No, I mean that dualism no longer appears to have a reasonable leg to stand on. And I didn't mean to suggest probability = emergence. I'm just pointing out a difference in application/interpretation of concepts. Theories don't have to be swallowed whole.
Okay; of course, they don't. I think I've just lost this train of thought, and I'm too lazy to track it down.
Reciprocation and interplay shouldn't be denied in analysis, but statisticians already have methods for dealing with them. If x is responsible for say, 60% of the variance in y and p is =/<0.01, then we can be pretty confident in making a claim about the causal relationship between x and y. Just because it isn't the whole story doesn't mean that throws the 60% out the window.
Just to be clear, mapping an epistemological trajectory of entities within certain probabilistic limits isn't the purpose of emergence theory. Emergence is a model that attempts to provide ontological information about an entity. Of course, how something might behave would fall under this model; but emergence itself isn't only an epistemological framework by which we can "know" (more or less) what an entity will do. It hopes to provide an restructuring of ontology.
But you're correct, probability is important; I'm just saying that when we're trying to understand the nature of an entity, probability is only one component of the virtual possibility space.
Well it's not a perfect overlap, but I think claims of romanticism on just about anything are always already a pot-kettle situation.
Are you suggesting that my accusation of the organicist metaphor as "romantic" fails to acknowledge that it is somehow romanticizing its own position?
So there is no consciousness, are no rationalizations, no economic action?
You've presented me with a realist dilemma, and it's not going to be easy to answer. Presence versus absence: either consciousness exists, in which case it is present; or it does not exist, in which case it is absent. This is the preeminent metaphysical binary: that of presence and absence.
This is my very short answer: I refuse either pole.
What follows is my very long answer.
Choosing between presence and absence illuminates the
illusion of two singular and self-contained entities: consciousness, or the lack thereof (not-consciousness). However, no matter which decision I make, I am confirming that there is a decision to be made; even by refusing the decision, I am acknowledging that a difference exists between the two terms (i.e. consciousness and non-consciousness); this is Derrida's
différance, to differ and to defer. This basic material condition contains the ulterior to all conditioned possibilities, and it guarantees not that they may be chosen, but that the choice itself may be posited. Consciousness is at the level of the choice; that is, consciousness is the expression of its own indeterminacy.
This basic material ground deprives both choices of their universality, effectively destroying the either/or status established by Western metaphysics. Consciousness may exist, or it may not; but it is not the ground of its own existence, and this is what Bakker means when he says that intentionality exists, but there is nothing inherently intentional about it; or what Brassier says when he acknowledges subjectivity, but as a subject without a self. Many of the scholars I’ve quoted or mentioned have grappled with this choice: consciousness or not? The critical solution is to reject the question.
This is where models such as emergence allow us to formalize an ontology about consciousness that undermines the binary of “does it or doesn’t it”; what exists is an assemblage that feeds symbiotically on other systems contained both within and without the body. Consciousness cannot account for the entire body, and yet we act as though it does (i.e. “This is my body”
; but what of the bodily reaction we don’t control? What of digestion, sweat, circulation, etc.? Furthermore, consciousness is a system of imagining, and so it is not restricted to the perspective of the body; we can imagine alternative perspectives, some people have out-of-body experiences, other suffer from phantom limb, other still find that their senses still function without their conscious enjoyment of them (e.g. blindsight). There is no phenomenological difference between seeing something that is red, and imagining the color "red" when our eyes are closed.
Finally, consciousness cannot account for itself. If this is a fundamental paradox of consciousness, then how can we say whether it exists or not? Consciousness can, in fact, in no way substantiate its own ontology. This is a well-documented fact of consciousness; it is recursive, and any expansion of the conscious frame necessitates a further frame. For if consciousness is observation, and it observes itself, then it is infinitely displaced. Consciousness becomes ungrounded.
Consciousness is a system that cognizes itself as whole and as a
source; but it operates as though its having-cognized-itself doesn't necessitate a redefinition of its own limits. The very operation of consciousness consistently deconstructs itself. It is thus not an essential or originary apparatus. The fact that consciousness allows us to experience suffering or sadness grants it no absolute status. Consciousness is a system that prescribes intention to non-intentional systems (e.g. nervous system); it is an after-the-fact entity, emergent from various assemblages and their reactions with inner- and extra-bodily entities.
So, consciousness is neither present nor absent; consciousness is the
trace of its own possibility.
