Paavo

Pylkknen Center of Excellence in the Philosophy of Social Science Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy University of Skvde, Sweden

 Much of contemporary Anglo-American

analytical philosophy is committed to physicalism:

everything is physical, or

everything is in an appropriate way dependent

upon the physical (supervenience)

 Physicalism is an impressive professional

activitity, characterized by the high standards of argumentation and clarity typical of analytical philosophy

 However: there is one major problem with

physicalism It tends to leave out physics!

Quantum theory and relativity

 Cf. Searle (1992): the major theories in

philosophy of mind (behaviourism, functionalism, eliminative materialism) are impressive But they have one problem: they leave out the mind (consciousness)!

 Similarly, during the behaviorist era,

psychology tended to leave out the mind / consciousness

 So: physicalists ignore physics, psychologists

ignore the mind J

 It could be the case that contemporary

physics (quantum theory and relativity) is competely irrelevant in the explanation of consciousness For example, consciousness could be reducible to processes at the classically describable level of reality
e.g. mechanistic computation implemented in

classically describable neural processes

 However, many arguments suggest that

consciousness cannot be reduced to such mechanistic processes (e.g. Chalmers 1997)

of course, it does not follow from this that

consciousness is reducible to, say, quantum level processes

 Fact: quantum and relativity physics require

us to change radically our general world view In the context of such a new world view we may be able to understand consciousness in a new light Let us consider some such new world views

 A refreshing exception to the mainstream of

analytical arm-chair philosophy:

James Ladyman and Don Ross Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized Oxford University Press, 2007

 We deny the local supervenience of the

mental on the physical, the token identity of mental states and physical states, the existence of a hierarchy of levels of reality, and the claim that all causation is physical causation. (38-39)

 Their aim is to present a version of

naturalized metaphysics In particular, to unify weakly the special sciences by reference to fundamental physics
So: the key point is unication, and fundamental

physics plays an important role in this

 It is that part of physics that is implicitly

tested by every measurement that could be taken at any scale of reality and in any region of the universe.

 It is weak because it is not reductionist

 Fundamental physics constrains all special

sciences (including the parts of physics that are not fundamental) But: it doesnt track information at the multiple scales necessary for capturing most of the real patterns (Dennett 1991) that are the objects of study in chemistry, biology, geology, economics and so on.

 there is no fundamental level the real patterns criterion of reality is the last

word in ontology there is nothing more to the existence of a structure than what it takes for it to be a real pattern.
rejects the assumption that the world consists of

little things & that real causation consists of bangings of these things

 Hence, particles or spacetime points are just

patterns that behave like particles or spacetime points respectively, just as A tiger is any pattern which behaves as a tiger

 Saunders: I see no reason to suppose that

there are ultimate constituents of the world, which are not themselves to be understood in structural terms. So far as I am concerned its turtles all the way down (2003d, 129). Or: real patterns all the way down

 It presupposes that reality is structured into

levels in the rst place. The standard way in which these levels are distinguished is according to size.

 E.g. the domains of dierent special sciences

are identied with dierent scales:

the atomic for physics the molecular for chemistry the cellular for biology etc.

 But LR: this is limited

economics, for example, can be applied to an ant

colony or the world economy, and evolutionary theory can be applied to entities of any size (even, according to Smolin (2000), to the whole universe).

 Furthermore, in accordance with physics, LR

regard the structure of space and the metric used to measure length as themselves emergent structures.
framework within which to describe the levels against which everything else exists! (2007: 179)

thus: we can hardly treat them as a fundamental

 Ontology is scale relative: all real patterns

except those of fundamental physics are detectable at some scales but not at others.
The same point applies to everyday phenomena

tracked by reference to the parochial practical purposes of people, such as tables, hockey games and capital cities

 LR provide reconstructions of important

concepts in philosophy of science such as causation and laws in terms of recurrent types of structural relations among real patterns.

 Claims that have been thought to be laws in

the history of modern science describe such structural relations in mathematical terms
of theory change in approximate form.

these mathematical descriptions survive episodes

 [O]ntology is substantially larger than

what people can ever be expected to be in a position to specify. Ours is thus a realism of lush and leafy spaces rather than deserts, with science regularly revealing new thickets of canopy. Quine appreciated deserts But: LR think the facts now suggest that we must reconcile ourselves to life in the rainforest.

 Peter Unger (2001) argues that our

knowledge of the world is purely structural and that qualia are the unknowable non- structural components of reality. On our view, things in themselves and qualia are idle wheels in metaphysics (p.154)

 If cognitive science concludes that mental

concepts do not track any real patterns then the theory of mind will have to go. LR do not at present think that behavioural and cognitive sciences are tending in this direction
though they do think that the folk theory of mind

is clearly false in all sorts of important ways

But: the issue is not up to philosophers.

 Philosophers of mind typically rely on their

intuitions when reasoning about the place of consciousness in nature But: LR remind us that intuitions are
the basis for ... everyday practical heuristics ...

they are not cognitive gadgets designed to produce systematically worthwhile guidance in either science or metaphysics. (2007:10)

 In any given instance, it may be that our

concepts and intuitions about the real patterns we are tracking may be widely mistaken, as with intuitions about qualia and phenomenal conscious states (Dennett 1991b). So: LR leave out consciousness!

 LR project is a refreshing attempt develop a

world view implied by contemporary physics and the special sciences But: for those whose intuitions suggest that conscious experience is real their project is frustrating

 Are there other schemes of naturalistic

metaphysics which are more consciousness- friendly? One such is David Bohms implicate order framework
Which includes the more narrow and specic

ontological interpetation of quantum theory

For the mechanist

Start from separate and independently existent parts Derive all wholes through abstraction, explaining them as

In the implicate order approach

Begin with the undivided wholeness of the universe Derive parts via abstraction from the whole Explain them as approximately separable, stable and

the results of interaction of parts

recurrent, but externally related elements making up relatively autonomous sub-totalities, to be described in terms of an explicate order
34

RAINFOREST REALISM

IMPLICATE ORDER

Denies the existence of a hierarchy of levels of reality There is no fundamental level

Accepts the levels metaphor up to a point Qualitative innite of nature There is no fundamental level

RAINFOREST REALISM

IMPLICATE ORDER

Scale relative Structures are fundamental

Context relative (a thing is real in its context, e.g. an atom) Movement is fundamental Implicate order prevails in the movement and gives rise to explicate order

RAINFOREST REALISM

IMPLICATE ORDER

Sceptical of their existence Why? Our intuitions about qualia and phenomenal conscious states are widely mistaken Result of their vericationism

Allows for the existence of qualia and phenomenal experience, at the higher levels of the implicate order Inference to the best explanation The best explanation for the fact that we seem to be conscious is that we are conscious

 I think there is room to account for the

phenomenal structure of consciousness in both LRs rainforest realism and Bohms implicate order

Kant & the phenomenologists Van Gulick: challenge is to explain the order and connectedness we nd within experience, its
conceptual organization spatio-temporal structure emotive tones and moods the fact that our experience is that of a (more or less)

unied self set over against an objective world

RAINFOREST REALISM

IMPLICATE ORDER
Individuals are derived via

The important real patterns in science are not reducible to facts about the intrinsic properties or natures of individual objects. LR defend a metaphysics that does not take individual things to be fundamental

abstraction from the whole Individuals are approximately separable, stable and recurrent, and externally related elements They make up relatively autonomous sub-totalities, to be described in terms of an explicate order

RAINFOREST REALISM

IMPLICATE ORDER

causation and laws are reconstructed in terms of recurrent types of structural relations among real patterns.

A causal interpretation of quantum theory is possible (Bohm 1952) Non-local interactions go beyond traditional notions of causality

INDIVIDUALS ACROSS SCIENCES: A REVISIONARY METAPHYSICS? Paris, Paris-Sorbonne University, May 18-20, 2012

This conference will gather metaphysicians, philosophers of biology and philosophers of physics and chemistry to oer a reection on criteria of individuality in dierent sciences and to try to develop a unied account on the notion of what an individual is. http://individuals2012.sciencesconf.org/