I wouldn't say that physicalism fails to explain consciousness; it is just not clear how physicality brings about consciousness. A posteriori methods only supply probable conclusions, and the scientific method is a relatively slow process. There are many false ideas that science has demolished over time; even those concepts that people once thought could not be viewed any other way. Think of how much we've learned in the last two hundred years regarding gravity, subatomic particles, light, energy, thermodynamics, neuroscience, depression, mood disorders, and pain management. So I believe it's a little hasty to think dualism already has won the day. Additionally, just reading the literature on mind reveals that dualism has not fully explained consciousness either. Dualism only gives possible explanations for how mind-body interaction might work or it supplies potential explanations for what brings about conscious states? I don't know of any study that has shut the book (so to speak) on these questions.
My understanding about C-fibers is that they only partly tell us how pain works: much more is involved in pain sensations than C-fiber stimulation and the transmission of pain. For example, joint pain (gout or osteoarthritis) seems to be clearly brought about by physical factors--this kind of pain can be explained by strictly physical factors (inflammation of joints, depletion of cartilage and lubricating fluid in the joints or a buildup of uric acid, as the case may be). When someone asserts that mentality translates physical inputs into pain, he/she is making an assumption that the mental is somehow qualitatively different from the physical. However, that is yet to be proved.
1) I respectfully disagree that Jehovah's existence rules out a world of matter (a purely sensible world) that he could have produced to stand over against the spiritual realm. It's possible to have a world like ours completely governed by the laws of physics, then have another realm that differs qualitatively from the material sphere. I reiterate that the type of physicalism I'm talking about is restricted to the material universe and the human sphere. My version of physicalism also does not rule out divine or angelic activity.
2) Free will remains a mystery for dualists and physicalists alike. Dualists usually appeal to some immaterial faculty to explain free will (a soul or immaterial spirit), but the immaterial faculty proposed by dualists raises new questions along with how this faculty is supposed to interact with the physical world that includes brains and bodies. We also know that genetics, environment, brain chemistry and wiring, upbringing and other factors shape and condition our decision-making abilities. But dualists assert that free will emanating from a non-physical "thing" (res) is supposed to override all of these factors and act outside of the universe's causal continuum. How exactly does it all work? Furthermore, an immaterial faculty does not guarantee that we'll have free will since the spirit/soul itself could also be fully determined by God or some other agent.
3) Supervenience or some kind of physical theory is the most likely explanation for "mental" phenomena. Think about it. We have reduced water to H2o, heat has been reduced to "energy in transit from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object," and sound is "a mechanical wave that results from the back and forth vibration of the particles of the medium through which the sound wave is moving." If supervenience possibly occurs with all of these examples, then why does it not occur with consciousness? It's also possible to explain instincts, emotions, feelings, memory, and thinking in terms of brain activity. The one nagging problem (chiefly) is subjectivity. Maybe our nervous system and somatic input to the brain explains why we can reference things in first-person ways: reductionism or Christian physicalism cannot be ruled out yet.
4) Finally, physicists have not yet developed a grand unified theory or theory of everything that unites the quantum world with the macrocosm. Does that mean we will never understand how the subatomic world interacts with the cosmos writ large? Does dualism explain how it all works? Those still appear to be hasty conclusions for me.
I think that the fact that brain is the seat of consciousness (including free will) is easily proved by the fact that a brain disfaculty or damage caused by chemical (down syndrome, drugs, stroke etc.) or a mechanical (hit, injury, shock) cause can cause a reduced (or total loss of) consciousness or even alter the personality of a person. I had once seen a documentary of how a stroke made a former professor of biology an artist, how she stopped being interestend in books and focused on art.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting debate of this subject
ReplyDeletehttp://cfvod.kaltura.com/pd/p/618072/sp/61807200/serveFlavor/entryId/1_4y2fg751/v/1/flavorId/1_7hdowypb/name/a.mp3
Basileios,
ReplyDeleteThere are many accounts of people who suffered frontal brain damage, and experienced dramatic changes in their personality. One famous case is Phineas Gage. A 3 1/2 foot rod penetrated his skull and wreaked havoc on most of his left frontal lobe. After that accident, Gage's friends reported that he was never the same: he became nasty, impolite and brutish. On the other hand, dualists will accept body and mind interaction, but they'll still insist there has to be more than physical events occurring in humans. I happen to believe the Bible and science point toward a non-dualistic view of human nature.
Duncan,
ReplyDeleteThanks. I've heard some of those shows before, and listened to that particular discussion for a little while this morning.
"Disfaculty" was an interesting invention of mine instead of "malfunction". Brain plays strange games even without a stroke (thus far).
ReplyDeleteJust been watching a few videos on non reductive physicalism but have not found much info on reductive, what's the primary differanc?
ReplyDeleteThere are different versions of non-reductive physicalism like what we fine in Nanacey Murphy and Kevin Corcoran. But reductive physicalism is exemplified by most scientists and thinkers like Paul and Patricia Churchland. The reductive kind of physicalism says we are nothing but biological/physical or neurobiological processes. Furthermore, reductive physicalism usually says there is only bottom-up rather than top-down causation. A classic statement of this position is outlined in Francis Crick's "The Astonishing Hypothesis." He contends we're just a pack of neurons, molecules, and cells. Compare Joseph LeDoux's "Synaptic Self" theory.
ReplyDelete"The Astonishing Hypothesis is that 'You,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules" (Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis, page 3).
ReplyDelete"We have learned about the properties of matter by seeing what can be made of it: we know that it is the kind of thing that magnets can be made out of, because we have found magnetic substances; we know that it is the kind of thing bacteria can be made out of, because we have found bacteria. Why is it especially hard to accept that it is the kind of thing minds can be made out of? Indeed, since the one thing of which each of us surely has the most extensive direct experience is our own mind, shouldn’t we be puzzled, if we are puzzled by anything, by the nature of matter? How can it be, one might want to ask, that a world made of the sorts of things and governed by the sorts of laws that physicists now believe in should give rise to the astonishing range of experiences that each of us has every day?" (Anthony Appiah, Thinking It Through, page 52).
One other reductive physicalist who comes to mind is Owen Flanagan. He only accepts the existence of material entities: no spirits, souls or genies for him.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the pointers. It was Nanacey Murphy that I was watching on YouTube.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/09/29/225359504/how-does-the-world-work-top-down-or-bottom-up
I think I am starting to grasp the terms. From my perspective I have understood this as reductionism and wholism (not to be confused with holism). The book I mentioned earlier by t colin campbell called whole deals with the two perspectives from a nutrition and gene expression perspective. In both ecology and nutrition, new studies and data emerging is definitely swaying me to what would be called here - top down.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/maxpemberton/8899641/An-apple-or-a-few-vitamin-pills-a-day.html
Things are getting more and more complicated later studies on apples show that the tiny amount of vitamin C, it's potency is amplified about 256 times in the fruit compared to an isolated pill.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14789
Accelerated diamond growth using catalysts. I can see synergy in so many fields.
The first law of thermodynamics demonstrates that no element is designed to work in isolation.
For me the only difficult aspect of athropological monism is the resurrection of the person. How resurrection is a true continuance of the person and not just a perfect copy of the person. I hope God will reveal his 'secret' in the future.
ReplyDeleteBasileios,
ReplyDeleteI agree that we don't have a satisfactory account of how physicalism and the resurrection harmonize with one another, but I think Nancey Murphy has provided some helpful concpts: so has Kevin Corcoran. But we have nothign definitive yet.
On the other hand, I don't understand how the dualist account preserves identity either. Invoking the soul notion seems to raise more problems. I personally subscribe to a version of the "synaptic self" theory and Damasio's somatic marker concept.
Best,
Edgar
Duncan, reductive physicalism is of reductionism and a type of monism. If one believes in ontological or causal reductionism, then he/she will likely think that the laws of physics completely explains all (nutrition, neuroscience, psychology, etc.). But I guess Christian physicalism has to avoid reductionism to some extent. Of course, even the non-theist John Searle (a biological naturalist) does not seem to accept reductionist views.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that at some level every physical rule breaks down. I think it is so telling the way that the more Campbell looks at the symphony of effects in gene expression he cannot escape from using the term "creator".
ReplyDeleteNew world encyclopaedia under enzyme states:-
For an enzyme to be functional, it must fold into a precise three dimensional shape. How such a complex folding can take place remains a mystery. A small chain of 150 amino acids making up an enzyme has an extrodanary number of possible folding configurations. If it tested 1012 different configurations every second, it would take about 1026 years to find the right one... Yet, a denatured enzyme can refold within fractions of a second and then precisely react in a chemical reaction... It demonstrates a stunning complexity and harmony in the universe.
https://www.ted.com/talks/john_searle_our_shared_condition_consciousness?language=en#t-3140
ReplyDelete