Two New Arguments Against Physicalism

More reasons physicalism is bogus

Physicalism is the idea that conscious states just are a type of physical state. 1 Against Physicalism. Elsewhere, I’ve objected to physicalism about consciousness. I think that there are fundamental gaps between the mental and the physical. Here, I’ll present two arguments against physicalism that I haven’t presented before.

1 The vagueness argument

1. If consciousness were physical, there would be borderline cases where there is no fact about whether something is conscious or not.

2. There are not borderline cases where there is no fact about whether something is conscious or not.

Therefore, consciousness is not physical.

Premise 1 is supported just by reflections on physical things. All physical things are higher-order descriptions of various simple phenomena—it’s vague whether something is a chair, whether something is red, and so on. If consciousness is just some higher-order property, then there will be lots of cases where there isn’t a precise fact about whether something is conscious. Emerson notes

When does the day become the night? Well, there is no exact moment. When does stubble become a beard? When does someone become famous? There is no fact of the matter; there is no precise threshold.

Premise 2 is supported by the obvious fact that something either is or is not conscious. It can’t be vague whether or not something is conscious. As Emerson notes

On reflection it seems hard to imagine anything other than a bright borderline between wholly non-experiential reality and experiential reality. Experiences are mental states such that there’s something it is like subjectively to undergo them. It might be indeterminate what you’re feeling, but not whether you’re feeling. The transition from feeling nothing to feeling something couldn’t have been gradual: As soon as it’s not nothing, it’s something. No matter how minimal a conscious experience is, if it’s “like something” to exist – anything at all – it’s no longer like nothing at all. There is no space between these two poles for indeterminacy to live.

There are some physicalist theories that avoid this. Goff gave the example of integrated information theory. On this view, something has consciousness if (and only if) it is a system that integrates multiple different types of information—our brain, for example, is conscious because we integrate lots of different types of information. There’s a precise fact—probably—about whether and how much integrated information something has. But this is still an objection to the vast majority of physicalist theories.

2 The external appearance argument

This argument is roughly as follows.

Premise 1) All physical things are publicly observable

Premise 2) Consciousness is not publicly observable

Therefore, consciousness is not a physical thing

Premise 3) If consciousness is not a physical thing, then physicalism is false

Therefore, physicalism is false

Physicalism is the philosophical position that holds that everything, including human consciousness, can be reduced to physical processes and can be explained by scientific investigation. However, the argument presented above challenges the validity of physicalism by highlighting a key difference between physical objects and consciousness.

The argument begins by stating that all physical things are publicly observable. This means that physical objects and their properties can be observed by anyone who has access to them. The physical world is objective and can be examined and tested using scientific methods. This is one of the supposed strengths of physicalism, as it provides a basis for empirical investigation and allows us to build a comprehensive understanding of the world.

The second premise of the argument asserts that consciousness is not publicly observable. Unlike physical objects, consciousness is subjective and cannot be directly observed by others. Conscious experiences, such as pain or pleasure, are only known by the person who experiences them. While scientists can measure brain activity and make inferences about a person's mental state, they cannot directly observe or measure a person's subjective experience.

This distinction between physical objects and consciousness leads to the conclusion that consciousness is not a physical thing. If consciousness is not physical, then it cannot be reduced to physical processes or explained by scientific investigation alone. This challenges the fundamental assumption of physicalism and calls into question the idea that everything can be explained in purely physical terms.

Some defenders of physicalism may argue that consciousness can be reduced to physical processes, even if it is not publicly observable. They may point to brain imaging studies that show a correlation between brain activity and conscious experience. However, this does not necessarily mean that consciousness can be fully explained in physical terms. The subjective nature of consciousness remains a challenge for physicalism.

All in all, the argument presented above provides a compelling challenge to physicalism by highlighting the difference between physical objects and consciousness. The fact that consciousness is not publicly observable suggests that it is not a physical thing and cannot be fully explained by physicalism. While physicalism has many strengths, this argument suggests that it may not be able to account for all aspects of reality.

By the way, this second argument was written by Chat Gpt3. Still spot on though.