A "Proof" for the Existence of God, Part 2: Consciousness is Brute

[Disclaimer: This series is not really going to deliver a proof for God's existence. This is why the word "proof" is in scare quotes. It is, rather, a suggestive line of argument. However, "A suggestive line of argument for God's Existence" isn't a very good blog title. So, the goal of the series is not to arrive at a Q.E.D. moment. It is, rather, to end with a "That's an interesting argument" moment.]

Before proceeding with Part 2 of my argument for the existence of God, I'd like to add to my disclaimer. Each step of my argument is also an argument. Thus, on the road we'll travel people may beg off at various points. For example, in the my last post I said the method of science cannot explain the phenomena of consciousness (i.e., sensation). Many philosophers agree with me. But others do not (see the work of Daniel Dennett for deflationary treatments of the Hard Problem). What this means is that I'm building an Argument on top of arguments. Thus, there will be weak spots, loose ends, and debatable assertions all through this series. So, think along with me until you hit the plausibility wall. I'm guessing many of you might make it all the way to the end with me. For the rest? I'll catch up with you in my next series.

Moving on...

In the last post we confronted the Hard Problem of Consciousness, the inability of science to give an empirical account of sensory experiences. In this post I want to draw out the implications of the Hard Problem.

What does it mean to explain something? In science explanations are of two kinds: Reductive and functional.

Reductive explanations will "explain" a phenomenon at one level of analysis by appealing to a "lower" level of analysis. This lower level of analysis is considered to be more "fundamental" than the higher level of analysis.

For example, why do leaves change color in the autumn? To "explain" this color change appeals are made to the chemical changes going on in the leaves and the tree. This kind of explanation "reduces" the phenomena to some lower level mechanisms or building blocks, in this case botany reduces to organic chemistry. Okay, so let's ask the next question: Why do the chemicals in the leaves behave the way they do? To answer this question organic chemistry reduces to physics, more specifically the physics of atoms and molecules. Fine, but why do atoms behave the way they do? A further reductive explanation would then appeal to even more fundamental entities such as protons, neutrons, and electrons. Great, but why do these particles act the way they do? Moving further down, we deal with quarks and fundamental entities like quantum numbers. Eventually, we hit the explanatory basement. Here, at the most fundamental level, we simply have brute facts, the "givens." Things like spin, mass, and charge. These entities simply have no explanation. They are, rather, the building blocks of all explanations (or at least the empirically reductive ones).

Other explanations are more functional. Functional explanations specify the causal relationships between physical objects. In short, to explain something functionally is to specify the the causes the brought the phenomena into existence.

Generally speaking, science is in the business of providing both reductive and functional/causal explanations. That is what science does.

However, one of the implications of the Hard Problem of Consciousness is that science cannot explain sensation. More precisely, science cannot provide reductive, functional accounts of consciousness. Consciousness is non-reductive.

Recall that science can illuminate the neural correlates of consciousness but that consciousness does not "reduce to" neural functioning. Correlation is not explanation. That is, is seems unclear how a neural account would bridge the reductive gap to account for the different sensations of, let's say, color or the tastes of sweet or sour. Nor is it clear that science could provide a functional/causal account of sensation. (Note that lot's of mental processes do have robust reductive/functional explanations. Memory, for instance. Memory is largely explained via functional models with clearly defined biological mechanisms such as synaptic growth. Color vision, as a general cognitive feature, also has a functional account: To aid in visual discrimination. But colors themselves seem to defy functional accounts: What function does the shade of robin's egg blue serve?)

What this seems to imply is that like mass, charge, and spin--things taken as given or brute--consciousness cannot be reduced. Thus, it appears that the only logical implication of the Hard Problem of Consciousness--the irreducibility of sensation to reductive accounts--is that consciousness must be taken as given. Consciousness is brute. An irreducible feature of the universe. Conscioiusness is like an electron's charge, it must be taken as a funamental constituent, a fundamental building block of nature.

The universe, as a brute fact, feels.



(Post Script: The movements of the post follow the route paved by David Chalmers in his book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory one of the most influential books regarding the nature of consciousness and reductive explanations. If you disagree with this post, take it up with Chalmers.)