As regards the nature of phenomenal experience in and of itself, panexperientialism is the most elucidating perspective I’ve run across (actually I thought of it “independently” and had my hopes of having thought an original thought dashed across mostly 20th century philosophy). It answers the mind/body problem (in epiphenomenalism getting something from nothing) by asserting that phenomenal experience is a property of matter. It’s a young philosophy that’s made some strange turns and run into dead ends in the past (thermostats have experience? I think Chalmers has changed his mind on that), but I’ve read formulations of it that seem to give it at least an initial handhold in cogent explanation. In this formulation, experience is said to be a property of even the most fundamental constituents of physical reality--at the moment quarks and leptons. When I talk of the “experience” of a particle I don’t mean emotion or even mere sensory experience, but rather a quality of experience so basic as to be absolutely inconceivable by we, the most complex physical systems in the known universe. From the level of fundamental particles experience is expressed up on through the “natural kinds”, in different ways, at the atomic, molecular, and cellular levels, and eventually at the level of the organism.
Within each level the relationships of constituent parts to one another affect the nature of the unified experience possessed at that level, and the results are not reducible to a phenomenal addition of the constituents. For example, though each is comprised of carbon atoms, molecules of graphite and diamond would each possess a different basic phenomenal experience because the arrangement of carbon atoms is different in each substance. If an arrangement of constituent parts is sufficient to express a unique physical or chemical property, we might imagine it sufficient to express a unique phenomenal quality. By compounding these “physio-phenomenal” constituents--quarks in protons and neutrons, atoms in molecules etc.--new and unique qualities of phenomenal experience are produced.
This is NOT to say chairs, rocks, or even computers possess experience as individual items. These are aggregate entities, not natural kinds. The silicon atoms in a computer chip possess experience, as do the iron oxide molecules in the rusty nails that hold the chair together, but the incidental constructions the atoms and molecules inhabit do not because such things are merely aggregates. Though aggregate entities are composed of compound or fundemental physio-phenomenal entities, they themselves do not possess a unified experience as aggregates. Brains, or the various, intimately connected, modules therein, are thought to possess experience as compound entities of specifically arranged neural cells.
Up to and through the level of molecules, panexperientialism is pretty clean. When we make the jump to the cellular level things start to get muddy, and when we make the leap to the level of the organism it’s a damn swamp. What are the rules for deciding what constitutes an experiential property of a cell and what doesn’t (the removal of one ion channel or a lipid from the cell’s wall might change it’s properties subtly but not in a deeply functional way; does it change its experience)? What about the profoundly more complex level of the organism?!
However, this is not a problem unique to panexperientialism. The concepts of “natural kinds” and “properties” make trouble at the level of explanation itself in the philosophy of anything. Even in particle physics, that sacred goat, the fundamental particles have properties like spin, color, and flavor despite being thought of and treated within that discipline as fundamental particles, not composites. (Our best attempt to make further reductions, string theory, is seeing a steady exodus of its formally faithful due to its non-falsifiablity and seeming application to anything, not just our universe (see Columbia U’s Peter Woit in “Not Even Wrong”)). These properties are not like physical heat, which can be described fully in terms of the motion of molecules/atoms. These properties are not explained by appeal to anything, empirically speaking, more elemental. If fundamental particles can possess multiple real and distinct properties then what the hell is a property other than a ghostly, irreducible, and unavoidable metaphysical posit? What, if anything, constrains the limits and natures of what “properties” can be, especially if they can have no physical function (as looks to be the case in mere phenomenal experience)? So for now at least, other than our waning, and not rigidly constraining, aspirations for parsimony, why shouldn’t properties express themselves in other areas, such as in phenomenal being? Adding one more real property to the physical world to explain the directly experienced empirical fact of experience qua experience seems a lot less complex than getting something from nothing.
Dondante said:
I agree. The capacity to see others as individuals with their own private thoughts seems necessary for advanced systems of communication. It’d be necessary for accountability, empathy, etc.
Interesting side note: rats seem to experience empathy. When pressing a bar to receive food coincides with the shocking of a cage mate, a rat will forego the treats to spare the cage-mate pain. Also, when their stomachs are injected with acid (yeah I know), a rat will writhe around in pain longer when it's in the company of an injected cage-mate than it will alone or with a non-cage-mate rat. Empathy seems to have it's essential neural representation in "mirror neurons" (which autistics, not surprisingly, lack to a great degree).
