PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF A PROBABILISTIC INTERACTIONIST ACCOUNT OF MENTAL CAUSATION

Dejan R. Dimitrijević

DOI Number
https://doi.org/10.2298/FUPCT2301077D
First page
077
Last page
087

Abstract


The strongest support to the metaphysical thesis of physicalism – the argument from the causal closure of the physical – is shown to be effective only against the accounts of mental causation manifested in the action of forces. An interactionist account of mental causation based on probabilistic considerations of anomalous correlations of neural events, instead of anomalous accelerations of the particles that make up the nervous system, is proposed. Local violation of the Second Law of thermodynamics by the actions of the mind is implied, and mental causation is explained as the disposition of mental states to alter the state probability distribution within the nervous system, with no violation of the conservation laws. The main features of this account and some of its physical and metaphysical implications and advantages are discussed: an indication of the causal unity of nature, elimination of the problem of causal power drainage, explanatory simplicity, and redefining the domain of the physical. The account refutes the claim of the anomalousness of the mental and anticipates the existence of probabilistic psychophysical laws. Its truthfulness is verifiable by extensive neurophysical and physiological research, involving statistical analysis of neural correlations.

Keywords

Mental causation, Causal closure of the physical, Second Law of thermodynamics, Maxwell’s demon, probability distribution

Full Text:

PDF

References


Albantakis, L. et al. (2023). Integrated information theory (IIT) 4.0: Formulating the properties of phenomenal existence in physical terms, PLoS Computational Biology, 19 (10), 1-45. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011465

Bishop, R. (2012). Excluding the Causal Exclusion Argument against Non-reductive Physicalism, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 19 (5-6), 57-74.

Bishop, R. & Atmanspacher, H. (2006). Contextual emergence in the description of properties, Foundations of Physics, 36, 1753-1777.DOI: 10.1007/s10701-006-9082-8

Block, N. (2003). Do causal powers drain away, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 67 (1), 133-150. DOI: 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2003.tb00029.x

Chalmers, D., 1996. The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Press, New York.

ISBN’s: 9780195117899 195117891 195105532

Davidson, D. (1970). Mental Events, in Foster, L. and Swanson, J. W. (eds.), Experience and Theory, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 79-101. Reprinted in Davidson, D. (1980). Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Dimitrijević, D. R. (2019). Maxwell’s demon and interactionalism, Facta Universitatis, Series: Physics, Chemistry and Technology, 17 (2), 161-171. DOI: 10.2298/FUPCT1902161D

Dimitrijević, D. R. (2020). Causal Closure of the Physical, Mental Causation, and Physics, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 10 (1), 1-22. DOI: 10.1007/s13194-019-0267-3

Gibb, S. (2010). Closure Principles and the Laws of Conservation of Energy and Momentum, Dialectica, 64, 363-384. DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-8361.2010.01237.x

Jackson, F. (1996). Mental Causation, Mind, 105 (419), 377-413. DOI: 10.1093/mind/105.419.377

Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism or Something near Enough, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. DOI: 10.1515/9781400840847

Lowe, E. J. (2006). Non-Cartesian substance dualism and the problem of mental causation, Erkenntnis 65 (1), 5-23. DOI: 10.1007/s10670-006-9012-3

Maxwell, J. C. (1871). Theory of Heat. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.

Melnik, A. (2003). A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN’s: 9780511056321 9780521827119 9780511498817 0521827116 0521038944

Oppenheim, P. & Putnam, H. (1958). Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis, in Feigl, H. et al. (eds.), Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem. (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. II). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 3-36.

Owen, M. (2020). The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness, Entropy, 22, 823. DOI: 10.3390/e22080823

Papineau, D. (2001). Rise of Phisicalism, in Gillett, C. & Loewer, B. (eds.), Physicalism and its Discontents, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 3-36. ISBN’s: 9780521801751 0521042127 9780511889271 0521801753

Papineau, D. (2013). Causation is Macroscopic but Not Irreducible, in Gibb, S., Lowe, E. J., and Ingthorsson, R. D. (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology, 126-152, Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603770.003.0006

Popper, K. & Eccles, J. (1977). The Self and its Brain, New York: Springer.

Spurrett, D. & Papineau, D. (1999). A note on the completeness of ‘physics’, Analysis 59, 25-29. DOI: 10.1093/analys/59.1.25

Stoljar, D. (2021). Physicalism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/. (Accessed 12 December 2023).

Tononi, G. (2015). Integrated information theory. Scholarpedia 10 (1), 4164.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


ISSN 0354-4656 (print)

ISSN 2406-0879 (online)