Owen Matthew
Yakima Valley College, Yakima, WA 98902, USA.
Center for Consciousness Science, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Entropy (Basel). 2020 Jul 28;22(8):823. doi: 10.3390/e22080823.
Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. While it might not be directly apparent, metaphysical commitments have consequential entailments concerning the causal efficacy of consciousness. Commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and the nature of causation determine which problem(s) a view of consciousness faces with respect to mental causation. Analysis of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind has brought several problems to the fore: the alleged lack of psychophysical laws, the causal exclusion problem, and the causal pairing problem. This article surveys the threat each problem poses to IIT based on the different metaphysical commitments IIT theorists might make. Distinctions are made between what I call reductive IIT, non-reductive IIT, and non-physicalist IIT, each of which make differing metaphysical commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and nature of causation. Subsequently, each problem pertaining to mental causation is presented and its threat, or lack thereof, to each version of IIT is considered. While the lack of psychophysical laws appears unthreatening for all versions, reductive IIT and non-reductive IIT are seriously threatened by the exclusion problem, and it is difficult to see how they could overcome it while maintaining a commitment to the causal closure principle. Yet, non-physicalist IIT denies the principle but is therefore threatened by the pairing problem, to which I have elsewhere provided a response that is briefly outlined here. This problem also threatens non-reductive IIT, but unlike non-physicalist IIT it lacks an evident response. The ultimate aim of this survey is to provide a roadmap for IIT theorists through the maze of mental causation, by clarifying which commitments lead to which problems, and how they might or might not be overcome. Such a survey can aid IIT theorists as they further develop and hone the metaphysical commitments of IIT.
心理因果关系对于整合信息理论（IIT）至关重要，该理论认为意识因其具有因果效力而存在。虽然这可能并不直接明显，但形而上学的承诺对于意识的因果效力有着重要的影响。关于意识的本体论和因果关系本质的承诺决定了一种意识观在心理因果关系方面面临哪些问题。当代心灵哲学中对心理因果关系的分析凸显了几个问题：所谓心理物理定律的缺失、因果排除问题和因果配对问题。本文基于IIT理论家可能做出的不同形而上学承诺，审视了每个问题对IIT构成的威胁。我区分了还原论的IIT、非还原论的IIT和非物理主义的IIT，它们在意识的本体论和因果关系本质上有着不同的形而上学承诺。随后，阐述了与心理因果关系相关的每个问题，并考虑了其对IIT各版本的威胁或不存在威胁的情况。虽然心理物理定律的缺失对所有版本似乎都没有威胁，但还原论的IIT和非还原论的IIT受到排除问题的严重威胁，并且很难看出它们在坚持因果闭合原则的同时如何克服这一问题。然而，非物理主义的IIT否认这一原则，但因此受到配对问题的威胁，我在其他地方对此提供了一种回应，在此简要概述。这个问题也威胁到非还原论的IIT，但与非物理主义的IIT不同，它缺乏明显的回应。这项审视的最终目的是为IIT理论家提供一条穿越心理因果关系迷宫的路线图，通过阐明哪些承诺会导致哪些问题，以及它们可能如何或无法被克服。这样的审视可以帮助IIT理论家进一步发展和完善IIT的形而上学承诺。
