Neural Synchrony and the Causal Efficacy of Consciousness
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Neural Synchrony and the Causal Efficacy of Consciousness David Yates1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2018
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to address a well-known dilemma for physicalism. If mental properties are type identical to physical properties, then their causal efficacy is secure, but at the cost of ruling out mentality in creatures very different to ourselves. On the other hand, if mental properties are multiply realizable, then all kinds of creatures can instantiate them, but then they seem to be causally redundant. The causal exclusion problem depends on the widely held principle that realized properties inherit their causal powers from their realizers. While this principle holds for functional realization, it fails on a broader notion of realization that permits the realization of complex qualitative properties such as spatial and temporal patterns. Such properties are best seen as dependent powerful qualities, which have their causal roles in virtue of being the qualities they are, and do not inherit powers from their realizers. Recent studies have identified one such property—neural synchrony—as a correlate of consciousness. If synchrony is also partially constitutive of consciousness, then phenomenal properties are both multiply realizable and causally novel. I outline a version of representationalism about consciousness on which this constitution claim holds. Keywords Representationalism · Phenomenal consciousness · Powerful qualities · Downward causation · Causal inheritance principle · Synchronous oscillation
1 Identity or Realization: A Dilemma for Physicalism Physicalists have a perennial problem squaring metaphysics of mind with mental causation. Causal efficacy seems to require the type identity theory, on pain of violating the causal closure of the physical. But the identity theory, it is widely assumed, entails that only creatures with brains like ours get to have minds. On the other hand, if we suppose that mental properties are not physical but physically realized, then physically different creatures get to have minds, but realized properties seem to be causally excluded by their realizers. Consider the following seemingly inconsistent set of propositions, each of which we have good reason to believe, and which jointly give rise to a causal exclusion problem for consciousness1:
1. Phenomenal properties cause physical effects.2 2. The physical domain is causally closed. 3. The effects of mental properties are not generally overdetermined. 4. Phenomenal properties are not identical to physical properties. By (1), properties like the phenomenal character of a colour experience or a pain bestow causal powers to bring about physical effects, for instance verbal and non-verbal behaviour. By (2), whatever physical effects such properties cause have fully sufficient physical causes. If, as (3) states, mental causation is not causal overdetermination, then it seems we must identify phenomenal and physical properties. But by (4), the type identity theory is false.
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* David Yates david.yates@
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