Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind Edited by MICHEL WEBER AND ANDERSON WEEKES Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind SUNY series in Philosophy George R. Lucas Jr., editor Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind Edited by Michel Weber and Anderson Weekes Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2009 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production by Cathleen Collins Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Process approaches to consciousness in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind / edited by Michel Weber and Anderson Weekes. p. cm. — (SUNY series in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-2941-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Consciousness. 2. Process philosophy. 3. Psychology. 4. Neurosciences. 5. Philosophy of mind. I. Weber, Michel. II. Weekes, Anderson, 1960– B808.9.P77 2010 126—dc22 2009010131 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 In memoria ingentis ingenii, dedicamus librum hunc ad Alecem MDCDLXXVI – MMVII vi Contents For much of the twentieth century, all sciences, including biology, were obsessed with reductionism: viewing the world at all levels, from the smallest to the largest, as merely a machine made of parts. Take the machine apart, examine the individual pieces, and we would understand how the world works. Reductionism has had many triumphs in under- standing the nature of the parts and how some parts fi t together. It enabled us to build computers and devise powerful medicines for example. But some scientists admit that reductionism falls short of its ultimate goal: understanding how the world works. It falls short because it fails to recognize the connectedness, the unity, that is the deep essence of nature in all realms. Not in the sense of physicists seeking the ultimate fundamental particle or the theory of everything. There is a oneness in nature in the sense of interdependence. —Irene Pepperberg, Alex and Me Contents vii Contents List of Figures and Tables ix Key to Abbreviations of Whitehead’s Work xi Introduction Michel Weber and Anderson Weekes 1 Part I Setting the Stage 1. Process Thought as a Heuristic for Investigating Consciousness Michel Weber and Anderson Weekes 37 2. Whitehead as a Neglected Figure of Twentieth-Century Philosophy Michel Weber and Anderson Weekes 57 3. Consciousness as a Topic of Investigation in Western Thought Anderson Weekes 73 4. Whitehead’s Unique Approach to the Topic of Consciousness Anderson Weekes 137 Part II Psychology and Philosophy of Mind 5. Consciousness as Subjective Form: Whitehead’s Nonreductionist Naturalism David Griffi n 175 6. The Interpretation and Integration of the Literature on Consciousness from a Process Perspective Michael Katzko 201 viii Contents 7. Windows on Nonhuman Minds Donald Redfi eld Griffi n 219 Part III From Metaphysics to (Neuro)Science (and Back Again) 8. Panexperientialism, Quantum Theory, and Neuroplasticity George W. Shields 235 9. The Evolution of Consciousness Max Velmans 261 10. The Carrier Theory of Causation Gregg Rosenberg 273 Part IV Clinical Applications: Consciousness as Process 11. The Microgenetic Revolution in Contemporary Neuropsychology and Neurolinguistics Maria Pachalska and Bruce Duncan MacQueen 295 12. From Coma to Consciousness: Recovery and the Process of Differentiation Avraham Schweiger, Michael Frost, and Ofer Keren 327 13. Consciousness and Rationality from a Process Perspective Michel Weber 345 Part V History (and Future?) of Philosophy 14. Consciousness, Memory, and Recollection According to Whitehead Xavier Verley 387 15. Consciousness and Causation in Whitehead’s Phenomenology of Becoming Anderson Weekes 407 List of Contributors 463 Index 467 Contents ix Figures and Tables Figure 10.1. Depiction of a Center Cell and its Neighborhood on a “Life” World Grid 274 Figure 10.2. Necker Cube 284 Figure 11.1. Schematic Representation of the Three Primary Planes of Evolutionary Development in the Human Brain 301 Figure 11.2. A Microgenetic Model of Behavior 309 Figure 11.3. Medial Cross-section of the Human Brain 312 Figure 11.4. Levels in the Mental State 323 Figure 13.1. The Nuclear Pivotal Model of Normal Consciousness 348 Table 10.1. How the Experiencing of Phenomenal Individuals Fills the Carrier Role 288 Table 12.1. The Homomorphism of the Four Processual Spheres 342 ix x Contents Contents xi Key to Abbreviations of Whitehead’s Works AI Adventures of Ideas, 1933/1967 (New York: The Free Press) CN The Concept of Nature, 1920/1964 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) ESP Essays in Science and Philosophy, 1947 (New York: The Philosophical Library) FR The Function of Reason, 1929/1958 (Boston: Beacon Press) MT Modes of Thought, 1938/1968 (New York: The Free Press) PM Principia Mathematica, 1910–13/1925–1927 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) PNK Principles of Natural Knowledge, 1919/1982 (New York: Dover) PR Process and Reality, 1929/1978 (Corrected edition, New York: The Free Press) PRel The Principle of Relativity, 1922 (Cambridge: The University Press) S Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect, 1927/1985 (New York: Fordham University Press) SMW Science and the Modern World, 1925/1967 (New York: The Free Press) UA A Treatise on Universal Algebra, 1898/1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) xi Introduction 1 Introduction Michel Weber and Anderson Weekes We introduce this volume with a brief preview of its overall concerns (Section I), followed by a précis of the individual contributions (Section II) and an overview of the most important literature with a similar or related focus (Section III). The preview will show that this is not a collection of specialty scholarship, but a volume rightly intended for the broadest pos- sible learned readership. The uniqueness of its approach is tempered by the generality of its concerns. The précis then situate each contribution in the larger context of the book’s philosophical and interdisciplinary ambitions, while the last section situates the book in the broader context of today’s intellectual landscape, where a growing body of literature reinforces its cause without anticipating its results. In this Introduction, we adopt the following conventions in referring to the chapters that follow. (1) Chapters are identifi ed by authorship. Contribu- tors’ proper names, including those of the editors, refer to their respective contributions to Parts II–V. Proper names do not reference the contributions to Part I, which resulted from collaboration (chapters 1 and 2) or consensus (chapters 3 and 4) between the editors. These chapters in Part I we refer to simply as the contributions of “the editors.” “Contribution(s) of the editors” does not refer their individual contributions in Parts IV and V. (2) Source and locus will not be given for quotations if they are taken from the chapters that follow. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations in this Introduction are from the named author’s contribution to the present volume. Main Themes of the Book Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy was a protest against the compart- mentalization of knowledge. A specialized subfi eld of philosophy focused 1 2 Michel Weber and Anderson Weekes on Whitehead interpretation is therefore something of a paradox. Given the daunting complexity of Whitehead’s writing, literal exegesis and historical scholarship aiming at an “immanent” interpretation of his thought have a continuing and obviously important role to play, but Whitehead himself would scarcely recognize such activities as his rightful legacy. A failure of Whiteheadians to be suffi ciently Whiteheadian in this regard may well be the reason Whitehead’s ideas have seemed at times to be threatened with extinction and mostly available in fossil form. If this is changing, it is at least partly because outsiders are storming the museum. Straightaway this has opened vast avenues of new dialogue with unsuspected partners, to which this book bears witness. This volume brings multiple disciplinary perspectives to bear on White- head’s psychology (which, in a way, is his whole philosophy—a metaphysics of experience) in order to analyze it in terms of relevance to contemporary consciousness studies. Accordingly, we have gathered contribution from scholars whose areas of research are diverse and often do not include Whiteheadian process philosophy as a subfi eld of expertise, but whose own intellectual paths have led them to recognize an important kinship with Whitehead. The area of consciousness studies proves to be a busy intersection: a place where one can’t help but meet everything from metaphysics to psycho- therapy. This is not happenstance. It refl ects the nature of the beast we are tracking, and we have not shied from it. This accounts for both the broad scope of the volume and the diversity of its contributions. In important respects, this book complements David Griffi n’s Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem (1998), which grew out of an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Center for Process Studies at the Claremont Colleges in 1994, “Consciousness in Humans, Animals and Computers. A Scientifi c-Philosophical Conference.” Bringing a Whiteheadian perspective to contemporary consciousness studies, Griffi n effects a broad synthesis of the issues currently under debate and at the same time provides an excellent introduction to Whitehead’s psychology. We reverse directions. Bringing different contemporary perspectives (including Griffi n’s) to bear on Whitehead’s psychology, we replace synthesis with analysis and highlight the richness and polyvalence of Whitehead’s ideas.