Transcript Elitzur-Mind-Body - Avshalom C. Elitzur אבשלום

What’s your Mind-Body Problem Anyway?
Avshalom C. Elitzur
Outline
1.
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
2.
Consequent Problems: “Other Minds” and the “I”
3.
Extreme Measure: Direct Mind-Matter Interaction
4.
Extreme Measure: Quantum Mechanics Reconsidered
5.
Time: A Related Mystery?
6.
Summary
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“In science, the qualitative is only a poor
form of the quantitative” (Rutherford)
qualitatively different from blue
Red is quantitatively
Same waves, different wavelength
qualitatively different from salty
Sweet is quantitatively
Same electrons, different numbers
qualitatively different from hate
Love is quantitatively
Same neurons, different configurations
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
Leibniz (1646-1716)
No essential difference between a windmill and a brain:
Seeing all its inner mechanisms says nothing about the
associated subjective experience!
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
Despite years of research, the process
of seeing a certain color remains
unrelated to the subjective experience
of seeing that color
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
1. The Problem of Inverted Qualia
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
1. The Problem of Inverted Qualia
The Heart of the Mystery: Qualia
2. The Problem of Absent Qualia
BLUE
RED
Consciousness = the totality of qualia
Chalmers: the Hard vs. the Easy Problem
The Mind-Body Problem
Qualia
Other Minds
Who am I?
‘isms
Monism: “Everything is basically
one”
Dualism: “There are two kinds of
entities, matter and mind”
Physicalism (Materialism): Only matter is
real, mind is secondary
Interactionist Dualism: “Mind interacts
with matter”
Idealism: Only mind is real, matter is
secondary
Non-Interactionist Dualism: “Mind does not
interact with matter”
Epiphenomenalism: “Matter affects mind,
never vice versa”
Parallelism: “Matter and mind run parallel
without ever affecting one another”
Identity Theory: “Matter, somehow, is mind.”
Pan-Psychism: “Mind potentially exists within
matter.”
The Argument for Inessentialism:
The Closure of the Physical World
Romeo adores Juliet
(no quotes?!)
IF the laws of mechanics completely explain the motions of billiard balls,
plants’ water absorption,
and reflex movements
(no subjective experience needed),
THEN the same holds for Romeo and Juliet’s behavior!
Muscle “responds” to stimulus
Plant cell “drinks” water
Balls “repel” one another
The Conceptual Price of granting efficacy to
Consciousness
Conservation of energy and/or momentum violated
Second Law violated
Worse: no Real Solution is Offered!
(inverted qualia?)
(other minds?)
(who am I?)
When does Consciousness Emerge?
William Grey Walter (1910-1977),
inventor of the “electronic turtle”
At what stage of the turtle’s complexity would you file a lawsuit against
Gray-Walter on animal abuse?
"phototropic animals"
Machina speculatrix
Machina docilis
Where, along the Evolutionary Ladder, does
Consciousness Emerge?
Frightened human
Cockroach under threat
“Photophobic” bacterium
“Hydrophobic” molecule
Complexity?
What do we need to know
in order to prove a “resolution” wrong?
Qualia
Alpha-mindo-encephaline
Loveliness
Qualia
Can Dualism be Avoided?
"Non, je ne regrette rien"
The penalty:
Energy & momentum conservation laws violated!
René Descartes (1596-1650)
The Penrose-Hameroff Hypothesis:
The brain performs quantum computation within the neuron’s microtubules
Sir Roger Penrose
Stuart Hameroff
Time: The Common View
Events Become and Go, One by One
Time: The Relativistic View
All Events Coexist along Time
Time’s Passage and Conscious Experience:
Two Riddles – or One?
subjective experience *
* Governor Bush & Dad giving a good cry duet
time’s passage
Indeed, Elitzur (1989) argues directly from the
existence of claims about consciousness to the
conclusion that the laws of physics cannot be
complete, and that consciousness plays an active
role in directing physical processes (he suggests
that the second law of thermodynamics might be
false). But I have already argued that
interactionist dualism is of little help in avoiding
the problem of explanatory irrelevance (p. 183).
The Asymmetry Proof:
Chalmers’ Epiphenomenalism leads to Contradiction
(Elitzur 2009 http://www.a-c-elitzur.co.il/site/siteArticle.asp?ar=67 )
1.
A presumably conscious human (henceforth Chalmers) states there is a difference between his
percept (P) and its corresponding quale (Q).
2.
Chalmers further argues that a zombie duplicate of him (henceforth Charmless) is possible, which
is similar to him in all aspects, save that he has only P without Q.
3.
Chalmers asserts, however, that, by physical law, Charmless must notice a difference between
what he knows about the physical process underlying his percept and the unmediated percept
itself, which, within Charmless, presumably plays the role of Q.
4.
Chalmers then argues that this difference must produce in Charmless the same behavioral
consequences as the difference between P and Q.
5.
Ask now Chalmers: Can you conceive of a Charmless who will be identical to you but lack Q? His
answer, by (2), is “Yes.”
6.
Next ask Charmless: Can you conceive of a duplicate of you (henceforth Harmless) who will be
identical to you but will lack Q? His answer, by (3), must be “No; unmediated percepts, regardless
of what is known about them, must occur.”
7.
As Chalmers can conceive of Charmless but Charmless cannot conceive of Harmless,[1] the two
kinds of bafflement, associated with (1) and (3), are essentially different. Which is why we don’t
need to worry about Armless and so on.
8.
Hence, the physical explanation for (3) does not hold for (1).
[1] which is why we don’t have to worry about Armless and so on.