Thursday, August 12, 2010

Materialist Conceptions of Mind, Part 1: Identificationism

In the next few posts I want to (a) consider what I take to be the main ways that a materialist can account for consciousness, and (b) try to identify the main hurdles that these accounts must overcome in order to be generally convincing.


For my purposes here a “materialist” will refer to someone who holds that phenomena in general and mental phenomena in particular (that is, conscious states and subjective experiences such as thoughts, sensations, emotions, and desires) are (i) purely material or physical, and (ii) wholly and adequately explained by the sorts of physical mechanisms and processes that, in the sciences, are routinely posited as explanations for empirical phenomena (even if those explanations might not be accessible to us right now). By the “material” or “physical” I mean, at the most basic level, entities characterizable in spatio-temporal terms that interact and affect one another in accord with causal laws whose consistent operation can be tested through scientific means—in short, matter and energy.

So, (i) is an ontological thesis about what mental phenomena are. To say that they are purely physical is not, however, to say that they must be entities composed of matter an energy, like tomatoes and rocks. While that is one way in which something can be purely physical, there are other ways. Mental phenomena might, for example, be physical process, or a certain class of properties possessed by these processes, or the way that certain physical processes “look” from a peculiar perspective.

The related thesis, (ii), is more of an epistemological one about what methods we should employ for coming to an adequate understanding of mental phenomena. The methods are scientific. That is, we will come to adequately understand mental phenomena in just the way that we have come to understand such phenomena as illness, lightning, or the cycle of the seasons: by uncovering the physical building blocks, structures, and mechanisms that (in accord with physical laws) explain the phenomena in question.

The materialist, thus understood, has (I think) three main options for dealing with consciousness. These options are:

1) “Identificationism,” by which I mean a direct identification of mental phenomena with brain processes—what we call mental phenomena just are brain events in much the way that water is H20. (Note: while some equate this view with what is called “eliminative materialism,” I reserve “eliminative materialism” for the more radical view, seemingly embraced by Feyerabend and a few others, that mental phenomena don’t really exist at all).

2) “Emergentism,” by which I mean the view (most famously advocated by Searle) that consciousness is an emergent property of an active brain. What we know as our consciousness is a feature of the brain in something like the way that brittleness is a feature of glass—it is a property of the whole that arises by virtue of the activity of the constituent elements organized in the distinctive way that they are, and can thus be adequately explained by reference to those elements.

3) “Perspectivalism,” by which I mean the view that consciousness is the way that the complex processes of the brain “look” from a distinctive perspective—specifically, from the “internal” perspective that arises when the brain itself engages in self-monitoring/self-representing activity. This is the kind of view advocated by Douglas Hofstadter in I Am a Strange Loop.

In this first post, I would like to look at the first of these three options to explain why materialists would do well to look elsewhere. The view gets what plausibility it has from the growing body of neuroscientific research that has succeeded in correlating specific “inner” experiences (the sensation of bright light, pain, etc.) with (partially understood/described) physical processes in the brain. The idea here is to simply identify the former with the latter—to say, in effect, that what neuroscientists are slowly describing just is the conscious experience with which it has been correlated.

There are, in effect, two substantial difficulties with making this kind of direct identification. The first has to do with the failure of brain states and mental states to meet ordinary standards of identification. The second has to do with the prospects for “multiple realization” of mental phenomena.

Let me begin with the ordinary standards of identification. In any usual understanding of identity, in order for A and B to be identical, what is true of A must be true of B and vice versa. If A has properties that B lacks (or vice versa), then the relation between A and B must be more complex than one of simple identity (perhaps A names X-as-experienced-from-perspective-1 while B names X-as-experienced-from-perspective-2).

But mental phenomena—thoughts, sensations, desires, emotions, etc.—clearly have properties that the corresponding brain processes lack, and vice versa. To see this better, it is helpful to introduce the notion of “qualia” (“quale” in the singular), by which is meant the subjective contents of experience, or, perhaps, the “way it feels” or “what it’s like” to undergo this or that mental experience (for example, what the peculiarly bitter sunflower seed I just ate tasted like as I chewed it up). This “what-it’s-like-ness” of mental phenomena isn’t some incidental feature of these phenomena, but rather their chief constitutive element. Put another way, what I mean by the conscious experience of pain just is the associated quale.

And, as Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson have both famously argued in different ways, these qualia are inaccessible to scientific study in a way that the details of brain processes are not. Nagel, in “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, points out that we know a great deal about the neurophysiology of bats, and we know a great deal about how their acoustic radar works. But none of this tells us what it’s like to experience the world through such a radar in the way a bat does. The qualia of a bat’s inner life seem to be inaccessible to science in a way that the brain processes of the bat are not.

Jackson offers a different thought experiment, in terms of a hypothetical scientist who knows everything there is to know, scientifically, about the physiology of color perception, including an exhaustive understanding of the brain processes that correspond with the experience of color…but she has never herself experienced color. And then, one day, she sees a red rose for the first time. Jackson asks: has she learned something new? He thinks the answer is obviously “yes,” which means that there is something about the experience of color that is “above and beyond” the neurological processes science can study.

Here’s a way to put their point: brain processes are third-party accessible objects of study. But there is something related to these brain processes that is inaccessible to such third party study, being instead only available through first-person introspection. This something else is what has come to be called the “qualia” of consciousness. But the fact is that we might as well say that it is consciousness itself—because what we are referring to when we speak of our conscious life just ARE these qualia.

These facts make a simple identification between mental phenomena and brain states at best highly problematic. Mental phenomena are something that each of us has immediate first-person familiarity with; but these phenomena seem inaccessible to neuroscientists engaged in third-person investigation of our brains. And we can claim familiarity with what this or that conscious experience is like—and so honestly claim familiarity with mental states—even if we know absolutely nothing about the brain states with which they correspond. As such, it seems as if mental states have relational properties which brain states lack, and vice versa.

Some defenders of identificationism try to escape this conclusion by pointing to the fact that we can identify water with H2O even though, for a long time, people were entirely unfamiliar with the chemical composition of water (and many remain so). Doesn’t that show that someone’s being familiar/acquainted with A but not with B doesn’t preclude the identity of A and B?

The problem with this rejoinder is that it fails to make a crucial distinction. “Water” denotes a certain entity out there in the world—one we are acquainted with primarily through a range of properties such as liquidity, clarity, capacity to quench thirst, etc. “H2O” denotes the same entity out there in the world understood from a scientific perspective in terms of chemical composition. It turns out that the entity characterized by the former set of properties is the same one that has the given chemical composition.

That is, water and H2O are identical because they refer to the same thing. What is referenced by "water" is not a set of properties but a certain kind of thing (a "natural kind," some might say) that exists in the world but which we are acquainted with through the given set of properties. What we are referring to when we use "water" is the underlying thing which has the properties. But when we speak of pain, we are referring to the quale itself--the "what it feels like" of pain, as opposed to any underlying physical mechanism which might or might not be able to explain the emergence of this sensation.

To better see the problem here, let's consider a different example: the statement "Clark Kent is Superman." Now, consider two possible ways to look at this statement, related to two distinct ways of understanding “Clark Kent” and “Superman.” In the first case, the statement comes out true while in the second it comes out false (at least if we set aside for the moment the unique challenges associated with fictional individuals).

Consider Case 1. In this case, by “Superman” we mean “the individual who embodies a range of traits, including super strength, ability to fly, a do-gooder personality, etc.”; and by “Clark Kent” we mean “the individual who embodies a range of traits, including being mild-mannered, dorky, a reporter for the Daily Planet, etc.”. In this case the identification holds because the individual who possesses the former traits is the same individual who possesses the latter. It isn’t that Superman and Clark Kent possess different properties not possessed by the other. Rather, it is that we know the individual under one name in terms of some of that individual’s properties, and we know the individual under the other name in terms of a different set of that same individual’s properties. But given that the two names refer to the same individual, every property possessed by Clark Kent is also a property possessed by Superman, and vice versa. Hence, a simple identification is possible.

Now consider Case 2. In this case, by “Clark Kent” we mean “the identity taken on by Kryptonian Kal-El in which he masquerades as a normal Earthling”; and by “Superman” we mean “the identity taken on by Kal-El in which he exercises his unique powers in public view.” In other words, under this usage each term refers, not to an individual person, but to an “identity” or “persona” that an individual person has adopted. Well, given THOSE meanings of the respective terms, it would be a mistake to say that Clark Kent is Superman. After all, Kal-El’s “secret identity” is very different from his “superhero identity”, and so they cannot be the same identity—even if it is the same individual who adopts them both.

But given the way in which we use the language of mental states and the way that we use brain-state terms, the two are related in something more like Case 2 than Case 1. And this means that a simple identification of the kind “Clark Kent is Superman” is false, even if it might be true that there is a common underlying entity which is the bearer of both the “mental state” and “brain state” identities. This means that the materialist is better served by the materialist version of what has come to be called “property dualism”: the view that brain states have “mental properties” that are distinct from the physical properties studied by scientists. And while there are different ways to explicate this sort of property dualism, the one that strikes me as being the most plausible is emergentism—the idea (energetically defended by John Searle) that consciousness is an emergent property that supervenes on an active neurological system like the brain taken as a whole.

More quickly and briefly, let me stress one additional difficulty with identificationism. The problem lies in the fact that, by all appearances, on the assumption of materialism we should suppose consciousness admits of “multiple realizations.” The idea of multiple realizations is this: the same property or process could be produced by very different physical building blocks and arrangements. If several engineering firms are given the same task—to design a device that dispenses Starbucks-quality lattes in response to the voice command, “Overpriced coffee! Now!”—they might realize their objective in very different ways. The materials might be different. How those materials are physically arranged might be different. The internal processes of the resultant machine might be quite different in many ways—and yet, both machines might have the very same “emergent” property of dispensing Starbucks-quality lattes in response to appropriate voice commands. This property thus cannot be identical with any particular set of physical components organized and operating in a particular way, because the same property can supervene on very different physical building-blocks.

Now I suppose it is possible that only organic materials exactly like those in terrestrial brains, organized in only the ways that more highly developed terrestrial brains are organized, and operating only in terms of those brains’ distinctive “programming parameters,” can give rise to what we know as consciousness. But this seems implausible to me. Maybe that’s just because I watched one too many episodes of Star Trek--but I think it's more than that. Among other things, rejecting multiple realizations makes the emergence of consciousness through natural selection seem to be an even bigger miracle than it already is (something I doubt a materialist would find congenial).

So, I’m inclined to think that if consciousness is the kind of thing that can emerge from physical systems at all, it will be the kind of thing that will admit of multiple realizations. If so, then one kind of mental phenomenon (say, the experience of pain) cannot be identified with the kind of neurological activity it happens to be correlated with in human brains. And so, if you are a materialist, you will need a different account than identificationism. And since the contender which seems to arise most naturally out of the ashes of identificationism is emergentism, this is what I will take up in my next post.

52 comments:

  1. Thanks Eric

    That's a great post, very clear. I am very much in the identificationist camp on this one, (at least it's the one I find most appealling). I am fascinated by the way 'I am a Strange Loop' tries to make use of the Incompleteness Theorem but my maths isn't good enough to know whether this is a valid application of it. JP may be able to help.

    My response to the challenges you put are I suppose, rather obvious. Qualia are difficult to explain under identificationism if we assume they are something other than the process itself, and no problem to explain at all if we don't. So, Dennett for example claims qualia just don't exist at all, at least in the terms proposed, and I agree with him. I have examinied my own qualia often and with as much rigour as I can, and I'm afraid have concluded I just don't have any such thing. So there is at the very least one zombie amongst you I am afraid.

    Dennett uses change blindness experiments to construct a case against qualia being a coherent concept and makes a fair fist of it. Under this scenario the Jackson's colourblind scientist falls apart, for if she has all the information about the processes by which colour is perceived, then she has by definition an experience of colour. And so it goes with Nagel's bat.

    The second challenge assumes that there is such a thing as the experiencing of red, as opposed to the very specific experience of me, right now, sensing a red folder to my right. If each conscious experience is unique, as I suspect it is, a reverberation of experiences and connections, then different structures will yield different forms of consciousness. Consciousness becomes a word like emotion, or cancer, a noun used to collect together a range of quite distinct things that nevertheless share important characteristics. If this is the case, then maybe the second challenge is less important?

    I am sceptical about emergence, because the examples used, like brittleness, often collapse to identificationism under closer examination.


    Bernard

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  2. Thanks for this interesting post.

    I am not sure that the three-fold distinctions you are making are very important. Supposing that the materialist position is true, then each of 1, 2, and 3 will be true at the same time. Mental phenomena will be somehow identical to brain phenomena, and they will (at a higher level of analysis) emerge from unconscious brain phenomena, and they will also necessarily be a (subjective) perspective on brain phenomena different than what a lab-coated outsider has. So the choices you are presenting seem like three rhetorical formulations of the same basic theory, which is, in the absence of detailed knowlege, a highly educated guess about the matter.

    For the difficulty of identification, the problem here is that we don't have a detailed theory of what the brain correlate of mental contents is, so naturally you would find that identification does not (yet) work. There is no "there" there. If there were a there, then identification might make more sense, though as you say, the third-party identity of a rose would not replicate its first-party identification. It would be a scientific explanation or theory of why X is the physical instantiation of Y, not a tautology. (Like infection with a virus and associated inflammatory processes, misery, etc. being the physical instantiation of "having influenza".) That is because subjectivity interposes, however good our explanation for it is. It is irreducible, if rather cleverly engineered.

    The best we might be able to do is to harvest all the relevant data and somehow inject it into someone else's brain to accurately simulate the first person's subjective experience. I am not sure how desirable that would be, but I guess we are already going in that direction with virtual reality, etc.

    The inherent distinction between first person and third shouldn't doom mental phenomena to being forever unidentifiable/unanalyzable, should it? If we built a sentient robot, would we sit back and decry any attempt to "explain" its consciousness due to a cringing respect for its inherent subjectivity? I doubt it, and yet we could not experience the world quite as it does. That should not prohibit us from analysis of the phenomenon in principle. Epistemology has to make some allowance for learning by observation rather than by direct experience.


    "Mental phenomena are something that each of us has immediate first-person familiarity with; but these phenomena seem inaccessible to neuroscientists engaged in third-person investigation of our brains."

    Scientists do have access, (though not yet completely), just not the total qualia/first-person access you are looking for. If they could say that all qualia are identifiable with mechanistic processes, by correlation of first person reports and observation, would that be so bad, or unscientific? If specific first-person experiences could be manipulated at will by mechanistic changes in the brain? At some point, identity might become theoretically inescapable even if we externally can't get the first person simulcrum copied perfectly.

    cont ...

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  3. "And we can claim familiarity with what this or that conscious experience is like—and so honestly claim familiarity with mental states—even if we know absolutely nothing about the brain states with which they correspond. As such, it seems as if mental states have relational properties which brain states lack, and vice versa."

    That doesn't compute.. if we can see the sun but know absolutely nothing about how it works, does the visible sun have properties (even relational properties!) that its mechanistic, physics-based explanation lacks? No. Ignorance is not an argument.


    "But when we speak of pain, we are referring to the quale itself--the "what it feels like" of pain, as opposed to any underlying physical mechanism which might or might not be able to explain the emergence of this sensation."

    But the thing is that you are referring to just such a mechanism which is the pain, by a materialist theory. Just because you are in this case referring to the mental construct, that doesn't bar it from also having a material being, if that is how it actually exists, much like a web page you are looking at is an electronic process of photons driven by transistors, video cards, etc. If what you refer to couldn't exist without a mechanistic instantiation, then you are necessarily referring to the exact phenomena that instantiate it, whether you know of their details in a third-party way or not.

    Also, the superman analogy seems defective, since the brain phenomena inferred to be consciousness are not only consciousness when they put their capes on, they are consciousness all the time.. they are the same thing, only the mechanism is so mind-blowingly complex that we don't understand what it is or how it works yet. But in principle, nothing happens in the mind that isn't also happening physically- that is the point that neuroscience is staking its entire enterprise on, and successfully so far, delving into our thoughts in ever greater depth and detail.


    "If so, then one kind of mental phenomenon (say, the experience of pain) cannot be identified with the kind of neurological activity it happens to be correlated with in human brains. And so, if you are a materialist, you will need a different account than identificationism."

    Lastly, this also seems a defective argument, since the identification of X with Y doesn't also bar the identification of W with Y. The identity can have more than just two partners, especially in view of the billions of humans in the world and trillions of animals, each of which have a unique & different consciousness already. There are plenty of ways to skin that cat, but we won't know exactly how many before we understand the physical basis better.

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  4. Burk

    Thanks for your observations, because they clear up for me a problem I have had getting my head around this idea of emergence. You are right, I think, that the first position outlined by Eric appears to imply the other two. So, if qualia just are brain states (1), then they must be experienced via some form of self-referential system (3) which allows them to be interpreted via a higher level metaphor (2). I often find myself tricked when being asked to choose between options that turn out not to be exclusive.

    Bernard

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  5. Burk--

    About the following:

    I say: "And we can claim familiarity with what this or that conscious experience is like—and so honestly claim familiarity with mental states—even if we know absolutely nothing about the brain states with which they correspond. As such, it seems as if mental states have relational properties which brain states lack, and vice versa."

    You respond: "That doesn't compute.. if we can see the sun but know absolutely nothing about how it works, does the visible sun have properties (even relational properties!) that its mechanistic, physics-based explanation lacks? No. Ignorance is not an argument."

    I think you missed what I was trying to do with the extended Superman/Clark Kent example. If "Superman" refers to an individual, and "Clark Kent" refers to an individual, then ignorance of the FACT that the individual we call Superman is a mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet when he's not wearing his spandex doesn't change the fact that he is. And so the identification holds.

    In more formal terms, under this usage "Clark Kent" and "Superman" have a REFERENT--an entity "out there" referred to by the term. But the object is referred to BY MEANS OF a different range of properties in each case. But insofar as an object can readily possess properties beyond those which are made use of in attaching a label to it, the fact that we are have met this individual in the guise of Superman but haven't met him in the guise of Clark Kent doesn't negate the fact that the one individual possesses all the properties of the other--including the relational property of my having met him (it's just that I don't KNOW that I've met the individual designated by "Clark Kent").

    But if "Superman" and "Clark Kent" both refer to certain roles or guises that an individual can adopt--then my having met this individual in the guise of Superman but not in the guise of Clark Kent implies that these guises are NOT the same guise. Because if they were the same guise, there couldn't be a relational property that one guise has that the other doesn't.

    As such, immediate and direct acquaintance with states of consciousness but ignorance of the details of brain states is compatible with identity between the two if "consciousness" refers to that which possesses qualia and "brain states" refers to that which possesses the properties studied by neuroscientists. But if "consciousness" refers to the qualia themselves (which MIGHT the "guise" of an underlying neurological reality that it "wears" from a first-person subjective perspective), then no such simple identification is possible.

    This is a subtle point but, I think, an important one for avoiding confusion in a careful discussion of the relation between mind and brain.

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  6. Thanks, Eric-

    Your point seems to be that if I know A, and A=B, then I may know B if the identity is thorough, or I may not know B if B is a distinct guise of A and the identity isn't really true. If B has different properties than A, then they can not be put in an identity.

    Thus if I know consciousness (first person), the claimed identity theory would formally mean that I also know its physical instantiation, if any (third person).

    On the other hand, you are also saying that if I know A and A=B, then I might know A by a set of properties (a,b,c) that don't cover all the properties of A, so I might also know B by different properties (x,y,z) yet the whole identity might still hold. Thanks for explaining that.

    Obviously, I'd find the second interpretation more amenable to what we are dealing with as the radically different perspectives on consciousness- first person and second/third person. These necessarily involve distinct sets of properties of the supposed unitary consciousness mechanism.

    So, on to your question of whether consciousness refers to qualia or to "that which possesses qualia". I think the latter is a bit of a cop-out, since we want to explain qualia directly, and any materialist theory would posit that any mental event, including qualia, necessarily have physical correlates. Dead people have no qualia. Whether consciousness is more than qualia isn't very important-we want to explain it all in any case, whatever the terminology.

    My point was just that the wearing of (dis)guises is a problematic metaphor, since the brainwaves or neurons or whatever aren't going to be putting on leotards in the first person, and a suit in the third person. They will be doing their thing just the same in either case, and it is only the rich properties of the phenomenon that will be alternately experienced/viewed from the first or third person perspectives, as you indicate with the property dualism idea. So I guess I look forward to your third treatment!

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  7. Bernard--Have you read Searle's criticisms of Dennett? He summarizes them pretty succinctly in his review of CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED in the New York Review of Books. The review sparked a rather belligerent reply from Dennett, followed by a rejoinder from Searle (both published in the New York Review). I don't know if the exchange is available online, but the entire thing is reprinted in Searle's THE MYSTERY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

    I must say that I find Searle's critique of Dennett utterly devastating. But then, when Searle offers his little introspective experiment (involving pinching one's arm) to call attention to "qualia," I find myself responding, "Yup, yup, yes. Got it. Makes perfect sense." When Dennett argues, in effect, that qualia are illusory, I find myself going, "Huh? Huh?! HUH????!!!!" As Searle puts it in his rejoinder,

    "Dennett writes that the disagreement between us is about rival 'intuitions'...But the disagreement is not about intuitions...An intuition in his sense is just something one feels inclined to believe, and such intuitions often turn out to be false...(But) refutable intuitions...require a distinction between how things seem to me and how they really are, a distinction between appearance and reality. But where the existence of conscious states is concerned, you can't make the distinction between appearance and reality, BECAUSE THE EXISTENCE OF THE APPEARANCE IS THE REALITY IN QUESTION" (emphasis in original).

    If Dennett has an adequate response to this, I haven't been able to make sense of it--certainly not in terms that are true to my own conscious life.

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  8. Hi Bernard,

    I have not read Hofstadter's book (but I think I will) and so I cannot comment on his use of the incompleteness theorem. In general however I am very skeptical of the applications of such mathematical results to areas like philosophy or biology. It's a pretty technical result in mathematical logic (but still a lot of fun) and it does have applications in computer science (for example the problem of determining if a specific program on a Turing machine will terminate – if I remember correctly).

    JP

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  9. Hi Eric

    Yes, I did read that exchange at some stage, but it's a couple of years ago now so the details remain hazy. At the time I remember concluding the two were sufficiently emotionally invested to be talking past one another.

    So, let's see if you and I can do better than that. I don't think Dennett is arguing there are no such things as qualia in the sense that we don't have first person experiences. So Searle's attack, while appearing devastating, achieves this by attacking a straw man. Dennett is arguing, if I have him correctly, that qualia are not quite what we naively assume. He claims that this first person accessibility does not imply the extra-material characteristic so often assumed.

    Perhaps Nagel's bat is the best place to build the example. I can't know what it's like to be a bat because I'm not a bat. No argument there. But it's a brave leap to conclude this is because there is something ineffable about bat experience. Note I also can't know what it is like to be a stone, this being because I am not a stone. Nobody would argue this is because of some mysterious element of stone experience.

    If the materialist position were correct, then the reason I do not know what it is like to be a bat is purely because I can not get my brain state to mimic the brain state of a bat, just as I can't get my brain state into that of a stone without being dead, at which point I would have no knowledge at all. So the inaccessibility of first person experience is entirely compatible with the materialist hypothesis. If my brain state could be made to exactly mimic yours, then by the materialist thesis, I would have knowledge of what it's like to be you (and by one definition, would also be you).

    The materialist position does not hold first person perspective is unknowable to others in principal, but just in practice. So, through discussion, imagination and close observation we can get very close to the first person perspective of others. The limiting factor becomes a physical one and no strange quality of qualia need be assumed to explain this.

    The problem then is that attacks on materialism become devastating only if we assume materialism is wrong in advance. Or so I see it at the moment. If we define qualia purely as the humming of connections, then the personal experience of a pinch is expected, yet poses no problem for the materialist position that I can see. Does this make sense to you?

    Bernard

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  10. Eric

    Sorry, should have addressed the Searle quote:

    BECAUSE THE EXISTENCE OF THE APPEARANCE IS THE REALITY IN QUESTION

    Perhaps it is fair to say our interpretation of the existence of the appearance is the reality in question, as all accept that we do indeed feel something (Dennett is explicit on this in the opening chapter of Consciousness Explained). Under this construction, the difficulty diminishes perhaps?

    I don't want to paint myself as a defender of Dennett, much he says frustrates me and I'm not sure it's exactly his case I'm promoting, but I think his attack on qualia is harder to dismiss than Searle would like. Are you familiar with his essay collection Sweet Dreams?

    Bernard

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  11. Eric,

    I just wish to express that I feel like I am getting an education with your blog. And a very lavish education at that; I wonder sometimes if your real students have it as well as we do here. Thanks very much for this.

    Incidentally, have you ever thought of using your posts here to write an introductory course in philosophy?

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  12. Dianelos: Thanks for that. I only hope my students feel the same.

    Bernard: It's important to remember that Searle IS a materialist, just not a "reductive" materialist. He would certainly agree that were we able to reproduce in our heads a bat's brain states we would experience what it's like to be a bat. What he rejects is the idea that this "what-it's-like-ness" is to be simply identified with the relevant brain states. Rather (as he would put it) the quale is to the brain state as the hardness of a tabletop is to the underlying molecules, their properties, and their relations. Searle distinguises between "event" causation and "non-event" causation, and holds that the molecules CAUSE the hardness even thought the hardness is not an event. That which is caused, rather than being an event, is a FEATURE of the WHOLE, or an emergent property. I'll talk more about this in my next post.

    What Searle wants to insist is that there is a mystery with respect to consciousness--how to explain the data of consciousness, the array of "qualia" that are what we are referring to when we speak of mental states--in terms of the brain. He thinks that folks like Dennett are too eager to solve the mystery by implicitly denying the existence of the data.

    Is he right? Dennett calls "THAT FEELING...the QUALE, the 'intrinsic' content of the subjective state" a "fatally false intuition." He says, "How could anyone deny that!? Just watch..." This certainly sounds to me as if he is denying qualia. His strategy, as he describes it, is to show how the assumption of this "intuition" leads to "self-contradiction and paradox at every turn." But in that case, what we have to my mind is something akin to Xeno's paradoxes of motion--a mystery to be solved. And if so, then Searle's charge seems to be that Dennett is akin to those who, confronted with Xeno's paradoxes of motion, deny the reality of motion. Arguably, if everyone had followed that path, our understanding of infinity, and of the distinction between convergent and divergent infinite sums, would never have arisen.

    And here let me add that even though I am not a materialist with respect to mind, I would never call for the cessation of the naturalist project of trying to account for consciousness in materialist terms--first, because the project might succeed (proving sceptics like me wrong); second, because there may be a great many valuable lessons and discoveries that emerge from the inquiry even if it doesn't succeed.

    In the light of this, we might articulate Searle's complaint against Dennett as follows: His perspective shuts down efforts to solve the mystery of consciousness by denying the reality of what generates the mystery. Is this change entirely fair? Maybe not. But the danger Searle calls attention to seems worth taking to heart in any event.

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  13. And no, I haven't looked at SWEET DREAMS. I'll put it on my list of things to look at.

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  14. Thanks Eric

    I'm not yet convinced they're not talking past each other. If we take Searle's emergence definition as you put it, as hardness is to molecular bonds, then there are two ways of seeing this emergence. At one level, nothing emerges, hardness just is strength of bond. At another level, hardness is the thing we experience, so it is our interpretation of a lower level process that we can deduce but not readily experience. So what emerges is our experience of the table top (and I think all emergence examples have this dual quality). When we say something emerges, we say we create a mental picture, a metaphor, of them, and this is the emergent quality.

    Dennett would, I suspect, accept that we do indeed interpret our own mental processes and build metaphors of them, just as we do of the table top. When he talks of denying the intrinsic quality of qualia, his target by my reading lies elsewhere.

    With reference to change blindness, he shows how the colour of a door can change within a picture without us relaising this has occurred. So we see a white door when it is alternating between white and brown, with a mask in between. Our eyes and the initial information channels into the brain register the brown but we are not aware of it. His argument is that either the qualia change but we don't know it (so we lose first person access and a third person brain scan tells us more about our qualia) or qualia only change when we re-imagine the picture (so colour qualia are linked to the process of imagining colour, not of seeing it). This second option undermines the Jackson intuition that a person can not experience the essential quality of colour without actually seeing it.

    I would go one step further and argue that the experience of seeing colour is itself coloured by all our past experiences and associations.

    Rather than litigate Dennett and Searle on their behalfs, you say Searle, like me, has no trouble thinking we could know what it was like to be a bat (remembering it may be like nothing at all, if bats do not have sufficient levels of self referential capacity). It would just be a matter of getting the brain representations right. By the same token Mary, if fully informed, will have no trouble imagining her way to a colourful experience.

    In your post you refer to the facts of bats and colour causing trouble for materialism. I am interested then in seeing where our differences lie. Do you disagree with Searle on bats, or is Nagel getting at something I have missed?


    Bernard

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  15. I find this post to be most interesting, not to mention the subsequent comments. I have always considered the existence of qualia to be sufficient evidence against reductive materialism, but the fact that there are several persons of intelligence and learning who would argue otherwise makes me keen to study the dispute further.
    Only knowing of the discourse between Searle and Dennett from the comments on this blog I’m not entirely qualified to comment on this, so what I have to say I will say with complete humility and willingness to be educated further.

    I must admit that I do not quite understand the position of Daniel Dennett. From the little I know he seems to argue that there are no such things as qualia in the same sense that modern scientist can argue that there are no such things as the elements. Of course there are such things as fire, water, air and dirt, but the concept of the elements formerly used to understand their quality and relations are now misleading and incompatible with what we now know of their properties. I would hardly suspect Dennett to deny that there are such experiences as color, scent or pain, but he would deny that qualia is a coherent or useful concept to describe them.

    While I on the contrary would say that qualia as usually defined is a coherent and fitting concept to describe conscious experiences as distinct from the physical processes underlining them, I would also claim that at this point Dennett is merely arguing semantics. Would he really argue that when he feels the sensation of pain, regardless of any concept he may use to understand it, the sensation itself can in every respect be reduced to information in the brain with no radically distinct quality other than that? If so, he must be very fortunate.
    As am formulating this sentence I am looking at a green book on my shelf. The name green and whatever concept I may have of color may be a construct, but that does not change the fact that I’m currently experiences something I call green that, as a conscious experience, is more than a mental metaphor and cannot be reduced to the properties of photons or electrical interactions between the neurons in my brain. It may be produced by my brain and it may function as a form of metaphor as far as my brain is concerned, but in respect to my experience itself it is obviously not a mere wavelength I see, but something definitively distinct.
    How would a reductive materialist explain such radical differences between, for instance, color as experienced and the physical processes giving rise to it if the former can be reduced to the latter?

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  16. I find this post to be most interesting, not to mention the subsequent comments. I have always considered the existence of qualia to be sufficient evidence against reductive materialism, but the fact that there are several persons of intelligence and learning who would argue otherwise makes me keen to study the dispute further.
    Only knowing of the discourse between Searle and Dennett from the comments on this blog I’m not entirely qualified to comment on this, so what I have to say I will say with complete humility and willingness to be educated further.

    I must admit that I do not quite understand the position of Daniel Dennett. From the little I know he seems to argue that there are no such things as qualia in the same sense that modern scientist can argue that there are no such things as the elements. Of course there are such things as fire, water, air and dirt, but the concept of the elements formerly used to understand their quality and relations are now misleading and incompatible with what we now know of their properties. I would hardly suspect Dennett to deny that there are such experiences as color, scent or pain, but he would deny that qualia is a coherent or useful concept to describe them.

    Continued…

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  17. While I on the contrary would say that qualia as usually defined is a coherent and fitting concept to describe conscious experiences as distinct from the physical processes underlining them, I would also claim that at this point Dennett is merely arguing semantics. Would he really argue that when he feels the sensation of pain, regardless of any concept he may use to understand it, the sensation itself can in every respect be reduced to information in the brain with no radically distinct quality other than that? If so, he must be very fortunate.
    As am formulating this sentence I am looking at a green book on my shelf. The name green and whatever concept I may have of color may be a construct, but that does not change the fact that I’m currently experiences something I call green that, as a conscious experience, is more than a mental metaphor and cannot be reduced to the properties of photons or electrical interactions between the neurons in my brain. It may be produced by my brain and it may function as a form of metaphor as far as my brain is concerned, but in respect to my experience itself it is obviously not a mere wavelength I see, but something definitively distinct.
    How would a reductive materialist explain such radical differences between, for instance, color as experienced and the physical processes giving rise to it if the former can be reduced to the latter?

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  18. I didn’t mean to post the comment twice. The webpage crashed the first time I tried to post it, so I assumed it was too long. Now I see that it was posted none the less.

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  19. Hello Oystein

    I too am fascinated by this discussion, and although there are aspect of Dennett's hunches I disagree with, let me try to outline what I think his response might look like. I am mindful of course that I may be misrepresenting him, his writing style is at times bombastic and his rhetorical flourishes can appear to lead him in different directions simultaneously.

    You are right I think, to say Dennett would not deny that we have sensations when we listen to music, rock in a chair or gaze at the leaves of his tree. Indeed from memory he uses all these examples to introduce his theory of consciousness in Consciousness Explained. He is interested though in what happens if we try to pick apart such sensations. His intuition is that an explanation of the constituent parts of conscious experience will, taken together, eventually be complete enough that we will wonder what the big mystery ever was. Explain all the little bits, he suggests, and there won't be anything significant left to puzzle over.

    This is a fairly radical hunch. One alternative is to say it won't be enough to explain the nuts and bolts of brain function, but a new metaphor will need to emerge before we can see how physical process leads to conscious experience. The Strange Loop thesis might be an example of this (and sometimes Dennett seems to go here too). A third approach is to say, no, there will always be qualia. Qualia just can't be explained by physical mechanisms because they're obviously different kinds of things. Finally one might argue, as I would, why prejudge this issue? Why not just keep on with the science and see where it leads us? (And sometimes this too appears to be Dennett's major point).

    Dennett then spends a lot of time picking qualia apart in an attempt to show how they might not, as with your example of dirt, be fundamental. So he looks at things like change blindness, or blindsight, or the qualia that come to us when we dream, imagine or remember. And he uses these to probe our intuition that seeing green just is an irreducible experience we have incorrigible first person access to. His approach seems to be to trawl through psychology, biology, AI and neuroscience looking for ways of challenging, or at least clarifying, our definitions (and they are multiple) of qualia.

    I think this is a valid and provocative project and one that can't be dismissed on purely philosophical terms. One must, I believe, engage with the science he uses in his examples in order to get at his philosophy. Personally I have found indulging in some of his thought experiments wonderfully unsettling.

    Hope this is at least a little helpful.

    Bernard

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  20. Welcome, Mr. Evensen!

    "The name green and whatever concept I may have of color may be a construct, but that does not change the fact that I’m currently experiencing something I call green that, as a conscious experience, is more than a mental metaphor and cannot be reduced to the properties of photons or electrical interactions between the neurons in my brain."

    With all due respect, this claim of non-reducibility is pure assertion. It is like saying that the hardness of a table can not be reduced to chemical and physical principles. I sympathize that the experience has its own frame of reference. Similarly, nothing mental seems to have any physical basis whatsoever, but we know full well that this is not true. The only question is whether everything mental is physically based, as all the trends of objective analysis (poking at brains, etc.) would indicate, or whether our intuition will eventually rest on some unanalyzable nub of subjectivity that will be the remnant of the broad mental=ethereal intuition we naively begin with.

    That line is an ever-receding one as we learn more about the neurobiological bases of emotion, memory, attention, etc. The materialist's contention, or guess, is that it is likely that this process will reach a fully explained conclusion as the science wends its way through the brain, and that in contrast, it is highly unlikely that this mental phenomenon, of the many phenomena readily at hand around us, will show a unique supernaturalism involving completely unprecedented principles.

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  21. Bernard,

    You write: “Why not just keep on with the science and see where it leads us?

    Because one can see that natural science will not lead anywhere. Why not? Because natural science is the study of phenomena, and consciousness is not a phenomenon. Why not? Because consciousness is a precondition for the existence of phenomena. Before the first conscious beings evolved in the physical universe, there were plenty of events but not any phenomena.

    David Chalmers thinks that an expanded kind of natural science, which takes into account both objective and subjective data, may solve the hard problem of consciousness. I think he is wrong, and for the same reason. So why not suggest the possibility of a doubly expanded kind of natural science, one which not only studies both objective and subjective data, but also what is needed for that data to exist? Well, one can suggest anything, but I don’t see how natural science thus expanded is any different than metaphysics. So in the end to say that “science”, understood as an arbitrarily expanded concept, may solve the hard problem, is to say nothing more than that we may understand consciousness. But we can and do already understand consciousness; the hard problem is a problem on naturalism, but not on theism. Theism, in both its basic ontological versions, namely dualism and idealism, does not suffer from the hard problem of consciousness. And theism, or at any rate natural theology, does already use both objective and subjective data, and does also delve into the metaphysics of the noumenal in order to understand how such data are possible in the first place.

    In general, I think that a very good epistemic principle when discussing any ontological problem (i.e. any problem related to existential propositions) is to be clear about the basic metaphysical assumptions about reality in the context of this discussion. The very concept of “existence” means something different depending on whether one assumes naturalism or else theism. I agree with Alvin Plantinga that on theism the existence of God is a properly basic belief, in the sense of a belief by which all other beliefs, whether true or false, receive their meaning. So, to come back to the discussion at hand, what “existence of qualia” means, depends on whether one assumes a naturalistic or else a theistic reality. Daniel Dennett’s protestations notwithstanding, I think it is quite clear that on naturalism the meaning of “existence of qualia” is problematic, because they appear to exist in a way that is very different than the existence of physical things. On the other hand, the same goes for the existence of numbers, of free will, of values, of intentionality (in the philosophical sense), etc. If I were a naturalist I’d bite the bullet and affirm a multi-polar reality, in which there is a multiplicity of realms of existents, which may even affect each other, but in a way that is ultimately mechanical, i.e. not personal, not teleological, not because of some reason. I may be wrong, but I sense that the current naturalistic philosophical discourse is slowly moving towards this direction, and thus is moving away from materialism. As long as one can suggest a coherent mechanistic reality in which ultimately nothing happens for a reason, naturalism will be a viable worldview, no matter how extravagant the assumptions on which it is based.

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  22. Burk,

    You write: “With all due respect, this claim of non-reducibility is pure assertion. It is like saying that the hardness of a table *can not* be reduced to chemical and physical principles.

    The hardness of the table, the color of ripe strawberries, the wetness of water – these are all concepts that refer to conscious experiences. Before conscious beings evolved in the physical universe, propositions such as “the table is hard”, “ripe strawberries are red”, or “liquid water is wet” were meaningless. Therefore, as long as nobody succeeds in reducing consciousness to chemical and physical principles, these concepts too cannot be reduced, because they refer to properties of consciousness. The confusion, as Bertrand Russell made clear long time ago, comes from conflating one common physical cause of an experience with the experience itself. So one can explain what chemical or physical properties *cause* us to experience colors, or wetness, or hardness, but this does not mean that the experiences themselves are reduced to (or are “nothing more” than) the respective physical causes. I think this much is clear.

    Similarly, nothing mental *seems* to have any physical basis whatsoever, but we know full well that this is not true.

    Now I’d say that this is a pure assertion. Actually I can prove this is a pure assertion. If our consciousness is produced by a material system, then it *may* be the case that it is produced by a material system which is not our brain, but, say, is a computer which simulates the physical universe we experience, including our brain. Now you may believe that the computer simulation hypothesis is very unlikely, but how would you justify this belief? After all, to justify a belief one requires evidence, and by definition the hypothesis that we live in a computer simulation produces all evidence we have. So, surprisingly enough, the belief that our consciousness is based on a physical system implies that one cannot possibly justify the belief that consciousness is based on our brain, or even that it is probably based on our brain.

    That line is an ever-receding one as we learn more about the neurobiological bases of emotion, memory, attention, etc.

    Whatever we learn or may learn about the neurobiological correlates of emotion, memory, attention, etc., would also hold if we live in a computer simulation, so I don’t see any line receding. You may say that a computer simulation is still something physical, but how would you know that? Perhaps, as Descartes suggested centuries ago, our universe is a simulation in the mind of a powerful evil demon. Now you and I may intuitively judge that this possibility is not worthy of consideration, but waving away an idea we don’t like does not justify the claim that “we know full well that it is not true”.

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  23. Hi, Dianelos-

    "If our consciousness is produced by a material system, then it *may* be the case that it is produced by a material system which is not our brain, but, say, is a computer which simulates the physical universe we experience, including our brain."

    It escapes me why you would want to posit such a blatant counter-factual. It gives philosophy a bad name. My point is that we know enough about the brain to locate a great deal of our memories, thought processes, etc. in it. Thus the naive intution that Egyptians had that their thinking took place in their hearts is simply out of court.. as are many other such intuitions, especially disembodied ones. So- much of our thinking is known to have a physical basis, though not all- not all of our thinking has been pinned down, and nor have all the workings of the brain been elucidated. That is where we are, though there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to indicate that consciousness is, like the rest of it, also a physical process of some kind.

    Whether you want to leap into that gap of ignorance and make claims like "natural science will not lead anywhere" is your right, but seems unwise to me. Your argument of phenomena vs consciousness sounds like someone claiming that one can't take a video of another video camera because video cameras are a precondition for making videos. Before the first video cameras were made, no such videos would be possible, etc..

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  24. Dianelos

    Yes, I freely admit your intuition may turn out to be right and consciousness may be a non-physical phenomenon. Another option is that it is physical but understanding it is beyond our puny minds. Or it may be that science will get us there.

    So, how best to choose between these options? We may be able to construct an argument that shows your intuition is right, but as yet nobody has been able to do that. I remain open to the possibility. Equally, we may be able to get somewhere with science. Let's keep going, I say, if nothing else it's a fascinating ride.

    Bernard

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  25. Hi Burk,

    I wrote: “If our consciousness is produced by a material system, then it *may* be the case that it is produced by a material system which is not our brain, but, say, is a computer which simulates the physical universe we experience, including our brain.

    To which you respond: “It escapes me why you would want to posit such a blatant counter-factual.

    I don’t see how my claim above is a blatant counter-factual. After all it strikes me as obviously true, and I notice that several very serious and smart philosophers (Nick Bostrom, David Chalmers) have discussed that very possibility, and even estimated the probability of it being true, coming up with significant numbers.

    It gives philosophy a bad name.

    What would give a philosopher a bad name is bad thinking, or fear to follow her reason wherever it may lead.

    So- much of our thinking is known to have a physical basis, though not all- not all of our thinking has been pinned down, and nor have all the workings of the brain been elucidated.

    “Thinking” is an ambiguous term in our context, for, arguably, thought does not entail consciousness. It sounds unnatural to say that the Deep Blue computer that beat the world chess champion did so “without thinking”, on the other hand virtually nobody thinks that Deep Blue was conscious, or was aware about what it was thinking about.

    That is where we are, though there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to indicate that consciousness is, like the rest of it, also a physical process of some kind.

    I gave an argument why I think that on naturalism there can’t be any evidence (circumstantial or not) for the belief that our consciousness is produced by our brain, or even for the belief that our consciousness is probably produced by our brain. Do you see any error in that argument? For, unless you can suggest some error in that argument, simply repeating your assertion does not help your case.

    Your argument of phenomena vs consciousness sounds like someone claiming that one can't take a video of another video camera because video cameras are a precondition for making videos. Before the first video cameras were made, no such videos would be possible, etc..

    Actually I find that’s an interesting analogy. As you say a video camera too is a precondition for videos to exist. Thus claiming that consciousness is a phenomenon is akin to claiming that a video camera is a video; which is a clear category error. When a video camera is present it can make a video of video cameras; similarly, once consciousness is present one becomes aware of phenomena related to consciousness (such as intelligent behavior, brain correlates, etc). The video that shows a video camera is not identical to the video camera; similarly the phenomena related to consciousness are not identical to consciousness. A video that shows a video camera does not prove that a video camera is actually there (for that video may only record what looks like but is not really a video camera); similarly the phenomena related to consciousness do not prove that a consciousness is actually there. The only way to ascertain that a video camera is actually there is to use it; the only way to ascertain that a consciousness is actually there is to be the respective conscious being.

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  26. Dianelos

    Your computer simulation example interests me, because I want to reject it out of hand and yet it doesn't come to me immediately on what grounds I should do that.

    I think a big difference in our points of view might just be that the concept of truth is very hazy for me. I accept that we could create thousands of fantastical and coherent explanations of existence. Perhaps I am the embodiment of the dreams of the sacred flea that sucks upon the dog of existence, perhaps the harmonic ecstasy of infinite unseen dimensions forces the existence of all things, including itself, perhaps we are the work of a computer simulation or an evil demon, and so it goes on. Or perhaps the truth is more prosaic, and we are shaped by natural selection, accidents carved from chance and error. Or perhaps all these things are simultaneously true, or perhaps truth itself is a meaningless concept.

    To live a life it seems to me, one must make some sort of call on this, even if the call goes no further than 'don't know, don't care.' Myself I make the call for a materialistic agnosticism. I behave as if an understanding of the world is best approached through science, decorated of course in storytelling's finery. I do this for two reasons. First, as far as I can see, if I permit one fantastical scenario, I must permit them all. And that to me is hopeless. Second, this approach helps me to learn and discover more about the world I live in. Its track record is, comparatively speaking, excellent.

    You argue that consciousness is not a phenomenon. This is based upon the belief that consciousness is a precondition for phenomenon. I don't yet see how this precludes the possibility of consciousness evolving physcially. As creatures became increasingly more conscious, they became aware of many things, culminating eventually in an awareness of awareness itself. Yes, it is a chicken and egg situation in a way. Both those are a precondition for the other, and yet we do have chickens and eggs. This is no conundrum because we understand the gradual nature of evolution. Chicken and egg are catch all terms for things that can take many forms. So too may consciousness turn out to be.

    The precondition problem arises I think only if we see consciousness as a discrete entity, rather than a many shaded phenomenon. I think it is reasonable to suggest the consciousness of a fish is different from that of a baboon, is different from that of an alzheimers sufferer, is different from mine.

    Bernard

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  27. Hi Bernard,

    You write: “Yes, I freely admit your intuition may turn out to be right and consciousness may be a non-physical phenomenon.

    Philosophers who claim that consciousness cannot be understood physically are not simply expressing an intuition. They argue about it. A common line of argumentation is to point out that all true propositions of the form “A is B” have particular properties which the proposition “consciousness is a purely physical phenomenon” or “consciousness is the activity of the physical brain” lacks. (I mention that latter proposition, because, as I have argued, to think that consciousness is a phenomenon is a category error, so the former proposition does not even get off the ground as a meaningful thing to say.)

    As far as I can see, it’s the other side which mainly relies on pumping one’s intuitions. A popular strategy is to point out how many scientific discoveries about the brain are just what would be the case if the brain produces our consciousness, and that therefore it’s a virtual certainty that the brain does produce our consciousness. But this is paradigmatic case of the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, and the intuition being pumped is the very one which leads many people to commit that logical fallacy. Remarkably enough, both philosophers and scientists follow their intuition into committing this fallacy. The obvious example of a philosopher is Daniel Dennett. An example of a scientist would be Steven Pinker, see for example this Newsweek article: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/2004_09_27_newsweek.html

    It’s interesting to think why philosophers like Dennett as well as scientists like Pinker fall into that fallacy. I think the reason is that they tend to apply scientific epistemology to non-scientific questions. In science, which is ultimately about modeling physical phenomena, pointing out the consequences of a model fit with observations *does* justify the respective model. Indeed a model is a good model if and only if its implications (or consequences) fit with observations. But the same is not the case outside the science. Let me clarify this point: Given the correlations we observe between conscious properties and physical properties in the brain, the *model* that the brain produces consciousness works well. But a model is not the same as reality. The simulation of a nuclear bomb explosion models that explosion very well but is not that explosion. Or, as they say, the map is not the terrain. To confuse a model with what it models is the non-formal fallacy called “reification”.

    Another option is that it is physical but understanding it is beyond our puny minds.

    That’s the position of new mysterianism. This strikes me as a cop-out, akin to a theist arguing “mysterious are the Lord’s ways”.

    Or it may be that science will get us there.

    Given the many reasons people have pointed out why natural science (as we now understand the term) will not get us there, to hope that it will is really a faith based position called “scientism”.

    There is a fourth option open to naturalism, which I judge to be far superior, namely to affirm that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality and that its study lies beyond science as is now waged, but not beyond reasoning based on the same epistemic principles science is based on. That’s the position that many naturalistic philosophers from Chalmers to Searle appear to be taking. As far as I can interpret the psychology of those philosophers (and there are even some theistic philosophers in this group) who insist on a physicalist understanding of consciousness, it seems to me they do so because of the fear to walk away from the comfortable zone that natural science provides. It used to be said that you can’t go wrong buying an IBM computer; it seems many philosophers today feel that you can’t go wrong sticking with science, or even with what a scientist ignorant of philosophy would approve of.

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  28. One thing that fascinates me about philosophy is the belief, apparently widely held, that logic alone can establish facts about reality. It can up to a point, I suppose, in simple matters. But a logical argument can produce no more than what is already implicit in its assumptions and these assumptions are either based on intuitions of some kind (thus with a degree arbitrariness) or facts that can be verified. Not that these arguments are useless, of course: it is essential to understand the consequences of assumptions. But to believe that they can, so to speak, produce truths out of thin air does not make sense at all.

    In the case at hand Dianelos says that natural science will not get anywhere because “science is the study of phenomena, and consciousness is not a phenomenon Why not? Because consciousness is a precondition for the existence of phenomena. Before the first conscious beings evolved in the physical universe, there were plenty of events but not any phenomena”.

    I am sorry and I may have missed something but is that it? Consciousness may not be solved by natural science because we can write down these few lines of English? I am not saying that there is nothing to discuss about this argument but to pretend that it actually proves anything at all seems to be a bit rich.

    If I understand correctly, Dianelos accepts the many logical arguments advanced against the possibility of science getting at consciousness and, at the same time, dismisses the use of all discoveries about the links between the brain and consciousness as a logical fallacy. Do I get this right?

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  29. Hi JP,

    You write: “In the case at hand Dianelos says that natural science will not get anywhere because ‘science is the study of phenomena, and consciousness is not a phenomenon Why not? Because consciousness is a precondition for the existence of phenomena. Before the first conscious beings evolved in the physical universe, there were plenty of events but not any phenomena’.

    I am sorry and I may have missed something but is that it? Consciousness may not be solved by natural science because we can write down these few lines of English?


    No. Consciousness cannot be solved by natural science because of what these few lines mean. Clearly, it’s the content of the argument that counts, not its size in English. If you see an error in the above argument, I’d very much like to know where.

    But a logical argument can produce no more than what is already implicit in its assumptions and these assumptions are either based on intuitions of some kind (thus with a degree arbitrariness) or facts that can be verified.

    Not all arguments are logical deductions from premises. There are several other forms of argument that are widely regarded as valid. Pointing out a category error (as I do above when pointing out that consciousness is not a phenomenon) is a case in point. Category errors are devious mistakes one should extirpate from one’s thinking.

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  30. "One thing that fascinates me about philosophy is the belief, apparently widely held, that logic alone can establish facts about reality."

    It is possible that many fall into this belief implicitly in practice, but I doubt you would find many philosophers who accept it explicitly. Arguments, however logically valid, require premises. Some of these premises might be logically necessary truths, but most philosophers will heartily agree that you'd be hard-pressed to find any arguments with substantive implications about the world that make use of NOTHING but logically necessary truths as premises.

    In the case of Dianelos's argument, it may be helpful to lay it out, including the implicit premises:

    1. Phenomena are the objects of consciousness.

    2. If phenomena are the objects of consciousness, then consciousness is a precondition for the existence of phenomena.

    3. If A is a precondition for things of type B, then A cannot itself be a thing of type B.

    4. Therefore, consciousness is not a phenomenon.

    5. Science can only give us knowledge about phenomena.

    6. Therefore, science cannot give us knowledge about consciousness.

    Now I could be wrong in my reformuation of this argument, but as stated it does not rely merely on "logic" or logically necessary truths. Premises 2 and 3 might be construed as asserting logically necessary relations, but 5 makes a claim about what science studies and what it can give us an understanding of.

    That premise can certainly be challenged. If you recall, I defined metaphysical naturalism as the theory that science can get us past the phenomenal realm to an understanding of the underlying noumenal reality; those who accept this would doubtless reject premise 5 of the argument above. But this is where philosophical arguments get interesting--when we debate the premises of arguments to decide whether or not we should accept them.

    Some might challenge premise 1 as well--since there are those who would identify consciousness WITH phenomena as opposed to saying that phenomena are the objects OF consciousness. This seems to be, for example, Hume's position.

    Now I happen to disagree with Hume--and I happen to share the view that science cannot get us past the phenomenal realm. And so I find Dianelos's argument pretty convincing. But I also see that premises 1 and 5 are not matters of logical necessity, that they have substantive implications for the limits of science, and that they can be and have been rejected by other thoughtful people. And so I want to hear their arguments--and unless those arguments prove to be decisively wanting while arguments in favor of these premises prove decisive, I wouldn't say that this argument has PROVEN that science cannot explain consciousness.

    But the argument does raise the question in an important way--because if its key premises are correct then science will never be able to explain consciousness; and its key premises are not obviously false.

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  31. To clarify something in the above: Hume took phenomena (impressions and ideas) as free-floating. Consciousness, for him, would be simply a collection or "bundle" of phenomenal experiences.

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  32. Hi, Eric-

    I'd like to take issue with your premise 3:

    "3. If A is a precondition for things of type B, then A cannot itself be a thing of type B."

    This is one of the things that evolution has generally provided exceptional examples for. Iterative ways to build what otherwise would be thought impossible. If chemistry is a precondition for life, then chemistry can't be a thing of type life. Well, it isn't in a way, but sometimes it is.

    For consciousness, the claim is that consciousness is a precondition for phenomena, thus consciousness isn't itself a phenomenon. Firstly, at the humble origin of consciousness, there may have been little difference between the two. At a primitive level, Deep Blue may be conscious, at least of its own heat level, disk space used, or the score of its current play, or some other simple aspects of its internal reality.

    Secondly, consciousness is clearly noumenal- not an appearance or other figment. It is real, it works, and whatever is going on has some interesting basis. Thus it isn't a phenomenon, and by this logic science studies noumena via collecting phenomena- in this as in so many other respects. But this just goes back over the debate of what possible use such a distinction might be. If one doesn't get hung up on a chimerical phenomenal/noumenal distinction, then the artificial arguments built on it dissolve, as they should.

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  33. Hi Eric,

    Thanks for your detailed comment. I will have to think more about this.

    Meanwhile, let me share a few thoughts inspired by Burk's comment on premise 3: “If A is a precondition for things of type B, then A cannot itself be a thing of type B.

    What about this: A parent (A) is a precondition for things of type “human” (B); therefore a human cannot be a parent.

    This is clearly false although it is a direct application of premise 3. What happens is that parents and humans are not distinct things but instead evolved together. What (3) seems to assume in the argument we discuss is that A and B are completely different types of things. That is, A-things must exist before any B-thing does, ignoring the case of A and B co-evolving. This is essentially Burk's point.

    Isn't this one possible problem with the argument? It implicitly assumes that consciousness and phenomena don't co-evolve as this is necessary for (3) to be valid. In other words the argument (at least premise 3) assumes a static frame of reference in which consciousness is seen as a well-defined non evolving thing. But this is precisely what needs to be determined. If this is correct, then the argument is circular.

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  34. Hi Eric

    If I may chip in on premise 3 also, as this is where I lose the thread of your case, is it not generally believed that a brain of some sort is a precondition for consciousness (and therefore also a precondition for phenomena)? But we would not make the leap to saying that a brain is therefore not phenomenal, and therefore is not open to scientific investigation. What have I missed?

    Dianelos, I know you find my agnostic line a cop out, and there's little I can do to convince you otherwise as that's a judgement statement. But I should point out that believing the answer may be beyond us does not stop us behaving as if it isn't, and this position of ongoing inquiry, which I advocate, is less of a cop out. I just hold that when we make something up, we should own that this is what we are doing. Mostly, when I do this, I find people are surprisingly respectful.

    Bernard

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  35. Oops... This is embarrassing. Now that I have had my morning coffee I see that I have put it backward in my parent example above. It should of course read: A parent (A) is a precondition for things of type “human” (B); therefore a parent cannot be human. But, fortunately, my argument works with both versions.

    Bernard has a good point with the brain. It works also with chemistry, and so on.

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  36. Hi Burk,

    You write: “ If chemistry is a precondition for life, then chemistry can't be a thing of type life. Well, it isn't in a way, but sometimes it is.

    I don’t think there are things of “type life”. Rather, I’d say, there are living things, which define the relevant type. With this clarification I think your example works pretty well: The existence of chemistry is a precondition for the existence of living things. Therefore chemistry is not a thing of the type “living thing”. So, for example, it’s not like one would say “Here’s a set of living things: {dogs, microbes, sharks, chemistry, apple trees}. To think that “chemistry is a living thing” is a category error.

    We have previously discussed a similar example you introduced, namely that of video cameras y videos. The existence of video cameras is a precondition for the existence of videos, or for the existence of video-content. Therefore to think that video cameras are videos, or that video cameras are video-content, is a category error.

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  37. Eric,

    You write: “5. Science can only give us knowledge about phenomena.

    I wouldn’t assert this, for I don’t believe this premise is true. What I had in mind is that “science is the study of phenomena”, or “scientific knowledge consists of listing phenomena and of modeling them”. On the other hand, how one interprets scientific knowledge and the cognitive status one assigns to such interpretations, or, in general, what additional knowledge one may build on top of scientific knowledge is a different matter. So I’d suggest the following wording:

    5. Scientific knowledge consists of listing phenomena and of discovering mathematical patterns present within the (i.e. modeling them).
    6. Therefore, scientific knowledge will never say something about consciousness.

    If you recall, I defined metaphysical naturalism as the theory that science can get us past the phenomenal realm to an understanding of the underlying noumenal reality; those who accept this would doubtless reject premise 5 of the argument above.

    Yes, but this definition of metaphysical naturalism does not imply that metaphysical naturalism’s claims are science’s claims. I happen to think that one can use scientific knowledge to show that theism is probable and naturalism is improbable; but in doing this I am not claiming that science itself says that theism is probable and naturalism improbable. Science studies phenomena and gives us knowledge about them; whatever additional thinking we do on top of the knowledge that science gives us should not be called science, but metaphysics.

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  38. Hi Bernard,

    You write: “is it not generally believed that a brain of some sort is a precondition for consciousness (and therefore also a precondition for phenomena)?

    No, definitely not. For example no theist believes that (because all theists believe that God is a conscious being without possessing a physical brain). Actually some knowledgeable atheists do not believe that the brain is a precondition for consciousness either. In this context I always find it useful to quote Sam Harris, original New Atheist author, professional philosopher, and neuroscientist: “The idea that brains produce consciousness is little more than an article of faith among scientists at present, and there are many reasons to believe that the methods of science will be insufficient to either prove or disprove it.”

    Dianelos, I know you find my agnostic line a cop out,[snip]

    I did not mean that agnosticism, or assuming an agnostic stance, is a cop out. I meant that to believe in new mysterianism is a cop out (in my own value judgment). I happen to trust a lot in the cognitive faculties of humanity, and that’s why I dislike new mysterianism (which, incidentally, is found both in the naturalistic and the theistic camps). When confronted with a problem which appears impossible to solve (a paradox) then I think one should try the following: 1) Make a step back and check the assumptions that moved one towards that problem. For example, the hard problem of consciousness only exists under the assumption of materialism. If the former problem appears impossible to solve, then perhaps materialism is not a good assumption. Or 2) Try to prove that the problem is unsolvable; this certainly works with some mathematical problems.

    What I do believe about agnosticism though, Bernard, is that it is a risky position, because I find that in general it is at least as harmful to fail to hold a true belief as it is to hold a false belief. I also find that many agnostics fall for the atheistic myth that "one shouldn´t believe in something without sufficient evidence". That´s a myth because it is in fact impossible to go through life without holding beliefs that lack sufficient evidence. Atheists too believe that the principle of induction is a good one, that the world did not come into existence 5 seconds ago, that they will be happy with the person they want to marry, that to study is better than watching TV, that naturalism is true - all on insufficient evidence.

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  39. Hi Dianelos

    We return to an old theme. I won't attempt to argue Sam Harris without knowing his context, I can imagine that statement being both ridiculous and quite reasonable depending upon what aspect of faith he is getting at.

    But, notice what the claim that you do not accept brains are preconditions for consciousness does to the structure of your argument. This now becomes a key premise for you, and with this premise in place you can use the precondition argument to show that consciousness is something other than just what the mechanical brain does. So your argument succeeds only to reinforce its premise. All the arguments against the physicality of consciousness seem to have something of this quality to me.

    There is a subtle flavour to pragmatic agnosticism that you may be overlooking. I do not hold that induction really does hold, that naturalism is true or that study is better than television. These are not articles of faith for me at all. I hold only that it is useful to me to behave as if these things are true, and the task of my philosophy is to examine and articulate what constitutes usefulness in the many various cases.

    Bernard

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  40. Dianelos--Thanks for the clarifications of your argument. One of your chief clarifying remarks raises some interesting questions about WHAT, exactly, science is and where we draw the line between doing science and engaging in philosophical reflection about its conclusions or in light of its conclusions.

    Clearly, scientists themselves engage in various degrees of philosophical reflection--but is there a bright line between when they are still doing science and when they have left science behind to dabble (more or less well) in philosophy? I think there IS a difference--and there are clear cases of each--but sometimes I wonder if there's a bit of a gray area between the two, especially with respect to certain kinds of explanatory modeling.

    After all, scientists are in the habit of positing theoretical entities such as "forces" in their modeling--and even if in mathematical models one needn't strictly speaking endorse the existence of this theoretical entity in order for the model to work, most scientists will be inclined to think of the model as a mathematical model OF the theoretic entity (such as, say, gravity). Is a scientists who posits the existence of the force of gravity no longer doing science? Or is the force of gravity a theoretical entity posited BY science? (Consider, also, questions raised by string theory).

    Clearly, however, quite a bit is at stake in drawing this line as clearly as we can, since so many are clamoring to have the mantle of "science" cast over their activities--sometimes (in the case of ID theory, for example) for the sake of getting their views into the public school science classroom. I doubt that most scientists would want to say "science can teach us about consciousness" if an implication of this claim is that the modes of reasoning thereby endorsed as scientific are the same kind as those pursued by ID theorists. (Not that this is the case--but it's the kind of thing one needs to think about when trying to define the scope and nature of science...and on this front, I think people like Dawkins are shooting themselves in the foot in their battle against ID Theory by claiming the mantle of science for their arguments against theism).

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  41. Bernard,

    The following comment caught my attention: "I do not hold that induction really does hold, that naturalism is true or that study is better than television. These are not articles of faith for me at all. I hold only that it is useful to me to behave as if these things are true..."

    The reason this caught my attention is because, in my book, I defend a view of "faith" understood as the decision to live as if certain hoped for possibilities are true (and I call this "pragmatic faith"). So it's quite illuminating to see you identify beliefs that you adopt in this pragmatic way--behaving as if they are true--as therefore NOT being "articles of faith" (while I'd conclude that they therefore ARE).

    What it illuminates for me is just how easy it is for apparent disagreements to arise, and for vigorous debates to ensue, when the real culprit is that people are playing divergent "language games" (to borrow Wittgenstein's phrase).

    (Sometimes I wonder how much the failure of my first marriage is to blame on the fact that whenever my ex-wife--a Norwegian--would say, "I hate this country! I'm moving back to Norway!", I'd take her to be playing the "stating of intentions" language and responded accordingly--by pointing out that my prospects of finding a philosophy position at one of the four Norwegian universities were remote--rather than the "expressing frustration" language game--for which an empathetic response would have been far more appropriate.)

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  42. Eric

    Those two last comments raise (isn't this always the way with philosophy?) so many fascinating possibilities.

    For what it's worth, I think there is an important distinction to be made in science between the model building process, which relies heavily upon intuition, culture and at times sheer hope, and the model testing process, which relies upon the generation of novel and verifiable data sets. So things like string theory, where a potentially elegant but for now untestable proposition is being explored, doesn't yet fit the description of established scientific orthodoxy. It's one of a number of competing hypotheses. To claim science can tell us about consciousness might be to say two quite different things. One, that the methodology of science has the potential to uncover some interesting new insights, or two that there currently exists a well tested and widely accepted theory of consciousness. The first is a reasonable claim, the second is ridiculous. I'm a big fan of trying to bear in mind the difference between the model and the metaphor, whereas for a particular brand of naturalist the two merge.

    This different use of the word faith becomes interesting, because one of the reasons I instinctively don't use the word to describe a pragmatic belief is because in my head there's an association of licence with it somehow. If I have faith in a position, the connotations are that I really believe it is true, and this gives me licence to base my actions about it in ways that I wouldn't if I keep always in the back of my mind that this is a chosen position.

    So, for example, I behave as if Free Will exists, but also feel I have licence to jump out of that point of view when it is pragmatic. So in behaviour modification work for example, I'm wed to whatever works, even if it means severing the link between behaviour and responsibility sometimes. Yet if I really deeply believed Free Will does hold, I'm not sure I'd be able to grant myself the same flexibility.

    This is not to argue faith is the wrong word to use, it's just to explain why I would hesitate. And I absolutely agree, it's the shadings of words, along with an instinct for dichotomies, that often sits beneath arguments. For example, our respective positions on consciousness don't feel very far apart to me. We both agree sensations need explaining. We both accept they are for now perplexing, mysterious things, we both acknowledge the possibilities that remain open, and we seem to both see the benefits of continued scientific exploration. Yet, as soon as we commit to words like materialism or qualia, it becomes very easy to shuffle into opposing positions.

    Interesting stuff.


    Bernard

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  43. Eric,

    You write: “Clearly, scientists themselves engage in various degrees of philosophical reflection--but is there a bright line between when they are still doing science and when they have left science behind to dabble (more or less well) in philosophy?

    I think there is such a bright line: As long as scientists quantify phenomena and as long as they discover mathematical patterns present in these quantified phenomena, they are doing pure science. (“Modeling phenomena” is just another name for the actions described above.) Now our mind does not like to work with pure mathematical patterns but prefers to conceptualize them in order to be able to visualize some reality behind the phenomena studied, and thus the invention of scientific concepts such as “mass”, “force”, etc. Even though we do not have any direct phenomenal experience of the existents referred by these scientific concepts, they clearly refer to properties present in the mathematical patterns which science discovers in phenomena, and hence to things that exist within phenomenal reality. Newton, for example, spoke of “gravitational force fields”, and even though his theory of gravity is now superseded by Einstein’s general relativity it’s not like “gravitational force field” stopped referring to something that exists in phenomenal reality.

    Scientists, and people in general, cross that bright line when they assume scientific realism, i.e. when they assume that scientific concepts also refer to existents within noumenal (objective) reality. Scientific realism is a metaphysical assumption that results from the reification of scientific models. Whether this assumption is reasonable or not is a question apart; my point is that it does not belong to science. Why not? Because if it is the case that we all live in a computer simulation then the scientific realist is wrong about the existence of mass, of forces, of electrons, and even of apples or of the moon for that matter – but even so everything written in scientific books about mass, forces, electrons, apples and the moon remain true. (The computer simulation hypothesis is a distinct possibility on naturalism; on theism one could mention idealism with similar implications.) Another piece of evidence is historical: Quantum mechanics, which is arguably the most influential scientific discovery there is, models phenomena without actually describing the underlying reality. The project of describing quantum reality (or to “interpret” quantum mechanics) has, under any criterion, met with failure – without in any way affecting the success of quantum mechanics, or indeed its continuous advance.

    Is a scientists who posits the existence of the force of gravity no longer doing science?

    If the scientist posits that the force of gravity exists within noumenal reality, then she is no longer doing science. Incidentally, the concept of “force of gravity” does not exist anymore in general relativity, which is the currently best theory of gravitational phenomena we have, so a scientific realist is reduced to claiming that the force of gravity does not anymore exist in reality.

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  44. Hi, Dianelos-

    I'd take deep exception to your portrayal of science. The history of science is full of modeled concepts that were later seen in ever more concrete detail, i.e. reality. Atoms, electrons, neutrinos, tectonic plates, DNA. Every advance in our knowledge of reality starts with concepts, whether narratively or mathematically arrived at, which then may or may not become backed by sufficient evidence to turn into facts. Math is not necessary.

    If you want to call these frontier concepts noumena, and facts phenomena, then we would be in agreement that science studies noumena, and that the whole noumena/phenomena distinction is bootless- an invidious stand-in for supernaturalism.

    Whether we live in a simulation has nothing with this argument, since we don't as yet have any knowledge of that condition. We have one reality only. Theistic intuitions of higher and greater realities certainly don't offer knowledge on the matter, only vain imaginings that have never been fulfilled by phenomenal evidence.

    And on gravity, the questioner was clearly not concerned about the field vs spacetime technicalities. The issue is whether something theorized to exist by scientific induction and deduction can be spoken of as "real". Obviously it can, gravitation being quite familiar to all and sundry. What science has done is to describe this reality better than it had been described before, and on a more general basis, in terms of its universality in time, space, high-mass conditions, acceleration, etc. Phenomenal precision, so to speak.

    To say that gravitation as we understand it is not part of noumenal reality is then to mark your argument as clearly theistic- an attempt to cordon off some realities as "higher" and "real-er" than others, without any visible criterion for doing so, other than a conviction that we poor mortals are incapable of the omniscience to whom you presuppose "noumenal reality" is available.

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  45. Hi Dianelos

    Like Burk, I think your equating of science with mathematical models is a little problematic. One can of course define science any way one likes, it's just a word, but it's worth pointing out your definition leaves out much of what scientists do.

    If I want to demonstrate to some children that a burning candle needs oxygen, and the free oxygen is 'used up' in the burning process, I don't need mathematics to do it. A candle and a glass is enough, and maybe a bowl of water if we want to start looking at the composition of the air a little more closely. Mathematics is a useful tool in science, and in this case can be used to model the concepts more tightly, but as JP has noted, science in the end is just that pragmatic collection of techniques that over time have been shown to work.

    Working of course is measured in terms of advancing our collective knowledge, that is by extending the range of available statements upon which we can all, if fully informed, agree. It is then just a formal extension of our common sense knowledge.

    The trouble with discussions about truth or reality is exactly the same, it depends upon our definition. The philosopher defines truth in a different way from the rest of us. I say, in everyday parlance, that something is true if the relation it describes is reliable. I say, it is true that the car parked outside my house is the same one I left there last night. This allows me to predict my key will unlock the alarm, and I will not be stopped by an irate owner as I drive away.

    I understand that in the philosopher's sense it is possible there is no car at all, just a brain in a vat, or maybe aliens replaced the car with an identical version while I slept, but this form of truth, while fun to consider in a slightly geeky way, is of very little help in my day to day life.

    So, is gravity real? Well, if I am standing on the edge of a city roof looking down, I'd better assume it is. One can split hairs over what this really means, but best to step away from the edge first, just in case that wind gets up.

    There is an irony don't you think, in the philosopher's version of truth being that thing that can not be reached or agreed upon, where the street version is that upon which genuine progress can be made? It is fine to challenge the truthfulness of science, but only if we are up front about our intention to replace it with a version of the truth which we have no collective access to. This is the reason why, in a court of law, I am not free to appeal to philosopher's truth in my defence (an alien did it m' lord, he took over my brain at the crucial moment. No he didn't, you're going to prison).

    Bernard

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  46. Hi Burk,

    You write: “The history of science is full of modeled concepts that were later seen in ever more concrete detail, i.e. reality.

    I hold that models remain models no matter how detailed they are, and no matter how precisely they model phenomena. Models do of course describe a part of reality, namely phenomenal reality, i.e. the reality as it appears when we look around, make experiments, take measurements, and in general when we do all that scientists do to get their data. But whether such models also describe the underlying reality, i.e. the noumenal (or objective) reality which produces the phenomena we see when we look around – that’s a metaphysical question which does not belong to science. And it’s not like I am simply claiming that they don’t belong to science. Rather I think I am demonstrating this by using various arguments, including by pointing out that great science (such as quantum mechanics) does not as a matter of fact describe what is really happening in the underlying quantum reality.

    Every advance in our knowledge of reality starts with concepts, whether narratively or mathematically arrived at, which then may or may not become backed by sufficient evidence to turn into facts.

    Yes, facts about phenomenal reality. Gravitational phenomena are described both by Newtons’s mechanics and by general relativity. Both theories describe facts about gravitational phenomena. But if you believe they also describe the underlying reality, then you’ll find they radically contradict each other.

    If you want to call these frontier concepts noumena, and facts phenomena, then we would be in agreement that science studies noumena, and that the whole noumena/phenomena distinction is bootless- an invidious stand-in for supernaturalism.

    I am afraid you lost me here. The noumenal/phenomenal distinction that Kant makes simply refers to the distinction between reality as it is and reality as it seems. Surely this is a basic and important distinction, and has nothing to do with supernaturalism. Naturalists too make this distinction when they propose interpretations of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics itself models the respective phenomena and is *one* scientific theory. Its interpretations are *many*, and purport to describe the underlying quantum reality, i.e. what is objectively out there and produces the quantum phenomena the scientific theory models. Quantum mechanics, the scientific theory, is doing just fine. The naturalistic (or perhaps I should say the realistic) interpretation of quantum mechanics is a failure, at least up to now.

    Whether we live in a simulation has nothing with this argument, since we don't as yet have any knowledge of that condition.

    Neither do we have any knowledge that scientific realism is true. And serious people who have thought about the computer simulation hypothesis (such as Nick Bostrom or David Chalmers – both atheists as far as I know) estimate the probability that we do live in a computer simulation at about 20%. So the computer simulation hypothesis is not some crazy notion, but an implication of certain beliefs most naturalists hold.

    The issue is whether something theorized to exist by scientific induction and deduction can be spoken of as "real". Obviously it can, gravitation being quite familiar to all and sundry.

    Gravitational phenomena, such as our observation that apples fall, that the moon moves, and so on, are indeed quite familiar. And the mathematical order that science has discovered in such phenomena is quite real. But what the underlying reality is, nobody really “knows”. According to classical theism it’s the will of God which causes apples and the moon to move in the way that modern science so precisely models.

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  47. Hi Bernard,

    You wrote: “There is a subtle flavour to pragmatic agnosticism that you may be overlooking. I do not hold that induction really does hold, that naturalism is true or that study is better than television. These are not articles of faith for me at all. I hold only that it is useful to me to behave as if these things are true, and the task of my philosophy is to examine and articulate what constitutes usefulness in the many various cases.

    I am not sure that what you describe above should be called “agnosticism”. Agnosticism means to refuse to believe either in the truth or the falsity of a belief for some reason, usually because one judges the evidence for or against the belief insufficient. Indeed, what you describe above sounds rather similar to my own epistemology. I too only concern myself whether a system of beliefs is ultimately useful or not. If I find that it is then I hold that the respective beliefs are probably true.

    As it happens I am now on vacation, and I am reading a book that Eric took to his vacation and discussed in this blog, namely “A Certain Ambiguity”. If you like mathematics you’ll enjoy that book; it explains some of the most famous mathematical theorems extremely well. I haven’t yet finished the book, but it seems the main idea is to discuss what truth is (Pilate’s question). Indeed I think that the most important question in philosophy. Everybody behaves as if it were obvious what truth is, but it isn’t. Anyway, what that book appears to demonstrate is that the paradigmatic case of certain truth (or “knowledge”), namely mathematical truths, is not as solid as one might think. One assumption almost everybody makes is that mathematical truths are necessary, i.e. hold in all possible worlds. At the point I have arrived in this book, it seems that this view may be too optimistic.

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  48. Hi Dianelos

    Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll look out for it. I enjoyed the references Eric made to it so it sounds worth following up.

    Yes, labels like agnostic get us in trouble I know. Yet we must use something to provide the easy short hand that makes communication possible. I have no religious beliefs, yet deliberately avoid the term atheist because it has connotations of certainty (and increasingly aggression) that sit uncomfortably with me.

    I like too agnosticism's provenance. As I understand it the term was coined by Thomas Huxley (someone may wish to correct me on this), who led a fascinating life. He started out as Darwin's bulldog, and was largely responsible for setting what I think is a false conflict between science and religion. Later on he conceded it was impossible to build a moral system based only upon scientific principals. Adrian Desmond's biography is a wonderful read if you're interested.

    And yes, I appreciate our world views are not as far apart as they at times seem. I think the pragmatic argument for religious belief is a very powerful one.

    Bernard

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  49. Hi, Dianelos-

    Let's back up just a little. You may be spending too much time on the frontiers of science, and too little on its secure corpus. Biology is generally quite secure on its foundations of chemistry, which is in turn secure on its foundations of physics. Leaving aside the ultimate frontiers of what is as yet unknown, biology then functions as a prototypical science where we understand alot, find out new details and complexities all the time, but don't have a fundamentally unknown frontier to appeal to when faced with mysteries and difficulties, or problems with interpretation. When someone turns up with a birth defect, say with no arms, we know where to look for the causes, even if they are difficult to find and possibly impossible due to lost historical information.

    It is easy to get carried away at the scientific frontiers and make them holders for mysteries and all the unknowns one wants to inject there. But in principle, once some field is well-described and on a secure foundation, it is just as much a science as another field that is grappling with enormous unknowns (though some might be tempted to call it engineering, or some other term).

    All this is just to say that at some point, there is little room for "noumenal" reality to hide, and it becomes what we understand as phenomenal reality since we understand all the causes and effects that create reality, however one wants to name it. It is all the same thing once we understand it well enough.

    Oh- now I have blasphemed, making little gods of ourselves! But, granting that our minds don't individually encompass all this doesn't mean that anyone else's does, and that therefore there is any meaning to the noumenal designation. I understand its notional definition, but think it is being used as a theistic placeholder, sort of like "intelligent" is used in ID. It is hard to see any other point for its usage.

    On the issue of existing in a simulation, such calculations are ludicrous, with no foundation to work from. Whatever the case, the best we can do is not make stuff up, but search through reality as it presents itself, look assiduously for those miracles and other signs that would lift the veil to the "greater" order, and otherwise keep our instruments calibrated and our noses clean. Which is to say, not make more of our emotional / narrative cravings for order and comfort than they epistemically deserve, which is, not a lot.

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  50. Hi Burk,

    You write: “You may be spending too much time on the frontiers of science, and too little on its secure corpus.

    Quantum mechanics is old, having been discovered in the 1920s. It is also the most widely and precisely confirmed scientific theory there is, and by far the most influential. I don’t think there is anything in science as secure as quantum mechanics.

    Biology is generally quite secure on its foundations of chemistry, which is in turn secure on its foundations of physics.

    Biology is part of what we now call “classical science”, and which includes all science up to general relativity. I can understand how strong the intuition must be for somebody who works with classical science to believe that science describes not only phenomena but the underlying reality too. Quantum mechanics has once and for all destroyed that intuition though. Physics is the basis of all the natural sciences, and ignoring the discoveries of the last 100 years of physics is not wise, because one will miss one of the great facts of the history of the human intellect, namely that it is not anymore reasonable to assume that science does describe reality. This is a something that few philosophers and physicists advertise, probably because the former often do not understand modern physics very well and figure it’s safest to never doubt science’s power, and the latter because those who care about such issues dislike losing the mantle of being the ultimate arbiters about physical reality. But as physicist Nick Herbert flatly wrote in his excellent “Quantum Reality”: "One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have lost their grip on reality". If you are interested in these issues I’d recommend you read his book.

    But in principle, once some field is well-described and on a secure foundation, it is just as much a science as another field that is grappling with enormous unknowns (though some might be tempted to call it engineering, or some other term).

    Quantum mechanics per se is not grappling with any problems. It’s the realist philosophical tradition (which most theists subscribe too), i.e. the idea that science describes (part of) reality, which has all the problems. It is true that classical science does not suffer from these problems, but given that according to scientific realism all science is grounded on physics it is intellectually not possible to disregard this fundamental problem. Of course one may simply be unaware of it, as perhaps most scientists are.

    All this is just to say that at some point, there is little room for "noumenal" reality to hide, and it becomes what we understand as phenomenal reality since we understand all the causes and effects that create reality, however one wants to name it.

    Well, one thing to keep in mind is that we live in phenomenal reality, not in noumenal reality. Whether noumenal reality is God-structured or not, or, say, whether we live in a computer simulation or not, has no effect whatsoever on an engineer’s efforts to build a safer airplane, or a physicist’s efforts to build a fusion reactor. But it does have an important effect on how we think about ourselves and about the place and meaning of our existence.

    Oh- now I have blasphemed, making little gods of ourselves!

    If theism is true then we are “little gods”. In Christianity, and especially in some forms of Protestantism, there is this undercurrent of degrading humanity, but I judge this to be scientifically, philosophically and theologically unwarranted.

    On the issue of existing in a simulation, such calculations are ludicrous, with no foundation to work from.

    The foundations on which these calculations are based are naturalistic assumptions. Nobody claims any great precision, but I find the reasoning behind these calculations to be pretty solid. It would be interesting if you had a look; I am curious what’d you think about them.

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  51. [continued from the last post]

    If I were omniscient, I would understand what lies behind it alot better, but I wouldn't have to use different equations to describe those realities, whether you wish to class them as noumenal or phenomenal.

    There are many objective realities which are capable of producing the same physical phenomena that science studies. Therefore, if you restrict yourself to the physical phenomena that science studies it is impossible to understand what lies behind them, even if you are omniscient.

    But how would you ever know [how the underlying noumenal reality is]? That is the key and crucial question.

    I agree that’s the crucial epistemic question for all metaphysics, be it naturalistic or theistic.

    Now, starting with Hegel, philosophers have wondered whether Kant wasn’t being too pessimistic when he claimed that no knowledge about noumenal reality behind phenomena is possible. Some time down the road Eric will explain Hegel’s idea. My own suggestion is, in a nutshell, to use some generally accepted epistemic principles to compare one to one alternative ontological hypotheses (i.e. hypotheses about how noumenal reality is) and pick the one which fares better. In more detail here’s the path I suggest one can follow to build warranted beliefs about noumenal reality:

    First it is important to realize that we have more data in our disposal than what’s available to science, namely we have the subjective/qualitative experience of our life, which is private and not accessible to the scientific method. You may call such data “not reliably rigorous observations”, but each one of us has access to such data and, as David Chalmers concisely notes, data are data. In short the idea is to consider the whole of our experience of life, and not just the objective dimension of it which is amenable to scientific investigation, but which is demonstrably insufficient for the task at hand.

    Secondly, we realize that there are several deeply reasonable and also generally accepted epistemic principles which we can use to compare alternative hypotheses about how noumenal reality is. Among such principles we certainly have: internal logical coherence, compatibility with scientific knowledge, Occam’s razor, and explanatory/predictive power. Other principles which for me are as important are: freedom from internal conceptual problems, compatibility with my incorrigible beliefs about my own condition, moral empowerment, and experiential benefits. I’d like to justify the latter two principles: All other things being equal, it is more reasonable to embrace that understanding which one empirically finds to be more useful, i.e. helps one live as one wishes to live. And in my case, what I wish is to have a good experience of life and be a good person. Finally, there is a third, more subjective group of epistemic principles, such as prima facie plausibility, elegance/beauty, giving intellectual satisfaction, etc. So, the second step would be to make a list of those epistemic principles which strike one as good epistemic principles by which to compare alternative ontological hypotheses.

    The third step is to consider two alternative ontological hypotheses about noumenal reality and compare them one to one under the various epistemic principles. The one which fares better is the one which is more probably true, to the best of one’s cognitive capacity.

    One practical issue here is which ontological hypotheses to choose, for there are many. One idea is to look for what appears to be the strongest theistic and the strongest non-theistic hypothesis. (After a first iteration of comparing the two, one may try to find a stronger version of the losing side and then repeat.) In my case, when I compared what I consider to be the strongest theistic hypothesis, namely subjective idealism and Irenaean theodicy, with the strongest (or at least best documented) non-theistic hypothesis, namely scientific naturalism, I found that the former won under each single epistemic principle in my list.

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  52. Hi, Dianelos-

    We seem to have come to the end of rational discussion. Thanks for laying out your voluminous conditions on reality. But let me back up through a few items in our discussion.

    "I am not sure whether you are speaking of scientific problems or about metaphysical problems."

    I don't see the difference. If a problem is soluble or approachable in some logical way, it is scientific. If not, it is the province of armchair philosophy at best, and probably not worth spending precious brain cells on. There was just an article on the EPR problem last week in science, so that is still being worked on. And really, it isn't such a problem, only saying that reality is non-local in certain circumscribed ways, which is terribly counter-intuitive for us, but is the way reality is. Where's the problem?

    The problem is in coming up with a "theory of everything" that unifies quantum physics, gravitation, and the zoo of particles into some more digestable and coherent unity, complete with a deeper interpretation of what we know of reality. Plenty of scientists are working on it, but as I said, we may never really have the chops to deal with it. That doesn't make it metaphysics. Or more precisely, it doesn't allow us to just make stuff up to fill in the gap. It is science without results. It is an unknown.

    In other words, the philosopher-snail may imagine his/her garden filled with magical beings and gods, but not only would that snail be wrong, it would not even have any remote basis for such beliefs. It totally can not comprehend what is going on, and better than praying to the unknown or making up mucilagenous deities, it would better keep its metaphysical thoughts under some discipline and attend to what it can- perhaps the ethical problems of hermaphroditism, or what have you.


    "In short the idea is to consider the whole of our experience of life, and not just the objective dimension of it which is amenable to scientific investigation, but which is demonstrably insufficient for the task at hand."

    I'm sorry- this seems like an excuse to make stuff up. Personal experience is real and data, but that doesn't mean it either is reliable or creates any means for interpreting itself as the metaphysician aims to do. It is like saying that, if I lived inside a paper bag, I would be able to self-transcend my condition, figure out the transcendental realities of existence, and do celestial mechanics and cosmology. Nope, you need input to do all that, and the only way to make anything of our conscious inner existence is to understand it from an outer perspective, some of which is supplied by our interactions with others & reality, but some more of which will be supplied by formal science.


    "The third step is to consider two alternative ontological hypotheses about noumenal reality and compare them one to one under the various epistemic principles. The one which fares better is the one which is more probably true, to the best of one’s cognitive capacity."

    Firstly, just because someone can come up with ontological hypotheses doesn't mean they are any good. We don't know anything about higher ontology, so we are essentially just playing pin the tail on the donkey. All we really know is what we are brought with our senses, as extended by science.

    Secondly, you have quite a mishmash of subjective criteria folded into your "principles" like beauty, satisfaction, how I wish to live, etc. It all leads easily astray to whatever you like.

    So it would be good to be honest and say that you are making of the world what you wish to make of it, and going far, far beyond the minimal degree of warrant that it provides by way of evidence. Make ontologies if you must, but they are of psychological significance, not epistemic.

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