Imagine a brick hitting a window...

I believe it's a pragmatically relevant to understand why a brick will break glass. Understanding that "why" can, if one is interested, lead to those deeper mysteries. Materials science is a interdisciplinary science involving chemistry and physics, properties of matter... . I don't know if the lay philosopher takes science into account.

If you want to provide a science based account of what is happening, I honestly think that would be great.

[Laird]

In the "Neuroscience and free will" thread, Sci took issue with a quote I posted from Bernardo Kastrup, and suggested that this thread would be the best place to discuss the disagreement. So, let's do that. Here's the quote from Bernardo:

if the word has any meaning at all, freewill must not have any explanation, otherwise it wouldn’t be free. An explanation always entails a chain of cause and effect that unfolds into the phenomenon being explained. If freewill could be explained, it would consist merely of the unfolding of causality, which contradicts the meaning of the word. Therefore, freewill is, by definition, something that can’t be explained or modeled

And here's Sci's response (after I suggested it reflected both of our positions):

Hmmm...I'm not sure we have the same position, because I don't think Bernardo is correct about what explanations ultimately entail.

In what way, then, Sci, do you think Bernardo is wrong, and/or, what do you think explanations do ultimately entail?

In the "Neuroscience and free will" thread, Sci took issue with a quote I posted from Bernardo Kastrup, and suggested that this thread would be the best place to discuss the disagreement. So, let's do that. Here's the quote from Bernardo:


And here's Sci's response (after I suggested it reflected both of our positions):


In what way, then, Sci, do you think Bernardo is wrong, and/or, what do you think explanations do ultimately entail?

It seems to me Bernardo's saying to explain something is to provide a causal chain, which I think is simply a means toward utility rather than a path to understanding.

If you're camping "How to make a fire" involves a different level of causal explanation than if you're in Chemistry 101. So the causal chain is interest-relative, but the issues go further than this because to get a causal explanation at all requires the use of Intellect.

To quote Feser from the other thread I posted today:

You are not going to be able to reduce intelligence to patterns of behavior or dispositions to behavior (as the behaviorist holds), or explain it in terms of causal relations between the human organism and aspects of its environment (as causal theories of content hold), etc., because the behavior, causal relations, etc. have whatever semantic associations they have only by reference to an intellect which grasps those associations.  The intellect is itself the central and irreducible element of the semantic situation.  (It is irreducible to inner “utterances” and other mental imagery too.  When I entertain the thought that the cat is on the mat, I might “hear” in my mind the English sentence “The cat is on the mat,” but that auditory image is not itself the thought. 

The larger issue is that for any causal chain of explanations, at whatever level, the interest-relativity excludes all the factors that contributed to any event. Putnam uses the example of a pressure cooker exploding - we would point to the valve being closed as the cause (whether due to negligence on the designer or user) but you could just as easily say the cause was the constants of the Universe at that time, or for something less grandiose the lack of holes in the lid of the cooker.

So that's one problem, the issue of interest-relativity and the necessity of an Intellect to select what is of interest. But even if we were to take the state of the known universe as a whole - in an attempt to remove observers from our explanations -  as the cause of any effect we would still be lacking in explanation because there would still exist the issue of why something else doesn't happen. For example why didn't the constants/laws of the Universe shift temporarily? 

So the "explanation" that BK is talking about would have an issue at every step in the causal chain - the problem is not the length of the chain as we add events at our level of interest but rather with every link of the chain at any of the particular A -> B relations regardless of length.

All that said, in fairness to him I've had conversations with BK after WMiB was published and he does see the issues I've raised as going beyond the question of human mental causation which is something of a distraction. There are more than enough issues with run-of-the-mill, brick through window scenarios b/c the same unanswered set of issues runs through all causal-chain type explanations even if the Mind introduces new issues as noted by the above Feser quote.

[Laird]

Fair enough!

In my review of Bernardo's book, where I appreciatively repeated that quote, I did note that an explanation need not be causal, so to an extent we already agreed on this, although you raise issues that I hadn't raised there. I think that where we all agree though is that free will can't be explained mechanistically or at least reductively, which is the thrust of Bernardo's quote, and is why I appreciated it. But this is a thread on causality, not free will, so that's not especially relevant!

Fair enough!

In my review of Bernardo's book, where I appreciatively repeated that quote, I did note that an explanation need not be causal, so to an extent we already agreed on this, although you raise issues that I hadn't raised there. I think that where we all agree though is that free will can't be explained mechanistically or at least reductively, which is the thrust of Bernardo's quote, and is why I appreciated it. But this is a thread on causality, not free will, so that's not especially relevant!

Well if the goal of an explanation is elucidation/understanding of some phenomenon I don't think one can explain anything via mechanistic reduction, even if this kind of explanation provides great utility.

One way of looking at this is you teaching me how to master some video game's mechanics could be done without once discussing programming or computer architecture. Explanations that are of great practical value are within contexts, whereas ultimate explanations have to explain the very contexts that allow utility-based explanations to have any utility.

If we're on the same page I think this all parallels something you say in that review:

Third, I was very impressed by Bernardo's insight into, and framing/phrasing of, the distinction between the capacity of science and the capacity of philosophy when it comes to ontology (footnotes elided): "science can explain a body in terms of tissues; tissues in terms of cells; cells in terms of molecules; molecules in terms of atoms; and atoms in terms of subatomic particles. But then it can only explain one subatomic particle in terms of another, by highlighting their relative differences. Science cannot explain the fundamental nature of what a subatomic particle is in itself, since all scientific explanations need a frame of reference to provide contrasts.

"Capturing the observable patterns and regularities of the elements of reality, relative to each other, is an empirical and scientific question. But pondering about the fundamental nature of these elements is not; it is a philosophical question"[2].

[Laird]

ultimate explanations have to explain the very contexts that allow utility-based explanations to have any utility.

...and (I think you mean to imply) do so non-mechanistically and non-reductively.

I am interested in the categories of explanation that are left after eliminating causal/mechanistic/reductive explanations (which you say can provide only utility, not ultimate understanding - a position which makes sense to me even if I perhaps wouldn't frame it quite as strongly as you have). Two come immediately to mind: logical and introspective. Would you suggest any others?

I think this all parallels something you say in that review

Yes. I thought you'd be on board with that based on quotes you've shared appreciatively in the past.

...and (I think you mean to imply) do so non-mechanistically and non-reductively.

I am interested in the categories of explanation that are left after eliminating causal/mechanistic/reductive explanations (which you say can provide only utility, not ultimate understanding - a position which makes sense to me even if I perhaps wouldn't frame it quite as strongly as you have). Two come immediately to mind: logical and introspective. Would you suggest any others?

I just mean that when a person seeks to explain something for the purpose of getting to the truth of what are the reasons behind any phenomenon, to imply the phenomena can be understood by breaking something down into parts that inexplicable have a machine like behavior - say particles obeying the laws of physics - is nothing more than selecting a convenient stopping point of analysis.

On Skeptiko I made a long thread about this subject, the limitations of mechanistic assumption...

[Laird]

On Skeptiko I made a long thread about this subject, the limitations of mechanistic assumption...

Thanks, will check it out (again?) when I have more time online.

[Laird]

If we're on the same page I think this all parallels something you say in that review:

Third, I was very impressed by Bernardo's insight into, and framing/phrasing of, the distinction between the capacity of science and the capacity of philosophy when it comes to ontology (footnotes elided): "science can explain a body in terms of tissues; tissues in terms of cells; cells in terms of molecules; molecules in terms of atoms; and atoms in terms of subatomic particles. But then it can only explain one subatomic particle in terms of another, by highlighting their relative differences. Science cannot explain the fundamental nature of what a subatomic particle is in itself, since all scientific explanations need a frame of reference to provide contrasts.

"Capturing the observable patterns and regularities of the elements of reality, relative to each other, is an empirical and scientific question. But pondering about the fundamental nature of these elements is not; it is a philosophical question"[2].

Continued off-topic comments: I thought it worth noting that in the paper to which you linked in the opening post of your Panpsychism and Mental Monism: Comparison and Evaluation thread, this concept has been referred to as the "topic neutrality" of physics.