Title:

A dual-aspect panpsychist critique of emergentist, quantum and Wilber's
holonic theories of consciousness

Anand Rangarajan
Depts. of Diagnostic Radiology and Electrical Engineering
Yale University
333 Cedar Street
New Haven, CT 06520-8042
USA
e-mail:anand@noodle.med.yale.edu
Phone: (203) 785 7294. Fax: (203) 737 4273
Preference: Oral
Primary subject classification: 01.02, 01.03
Secondary subject classification: 04.01, 04.02, 04.04 and 05.05

Abstract:

Recently, Gregg Rosenberg has put forward a sophisticated dual-aspect
panpsychist theory of consciousness. As opposed to most preceding
theories, panpsychist or otherwise, Rosenberg's approach simultaneously
tackles consciousness and causation. Here, we summarize the main thrust
of his approach: 
i) A directed graph of receptive connections is needed before physics
can get going. 
ii) Causation and maybe even spacetime can be placed within the
framework of this directed graph.
iii) Individuals (at various levels) may not be completely constrained
in terms of their possibility space by this lower level story.
iv) Consequently, the space of all possibilities (and not just
actualities) must be included in the metaphysical story.
v) There may very well be a parallel story about the individuals from
the inside that can be told by phenomenology.
Using Rosenberg's theory as our orienting framework, we critique three
different, recent approaches to the problem of consciousness, namely,
emergentist, quantum and Wilber's holonic theories.

Emergentist theories are perhaps the most popular of recent approaches
to consciousness. This popularity stems from the fact that emergentist
approaches - while being compatible with materialism - nevertheless
attempt to bootstrap up to consciousness by appealing to natural
selection and to dynamic properties of matter like self-organization. We
show that emergentist approaches have three serious flaws: i) These
approaches are not fundamental physicalist approaches. ii) They do not
have a principled way of distinguishing between the economy and you and
me as both are emergent properties. Presumably the former lacks
consciousness while the latter do not. iii) In sharp contrast to Rosenberg's 
dual-aspect panpsychist approach, they do not provide a theory of causation 
and are especially open to criticism from the constructivists on this score.

Quantum approaches are an alternative to emergentist theories.
Essentially, quantum approaches get going by pointing out the lack of a
mechanistic explanation of the dynamics of fundamental particles. In
addition, most interpretations of quantum mechanics reserve a role for
the mind. Despite this, we show that quantum approaches do not add
anything extra to the classical picture when it comes to a theory of
consciousness. However, many quantum approaches do suggest revamping
basic ontologies and in this way, they may play a role in formulating a
new theory of consciousness and causation.

Ken Wilber's holonic theory is perhaps the most difficult to get a firm
handle on. We restrict ourselves to the twenty tenets as espoused by
Wilber in his recent works. In particular, we take care to bracket out
the aspects of Wilber's work involving mysticism. We show that the
holonic theory of consciousness is an unusual attempt at grafting
intrinsic phenomenal properties onto emergentist approaches (including a
further synthesis with constructivism) resulting in a very unwieldy
framework. The holonic theory (without the emergentist and
constructivist baggage) is perhaps closest in spirit to the dual-aspect
panpsychist approach espoused here and we suggest that many insights can
be gained from a future synthesis of these two theories.