So what does Searle think?
Since I mentioned it in my earlier post, I’m going to put up a summary of a nice article on Searle’s The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992). It’s old news now, and his attempt at solving the materialist - dualist problem has largely been refuted as a failure, but the discussion is interesting.
As well, although I stand by my fisking of Egnor’s article(s), I will say that there are quite a few philosophers and neuroscientists who believe in an immaterial mind. While that position is berated as patently ridiculous by many, it isn’t so self-evident to many experts. Please note that this isn’t an appeal to authority–I do not think that this is evidence for the theory, but it’s at least worth recognizing.
That said, onward with Daniel Palmer’s “Searle on Consciousness: Or How Not to be a Physicalist.”
Background
What is the debate that Searle is entering?
Materialism - “the world is made up entirely of physical particles in fields of force” (And yes, Deepak Chopra, that does include magnetism)
Dualism - consciousness contains qualities that are subjective and not explainable by the physical sciences (there is a separate reality from the physical)
The problem is that there isn’t a way to hold both together. If the world is entirely physical, then subjective mental states ought to be reducible to physical atomic states. If they are not, then it appears there are two kinds of reality, neither of which is reducible to the other.
Searle thinks this is a false dichotomy and his book (which I admit I have not read, though I’ve read other works by him) is an effort to overcome it by holding onto the entirely physical nature of reality and also the existence of subjective mental phenomena.
The Theory: Part I, the Physical
As I said, Searle doesn’t want to give up the premise that the world–and all of reality–is physical. Thus, he starts with the idea that
“The properties that…larger systems or entities have are a function of the properties of the smaller particles that compose them and their causal relations.”
From this, Searle also believes that
“The causal powers of the larger systems are likewise explainable in terms of the causal features of their microstructures.”
Vinegar is the example that Palmer uses: the acidity of vinegar (property) is explainable by molecular structures and the causal relationships between them. Further the causal power of vinegar is also explainable in these terms.
And consciousness? Like vinegar, it is explainable in terms of physical properties, in particular, “biological processes caused by lower-level neuronal processes in the brain.”
If Searle were a materialist, this would be the end of the story.
The Theory: Part II, the Mental
However, Searle is trying to explain why mental phenomena are unique, having a “subjective quality” that isn’t found in other physical properties. The main feature that is confounding to Searle is that “consciousness is not accessible to outside observation in th esame manner that other natural phenomena are; its very existence is perspectival.”
This limits the reducibility of consciousness–the appearance (subjective state) is what is real, so there’s no further way to reduce mental phenomena.
But doesn’t this contradict Searle’s earlier statements, that all of reality (which, presumably includes mental phenomena) is reducible to the physical, causal processes at lower levels? In response Searle tries to make a distinction between ontological reducibility and causal reducibility. Mental phenomena are not ontologically reducible to physical processes, but they are causally reducible.
Causal reduction, according to Searle, is when causal properties (like the ability of liquid to flow) are reducible to the constitutive particles (in the case of liquids, molecular structure). What this means for consciousness is that its causal properties are limited to those explainable by the brain’s neurons, in contrast to forms of emergence in which consciousness can have further causal powers, unmoored from the brain as an explanans.
The Problem for Searle
All of this, so far, seems to fit into a physicalist picture of the world. So how is Searle tackling dualism? The answer in one word: teleology. The content of consciousness, repreresentations, have a normative structure that is unaccountable in physical terms. These norms include semantic concepts like “truth and falsity, success and failure.” Truth and falsity resist ontological reduction to neuronal states, Searle believes. Further, it seems that there are ways in which they also resist the causal reduction Searle has accepted–consciousness causes behavior because of its semantic content, and as I’ve stated, this isn’t reducible.
This is one problem–but a further is his claim that he isn’t a dualist, although he argues that consciousness is “ontologically distinct” from physical properties. I am, with Palmer, baffled as to how Searle’s view isn’t dualism (it would seem to follow trivially, in virtue of the definition of dualism!)
One way out is to clarify what Searle means by consciousness being like other physical processes. Palmer gives the example of water: it can have the property of being liquid and the property of being refreshing. The second property would be left out if we were giving a purely physical description of the world. You could, maybe, say that consciousness is like this. But the problem is that this second property is not intrinsic to water. It requires an observer. Consciousness, according to Searle is intrinsically unique in having a subjective nature.
Another question for Searle is his contention that consciousness is located in the brain–thus it is spatial. If this is the case (which Palmer argues is tenable, since we don’t say that the liquidity of water is located “in” the water), then why isn’t it accessible to third-person observation?
Conclusion
Palmer concludes that Searle’s attempt to dissolve the problem has failed–you just cannot have it both ways.
Image: Descartes famous pineal gland was another way to bridge the gap between the material and the immaterial. Source. WW Norton website, photo The Wardner Collection, NY.