Strawson is among many within the analytic community who have been unable to make the leap to a post-Nietzschean way of construing objectivity, causality and subjectivity. They don’t see that the problem is their reliance on an inadequate formulation of the physical, and an inadequate biological model. As a result, Strawson finds subjective experience to be so qualitatively alien with respect to his understanding of the non-experientially physical that he has no choice but to create a new category of the physical to make room for it. Post-Nietzschean philosophers from Rorty and Varela to Gallagher and the post-structuralists begin from a radical indissociability between subject and object. They typically embrace self-organizing systems approaches that reveal consciousness as emergent from autopeiotic living processes that already have many of the underlying characteristics surrounding of consciousness. It is telling that Strawson’s model of biological functioning Im is not informed by a self-organizing systems understanding.

Strawson wrote:
“Life* reduces, experience doesn't. Our theory of the basic mechanisms of life reduces to physics via chemistry. Suppose we have a machine that can duplicate any object by a process of rapid atom-by-atom assembly, and we duplicate a child. We can explain its life* functions in exquisite detail in the terms of current sciences of physics, chemistry and biology. We cannot explain its experience at all in these terms.”
Post-Nietzscheans would argue that autopeiotic processes of life are not reducible to physics, at least not without a re-envisioning of physics in a direction suggested by Prigogine and Stengers.

Thank you, very interesting.

Yes. And to address the causal exclusion/overdetermination argument head-on, causation is contextual; there isn't some objective matter of fact about what causes what. Mental causation is in no way in competition with e.g. neurophysical causation because in each case causation is situated within an independent, self-contained explanatory scheme. Only other factors within the same explanatory context are relevant to it. — SophistiCat

Yes, I'm quite happy that you brought up the issue of the contextual character of causation. I was thinking about it while writing my post but decided not to delve into it in order not to overburden an already lengthy post.

There has been a recent upsurge of literature on the topic of contrastivism. Some papers focus on the contrastive character of causation while others focus on the contrastive character of explanation. From a neo-pragmatist or neo-Kantian perspective, though, those are two different ways to approach the same issue. There isn't any substantive content to the claim that the occurrence of event A caused (and thereby explains) the occurrence of event B that doesn't implicitly or explicitly relies on the specifications of the contrastive classes of events that would count as non-occurrences of A or B. Here is one nice example: Suppose a pigeon has been trained to peck on red objects and, thereafter, the pigeon is presented with a crimson object and pecks at it. The cause of the pecking behavior, one might say, is the 'event' that consist in the presentation of the specific crimson object. But the pigeon would still have pecked at the object if it had been scarlet, say. So, the antecedent event only can be said to be causative and explanatory of the effect when individuated with reference to the contrastive class 'non-red' rather than 'non-crimson'. And the same can be said of the contrastive character of the effect.

Martijn Blaauw edited a volume on that theme: Contrastivism in Philosophy, Routledge Strudies in Contemporary Philosophy (2013). Chaper 1 (Causal Contextualism, by Christopher Hitchcock); chapter 2 (Contrastive Explanation, by Jonathan Shaffer); and chapter 3 (Free Contrastivism, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong) are interesting and instructive although the last one, which deals with the application of this topic to the issue of the compatibility of free will and determinism, seems flawed to me. (It is instructively flawed, though, since the topic indeed is quite relevant to the problem).

Post-Nietzscheans would argue that autopeiotic processes of life are not reducible to physics, at least not without a re-envisioning of physics in a direction suggested by Prigogine and Stengers. — Joshs

Agreed. Nine years ago I wrote a paper (unpublished) on the topic of autonomy in which I distinguished four grades of autonomy, whereby each one realizes an irreducible leap from the previous one. The lowest grade of (proto-)autonomy is realized by spontaneously occurring dissipative structures (thanks to suitably established external boundary conditions). The second grade is realized by genuinely self-maintening autopoietic life-forms. The third one consist in self-moving and perceiving animals. And the last one consists in rational animals that can reflect on, and revise, their own autonomous laws of conduct. The last three grades, of course, parallel Aristotle tripartite division of the psuche.

I came across this passage,written in 2008, in my journal. It seems somewhat relevant, so I am posting it here:

If I say that mind does not really exist, that there is no such thing as the mind, what exactly is it that I am saying? I could be saying that what people usually refer to as the mind is really nothing but the physical brain and that all the experiences that are enabled by the possession of a mind are really nothing but the electrochemical activity of the brain. I might be saying, if I am a ‘physicalist’, that this is the only reality; that any ideas about the existence of minds or about the existence of ‘selves’ that ‘possess’ minds are false, and are based on illusion.

If this were unequivocally true, then the greater part of human discourse about our actions would be mistaken because illusory. From a strict physicalist perspective this discourse, which is usually taken to issue from human ‘experience’, as well as the ‘experience’ itself, are reducible to physical brain and body states, for example the activity of neurons, contraction and relaxation of muscles causing gestures, movements of the body, particularly the hands and mouth, the emitting of sounds from the mouth which cause agitation and movement of air molecules, which impinge on the ear drums of listeners, causing electrochemical activity in their nerves and brains and so on.

But from a strictly physicalist viewpoint all the structures mentioned are ‘forms’ of materiality, which are not really determinate or fixed, in other words are constantly changing like Heraclitus’ river, and are also arbitrary insofar as they are perceptual/ conceptual representations.

It is the ‘materiality’ itself, which we have come to conceive, as clearly as we can in vaguely imaginable terms, as ultimate particles, which are believed to be the final, unchanging, perhaps everlasting, constituents of everything that exists.

that any ideas about the existence of minds or about the existence of ‘selves’ that ‘possess’ minds are false, and are based on illusion. — Janus

Well, the problem would be, if you said that, that ‘illusions’ are artefacts of consciousness. They’re not physical things. Sure, again, a physical cause might generate an illusion, but they will only generate it in the case of a subject who is capable of being mistaken about something. No getting around it.

I'm not trying to argue that an eliminativist POV is rationally justifiable or even merely sustainable. I am just trying to get at precisely why it would not be, and I don't think subjecting it to one's own definitions and presuppositions gets the job done.

I mean you are evoking the subject and it's consciousness, which on the eliminativist perspective are both illusory, so that obviously won't do. And you are assuming that consciousness is not a physical process, which is precisely what you need to argue for without relying on that assumption.

My intuitive sense is that eliminativism is wrong, but I can't see how it, or for that matter, any other metaphysical view, can be definitively proven to be wrong.

Here is one nice example: Suppose a pigeon has been trained to peck on red objects and, thereafter, the pigeon is presented with a crimson object and pecks at it. The cause of the pecking behavior, one might say, is the 'event' that consist in the presentation of the specific crimson object. But the pigeon would still have pecked at the object if it had been scarlet, say. So, the antecedent event only can be said to be causative and explanatory of the effect when individuated with reference to the contrastive class 'non-red' rather than 'non-crimson'. And the same can be said of the contrastive character of the effect. — Pierre-Normand

You can also say that the cause of the pigeon's behavior was its prior training (contrasting it with untrained pigeons). Or the fact that it was awake and hungry (as opposed to asleep or sated). Or the fact that it was there and not elsewhere. And we've only considered the pigeon as an agent or an organism; we could go further into the various mechanical or physiological causes, and so on. There seem to be so many different causes of the same event operating at the same time, one ought to wonder how it is that they don't clash with one another! But of course they don't.

This ties in with what I said elsewhere about philosophers of mind: they sometimes seem unaware of the much wider context of their worries, such as that of epiphenomenalism. And just considering that wider context can serve, if not as a reductio, then at least as an important check.

Nothing physical has changed - only your belief. — Wayfarer

As @Pierre-Normand noted, you need not appeal to such exotic examples as the placebo effect. One moment I was sitting on a chair, the next moment I decided to get up - and lo, I got up! "Nothing physical has changed" when I made my decision - or that is what a dualist would say, right? So it is a problem for the dualist to explain how a purely mental event could have a physical effect. For someone who says that the mental supervenes on the physical there is no such problem. "There is no difference without a difference" is the slogan of supervenience: there is no mental difference without a physical difference. So when I decided to get up, something physical did change.

I mean you are evoking the subject and it's consciousness, which on the eliminativist perspective are both illusory, so that obviously won't do. — Janus

And what I’m saying is that the assertion that consciousness could be ‘an illusion’ implies a conscious subject - one who is subject to the illusion. There can’t be an illusion without a subject of experience, as an illusion is misunderstood experience.

you need not appeal to such exotic examples as the placebo effect. — SophistiCat

The point I’m trying to make concerns ‘top-down causality’ - in this case, the hackneyed expression, ‘mind over matter’. Because when it comes to something as prosaic as standing up, a physicalist will simply say that even though you believe that was a voluntary act, in fact the action was the consequence of a causal sequence which is purely physical in nature; that what you perceive subjectively as desires and intentions, really are just neural events and muscular contractions. That is after all what ‘denialists’ argue; they’re effectively denying the reality of agency conscious agents. And whilst i agree that this appears an absurd conclusion, I feel the placebo example throws that into relief rather more clearly.

I mean you are evoking the subject and it's consciousness, which on the eliminativist perspective are both illusory, so that obviously won't do. [...] My intuitive sense is that eliminativism is wrong, but I can't see how it, or for that matter, any other metaphysical view, can be definitively proven to be wrong. — Janus

I'll butt in for a moment (sorry Wayfarer).

I think they can be conceived of as illusory because subjects and consciousness are slippery fish to hold onto in terms of definitions.

Yet in all definitions I’m aware of, neither can meaningfully be when fully devoid of a first person point of view (one might sleep without dreams, but there’ll yet be a first person point of view aware of this subsequent to the sleep; otherwise we wouldn’t know that one can). So the emanativist is arguing against there being such a thing as a first person point of view being in any way ontic … likely so as to uphold an axiomatic system of metaphysics which their own first person point of view maintains is indispensable for making sense out of things. But inherent to this is a logical contradiction, just that it’s not spelled out. For a first person point of view cannot be illusory to the same first person point of view. And a first person point of view is not in any sense of the term a physical object. If logical contradictions serve to prove that that which is addressed is false, and if there is no justifiable alternative we can discern to a first person point of view holding presence while one is in any way aware, then the eliminativists are proven wrong by this lopsided contradiction.

Of course there would then be a lot of explanations still needed to make sense of things. Nevertheless, the eliminativist stance I so far believe is proven wrong by this inconsistency or reasoning.

And what I’m saying is that the assertion that consciousness could be ‘an illusion’ implies a conscious subject - one who is subject to the illusion. There can’t be an illusion without a subject of experience, as an illusion is misunderstood experience. — Wayfarer

What we think of as 'the subject of experience', the "one who is subject to the illusion", could simply be the physical body. You might not be able to conceive of how an illusion could appear to a physical body; but your inability to conceive it is no argument against the possibility.

But thinking of illusions in terms of "first person points of view" is already to assume that first person points of view are not themselves illusions. I am not an eliminativist: I am playing devil's advocate here. I don't see why the eliminativist must entertain the notion of a first point of view at all. In other words I can find no logical or performative contradiction in that standpoint.

But thinking of illusions in terms of "first person points of view" is already to assume that first person points of view are not themselves illusions. — Janus

You by definition are here being purely rationalistic, and ignoring that devoid of awareness we cannot rationalize. OK, so despite clear cut etymology and classical usages of the term, empiricism nowadays implies only experiences obtained via the physiological senses--such that ideas are not empirically known (unlike in the time of Lock and Hume). So I'll term it experientialism--such that we can only know of our ideas via awareness of them.

Without now drawing out the issue, would you in such offered context of concepts presume pure rationalism devoid of an experientialism upon which it is at least in part grounded?

I can't see how I am being rationalistic "by definition". I don't deny that we know of our thoughts by being aware of them, and I can't see how that fact tells us whether they, or our awareness of them, is either physical or non-physical. I would love to find a convincing argument against (eliminative) physicalism, that relied upon no tendentious presuppositions, to support my intuition that it is wrong.

For a first person point of view cannot be illusory to the same first person point of view. And a first person point of view is not in any sense of the term a physical object. — javra

:up:

What we think of as 'the subject of experience', the "one who is subject to the illusion", could simply be the physical body. — Janus

A body has no illusions. Consciousness is a condition for illusion.

I do see Javra’s point. You’re taking something apodictic, and making it hypothetical, I think for the sake of argument.

A body has no illusions. Consciousness is a condition for illusion. — Wayfarer

Argument?

I take the statement ‘consciousness is a condition for illusion’ to be apodictic, for exactly the reasons identified by Descartes.

What is worth contemplating is why the best-known materialist philosopher and spokesman for ‘new atheism’ feels obliged to deny it.

I would love to find a convincing argument against (eliminative) physicalism, that relied upon no tendentious presuppositions, to support my intuition that it is wrong. — Janus

As much as I’m not on board with Cartesianism, this is where Descartes’ first person style argument becomes useful. Here’s a good natured challenge: you (anybody actually, as long as it’s a personal first person argument) can try to come up with a rational/justifiable alternative to you, the first person point of view which addresses itself as “I”, not holding presence while in any way aware of anything.

Don’t worry about the “thinking” part of the argument as Descartes laid it out; with the thinking part you can find justifiable (although likely noncredible) alternatives … thereby resulting in eliminativism as a possibility of what is. Strictly focus on, “I, an awareness, or a first person point of view (I've got to convey what I’m addressing linguistically, and the latter to me seems more precise), do not hold presence (I am not, or do not exist) as an awareness, whatever this might be (could be an entity, a process, both, or neither), while I am in any way aware (be it of perceptions, sensations, or understandings) because …”

You can use BIVs, evil demons, whatever you’d like, as long as the explanation is consistent and gives a valid alternative to being aware while aware.

If you cannot come up with a valid alternative to this proposition, “I, a first person point of view, am while aware (including of the thoughts I'm having which purport to present an alternative to my so being),” then it will surpass the certainty level of any other proposition to which there are rational alternatives, including that of eliminativism. In a colloquial sense, because the first will be by far firmer (recalling etymologies of truth and trust both winding back to tree, tree of life/knowledge kind’a thing I believe (held in pagan cultures long before Abrahamic religions were popularized); the axis mundi which is perfectly firm … also firmament, but I digress :grin: ).

This isn’t to say that the first proposition will be then demonstrated to be infallible. But it will be among the least fallible propositions that can be devised—again, because no justifiable alternative for it can be conceived in practice, hence no possible error for it can be conceived in practice regardless of how hard one tries. And since it falsifies eliminativsm, which does hold rational alternatives, it then proves eliminativsm to be wrong in terms of what is in fact ontic … this as much as 2 + 2 = 4 can arguably be firm/certain due to not holding any justifiable alternatives in practice (meaning, in practice where all hell doesn’t break loose due to rational contradictions [edit: to be clear, contradictions of reasoning] being accepted as instances of non-erroneous reasoning).

Yes, but what changed the physical state? What was the causal factor? It was a change in the understanding, in the perception. That is why it can be described as a 'top-down' causal sequence. Whereas if the mental was indeed supervenient on the physical, then this ought not to happen. You might expect that a pill would change perception - that is 'bottom-up' - but you wouldn't expect that a change in perception would have physiological consequences. — Wayfarer

The perceptual process and the resulting understanding would themselves be physical processes: pressure waves in the air, photons, or tactile stimuli, etc stimulate our nerve receptors, and set up a cascade of events within our central nervous system. The information stating whether the treatment is a placebo or not is physically encoded in some manner, either in a particular sequence of squiggles on a page, or in a particular pattern of pressure waves in the air, or a particular arrangement of Braille, or whatever.

Likewise, with a fine-grained enough brain scan, one could presumably "read off" the mental state of the perceiver from the physical state of his brain: particular physical states encode particular mental states, even if one can't "see" the mental states directly (indeed, this needn't even be taken to be a hypothetical fantasy relegated to a philosophical thought experiment: some very preliminary steps towards "mind-reading" ability using brain scanning technology have already been taken).

But aren't you saying that 'the quark' is 'the fundamental unit'? It therefore serves in the role previously assigned to 'the atom' i.e. the purported 'fundamental particle of matter'. Whereas, whether a quark, or indeed any of the denizens of the 'particle zoo', actually are 'particles' is, I think, an open question.

//ps// This question is addressed by Victor Stenger in Particles are for Real, one of the last things he wrote.

I don't know if quarks are fundamental particles - I don't know enough about particle physics. Electrons, for instance, are taken to be fundamental particles, though.

Likewise, with a fine-grained enough brain scan, one could presumably "read off" the mental state of the perceiver from the physical state of his brain: particular physical states encode particular mental states, even if one can't "see" the mental states directly (indeed, this needn't even be taken to be a hypothetical fantasy relegated to a philosophical thought experiment: some very preliminary steps towards "mind-reading" ability using brain scanning technology have already been taken). — Arkady

I'll consider that to be hypothetical fantasy until you cite credible research.

For instance, this: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ai-predicts-what-youre-thinking/ . There are other such examples.

Thanks for the link.

The cited research is fascinating, but provides evidence of correlation between mental activity and neurophysiology, not of causation, hence; it is incorrect to say, "...particular physical states encode particular mental states" when the research makes no such claim.

In fact, what is being predicted are neural activation patterns produced by thought, not thought produced by neural activation patterns.

From the introduction:
"Given the semantic and thematic characterization of the component word concepts of a proposition, the model can predict the activation pattern the reading of the corresponding sentence will evoke."

And:
"This study thus has two main goals. The main goal was to develop a mapping between a semantic characterization of a sentence (based on the individual word concepts in the sentence and their thematic roles) and the resulting brain activation pattern that occurs when the sentence is read. The mapping can then be used to predict the activation pattern of an entirely new sentence containing new words, simply based on its semantic characterization."

P.S. Spare me the other examples.

The cited research is fascinating, but provides evidence of correlation between mental activity and neurophysiology, not of causation, hence; it is incorrect to say, "...particular physical states encode particular mental states" when the research makes no such claim. — Galuchat

Nothing in "encode" was meant to imply a causal relationship. The research demonstrates a primitive form of technological-based mind-reading, which is exactly what I claimed, and which none of your complaints negates. If you wish to move the goal posts, then that is none of my concern.

The perceptual process and the resulting understanding would themselves be physical processes: pressure waves in the air, photons, or tactile stimuli, etc stimulate our nerve receptors, and set up a cascade of events within our central nervous system. — Arkady

Aha. But the issue is, to decide in what way all of those physical causes give rise to a perception of meaning is itself a matter of judgement. The definition of what is physical, what constitutes ‘a cause’ - all of these rely on reasoned inference, which is an act of judgement. You can’t step outside those acts, or put them to one side, and still see judgements or meanings in the data.

Likewise, with a fine-grained enough brain scan, one could presumably "read off" the mental state of the perceiver from the physical state of his brain: — Arkady

I would presume nothing of the kind. You might infer anything you like, but again, the act of inference is a judgement. Have a look at Do you believe in God, or is that a Software Glitch.

I don't know enough about particle physics. Electrons, for instance, are taken to be fundamental particles, though. — Arkady

Depending on how they are assessed - in particular experimental contexts, they appear as particles. At other times, they can be thought of as waves, or even as pure potentialities, which is precisely why quantum physics tends to undercut materialism.

I take the statement ‘consciousness is a condition for illusion’ to be apodictic, for exactly the reasons identified by Descartes. — Wayfarer

What about the illusions used by carnivorous plants, and flowering plants to attract pollinators. Will you claim that the insects that are fooled are conscious agents?

The question is whether eliminative physicalism/ materialism denies the reality of information.

Information is information, not matter or energy.No materialism that does not admit this can survive at the present day. Norbert Wiener- founder of Cybernetics.

And the further question is whether consciousness may be adequately understood in terms of information.

If you cannot come up with a valid alternative to this proposition, “I, a first person point of view, am while aware (including of the thoughts I'm having which purport to present an alternative to my so being),” then it will surpass the certainty level of any other proposition to which there are rational alternatives, including that of eliminativism. — javra

Whether or not that proposition is considered foundational will depend on starting presumptions. If you take phenomenology as fundamental, as ontology, then it will convince you of its being representative of what is foundational, but if you take the material as ontologically fundamental then it will not.

I’ll say OK to this. But you’ll notice that, here, I was only offering you what I take to be a sound argument for why eliminativism is demonstrably wrong.

Yes, I do agree with you that it is wrong; but I also acknowledge that my agreement is based on presuppositions. So it would seem that from the perspective of those presuppositions eliminativism is demonstrably wrong, but it does not seem to be demonstrably wrong in any definitive, unprejudiced way.

My playing devil's advocate was only prompted by Wayfarer's apparent belief that it is demonstrably wrong in a definitive, unprejudiced way; I was trying to get him to recognize and acknowledge his prejudices, in other words. It's no sin; we all have them.