is the level
of humans as social beings. This theory formulates three principles:
1) forms
of movement are to be considered as related to levels of organisation of matter
− each level has its forms;
2) forms
of movement on different levels are connected genetically; higher ones emerge
on the foundation of lower ones;
3) higher
forms of movement are specific and irreducible
to lower ones.
Consciousness is a
form of movement of matter on the highest, social level of its organization.
Dialectical materialism admits that consciousness
is irreducible to physical properties (although it emerges on their
foundation), so it can dismiss your arguments against materialism.
Peter: The theory does not withstand
criticism.
Someone have to be quite
ignorant in chemistry to contend that chemical processes are irreducible to
physical: chemical processes are nothing but complexes of physical movements
(combining, separating, regrouping in new molecular structures) of physical
objects (atoms, ions) which are described in a simplified language (the
language of chemistry).
The
same holds for biology: if we do not presume that animals have their realms of
subjectivity (minds, consciousness), then we must presume that all their
activity is nothing but physical movements of parts of their bodies and, hence,
is completely reducible to physical (including chemical) processes.
“Irreducibility”
really has a place only in the relation between the material (physical) on the
one hand, and the spiritual and mental on the other.
Engels’
theory says that matter on the highest (social) level of its organization
acquires some new properties, which
1)
are
irreducible to those properties by which the concept of matter is traditionally
defined (physical properties),
2)
are
those properties which are traditionally opposed to the concept of matter, as
"ideal" (in the philosophical sense), – subjective, mental,
phenomenal, spiritual properties.
But if so, it is not
matter any more, in usual (traditional for discussions between materialism,
idealism, dualism) sense of the word.
Morris: May be, the problem can be solved
by another, untraditional definition of matter − the one given by
V.I.Lenin? Viz: “the sole 'property' of matter
with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of
being an objective reality, or
existing outside the mind.”[11]
Peter: Don’t you see that this definition deprives the concept of materialism
of any traditional sense, and the sense in which dialectical materialists
themselves understand it?
The sense of
the concept of materialism always was determined by opposition to idealism and
dualism. Dialectical materialists emphasize this opposition as well as
traditional ones. But, if we accept the definition of matter as ‘objective
reality’, then the distinction between, on the one side, materialism and, on
the other, idealism and dualism loses any sense.
Opponents of
materialism believe that such non-material entities as soul (self), God, ideas,
spirit etc. are objective realities which exist outside the mind – so, if matter is
defined as objective reality, they all must be qualified as materialists. But
the sense of any materialism (dialectical as well as traditional) consists
primarily in the rejection that objective realities of this kind exist!
So, the
statement that matter is objective reality and, hence, all that exists objectively is matter is a humbug.
Dialectical materialists at first substitute the concept of matter in
traditional meaning (as physical reality) with the ‘dialectical’ concept of
matter as objective reality; and from this they make ‘inference’ that nothing
but matter exists objectively. But this statement, if ‘matter’ is understood as
‘objective reality’, is empty; it is just tautology: “Nothing exists
objectively but what objectively exists”. It tells nothing about what (which kinds of things) exists and what doesn’t exist, what
(material, spiritual or both – in the traditional meaning) is the nature of objective reality.
But
dialectical materialists don’t stop here. When they so got the ‘conclusion’
that nothing but matter (≡objective reality) exist, they switch back to
the traditional understanding of the concept of matter (not merely as objective
reality, but as specific objective reality which corresponds to
the traditional meaning of the concept of matter) and reject the existence of
anything non-material in the traditional meaning.[12]
From
the discussion on an Internet forum
Statements
of the dialectical materialist:
“With the transition from simple physical to complex biological
and mental, no new objects emerge (the same elementary particles and nothing
else), but new structures emerge with new properties and dynamics. And they aren’t logically deducible from properties of elementary particles...
From the knowledge of properties of separate
electrons, protons and neutrons you cannot deduce the existence of the atom,
even more so its properties. They don’t have such a property as valency.
Separate electrons don’t get excited, do not interact with photons, do not radiate photons (as well as protons and
neutrons), but the atom does.
Separate atoms have no metal or dielectric properties. As well as
ferromagnetic, crystal, segnetoelectric, superconductive, semiconductive, solidity, viscosity...
With the complication of structures new properties of these
structures emerge (properties, but not any new
physical entities). And these properties are not reducible to, can’t be
"deduced logically" from the
properties of components.
The computer
has new properties as compared with resistors, transistors and condensers from
which it is composed.”
Reply
of the dualist:
You state the theory
about new properties which allegedly emerge with transition from simple
physical to complex chemical or biological levels, about their alleged
non-reducibility to (non-deductibility from) properties of lower levels. This
theory is groundless and illogical.
Everything
that we have at any level of the physical organization is but movements of
physical objects, changes of their spatial locations, as a result of
gravitational and electromagnetic (or, on the level of microphysics, some other
fundamental) interactions, according with laws of these interactions.
All so-called “new
properties” in the physical world are but new names which are given to some
typical (with a regularly repeated structure) sets and sequences of physical
processes (physical movements and interactions which determine their dynamics).
If we call objects with
a certain physical structure fit to serve our specific requirements by the word
'table', this does not mean that somewhere in the world a new physical property
– 'tableness' – emerges.
If
you know all physical properties of all elements which form the atom,
and their relative locations, it is possible in principle to
deduce all properties of the atom. (It is quite another matter, that at
present level of knowledge this may be practically impossible). Valency is nothing but
a property of the atom to interact with other atoms or their components in a
specific way; this interaction is displayed in physical movements
(joining-separation) of atoms and their component particles; it is completely
determined by properties of interactions of components of the atom and their
relative locations. It is reducible to these properties and deducible
from them in principle, for it is nothing but complex structured
combination of these properties. It is formed out of them in the same way as
sizes of a body are formed by relative locations of its components (by
distances between them); as the resultant physical force or field which
influences a physical body is the geometrical, vector sum of all component
physical forces and fields which act on the body). Though it is possible that
in practice at present such a reduction cannot be carried out, owing to
difficulties with obtaining necessary information about all physical states of
all elements of the atom and to great complexity of the necessary calculations,
or to incompleteness/inaccuracy of the current theoretical scientific
knowledge. Roughly speaking, valency of the atom is a quantity of the electrons
which move (revolve) on the orbit remotest from atom’s nucleus.
Excitement of atom is,
again, nothing but specific structure of interactions between its elements
which is displayed in their movements. The same goes for metallicity,
crystallinity and all the like...
The computer has no new
properties which aren’t reducible to properties and interactions of resistors,
transistors, condensers and other its components; all its properties are just
very complexly structured sets of properties and interactions of resistors,
transistors, condensers and so forth.
All
properties of complex material structures are reducible to properties and
interactions of their components merely because complex material structures is
nothing but complexly structured and interacting sets of their components. And
because all properties of material objects, at any level, are some aspects
of spatial location and its dynamics (physical movements) of these objects and
their components.
All properties of
material objects are reducible[13], eventually, to
– spatial locations of these objects and their
components,
– changes of these locations with
time,
–
influences of material objects (including components of complex objects)
on spatial locations and movements of one another.
But the mind
(subjectivity) and all that belongs to it (sensations, emotions, thinking,
willing) are in principle irreducible to whatever spatial locations,
physical movements and other physical properties because:
1) we know about
consciousness (feelings, emotions, thinking, willing) not through observations
of physical movements, but in absolutely different way;
2)
in
the knowledge thus obtained there are no physical properties; but there are
properties which cannot be captured by any physical descriptions, – subjective
quality “how-it-feels” and, in the case of thinking, meaning, intentionality,
aboutness;
3)
by
means of observations of physical movements alone, without
"internal", non-physical self-observation-introspection and
self-consciousness, it is impossible in principle to know
anything about the mind (feelings, emotions, thinking, willing).
We
would not know about any electric charges and masses if these properties were
not displayed in externally observable movements (changes of spatial locations)
of physical bodies. Unlike this, no externally observable movements can enable
us to obtain knowledge about the mind. We know about the mind not from
observations of movements of our bodies and structures of nervous system and
the brain, but directly through self-consciousness, without any physical
information.
In other
words:
All allegedly new
properties which allegedly emerge at higher levels of organization of physical
(material) systems are merely names to designate some aspects of spatiotemporal
structures which are formed by components of a system in their interaction.
Therefore these allegedly new properties are entirely reducible to spatial
structures and their dynamics (changes in time).
'Mind'
(‘consciousness’) and all concepts which designate its states (mental states)
are not such names; they designate not properties of externally observable
spatiotemporal structures, but something entirely different, about which people
know without observations of spatiotemporal structures, and about which it is
impossible to get any knowledge by means of observations of spatiotemporal
structures. I.e., the mind is irreducible to spatial structures and their
dynamics.
Materialistic Emergentism
Engels’ theory
can be qualified as not quite materialistic, but rather emergentist. But there
are different varieties of emergentism – the theory that in the course of the
evolution of reality some new entities or properties emerge which are
irreducible to those which existed before. Some of them can be qualified as
idealistic, some are varieties of dualism. Further in this section we will talk
mainly about the version nearing to materialism. Let us call it materialistic
emergentism, meaning a position which Jesper Kallestrup describes as
follows:
“On this view, a
mental property is best seen as an emergent property: a genuinely novel kind of
property of a whole consisting of parts of an old kind that emerges, not
because something from the outside is added, but when those parts are put
together in the right kind of way. Crucially, the causal powers of an emergent
property are irreducible to the causal powers of the lower-level properties on
which it, in some sense, depends.
According to
emergentism, our world is a layered world: there is a hierarchy of distinct yet
connected levels starting from the physical level. Specific to each level,
there are distinct kinds of substances wholly composed of kinds from
lower-levels all the way down to elementary material particles. Each kind has
specific properties in virtue of a characteristic organizational complexity,
and some of these properties will have emergent causal powers. What is more,
there are special emergent laws, neither reducible to, nor derivable from,
lower-level laws, which attribute these causal powers to the types of
properties in question.”[14]
Against the
emergentism in this sense we can apply the same arguments as against the theory
of Engels. But it is worthwhile to develop this argumentation in more details,
by elucidating a several nuances due to ambiguity of the concept of
irreducibility.
There are no weighty reasons to think that when physical objects of
lower level (components) combine into complex structures, there emerge new
(emergent) properties “irreducible to the causal powers of the lower-level properties” and “special
emergent laws, neither reducible to, nor derivable from, lower-level laws”.
Proceeding
from the principle that something cannot arise from nothing, it is more logical to
suppose that new properties and laws peculiar to complex material objects
(systems) are nothing but compound result of combination (in mathematical
language – superposition or the geometrical sum) of
properties and laws which are peculiar to their components.
Let's
take, for example, the atom. The atom is a complex material system which
consists of a large number of smaller microparticles – protons, neutrons,
electrons etc. Whether properties of
atoms, – such, for example, as forms and sizes of orbits of movement of
electrons, – are reducible to properties and interactions according to
fundamental physical laws of all components? It seems logical to suppose that
yes: if scientists managed to obtain exact exhaustive information about all
physical states of all elements of the atom at some moment of time, to compose
all equations of all interactions between them and to do all relevant
calculations, it would be possible to deduce from this information all
trajectories of orbits of movements of electrons and all other properties of
the atom. The only problem is that to obtain such information and to perform
such complex calculations is practically impossible, – at least at this stage
of the development of science and technics.
It is just as logical to
suppose that in principle it is possible (though because of excessive
complexity it is practically impossible, – at least at this stage of the
development of science and technics) to reduce all chemical and biological
properties and laws to the fundamental physical properties and laws.
It
is hard to comprehend, how properties and laws of movements of complex material
systems can originate otherwise, if they are not compound results of
interactions of components of these systems according to natural laws of lower
levels.
Even if a system is so complex that modern means of measurements (to
measure the physical properties of elements of the system) and computations do
not enable us to reduce properties and laws of higher levels to properties and
laws of lower levels, and even if it seems improbable that the development of
science and technics will ever enable us to accomplish such a reduction, this
does not mean that they are irreducible in that
"strong" sense which matters for
the problem we are concerned with.
In order to avoid confusion, we need to distinguish
1) quasi-irreducibility or epistemological irreducibility
– when we don’t succeed to reduce the functioning of a complex system to
interactions of its components because of excessive complexity of such a
reduction, incompleteness/imprecision of obtainable information and
imperfection of current scientific theories;
and
2) genuine
irreducibility or ontological irreducibility, which is not the
expression of limitations of our cognitive possibilities, but belong to the
nature of things.
Obviously, it is
sensible to talk about emergence as springing up of something really new only
in the case of genuine irreducibility.
As for genuine
irreducibility, we also need to distinguish two possibilities:
2.1) quantitative or
nomic (from Latin nomos – law) irreducibility,
when all novelty (if it really takes place) consists in changes of
regularities (law-conformances) of physical movements; in this case all new
laws and properties remain within the scope of the concept of matter or the
physical (in the wide sense);
2.2) radical,
qualitative irreducibility which places new entity or properties
beyond the scope of the concept of matter (the physical).
Each of these
possibilities is corresponded by its own variety of emergence, – I will call
them weak emergence and strong emergence.
It is unknown, whether
quantitative (nomic) irreducibility and, correspondingly, weak emergence really
exist. The problem is that if it exists, it cannot be discerned from
quasi-irreducibility. In those cases when we fail to explain processes in
complex organized systems by properties of their components and lower-level
laws of their interactions, it always can be interpreted both ways: as quasi-irreducibility
and as quantitative (nomic) irreducibility. But the choice between these
two interpretations doesn’t principally matter for our problem, for in both
cases properties and laws of higher levels are conceptually reducible to
spatiotemporal relations and, therefore, remain within the scope of the
concept of matter or the physical (in the wide sense)
Genuine irreducibility
of the second variety, qualitative irreducibility (strong emergence), is
much more radical. And the mind (consciousness) is irreducible to the physical
in this radical, qualitative sense. This is what refutes materialism and
testifies in favor of the mind-body dualism. (Whether some other entities or
properties exist which are emergent, irreducible to the physical in this sense?
David Chalmers argues that no. Karl Popper argues that the realm of ideas,
theories, problems, arguments (their objective meaning-content) which are
formulated in language, embodied in texts of science and literature, works of art
etc., – so to say, in their
intersubjective life, – are to be considered as autonomous reality of the third
kind – World-3. – See section 8.)
Let me explain this in a
bit more details.
Concerning
properties and laws of functioning of complex material systems which we
cannot reduce to laws of lower levels, there are two logical possibilities:
(1) these laws and
properties are very complex combinations-superpositions (geometrical sums) of
laws and properties of lower levels, but this complexity is so great that we
are unable (and, possibly, will never be able) to show that it is really so, –
this is the case of quasi-irreducibility and no emergence;
(2)
these laws and properties is not combinations-superpositions (geometrical sums)
of laws and properties of lowest levels, but are really new laws and
properties, – this is the case of genuine quantitative irreducibility
and weak emergence.
From the point of view
of the principle that something cannot emerge from nothing, the first option (quasi-irreducibility)
is more plausible.[15] If there is only
quasy-irreducibility between different organizational levels of material
systems, if there is no genuine irreducibility, then the theory of emergentism
is mistaken.
But,
nevertheless, the second possibility is not excluded: there may be genuine
quantitative irreducibility within material reality.
Unfortunately,
there is no way to find out, whether something corresponds to this logical possibility in real nature. If we are
unable to reduce properties and laws of functioning of some material system of
higher organizational level to
properties of its components and lower-level laws of their interactions, then
we do not know the reason why – whether it is excessive, practically
insuperable (at current stage or at all) complexity of such a reduction or it
belongs to the nature of things.
But even if emergentism
is right, if genuine irreducibility really has place in material reality, then
this irreducibility has merely quantitative character, − all material
properties are conceptually reducible to spatiotemporal dynamics and,
consequently, remain within the scope of the concept of matter (the physical).
Irreducibility of the mind to physical reality is quite a different matter. It
has qualitative character: the mind is conceptually irreducible to
spatiotemporal dynamics, − and so it is outside material (physical)
reality.
Let us try
to imagine how genuine quantitative irreducibility between properties and laws
of functioning of material systems on different organizational levels is
(logically) possible. It seems that complex system is just structured
combination of constituent elements, which enter into the system with their
properties, including properties of interactions – those regularities on which
they influence other physical objects and are subjected to their influences. It
seems that when they are combined, all these influences should simply sum up
(geometrically), and new laws on which the system functions cannot be anything
but superposition of all these influences. If it is really so, then there is no
genuine irreducibility.
But
let us imagine such a computer model of physical reality. It contains virtual
physical objects (computer models of real physical objects) which, as a rule,
interact on usual physical laws. But in some cases – when some such objects
(elements) form with each other certain specific complex structures, the
program replaces a set of formulas of interaction between elements of this
structure with a new system of formulas which mathematically is not
equivalent to the replaced set (i.e. with the geometrical sum or
superposition of interactions on usual physical laws). Such a computer model
corresponds to the assumption of existence of (quantitative, nomic) emergence
within physical (material) reality. Now we can turn our imagination from this
model to the actual physical reality and suppose that, possibly, it is similar.
It is possible that special structurally dependent laws of nature exist, such
that they operate only when there are certain specific material structures. But
even if it is really so, materialistic emergentism does not solve the problem
of relation of matter and mind all the same.
It
is worthy of notice, that in the case of quantitative emergence the
"novelty" of emergent properties and laws is not quite real; it not
is emergence of something quite new which is irreducible to something already
existing. It is inaccurate and misleading to say about so-called emergent laws
that they emerge. They just exist, or do not exist. If laws of
nature exist which have the form “Whenever there is such-and-such structure
there is such-and-such dynamics”, such laws do not emerge when relevant
structures are formed, but come into action. As for emergent properties,
within purely quantitative emergence they are results of combination of
properties and laws of lower organizational levels with structurally dependent
laws of higher levels, and are reducible to this extended "basis".
If genuine irreducibility really has place in relations between
different organizational levels of material systems, this has no principal
significance for the question: whether the mind is something physical
(materialism) or non-physical (dualism)? Irreducibility between properties of
material systems of different organizational levels, if it really has place,
would have principally different, minor – merely quantitative, not qualitative
– character, as compared with irreducibility between the physical (matter) and
the mind (subjective).
All
properties and laws of material systems on all organizational levels
constitute, – irrespective of whether properties and laws of functioning of
material systems at higher organizational levels are (genuinely) reducible to
properties and laws of interaction of material objects on lower organizational
levels, – the uniform realm which is distinctly qualitatively separated from
the realm of subjective, the mind, self. Though properties and laws of material
systems on different organizational levels can be represented by different
concepts and formulas, they are qualitatively homogeneous in the sense which is
definitive for the concept of the physical (matter) – they all are conceptually
reducible to spatial locations and their changes in time.
The mind constitutes entirely different realm, for the
concept of mind, as well as all partial concepts which it encompasses (such as
'feeling', 'emotion', 'thinking', 'pain', 'pleasure', etc.), by their meaning are conceptually irreducible to spatial
properties and their temporal dynamics. These concepts indicate to the realm of
subjective which is genuinely irreducible to the physical in much more radical
– qualitative – sense, as compared with hypothetically possible (though it is
not known whether really existent) quantitative (nomic) irreducibility between
properties and laws of functioning of material systems on different organizational levels. Even if such quantitative irreducibility
has place, all laws and properties to which it pertains are conceptually
reducible to spatiotemporal relations and due to this fact constitute the
uniform realm – the realm of the physical, matter, – while the mind
(consciousness), subjective is outside of this realm.
Summary
All properties and laws which belong to
material reality, irrespective of whether laws and properties of higher organizational
levels are reducible to laws and properties of lower levels, are theoretical
constructs which perform the only function – serve as means of designations of
spatiotemporal regularities and of predictions of spatial properties and
dynamics – spatial locations and movements of physical bodies.
In other words, all properties and laws which
belong to material reality, on all levels of its organization, are
conceptually reducible to spatiotemporal relations (spatial locations and
motions).
Within material reality, genuine irreducibility between properties of
matter at different organizational levels either does not exist or is merely
quantitative.
Unlike this, irreducibility of the mind to
material reality is qualitative: the mind and all its states and processes (feelings, thinking, emotions
etc.) are conceptually irreducible to spatial location and motion.
Surely, the concept of mind has also behavioural aspect: we use the concepts
of mind, thinking, feelings, emotions for the purpose of explanation of
externally observable forms of behaviour. But we use it not only and not
primarily for this purpose. The content of the concepts of mind, thinking,
feelings, emotions etc. is not
exhausted by behavioural aspect. And this is why materialism and a
materialistic emergentism (as explanations of the nature of mind) are mistaken.
In the content of the concepts of mind, thinking, feelings, emotions etc. the "internal",
subjective aspect is definitive.
The mind is constituted by various processes of
subjective experiences and awareness which are devoid of spatial
properties. Their subjective character can’t be captured by any spatiotemporal
descriptions. We know about the mind (feelings, emotions, thinking) not through
observations of physical movements, but in entirely different way
(introspection). It is impossible in principle to obtain any
knowledge about the mind (feelings, emotions, thinking) through observations of
physical movements alone, without "internal" non-physical
self-observation-introspection, self-consciousness.
Conclusion: Materialistic-emergentist
theory (in particular, that of F.Engels) is ungrounded and does not solve the
problem of explanation of the nature and genesis of mind; it does not succeed
to overcome "the gap" (or, rather, the chasm) which divides matter
and the mind, to eliminate the radical qualitative difference between them.
If the mind is emergent, it is emergent in a much stronger, radical
sense than possibly existing (weak) emergence of properties within material
reality.
David Chalmers about Emergence
The
above arguments show that the theory that the mind is emergent property
along with other emergent properties does not withstand criticism. There
are no other properties in nature which are irreducible to fundamental physical
laws, properties and processes in the "strong" sense of true
qualitative irreducibility (conceptual irreducibility to spatiotemporal
relations). Surely, it is possible to think, notwithstanding this, that the
mind is something emergent, but peculiar, unique in this kind. So, David
Chalmers proposes to distinguish "weak" and "strong"
emergence: in the case of weak emergence it is possible to explain
"new" properties of higher levels in the terms of properties of lower
levels; in case of strong emergence it is impossible.
It
has to be remarked, that Chalmers uses terms ‘weak emergence’ and ‘strong
emergence’ in the meanings which are different from those in which I used them
in the previous subsection. In my terms, Chalmers’ “weak emergence” is not
emergence at all (it may be called quasi-emergence), for there is no genuine
irreducibility. In its turn, what Chalmers call “strong emergence” covers both
what I call strong emergence (genuine qualitative
irreducibility) and what I call weak emergence (genuine quantitative irreducibility). Chalmers
doesn’t make this distinction and leave unnoticed the possibility of what I
call weak emergence and genuine quantitative
irreducibility. I leave open the question of whether genuine quantitative irreducibility (weak
emergence, in my terms) really has place in nature, but emphasize that the mind
is irreducible to the physical in the much stronger, radical – qualitative – sense. I think that this
amendment (a slight concession to materialistic emergentism which makes no
principal difference) is appropriate to Chalmers’ conclusion:
“Are there other cases of strong emergence,
besides consciousness? I think that there are no other clear cases, and that
there are fairly good reasons to think that there are no other cases.”[16]
Such emergentism, which
recognizes the uniqueness of the mind (consciousness) as something radically
emergent so that it is beyond the scope of the concept of the physical
(matter), is a variety of dualism.
It is
to be remarked that uniqueness of the mind (consciousness) as something
non-physical makes such dualistic emergentism as non-integrated into the
natural-scientific picture of the world, as usual belief in the existence of
soul (different varieties of this belief):
–
someone
can accept the theory about “strong emergence”, understanding it in the sense
that the mind (self, soul) emerges literally out of nothing;
– while those to
whom the idea of emergence of the mind (self, souls) out of nothing seems
implausible, can suppose that what Chalmers calls “strong emergence” is
actually soul’s embodiment at the birth of human being; that this soul somehow
existed before the physical birth and may continue its existence after the
physical death.
Supervenience
David
Chalmers in the work “The Conscious Mind” has offered a bit different
conceptual tools for the analysis of the problem which we discussed in this
section. Its basic concept is supervenience, in two varieties –
logical and natural.
Supervenience has place if whenever there is a
certain set of facts S(A) on a basic level A there necessarily is a fact F(B) on a higher level B. The fact F(B) is
supervenient on the set of facts S(A), supervenes on this set. There are two
varieties of necessity which define the varieties of supervenience – logical
and natural.
Logical
supervenience has
place, when in any conceivable world (in which entirely different laws
of nature may operate) F(B) necessarily corresponds to S(A). I.e., whatever were the laws of nature,
S(A) and F(B) are inseparable. The reason of this is very simple: F(B) merely
is another form of description of S(A) (of some part or aspect of S(A)) at
macrolevel. For example, a description of physical properties of water at
macrolevel is a description of certain compound facts which are compounded by a
set of facts at microlevel – facts about individual molecules of water and their
interactions with one another. As water is nothing but an aggregation of H20
molecules, all facts about water are logically supervenient on facts about H2O
molecules.
The natural (causal) supervenience has place, if whenever
there is S(A) there necessarily is F(B) not as a matter of logical necessity,
but according to some actual laws of nature. In this case, F(B) is not a
form of the description of S(A) (some part or aspect of S(A)) at macrolevel,
but is something other causally connected with S(A): S(A) is (natural, nomic)
cause of F(B). For example, the force of gravity of a certain magnitude is
naturally (causally) supervenient on the masses of gravitating bodies and
distances between them, since according to Newton’s law all bodies gravitate
with a force directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional
to the squared distance between them. But this relation is not logically
necessary: it would be non-existent in any logically possible world where Newton’s
law of gravitation doesn’t operate. The fact that bodies gravitate with a
certain force is not contained in the facts about the masses of these bodies
and distance between them, but is another fact, causally related to
them.
Chalmers
defends the thesis that all facts (properties, processes) which correspond to
the concept of matter or the physical in the wide sense are logically
supervenient on physical facts of a basic level which are described by concepts
of physics. The only reality which is not logically supervenient on physical
(microphysical) facts is the mind (consciousness). All other known facts (if we
don’t consider such doubtful alleged facts as the existence of God, angels, etc., and also the status of
mathematical facts) are either logically supervenient on physical (in the
narrow sense – described by concepts of physics) facts, or logically
supervenient on physical facts and the mind (consciousness). Thus, 'physical'
('matter') and 'mind' ('consciousness') are two fundamental explanatory categories
in terms of which it is possible to describe and explain all other facts, but
which can’t be possibly described and explained in terms of each other.
Chalmers
explains that logical supervenience on the physical means logical necessity
of facts of higher level given existence of corresponding physical facts at
microlevel; but this doesn’t mean that we can always reduce laws and properties
at higher levels to microphysical laws and properties. All is much simpler:
since physical facts at microlevel include locations of each atom (electron,
photon) and each their smallest movement, all facts about which we know, –
whether biological, or psychological, or political, or economic, or cultural,
cannot be different given exactly all these locations and these movements of
all atoms (electrons, photons) at every moment of time, except if this
difference belongs to the realm of the mind (consciousness).
For
example, if we imagine two beings with absolutely identical physical bodies,
and that we know that all atoms of which the one body is composed move in
exactly the same way as the corresponding atoms of the other body, it is clear
that the behaviors of these bodies cannot logically be different;
but the minds of these beings can logically be different (possibly,
one of them has no mind at all, but is phenomenal zombie).
Chalmers think it
probable that the mind (consciousness) is naturally (causally) supervenient on
(neuro)physical facts. I.e., certain
(neuro)physical facts cause certain mental states according to some unknown
laws of nature. But the mind (consciousness) itself is non-physical. States of
the brain and states of the mind (mental states) are not one and the same thing (there is no identity relation), but two
things which are connected with one another by the relation cause-effect.
******
Chalmers convincingly
shows that his arguments about the impossibility of explanation of the mind
(consciousness) in terms of physical processes (including functionalist terms)
testify not merely that explanations of this kind offered up to the present
moment are inadequate, but that
such an adequate explanation is impossible in principle:
“…
there is a simple explanation for the success of materialist accounts in
various external domains. With phenomena such as learning[17], life and
weather all that needs to be explained are structures and functions… But with
consciousness, uniquely, we need to explain more than structures and functions,
so there is little reason to expect an explanation to be similar in kind. Indeed,
... given the nature of our access to external phenomena, we should expect
a materialist account of any such phenomena to succeed. Our knowledge of these
phenomena is physically mediated, by light, sound and other perceptual media.
... we should expect phenomena that we observe by these means to be logically
supervenient on the physical – otherwise we would never know about them. But
our epistemic access to conscious experience is of entirely different kind.
Consciousness is at the very center of our epistemic universe, and our access
to it is not perceptually mediated. The reasons for expecting a materialist
account of external phenomena therefore break down in the case of
consciousness...”[18]
“The
problems with the models and theories presented here[19] do not lie in
the details; at least, we have not
needed to consider the details in order to see what is wrong with them. The
problem lies in the overall explanatory strategy. These models and theories are
simply not the sort of thing that could
explain consciousness. It is inevitable that increasingly sophisticated
reductive "explanations" of consciousness will be put forward, but
these will only produce increasingly sophisticated explanations of cognitive
functions. … such "revolutionary" developments ... will provide only
more powerful functional explanations. This may make for some very interesting
cognitive science, but the mystery of consciousness will not be removed. Any
account given in purely physical terms will suffer from the same problem. It
will ultimately be given in terms of the structural and dynamical properties of
physical processes, and no matter how sophisticated such an account is, it will
yield only more structure and dynamics. While this is enough to handle most
natural phenomena, the problem of consciousness goes beyond any problem about
the explanation of structure and function, so a new sort of explanation is
needed.”[20]
******
Chalmers’ analysis in
the terms of supervenience appears efficient and accurate (though many details
are debatable). Nevertheless, I think that the analysis I offer on the basis of
the concept of conceptual reducibility to spatiotemporal relations has
its advantages.
First,
this concept clearly defines what makes these or those properties physical (in
the wide sense), and this allows to show why introduction (discovery) of new
physical properties and laws cannot solve the problem or even essentially
change the balance of arguments in favor of materialism.
Second,
it allows to deal with much narrower "basis" for reductive
explanation (explanation of how macroproperties of physical objects are
constituted by structured combinations of microproperties of their components),
which happens to be the modernized version of classical Descartes’ “the
attribute of extension”. This "basis" is limited to spatiotemporal
relations; while all others physical (both in the narrow and in the wide sense)
properties and laws are conceptually reducible to this "basis".
To compare: for
reductive explanation on the basis of the concept of logical supervenience
Chalmers’ is forced to include in the "basis" all physical laws and
such concepts as mass, electric charge, various physical fields etc. It is a consequence of the fact
that these concepts are conceptually reducible to spatiotemporal
relations, but are not logically supervenient on (reducible to) them.
To
remind the main thesis from the first section: the physical (matter) is
reducible to properties of the one and only fundamental kind – spatial
locations which change with time; all other physical properties, and also all
physical laws are conceptual superstructure to this fundamental property –
measures, patterns, regularities which we discover in processes of changes of
relative spatial locations of different objects, and to which we give different
names (mass, charge, field, the gravitation law, ..., instinct, reflex, ...).
The relation between
this “conceptual superstructure” and spatiotemporal properties corresponds to
the concept of conceptual reducibility, but does not correspond to the concept
of logical supervenience (logical reducibility), since the general (laws and
correspondent kinds of properties) is logically irreducible to any set of
individual events (particular facts).
It is related to
well-known “Hume’s problem”. (Chalmers confirms that exactly because of this
problem he was forced to include physical laws in the "basis" of
reductive explanation.) Hume formulated it, using the concept of causality, but
I think its reformulation in terms of laws of nature (causality is a
manifestation of laws of nature) is more convenient. Hume has raised a
question: whether we have logical (generally, rational) reasons to consider (as
we do) those regularities which we discover in observed events as
manifestations of universal laws of nature (which always operated, operate and
will operate)? He strongly argued that is quite possible that all these
regularities in events which were observed up to now are actually but
accidental coincidence of circumstances, and no laws of nature (and therefore,
properties which are defined through them) exist.
Let us notice that the
concepts of mass, electric charge, various physical fields are inseparable from
the corresponding laws of nature, are integral parts of conceptual structures
of these laws. (So, the concept of mass corresponds to Newton's second and
third laws and has no meaning without them; the concept of electric charge
corresponds to Coulomb’s law and has no meaning without it, etc.) If there are no laws of nature,
all such concepts do not describe any real properties.
In
Hume’s times it was believed (many philosophers believe it even now) that we
obtain the knowledge of laws of nature through induction – conclusions from
many particular observations to the general rule (law). Hume argued that this
procedure is rationally indefensible. As a result, the conclusion that if we
believe that tomorrow morning the Sun will rise over horizon, it is but effect
of our habit, but we have no more rational grounds for this belief than for belief
that tomorrow morning a coca-cola bottle will rise over horizon instead of the
Sun. Though many philosophers still adhere to the induction theory, no one has
succeeded to refute Hume’s arguments. Though, there is another way to explain
why it is reasonable to suppose the existence of laws of nature (Karl Popper):
we hypothetically assume their existence since it is necessary for
explanations and predictions: without the idea of law of nature the whole world
would be for us a sheer chaos. As far as I understand, David Chalmers means
nearly the same when he writes that “we infer the existence of causation by a
kind of inference to the best explanation.”[21]
Nevertheless,
(let us apply the conceptual tools of logically possible, conceivable worlds
which explains the concept of logical supervenience) it is logically possible
that actual and imaginary worlds coincide on all particular observable physical
facts, but differ in “the general facts”: in one of these worlds laws of nature
(causality) really operate, while in another all the same particular facts
happen owing to (hugely improbable, but logically possible) accidental coincidence.[22]
Besides,
even if there was no question about existence of laws of nature and
causality, there would be another: about concrete forms of laws of
nature. It is because any set of observed facts is logically compatible with
infinitely many logically possible alternative laws. To make it clearer, let us
begin with a famous scientific example – Newton’s laws of physics of and
Einstein’s laws of physics. Before the beginning of XX century all individual
facts observed and checked in experimental conditions fitted into the system of
Newton’s laws. It was a huge quantity of individual facts. Then it was
discovered that in some situations (huge velocities comparable with the
velocity of light) results of experiments contradict predictions which follow
from Newton’s system of laws. As a result, Einstein have invented a new system
of laws of physics which have a bit different form than laws of Newton's
system, but in the domain of relatively low velocities predictions derivable
Newton’s and Einstein's laws are so close that for almost all practical
purposes the difference may be (and is convenient to be) neglected. In the
general case, relation between individual observed facts and universal laws of
nature can be illustrated graphically: isolated observed facts are points on a
plane, laws – lines which pass through these points. But locations of the
points don’t determine what exactly must be the line passing through them.
Through any set of points it is possible to draw infinite number of different
lines which are describable by different mathematical formulas and represent
different logically possible alternative laws of nature. Laws of nature are
logically indeducible from individual observed facts, whatever large their
quantity is. What is accepted in science as laws of nature are most felicitous
(simple, elegant, etc.) guesses
(hypotheses) which are logically compatible with the multitude of
observed individual facts, but are logically indeducible from it.
Because
of all this, physical laws and corresponding properties are not logically
supervenient on individual (in particular, spatiotemporal) facts. (Chalmers
acknowledges it about causality: “facts about causation fail to supervene
logically on matters of particular physical fact.”[23])
But, returning to our
terminology, they are conceptually reducible to particular
spatiotemporal facts. (See about this also “Notice” on page 16.)
Also, Chalmers’ analysis does not contemplate the possibility of true
quantitative irreducibility (emergence) within the realm of the physical. If
such irreducibility (emergence) exists, then some material (physical in the
wide sense) laws and properties are not logically supervenient on laws and
properties of microphysical level. But they, as well as all others physical (in
the wide sense) properties are conceptually reducible to spatial locations of
physical bodies and their changes with time.
The Problem of
Reducibility of Different Forms of Description
The concept of logical
supervenience helps to avoid the confusion due to different senses of the
concepts of reducibility/deductibility – in particular, with the fact that F(B)
may be in principle logically reducible to S(A) (logically deducible from
S(A)), but such a reduction (deduction) is practically impossible − the
situation of quasi-irreducibility.
Chalmers especially
emphasizes that “logical supervenience is not defined in terms of deducibility
in any system of formal logic. Rather, logical supervenience is defined in
terms of logically possible worlds (and individuals), where the notion
of a logically possible world is independent of these formal considerations.”[24]
Nevertheless,
I think that the idea of a logical supervenience presupposes principal
possibility of logical-mathematical deduction of F(B) from S(A), though in many
cases such a deduction may happen impracticable. Chalmers seems to expresses
essentially the same thought when he writes: “in principle, someone who
knows all the A-facts about an actual situation will be able to ascertain the
B-facts about the situation from those facts alone, given that they possess[25] the B-concepts
in question. This sort of inference may be difficult or impossible in
practice, due to the complexity of the situation involved, but it is at
least possible in principle.”[26] “We can
imagine that a hypothetical superbeing – Laplace's demon, say, who knows the
location of every particle in the universe space[27] – would be
able to straightforwardly "read off" all the biological facts, once
given all the microphysical facts. The microphysical facts are enough for such
a being to construct a model of the microscopic structure and dynamics of the
world throughout space and time, from which it can straightforwardly deduce the
macroscopic structure and dynamics. Given all that information, it has all the
information it needs to determine which systems are alive, which systems belong
to the same species, and so on. As long as it possesses the biological concepts
and has a full specification of the microphysical facts, no other information
is relevant.”[28]
This quotation suggested
me a thought about one very important reason of quasi-irreducibility which
often underlies statements that the biological facts (properties) allegedly may
be irreducible to the physical. The problem consists in reducibility of those concepts
which we use for macrodescriptions to descriptions in the terms of physical (in
the narrow sense) concepts. What the problem is concerned with is not really physical descriptions, but precise
mathematical descriptions of spatial relations, − such as we usually
meet in physics, but which are, in principle, possible at any level,
though actually often
happen to be unattainable at macrolevel because of excessive complexity.
Once in a discussion at
an Internet forum my interlocutor had noticed that programmers still did not
manage to solve such a seemingly simple task: to teach the computer (equipped
with proper light sensors) to recognize cats. A small child easily does it. But
a computer program which could do it well enough, nobody has yet succeeded to
think up.
It
is not sure that this information is true, but if it, there is nothing to be
surprised about. A person who has mastered language well enough, easily
intuitively associates certain very complex entire images (Gestalts) with
concepts like that of cat, without thinking about precise (mathematical)
descriptions which correspond to all those forms of bodies which he/she
identifies as cats. And the computer needs such a precise mathematical
description. In principle, such a description should be possible, for we all
identify cats by shapes of their body, and any shape is constituted by the
multitude of geometrical points and lines, each of which can be described
mathematically... But creation of such a logical-mathematical model is
extremely difficult.
Let us note: there is no
difficult problem in giving mathematical description of appearance of a
concrete cat at concrete fixed moment of time. It is not difficult to describe
mathematically, with any minuteness and accuracy, the photo of the cat. And it
is nit difficult to describe mathematically the sequence of movements of the
cat (such a description may be merely a sequence of descriptions of photos). In
effect, files with pictures and videos which you can display on the computer
are such descriptions. But it is very difficult to create logical-mathematical
model (computer program) which, after scanning images of different things,
could with high (comparable with human) accuracy to distinguish which of these
things are cats and which aren’t (taking into account that cats may be of
different breeds – Siamese, Siberian or some other, and they may be in many
various poses, and among other things there are various animals).
Nevertheless, I think
that the program for recognition of cats is not such a hugely difficult problem
that programmers will never succeed to solve it. But if we take more abstract
biological concepts, such insuperably high complexity is possible. For example:
how to give an adequate mathematical description to such concepts as 'living
organism' and 'biological evolution'?! Nevertheless, though it can happen impossible
for the limited human intellect, it is not impossible in principle. For
Laplace’s demon it shouldn’t be a difficult problem.
In
any case, this problem with reducibility concerns only general descriptions and
concepts which are used in these descriptions. It does not concern concrete
physical (in the wide sense, including biological) facts which take place at
any concrete moment of time. To remind: any concrete cat at any concrete moment
of time may be easily described in very minute details (the simplest such
description is an array of data about the multitude of very small parts of its
body – spatial location and color of each – a pixel on computer’s screen). If
we don’t suppose that the cat has the phenomenal minds (consciousness,
subjectivity), there is no doubt that all cat’s properties are entirely
reducible to the multitude of microphysical properties of all microparticles of
cat’s body and their interactions. In Chalmers’ terms: all cat’s properties are
logically supervenient upon this multitude. ²f something is in principle
irreducible, not logically supervenient, this something is cat's phenomenal
mind (consciousness, subjectivity).
Reductive
Explanation
Chalmers gives also good
explanation of the concept of reductive explanation which correspond to
what I called logical reducibility in principle.
Reductive explanation is
showing in general outline how properties of macrolevel can be
constituted by processes, properties, structures at microlevel. Chalmers
draws attention to some important points:
1)
Reductive explanation is not to be identified with the practical possibility
accomplish a thorough logical reduction (i.e. deductive derivation of all facts
at macrolevel from the microlevel facts): “Many of the details of these explanations
currently evade our grasp, and are likely to prove very complex, but we know
that if we find out enough about the low-level story, the high-level story will
eventually come along.”[29]
2)
Reductive explanation needn’t necessarily be an explanation at the lowest level
(of microphysics): “Instead, high-level phenomena are explained in terms of
some properties at a slightly more basic level … In turn, one hopes that the
more basic phenomena will themselves be reductively explainable in terms of
something more basic still. If all goes well, biological phenomena may be
explainable in terms of cellular phenomena, which are explainable in terms of
biochemical phenomena, which are explainable in terms of chemical phenomena,
which are explainable in terms of physical phenomena.”[30]
3) Reductive explanation
should not be identified with reduction of the content of concepts
of higher level of description to descriptions in terms of concepts of lower
(in particular, physical) level. This means what we had discussed above on the
example with a cat, and the thesis (often emphasized by supporters of
functionalism) that the same macroproperties (in particular, functional
properties) can be realized in different ways: there are “phenomena that can be
realized in many different physical substrates… But this multiple realizability
does not stand in the way of reductively explaining any instance” of the
phenomenon “in terms of lower-level phenomena”[31]. “…reductive explanation is
fundamentally particular, accounting
for particular instances of a
phenomenon, without necessarily accounting for all instances together.”[32]
We may draw the analogy
with the above-discussed example with a cat (though we discussed not exactly
the problem of reductive explanation, but a bit different problem – of reductive description): if we cannot "reduce"
the content of the concept of cat (i.e. all possible physical
realizations-instances of a cat) to description in the logical-mathematical
computer terms, it is not difficult to do this with any concrete cat (i.e. any particular
instance of a cat) at any concrete moment of time.
“In
the philosophical literature multiple realizability is often pointed to as the
main obstacle to "reduction", but as Brooks (1994) argues, it seems
largely irrelevant to the way that reductive explanations are used in the
sciences. Biological phenomena such as wings can be realized in many different
ways, for example, but biologists give reductive explanations all the same.
Indeed, as has been pointed out by Wilson (1985) and Churchland (1986), many
physical phenomena that are often taken to be paradigms of reducibility (e.g.,
temperature) are in fact multiply realizable.”[33]
As a result of a
thorough examination of questions about possibility of reductive explanation on
the basis of the concepts of physics, Chalmers makes such conclusions:
“For
almost every natural phenomenon above the level of microphysics, there seems in
principle to exist a reductive explanation: that is, an explanation
wholly in terms of simpler entities. In these cases, when we give an
appropriate account of lower-level processes, an explanation of the
higher-level phenomenon falls out.”[34] The unique
exception is the mind (consciousness) and phenomena which involve it: “Given
any account of the physical processes purported to underlie consciousness,
there will always be a further question: Why are these processes accompanied by
conscious experience?”[35]
“...the failure of
logical supervenience directly implies that materialism is false: there are
features of the world over and above the physical features. The basic argument
for this goes as follows:
1. In our world, there
are conscious experiences.
2. There is a logically
possible world physically identical to ours, in which the positive facts about
consciousness in our world do not hold.
3. Therefore, facts
about consciousness are further facts about our world, over and above the
physical facts.
4. So materialism is
false.
If a physically
identical zombie world is logically possible, it follows that the presence of
consciousness is an extra fact about
our world, not guaranteed by the physical facts alone. The character of our
world is not exhausted by the character supplied by the physical facts; there
is extra character due to the presence of consciousness.”[36]
The Hard Problem of Consciousness
One of the most widely
discussed moments of the analysis offered by Chalmers is the concept of "the
hard problem of consciousness". Chalmers has introduced it for designation
of that main problem which makes all materialistic (reductionist) theories of
consciousness unsatisfactory; to distinguish from the other – "easy"
– problems connected with consciousness – those problems for which a
satisfactory materialistic (reductionist) solution is, in principle, possible.
The "easy" problems of consciousness are all problems of materialistic
(reductive) explanation of various functions of consciousness in organism’s behaviour.
In fact, these "easy" problems may sometimes be pretty hard, but they
are easy in the sense that they are, in principle, solvable: for each such a function
a materialistic theory explaining how this function can be performed by some
physical system is, in principle, possible. (Surely, this does not mean that in
the case of a human being this function is in fact performed by such a physical
system.) But such an explanation of functions, however successful, always
leaves us with a problem which Chalmers calls "the hard problem", as
it is in principle insolvable for any materialistic (reductionist) theory:
“The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience.
… even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and
behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience … there may still remain a
further unanswered question: Why is the performance of these functions
accompanied by experience? … There is an explanatory gap (a term due
to Levine 1983) between the functions and experience. … The facts about
experience cannot be an automatic consequence of any physical account, as it is
conceptually coherent that any given process could exist without experience.
Experience … is not entailed by the physical.”[37]
[1] There is an ambiguity in the English word “reflection”
which can result in misunderstanding. It has two various meanings: 1) thought,
meditation and 2) reflection like that in the mirror – copies,
pictures, imprints – reproduction of the material structures of one object into
the material structures of another object. In the theory discussed the word “reflection” is used in the meaning 2).
[2] Outlines
of this theory were formulated by the French
philosophers-materialists of the XV²²² century;
the theory was developed by V.I.Lenin and canonized in the Soviet
philosophy.
[3] Marx K. Das Kapital. Bd.
I. – S.27.
English
translators have a deplorable habit of emasculating this Marx’s statement,
translating German ‘Menschenkopf’ (the human head) as ‘the human mind’.
[4] The
above example is a modification of the example I have
encountered in Stephen Law’s story “What is the Mind?”
[5]
Mises L. Theory and History. – p.93.
[6]
Cf.: A.Camus about Marx’s definition of ideal: “This
particularly vulgar definition is nonsensical. The question of how ‘material’
can be ‘transferred into the head’ seems trifle, if compared to the need to
define what this ‘tramsformation’
is. But Marx was a representative of the poor philosophy of his time” (Camus A. L’Homme révolté.
– P.246.)
[7]
Followers of Marx and Engels consider the Marxist
doctrine of dialectical materialism as the highest stage of the development of materialism
and oppose it to the traditional materialism which they label ‘vulgar’.
[8] let us notice, that it has
to do also with its own internal world: we know not only about material things
and processes, but also about our feelings and thoughts etc.
[9] Ludwig
von Mises. Socialism. – P.20.
[10]
The word "movement" is used in dialectical-materialistic philosophy
for designation not only of movement in the literal meaning of the word, i.e. physical movement, but also for
designation of any changes whatever.
[11] Lenin
V.I. Materialism and Empirio-criticism.
[12] Cf.:
A.F.Losev: “Recently, materialists have simply resorted to fraud. They declared
matter nothing other than the principle of reality and materialism simply a doctrine of the
objective character of things and the world. In response to this one can only
throw up one’s hands in despair. If the matter of a thing is its reality and
nothing else, then Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus are materialists, for they
recognized the reality of the cosmos and even presented its splendid
dialectics; all the Fathers of the Church are materialists, for they recognized
the reality of God, the reality of creation, the reality man’s fall, the
reality of Christ and the entire Gospel history, as well as the reality of
people’s perdition and salvation. The fraud is thus clearly exposed: matter is
not simply reality but a specific kind of reality.” (Losev A.F. The Dialectics
of Myth. – P.113)
[13] in the sense of conceptual reducibility
[14] Kallestrup J.
The Mind-Body World-Knot. – p.46-47.
[15] Cf.: T.Nagel about the premise
of nonemergence:
“There are no truly
emergent properties of
complex systems. All properties of a complex system that are not relations
between it and something else derive
from properties of its constituents and their effects on each other when so
combined. Emergence is an
epistemological condition: it means that an observed feature of the system
cannot be derived from the
properties currently attributed to its constituents. But this is a reason to conclude that either
the system has further constituents
of which we are not yet aware, or the constituents
of which we are aware have further
properties that we have not yet discovered.” (Nagel T. Panpsychism. – p.182)
(Italicizing mine.)
Applying this premise to the
problem of the nature of the mind (since subjectivity, intentionality etc. cannot be derived from any physical properties and
relations), we can contend that there are two possibilities: 1) non-physical
elements exist which are usually called souls (substance dualism) or 2) all or
some of the most elementary (indivisible) components of the brain which modern
science treats (mistakenly) as purely physical have actually, besides physical
properties, some forms of subjectivity (panpsychism).
[16] Chalmers D. Strong
and Weak Emergence. – p.247
[17] here Charmers
means ‘learning’ in the functionalist sense, of the kind possible for computers
[18] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. – p.169
[19]
various attempts of reductive (i.e.,
materialistic) accounts of consciousness
[20] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. – p.121
[21] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − P.75
[22] Other examples:
1) An imaginary world in which all physical bodies
move exactly as in our actual world, but not because there are such physical
laws; they move so because to each smallest particle an angel is assigned who
moves it appropriately.
2) An imaginary world of zombies
which feel nothing and are awere oof nothing, but move in the same way as human
beings in our world, and in their bodies occur exactly the same movements an in
human bodies; in this world there are a bit different laws of nature and, accordingly,
some properties of components of zombies’ bodies are a bit different; this
differences are such that they compensate absence of consciousness and aren’t
displayed in any other way. (Corresponding laws are emergent and don’t operate
outside zombies’ bodies.)
[23] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − P.75
[24] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − P.35
[25] obviously,
misprint in the original text: “they possess” is to be replaced with “he/she
possesses”
[26] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.70 (Italicizing
mine.)
[27] Laplace is a famous mathematician and adherent
of physical determinism – the theory that all events in the Universe are
necessarily and completely determined by past physical states and physical
laws. Laplace illustrated this theory with the statement that if a demon
existed with infinitely mighty reason and capable to obtain the knowledge about
all physical facts at some moment of time, he could on the basis of the
knowledge about these facts and physical laws to calculate, down to the
smallest detail (the smallest movement), all events which will occur in the
Universe for any time in the future (as well as back in the past).
[28] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.35
[29] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.43
[30] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.50-51
[31] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.43
[32] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.50 (Italicizing mine.)
[33] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.364
[34] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.42
[35] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.106
[36] Chalmers D. The Conscious
Mind. − p.123