PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/19259 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2017-12-05 and may be subject to change. Evolution’s Shorthand A Presentational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van de wijsbegeerte Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Prof. dr. C.W.P.M. Blom, volgens besluit van het College van Decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 14 april 2003, des namiddags om 3.30 uur precies door Hans Dooremalen geboren op 8 september 1967 te Rijen. Promotor: Prof. dr. A.A. Derksen Manuscriptcommissie: Prof. dr. J.A.M. Bransen Prof. dr. J. Leilich (Universiteit Antwerpen - UFSIA) Dr. M.A.M.M. Meijsing (Universiteit van Tilburg) © 2003 Hans Dooremalen 2 CONTENTS acknowledgments - 5 introduction - 7 chapter one: two assumptions & two questions - 10 1. the two main assumptions: qualia realism and broad physicalism - 10 1.1 the mereological model - 13 1.2 nonreductive physicalism - 14 2. the problem of phenomenal consciousness - 16 chapter two: the evolutionary shorthand theory of the phenomenal mind - 19 1. phenomenal experiences are presentations - 20 2. phenomenal experiences are direct presentations - 20 3. phenomenal experiences are internal states - 21 4. phenomenal experiences are projected - 22 5. phenomenal presentations usually are used as representations - 24 6. phenomenal representations are nonconceptual representations - 25 7. phenomenal representations are indirect representations - 27 8. phenomenal representations represent environmental and bodily properties - 30 9. phenomenal representations are approximately projected to the cause of the experience - 30 10. phenomenal representations represent in a reliability way: causal covariance - 31 11. evolution’s shorthand - 33 chapter three: conceivability: the road to nowhere - 35 1. how dualism threatens a scientific solution to the problem of phenomenal consciousness - 35 2. possibility - 36 2.1 logical possibility - 36 2.2 epistemic possibility - 37 2.3 ontological possibility - 39 2.4 metaphysical possibility - 41 3. dualists should claim that zombies are physically possible - 41 4. evaluating the conceivability argument - 44 4.1 Chalmers’ main conceivability argument - 44 4.2 evaluating the zombie argument - 44 5. ignorance - 45 chapter four: david chalmers’ property dualism - 47 1. the short version of the argument - 47 2. logical and natural supervenience - 48 2.1 logical supervenience - 48 2.2 natural supervenience - 50 2.3 two kinds of supervenient properties - 52 2.4 an ambiguity concerning physical laws - 52 2.5 there are no examples of mere natural supervenience in the broadly physical domain - 55 2.6 there are no intelligible examples of merely naturally supervenient properties outside the broadly physical dom ain - 55 2.7 is there a knowable merely naturally supervenient property after all? - 57 2.8 the problem of phenomenal judgment - 58 2.9 the problem of phenomenal judgment - 58 2.10 the fallacy and backfire - 59 2.11 leaving the problem of phenomenal judgment unsolved - 61 2.12 there are no knowable merely naturally supervenient properties - 61 chapter five: no harsh demands - 63 chapter six: the natural method - 67 1. anti-constructive naturalism - 67 2. constructive naturalism - 69 3. the natural m ethod - 70 3 4. splitting auditory attention - 70 chapter seven: case study # 1: experiences of phantom limbs - 74 1. the natural method applied to experiences of phantom limbs - 75 1.1 the phenomenology of experiences of phantom limbs - 75 1.2 the neurology o f experiences o f phantom lim bs - 76 2. what experiences of phantom limbs tell us about phenomenal experiences - 80 3. reflexive m onism - 82 chapter eight: case study # 2: synesthesia - 88 1. synesthesia - 89 2. the natural method applied to synesthetic experiences - 91 2.1 the phenomenology of synesthesia - 91 2.2 the psychology of synesthesia - 94 2.3 the neurology of synesthesia - 101 3. the relevance of synesthesia to the problem of phenomenal consciousness - 106 3.1 externalism about intentional content - 107 3.2 possible objections - 112 chapter nine: case study # 3: dreams - 118 1. the phenomenology of dreams - 118 2. the neurology of dreams - 120 3. the 40 H z thesis - 125 4. the evolutionary biology of dreams - 130 chapter ten: case study # 4: color experiences - 133 1. the phenomenology of color experiences - 133 2. John Locke on primary and secondary qualities - 134 3. the planet of the colorblind - 135 3.1 the neurology o f color vision - 135 3.2 cerebral colorblindness - 137 3.3 retinal colorblindness - 137 3.4 the genetics of protan and deutan color deficiency - 139 3.5 Mrs. Tetrachromat - 140 3.6 conclusion - 142 4. the Australian view - 142 4.1 the psychology & physics o f color experiences - 143 4.2 conclusion - 147 chapter eleven: case study # 5: experiences of beauty evoked by faces - 148 1. the phenomenology of experiences of beauty evoked by faces - 148 2. the psychology of experiences of beauty evoked by faces - 149 3. the biology of experiences of beauty evoked by faces - 152 4. experiences of beauty evoked by faces are evolution’s shorthand - 155 4.1 tw o other exam ples - 157 4.2 affordances - 158 5. some speculations about the experiences of beauty evoked by landscapes and by art - 159 chapter twelve: three threats to representationalism refuted - 161 1. rebuttal of the first reductionist threat: losing consciousness - 162 2. rebuttal of the second reductionist threat: conscious inessentialism via overrepresentation - 164 3. rebuttal of representation inessentialism - 166 epilogue - 172 Summary (Dutch) - 175 References - 194 Curriculum vitae - 198 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing a dissertation would not be possible without a great deal of help. Many people have contributed in various ways and different stages to this enterprise. I would like to thank them all. First of all, Ton Derksen provided me with the opportunity to do research in the interesting area of phenomenal consciousness. I have benefited enormously from his extensive comments on the various drafts of all the chapters of this dissertation. The position I have developed in this dissertation also owes a lot to the discussions I had with Marc Slors and the suggestions he made. I also want to thank him for being the subject of the only empirical experiment I have ever done as a philosopher. Many of my ideas have been inspired by the - often informal - discussions in the research group Rationality and Non-Reductionism. Besides Ton and Marc, I would like to thank the other participants: Chris Buskens, Anthonie Meijers, Monica Meijsing, Herman de Regt, Esteban Rivas, Pouwel Slurink, and Arno Wouters. It has been a privilege to listen to you. Special thanks to Filip Buekens. It is simply not conceivable that I could have written this dissertation without his contagious enthusiasm for analytical philosophy having infected my mind. I owe a special debt to Chiel Bertens en Anique Lensen. Being close to me both emotionally and in space-time they were in turns the first to hear what I had thought up. Thank you for listening and responding to me. Thanks to Vincent Kwantes and Wannes Rombouts for all the lively discussions about every topic in this dissertation and many, many more. Apologies for all the times I rattled on while we should have been rocking. Thanks to Frank Scheele for drawing my attention to tetrachromacy. No idea is worth being developed if it isn’t shared. I like to thank my friends: Boudewijn Aerts, Olga Ansems, Bregtje Bertens, Hedwig Spadaccini-Zeedijk, Piet-Hein Clijsen, Sander Colijn & Laura van Driel, Leon van Egmond, Peter & Sharon van Gestel, Janneke van Gog, Gerard van Gorkum, Sylvie van Halder, Liane den Hartog, Renske & Frank Henzel, Kiki van der Horst, 5 Renate Hovius, Esther de Kok, Cyrano Opdebeke, Ron Peek, Myriam & Johan van Rooijen- Horsten, Renske Somerwil en Lex van Tilburg, Thank you all for patiently listening to my lectures in bars, at parties or wherever I saw a chance to tell you about your own but mostly other minds. I also extend my thanks to others who have contributed in various ways: Jan Bransen, Daniel Cohnitz, Joachim Leilich, Jeroen Linssen, Peter Reijnaert, Johan Veldeman and Teresa Viader- Rapp. Finally, I want to thank my parents, my brother and his wife for always supporting my decisions in life, even though - be it refusing to serve in the army, studying philosophy, or writing this dissertation. I could never have accomplished that without your support and love. 6 INTRODUCTION This dissertation is about the scientific study of conscious experiences. If one takes a look at the contributions to recent conferences on consciousness like the Tucson Conferences and those organized by the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness one cannot escape the impression that there seems to be a growing consensus among scientists and philosophers that such a science is possible and that exciting scientific discoveries about the phenomenal mind have been made in the last decade. Even though consensus seems to be growing, there are some philosophical views on consciousness that deny that a science of consciousness is possible. I will argue against these views. I will present Owen Flanagan’s natural method, as the way to find answers to questions about consciousness. Applying this method to different kinds of experiences leads to the theory that I call the evolutionary shorthand theory of the phenomenal mind. This theory provides an answer to the question why phenomenal consciousness was selected in evolution: it is a quick way of picking up information that is important to the survival and reproduction of the experiencing subject. My goal in this dissertation is to support the theory by recent empirical data.