THEORY-506: Every well-developed theory of how mind fits into the cosmos is bizarre, contrary to what most people confidently believe, and none is epistemically compelling, because common sense about the metaphysics of mind is incoherent; so no coarse position, materialism included, deserves credence much above 50%

Source

Eric Schwitzgebel (2024), The Weirdness of the World, LIT-216, Princeton University Press; read in full in NOTE-188 from the author’s final manuscript of 22 June 2022. Page numbers are the manuscript’s. The published book reorders the chapters, so its chapter 2 is the manuscript’s chapter 3.

What was actually shown

Definitions (ch. 3 §2). A position is bizarre if “most people without specialized training on the issue confidently, but perhaps implicitly, believe it to be false” (p. 65). It is wild if it is bizarre and “we are not epistemically compelled to believe it”. A topic is a wilderness if something wild must be among its core truths (p. 66).

Universal Bizarreness. Every well-developed metaphysics in history defies common sense, and the best explanation is that common sense about metaphysics is incoherent (pp. 61–64). It accepts that one of materialism, dualism, idealism or a compromise/rejection view must be true, and rejects each once its implications are drawn out (p. 86). The cases:

• Materialism faces a trilemma over pain (p. 76). Neural chauvinism means no Martian pain. Simple functionalism means beer-can pain and no mad pain. Normality-based hybrids lose locality: “anaesthesia by genocide”, or faster-than-light self-knowledge (pp. 74–76).
• Dualism faces a dilemma over causal powers and a quadrilemma over the scope of mentality, each horn bizarre (pp. 78–81). Reid and Descartes are examined as counterexamples and fail (pp. 81–83).
• Idealism is bizarre on its face, and compromise/rejection views (Kant, Russell, Chalmers, “no fact of the matter”) are bizarre too.
• The other chapters supply cases: if materialism is true the United States is probably conscious (ch. 2), transcendental idealism about space is a live possibility (ch. 5), and under stated cosmological premises almost every act causes almost every future event (ch. 7).

Universal Dubiety (§§8–10). Three arguments: experts disagree, there is no good method (“there is no conscious-ometer”, p. 92), and cosmology is itself uncertain. So no coarse position “deserves credence much over 50%”, and no moderately specific variant comes close to 50% (p. 86).

What could have come out otherwise. Someone could produce a developed metaphysics of mind that common sense accepts. The book issues that challenge (“find me one”, p. 63) and reports none.

What this does not say

• That every possible theory is bizarre. The claim is an induction over theories actually developed. The most quoted sentence, “every possible theory of the relation of mind and cosmos defies common sense”, outruns it (NOTE-188).
• That common sense is incoherent, as a finding. That is offered as the best explanation of the bizarreness, with no independent test (C2, weak to moderate).
• That the numbers are measurements. The 50%, the 55% for materialism and the 0.1–1% for radical skepticism are the author’s judgments, used “for convenience only” (p. 116).
• That bizarreness counts for a theory. It is denied the power to rule a theory out, not given the power to rule one in.
• That any particular bizarre option is true. The book spreads credence across them. Its conclusions about the United States, the garden snail and transcendental idealism are conditional or are how-possibly claims.
• That the published text says the same. The book read is the manuscript. The published version reorders chapters and updates the AI chapter.

Connections

• The United States argument. LIT-159 (NOTE-131) is the book’s lead case for bizarreness. THEORY-043 builds on it and on anti-nesting principles, and THEORY-125 on its conditional for group emotion.
• Consciousness attribution. THEORY-023 holds that current evidence cannot settle AI consciousness. The book’s Common Ground Problem, that theories of consciousness rest on prior assumptions about its prevalence (ch. 10), is the same predicament for animals, and is what dubiety predicts.
• QUESTION-046 asks for a criterion that would say whether an organized whole is a subject of experience. On this account any such criterion will be bizarre in what it includes or excludes. That predicts how answers will look but sets no condition an answer must meet, so no answers edge is claimed.