(Reply to Antonio Chella & Riccardo Manzotti)
Antonio Chella & Riccardo Manzotti suggest that since we know that feeling exists, any explanation that cannot account for it is inadequate. They also suggest that there is a difference between functional explanation and causal explanation, illustrating the difference with examples from physics. Functional explanation may not explain feeling, but causal explanation may succeed, perhaps partly by scrapping the distinction between states that are internal and external to the brain:
CHELLA & MANZOTTI: “since the fact that we feel is an empirical[ly] undeniable fact albeit from a first-person perspective, we should argue against any view that does not predict such possibility.“
Except if no causal theory can explain feeling — in which case we are better off with one that can at least explain doing than with no eplanation at all.
CHELLA & MANZOTTI: “If feeling [does] not fit into the functional description of reality, so much the worse for functionalism.“
So much the worse for any causal explanation. The Turing Robot is “merely” indistinguishable from is in performance capacity, but the Turing biorobot also has equivalent internal processes and states, even if synthetic ones. That’s still normal causal explanation, and remains so even if the biodynamics are natural rather than synthetic.
In other words, there is no wedge to be driven between “functional” explanation and “causal” explanation: All dynamical explanations of feeling are equally ineffectual, for the same reasons: There is neither any causal room for feeling, nor is there any causal need for them.
CHELLA & MANZOTTI: “we purposefully shifted from a causal description to a functional one“
But unfortunately it is a distinction that marks nothing substantive, and does not solve the “hard” problem of explaining how and why we feel.
CHELLA & MANZOTTI: “the equations for gravity and electromagnetism have the same form… The two cases are functionally identical. Yet, they are different both in causal and in physical terms since the physical properties (or powers) which are responsible for the two situations are very different (on one hand, mass and gravity and, on the other hand, electric charge and electromagnetic force)“
The equations are equivalent at one level of description, but they are not a complete description. Both mass and charge are measurable, describable, predictable physical properties — unlike feelings, which certainly exist, but do not otherwise enter into the causal matrix.
CHELLA & MANZOTTI: “What is still missing is a theory outlining a conceptual and causal connection between neural activity and phenomenal experience and functionalism does not seem to possess the resources to do it.”
Nor does any other causal theory.
CHELLA & MANZOTTI: “[In] Harnad’s… conception… internal and external… refer to physical events internal or external to the brain as if the brain boundaries were some kind of relevant threshold…“
Yes, mental states (feelings) — for which I recommend a migraine headache as a paradigmatic example — occur in the head, not outside it. Both doings and their functional substrate can be distributed beyond the bounds of a head, but feelings (until further notice) cannot…
For a critique of the notion of the “extended mind,” see:
Dror, I. and Harnad, S. (2009) Offloading Cognition onto Cognitive Technology. In Dror, I. and Harnad, S. (Eds) (2009): Cognition Distributed: How Cognitive Technology Extends Our Minds. Amsterdam: John Benjamins
CHELLA & MANZOTTI: “assuming that the mind is indeed internal to anything may be a misleading“
It is misleading to mix up “in the head” with “in the mind.” But “mind” is a weasel word. To have a mind is to feel. And there is no reason to doubt that a headache cannot be wider than a head…