RE: The Category Error of Scientism
January 23, 2014 at 7:15 pm
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2014 at 7:19 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
MFM, thank you for your intelligent response. Based on your reply, I offer the following expansions on my summary objections. The extra detail should address you objections.
Part of the difficulty I have with most emergence theories about the mind-body problem is that the properties they claim to have emerged are not truly novel properties, but rather variants of the same physical processes with which they started. For example, you could say that the structural properties of an I-beam are emergent properties that cannot be reduced to those of the steel itself. This is not the case, structural analysis describes how different physical shapes distribute force vectors throughout the steel. An I-beam does not have any novel properties that raw steel does not. Structural properties are shorthand descriptions of the force vector sums
Clearly, an I-beam does not qualify as a truly complex system. Because of its relative simplicity an architect, like me, can predict its behavior. Usually, proponents of emergent properties use examples like weather patterns. All parts of the atmosphere have pressure, direction and particle velocity. A tornado expresses the same physical properties as the general atmosphere: pressure, direction and air pressure. No truly novel properties appear. The inability to predict the behavior of a complex physical system is an epistemological problem, not evidence for a specific ontology.
I grant that system wide structures of the whole do constrain the behaviors of the parts. For example, the movement a clock’s gears and springs are limited by an some pendulum-like part. As a complete and complex system, a clock limits the movements of the parts in specific directions and its structure allows the parts to interact with each other. But as a physical entity, the clock and the parts that compose it share all the same types of physical properties: mass, velocity, etc. Anything else, like functions (governors) or significance (the meaning of the hand positions), both of which are non-physical, must be assigned from the outside by a knowing subject.
The above supports my contention that emergence theories are in actuality reductive. And I believe all reduction theories are based on magic. The philosopher-magician waves a wand of complexity and a rabbit of awareness suddenly appears is a shower of confetti. The dualist position I advocate says that the rabbit was already there, hidden from sight. Thinkers like Dennett and Churchland believe they can divide psychological events into small bits of intentionality until they go POOF and disappear altogether. A very small amount of intentionality is still intentionality. Dualists accept that intentionality is as much a part of reality as matter and energy. They don’t try to make it disappear to with smoke and mirrors.
Suppose for example that a single neuron firing acts similarly (though obviously not exactly) like a digital switch. Whether the switch is open or closed has no significance. An open switch does not in-itself mean “1” or “0”, “yes” or “no”, or even “left” or “right”. This agrees with most reductionist theories. Ganging a bunch of switches together, no matter how complex, does not generate an inherently meaningful display of lights. But the reductionist wants to insert meaning for free without justification.
The display is a particular physical feature, a sign, that has no significance until a knowing subject supplies meaning and significance from outside the system.
Now I am NOT saying that personal identify cannot be deconstructed into smaller psychological sub-systems. I think they can, like understanding the perception of color by combining the sensations of hue, saturation, and tonal value. Or anxiety as fear conjoined with uncertainty about the future.
Part of the difficulty I have with most emergence theories about the mind-body problem is that the properties they claim to have emerged are not truly novel properties, but rather variants of the same physical processes with which they started. For example, you could say that the structural properties of an I-beam are emergent properties that cannot be reduced to those of the steel itself. This is not the case, structural analysis describes how different physical shapes distribute force vectors throughout the steel. An I-beam does not have any novel properties that raw steel does not. Structural properties are shorthand descriptions of the force vector sums
Clearly, an I-beam does not qualify as a truly complex system. Because of its relative simplicity an architect, like me, can predict its behavior. Usually, proponents of emergent properties use examples like weather patterns. All parts of the atmosphere have pressure, direction and particle velocity. A tornado expresses the same physical properties as the general atmosphere: pressure, direction and air pressure. No truly novel properties appear. The inability to predict the behavior of a complex physical system is an epistemological problem, not evidence for a specific ontology.
I grant that system wide structures of the whole do constrain the behaviors of the parts. For example, the movement a clock’s gears and springs are limited by an some pendulum-like part. As a complete and complex system, a clock limits the movements of the parts in specific directions and its structure allows the parts to interact with each other. But as a physical entity, the clock and the parts that compose it share all the same types of physical properties: mass, velocity, etc. Anything else, like functions (governors) or significance (the meaning of the hand positions), both of which are non-physical, must be assigned from the outside by a knowing subject.
The above supports my contention that emergence theories are in actuality reductive. And I believe all reduction theories are based on magic. The philosopher-magician waves a wand of complexity and a rabbit of awareness suddenly appears is a shower of confetti. The dualist position I advocate says that the rabbit was already there, hidden from sight. Thinkers like Dennett and Churchland believe they can divide psychological events into small bits of intentionality until they go POOF and disappear altogether. A very small amount of intentionality is still intentionality. Dualists accept that intentionality is as much a part of reality as matter and energy. They don’t try to make it disappear to with smoke and mirrors.
Suppose for example that a single neuron firing acts similarly (though obviously not exactly) like a digital switch. Whether the switch is open or closed has no significance. An open switch does not in-itself mean “1” or “0”, “yes” or “no”, or even “left” or “right”. This agrees with most reductionist theories. Ganging a bunch of switches together, no matter how complex, does not generate an inherently meaningful display of lights. But the reductionist wants to insert meaning for free without justification.
The display is a particular physical feature, a sign, that has no significance until a knowing subject supplies meaning and significance from outside the system.
Now I am NOT saying that personal identify cannot be deconstructed into smaller psychological sub-systems. I think they can, like understanding the perception of color by combining the sensations of hue, saturation, and tonal value. Or anxiety as fear conjoined with uncertainty about the future.
