Tuesday 21 December 2021

Philip Goff’s Panpsychism vs. Sam Coleman’s Russellian Monism?


 

(i) Introduction 
(ii) Panpsychist Russellian Monism vs. Panprotopsychist Russellian Monism 
(iii) Experiences Without an Experiencer? 
(iv) Sam Coleman’s Neutral Ultimates

Just a quick note on the title.

As ever with the shifting minutia of the technical terms used in (analytic) philosophy, things are complicated by the fact that Philip Goff’s position can also be deemed to be a kind of Russellian monism and Sam Coleman’s position can be deemed to be a kind of panpsychism. (Indeed Coleman states that his position “needn’t constitute a wholesale abandonment of panpsychism”.)

That said, what will be seem as important and fundamental distinctions from the inside of this philosophical (or academic) debate may not seem that way when looked at from the outside in. So, as a consequence of this (as well as to simplify things), it’s probably best to see Goff as being a (as it were) basic panpsychist and Coleman as being a Russellian monist — and that’s despite the many crossovers and grey areas between their two positions. Indeed Goff is best seen as a panpsychist for the simple reason that his position squares with most accepted conceptions — if there even are such things! — of panpsychism. And not to forget that Goff classes himself as a panpsychist.

So let’s go into more detail about the technical distinctions just hinted at.

Panpsychist Russellian Monism vs. Panprotopsychist Russellian Monism

The situation is complicated because Sam Coleman and Philip Goff believe that this debate isn’t simply a case of the following:

Russellian (neutral) monism vs. panpsychism

It’s actually a case of this:

panprotopsychist Russellian monism vs. panpsychist Russellian monism.

The following passage is how both Coleman and Goff explain the difference:

“Panpsychist Russellian monists hold that the categorical properties of basic physical entities are experiential properties.”

Panprotopsychist Russellian monists, on the other hand,

“hold that the categorical properties of basic physical entities are proto-experiential”.

So what are “proto-experiential” properties?

According to Coleman and Goff again:

“They are not themselves experiential properties but are crucial ingredients in facts that explain the production of consciousness.”

Thus Sam Coleman’s solution to the problems he spots in Philip Goff’s panpsychism is itself a variation on Bertrand Russell’s neutral monism (see here). Yet, as hinted at in the introduction, Goff too is strongly influenced by neutral monism. (Both Coleman and Goff use the term “Russellian monism”.)

Coleman’s position is a potential solution because in his own philosophical theory (as he puts it):

[P]henomenal qualities are irreducible but subjects are reducible.”

This means that phenomenal qualities are fundamental and therefore irreducible; whereas subjects are reducible because (presumably) they’re complex (i.e., made up of many different parts and “qualities”).

Coleman distances himself further from panpsychism (or at least from Philip Goff’s panpsychism) when he says that

“the neutral monist constructs the universe from neither-mental-nor-physical qualities, of which colours might be said to provide the exemplar”.

Goff (rather than Coleman) now gives an (as it were) concrete example of these distinctions when he discusses mass and other “categorical properties of basic physical entities”. He writes:

“Physics characterises mass in terms of a certain disposition (to resist acceleration and to attract other massive things)… If the categorical properties of basic physical entities are taken to be phenomenal properties , the resulting view is form of panpsychism. If the categorical properties of basic physical entities are taken to be protophenomenal properties, the resulting view is a form of panprotopsychism.”

So how much sense does it make to talk about experiences, phenomenal properties or even protophenomenal properties being instantiated without a mind, subject or being that (as it were) owns or has them?

Experiences Without an Experiencer?

Philip Goff raises this point in the following passage:

“You can’t have a feeling just floating around without a conscious mind to experience it, just as you can’t have a shape floating around without an object whose shape it is. The existence of an experience trivially entails the existence of an experiencer (just as the existence of a shape trivially entails the existence of a shaped object).”

Admittedly, there’s a difference here in that Goff firstly talks about “a feeling”, not experiences or phenomenal properties in the (as it were) abstract. So it does seem that a feeling must “belong to”… something. Indeed Goff himself states that a feeling must belong to “a conscious mind” which can “experience it”.

Yet Goff moves on from talking about a feeling to talking about “an experience”. He then states that “[t]he existence of an experience trivially entails the existence of an experiencer”. This appears to go against Goff’s own panpsychism in that he also believes that, for example, particles and even spacetime itself instantiate — or literally are — phenomenal properties or experience. (In his Galileo’s Error, Goff writes: “Spacetime on its own is a simple and ubiquitous experience [].”) In these cases, then, Goff clearly does not believe that particles and spacetime require “an experiencer”. In other words, when it comes to particles, spacetime, etc., experiences (or phenomenal properties) are simply instantiated — full stop. Thus there’s no requirement for an experiencer.

[If we agree with Goff and believe that spacetime enters the panpsychist equation, then which parts of spacetime have “simple and ubiquitous experience[s]”? All of spacetime? A arbitrary bit of it? A Planck-length section of it?]

Yet if we can have an experience without an experiencer, then why can’t we also have a feeling without a feeler?

If Goff is, on the one hand, demanding that experiences belong to the “minds” (or subjects) which have those very same experiences, then that will explain his criticisms of Coleman’s position.

More specifically, Goff states that Coleman has “argued that we cannot make coherent sense of minds combining”. And the following passage is Coleman putting his own position (as found in his paper ‘The Real Combination Problem’):

“The dilemma is as follows: Panpsychists take the micro-material realm to feature phenomenal properties, plus micro-subjects to whom these properties belong. However, it is impossible to explain the generation of a macro-subject (like one of us) in terms of the assembly of micro-subjects, for, as I show, subjects cannot combine. Therefore the panpsychist explanatory project is derailed by the insistence that the world’s ultimate material constituents are subjects of experience.”

It can be presumed here that we “cannot make coherent sense of minds combining” because such minds would be (as it were) in competition with each other. Alternatively, surely they’d (again metaphorically) cancel each other out. Indeed Coleman puts the extreme(?) panpsychist position when he states that “the panpsychist fills quarks and electrons with conscious minds”. Thus, when it comes to a macromind (or macrosubject), surely all these quark-minds, electron-minds and many other microminds would be in competition with each other or cancel each other out.

(Despite the previous paragraph, microminds competing with each other or cancelling each other out doesn’t — in and of itself — rule out the possibility of combination or summing.)

So Coleman’s solution to this problem would seem to be that we can (or must) posit rudimentary things which instantiate experiences (or “phenomenal qualities”) without such things also having (or being) minds (or subjects) of some kind. And Coleman himself offers this alternative when he states that the

“the panpsychist faces a choice of giving up her explanatory ambitions, or of giving up the claim that the ultimates are subjects”.

In other words, such experiences (or, in Coleman’s terminology, “proto-experiential qualities”) must literally run free of minds (or subjects). Thus these experiences exist (as it were) in and of themselves. And, if that’s the case, then we won’t have the problem of a multitude of “minds combining” to form a macromind. Instead, we’d simply have the experiences of a multitude of different rudimentary objects (i.e., ones which aren’t also subjects or minds) combining to create a macromind.

[Sam Coleman’s idea that colour may be such a neutral quality seems obviously false and scientifically naive. But that can’t be discussed in this essay . See Coleman’s position on the metaphysical nature of colour here.]

So what about Goff’s position?

At least as stated in the upcoming passage, Goff’s position doesn’t necessarily contradict Coleman’s. And that’s primarily because Goff doesn’t mention either minds or subjects. That is, Goff concludes with the following words:

“So if we can account for the presence of complex, macro-level forms of consciousness (in terms of facts about micro-level consciousness), we have thereby accounted for the presence of complex, macro-level conscious minds (in terms of facts about micro-level consciousness).”

Note again the lack of the word “mind” or “subject” in the passage above. So here at least Goff’s argument seems to be that in order to “account for the presence of complex, macro-level forms of consciousness”, we need not — or even must not — also posit rudimentary (or micro-level) minds or subjects. Moreover, is Goff’s argument that we must only posit rudimentary (or micro-level) experiences which run free of minds (or subjects)? Yet, despite the passage above, Coleman’s idea of a chaos (or flux) of a multitude of microminds (or microsubjects) competing with one another would indeed work against Goff’s own take on panpsychism. That is, in Goff’s brand of panpsychism, a multitude of microminds (or microsubjects) are indeed incorporated into the metaphysical picture.

Again, there seems to be a contradiction here.

On the one hand, Goff states that we can make sense of “complex, macro-level forms of consciousness” in terms of “facts about micro-level consciousness”. (Importantly, these facts at the microlevel — at least according to Coleman — must run free of minds or subjects ; lest we have a chaos of rival microminds which supposedly make up a macromind.) Yet earlier on Goff has also said that “[t]he existence of an experience trivially entails the existence of an experiencer”. That means that Goff is also arguing that these micro-level examples of consciousness must also instantiate (or be) minds — i.e., they must all belong to “an experiencer”.

Unless, of course, when Goff wrote “[t]he existence of an experience trivially entails the existence of an experiencer” he was putting someone else’s position.

In any case, Coleman then explicitly comments on this subject/phenomenal qualities (to use his own word) “dilemma”.

Sam Coleman’s Neutral Ultimates

Sam Coleman states the following:

“This needn’t constitute a wholesale abandonment of panpsychism, however, since panpsychists can maintain that the ultimates possess phenomenal qualities, despite not being subjects of those qualities. This proposal requires us to make sense of phenomenal qualities existing independently of experiencing subjects, a challenge I tackle in the penultimate section.”

At first this may not seem to be too problematic because all sorts of objects (or things) have properties without also being subjects or minds. So a rose, for example, can have the property being red without also being a subject or a mind. Yet, of course, in this case the situation is very different because Coleman is talking about phenomenal qualities. But can any object x have phenomenal qualities without also being a subject or a mind?

[One can add to Coleman’s argument by saying that if particles or other rudimentary objects are deemed to have — or are — minds or subjects, then why can’t we also say that they’re selves or persons too? Indeed I suspect that some panpsychists have already gone in this direction.]

Well, perhaps the big difference is that Coleman is actually talking about what he calls “proto-experiential qualities” — despite the fact that he actually uses the words “phenomenal qualities” in the passage above. So experiential (or phenomenal) qualities may well require minds or subjects. However, proto-experiential qualities do not require minds or subjects!

In addition, one obvious point to make about the passage above is that Coleman uses the word “possess”. That is, what he calls “ultimates” do indeed possess “phenomenal qualities” — yet they aren’t also “subjects”. This means that ultimates aren’t the “subjects of those qualities”.

But what does that mean? Does it mean the following?-

ultimates (literally) = phenomenal qualities

Alternatively:

an ultimate = a phenomenal quality

Moreover, is Coleman’s position that his ultimates instantiate (or even have) phenomenal qualities without also thereby being subjects or minds? Again, what is it, exactly, that instantiates — or has — phenomenal qualities? Is it that no thing at all instantiates (or has) phenomenal qualities when it comes to ultimates? That is, is it that ultimates exist and simply are proto-experiential (or proto-phenomenal) qualities?

[I can be found on Twitter here.]

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