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Single Idea 6148
[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
]
Full Idea
Human organisms have non-redundant causal powers, and so can exercise downward causation.
Clarification
A causal power is 'redundant' if something else also does the job
Gist of Idea
Human organisms can exercise downward causation
Source
Trenton Merricks (Objects and Persons [2003], §4.VII)
Book Ref
Merricks,Trenton: 'Objects and Persons' [OUP 2003], p.116
A Reaction
The hallmark of property dualism. This notion needs a lot more expansion and exploration than Merricks gives it, and I don't think it will be enough to provide 'free will', or even, as Merricks hopes, to place humans in a distinct ontological category.
The
28 ideas
from 'Objects and Persons'
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14229
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Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics
[Merricks, by Liggins]
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6123
|
Empirical investigation can't discover if holes exist, or if two things share a colour
[Merricks]
|
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6124
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I say that most of the objects of folk ontology do not exist
[Merricks]
|
|
6130
|
'Composition' says things are their parts; 'constitution' says a whole substance is an object
[Merricks]
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6125
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We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples
[Merricks]
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6127
|
'Unrestricted composition' says any two things can make up a third thing
[Merricks]
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6128
|
Objects decompose (it seems) into non-overlapping parts that fill its whole region
[Merricks]
|
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6133
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If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy
[Merricks]
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6131
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Composition as identity is false, as identity is never between a single thing and many things
[Merricks]
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6132
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Composition as identity is false, as it implies that things never change their parts
[Merricks]
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6134
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Is swimming pool water an object, composed of its mass or parts?
[Merricks]
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6135
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A crumbling statue can't become vague, because vagueness is incoherent
[Merricks]
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6136
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Eliminativism about objects gives the best understanding of the Sorites paradox
[Merricks]
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6138
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It seems wrong that constitution entails that two objects are wholly co-located
[Merricks]
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6137
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Clay does not 'constitute' a statue, as they have different persistence conditions (flaking, squashing)
[Merricks]
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6140
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Maybe the word 'I' can only refer to persons
[Merricks]
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6141
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There is no visible difference between statues, and atoms arranged statuewise
[Merricks]
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6143
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Prolonged events don't seem to endure or exist at any particular time
[Merricks]
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6142
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The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways
[Merricks]
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6144
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You hold a child in your arms, so it is not mental substance, or mental state, or software
[Merricks]
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|
6145
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Intrinsic properties are those an object still has even if only that object exists
[Merricks]
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6147
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The hypothesis of solipsism doesn't seem to be made incoherent by the nature of mental properties
[Merricks]
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6146
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Before Creation it is assumed that God still had many many mental properties
[Merricks]
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6148
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Human organisms can exercise downward causation
[Merricks]
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6149
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Free will and determinism are incompatible, since determinism destroys human choice
[Merricks]
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6150
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The 'warrant' for a belief is what turns a true belief into knowledge
[Merricks]
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14472
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If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it
[Merricks, by Thomasson]
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14469
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Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage
[Merricks]
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