Pansentient Monism Formulating Panpsychism as a Genuine Psycho-Physical Identity Theory Doctoral Thesis – University of Exeter MMXIX Peter Sjöstedt Hughes Abstract The thesis that follows proffers a solution to the mind-matter problem, the problem as to how mind and matter relate. The proposed solution herein is a variant of panpsychism – the theory that all (pan) has minds (psyche) – that we name pansentient monism. By defining the suffix 'psyche' of panpsychism, i.e. by analysing what 'mind' is (Chapter 1), we thereby initiate the effacement of the distinction between mind and matter, and thus advance a monism. We thereafter critically examine the prevalent view, antithetical to a pansentient monism, that mind is not identical to matter but emergent therefrom (Chapter 2). This anti-emergentist critique acts also as a fortification of the Genetic Argument for panpsychism: if mind is not emergent (nor distinct) from matter, mind must always have existed with matter. But what is 'matter'? Chapter 3 investigates what we understand by 'matter', or 'the physical', and exposes it as a highly deficient concept and percept that in concreto points to its identity with that denoted by 'mind'. This also acts as a fortification of the Abstraction Argument for panpsychism, employing a new taxonomy of physicalism and a new taxonomy of the varieties of abstraction. Thus do we reach a monism that is a parsimonious psycho-physical identity theory. But here we face what can be called The Identity Problem for Panpsychism: if our panpsychism is a psycho-physical identity theory, how can it respond to the powerful objections that beset the identity theory of the twentieth century? In Chapter 4 it will be argued that, like emergentism, this psycho-neural identity theory presupposed a deficient concept of 'matter', down to which mind was reduced away, let alone identified. But to identify down phenomena to what is actually an abstraction is to commit failure of explanation. When the theory is amended accordingly, we move from a psycho-neural identity theory to a genuine psycho-physical identity theory that as such can overcome the aforementioned identity problem. Furthermore, as Chapter 5 clarifies, our pansentient monism has, in addition to parsimony, the explanatory power to resolve the problem of mental causation that afflicts both the reductive physicalism of psycho-neural identity theory and the non-reductive physicalism of emergentism, by genuinely identifying physical and mental causation. Jaegwon Kim considers the place of consciousness in a physical world and the nature of mental causation to be the two key components of the mind-matter problem. Through the critical analysis of our prosaic understanding of mind and matter in this thesis, which incorporates the thought of both classical and contemporary thinkers through a novel fusion, it is hoped that both components are addressed and redressed. That is to say that I present this pansentient monism as a plausible, parsimonious, explanatory, and thus, I think, powerful position towards this ever-perplexing mind-matter mystery. CONTENTS Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 List of Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Acknowledgements and Author's Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 §1: What is Panpsychism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 – Classification – Contemporary Importance §2: Contemporary Overview of Panpsychism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 §3: General Arguments for Panpsychism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 1. Genetic Argument (Anti-Emergence Argument) a. Logical b. Diachronic i. Evolutionary ii. Generational 2. Inferential Argument 3. Abstraction Argument (Intrinsic Nature Argument) §4: Challenges to Panpsychism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 §5: My Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Chapter 1: Sentience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 §1 Distinctions of Sentience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 i. Space and Sentience ii. Intentionality iii. Privacy §2 Contents of Sentience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 i. Qualia: Sensibility ii. Qualia: Emotivity iii. Cognition §3 Modes of Sentience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 i. A-consciousness to P-sentience ii. Rhythm of Duration iii. Veridicality §4 Alternate States of Sentience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 End Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Chapter 2: Emergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Part 1: Explication of Emergentism Historic Overview: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 – British emergentists – Reductive materialism – Non-Reductive materialism (post-1970s) as emergentism Aspects: i. Epistemic Bifurcation ('non-reductivism') . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 a. Matter as structurally describable b. Mind as not of necessity structurally describable c. Epistemic dualism but ontological (material) monism ii. Correlation (of mental events and material events) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 a. Supervenient events (s) and subvenient events (s) b. Strong and weak supervenience c. Type-asymmetric and token-symmetric correlation d. Correlation indicative of various relations e. Neural (and other) correlates of consciousness iii. Multiple Realization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 a. s can have a multiplicity of s. i. Thus relation of s and s is not psycho-neural identity b. Types of Multiple Realization c. The Modality Necessary for Multiple Realization Discourse iv. Novelty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 a. s have 'properties' not in s b. Distinction between s as constituted by s, and s as caused by s i. aggregate and emergent, or homogeneous and heterogeneous c. Distinction between determination and explanation (of s by s) d. Distinction between theoretical unpredictability (of s by s) and part inductive predictability (of s by s) e. A chief novelty is non-structural describability of s f. Another, crucial, novelty is downward causation: v. Causation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 a. Twelve kinds of causation illustrated, subsumed under: i. Mechanical (Lateral) ii. Upward iii. Downward 1. Vis-à-vis obstacles: epiphenomenalism, causal exclusion, causal closure, overdetermination, nomology, teleology, explanatory gap, double emergence, antinomies. Part 2: Critique of Emergentism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 i. Defining, summarizing and adding terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 ii. Arguments Internal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Argument A: Mental causation and causal closure Argument B: Epistemic bifurcation and physicalism Argument C: Epiphenomenalism and causal closure Argument D: Epiphenomenalism and the inconsistency problem Argument E: Multiple realization and non-reductivism iii. Arguments External . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Argument F: The Big Pang Problem Argument G: Emergence Category Mistake End Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Chapter 3: The Physical as Abstraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Preamble §1: The Problem of defining 'the Physical' (Hempel's Dilemma) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 – Immediate Rejection of currentism – Immediate Rejection of futurism §2: The Components of Physicalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 – Physics: o Nomology, Substance, Interactions, Micro-elements, Properties, Space, Time – Philosophy: o Causal closure, strict nomology, no-fundamental-mentality principle, no-fundamental-teleology principle, no third realm, transordinal nomology, cross-categorial nomology, mathematical nomology, logical nomology – Further problems of physicalism thus emerge §3: The Varieties of Abstraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 i. Fractionality ii. Deficient Extension iii. Space Contraction of Extension iv. Arbitrary Perceptons for Perception v. Sentience blindness of Classic Sensation vi. The Common Concept of Perception as itself Abstraction §4: Bridging to Panpsychism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 End Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Chapter 4: Panpsychism as Identity Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Preliminary Remarks §1: Types of Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 o 1. Strict/Numerical o 2. Qualitative o 3. Subclass o 4. Mereological o 5. Necessary o 6. Contingent §2: Three Mind-Matter Identity Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 o i. Phype-Mype o ii. Phoken-Mype o iii. Phype-Moken §3: The Psycho-Neural Identity Theory (PN-IdT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 §4: Critique of PN-IdT for Elaboration of PM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 o 1i: PN-IdT and the Physical as Abstraction o 1ii: Parsimony o 2: Property Objections § 2i: General (Identity of Indiscernibles) § 2ii: Privacy § 2iii: Space • 2iii–1-SPO: Onefold Space Property Objection • 2iii–2-SPO: Twofold Space Property Objection o 2iii–2-SPO-b: Hyperspace Condition for Twofold Identity § 2iv – Return to Privacy o 3: Multiple Realization End Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Chapter 5: Panpsychism and Mental Causation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Preamble §1: Causation: Epistemic/Ontological and Anomalous/Nomological . . . . . . . . . . . 248 §2: The Varieties of Mental Causation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 – Transitive o Diachronic psycho-psychological o Synchronic upward psycho-psychological o Synchronic downward psycho-psychological o Diachronic psycho-physical – Cognitive o Wilful o Intellectual – Qualitative o PMPI § Demeteptual § Perceptual o PMCE – Cognizant o Conscious o Subconscious – Restrictive o Free § Non-Physical § Non-Motivational § Anomalous • Super-structural • Intra-structural o Determined § Physical § Motivational § Nomological § Psycho-physical Aetiological §3: The Problem of Mental Causation Resolved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 i. physical causal closure ii. causal exclusion iii. mind-body supervenience iv. mental/physical property dualism End Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 Reference List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .