Frank Jackson wrote: “Qualia are an excrescence.”

Frank Jackson also wrote that qualia “do nothing, they explain nothing, they serve merely to soothe the intuitions of dualists and it is left a total mystery how they fit into the world view of science”.

excrescence: noun (1) an abnormal outgrowth, usually harmless, on an animal or vegetable body. (2) a normal outgrowth, as hair or horns. (3) any disfiguring addition. (4) abnormal growth or increase.

[Mary and the knowledge argument won’t be considered in this essay.]

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The following passage (from the paper ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’) is American philosopher Frank Jackson’s very-strong position against qualia:

“All right, there is no knockdown refutation of the existence of epiphenomenal qualia. But the fact remains that they are an excrescence. They do nothing, they explain nothing, they serve merely to soothe the intuitions of dualists, and it is left a total mystery how they fit into the world view of science. In short we do not and cannot understand the how and why of them.’”

… But hang on a minute!

The passage above is actually Frank Jackson expressing what he believed a “qualia sceptic” would say. (The passage above begins with these words: “There is a very understandable response to the three replies I have just made.”)

So some readers may see it as a bad idea to quote a defender of qualia putting the case against qualia.

The words “defender of qualia” have just been used even though Jackson later came to reject his (former) case against physicalism. The following passage shows us why Jackson changed his position on physicalism (if not, strictly speaking, specifically on qualia):

“Most contemporary philosophers given a choice between going with science and going with intuitions, go with science. Although I once dissented from the majority, I have capitulated and now see the interesting issue as being where the arguments from the intuitions against physicalism — the arguments that seem so compelling — go wrong.”

So it’s now worth asking if, after his about-turn, Jackson would have put his new position against qualia in the same — or in a similar — way to the way he expressed it when he put it in the mouth of a fictional qualia sceptic.

In any case, Jackson’s words are suspect in a number of ways. That said, perhaps they are so primarily (or simply) because they’re meant to be purely rhetorical in nature. After all, Jackson was putting his (at the time) opponent’s position in (presumably) as strong terms as possible.

To sum up five (among others) problems with the words of Jackson’s fictional qualia sceptic:

(1) Even if qualia are an “excrescence”, that doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t exist. 
(2) Some philosophers argue that qualia do some things. 
(3) Some philosophers argue that qualia explain some things. 
(4) Not all the people who accept the existence (or reality) of qualia are what Jackson called “dualists”. 
(5) Not “fitting into the world view of science” isn’t the same as clashing with — or contradicting — science.

(1) Do Qualia Exist?

“All right, there is no knockdown refutation of the existence of epiphenomenal qualia. But the fact remains that they are an excrescence.”

The first thing which needs to be said is that even if qualia are an “excrescence”, then that doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t exist (or have any reality). Moreover, even if qualia “do nothing” and “explain nothing”, then they may still exist (or have some kind of reality).

The English philosopher Roger Scruton (1944–2020) hinted at all this in his book On Human Nature (2017). Scruton claimed that the critical philosophical accounts of qualia didn’t actually disprove the existence of qualia altogether — even though he did find qualia problematic.

Yet surely all this hinges on which definitions — or features — of qualia are actually being offered or tackled. That said, Scruton still summed up his own problem by quoting a well-known passage from Wittgenstein:

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

Indeed Wittgenstein’s words above perfectly express Daniel Dennett’s position, which we’ll come to in a moment.

Of course, if qualia fail in all the respects mentioned by Jackson’s qualia sceptic above (for now, let’s say that they do), then one can immediately ask how it is that they actually exist at all. More strongly, how can qualia be known to exist if they fail in all those respects?…

But, again, it depends on which account of qualia we have in mind.

Take the American philosopher Daniel Dennett.

Dennett does indeed deny the existence of qualia.

So when Dennett states that “qualia do not exist and are incompatible with neuroscience and naturalism”, we must find out what he takes qualia to be. And then it will soon be discovered that he’s actually against a very particular philosophical account of qualia. (All accounts of qualia are — to varying degrees — philosophical. )

The following is a list of the qualities and features which Dennett (questionably) claims qualiaphiles take to be definitive of qualia:

(1) qualia are ineffable
(2) qualia are intrinsic
(3) qualia are private
(4) qualia are directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness.

And it’s precisely because Dennett is against a particular account of qualia, that even his own position — believe it or not (i.e., as a well-known qualia sceptic) — isn’t entirely clear.

For example, American philosopher Owen Flanagan wrote the following:

“Qualia are for real. Dennett himself says what they are before he starts quining. Sanely, he writes, “‘Qualia’ is an unfamiliar terms for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways thing seem to us.’ [].”

That passage again simply raises the question: What does Dennett take qualia to be? Sure, we know what Dennett doesn’t take qualia to be, but what does he take them to be?

This may be the (or an) answer.

In ‘Are we explaining consciousness yet?’ (2001), Dennett argues that qualia are neural responses which are too fine-grained to be captured in any given natural language.

More broadly, then, it’s now widely accepted (at least among philosophers who’re interested in this issue) that the debate about qualia often hinges on the definition of the term “qualia”. More accurately, it strongly depends on what the various qualities and features of qualia are taken to be (e.g., as with Dennett’s own 4-point list).

In any case, most qualiaphiles (probably all) believe that there can never be a (to use Jackson’s words again) “knockdown refutation of the existence of epiphenomenal qualia”. And that’s simply because qualiaphiles (as it were) have (or claim to have) qualia. More accurately, most (or all) qualiaphiles believe that they have immediate and direct access to their own qualia (as in Dennett’s point 4). Indeed Jackson himself put this view in the following:

“As I say in the beginning of ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’, we dualists don’t really need an argument to say that consciousness doesn’t fit into the physicalist world view. It’s just intuitively obvious.”

(This is similar to the argument which the English philosopher Philip Goff — along with David Chalmers before him — uses about consciousness generally; which, according to him, is a “datum in its own right”.)

Yet whatever it is qualiaphiles have access to, that doesn’t mean that what they have access to are qualia as they describe them. And neither does it mean that they can’t misdescribe qualia or believe that they have features or qualities which they don’t actually have.

In more abstract terms, even if our cognitive access to any given x is indeed immediate and direct (however we take those terms), the words and concepts we use about that x (alongside the statements we make about it) aren’t themselves immediate and direct. That is, all our words, concepts and even ways of description of x will be contingent and have social and psychological histories and aetiologies.

All that said, surely qualiaphiles — and all of us — do have direct and immediate access to some things they deem to be qualia. In other words, whatever we say about qualia (or however we describe them), then qualia may still be accessed immediately and directly… or will they?

(2) Do Qualia Do Things?

“They do nothing…”

When Frank Jackson claimed that qualia “do nothing”, he was expressing an epiphenomenalist position. But need one take such a position on qualia?

So, firstly, let’s run through four basic positions:

(1) If qualia are physical, then of course they can do things. 
(2) Even if qualia aren’t physical, then they can still do things. 
(3) If qualia don’t exist, then that which doesn’t exist can’t do anything. 
(4) Qualia exist, aren’t physical and they don’t do anything (i.e., the epiphenomenalist position).

Jackson now believes that, say, the experience of blue is entirely instantiated in the brain. (The notion of an experience is surely wider than that of a single quale, such as one of the colour blue — if there even is such a thing.) This also means that such an experience will immediately cause other changes in the brain.

Paul Churchland also provides a physical and neuroscientific account of qualia. So he isn’t actually a qualia sceptic at all (see his ‘Knowing Qualia’). Yet Churchland’s account of qualia is one that most (perhaps all) qualiaphiles will be very unhappy with. So, here again, what Churchland takes qualia to be clashes violently with what qualiaphiles — and perhaps most people — take qualia to be.

(3) Do Qualia Explain Things?

“[T]hey explain nothing…”

Frank Jackson’s statement above depends on what, exactly, needs to be explained. It also depends on the strength (or lack thereof) of the explanations in which qualia feature. Conversely, it depends on why qualia sceptics believe that such explanations (or at least most of them) are effectively non-explanations.

Qualiaphiles argue that their having of qualia explains all sorts of things.

Pain is an obvious example. The having of a toothache will (if loosely) explain that a tooth is rooting away. Hearing the sound of a trumpet is a good explanation as to which instrument my neighbour has now taken up…

But are these really examples of qualia?

Basically these and other examples won’t work as explanations unless the qualiaphile tells us exactly what he takes qualia to be. And qualia sceptics don’t accept what qualia are taken to be. That is, they don’t deny the having of pains or the hearings of musical instruments. What they do deny is that these things are explained by philosophical qualia.

(4) Must All Those Who Accept Qualia Be Dualists?

“[T]hey serve merely to soothe the intuitions of dualists…”

This statement is an obvious ad hominen. Yet, of course, it’s Frank Jackson’s fictional physicalist (or qualia sceptic) who’s talking. That said, Daniel Dennett (again) said more or less the same thing (if about consciousness, not, strictly speaking, about qualia) when he wrote the following:

“To many people consciousness is ‘real magic’. If you’re not talking about something that is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, then you’re not talking about consciousness, the Mystery Beyond All Understanding.”

As it is, there’s no strong reason to be against ad hominins when they’re placed (as the cliche has it) within context. That is, if an article, paper or even a single paragraph were made up entirely of ad homs, then that wouldn’t be worth reading — at least not from a philosophical point of view. Yet there’s no reason why every single sentence in a philosophical paper or essay need be an argument or even be particularly philosophical. What’s more, one can sometimes — and in some ways — get a grip of arguments and philosophical positions with the help of ad homs and psychologisations — as historians, biographers, novelists, dramatists, etc. are well aware.

But what of the “intuitions of dualists”?

Even if qualiaphiles’ intuitions are being “soothed” by qualia, then they may still offer good arguments to back up their qualiaphilia. Indeed who’s to say that all qualiaphiles are (psychologically) soothed by qualia in the first place? Perhaps they simply believe that they exist - full stop.

Philosophically, however, Jackson’s (as it were) accusation of dualism is surely correct. That is, if a qualiaphile takes qualia to be non-physical, then he must be a dualist. More accurately, if a qualiaphile believes that qualia do things at the very same time as their being non-physical, then he must be a dualist.

Qualia and Science

“[I]t is left a total mystery how they fit into the world view of science.”

Qualiaphiles — and others! — may ask if science has a single “world view”.

More relevantly, they may ask if science has a single — or indeed any — world view on the subject of qualia at all.

That said, Frank Jackson’s qualia sceptic might have meant that it’s the world view of science-as-a-whole that qualiaphiles need to (as it were) accommodate — i.e., regardless of whether or not Science-with-a-capital-‘S’ has (or doesn’t have) a position on qualia.

Moreover, even if science does have a world view, then that world view may change. Indeed it must have already changed through the centuries. In other words, surely the world view of science (if it exists at all) can’t be determinate and fixed. More relevantly, that world view may come to accept qualia. Alternatively, it may come to completely reject qualia. (Of course this last possibility jars with the earlier question about science having a single world view.)

In any case, all this is complicated by fact that the scientists who do concern themselves with qualia have three (main) mutually-contradictory positions on them:

(1) Qualia exist and can be given a scientific description. 
(2) Qualia exist but can’t be given a scientific description. 
(3) Qualia don’t exist in the first place.

Donald Hoffman’s Case For An Idealist and Spiritual Reality

Donald Hoffman states that when “we peek behind the icons [we’ve] entered the province of philosophy and religion”. So does that mean that his idealism (or “conscious realism”) is religious and philosophical (i.e., not scientific) after all?

Cogntive psychologist Donald Hoffman states that when “we peek behind the icons [we’ve] entered the province of philosophy and religion”. Yet his words make it seem that when he (i.e., not “we”) peeks behind the icons, his doing so is a mere side issue. Hoffman also makes it seem (at least in those words) as if philosophy and religion are largely irrelevant to his writings on what he calls “conscious realism” (with its many mentions of “mathematical models”, evolution, quantum mechanics and whatnot).

Yet one only needs to watch the interviews of Hoffman (or even read his latest book — The Case Against Reality) for a few minutes to realise that the ideas and values of philosophy and religion may well be the main motivation for his own positions. Indeed Hoffman might well have started with such ideas and values and then got to work finding the science to back them up. That reading is put primarily because Hoffman himself claims that the “deeper reality” he often refers to has actually been discovered (or found) by various religions (or “spiritual traditions”) in the past. More accurately, Hoffman states that

“many of the spiritual traditions have been telling us for centuries, even millennia, that spacetime is not fundamental but there’s a deeper reality outside of spacetime”.

That main point of this essay, however, is that Hoffman does indeed believe that there’s a (to use his own word) “reality”. It just so happens that Hoffman’s reality squares with both idealism and with various spiritual traditions.

[It’s almost certainly the case that Hoffman would claim the exact opposite to some of the statements above. That is, he’d no doubt claim that the findings of his scientific research led him to embrace spiritual idealism.]

An Idealist and Spiritual Reality

Hoffman often uses the word “reality” positively. So he does actually believe that there is a reality (i.e., despite the fact that, in 2019, he wrote a book called The Case Against Reality). Nonetheless, Hoffman also argues that we haven’t got direct (or even indirect) access to reality as posited by what he calls “physicalists”. (Hoffman, like Barnardo Kastrup, often means philosophical realism when he uses the word “physicalism”. ) Instead, we’ve only got access to the contents of consciousness. And that’s still the case even if those contents belong to a (as it were) collective of consciousnesses (i.e., a collective of what Hoffman calls “conscious agents”).

Hoffman’s position can be summed up in one word: idealism.

Yet, having just used the word “idealism”, it can be seen that Hoffman seems to be a little shy about using (or at least overusing) that term about his own positions. Perhaps that’s primarily because he doesn’t want to be too strongly associated with idealism. Alternatively, Hoffman may simply be keen on stressing the originality — and scientific nature — of his own conscious realism.

To sum up. Hoffman’s philosophical position of conscious realism can be seen as a new take on idealism — idealism with mathematical and scientific knobs on.

Donald Hoffman and Bishop Berkeley

Like Donald Hoffman himself, Bishop Berkeley didn’t only have a problem with materialism as a metaphysical position: he also believed that materialism had profoundly negative repercussions for religion (or “spirituality”) itself, morality and society as whole. (These are things that Hoffman’s fellow idealist Bernardo Kastrup most certainly believes — primarily because he keeps on (stridently) stating that he does so. See here, here and here.)

So take the following subtitle from Berkeley’s A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge:

“Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the Sciences, with the grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are inquired into.”

And, in Berkeley’s Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, we find this subtitle:

“In opposition to sceptics and atheists.”

Interestingly, Hoffman often mentions “eastern religions” too (see here, here and here).

Hoffman’s arguments for his conscious realism are very similar to those of Berkeley. Indeed Berkeley’s own words are positively quoted by Hoffman himself.

Berkeley is, of course, well known for denying the existence of matter as a metaphysical substance.

Yet it will (or perhaps simply can) be argued that Hoffman doesn’t — exactly — reject matter. Instead, Hoffman believes that “matter is derivative”. That is, matter is “among the symbols constructed by conscious agents”.

Of course the question now is whether or not this 21st-century way of putting things extracts Hoffman from being an out-and-out idealist. After all, Berkeley himself (at least in a sense) also accepted matter. That is, he too believed that matter is simply a question of our (what he called) “sense-impressions” and “ideas”. (Hoffman sees his “icons”, instead, as stand-ins for what he calls “objective reality”.)

So does Hoffman go all the way and endorse Berkeley’s well-known statement? Namely:

“To be is to be perceived.”

Well, let Hoffman himself discuss Berkeley’s often-quoted one-liner here:

“When Samuel Johnson heard Berkeley’s theory that ‘To be is to be perceived’ he kicked a stone and said, ‘I refute it thus!’ (Boswell, 1986) Johnson observed that one must take the stone seriously or risk injury. From this Johnson concluded that one must take the stone literally. But this inference is fallacious.”

Berkeley himself wrote:

“The ideas imprinted on the sense by the Author of Nature are called real things: and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid and constant, are more properly termed [] images of things, which they copy and represent.”

So Berkeley believed that God (as it were) placed reality in our minds via what he called “images” and “ideas”. Hoffman, on the other hand, largely dispenses with references to “God” and simply focuses on the contents of consciousness instead.

That said, Hoffman doesn’t seem to have any deep problems with Berkeley’s positions as expressed above.

It’s of course the case that Berkeley — obviously! — didn’t include lots of data from evolutionary biology, cogntive science, quantum physics, mathematics, etc. (as Hoffman keenly does). But isn’t that a difference which doesn’t make a difference to the strong similarities between Berkeley’s and Hoffman’s philosophical positions?

In any case, the following passage is both Berkeley’s and Hoffman’s argument. In Hoffman’s own words:

“Resemblance between the phenomenal and relational realms: I argue that there need be no resemblance. But Berkeley has an ingenious argument that goes much further, and is probably valid. He argues that there cannot be a resemblance between them. [] The argument, in part, is this: ‘How can that which is sensible be like that which is insensible? Can a real thing, in itself invisible, be like a colour, or a real thing, which is not audible, be like a sound?’ [].”

Hoffman also endorses another of Berkeley’s positions here:

“Idealism proposes that the relational realm is made up of minds. It may be one mind, as in Berkeley’s proposal that it’s the mind of God, or it may be many distinct and finite minds in interaction. In the latter case, the behaviour of these minds has also been described by probabilistic laws.”

More clearly and technically, Hoffman takes a very clear Berkeleyan position when he states that “brains and neurons do not exist unperceived”. Of course this is exactly what Berkeley believed (though not, of course, about brains and neurons).

So it’s odd that Hoffman also states (as already quoted) that he “neither needs nor insists on the validity of Berkeley’s argument”. Yet just moments before writing that he’d also claimed that Berkeley’s “ingenious argument” is “probably valid”. Of course it can be argued that even if Hoffman finds Berkeley’s argument “valid” and “ingenious”, then that still doesn’t automatically mean that he “needs” it… Except for the fact that Hoffman does indeed offer an updated version of Berkeley’s argument.

So what about Hoffman’s position on Kant’s transcendental idealism?

Donald Hoffman and Immanuel Kant

Hoffman has a problem with Immanuel Kant’s position on noumena. He believes that it’s not “scientific”. Less strongly, Hoffman believes that Kant’s position doesn’t look promising from a scientific perspective. As Hoffman himself puts it:

“This interpretation of Kant precludes any science of the noumenal, for if we cannot describe the noumenal then we cannot build scientific theories of it.”

So in what way (or sense) does Hoffman himself “describe the noumenal”; or, for that matter, offer us a “scientific theor[y]” of it? In other words, it’s very difficult to see what justification Hoffman has for pitting himself against Kant in this respect.

Perhaps the following words from Hoffman may answer that.

Hoffman then goes on to argue that

“[c]onscious realism, by contrast, offers a scientific theory of the noumenal, viz., a mathematical formulation of conscious agents and their dynamical interactions”.

Well, if conscious agents constitute the noumenal, then this will explain why Hoffman believes he offers us a description of it. But, of course, this isn’t Kant’s noumenal realm because that realm has nothing at all to do with consciousness, let alone with conscious agents and their “dynamical interactions”. (Even a cursory reading of Kant will show that.) Of course it may be the case that Hoffman believes that this is what Kant really meant (or simply should have meant) when he referred to noumena (or “things-in-themselves”).

All that said, Hoffman himself seems to (at least partly) understand these critical points when he writes the following:

“Some Kant scholars interpret him as saying that the relational realm, the thing-in-itself, is unknowable, so that the question of resemblance between the phenomenal and relational is moot.”

So, instead, Hoffman must really be describing (or at least claiming to describe) his very own “relational realm”. Hoffman must believe that conscious agents are (as he puts it) “behind the icons” and that such agents themselves constitute his deeper reality or relational realm. That is, Hoffman’s relational realm (or deeper reality) is actually… us! Or, at the very least, Hoffman’s deeper reality is (or is constituted by) all the conscious agents of the universe (together with their dynamical interactions).

More particularly, if Hoffman’s conscious realism really “offers a scientific theory of the noumenal”, then it’s not actually the noumenal that it’s offering a scientific theory of.

Of course that point may be misplaced in that, to Hoffman, the noumenal isn’t actually noumenal at all! In other words, Hoffman believes that he can offer a scientific theory of the noumenal (i.e., his relational realm) precisely because it is constituted by conscious agents (or at least by the contents of their consciousnesses). Kant, on the other hand, created a theory in which noumena were — by (his) own definition — not only beyond science, but also beyond (to use Hoffman’s term) conscious agents.

In addition, Hoffman’s “mathematical formulation” of his own relational realm is neither particularly mathematical nor about anything particularly scientific or concrete (i.e., empirical, observational or experimental). Instead, it amounts to little more than an idiosyncratic take on what Hoffman calls conscious agents; with the addition of gratuitous (even arbitrary) mathematical symbols, letters and graphs — all seemingly put together to provide a scientific gloss on a very-personal philosophy. (See my ‘Donald Hoffman’s Eye Candy: Conscious Realism’s Mathematical Models’.)

Conclusion

To sum up.

Hoffman’s conscious realism isn’t actually a scientific theory at all.

Of course Hoffman believes that it is a scientific theory — at least in large part.

And that’s primarily because Hoffman is under the impression that employing (often simply citing) lots of scientific data (or technical terms) will make his philosophical theory itself scientific.

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*) See my ‘A Contradiction in Donald Hoffman’s (Idealist) Fitness-Beats-Truth Theorem’, ‘Donald Hoffman’s Philosophy of Consciousness and Reality: Conscious Realism’ and ‘Donald Hoffman’s Long Jump From Evolutionary Biology/Theory to Highly-Speculative Philosophy’.

A Contradiction in Donald Hoffman’s (Idealist) Fitness-Beats-Truth Theorem

Donald Hoffman claims that the “organism that sees reality as it is goes extinct”. So there is a reality after all? And how do this claim square with Hoffman’s idealism (or “conscious realism”)?

[Note: Donald Hoffman often speaks about his fitness-beats-truth (FBT) theorem. Yet perhaps the word “philosophy” or “theory” should really have been used in the title. That’s the case because although there is a mathematical theorem (which Hoffman claims has been “proved”) embedded in Hoffman’s general theory, it’s his overall philosophy which will be tackled in the following.]

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The main argument in this essay is that the cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman (1955-) assumes the existence of what he calls “reality” at precisely the same moment that he’s at pains to reject it (i.e., as in his “the case against reality”).

But firstly it needs to be said that this essay isn’t about the correctness or incorrectness of evolutionary theory and evolutionary data: it’s about what Hoffman makes of all that. That is, it’s about how Hoffman uses evolutionary theory and biological data to advance his philosophical (perhaps even “spiritual” or religious — see later) position.

Indeed much of Hoffman’s evolutionary points and positions are fairly standard (i.e., not original to him) in the literature — at least in various respects. In other words, Hoffman often just states basic evolutionary theories — and the data from evolutionary biology — as a mere prelude to his philosophical position.

So now we need to know how closely connected all that evolutionary theory and biological data (as well as all the stuff he quotes from physics and mathematics) is to Hoffman’s actual philosophical speculations.

Hoffman’s Contradictory Position

Despite Hoffman’s consciousness-first (new brand of) idealism (what he calls conscious realism), he explicitly states (in various and many places) that some species died out precisely because they perceived reality (to use his own word) “truthfully”.

So here are some relevant passages from Hoffman. Firstly, in the paper ‘Objects of consciousness’ (2014), he wrote the following:

“According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.”

In that passage, Hoffman doesn’t explicitly state (or accept) that there’s a “reality as it is” or even that organisms have seen it. That is, he prefixes what he says with the words “[a]ccording to evolution by natural selection”.

Readers may wonder about Hoffman’s claim that there is a single stance on the issue of reality when it comes to evolution by natural selection. That can be very-strongly doubted. Basically, the nature of reality is, if anything, a side issue when it comes to evolution — and even when it comes to evolutionary theory . And even then, evolutionary theorists take different positions on the nature of reality (as Hoffman himself, elsewhere, makes very clear).

In any case, Hoffman does go on to state his own position. He explicitly acknowledges that a particular organism (or the species it belonged to) saw “reality as it is”… even if it eventually became “extinct”. He writes:

“When you analyze the equations of evolutionary game theory it turns out that, whenever an organism that sees reality as it is competes with an organism that sees none of reality and is tuned to fitness, the organism that sees reality as it is goes extinct.”

This is as explicit an acknowledgement of reality beyond the contents of consciousness as one can get.

To repeat: the passages above make it clear that Hoffman (if only implicitly) believes two things:

(1) That there is a reality. 
(2) That some species “saw reality as it is”.

All this must — or simply could — also mean that even today (or in principle) it’s still possible to see reality as it is. (I personally don’t accept the phrase “reality as it is”, but that’s another issue.)

So those passages above clearly work against Hoffman’s idealism (i.e., his consciousness-first philosophy).

To repeat. Hoffman contradicts himself because, according to his own philosophy, neither species which became extinct nor those species which passed on their genes saw reality — and that’s because, according to Hoffman himself, “reality does not exist”. In basic terms, all species (including Homo sapiens) have to go on are the “icons” in individual consciousnesses. Alternatively put: all we really have are interacting (what Hoffman calls) “conscious agents”.

This can be summed up in 4 points (i.e., which don’t constitute a linear argument):

(1) Hoffman repeatedly offers us his “case against reality”. 
(2) Hoffman argues that we don’t “see reality as it is” (we see icons, etc.). 
(3) Those species which saw reality “truthfully”(or correctly) died out (i.e., became extinct). 
(4) Thus, today, we human beings don’t see reality as it is.

Yet points (1) to (4) all include an implicit (or perhaps not so implicit) acknowledgement of two things which in other places Hoffman outrightly denies:

(1) That there is a reality which can be “seen” or perceived. 
(2) That some of species that saw reality truthfully died out — precisely because their perceptions were truthful (or simply accurate).

Thus there still is (not only was) a reality beyond the contents of consciousness!

Not only that: it must be possible — in principle — to perceive that reality because Hoffman himself tells us that some now-dead species did so!

What’s more, the fact that such species died out is almost irrelevant to Hoffman’s central ontological (or simply philosophical) thesis. That is, it certainly doesn’t back up his idealism. And that, to repeat, is because Hoffman actually recognises a reality and the fact that it was seen by some species… which then became extinct.

So what of Hoffman’s often-used phrase, “reality as it is”?

“Reality As It Is”?

Let’s just go over Hoffman’s usage of that phrase.

Hoffman essentially puts his foot in it when he uses the words “whenever an organism [] sees reality as it is”, then this or that happens to it. So, again, is Hoffman accepting that there is a reality as it is? No? Yes? True, Hoffman is also arguing that seeing reality as it is has been disadvantageous from an evolutionary point of view…

But what has that to do with reality as it is?

More relevantly, if some species saw reality as it is (and subsequently died out), then surely that must work against Hoffman’s conscious realism in which there is no reality as it is. All we have, instead, are the contents of minds (or “infinite consciousnesses”) and the subsequent interactions of conscious agents.

Of course anti-realists also argue that we don’t see reality as it is. But that’s not relevant here because Hoffman both does and does not believe that there’s a reality as it is. On the one hand, he does believe that there is a reality as it is when discussing dead species. On the other hand, he doesn’t believe there is a reality as it is when it comes to his philosophical position of conscious realism.

To repeat: Hoffman states that “our ancestors who saw reality accurately” died out. So Hoffman is still conceding that reality was seen accurately —even if only by those ancestors which were deselected by evolution.

Of course Hoffman may freely admit that he believes that these extinct species did indeed see reality — either in full or in part. (There was indeed a reality to see.) However, he may also believe that human beings today don’t see reality — either in full or even in part!

This (as already stated) leads us to the possibility that there may be organisms or species around today that do see reality! Perhaps these creatures, in turn, will be deselected (i.e., if Hoffman’s thesis is correct). That is, because evolution is an ongoing process, then that must mean that some (or even many) organisms around today do indeed perceive reality in some shape or form. It just so happens to be the case that these reality-seeing species will eventually be deselected (i.e., according to Hoffman’s take on the laws of evolution)…

But all that isn’t quite right.

According to Hoffman’s conscious realism, no organism or species could have ever perceived reality as it is. And that’s because Hoffman’s philosophical thesis has it that all there is to reality is what goes on in the heads (physical heads are also “icons”) of conscious agents — whether rudimentary conscious agents (say, snails or cats) or sophisticated conscious agents (say apes or human beings).

This basically means that Hoffman can’t have it both ways.

Conclusion

Of course the way out of this is to argue that reality simply is what we (as it were) discover either in our own consciousnesses or in some kind of collective consciousness (e.g., Hoffman’s interacting conscious agents) — and that seems to be Hoffman’s position.

To sum up.

For the idealist case, it doesn’t matter what natural selection favours or disfavours. More specifically, what Hoffman calls the “relational realm” (which is almost indistinguishable from Kant’s noumenal realm) can never be seen either in whole or in part (i.e., even when it came to those species which were supposedly deselected). And that’s because there is no reality (or relational realm) to see in the first place.

This means that even if we take Hoffman’s “deeper reality” (i.e., his relational realm) to be a real thing (see his criticisms of scientists ‘Dismissing God’), then that’s still not something that we can see, has been seen or which is perceptually available to any species at any time. And that’s why Hoffman himself believes that his deeper reality is actually only a fit subject for (to use his own words on this subject) “philosophy and religion”…

And that’s precisely what’s been argued in this essay.

Panpsychist Philip Goff’s Combination Problem: Little Conscious Subjects and Emergence

Philosopher Philip Goff writes: “Somehow little subjects, such as electrons and quarks, come together to produce big conscious subjects, such as human brains.”

[Note: it was difficult to decide whether or not to use the term “big conscious subject” or “big mind” in the following because Philip Goff often uses the words “conscious subject” and “mind” interchangeably in the paper commented on — despite them having different meanings or connotations.]

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The panpsychist philosopher Philip Goff doesn’t use the words “strong emergence” and “weak emergence” in his paper, ‘The Phenomenal Bonding Solution to the Combination Problem’. Nonetheless, that distinction is at the heart of at least some sections of his paper.

The basic question is whether or not a (to use hyperbolic capitals) Big Conscious Subject is more than the mere sum of “its” little conscious subjects. That is, does something additional happen when little conscious subjects are added (or “summed”) together to “constitute” a Big Conscious Subject?

Having made that point, it may well be the case that I’m barking up the wrong tree here. This is why.

In a seminar entitled ‘On Non-Compositional Panpsychism’, Philip Goff claims that the “mind is multiply located”. (Here Goff uses the word “mind”, not “subject”.) This, at first glance, seems to create a problem for much of what’s been written above. However, Goff (in the seminar) doesn’t really provide much detail for his position. And even if there are arguments in its favour, they may not make much of a difference to this essay.

Again, if the mind is multiply located and (as Goff also says) “wholly present many times in the brain”, then that does seem to create problems for the arguments expressed (by Goff) in the following.

So what does Goff’s claim mean?

Surely if the (singular) mind is multiply located, then that seems to go against claims about “little subjects”. It also seems to rule out any point of “bonding”. That is, if the mind is multiply located (as well as wholly present many times), then there doesn’t seem to be a strong requirement for either little minds or for their bonding.

Indeed this may be the reason why Goff prefers the word “composition” to “combination” (as in the combination problem). That is, does the word “combination” imply strong emergence; whereas the word “composition” doesn’t?

Strong Emergence?

One interesting virtue of panpsychism — at least on some readings — is that it doesn’t appear to require any form of emergence. That is, according to panpsychism, consciousness (or experience) doesn’t suddenly emerge from the physical: it’s there from the very beginning (i.e., in the very small parts of the brain). Yet, on the other hand, when it comes to the combination problem, it can be argued — and sometimes is argued — that new aspects of consciousness or experience (strongly?) emerge from these little pockets of experience. (This will be discussed later.)

How does that (possible) rejection of what’s called strong emergence actually work?

Take x.

x is simply the sum of a, b, c…

Thus x doesn’t emerge from its parts in any strong sense.

In terms of the brain and consciousness (or experience). The latter doesn’t emerge from the former.

Are the brain and consciousness one and the same thing? Or, less radically, are the brain and consciousness one and the same thing under two (to use Frege’s phrase) “modes of presentation”?

This is how Goff puts his position:

“[M]y mind is a macroscopic entity which derives its nature from the microscopic entities which compose it, ultimately from the entities that fundamental physics talks about, which the panpsychist takes to be conscious subjects.”

Here we have loads of little “entities” making up a big x. Again, x doesn’t emerge from these little entities. It equals (or is) these little entities. That is, if consciousness (or mind) is found even at the micro-scale; then consciousness (or mind) can’t be separate from the brain — it is simply the “combination” (or “composition”) of all these phenomenal brainparts. That is,

the combination of phenomenal little conscious subjects = the Big Conscious Subject

Or:

consciousness/the mind doesn’t emerge from the brain’s various — and many! — phenomenal or experiential brainparts. It is those various — and many — phenomenal or experiential brainparts.

Less schematically, little pockets of phenomenal experience (metaphorically?) get together to create a big subject of consciousness. Yet even though we have a sum, a composition or a combination, there’s still no emergence of any kind. Or as Goff puts it:

“Somehow little subjects, such as electrons and quarks, come together to produce big conscious subjects, such as human brains.”

Again, although the Big Conscious Subject is the combination (sum or composition) of little conscious subjects, there’s still no emergence of the former from the latter…

… But not so quick!

The problem is that Goff does cite an example of strong emergence.

Goff does so when he gives the example of “little subjects” actually “seeing” all the “colours of the spectrum” — individually. Then, when these little conscious subjects are taken together (as a single Big Conscious Subject), Goff postulates that they may bring about “a visual experience as of seeing white”. In other words, we have little conscious subjects experiencing the various colours of the spectrum separately summing together to produce a Big Conscious Subject which experiences the colour white. This Big Conscious Subject’s experience of white is, therefore, over and above the many and varied experiences of all the little conscious subjects which constitute or (to use Goff’’s term) “compose” it.

Surely this is an example of strong emergence.

This means that in all the above respects, Goff’s panpsychism (at least at it impinges on the mind or consciousness) can be a taken as a kind of monism. More controversially, however, it can also be seen as a new version of the identity theory of mind. That is, little conscious subjects are instantiated in the brain’s many and various (physical) parts, and their sum equals a Big Conscious Subject. And that Big Conscious Subject, in turn, is instantiated in the brain as a whole.

It’s certainly the case that Goff is well aware of the problems that this kind of phenomenal combinatorialism faces.

Weak and Strong Emergence

Goff states the problems in various places. For example, Goff writes:

“Small objects with certain shapes, e.g. Lego bricks, can constitute a larger object with a different shape, e.g. a Lego tower. But it is difficult to see how, say, seven subjects of experience, each of which has a visual experience as of seeing one of the colours of the spectrum, could constitute a distinct subject of experience having a visual experience as of seeing white [].”

Four matchsticks put in random places — even if close together — won’t constitute a square shape. However, they can be arranged to make a square shape. Nonetheless, the square shape is entirely a product of the four matchsticks…

There’s no strong emergence here.

Goff concedes that when it comes to little pockets of experience and a Big Conscious Subject, then we have something different. But is it strong emergence?

Goff’s own scenario (as already stated) is about the sum of the little-subjects’ experiences creating an entirely different experience — that of a Big Conscious Subject. Thus each little conscious subject is like a little matchstick. Taken on its own, each little matchstick can’t constitute a square. Taken together with three other little matchsticks, they can constitute a square. Similarly (or nearly so!) with little pockets of experience. Taken individually they “see” different “colours of the spectrum”. Taken together (at least in theory) they may bring about “a visual experience as of seeing white”...

… Yet these examples aren’t of a kind.

A matchstick square is nothing over and above the individual four matchsticks which constitute the square. In Goff’s case, we have little conscious subjects experiencing various colours of the spectrum — summing together to produce a Big Conscious Subject which experiences the colour white.

There is a spectrum of colour. However, does it follow from this that even if little conscious subjects did experience the individual colours of the spectrum individually that that their sum would necessarily — or even hypothetically — bring about a Big Conscious Subject which experiences the colour white? (It’s hard to make physical, scientific and/or neuroscientific sense of all this.)

Goff himself seems to make a distinction between weak and strong emergence when he cites his own Lego example. He writes:

“Take the case of seven Lego cubes placed on top of each other to make a rectangular tower. The mere existence of those bricks, each having a specific shape and location, necessitates the existence of the tower having the shape and location it has.”

More technically:

“The existence of a group of spatial objects, O¹….On, with certain shapes and locations, can necessitate the existence of a spatial object with a shape and location different to the shape and location of each of O¹… Oⁿ.”

Firstly Goff puts this position without mentioning consciousness or anything else directed related to it. He argues that

“the defining characteristic of constitution being that constituted states of affairs are nothing over and above the states of affairs which constitute them”.

That is a statement of weak emergence.

Clearly, at a prima facie level, weak emergence won’t do the job that panpsychists want it to do. A Big Conscious Subject is something more than a mere sum of little conscious subjects (or of tiny pockets of experience).

Then Goff puts that weak emergence position as it may relate to consciousness. He writes:

“Constitutive panpsychism — O-phenomenal facts are constituted by, and hence are nothing over above, the micro-phenomenal facts.”

Here again, that position doesn’t do the job that panpsychists want it to do.

Thus Goff puts the strong-emergence position as it directly relates to panpsychism and consciousness. He writes:

“Intelligible emergentist panpsychism — O-phenomenal facts are intelligibly produced by, but are something over and above, the microlevel facts.”

Clearly now we need to account for that strong emergence. (Philosophers and scientists attempt to account for strong emergence in many cases outside of the issue of consciousness.)

Here, instead of the usual problem of the sum of the brain’s purely physical parts accounting for mentality or consciousness, we have a similar problem of the sum of the brain’s little conscious subjects accounting for a Big Conscious Subject.

Goff explains this in terms of what he calls “bonding”. This means that not only have we to explain the bonding of little conscious subjects: we also need to explain how the sum of such little conscious subjects can create a Big Conscious Subject which is over and above that sum.

In any case, at least that sum of little conscious subjects only includes those entities which exist within the brain. And that’s why Goff has a problem with what he calls “unrestricted phenomenal composition” (see unrestricted composition) . He writes:

“According to unrestricted phenomenal composition, for any group of subjects, say, the particles forming your nose, my teeth and the planet Venus, those subjects are related by the phenomenal bonding relation and hence produce a further subject.”

Goff doesn’t accept such examples of unrestricted phenomenal composition; just as most people believe that the fusion (or simple juxtaposition/joining) of your backside, the coffee cup you’re holding at present, and the moon above you don’t together constitute yet another bona fide object.

Goff writes:

“Obviously, some form of restricted phenomenal composition, according to which some but not all subjects are such that they bear the phenomenal bonding relation to each other, will be more in keeping with pre-theoretical common sense.”

Goff believes that all the relevant little conscious subjects must belong to the same brain. (As Goff puts it, the little conscious subjects must belong to “the brains/central nervous systems of organisms”.) There are of course innumerable other little conscious subjects in the panpsychist universe (e.g., in a thermostat or deep within a sea of a distant planet) which aren’t at all relevant when it comes to the constitution or composition of the Big Conscious Subjects that are individual human persons.