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A new physicalism that can accommodate experience

A new physicalism that can accommodate experience. Anand Rangarajan University of Florida. The Problem of Experience. Inadequacy of present day science to deal with consciousness. Varieties of materialism unsatisfactory. Recent challenge from analytic philosophy

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A new physicalism that can accommodate experience

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  1. A new physicalism that can accommodate experience Anand Rangarajan University of Florida

  2. The Problem of Experience • Inadequacy of present day science to deal with consciousness. • Varieties of materialism unsatisfactory. • Recent challenge from analytic philosophy • Consciousness not logically supervenient on the physical (David Chalmers). • Varieties of idealism, panpsychism, dualism now back on the table.

  3. Approaches - a survey • Materialism • Emergence • Dualism • Idealism • Dual-aspect theories • Panpsychism • ????

  4. Logical Supervenience • “Consciousness not logically supervenient on the physical,” Chalmers 1996. • “Consciousness logically supervenient on the physical,” Stoljar 2006. • Contradictory on the surface. • Both point to a new physicalism.

  5. A new physicalism • Almost everything is logically supervenient on the physical. • Exception: Experience. • A Move: Construct a new physicalism that can accommodate experience. • Explanatory gap: Why should the new physicalism entail experience?

  6. A multiverse of possibilities • All that physics specifies is a measure on a set of possibilities or possible worlds. • Slogan: Multiverse as a quantum computer (Lloyd 2006). • Without an additional mechanism, multiverse has only possibilities - no actualities. • Decoherence not fully worked out.

  7. Do possibilities exist? • Elitzur-Vaidman bomb testing experiment If bomb is a dud, only D detects photon If only C detects the photon, bomb is not a dud Destructive interference at C only because both possibilities exist

  8. Phenomenology • Pure experience prior to cognitive elaboration (Husserl 1910). • Severely criticized by post-structuralism (Foucault ‘70). • Myth of the given (Sellars ‘56). • Can phenomenology be separated from point of view or perspective? • For us, no.

  9. Perspectives • Nietzschean and otherwise • Point of view • Conceptual frame of reference • Orients phenomenology - controversial. • Modal logic system S5 + perspectives (Hales) • Physical perspectives?

  10. Perspectives and Content • Given a set of possibilities and a measure on them, conceive of perspective as an operator. • Perspectives operate on possibilities or possible worlds. • Interaction generates experience (among other things).

  11. A Conceptual Contrast

  12. Scientific picture as construct Emergence of postmodern science? Shunyata as antidote to reification Emergence of tantra? Foucault and Nagarjuna

  13. Perspectives and the Multiverse • Need a “bottom up” physics to specify a measure on a set of possibilities or possible worlds: Check • Need a “top down” physics to specify a set of perspectives to operate on the possible worlds: Check • Each perspective has a point of view with actual phenomenal content: Experience

  14. Subjects Qualia/Intentionality Objects Properties/Processes Perspectives Phenomenology/Operations Multiverse Possibilities/Computations A Story We were once a simple, modern people Postmodernism and Quantum Gravity: “All that is Solid melts into Air” Is this PerVerse?

  15. Discussion • Perspectives operate on the multiverse • The multiverse informs perspectives • What are the relationships between the multiverse and perspectives? • Perspectives supervenient on the multiverse: Informationalism? • Multiverse supervenient on perspectives: Relativism? • Non-reductive and circular relationship?

  16. References • The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, David J. Chalmers, Oxford University Press, 1996. • Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Michel Foucault, Routledge Classics, 2001. • The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika, Jay L. Garfield, Oxford University Press, 1995. • The Disinterested Witness: A Fragment of Advaita Vedanta Phenomenology, Bina Gupa, Northwestern University Press, 1998. • Nietzsche’s Perspectivism, Steven D. Hales and Rex Welshon, University of Illinois Press, 2000. • Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos, Seth Lloyd, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. • Ignorance and Imagination: The Epistemic Origin of the Problem of Consciousness, Daniel Stoljar, Oxford University Press, 2006. • Integral Spirituality, Ken Wilber, Integral Books, 2006.

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