Interactionism, Energy Conservation, and the Violation of Physical Laws

Mohrhoff, Ulrich

doi:10.4006/1.3028745

Cited by 12 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…The effects of mental causation must be capable of being represented by the same mathematical constructs as the effects of physical causation-that is, by one of the classical force fields. As has been shown elsewhere [15,16], the relevant field is the electromagnetic four-vector potential. Where this is only physically determined, it is determined (up to gauge transformations) in conformity with Maxwell's equations.…”

Section: Mind-brain Interactionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…In point of fact, this is so according to certain metaphysical doctrines, not according to the principles of any physical theory. Consciousness can make a difference, although not without infringing physical laws [15,16]. Like J.C. Eccles [13], Stapp appears to hope that QM will allow the mind to be causally efficacious without infringing physical laws.…”

Section: Mind-brain Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the present article I point out a number of errors that mar Stapp's theory-inconsistencies, fallacies, and conclusions founded on such logical mistakes,-and offer an interpretation of (standard) QM that avoids these errors. In addition I outline an alternative account of mental causation [15,16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The World According to Quantum Mechanics

Mohrhoff

Jaiswal

2018

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Section: Mind-brain Interactionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Mind-brain Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The World According to Quantum Mechanics

Mohrhoff

Jaiswal

2018

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“…Two better-informed authors have claimed that conservation laws already fail in General Relativity even apart from dualism (Mohrhoff 1997(Mohrhoff , 1999Collins 2008Collins , 2011; thus there is no conservation law left for dualism to violate, so the usual objection is eliminated. Thus they invoke not a Noether biconditional relation between symmetries and conservation, but General Relativity's supposed lack of conservation laws to respond to the Leibnizian objection.…”

Section: Enter General Relativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

General Relativity, Mental Causation, and Energy Conservation

Pitts

2020

Erkenn

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The conservation of energy and momentum have been viewed as undermining Cartesian mental causation since the 1690s. Modern discussions of the topic tend to use mid-nineteenth century physics, neglecting both locality and Noether's theorem and its converse. The relevance of General Relativity (GR) has rarely been considered. But a few authors have proposed that the non-localizability of gravitational energy and consequent lack of physically meaningful local conservation laws answers the conservation objection to mental causation: conservation already fails in GR, so there is nothing for minds to violate. This paper is motivated by two ideas. First, one might take seriously the fact that GR formally has an infinity of rigid symmetries of the action and hence, by Noether's first theorem, an infinity of conserved energiesmomenta (thus answering Schrödinger's 1918 false-negative objection). Second, Sean Carroll has asked (rhetorically) how one should modify the Dirac-Maxwell-Einstein equations to describe mental causation. This paper uses the generalized Bianchi identities to show that General Relativity tends to exclude, not facilitate, such Cartesian mental causation. In the simplest case, Cartesian mental influence must be spatio-temporally constant, and hence 0. The difficulty may diminish for more complicated models. Its persuasiveness is also affected by larger world-view considerations. The new general relativistic objection provides some support for realism about gravitational energy-momentum in GR (taking pseudotensor laws seriously). Such realism also might help to answer an objection to theories of causation involving conserved quantities, because energies-momenta would be conserved even in GR.

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“…A second interesting dualist response is the claim that conservation laws already fail in General Relativity even apart from dualism (Mohrhoff 1997;Collins 2008;. 1 If conservation already fails given General Relativity, then plausibly there is no conservation remaining for dualism to spoil, so the usual objection is eliminated.…”

Section: More Interesting Dualist Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation Laws and the Philosophy of Mind: Opening the Black Box, Finding a Mirror

Pitts

2019

Philosophia

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Since Leibniz's time, Cartesian mental causation has been criticized for violating the conservation of energy and momentum. (Non-epiphenomenalist property dualism is analogous.) Many dualist responses clearly fail. But conservation laws have important neglected features generally undermining the objection. Conservation is local, holding first not for the universe, but for everywhere separately. The energy (or momentum, etc.) in any volume changes only due to what flows through the boundaries (no teleportation). Constant total energy holds if the global summing-up of local conservation laws converges; it probably doesn't in reality. Energy (momentum) conservation holds if there is symmetry, the sameness of the laws over time (space). Thus, if there are time-places where symmetries fail due to nonphysical influence, conservation laws fail there and then, while holding elsewhere, such as refrigerators and stars. Noether's converse first theorem shows that conservation laws imply symmetries. Thus conservation trivially nearly entails the causal closure of the physical. But expecting conservation to hold in the brain (without looking) simply assumes the falsehood of Cartesianism. Hence Leibniz's objection begs the question. Empirical neuroscience is another matter. So is Einstein's General Relativity: far from providing a loophole, General Relativity makes mental causation harder.

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Interactionism, Energy Conservation, and the Violation of Physical Laws

Cited by 12 publications

References 10 publications

The World According to Quantum Mechanics

The World According to Quantum Mechanics

General Relativity, Mental Causation, and Energy Conservation

Conservation Laws and the Philosophy of Mind: Opening the Black Box, Finding a Mirror

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