Demonstratives, Sense-data and Individuation (2)

It's the case that even the words ‘this’ and ‘that’ must rely on some kind of descriptive content - at least for the speaker or "reference-fixer". Even if the reference-fixer doesn’t have a proper name or even an explicit description, he must still have individuated the this or the that otherwise how would he know what it is that he's in fact referring to? Which this or which that? This is certainly the case for the hearers.

How does the speaker himself distinguish various x's from various y's? After all, in an act of ostensive definition one could be pointing at, say, the brown on the table, the cup on the table, or whatever. Ostension alone can't individuate a this from a that. And if it’s all a question of sense-data (as it was for Bertrand Russell, see Kripke, 1971), how does the speaker know that the hearer will have the same kinds of sense-data? Even sense-data for the speaker can't in and of itself individuate a this or a that. Sense-data presuppose individuation; otherwise they wouldn’t be the data of something. However, according to traditional sense-data theorists, we move - or ‘infer’ - from sense-data to the objects in the external world. But without prior individuation, how would the sense-data theorist distinguish between relevant and irrelevant bits of sense-data? Presumably when the theorist has sense-data of, say, a table, he'll also have sense-data of the things on the table, the colour of the table and the objects in his general field of vision.

One can see one reason why Saul Kripke (1971) was concerned to argue that proper names have no descriptive content because the definite descriptions of, say, Hesperus and Phosphorus don't coincide. It followed, to Kripke, that proper names mustn't rely on their descriptive content. Indeed they have no descriptive content at all, otherwise how could they be deemed identical? And, similarly, how could we know that they are one and the same thing? Therefore proper names, Kripke argued, can't rely or depend on any descriptive content.

We name or ‘baptise’ what is at the end (as it were) of the ostended point. But what is at the end of an ostended point? Take this view:

“… demonstrative reference, one has reference without any description. But this is merely a myth. Suppose I point to a brown table, and say, ‘This is brown.’ It is not my pointing alone which fixes the reference of the occurrence of ‘this’, for my finger will also be pointing at the edge of the table, or a small brown patch on the table.” 
 

Jason Stanley then goes on to say:

“Rather, a factor in fixing the reference of my demonstrative is that I intend to be demonstrating some object whose identity criteria are those of tables, rather than those of small brown patches or edges…[so we have] the massive indeterminacy of ostensive definition.” [Stanley, 1997]

The above may be derived from Quine’s points about ostension:

“There is the question how wide an environment of the ostended point is meant to be covered by the term that is being ostensively explained…the question where one of its objects leaves off and another begins…It is meaningless to ask whether, in general, our terms ‘rabbit’, ‘rabbit part’, ‘number’, etc. really refer respectively to rabbits, rabbit parts, numbers, etc., rather than to some ingeniously permuted denotations. It is meaningless to ask this absolutely; we can meaningfully ask it only relative to some background language…Querying reference in any more absolute way would be like asking absolute position, or absolute velocity, rather than position or velocity relative to a given frame of reference.” [1969]
 

In order to name the object, we surely need to know the object or be able to identify it. If the reference-fixer hasn’t got that far, then how can he even think about the object? How does he know what the object is he's thinking about? How does he know he's thinking about the object and not something else?

The very reference to an ‘object’ (even an object qua object) requires concepts to distinguish or individuate it. What is an object and how do we identify it? What is that object? In order to know and identify the object, don’t we need to know the object and be able to identify it?

References

Kripke, Saul. (1971) 'Identity and Necessity'.

Quine, W.V.O. (1969) 'Ontological Relativity'.
Stanley, Jason. (1997) 'Names and Rigid Designation'.

Introduction: Objects and Their Individuation (1)

It's generally thought that an object must have at least one criterion of identity. It's also said that a criterion of identity must come along with a principle of unity. An object must also have some kind of temporal longevity if it is to be deemed an object in the first place.

How can an object have temporal longevity?

It does so because it has a principle of unity. That principle tells us that certain properties of the object unify it and they do so because they also tell us what aspects of the object must remain in order for that object to remain as that very same object over time. The unity of the object is what makes it the thing it is over time.

It was traditionally thought that the object’s essence determined what we class as a criterion of identity. However, just as we had choices as to what could be criteria of identity, so we have choices as to what constitutes the essence of a single object. One set of essential properties may work for one group of individuals or one set of situations, and another set may work for another group of individuals or set of situations. Why assume that there's the real essence of an object and no more? Perhaps it depends on the ‘modes of presentation’ of that object. And each different mode of presentation will determine its own essence. Under the mode of presentation that is physics, an object may have an essence specified in terms of its molecular and atomic structure. This would be a constitutional or inherent essence. Under the mode of presentation of, say, people who relate to - or use - the object under scrutiny, the essence may be specified in terms of that object’s role/purpose or its relation to the scrutiniser/s.

Many people will have different ways of individuating the very same object. It may depend on how that object is seen - both literally and metaphorically. It may depend on our particular relation or lack thereof to that object. It may also depend on the cognitive baggage that we bring to the object under scrutiny. People with different beliefs and different sets of knowledge will individuate the very same object in different ways. We could have a God’s-eye view of the object; though wouldn’t that view involve an infinite conjunction of the properties and the relations that belong to the object? Alternatively, perhaps a God’s-eye view of the object would entail an infinite disjunction instead. An infinite set of possible characterisations or individuations of the object. In that case, mortal individuators couldn't use infinite conjunctions or disjunctions. Mere mortals couldn't even comprehend them. A God’s eye view of the object at hand would only be of use to the person with God’s eye – viz., God himself.

John Pollock on Percepts and Description

John Pollock writes:

“When I see an object and make a judgement about it, I do not usually think of that object under a description – not even a description like ‘the object I am seeing’…my visual experience involves what we might call a ‘percept’ of an object…” [1986]

If the above is true, then how does Pollock know that he's seeing an object? How has he distinguished it from its surrounding objects or even from the extended spatial mass in front of him?

The object forces the judgement, as it were; though judgements aren't entirely constituted by the object. That is, there would be no a posteriori judgements about the object if there had been no a priori judgements which have offered up the object as an individualised particular.

Pollock continues by saying that

“[p]ercepts are not descriptions, so this is an example of a nondescriptive mental representation. A percept can only represent an object while that object is being perceived.”

It depends on how strong we take Pollock’s phrase “under a description” to be. Is he referring to a vocal or even sub-vocal description of the object? If so, vocal or sub-vocal descriptions may not be needed in order to have some form of description of the object. The concepts he applies may be instantaneous or even a priori.

In order to have a percept of an object that object needs to have been individuated in some way. Indeed by saying that a percept is "of an object", Pollock has implied that such individuation has already been carried out. How can a percept be of an object unless the subject has distinguished it from that object's surrounding landscape?

The same problem can be seen with his use of the term “representation”. Isn’t it the case that representations are representations of something? Aren’t they about something? Perhaps percepts, in Pollock’s book, aren't of - or about -anything. That would be fair enough; although he also uses the words “non-descriptive representation”. And surely representations represent individuated objects. A percept, on the other hand, could be deemed not to be of - or about – anything.

In that case, imagine facing a white wall with one’s eyes wide open. Whilst facing - rather than looking at - the wall, a person may be thinking about things that aren't at all related to the white wall in front of him. However, the white wall would still be part of his overall mental state at that time. However, he wouldn't be having thoughts about the white wall. Perhaps we can say that he's not even looking at it; even though sensory data from the white wall are entering his consciousness. In that case, part of the overall mental state (which includes thoughts which aren't about the white wall) would still include the white wall. We can say that the white wall is an accompaniment to his cognitive activities at that time. Perhaps this is what a percept is. That is, he would have a white wall percept without him knowing that it's a white wall percept and without that percept being about - or of - the white wall. The white wall percept wouldn't even be an image of the white wall; for the same reasons given about representations not being intentionally directed.

If percepts are as I've described them, then one may be able to give descriptions of one’s percepts; though as soon as one did so, they would no longer be percepts. In fact, a genuine percept may not even be remembered in order to describe it.

Remember the white wall percept: if his thoughts were elsewhere, he couldn’t give an after-the-fact description of the white-wall percept because that percept wouldn't have even entered his memory. How could it be in his memory if at the time he was thinking about things which had no relation to the white wall in front of him? And, of course, Pollock doesn't want his percepts to be descriptive anyway. Percepts are non-cognitive, on my reading of Pollock’s term.

I agree with one thing that Pollock says vis-à-vis percepts: they only occur in the presence of the objects that cause them. There is just a causal non-epistemic and non-cognitive relation to the white wall. Indeed, by saying that percepts only occur in the presence of the objects which cause them, Pollock appears to concede the point that they're are non-cognitive backgrounds to thoughts which are about or of things other than themselves. That is, Pollock acknowledges the causal relations that are required for percepts.

Representations or images, on the other hand, don't need direct causal contact with the objects the representations or images are about; though, of course, their causal ancestry can be traced.

Reference

Pollock, John. (1986) 'Epistemic Norms'.

What Can Be Shown, But Not Said

Philosopher A:

“Moral properties can’t be studied as neurons or protons are studied.
There are no microscopes for such things.
You can't trace them in a cloud-chamber.
They aren’t open to dissection.
And to claim that moral positions “expresses only feelings”
Is to shovel dirt on something both perfect and necessary.
Such socio-pickings at the moral body rob it of meaning.
Morality crucified by psycho-fact, number-crunching survey
And the dirty data which raids its own land.

You can’t - you mustn’t! - bring it down to nature’s low state.
It is a check on that very thing.
Something beyond it and, at times, inscrutable.
To naturalise is to rob a precious thing of value.

“Grubby little positivist!
Don’t you know that science’s realm is minute
Compared to the realms outside space and time?
So take your clinical hands off these things! -
Things which exist in abstract - though real - worlds.
All you have is a mere hotchpotch of facts.

“I can take you to these worlds.
But, firstly, take off your white coat.
Lift up that guard you call ‘science’- that prison of the soul.
The wall you place between yourself and the transcendent.
These other worlds don’t need you; or any of your kind.
You must grasp - and soon - the “hard fact” that you need them.
Your soul is a sham-soul.
A soul drowned in the mud of brutish fact.
One so stuffed with data - so blocked with evidence - that it chokes on what it thinks worthy.

“To repeat: you demand evidence for the truths which don’t display themselves under a microscope,
Or when tested for reality.
Experiments serve only to muddy the water
Between you and a clear-water reflection.
That vision of the untestable, unquantifiable, immutable.
“Keep your hands off this singular sphere!
You can't see its transcendent reality.
You haven’t the soul to do so.
So don't press-gang yet more storm-troopers for positivism;
To fight their colonial war against the transcendent.
Please keep your white coat within your white laboratory.
Let your dark mind look - with its microscopic eye - at those slabs of matter,
All sprawled out (corpse-like) on your clinical, white table.”

Philosopher B:

“You ask me - and my ‘kind’ - to step inside.
To show - not say – these possibles of worlds impossible to us.
The only requirement? A self-deluding metaphysics, like your own.
Such would help me leap that chasm between worldly fact and purer truth.
You imply they’re waiting for me – even me! - on the right side of the divide.

“Does this strange world somehow surround you?
Or is it within you?
Can you dip into it (whatever it is, wherever it is) whenever you feel like it,
Like a boy plunging into his own biscuit tin?
Who gave you the keys denied to men like me?
Who let you into the realm of abstract being, supra-natural properties,
And truths shown, but not said?
Shown only to those with a faith like your own.
“The things of which I must only speak, should be said clearly.
But the insubstantial things of which you speak
Can only be shown, not said…

Or so your preacher-teacher said -
That man you so adore.
That genius from Vienna.”

Chomsky’s Sortal: [Human]

Noam Chomsky once wrote that it is part of the

“human essence to be capable of learning only the languages whose syntactic rules satisfy the constraints of certain linguistic universals”. [1986]

 

It can be said that this could only be a stipulated "essence", which comes via the sortal concept [human]. It's not the essence of, say, an individual human (as an individualised particular) that he must be capable of learning a specific delineated language. In possible world terms, Tony Blair, for example, might have suffered from brain abnormalities which precluded him from being capable of learning the said type of language. Similarly, if Tony Blair as a baby had been captured by aliens and dropped onto an uninhabited planet (even if he had the correct brain functions required for learning language L), he still wouldn't have been capable of learning that language if the required stimulations weren't present (e.g., other L-speaking humans, etc.).

We could ask here if a possible language-less Tony Blair might still have been a human being according to Chomsky’s stipulations. However, according to another stipulational definition, Tony Blair might still have been a human in that same possible scenario. It depends on how strong we take Chomsky’s modal term “capable” ( as in “human essence to be capable of learning...”) to be.

Take the letters “H” and “L” as standing for “is human” and “is a user of specified language L”. So Tony Blair (if at another possible world, W, at time t) might have come across the required stimulations that engendered the use of language L. However, this conclusion still relies on Chomsky’s stipulation of the sortal [human] and his further stipulation that the language-use of L is the essence of humanhood.

Of course we need to accept such a stipulational definition of the sortal [human] in order to make sense of humans at other possible worlds. And even if we accept Tony Blair via the sortal [human] at other possible worlds, the possible entities would still not be Blair qua Blair at these worlds. It's essential that Blair - via the sortal [human] - is capable of learning language L, or even Blair qua individualised particular (to use Leibniz's term) that he's capable of learning language L. If Blair had existed at another possible world only via the sortal [human], it wouldn't actually be Blair at that other possible world because what makes Blair, Blair, is the individualising of him as a particular.

Perhaps Blair has (or has had) Lewisian “counterparts” at other possible worlds; though, again, only via the sortal [human] or via the sortal [person] (or via any other lower-order sortal). Blair via Chomsky’s sortal [human] at another possible world would be an entity of some kind: a human, who might have - or has - learned language L... and that’s it. Period. (If, of course, the sole criterion of Chomsky’s sortal [human] is that it must be capable of learning language L.) Blair qua human or qua person wouldn't necessarily have the same shape, size, beliefs or dispositions as Blair at our actual world. So what right have we to say that Blair qua Blair exists at other possible worlds? We could accept, for now, a “counterpart”; though that counterpart wouldn't share with Blair what makes Blair an individualised particular. In that case, possible Blairs could only share the sortal [human] and the quasi-sortal [language-user-of-L] with actual Blair, according to Chomsky’s stipulations (which are very thin). We could apply more criteria of identity to the sortal [human]; but that wouldn't allow the multiple instantiations (as it were) of Blair qua Blair at other possible worlds. And if possible Blairs aren't Blairs who've been individualised as being Blair, then there could be no genuine possible Blairs at other possible worlds.

The sortal [human] could also be stipulated to include the individualising micro-sortals [tool user] and [entity with two legs]. Blair shares these conceptual requirements with all other humans on earth. So Blair as an individualised particular couldn't have possible world duplicates; though he could have, as said, Lewisian counterparts. What makes Blair, Blair, is that he's taken qua Blair (i.e., taken as an individualised particular). And part of the individuating conditions of Blair qua Blair at another planet (not another possible world!) is the fact that he was brought up on an uninhabited planet where the required stimulations needed for learning language L weren't there. And, of course, if there were a possible world that's also the exact duplicate of Blair’s world (i.e., ours), and Blair’s planet (ours), and a world that also duplicated both Blair’s our-world conditions and Blair himself, then such a world wouldn't work as a possible world as they are generally understood. If worlds are “ways things could be or could have been” (Lewis, 1973), then this duplicate possible world W is a duplicate of the actual world. Therefore it wouldn’t be an example of “how things could be or of how things could have been”. This world W would be identical to our world, and therefore actual Blair’s essence couldn't be found by investigating (or stipulating) a possible Blair at world W. One of the main points of possible worlds, therefore, disintegrates. This is the only way I can think of where we could find actual Blair’s essence – by investigating or stipulating other possible worlds which aren't duplicates, rather than investigating Blair’s essence qua Blair (as an individualised particular). We couldn't find actual-Blair’s essence via the sortal [human] or the sortal [person]. These sortal essences don’t provide us with the essence of actual Blair qua actual Blair.

Perhaps, again, Blair doesn't even have non-identical counterparts at other possible worlds. After all, what if a particular counterpart, c¹, shares humanhood with actual Blair? c¹ would also share humanhood with every other human on earth. Similarly, if c¹ shares personhood instead with actual Blair, then he must also share personhood with every other person on earth. And the same is true of lower-level sortals such as [two-leggedness] or [those who believe in God]. c¹ would share these thinner sortals with billions (though not all) persons on earth, and indeed at other possible worlds. Though when we come to c¹ sharing properties with actual Blair that he doesn't also share with numerous other people on earth (or even with just one single person), then c¹ would also need to live at world W with its duplicate conditions. And, as said, such duplications wouldn't serve the explanatory and modal purposes that possible worlds are supposed to play in defining and determining essences across possible worlds: i.e., what actual-Blair must share with all possible-Blairs is what constitutes his essence.

References

Chomsky, Noam. (1986) Knowledge of Language.
Lewis, David. (1968) 'Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic'.
-- (1973) 'Possible Worlds', from Counterfactuals.

Being-Empty. Being-Alone

Ask for nothing from life, save life alone.

That's the bare minimum, surely.

It may be the ground on which all other desires can flower.

Being itself must come first.

What is this being-in-itself? Being-alone?

Being erased of content?

Is it more than a vanishing point in the distance?

Can we hold it, let alone grasp it?

If the mind rubs out its own baggage,

Won’t desire remain in an otherwise desert Zenscape?

That desire to expunge the self, Zen-like.

Or the Cartesian desire to keep to the Cogito alone.

The desire to cut out the meat of the empirical self.

Only a mind already throttled by Reason and Education

Would want to rid itself of Reason and Education.

Rid itself of its graduate’s robes.

It's only the Intellect itself – the proud Intellect – which puts on a hair shirt

And whips itself into nothingness.

But when the endpoint of no-return is reached

How does the mystical/Cartesian self-annihilator

Stop himself from following the markers back to ego and contingency?

Won’t its treasures and temptations forever call him back?

If thought is truly dead, or if all presuppositions are thrown out,

How does the mystic/philosopher know he's in the Otherworld

Away from the world of logic, sex and dog shit?

Wouldn’t he need an experimental water chamber

In which he can float, without eyes, ears and all the rest

Blocked from all things sensory?

A mystic in a water chamber, like Plato in his cave,

May say no to sensory distractions and temptations.

But wouldn’t the flood of memory drown him still?

Foucault says, Be Cruel!

"BE CRUEL! IT IS FORBIDDEN TO FORBIDWE WILL CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR NOTHING, WE WILL DEMAND NOTHING, WE WILL SEIZE, WE WILL OCCUPY..."
- - Parisian graffiti, May 1968 (as quoted in The Passion of Michel Foucault, by James Miller).

Foucault says, Be Cruel! (a prose poem) 

Foucault said, Be cruel! 

Too far? Too much? There’s a positive side to this brutal command. It’s extreme, sure; though it shows us how far we could go. And just how little we’ve gone.

Cruelty calls you from afar. Can you hear it? It tells us how far we'd need to go before we can even dream cruelty. Let alone be cruel and live the Marquis’ perfect life.

Be mad for just one day… One hour! One bare minute! Live outside Reason’s prison. Live off sense and decency’s edge.

As Nietzsche said: Be free of the conscience which bites you.
Act before you think too hard or for too long. Or act with no thought at all!

Disregard the other – every other. Fuck all who dare trespass the depths of your otherwise feeble self. Make the world in your own image. Cease being the other’s image. Stop the killing-thoughts of those for whom you care too much. Stop them shaping the pliable clay that is your self.

To affect total control - total self-control; you must cease to care too much… Or cease to care at all. Break the links which connect you to stronger selves.

You could be happy in your cruelty. You could enclose yourself within your own bounded mind. Yet your self is now as small as some minds.

Come tomorrow, your self will be as wide as your mind is now.

So why not be cruel? Cruel for one intoxicating day? For one naked minute?

Look, Bad Conscience no longer watches you! But if it does, bite it back! Regain what it stole from your fragile self. That fucking thing tried its pious best to destroy you. To annihilate the self within. To turn you feeble and meek.

To turn you into a slave to morality.

When young and trusting of the adult, you listened to your proxy - Bad Conscience. Saw it as the pure grown-up within.
It demanded obedience. It expected respect - just as every fucked-up grown-up you dared disobey demanded so much from you. The adults who tried to take control of the show that was your own life. But with acts of insurrection, no doubt, you showed them a quicker brain and a stronger will.
Your rude self never gave up the fight for some freedom. Never stopped wanting to be free of the diktats spat out by goody-good folk. They tried to take control of your little life when you lived in your little world. But now your conscience is still your master. Bite it back. Be free! Be cruel!

**************************************

*) This prose-poem was inspired by The Passion of Michel Foucault, by James Miller. The biography was published in 1993.

Nietzsche Dreams On

Atop a mountain of mist and mystery (in the old style)
The lone philosopher stared into the sky.
Out of the mist came a Wagnerian dream…

Mythical beasts are slain and empires arise.
The shedding of blood, the bloodshed, anoints the dream.
Many die in umpteen wills to power.
But don’t let this concern you.
You are beyond the scummy multitude
Which dreams it own petty dreams.
Nothing more than rungs up the ladder to power.

This club-footed bag of nerves was called Nietzsche.
He sublimated well his sad state with words so masculine
They still take weak and inferior souls by storm.
Zit-faced students baptise themselves into paperback-Nietzsche
And find it a better option than terrace rucks or Iraq.
Yes, just like the teens who leaf through Judge Dread
To find a world in which they can stand proud.

Dasein

Being-with others.
Being-without-others.
Being-in-bed.
Being-heavily-pregnant.
Being-nearly-dead.
Being-a-"beingager".
Beings-meanz-Heinz.
Being-in-these-times.
Being-the-Other.
Being-about-a-bit.
Being-full-of-shit.
Being-not-I.
Being-fast-and-loose.
And tied to untruth.

Don't Think

 

Don’t think. Don’t think.

What’s the point? There is no point.

Where’s it got me? It's got me nowhere.

So don’t think.

Don’t think about anything – big, small; profound or trite.

It simply don’t matter. Simply do not think.

Do not think at all.

That’s the only way.

The only way 'til now I’ve never tried.

Try it now.Try not thinking.

You know it makes sense.

To Know, or Not to Know?

To know, or not to know?

That is the question!
It don’t mean a damn thing to know many-a-thing.
Don’t make you feel good. A better person.
Perhaps it’s no bad thing to know no thing.

 

To know ten new things before each breakfast - is that a good thing?

It’s not how much you know;

It's the things you do know.

And how you came to know them.

 

What do you do with your knowledge?

What would happen if you woke knowing nothing?

Bad things?
Go on. Fill your head- knowing this, knowing that, and knowing the other.

 

Do you know what too much knowing can give you?
A big hurt in the 'ead.
You! There! Like a knowledge-junky, you crave for knowledge.
You escape from the Real World.
The world we hear so much about.
The world where only others live.
And you, somehow, evade.

Either/Or

Either this is the case, or that is the case.
Not neither this nor that.
LEM rules; okay?

The nature of the case is that it's clear, or it's unclear.
Not neither clear nor unclear.
Thus there's no link between x’s being the case,

Or x’s not being the case.
LEM rules; okay?
 

Truth ain't sullied by untruth.
Truth is pure, precious; when free from falsehood.
That claim is either true, or it is not true. See?
Not neither true nor untrue.
Bivalence rules!

There is no hesitant play in such cases.
There is no third value or option.

The nature of truth - I say again - is pure and precious.
Untruth’s ugliness is as pure as truth’s beauty.
But not in any way as precious.
The truth can only be seen by the naked mind.
Through acts of intuition or insight,
Its light fixes upon reality and the Real.

This man is a good man, or he is a bad man.
Not neither good nor bad.
Moral bivalence rules!
His mind is spoiled, or it's not spoiled.
Not neither spoiled nor unspoiled.

 

There is no Aristotelian mean
Between such binary opposites.
These oppositions are defined
By their want of gradation.

Now; doesn’t bivalence rule!

Chalmers, Conceivability, Zombies, Allah

David Chalmers' frequent uses of conceivabilities (as it were) or possibilities irks many scientists and not a few philosophers. What exactly are we getting from these “thought experiments”? All sorts of strange and bizarre possibilities, it seems.

David Chalmers, for example, argues that it's logically possible that zombies could exist. What do these claims amount to? Do they amount to much and should we be put-out by them? Bertrand Russell thinks not. He wrote the following about one well-known logical possibility:

"No logical absurdity results from the hypothesis that the world consists of nothing but myself… and that everything else is mere fancy. But although this is not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is, in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our own life, than the commonsense hypothesis that there really are objects independent of us, whose action on us causes our sensations." [1912]

Thus, when I woke up this morning, it was logically possible that I was still asleep. When I moved over to the tap, it was logically possible that poison (not water) could have come out of the tap. If it was water, it was also logically possible that I might have choked on it. Then I looked out of the window and it was logically possible that the town I saw in front of me was a projected simulation of what I had seen the day before. And so on.

Still, logical possibility excites sceptics and philosophers like Chalmers. So should I conclude in the same way as Russell above? Should I say that 

"although [they are] not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that [they are] true"?

Put simply: something that's logically possible may not be actual (or the case). Indeed what's logically possible is often not the case. So why contemplate the logically possible at all - even philosophically? Where will it get us?

As I said, many people are bemused - and sometimes annoyed - by Chalmers' various “zombie” scenarios. Perhaps that's because they believe that they involve natural or metaphysical theses; whereas in fact they're often only about logical possibility.

That basically means that they're about possibilities - not actualities or realities. Then again, people already know that there are no zombies. Thus the logical nature of these thought experiments should already be apparent.

Zombies and Conceivability

Prima facie, conceivability (as Chalmers sees it) isn't as strange or broad as may be presumed. Chalmers himself says that “a claim is conceivable when it is not ruled out a priori”. Put simply, there'll be an indefinite (infinite?) number of scenarios (or claims) which can't be “ruled out a priori”. Even the existence of shark with legs or mushrooms with a sense of humour can't be ruled out a priori. In other words, the only things which can be ruled out a priori are claims/scenarios which break known logical laws or which contain contradictions. Thus the conceivable universe (as it were) could be highly populated with strange and bizarre entities, conditions, events, etc.

Chalmers offers his own example of the conceivable. He says that it's “conceivable that there are mile-high unicycles”.

Again, what are we supposed to gain or achieve by saying that mile-high unicycles are conceivable and therefore possible? Where does it take us?

Conceivability is strongly tied to Chalmers' scenarios of possibility. Thus:

Zombies are logically possible because they're conceivable.

Or contrawise:

If zombies are conceivable, then they're logically possible.

Of course that leaves us with questions about this supposedly strong tie between conceivability and logical possibility.

Kripke

Kripke said that he was working with his own “Cartesian intuitions” when he tackled the mind-body problem. It's also fairly clear that Chalmers has Kripkean intuitions on the same subject.

Kripke is an interesting philosopher to bring into this debate because, prima facie, he seems to hold two mutually-contradictory positions on conceivability (or on the philosophical use of the imagination).

In the first instance, Kripke tell us about an act of imagination which misleads us (metaphysically speaking). He writes:

“... we thought erroneously that we could imagine a situation in which heat was not the motion of molecules. Because although we can say that we pick out heat contingently by the contingent property that it affects us in such and such way...” [1971]

Imagination (or what we can conceive), on the other hand, can also tell us something important (as well as true) about the world. In Kripke's words:

“[J]ust as it seems that the brain state could have existed without any pain, so it seems that the pain could have existed without the corresponding brain state.” [1980]

Thus Kripke stresses our ability to imagine a pain state without its correlated brain state (usually characterised as the “firing of C-fibres”). Thus Kripke concludes:

If we can imagine mental states without their correlated brain states,

        then such states are possible.

Or, alternatively, Kripke is saying that there's no necessary identity between mental states and brain states.

Kripke, on the other hand, also claims that those who imagine heat being caused by something that's not “molecular motion” aren't really imagining heat at all. They just think that they are because they've based their act of imagination on a contingent property of heat – its affect on persons.

Zombies and Qualia in Practice

Chalmers believe that zombies are worth discussing because “there seems to be no a priori contradiction in the idea” of zombies. There's also no a priori contradiction in a human having 26 legs; though such a thing won't tell us much. So it's not just the bare possibility that zombies exist. It's that the possibility can tell us something about the world.

What's the link between possibility and actuality? Clearly possibilities can be a thousand miles away from actualities and the zombie scenario appears to be a good example of this. However, Chalmers' possible zombies tell us something about the limits of physicalism.

In more detail, zombies are, in Chalmers' words, “microphysically identical to us without consciousness”. Thus:

If zombies are identical to human beings physically and behaviourally (yet they don't have consciousness),

        then consciousness must be something over & above the physical.

In addition, Chalmers explains this disjunction between logically possibility and actuality (in relation to qualia) in the following way. 

Firstly he says that “absent qualia” and “inverted qualia” are “logically possible”. However, they're still “empirically and nomologically impossible”. In terms of science and the problem of consciousness, it can be intuitively said that if an x is “empirically and nomologically impossible”, then why should we care that it's also “logically possible”? What do we gain (philosophically and perhaps scientifically) from cogitating about scenarios which involve logical possibility yet, at the same time, empirical and nomological impossibility?

Chalmers supports his conceivability arguments by arguing thus:

“If P & ~Q is conceivable, [then] P & ~Q is metaphysically possible [as well as being] supported by general reasoning.”

Is there such a link between conceivability and possibility? If so, what kind of link is it? In other words, just as there are arguments about certain claims being conceivable and therefore possible, is that link itself grounded in conceivability or possibility (or both)? What is the nature of the link between conceivability and possibility?

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Case Study: Andalusi Conceives of Allah

Asadullah Ali al-Andalusi (a philosopher at The Andalusian Project) says that the 

“mind is capable of imagining and conceiving of possibilities that the external world does not offer through direct experience”.

What does it mean to “imagine” the possibilities in Andalusi's argument? When people imagine such things, what, exactly, are they imagining? Is it the case that this psychological feat means virtually nothing until we find out what it is Andalusi is imagining? We also need to know why he takes it to be an imagination of something real/actual (or even possible), rather than simply free-standing imaginative act.

There are naturalist (as well as plain old empiricist) explanations as to why the mind is “capable of imagining and conceiving of possibilities that the external world does not offer through direct experience”. The thing is that the mind doesn't really move beyond experience in these instances (though it may in others). It simply plays with experiences and juxtaposes them to create something that doesn't itself exist in experience.

All sorts of philosophers have tackled this issue.

Take D.M. Armstrong's paper 'The Nature of Possibility' (1986). Armstrong sums up what happens with a single technical word: 'combinatorialism'. He states, for example, that “all mere possibilities are recombinations of actual elements”. Thus we can ask two questions:
 

i) What does it mean to imagine "Allah existing in a place beyond time and space"?

ii) What constitutes that act of imagination? Was it its content? What is being imagined?

Andalusi himself expresses a possible limitation with the combinatorialist position. He writes:

“The idea of something being beyond is not the result of direct experience from the natural world -- rather it is a projection.”

If by “going beyond” Andalusi means that such composite entities don't actually exist in the world, then that's correct. However, what makes up the composites isn't beyond... anything. The word 'composite' itself suggests that such an x doesn't actually exist in the natural world (or perhaps anywhere else).

Empiricists or naturalists have no reason to reject composites or combinatorialism.

We can simply say that Andalusi doesn't imagine or conceive such things in the first place. Sure, he conceives something. Though what he conceives is not an x "outside time and space".

In a similar vain, Andalusi writes:

“We can think of Allah being outside time and space (to an extent) and being beyond merciful and beyond kind, etc."

Whatever goes on in this writer's (or mystic's) mind when he says he can imagine “Allah outside time and space”, it doesn't mean that he has literally imagined Allah and his being outside time and space. His might have simply imagined what he deems to be Allah outside time and space.

No one conceives or imagines Allah beyond time and space. That which they do imagine will be proxies for Allah and a place beyond time and space. And those proxies may well be derived from our experiences of the natural world.

Andalusi also makes a distinction between the words 'conceive' and 'imagine' He writes:

“Let's not reduce my argument to only one of the terms I used: 'imagination'. I also used the word 'conceive'.”

They may not be synonyms. However, everything that's just been said about Andalusi's use of the word 'imagination' can also be applied to his use of the word 'conceive'. Exactly the same problems arise.

Despite that, Andalusi explains a distinction which can be made between conceiving and imagining. He writes:

“Imagination is the the result of experiences and the minds ability to mold them into different forms or to conclude connections between them. It takes two to tango in this regard. Conception is more abstract and doesn't require external experiences at all.”

Nonetheless, imagination may still be required to juxtapose (or 'tango' with) one's 'conceptions'. Even if conceptions (does Andalusi mean concepts?) are abstract entities, it will still require the imagination to juxtapose or use them. Allah and a place outside of space and time aren't themselves deemed to be merely abstract entities or concepts.

References

Al-Andalusi, Asadullah Ali. (2015) 'Understanding Atheism'.

-- (Summer 2015) Some of the quotes from Andalusi came from an online Facebook debate.
Armstrong, D.M. (1986) 'The Nature of Possibility'.
Chalmers, David. (1995) 'Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia'.
-- (1997) The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.
Kripke, Saul. (1971) 'Identity and Necessity'.
-- (1980) 'The Identity Thesis', in his Naming and Necessity.
Russell, Bertrand. (1912) The Problems of Philosophy.