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| Pierre Teilhard de Chardin |
In a previous
post, speaking about intelligence, I mentioned that there are four
incompatible philosophical theories that try to explain the phenomenon of human
consciousness. I summarize them briefly here:
1.
Reductionist monism or biological functionalism: The mind is
completely determined by the brain and by the network of neurons that makes it.
The human mind is an epiphenomenon. Freedom of choice is an illusion. We are
programmed machines.
2. Emergent monism: The mind is an
emergent evolutionary product with self-organization, which has emerged as a
complex system from simpler systems made up by neurons. Some argue that the
underlying structures cannot completely determine the evolution of the mental
phenomena. These, however, would be able to influence the underlying
structures.
3. Neuro-physiologic dualism: Mind and brain are different, but they are so closely
connected that they make up a unit, two complementary and unique states of the
same organism.
4. Metaphysical dualism: Mind and brain are
two different realities. The first is spiritual and non-spatial, capable of
interacting with the brain, which is a material and spatial substance. Both
entities can exist independently of one another, although the body without the
mind eventually decomposes.
The problem is that many researchers
subscribe to one of these philosophies without being aware of that they are
philosophies; that science cannot distinguish between them; and they do not
realize that, from the scientific point of view, they are prejudices they bring
to their work. Not just that, but they confuse their preconceived ideas with
science, and even assert that science says that...
and then quote their philosophical prejudices. This is quite frequent.
In an
article published in 1999 in volume 879 of the Annals of the Academy of
Sciences of New York and entitled Organization and
complexity, Edgar Morin defends the emergent monism, arguing
that the internal organization of complex systems of all kinds causes the
appearance of emergent phenomena that are not predictable from the lower level
(in other words, he is attacking reductionist monism) with these words:
The whole is not only more than the sum of its parts,
but the part of the whole is more than the part, by virtue of the whole.
To justify it, he gives as an
example the fact that a free neutron has a half-life of 885 seconds (less than
15 minutes), whereas when it is linked with protons and other neutrons, in the
nucleus of an atom, it exists indefinitely. So the neutron, inside an
organization, is more stable and has properties different from those of the
free neutron.
In the same way, he confronts the
two dualistic positions (although he does not name them) with the following
words:
Awareness... is the supreme and richest product of the
human intellect, and its value is related to its fragility, like all that is
best and most precious to us: love, understanding, the primary virtues, the soul
and the spirit... and this is why they cannot survive death, which is the disintegration
of the whole and dispersal of the parts.
That is, the soul and the spirit are
nothing more than an emergent phenomenon that depends totally on the
organization of the constituent parts. This is clearly the position of emergent
monism.
But there are others. Teilhard de
Chardin, for instance, argues that the spirit, along
with matter, is one of the two fundamental components of the universe.
Although it is imperceptible in inanimate matter, it becomes perceptible in
living beings, and dominant in man. This is clearly a neurophysiological
dualistic position, and if this philosophy were true, science could not say
anything about the verisimilitude or not of life after death, since its field
of action is restricted to matter, the world of the spirit is out of its reach.
The emergent position has other
difficulties, which Morin does not mention. According to his theories, three
things should be possible:
·
Explain the emergent behavior of each level based on the study of the complex
organization of its lower level components.
·
Decompose a higher level object into its elementary components, noticing that
the emergent properties are therefore lost.
·
Rebuild the top-level object from its elementary components, recovering its
emergent properties.
The three possible actions
are not equally difficult. Limiting ourselves to the simplest case, the nucleus of the atom built
from protons and neutrons, we see that there are theories that try to explain its
behavior from their components, but although they work quite well for the
hydrogen nucleus (naturally, as it consists only of one proton), they fall
short as soon as one tries to explain deuterium and other heavier nuclei. That
is why we cannot speak of just one theory, but several: the liquid drop model
and various shell models (there are more than one).
The second action, decomposing an
object into its constituent parts is sometimes relatively simple. On the other
hand, rebuilding it is usually impossible, even in the simplest cases. If we
could build atomic nuclei from their constituent particles, we would have
solved the problem of energy, which is none other than that of nuclear fusion.
If we go to more complicated cases, we are still
further away. Thus, if we think of living beings, even the simplest ones, we
cannot point at the difference between any one of them and the same being when
it is dead. And, of course, we cannot build a living being, let alone a human
being, from its constituent elements (synthetic biology).
Not yet. Scientifically speaking, this question is still at its beginning.The same post in Spanish
Thematic Thread on Philosophy and Logic: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
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