Nonreductive Russellian Physicalism
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This dissertation develops a model of the mental that potentially solves classic problems for physicalism and opens new questions for artificial intelligence. This account, which I call Nonreductive Russellian Physicalism, posits non-relational physical properties that underlie the structure physics describes that are relevant to explaining consciousness. The literature is replete with disparate responses to classic issues for physicalist accounts of the mental, including the conceivability argument, causal exclusion, and multiple realizability. But we lack an account that provides a unified solution to the entire set of problems to which these issues give rise. I fill in this lacuna by bringing certain individual responses together to comprise a unified solution to this set of problems within a single view. In chapter 1, I develop a nonreductive Russellian physicalist account that features the proper subset relation as the interlevel relation, as on the non-Russellian model defended by Jessica Wilson and Sydney Shoemaker, that responds to all three issues. I augment this account in chapter 2 by appealing to the determinable-determinate relation as the interlevel relation, as on the non-Russellian model defended by Stephen Yablo. In chapter 3, I recruit the grounding relation to further enhance the account of the interlevel relation. I contend further that by combining these relations we obtain a richer characterization of the physical realization of the mental than by any taken separately. The overall result combines solutions to the challenges from the conceivability argument, multiple realizability, and exclusion to secure a unified solution to each within a single view. Next, in chapter 4, I defend Russellian physicalism from the threat of structuralism, the thesis that reality is ultimately exhausted by relations. One argument for structuralism begins with the claim that current fundamental physics describes the world ultimately and solely in terms of relations. But I argue that there are truths about fundamental reality concerning non-relational properties that are not and will never be resolved by current fundamental physics. These include Leibniz’s intrinsicality principle, consciousness, and the nature of causal powers. My model of the mental opens new questions for artificial intelligence (AI), which I discuss in chapter 5. I argue that my model may reveal the prospect of conscious AIs of the future that have free will on reasons-responsive accounts, which are plausible and widely endorsed, if they could act on the basis of reasons. And I argue that they may be morally responsible in a forward-looking sense.