Mental Ontology

A certain way of conceiving mental ontology has become entrenched: there are mental tokens and mental types, and token identity does not entail type identity. In other terminology, there are mental particulars and mental properties, and the former may be identical with physical particulars in the brain without there being an identity of mental and physical properties. These entities are generally thought to be events—hence event tokens (particulars) and event types (properties). According to the token identity theory, mental event tokens are identical with physical event tokens, but mental event types are not identical with physical event types. Logically, it’s like saying that all colored objects are identical with shaped objects, but colors are not identical to shapes. That proposition is obviously true and provides a model for the mind in relation to the brain. But how good is the analogy?  Does it make sense of the thesis of token identity? Clearly, that thesis requires that mental events (particulars) can have multiple non-identical properties: a single event can be both a pain and a C-fiber firing, where these two properties are not identical (like red and square). Is that true of events in general? Not according to one plausible account of the metaphysics of events—the property exemplification account. I won’t go into the details of this but merely note that it does not allow for the kind of token identity theory commonly proposed. In short: no single event can have multiple intrinsic non-relational properties, because an event is an exemplification of a specific property.[1] Thus, if the property of pain is not identical to the property of C-fiber firing, then a particular event of pain cannot be the same event as a particular event of C-fiber firing. That is intuitively correct: events are occurrences or instances of a single (non-relational) property at a given time and place. Type distinctness therefore implies token distinctness. There cannot be a token identity theory without a corresponding type identity theory. The relationship between a particular mental event and a particular physical event cannot be identity if the instantiated properties are distinct. What then is it? We can call it by several names—dependence, realization, supervenience, implementation, constitution. The idea is that a mental event occurs in virtue of a numerically distinct but correlated physical event in the brain; it is because of that event that the mental event happens. So, the correct formulation of the intended physicalist claim is that every mental event occurs in virtue of a correlated physical event—though not necessarily of the same physical type (it could be D-fibers not C-fibers). This is not an identity theory but it is a version of a token physicalist theory (there are no mental events that lack such a physical correlate, as in disembodied minds). We can dispense with the ontology of multiply exemplifying token events and replace it with an ontology of singly exemplifying token events plus a relation of correlation (dependence, realization, etc.). This degree of dualism is mild and anodyne, nothing like the full Cartesian Monty (there are no “naked” mental events).

Is that the end of the story? Unfortunately, no: for the question is immediately raised as to what explains the correlation. The names for the relation are really just names of a mystery. That is the mind-body problem: how and why are the mental and physical properties related as they are? Is the mental property reducible to the physical property on which it evidently depends? If not, what is this relation of emergence, generation, creation, or what have you? If we knew that, we would have solved the mind-body problem to all intents and purposes. Let’s consider a well-worn analogy—the ethical and the descriptive. There are ethical events—events of generosity or cruelty, say. They are clearly related to physical events—bodies moving etc. How is this possible, given that the ethical and the physical are such different domains (discourses, facts)? It’s because ethical events are actions, i.e., movements of bodies. It is in virtue of these movements that events can be ethical or unethical. Ethical events are the kind of thing that can be intelligibly related to the body, because they are bodily actions in their very nature. But what can we say about mental events that renders them intelligibly related to the body and brain? We clearly cannot say that they are bodily actions: the “token identity” (physical realization) is not grounded in the very nature of mental events as movements of the body. So, the physical correlate in the brain does not follow from the mental event as such; it isn’t simply the basis of the bodily action that a mental event manifestly consists in. Mental events are not bodily movements. Therefore, we cannot explain their dependence on the brain by invoking their manifest nature; it’s like trying to explain red by square—as if being red were a type of shape. Clearly, ethical types are not identical to physical types (ethics can’t be reduced to physics), but we can easily understand how ethical tokens are related to physical tokens—since they are bodily acts. But in the case of mental tokens, we can’t even do that: the mental ontology fails to mesh with the physical ontology, so even token physicalism is a mystery. Doing wrong is performing a physical action, but feeling pain is not a physical action (as it might be, writhing); so, we have no bridge to the body and brain. Token physicalism might be true (I think it is), but it is not intelligible—transparent, evident, self-explanatory. It is brute, opaque, and baffling. Thus, mental ontology is not conducive even to very weak forms of physicalism—that is, as an intelligible, explicable theory. Mental tokens are not intelligibly linked to the brain states that must underlie them. We have what might be called unintelligible physicalism.

And there is a deeper problem: it is not even clear that the ontology of types and tokens, properties and particulars, applies to the mental realm. Sure, we have analogies, hopeful parallels; but are they accurate models of what is really going on with the mind? Is a mental event even an event (is a belief a state)? We explain the customary ontology by comparing the mental “thing” to something with which we are already familiar–types and tokens of letters of the alphabet, or objects with color and shape. But does the mind really conform to those models? All we can say is that things happen in the mind and these things can be similar or dissimilar to other things that happen in the mind; but that falls short of discerning a genuine shared ontological structure with letters of the alphabet and colored objects. We have analogies without insight. We try to force the mind into preconceived categories; we don’t observe it to merit these categories. Neural complexes exemplify mental properties, we say—but what does that mean? (Ryle would say it’s a category mistake.) Is it like a soldier exemplifying bravery or a flower exemplifying beauty? We can talk the talk, but can we think the thought? What are we thinking exactly? I think we are thinking it’s kinda like those other things but also kinda different. Wittgenstein would say we are in a muddle; I say we are in a puddle—a murky medium in which clear vision is impossible. I am a mysterian about token identity (let alone type identity), or about the dependence relation between token mental events and token physical events (if we drop talk of token identity). Mental ontology is an obscure business, even at the level of abstract structure. We inherited the particular-universal distinction from Plato and it works well for ordinary perceptible objects, but even Plato did not (to my knowledge) generalize it to the soul (consciousness, thought); he didn’t suppose that the mind is populated by particulars and universals, objects and properties, tokens and types. That is surely an imposition from outside not a matter of casual observation. We regiment (in Quine’s sense) our thought about the mind according to these traditional categories, but it is not at all clear that such regimentation is not a form of deformation (or even defamation). We might be ontologically blinkered, or blind. The mind is rooted in the brain, no doubt, but all the talk of tokens and types, particulars and universals, objects and properties, looks like so much wishful thinking, analogies masquerading as analyses.[2]

[1] Old hands will know that this is the debate between D. Davidson and J. Kim.

[2] The role of space in fixing our notions of particulars and universals is often remarked, but it is a stretch to carry it over to the mental realm. The problem is that without it our thought becomes clouded, shapeless. The “language game” of the mind is not a species of space-dependent discourse denoting spatially individuated particulars. Some have thought it is not denoting at all–hence mental expressivism and the like. The mind and the body don’t have the same ontological logic, if I may put it so. At any rate, we have trouble applying that logic.

Brain, Mind, and Time

Thoughts (and other mental events) occur in time and take time. Transitions between thoughts, as in logical reasoning, are temporally extended processes. Some people think more quickly than others. There is such a thing as the speed of thought, in principle measurable. Mental velocity is real. The brain also operates in time and has a speed. The speed of a nerve impulse (“conduction velocity”) is estimated as 275 mph (120 meters per second) at the high end and a few miles an hour at the low end (it depends on axon diameter and myelination). Given the dependence of the mind on the brain, then, thought speed cannot exceed brain speed, even though it may feel instantaneous. If the mind were not thus dependent, this would not necessarily be so—the mind might be able to go faster than the brain. As it is, however, the speed of the brain constrains and controls the speed of the mind. The machinery of thinking is housed in the brain and it operates according to strict rules. The nerve impulse is much slower than electricity, though faster than the flow of blood, which allows thought to proceed at a fair lick; but it cannot break free of the physical dynamics of the brain. The brain sets an upper limit on mental velocity.

We can infer from this that mental time is the same as physical time: the velocity of thought formation is identical the velocity of neural transmission, roughly speaking. I don’t mean it can’t be slower; I mean that there is no separate time in which mental events occur. In fact, the time between two successive thoughts is the same as the time between their neural correlates. Mental velocity is derivative from physical velocity, a special case of it. Thus, a modest physicalism is true of the speed of thought; it is the speed of the corresponding neural transition, neither more nor less. It is not something separate from, and over and above, brain speed. As brain scientists say, they have the same latencies. Mental velocity is supervenient on physical velocity precisely because it is physical velocity. If the mental machinery were made of something else, the speed of thought could be different, either slower or faster (AI could be much faster). If you ask what is the speed of thought as such, you get no answer; it has no intrinsic natural speed—it all depends on the nature of the relevant brain machinery. If the brain were made of light, its thoughts might reach the speed of light; if it were made of a liquid like blood or molasses, it might be as slow as walking speed. The speed of thought is essentially a physical thing.

Normally, if two entities are separate and distinct, the speed of one does not depend on the speed of the other—for example, two cars moving down the highway. If the things are identical, however, then their speed must be the same (by Leibniz’s law). Clark Kent can fly as fast as Superman; water boils at the same rate as H2O. If the things are joined in some way, glued together, they will move at the same speed, but if disconnected they will be able to move at different speeds. The mind cannot move at a different speed from its associated brain, so there is really only one explanation of its tracking of brain dynamics—it must be the correlated brain state. Why do the two march exactly in step? Because one is the other; the mind isn’t a separable entity capable of moving at a different velocity from its physical basis. In other words, your thoughts are in your brain—that’s why the two proceed through time at the same rate. They may have properties over and above regular brain properties, but they are literally parts or constituents of your brain, as neurons are. We might have concluded this on independent grounds, but the consideration of mental velocity has provided us with another reason for taking this view. The best explanation of temporal coincidence is spatial coincidence—as with the Superman and water cases. This tells us nothing about subjective properties of mental states, but it does tell us that those states are identical to states of the brain described in neural terms. The thought in time is none other than its neural correlate also in time. Mental events are physical events because their succession in time is identical to the succession in time of their brain correlates. They can’t proceed in time independently of the brain, and this must be because they are parts of the brain. A dualist view would imply that the two temporal sequences could come apart, but they can’t and don’t. The mind is tied tightly to the brain in its dynamic aspect, even if it might have other aspects that are not so tied.[1]

[1] It might be said that we have a proof of token identity but not type identity, and this wouldn’t be wide of the mark. The proof proceeds from premises concerning the speed of thought (not, say, from premises about causation and laws, a la Davidson). Mental events must be physical events because of their temporal indiscernibility.

Genius Project

Some years ago, I came up with the idea of the Genius Project (like the Manhattan Project). This was prompted by a desire to help graduate students in the job market—to make them stand out from others (having publications being neither necessary nor sufficient). But the idea can be applied to developing intellectual creativity generally. I had been interested in the subject of creativity since my undergraduate days as a psychologist, having read Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation and Jacques Hadamard’s The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. Can we encourage creativity in ourselves and others or must we wait for the muse to strike (or not, as the case may be)? Can people be trained to be more creative? This would clearly be a very valuable type of education, but is it possible? It seemed to me that it ought to be, and I had some ideas about how to do it. It was worth a try anyway. I now propose to share these with you.

My first piece of advice is this: when you wake up in the morning go straight to your desk and stare at a blank sheet of paper with a pen in your hand (easy right?). You can have a libation, but don’t eat anything. Don’t talk to anyone or read anything or check your email. Then ask yourself what interests you and sit there thinking about it. Write down whatever occurs to you, even if it seems feeble. If you can’t write anything, don’t move, just stay there. Do this for at least half an hour. Repeat the same thing the next day and every day; make it part of your routine, your daily life. Let your mind dwell on the topic for the rest of the day as you go about your business. Add to the page any further thoughts you may have. Your unconscious will do a lot of the work for you. Read anything relevant to the topic at whatever time suits you, but don’t read during your creative time (call it that if it helps). Do this at the beginning of your studies; don’t wait till you think you know enough before you start being creative. Get into the habit of being creative. I think you will find that your brain will work on the subject during the night in anticipation of your morning routine; it will know what is being demanded of it. The principle is very like practicing a musical instrument or an athletic skill—a sort of brain-shaping.

Next you need some exercises that flex your creativity muscles. Several can be suggested but the one I prefer is simple and effective: think of variants of the phrase “cruising for a bruising”. This is simple to do, suitably taxing, and good mental fun. Thus: angling for a mangling, strutting for a gutting, aiming for a maiming, hiking for a spiking, heading for a beheading, gliding for a hiding, rushing for a crushing, strolling for a rolling, skipping for a whipping, lurching for a birching, training for a braining, accelerating for an eviscerating, travelling for an unravelling, praying for a slaying, escaping for a raping, streaming for a creaming, crawling for a mauling, ambulating for an amputating, tobogganing for a flogganing, etc. Try to follow the rules of the game, but you can let yourself break them slightly if the result is good (as in my last example). Playing this game competitively with other people is permitted and good clean fun. You can add the shortest books game if you feel like it. This will get you used to inventing stuff.

You should also read verbally creative writers. I always recommend Nabokov, with Lolita as the best specimen. Read it for the language not the story, a page at time. Notice his verbal tricks and resistance to cliché. Try to copy it. Lewis Carroll is good too. I also think you need to develop your sense of humor, because humor often involves novel ways of seeing things as well as verbal dexterity. I particularly recommend Oscar Wilde, Max Beerbohm, and P.G. Wodehouse. A sophisticated sense of humor is close to intellectual creativity—not least because it questions current pieties and stock responses. People often tell you to “think outside the box”—that’s okay but rather crude. Think outside what other people think is a better way to put it. Criticism is essential to creativity. Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene is a critically creative work, a rethinking of accepted facts. It’s wrong to say that creativity requires being you—it’s a good idea to imitate other creative people. Imitation is a useful way to learn, because the brain is set up that way. Copying helps with being creative, at least in the early stages. Autobiographies are useful. I also think it is good to have wide interests, so that you see unexpected connections. Specialization is the death of creativity, even if it feels safe.

Of course, there is no algorithm for creativity (“genius”). But I think there are ways to stimulate it. Personality is also a factor. Conformity won’t do at all, or a desire for acceptance and popularity. You have to have some guts. You need to be some sort of contrarian, maverick, revolutionary.[1]

[1] Isn’t it strange that we pedagogues never try to teach creativity directly, though we clearly value it? We appear to think it will come automatically or it won’t come at all (we don’t think this about logic and rationality). Perhaps we think the whole thing is inscrutably mysterious, a gift from God. I resist such defeatism!  We need to get more creative about teaching creativity.

Descriptions and Non-Existence

Semantics would be easier if there was no such thing as non-existence (if non-existence didn’t exist). Then we could simply assign an existing reference to any referential-looking term. We wouldn’t have the problem of empty terms: all meaning would be explicable by means of existing entities. We would have a fully denotational semantics, perhaps supplemented by Fregean sense. In particular, we could assign an existing reference to any definite description—we would have no problem of empty descriptions. This problem is what led Russell to propose his theory of descriptions, which reshapes the logical form of description-containing sentences (they are not singular terms at all). That theory would not be needed if non-existence were not a thing. Of course, some philosophers (e.g., Meinong) have denied that so-called empty descriptions are really empty: they propose a kind of shadowy existence (“being”) for things like the golden mountain or the king of France. These things exist in another realm, or in a different way, or to a lesser degree (hence they are said to “subsist”). Russell wasn’t happy with this kind of ontological largesse, so he was thrilled with his shining new theory; but its entire motivation depends on an ontological assumption, namely that some things don’t exist (or subsist either). That is, the attraction of the theory depends on an ontological position or presupposition; it makes semantics depend on ontology (metaphysics). If Meinong were right, we wouldn’t need Russell’s theory—we could just stick to the practice of assigning denotations to descriptions. We wouldn’t need an alternative revisionary anti-referential semantics: quantificational, conceptualist, formalist, fictionalist–whatever avoids an unpalatable Meinongian ontology. All this arises because of the problem of non-existence—a problem in metaphysics. It doesn’t arise by direct consideration of the sentences in question; it arises from elsewhere. It isn’t as if Russell took a long hard look at definite descriptions and saw that they conform to his paraphrase; he inferred that his theory must be true or else we land in ontological hot water (the fetid Meinongian swamp). He deduced semantics from ontology.

But what if he was wrong about the ontology? What if Meinong was right all along? I am not saying he is right; I am just saying that he might be. It is a substantive metaphysical question—and we don’t want our semantics to be hostages to the fortunes of our metaphysics. Suppose for a moment that Meinong is right: then Russell’s theory is unnecessary, a revision without a reason. For there is nothing intrinsic to descriptions that warrants its adoption. This is why no one proposed it before—it looks wrong. It has counterintuitive consequences. It is complicated and contrived. Students find it hard to understand. No one would talk like that. Only the desire to escape the clutches of Meinong could make it seem attractive. To a Meinongian, it seems like a desperate attempt to avoid the obvious truth. Think of it this way: in a possible world in which Meinong is right Russell’s semantics is unnecessary, pointless, and unattractive. If we are actually living in that world, it is bad philosophical linguistics. But surely, we don’t want to take that risk—we don’t want our semantics to hang by an ontological thread. Semantic theories shouldn’t be justified by ontological considerations alone. It would be different if Russell’s theory had other cogent justifications, but in fact its sole motivation derives from (questionable) ontological assumptions (and did Russell ever really refute Meinong?). It is therefore methodologically misguided. It needs to be established on quite different grounds. It’s like trying to justify a non-referential semantics of predicates by insisting that Platonic universals don’t exist; maybe they don’t, but you don’t want to adopt a revisionary semantics of predicates on that basis alone. This is a debatable metaphysical question, not a datum that can be wheeled in to rule out a perfectly natural semantic theory (viz., predicates denote universals). You may have an ontological beef with physical objects, but do you want to keep them out of semantics when they seem like the perfect tool for the job? And you might be wrong about the non-existence of physical objects, in which case you have ejected them falsely from your semantics.[1]Don’t mix up semantics and metaphysics! Don’t let your metaphysical views shape your linguistic views! In particular, you shouldn’t let logical form depend on ontology, which is exactly what Russell does (this is why his theory is so exciting). Grammatical form doesn’t depend on ontology, so why should logical form? The meaning of “the” should not be made to depend on whether the golden mountain exists.

Let me try to make the situation vivid by constructing a thought experiment of a familiar form. Suppose that in the actual world there are no Meinongian objects, and suppose that speakers know this. Russell proposes his theory and everyone is happy with it. Now consider a possible world in which there are Meinongian objects and everyone believes in them. Wouldn’t it be correct to say that Russell’s theory fits the actual world but not the stipulated possible world? We could even suppose that the speakers in both worlds have no opinion on the truth of Meinongian ontology and are precise physical duplicates with the same internal mental states. Then an externalist will want to say that definite descriptions have different meanings in the two worlds in virtue of the external ontological facts, despite the internal identity of the speakers. Logical form will accordingly be different in the two worlds. If we make semantics depend on ontology, this is the kind of result we get. But doesn’t it seem wrong to make logical form depend on such facts? The ontological difference shouldn’t generate a semantic difference in respect of logical form. Russell thinks the lack of existence forces a revisionary logical form, but in the Meinongian possible world there is no such pressure for discerning that kind of logical form. Better to deny that the facts of ontology can determine semantics to this degree. Individual meanings may not be (completely) in the head, but surely logical form is (grammatical form certainly is). Something is wrong with Russell’s methodology.

Suppose you are agnostic about Meinong’s ontology: should you then be agnostic about the semantics of descriptions? If you are an agnostic about God, should you be an agnostic about the meaning of “God”? No, you want a semantic theory that is neutral with respect to such ontological questions. It is true that Russell’s theory is neutral about the existence or otherwise of the objects that the description purports to describe, but it is not neutral in its motivation—it presupposes that Meinong is wrong. That puts the theory in a needlessly precarious position, since the presupposed metaphysics might be mistaken. One wants to be able to defend the theory on less vulnerable grounds, by appeal to the very nature of the description. But its revisionary character makes this difficult (as Strawson in effect pointed out): the description seems very much like a singular term.  We get a rough equivalence in Russell’s paraphrase, but not a precise synonymy. We can’t even apply the word “refers” or “denotes” to the description if Russell is right. So, the linguistic data don’t prima facie support the theory; its support comes from a presupposed anti-Meinongian ontology. And isn’t it true that the historical enthusiasm for the theory came from its anti-Meinongian credentials—its rejection of Meinongian extravagance? But that is a frail basis for a semantic theory—the wrong kind of basis. It’s rather like saying that proper names don’t name people because you don’t believe in selves (perhaps on Humean grounds), proposing instead that they are not singular terms at all. In a way Russell’s theory is not psychological enough (psycholinguistic enough); it relies too heavily on theses concerning things outside the mind. It needs to be more internalist (in a Chomskyan sense)—more about the brain or the cognitive-linguistic system. What empirical evidence is there that definite descriptions are really quantified conjunctions? Where is the cognitive science that demonstrates that linguistic proposal? From this point of view, the rightness or wrongness of Meinong’s ontology looks irrelevant.[2]

[1] What if the speakers of the language are explicit Meinongians, have been for centuries, have it in their genes? Are we to say that their language is Russellian? They will openly disagree with his theory, perhaps regarding it as preposterous, so how can it be the true theory of their definite descriptions? Russell’s ontology is not theirs, and neither is his semantics.

[2] The issue can be compared with possible worlds semantics: how can the existence or otherwise of possible worlds determine the viability of a semantic theory of natural language modal expressions? That is a metaphysical question extrinsic to the syntax and semantics of such expressions. What people think about possible worlds might be relevant, because it concerns psychology, but the actual existence of them seems beside the point. Certainly, it is hard to justify a semantic theory just by asserting or denying a particular ontology. Ontology and semantics are separate domains.