Back in this post I unsuccessfully argued that substance dualism faired no worse in the face of Ockham’s Razor than property dualism.
I now want to argue that property dualism, in fact, fairs worse that substance dualism given the following two assumptions:
1. Mental non-ubiquity – fundamental particles, and many other things besides, do not possess mental properties.
2. Neurological homogeneity – the functional and structural uniformity of the brain is such that, if the whole brain possesses mental properties then there are many substructures of the brain that possess mental properties.
Assumption 1. entails that brain structures cannot possess their mental properties in virtue of composition alone because they have proper parts that do not possess mental properties.
If we assume mereological universalism then, though the brain may consist of an infinite number of proper parts, fundamental particles and their arrangements will not yield things with mental properties by composition alone given that mental properties are not ontologically reducible to the physical. Yet, by composition alone (ex hypothesi universalism), there will be purely physical things composed of fundamental particles and their arrangements that constitute the physical base over which hybrid mental/physical things nomologically supervene. Thus, in addition to the infinite number of physical things that compose the brain, there will be many other hybrid mental/physical things in the brain given Assumption 2.
If we do not assume mereological universalism then there will not be an infinite number of physical things composing the brain. Yet, however many physical things there are composing the brain, there will be a further number of hybrid mental/physical things because whatever primitive unity that ordinary things possess is unlikely to line up on any principled basis with the many ways in which the brain may be cut into substructures that should possess mental properties in accordance with Assumption 2.
Either way, according to property dualism, brains consist of all of the physical things that compose them as well as many hybrid physical/mental things to which the brain gives rise. Whereas, substance dualists can argue that it is only the net causal powers of the brain that are relevant in determining the mind substance to which the brain belongs, so that there might well be only one mind over and above the physical things that compose the brain.
Becoming weary of the endless chiaroscuro of the mind/body debate, I hunted for something that Occam’s razor could shave with more certainty. I pose the the possibility of the patternist. The soul is the pattern imprinted on the body/brain. It is data on wetware. See Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near” or some comments by Wheeler in “Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links.” It is time to dodge the philosophic black hole composed by the historic debate and begin to think differently.
Thanks for your considerate debate, for following me on twitter and for bothering to make your presence felt on the web.
Doug
Thanks, Doug.
I don’t favour your patternist answer to the mind/body problem. Patterns may be viewed as conceptual impositions upon a physical system. As concepts are mental things (or at least mentally represented things) you may cop an infinite regress of minds necessary to account for the concepts imposed to bring out the pattern. An objective pattern in a physical brain, on the other hand, seems like a metaphor that needs to be made more precise.
Having said that, I too weary of the dualism I have championed to this point. As for the above post, I think I have committed the fallacy of composition. As for dualism generally, I don’t think that I can sustain the argument for the irreducibility of intentional states that I have previously proposed to establish, at least, intentional (or Brentanian) PROPERTY dualism.
The best I can hope for at this stage is a VERY weak form of dualism whereby zombies may not be logically possible but intentional ghosts are, i.e. entities with only intentional or representational (non-physical) properties. This would make intentional properties multi-realisable, including as a pure intentionality. Though, it does not mean that ghosts are nomologically possible. That’s pretty weak dualism, but it still warrants the title of this blog.
I don’t take it that a pattern is conceptual but emerges as response to contact with the world. The structure of a human baby predetermines it to try to get food by any means, usually crying. But when a parent shows up with food, a relationship is imprinted as a pattern of communication that facilitates the object of getting enough food. There is no necessary concept, though intentions are birthed almost immediately. And that is not to say that no concept will arise, only that concepts as verbal constructs are not the wetware on which the pattern is imprinted. Intention in in the structure, the body, but in relationship engages the patterns of others for its own fulfillment.
Another issue in the information universe that suggests an explanation of ghosts, is that the entire universe is capable of being imprinted even as the universe imprints on the human being. A ghost is nothing more than the imprint of a person on the universe, usually in a certain location.
One problem the materialist has left us with is a view of the universe that is merely clock-like. Fixed energy, running down, always reacting but never acting. Physical systems have no intentionality whatever.
The information universe, unlike the materialist universe has the capability of organizing matter, then life, then intelligence. Part of the deficit the materialist has left us with is dualism. As much as the materialist tries to scare away ghosts and spiritual experiences it ends up failing in the face of near ubiquitous experiences within the human race. It doesn’t have an explanation, and so not only permits dualism but forces it. If, on the other hand, the universe has the ability to produce life and even intelligence, it is doing no more than reproducing itself. This doesn’t mean that the universe doesn’t have a beginning or an end, or that it has purpose, or purposes. Purposefulness can’t be known from our position. But it does have some form of intelligence as a structure, even as a non-conscious AI might.
The need for a robust, free, intentionality is the logical inheritance of dualism, and I’m not sure it can be defended.
I’m not offering a patternist solution to the mind/body problem, I’m suggesting the debate around mind/body dualism is the result of a flawed materialism that must be abandoned.
I’ve not made myself clear.
I did not mean to say that your patterns seem to be necessarily conceptual, but rather that they might be a conceptual imposition by observers of physical systems that are said to be minds.
Put it this way, the patterns you talk about are presumably repeatables in that they can possibly recur in different physical media. If the patterns you are talking about are not repeatables then I do not understand the sense in which you use the term. Kinds or universals are also repeatables in this sense that the same kind can possible recur. However, you would not say that a pattern is a kind of physical structure because that is just physicalism.
So, unless you can think of another example of a repeatable to which you may compare ‘patterns’ then either:
1. Patterns are a mere conceptual imposition by an observer upon the physical medium – something like Dennett’s view of intentionality as an intentional stance one adopts as a heuristic to predict the behaviour of complex biological systems; or
2. Patterns are irreducible properties of physical systems.
If you go for 2. then you end up with a kind or property dualism or emergentism such as that of Searle.
All of this seems to fall neatly within the debate about the mind/body problem. I do not understand the claim that the position of minds as patterns somehow takes us outside that debate. You do not have to be a hard materialist to take part in the debate as a non-dualist. For example, you can be a moderate materialist or an anomalous monist – like Davidson.