The issue of reductionism is evidently not all that inconsequential. I'm not a chemist although I once assumed the role of chemistry teacher for three months in Caldwell County, NC (USA). Nevertheless, what I'm stating here is pretty much a given in modern scientific circles far as I can tell. A nomothetic analysis of clouds yields the conclusion that clouds (ontologically speaking?) are nothing but ensembles of water molecules; similarly, with water. It's ontologically nothing but H2O far as we know (= epistemic possibility). I checked my copy of Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos: he apparently explains water in these terms as well.
Stephen Hawking once analyzed the structure of matter by probing the role that atoms and quarks play in the constitution of matter. He then asked in effect whether it's possible to reduce matter to a level of existence below subatomic particles; his tentative answer was that energy (simpliciter) possibly subsists beneath subatomic particles. Regardless of the answer to Hawking's query, it seems that a thing is what it is because of its atomic/molecular structure. A cloud is nothing above and beyond "a collection of water molecules"; water itself is nothing above and beyond H20. Waterness is therefore nothing but the common properties of water that we find in singular instances of the wet stuff: it's not some intelligible "thingy" (universal/abstract form) that the soul abstracts from matter. No one has ever proved by means of empiricism or rationalism that Forms of any kind exist.
Causal reductionism seems tough to explain when clouds or trees are the objects of inquiry. Does not Aristotle give a natural account of teloi since his deity is not an efficient universal cause but just a final cause? Hence, from the venerable Stagirite's perspective, it would appear that utterances regarding deific teloi might be out of bounds when it comes to delineating the nature of final causes. But maybe we could invoke causal reductionism within the sweeping compass of final causality to provide justification for the natural ends of acorns or agricultural seeds and other biological organisms. That is, one might take this approach when exploring these issues from an Aristotelian or Thomistic vantage-point.
John R. Searle makes a distinction between ontological, causal and eliminative reductionism. He defines the former this way: "Phenomena of type A are ontologically reducible to phenomena of type B if and only if A's are nothing but B's" (Mind: A Brief Introduction, page 83). Some examples include material objects which are "nothing but collections of molecules" and sunsets which are nothing but "appearances generated by the rotation of the earth on its axis relative to the sun" (ibid.). Phenomena of type A are causally reducible (Searle would argue) to phenomena of type B "if and only if the behavior of A's is causally explained by the behavior of B's, and A's have no causal powers in addition to the powers of B's" (ibid). E.g., solidity is causally reducible to the behavior of molecules; consciousness might be causally reducible to neuronal behavior without being ontologically reducible to neuronal activity.
When I referred to Hawking earlier I had this quote from A Brief History of Time in mind found in chapter five:
"We now know that neither the atoms nor the protons and neutrons within them are indivisible. So the question is: what are the truly elementary particles, the basic building blocks from which everything is made? Since the wavelength of light is much larger than the size of an atom, we cannot hope to 'look' at the parts of an atom in the ordinary way. We need to use something with a much smaller wave-length. As we saw in the last chapter, quantum mechanics tells us that all particles are in fact waves, and that the higher the energy of a particle, the smaller the wavelength of the corresponding wave. So the best answer we can give to our question depends on how high a particle energy we have at our disposal,
because this determines on how small a length scale we can look. These particle energies are usually measured in units called electron volts. (In Thomson’s experiments with electrons, we saw that he used an electric field to accelerate the electrons. The energy that an electron gains from an electric field of one volt is what is known as an electron volt.) In the nineteenth century, when the only particle energies that people knew how to use were the low energies of a few electron volts generated by chemical reactions such as burning, it was thought that atoms were the smallest unit. In Rutherford’s experiment, the alpha-particles had energies of millions of electron volts. More recently, we have learned how to use
electromagnetic fields to give particles energies of at first millions and then thousands of millions of electron volts. And so we know that particles that were thought to be 'elementary' thirty years ago are, in fact, made up of smaller particles. May these, as we go to still higher energies, in turn be found to be made from still smaller particles? This is certainly possible, but we do have some theoretical reasons for believing that we have, or are very near to, a knowledge of the ultimate building blocks of nature."
Compare https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/is-there-anything-smaller-than-a-quark
Monday, February 19, 2024
More Physicalism/Reductionism: Against Ultrasensory Forms
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18 comments:
" Any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic" Arthur C Clarke . Our technology would be utterly inscrutable to our pets. Our ability to use the can opener to extract food from oddly shaped rocks or use what may well seem like a magic wand to make the talking box wake up might make us seem like "divinities" of a sort to them. Or imagine if we found some kind of portal to the distant pass, the kind of riches kings of a past age would shower on us to obtain the technology that we take for granted in our drab day to day lives.
Might they not regard us as wizards. Yet our technology is the product of finite minds applying their extremely limited understanding of the creation. When man investigates the wonders of creation he is in effect examining the utterly transcendent technology of the infinite intelligence of JEHOVAH God. There is no getting to the bottom of JEHOVAH'S Genius.
Ecclesiastes Ch.3:11NIV"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
Stephen Hawking, like many scientists (on the other hand, thankfully, many scientists are also learned in philosophy), seems to believe that reality is limited to what the quantitative tools of science can deliver, i.e. whatever fits into their differential equations is real, and everything else is unreal.
I'm sorry just this is just silly, science works well precisely because it reduces phenomena to differential equations and ignores everything that can't fit into it (which is why consciousness is, in principle, unable to be examined by science).
BTW, a cloud is something more than a collection of water molecules, in fact, it IS NOT a collection of water molecules, it's a set of relations in which water molecules participate in, (saying a cloud is a collection of water molecules and nothing more is like saying a basketball team is a set of human males).
Nobody would deny, not even the platonist, that waterness is the common property of water. BTW, Stephen Hawkings, was probably aware that among Mathematicians Platonism is a popular and growing position.
BTW, "cause" does not show up in the differential equations of physics, does that mean that can not believe in causes? Some don't, But again, this is confusing physics with metaphysics.
Also, Stephen Hawking uncritically assumes a naive metaphysical atomism, i.e. the most fundamental reality is whatever the smallest "thing" is. It's this philosophical naivety that makes me roll my eyes anytime some Physicist decides that he/she can adjudicate the existence of God, or any another metaphysical issue, just from the findings of physics.
I wonder if, for Searle, consciousness being causally reducible, but not ontologically reducible, is just a question of language, i.e. if "higher and lower" feature are interpretive categories, which pressuppose mind, unless of course one is including "states of affairs" (i.e. rational relations) as ontologically significant realities that exist as distinct (though not independent) of the realities that instantiate them.
Not to mention, as David Bentley Hart has, that these accounts are basically "magic", but worse, since they require that causes produce effects that are entirely not found in any of the causes, i.e. ex-nihilo.
Roman, you mention a lot of things I would like to comment on, but my work break is almost over.
Does all science reduce things to differential equations. I'm not sure about that. Secondly, relations are not concreta to me, but abstracta. Imo, there is a big difference between a sports team and a cloud. Best wishes.
I was a little bit too quick with that comment, I may way to nuance things a bit.
Ok, let me nuance my comments.
Science, for the most part, especially physics, as far as I understand it, posits models that explain phenomena in the sense that they can make predictions that can be empirically verified, and in that sense, they are explanations. These models are very limited explanations since they only model (usually in mathematical models) that which can be quantified so as to be applied universally so that the predictions can be made. If something cannot be objectively quantified then it can’t go in the models, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real or not explanatory, nor does it mean that one is more fundamental than the other. This is obvious in some of the humanistic sciences like sociology and psychology, where at best one can make quantitative models that make broad predictions, but for someone to argue that these models provide sufficient and complete explanations of human activity would be naïve, this is NOT because we haven’t developed these models enough, it’s because these models are necessarily limited. This is true with all of the empirical and quantitative sciences.
When I hear that relations are abstracta, it seems to me that this would entail that relations have no ontological significance and no causal effect, but this cannot be true certainly, I mean if the mind is “produced” by the brain (which I don’t believe, even if the latter is a necessary condition for subjective consciousness), then one wants to ask what the brain is, and the brain is not a collection of neurons, it’s a network, i.e. it is a set of concrete relations. The subject object relation is also not abstract, it’s concrete since it’s the precondition of all subjective abstraction.
Roman, I don't have a lot of disagreement with you about the science part of your post, so won't dwell too much on that. Concerning relations I was thinking of things like parent-child relations or how Jehovah stands in relation to his Son/sons or how a husband and wife stand in relation to one another but I acknowledge that we could talk about relations in the case of brains or computers and cars. But relations resemble sets IMO; sets are abstracta and they only exist by virtue of someone positing that A stands in relation (R) to B or X stands in R to Y.
1 stands in relation to 2; 2 stands in relation to 1 and 3, etc. The same applies to a father and child. Parents stand in a certain relation to their children whether the child is biologically related to the parent or not. The parent-child relation is not ontological or necessarily causal, but in the case of numbers, I think it's easier to see that there is no causal connection between 1 and 2 or 3, etc.
I would argue that the brain is not one thing, like a network or collection, but many things. Furthermore, take away the human brain and there is no mental life for a human. The brain has been connected with our capacity for speech, ability to form ideas, reason, remember and so forth. I would say it's necessary for consciousness at the very least, but Damasio and LeDoux argue that we need other material factors to account for subjective consciousness like a body and external environment. I just don't think we should multiply entities beyond necessity.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relations/
Another approach conceives relations as the same just in case they confer the same causal powers on the pairs, triples... of things related by them. A further approach to relation identity says that, for example, the dyadic relations R and S are identical if their corresponding relational properties (bearing R to a, bearing S to a etc.) are identical, where properties in general (which, recall, are unary) are identical just in case, according to this view, they are “encodings” of the same “abstract object”. The sense of abstract object here is a specialised one: roughly speaking, an abstract object encodes a property by encapsulating what it is to exhibit the property in question (Zalta 1988: 51–52). Even though these different conceptions of the existence and identity conditions for relations yield different results in different cases it is important to also bear in mind that they need not invariably be seen as competing. It may be that they provide different notions of relation relevant to different purposes, for example, whether we are interested in relations because of their role in causation, semantics, intentionality and so on (Lewis 1986: 55–59).
EF: "Glasgow is west of Edinburgh" is a relation, but is it concrete?
I would say that one relation Jehovah stands in, in relation to his creatures/son/sons, is that of sustaining them in being.
I agree that relations CAN be like sets, i.e. simply on the side of the phenomena, but so can objects. So Glascow is west of Edinburough is perhaps not concrete, and perhaps has no ontological significance but merely phenomenal significance, but the binding of an oxygen atoms to two hydrogen atoms certainly does have ontological significance (i.e. it's how we get water)
Why wouldn't you say the brain is not "one thing"? In one sense it seems to be, i.e. I can refer to it, I can posit causal efficacy to it, but if it is many things is that not a set? but clearly the brain is not just a set, it's not a collection, its either a network, or a series of networks. Either way, if there is ANYTHiNG that we know is ontologically real it's the human subject, i.e. you're own consciosuness, and even a materialist would have to say that a human being is not merely a collection of stuff, since "collections" are, as you said, dependent on the abstracter positing the set, but rather they are a network of organic relations and processes that ground the human subject, I think there is more to the story, since physical relations cannot explain the emergency of subjectivity, but even still, the relations and processes (which are just relations over time) are ontologically significant.
I'm not sure I would go so far as to say that the brain is necessary for consciousness (I mean, angels don't have brains), but it's certainly connected with our mental capacities, and perhaps necessary for us.
I agree we should'nt multiply entities beyond necessity, but the question is just when do we have a sufficient explanation for a phenomenon, I would say any collection of material stuff is not going to be a sufficient explanation for reality, much less subjectivity, unless of course one re-defines matter beyond what it means in science generally and in regular discourse.
I'm not sure if you've ever engaged with Hegel's logic (I prefer the encylopedia logic, it's shorter and easier), but that, along with Michel Henry, along with David Bentley Hart, along with Schelling, anlong with Stephen RK Clark, Augustine along with some like Raymond Tallis and others, have persuaded me that we have to take the subject as ontologically seriosuly as object, and that ultimately metaphysics cannot work withe the latter as ontologically prior to the former, if the world is graspable and knowalbe then the categories of comprehension cannot be foreign to the world, and these are all relational, and mind cannot be explaned by some development within metaphysical atomism (in which one has to sneak in determinate relations anyway to get anything, i.e. so that atoms can "constitute" anything), but can only be explained by mind.
I don't see why that's controversial, especially among theists, I mean isn't theism the claim that the most fundamental reality IS mind?
Created minds have cognitive limits. The realities that exists beyond those limits are just as real or maybe more real that the ones that we can grasp. Realities don't await the permission/comprehension of Any mind to exists. No one understands the nature of matter well enough to authoritatively state that JEHOVAH cannot impose the quality of personhood on matter. Think of a functioning computer program there would need to be hardware,software and an electric current. Two of those three requirements are massless and intangible but none of them can exists apart from matter. Despite constituting 2% of the body's wait the brain uses 20% of the body's energy,energy is an absolute necessity for consciousness/personhood ( one of the reasons I do not believe that disembodied minds/persons are a thing)
The word "matter" has a meaning in its usage, so if we can have a definition of matter we can adjudicate what's being said, by matter I generally mean the aspects of reality measurable by science, i.e. Gallileo's primary qualities.
What would "imposing" a quality on something mean if not adding something to the ontology, I can't impose the quality of redness on a ball without changing something about the ball, so what would it mean to "impose" personhood on matter if not adding something to the matter which the matter did not have, or transforming the matter into something else.
A computer is no more like a mind, or no closer to personhood, than a water mill, a computer "functioning" only has any meaning for the user of a computer, so it's like saying a water mill functioning requires wood, water, and the specific structure of a mill.
energy is just matter in a different form, so yes, the brain uses lots of calories, this is as significant as saying that the more energy a computer uses the closer it is to consciousness.
consciousness is nothing like a computer, there is nothing it's like to be a computer, a computer cannot even calculate 2+2 because it doesn't "know" what 2 is or what addition is, WE know what these symbols signify and we use a computer to aid in our calculation, but the computer is no more mindlike than an abaccus.
Perhaps consciousness requires a physical substrate (it doesn't, since God exists), but that doesn't mean that a physical substrate is sufficient for consciousness.
There are things about matter that science does not and cannot know. Thrrefore no man can say that imposing consciousness on matter is impossible for JEHOVAH or even some class of heavenly beings we simply do not know enough. If impose redness on a sphere of some kind would it stop being a sphere or if some damage to my brain's sensory array caused me to become blind would my eyes stop being eyes? Of course my computer analogy is imprecise any analogy between man's work and JEHOVAH'S would necessarily be imprecise. My point is that matter is not by nature capable of the information processing a computer is and that the differences between matter in its normal state and its being ordered so as to process and transmit information are purely abstract purely descriptive and do not necessitate any change of ontology the matter remains matter. Matter is not just energy in a different form that is an oversimplification, but if thoughts are originating from an immaterial realm distinct from the body why would the brain use up 10 times more energy than the remainder of our body's tissues? Consciousness requires order and form because there must be a controlled use of energy to process information. For that one needs an "engine" to a large extent that is what our bodies and brains are engines. The whole basis of the first cause argument is that from nothing comes. Energy and information cannot spring from nothing same would be true of form. Just as prior potential would be required to explain a stable information rich effect JEHOVAH could not communicate form if he did not eternally possess this quailty within himself
I just watched Nancey Murphy's lecture here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAuJqzkMtcg&t=2549s
There are many philosophical problems I see.
1. the assumption that finding of correlations, and even perhaps conditional correlations, are explanations; in and of themselves they are not, so for example I may know that plants require sunlight to grow, but that doesn't mean I've explained the growth, for the latter I need to explain the mechanism or the framework by which one can derive the effect from the causes.
Neuroscience can find deep correlations, and conditional correlations at that, however this is not controversial, when I get pricked by a needle no one denies that the needle pricking my arm causes by sense of pain, or that the skin breaking does as well, the more of these physical correlates we find the more we can predict, this is all well and good; the issue is how does one derive subjective effect from objective cause, this is IN PRINCIPLE impossible, since the scientific method by design (since Galileo) split quantitative qualities from qualitative and defined the former as objective and subject to science. So by definition one cannot derive the latter from the former because the latter was specifically split off from the former for the sake of the method.
(The Mary's room thought experiment, and philosophical zombie thought experiment demonstrate this).
2. The assumption that it's either physicalism or substance dualism, this is to ignore a host of options, yes substance dualism has many problems, but this is not the only, or even the dominant alternative today. There are a host of alternatives, dialectical idealism, neo-platonic idealism, hylomorphism, panpsychism. Etc etc.
3. The sneaking in of things like "systems" which supposedly have causal power, and the sneaking in of language like capacities, which can only be held by agents, i.e. assuming the object in question in attempting to explain it.
The question is not what allows us to have capacity X or Y, in order to have any capacity one has to first be an agential subject, which is precisely what is in question.
4. Not defining what is meant by "physical" ... is a "system" physical? or is it an abstraction? Or what is it?
Iain McGilchrist is, in my view, one of the clearest proponents of a dialectical idealist metaphysics today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7O1Qa4Zb4s
I'm not claiming to have all the answers. I seems to me that you're the one trying to impose limits on what is possible re:matter. My position is that those who are imposing limits on what can be done with matter are over stepping themselves. We simply do not know enough to make such a determination. I'm inclined to believe that man is not an afterthought. And that matter was created with man in mind. So the abstract principle of life can be imposed on matter without any changing of its ontology. "Has weight occupies space" the term living matter is not an oxymoron. Co relations cannot be ignored entirely they may not in of themselves provide in depth explanations. But they eliminate explanations/possibilities. Plants will not grow without sunlight and water. We don't need certainty about the roles sunlight and water play in the health of plants to confidently assert as much. I'm not advocating for a reductive physicalism. There is the abstract and there is the concrete and neither can exists without the other both are necessary neither is sufficient. I don't know about "sneaking in" the need for cause to explain effect I thought that was one of the few settled issues around. Are you saying that you have an issue with the axiom that every effect must have a prior cause with sufficient potential to account its occurrence.
The thing is, if you say everything is made of matter, yet you have no definition of matter, then you're not really saying anything.
I use a definition of matter that I think is reasonable, if you want to have a different definition that's fine, but then we need to know what it is, or at least what the criteria for usage for the term is.
"So the abstract principle of life can be imposed on matter without any changing of its ontology."
I don't know what you mean, in what sense can something "abstract" be imposed on anything that has any metaphysical consequence?
Living matter is not an oxymoron, I mean that's what a soul is I agree.
My point here is that if you say X (a living creature) is a consequence of Y (matter), then one ought to be able to derive X from Y, if one can't then one doesn't have an explanation, if one says Y is a necessary but not sufficient condition for X, that's fine, but an explanation would be the sufficient condition.
If the sufficient condition for X is both Y and Z, then the question is what is Z.
If X is an ontological reality (a living creature) whose sufficient conditions are Y and Z, then Z better be of ontological consequence.
If you're saying Z is abstract but is also of ontological consequence, then you are, at least, partially, an idealist.
If Z is "the principle of life," if Z is a system or process (or both, or something else) and it has ontological consequence such that it can be a condition for X it must be part of the ontology.
Explanation is a complex act: https://iep.utm.edu/explanat/
Roman, as you know, some have said a thing or effect has four causes or more.
True, But I wonder if metaphysical materialism can accommodate formal and final causes, I can't see how without sneaking in the immaterial (depending on how one defines "material").
Maybe not formal, but I've seen final causes attributed to events within a materialist framework. Even Aristotle has been called a naturalist, yet he can still argue that acorns aim toward a telos. If a materialist invokes final causes in this way, it will admittedly be different.
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