Abstract
Within recent discussions in the Philosophy of Mind, the nature of conscious phenomenal states or qualia (also called ‘raw feels’ or the feel of ‘what it is like to be’) has been an important focus of interest. Proponents of Mind-Body Type-Identity theories have claimed that mental states can be reduced to neurophysiological states of the brain. Others have denied that such a reduction is possible; for them, there remains an explanatory gap. In this paper, functionalist, physicalist, epiphenomenalist, and biological models of the mind are discussed and compared. Donald Davidson’s Anomalous Monism is proposed as a unifying framework for a non-reductive theory of qualia and consciousness. Downward Causation, Emergence through Symmetry-breaking, and Dynamical Systems Theory are used to show how consciousness and qualia emerge from their neural substrate and can also be causally efficacious.
Highlights
In his Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein, while discussing the relation between consciousness and the brain, writes: “The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process: how does it come about that this does not come into the considerations of our ordinary life? This idea of a difference in kind is accompanied by slight giddiness, – which occurs when we are performing a piece of logical sleight-of-hand” [1]
Davidson anomalous monism and nonlinear complex dynamical systems, qualia and consciousness can emerge and be causally active is shown in a final part, where downward causation and symmetry-breaking in the embodiment of the mental [7] are suggested as possible mechanisms involved
Again, when Davidson makes a plea for the anomalism of the mental he is not, in our view, claiming that there are no laws whatsoever, but only that these laws do not line up with the strict laws of physics. What this discussion of Davidson's anomalous monism shows is that the idea of the epiphenomenalism of the mental and the supposed lack of causal powers of mental states and qualia may be due to a one-sided idea of the relation between the mental and physical, a further discussion of which may help us to reveal something of the true nature of the mental
Summary
In his Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein, while discussing the relation between consciousness and the brain, writes: “The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process: how does it come about that this does not come into the considerations of our ordinary life? This idea of a difference in kind is accompanied by slight giddiness, – which occurs when we are performing a piece of logical sleight-of-hand” [1]. It is here that the theory of nonlinear complex dynamical systems, which is discussed becomes relevant This theory does not want to identify consciousness (and qualia) with neural states and nor does it want them to be completely independent of each other while explicitly aiming at avoiding epiphenomenalism. Davidson anomalous monism and nonlinear complex dynamical systems, qualia and consciousness can emerge and be causally active is shown in a final part, where downward causation and symmetry-breaking in the embodiment of the mental [7] are suggested as possible mechanisms involved. Subsequent scientific investigations showed that DNA was responsible for this transmission and that it did the job that was required This kind of explanation of mental states is underpinned by the principle of mind-body supervenience, which is shared by many functionalists and non-functionalists [8]
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