As with a lot of jargon, philosophical or otherwise, is "supervenience" really needed? What's wrong with "dependence?" I'm not saying there's no need for technical language at all, but when I was an engineer, I had to write for a technical audience but also be understandable by non-technical readers.

As with a lot of jargon, philosophical or otherwise, is "supervenience" really needed? What's wrong with "dependence?" I'm not saying there's no need for technical language at all, but when I was an engineer, I had to write for a technical audience but also be understandable by non-technical readers. — T Clark

I think one reason to use jargon is that it allows a bunch of unwieldy ideas to be carted out efficiently. So as I was reading about meaning normativism. The idea is that we can't have meaning without norms. But which came first? Is it that meaning norms are in force because expressions have meaning? Or do expressions have meaning because of related norms? A metaphysical look examines supervenience relations. The problem is: you can't really follow this kind of examination until you grasp the ins and outs of supervenience. :grimace:

As with a lot of jargon, philosophical or otherwise, is "supervenience" really needed? What's wrong with "dependence?" — T Clark

Interesting question. I don't think I've ever used the word supervenience in discussions with other electrical engineers, although other EEs certainly have to understand the notion of supervenience regardless of whether they have any familiarity with the word.

I do think using "supervenience" is useful in philosophy however, to convey a rather specific sort of dependency. For example I might say, "My minor children are dependent on me.", but I wouldn't say, "My minor children are supervenient on me."

Do you have a link to the essay or a title that can be searched?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/
This is the source of the quotation and a good intro to the subject.

Thank you.

Just about everybody agrees that the mental supervenes on the physical, which means that the only way for a mental state to change is for something physical to change. Disagreements arise regarding the form of necessity here. — frank

The interesting thing about a supervenience relation is that it's not a causal relationship. It's just telling us that there's some kind of ontological connection between two things. So when we say the mental supervenes on the physical, we're saying that if we had two humans who were identical in every way physically, they will necessarily have the same mental state.

In this, we haven't explained anything about why the two things are related in this way. We aren't necessarily being reductionist, for instance.

In the case of mental-physical supervenience, debate centers around whether this relationship is metaphysically necessary, which would mean we can't conceive a universe where this relation doesn't hold, or is it nomologically necessary, which means it holds by our laws of physics.

What's wrong with "dependence?" — T Clark

Because I think supervenience can reference and unentailed correlation.

For example mental state A supervenes upon brain state B in that without A there is no B and without B there is no A, meaning if and only A then B, but it's a correlation where dependency isn't necessitated.

A materialist would reference this type of supervenience as entailment because they believe B causes A.

A dualist would agree there is supervenience between A and B, but would deny a causative link, meaning they would disagree that it is entailed.

For that reason, the word "supervenience" does not mean dependence. It just means the presence of A and B occuring at the same time, but sometimes caused and sometimes coincidental.

This is the source of the mind/body problem for the dualist who has to explain why every time I have thought X, I have a neuronal event Y, but the two just happen to exist parellel to one another.

The interesting thing about a supervenience relation is that it's not a causal relationship. It's just telling us that there's some kind of ontological connection between two things. So when we say the mental supervenes on the physical, we're saying that if we had two humans who were identical in every way physically, they will necessarily have the same mental state. — frank

I think this is what I was saying above to @T Clark, but one of the problems often brought forth by the substance dualist is that there is not empirical proof that brain state X always causes behavior Y because fMRI results do not show that for every instance of behavior Y the exact areas of the brain show activity.

What this would mean is that brain activity supervenes with behavioral activity 100% of the time, but the precise brain activity down to the neuronal level is variable. That means that for person A who is an exact replica of person B (down the neuronal level), the substance dualist would not necessarily commit that the two would exhibit exact behaviors. Sometimes brain state A yields behavior X and sometimes Y.

This is the source of the mind/body problem for the dualist who has to explain why every time I have thought X, I have a neuronal event Y, but the two just happen to exist parellel to one another. — Hanover

True. You wouldn't think the two just accidentally track. :up:

If what you said about the idea of supervenience were true then to say A supervenes on B would also necessarily be to say that B supervenes on A, and I don't believe that is a correct interpretation of the idea. I think @T Clark was right to indicate that a relation of dependence is intrinsic to the idea.

So when we say the mental supervenes on the physical, we're saying that if we had two humans who were identical in every way physically, they will necessarily have the same mental state. — frank

So, do you think it follows that if two people had the same mental state that they would necessarily be the same physically?

Just about everybody agrees that the mental supervenes on the physical, which means that the only way for a mental state to change is for something physical to change. Disagreements arise regarding the form of necessity here. — frank

I sometimes wonder what physical difference there would be in ‘understanding something’. I mean, say, for example, I am trying to learn maths - I was always very poor at maths - but I learned at least some maths and a bit of algebra. So how does the ability to understand maths and algebra, in whatever degree, ‘supervene on’ or otherwise relate to physical configurations in the brain?

Such symbolically-mediated knowledge can be represented in a variety of ways. We have our conventional numerical system, but there’s no reason there mightn’t be other quite different systems of representation that still signify the same values. Furthermore in computation, all such symbols are converted to binary code. So the meaning can stay constant, while the physical forms are changeable. So if even the physical forms of the symbols that represent maths can be varied while preserving the meaning, then in what sense can maths be said to be physical?

I suspect there’s a subterfuge in supervenience. What I think Davidson wants to establish is that brain states actually represent understanding. But if brain states are physical, as distinct from symbolic, then how can they represent anything? I mean, crystals, marks on paper, clouds, stellar formations - all physical things - don’t mean anything whatever. They might mean something to a chemist, a reader, a metereologist, or an astronomer, respectively, but that’s because they’re trained in how to interpret such phenomena - they can ‘see the meaning’ in them. Surely brain-states are analogous to that, insofar as they’re physical. So to say a mental act supervenes on physical states is a futile attempt at reductionism as far as I’m concerned by attempting to paper over the fundamental difference between the interpretive and the physical domains.

This is because Davidson, as a physicalist, has to show that mind, thought or judgement are dependent on the physical, as the physical is ultimately what is real. If mind, thought or judgement has any intrinsic or independent reality, then physicalism fails. So ‘supervenience’ - called ‘a term of art’ in the SEP entry on same - becomes an essential gap-filler in all kinds of physicalist arguments for philosophy of mind.

Supervenience is a modal relation. Take the forgery example from the SEP article. Some particular tone and texture in the forgery might well be produced by a different microstructure to that of the original. That tone and texture is not dependent on the microstructure. It might be produced by a very different paint and process.

Hence the new term is useful.

The tone and texture supervenes on the physical structure.

Similarly, for Davidson, some particular intention (a mental state) may have different physical sources (a physical state). Hence the anomalism of the mental. The same state of mind may be the result of various physical states of the brain.

I think I first saw the term in R. M. Hare, but was never very pleased with it.

as the physical is ultimately what is real. — Wayfarer

That strikes me as an error. Mind is as real as brain.

Well, of course, but then, you're not defending physicalism, and presumably have no need of 'supervenience' to prop up your philosophical outlook.

...but one of the problems often brought forth by the substance dualist is that there is not empirical proof that brain state X always causes behavior Y because fMRI results do not show that for every instance of behavior Y the exact areas of the brain show activity. — Hanover

Yes. fMRI is far from being a technology capable of showing "exact" areas of the brain, much less the enormous amount of dynamic activity involved in the massively parallel information processing going on in there.

Consider this photo with motion blur and add focus blur with your imagination.



Then consider asking whether the image you are imagining is sufficient to prove that T. Clark picked your pocket.

Wherever we might draw a line representing "sufficient data for neuroscience to comprehensively explain consciousness", fMRI scans are a long way from crossing that line. Not to say that neuroscience hasn't come a long way, or that fMRI isn't an awesome achievement for social primates like ourselves.

On the other hand, there are lots of other avenues of empirical investigation that all seem to be pointing in the same direction. So the scientific picture might be seen as analogous to a jigsaw puzzle with the edges fully completed. Tough competition for dualists, on the empirical evidence front.

you're not defending physicalism — Wayfarer

Well, I'm not rejecting it either.

Here's an 7 year old article from the New York Times, Do You Believe in God, or Is That a Software Glitch?, commenting on a scientific paper demonstrating a high rate of false positives in fMRI research.

How convenient for you. Like a lurking moray, backed into a crevice, ready to lunge at any passing morsel, secure in the knowledge that nothing is behind you.

For example mental state A supervenes upon brain state B in that without A there is no B and without B there is no A, meaning if and only A then B, but it's a correlation where dependency isn't necessitated. — Hanover

Davidson, I think, would tend to say that mental state A is the result of brain state B, but that it might also be the result of brain states C and D. Hence mental state A is not dependent on brain state B; and the need for a novel term.

Yup.

I know @SophistiCat added the SEP article, but it's worth noting the formalization of supervenience in this thread I think --

A weakly supervenes on B if and only if necessarily, if anything x has some property F in A, then there is at least one property G in B such that x has G, and everything that has G has F, i.e., iff

□∀x∀F∈A[Fx → ∃G∈B(Gx & ∀y(Gy → Fy))]
A strongly supervenes on B if and only if necessarily, if anything x has some property F in A, then there is at least one property G in B such x has G, and necessarily everything that has G has F, i.e., iff

□∀x∀F∈A[Fx → ∃G∈B(Gx & □∀y(Gy → Fy))]
(Kim 1984)

Which still is hard for me to read through.

I know SophistiCat added the SEP article — Moliere

Oh, yeah - sorry, @SophistiCat. Good move.

There's a break in the symmetry that I think some have not recognised - that □∀y(Gy → Fy) does not give us □∀y(Fy → Gy).

Such supervenience might be taken to mean that there cannot be two events alike in all physical respects but differing in some mental respect, or that an object cannot alter in some mental respect without altering in some physical respect (1970, 214). — Davidson

So when we say the mental supervenes on the physical, we're saying that if we had two humans who were identical in every way physically, they will necessarily have the same mental state. — frank

Isn't it contrary to the law of identity to speak of "two" physical occurrences which are in every way alike. If they are in every way alike, they are necessarily one and the same, not "two". So the whole premise of this thought experiment, the assumption of two distinct physical occurrences which are exactly alike, is fundamentally flawed making that thought experiment pointless.

I think this is what I was saying above to T Clark, but one of the problems often brought forth by the substance dualist is that there is not empirical proof that brain state X always causes behavior Y because fMRI results do not show that for every instance of behavior Y the exact areas of the brain show activity. — Hanover

So this is an example of the problem exposed above. When "brain state X" is referred to, what is meant is a specific type of brain state, not a particular condition of a brain which is exactly and precisely identical to the particular condition of another brain which is said to have "brain state X". In reality, "brain state X" refers to a generalized "brain state" which ignores many peculiarities of an actual brain's state, making brain state X a broadly universal condition, allowing that two very different brains, can both be said to have "brain state X". So the whole argument about supervenience is just so deeply flawed, and not worthy of serious philosophical discussion.

Yea, I'm pretty sure I screwed that up. I'll need to ponder it a little more.

Isn't it contrary to the law of identity to speak of "two" physical occurrences which are in every way alike. If they are in every way alike, they are necessarily one and the same, not "two". So the whole premise of this thought experiment, the assumption of two distinct physical occurrences which are exactly alike, is fundamentally flawed making that thought experiment pointless. — Metaphysician Undercover

Suppose we defer consideration of a law of identity, and consider two identical beings in different possible worlds, with the difference between the two worlds being of negligible relevance to the two beings.

I would find it convenient if you would be kind enough to rephrase that in English.

So would I.

So, is that to say that you recognize a formal statement in one language but cannot translate it into another?

There's a break in the symmetry that I think some have not recognised... — Banno

A lot of the confusion in this thread is addressed in the SEP article. Here is an excerpt on the fact that supervenience is non-symmetric:

However, supervenience is neither symmetric nor asymmetric; it is non-symmetric. Sometimes it holds symmetrically. Every reflexive case of supervenience is trivially a symmetric case; consider also the case of the volume and surface area of perfect spheres mentioned in Section 3.1. And sometimes it holds asymmetrically. For example, while the mental may supervene on the physical, the physical does not supervene on the mental. There can be physical differences without mental differences. — SEP | Supervenience and Entailment

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What's wrong with "dependence?" — T Clark

Here is an excerpt on dependence:

A second way to see that supervenience is not identical to either grounding or ontological dependence is to note that the latter two relations are widely (though not universally) thought to be irreflexive and asymmetrical. Nothing can ground or ontologically depend upon itself, and nothing can ground or ontologically depend on something that also grounds or depends on it. But as we have seen, supervenience is reflexive and not asymmetrical (see Section 3.2). (For challenges to the claim that dependence and/or grounding are irreflexive and asymmetric, see Jenkins 2011, Bliss 2014, Wilson 2014, and Barnes forthcoming; for a reply to these challenges, see Bennett 2017, sect. 3.2).

A third way to see that supervenience is not the same as either grounding or ontological dependence is that the following conditionals are false:

$\quad\bullet$ if A supervenes on B, B grounds A
$\quad\bullet$ if A supervenes on B, A ontologically depends on B
— SEP | Supervenience, Grounding, and Ontological Depdendence

A lot of the confusion in this thread is addressed in the SEP article. — Leontiskos

Yep.

Do you think that propositional knowledge (as distinct from, say, endogenous depression) can be depicted as ‘a mental state’?