Compositions, Dispositions and Qualia

1. Compositions, Dispositions and Qualia Anand Rangarajan Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering University of Florida

2. Hard Problem of Consciousness • Inadequacy of present day science to deal with consciousness • Varieties of materialism unsatisfactory • Recent challenge from analytic philosophy • Consciousness not logically supervenient on the physical (David Chalmers) • Varieties of idealism, panpsychism, dualism now back on the table

3. Qualia • Intentionality (aboutness) and qualia - two difficult consciousness-related problems • Set intentionality aside • Qualia • First person experience • Hidden • Sensations, perceptions, emotions and thoughts

4. Two conceptions of the physical • Just what is meant by the term “physical”? • Dispositions • Resistance, surface properties, extrinsic • Dispositions contrasted with the categorical • All of present day physics a theory of dispositions? • Categorical • Intrinsic nature of the physical (Russel, Stoljar) • Space, time • Particle, field

5. Intrinsic nature of the physical • Leverage the categorical/dispositional distinction • Categorical as “hidden taxonomy of nature”? • No connection to consciousness at this point • Physics still based on dispositions but tries to infer categorical from dispositional theory?

6. Qualia and Science • Very difficult to reconcile science and qualia • Other than materialism and radical emergence (dualism,), all theories face panpsychism problem • Qualia basic? • Qualia supervenient on the categorical?

7. Qualia and the Categorical • Categorical nature of the physical paints an intrinsic picture • Qualia lights up the interior • Interior and Intrinsic connection? • Simple picture: • Nature has an intrinsic categorical structure • Qualia are logically supervenient on categorical (Stoljar)

8. The Specter of Panpsychism • Categorical structure not yet fleshed out • Supervenience relationship between qualia and categorical unknown • Categorical structure may allow “low-level” qualia

9. Compositions • Panpsychism takes qualia all the way down • Compositions - fleshing out the categorical to avoid “naïve panpsychism”

10. Nested Compositions • Simpler compositions necessary but not sufficient for more complex compositions • Spacetime issues set aside • Silent on potential versus actual compositions for the moment • Compositional physics to replace dispositional physics

11. Compositions as basic • Paradoxical quality • Qualia (and dispositions) correlate with compositions • Emergence of context and perspective

12. Discussion • Compositions are the structural-categorical counterpart of qualia • Prehension, sensation, perception, emotion, cognition, intuition, visualization, illumination, pure consciousness event (PCE) all may have categorical counterparts • Dispositions follow suit

13. Conclusion • Most varieties of materialism, idealism, dualism, panpsychim, dual-aspect theories sidestepped • Remains to be seen if compositional physics can be mathematically formulated