Toward a Naturalism of Intentionality and Consciousness

1. Toward a Naturalism of Intentionality and Consciousness Mark H. Bickhard mark@bickhard.name http://bickhard.ws/

2. Naturalism and Mind • Is naturalism consistent with the normativities of mind? • If not, then mind cannot be naturalized • If so, how?

3. What is Naturalism? • Naturalism understood in terms of what the natural sciences study carries with it a metaphysical barrier to naturalizing the mind • It cannot address the ontologies of normativity • This barrier is of ancient provenance

4. Naturalism as a Presupposition of Inquiry • It is always legitimate to ask further questions • We live in one world — explanations lead to integration of phenomena • These can be in tension • Empedoclean substances integrate many explanations, but also block further inquiry concerning those substances themselves • They are metaphysically basic, with no further explanations

5. Conceptual Barriers • We live with a conceptual heritage that blocks understanding of intentionality • This barrier puts us in a position that is akin to attempting to model fire with a better substance than phlogiston • So long as fire was conceived of as a substance, no satisfactory model was possible • Our conceptual situation with regard to mind is similar, but worse

6. The Western Substance Tradition • Parmenides argued that change cannot occur (arguing against Heraclitus) • For A to change into B, • A would have to disappear into nothingness, • and B emerge out of nothingness • Nothingness is not possible, it cannot exist • Therefore, change cannot occur • Lest you think that this is an odd argument, consider the difficulties that contemporary thought has with representing falsehoods or non-existents • Meinong, Russell, Wittgenstein, Fodor, etc.

7. In Response • There is an underlying substratum — substance — that does not change • Empedocles: divisible substance — stuff: • Earth, Air, Fire, Water • Democritus: indivisible substance • Atoms

8. This Frames Our World • Plato and Aristotle both took the Parmenidean argument very seriously • Aristotle’s substance model is much more sophisticated than Empedocles • Perhaps prime matter as basic unchanging substratum, for example • But descendents of substance and atom metaphysics frame thought today

9. Two Dirempted Realms • Substance makes change require special explanation • Substance makes emergence impossible • Substances can mix and remix, but there is no way to get a new substance • Factual substance is split off from intentional, normative, modal mind • Two fundamentally incompatible metaphysical realms are posited

10. Two Realms Still Dominant • Some have explicitly posited two realms • Aristotle: substance and form • Descartes: two kinds of substance • Kant: world and subject • Analytic: factual science and normative language • Some have tried to make do with just one side of the split • Green, Bradley: idealists — all is “mental” • Hobbes, Hume, Quine: all is factual • This “all is factual” (scientific) world assumption is our contemporary dominant framework

11. Process Metaphysics Re-integrates this Split • Change is default • Stability requires explanation • Emergence is ubiquitous • Every new organization of process has emergent properties, though not all will be of interest or importance • Emergence of normativity and intentionality within the natural world, thus the integration of the split, becomes possible

12. Stability of Process Organization • Energy Well Stability • E.g., Atoms • Far-from-equilibrium Stability • E.g., Self-organization in a chemical bath • Self-maintenant Stability • E.g., Candle Flame • Recursively Self-maintenant Stability • E.g., Bacterium

13. Emergence of Normative Function • Functional for X • Contributing to the maintenance of far from equilibrium conditions necessary for X • Function is specific to system • Heart beat of parasite is functional for parasite, dysfunctional for host • Compare: Etiological Models • E.g., Millikan

14. Emergence of Representational Truth Value • Recursive Self-maintenance • Selection of interaction, or indication of appropriateness of interaction, will be functional in some environments, but not in others • That is, the presuppositions of such selection or indication will sometimes be True and sometimes False • This is the emergence of representational normativity out of functional normativity

15. Content • Indications of appropriateness presuppose that this environment has the conditions in which the functionality holds • These presuppositions are representational content; they are predicated of the environment • They are implicit, not explicit

16. Contrast: Encodingism • Encodingism: The assumption that (all) representation is encoding • Example: Morse code • “...” encodes “S” • Representation constituted in some kind of encoding correspondence • causal, nomological, informational, conventional • Motivated by Substance Approach • Signet Ring in Wax • Transduction

17. Problems with Encodingism • Myriads of fatal problems: • All such correspondences are logically external, thus require interpreter, which initiates a vicious regress • Too many correspondences • Possibility of error • Possibility of system detectable error • Skepticism/ idealism • Piaget’s ‘copy’ problem • Incoherence • Possibility of emergence • Innatism is not a solution

18. Internal Relations • Green & Bradley: • Everything internally related to everything • Including representation to represented • \ change in representation entails change in represented • Strongly rejected by Russell • Rare since Quine

19. Interactive Representation • Interactive content is internally related to indications of interaction appropriateness • Internally related to content, not to represented • \ not subject to Russell’s complaints

20. Mentality in the Central Nervous System • Evolutionary problem of interaction selection and guidance • Requires anticipation of potential interactions available for selection • Frog • Requires timing in guidance of interaction • Turing machines, and equivalents, have sequence, but no timing

21. Anticipation and Timing • How does the brain accomplish these? • Not by way of passive threshold switch neurons • Discrete computationalism does not suffice • And, in any case, that is a false model of central nervous system microfunctioning

22. The Brain Doesn’t Work that Way • The functioning of the brain cannot be understood in terms of neurons as threshold switches. • Neurons don't work that way, and, in addition, neurons are not the only functional units in the brain.

23. Microgenesis • When we look at how the brain actually functions, we find strong support for an alternative - microgenetic - model of central nervous system functioning. • Microgenesis, in turn, has strong implications for the nature of representation and cognition. It forces an interactive, pragmatic model of representation.

24. Functional Processes in the Brain • Neurons as: • Threshold switches • Connectionist nodes • Frequency encoders • All have in common the assumption that neurons are input processors • And that neurons are the only functional units

25. Both Are Wrong • Neurons are endogenously active • In multiple ways • They do not just process inputs • And neurons are not the only functional units • Glia, for example, are also functional, not just supportive

26. Neurons • Oscillators • Resonators • Modulations of endogenous activity, not switches of otherwise inert units • Turing machine power • Timing

27. Neurons II • Silent neurons • Volume transmitters • L-Dopa • Graded release of transmitters • Gap junctions • Why multiple transmitters if all synapses are classical? • Transmitters evolved from hormones • Classical synapses evolved from volume transmitters

28. Astrocytes (Glia) • Receive transmitters • Emit transmitters • Form functional “bubbles” • Gap junction connections • Calcium waves • Modulate synaptogenesis • Modulate synaptic functioning • Release, uptake, degree of volume diffusion, …

29. Multiple Scales • These are all modulatory influences at multiple scales • Large and small spatial scales • Slow and fast temporal scales • There are also variations in delay times • Evolution has created a large tool box of multiple kinds and scales of modulatory influences

30. Microgenesis II • Larger and slower processes set the context for smaller and faster processes • They set the parameters for the faster and smaller processes • Ion and transmitter concentrations • Modes of synaptic functioning • They generate vast concurrent micro-modes of processing across the brain: Microgenesis

31. Dynamic Programming • Parameter setting for dynamic processes is the dynamic equivalent of programming in a discrete system • Microgenesis sets and changes the programs across the brain • Microgenesis is ongoing and occurs in real time

32. Functional Anticipation • Microgenetic set-up may or may not be appropriate to the actual flow of interactive processing that occurs in the organism • Microgenesis is functionally anticipatory • The anticipation is that the microgenetic set-up will be appropriate

33. Anticipation and Timing • Thus, microgenetic set up is anticipatory • Generating emergent truth value and content • Modulation of oscillatory processes has inherent timing • Controlling interaction in a real temporal world

34. Interactive Flow • Contentful • Situated • Embodied • From a Point of View • Experiential Flow • Primary Consciousness

35. Anticipative Visual Interaction • Visual experiencing • Gibson • Piaget: small object • Straight line • Red • O’Regan

36. Reflective Consciousness • Second Level Interaction • Age 3.5 • Some Macro-Functional Circuitry • Properties of Experiencing • Experienced in Reflection • Qualities of Experiencing - Qualia

37. Qualia • Constitutive of Experiencing And Properties of Experiencing • Ontological Circularity • Very hard problem

38. Dissolve the Hard Problems of Consciousness • Zombies • Inverted and other disordered qualia • Assume externally related properties of experiencing • Qualia problem is hard because of assumptions that entail an ontological circularity • Both are dissolved by this model

39. Conclusions — Representation • Interactive model of representation • Accounts for Emergence of Representation • Accounts for System Detectable Error • Internally related content • Avoids Interpreter

40. Conclusions — Consciousness • Captures properties of experiencing • Contentful, situated, point of view, … • Renders zombies and disordered qualia impossible • Accounts for Qualia • Dissolves ontological circularity in standard assumptions • Makes consciousness as a part of the natural world much less mysterious

41. Conclusions — Naturalism • Intentionality and consciousness are natural phenomena • But can be understood so only within a process metaphysics • That makes change the default • That makes emergence possible • And that makes normative, intentional emergence (thermodynamically) natural