H.P. Stapp
Commentary on Strawson’s
Target Article
Strawson’s primary claim is that ‘physicalism entails panpsychism’
(Strawson, 2006).1 This claim would be surprising if it meant what it
seems to mean. But it does not.
According to Strawson’s words, ‘physicalism’ is the doctrine that
every real temporally located existent is physical; and ‘panpsychism’
is the assertion that the existence of every real temporally located
existent involves experiential being. Here, and throughout, I have, in
accordance with the meanings specified at the beginning of Strawson’s
article, replaced ‘concrete phenomena’ and ‘concrete thing’ by ‘temporally located existent’ (p. 3).
According to Strawson, the key phrase ‘is physical’ in the definition
of physicalism normally means ‘can in principle be fully captured in
the terms of physics’ (p. 4). However, Strawson emphasizes that experiences are temporally located existents, and claims that this fact
forces him to distinguish the usual meaning of physicalism, which he
dubs ‘physicSalism’, from ‘real physicalism’. Thus he writes:
It follows that real physicalism can have nothing to do with physicSalism, the view — the faith — that the nature or essence of all real
temporally located existents can in principle be fully captured in the
terms of physics … It is unfortunate that ‘physicalism’ is today
standardly used to mean physicSalism because it obliges me to speak of
‘real physicalism’ when really I only mean ‘physicalism’ — realistic
physicalism.(pp. 3–4)
This twisting of the meaning of Strawson’s primary claim (produced
by relabelling the usual concept by the awkward term ‘physicSalism’,
and then using the word ‘physicalism’ to denote a differing concept of
‘real physicalism’) is furthered by his use of the loose term ‘involved’
[1]
Unreferenced page numbers refer to this target article.
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 13, No. 10–11, 2006, pp. 163–69
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H.P. STAPP
in his characterization of panpsychism, which he defines as ‘the view
that the existence of every real temporally located existent involves
experiential being’. But the existence of any real thing in the universe
may involve every other real thing, in some general sense, for one cannot simply pluck one part of reality out from the rest. Reality may exist
only as a whole, in which case each reality may involve experiential
being in some way, which in many cases could be quite indirect. Consequently, Strawson’s claim of ‘panpsychism’ is very weak compared
to the normal claim, characterized (Honderich, 1995) as ‘the doctrine
that each spatio-temporal thing has a mental or “inner” aspect’. The
assertion that each spatio-temporal thing has an experiential inner
aspect is a more stringent condition than the assertion that each such
thing is merely involved — perhaps from afar — with experiential
being.
In view of these shifts in the specified meanings of the key words, it
must be recognized that Strawson’s claim that ‘physicalism entails
panpsychism’ does not mean what it would mean if more normal
meanings of the two nouns were used.
In commenting on Strawson’s article, it is therefore important to
determine: (1) what, in normal terms, is Strawson actually claiming to
prove; (2) how does he claim to prove it; (3) is his proof valid; and (4)
what does contemporary science have to say about the matter.
Strawson does not explicitly define what real physicalism means.
But conditions on its meaning are imposed by how it is used in his
proof of his primary claim.
Strawson’s proof goes as follows. First, he assumes that physicalism is true: he assumes that every real temporally located existent is
physical. He then emphasizes that experiences are such existents, and
thus concludes that experiences are physical. He then argues:
It follows that real physicalism can have nothing to do with physicSalism, the view — the faith — that the nature or essence of all concrete
reality can in principle be fully captured in the terms of physics. Real
physicalism cannot have anything to do with physicSalism unless it is
supposed — obviously falsely — that the terms of physics can fully
capture the nature or essence of experience. (p. 3)
Thus Strawson assumes physicalism to be true, claims physicSalism to be ‘obviously’ false, and concludes that physicalism cannot
be normal physicSalism. This means that the assumed-to-be-true physicalism must be something else, which he calls also real physicalism. This
argument rests squarely on Strawson’s claim that it is ‘obviously’ false
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that ‘the terms of physics can fully capture the nature or essence of
experience’.
But is this really ‘obvious’?
The truth of this claim depends upon what the terms of physics actually are, and what they represent. It is, of course, certainly true that the
nineteenth-century classical-physics extension of the seventeenthcentury physics of Galileo and Newton does not include among its
terms any representations of experiential realities. But contemporary
physical theory differs fundamentally from that earlier classical physics, basically because it incorporates explicitly into the dynamics both
conscious choices made by human experimenters about how they will
act, and also the experiential increments of knowledge that constitute
the experiential feedbacks from these consciously chosen actions.
Orthodox contemporary physics is in fact built upon these experiential realities, and it has terms that represent these realities, as they
actually exist in our streams of consciousness. So if by ‘physics’ is
meant orthodox contemporary valid physics, rather than the knownto-be-fundamentally-false classical physics, then Strawson’s argument
fails. Certain terms of orthodox contemporary physics do denote, precisely, various kind experiences — namely our experienced choices
and experienced feedbacks — that actually appear in our streams of
consciousness.
Thus if by ‘physics’ one means valid contemporary physics, rather
than invalid classical physics then ordinary physicalism — i.e.
physicSalism — is valid. But the validity of ordinary physicalism
does not entail the validity of ordinary panpsychism. It does not entail
that each spatio-temporal thing has a mental or ‘inner’ aspect. For in
orthodox quantum physics the explicitly experiential aspects that
enter the theory are mental or ‘inner’ aspects of human beings: actual
experiences are not associated indiscriminately with every spatiotemporally located existent. Hence, if the normal meanings of the
terms are used, and ‘physics’ means orthodox contemporary physics,
then physicalism does not entail panpsychism, and Strawson’s primary claim fails.
In view of the importance of the difference between classical physics and quantum physics in analysis of Strawson’s arguments, and, by
extension, in the general arena of the study of the connection between
mind and matter, it may be useful to elaborate upon this difference
within the general philosophical context of Strawson’s article.
I begin by giving a very brief description, from a philosophical
standpoint, of the essential differences between classical physics and
orthodox quantum theory. Classical physics represents the physical
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H.P. STAPP
world by assigning a set of numbers to every point in space for every
time t in some interval, and it specifies the evolution of the universe
between any two times t1 and t2 in this interval by giving rules that
specify how each number at each point x changes (with the passage of
time) in terms of the numbers assigned to points in the immediate
neighbourhood of x. These local rules suffice to determine, unambiguously, the values of all the numeric variables associated with any
later time t from the values of all numeric variables associated with
any earlier time. That is, the physical dynamics is deterministic: it
manifests causal closure of the physical. All physically described
properties are unambiguously determined by earlier physically described
properties, where ‘physically described’ means described in terms of
the definite numbers attached to the various points of space-time.
Full reality includes, however, our human experiences. These experiences are not represented in the terms used in classical physics, and
their developments in time are not specified by the rules of classical
physics. The causal closure of the physical manifested by classical
physics renders these unconstrained experiential aspects redundant,
or epiphenomenal: given the numeric variables at any one time (or
some very short interval of time), it makes no difference in the physical future what the flows of our conscious experiences have been, are,
or will be.
Orthodox quantum theory is different in a fundamental way. The
dynamics is described in terms of an evolving quantum state, and a
sequence of abrupt quantum events. The evolving quantum state represents ‘our (evolving) knowledge’ and also ‘objective tendencies for
future quantum events to occur’. Each quantum event represents ‘an
increment in knowledge’ coupled with a reduction of the quantum
state to a form compatible with this new knowledge. This reduction
changes the objective tendencies associated with future experiential
events.
Von Neumann calls the abrupt changes in the quantum state by the
name ‘Process 1’. Between these sudden events the quantum state
evolves in accordance with a quantum generalization of the physically
deterministic local laws of classical mechanics. Von Neumann calls
this evolution by the name ‘Process 2’. But there is a dynamical gap in
the theory. It pertains to the form and timing of the Process 1 events.
There are no rules in the theory, statistical or otherwise, that fix either
which of all the mathematically possible Process 1 actions actually
occurs, or when it occurs. In actual practice the Process 1 action constitutes a probing action performed upon a probed quantum system
by a probing conscious experimenter, and the choice of the occurring
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Process 1 is specified by the consciousness of the probing person/
agent, on the basis of his agenda or preferences. In the von Neumann
formulation, in which the entire physical universe, including the bodies
and brains of the experimenter/observers, are taken to be the probed
quantum system, the conscious choices correspond directly to Process 1 events acting upon the brain/bodies of the experimenter/
observers. These actions upon human brains appear to come from the
mental realm, and they are not determined by any yet-known rules or
laws.
This description of the essential conceptual structure of (ontologically construed) orthodox von Neumann quantum theory is a compact
summary of more detailed descriptions given elsewhere (Stapp, 2003;
2005; Schwartz et al., 2005). But this brief account will be sufficient
for the present, primarily philosophical, purposes.
The main consequence of identifying ‘physics’ with ‘contemporary
orthodox quantum theory’ has already been spelled out. Orthodox
ontologically construed quantum theory injects our conscious experiences into both the dynamics and the basic ontology of contemporary
physical theory; and these experiences, as they actually occur — or
might occur — in our streams of consciousness, are represented in the
terminology employed by the theory. Thus quantum theory meets
Strawson’s demand that ‘full recognition of the reality of experience … is the obligatory starting point for any remotely realistic
version of physicalism’.
On the other hand, due to the explicit incorporation of our experiences into physics achieved by quantum theory, the entire contentious
issue pertaining to ‘physicalism’ effectively evaporates. That issue
was created by the fact that the terms of classical physics left out an
important aspect of reality, namely our experiences, and this omission
raised the problem of how to reconcile the existence of these definite
realities with our science-based understanding of nature. That problem
has been resolved, not by abstruse philosophical analysis, but by a profound advance in physics that recognized and exploited philosophical
understandings that were prevalent already in the early twentieth
century.
Quantum theory can thus be viewed as a brand of physicalism in
which the physics encompasses human experience. The concept of
‘physicalism’ is thereby enlarged, and rescued. On the other hand,
since quantum theory is built upon experiences, one might also be
justified in calling it idealistic. Indeed, the actual events of quantum
theory are experienced increments in knowledge, and hence are idealike, and the evolving quantum state represents a state of knowledge,
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H.P. STAPP
which is also an idea-like reality. The quantum state represents also a
set of tendencies for new experiences to occur, and this is ontologically like an imagined state of potentialities for future experiences. Hence quantum theory could quite fairly be characterized as a
dualistic idealism, with its two idea-like components being experiencial
increments in knowledge and the evolving mathematically described
‘potentialities’ for such experiences to occur.
These considerations mean that a thinker with one viewpoint could
call quantum theory a brand of physicalism, whereas a thinker with
another viewpoint could call this very same theory a brand of idealism. The two labels merely emphasize two different aspects of one
logically coherent contemporary understanding of nature, within which,
in Strawson’s words, ‘no problem of incompatibility arises’.
If one adopts the idealistic viewpoint, in which the evolving quantum state of the universe is essentially idea-like — like an imaginary
idea for what future experiences might be — then it becomes reasonable to say that the theory is ‘panpsychic’, in the weak sense introduced by Strawson.
What all this means is that the terms ‘physicalism’, ‘idealism’ and
‘panpsychism’ carry the huge baggage loaded upon them by centuries
of essentially unquestioned acceptance of the basic concepts of classical physics; and that the way out of the dilemmas generated by using
the intuitions arising from the earlier false physics is to use in philosophical studies of the nature of reality only concepts compatible with
empirically adequate contemporary physics.
Within the quantum context Strawson’s observations about Descartes
seem justified and pertinent. Descartes proposed that the aspects of
nature characterized in idea-like (psychologically described) terms
and those characterized in terms of mathematical properties localized
in space-time interact within the brains of human beings. This is exactly
what happens in orthodox ontologically construed von Neumann
quantum theory.
Strawson is also justified in pointing to the irrationality of ‘the most
fervent revilers of the great Descartes … who have made the mistake
with most intensity’ of themselves believing what they (incorrectly)
ascribe to Descartes, and revile him for. They accept that ‘the experiential and physical are [so] utterly and irreconcilably different, that
they [the revilers] are prepared to deny the existence of experience’
(p. 5). But quantum mechanics reveals how these two aspects of
nature can co-exist and interact within human brains in essentially the
way proposed by Descartes.
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Strawson interprets the word ‘physical’ broadly, so that it encompasses also the mental/experiential aspects of reality. Then everything
we know about can be called physical. He can then say, with other
physicalists, that ‘experience is “really just neurons firing” ’. But he
goes on to insist that this does mean that ‘all characteristics of what is
going on, in the case of experience, can be described by physics and
neurophysiology or any non-revolutionary extension of them’. He
claims that ‘there is a lot more to neurons than physics and neurophysiology records (or can record)’.
Strawson’s solution is close to being just a word game: ‘the physical’ is asserted to encompasses our experiences but physics and
neurophysiology do not. So Strawson hangs on to ‘physicalism’ by
allowing what he calls ‘the physical’ to go — by virtue of a contravention of both the traditional and natural meaning of this word —
beyond physics and neurophysiology. But the resolution of these
problems provided by quantum mechanics is not just a shuffling of
the meanings of words. It is an explicit conceptual structure that combines aspects that are described in physical terms (i.e. by assigning
mathematical properties to points in space-time) with aspects of
reality that are described in psychological terms, in such a way as to
produce very accurate and useful predictions about future experiences
from knowledge derived from past experiences.
References
Honderich, T. (1995), Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 641.
Schwartz, J., Stapp, H. and Beauregard, M. (2005), ‘Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology: a neurophysical model of the mind/brain interaction’,
Phil. Trans. Royal Society: B 360 (1458) (1309–27).
Stapp, H.P. (2003), Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics (Berlin, Heidelberg,
New York: Springer), Chs. 6 and 12.
Stapp, H.P. (2005), ‘Quantum interactive dualism: an alternative to materialism’,
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12 (11), pp. 43–58.
Strawson, G. (2006), ‘Realistic monism: why physicalism entails panpsychism’,
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 13 (10–11), pp. 3–31.
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