Anand Rangarajan. URL: A Dual-Aspect Panpsychist Critique of Emergentist, Quantum and Wilber’s Holonic Theories of Consciousness Anand Rangarajan Yale University

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Logical Supervenience Almost everything is logically supervenient on the physical. Exceptions are: –Experience –Physical laws –Awareness (locus of self) Causal closure of physical world renders experience epiphenomenal. Introduce Gregg Rosenberg’s dual- aspect panpsychist “Liberal Naturalism” approach.

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Experience and Causation 1.Physical facts do not entail experiential facts. 2.From (1), experience is non-physical. 3.Physical explanations are a complete explanation of causation. [Denied here.] 4.From (2) and (3), experience lies outside the causal structure and is irrelevant. Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism

Anand Rangarajan. URL: A New Metaphysics of Causation Humean regularity theories of causation demolished. Receptivity: degree of sensitivity to other effective states. –Receptivity is not logically supervenient on the physical. –Visualized as a directed graph. Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Receptivity and Spacetime Direction of time supervenes on asymmetric receptive connections. Causality condition on locality and not a locality condition on causality. Roughly visualized as a Markov chain. Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism : Effective prop. : Receptive prop.

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism Avatars in a “real” CG world

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Carrier theory of causation Receptive and effective properties form a compositional circularity. Contrastive circularities in any system have to be carried by external carriers. Good example is user semantics in GUIs. Contrasts in physics are not carried by anything extrinsic to physics. Phenomenal qualities carry effective properties. Experiencing of qualities carries receptive connections. Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Phenomenal Individuals Phenomenal individuals carry the nomic content of natural individuals. Every natural individual is a phenomenal individual. Individuals can contain other individuals. Such containment implies multiple spacetime reference frames. Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Hierarchical Spacetime Frames Each individual has own spacetime frame of reference. Each spacetime built up from asynchronous receptive connections. Compositional hierarchy of individuals may be separated into same level versus different levels. Overlapping spacetimes at same level can cohere. Possibility spaces of higher levels under constrained by lower levels. Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Ontology & Epistemology Directed graph of receptive connections needed in physics. Duality of effective and receptive properties. Causation and spacetime placed in the framework of the directed graph. Receptive connections epistemically opaque but ontologically clear. Experience is epistemically clear but ontologically opaque. Clean duality exploited in this approach. Rosenberg’s Liberal Naturalism

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Twenty Tenets 1.Reality not composed of things or processes, but of holons. Insufficient distinction made between emergent functional properties and natural individuals. 2.Holons display self-preservation, self-adaptation, self-transcendence and self-dissolution. Biology driven bias. 3.Holons emerge. 4.Holons emerge holarchically. One-dimensional, temporal emergence. Critique of Wilber’s holonic approach

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Twenty tenets (contd.) 5.Each emergent holon transcends and includes its predecessors. One-dimensional (see above). 6.The lower sets the possibilities for the higher, the higher sets the probabilities of the lower. No explanation of the distinction between possibility and probability. 7.Number of levels in a hierarchy – depth. Number of holons on a given level – span. Hierarchies can be tangled. Critique of Wilber’s holonic approach

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Twenty tenets (contd.) 8.Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span. Evolution is irrelevant. 9.Greater the depth of the holon, greater the degree of consciousness. Consciousness undefined. 10.Destroy any type of holon and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it. Great Goddess destroyed when universe is destroyed? Modification: If universe never existed, Goddess destroyed. Critique of Wilber’s holonic approach

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Twenty tenets (contd.) 11.Holoarchies coevolve. Evolution is irrelevant. 12.Micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels. Fine. Evolution has 13.Directionality, 14.Increasing complexity, 15.Increasing differentiation/integration, 16.Increasing organization/structuration, 17.Increasing autonomy, and 18.Increasing telos. Critique of Wilber’s holonic approach

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Twenty tenets (contd.) 19.Every holon issues an IOU to the Kosmos. 20.All IOUs are redeemed in emptiness (shunyata). Mysticism bracketed out. Capsule summary: Functional properties of evolution and self-organization synthesized together with qualia. Does not take into account supervenience relations. Critique of Wilber’s holonic approach

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Overall critique Critical temporal issues implicit in twenty tenets. Over-reliance on evolution and self- organization as twenty tenets base. Supervenience relations not mentioned. Hierarchies not constructed using receptive and effective properties. Emergence linked to time. “The manifest All-Unity evolves as All- Form, the summit application of the twenty tenets.” Critique of Wilber’s holonic approach

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Evolution and self- organization Self-organization and selection: cornerstone of emergentist approach. Direction of time assumed as well as single spacetime. Evolution only selects functional properties. Self-organization does not distinguish between emergent functional properties and natural individuals. No fundamental understanding of causation. Critique of emergentist approach

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Quantum Theory and Experience Several unique features of QM. –Selection from a space of possibilities (measurement problem.) –EPR non-locality. –Bose-Einstein “holistic” condensates. –Interpretation of wave function. Projection operators performing selection (Stapp). Orch OR non-computational collapse of wave function (Hameroff and Penrose). Other approaches (Albert, Squires, Goswami, Lockwood, Hodgson, Bohm). Critique of Quantum Approaches

Anand Rangarajan. URL: Overall Critique Chalmers: “Even given a nonlocal, physical process, it remains logically possible that the process could take place in the absence of consciousness.” Projection operators, non-local and non- computational processes conceived in functional terms. Quantum measurement problem and non-locality in EPR: clues to an asynchronous model? Asynchronous causation has potential to unite quantum theory and general relativity. Critique of Quantum Approaches