Study Resource 2, Mind and Its Embodiment

Mind and Its EmbodimentStudy Resource 2

REDUCTION, EMERGENCE AND THE MIND/BODY PROBLEM: A PHILOSOPHIC OVERVIEW

By: Robert Van Gulick

2.1. IntroductionThree main ideas: emergence, reduction and non-reductive physicalism (pluralist view about the explanations expected of science with metaphysical commitment to the physical as that which is real).

2.2. Varieties of Reduction At the most basic level, reduction is a 'nothing more than' thesis where if we reduce Xs to Ys, then we say that 'Xs are nothing more than Ys', 'Xs are nothing over and above Ys'. What are the types of objects being related to each other?A. Real-world items - A relation between real world items like objects, properties or events- Ontological Reduction (ONT-Reduction)B. Representational items- A relation between representational terms like theories, concepts or models- Representational Reduction (REP-Reduction

A. ONT-ReductionWhat are the kinds of things being related within ONT-Reduction?a. Objects in two domains like minds and brains, pains and neuron firings;b. Properties like feeling pain and having neuronal activation of type Np, having a desire for a cup of coffee and being in a neuro-functional state of type Nfd;c. Events like Bill's having a red visual experience and Bill's brain being globally active in a way that includes neural activities of type Nrve in his visual cortex as part of its global focus;d. Processes like my recalling of the cellist's performance and a sequence of neural interactions RNIc between multiple limbic and cortical areas. B. REP-ReductionWhat are the kind of representational items being related within REP-Reduction?a. Concepts like link between our first-person concept of phenomenal red and concepts from neuroscience;b. Theories like link between theories of conscious experience and theories of global brain function;

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c. Models like links between models of consciousness and models of reciprocal brain activity;d. Representational frameworks like links between the phenomenal first-person explanatory framework and third-person neuroscience framework.

In what way (s) must the things be linked to count as a case of reduction?A. ONT-ReductionHow must things be related for one to ontologically reduce to another?a. Elimination: The 'Nothing but' Thesis Case in which we come to recognize that what we thought were Xs were really just Ys (Kemeny and Oppenheim). For instance, psychosis replaces demon possession. The elements of mental domain like intentionality, beliefs, qualia and even consciousness will be replaced by scientific alternatives. b. IdentityAcceptance of existence of Xs but they are identical with Ys. For instance, lightning is atmospheric discharge of static electricity. Both the sides of "=" are equally real. What is required is a more mature mind-brain theory where we can recognize true nature of the mental counterparts. The precursor to identity theory was the type-type central state identity theory which says that typesof mental states like being in pain is identical with types of states within the central nervous system like certain pattern of firing in anterior cingulate. This theory was rejected due to many challenges, the main one being that of multiple realizability according to which a type of mental state can be realized by neurally dissimilar structures in different creatures, different humans and even in the same human at different times. This was succeeded by advent of functionalism acccording to which mental states and properties arehigher-order features defined by their higher-level roles and not by the material substrate that it occupies. A certain set of functionalists- the occupant functionalist (like Lewis), if neural state N plays the role in humans of being associated with having desire for coffee and I am in state N, then Ihave a desire for coffee even thought I do not exhibit the causal roles associated with this desire likemore likeliness to choose coffee if offered.

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The identity theory has been slightly resurrected by neo-identity theorists who see identity theory asa solution to the challenge of explanatory gap. They says that because it is identity, there is no explanatory gap to be filled. There is only one thing which is necessarily identity with itself, not two things. However, this opens door for another problem: how do the mental and physical paths denote a common referent? c. CompositionMental things like minds are composed entirely of physical parts. Avoiding the issues created by multiple realizability thesis, the composition position says that the higher-level objects can "outlive"the compnents of which they are composed at a given time. A mental state can persist though there are changes in the underlying neural composition. This position falls prey to the challenge of what it implies. It does not back up reductive physicalism sufficiently and ends up on the same plate as property dualism (including fundamental and emergent property dualism). There is a difference between "a thing is made up entirely of physical parts" and "all its parts are entirely physical". The former says that all its parts have physical properties while the latter says that the parts only have physical properties. Thus, this thesis keeps open the possibility of nonphysical mental properties at the level of whole (as an emergent property). d. Supervenience: No Mental Difference Without a Physical Difference According to supervenience, one set of properties (X-properties) supervene on another (Y-properties) if there can be no X-difference without Y-difference. For instance, the beauty of paintingis not identical with the physical properties of the painting but any other painting with all the physical properties of the painting will also be beautiful. So, even though physical and mental properties are not identical, there can be no difference in the mental properties if there is no difference in the physical properties. Supervenience has lost its hold because it ends up being compatible with property dualism and dual-aspect theory, thus ending up nonphysicalist. Even though physical and mental domains are separate and distinct, one could use the following types of invariant correlations to justify their supervenience: that it is written by natural law (nomic supervenience) and due to metaphysical link (metaphysical supervenience). In the case of natural law, we end up appealing to panpsychic monism, like that of Spinoza. A solution to this has been posed by saying that the relation must be of logical supervenience where it is impossible that mental and physical properties might independently vary. Then the question rises: what kind of link leads to such logical necessity? e. Realization: Functionalism states that two systems which have different structures can manifest the same functional property. Ontologically, the functional property is fully realized in each case by its underlying physical components and their mode of composition. Once the physical processes arefixed, the functional properties automatically follow. However, philosophers like John Searle use the realization position to further their anti-computationalist and non-functionalist approach to the mental. According to Searle, the mental states cannot be functioanlly analysed because there is always an irreducible first-person intrinsic features. His position is: mental properties are "caused by and realized in" physical processes of the brain.

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B. REP-Reduction How must things be related for one to representationally reduce to the other?There is a common relation of intentional equivalence in different types of REP-reductive relations: There is a certain type of correspondance between what they can and what they do represent. Thus, one representational item or set of items reduces to another if the first is linked to the second in terms of what it can or does say abot the world and its feautres. The content of REP-reductive relations are of these two types: a. Comparative expressive powers of representational items- what they can say b. Correlations in their assertoric content- what they do say.Different forms of representational reductions either turn on relation of menaing or relation of truth.The different types of REP-reduction relations are:a. Replacement: REP-analogue of ONT-eliminativismThe prior ways of conceptualising the world might drop out and be replaced by newer and more adequate ways of representing reality. For instance, the present mentalistic concepts will be replaced by scientific concepts in the future that would more accurately and effectively represent reality. This is the case of replacemement of mentalist awy of thinking and speaking with its representationally superior replacement. b. Theoretical-Derivational (Logical Empiricist)Theories are "interpretated formal calculi statable within the resources of symbolic logic". We can work out all the formal implications of a theory (observable or otherwise) using axioms and set of actual conditions. If one theory T1 can be logically derived from another T2, then whatever T1 says about the world can be captured by T2 and T1 is thus reduced to T2 representationally. We need to create bridging laws in terms of strict biconditionals linking terms in the two theories to connect their vocabularies. These biconditionals could have ontological identity claims. The biconditional only need to link the vocabularies to support one theory being derived from another one. In some cases of representational reduction, there can be discrepancies/"extremely improbably deviations". Most of the times, what is captured within a theory is only an image or approximation of the reduced theory. In case of mind-body, we will need bridging principles that will allow us to derive all truths of mentalistic theories of consciousness from laws and statements of the reductive theory: neurophysiological, computational, quantum mechanics. While those who support REP-Reduction see the challenges as only hinderances that will be answered eventually by scientific progress, ontological dualists believe that mental and physical theories describe different domains and there can be no reduction of theories that describe them. Nonreductive physicalists say that there is one domain of reality correctly represented by physics and that the present formal structure of physical science does not provide the theoretical and representational resources required to exhibit the complex features of our reality. c. A priori Conceptual NecessitationHere, the reduced and reduced-to theories must not only have bridging laws but must be linked through necessary and a priori conceptual links or inter-theoretical definitions. The bridging laws only describe the correlation between properties in separate physical and mental domains without

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reducing the mental to physical. This is coupled with demand of reductive explanation which will allow us to see how conditions of reducing theory must guarantee the satisfaction of those conditions described by reduced theory. The reductive explanation has two parts: i. An analysis of the concept to be reduced (for instance, liquidity of water) presented in terms of setof typically functional conditions; and ii. Account of how those conditions would be logically satisfied by an underlying system meeting the conditions described by reducing theory (for instance, the micro-interactions of collection of room temperature H20 molecules). Links/bridging laws which derive mental theories from physical ones without an underlying explanation of why they are so linked fail and have been called 'nomological danglers' by Herbert Feigl. However, to ask for a priori conceptual links between the physical and mental domain is to ride to other extreme of the spectrum. The answer to the following questions: 1. What kind of conceptual links need to be established between the domains?; 2. What type of bridging laws do we need for deriving the mental theory from physical one? lays in between these two extremes. d. Expressive Equivalence (two-term semantic relation)The expressive equivalence does not lay out equivalence as what is said about the world but as "a matter of preserving the expressive range of what one can say". One representational system R1 is reducible to R2 as long as every state of affairs representable by R1 could also be represented by R2. This position has faced challenge from those who point out that the physical theory which depend upon third-person concepts cannot cover the expressive range of our mental modes of representing, particularly those which involve experiential concepts. This is based on the notion that some facts about consciousness can only be sufficiently known or understood from first-person experiential perspective. So, it is not possible to put such concepts as 'could-be's in the expressive range- subjective facts that are beyond the representational power of a physical theory. e. Teleo-Pragmatic Equivalence (n-term pragmatic relation). When we talk about two representational elements of two theories T1 and T2 where T2 is reducible to T1, then we need to find a way such that we can use the contextually embedded resources of the reducing theory T1 to do the equally contextual representational work done by items of T2 we are reducing. A good representational theory is one which gives us reliable way to predict, manipulate and causally interact with items it aims to represent. The success of a representational theory is thus based on the practical access that the model affords to the user in context of application. The challenge to this position stands from the seeming inability of our physical theory to be able to represent our mentalistic resources like first-person concepts and theories efficiently. If we apply the teleo-pragmatic stance to the mind-body problem, then representational resources of physical theory must replicate the interactive character of access that is allows to us by our mentalistic resources, especialy in case of first-person concepts and introspection. Such a replication seems implausible because many of the first-person concepts are intimately embedded in our intra-mental processes of self-modulation, self-regulation and self-monitoring and it is hard to see how third-person system of concepts by physical theory can approximate and fulfill the criteria of REP-reduction.

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2.3. Varieties of EmergenceThe main idea of emergence is that 'Xs are more than just Ys' and that 'Xs are something oer and above Ys'. The emergent features of the whole are not entirely independent of those of its parts- however, they 'emerge' from the parts and in this sense, go beyond the features of those parts.

1. Metaphysical: Objective relations which talk about links between real-world items like properties. They are objective in the sense that they are independent of what we, as epistemic subjects, can explain or understand about them. 2. Epistemic: Subjective relations which talk about nature of links and dependencies among the real-world items (not just about the links alone). These are subjective because they depend on our ability to comprehend and express.

1. Metaphysical form of emergence

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Two types of emergents in the metaphysical form- properties and causal powers or forces. Both of these are not completely separate and could overlap, especially in cases where the properties are singled out on the basis of their causal powers. The spectrum of the categories of emergence moves from specific value to modest kind to the radical. The categories are decided on the basis of the similarity between the featuers of emergents and bases. In the specific value, the emergent properties or causal powers are of the same nature as the ones from which they emerge while in the radical kind, the emergents are unlike their non-emergent bases.

A. Specific Value Emergence: The whole and parts have same kind of features but different specificsubtypes or values of that kind. For instance, a bronze statue has a given mass each of molecular parts of which it is composed but mass of the whole is different in value from that of any of its proper material parts. B. Modest Kind Emergence: Whole has features different in kind from those that the part has or could have. For instance, a piece of cloth can be purple even though none of the molecules that make it up could be said to be purple. C. Radical Kind Emergence: The whole has features which are both: different in kind from those of its parts and of a kind whose nature and existence is not made necessary by the features of parts, their mode of combination and law-like regularities which govern features of the parts. The challenge to this system is that it stands at odds with the atomistic basic principle of physicalism, which says that the features of world at system or composite level are determined by law-like regularities which govern interactions of parts of these systems and their features. Radical kind emergence says that the features at system level are not governed by the behaviour of parts. Atomistic physicalism is committed to bottom-up determination. Radical kind emeregence is at odds with the following two main principles of atomistic physicalism (AP):AP1- The features of macro-items is determined by features of their micro-parts and their mode of combination. Basically, micro-features determine macro-features. AP2- The only law-like regularities needed for determination of macro-features by micro-features are those which govern the interaction of those micro-features in all contexts- systemic or otherwise. The only laws which govern them in systems are those which also govern them outside these contexts. Thus, there are no special laws which come into operation in systemic contexts which could justify the emergent properties.

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In case of causal powers, there are two kinds we can talk of:1. Downward causation: The macro-powers of the whole 'reach down' and alter the course of eventsat micro-level from what they would be if determined completely by properties and laws of lower level. The macro-level causal powers have micro-effects. This presumes that macro-powers are determined by the micro-powers and thus cause no challenge to physicalism. 2. The macro-level powers are not determined by the micro-level powers and thus, they can alter themicro-events independent of the micro-level laws. This challenges physicalism which says that there is nothing outside the physical domain which causally affects the course of physical events. Inradical-kind emergence of causal powers, the macro-level powers cannot be reduced to the laws of micro-powers and thus, results in a form of ontological dualism in most cases. Those who wish to combine physicalism with the causal version of emergence need to find a way in which the higher-order properties are causally significant without standing at odds with the causal laws that work at lower physical levels. That is, they could be different laws but not at odds with the ones that operateat lower level. So, either we say:i. Macro-physical laws override the micro-physical laws and thus, threaten physicalism; orii. Macro-physical laws arise in certain special systemic contexts and only explicate the complex micro-patterns that arise. This basically leaves the higher-order properties without any causal powerof their own, since they are always reducible to the micro-patterns. Possible solution: Selectional Activation ModelHigher-order patterns could involve the selective activation of lower-order causal powers. Consider a set of micro-properties 1 to 10. Suppose the micro-properties 2,4,7 and 9 are not causally relevant in most of the systemic configurations because their random actions get cancelled out and do not

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have an overall effect. But in a small set of cases where higher-level patterns are involved, these micro-powers are brought into a coherent mode and thus, exert a major difference on overall working of the system. Such a selectional activation model does not pose any issue for atomistic physicalism because there is no violation of micro-physical causal laws. However, does such a selectional activation model sustain the emergent causality? This question is still open.

2. Epistemic form of emergenceThe epistemic form of emergence takes into account our cognitive and explanatory capacities. It is based on the understanding that we are not able to predict, explain or understand the features of wholes or system by applealing to the character of its parts. In this sense, it is subjective. Two kinds of epistemic emergence which focus on different cognitive abilities:A. Prediction and explanationB. Representation and understanding

A. Predictive/explanatory Emergence: Wholes/systems have features which cannot be explained or predicted from the features of their parts, their mode of combination and laws which govern their behaviour;B. Representational/cognitive Emergence: Wholes/systems haev patterns, features or regularities that cannot be represented/understood using the theoretical and representational resources that are sufficient to describe and understand features and regularities of their parts. Both these position come in weak/restricted form or strong/unrestricted form. a. Restricted or weak form: The inability to explain or predict is due to our human limitations or ourpresent state of theorizing and scientific progress; b. Unrestricted or strong form: The inability to explain or predict is inherent and a general limit that applied to all humans universally. This position is taken by Colin McGinn who belives that humans lack the ability to form kinds of concepts needed for psycho-physical link. He accepts consciousness as a part of physical reality. Consciousness is epistemically emergent in explanatory sense for humans and those with our type of conceptual capacities.

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2.4. Selected Conflicts, Agreements and Other Relations

A. Need for clarity and avoidance of conflation: There are no standard interpretations of terms like 'reduction' and 'emergence' and one must lay down one's own when investigating it. This means to provide a 'key' to verbal map for a viewpoint.

B. Subjective/objective distinction: Reduction divides into objective relation of ontological reduction like identity, composition or realization and subjective region of representationally reductive relations like derivability, conceptual necessity or pragmatic equivalence. Emergence divides into objective notion of metaphysical emergence like modest or radical kind emergence and subjective notion of epistemic emergence concerning limits of our cognitive abilitiesto explain or understand the features of wholes in terms of those of their parts. The most controversial move is to reach ontological conclusion from subjective presmises. Because we are unable to explain how consciousness can be reductively realized by underlying physical processes doesn't imply that we can conclude consciousness is not a physically realized process. The explanatory gap might exhibit subjective limits on our current human conceptual or imaginative capacities than objective divides in the world. Just because we can imagine a world thatcontains molecule-to-molecule physical duplicates of humans without conscious mental life does not give justification to conclude that conscious properties are not physical ontologically. The dualist needs to show that the concepts applied on both mental and physical sides of the experiment

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can support the metaphysical conclusion. Thus, we need to justify move from subjective premises to objective conclusion.

C. Overlap of reduction and emergence: It is possible to combine an identity version of ontological reduction with metaphysical notion of radical-kind emergent properties or powers. One can also accept, without contradiction, explanatoryview of mental properties and composition version of ontological reduction.

D. Nonreductive physicalism lies at intersection of emergence and reduction and not in a third domain: Nonreductive physicalism combines denial fo subjective representational reduction and accepts a robust form of objective ontological reduction like physical realization. It denies the strongest form of ontological emergence like radical kind with acceptance of epistemic emergence in both or eitherof the forms. Nonreductive physicalism accepts some forms of objective/ontological reduction and rejects most forms of subjective/representational reduction. In case of emergence, they accept various forms of subjective like epistemic but reject radical versions of objective like metaphysical emergence.

E. The gap (an anamoly or a crisis) depends on your viewpoint and locationThe need for theorizing about consciousness and psycho-physical link arises from recurring anamoly (Kuhn's term) which does not get adequately resolved by physicalism. Our current scientific knowledge about psycho-physical link is primitive and we don't have empirical models to explain how consciousness could arise from physical substrate. Extraordinary philosophic theorizing occurs at this stage where we are still looking for answers that could explain the gaps. Even though physicalism has not currently succeeded in giving satisfying answers, every failure to solve a problem cannot be considered an anamoly. What a problem or solution is depends upon, as Kuhn said, the paradigm within which the research is carried out. Unless a puzzle shows a problem that the community in itself considers one that it should be able to solve, then in failing to do so does not necessarily pose an anamoly or crisis. Even though the puzzle could be considered a valid problem, it might not have a quick or easy solution. The recurring failure could be simply telling us the need to continue efforts within the paradigm.

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Even though generations have been spent on trying to explain the hard problem of consciousness, no progress seems to have been made. But such a trajectory also belonged to explaining life. Vitalism was still considered a robust scientific position until it was replaced by biochemical revolution. Thus, while physicalists are still on the way of explaining consciousness and its hard problem, they have strong evidence to prove their case and non-physicalists must also come up withequally reasonable and strong thesis.

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Study Resource 2, Mind and Its Embodiment

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