Causal Closure Research Articles

Cosmopsychism and the Laws of Physics: A Hylomorphic Perspective

I outline a hylomorphic account of physical reality in which the cosmos as a whole has mental properties which explain its nomological order. According to this theory, the cosmos is directed in its temporal development toward certain ends or goals which it intends, and these ends are immanent to the cosmos rather than being imposed upon it. My object in doing so is to argue that, contrary to Sean Carroll (2021), a view of physical reality as having intrinsically mental aspects need not induce any modifications of the known laws of physics nor violate 'causal closure' under physical laws. Rather, this soft form of naturalism, which includes final causes within nature, provides a foundation for the laws of physics that is lacking in Carroll's hard form of naturalism, which excludes mind from fundamental reality. I propose a trilemma for Carroll in which he should either: abandon naturalism, by admitting that the laws of physics are imposed by a divine mind; abandon realism, by conceding that 'laws' are constructed by human minds; or embrace cosmopsychism, by acknowledging that the cosmos as a whole instantiates a mind. I argue that cosmic hylomorphism, which links consciousness with intentional cognition, is preferable to non-hylomorphic versions of cosmopsychism, which tend to prioritize consciousness over intentionality.

The Real 'Hard Problem' of Consciousness: Where Do Thoughts Come From, if Not the Brain?

This article argues that contemporary debates of the 'hard problem' of consciousness (i.e.how does 'mindless' matter produce 'matterless' mind?) cannot be resolved through philosophical analysis alone and need to be anchored to a comprehensive empirical foundation that includes psychophysiological research of psychosomatic phenomena and exceptional human experience. First, alternative perspectives on the mind–matter question and reasons why traditional formulations of the 'hard problem' have been so difficult to resolve are reviewed. Empirical evidence of mind modulation of bodily systems and its implications for the classical quantitative–qualitative distinction and construct of causal closure are then considered. A novel theory that combines bottom-up (panpsychism) and top-down (non-theistic panenpsychism) approaches relating physical processes to mental activity is then proposed that has practical implications for conceiving and exploring alternatives to current ways of thinking about the mind–matter question.

The Nominalist Limit of Kim’s Ontological Physicalism

Abstract Kim’s Ontological Physicalism (OP) presents itself as a naturalistic and monistic metaphysical framework, aligned with the causal closure of the universe and rejecting causally efficacious “exotic” properties. The foundational ontology is, in turn, monistic and materialistic, positing that the universe is composed solely of material particulars: bits of matter. In this work, we identify a notable tension between OP’s intended model and the one OP specifies. Initially, we show how the theory inevitably becomes entangled with higher-order entities, not just particulars. Kim introduces the Supervenience Argument (SA) to counteract the possibility of higher-order entities being causally efficacious. While SA proves to be a plausible strategy, it is ultimately inadequate: not only SA is a petitio principii against emergence, but it is also unsound and invalid. Therefore, we propose a formal strategy to restore its ontological effectiveness. Unfortunately, at a closer look, even this strategy falls short as it unwarrantedly assumes the logicality and invariance of those equivalence relations (such as identity, similarity, and congruence) which are crucial for specifying the theory’s model as composed of particulars.

‘Quantum of information’ functionality as a measure of subjectivity beyond the capabilities of deep learning

The potential of conscious artificial intelligence (AI), with its functional systems that surpass automation and rely on elements of understanding, is a beacon of hope in the AI revolution. The shift from automation to conscious AI, once replaced with machine understanding, offers a future where AI can comprehend without needing to experience, thereby revolutionizing the field of AI. In this context, the proposed Dynamic Organicity Theory of consciousness (DOT) stands out as a promising and novel approach for building artificial consciousness that is more like the brain with physiological nonlocality and diachronicity of self-referential causal closure. However, deep learning algorithms utilize "black box" techniques such as “dirty hooks” to make the algorithms operational by discovering arbitrary functions from a trained set of dirty data rather than prioritizing models of consciousness that accurately represent intentionality as intentions-in-action. The limitations of the “black box” approach in deep learning algorithms present a significant challenge as quantum information biology, or intrinsic information, is associated with subjective physicalism and cannot be predicted with Turing computation. This paper suggests that deep learning algorithms effectively decode labeled datasets but not dirty data due to unlearnable noise, and encoding intrinsic information is beyond the capabilities of deep learning. New models based on DOT are necessary to decode intrinsic information by understanding meaning and reducing uncertainty. The process of “encoding” entails functional interactions as evolving informational holons, forming informational channels in functionality space of time consciousness. The “quantum of information” functionality is the motivity of (negentropic) action as change in functionality through thermodynamic constraints that reduce informational redundancy (also referred to as intentionality) in informational pathways. It denotes a measure of epistemic subjectivity towards machine understanding beyond the capabilities of deep learning.

Some necessary constructs of consciousness as defined in the dynamic organicity theory

The Dynamic Organicity Theory (DOT) explains consciousness as a process that cannot be reduced to a thing or a structure. This process, called the Polanyian process, involves the evolving diachronic boundary conditions of our experienceability. These boundary conditions are ontologically intertwined with higher-level boundary conditions, which lead to physiological nonlocal cause-and-effect relationships. Thus, adaptive changes occur when self-referential causal closure transforms syntactic structures into experienceable forms. Self-referential causal closure is a causal agent for diachronic boundary conditions that majorly structure intrinsic information in ways that experienceabilities are across time, suggesting that consciousness is not driven by an “internal clock” or regular biological rhythm but rather by intrinsic intentionality preceding path selection through a non-mechanical force of hidden thermodynamic energy that cascades to form a volitional agency of information-based action due to the gain of hidden intrinsic information. The process of transforming syntactical structures to experienceable forms in intrinsic informational pathways is conflated with nonlinear time, and its structuring defines the functionality of the brain. Consciousness-in-the-moment is an “averaging out” between different informational pathways involved across such nonlinear time. The transduction of quantum potential information as negentropic action is a motif for “potential complexity” to decrease the maximum complexity (derived from the brain structure, dynamics, and function) due to the reduction of uncertainty. Given that the functionality of maximum complexity lacks the self-referential causal closure to be a volitional agent needed for precognitive consciousness, it is proposed that negentropic entanglement unifies experienceabilities so that the functionality of multiscale complexity is greater than the functionality of maximum complexity. This may be enough to produce consciousness in organic systems.

Dualism, the Causal Closure of the Physical, and Philip Goff’s Case for Panpsychism

Abstract The article discusses Philip Goff’s latest projects of developing panpsychist research program as one that is capable of revealing the place of consciousness in the physical world and accounting for the intrinsic nature of physical reality, while avoiding the problem of the causal closure of the physical that is supposed to be pernicious for psychophysical dualism. The case is made that on the one hand, dualism has pretty good resources to meet the inductive no-gap objection appealing to the causal closure, while on the other hand, insofar as this objection has some force, panpsychism in the forms discussed in Goff’s book Galileo’s Error (Goff, P. 2019. Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. New York: Pantheon Books) faces nearly the same difficulties and its capability of overcoming these difficulties is problematic. While the hybrid cosmopsychism, as developed in Goff’s later manuscript, circumvents the causal closure problem, it does so at the price of relying on assumptions that are hardly intelligible.

Causal closure in panpsychism

Causal closure in panpsychism

The Fluid Margin between Physical Causal Closure and Non-Physical Causal Closure, extended to The Neutrosophic Causal Closure Principle

We plead for a fluid margin, or mixed/indeterminate buffer zone, between Physical and Non-Physical Causal Closures, and for a Neutrosophic Causal Closure Principle claiming that the chances of all physical effects are determined by their prior partially physical and partially non-physical causes.

The Mental Causality Exclusion Argument and the Levels of Organization of Living Objects

The paper aims to demonstrate the possibility of consistently accepting the existence of effective mental causality in the fundamentally physical world. We suppose that the concept of causality in J. Kim’s exclusion argument against mental causation, which implies а generative conception of causal relations, can be revised taking into account the specificity of the multilevel organization of living objects. Rejection of the mechanistic model of causality as a linear process, allows you to maintain commitment to the principle of causal closure of the physical world and at the same time explain how top-down causality at the macro level is possible. For this, we use the model of a fractal tree of causal chains by J. Lowe, in which mental causality plays the role of an indirect cause of a fact. We carry out a meaningful distinction between the causality of facts and events by resorting to the multilevel model of J. Ellis, in which mental causality can be considered as a macro-level fact that has a selective effect on physical events of lower levels, taking into account a wide environmental context.

Efficient, Formal, Material, and Final Causes in Biology and Technology.

This paper considers how a classification of causal effects as comprising efficient, formal, material, and final causation can provide a useful understanding of how emergence takes place in biology and technology, with formal, material, and final causation all including cases of downward causation; they each occur in both synchronic and diachronic forms. Taken together, they underlie why all emergent levels in the hierarchy of emergence have causal powers (which is Noble's principle of biological relativity) and so why causal closure only occurs when the upwards and downwards interactions between all emergent levels are taken into account, contra to claims that some underlying physics level is by itself causality complete. A key feature is that stochasticity at the molecular level plays an important role in enabling agency to emerge, underlying the possibility of final causation occurring in these contexts.

No-Go Theorems on Machine Consciousness

Creating machines that are conscious is a long-term objective of research in artificial intelligence. This paper looks at this idea with new arguments from physics and logic. Observers have no place in classical physics, and although they play a role in measurement in quantum physics there is no explanation for their emergence within the framework. There is a suggestion that consciousness, which is implicitly a property of the observer, is a consequence of the complexity of specific brain structures, but this is problematic because one associates free will with consciousness, which goes counter to the causal closure of physics. Considering a nested physical system, we argue that even if the system were assumed to have agency, observers cannot exist within it. Since complex systems can be viewed in nested hierarchies, this constitutes a proof against consciousness as a product of complexity, for then we will have nested system of conscious agents. As the existence of consciousness in cognitive agents cannot be denied, the implication is that consciousness belongs to a dimension that is not physical and machine consciousness is unattainable. These ideas are used to take a fresh look at two well-known paradoxes of quantum theory that are important in quantum information theory.

Substance metaphysics is incompatible with the causal closure of the metaphysical realm

The present paper argues that substantialist metaphysics are in tension with the physicalist idea that the universe is causally closed. The argument is a rather specific one and proceeds through three steps. The first step consists in arguing that monistic substance metaphysics allow for the existence of entities that cannot belong to the intended first order domain. This result sensitively depends on the nature of substances as invariant entities. The second step concludes that, if further domains are to be admitted, then they are inhabited by “higher” or (systematically) “nonstandard” entities and that, in both cases if not made somehow innocuous, such entities may take part on the metaphysical construction of the world through their own distinctive properties and causal powers. However, this latter claim is in contradiction with causal closure. But closure is the principle that mainly characterizes physicalist approaches in metaphysics and as such physicalist metaphysics cannot get rid of it. Who attempted making exotic properties and causal powers innocuous usually appealed to the Supervenience Argument. Unfortunately, as the third step proves, this argument is invalid. Finally, the paper looks forward and toward alternative models for physicalist metaphysics, like processbased models.
 Keywords: Metaphysics of Quantities, Abstraction Principles, Locationism.

On Emergence, Again

AbstractThe aim of the present paper is twofold. First, we are interested in assessing the validity of one version of Kim’s argument against genuine higher level causation. Second, we discuss Wilson’s proposal to consider a weaker notion of emergence as genuinely metaphysical and compatible with Non-Reductive Physicalism. Our conclusion is that both proposals fail: the first in preempting genuine (strong) emergent causation, whereas the second in ensuring a genuinely metaphysical status to weak emergence. After all, Wilson’s proposal strongly depends on the success of Kim’s, not only because it takes it as valid but, also, because in pursuing its own weaker model it shares the presuppositions that led Kim’s to failure. At the end of the day, Wilson’s conception of genuine weak emergence either breaks causal closure or is merely stipulative, namely confined at the descriptive level.

Mind-brain identity theory confirmed?

Presented here is a novel graphical, structural, and functional model of the embodied mind. Despite strictly adhering to a physicalistic and reductionist approach, this model successfully resolves the apparent contradiction between the thesis regarding the causal closure of the physical realm and the widely held common-sense belief that the mental realm can influence physical behavior. Furthermore, it substantiates the theory of mind-brain identity while shedding light on its neural foundation. Consciousness, viewed as an epiphenomenon in certain respects, simultaneously possesses causal potency. These two aspects operate concurrently through distinct brain processes. Within the paper, particular emphasis is placed on the significance of qualia and emotions, accompanied by an explanation of their phenomenal nature grounded in the perceptual theory of emotions. The proposed model elucidates how autonomous agents can deliberate on various action scenarios and consciously select the most optimal ones for themselves, considering their knowledge of the world, motivations, preferences, and emotions.

Kim and the Pairing Problem for Dualism

The philosophical history of metaphysics of mind can be narrowed into two problems: Mind and body causation and issues of the self or persons. Due to the rise of the scientific revolution the nature of mental states and its possessors has been reduced to brain and cognitive functioning or eliminated instead of the ontological basic substance of a soul. The other criticism of soul identity or substance dualism is the problem of mental causation. In The Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism (2018), Jaegwon Kim argues against the intelligibility of Cartesian dualism and further extends that argument to any form of substance dualism by raising the question of mental causation or the traditional mind-body problem. His main attack comes from the essence of mind and the causal closure of the physical, together these provide an argument against the non-physical view of persons. The question, “can mental events cause physical events?” Is a problem for the dualist which he calls “the pairing problem.” Since causation requires a spatiotemporal relation between two bodies, and mind and body are distinct substances or properties, there’s no cause-and-effect pairing relation between minds and physical objects or bodies. Thus, according to Kim, the essence of an immaterial thinking substance, such as a soul, is unintelligible and should be rejected since it fails to answer the pairing problem. However, Kim has a misunderstanding of substance dualist views of the independent ontological status of a substantial self or soul. Further, Kim’s challenge does not take into account a causal powers ontology in which primitive is the free agentive causal subject. I’ll argue that a soul, though embodied, is a non-material primitive substance that has basic faculties to exemplify mental properties. One of the faculties of the soul is the instantiation of active agency. Further, the postulation of Gods existence, having a metaphysical internal structure and powers, is grounds for the existence of a soul with its own metaphysical, unified structure in which the dispositional properties of consciousness are located and exemplified. I conclude that mental causation is a coherent notion especially in light of the active powers of agent causation. Thus, Kim’s problem of mental causation becomes no problem at all.

Methodological Naturalists Need Not Commit to Metaphysical Naturalism

In their paper “Should Methodological Naturalists Commit to Metaphysical Naturalism?” Zargar et al. try to show that the correct answer to the question that the title of their paper poses is positive. They argue that methodological naturalism has a metaphysical presupposition, namely causal closure, and an epistemological consequence, namely evidentialism. Causal closure and evidentialism imply metaphysical naturalism. Thus, they conclude, one who believes in methodological naturalism should also endorse causal closure, evidentialism, and metaphysical naturalism as a result. In this paper, I criticize their argument and argue that it is deficient in (at least) two different ways. First, what they consider to be methodological naturalism is in fact a strawman: that is another – more radical – thesis that may be called methodological anti-supernaturalism. Second, and most importantly, even methodological anti-supernaturalism does not in essence need causal closure for its justification. Then, methodological naturalists are not required to adhere to causal closure or metaphysical naturalism.

The Fluid Margin between Physical Causal Closure and Non-Physical Causal Closure, extended to The Neutrosophic Causal Closure Principle

The Fluid Margin between Physical Causal Closure and Non-Physical Causal Closure, extended to The Neutrosophic Causal Closure Principle

Coherence of Substance Dualism

Many contemporary philosophers of mind disagree with substance dualism, saying that despite the failure of physical theories of mind, substance dualism cannot be advocated, because it faces more serious problems than physical theories, lacking compatibility with philosophical arguments and scientific evidence. Regardless of the validity of the arguments in support of substance dualism, it is demonstrated in this article that this theory is coherent, with no philosophical or scientific problems. The main arguments of opponents of substance dualism are explained and criticized in this respect. Based on this, it becomes clear that the interaction of soul and body has a reasonable philosophical explanation, the problem of the pairing of soul and body, although it may not have a scientific explanation, it has a philosophical and theological solution, the principle of the physical causal closure lacks conclusive reasons and cannot reject the existence of the soul, the existence of the soul does not contradict the theory of evolution, the dependence of the soul on the brain is compatible with its independence, and finally, the principle of simplicity does not make any problem for accepting the substance dualism.

The Argument from the Functionality of Explanation and the Causal Closure Argument

The Argument from the Functionality of Explanation and the Causal Closure Argument

The Role of Quantum Mechanics in Understanding the Phenomenon of Consciousness

The article analyzes the effectiveness of quantum theories of mental experience in relation to two ontological problems - the problem of the existence of consciousness in the material world and the problem of the interaction of consciousness and body. A critical analysis of the quantum theories of consciousness by Penrose-Hameroff, M. Tegmark, G. Stapp, M. Fischer and M.B. Mensky shows that they fail to fully explain how complex physical systems generate mental experience without violating the principle of causal closure of the physical world and the principle of epistemological completeness of physics. Quantum mechanics provides specific processes that are the physical basis of the psyche, but do not explain the phenomenal aspect of subjective reality. Nevertheless, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle gives an understanding of how the interaction of consciousness and body within the scientific picture of the world can be carried out without violating the law of energy conservation. It is shown that the quantum theories of consciousness currently being developed have a predominantly panprotopsychic character, which faces a problem due to the fact that the protomental property of physical systems must be expressed quantitatively and correspond to the value included in the physical equations. As a result, it is concluded that in order to develop quantum theories of consciousness more effectively, it is necessary to give an emergent character, not jumping from the quantum level to the psychic, but explaining the mechanism of the emergence of systemic properties during the sequential transition between different ontological regions of existence, including physical, chemical, biological, neurophysiological and psychic.