Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2011 10:28:19 -0400
From: Jim Pryor <jim@jimpryor.net>
To: ...
Subject: Re: the clarification of the word 'supervene'

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 03:47:27PM -0400, ... wrote:
>    Hi,
>    when you first talked about the meaning of 'supervene'
>    you made an example with beauty and the pattern of painting and said,
>    beauty supervenes on the pattern of the painting.

Yes, as I hope to have made clear in class, I'm not telling you that
beauty definitely does supervene on the pattern of paint. But rather,
that this is a view we can intelligibly imagine a philosopher holding.
And we were then going to proceed to talk about what the view said.

>    and I wonder whether that sentence implies
>    1. If another painting has the same pattern with that, it is beautiful.

Yes

>    2. only that pattern of the painting makes a piece of art beautiful.
>    1 or 2? or both of them?

If the beauty supervenes on the pattern of the paint, it's still allowed that different patterns of paint
should also be just as beautiful. Is that what you're asking?

>    The physicalists say that
>    mental states supervene on physical states.
>    I know that it means same physical state give rise to the same mental
>    state
>    but does it mean one mental state can be caused only by one physical
>    state�
>    or can it be caused by another physical state?

When we talk about _causing_, just about anything could be
brought about by a variety of causes. You can cause George to have an itch
by tickling his knee, or by stimulating his brain directly (not touching
the knee), and so on.

The "making true" relation in the painting case isn't the relation of
causing, though. The distribution of paint doesn't cause the painting to
be beautiful. It _makes up_ or _constitutes_ or _realizes_ the painting's
beauty.

Perhaps your question boils down to: is it possible for the same beauty
to be made up or realized by different distributions of paint? Yes, the
claim that beauty supervenes on paint pattern permits that. Is it
possible for the same pain to be made up or realized by different
physical states, for example, one state in humans and another in
jellyfish? The claim that the mental supervenes on the physical does
permit that. It _permits_ a theorist to also go on to make further
claims that rule that out; but it doesn't force the theorist to do so.

That is, some physicalists would identify pain with a particular brain
state. Others would say pain is more abstract, and can be realized by
multiple different brain states: one brain state in humans, another in
jellyfish. These theorists would agree that pain can be _caused_ in
multiple ways (tickle the knee, tickle the brain). But they disagree
about how many different ways the pain can be physically realized.

Supervenience permits a theorist to say that the supervening thing can have different realizations,
but it doesn't insist that she say that.


>    sorry, I just came up with another question
>    Let's just suppose that mental state A is found to be caused by physical
>    state B
>    mental state X is caused by physical state Y

I suspect that by "cause" here you really want to be talking about what
the philosophers express by "realize." Not what the philosophers express
by "cause." So I'll interpret you as saying "realize" wherever you write
"cause."

>    and there are many other mental states that are not yet found to be caused
>    by specific physical state.

It's not important what we've found. Supervenience has nothing to do
with what we know or have found out. Either all the other mental states
are in fact realized physically, or some of them aren't. If the second,
then physicalism is false. Physicalism may be true about some restricted
class of mental states (A and B), but as a general thesis about the
mental, it would be false.

>    Then according to the physicalists
>    can someone have a mental state X and then A while his physical state is
>    still Y?
>    and can someone have a mental state C, D, E,,,,,, and so on (whose cause
>    is not yet found, but definitely not caused by B)
>    while his physical state is B?
>    and can someone have a change in mental state for example, at first it was
>    A and then D, while there is no change in physical state?

If C,D, and so on don't have physical realizations---not just that we
don't know what they are, but as a matter of fact, there are no physical
realizations---then the physicalist cannot agree that a case like this
is possible.


-- 
Jim Pryor
jim.pryor@nyu.edu