Simon Bowes

The framework provided by the topographical account is one that will be filled in in practice by researchers in the various disciplines of cognitive science; its advantage is exactly that it allows pluralistic, interdisciplinary practices to add to the accurate description of portions of the cognitive landscape without imposing a single overarching metaphysics. Likewise, the account of virtual machine functionalism promoted provides the space for productive, philosophically grounded, principled pluralism.

Virtual Machine Functionalism is defended as an account of the relation between the mental and the physical not vulnerable to reductionist arguments. Realism about conscious experience is defended in a way that accords with physicalism. It is shown how this account avoids the pitfalls of other attempts at bridging the difficulties of the material/experiential divide, as the qualitative aspects of experience play a causal role in the workings of the virtual machines our minds are made of. This is rendered more plausible through a deflationary account of consciousness, one that does not start with a question-begging assumption of an unbridgeable gap. Panpsychist and illusionist theories of consciousness are reviewed. The composition problem is outlined, and resolved through the considering split-brain subjects and sensory substitution. However, it is argued this lends support to a deflationary, relational, and emergentist theory of conscious subjecthood. It is shown that experience can be constituted by processes implemented in certain kinds of virtual machinery, and that these processes can form larger wholes if they are connected in the right kinds of way, which will require sharing a developmental role in coordinating the actions of the subject they compose.

An explanation of the need to start with an account of ‘natural kinds’: we want statements of cognitive science to be general, explanatory, and irreducible. A renewed account is needed given an embodied, embedded, enactive, and evolutionary approach to cognition, as accounts based on the classical computationalist view of cognition are unsuited. The category terms we use in our scientific statements depend on both the real structure of the world and on our explanatory interests, but this does not make them unnatural. Rather, it reflects the necessary conditions for our distinguishing structure in the world in a way that grounds inductive inferences. After a critical review of traditional approaches (essentialist and nominalist), a topographical account is introduced. The problems of induction are solved with an analysis of ‘projectability.’ This is illustrated with the example of ‘planet’ and applied to cognitive science.

A summary of the view of minds as embodied virtual machines, showing how this addresses the metaphysical issues from the first half of the text. Virtual Machine Functionalism (VMF) fits naturally with a dispositional, context-dependent view of causation, and suits a topographical account of natural kind clusters. VMF provides a view that is respectably physical without implying reduction. Mind emerges over time through the feedback dynamics between organisms and environment in biological and cultural evolution, and individual development. Returning to the question posed at the outset, it is argued that the above forms a realistic account of intentional action, with three main premises: a theory of causation based on the causal tendencies of contextualised temporally extended processes of the kind required by mechanistic explanations objects in the world; a subtler understanding of the principle of causal closure that retains the essence of physicalism without begging the question against supervenient causes; and an account of natural kinds that respects both the chaotic, partially undifferentiated nature of the physical world and the role we play in bringing order to our experiences of it.

Views on the nature of causation are considered. It is argued that we need one that avoids certain metaphysical posits as universal regularities, without becoming overly epistemological. I settle for a ‘capacity’ view (from Nancy Cartwright), which sees causation in terms of the powers of objects to bring about effects given their context. Asking what aspects of a context should be regarded as ‘background’ or cause leads to the conclusion that causal generalisations are abstractions from contextualised events. We abstract from particulars in a way that is useful for us in the world we find ourselves in. We outline the ‘difference-making account’ of causation, which avoids tying causes too closely to ‘low-level’ specifics by allowing counterfactual manipulations of context to be a factor, and neutralises the exclusion argument. Historical and contemporary understandings of supervenience as a relation between mental phenomena and their physical realisations are surveyed, and a ‘broad’ understanding advocated, which makes room for emergence. Varieties of emergence are considered. A version that is coherent with the previously given analyses of physicalism, supervenience, causation, and natural kindhood is advocated, allowing for the emergence of minded beings through the kinds of feedback dynamics in evolutionary, developmental, and cultural processes.

The status of cognitive states as natural kinds in causal explanations is threatened by reductive arguments purporting to show how such ‘higher-level’ states are place holders for the complex causal explanations involving the fundamental kinds of the physical sciences. This chapter lays the ground for a counter to reductionism, clarifying the debate by answering the questions of what reduction involves, and what the nature of the stuff to which everything is argued to reduce is. The ‘Special Sciences’ debate between ‘autonomous’ domains heterogeneously realised and reductionist arguments based on supervenience, causal exclusion, and physical causal closure. The concept of event is analysed, rejecting the property instantiation account, undermining a major premise in the reductionist argument. Arguments for physicalism and causal closure are reviewed and refined.

A theory of what it is to be an agent acting for reasons is given. This picture could apply to non-linguistic creatures, but having language allows us to bring together previously isolated spaces of reasons. The importance of circular causal processes in evolutionary, developmental, and cognitive processes is foregrounded. These lead, in systems subject to selection, to the emergence of new kinds. The multi-level processes of evolution, natural and cultural, are described. This gives us the flexibility to adapt to niches without innately specified behaviours, and relies on the biological evolution of flexible cognitive machinery. Learnt and innate expectations regarding the outcomes of actions are part of the self-sustaining causal loop in the dynamic interaction between mind and world, contrary to the traditional ‘sense, plan, act’ cycle. The picture of humankind as physically embodied and socially embedded creatures is given in some detail, with empirical support. For humans, the physical and social context should be considered as a ‘proper part’ of cognition, rather than just a place we leave our tools, or a source of inputs. Varieties of externalism in the literature are discussed and evaluated.

A science of the mental does not need to start with well-defined kinds, it can start with ‘folk’ definitions and refine them as the science matures. An account of mental natural kinds is sketched, objections considered and rejected. The result is an account that refers to the physical, biological, psychological, and social conditions necessary for the emergence to states that can play a role in explaining the actions of intentional creatures like us, as well as certain animals and future machines. Being intentional creatures means acting on the basis of representational states, but not seen as detailed inner intermediaries between subjects and the world. The view defended is a kind of representational direct realism, in line with embodied, extended, and enactive views, with internal, information-bearing states that play a part in the production of action, and in imagination and planning, etc. The content of a mental state is what information it carries for the subject, which depends on features of the world and the mind. A theory of content gives an account of its form (image-like, language-like, etc.), its causes, constitution, and uses. A broadly embodied account is advocated, giving an active role to the subject in achieving understanding.

This book is an empirically informed investigation of the philosophical problem of mental causation, and simultaneously a philosophical investigation of the status of cognitive scientific generalisations. If there is such a thing as mental causation, and if we can classify the mental states involved in these causes in a way useful for making predictions and giving scientific explanations, then these states will be natural kinds. The first task, then, is to show that there is an account of natural kindhood that can accommodate cognitive kinds. The second task is to say how the scientific statements made using these mental kinds are not susceptible to being reduced to statements about physical kinds, and in fact require taking into account facts at many levels of explanation, including the biological and social levels. Lastly, the case will be made for Virtual Machine Functionalism being the correct account of the relationship between cognitive states and the broader physical world.