To what extent can the immaterial affect the material?

[QED]

In the topic titled When God knows a soul goes to hell..

Newtonian mechanics is an approximation to quantum mechanics. It's possible that the uncertainty principle can be more generalized with some yet undiscovered theory, however the uncertainty principle is a theorem in the theory of operators, a derivation of the Cramer-Rao inequality, derivation of the Fourier transform on general locally compact groups, formulation for Fourier integral operators on manifolds, along with other deep mathematical concepts. So, I would argue that the uncertainty principle points to some kind of platonic structure that has deep mathematical significance. Given its importance in explaining the virtual particles, Casimir effect, Hawking radiation, etc., I think we have good reason to believe that the immaterial affects the material.

I think this is a really tricky issue. For example, love can be considered to be immaterial and it can evidently affect material things through the actions of those in love. But then I'd argue that love is a signal riding on a material medium (the neural nets within our brains). I have often stated that wherever we look we find software to be supervenient on hardware. I am unaware of any evidence for pure Information that exists without a supporting material structure anywhere in the cosmos.

The question I wish to put here is how are we to know for sure that a platonic view is justified when all we might be doing is to default to this assumption simply because we lack a complete understanding of some phenomenon or other that we are studying. It seems to me that while Physics lacks a Grand Unification Theory we do not know if the laws we are observing represent restrictions of degrees of freedom imposed by some as yet undiscovered, underlying, material framework. The analogy that I like to use is the tracing-out of the image of a penny coin beneath a sheet of paper by rubbing over it with a pencil. If we never saw behind the paper, the impression might seem to comes to us from nowhere.

This topic covers the related issue of prescriptive vs descriptive laws and can serve to host debates that frequently go off-topic in other threads.

[harvey1]

I am not sure what you mean by "reduced". If you mean something like, "the so-called mental events are merely physical events in disguise", then yes, I'd agree.

Yes, and that's what an epiphenomenalist is. There is no real causal efficacy as a consequence of the mental, that part of controlling one's actions is an illusion according to the epiphenomenalist.

Ultimately, I don't think I view causality the same way you do. From my point of view, causality is merely another model that we have made up to approximate the real world; it is no different (at least, not categorically different) from gravity or relativity or Boyle's law. Thus, your strong focus on causality in your arguments is not really making as big of an impression on me as you'd like.

Understandable. However, you have to be careful since then, it seems to me, that you are appealing to Mystery. For example, why did you type this post to me? It's ultimately a Mystery. Why did the tree leaves change colors this Fall, it's ultimately a Mystery, and so on. It would seem that this view would definitely push one over to antirealism. And, this is a different kind of antirealism. It's an epistemic relativism that I would categorize in the same class as postmodernism. I realize that you might immediately reject that label because you think that you believe in approximations, but I ask approximations of what? Approximations of some goodness to gracious real cause, or an approximation of a Mystery? If the former, then let's dispense with the notion of causes are models and focus on what it is to be a cause even if we don't exactly know what that cause ultimately is. If your viewpoint is that causation is actually a Mystery, then that makes you a mystic, doesn't it? True approximations of a Mystery could equally be false approximations of a Mystery too.

That's not saying much, though. Essentially, your answer is, "mental minds are affected by physical brains because of causality". Well, ok, but how does this causality work ? What are its rules ? How would we test them ? By what mechanism does it operate ? Why is it, for example, that brains are causally connected to minds, but facial hair is not ? Without at least an attempt at an explanation, your answer sounds like a tautology.

Science is exploring those rules. So far, the most fundamental theory we have of nature is quantum mechanics. Everything that reduces to quantum mechanics (e.g., cognitive science) is an approximation. That means that the best we have today for the actual cause for mental minds affecting the physical must be explained in terms of quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, that's way beyond the capability of science to do so. So, we have to work with approximations to how the mental affects the physical, and that means we have to work at a cognitive science level. My point is that by going to this higher layer of explanation, we lose the ability to find a real cause for the mental affecting the physical because the lower layer (perhaps lower than quantum mechanics) would tell us how exactly the mental affects the physical. This is because at this lower layer we have an explanation of not only how the mental affects the physical, we have an explanation of how the physical affects (or causes) the other physical things that happen. Causation is incomplete without it.

Never fear though, we might have missed the boat on metaphysical naturalism, but we can still study cognitive science from a methodological naturalism perspective, and therefore we can deal with efficient causes. We can certainly study how the mental can affect the physical structures of the brain. We can also study how the physical structures affect the mental. We can develop some pretty good science even though we are not able to use science as a metaphysical explanation for solving mental causation (or material causation for that matter).

Fortunately, philosophically we can consider mental causation by looking at how causation might work at this lower layer without actually having a full understanding by science. This is where my position stands. By looking at a principle of causation as a primitive that is negatively necessitated (i.e., the lack of this principle still implies the principle), we can come to a pretty good metaphysical explanation for mental causation.

So, to answer your question as to why brains are causally connected to minds but facial hair is not, the answer is that the causal laws which exist require some kind of locality for the causal effects. This locality doesn't necessarily mean spacetime locality, although it mostly does (an exception being quantum entanglement), but there must be some kind of contextual locality. The causal laws require that a physical structure approximate the mental structure. That is, for every thought that occurs to us at the mental level, there must be a supporting state inside the brain that provides sufficient and necessary conditions for the mental to exist. Now, the causality principle doesn't care which is the cause and which is the effect. All it cares about is that for the mental to occur, it must have a sufficient and necessary condition that locally supports it on the physical end. Similarly, the causality principle requires that for the physical to occur, there must be a mental state that sufficiently and necessary brings that about. These conditions of sufficiency and necessity are not strict laws. That is, we can't reduce a science to determine them because they are epistemically irreducible. They do have enough similarities between them, however, that we can develop sciences that can effectively correlate the states of the two, and this is where science can make huge progress.

All I'm saying is that our capacity for abstract thought can be easily explained from an evolutionary perspective, because it offers a tremendous evolutionary advantage, and is thus a trait that would be selected for in nature.

The advantage must be in terms of P causing M and E. If the advantage is P&M causing E, then your view is inconsistent. I don't see any functional advantage if natural selection has it that P causes M and E. I see a great advantage if natural selection has it that P&M causes E.

From my standpoint, sending signals to the muscles, and visualizing the benefit of drinking from the cup, are two examples of the same kind of activity (even though one of them involves a lot more work than the other).

Sure, but it doesn't explain why you need M at all.

Emergence is the complex behavior that arises out of simple parts; however, it's still the behavior of the original system. You, however, believe that brains give rise to mental entities which are categorically different from the substance that brains are made of; this is no longer emergence. Note that emergent properties can always be traced back to the simple components -- but, in your case, this is impossible, because minds and brains exist in two separate, incompatible realms.

Well, here's a conflict between an epistemic interpretation and ontological interpretation of emergence. In your view, emergence is strictly an epistemic emergence, however in my view it can also represent an ontological emergence. That is, something becomes a new object in the sense of being a new piece of furniture for the world, and it can no longer be fully reduced even in principle to the components.

[Bugmaster]

I am not sure what you mean by "reduced". If you mean something like, "the so-called mental events are merely physical events in disguise", then yes, I'd agree.

Yes, and that's what an epiphenomenalist is. There is no real causal efficacy as a consequence of the mental, that part of controlling one's actions is an illusion according to the epiphenomenalist.

What you said does not automatically follow from what I said, therefore it's not necessarily true that "that's what an epiphenomenalist is". I think our positions can be summarized as follows:

(WB) Bugmaster: the so-called mental events are merely physical events in disguise.
(WH) harvey1: if mental events do not exist, then no one controls their own actions.

Both statements could be true, or they could both be false, or one of them could be true and one could be false, but WB does not automatically imply WH. The problem here is that you and I do not see personality the same way. When you say, "no individual controls his/her actions", you are still operating under the worldview that mental entities do exist; mental entities supply us with personalities; and if "mental causality" does not exist, then we are not in control of our actions. However, when I say "an individual does something or other", what I mean by "individual" is a purely physical collection of states and behaviors; essentially, a big organic computer with tons of inputs, some of which may even be random. This system can indeed control its own actions, just as much simpler computer systems we have today (such as mail filters) can control their own actions (they decide whether to let a piece of email to pass through). We're getting off the topic of epiphenomenalism and into the topic of AI here; I'll start a new thread on it when I have more time.

Understandable. However, you have to be careful since then, it seems to me, that you are appealing to Mystery. For example, why did you type this post to me? It's ultimately a Mystery.

Huh ? But this is exactly what I accused you of doing in my previous post ! Just because I don't know the ultimate mechanism by which the world operates, does not imply that this mechanism is unknowable (which is what I assume you mean by "Mystery"). This applies on a smaller scale, too: I personally don't quite remember the entire photosynthesis chain (and there are like three different flavors of them, too), but I understand that, in general terms, it's a chemical process. This process is unknown to me, but it's not an unknowable Mystery.

You speak of "approximations of a Mystery" that I apparently believe in, but that doesn't make any sense. You can't approximate something unknowable; that's why the call it "the unknowable". Science, however, deals with knowable things. The whole objective of the scientific method is to generate progressively more correct models of the world, by testing them against reality. The very action of testing implies that reality is knowable, otherwise testing would be impossible.

You, however, do seem to believe in a bona-fide Mystery, in the guise of your causality:

That's not saying much, though. Essentially, your answer is, "mental minds are affected by physical brains because of causality". Well, ok, but how does this causality work ? What are its rules ? ...

...the best we have today for the actual cause for mental minds affecting the physical must be explained in terms of quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, that's way beyond the capability of science to do so. So, we have to work with approximations to how the mental affects the physical, and that means we have to work at a cognitive science level...So, to answer your question as to why brains are causally connected to minds but facial hair is not, the answer is that the causal laws which exist require some kind of locality for the causal effects.

So, in other words, causality is a Mystery: science can't touch it, and we don't know how to test for it, we have no idea how it operates, and we just have to take it on gaith that brains provide this causal locality but hair does not.

You appeal to quantum mechanics and cognitive science; however (as I've already pointed out), quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that still deals with entirely physical phenomena; and cognitive science is a mix of neurobiology (which is uber-chemistry, basically), and behavioral studies (which study perfectly physical behaviors). Thus, neither of these disciplines will quite get you off the hook.

Note that none of this necessarily implies that your mental causality does not exist; all I'm saying is that it's not scientific, because science cannot test for it (and if you disagree, please provide a thought experiment that tests for causality, which I mentioned in my previous post).

In the absence of science, your remaining recourse for justifying your belief in mental phenomena, and the mental causality that associates them with physical phenomena, is to develop a purely logical argument that proves that mental phenomena are a logical necessity. I think this is what you're doing here:

Fortunately, philosophically we can consider mental causation by looking at how causation might work at this lower layer without actually having a full understanding by science. This is where my position stands. By looking at a principle of causation as a primitive that is negatively necessitated (i.e., the lack of this principle still implies the principle), we can come to a pretty good metaphysical explanation for mental causation.

So far, I find your argument unconvincing; I have provided a view of science (and thought in general... heh heh I always wanted to say that !) that does not require a belief in nonphysical entities. I claim that, on one hand, advanced brains that support thought are a tremendous evolutionary advantage and would thus be selected for; and, on the other hand, if we assume that the real world does indeed exist (which I think is a reasonable assumption), then we can use the scientific method to build up increasingly accurate models of it. The fact that these models exist entirely as neural connections within our physical heads doesn't really matter, as long as these models cause our neurons to fire in such a way that allows us to semi-reliably predict future events -- which they currently do. In my worldview, causality is merely one of these models, though perhaps the best-tested one.

Your view seems to be a lot less parsimonious:

Now, the causality principle doesn't care which is the cause and which is the effect. All it cares about is that for the mental to occur, it must have a sufficient and necessary condition that locally supports it on the physical end. Similarly, the causality principle requires that for the physical to occur, there must be a mental state that sufficiently and necessary brings that about.

Why assume two separate substances, and a bidirectional implication between them, when the result is functionally equivalent to just having a single substance ?

They do have enough similarities between them, however, that we can develop sciences that can effectively correlate the states of the two, and this is where science can make huge progress.

Which of the existing branches of science correlates these two substances, in your view ? I already gave you my opinion on quantum physics and cognitive science, but perhaps there are others.

The advantage must be in terms of P causing M and E. If the advantage is P&M causing E, then your view is inconsistent. I don't see any functional advantage if natural selection has it that P causes M and E. I see a great advantage if natural selection has it that P&M causes E.
...
Sure, but it doesn't explain why you need M at all.

But... I don't need M at all ! Isn't this what I was saying all this time ? M is a useful abstraction that hides a lot of icky biological details, in the same way that "car" is a useful abstraction that hides a lot of chemical, electrical, and mechanical details. However, IMO cars do not have an independent Platonic existence, and neither do minds.

Let me put it this way: if we humans lived an infinite amout of time, and had an infinite computational capacity, we wouldn't need these abstractions -- such as "minds", "cars", "societies", "stars", etc. -- at all; we could always talk in terms of the underlying quantum mechanical principles (or string theory principles, or whatever other discipline ends up replacing QM). However, our current brains are small and finite, and thus we do need all these abstractions if we want to get anywhere in our thought process. This does not mean that the abstractions we use have an independent existence.

In your view, emergence is strictly an epistemic emergence, however in my view it can also represent an ontological emergence. That is, something becomes a new object in the sense of being a new piece of furniture for the world, and it can no longer be fully reduced even in principle to the components.

I don't see how this is possible; this is certainly not emergence in the Wikipedia sense. Again, can you provide a simple mechanism for how this metamorphosis occurs, or a reasonably objective method for discovering such a mechanism -- or is it a Mystery ?

[harvey1]

This system can indeed control its own actions, just as much simpler computer systems we have today (such as mail filters) can control their own actions (they decide whether to let a piece of email to pass through). We're getting off the topic of epiphenomenalism and into the topic of AI here; I'll start a new thread on it when I have more time.

When I say controlling our actions is an illusion, I mean the sense of self which is contained as part of our mental properties is not causally related to our actions (i.e., according to epiphenomenalists). This doesn't deny that the physical properties of "us" controls our actions. (I don't want to discourage you starting new threads, but I may not be able to respond much to it since time is limited compared to the other types of topics and people I want to continue having discussions about.)

You, however, do seem to believe in a bona-fide Mystery, in the guise of your causality:

I said that your caricature of causation strikes me as Mystery because you said, "causality is merely another model that we have made up to approximate the real world." If causation as a principle of nature is something that we make up, then the reason for events are also made up, and that would qualify it as a Mystery. That is, it is beyond rational justification.

So, in other words, causality is a Mystery: science can't touch it, and we don't know how to test for it, we have no idea how it operates, and we just have to take it on gaith that brains provide this causal locality but hair does not.

I don't think so. As I said, the concept is open to philosophical inquiry. Just because something is not open to scientific inquiry does not mean it is part of a Mystery. Mystery implies that it is not open to any rational inquiry as to its properties, etc..

You appeal to quantum mechanics and cognitive science; however (as I've already pointed out), quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that still deals with entirely physical phenomena; and cognitive science is a mix of neurobiology (which is uber-chemistry, basically), and behavioral studies (which study perfectly physical behaviors). Thus, neither of these disciplines will quite get you off the hook.

My point wasn't an appeal to get off the hook, the point was that when you coarse grain from quantum mechanics to cognitive science, there is a loss of information. I think there is some ultimate truth "out there" that answers what it means for something to be caused (e.g., M to cause EP, or P to cause EM), but as we coarse grain away from those ultimate truths to the world of science, we aren't able to address those issues scientifically.

Note that none of this necessarily implies that your mental causality does not exist; all I'm saying is that it's not scientific, because science cannot test for it (and if you disagree, please provide a thought experiment that tests for causality, which I mentioned in my previous post).

Don't you consider cognitive psychology as a science? We can do experiments under the guise of beliefs, desires, and motivations as existing. What we cannot necessarily do is find psychophysical laws that correlate each and every mental state to some physical state. That doesn't make cognitive psychology as "unscientific," it just means that it is not necessarily fully reducible as an exact science to cognitive neuroscience, for example.

The fact that these models exist entirely as neural connections within our physical heads doesn't really matter, as long as these models cause our neurons to fire in such a way that allows us to semi-reliably predict future events -- which they currently do. In my worldview, causality is merely one of these models, though perhaps the best-tested one.

However, your approach (epiphenomenalist approach) has no real explanation as to how it is that the mental can construct a fairly accurate representation of the world without the mental being causally connected to the world. Our true beliefs of the world are based on our interaction with our environment, and therefore the mental properties of our mind must causally interact with the world. Another problem with your view include it's anti-intuitive nature (e.g., we ran away from a rock rolling down a hill because we believed it would smash us, we are typing our responses to each other because we believe that we or someone out there might listen to "reason," ). Still another problem, as I alluded to last time, is that evolution tends to select attributes that have some kind of function, but if the mental is not causally effacious, then why would evolution bother to select for mental properties? For these reasons, a non-interactionist causal account of the physical and mental must be rejected. This issue has absolutely little to do with the pure complexity of the mind (e.g., there must be some non-physical explanation for it) as is often cited.

Your view seems to be a lot less parsimonious... Why assume two separate substances, and a bidirectional implication between them, when the result is functionally equivalent to just having a single substance ?

The most important reason is the intuitive experience we all have of there being a causal interaction between the mental and physical. Of course, it may only be an illusion, but before we discount this overwhelming primary experience that we have of the world (i.e., far more primary than anything than science has produced), we ought to at least consider the possibility of interactionism. Secondly, epiphenomenalism as I mentioned cannot account for the success we experience with our commonsense realist experiences in general. It is obvious that not only do we control our actions with our mental properties (i.e., reason #1), we also learn and develop commonsense knowledge of the world by causally interfacing with the world which would not be possible if the mental properties were not causally interacting with the world.

On a positive side, there's reasons to suggest platonism from scientific perspectives (remember the Davies' quote?). There's reasons from a mathematical side (remember your mathematician friends?). There's reasons from philosophical stance (afterall, Armstrong, Tooley, and Dretske each independently put forward a platonic argument for causal laws to solve the problem of causation -- all atheists by the way).

So, there's just overwhelming reasons to believe that the world operates according to certain laws, and those laws are platonic and affect how we should think about causation in general, and mental causation in particular.

Which of the existing branches of science correlates these two substances, in your view ? I already gave you my opinion on quantum physics and cognitive science, but perhaps there are others.

As I mentioned above, cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience are two fields that correlate the scientific achievements of each. I'm sure there are many other correlations, but I don't want to hazard a guess.

But... I don't need M at all ! Isn't this what I was saying all this time ? M is a useful abstraction that hides a lot of icky biological details, in the same way that "car" is a useful abstraction that hides a lot of chemical, electrical, and mechanical details. However, IMO cars do not have an independent Platonic existence, and neither do minds.

What is a belief? How is a belief that if I vote I might get another guy elected a useful abstraction? What is it a useful abstraction of...?

Let me put it this way: if we humans lived an infinite amout of time, and had an infinite computational capacity, we wouldn't need these abstractions -- such as "minds", "cars", "societies", "stars", etc. -- at all; we could always talk in terms of the underlying quantum mechanical principles (or string theory principles, or whatever other discipline ends up replacing QM). However, our current brains are small and finite, and thus we do need all these abstractions if we want to get anywhere in our thought process. This does not mean that the abstractions we use have an independent existence.

See, here it seems like you switch gears and you start talking in terms of P&M causing E. That is, M has a function in addition to P. Afterall, you need P to have thoughts, but you also need M to get somewhere in our thought processes. However, if you need M, then M is causally effacious with the environment--which is impossible in your view since M is an illusion. Which is it? If P & M are both needed (i.e., the thesis of overdetermination), then why are you rejecting my interactionism between the physical and mental?

I don't see how this is possible; this is certainly not emergence in the Wikipedia sense.

Well, let's remember that Wikipedia is just a convenience to convey some ideas. The dictionary itself is not altogether reliable. However, I'm not alone in this distinction. For example, Stuart Kauffman you know has been one of the pioneers in complex systems and emergence, and look what he has to say about ontological emergence or strong emergence:

On Tuesday afternoon, complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman built on some of the features in Deamer’s presentation by discussing a number of cases that he thinks fit the category of ontological emergence—in which explanatory reductionism (reduction to the irreversible laws of physics) simply fails as an explanatory paradigm. Kauffman began with the theme of "broken symmetries," in which something new comes into the universe by breaking an originally symmetrical and stable relationship.

I believe this is a key ingredient that happens in the brain and, as a result, it makes interactionism between the physical and mental possible.

Again, can you provide a simple mechanism for how this metamorphosis occurs, or a reasonably objective method for discovering such a mechanism -- or is it a Mystery ?

"Mystery" here is a different notion that what I consider the Mystery of a mystic. Mystery here means an analytical detail that is just unknown, but it assumes there is something there for future philosophers and scientists to understand more thoroughly. For example, perhaps a science of complexity can give us more information as to how the physical and mental can interact without being ontologically reducible to each other. However, in the kind of Mysticism that I think we should distance ourselves from is the kind where we give up on rationality altogether. This is the Mystery that I think you hinted at by calling causality a model. If it is a model, then in fact there is no real causes (in principle). That is mysterious and irrational since we can't begin to explain how it is that some event occurs. Total Mystery.

[Bugmaster]

When I say controlling our actions is an illusion, I mean the sense of self which is contained as part of our mental properties is not causally related to our actions (i.e., according to epiphenomenalists). This doesn't deny that the physical properties of "us" controls our actions.

Right, so basically, I claim that this "sense of self" is not "contained as part of our mental properties", but is actually part of those "physical properties of 'us' that controls our actions". I think that's the only difference between our two worldviews, as far as the sense of self and free will (or lack thereof) are concerned.

I said that your caricature of causation strikes me as Mystery because you said, "causality is merely another model that we have made up to approximate the real world." If causation as a principle of nature is something that we make up, then the reason for events are also made up, and that would qualify it as a Mystery. That is, it is beyond rational justification.

Let's go back to my original statement: according to my non-epiphenomenalistic worldview, there exists a real world, and it operates by some rules. We humans make models of these rules in order to discuss and understand the real world; these models are not 100% accurate (and in fact, many of them are closer to 0% accurate, such as ID), but they serve us most of the time. We have a process called "science" that allows us to test the behavior of our model against the real world, and adjust the model according to the results.

I think we both see Newton's Laws, QM, etc. as being examples of these models. However, I also include causality in the same category, whereas you claim special status for it:

As I said, the concept (of causality) is open to philosophical inquiry. Just because something is not open to scientific inquiry does not mean it is part of a Mystery. Mystery implies that it is not open to any rational inquiry as to its properties, etc..

For this reason, and many others (which we've been discussing), I that think my view is more parsimonious.

The key idea here is that, in my view, scientific laws as we understand them are just models in our heads. There's no direct causal relationship between them and the real world; i.e., instead of the real world affecting these models directly, it's us modifying the models according to what we see in reality. In other words, the Mystery factor that ensures that our models more-or-less correspond to reality is just the scientific method, which is actually fairly well documented (this answers your later argument, where you say that I have no explanation "...as to how it is that the mental can construct a fairly accurate representation of the world without the mental being causally connected to the world").

My point wasn't an appeal to get off the hook, the point was that when you coarse grain from quantum mechanics to cognitive science, there is a loss of information.

Well yeah, but you get the same loss of information when you convert from QM to Boyle's Law, or F=ma, or whatever. That's what abstraction is all about: we can afford to lose a lot of information if it doesn't affect anything that we care about (such as the 30th significant digit of the length of my room), in exchange for a greatly reduced computational cost.

I think there is some ultimate truth "out there" that answers what it means for something to be caused (e.g., M to cause EP, or P to cause EM), but as we coarse grain away from those ultimate truths to the world of science, we aren't able to address those issues scientifically.

Again, note that my worldview does not require this "ultimate truth" (or any other ultimate truth, for that matter).

Don't you consider cognitive psychology as a science?

Absolutely:

It accepts the use of the scientific method, and generally rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation, unlike phenomenological methods such as Freudian psychology.

I also think that you hit the nail right on the head with your next sentence:

We can do experiments under the guise of beliefs, desires, and motivations as existing.

So, CogPsych is agnostic with respect to the nature of beliefs, desires, etc. It treats them as abstractions. Under your worldview, these abstractions are "powered" by dualistic mental entities; under my view, they're powered by neurobiology. I claim that my view is easier to swallow than yours, because, as you put it:

What we cannot necessarily do is find psychophysical laws that correlate each and every mental state to some physical state. That doesn't make cognitive psychology as "unscientific," it just means that it is not necessarily fully reducible as an exact science to cognitive neuroscience

Under my worldvew, CogPsych is absolutely reducible to neuroscience -- at least, in principle (since our current understanding of neurobiology is still far from perfect).

In fact, I don't think it makes sense to call a discipline "scientific" if it's not reducible to science. I guess we can make a distinction between "an exact science" (physics, chemistry, biology, CogPsych under my view) and "an inexact science" (Freudian psychology, CogPsych under your view), but I don't see the point. Whenever I use the word "science", I always mean "exact science" (unless otherwise specified, heh); it's easier that way. After all, science is all about being as exact and objective as possible.

Another problem with your view include it's anti-intuitive nature (e.g., we ran away from a rock rolling down a hill because we believed it would smash us, we are typing our responses to each other because we believe that we or someone out there might listen to "reason," ).

Firstly, I'd like to point out that we run away from the rock because of a lower-level fight-or-flight instinct... If we stopped to think and reason in front of each rock, we'd be flattened in no time :-) That's offtopic, though.

Secondly, I'm not sure what's so anti-intuitive about my view. Remember, human beings possess the capactity to reason, and to believe things etc., under both our worldviews. We just disagree on how that capacity is implemented: through squishy wet computeresque thingys called "brains", or through dualistic mental properties.

Still another problem, as I alluded to last time, is that evolution tends to select attributes that have some kind of function

This is, strictly speaking, not true. Evolution selects attributes that help the organisms survive and reproduce, regardless of their function. For example, weak-walled red blood cells that can collapse when infected are highly beneficial in an area with rampant malaria, but, in the absence of malaria, their side-effects (sickle-cell anemia) far outweigh the benefits.

but if the mental is not causally effacious, then why would evolution bother to select for mental properties? For these reasons, a non-interactionist causal account of the physical and mental must be rejected.

As I keep saying, our capacity to build models of the world (which is not powered by any mental propeties, since, according to my worldview, they don't even exist) has a tremendous evolutionary advantage. We are able to reason out "hey, this rock will squish me if I push it" without actually pushing the rock; and we can potentially adapt to any new situation, and disseminate the adaptive behaviours through the entire community within a single generation. We can make shotguns. Shotguns beat other evolutionary advantages, such as sharp claws, any time.

Thus, any biological equipment that allows us to engage in thought -- bigger brains, better DSP in the eyes, etc. -- would have a high chance of getting selected.

The most important reason is the intuitive experience we all have of there being a causal interaction between the mental and physical. Of course, it may only be an illusion, but before we discount this overwhelming primary experience that we have of the world (i.e., far more primary than anything than science has produced), we ought to at least consider the possibility of interactionism.

Ok, I've considered it, and it seems to be a Mystery. Thus, I'm forced to reject it, just as I reject many other intuitively obvious things, such as the flat earth model.

we also learn and develop commonsense knowledge of the world by causally interfacing with the world which would not be possible if the mental properties were not causally interacting with the world.

No, it's still possible that by interacting with the world, we change the state of our (completely physical) brains, thus building up a set of responses and associations (i.e., learning) that are beneficial to our daily lives.

There's reasons from a mathematical side (remember your mathematician friends?).

Well, ok, there's also reason to suggest it from the religious side -- remember your pastor ? But I hope you see how this is just an unjustified appeal to authority :-)

So, there's just overwhelming reasons to believe that the world operates according to certain laws

Agreed.

and those laws are platonic and affect how we should think about causation in general, and mental causation in particular.

Again, I disagree. During the course of this entire debate, I've been trying to present a purely physical picture of the world. I think that this worldview is simpler and more parsimonious than dualism, and that it still supports all of our daily experiences, as well as the efficacy of science; thus, there's no reason to accept dualism at all.

Basically, I just don't think that the jump from "the world operates according to laws" to "these laws must be non-physical, unlike everything else that we encounter daily" is justified.

What is a belief? How is a belief that if I vote I might get another guy elected a useful abstraction? What is it a useful abstraction of...?

A belief is a description of the way your behavior would change when you face certain stimuli; the mechanism for the belief is neurobiology. The belief that if you vote you might get another guy elected a useful abstraction because we were able to summarize these behavioral and biological details in just one sentence.

See, here it seems like you switch gears and you start talking in terms of P&M causing E. That is, M has a function in addition to P. Afterall, you need P to have thoughts, but you also need M to get somewhere in our thought processes.

I deny that "you also need M to get somewhere in our thought processes". In fact, I've denied it many times before on this thread... right ?

As I see it, concepts such as "beliefs", "minds", "feelings", etc., are just optimizations that allow us to have meaningful conversations, given our limited brains. If we had superconducting faster-than-light-speed star-brains, we could do away with many of these abstractions, and still have meaningful conversations.

I'll read the Kauffman link sometime later; I'm already behind on my sleep schedule :-(

Again, can you provide a simple mechanism for how this metamorphosis occurs, or a reasonably objective method for discovering such a mechanism -- or is it a Mystery ?

"Mystery" here is a different notion that what I consider the Mystery of a mystic. Mystery here means an analytical detail that is just unknown, but it assumes there is something there for future philosophers and scientists to understand more thoroughly.

Fair enough.

For example, perhaps a science of complexity can give us more information as to how the physical and mental can interact without being ontologically reducible to each other.

Er... how would it do that, exactly ? Isn't a science of complexity just information theory, a branch of math ?

This is the Mystery that I think you hinted at by calling causality a model. If it is a model, then in fact there is no real causes (in principle).

Quite the opposite. Every model is modeling something, right ? Yes, under my worldview, we can't be 100% sure that our model of causality is accurate, but I think that 99.9999999999% is just as good.

In fact, by placing causality in the same category as all our other models, I'm making it less Mysterious, because we know quite well how to deal with our models, and there's nothing inherently mysterious about them.

[harvey1]

Let's go back to my original statement: according to my non-epiphenomenalistic worldview, there exists a real world, and it operates by some rules. We humans make models of these rules in order to discuss and understand the real world; these models are not 100% accurate (and in fact, many of them are closer to 0% accurate, such as ID), but they serve us most of the time. We have a process called "science" that allows us to test the behavior of our model against the real world, and adjust the model according to the results. I think we both see Newton's Laws, QM, etc. as being examples of these models. However, I also include causality in the same category, whereas you claim special status for it... Every model is modeling something, right ? Yes, under my worldview, we can't be 100% sure that our model of causality is accurate, but I think that 99.9999999999% is just as good. In fact, by placing causality in the same category as all our other models, I'm making it less Mysterious, because we know quite well how to deal with our models, and there's nothing inherently mysterious about them.

Let's separate efficient causation from final causation. I agree, efficient causes are "models" in how an effect came about. We can't be fully certain that those models are correct, but they make the world less mysterious as you have argued here. However, in terms of a final cause, are you arguing that there are no final causes? If so, then this would seem to make you a mystic. If there are no final causes then the effects we see in the world is outside rationality, and therefore a Mystery.

If you agree that there are final causes, then you agree that there is a principle of causation operating in the universe, and this principle is either reducible to a material cause or it is not. We can talk in general terms of final causes without knowing what they ultimately are. Obviously I think the final causes are not bred from materialist conceptions, whereas I suppose you do.

...I claim that this "sense of self" is not "contained as part of our mental properties", but is actually part of those "physical properties of 'us' that controls our actions"... scientific laws as we understand them are just models in our heads. There's no direct causal relationship between them and the real world; i.e., instead of the real world affecting these models directly, it's us modifying the models according to what we see in reality. In other words, the Mystery factor that ensures that our models more-or-less correspond to reality is just the scientific method, which is actually fairly well documented (this answers your later argument, where you say that I have no explanation "...as to how it is that the mental can construct a fairly accurate representation of the world without the mental being causally connected to the world").... I deny that "you also need M to get somewhere in our thought processes". As I see it, concepts such as "beliefs", "minds", "feelings", etc., are just optimizations that allow us to have meaningful conversations, given our limited brains. If we had superconducting faster-than-light-speed star-brains, we could do away with many of these abstractions, and still have meaningful conversations.

I'd like to point out this phrase here, "it's us modifying the models according to what we see in reality." How is this consistent with the first line of this quote, "I claim that this 'sense of self' is.. those "physical properties of 'us' that controls our actions"? It would seem that your position is that the physical properties modify the scientific models according to what the physical properties see in reality. Yet, how does it do that since the "self" has no causal role in this? Why would these physical properties be causally interacting with scientific ideas and not those things that it is programmed by genetics to be doing (i.e., the 4Fs)? I can understand animal instinct being explained this way, but how do you explain non-4F behavior?

Evolution selects attributes that help the organisms survive and reproduce, regardless of their function... our capacity to build models of the world (which is not powered by any mental propeties, since, according to my worldview, they don't even exist) has a tremendous evolutionary advantage. We are able to reason out "hey, this rock will squish me if I push it" without actually pushing the rock; and we can potentially adapt to any new situation, and disseminate the adaptive behaviours through the entire community within a single generation. We can make shotguns. Shotguns beat other evolutionary advantages, such as sharp claws, any time. Thus, any biological equipment that allows us to engage in thought --bigger brains, better DSP in the eyes, etc. -- would have a high chance of getting selected... it's still possible that by interacting with the world, we change the state of our (completely physical) brains, thus building up a set of responses and associations (i.e., learning) that are beneficial to our daily lives...

Again, notice this phrase, "We are able to reason out...." How is it possible for the self to reason when it doesn't exist according to you? Evolution can't select mental "attributes that help the organisms survive and reproduce" (which I call functions) since these functions have no causal role according to you. What exists according to you are physical attributes that bring about effects, and those physical attributes are sophisticated attributes occuring inside the brain that allows sophisticated behavior. It is the behavior that is selected by evolution since that behavior brings results that "help the organisms [to] survive and reproduce." So, if it is solely a physically caused behavior that is selected, then why select for mental functions that have no causal role in this process? Do mental functions have a causal role or do they not?

Under my worldvew, CogPsych is absolutely reducible to neuroscience -- at least, in principle (since our current understanding of neurobiology is still far from perfect). In fact, I don't think it makes sense to call a discipline "scientific" if it's not reducible to science. I guess we can make a distinction between "an exact science" (physics, chemistry, biology, CogPsych under my view) and "an inexact science" (Freudian psychology, CogPsych under your view), but I don't see the point. Whenever I use the word "science", I always mean "exact science" (unless otherwise specified, heh); it's easier that way. After all, science is all about being as exact and objective as possible...

You can't fully reduce the sciences to fundamental physics. Btw, this confuses me because you said you accept emergent behavior, and this behavior is distinguished from resultant behavior in that emergent behavior displays irreducible attributes, at least in terms of their practical explanation from one emergent theory to its subvenient theory.

[QED]

On a positive side, there's reasons to suggest platonism from scientific perspectives (remember the Davies' quote?). There's reasons from a mathematical side (remember your mathematician friends?). There's reasons from philosophical stance (afterall, Armstrong, Tooley, and Dretske each independently put forward a platonic argument for causal laws to solve the problem of causation -- all atheists by the way).

Can you please remind me of the Davies' quote you're referring to here. Also I'd like to know more about the philosophers you mention. Are you speaking of D. M. Armstrong, Professor of Philosophy at the Sydney University (author of the book A Materialist Theory Of the Mind)?

[harvey1]

Can you please remind me of the Davies' quote you're referring to here.

It seems that almost all physicists who work on fundamental problems accept that the laws of physics have some kind of independent reality. With that view, it is possible to argue that the laws of physics are logically prior to the universe they describe. That is, the laws of physics stand at the base of a rational explanatory chain, in the same way that the axioms of Euclid stand at the base of the logical scheme we call geometry. Of course one cannot prove that the laws of physics have to be the starting point of an explanatory scheme, but any attempt to explain the world rationally has to have some starting point, and for most scientists the laws of physics seem a very satisfactory one. In the same way, one need not accept Euclid's axioms as the starting point of geometry; a set of theorems like Pythagoras's would do equally well. But the purpose of science (and mathematics) is to explain the world in as simple and economical a fashion as possible, and Euclid's axioms and the laws of physics are attempts to do just that. (Paul Davies, When Time Began, New Scientist, October 9, 2004)

Also I'd like to know more about the philosophers you mention. Are you speaking of D. M. Armstrong, Professor of Philosophy at the Sydney University?

Yes. David Armstrong is one of the most outspoken materialists of our time. Ironically, he's not a materialist when it comes to the laws of nature.

For a brief discussion of their ideas, you can read it here.

[Bugmaster]

Firstly, a word on external links... it's unfortunate, but I simply don't have enough time to read through all of them. So, if you provide a link to something cool, please summarize the content or something. Otherwise, it might take me a long time to get back to you regarding it :-(

Back to the topic:

Let's separate efficient causation from final causation. I agree, efficient causes are "models" in how an effect came about. We can't be fully certain that those models are correct, but they make the world less mysterious as you have argued here. However, in terms of a final cause, are you arguing that there are no final causes?

I am not up on the philosophical terminology, but I think what you mean is, "but what about the Prime Mover, the one who started the whole causal chain that led to our existence (among other things) ?". I have a couple responses to that, in a convenient bullet-point format:

* If the concept of causality is just a model (as I claim it is), then there's a small chance it might be wrong; therefore, there's a small chance that the Prime Mover is a null concept. This is very unlikely, though.

* Some people believe that, due to quantum effects, our Universe is in fact non-deterministic. I personally don't think it matters for large objects, such as planets and people, but it bears mentioning.

* The scientific consensus seems to be that the laws of physics as we know them (along with space and time itself) were formed at the moment of the Big Bang, or shortly thereafter. This would imply that causality was also formed at that time, and it makes no sense to apply it to the Prime Mover.

* The process of universe formation is very poorly understood by modern scientists; I personally don't understand it at all. However, it's still quite possible that this process is ultimately knowable, which means that one day we might know what it is (and thus it is not a Mystery).

* Note that, if our goal is to understand how our world works, then we don't necessarily need to investigate the Prime Mover, since he/she/it/whatever is not part of our world. Thus, science works regardless of whether we know how the Prime Mover works or not. Gaining more info on the Prime Mover is a nice bonus, though.

* If we assume that the Prime Mover does exist, and that it is knowable, there's still no reason to suppose that this Prime Mover supports the existence of your mental properties. Remember, the Prime Mover exists outside of our world (by necessity), whereas your mental properties eixst within it, sort of.

* And there's certainly no reason to ascribe any kind of personality to the Prime Mover, but that's another thread topic.

In summary: the argument from ignorance does not adequately justify the belief in dualism.

I'd like to point out this phrase here, "it's us modifying the models according to what we see in reality." How is this consistent with the first line of this quote, "I claim that this 'sense of self' is.. those "physical properties of 'us' that controls our actions"? It would seem that your position is that the physical properties modify the scientific models according to what the physical properties see in reality. Yet, how does it do that since the "self" has no causal role in this?

I never claimed that the "self" had no causal role in anything. On the contrary, I believe that this "self" is quite important; at least as important as the virtual memory manager is important to a modern OS. However, unlike you, I believe that the "self" is a purely physical construct. In the end, our emotions, feelings, perceptions, and beliefs, and such, are just permutations of purely physical synapses.

When I say, "I performed an experiment and was forced to reject my flat-earth hypothesis", what I'm describing is a long chain of neurochemical interactions that ultimately flipped a bunch of synaptic connections in my brain. By analogy, when you say, "notepad.exe saved my text to a file on disk", you're really describing a long chain of electromagnetic interactions that ultimately flipped some magnetic domains on your hard drive. In both cases, there are no dualistic entities involved.

Note, again, that I never claimed that this complex system known as "the self" does not exist; I merely claim that it's powered by chemistry, and not by ghosts. So, when you ask...

Do mental functions have a causal role or do they not?

...what I hear is, "do chemical changes in our brain have a causal role or not ?" Well, yeah, they do, but that doesn't answer your question, since what you meant was...

do immaterial entities that power our personalities have a causal role or not ?

...and that's a question that has no boolean answer, because I don't believe these immaterial entities exist at all.

Again, I believe that these "mental functions" -- the ones that allow us to predict what will happen when we push that big unstable rock -- are in fact nothing more than a bunch of fancy chemistry. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that they'd be selected for during the process of evolution (since they're so advantageous).

You can't fully reduce the sciences to fundamental physics.

Why not ? Which exact sciences (as per my last post) cannot be reduced to fundamental physics ?

Btw, this confuses me because you said you accept emergent behavior, and this behavior is distinguished from resultant behavior in that emergent behavior displays irreducible attributes...

Ah, sorry, I guess this was a terminology confusion. While I do believe that a system may potentially have a much greater range of behaviors than its component parts, I would deny that these behaviors would be irreducible to the behaviors of the parts and their interactions. Thus, it would seem that I reject emergent behavior after all; at least, I reject the concept as you have defined it.

In other words, if we take a bunch of spare parts -- gears, axles, chains, bearings, etc. -- and spread them on the floor, then their behaviors would not be terribly interesting. However, if we assemble these parts into a bicycle, we will suddenly get a whole bunch of new behaviors (acceleration, balance, and such). However, we can look at the resulting bicycle, and reduce all of its behaviors to the behaviors of the parts, and the interactions between them ("the drive gear moves the chain which moves the ratio gear" etc.). That's the only kind of "emergent behavior" that I believe in, and I realize that the term probably does not apply. Sorry about that.

[harvey1]

I never claimed that the "self" had no causal role in anything... what I'm describing is a long chain of neurochemical interactions that ultimately flipped a bunch of synaptic connections in my brain... I never claimed that this complex system known as "the self" does not exist... So, when you ask...,"Do mental functions have a causal role or do they not?"...what I hear is, "do chemical changes in our brain have a causal role or not ?" Well, yeah, they do... I believe that these "mental functions"..are in fact nothing more than a bunch of fancy chemistry. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that they'd be selected for during the process of evolution (since they're so advantageous).

Okay, let's summarize the properties of the self as I understand your post:

1. The "self" is nothing more than fancy chemistry (let's call this fancy chemistry SP)
2. SP exists as some kind of collective entity that was originally selected for by natural selection
3. SP0 has a causal affect on the chemistry of the brain that determines the next SP states (e.g., SP1, SP2, SP3 states--and hence effects on the world at large)
4. SP can be reduced further in terms of molecular and quantum particle constituents (let's call these physical constituents as PS)
5. PS exists as some kind of collective entity that was originally selected for by natural selection
6. PS0 has a causal affect on the chemistry of the brain that determines the next PS states (e.g., PS1, PS2, PS3 states--and hence effects on the world at large)

Now, my question is why do you need SP since you have PS that is a better approximation as to the causal effects attributed to SP? In addition, in what way could SP0 be causally responsible for the next SP states (e.g., SP1, SP2, SP3) since these states are just an effect of the PS0, PS1, PS2, PS3, etc., states? How can PS0, PS1, PS2, PS3, etc., states causally interact with scientific ideas if those ideas themselves aren't PS0, PS1, PS2, PS3, etc., states?

In addition, it seems that natural selection wouldn't be selecting for SP since it is really selecting for behaviors, and those behaviors are ultimately determined by PS states. Since SP is reducible, how could natural selection pay the least bit of attention to this particular trait as a pseudo-causal entity?

As for the other topics, there was a little confusion on what I meant by final cause and emergence, so is it okay if we focus on the above for now? Otherwise these posts have a way of getting out of hand. I'm sure we'll be getting back to those issues as they become more critical.

[Bugmaster]

Okay, let's summarize the properties of the self as I understand your post... Now, my question is why do you need SP since you have PS that is a better approximation as to the causal effects attributed to SP?

I don't. In fact, I believe that Sp and Ps are identical; Sp == Ps. I further believe that Sp is identical to the "brain chemistry" you mention; thus, Sp == Ps == brain_chemistry. That's what I've been trying to say all this time...