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Today lectures, I am going to explain about supervenience and emergentism or emergentism
and supervenience. How the emergentism and supervenience goes together at the same times,
there are some differences. And how the emergentism theory of mind, explaining the concept of
mind at the same time? How the supervenience thesis explaining the concept of mind. As
we know that emergentism has a theory of mind which is part of non-computational view of
mind, non-mechanistic view of mind, that is the main aim in this lecture too, to show.
Now, the question is what is emergentism? According to emergentism, the higher level
of quality emerges from the lower level of existence and has its root therein, but it
emerges there from and it does not belong to that level, but it gives rise to a new
order of existence with special laws.
But whereas, Samuel Alexander who is the founder of this emergentism thesis and he says, that
the higher-level of quality emerges from the lower level of existence and has its root
therein, but it emerges there from, but it does not belongs to lower level, but constitutes
its possess a new order of existence with its special laws of behavior. The existence
of emergent qualities thus described is something to be noted as some would say, under the compulsion
of brute empirical facts, or, as we should prefer to say in less harsh term, to be accepted
with the natural piety of the investigators. It admits no explanations.
Here, eminence refers to the fact that, in the course of a evolution, new things and
events occur, with unexpected and unpredicate properties. Things and events are new, in
the sense, in which a great work of art may be described as a new thing. A brief genuine
emergence introduces novelty in the world.
To say that an emergent characteristic is a novel means: Firstly, it is not simply a
rearrangement of pre-existing elements, although such rearrangements may be one of its determining
conditions. Secondly, the characteristic is qualitatively, not just quantitatively, unlike
the anything that existed before in history. Thirdly, it is unpredictable not only on the
basis of knowledge available prior to its emergence but even on the basis of ideally
complete knowledge of the state prior to its emergence.
These points permits a distinction to be made between, what is new in the sense of being
a phrase combination of old factors and a what is novel, in the sense of being qualitatively
unique and unpredictable. In this a lectures, we will find out how consciousness emerges
from mental properties and how the emergent properties of consciousness cannot be explained
in a functional or computational way.
Some philosophers argue that consciousness might be an emergent property, in the sense
that it is still compatible with materialism. it is also often held that emergent properties
are unpredictable from lower-level properties. However, it can be argued that these properties
are new in an ontological sense. What is interesting about these properties is that they are not
obvious consequence of the low-level properties. But they are still casually supervenient on
the low-level of facts. Following the above arguments, we can put
that the phenomena of a consciousness could rise only in the presence of some non-computational
physical processes taking place in the brain. As we know, living human brains are ultimately
composed of those same material, satisfying the same physical laws, as are the inanimate
objects of the universe. There is the Cartesian view that consciousness arises only in humans
and that animals are inanimate automata. A view which is clearly pre-evolution and we
have reason to accept the view that there are lower and higher states of consciousness.
Moreover, the most reasonable view seems to be that consciousness is an emergent property
of animals arising under the pressure of natural selections.
If this is so, then the questions are like this. That, how does consciousness arises
from constituents, in the physical universe. This question is still unanswered. Even, if
the observation of the behavior of the created the strong impression that it is conscious.
And we can find its symptoms of activity and initiative, in its behavior. That activity
and behavior is something different from what happens in the neurons. The human brain is
estimated to have ten thousand millions of neurons. There are also thousands of inactive
relations among the neurons. But the qualities which exist in the consciousness are not found
in the neural relations. There is a new emergent entity in consciousness
which did not exist in the neurons, because the emergent properties of consciousness are
ontologically new. The problem of emerges in this context, starts with life and it should
be remembered that brain is just a piece of inanimate matter but a part of the living
body. As Daya Krishna remarks, it is not even clear
whether those who want to deny the reality of consciousness, want to deny the reality
of life also. The body they talk about is a living body. The brain, they are fond of
the brain that is alive. Take life away and everything dies, ceases. At least live it
and feel it and know it. Here, Daya Krishna is trying to identify life
with consciousness. Here, like consciousness, life also emerges from human body. And identify
the consciousness. In fact, the problem of emergence of life is a far wider one but here,
we are concerned with human life only, because the question is that why is it that the phenomena
consciousness appears to occur as, whereas we know only in a living beings, although
we should not rule out the possibility that consciousness might be present also in other
appropriate physical systems.
The second question is how could it be that, such a seemingly ingredient as non-computational
behavior, presumed to be inherent in the actions of all material things. So, far as entirely
escaped the notice of physicists. The first question is that, the question is related
with the subtle and complex as a organization of the brain but that alone could not provide
a sufficient explanation. Penrose clearly maintains that i quote
I am containing that the faculty of human understanding lies beyond any computational
schemes whatever. If it is microtubules that control the activity of the brain and then
there must be something within the action of microtubules that is different from mere
computations, on quote. Here, he says that this inanimate matter is microtubules. That
control the activity of the brain because there is life in it. That is in the brain.
The actions of microtubules is different from mere computations because he points out that
such actions are non computational actions, in which life is related to consciousness.
The above statement leads to the question easy. Is there any evidence that the phenomena
of consciousness is related to the action of microtubules, in particular, it must also
be the case that, the detailed neural organization of the brain is fundamentally involved in
growing what from that consciousness must take.
For Penrose, if that organization we are not important then our lives would invoke as much
consciousness as do our brains. Here, he put it like this. What the preceding arguments
strongly suggest is that it is not just the neural organization our brain, that is important.
The cytoskeletal under paining of those very neural seems to be essential for consciousness
to be present, on quote. But, it is not the cytoskeletal as of that is relevant. But,
some essential physical actions that biology has so, cleverly contributes to incorporate
into the activity of its microtubules. Moreover, it may be pointed out that in our brain, there
is an anonymous organizations and since consciousness appear to be a very global feature of our
thinking, it is seems that we must look to some kind of over ends on a much larger than
that level of single microtubules or even single cytoskeletons. And there is some kind
of useful non computational actions involved which Penrose takes to be an essential part
of consciousness.
Secondly, we must expect that by vestiges of such non-computational should also be present,
at some indiscernible levels, in inanimate matter. But, here the physics of ordinary
matter seems to allow no room for such non-computational behavior. Jaegwon Kim is one of the famous
founder of supervenience thesis, in his book on supervenience and his article on supervenience,
he argued that there is a strikingly similarity between emergence and supervenience.
According to Kim, the higher-level properties notably consciousness and other mental properties,
emerges emerge when, and only when, an appropriate set of lower level or basal conditions are
present and this means that the occurrence of the higher level properties is determined
by, and dependent on the instantiation of appropriate lower level properties and relations.
In spite of this, emergent properties where held to be genuinely novel, characteristically
irreducible to the lower level processes from which they emerge, on quote.
Then, the concept of emergence combines the three components of supervenience delineated
above, namely, property covariance, dependence and non-reducibility. Thus emergentism can
be regarded as the first systematic formulation of non-reductive physicalism. This thesis
makes the mental life supervenient on it is physical background, that is to say, according
to this thesis the mental states are not reducible to, but are supervenience on the physical
state in such a way, that whatever changes take place physical states most make a difference
to the mental states well. No two things could differ in a mental respect, unless they differ
in some physical aspect. That is, imperceptibly with respect to physical properties enters
in discriminability with respect to mental properties. That is the core idea of mind
body supervenience.
Thus, supervenience thesis understood in the strong sense, that it makes rooms for a numerological
difference of the mental, on the physical, such that the physical states are necessarily
responsible for the mental states. As Kim points out that the mental is dependent on
the physical but not vice versa, because the mental states are directly a consequence of
the physical states. The mental states themselves do not determine the physical states. In that
sense, the mental states remains numerological dependent on the physical universe. In his
article on the Non-reductionist’s Troubles with Mental Causations and he mentions that
the non-reductive physicalism consists of following theses.
Firstly, all concrete particulars are physical. Secondly, mental properties are not reducible
to physical properties. Thirdly, all mental properties are physically realized; that is,
whenever an organism or system instances a mental phenomena M, there is a physical property
P such that P realizes in M, in organisms of its kind. Fourthly, mental properties are
real properties of the objects and events; they are not merely useful aids in making
predications or fictitious manners of speech. Therefore, we find that these four basic tannins
bring non-reductive physicalism very close to emergentism. In fact, the non-reductive
physicalism of this variety is best viewed as a form of emergentism.
Emergentist, in general, accepted purely mechanistic ontology of concrete physical objects and
events. For example, Samuel and Alexander is one of the principal theoreticians of emergent
schools argues that, there are mental events over and above neural processes. Alexander
says, we thus becomes aware, partly by experience, partly by reflections, that processes with
the distinct quality of mind or consciousness is in the same place and time with a neural
processes; that is with a highly differentiated and complex processes of our living body.
We are forced therefore, to go beyond the mere correlation of the mental with these
neural processes and to identify them, there is but one processes which being of a specific
complexity as the quality of consciousness. It has then to be accepted as an empirical
fact that, neural processes of a certain level of development process, the quality of consciousness
and is there by mental processes and alternatively, a mental processes is also a vital one of
the certain order. However, emergent properties are irreducible to the physical conditions
out of which, they emerge is familiar. This irreducibility claim is constructive of the
emergentist’s Meta physical value, although the emergentist’s idea of reductions or
reductive explanation diverges from the model of reduction, implicitly in current anti-reductionist
argument. The philosophical significance of the denial of reducibility between two property
levels is the same. The higher level properties being irreducible are genuinely new addition
to ontology of this world.
For example, Samuel Alexander says that out of a certain physiological conditions nature
has framed a new quality mind, which is therefore, not its physiological, though it lives and
moves and his its being in physiological conditions. Hence, it is that there can be and is an independent
science of psychology and no physiological constellation explains for us, why it should
be mind? The strong supervenience thesis does not bridge the gap between mental and physical
because, it pairs to account for how the mental state with their qualitative content arrives
at all in a material environment. The gap between the physical and a mental remains
wide because, it is not known how the mental world can be explained.
Now, the question is, is it not possible that the mental life not be there, even if the
physical universe exists perfectly? That is to say that, there are possible worlds in
which all the physical states of the present universe are there. But, there is no conscious
state at all. For example, robots behave like human beings but lack consciousness. The behavior
itself is not consciousness and if consciousness is the same in all organisms like a material
things, then there will be no qualitative difference between the human and non-human.
Therefore, we cannot prove that consciousness is supervenient on the physical world.
John R. Searle has given an example, which will make this thesis more legitimate. Let
us see thesis, suppose that, we have a system S, and the elements of systems are A B C,
S might be a stone and the elements might be molecules. There will be a features of
that are not or not necessary feature of A B C, but there are some features which have
causally emergent system features, like solidity, liquidity, and transparency are example of
causally emerging system features. In these connections, will remind us that life is an
emergent property and if there were no life, there would be no consciousness. Either, here
in the case of two hydrogen and one oxygen, we are getting water. the quality which are
existing in two hydrogen and one oxygen, the same qualities are not in the water. for example,
liquidity and solidity. What John Searle is making here? Although
John Searle is giving one kind of naturalistic theory of mind or consciousness, but in this
naturalistic theory of consciousness if you see that, there is a differences and in the
case of emergency, there is some kind of qualitatively, may not be any kind of a quantitative difference.
But, there is a qualitative difference. And this qualitative difference is sufficient
in explaining that mind is different from the body and a mind is different from the
machines. As we know that, water is the combination of two hydrogen and one oxygen but there are
qualitative difference between water, on the one hand and the hydrogen and the oxygen,
on the other hand. The qualities which we find in the water, we will not find in the
oxygen and hydrogen. In the same way there is differences between consciousness and a
matter because, there is a qualitative dependence between the two. The qualities which emerges
from consciousness will not possible to explain in the mechanical or functional way but it
needs separate explanation and it is explanation is non reductive explanation; that is self-explanations
The above definitions shows that consciousness is a causally emergent properties of systems.
It is an emergent feature of creation system of neurons, in the same way that solidity
and liquidity are an emergent features of the system of molecules. Thus, the existence
of consciousness can be explained by the causal interactions between elements of the brain
at the micro level but consciousness cannot itself be deduced or calculated from the sheer
physical structure of the neurons without some additional account of the causal relations
between them. And the question is, why is consciousness
an irreducible feature of physical reality? There is a standard argument to show that
consciousness is not reducible in the way that material properties are reducible. For
example, that I am now in pain, I am now in a certain consciousness state, such as pain.
Now, the question is: what fact in the world corresponds to my statement, I am now in pain?
Here is the fact that, I have no certain un present conscious sensation and I am experiencing
these sensation from my experiences. It is these sensations that are constitutably of
my present present pain but the pain is also caused by certain underlying neuro-physiological
processes consisting in large part of patterns of reasons, firing in my brain. It is like
that, I have a pain because there is or pairing is happening in my physical systems. And therefore,
there is an identity between the pairing and my pain experiences. But, if you reduce the
first person sensation of pain, though the thought per pattern of neurons, pairings then
we try to say that the pain is really nothing but the patterns of neurons pairings. If this
is so, then we are living the essential feature of pain. No description of the third person
type would convey the first person characters of pain because, the first person features
are different from the third person features.
Thomas Nagel states that by contrasting the objectivity of the third person features with
the, what it is like to be features of the subjective experience, subjective state of
consciousness. As Nagel says I quote, conscious experience is a wide spread phenomena. It
occurs at many levels of animals life, though we cannot be sure of its presence in the simple
organisms. And it is very difficult to say in general, what provides evidence of it.
And no matter, how the form may vary, the fact that an organizing has conscious experience
at all means, basically, that is something it is like to be that organism. But, fundamentally
an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something, it is like
to be that organism, something it is like to, it is like further.
Thus, I know that I am in pain is a different sort of knowledge, that my knowledge that
you are in pain. The feeling of pain indicates that there is close relation between consciousness
and self-consciousness. This is due to the emergence of self-consciousness out of consciousness
and thus making it a radical different from what is, if it is at all human levels.
But, Daya Krishna remarks that the development of robotics denies the reality of consciousness
because of this self-consciousness. Knowledge have self determinations and it deny the existence
of mind or consciousness. This self-consciousness has forgotten it is dimension of knowing,
feeling and willing. The last result in the transformations through technology, that has
obsessed the modern mind to such an extent that it has gone to the extent of denying
its own reality and a considering the matter alone as real. But, yet matter though resistant
is flexible, agreeable to change, which consciousness does not seem to be in the same sense.
The denial of I-consciousness which is an inevitable accompaniment of self-consciousness.
the real causal role of consciousness have, becomes clear when self consciousness comes
into its own and discover that it can be directly affect consciousness and indirectly everything
else through imagining, intending, thinking attending, concentrating, reasoning and the
other narrates activities which man has encountered in himself and developed, to be a long process.
Therefore, from the above explanation, it follows that once consciousness emerges from
physical properties. It will never be reduce to it. This shows that emergentism cannot
support functionalism or computationalism, because a functionalist explains consciousness
or mind in the reductive way.
Whereas an emergentists explained consciousness in a non-reductive way. Consciousness makes
the mind body problems really interact able. The reductionist shows that, the mind body
problems is not a real problem, for him or her. There is no explanatory gap between the
mind and body. We have to find out, why these arguments means do not help us to understand
the relations between mind and body. Without consciousness the mind and body problems
would be less interesting, but with consciousness, it seems hopeless. The hard problem of consciousness
is the problem of experience, especial to first person character which cannot be explained
within a scientific framework. Cognitive science can explains a system function, in terms of
its internal mechanism. But, it is not possible to explain, what it is to have subjective
experience. But, it is not a problem about the performance of functions. Thomas Nagel
says that conscious experience is a wide spread phenomena.
Fundamentally, an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that,
it is like to that be that. Something it is like to be further rising. In recent times
all sorts of mental phenomena have helded his, to scientific explanation, but consciousness
has stubbornly resistant this explanation. Many philosophers and scientists have tried
to explain it or the explanations, but explanation always seem to fall short of the target. Now,
the question is, why is it so difficult to explain? Now, according to David Chalmers
cognitive science has not explained, why there is conscious experience at all, why there
consciousness experience at all. When we think and perceive there is various of information
processing but there are also subjective individual aspect of consciousness which goes beyond
the information processing.
He says that, when it comes to consciousness experience this sort of explanation fails.
What makes the hard problem? Hard and the almost unique is that, it goes beyond problems
about the performance of the functions. To see this, not that even when we have explained
the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions, in the vicinity of experience,
perceptual descriptions, categorizations, internal access, barbell reports, there may
still remain further questions, why is the performance of these functions accompanied
by experience. According to David Chalmers, even if all the functions of a system are
well articulated, there is further questions as to why there is an experience at all. Accompanying
their functions, cognitive science fails to explain, why there is any experience at all,
even though it explains all the brain functions. The hard problem of consciousness consist
in the why questions regarding consciousness. Now, the question is why is the hard problem
is so hard and why are the easy problem is so easy.
The easy problems are easy because they are the concerned explanations of the cognitive
abilities and functions to explain a cognitive function; we need a mechanism that can perform
the functions. The cognitive sciences offer this type of explanations and so are well
suited to the easy problem of consciousness. On the other hand, the hard problem is hard
because, it is not a problem about a performance of the functions. The problem persists, even
when the performance of all the relevant functions are explained. And he says that I quote, I
suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental. We know that
a theory of consciousness requires the addition of something fundamental to our ontology.
As everything in physical theory is compatible with the absence of consciousness, we might
add some entirely new non physical features, from which experience can be derived. But,
it is hard to see what such a feature would we like, more like, we will take experience
itself has a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge and space, time. If
we take experience as fundamental, then we can go about the business of constructing
a theory of experiences on quote. The reductionist have not solved the hard
problem of the consciousness because as we have seen, it has explained consciousness
only in terms of the easy problem of consciousness. Easy problems are all concerned with how a
cognitive or behavioral function is performed. There are questions about how the brain carried
out the cognitive task; that is, how it is discriminate stimulates, integrate information
and so on. Whereas, the hard problem consciousness goes beyond the problems about how functions
are performed. If scientific view of mind tries to give a definite definition of consciousness
then, it leaves out the explanation explanatory gap. That is, there is no explanatory gap
between mind and the body, because there is no distinction between mind and body. Mind
can be explained in terms of body and there is nothing called the mind. Since the mind
itself is a part of the body, which we have already seen in the functionality model of
mind and in the artificial intelligence model of mind. And if this is a so, then it leaves
out subjective experience and adopts for the third person perspective of consciousness.
Consciousness makes the mind body problems really intractable, the reductionist deny
that there is a mind body problem at all. Further, there is no explanatory gap between
the mind and body because there is no distinction between the mind and body. Mind can be explained
in terms body and there is a nothing called the mind, since the mind itself is a part
of the body. Therefore, for them, that the mind is a reductively explainable in terms
of body. On the other hand, many philosophers told that mind cannot be explainable in terms
of body. But, we as we have seen, that is subjective quality which makes the distinction
between mind and the body. And this subjective includes emergent biological properties such
as life. The essence of body is special extensions. The essence of mind is thought, as we have
seen in the Cartesian concept of mind. Thought is taken to be defining attributes of mind
which is an in corporal substance, a substance that is non-special in the nature. The term
thought, we can understand everything which we argue as for the happening within us. Hence,
so for as we have awareness of it. What follows from Descartes view is that,
consciousness is essential a first person subjective phenomena. And a consciousness,
conscious states cannot be reduced or eliminated into the third persons. Therefore, it is consciousness
which makes the explanatory gap between the first person and third person perspective.
According to the Cartesian concept of mind, we have access to the contents of our own
minds, in a way deny to us in respect to matter. There is something special about our own knowledge
of our own mind; that naturally goes with the Cartesian view. But, if you see, especially
some other arguments or the mental life which is qualia cannot be numerologically determined
by the physical conditions of the universe.
The followings are the reason of the thesis that the mental life is independent of the
physical body although they coexist. Firstly, the qualia of the mental state cannot be reproduced
in an artificial machines like a robot or a machines table, their unique, the unique
to the person concerned. The qualia are the essence of consciousness and some must be
intrigue to the consciousness subject. Thus, there is one kind of intelligibility gap between
the qualia and the physical world remains as the qualia as the understood why it has
belong to the conscious subject? Consciousness makes the gap between mind and body and the
subjectivity. And it is most troublesome features, self which is a subject which is the encompasses
our feeling, thinking, and perception. The qualitative character of consciousness
is what it is like to be subjected to have the experiences. But, consciousness experience
is a, as we have seen, is one kind of wide spread phenomena. And this consciousness experience
is very difficult to explain in a mechanistic way. It is because of the emergence of consciousness,
make one kind of strong distinction between a mind and body, and mind and machines. Therefore,
this subjectivity cannot be explained reductively. It is not analyzed in terms of any explanatory
system of functional states or intentional states. Since, they could not be ascribed
to robots or automata that behaved like people though they experience nothing.
There is attached to our conscious experience because at the outcome of consciousness experience.
That is consciousness itself cannot be established simply on the basis of what we observe about
the brain and its physical effects. We cannot explain which property of the brain accounts
consciousness and distinct cognitive properties, namely, perceptions and innervations, necessarily
mediate our relationship with the brain and with consciousness.
We cannot understand how the subjective aspect of experience depends upon the brain; that,
it is a really the problem. Therefore consciousness is the essential subjectivity and that is
not the mechanical, as manipulation believes, that it is high or subject, who is experiencing
and it is high, is the subject which is emerges from the biological systems are concerned
and consciousness is essential. Therefore, it is an essential subjectivity. The term
pain is subjective as it is not accessible to any observer because it is the first person,
first priority. For example, I have a pain in my leg. In this case, the statement is
completely subjective. The pain is itself, has the subjective model of essence. As Searle
says that, a consciousness state exists only when they are experienced by some human or
animal subject. In that sense they are essentially subjective. I used to create subjectivity
and qualitativeness as distinct feature but it is now, seems to be that properly understood
qualitativeness and subjective is because, there is this qualitative and subjectiveness
making a one kind of difference. If there is no subjectivity, no experiences. And this
qualitative experiences can exist only in experienced biased of subjects. Because, it
is consistent of subjective, in the sense, it is legitimate to hold that, there is a
first person ontology as oppose to third person ontology. And this factor of person ontology
is emerges from the, one kind of emergent properties and that makes the differences
in between, in the mind and body. And that establish the distinction between
the emergent thesis and supervenience thesis. Although, but this is a one kind of naturalistic
emergentists thesis, but still it makes a sufficient distinction between and the emergentism
and supervenience thesis because supervenience thesis, as we have seen is that, they have
been arguing that there is close or there is a kind of close interaction with mind and
body. And mind can be explained in terms of body and body can be explained in terms of
mind. But, in the case of emergentism, there is a mind is emergences, but of course the
core subject to qualities and consciousness expansion emerges from the physical object,
but it has its own identity. And these are the main thesis of emergentism and supervenience
thesis. Thank you very much.