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Dvorak · 6월 21, 2024, 1:46오후

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Q. Give a detailed reconstruction of James’s argument against epiphenomenalism.

Word Count: 3121 (less than 5% over the word limit)

In this paper, I argue that William James fails to refute the conscious automaton theory. In §1, I explain what the conscious automaton theory is. In §2, I lay out James’s main argument and the circumstantial evidence against the conscious automaton theory. In §3, I argue that one of the premises of the main argument (namely, P1) is unsubstantiated, and so the main argument fails to refute the conscious automaton theory. Then, I give arguments as to why the first three pieces of circumstantial evidence James presents are no evidence that consciousness is causally efficacious.

§1
Roughly speaking, the conscious automaton theory is the view that consciousness has no causal efficacy, that even conscious beings are mere machines in the sense that whatever they do is the results of none other than their physical organization and physical happenings occurring in them, and their working is entirely governed by physical laws. What is consciousness that is claimed to be causally inert? It seems that those who were engaged in the debate about the conscious automaton theory understood it to be the whole felt aspect of the mental life of a conscious being. While discussing Descartes’s view that brutes are unconscious automata, T. H. Huxley, a notable proponent of the theory, says “[w]hat proof is there that brutes are other than a superior race of marionettes, which eat without pleasure, cry without pain, desire nothing, know nothing, and only simulate intelligence as a bee simulates a mathematician”, implying that consciousness is what enables beings to feel pleasure and pain, to desire, and to know at all—that is, to have (so to speak) an inner life, a phenomenology (Huxley 2002, p. 25). Furthermore, Huxley, while discussing a man who periodically goes into an abnormal state in which he shows no signs of feeling sensations, asks “is consciousness utterly absent [when he is in the abnormal state], the man being reduced to an insensible mechanism?”, implying that he understands consciousness to be the felt aspect of the mind (ibid., p. 27; my emphasis). William James, an opponent of the conscious automaton theory, describes the theory as the view that “[f]eeling is a mere collateral product of our nervous processes”, and he describes Huxley’s position as that “the rationality of [humans’ acts] can owe nothing to the feelings that co-exist with it”, from which we can infer that he understands consciousness to be the felt aspect of the mind (James 1879, pp. 1-2; my emphasis).

So, according to the conscious automaton theory, the sensation of pain that I feel when I put my hand on fire, for example, is not the cause of my retracting of that hand, and my will to raise my right hand is not the cause of my raising my right hand. Furthermore, the auditory sensation I have when I listen to Dvořák’s eighth symphony is, according to the conscious automaton theory, not the cause of the happiness that I subsequently feel, and the feeling of thirst I feel is not the cause of the desire for water I subsequently feel. But if what occurs, so to speak, inside my mind doesn’t cause my subsequent behaviours, thoughts, and feelings, what does?

According to Huxley, the answer is molecular changes in the brain (Huxley 2002, p. 29). Huxley thinks that consciousness arises as a result of molecular changes in the brain (more specifically, the anterior division of the brain), and that these molecular changes are the real causes of the organism’s behaviours, thoughts, and feelings that appear to be caused by consciousness (ibid.). In other words, Huxley’s view is that consciousness is a mere byproduct of certain physical events (namely, molecular changes in the brain), a byproduct which has no causal power of its own (ibid.).

§2
In his paper “Are we Automata?”, William James argues against the conscious automaton theory. Very roughly speaking, his main argument is the following:

Consciousness is useful;
If consciousness is causally inefficacious (as the conscious automaton theory maintains), it can’t be useful;
Therefore, the conscious automaton theory is wrong, and consciousness is causally efficacious.

(James 2002, pp. 3-4, 18)

James takes P2 for granted and tries to establish P1 as follows. First, he observes that lower animals and lower ganglia in higher animals show a “machine-like regularity” in their response to stimuli. In other words, he observes that every lower animal (or lower ganglia) x is such that for any stimulus y, there is a certain reaction z such that whenever x encounters y (under normal circumstances), x performs z (p. 4). James cites a frog, whose cerebral hemispheres have been removed but which is otherwise normal, as an example. James notes that such a frog croaks whenever it is pinched under the armpits, and it swims until its hands are touched with a stick whenever it is thrown into water (ibid.).

James observes that by contrast, higher animals with an intact brain do not show such a regularity in their response to stimuli (pp. 4-5). James cites a typical frog with an intact brain as an example. James notes that such a frog might leap, croak, swim, or do nothing at all in response to a given stimulus, and, in consequence, its response to any stimulus is generally unpredictable (p. 4). James cites a typical human being as another example, saying that “[i]n a man’s brain the utterly remote and unforeseen courses of action to which a given impression on the senses may give rise, is too notorious to need illustration” (pp. 4-5).

From these observations, James concludes that the cerebrum is a highly sensitive organ that can be “swayed by slight impressions” (p. 5). James notes that the cerebrum, by virtue of its sensitivity, enables its possessor “to adapt his conduct to the minutest alterations in the environing circumstances”, and for that reason, the cerebrum is advantageous to its possessor (ibid.). But then, he claims that the cerebrum is, because of its sensitivity, unstable in the sense in which a fertilized ovum, which might develop into a female or a male fetus depending on “certain causes too minute for our apprehension”, can be said to be unstable, that it is, therefore, capricious in the sense that “[i]t is as likely to do the crazy as the sane thing at any given moment”, and so that it cannot, on its own, reliably generate nervous discharges that lead to actions the consequences of which promote the interests of its possessor (ibid.). James sums up the difference between the cerebrum and simpler parts of the nervous system as follows:

In short, a high brain may do many things, and may do each of them at a very slight hint. But its hair-trigger organisation makes of it a happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss affair. … A low brain does few things, and in doing them perfectly forfeits all other use (ibid.).

Then, James points out that consciousness is a forum in which impressions, represented by sensations, can be compared and that it “always [chooses] out of the manifold experiences present to it at a given time some one for particular accentuation, and [ignores] the rest” (pp. 6, 9). More specifically:

Out of various sensations, consciousness selects some and groups them into an object (p. 10);
Consciousness selects some of those sensations which are grouped into an object “to be more essential and characteristic [of that object] than the rest” (ibid.);
Consciousness selects, out of various partial factors of a phenomenon under examination, “the particular one which, in our given theoretical or practical emergency, may lead to the proper conclusion” (p. 12);
Consciousness creates a work of art by selecting elements, such as colors and shapes, which harmonize with each other and with the main purpose of the work, discarding those which don’t (pp. 12-13);
Out of various acts that could be performed by its possessor, consciousness selects one (p. 13).

James then argues that it is plausible that consciousness, by its selective activity (of which (1)-(5) are examples), makes the cerebrum, whose unaided response to stimuli would be “random and capricious”, more likely to generate nerve processes the consequences of which promote the interests of the possessor—more specifically, by “emphasising the [mental] representations congruous with conscious interest and discouraging all others” and in so doing, reinforcing and inhibiting “the nerve-processes to which the representations severally correspond” (p. 14). What follows is a rough, informal summary of James’s argument for P1:

The cerebrum is a highly sensitive organ that can be swayed by slight impressions;
The cerebrum is, in that sense, unstable;
Because of its instability, the cerebrum is capricious in the sense that its unaided response to stimuli would be random;
Due to its capriciousness, the cerebrum on its own cannot reliably generate nervous discharges that lead to actions the consequences of which promote the interests of its possessor;
Consciousness emphasizes the mental representations congruous with the interests of its possessor and thereby reinforces the nervous discharges that lead to actions the consequences of which promote the interests of its possessor;
- In short, consciousness makes the cerebrum less capricious; therefore,
Consciousness is useful.

James thinks that this argument shows that consciousness is useful and, in turn, that consciousness is causally efficacious (p. 18).

James goes on to present 5 pieces of circumstantial evidence against the conscious automaton theory. One is that sometimes, brilliant ideas and thoughts suddenly emerge in the mind, and consciousness “recognise[s] their value and emphasise[s] them into permanence” (p. 15). Another piece of circumstantial evidence James presents is the fact that our brain has evolved this much (pp. 15-16). James thinks that “the evolution of so unstable an organ as the mammalian cerebrum” could not have proceeded without “an effective superintending ideal” such as consciousness that exerts “a constant pressure in the direction of survival” on it (ibid.). The third piece of circumstantial evidence James presents is the observation that consciousness gets intense “when nerve-processes are retarded or hesitant, and [is] at its minimum when nerve-action is rapid or certain” (p. 16). The thought here seems to be that if consciousness was causally inefficacious and couldn’t make an executive decision when the nervous system is confronted with a choice between several alternative courses of action, there would be no reason for consciousness to get intense when the nervous system is in such a situation, so it is more plausible that consciousness is causally efficacious than that it is not. The fourth piece of circumstantial evidence James presents is the phenomenon of vicarious function. The phenomenon of vicarious function is one in which the functions of a damaged or removed part of a brain are taken up and performed by other parts of the brain (pp. 16-17). According to James, such a phenomenon could not occur in a machine that lacks consciousness that can, not only recognize functional errors that are due to some damage in the machine, but also “exert an efficient pressure to inhibit [them]”, so the fact that the phenomenon occurs in our brain is evidence of the causal efficacy of consciousness (ibid.). The last piece of circumstantial evidence James presents is the fact that “pleasures are generally associated with beneficial, pains with detrimental, experiences” (p. 17). According to James, there is a plausible explanation of this fact—namely, that beings who feel pleasure while having detrimental experiences (such as suffocation) will, in general, perish more quickly and leave less offspring than those who don’t feel pleasure while having such experiences, so in the long run, those who don’t feel pleasure while having detrimental experiences will prevail—and since this explanation works only if pleasure and pain are causally efficacious, it is more plausible that consciousness is causally efficacious than that it is not (pp. 17-18).

§3
In this section, I will argue that James fails to refute the conscious automaton theory. First, I will deal with his main argument. As you may recall, the main argument consists of two premises, and James gives an argument for one of them (namely, P1). I argue that the argument for P1 is problematic for two reasons. One reason is that one of the premises is in effect the claim that consciousness is causally efficacious. The premise in question says that consciousness emphasizes certain mental representations and thereby reinforces certain nervous discharges. Surely, emphasizing certain mental representations is nothing more than causing them to be more vivid, and reinforcing certain nervous discharges is nothing more than causing them to be more intense. Hence, the premise in question is in effect the claim that consciousness causally interacts with mental representations and with physical processes—that is, that consciousness is causally efficacious. Since the causal efficacy of consciousness is exactly what is at issue, James cannot argue for P1 using the premise in question. This is one reason why James’s argument for P1 is problematic.

The other reason why the argument for P1 is problematic is that one of the premises of the argument is false. The premise in question says that the cerebrum is capricious in the sense that its unaided response would be random. James seems to think that this premise is true (that is, that the cerebrum is capricious) because the cerebrum is unstable in the sense that a fertilized ovum can be said to be unstable, for he says:

The ovum is so unstable a body that certain causes too minute for our apprehension may at a certain moment tip it one way or the other. The natural law of an organ constituted after that fashion can be nothing but a law of caprice (p. 5).

However, the cerebrum is not capricious precisely because it is unstable in the sense in which a fertilized ovum can be said to be unstable. If something is unstable in that sense, then what it does and/or becomes is determined by “certain causes too minute for our apprehension”—that is, what it does and/or becomes is not randomly determined—so, it is not capricious (ibid.). As James himself notes, the cerebrum is “swayed by slight impressions”, and how it reacts to stimuli is determined by “certain causes too minute for our apprehension”, just like the sex of a fertilized ovum is determined by “causes too minute for our apprehension” (ibid.). Hence, it is clearly the case that the cerebrum is not capricious and that the premise in question is false. I argue that for the two reasons given above, James fails to establish P1, and his main argument fails to refute the conscious automaton theory.

Now, I will deal with the circumstantial evidence against the conscious automaton theory. As you may recall, the first piece of circumstantial evidence James presents is the observation that sometimes, brilliant ideas and thoughts suddenly emerge in the mind, and consciousness “recognise[s] their value and emphasise[s] them into permanence” (p. 15). It is not quite clear to me why James even thinks that this is evidence that consciousness is causally efficacious, for whether consciousness can recognize the values of ideas and emphasize them into permanence—that is, whether consciousness can causally interact with ideas—is exactly what is at issue. In other words, it is not even clear that consciousness (rather than the physical events from which it emerges) recognizes the values of ideas and emphasizes them into permanence, so the observation in question is no evidence that consciousness is causally efficacious. The second piece of circumstantial evidence James presents is the fact that our brain has evolved this much. James argues that “the evolution of so unstable an organ as the mammalian cerebrum” could not have proceeded without “an effective superintending ideal” such as consciousness that exerts “a constant pressure in the direction of survival” on it, so the fact that our brain has evolved this much is evidence that consciousness is causally efficacious (p. 16). I suspect that James thinks that since every unstable organ is capricious in the sense that what it does and/or becomes is randomly determined, and every capricious organ cannot evolve without an effective superintending ideal, every unstable organ cannot evolve without an effective superintending ideal, for he says:

If the ideas we have advanced concerning the instability of a complicated cerebrum be true, we should have a sort of extension of this reign of accident into the functional life of every individual animal whose brain had become sufficiently evolved. As his body morphologically was the result of lucky chance, so each of his so-called acts of intelligence would be another; and ages might elapse before out of this enormous lottery-game a brain should emerge both complex and secure (pp. 15-16; my emphasis).

But an unstable organ is an organ which is such that what it does and/or becomes is determined by “certain causes too minute for our apprehension”; in other words, what an unstable organ does and/or becomes is not a result of lucky chance (p. 5). Hence, as I have already argued, no unstable organ is capricious, and so there is no clear reason why “the evolution of so unstable an organ as the mammalian cerebrum” could not have proceeded without “an effective superintending ideal” (p. 16). Therefore, I reject James’s claim that the fact that our brain has evolved this much is evidence that consciousness is causally efficacious. The third piece of circumstantial evidence James presents is the observation that consciousness is intense “when nerve-processes are retarded or hesitant, and [is] at its minimum when nerve-action is rapid or certain” (p. 16). It is not quite clear to me why James even thinks that nerve-processes can be retarded or hesitant. Surely, nerve-processes, being physical processes, cannot slow down or be hesitant about what to do later. Hence, I think it is simply false that consciousness is intense when nerve-processes are retarded or hesitant. To be sure, when one feels that she has a choice between a number of alternative possible courses of action (which is what I suspect to be what James really means by “when nerve-processes are retarded or hesitant” (p. 16)), her consciousness gets intense, but that could be explained by a plausible hypothesis that more neurons fire when she is in such a situation, and the excitation of those neurons is responsible for more intense consciousness. Therefore, I argue that the observation that consciousness is intense “when nerve-processes are retarded or hesitant, and [is] at its minimum when nerve-action is rapid or certain” is no evidence that consciousness is causally efficacious (p. 16).

For lack of space, I can’t deal with the last two pieces of circumstantial evidence, but I think I have given reasons to doubt that they are evidence that consciousness is causally efficacious. I conclude that James fails to refute the conscious automaton theory.

Bibliography

Huxley, T. H. (2002). “On the Hypothesis That Animals Are Automata, and Its History”. Reprinted in David Chalmers (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Oxford University Press. pp. 24-30.

James, W. (1879). “Are We Automata?”. Mind, 4(13), pp. 1–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2246561.