More Physicalism/Reductionism: Against Ultrasensory Forms

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

Nancey Murphy's Theological Anthropology Stated Briefly

Reading the works by Nancey Murphy and Kevin Corcoran helped me to categorize my view of human nature. I had longed believed that humans do not have immortal souls and that they cannot live disembodied lives postmortem, but Murphy and Corcoran helped me to put a label on this kind of system. It's called Christian materialism/physicalism.

Maybe this explanation for Nancey Murphy's view of anthropology is a simple way of wording things. You tell me. The one particularly controversial aspect of Murphy's thought is what she writes about non-reductive physicalism or top-down causation. She argues that we need to consider the potential effects that one's environment possibly has on lower-level brain processes. For example, consider the role that the environment seems to have on the formation of "neural nets" or cell assemblies. One could evidently say that it is not only the random growth of dendrites or synaptic connections that lead to the formation of neural nets, but a "co-presentation of stimuli" to neurons might also explain these nets/assemblies.

What top-down causation suggests is that self-direction or freedom may result from an initially deterministic system. Another example that Murphy gives to illustrate this point is the gradual emergence of self-direction in prokaryotes like bacteria. Her account of what makes us human ultimately can be stated in natural terms. However, she does not exclude the work of God or the holy spirit nor does she deny the resurrection of the body. We are who we are, not only by virtue of synaptic connections or neural activity, but our relationship with God and others likewise shapes us qua our humanity.

I believe that Christian materialism is consonant with Bible verses such as Genesis 2:7; Ezekiel 18:4; 1 Peter 3:20.