relationship between matter (materialism) and consciousness.
INTRODUCTION
The question is whether we can adopt a robust stance
with respect to the qualitative content of occurrent experience and hold on to
ontological physicalism at the same time. Materialism may have a problem of
showing the place of phenomenal qualities in the spatiotemporal realm. Again
the question that comes up is, taking a robust stance toward the dual ontology
relates to the metaphysical theory that one is to adopt to reflect and account
for the apparent dual character of this reality. Physicalism and idealism are
theories to confront this. TLS Springe argues for classic idealism where he
posits mental entity and reduces physical entity to components of the mental.[1]
Physicalism, posits physical properties and reduces
mental properties. We notice that both theories fail to explain how their
foundamental properties gives rise to the other. Also salient here is the
causal relation between consciousness and physical things, of which the
universe persent to us to constitute. Both ought to capture the total character
of the universe and give account of the way the universe manifests itself to
the knowing subject. In this work we will try to show the relationship between
matter (materialism) and consciousness. Because, consciousness is as real as physical
things and both matter and consciousness make up the ostensible features of our
world. [2]
Materialism: Materialism is a form of
philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in
nature, and that all phenomena, including mental phenomena and consciousness,
are the result of material interactions. In materialism we have both the
Eliminative materialism wish posits that ‘ mental states does not exist, that
there are no minds’. The second is the Reductive materialism which posits that
‘ there are no mind as such’. Materialism also called Physicallism, argue that
even the soul is made of material entity. The Atomists are the said oldest form
of materialists that existed, for them there is nothing immaterial, every thing
is material because they are composed of atoms.
In line with this view we also have the Epicureans who
are not deterministic like the Atomists but they posit that things come to be
by combination or collision. Property dualism, recognizes that everything
consists of matter, but holds that matter can have two types of properties,
physical and mental but that the mental cannot be reduced to the physical. This
theory is also called the non reductive physicalism. But the question of how
subjective states can influence matter without violating the laws of physics
remains unresolved. Property dualism leads panpsychism- the idea that all
matter has some conscious properties, however limited they may be. In the other
to consider properly the issue at hand let us consider briefly some other
aspects of materialism:
Dialectical Materialism:
This was highly posited by Lenin Engels who says that everything is material
and denied the existence of anything immaterial. For Lenin, Consciousness, is a
product of matter at its highly developed stage. Thinking, wiling, loving, are
all operation of the brain which is a highly developed matter and are series of
electro-chemical processes in the brain.[3]
Consciousness here is just a material or brain process.
Behaviourism: Philosophical
behaviorism, unfortunately, had two major flaws that made it awkward to
believe, even for its defenders. It evidently ignored, and even denied, the
'inner' aspect of our mental states. To have a pain, for example, seems to be
not merely a matter of being inclined to moan, to wince. Pains also have an
intrinsic qualitative nature, that is revealed in introspection, and any theory
of mind that ignores or denies such qualia is simply derelict in its duty.[4]
The second flaw emerged when behaviorists attempted to specify in detail the
multitracked disposition said to constitute any given mental state.[5]
Central-State
Materialism: This theory gives us a close
consideration into the materialism that consciousness issue. It identifies the
mind and the brain. They argues that mental activities are activities of the
brain. It is pertinent to state here that U.T. Place in one of his articles ‘Is
consciousness a brain process?’ argues that consciousness is a brain process.
This does not mean or show that both are identical or one the giving of the
other, but that consciousness is a process of the brain.
But here still
lies the question ‘is consciousness a brain process? If so, then we can say
that one day science would be able in the future to analyse it, either to
verify it or to falsify it, but if it is mental then science can do nothing
about it. Worthy of note here also is David Donald who also argues that every
mental event is identical with some physical events. His theory can also be
refered to as the ‘anomalous monism’[6].
Also Ted Honderich posits that any time there is a mental event there must also
be a corresponding neural event, this implies that mental events like
consciousness is determined by neural events.[7]
Consciousness: Conscious
or mental events are in some kind of necessary connection with neural events.
This fact of psycho-neural intimacy, provides the best argument for strict or
true identity theories of consciousness. These take the property of
consciousness to be a neural property, or, as we can say instead, take
conscious events to have only neural properties. The difference for present
purposes between ourselves and stones, chairs and our computers is that we are
conscious. The difference is fundamental. Being conscious is sufficient for
having a mind in one sense of the word 'mind', and being conscious is necessary
and fundamental to having a mind.[8]
What is this difference between ourselves and stones, chairs and our computers?
And what are the properties and nature of consciousness. All other identity theories,
the lenient or arguable ones such as Donald Davidson's Anomalous Monism and
also the Union Theory, all of which bear the slight burden of being called
property dualisms, raise the very question we are considering. They allow that
consciousness brings in something non-neural. The question now what is it?. The
dualists define consciousness as not being physical but the Materialists define
consciousness as not above neural activities. Consciousness is the awareness of
ones belief that a thing in reality exists in reality and which is a state
produced by that perceiving that belief.[9] Psychologically, Robert Edward posits that
mental life is possible without consciousness.[10]
Consciousness in terms of idea is having activated beliefs about one’s state of
mind.[11]
David Chalmers , identified two problem which may
arise in the study of consciousness: the ‘easy problem’ and the ‘ hard
problem’.[12]
In the case of consciousness, the easy problems are to explain certain
characteristics of consciousness that seem solvable by the classic method of
scientific observation and experiment. For example, a conscious experience of
pain may be attributed to an injury suffered by the body. The hard problem on
the other hand made it hard to find a place in the world for consciousness, but
once the world in its entirety came to be understood as a relationship among
forces, atoms, and molecules, that left very little room for the subjective
aspect of consciousness. Thomas Nagel in explaining this notion says ‘it is
what it is like’ to be oneself and to experience qualia subjectively.[13]
Materialism –
Consciousness: The argument thus Far
A solution to the Materialism- Consciousness, must
explain how a particular subjective impression of the ‘redness’ of the same
object can arise from the activity of our neuronal assemblies. This problem may
be considered as : why does the activity of my brain make me feel something
instead of nothing?.
The concept of matter has changed through history and will probably continue to
do so.[14]
It is also controversial what constitutes a reductive explanation of
phenomenological generalizations about temperatures of gases, say to
microphysical laws in this case, the kinetic theory of heat.[15]Furthermore,
with respect to all the aforementioned kinds of consciousness, we can ask
whether they are reducible to brain states or processes.
Even when we
focus on only one kind of consciousness, there are further distinctions to be
made. For instance, it is one thing to ask (i) whether brain states are identical
to qualia; and another (ii) whether it is possible to explain qualia in
physicalist terms. Therefore, this problem is based both
on the phenomenological aspect of consciousness and the functional aspect of
consciousness. Some philosophers believe that mental processes might not exert
any causal influence on the physical or material world. But on the other hand,
some interactionist emergent philosophers have posited the contrary view, that
although this mental states are not physical they may cause the physical world.
Some materialists regard this concepts of emergence and its strange nature as
an excuse for not bucking down to the task of actually studying the neural
correlative of consciousness. Other materialists, however, invoke the concept
of emergence when they offer neurobilogical models of consciousness in which
consciousness emerges from the complexity of the proposed neural processes. But
according to their critics, they thereby leave an explanatory gap that tends to
reduce their position to a form of mysterianism.
Moreover, the Physicalist alternative to dualism gets
around this problem by positing that conscious state may not be distinct from
physical state. The effect of our mental state on our behaviour is therefore no
longer problematic, because both are part of the physical. In response to this,
some materialist opted for a ‘dual-aspect’ theory that considers the brain and
the mind to be the same thing, that is externally and objective the other
internally or subjective. Some number of popular arguments for dualism start
from a premise about an epistemic gap between physical truths about truths
about consciousness, and infer an ontological gap between physical processes
and consciousness. Arguments of this sort include the conceivability argument,
the knowledge argument, the explanatory-gap argument, and the property dualism
argument. Such arguments are often resisted on the grounds that epistemic
premises do not entail ontological conclusion.
Critically, other materialists, known as the reductionist
materialists, tend to simply reduce the mental to the physical. But they offer
at least two different theories about the kind of identity relationship between
materialism and consciousness and their corresponding events. Some reductionist
materialists posit a type-to-type identity, in which a given type of mental event is considered
identical to one, and only one type of physical event. This is a theory of
identity between two types of things mental state on the one hand and the brain
state on the other hand. Some have critiqued this saying that before you can
declare a given mental state identical to a given physical state of the brain,
you would have know precisely what types of mental states. Churchlands posits
that psychological explanation of our mental states are only temporary stopgaps
that will one day be replaced by new neurobiological models.[16]
This goes on to streamline the place of consciousness in the physical as
posited by Dom Thomas “consciousness lies at some point in the left cerebral
hemisphere and within the blood supply of that part of the middle cerebral
artery lying above the anterior third of the corpus callosum”.[17]
Quantum Theory and
Consciousness
What is baffling about the quantum story is that, it
seems, as soon as the superposed state of the quantum world is exposed to
consciousness quantum dynamics are brought to a halt. Indeterminacy is at once
replaced by determinacy, and a concrete structure of reality emerges. The
problem is, if consciousness is itself a component of the world, in which the
quantum theory applies, then consciousness itself must be subjected to the
Schrodinger dynamics, in which case the interaction of consciousness with the
superposed state for the object under observation should result in a fused
superposed state for consciousness and its object of observation.
Since, this is apparently not what characterizes our
experience, it is tempting to think that the emergence of consciousness has a
critical role in collapsing the wave function of the object under observation.
Sticking to the interpretation, which endows consciousness with power to
interfere with the dynamics of the wave function in other to yield a world with
discrete and determinate properties, has the consequence of attributing
creative power to consciousness, in that it adds extra ingredient to the
constituents of the universe. It therefore follows to say that physical world is in part the product of
the intervention of consciousness, as though consciousness is not itself part
of the physical world.[18]
Furthermore, discussion of various influential skeptical arguments that
question the possibility of reductive explanations of qualia in physicalist
terms: knowledge arguments, conceivability arguments, the argument of multiple
realizability, and the explanatory gap argument. None of the arguments is found
to be very convincing. It does not necessarily follow that reductive
physicalism is the only option, but it is defensible. However, constant
conceptual and methodological reflection is required, alongside ongoing
research, to keep such a view free from dogmatism and naivety.
A related question currently under discussion
is whether the concept of qualia is clear enough. Those who assume an
explanatory gap often claim that qualia are “intrinsic” properties (not
relational: not dependent upon other things), and subjective and ineffable (ie,
their content cannot be expressed in words, at least not completely). Saying
they are intrinsic, however, might beg the question, since it excludes the
possibility of functional analysis. So reductionists favor a more moderate
notion of qualia, which merely focuses on the phenomenal character (the
“what-it's-likeness”) as the explanandum.
CONCLUSION
We have in this work, considered materialism
consciousness from various points of view. We have in the first place,
clarified the essential terms: materialism, dialectical materialism,
behaviourism, central state materialism, consciousness,
materialism-consciousness argument thus far, and quantum theory and consciousness.
What is interesting is that much neuroscience of the mind has been provoked by
skeptical philosophical arguments. However, as Immanuel Kant said, skeptics are
like nomads, who abhor “permanent cultivation of the soil.”[19]
The chief function of skepticism is to sharpen our reasoning, and to avoid both
dogmatism and naivety. Naivety here consists of an inference from statements
about empirical correlations between brain states and qualia to claims that the
former reductively explain the latter. Dogmatism would be to assume that
reductive physicalism must be true and defended, come what may. Skepticism is
no position to ultimately hold either; it is not ultimately tenable or
desirable. I have shown how many skeptical arguments suffer from serious
weaknesses. In my view, we should view the advancement of the neuroscience of
the mind as an arduous task that perhaps requires, as previous developments in
science did, revisions of basic concepts and methodologies.
[1] Raymond
O. Osei, The Mind-Body Problem in Philosophy: An Analysis of the Core Issues,
(Ibadan: Hope publication Ltd, 2006), p. 173.
[2]
Raymond O. Osei, The Mind-Body Problem in Philosophy: An Analysis of the Core
Issues, (Ibadan: Hope publication Ltd, 2006), p. 174.
[3]
Joseph, O. Philosophy of Mind, (Lagos: Joja press, 2001),p. 12.
[4] Paul
M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the
Philosophy of Mind,(London: The MIT press, 1999),p. 24.
[5] Paul
M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the
Philosophy of Mind,(London: The MIT press, 1999),p. 24.
[6]
Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and
Events, (Oxford: O.U.press, 1980),p.224.
[7] Ted
Honderich, A Theory of Dterminism,
(Oxford: O.U.Press, 1988), p. 107.
[8]
Anthony O’ Hear, Current Issues in Philosophy of Mind, ( Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998),p. 137.
[9]O.R.
Jones and Peter Smith, The Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction, (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1986),p.211.
[10]
Robert, E. Brennan, General Psychology: An Interpretation of Science of Mind
based on Thomas Aquinas, (New York: Macmillian company, 1937),p.85.
[11] O.R. Jones
and Peter Smith, The Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction, (London: Cambridge
University Press, 1986),p.213.
[15] Majer U. Lassen sich
phanomenologische Gesetze “im Prinzip” auf mikrophysikalische Theorien
zurückfuhren? In: Pauen M, Stephan A eds. Phänomenales Bewusstsein.
Paderborn, (Germany: Mentis,2002),p.369–401.
[16] Paul
M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the
Philosophy of Mind,(London: The MIT press, 1999),p. 143.
[17] Walter
E. Dandy, Congenital Cerebral Cysts, as quoted in Dom Thomas Verner, Cognitive
Psychology, (New York: J.B. Lippincott company, 1939), p. 57.
[18]
Raymond O. Osei, The Mind-Body Problem in Philosophy: An Analysis of the Core
Issues, (Ibadan: Hope publication Ltd, 2006), p. 187.
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