Philosophy Lounge

February 28, 2013

Opposing views on issues of knowledge, truth, and reality

Filed under: metaphysics,the mind-body problem,theory of knowledge — Tags: , — jbernal @ 12:17 pm

Juan Bernal

Recently an email correspondence  stimulated interest in an old epistemological-metaphysical  issues.

This fellow traveler (in philosophy) wrote:

“Given that mind-body dualism was given such bad reviews in the 20th century, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine that the distinction between the subjective and the objective has no metaphysical significance. Instead, it is an artifice and a convention. It is useful within limits, but not useful for metaphysical purposes. What we have instead is “pure experience” as in the philosophies of the pragmatists (i.e. James and Dewey). All the elements of pure experience are potentially useful in framing a metaphysical philosophy. Thus those elements that are rejected from the point of view of objective thought can be considered important from the point of view of an up-to-date monism like that of James (see his 1904 essay, “Does Consciousness Exist?”).  Feelings may be considered to be as much an indication of what is real as perceptions.”

My reply:

In the modern age it may not be “hard to imagine” that the subjective/objective distinction has no “metaphysical significance,” but it surely does not follow from a philosophical rejection of the mind-body dualism.   Rejecting mind-body dualism, with its implication of mind as entity apart from body, does have metaphysical implications; but this is distinct from questions regarding the significance of the distinction between subjective experience and objective reality.  I don’t see any reason for dropping that distinction as important and significant, especially with regard to epistemological issues.  It is as simple as saying that what you feel about something (an event, a person) must be kept distinct from an honest, scientific-like assessment of that event or person.  For example, I feel very strongly that OJ Simpson killed his wife; but I realize that I cannot prove it (in a legal sense).  My strong feelings (even passion) about the event does not establish the nature of the event.  If you drop such a distinction as significant, then you open the gates to chaos based on subjective feelings and opinions.

I also question your comments about “pure experience” in the philosophy of a pragmatist like John Dewey.  Did Dewey propose that “elements of pure experience are potentially useful in framing a metaphysical philosophy”?  Your remarks suggest this. However, as far as I recall, Dewey (like Darwin, Reid, L. Wittgenstein, G. Ryle, and DW Hamlyn) reject the Cartesian notion (do we throw Husserl in here too?) that we start with purely subjective experience and frame a metaphysical knowledge of the world.   Let me add that recently I have expressed great skepticism of this notion of pure experience, questioning just what exactly the purity of experience is supposed to be.  My view is that it is another notion that some people throw around without ever having examined what exactly they’re saying.

You state that part of the issue is whether or not feelings are real.  Of course people have feelings or feel strongly about things.  But this surely does not imply what you seem to think is implied when you state:  “Feelings may be considered to be as much an indication of what is real as perceptions.”  You state that “feelings are an indication of what is real.”  Surely you’re just playing with words here.  An indication of what is real is a public matter (like a knowledge claim) in the sense that if you claim that S indicates the reality of R, you’re obligated to show others that this is so.  You cannot simply say “I feel that it is so.”  Our (another friend in the discussion) was surely right to point out that your feeling that X is R merely indicates something about you, and most likely nothing about  X.

———————–

To which the fellow traveler replied:  

You wanted to make the point that the distinction remains useful even for people who reject mind-body dualism. I agree. However, when we use those terms it’s hard to avoid dualistic connotations. It’s hard to avoid thinking in terms of “what goes on in my mind” and what goes on in a “world out there.” Once we drop dualism, we have some options. We can become radical empiricists, believing that the distinction between subject and object arises within experience. Or we can drop one of the two categories, becoming either pure subjectivists or pure objectivists depending on which one we drop.

I intended my denial that the subjective/objective distinction has metaphysical significance to entail a claim that neither the combination of them nor either of them taken separately names an independent reality. If they exist at all, they exist only as properties of an underlying reality.

 In support of the view that the subjective/objective distinction is still useful for non-dualists, you wrote, “One’s strong feeling that something is true does not make it true.”

 But now the non-dualist faces the problem of determining what makes something true. For dualists truth is a matter of correspondence between what’s in one’s mind and what’s out there in objective reality. If the non-dualist wants to retain a correspondence theory of truth, how does he adapt it to a non-dualist theory?

 If you can figure out how to do it, let us know. If you can’t, then what do you mean when you say, “One’s strong feeling that something is true does not make it true.” How do you know what makes a statement true?

You asked whether Dewey proposed that elements of pure experience are potentially useful in framing a metaphysical philosophy. In the preface to “Experience and Nature” he says his aim throughout the book is to replace “the traditional separation of nature and experience” with the idea of continuity. If nature and experience are separated, they are two different things/substances. If there is a continuity between them, they are both real, but they are not two different things/substances. They are distinguishable properties or aspects of one thing/substance. What is that one thing/substance?

On the issue of whether feelings can be as much an indication of what is real as perceptions, it all depends on how we look at it. If we bring one set of assumptions, we get one answer. If we bring another set of assumptions, we get another answer. For example, if we reason from the perspective of dualism, we can understand sensation as information from the external world, we can base perception on sensation, and we can explain feelings as purely internal responses that tell us nothing about what is “out there.” This line of thinking leads us to the conclusion that empirical science, based on information received through our senses about the external world, is our most reliable, indeed our only source of knowledge about the real (i.e. external) world. And that leads to the conclusion, as you put it, that “an indication of what is real is a public matter.” But, if we assume with Dewey that experience and nature are related to each other like right and left or up and down, then anything that belongs to that one reality of which experience and nature are aspects can tell us something about the fundamental nature of that reality. An indication of reality would not have to be a public matter.
——————-

In reply I stated the following:

Human beings (persons, which I assume we are) are biological beings capable of thought and feelings.

Sometimes when we think or feel that something is the case, our thought and/or feelings are reliable; other times they are not.  This is a simple fact, a truism about our ordinary experience. [It is hard to imagine anyone disputing this.]

Whether our thoughts are reliable or not can be determined by experience and inter-personal confirmation.  [E.G., I'm lost in the woods and come to a fork in the path, path A and path B.  I have reason for thinking that path A will lead me out of the woods.  I take path A and find that it does take me to safety.  My thought was reliable in that case; and its reliability was confirmed by experience.  There is absolutely no need to become puzzled by the notion of a correspondence between my thought and the objective fact!]

None of this requires that we implicitly assume any kind of dualism between mind and matter, or any philosopher’s dualism between experience and the object experienced.  Any talk of mind or thoughts or feelings can be restated as talk about the person (biological being with big brain and conditioned by culture) thinking or feeling in a particular way.  There is no need to become mystified by the notion of mind existing as an entity in its own right or even as a mysterious attachment to the biological organism (which is all we are).

None of this requires that we assume (or explain) any correspondence ( lack of it) between our thoughts and material reality, or between experience and the world.

When I say (or think) that X is A, my statement that “X is A” is true if and only if X in fact is A.   There is no mention of correspondence here.
That X is A in fact can be confirmed by scientific means or by ordinary empirical investigation (I confirm that X is A by checking and double-checking; and by having others confirm that X is A.)

When Dewey proposes that we replace “the traditional separation of nature and experience” with the idea of continuity, his proposal goes along the lines outlined above.  He surely was not proposing a metaphysics in which nature and experience are “distinguishable properties or aspects of one thing/substance.”  He is merely pointing out that our experience is continuous with nature, both our nature and objective nature (i.e., the world, our environment). The question “What is that substance?” is  the wrong question.  Asking that question attempts to get us into a metaphysical mode which a good pragmatist like Dewey would surely (and appropriately) avoid.  Avoiding or ignoring any assumptions that gets us into that mode is likely a very good way to go in philosophy today.

 

May 10, 2011

Arguing what we don’t know and what we know about life after death?

Filed under: Logical fallacies,the mind-body problem — Tags: , — jbernal @ 1:17 pm

In a recent review of John Gray’s book, The Immortalization Commission (Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death), Clancy Martin (professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri, Kansas City) praises Gray for an interesting account of the weird and fascinating search for evidence of life after death. But Martin is bothered by what he claims is a basic fallacy in Gray’s dismissal of the likelihood of any positive results from the on-going search for life after death. Quoting Professor Martin:

… Gray’s account is undermined by the fact that he clings to an undefended premise, which he believes to be Darwin’s great idea: “Humans are animals, with no special destiny assuring them a future beyond their earthly home.” . . . . No reasonable person would disagree with the idea that human beings are animals. But very little follows from this fact, especially given that we know little or nothing about the subjective experience or capacities of any animals other than ourselves. Whether we are talking about morality or mortality, my observation that dogs are not so very unlike human beings does not allow me to conclude that human beings have no greater capacity for morality than dogs, [or] that we have “no special destiny” or “future beyond our earthly home.” Gray is committing the logical fallacy known as argument from ignorance: we can’t argue from what we don’t know to what we know.

The problem is that Professor Martin is wrong. This is not the fallacy of arguing from ignorance. The only basis for charging Gray with committing a fallacy is the mere possibility that “humans have a future beyond our earthly home,” as Martin expresses it. In other words, all that Clancy Martin can reasonably claim is that it is possible that some aspect of personality extends beyond the death of the body. But the mere possibility that something might be fact does not show that any conclusion to the contrary is based on ignorance. For example, it is possible that undetectable aliens from outer space control the thinking of the great evangelist, Billy Graham; but most rational, sane persons do not believe that, believing instead that Graham’s convictions result from his religious training and experiences. Our belief is not one based on ignorance, although we cannot prove that Graham’s thinking is not controlled by aliens. We have not committed the fallacy of argument from ignorance.

To make this clearer, let me delve a little more into this issue.

Do we commit the fallacy of arguing from ignorance every time we point to ignorance or a lack of evidence as basis for a conclusion? No, we do not. For example, we do not commit this fallacy when reject the conclusion that Muslims secretly plan to overthrow the U.S. government because there is no evidence given for such a conclusion. Given that no evidence is forthcoming and given that if such an event were likely there would be evidence for that event (or at least some indications of that event happening), then it is a valid to conclude that most probably the event is not a fact. Sometimes our best information on a specific claim is that there is no evidence to support the claim (or even to show the probability of the event at issue), and when we point this out we are not committing the fallacy of “argument from ignorance. The mere possibility that there could be a Muslim conspiracy does not allow us to conclude much of anything.

To get a better sense of the fallacy of argument from fallacy, let us consult the logic text (Irving M. Copi, Introduction To Logic, 6th edition). When we do we read the following:

Argument from ignorance: ..illustrated by the statement that there must be ghosts because no one has ever been able to prove that there aren’t any Generally, the fallacy occurs when it is argued that a proposition is true because nobody has ever proven it false; or when one argues that a proposition is false because nobody has ever proven it to be true. An example of the latter: It is false that there are ghosts because nobody has ever proven that there are ghosts.

The idea is that ghosts might exist although nobody has demonstrated that there are such entities. We could commit the fallacy of arguing from ignorance if we concluded that absolutely there are no ghosts because nobody has ever proven that ghosts are real. Our ignorance of any proof demonstrating the existence of ghosts is not proof that such things do not exist. However, Copi goes on to note that

….in some circumstances it can be correctly assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence. .. the proof here is not based on ignorance but on our knowledge that if the event had occurred it would be known.

This qualification means that when I argue that belief in an afterlife is not supported by any objective evidence and therefore likely false, I have not committed the fallacy of arguing from ignorance. The possibility of an afterlife is weakened by a complete lack of evidence to support that thesis. I do not argue that this lack of evidence proves the impossibility of an afterlife. I simply make the reasonable assumption that, if an afterlife was reality, there would be some neutral, objective evidence to indicate that reality. Given the lack of any such evidence, it is obviously a rational position to hold that most probably biological beings such as humans do not have an afterlife.

I submit that this is what Gray has done. His study of the efforts to demonstrate life after death indicates a complete lack of neutral, objective evidence for the belief in existence after death. He also knows that all the relevant sciences (e.g. biology, evolutionary biology) indicate that human beings are physical, biological beings whose existence is strictly a mortal, biological existence. The conclusion that there is no identity beyond death is not one based on ignorance. It is based on knowledge of evolved, biological life and knowledge of the rational, scientific inferences that intelligent beings are entitled to make.

January 29, 2011

Dialogue on the so-called “mind-body mystery”

Filed under: philosophy of mind,the mind-body problem — Tags: — jbernal @ 3:11 pm

“Missy” = the mysterium
“Mat” = the materialist

Missy: We have plenty of evidence that our brains are necessary for our minds, but we find the manner of the connection mysterious.
Mat: To make reference to “connections” here begs the question. It assumes that there are two real things that need to connect.

Missy: I don’t mean to suggest that we are unable to form hypotheses about the mind-body connection. We are able to form hypotheses, some of which I shall mention in the next paragraph. Each of these has had staunch supporters. But each group of supporters has been counterbalanced by a similarly adamant group of detractors. In short, none of the proposed understandings of the mind-body relationship has been able to achieve a consensus.
Mat: Again, the phrase “mind-body relationship” implies that there are two ‘things’ that relate to each other somehow. That there are two such realities has to shown to be the fact.

Missy: The most notable hypotheses (about the mind-body connection) have been mind-body dualism, materialism, and identity theory.
Mat: Isn’t it true that only the first, dualism, tries to explain the ‘connection’; the other two do not try to explain any ‘connection’ or ‘relationship’? However, you might be expressing the idea that the same thing relates to or connects with itself, in the case of materialism and the identity theory.

Missy: According to mind-body dualism, the mind is a non-material substance (e.g. an immortal soul) associated in some way with the material body. To make a crude analogy, the body is like an automobile and the mind is like the driver. A close scrutiny of this theory uncovers serious problems, but the theory is serviceable for the everyday use of everyday persons, because it does reflect the stark difference between the kind of language we use when we talk about our ideas, thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. and when we talk about physical objects in space and time. In the former kind of language we in effect acknowledge the existence of entities (e.g. ideas) that cannot be located anywhere in space.
Mat: Of course, many people use the language of ideas, thoughts, feelings, desires and such without implying any belief that such entities exist as entities in their own right; e.g., reference to my thoughts is really just reference to my act of thinking. The only existing entity is the person who thinks certain thoughts.

Missy: If we probe people’s brains we find neurological events that seem to correlate with these non-spatial entities, but we don’t find the ideas themselves. They seem to be entities of a radically different kind.
Mat: Of course, this is only one interpretation, a questionable one at that. Many of us deny this implication of the existence of “ideas themselves” or “entities of a radically different kind.”

Missy: Thus mind-body dualism has a strong foundation in actual experience, but it also has serious difficulties.
Mat: No! Dualism is not founded on actual experience; mind-body dualism only arises from an interpretation of actual experience, an interpretation of experience which posits the strange entities such as “ideas themselves.”

Missy: If we assume that the mind and the body are two radically different kinds of substance, we create a difficulty in explaining how they interact. For example, suppose decide to raise my arm. The deciding is a mental act.
Mat: Yes, that the mind and body are two radically different kinds of substance is surely an assumption, a questionable assumption. But is it a given that deciding to raise an arm is a mental act? Couldn’t we say that the act of deciding to do something is done by the brain; i.e., that it is a neurological process?

Missy: The raising of the arm is a physical act. How do mental acts make physical acts happen? Or, for that matter, how do physical events (like stubbing your toe) cause mental events (like pain) to happen?
Mat: It is not at all obvious that the sensation of pain is a “mental event” rather than a physiological process. Could pain occur without the neurological happenings in the brain?

Missy: From the point of view of modern science, there is no such interaction, because there are no such things as mental acts and mental events. Granted that we have an extensive language about various kinds of mental entities and mental acts, but this language is misleading. Primitive people invented all kinds of spiritual entities to explain things they experienced. But as it turned out, none of these spiritual entities actually exist. Verifiable physical explanations have, in a wide variety of cases, replaced spiritual or supernatural explanations. It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that the language of mental entities will sooner or later be replaced by a language that refers only to physical entities and physical processes.
Mat: I’m not sure who concludes that that an ideal, purely physical language will replace our ordinary way of talking about ideas, thoughts, pleasures, pains, and such. This surely is not what many scientists and non-dualistic philosophers conclude. Our language most probably will remain intuitive and will continue to refer to thoughts, ideas, love, pleasure and pain and not replace such terms with the equivalent scientific terms that refer strictly to neurological processes.

Missy: To be more specific, this language will eliminate mental talk in favor of talk about brain events and brain processes. Many people who put great stock in scientific explanations subscribe to this theory, which is called materialism.
Mat: Materialism is a theory about reality; but this view about how language will evolve is another thing altogether. Materialist thinkers like Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and Doug Hofstadter do not (to my knowledge) propose that some type of scientifically pure language which refers exclusively to brain events and brain processes will replace our intuitive language that refers to ‘mental things’ and ‘mental events.’

Missy: Critics of materialism say that in materialism the tail wags the dog. We must resist the temptation to construct a scientific explanation of experience, for experience is the foundation of science.
Mat: Here you offer another very questionable proposition: namely, that experience is the foundation of science. Why would anyone claim this? In fact, the opposite seems to be case: the hard sciences attempt to eliminate subjective experiences as the basis for scientific propositions. This is the key to that objectivity sought by the sciences. Experience, in the sense of empirical observation and empirical verification play important roles in the sciences; but this is very different from concluding that “experience is the foundation of science.”

Missy: The axioms of geometry are the foundation upon which theorems are built. One doesn’t try to explain the axioms in terms of the theorems. Similarly, one doesn’t try to explain experience in terms of scientific theories. Rather, one explains scientific theories in terms of the experiences that verify them.
Mat: Why can’t we try to explain experience in terms of scientific theories? Surely in some of the relevant sciences — psychology, anthropology, sociology, etc. – it seems that one explains some experiences in terms of scientific theories. It is hard to see how ‘experience’ — the experiences of an individual can explain or verify anything. Theories are explained and verified by experiments, arguments, and well-grounded propositions. Propositions and arguments are not “experiences,” although some empirical propositions may be based on experience.

Missy: Since these experiences are mental events, mental events are indispensable presuppositions of science.
Mat: Of course, this is way too fast. You make several big jumps in reasoning here. Experiences relevant to the sciences are those had by persons. Are they mental events? Only if we assume the dualist version of such things. But this is a most questionable version of such things. I’m not sure what is an indispensable presupposition of the sciences. Since science is a human enterprise, I suppose you could say that humans who have experiences and engage in inquiry are presuppositions of science. But this does not admit your claim that mental events are indispensable to science.

Missy: One might say that these mental events are really brain events, but one can’t change the facts by saying it.
Mat: Right, if you had demonstrated the fact of mental events, then merely appealing to ‘brain events’ would not change the facts. But you have not established any such facts.

Missy: If neither dualism nor materialism is satisfactory, we should perhaps consider the possibility that mind and body are one and the same thing. But how can that be? Well, the two sides of a coin are not two different things. They are different perspectives on one and the same coin. Similarly, it might be the case that mind and body are not two different things, but different perspectives on one and the same thing. This hypothesis is called “identity theory,” because it interprets mind and body not as different things, but as different aspects of one thing, the person.
Mat: Yes, this is correct as a start to characterizing the identity theory.

Missy: But our cognitive capacity is finite, because our experience is perspectival. We do not see things whole. We see them from one side or another. By combining different perspectives, we arrive at an interpretation of the whole. In some cases the whole in question is simple, like a coin, and the combination of perspectives is sufficient to give us an unambiguous idea of the whole. But in other cases, like a person, or like the universe, our perspectives fail to combine in this way. Like a blind man feeling the leg of an elephant, we lack the ability to take in all the information we need. Suppose that the blind man has felt both the leg and the ear of the elephant. He has two incommensurable sets of data, and the combination of them fails to yield a single, coherent picture of the whole. The identity theorist thinks the mind-body problem is like that. On the one hand we have the language of physical objects. On the other hand we have the language of thoughts, ideas, experiences. These two languages are incommensurable. They fail to combine into a single, coherent picture of the whole. Thus, from this point of view, we are a mystery to ourselves. We don’t know what kind of a thing we really are.
Mat: Again, all this follows only by way of a particular interpretation of the situation. A good part of science is showing the blind man that his various set of data fit together to form a coherent picture of the elephant. Many so-called identity theorists and materialists (for sure) do not accept this idea that the two languages (physical and mental) are incommensurable and cannot yield a coherent picture of the whole. They seem quite commensurable to me; we ordinary folk talk about ideas, thoughts and desires; the brain scientists talk about brain processes. There is no obvious contradiction between the two. That there is a contradiction and that a coherent picture of the whole is denied would have to be argued successfully. You have not done this.

Missy: Our ignorance (with respect to our physical and mental aspects) does not prevent us from speculating. The philosopher Colin McGinn offers an example of such a speculation. On the basis of scientific evidence, he says, we know that the mind is in some way dependent on the brain. This evidence consists, for example, in studies of the effects of brain damage on the mental abilities of patients, or correlations between particular kinds of experiences and particular patterns of brain activity. But since the brain is localized in space while the mind is not, the brain-mind connection is difficult, maybe impossible, to understand.
Mat: Yes, this is speculation which assumes the dualistic picture. Given that assumption and all this talk about the mind existing but not in space as we understand “space,” of course we would then have a mystery as to where that “connection” is found and maybe “where” the mind is located.

Missy: There must be a connection, but that connection cannot be found in space as we know it, nor can it be found in the mind as we know it. The connection, therefore, must occur in a part of the “elephant” about which we have no information. McGinn speculates on just what part of the elephant that might be. He thinks it might be space. He thinks that our perspective on space might be severely limited, like the blind man’s perspective on the elephant when he feels only a leg. If space is something more than what we perceive it to be, then what we think of as the spatiality of the brain might be something more than we think it is. Indeed, the brain itself might be something different from what we perceive it to be. And the explanation of the relationship between the mind and the brain might lie in the aspect of space that is beyond the horizons of our knowledge.
Mat: (Somewhat tongue-in-cheek) String theory proposes eleven or more spatial dimensions. Who knows? The mind may be lurking there somewhere.

Missy: From the point of view of modern cosmology, space as we know it did not always exist. It originated in the Big Bang and has been expanding ever since. McGinn thinks it reasonable to suppose that the Big Bang had a cause, and that the universe must have existed in some quite different state prior to the Big Bang.
Space as we know it, then, could be simply our perspective on this larger and more ultimate reality. The larger reality is space, but it is more than space as we know it. It is space as it would be known to a mind less limited than our own. From this less limited perspective, there would be no mystery about how the language of the mental smoothly meshes with the language of the physical.
Mat: Yes, I suppose a speculative scenario could solve just about anything!

Missy: Of course, this is sheer speculation. We have no way to either verify or falsify such an idea. But we may find some consolation in at least being able to imagine an explanation of the mystery of the mind-body relationship. Indeed, it’s hard to simply suspend judgment on such theories. Once we hear them, we tend either to see them as plausible or implausible. Depending on which way we see them, we tend either to believe them or disbelieve them.
Mat: The mystery and pro-offered ‘explanations’ of the “mystery of the mind-body connection” are relevant only when certain questionable assumptions and inferences are made. When I point out that the ‘theories’ designed to deal with this mystery may be superfluous I am not “simply suspending judgment on such theories.” Someone who has not fallen into the conceptual traps set by dualists and mysterians does not need any “consolation of being able to imagine an explanation” of the concocted mystery.

September 16, 2010

Chopra’s Deep Confusion: The Brain & Doubts about the External World

Filed under: All,philosophy and psychology,philosophy of mind,the mind-body problem — Tags: , — jbernal @ 2:35 pm

In an article titled “A conversation: consciousness and the connection to the universe” Deepak Chopra recounts an interview (March 27, 2010)** that he held with Dr. Stuart Hameroff of the Center for Consciousness Studies of the University of Arizona.

The interview is interesting on a number of points, e.g., Hameroff’s attempt to explain perceptual consciousness in terms of quantum physics. This is an ambitious project that cries for scrutiny and critique. But presently I shall focus on another aspect of the interview. The interviews discloses some fundamental misconceptions and fallacies committed by both men. Let us look briefly at a few excerpts from that interview and see where they fell into old traps and confusion.

The interview starts with some statements and a question directed to Hameroff by Chopra:

“You’re an anesthesiologist as well as an expert in consciousness. Here’s my question: Our brain inside our skull has no experience of the external world. The brain only responds to internal states like, pH, electrolytes, hormones, ionic exchanges across cell membranes and electrical impulses. So, how does the brain see an external world?”

Right from the start, the good doctors Chopra and Hameroff fall into some basic misconceptions. To recap the main points:
First, they note (Chopra states and Hameroff agrees) that the brain resides inside the skull (obviously!).
Then we have the inference that the brain has no direct experience of the external world: “The brain only responds to internal states.”
From this Chopra raises the profound question: “[H]ow does the brain see an external world?”

The very notion that the “brain sees anything” is suspect. (More on this later.) But for now let’s look at what Hameroff replies to Chopra’s heartfelt question as to the mystery of how the “brain sees the external world.”

“Well that question goes back at least thousands of years, and the Greeks said that the world outside is nothing but a representation in our head. Then of course Descartes recognized the same thing. That the only thing of which he could be sure was that he is, that he is conscious. I think therefore I am. So, we’re not really sure the outside world is as we perceive it. Some people would say it’s a construction, an illusion, some people would say it’s an accurate representation. It’s kind of a mix of views. And then when you add quantum properties to it, it’s really uncertain if the world we perceive is the actual world out there.”

Chopra then brings up the example of seeing a rose:

“So, Dr. Hameroff lets just take an example. I’m looking at a rose, my retinal cells are not actually looking at the rose they’re responding to photons aren’t they?”

This gives the good Dr. Hameroff the opportunity to expound on the processes that go into our “looking at a rose”:

“Yes. It’s also possible that quantum information is transduced in the retina in the cilia between the inner and outer segments before the photon even gets to the rhodopsin in the very back of the eye. So it’s possible that there’s additional quantum information being extracted from photons as they enter your eye through the retina. They might somehow more directly convey the actual essential quality or properties of the rose and the redness of the rose. . . .”

I don’t know about all this extracting of quantum information, but I doubt that there’s anything approaching consensus among physicists and neurologists on these speculations. However, the points I wish to focus on are conceptual points: the identification of the subject who ‘sees’ or doesn’t ‘see’ the external world with the brain; and the inference that all this leads to the ages old skeptical problems about our knowledge of the external world.

Hameroff seems to think that the Greeks (which ones?) held that the “world outside is nothing but a representation in our head” and that Descartes recognized the same thing. In short, we cannot know for certain that the world is anything like what we perceive.

Of course, none of this follows from the initial premise that the brain is located inside the skull and the brain processes our perceiving of the features in the world external to the brain.

The first gross confusion is to hold that the brain is the subject which sees anything. Let us grant that the appropriate sciences can describe and analyze the processes by which the nervous system (sense faculties, brain) enable the animal to perceive and negotiate its environment. But this is an analysis of how the animal (e.g. human, apes, monkeys, dogs, etc.) perceives the world; the brain is a vital element of this process, as are the sense faculties; but the brain is not the subject who sees X (the object of perception) and then faces the problem of connecting ‘X’ to the external world. Furthermore, the skeptical issue (that we face the problem of connecting ‘X’ to the external world) does not follow.

Furthermore, we are not rationally compelled to affirm that “the world .. is just a representation in the head”. Which the of the ancient Greeks held this view? Likewise, there isn’t any cogent argument for inferring the dualistic Cartesian picture (that the mental subject is distinct and apart from the material world). Furthermore, for Descartes the brain, being a physical organ, is found in the ‘external,’ material world. The isolated brain – encased in the skull and separated from the object perceived – which worried Chopra, has nothing to do with Cartesian skepticism about the external world.

At any rate, the skeptical problems outlined by Hameroff have at best a loose connection with Chopra’s initiating question: How does the brain see the external world? Furthermore, any putative skepticism about the external world is in order only if we fall into the initial trap of taking some entity inside the head (the brain?) as the subject who perceives the world. But of course, the animal acting and reacting in its natural, social environment (e.g., the small ape on the tree) is the subject who perceives features of that environment. Hameroff has simply fallen into some basic misconceptions here, misconceptions set up by an even more confused Chopra.

The words used in the title that Chopra gives this dialogue with Hameroff “….consciousness and the connection to the Universe” suggests another fundamental confusion at work here: this is the confused idea that ‘consciousness’ is a mysterious ‘thing’ of sorts, which may or may not be “connected with the universe.” Chopra’s assumption, like many who talk this way, is that consciousness involves more than a commitment to the facts that certain animals (including human in a social setting or small apes sitting on a tree branch) are capable of taking in or being aware of features in their environment. But there aren’t any good reasons for asserting that we’re committed to something called “consciousness.” (Imagine someone proclaiming that in addition to the small ape on the tree, the ape’s consciousness sits there as well.) As some philosophers (e.g.,Gilbert Ryle, Richard Rorty, D.W. Hamlyn) have argued, one can dispense altogether with the idea of consciousness as an entity (?) or as a mental state and still give adequate accounts of all the mental, perceptual capabilities of complex, evolved animals as humans. Science can account for my seeing the rose or being aware of the cool temperature in my environment without anyone having to posit my state of consciousness or an actor called “consciousness.” That I see things and am aware of things is beyond dispute. But this does not commit us to the reality of some mysterious state or entity called “consciousness.”

When we speak of a person being in a state of consciousness, or perception, or awareness – we simply resort to a way of talking. We don’t make an ontological commitment. The same may be said for a statement like: “There was an awareness that we were in trouble.” None of these require that we posit a mysterious state or entity called “consciousness” or another called “awareness,” which may or may not be connected to the external world. Chopra is just falling victim to an age-old confusion here.

All the ensuing talk by Hameroff concerning the “fine structure of the universe,” and “quantum information extracted from photons” is at best questionable speculation, at worst, a bit of New-Age, post-modernistic “mumbo-jumbo.”
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** The full interview can be found at

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-04-07/news/20840306_1_quantum-information-interview-brain

July 24, 2010

Mad Men Series #5: Martin Gardner on mathematics as reality and the mystery of free will

Filed under: freedom of will,metaphysics,the mind-body problem — Tags: , — jbernal @ 11:43 am

A few days after the death of Martin Gardner this past May 22, 2010, a friend handed me the text of a very interesting interview that he did with “Skeptic” magazine. Most likely Michael Shermer, the editor, was the interviewer. In this interview Gardner discussed of number of fascinating issues and questions in science, philosophy, and religion. The interview gives us a picture of a lively, probing intellect, which Gardner unquestionably was. Although I often disagreed with some of his views, I always felt that reading and listening to what Gardner had to say taught me a lot. So my criticism of a couple of ideas brought out by this interview should not be read as implying that I did not respect and admire Gardner’s work.

What Mr. Gardner says concerning the possibility of an afterlife and the “mystery” of free will reminds me that even very intelligent persons can go off on the wrong track. Even a genius can sometimes affirm ideas, which in other contexts we might associate with the assertions of mad men. This overstates the issue, of course, but I’m impressed by the ease with which critics admit crazy ideas as respectable just because respected scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers affirm them. In this context, I propose inclusion of the following two sets of ideas in my mad man series.

Mathematics, Reality, and Possible After-Life

First, Gardner on the possibility of an afterlife based on the possibilities suggested by string theory in physics:

“ ..you can defend immortality on the grounds that everything that constitutes our selves or our identity is a mathematical pattern. If superstring theory turns out to be true, they you can ask what are superstrings made up of, and they aren’t made of anything! If all matter is pure mathematics, then you can imagine that an all powerful deity who knew the pattern could reconstruct you. .”

The proposition that “everything that constitutes our selves or our identity is a mathematical pattern” is simply fantastic. Doesn’t it simply ignore biological reality, that is, the fact that first and foremost, human beings are biological beings? Regardless of where the highly theoretical work of string theorists seems to point, the facts are that physical, chemical, and biological reality is not just a mathematical pattern. To say that much of physical reality can be analyzed in terms of mathematical patterns is not to demonstrate that physical reality reduces to a mathematical pattern. This is simply a leap in reasoning, a fallacy, that too many mathematical physicists (e.g. string theorists) and metaphysically inclined mathematicians make. Gardner should have been more cautious in his philosophical inference.

The other part of Gardner’s statement, that one can ask “what superstrings are made up of” and answers that, since they’re not made of anything, “all matter is pure mathematics,” is simply some very hasty generalizations that don’t stand up to scrutiny. First, with regard to a highly mathematized physical theory like string theory, our intuitive concepts and ordinary language probably are not applicable. It is far from clear what is meant by asking what “superstrings are made of” or to see the equation of a constitutive ‘nothing’ with pure mathematics. These are simply metaphysical inferences that would need a lot of clarification before we could draw such inferences as Gardner is inclined to make: His conclusion that “matter is pure mathematics,” strikes me as just a piece of confused mystical metaphysics. Again it is surprising that Gardner would make such a careless move.

Surely such hasty and careless inferences regarding mathematics and physics cannot offer any support for the idea that a person, once having physically expired, can somehow be reconstituted. There is no support here for the idea of an afterlife.

Mystery of Free Will

Now let me turn to the other set of ideas, those concerning free will, that Mr. Gardner discussed in the interview:

M.G. “…there is the problem of human free will that makes prediction extremely difficult. On this question of free will, as a member of a group called the mysterians, I believe that we have no idea whether free will exists or how it works. .. “

Skeptic: You don’t believe free will is at the quantum level like some physicists do?

M.G. “ It doesn’t help if it is at the quantum level. That just makes it a random event, as if there is some kind of a roulette wheel in the brain. That doesn’t give you a choice. There are certain things I regards as ultimate mysteries. Free will is one of those. . . . Free will is bound up in the mysteries of time about which we can never understand, at least at this stage of our evolutionary history. . . ….. Mysterians believe that at this point in our evolutionary history there are mysteries that cannot be resolved, like free will. Noam Chomsky, for example, is a mysterian. He is on record saying that we don’t have the mental capacity to understand the nature of free will. . .”

Gardner claims that free will is a profound mystery beyond our power to resolve at this stage of our evolutionary history. This raises a number of issues which would take up more time and space than I have in this brief article. But I shall bring up a few outstanding problems and what I see as fallacies in this line of reasoning. It is commendable that Mr. Gardner gives short shrift to the idea that quantum physics somehow enables us to have free will. As Daniel Dennett has ably stated, this is wrong turn based on a misconception of what the free will problem amounts to; and would only show that some action is random. This does not show that humans are capable of what is normally understood by “free will.”

But Gardner’s statement that “we have no idea whether free will exists or how it works” assumes that free will is a mysterious entity which functions (works) in some way. This is surely a very questionable, likely confused, assumption. At the very least, this assumption needs to be examined and evaluated, not simply accepted as clear and unquestioned. It is the basis for much of the mystery of free will which Gardner then mentions as beyond our capacity to understand; hence, the embrace of the view of persons who call themselves “Mysterians.” (Daniel Dennett, in one of his books dealing the with free will issue, refers to the ‘mysterians.’ But I thought he was just applying a derogatory term to some of his opponents, like John Searle. Now I see that there is a group who go under that label.)

Admittedly, there are some puzzles and questions as to how our ability to make choices and engage in actions of our choosing (act ‘freely’ in this sense) is consistent with causal, scientific explanations (physics, biology, physiology, genetics, evolutionary psychology) of our conduct. But these puzzles do not demonstrate that we are incapable of free action or what traditionally has been called “free will.”
As Dennett has argued well, in this books Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves, nothing brought out by any of the relevant sciences show that what we ordinarily call free choice or free action are paradoxes or impossible in the context of scientific explanation.

The mystery that impresses Gardner only arises because people assume that free will is a faculty or power that operates outside the scope of the physical-biological functions that comprise the physical human person. It is much like the mystery that arises when one assumes that the soul and the mind are entities which are not accounted for by the natural sciences as they apply to human beings. Yes, if we assume the presence of such entities as the soul and the mind, which are not part of the human brain, nervous system, sense faculties, and such — then you have a great mystery. The same is true regarding the very questionable assumption that free will is an entity operating independently of a person’s physical nature. But there is no reason whatsoever to make that assumption. A number of clear-headed philosophers, like Daniel Dennett, have shown that our capacity for free action — what is ordinarily called “free will’ – is compatible with all that the sciences have to say regarding human behavior. The so-called, mysterians, despite counting among themselves brilliant people like Gardner and Noam Chomsky, have simply followed a very confused path on this question.

There are many mysteries, some even profound mysteries, which science has not yet solved and which we might not be capable of resolving at this stage of our evolutionary history. But the puzzle of free will is not one of them.

May 20, 2010

Wittgenstein Contra a Presupposition of Dualism

Filed under: linguistic philosophy,the mind-body problem — Tags: , , — jbernal @ 5:54 pm

“Talk about behavior and talk about mental states are just two different ways of talking, each of which has practical application in appropriate circumstance; but they should not be interpreted as indicative of a dualistic view of personality.”

Paraphrasing an obscure Wittgensteinian scholar.

Most people who think about the question regarding human personality tend to adopt a dualistic view of humans in which the physical-corporeal aspect is distinct from the mental aspect. This seems to be the intuitive view about our existence in the world; after all, what we think, feel, imagine, dream and so on is surely a different process from our overt behavior, whether that behavior is physical behavior (action, movement) or linguistic behavior (our talking, writing, singing, etc.). Who would deny that I often do not express my thoughts or feelings? Who would deny that often what I do or say does not express what I think or feel? Nobody, it seems, from which many people draw the conclusion that dualism is correct: humans have both a physical and a mental aspect; and these are separate realities. The evidence can seem overwhelming.

But some philosophers have argued that the case for dualism is far from conclusive. There are a variety of ways of countering dualism. Some counter-arguments seek direct refutation of the dualist thesis; but some are modest attempts to raise doubts about some aspect of dualism. Before looking at one such modest questioning of dualism by Ludwig Wittgenstein, let us review some reasons for thinking that dualism is the true view of human personality.

We often find ourselves in situations in which we doubt that a person’s overt behavior accurately indicates what they’re really thinking. For example, we’re wise to be skeptical about the statements of an automobile salesman trying to sell us a new car or a politician trying to sell us on his candidacy. Are they being honest? Do their words really represent their thinking? What motives are they keeping hidden from us? Another example we can cite is the world of stage or film acting; surely we know that a good actor on the stage can make us believe that he really experiences specific feelings and emotions: an actress despairing over the loss of child is not really a woman in despair over the loss of a child. She is an actress skilled at simulating that situation for the audience. An actor who acts as somebody who believes his life is in danger is not really a person whose life is in danger. He is someone skilled at making the audience accept that situation as happening in the play. The point is that nobody denies that there are many situations in which we distinguish sharply between a person’s overt behavior and the person’s actual thoughts, feelings, motives; and these are situations in which we would deny that the observed behavior indicates the thoughts, feelings, or motives that are behind the overt behavior.

These kinds of situations can be presented as evidence for the dualist philosophy, which distinguishes between overt behavior and the mental life. According to the dualist, these two ‘realms’ might correspond in some way, but are separate realms of reality. Furthermore, except for a subject’s own report about his mental state, any knowledge we might acquire about another person’s mental state comes indirectly, by way of inference. We observe the overt behavior and infer the internal mental state; e.g., your telling me that you’re hungry allows me to infer that you really feel hunger pangs, although you could be fooling me.

On the other side we find the materialists and behaviorists who are skeptical about a philosophy which attributes dual reality to human personality. There are a variety of reasons for such skepticism, the chief among them being that the relevant sciences can account for human experience without positing a separate mental realm. The skeptics urge that we take a closer look at the doctrine that humans are have dual character, physical and mental. Furthermore, they question, if not reject, the idea that a subject’s overt behavior is an indication of the internal, mental reality; for example, they deny that ordinarily we infer that a person experiences pain from his behavior indicative of someone feeling pain. According to the philosophical ‘behaviorist’ perspective, in ordinary circumstances, a person exhibiting pain behavior is a person in pain.

In twentieth century philosophy two names which we can cite as philosophers who take this perspective are Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle. However, their philosophical perspective should be kept distinct from the school of psychological behaviorism (e.g., John Watson, B.F. Skinner). Nevertheless, we can surely see a ‘behaviorist’ perspective in Gilbert Ryle’s argument rejecting the “ghost in the machine” and his general thesis in his book, The Concept of Mind, which undermines the relevance of mental processes underlying overt behavior. Likewise, the philosophical position implied by Wittgenstein’s reflections in the Philosophical Investigations seems to promote a ‘behaviorist’ perspective. In this context we can better understand Wittgenstein’s remarks questioning the tendency of the dualist to assume a sharp distinction between talk about inner mental processes and talk about overt behavior.

We find Wittgenstein doing this in Part II, Section V of the Philosophical Investigations. Here Wittgenstein presents a few remarks which can be read as an argument undermining the assumption that observation of a person’s overt behavior is always distinct from what we say about that person’s corresponding mental state; for example, when we observe a man exhibiting pain behavior (he grimaces and cries out) we observe only his behavior and then infer this mental state: his experiencing pain. Wittgenstein’s point is that in ordinary circumstances observation of pain behavior is the same as our observing a person in pain. In short, Wittgenstein raises doubts about the thesis of a dichotomy between our statements of a person’s overt behavior and our statements about a person’s mental states.

Wittgenstein’s style in presenting his arguments is cryptic and not always transparent. So I offer my attempt at a close interpretation and paraphrasing of Wittgenstein’s thesis.

He begins by remarking on the example of a moving point of light on a screen, and exclaims that one can draw a variety of consequences from the behavior of that point of light, depending on those aspects of its behavior that interest us. We might be interested in the velocity with which it moves, or in the path that it takes; or the number and frequency of stops that it makes. In short, the consequences we draw about the light’s behavior depends on how we our focus our attention. We’re selective in our observations taking only some parts of the light’s behavior as relevant and ignoring other aspects. Then he brings in the analogy to the observation of a person’s behavior. As with our observing the behavior of the point of light, so with our observation of a person’s behavior, we can draw a variety of inferences depending on our selective attention. For example, a tourist guide might recite some information about the place we’re visiting, while he seems to find something else humorous. As tourists we would likely ignore the behavior indicating that he finds something to be humorous, and just focus on the information he gives. But if we were a team evaluating his job performance, we might focus on his distracting ‘tics’ of humor or other indicators that he is bored. The inference we draw is not one about the information which he recites, but about the way he recites the information. We draw an inference, not about the place being visited, but about his qualifications to act as a guide.

At this point, Wittgenstein raises the obvious question:
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Then psychology treats of behavior, not of mind. – What do psychologists record? — What do they observe? Isn’t it the behavior of human beings, in particular their utterances? But these are not about behavior.

(Philosophical Investigations, trans. By G.E.M. Anscombe, Macmillan Company, 1953, p. 179)
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If the data recorded by psychologists are not “about behavior,” what are they about? Wittgenstein’s suggestion is that they are about the person’s state of mind.
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“I noticed that he was out of humour.” Is this a report about his behavior or his state of mind? (“The sky looks threatening”; is this about the present or the future?) Both; not side-by-side, however, but about the one via the other.

(ibid., p. 179)
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The description of behavior is our way of describing someone’s pain. When we make reference to his behavior we also make reference to his pain, in the same way our description of the sky as threatening is a way of predicting a storm. In short, this is how we talk about his mental state, his feeling of pain.
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A doctor asks: “How is he feeling?” the nurse says: “He is groaning”. A report on his behavior. But need there be any question for them whether the groaning is really genuine, is really the expression of anything? Might they not, for example, draw the conclusion “if he groans, we must give him more analgesic” — without suppressing a middle term? Isn’t the point the service to which they put the description of behavior?

(ibid., p. 179)
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Here Wittgenstein raises doubts about our inclination to separate observation about overt behavior from remarks about mental states. Ordinarily, when I observe someone groaning, I observe that he is in pain. The pain behavior does not represent internal pain; it is what we understand as a person in pain.
———————————-

“But then they make a tacit presupposition.” Then what we do in our language-game always rests on a tacit presupposition.

(ibid., p. 179)
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Do we have a “tacit presupposition” working here? Do we presuppose that this behavior represents internally felt pain? Wittgenstein asks that we consider whether our language-game of pain description rests on that presupposition. But the presupposition is part of the dualistic way of thinking. Maybe we should not assume that our way of talking is based on a presupposition.

Next he asks that we consider a case in which talk of a ‘presupposition’ makes good sense. This may lead us to think that in ordinary talk we presuppose a connection between behavior and mental state:
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I describe a psychological experiment: the apparatus, the questions of the experimenter, the actions and replies of the subject — and then I say that is a scene in a play. –Now everything is different. So it will be said: If this experiment were described in the same way in a book on psychology, then the behavior described would be understood as the expression of something mental just because it is presupposed that the subject is not taking us in, hasn’t learnt the replies by heart, and other things of the kind. —So we are making a presupposition?
Should we ever really express ourselves like this: “Naturally I am presupposing that . . . .”? — Or do we not do so only because the other person already knows that?

Doesn’t a presupposition imply a doubt? And doubt may be entirely lacking. Doubting has an end.

(ibid., p. 180)
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His point is that in ordinary circumstances we simply don’t doubt that a person exhibiting pain behavior is a case of a person in pain. Doubt is entirely lacking; but the notion that we presuppose a connection rests on the notion that there might be doubt about the connection, i.e., the notion that doubt has a place. But in ordinary circumstances doubt does not have a place. By noting that ordinarily this ‘presupposition’ business does not even apply, Wittgenstein suggests that implied dualism between our talk of behavior and talk about mental states may not even apply.

He follows with a comparison of our dualistic talk regarding behavior and mental states with the philosophical dualism between physical objects and sense-impressions.
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It is like the relation: physical object — sense-impressions. Here we have two different language-games and a complicated relation between them. — If you try to reduce their relations to a simple formula you go wrong.

(ibid., p. 180)
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Wittgenstein’s point is that, like the two different language games of physical objects and sense-impressions, which cannot be reduced to a simple relation of sense-impression representing a corresponding physical object (as sense-datum theories tried to do), talk of overt behavior and that of mental states are two language-games which cannot be reduced to a simple relationship of behavior (utterance) representing the mental state. The relationship between them is much more complicated.

But doesn’t this imply a dualistic framework? Only in the sense that can talk about behavior and we can talk about mental states. For the suggestion of a dualism (if that suggestion lurks here) only concerns language-games, i.e., only concerns the various ways we talk about behavior and mental states. And the way we talk about these may or may not reflect a dualistic reality of human personality.

Wittgenstein’s remarks in this section (Part II, Section V) of the Philosophical Investigations do not ostensibly advance a philosophical behaviorism. At most, his remarks raise interesting questions about some of the assumptions of the dualist regarding our talk about behavior and our talk about mental states. The argument that he makes is one that, if successful, undermines some important premises of the dualist thesis.

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