An Argument from Consciousness/ Personhood

Introduction

            In this discourse, an attempt will be made to develop an argument that will fall under the umbrella of the argument from Consciousness. Consciousness is a prominent and relatively unexplained phenomenon. The goal is to assist in explaining this feature we see. The claim will be made herein that, given consciousness/ personhood, theism provides the best (and only?) explanation for why this phenomenon pervades experienced reality. The general flow of this writing will lay out some terms and definitions, setting up some initial information for the argument, the argument, provide some potential objections, and give some closing thoughts.

            It must be stated that this discourse will not cover every aspect of the debates, questions, theories, etc., alive and well within the overall discussion of mind and consciousness. The focus here is strictly limited to the formulation of a particular argument that can be considered under the overarching theme of the argument from consciousness. I will do my best to delineate any concepts or definitions that may need further explanation and will attempt to highlight any assumptions that are made throughout. The goal is to present something that can provide the foundation on which to further develop a cogent line of reasoning.

Preliminary Thought on Personhood and Consciousness

            When it comes to discussing what a person is, there are many different definitions and understandings that can be given. Within philosophical discussions, this is the case. Prior intellectual commitments seem to incline people in a particular direction. Thus, a naturalist will provide a definition or concept of a person that falls (or can fall) neatly within a materialist conception of reality (as do the theists). Another lingering issue is the persistence of whatever a person is through time. This means, is the “I” right now going to be the same “I” later. Harkening back on presuppositions, what is a person made of? What is the ontological makeup of what persons are? These (and others) are pressing thoughts when considering personhood and consciousness.

Some Definitions

            What is a person? A person is a being that possesses a mind, rationality, consciousness/ self-consciousness, and some sort of moral agency.[1] John Locke provides a similar set of criteria, a person is “a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places.”[2] It should be noticed that when dealing with persons, the primary features seem to be mental in nature. This is the problem of consciousness in a nutshell. How are we to understand this mental phenomenon and what are we to do with it? It seems to be the case that a person must possess consciousness (i.e., not meaning they must always be conscious/ awake) but the reverse does not seem to be the case (i.e., something can be/ have consciousness and not be a person).[3]

            Nailing down a definition of consciousness (within the literature), explicitly, seems to be a relatively difficult task. Husserl says this about consciousness, “the world as it confronts us, from consciousness as it presents itself in psychological experience.”[4] There does not seem to be any special definition of consciousness outside of the standard definition used in everyday speech.[5] So, for the purposes herein, the standard definition will be the primary one used and any specifications made or additions to it will be clearly delineated within the text. Consciousness is typically defined as “the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself; the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought.”[6] There is a very mental aspect to consciousness, and this is partially the problem, what are we to do with a mental reality in a physical universe? If someone is not a physicalist/ materialist, then some of the problems go away. However, with many holding to an atheistic framework, this is one feature that must be explained.

            Nagel states it this way, “consciousness is the most conspicuous obstacle to a comprehensive naturalism that relies only on the resources of physical science.”[7] Nagel is on to something (which will be explained later) here, if the physical sciences deal with physical reality, what can it tell us about something that takes place within physical reality but does not appear to be, itself, physical. Moreland describes the idea of this “Grand Story” that is put forward by those who hold to naturalism, it has many facets to it but at the end of the day, they are still working from similar definitions and understandings of what it is to be conscious. For the naturalist, they are working to express “a scientistic philosophical monism, according to which everything that exists or happens in the world is susceptible to explanations by natural scientific methods.”[8] Understanding this philosophical point is important for the discussion, to adhere to a physicalist view of reality is to limit the explanatory options one has available. When it comes to providing an explanation of consciousness and what it means to be conscious, the explanation cannot smuggle in non-physical explanations.

Preparation for the Argument

            Now that some of the intellectual debris has been cleared, I can venture off into the deep well of discussing the mind and hopefully formulate a coherent argument. There have been many theories (physical) that have tried to answer the question of consciousness. Identity theories (and behaviorism) have probably been the most used by physicalists. I would like to delve into these theories and hopefully begin to build some scaffolding for which to construct my own view (argument). In a sense, it will be to find what works and what does not work when it comes to describing what we know and what is speculative.

            First, I want to look at an identity theory for explaining consciousness, the psycho-physical identity theory. This theory proposes that mental events and physical events are at bottom the same thing and they correspond to one another. For example, x=y (“where x is a mental event like pain or taste sensation and y is the corresponding physical event in the central nervous system”).[9] Nagel points out that this is akin to saying that “water=H2O.”[10] However, the problem here is what about x also makes it y? In essence, if one holds firmly to materialism/ physicalism, x and y are both physical (by definition), but they seem to be different things so how are they correlated? A materialist must find what links these two qualities together based on a physical explanation and cannot include anything that hints at something non-physical (and most would want to avoid the attribution of a non-physical property). The other problem is it does not suffice to simply state that this correlation is brute fact.

            Correlation does not equal causation. When two items are correlated, this simply means that there is some sort of connection but does not necessarily imply that one caused the other. Part of the problem with the above water example is that H2O seems to be a necessary truth. No matter what when H2O is formed you will always get water. Kripke notes that this does not seem to be the case with mental and physical events, these seem to be contingent truths.[11] Our physical experience of a mental event can differ between persons. Two people can have similar thoughts, but the experience can (and often does) manifest in a different way for each person. Additionally, our perception of a thing is not part of that thing. Nagel says, “we ordinarily identify water by its perceptible qualities, but our perceptual experiences aren’t part of the water; they are just effects it has on our senses.”[12] What this means is that the physical properties should be all one needs for the taste of the water or whatever other mental event one has (e.g., pain). But “experience of taste seems to be something extra, contingently related to the brain state—something produced rather than constituted by the brain state. So it cannot be identical to the brain state in the way that water is identical to H2O.”[13]

            What about behaviorism? Behaviorism puts forward the idea that mental events are identified with certain behaviors. This is not to confuse it with being identified in the sense that mental concepts are correlated with physical events. Behaviors ARE mental events. Essentially, what one sees acted out by another person (i.e., their behavior) is their mental concepts or mental life so mental events just are behaviors. Tolman says it this way (and better I think), “wherever an organism at a given moment of stimulation shifts then and there from being ready to respond in some relatively less differentiated way to being ready to respond in some relatively more differentiated way, there is consciousness.”[14] As can be seen by Tolman, one does not even possess consciousness until they act in a differentiating way. The example that is used in Tolman’s article is one of rats and not differentiating between two tunnels in a maze. It is not until they have some sort of perceived reason to differentiate between those tunnels (e.g., food) and they explicitly and consistently make this differentiated choice that they are considered conscious.

            A couple of thoughts and considerations are in order. When it comes to a behavior as a mental event, one must consider, if a behavior simply is a mental event (consciousness), how is it that someone can think about one thing but not act on that thing? For instance, Person A may have a persistent thought (maybe even an intention) to murder Person B, but they do not act on it. It may even be the case that Person A fantasizes about committing the murder frequently, but they never manifest that behavior. Does this not count as evidence against (at least a strict interpretation of) behaviorism? One could say that because the thought never become realized in the behavior that the thought never existed or that it was not an actual mental event. But this does not seem to suffice because Person A has explicitly expressed, they were having this persistent thought and Person A is the only one who has direct access to their mental life. Another point of contention on this view is that people can transition between consciousness and non-consciousness persistently and continuously. By this, if it is only through differentiated behavior that one becomes conscious then it stands to reason that they can (and probably often do) move into non-consciousness (but yet are still very conscious). What about those who have brain conditions, small infants (or pre-born infants), or elderly people? These groups of people seem to be persons but cannot manifest differentiated behavior. For example, imagine a person who has a paralyzing brain condition that leaves them completely unable to act out any behavior, but they do have a strong mental life. This person lacks the ability to perform undifferentiated and differentiated behaviors because the brain cannot control the body. Does this person lack personhood and consciousness (recall that possessing consciousness is a part of being a person)? Taking a behaviorist position on consciousness (and by proxy personhood) seems to have real problems with finding a good answer for why consciousness exists, and this pours over into the moral realm because if persons are the things that possess highest value, then there appears to be whole groups of people who possess lesser (or no) value and move between having/ lacking value continuously.

Persons (and Consciousness) Lead to One Supreme Person (or Consciousness)

            Up to this point, the groundwork has been laid for an understanding of personhood/ consciousness and the problems that surround these areas. It appears that explaining consciousness/ personhood is quite difficult under physicalism/ materialism. Identity theories and behaviorist theories seem to fall short at providing the how and why answers humanity craves. It seems to be the case that physicalism simply lacks the tools necessary for understanding and explaining the phenomenon of consciousness. Based on our understanding of persons and consciousness, it seems that these things can only come from other persons/ consciousness-possessing beings. For example, it does not seem likely that “you” could exist unless your parents (who are “I’s”) came together in a procreative process.[15] With this, persons only seem to come from other persons. This is the primary reason for the failure of the above theories of consciousness, they lack any reference to persons. By this, I mean that we only observe other persons coming from other persons until one gets back to the beginning of things. But under naturalistic assumptions, this is (the beginning) the only time when consciousness has come from non-persons, and it will never repeat in this manner again. This is important to understand for the development of the argument.

The Argument

            The first assumption that is being made for this argument to work is empirically based, we have no observational evidence that persons come from non-persons (as stated above). This is being listed as an assumption because anyone can claim that the lack of observation does not equate to its impossibility. Granted. But the lack of observational evidence levels the playing field and should give pause to those who take their materialism for granted. I am also assuming that an actually existent infinite regress cannot occur (i.e., an actually infinite series of things is both physically and metaphysically impossible). Consciousness is a part of personhood. There cannot be a person who does not possess some form of consciousness (both currently or potentially).

            The argument begins by stating that personhood/ consciousness is something that is passed on, something that is gained from another thing that possesses personhood/ consciousness. Meaning, it seems quite unlikely for conscious properties to come from non-conscious properties.[16] One cannot rearrange properties, so it appears that some new type of thing exists because this rearrangement simply brings about a different thing of the same type.[17] This is an important rejoinder against the naturalistic theories of describing consciousness. This is where already present characteristics (certain conscious/ mental properties) are explained on the basis of identifying them with physical properties. What I am suggesting is that, mental properties and physical properties are of a different kind/ type and simply rearranging how they interact/ identify does not make mental properties, physical ones.

            Given that mental properties appear to be of a different kind than physical ones and that consciousness/ [personhood] (is a mental property) can only be gained or given through another person/ conscious being, then all consciousness/ personhood has been gained or given through other consciousness-possessing persons. So, we can track this thinking backwards through time. Currently, Person A exists and received their mental/ conscious properties from Persons B/C and Persons B/C gained their mental properties via four other persons, so on and so forth. This succession of mental properties extends back as far as time will allow. Under naturalism, this succession led to a point where these mental properties simply dissolved into physical ones. This is the point at which the transition of types took place (assuming naturalism). But, as understood thus far, consciousness/ personhood cannot (or does not seem like it can) become something of a different kind/ type and can only come from other consciousness-possessing persons. It is also understood that this regression of persons cannot extend back forever. So, this means that there must be some consciousness-possessing person that has these properties intrinsically and necessarily, this consciousness-possessing person would be God. This line of thinking is similar to having an unmoved mover or having some thing be the starting point of all other things. It appears that for the promulgation of personhood/ consciousness there must have been some entity possessing those properties (those that make a person) in order to pass them along so that other persons can exist.

            To bolster this thinking, “on the materialist view, purpose must reduce to Darwinian function.”[18] This is a telling statement because the author notes that this would include consciousness. The above statement harkens back to the identity theories because consciousness must be reducible to some sort of physical function, according to materialism. But this strikes right at the commonsense understanding of what we see, test, and experience in the world. So, probabilistically speaking, the materialist view of the world and reducing all these mental qualities to functions does not seem to work (more on this later). My argument is based on what seems to be a commonsense understanding of what we observe within the world. Persons begetting other persons is confirmed by observation and is intuitively known. Mental properties being reduced to a physical function do not appear to be intuitive at all and must be explained with a great deal of knowledge and lacks (generally) the level of explanatory power as what is presented here.

            When it comes to consciousness, there also seems to be an epistemological gap in understanding the ontology of consciousness versus physical properties. There is a thought experiment about a neuroscientist who is locked away in a black-and-white only environment This scientist (Mary) is given all of the information she needs to understand color (both color perception and cognition).[19] There is “no amount of ‘physical’ information…which she could read…will help her to know the phenomenal character of red.”[20] Based on this understanding of the nature of consciousness there appears to be an “epistemic gap between the totality of physical facts and phenomenal characters.”[21] In short, if consciousness is reducible to just physical facts then it is not unreasonable to assume that in the scenario above, one could learn what it is like to see color. Since consciousness (and the perceptual qualities) avoids explanation based on just physical facts, it appears that being strictly identified with physical facts simply will not do. It is not sufficient to disregard the phenomenal character of how consciousness presents information to the mind, in favor of a physical explanation that does not seem to push the discussion forward and minimizes experienced reality. This epistemic gap (stated above) is an important aspect of this discussion that seems to require an adequate explanation.

Objections

            Now that the argument has been made, it is time to look at potential (or actual) objections to the view. There are various ways in which to visualize and explain consciousness. One of the ways listed above was consciousness is simply a physical function (identity theory or behaviorism). The materialist can retort and suggest that these mental properties that we see in the world simply emerge from physical processes. Consciousness is not strictly a mental property but rather a physical one that humans perceive as an immaterial reality, but this is mistaken. Consciousness (in this sense) are brain states, and the conscious person is simply activated upon the proper brain states instantiating at the proper time. Hasker states it this way, “ordinary matter contains within itself the potentiality for consciousness.”[22] In essence, physical matter possesses the required resources for consciousness to come about via natural and physical processes. Consciousness is subsequent to materials or stated differently, there could be no consciousness without physical matter.

            The problem with this view is that,

intentions—like emotions, feelings, volition, perceptions, desires, etc.—are more than just neural activity of the brain; they are states of an immaterial mind. When I claim that I am in love I mean more than just that there is a particular neuron sequence firing in my brain, or that there is some transference of sodium ions between synaptic receptors going on in my brain.[23]

Dr. Beach is pointing out something that is very important, the link between the philosophical and the scientific. When we think about our minds and the consciousness that we possess, it does not seem adequate to equate the mental and the physical. It is equally the case that it does not seem that the mental can be empirically disproven to any satisfying degree. “It seems difficult to find a single philosophical position that is ruled out by empirical data, and even between the most opposite positions in the philosophy of mind cannot be decided by empirical means.”[24] This is the point, when it comes to these naturalistic theories and their “empirical” high ground, there needs to be a call for intellectual modesty. Philosophy can provide much needed insight into this difficult discussion because the empirical alone does not seem like an adequate tool for understanding and determining the full extent of consciousness/ personhood.

            An interesting objection comes from the idea of the persistence of the person/ self. What does one do with the problem of sleep? The objection can go like this, because humans experience (often) the lack of state consciousness during times of sleep, it seems likely there is not an immaterial mind that persists throughout this cycle. The problem here is that if we are not conscious of our lack of persistent consciousness then the self simply disappears.[25] However, the self seems to reappear after this brief sleep cycle. Because of this, the self (and consciousness) seems to be an emergent physical property due to the lack of experiential knowledge during sleep cycles. One potential solution is understanding the criteria of memory. Simply stated, if the you that wakes up in the morning remembers the you prior to entering dreamless sleep, then it can be reasonably be assumed that the same person has awoken and continues to persist.[26] This does seem to be a problem for the immaterialist. I do not suppose that the problem of the persistence of the self will be solved here but we can discuss some potential solutions.

The problem of sleep is one that does seem like an actual problem because there is some sort of non-continuity between times of wakefulness and times of sleep. However, I do not believe that this lack of state consciousness presents such a problem where we must discard the immaterialist position for a physical one. Though there is a general loss of a conscious self (recall this problem is specifically geared towards a non-dreaming sleep cycle) during a typical period of sleep, how are we to explain that it seems like it is the same self that wakes up in the morning? It would be difficult to argue that the person who wakes up in the morning is in fact different than the one who went to sleep; this is primarily due to the experiential element because the one who wakes “feels” as though they are the same consciousness-possessing self that went to sleep. This fact that we experience ourselves, as ourselves upon waking, provides a solid counter-argument. To argue against this view would be to give a far more complex answer and this seems to be multiplying explanations not out of need but in an ad hoc manner. In this case, Ockham’s razor would be applicable. What is more, to say that the general loss of consciousness points to a physically emergent self does not seem to follow. Our physical bodies shed cells and replace them with new ones and over time the cells that once existed no longer exist, are we to say that the same consciousness that was once present has now transmuted into a new and separate consciousness? That seems wrong-headed. There is an underlying assumption that is taken for granted and it is that consciousness and the self cannot be immaterial, otherwise I see no reason to think that the problem of sleep simply points to a mental property as emerging from physical matter. That said, it appears that the way around the loss of state consciousness during periods of sleep is to point too an immaterial self that persists outside of physical matter and that is the reason we experience ourselves as ourselves upon waking.

Conclusion

            It has been argued throughout this paper that consciousness is best explained by an immaterial mental self that exists apart from physical matter. Other theories have been examined and, I think, shown to be lacking in explanatory power and scope. Nothing herein has been exhaustive nor provides a knockdown argument against a strictly materialist view of consciousness and the self. However, the goal was not to provide once-and-for-all proof but rather to provide an alternative explanation that would give the reader pause. It should have been noticed that a physicalist view of mental properties tends to have a hidden assumption and that is “there is no immaterial reality so we must find a physical explanation.” Taking this type of approach to answering difficult questions seems daft because it blocks off a great deal of potential answers. Not only does it limit the scope of possible answers, but it also hinders the ability to objectively come to certain conclusions if the evidence does in fact point in a disliked direction. If we are to reach the best possible answers, I think that it requires not limiting our solution to one area but being open to the possibility of answers coming from wherever they may, so long as they adhere to what we see in reality and experience in our own mental lives.

Bibliography

Beach, Bradley Gordon. “Intention, Teleology, and God.” PhD diss., Syracuse University, Syracuse, 1998. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

 

Coleman, Sam. “Personhood, Consciousness, and God: How to be a Proper Pantheist.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (2019): 77-98.

 

Hasker, William. The Emergent Self. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.

 

Husserl, Edmond. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. New York: Routledge, 2002.

 

Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.

 

Livingston, Paul M. “Presentation and the Ontology of Consciousness.” Grazer Philosophische Studien 94 (2017): 301-331.

 

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed P. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.

 

Marple, Kenneth. “Determining Personhood: A Response to the New Abortion Laws.” Accessed March 19, 2024. https://conversationsconcerningus.blogspot.com/2019/02/determining-personhood-response-to-new_1.html.

 

Merriam Webster. “Consciousness.” Accessed March 19, 2024. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consciousness.

 

Moreland, J.P. “The Argument from Consciousness.” In The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, 282-343. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012.

 

Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

 

Page, Ben. “Arguing to Theism from Consciousness.” Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers 37 no. 3 (July 2020): 336-362.

 

Reppert, Victor. “The Argument from Reason.” In The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012.

 

Schneider, Susan. Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2016.

 

Tolman, Edward Chace. “A Behaviorist’s Definition of Consciousness.” Psychological Review 34, no. 6 (Nov. 1927): 435-439.

 

University of Missouri. “Concept of Personhood.” Health Ethics. Accessed March 11, 2024. https://medicine.missouri.edu/centers-institutes-labs/health-ethics/faq/personhood.

 

Wagner-Altendorf, Tobias A. “Philosophy and Neuroscience on Consciousness—Response to Felipe Leon and Dan Zahavi.” Acta Neurochirurgica (2023): 1-2.

 

 

 

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[1] “Concept of Personhood,” Health Ethics, University of Missouri, accessed March 11, 2024, https://medicine.missouri.edu/centers-institutes-labs/health-ethics/faq/personhood.

[2], John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed P. Nidditch, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). Source accessed via online, no listed pagination.

[3] Kenneth Marple, “Determining Personhood: A Response to the New Abortion Laws,” accessed March 19, 2024, https://conversationsconcerningus.blogspot.com/2019/02/determining-personhood-response-to-new_1.html. I am including this in the footnotes because this is my thinking on the topic. It fits with a fair portion of personhood within the literature but this gives grounding and a more in-depth look at what I cannot expound herein.

[4] Edmond Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (New York: Routledge, 2002), 3. NOTE: originally published in 1931.

[5] NOTE: When discussing consciousness throughout this paper, AI (artificial intelligence) is not in view. Even though this discussion can and does have implications for reviewing and understanding AI that is not the concern herein. The focus of the research within this paper is limited to the understanding of human persons and not whether AI can qualify as persons or can/ may possess consciousness.

[6] “Consciousness,” Definition, Merriam Webster, accessed March 19, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consciousness.

[7] Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 35.

[8] J.P. Moreland, “The Argument from Consciousness,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology eds. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 285.

[9] Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 38-39.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980).

[12] Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, 40.

[13] Ibid, 41.

[14] Edward Chace Tolman, “A Behaviorist’s Definition of Consciousness,” Psychological Review 34, no. 6 (Nov. 1927): 435. It should also be noted that Tolman is not clear on what makes something “less” differentiated or “more” differentiated. There are no criteria that are set to where one can easily determine what the less-than and more-than threshold is.

[15] The word “you” here is to designate the possession of personhood/ consciousness not just that there exists a material type being. That is part of the equation. But it is important to understand that “you” here means a thinking and self-aware thing.

[16] Ben Page, “Arguing to Theism from Consciousness,” Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers 37 no. 3 (July 2020): 349.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Victor Reppert, “The Argument from Reason,” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology eds. William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 348. What is being referenced here is what a materialist view must hold too. The author is stating that there appears to be these things like purpose, consciousness, etc but under materialism everything must reduce to a function.

[19] Paul M. Livingston, “Presentation and the Ontology of Consciousness,” Grazer Philosophische Studien 94 (2017): 320.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 195.

[23] Bradley Gordon Beach, “Intention, Teleology, and God,” (PhD diss., Syracuse University, Syracuse, 1998), 84-85, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

[24] Tobias A. Wagner-Altendorf, “Philosophy and Neuroscience on Consciousness—Response to Felipe Leon and Dan Zahavi,” Acta Neurochirurgica (2023): 1. The author is arguing that the empirical sciences are inadequate, alone, to solve the problem of the mind and consciousness. Ultimately, they are presenting a case for the importance of philosophy in these discussions and no position can be credited or discredited via empirical investigation.

[25] Sam Coleman, “Personhood, Consciousness, and God: How to be a Proper Pantheist,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (2019): 81. The author points out that most people would admit that there is a loss of consciousness (or state consciousness) during periods of sleep.

[26] Susan Schneider, Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2016), pagination is not clearly delineated in the text. There are no listed page numbers directly on the pages. This reference comes from Part II, section 7.