Introduction
In Qualia in Temporal Naturalism (Part 1: Towards Cosmoprotopsychism), I described a heuristic cosmoprotopsychic model where phenomenal consciousness internal to biological structures can potentially be explained via self-organization of protophenomenal consciousness intrinsic to the cosmic scale. The particular details of such a mechanism were motivated by Lee Smolin’s hypothesis of qualia being physically correlated to unprecedented events in the context of his and Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s philosophical framework of ‘temporal naturalism’.
In this article, I will argue that unlike traditional physicalism, the temporal naturalization of qualia can reasonably avoid qualia and modal arguments against physicalism; as well as shed light on qualia absence arguments against functionalism. Some of the strategy for counter-argumentation will closely resemble David Lewis’ materialism.
For brevity, I will roughly continue from the point where the previous post concluded. However, I will explicitly lay out summaries where possible, for autonomy. In terms of the University of Waterloo PHIL 255 (Philosophy of Mind) course content, I will implicitly, by virtue of continuation, refer to Dennett (1997), Chalmers (TED, 2014), Brentano (2015) and Millikan (1989). In the direct construction of the argument in this article, explicit references will be made to Kim (1992), Fodor (1974), Block (1978, 2002), Searle (2002), Nagel (1974), Jackson (1982), Lewis (1999) and Kripke (1980). On the other hand, external references will be identical to those in the previous post.
Recap of temporal qualia
A temporal universe is a singular (i.e. non-plural) universe in flux, with mutable natural kinds and variable nomic character to inclusively causal processes. Smolin’s Principle of Precedents (PoP) is a non-nomic law (i.e. a stochastic law acting on system tokens and not types 1) which dictates that the updated state of a system be chosen randomly from the updated states of prior occurrences of such a system given its causal profile — i.e., the system’s precedents. Effectively, such a mechanism allows an unstable, non-nomic cosmic phase such as the Big Bang to self-organize into a stable, nomic (lawlike-evolving) phase where simple systems have so many precedents that they roughly evolve like in the past and across members of types. Therefore, evolutionary reasoning, only in stable situations, is compatible with structural reasoning based on fixed mathematical theories.
The relevance of this framework to the philosophy of mind is that qualia may be explainable, at least partly, in terms of unprecedented events. In their highly sustained, non-nomic evolution, unprecedented events evolve as the coming-to-be of novel events, which could be correlated to the phenomenal experience of time. Even more significantly, unprecedented events escape the nomological net of lawlike evolution which only effectively applies to highly precedented events. Therefore, unprecedented events could conceivably be correlated to intrinsic qualities such as protoconsciousness, acting as grounds for the categorization of relational systems — thereby amounting to Russellian monism. This would not a priori contradict what we already know about purely relational quantities studied in traditional physics.
Jackson’s knowledge argument
By virtue of temporal qualia being ‘quiddities’ i.e. non-relational properties 2 in the spirit of Russellian monism, one can avoid Jackson’s knowledge argument (1982) as follows. In the famous setup, Mary is not sentient about colour studies even if she knows all there is to know about the dispositional properties of colour perception events, whether at a microcausal level of description or non-reductive, functional level of organization. This is because she is not yet aware of the Russellian monist’s non-dispositional, experiential qualities associated with colour perception events — which are part of an extended psychophysical reality.
In a Leibnizian relationalism, distinct events have distinct configurations of causal profile + internal properties. In Russellian monism, these internal properties can categorize causal systems with the fundamental substrate being psychophysical; this is a form of dual-aspect monism where physical systems are categorized based on their mentality.
In temporal naturalism, a weak form of this argument is that at the descriptive, i.e. extrinsic level 3, Mary does not know how colour perception events are correlated to unprecedented events in the physical substrate. However, knowledge of such intrinsic properties can be demanded by modifying the knowledge argument, shifting the problem of capture in the causal net of physicalist knowledge to internal properties. In response, a stronger but more speculative temporal naturalistic argument could be that either qualia are only effectively macro-internal but do have causal efficacy over long periods of time, i.e., only approximately epiphenomena (as argued in the previous post); or, even if they are fundamentally intrinsic, it is not a priori contradictory to suppose that Mary finds some way to access the intrinsic categorization of dispositional systems with colour perception, so that she can somehow induce in herself a phenomenal state that at the physical substrate corresponds to the novel character of the events experiencing said state internally.
In other words, if qualia are psychophysically correlated to unprecedented events, that qualia lack causal efficacy does not prevent us from utilizing its physical correlate, which does have causal efficacy, to cause in Mary a physical correlation which in turn will be correlated to her internal qualia 4. However, since local hidden variables (which are non-relational properties only be correlated via local processes like signal transmission) have been falsified with statistical significance since the work of John Bell in quantum theory (1964), we must expect that at least some instances of the internal residue of qualia can be nonlocally correlated, which is an empirically falsifiable hypothesis 5! Therefore, a temporal naturalistic approach to qualia seems to have not only metaphysical but also empirical, scientific aspects!
Nagel’s perspectical subjectivity argument
Although arguments of the above kind probably set a standard Russellian monistic direction for countering knowledge arguments (see Alter & Coleman, 2019), Nagel’s problem, of the perspectival subjectivity of qualia as tokens, remains. The phenomenally particular experiences of a bat, which are rigid descriptors by virtue of the bat being itself (in other words, the subjectivity of a first-person experience), cannot be identical to correlated states of Mary (even if she is a bat), whether physical or phenomenal — unless the rigid descriptor ‘Mary’ is necessarily identical to the rigid descriptor corresponding to the bat, i.e., Mary is the bat experiencing the first-person perspective of the psychophysical world.
However, temporal naturalism can accept the Nagelian thesis without compromise and in fact, with added explanatory power — it is precisely because qualia are correlated to novelty that correlated mental states cannot have the same phenomenal character! Equivalently, maximally phenomenal systems are also maximally unprecedented and therefore, unital classes. By rejecting the thesis of principled omniscience via knowledge by description or ‘correlated acquaintance’ alone, a Russellian categorization of distinct tokens of internal experience is precisely what temporal naturalism seems to provide. This, again, leads to the empirical hypothesis that somehow, Mary’s correlated-to-bat phenomenal state should somehow reduce the novelty and hence, phenomenal character of the bat’s actual state in real time, perhaps in the manner of nonlocal hidden variables in quantum theory!
Kripke’s modal argument
Now, consider the following short, related argument we can construct against Kripke’s modal argument. Even if the rigid descriptor ‘Mary’s phenomenal experience of pain’ is modally distinct from the rigid descriptor ‘Mary’s so-and-so psychophysical state’, such distinctness does not follow for the rigid descriptors ‘Mary’s internal experience of pain + the causal profile of the pain’s non-internal residue’ and ‘Mary’s corresponding unprecedented psychophysical state’. In other words, necessary correlation (at least effective in some stable cosmic phase) of a token of experience given a psychophysical state can ensure that the experience and psychophysical correlate are not conceivably separable.
Qualia Absence Arguments Against Functionalism
In this section, I will shortly describe how temporal qualia challenge Searle’s (2002) and support Block’s (2002) qualia absence arguments against functionalism.
Against Searle’s semantical argument
A computer is an incredibly complicated system, making it unreasonable to a priori reject the possibility that every time a computer is operated, it results in an event without precedents. Therefore, it is possible that complicated artificial systems, in principle, have P-consciousness. However, contrary to Searle, this is perfectly compatible with such complex computers not possessing A-consciousness, an aspect of which is intentionality (Block, 1978).
This is further supported by the evolutionary aspect of temporal naturalistic explanations: how reproducing, gene-transmitting organisms evolved to coevally develop intentionality and P-consciousness (possibly by virtue of how intentional systems can quickly self-organize into unprecedented systems due to their complexity) is not necessarily of the same nature as how systems with their complexity derivative from pre-existing novel systems (computers produced ‘abruptly’ in the biological and cosmic time scale) can gain P-consciousness without A-consciousness. Informally, instead of needing A-consciousness to accumulate novelty and ultimately P-consciousness, artificial computers possess an initial ‘head start’ in novelty by being in appropriate causal contact with other novel systems (factories and ultimately, P-conscious humans 6).
Block’s conceivability arguments
Related to the above, what makes functionalism liberal is that functional descriptions fail to capture the psychophysical details of systems necessary to judge novelty. In fact, the more complex the novel systems under consideration, the more relevance will be the fineness of differences of such systems have for difference in mentality, as there would be a corresponding fineness to the gradation of systems from novel to nomic. This suggests that the functional properties can describe novelty and hence, at least part of mentality for relatively simple systems, only if they seem to be P-conscious and continue to be so when evolving towards increasing novelty with some fixed functional character. The former situation would then act as a control and eliminate the correlation of P-consciousness to novelty as opposed to functional profiles. While this may indeed be the character of some systems in the current phase of the universe, it is yet another empirically falsifiable counterargument to temporal qualia!
References
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In a Leibnizian, relational network of events, there cannot be simultaneous events with identical causal profile, as this would violate the identity of indiscernibles. Therefore, how PoP acts on a system, while depending on its precedent type, is itself a token statement, as it does not apply to any simultaneous system that is distinct at the finest causal level of description. ↩
Here, quiddities and non-relational properties will refer to those not deducible, for any event, from the properties of causally related events. Such non-relational properties may nonetheless have causal efficacy. Non-causal and non-relational properties are termed ‘internal’ properties in Smolin’s papers (2015, 2022). ↩
I.e., a level of description at which we can access relational and intrinsic properties i.e. those with causal efficacy, without knowing what it is like to be the event/events with the property, in the sense of Nagel, 1974. ↩
Notice the similarity of this argument to Lewis: “Having an experience is surely one good way, and surely the only practical way, of coming to know what that experience is like. Can we say, flatly, that it is the only possible way? Probably not. There is a change that takes place in you when you have the experience and thereby come to know what it’s like. Perhaps the exact same change could in principle be produced in you by precise neurosurgery, very far beyond the limits of present-day technique. Or it could possibly be produced in you by magic. If we ignore the laws of nature, which are after all contingent, then there is no necessary connection between cause and effect: anything could cause anything.” ↩
This is an instance of temporal naturalism’s power of empirical falsifiability, broadly resulting from choosing evolutionary explanations over structural explanations with supra-empirical, timeless metaphysics. ↩
Such naturalization of P-consciousness has the advantage that artificial computers now do not seem so ‘artificial’ after all — they merely have a very different natural history from biologically P-conscious organisms, in terms of self-organizability. Since self-organization has to do with how novelty and consciousness show up in evolving systems, these two modes of organization of presumably P-conscious systems — biological and ‘artificial’ — can result in different degrees of A-consciousness. ↩