1 Ontology , Matter and Emergence

“Ontological emergence” of inherent high-level properties with causal powers is witnessed nowhere. A non-substantialist conception of emergence works much better. It allows downward causation, provided our concept of causality is transformed accordingly. Foreword The thesis of the emergence of consciousness out of complex neurophysiological processes is commonplace (Freeman, 2001). Yet, it raises two major problems which are far from being correctly addressed. The first problem is a “category problem” (by due reference to G. Ryle’s notion of “category mistake”). Emergence concerns properties, to wit features that are intersubjectively accessible, and that can then be described in a third-person mode. Saying that a property “consciousness” emerges from a complex network of interacting neurophysiological properties therefore misses a crucial point: that consciousness is no ordinary “property” in this sense, but rather a situated, perspectival, first-person mode of access. Any discourse about consciousness is thus bound to be first and second-personal in disguise (behind the curtain of a formally referential language). This problem of “radical situatedness” is discussed and developed in a recent paper of mine2. The second problem is an ontological problem, which concerns any case of emergence whatsoever, not only consciousness. If it is accepted that there are elementary properties (the properties of the putative basic constituants of the world), can there be genuine emergent properties? It is this second problem I wish to address in the present article, by way of a strategy of ontological deconstruction. 1 A former version of this paper was intended as part of my contribution to the Mind & Life meeting in Dharamsala (India) in october 2002 (in fact, only a small fraction of it was presented there). I thank all the participants, especially U. Goodenough, S. Chu, and P.L. Luisi for their cogent remarks, Arthur Zajonc for his empathic and lucid chairing, Adam Engle for his talent of organizer and warmth, Alan Wallace and Thupten Jinpa for their acute and creative translation, and Matthieu Ricard for his serene enthusiasm and friendship. Very special thanks are due to His Holiness the Dalai-Lama, who provided both his intellectual insight, and qualities which are hardly met in other conferences: a sense of high unity of purpose beyond the differences in standpoint, and a constant ethical “embodiment” of knowledge which caught us all. 2 M. Bitbol, “Science as if situation mattered”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Science, 1, 181-224, 2002 ; also : M. Bitbol, Physique et Philosophie de l’Esprit, Flammarion, 2000