Accommodating Consciousness: How Should we Conceptualize the Mind in a Physical Reality?
​Accommodating Consciousness: How Should we Conceptualize the Mind in a Physical Reality?
Cade Sellers
Lone Star College
Cade Sellers is a neuroscience major, and in his study of the natural sciences he has developed an appreciation for philosophy as the foundation for scientific inquiry. He is deeply interested in the mind as the seat of our experiences and a piece of who and what we are.
Abstract
With an aim to determine whether a full account of consciousness is within the purview of our current scientific framework, this research investigates how the mind should be conceptualized within a substantively physical reality. The worldview put forth by Descartes— one of an unconscious, material reality including an immaterial, conscious mind— continues to shape our thought to this day but also raises the question of how exactly this immaterial mind relates to the broader material world. This research examines recent academic discourse surrounding the mind/body problem and related issues to first elucidate and then assess the physicalist position. The theory of emergence is then presented as a means of accounting for the metaphysical possibility of consciousness within this worldview, finally leading to an analysis of property dualism. This research found “weak emergence” insufficient to account for consciousness within the physicalist worldview. As such, “strong emergence” was accepted, as was property dualism as the superior philosophical position. This supports notions of epiphenomenalism and suggests that our present scientific framework and methodology is incapable of deriving an adequate account of consciousness. Therefore, a shift in our present schema or the development of a new, supplementary one would be necessary to do so. Future research could address the details of this new framework, which may lean more rationalist than empiricist in its epistemology.
“Maybe the human brain is an object beyond the reach of metaphor, for the simple reason that it is the only object capable of creating metaphors to describe itself. There really is nothing else like it. The human brain creates the human mind, and then the human mind tries to understand the human brain, however long it takes and whatever the cost.”
-Luke Dittrich, Patient H.M.
Introduction
Among the most profound intellectual journeys in human history is the mind’s eternal contemplation of its own nature. Neuroscience is perhaps the most recent development in this journey. The Department of Neuroscience at Georgetown University describes neuroscience as the study of the structure, development, and function of the nervous system (Nordqvist, 2020). Due to the enormous complexity of the subject of its inquiry, neuroscience is an incredibly diverse field. Both the attempts to study the nervous system and the relationships between it and other subjects see considerable variety. There is, however, a clear philosophical quality to neuroscience that prevails across the field. Indeed, the study of the body system from which we presume our behaviors, identity, and entire conscious experience arise is inextricable from its philosophical implications and basis. The reciprocity at play between neuroscience and philosophy is important to keep in mind: neuroscience and its findings can and should be used to inform philosophical discussions of the mind and of the nature of reality. However, the scientific study of the mind is itself rooted in and based on a slew of presuppositions about those same subjects. By their very nature, these presuppositions are not scientific but philosophical. As we seek to understand the relationship between consciousness and neurological structures and processes, it is important to clarify the metaphysical assumptions we are basing that investigation on. Given its status as a natural science, neuroscience generally ascribes to mentality a physical, mechanistic basis in the physiological systems and processes which compose our bodies. If indeed we grant such a basis, and that reality as a whole is an aggregate of physical entities, we must then consider how and where the mind is coherently placed within this picture of the world. How should we conceptualize the mind if we consider our reality to be physical in substance? In asking this question, we have introduced ourselves to the mind-body problem. This research investigates how the mind should be conceptualized in a physical reality by examining recent scholarly discourse concerning philosophy of mind to first elucidate and then assess the physicalist position. The theory of emergence is then presented as a means of accounting for the metaphysical possibility of consciousness within this worldview, finally leading to an analysis of property dualism. Through this process, this research demonstrates that while mentality arises from the physical, the former must be treated as something unique from the latter.
The Cartesian Split and The Mind Body Problem
For the purposes of this research, the mind/body problem is best contextualized by a brief discussion of René Descartes. Descartes was a French mathematician, natural scientist, and philosopher who lived from 1596 to 1650 (Hatfield). Descartes imagined the natural world as being composed of matter which held a few basic qualities and behaved in accordance with a few basic laws (Hatfield). This frame continues to shape our view of the world today. One can easily see how physics, itself laying the foundation for all the other natural sciences, has historically approached the world with this perspective in mind. A curious facet of the world, within this framework, is an immaterial mind which is somehow related to the material brain (Hatfield).
Drawing a qualitative, metaphysical distinction (often called the Cartesian Split) between the mind and body in this way immediately poses a very fundamental question, often called the mind-body problem (Hatfield). If indeed there is a substantive difference of this sort between the mind and body— the mental and physical— how precisely do they relate, and how does the former fit into the world of the latter? Upon further consideration, one should see the value in asking this question regardless of whether Descartes’ vision of the natural world is accepted. Intuitively, both mind and body together appear to define our experience of reality, and there appears to be something unique about each; they seem to contrast each other, at least in semblance. Since the inception of the Cartesian Split, a great wealth of theories has spawned in an attempt to qualify the nature of this relationship. Some of these theories will prove to be of greater relevance to this research than others. Descartes, for one, was a substance dualist and an interactionist (Hatfield). Of all varieties of dualism, Substance Dualism draws the strongest distinction between mind and body. Substance Dualism claims that there are two fundamental substances in the world: mind and body (Robinson). Here, substance is related but not equivalent to properties (which will be discussed at greater length later) in that a substance possesses some aggregate of properties, but it is not merely the sum of those properties (Robinson). Rather, a substance is the thing which possesses those properties (Robinson). As such, it can be said that a substance dualist believes there are two fundamental kinds of things in this world. René Descartes believed that the mind was somehow immaterial and could not be reduced to the material (Robinson). Substance Dualism is an interesting position worth extensive evaluation, but in the spirit of maintaining focus, this research will preoccupy itself mainly with substance monism, the idea that there is fundamentally one kind of thing, or substance, in the world (Robinson). Specifically, the assumption will be made that all entities are physical entities, regarding substance. Of course, this again raises the question of how precisely the mind can be accounted for in such a world. Numerous theories have been posed to address this. The mind/brain identity theory, for example, is the position that the brain and mind are one in the same (Vaughn 199). Beyond simply drawing a strong connection between the two, identity theory holds that “mental states are nothing but brain states,” asserting in this way that there really is no mind beyond its physical aspect (199). Functionalism, in contrast with identity theory, asserts that the mind is not the brain itself, but what the brain does (200). Functionalism identifies mental states and events not with the brain as a structure, but instead with its functions or processes (200). Logical behaviorism claims that mental states are mere predispositions towards particular behaviors in corresponding circumstances (199). A common theme amongst these theories is a certain reduction of mental phenomena to physical terms— a theme emblematic of the neuroscientific approach to understanding consciousness and mentality more broadly. Indeed, all these theories relate to physicalism (most precisely reductive physicalism), which will be explored more now.
Clarifying Physicalism
Physicalism is “the doctrine that there is nothing over and above the physical” (Tiehen 537). Upon first introduction to this phrase, its meaning is not readily apparent. To begin elucidating this idea, one must first define the meaning of physical in this context. As it turns out, there are several available options regarding a definition. To start with, there is the Via Negativa view of the word, which asserts that if a thing is not mental, it is physical (Tiehen 543). Unfortunately, this definition has multiple glaring weaknesses. Firstly, by defining the physical based on what it is not, the Via Negativa definition has failed to express anything sufficiently meaningful about the physical in itself, which is precisely what a definition is meant to do. This would be adequate reason to disregard it, but the problems do not stop there. Via Negativa also explicitly and immediately suggests far too much about the nature of the relationship between the physical and mental. It outrightly states that for something to be physical it must not be mental, and therefore, presumably, that which is mental is not physical. What this implies is that if anything mental exists (and there are quite a few things we can reasonably call mental) then these things fail to be physical in any sense, thus contradicting the physicalist doctrine. An alternative to the Via Negativa definition would be the Object View, which appeals to human intuition regarding the physical. The Object View proposes that for something to be physical it must figure into “a complete account of the intrinsic nature of objects like tables and chairs, rocks and mountains (i.e., paradigmatic physical objects)” (Tiehen 543-544). There is nothing overtly and inherently wrong with this view, as it does not lead to so apparent a contradiction as the previous. In some sense, this view may be considered a valid one. It is not entirely helpful as a definition, though. The Object View could be thought of as attempting to avoid the need to actually define what is meant by “physical” by emphasizing and relying upon the idea that we have an existing intuition of physical things which is sufficient for any discussion we could have regarding the physical. However, when applying the intellect to intellectual problems, one should utilize conscious, intellectual concepts to do so, and leverage intuition only when necessary. Given that there is one view of the physical left to discuss, accepting the appeal to intuition seen in the Object View has not yet proven necessary.
The Theory View is the idea that something is physical if it is or could be described by a theory of physics (Tiehen 542). While it will prove to be the best of those presented for the purposes of this research, this view is admittedly imperfect. Hempel’s Dilemma points out that if we are to take “theory of physics” to mean current physics, then the theory view is certainly false (Tiehen 542). This is clear upon considering that there are many things which our current physics fails to describe adequately or completely, even things which we would nonetheless have a difficult time considering non-physical (Tiehen 542). If we expand the meaning of The Theory View to encompass a hypothetical ideal physics— one which has evolved far beyond our present version and has reached a point such that it can and perhaps already does reliably describe all physical entities (Tiehen 542)— we find ourselves with yet another problem. This ideal physics does not yet exist, and there is no guarantee that it ever will or even could. It requires that we vest a great deal of faith in physics, that we assume its viability (Tiehen 542). Despite these reasons, and somewhat out of respect for them, the theory view is the one which will be accepted for the remainder of this research. This is because it has the greatest epistemological relevance: it refers directly to the power of physics to describe our reality in its totality. If indeed there is nothing over and above the physical, then by this definition we can say that physics is capable of describing all things, and all reality. This, by proxy, affirms the viability of neuroscience to describe and explain things like consciousness, because neuroscience is an interdisciplinary nexus of sorts among various branches of science which can ultimately be traced back to the metaphorical trunk of physics.
Realization, Reduction, and an Assessment of Physicalism
Now that we have briefly explored what is meant by “physical,” we can specify what claims the physicalist position is making about reality. While numerous approaches to this topic could be entertained, the concept of realizability will prove useful in elucidating the physicalist position. Realization denotes “some dependence relation that is thought to exist between higher-level properties or states and lower-level properties or states,” (Baysan). For the nature, or very existence, of a thing to depend upon the nature or existence of another is for the former to be realized by the latter. If the dependence of one thing on another is strong enough, the realized may be appropriately reduced to the realizer, meaning that the former can be deduced and understood exclusively in terms of the latter (Brigandt; Love). These concepts of realizability and reduction will become more significant later. Before proceeding, however, the merits of physicalism shall be further evaluated. Perhaps the greatest reason for accepting this position is presented to us in the form of the causal argument for physicalism (Tiehen 545). The argument follows: All physical events have a sufficient physical cause (545). The physical effects of mental events are not causally overdetermined (545). All mental events have physical effects, therefore mental events are physical events (545). Finally, we can see how physicalism chooses to conceptualize the mind. Based on the reasons just given, physicalism asserts that mental events are, in fact, just a kind of physical event (545). This argument exemplifies reductive physicalism, which, based on our discussion of each term, claims that all things depend strongly on, and could be reduced to, physical entities or events. Implicit in this is a rejection of mentality’s existence as something distinct from the physical in any meaningful way. Mental entities and phenomena are physical entities and phenomena. Mental properties are physical properties. Before contesting that last point, its meaning will be contextualized.
Properties and Predicate Dualism
Now that properties have been mentioned multiple times, their precise nature will here be expanded upon. The exact nature of properties and their objective reality is critical to a discussion of the mind’s relation to the physical world. Properties can be said to be the qualities of a thing (Orilia; Paoletti). They are possessed by a given substance/entity and can be said to describe or exemplify that thing (Orilia; Paoletti). In considering a table to be sturdy or a person to be tired, we are speaking of things and their properties. Does this have more to do with our consideration, and what we are saying, than it does with the things we speak of? Unsurprisingly, there is some contention over how precisely properties should be regarded. Some might argue that properties are not exactly qualities possessed by the thing referred to, but instead are qualities attributed to that thing by virtue of how it is spoken of and thought of (Orilia; Paoletti). Applying this idea to the mind-body relation yields predicate dualism, the notion that any qualitative difference to be drawn between the mental and the physical has less to do with their relationship in a metaphysical sense, and more to do with how we refer to them in a linguistic one (Robinson). It seems that if one were to accept reductive physicalism, they would almost certainly have to additionally accept predicate dualism, to account at least for the difference in linguistic treatment of the mental and physical. However, it is not fair to say that this is where the difference between the two ends. Predicate dualism risks rejecting the ontology of objective qualities and qualitative differences which our predicates are merely meant to reference. When a leaf is described as green, what has been presented is a description first and foremost. However, that description is informed by a genuine experience-perception. In neuroscience, this experience-perception is considered the end product of an interaction of some sense organ with a genuine, real quality of that leaf— in this case the absorbance of light spectra by its molecules. Predicate dualism conflates the predicate with the perception with the objective quality. If it is inappropriate to do this in the case of the leaf, why should it be considered appropriate to do it in the case of consciousness? Even in the case of mentality (perhaps especially in the case of mentality) our linguistic and conceptual distinction between the mental and physical is indicative of a genuine, objective difference between the two. A recognition of this drives a rejection of reductive physicalism. That we cannot reduce the mental entirely to the physical does not necessarily mean we cannot still fit the mind into a basically physicalist worldview, however. To see how this can be true, one must understand emergence.
Emergence: How the Mind Arises from the Body
Realization, as we have discussed, relates to the dependence of one subject upon another (Baysan). Worth noting is that dependence and autonomy establish a spectrum of sorts, and within this spectrum one should expect to find emergence. Emergence is sometimes considered a universal feature of complex systems (Theurer 277). It stems from the notion that a collection can become ‘more than the sum of its parts’ (277). The human body, for example, can be thought of as the vast system of relationships established between trillions of cells. Similarly, the atom can be thought of as a maintained interaction between its protons, neutrons, and electrons. The atoms, in turn, interact with an innumerable quantity of other atoms to assemble our entire material reality. Emergentism rejects the idea that an entity can be reduced to its components and their properties but affirms some level of dependence upon it and them (O’Conner). Emergence can be applied to this discussion of the mind-body relation. Perhaps it can be said that while all things are physical, the mental nonetheless somehow emerges from a peculiar subset of all physical things. The mental can still arise from, be realized by, and even depend on physical entities and events while displaying some (limited) degree of novelty or autonomy in relation to them. Reductive physicalism is clearly not compatible with emergentism; it rejects the same autonomy of the mind with respect to the body that emergentism affirms, in a limited sense. Nonreductive physicalism, on the other hand, is compatible with emergentism (O’Conner) if we consider the emergence of the mind from the body to be a weak case of emergence. Emergence, by its very nature, requires some degree of explanatory separation between the emergent phenomena (along with its properties) and that from which it emerges. In the case of weak emergence, the properties of a system can still nonetheless be described and predicted by the causal powers and properties of the systems components (Theurer 280). If we affirm that all entities are physical, then mental properties could fit into this view of the world if they are considered to emerge weakly from it. The version of physicalism this research concerns is tenable given these parameters because mentality can still be said to be realized by the physical. As a case of weak emergence, a physical system with irreducible mental properties can be described and predicted by an understanding of its physical components, with a theory of physics. However, consciousness has resisted attempts to be described in physical terms, reductive or otherwise (O’Conner). This fact alone may pose some threat to nonreductive physicalism, based on the previously discussed relationship between linguistic predicates and objective qualities. If we assume that matter is basically unconscious, then the divide between conscious experience and its presumed neurophysiological substrate seems too great for a case of emergence weak enough to align with physicalism to account for it. As such, property dualism must now be considered.
Panpsychism: A Beautiful Circumvention
At the risk of digressing somewhat from the core assumption of this research, a mention of panpsychism is warranted. Panpsychism is a fascinating philosophical position which happens to bear some relation to emergence, which itself has proven to be a guiding thread throughout this research. Property dualism may consider mental phenomena to emerge from physical systems as qualities of those systems, but it fails to describe precisely how this differentiation occurs. This hardly dooms property dualism, as it may not be within the realm of that specific philosophy to investigate such a question directly, but it nonetheless leaves something to be desired. Panpsychism circumvents this by suggesting that consciousness has a fundamental and ubiquitous presence in the universe, even among (albeit in a very simple form) micro entities of matter (Goff). In this way, micro instances of matter and, therefore, micro instances of consciousness can be said to form together into emergent systems and in doing so produce something that is not only more physically complex but also more mentally complex (Goff). In this sense, human consciousness is not fundamental per se, but consciousness in a more basic sense is, and the former emerges (weakly) from an interconnected web of the latter (Goff). While fascinating, in the same way that it circumvents the need to explain how the mental arises from the physical (by essentially claiming that it does not) it fails to do so as it concerns this context. Furthermore, the mentality of inanimate objects does not appear to be empirically verifiable, and as such, accepting this position would require a measure of faith greater than one could reasonably expect the field of neuroscience to extend.
Settling on a variety of Emergence
It has been argued over the course of this paper that emergence is, while perhaps not all encompassing, a critical component of the answer to its central question. The question which must now be asked is this: what form of emergence best describes the arising of mentality from physical processes? Is it the weak emergence of nonreductive physicalism or the relatively stronger emergence of property dualism? The causal argument— the main reason presented for accepting physicalism— is weaker than it at first may seem. Its first premise is reasonable enough, and together with the two that follow establishes a valid argument. However, there is no especially compelling reason to accept premises two and three. As Justin Tiehen points out, overdeterminationists reject premise two and epiphenomenalists reject premise three, and he himself “advances the distinct but related claim that while we have good reasons to accept Causal Closure, they depend on our prior reasons to accept physicalism itself and so cannot be used to support the causal argument” (546-547). Indeed, the causal argument relies entirely on mental causal power, without including a justification for our acceptance that it exists beyond the fact that if we were to accept the physicalist frame to begin with, it would logically follow that mental causal power exists.
It is worthwhile now to speak of Epiphenomenalism, as it may pose some threat to property dualism. While physicalism rejects it both as an implication and foundation of its argument, property dualists have frequently been said to be compelled to accept Epiphenomenalism (Vaughn 219). Epiphenomenalism is the idea that while mental events arise from physical events, mental events in turn exert no causal influence upon the physical world, and in fact are entirely causally impotent (Vaughn 219). The main reason property dualists are driven to accept epiphenomenalism is because every physical event is thought to have a sufficient physical cause (Robinson). Even behaviors, which most reasonably assume result from
mental processes, might be sufficiently explained by neuron firing, muscle contraction, and other physical events (Robinson). In this way, there is simply no room for mental causation to make any contribution (Robinson). Is there any reason beyond its apparent absurdity that we should be compelled to reject epiphenomenalism and therefore treat it as a weakness of property dualism? At times, the causal power of mental events is affirmed on the basis that consciousness must be the result of natural selection, and natural selection would only bias a trait or set of traits which exerted some effect on behavior and as such survivability (Robinson). Before disregarding property dualism along with epiphenomenalism, however, it is worth asking whether we need accept the latter in order to accept the former. Does this case of emergence preclude downward causation of the sort that epiphenomenalism rejects? Not necessarily, as many philosophers do, in fact, accept downward causation (Vaughn 219). Furthermore, István Aranyosi argues against the need to accept epiphenomenalism based on the idea that properties possess and endow the entity to which they belong with their causal powers necessarily (59). If epiphenomenalism is not so significant a factor, then what matters most is whether property dualism and the strength of the emergence which is implied by it is really needed for an account of consciousness. Indeed it is based on the reasons presented in the section concerning predicate dualism, as well as on the previously described intrinsic weaknesses of physicalism.
Conclusions and Implications
If we were to accept that through weak emergence, we could accommodate the existence of mentality and consciousness, we could accept physicalism. In doing so, we would avoid the problem of interaction. There is no need to explain in any special terms how the mental engages the physical and vice versa, as in this case, the mental is physical or is at least realized by it in such a way that it can be treated as such. This means that the mental interacts with the physical through physical means and can be expected to follow the same modalities as do other physical entities when interacting with one another. Related to this is another hugely significant implication of physicalism’s acceptance: in accepting physicalism, in particular the theory view, we definitionally affirm the power of physics to explain all things, including consciousness. A different set of implications follows this research’s acceptance of property dualism. First, we must contend in some way with the problem of interaction. Our discussion of epiphenomenalism demonstrated that we need not outrightly reject mental causation. However, drawing such a strong distinction between mental and physical properties nonetheless raises the question of how these properties engage each other and how mental properties affect the behavior of the substantively physical systems to which they belong. Furthermore, by accepting a relatively strong form of emergence, we have rendered physics powerless to fully account for mentality and consciousness. While neuroscience has demonstrated undeniable efficacy in correlating neural substrate with behavioral predispositions, personality, conscious experience, and other facets of the psyche, the current scientific framework upon which it is based may be unable to take it as far as would be required to fully understand consciousness. As such, the acceptance of property dualism suggests the necessity of a new epistemological framework, a new methodology to supplement physics and ultimately provide humanity with a more comprehensive and holistic view of the natural world. Such a framework may lean more rationalist than empiricist in its epistemology. The emphasis upon experience (largely externalized) seen in empiricism has proven effective in conceptualizing the externalized, material world. Perhaps, then, the emphasis upon reason seen in rationalism would prove more efficacious regarding an understanding of consciousness and other mental phenomena. Further research may address the details of this framework/methodology, leading to another development in the mind’s endless journey towards self-understanding.
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