Qualitative Attribution, Phenomenal Experience and Being

Mark Pharoah

doi:10.1007/s12304-018-9344-9

Abstract

I argue that the physiological, phenomenal and conceptual constitute a trichotomous hierarchy of emergent categories. I claim that each category employs a distinctive type of interactive mechanism that facilitates a meaningful kind of environmental discourse. I advocate, therefore, that each have a causal relation with the environment but that their specific class of mechanism qualifies distinctively the meaningfulness of that interaction and subsequent responses. Consequently, I argue that the causal chain of physical interaction feeds distinctive value-laden constructions that are ontologically distinct for each category. Within the limitations of the interactive mechanisms of each category, increasingly sophisticated forms tend to evolve. The increase in sophistication in each category inevitably leads to the emergence of the novel mechanism particular to the next in the hierarchy. In essence, there is an emergent hierarchy of evolving categories delineated by the nature of their mechanism of environmental engagement. I argue that biochemical mechanisms have a tendency to evolve meaningfully, specifically in a way that is both qualitatively relevant and responsive to environmental particulars. I explain that these mechanisms set in play an organisational imperative that leads to the emergence of the capacity to evaluate and prioritise qualitative biochemical assimilations which, inevitably, generates a subjectively individuated experience phenomenon. I then relate this to the novel characteristics of the human perspective.

Highlights

If on a clear day I were to ask you, BWhere is the Sun?^, you might point to it and explain that your brain perceives by way of a complex of neurological and biochemical mechanisms
Concerning the aforementioned correspondence between plant and human, we begin by examining the meaningful correspondence that exists between the environment and organism physiology
I suggest that discourse describes any process whereby an interactive mechanism generates meaning—where Bmeaning^ is not some arbitrarily assigned status but is a status that is somehow justified for being of worth or value.2. This definition will be contextualised, but for we address whether a replicating lineage’s dynamic relationship with the environment counts as a kind of discourse

Summary

Introduction

If on a clear day I were to ask you, BWhere is the Sun?^, you might point to it and explain that your brain perceives by way of a complex of neurological and biochemical mechanisms. Nagel (1986) provides seminal treatment of this challenge He suggests, Bthat the concept of the self is open to objective ‘completion’ provided something can be found which straddles the subjective–objective gap^ Stjernfelt argues that to achieve this requires Bmediate concepts^ for philosophy to integrate, on the one hand, a mechanist physics which explains things only in causal terms, and on the other, what he calls Bjudging bodies^ within the physical world. He explains, Bthe very teleological orientation of judging makes it possible for judgments to find judgment-like processes in nature^ In Part III, I relate these ideas to the emergence of an evolving awareness of the embedded subjective self and existential world-view

Part I

Part II

A Third Ontological Category

Summary