Emergentism is a very intuitive hypothesis, not devoid of logic. If with anesthesia or death or a good blow to the head we can make subjective experiences disappear, then it must be the body, and more specifically, the brain, that is responsible for the ability to feel. Brains process information in very complex ways. This processing must be the cause of sentience.
Furthermore, there are metaphors of enormous explanatory capacity that justify emergentism. From the combination of different material surfaces of a certain shape emerges the ability of a cube to “contain liquids”. Something appears that did not exist before, thanks to that combination.
Can’t the same thing happen with sentience?
On the other hand, emergentism implies other, less intuitive ideas. If processing power causes sentience, then robots and computers and even a thermostat should be able to sentient, somehow. But this idea has many fewer followers than emergentism.
Next I am going to criticize the specific aspect of direction in said emergentism (from matter to sentience).
The emergentist paradigm seems to explain more than it explains. What the hell is “to emerge”? The metaphor of the emergency gives a false sense of reliability about the (rather metaphorical) direction in which consciousness occurs.
Consciousness can emerge from organized matter, just as the property of “containing liquids” emerges from the combination of several flat surfaces in a certain way, for example forming a cube. But there are also objects that produce something in the opposite direction (the opposite of “emerging”), such as a spider web, a radio receiver or a TV. The fly does not emerge from the spider web; and the song that we listen to on the radio, or the TV show that we watch, although they play thanks to the device, comes from somewhere else. Our brains can perfectly be generators of consciousness (generators of qualia, generators of experiences), but also, no doubt, they can be receptors of consciousness (receivers of qualia, receivers of experiences).
In the emergentist model, the brain is a generator of consciousness and identity. In the immersionist model, the brain can be a receptor, or rather, a binder of consciousness; a subset of the total consciousness.
This sounds very rare and very unintuitive for many. If we firmly believe in matter, “direction” is evident: matter is “cause”; and consciousness is “consequence.” But how do we know about matter, if not through to consciousness? Matter is never “first.” It would be more reasonable to firmly believe in consciousness, and only later in matter. That is why the direction should not be obvious. Perhaps consciousness is cause, and matter is consequence. Immersionism is as justified as emergentism.
In the immersionist model, how can be that world of experiences, that is the cause of the material world? Perhaps that world of experiences is in certain aspects very similar to the material world: that would explain why different persons can describe a convergent world (which we call “material world”).
For example, in the case of visual experiences, instead of considering the photon as something external to us and producing a visual experience in us, each of the photons could be a type of experience. With these experiences many combinations could be made. One of these combinations of experiences would be what we consider our personal identity: what we experience; a subset of what can be experienced.
Sentient beings, with their identity, would not be the result of the combination of something material, but sentient beings, with their identity, would be the result of a subset operation on everything that can be experienced.
What we call the material world would be the coincident experiences: a byproduct of the fact of having made certain types of subsets. For example, if there is some experience that all human beings have in the same way, we call that thing “material world”.
Note on the number of levels:
The emergentist model seems to have only two elements (or two levels): on the one hand, matter; and on the other, both consciousness and identity, both (consciousness and identity) produced by matter. In the emergentist model, brains generate experiences: each brain, theirs; And the fact that each brain has a different set of experiences is what makes different identities exist.
The immersionist model, if we follow the radio metaphor, seems to have three elements: consciousness above, identity below (the receiver of consciousness), and below all, the material world.
Does the immersionist model necessarily imply that we are recipients of consciousness? Is the immersionist model necessarily more complex than the emergentist model?
No.
The immersionist model can be totally symmetrical to the emergentist model, and the immersionist model does not necessarily include an additional element, as it seems to happen if we cling to the radio metaphor. Experiential reality (symmetrical to material reality), combined in some way, could create the identity and also the epiphenomenon (the by-product) of matter.
1 Comment