Thinking Christian Comments
Original Post: How Does Your Brain Actually Think? (The Argument From Reason Revisited)
I'm going to take the liberty to copy doctor(logic)'s response to this material into this comment thread. (As I noted in the blog post, this is a re-posting of something I wrote in the comments this morning.)
Others have also responded, but I'm going to leave it to them either to copy their responses in here if they wish, or to start fresh, or whatever they choose.
As for my own response to dl's comment that follows here, well, it took me enough time already today to write this. I'm going to have to save my next round on it for tomorrow.
Tom,
P1: At the foundational, atomic or molecular level (under physicalism) the physical brain operates without regard to rationality.
True. But at the foundational level, physical laws operate without regard to the "laws" of hydrocarbon combustion. However, if you have a bunch of hydrocarbons and some oxygen, those hydrocarbon molecules obey a rich new set of rules that aren't apparent at the level of the Standard Model.
I'll state this more succinctly. The basic laws operating on matter and energy are like Lego. Certain configurations of matter and energy will appear to behave according to novel rules that aren't explicit in the basic laws.
I think I've used this example before: billiard balls. As long as the billiard balls are on a flat surface, and they maintain their approximately spherical structure, and their energy is within a certain range, then the rules of billiard balls will apply to them. These rules can be found in books on pool-playing technique. Those rules relating to the spin and momentum of the balls are nowhere explicit in the laws of quantum physics. Rather, they emerge when you combine the basic laws with certain configurations of matter and energy.
So the point is that by creating novel configurations of matter and energy, we can devise novel laws that are not explicit in the basic laws.
In principle, there's no conflict between having one set rules that apply in one domain/scale, and having different laws that apply at the most basic level.
Chemicals combine on the basis of laws of chemical reactions. Electrical events happen according to laws of electrical behavior. Quantum events happen however they happen, with no regard to any rationality.
Yes, but you can equally-well say that fundamental particles collide without regard to the laws of chemical reactions. If you bombard a Sodium Chloride molecule with a 1TeV electron, I can tell you that we are no longer in the realm of chemistry (chemical laws no longer apply). We may not even remain within the realm of nuclear physics.
Propositions are not physical. Sentences and statements, identified as the expression of propositions, may be... These properties of propositions are not seriously in dispute among people who hold to a correspondence theory of truth.
I think this oversimplifies the situation. I don't want to get too deeply into it on this thread, but I'll give you a hint at what I'm talking about.
When you say that "all cats are mammals" is true in all places an at all times, you mean that if you could space-time travel to any place or time, you would still assert its truth. You also mean that if another thinking entity understands the proposition/idea, they too will agree. That's not the same thing as saying that the proposition or idea in your head is not physical, right?
If minds are physical, then they can still conclude that something is the case independent of their own location, place in time, or instantiation.
P2: At the foundational, atomic or molecular level (under physicalism) the physical brain operates without regard to truth-bearers.
It follows that at that micro level, the physical brain operates without regard for truth.
This, too, falls to my prior point. It doesn't matter that the ultimate laws of physics fail to reflect some more complex set of laws. The important question is whether there is the possibility that some configuration of matter operating under those ultimate laws can reflect the complex/emergent law.
Law and chance, then seem to be the only things operating to produce thoughts. But law and chance have no regard for propositions, as I've shown above. If the only things operating to produce thoughts, from the micro level on up to the macro level, are things that have no regard for (no connection to) propositions, then there is no way for thoughts to have any connection to propositions.
This is sort of like saying that the ultimate laws of particle physics (e.g., the Standard Model, Superstring theory, etc.) don't respect the rules of chemistry physics. Of course, it is true that the ultimate laws are not imposed by the need for chemical physics. However, that does not mean that there must be some magic involved in chemistry because the ultimate laws do not reflect notions of atoms, molecules and ions and liquid concentrations.
Or do you suggest that there is something at the level of thought, at the macro level, that could overrule physical law and quantum chance events?
No, there's no need for overruling. The laws of thought are like the laws of chemistry. The laws of thought are the result of ultimate laws applied to special configurations.
And do you suggest that there is something in some proposed propositional content of macro-level brain events that could overrule law and chance?
Again, I find no need for any overruling. Ultimate laws applied to special configurations yield the appearance of new laws.
It behooves the person proposing that possibility to show how complex interactions taking place just through law and chance can find a connection to propositions.
It would be ideal, but it is not an imperative for this argument. Your premise is that if you find some system of laws, L, then every entity upon which L acts should be reflected in the ultimate laws upon which L supervenes. That's simply not a valid premise. If it were, we would have to declare that chemistry was supernatural because the Standard Model of particle physics makes no mention of atoms or molecules.
If it were true, then you would have a stronger case, and it would behoove me to provide a detailed explanation. However, your premise is not strong enough for that.
At the same time, I can devise a vague sketch of a physical mind based upon the work of many other thinkers. Minds are brains that predict the future. A true prediction is one that comes true in the experience of the predictor. Predictions are facilitated by laws, and laws always imply non-contradiction and the validity of logic. So, any generic prediction system will be a general purpose inference engine capable of handling abstractions and generalizations. Any such engine will recognize theorems of logic and set theory as they apply in general cases. It will recognize tautological truths.
So truth is related to prediction, expectation and verification, all of which can have physical implementations.
Edited By Siteowner: Proposition (P) labels renumbered to match the current version.
Tom,
""that when a ... path to a conclusion is dominated by irrelevancy, we don't trust the conclusion."
Sometimes, yes. But not always.
In the same way, a path could be domintaed by relevancy but I wouldn't trust the conclusion.
And if a causal mechanism (like the brain) is the producer of the rational behavior, then in one sense it is never accurate to say that what it does internally is completely irrelevant.
I think it less question-begging and more accurate to describe this rational producing mechanism as being non-rational.
Sorry, Tom, but I still haven't seen you provide any argument as to why it would be impossible for such a non-rational mechanism to produce rational behavior.
Simply pointing to the obvious differences between merely physical process and a rational conclusion does not an argument make.
And as I mentioned earlier, you are I'm afraid muddying the waters by bringing in the question of truth. Seems to me that that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the brain can produce rational behavior.
Tom,
I'm not really up to date on this argument string. But it seems to me that the crux of the argument hinges on whether the foundation for brain thinking is grounded on physical matter or on rationality.
Is that an agreeable claim?
I think that's too simplified, Jacob, because we've been approaching several different questions from different angles in the debate to this point.
You can get others' opinions on what they view as the crux. For me, the two key questions in this blog post (but please don't take them as the whole argument!) are:
Somewhere in the hierarchy of law and chance, something magical happens to the brain that permits its events to be truth-bearers. What is that something? How does truth-bearing enter in?
and also, how to resolve this (which needs to be read in context, obviously):
You could never say that one thought leads to another except by processes that have no concern for propositions or truth.
It scares me to pull two quotes of my own work out of context like that. Please don't respond to them out of context, okay? (That request is not directed toward Jacob in particular, but toward any reader.) Thanks.
Randy,
"Sorry, Tom, but I still haven't seen you provide any argument as to why it would be impossible for such a non-rational mechanism to produce rational behavior."
See here.
Here, now, is a place where you might step up to the plate for us. You wrote,
"Simply pointing to the obvious differences between merely physical process and a rational conclusion does not an argument make."
Why? What's lacking about it? Can you present an argument to back your claim? Can you present actual reasons to counter mine? That's the kind of thing I was getting at in the other comment (the one I linked to in this one).
"And as I mentioned earlier, you are I'm afraid muddying the waters by bringing in the question of truth. Seems to me that that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the brain can produce rational behavior."
Are you saying that truth and rationality are unrelated? (I'm afraid I don't know where to look for the place you mentioned earlier--sorry.)
I'm going to see now if I can respond to doctor(logic) over an early lunch hour.
dl, if I'm understanding you correctly, this is your central point in the first part of your answer:
So the point is that by creating novel configurations of matter and energy, we can devise novel laws that are not explicit in the basic laws.
and later you wrote,
The important question is whether there is the possibility that some configuration of matter operating under those ultimate laws can reflect the complex/emergent law.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you would still be saying that even though simple physical laws don't account for complex operations, the brain, at its high level of complexity, is nevertheless driven by law and chance. The laws at that level are different, but they're still something very much lawlike. You're also implying that somehow law and chance at that level have acquired, or have opened up space for some other entity to acquire, rational capacities. Is that how you see it? How do they do that?
You draw a parallel:
Molecular action in the brain are to propositions as ultimate laws of physics are to chemistry physics. But propositions are utterly different kinds of things than molecules, while ultimate laws of physics are not so different from chemistry physics. For example, ultimate laws and chemistry physics both have to do with just physical objects; and they are connectable at least in principle by physical and mathematical descriptions. You can't point to that kind of connection between molecular interactions and propositions. The analogy is not strong enough to carry its weight.
I don't follow your objection to my saying that propositions are non-physical. It seems that physical things are in one place at a time, they have size and shape, and so on; these things are not the case for propositions, as I wrote in the blog post. So if you're saying propositions are physical entities, I'm going to need more help from you in understanding your argument.
Now, this section seems to introduce a different objection (quoting what I wrote first:
Or do you suggest that there is something at the level of thought, at the macro level, that could overrule physical law and quantum chance events?
No, there's no need for overruling. The laws of thought are like the laws of chemistry. The laws of thought are the result of ultimate laws applied to special configurations.
This is, first of all, a new thought introduced here without much explanation. What do you mean by saying the laws of thought are like the laws of chemistry? Is it just that they have that parallel position to ultimate laws? If that's what you mean, I've already said how I think that comes out. If you mean something else, what is it?
You say it's not imperative to answer this question that I raised:
It behooves the person proposing that possibility to show how complex interactions taking place just through law and chance can find a connection to propositions.
Part of your reasoning for that response depends on the analogy you drew earlier, which I think is too flawed to do that work. But still you suggest there may be an answer anyway, hinted at in this:
Minds are brains that predict the future. A true prediction is one that comes true in the experience of the predictor. Predictions are facilitated by laws, and laws always imply non-contradiction and the validity of logic. So, any generic prediction system will be a general purpose inference engine capable of handling abstractions and generalizations. Any such engine will recognize theorems of logic and set theory as they apply in general cases. It will recognize tautological truths.
Minds are not, though, just brains that predict the future. Minds are entities in which thoughts can lead to thoughts by rational paths. The central problem is that your model saws that laws acting on physical objects lead to thoughts. It doesn't show how thoughts lead to thoughts. All causation in your model is by laws. Laws and thoughts are so entirely different from each other, I can't see how you can say that thoughts cause thoughts, when laws are causing thoughts. Laws don't care about what's true, only about what's consistent; and as I wrote, "consistent" and "true" are two different animals. Therefore,
You could never say that one thought leads to another except by processes that have no concern for propositions or truth.
You place a heavy explanatory load on prediction. It seems to me to be an awfully roundabout way of understanding what happens when we think. Why should I think that all my thoughts are about predictiveness? It certainly doesn't seem that way. When I think about my rabbit at home--memories of how we modified its hutch, say--what am I predicting? You might say I'm predicting what I'll see when I get home and look at the hutch. I respond, but I also recall which of my kids were with me when we did it, what it was like before we did the modification, what tools I used. What do those thoughts predict? I remember the first moose I ever saw in the Canadian wilderness. What does that thought predict? I know that I've never seen a wolverine in the Canadian wilderness. What does that thought predict? You could go back and tie each of those thoughts to a prediction if you wished--I've seen you do it before (so there's a prediction I can actually make!). But you can't do it without doing violence to our ordinary experience of what thinking is about.
You've said previously that the thought 2+2=4 involves a prediction, specifically that if we see some quantity 2 and add to it some quantity 2 we'll get some quantity 4; and that the reason we accept 2+2=4 is just because of that predictive relationship (and no other reason, if I understand you). But doesn't it just involve simple understanding? You can't understand the proposition contained in 2+2=4 without just directly seeing that it's true. You don't have to introduce prediction into it, to capture what happens in mental activity.
Here's what I think: you introduce prediction into every discussion of knowledge and mentation because, tortuous though it may be, it's your only pathway to maintaining that everything can be physical. Why not take a simpler route, and accept your mentation for what you experience it ordinarily to be?
Tom,
As regards to the first question you noted, it seems to me that if the happening is "magical," then explaining what exactly this magic is seems to be a loosing battle from the start. Unless, of course, we are talking about the kind of magic that magicians do behind the scenes.
Anyway, thanks.
Tom:
Here’s what I think: you [DL] introduce prediction into every discussion of knowledge and [reasoning] because, tortuous though it may be, it’s your only pathway to maintaining that everything can be physical. Why not take a simpler route, and accept your [reasoning] for what you experience it ordinarily to be?That’s exactly right, and it reflects quite nicely the Lewontian quote in which God is not permitted “just because.” DL is desperate (because of the personal psychological baggage animating his a priori views) to maintain his eclectic yet woefully lacking collection of –isms. He won’t listen to reason—either to that which exposes the falseness of his personal, subjective beliefs, or to that which doesn’t require the MESs yet quite nicely explains parts of reality by which he is so threatened. He won’t even listen to the ultimately self-defeating Cartesian quote in his own masthead: doubt everything.
To employ some philosophically technical terms, DL’s scientistic idealism is grounded in his peculiar version of essentialism—the doctrine that the brain must attain to its object… as opposed to beginning with a subject given in experience. Everything follows: DL’s position is quite, well, predictable, given the artificial boundary conditions he constrains himself with and tries to impose on others. Note the general tendency among idealists of his ilk: (1) on the one hand, they try to derive the known object from nothing but consciousness (which is exactly his claim that the only things we can know are ideas/patterns in the mind); (2) on the other hand when he does (falteringly) philosophize by means of the overly-empirical (meaning: exclusively limited to sense knowledge) baggage he burdens himself with, DL endorses the veracity of sensory-only experience, yet in doing so he must deny the object of the mind (Paul is particularly prone to that mistake: “ideas are neurons”)—which is why DL denies the existence of “abstract ideas” beyond the physico-material patterns in the brain. That’s a deeply-conflicted way of understanding the world (SteveK said it best: “yuck!”), and as I’ve noted before, that’s why you guys feel both at the gut level and (with the help of philosophers like Plantinga, Craig, etc.) the wrongness of what DL attempts to foist upon the studio audience.
Tom,
"Simply pointing to the obvious differences between merely physical process and a rational conclusion does not an argument make."
Why? What's lacking about it? Can you present an argument to back your claim? Can you present actual reasons to counter mine? That's the kind of thing I was getting at in the other comment (the one I linked to in this one)."
What's lacking here is that I see no necessary or logical connection between the observation that (a)because physical events appear to occur in a non-rational manner at the micro level that (b) it is impossible for the brain to produce rational behavior.
I'm gussing that's because you have this a priori assumption that the non-rational cannot possibly produce anything rational. That rationality is turtles all the way down. That whatever it is that has the capability of reasoning has to itself be rational. But I don't share that a priori conviction so I need you to justify it if you are going to persuade me that the argument from reason is reasonable.
Now I do not understand how the brain is able to produce rational behavior. And I think that is a legitimate responses for a naturalist. But what I typically see in these discussions is the claim by the supernaturalist that the naturalist has to provide a detailed answer to how, that it is not legitimate for her to simply say 'I don't know". The supernaturalist (or substance dualist) will say that 'I don't know' isn't adequate because it is impossible in principle for something phsycial like the brain to be the cause of rational behavior. I am hoping that my comments above will at least indicate why that response from the dualist is not very convincing to me.
" Why not take a simpler route, and accept your mentation for what you experience it ordinarily to be?"
Interesting question, Tom. Maybe one reason is that his and my experience are not the same as yours. I certainly don't have the experience of having a seperate mental substance that is interacting with the molecules in my brain.
Tom,
Minds are entities in which thoughts can lead to thoughts by rational paths. The central problem is that your model says that laws acting on physical objects lead to thoughts. It doesn't show how thoughts lead to thoughts.I think part of the problem is that you cannot imagine how our thoughts could be the result of any mechanism, traceable to molecules or otherwise.
We really have spent almost no time discussing how one thought does lead to another. Maybe we need to do that.
I'll just propose this ad-hoc, incomplete list of high-level mechanisms, and you'll probably see where I'm coming from.
1) Conceptualization. Multiple thoughts occurring together create a concept for the combination. The more the thoughts are correlated, the stronger the concept.
2) Sense assocation. A sense triggers an associated thought, e.g., seeing black and yellow stripes triggers thoughts of a bee.
3) Virtual sense association. A thought plays itself back on the mind's eye, and sense association kicks in. For example, I see black and yellow stripes, and think of a bee. Then I see a bee on a honeycomb in my mind's eye. This triggers the thought of honey as if I had actually sensed the honeycomb. Seeing the honey in my mind's eye causes me to think of Winnie the Pooh, etc.
4) Generalization. The mind recognizes new generalities across thoughts in the same way the visual cortex recognizes new generalities in imagery (e.g., lines, corners or colors in vision). For example, a part of the mind recognizes a commonality between bees and flies and other bugs. When activated, that generalization does a parallel activation of all thoughts and memories to which it links. Thinking of the concept of an insect causes you to think of instances of that concept. Generalization is a version of conceptualization - it's more likely one will form concepts around coincidences of general properties than of specifics (e.g., one is more likely to create a strong concept "spherical things" than a concept "beach balls and marbles" because the former will occur far more frequently.
5) Prediction. If I see A followed by B, that is memorized like a story. Seeing A in the future causes the memory of AB to trigger, and leads to an expectation of B. If I have any memories of good tactics in the face of B, I might do well to prepare to use them.
6) Generalized prediction. If I have numerous stories that result in B, I may form a generalization. This results in my having a means to solve for the goal of B by enumerating past methods of attaining B.
7) Chain problem solving. Applying generalized prediction to get to B may trigger the memory of the time I observed C lead to B. I can recurse and apply generalized prediction to find those memories that lead to C. The brain is massively parallel, so each level takes only one "cycle" to execute.
8 ) Composition. I can think of two thoughts at once, and project both onto my mind's eye simultaneously, at different scales, and at different orientations. I can think of a tiny elephant on a fly's back. By combining two thoughts in this way, I can think up something that does not exist in any past memory. However, if the mind's eye is the very same circuit on which the real eye focuses, I can recognize the fiction were I to see it in reality.
9) Contradiction. I cannot generally think of an elephant being in the room and not being in the room at the same time. My thoughts do not stabilize or converge in that way. To think of "room without an elephant" I have to think of "room" composed with "elephant" and then erase the elephant. If I also think of "room with elephant" at the same time, I undo the erasure of the elephant. When I compare with "room without elephant", I again erase the elephant. I end up in an infinite loop of deleting and undeleting the elephant.
etc. etc.
This is a partial list because we can imagine all sorts of other operations built from these primitives, including language and symbol manipulation.
Tom, as a student of psychology, I'm sure you've seen this sort of model before. These are models of how one thought leads to another.
You claim seems to rest on the idea that our thoughts just instantly appear to us as if there were no mechanism whatsoever. For example, you suggest that we just know that 2+2=4. Yet that's not really true. We learn that 2+2=4 by manipulating countable objects, and by forming generalizations and predictive chains of inference. Finally, we memorize terms and symbols that act like keys to these mental structures. Indeed, I think it's pretty obvious that we don't just know this sort of thing because, if we did, we would instantly know, say, all the theorems of mathematics.
So, if models of thought-to-thought interactions are plausible, what's to stop us from creating implementations of these mechanisms out of chemistry?
doctor(logic),
"You claim seems to rest on the idea that our thoughts just instantly appear to us as if there were no mechanism whatsoever. For example, you suggest that we just know that 2+2=4. Yet that's not really true. We learn that 2+2=4 by manipulating countable objects, and by forming generalizations and predictive chains of inference. Finally, we memorize terms and symbols that act like keys to these mental structures. Indeed, I think it's pretty obvious that we don't just know this sort of thing because, if we did, we would instantly know, say, all the theorems of mathematics."
This is an excellent point. These discussions often take place without any regard to the developement of the human mind.
Randy:
Tom said (quite correctly): “Simply pointing to the obvious differences between merely physical process and a rational conclusion does not an argument make.” Why is Tom correct? For a reason that is both simple and profound (meaning: it’s not simple-minded). But because it’s simple, most people think “Naw! It couldn’t be that simple,” while others dismiss the reason because it’s so profound they miss the crucial implication. It’s a reason that’s drummed into scientists and engineers over and over again during their education and training… and they still miss it—as you have just done. You also miss it for another reason—the same reason DL does (see below).
The reason is: correlation does not imply causation.
Correlating “obvious differences between merely physical process[es] and a rational conclusion” indeed is no argument that the former causes or implies the latter, i.e., there is nothing in the differences or similarities to which you may point that justifies the conclusion that material entities and their associated physical phenomena are sufficient to explain the human capacity to reason. (They may be necessary—and we can argue that separately—but you haven’t done anything to demonstrate they’re sufficient.) For crying out loud, none of the usual suspects here has even provided a half-way convincing definition of just what the capacity to reason is except in materialist terms—and I’ve just shown why that doesn’t work. In fact, it’s question-begging (refer to my pointing out this error yesterday): you’re trying cross a gap without a sound bridge!
What should expose the blaring emptiness of your overall claim (and actually embarrass you in a healthy way) is to read Plato’s The Meno. Plato knew the problem people fall into 2,500 years ago! When a young man was asked by Socrates to explain what virtue is [a habit that helps make us good], the young man instead provided examples of possible virtues (“This is a virtue… and this is a virtue… and this is a virtue…”) It’s like asking someone today “Explain to me what a digital watch is,” and the paltry response is “this is a digital watch… and so is this… and this…” You’re doing exactly the same thing: you may see physical processes projected as complex patterns of electrons on a CRT monitor of a real-time NMR or MRI scanning someone’s brain, but if you then proudly assert “There! See for yourself: those are representations of concepts,” then you’re out to lunch precisely because you’re committing the fallacy of “correlation implies causation” (or, possibly better in this case “the map IS the territory”). It’s analogous to peering into an operating movie projector to observe the celluloid tape fly past the high-powered light and exclaiming “I can see the moral of the story in there!”
That, as I’ve just shown, is the obvious part of your error. You, of course, try to take Tom to task, by incredulously asking, “Why? What’s lacking about it?” In addition to the “correlation equals causation” fallacy you commit, it’s important to understand what drives or animates this fallacy (which is less obvious but crucially important)… and here I come to the error you share with DL: you assume that all beings are of the same kind of thing, namely material (and their associated physical phenomena). (To be clear: you are not assuming all things are the same thing; you are assuming all things are the same kind of thing.) No where do you provide any demonstration of the soundness of your position—philosophical or MES-based: you simply assume it.
You assume human concepts ARE FULLY material entities. Well, maybe they are… but you have to demonstrate that, don’t you? AND, here is where you tend follow DL’s lead in falling into the trap of circular reasoning: Since the modern empirical sciences study changeable being (i.e., material entities and their associated physical phenomena), to rely on them to claim only material entities exist is self-referencing: it’s like using a net with 5-inches between the threads and claiming there are no fish smaller than 5-inches!
Has anything I’ve explained here a demonstration that indeed immaterial entities exist. No. I can do it—as Aristotle did 2,500 years ago and many subsequent thinkers have done since then to convince themselves. But the onus isn’t on me or on Tom. YOU and DL are the ones asserting the human capacity to reason is material-only based, and hence (emergent properties or not) that human concepts are material-based. Most of the time we just listen and point out the errors of imposing materialist blinders upon one’s thinking.
So, please, define your terms; keep apples separate from oranges; and build your arguments logically. Then, we may begin to take materialist claims seriously. But let me warn you: neither DL (who self-admittedly has no philosophical bona fides) nor you (as far as I can tell) appear well versed in the subtleties of philosophical concepts or the historical development of philosophical ideas. I’m not saying you’re not philosophizing here, nor am I saying you shouldn’t be permitted to do so in these discussions. What I am saying is I will be on you like a hawk pointing out the fallacies, ignorance, undemonstrated arguments, and unsubstantiated presuppositions. There is no “free ride”—even for questionably-competent physicists like DL—just because you know some MES facts. Finally, I remind you personally: of the points I’ve raised these past few days, none have been addressed—especially the issue of the analogous nature of being (i.e., that distinct ontological orders of being exist).
Tom,
"Randy:All I'm really doing is wondering why there is this assumption here that whatever it is that produces what you would call rational behavior cannot itself be non-rational.
Tom: What you call an assumption is not an assumption. It's the conclusion of a lengthy argument. That argument contains the answer to the "why" question you seem to want to ask. It is my answer to why rationality cannot come from processes driven by nothing but chance and law.
Apparently that explanation is unsatisfying to you; it seems incomplete, wrong, or otherwise lacking. Well, it's your turn now. Instead of just ignoring the argument I gave, please let us know what you think is lacking or unsatisfactory in it."
In P1 you state: "At the foundational, atomic or molecular level (under physicalism) the physical brain operates without regard to rationality."
You appear to be making that very assumption right here at the beginning of your argument. Certainly the molecules and atoms are not in and of themselves rational. They are non-rational. And their operations if looked at individually can be described as being non-rational. But that doesn't prove that their operations cannot possibley have anything to do with (i.e. have no regard to, as you put it) the ultimate production of a rational behavior.
Where is the argument you claim to make that shows it would be logically impossible for a non-rational mechanism like the brain to produce rational behavior? You've been involved in thiese types of discussions for a long time, so I don't understand why you can't simply provide a nice, concise syllogism which illustrates why it would be logically impossible for the brain to bring about rational behavior.
Holopupenko wrote: "Finally, I remind you personally: of the points I’ve raised these past few days, none have been addressed"
I wonder if that has something to do with your painfully bombastic, condescending, muddled way of communicating? My advice: Deflate your ego. Your posts will likely become shorter and clearer as a result (not to mention less obnoxious), and people will be more inclined to dialogue with you.
Holopupenko,
Please be aware that I also have no philosophical bona fides. My degrees are in music and in organizational psychology. I've done a lot of personal reading on the topics I write about, and I try to write on what I understand, but I often find it a stretch. There's a reason I didn't just dash off a quick, easy answer to doctor(logic)'s latest--I didn't have one. (It's forming in my mind, though . Not quick, not easy, but an answer, at any rate.)
I can only rely on the strength of my study and what I write, not on any degree I hold. So what you say to Randy and to doctor(logic) about that applies to me as well. And as far as I'm concerned, it's the quality of what we write that matters.
And it may be the result of not having studied Thomism as you have, but I find it hard to follow and respond to your arguments, too. I'm in the happy position of not having to disagree often, so I don't have to figure out how to pick up the trail of logic and evidence in order to do so. I can understand how Jordan would say that it's not easy. I've had particular difficulty in this thread, compared to past discussions you've taken part in.
My immense respect for Chesterton and Lewis (and even, contemporaneously, for Plantinga) is based partly on their ability to communicate clearly. C.S Lewis remembered everything he read--everything. A guest once tested him on that by pulling books at random from his very large library, and reading him lines from random pages. Lewis could always finish the page from memory. He had immense abilities, yet he always wrote with clarity in mind, explaining and defending in plain English what he wrote. I don't know if Chesterton had the same kind of memory but he had the same kind of communication style (plus incredible wit).
Lewis was also a model of charity (clarity and charity: I like that!). He spoke of how the cleaning lady in the colleges where he lived and worked might easily be his spiritual superior, based on her relationship with God, her love, her character. That, too, is an attractive feature in a writer.
I'm sure I don't write as clearly as these men, and very sure I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable. But I certainly do want to encourage all of us to emulate their charity and clarity.
Well said, Tom.
Tom:
The point was made that philosophical bona fides aren't necessary. My point with respect to you is you don’t artificially impose constraints on knowledge that can be reasoned to... which is much more than can be honestly and truthfully said about some other here.
Moreover, the irony here is the sheer hypocrisy: those of faith are accused of leaving their brains at the door! This coming from those who take upon themselves to determine what limits on knowledge are? Look at the way DL portrays his worldview: the subtext is literally Gnostic in the sense that anyone who isn’t a scientist really doesn’t know what’s going on: they’re not part of the club of those who are “in the know” wink-wink. What about Ron: pitting Christians against science? Boy, now that’s helpful and charitable. And Paul with his “just so” moral relativism and “ideas are neurons” reductionism?
And yet no one is permitted to criticize these: for then one is accused of being “bombastic,” “egotistical,” etc. Given that Jordan is opposed to the very existence of truth in the games he plays (using your words, Tom), can anyone like him be taken seriously as making an alleged moral truth claim against me or anyone? What purpose does it serve to read him pontificating untruthfully? (Funny how moral relativists, like DL and Ron and Paul, froth at the mouth with “that’s unfair” as the falseness of their ideas is exposed… when in fact they assert “unfairness” is a relative concept.)
I had some time this week, and so I popped my head up above the waters of work and writing and teaching this week to comment on the continued abuse of intellectual honesty I’ve noticed is permitted on your blog over the past few months when I stayed out of the fray. If I had the sense that some of these participants actually wanted to understand something beyond their own self-imposed limitations and to hence to challenge their own worldviews, then things might be a bit different. (Note: I’m not calling for agreement… just some intellectual charity.)
Unfortunately, the track record is anything but that: over and over one meets offensive intransigence and subtle (sometimes overt) condescension on top of the ignorance, fallacies, and false ideas promulgated. Why such chronic assaults are permitted, I’m not sure… but that’s your call. You are correct, charity rules—both in the means (style) and the message (content)… but I wonder how many here take advantage of that to hide behind accusations of “you’re not charitable” to avoid staying on topic or dealing with the falseness of their ideas… Clarity? That is a good point… but the same applies: you know very well the games Paul plays hiding behind “one step at a time” in order to put the brakes on the discussion. And, Tom, even Christians are admonished Scripturally that wiping the dust from one’s feet is sometimes the better option… for tempting evil is not a virtue.
Fare well…
As SteveK put it: "Well said, Tom."
And thanks for providing a site where we are free (within the limits of civility, of course) to discuss these issues.
Holopupenko,
"Moreover, the irony here is the sheer hypocrisy: those of faith are accused of leaving their brains at the door! This coming from those who take upon themselves to determine what limits on knowledge are?"
That would make an interesting topic: are there limits to human knowledge. I tend to agree with Kant that there are.
But I think the topic on this thread is how we are able to come to knowledge. I am trying to understand why it would not be possible for a physical thing to be able to arrive at knowledge. And I'm trying to understand why that apparently seems so blindly obvious to Tom and SteveK and to you but not to someone like me. I simply don't have this intuition that the brain couldn't be responsible for all of my mental activity.
And if it turns out that the brain is completely responsible, I see no threat to Christianity or theism in particular. Not sure doctor(logic) and I would agree on that conclusion. So from my perspective, at least, this discussion has nothing to do with calling into question whether or not there is a God of if that God is the Christian one.
I've learned a lot from Holopupenko along the way. I can't say that too strongly--he knows a lot and has contributed a lot, for which I'm grateful.
I have already said what I want and need to say about our style and approach on this blog. Those things are very important to me. I also add that if this is "fare well" from Holopupenko, that makes me sad.
No... just for a couple of months. This week was a bit freer, so I popped my head above the surface. It's not you, Tom, it's other commitments and responsibilities nipping at my heels. Time to submerge again...
A few questions for those who think thoughts are just complicated brain states:
1) What is it about a brain state that makes it true or false? Is it a physical property? If so, would it be possible to tell if a person's beliefs were true or not just by looking at a detailed enough brain scan? For instance, would a true belief have a higher level of oxygen in its brain region than a false belief or something like that? If it's not possible to learn the truth of a person's beliefs in this way, then why not?
2) Suppose that you believe that 1+1=2 (not a stretch, I'm sure). Your friend Bill also believes that 1+1=2. Given that you and Bill have two different brains, and thus two different brain states, and given that beliefs are brain states, are there two different propositions involved here, or only one?
2.1) If there are two propositions, is it possible for one of them to be true, and the other false? If not, then what prevents this from being the case?
Thank you for those questions, Deuce.
Today I had about 90 minutes of unplanned, unexpected meeting time and about another hour of report writing that I had thought would be next week. Such is how it goes... but it didn't work out all bad--Deuce did some of my work here for me!
doctor)logic), your 4:13 pm comment yesterday struck me at first as being completely off the mark. You were saying things that for the most part are very familiar and not at all in dispute: that thoughts lead to thoughts. That's pretty agreeable stuff. For me and I think also for you, that is not what needs to be proved. It's what needs to be explained. But then I realized the real issue is what's behind and beneath what you wrote. It's not whether thoughts lead to thoughts, but how thoughts lead to thoughts.
We both agree that thoughts lead to thoughts. I think we could both agree with this language: my thought about X and Y can "cause" my thought Z. The nature of that causal relationship is what's in question.
For you, thoughts are equivalent to the brain states associated with them. (We established that on a different thread a week or two ago.) So you would say that when Thoughts X and Y cause Thought Z, there is at the same time something going on in the brain: Brain State X and Brain State Y cause Brain State Z. And I think you would also say that Brain States X and Y as material conditions of the brain, operated on by natural law, quantum chance, and nothing else, comprise necessary and sufficient causes for Brain State Z; and you would be comfortable interchanging the language: Brain States X and Y, under natural law and quantum chance and nothing else, are necessary and sufficient causes for Thought Z. Thus Thought Z is the result of physical conditions in the brain and natural processes only; and Thought Z just is a physical condition (perhaps a physical process) in the brain.
I think that states your position fairly, at least that's what I've tried to do with that summary. I want to leave it there for now, to let you respond. Because Deuce was right to focus in on whether thoughts and brain states are equivalent. If they are, then your argument at 4:13 pm seems pretty sound to me.
I'm going to have something to add later about your second-to-last paragraph. (I think it may prove very problematic for your theory.) And your early remark about my not being able to imagine set off a whole separate line of thinking that I'm going to write into a blog post. But the key thing for now is to see if we're correct in focusing in on the equivalence of brain states and thoughts, so I'll let you respond just to that--while I go out for some dessert and coffee with my wife!
Deuce,
1) What is it about a brain state that makes it true or false? Is it a physical property?Let's distinguish between subjective truth and ultimate truth.
Subjective truth reduces to a matter of confidence. Had I lived thousands of years ago, I might be very confident that the world was flat. That belief would have been subjectively true for me, and I might well have uttered "of course, it is true that the world is flat!!!"
Yet we also recognize that our confidence is sometimes misplaced. So we give a name to those propositions in which we would have confidence if we had access to all possible information and could perform any verification we wanted. That's what people usually mean by "ultimate truth." Not that we ever get ultimate truth, of course.
So, all that our brains have within them is confidence in memories and generalizations. Subjective truth. We're not going to see anything in the brain that indicates ultimate truth.
However, we ought to see structures in the brain that contain memories of past experience, and structures that encode generalizations from those experiences (and their respective confidence levels) that can be applied to the future.
BTW, I hope you agree that "confidence" is not just another word for subjective truth, even if subjective truth reduces to it (I'm not saying something like "truth is truth"). We might say that we have confidence that a proposition is accurate when we have no other relevant propositions that are competitive in their predictions. Or perhaps we are "confident" in a belief when we would be very surprised to see its predictions turn out wrong.
Given that you and Bill have two different brains, and thus two different brain states, and given that beliefs are brain states, are there two different propositions involved here, or only one?I think that the answer is one, but there is some subjectivity involved. Bill and I see marbles differently. Even if we both learned to count with marbles, the precise constellation of thoughts that signify 1+1=2 will be different in each case. However, when we judge the meaning of a thought by its predictions, our meanings will overlap almost totally. The meanings of the propositions are the same to the extent they can be synchronized with shared experience.
OK, Deuce, I'll bite.
1) What is it about a brain state that makes it true or false?
A brain state by itself isn't true or false, strictly, but a belief that the brain state encode can be true or false.
Is it a physical property?
It's whether a physical structure encodes a proposition that corresponds with reality.
If so, would it be possible to tell if a person's beliefs were true or not just by looking at a detailed enough brain scan?
Yes, if you also knew whether the belief the brain structure showed in the scan encoded a belief that corresponded with reality.
2)Given that you and Bill have two different brains, and thus two different brain states, and given that beliefs are brain states, are there two different propositions involved here, or only one?
One proposition encoded in two brains, with crucial encoding similarities between the two brains and perhaps some irrelevant dissimilarities.
So far, so easy, but I'm sure Deuce already has a rejoinder ready that will thicken the plot.
Paul,
Why can't I be as succinct as you?
I'm back from dessert and coffee, and my daughter has a friend visiting this evening, so the date with my wife is over.
My first inclination on reading the last three comments is to say Q.E.D., case closed, the physicalist explanation is self-evidently false.
I don't suppose I'll get away with that, though 
.
But I'm still waiting for dl's response to my last set of questions to him, and I have something else in mind to work on, so I'll let it go for tonight. And maybe if I'm really lucky, Deuce will step in for me and explain where that Q.E.D. comes from 
.
Deuce,
" A few questions for those who think thoughts are just complicated brain states:
1) What is it about a brain state that makes it true or false? Is it a physical property? If so, would it be possible to tell if a person's beliefs were true or not just by looking at a detailed enough brain scan? For instance, would a true belief have a higher level of oxygen in its brain region than a false belief or something like that? If it's not possible to learn the truth of a person's beliefs in this way, then why not?"
Truth is not an intrinsic property of a proposition, so your question makes little sense.
"2) Suppose that you believe that 1+1=2 (not a stretch, I'm sure). Your friend Bill also believes that 1+1=2. Given that you and Bill have two different brains, and thus two different brain states, and given that beliefs are brain states, are there two different propositions involved here, or only one?"
No, we all, monists and dualists, recognize and agree that the same proposition can take different physical configuarations: e.g., one plus one equals tow is the same propositon as 1 + 1 = 2. So there is only one (or is it 1?) proposition here.
"2.1) If there are two propositions, is it possible for one of them to be true, and the other false? If not, then what prevents this from being the case?"
No need to answer this one, since #2 is not true.
Maybe you can answer a few questions:
Deuce, does your mind occupy space, i.e. does it have spatial properties? If not, then why does it interact only with your brain? How is it able to follow your brain around so that it can transmit its thoughts into a physical form?
How does this mental stuff called the mind transmit (or is it translate?) its content into a particular physical configuration?
And if its mental content is the same, why would it bother transmitting that content into different physical configurations?
Paul,
If the brain state is encoding the proposition, then the proposition is not physical.
What I'm wondering is why the assumption here that non-physical means some kind of non-physical substance?
Tom,
I will essentially agree with your paragraph describing the interchangeability of thoughts and brain states with a few addenda.
First, obviously, the system of brain states is not closed. The brain states themselves are conditioned by patterns of sensation and patterns in prior brain states. The brain states then contain information about the environment and the history of the person's thoughts, and these causally affect the way the person acts. Information flows into the brain, there is processing that creates new information, and later information flows out of the brain.
Second, as Randy points out,
What I'm wondering is why the assumption here that non-physical means some kind of non-physical substance?I think there's an important point here about what constitutes the physical. (Sorry if I'm misinterpreting your quote, Randy.) I'm not trying to escape physics in any way, but just saying that physics incorporates notions like mathematics and possibility. So, for example, an enumeration of possible physical final states is itself physical in the sense that it is described by a physical theory. This means that a brain state that anticipates a possible, unrealized outcome of an experiment is still physical. As is a brain state that anticipates an unrealized experiment.
Hey, guys, I'm back, with followup questions:
Both DL and Paul replied to question 1 by saying that brain states themselves aren't true or false, but that they express propositions that are. So:
1.1) What links a given brain state to a given proposition? That is, by virtue of what is the brain in a particular state an expression of a proposition, whereas other physical objects (like an eggplant) are not?
Everybody responded to question 2 by saying that there is only one proposition involved between themselves and Bill. That is, that the two different brains express only one proposition. So, I have a few followups:
2.2) Given that the two different brain states express only one proposition, and the proposition is what is actually true or false, where is the proposition located?
2.3) If there is only one proposition, independent of the individual brains that are expressing the proposition, does that mean that the proposition existed before there were any brains at all?
You can add this one too...
2.4) Given DL's love for prediction/verification, how would DL use these tools to confirm his theory about brain states and propositions?
Deuce, I'll keep answering your questions, but wouldn't it be quicker to just get to the point and show us where the presumed contradiction will appear? The Socratic method is a good one, but it is a little slow.
2.2) The proposition is located physically in as many brains as believe it.
2.3) I haven't scanned DL's posts, so I can't speak for him, but I never said the proposition existed independent of the brains expressing it. I don't have a srong opinion about whether the proposition existed before any mind holds it. I would guess that it doesn't, but I'm not prepared to defend that position.
Hi, Paul:
2.2) The proposition is located physically in as many brains as believe it.
But previously you said that there was only one proposition, and multiple brains expressing that one proposition. You also said that it wasn't the brains and their states themselves that were true or false per se, but the proposition expressed by them.
2.2.1) If a proposition is physically located inside a brain that believes it, does that not mean that there are multiple propositions after all, one for each brain, rather than one total, so that there are actually two propositions involved in the scenario with you and your friend Bill believing that 1+1=2?
2.2.2) If a proposition is physically located inside a brain, doesn't that make it part of the brain? If so, does this contradict the claim that it's propositions that are true or false, rather than the brain states that express them, since propositions actually are states of the brain?
Oops, I pressed "Publish" too quick:
2.3)...I never said the proposition existed independent of the brains expressing it. I don't have a srong opinion about whether the proposition existed before any mind holds it. I would guess that it doesn't, but I'm not prepared to defend that position.
But if there are multiple brains, and only one proposition, doesn't that imply that the proposition is independent of any one brain?
Anyhow, here's the actual followup question I wanted to put forward:
2.3.1) If the proposition didn't exist before any mind thought it (ie. there were 0 of it), but after a mind expresses it there was 1 of it, then why is there still only 1 proposition when a second mind thinks, rather than 2?
2.2) The proposition is located physically in as many brains as believe it.I'm not seeing the problem (and you haven't stated it explicitly). To anticipate your response, I can say that one proposition is located in as many brains as believe it. I don't see the problem with that formulation because a proposition isn't a material thing separate from the brain states of those people who believe the proposition. Unless you're going to argue that labels of materials things are somehow as real as the things are, as a means to refute materialism.
But previously you said that there was only one proposition, and multiple brains expressing that one proposition. You also said that it wasn't the brains and their states themselves that were true or false per se, but the proposition expressed by them.
Deuce, my response to your points in 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 is based on my post directly above, I'm sure you could extrapolate it, I will do so explicity if you need it.
Deuce,
A proposition is something in which one can have confidence. One either has confidence in the proposition, no confidence, or confidence in its negation.
Propositions don't exist without expression in minds. F=ma may always have been the case, but that doesn't mean that the proposition F=ma always existed. No one needs confidence in F=ma for it to be the case.
I think your view of propositions derives from an ambiguity in language.
We can both imagine a person saying
"The proposition F=ma was always true."
You read it as
"The proposition (that F=ma) was always true."
From this you conclude that the proposition must always have existed or else it could not always have been true.
However, I read it as:
"The proposition (that F=ma was always the case) is true."
There's no practical difference between these translations if we're discussing F=ma. If all we cared about was whether F=ma was always the case, either interpretation will do. But if we're trying to assess the ontological status of propositions, we're not going to agree.
On to your questions:
2.2) Given that the two different brain states express only one proposition, and the proposition is what is actually true or false, where is the proposition located?Two rabbits, Jessica and Roger, are afraid of snakes. Where is the fear of snakes located? Are the two fears different? This is the kind of question you seem to be asking.
Fear is as fear does, and this solves the riddle of where the fear of snakes is. There is a pattern of recognition, emotion and behavior that we label "fear of snakes." That pattern is found in both Jessica and Roger. It would not matter if Jessica were a robotic rabbit. As long as she exhibits the pattern "fear of snakes" she has fear of snakes.
Similarly, you an I agree that 1+1=2. We both share confidence in propositions about certain arithmetic operations or operations in counting objects. That's why we can be said to share the same proposition, even if the implementations of those propositions are different in our brains.
2.3) If there is only one proposition, independent of the individual brains that are expressing the proposition, does that mean that the proposition existed before there were any brains at all?No. This is like asking whether "rabbit fear of snakes" existed before rabbits. Propositions are mental constructs about experience to which we assign a level of confidence. Propositions don't exist outside of brains. F=ma may be the case even before there are any propositions that say "F=ma".
Paul, I still can't understand what you're trying to say here:
I don't see the problem with that formulation because a proposition isn't a material thing separate from the brain states of those people who believe the proposition.
Are you trying to say that the proposition isn't a material thing, or that it is a material thing, but that it's not something other than the brain states that express it?
If the latter, how can you say that there is only one proposition? If a proposition is not something distinct from a brain state, and there are multiple brains and multiple states, doesn't that mean there are multiple propositions, one for each brain?
How can one proposition be located in multiple brains, and still be only one proposition, when it is not distinct from the brain and there are multiple brains? Isn't that a fundamental violation of logic? Or are you saying that a proposition is the sum total of all the brain states that express it, kind of like you could say that a person is physically located in all the places their ashes are spread after they die and are cremated? In that case, does a proposition weigh less when someone stops believing it?
Deuce, your questions here hit to the heart of the issue.
A proposition is material but not something other than the brain states that express it. It's not multiple propositions, but multiple expressions of a single proposition.
Maybe it's a bit like photocopies. Let's say you make 10 copies of a letter. Is there one letter? Each copy is a material thing, but they are clearly not 10 letters in the sense of having different content.
So does The Letter exist in some fashion separate from the photocopies? (I hope we will agree that the distinction between the original and the photocopies is irrelevant for our purposes.)
Maybe it's a bit like photocopies. Let's say you make 10 copies of a letter. Is there one letter? Each copy is a material thing, but they are clearly not 10 letters in the sense of having different content.
So does The Letter exist in some fashion separate from the photocopies?
Paul, the letter example is a very good illustration.
On the one hand, we want to say that there is only one letter, even though there are 10 copies.
On the other hand, we may want to say that a letter is not something other than the material paper with writing on it. However, if this is true, and we have 10 such pieces of paper, then the logical implication is that we have 10 letters, not one.
Thus, the two propositions (There is only one letter and The letter is not a seperate thing from the physical paper on which it is written) contradict. To avoid the contradiction, we must abandon one of the two.
Since it seems obvious that there is only one letter, it would appear to be the second proposition that we need to abandon. Doing so forces the conclusion that the letter does exist in some fashion separately from the copies.
The way to make sense of this would be to say that there is only one instance of the contents, or information, which exists abstractly and therefore has no physical location, but that there exist 10 physical encodings or expressions of this content, which do have physical locations.
Materialism would say that there are ten physical objects that we describe as letters (emphasis on the plural) but that the content of each letter is the same, so in *that* sense, but in that sense only, we can say that there is one letter. Note that that is a very specifically defined context, and we can't use that context to then try to argue that there are not ten physical letters.
When you say that the one letter exists abstractly, what does that mean? It need only mean that the idea (similar to a proposition) of the letter is encoded materialistically in a brain somewhere. That is not a problem for materialism. So where's the beef?
"Materialism would say..."
"... [and] ideas are neurons."
But isn't "materialism" just a collection of atoms in the brain? If not, what makes it "more" than such a collection of atom in order to be able to "say" anything at all, i.e., what puts the "umph" in materialism? WHAT determines that this collection of atoms in this corner (for the blockheads among us) of the brain is the "idea" of "materialism," while that collection of atoms in another corner of the brain is "virtue"? Where's the demonstration? Where's the logical reasoning behind the assertion? Where, indeed, is the beef? (It's not at Wendy's nor in Paul's comments, that's for sure...)
Freshman philosophy students earn failing grades for such unsubstantiated, emotionally-driven, "just so" desires masquerading as critical thinking.
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