Interactionism

This is a companion to an earlier essay, "An Argument for Dualism from the Lived Experience of Time," in which I argue that our lived experience of being in space is best accounted for on a substance dualist ontology of the experiencing subject and a 3-dimensionalist account of time. Such an account excludes the metaphysical possibility of 4-dimensionalism as a literal, descriptive account of noumenal time inasmuch as it is incompatible with facts we know with greater certainty than any scientific (...) theory. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss the standard objections to substance dualism and conclude that they are far less formidable than is usually supposed.

This is an updated version of one section of my essay "Objections to Dualism" prepared for presentation at the 2019 Mountain-Pacific SCP Conference in Las Vegas, April 6-7, 2019.

Interactionist dualism is often rejected based on the claim that the physical world is causally closed. Another claim against interactionist dualism is that, were it to hold, it would violate energy/momentum conservation or the second law of thermodynamics. Here I show that the phase of the quantum wave function may provide a loophole in the causal closure of the world through which the mind can affect behavior without violating any physical law.

We develop a modern interactive libertarian dualism of physical and mental events using the concept of probability.

Does consciousness collapse the quantum wave function? This idea was taken seriously by John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner but is now widely dismissed. We develop the idea by combining a mathematical theory of consciousness (integrated information theory) with an account of quantum collapse dynamics (continuous spontaneous localization). Simple versions of the theory are falsified by the quantum Zeno effect, but more complex versions remain compatible with empirical evidence. In principle, versions of the theory can be tested by experiments with (...) quantum computers. The upshot is not that consciousness-collapse interpretations are clearly correct, but that there is a research program here worth exploring. (shrink)

One of the most serious challenges (if not the most serious challenge) for interactive psycho-physical dualism (henceforth interactive dualism or ID) is the so-called ‘interaction problem’. It has two facets, one of which this article focuses on, namely the apparent tension between interactions of non-physical minds in the physical world and physical laws of nature. One family of approaches to alleviate or even dissolve this tension is based on a collapse solution (‘consciousness collapse/CC) of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics (...) (QM). The idea is that the mind brings about the collapse of a superposed wave function onto one of its eigenstates. Thus, it is claimed, can the mind change the course of things without violating any law figuring in physical theory. I will first show that this hope is premature because energy and momentum are probably not conserved in collapse processes, and that even if this can be dealt with, the violations are either severe or produce further ontological problems. Second, I point out several conceptual difficulties for interactionist CC. I will also present solutions for those problems, but it will become clear that those solutions come at a high cost. Third, I shall briefly list some empirical problems which make life even harder for interactionist CC. I conclude with remarks about why no- collapse interpretations of QM don’t help either and what the present study has shown is the real issue for ID: namely to find a plausible integrative view of dualistic mental causation and laws of nature. (shrink)

Not only Descartes, but also any theist thinker who faces the problem of consciousness, will face a problem with closure of the physical. In other words, there could not be a theory of consciousness that is compatible both with classical theism and closure of the physical. Therefore, the best strategy for theist thinkers is to follow the fallacy of the closure of the physical. There would be options such as the new forms of interactionist dualism and panpsychism.

The recent Bigelow Institute contest rewarding the "best" evidence for life after death epitomizes much of what's wrong with the current state of survival research, its participants constituting a who's who list of contemporary survival researchers. Cases that are regularly hyped as among the best evidence for an afterlife are all too often easily susceptible to normal explanations--if only survival researchers would give them a chance. The consistently negative results of 121 years of experimental survival research ought to have spurred (...) soul-searching questions for survival researchers by now. And if we treat discarnate personal survival as a scientific hypothesis, then researchers are rationally obliged to seriously consider biological facts that tell against it, too. Limiting one's inquiry to attempts to only collect data that might confirm survival is one of the chief hallmarks of pseudoscience, and it's sadly a feature, not a bug, of the survival literature. This systematic review reveals that survival researchers would better serve science by setting aside their feelings and heeding what the data are telling them, for the probabilities should drive our beliefs, not the other way around. Is discarnate personal survival likely to occur in light of the total available evidence? The overall evidence doesn't even make personal survival more probable than not. -/- 1. Introduction 2. In Science the Quality of the Evidence is Paramount -- 2.1 Prospective Experimental Tests of Survival -- 2.2 Where Have All the Deceased Survival Researchers Gone? -- 3. What Does the Total Available Relevant Evidence Tell Us? -- 4. Ranking the Survival Evidence -- 5. The Mind-Body Problem, Botched -- 6. Conclusion: Not Much Better than Religious Faith. (shrink)

Prior experimental studies of anomalous information reception (AIR) have been touted as strong evidence for postmortem survival of consciousness yet are plagued by several methodological weaknesses that preclude clear evidence of positive results. The present team provides an adversarial collaboration to identify and compensate for the major limitations of these previous approaches. We outline a more rigorous preregistered study design that eliminates or minimizes researcher bias in (a) data cleaning and (b) statistical analysis. Obtaining positive results with our recommended design (...) would arguably yield data that skeptics and sympathetic researchers would agree is more clearly interpretable and offers stronger support for a survivalist interpretation. However, this proposed study is not intended to be definitive but rather only a next step in a research program that aims to improve on earlier published efforts. It would also admittedly be time-consuming and expensive to implement, as well as raise ethical considerations in utilizing vulnerable research populations. However, these costs are required to achieve the rigor necessary to advance scientific knowledge in survival research. 1. Introduction -- 2. Laying a Working Foundation -- 3. Choice of "Survival Effect" -- 4. The Recommended Preregistered Protocol -- 5. Considerations and Caveats -- 5.1. Strengths of Such Protocol -- 6. Concluding Thoughts. (shrink)

The idea that mind and body are distinct entities that interact is often claimed to be incompatible with physics. The aim of this paper is to disprove this claim. To this end, we construct a broad mathematical framework that describes theories with mind–body interaction (MBI) as an extension of current physical theories. We employ histories theory, i.e., a formulation of physical theories in which a physical system is described in terms of (i) a set of propositions about possible evolutions of (...) the system and (ii) a probability assignment to such propositions. The notion of dynamics is incorporated into the probability rule. As this formulation emphasises logical and probabilistic concepts, it is ontologically neutral. It can be used to describe mental ‘degrees of freedom’ in addition to physical ones. This results into a mathematical framework for psycho-physical interaction (ΨΦ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Psi \Phi$$\end{document}I formalism). Interestingly, a class of ΨΦ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Psi \Phi$$\end{document}I theories turns out to be compatible with energy conservation. (shrink)

Descartes makes a double commitment about selves. While he argues that the ‘I’ is nothing but a thinking thing he also identifies it with the union of the mind and body. This chapter explores this tension by analyzing Descartes’ account of our experience of ourselves and argues that in the background of Descartes’ usage of ‘I’ in reference to both the mind and the union is an idea of a subject of experience taking herself in one or the other way. (...) When a subject refers to herself with ‘I’, the ‘I’ always picks out a subject of experience regardless of whether the subject understands what it, metaphysically, picks out. Body-dependent features partaking in what one takes oneself to be are a matter of representation. However, embodied self-presence is on a par with purely intellectual self-presence, because the latter is likewise a matter of representation. This means that thoughts are constitutive of selfhood not because they ontologically belong to the thinking substance as its modifications, but rather in virtue of conveying content that affects what we take ourselves to be. (shrink)

Many non-physicalists, including Chalmers, hold that the zombie argument succeeds in rejecting the physicalist view of consciousness. Some non-physicalists, including, again, Chalmers, hold that quantum collapse interactionism, i.e., the idea that non-physical consciousness causes collapse of the wave function in phenomena such as quantum measurement, is a viable interactionist solution for the problem of the relationship between the physical world and the non-physical consciousness. In this paper, I argue that if QCI is true, the zombie argument fails. In particular, I (...) show that if QCI is true, a zombie world physically identical to our world is impossible because there is at least one law of nature, a fundamental law of physics in particular, that exist only in the zombie world but not in our world. This shows that philosophers like Chalmers are committing an error in endorsing the zombie argument and QCI at the same time. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that exclusion arguments cannot exclude non-reductionist physicalist mental properties from being causes without excluding properties that are patently causal as well. List and Stoljar (2017) recently argued that a similar response to exclusion arguments is also available to dualists, thereby challenging the predominant view that exclusion arguments undermine dualist theories of mind. In particular, List and Stoljar maintain that exclusion arguments against dualism require a premise that states that, if a property is metaphysically distinct from the sufficient (...) cause of an effect, this property cannot be a cause of that effect. I argue that this premise is indeed likely to exclude patently causal properties, but that exclusion arguments against dualism do not require this premise. The relation that enables metaphysically distinct properties to cause the same effect in the relevant way turns out to be tighter than the relation typically posited between dualist conscious properties and their underlying physical properties. It is therefore still plausible that the latter causally exclude the former and that compelling exclusion arguments against dualism can be formulated by using a weaker exclusion premise. I conclude by proposing such a formulation. (shrink)

The problem of consciousness, as I present it here, is the problem of reconciling our understanding of consciousness with (i) the evidence for phenomenal transparency and (ii) the evidence that the physical world is causally closed. We might hope that idealism will do this. For idealism is just as hospitable to phenomenal transparency as dualism. And there is a sense in which idealism posits no physical world to be causally closed in the first place. But I argue that idealism has (...) no advantage over dualism and physicalism in the face of this problem. In approaching this issue I also make some taxonomical suggestions that help clarify the options left open by the causal closure argument against dualism. I would urge these on theorists dealing with that argument generally, not just those interested in idealism. (shrink)

Leibniz accepts causal independence, the claim that no created substance can causally interact with any other. And Leibniz needs causal independence to be true, since his well-known pre-established harmony is premised upon it. So, what is Leibniz’s argument for causal independence? Sometimes he claims that causal interaction between substances is superfluous. Sometimes he claims that it would require the transfer of accidents, and that this is impossible. But when Leibniz finds himself under sustained pressure to defend causal independence, those are (...) not the reasons that he marshals in its defense. Instead, deep into his long correspondence with Burchard de Volder, he gives a different sort of argument, one that has gone nearly unnoticed by commentators and has not yet been properly understood. In part, this is because the argument develops slowly over four years of correspondence. It emerges in early 1704, but it is formulated tersely and appears murky unless understood in light of Leibniz and De Volder’s tangled exchanges. There Leibniz argues that, on his distinctive ontology of an infinity of created substances, no two created substances could possibly causally interact, for roughly the same reasons that some Cartesians like De Volder deny interaction between minds and bodies on their substance dualist ontology. In this paper I draw out this lost argument, explain it and the metaphysics on which Leibniz builds it, and untangle Leibniz and De Volder’s exchanges concerning causation from which this argument results. (shrink)

Our minds have physical effects. This happens, for instance, when we move our bodies when we act. How is this possible? Thomas Kroedel defends an account of mental causation in terms of difference-making: if our minds had been different, the physical world would have been different; therefore, the mind causes events in the physical world. His account not only explains how the mind has physical effects at all, but solves the exclusion problem - the problem of how those effects can (...) have both mental and physical causes. It is also unprecedented in scope, because it is available to dualists about the mind as well as physicalists, drawing on traditional views of causation as well as on the latest developments in the field of causal modelling. It will be of interest to a range of readers in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. This book is also available as Open Access. (shrink)

Interactionists hold that minds are non-physical objects that interact with brains. The neural discernment problem for interactionism is that of explaining how non-physical minds produce behavior and cognition by exercising different causal powers over physiologically similar neurons. This paper sharpens the neural discernment problem and proposes two interactionist models of mind-brain interaction that solve it. One model avoids overdetermination while the other respects the causal closure of the physical domain.

Jaegwon Kim has developed an argument that interactionist dualists cannot account for the causal relations between minds and brains. This paper develops a closely related argument that focuses instead on the causal relations between minds and neurons. While there are several promising responses to Kim’s argument, their plausibility relies on a relatively simple understanding of mind–brain relations. Once we shift our focus to neurons, these responses lose their appeal. The problem is that even if mind–brain causal pairing can be explained (...) at no great theoretical cost, the complex interactions non-physical minds would need to have with neurons cannot. (shrink)

What influence did Josiah Royce's academic work (1913-1917) have on the development of classical Symbolic Interactionist thought? And which philosophical influences shaped Royce's social and philosophical thought? This book provides a holistic approach to Royce's academic work and the social philosophy that shaped Symbolic Interactionist theory. By critically evaluating the works of Royce, this book reveals how his ideas and social philosophy made significant contributions to both Symbolic Interactionist thought and sociological theory. Situating his contributions within a socio-historical time frame, (...) Royce's social philosophy is compared and contrasted to the major concepts of George Herbert Mead (Mind, Self, and Society) and Herbert Blumer's core synthesized components of classical symbolic interactionist thought (Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method). Thus, demonstrating that Royce's later academic works closely resemble not only the basic ideas of Mead but also have a strong correspondence with Blumer's synthesis of the three basic premises and eight root images that outline the theoretical core of Symbolic Interactionist thought. For those looking to investigate or discover new aspects of symbolic interactionist theory from a classical viewpoint, this book offers a unique insight into an American philosopher whose contribution to the development of Symbolic Interactionism has been largely unnoticed. (shrink)

The principle of energy conservation is widely taken to be a se- rious difficulty for interactionist dualism (whether property or sub- stance). Interactionists often have therefore tried to make it satisfy energy conservation. This paper examines several such attempts, especially including E. J. Lowe’s varying constants proposal, show- ing how they all miss their goal due to lack of engagement with the physico-mathematical roots of energy conservation physics: the first Noether theorem (that symmetries imply conservation laws), its converse (that conservation (...) laws imply symmetries), and the locality of continuum/field physics. Thus the “conditionality re- sponse”, which sees conservation as (bi)conditional upon symme- tries and simply accepts energy non-conservation as an aspect of interactionist dualism, is seen to be, perhaps surprisingly, the one most in accord with contemporary physics (apart from quantum mechanics) by not conflicting with mathematical theorems basic to physics. A decent objection to interactionism should be a posteri- ori, based on empirically studying the brain. (shrink)

The argument from causal closure of the physical is usually considered the most powerful argument in favor of the ontological doctrine of physicalism. Many authors, most notably Papineau, assume that CCP implies that physicalism is supported by physics. I demonstrate, however, that physical science has no bias in the ontological debate between proponents of physicalism and dualism. I show that the arguments offered for CCP are effective only against the accounts of mental causation based on the action of the mental (...) forces of a Newtonian nature, i.e. those which manifest themselves by causing accelerations. However, it is conceivable and possible that mental causation is manifested through the redistribution of energy, momentum and other conserved quantities in the system, brought about by altering the state probability distribution within the living system and leading to anomalous correlations of neural processes. After arguing that a probabilistic, interactionist model of mental causation is conceivable, which renders the argument from causal closure of the physical ineffective, I point to some basic features that such a model must have in order to be intelligible. At the same time, I indicate the way that conclusive testing of CCP can be done within the theoretical framework of physics. (shrink)

In this chapter, I first review and assess evidence regarding brain damage or neural abnormalities associated with some psychopathologies and cognitive deficits, such as hemispatial neglect, agnosias, amnesia, somatoparaphrenia, and others. It becomes clear just how closely normal mental functioning and consciousness depend upon normal brain functioning as well as how some very specific mental changes occur when, and only when, very specific brain damage occurs. I then explore the metaphysical implications of these results with respect to the nature of (...) mind and consciousness. In particular, I examine the plausibility of materialism, roughly the view that mental processes are brain processes, in light of the evidence discussed and in contrast to a dualist conception of the mind (whereby mental states are not physical in some sense). I also explore the prospects for a conscious afterlife based both on the brain damage evidence adduced and the metaphysical implications discussed. (shrink)

This article examines three aspects of the problem of understanding Benjamin Libet’s idea of conscious will causally interacting with certain neural activities involved in generating overt bodily movements. The first is to grasp the notion of cause involved, and we suggest a definition. The second is to form an idea of by what neural structure(s) and mechanism(s) a conscious will may control the motor activation. We discuss the possibility that the acts of control have to do with levels of supplementary (...) motor area activity and with the activation of populations of excitatory and inhibitory interneurons. The third aspect is to conceive of the main features of Libet’s proposed conscious mental field (CMF). We consider both an ontological and an epistemological interpretation of the CMF being nonphysical. In an attempt to refute the idea that Libet’s dualist mind–brain interactionism would violate the law of conservation of energy, we suggest that a CMF may alter the probability of the ion-channel gating by influencing structures of a size to which quantum mechanics needs to be applied. We argue that given the suggested definition of cause, and given the epistemological interpretation of the CMF being nonphysical, nothing would necessarily rule out that an element of a CMF, conscious will, may causally interact with neural activities in the brain. This defense of the idea of conscious will being causally efficacious has a bearing not only on the understanding of the mind–brain relation but also on the free will debate. (shrink)

In this essay, I defend a mind-body dualism, according to which human minds are immaterial substances that exercise non-redundant causal powers over bodies, against the notorious problem of psychophysical causation. I explicate and reply to three formulations of the problem: (i) the claim that, on dualism, psychophysical causation is inconsistent with physical causal closure, (ii) the claim that psychophysical causation on the dualist view is intolerably mysterious, and (iii) Jaegwon Kim’s claim that dualism fails to account for causal pairings. Ultimately, (...) I conclude that these objections fail and that dualist interactionism is no more problematic or mysterious than physical causation. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I develop and defend a model of causation that allows for dualist mental causation in worlds where the physical domain is physically complete. In Part I, I present the dualist ontology that will be assumed throughout the thesis and identify two challenges for models of mental causation within such an ontology: the exclusion worry and the common cause worry. I also argue that a proper response to these challenges requires a thoroughly lightweight account of causation, i.e. an (...) account that allows for causes to be metaphysically distinct from the phenomena that produce or physically necessitate their effects. In Part II, I critically evaluate contemporary responses to these challenges from the philosophical literature. In particular, I discuss List and Stoljar’s criticism of exclusion worries, Kroedel’s alternative dualist ontology, concerns about the notion of causal sufficiency, and Lowe’s models of dualist mental causation. I argue that none of these proposals provide independent motivation for a thoroughly lightweight account of causation and therefore leave room for improvement. In the first four chapters of Part III, I develop a thoroughly lightweight model of causation, which builds on interventionist approaches to causation. First, I explain how so-called ‘holding fixed’-requirements in standard interventionist accounts stand in the way of dualist mental causation. I then argue that interventionist accounts should impose a robustness condition on causal correlations and that, with this condition in place, the ‘holding fixed’-requirements can be weakened such that they do allow for dualist mental causation. I dub the interventionist model with such weakened ‘holding fixed’-requirements ‘insensitive interventionism’, argue that it can counter the exclusion worry as well as the common cause worry, and explain under which circumstances it would predict there to be dualist mental causation. Importantly, these circumstances might, for all we know, hold in the actual world. In the final three chapters of Part III, I defend insensitive interventionism against some objections. I consider the objection that causation must be productive, the objection that causes must physically necessitate their effects, and the objection that insensitive interventionism is too permissive. I respond by drawing from the literature on causation by absences and on the relation between causation and fundamental physics. Overall, insensitive interventionism performs as well as standard interventionist accounts. I conclude that insensitive interventionism is a credible model of causation. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim développe l’argument suivant contre le dualisme psycho-physique : (i) Dans le dualisme, l’esprit est dénué de spatialité. (ii) Or, la relation causale requiert des relations spatiales entre la cause et l’effet. (iii) Par conséquent, dans le dualisme, l’esprit ne peut être ni cause ni effet. Après avoir exposé les détails de cet argument, j’en discute les prémisses. En m’appuyant sur Hume, je montre que la relation causale est concevable sans relation spatiale entre la cause et l’effet. Et en (...) m’appuyant sur la physique contemporaine, je m’intéresse à d’éventuelles relations causales non spatiales. (shrink)

This paper advances a theory of interactionist mental causation within a non-physicalist property dualist framework. It builds from Chalmers' argument that non-physical experiences can't have causal powers. It reinterprets this as a constraint, then identifies the unique model satisfying it. This has the experience existing passively with physical nature responding actively to it. The paper explores the causal theory presupposed thereby; applies its model to standard property dualism and particulate property dualism ; shows how the model coheres with science; integrates (...) it into a revised functionalist framework having three levels instead of the usual two; explains why consciousness detectors will remain impossible; and argues that dualists should find the model troubling. (shrink)

Emergent substance dualism is explained in detail and several criticisms are raised against the view.

According to the Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection, human persons will have an embodied existence in eternity. Many Christian materialists, especially Lynne Rudder Baker, Trenton Merricks, and Kevin Corcoran, argue that the doctrine of bodily resurrection creates serious problems for substance dualism (dualism). These critiques argued that bodily resurrection is made trivial by dualism, that dualism makes it difficult if not impossible to explain why we need to be embodied, or that dualism should be rejected as bodily resurrection is better (...) accounted for by a materialist view. As of yet, there has been no systematic analysis of these arguments in the literature. This paper fills that gap and argues that each of these objections to dualism fail. In making these arguments I make use of neo-Aristotelian metaphysics to provide a theory of embodiment for substance dualism. Accordingly, the body is a complex structural mode of the soul. The essence of the soul is the internal efficient cause and teleological guide of the functions and structure of the body. As such, the body is an ensouled physical structure, not a mere physical machine, but has both physical and non-physical aspects. (shrink)

The link between human nature and human flourishing is undeniable. "A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit" (Matt. 7:18). The ontology of the human person will, therefore, ground the nature of human flourishing and thereby sanctification. Spiritual formation is the area of Christian theology that studies sanctification, the Spirit-guided process whereby disciples of Jesus are formed into the image of Jesus (Rom. 8:28-29; 2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Peter 3:18). Until the nineteenth century, (...) there was an overwhelming consensus among Christian thinkers that some form of mind-body (or soul-body) dualism is true of human beings. Recently, that consensus has eroded, and with it the availability of a shared body of knowledge about spiritual formation. Some Christian physicalists argue that dualism is incompatible with central elements of spiritual formation. Neuroscientist Warren Brown and psychologist Brad Strawn offer the only substantive account of spiritual formation from the view of Christian physicalism and its accompanying objections to dualism. It is on their arguments that this chapter focuses. We argue that Brown and Strawn fail to support their incompatibility thesis. Additionally, we argue that Christian physicalism stands in tension with important philosophical and theological foundations of Christian spiritual formation. In doing so we offer a specific form of dualism, the bodily soul view, and explain how this view illuminates the importance of embodiment, our neurological and social development, and hence the important physical aspects of Christian spiritual formation. (shrink)

The pairing argument aims to demonstrate the impossibility of non-spatial objects (including minds) standing in causal relations. Its chief premises are (roughly) that causation requires pairing relations between causes and effects and that pairing relations require spatial relations. Critics have argued that the first claim suffers from counterexamples involving indeterministic causation. After briefly rehearsing the pairing argument and the objection from indeterministic causation, I offer two ways of revising the pairing argument to meet the objection from indeterministic causation.

One of the most pressing philosophical problems in early modern Europe concerned how the soul and body could form a unity, or, as many understood it, how these two substances could work together. It was widely believed that there were three (and only three) hypotheses regarding the union of soul and body: (1) physical influence, (2) occasionalism, and (3) pre-established harmony. However, in 1763, a fourth hypothesis was put forward by the French thinker André-Pierre Le Guay de Prémontval (1716–1764). Prémontval’s (...) hypothesis, given the grand name of “psychocracy” (i.e., the dominion or the rule of the soul), held that there was a real influence between soul and body, but that this was an immaterial kind of influence as opposed to the physical kind that had been entertained heretofore. Prémontval’s hypothesis is the focus of this paper. I shall begin by sketching out the details of Prémontval’s hypothesis (Section 1), then proceed to consider its claims to constitute a true fourth hypothesis distinct from the other three (Section 2), before closing by briefly considering two objections and the responses either that Prémontval himself made or that may be made on his behalf (Section 3). (shrink)

In order to link fine-tuning in physics with spiritual influx, I propose that the highest degree in physics is where ‘ends’ are received in physics. By ends, I refer to what it is that determines the means or causes in physics, and what it is that manages or influences to basis parameters (masses and charge values) of the quantum fields. This is fine-tuning, in the sense that it occurs not just for the whole universe (in the Big Bang, for example), (...) but locally. That is, this fine-tuning is different at each time, and in point in space. Thus this influx can be specific to living organisms, and can occur at all the needed scales and levels in psychology and biology, namely every day and every micros-second of our lives. (shrink)

This paper argues that a certain kind of substance dualism can adopt the ‘Compatibilist’ solution to the problem of causal exclusion. After sketching a non-Cartesian substance dualism akin to E.J. Lowe’s account, 5-23, 2006, 2008) and considering its shortcomings with respect to mental causation in section one, section two outlines an alternative account of mental causation and argues that this account solves the exclusion problem. Finally, section three considers a challenge to the proposed solution. With the exception of Lowe’s efforts, (...) very little in defense of substance dualist mental causation is to be found in the recent philosophical literature. (shrink)

Interactionists hold that non-spatial objects causally interact with physical objects. Interactionists have traditionally grappled with the puzzle of how such interaction is possible. More recently, Jaegwon Kim has presented interactionists with a more daunting threat: the pairing argument, which purports to refute interactionism by showing that non-spatial objects cannot stand in causal relations. After reviewing that argument, I develop a challenge to it on behalf of the interactionist. The challenge poses a dilemma: roughly, either haecceities exist or they do not. (...) I argue that the pairing argument fails in either case. While the challenge does not explain exactly how the pairing argument goes wrong, it shows that the argument fails. The challenge also explains the difficulty in pinpointing the pairing argument’s failure: exactly how the pairing argument fails depends on difficult issues concerning the nature of objects. (shrink)

In this volume, volume 6, I will deal with insight and understanding, meaning and communication and intersubjectivity. (In an appendix I will include a number of –isms, cognitive biases and fallacies that might interfere in, with and distort these things.) The latter is pre-supposed by, present, necessary and operating in all four of these notions when they are employed as verbs. I hope and intend to employ these words and explore them without the need for ghost-in-the-machine like mysterious, mystical and (...) mythical ‘mental’ processes and organs such as ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ but by means of different meanings, dimensions, levels of t notions of intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity enfolds (like a pregnant mother her foetus) insight, understanding, meaning and communication. Intersubjectivity is the beginning, the ground and reason for and the end of all meanings or sense that human beings could have. I am not interested in all the details of insight, experience, understanding, meaning, concepts and ideas, dialogue, discourse, interaction, communication (for example as speculated about by Habermas and his followers, Brandom et al). etc but merely the fact that these things require, assume, presuppose (different aspects, features, functions, processes, etc of) intersubjectivity. For those who are so inclined they could execute experiments (for example in the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, sociology, cognitive sciences, anthropology, etc) to establish that what I state here is a fact and not merely speculate. I will leave speculation - about the activities and nature of the first, second and third person (the public, etc) participants in the activities and process of communication, the question of second and third contingencies, or Habermas’s interactionist cum dialogical intersubjectivity and/or Brandom’s discursive intersubjectivity, the insufficiency of the former’s coordination and the need for synthesis, modes of structuration and the temporal dimensions of communication, threefold semiotic or twofold semiological structuralist theories of signs, theories of individualist or collective learning, action-directing models cultural models, pre-supposed structural features of the social relationships that are involved in communication, the structure parameters of for example the process of communication embedded in an intersubjective context (I would say all the following themselves are intersubjective), as discursive practice, including discourse, argumentation, communication, communication exchange, linguistic communication, everyday communication, interaction, etc - those, especially Continentals and those influenced by them, who suffer from the need for metaphysical speculation and to ontologize in complex terms about the most simple and obvious notions. (shrink)

The Exclusion Argument for physicalism maintains that since (1) every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, and (2) cases of causal overdetermination are rare, it follows that if (3) mental events cause physical events as frequently as they seem to, then (4) mental events must be physical in nature. In defence of (1), it is sometimes said that (1) is supported if not entailed by conservation laws. Against this, I argue that conservation laws do not lend sufficient support to (...) (1) to render its denial ‘unscientific’, and that those who accept (3) and deny (4) may consequently respond to the Exclusion Argument by denying (1) without thereby setting themselves at odds with current science. I also argue that conservation laws are compatible with (3) and the negation of (4), and that one can therefore accept conservation laws and (3) while denying both (1) and (4). (shrink)

Before I respond to James G. Matlock’s comments on my coedited volume, The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life After Death (MoA), I would like to thank him for taking the time to review such a large volume—and review it conscientiously—even if we ultimately disagree about its import. I would also like to extend my thanks to Journal of Parapsychology editor John Palmer for inviting this response, as it gives me an opportunity to clarify why many secondary issues (...) (and some significant matters) were untouched in the volume. While I find most of Matlock’s complaints specious, they nevertheless underscore the need to clear up misconceptions about the collection’s purpose, some of which are also found in others’ reviews. 1. Poisoning the Well 2. Mind-Brain Correlations are Data that Test Hypotheses 3. The Prior Probability Diversion 4. Apparent Causal Closure is Incidental Corroboration 5. How Relevant is the Metaphysics of Mind? 6. Theological Critiques do not Assess Survival Research 7. How Much Survival Research Ought One Critique? (shrink)

In this paper I will expose the contents of the Compendium musicae in the light of the Cartesian philosophy. Firstly, I try to comprehend the text as a theory of music based on the nature of sound. To that end, it is important to show the features of the Cartesian philosophy that are already present in the text, such as deductibility, mathematization and mechanism. Secondly, I also try to show the presence of a philosophical problem widely discussed in other parts (...) of Descartes´s work, namely, that of dualism and communicability of substances. In this regard I want to point out that the relation between thought and extension appears in the Compendium as the confession of a supposition. In order to comprehend the sense of this confession I offer an analysis of this text in the light of Descartes’s work. Finally, I propose an alternative interpretation of Cartesian dualism and of the role of musical theory in Cartesian philosophy. (shrink)

This article compares Wolfgang Köhler's pioneering field theory of the consciousness–brain relation with Benjamin Libet's conscious mental field theory and Karl Popper's mental force field hypothesis. In the discussion of Köhler's theory we devote special attention to his analysis of problems of sense perception and to his explanation of figural after-effects. Both Libet and Popper take consciousness to causally interact with the brain, and we argue that even Köhler presupposes an interactionist interpretation of the consciousness–brain relation. We argue that nothing (...) necessarily rules out that consciousness as something subjective may causally interact with the brain as something objective. We discuss an evolutionary argument for the theory that consciousness causally interacts with the brain, and we consider some arguments for consciousness having had a survival value. (shrink)

This paper provides evidence from the history of the natural sciences in philosophy (particularly mathematical physics, chemistry, and biology) that a “piloting” soul would have to make physical changes in human beings violating well-established physical laws. But, among other things, it has been discovered that there can be no such changes, and thus that there is no piloting soul. -/- 1. Introduction -- 2. Suitable Restrictions in Physical Theories -- 3. Evidence that Physical Formulas are not Violated -- 4. How (...) the Preservation of Physical Formulas Shows that There is No Afterlife - 4.1 How the Narrow Version Differs from Standard Closure - 4.2 Elucidation of the Tight Argument Against an Afterlife - 4.3 Summary and Final Thought. (shrink)

The Introduction provides a general overview of the issues discussed in The Myth of an Afterlife in more detail in the individual selections, structured according to the four parts of the volume, plus preceding introductory and subsequent concluding comments. -/- 1. Preliminary Considerations -- 2. Empirical Arguments for Annihilation -- 3. Conceptual and Empirical Difficulties for Survival -- 4. Problematic Models of the Afterlife -- 5. Dubious Evidence for Survival -- 6. The Importance of Empirical Considerations -- 7. Alternative Paranormal (...) Explanations of the Survival Evidence -- 8. Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

Tight correlations between mental states and brain states have been observed time and again within the ethology of biologically ingrained animal behaviors, the comparative psychology of animal minds, the evolutionary psychology of mental adaptations, the behavioral genetics of inherited mental traits, the developmental psychology of the maturing mind, the psychopharmacology of mind-altering substances, and cognitive neuroscience more generally. They imply that our mental lives are only made possible because of brain activity—that having a functioning brain is a necessary condition for (...) having conscious experiences. This mind-brain dependence thesis yields predictions that have been spectacularly confirmed by the evidence, whereas its antithesis has been massively disconfirmed—at least so long as it is not formulated so vaguely as to yield no specific empirical consequences at all. Dualists are thus forced to make a difficult choice: either retain a belief in personal survival at the expense of ignoring or dismissing the implications of our best evidence, or accept those implications at the expense of acknowledging that the prospects for personal survival are extremely dim. -/- 1. Introduction: A Probabilistic Argument -- 2. Scientific Reasoning I: Mill’s Methods and Modern Epidemiological Principles - 2.1 When Correlation Indicates Causation -- 3. Scientific Reasoning II: Inference to the Best Explanation, Testability, and Predictive Success - 3.1 Parsimony: Tempering Explanations to Minimize False Beliefs - 3.2 Plausibility: Harmonizing Explanations with Background Knowledge - 3.3 Testability and Confirmation: Checking Hypotheses Against the Data - 3.3.1 Confirmation of the Dependence Thesis from Failed Attempts to Falsify It - 3.3.2 Confirmation of the Dependence Thesis from the Falsification of its Rival - 3.4 Scope: Bringing Disparate Facts Together - 3.5 Fertility: Generating New Lines of Research - 3.6 Overview -- 4. Scientific Reasoning III: Bayesian and Information-Theoretic Approaches - 4.1 Bayesian Probability - 4.2 Bayesian Confirmation Theory - 4.3 A Bayesian Approach to the Dependence and Independence Theses - 4.4 The Probabilistic Price of Ad Hoc Accommodation: Simplicity vs. Goodness of Fit - 4.4.1 Simplicity Reflected in the Likelihood - 4.4.2 Simplicity Reflected in the Prior Probability - 4.5 Prediction vs. Accommodation - 4.6 Bayesian Analysis of the Dependence and Independence Theses -- 5. The Dualist’s Dilemma: Reject Science, or Reject Personal Survival? - 5.1 What’s Left for a Soul to Do? -- 6. Conclusion. (shrink)

Because every single one of us will die, most of us would like to know what—if anything—awaits us afterward, not to mention the fate of lost loved ones. Given the nearly universal vested interest we personally have in deciding this question in favor of an afterlife, it is no surprise that the vast majority of books on the topic affirm the reality of life after death without a backward glance. But the evidence of our senses and the ever-gaining strength of (...) scientific evidence strongly suggest otherwise. -/- In The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death, Michael Martin and Keith Augustine collect a series of contributions that redress this imbalance in the literature by providing a strong, comprehensive, and up-to-date casebook of the chief arguments against an afterlife all in one place. Divided into four separate sections, this essay collection opens the volume with a broad overview of the issues, as contributors consider the strongest available evidence as to whether or not we survive death—in particular the biological basis of all mental states and their grounding in brain activity that ceases to function at death. Next contributors consider a host of conceptual and empirical difficulties that confront the various ways of "surviving" death—from bodiless minds to bodily resurrection to any form of posthumous survival. Then essayists turn to internal inconsistencies between traditional theological conceptions of an afterlife—Heaven, Hell, karmic rebirth—and widely held ethical principles central to the belief systems undergirding those notions. In the final section, authors offer critical evaluations of the main types of evidence for an afterlife. -/- Fully interdisciplinary, The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death brings together a variety of fields of research to make that case, including cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, personal identity, philosophy of religion, moral philosophy, psychical research, and anomalistic psychology. As the definitive casebook of arguments against life after death, this collection is required reading for any instructor, researcher, and student in philosophy, religious studies, and theology. It is sure to raise provocative issues new to readers, regardless of background, from those who believe fervently in the reality of an afterlife to those who do not or are undecided on the matter. (shrink)

Human bodies have a totally different mode of existence from those collections of mental properties (intelligence, will power, consciousness, etc.) that we call minds. They belong to the ontological category of physical substances or entities, whereas mental properties belong to the ontological category of properties or attributes, and as such can exist only so long as their physical bearers exist. Mental properties “emerge” (in a sense that makes emergence ubiquitous throughout the natural world) when the constituent parts of a biological (...) organism—especially its brain—are configured in certain sorts of ways. A view of reality that is both conceptually coherent and scientifically comprehensive makes the very idea of surviving one’s bodily death literally absurd. -/- 1. The Cheshire Cat Fallacy: “A Grin Without a Cat” -- 2. Two Main Arguments for Substance Dualism - 2.1 An Appeal to the Logic of Identity and Difference - 2.2 An Appeal to the Noncogitative Nature of Matter -- 3. A Host of Problems for Substance Dualism - 3.1 The Inexplicability of Mind-Brain Dependence - 3.2 The Inexplicability of Mental Causation - 3.3 The Violation of Scientific Laws - 3.4 Minds as Miracle-Workers - 3.5 Problems about Our Embryological and Developmental Histories - 3.6 Problems about our Evolutionary Histories - 3.7 Which Stage of the Soul or Mind Survives? - 3.8 Where are our Disembodied Souls Supposed to Survive? -- 4. The Argument from Leibniz’s Law Presupposes a Category Misallocation - 4.1 The Fallacy of Reification - 4.2 Resisting the Reifying Lure of Language - 4.3 Dualistic Consequences of Reifying Mentalistic Terms - 4.4 Allocation to Ontological Categories - 4.5 Locke’s Partial Solution to the Category Misallocation - 4.6 Ryle on Category Mistakes and “the Ghost in the Machine” - 4.7 Ryle’s Important Insight: To Have a Mind is to have a Set of Mental Properties - 4.8 Interim Summary -- 5. The Emergence of “Minds” from Incogitative Matter - 5.1 Locke’s A Priori Argument - 5.2 Locke’s Argument Refuted by Counterexamples - 5.3 The Concept of Emergence Defined - 5.4 Rival Concepts of Emergence - 5.5 The Ubiquitousness of Emergent Properties - 5.6 The Metaphysics of Emergent Materialism - 5.6.1 Substance Monism - 5.6.2 The Doctrine of Property Dualism is Misconceived - 5.6.3 Emergent Properties of Different Kinds - 5.6.4 The “Hierarchy” of Sciences - 5.6.5 The Broad Spectrum of “Mental” Properties -- 6. The Metaphysical Impossibility of Survival - 6.1 Mind-Brain Dependence - 6.2 The Issue of Mental Causation - 6.2.1 The Bogeyman of Epiphenomenalism - 6.3 The Violation of Scientific Laws - 6.4 Minds as Miracle-Workers - 6.5 Our Embryological and Developmental Histories - 6.6 Our Evolutionary Histories -- 7. Conclusion. (shrink)

This paper proposes that if individual X ‘inherits’ property F from individual Y, we should be leery of explanations that appeal to X’s being F. This bears on what I’ll call “emergent substance dualism”, the view that human persons or selves are metaphysically fundamental or “new kinds of things with new kinds of causal powers” even though they depend in some sense on physical particulars :5–23, 2006; Personal agency. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008). Two of the most prominent advocates of (...) this view, Lynne Rudder Baker and E.J. Lowe, suggest that emergent particulars have physical properties in virtue of the relations they bear to physical particulars—they ‘inherit’ their physical properties. In Sect. 1, I argue that having a property F this way is not instantiating F. In Sect. 2, I raise concerns that if emergent particulars don’t instantiate physical properties, then facts about emergent particulars don’t explain intentional actions. I suggest that emergent dualism would be more attractive if it could avoid this apparent consequence. In Sect. 3, I propose a view according to which some instances of physical properties are instantiated by both an emergent particular and its body. (shrink)

This paper surveys the neuroscientific evidence that brain lesions and drug intoxication can not only disrupt mental functions like perception and motor control, but can also remove one’s very awareness that these functions are impaired or altered. Such deficits imply that consciousness of one’s mental faculties, no less than the faculties themselves, is a product of particular neural structures. But this is inconsistent with any view—such as the dualistic interactionism of John Eccles—that holds that the conscious self interacts with and (...) uses the brain rather than being constituted by it. -/- 1. The Mind-Body Problem -- 2. Dualism -- 3. Chemistry -- 4. Dreams -- 5. Hemineglect -- 6. The Transmission Analogy. (shrink)

This paper argues that since nonphysical souls lack a position in space, they cannot have the pairing relations that would allow them to interact with physical bodies. For example, if two rifles (A and B) are fired at the same time, and consequently Andy and Buddy are killed, we can only say that rifle A killed Andy while rifle B killed Buddy, rather than the other way around, if there are appropriate spatial relations (such as distance and orientation) that pair (...) Andy’s death to A’s firing, and Buddy’s death to B’s firing. But no such pairing relations are available to nonphysical minds that lack spatial positions altogether. And attributing spatial location to nonphysical souls raises more problems than it solves, such as how to find particular souls at particular locations, how souls taken to be geometric points in space could retain enough structure to have sufficient causal powers to influence bodies, and why spatial entities more robust than points shouldn’t simply be conceived of as exotic physical entities like astral bodies. -/- 1. The Problem -- 2. Descartes and Mental Causation -- 3. Causation and the “Pairing” Problem -- 4. Causation and Space -- 5. Can We Locate Souls in Space? (shrink)