Metaphysics and the Problem of Consciousness

In a recent post I talked about different frameworks for addressing the subjective dimension of consciousness. One path used ideas from philosophy of mind, the other looked to evolutionary biology. Of course, many who ponder solving this and related aspects of the mind-body problem take a more overtly metaphysical turn. Here I’ll briefly discuss why I don’t think these efforts are likely to get it right.

Against “vertical” metaphysical relations

My first post in this recent series was prompted by reading Philip Goff’s book presenting his panpsychist approach to the problem of consciousness.¹ In the sections where he addresses the combination problem, Goff considers alternative strategies for situating a macro-size conscious subject in the world: several of these involve appeals to “grounding”. To sketch, grounding (in its application to ontology) is a kind of non-causal explanatory metaphysical relation between entities, with things at a more fundamental “level” of reality typically providing a ground for something at a higher level. For example, a metaphysician fleshing out the notion of a physicalist view of reality might appeal to a grounding relationship between, say, fundamental simple micro-physical entities and bigger, more complex macro-size objects. It’s a way of working out the idea that the former account for the latter, or the latter exist in virtue of the former. There are a variety of ways to explicate this kind of idea.² Goff presents a version called constitutive grounding. He thinks this faces difficulties in the case of accounting for macro-sized conscious subjects in terms of micro-sized ones, and discusses an alternative approach where the more fundamental thing is at the higher level: he endorses a view where the most fundamental conscious entity is, in fact, the entire cosmos (“cosmopsychism”). In this scenario, human and animal concsciousness can be accounted for via a relation to the cosmos called grounding by subsumption. Goff motivates these various notions of grounding with examples that appeal to how certain of our concepts seem to be linked together, or to how our visual experiences appear to be composed.

Please read the book for the details.³ Here, I want to comment on why I don’t find an approach like this to be very illuminating. It is actually a part of a more general methodological concern I have developed over time. Certainly, trying to uncover the metaphysical truth about things is always a somewhat quixotic endeavor! But I think it is extremely likely to go wrong when done via excavation of our intuitions in the absence of close engagement with the relevant sciences.⁴ To make a long story short, I’ll just say that here I concur with much of Ladyman and Ross’s infamous critique of analytic metaphysics.⁵ But to get more specific, I have a deep skepticism in particular about the whole notion of synchronic (“vertical”) metaphysical relations. Not only panpsychist discussions but a great many philosophy of mind debates are structured around the idea that ontological elements at different “levels” are connected by such relations as part-whole, supervenience, or grounding. Positing these vertical relations, in turn, has contributed to confusion in debates about notions of (ontological) reduction and emergence. The causal exclusion problem, I believe, is misguided to the extent it is premised in part on the existence of these vertical relations.

I see no evidence that there are any such synchronic relations in the actual world investigated by the natural sciences (although they may characterize some of our idealized models). At arbitrary infinitesimal moments of time there exist no relata to connect: there are no such things as organisms, brains, cells, or even molecules. All these phenomena are temporally extended dynamic processes. Any static conception we employ is an artifact of our cognitive apparatus or our representational schemes. Reifying these static conceptions and then drawing vertical lines between entities at different scales is a mistake. My view is that all relations of composition in nature are diachronic.

Solve the problem with a new metaphysics of causation?

Given this, I think questions about how phenomena at different scales relate to each other involve a causal form of composition. So, one might ask whether thinking about the nature of causation help can with the problem of consciousness. Even before doing my own deep dive into research on the topic, I was drawn to those panpsychist approaches that explored this avenue. As mentioned in the earlier post, Russell’s account takes a causal approach to the structuring of subjects, although he himself doesn’t go on to offer a detailed theory.⁶ I think Whitehead’s speculative metaphysics can be characterized, at least in part, as an attempt to use a rich metaphysics of causation to account for the integration of mind and world. In more recent times, Gregg Rosenberg developed an account that found a home for consciousness in the nature of causation.⁷

Over time, however, I have also become skeptical of these more expansive causal theories. This is in spite of my view of the central role causation should play in any account of the composition of natural systems. Here, the problem is that these approaches go too far by baking in the answer to the mind-body problem from the beginning. Methodologically, I believe we should resist the urge to invent a causal theory that is so enriched with specific dualistic features that it directly addresses the challenge. For example, in Whitehead’s system every causal event (“actual occasion”) already has in place both a subjective and an objective “pole.” For Rosenberg, two kinds of properties (“effective” and “receptive”) are involved in each causal event, and this ultimately underpins the apparent dualism of the physical and mental. In contrast to these speculative solutions, we should be more conservative and pursue a causal theory that makes sense of our successful scientific explanations of natural phenomena, and then see how that effort might shed light on the mind. I’ll discuss my view on this in a future post.

1 Consciousness and Fundamental Reality. 2017. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2 Here’s the SEP article on grounding.
3 Also, check out Daniel Stoljar’s review.
4 A quite different way metaphysics can go wrong is when those who are truly and deeply engaged with science (specifically physics) succumb to the tendency to (more or less) read ontology off of the mathematical formalism.  But that is a discussion for another time.
5 Everything Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. 2007. James Ladyman & Don Ross. Oxford: Oxford Univerisity Press. See. Ch 1.
6 At least this is true of The Analysis of Matter (1927), where the view now known as Russellian Monism was most fully developed.  In his later Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), he presents a bit of a theory via his account of “causal lines:” specifically, this comes in the context of an argument that such a conception of causation is needed to account for successful scientific inferences (part VI, chapter V).  As an aside: by this time, Russell seemed to come quite a long way toward a reversal of the arguments presented in his (much more cited) “On the Notion of Cause” from 1913. There, Russell argued that the prevailing philosophical view of cause and effect does not play a role in advanced sciences. Someone looking to harmonize the early and late Russell might argue that the disagreement between the two positions is limited: one could say the later Russell is developing causal notions that better suit the practice of science as compared to the more traditional concept that is the focus of criticism in the earlier article. However, I think it is clear that the later book’s perspective is quite a sea change from the earlier paper’s generally dismissive approach to the importance of causation to science.
7 A Place for Consciousness. 2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press. I have some older posts about the book.

A Panpsychist Surprise Ending

While I have been catching up on some reading relating to panpsychism lately (see recent posts here and here), I had turned back to thinking about another topic, the philosophy of quantum theory, when following up on some references led me to a surprise endorsement of panpsychism.

Specifically, I have long been interested in relational quantum mechanics (RQM), an interpretation first introduced by Carlo Rovelli in the 1990’s (good SEP article here).  I now suspect it is the interpretation that best fits with the theory of causation I am attracted to for independent reasons – but I will talk about that another time.  A philosopher whose views I find interesting and compatible with my own approach to thinking about quantum theory is Mauro Dorato.  He has a fine article discussing some of the philosophical issues raised by RQM (pre-print here; note there are some differences from the final article).¹

Dorato, when discussing briefly the general stance that relations might be a fundamental metaphysical category, referenced a paper I had not read (though I imagine it is familiar to many who are interested in structuralism): “The Mathematical Structure of the World: The World as Graph,” published in 1997 (link) by Randall R. Dipert.²   Dipert, who passed away just last year (see here), was a scholar focused on a number of areas, including the thought of C.S. Peirce. The paper offers reasons to take (symmetric) relations forming (asymmetric) graphs as metaphysical bedrock (not expressed via logic or set theory, but as fundamental components in and of themselves).  In any case, while it is a wide-ranging and fascinating paper, I was surprised by the turn taken in the last paragraph:

There might at first seem to be no place in these cold graphs for minds, consciousness, and other mental phenomena unless, that is, everything is mental. Although within the dialectic of this essay it is wild and possibly irresponsible speculation, we should perhaps consider seriously the possibility that something like the pan-psychism of Spinoza, Leibniz, or Peirce is true, and that vertices are pure feelings (Peircean "firstnesses"), constituting a distinct thought or object only when connected to other such entities (358).

I take it Peirce was a panpsychist of sorts (see here), and evidently Dipert was as well.

1. Dorato, Mauro. 2016. Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics, Anti-Monism, and Quantum Becoming. In The Metaphysics of Relations, ed. Anna Marmodoro and David Yates. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 2. Dipert, Randall R. 1997. The Mathematical Structure of the World: The World as Graph. The Journal of Philosophy, (94) 7, pp. 329-358

Different Approaches to Subjectivity

In the last post, I endorsed a Russellian approach to the mind-body problem (specifically the view labeled "panqualityism"), noting that one of the important tasks this framework leaves us with is explaining the subjective dimension of consciousness. This problem arguably requires less of a deep dive into metaphysical waters, but rather a consideration of the ways a naturalistic approach can tackle the phenomenon, once isolated from the other aspects of mind.

From Philip Goff’s book, Consciousness and Fundamental Reality, I learned that versions of panqualityism has been recently defended by philosophers Sam Coleman and Tom McClelland.  When it comes to addressing subjectivity, both draw upon what one might call the philosophy of mind toolkit.  Philosophers of mind have long been trying to understand conceptually how different aspects of our mental faculties might be understood.  The relationship of this activity to work in the relevant sciences (neurobiology, cognitive science) varies: a common approach for the philosopher is to try to keep up with the sciences, avoiding inconsistency, but then to proceed to theorize in advance of what is known (from the proverbial armchair) in pursuit of possible solutions.

In a recent article defending his approach, Coleman invokes higher-order thought (HOT) theory as a tool to understand the subjective character of conscious experience.¹ HOT theory was put forward by David M. Rosenthal: roughly the main idea is that a mental state is conscious when we also have a thought about that state (the higher-order thought).  While HOT theory has faced many objections as an overall approach to consciousness, perhaps it can be applied to solve the relatively stripped-down question of what makes a mental state subjective. McClelland, on the other hand, invokes a self-representation model of subjectivity.²  Here (referencing work by Uriah Kriegel), the idea is that a state is subjective when, in addition to representing something else (say, an aspect of the external world), it also represents itself (unlike HOT theory, there is only one state involved rather than two).  The discussion of by the authors about how both ideas work out in conjunction with a Russellian framework is interesting and worth more consideration.

For now, I want to just make a meta-philosophical point by contrasting these approaches to subjectivity with a very different one. In a recent paper, Peter Godfrey-Smith examines the evolution of subjectivity as a biological phenomenon.³  One of the benefits of having a philosopher of science/biology like Godfrey-Smith working on the problem of mind is that it expands the territory of the possible solution space being considered.  This paper is very rich, and includes a great discussion of different biological features that appear relevant to the concept of subjectivity and their role in different kinds of organisms.  Given our common intuition that consciousness extends beyond humans at least to some extent, this kind of work can make a critical contribution for philosophy of mind.  I think it is especially relevant from the perspective of a divide and conquer strategy like panqualityism: a position that implies subjectivity is an aspect of phenomenal consciousness that should be relatively tractable to scientific explanation.

1. “Panpsychism and Neutral Monism: How to make up One's Mind,” In Brüntrup & Jaskolla  (eds.), Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives. Oxford University Press (2016).  A preprint can be accessed here.
2. In “The Neo-Russellian Ignorance Hypothesis: A Hybrid Account of Phenomenal Consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20, No. 3–4, 2013, pp. 125–51.
3. See (open access) “Evolving Across the Explanatory Gap,” Philosophy, Theory and Practice in Biology (2019) 11:1. See also this paper: "Varieties of Subjectivity."

Panpsychism!

I have been enjoying following some debates about the problem of consciousness on twitter and in blog posts.  In particular, philosopher Philip Goff has been tirelessly advocating the merits of panpsychism.¹   As usual, this meets with a mixture of principled objections and more ungenerous responses.  I thought I would revive my blog to make a few comments, beginning with some reflections about my past thinking.  As a caveat, while I earned a PhD in philosophy recently (it's never too late!), it is not on this topic.²  My remarks are informal and tentative, and I invite corrections and reading suggestions.

My Long History with Panpsychism

I have always enjoyed puzzling over the mind-body problem.  It is one of the things that got me interested in philosophy early on.  In the 1990’s in particular, the explosion in attention the subject received (recast as the problem of phenomenal consciousness/the explanatory gap/the “hard” problem) had me riveted.

When I started my philosophy-oriented blog in 2004, it was one of my main topics, and I was a fan of panpsychist approaches. I reasoned that we know our own conscious experience exists (as well as or better than we know anything), and it doesn’t appear to be the kind of thing that can be scientifically explained using wholly non-experiential ingredients. I embraced the idea that in order to explain the character of our first-person conscious experience we must go beyond the relevant science to philosophically re-assess our assumptions about the fabric of the world.

“Panexperientialism”

While panpsychism is the common name for the idea that consciousness is a ubiquitous part of nature, on my blog I originally preferred to use “panexperientialism”.³  So how does panexperientialism differ from panpsychism?  The difference might seem to be just marketing.  “Panpsychism” implies that some inanimate things have minds, and that is a big affront to our usual intuitions: conscious minds seem to be something that only humans and some animals possess. Perhaps we can more easily picture “experience” as a phenomenon that might extend in attenuated fashion into the less complex building blocks of nature. A defender of panpsychism would reply by noting that the notion of experience certainly seems to require a subject of experience. And positing the ubiquity of experiencing subjects brings us right back to panpsychism.

But it seemed to me that there could be a principled difference lurking here.  While, despite some efforts at reading Whitehead, I was not well-versed in process philosophy myself, I took to heart the importance of resisting a static view of nature.  “Mind” and “subject” have static, object or substance-like connotations, while “experience” conveys the notion that consciousness is an ongoing activity. Panpsychists face a big hurdle (the much discussed “combination problem”) in explaining how small parts of nature that possess minds (particles, neurons) could combine to form a larger mind like ours. But if we view the natural world as a dynamic evolving web of processes, perhaps we can make sense of how a subject of experience could come about by degrees. The question, of course, is whether this suggestion can be fleshed out. In particular, it seems to put an emphasis on the need to understand the relationship of experience to causation (and causal forms of constitution) in the natural world.

Turning to Russell

Sometime in the mid-2000’s I went back and took a more careful look at some of Bertrand Russell’s later philosophical work on the problem, which was receiving more and more attention in the contemporary debates.  (This was in contrast to the relative lack of attention given to his old collaborator Whitehead’s process metaphysics, which most find very difficult to penetrate and assess).

Russell set out to show how careful attention to the way physical theories are constructed can reveal a very general common framework connecting what we think of as the physical and mental realms.⁴  First, he argues that the subject matter of physics can be interpreted as the abstract description of events and their linkage in causal relations. He then argues that the mental realm can likewise be described in terms of events, and that, given a causal theory of perception, we can view perceptual events (“percepts”) as connecting with physical events. And a key point is that our knowledge of the physical events (which is inferred and ultimately derived from observation) includes nothing which is known to be inconsistent with the mental. Russell speaks of events (or groups of events) as having “intrinsic qualities” or “intrinsic character”. Qualitative character is known to be an aspect of percepts, but is not part of physics, given its abstract structure. Russell doesn’t assert that events described by physics must have qualities like those of percepts – he is agnostic -- but he argues there’s no reason they couldn’t.⁵

In contemporary debates, these ideas are typically recast in the following way (although I think a bit is lost in this translation). The idea is that physical models seek to represent the relational, extrinsic, or dispositional properties of natural systems, but leave untouched the non-relational, intrinsic or categorical/qualitative properties. This latter sort of property is a fundamental aspect of nature that provides a suitable building block for underpinning consciousness in a way that can’t be done with the resources of a traditional physicalist metaphysics.

In his recent book defending panpsychism (Consciousness and Fundamental Reality⁶), Goff takes the Russellian framework to be a more promising alternative to physicalism, then describes how it can be further fleshed out in a number of different ways on the way to offering his preferred solution. These ways include panpsychist theories (the building blocks of nature are conscious subjects), and panprotopsychist theories (the intrinsic properties of the building blocks do not directly involve consciousness but somehow help give rise to consciousness).

Another view Goff discusses (but does not endorse) is panqualityism: this is the view closest to that of Russell himself.  This approach begins by noting that phenomenal consciousness actually has two distinctive problem-causing aspects: its qualitative character and its subjective character.  As Russell stressed, physical models, being formal and abstract depictions of a causal “skeleton”, do not capture the intrinsic qualities inherent in natural systems.  But we are acquainted with this aspect of nature via consciousness, so we conclude it is ubiquitous. As for the fact that consciousness is something subjective (that is, it is not public or third-person, but rather private or first-person), Russell posits that subjects are constructions from causally linked networks of elementary events (in the same way our familiar macro-objects are constructed).  He does not offer a satisfying fleshed-out account of this idea (and in fact gives no theory of causation – a concept he had once famously derided⁷ ), but a deflationary or reductionist approach to the subject is clearly intended. Again, we are pointed to thinking more about the nature of causation and its role in complex natural systems when thinking about the problem of consciousness.

Panpsychism is Half Right

Right now, my thinking about the mind-body problem continues to be very much in line with Russell’s.  My study of philosophy of science, especially on the nature and use of scientific models, has tended only to reinforce my view that there is something right about the central Russellian insight: a view of nature derived solely from the content of physical theories will fall short of accommodating consciousness because it doesn’t encompass qualities.

On the other hand, I suspect that some of the recalcitrant intuitions we have about the nature of conscious subjects (e.g. as irreducible things) can be defeased.  Questions about which natural systems are subjects and how this works can succumb to scientific inquiry, assisted by an understanding of how successful causal explanations (including constitutive causal explanations) work in the natural sciences.  I’ll look to follow up on this topic in a future post.

  1. See @Philip_Goff on twitter and the links on his website. Goff has a new book for a popular audience, called Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. By coincidence the copy I ordered arrived as I was writing this post. I shall read it shortly.
  2. My research is in philosophy of science, with a focus on causation and scientific explanation.
  3. The term is due to the Whiteheadian process philosopher David Ray Griffin.
  4.  The main source here is The Analysis of Matter (1927), Nottingham: Spokesman. See the SEP article on Russellian Monism here.
  5. I wrote in a bit more detail on Russell in the draft paper attached to this prior post.
  6. Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (2017). Oxford: Oxford University Press. See Chapter six.  Contemporary philosophers mentioned by Goff who pursue a panqualityist approach are Sam Coleman and Tom McClelland.
  7. In “On the Notion of Cause” (1912-13/1918). In B. Russell, Mysticism and Logic (pp. 142-165). London: Longmans, Green & Co.

Russellian Monism and the Identity Theory of Properties

Here is a draft paper on a topic discussed a fair amount on this blog in the past.
Comments or suggestions are welcome.

Russellian Monism and the Identity Theory of Properties

[UPDATE: 6 Sept. 2013 - Very slightly revised from 2 Sept. version]

Here's the introduction:

Russellian Monism is an attractive approach to the mind/body problem. It promises to put both mental and physical phenomena on a common ontological ground. By providing a place in nature for the qualitative properties featured in conscious experience, it disarms prominent conceivability arguments against materialism. Russell’s approach can be strengthened by employing elements of a more contemporary metaphysical framework.  There is a particularly good fit with an account of the nature of properties set out by C.B. Martin and John Heil. Labeled the identity theory of properties, this view posits that properties are at once dispositional and qualitative.

This paper is organized as follows. In section one I offer an overview of Russell’s theory. In section two I briefly show how a key insight from Russell’s work has figured in contemporary debates in philosophy of mind. Section three takes a closer look at Russell’s metaphysics; this prepares the way for seeing how his theory might be modified in light of more recent work. Section four introduces the idea that the metaphysics of dispositional and categorical properties can play a role in a Russell-style account. Section five outlines the identity theory of properties and argues that its features can strengthen Russellian monism. In section six I consider objections to the modified theory, and discuss where it needs to be supplemented in order to more fully address the challenges of explaining mind.

 

 

Spinoza: Notes on Body and Mind

[These are notes written as part of an abandoned paper project]

Beyond Parallelism: Body, Mind, and Individuation in Part II of Spinoza’s Ethics
(Page references to Curley, 1994)

Summary: the body is a pattern of unified activity; the mind is shaped by the interaction of this pattern with its environment.

     To begin, the nature of the human body/mind is founded on the basic individuation of things; here’s IID7:

And if a number of individuals so concur in one action that together they are all the cause of one effect, I consider them all, to that extent, as one singular thing. (p.116)

So a composite individual is defined in terms of the coordinated action of its parts.

     Following the discussion of the parallelism of mind and body as modes following from the corresponding attributes of God, Spinoza makes some surprising claims in IIP12 and 13:

Nothing can happen in that body which is not perceived by the mind […] The object of the idea constituting the human mind is the body…and nothing else. (p.123)

However, when it comes to human beings, both of these statements will be superseded by the account which follows.

     The key is to understand the nature/form/essence of the human body as opposed to simple bodies.  Here is the start to the scholium to IIP13:

From these [propositions] we understand not only that the human mind is united to the body, but also what should be understood by the union of mind and body.  But no one will be able to understand it adequately, or distinctly, unless he first knows adequately the nature of our body.  For the things we have shown so far are completely general and do not pertain more to man than to other individuals, all of which, though in different degrees, are nevertheless animate. (p.124) 

So we need to know more about what distinguishes the human body from other bodies.

     Now we move to the interlude on the nature of bodies which follows IIP13.  Spinoza discusses bodies in terms of their motion and rest – it must be said that he does not successfully present a complete non-circular account of bodies (there is no definition of a ground level simple body independent of its motion or vice versa).  But overlooking this for present purposes, Spinoza gives us an account of how a number of bodies can unite to compose a further composite body or individual.  Here’s the definition following A2``:

When a number of bodies, whether of the same or of different size, are so constrained by other bodies that they lie upon one another, or if they so move, whether with the same degree or different degrees of speed, that they communicate their motions to each other in a certain fixed matter; we shall say that those bodies are united with one another and that they all together compose one body or individual, which is distinguished from the others by this union of bodies. (p.126)

The nature and form of such an individual is defined in terms of this union.  We see here that the component parts only matter to this nature qua their participation in the unifying action (consistent with IID7).

     L4 strengthens the point by asserting that this nature or form will be retained upon substitution of like parts (p.126).  L5 and L6, by defining the fixed relationship of motion among the united parts in terms of a ratio of motion of rest, is intended to convey a notion of yet more flexibility to the composite body to retain its nature under changing conditions.

     The scholium to L7 goes further to contemplate second and third order composite bodies, each of whose components has different natures (i.e. different patterns of union), which can maintain their form in myriad additional circumstances:

 And if we proceed in this way to infinity, we shall easily conceive that the whole of nature is one individual, whose parts, that is, all bodies, vary in infinite ways, without any change in the whole individual. (p.127)

This passage foreshadows the human striving toward God’s perfection that we find later in the Ethics.

     Spinoza concludes in the body postulates that the human body “is composed of a great many individuals of different natures, each of which is highly composite.”  It can “move and dispose external bodies in a great many ways” (p.128).

     These complex characteristics of the body underlie the complex nature of the human mind, discussed in IIP14 and IIP15.  Our ideas about external objects follow from the affects these have on our complex body. In fact, the subtlety of the complex body allows Spinoza to define imagination and memory (IIP16 and IIP17) which adds a critical temporal dimension to the workings of the associated human mind.

     With this in place, the subsequent propositions replace the simple picture of mind/body union which originally followed from the parallelism of thought and extension.  The mind is associated with the complex composite body; and constituted as it is by a unified action of its many different parts, it does not know the body or itself in any simple or complete manner (IIP19):

 The human mind does not know the human body itself, nor does it know that it exists, except through ideas of affections by which the body is affected.  (p.131)

I interpret this as follows:  The body is not simple passive thing sitting in a vacuum, but rather has a nature defined by an enduring pattern of complex activity (which is capable of acting as a unified higher order cause).  Within the totality of God/Nature, this pattern is defined relative to all its interactions with the world which lies outside its nature. (Note that this could include non-essential interactions which take place from “within” the spatial dimensions of the body as well as “external” bodies.)  The mind only knows the body (the pattern) as it is affected.

     In IIP20 and IIP21, another element is introduced which adds further nuance to the mind, that is, in addition to defining the mind as the idea of the body, there also exists the idea of the mind (idea of the idea).  So to the extent the mind knows the affections of the body, it knows the ideas of these affections (IIP22).  It follows that as the mind only knows the body via the affections, it only knows itself “insofar as it perceives the ideas of the affections of the body” (IIP23, p.133).

     Looking ahead, IIP23 is cited when S wants to assert we are “conscious” of our striving to preserve our being (IIIP9)

     I think IIP24 is particularly helpful for deepening our understanding the human mind and the scope of consciousness:

The human mind does not involve adequate knowledge of the parts composing the human body.” Dem.: The parts composing the human body pertain to the essence of the human body itself only insofar as they communicate their motions to one another in a certain fixed manner… and not insofar as they can be considered as individuals, without relation to the human body. (p.133)

The body’s essence is the unified pattern of action.  Each part could be separated and interact with the world in some other manner (and will do so after I die, for instance), but this has nothing to do with our essence.  Nevertheless, God’s idea of the part includes its connections with a great many ideas which go beyond the part’s participation in our body’s essence (and thus with the idea that constitutes our mind).  Hence our mind does not know its parts as individuals.

     The picture of the human being here is not that of a lump of matter, but that of an activity.  Not only that, but the human mind is shaped by this activity as it continually bumps up against everything else in its environment. (Again, I note that there can be things “within” the body which also don’t contribute to the pattern). 

     While the derivation of IIIP6 and 7 is debated by scholars, it is certainly the case that the discussion of the nature of humans/composite individuals in Part II sets the stage very clearly:  the striving to preserve the unified activity of its parts is the essence of such an individual.

(Note: nothing distinguishes humans/living things/other things in terms of ontological categories: differences are due to degrees of complexity in pattern and interactions.)

Composing the Mind

William Seager, of the University of Toronto, has written a number of interesting papers over the years on the mind, with panpsychism and emergence/reduction included as frequent topics. I’m grateful for his contributions on panpsychism, which remains a neglected option in philosophy of mind.

Introspection and Acquaintance

How reliable is knowledge gained through introspection? On the one hand, we have been learning that knowledge gained through introspection is surprisingly fallible. A philosopher who has worked on bringing this fact to light is Eric Schwitzgebel. In this paper, among others, he has argued that,based on the evidence, knowledge gained from introspection is less reliable than knowledge gained in other ways. He now has a book out called Perplexities of Consciousness which looks worth reading -- see reviews here and here.

On the other hand, perhaps there is still something special about knowledge gained via introspection. Schwitzgebel participated in a debate on introspection with Brie Gertler last fall on Philosophy TV. In a draft of a forthcoming paper called "Renewed Acquaintance" (Word doc), Gertler defends a view called the acquaintance approach to introspective knowledge of phenomenal qualities (a book is forthcoming titled Self-Knowledge).

Mind-Dependent Composition

The Russellian view of the mind-body problem explains why experience has qualitative content: the natural world has qualities, and this fact poses no conflict with physics, because physics offers only a formal description of nature’s causal regularities. Our participation in the world acquaints us with these qualities (even if our knowledge is fallible about details). There is a further question, however, beyond this issue of “raw” qualitative content. Recently, in interesting comments on this old post, dnn8350 posed the question of why our experience features macroscopic objects/events and not just a flux of the micro-level entities which are fundamental in physics.*

Now, separately from philosophy of mind, metaphysicians also debate problems concerning the compositions of objects (mereology). Perhaps the problem of composition and the problem of why minds feature macroscopic clumps are related. Uriah Kriegel has a couple of papers which connect with these issues: he has a 2008 paper called “Composition as a Secondary Quality”, and now a draft of a forthcoming paper called “Kantian Monism”. The first paper addresses things from the point of view of ontological pluralism, and presents an argument that (very roughly) states that objects compose a larger composite object if it is the case that a subject would judge it to be so (I’m obviously glossing over many important details and conditions specified by Kriegel). In the new draft paper, Kriegel explores this view from the perspective of monism, and presents the case that the world decomposes into parts just in case it would appear that way to a subject in the world.

If mind-world interaction is responsible for the composition of objects (or decomposition of the world into parts), the task remains of filling in how this works, but perhaps there is a sense that we have combined two problems into one.

*I guess this question may also be related to the so-called binding problem of consciousness – that is the question of how our experience unifies various disparate sensory inputs – but I’m not sure.

Russellian Monism and Dispositional/Categorical Properties

{Note: this is a draft of some work that I might develop further with add'l research at some point. Comments or suggestions are welcome.}

I’m gratified that the position in Philosophy of Mind known as Russellian Monism (also known as Russellian theory of mind and probably the best developed account of neutral monism) has gotten more attention in recent years. However, the terminology typically used to describe the position today is different from Bertrand Russell’s, as presented in his 1927 work, The Analysis of Matter. This post discusses some of the issues involved, and briefly looks at how some stances in contemporary debates would fit with the original account.

In a recent post on the Brains blog, Richard Brown (referencing an online discussion he had with David Chalmers) said: “RM [Russellian Monism] is the view that the dispositional properties talked about by physics have as their categorical base phenomenal or protophenomenal properties.” While descriptions vary, the reference to dispositional and categorical properties is common. In his book, Ignorance and Imagination, Daniel Stoljar says the position is a combination of two theses. First: “…that physical theory tells us only about dispositional properties.” And: “The second thesis we need to consider is that the dispositional properties of physical objects do require categorical grounds; that is, for all dispositional properties, there must be a non-dispositional property... (p.110)”

Now, Russell never uses discusses properties at all, and certainly not dispositional or categorical properties specifically! These are terms which have emerged in the more recent debates of analytic philosophy. So, how well is the intent of RM captured when using this terminology? (Please again note I’m only speaking of Russell’s work in The Analysis of Matter).

Brief summary of RM

Stuart Kauffman Blog Series

Stuart Kauffman has been writing some interesting posts at NPR's 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog.  Kauffman is a biologist, author and "big thinker", and his latest thoughts are about the possible role of quantum mechanical processes in life and mind. He also has some philosophical speculations related to these ideas.

The latest series of posts takes as a launching point recent theoretical and experimental results which show that it is possible for an open quantum system which has decohered into a classical system (for-all-practical-purposes or FAPP) to re-cohere.  Also there are preliminary indications that such behaviour may occur in a biological context (see recent photosynthesis research):  therefore this is new science which might have applications to understanding mind. The philosophical side to this is that he interprets QM to show that there is an ontological status to possibilia or potentialities in addition to concrete actualities; furthermore the border between these two realms might be where the interesting action takes place (the 'Poised Realm'). He speculates that the ability of systems to repeatedly move between quantum and FAPP classical status might lead to "non-algorithmic" processes. If the human brain utilizes these, it might then constitute a "trans-turing system".

Now all this is alot to digest, and the fearless speculation coupled with invented jargon can be off-putting at first. But I like his ideas and I would recommend readers take a look.  Here are the links (Kauffman also interacts quite a bit with commentors, which is nice).

Part One: Beyond Einstein and Schrodinger?
Part Two: The Quantum Mechanics of Closed Quantum Systems
Part Three: The Quantum Mechanics of Open Quantum Systems
Part Four: The 'Poised Realm' is Real
Part Five: The Non-Algorithmic Trans-Turing System
Part Six: We Seem to be Zombies
Part Seven: How Mind can Act Acausally on Brain?

Update [5 January 2011]:   I'll add new links as they come.  In the latest post, Kauffman discusses the interpretation of QM.  He says that after 85 years, we need to bite the bullet on a less economical ontology.  We need to recognize that there are real possibilities as well as real actuals and the quantum measurement event is the actualization process which bridges these two realms.
Part Eight:  A Hypothesis: Res Potentia and Res Extensa Linked By Measurement

Update [29 January 2011]: Why consciousness might be associated with quantum measurement events.
Part Nine: What is Consciousness? A Hypothesis

Update [30 January 2011]: Looking for the neural correlates of consciousness in measurement events at (entangled) synapses.
Part Ten: Standing the Brain on its Head

Update [31 January 2011]: Last in the series for now:
Part Eleven: Can We Have a Responsible Free Will?

Experience and Causation

I’m re-reading sections of Gregg Rosenberg’s A Place for Consciousness: Probing the Deep Structure of the Natural World. What’s brilliant about the work is that it starts with the Russellian insight about the mind-body dilemma (discussed here) and then “ups the ante” by linking consciousness to other metaphysical puzzles – including those of those of causation and the composition of objects.

Here’s a rough table listing a general feature of the world and the aspect of consciousness it matches up with.

Quotes on the Key Mind-Body Insight

A simple insight serves to clear away a common confusion surrounding the mind-body problem. The great success of the physical sciences has led many to assume that the formal descriptions contained in scientific theories also provide a metaphysical guide to the essential character of natural phenomena. The insight is that this leap is unwarranted, and therefore the metaphysical thesis of scientific materialism (or physicalism) is founded on a flawed conception of the natural world. To the extent dualists share this conception of the “body” side of the problem, they share the mistake as well.  [UPDATE 6 June 2012: light editing]

UK Fetal Awareness Metastudy

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released an updated report on fetal awareneess with a focus on pain (summary here, pdf of full report here, hat tip: Parableman). Its key conclusion is that there is no fetal pain prior to 24 weeks of gestation. This is because “connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 24 weeks” and “most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception.”

Spinoza on the Composite Self

It can seem surprising the degree to which our conscious experience is opaque as to what causes and/or composes it.  The revelations of neuroscience come only from third person investigation.  Even on its own first-person "turf", introspection has been shown to be a poor guide to analyzing our mental states, perceptions and memories.  The mind-body problem in philosophy is of course the story of the inability of the mind to perceive how nature constitutes it.

The fact that the brain/body is very much a composite system seems to be the reason for some of the difficulty.  Reading Spinoza's Ethics recently, it was interesting for me to see that he grasped this point in the 17th century.

Quantum Computing and Mind Simulation

At the end of a recent discussion (in the comments to this post), Allen and I started to discuss whether quantum computing theory had something to say about the potential for simulating the human mind on a computer. I then read a couple of review articles on quantum computing he referenced. Before getting to what I learned (below), I wanted to explain my prior philosophical view on the simulation question.

The Russellian Stance, Functionalism, and Simulation

I endorse a form of the Russellian approach to solving the hard problem of consciousness. Russell described the world as a causal network of events, and he noted that physical theory only describes the extrinsic or dispositional nature of these events. These events also have an intrinsic nature which ultimately grounds the qualitative and experiential character of consciousness. I think quantum mechanics provides support for this view: quantum measurements seem to fit perfectly into this Russellian picture as the base-level events which ultimately underpin both the physical and experiential facts.

Functionalism is the thesis that the mind can be described as an abstract causal system. As a practical matter, the functionalist’s description is taken at a coarse-grained level – i.e. there is some minimal scale below which the actual physical details of the brain/body system are assumed to be irrelevant to its function. It follows that such a functional model could be realized in any number of physical ways, including via computer. Computationalism is the variety of functionalism which pursues the computer modeling approach.

Now, I think the Russellian stance on functionalism and the potential for simulation is nuanced. On the one hand, functionalism is seen as misguided because it only considers extrinsic causal structure. On the other hand, unlike an old fashioned dualist, the Russellian shouldn’t rule out the possibility that the mind could be simulated. The mind, after all, is a product of a natural system – we don’t need extra immaterial stuff to explain it. Perhaps a simulation can get the functional structure right and the correct intrinsic experiential character will come along “for free.”

The problems come with the coarse-graining. In every functionalist account I’ve seen, this takes place at a scale where quantum mechanics is assumed to be safely irrelevant. But every process in the body ultimately is grounded in molecular, atomic and sub-atomic activity which must be described quantum mechanically. So, a coarse-grained, approximated simulation of the brain/body’s causal structure on some physical device would likely miss crucial details which lie at the quantum level (details I think simultaneously crucial to both extrinsic function and conscious experience)

How would a functionalist respond to the quantum question? First, many believe distinctive quantum phenomena effectively “wash out” in a macroscopic system like the human brain/body. This belief is often based on the presumed impact of environmental decoherence. I’m not going to pursue this issue in this post (I discuss this in some of my posts on quantum biology). Another response to the quantum question is an appeal to a commonly believed thesis that any physical system (including a quantum system) can be modeled by a classical computer -- so the traditional functionalist/computationalist approach wouldn’t be missing anything distinctive anyway. This is the view that I wanted to explore by reading up on quantum computing theory.

[Please note the discussion that follows may suffer even more than usual from by my ignorance of the subject matter.]

Simulation and the Church-Turing thesis

So, is it true that any physical system, including a quantum system, can be simulated by a classical computer? Well, this idea has been defended by appeals to versions of the Church-Turing thesis. The original Church-Turing thesis states (in a formulation from this article) that any effectively calculable function can be computed using a Turing machine. (For a description of a Turing machine, see here.) Now it seems that what this thesis really meant can probably only be appreciated by studying its original logical/mathematical context. In his SEP article on the C-T thesis, Jack Copeland first traces the development of the ideas associated with the thesis in the pioneering work on calculation and computing by Turing, Church and others beginning in the 1930’s. Then, Copeland spends much of the rest of the article objecting to how the thesis has been misunderstood and misused by philosophers and computing theorists. The C-T thesis did not purport to say that all physical systems, or even all machines regardless of architecture, could be simulated by a Turing machine. It certainly did not prove anything of the sort. (This discussion reminded me of similar debates over the philosophical applicability of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems beyond their original context – see old posts here and here.)

Nevertheless, as long as one is careful not to inappropriately invoke the authority of the original C-T thesis, one can explore more expansive versions and try to evaluate their validity.

Physical Versions of the C-T thesis

In her review article on Quantum Computing, Dorit Aharonov presents two versions of the thesis. First, (p.3), she presents a simple “physical” version: “A Turing machine can compute any function computable by a reasonable physical device.” She says this is something which cannot be proven, but that no known counterexamples exist. In particular, quantum computers are not believed capable of computing functions non-computable by a Turing machine.

She quickly then notes that: “However, in the theory of computation, we are interested not only in the question of which functions can be computed, but mainly in the cost of computing these functions.” [Emphasis original] The way this is evaluated is by noting whether the computational resources needed rise as a polynomial or an exponential function of input size. It is the former which form the set of tractable computations.

After also discussing the superior efficiency of a probabilistic version of the Turing machine, she presents another thesis to consider (p.4): “The modern Church thesis: A probabilistic Turing machine can simulate any reasonable physical device in polynomial cost.” We have a great deal of evidence, though not proof, that this thesis is contradicted by quantum computers.

The Advantages of Quantum Algorithms

Aharonov explains first, that quantum computers can simulate classical computers, at little loss in efficiency. On the flip side, it appears classical computers can simulate quantum computers but only at exponential cost. What we really want, though, is a positive demonstration of how far quantum computers can outperform their classical counterparts.

The a priori expectation might be that the ability to manipulate qubits, which can be in a superposition of states as opposed to just to two states, would lead to great increases in computing power. Because of the necessity for conducting a measurement to extract results (collapsing superpositions), however, the power of this idea is muted. Other, more subtle sources of limitations on quantum computing are discussed later in the paper.

Despite this, however, many investigations into quantum computing over the years have found quantum algorithms which improve efficiency. One of these algorithms, Shor’s, gives a polynomial algorithm for factoring integers where all known classical algorithms have exponential cost, thus crossing the crucial boundary. It must be pointed out that as of yet there is no proof that a classical polynomial algorithm for factoring is impossible.

Conclusions

Most of what I’ve discussed in Aharonov’s article above comes from the introduction. In the ensuing 60 pages she goes into more detail about the nature of computers and computing, various models for quantum computing algorithms, the issues of noise correction and fault tolerance, and some of her own ideas of what quantum computing theory says about the boundary between quantum and classical regimes in physics.

On the key question of what quantum computers can do better than classical ones, one is left with the impression that the question is much more subtle than might first be imagined. We have some exciting theoretical results, but perhaps fewer than might have been anticipated on a naïve expectation. At the same time, it seems we’re still in the early phase of growth in our knowledge of the field. A lot of interesting work and new developments lie ahead. (The engineering efforts underway toward building quantum computers and the challenges they face is another interesting topic).

Let me return to the question about what all this might mean for the philosophy of mind, assuming (as I do) that the quantum level grounding of biology contributes meaningfully to the mind’s function. I think a modest conclusion is called for. The fact that a classical computer can simulate a quantum computer only at an exponential cost suggests that the project of simulating a human mind is impractical, though not blocked in principle. This conclusion is broadly consistent with my philosophical stance regarding the simulation project.

[P.S: after drafting this I recalled there was a good debate (thanks to Tanasije and Mike) on the simulation topic in the comments to this May 2008 post on Russellian theory. My memory is awful.]

John Heil Gets Very Close…

…to solving the mind/body problem.

John Heil’s 2003 book From an Ontological Point of View consists of roughly three components. The first part is a thoroughgoing critique of analytic philosophy based on the central role it gives to language. The second part is his positive ontological account: this is centered on his theory of power-properties. The third section discusses the application of his ontology to philosophical problems, notably the mind/body problem.

Being a blogger, I’m only going to discuss one aspect of how his account of properties (as part of a substance/property ontology) gives him a leg up on solving the mind/body problem, although I think he ultimately falls short of the goal. For an appreciation of his overall approach to philosophy, see this paper by Ross Cameron and Elizabeth Barnes. A Notre Dame book review penned by Gary S. Rosenkrantz is here. (There is also a whole volume of collected responses to the book available -- I have not read this).

Powers and Qualities

For Heil, properties are powers (or dispositions). Properties are distinguished by their contribution to the causal powers of their possessors. There are many potential advantages for this approach in constructing a realist account of ontology and causation. One advantage as it relates to philosophy of mind is that the ubiquity of powers offers a natural home for intentionality in the world. Powers have an “aboutness” – they are always directed towards their manifestations (I discussed this at greater length in my posts on George Molnar’s powers ontology).

But the biggest innovation in Heil’s account compared to other treatments of power properties is his treatment of qualities. Qualitative properties are usually considered to be separate from dispositions. They are often identified with the so-called categorical properties of objects. Heil proposes that qualities and powers are the same thing. He calls this the identity theory: “If P is an intrinsic property of an object, P is simultaneously dispositional and qualitative… (p.111 – page references are to the paperback edition)” Furthermore, this is not to be seen as a dual aspect theory: P’s nature is truly and simultaneously dispositional and qualitative. (Heil gives credit to the late philosopher C.B.Martin for this idea).

Heil’s defense of this identity theory was persuasive, in my opinion. He starts by giving some homely examples (size, shape, color) of how objects can be seen as having effects by virtue of their qualities. He then notes that while physics is silent on the subject of qualities, this in no way contradicts the identity theory. If middle level objects have qualities, it makes sense that their constituents do as well. (Heil strongly objects to ontological accounts which feature distinct “levels” of reality).

Qualities in the Brain

Turning to the mind/body problem, we can see that if properties which are both dispositional and qualitative make up the world then there is no special problem with the fact that conscious experience seems to possess qualities. Still, Heil wonders, could it be that these qualities are just qualities of, say, neurological activity? He notes that the qualities we should focus on in considering this question are not the simply representational qualities of experience, but the “diaphanous” qualities associated with having an experience. The qualities of experience outstrip their representational qualities, and these residual qualities are key to the question.

P.229: “The what-it-is-likeness of conscious experience stems from the nature of the representational medium…” as well as what is being represented. Heil makes use of a thought experiment based on an actual apparatus developed for the blind whereby a camera impresses images via pressure on the skin of the back or chest. After a while, the subject using such a device mostly forgets the nature of its implementation and just processes the images. But certainly the residual, non-representational experiential qualities are different between vision and this touch-analogue of vision.

So, do these “what-it’s-like” qualities differ from material qualities, or can we say that they are no different? Can we locate them in the brain? Well, Heil asks, why not? Perhaps these qualities are just are neurological qualities.

What about the First-Person Aspect?

The remaining question relates to the different way we are acquainted with these putative neurological qualities. P.234: “…we do seem to have something like ‘direct acquaintance’ with neurological qualities.” This means there still is a distinction here between the what-it’s-like qualities and other material qualities. Heil gives us an account that deals well with the qualitative character of experience -- after all qualities are ubiquitous in the world. But what about the subjective character of experience (my term)?

One might ask: is this subjective character also ubiquitous? Alas, Heil doesn’t want to take that leap. After all: “You might be worried that a conception of this kind leads to panpsychism or worse. (p.234)” Heil wants to maintain that all of the qualities of experience are perfectly ordinary qualities of brains. He concedes that it remains to be understood how this could be the case. But he hopes we’ll know more in the future as we learn more about neuroscience.

There’s one additional passage where Heil ponders this issue of the subjective character of experience (pp.237-9). He discusses the privacy of mental states, and acknowledges the difference between being in a state and observing the state. But he objects to treating this as indicating an ontological divide between subjective and objective properties. Conscious people are, after “objective” in the sense of being natural entities in the world. But again: “What, then, distinguishes conscious states from those that are not conscious? (p.239)” Could it be that there is a different functional role? This can’t be an explanatory strategy for Heil, since causal and qualitative roles are constituted hand-in-hand. I give Heil credit for raising the issue, but for him the privacy/subjectivity issue remains unexplained.

What about Zombies?

In his Chapter 20 (pp.240-249), Heil looks at the conceivability, or “zombie” argument against materialism. The bottom line is that zombies are not conceivable given Heil’s ontology: “The zombie possibility arises only against a particular ontological background, one according to which powers and qualities are only contingently related. (p.248)” Heil is right -- IF you define the zombie problem as being about qualia, rather than being also concerned with the subjective character of experience. As an aside, this is why I personally don’t use the term qualia when discussing the mind/body problem: first-person experience possesses both qualitative character and subjective character – discussions of qualia often ignore the latter issue (on this point see also a quote from philosopher Uriah Kriegel in this old post).

Conclusion

So, Heil comes close to solving the mind/body problem. By virtue of an ontology which places qualities in the world, the qualitative character of conscious experience is accounted for. The other dimension to experience, its subjective character, is left without an account. I think the only way to address this is to place subjective points of view into the natural world as well.

PS: My thanks go to Gualtiero Piccinini of the blog brains for his post on C.B.Martin, also suggesting Heil as a route to helping to understand Martin. This prompted me to read the Heil book, which I had been meaning to do. Martin's book is in the queue.

Montero on Russellian Physicalism

There is a lot of interesting material at the Consciousness Online conference currently underway. One paper I enjoyed reading was Barbara Montero’s entry on the Russellian theory of mind: “Russellian Physicalism”. In addition to Montero’s paper and powerpoint slides, there are links to responses by Emmett Holman and Daniel Stoljar, who have both also written on this topic in the past (see my old posts here and here).

Montero reminds us that the Russellian approach is a non-dualistic strategy for dissolving the conceivability argument against physicalism/materialism (most famously depicted as the “zombie” argument). David Chalmers' most recent paper updating the conceivability argument had as its conclusion: “materialism is false or Russellian monism is true.”

Russellian monism argues (roughly) that our knowledge of the physical world is only of its extrinsic or dispositional (causal) aspects. Physical entities also have intrinsic or categorical aspects. These hidden aspects are those responsible for consciousness. When we try to conceive of zombies, we fail because we are not conceiving of all relevant aspects of the physical world.

Montero’s paper focuses on the fact that while Russellian monism can be interpreted as a form of panpsychism (the intrinsic aspects are in some fashion mental or experiential in nature), it can also be cast as a variety of physicalism (where the intrinsic aspects are not to be seen as themselves mental).

I'll note parenthetically that both versions face further challenges. In the case of the physicalist version, it can be argued that the explanatory gap between the mental and the physical still isn’t bridged (even though the formal conceivability argument is defeated). In the panpsychist version, we arguably address the gap, but we are left with the “combination” problem: how do micro-phenomenal entities or properties combine to form macroscopic minds like ours?

The responses by Stoljar and Holman and further discussion in the comments mostly revolve around thorny issues of terminology. What do we mean by “physical”, “mental” etc. as it relates to these hidden intrinsic aspects of nature? I tend to like the approach Stoljar took in his book (finally out in paperback), where he threw out these terms and used experiential and non-experiential. Holman proposes using “subjective unity” as the key feature to distinguish things.

I enjoyed the discussion (which continues in the comments), and I hope that philosophers of mind continue to focus on this topic.

Postscript: I have a general quibble, which is that I think this all becomes clearer if you go back and read Bertrand Russell himself (Montero, taking Chalmers as her starting point, includes just one short quote from Russell). Russell’s approach, beginning in his Analysis of Matter, is distinctive for his careful critique of physical theorizing and for his use of a causal event ontology. Russell reminds us that physical theory consists of describing a causal structure connecting the experiential events which occur when we conduct empirical research. The physicists create mathematical models to allow them to generalize and extrapolate to describe events beyond our direct experience. He then argues that it is a philosophical mistake to ascribe reality to the mathematical models themselves (what Whitehead called the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”). The causally connected events are the reality. We have no good reason to think the “physical” events which we infer have a different character from the events we experience directly. At a minimum we can be confident that an event is ontologically more than just a point in a mathematical model. Whether we think all events are experiential (leading to panpsychism) or not is something for further debate. Russell himself took the conservative option here, and was reluctant to posit panpsychism, while his former collaborator Whitehead went ahead and took the panpsychist step in formulating his process metaphysics (see also my post on Carey Carlson’s book on Russell and Whitehead).

The Intentionality of the Single Cell

I highly recommend this paper by Tecumseh Fitch. In it he traces the distinctive intrinsic intentionality of the mind to the capabilities of the eukaryotic cell -- which he calls "Nano-Intentionality". Hat tip to this post at Conscious Entities (although Peter was less impressed than I was with the core argument).

2008-2009 GPPC Program

Here's a link to the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium's program for this year (the GPPC is a cooperative effort by 15 area universities to sponsor philosophy conferences and other programs). There is also a regional calendar which includes some other events taking place at member schools - the great majority are open to the public.

I'm looking forward in particular to the November 22 event at Swarthmore, "New Approaches to the Mind/Body Problem," which will feature talks from the phenomenological perpective on mind from Barnard College's Taylor Carman and Oregon's Mark Johnson.