What is Supervenience? | Philosophy Glossary

[@jeff__w]

I think the idea of _X_ being *constitutive* of Y is very clarifying-it avoids the confusion of saying _X_ and _Y_ are “identical” when they’re not. And there is the idea of asymmetry. You can change the lower level-you can add or take away a pixel or two-and the supervening level-the letter-remains, for all practical purposes, unchanged. _But_ if you change the supervening level-the letters or the words-the subvening level - the pixels - _has_ to change. It’s a fascinating concept. Your explanation was very helpful!

[@AtticPhilosophy]

That's it, you've got it! Glad this helped.

[@vallea7770]

Oh, thanks. This explanation was much more clear and useful than the video. But the example of the V shape does not hold or is very unclear. Depending on how you imagine this V shape, changing the position of even one ball can destroy the V shape. Anyway, thanks a lot for your comment, now I finally understood the concept.

[@moonmonkey111]

I'm reading about consciousness for a philosophy master's and was totally lost until this video. Thank you

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Seonixxxx]

Helps my philosophy of mind essay, thank you

[@timedgley8345]

Am currently trying to get to grips with "The Conscious Mind" by David Chalmers and supervenience was a key term which I didn't understand, but do now, (a bit) Great stuff!

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Glad it helped! That's a great book btw.

[@Kid_Blue]

Great explanation! Thank you.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Thanks!

[@volleyballer1566]

Thank you SO much! currently studying for a metaphysics test

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Good luck with it!

[@MilesFazio]

This is the video I'll point people to when they ask for an explanation.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Thanks!

[@asozialesnetzwerk]

Came across this concept first in a philosophy of economics class. Couldn't remember it. Thx for the explanation.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Great, glad it helped!

[@djiajude9576]

Really helpful. Thank you very much

[@AtticPhilosophy]

You're welcome!

[@matthewa6881]

Helpful. I’ve been trying to understand this concept for a while now. A non-causal dependency relationship or the higher level phenomena is constituted by the lower level phenomena. And a change to one must entail a change to the other. I was thinking about this idea in relation to how mathematics describes reality. If all empirical phenomena ultimately supervenes on physics, then the universe at its most basic level must be described mathematically since physics uses mathematics as its language.

[@josb9836]

I’m reading about supervenience right now, and what I read slightly disagrees with what you said. You said that supervenience denotes a relationship that would exist in any possible world, but what I read characterized that position as strong supervenience, whereas weak supervenience denotes a relationship that only holds as long as the laws of nature hold, iirc.

[@JoeBuck-uc3bl]

The billiard balls ARE ALSO ‘V’ shaped. The letters ARE ALSO the square pixels. The ‘V’ shape and the letters ARE the form (an attribute) of the balls and square pixels. Mind is qualitatively distinct from brain matter, yet with intimate correlation. Supervenience speaks of relational attributes of something to itself. Mind and brain/body are distinct from each other YET correlate with each other. Like the billiard balls and letter supervenience examples, mind & body DO also change with each other, but in a different sense. For mind & body you have the case of “Whenever there’s a certain change to A there is also at least some change to B as well.” But the billiard balls and letters examples are a case of “Whenever A changes in ‘This’ sense A necessarily also changes in ‘That’ sense as well.” If philosophers say “The mind supervenes on the brain”…then they are wrongfully equating the relationship between mind and brain with the relationship between a letter, and pixels that make that letter up.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

The balls aren’t V-shaped, they’re round 😂

[@johnchatz]

Hey!Geat stuff and thank you for your effort!hats the difference with epiphenomenalism?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Thanks! Epiphenomenalism is a specific dualist theory of mind: basically, the mind is distinct from the brain (& from all physical matter) and doesn’t interact with it at all. All your deliberate behaviour is caused by prior brain events, not by mental events. Eg when you hit your thumb with a hammer, you say ‘ow’ because chemical processes in your brain, not because it hurts. The pain you feel doesn’t cause anything - it’s an epiphenomenon.

[@johnchatz]

@@AtticPhilosophy thank you!waiting for more!

[@user-sj9tu7om8o]

Thank you for the video! How does supervenience play a role in David Lewis’ possible world’s theory. One could think that an ontological explanation for a modal statement in the actual world supervenes on there being another similar world (causally separated) which provides a truth-maker for the modal statement? A non causal dependency?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Lewis uses supervenience lots: his big idea of ‘Humean supervenience’ is that everything supervenes on particular matters of local fact. Eg causation supervenes on the pattern of events. Mods facts trivially supervene on anything, since any modal fact couldn’t have been otherwise.

[@rafaeljesus193]

It was the best explanation I saw about it. But if V shape is a effect of the position of the balls, why isn't it a causal thing?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

They’re simultaneous. Typically, causes precede effects.

[@MosesMashilo-yr5kb]

So are you saying the individual position of the balls and V shape are the same thing?but the V depends on the individual postions while both the positions and the v shape share the same cause.....but if the individual positions change can't we say that causes a changes in the shape?

[@middleDZ]

Like if David Chalmers: The Conscious Mind brought you here… 😭😭😭

[@nasertizhoosh9434]

Professor, can I say mathematics supervene on physics, and also, can I say subvenience is mathematics and supervene is physic

[@AtticPhilosophy]

It’s tricky with maths because maths is necessary, and as a consequence, trivially supervenes on anything at all! That’s a problem with the definition of supervenience.

[@EncodeUnknown]

please elaborate 'not causal'?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

There’s a relationship between two simultaneous events or states, and it’s not a causal relationship - it’s not the case the one causes the other.

[@hatersgotohell627]

How is constituting somsthing not a cause for it? Im confused by this. Doesnt the brain confirgutation cause the mind to be a certain way?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Constitution is usually a relation between two objects: eg the piece of plastic constitutes the shampoo bottle. Causation is usually between events: striking the match (in the right circumstances) causes the flame.

[@jimmyfaulkner1855]

What is Humean Supervenience?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

It’s the view, found in David Lewis, primarily, that every feature of reality, ultimately supervenes on the basic properties of space-time points. Less abstractly, all the difficult metaphysical concepts, like chance, causation, possibility and necessity, laws of nature, the mind, and so on, all boil down to particular things happening at particular places and times.

[@jimmyfaulkner1855]

@@AtticPhilosophy So when Lewis says that "all there is to the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact, just one little thing and another," how can this be explained more simply? I am simply finding it hard to see how that actually looks like physically. Is he saying they are just static ball-like microscopic atoms and each atom/point is its own unique thing in spacetime and they remain separate from everything else and do not depend upon anything else? It is also only the properties of these physical atoms that change (such as mass/charge)?

[@jimmyfaulkner1855]

@@AtticPhilosophy Also, what are some of the best philosophical arguments against Lewis’ Humean Supervenience?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

@@jimmyfaulkner1855 Essentially yes: the properties of one spacetime point aren't fixed or determined by anything else, before, simultaneously, or after. One particular instance: there aren't laws of nature which drive the facts along, from past to future. Rather, the 'laws of nature' are just patterns of stuff that happens.

[@vallea7770]

But how is that a non causal relationship?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Are we talking about the relationship between (eg) the arrangement of dots on your phone screen and the words that appear on it? The arrangement doesn’t cause words to appear, rather it constitutes those words. Constituting something is different from causing it. Right now, what’s causing the words on my phone screen is my typing (plus the OS programming etc).

[@frankavocado]

When you say ‘non-causal’ could that be understood as, e.g, ‘non-causal at a certain explanatory level’ or perhaps ‘ultimately causal given added complexity’? Perhaps I am being an old determinist here, but I don’t quite get the ‘non’ bit in the causality part.

[@AtticPhilosophy]

It's meant to be totally non-causal. Example: there's the location of each ball, and then there's the shape they make together. The locations don't cause the shape, the constitute it. Another way to look at it: typically, cause comes before effect. But we're talking about the locations and the shape at exactly the same instant.

[@socraticsceptic8047]

@@AtticPhilosophy ..Surely we can say that the arrangement of the balls causes our perception of a V (as a "material cause" to use the Aristotelian framework)? Other causes are our knowledge of letters (ability to read), and the action that set the balls in motion to then come to rest in that perceived shape. And since a perception comes after the thing perceived, the arrangement of the balls is prior to the perception by an instant?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

@@socraticsceptic8047 Yes, their arrangement causes our perception. But we're not talking about our perception of them here, we're talking about (a) their arrangement and (b) the V-shape itself. Or (a) dots on the screen and (b) text on the screen. In each case, phenomena (b) supervenes on (a). Our perception of (a) or (b) is a different phenomena, due to causation.

[@socraticsceptic8047]

@@AtticPhilosophy Thanks for rely... so are you saying 1, there are some dots arranged on a screen, 2, there is our perception of a "V" and then 3. there is also a supervening "V" out there in itself? Is this last entity strictly necessary - what purpose does it serve?

[@AtticPhilosophy]

@@socraticsceptic8047 You're reading this sentence. There's 1 sentence, but lots of dots making it up, so (according to many philosophers) they're not identical. What purpose does the sentence serve? So you can read it! (But another view is: the sentence and the arrangement of dots are identical to each other. Still supervenience, but now a trivial case). Same issues go in the main case of mind and brain: you might say they're distinct, and mind supervenes on brain, or you might say they're identical, or you might say something else entirely.

[@keepyoursins]

Don't really have any questions, good examples 👍

[@AtticPhilosophy]

Thanks!