Monday 11 September 2017

Against Philip Goff's (Panpsychist) “Phenomenal Bonding” (1)



i) Introduction
ii) Little Minds (or Little Subjects)
iii) Phenomenal Bonding
iv) Four Little Matchsticks and Four Little Minds
v) A More Technical Argument

What is usually called the combination problem is said to be the most important problem facing (at least most versions of) panpsychism. This problem raises the question as to how (to use Philip Goff’s words) “little subjects” can come together in order to constitute, create or compose the mind (or consciousness) of a “larger” human subject.

In Philip Goff’s own particular case, the combination problem is solved by what he calls “phenomenal bonding”. Or, if not exactly solved, then such phenomenal bonding is simply a possible example of combination. Thus Goff attempts to explain how such bonding may actually work or come about.

Little Minds (or Little Subjects)?

In his paper, ‘The Phenomenal Bonding Solution to the Combination Problem’, the contemporary English philosopher Philip Goff states that

“[i]t is natural to suppose that my mind, the subject of my consciousness, is not a microscopic entity”.

It can be assumed here that Philip Goff must also believe that a rejection of a microscopic mind is some kind of intuitive take by laypersons on their own minds. Yet most people don’t believe that their minds are either microscopic or macroscopic entities. I say that because Goff himself has a problem with the fact that some philosophers take intuitions seriously. This must also surely mean that Goff doesn’t care too much about what it’s “natural to suppose”. So when Goff continues by saying that his

“mind is a macroscopic entity which derives its nature from the microscopic entities which compose it”.

that may also be problematic.

Thinking that the mind is a whole (or a single entity) isn’t the same as thinking that it’s macroscopic… or microscopic for that matter. If Goff were talking about the brain and its parts, then there’d be no problem. However, he’s talking about the mind or consciousness. After all, the little minds (or his “little subjects”) of the brain are supposed to make up a Big Mind (or Big Subject) in this version of panpsychism. Thus Goff is arguing that every physical entity — all the way down — also has phenomenal (or experiential) properties. Or, as Goff himself puts it, the Big Mind (or Big Subject) is

“ultimately [constituted by] the entities that fundamental physics talks about, which the panpsychist takes to be conscious subjects”.

So this isn’t about small non-phenomenal brain-parts (as it were) ganging up together to create a phenomenal Big Mind (or Big Subject). It’s about small physical and phenomenal brain-parts doing so. More scientifically (or not!), this is about the possibility that

“little subjects, such as electrons and quarks, come together to produce big conscious subjects, such as human brains”.

It’s certainly true that “little” atoms, electrons, quarks, etc. (or little bits of the brain) “come together” together to constitute a big brain. However, do “little subjects” come together to produce “big conscious subjects”? Goff himself says that it’s “hard to make sense of this kind of combination”.

Phenomenal Bonding

Philip Goff uses the term phenomenal bonding to account for all the above. It’s defined in very simple terms when he states the following:

“If we identify the phenomenal bonding relation with the spatial relation it follows that, for any group of material objects, the members of that group, being spatially related, determine a conscious subject.”

Put simply, if all these little minds (or little subjects) are part of the same brain (therefore they’re all “spatially related”), then it may make some sense to argue that they can (not in Goff’s own words) “sum together” to form a Big Mind (or Big Subject).

Goff goes further than that when he continues:

“Particles form a conscious subject when and only when they form organisms (or a subset of organisms, or the brains/central nervous systems of organisms…).”

Despite that, spatial relatedness can’t be enough. After all, this cup I’m holding is spatially related to my arm. Does my arm and that cup make up a single object? In the case of the brain (as well as central nervous system), however, things are different. For one, my arm isn’t always attached to the cup; whereas little minds (or little subjects) may always be part of the same package — i.e., the brain and also, perhaps, the central nervous system. However, spatial relatedness — even in the very same package — doesn’t show us how little minds (or little subjects) sum together to form (or constitute) a Big Mind (or Big Subject). We need to know how such little minds (or little subjects) “bond” together and how that resultant sum can constitute a Big Mind (or Big Subject).

Goff, of course, recognises this problem. He writes:

“The nature of organisms and car engines are accounted for in terms of their parts, but those parts constitute the organism/engine only when related in the right way. The same is surely true of the explicability of subjects in terms of other subjects.”

At first glance, the relatedness of small minds must be — at least partly — a scientific (or neuroscientific) issue. That is, little minds are related to each other within the brain and central nervous system because they are (among other things) “spatially connected” . After all, it’s neural networks, neurons, microtubules, molecules, biochemicals, atoms, electrons, quarks, etc. which are said to have “phenomenal properties” — and all these are scientifically legitimate entities. The claim that such entities also “have” or instantiate phenomenal properties, on the other hand, isn’t scientifically legitimate. Yet these phenomenal properties are supposed to be embedded in the neural networks, neurons, microtubules, molecules, biochemicals, atoms, electrons, quarks, etc. which are indeed scientific entities. Thus it’s clear that these entities are indeed physically related. (If sometimes in peculiar ways; at least according to those who emphasise the quantum-mechanical aspects of the brain.) Yet surely that alone isn’t enough to sustain the panpsychist argument here.

Four Little Matchsticks and Four Little Subjects

It’s certainly true that Goff is well aware of the problems which phenomenal combinatorialism faces. He states these problems in various places. For example, Goff writes:

“Small objects with certain shapes, e.g. Lego bricks, can constitute a larger object with a different shape, e.g. a Lego tower. But it is difficult to see how, say, seven subjects of experience, each of which has a visual experience as of seeing one of the colours of the spectrum, could constitute a distinct subject of experience having a visual experience as of seeing white.”

Thus four matchsticks put in random places — even if close together — won’t constitute a square shape. However, they can be arranged to make a square shape. Nonetheless, the square shape will be entirely the product of the four matchsticks. Thus there’s no strong emergence here.

Philip Goff himself doesn’t actually use the words “strong emergence” and “weak emergence” in his paper. However, that distinction is at the heart of at least some sections of it.

The basic question is whether or not a Big Mind (or Big Subject) is more than the mere sum of “its” (that word implies weak emergence only) little minds (or little subjects). That is, does something additional happen when little minds (or little subjects) are added (or “summed”) together to “constitute” (that word, again, implies weak emergence only) a Big Mind (or Big Subject)?

Goff concedes that when it comes to little pockets of experience and Big Minds (or Big Subjects), on the other hand, we have something very different. Again, is it strong emergence?

Goff’s own scenario is about the sum of the little minds’ experiences creating an entirely different experience — that of a Big Mind (or Big Subject). Thus each little mind (or little subject) is like a little matchstick. Taken on its own, each little matchstick can’t constitute a square. Taken with three other little matchsticks, they can together constitute a square. Similarly (or fairly so!) with little pockets of experience. Taken individually they “see” different “colours of the spectrum”. Taken together (at least in theory) they may bring about “a visual experience as of seeing white”. However, and as hinted at above, these examples certainly aren’t of the same kind (i.e., they don’t belong to the same logical space). A matchstick square is nothing over and above the individual four matchsticks which constitute the square. In Goff’s case, we have little minds (or little subjects) experiencing various colours of the spectrum summing together to produce a Big Mind (or Big Subject) which experiences another colour — the colour white. A Big Subject’s experience of white is, therefore, over and above the experiences of all the little minds (or little subjects). It’s an example of strong emergence…. or is it?

There is a spectrum of colour. However, would — or could — it follow from this that because little minds (or little subjects) experience the different colours of the spectrum individually that their sum would bring about a Big Mind (or Big Subject) which experiences the colour white? How on earth would that work — either scientifically/physically or philosophically?

A More Technical Argument

Goff also puts his position in a more technical way by expressing the following argument — which he rejects. Thus:

“[The metaphysical isolation of subjects thesis] implies that there is no state of affairs of the form <subject of experience S1 exists with phenomenal character x, and subject of experience S2 exists with phenomenal character y> which necessitates <subject of experience S3 exists with phenomenal character z>.”

This is a position against cases of “phenomenal bonding” which can be seen to bring about states which are strongly emergent . It rejects any causal or even conceptual relation between different “subjects of experience”. More correctly, S1 and S2 alone don’t — or can’t — “necessitate” S3. Or, at the least, the phenomenal realities of S1 and S2 alone don’t — or can’t — necessitate the phenomenal reality of S3.

Despite that, it can still be said that the different phenomenal reality of S3 can’t be ruled out a priori. At the same time, it seems to lack any empirical or scientific credibility. It is, in fact, a case of pure metaphysical speculation (as Goff himself may admit). In addition, whereas the first position has it that “there is no state of affairs” of S1 and S2 necessitating S3, Goff also argues that this scenario “does not imply that there is not some state of affairs” of S1 and S2 having R to S3. Or in Goff’s own words:

“[MIS] does not imply that there is not some state of affairs of the form <subject of experience S1 with phenomenal character x bears relationship R to subject of experience S2 with phenomenal character y> which necessitates <subject of experience S3 exists with phenomenal character z>.”

This hinges on the (possibly false) move from

S1 (with “phenomenal character x”) and S2 (with “phenomenal character y”) necessitating S3 (with “phenomenal character z”).

to the (possibly correct) move that is:

S1 bearing relationship R to S2 and then, in turn, both S1 and S2, “via” R, necessitating S3.

To sum up:

i) S1 alone doesn’t necessitate S2.
ii) S2 alone doesn’t necessitate S3.
iii) However, S1 standing in relation R to S2 may necessitate S3.

I really don’t know what’s going on here. Prima facie, it’s hard to see why there cannot be a relation of necessitation when both S1 and S2 necessitate S3. Yet, on the other hand, when S1 and S2 are taken together via relation R, then both S1 and S2 can indeed necessitate S3.

Note:

In a seminar entitled ‘Phillip Goff on Non-Compositional Panpsychism’, Goff claims that the “mind is multiply located”. This, at first glance, seems to create a problem for much of what’s been argued above. That said, Goff (in this seminar) doesn’t really provide much detail for this position. And even if there are arguments in its favour, they may not make much of a difference to what has been argued.

Prima facie, if the mind is multiply located and (as Goff also says) “wholly present many times in the brain”, then this seems to create problems for the positions on phenomenal bonding enunciated above. That said, what do Goff’s claims mean? Surely if the mind (i.e., not minds in the plural) is multiply located, then that must surely go against claims about “little subjects” which bond together. It also seems to rule out any (strong) point of “bonding”. If the mind is multiply located (as well as wholly present many times), then there doesn’t seem to be a (strong) requirement for either little subjects or their bonding together.


[I can be found on Twitter here.]

Sunday 27 August 2017

Kant, Implication and Conceptual Containment



On an old reading, the statement

A implies B

is taken to be true (or false) because

B “contains” or “involves” something that is also “in” A.

This is the standard Kantian view of implication (or, later, synonym-based analyticity). However, B can be the consequence of A without it “containing” or “involving” something that's common to A. How, then, would B be a consequence of A? In physical nature, A can cause B without sharing anything with B. Non physically, B can also be deduced from A without sharing anything with A. If all that's so, how does this deduction or implication actually come about?

(All this hints at both “relevance logic” and “material implication”; as well as at the sharing of “propositional parameters”.)

In terms of statemental implication, to imply something means that there's actually something about the statement which somehow contains the implication. That doesn't really explain the relation between the implication and the implied. Can there be causal implication, for instance? In what sense is the implied actually in the implication?

We can also ask what it means to say that “B is contained within A”? Quine accused Kant of speaking at a metaphorical level when talking about “containment”. Thus what non-metaphorical way have we of describing what's at issue here? (If A is simply an inscription or “syntactic form”, then of course it can’t contain B – it can’t really contain anything except itself.)

So A will demand content if it's to imply B. In that case, it all depends on what the symbol A stands for. Is it a concept, sentence, statement or a proposition? All these possibilities have content.

If the symbol A stands for the concept [politician], then what content would it have? Can we say that contained within the concept [politician] are the macro-concepts [human being] and [person]; as well as the micro-concepts [professional] and [Member of Parliament]? However, in a certain sense it's quite arbitrary to categorise certain concepts as micro-concepts and others as macro-concepts because that distinction will depend on the context.

However, we can ask within which context we can categorise [politician] as a micro-concept. There's a simple way to decide what is what. We can ask this question.

Is it necessary for a politician to be a person or a human being?

The answer is no. It's not logically necessary; though what's been said is empirically the case. (A robot, computer or alien could be a politician.)

Is it necessary for a human being or person to be a politician?

The answer is: Of course not! In this simple sense the macro-concepts encompass the micro-concepts. Of course there are yet higher levels of concept. For example, [biped] and [animal]. This would include the concepts [human being] and [person]. And there are yet higher-order concepts than that. For example, [living thing] and [organism]. This could go on until we reach the concepts [object], [thing], [entity], [spatiotemporal slice] and so on.

If A is taken to be a concept, then it may well have a huge amount of implicit and explicit content. It could imply all sorts of things. However, it's a strange thing to take A as simply something standing for a single concept. It's hard to make sense of a concept all on its own (as it were). We need to fill in the dots ourselves.

If A is a sentence, then things become a little clearer and not as broad-ranging. The sentence may of course include concepts; though such concepts - within a sentential framework - will be more finely delineated and circumscribed. Something will be said about the concepts contained and they may be contextualised.

To say that the concept [politician] implies the concepts [human being] and [person] just sounds strange. In a sense, the bare concept [politician] isn't actually saying anything. The idea of containment must be taken less literally in the case of A standing for a concept than when if A stands for statements, sentences, etc.  This parallels, to a small extent, Frege's “context principle”.



Tuesday 22 August 2017

Chalmers and the Evolutionary Point of Consciousness



Word Count: 2299

i) Introduction
ii) Evolution: Why Consciousness?
iii) Consciousness is Good for Us
iv) Frank Jackson's Warm and Heavy Coat
v) Neuroscience on the Point of Consciousness
vi) Evolution and Panpsychism
vii) Conclusion


The following piece doesn't tackle David Chalmers' well-discussed and well-known Hard Problem. That is, it doesn't attempt to find an answer to the question:

Why does the physical brain give rise to consciousness?

Instead, it asks us why we human beings - and other animals - needed consciousness in the first place. Thus we have this question:

From an evolutionary perspective, if the functions of the brain (which Chalmers often refers to) might have occurred “in the dark”, then why did we need (if we did need) - and why do we still need/have - consciousness?

The nature of the physical-consciousness link is only tangential to this issue. 

Evolution: Why Consciousness?

Is it really possible that experience/consciousness is truly gratuitous from an evolutionary – or from any – point of view?

Thus perhaps the obvious answer to David Chalmers' question

Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?”

is that experience (or consciousness) may - or does - contribute to these functions. It adds something.

The most important point against the (possibly) adaptive nature of consciousness (i.e., how it may “increase fitness”) is an idea – often stressed by Chalmers himself - that consciousness doesn't (or may not) add anything to the brain functions which underpin it. In other words, such brain functions may achieve the same advantages for survival even if higher organisms didn't have consciousness. This possibility clearly ties in with Chalmers' fixation on zombies. That is, zombies have the same physical brains and mental functions as conscious human beings. However, they're also “devoid of mentality”.

So does consciousness or experience give us an evolutionary advantage? Or is consciousness/experience simply a redundant byproduct of other things which did indeed give us an advantage? (Steven Jay Gould called this kind of phenomenon a “spandrel” - an unintended byproduct of something else.) Can we even conceive of the possibility that something that's so useful, immediate and particular as consciousness is simply a byproduct of something else?

We can.

Perhaps we shouldn't see the divide between x's being advantageous and x's being disadvantageous in such absolute terms. After all, it's also been said that the brain's big size and weight weren't (really?) conducive to human survival. (More precisely, the human brain is much bigger than all the other brains in the mammalian species.) Nonetheless, a big consciousness and a big set of cognitive skills are also a result of a big and heavy brain.

In addition, if consciousness is an accidental byproduct (evolutionary products, strictly speaking, are also accidental) of other features which were indeed selected for by evolution, then perhaps it can't be an adaptation either. Nonetheless, it may be what's called an “exaptive” phenomenon. Consciousness might have been an exapation  of other things which were indeed selected for by evolution. As just stated, the brain's size and physical nature were selected for by evolution. And one consequence of brain size and its physical/chemical arrangement was consciousness/experience.

Despite all this talk of consciousness being a byproduct of something else (as well as talk of consciousness being pointless - if only in evolutionary terms), we can also take a very different position on all this, as Peter Carruthers does.

It's not surprising that Peter Carruthers (i.e., as a philosopher) should explicitly say that consciousness itself is conducive to survival and it is so in a strictly philosophical sense. Carruthers has argued that consciousness allows us – and other beings – to "distinguish appearance from reality". Now what could be more conducive to survival than that useful philosophical skill?

We can give a quick and easy example of this appearance-reality problem for survival.

Take the case of a very-hungry creature which was able to work out whether or not the water he sees in the distance is a mirage. If this creature hadn't had this evolutionary advantage, then it might have wasted valuable time and energy traipsing towards non-existent water. It might have even died in the process.

If we get back to Carruthers' philosophical Sahelanthropus man and other philosophical creatures. Many philosophers have also said that “accurate representations” (Richard Rorty) - and even truth itself - were irrelevant when it came to survival. Though surely this can't apply to Carruthers' mirage example!

Consciousness is Good for Us

It can be said that not all the brain's information-processing "goes on in the dark” because if it did so, then we wouldn't have the added advantages that experience (or consciousness) give to these examples of information-processing. That means that Chalmers' “inner feel”, for example, also contributes because it too is a property of experience/consciousness.

The fact still seems to be that because all of this could occur in the dark, then we need to explain why it doesn't. Though, as already stated, what if what occurs in the dark is at a lesser (evolutionary) level than what occurs in the light? Indeed isn't that obviously the case? With, say, microorganisms or even spiders, everything does (or may) occur in the dark. With adult human beings, that's simply not the case. And that's why we live and experience at a higher evolutionary level than microorganisms or spiders.

Despite the above, Chalmers himself writes:

This is not to say that experience has no function. Perhaps it will turn out to play an important cognitive role.”

I would say that it obviously does; especially from an evolutionary perspective. There are indeed epiphenomenal attributes (or hangers-on) when it comes to evolution. However, why should we believe that consciousness/experience itself fits that bill? I don't see how experience could be like, say, a human's little toe: i.e., something that serves no purpose. Having said that, just as all human beings have experiences, so too do all humans have little toes.

Frank Jackson's Warm and Heavy Coat

As we've seen, it's certainly true that consciousness could be an adjunct to physical features which were “conducive to survival” - without consciousness itself being conducive to survival.

This is Frank Jackson (in his well-known paper 'Epiphenomenal Qualia') on the subject of bears.

The Theory of Evolution explains this (we suppose) by pointing out that [bears] having a thick, warm coat is conducive to survival in the Arctic. But having a thick coat goes along with having a heavy coat, and having a heavy coat is not conducive to survival. It slows the animal down.

“… Having a heavy coat is an unavoidable concomitant of having
a warm coat (in the context, modern insulation was not available), and the advantages for survival of having a warm coat outweighed the disadvantages of having a heavy one. The point is that all we can extract from Darwin's theory is that we should expect any evolved characteristic to be either conducive to survival or a by-product of one that is so conducive.”

There are of course many other things which are deemed to be byproducts of evolution. Perhaps a more relevant example is the the blind spot in the retina. In this case, the blind spot wasn't an adaptation of the retina: it was simply a byproduct of the way the retinal axons were/are wired.

There are many other positions on the issue of consciousness being a byproduct of something else. Steven Pinker (in his How the Mind Works), for example, argues that consciousness is a byproduct of our our “evolved problem-solving abilities”.

So clearly consciousness might have been a byproduct of something else. However, it's certainly not in the same ballpark as Frank Jackson's warm-and-heavy coat. A heavy coat - in and of itself - was disadvantageous for a bear. A warm coat wasn't. When in comes to consciousness, we can say that whatever it was that was responsible for consciousness - and from which consciousness is a byproduct - was also conducive to survival. However, it might have been the case that the byproduct that is consciousness was also conducive to survival.

To return to Frank Jackson's warm-and-heavy coat example. Jackson concluded the quoted passage above by tying all this to qualia: He wrote:

The phenomenalist holds that qualia fall into the latter category [i.e., an epiphenomenal byproduct or evolution].”

That is, qualia are (or may be) a byproduct of evolution. It also follows from this that they are – or may be - epiphenomenal. However, that doesn't necessarily follow. Something that's an evolutionary byproduct needn't also be epiphenomenal. Or, in our case, it needn't also be non-conducive to survival. Sure, there's a mountain of philosophical arguments which have stated that Jackson's qualia - and even consciousness itself - are epiphenomenal; though this particular argument-from-evolution doesn't establish that.

Neuroscience on the Point of Consciousness

It may help to give some neuroscientific examples of this nonconscious/consciousness opposition (or distinction).

We can say that actions (or movements) which are related to reflexes, vegetative functions, low-level perceptual analyses, unconscious motor programs, etc. all occur at the non-conscious level. However, clearly there are also things which are products of consciousness: perception, language, cognition, integration, memory, etc. However, even some of these examples could still occur without consciousness. Thus we're left with two conclusions:

i) Nonconscious processes occur.
ii) There are conscious processes; though they could be - or might have been - nonconscious processes.

A more down to earth – or neuroscientific – explanation of the adaptive point of consciousness is the position that conscious states integrate neuronal activities and processes. This has been called “the integration consensus”. A more technical variant on this has been offered by Gerald Edelman. His “dynamic core hypothesis” is about the “reentrant connections” which link different areas of the brain in a “massively parallel manner”.

Nonetheless, the autonomy-from-consciousness problem arises here too. It's certainly the case that there are kinds of information that are integrated without also being conscious. However, simply because there is such nonconscious integration, that doesn't automatically mean that conscious integration is ruled out of the picture. Clearly the two can stand side by side. It's still the case, however, that nonconscious processing creates philosophical and scientific problems for the philosopher and scientist. Nonetheless, like the possibility of zombies, these problems don't - in and of themselves - logically or metaphysically rule out consciousness.

Thus it's certainly a fact that we don't always know which kinds of information are integrated by consciousness and which aren't. However, that doesn't have an impact on consciousness itself or even on its role in helping us survive. 

Yes, there are indeed nonconscious functions or processes. So what?...

Evolution and Panpsychism

Chalmers himself now fully accepts (I believe) some form of panpsychism. 

The panpsychist position doesn't have it that consciousness/experience evolved from something else. It's been with us (or with the universe) since the very beginning - perhaps since just after the Big Bang. Thus the advantageous/not-advantageous-to-survival distinction doesn't seem to be that relevant in the case of panpsychism.

Of course it can also be said that even if panpsychism is true (and that experience/consciousness has always been with us), then it may still be the case that experience wasn't advantageous to survival. That is, panpsychism doesn't seem to tie in very well with evolutionary theory; at least in this respect. If experience has always been with us (or with the universe), then it can't have evolved to have given us an evolutionary advantage.

Though is it that simple?

Even if experience has always been with us, it might still have been the case that evolution got to work (as it were) on it. What I mean by this is that evolution changes biological matter. According to panpsychism, all the parts of biological – as well as inanimate! - entities have consciousness/experience. However, evolution impacted on the arrangements of biological entities so as to make some examples which were better equipped to survive than others. Thus those pockets of biological matter which resulted would still have included phenomenal properties - all the way down. Yet it might also have been the case that the new arrangements of matter (care-of evolution) brought phenomenally-basic entities into new alignments which - being more complex biologically and therefore phenomenally - made them better equipped to survive.

Thus, depending on how we look at this, there are two possible responses to this panpsychism-evolution situation:

i) If phenomenal properties have always been with us, then that fact alone is hard to square with evolution.
ii) Even if experience has always been with us, then there's nothing to rule out the possibility that evolution itself might have had an impact on phenomenal properties (non-teleologically, of course) by making them the parts of more complex biological entities. This would have made the aforesaid biological entities more phenomenally complex too.

Conclusion

To repeat. 

It's certainly possible that all the brain functions and processes (which David Chalmers often refers to) might well have occurred - and could still occur - “in the dark”. However, not all of them do occur in the dark. (As Philip Goff puts it: Consciousness is a primary "datum in its own right"; which - by definition - can't be ignored.)

As to how experience/consciousness is added to - or comes from - these functions (or from the brain itself), then that seems to be a different question. And it is indeed problematic and difficult.

However, if the evolutionary approach sketched above is broadly correct, then Chalmers' Hard Problem doesn't (or perhaps shouldn't) bring forth the following why-question:

Why does the physical brain give rise to consciousness?

Instead it simply raises (or perhaps should raise) the following how-question:

How does the physical brain give rise to consciousness?


Friday 18 August 2017

Chalmers: Structure + Phenomenal Properties = Consciousness






David Chalmers puts the structuralist position (in the philosophy of physics) when he writes:


“[I]t is often noted that physics characterizes its basic entities only extrinsically, in terms of their relations to other entities, which are themselves characterized extrinsically, and so on.”

However, he adds a vital conclusion to all that. Namely: “The intrinsic nature of physical entities is left aside.”

At an intuitive level, Chalmers seems to be bang on. Relations - so it's said - must depend on relata. Indeed the very word “relations” is surely relative to things or to the phenomena which sustain the relations. (There's tons of stuff on this issue.)

This fixation on relations or structure is the case for two other reasons.


i) The words “intrinsic nature” have come to be almost synonymous with Kant's word “noumenon” (at least in certain contexts). According to Kant, noumena can't be known, experienced or even - in certain respects - commented upon. That may mean that an intrinsic nature/property may also be like Wittgenstein's “wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves”. That is, it may be “a difference which doesn't make a difference”.

ii) Intrinsic properties/natures simply don't exist. (That - I think - is the ontic structural realism position.)

James Ladyman and Don Ross, for example, quote Frank Jackson saying that “we know next to nothing about the intrinsic nature of the world”. Indeed we “know only its causal cum relational nature”.

Yet ontic structural realists also acknowledge the appeal of noumena. Ladyman and Ross write:


“[A]n epistemic structural realist may insist in a Kantian spirit... there being such objects is a necessary condition for our empirical knowledge of the world.”

You can sum this up with a simple Kantian question:


If there are no noumenal objects (which ground our representations, models, theories, etc.), then what's it all about?

Even if our representations, models, theories, "posited objects", etc. don't somehow represent objects, properties, conditions, etc. (or if we didn't have any “noumenal grounding” in the first place), then surely we'd have precisely nothing. As Ladyman and Ross put it (almost quoting Kant word-for-word):


“[T]here being such objects is a necessary condition for our empirical knowledge of the world.”

Or as Chalmers himself puts it:


“[O]ne is left with a world that is pure causal flux (a pure flow of information) with no properties for the causation to relate.”

So, again, we certainly don't mirror nature or objects. We may not even represent nature/objects; though we must capture something.

This is where Ladyman and Ross reply: Yes, we capture structure. That's why Ladyman and Ross make what can be seen as the obvious conclusion when they write:


“[W]e shall argue that in the light of contemporary physics... that talk of unknowable intrinsic natures and individuals is idle and has no justified place in metaphysics. This is the sense in which our view is eliminative...”

In a certain sense, even Kant realised that his noumena were “idle”. Yet he also believed that noumena are necessary in terms of metaphysics and important in terms of human "reason". In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant wrote:


“[T]he concept of a noumenon is necessary, to prevent sensible intuition from being extended to things in themselves, and thus to limit the objective validity of sensible knowledge.

To put the case very simply. There are two main positions which one can adopt here:


i) There are indeed objects (or noumena); though we can never have access to them.

ii) If we can't have access to objects as they are “in themselves”, then why not drop such objects completely from the picture?

It can be said that ii) follows from i); though it can't be said that ii) logically follows logically from i).

Chalmers also states the structuralist conclusion – just mentioned - when he says that “[s]ome argue that no such intrinsic properties exist”. However, Chalmers isn't happy with that. He states that if the structuralist position is correct,


“then one is left with a world that is pure causal flux (a pure flow of information) with no properties for the causation to relate”.

Prima facie, that seems to be correct. However, there's also a response to that.

Two positions against intrinsic properties/natures have only just been highlighted above. They're relevant here too. Thus:


i) There may be something that accounts for the “causal flux” which Chalmers mentions. Though it's noumenal. Mathematical physics, on the other hand, can only describe and explain that causal flux in terms of structures, models, relations, etc.


ii) Nothing underpins the causal flux.

As just stated, Chalmers accepts what he - and many other philosophers - call “intrinsic properties”. (Or at the very least he accepts the possibility that such properties exist.) However, that's just the beginning. He also writes:


“If one allows that intrinsic properties exist, a natural speculation given the above is that the intrinsic properties of the physical—the properties that causation ultimately relates—are themselves phenomenal properties. We might say that phenomenal properties are the internal aspect of information.”

Of course it's a huge jump from the acceptance of intrinsic properties to seeing those properties as being phenomenal. However, because Chalmers ties the phenomenal to information, then perhaps that jump isn't quite so huge. On certain readings of the word “information”, it's almost by definition true that physical properties (or structures) will contain information. Thus, on Chalmers' own reading, if they contain - or are - information, then they must be phenomenal in nature.

Chalmers further augments his case by talking about causation. He writes:


“This could answer a concern about the causal relevance of experience — a natural worry, given a picture on which the physical domain is causally closed, and on which experience is supplementary to the physical. The informational view allows us to understand how experience might have a subtle kind of causal relevance in virtue of its status as the intrinsic nature of the physical.”

If physical intrinsic properties are informational, then that gives the phenomenal a causal role. That would indeed solve the problem of the position that “the physical domain is causally closed”. Such phenomenal (on intrinsic) properties would be casual and therefore part of the “physical domain”. More relevantly, experience (or consciousness) would be part of the physical domain.

Nonetheless, Chalmers doesn't commit himself entirely to these “suggestive” speculations. He finishes off by saying that this


“metaphysical speculation is probably best ignored for the purposes of developing a scientific theory, but in addressing some philosophical issues it is quite suggestive”.

At least Chalmers confesses that all this stuff is “speculation”. Yet speculation isn't automatically a bad thing. It's the lifeblood of much physics and also plays an important part in the other sciences.

Thus it's worth asking Chalmers exactly why he believes that these speculations are “probably best ignored for the purposes of developing a scientific theory”. The answer to that is that it's probably because there's no experimental or observational evidence for them. Technically, it's by definition that intrinsic properties are beyond observation/experimentation and therefore also beyond the domain of physics. (Though what of the just-mentioned vital role of speculation in physics?) That's why such properties are rejected by ontic structural realists and other kinds of structuralist in the philosophy of physics.

Example: The Structure of Silicon and Neurons

When Chalmers compares silicon chips to neurons, the result is very much like a structuralist position in the philosophy of physics; though one applied to experience/consciousness and the brain.

What matters isn't entities: it's (their?) “patterns of interaction”. They create “causal patterns”. Thus neurons have causal interrelations. Silicon chips suitably connected to each other also have causal interactions and interrelations. Perhaps both these sets of causal interactions and interrelations can be the same. That is, they can be structurally the same; though the physical things which bring them about are different (i.e., one is biological the other is non-biological).

Though what if the material “substrate” does matter? If it does, then we'd need to know why it matters. If it doesn't, then we'd also need to know why.

Biological matter is certainly very complex. Silicons chips are't that complex. (Or are they?) Remember here that we're matching individual silicon chips with individual neurons: not m/billions of silicon chips with the the billions of neurons of the entire brain. However, neurons, when taken individually, are also highly complicated. Individual silicon chips are much less so. However, all this rests on the assumption that complexity - or even maximal complexity - matters to this issue. Clearly in the thermostat or single-celled organism case at least, complexity isn't a fundamental issue or problem. Simple things exhibit causal structures and causal processes; which, in turn, determine both information and - according to Chalmers - very simple phenomenal experience.

David Lewis on Intrinsic Properties




It can be said that David Lewis's picture is very different to the various structuralist positions found in the philosophy of physics. In Lewis's view, not only are things (or “space-time points”) paramount, so are their “intrinsic properties”. This may square well with David Chalmers' position not only on the ontological existence of the phenomenal/experience; but also of its vital importance and omnipresence.

In any case, some metaphysicians tell us that there's a difference between properties which objects have independently of any external factors acting upon them (i.e., intrinsic properties) and properties which are deemed to be the way they regardless of what's external to them (i.e., essential properties). In Chalmers's scheme, intrinsic properties are very relevant precisely because they're phenomenal and therefore may/do have a role to play – at least in human consciousness (if not in atoms or thermostats).

David Lewis also defended intrinsic properties in a way which makes them things eminently unsuitable for structuralist accounts of phenomena. His position also helps the panpsychist - or Chalmers' - case.

Lewis also cites “internal structure” as being important to objects. Yet if entities are defined in terms of their relations, then surely they must also be (partly) defined in terms of extrinsic properties. Thus Lewis's internal structures may also need to be (partly) defined - or even constituted - by external relations or extrinsic properties. It can now be asked what would be the point of a Lewisian internal structure if it's primarily a crutch (or framework) for intrinsic properties which have no such relations to external factors.

It can also be said that internal structures determine relations and therefore also determine extrinsic properties. Then again, it can equally be said that external relations (or extrinsic properties) determine internal structures (or intrinsic properties). Here again the boundaries between what's intrinsic and what's extrinsic seems to be somewhat blurred.

Finally, there may not be a philosophical - or even a scientific - clash between the existence of intrinsic properties and the accounts of phenomena in terms of structure. This would work well for Chalmers' intrinsic phenomenal properties.

Thus what about the category of “intrinsic relations”?

Intrinsic relations are said to determine - or even constitute - objects. In other words, they're fundamental to the objects which have them. Thus, in terms of consciousness or experience, it's the brain which “has” or contains these phenomenal and intrinsic relations. Experience/consciousness may therefore be a fundamental property; rather than an emergent (or a non-physical) property.