peter simons trinity college dublin minds and their places in nature

Peter Simons

Trinity College Dublin

Minds and their Placesin Nature

1 - Introductory Remarks on Metaphysics and Ontology2 - Naturalism what3 - Factors and Categories: Back to Basics, and Back Up Again4 - Mental Characters and their Apomorphies: Kinds of Minds5 - How Minds are and are not Emergent6 - Prospect

Contents

• Acceptable• No linguistic turn• Not a priori• In part like natural science• Unification, not Explanation• Systematic Framework

Metaphysics and Ontology

“the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted.” (P&R 1)

“Here ‘interpretation’ means that each element shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme.” (A of I, 222)

• consistency (logicality)• independence (coherence)• adequacy (every element)• applicability

Metaphysics and Ontology

Naturalism what

• Speculative hypothesis Nothing outwith the spatio-temporal- causal framework No chasms or magic• No abstract, supernatural, acausal ≠ physicalism (as a linguistic hypothesis)

Categories: Two Kinds

“Indispensable Concepts” (Bennett)

Dividing reality: kinds of entity

(Aristotelian, ontic)

Helping us to know

(Kantian, auxiliary)

Auxiliary Categories

Logical conceptsModal concepts

Mathematical concepts…

Ontic Categories

•Continuant (endurant)•Occurrent (perdurant)•Mass of stuff•Energy•Trope•Relation•Causation•Spatiotemporal locus …

Anatomising Ontic Categories

Formal Factors: ontic concepts (of formal ontology, dividing being)applicable to and distinguishing the fundamentalclasses of entity — how, why?

Why factor?

• Traditional categories are top-level classes of entities (cf. main classes in library science, domains in biology)• They do not represent a deep analysis of the grounds for the division• They are unstable, idiosyncratic; their search strategy and justification are typically methodologically questionable

Why factor?

• Allows categories qua classes of entities to be determined by factor combinations• Allows factor families to be investigated separately (modularization of primitives)• Provides a system framework for speculative metaphysics, the theory of (absolutely) everything• Separates formal ontology (factors and their combination) from material systematics (taxa)

Factors what

• Factors are ontological grounds of the basic differences (cf. facets, characters)• They are not classes of entities• Apply directly only to ontic categories• Search and justification are abductive (thus fallible and revisable, but not language-relative)

Factored Ontology I: Empedocles

Hot Cold

Wet Air Water

Dry Fire Earth

Temperature Factor

HumidityFactor

Factored Ontology II: Ingarden

Factors = Existential Moments define

Categories = Modes of Being1. autonomous/heteronomous2. primary/derived3. self-sufficient/non-self-sufficient4. independent/dependent5. actual/post-actual/empirically possible/non-actual6. fissural/non-fissural

1. persistent/fragiledefine fifteen categories of entity (thing, property, event, state of affairs …)

Families of Formal Factors

• number family (megethology)• part/whole family (mereology)• dependence family (symbebekology)• quantity family (posology)• location family (poupoteology)• determination family (aetiology)

Project of Fundamental Ontology

To characterize and delimit the basic ontic categories in terms of the factor families, using auxiliary categories to help us express ourselves:e.g. substance = Df. continuant (object extended in space and not in time, not having temporal parts), such that it is not dependent on any other simultaneously existing objects which are not its parts

Recalcitrant Minds

Minds appear to offend against naturalism:apparently offensive but essential characteristics

• intentionality• phenomenal consciousness

linked by Brentano (1874)separated by Freud and Husserl

Apomorphies of the mental

Framework:formal — factored ontologymaterial — evolution by natural selection

intentionality: feature 1: “aboutness”feature 2: failures of substitutionfeature 3: founded on presentation

Presentation

An item in the life of an organism typicallycaused by something elseand linked to dispositions to change itself in regard to that something else, e.g.painouter perceptionproprioception(stimulus—response) (not necessarily conscious)

Presentation

where there is presentation there may be mispresentation:

(1) having inapt response (2) as if other (regularity and representation)

This is the source of error and the substitution failures in description

Branching Varieties

discriminatingtaking asretaininganticipating (cognition and agency go together)socializingrecognizingbeing self-awarecommunicating

Consciousness

• naturalistic evolutionary advantages• common• varietal• not a hard problem• being the bearer

Emergence: Analysis

An emergent feature F is one which is in some way “new” or “surprising”

Epistemic vs Ontic Emergence

Feature F is epistemically emergent with respect to basis B =Def. no knowledge of B and its principles of combination and operation is sufficient to explain or predict F

Weakly epistemically emergent: actual knowledge

Strongly epistemically emergent: ideal knowledge (cf. Broad’s “mathematical archangel”)

Feature F is ontically emergent with respect to basis B =Def. no combinations and operations from B are sufficient to produce F

*Combinations: according to the ontological repertoire belonging to B

*Operation: characteristic modes of (inter)acting (law-governed)

Simple Composition

Simple composition: mereological (part-whole)

With regard to a base of entities B (typically simples) and the sole principle of mereological composition an entity E is ontically emergent iff it is not a mereological sum over B

Aristotle: “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”

Mereological composition is very weak and unrealistic: most wholes are not mereological sums

Remedies:

(1) generalize compositionality (have other primitive combinations)

(2) broaden the base (to include relations, tropes, etc.)

Generalized Composition

Combinatorial pluralism: includes formal-ontological relations of part-whole, dependence, location, determination, and quantity. Call this the combinatorial base R

Taxic Base T: material (= non-formal) taxa of kinds

T and R together constitute the ontic base B

B generates F iff B is ontologically analysable without remainder into entities out of T related by relations out of R

(F consists of Ts related by Rs)

Example: this water molecule is generated by quarks and leptons interacting by instances of the basic forces located in a given SpT region and persisting as invariants. Taxa include quark and lepton tropes and force-relational tropes; combinatorial instances include the dependence relations among the various bundled tropes, successive locations of the parts and their causal interactions, their multiplicity and mereology. (Classic case of reduction, with controversial taxic base.)

Compositional Elements

Naturalistic Hypothesis

Intentionality is not ontically emergent from a physical base, but is at epistemically emergent therefrom

What physical features could generate intentionality?

Basis: Causation

Sense organs (gather environmental information)

Sensory information trace storage (memory)

Capacity for movement

Sensory-motor pathways (confer evolutionary advantage)

Filtering mechanism (attention)

Integrated system combining the above

Prospect

• Keep up the good work

• Investigate varieties of known mentality (other animals, infant humans)

• Simulate formal and material features in machines

• Be prepared for the long haul

• Be of good cheer