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17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique

[attempts to prove that mind is not just physical]

14 ideas
How can pleasure or judgement occur in a heap of atoms? [Sext.Empiricus on Epicurus]
     Full Idea: If Epicurus makes the end consist in pleasure and asserts that the soul, like all else, is composed of atoms, it is impossible to explain how in a heap of atoms there can come about pleasure, or judgement of the good.
     From: comment on Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism III.187
     A reaction: This is a nice statement of the mind-body problem. Ontologically, physics still seems to present reality as a 'heap of particles', which gives no basis for the emergence of anything as strange as consciousness. But then magnetism is pretty strange.
Souls contain no properties of elements, and elements contain no properties of souls [Cicero]
     Full Idea: No beginnings of souls can be found on earth; there is no combination in souls that could be born from earth, nothing that partakes of moist or airy or fiery; for in those elements there is nothing to possess the power of memory, thought, or reflection.
     From: M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxvi.66)
     A reaction: Interesting, but I think magnetism is an instructive analogy, which has weird properties which we never perceive in elements (though it is there, buried deep - suggesting panpsychism). Cicero would be disconcerted to find that fire isn't an element.
If atoms have no qualities, they cannot possibly produce a mind [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Perception, mind, intelligence and thought cannot so much as be conceived, even with the best will, as arising among void and atoms, things which taken separately have no quality.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1112)
     A reaction: A nice articulation of the intuition of all anti-physicalists. Plutarch would have to rethink his position carefully if he learned of the sheer number of connections in the brain, and of the theory of natural selection. His challenge remains, though.
Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth]
     Full Idea: Sense which lies flat and grovelling in the individuals, and is stupidly fixed in the material form, is not able to rise up or ascend to an abstract universal notion.
     From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.III.III.2)
     A reaction: This still strikes me as being one of the biggest problems with reductive physicalism, that a lump of meat in your head can grasp abstractions (whatever they are) and universal concepts. Personally I am a physicalist, but it is weird.
The 'grain problem' says physical objects are granular, where sensations appear not to be [Sellars, by Polger]
     Full Idea: Sellars' Grain Problem contended that it was a problem for materialism that physical objects have a granularity whereas sensations are homogeneous and without grain.
     From: report of Wilfrid Sellars (Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind [1956], Ch. n22) by Thomas W. Polger - Natural Minds Ch.1 n22
     A reaction: This doesn't strike me as a serious problem. I assume that my sensations are granular, but at a level too fine for me to introspect. There are three hundred trillion connections in the brain (Idea 2952), a lot of them involved in sensations.
If tree rings contain information about age, then age contains information about rings [Searle]
     Full Idea: You could say that tree-rings contain information about the age of a tree, but you could as well say that the age of a tree in years contains information about the number of rings in a tree stump. ..'Information' is not a real causal feature of the world.
     From: John Searle (The Mystery of Consciousness [1997], Concl 2.5)
     A reaction: A nice point for fans of 'information' to ponder. However, you cannot deny the causal connection between the age and the rings. Information has a subjective aspect, but you cannot, for example, eliminate the role of DNA in making organisms.
Identity theory was overthrown by multiple realisations and causal anomalies [Kim]
     Full Idea: The two principle arguments which overthrew the mind-brain identity theory were the multiple realization argument of Hilary Putnam, and the anomalist argument of Davidson, which contained the seeds of functionalism and anomalous monism.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §1 p.002)
     A reaction: The first argument strikes me as significant and interesting, but Davidson seems weak. It makes the unsubstantiated claim that mind is outside the laws of physics, and irreducible.
If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Central state identity theorists had trouble providing for the nomological possibility of rational machines (and hence no space for a non-biological, e.g. computational, theory of intelligence).
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67)
     A reaction: I surmise that a more externalist account of the physical mind might do the trick, by explaining intelligence in terms of an evolved relationship between brain and environment.
No defences of physicalism can deprive psychology of the ontological authority of other sciences [Mellor/Crane]
     Full Idea: Neither laws nor causation nor claims of supervenience (the last refuge of the physicalist) deprive psychology of the ontological authority of non-mental science.
     From: DH Mellor / T Crane (There is no question of physicalism [1990], p.203)
     A reaction: There is no need to defend the practice of psychologists (or garden designers) from the depradations of bandit physicalists. But what is the ontology of psychology if it isn't dualist or physicalist?
Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey]
     Full Idea: Eight properties of mind are problems for the identity theory: rationality, free will, spatiality, privacy, intentionality, essential mentality, subjective content, and the explanatory gap.
     From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.7)
     A reaction: The list could go on: poetry, creativity, love, normativity... Actually, these are problems for every theory.
Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey]
     Full Idea: In physicalism the "ghost in the machine" is merely replaced by the "complexity" in it.
     From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.2)
     A reaction: This is nonsense. No one thinks that mere complexity generates consciousness. The assumption is that we would begin to understand the mind only if we could somehow map the connections of the brain.
The completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind [Crane]
     Full Idea: I claim that the completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind.
     From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.12)
     A reaction: He does not convince me of this. The mind may be within physics, but why should we say a priori that no exceptions to physical law will ever be discovered. Crane is setting up straw men.
Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil]
     Full Idea: The functionalists' point is that higher-level properties like being in pain or computing the sum of 7 and 5 are not to be identified with ("reduced to") or mistaken for their realisers.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: I take it that functionalist minds can't be reduced because they are abstractions rather than physical entities. Nevertheless, the implied ontology seems to be entirely physical, and hence in some sense reductionist.
Do new ideas increase the weight of the brain? [Dance]
     Full Idea: If someone gives you a piece of information, does your brain suddenly become heavier?
     From: Adam Dance (works [2001]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: A beautifully simple question, which is a reductio of the idea that information is simply a physical object. The question points to a functionalist account of brain activity.