ABSTRACTS FOR WORKSHOP

Aaron Cotnoir

Measuring Naturalness? Moving away from a metaphysics of building, grounding, and fundamentality

The notion of metaphysical naturalness is often used to characterize a special class of entities to do certain theoretical work. Naturalness is often thought to be a gradable notion utilizing a scale of degrees. In this paper, I use Lewis’s (1983b) approach to naturalness as a foil, highlighting problems that any theory of naturalness needs to avoid: (i) the Problem of Definitional Precision; (ii) the Problem of Too Many Scales; (iii) the Problem of Ratios. I use insights from Representational Theory of Measurement (RTM) to solve these problems. Along the way, I argue that naturalness theorists should reject definitional complexity accounts, and any account that ties naturalness to the fundamental level. Rather they should treat relative naturalness as primary. I close by suggesting an approach to naturalness that is more holistically motivated and compatible with emergence.

Daniel De Haan

Why Middle-Sized Causal Powers Matter for Scientific Experiments

Although the discoveries and purported theoretical implications of scientific experiments are concerned with microscopic, middle-sized, and even cosmic-scale phenomena, contemporary philosophers who are realists tend to admit ‘fundamental’ reality only to microscopic or cosmic reality, while demurring the fundamentality of middle-sized things. In this talk, I aim to defend the fundamentality of (some) middle-sized things by arguing that middle-sized beings like ourselves, who explore the world through scientific enquiry, could not discover the existence and causal powers of microscopic or cosmic-sized things if they did not exercise irreducible, middle-sized causal powers. Such causal powers are deployed by scientists when they conduct controlled scientific experiments, for example, or when they fabricate the middle-sized instruments they employ in their experiments (such as lasers, reactors, particle colliders, and interferometers). If scientists and their middle-sized instruments didn’t have any fundamental, middle-sized causal powers, then they would not be able to engage in scientific experimentation, and hence they would not be able to ascertain the existence and causal powers of either micro-physical or cosmic-sized phenomena. In short, I will argue that middle-sized causal powers are a condition of the possibility of scientific inquiry.

George Ellis

Aristotelian Causation characterises why specific things happen

In my public lecture, I discuss how the universe can look purposeless if one looks at it on either very large or very small scales, but I will argue that the middle-sized things like living beings exist within the physical world as ‘open systems’, and explain how this enables purpose, meaning, and ethics to be effective in causing physical outcomes. In this paper, I will explain the way that this happens by characterising how Aristotelian causation, updated to take more recent discoveries into account, relates to upwards and downwards causation and thereby to the nature of effective causal closure. This occurs on middle-sizes in physical terms, where emergent biological function and agency is possible, as well as in society, and is the basis of ethical  behaviour – which does not exist as a category, as far as physics or microbiology is concerned. We crucially need scientists and philosophers who are open to seeing the ‘big picture’, and not merely some small part of the whole which they exclusively embrace because that happens to be their speciality.

Philip Goff

Pan-Agentialism and the Mystery of Psycho-Physical Harmony

About half a dozen philosophers are currently writing on the mystery of psycho-physical harmony, but I think it’s going to change the world. The challenge is to explain why consciousness and behaviour tend to be aligned in a rationally appropriate way. A common initial reaction to this problem is to feel that this doesn’t need explaining, or to claim that natural selection explains it. I argue that both of these reactions are mistaken. As a solution to this problem, I will defend a form of ‘pan-agentialism’, according to which the roots of rational agency are present at the fundamental level of reality. One of the consequences of pan-agentialism, I will argue, is that certain middle-sized things, such as organisms, must be strongly emergent entities.

Mark Harris

Arthur Peacocke’s Emergent Theology: Implications for a Theology of Condensed Matter Physics

Arthur Peacocke, one of the most illustrious Directors of Oxford’s Ian Ramsey Centre, was also highly distinctive in the science-and-religion field for his emphasis on the providential and scientific realities of middle-sized things. Famously, this emphasis was manifest in a robust treatment of ontological emergence to unify the sciences and humanities, and to capture the nature of the God-world relationship. When God acts in the world, God must first change the entire world on every (synchronic) level. In this centenary of Peacocke’s birth the science-and-religion field is doing a great deal to celebrate Peacocke’s lasting contributions. This talk will look at ways in which Peacocke’s emphasis on top-down divine action and emergence may inform a theology of condensed matter physics, that branch of physical science which spans micro-, meso-, and middle-sized matters.

Vera Hoffmann-Kolss

Higher-Level Causation, Causal Models, and the Proportionality Constraint

A crucial question in the contemporary debate about causation is at what level causal relations occur, that is, whether causation occurs only at the physical level or also at higher levels, such as the biological or psychological levels. A closely related question is whether causal explanations for phenomena that occur at the level of ordinary middle-sized objects should be at the same level as the phenomena, or should be reductive in the sense of invoking phenomena at lower levels. A prominent anti-reductionist approach is based on proportionality considerations: causes should be proportional to their effects, that is, have the same level of grain as their effects. In this paper, I critically examine this proportionality constraint from the perspective of a causal modelling approach. I argue that proportionality requirements are problematic in the context of complex causal models and explore the implications of this result for the way causal models can be used to describe causal relations occurring at higher or intermediate levels.

Robert C. Koons

Contextual Emergence, Traveling Forms, and Cosmic Substances: Evaluating the Options for Quantum Hylomorphism

The neo-Aristotelian programme in natural philosophy comprises a family of theoretical frameworks that offer alternative to quantum fundamentalism, i.e., to the metaphysical thesis that all the fundamental entities and all natural properties are represented explicitly in some model of quantum theory (whether or not supplemented by microphysical hidden variables or microphysically driven collapse mechanisms). Many of the alternative interpretations available to quantum fundamentalists have counterparts for neo-Aristotelians. I develop a taxonomy of possible Aristotelian interpretations of QM with special attention to an Aristotelian interpretation of George Ellis and Barbara Drossel’s contextual emergence, Alexander Pruss’s travelling forms model, and William Simpson’s Cosmic Hylomorphism, with some suggestions for directions of future research.

Alyssa Ney

Middle-Sized Things in the Wave Function

One of the main objections to wave function realism is that if the world is fundamentally a wave function in a high-dimensional space with the structure of a configuration space, then there is no way to ground the existence of low-dimensional, macroscopic objects. In this presentation, I will explain and elaborate on the solution to this problem presented in Ney (2021). I will also respond to criticisms of the view in recent work by David Albert.

Christopher Oldfield

Hylomorphism and the Inverse Special Composition Question

There were two special composition questions in Peter van Inwagen’s (1990) book. To answer The Special Composition Question (SCQ) is to formulate a principle of composition of the form: ⌜(∃y the xs compose y) ↔ φ[the xs]⌝. To answer The Inverse Special Composition Question (ISCQ) is to formulate a principle of composition of the form: ⌜(For some xs, the xs compose y) ↔ φ[y]⌝. ISCQ is rarely mentioned or discussed. The first and to my knowledge still the only other philosopher to consider its significance in print was the late great Katherine Hawley (2004, 2006a, 2006b, 2014). Unfortunately, Hawley’s less formal presentations rested on a series of false equivalences with one of Ned Markosian’s (1998, 2010) complex questions about mereological simples, and with Simon Saunders’ (2006) questions about the individuation of quantum particles in entangled states. This generated some effective rhetorical associations between the logic of the special composition questions and speculative microphysics. I show why this matters for the development of Hylomorphism and for the very complex idea of a middle sized object being identified as composite.

Timothy O’Connor

Consciousness and the Significance of Middle-Sized Things

Many physicalists suppose that middle-sized things of many kinds are real in an ontologically significant way that, e.g., mere aggregates are not. They have that status by being ‘weakly emergent’: emergent because they exhibit forms of behaviour not characteristic of entities of which they are composed, while only weakly so because their existence and powers asymmetrically wholly depend on those composing entities. Reductionists and nihilists charge that weak emergents (if such there be) are not ontologically significant because they do not make a fundamental difference to the way the world is or unfolds. I will argue that this charge is plausibly true in a world lacking strongly emergent conscious minds, but not otherwise. Weakly emergent entities enjoy a more robust ontological status by virtue of being objects of conscious practical and theoretical thought and action. Furthermore, the range of objects attaining such significance in a minded world depends on the kinds of minds in it: merely animal, human, and/or divine.

John Pemberton

(Middle-Sized) Things – an acting-arrangement account 

In this presentation, I show how non-elementary middle-sized things can be understood as the surviving acting-together of their physical parts. I explore the implied notion of acting as the bringing about of changing-through-time (e.g. attracting, pushing, heating, cutting, building), noting similarities with Aristotle’s account of powers (as distinct from many contemporary accounts of powers). I explain the sense in which, on this acting-together account of middle-sized things, the spatial arrangement of a plurality of physical things is ontologically irreducible, and I show how the arrangement of physical parts may underwrite genuine novelty at the level of the whole – e.g. the power of a pendulum to oscillate (as none of its parts have this power). I explore the similarities and dissimilarities of such arrangements (of parts) with the notion of hylomorphic forms. Hence, I outline a simple ontology that underwrites an intuitive and compelling account of middle-sized things, noting its attractions as compared to other leading accounts of ontology, including neo-Humean accounts, like David Lewis’s Humean mosaic.

Emily Qureshi-Hurst

Many Worlds and Much Trouble: Exploring some problems raised by the Everett Interpretation for Middle-Sized beings

According to the Everett interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, the universe contains a nondenumerable infinity of world-branches. These branches, or ‘worlds’, contain many different versions of each of us. In this paper, I begin to ask whether, and to what extent, Christian theism can thrive (or even survive) in such an Everettian context. I will focus on three questions: Who are we in Many Worlds? Can moral responsibility remain coherent? Why might a loving God create an Everettian multiverse? These questions sit across several core components of the theistic worldview. The first question, relating to personal identity, considers the nature of the human person and humanity’s relationship with the divine. The second question, relating to the concept of moral responsibility, concerns the role of the human being as a moral agent who must interpret and practically respond to the teachings of Christianity during the course of their earthly life. This question thus involves ethical as well as metaphysical considerations. The final question also concerns ethics. However, instead of considering the ethical parameters of the human being, it considers the moral nature of God himself. Can we reconcile Genesis’ claim that creation is ‘good’ with what we know about the Everettian multiverse?

Javier Sánchez Cañizares

Causal Physical Constraints: An Epistemic Defense of Higher-Order Causality

Constraints are pervasive in Nature. They play a crucial role in the emergence of dissipative systems that give rise to increasingly complex phenomena. However, some trends in the philosophy of science, such as higher-level causal eliminativism (HLCE), deem constraints non-causal explanations (Lange) or derivative causal explanations (Siegel and Craver), compromising the existence and causality of middle-sized things. Recently, philosophers like Ross and Ben-Menahem have defended the causal role of constraints, but they still fail to satisfactorily account for how microphysical and macrophysical states interact. In our proposal, (1) we advocate for the non-derivative causal activity of physical constraints via ontological selection of microphysical states, and (2) we claim that HLCE is bound to superdeterminism, which, by severing the link between ontological and epistemic selection, requires an arbitrary selection of boundary conditions for the universe.

Robert Verrill

Christianity and Quantum Monism: addressing the threat

Atomistic reductionism is often perceived as a threat to a Christian worldview. However, a growing number of physicists are rejecting it in favour of quantum monism, which posits the existence of only one fundamental object, namely, the universal quantum state. In my presentation, I will briefly explain some of the attractions of quantum monism, whilst highlighting the threat which it likewise poses to a Christian worldview. I will then explain how Aquinas’s theory of hylomorphism can counter this threat by facilitating an interpretation of the quantum state as a description of the real potencies of the universe, rather than as a complete description of the actual universe. This allows for the possibility of there being formal principles that complement the quantum state and actualize some of these potencies. I will distinguish this interpretation of quantum theory from other interpretations (like wave function realism), and I will distinguish my adaptation of hylomorphism from extant adaptations (such as Koons’s and Simpson’s), explaining how it overcomes the threat of quantum monism whilst preserving some of its attractive features.