Thinking Christian Comments
Original Post: "P.Z. Myers's Neurons Give Talk"
Myers said:
This work is much more tentative, and we have to be aware of the limitations of our interpretations, which is a consequence of the complexity of the data.
and
religion itself is a kind of conceptual parasite that takes advantage of other desirable and even 'virtuous' intrinsic qualities of the brain.
What happened to "the limitations of our interpretations"?
Is the belief that parts of your brain are 'desirable and virtuous' a conceptual parasite as well?
What WOULD, in your opinion Tom, disprove substance dualism?
For an interesting argument against dualism you can see Kevin J. Corcoran's article in Christianity Today (" A New Way to be Human"), and he also has a book on the same topic.
Can dualism (or monism for that matter) be disproven? It seems to me that these are ontological commitments. They aren't matters that can be falsified or refuted, are they? We may make arguments for or against them, but we can't test them in the sense of a hypothesis.
Jacob, what do you mean by "ontological commitment?" Is it like an act of will that embraces a certain ontology?
Paul,
I personally wouldn't say an "act of will," but I can agree to your language that it is an embrace of a certain ontology. I embrace monism. Most folks on this blog seem to embrace some version of dualism. My point is that you can't really prove or disprove dualism or monism. You make a commitment and go with it.
Jacob, so on what basis might one decide to go with monism or dualism? Is it just a gut feeling or intuition, or are there logical reasons, maybe not enough for a proof, that compel one to one option or the other?
Paul,
I think that most of the time people don't necessarily decide to be a dualist; they are socialized into the framework. For instance, people are taught about the mind/body divide in psychology class and other times people are taught about the natural/supernatural divide during church. That most of us take these dualisms to be The Way of Things is demonstrative of a predominate way of thinking. People are most often born and socialized into dualism.
Beyond that, some folks happen to become reflexive of their socio-cultural context and others take some graduate level courses in the sociology of knowledge and so on. These folks (particularly the formally trained) can lay out in a more systematic fashion the analytical choices one might make and the logic that informs them. In these instances, I would venture to say that monism or dualism is more of a matter of choice or commitment that one explicitly makes
os,
What would disprove substance dualism? A better answer, I guess; a better explanation for the phenomena it explains, within Biblical parameters. Physicalism certainly has not shown itself to be up to the task.
Jacob,
Can dualism (or monism for that matter) be disproven? It seems to me that these are ontological commitments. They aren't matters that can be falsified or refuted, are they?
I didn't think you thought anything could be falsified or refuted. Really. It seems to me it follows (if anything could rightly be said to do so) from your rejection of the law of non-contradiction.
Tom,
No, I don't think one can refute dualism.
Please don't get so hung up on my rejection of a metaphysical law of noncontradiction. I've always said that people can "contradict" one another, but I just don't buy the assertion that there is some kind of overarching Law that exists beyond place and time.
It sounds like Jacob's position is that we make a "leap of faith" to either dualism or monism. I suspect Myers would have some problems with that.
I'm looking forward to the release of the book by Beauregard and O'Leary, "The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul," which I believe is coming out Sept. 1. I have a suspicion that much of the recent neuroscience talk is an attempt to hand-wave away issues before the book's release. But, perhaps I'm just the suspicious type.
Alden,
An apt description of my view. Dualism (or monism for that matter) is an act of faith (to be more theological), or a presuppositional commitment (to be more social sciency) that we make.
Also, I would agree that Myers would probably not agree with my claims. Why? Because it undermines his own claim/assertion to Know The Way of Things.
Jacob, I notice that your response to my question is descriptive, and I wonder if you'd like to make a proscriptive comment about logic or reason and the role it might play in deciding between monism and dualism. Should logic or reason play any role, small or big, in deciding between monism and dualism?
"At least one of the opposing positions is substance dualism, which says, sure, there are brain processes, and of course they are a necessary aspect of mental life, but they are not sufficient; and there is a non-physical reality which is also involved in mental processes."
Since you are using the terms 'necessary' and 'sufficient' I'm guessing you are assuming some kind of causal relationship between the brain and the mind. But a correlation does not imply a causal relationship. And if the correlation is perfect (which, so far it appears to be) then one is, I think, better off assuming an identity relationship rather than a causal one. In any case, the assumption that there is a causal relationship seem to me to beg the question as it inevitably leads to a dualistic view of some sort or another. Is there any evidence for such a causal relationship?
As to the philosophical arguments: I've yet to see a persuasive argument showing why it would be better to identify the mental with with some non-physical substance rather than the physical brain.
'"They claim to have disproved a position that they don't even address. If they intend to show there is no soul, they ought at least to pay attention to what they're trying to disprove. They are ignorant of it, or they blithely assume it's safe to ignore it."
Most likely they feel it is safe to igonre the soul in science for the simple reason that it provides no explanatory benefit. It (the soul) can be useful within a supernatural metaphyisics like Christianity, but I have trouble seeing what empirical use could be made of it.
Paul,
Should logic or reason play a role in deciding between dualism or monism?
I'm not sure what you mean exactly by logic and reason. But I'll say this, a consistently logical monism should be relational and a consistently logical dualism should be substantialist. Monism and dualism operate off two, paradigmatically different logics.
Moreover, I would say that (assuming one has chosen and not been socialized into dualism or monism) one can always give reasons for their selection of monism or dualism.
Haloscan just ate my reply do Jacob!
A trick I've learned:
After you're done writing the response, highlight the text and "copy" it. That way if Holoscan eats your message, you can "paste" it in the window and resend it much more quickly than if you had to rewrite the whole thing.
Yeah, I usually do that, but I had preview the response, forgotten a blockquote tag, copied it and pasted it, and that's all I had copied!
Anyway, my response to your last comment was incredibly insightful and right on target, demolishing your whole worldview. I'm sure everyone can just fill in the blanks.
; )
Paul,
I feel your pain. :-(
Hi Tom,
They claim to have disproved a position that they don't even address. If they intend to show there is no soul, they ought at least to pay attention to what they're trying to disprove. They are ignorant of it, or they blithely assume it's safe to ignore it.
I think the reason for this is that they are not really trying to convince those who are carefully propounding the dualist view - they're trying to convince the layman who doesn't understand the distinctions of the dualist argument, and trying to buttress the views of their fellow naturalists who are already committed to those particular metaphysical presuppositions. Or at least the impression that this is the case is well-nigh inescapable.
Hi Jacob,
Long-time-no-blog!
You said:
Please don't get so hung up on my rejection of a metaphysical law of noncontradiction. I've always said that people can "contradict" one another, but I just don't buy the assertion that there is some kind of overarching Law that exists beyond place and time.
1) What is your definition of a "Law"?
2) Do you deny the existence of any such Laws or just this one?
3) What would it take for you to acknowledge the existence of such a Law? What conditions must be met?
You also said:
An apt description of my view. Dualism (or monism for that matter) is an act of faith (to be more theological), or a presuppositional commitment (to be more social sciency) that we make.
If this is the case, then how can what you said here be true? "These folks (particularly the formally trained) can lay out in a more systematic fashion the analytical choices one might make and the logic that informs them. In these instances, I would venture to say that monism or dualism is more of a matter of choice or commitment that one explicitly makes." Seems like you want to have your cake and eat it, too. It can be a basic presuppositional commitment, or it can be a reasoned conclusion, but I'm not sure how it can be both.
I think we must soon examine your theory of knowledge.
Aaron,
1) The key here is the capitol “L” in Law. It signals a metaphysical axiom that asserts a timeless and placeless Truth.
2) I deny the existence of metaphysical Laws that exist beyond time and place.
3) I would say that you would have to show me the Law that you claim exists or at least show me the mechanisms by which this Law is sustained across time and place.
“If this is the case, then how can what you said here be true?”
To be precise, I would have to ask: what do you mean by “true?” Can a leap of faith not be true?
“Seems like you want to have your cake and eat it, too. It can be a basic presuppositional commitment, or it can be a reasoned conclusion, but I'm not sure how it can be both.”
It seems to me that one should be able to give reasons for why they made a commitment to such and such a presupposition. For instance, in the social sciences, one needs to be able to justify their methodology--why they chose what they chose. Usually, in the social sciences, these justifications take the form: “I chose a relational methodology because it allows me to investigate problem X, whereas a substantialist methodology doesn’t even recognize that X is a problem. Relationalism allows me to investigate what substantialism presupposes,” for instance. So, yes, it is a presuppositional commitment that one makes, but it is a commitment that one has to justify.
Jacob,
Is it only contingently true that there are no metaphysical laws that exist beyond time and place? Or is that necessarily true?
Franklin,
I know that I'm walking a fine line here.
I'm trying to articulate a position that says A) on an ontological level metanarratives (or metaphysical conceptions) that extend beyond time and place are not possible B) while leaving open the possibility that people will continue to tell grand stories that involve metaphysical actors and objects.
If I say that it is "necessarily true" that there are no Laws, then I would be "contradicting" (to use a crowd favorite) the relational logic I'm trying to work out. I would be making a metaphysical claim.
To directly answer your question: I would have to say that it is "only contingently true that there are no metaphysical laws that exist beyond time and place." Without the historical emergence of modern ways of conceptualizing (foundationalism, structuralism, dualism, etc), then I doubt postmodern (nonfoundationalist, poststructural, monistic, etc) ways of re-conceptualizations would have taken hold.
But at the same time, without breaking into a grand metanarrative that tries to account for everything, I act as if my views were true (in the sense that is often spoken here). I personally don't buy all the metaphysical and trascendental claims because they are just too lofty, too general and too far from concrete practice for my taste.
Jacob,
So it might have been the case that there are metaphysically necessary truths?
Franklin,
I would be more inclined to say that historically speaking, people have talked about and continue to talk about "metaphysically necessary truths."
Does it logically follow from all this talking about "metaphysically necessary truths" that there are Metaphysically Necessary Truths? Not necessarily.
Jacob,
You say that there was talk in the history of philosophy of metaphysical necessity. True.
You say that from the fact of this talk it does not follow that there was, or is, metaphysical necessity. True.
But this doesn't add up to an answer to my question. So I ask again: Might there have been metaphysical necessity?
Franklin,
Might there have been metaphysical necessity? Sure. There might have been metaphysical necessity. I mean, I can't speak for all times and all places, and I certainly don't have access to the Truth of the Matter.
Jacob,
If there could have been but is not, I presume we have evidence against it. What is that evidence?
Franklin,
I don't know of any empirical evidence for or against a metaphysical necessity.
On one hand, I'm in no position to pronounce much about metaphysical necessities. They are beyond me and my abilities.
On the other hand, in my more analytical side of mind, I don't much buy assertions of metaphysical necessities. Like I said a bit ago, lots of people talk about metaphysical necessities (including myself when I get sloppy), but talk of metaphysical necessities doesn't logically entail that they exist.
There might have been metaphysical necessity. I mean, I can't speak for all times and all places, and I certainly don't have access to the Truth of the Matter.
Wouldn't the "all times and all places" bit be non-applicable, as a metaphysical necessity, if it exists, must exist necesarily in all times and places? And is there, in your view, a Truth of the Matter? If so, are you just saying we can't know it? I'm having trouble distinguishing your ontology and epistemology.
It also seems to me as if you claim here:
I deny the existence of metaphysical Laws that exist beyond time and place.
is a claim to the Truth of the Matter. The way I take it is that you are saying the nature of reality is such that there are no metaphysical laws.
Let me ask you a question: could it be that there are such metaphysical laws and, at the same time and in the same sense, there are no metaphysical laws?
So, yes, it is a presuppositional commitment that one makes, but it is a commitment that one has to justify.
Why?
Aaron,
"Wouldn't the "all times and all places" bit be non-applicable, as a metaphysical necessity, if it exists, must exist necesarily in all times and places?"
I agree that the all times and all places bit would be non applicable on an ontological level. But on an epistemological level, I am situated in a time and place and can speak only from where I speak. I don't know of any metaphysical necessities.
"And is there, in your view, a Truth of the Matter?"
I don't know if there is a Truth of the Matter. I don't even know how I would go about knowing such a thing. But when I say something like the "Truth of the Matter," I'm being sloppy. At the same time, it is a turn of phrase that we both can understand and so its useful for our dialog.
"If so, are you just saying we can't know it?"
I'm saying that if there are metaphysical necessities, then I don't know how we would go about knowing them. I'm not even sure how we would go about knowing such things.
"The way I take it is that you are saying the nature of reality is such that there are no metaphysical laws."
When I'm sloppy, that's what I'm saying. When I'm more on my toes, I wouldn't claim anything about the "nature of reality"
"Could it be that there are such metaphysical laws and, at the same time and in the same sense, there are no metaphysical laws?"
I have no clue.
Why must I justify my methodology? To legitimate what I'm doing in relation to the body of academic work that I'm fitting my research into. I give reasons because people ask for and expect them.
Jacob,
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I know my post was almost entirely questions - I appreciate your attempts to do each one justice.
In regards to some of your responses of late, I think your "being sloppy," as you call it, is actually your God-given, natural noetic tendencies coming through that are thoroughly out of place with your philosophy. As Francis Schaeffer once said, regardless of your belief system or philosophy, everyone has to live in God's world.
I don't know of any metaphysical necessities...I'm saying that if there are metaphysical necessities, then I don't know how we would go about knowing them. I'm not even sure how we would go about knowing such things.
OK, here goes - I'm going to try to show you that you do indeed know of a metaphysical necessity, but there's no guarantee that I'm sharp enough to communicate it effectively to you. I could proceed several ways, but let's try this track:
I don't know of any metaphysical necessities.
Hey, I know some metaphysical necessities, too! Great to hear that we share some common ground.
I wouldn't claim anything about the "nature of reality"
Interesting...I claim stuff about the "nature of reality" all the time, too!
"Could it be that there are such metaphysical laws and, at the same time and in the same sense, there are no metaphysical laws?"
I have no clue.
You have a clue? Wonderful! Clue me in.
[Are you seeing the point yet?]
Aaron,
Not really! I don't see the point that your trying to make.
Could it not be the case that we either have faith in metaphysical necessities or we don't have faith in metaphysical necessities? It seems to me, whichever leap one makes opens up certain possibilities, certain ways of relating to God and to the world.
Where you generously see my "God-given, natural noetic tendencies," I see sloppy thinking and the limits of our language. But that's not to say both aren't part of a the great creation.
I'll leave with a quote from John Caputo: "But my interest here is to keep faith safe from knowledge, which also means to keep faith alive as faith. For faith is most truly faith when it his that point where it is not supported and sustained by knowledge, where we find ourselves pushing ahead mainly on faith, driven by the passion of non-knowledge,, with what St. Paul calls a 'hope against hope' (Romans 4:1
."
Jacob,
Do you mean to say that you admit the possibility that some contradictions are true?
Franklin,
What comment, exactly, are you referring to?
Much depends on if you are talking about a Contradiction in the ontological sense of the word or a "contradiction" in the epistemological sense of the word. If you are talking about a Contradiction (like the Law of NonContradiction that Tom likes to cite), then I can't really say much about it because I don't buy that there are such things as Contradictions in the metaphysical sense. But if you are talking about "contradicting" epistemologies, then I would say that empirically we can see those kinds of "contradictions" happening all around us.
I just found the blog article ... interesting thing.
It is a funny thing, that neuroscientists tell us now that there is no Spirit but only brain matter, while o.t.o.h. quantum physicians begin to tell us that matter has more of a spirit's aspect than we knew before ..
Regarding:
"At least one of the opposing positions is substance dualism, which says, sure, there are brain processes, and of course they are a necessary aspect of mental life, but they are not sufficient; and there is a non-physical reality which is also involved in mental processes. When neuroscientists discover details of physical and mental processes in the brain, that has no impact on the truth or falsity of substance dualism. Substance dualism is a philosophical conclusion, derived from phenomena like consciousness, the sense of continuing unified personal identity, rationality, moral knowledge, and more."
I must say, that as an information technologist, I see it more in a diversification like Popper's three worlds theory. I can accept the way neurologist's think of consciousness and rationality as mental processes.
But contents of this such constitute d mind (to say: ideas, concepts, belief) have no substance. They emerge as semantical context.
Philosophically spoken neurologist's haven't understood that the term 'process' in itsself has a metaphysical aspect, which is: 'meaning' or 'semantic'.
So I understand the above mentioned 'dualism' in some other way:
It is not a dichotomy of substances but much more a perspective of aspects of the whole being.
So the unity of body and soul (the biblical 'nefesh') could be understood in a totally new, refreshing scientific way:
Yes, there is no difference in body and soul, as they are one. But this 'one' has never truely be understood.
Prof. Dürr, a leading quantum physician in germany, tells us, that our thinking about matter is wrong in the first place. It is an adequate model for daily life, but basically all reality is built much more of 'events', of 'processes' first.
It is 'events' that constitute what we call 'matter', as an emerging property.
When those quantum people tell us now, that being is basically and fundamentally process, event, and those other neuro-people try to tell us that there's no extra-soul as there are only processes in the brain, the scientific argumentation of the neuro-whatever-scientists is indeed backfiring.
But these neuro-geeks like Persinger haven't realised that their claim to have the proof against faith is somewhat ridiculous.
Jacob,
It isn't an epistemological or a metaphysical matter. If you wish to categorize it (and I don't at all see why this should be necessary), it is logical.
My question is, it seems to me, really quite clear and straightforward. Is there any proposition such that both it and its denial are true, i.e. is there any P such that (P & not-P) is true?
I don't mean to ask whether there are people whose opinions contradict. That's clearly true. I don't mean to ask whether one and the same person believes both terms of a contradiction. That might be true, but I'm uncertain about the matter. My question isn't about belief (or about how people speak), and so if you bring it up, I'll count it irrelevant. My question is about propositions and their truth and falsity, no matter what anyone happens to believe about them.
Here are examples of contradictions:
On July 27th, 2007, G. W. Bush both is and is not president of the United States of American.
2 + 2 both equals and does not equal 4.
Some contradictions are true and no contradictions are true.
Are any of these true? Are any of the same form true?
Hi MentalRover,
Very good points.
I like the idea of matter being the emergent property. This relates to the idea of DNA being the record of what life is doing rather than the instruction book.
Charlie,
Do you know much about Aristotelian nature of the soul? I just JP Moreland give a great talk on this - some great distinctions between the Aristotelian view versus the Cartesian view that replaced it which colors all of our discussion about such things today.
Jacob,
Fair enough. Let me try one more time, though, and then i'll try explaining:
"I don't see the point that your trying to make."
Good, I'm glad you see my point.
[Do you see any problem with my above response? If so, what is it, and why is it a problem?]
Hi Aaron,
I am not clear on Aristotle's view of the soul/form and its belonging to the body but if you have a link for Moreland I would love to hear/read it. I have read a little on his view of the Thomistic approach, which, of course, is informed by Aristotle.
It seems his idea of form being the efficient cause of a being, as expressed through the potentiality of matter (did I get the order right?) is similar to what MentalRover has said above about QM.
My thoughts on DNA come from the idea that it is not the sole source of heritability. I am thinking of such discoveries as the fact that single genes can be read, interpreted, chopped up, recombined and translated into more than fifty different protein, the fact that the cell is in charge of how the DNA is used (it knows what to do with it), that a gene will be expressed differently in different organisms, that the cell's cyto-skeletal structure itself acts as a unit of heritability, etc.
Writers such as Wiker and Witt in
A meaningful World, Paul Davies and even Frank Tipler, refer to the fact that biologists are recovering the organism itself as the irreducible unit of life and viewing it more holistically and not merely as emerging from matter in motion. Some of this is informed by QM, as MentalRover referenced, and some from structuralism and evo-devo in biology.
It really all seems to be coming together right now.
Anyway, the short answer is "no" and would you please link the Moreland talk if you still have it available?
Thanks.
Scientists have data, not truth. For a scientist to make a comment about the soul or spirits is ignorant and unjustified.
Our species is not advanced enough to even **address** the issues of the soul or the spirit.
It is the height of arrogance for these scientists to look at their paucity of data and weak conclusions and dismiss souls, and spirits.
It's fairly obvious that these scientists are just atheists taking a swipe at their enemies.
Econ,
If our species isn't advanced enough to even address the issue of the soul or the spirit, can we quit talking about it?
Is it any less arrogant to say scientist, who are in the business of justifying what they claim, are unjustified in commenting on outrageous claims?
Disembodied thoughts floating about after the destruction of the mind is the "arrogant" claim, the weak conclusion with a paucity of data.
Anyone can dismiss souls and spirits because of the lack of evidence, without ever concerning themselves with evidence against. Most arguments on the side of Truth (tm) seem to be criticisms of the criticisms, with the assumption that spirits are real by "default", or if scientist can't explain something, it must be spirits. Weak.
Eric, I don't know just what econ grad had in mind, but we're certainly advanced enough to discuss soul and spirit. We don't have scientific tools to do it very thoroughly, but that's not a matter of how advanced we are, it's a matter of the wrong tool for the job. And we don't come successfully to agreement in our discussions, but that, the Bible says, is due to rebellion against the true answers.
There's nothing arrogant in saying scientists are unjustified in commenting (qua scientists) on soul and spirit. It's just not their field, and their ignorance of what is taught in the field demonstrates that.
Your last argument is disconnected from the data, Eric. We have tons of historical data for spiritual reality (within Christianity), plus tons of human experience that cannot, in principle, be explained by just physical processes but can be explained by reference to a non-physical reality.
Hey Tom,
And we don't come successfully to agreement in our discussions, but that, the Bible says, is due to rebellion against the true answers.
My rebellion I assume. So the bible says we could agree if I would just agree with it. Not the most profound statement, but for the Theist I suppose it makes sense. Do you honestly think that I think there are spirits, but I am "rebelling" against the idea that my brain could somehow continue without my body?
Your last argument is disconnected from the data, Eric. We have tons of historical data for spiritual reality (within Christianity), plus tons of human experience that cannot, in principle, be explained by just physical processes but can be explained by reference to a non-physical reality.
Why do you suppose the evidence for spiritual reality is mostly historical? I'm asking from a skeptical perspective, not Christian. Did demon possessions trail off, or did the assumptions change? Why were more things attributed to the spiritual before we began testing against reality?
Is there anything, at all, that can't be explained by "non-phsical reality"? Kind of defeats the word "explained".
Your last argument is my argument restated "if scientist can't explain something, it must be spirits."
Charlie
"My thoughts on DNA come from the idea that it is not the sole source of heritability. [...]that a gene will be expressed differently in different organisms, that the cell's cyto-skeletal structure itself acts as a unit of heritability, etc."
Seems that this post has been cut?
Anyway, these are interesting things, can you give a link to a source of that statements?
Question at all:
What is "science" in your posts?
Is it "empirical science" alone?
What concerns me is, that in all this discussion about 'spirit' people are glued to a pardigm of an 'object' built of 'substance', while QM scientists show us now that even in our daily life what we consider built from 'substance', does indeed not exist in this way.
QM scientists request us now to rethink our notion of 'substance' - matter. But in the same time we are indeed challenged to rethink our notion about something like 'soul' or 'spirit' (or perhaps even 'ghost').
I have the slight feeling that there is something worth to be meditated, when I have the blurred vision that the one who arguments against the existence of "spirit" or "soul" does so by effectively applying it!
That is somewhat contrary to Descarte's "I think, therefore I am".
It's more like "I think: There is no Me".
QM scientists call to their colleagues in other faculties: "Boys, there's more".
OTOH it is indeed the wrong way for christians to shout now: "Haha, and we knew it!! And we can explain what it is!".
The better way for the empirical scientist as for the christian indeed would be: "I think, ...ehm... that makes me musing...".
The file about spirit or soul is not closed on neither side!
I followed the articles in a german magazine called Gehirn & Geist (brain and mind) about the neuro-theologists' claim to have found the brain part for 'spirituality' (e.g. Persinger).
This magazine also published a manifest of eleven leading german neuro scientists which in contrast try to qualify and relativise the new research results. They also try to show what we do *not* know.
And this is indeed the way responsible scientists handle their stuff.
Finding new data, rethinking old data and interpretations to make all fit together, and hint to the resulting open questions (which are often more than before b.t.w.).
So the advice to both, empirical scientists and theologians (which is btw a science too) is:
"Keep your mind open"
Tom -
I haven't seen a transcript of Myers' speech yet either, but I'm pretty sure he pays no heed to the counterargument because he considers the argument settled. But other naturalists have addressed the counterargument extensively - consider Antonio Damasio's book "Descartes' Error", or Paul Bloom's "Descartes' Baby", and especially Owen Flanagan's "The Problem of the Soul", which was written to deal almost exclusively with the arguments for and against Cartesian dualism. Given the amount of research undertaken and time spent analyzing and discussing the issue, I don't think these naturalists "embarrass themselves." The position has been extensively addressed.
And naturalists don't assume that there is no soul; we just don't find evidence for it when we look.
And I'm not sure how you define the pejorative"scientism", but naturalists do not believe that science does or can answer all questions. But we have confidence in the track record of the scientific method in describing reality; but that doesn't mean that we think science should necessarily determine our beliefs about the world or morality. Though just as theists attempt to justify their moral positions by appeal to the Bible, naturalists attempt to justify their moral positions by appeal to what the sciences seem to show us about human nature. This is not a logical consequence of naturalism, but by doing so we attempt to show that God is irrelevant in determining what is moral, and that the supernatural is superfluous.
Best,
Juno
Juno,
"This is not a logical consequence of naturalism, but by doing so we attempt to show that God is irrelevant in determining what is moral, and that the supernatural is superfluous."
So I understand correct, that
a) The assumptions that God is irrelevant in determining what is moral and that the supernatural is superfluous comes first and is therefore a preconception, not a result?
b) The terms 'irrelevant' and 'superfluous' do not state anything about 'existing' or 'not existing' ?
To my opinion, the term 'God is irrelevant for moral' could be replaced by 'not necessary for', because it seems possible that He is not necessary.
But if otoh God exists, he may nevertheless be 'relevant'.
And the attribution of the supernatural as 'superfluous' leads to the questions:
a) for what?
b) and if it exists anyway?
The whole quote seems based on the idea that God and the supernatural only exist to be used in argumentation and explanation of things and it would be out of reason to think about them otherwise.
Say: If God/supernatural cannot be used/applied to explain this and that, it is not worth any further consideration.
Juno,
How does one begin with some result from the sciences - some result that says that such and such is, as a matter of fact, the case - and infer from it anything about what ought to be the case? We seem here to have two very different kinds of claim - one empirical, the other moral.
It would seem that one can't make any simple move from "x has been shown by the sciences to be the case" to "x ought to be the case". For consider: it seems quite likely that anger, even violent anger, is a quite natural response to certain situations. (I'm at my sister-in-law's, and I've seen it in a five year old.) But does it follow that it's ever the right response? It would seem not. Anger ought often be kept in check. So it seems that the naturalness of a thing does not imply its rightness.
So I ask again: how do we bridge the gap between the realm of scientifically demonstrated fact and the realm of moral oughts?
Juno:
You said:
but that doesn't mean that we think science should necessarily determine our beliefs about the world or morality.
and then
And naturalists don't assume that there is no soul; we just don't find evidence for it when we look.
What form does the evidence take with respect to these beliefs that science can't determine? I'm wondering what that evidence looks like because maybe it looks similar to the evidence we have for the soul.
Charlie,
Sorry it has taken me so long to get back with you. I'm also sorry that I can't provide a link for Moreland - I saw and heard him in person a few weeks ago. I'm pretty sure, though, that the material he went over is covered in his book _Body & Soul_. I've also got my notes from that lecture, if you're interested I could send them to you.
Hi Guys -
Well, my main point was to note that naturalists have indeed considered substance dualism, and have found it wanting. In fact, they have given it some lengthy and thoughtful analysis.
Just to clarify a few things: the terms 'irrelevant' and 'superfluous' DO NOT imply existence or non-existence; and I suppose it IS more accurate to say that God is 'not necessary' for morality; to say that the supernatural is superfluous is to say that a scientific understanding of human nature does not need to invoke anything supernatural in order to explain it - we are astronomically complex animals, possessing remarkable attributes such as consciousness and abstract thought, as well as the ability to live rationally, morally and meaningfully; but we don't need to invoke anything supernatural to explain those attributes. The problem that substance dualists run into is the problem of how an immaterial mind interacts with a physical brain. There have been no good hypotheses to date - at least not any testable hypotheses, to my knowledge. Descartes thought this interaction took place in the pineal gland, but now we know better.
I also agree that one cannot derive an "ought from an is", at least not with out some serious argumentation. Ayn Rand tried it with her philosophy of Objectivism when she said, "What a thing is, tells us what it ought to do." The concepts of 'good' and 'bad' are just that: human concepts. Nature simply is. Simply saying something is 'natural' doesn't mean it's 'good'. I think some researchers had argued that rape was selected for in evolution because it provided an advantage - but that doesn't make rape good - human beings still have to assess the claim and make their own moral judgments.
Bridging the gap between empirical facts and moral oughts is undeniably tricky business. I'll have more to say about that later, but I have to get back to work right now! In the meantime, you might want to check out the Atheist Ethicist - he is literally writing a book about the subject.
Cheers,
Juno
SteveK -
I was raised in a born-again Christian home, and the only evidence for the soul was my own introspection, my own intuition, the testimony of scripture, and the anecdotal testimony of other believers.
But as I became aware of other religions and philosophies - notably the various permutations of Buddhism and the various cults and paths of Hinduism - I began to understand that the Christian types of evidence denoted by the terms introspection, intuition, etc., have a certain fungibility to them, relative to the Christian, Jewish and Muslim types.
But there was no 'hard' evidence for them, as there was for more concrete phenomena of the natural world. Even after I stopped believing in God or gods, I still clung to the idea of a soul or self that survived death and possessed free will, etc. But the cumulative and mounting evidence from modern neuroscience increasingly convinced me that, while it can't disprove the existence of a soul, it makes the soul's existence extremely unlikely and improbable. Additionally, I've honed my introspective techniques through various meditative practices to experience for myself that there is no free will and no self, or soul.
The traditional conception of the soul is that of an entity that is enduring (possibly eternal or at least immortal), possesses consciousness, cognition, volition, deliberation, rationality, is metaphysically independent of the body, and survives the death of the body. I believe that reasonable people would conclude that modern biology and neuroscience find no evidence of that kind of soul, even if its existence can't be disproved.
The question is not whether the soul is disprovable, but whether its existence is probable. I think the preponderance of evidence suggests it isn't.
Juno
Juno,
I believe that reasonable people would conclude that modern biology and neuroscience find no evidence of that kind of soul, even if its existence can't be disproved.
I agree. Modern biology and neuroscience have no evidence for the soul because modern biology and neuroscience have ZERO chance of detecting a soul. It's non-physical, remember? If you want to have any chance of finding a soul then proceed to the theology or philosophy departments.
It's not too surprising to learn that deaf people have no evidence for music.
The question is not whether the soul is disprovable, but whether its existence is probable. I think the preponderance of evidence suggests it isn't.
Improbable based on what? The collective understanding of neuroscience and biology?
I don't think you really answered my question so let me ask it again: What form does the evidence take with respect to these beliefs that science can't determine?
SteveK,
Improbable based on what? The collective understanding of neuroscience and biology?Yes!!!!!!
We've been over this before.
The soul is supposed to account for certain human abilities, and retain them after physical death. If the soul does so, there's no need for matter to be arranged so as to duplicate those functions. Brains could lack the functions necessary for memory, thought, computation, emotion, reason, etc. because brains don't need those functions. The brain needs only the functions necessary for animation.
On the other hand, if there is no soul, then matter performs those functions, and there's only one way of arranging that matter, and that is with brains that physically compute, remember, control, feel, etc.
We find that, of the thousands of possible ways of arranging matter in our bodies consistent with mere animation, matter is actually arranged in the one way required by naturalism, i.e., with feeling, thinking, moralizing brains.
That's why the soul is improbable. It's statistics 101.
Juno is not only correct, but his case can be given statistical rigor.
Steve,
It's not too surprising to learn that deaf people have no evidence for music.
Perhaps they have no auditory ability, but they have as much independent evidence as anyone else for the properties of music, including consistent reports from the hearing majority.
If your soul is your essence, eternal and "whole" with only a temporary earthly element, (you tell me, it is your hypothesis) then there are properties that can be tested for. When you change the chemistry, or injure the mind, does it change the persons essence? If your "soul" is subject to drastic, permanent changes at any moment while on "earth" does it argue against its "eternal" nature? Are there any positive properties of a soul that science could attempt to address?
Spirits aren't even straw men... the counter arguement to saying "there isn't anything there!" seems to be "see! told ya"!
Are you are Verizon denier too?
That's why the soul is improbable. It's statistics 101.
I didn't know neuroscientists and biologists claimed to be experts on the subject. Is this part of the PhD program today?
Juno,
"The traditional conception of the soul is that of an entity that is enduring (possibly eternal or at least immortal), possesses consciousness,"
... consciousness? Where is that stated? ....
"[...] cognition, volition, deliberation, rationality, is metaphysically independent of the body, and survives the death of the body."
Well, the 'traditional' conception may be like the one of a flat earth: Fine for a specific age, but not correct.
The problem of the traditional way is, that the 'metaphysical' counterpart is thought of in physical terms and mostly built to reading ancient texts. So there is a limit in imagination, partly taken from limits of earlier people.
Today we have even by physics research (beside philosophical musings) a reason to assume a metaphysic that differs in much more ways from the daily experience than we could imagine before.
So we have to rethink our imaginations and our interpretations of the ancient texts.
" I believe that reasonable people would conclude that modern biology and neuroscience find no evidence of that kind of soul, even if its existence can't be disproved."
This seems to me much more like Gagarin's statement, that he travelled into space but did not find God.
When Christians through the ages talk about Earth and are open minded enough to learn constantly more about its meaning, it is ridiculous for an atheist to shout: "But there is no disc".
When Christians talk about God and get a constantly changing feeling for how a spiritual world may differ from the material one, it is meaningless to shout: "God isn't in the sky".
When Christians try to actualise their notion of a soul (and they should try to do so!) it is nonsense to shout:
"But I haven't found it in the brain".
If the spiritual world and the soul are really *immaterial* -chew that word carefully- then the concepts of thinking about it in terms of some sort of bodies, brain processes a.s.o. must be wrong in the first place!
We cannot take a body of John Doe, simply disintegrate its atomar structures in our imagination and expect to remain with an otherwise unchanged logical entity of John Doe, only free from said atoms.
That notion of a metaphysical world is far too simple, which should be accepted by both sides in the discussion.
This remembers me of that Atheist shouting eagerly: "I don't believe in this Old Man with white beard above in the sky sitting on clouds!"
Answering the Christian: "Neither do I..."
dl,
It seems that we must cover the same groud here, again and again. A point is made by an opponent, and it is promptly ignored. This is the case here. Before I described a kind of substance dualism on which the soul does not simply duplicate the functions that neuroscience ascribes to the brain and the rest of the cns. It is Roderick Chisholm's view (and likely the view of many other dualists, too, but RC gives a very clean formulation), and on it, the brain is the organ of consciousness (understood in the broad sense to include all facets of consciousness - perception, memory, etc). The brain is to the soul as the eye is to faculty of sight. The eye is not that which in all strictness sees, but it is necessary for sight. So too the brain in necessary for consciousness, but in all strictness it is not that which is conscious. Rather it is the soul that is conscious.
So we have no duplication of function. So too we can readily explain why it is that the brain is absolutely necessary for consciousness; destroy the brain, and consciounsess ceases (just as when the eye is destroyed, sight ceases).
I would think, dl, that if you wished to make the best case against dualism, you would set your sights on its strongest forms. When you attack only the weaker forms, it looks very much like straw man.
Last point: the case for dualism (of whatever sort) is philosphical in nature. It is not empirical. There is, say the dualists, demonstratable absurdity in the supposition that a spatially extended system such as a brain is conscious. (I'll not rehearse the arguments now, but if anyone wishes I can do so.) I don't mean to say that I'm convinced that the arguments are persuasive. Indeed I'm agnostic on the matter. Instead my point is that dualists will think that the evidence that science is able to bring forward is strictly irrelevant to the issue at hand. What neuroscience tells us about brain function does not count one iota for, or one iota against, a thesis that is metaphysical in character.
Franklin,
The brain is to the soul as the eye is to faculty of sight. The eye is not that which in all strictness sees, but it is necessary for sight.That's true. But the visual cortex is what does the seeing. So, for your analogy to work, you have to say what is this "consciousness" thing that the brain isn't doing, and show that the brain really isn't duplicating the function. But, alas, you don't even have a theory of consciousness, a theory of what this special function is.
And let's put RC's theory in perspective. He only invented it because memory turned out to be physical. And so did emotions. And so did visual and spacial perception. And connections between perception and emotions. And so on and so on. What RC has is the "duality of the gaps" argument that there's this non-physical stuff that performs whatever function we can't yet pin down in the physical brain. It's a theory that only exists because all the other dualities crashed and burned in the worst way as science made all of these discoveries. And as each duality crashed and burned, the dualist's excuse was that we've only killed one duality, not the one that can hide in the gaps.
And it's just not consistent. If you applied this gaps argument to other fields, you would have to believe that water and rocks aren't physical either. And you and I both compute high odds that water is physical because there are physical explanations that worked that didn't have to work if water wasn't physical.
What neuroscience tells us about brain function does not count one iota for, or one iota against, a thesis that is metaphysical in character.That's because no experience counts one iota for or against such metaphysical theories. If your theory of souls is wrong, how will your experiences differ? Answer: they won't, not in any possible experiment. Not even in the case that God exists will there be a difference. Suppose at the moment of death, God digitizes you like V'Ger. In that case, there needn't be any soul at all, and you get to be you in the afterlife. Again, no experience can ever falsify your claim, and that means you literally don't know what your words even mean. If I give you a string of symbols that I claim represent a proposition, you only know its meaning when you know what experiences are more of less likely were the proposition true. If no experience is more or less likely, then you don't know how to interpret the symbols.
Franklin (and DL),
What is "spatially extended" as you use it? Isn't it the point of PZ's statements about the "extended fuctions" of the brain being traced and explained, addressing this? When does the physical become "sufficient" for you? Would a artificial being with the same "philosophical conclusion" have a "soul"?
Does it take a brain capable of imagining a soul to have a soul? I would assume animals have no soul, so the special special function might just be the ability to imagine the special function.
Franklin said
destroy the brain, and consciounsess ceasesThen in what sense can we be said to be the same person before and after we die if we lose our consciousness after we die? You're saying that my soul continues after I die but my consciousness doesn't? How can I be me if I don't have my consciousness?
dl says: "If I give you a string of symbols that I claim represent a proposition, you only know its meaning when you know what experiences are more of less likely were the proposition true. If no experience is more or less likely, then you don't know how to interpret the symbols."
So you assent to this proposition (I'll call it "C"):
C: The meaning of a proposition consists in the experiences that would be more or less likely were the proposition true.
This propositions seems to be self-referentially incoherent. For if it is true, it must apply to itself. Thus if true, its meaning must consist in the experiential difference it would make if true. But it is itself a philosphical proposition, and as such says nothing about experience. Thus it would seem that, if it is true, it is meaningless. But that is surely incoherent. (This is the old objection to logical positivism, the view expressed in C; and it explains why logical positivism is now, and has been for some time, dead.)
dl, it you can explain to me how it is that C can be meaningful though it has no experiential consequences, I'll happily explain how dualism can be meaningful though it has no experiential consequences. Indeed I think that I'll just avail myself of whatever explanation you give.
Second point: you've provided a little hypothetical reconstruction of the history of dualism. First, even if it were true, it does not bear upon the truth or falsity of the view expressed. The view is to be evaluated not in terms of its history, but in terms of its intrinsic strengths and weaknesses. In all strictness, history is irrelevant. Second, the hypothetical history is not true. It was not true for Cartesian dualists. It was not true for Aristotelian dualists. The latter make the brain essential for all mental functions. The former did so as well, with the possible exception of consciousness itself.
Hmm. I've got that deja vu experience again. It's almost as if I've said all of this before . . .
Ahhhh, the old logical positivism trick again. We've seen this before and it's obvious that it doesn't work. I've learned one important thing from it though. I've learned that, according to logical positivism, I can't know if logical positivism is true.
SteveK: By your same reasoning, do you also advocate vitalism for biology (or perhaps for philosophy of biology, since you separate science from philosophy)?
Seems to me that the soul stands to the cognitive sciences as elan vital does to the biological. We're finding things now like specific genes that correlate with natural language capability--I think the explanatory gap for a soul to fill is vanishing rapidly.
Jim,
I'm unfamiliar with vitalism so I can't give you an answer.
Jim,Here's the wikipedia vitalism page.
I'm unfamiliar with vitalism so I can't give you an answer.
Stevek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
MentalRover -
I don't know of any believer in the soul who wouldn't assign consciousness, i.e., sentience and self-awareness, to the soul.
The problem (at least for the Christian) in rethinking our imaginations and our interpretations is that it takes us far afield of traditional Christianity. And I don't think one can remain a Christian and have a "a constantly changing feeling for how a spiritual world may differ from the material one", at least as it regards the "God isn't in the sky" hypothesis. A literal reading of the Bible makes it clear what one needs to believe about God and Jesus in order to be saved. In my church growing up, if anyone mentioned a constantly changing feeling for the spiritual world, they would be promptly told that they were not, in fact, saved.
And I don't assume that the Christian imagines God to be an "Old Man with white beard above in the sky sitting on clouds." Growing up as a born-again Christian, I never had that view of God or Jesus, even though the Bible seems to imply that that is an accurate or at least reasonable position to take - consider Acts chapter 7, verse 55: "But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." I imagined that Jesus - or the Holy Spirit - was in my head (or my heart, if you prefer that metaphor), that he was right around the corner, that he could see or know everything I was doing at every moment. But I don't say that I don't believe in the Old Man in the sky - I say I don't believe in ANYTHING supernatural, God and gods included. There's just no convincing evidence that such a being or realm exists.
It's true that the discipline of science doesn't look for supernatural explanations for phenomena; but if the Christian claims that the supernatural somehow interacts with the natural, then we would expect to find some evidence of it. But we don't. And supernaturalists can't come up with any. To say that the supernatural can't be found in the natural world is, in my opinion, a cop-out.
And it seems to me that if the soul possesses those attributes that we normally assign to a 'person', and if we also agree that the brain is a necessary (though not sufficient, according to the modern interpretation of the soul) 'organ of the soul', then when we change the brain, we change the 'soul.' But if the soul is separate from the brain, then why is it that when we change the brain we ALWAYS change the person? Is the 'person' - that unique individual whom we imagine survives the death of his body - the same as the 'soul'?
Jim,
All purely biological processes seem to admit of an easy, unproblematic reduction to physial processes within an organism.
There's one mental process (state or perhaps event, if you like) that does not admit of such easy reduction. It is consciousness. That seems a state wholly unlike any physical state that science describes. It is essentially subjective in nature; remove the subjectivity of it, and there's nothing left to it. Thus it admits no easy reduction to any physical process, for all physical processes, it seems, can be wholly described in purely objective terms. The vocabulary of physics, for instance, which, I would assume, must provide us with an inventory of the basic sorts of physical property, makes no mention of any property with an essentially subjective aspect. Consciousness, from the point of view of physics, seems to be something entirely new in kind.
Thus it seems to me that vitalism and dualism are not at all alike. The first, science has undermined. The second, science has not touched.
(This is the short form of one of the arguments for dualism.)
Franklin -
You say: "So too the brain in necessary for consciousness, but in all strictness it is not that which is conscious. Rather it is the soul that is conscious" and "So too we can readily explain why it is that the brain is absolutely necessary for consciousness; destroy the brain, and consciounsess ceases".
But then, by your logic, doesn't the soul cease to exist?
The problem with dualism is that the dualists can't come up with any theory on how the immaterial interacts with the material. No one, to my knowledge, has come up with any adequate account of it. How would you explain it, Franklin? Or do you think it needs no explanation?
Franklin -
I strongly recommend that you read Susan Blackmore's "Consciousness: A Very Short Inroduction", if you haven't already.
It's a great overview of the issue of consciousness; and she also has this to say about substance dualism:
"Known as Cartesian dualism, this is the idea that the mind and the brain consist of different substances. The trouble with this is obvious. How do the two interact? Descartes proposed that they meet in the tiny pineal gland in the centre of the brain, but this only staves off the problem a little. The pineal gland is a physical structure and Cartesian dualism provides no explanation of why it, alone, can communicate with the mental realm."
Thus it admits no easy reduction to any physical process, for all physical processes, it seems, can be wholly described in purely objective termsWhat about those cases in which an electrode is placed in a living brain and it causes very specific and replicatable subjective states? That would appear to reduce a subjective state to a physical process.
How do the two interact?
I don't know how final causes interact with the physical agent to induce action, but I know it happens. An example of a final cause might be the desire to live in Seattle. Can you show that the final cause can be explained entirely by the laws of physics and chemistry of the brain, especially in light of the fact that teleology/desire isn't part of any physics or chemistry (or QM) courses?
Disclaimer: I know little about dualism so keep this in mind.
SteveK -
You say that you don't know how final causes interact with the physical agent to induce action, but then you say that you KNOW it happens. That just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not being facetious here; I guess I'm asking what you mean by "know"...
Franklin,
Why is C meaningful? Because it is a definition of meaning, and definitions (as conventions) need only to be executable to be meaningful. And my definition is clearly executable. Again, C isn't so much a discovery about the world, but a rigorous definition for an intuitive concept. It's not even a complete definition of meaning. It's merely a minimum criterion.
Of course, you can reject my definition of meaning, but then you have to find a counterexample. Like knowing the meaning of a set of symbols representing a proposition while simultaneously admitting to having no idea what experiences are more or less likely if the proposition is true. (If its consequences are purely computational, then the proposition is not about the world, just about computation.)
In contrast, your statement about dualism is not a definition, is it? It's not saying that having certain experiences equates to having a soul. And it's not even a statement about meta-experiences (abstract patterns of experiences). It's a statement about something which you vehemently assert as true without reason and without knowing the experiential consequences of its truth. Indeed, it says that a robot that acts exactly like a human person in every circumstance can't be conscious despite there being no possible experience that would tell one from the other. Well, that's a totally unjustified assertion. By that same argument, other people aren't conscious either.
As for the history of dualism...
As Paul asked, if the brain does almost all of the grunt work of consciousness, what's the soul for? If you die, you lose your memories, emotions, ability to recognize, vocabulary, comprehension, etc. Yet no dualist (well, no Christian dualist) actually believes that souls are indistinct in this way. Christians believe that souls contain our identity, but they cannot do that without memory. So your criticism lacks candor, at the very least.
The Christian view only makes sense if souls have memory and personality, but these things are part of the physical brain. But if they are part of the soul, they didn't need to be part of the physical brain. When they turn out to be physical, that counts against dualism's original thesis. One way of doing things under naturalism, many ways under dualism, and we keep finding things are the one way compatible with naturalism. That's why naturalism is so much more likely than dualism.
It is consciousness. That seems a state wholly unlike any physical state that science describes. It is essentially subjective in nature; remove the subjectivity of it, and there's nothing left to it.What does subjective mean in this context? It means something inside your consciousness. But that's not the same "subjective" used in the natural sciences when scientists say they are "removing the subjective from the results." Science, from your perspective, is still inside that same consciousness, so your are equivocating on the meaning of subjective. Not surprising when the word has half a dozen meanings.
Here's the problem in a nutshell. It's obviously possible for a person to be wrongly convinced that she knows the meaning of a proposition uttered by someone else. It's not so obvious (and yet true) that a person can be wrongly convinced that she knows the meaning of a proposition that she herself utters. Your quote above illustrates this very phenomenon.
And, yeah, deja vu is right.
SteveK,
An example of a final cause might be the desire to live in Seattle. Can you show that the final cause can be explained entirely by the laws of physics and chemistry of the brain, especially in light of the fact that teleology/desire isn't part of any physics or chemistry (or QM) courses?Um, desire is very much a part of physics and biology. How about desire to mate? Say with someone in particular. Neutralize that desirer's hormones and the desire goes away. That's pretty physical. You're not changing the perception of the desired person, but the desire itself.
And, of course, final causation is a subclass of efficient causation. Final causation is to efficient causation as ball bearings are to iron atoms.
Juno:
I guess I'm asking what you mean by "know"...
In the same way as all first-person knowledge is known.
I know I'm conscious. I know I love my family. I know I can make real choices. I know I feel pain, anger, happiness and so forth. I know my past and my desires for the future. I know correct reasoning from incorrect reasoning. I know I am more than the mere collection of my physical parts. I know what is true in a lot of cases.
dl,
Call C a definition if you like. But that won't allow you to dodge the issue here. For no matter whether it's a definition or not, it is either true or false. Everydefinition is either true or false. "Bachelors are unmarried adults males" is a definition that is true. "Triangles are 4-sided closed planar figures" is a definition that is false. If you were to find the first in a dictionary, you'd pass over it without thought. If you found the second, you'd throw the dictionary out.
So what is it with C? Is it true or is it false? If it's false, I believe that we can safely ignore it. If it's true, presumably it is meaningful. But if it's meaningful, then it says of itself that its meaning consists in the experiential difference it would make if true. But as I said (and as you seem to admit) it makes no experiential difference. Conclusion: if C is true, it is meaningless.
You asked for a counter-example to C. C is a counter-example to C. It is a counter-example to itself.
If I found C in a dictionary, I'd throw that dictionary out.
Oh, and you say that I vehemently assert dualism without reason. I don't assert it at all. I said that I'm agnostic. I didn't give reason, but its truth was not at issue in my post. Only its meaningfulness was a issue there. My only bone with you is that I believe it a perfectly sensical and important proposition.
dl,
Now for the charge of "lack of candor". The great advocate of the most common of the traditional Christian views - Thomas Aquinas - was a dualist of an Aristotelian sort. For him, both body and soul were essential components in a complete human person. Remove the body, and though the soul would continue to exist, it would do so in a state of dormacy. Personality and memory would cease. Moreover, they could not return until the body was revived; and this would be accomplished by God.
Indeed for most of the history of Christianity, this sort of view was dominant. Life in the next world would be life in a resurrected body. (Read the Nicene Creed. For 1500 years now, it has formed the core of belief of most Christians. It speaks of the resurrection of the dead.) It would not be life as a disembodied soul. This leaves ample room for the essential functions of the brain in the sustenance of mental activity, as is shown in the case of Thomas.
I hope that this puts to rest the charge of lack of candor.
dl says: "What does subjective mean in this context? It means something inside your consciousness. But that's not the same "subjective" used in the natural sciences when scientists say they are "removing the subjective from the results." Science, from your perspective, is still inside that same consciousness, so your are equivocating on the meaning of subjective. Not surprising when the word has half a dozen meanings.
Here's the problem in a nutshell. It's obviously possible for a person to be wrongly convinced that she knows the meaning of a proposition uttered by someone else. It's not so obvious (and yet true) that a person can be wrongly convinced that she knows the meaning of a proposition that she herself utters. Your quote above illustrates this very phenomenon."
I've read this 6 times now and still don't understand. Sorry, but would you restate? Thanks.
Juno,
"I don't know of any believer in the soul who wouldn't assign consciousness, i.e., sentience and self-awareness, to the soul."
Well, than I may be the first to be in doubt of this interpretation of soul.
As a software engineer I am used too much in the concepts of model, metamodel and meta-metamodel, self-changing programs and the like, to ignore the similarities in self-consciousness.
"In my church growing up, if anyone mentioned a constantly changing feeling for the spiritual world, they would be promptly told that they were not, in fact, saved."
This would be exactly like Galileo being damned because of his "constantly changing feeling of the solar system", leading him to the recognition that the earth is not in the centre.
What I suppose is, that we learn much more about what the character of being of the soul may be (sorry, think my bad english may be an obstacle here).
see below for my thoughts about dualism.
"And I don't assume that the Christian imagines God to be an 'Old Man with white beard above in the sky sitting on clouds.'"
Indeed not, that was my point in the argumentation:
I felt the mentioned description of the soul as being like this Old Man: only a poor model for the much more complicated phenomenon.
So trying to argument against a soul in this way is only arguing against this poor notion of soul, not the possibility of an existence of soul itsself.
" It's true that the discipline of science doesn't look for supernatural explanations for phenomena; but if the Christian claims that the supernatural somehow interacts with the natural, then we would expect to find some evidence of it."
Well, now coming to the dualism again:
I doubt that the dualism, how is it presented as substance dualism, is correct.
Thinking of the supernatural in the same way as the natural, only being "on the other side" is in my opinion far too simple.
I have no answer to that, I only give an example of my blurred thoughts:
The supernatural is not only body or object in another dimension, the whole being of it is of a totally different character, like a concept is different from an engine, although the engine constitutes or implements the concept. Like value is diffent from the valued object. Like meaning is different from ink patterns on papers.
It is totally different, but not separate from it. Soul is an inherent part of body, what theologist's always emphasize when talking about the 'nephesh'.
Perhaps body and soul is more like the dualism of particle and wave. And the particle character does not "interact" with the wave character.
"And it seems to me that if the soul possesses those attributes that we normally assign to a 'person', and if we also agree that the brain is a necessary (though not sufficient, according to the modern interpretation of the soul) 'organ of the soul', then when we change the brain, we change the 'soul.' But if the soul is separate from the brain, then why is it that when we change the brain we ALWAYS change the person? Is the 'person' - that unique individual whom we imagine survives the death of his body - the same as the 'soul'?"
No, I doubt that it is.
For me, the biblical descriptions of the beyond are only a help for the reader who is not academically trained in philosophy. They do not claim to be philosophically and scientifically correct statements for the highly educated professor. They want to give help for life for every possible reader.
So it is a source for the existential meaning of soul, of our being, but no physical or metaphysical essay on it.
So, for me again, it is a difference if we talk about biblical and theological matters of soul, or of metaphysical and philosophical matters of its existence.
Hope, this makes my point of view somewhat clear.
Franklin,
No, definitions are only true or false with respect to a convention. If a kid in primary school is shown a picture of a pride of lions, and he calls them "asadi", he'll be docked a point. He'll be "wrong." Unless his class is in Swahili.
That there is something with properties that can be labeled is what is indisputable, but the label itself is not. There may be true and false facts about the interactions of labeled things (e.g., cats and dogs), but the labels are conventional and arbitrary. Your test of whether a dictionary should be "thrown out" is based on the conventions you happen to know and prefer.
I've provided you with a definition of meaning. Call it "C meaning" if you don't think it means the same thing as your own definition of semantic meaning. However, my assertion is that, upon reflection, your definition of semantic meaning will have to comply with "C meaning" to be acceptable even to you.
"C meaning" is analogous to "alphabetical order". In defining alphabetical order, I give you a test of categorization. If you could not execute this test, then the word would be meaningless. However, alphabetical order is meaningful because you can execute the test. If I tell you this stack of documents is in alphabetical order, you know what experiences are more and less likely. Furthermore, alphabetical order is an arbitrary convention. Why use these symbols as our letters? Why align them in this order? Mere historical accident. And in the context of this accident, alphabetical order is useful.
In the case of "C meaning", if you tell me that proposition P is "C meaningful" to you, then I would expect it was likely that you could tell me what experiences are more likely if P were true. But when you fail to produce any hypothetical experience that would serve as a test of P, I tend to think you're confused.
Back in a bit.
But doctor(logic), you missed a very important point that Franklin made. He said that C is a counter-example to C. Let me unpack this (again--not that it hasn't been done already).
C, as summarized by Franklin (8/1, 4:37 pm) is:
The meaning of a proposition consists in the experiences that would be more or less likely were the proposition true.
Now, C is undoubtedly a proposition, and it is undoubtedly intended (by dl, at least, if Franklin's summary of his point is accurate) to carry meaning. Therefore C should apply to itself coherently. Therefore the meaning of C consists in the experiences that would be more or less likely were C true.
Franklin suggested that this is self-contradictory. doctor(logic), your answer was off the mark; it missed his point completely. You wrote,
Why is C meaningful? Because it is a definition of meaning, and definitions (as conventions) need only to be executable to be meaningful. And my definition is clearly executable.
So which is it? Is C's meaning contained in the experiences that would be more or less likely were C true? Or is its meaning contained in that it is an executable human convention?
And please be more cautious in how you distinguish between symbols and propositions. Propositions are not sentences, they are not symbols, they are independent of language:
The term ‘proposition’ has a broad use in contemporary philosophy. It is used to refer to some or all of the following: the primary bearers of truth-value, the objects of belief and other “propositional attitudes” (i.e., what is believed, doubted, etc.), the referents of that-clauses, and the meanings of sentences.
They are expressed through language, of course, but they are not the same as sentences or other symbols. Thus your point here is irrelevant:
No, definitions are only true or false with respect to a convention. If a kid in primary school is shown a picture of a pride of lions, and he calls them "asadi", he'll be docked a point. He'll be "wrong." Unless his class is in Swahili.
Labels are indeed conventional and arbitrary, but if you extend that to propositions, you're following Jason into the denial of all meaning--except for that which is conventional and arbitrary.
But given our conventional use of language, we have a proposition, C, which we can understand through language, which contradicts itself. You cannot escape that contradiction by pointing out that there are conventional or arbitrarily-assigned symbols assigned to represent and communicate C, or by saying that C involves a definition. Your "definition defense" is irrelevant to the real problem.
Tom:
you're following Jason into the denial of all meaning
Did you mean to say Jacob?
DL:
Um, desire is very much a part of physics and biology. How about desire to mate?
I said chemistry, not biology, to point out that there are no physics equations and no chemical reaction processes known to cause desire itself. This is primarily because desire itself isn't a measurable physical property recognized by physics or chemistry. Can you imagine desire (D) being put into an equation like F=[mA+2D^2]/g ?
I can't either.
MentalR,
Well, than I may be the first to be in doubt of this interpretation of soul.
As a software engineer I am used too much in the concepts of model, metamodel and meta-metamodel, self-changing programs and the like, to ignore the similarities in self-consciousness.
As a software engineer, you would also be aware that no matter how many layers of inheritance your objects have, or how autonomous or abstract they appear (self-conscious?) you can always trace the base machine code.
You should also appreciate how, at a certain level of complexity, the whole appears to be more than the sum of the parts. The brain is complex and intricate, but as we trace the base machine code (or at least the 'hardware' layer) we can imagine how the abstract layers are modeled, and even modify the high level stuff (personality) chemically. Why invoke anything external?
I would assume that a software engineer would appreciate a complex system for its own sake, the beauty of decision trees with millions of inputs and outputs, without invoking another "outside" system. Do you think your software exists without your hardware, or that it will become so complex that it can't be traced? Even if it becomes self-aware, (conscience, intelligent... whatever) it will still require a framework in the physical.
We are aware that "we" are done when our brains are destroyed, so we come up with magical ways to "keep going", with no description of method or mechanism. The idea that there must be a process separate from the physical while we are alive, helps the arguement that some process continues after death.
dl,
Please explain to me why it is that upon reflection I should come to accept C. I've reflected quite a bit on the matter - decades - and in that time I've always rejected any semantic criterion that would identify the sense of an assertion with any set of possible or actual experiences. Why do I reject it? It seems to me that any such criterion self-refutes (and I take heart in the fact that the great majority of philosophers who've considered the issues think so too - that makes me think I haven't missed anything obvious). Why does it self-refute? Such a criterion must be meaningful if it's to be of any use. But if it is meaningful, it would seem that it must apply to itself and thus that its meaning must consist in some set of experiences (or, if you like, the experiential difference it would make if true). But there is no set of experiences to be associated with C. It's a philosophical asssertion, not an empirical one.
It seems to me that your only reply is to say that C is neither true nor meaningful. But that means we can, indeed should, ignore it.
This is delicious irony. dl tells us again and again how deeply irrational we theists are. But there's this hard little nugget of nonsense - C - at the heart of dl's philosophy. The pot has called the kettle black.
You know, Franklin, I think I recall one Holopupenko making this same observation repeatedly in regards to DL's logical positivism.
SteveK, you're right--I did mean Jacob. Thanks.
Franklin, Tom,
Look at it this way. I can define what it means for a visible thing to be yellow. Let's say, for sake of argument, I define it as light with a wavelength between 570–580 nm. Is this definition true? Well, only conventionally. However, the convention is meaningful because I have a procedure for saying when a visible thing is yellow or not.
But now suppose that I claim that one can define what it means for a visible thing to be boogaloo. Initially, I don't give you any details of the definition. Naturally, you think that I must have some details. But as time goes by, you realize that I don't. I'm just aping the grammar of color definition, but without specifying any procedure under which I could say whether a visible thing is boogaloo or not. It's like I'm defining an unspecified color.
Then I produce two identical golf balls. I claim one is boogaloo and the other isn't. What do you make of that? You examine the two golf balls and can find no differences, visible or otherwise. When you ask me what experience tells the difference, I can't give you an answer except the assurance that lots of other people believe in the boogaloo property, and that it is obvious that boogaloo is a property because it was referred to using a property-ish grammar.
Clearly, in this example, I really don't know what %#&@ boogaloo means despite my assertion that boogaloo exists as a property and that some golf balls have it. All I'm doing is mimicking the grammatical structure of property assignment without grounding.
C is about detecting this type of delusion. Just like the definition of the color yellow, the definition of C is not a proposition. It's a definition that's used in propositions like "proposition P is C-meaningful." (Comparable to "this golf ball is yellow.")
Okay, so if C isn't a proposition, what am I asserting? If there is a proposition associated with C it is this: Upon reflection, our intuition about meaning is such that a proposition that violates C cannot be meaningful. In particular, 1) propositions aren't always meaningful just because we feel they are or because they have the right grammatical structure (humans can be confused), and 2) the meanings of propositions are confined to those things about which they are consequential.
Your position is that humans will never make such a mistake, and that no definition or criteria for meaningfulness is required. Now that's faith!
Very confusing, dl. If C isn't a proposition, then what is it?
To the best of my ability to decode it, I think what you're saying must mean:
1. C determines whether or not a proposition is meaningful.
2. If C is true, then as a proposition C fails (is literally meaningless), for it does not pass the test of C.
3. Therefore as a proposition C is self-referentially incoherent.
4. But C is not a proposition, so C does not fail by (2) and (3).
But could C be true without being a proposition? Or could C be useful as a definition without being true? It's absurd to suggest it could be so!
(For those who might otherwise have lost track of it, this is C:
C: The meaning of a proposition consists in the experiences that would be more or less likely were the proposition true.)
As to an alternate definition or criterion for meaningfulness, we'll have to come back to that in a while. For now, it sure seems clear that yours is not succeeding.
Tom,
And please be more cautious in how you distinguish between symbols and propositions. Propositions are not sentences, they are not symbols, they are independent of languageFair cop. I should have said that any candidate set of symbols that fails C is not a proposition at all.
Labels are indeed conventional and arbitrary, but if you extend that to propositions, you're following [Jacob] into the denial of all meaning--except for that which is conventional and arbitrary.Don't worry, I shall not be following Jacob!
Here's the deal. My labels are arbitrary. However, the labels refer to experiences. Always and without fail. That's what grounds labels and propositions. "The cat is in the box" is grounded by my experiences, and that's what makes it possible for the proposition to be true or false. I can look in the box and see if it contains a cat. If there were no recipe for checking the proposition, then I wouldn't know what it meant.
However, to some extent, labels have a life of their own. We can reason analogously. I can say that "* is in the box" where * is some noun. As long as I replace * with a noun under which the proposition can be evaluated, I retain the sensibility of a proposition.
However, when humans think analogously, they can be careless. They can say that "determination is in the box." Determination is a noun. It's grammatically correct. However, my proposition is meaningless unless I can say what experiences I am representing with my labels. And, of course, there's no recipe for checking whether there is determination in a box.
My claim is that your claims about the soul are mistakes of this nature. You say that humans have a soul, but cannot say what would be the difference between a person with a soul and a person without. Neither can you say why you infer the existence of the soul.
Franklin,
I retract the "lack of candor" charge, at least in your case.
So, let's say that the soul has nothing to do with personality (as that's been tracked down to the body). God just re-instantiates you, warts and all in some other universe. Then what is the soul for? If we're going to get re-animated, why all the hullabaloo about souls? God doesn't need us to have them. It seems to me that I no more have a soul than a boogaloo.
I'll happily pile on. dl says: "If there is a proposition associated with C it is this: Upon reflection, our intuition about meaning is such that a proposition that violates C cannot be meaningful."
The part of this complex assertion that follows "such that" is itself an proposition - something assertable. If it were not, the whole of which it was part would be nonsense.
So let us consider that part. It is this: "A proposition that violates C cannot be meaningful."
Call this proposition, for lack of a better name, "D". Again, D is a proposition; moreover, it speaks of all propositions. Thus it speaks of itself. Indeed it says of itself that it cannot be meaningful if it violates C. Recall now that C tells us that the meaning of a propositon consists in the experiential difference it would make if true. But D is not itself an empirical proposition. It is, rather, philosophical. It makes no prediction about the course of experience and so its falsity would not render the course of experience any different than it actually is. Thus D tells us that D is meaningless. That's plainly incoherent.
So I say again, though you seem to be very convinced of the view you defend, it is at bottom incoherent. There are more respectable varieties of empiricism out there, ones that, for instance, don't label non-empirical propositions as meaningless. You should give another variety a try.
(Your example concerns an empirically undetectable property of physical things, and makes its point. But that point is limited in scope. The ascription of that property is without ground, either empirical or philosophical. But the assertion of the soul's existence does have philosphical ground. There is reason to hold that it exists. If you reply that there cannot be solely philosophical grounds to hold a thing, I'll reply (like before) that this very assertion - that there can't be solely philosphical grounds to hold a thing - is itself a philosophical proposition, and thus if true, is groundless.)
Tom,
It's not that confusing.
Yellow means emitting light at 570nm. Beyond convention, is this true or false?
It's only true by convention. On some alien world, yellow might mean the same thing as red on this world.
But what makes it meaningful on this world? What makes the definition meaningful is our ability to recognize yellow in visible objects, subject to our convention. The ability to use the definition in our experience. It is propositions like "that flower is yellow" that are true or false given experience. Experience decides the truth for us.
The same thing applies to mathematical axioms. x=5. x + y = 12. Definitions, right? Are they true? No, not outside of convention. However, given that convention, we can say that y = 7 is true.
Likewise C is a definition in my convention. Given that convention, a lot of metaphysical utterances are not propositions at all. The question is whether my convention is implicit under your own conventions. And the test of this is your ability to find a set of symbols that is meaningful to you but whose experiential consequences are wholly unknown to you. If you can find it, you can reject my convention. Otherwise, you'll have to admit all sorts of nonsense as meaningful.
Franklin,
Let's talk about D.
If D were true (from my perspective), then I ought to be able to find a set of symbols that is intuitively (and perhaps formally) meaningful to me (has a truth value), but which says nothing about any future experience I might have.
That's the answer to your query. Very much meaningful by its own standards, Franklin. There's a simple recipe for its refutation. Do you see symbols such that you know their propositional meaning, but not one of their consequences should the proposition turn out to be true? If so, you've refuted D. Not so difficult after all. Care to suggest some symbols?
BTW, I said experience, not purely empirical (5-senses) experience. Mathematical propositions are subject to the same criterion. If I assign to a new attribute to a geometric figure, I had better be able to define a recipe for assigning that attribute, at least in principle. Mathematics is still experience, despite the fact that it is mental.
Franklin wrote:
But the assertion of the soul's existence does have philosphical ground. There is reason to hold that it exists.I'm not trying to be obtuse, but what exactly, in brief, are the non-empirical, philosophical reasons for the soul?
And, by the way, I think you implying that there is no empirical evidence for the soul. Is that correct?
dl, your answer to "it's not that confusing" doesn't address the questions I asked. It's the same question Franklin continues to raise: How can C, or your definition, or D, or any combination thereof, be meaningful if it is true? (That's not the best formal statement of the problem, it's just a reminder of what we're talking about.)
Paul, I think I'm going to write a blog entry addressing your first question, hopefully in the next hour or two. It's been coming up here over and over again.
In the meantime, though, I would say that the answer to your second question depends on how tightly or narrowly one defines "empirical." Evidences for the soul do come partly from experience, but not generally of the sort that the sciences are good at handling.
Tom,
Evidences for the soul do come partly from experience, but not generally of the sort that the sciences are good at handling.Let me guess. There's evidence from experience for the soul as long as we don't try to eliminate personal bias and superstition. After all, that's what science is good at.
The definition of science has finally been determined (somebody contact Larry Laudan!): science is knowledge with no bias and no superstition.
The elephant in the room isn't going away, DL.
Tom,
I hit Preview on the comment box and it Published. Let me try Preview again and see what happens. If this shows up then you know what happened.
dl asks: "Do you see symbols such that you know their propositional meaning, but not one of their consequences should the proposition turn out to be true?"
How widely, exactly, do we wish to take "consequence"? If it's only a mental difference - a difference in the course of thought, emotion, etc. - then "The soul exists" is perfectly meaningful, for obviously it does enter into many mental processes. It is denied, asserted, entertained, hoped for, derided etc., and these are all in part mental.
Or is it something more? Is it that any meaningful proposition must be such that, were it true, the course of our experience must be different than it would be were it false? I take you to mean this stronger sense. But if it's this stronger sense that you mean, it's quite easy to produce counter-examples.
C is one. D is another.
SteveK, do you want something edited off here due to that publish error?
Paul,
Here's my favorite argument for dualism.
1. The brain is not simple, i.e. it has parts. Indeed the brain just is its parts arranged in a certain way.
2. Now let us assume, for the sake of reductio, that the brain is that which is conscious.
3. By 1, we know that what we call the brain is really a plurality of things (a plurality related in a certain way, but a plurality nonetheless).
4. So then we must ask which of those parts is the conscious one. (We cannot assume that more than one is, for that would give us multiple streams of consciousness in a single brain.)
5. But if you were to say, for instance, "cerebrum" I would note that this too is a plurality of things.
6. So, then, we must locate consciousness in a simple, partless particle within the brain.
7. But this would seem absurd. No particle described by physicists seems like a good candidate for the "consciousness particle".
8. So then we must conclude that it is not the brain that is conscious. Indeed we seem driven to say that that which is conscious is non-physical. Nothing physical seems to fit the bill.
Invalid, perhaps. But not obviously so. Leibniz defended a form of it, and by my lights this means that it must be taken quite seriously.
(Question for dl. Do arguments of this sort suffice to make dualism meaningful?)
No, Tom, I'm good. Just don't want anyone to suffer because of this, thinking it would preview but didn't.
It didn't Preview again. I noticed the buttons are now in different places with Preview on the left side. Was it that way before? BTW, I'm using Firefox if that matters.
That's bizarre, SteveK! In Safari, Preview is on the right, in FF it's on the left now. I wonder when that started!
Test to see if Publish button is really the Preview button.
Ha Ha! Both act as Publish buttons.
*clicks Preview button to Publish*
Franklin wrote:
4. So then we must ask which of those parts is the conscious one. (We cannot assume that more than one is, for that would give us multiple streams of consciousness in a single brain.)Why can't a single consciousness be distributed throughout the entire brain, even one that has parts?
Franklin, talk to me about whether you think there is any empirical evidence for the soul.
Paul,
I take it that I am conscious, and that I am one thing, not many. So when we seek for the "I", we cannot say that it is many things. But (or so say I) the brain is really just many things (so and so related). Thus I cannot be my brain. Nor, it now follows, can I be anything that is not partless. If you attempt to "spread out" consciousness over the whole brain, you would have to make each of its many parts conscious. But then you would have many consciousnessess, many things that are conscious. But this is surely bizarre. There are not multiple streams of consciousness within my brain. (If anyone is curious, this argument comes from Descartes, though as I recall it is not identical to his argument.)
I know of no empirical evidence for dualism. I have always thought that the sole reason to adopt dualism was philosphical in nature.
I hope this Firefox preview-publish thing goes away soon!
Franklin,
Let's stay focused. We're talking about some symbol P that allegedly represents a proposition.
Whether recitation of P makes us feel warm and fuzzy says nothing about whether P is understood.
"Dimetrodon opens scissors squared."
...rolls off the tongue, but has no truth value that I can detect. It's grammatically correct, but semantically meaningless to me.
It reminds me of the movie Jurassic Park, but its ability to do so doesn't make it a statement with a truth value either.
Now, if P implies not Q, then it at least has some mathematical meaning.
However, when you say that humans have souls, but that souls are not physical, you're not intending to do some algebra but with the symbols "soul" and "physical" instead of "x" or "y".
It's also clear that you mean to assert something, but I don't think the content is merely that you mean to assert something.
What we are considering is the possibility that you mean to assert something, something that you value emotionally, but which might be literally nonsensical. So we are talking about a recipe for assigning the truth value to the proposition.
Here's what I think is really going on. I think that for you, the soul is "that which results in some moral conclusion." In other words, you don't know what the soul is, but you think that the material facts are inadequate to reach that moral conclusion, so you propose something "je ne sais quoi" which gets you to your moral endpoint. For example, you think that the soul is what gives people free will and moral responsibility, when you have no idea how to test whether either attribute formally exists, and no idea how such a mechanism would function. IOW, your claim that the soul exists is really a statement that people objectively have moral responsibility.
BTW, SteveK, I'm using Firefox, too, and preview seems to be working (as well as normal :P).
Franklin,
I think your argument for dualism meaningfully purports to say something about consciousness and spacetime, but fails to say anything about dualism or non-physicality. It fails to say what it means for something to be non-physical in this context.
It seems to go like this.
1) If consciousness were not located at a single spacial point, we would experience multiple streams of consciousness.
2) We experience one stream of consciousness.
3) Consciousness cannot be located at a single spacial point.
4) Therefore, consciousness can neither be distributed in space, nor be located at a single spacial point.
There's an additional implicit claim:
5) If consciousness cannot be distributed and cannot be spacially located at a point, then consciousness cannot have spacial coordinates.
This doesn't mean that consciousness isn't physical, as far as I can tell. If a character in a video game were conscious, his consciousness wouldn't be game-physical either (it would not have in-game coordinates), but that wouldn't make the character's consciousness non-physical in the grand scheme.
Of course, the claims of the argument are all false to begin with. There's no evidence that distributing consciousness across a brain would lead to an experience of multiple streams. After all, the distribution of visible objects in close and distant focus does not always lead to an experience of multiple disconnected images in and out of focus. The brain sews together multiple images from the eyes as they saccade across a scene giving the "illusion" of one smoothly-connected scene. So why shouldn't the faculty of consciousness do the same?
Second, we do have multiple streams of consciousness, not all of which are directly experienced. We have a subconscious.
The argument wouldn't get you where you want to go even if the argument were supported by the facts (which it isn't).
Franklin,you still haven't said why many parts couldn't be conscious with a single consciousness. Your point is almost like saying that a fender and a door on a car can't all be moving at the same speed, because they're different parts. That's not an exact analogy, but I hope you get my point anyway. Why must each individual part of the brain get a different consciousness?
Furthermore, why can't one fraction of the cells of the brain (whether contiguous or not) be responsible for the feeling of "I," or the feeling of consciousness, and another fraction of the brain be resonsible for other feelings, feelings that get transmitted to the "I" part of the brain?
In order to make your claim, you'd have to have good evidence to rule out my speculation. Do you?
And, Franklin, thanks for your straight-forward answer to my question about empirical evidence for the soul.
DL just made my response to Franklin better than I could.
dl,
I don't think you've really understood the argument. The criticisms fall far short of the mark.
The subconscious isn't itself conscious. Check the use of the term - that's how you'll find it used.
Consciousness isn't "sewn together" from distinct streams of consciousness. For it is, I think, absurd to think that, within my head, there are distinct such streams. There is only one consciousness in my head. (Sometimes there's more than one, but this signals radical malfunction. In almost all cases, there's only one.)
Now, it might well be sewn together from a multiplicity of processes. But none of these are themselves conscious.
Let me ask: how many things in my head are conscious? One, it would seem. For if more than one, there would be multiple consciousnessess in my head, and that (as I've said) seems dead wrong. Plausible?
dl,
Re. your 5:11 post: perhaps if I say it a third time, it will be read. I'm not a dualist. Ergo I have no emotional attachment to its truth. I am, as I've said repeatedly, agnostic on the matter. (Sorry that I'm a bit testy, but 5:11 was completely irrelevant.)
Franklin,
For me, my consciousness consists in one present sensation or memory or imagination. However, I have good reason to believe that I have many memories playing back at once, many sensations at once, and many imaginations at once. That is, there are many simultaneous contents or channels of potential conscious experience, and my consciousness itself is like being tuned in to one of them. It's like being in a TV store with 30 TVs each playing a different show, and my consciousness being my awareness of one TV/channel (the loudest or brightest, perhaps). FWIW, in Gerald Edelman's model (see, A Universe of Consciousness) there's a sort of natural selection taking place inside the brain that causes the brain to focus on one stream/channel at a time.
That's the model I was thinking of.
Also, the spacial localization argument flies in the face of neural network science (not that Leibniz can be blamed for that). Neural networks are spacially-extended systems with computing capacity. A single network can be very large and do essentially one task at a time. The visual cortex does just this.
So the premise that even the slightest spacial extension automatically implies multiple streams is not valid, and even if there are multiple streams, there's no barrier to our being aware of or tuned in to just one of these at a time.
SteveK,
Now I have the same problem with the buttons in FireFox. I think it's the coComment annoyance.
Now I'm using Firefox in XP Home Edition and the problem doesn't show up here. Before I was on XP Professional Edition, and that is where I had the problem. I'll check again when I go back to the Pro Edition.
SteveK,
Haha! I got the problem when I went from Pro to Home! I wonder whether it's a caching issue. Do you see the coComment floating bar at the top right of the HaloScan window?
"You should also appreciate how, at a certain level of complexity, the whole appears to be more than the sum of the parts."
That's exactly my point: The new that emerges from this complexity is what I seem talking about.
It is not only taking a good bunch of some elements and mingle them together:
The elements must be ordered in a certain structure to let the new properties emerge.
This new structure is an implementation, of a somewhat metaphysical 'concept'.
The question is: Does this 'concept' come to existence with the first implementation? Does it emerge together with its implementation?
Or had this 'concept' just always exist as a possibility, which only found its realisation at the time of emergence?
Then this 'concept' would be an entity fully connected to the implented system
"I would assume that a software engineer would appreciate a complex system for its own sake, the beauty of decision trees with millions of inputs and outputs, without invoking another "outside" system."
Ehm ... no:
Your saying exactly the right:
_a_system_engineer would appreciate ...
But he exactly _is_ the outside system. Otherwise there would be no one 'appreciating', and nothing to 'appreciate'.
"Do you think your software exists without your hardware, or that it will become so complex that it can't be traced?"
No. Neither of that.
But my software exists exactly, because I (representing the group of all engineers who took part to create the whole computational system) gave the material the structure and organised the electrical structures within it.
So the resulting system, even if self-conscious (due to containing a representation of a full model of itsself) and fully hardware represented, would only exist as an implementation (or incarnation) of a concept, which is transcendent to said systems own existence.
And I additionally presume an outer semantic to the system, that is not fully contained in the system itsself. That is: Even if the metamodel, implemented in the system is adequate to contain a full technical and functional description of the system itsself (and assumed it does indeed contain all this data), it could lack of an adequate metamodel and data to contain its full semantical meaning.
E.g.: Why and for what purpose it has been constructed.
The metamodel may be fit to contain data about computer systems (e.g. itsself), but not about humans.
There would be very poor possibility to fully describe the 'programmer' in terms of such metamodel, wouldn't it?
Even the terms 'flesh' or 'eye' would be confusing for a silicone based mind.
Sorry, should have said:
The previous post was addressed at Eric.
(BTW: I get the feeling that the complexity of this discussion extends the abilities of a blog comment system. Should be better followed up in a phpBB based Forum ...)
Franklin,
"If you attempt to "spread out" consciousness over the whole brain, you would have to make each of its many parts conscious."
No. Consciousness would be an emerging property of the sum of processes running and interacting in all the brains parts (or many parts of it).
Consciousness is the resulting fact of that interaction.
Therefore we speak of a 'state' of consciousness.
"But then you would have many consciousnessess, many things that are conscious."
Have you ever seen a hologramm? It is one unique 3d picture of something, isn't it?
Have you ever heard what happens if you split that medium in two?
You haven't two halfs of the picture, but two smaller holograms each containing the whole picture!
"But this is surely bizarre."
That's physics.
Water is fluid and makes waves.
One water atom is not 'fluid'.
Even many thousands water atoms are not fluid, until they are brought together to build a liquid system.
But neither is the property 'fluid' only located in one of all the water atoms nor have you many 'fluids'.
The same with the 'internet'.
You can neither locate it on one computer alone nor talk about a bunch of 'internets' as it consists of many computers.
dl,
Consciousness is essentially being "tuned in" (if I understand what you mean by that). Put otherwise: "X is a conscious process within me of which I am not conscious" is a contradiction. Thus if there is a process in me to which I am not tuned it, it is, at that time, not conscious. It may become conscious; it may be potentially conscious. But it is not conscious.
Take, for instance, the feel of the bottom of my foot against the wood floor beneath me. A moment ago, I payed my foot no mind at all. I was not conscious of it. Whatever else my consciousness may have been directed at, it was not directed at that. But I turned my consciousness to it, and then it became what it was not before - conscious.
Paul,
I need to modify my answer about the evidence for dualism. I did not correctly report my views.
I should have said that there's no special evidence of the sort that only science can reveal. The argument that I gave about the impossibility of dividing up consciousness among a plurality of entities did draw upon certain common-sense empirical claims - that, for instance, by brain is complex, and that there's only one stream of consciousness in my brain. It then asked that we reflect philosphically upon a certain consequence of this common-sense empirical facts.
I think lots of philosophy works this way. It draws upon common-sense empirical facts, and then reflects upon them to draw out its conclusions.
doctor(logic), I hope this won't come across as a trick, because it's not intended that way. In your 11:42 pm comment you argue for a plurality of experience tied together in one consciousness. This is your response to Franklin's argument, which is based in a unity of self, or of experience, or of consciousness. You seem to be denying that unity by saying you have many memories playing back at once, many imaginations at once, many simultaneous contents or channels or potential conscious experience.
I think your whole point evaporates in this: every time you spoke of this in your post, you used the word "I" or "my" or "me." There is an "I" that ties it all together, and it's unitary.
I'm not familiar with Edelman's model. Does he really address and solve this?
mr,
Fluidity and consciousness are fundamentally different sorts of property. This can be best brought out in this way.
I have before me a bottle of water. Call the water in the top half "T" and the water in the bottom half "B". Now I ask: are both T and B fluid? Of course. Fluidity is distributive in the sense that parts (some but not all) of fluid systems are themselves fluid.
Consider now consciousness. If it were distributive in the above sense, parts of conscious systems would themselves conscious. It might be, then, that the left and right halves of my brain are both conscious. But if this is so, it would seem that if one half were obliterated, the other half need undergo no change in respect of consciousness. Its stream could continue on without interruption (just as the fluidity of T would be unaffected by the destruction of B). But if the stream in the left half is independent of the stream in the right, it seems that before the destruction, there must be two streams. Thus to assume that consciousness is distributive is to set up distinct streams of consciousness in a single brain. But that is absurd.
Fluidity just isn't a good model for consciousness. There is a unity to consciousness that simply is not present in fluidity (and in other distributive properties).
Franklin,
Thanks for bringing this up!
Patients who have their hemispheres separated do in fact have two conscious minds with independent opinions. Indeed, in some cases, one hemisphere is theist, and the other atheist! When this guy dies, what happens to him? Does one hemisphere go to Heaven, and the other go to Hell?
I'm not saying that if you break a hemisphere you'll get another mind, but there's good reason to believe that unity of consciousness has something to do with the dominance of underlying thought processes. When the bridge between the hemispheres is intact, the strongest thoughts across both hemispheres are the unified consciousness. But when the bridge is broken, the strongest thoughts in each hemisphere create two separate unities.
Franklin,
as dl stated, you were indeed right with your first conclusions, but anyway they are only right up to the point where you wrote:
"But if the stream in the left half is independent of the stream in the right, it seems that before the destruction, there must be two streams."
This is indeed not the fact, as before the destruction there was the option to divide the former unity into three, or four, or hundred.
So having two streams after dividing the united system into two does not allow the backward conclusion, that
the united system contained exactly two streams before.
A slightly better conclusion would have been, that there were so many streams, so many "consciousnesses" as there were synapses.
But:
"Thus to assume that consciousness is distributive is to set up distinct streams of consciousness in a single brain. But that is absurd."
1.) Why is it absurd?
2.) Why do we have to set up distinct streams in the united system?
Reg. 2: I cannot follow your argumentation, as my argumentation was based on a non-atomic, but somewhat holistic view of a collective, collaborative system of different but congenerous parts.
"Fluidity just isn't a good model for consciousness. There is a unity to consciousness that simply is not present in fluidity (and in other distributive properties)."
That seems not necessarily correct to me. Fluidity is the most primitive example for a property which is not dividable and therefore not countable in one undivided system and does not vanish when dividing the system.
Thus, your first definition of the fluid having a "upper half" or a "lower half" is only a proposition, but is not reality. The border between upper and lower half is only a model in your mind, until you really divide the water mass into two at this location.
You can divide a swarm of fish into two swarms. But to say that therefore there must have been indeed two swarms in the former swarm is not conclusive.
dl,
I find no reason to deny anything you say about split brains. I only mean to maintain that is the usual case there is only one stream of consciousness in a brain. That's all my argument needs.
dl, can you show a source in which people with split brains have two contradictory views on God? Thanks.
Hi Tom,
Here's V.S. Ramachandran talking about the phenomenon in one of his patients:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_...h?v=_DCSJdhy3-
0
Here's another video about these experiments in general:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z...h?
v=ZMLzP1VCANo
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