In science, how beliefs are
produced seems to matter, and matter profoundly. Some belief-forming mechanisms
work effectively without our knowing how they work. Star basketball players
would be hard-pressed to provide algorithms as to how they decide when to
shoot, pass, or drive the lane. But science depends crucially on or ability not
only to make inferences, but to communicate those inferences in such a way that
others in the scientific community can repeat the process and determine whether
they concur or not. The paradox of science is that while science seems happiest
analyzing realities that are mindless machines, the description they have to give
of their own activity in order for that activity to be legitimate is invariably
and inescapably mentalistic. Propositions are chosen, and others rejected, on
the grounds that they conform to the evidence. In fact, atheists like Richard
Dawkins never tire of telling us that their process of selecting beliefs
concerning religious claims is evidence-based, while the religionists they
criticize ignore evidence. In other words, Dawkins is saying that, unlike
religionists, his activities in choosing to accept or reject religious claims can
be explained in mentalistic terms, the terms of evidence evaluation. But wouldn’t
that be nonsense if nothing in the universe, in the final analysis, has a
mentalistic explanation?
37 comments:
Victor,
"the description they have to give of their own activity in order for that activity to be legitimate is invariably and inescapably *mentalistic*."
Equivocation
Begging the question
Tautology
Take your pick. "Mentalistic" is such a vague term as to be of no value here.
"Every description requires the use of our descriptive faculties"
How profound.
"his activities in choosing to accept or reject religious claims can be explained in mentalistic terms, "
"His process of analysis uses his analytical faculties."
Uhm, ok, what's your point, other than speaking in circles?
"But wouldn’t that be nonsense if nothing in the universe, in the final analysis, has a mentalistic explanation?"
Ok, now we can add fallacy of composition to the list.
Now you are the one affirming the consequent, difference is, you are actually attempting a serious argument whereas I was being intentionally absurd.
1.If there is a "mentalist" fundamental aspect to the universe then we could observe "mentalistic" processes.
2.We observe mentalistic processes.
3.Therefore there is a fundamental mentalist aspect to the universe.
Ok, two can play that game.
1.If there is no "mentalist" fundamental aspect to the universe then we could observe apparent mentalistic processes.
2.We observe apparent mentalistic processes.
3.Therefore there is no fundamental mentalist aspect to the universe.
Oh, wait, that doesn't work either, darn.
See, Victor, the argument from reason is as good as the ontological argument, in other words, no good at all. It is just a lot of circular word salad that doesn't answer anything.
To actually learn something about how the human brain works requires scientific study. You cannot figure out how your brain works through introspection, any more than you can figure out how your heart works through introspection.
There are mountains of evidence that perceived mental process are in fact brain processes. There is no credible evidence for a soul, or pantheism, or a consciousness field, or any such thing.
You can re-arrange vague equivocations in circular "arguments" all you wish, but it is just various restatements of pointless assertions.
Hi Stardusty,
I can understand Victor's argument, but I can't see any argument in your long comment. Now, quite seriously, I am not a philosopher and I am an amateur on this matter, so I am ready to admit my lack of understanding. But can you explain in a sentence or two what you think your comment demonstrated please? For I honestly can't see it. Thanks.
"Mentalistic"here means that results are chosen for a purpose, something that is thought good by some agent. The truth is desirable so scientists select methods and beliefs that will produce truth. But does truth explain why scientists think what thhey do, or does the blind chemistry of the brain?
Actually it involves four things. intentionality or aboutness, normativity, first-person persepective, and purpose. Matter just aggregates together and you get all this stuff? It doesn't add up.
This puzzle fits into the wider context of the seeming incompatibility between Sellars's Manifest and Scientific images (of Man in the World). We live most of our lives within the conceptual structure of the manifest image. We think of ourselves in terms of beliefs, reasons, purposes, truth. Every so often our increasing understanding of ourselves in scientific terms intrudes into this happy picture and there briefly seems no place for the terms of the manifest image. But then the demands of ordinary life force us back to thinking in the traditional ways. Why is this? Perhaps because our brains lack the computational power needed to live by the scientific picture. If our ancestors had reacted to the sabre-toothed tiger by computing the positions of its molecules we would not be here today. So we have to live by an aggregated, simplified picture of the world as medium-sized objects and an approximate, heuristic approach to how they behave. Likewise, our understanding of our own minds has to be in terms of the aggregations we call beliefs, desires, etc, and a rough and ready picture of how they interact, rather than the individual pulsations of myriads of neurons. So we are pulled in opposite directions. It seems we can't give up the scientific quest and the picture it gives us of ourselves in the world. But neither can we live by it. The philosophical problem that Sellars has bequeathed us is somehow to integrate these images, not to argue interminably as to which is correct.
David,
Every so often our increasing understanding of ourselves in scientific terms intrudes into this happy picture and there briefly seems no place for the terms of the manifest image. But then the demands of ordinary life force us back to thinking in the traditional ways. Why is this?
I think it is because of one's philosophy. If one thinks in "either-or" terms then one is bound to see a contradiction. If we only give ourselves the choices of either we are material beings or we are spiritual beings then we have given ourselves this problem by default. If one's philosophy thinks in "both-and" terms there is no problem. We are both material and spiritual.
If a stone is moving because a stick is moving it and the stick is moving because a hand is moving it, we can compute the amount of force being required from the hand to finally move the stone. But what causes the hand move the stick and stone in the first place?
One could analyze the electro-chemical actions and reactions going on inside of the man as part of the explanation, but that type of analysis won't tell us why that particular instance of movement only occurs when the man wills it to occur and does not occur when the man does not will it to occur. It would be absurd to imagine that the stone caused the man's electro-chemical makeup to pick up a stick and move it and also caused the man to mistakenly think he willed the motion.
So there is obviously some principle of motion in animate beings that is not present in inanimate beings. This principle has historically been called the soul (anima being the Latin word for soul). The problem is with a philosophy that tries to explain away this principle of motion rather than trying to explain it.
The philosophical problem that Sellars has bequeathed us is somehow to integrate these images, not to argue interminably as to which is correct.
The problem was bequeathed to us before Sellars by the wholesale adoption of the Mechanical Philosophy in early modern times. Western philosophy gave itself the problem.
Maybe. Maybe. But suppose what we call 'Western Science' had actually come to us from China, like paper and gunpowder? We would still have a philosophical problem on our hands, I think, of seemingly opposed systems of thought. There is no going back.
There have always been opposing systems of thought and what is fashionable now was not fashionable in the past and will not be fashionable in the future. No one really advocates the Mechanical Philosophy anymore although there is still a lingering sentimental attachment. The original problems with ancient atomist theory did not go away when the early moderns adopted it however much they ignored those problems. We have our own experience that directly tells us that we are more than the sum of inanimate parts interacting mindlessly with each other. At least Sellars did not ignore the obvious like a lot of other philosophers, but to hold that 2 contradictory systems are both true is not a tenable position either.
bmiller,
It would be absurd to imagine that the stone caused the man's electro-chemical makeup to pick up a stick and move it and also caused the man to mistakenly think he willed the motion.
If there is no stone, there is no act of will to push the stone. You're relying on the notion of single causation, where there is only one efficient cause of a phenomenon. The reality is that there is a lattice of causation, and the efficient causes leading up to the decision to push the stone are are numerous.
Hi BM, I agree that experience tells us that we have minds or are minds, but I'm not sure it tells us that we are more than inanimate parts interacting mindlessly. Of course, there are arguments to this effect, rather than experience, but I haven't yet come across a convincing one. It's not so much that we individually hold contradictory beliefs. It's rather that we have two modes of thinking about ourselves that don't seem to fit together. I know which mode I am in most of the time!
Hi David,
I agree that experience tells us that we have minds or are minds, but I'm not sure it tells us that we are more than inanimate parts interacting mindlessly.
Can you expand a bit on this? If we are no more than inanimate parts interacting mindlessly then why would we have any experiences at all, much less experiences that tell us we have minds?
OK, I'll try. I guess the inanimate parts we are thinking of are atoms and molecules and electrons going about their business the way physics says they do. But we have no experience of this. It's all theory. Enlightened guesswork. What we have experience of is visible, tangible aggregates of matter. Now I could say that it's obvious from experience that some matter can do mind---just look at yourself and other people. John Searle says something like this. Mindedness is a biological phenomenon. But that would be question-begging in the context of considering the possibility of the soul and so on. So I won't claim that. What we clearly lack is any kind of theory that links our inanimate parts, as we conceive them, all the way up to mindful beings, as we conceive them. It's this absence that we fill with the soul. And it may well be that the limitations of the workings of our minds means that there never can be such a theory---a possibility that strikes me personally as not at all implausible. If we had such a theory then your question, Why would we have any experiences at all? would have an answer. So it's the lack of a theory that gives rise to the question, not any particular experience or experiences. On the other hand it's not unreasonable to say that the absence of theory suggests the whole idea is wrong-headed. We can't prove a false conjecture, so what would we expect? Conversely, I suspect that direct attempts to demonstrate the falsity of physicalism, which I criticise here, are also inconclusive.
Hi David,
Of course I would argue that we don't lack a theory of animate vs inanimate beings it's just that you choose to reject the theory. We being you and me.
On what grounds do you do you rule out forms in general and souls in particular?
Victor,
""Mentalistic"here means that results are chosen for a purpose"
Then computer decisions are mentalistic. An apple sorting machine has the "purpose" of getting rid of bad apples. As they come down the belt the computer inspects them with a camera and "choses" to get rid of the "bad" apples for the "purpose" of only delivering the good apples.
We could put a human being there to make the same sort of inspection and choosing for the same purpose.
"But does truth explain why scientists think what thhey do, or does the blind chemistry of the brain?"
Take your pick. Either "truth" or "blind chemistry" are analytical abstractions.
"Actually it involves four things. intentionality or aboutness, normativity, first-person persepective, and purpose. "
Folk psychology.
Boxology.
That is the sort of thing you get when you try to philosophize your way to how the brain works. You can't. If you do not realize the folly of your approach you just have not studied the subject very much.
"Matter just aggregates together and you get all this stuff? "
Yes.
"It doesn't add up."
Your sort of conceptual limitations are why people invent ghosts in the skull.
There are some 80 billion neurons in your brain.
There are some 100 trillion synaptic connections in your brain.
By contrast there are typically less than 1 billion transistors in a powerful computer processor.
Each transistor has, typically, 1 input and 1 output.
AI can run on a system that has a tiny fraction of the compute elements found in your brain.
It doesn't add up for you personally because you are clearly not educated in that sort of arithmetic. You take the easy way out, just asserting goddunnit without doing the hard work of science.
For an academic you are shockingly uneducated.
Well, Sellars's problem is to reconcile the manifest and scientific images. That ought, it seems to me, to be the number one philosophical project of the modern era. I suppose quite a lot of contemporary analytic philosophy could be seen as nibbling around the edges. But I just don't see Aristotelians making any contribution to this. What I do see from my viewpoint outside the academy are popular writers such as Ed Feser intent on bolstering their Aristotelianism in opposition to the scientific picture of the world, though sometimes his position seems to be that his metaphysics is somehow more basic. Either way it just doesn't seem relevant to the Sellars project.
Hi David,
Maybe it's obvious to you, but I don't see your answer as providing a basis for ruling out forms or souls other than accepting Sellar's assumptions as correct a priora. That and an assumption that no matter what the solution is it cannot have even a whiff of Aristotle about it.
Maybe the solution is closer to Aristotle than the atomists. Why would that be a problem? both are old ideas. Recycled.
Perhaps I should have added that I would be happy for an Aristotelian to show me that I'm wrong---without rejecting the whole problem, of course, which I suspect would be the approach!
But wouldn’t that be nonsense if nothing in the universe, in the final analysis, has a mentalistic explanation?
Isn't that a little like insisting that an explanation of the workings of a clock, rather than being in horologistic terms---gears, springs, escapements, pendulums, and their properties, etc, should be in terms of atoms and molecules?
Hi David,
If you mean trying to argue that premises can be problematic then I guess lots of conundrums will remain unresolved. Of course atomism would have to be rejected in order to resolve the problems it created
"Atomism, which began its life as speculative metaphysics, has become a securely established part of experimental science." (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atomism-modern/ final words) Why would we want to reject it?
Because of the philosophical/metaphysical problems you've highlighted. Aristotlean concepts have also been part of modern science since the beginning
I don't think the atomism of the scientific image is the problem. It's the other-worldliness. We can grasp it only through recently invented mathematics understood by relatively few people whereas we have dealt for millennia with the world of the manifest image through ordinary language understood by all. At the very least this raises all sorts of questions about the nature of sensory perception which I'm not sure are being addressed by philosophers.
The problem with the atomism is, as we seem to agree, that it fails to account for how we exist as rational beings. Why not seek out a more comprehensive philosophy?
Let's face it. The world is not made up of eternal atoms of certain shapes with nothing between them. So if the argument is that certain aspects of Aristotle's physics have been proven wrong so we should throw all related concepts out, then the same should apply to atomism.
I'm really interested in your reasons for rejecting a broadly AT approach. "We can't go back" doesn't sound like that's all there is to it.
I refer you to my comment at 8:16 AM. I'm not aware of any Aristotelians taking up the problem. Who do I read? Remember, we have to start at the place where contemporary science has got us, else we are not addressing the problem.
Hi David,
Should we expect Aristoteleans to address a problem that is inherent in some other philosophy?
The problem is not a "contemporary science" problem but rather a philosophical problem for adherents to a philosophy that contradicts itself.
Or do you think that having a broadly Aristotlean outlook disallows one from doing science? If so, what aspect would cause that disqualification?
I'm not sure it's right to say that the manifest and scientific images contradict one another (or contain internal contradictions). Rather they are like pictures of a thing from front and from rear. It's getting them to fit together for an all-round view that's the problem.
We are good at compart-mentalising :-) Someone taking Aristotelian metaphysics seriously can clearly be a scientist, just as I can live mostly in the manifest image and sometimes wonder how the scientific relates to it.
More importantly I think neither the manifest image or the scientific image amount to philosophy. The former is just the ordinary way we all see the world and ourselves in it. There is no explicit theorising or speculation, except perhaps at the fringes. The scientific image arises from the attempt to make sense of a heap of empirical data that we have explicitly 'dug up'. Previously it was hidden from us and didn't worry us. Again, no philosophy here. That only comes in when we try to make sense of the divergence.
I'd say the "scientific image" view came about as a consequence of those adopting the Mechanical Philosophy and is not objectively a consequence of data analysis.
We all bring our own filter we use to sort things out. The question is what's the best filter? That's why I'm interested in your reasons for rejecting a broadly AT approach other than sentiments.
Well, consider Brownian motion, not observed until 1827, two centuries after the Mechanical Philosophy, and two millennia after Aristotle. Do Aristotelians have anything interesting to say about it?
Neither philosophy necessarily has anything interesting to say about cell phones either but why should one expect them to? Brownian motion and cell phones are subjects of physics and technology and neither cause a problem for either philosophy.
Now if the claim is "there is Brownian motion and cell phones therefore you don't have a soul" then an interesting discussion can be had.
Ah, I think I see the problem. I write here under false pretences. I'm not really interested in philosophy at all, just science. :-)
I admit I'm not following. Is Brownian motion something that philosophers would consider a problem for AT or Mechanical Philosophy?
The former is just the ordinary way we all see the world and ourselves in it. There is no explicit theorising or speculation, except perhaps at the fringes. The scientific image arises from the attempt to make sense of a heap of empirical data that we have explicitly 'dug up'. Previously it was hidden from us and didn't worry us. Again, no philosophy here.
Isn't trying to figure out the way things are essentially what philosophy is all about? So to my way of thinking both are doing the work of philosophy. Science itself is also a branch of philosophy although today we tend to think it is at odds with philosophy which is why I made that separation in my previous comments.
Below is a description of ancient atomism. One can see in it things central to materialist philosophical commitments of today. No one thinks atoms have tiny hooks and barbs with various shapes that move in a void of nothing, yet it still seems to be the basis of materialist philosophy when everyone realizes it is false. Therefore, do materialists have anything interesting to say about Brownian motion?
Atoms can differ in size, shape, order and position; they move about in the void, and—depending on their shape—some can temporarily bond with one another by means of tiny hooks and barbs on their surfaces. Thus the shape of individual atoms affects the macroscopic texture of clusters of atoms, which may be fluid and yielding or firm and resistant, depending on the amount of void space between and the coalescence of the atomic shapes. The texture of surfaces and the relative density and fragility of different materials are also accounted for by the same means. Atoms cannot fuse, but rather repel one another when they collide. Observations about the tendencies of bodies bumping one another were frequently exploited to explain the apparently patterned motions of macroscopic bodies in the visible world.
The atomists accounted for perception by means of films of atoms sloughed off from their surfaces by external objects, and entering and impacting the sense organs. They tried to account for all sensible effects by means of contact, and regarded all sense perceptions as caused by the properties of the atoms making up the films acting on the atoms of animals’ sense organs. Perceptions of color are caused by the ‘turning’ or position of the atoms; tastes are caused by the shape of the atoms contacting the tongue, e.g., bitter tastes by the tearing caused by sharp atoms; feelings of heat are ascribed to friction. Heat itself is said to be caused by the admixture of tiny fire atoms. Democritus considered thought to be a material process involving the local rearrangement of bodies, just as much as is perception.
No one thinks atoms have tiny hooks and barbs with various shapes that move in a void of nothing. True, but that was always metaphorical. The hooks and barbs, being mechanical, would themselves need little hooks and barbs and so on ad infinitem. Nevertheless, it's a lovely picture of what we now call chemical valence. The complementarity of hooks and barbs parallels that of electron deficit and surplus. So not so false as to be wholly useless.
Jean Perrin got the Nobel Prize in 1926 for work on 'the discontinuous structure of matter', ie, his investigations into Einstein's earlier atomic account of Brownian Motion.
So not so false as to be wholly useless.
If I squint enough I can allow that the hooks and barbs serve a similar purpose to the electron valences in atoms, but is part of my point. Atoms do not have hooks and barbs and everyone knows that. The valid metaphysical point is that things can be divided into smaller parts that are held together in some way or the other.
So since atomism got the hooks and barbs wrong should we throw out all concepts related to it since that would be "going back" to a failed theory?
Still not getting the Brownian motion connection. Is it the randomness of Brownian motion that is a philosophical problem?
I don't get your point. Chalmers is saying that metaphysical atomism has evolved into scientific atomism, which has more to back it up, eg, empirically observed Brownian motion, than mere unaided observation and speculation. So yes, we have given up ancient atomism in detail but kept its key feature, viz, the discontinuous nature of matter.
My point is that "atomism" is an ancient Greek philosophy that has been proven wrong by modern science. That is the common dismissive argument used by some when concepts from AT philosophy is brought up. So if one wants to dismiss concepts from AT on that basis then to be consistent one must dismiss concepts from atomism on the same basis in order to avoid the fallacy of a double standard.
Is your argument that Brownian motion proves "discontinuous nature of matter" and AT philosophy holds that matter is continuous?
If so, let me explore that. This is from A's Physics:
If any object occupies space it has volume as a property since that is what it means to occupy space and be extended in space. So let's take length. A length can always be divided in half and each half can be divided in half and so on ad infinitum. So if an "atom" occupies space at all, it is divisible and continuous regardless of whether it is made of non-homogeneous parts or not. So there can be no such thing as an indivisible physical atom.
A was first to figure out that space and time are continua.
Oh, I see. Can't I say that yes, we have dismissed some of the ideas in ancient atomism, therefore to be fair and to avoid a double standard, we must dismiss some ideas in Aristotelianism ;-) I guess I'm applying a scientific standard here. One key aspect of this is that a good scientific idea should spark further investigation and lead to a mushrooming of understanding. After two millennia ancient atomism did just that.
One key aspect of this is that a good scientific idea should spark further investigation and lead to a mushrooming of understanding.
Ah, you must mean the spark that the rediscovery of Aristotle's texts in the West had on high medieval academia and the explosion of universities across Europe;-) It's true that the Corpuscularists were in the ascent for a while but then didn't Newton put and end to that with his law of gravitation?
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