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Emergence and Consciousness Explorations Into the Philosophy of Mind Via the Philosophy of Computation

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Emergence and Consciousness Explorations Into the Philosophy of Mind Via the Philosophy of Computation Emergence and Consciousness Explorations into the Philosophy of Mind via the Philosophy of Computation BY BRAM VAN HEUVELN MS, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands, 1992 MA, Binghamton University, 1996 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy in the Graduate School of Binghamton University State University of New York 2000 c Copyright 2000 by Bram van Heuveln Permission for duplication, or other non-commercial use is hereby granted. All other rights are reserved. ii Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy in the Graduate School of Binghamton University State University of New York 2000 Eric Stanley Dietrich August 15, 2000 Philosophy Department Peter John Angeline August 15, 2000 Natural Selection, inc. Valerie Gray Hardcastle August 15, 2000 Philosophy Department Virginia Tech iii Abstract This thesis explores the foundations of cognition. I present, analyze, and defend the claim of Computationalism, which states that cognition reduces to computations. I show how various objections, in particular Searle’s Chinese Room argument, are flawed due to a deep confusion regarding the nature of computation. In my defense of Computationalism, I appeal to the notion of emergence, which is a notion that I analyze in detail, since it has been suggested that emergence can solve the problem of consciousness. I argue against this latter suggestion, proposing an alternative view on consciousness instead. iv Acknowledgements Most importantly, I want to thank Eric Dietrich, who has been my main teacher, advisor, advocate, mentor, and friend over the years. Thanks, Eric! I couldn’t have done this without the unending support of my parents, Joost and Margot van Heuveln, who have sacrificed so much in supporting their youngest son in his pursuit of his interests and dreams across the great pond. They have done so with admirable grace, integrity, and love. Also thanks to the rest of the family for understanding my absence and sending me lots of photos. Thanks to Peter Angeline and Valerie Hardcastle for their insightful comments and helping me finish on such short notice, to Andy Clark for reading and commenting on drafts of individual chapters, to David Chalmers for writing an excellent book that has inspired much of this dissertation, to Bobbi Libous for keeping up morale and taking care of things, to Michiharu Oshima for friendship and discussions on computability and consciousness, to Clayton Morrison for much mental support and philosophical discussion, to Norman, Eve, and Sally Mae for hours of much needed entertainment and general distraction, and to countless other friends, faculty, neighbors, and fellow students. Finally, thanks to Rhonda Rumsey, for being the most important person in my life. Your love and endless support helped me through this from start to finish. v Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Computationalism . 1 1.2 The Chinese Room Argument . 2 1.3 Consciousness . 3 1.4 Emergence . 3 2 Emergence 5 2.1 An Informal Introduction to Emergence . 6 2.1.1 The Game of Life and Flocking Birds . 6 2.1.2 Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams . 8 2.1.3 Emergence in Real Life and the Sciences . 13 2.1.4 Philosophical Notions of Emergence . 15 2.2 A Taxonomy of Emergence . 18 2.2.1 Features of Emergence . 18 2.2.2 The Paradox of Emergence . 20 2.2.3 Emergence and Surprise . 21 2.2.4 A Basic Definition of Emergence . 23 2.2.5 Horizontal and Vertical Emergence . 25 2.2.6 Weak Emergence and Strong Emergence . 27 2.3 Strong Emergence . 29 2.3.1 The Roots of Strong Emergence . 29 2.3.2 British Emergentism and Metaphysical Emergence . 31 2.3.3 Epistemological Emergence . 37 3 Computationalism 40 3.1 The Argument for Computationalism . 41 3.1.1 Cognition and Behavior . 41 3.1.2 The Turing Test and Information-Processing . 42 3.1.3 Cognition and the Brain . 45 3.1.4 The Objection from Situated Cognition . 47 3.1.5 Chalmers’ Argument for Computationalism . 51 3.2 Computations and Computability . 55 vi 3.2.1 Algorithms . 55 3.2.2 Computations . 58 3.2.3 Turing Machines . 60 3.2.4 The Church-Turing Thesis . 63 3.2.5 Information-Processing and Causal Topologies . 65 3.3 Two Notions of Computation . 67 3.3.1 Syntactic Computation and Semantic Computation . 67 3.3.2 Minimal Computationalism . 69 3.3.3 Computations, Simulations, and Emergence . 71 3.3.4 Uncomputability . 75 4 The Chinese Room Argument 85 4.1 The Original BBS Article . 86 4.1.1 Searle’s Argument . 86 4.1.2 Replies to Searle . 87 4.1.3 Searle’s Counterreplies . 89 4.2 Analysis of the Argument and its Replies . 93 4.2.1 The Demon Reply . 93 4.2.2 Haugeland’s Reply . 94 4.2.3 ’Right’ Causal Powers . 96 4.2.4 The Inconsistency in Searle’s Argument . 97 4.3 Emergence and the Chinese Room . 99 4.3.1 A Further Inconsistency . 99 4.3.2 The Fallacy of Composition . 100 4.3.3 The Systems Reply: The Correct Reply . 103 4.4 Searle and Computations . 112 4.4.1 Internal and External Symbol . 112 4.4.2 Syntactic and Semantic Computation . 115 5 Consciousness 117 5.1 The Problem of Consciousness . 118 5.1.1 The Traditional Problem of Consciousness . 118 5.1.2 Arguments for Dualism . 119 5.1.3 Arguments for Materialism . 120 vii 5.1.4 A Lesson from the Problem of Free Will . 121 5.1.5 The Paradox of Consciousness . 125 5.1.6 Solving the Paradox of Consciousness . 126 5.1.7 The Physical Closure Intuition . 127 5.2 Three Metaphysical Positions . 130 5.2.1 Interactionist Dualism . 130 5.2.2 Materialism . 132 5.2.3 Non-Interactionist Dualism . 135 5.3 Consciousness and Emergence . 143 5.3.1 Metaphysical Emergentism . 145 5.3.2 Theoretical Emergentism . 149 5.3.3 Conceptual Emergentism . 153 5.3.4 General Problems with Non-Reductive Materialism . 156 5.4 A Proposed Solution to the Paradox . 158 5.4.1 First-Person and Third-Person Observations . 158 5.4.2 Dietrich’s Argument . 161 5.4.3 Objective and Subjective Properties . 164 5.4.4 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties . 166 5.4.5 Explanatory and Causal Relevance . 171 5.5 Consciousness and Computationalism . 176 5.5.1 The Chinese Room and Consciousness . 176 5.5.2 The Dancing Qualia Argument . 178 5.5.3 Refutation of the Dancing Qualia Argument . 180 5.5.4 The Refutation of the Organizational Invariance Principle . 185 5.5.5 The Refutation of the Structural Coherence Principle . 187 5.5.6 The Myth of the Mediating Mini-Me . 190 viii 1 Introduction I have heard some people say that whereas the first half of the twentieth century was the Age of Physics, the second half was the Age of Chemistry. In both cases, we came to grasp the subject matter well enough that technology could thrive on that knowledge. Indeed, with various kinds of biotechnology starting to mature, we now seem to enter the Age of Biology. If this pace continues, then fifty years from now we should be entering the Age of Cognitive Science. Now, I am not going to make any claims whether this time estimate is something that is plausible or, for that matter, whether an ability to technologically create or manipulate cognition is something that we should look forward to. However, I am claiming that we are certainly not in the Age of Cognition now. Indeed, our current understanding of cognition is quite minimal and, as we will see, even that small part about cognition that we do claim to understand about it has been questioned. I therefore write this thesis in an effort to defend that glimmer of insight that we do seem to have about cognition: cognition has something to do with the ability to process information. This claim does not provide us with any detailed explanation of cognition, let alone any working model. However, the claim does at least give us some kind of conceptual framework from within which we can start to focus on particular aspects of cognition. And that’s a start. 1.1 Computationalism The particular view that I want to defend is the claim of Computationalism. Compu- tationalism states that cognition is best analyzed in terms of information processing, and since computations process information, Computationalism claims that cognition is the result of underlying computational processes. In other words, cognition reduces to computations. In Chapter 3 I will explain in detail what computations are. In here, I will also give the main argument for the truth of Computationalism, and respond 1 to a number of attacks that have been made against Computationalism. In Chapter 3, I make a crucial distinction between two distinct ways in which we can think about computations. Moreover, whereas Computationalism must be defined according to one notion of computation, a number of arguments for and against Computationalism have been based on the other notion. In fact, I will show that the confusion goes right to the heart of some results of computability theory, which is a branch of mathematics studying computations. 1.2 The Chinese Room Argument There is one attack on Computationalism that deserves special attention. This attack is the Chinese Room Argument, which was formulated by John Searle ([43]). This argument must be one of the most important arguments ever formulated within the philosophy of mind, since it brings out a number of important issues regarding the foundations of cognition on which there is still little agreement.
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