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Toward a Naturalism of
Intentionality and Consciousness
Mark H. Bickhard
[email protected]
http://bickhard.ws/
Naturalism and Mind
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Is naturalism consistent with the
normativities of mind?
If not, then mind cannot be naturalized
If so, how?
What is Naturalism?
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Naturalism understood in terms of what
the natural sciences study carries with it
a metaphysical barrier to naturalizing
the mind
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It cannot address the ontologies of
normativity
This barrier is of ancient provenance
Naturalism as a
Presupposition of Inquiry
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It is always legitimate to ask further questions
We live in one world — explanations lead to
integration of phenomena
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These can be in tension
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Empedoclean substances integrate many
explanations, but also block further inquiry
concerning those substances themselves
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They are metaphysically basic, with no further
explanations
Conceptual Barriers
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We live with a conceptual heritage that blocks
understanding of intentionality
This barrier puts us in a position that is akin to
attempting to model fire with a better
substance than phlogiston
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So long as fire was conceived of as a substance,
no satisfactory model was possible
Our conceptual situation with regard to mind is
similar, but worse
The Western Substance
Tradition
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Parmenides argued that change cannot occur
(arguing against Heraclitus)
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For A to change into B,
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A would have to disappear into nothingness,
and B emerge out of nothingness
Nothingness is not possible, it cannot exist
Therefore, change cannot occur
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Lest you think that this is an odd argument, consider the
difficulties that contemporary thought has with
representing falsehoods or non-existents
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Meinong, Russell, Wittgenstein, Fodor, etc.
In Response
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There is an underlying substratum —
substance — that does not change
Empedocles: divisible substance —
stuff:
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Earth, Air, Fire, Water
Democritus: indivisible substance
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Atoms
This Frames Our World
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Plato and Aristotle both took the
Parmenidean argument very seriously
Aristotle’s substance model is much
more sophisticated than Empedocles
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Perhaps prime matter as basic unchanging
substratum, for example
But descendents of substance and atom
metaphysics frame thought today
Two Dirempted Realms
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Substance makes change require special
explanation
Substance makes emergence impossible
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Substances can mix and remix, but there is no way to get
a new substance
Factual substance is split off from intentional,
normative, modal mind
Two fundamentally incompatible
metaphysical realms are posited
Two Realms Still Dominant
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Some have explicitly posited two realms
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Aristotle: substance and form
Descartes: two kinds of substance
Kant: world and subject
Analytic: factual science and normative language
Some have tried to make do with just one
side of the split
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Green, Bradley: idealists — all is “mental”
Hobbes, Hume, Quine: all is factual
This “all is factual” (scientific) world assumption is
our contemporary dominant framework
Process Metaphysics
Re-integrates this Split
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Change is default
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Emergence is ubiquitous
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Stability requires explanation
Every new organization of process has emergent
properties, though not all will be of interest or
importance
Emergence of normativity and intentionality
within the natural world, thus the integration
of the split, becomes possible
Stability of Process
Organization
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Energy Well Stability
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E.g., Atoms
Far-from-equilibrium Stability
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E.g., Self-organization in a chemical bath
Self-maintenant Stability
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E.g., Candle Flame
Recursively Self-maintenant Stability
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E.g., Bacterium
Emergence of Normative
Function
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Functional for X
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Function is specific to system
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Contributing to the maintenance of far from
equilibrium conditions necessary for X
Heart beat of parasite is functional for
parasite, dysfunctional for host
Compare: Etiological Models
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E.g., Millikan
Emergence of
Representational Truth Value
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Recursive Self-maintenance
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Selection of interaction, or indication of
appropriateness of interaction, will be functional in
some environments, but not in others
That is, the presuppositions of such selection or
indication will sometimes be True and sometimes
False
This is the emergence of representational
normativity out of functional normativity
Content
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Indications of appropriateness presuppose
that this environment has the conditions in
which the functionality holds
These presuppositions are representational
content; they are predicated of the
environment
They are implicit, not explicit
Contrast: Encodingism
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Encodingism: The assumption that (all)
representation is encoding
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Example: Morse code
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Representation constituted in some kind of
encoding correspondence
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“...” encodes “S”
causal, nomological, informational, conventional
Motivated by Substance Approach
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Signet Ring in Wax
Transduction
Problems with Encodingism
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Myriads of fatal problems:
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All such correspondences are logically external, thus
require interpreter, which initiates a vicious regress
Too many correspondences
Possibility of error
Possibility of system detectable error
Skepticism/ idealism
Piaget’s ‘copy’ problem
Incoherence
Possibility of emergence
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Innatism is not a solution
Internal Relations
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Green & Bradley:
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Everything internally related to everything
Including representation to represented
\ change in representation entails change
in represented
Strongly rejected by Russell
Rare since Quine
Interactive Representation
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Interactive content is internally related
to indications of interaction
appropriateness
Internally related to content, not to
represented
\ not subject to Russell’s complaints
Mentality in the Central
Nervous System
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Evolutionary problem of interaction selection
and guidance
Requires anticipation of potential interactions
available for selection
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Frog
Requires timing in guidance of interaction
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Turing machines, and equivalents, have
sequence, but no timing
Anticipation and Timing
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How does the brain accomplish these?
Not by way of passive threshold switch
neurons
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Discrete computationalism does not suffice
And, in any case, that is a false model
of central nervous system
microfunctioning
The Brain Doesn’t Work that
Way
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The functioning of the brain cannot be
understood in terms of neurons as
threshold switches.
Neurons don't work that way, and, in
addition, neurons are not the only
functional units in the brain.
Microgenesis
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When we look at how the brain actually
functions, we find strong support for an
alternative - microgenetic - model of central
nervous system functioning.
Microgenesis, in turn, has strong implications
for the nature of representation and cognition.
It forces an interactive, pragmatic model of
representation.
Functional Processes in the
Brain
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Neurons as:
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Threshold switches
Connectionist nodes
Frequency encoders
All have in common the assumption that
neurons are input processors
And that neurons are the only functional
units
Both Are Wrong
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Neurons are endogenously active
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In multiple ways
They do not just process inputs
And neurons are not the only functional
units
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Glia, for example, are also functional, not
just supportive
Neurons
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Oscillators
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Resonators
Modulations of endogenous activity, not
switches of otherwise inert units
Turing machine power
Timing
Neurons II
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Silent neurons
Volume transmitters
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L-Dopa
Graded release of transmitters
Gap junctions
Why multiple transmitters if all synapses are
classical?
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Transmitters evolved from hormones
Classical synapses evolved from volume
transmitters
Astrocytes (Glia)
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Receive transmitters
Emit transmitters
Form functional “bubbles”
Gap junction connections
Calcium waves
Modulate synaptogenesis
Modulate synaptic functioning
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Release, uptake, degree of volume diffusion, …
Multiple Scales
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These are all modulatory influences at
multiple scales
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Large and small spatial scales
Slow and fast temporal scales
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There are also variations in delay times
Evolution has created a large tool box of
multiple kinds and scales of modulatory
influences
Microgenesis II
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Larger and slower processes set the context
for smaller and faster processes
They set the parameters for the faster and
smaller processes
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Ion and transmitter concentrations
Modes of synaptic functioning
They generate vast concurrent micro-modes
of processing across the brain: Microgenesis
Dynamic Programming
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Parameter setting for dynamic
processes is the dynamic equivalent of
programming in a discrete system
Microgenesis sets and changes the
programs across the brain
Microgenesis is ongoing and occurs in
real time
Functional Anticipation
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Microgenetic set-up may or may not be
appropriate to the actual flow of
interactive processing that occurs in the
organism
Microgenesis is functionally anticipatory
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The anticipation is that the microgenetic
set-up will be appropriate
Anticipation and Timing
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Thus, microgenetic set up is anticipatory
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Generating emergent truth value and
content
Modulation of oscillatory processes has
inherent timing
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Controlling interaction in a real temporal
world
Interactive Flow
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Contentful
Situated
Embodied
From a Point of View
Experiential Flow
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Primary Consciousness
Anticipative Visual Interaction
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Visual experiencing
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Gibson
Piaget: small object
Straight line
Red
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O’Regan
Reflective Consciousness
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Second Level Interaction
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Age 3.5
Some Macro-Functional Circuitry
Properties of Experiencing
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Experienced in Reflection
Qualities of Experiencing - Qualia
Qualia
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Constitutive of Experiencing And
Properties of Experiencing
Ontological Circularity
Very hard problem
Dissolve the Hard Problems of
Consciousness
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Zombies
Inverted and other disordered qualia
Assume externally related properties of
experiencing
Qualia problem is hard because of
assumptions that entail an ontological
circularity
Both are dissolved by this model
Conclusions — Representation
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Interactive model of representation
Accounts for Emergence of
Representation
Accounts for System Detectable Error
Internally related content
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Avoids Interpreter
Conclusions — Consciousness
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Captures properties of experiencing
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Accounts for Qualia
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Contentful, situated, point of view, …
Renders zombies and disordered qualia
impossible
Dissolves ontological circularity in standard
assumptions
Makes consciousness as a part of the natural
world much less mysterious
Conclusions — Naturalism
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Intentionality and consciousness are
natural phenomena
But can be understood so only within a
process metaphysics
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That makes change the default
That makes emergence possible
And that makes normative, intentional
emergence (thermodynamically) natural