<1>
Ralph Ellis has responded (JCS-Online 17 December 1998) to my note on the
Ellis-Newton JCS article on ‘Three Paradoxes of Phenomenal Consciousness’
by saying that rejection of mind-independent reality naturally leads to
a panpsychism view (‘there is never any time in the universe without
consciousness; a water stream is conscious’). This view is not what
I proposed.
<2>
I am saying that all ideas we ever can talk about arise in our own ongoing
subjective (individual and/or collective) experience. For instance, ideas
about the beginning of the universe are extrapolations from ongoing experience
with the help of concepts which we have developed to structure and handle
various aspects of mind-nature experience (which is originally not divided
into mind versus nature). ‘The universe’ is one such idea. The
traditional view is to regard the universe as mind-independent, that is
as metaphysically (absolutely) real. This opinion can no longer be justified.
Also, the metaphysical (mind-independent) status of this view is not changed
by ascribing consciousness to the universe, or to any part of nature, in
a panpsychistic view.
<3>
Of the four meanings of ‘mind-independent reality’ (MIR) which
Ellis discusses, he rejects the first three but retains the fourth, ‘the
truth or falsity of (a) proposition does not depend on whether someone believes
that it is true or false’. I agree with this statement but do not think
that it has to do with MIR; it does not require MIR (nor is MIR possible).
Instead it expresses a belief in favour of (or against) a working hypothesis,
which is a structure within mind. A decision for or against it depends on
evidence, which means that the working hypothesis (or model) in question
needs to be tried out as to its usefulness. One may for instance say, as
I did, that (for the present at least) ‘it seems safe to assume that
all mental activities require brain activities’. My belief supports
such a statement but, as Ellis points out, it does not prove that it is
correct (i.e., that it will withstand thorough testing). In case my assumption
should be falsified the working hypothesis can and will be changed. This
does not imply acceptance of mind-independent reality for the result or
its reasons.
<4>
In connection with the question of ‘representation’, Ellis refers
to Husserl’s distinction between ‘intentional’ and ‘real’
objects. Husserl concluded that all mental acts are fallible, and this is
of course so for all (mental) hypotheses or models. But despite this Husserl
himself seems to have maintained that only objective truths may be called
science (Jaspers did not). So far as I can see the only way one can think
about objective truth (and about real objects) is in metaphysical terms.
What I have been proposing is that everyone needs, and will always need,
some kind of metaphysics, but that it ought to be changed from unjustifiable
absolute metaphysics (or MIR) to working or as-if metaphysics (or MIR),
in extension of the ‘working hypothesis’ concept.
<5>
Concerning the mind-brain relation we can then say that our knowledge of
brain function consists of an assembly of working hypotheses or models formed
within ongoing subjective experience (mind, consciousness). In contrast,
questions such as how minds adhere to bodies, or how consciousness emerges
from brains, from quantum processes, or from computer programs, are wrongly
put and therefore unanswerable, because they neglect the origin of knowledge
within the mind.
----------------------------
Herbert FJ Muller
e-mail <mdmu@musica.mcgill.ca>