Here’s a valid argument:
There is always an absolute fact about whether two conscious states are hosted simultaneously.
If the mind is physical, there is not always an absolute fact about whether two conscious states are hosted simultaneously.
So, the mind is not physical.
Why believe (2)? Well, if the mind is physical, it is a brain—that’s by far and away our best physical theory of the mind. The brain is spatially extended, and it is very plausible that different brain regions are involved in different conscious states. But now we can imagine that one conscious state ends almost when another begins, so that the overlap time between the two conscious states is very, very small—say, a picosecond. If the brain brain regions involved in the two conscious states are sufficiently different (more precisely, if their convex hulls differ sufficiently in comparison to the distance light travels during the overlap time), then there will also be some reference frame in which the two conscious states do not temporally overlap. Hence, it depends on reference frame whether the two conscious states overlap, and there is no fact of the matter about simultaneity of the conscious states.
If I were a physicalist, I think I would attack (1).
What reason is there to accept 1?
ReplyDeleteSome sort of intuition about the unity of consciousness, I think. Maybe it's this. If one simultaneously has experiences A and B, then one has an experience of both A and B. But whether one has an experience of some type (including the "both A and B" type) seems like it should not depend on reference frame.
ReplyDeleteI am myself a bit skeptical of the unity of consciousness stuff. Split brain patients and all.