Well, this is may be a bit long for some, but I think it may be worthwhile to consider if you think physical explanations can account for everything. If you do read it, pay particularly close attention to C7.
I’m saying that brain states (namely a collection of synapsis) may be the last thing that happens in the physical-non-physical-process of the properties of imagination. Take, for instance, the thought of imagining a row of houses, the architecture of which are all vastly different. Now, the first house is thirteenth century Gothic architecture. The second house is seventeenth century colonial architecture, and the third house is post-modern architecture. Further, the fourth house is a collection of all three of these houses.
Let's say that architecture is like music frozen in time (Goethe). In this case, the physical stuff is interacting with the mental processes of the architect (e.g. imagination / logical faculties etc.), or musician. These physical things, like "brain states", or complex organic matter(s) (considering time), and the architecture, are a result of a colonial architects' interpretation of the whole history of architecure from sketches in a book of Roman collumns, the Gothic arch etc. and symbols (language) re-sembling concepts "in" the mind, The Colonial house he designed was not an entirely physical process. Here's why:
1. There is the physical world.
3. There is the brain.
4. The colonial house was merely an evolutionary result of the interaction of the brain and its world.
Physically, I have no problem here. But it seems to settle pretty much any argument fairly easily, without any critical analysis that would lead to a more thorough understanding of language, and human relations. Here's the way I look at the process:
A. There is the physical world.
B. There is the brain.
C. The colonial house was merely an evolutionary result of the interaction of the brain and its world.
C1, The evolution of the brain and its world is a cuturally and historically contingent process of rule-bound revision.
C2. The rules of architecture are "built" through historically and culturally contingent descriptions of physics, through epistemic limits and properties.
C3. From one architectural movement to another (Gothic to Colonial), both physical descriptions, and the interpretation (for architectural purposes) are revised.
How is architectural revision possible? the physicalist might say something like:
1A. The architecture from a colonial book on the history of architecture is just some light.
2B. The light enters the eye and is recieved thereafter by the brain.
3C. The light is transformed into synapses in the brain.
4D. These synapses work with other properties of the brain (chemicals neurotransmitters etc) that make new synapses.
5E. These new synapses create new neural networks that tranform the history of architecture into a new Colonial Architecture.
The problem with this is: how are new nueral networks formed without accounting for a non-brain state imagination? This is the way I see it:
C4. Non-physical "stuff", like rules (e.g. epistemic limits, Physical limits (objects can't float), are accounted for by the mind (the elsewhere). There are no rules in the brain. They are outside the brain.
C5. Rules are a historically and culturally contingent process that continually revises the rules.
C6. The rules themselves are a product of communal, triangulated language justification. Without non-physical explanations, the work of Davidson, and its pervasive power to explain phenomena within human communities of language, history, and affectionate triangulation wouldn't have come to fruition.
[b]C7.[/b] Triangulated language justification is what holds communities together through an intersubjectively shared world. This world - the world that is shared within communities and micro-communities - is not physical. If it were, there would be no such thing as cultural (communal) evolution, because there would be no need to communicate. The objective world would be in our brain. In the case of the intersubjectively shared world, it allows for revisions of non-physical rules that make the human wheel of communal evolution turn. Physicalism alone, cannot offer the explanation of communal evolution.
C5. Only with this non-physical stuff, like rules, revisions of non-physical and physical stuff are possible. Only with non-physical stuff is the transformative power of human civilization explained.
The problem I see with physicalism, is that it's descriptions are limited, so much so, that it cannot account for why communities change. It cannot account for the why's of history. In order to account for the Why's of communal change, we must take into account the non-physical, intersubjectively justified rules of a community. Rules are not a synapse, a chemical emmision or any combiation under the umbrella of neurology, or brain stuff. They are "in" the non-physical in-bewtweens of communities. This approach has much more explanatory power, and is more valid considering that rules are not in the brain - They're elsewhere.
Apologies for the poor grammar and spelling,
- CM