I was reading the blog of a so-called “skeptic” today on the subject of consciousness. He obviously commands attention in this field, being an MD and having quite a bit of experience in neuroscience.
(Read the article here)
After about 20 minutes of taking what he was saying in, the look on my face most assuredly could be described as “sour”. How dare this man call himself a skeptic? If anything, he is selectively skeptical, touting the oft-overused phrase “science has established” as some kind of end-all for the discussion. Unfortunately, he is severely wrong.
The thesis of the article in question is as follows:
Dualists, those who believe that consciousness and the mind are something more than the material biological functioning of the brain, are, in my estimation, neuroscience deniers. They deny the current model of biological neuroscience in order to manufacture a gap, and then try to slip their dualism – their “ghost in the machine” – into that gap.
Is that really what happens? What gap did they manufacture to earn the unwieldy title of “neuroscience deniers”? Of course, they don’t deny that there is a such thing as neuroscience, but maybe they think that particular neuroscientists are confused about something. Nah, I don’ think that’s what they mean either. the explanatory gap is not something that was instigated by creationists, or IDers, or dualists- the explanatory gap is simply a fact of modern science and philosophy. Let’s take a look at the facts, shall we?
We know that we are conscious.
We know physical facts about the brain.
We don’t know which physical facts about the brain produce consciousness.
Do you see a gap there? Is it somehow contrived by religion peddlers?
Let’s continue to the heart of this:
Returning to consciousness and the brain – all the evidence we have suggests that the mind is a product of the brain. There is no mind without the brain (despite the unsubstantiated claims of paranormalists). If the brain is not biologically active, there is no consciousness. If the brain is damaged, the mind is altered. As brain function changes through drugs, lack of sleep, fever, or some metabolic derangement – so changes the mind. No reliable observation or experiment has been able to separate the mind as a phenomenon from the brain.
Every single one of those “facts” (note the non-skeptical tune of his post) is consistent with different varieties of dualism, from the soft- Chalmer’s property dualism- to the hard- William Hasker’s emergent dualism. And whether he believes it or not, there have been a host of arguments that argue for the non-identity of the mind and brain.
Dualists have therefore adopted the strategy of creationists by requiring that neuroscientists explain, in detail, exactly how the brain creates the subjective experience of mind. There are preliminary answers to this question. The mind is an emergent property of the brain and cannot be reduced to any single component of brain function. This is, admittedly, just a partial answer – merely describing the type of phenomenon we are dealing with, and not really explaining it.
Simply put, he does not understand the dualist’s position. The dualist usually begins with an assumption- the mind exists. Now, this mind displays properties that are unlike physical entities- rationality, volition, awareness. Furthermore, science has not found a neural correlate for consciousness, and it is very possible that they never will. And it is the dualists that are being unskeptical? The following is one trashy piece of thinking:
Likewise, the materialist paradigm of mind and consciousness – the notion that the brain is the cause of mind – has been and continues to be a very successful model. One manifestation of this is that neuroscience, as a discipline, has grown and progressed. As new tools come online our ability to explore the brain, and to explain the phenomenon of mind, has increased. The dualist paradigm, by contrast, has not produced anything tangible or reliable. It is still chasing its tail and pointing at the current gaps in neuroscience, without looking at the big picture.
Oh dear. For one, the so-called “materialist paradigm” is the exact same for the dualisms I mentioned. For them, it makes absolutely perfect sense that functions of the mind can be identified with the brain. It is things like experience itself that poses the big problem for physicalism. He simply makes philosophical blunders galore by equating the success of the physical study of the brain and physicalism. This does not appear to be a singular thing, either. I did a bit of digging through some of this guy’s stuff, and he does not touch on the “hard problem of consciousness” at all. I dare you to run a search on qualia on his blog. A big fat zero will stare at you in the face and hopefully lead you to the conclusion, as it did I, that some people are just not familiar with the range of topics they think they are qualified to speak on.
I think you missed the point of my blog entry, as you seem to make the very mistake I was pointing out. You state: “Furthermore, science has not found a neural correlate for consciousness, and it is very possible that they never will.”
This is not true in that the consciousness correlates with a certain minimal amount of cortical activity and brainstem activation. Without these there is no consciousness – they correlate 100%. What you really mean is that we do not know exactly how this brain function produces what we experience as our own consciousness. Not knowing how \does not call into question the more basic fact that the brain causes consciousness.
I am aware that there are different kinds of dualism – and mine is not a philosophy blog so I did not intend to delve into the various philosophical distinctions. It is true that emergent and property dualism allow for the fact that the brain causes mind, but hold that the mind is something more than the brain that causes it.
While I did not address this specifically, my criticism still applies. If one argues that the brain is insufficient to explain the mind, and uses as a basis for that claim the fact that we do not understand how the brain causes mind, then that, in my opinion, is the very logical fallacy I was pointing out. With regard to emergent dualism my position is that it is simply unnecessary – it makes no predictions that would allow it to be distinguished from strict materialism.
While you unfairly challenge my skepticism, you have not supported any challenge to my position. Which one of my neuroscience premises is false? What logical fallacy have I committed?
You state the common dualist premise that the mind does not display any physical properties – but this is a non sequitur. This in no way requires that mind as a phenomenon cannot be entirely created by the physical functioning of the brain (qualia not withstanding).
I think the problem is that dualism does not have to mean that the mind is NOT created by the mind. I doubt that even most dualist would think that.
Even believing the mind is created by the brain with 100% correlates, and given the mechanics of consiousness, how desires and beliefs interects, lead to a 100% theoretically determinist predictable outcome, can *still* be part of dualism.
The belief that “the map is not the terrority” and “feelings are not the same as correlates” can be considered “dualist”. So dualism is not just some wacky woo of two types (matter/mind) that interact magically even though they are two different uninteractible sets. It *can* be, but doesn’t have to. So it shouldn’t be categorically dismissed with an Argument from Fallacy fallacy.
Reckognizing that qualia and matter are different is not really much different than saying red does not look like green, or up is not down…I’m not really sure how you would “falsify” or “validate” any of those…
Unfortunately your central premise: “We know that we are conscious” is, as pretty well any first year philosophy undergraduate could tell you, false. It’s the problem of other minds – one of the reasons that consciousness research is so difficult and that it is so hard to apply the scientific method to (putative) conscious entities.
It would be safer to say: ‘I personally feel that I am conscious’. If you really are a sceptic then you should take even this with a pinch of salt as things like the phi phenomenon, blind sight, blindspots and confabulation by the brain injured open up the possibility that you may be a badly misinformed zombie who happens to believe his own nonsense.
However, if you really took that seriously – as a good sceptic should – you wouldn’t have much to say.
That’s the problem with agnostics – they are never sceptical enough!
Actually, unless you have solved the problem of other minds and know exactly my mental states, you cannot possibly say that there is a chance that I am a misinformed zombie; I know that I am conscious, and I am unable to deny it. So you really cannot use both those arguments in conjunction.
Since I am intimately attached to the issue of blindsight, please tell me how this would ever cast doubt on the issue of personal identity/consciousness? Even in the strongest sense, this phenomenon only shows that there are mental events that we are not aware of, which hardly defeats my consciousness.
As far as being a misinformed zombie, that is, from what I can tell, conceptually incoherent. If a zombie by definition of the word means “all is dark inside”, with no mental states, then how can he have a false belief? A zombie that is confused is no zombie at all.
You have rather precisely, and conveniently, missed my point, just as you did the chap you were so scathing about.
First:
Your claim used the word ‘we’ rather than the word ‘I’. Now unless you are using the royal we, which frankly seems unlikely, you were referring to all of us (as your argument required you to) – and thus have a problem with other minds.
Second
Have you honestly never considered the possibility that your assumption that you are conscious is wrong?
Third
I always thought that being conscious consisted of having qualia, not being a belief holder. It is remarkably easy to envisage a zombie that holds all the correct beliefs. (remember, beliefs must be public entities, pace PLA, as opposed to qualia which the problem of other minds demonstrates are not public entities.) and makes all the right noises but which has no qualia. You can even, if you have been reading Dennett too much, imagine this zombie believing it’s own public utterances and becoming heterophenomenologically convinced that the lights are on when they are not.
fourth
As for blindsight, If you looked at the list you would notice that these were all situations in which our common sense assumptions about our mental content happened to be indisputably wrong- If I were a sceptic, that might worry me!
You do seem disturbingly sure of yourself for a skeptic.
Actually, I just realised, all that is going on here is that you are assuming that all mental states are conscious mental states. They are not.
oops.
“Your claim used the word ‘we’ rather than the word ‘I’. Now unless you are using the royal we, which frankly seems unlikely, you were referring to all of us (as your argument required you to) – and thus have a problem with other minds.”
Call it a linguistic habit. Of course I have a problem with other minds, as does everyone else.
“Have you honestly never considered the possibility that your assumption that you are conscious is wrong?”
Yep, and it turns out I was.
“I always thought that being conscious consisted of having qualia, not being a belief holder. It is remarkably easy to envisage a zombie that holds all the correct beliefs. (remember, beliefs must be public entities, pace PLA, as opposed to qualia which the problem of other minds demonstrates are not public entities.) and makes all the right noises but which has no qualia. You can even, if you have been reading Dennett too much, imagine this zombie believing it’s own public utterances and becoming heterophenomenologically convinced that the lights are on when they are not.”
Consciousness has been defined with trouble. Yes, qualia has taken center stage in the past 11 years, but this seems to be the cornerstone of consciousness, not the whole story.
I do not think that a public display of beliefs, as-if beliefs, are the same thing as having a belief. This appears to be the mistake of the behaviorists, and is exactly what Chalmers attacks. But I think we would agree with most if this. But how Dennett can conceive of a zombie being convinced of something about an inner state is beyond me.
“As for blindsight, If you looked at the list you would notice that these were all situations in which our common sense assumptions about our mental content happened to be indisputably wrong- If I were a sceptic, that might worry me.”
If the claim is made that our beliefs about certain things we take for granted can be false, then sure, we are in agreement. But so what?
“Actually, I just realised, all that is going on here is that you are assuming that all mental states are conscious mental states. They are not.”
If you reread what I said, I think blindsight shows that there are unconscious mental events. In fact, even the mental realist David Chalmers found it necessary to distinguish the psychological from the phenomenological. If anything, I was too vague when I said mental event.
[...] response to this post The Agnostic Blogger wrote this response. In it he writes: Simply put, he does not understand the dualist’s position. The dualist usually [...]
That’s more like it!
Personally I am utterly unconvinced that consciousness has been defined. I can think of at least two widely used but radically different definitions and loads of vague woolly ones.
I’m not sure where I would plant my flag.
You are absolutely right your blindsight example does demonstrate that you believe that people can have non conscious (please, as a personal favor, don’t use the word unconscious – it has way to much useless baggage) mental states.
I would add that they can even (check the literature) make accurate judgments about these non conscious states which lead to accurate beliefs (but not, traditionally, knowledge) about this non conscious content …
I agree that qualia should the cornerstone but is probably not the whole story. I think I disagree about the timing of the academic centrality of qualia – but I would be interested to see some sort of time line and rationale for that claim.
I’m not sure about Chalmers to be honest, I just think that panpsychism conveniently dodges the issues – this would be fine if he just used it as a placeholder but I know for a fact that he really believes panpsychism to be a live one – I don’t.
Ironically Chalmers certainly used to believe that belief holding zombies were logically possible – that was one basis of his argument for dualism at one point – this may have changed once Andy Clark got his claws into him!
Belief holding zombies.
I assume that you accept that a belief is a linguistic entity that is the vehicle of a representational proposition which is cognitive (that is, one that has a truth value)
Now I’m not terribly concerned with how you think these beliefs may be instantiated (or not) but if you broadly agree with the definition above then we are in business. If not, we are merely talking past each other.
Firstly, I agree with you; when Dennett states that selves are centers of narrative gravity I want to say ‘AT centers of narrative gravity, Dan, – quallic ones!’
However, I am perfectly happy that a zombie could express beliefs, even apparently accurate beliefs about representational states with no qualia that they have but do not feel. (blindsight – you see it now?) Their inner mental processes could do all the legwork without having a phenomenal character just as they apparently do for the blindsighted.
However, that is merely a distraction. The real story rides on the ineffable difference between the public and the private.
As the problem of other minds reminds us, we cannot actually express our qualia. All we express is our beliefs about our qualia. I agree that when behaviorists claim that qualia are thus irrelevent they are simply wrong – but for the right reasons. You could say they don’t have enough *faith*
However, the point is that behaviour, including belief carrying (mainly linguistic) behaviour, is all that can get out of (and in to) us. (Let’s leave neurobiology to one side for now.)
This means that we must learn all of our language, (and thus beliefs) that allow us to make judgments about our private – quallic – states, from public sources.
As we can only try to apply these public terms privately, we can never have any intersubjectively verifiable criteria for establishing the correctness of our inner language use. No one, including us , would ever be able to judge whether we are using these public terms correctly.
Without any intersubjectively verifiable criterion for checking the correctness of our judgements we simply do not know if we, or anyone else, is using the language of qualia and beliefs about qualia in the same way as anyone else. We could be talking about anything … or nothing!
Everyone learns how to (appear to ) use language correctly to describe their judgements about their mental lives.
I hope I have demonstrated that they manage this without any criteria for establishing that their usage is correct.
A zombie, as traditionally conceived, has a public mental life but no private one. Put simply, a zombie would be all judgement and no inner mental life. The problem is, that this is true of me or you as far as everyone else is concerned.
This leads to a problem. it is impossible to know if our private mental lives are typical or atypical – we only know that our publically described mental lives sound similar – but they would, wouldn’t they. We have no way of checking them. Nor does the zombie. A zombie would publically believe itself to be conscious whether it was or not – it, like us, has no way of knowing otherwise.
If a zombie stated it had a headache, we would be in no position to judge – and nor would it (we because we have no criteria for judgment, the zombie because it has no private life and, more importantly, no criteria by which it could realise that it’s use of headache, while publically correct, was privately nonsense.
Personally, as an article of faith – and nothing more, I believe that we are all not zombies. However, whenever I am within a thousand yards of Dan Dennett I can’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, this is simply what heterophenomenology would feel like (He’s charismatic like that) Let’s face it, how could I, or you, know it wasn’t.
I hope that answers your question, it’s two hours of my life I will not get back!
“Do you see a gap there? ”
Yes.
The gap exists where you somehow take lack of understanding or explanation and turn it into understanding of some sort of alternate realm… that lacks any description, intelligible characteristics, or explanatory power.
In other words, it’s just a creative definition of “I have no idea.”
Neurology, on the other hand, provides explanations to all sorts of phenomenons, including insights into those odd things characteristic of a conscious mind. Can it explain everything? Who knows. But since we don’t have a clue what consciousness is, it’s always premature to declare that this or that cannot account for it.
And since dualism fails, in my opinion to provide anything beyond mono (since the “mind” part is explanatorily unintelligible as far as I can tell), I don’t see how it can even be in the running for anything.
Bad, I’m just curious, can you give me a reason why it would be acceptable to torture a chair yet unacceptable to torture people?
We all individually know full well what our consciousness is – we have it. The problem is that it is not intersubjectively verifiable. (the problem of other minds) This, as any competent theorist knows, means that qualia cannot be captured within the ontology of science.
To be clear they cannot be captured within the ontology of religion either.
This isn’t a gap, merely a fact – it means any theorist from any background has to step very very carefully or they end up spouting unverifiable nonsense.
With this in mind, I am deeply curious to hear what “insights into those odd things characteristic of a conscious mind” neurobiology offer.
Oh, and the plural of phenomenon is phenomena.
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
Excellent, disagreement is good, it helps to clarify things.
However, I can assure you that the plural of phenomenon is indeed phenomena!
In other words; what precisely do you disagree about, in which post, and why?
Note the following philosophical blunders in Novella’s reply to Egnor.
Novella says that “the functioning of the brain is an adequate explanation for the phenomenon of mind,” that “Brain function correlates with the mind,” that “the brain functions to produce all mental phenomena,” that the mind is “the functioning of the brain,” and that there is “undeniable evidence linking brain function to mental function.” But Novella also denies that “the mind is a separate and definable thing,” that “mind has a separate existence,” and that “the mind is something more than the brain.”
In introductory philosophy classes, students learn of the difference between type-identity theory and functionalism. According to type-identity theory, the mind is fully describable in neurological terms, because mental properties are neurological properties. With the prevalence of computers came another theory, functionalism, according to which the mind is a causal role played by the brain and by other hardware capable of realizing mental properties, such as a computer using chips rather than neurons. According to functionalism, the mind is not fully describable in neurological terms, because the mind is multiply realizable. Just as the script of Hamlet isn’t identical with any particular troop of actors performing the play, but can be performed by different actors, so too the mind is more than just the brain. Now Novella says both that brain functions are crucial to mental functions, and that the mind isn’t separate from the brain. Thus, he contradicts himself, mixing up type-identity theory with functionalism.
Over and over again, Novella says also that “the brain causes consciousness,” that “the brain causes the mind.” But as noted above, he says that the mind isn’t separate from the brain, that “the mind is a manifestation of the brain.” Again, in introductory philosophy class, students learn that causes are separate from their effects. So if the brain causes the mind, the mind isn’t the brain. Novella considers Wallace’s claim that “the brain creates the mind, but that the mind, once created, is something more than the brain,” and says that the problem with this view is that it’s “non-falsifiable” and untestable. But in saying that the brain causes the mind, and that the mind is only a function of the brain, Novella himself is committed to dualism. (Incidentally, the difference between property and substance dualism is another of those distinctions discovered in introductory philosophy courses, though the difference doesn’t come up in Novella’s discussion.) And of course functionalism is testable: just build an AI using computer chips rather than neurons.
Novella says that the “philosophical” question of qualia “is meaningless because it does not yield any specific predictions or distinctions from a purely materialistic world.” This is the verificationist criterion of meaning, beloved by positivists who pretend they don’t do philosophy. Again, in their introductory philosophy classes, students learn that this criterion has been undermined for some time now. If a statement’s meaningfulness depends on the statement’s having testable predictions, the philosophical assumption, that meaning in general consists in a statement’s verifiability, is itself meaningless because the philosophical assumption isn’t testable; that’s part of what makes it philosophical.
Novella says that “The biggest problem with dualism is that the materialist neuroscience model explains all observed phenomena–there is nothing left for the dualists to explain.” Of course, the whole point about qualia is that they’re subjective, private, and therefore scientifically, publicly unobservable. So how can this be a problem with dualism? Perhaps the problem instead rests with the limit of scientific methods. At most, the meaning of scientific statements as such depends on their verifiability (or falsifiability), but the dualist doesn’t claim that talk of qualia is scientific. By hypothesis and by internal experience, qualia are private rather than public, so if science requires publicly testable predictions, qualia aren’t scientific subject matter. Novella simply begs the question by trotting out the positivist’s criterion of meaning.
Novella appears to be a practitioner of scientistic, positivistic philosophy: he does philosophy without realizing that this is what he’s doing, and so he does it badly. Novella accuses Egnor of confusing “scientific questions and methodology with philosophical questions,” but of course Novella is oblivious to his own, contradictory and self-undermining philosophical assumptions. Real scientific work, the testing of hypotheses, and so forth, is science and not at all philosophy. And hooray for this science! It’s done the world a lot of good, and all scientists should be praised for putting to work the greatest methods discovered for learning about the natural world. When Novella studies the brain in a scientific way, he’s doing science and doesn’t need to think about philosophy.
However, when it comes to generalizing about the findings of neuroscience, and about how the mind relates to the brain, it’s easy to move from science to philosophy, as Novella did in his reply to Egnor. Good philosophy is needed to correct, not science itself, but bad philosophy, such as the philosophy practiced by scientists who, stepping out of their laboratories and into their armchairs, slam philosophy while making inchoate philosophical claims of their own.