On Chomsky's mysterianism - part 2
I opened an OP related to Chomsky some time ago, expressing my irritation with his mysterianism. After reading your comments, I came to the conclusion that I may have misjudged him, so I decided to come back with other questions.
Very important: as much as possible, please do not express your personal opinion about the questions, but try to answer as you think Chomsky would answer these questions.
I. Chat GPT says Chomsky does not believe in the complete reductionism of consciousness to matter. Unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain any quote in this regard. Do you think Chat GPT gave me the right answer? If so, are there any citations?
II. What type of mysterianism does Chomsky embrace?
Type 1: we do not have the ability to find out if consciousness is a. fundamental, b. totally reducible to matter or c. created by matter, but irreducible to it;
Type 2: the answer is something outside of the variants from Type 1, something so complicated that it comes out of human logic, something that we cannot even conceive at a theoretical level.
Is the basically saying ''We don't have the capacity to know which of the three variants in Type 1 is correct." or "Those three aren't even on the table. There is something much too much complicated for us even to form a framework for philosophical debate."?
Please, as far as possible, provide me with quotes or sources to support your answer.
Thank you!
Very important: as much as possible, please do not express your personal opinion about the questions, but try to answer as you think Chomsky would answer these questions.
I. Chat GPT says Chomsky does not believe in the complete reductionism of consciousness to matter. Unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain any quote in this regard. Do you think Chat GPT gave me the right answer? If so, are there any citations?
II. What type of mysterianism does Chomsky embrace?
Type 1: we do not have the ability to find out if consciousness is a. fundamental, b. totally reducible to matter or c. created by matter, but irreducible to it;
Type 2: the answer is something outside of the variants from Type 1, something so complicated that it comes out of human logic, something that we cannot even conceive at a theoretical level.
Is the basically saying ''We don't have the capacity to know which of the three variants in Type 1 is correct." or "Those three aren't even on the table. There is something much too much complicated for us even to form a framework for philosophical debate."?
Please, as far as possible, provide me with quotes or sources to support your answer.
Thank you!
Comments (81)
I've done some pretty extensive testing of ChatGPT's ability to analyze complex philosophical texts. I personally would not rely on it at all in this regard. I use it as a speculative foil to reveal any flaws in my own logic.
https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/ChomskyMysteriesNatureHidden2009.pdf
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12417/chomskys-mysteries-of-nature-how-deeply-hidden-reading-group/p1
I) He's said that science is not reductionist, that it instead is opportunist, you get what you can from it. He has said several times that we no longer have a clear notion of "matter", so reducing consciousness to matter doesn't make sense.
This can be found on YouTube, on many interviews on this topic, including this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzRkho1s5FA
II) More so type 2, simply put: given we are natural creatures, we will have the capacity to understand some things and others not. If we had no natural limit to understanding, we would have no scope, thus we couldn't develop anything.
This is discussed with significant depth and sources in the attached article, but, it is a long-ish read.
But for ''II)" I have some things to say. Logic is enough to accept that consciousness is either a. 100% reducible, b. not 100% reducible, or c. fundamental.
Q1. So by saying consciousness isn't reducible to matter, does Chomsky leave the room open for options b and c, or he is saying that there are other options that our mind cannot comprehend?
Q2. If the latter, why would he believe that?
Quoting Manuel - No, not at all. We would have a scope, of course. That scope would be to understand everything.
Q3. What serious arguments does Chomsky have for imposing this limit on the matter of consciousness?
In his video interview Noam Chomsky - Mysterianism, Language, and Human Understanding, Chomsky says:
1min - "I'm cited as one of the culprits responsible for this strange post-modern heresy (New Mysterianism) which I happily accept though I would prefer a different term for it , namely Truism, that's what I thought forty years ago, in proposing a distinction between problems which fall within our cognitive capacities , which may be vary hard, but in principle fall within them , and mysteries that do not fall within them at all"
3min - "The reason it's Truism is that if we are biological organism s, not angels, then our cognitive faculties are similar to those that are called physical capacities and they should be studied much as other systems of the body are . These Truisms, and that is what they are, are commonly rejected in the study of mental faculties , language in particular, that seems to me to be one instance of a curious tendency to treat mental aspects of the human organism differently from so called physical aspects . It is a kind of methodological dualism, which is much more pernicious than Cartesian metaphysical dualism "
As Chomsky says that treating mental aspects differently to physical aspects is a pernicious dualism, it seems clear that Chat GPT is misleading to say that Chomsky does not believe in the complete reductionism of consciousness to matter. It is not about consciousness being reducible to matter, nor matter being reducible to consciousness, rather it is about there being no dualism between the mental and the physical.
Quoting Eugen
As regards type 1 Mysterianism, as Chomsky said "our cognitive faculties are similar to those that are called physical capacities and they should be studied much as other systems of the body are ", for Chomsky, consciousness is fundamental, as gravity is fundamental.
As regards type 2 Mysterianism, as Chomsky said "in proposing a distinction between problems which fall within our cognitive capacities, which may be vary hard, but in principle fall within them , and mysteries that do not fall within them at all", for Chomsky some mysteries fall within our cognitive capacities and some fall outside it.
According to him, consciousness is emergent (he says that "radical emergence" happens all the time, which I think is true), as is liquid from molecules who appear to lack this property in isolation.
You would perhaps reply by saying that this means consciousness must be reducible to particles, because if it is emergent, the reduction follows. Not quite. Consciousness arises in brains, which are a very specific arrangement of matter, as far as we can see 99.999999% of the universe doesn't have creatures with brains.
But saying consciousness is reducible to brains doesn't make any sense, how is that a reduction? I don't see how a brain is a "lower level" phenomena of mind, it seems to me to be a higher one, in terms of, we discover brains through consciousness, otherwise, we couldn't even postulate them.
So Chomsky would invert the now classical slogan "the mental is the neurophysiological at a higher level." I believe he discusses this in New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind. Or if not, in the first essay of Power and Prospects. Don't remember which one.
Quoting Eugen
It's in the provided essay. We don't know what matter is, almost nothing about it. Physicists don't even agree on what a particle is - that's a problem. What we do know about matter quite intimately, are its (conscious) mental aspects, what we see, feel, talk with others, read, etc. That's as clear as anything could be for a human being.
Newton proved we don't understand motion: we provide descriptions for in our theories, but we don't have the capacity to understand it, which he made clear in his famous "It is inconceivable..." quote.
Understanding the world vs. understanding theories of the world, are very different things. The latter is a massive lowering of standards of understanding.
And what happened with the problem of motion? We simply got used to it, in fact, we take it for granted, forgetting we don't understand it, outside our theories.
If we can't understand motion, it is unlikely we will comprehend how matter can think. We know we are thinking matter, but we don't understand how it is possible. He quotes Locke and Priestley here, and several others, worth looking at the article.
Where does Chomsky say that "consciousness is emergent" ?
There is a difference between weak emergence, as liquid from molecules, and strong emergence, as minds from brains.
In the video Noam Chomsky Mysterianism, Language, and Human Understanding, at 13.40 min onwards he says that at the moment we do not understand the principles as to how a mind can emerge from a brain.
"The phrase we do not yet understand however should strike a note of caution."
Quoting Manuel
Yes, as Chomsky said in the video 9min onwards, we can create theories about something without understanding what that something is.
"Well accordingly the goals of scientific inquiry were implicitly restricted from the intelligibility of nature, which was in fact the criterion for true understanding in early modern science, Galilean science, and its successors, they abandoned that and moved to something much narrower, intelligibility of theories about the world".
He doesn't make a difference between strong and weak emergence.
He doesn't say it explicitly, but I think it's quite clear:
https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/ChomskyMysteriesNatureHidden2009.pdf
Top of page 192.
Chomsky: The Mysteries of Nature: How deeply hidden ?
Chomsky makes the distinction between the weak emergence of liquids from molecules and "radical emergence", ie, strong emergence, between two entities that are absolutely incompatible with one another.
page 192 - common objection today is that such ideas invoke an unacceptable form of radical emergence, unlike the emergence of liquids from molecules, where the properties of the liquid can in some reasonable sense be regarded as inhering in the molecules.
I read Chomsky as saying that we don't know enough about consciousness to even sensibly theorise about its origin, including whether or not it emerges from the physical brain.
page 171: we do not really understand [because] we are still unable to form a conception of how consciousness arises in matter, even if we are certain that it does.
page 178: Similarly it is premature to hold that it is empirically evident that states of consciousness are the necessary consequence of neuronal activity. Too little is understood about the functioning of the brain
page 192: In Nagels phrase, we can see how liquidity is the logical result of the molecules rolling around on each other at the microscopic level, though nothing comparable is to be expected in the case of neurons and consciousness.
I think it is meant as somewhat ironic, because as he says later on in the same page:
"It should be noted that the molecule-liquid example, commonly used, is not a very telling one. We also cannot conceive of a liquid turning into two gases by electrolysis, and there is no intuitive sense in which the properties of water, bases, and acids inhere in Hydrogen or Oxygen or other atoms." (my bold)
As the quote in your quoting of him in p.171, says, "even if we are certain it does." We can't doubt that experience comes from the brain.
As for the quote in page 178, the point is stress that it might not only be neurons that are the cause of consciousness, there is a whole lot of other activity going on in the brain. These other parts of the brain likely play an important role on consciousness, but we've still to figure it out.
He references Randy Gallistel, who he thinks is persuasive on this topic.
Pity we can't ask Chomsky.
Quoting Manuel
p 193 - There is something about the nature of Hydrogen and Oxygen in virtue of which they are intrinsically suited to constituting water, so the sciences discovered after long labors, providing reasons in the nature of things why the emerging thing is as it is. What seemed brute emergence was assimilated into science as ordinary emergencenot, to be sure, of the liquidity variety, relying on conceivability.
Chomsky is distinguishing between strong emergence and weak emergence. With scientific understanding, what used to be thought of a strong emergence is now understood as weak emergence. For example, closing the gap between chemistry and physics with a better understanding of the quantum theory. Today, how consciousness is related to the brain is a mystery. Various theories have been proposed, including strong emergence and panpsychism. But as Chomsky writes, we don't know enough at the moment to come up with a definitive solution.
Quoting Manuel
page 171: we do not really understand [because] we are still unable to form a conception of how consciousness arises in matter, even if we are certain that it does.
Consciousness and matter are certainly related, but that does not mean consciousness has emerged from the matter of the brain. There are other possibilities, for example, panpsychism, whereby consciousness is fundamental in the natural world, and being fundamental, cannot be described as having emerged from matter.
Quoting Manuel
I agree. At this moment in time, Chomsky is saying we don't know enough about the relation of consciousness to the brain to sensibly propose how they are related, whether by emergence or otherwise.
Quoting Manuel
page 177 - C.R. Gallistel points out that we clearly do not understand how the nervous system computes, or even the foundations of its ability to compute, even for the small set of arithmetic and logical operations that are fundamental to any computation.
This reinforces my point that Chomsky is saying we don't know how consciousness and brain are related, even to sensibly propose that the mind emerges from the brain, as opposed, for example, to panpsychism, whereby consciousness is fundamental in the natural world.
Actually you can, you can email him any time, and he would answer. I've met him personally and have asked him about the topic, it was part of my thesis.
But, if you have doubts, see the following.
See starting min. 59:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzRkho1s5FA
I feel I have been, as they say, inadvertently "trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs". Yes, Chomsky at 59min does suggest that he finds no distinction in emergence between weak and strong forms.
59 min - I don't go along with Strawson and as far as he does to defend panpsychism. His argument for panpsychism is based on a serious point . Can there be what he calls radical emergence, entirely new properties somehow developing without any elements of them in earlier structures. I think that happens all the time. There's nothing in the hydrogen atom which says you're a liquid. Changes take place with other levels of complexity increasing that bring about entirely new phenomena. So I don't think that's a strong argument.
Emergence is explained as occurring when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own.
Chomsky makes a distinction between being able to understand the nature of reality and developing theories about the nature of reality. We can use the equation f = ma to predict what will happen without understanding why it happens.
page 173 - "Well accordingly the goals of scientific inquiry were implicitly restricted from the intelligibility of nature, which was in fact the criterion for true understanding in early modern science, Galilean science, and its successors, they abandoned that and moved to something much narrower, intelligibility of theories about the world".
Chomsky also makes the point that even though the mind may emerge from the physical matter of the brain, the nature of physical matter is still beyond our understanding.
[i]56min - the problem is with the physical. When you talk about reducing Consciousness to physical you don't know what physical is. Physical is just whatever the Sciences say.
58min - whatever matter turns out to be[/i]
However, there is a difference between the emergence of the mind from the brain and the emergent behaviour of liquid due to its molecules. In Chomsky's terms, for the brain to mind we have neither a theory nor a grasp, whereas for the molecule to liquid we have a theory but no grasp.
63min - We can understand it to the extent that humans are capable of understanding things . I don't know about you, but I have no grasp of, I can follow the theory that explains how hydrogen and oxygen end up feeling like a liquid, but I have no grasp of it. I can follow the theory okay, and that's the way science works.
It comes down to how emergence is defined. If strong emergence is defined as having neither grasp nor theory, then from brain to mind is strong emergence, and if weak emergence is defined as having a theory but no grasp, then from molecule to liquid is weak emergence.
1) Noam Chomsky on the Big Questions (Part 4) | Closer To Truth Chats
2) Chomsky - The Mysteries of Nature: How deeply hidden ?
There is only one kind of emergence
I would agree that there is only one kind of emergence. In physics, all our examples of emergence are of the weak variety, such as sound from atoms or liquids from molecules. As you say "We may get a theory of consciousness, we may not, if we do get a theory then we would say the same thing about consciousness as we do about liquids"
As Chomsky said in: Noam Chomsky on the Big Questions (Part 4)
59 min - I don't go along with Strawson and as far as he does to defend panpsychism. His argument for panpsychism is based on a serious point . Can there be what he calls radical emergence, entirely new properties somehow developing without any elements of them in earlier structures. I think that happens all the time. There's nothing in the hydrogen atom which says you're a liquid. Changes take place with other levels of complexity increasing that bring about entirely new phenomena. So I don't think that's a strong argument.
As Sabine Hossenfelder said in What is Emergence
4min - A lot of people seem to think that consciousness of free will should be strongly emergent, but there's absolutely no reason to think that this is the case. For all we currently know, consciousness is weakly emergent, as any other collective phenomenon in large systems.
Parts exist in the world and wholes exist in the mind
Realism accepts that the parts exist in the world, but it may be argued that the whole, any collection of parts, only exists in the mind of an observer. Atoms may exist in the world, but sound only exists as a concept in the mind of an observer. Molecules may exist in the world, but liquids only exist as a concept in the mind of an observer.
I am taking atoms and molecules as metaphorical parts, in that atoms and molecules are in turn wholes made up of more fundamental parts.
Sound may emerge from atoms and liquid may emerge from molecules, but the emergent sound and liquid only exist as concepts in the mind.
The mind is conscious of both the physical parts, the atoms and molecules, and the conceptual wholes, the sounds and the liquids, even though only the physical parts exist in the world.
The emergence of consciousness from neurons hits the barrier of introspection
We are conscious of the atoms and the sounds they emerge into. We are conscious of the molecules and the liquids they emerge into.
How can we understand the neurons and the consciousness they emerge into.
I am taking neurons as metaphorical parts, in that neurons are in turn wholes made up of more fundamental parts.
We arrive at the self-referential problem of being conscious of the neurons and the consciousness they emerge into, ie, being conscious of consciousness itself.
Chomsky said in The Ideas of Chomsky (1977), our mind is inaccessible to introspection:
36min - For example, that same image dominates the rationalist tradition as well, where it was assumed that one could exhaust the contents of the mind by careful attention. You know, you could really develop those clear and distinct ideas, and their consequences, and so on. And in fact, even if you move to someone, let's say, like Freud, with his evocation of the unconscious, still I think that a careful reading suggests that he regarded the unconscious as, in principle, accessible. That is, we could really perceive that theater, and stage, and the things on it carefully if only the barriers of repression and so on could be overcome. Well if what I've been suggesting is correct, that's just radically wrong, I mean, even wrong as a point of departure. There's no reason all that I can see for believing that the principles of metal computation that enter so intimately into our action or our interaction or our speech-- to believe that those principles are all accessible to introspection any more than the analysing mechanisms of our visual system, or, for that matter, the nature of liver is accessible to introspection.
IE, the problem of consciousness emerging from neurons hits the barrier, as Chomsky pointed out, of the inaccessibility of introspection, of consciousness being conscious of itself, and therefore may never be solvable.
I mean, I mostly agree with your summary. And it's been a problem for hundreds of years, if not more, and probably shows a natural limit in our cognitive capacities.
As for the weak or strong emergence, I think the stress in Chomsky's quote should be focused on "Can there be what he calls radical emergence, entirely new properties somehow developing without any elements of them in earlier structures. I think that happens all the time."
I take him to mean that "strong emergence" happens all the time. I don't see any intuitive (I'm not speaking of a theoretical account) reasoning that would get a rational human being to expect or not be surprised that liquid can emerge from what looks to me to be completely liquid-less particle, in isolation.
Of course, we are then forced to say, that the particle is not liquid-less, it has the potential for liquidity in certain configurations. But I don't see how the end result of liquidity, is evident from the constituent parts.
Quoting RussellA
If by "strong emergence" she means that particles in the LHC should show signs of consciousness when they collide, then of course it's not "strongly emergent" in that case.
If she means that the new properties (consciousness, will, in this case) should be expected from the constituent parts, then I don't think that's true, and would call consciousness and will "strongly emergent".
This again, doesn't mean that we should expect that planets has free will when it moves in its orbit, or something like that, but weak emergence suggests to me a certain kind of obviousness which I don't see. But I may very well have wrong intuitions, that's certainly possible.
I'm surprised at the way (it appears to me) that Chomsky seems to hold up intuition as the standard for what qualifies as understanding. Human intuitions generally arise as matters of pattern recognition based on things we observe all the time. However, observing hydrogen and oxygen atoms either in isolation or when combined into a water molecule is not something we do all the time. We simply don't have the sensory capabilities to make such observations unaided, let alone under all the conditions that would be needed in order for us to develop accurate intuitions about such things.
If we were able to resolve individual atoms and observe them under a wide enough variety of conditions, we would observe that hydrogen and oxygen themselves form liquids and even solids under the right conditions of temperature and pressure. For example a phase diagram for hydrogen:
Quoting Manuel
From my perspective, thinking in terms of "the potential for liquidity" appears to be thinking about the situation in simplistic intuitive terms. (Which of necessity, all of us are doing a lot of the time.). From a scientific perspective (that doesn't put human intuition on a pedestal) there are more sophisticated ways of understanding the details of what it is going on in the case of H2O, and no need for the notion of "the potential for liquidity".
Anyway, if you can shed additional light on what Chomsky sees as the relevance of intuition, I'd be interested.
Water as a liquid is a collection of water molecules. One property of a liquid is that it takes the shape of the vessel it is in. One property of a molecule is that it has a definite and rigid structure and doesn't take the shape of the vessel it is in.
It is the case that liquid water has an entirely new property not seen in the individual water molecules from which it is composed. Chomsky calls this radical emergence, saying that this is something that happens all the time.
It is certainly true that liquid's property of taking the shape of the vessel it is in is radically different to the molecule's property of having a rigid structure and not taking the shape of the vessel it is in, but isn't this what we would intuitively expect.
Quoting Manuel
If panpsychism is true, when particles collide, consciousness would not emerge from the collision, as consciousness was already present in the particles before colliding.
If panprotopsychism is true, when particles collide, consciousness could emerge from the collision, as a proto-consciousness was present in the particles before colliding.
IE, there are some theories whereby consciousness doesn't emerge, as it is already fundamental and ubiquitous.
Then I believe we agree in this instance, but are calling the phenomena by different terms, "weak" vs. "strong" emergence. So on the topic of liquidity, it's a terminological issue, which doesn't matter much if we agree on the fundamentals, as it seems we do here.
Quoting RussellA
Correct. That's a big "if". I don't find the reasons given, either in Strawson's or Goff's account (or anyone else, that I've seen) to be particularly persuasive.
Additionally, there's no test we can put forth to determine if it's correct or not.
Proto-consciousness? That's fine, I suppose, but I'd add the caveat that whatever matter ends up being, it is also almost a "proto-everything", including proto-sensations, proto-liquid, proto-heart, etc.
He doesn't hold intuition to be the standard for a scientific account of a phenomenon of nature at all. In fact, the whole essay I shared is trying to show how Newton proved that the world was inherently unintuitive, contrary to what Newton, and all the great scientists and philosophers of his time, and before (throughout human history), thought to be the case.
What happened was that the goal of science shifted with Newton, science was now tasked with giving intelligible theories of the world, not with understanding the world. Descartes, Newton, Leibniz and all others looked for the latter, but the former prevailed, again, to Newton's own astonishment.
Now we take this utterly for granted. But it wasn't so until quite recently. That's the point, we are no longer bothered that we don't understand gravity intuitively, but are perfectly content with the theory and sometimes have trouble comprehending what this issue of understanding could even mean. Wasn't always this way.
Quoting wonderer1
I'm sure there are such ways. I don't doubt that. Of course, human intuition has enormous flaws, I don't recall arguing otherwise.
And I'd also add that science, is also a human creation, it comes from us. When some aspects of the external world happen to coincide with some of our scientific capacities (including mathematics, generalizations, abduction, hypothesis creation, projections, retrodictions, etc.) we construct a science of that phenomena.
It's not as if science exists in some objective world out there. Not that you are saying this, but, it should be mentioned.
Thanks for the clarification. I have a much better sense of where Chomsky is coming from now.
Sure! :up:
Chomsky seems to repudiate idealism (in the recent Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal interview). He says something like he sides with 'normal science'.
If the physical is whatever science says it is, then I guess the physical is quantum waves (at this point in time) right?
I'm a little unclear on his privileging science (methodological naturalism and empiricism) and saying that we don't understand the physical. Is there some tension in this?
Do you believe that if the nature of physical matter is beyond our understating then idealism gets a boost as an alternative ontology?
The idea that the physical remains incoherent or inexplicable probably needs its own thread and a clear but brief articulation as to why someone might argue this. I'm not sure I fully get this from Chomsky. Maybe it's my comprehension but he seems to lead to his argument without exploring it more fully.
Well, one should keep in mind that he "privileges science" (which is a fair assessment, in my opinion), in respect to trying to understand the nature of the (external, mind-independent) world. If someone wants to find out things about the world, you should follow what science says about it.
Nevertheless, there is far more to life than what science says about it, in our human experience. When it comes to issues about understanding human psychology and thinking, he frequently says that a work of great literature is quite a deal more insightful than most modern psychology.
By him saying we don't know what the physical is, he usually (not necessarily always) says this to anticipate "non-physical" talk, as if saying "the mind is non-physical" means something substantive. He sometimes says that by now, use of the word "physical" implies that we have a theoretical understanding of a problem, when we don't understand something some tend to say that consciousness is "non-physical", signaling theoretical ignorance as well.
But aside from this terminological choice, until someone can say what the physical is (does it exclude the mind? Why?, etc.) there is in fact, no physical, non-physical distinction.
When he says, we don't know what matter is, it's literally that, we don't know what it is, we don't know what a particle is, we know some of the properties of particles, but not what it is, yet. But he takes it that the brain is "modified matter", and that experience is the fact of existence of which we are most confident about.
Quoting Tom Storm
Until we can define materialism, we aren't debating substance, is what I guess he would say. All this is explained in the article I shared.
Apologies for the length.
No, this is good. Thanks.
If you need any more clarifications or have doubts, don't be afraid to ask, this much I should be able to explain. :cool:
Whatever matter ends up being, it is not necessarily proto-everything according to some current theories.
For example, the two main current theories of consciousness can be broadly divided into Dualist solutions and Monist solutions.
Within the Dualist Solutions can be Substance Dualism, where the mental can exist independently of the body, or Property Dualism, where mental properties supervene on physical properties.
Within the Dualist Solutions, matter is not explained as being proto-conscious. Only within the Monist Solutions is matter explained as being proto-conscious.
That's true.
I don't know of many substance dualists today, maybe some theological-leaning philosophers might be substance dualists, but there aren't many.
It seems to me as if most people try to aim for a monist account. Within this, you find a significant amount of property dualists.
If we are having trouble with one "substance", matter of the physical, it's difficult to argue that we need to add another substance, but, as you point out, view vary.
I. Quoting Manuel
I know the video very well, he didn't say consciousness was emergent, he just said radical emergence was real. I was very intrigued by this part because it seemed to me that after RLK argued that water wasn't radical emergence, Chomsky didn't defend his view but rather he ran away abruptly using the movement analogy. I think it's a soft spot for Chomsky, it seemed that way for me.
II. Quoting Manuel, then you say Quoting Manuel.
So mind is strongly emergent, but it is lower than the brain, the reason being that we discover brains through consciousness. Am I right?
III. Let's clarify the weak-strong emergence issue. Let's forget about what is or isn't intuitive for us, or about our capacities. Strong emergence is when new irreducible properties come into play, regardless of human capacities to understand that or not. Liquid may be difficult for our intuition, but it is not strongly emergent.
So does Chomsky believe or not in REAL strong emergence?
IV. Here's what I believe drives Chomsky into mysterianism:
1. He doesn't care much about the logical arguments in the debate between those who claim consciousness is fundamental and those who don't because he believes science (and not logic) should answer this question. When science tells us what are the properties of what we call matter, then we will have the answer.
2. He has the intuition that there is nothing in the current way of doing science that would ever give us a fully satisfactory answer.
Therefore, it seems we're stuck with a mystery.
Am I wrong?
V. You didn't answer my initial question, or I simply missed your answer. So...
Does Chomsky believe consciousness is one of the three (fundamental, weakly, strongly emergent), or he believes there are many other options that our logic cannot comprehend?
Thank you!
Radical emergence is the idea that a new property arises which was not evident in its constituent parts. Some people like to say that since we understand the theory in which molecules turn into liquids, then it isn't radical emergence.
Chomsky can follow the theory and understands it, but doesn't see how particles could lead to liquidity. In a similar, if not significantly more complicated manner, a physicist can understand quantum entanglement, but the phenomenon doesn't make sense.
I know you asked, but it's not entirely possible to do away with intuitions. If we could see how particles combined in a certain way could lead to liquidity, then we'd understand the theory and the phenomenon. It's the phenomenon which is puzzling, not the theory.
Quoting Eugen
That was a very poor explanation on my part, happens when I get carried away. What I should have said is that "saying consciousness is reducible to brains... doesn't say much in our current state of knowledge", instead of saying "doesn't make any sense". Thanks for pointing it out and letting me clarify.
We know that consciousness arises in specific configurations of matter, but not in our pinkies or noses. It's in our brains. We lose a limb; we still think rather well. We lose our heads, we don't think much, etc.
In our current state of understanding, if we say that consciousness is simply brain activity, then we are leaving out almost everything we value about consciousness, including emotions, colors, music, reflection, etc. Our studies of the brain say very, very little about these phenomena so far.
Chomsky is following Russell's "Three grades of certainty", in which Chomsky seems to agree with Russell, that what we are most confident about are out own conscious experience, following that we are confident about what other people say about their own conscious experience - if they're being honest. Following that we are confident about our theories about the world.
It's in this sense that, as Russell points out, when a neuroscientist is looking at a patient's brain, they are actually having an experience of looking at another person's brain, it's not as if the scientist can get out of his body to study a patient's brain, in a "view from nowhere".
A brain, in this respect, is a construction we postulate to make sense of our anatomy. It doesn't mean brain aren't real or that they're "only in our minds", but that, neuroscience is part of our capacity for formulating a science.
That would be more accurate. But there's a lot to add as well.
Quoting Eugen
I'm not clear on what you have in mind here. In the video, he was interpreting what Galen Strawson's view are, and he takes it that Strawson argues that if we want to find out what a mind is, you need to find out more about the nature of the world, because the mind is a part of the world.
He doesn't believe consciousness is fundamental, as opposed to Strawson, he sees no good evidence for panpsychism. The arguments for it are interesting, but not persuasive to him.
Quoting Eugen
That's more or less accurate. I think he'd say that we currently have no theory of consciousness, but we could have one, one day. But even if we do, it wouldn't do away with the issue of the misleadingly called "hard problem", because as Locke pointed out, we don't understand how matter could lead to consciousness, even if we are confident that that's what consciousness is, matter specifically arranged.
Quoting Eugen
As for this question, I don't think he distinguishes much between these views. Radical emergence has become a problem recently in philosophy, these new properties, of liquidity or heat just arose from the phenomena, they're emergent. But if you call it strong or weak is mostly terminological.
As I interpret him, if pushed, he'd probably say that he takes emergence to be "radical" or "brute", in that new properties constantly arise from parts which seem to lack the new property in isolation. He'd also say that calling it "radical" would likely be misleading, because it's normal science.
We do the best we can to construct theories from these new properties.
I know that was long, and I probably left something out, but I needed to clarify a badly phrased reply. Obviously if you want more clarifications or have doubts, let me know, I'll try and help.
Forgive me for butting in, or if it's been covered, but if one knows all the properties of certain particles, can't one predict which phenomena will emerge? For example, if we knew enough about H and O, would H2O's liquid properties be surprising?
Quoting RogueAI
That's exactly my point. Moreover, I don't even care if one is surprised or not. There is a clear difference between weak and strong emergence and it has nothing to do with intuitions, human capacities, or Chomsky being puzzled by liquidity, which is rather silly in my opinion because there's nothing puzzling about liquids.
Quoting Manuel
This is one way to look at things, but for me, it is not interesting. Again, it is not about properties being or not evident, it is about being new and irreducible or not, regardless of anything else. That's the strong emergence I'm interested in. So... does Chomsky believe in this type of radical emergence?
Quoting Manuel - It seems to me Chomsky denies the possibility of consciousness being fundamental on the basis of empirical evidence. So he doesn't care if for instance panpsychism makes perfect sense from a logical point of view, he will still dismiss it because there is no empirical evidence for atoms being conscious.
Quoting Manuel
Coming back to the same old problem. This is why this conversation keeps missing a key point - we simply have to differentiate these two notions, i.e. weak and strong emergence. If you want to help me, you have to forget what Chomsky or anyone else believes about weak and strong emergence, and try to give an answer based on what I call weak and strong emergence.
Weak emergence: new properties appear, but they are 100% reducible to more fundamental properties.
Strong emergence: new properties appear, and they are new in the real sense, they are irreducible to any other properties.
So forgive me for repeating the same question over and over again. Does Chomsky believe in what I call strong emergence?
Thank you!
"Knows" in English, can be misleading, I think "understanding" is less ambiguous (not that it makes it perfectly clear, but, maybe less confusing.)
If we had the capacity to understand all the properties of particles, then I think emergence would not be surprising. But "understanding" needs to include intuitions if we are going to say that we understand the phenomena.
Our built-in cognitive capacities are mechanistic: if we see a billiard ball hitting another one, we expect one ball to be the cause of movement of the other, until the other ball loses force.
If we kick a football (soccer) ball, we expect it to go a certain trajectory and then fall, because that's what balls do.
If I take the lid off a boiling pan, steam rises because it's going to its natural place, kind of like a big machine.
That's what we understand intuitively, it doesn't puzzle us to see steam rising or billiard balls stopping, etc.
Of course, this is not what is actually happening, the ball billiard ball stops because of friction, objects fall because of gravity, etc.
The actual explanations is science, not folk psychology or intuition. If we had a different cognitive constitution (maybe an advance alien species) gravity, friction and even liquidity could be intuitive to us and we could also have a theory that explains the intuitions, that happens to apply to the external world.
So, to answer your question yes, I think so in principle, but probably beyond us.
I mean, if you take that attitude literally, we wouldn't have modern science. The reason why Newton discovered gravity, is because he was puzzled as to why apples fall to the ground instead of levitating or going up to the sky.
It was literally this trivial - once people started being puzzled by trivial things, we got modern science. If Galileo was not puzzled as to why we think heavier objects fall faster to the ground than light objects, he wouldn't have bothered to do the experiments showing that this assumption was false.
So, it may not be surprising to you, but to others it is.
Quoting Eugen
Quoting Joseph Priestley, Chomsky says:
"Priestley then considers the claim that mind cannot be material because it is influenced by reasons. To this he responds that since reasons, whatever they may be, do ultimately move matter, there is certainly much less difficulty in conceiving that they may do this in consequence of their being the affection of some material substance, than upon the hypothesis of their belonging to a substance that has no
common property with matternot the way it would be put today, but capturing essentially the point of contemporary discussion leading some to revive panpsychism. But contrary to the contemporary
revival, Priestley rejects the conclusion that consciousness cannot be annexed to the whole brain as a system, while the individual particles of which it consists are separately unconscious. That A certain
quantity of nervous system is necessary to such complex ideas and affections as belong to the human mind; and the idea of self, or the feeling that corresponds to the pronoun I, he argues, is not essentially different from other complex ideas, that of our country for example. Similarly, it should not perplex us more than the fact that life should be the property of an entirely animal system, and not the separate parts of it or that sound cannot result from the motion of a single particle of air... That seems to be a reasonable stance."
- p. 193
Quoting Eugen
I don't understand reduction then. If you are arguing that liquidity is "reducible" to molecules, you mean to say that liquid arises from molecules? And this is weakly emergent because our theories describe the phenomenon?
So, maybe an example of weak emergence that is not liquidity would be heat, right? Heat is just particles moving extremely rapidly, and the faster they move the hotter the object is, while conversely, the slower they move, the colder an object is.
If this is what have in mind as a new property that is fully reducible, no, I don't think it is weakly emergent. It doesn't help that we don't know what a particle is, literally:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-a-particle-20201112/
To answer your question:
Yes, he does.
I'll add the final caveat (based on what I've read, talked with him, etc.), there obviously must be something in the constituent parts that gives rise to new properties: there is something about the constituent elements of the world that give rise to liquidity, heat, even life, but we don't know what they are.
Finally, I would add, that it could be that we have different intuitions. I agree with Chomsky on these topics, but he could be wrong, and you could be correct. Or maybe you have better or more scientific intuitions. If so, then that's fine.
I've got an idea. Let's say the brick is fundamental and its only fundamental property is mass. No brick is a wall, but 100 bricks form one. The wall has the property of being heavy. No brick is heavy, but the wall is. Surprising, but not really. The wall is nothing more than bricks, and ''heavy" is nothing more than mass. Liquidity is the same, only that it is more complex. But the most important thing is that they're both 100% weakly emergent.
Now let's say that the wall, besides being heavy, it is also conscious. And even its consciousness arises because of mass, it is not reducible to mass, it is a totally new property.
So let's assume mass is all there is to know about bricks. So we've defined bricks. Now we would conclude that mass is the secret ingredient to consciousness, but consciousness is not mass, it's something totally different.
Now let's take this one step further.
2049 - physicists find a new property called X, where X is NOT subjective experience. Now, they're able to make a complete theory of quantum and relativity, and everything works in physics. Everything except... consciousness. There are still obnoxious philosophers who state that X and the other properties of what we call matter don't explain consciousness.
Now, what would Chomsky say?
A. Consciousness is 100% reducible to X, mass, electrical charge, etc., therefore weakly emergent
B. Obviously, consciousness is strongly emergent in the way Eugen understands strong emergence, i.e. irreducible property
Ok, I think I understand what you say somewhat better, not unlike Dennett's views. I don't happen to think that heavyness is trivial in an obvious sense. But let's put that aside.
Consciousness is somehow different than these other things for some reason that is not explained. I would add that heaviness would be just as strange as consciousness on this view, as Chomsky says about motion.
Here is a crucial quote about motion:
"History also suggests caution [about assuming that consciousness is uniquely difficult]. In early modern science, the nature of motion was the hard problem. Springing or Elastic Motions is the hard rock in Philosophy, Sir William Petty observed, proposing ideas resembling those soon developed much more richly by Newton. The hard problem was that bodies that seem to our senses to be at rest are in a violent state, with a strong endeavor to fly off or recede from one another, in Robert Boyles words. The problem, he felt, is as obscure as the Cause and Nature of gravity, thus supporting his belief in an intelligent Author or Disposer of Things. Even the skeptical Newtonian Voltaire argued that the ability of humans to produce a movement where there was none shows that there is a God who gave movement to matter, and so far are we from conceiving what matter is that we do not even know if there is any solid matter in the universe. Locke relinquished to divine hands the gravitation of matter towards matter, by ways, inconceivable to me.
pp. 178-179
On Chomsky's view, not only would consciousness be "strongly emergent" so would heaviness. Just like the quote I provided through Priestley.
These are different intuitions, even if you say they're not. You say "...[t]he wall is nothing more than bricks, and ''heavy" is nothing more than mass. Liquidity is the same, only that it is more complex."
"Nothing more" implies that it's all perfectly obvious. And it's also obvious that these properties are nothing more than bricks doing what they do.
So liquidity is "nothing more" than molecules interacting. Ok. You call this weakly emergent. I think it's strongly emergent, and I think Chomsky would agree that it's strongly emergent.
If by irreducible you mean that these properties are not to be found in the isolated molecules, then I believe he would.
I mean, you are asking several times if he believes in radical emergence, I've said yes numerous times.
Alternatively, you can just email him yourself, he usually answers very quickly.
What is weak emergence?
Heavy under the example you provided.
If you are saying it is a fundamental property, then it's a fundamental property of matter. That's not emergent.
I believe you can email him at: nchomsky3@gmail.com
But heavy is not fundamental, bricks are not heavy. Heavy must be > 10kg, and each brick has 1 kg.
Yes, I asked several times, but I want an answer under my definition of strong emergence. Heavyness is ONLY weakly emergent under my definition, even if bricks aren't heavy. Why? Because heavyness represent nothing more than the sum of its constituents.
Consciousness of the wall would be different from heavyness under my example because consciousness and mass are two different properties even if consciousness arises from mass. This and only this is the kind of strong emergence I want to know if Chomaky believes in or not.
Yeah, we are going to continue running in circles given how we define and think about "strong emergence" and "weak emergence".
So it's best if you ask him.
My strong emergence implies Property Dualism (not Substance Dualism!) and consciousness would be over and above its constituents. So, in your opinion, does Chomsky believe in this?
Thanks!
I'd guess he'd say something to the effect of: "yes" on consciousness being over and above its constituents, though it wouldn't be the only property that fits that demand.
No on property dualism, he calls himself a "methodological monist." If you want more information on what that view entails, you might want to read some chapters in his New Horizons in The Study of Language and Mind.
But that is Property Dualism.
I didn't add that liquidity would also be above its constituents, or life, or bipedalism. So it's either property pluralism, or it's natural monism, which is studying aspects of nature. While the aspects are different as life is different from liquids, it's all a study of nature.
But now it becomes terminological...
The idea that consciousness is somehow special in some sense that makes it radically different from other parts of nature.
He takes it that all aspects of nature should occasion the same astonishment as consciousness does.
There's nothing in matter that suggests consciousness, true, at the same time, there is nothing in matter that suggests lack of consciousness. It's as Bertrand Russell says (whom Chomsky agrees with here) we don't know enough about the nature of matter to say if it like or unlike the world of mind.
He'd say the case of liquids is the same as consciousness, you disagree and call it weakly emergent. OK, then you disagree with him.
I suppose this would be my last recourse: this interviewer has quite similar concerns to you, maybe you'd get something out of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLuONgFbsjw&t=3089s
If that doesn't help a bit, I don't know what else could help.
I have no interest to make this a me vs Chomsky thing. Forget about my personal opinion.
My issue is that we're stuck in a grey zone when we could easily work this out.
Ok, liquidity is strongly emergent. What is weakly emergent then? Give me some examples please.
I don't personally recall him using that term ("weak emergence) to describe anything, and the reason he even used the term "radical emergence" at all, was to address a point raised by Galen Strawson. He doesn't use these terms.
He uses the word "reduction" and speaks about it in relation to chemistry being reduced to physics, in the quantum theoretic revolution.
But he does not speak nor think about the issue in terms of weak or strong reduction, unless explicitly talking about it in relation with Strawson's arguments.
See page 186 of the article I sent.
I think this says it all. Chomsky does in fact understand the difference between weak and strong emergence. He doesn't believe in strong emergence and what he calls radical or brute emergence is just a matter of our ignorance, not a real fact. In other words, he believes consciousness arises from non-consciousness via weak emergence.
Now it's hard for me not to speculate that he knows what he's doing there.
Firstly, he makes a straw man out of the hard problem saying that there's no such thing because the question ''How it is like to see a sunset?" does not make sense. Of course, the hard problem does not reside in this question.
The second step he takes: he moves the problem to another area. "Look guys, the reason why we don't make sense of consciousness arising from non-conscious matter is that we didn't define matter."
Of course, that's a trick. The problem remains no matter what: how can we get from non-conscious to conscious?
In order to solve this one too, he proceeds to the third step - emergence. Again, here he adopts another tactic due to a lack of options. He knows weak emergence is problematic and no new properties would help, and he also knows strong emergence is bonkers. So what does he do? He dances around concepts without being clear, as he did in the RLK interview.
He quotes Locke many times, when Locke says:
"We have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking,
than that he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator."
(Chomsky's emphasis)
We would substitute "God" for "nature" and get the "hard problem". He says we don't know how consciousness arises from matter, even if we are sure that it does.
But he further adds that we don't understand how motion works, something that seems to be quite a deal simpler than consciousness.
Quoting Eugen
Yeah, he does, I even provided the Priestely quote which shows that.
Quoting Eugen
There is something about the underlying properties which must give rise to the "higher order" phenomenon, but we don't know what it is. As I've said several times, we have theories in the case of liquids, we understand the theories, not the phenomenon. Unless you say that theories are the phenomenon, that's a different conversation.
No, strong emergence is not bonkers, it happens all the time, with almost everything.
But, I think we've exhausted what can fruitfully be said on this topic - at least I have. Maybe someone else can engage with you on the topic.
Thanks for the conversation though, it was interesting.
There are two dimensions here: empirical and philosophical/logical. Chomsky thinks empirical evidence dictates us consciousness isn't fundamental, so every philosophical debate should exclude that possibility.
THE TRAP: Quoting Manuel
Do you see what he's doing there? He conflates two totally different problems. The problem of movement doesn't claim to have any logical issue, it's just a mystery, while the hard problem is a totally different animal. The hard problem claims to be a logical problem, not a mystery.
By raising empirical evidence over logic, Chomsky faces problems with the latter. So his only way is to strawman things, conflate terms, and remain in a grey area. This is exactly what he's doing.
If he were intellectually honest, he would say: yes, there might be logical issues with consciousness arising from non-consciousness, but we should still do what empirical evidence is telling us. Instead of that, he either denies them or conflate them.
Yep, I am well aware that motion and consciousness are quite different, in terms of phenomena and emergence. But this issue here is of intelligibility.
I don't agree on consciousness being a logical problem, we don't know, how matter could give rise to consciousness, that is to say, within current science, we have no way of capturing experience and submitting it to experimental procedures, such as are used in biology or any other field.
That's not logical, that's conceptual.
And it's not only Chomsky, but also Raymond Tallis, Colin McGinn, Steven Pinker, but more importantly Descartes and Locke (and others) argue in a quite similar vein, each emphasizing different aspects of the "hard problem". It's a mystery too.
And it's fine if you think he is conflating something, but it is a whole different thing to imply that he is being intellectually dishonest.
The hard problem states it's illogical to get consciousness from non-consciousness, and there is absolutely no answer to that to this moment. So it remains a logical one, unlike motion, which is just a mystery.
Quoting Manuel
No, the problem is different. We don't know if consciousness arises or is fundamental, and logic tells us we face some very serious issues if we postulate consciousness from non-consciousness.
Trying to solve those problems invoking empirical evidence is silly. What constitutes evidence for consciousness? Behaviour? If it doesn't behave like me, it must not be conscious. This is the answer? It's silly.
Quoting Manuel
... Collin McGinn in a nutshell: "We fail explaining consciousness, so instead of changing our view, we'll say our view (materialism) is correct, and we'll call all those insurmountable problems mysteries. Problem solved." BLEAHHH :vomit:
The only difference between Chomsky and McGinn is that Chomsky says matter isn't defined. "Wow, I'm so smart!"
Descarted believed consciousness was fundamental.
Sure there is an answer. The hard problem, as you state it, commits a fallacy of composition. (Or fallacy of division, depending on the details.)
Lay out your argument and I will point the fallacy out for you.
But I will say this: if Chomsky said ''There is no hard problem" because ''The hard problem suffers from the composition fallacy.", I wouldn't call him dishonest. But no, the guy says ''<
That's just him serving us his puke on a plate. No, thanks!
Cool. So we can consider it a bare assertion when you say:
I am not criticizing him for believing that the hard problem suffers from the composition fallacy, I am criticizing him for being mumbo jumbo.
1. "Newton exorcised the body and left the ghost intact" :vomit:
2. "There is no hard problem because <
3. "Radical emergence happens all the time" + "What seemed brute emergence was assimilated into science ordinary emergence" :vomit:
What Chomsky is doing with that statement is attempting to foster a recognition in his listeners. It didn't work in your case, but that's just the way it goes.
Matthew 13:1-8
It seems to me you're suggesting there's something interesting there that I'm too ignorant/dumb to see it. Could you please shed some light onto it for me, please?
I used to think that it made sense to see people as being somewhere along a one dimensional line from smart to dumb, but that was 36 years ago. Now I recognize that all of us have different constellations of cognitive strengths and weaknesses that determine what ways of learning we are better or worse at.
Quoting Eugen
I think it is largely a matter of intuitively grokking what Chomsky meant, and I'd suggest that the best way for you to do that might be to think about the problems you would run into if you tried to provide a full explanation of what it is like for you to see a sunset.
Theory and intuition
From observation, we can establish the theory that v = gt, but there is no intuition that we can discover from either the stone or the gravitational field that the stone will of necessity move when in a gravitational field. We know from observation that g = 9.81m/s2, but we have no intuition why 9.81 and not 3.43 for example.
IE, for Chomsky, we may have a theory how something happens but no intuition why it happens, which is Mysterianism.
Panpsychism
There cannot be consciousness without the matter of the brain. As there cannot be motion without the stone, yet motion is not in the stone, we can draw the analogy and say that consciousness is not in the matter of the brain.
IE, Chomsky does not believe that consciousness is fundamental within matter, as in panpsychism, but as Priestley writes, is the product of the whole rather than its parts.
Emergence
We may have a theory that v = gt, a theory why liquid emerges from molecules or a theory how consciousness emerges from the matter of the brain, but we have no intuition why any of these should be the case. In fact, I would suggest that there is no theory for which we have an intuition, in that all theories are based on mysterious intuitions. We may have theories explaining emergence, but if all intuitions for emergence are mysterious, then there is no distinction between weak and strong emergence as there is just the mystery of emergence.
IE, for Chomsky, there is no distinction between weak and strong emergence. It also follows that term radical emergence is redundant.
Properties
As the property of motion is different to the property of the stone that happens to be in motion, the property of consciousness is different to the property of the matter of the brain. Property dualism is the position that the property of consciousness is different in kind to the property of the matter of the brain, whereas Monism is that although the property of consciousness is different to the property of matter of the brain it is of the same kind. As the statement "it is true that x" does not add anything to the statement "x", then what does the statement "x and y are different in kind" add to the statement "x and y are different" ?
IE, within a deflationary approach, properties may be accepted to be different without needing to introduce the concepts of dualism or monism.
My point is this is not related to the hard problem! Geeeez
This is a very good summary.
Thanks for sharing.
What do you mean the same kind? What makes them the same kind? What is the difference between same kind and different kind?
If motion is so mysterious, how can we affirm it is of the same kind as atoms?
Dualism and Monism
Summing up: Dualism includes Substance Dualism and Property Dualism and Monism includes Physicalism, Idealism and Neutral Monism.
Substance Dualism is the idea that mental substances and physical substances are of different kinds. Property Dualism is the idea that there is only one physical substance, but mental properties and physical properties are of different kinds. Physicalism is the idea that there is only one physical substance and mental properties and physical properties are of the same kind. Idealism is the idea that there is only one mental substance and mental properties and physical properties are of the same kind. Neutral Monism is the idea that there is only one substance and mental properties and physical properties are of the same kind.
Pleonasm
In practice, trying to decide whether two things are of the same kind or of a different kind is almost impossible. Is a Monet painting of a water lily the same kind of thing or a different kind of thing to a Damien Hurst dot painting. They are the same in some respects but different in others. The question is so complex that the terms "same kind" and "different kind" become almost redundant. The Deflationary approach would be just to accept that the Monet is different to the Damien Hurst, ignoring altogether the term "kind".
Neutral Monism
My belief is in Neutral Monism, in that reality consists of elementary particles, elementary forces, space and time. Therefore, expressions such as motion, consciousness, matter, emotions, governments,mountains, existence, France, Socrates, etc are no more than certain mysterious combinations of elementary particles, elementary forces, space and time.
As Chomsky said in Mysterianism, Language, and Human Understanding about Mysterianism:
16min - "Well, returning to the impact of Newton's discoveries, his greatest achievement, David Hume wrote, was to draw the veil from some of the mysteries of nature, while also restoring nature's ultimate secrets to that obscurity in which they ever did, and ever will remain. We may add, for humans at least, other in forms of intelligence might view the world quite differently. All of this is dedicated Mysterionism for very substantial reasons".
Quoting RussellA
Mr. Chomsky created/uses Mysterianism to conflate two things that shouldn't be conflated, namely weak and strong emergence, i.e. full reduction or not. If you use this trick, yes, it's impossible. If you're honest with yourself and stop inventing sophisticated false stories, you will have a clear image. Moreover, Mr. Chomsky doesn't seem to find any problems in deciding if there are many kinds of properties or not. He clearly says no, there aren't. And he says that in spite of admitting we don't really understand things.
I read your previous comment and it was really helpful. It confirmed my intuitions. Chomsky is simply brilliant, I find him being in a total different league in comparison with all other materialists. Nevertheless, his brilliant arguments are fake as fuck. I think I will open another OP specially dedicated to that.