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Emergence and Consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2013

Patrick Lewtas
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Abstract

Most definitions of radical emergentism characterize it epistemologically. This leads to misunderstandings and makes it hard to assess the doctrine's metaphysical worth. This paper puts forward purely metaphysical characterizations of emergentism and property emergence. It explores the nature of the necessitation relation between base and emergent and argues that emergentism entails a Humean account of causation and related relations. Then it presents arguments against emergentism, both as a wider metaphysic and as an account of consciousness. These maintain that emergentism makes implausible claims about how the world works. The paper also stresses the doctrine's contemporary relevance: most current property dualists endorse views effectively identical to classical emergentism less its historical commitment to novel emergent forces.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 88 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 527 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2013 

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References

1 Consciousness could exist as a non-basic property of non-basic physical objects but be built from basic non-physical properties instead of basic physical properties. In this case we have neutral monism or proto-phenomenalism.

2 James, W., Principles of Psychology (Mineola: Dover Publications, 1890/1950)Google Scholar; Nagel, T., ‘Panpsychism’, in Mortal Questions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Van Cleve, J., ‘Mind: Dust or Magic? Panpsychism or Emergence?’, Philosophical Perspectives 4 (1990), 215–226CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strawson, G., ‘Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism’ and ‘Panpsychism? Reply to Commentators with a Celebration of Descartes’, in Freeman, A. (ed.), Consciousness and its place in nature (Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, 2006)Google Scholar.

3 This paper ignores a view holding that consciousness exists as a non-basic property of basic physical objects. This view reduces lowest-level properties to higher-level properties. Perhaps no one has ever defended it.

4 Wilson, J. provides an exception (see ‘Causal Powers, Forces, and Superdupervenience’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 63 (2002), 53–78Google Scholar, and ‘Supervenience Based Formulations of Physicalism’, Nous 29 (2005), 426–459)Google Scholar. She considers a property emergent when it bestows a causal power grounded in basic forces other than the four basic physical forces. This paper avoids her formulation for two reasons. First, her definition entails the falsity of epiphenomenalism even though most contemporary emergentists combine emergentism with epiphenomenalism. Second, an emergent property could have causal efficacy without bestowing any active powers, provided physical entities actively responded to it.

5 For a survey of British emergentism, see McLaughlin, B., ‘The Rise and fall of the British emergentists’, in Beckermann, A., Flohr, H. & Kim, J. (eds), Emergence or Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism (New York: de Gruyter, 1992)Google Scholar.

6 See, for example, A. Beckermann, ‘Introduction’ and ‘Supervenience, Emergence, and Reduction’, in Beckermann et al., op. cit. note 5; Broad, C. D., Mind and its Place in Nature (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1925)Google Scholar, excerpted in Kim, J. & Sosa, E. (eds), Metaphysics (Malden: Blackwell, 1999)Google Scholar; Chalmers, D., ‘Strong and Weak Emergence’, in Clayton, P. & Davies, P. (eds), The Re-emergence of Emergence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Crane, T., ‘The Significance of Emergence’, in Gillett, C. & Loewer, B. (eds), Physicalism and its Discontents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Hasker, W., The Emergent Self (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; J. Kim, ‘Downward Causation in Emergentism and Nonreductive Physicalism’, in Beckermann et al., op. cit. note 5, ‘Making Sense of Emergence’, Philosophical Studies 95 (1999), 3–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ‘Being Realistic about Emergence’, in P. Clayton & P Davies, op. cit. this note, ‘Emergence: Core ideas and issues’, Synthese 15 1/3 (2006), 347–354Google Scholar, and Philosophy of Mind, 3rd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 2010)Google Scholar; O'Connor, T., ‘Emergent Properties’, American Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1994), 91–104Google Scholar, and Persons and Causes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; O'Connor, T. & Wong, H., ‘The Metaphysics of Emergence’, Nous 39 (2005), 658–678CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Emergent Properties’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.standford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/, 2006); Shoemaker, S., ‘Kim on Emergence’, Philosophical Studies 108 (2002), 53–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sperry, R., ‘Discussion: Macro- versus Micro- Determinism’, Philosophy of Science 53 (1986), 265–270CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Teller, ‘A Contemporary Look at Emergence’, in Beckermann et al., op. cit. note 5; J. Van Cleve, op. cit. note 2; R. Van Gulick, ‘Nonreductive Physicalism and the nature of Intertheoretical Constraint’, in Beckermann et al., op. cit. note 5, and ‘Reduction, emergence, and other recent options on the mind-body problem: a philosophic overview’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (2001), 1–34Google Scholar; as well as the British emergentists (Alexander, Bain, Mill and Morgan, in addition to Broad) surveyed in B. McLaughlin, op. cit. note 5. M. Bedau & P. Humphreys illustrate the point: ‘Emergent phenomena frequently are taken to be irreducible, to be unpredictable or unexplainable, to require novel concepts…’ (‘Introduction to Philosophical Perspectives on Emergence’, in Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008))Google Scholar.

7 The paper adapts these terms from the British emergentists, who contrasted resultants with emergents. Emergents stand over and above their subvenient bases. Resultants don't.

8 This paper includes realization as a results-from/results-in relation – despite claims for the irreducibility of multiply realizable properties and the autonomy of the special sciences – because any given instance/token of a realized entity is nothing other than the instance(s)/token(s) of its realizing entity(ies). For this reason the paper speaks of realization as involving token identity. Even if this risks distorting role-realization theories, it nevertheless captures important connections, and in any case any inaccuracies that result don't undermine the arguments made here.

9 We can imagine emergentisms built around object dualism or even object pluralism. The key point still holds. Such emergentisms allow properties of basic type B to emerge from and then characterize objects of basic type A (where instances/tokens of entities of basic type B don't result from instances/tokens of entities of basic type A).

10 For general background on emergence and supervenience, see B. McLaughlin, ‘Emergence and Supervenience’, in Bedau & Humphreys, op. cit. note 6.

11 (2006), op. cit. note 6, 2–3.

12 Given that C is a property and not a substance, its creation doesn't violate the law of conservation of mass-energy. At least not straightforwardly.

13 (1992), (1999), ‘Being Realistic about Emergence’, and (2010), all op. cit. note 6.

14 See note 8.

15 Op. cit. note 6.

16 Op. cit. note 6.

17 Mill, J. S., System of Logic (London: Longmans, 1843)Google Scholar.

18 Bain, A., Logic (London: Longmans, 1870)Google Scholar.

19 Op. cit. note 6, 496.

20 O'Connor (1994, 2000) and O'Connor & Wong (2005, 2006) make this point and O'Connor & Wong (2006) criticizes Shoemaker for neglecting it. In all cases op. cit. note 6.

21 It remains a little unclear whether Hume advanced the epistemological thesis that we can't know necessary connections even if they exist. Or whether instead he advanced the more radical metaphysical thesis that necessary connections can't and therefore don't exist. When this paper refers to Humeans, it has in mind those of Hume's contemporary followers who hold that, as a metaphysical matter, causation consists only of formal relations like constant conjunction, counterfactual dependence or conditions necessary and sufficient.

22 Op. cit. note 2, 185.

23 Op. cit. note 2, 186–187. Note how Nagel mixes epistemology and metaphysics. He identifies lack of explainability as the hallmark of ontological as opposed to mere epistemic emergence.

24 Op. cit. note 2, 218.

25 Ibid. Note how Van Cleve mixes epistemology and metaphysics. He supports the claim that contingent regularities suffice for causal connections (metaphysics) by arguing that lawfully necessary bridge principles suffice for explanation (epistemology).

26 (2005), op. cit. note 4.

27 Holism rests on (some) physicists' working assumption of supersymmetry. This expresses the belief (or wish) that all physical forces unify at high energies – in which case these apparently distinct forces represent distinct facets of a single underlying force (see Wilson (2005), op. cit. note 4, 446). If physical supersymmetry holds, Wilson argues, then any emergent forces will likely manifest this same underlying force. (This possibility in fact threatens emergentism. If emergent forces unify with physical forces, then the emergent can't stand over and above the physical. It must result from the physical.) Supersymmetry has lately taken some hard knocks (see Castelvecchi, D., ‘Is Supersymmetry Dead?’, Scientific American 306 (2012), 16–18CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed).

28 Stoljar, D. (Physicalism, New York: Routledge, 2010, ch. 8)Google Scholar also understands property emergence in terms of metaphysical rather than lawful necessitation (he thus uses the label ‘necessitation dualism’). He bases this on his belief – mistaken, in this author's view – that property emergence involves a relation of brute necessitation. Two remarks are apt. (1) Emergentists could endorse brute necessitation, but nothing about their doctrine forces the move. (2) In any case, this paper's arguments about the significance of Wilson's claims apply equally to Stoljar's.

29 Humeans will see necessary connections where higher-level entities constitutively and synchronically supervene on lower-level entities. Thus physicalist Humeans will insist that low-level physical properties necessitate special science properties.

30 Which shouldn't raise eyebrows. Physics tells us that virtual particles arise from pre-existing mass-energy (the vacuum energy) pursuant to pre-existing forces and natures as described by pre-existing quantum laws.

31 Dawkins, R., The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976)Google Scholar.

32 Victor Caston (personal communication) pointed out the relevance of the principle of sufficient reason.

33 See, for example, Smart, J.J.C., ‘Sensations and Brain Processes’, Philosophical Review 68 (1959), 141–156CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Bennett, J., A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2006)Google Scholar. The point needn't run afoul of the irreducibility or autonomy of the special sciences. Recast it as the claim that every token instance of a higher-level law results from basic physical events obeying basic laws of the standard form.

34 See Hill, C., Sensations: A Defense of Type Materialism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 For a good discussion about grounding metaphysical views on coincidence, see Leslie, J., Universes (London: Routledge, 1989)Google Scholar.

36 Nor should it matter that the next paragraphs aren't informed by deep knowledge of neuroscience.

37 See Andrews, T., Halpern, S. & Purves, D., ‘Correlated Size Variations in Human Visual Cortex, Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, and Optic Tract’, The Journal of Neuroscience 17(8) (1997), 2859–2868CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

38 See Kandell, E., Schwartz, J. & Jessel, T., Principles of Neural Science, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), 22Google Scholar.

39 Ibid.

40 Op. cit. note 33, 136.

41 Strawson, G., Mental Reality (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), 72Google Scholar.

42 McGinn, C., ‘Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?’, Mind 98 (1989), 531Google Scholar.

43 Op. cit. note 5.

44 Horgan, T., ‘From Supervenience to Superdupervenience: Meeting the Demands of a Material World’, Mind 102 (1993), 555–586CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 See D. Papineau, ‘The Rise of Physicalism’, in Gillett & Loewer. op. cit. note 6.

46 (2002), (2005), both op. cit. note 4.

47 (2005), 431, op. cit. note 4.

48 ‘Being Realistic about Emergence’, op. cit. note 6.

49 (2005), 431, op. cit. note 4.

50 Ibid, 433.

51 See J. Kim, (1999), ‘Emergence: Core ideas and issues’, and (2010), all op. cit. note 6.

52 See Crane, Shoemaker, and O'Connor & Wong 2006, all op. cit. note 6.

53 See especially C. L. Morgan's doctrine of emergent evolution, according to which ontological novelties arise through time as evolution, biological and otherwise, leads to increasingly complex physical structures giving rise to new categories of increasingly complex emergents (Emergent Evolution (London: Williams & Norgate, 1923))Google Scholar.

54 See McLaughlin (1992), op. cit. note 5.

55 Some philosophers maintain that quantum phenomena themselves involve property emergence. See, for example, P. Humphreys, ‘How Properties Emerge’, in Bedau & Humphreys, op. cit. note 6, 111–126, and Ladyman, J., Ross, D., Spurrett, D. & Collier, J., Metaphysics Naturalized: Everything must go (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, although the latter would resist this characterization of their views. This author judges otherwise, for reasons beyond the scope of this paper.

56 Bedau & Humphreys, op. cit., note 6, 12, note that most contemporary thinkers have a ‘sparse’ view of emergence: if it occurs at all, it occurs only with unusual types of phenomena not amenable to scientific study.

57 See P. Davies, ‘Preface’, in Clayton & Davies, and J. Kim, ‘Being Realistic about Emergence', both op. cit. note 6.

58 Levine, J., Purple Haze: the puzzle of consciousness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Jackson, F., ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’, Philosphical Quarterly 32 (1982), 127–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Kim, J., Physicalism or Something Near Enough (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

61 Chalmers, D., The Conscious Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar. Chalmers also flirts with proto-phenomenalism, neutral monism and panpsychism, as well as theories equating consciousness with the categorical underpinnings of physical causation.

62 Chalmers generally withholds consciousness from the bottom-most level (e.g., ibid, 295). In a few places he does toy with bottom-level consciousness (e.g., ibid, 293–301).

63 Ibid, 275.

64 A few stalwarts, such as Sperry, op. cit. note 6, still defend property emergence in other special sciences.

65 The author wishes to thank Glenn Hartz for stressing the importance of doing metaphysics metaphysically, and Nadiya Slobodenyuk for help with matters neuroscientific.