Conservation Laws and the Philosophy of Mind: Opening the Black Box, Finding a Mirror.
Philosophia (Ramat-Gan, Israel) January 1, 2020 J Brian Pitts
The long-standing objection that Cartesian mental causation violates conservation of energy and momentum is flawed because conservation laws have neglected features. Conservation is local, holding for each volume separately based on boundary flows, and global conservation requires convergent summing that likely fails in reality. Energy conservation depends on temporal symmetry of laws; if nonphysical influence breaks symmetry at certain times and places, conservation fails there while holding elsewhere. Noether's converse theorem shows conservation implies causal closure of the physical, so expecting conservation in the brain assumes Cartesianism false. Thus Leibniz's objection begs the question. General Relativity, far from offering a loophole, makes mental causation harder.