I invite our readers to review my last post and the exchanges between me and eigenstate (hereafter “E”) in the combox. I could go through a point-by-point rebuttal of eigenstate’s comments, but it would be pointless, because far from rebutting the central thrust of the post, he did not lay a finger on it. Here is the central argument of that post: The immaterial mind exists. Everyone knows the immaterial mind exists. Its existence is, indeed, the primordial datum that one simply cannot not know. Therefore, any denial of the existence of the immaterial mind is not only false; it is incoherent. Hence, the immaterial mind is not an “explanation” of any sort; it is a datum one must take into account in any robust (indeed, any coherent) ontology. And if your metaphysics requires you to deny this undeniable fact, that is a problem with your metaphysics, not the fact.
In response E screams over and over and over (one can just imagine his wild eyes rolling back in his head as spittle spews from his lips) “I’m a meat robot; I’m a meat robot; I’m a meat robot. And so are you.” One wonders why a meat robot is so passionate about evangelizing all of the other meat robots to ensure they know (can meat “know”?) the true nature of their meatiness.
But E, you might object, it is absurd to say that the physical components of brain meat (oxygen atoms, hydrogen atoms, carbon atoms, etc.) can exhibit the attributes of an immaterial mind such as subjective self-awareness, qualia, intentionality, and the perception of subject-object duality. Isn’t it just as absurd to say that amalgamations of the physical components of brain meat can exhibit those attributes? Stupid! E responds. You have committed the fallacy of composition. What is the fallacy of composition? That is indeed a real logical fallacy. It means that it is fallacious to infer that a whole can exhibit only the attributes of its individual parts. Here’s an example of the fallacy: An individual brick cannot provide shelter; therefore a house made of bricks cannot provide shelter. How does this apply to brain meat? According to E, brain meat as a whole has properties far different from its meaty components, and one of those properties is the capacity to delude itself into believing it has the attributes of an immaterial mind.
Now, to his credit, I am sure E will be the first to admit that not all kinds of meat have this capacity. Indeed, brain meat is the only kind of meat that we know of that does. And what is the difference between brain meat and other kinds of meat that accounts for this difference? It is all a matter of how the meat is arranged. “Structure matters,” E observes pedantically. Wait just a minute. Is E saying that if a rib eye steak were structured just a little differently it would be conscious? Well, yes, that is kind of the gist of it. But where is the dividing line between non-conscious rib eye steak kinds of meat and conscious brain meat, you might ask. Well, here is where things get a little murky. But according to E, if we arrange the same stuff that rib eye steaks are made of (oxygen atoms, hydrogen atoms, carbon atoms, etc.) into a particularly complex configuration, at some point . . . wait for it . . . poof! you get meat that (has the illusion of) self-awareness, qualia, intentionality, and the perception of subject-object duality.
That’s right. It turns out that invoking the fallacy of composition is actually just a backhanded way of invoking Poof! It emerged. And like all emergentist accounts of consciousness, the pesky details about how consciousness (or the illusion thereof) emerges from simpler kinds of meat are never explained. It really is just that simple. E’s reasoning goes something like this: You commit the fallacy of composition if you deny that houses emerge from bricks arranged in a particular way; and in just the same way you commit the fallacy of composition if you deny that consciousness emerges from meaty components arranged in a certain way.
“But,” you might object, “meaty components – no matter how complex the arrangement – are still, well, you know, meat, which is a physical thing. How can an immaterial mental phenomenon like consciousness emerge from meat? Isn’t that a category error?” Now here is where E’s evangelism takes on a fundamentalist zeal reminiscent of an Appalachian snake handler. In response to such a question he would stand to his feet, stretch out his arm, point his boney finger at you, and scream “Infidel!” You see, E is committed to materialism with an intense quasi-religious fervor, and he holds his faith commitments with a dogmatic, brassbound and rigid fideism that would make a medieval churchman blush. After he caught his breath and got his heart rate under control, he would reply breathlessly, “There can be no category error, because there is only one category and that category is physical; thus sayeth the prophets of materialism.”
Here is where the story gets very sad. You see, materialism is a stunted, narrow-minded and provincial way of looking at the world. A more robust ontology allows one to take the world as he finds it and revel in the full panoply of its grandeur, beauty and mystery. But materialism says if self-evident facts conflict with its precepts, to hell with the facts; the precepts come first. The god of materialism is a harsh taskmaster, and he forces all of his servants to wear blinders lest they be tempted to behold the forbidden facts. And E, having heeded his god and donned his blinders, literally cannot see the beauty, vastness and glory of his immaterial mind. Instead, he stamps his foot, gets red in the face, and chants, “I’m a meat robot; I’m a meat robot.” Madness; sheer madness.