Telekinesis and the unreality of artefacts

Telekinesis is not within our power. How can we formulate this fact? Well, it's a bit tricky. The natural way of formulating is to say that no human thought has a physical effect outside the body except through an extra-mental bodily movement (this formulation leaves open the possibility that the mind is a part of the body). However, we can, just by thinking about it, change the positions of needles on gauges on a neural scanner. And if Christians are right, it is possible to pray mentally for a physical effect, and have the physical effect occur by a divine intervention. Moreover, we want to insist that just as one person can't do telekinesis by herself, so too a dozen can't do it together.

One way to handle the neural scanner concern and to extend to the case of multiple agents is to say that whenever human thoughts have a physical effect in virtue of their content, they do so through causing at least one an extra-mental bodily movement. The case of miracles can be handled, perhaps, by adding a qualifier "except for miracles".

Now, suppose that tables, chairs and other artefacts exist. Then, I think, the existence of an artefact depends crucially on what people think: it depends on the intentions of the artificer and what other people plan to use it for. We could imagine a physical object just like a chair but which can survive the loss of all of its legs, because its purpose is quite different from the purposes of a chair. Whether that object exists or whether a chair exists in its place depends on what people made the object for, and/or what they plan to use it for. Likewise, whether one is making a palisade—a single object—or a series of upright pointed sticks tied together depends on one's intentions for the project. If, for instance, one is planning to untie all the sticks and use them as spears as soon as the enemy approaches, then what one has made is a bunch of spears tied together for ease of storage, and one has not made a palisade. Thus, the number of artefacts depends on the contents of our thoughts.

Facts about what artefacts exist depend crucially on the content of what people think. Since many artefacts, including the ones in the above examples, are physical objects outside of human bodies, it follows from the above, that if there really are artefacts, then the contents of thoughts can affect what kinds of and how many physical objects exist outside of human bodies. Moreover, this happens without any miracles, in the ordinary course of things. Hence, if there really are artefacts, there is something very much like telekinesis.

Of course, nobody really thinks there is some miraculous multiplication or aggregation, respectively, of objects when a bunch of spears tied together or a palisade, respective, is made. The reason for that is that we realize, perhaps inconsistently, that artefacts are not real things.

There is a way out of this argument, and this is to assume compositional universalism. But that faces at least one serious problem, as an earlier post has shown.