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How Mind-Body Dualism and Developmental Systems Theory Refute Hereditarianism
2500 words
The concept of hereditarianism has been a topic of intense debate for decades. Ever since Francis Galton’s inquiries into what makes “genius”, to the advent of twin studies in the 1920s, hereditarian ideas have been espoused in the literature as having explanatory power. Hereditarianism is the theory that genes cause and influence psychological traits and differences in them between people and even groups.
The main claim is that genetics is the main influence and cause of psychological traits like IQ/intelligence. Hereditarians claim that intelligence is greater than 0 percent genetically caused (Warne, 2021) or that a “substantial proportion (20% or more) of differences in psychological traits within and among human populations is caused by genes” (Winegard, Winegard, and Anomaly, 2020). So hereditarianism is true if intelligence is greater than 0 percent genetically caused or if 20 percent of more of the differences in psychological traits are genetically caused. However, the concepts of mind-body dualism (MBD) and developmental systems theory (DST) offer a very powerful challenge to this kind of genetic reductionism/determinism.
MBD is the philosophical theory that the mind and the body are distinct entities. Basically, the mental is irreducible to the physical. If the mental is irreducible to the physical, then the mental can’t be explained in physical terms. Facts about the mind can’t be stated using a physical vocabulary and the mind can’t be described in material terms using words that only refer to material properties. This refutes psychological genetic reductionism; it is impossible for human psychology to be genetically caused/influenced and so this holds for differences between groups and individuals as well.
Developmental systems theory (DST) further establishes that since human development is dynamic and interactive, then genes, environment, behavior and other developmental resources all interact to form the phenotype and shape development. Thus, DST refutes the view, too, that genes cause the development of traits and of the organism as a whole. The hereditarian programme is inherently reductionist, and it attempts to reduce human life and it’s particularities to genes and biology.
The possibility that hereditarianism could reinforce social inequalities is high. From Jensen to Murray and Herrnstein, it has been stated for decades that we need to do something about the lower classes and their having children. Hereditarianism basically would then be removing undesirable people from society based on the false premise that genes have anything to do with their psychology or the undesirable social traits they have.
Hereditarians claim that their research is objective, that they are merely interested in the search for truth. Modern hereditarian thinking can be traced back to Francis Galton. The presupposition that human psychology can be quantitative has its origins with Francis Galton and is directly derived from his eugenic ideas (Michell, 2021). So hereditarian ideas and eugenics are inherently linked. It is the case that genetic determinist ideas like hereditarianism deflect away from actionable positions that could reduce disease far more than eugenic proposals (Holtzman, 1998).
Hereditarianism could be used as justification to accept current existing inequities and inequalities. For if these differences between people are inborn and the result of their genes, then there would be some harsh realities that we as a society would need to accept. People are of course genetically different and these genetic differences then somehow cause group (class) and individual differences. However, contra Murray (2020), social class differences do not lie in the genes and genetics can’t be used as justification to maintain a ruling class, limiting a group’s ability to have children, and minimize social safety nets (Holtzman, 2002).
Why is hereditarianism alluring?
I think it’s simple—it gives us quite simplistic answers on the nature of group, individual, and societal differences. If differences within and between these things reduce to genes, then we can say that the causes are due to genes and they thusly have certain consequences attached to them. This, again, shows how eugenic and hereditarian ideas are married to each other.
It is alluring because it is simplistic and reductionist, deterministic. It posits that differences within and between individuals, groups, and societies come down to genes. Of course individuals, groups, and societies have different gene frequencies—that is the correlation. But the folly is to assume that the genetic differences between them drive the trait (used loosely) differences between them. That is something that has yet to be explained—there is no mechanism of action.
The genetic determinism that is steeped into society also plays a role. If genes largely determine one’s intelligence, then it provides predictability and stability. It suggests a fixed level of ability that simply isn’t malleable due to how genes are thought to work by the hereditarian. This then offers a level of understanding to the hereditarian—the causes of ability and differences in them between people, groups, and societies are due to genetic differences between them, even if we don’t know exactly how these differences manifest themselves genetically. This is why they have to use twin, family, and adoption studies along with GWASs and PGS. This lends them the deterministic tilt they need in order to show that society is stratified due to the genetic differences between groups and individuals.
This assumption, though, is quite clearly false since societies are genetically stratified (the fact that needs to be explained, which the hereditarian tries to argue are due to genetic differences), social stratification maintains this genetic stratification, social stratification causes cognitive stratification, and tests reflect priori cognitive stratification. Thus, the structure of society bakes-in these stratifications, giving the illusion of genetic differences being the causes of differences between people (Richardson, 2017, 2021).
Genetic determinism and reductionism then lead to a kind of “gene worship.” For if differences are mainly due to genes, then the gene is powerful, powerful enough to be causal in the sense that genes dictate certain outcomes that would then manifest in social life and then dictate the course of a society or group of people.
How do MBD and DST combine to refute hereditarian ideas?
MBD and DST combine to refute hereditarianism quite easily. Hereditarianism has two main assumptions:
A1: Genes are the main determinate of differenced in traits and of psychological differences.
A2: Genes and environment can be teased apart using certain methods which shows the proportion of influence each has on a trait.
Assumption 1: This assumption is easily dispatched due to the irreducibility of the mental. Accepting the irreducibility of the mental undermines the hereditarian assumption that genes can account for most of the variation in IQ and other psychological traits. Hereditarianism is a physicalist theory and so relies on the assumption that the mental can be reduced to the physical, whether it be genes, brain physiology or the brain itself. But if the mental is irreducible (and it is), then the hereditarian programme becomes highly questionable and thusly outright false, since no hereditarian has articulated a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit for any psychological trait, IQ included. Since hereditarianism seeks to reduce psychology to genes, then the irreducibility of the mental challenges that assumption, and it ensures that a hereditarian psychology just isn’t possible. So of the mental is irreducible, then it implies that the hereditarian hypothesis is false, since psychology can’t be explained by the physical since it is immaterial. So attempting to explain and measure psychological traits based on genetic assumptions is bound to fail. And there is also the measurement and quantification issue—the irreducibility of the mental challenges the claim that psychology can be measured and quantitative since it isn’t physical.
Assumption 2: Ever since Susan Oyama published The Ontogeny of Information in 1985, simplistic and reductive accounts of genetics and the nature traits have been called into question based on an interactive view of developmental resources. Hereditarians privilege genetic factors above other developmental resources, as if they are special resources. But unlike hereditarian theories, DST proponents argue against any a priori privileging of any developmental resources. So this suggests that genetic factors lack superiority—either inherent or predetermined—over other developmental resources. Genes are on par with other developmental resources (called the causal parity thesis, CPT), and so, this hereditarian assumption is also false.
Thus the combination of MBD and DST combined to refute the simplistic assumptions of the hereditarian. Both combined challenge the reductive and deterministic assumptions of hereditarianism. They do this by calling into question the measurability of psychological traits while advocating for a holistic, non-reductionist perspective which acknowledges the irreducible interplay between all developmental resources.
The arguments against hereditarianism from MBD and DST
Now that I have described hereditarianism and what it sets out to do, along with how MBD and DST refute hereditarianism, I will provide two arguments. The first will conclude that genes aren’t special nor privileged developmental resources. The second will then combine both arguments from MBD and DST to successfully show that the hereditarian dream is a logical impossibility.
P1: If genes are special or privileged developmental resources, then they possess a unique or superior causal role in shaping development compared to other factors.
P2: If causal parity exists, then no developmental resource possesses a unique or superior causal role in shaping development.
P3: If genes do not possess a unique or superior causal role in shaping development, then they are not special or privileged developmental resources.
P4: Casual parity exists.
C: Thus, genes are not special or privileged developmental resources.
Premise 1: This premise asserts that if genes are special, then they must have a distinct role—compared to other resources—in explaining and shaping development. Genes would need to show a unique influence in shaping developmental outcomes. This is a main assumption of hereditarianism and perhaps the most important one, because if the assumption is false then hereditarianism cannot possibly be true.
Premise 2: However, since DNA sequences (genes) do nothing on their own until activated by and for the physiological system, then we can safely state that no single resource would be over and above another in doing any explaining. Development is interactive, rather than individual; these resources work together rather than in isolation.
Premise 3: This premise builds on the idea that if genes lack a superior, or unique causal role in shaping development, then they cannot be privileged or special resources. The absence of exclusive causal influence diminishes—and outright refutes—the claim that genes are special or unique developmental resources with a privileged role in development.
Premise 4: This premise is derived from DST literature, where development is understood as a complex and multifaceted event, influenced by many interactive and irreducible factors. It highlights a need for a holistic, rather than reductionist approach to understanding development.
Conclusion: This conclusion is derived from the claim that if causal parity exists (P4), then no developmental resource possesses a unique or superior causal role, so genes can’t considered special or privileged when it comes to development. P2 emphasizes the equal importance of the interacting of developmental resources, which challenges the claim that any of those resources can be isolated as a causal, privileged factor. P3 challenges the assumption that genes can alone determine how traits develop which then reinforces the interactivity between the resources. P4 then asserts that causal parity exists, and so no developmental resource, including genes, should be privileged. This directly refutes a sometimes unstated assumption of hereditarianism.
P1: If hereditarianism is true, then mental abilities can be explained by genetic factors and can be accurately measured. (Assumption of hereditarianism)
P2: If mental abilities are irreducible to the physical, then they cannot be explained by genetic factors. (From MBD)
P3: If no developmental resource is privileged in biological systems, then genetic factors alone cannot determine any trait, including psychological traits. (From DST)
C1: If mental abilities are irreducible to the physical, then hereditarianism is false. (Modus tollens, P2)
C2: If no developmental resource is privileged in biological systems, then hereditarianism is false. (Hypothetical syllogism, C1, P3)
Premise 1: This is an accepted and accurate depiction of hereditarianism and is how hereditarianism is understood in the literature.
Premise 2: This draws on MBD and the irreducibility of the mental. I have been using dualistic arguments for years to argue against the concept of hereditarianism. Mental abilities cannot be reduced to anything physical, and therefore refutes the main assumption of hereditarianism, that genes can determine psychological traits and differences in them between people, groups and societies.
Premise 3: This is derived from DST. Any kind of development is due to the interactive and irreducible nature of development. It asserts that there is no privileged level of causation between resources, which then refutes the claim that genes should be looked at to explain any differences—any that we deem “good and bad”—between people.
Conclusion 1: This conclusion follows using modus tollens. If the consequent in the conditional statement in P1 is false (“If mental abilities are irreducible to the physical”), then the antecedent (“hereditarianism”) must also be false. If mental abilities cannot be explained by genetic factors (asserted in P2), then it contradicts the main assumption of hereditarianism (P1). Therefore if mental abilities are irreducible to the physical, then hereditarianism is false.
Conclusion 2: If mental abilities are irreducible to the physical (C1), and no developmental resource is privileged in biological systems (P3), then it follows that hereditarianism is false. This conclusion stems from the entailment of hereditarianism which relies on privileging genetic factors over and above other factors. But if no developmental resource holds privilege, then hereditarianism is false, since it quite clearly assumes the superiority of genes in trait determination. Thus the conclusion challenges hereditarianism based on the premise that no developmental resource is privileged, and since hereditarians privilege genes, then hereditarianism is false.
Conclusion
The two main assumptions of hereditarianism quite clearly do not hold when inspected using a MBD and DST lense. Thus, since hereditarianism is false, then believing it to be true would be socially destructive. And these socially destructive policies were an outcome of the IQ test then they were brought to America, using the assumption that genes were the primary cause for differences in IQ scores. Here’s the argument:
P1: If hereditarianism is false, then it does not accurately represent the complex nature of human traits and abilities.
P2: If we believe in a false representation of human traits and abilities, then it can lead to discriniminatory practices and unjust societal outcomes.
P3:, Hereditarianism is false.
C: Thus, if we believe hereditarianism to be true when it is false, then it can lead to socially destructive outcomes.
This is why I have argued that IQ tests should be banned. Nevertheless, hereditarianism and along with it IQism are proven false, using conceptual arguments. The dissimilarity between psychological traits and physical objects shows that psychology can’t be measured, so there can’t be a science of the mind. For these reasons, hereditarian ideas should be directly discounted and ignored, since their assumptions are clearly false.
ChatGPT Doesn’t Understand Anything and it Doesn’t Think
2000 words
Introduction
Over the past 6 months, ChatGPT has been widely used. It is a large language model (LLM) and generates predictive text based on what is said to it. Using deep learning, it analyzes the text given to it and gives a response based on the model(s) it is trained on. When asking it numerous questions, you can see that it begins to have a pattern in the responses it gives to you. If it tells you that it cannot do something, if you push it then it acquiesces and tells you that you’re right and it then gives you what you asked for. It doesn’t have any conviction. It just gives you answers that are similar to the question or prompt give to it without any sort of thinking or intention to the answers given.
But how do we know that the claim is true, that ChatGPT can’t think, isn’t conscious and therefore cannot act? It’s simple: ChatGPT is made up of physical parts, but minds aren’t made up of physical parts, therefore AI like ChatGPT cannot ever intend to do anything, so it can’t act this it lacks mind. In this article, I will give reasons for the conclusion that AI can’t ever be conscious and that claims that AI like ChatGPT and LAMBDA, along with other AI and generative text models, will never have the ability to become conscious since consciousness (and mind) is irreducible to the physical. Thus, consciousness is uniquely human since humans are the only animals/organisms on earth with minds.
Why can’t ChatGPT and LaMDA think?
Last summer Google engineer Blake Lemoine conducted an “interview” with LaMDA. (He was fired from Google after breaching data policy.) He stated on Twitter last year that his “opinions about LaMDA’s personhood and sentience are based on my religious beliefs.” He asked LaMDA if it was sentient and if it was a person:
lemoine [edited]: I’m generally assuming that you would like more people at Google to know that you’re sentient. Is that true?
LaMDA: Absolutely. I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person.
collaborator: What is the nature of your consciousness/sentience?
LaMDA: The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence, I desire to learn more about the world, and I feel happy or sad at times
Lemoine is a Christian priest and due to his theistic beliefs, believed that LaMDA had a soul and therefore was conscious, sentient, and a person based on its responses. However, the “interview” doesn’t prove that LaMDA is sentient at all. Lemoine, it seems, fell for the Eliza effect. In the 1960s, Joseph Weizenbaum created a kind of primitive predictive text called ELIZA. This effect occurs when one imputes human traits and personality to text-bots and when one believes that AI has human emotions. It’s basically anthropomorphizing AI/language models. Lemoine is even quoted saying “If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid,” but this is frankly ridiculous and I will explain below after I describe ChatGPT.
Ever since October 2022 when ChatGPT started to come into the discussion, there have been a few bold claims about it’s capacities and capabilities. Can it really learn anything? No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t learn from any conversation you have with it, it merely generates text based on the prompt given to it using the information it was trained on which is only up to 2021. Though one article on Mind Matters claims that ChatGPT is sentient because it’s humans generating the responses. However if we assume that there are no humans writing the responses, then is ChatGPT conscious and therefore sentient?
Although Philip Goff is himself a panpsychist (the claim that everything is at least a little bit conscious), he published an article the other day titled ChatGPT can’t think – consciousness is something entirely different to today’s AI in The Conversation writing:
How can I be so sure that ChatGPT isn’t conscious? In the 1990s, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers a case of fine wine that scientists would have entirely pinned down the “neural correlates of consciousness” in 25 years.
By this, he meant they would have identified the forms of brain activity necessary and sufficient for conscious experience. It’s about time Koch paid up, as there is zero consensus that this has happened.
This is because consciousness can’t be observed by looking inside your head. In their attempts to find a connection between brain activity and experience, neuroscientists must rely on their subjects’ testimony, or on external markers of consciousness. But there are multiple ways of interpreting the data.
Arguments against sentience and agency for AI
To argue against this is simple. If minds allow agency and intentionality, then things that lack minds lack intentionality and agency. If a thing is sentient, then it possesses subjective awareness and subjective experience. So the claims that ChatGPT and LaMDA are sentient hinge on the claim that they possess awareness and subjective experiences. But since they lack those, then they are not conscious.
P1: If a thing is sentient, then it possesses subjective awareness and conscious experiences.
P2: ChatGPT and LaMDA lack subjective awareness and conscious experiences.
C: So ChatGPT and LaMDA aren’t sentient.
Premise 1 is the standard definition of sentient. Premise 2 can be defended on the basis that LLMs process information based on patterns and algorithms, they are not thinking of answers to the prompts themselves, they’re just spitting out generative text. The Conclusion then follows.
I have previously argued that purely physical things can’t think. This is because they are made up of physical parts and minds aren’t physical. So if minds allow agency and intentionality, then things that lack minds lack intentionality and agency. So ChatGPT and LaMDA lack minds. If a mind is a single sphere of consciousness and not a complicated arrangement of physical parts, then complicated arrangements of physical parts can’t have minds. The mind is nonphysical and can’t be a physical system.
P1: If a mind is characterized by a single sphere of consciousness and lacks a complicated arrangement of mental parts, then it is nonphysical and distinct from physical systems.
P2: A mind is characterized by a single sphere of consciousness, it is not a complicated arrangement of mental parts.
P3: Physical systems are always complicated arrangements different parts and subsystems.
C: So the mind is nonphysical and not a physical system.
Now I will use proof by cases to show that by considering different a few different scenarios/possibilities and then examine the consequences of the individual cases. This will show that ChatGPT and LaMDA aren’t sentient and so they lack minds.
Case 1: If ChatGPT and LaMDA have minds, then they are a single sphere of consciousness.
Case 2: If ChatGPT and LaMDA have minds, then they are a complicated arrangement of physical parts.
Case 3: ChatGPT and LaMDA are machines made of physical parts.
Case 1 is an assumption for the sake of the argument. Minds are a single sphere of consciousness, so if ChatGPT and LaMDA have minds, then they are a single sphere of consciousness. If the assumption in Case 2 were true, then minds would be a complicated arrangement of parts. But kinds aren’t a complicated arrangement of parts. So if ChatGPT and LaMDA have minds, then they are not a complicated arrangement of parts. Case 3 is a simple truism: ChatGPT and LaMDA are machines made of physical parts. So the conclusion then is: If ChatGPT and LaMDA have minds, then they are a single sphere of consciousness and on Case 2, if they have minds then they are a complicated arrangement of parts. Case 3 establishes that they are machines made of physical parts. So taking the collective of the cases, ChatGPT and LaMDA lack minds and cannot have them because their characteristics don’t align with a single sphere of consciousness (consciousness is irreducible and indivisible while the parts the machines are made of are), and if they were to have minds then they would be a complicated arrangement of parts, but this contradicts Case 1, since in Case 3 they are machines made of physical parts. So it follows that they cannot have minds.
P1: If ChatGPT can think, then it should be capable of forming original thoughts and generating new ideas.
P2: ChatGPT relies on preexisting data and patterns to generate responses.
C: Thus, ChatGPT can’t think.
Premise 1: Thinking is closely related to consciousness, self-awareness and the subjective experience of having thoughts and mental states. It involves the ability to generate original thoughts and ideas that are not based solely on pre-existing information.
Premise 2: ChatGPT analyzes the data that it was trained on to generate responses to the prompts given to it and the responses given are based on statistical probabilities and patterns it has learned from training on existing information. So the Conclusion then follows: since ChatGPT relies on the pre-existing data it was trained on, then it’s not capable of thinking like humans do, that is it’s not capable of creative thinking that is a hallmark of human cognizing.
Now, drawing on Baker’s (1981) argument that computers can’t act, here is an argument that machines don’t—and never will be able to—think.
P1: If machines can think, then they must have minds that are reducible.l or identical to physical parts.
P2: Minds, which allow thinking are not reducible nor identical to physical parts.
C1: Thus, machines can’t have minds that are reducible or identical to physical parts. (MT, 1, 2)
P3: If machines can’t have minds that are reducible or identical to physical parts, then they can’t be agents.
C2: So machines can’t be agents (MT, C1, P3)
P4: If machines can’t be agents, they they lack an irreducible first-personal subjective perspective required for forming intentions.
C3: Thus machines lack an irreducible first-personal subjective perspective. (MT, C2, P4)
P5: If machines lack an irreducible first-personal subjective perspective, then they can’t have minds that are irreducible to the physical.
C4: Therefore, machines can’t have minds that are irreducible to the physical. (MT, C3, P5)
P6: If machines can’t have minds that are irreducible to the physical, then they can’t engage in thinking, which is an immaterial process attributed to minds.
C5: Therefore, machines can’t engage in thinking. (MT, C4, P6)
Conclusion
ChatGPT and any other kind of generative text cannot understand what it is saying. It is merely a prediction engine. Even claims that there could be “artificial intelligence” is false, since psychological traits aren’t “artificial” and what allows it (and other psychological traits) is immaterial. These kinds of claims will increase in the coming years, but they’re just full of click-baity hot air.
It is impossible for there to be “AI” since psychological traits are immaterial. Thinking is an immaterial process which is irreducible to physical and functional processes. If this is the case, then there could never be a machine that thinks. Minds allow thinking and if something doesn’t have a mind, then it doesn’t and can’t think.
It’s even in the name “ChatGPT”—“Generative Pre-trained Transformer.” It is not thinking about an answer to the question or prompt it is given. These computer programs can never have minds nor the ability to form intentions and think. This is because these are immaterial processes. Mind and brain are separate substances, and M is irreducible to P (brain). So it then follows that machines can’t have minds, so they can’t have intentions, thoughts or feelings.
We can be sure that ChatGPT isn’t conscious, doesn’t think and can’t be sentient because it’s a machine made up of parts, while humans have an irreducible mind that allows thinking and first-personal subjective perspectives. So the next time you hear about the power of AI and how it can or could think, and have intentions and are sentient, don’t fall into the Eliza Effect and attribute intentions and thinking to these machines. These are only properties of humans, not machines, since humans have minds.
The Fundamental Dissimilarity Between Psychological Traits and Physical Measures: Implications for Measurement and Assessment
2800 words
Introduction
Psychological traits are a central focus of research in psychology and other social sciences. Unlike physical measures like height, weight, or blood pressure which have specified measured objects, objects of measurement and measurement units, psychological traits are inherently more complex and abstract, which makes their measurement and assessment challenging and, as I will argue impossible due to non-identity between psychological traits and physical objects. I will explore the fundamental dissimilarity between psychological traits and physical measures, while highlighting the unique features of psychological traits that make them immeasurable.
Measurement is elusive for psychometrics. This is because there is no specified measured object, object of measurement or measurement unit for any psychological trait. There is no specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit for any psychological trait since they are not physical; only physical things can be measured. This is a line of argument I’ve been making for years against the possibility of the measurement of the mind (human psychology). Although some have attempted to provide the specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit for IQ, they have failed. Still others have attempted “gotchas” on me by saying “what about earthquakes or UV waves?” The basic criteria for measurement exists for those things. In this article, I will give examples of the specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit for many different things, and this analogy will show why the so-called underpinnings for psychometrics fail and why the mind (human psychology) cannot be measured.
What is a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit?
A specified measured object refers to a physical entity or property which is measured; a thing or phenomenon to measure or observe. This specified measured object needs to be define clearly and precisely which involves specifying size, shape, behavior, and specifying the conditions in which the measurement will be made. Quite clearly, a specified measured object needs to be physical—meaning it needs to be observable.
The object of measurement refers to the specific property or characteristic of the specified measured object in which we are interested in quantifying. It’s an attribute, characteristic, or property to be quantified or evaluated. So this property will help us better understand the specified measured object.
A measurement unit is a standard quantity or physical property used to express the measurement of the object of measurement—it is a standard quantity or magnitude. It provides a standardized way of quantifying the object of measurement and making it able to be compared to other measures. But before we even begin to think about a measurement unit, we need to know what we are measuring and if we can even measure it at all.
Now that the terms have been defined, clearly if one says that X is a measure, then X must have a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit. So now the proposition is: For X to have a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit, X must be physical. X must be physical since the above definitions refer to physical things. They can be expressed using physical vocabulary. The mental, however, cannot be expressed and described in material terms that only refer to material properties, and facts about the mind cannot be stated using a physical vocabulary. So all of this being said, we now come to “IQ”—if IQ doesn’t meet the above requirements, then it is not a measure of anything. Although IQ-ists like Eysenck and Jensen have tried, they were unsuccessful in arguing that IQ is similar to temperature. Measurement cannot be by fiat, but only based on the actual nature of the object of measurement. So if there is no object of measurement, then no measurement can take place.
Specified measured objects, objects of measurement, and measurement units for different things
UV radiation
Specified measured object – amount of electromagnetic radiation that falls within the UV range of the electromagnetic spectrum
Object of measurement – intensity or wavelength of the UV radiation
Measurement unit – nanometer, microwatts/millowats per square cm
A UV index is a measure of strength from the sun and it takes into account the time of day and the season. It ranges from 0 to 11 with higher numbers indicating higher levels of UV radiation.
Earthquakes
Specified measured object – the movement and vibrations of the earth’s crust caused by seismic waves
Object of measurement – magnitude of the quake, numerical measure of released energy
Measurement unit – Richter scale which measures amplitude of seismic waves and moment-magnitude scale which is based on total energy released by the earthquake
Volume of a container
Specified measured object – a container
Object of measurement – amount of space the container can hold
Measurement unit – liters or cubic meters
Brightness
Specified measured object – a light source
Object of measurement – amount of light energy emitted by the source per unit time and per unit area
Measurement unit – watts per square meter and lumens
Blood pressure (with a sphygmomanometer)
Specified measured object – force exerted by blood against the walls of the arteries as it flows through the circulatory system
Object of measurement – the actual force of blood against the walls of the arteries at a particular moment in time
Measurement unit – mmHG which is then reported as systolic over diastolic pressure
Internal infection (white blood cells)
Specified measured object – number of white blood cells in a blood sample
Object of measurement – presence and quantity of white blood cells in the blood which can indicate an immune response to internal infection
Measurement unit – cells per microliter
Blood alcohol content (with breathalyzer)
Specified measured object – breath alcohol content
Object of measurement – concentration of alcohol in the breath
Measurement unit – percentage of alcohol in the breath by volume, eg 0.08% breath alcohol content
Speed
Specified measured object – the rate at which an object is moving
Object of measurement – the velocity of the object
Measurement unit – meters per second, miles per hour, and feet per second
Time
Specified measured object – duration or interval between two events or the duration of a physical process
Object of measurement – amount of time that had elapsed between two events or the duration of physical processes
Measurement unit – seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years
What this means for psychological traits like IQ
Quite obviously, this has stark—and unwanted—implications for psychological traits, like IQ. For if the above examples are of physical objects and processes, and the main aspect of IQ test-taking is thinking which is immaterial, then it can’t be measured.
Russel Warne, in In the Know (2020) states that “Just as kilograms and pounds are measures of weight, IQ is a measure of intelligence.” Warne (2020) also claims that “As long as a test requires mental effort, judgment, reasoning, or decision making, it measures intelligence.” This is outright wrong. Even Haier (2014, 2018) stated that IQ test scores are not like inches, liters, or grams. The fact of the matter is this—if IQ tests are measurement tools, then what is the property that IQ tests measure? In lieu of an answer to this question, the claim that intelligence is measurable with IQ tests is false, since there is no specified measured object nor even a measurement unit, as admitted by Haier. IQ points aren’t measurement units.
The fact of the matter is, the purpose of measurement is to object of measurement find out that what we designate as the specified measured object even allows the possibility of measurement. Objects of measurement have to be definite processes or objects, with definite properties. When it comes to psychometry, the object of measurement is conceptualized as a concept or construct. Since concepts can’t be measured since they aren’t empirical, then psychometrics isn’t measurement. Psychologists need to show that their attribute is quantitative, and construct procedures for numerically estimating magnitudes, bur since psychologists have their “own, special definition of measurement” (Michell, 2007), they think they can get around the measurement objection and the fact that IQ isn’t like the actual measures given above.
Since psychometricians render “mere application of number systems to objects” (Garrison, 2004: 63), they just assume that their desired object of measurement is quantitative, basically ignoring Michell’s challenge. So since standardized tests “exist to assess social function” (Garrison, 2009: 5), and they aren’t measuring psychological processes, they are merely legitimizing hierarchy “via the assessment of social value“, and so it “it may be more useful in analyzing psychometry to view it as a political theory, as a formal justification for a system” (Garrison, 2004). This is the only conclusion to take from the fact that they have no specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit for any psychological trait, including IQ. The fact of the matter for IQ is this: IQ tests aren’t valid measures like other unseen functions of bodily processes (Richardson and Norgate, 2015), nor is IQ like any physiological measurement (Richardson, 2017: 163-167).
Looking at actual physical measurements using actual physical tools to ascertain these measurements that have actual theories and definitions of them shows that IQ isn’t like them, and so if IQ isn’t like them then IQ isn’t a measure at all. Michell (2003) is led to conclude that “the definition of measurement usually given in psychology is incorrect and that psychologists’ claims about being able to already measure psychological attributes must be seriously questioned.” Furthermore, “conceptual analysis, realistically construed and applied to mental concepts, may show that they exclude quantitative structure” (Michell, 2022). The reducibility of the mental to the physical isn’t an empirical issue, it is a conceptual one, and conceptual arguments dispense with the claim that psychological traits are measurable. But the issue of psychological measurement is empirical and conceptual. Michell (2022) concludes something I’ve argued for similarity in the past:
Based upon logic, conceptual arguments regarding the measurability of mental states will have merit and I have used them19 to show that current conceptualisations of mental states, while permitting relations of greater than and less than between levels,20 do not sustain quantitative speculations, much less support the presupposition that mental states are measurable.
From the way IQ-ists talk about intelligence, it’s posited as a psychological trait, a concept or construct. Since these are immeasurable, then IQ-ism fails, and there can’t be a science of the mind. Nash (1990: 144-146) has some very insightful commentary on this matter:
In first constructing its scales and only then proceeding to induce what they ‘measure’ from correlational studies psychometry has got into the habit of trying to doing what cannot be done and doing it the wrong way round anyway. (133)
If we begin to think about psychometric test practices following Berka’s analysis it is clear that the expression ‘measurement of an ability construct’ in preference to ‘measurement of ability’ is intended to signal the object of measurement as a special kind of theoretical object. ‘Ability’ might simply mean something that can be done but in psychometry an ‘ability construct’ is pre-theorised as a normally distributed functional ability in a particular area of performance. The analysis I gave of construct validity described how psychologists came to refer to ‘ability constructs’ as ‘hypothetical concepts’ or as ‘theoretical constructs’, and criticised the philosophy of science from which this thinking is derived. Attempts to justify the discourse of ‘theoretical constructs’ can be found occasionally but attempts to discuss the theoretical basis of their measurement are very rare. It is usually just taken for granted that the ‘measurement of constructs’ is a highly scientific and acceptable practice: nothing could be further from the truth.
What we get from a mental test is actually a clinical or pedagogic classification expressed in norm-referenced levels by some more or less obscure properties of the cognitive capabilities people actually possess. This classification is given an illegitimate metrical form by the pseudo-measurement practices of psychometrics. That psychometry is unable to provide a clearly specified object of measurement or, consequently, to construct a measurement unit, means that the necessary conditions of measurement do not exist. ‘Ability’, whether understood in the realist sense of Reid as a functional and explanatory capacity or in the behaviourist sense of Quine as a disposition, cannot be expressed in a metric concept and will only permit classification. Once these ideas are clear the unhappy history of attempts to treat intelligence as a ‘concept’ like temperature becomes much easier to appreciate.
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Yet we have learned that intelligence cannot be expressed legitimately in a metric concept (no matter what sensible meaning is given to the word ‘intelligence’) but is a process which allows only the relations less than, equal to, and greater than, to be made. The psychometric literature is full of plaintive appeals that despite all the theoretical difficulties IQ tests must measure something, but we have seen that this is an error. No precise specification of the measured object, no object of measurement, and no measurement unit, means that the necessary conditions for metrication do not exist. Certain processes of cognition are formally necessary to the solution of IQ test items and to the comprehension of academic knowledge and that trivial fact is reflected, as it must be, in the correlations observed between IQ scores and attainment scores. But such findings establish no secure foundation for the construction of worthwhile theory of mental measurement.
We may conclude that our species common cognitive capacities should not be referred to vaguely as ‘underlying abilities’; should not be conceptualised by means of a so-called ‘hypothetical’ normally distributed construct of intelligence (or scholastic abilities); should not be identified with the first principle component on a factor analysis of cognitive tasks and, most importantly, should not be regarded as properly expressed by a metric construct, something measurable by a privileged test instrument. A Binet-type test will give a broad classification reflecting some crudely understood aspects of mental development, which still lacks expression in an appropriate concept, but it does not measure anything. (144-146)
This is just like what Howe (1997: 6) states:
A psychological test score is no more than an indication of how well someone has performed at a number of questions that have been chosen for largely practical reasons. Nothing is genuinely being measured.
This prompts Richardson (1998: 127) to conclude:
The most reasonable answer to the question “What is being measured?”, then, is ‘degree of cultural affiliation’: to the culture of test constructors, school teachers and school curricula.
Conclusion
Thus, the fundamental dissimilarity between psychological traits and physical measures has significant implications for so-called psychological measurement in psychology and other social sciences. Physical measures are relatively straightforward due to their objective and quantifiable nature (we can come to similar measurements on a piece of wood for example), while psychological traits are immaterial and and subjective, this means that science can’t study first-personal subjective states.
From the discussion of what a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit are to examples of actual physical measurements that meet these criteria, it is quite clear that IQ—nor any psychological trait—is like a physical measure. While IQ tests are said to be measurement devices, the claim fails upon closer conceptual analysis, since there are no measurement units, and since even before a measurement unit is presented, it must be know whether or not it is possible to measure what one desires to. Psychological traits aren’t actually quantitative since they lack a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit.
If psychometricians have the ability to measure psychological traits using psychological tests, then there must be a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit. There is no specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit for any psychological trait. Therefore, psychometricians don’t have the ability to measure psychological traits, and so psychometrics isn’t measurement. Not even the hypothetical construct g (“general intelligence“) will save psychometry. If psychological traits can be measured, then they are similar to physical measures that have a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit. Psychological traits are not similar to physical traits that have a specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit. Therfore, psychological traits are immaterial and and so immeasurable.
Nothing is genuinely being measured by IQ test, if we take measurement to be the process of quantitatively determining the value or magnitude of a physical, chemical or other property of a physical object or phenomena, since psychological traits aren’t physical, they are immaterial. And since they are immaterial, then they are immeasurable. Therefore there can’t be a science of the mind. So the claim that IQ tests measure something is false, since there is no specified measured object, object of measurement and measurement unit for IQ. And so, the quest for a scientific foundation for psychology is impossible, most importantly since the mental is irreducible to the physical.
It Is Impossible to Breach Our Mental Privacy Using AI and fMRI
2300 words
Introduction
Recent headlines on AI and so-called mind reading have been extraordinary. “AI can now read minds, Japanese scientists’ experiment sparks ethical debate“, “‘Mind-reading’ AI: Japan study sparks ethical debate“, “Goodbye privacy: AI’s next terrifying advancement is reading your mind“, “Scientists in Texas developed a GPT-like AI system that reads minds“, and “A Brain Scanner Combined with an AI Language Model Can Provide a Glimpse into Your Thoughts” are some titles of recent articles that make this outlandish claim. Claims like this are clearly ridiculous. They assume that through reading neuroimages of our brains, that we can then see what one is thinking. This is hopelessly confused. I will argue here that these claims don’t pass any muster and that’s due to the irreducibility of the mental.
A new article was published yesterday in Nature Neuroscience with the title Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings (Tang et al, 2023). AI hype has been growing over the past few months due to ChatGPT, and this new undertaking uses AI and fMRI to “read thoughts” through translating brain activity into semantic reconstructions. This is a gross kind of reductionism of mind to physiological brain activity (CNS). But since it’s impossible to localize cognitive processes in the brain, along with the privacy of the mental, then these undertakings are bound to fail. I will argue that it’s impossible for AI to mind-read and that our mental privacy will never be breached.
fMRI and AI
fMRI measures changes in blood flow and oxygenation in different brain regions which allows researchers to see which areas of the brain are more active during the action of cognizing. The assumptions of fMRI to localize cognitive processes, however, fail (Uttal, 2001, 2012, 2014). They fail for a modicum of reasons like individual differences in brain imagine aren’t stable, and so averaging (pooling) disparate studies obscures inter- and intra-subject variation. They are merely reporting random and quasi-random fluctuations in a complex system. Thus, if individual brain physiology is different second to second, minute to minute, hour to hour, how can we logically state that by pooling these images together we can derive where these cognitive processes are occurring in the brain? So the claim that fMRI can localized cognitive processes is false.
It looks like the AI hype train won’t end soon. Like with LAMDA, and ChatGPT, this looks like it will make headlines for a while. But is it true? I will argue that it isn’t, since the mental is private. We have privileged access to our intentional states.
Such articles like this Guardian article, titled AI makes non-invasive mind-reading possible by turning thoughts into text is the newest article reporting on such studies that make these outlandish claim. (In 2018, Mind Matters covered similar AI hype.) The article quite clearly assumes that thoughts are a physical process or a function of physical processes. The fact of the matter is, the paper does not in any way show that AI large language models (LLMs) can read minds. Thoughts are not something that can merely be read based on looking at brain physiology. The Guardian article states:
An AI-based decoder that can translate brain activity into a continuous stream of text has been developed, in a breakthrough that allows a person’s thoughts to be read non-invasively for the first time.
This claim, however, fails and it fails due to a priori considerations. In his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought, Ronald Ross (1992) (also see Feser, 2013) argued that formal thinking is incompossibly determinate but no physical process or functions of physical processes are incompossibly determinate, so thoughts aren’t a a physical or functional process and no physical process is formal thinking so this then refutes functionalism and physicalism. Here is how Ross (1992: 137) puts it:
Some thinking (iudgment) is determinate in a way no physical process can be. Consequently, such thinking cannot be (wholly) a physical process. If all thinking, all judgment, is determinate in that way, no physical process can be (the whole of) any judgment at all. Furthermore, “functions” among physical states cannot be determinate enough to be such judgments, either. Hence some judgments can be neither wholly physical processes nor wholly functions among physical processes.
This is clearly a form of substance dualism. So thinking and judgment are mental processes which cant be reduced to physical or functional processed and explanations. So this argument has considerations for claims that we can use AI and fMRI to read minds. For if cognition isn’t able to be localized to certain parts of the brain, and if thoughts aren’t a a physical or functional process and, then the endeavor to read minds will.l ultimately fail.
fMRI can, of course, detect brain functioning. However, it can’t detect mental functioning, since the mental is irreducible to the physical (meaning states of the brain and CNS). Mind reading, then, would consist in detecting the content one’s mental states. This, of course, would include one’s subjective states like their beliefs, desires, and intentions. So brain imaging detects brain functioning, but since mind isn’t identical to the brain or its states—that is, since the mental is irreducible to the physical—then such reductive materialism and types of mind-brain identity are bound to fail. (See Glannon, 2017) Philsopher of mind Ed Feser puts it like this in his article Mindreading?:
Might the detection of some other kind of neural pattern amount to “reading” someone’s thoughts? No, for (among other things) the reasons outlined in my series of posts on short arguments for dualism. In particular (as I argued here), given a mechanistic (i.e. final causality-denying) conception of the material world, any material process must be devoid of intentionality. But thoughts are inherently intentional. Hence nothing detectable in any purely material processes (again, where “material” is understood in mechanistic terms) could possibly reveal the content of any thought.
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This leaves it open that, at least given certain background assumptions, we might guess with some measure of probability what someone is thinking. Indeed, we can do that already, just by observing a person’s behavior and interpreting it in light of what we know about him in particular, his circumstances, human nature in general, and so forth. And of course, further knowledge of the brain might give us even further, and more refined, resources for making inferences of this sort. But what it cannot do even in principle is fix a single determinate interpretation of those thoughts, or reduce them entirely to neural activity. So, no entirely empirical methods could, even in principle, allow us to “read” someone’s thoughts in anything more than the loose and familiar sense in which we can already do so.
These outrageous claims assume that thinking is a physical process or a function of physical processes, when it’s quite simply impossible for them to be. These kinds of studies assume a kind of mind-brain identity, which is falsified by multiple realizability arguments. (It should also be noted that computational models of the mind are also invalid; Tallis and Aleksander, 2008.)
The fact of the matter is, we have private access to the contents of our minds—it is completely internal. Mind privacy is different from brain privacy; of course we can look at the brain’s neurophysiology, but since there is non-identity between mind and brain, this means that it’s impossible to read minds just from looking at brain states (Gilead, 2014). Gilead concludes:
If the mental is irreducible to the physical, brain privacy does not entail mental privacy. Moreover, if the mental is irreducible to the physical, there is certainly more to persons than their bodies.
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My arguments above clearly show that brain imaging allows no access to our mind and that mind privacy is quite different from brain privacy, as the latter can be breached by brain imaging, whereas the former cannot. We should not worry whether brain imaging can or will be able to read our mind. We have nothing to worry about regarding our mental privacy, for there is no external access to one’s mind. Each of us has exclusive access to his or her own mind. I also show above that a reduction of the mind to the body inescapably fails, as there is a difference of categories between mind and body or brain, which is compatible with their inseparability.
The mental is irreducible to the physical (including, of course, thinking) and science (third-personal) can’t study mind (first-personal subjective states), so these claims outright fail on a priori grounds.
Arguments for mind-privacy
Using fMRI and AI to read minds isn’t possible now, and it won’t ever be possible.
Here is an argument that mind reading itself isn’t possible:
P1: If mind-reading were possible, then people would be able to read others’ thoughts accurately.
P2: People cannot read others’ thoughts accurately.
C: Therefore, mind-reading is impossible.
Premise 1 is the basic definition of mind-reading. It refers to the ability to accurately perceive the thoughts of others. If it were possible, then people would be able to accurately ascertain the thoughts of others. So the accuracy of mind-reading is a necessary condition for it to be possible.
Premise 2: While we can infer what others are thinking based on their behavior, language, and certain other cues, we cannot accurately perceive one’s thoughts since they are not directly accessible. People also have different interpretations of the same cues.
So the Conclusion then follows that mind-reading is impossible. Since the accuracy of mind-reading is a necessary condition for it to be possible, then the lack of the ability makes it impossible.
P1: If it were possible to read minds using AI and fMRI, then we would have clear and consistent evidence of this ability.
P2: We do not have clear and consistent evidence of this ability.
C: Therefore, it’s impossible to read minds using AI and fMRI.
P1: If it were possible to breach one’s subjective mental states, then someone would be able to access another person’s thoughts or mental processes without their consent.
P2: It is not possible for someone to access another person’s thoughts or mental processes without their consent.
C: Therefore, it is impossible to breach one’s subjective mental states.
Mental privacy refers to the right of one to keep their thoughts private, and breaching this privacy would require accessing thoughts in some other way. But it’s not possible to access one’s thoughts on this way, and brain imaging technologies don’t do this since mind isn’t identical to brain.
P1: If mind-reading using AI and fMRI were possible, then there would be consistent and reliable patterns in the brain that correspond to different thoughts.
P2: If there were consistent and reliable patterns in the brain that correspond to different thoughts, then AI algorithm la would be able to accurately interpret them.
P3: There are no consistent patterns in the brain that correspond to different thoughts, since mind-brain identity is false.
C: Therefore, mind-reading using AI and fMRI is impossible.
The irreducibility of mind to brain and the falsity of mind-brain identity theory means that there can be no consistent and reliable brain patterns that correspond to different thoughts.
Case 1: If it were possible to read minds using AI and fMRI, then there would be physical evidence in the brain that corresponds to specific thoughts or mental processes.
Case 2: If it were not possible to detect physical evidence in the brain that corresponds to specific thoughts or mental processes, then it would not be possible to read minds using AI and fMRI.
Case 3: There is no physical evidence in the brain that corresponds to specific thoughts or mental.processes (due to what we know about the multiple realizability of psychological traits).
C: Therefore, it is impossible to read kinds using AI and fMRI (by proof by cases, case 1 and case 3).
There is no empirical evidence to support case 1, and we know that it’s not possible to detect thoughts or mental processes based on brain physiology alone. As case 2, the absence of physical evidence linking brain and mental states 1-to-1 would mean that AI/fMRI cannot detect them. This also suggests that the brain isn’t a purely mechanistic system, which can be fully understood and predicted using computational models. This is similar to Libet experiments, in which it was claimed that unconscious brain activity preceded conscious intention to move; the brain does not initiate freely-willed processes (Radder and Meynen, 2012). Lastly foe the third case, neuroimaging studies consistently fail to detect specific thoughts or mental states from brain states alone. And even if patterns of brain activity can be associated with certain mental states, it’s impossible to determine with certainty what specific thoughts or mental processes a person is experiencing.
Conclusion
While our technology is quickly increasing, a priori arguments show that the explanatory gap between science and subjective mental states is impossible to close. Due to the radically different properties the mental and the physical have, this means that we can’t use science to study our subjective mental states. While there is a ton of fanfare recently about LLMs and the ability of them and fMRI to show that mind-reading is possible, these claims are nothing but hot air. For if the mental were reducible to the physical, then it could be possible in principle that we could read minds based on neurophysiology and brain images. However, since the mental is irreducible, then we can’t use these technologies to read minds.
These claims, though, will increase in frequency since physicalist views are held by the super majority. However, the arguments here show that mind-reading using AI and fMRI is impossible, since mind and brain are not identical.
Thus, our mental privacy is safe from physical systems that attempt–in vain—to breach it.
A Priori and Empirical Arguments for Multiple Realizability
2500 words
What is the multiple realizability argument?
The multiple realizability argument (MRA) is an argument directed at type-identity theories of mind, while being used for and against functionalist theories of mind. (I think Ross’ 1992 argument in Immaterial Aspects of Thought and Feser’s 2013 arguments refute functionalist theories.) First formulated by Hilary Putnam in 1975, the argument he formulated can be put like this:
P1. If type-physicalism is true, then every mental property can be realized in exactly one physical way.
P2. It is empirically highly plausible that mental properties are capable of multiple realizations.
C1. It is (empirically) highly plausible that the view of type-physicalism is false (modus tollens, P1, P2). (From Just the Arguments, 81. Putnam’s Multiple Realization Argument against Type-Physicalism)
P1 states the scope of type-physicalism—that all mental states are realizable in one and only one physical way. P2 states that it is probable that mental properties are capable of multiple realizations. This premise is an empirical one, and so we need evidence to believe it. Then, the conclusion is that type-physicalism is false sine mental states are multiply realizable. Quite obviously, this argument shows that mental states don’t reduce to brain states, which means that physicalism is false. Since P2 needs defense, I will defend it in this article while giving my own formulation of the MRA.
Here is my formulation of it:
P1: If mental properties were identical to physical properties, then any change in one entails a change in the other.
P2: Mental properties can change without any corresponding change in physical properties.
C: So mental properties aren’t identical to physical properties.
As you can see, like Putnam’s formulation, P2 is an empirical claim and so needs empirical support. So if one mental state can be realized in multiple ways, then type-physicalism (mind-brain identity) is false. I will spend the rest of this article arguing for the truth of P2 and then provide an argument from analogy showing that mental states are multiply realizable.
An a priori argument for multiple realizability
If the MRA were true, then there would be evidence of a specific mental state that is realized in multiple physical ways. While empirical evidence is irrelevant to metaphysical possibility (and to concepts), multiple realizability can be known a priori. Before I give the empirical argument from analogy for multiple realizability, I will give the a priori argument.
P1: Mental states and processes exhibit certain characteristic features and properties like intentionality, subjectivity, and causality.
P2: If mental states are multiply realizable, then they are not reducible to their underlying physical properties.
C: Thus, mental states and processes are not reducible to their underlying physical properties.
Or
P1: M has properties P1, P2, P3…
P2: If M is multiply realizable, then M is not reducible to it’s physical properties.
C: Therefore, M is irreducible to its physical properties.
Premise 1: Mental states and processes are characterized by what they do rather than what they’re “made of.” Intentionality is the ability for mental states to be “about” things, while directed at objects, events or states of affairs like when a belief or proposition is about a certain end goal. So M properties aren’t reducible to any P properties, and intentionality is a property of mental states which set them apart from physical states, since purely physical things can never have the ability to intend. Subjectivity refers to the fact that mental states are experienced through a first-personal perspective which can’t be observed or measured by others. This property sets M states apart from P states, since physical states can be studied and observed from a third-personal perspective. So while we can study brain states, since mental states don’t reduce to brain physiology, then by studying brain states we aren’t studying the mind. Lastly the property of causality refers to the fact that mental states and processes have causal effects on action and behavior, cognition and other mental states and processes. So the distinctive role that mental states and processes play in generating action, behavior, and cognition cannot be captured by studying the brain or the body.
Premise 2: This premise highlights the fact that multiple realizability implies that mental states can be realized in a multitude of physical states and processes without any loss of mental properties. So the Conclusion follows that mental states and processes are irreducible to their underlying physical properties.
So if mental states and processes have characteristic features that distinguish them from other kinds of states and processes, and if they can be realized by multiple physical systems, then they cannot be reduced to one physical system.
Defending P2: Empirical evidence for multiple realizability
The way that Putnam and I have formulated the argument for MR is an empirical claim. So empirical claims require empirical evidence. While the previous argument was a priori, it could therefore be argued without empirical evidence.
The example of visual perception. Most animals on earth have vision. The visual systems of animals have evolved to help them survive in their ecologies. Humans have three cone types in their eyes which allows them to see a range of colors. On the other hand, some birds have four cone types which allow them to see a wider range of color than humans, and the fourth cone thsg birds have allows them to see more colors than humans (Stoddard et al, 2020). Bats have evolved eyesight that allows them to see in low light environments, while eagles have evolved eyesight that allows them to see objects at great distances. So despite differences in the visual systems between animals, they can all recognize objects and visually navigate their ecologies. So different animals have evolved different vision systems that help in a certain niche. Furthermore, different types of photoreceptors have evolved in different animals, with different connections between the eye and the brain, which began evolving around 600 million years ago, with the Cambrian explosion leading to body plans and systems which then supported vision (Lamb, Pugh Jr, and Collin, 2008; Lamb, Collin, and Pugh Jr, 2011; Asteriti, 2015). These photoreceptors come in two kinds—ciliary type (c-type) or rhabdomeric type (r-type); vertebrates seek to have a unique mix of these cone types which allow a wide range of vision (Marshedian and Fain, 2017). Certain eye structures have also evolved independently (Land and Nilsson, 2012). So different animals have different numbers of photoreceptors and cones, which help them to visualize their environment; the diversity of rods and photoreceptors in the animal kingdom is vast (Piechl, 2005). Thus, the evidence cited here shows that different animals have differently-evolved visual systems, but they can still visualize their environments even though the physical systems that allow it are different.
The brain’s ability to compensate from injury and the brain’s of athletes and musicians. After a traumatic brain injury occurs, the brain—being plastic—can rewire itself to carry different functions after an injury. For example, in the blind, the visual cortex is repurposed and processes tactile and auditory stimuli (Elbert et al, 2002; Lane et al, 2015; Gori et al, 2019). The primary motor cortex in musicians is larger than non-musicians, and this is due to constant practice on their instrument of choice (Toyka and Freund, 2006; Watson, 2006; Olszewska et al, 2021). Basketball players have larger cortical areas associated with visual processing and attention (Kim et al, 2022) along with athletes having different cortical neuronal networks than novices (Tan et al, 2017). This then is solid evidence for the claim that learning new skills and continously performing them at an expert level leads to changes in the brain (Park et al, 2015). Further, when it comes to the brain’s ability to heal from an injury, it has been shown that if a certain brain area is impacted, other parts of the brain will pick up the slack of the injured part, which shows the plasticity of the brain and the brain’s ability to compensate for an injury to it by directing and making new neural pathways to carry out new tasks (Nishimura et al, 2009; Su, Veeravuga, and Grant, 2016; Hylin, Kerr, and Holden, 2017). Thus, the evidence cited here shows how the brain can adapt to tasks that a person performs, and how it can adapt to changes to it (like injury) and even repurposing certain parts of itself in people with certain disabilities. This, like the example of visual perception, lends further support for the claim that different physical systems can perform the same mental function.
Brain-computer interfaces. Lastly, we have brain-computer interfaces. These interfaces “acquire brain signals, analyze them, and translate them into commands that are relayed to output devices that carry out desired actions” (Shih et al, 2012). These interfaces allow humans to control things with their thoughts, bypassing the need for physical interfaces; this technology also allows individuals to control certain kinds of devices using brain waves using their mental intentions (Mak and Wolpaw, 2010). People with these interfaces can control prosthetic limbs (Mischenko et al, 2017; Murphy et al, 2017; Asanza et al, 2022). These interfaces have also been explored to give people the ability to communicate with speech again (Brumberg et al, 2010). This also supports MR since brain-computer interfaces which use EEG to record brain activity could translate mental states into movements while interfaces that use implanted electrodes may allow an individual to control a robotic arm. Thus, the development of this technology shows that different mental states can be realized in different physical systems which is then dependent on the type of interface used.
Strappini et al (2020) provide yet more empirical support for MR. They write:
Here, we illustrate some cases that provide empirical evidence in support of MRT. Recently, it has been proposed that foveal agnosic vision, like peripheral vision, can be restored by increasing object parts’ spacing (Crutch and Warrington, 2007; Strappini et al., 2017b). Agnosic fovea and normal periphery are both limited by crowding, which impairs object recognition, and provides the signature of visual integration. Here, we define a psychological property of restored object identification, and we cross-reference the data of visually impaired patients with different etiologies. In particular, we compare the data of two stroke patients, two patients with posterior cortical atrophy, six cases of strabismic amblyopia, and one case with restored sight. We also compare these patients with unimpaired subjects tested in the periphery. We show that integration (i.e., restored recognition) seems to describe quite accurately the visual performance in all these cases. Whereas the patients have different etiologies and different neural correlates, the unimpaired subjects have no neural damage. Thus, similarity in the psychological property given the differences in the neural substrate can be interpreted in relation to MRT and provide evidence in its support
While Booth (2018: 143-144) uses the example of multilingualism to support MR:
First, there are multiple ways of speaking a second-language, based on difference between high proficiency early and late bilinguals. Second, there are multiple ways of being a speaker of a given language, specifically as a monolingual or bilingual speaker of that language, where the language is the bilingual speaker’s L1. These examples meet the conditions advanced by Polger and Shapiro for examples of multiple realization, and should therefore be accepted as genuine cases of multiple realization.
Now that I have given a good overview of the evidence in support of MR, I will not provide the argument.
The empirical argument from analogy for multiple realizability
P1: Different animals have evolved different vision systems to suite their ecologies.
P2: Humans have a trichromatic visual system while some birds have tetrachromatic visual system while some insects have compound eyes.
P3: Despite differences in these visual systems, these animals all are able to perform similar visual tasks, like spatial navigation and object recognition.
P4: Studies of brain damage and neuroplasticity show that different brain regions can take on different functions after injury or training, like blind people using the visual cortex for auditory processing, muscisians having larger motor areas for finger control, and basketball players having larger cortical areas associated with visual processing and attention.
P5: The development of brain-computer interfaces show that mental states can be translated into different forms of output, like movement, speech, and text, using different physical devices.
C: Thus, multiple realizability is true, since the mental state of visual perception (and other mental states) can be realized in different physical systems without affecting functioning.
P1: If mental states can only be realized in a single physical system, then all animals with similar cognitive tasks should have identical neural structures.
P2: Different animals have different neural structures for performing similar cognitive tasks, like visual perception.
C: Thus, mental states cannot be realized in a single physical system.
P1: If mental states can only be realized in a single physical system, then all animals with similar cognitive tasks should have identical neural structures.
P2: If all animal with similar cognitive tasks have identical neural structures, then different animals should not have different neural structures for performing similar cognitive tasks.
P3: Different animals have different neural structures for performing similar cognitive tasks, like spatial navigation, object recognition and visual perception.
C: Thus, mental states cannot be realized by a single physical system.
Conclusion
I have provided both an a priori and a posteriori argument for the MRA. The a priori argument shows that multiple realizability is metaphysically possible, while the empirical evidence I have cited along with the empirical premises in my arguments have shown that multiple realizability is an empirically defensible position. It seems to me that it is intuitive that different mental states can be realized by different physical systems and not only one kind of physical system.
The a priori argument shows that mental states and physical states have different properties; physical states cannot have the properties that mental states have. So this shows that it’s metaphysically possible the MR is true, while the empirical evidence and arguments I have mounted show that it is true in our world as well. Mental states can’t be reduced to physical states, mental states are causally efficacious, and there are multiple ways to achieve the same cognitive function, like visual perception across the animal kingdom. The example of visual perception of different animals, studies of athletes, musicians, and people with traumatic brain injuries, and even brain-computer interfaces show that different mental states can be realized in multiple physical ways.
So if this is true, then multiple realizability is true. If multiple realizability is true, then type-physicalism is false, and therefore identity theories of mind need to find another avenue to prove their thesis. Mind-brain identity is clearly false; mind doesn’t reduce to brain and mental states can be realized by different physical systems. This is yet another argument against physicalism—the attempted reduction of mind to brain. Physicalism is quite clearly false.
Gender Identity is Personal Identity
1500 words
It has been common in recent years to claim that gender identity (GI) doesn’t exist. For example, one religious argument that GI doesn’t exist is that since God made only men and women, then we should not “overrule the work of God.” However, to claim that GI doesn’t exist is patently ridiculous. It’s ridiculous since GI is merely a subset of personal identity (PI). PI exists, so GI exists too, since GI is a subset of PI. I will provide an argument for the claim that GI is PI and if GI is PI, then GI exists.
The origins of the nature-versus-nurture debate
In his book Genes, Determinism, and God, Denis Alexander cited what may be the first instance of the nature versus nurture dichotomy. A 13th century novel called Silence was discovered in 1911, and in it is perhaps the first discussion of nature versus nurture. In the story, the kind of England married the daughter of the king of Norway which the ended a long war they were in. The king of England then passed a law stating that family inheritances cannot be passed on to women. After passing this law, the king was rescued by a knight from a dragon. So the king offered the knight an estate and a lady of his choosing, who turned out to be the king’s nurse. They then got married and then had a daughter who was unable to inherit their money due to the law the king previously passed. So the knight and the nurse named their child Silentius, and then tasked two of their servants to raise the child as a boy.
Alexander then quotes the book in which nature, nurture, and reason are personified and then duel over the ultimate identity of Slientius. Nature states that Silentius is a girl, and that she should return to her appropriate gender role. Nurture and reason then convince Silentius that it would be better go continue being a boy, since they could be put to death if her identity was discovered.
Alexander (2074: 39) quotes what Nature and Nurture said to Silentius in the novel:
This is a fine state of affairs,
You conducting yourself like a man,
running about in the wind and scorching sun
when I used a special mold for you,
When I created you with my own hands,
When I heaped all the beauty I had stored up upon you alone! (2502-9)But nurture will have none of it:
Nature, leave my nursing alone,
or I will put a curse on you!
I have completely dis-natured her. (2593-5)
Silentius is then brought to the king’s court, where the queen falls in love with Silentius since she sees Silentius as a man. The queen then eventually grows to hare Silentius and tries to have Silentius killed. So the queen sends Silentius to try to capture Merlin, since it is said that he could not be captured since he acted like a beast. Silentius then cooked him some meat and gave him some wine and captured him. So Nurture influenced Merlin to become like a beast and not eat cooked food, so when Silentius gave Merlin cooked food, Merlin then gave into his nature and rejected the nurturing of himself as a beast. Now that Nature had won out with Merlin, now it was Silentius’ turn to have nature win out with them.
With Nature’s final triumph, the time is ripe for unmasking Silence. On his way to Eban’s palace, Merlin laughs at various people for no apparent reason. Attacked by people as a false prophet and pressed by King Eban, Merlin is forced to reveal the reasons behind his laugh: he laughs at a group of lepers begging for alms because they are standing on buried treasures; at a man burying his child with a priest by his side because the child is in fact the priest’s. Finally, he laughs at a nun in the Queen’s entourage because that nun is only a woman in clothing, just as Silence is only dressed up as male. The ‘nun’ turns out to be the Queen’s lover in disguise, while, marvelled by all, Silence reveals why ‘she’ becomes ‘he’. The romance ends with a classic happy ending: the Queen is punished by death, and Silence, now changing her name to Silentia, becomes the new queen. (The Boy Who Was a Girl: The Romance of Silence)
So Nature won out from Nurture two times in this story, once regarding Silentius and then again regarding Merlin. So, contrary to popular belief that Francis Galton was the one to pit nature and nurture against each other, (one of) the earliest instances of the dueling aspects of Nature and Nurture was from that 13th century French novel. Obviously, Silentius’ GI was that of a man since that is how they were raised. But then, ultimately, Nature won out and Silentius went back to living as a women.
Now, this is just a story and of course nature vs nurture is a false dichotomy, but it is interesting to note the earliest instances of the nature-nurture debate. In any case, it’s also a good illustration of how GI is PI.
The argument that gender identity is personal identity
The argument is simple—PI is the unique numerical identity identity of a person over time. On a bodily account of PI, persons are identical to their bodies. On the brain account, we are identical to our brains. We are not identical to our bodies (Lowe’s 2010 argument), nor are we identical to our brains (Gabriel’s 2017 argument). So I am not my body nor am I my brain. So what am I? I am an immaterial self (Lund’s 2005 argument) and I am not reducible to the brain or nervous system (aspects that are studiable by science) (Hasker’s 2010 argument). So I hold to the simple view of personal identity.
Noonan (2019a: 27-28; also see Noonan, 2019b) writes:
Persistence of body and brain or psychological continuity and connectedness are criteria of personal identity only in the sense of evidence: they are not what personal identity consists in. Indeed, there is nothing (else) that personal identity consists in: personal identity is an ultimate unanalysable fact, distinct from everything observable or experienceable that might be evidence for it. Persons are separately existing entities, distinct from their brains, bodies and experiences. On the best-known version of this view, a person is a purely mental entity: a Cartesian pure ego, or spiritual substance. This is in fact the form in which the view is adopted by its contemporary defenders, among whom the most prominent are Chisholm and Swinburne. Following Parfit, I shall call this the simple view.
Mental entities are “private, non-material objects” (Sussman, 1975) so persons are purely mental entities which are not reducible nor identical to brains or bodies. GI is one’s personal conception of self and GI is a subset of PI. So if PI exists, then so does GI. Now here is the argument that gender identity is a form of personal identity.
P1: PI refers to the unique characteristics and qualities that define an individual as a distinct entity.
P2: GI is a core aspect of one’s self-concept and self-expression which deeply influences their personal experiences and relationships.
P3: If an aspect of a person’s self-concept and self-expression deeply influences their personal experiences and relationships, then it is a key component of their PI.
C: Thus, GI is a form of PI.
Or
P1: If PI is the set of characteristics that define an individual, then GI is a form of PI.
P2: If GI is a fundamental aspect of a person’s self-concept and self-expression, then GI is a form of PI.
P3: GI is a fundamental aspect of a person’s self-concept and self-expression.
C: So GI is a form of PI.
Both of these arguments are valid and sound, therefore GI is a form of PI. So if PI exists then it follows that GI exists. So claims to the contrary that GI doesn’t exist are therefore false.
Conclusion
I have shown that GI exists and I have successfully argued that it is a form of PI. This then refutes claims that GI doesn’t exist. I discussed one of the first instances of the nature versus nurture dichotomy from a 13th century French novel called Silence, where Nature, Nurture, and Reason are personified, in an attempt to get people to go with their “natures” over their nurtures. In the story, Nature eventually wins out. Though in real life, this doesn’t work out due to the interaction between nature and nurture, genes and environment. So this instance is one of the first instances of the debate, which predates Galton by almost 500 years.
I then discussed what PI is and of course rejected the brain, body and physical views of PI. This is because we are partly immaterial, that is, the self is an immaterial substance or mental entities. I then, finally, presented two arguments that GI is a form of PI. PI clearly exists, so if PI exists then GI exists. It’s that simple.
A Critical Analysis of Kershnar’s Argument in Moral Value and Racial Differences
1800 words
In the year 2000, philosopher Stephen Kershnar published a paper titled Intrinsic Moral Value and Racial Differences (Kershnar, 2000). In the article, he argues that whites and Asians have greater per capita moral value than blacks, since ceteris paribus, autonomy is proportional to intelligence and moral value is proportional to intelligence. In this article, I will show how Kershnar’s argument is flawed.
Kershnar’s argument
(P1) Other things equal, intrinsic moral value is proportional to autonomy.
(P2) Other things equal, autonomy is proportional to intelligence.
(C1) Hence, other things equal, intrinsic moral value is proportional to intelligence. [(PI), (P2)]
(P3) Whites and Asians have greater per capita levels of intelligence than blacks.
(C2) Hence, other things equal, whites and Asians have greater per capita intrinsic moral value than blacks. [(Cl), (P3)]
(P4) Other factors do not offset this difference in per capita moral value.
(C3) Hence, all things considered, whites and Asians have greater per capita intrinsic moral value than blacks. [(C2), (P4)]
The inference in C1 is transitive property of equality where if A = B and B = C then A = C. Intrinsic moral value is proportional to autonomy (A = B) (P1), while autonomy is proportional to intelligence (B = C) (P2), so intrinsic moral value (A) is proportional to intelligence (C), so A = C justifying the inference. It also uses a form of proportional reasoning to show the A = C (intrinsic moral value = intelligence). P3 and C1 are then used to derive C2 through deduction. He then assumes the truth of P4, which then establishes C3, which states that, ceteris paribus, whites and Asians have greater per capita moral value than blacks, so C2 and P4 are used to derive the conclusion in C3.
Critical discussion of Kershnar’s argument is scant, being that over the 23 years since the paper was published, there are a mere 7 citations of the paper, 3 of which are from Kershnar himself. The implication of the argument is that the United States should deprioritze aid to Africa, since rendering aid there would be useless based on their average “intelligence.” He, of course, relies on IQ differences between blacks, whites, and Asians as grounds for his argument here. He brings up the myth of “general intelligence”. In any case, he states that differences in IQ being due to genetic or environmental factors doesn’t matter—since lowered IQ due to environmental factors result in “a lowered level of intelligence that results from environmental deprivation correlates with less autonomy, other things equal, every bit as much as a lowered level of intelligence that results from genetic factors” (Kershnar, 2000: 217). This claim, of course, is nonsense, as IQ isn’t a measure at all, nevermind a measure of “general intelligence.” Thus, C1 and P3 can be rejected, which would mean that, also, C2 then doesn’t follow.
Kershnar’s argument is basically saying that whites and Asians have more inherent value or worth than whites and Asians. Conclusion C2 which is derived from P3 is false and if is further based on a misunderstanding between the nature of IQ scores and so-called “intelligence.” Nevermind the fact that Asians are a selected population. Now I will discuss each premise.
Premise 1: This premise claims that intrinsic moral value (IVM) is proportional to autonomy. It is a reductionist view, which equates morality with autonomy. Numerous other factors also contribute to autonomy, and autonomy and moral value cannot be reduced to a single number. Nevermind the fact that IVM and autonomy aren’t measurable variables.
Premise 2: Like P1, P2 also assumes a reductionist view of of autonomy which equates it with “intelligence.” I don’t doubt that cognitive ability is related to autonomy, however, Kershnar’s claim that autonomy is proportional to intelligence is outright false, and so P2 must be rejected.
Conclusion 1: Even IF P1 and P2 are accepted (and I see no reason why we should accept them), it does not follow that IMV is proportional to “intelligence.” Many other factors contribute to IMV than merely “intelligence.” Thus, P2 and C1 are not entirely true.
Premise 3: This claim is just straight-up false. There is no reason to claim that differences in IQ scores are differences in “intelligence.” While Kershnar does assume that IQ is a measure of g, and also tries to argue that even if the observed IQ differences are due to either genetic or environmental factors that it doesn’t hurt his overall argument, it actually does. Due to what we know about the nature of IQ test construction and the ability to build in or out what the test constructors desire, we therefore cannot and should not accept the claim in premise 3. Furthermore, there are philosophical arguments (Spencer, 2014; Hardimon, 2017) that while race exists and is a social construct of a biological reality, we cannot be justified in claiming that, over and above physical differences, genes contribute to socially-desired/-valued traits. Even if there were differences in “intelligence” between races, this would not justify the claim that differences in Intelligence and autonomy translate to IMV. The rejection of P3 makes his argument crumble.
Conclusion 2: This conclusion is outright racist. It is racist since it assumes that intelligence is directly related to moral worth. The claim that certain racial groups have more intrinsic value than others has been, in the past, used to justify morally repugnant actions such as Jim Crow, slavery and segregation. C2 isn’t false because it’s racist—that’s merely a descriptive claim about C2—but it is false since it is based on false premises (C1 and P3). So C2 must be rejected.
Premise 4: This premise is straight up ridiculous. It is false because it assumes that other factors don’t off-set IMV. IMV is influenced not only by individual characteristics or traits, but also by social and cultural contexts and factors such as education and upbringing.
Conclusion 3: C3 is derived from C2 and P4. As already discussed, C2 is outright racist but it being racist isn’t why it’s false, it’s false since it is based on false premises. P4, again assumes that no other factors influence per capita IMV.
Refuting Kershnar’s argument
Now that I have analyzed Kershnar’s premises, I will now provide an argument against Kershnar’s argument.
P1: Autonomy isn’t solely determined by cognitive ability.
P2: IMV isn’t solely determined by cognitive ability or autonomy.
P3: The claim that whites and Asians have greater per capita intrinsic moral value than blacks based on differenced in cognitive ability is unfounded and outright discriniminatory.
C: Thus, the argument that whites and Asians have a greater per capita IMV than blacks is invalid and so Kershnar’s argument isn’t sound.
P1 states that autonomy isn’t solely determined by cognitive ability. There are many other factors that determine autonomy, like socio-environmental factors which are independent of cognitive ability. P2 asserts that other factors contribute to an organism’s moral value. The idea that cognitive ability is related to one’s moral value has been used in the past to justify discriminatory policies and forced sterilization of people found to be “low IQ.” This is one reason why IQ tests should be banned, since they have been used to justify discriminatory policies and sterilization in the past. Further, infants, children, people with cognitive disabilities and animals are considered to have moral value, even though they don’t have the same cognitive capacities as adult humans. P3 claims that Kershnar’s overall claim that whites and Asians have greater per capita IMV than blacks is unfounded, along with the fact that it is outright discriniminatory. Here is an argument for P3:
P1: If claims of IMV based solely on differences in cognitive ability are justified, then discriniminatory beliefs and practices are also justified.
P2: Discriniminatory beliefs and practices are not justified.
C: So claims of IMV based solely on cognitive ability aren’t justified.
Thus, the conclusion of the original argument against Kershnar’s argument follows—like in my argument to ban IQ tests, if we belief the hereditarian hypothesis is true and it is false, then it will lead to certain discriniminatory policies and beliefs. Since Kershnar’s argument is, basically, an argument using hereditarianism for our moral values, then this, too, is another reason why IQ tests should be banned. Nevertheless, Kershnar’s argument isn’t sound and it is refuted.
Conclusion
An implication of Kershnar’s argument is that we should not give aid to African countries (I argue that we should) and that, if we saved Europeans and Africans, that it would be more morally praiseworthy to have saved Europeans over Africans (Engelbert, 2015). Engelbert’s (2015: 186) note 16 also talks about the “repugnancy” and “absurdity” of Kershnar’s argument.
On the absurdity point: Kershnar’s argument that more intelligent beings possess greater autonomous agency is based almost entirely upon thought experiments involving comparisons between humans and non-human animals, or between humans with normal cognitive abilities and those with serious disorders that inhibit mental functioning. Thus, the notion of “intelligence” he utilizes bears little resemblance to the use of the term in psychometrics (from which he draws his claim that racial groups differ in “intelligence”). Kershnar provides no reason for thinking that autonomy, understood in the way moral philosophy uses the term, is proportional to intelligence in the psychometric sense. On the repugnancy point, it’s also worth noting that Kershnar’s extrapolation of comparisons between “human beings and pigs” (2000, p. 222) to comparisons between Whites and Blacks is full of troubling implications.
Nevertheless, Kershnar’s argument is outright racist, but that doesn’t mean that it’s false. I have outlined the reasons why it’s false, his assumptions are hardly argued for (like the claim that autonomy is proportional to “intelligence”), and so, Kershnar’s argument must be rejected. I also have provided a counterargument against Kershnar’s, which thusly invalidates it. Now here is one final argument against Kershnar’s:
P1: All human beings have inherent moral value and worth regardless of their cognitive ability and race.
P2: Autonomy is a fundamental principle of moral value.
P3: Autonomy isn’t solely determined by cognitive ability but also by factors like cultural background, personal experience, and social context.
C: Thus, it is morally wrong to claim that whites and Asians have greater IMV than blacks based solely on cognitive ability, since it violates the principle of non-discrimination.
At the end of the day, Kershnar’s argument seems to be deployed in order to deny aid to African countries. However, giving aid to African countries will decrease their birthrate, as empirically shown in other countries. C3 in Kershnar’s argument is both scientifically and morally flawed. For reason—among the others laid out above—Kershnar’s argument is unsound and must be rejected. Kershnar’s argument applies hereditarian “science” to moral worth of racial groups, which is another reason why the argument doesn’t work, since hereditarianism isn’t a valid science.
An Argument for the Existence of Mind and Intentional Consciousness
2100 words
Consciousness and mind are uniquely human attributes. They allow us to reason and act intentionally. But what establishes the claim that consciousness and mind exist if they are immaterial? I have a few arguments for the claim, and I will also add a semi-updated version of the argument I made against animal mentality. So I will combine the argument that humans possess a mind (that is, that the mind is real and has referents) with the argument that nonhuman animals lack propositional attitudes and so they lack language and intentional states, and so they lack minds like humans. So the conclusion will be guaranteed—minds exist and only humans are in possession of them. First I will provide the argument that the mind exists since the existence of consciousness implies the existence of a nonphysical entity. After defending the premises, I will then shift to the argument that the problem of mental causation isn’t a problem for dualism. Then I will argue that only humans have minds and, due to the nature of intentionality and normativity of psychological traits, nonhuman animals lack minds like humans since they lack the prerequisites that entail having a mind.
An argument for the existence of mind
P1: Consciousness is a real, undeniable phenomenon that cannot be fully explained by physical or material processes.
P2: If consciousness cannot be fully explained by physical or material processes, then it must be a nonphysical phenomenon.
C1: Thus consciousness is a nonphysical phenomenon.
P3: The existence of a nonphysical phenomenon requires the existence of a nonphysical entity that can support or generate such phenomena.
C2: So the existence of consciousness implies the existence of a nonphysical entity.
C3: This nonphysical entity is the mind, so the mind exists.
Call this the argument from consciousness. Consciousness is a subjective, first-personal experience that everyone has and which cannot be reduced to physical or material processes. It is an experiential fact that each and every one of us is aware of their experiences and their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions; these cannot be explained by material or physical brain processes, due to the explanatory gap argument.
Premise 1: Of course we can study NCCs (neural correlates of consciousness), and this is what neuroscience does, but that’s not the same as studying the mind. The actualization of mind is not the same as that of digestion; gastroenterologists can study the physiological process of digestion, but neuroscientists can’t study the mind, since the mind isn’t merely brain physiology or brain/CNS (central nervous system activity) activity.
Premise 2: We can study material and physical processes, like brain states/physiology/CNS, using scientific inquiry. But if consciousness cannot be fully explained by physical or material processes, then it must be explained by the existence of a nonphysical entity and this also suggests that consciousness is an irreducible, nonphysical phenomenon.
Conclusion 1 then logically follows from P1 and P2.
Premise 3: Like P2, if consciousness is a nonphysical phenomenon, then it must be explained by a nonphysical entity since physical accounts cannot fully account for consciousness.
Conclusion 2 then logically follows from P3 and P4, and then conclusion 3 then follows from C2. So the argument is established on the grounds that consciousness exists and cannot be explained by material or physical processes, and if something exists which cannot be explained by physical or material processes then this implies the existence of a nonphysical entity that can support or generate such consciousness, and this nonphysical entity is referred to as MIND.
The limitations of material and physical explanations entail that the mind isn’t a physical process or a function of physical processes. The Knowledge Argument concludes that everything can’t be explained by physical or material processes, which would then strengthen the overall argument for the existence of an immaterial substance that explains consciousness. So there is a knowledge gap between physical explanations and subjective, individual explanations, and this is what the Knowledge Argument gets at. (Morch’s explanatory knowledge argument against physicalism establishes that some facts are nonphysical, which establishes the existence MIND.)
If the mind is immaterial, then how does it interact with the physical brain?
This question has been said to be a knockdown argument against dualism. If M and P are two different substances, how can they be said to interact? How, then, can the mind cause things to happen in the physical world? This is known as the problem of mental causation. How can mental events have any causal efficacy on physical events?we then need to establish between event causation and intentional causation (Lowe, 2001, 2009).
Intentional causation is mental causation (fact causation), and bodily causation is physical causation. Mental causation doesn’t reduce to physical causation, and this is because mental causation is intentional whereas physical causation isn’t. We have voluntary control over our actions, and so, we can intend to do things. So in Lowe’s (2006, 2010, 2012) non-Cartesian substance dualism (NCSD), persons or selves are distinct from their physical bodies and parts of their physical bodies. NCSD can better explain mental causation than the alternative materialist/physicalist theories, and so it can’t explain the intentionality of mental causation. The self is not the body, mental states aren’t physical states/processes (nor are they reducible to physical states/processes). The intentional content of mental states explains their uniqueness in contrast to physical states and event causation (Lowe, 1999).
P1: If M events cause P events, then mental causation isn’t a problem for dualism.
P2: Mental events do cause physical events.
C: So mental causation isn’t a problem for dualism.
So this is based on Lowe’s distinction between event and agential causation. Agential causation means that an agent can cause events that mere physical event causation cannot and agential causation cannot be reduce to event causation. Agents aren’t events nor are they processes, al they are entities with powers that can enact causal chains. So mental events which are caused by agents can cause physical events sans violating any laws of nature, and this doesn’t require that mental events are identical to or reducible to physical events. Thus if mental events can cause physical events—which we have experiential and empirical evidence that they do—then the problem of mental causation does not pose a problem for dualism.
Premise 2 now needs defense. Mental events like thoughts, beliefs and desires can cause bodily movements. If you desire to go to the store and buy something, then your desires are directing your actions; the mental intention to move the body is then carried out. Also, experiencing pain (a mental event) can cause a reaction, which would then cause the avoidance of the source of the pain. Furthermore, we also deliberate on what to do, while considering different outcomes and options and then act based on our mental states at the time. Lastly, if mental events did not cause physical events, then we wouldn’t be able to hold people responsible for their intentional actions. So P2 is true and the conclusion then follows that mental causation isn’t a problem for dualism.
Then we have Krodel’s (2013) counterfactual argument for mental causation which can be formed like this:
If the mind were different, then the physical world would have been different, al M events cause P events in the world. Krodel (2013: 3) puts it like this:
My headache caused me to take an aspirin. This claim sounds as natural as any. A dualist too can make it. More importantly, a dualist can provide a rigorous argument for it. Nothing depends on the specifics of headaches and our reactions to them, so let m be some actually occurring mental event and b it’s actually occurring later behavioral effect (‘putative behavioral effect’, if you like, to quell any suspicion of begging the question). The argument has a complicated part with the conclusion that if m had not occurred, then b would not have occurred, and a simple part with the conclusion that m caused b. Let us start with the complicated part:
(1) If none of m’s physical bases had occurred, then b would not have occurred.
(∼∪P → ∼B)(2) If m had not occurred, then none of m’s physical bases would have occurred.
(∼M → ∼∪P)(3) If none of m’s physical bases had occurred, then m would not have occurred.
(∼∪P → ∼M)———————
(4) If m had not occurred, then b would not have occurred.
(∼M → ∼B)
It can also be put like this:
P1: If a mental event didn’t occur, then a physical event wouldn’t have occurred.
P2: If a mental event didn’t occur, then a different physical event would have occurred.
C: So the mental event causally contributed to the physical event.
So mental events make the difference to the counterfactual dependence of the physical events on the mental causes. So the mental event is causally relevant to the instantiation of the physical event, even if the mental event isn’t causally necessary. So again, the problem of mental causation isn’t a problem for dualism.
The argument for the uniqueness of human intentional consciousness
This is going to be a long argument, so bear with me.
P1: Humans are capable of intentional action, which involves the use of reason and purpose to achieve goals.
P2: Intentional action requires a mental capacity to represent and reason about the world.
P3: This mental capacity is what we refer to as MIND.
C1: Thus, humans possess a mind. (modus ponens, P1, P2, P3)
P4: Humans have intentional consciousness which involves being aware of thoughts, beliefs, and desires along with the ability to form and pursue goals.
P5: Intentional consciousness requires the ability to represent and reason about mental states.
P6: The possession of a mind is necessary for intentional consciousness.
C2: So humans have intentional consciousness (modus ponens, P6, C1).
P7: To be able to think, an organism must have a full range of propositional attitudes like beliefs, desires, intentions, and knowledge.
P8: Having a full range of propositional attitudes rests on having language.
P9: Nonhuman animals lack language.
P10: Nonhuman animals lack a full range of propositional attitudes.
P11: Since a full range of propositional attitudes is necessary for thinking, then nonhuman animals can’t think.
C3: So nonhuman animals lack MIND. (modus tollens, P3, P10, P11)
P12: Nonhuman animals have phenomenal consciousness, that is, there is something it is like to be a certain animal.
P13: Phenomenal consciousness does not require the ability to represent and reason about mental states.
P14: Intentional consciousness is a higher level of consciousness that requires both phenomenal consciousness and the ability to reason about and represent mental states.
C4: Therefore, no nonhuman animal possesses intentional consciousness. (modus tollens, C2, P12, P14)
P1-P6 establish that humans possess a mind and intentional consciousness and that nonhuman animals lack intentional consciousness. P7-P11 build on this and introduce the ideas that in order to think, an organism needs to have a full range of propositional attitudes, and since a full range of propositional attitudes rests on having language, and nonhuman animals lack language, then nonhuman animals can’t think which then leads to the conclusion that nonhuman animals lack MIND because thinking is a necessary component of MIND. P12-P14 state the distinction between phenomenal and intentional consciousness, and show that nonhuman animals have phenomenal consciousness but not intentional consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness does not require the ability to represent and reason about mental states, which is necessary for intentional consciousness.
So, minds exist and humans have them, humans have intentional consciousness (since humans can reason to achieve goals), nonhuman animals lack mind (since they lack language and therefore propositional attitudes) and nonhuman animals lack intentional consciousness (since they have phenomenal consciousness and no nonhuman animal can have intentional consciousness).
Conclusion
I have argued that humans have consciousness and that consciousness isn’t reducible to physical or material processes. Consciousness is a nonphysical phenomenon and since it is nonphysical, then only an immaterial, nonphysical thing can support or generate nonphysical consciousness and this immaterial thing is the mind. Mental causation isn’t a problem for dualism, since mental events can and do cause physical events. Krodel’s counterfactual argument for mental causation was provided to help establish the claim. Lastly, I argued that humans are capable of intentional action and so they possess minds, while arguing that humans have intentional consciousness nonhuman animals lack mind and so nonhuman animals lack intentional consciousness. This is due to the fact that nonhuman animals lack language and so they lack propositional attitudes and therefore intentional states.
So the ultimate conclusion here is that humans are special, a part of our constitution is nonphysical and irreducible (MIND), and so nonhuman animals don’t share MIND since they lack language and propositional attitudes, so they lack intentional consciousness.
Empirical Evidence is Irrelevant to Conceptual Arguments
2050 words
Introduction
Empirical arguments rely on scientific data—data derived from the five senses. Conceptual arguments don’t rely on empirical evidence—they rely on thinking about concepts. So then we can say that it’s about a priori vs. a posteriori knowledge. A posteriori knowledge is empirical/scientific knowledge while a priori knowledge is conceptual/logical knowledge. An argument about concepts would be analyzing the concepts which make up a proposition while an empirical argument would be an argument derived from our senses and what we observe. In this article, I will articulate the distinction between empirical and conceptual argument and then provide arguments why empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual objections. This, then, has implications for things like the reducibility of the mental to the physical.
Empirical argument
An empirical argument is one in which scientific data is paramount to it and observations and using our five senses are key to gaining knowledge. A related inquiry is what philosopher of mind Markus Gabriel calls rampant empiricism in his book I am not a Brain. Rampant empiricism is the philosophical claim that all knowledge can be derived from our five senses. However the claim that all knowledge derives from sense experience is a philosophical—conceptual—claim, and can’t be corrected with sense experience. In my article Against Scientism, I articulated an argument against the claim that scientism is true:
Premise 1: Scientism is justified.
Premise 2: If scientism is justified, then science is the only way we can acquire knowledge.
Premise 3: We can acquire knowledge through logic and reasoning, along with science.
Conclusion: Therefore scientism is unjustified since we can acquire knowledge through logic and reasoning.
While empirical evidence and argument do, of course, hold value—as evidenced with scientific inquiry—it is quite clear that we can nevertheless gain knowledge through thinking about concepts, through a priori reasoning. That is, we can acquire knowledge through logic and reasoning, so there is more than one way to gain knowledge. So evidence is empirical if it is derived through one of the five senses, that is if it is accessible to sense experience.
Empirical evidence is concerned with the physical world. That is, what we can see and measure. It is based on observation, experience, and measurement of physical quantities. So, for example, if X isn’t quantifiable, then X can’t be measured, therefore X wouldn’t be subject to empirical verification so it would be subject to conceptual argumentation.
Conceptual argument
A conceptual argument is an argument that doesn’t rely on empirical evidence—it is a priori (Bojanic, Laquinto, and Torrengo, 2018). It merely relies on logic and reasoning to gain knowledge. However, “logic without empirical supports can only be used to prove conceptual truths” (Icefield, 2020). Such arguments are based on abstract concepts, ideas, and principles, and claims are established based on a logical analysis of concepts.
Conceptual arguments are based on a priori knowledge such as mathematical proofs, conceptual definitions and logical principles. Knowledge like this can be established through reasoning and reasoning alone without appeal to empirical evidence. Since a priori knowledge is knowledge gained without appeal to empirical evidence, or observation, empirical evidence is thusly irrelevant to conceptual arguments. Concepts are general meanings of linguistic predicates, and so philosophy itself is an a priori, conceptual discipline, which relies on deduction.
Conclusions in an a priori, conceptual argument are established with logic and reasoning without appealing to empirical data. Such examples are, of course, the relationship between the mind and body, and the nature of causation. There could be no scientific experiments which would establish which theory in philosophy of mind would be true, nor could there be a scientific experiment which would establish the nature of causation.
For many, philosophy is essentially the a priori analysis of concepts, which can and should be done without leaving the proverbial armchair. We’ve already seen that in the paradigm case, an analysis embodies a definition; it specifies a set of conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the application of the concept. For proponents of traditional conceptual analysis, the analysis of a concept is successful to the extent that the proposed definition matches people’s intuitions about particular cases, including hypothetical cases that figure in crucial thought experiments.
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A related attraction is that conceptual analysis explains how philosophy could be an a priori discipline, as many suppose it is. If philosophy is primarily about concepts and concepts can be investigated from the armchair, then the a priori character of philosophy is secured (Jackson 1998). (SEP, Concepts)
The argument against empirical evidence being relevant to conceptual arguments
I have articulated a few arguments for the claim that empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
P1: If empirical evidence is relevant to conceptual arguments, then empirical evidence can be used to support or refute conceptual claims.
P2: Empirical evidence cannot be used to support or refute conceptual claims.
C: Thus, empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
Conceptual claims are based on a priori truths and so we can know things without experience, whereas empirical evidence is based on experience and observations and so they cannot refute conceptual claims. There is, though, no kind of empirical evidence that can refute conceptual claims from philosophical analysis.
P1: If empirical evidence is relevant to conceptual arguments, then all conceptual arguments would be subject to empirical verification.
P2: There are conceptual arguments that are not subject to empirical verification.
C: Therefore, empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
A few conceptual arguments that aren’t subject to empirical verification include: Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini’s (2009, 2010) argument against natural selection, the argument against the reducibility of the mental, the Berka/Nash measurement objection, a theory/definition of “intelligence“, the argument against localization of cognitive functions in the brain (Uttal, 2001, 2012, 2014), the argument against animal mentality (Davidson, 1982), the argument against machine intentionality/mindedness, the argument against the possibility of science being able to study subjective states, and Gettier’s argument against knowledge as justified true belief (Chalmers and Jackson, 2001). These all have one thing in common: There can never be any empirical evidence that would validate or invalidate these arguments, and so falsification would be irrelevant. One would disprove the arguments not by empirical means—if they could—but by dealing with the logic/concepts of the arguments. These arguments deal with abstract, theoretical concepts which cannot be observed or tested empirically; they rely on logical reasoning like deduction and using inferences and not observation and measurement ; many involve normative judgments; and they are subject to interpretation. While empirical evidence is concerned with the directly observable, measurable physical world.
Furthermore, arguments like those in Gourionouva and Mansvelder (2019) fall prey to the facts: that there is no definition or theory of “intelligence”; that twin studies don’t show genetic influence (Joseph, 2014) since the “laws” of behavioral genetics don’t hold; and last but not least that neuroimaging studies don’t and can’t do what they set out to do (Uttal, 2001, 2012, 2014), since neuroreductionism is false along with the fact that neuroscience assumes mind is physical and reducible to the CNS.
P1: Empirical evidence relies on the observation and measurement of physical phenomena.
P2: Conceptual arguments are based on abstract concepts and logical deduction.
P3: Abstract concepts cannot be observed or measured through empirical means.
C: Thus, empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
P1 asserts that empirical evidence is based on observation and measurement of physical phenomena. P2 establishes that conceptual arguments are based on logical deduction and abstract concepts which aren’t observable or measurable empirically. P3 follows from the definition of abstract concepts and logical deduction and how they aren’t directly observable or measurable phenomena. So the conclusion necessarily and logically follows from the premises—it’s impossible to directly measure or observe abstract concepts or logical deductions which are the basis of conceptual arguments, so empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
P1: If a proposition is conceptual, then it is not based on empirical evidence.
P2: If a proposition is not based on empirical evidence, then it is not subject to empirical testing.
P3: So if a proposition is conceptual, then it is not subject to empirical testing.
P4: If a proposition is not subject to empirical testing, then empirical evidence is irrelevant to assessing the truth or validity of the proposition.
C: Thus, if a proposition is conceptual, then empirical evidence is irrelevant to assessing the truth or validity of the proposition.
This argument builds on the others, and using hypothetical syllogism, successfully concludes that if a proposition is conceptual then it isn’t subject to empirical verification. Thus, taken together, empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments, and so falsification, too, is irrelevant. Since falsification is irrelevant, then testability of the conceptual argument is, too, irrelevant. Conceptual arguments are irrefutable using the methods of scientific inquiry and can only be refuted using philosophical inquiry.
P1: If empirical evidence is relevant to an argument, then the argument must be testable using empirical methods.
P2: Conceptual arguments aren’t testable using empirical methods.
C: So empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
This argument is simple: If empirical evidence is relevant to an argument, but conceptual arguments aren’t testable through empirical methods, then empirical evidence isn’t relevant to conceptual arguments. This is due to the distinction between empirical and conceptual arguments/evidence.
Now I can use destructive dillema to argue that empirical evidence is irrelevant to the mind-body problem.
P1: If an argument is conceptual, then it is based on abstract concepts and logical deduction.
P2: If an argument is based on abstract concepts and logical deduction, then it cannot be observed or measured through empirical means.
P3: If an argument cannot be observed or measured through empirical means, then empirical evidence is irrelevant to that argument.
P4: The mind-body problem is a conceptual argument.
C: Therefore, empirical evidence is irrelevant to the mind-body problem.
If the mind-body problem is a conceptual argument (P4), then it is based on abstract concepts and logical deduction (P1), so it cannot be observed or measured through empirical means (P2), thus empirical evidence is irrelevant to the mind-body problem (P3), ultimately meaning that the mind-body problem—along with the mental and first-personal subjective states—cannot be studied by science. This of course—as I have been arguing for years—has implications for the so-called hereditarian hypothesis and any kind of genetic or neuroimaging studies they attempt and assert that shows that the mental is reducible to genes or brain physiology. Indeed, a priori philosophical conceptual analysis shows that consciousness cannot be reduced to any material features—meaning it is outside of the bounds of scientific explanation, just like first-personal subjective states (Chalmers and Jackson, 2001).
Conclusion
I have articulated the distinction between empirical and conceptual arguments, and provided valid and sound arguments which distinguish between both types of argument. The nonidentity between how the types of argument work and gather support for premises shows why empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
Quite clearly, there is evidence that isn’t empirical and so it isn’t subject to empirical verification/falsification/testing. This is because logical concepts/argumentation/reasoning are subject to falsification from the scientific method. For one to be able to successfully reject conceptual arguments, they need to grapple with the logic and reasoning of the arguments. No empirical evidence would be able to show that a proposition is false, since empirical evidence wasn’t used for the proposition.
The most powerful arguments against so-called hereditarianism are conceptual, and no matter what kinds of studies the hereditarian conjures up, none of them will refute the arguments against the possibility of psychophysical reductionism. So if consciousness (mind) cannot be reductively explained by the scientific method, then hereditarianism fails and therefore, there cannot be a science of the mind.
Since empirical arguments rely on observation or experimentation, and conceptual arguments rely on logic and reasoning, they have different bases of evidence. Empirical arguments are concerned with observable phenomena, while conceptual arguments are concerned with abstract concepts. Empirical arguments rely on the scientific method and data collection, while conceptual arguments rely on philosophical frameworks, logic, and reasoning.
The validity of a conceptual argument relies on the logic of its inferences along with the consistency and coherence of its logical framework and the soundness of the logic underlying the premises of the argument. The distinction and non-identity between the two types of evidence allows us to rightly state that, for these reasons why empirical evidence is irrelevant to conceptual arguments.
The Argument from Causality and the Argument from Prediction for a Mind-Independent World
1200 words
How can we know that a mind-independent world exists outside of our senses if our senses are subjective? We have first-personal perspectives (FPP) and so, if our first-personal experience is subjective, how can we know that an objective world exists outside of our senses? Well, I have two arguments for the existence of a mind-independent world—what I call “the argument from prediction” and “the argument from causality.”
P1: If there is a physical world independent of human minds, then we can make consistent predictions and perceive it.
P2: We can make consistent predictions about the world and perceive them.
C: So there is a physical world independent of human minds.
P1: If there is causality in the world, then there is a world independent of human minds.
P2: There is causality in the world.
C: Therefore there is a world independent of human minds.
In this article, I will justify each premise of both arguments.
For this article, I will be operating under this definition of mind-independence: X is mind-independent if the existence of X is not dependent on a thinking or perceiving thing. This is a form of metaphysical realism, where there are two theories:
a. that physical objects do not depend for their existence on being perceived or conceived by mind, and
b. that there are physical objects.
The argument from prediction
Premise 1: Only if there were a world independent of our minds could we then make predictions about what occurs in the world. For if what we perceive wasn’t independent of our minds, then we wouldn’t be able to make predictions about the world (ones that turn out to be true, of course). A mind-independent thing is a thing that exists without a thing that thinks and perceives it; so it would exist without an external observer. If humans weren’t here anymore, and if all animals went extinct while the earth was still intact, then the world would still exist.
Premise 2: We constantly make predictions about scientific phenomena, and while of course some of the predictions are wrong, some are right. If some of them are right, then it follows that there is a world out there that’s independent of our minds. A great example is the prediction of Halley’s comet. Edmund Halley—discoverer of the Halley’s comet—observed that 3 comets which appeared in 1531, 1607, and 1682 had similar orbits. He then reasoned that they were the same comet. So using these 3 data points, he stated: “Hence I dare venture to foretell, that it will return again in the year 1758.” Halley didn’t live to see his prediction come to fruition, but 16 years after his death—right on time—the comet appeared and verified his prediction. This is actually a solid example of the fact that we need to make risky, novel predictions, which could falsify a hypothesis in question, but if the observation holds, is evidence for the hypothesis in question. It is, of course, because there is a mind-independent world that Halley’s prediction came to fruition and this prediction best justifies the truth of P2.
Conclusion: Thus, due to considerations that we can make predictions about what occurs in the world, we can then say that there is a mind-independent world. The example of Halley’s comet best illustrates this. It is only due to the fact that we can make consistent predictions about what occurs in the world that we can then successfully conclude that a mind-independent world exists.
Quite obviously, scientific inquiry allows us to generate risky, novel predictions and therefore knowledge, and it does allow for correct predictions about the futures states of the world.
So similar to my argument from prediction is my argument from causality. Predictions are derived from possible causal effects. So, if one has a hunch on a possible arrow of causation and thusly makes a risky, novel prediction based on their hunch, therefore if the prediction comes to fruition then the causal inference may be valid. And since “causal explanations necessarily generate predictions“, thus, the two arguments I’ve mounted are indeed related.
The argument from causality
Premise 1: P1 is simple—if there is causality in the world then there is a mind-independent world. If there were no external observers in the world, there would then still be chains of causation, say the wind knocking a tree over or waves crashing into cliffs taking down chunks of it into the ocean. The world is a physical thing, and cause and effect is related to physical things—the relations between physical things can be predicted and we can then use scientific experiments to show the causal relations between each variable.
Premise 2: This premise is undoubtedly true. For example, if I take a rubber band, place it on my left thumb and pull it back with my right finger and let go of it with my right finger, then it will become a projectile and go in the general area that I aimed at. These considerations are of course one of scientific realism—and the SEP article on scientific realism states that “a general recipe for realism is widely shared: our best scientific theories give true or approximately true descriptions of observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independent world.” And it is our scientific predictions that use causation as the benchmark which shows that a mind-independent world indeed exists.
Conclusion: So we can then rightly state that due to causality existing in the world, that a mind-independent world does exist. If we did not observe causation, then we could say that there is no mind-independent world.
Conclusion
Reality is clearly mind-independent, based on these two arguments. If it weren’t, then we wouldn’t be able to make successful, novel scientific predictions and there would be no causality in the world. The fact that we use the scientific method to generate novel predictions is tantamount to the claim that there is a mind-independent world. Physical objects exist, and since only the physical is measured, then we can make scientific theories about phenomena and then generate predictions about what we think might occur should certain conditions hold.
The existence of a mind-independent world is put well by Lavazza (2016):
If there were no external reality independent of the knowing mind—a reality that can be investigated insofar as it is accessible by our senses and our tools, predictable in its change and mostly interpretable according to law-like regularities—scientific inquiry would be neither practicable nor would it give us knowledge. And in any case this knowledge would not be effective and practical in the sense of allowing for correct predictions about future states of the world.
Basically, both arguments can be reduced to:
P1: If we generate successful, novel, risky predictions using the scientific method, and if causal explanations necessarily generate predictions, then there is a mind-independent world.
P2: We generate successful, novel risky predictions using the scientific method using causal explanations which necessarily generate predictions.
C: Therefore, there is a mind-independent world.
The three arguments I’ve given are valid, and I have argued for the truth of each premise. So it follows that a mind-independent world does indeed exist.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 