The Explanatory Gap and the World Knot of Incarnate Conscious Existence
Chris King
Persistent attempts to discredit ideas transcending physical neuroscience, from Cathy Reason's No-supervenience theorem to Symbiotic Existential Cosmology, highlight a complete failure of understanding of the nature of the mind-body problem, among both neuroscientists and philosophers, or even to understand whether there is a mind-body problem, given the aspirations of reductionistic and non-reductionistic physicalism and several forms of multi-aspect monism that lie in its shadow, due to the assumption of physical stochastic-causal closure.
The situation has become rapidly more extreme, with the use of LLMs and AGI, suggesting that forms of functional agency spawned by hyper-computation ARE conscious. This combines with a second philosophical stream coming from the notion of the "embodied" mind, in which the processes of conscious awareness are effectively blurred over into higher level abstract physicalist biological explanations as "feelings" stemming from assuming vast tracts of unconscious processing underlying a shallow superstructure of conscious awareness, reduced to rational thought, leaving us with the elaborated notion of conscious awareness as just an internal model of reality constructed by the biological brain. A third flood, coming from the other direction seeks to identify consciousness as a collective property of AI savvy techno-civilisations as the utopian crest of super-intelligence. I see this as the Fermi extinction crisis within us that will rob us of our psychic identities and kill us all unless we bring forth that which is within us, namely the world knot of subjective conscious incarnation and reaffirm it is real.
Most rational thinkers remain unaware all their lives of the abyss of subjective consciousness, living exclusively in the superstructural domain of real world perception overlying experience itself, only noting in passing a few mental impressions from dream, memory and reflection and the obvious qualities of simple sensory qualia, but meditators who go deep and visionary psychedelic cosmonauts know these people are just skimming the surface of an immensely deep pool. In this "filter theory" view, the brain becomes a biological contextual boundary condition on the conscious flow, which is not just one self-universe incarnate knot, but an Indra's net of luminous knots in which we are all entwined in the manifestation of karmic history in the collapsing wave function of conscious existence.
Fig 1: The explanatory gap (Levine
1983) of how any brain state can induce subjective consciousness becomes the
hard problem
(Chalmers 1995) – a potentially uncrossable abyss for physical materialism.
Arguments against the reductionist position cite that there is an explanatory gap (Levine 1983) between the physical and the phenomenal. Saul Kripke presented a version of the Cartesian argument against materialism, which is is to point out the possibility of some mental phenomenon without the physical phenomenon alleged to be identical to it by the identity theorist, and to conclude from there that the mental and physical phenomena are actually not identical. Kripke’s (1973, 1977) argument involves two central claims: (1) that all identity statements in which mind is identified with brain processes using clear definitions on both sides of the identity, if true at all, are true in all possible worlds to which they apply. (2) that psycho-physical identity statements are conceivably false and therefore, by the first claim, actually false. Kripke thus concluded that psycho-physical identity statements must be false. What is key in this is that it is linked to Cartesianism, which, as we know, was banished by Gilbert Ryle in 1949, in denying outright the concept of mind.
Joseph Levine (1983) in a carefully crafted analysis came to a slightly weaker conclusion that all psycho-physical identity statements leave a significant explanatory gap, and, as a corollary, that we have no way of determining which psycho-physical identity statements are true. In Chalmers’ (1995) enunciation of the hard problem, this is linked to the conceivability argument, whether one can conceive of a micro-physical “zombie” version of a human that is identical except that it lacks conscious experiences. This, according to most philosophers (Howell & Alter 2009), indicates that physicalism, which holds that consciousness is itself a physical phenomenon with solely physical properties, is false.
As
coined by David Chalmers in 1995, the hard problem of consciousness is “what it
is like to be” somebody i.e. a living organism, only indirectly hinting that it
is actually the possession of the elephant in the room, subjective conscious
experience itself we are talking about. Speaking in terms of the hard problem,
he comments: “The only form of interactionist dualism that
has seemed even remotely tenable in the contemporary picture is one that
exploits certain properties of quantum mechanics.” He then goes on
to cite (a) John Eccles’ (1986) citing of consciousness providing the extra
information required to deal with quantum uncertainty thus not interrupting
causally deterministic processes, if they occur, in brain processing and (b)
the possible involvement of consciousness in “collapse of the wave function” in
quantum measurement.
Jaegwon Kim who "cut his cloth" as a defender of physicalism then elucidated the complement of the "Hard Problem" in mental causation. In the first chapter of “Physicalism, or Something Near Enough” Kim (2005, 2012) enunciated the double Weltknoten inextricably linking subjective consciousness with mental causation as the foundation philosophical dilemma facing reality. Weltknoten is a German term that translates to "world-knot" and is often used to refer to the mind-body problem.
Fig 2: Schopenhauer inside and outside the weltknoten.
It was famously used by Arthur Schopenhauer (1813,1847) to describe the mind-body problem – that there is a mystery – the world-knot or Weltknoten – about how the I can be both the generator of the world of appearances it experiences and a particular being within that world of appearances.
In coming full-circle in the 21st century to what Symbiotic Existential Cosmology calls the hard problem of consciousness extended to volition, Kim shows the attempt to solve the world knot has simply doubled the paradox.
The Two World-Knots Let us take stock of where we are: the problem of mental causation is solvable for a given class of mental properties if and only if these properties are functionally reducible with physical/biological properties as their realizers. But phenomenal mental properties are not functionally definable and hence functionally irreducible. Hence, the problem of mental causation is not solvable for phenomenal mental properties. But, as we also saw, the problem of consciousness, or “the mystery of consciousness,” is solvable if consciousness is functionally reducible—and I will argue that it is solvable only if consciousness is functionally reducible. So the functional irreducibility of consciousness entails the unsolvability of both the problem of consciousness and the problem of mental causation—at least as the latter problem concerns consciousness. It is thus that the two problems, that of mental causation and that of consciousness, turn out to share an interlocking fate. What stands in the way of solving the problem of mental causation is consciousness. And what stands in the way of solving the problem of consciousness is the impossibility of interpreting or defining it in terms of its causal relations to physical/biological properties. They are indeed Weltknoten, problems that have eluded our best philosophical efforts.
This brings us back to Symbiotic Existential Cosmology (2021), as ICAM Interactive complementary aspect monism, whose "cognito" is experiential: "Experior, ergo sum – I experience therefore I am" and whose cosmological "axiom" is "subjective consciousness has efficacy of volition over the physical universe", is not contradicted by the No-supervenience theorem, as the physical aspect is interactively open, not causally closed.
Alex Hankey notes his concordance: "Back in 2022 I made a presentation to the 9th World Parliament held at the Vishwanath Corridor in the Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi where I showed how the presence of Critical Instabilities as the site of consciousness in the neurophysiology means that Jaegwon Kim's supervenience argument against free-will does not apply. The introduction of complex instabilities, known as Higher Order Critical Points, and known to be present in the workings of the brain, mean that Kim's materialist objections to the concept of freedom of choice, and hence the possibility of Free Will are invalidated. An entire lifetime's work gone up in a puff of smoke; all due to the 'Fire of Knowledge'. ('Wherever there is smoke, there is fire', as the Vedic saying goes.) In the present discussion, the instability singularities are present Ab Initio at the common origin of Universe and the Consciousness(es) it manifests".
During the writing of Symbiotic Existential Cosmology, I came to the same conclusion, namely that the world knot of conscious biological incarnation goes back irreducibly to the cosmic origin as the founding principle of manifestation.
Our ability to continue to exist as biological conscious individuals absolutely now depends on us realising we possess the foundation holy grail of conscious incarnation, the most incomprehensible irreducible complementary cosmic manifestation of conscious agency, rising to cosmic climax in the biota, entwining the subjective realm to the natural world in a paradoxical world knot. This is what will save us all if we bring it forth from ourselves, unless we can't even recognise it!
Jesus said, "That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves.
That which you do not have within you [will] kill you if you do not have it within you.” Gosp. Thomas (70)
Kim's World Knots are Kelvin's Two Small Clouds over Neuroscience
In 1900, Lord Kelvin identified two problems for 19th century physics, two “clouds” as he put it: (1) the relative motion of the ether with respect to massive objects and (2) Maxwell–Boltzmann's theorem on the equipartition of energy. These issues were eventually solved by the theory of special relativity and by quantum mechanics.
Neuroscience likewise faces two "world knots", (1) the status of subjective consciousness and (2) mental causation.
Both these things are obvious commonsense. Every awake alert human being will admit to being conscious as a subjective agent. "I am consciously aware, therefore I am". They will also insist that they have the capacity to consciously affect the affairs of the natural world to ensure their survival. “Yes, I have the conscious ability to affect the world around me, or where would I be?"
Not only that, but both criminal and civil law on intent stipulates that they do, in both malice aforethought and in company directors being legally responsible for their intentional actions. The same for all religious traditions.
Summed up, this is an admission that all sane people accept that to be able to exist and survive, their subjective consciousness is real as real can be and has efficacy of volition over the physical universe, and must do.
In fact we use our veridical perception to watch our intentions being physically enacted, in all diverse processes, from pressing "send" on a considered email, to a lightning response to outdo a tennis grand slam.
Taken further, nobody with anything of significant import to achieve, questions that their subjective experiences are real. They act immediately and highly accurately in terms of their veridical senses to survive, without any question of accepting that this is just an internal model of reality constructed by the physical brain.
Neither
do they stop for a moment to admit that if this were true, their entire
subjective conscious intent would not be any form of willpower, but simply an
illusion by the brain's internal model of reality to complete the passive
awareness that their brains made them act regardless, to ensure the generations
of life will strive to survive and reproduce. This is the insane doctrine of
the inert pathology of neuroscience that the Hard Problem of conscious
confounds.
Yes I am saying the cosmology of physical neuroscience is pathologically insane! It's not to be mean or insulting to experimental neuroscientists, among whom I am one, but to wake you all up, because you are asleep in the headlights of a reality you refuse to comprehend and it will run you over if you don’t!!
Fig 3: The Hard Problem and Mental Causation form the interactive cycle of mind-body incarnation
Put it this way: The first world knot says our conscious experiences of the world are real – they ARE reality manifest, not just a biological spandrel appendage of the brain. This means that, like Lord Kelvin's first cloud, subjective consciousness must have cosmological, not just niche neuroscientific status.
Not only that but this subjective conscious experience is ALL WE HAVE!!! We don't see photons, and we don't hear phonons and we don't smell molecules. We have visions, witness symphonies and become enveloped in fragrances of splendour or putrefying disgust, and stormy emotional moods all as integrated subjective experiences. The same for our feelings which are never micro, but always integrated macro feelings called pain, pleasure and emotions from love to bitter hate.
But what the second knot of mental causation can do is save us if we bring it forth from ourselves, but could kill us in this age if we cannot find it in ourselves and that is the knowledge that we are integral intentional agents participating in the conscious evolution of the intentional universe. Not just humanity, but all life has struggled from the primal ooze through the mathematical symmetry breaking of the forces of nature that gave rise to the world knot of primal subjectivity coeval with the cosmic origin.
This is not religion, which is to bind together in the straight-jacket of the insane like neuroscience does from the other end. It is resplendence pure and simple and it is sacred and our part in the flowering of cosmic reality is to ensure natural (cosmological) life survives in all its conceivable forms. It is not AI. It is not QAGI. It is not any kind of social hive mind. It is the nub of cosmic existence.
This warning is not a sermon, it’s an empirical observation, but one thing Yeshua did know was that we were all standing in the weltknoten, so he was the neuroscientific progenitor of the explanatory gap, which is why he was such a god-almighty pain!