Intentionality and the Emergence of Meaning: A Hypothesis for the Naturalistic Grounding of Human Cognition

Abstract

In my thesis, I attempt, on the one hand, to classify some of the main problems in the philosophy of mind (such as intentionality, the mind–body problem, qualia, and the subjective experience of the world). On the other hand, I try to formulate a hypothesis concerning the naturalistic grounding of the human cognition and intelligence. The common thread in this investigation is the question of meaning – in other words, of mental content – or, alternatively, the question: “how can something mean one thing rather than something else?” The formulation of my hypothesis combines (a) the notion of Heideggerian Dasein, primarily as interpreted by philosophers such as Hubert Dreyfus and John Haugeland, and (b) the notion of emergent properties as it appears in theories of complex systems. Based on this hypothesis, mental content or “meaning” is not a “content” in a metaphysical mind or in an external third entity (such as semantics in language), nor is it in things themselves. In fact, meaning is nowhere. It is a property of a particular system and cannot be understood apart from that system, just as the transparency of water cannot be understood separately from the water itself. Asking “where is mental content?” or “where is meaning?” is like asking where liquidity or whiteness is. We can assume that there is an operational structure in the brain that is subject to downward causal influence from meaning. There is nothing unnatural about this; we simply do not yet know the physical mechanism. Heideggerian philosophers argue that no representations or “knowledge” are contained in the brain. Mental content is embedded in the world and embodied in the human body as a whole. It is neither internal nor external. Meaning, then, as an emergent property of the system, when it exerts downward influence on the brain (for example), somehow strengthens or weakens this “embodiment”. In this sense, each new mental event depends on how previous mental events are “embodied” in the body (brain, neurones, and organism as a totality). Meaning, thus, can be understood as the emergent property that will strengthen, weaken, or modify the mental “paradigm” that constitutes the background of embodied cognition. What belongs to us is the “paradigm” – the way, the theory – on the basis of which we give meaning to the world. Meaning itself does not belong to us. It is a common property of the system into which we are integrated and can causally influence our neural operating background through downward causation. In conclusion, I would say that if we really want to preserve the scientific and naturalistic grounding of mental phenomena, cognition, and mental content, we must understand that the brain is just one structural level in the organisation of matter. The whole body (nervous system, senses, etc.) and the world – as environment and linguistic community – linked together into a system, are necessary, indispensable factors for a naturalistic interpretation.