This is the second in a series of posts answering the most common objections to substance dualism (see the intro here, and the first response here). I will argue that an appeal to Ockham’s razor does not, at present, carry any weight against substance dualism, and the principle is only relevant as a hypothetical qualifier to the debate.
I should stress again, this series is not making a positive case for substance dualism. Rather, I am trying to expose the standard arguments against substance dualism, which are routinely trotted out as if they were prize stallions, rippling with rhetorical muscle and incapable of being bested in a race, for the tired, creaky old nags that they are. These objections, touted as undefeated champions, can’t even drag their sorry carcasses off the starting line. It’s high time they were sent to the glue factory—er, excuse me, put out to pasture.
Substance dualism posits (at least) two fundamental substances, or two ontological categories, in order to explain the salient features of the world. Materialism posits one. One is fewer than two. (Yes, I did just write that sentence.) So, in that sense, materialism is ontologically “simpler” than dualism, because it posits fewer ontological categories.
Ockham’s razor is the widely held principle that one ought not to multiply ontological categories beyond necessity. In other words, when doing metaphysics, keep it simple stupid. If you can explain the flickering lights in your basement using only physical stuff (electric currents and copper wire) and physical laws (Ohm’s law comes to mind), there’s no need to drag in ghosts and ghoulies and poltergeists. Likewise, if we can adequately explain the mental features of the human mind using only one ontological category (e.g., physical substances), then we have no warrant for appealing to additional categories (e.g., body and soul; res extensa and res cogitans, etc.). Given an adequate explanation of the mind in physical terms, it becomes unnecessary to “multiply ontological categories,” and the non-physical is rightly excised.
But—and this is the all important question—can materialism, in fact, adequately explain the mind? If materialism cannot, even in principle, explain the mind, then an appeal to another ontological category would be warranted, provided it allows for an adequate explanation. And this, of course, is precisely what dualists claim. They claim that materialism cannot even in principle explain consciousness, intentionality, rationality, self-identity over time, unified consciousness at a time, free will, etc., whereas dualism, they claim, can. In other words, a more ontologically complex explanation is appropriate if a more ontologically complex explanation is necessary.
The issue, then, is not whether dualism is more complex. As I said before, one is fewer than two. That’s obvious. Instead, the issue is whether materialism is capable, at least in principle, of an adequate explanation of the mind. Materialists have to first show that they can, at least in principle, offer adequate explanations of the mind before any appeal to Ockham’s razor is relevant.
Too many materialists miss the conditional nature of Ockham’s razor. I have heard dualism rejected on the mere basis that it is “more complex than materialism, and therefore, less preferable.” Instead of Ockham being a discriminating surgeon wielding a scalpel, he becomes an axe-wielding psychopath, chopping at anything in his path. The principle becomes: “Do not multiply ontological categories.” Full stop. The phrase “beyond necessity” is simply ignored.
Now, I fully expect any materialist reading this to demur that materialism can, in principle, explain the mind. Perhaps it can. But an intellectually honest materialist must concede that such explanations have not been forthcoming. Until then, Ockham’s razor is irrelevant as an objection to substance dualism.
Please let me know what you think in the comments.
A Philosopher's Take 
Lage
October 27, 2015
“Now, I fully expect any materialist reading this to demur that materialism can, in principle, explain the mind. Perhaps it can. But an intellectually honest materialist must concede that such explanations have not been forthcoming. Until then, Ockham’s razor is irrelevant as an objection to substance dualism.”
I disagree with the last point there. Occam’s razor is not irrelevant as as objection to substance dualism when the second substance posited carries with it no explanatory power at all (at least none so far demonstrated). It’s analogous to saying that “magic (a second ontological substance) explains minds and mental phenomena” and then not explaining what magic is, how it works, how it emerges from the first substance, its mechanisms and interactions with the first substance, etc.
“The issue, then, is not whether dualism is more complex. As I said before, one is fewer than two. That’s obvious. Instead, the issue is whether materialism is capable, at least in principle, of an adequate explanation of the mind. Materialists have to first show that they can, at least in principle, offer adequate explanations of the mind before any appeal to Ockham’s razor is relevant.”
I don’t think that materialists need to go that far before Occam’s razor can be employed. On the contrary, dualists would need to show that a second substance is possible first, what exactly that substance is and at least some of its properties and how it interacts with the first substance, and then eventually explain how mental phenomena could in principle result from this second substance. Until they can show that the second substance is at least in principle possible, and then show how that second substance works to produce a mind, there’s no good reason to believe that a second substance even exists. Whereas we know that the first substance exists, we don’t know that the second one does. If the dualist can’t show how a second substance can better handle or produce some level of explanatory power when compared to the first substance (that is, if NEITHER substance can offer any explanation better than the other), then Occam’s razor will eliminate the second substance. We know that at least SOME properties of the mind are dependent on properties of the first substance (speed of neurological processes, the neurological substrates themselves, etc.), so materialism can already account for at least SOME (if not all) of the properties of minds. On the other hand, nobody has yet demonstrated how dualism can provide any further explanation of how minds work, how they emerge, etc., beyond that which materialism has already provided. Until this is done, I believe that Occam’s razor is absolutely applicable.
Also, since minds and their properties presumably do not exist without physical brains, then the dualist has the added burden of proof of showing how the second substance somehow EMERGES gradually from a specific configuration of the first substance (material brains), without merely being identical to the first substance. My two cents.
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Anonymous
October 28, 2015
You make some good points, but I’d have to agree with the post’s author that the ‘all things being equal’ criteria hasn’t been met for the application of Sir William’s tool. He is cleverly turning the tables on physicalism, whose long standing complaint about dualism has been it’s incompatibility with things like causal closure, strong supervenience, etc. which seem to give a very robust account of our experience.
Philosophers didn’t just happen upon a physiclaist position, they were dragged to it kicking and screaming because the alternative is the sacrifice of those explanations associated with physicalism. There are ways around that sacrifice, but they all seem to end in some sort of alternative causal scheme, Occaisionalism, or Berkelian idealism – all of which are positions which can be held philosophically, but as Russell said of solipsism (similarly, a defensible philosophical position) cannot be held psychologically. They are not pragmatically true.
The author has fairly turned around and asked, “What about all of this stuff that we must give up with Physicaliam?”
Yes, most of that stuff isn’t what we thought it was – which is why the neurologists are ultimately not a dualist’s buds. But he seems to imply that these things (persistent identity over time, intentionality, free will) must be accepted as is, or eliminated. I don’t think that’s the case; we simply need to understand what we got wrong about most of them – a revision is in order.
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Lage
October 29, 2015
“You make some good points, but I’d have to agree with the post’s author that the ‘all things being equal’ criteria hasn’t been met for the application of Sir William’s tool.”
Someone would have to show that the criteria hasn’t been met. As far as I can tell, nobody has yet shown how dualism offers any ADDITIONAL means of explanation of the phenomena than physicalism (other than making the claim that it can somehow do this better or more fully by positing a new substance) — and so it seems that the “all things being equal” criteria has been met. One could say that at the very least, both physicalism and dualism are equally BAD at providing the type of explanation that dualists are seeking by positing a new ontological substance with no explanatory framework or mechanism to back it up. If the new substance offers a better explanation (or an additional explanation), then how so? What are (any of) the properties of this new substance, how does it interact with the physical substance we do know exists in order to account for the phenomena it purports to explain, why does it only emerge with a particular configuration of the first substance (no conservation laws for the second substance it would seem)? If none of this can be answered or demonstrated, then I can replace “second substance” with “magic” and be pretty much on the same shaky footing. Which illustrates that dualism in that case would be nothing more than an argument from ignorance (“if we can’t explain it with physicalism NOW, then it must only be explained by something else, i.e., magic or a second substance, with mechanisms entirely unknown).
Therefore one should drop the needless complexity of dualism via Occam’s razor.
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keithnoback
November 3, 2015
Well, I have to disagree that the “all things being equal” criteria has been met – for the very same reasons that you list! Substance dualism has to make a case for the need for a separate substance (not the case for mere property dualism which the author makes with his gravity analogy below) and then, as you say, lay out the epistemology of the other substance, rather than facile gestures toward its inclusion of first person experiences, or assertions of causal solipsism a la Feser.
The substance dualist subsists upon the staid solidity of conscious identity – I am I and I am mine over time. This has not changed since cogito ergo sum. Yet I am not I without a comparator state – I am here rather than there, seeing red rather than blue – and my experiences are not ‘pure’ in that they are never quite the same experience twice, which means that I am never quite the same me twice. Even non- reflective consciousness requires participants other than myself.
If I am so defined by the contents of my experience (my intention must be toward something, qualia are of some experience occurring in space and time, on and on), then we are back in the familiar realm of causal relations which seems so inconsistent with a separate substance and additional causal schemes.
I am still waiting for the why and how from substance dualism. Once we have a viable proposal in hand, then I think we can decide whether or not the razor is applicable.
I am still waiting.
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Lage
November 3, 2015
keithnoback,
I think the “all things being equal” criteria has been met for the reasons I’ve already stated. The main reason being that physicalism has already accounted for much of consciousness (neural correlates, sense perception, etc.) and dualism simply piggy backs onto physicalism and adds a new substance with no reasoning or mechanism behind how it works, or what it is, it’s properties, etc. (the very same things that you yourself say you are waiting to see demonstrated, as am I). So both are basically equal in all other ways (since dualism contains most of physicalism but merely adds on to it a second substance), hence my justification for using Occam’s razor and lopping off that second substance because it doesn’t serve any explanatory purpose (yet at least). It’s only posited that it solves a problem, but then no mechanism is given to show how the problem is solved. Hence parsimony eliminating it until someone can demonstrate that it offers something that physicalism can’t — if that were to happen (and were demonstrated), then I’d gladly eliminate Occam’s razor from the topic at hand. Until then, it’s just excess fat that needs to be scraped off (IMO).
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Gordon Hawkes
November 1, 2015
Hi Lage, thanks again for your comments. You come down hard against substance dualism. As it isn’t my goal, at least in the post, to offer any arguments in favour of substance dualism, I won’t be doing that here. However, I do want to respond to some of your critiques.
1) You state that dualists must first show that the “second substance” is in principle possible. I think the possibility of a soul or disembodied mind is not in dispute, and the demonstration of its possibility is simply a matter of conceiving it. (If our conceiving of something is not a guide to its possibility, then what is?)
2) If substance dualism were in fact the utter failure that you imply it is, then I would agree we should toss it aside–but that would not be on the grounds of Ockham’s razor. It would simply be on the grounds of it being a failure as an explanation. But dualism does offer an explanation of at least the problem we have in explaining the mind physically: “Why do we perceive that all third-person descriptions are incapable of capturing first-person experience/consciousness? Because consciousness is not physical.” (Please note that that last statement was not an argument.) Again, materialism might be right. But we shouldn’t say dualism offers no explanation at all, no matter how bad of an explanation we think it is.
3) It seems odd to me, given the dialectic in the history of philosophy, that so many philosophers can talk as if “matter”–whatever that is (no need to define it, apparently)–is the one thing we are sure of. How are you so sure of the existence of “the first substance,” as you label it? Is it not through your mind? Is it not through your consciousness? Why are you so sure there is more to the world than your own consciousness? I’m not trying to be difficult, or play the skeptic, I’m simply pointing you to the metaphysical questions that have been raised seriously by many modern philosophers especially. As of now, no satisfactory physical explanation of consciousness has been given. Our inner conscious life seems utterly unlike the physical stuff we observe. The presumption in favour of materialism (justified often by appeals to Ockham’s razor) seems completely unjustified at the moment.
Some philosophers are so sure of this “first substance” that they are willing to give up the mind itself when it doesn’t want to fit neatly into a metaphysical scheme made up of only that substance. For instance, eliminativists like the Churchland’s, or Alex Rosenberg. This borders on incomprehensible to me. I look on their work as that of people in thrall to materialist dogma. If Descartes showed us anything, he showed us that, if we can be sure of anything, its of what we are experiencing from the first-person perspective. To eliminate the first-person perspective in favour of physical stuff…. Well, self-refutation seems to lurk in such claims. In sum, I think it gets things backwards to insist loudly that matter is undeniable, yet, at the same time, to be soft and skeptical about the reality of mind.
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Lage
November 1, 2015
I apologize in advance for the verbose reply here, but here we go…
“1)…I think the possibility of a soul or disembodied mind is not in dispute, and the demonstration of its possibility is simply a matter of conceiving it. (If our conceiving of something is not a guide to its possibility, then what is?)”
Well, if conceiving of something is simply listing a conjunction of properties (with no consideration of whether or not the conjunction of properties is itself possible or at least reasonable in the sense that the properties don’t contradict one another in some way), then I don’t think that conceiving of something is enough to demonstrate that it is truly possible. It may be that if we can conceive of something, that it is logically possible and yet still physically impossible. For example, I can imagine seeing some event such as that in Star Wars where we hear the Starfighters or Tie fighters shooting lasers throughout space although this isn’t physically possible because there is no air (gas density) in space sufficient enough to propagate sound — so while we see it in the movie and it seems reasonable enough (logically possible perhaps) it isn’t physically possible at all (not in any part of our universe anyway so far as we know). So when we see the Star Wars vehicles shooting in space and we hear the sounds, we are simply taking for granted a conjunction of properties (in this case, the sounds that high energy laser pulses would make on the surface of earth and the sight of seeing these vehicles flying and shooting those laser pulses through space). So we can conceive of this happening even though it is physically impossible. So just because a person can conceive of a mind, doesn’t mean it is physically possible nor intelligible.
Which begs the question: what exactly are we conceiving of when we “conceive” of what we call a mind (or a soul for that matter)? Is it “thought” itself or a “thinking thing” made of something? If so what is it made of? It can’t be made of physical stuff or parts (since according to dualists it’s not physical), so what is it made of? Saying it’s made of “mind substance” or some second substance that’s not physical but otherwise undefined in any way is not sufficient, for this is no different from saying that “it’s not made of physical stuff, but I don’t actually know what it could even possibly be made of”. If it’s not made of anything at all, then how does it work, how could it work, and how can it exist at all if not in spacetime? What are it’s properties? I’m basically asking what the conception of a mind entails? If it is something that is legitimately conceivable (and not just claimed to have been conceived or to be conceivable), then what does the conception consist of exactly? Whereas I can conceive of a pink elephant with wings, even though that doesn’t exist (though it is physically possible), and whereas I can list the conjunction of properties that this imaginative conception would consist of, we don’t even seem to be able to do this much with the conception of a mind. At best, it is like describing the physically impossible sound propagating in outer space, but even this is too generous, because we can at least conceive of how we could hear sound in outer space in principle (by imagining that there is in fact more/enough gas/pressure out there to make it physically possible to transmit sound). How can we even in principle conceive of a mind not made of any parts?
I would argue that the demonstration of the possibility for something requires a closer evaluation of the conjunction of properties proposed, if simply conceiving of something is going to be enough to warrant its possibility of existing. It seems that in the case of a disembodied mind, most people seem to be conceiving of some kind of thing with mysterious properties such that it doesn’t reside anywhere in space or time (since if it exists in our universe’s integrated spacetime then it must distort the fabric of spacetime as per relativity which is only possible with physical objects), it isn’t made of anything physical (so no physical object embodies this mind in order to experience spacetime), and yet it is claimed to have the properties required to think (which is a temporal process that requires time). So with a disembodied mind, we have a (possible) conception based on an ad hoc conjunction of ludicrous properties that doesn’t appear to be physically possible based on our knowledge of how space and time work in our universe. So to answer your question, what can guide us to determine if something is (logically) possible or not, I would say that that question doesn’t matter as much as “what can guide us to determine if something is physically possible or not”. You may say, “but that question presumes that physical explanations are the only kind that you’re willing to consider” and I would respond by saying “yes, that’s because physical explanations are the only justified explanations we can ascertain using our exclusively physical senses that we use to experience and probe the very world we exist in and the very world we are trying to describe.
“2) If substance dualism were in fact the utter failure that you imply it is, then I would agree we should toss it aside…on the grounds of it being a failure as an explanation. But dualism does offer an explanation of at least the problem we have in explaining the mind physically: “Why do we perceive that all third-person descriptions are incapable of capturing first-person experience/consciousness? Because consciousness is not physical.” ”
But dualism doesn’t offer any explanation for this either. Dualists merely claim that it does. Also, I can propose several possible reasons for “why we perceive that all third-person descriptions are incapable of capturing first-person experience/consciousness”. One possible reason could be that we are simply misunderstanding our experience and so are trying to describe something based on an incorrect conception of its properties. Another possible reason is the limitations of language. What if we didn’t have any adjectives in our language for example? Would we be able to capture the essence of “what something is like” in our subjective experience and properly describe it to someone else if we didn’t have the words to do so? How could I describe eating a red, round piece of fruit without adjectives? I could likely describe the act of eating a piece of fruit in some way, but that limitation of that language would render me incapable of capturing the properties I wish to describe. I think this is similar to the predicament for dualism. Just as some cultures don’t have any conception of particular colors they’ve never experienced (say, some very particular shade of blue), we may just not have a language (yet) capable of describing a mind in physical terms. It may also be that the physical description needed to describe a mind is something we can only model in a very abstract way (such as the concept of a million dollar bills). We can conceive of a million dollar bills in an abstract sense (mathematically multiplying a dollar bill and using some symbolic place holder in your mind), but can we really conceive of a million discrete objects at the same time? Studies have shown that we can only conceive of a dozen objects at a time (at best) where it is more often no more than 5 to 7 or so. So what if the description needed to explain the mind is so complex, that we can’t handle all the necessary details at one time in order to properly conceive of the total conjunction of properties or mechanism? What if it was like me telling you to conceive of an object with 100 properties, and I even list them all to you (color of this part, color of that part, shape, texture, smell, size of various parts, etc.) and the only way you can truly conceive what the object is, is by conceiving all 100 properties of the object simultaneously in your short term working memory. If this isn’t possible, then even though a physical description is available, you can’t conceive of the object properly. Now, in the case of traditional objects, we can certainly think of simply a few properties at a time and simply use various types of “placeholders” in our mind to continue to describe the objects remaining 95 or so properties. However, it may be the case that there is no proper “placeholder” possible such that we can properly conceive of a mind’s physical explanation without conceiving of some minimum number of properties simultaneously. Or it may be similar to me telling you to conceive of 4 spatial dimensions, where it may not be within our brain’s modeling capability to do so, even though you have a physical description of what a spatial dimension is and how to build up spatial dimensions from 1 to 2 to 3D. You may create a conjunction of spatial properties that is simply 3D “plus one more spatial dimension”, but is that really conceivable? We may not have the mental machinery required to do so.
I suspect that the mind-body problem is in this type of predicament. It is likely something that has such a complex physical description, that in order to grasp that which dualists are trying to account for (though unsuccessfully I’d argue), the only true way to grasp it physically, is to be able to simultaneously conceive of some minimum number of properties or attributes that our brain is unable to model. It seems much more likely that this is the case (that the brain is unable to model itself beyond some simplistic level of complexity). This seems most likely since history has shown us countless times that what has once been very poorly understood in terms of physical mechanism and description (such as lightning) is deemed as “magic” or some new type of stuff just because we didn’t yet have the proper language to describe it, or didn’t have the proper conjunction of properties under consideration, etc. While we were eventually able to discover the proper sensory/causal patterns required to explain what lightning was and how it came about, we may eventually do so for explaining what a mind is and how it works, or we may find that the brain isn’t capable of doing so, or we may find that the questions we were trying to ask all this time were incoherent in the first place.
“3) It seems odd to me, given the dialectic in the history of philosophy, that so many philosophers can talk as if “matter”–whatever that is (no need to define it, apparently)–is the one thing we are sure of. How are you so sure of the existence of “the first substance,” as you label it? Is it not through your mind? Is it not through your consciousness? ”
I think physicists have done a pretty good job at defining “matter”. Yes, as per my own blog’s adage “Cogito ergo sum”, I’m aware that Descartes initially abandoned his epistemology and wanted to start from a Solipsist point of view. However, because our conscious experience overlaps conceptually and coherently with what we see others apparently experiencing, we assume that they also have minds like we do and we also assume that the world is made of stuff. Since the stuff seems to remain there no matter what we do with our mind (try to will the moon to disappear for example), we assume it exists independently of our minds because that is the most pragmatic way to live and achieve our goals. We realize that we can predict the future with causal laws discovered and that others can as well by noticing the same rules found in nature. So our solipsism that we are most justified in believing to be true is accompanied with the beliefs in the independent existence of an entire physical world because it has demonstrated itself as likely to exist on its own since it follows causal relations that we can verify at future moments in time without our constant thinking about those causal relations. Yes we use our mind to perceive the world, but that is already agreed upon by both sides of the debate.
“As of now, no satisfactory physical explanation of consciousness has been given. Our inner conscious life seems utterly unlike the physical stuff we observe. The presumption in favour of materialism (justified often by appeals to Ockham’s razor) seems completely unjustified at the moment.”
As of now, no satisfactory non-physical (dualist) explanation of consciousness has been given either. And I would expect our inner conscious life to be utterly unlike the physical stuff we observe in many ways at least, because our brain processes involve a very specific and incredibly complex type of configuration and interaction of physical stuff that models the world with neural correlates pertaining to systems of energy that the body interacts with. The human brain is thus far the most complex organization of matter in the known universe, and the densest form of complexity for that matter (nano-sized synapses for example). It makes sense that what such a complex organ does is going to be seriously perplexing to us, given that we only learned that the sun was the center of the solar system but a few centuries ago. Which is why I feel Occam’s razor is justified in eliminating dualism (because it seems to offer nothing new to the explanation other than what physicalism already provides). It is always justified to use against an argument from ignorance and I believe that is what dualism ultimately is. Until I see an actual explanation for how dualism accounts for the mind, the mechanisms employed, the properties of the mind (how exactly a mind is even conceived of), etc., which are the same things we’d ask for in any other explanation we’d seek for any phenomena whatsoever — until these things are demonstrated or proposed coherently, dualism and its “second substance” will simply remain on the same epistemic footing as “magic”.
Now I feel like writing another post to supplement the one I just wrote (maybe going into more detail about the limitations of the brain and it’s relevance to the mind-body problem)…it’s probably worth writing more on…
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Gordon Hawkes
November 2, 2015
Hi Lage, thanks for your thoughts. I agree that we can distinguish between types of possibility. I purposely didn’t specify any type because you didn’t in your original comment to which I was responding, and I didn’t want to go down that side road. At the end of point 1) you state: “…physical explanations are the only justified explanations we can ascertain using our exclusively physical senses that we use to experience and probe the very world we exist in and the very world we are trying to describe.” How would you defend this claim? If I understand you correctly, you would simply be begging the question against the dualist without offering reasons to support this claim. Many dualists believe the mind must be non-physical in order to be conscious and rational in the first place. For example, see Thomas Nagel’s arguments in MIND AND COSMOS.
Regarding point 2), I have two responses. First, you simply deny that dualism is an explanation for the conscious mind. Please note that I merely suggested dualism is an explanation of why qualia (or our first-person perspective; consciousness) appear to both possess and lack properties that the brain and its processes have.
If I noted that apples drop to the earth and Newton suggested as an explanation that there is a force acting between the apple and the earth, would you allow that that is an explanation, even if the explanation went no further than positing a mysterious force acting at a distance? The explanation offered by dualism, as I presented it, is at least an explanation in the sense that gravity would be an explanation of the apple falling down. “What is gravity?” you could ask. “I don’t know,” I could reply. Yet it would still be an explanation. Likewise, positing an immaterial mind explains why you won’t find my consciousness by cracking open my skull, a la Hannibal Lecter, and taking a look inside. (The explanation might be false. Granted. But it is an explanation, and that is all I am claiming at this point.)
Second, you acknowledge the perceived distinctness of consciousness from its physical base. You offer many clever possibilities that explain the perceived distinctness, which you take (as I understand you) to be an illusion of sorts (whether from limitations of language or conception, etc.). I want to offer you a counterargument, or counter-consideration, that motivates many dualists. Dualists don’t argue (at least not the careful ones) that “we just don’t know how consciousness could be physical.” Rather, the argument is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for consciousness to be physical. The difference between the brain and consciousness, dualists argue, is QUALITATIVE, not QUANTITATIVE. You simply cannot add particles to each other and eventually get a consciousness which is nothing more than the particles in combination. Instead, consciousness is qualitatively radically different that physical stuff.
To frame this another way, I’m claiming that dualists don’t offer an argument from ignorance (“We don’t know how consciousness works. Therefore, it’s not physical.”). Rather, I’m claiming that dualists are arguing from what we do know. (“My conscious experience has properties and qualities that physical brains lack. Therefore, my conscious experience is not my brain.”) Crude, perhaps, but hopefully I’ve made my point clear.
Regarding 3), three points. First, I’m glad we can both agree on the reality of the physical world! Second, regarding the complexity of the brain, see my point above about the nature of the dualist’s claim. The claim is that no matter how complicated you make the physical system, it is IMPOSSIBLE for consciousness to be physical. It is qualitatively distinct. Third, this is a nitpicky point, but crucial: any demand for a mechanism for how the non-physical (non-mechanical) mind works is like asking for a non-normative moral rule, or a colourless painting. (I will be addressing this point more in my next post of this series: Why interaction is not a defeater for substance dualism.)
Thanks again, Lage, for you thoughts. (Have you read some of the more serious defenses of dualism? I’d recommend John Foster’s The Immaterial Mind or Richard Swinburne’s The Evolution of the Soul if you’re looking for more technical reading. I’d also highly recommend a book called Philosophy of Mind by Edward Feser as a more enjoyable, fast read. Unlike many introductory textbooks, he gives a robust case for dualism, and, unlike much philosophy, its exceptionally readable.)
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Lage
November 3, 2015
“At the end of point 1) you state…How would you defend this claim? If I understand you correctly, you would simply be begging the question against the dualist without offering reasons to support this claim. Many dualists believe the mind must be non-physical in order to be conscious and rational in the first place. ”
Regarding point 1, it is because our senses themselves are exclusively physical (touch, smell, taste, hear, see, etc.), and we know exactly what kinds of energy interact with those senses and we know of nothing OTHER than those physical energies interacting with our physical senses. So the only way we can probe the world (to know what exists at all and the causal and other properties associated with what does exist) is with an interaction between external energy quanta and our physical senses. So appealing to explanations that aren’t exclusively based on causal patterns found with our senses (even if some of those causal patterns have to be evaluated in a complex way, and/or with technology that serves as an extension of our senses, etc.), is to appeal to an explanation that our own senses can’t justify. So I don’t think it is begging the question, but rather it is pointing out that what we use to probe the world and thus what is used to produce our conscious experience is through physical senses that sense physical forces. So as for dualists believing that the mind must be non-physical in order to be conscious and rational, I would argue that we wouldn’t be conscious of anything without our sensory experience, and the senses only detect physical forces and energy (it seems to me that a “self” develops by first establishing boundaries that differentiate the internal from the external world as well as a temporal frame of reference based on physically stored memories of physical sensory experiences). I would also argue that rationality comes in part from a naturally-selected DNA-coded neurological scaffold that is able to be built up and pruned away as we gain sensory experience with the world, thus producing various levels of pattern recognition, stored in memory — thus establishing a frame of reference that can reason about patterns stored in memory, whether or not higher level patterns exist (which we might call reason), etc. In a nutshell regarding my comment you mentioned here, if something isn’t demonstrated to be physically possible (such as things we may simply “conceive” of), then we don’t have warrant in believing it to be true. The only way to determine if something is physically possible or not is by laying out physical descriptions and explanations.
“First, you simply deny that dualism is an explanation for the conscious mind. Please note that I merely suggested dualism is an explanation of why qualia (or our first-person perspective; consciousness) appear to both possess and lack properties that the brain and its processes have. ”
Yes, but how does a new substance produce the properties that are missing from the physicalists’ explanation? What mechanism does the new substance utilize to produce qualia? Again, no matter what detail of consciousness a second substance is supposed to account for, I just haven’t seen an actual demonstration given that shows how a second substance can account for any of them. Again, it is like simply saying “it’s not physical, but I don’t know what it could possibly be”. Another problem with this topic is the fact that our concept of what is “physical” has changed over the years, namely with relativity and quantum mechanics. It used to be that “physical things” had a definite location in time and space. Then the notion of delocalization, superposition, entanglement, temporal dilation, etc., all changed our concepts of what is and isn’t physical (or what properties physical things have). I suspect that dualists are doing someting similar. They are seeing something (a “mind” or “qualia”) that appears to be analogous to “spooky action from a distance” as Einstein put it, and rather than assimilating the new phenomena/property of entanglement or non-locality in the physicalist vocabulary and ontology, dualists are just saying something like “quantum mechanical phenomena must not be physical because physical things have a definite location in time and space”. Just an aside but I think it is relevant to what will likely solve the mind-body problem that’s been proposed. People may see certain properties and deem them to be non-physical and yet they may simply be properties of certain configurations of physical matter, or perhaps even properties that all configurations of matter has, yet that aren’t manifested noticeably until a configuration complexity threshold has been surpassed.
“If I noted that apples drop to the earth and Newton suggested as an explanation that there is a force acting between the apple and the earth, would you allow that that is an explanation, even if the explanation went no further than positing a mysterious force acting at a distance?”
Yes, I would accept that to some degree (as a description) because the concept of force is well defined, however I would say that Newton merely described what was happening (a force was acting on the apple) not how it was happening (how does the force work, or where does it come from?). At the very least, we’d have a description of what was happening to the apple that is consistent with our precedent examples of other forces in nature, and so gravity would simply be ANOTHER force posited — not simply “the first force ever discovered”. Furthermore, this new force would be describable with the same units of measurement, we could observe how it changes with respect to different masses, etc. That is, we can determine many properties of gravity, even if we don’t know EVERYTHING about it.
“The explanation offered by dualism, as I presented it, is at least an explanation in the sense that gravity would be an explanation of the apple falling down. “What is gravity?” you could ask. “I don’t know,” I could reply. Yet it would still be an explanation.”
Not at all. Dualism doesn’t offer “another force” to the table, but rather “something that’s not a force, but nobody is sure exactly what it is…” Dualism doesn’t account for properties of the second substance, how we can verify the properties (what can we measure or detect with our senses), etc. I can see an apple falling down, and I can see that whatever is causing the apple to fall fits perfectly well in our definition of what a force is (which has already been established in multiple ways and with other forces: magnetic, electrostatic, muscular/kinetic at a higher scale, etc.). On the other hand, I can’t see what a “mind” or mental substance is doing or whether or not it has any verifiable properties whatsoever. There is no precedent or definition already in place (as there is with “force”) to have the analogy to gravity carry over for dualism. See what I mean?
“I want to offer you a counterargument, or counter-consideration, that motivates many dualists. Dualists don’t argue (at least not the careful ones) that “we just don’t know how consciousness could be physical.” Rather, the argument is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for consciousness to be physical. The difference between the brain and consciousness, dualists argue, is QUALITATIVE, not QUANTITATIVE.”
And this is fallacious as pointed out in my earlier comment about how what we define to be “physical” has changed (as per QM, relativity, etc.). Someone may define “physical” to be “anything that has a definite location in space and time” which sounds reasonable and was reasonable for thousands of years. Then all of a sudden after Bohr, Einstein, and others, all of a sudden every thing that exists in the universe was made of something “not physical” because it no longer fit in with a definition that was erroneous to begin with. This was unbeknownst to humans that were unaware that all matter and energy had such strange fundamental properties that were only noticeable at extremely small scales and extremely fast speeds that our senses couldn’t perceive on their own without special equipment produced later on in the future. Dualists are more likely doing the same thing with consciousness and the mind.
“You simply cannot add particles to each other and eventually get a consciousness which is nothing more than the particles in combination.”
One could say this about atoms and animals in general (even those that we don’t think are conscious). How can one simply add a bunch of clumps of the same kinds of stuff and get a collection of materials that is able to move in stimulated directions, metabolize food, poop, etc. How can one get from atoms to bacteria that are fundamentally different than atoms? Well, the answer is that when you get to a high enough complexity with a certain configuration of atoms, they no longer behave like individual atoms. They no longer behave like rocks even. Instead they behave in a way that we call “life”. Now “life” before consciousness evolved doesn’t even have the problem of consciousness to deal with yet. It just shows that even prior to the problem at hand, we can ask the same question about atoms to bacteria and get an answer that is likely analogous to how to get from bacteria to animals with brains. New configurations lead to new properties.
“Rather, I’m claiming that dualists are arguing from what we do know.”
I haven’t seen this presented coherently, nor without appealing to an argument from ignorance. They are assuming that consciousness and minds have properties that brains lack, but they haven’t demonstrated this yet and could be making a categorical error (as per QM, relativity, etc.) about the complete list of physical properties that exists.
“Third, this is a nitpicky point, but crucial: any demand for a mechanism for how the non-physical (non-mechanical) mind works is like asking for a non-normative moral rule, or a colourless painting.”
That’s not my problem. That’s a problem for those that aren’t physicalists. Any other time, when we seek an explanation we are looking for mechanisms. The mind can’t be an exception to this explanatory standard (IMO).
“Have you read some of the more serious defenses of dualism? I’d recommend…”
If I have time I’ll try and check out some of those suggestions. Honestly, I probably won’t spend too much time down that road (I tend to read published articles instead of whole books devoted to a topic that I don’t believe has much merit — such as dualism). Nevertheless, I’m appreciative of the suggestions and will try to check at least some of them out more or read some material online.
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Travis R
October 29, 2015
This seems to be the central point. So let me ask a couple clarifying questions:
1) What qualifies an explanation as “adequate”?
2) If competing explanations all fail to meet the criteria for “adequate”, does Ockham’s razor offer anything?
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Gordon Hawkes
November 1, 2015
Hi Travis. Challenging questions you ask. Attempt to answer them I will. (Too much thinking about Star Wars lately it would seem.)
1) I would consider an “adequate” explanation one that would cause a philosopher, or thoughtful person, to say, “Yes, that seems to explain the phenomenon that I observe.” If it were a philosopher, and you asked him to elaborate, he might add, “The offered explanation accounts for a wide range of features of the phenomenon (especially the most salient features), it is plausible, it does not contradict other beliefs I have, it is clearly a possibility, it’s not ad hoc, and there is no better explanation on offer….and so on.” Must an adequate explanation be true, or the best possible? I don’t think so. Not in the sense I’m using it. I would count the geocentric universe, with the sun orbiting around the earth, as an adequate explanation of the sun’s path through the sky, even though it is not the best explanation. The heliocentric universe is a more elegant, simpler, more complete explanation. But at least the geocentric view accounts for many of the most salient observations–why the sun disappears below the horizon, why it reappears, etc. The geocentric view was in principle an adequate explanation, but it broke down all things considered in comparison with the heliocentric view.
In contrast, materialism has so far been a non-starter on the central features that we seek to explain, especially consciousness. Sure, we see how the physical activity in the physical brain is related or correlated with those features–but all of the explanations currently on offer don’t even come close to showing how, say, consciousness itself is physical. I can see how the sun might travel around a stationary earth; I don’t see how my first-person experience of the taste of strawberries could be nothing more than electrical activity in a clump of neurons. The two things seem to be utterly different, ontologically discrete categories. Philosophers like Dennett deny this, of course. He would say I am conceiving things all wrong. There is no “explanatory gap.” But to me, philosophers who say things like that are really just ignoring the thing to be explained. CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED (by Dennett) is really just consciousness ignored.
You could ask me to define the terms above further (“What do you mean by ‘plausible’ or ‘accounts for’?”), but at some point we must necessarily come to a stop in being able to give definitions. The claim that the earth spins on its axis while travelling on an elliptical orbit around the sun seems to me an adequate explanation of my observation of the path of the sun through the sky, the seasons, day and night, and more. The orbit story accounts for my observations adequately. I feel justified making this claim even if I can’t define non-circularly “accounts for” or even “adequately.’ I think that we are forced, ultimately, to rely on intuitive uses of terms. While it might be controversial to claim any specific term as being intuitive (that is, resistant to further definition), I don’t take the general point to be controversial, namely, that there is, at bottom, terms that we can and must use without being able to define them more precisely than by using synonyms.
Don’t get me wrong. Clear definitions are key in philosophy. But I’m going to keep on using the word “the” even if I don’t understand or agree with Russell’s account of the term.
2) Notice that in trying to give a definition of an adequate explanation I didn’t say the explanation has to account perfectly for everything, or even that it must be true. There can still be problems, and even holes in an explanation, while it remains “adequate” in the sense I’m using it.
If no explanations satisfied even my weak condition of “adequacy”, I don’t think Ockham’s razor comes into play. A razor is no use unless it has something to cut. If there are no competing explanations, then Ockham’s can’t narrow the field in any helpful way.
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Travis R
November 1, 2015
Gordon,
Despite having asked the question, I’m not really interested in nailing down a definition of “adequate”. I was more interested in your relative categorization of the physicalist and dualist explanations. But before I speak to that, allow me to address one statement in your response to #1:
I’ve never understood this. What exactly is the problem? Is it simply that the 3rd-person and 1st-person views seem so different? That “strawberriness” doesn’t jump out at us when we look at a correlated brain state from the outside? I’m always baffled when it is proposed that we should expect an experiential similarity between the two views. Furthermore, I don’t see how positing something new qualifies as a better explanation. Now instead of having a problem of dissimilarity between the 1st and 3rd person views, you have a problem of complete undetectability from the 3rd person view. Is that really a better situation?
OK, so does this mean that if none of the explanations on the table meet your definition of adequacy, that we can’t even judge their relative merits and order them from more probable to less probable (a task which is largely guided by Ockam’s razor)? Are they all effectively 0% probable? Is that the situation with explanations of consciousness?
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Gordon Hawkes
November 2, 2015
Hi Travis. Thanks for clarifying your concerns. In reply, I’d like to ask you a question: Can you explain the first-person point of view to me? What is it? What is it like? What properties does it have? Are those properties physical? Does something “have” the first-person point of view? (I’m not expecting you to reply with answers to any of these, but I’m trying to evoke the difficulty of the question of consciousness.) If all of reality is composed of non-purposive, non-teleological, unconscious physical stuff, following physical laws, with only physical properties existing, why should we expect consciousness to exist at all? The fact that the first-person perspective exists at all is utterly baffling to me on the assumption of materialism.
The problem behind the perceived distinctness between the first-person perspective itself (the consciousness of the individual) and the objects, processes, and forces that can be observed in the “third-person” realm is that, on the assumption of materialism, one would expect all reality to be physical and third-person observable. Also, more to the point, if consciousness (the first-person perspective) is physical, it should have physical properties. If consciousness has properties that are not identical to physical properties, either of the physical stuff, or the process, of which it is supposedly composed, then consciousness is not the physical stuff or process (and materialism is then false). That’s why it is a problem for materialism that the first-person perspective (consciousness) and things that are in the third-person display-case, the things that we can communally observe, are so distinct.
This is an aside, but something that has bothered me for a long time: If we are to take seriously the notion that there is no soul or mind beyond the physical matter and processes of our brain, we must learn to stop using pronouns that imply something beyond the physical matter when we are explaining the mind, or arguing for materialism. For example, if you say, “*I* experience the taste of strawberries from the first-person point of view, but that is just electrical activity in the neurons of *my* brain.”–what is the *I*? That, to me, seems like something borrowed from dualism. It makes no sense to say, “The electrical activity in the brain *has* electrical activity in the brain.” But if you say, “*My* experience is electrical activity in the brain”–well, then you have subtly snuck in a self, a separate thing, that has the experience, and that thing is left unexplained, unaccounted for in the physical story. At the very least, the *I* has to be, in principle, reducible to a materialistic conception of the self, which should be explicable in some third-person form. Both the “I” and the first person perspective itself should be explicable, at least in principle, in some third-person form, since, on materialism, they just are third-person, physical realities.
Perhaps you might experience some bafflement if you focus less on the dissimilarity between the first-person and third-person perspective and instead focus on the question, What is having the first person perspective? (If the answer is nothing, then it seems reasonable to me to expect (assuming materialism) that the first-person perspective just is the physical process taking place, and it should share all the properties of the physical process. Again, I’d expect there to be no radical distinctness.
But, (to answer your second question) if we suppose that consciousness is not physical, then we would expect, on that theory, that consciousness would not share physical properties. Thus, positing a non-physical consciousness (whether a property or substance version) is an explanation for what we observe, namely, that consciousness has properties not shared by physical stuff. (I didn’t want to argue for dualism here, but here is a cliff notes argument to make this point: 1) If the conscious mind is the brain (or physical processes in the brain), then it will share all properties with the brain. 2) It doesn’t. My brain and its processes are accessible to everyone. My consciousness is only accessible to me. 3) Therefore, my conscious mind is not the physical brain or its processes.)
You state that “positing something new” (dualism) leads to the problem of “complete undetectability from the 3rd person view.” I don’t understand how that is a problem. First, consciousness is “detectable” in the sense that my conscious mind is writing this to you. You can observe the effects of my consciousness. Second, the first-person view already is “undetectable” to others in the sense that we can’t access it directly. We can’t enter into your 1st person perspective. But that is just the problem of other minds, and that problem faces both materialists and dualists. Restricting reality to only that which is “detectable” in the sense of it being observable by the physical senses seems a crude form of empiricism, which would force me to deny that you have a first-person perspective at all, since I can’t observe it directly.
So, with that in mind, I come back to your statement that prompted most of what I’ve said above: “*I’m* always baffled when it is proposed that *we* should expect an experiential similarity between the two views.” Very crudely, on a materialist view, *you* and *I* are conglomerations of particles–the completeness of *you* is formed by combining separable, physical parts. How, on that view, does the first-person point of view occur at all? Why should anyone think that it would occur if materialism were true? (I have a short post I might put up soon comparing panpsychism to materialism. It would seem that panpsychism is more reasonable than materialism for this very reason. It at least makes consciousness something to be expected from the combination of separable parts.)
Regarding your last question, if we reject all available theories, then there is no need to sort them out according to their varying levels of complexity. We could still rank them as better or worse, but to what end? What we want is the truth.
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Travis R
November 2, 2015
Hi Gordon,
I’ll gladly answer the questions you pose in return. Hopefully it can clarify my position. I had trouble posting my full response, perhaps because it was too long, so I’ve broken it into two parts.
I’m pretty confident you can answer that from your own perspective, so I’ll defer to your experience and the assumption that it is roughly similar to mine.
I don’t see why not. I could start from a Cartesian position of ignorance – that I don’t know what this first-person perspective is, only that it exists – and then observe the rest of the world from there (including bodies and brains and correlation and causation). Having done that, I see no reason why it is errant to conclude that the first-person perspective is most likely just a particular operating mode of that which we have observed to constitute everything else and have labeled “physical”.
Isn’t this only troubling if you assume that purpose and consciousness aren’t physical?
I agree that under materialism “one would expect all reality to be physical”. That is true by definition. But I don’t agree that it requires that everything would be “third-person observable”. How does materialism require that it all has to look the same from every possible perspective? I don’t see that the dichotomy I previously offered of an “inside view” and an “outside view” is incompatible with materialism. In fact, it appears that we’re on track to revisit the same points from that discussion.
I don’t see why we should assume that consciousness doesn’t have physical properties. To quote my comment from the previous article: “I concede that [first-person and third-person perspectives] have distinct properties, but I deny that this defeats identity. The problem is that in order for the distinction to be a defeater for claims of identity, we have to have access to all properties from all perspectives … If both views are incomplete than it might appear that they are viewing different things. Granted, you can also use that distinction to assert that they actually are different things, but I think that position has a much harder time dealing with the other concerns of correlation, interaction, origin of consciousness, prospects of artificial intelligence and, ultimately as a result of the ad hoc assumptions needed to explain all these things – Ockham’s razor.”
You accused me of assuming a ghost in the machine last time and I responded by pointing out that you had ignored the possibility of self-reference. Is there something problematic with self-reference in a physical entity?
But now you’ve banished the first-person from the physical realm. As noted above, I don’t see why this is necessary.
(to be continued)
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Travis R
November 2, 2015
(continued from above)
I agree, but the positing of a non-physical substance seems to be solving the same problem as the proposal of a first-person perspective which resides entirely within physicalism – namely that it is explaining why there is a difference between the first-person and third-person perspective. However, the “non-physical substance” theory seems to carry a bunch of other baggage with it and that’s where Ockham’s Razor comes in.
Welcome to my world. I think it is a problem in the same way that you think the difference between the first-person and third-person perspectives of neural states is a problem. In the physicalist case the problem is that something physical (consciousness) has limited access from the rest of the world (and so it looks different) and in the dualist case the problem is that something non-physical (consciousness) has limited access from the rest of the world (it isn’t detectable at all).
This sounds a lot like the observation of consciousness itself from a third-person perspective. What if we just eliminated the extra step of there being a separate non-physical entity that causes a physical effect? Yes, I know, you’ll deal with the interaction problem in a subsequent post, but haven’t I just described an application of Ockham’s Razor?
Over very long time periods, where evolution constantly updates the replication instructions to produce a highly adaptable stimulus response system with the possibility for feedback, regulation and stimulation that resides completely within the system.
Because it increases dynamic kinetic stability for that replicating system. Humans seem to be the pinnacle of that process, but there is massive evidence of the more rudimentary forms.
But if the explanations on the table are all that we have, and their inadequacy appears to be primarily due to ignorance, shouldn’t we prioritize the areas where we think that closing the gap of ignorance could yield the most fruitful results? Might Ockham’s Razor be a tool for establishing that prioritization? Perhaps I’ve over-estimated your definition of inadequacy and you truly think that inadequate = 0% probability of containing any truth, in which case I would suggest that your categorization of physicalism as inadequate is egregious.
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truthmapping
November 3, 2015
Hi Travis,
> Perhaps I’ve over-estimated your definition of inadequacy and you truly think that inadequate = 0% probability of containing any truth, in which case I would suggest that your categorization of physicalism as inadequate is egregious.
I too think that Ockham’s has no role in this debate as those who argue the pure physicalist position must either 1) argue that reason and knowledge do not exist which is self-contradictory or else 2) that reason and knowledge are possible because there exist physical laws that can separate true and false beliefs.
Haldane summarized this argument long ago and perhaps too succinctly with: “It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
But there is a more detailed view here:
https://www.truthmapping.com/map/1533/
I would love to hear where you think this is incorrect. Thanks.
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Lage
November 4, 2015
truthmapping,
“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
Yet, that doesn’t make them NOT logically sound either (though this may be the case). Furthermore, when evolutionary theory is taken into account in a theory of mind, it suggests that the atoms in our brain are forming representative models of the energy that the body interacts with in the environment. Since a brain that better models reality is more likely to survive, there is a strong argument to be made that our brains model reality fairly well and are thus likely to represent reality fairly truthfully (much of the time), even if it is atoms doing all the work at the lowest level physically. Just because “mindless” atoms on their own don’t appear to produce logic. If configurations of atoms into neurons can mimic aspects of the world (different electro-static potentials/frequencies based on different types of energy reaching our sensory organs), then natural selection can optimize this mimicry and make useful models of the world which will necessarily abide by logical structure (at least some of the time, based on the logical absolutes being instantiated with pattern recognition capability/hardware in the brain).
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Travis R
November 4, 2015
I agree with everything you’ve said here Lage, but I think truthmapping is asking us to go visit the map he linked to and add our critiques on the specific points there.
truthmapping/jack/likes2think, I’ll take a look and respond when I have the chance. It appears that you are the creator of that site so I can at the very least for now applaud you on what appears to be a nice tool for presenting arguments.
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Lage
November 4, 2015
Yes, I understood that truthmapping was asking us to visit the link. I just wanted to reply to the quote in his comment. 🙂
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truthmapping
November 4, 2015
Hi Travis and Lage,
I agree that in the purely physicalist view we can not know that a given thought represents something true or something false (lacking a mystical ‘physical law of truthiness’) and you have suggested that utility perhaps leads us there indirectly. If that were true then we would not be able to distinguish between a useful lie (utilitarian) and it’s opposing truth and yet we are quite capable of such distinctions. Therefore reason and logic are something apart from utilitarianism and are inexplicable in the physicalist view.
jack
(NOTE FROM JC – PLease do not post links unless they are directly related and needed for discussion. Thanks!)
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Lage
November 5, 2015
“If that were true then we would not be able to distinguish between a useful lie (utilitarian) and it’s opposing truth and yet we are quite capable of such distinctions. Therefore reason and logic are something apart from utilitarianism and are inexplicable in the physicalist view. ”
I disagree. After undergoing evolutionary natural selection guided toward higher survival and reproductive success, an organism is going to tend to evolve a higher proportion of “truths” than “useful lies” in its epistemology. Certainly we can’t rule out that some useful lies will find their way into our epistemology as we develop neuronal maps of the world through evolution and natural selection. But natural selection is on average going to produce models that are actually true since what correlates with reality is on average going to increase survival rates more than useful lies will. So given a long evolutionary time scale, the probability is increasingly higher for our epistemology to accumulate more truths than useful lies since better modeling of the world would produce one in higher proportion than the other. Reason and logic simply result as a consequence of how our brain produces models about the world — based on pattern recognition via our sensory organs I would argue — which get better and better as we learn more and as our brains continue to evolve more and more pattern recognition modules in our neocortex.
As I mentioned to Gordon in a previous comment — If the brain’s wiring has evolved in order to see dimensions of difference in the world (unique sensory/perceptual patterns that is, such as quantity, colors, sounds, tastes, smells, etc.), then it would make sense that the brain can give any particular pattern an identity by having a unique schema of hardware or unique use of said hardware to perceive such a pattern and distinguish it from other patterns. After the brain does this, the patterns are then arguably organized by the logical absolutes. For example, if the hardware scheme or process used to detect a particular pattern “A” exists and all other patterns we perceive have or are given their own unique hardware-based identity (i.e. “not-A” a.k.a. B, C, D, etc.), then the brain would effectively be wired to assume that pattern “A” = pattern “A” (law of identity), any other pattern “not-A” does not equal pattern “A” (non-contradiction), and any pattern must either be “A” or some other pattern even if brand new, which we can call “not-A” (law of excluded middle). So by the brain giving a pattern a physical identity (i.e. a specific type of hardware configuration in our brain that when activated, represents a detection of one specific pattern), our brains effectively produce the logical absolutes by the way it is wired to distinguish one pattern versus another. This shows that the evolutionary natural selection of brain configurations would not only integrate in a correlation with reality by nature of what pattern recognition is, but would also be based on a foundational hardware schema that inherently contains the logical absolutes which we subsequently use in our reasoning. These logical absolutes are something that we stumbled upon and formalized in philosophy eventually, but I’d argue that they have always existed implicitly by how the brain recognizes patterns and thus how it categorizes our sensory inputs. My two cents anyway.
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truthmapping
November 5, 2015
Lage,
I believe that the position you have adopted is incorrect both at the micro and macro levels.
Micro:
It is insufficient for tests of thoughts to occur only in our heads as that is not a test of survivability at all; the tests must represent true danger and survival in order to fit your paradigm. Yet the numbers involved in *all* of the permutations of *all* possible thought combinations to be so severely tested in order to develop the level of knowledge that exists today is so large as to not be possible during the brief existence of humanity, if ever. In addition this would mean that all steps along every knowledge chain would also have to be so tested. Evolutionary time scales are enormous compared to how long humans have been around. Such a leap in knowledge is only possible by ‘reasoning in our heads’ without need for survivability tests on every permutation at every step in every chain.
Macro:
If there is no ‘physical law of truthiness’ then the only alternative on offer is that of utilitarianism where there exists no entity cable of telling the difference between the two. No such observer can exist with that capacity in your view and yet you claim emergence through pattern recognition. Pattern recognition is not magical; it can not create reason from utility. As the map says, such an emergence is no more possible than floating point numbers are able to arise through integer arithmetic. The ‘fact’ there is no observer who can tell the difference between a useful lie and the opposing truth is belied by the fact that we can do just that, magical emergence over minuscule evolutionary time-scales notwithstanding.
jack
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Lage
November 6, 2015
Howdy Jack,
“It is insufficient for tests of thoughts to occur only in our heads as that is not a test of survivability at all; the tests must represent true danger and survival in order to fit your paradigm.”
Yes, while I mentioned evolution and survivability as the driving force behind creating neural maps that correlate with reality, the more basic mechanism is predictive capability. That is, evolutionary natural selection, survival and reproductive success ultimately result from being able to predict the future based on recognized patterns. So the true test for whether or not something is true is whether or not it allows you to predict the future successfully. So when our brains model simulations of what will accomplish some goal, it is based on the accumulation of recognized causal patterns that provided some kind of predictive capability (i.e. my brain may have recognized the set of patterns describing how all objects fall to the ground). My brain can now use the pattern recognized to try and predict the future (“if I drop a ball from this particular height, it will indeed fall to the ground as it has every time before). If it doesn’t fall, then the recognized pattern wasn’t true and should be discarded (though it may not true simply because it is incomplete — say, if my recognized patterns hadn’t yet taken into account how a kite won’t fall due to wind). If the object does fall, then the pattern recognized does in fact correlate with reality (to at least some degree) as it allowed me to predict the future successfully. The more times I see this pattern upheld (and never violated), the more certain I can be that the pattern is indeed correlating with reality, is complete, and therefore true.
“Pattern recognition is not magical; it can not create reason from utility.”
I don’t believe that pattern recognition is magical, but I do believe that it creates reason because included in the hierarchy of recognized patterns is how various patterns relate to each other (meta patterns, etc.). If I see four white balls sitting on the ground, and I want to use reason to determine what they all visually have in common, what do I do? What steps do I take to reason the answer to this question? If I don’t recognize spatial patterns between the balls, then what do I do to reason what they have in common or not? Pattern recognition is key to reasoning about anything at all as far as I can tell. My brain would recognize that all four balls have the same kinds of contours and are thus all what we call “spheres”. My brain would be unable to do this had it not recognized those spatial patterns.
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truthmapping
November 6, 2015
On the one hand you claim that logic and reason were formed by patterns yet you point to no logic or reasoning examples but instead only to direct observations such as “if I drop a ball from a particular height”, “how a kite won’t fall due to wind” or “if I see four white balls…” If the point here concerns non-observational knowledge acquisition then why do you use *only* observational examples?
> Yes, while I mentioned evolution and survivability as the driving force…
How does the equation of an ellipse or any similar non-threatening factoid involve survivability? What survivability test was ever required in order to solve a quadratic equation or anything similar? I suppose that this explains why you use only observational examples.
> So the true test for whether or not something is true is whether or not it allows you to predict the future successfully.
So if every time you and I met you lied or were mistaken and said that your name was Fred and I therefore successfully predict that you will do the same the next time then QED your name *is* Fred? Truth is relating what truly is, not what predictions say based on previous incorrect reasoning or observation. It doesn’t matter how many people thought that the world was flat based on observation as they were all wrong. It is the *recognition* of whether or not something reflects the true nature of reality that is outside the bounds delineated by physical laws so therefore the only way to know the truth exists outside your theory.
In the end you and I would agree that, say, rainwater that falls on a hillside will obey the law of physics and follow the path of least resistance down the hill. Where we part company is claiming that while our brains possess no further guidance than what the rainwater has (derived from non-rational and impersonal physical laws) that we can magically create reason from non-reason via non-actor “recognition,” patterns or non-patterns.
Your position is also undermined by the fact that our generation has advanced technologically more quickly than any in history without needing mass carnage to weed out the bad ideas. We think and test in the head (no death required) using reason that can not be derived solely from an irrational and actorless existence.
In the tremendous advance from simple cell phones to the most recent smart phones no deaths (survivability tests) were required. Your position can in no way account for this or similar startling advance.
p.s. I’ve never heard your position articulated before and have no patterns to work with in this regard yet I can disagree with your position without either such a pattern or a survivability test.
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Lage
November 7, 2015
Heidi ho Jack,
You’ve apparently misunderstood my position in a number of ways, so let me further clarify what I was trying to communicate earlier.
“On the one hand you claim that logic and reason were formed by patterns yet you point to no logic or reasoning examples but instead only to direct observations such as… If the point here concerns non-observational knowledge acquisition then why do you use *only* observational examples?”
I never said logic and reason were formed by patterns per se. What I said was that the logical absolutes are implicit in the way the brain configures recognized/conceived patterns with unique hardware configurations. We then use those patterns that are stored in memory to reason about anything and everything. So you don’t think reasoning is involved in he task of determining what four objects have in common? I find that surprising. Perhaps you have a very different and much more specific definition of what “reason” is. I tend to think that reasoning is involved and applies to an extremely broad range of mental tasks, even extremely simple ones based on simple observations. I specifically chose simple observations to reason about in order to make the example easy to understand, although I do think that any task of reasoning involves utilizing observed patterns stored in memory. Can you give me an example of reasoning examples that DON’T involve any observations (i.e. no sensory experiences that is)? Even reasoning over abstract objects requires abstracting concepts FROM observed objects (that have properties/patterns recognized).
“How does the equation of an ellipse or any similar non-threatening factoid involve survivability? What survivability test was ever required in order to solve a quadratic equation or anything similar? I suppose that this explains why you use only observational examples.”
So here’s another misunderstanding. I never said that we gain each instance of knowledge from it’s impact on our survival. What I was pointing out was the fact that our brains are the result of evolutionary natural selection and what drives natural selection is differential survivability/reproductive success. One of the more direct properties of the brain that bestows on us a survival advantage is it forming models that correspond to reality. The better it does this, the more likely that brain will be capable of predicting the future — because forming accurate models of the world implies accurate models of causal relations and so forth. Our ability to formulate mathematics is because our brain is able to recognize patterns of identity in various objects, abstract them with symbolic place holders (i.e. numbers, and operators), and many times use that information to predict the future (i.e. d = 1/2gt^2 — that is, the distance an object will fall on earth is proportional to the square of the acceleration rate of gravity). All of these things were discovered because we recognized causal patterns in the world around us as well as how to describe them with abstract symbolic placeholders (i.e. numbers, etc.). An equation of an ellipse was discovered by discovering a number of patterns that have to do with shapes and how to represent their structure in a formalized way. People had to observe ellipses in order to describe them, and then after finding a candidate way to describe them, the efficacy or truth of the equation was determined by its ability to help us predict the future. In that case, I should be able to see an ellipse and determine what it’s corresponding equation should be, or vice versa, I should be able to plug various numbers into the equation and if it always gives me an ellipse, I’m confident that the equation corresponds to reality in some way and is thus true in at least some sense.
“So if every time you and I meet you lied or were mistaken and said that your name was Fred and I therefore successfully predict that you will do the same the next time then QED your name *is* Fred?”
This does not logically follow. Your prediction that I will do the same the next time you see me indicates that you have successfully recognized a causal pattern that corresponds to reality. In this case, the causal pattern of what I will say and call myself when you see me. It doesn’t mean that what I say is true, but that your belief that I will say it is true. You need to be careful with how you determine what exactly is true regarding a “true” belief (that is, a belief that corresponds to reality). If you had the belief that my name is “Fred”, that would be incorrect (though correct in the sense that this is the label I’m giving myself, which is a “name” in a sense, and a name that you can use to “tag” your memory of who I am, what to call me, etc.). But if your belief was that I will call myself Fred, then that was correct, as you predicted it would happen and thus did correlate with reality.
” It doesn’t matter how many people thought that the world was flat based on observation as they were all wrong.”
Exactly. This proves my point. If people thought that the world was flat, they should be able to predict that they could walk in one direction and never come back to the same starting point. They would have (and did eventually) figure out that their prediction was wrong, and thus their belief wasn’t true — as it didn’t in fact correspond to reality. If they predicted that the earth is round and confirmed it by walking in one direction for a long enough time, finding themselves retracing their original steps eventually, then their prediction indicates that their belief was correct. This is how scientific theories work and it is nothing new. It’s actually pretty obviously the case. This is why a lack of correct predictions leads to abandoning scientific theories for new ones that predict better. Predictive capability means the model corresponds to reality (better prediction means better correspondence).
“Your position is also undermined by the fact that our generation has advanced technologically more quickly than any in history without needing mass carnage to weed out the bad ideas. We think and test in the head (no death required) using reason that can not be derived solely from an irrational and actorless existence.”
Our technological advancement is due to our observing patterns in nature and coming up with models that describe those patterns. As previously noted, our ability to predict the future successfully with those models leads to the advancements that you see. So technological advancements also prove my point for me. Observed causal patterns leads to a better and better understanding of the world if they make better and better predictions. This leads to the advancements you speak of. Observing patterns and determining their truth value by predictive success.
“In the tremendous advance from simple cell phones to the most recent smart phones no deaths (survivability tests) were required. Your position can in no way account for this or similar startling advance.”
See my previous comment about survivability as this was a misunderstanding of my position. Prediction is key, and it does in fact lead to our increased chance of survival, which is why evolution favored the development of the kind of brain that we have. Better model makers of the world lead to solving more problems and increasing chances of survival, thus leading to the selection of brains that can do this better and better (as induced by whatever environmental pressures are present to keep driving this ratcheting effect of increased brain development).
Cheers,
-Lage
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jack
October 31, 2015
“But—and this is the all important question—can materialism, in fact, adequately explain the mind? If materialism cannot, even in principle, explain the mind, then an appeal to another ontological category would be warranted, provided it allows for an adequate explanation. And this, of course, is precisely what dualists claim. They claim that materialism cannot even in principle explain consciousness, intentionality, rationality, self-identity over time, unified consciousness at a time, free will, etc.,”
Perhaps the most important part of your ‘etc.” is knowledge itself if its existence is not only unexplainable by materialism but also refutes it outright by demonstrating a contradiction:
https://www.truthmapping.com/map/1533/
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Gordon Hawkes
November 1, 2015
Jack, that’s quite the little map you’ve got there. You’ve attempted to create an anti-materialist argument similar to those offered by Karl Popper, Thomas Nagel, Edmund Husserl, Aristotle, and others. You are addressing the very argument that I am writing my thesis on. Please e-mail me if you’d like to discuss it more.
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likes2think
November 1, 2015
I agree with you that those without any rational justification for consciousness (or even knowledge) simply ignore the problem. The advantage of the map approach is that anyone is free to point out any problems with it but none have attempted as yet. Is it solid? I’m not sure yet.
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truthmapping
November 8, 2015
Hey Lage,
I am going to ignore some of the smaller rabbit trails in order to focus in on the bigger picture as I’d like you to explain some fundamental aspects of your position.
If the only rules that our brains follow are the laws of physics then you must also believe that consciousness is an artifact of some sort, that we do not perform actions but rather actions are performed in our brains (not by ‘us’) according to the rules. If that is the case then I think that your descriptions would be far more accurate if you would not use personal pronouns at all as they imply something that doesn’t exist in your theory and can tend to mislead.
For instance, “We then use those patterns…” means what exactly? How are the patterns used if there is no ‘we’ to use them and the only rules that apply are the laws of physics? You must be implying that the ‘use’ is through some combination of laws but which?
“we recognized causal patterns…” similarly begs the question at hand.
“An equation of an ellipse was discovered by discovering a number of patterns that have to do with shapes and how to represent their structure in a formalized way.” Discovering? Is there a law of physics that deals with abstract discovery of concepts that only exist as mental states? Which mental state law is that? (No pronouns, decision makers or implications of consciousness in your answer please and also avoid examples that use only trivial observation.)
Survival
“I never said that we gain each instance of knowledge from it’s impact on our survival.”
So then please explain how we *do* gain *any* kind of non-observational knowledge that doesn’t impact our survival. Please do not use personal pronouns or otherwise imply that an independent decision maker exists or that anything else applies other than the laws of physics which rule all matter.
jack
p.s. There is a ghost in your machine and this prose back and forth is a fantastic example of why I prefer viewing discussions in trees of related thoughts. If you think that you can make such a map, please do, as this does not feel like progress to me.
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Lage
November 8, 2015
Jack,
Before I proceed further, please acknowledge the points I made in my last response, individually if possible, so we can stay on track with that train of thought. Then I’ll know if you are understanding my position correctly, and then I promise we can continue…
Thanks,
-Lage
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Lage
November 8, 2015
I decided to proceed before hearing your reply as this will likely further clarify my position more than the last detailed response I gave. “If the only rules that our brains follow are the laws of physics then you must also believe that consciousness is an artifact of some sort, that we do not perform actions but rather actions are performed in our brains (not by ‘us’) according to the rules. If that is the case then I think that your descriptions would be far more accurate if you would not use personal pronouns at all as they imply something that doesn’t exist in your theory and can tend to mislead.”
What rules do you think the brain “follows” OTHER than the laws of physics? What other rules are there? Please tell me more about these other rules if you are positing that other rules exist. If we are simply missing aspects of physics in our current theories (much like how relativity and quantum physics were missing from our theories up until not long ago) that once discovered would adequately explain consciousness (that’s assuming it is necessary to do so and we’re not simply asking an ill formulated question to begin with), then they would still be classified as the laws of physics once they are discovered and thus the brain would all this time have been following the laws of physics anyway. It’s just that our current laws of physics were incomplete, as we already believe them to be (since we have no Theory of Quantum Gravity or Theory of Everything). So if you’re positing that there are some OTHER kinds of rules that the brain follows that would never be integrated or integratable into our understanding of the laws of physics, then what are these rules and why can’t they be integrated into physics as such (which describes the properties of matter, energy, time, and space; all things that seem to be the core necessities of a thing being able to undergo any kind of temporal experience)? Even though we understand light and matter very well with our physical law descriptions, we don’t know how light is able to turn into mass and vice versa. We know that it does exist and behaves this way but we don’t know how. We can only predict what light and matter will do under numerous conditions (and only know what they do based on what we are measuring for in our instruments — so if we don’t know what else to measure for, then we may be missing things that light and matter do all the time). I suspect that our understanding of consciousness via the laws of physics is in at least as dire a situation. A situation where we may know how to describe certain types of things well in ways that are conceptually easy to understand and yet not be aware of other more complex realities simply because we haven’t yet developed the adequate technology to probe the reducible levels (such as incredibly powerful particle accelerators that aren’t yet within our grasp), nor the language to describe them, nor potentially the mental capacity to do so. We simply don’t know yet, nor do we know if we can ever know.
As for personal pronouns, we use them because it is conventional and easier to do so. Just as we may talk about electronic devices such as motion sensors as “seeing” things (as if they were minds, though perhaps ironically this may end up being true upon more research in AI, and/or as we further develop the complexity of the kinds of sensors and computerized systems we use), we use conventions that are acceptable because either we lack the current words to describe the phenomena any better, and/or because it is conceptually simpler to use familiar language that was invented largely because of its compatibility with our intuitions (it’s easier to think about an optical sensor as “seeing” something rather than what it is doing at the atomic level in terms of the photoelectric effect, etc.). Oddly enough, the very intuitions that our language appeals to are also often wrong about fundamental properties of space, time, and matter — so should we really be surprised if we found our intuitions about the mind (something seemingly far more complex and hidden than the properties of space, time, matter and energy) are also wrong? The prior probability would seem to be higher that our intuitions are going to be wrong about a concept or topic that is higher in complexity than one with lower conceptual/ontological complexity. If the mind and its properties are of a higher complexity than either space, time, matter or energy, then we should expect to know less about it — especially given the fact that our intuitions have already been shown to be wrong on fundamental aspects of reality regarding space, time, matter and energy — arguably less complex aspects of reality than consciousness or the mind. Since we haven’t yet been able to probe the brain with as many effective and quantifiable tools as we have been able to probe the other aspects of the world (that are far easier to measure), then once again, the odds are in favor of our knowing less about how our minds work than any other known aspect of reality. Both in terms of the precedent regarding our intuitions and our technological capability of probing that aspect of reality.
“For instance, “We then use those patterns…” means what exactly? How are the patterns used if there is no ‘we’ to use them and the only rules that apply are the laws of physics? You must be implying that the ‘use’ is through some combination of laws but which?”
See previous comment and some more that follow below.
“Discovering? Is there a law of physics that deals with abstract discovery of concepts that only exist as mental states?”
I don’t really understand your question. Why does this matter? Is there also a law of physics that deals with economics? Or criminal law? Or sociology? Or language? These are higher level aspects of our reality (and we have “minds” which are involved with these higher level aspects, which is why these questions are similarly unanswerable in a current physics format that will satisfy people’s intuitions). That’s the question at hand and why we’re having this discussion and to answer these questions involves effectively solving the mind-body problem which isn’t going to happen in this discourse as I assumed we both knew was most likely going to be the case going into it (if we were only so lucky to do so). We experience matter having higher level properties even in terms of its physical structure lying in space (such as shape, topography, color) that simply aren’t present at the lower individualistic subatomic levels. Just as temperature isn’t definable at the level of a system with only one atom. It is a property that we can only use to describe some minimum number of atoms and their relative kinetic/thermal energies with respect to one another (generally averaged over the entire system). So if we’re trying to work our way upward in complexity by explaining something like the mind, then it may be quite like living with a current knowledge of the individual subatomic reality, and not knowing the higher level properties of things such as shape, temperature, color, etc., simply because we are only looking at the subatomic descriptions, possibly asking for answers to questions that by necessity involve higher level meta phenomena.
“So then please explain how we *do* gain *any* kind of non-observational knowledge that doesn’t impact our survival.”
If you read my initial response, you’d see that I already reject the assertion that we gain ANY new knowledge at all that isn’t observationally derived. Second, I think you’d see that I already answered this question by noting how being able to predict the future by having recognized patterns and then memorized them in order to affect future behavior allows for gains in knowledge and consequently also gains of survival (hence my mentioning survivability because of evolution’s role in the function of our brains) — with this strategy ultimately resulting from self-replicating molecules that were naturally selected by reproductive success eventually leading to the development of brains that evolved specifically to maximize this replication efficacy through macro–level reproductive processes.
To avoid using pronouns if you’re not comfortable with the standard folk convention and its convenient simplicity, then I’ll describe what our brains undergo as such: our brains are basically physically-instantiated (neural) models/maps of the world that correspond to reality in particular ways by storing causal representations of physical interactions received through physical sensors into a physically-instantiated (neural) form of memory. This memory and the neural maps (causal representations) that it stores affects the physical constituents that compose this macro level configuration of matter to change into new configurations of matter at the micro/macro level and to move in particular macro ways through space and interact with matter and energy at the micro and macro levels in order to maximize the replication of the molecule (DNA) that coded for proteins that initially formed the ontogenically evolving macro level configuration of matter under discussion. This is what it appears to have provided at least, in order to have been naturally selected for, even if it no longer solely serves to maximize replication of DNA any longer, due to it having been vulnerable to macro-level environmental changes that no longer provide the proper conditions to do so (or back to using the pronoun and otherwise convenient parlance of our times, we know longer use our brains solely to survive and reproduce).
“There is a ghost in your machine and this prose back and forth is a fantastic example of why I prefer viewing discussions in trees of related thoughts. If you think that you can make such a map, please do, as this does not feel like progress to me.”
There is no ghost as I just thoroughly explained (and have been explaining), though there seems to be a ghost in your’s (assuming you are a dualist). I’ll look into making a map as you honestly just introduced me to the idea (I never heard of the site before and just registered as of a day or so ago due to your link and my interest in the truthmapping site/concept). It’s understandable if you want me to just look at your map and point out what I disagree with or find incorrect. I’m just used to dialogue as the main format. But I’ll take a look at your map and then interact with it through the site and we can continue the topic there if you’d prefer that over this kind of format.
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truthmapping
November 9, 2015
Hi Lage,
You are spending much time addressing ancillary details which is why I’m trying to not lead you further astray with topics that are not central. Since that is not working I will instead label them as such.
Ancillary Points
1) I think that we agree that perception lies at the heart of human knowledge but my point is that when it comes to analysing higher brain function/reasoning, perceptual knowledge is necessary but insufficient. This is why examples using *only* observation do not address this issue at all.
2) The map (https://www.truthmapping.com/map/1533/) argues that the theory that you follow is contradicted by the evidence. I need not supply an alternate theory to put in its place and I am not in any way offering one.
The Real Issue
The laws of physics can theoretically cause thoughts to occur in our brains but have no means of examining their *content* and then furthermore to then judge the veracity of that content. (Again please skip any examples consisting only of simple perceptions as they do not involve higher level reasoning.) If there exists *no* physical law that has the necessary ‘awareness’ to perceive the objects of thoughts then no *combination* of such laws are so capable either. And even if such access were possible then there would have to be additional laws that allow judgement of the veracity of such semantics (again concerning abstract concepts, not perceptions.)
Unless you argue that there is a Law of Thought Semantics along with a Law of Veracity baked into the universe then you have some explaining to do in order to justify your position. Again, I am not talking about the chemical reactions involved in thought creation but rather understanding their semantics and veracity. I am looking for an answer to this specific point and no other.
You have not only not addressed this point (made in my first post) but you have assumed your conclusion repeatedly. Your use of personal pronouns and verbs that imply conscious decision making mask the ghost in your argument for without access to the semantics of thought such seemingly ‘conscious’ actions that lead to knowledge are impossible.
You assume your answer when you state a relationship like temperature is to atom as mind is to temperature or similar as it is simply a statement and not an argument.
You assume your answer when you state that we can “predict” non-observational phenomenon when “we” have no semantic information with which to do so.
You assume your answer even when you avoid personal pronouns when you say that “our brains are basically physically-instantiated (neural) models/maps of the world that correspond to reality…” when you have no access to the semantic information necessary to make such a claim nor a way to know if such semantics (regarding abstract concepts, not perceptions) actually correspond to reality.
The theory you follow claims that consciousness is an effect and is not a cause. You must therefore deal with the implications. Please open the one door that is closed. Please explain how the semantics of a thought can be accessed when there exists not a single law of physics that can do any such thing. If you can not point to a single law of physics that allows access to the semantics of thought then the door remains closed.
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Lage
November 10, 2015
Good to hear back from ya Jack!
“You are spending much time addressing ancillary details which is why I’m trying to not lead you further astray with topics that are not central. Since that is not working I will instead label them as such.”
The time I spent on my replies was to clarify my position regarding the concept of “survivability” and the strategy of the brain forming beliefs, as you were not understanding what I was saying. The ability to predict the future was key, and because this ALSO leads to survivability, it makes sense that natural selection would favor the evolution of brains that could predict the future by finding and recording causal patterns effectively. My position was not that survivability was directly involved with the “selection of individual beliefs in real time”. So I wanted to clarify that confusion. Also, I needed to explain that I reject the position that reason is accomplished without observation (sensory experience of some kind of causal patterns). You seemed to be saying that no reasoning is performed in order to determine what four different sized spheres have in common as per my example (i.e. they are all spheres), and I was pointing out that I reject your assertion or implication that no reasoning is needed to make that determination. That it is somehow just “known” by simple observation and no reasoning at all (I don’t think so, Jack, and if you truly believe this then I believe you underestimate what your brain has to do in order to reason about something as seemingly simple as that “observation”). This is important to recognize before being able to address the deeper points in this discussion. It is an important foundation with regard to my position so I had to explain further.
“I think that we agree that perception lies at the heart of human knowledge but my point is that when it comes to analysing higher brain function/reasoning, perceptual knowledge is necessary but insufficient. This is why examples using *only* observation do not address this issue at all.”
I’m glad we can agree about the importance of perception with regard to human knowledge. Unfortunately, I disagree that perceptually derived knowledge is insufficient for higher brain/function reasoning. I believe it is central to all reasoning abilities. I believe the evidence shows that spatial-temporal pattern recognition is all we really use to do what we call “reasoning”. Can you give an example of an instance of “higher reasoning” that you think can’t be adequately accounted for by sensory experience (and thus can’t be adequately accounted for by recorded spatio-temporal causal patterns in the brain)? Rather than just saying you think it is insufficient (with no counterexample), please explain why you think it is insufficient, and give an example of where sensory experience can’t provide enough to fulfill what is needed to reason. Then I’ll know that the example is sufficient for your standards. I don’t believe that any examples exist that don’t EXCLUSIVELY use observation (past or present sensory experience) for the task of reasoning. As such, I am basically an empiricist if you haven’t gathered that already.
“2) The map (https://www.truthmapping.com/map/1533/) argues that the theory that you follow is contradicted by the evidence. I need not supply an alternate theory to put in its place and I am not in any way offering one.”
As for you not offering an alternative, that’s perfectly fine of course. To be clear though, are you then saying that you accept or reject the position that the brain doesn’t follow any rules OTHER than the laws of physics? If that is not your position, then you are claiming that the brain does in fact follow other rules, in which case I’d like you to clarify what you think you know about these other rules (if anything, including what evidence you may have for their existence), and including why you think the brain must be following these other rules (that is, why the laws of physics, which govern all causal relations so far as the evidence suggests, are an insufficient set of rules for the brain to follow exclusively). As for your map, I believe that the mapped argument is incorrect for a number of reasons and I will now specify where I see problems in your argument. To begin, the map abstract/summary of yours states: “The human mind as only a brain following physical laws theory is contradicted by the existence of the human intelligence required to create complex technology (or to have the intelligence necessary to even participate in this discussion.)”
I disagree with this claim/conclusion because I believe that the brain’s modeling various causal patterns that correlate with reality DOES in fact allow it to obtain the knowledge necessary for our level of technological advancement. You seem to underestimate the powers of the brain’s modeling causal relationships (by representing them as interconnected active neural networks) and their properties which is what physics itself ultimately describes at the most basic level. Can you explain how the brain following the laws of physics to do just that (i.e. to model causal patterns which are described by the laws of physics and then use those causal patterns to affect output/behavior in an advantageous way) is contradicted by the existence of intelligence and the technology created from said intelligence? I don’t see how this logically follows. If anything, our knowledge needed for technology is what we would expect from a brain that models causal patterns that correlate with reality in order to accomplish goals (even if fundamentally to obtain biological imperatives, which are governed by naturally selected DNA and the proteins it codes for). I don’t understand the problem at all here. It makes perfect sense to me, so I’m not sure what your missing exactly.
Then you go on to say: “Some might claim that the truth value of thoughts and their logical relationships must be somehow baked into some unknown “semantic law of physics” such that the impersonal universe can understand conceptual meaning and reason…”
Not I. I do not claim this. In fact I think that what we call “understanding”, and “reason”, and “knowledge” are simply the states of the brain having successfully modeled causal patterns, storing them into memory, evaluating them with simple physical processes (see points below) and then retrieving them to accomplish some motor neuronal means of manipulating the body connected to said brain in order to accomplish some action/motion successfully. So I believe the words you are using here and what you think they mean are a part of a fallacious folk psychology — though they are often useful to use in many situations as they simplify the execution of certain actions and simplify the communicability of certain causal patterns from one brain to another via language. As such, I don’t believe there is any kind of “semantic law of physics”, so I disagree with this claim.
“The laws of physics deal with the physical properties of matter such as…”
Yes, but I believe it is more accurate to say that they are descriptions of causal relations in general based on the discovered properties of the known and thus measurable constituents of reality (i.e. space, time, matter, and energy). So physics deals with describing every thing that is demonstrable and thus measurable, any and all things that take up space, the space itself, and the energy and matter that these things are composed of and describe how these fundamental constituents behave/change over time as they do.
Then I see that you are (thankfully) willing to concede that “the belief itself may indeed be a chemical occurrence in my brain”, but then go on to say what I believe to be another blunder, “but the evaluation of the correspondence of belief is something without any physical property”.
So when the immune system evaluates the internal state of the body, in terms of whether there are only self-proteins or antigens/pathogens that need to be eliminated, is this evaluation something without any physical property? Doesn’t the evaluation have the properties of the physical dynamics that describe what is happening at the molecular level? Doesn’t the evaluation have the same physical properties (generally) as any other bio-chemical reaction? Properties such as a distribution of charged particles/molecules, where those charged regions are attracted toward oppositely charged fields? Properties such as the exchange of energy via photons and thermal vibrations from molecule to molecule? When certain DNA-coded enzymes evaluate whether or not the DNA itself has copying errors, in order to fix them, does this evaluation not have physical properties as just previously described with the immune system? If you argue that these aren’t forms of evaluation, that is, the immune system or DNA-coded enzyme effectively “checking for system configuration states” or “comparing their state to another frame of reference or template”, then I don’t know what you mean by “evaluate”. I suspect that you have also plugged in some more folk psychology presuppositions into this concept as well. I see the brain’s evaluation of beliefs as likely very similar to DNA error-checking or the immune system in action, both of which that have physical properties to describe them. Furthermore, I see our brain’s evaluation of beliefs, as the brain likely computing whether or not the causal patterns it has represented (even if just those that are presently represented in consciousness) are: similar enough to one another, and/or similar enough to those previously stored that have the highest weight (see excitatory/inhibitory “neural weighting”) due to frequency of occurrence or dna-mediated “emotional” tagging involved with those other stored causal patterns? If the brain evaluates by simply comparing one thing to another, much like how the immune system compares any unknown molecule present to previously recognized “self-proteins” (in order to chemically tag it as a new self-protein as in immune tolerance evolution or as an antigen in order to deactivate or eliminate it) or much like how DNA-error correcting enzymes compare a damaged strand of DNA to a template, then change it as necessary — then I see what the brain does with beliefs as likely similar, though much more complex (since neural networks are arguably more complex than immune networks or DNA processing), and are occurring at much faster speeds (due to neural ionic conduction allowing for interaction speeds much faster than simple brownian motion and diffusion of DNA or other molecules in a cell). It just so happens that this immune-system-dna-repair-brain-evaluation analogy is the subject of a new blog post I’m currently working on, but I’ve got much more work to do before I’m finished with it. Anyway, I think it’s a fun idea thus far, so I’ll roll with it.
“There is no possible way to add any number of integers in order to get the result of, say, 4.527…”
Yes, I agree though I see this as irrelevant to the discussion. I could similarly say that there is no possible way for a positive charge to move toward a positive electric field. Yes, a fact I suppose (less quantum randomness and quantum fluctuations), but not relevant to this discussion. It is leading toward a false analogy.
“It is therefore impossible to evaluate the truth correspondence of a thought through any combination of physical laws…”
I rejected your premises (and explained why), so this conclusion doesn’t logically follow either. As per my examples with DNA error checking and immune system response, I believe that they evaluate states of their respective systems in ways that are likely similar to how the brain evaluates beliefs (stored causal patterns), and again, I believe that predictive capability is one of the gross metrics the brain uses to evaluate whether or not a belief is accurate or needs to be revised, but on the simplest level it is a matter of comparing a particular pattern with respect to other related patterns and/or to all other stored patterns to determine if there is a matching threshold met (i.e. compatibility with majority or patterns already stored in memory).
Then you provide a definition of intelligence: “the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)”
I think that this definition is suitable for many applications, but I believe it is more accurate if it is stated more like: “the recognition, memory of, and use of spatio-temporal causal patterns that are shown to correspond to reality to a degree that is proportional to their utility in making successful predictions, and which are thus able to be used to accomplish some goal (or goals) effectively.”
“Intelligence can only be gained by evaluating the contents of thoughts for their truth value…”
I agree with this to a degree, but only if my definition of intelligence is accepted, and if my concept of how the brain may possibly evaluate beliefs is accepted (a comparison to some frame of reference, template, etc.). Since I rejected your definitions, your argument won’t gain any support moving forward to the next points but let’s see what those remaining points are.
“Complex technology can exist only through many components…that require significant intelligence both to create and assemble.”
Yes, I will concede this point, since this is how we define technology, though I believe that this is getting very close to an argument from design and needs to be broken down a bit. For one, people might look at the body as a complex system of parts (arguably more complex than any form of technology we’ve ever “created”) and yet this complex machinery resulted from simple laws of physics and evolutionary natural selection mediated by simple self-replicating molecules like DNA. People for a long time posited that life and animal parts and so forth must have been designed because they were seemingly so complex (and were erroneously believed to be irreducibly complex). We now know that extremely simple processes can lead to what seem to be designed aspects of reality. As such, even if the brain was operating with fundamentally simple processes, it too could conceivably produce complex products (such as technology) despite having such a simple basic underlying structure for functioning. So I’d concede your point here, but only if it is granted that what we call “significant intelligence” can possibly result from simple underlying processes (like neuronal networks composed of very few types of parts doing very few types of processes). The argument from design you seem to present here needs to be qualified by showing how every seemingly designed thing in nature, has been shown to be a result of relatively simple, naturalistic, processes mediated by the laws of physics. If so for the rest of nature, then why not ALSO for the brain and what it produces? If not, then I see that as special pleading which thus faces the need to overcome a hefty precedent in the biological sciences and thus requires a hefty burden of proof to be accepted as likely. Evolution has shown us how complexity can arise from simple processes mediated by the laws of physics, that result in products that look intelligently designed. Even simpler animals (such as ants), many of which that we don’t believe even believe to be self-aware (thus no consciousness, as we define it at least), many of these animals also solve problems and create technologies (such as agriculture, bridges and intricate structures such as enormously complex networks of tunnels) and these insects don’t even have brains larger than a grain of sand. Imagine what a brain can do that has billions of neurons and trillions of synapses and that is connected to far more complex sensory hardware, and with an incredibly more complex short and long term memory to overcome the limitations of the DNA that coded for it in the first place (unlike the ant, buy far)!
In summary, these are the problems I’ve found in your mapped argument, and as such, even if the argument is logically valid in terms of its structure — with rejected premises, the conclusion no longer necessarily follows.
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Travis R
November 11, 2015
Kudos Lage. I think I agree on all counts and the only thing I might add as a clarification – and I think you would agree – is that the sufficiency of perceptually derived knowledge extends beyond the our lifetime, in that evolutionary adaptation has endowed us with innate predispositions and capabilities through empirical means. Our brains are not blank slates at birth, but the equally inherent plasticity of our brain structure also means that even those predispositions and capabilities can be modified through sensory exposure and internal feedback over the course of our lifetime.
I’ll also offer a very simple pattern matching analogy that I’ve used in the past. A strainer could be said to evaluate its contents, discriminate between large and small items and then keeps only the large items. In other words, it effectively evaluates the truth proposition of “item is bigger than X” by retaining the item if it is true. This is easy to understand and not very dissimilar from what happens with logic gates in computers and threshold potentials in the nervous system.
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Lage
November 11, 2015
Thanks Travis. Yeah, I agree that evolution plays a role in our perceptually derived knowledge, by providing our brain’s with an ontological scaffold (if you will) that serves as a starting point for what types of causal patterns the brain is even theoretically capable of recognizing, an upper limit in complexity, and also the hardware implementation strategy that the brain uses to store and organize these patterns. As you say, the brain isn’t a blank slate and I think this is true in at least some ways. I don’t necessarily think that we are endowed with innate sensory patterns per se (as I think these would be difficult to store in our genome), but I do think that the general hardware schema of an animal’s brain is naturally selected for and co-develops as well as co-evolves along with its sensory hardware.
I wrote a post related to this topic and while it may seem wishy washy to some, I thought there were valid points worth making in it. Here’s a link to it:
While I generally consider myself to be an empiricist, I do believe that there are at least some foundations for our knowledge (including those I mentioned in the preceding paragraph of this reply, but also a logical foundation as well), and that these could perhaps be considered forms of knowledge in themselves. I go into some detail in the blog post I linked.
Also, I like your strainer analogy. It fulfills the same role of showing how a common folk psychology interpretation of the word “evaluate” can easily be replaced with a mechanistic version that is likely more accurate with regard to how our brain works. While I don’t agree with everything that philosophers like Dennett have to say, I do think that we need to try and dispense a lot of this folk psychology (within this topic in philosophy at least — as we try to address various questions about consciousness and the brain) in order to make real progress.
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truthmapping
November 11, 2015
This post has said nothing that you haven’t said before so I think we have become comfortable in our disagreement and I find your argument unpersuasive.
I will leave you with this. There are two types of ‘because’ that we can consider. B because A where A is the direct cause of B; and C because A and B where C is a rational insight/leap derived from A in logical relation to B. Your entire theory excludes the latter which is the basis of true reason and technological progress. If you truly believed that your theory includes the latter then you have assumed your conclusion.
And given your theory I think you must necessarily be satisfied that the universe has ‘determined’ that I disagree with you.
> (unlike the ant, buy [sic] far)!
I suppose we can end with this minor agreement. Take care!
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Lage
November 12, 2015
Jack,
“This post has said nothing that you haven’t said before so I think we have become comfortable in our disagreement and I find your argument unpersuasive. ”
I’m sorry to hear that you find my argument unpersuasive. I showed why your mapped argument was invalid and that was the task I was set out to do. If you still disagree with me or my responses, then I guess that’s that (assuming you aren’t going to address my rebuttal points from my last response).
” There are two types of ‘because’ that we can consider. B because A where A is the direct cause of B; and C because A and B where C is a rational insight/leap derived from A in logical relation to B. Your entire theory excludes the latter which is the basis of true reason and technological progress. If you truly believed that your theory includes the latter then you have assumed your conclusion.”
Incorrect. My theory doesn’t exclude the latter as pattern recognition accounts for both. When the pattern recognition is less complex (dealing with simpler patterns) and thus easier for the brain to recognize, and when the brain has a higher pattern recognition threshold met (likely due to a close spatio-temporal proximity of the causal relation, among other factors), that would account for the former type of “because” that you mention. On the other hand, when the causal patterns have a more complicated hierarchical structure, and thus requires more neurological computation, and/or when the brain hasn’t met as high of a pattern match threshold, that would account for the latter type of “because” that you mention (leaps derived by logical relations, which the brain’s inherent logical structure can account for).
One of the things that is known (based on the evidence thus far) is that the only demonstrably known processes of the brain are physical in nature and are thus describable by the laws of physics. What is inferred from this state of affairs in the brain sciences is that consciousness, qualia, and what we call “reason” and so forth are most likely going to be purely physical in nature as well and thus purely describable by the laws of physics. My theory explains how reasoning can be (and is likely to be) physical in nature and also explains how the brain performing fundamentally simple spatio-temporal pattern recognition processes (combined with it’s inherent neurological hardware schema) can in fact account for technological progress (despite your claim to the contrary). The flaws in your mapped argument were compounded by my pointing out your implied argument from design (i.e. complex products such as technology can’t result from simple physical processes in the brain). Unfortunately for you, the biological sciences has shown why the argument from design is fallacious as even the most complex features of any living organism (which are far more complex than any technology we’ve developed) can be accounted for by evolutionary natural selection involving simple self-replicating molecules that make mistakes while they copy themselves. Because of this proven precedent, you have a large burden of proof to overcome in order to demonstrate that complex technology can’t result in a similar fashion with fundamentally simple neurological processes. You have yet to meet that burden of proof, whereas my theory is supported by the biological precedent of vast complexity arising from nothing but simple materials and simple processes mediated by the laws of physics. Furthermore, the field of AI as it advances is beginning to show this as well with non-biological systems, by showing how intelligence and problem solving can result from fundamentally simple physical processes on a variety of physical substrates and implementation strategies (with pattern recognition being a key factor in AI, hardly a coincidence it would seem).
“And given your theory I think you must necessarily be satisfied that the universe has ‘determined’ that I disagree with you.”
I’m not sure what you mean by this statement. There is nothing in my theory (about knowledge and intelligence) that explicitly explains what would necessarily satisfy me, nor does my theory require any kind of determinism since ontological randomness with a probabilistic structure would produce the same kinds of outcomes that we see. This is ultimately because at the fundamental physical level, both deterministic or random quantum mechanical interpretations are equally valid based on the evidence. Perhaps what you mean to say is, since the ultimate result of this discourse is fundamentally out of our control (due to no free will in the classical sense?) according to the paradigm that my theory is supported by (i.e. physicalism), that I should be satisfied with the result no matter what? Well, my being satisfied or not is also out of my control, and since I value whether or not people adopt as many true/reliable beliefs as possible and as few false/unreliable beliefs as possible, the outcome matters to be. So I am not necessarily satisfied by any (as yet known) outcome.
“I suppose we can end with this minor agreement. Take care!”
Yeah, it’s always fun to engage in these topics. I love it and enjoyed it! Peace.
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Travis R
November 12, 2015
truthmapping,
Sorry to butt in but I’ve held off on sharing input because I never really understood your position (primarily as captured in premise #2 of your map), but with this most recent comment I think I may finally understand (maybe). From your A -> B and A & B -> C statement, I take it that you are describing abductive reasoning, or inference to the best explanation in the second case. Is this correct? Furthermore, I take it that you see this as distinct in that it is, in some sense, creating new information which is not empirically derived. Is this correct?
If I have understood correctly, then I would like to challenge you to consider whether new information is actually being generated, or whether it is actually the case that new relationships are being created which link pre-existing concepts in new ways. If the latter, then I fail to see how this is incompatible with the physicalist position. In fact, it seems highly compatible because it sounds a lot like synaptic growth. However, if you believe that there is a creation of new content then this is only incompatible with the physicalist position if there is no possible way in which the “new content” is actually just a misinterpretation of what is actually the formation of new associations. To wit, can you describe an insight in which the result (C) was not associated with the catalysts (A,B) in any way? I suspect not, because that would be incomprehensible – we would just say “that makes no sense, C has nothing to do with A and B”. So if I have understood you correctly, I don’t see how you could possibly prove your point. Then again, it also seems quite possible that I have misunderstood and am actually still in the dark about what it is that you are actually arguing.
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Lage
November 13, 2015
Hey Travis,
“If I have understood correctly, then I would like to challenge you to consider whether new information is actually being generated, or whether it is actually the case that new relationships are being created which link pre-existing concepts in new ways. If the latter, then I fail to see how this is incompatible with the physicalist position. In fact, it seems highly compatible because it sounds a lot like synaptic growth.”
I definitely second that point Travis. In fact, although I pointed out to Jack how evolutionary natural selection can account for vast complexity in biological features (and thus the same principle can easily apply with neuronal mechanisms and intelligence/technology), there is a similar theory for synaptogenesis sometimes referred to as neural darwinism (though there are many variations of this theory, some stronger than others). It basically posits that the synaptic connections in the brain undergo a form of natural selection in that as the brain is establishing neural networks based on incoming sensory data and meta-activity in the brain, if the synaptic connection networks are forming somewhat randomly (which there is evidence for), and/or if these networks are able to replicate themselves in neighboring parts of the brain with slight variations (thus creating differential mutations and reproduction), then this combined with the fact that neural networks that are used the most seem to be those that get best maintained and reinforced (i.e. neurons that fire together tend to wire together better), then neuronal connections would basically get selected for based on their efficacy of firing together most efficiently. So stimulation coming from incoming sensory data and meta-activity would then select neural networks that represent the information contained in that stimulation most effectively and efficiently and create the path of least resistance as well as the minimal number of connections needed to accomplish the hierarchical network that best represents the pattern being recognized/learned.
Thus, it would make perfect sense that as we are learning new patterns (including those proposed through logical abduction, etc.), that this type of natural selective mechanism would account for vast neural complexity corresponding to reality through the use of nothing more than simple differential reproductive synaptogenic processes. I think it’s a brilliant idea from Edelman and while it initially gained some criticism early on, it has been gaining higher support, since it has now been shown that neuronal replicators along with Hebbian learning would provide a means of natural selection that is significantly more effective than the natural selection in organisms. That is, not only would the speed of the process be much higher than natural selection in organisms, but there would also be a much higher correspondence between the natural selection pressure being induced and real time causal aspects of reality.
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