Compositions, Dispositions and Qualia

1
Compositions, Dispositions and Qualia

• Anand Rangarajan
• Department of Computer and Information Science
  and Engineering
• University of Florida

2
Hard Problem of Consciousness

• Inadequacy of present day science to deal with
  consciousness
• Varieties of materialism unsatisfactory
• Recent challenge from analytic philosophy
• Consciousness not logically supervenient on the
  physical (David Chalmers)
• Varieties of idealism, panpsychism, dualism now
  back on the table

3
Qualia

• Intentionality (aboutness) and qualia - two
  difficult consciousness-related problems
• Set intentionality aside
• Qualia
• First person experience
• Hidden
• Sensations, perceptions, emotions and thoughts

4
Two conceptions of the physical

• Just what is meant by the term physical?
• Dispositions
• Resistance, surface properties, extrinsic
• Dispositions contrasted with the categorical
• All of present day physics a theory of
  dispositions?
• Categorical
• Intrinsic nature of the physical (Russel,
  Stoljar)
• Space, time
• Particle, field

5
Intrinsic nature of the physical

• Leverage the categorical/dispositional
  distinction
• Categorical as hidden taxonomy of nature?
• No connection to consciousness at this point
• Physics still based on dispositions but tries to
  infer categorical from dispositional theory?

6
Qualia and Science

• Very difficult to reconcile science and qualia
• Other than materialism and radical emergence
  (dualism,), all theories face panpsychism problem
• Qualia basic?
• Qualia supervenient on the categorical?

7
Qualia and the Categorical

• Categorical nature of the physical paints an
  intrinsic picture
• Qualia lights up the interior
• Interior and Intrinsic connection?
• Simple picture
• Nature has an intrinsic categorical structure
• Qualia are logically supervenient on categorical
  (Stoljar)

8
The Specter of Panpsychism

• Categorical structure not yet fleshed out
• Supervenience relationship between qualia and
  categorical unknown
• Categorical structure may allow low-level
  qualia

9
Compositions

• Panpsychism takes qualia all the way down
• Compositions - fleshing out the categorical to
  avoid naïve panpsychism

10
Nested Compositions

• Simpler compositions necessary but not sufficient
  for more complex compositions
• Spacetime issues set aside
• Silent on potential versus actual compositions
  for the moment
• Compositional physics to replace dispositional
  physics

11
Compositions as basic

• Paradoxical quality
• Qualia (and dispositions) correlate with
  compositions
• Emergence of context and perspective

12
Discussion

• Compositions are the structural-categorical
  counterpart of qualia
• Prehension, sensation, perception, emotion,
  cognition, intuition, visualization,
  illumination, pure consciousness event (PCE) all
  may have categorical counterparts
• Dispositions follow suit

13
Conclusion

• Most varieties of materialism, idealism, dualism,
  panpsychim, dual-aspect theories sidestepped
• Remains to be seen if compositional physics can
  be mathematically formulated