Chalmers' Zombies and The Hornswoggle Problem: Patricia Churchland

Context and Introduction
In this article Patricia Churchland is arguing against David Chalmers' assertion that the physical sciences, including contemporary disciplines like neuroscience, will never be able to explain consciousness.  More specifically, they will never be able to explain the hard problem of consciousness: how and why physical processes give rise to subjective experience.  Otherwise stated, how and why is it that subjective experience arises from physical processes?

We can contrast the hard problem of consciousness with the easy problems of consciousness.  Easy problems of consciousness involve explanations of how cognitive or behavioral functions are performed.  Examples include how our brains merge perception of different attributes (e.g., color and shape) which take place in different parts of the brain into a unified perception and how independent processes in the brain combine to produce coherent (behavioral) responses to perceived events, such as verbal reports.

The easy problems are all questions about how our brains discriminate stimuli, integrate information, produce reports, etc... these problems are all about identifying and explaining physical processes. Since these are all questions about how physical systems work, in principle, neuroscience will advance enough to give an explanation.

 However, none of these explanation give us any answer to how or why conscious experience arises from these processes.  If everything performed by the brain (inputs to outputs) is a closed physical system, why have conscious experience of anything?  To further bring out this problem, lets look at the zombie thought experiment...

Zombie!!!
To illustrate that consciousness might not be necessary for successfully navigating the world, consider the' famous Zombie thought-experiment (pre-dating Chalmers, but famously advocated by him).  Chalmers says that we can conceive of beings just like us in every way except they lack conscious experience.  They live lives just like ours: walking, talking, driving, eating (mostly brains), discussing philosophy of mind, etc..except they don't experience these things consciously.  There is no phenomenal aspect to their lives.  They have no qualia.

Consider motion detection and vision.  It seems loco to think we could decouple motion detection from phenomenal awareness of what we are seeing.  However, there is considerable evidence that we can detect motion without having conscious experience of it!  Crazy, I know, but this might be the case.  This condition is called "blindsight."  There are people who have brain damage in the part of the brain that produces conscious awareness of what we are seeing yet still behave as though they can see!  This seems to show that we could navigate through our world without walking into things without having the phenomenal experience of seeing.  If this sounds too crazy to be true, check out the video:


Start at 6:50 on this one then from the beginning of the second video.

The main point is this:  suppose there are processes/functions that we have which are accompanied by conscious phenomenal experience but that we could perform these same functions just as well without the consciousness (like someone with blindsight).  This means that consciousness is just "tacked on" to the process.  It doesn't help us perform the task any better or worse (maybe even worse, because there's one more thing to go wrong).  

If this is the case, then if we explained the process in physical terms, we'd be left with a "hard problem":  why the crap is consciousness added on to this process?  Also, since we'd know everything there is to know about the process from a physical point of view, there'd be information about the conscious experience of performing that process that'd be left unexplained by our physical account.   Therefore, a purely physical account of the mind is incomplete.

Conclusion
Anyhow, the upshot of Chalmers' position is that since the physical sciences will never be able to give us an answer to the Hard Questions of consciousness, we need to postulate consciousness as a separate fundamental feature of our world, not reducible to physical laws on any level.  Just as electro -magnetic forces can't be explained in terms of other physical laws and principles and and are thus considered fundamental forces of the world, so too should we consider the psychophysical laws and principles of consciousness--fundamental and irreducible.

The Hornswaggle Problem:  Churchland's Response to the Hard Problem
I think Churchland's article is as close to a rant as you can get in published academic writing.  She essentially takes a machine-gun approach to criticizing Charlmers' argument for a distinction between the easy problems and the Hard Problems.  Hold on to your hats, we're going on a critical thinking rampage! 

Conceptualization
Churchland's general approach to opposing the assertion that the is a Hard Problem is to cast doubt on whether this is the right way to conceptualize consciousness.  The idea here is that if you misconceptualize a problem, you will make it seem intractable while, in fact, it may not be.

Consider an analogy.  Medieval doctors, to explain animation, would ask of the heart, "in which part are the animal spirits concocted?". Of course, if you conceptualize animal spirits as being what causes animated life, asking this question about the heart will seem like an intractable problem.   If, however, you ask how much the blood the heart pumps/hour, the problem no longer seems intractable.  The point here is that how we conceptualize a problem has everything to do with how solvable it will appear.

Arbitrary Line-Drawing 
Another attack on the Hard Problem is to ask why it is that the line of what can and cannot be solved through the physical sciences is drawn at the particular place Chalmers suggests--rather than somewhere else.  Consciousness is a difficult problem, but difficult problems are nothing new to the scientific enterprise.  

Why not also include into the Hard Problem the neurological basis for autism and schizophrenia? why we dream when we sleep? how short-term and long-term memory work? how we develop skill acquisition, plan, and make decisions?  Why is the dividing line between the Hard and soft problems drawn exactly where it is?  There doesn't seem to be any good reason for drawing the line in the particular place it is.

The Left-Out Hypothesis
Chalmers argues that even if we were to solve all the easy problems, their answers wouldn't inform the Hard Problem.  But where is the evidence that if we eventually understood all the easy problems that we still wouldn't understand the Hard Problem? (why and how consciousness emerges from those processes).   The left-out hypothesis is why would the solution to the Hard problem be "left-out" from our cumulative understanding of all the easy problems?  Where's the evidence for this hypothesis?  And how many sentences can I end with question marks?

Another implication of the left-out hypothesis is that the Hard Problem frames the issue of consciousness such that current research on consciousness is presumed to fail even before the results are in.  But if we accept the demarkation line suggested by the Hard Problem, we must say, before the research runs its course that this line of research will not contribute anything to the problem of consciousness.  This conclusion runs counter to what the empirical results suggest.  We should be guided by empirical results, not a priori conclusions about what is or is not a solvable possible.  Let the science decide!!!

Furthermore, there is strong evidence in current research suggesting that attention, awareness, and short-term memory are very closely connected consciousness.  Why shouldn't we think that advances in these areas won't contribute valuable understanding to the problem of consciousness?   

Vs The Zombie Thought-Experiment
Recall that the Zombie thought experiment is supposed to show that we can't study consciousness by studying physical stuff:  All (or at least some) of our mental/brain functions can possibly work without the conscious experience, therefore, conscious experience and qualia are simply "tacked on" and are fundamentally different "stuff" from physical "stuff". (see Zombie discussion in the intro of this post)

Anyhow, assuming that we've rejected the left-out hypothesis, the only thing still supporting the Hard/easy distinction is the zombie thought experiment.  Since the zombie shares all of our behaviors and capacities (minus consciousness), using the physical sciences to explain how all these capacities work would not tell us anything about how and why we have conscious experience of these processes (since consciousness adds nothing to our ability to perform them and the contents of subjective consciousness can't be accessed by the physical sciences).

But accepting the conclusion of the zombie thought experiment relies on the possibility of zombies.  Zombies are merely a thought experiment!  It seems redonk to draw conclusions one way or another about the limits of science based on a thought experiment about zombies!

For example, imagine a possible world in which gasses do not get hot even though their constituent molecules are moving very quickly.  Does your ability to imagine this possibility function as an argument against the empirically verified relationship between temperature and mean molecular kinetic energy?  That's just silliness!

Just because we can imagine non-conscious zombies is no argument for the limits of brain science (mmm...brain science!).

Vs Scope of Qualia/Spectrum Argument
The Hard Problem seems to be directed at brain events that are accompanied by qualia.  But there doesn't seem to be any consensus as to which types of capacities or functions are accompanied by qualia and which aren't.  There are of course obvious cases like the pain you experience when you stub your toe or the blue you experience when you look up at the sky...or maybe even the overwhelming pleasure you feel when you know it's time for philosophy 101.

But there are also areas of dispute.  Some people say they have "limb-position" qualia; that is, they have a phenomenal experience of where there limbs are.  Others disagree.  Do we have quali associated with "what it's like" to move our head?  To know which way is up?  Do eye movements have qualia? Maybe some movements do and other's don't?  What about introspective qualia?  Or thoughts?...some seem auditory, others visual, others, like when I do logic problems, don't seem to have any qualia.

When it comes to capacities and functions, is there a continuum for the vividness of qualia that are associated with them?  Does it vary from individual to individual?  Do some have qualia for a capacity and and other's don't have it? All of these issues cast doubt on a clear demarkation line for the Hard Problem--if there is indeed such a problem.  The answer to where to draw the line between the processes that have qualia and those that don't might seem clear when we consider only the prototypical cases of qualia, but these cases represent only a small sub-set of the whole.   

The class processes accompanied by conscious experiences is not as well-defined as we might initially suppose.  To further confuse matters, there are fuzzy boundaries between attention, short-term memory, and awareness.

Are the Easy Problems Really Easy?
The easy problems are yet to be solved, so why should we suppose their solution is easy?  This is pure conjecture.  For example, the nature of motor representation is a mystery:  a signature is recognizable whether it is written with the dominant or non-dominant hand, the foot, or with a pencil strapped to the shoulder.  How can completely different sets of muscles do this when they weren't the muscle groups used to learn the task?

The solution to this problem lacks important--not just minor--details about the concepts of motor control, learning, and information retrieval.  On what grounds do we call it an Easy Problem?

The Danger of Drawing a Line
There is a danger of drawing a line at consciousness based on current ignorance.  If we rope an area off to certain methods of research before really giving it a good try, then we are writing a self-fulfilling prophesy and blocking off what might have been fruitful research.

Argument from Ignorance
The Hard Problem is an argument from ignorance.  That is, the argument moves from a claim that we are currently ignorant about/lack understanding of a phenomenon (consciousness) to the conclusion that the phenomenon will never be understood/explained (using current methods) etc...  Specifically, in the context of the problem of consciousness, Chalmers'  argument goes like this:

(P1)  We do not understand much about consciousness;
Therefore:
(C1)  Consciousness can never be explained;
(C2)  Nothing science could ever discover would deepen our understanding of consciousness;
(C3)  Consciousness can never be explained in terms of physical properties.

But the fact that we know little of a particular phenomenon only tells us that we know little about it! Consider an analogy.  Just because I don't know what a flying object is, it doesn't follow that it's an alien space craft.  I can only conclude that...I don't know what it is!   Not knowing isn't positive evidence for some positive conclusion.  We cannot draw substantive conclusion from our lack of knowledge...especially given that modern brain science is still in its infancy.

If brain science had progressed as far as molecular biology has on the transmission of evolutionary traits, we could make a substantive conclusion, but, again, given the pre-pubescent state of neuroscience, all we can reasonable conclude is, we don't know.

Metaphysical vs Epistemological "Mysteriousness"
The fact that a problem appears mysterious is not a fact about the problem or a fact about the metaphysical nature of the universe.  It is an epistemological and psychological fact about us!  The problem is mysterious to us given the current state of our science.  Perhaps, if the state of our scientific understanding of the brain were different, the problem wouldn't be so mysterious.

The history of science is littered with previously "mysterious" problems.  Consider the problem of life previously known as "the mysterious problem of life".   For millennia the best minds could not grasp how life could emerge from the inanimate matter of cells.  "Surely, the physical sciences can't solve this problem!" they said!  "There must be magical animal spirits...or something."

The mystery of how life emerges from proteins and sugars was a mystery to be sure, but the mystery was not a property of the problem, but a consequence of the epistemological state of the pre-cellular biology world.

The Argument from Personal Incredulity
The other informal fallacy Churchland accuses Chalmers of is the argument from personal incredulity.  It goes like this, "well, I simply cannot imagine how x will be able to explain y."  We've been hearing this argument for centuries in regards to everything from thunder to computers that can learn.  As far as I know, this type of argument has by and large been on the losing end.  I simply can't imagine it being right! ;)

Anyhow, Chalmers' argument seems to--in part--rely on an argument from personal incredulity.  He just cannot fathom how the physical sciences could explain consciousness.  But that's more a reflection of his epistemological state than it is an argument against the possibility of a scientific solution.  Why should we care two hoots about what someone can or cannot imagine when we consider what science may or may not be able to explain?

Again, the history of science give us plenty of examples which were imagined to be too difficult to solve, but ended up having fairly simple solutions, and also examples of problems that were thought easy to solve but turned out to be very difficult.

Summary
In short, Churchland argues that when you're in a position of ignorance concerning scientific matters, and the science is still young, we need to do the science and see how it plays out, not make pronouncements about what can a cannot be solved.

Epiphenomenal Qualia, The Knowledge Argument (Aka Mary's Room): Frank Jackson

Introduction and Context
Frank Jackson (no relation to the late Michael Jackson) argues that even if you knew all the physical facts about a conscious experience and what brings it about, you would still be missing information.   That is, supposing you knew everything that happens in the brain--down to the neuron--when sees the color red and you knew all the different surface properties that can produce "red" experiences, a physicalist theory of mind would not be able to account for all the facts about seeing red.  You would still not know every fact about seeing red.  The account would leave out the facts about the subjective experience of seeing red.  The conclusion is that a purely physical theory of mind will always be incomplete.

Lets take a step back and look at how we got to this point in our discussion of mind so far.  We started with dualism and saw how it has some major problems, among them the inability to explain immaterial soul-material body interaction and to account for the observed decrease in mental capacities of people with some types of brain damage (since the immaterial mind is supposed to persist independent of a physical body/brain).

Then we looked at the other extreme, eliminative materialism--the idea that we when talk about the mind, we should only talk about brain states and their underlying neurological and physical structures. We should even reject folk psychological terms like "belief" and "desire" because they don't refer to anything that is reducible to a common physical structure that can be studied by the hard sciences.  Folk psychological concepts are outdated pre-scientific concepts that shouldn't be forced onto modern brain science.  Modern brain science should be free to come up with its own concepts that best fit the observational data. 

Fodor was all, "why you talking smack about folk psychology?".   At the organism-level of analysis, we should use concepts like "belief" and "desire" because they are part of a theory of mind that has tremendous explanatory and predictive power.  And, just as we do with other scientific concepts, if they have strong predictive and explanatory power, we accord them ontological status (i.e., we say the things they refer to exist).

Furthermore, we should give a functionalist account of beliefs and desires.  Thus, the concepts we employ in theories of mind need not be reducible to particular physical structures.  It's ok, nay! it is necessary to have higher levels of analysis that function independently from what's happening in the brain at the neurological and physical level. 

So, now where we at?  We're going to continue scrutinizing purely physicalist theories of mind with the help of Jackson's knowledge argument.  Lets begin with a quick overview of what physicalist positions share...

Physicalist Theories of Mind
Mental states are brain states.  The End.  




Ok...I kid! I kid!  There's a bit more to it...

Lets frame the issue:  Both dualists (not necessarily substance dualists, but all types including property dualists like Fodor) need to explain how the mental affects the physical (i.e., how my thoughts can affect my body's actions) and how the physical affects the mental (i.e., how what happens to my body affects what I experience mentally).  

The physicalist says mental states "just are" brain states.  The problem for the physicalist arises when he tries to give an account of subjective experience (like feeling pain, seeing red, smelling a rose, tasting chocolate, etc...).  In short, the physicalist account seems to leave something out (i.e., subjective conscious experience).

Epiphenominalism: General
Before getting into Jackson's specific epiphenominalim, lets figure out what this big fancy word means in the context of philosophy of mind.  First, lets break down the word:  "epi" is latin for "above" and "phenomenon" is latin for Ami, although some have alternatively translated it as "appearance" or "appear".  Epiphenominalism is the view that mental properties emerge as a consequence of certain complex arrangements of matter/complex physical processes.   Lets consider some other examples:  the property of solidity or hardness emerges out of a particular arrangement of matter; "life" also arises out of a certain arrangement of matter (a cell).  So, the epiphenominalist says the same about mental properties--they are an emergent property that are the consequence of certain complex physical processes and arrangements of matter.

Traditional epiphenominalism says that the causal relationship between the brain process and mental experiences (consciousness) runs only one way--from physical to mental.  That is, stuff happens in our brain which causes the brain to have mental properties (like feeling pain, seeing blue, smelling a rose, etc...).  Mental awareness "piggy-backs" on the automatic workings of the body and brain.  It has no causal power the other way.  The perception that our conscious experiences of volition, pain, etc... cause us to act in certain ways is only an illusion.  Our bodies and brains have already acted.

Qualia Epiphenominalism:  Jackson
Qualia is a fancy word to describe the subjective nature of experience; for example, what it's like to have the experience of seeing red, of tasting ice cream, of feeling pain...  Remember that your brain reconstructs an image of reality--we don't perceive reality directly.  The redness of a rose doesn't fly into your eye an enter your brain.  The rose absorbs some parts of the light spectrum and reflects others.  The wavelengths that reach your retina are converted, via the cones, into electro-chemical signals which travel down the optical nerve, which then do a bunch of crazy stuff in the brain, and somehow you end up with the experience of seeing red.  These reconstructions are the qualia. 

Contrary to general epiphenominalism which argues that all mental experiences are causally inert, Jackson argues that only qualia are causally inert.  So, maybe mental experiences of volition and desire are not.

The Knowledge Argument
Jackson defines physical information as all information that is dealt with in physics, chemistry, biology, and everything in between like neuroscience and bio-chemistry, etc...  Essentially, this is the type of information that can be used to understand and predict relationships between an individual's environment and their neurological states.  Also included in physical information are explanations and predictions about the relationships between Fodor's functionally defined mental states (e.g., beliefs and desires), agent behaviors, and the environment.

The core of Jackson's argument against a purely physicalist account of mind is that there are features of bodily sensations and perceptual experiences that can't be captured by purely physical information. These feature, as you should have picked up by now, are called "qualia".   The physicalist has to argue that given full development of the physical sciences, we will be able to give a complete explanation of all aspects of the mind but Jackson's going to show why this isn't true.  Because no amount of information about brain states can capture the subjective experience of seeing red, tasting coffee, etc... we need to extend out ontology to include non-physical properties; i.e., qualia.

Argument 1:  Fred and Red 1 and Red 2
Suppose that Fred distinguishes what we see as "red" as two distinct colors.  He doesn't just perceive them as different shades of the same color but he perceives them as distinctly as we perceive yellow and blue.  Fred calls them Red 1 and Red 2 to avoid communication problems with the rest of the world.

As it turns out, Fred makes this distinction because of a certain mutation in the physiology of his cones (this actually happens, some women have a 4th cone--check out the link at the end of the post).  Fred's cones respond differently to certain light waves in the red section of the spectrum that make no difference to ours.  This different response leads to different brain states from what we'd normally experience if our cones where hit by that same red light.

Suppose, we wanted to know what Fred's experience of Red 2 was like.  This is information we don't have.  If we had complete physical information--from his unique physiology down to the electron activity in his neurons when he sees Red 2-- would this tell us anything about what the experience of seeing Red 2 is like?  Jackson says, no.  The point is that despite all the physical information, something is left out.

Now, suppose that scientists in lab coats, using breakers and bunsen burners are able to use stem cells to recreate Fred's optical physiology in anyone who so chooses.  By undergoing this process and being able to perceive the formerly unperceived color Red 2, would these people have acquired new information?  Jackson says yes, they'd now know what Red 2 looks like (and what it's like to perceive it).   This additionally reinforces his hypothesis that the purely physicalist account of mind is incomplete:  it leaves something out--knowledge of what it's like to have certain experiences.

Argument 2: Mary the Color Scientist
Suppose Mary is a brilliant color scientist (yay!).  Though a series of unfortunate circumstances, since the day she was born, she was never able to leave her bunker in which everything is either black or white (boo!).  She does have a TV (yay!), but it's black and white too (boo!).

Despite her regrettable circumstances, Mary has studied everything there is to know about color.  She can look at any brain scan of a person looking at a color, and based on the neurological activity, she can tell you what color the person is looking at.  She can tell you what's happening in each brain cell as someone perceives red.  She also knows the relationship between every surface property and every color.  All this, and she's never left her room to see the actual colors.

Here's the million dollar question:  If Mary walked out of her room into our world, will she learn anything new about color?  Jackson says, "duh! of course she will!"  The conclusion is that despite her complete knowledge of every physical fact about color and color perception, her knowledge was incomplete, and therefore physicalism doesn't account for all facts.

The same types of arguments could be used for taste, hearing, and bodily sensations, and any mental state with phenomenal features.

Replies To Possible Objections to Epiphenominalism

Causal Impotence of Qualia
The standard objection to classical epiphenominalism is that to say that mental states are causally impotent seems to run counter to our experience.  However, Jacksons claim isn't that all mental states are causally impotent, only that qualia are.  Nevertheless, he is still going to be subject to many of the same objections directed at general epiphenominalism. 

Defense 1 For the Causal Impotence of Qualia:  The Underlying Cause
It is supposed that the (unpleasant) experience of pain is partly responsible for our avoiding it.  But this is to suppose causation with there may be non.  For instance, simply because B always follows A it doesn't necessarily mean the A causes B.  There may be an underlying cause of both A and B.  In other words, there may be some event C which, every time it occurs, causes both A and B to happen.  In the case of explaining qualia, there may be a brain even causes both our reaction to the pain and the sensation of pain, but the sensation doesn't cause the reaction.

Consider another example to illustrate the principle.  It has been noted that the bigger a child's shoe size, the better their hand-writing.  Does this mean that larger feet causes better hand-writing?  No, there is a third event that's causing both the shoe size increase and the better hand-writing: that is, general growth over time.  As children get older, they get bigger but their brains also become more developed and adept at complex tasks.  

Another example from a recent study (that was misreported by the popular media):  men with small testicles are better fathers:  The headlines make it seem like having small testicles make men better fathers.  But this is just silly--there's a further underlying cause of both.  Men who are good fathers generally get up at night to tend to crying children and so they get less sleep.  Less sleep translates to lower testosterone levels, which in turn leads to otherwise smaller testicles.  So, let that be a warning to you ladies.  Just because a man has small testicles, it doesn't automatically mean he's a keeper.  Maybe he just doesn't get much sleep for a variety of reasons.  (See! philosophy is useful!)

Defense 2 For the Causal Impotence of Qualia:  Vs Argument from Evolution
Assuming that evolution only keeps and perpetuates adaptations that are efficacious (give us a survival edge), why did we evolve the capacity for qualia?  It seems like a perfectly useless adaptation if it doesn't help our survival.

Consider the polar bears' coat (the one's that drink Coke).  The theory of evolution tells us that having a thick warm coat is conducive to survival in the Antarctic.  But having a thick warm coat also means having a heavy coat--which is not conducive to survival.   The fact that polar bears have heavy coats (i.e., a trait not conducive to survival) isn't a refutation of evolutionary theory, rather, the heaviness of the coat is an unintended byproduct of having a thick warm coat.

We can draw an analogy with qualia.  Qualia are an unintended byproduct of having a certain level of complexity in the brain--they are not an adaptation for survival just as the heaviness of the polar bear's coat is not.

Master Defense:  Vs The Kitchen SinkOne could reply that despite all these counter-replies to anti-epiphenominalism the fact remains that qualia do nothing, explain nothing, serve only to soothe dualist intuitions, and still leave it a mystery as to how they fit into the world.

Jackson concedes this but replies that our failure to understand still is no objection to qualia.  We shouldn't suppose that we will be able to understand the role of qualia because evolution doesn't favor those who "make sense of how [qualia] are caused and the laws governing them, or in fact why they exist at all."  In short, we can't understand qualia because there is no evolutionary advantage to understanding them. And the same argument can apply to many things in the universe.  We shouldn't be surprised that some matters with fall outside of our explanatory capabilities...humans should show a little humility and not assume that we will one day be able to explain everything!

Podcast: 
Check out these podcast episodes on real people and other species with cone mutations and how they perceive: (if you're going to listen to only one, definitely listen to the first one--your head will explode). 
http://www.radiolab.org/story/211193-perfect-yellow/
http://www.radiolab.org/story/211178-rip-rainbow/
http://www.radiolab.org/story/211213-sky-isnt-blue/

Eliminative Materialism Vs Folk Psychological Concepts

Introduction and Context:
Up until now we've been looking at substance dualism and its problems.  For most people, the interaction problems and the account of brain damage are insurmountable, particularly since dualism seems to conflict with our best scientific theories of mind. So, if dualism is so wrong, how did we end up with it in the first place?

Simply put--contra Descartes--you can't do a priori science.  In other words, we can't rely on our intuitions to tell us about the physical world.  This is why many of the ancient Greek physics are so spectacularly wrong.  It might make intuitive sense that everything is made of fire, earth, wind, and water...or whatever combination, but you simply can't make conclusions about nature based on intuition alone.  You need empirical observation.  If you want to know about the world you have to examine it, make observations, and form theories that account for those empirical observations.

Many contemporary philosophers of mind attribute the failure of dualism to people trying to do science of mind using a priori reasoning.  The hodge-podge collection intuitive concepts of how the mind works are called folk psychology and include concepts like beliefs, attitudes, and desires.  

Because folk psychology seems to fail in explaining the mind, Paul Churchland argues that we should instead adopt eliminative materialism:  This is the idea that we should eliminate folk psychological terms like belief, attitude, and desire from our theory of mind and talk only about physical brain states.  Underpinning the eliminative approach is a skepticism about introspection and as a means of developing scientific theories of the mind as well as an opposition to trying to fit centuries old concepts to modern observations.

Main Arguments for Eliminative Materialism
Eliminative materialist give three main reasons for rejecting folk psychological terms from (contemporary) theories of mind:
(1)  the theory has not meaningly progressed for a long time;
(2)  the concepts don't integrate well with promising up and coming approaches to mind (cognitive science and neuroscience);
(3) the concepts don't refer to anything real.

Regarding point (1), we have seen tremendous progress in explaining how the mind works by using the modern paradigms of neuroscience and cognitive science.  Folk psychological explanations haven't contributed much in comparison to these other frameworks.   Given the relative discrepancy in the rate explanatory progress between modern frameworks and folk psychological framework, it's time to abandon the latter.

Point (2) is that it doesn't make sense to try to force millennia old pre-scientific concepts onto modern theories of mind (e.g., cog sci and neuroscience).  What we need to do is let the new fields adopt whatever concepts best reflect the empirical findings they produce.  Just as it doesn't make sense to apply the pre-scientific concepts of the elements of earth, wind, fire, and water to our modern physics, it doesn't make sense to do this with modern theories of mind.  If fact, it is very likely that trying to force these pre-scientific folk psychological concepts onto modern theories of mind will hamper their progress and force poor interpretations of empirical findings.

Lets quickly expand on point (3):  But before doing that, we need to know something about what philosophers (and linguists) call "theories of reference." 

Theories of Reference
Some philosophers of science say that scientific concepts, in order to be "real", must refer to something that is underpinned by/reducible to physical structure.  For example, anytime I use the concept "water" it refers to H20.  Because "water" picks out (i.e., refers to) something real in the world, it is a legitimate scientific concept.  If I point to something that doesn't have the structure H20 and call it "water", I'm misapplying the concept.

Now lets look at the concept of "belief."  Does it pick out any real physical structure in the world? When I say "I believe that ice cream tastes good" and "I belief Joe Biden is the VP of America", what are the underlying physical structures that these two things have in common?

Think of all the different possible beliefs you can have.  In terms of their underlying physical structure (i.e., brain states/neurological states), what do all of them share?  Especially when you consider that everyone's brain is a little bit different. 

Unlike the case of water and H20, it doesn't seem like this collection of things which are all called beliefs share anything in common in terms of underlying physical structure.  While there may be overlap between the brain structures underpinning some beliefs, there will be other beliefs that don't have any meaningful overlapping physical structures.

The idea here is that scientific theories should postulate entities that can be observed, quantified, and studied and for this to happen the concept has to refer to something that has uniform underlying structure across all cases.  But what is the underlying physical structure of a belief?  How do you measure it? It doesn't seem to have any properties that we can measure scientifically. They don't seem to "exist" in any way which allows them to be studied.

Folk psychological concepts don't actually refer to any"thing" in the "real" world.  There is no thing in the world that satisfies the description of "belief".  Scientific terms should refer to things that exist and can be studied, and since we can't do this with folk psychological terms, we should eliminate them from theories of mind.

Summary
Interestingly, dualism and eliminative materialism do agree on one point:  you can't reduce mental states to physical states; however, the reasons for this shared conclusion are very different! As we saw with dualism, mental states can't be reduced to physical states because each are properties of a different respective substance:  mental states are properties of minds and brain states are properties of brains.

Eliminative materials say you can't reduce mental states to brain states because mental states don't really exist! There are only physical brain states because they say we should eliminate folk psychological terms.  We can think of it this way:  some very folk theories of mind say that people act loco because they are possessed by a demon.  The eliminativist says not only can we not readjust our notion of loco to fit what was previously meant by demonic possession, we should only talk about the brain states that occur concurrent with certain behaviours.

Descartes and Philosophy of Mind: The Conceivability Argument and the Divisibility Argument

Introduction and Context:
Watch the Video first:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CqbO_5FKRc

So, is the brain the mind?  Is the mind the brain?  Are they separate things?  If so, are you your brain or your mind?  Or are you somehow both but they aren't the same thing?  Are you confused?

Poor Karl.  Lets try to help him clear up his confusion.  Fortunately, we have philosophy at our disposal to provide some answers in our time of need (where else could you possibly go?).  To get at some kind of an answer lets start with Descartes who thought he had a solution to this problem.  The short answer, as you should know by now, is that you are a mind, not a body.  

Descartes proposed 3 main arguments for what is called substance dualism which is the position that the mind and the body (i.e., brain) are two completely different types of things (i.e, substances).   Because my main goal is simply to present the general position, for our purposes we'll only look at two of the arguments.

The Conceivability Argument (6th Meditation)

The conceivability argument rests upon two similar principles: (a) The doctrine of clear and distinct is that anything that can be clearly and distinctly conceived of is possible and therefore can, in the "real world" correspond perfectly with one's understanding of it.  Lets not worry too much about this part...The other principle plays a more important role:  Hume's law is that if we can conceive of something then it is logically possible.

Ok, with those principles in "mind" lets take a look at a stripped down version of the argument: 

(P1)  I conceive that I, a thinking thing, can exist without my extended (i.e., physical) body existing.

(P2)  Anything that I can conceive of is logically possible.

(P3)  If it is logically possible that X (mind) exists without Y (body), then X (mind) is not identical to Y (body).

(C)   Therefore, I, a thinking thing, am not identical with my extended body.

Recall from the 1st meditation where Descartes shows that we can doubt everything, including the existence of our own physical body, except that we think and that we exist. Because we can conceive of ourselves as existing without having a body, we must not be identical to our body.  Since we are not identical to our body, our minds and our bodies must be 2 completely different sorts of things (he calls them "substances").

Most philosophers reject this argument because it relies on Hume's law (P2) which most contemporary philosophers also reject.  Conceivability is not sufficient for logical possibility. 

Another reason for rejecting the argument is that while Descartes may be correct in that thought is essential to mind and extension is essential to bodies, it doesn't follow that this is all there is to each.  He argues that since the essence of mind is thought, he "can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing."  But just because thought is an essential property of mind it doesn't necessarily follow that this is the only property of mind.  In other words, he can't make that inference. 

Alright, for our purposes, this should suffice...

Next argument:

The Divisibility Argument

We can present it simply like this:

(P1)  All extended things are divisible. (It's possible to divide the body or matter into parts) 

(P2)  Minds are not divisible.  (When you introspect, you can't distinguish parts of the mind within yourself).

(P3)   Although it appears as though my mind and body are united, if I were to remove body parts, "nothing would have been taken away from the mind", thus, minds are not extended. 

(C)  Therefore, it follows that the minds are distinct substances from bodies.

Most contemporary philosophers (and brain scientists) reject (P3).  We know that if we remove parts of the brain, part of our "mind" will also be removed.  Also, when the corpus callosum (the bundle of nerves connecting the two hemispheres) is removed, the "mind" seems to divide into two separate consciousnesses. 

While it's interesting to dissect what when wrong in Descartes arguments, the more interesting philosophical area is to look at the problems that arise if we accept (or reject) dualism.  Recent psychological studies show that most people are natural dualists (i.e., they believe in a non-material mind/soul/spirit/etc...).  Not that it matters what the unwashed masses think (I kid! I kid!) but it's interesting to inquire what sorts of problems come about from accepting dualism.  Very early on, the very astute Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia noticed some of these problems and presented them to Descartes in written correspondence...which is the topic of the next post...

The Moral Law, God, and Helping Little Old Ladies Across the Street

 Intro    

     "I don't do that because I have morals".  Whenever I hear that I want to reply, "Yeah? So do I; and my morality tells me that it is good to strangle people who say stupid things".  My evidence is purely anecdotal but it seems every time I here this it's from a theist.  

     Speaking of theists and morality, Kant was a theist and he had a lot (of important things) to say about morality.  So much so that his moral ideas are considered to be if not the most important ever, or at least the most important since Aristotle...depending on who you ask.  Of the things Kant thought about morality, he made it explicit that acting morally is independent of there being a supreme being and/or external god-given law.  Lets take a look see at his argument:

Morality Precludes God: A Kantian Perspective

   Suppose for a moment that the one true god (Zoroaster, of course) actually exists.  To ensure that the sea monkeys that he made (us) act the way he wants us to he writes a law book that is surprisingly clear and concise, and without contradictions.  Because Zoroaster is sooooo perfect, powerful, and wise he writes the book so that no interpretation is required; it is as plain as day what the laws are.  The question we ask now is, if we followed this book perfectly would we be behaving morally?

     For Kant we would not.  Our actions would be in harmony with what is moral, but that is not what makes an action moral or what makes a person a moral agent.  For Kant "morality lies in the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will--that is to a possible making of universal law by means of its maxims".  Lets unpack that.

     A big part of Kant's moral philosophy comes from what he calls "the principle of autonomy".  The basic idea is (1) morality only applies to rational agents; for example, animals don't participate in morality (with the possible exception of some primates); (2) morality requires not only being a subject of the law but also a creator of the law.  The first premise is pretty self explanatory so lets move to the second.  

     Recall Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative, "act only on that maxim which can at the same time be willed as a universal law"; basically he means if you don't think that the principle that you're basing your action on can be made permissible for everyone, then you shouldn't do it.  What's important to extract from this principle is that as a moral agent you are not simply following moral laws, but every time you act (in a moral context) you are making laws.  This means that every time you encounter a situation with moral implications you have to determine your course of action as if whatever you do becomes a moral law for everyone.

     The other half of the principle of autonomy is that you are also subject to the law, but you are subject to the law that you created.  Because we play this dual role of creator and subject of the law we maintain dignity and will have reverence for the law. 

     Conversely, if law is derived from without, we are mere subjects; we can only follow the law out of obligation; there is no dignity it following laws imposed from without.  This not to say that sometimes externally imposed laws and internal laws don't overlap.  Suppose I read in Zoroaster's (holy) book that I should always help little old ladies across the street.  I see a little old lady and because I am a good Zoroastrian I help her across the street.  Now it just so happens that if I had exercised my autonomy and reflected on what would be a good universal law in regards to little old ladies at crosswalks, I would have acted in exactly the same way.   

     Here we have a situation where I act because of an external law but by coincidence this action is exactly the same as what I would have done if I had applied the Universalization Principle.  For Kant actions derived through external laws are morally permissible (if they just happen to line up with what the universalization principle would have dictated) but don't have any moral content.  They have no moral content because they were done out of obligation; we can't call the action "good" in any moral sense.  Kant reserves moral approbation for actions that came about autonomously because in these cases the agent is not just acting on laws but also making the laws that they act on; they are engaging their faculty or reason.

Conclusion

    Lets relate everything back to the original topic of why Kant says that morality cannot come from a god or any external laws.  The first obvious reason is that if it comes from without, then we are not acting from the correct motives; we are acting out of obligation or fear of sanction, not out of a desire to do the right thing.  Think of it this way: it's the difference between doing something because you are supposed to do it and doing it because it is the right thing.  The difference is subtle but important.  To see why check out Plato's Euthyphro argument.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

     The second reason for which moral actions can't come from referring to a god or a book is that in these cases we are merely subjects of the law.  Moral action requires autonomy; morality is just deciding whether to follow some arbitrary law; and that requires we be both creator and subjects of our own laws (if we are to have any dignity as rational creatures).

Thoughts

     I find this whole principle of autonomy very appealing--in theory.  It has a lot of good things going for it but those same things, given different assumptions about humanity, can also work against it.  I like the idea that when considering action, morality involves both rational refection on what is universalizable and our subjecting ourselves to that law.  It's very democratic, which is a strength but also a weakness.  
     As an Enlightenment writer Kant believed that all humans are all equal in our capacity to reason; not only that but if we apply our faculty of reason we will all come up with the same answers!  He had quite an optimistic view of his fellow human and, though no fault of his own, a poor understanding of the weakness of human psychology (i.e., motivated reasoning, etc..) or at least our (in)ability to overcome it.  

     That Kant was overly optimistic of humanity is one reading but I think another way to read him is as though he is conducting a huge thought experiment.  In several passages he makes it quite apparent that he is well aware of difficulties present in disinterested reasoning.  In fact, in some passages he says that, because it is difficult to ever know whether we have truly reasoned in a disinterested way--let alone the interests involved in another's reasonings--it is possible that there has never been even a single true moral act.  Be that as it may, Kant is not interested in what people actually do; he is concerned with contemplating how things ought to be; how we should aspire to make moral decisions.

     Democratic ideas are always appealing; especially in areas where everyone thinks their ideas are just as good as anyone else's.  But I'm not convinced that everyone has the same capacity to reason generally, and specifically not in the moral realm.  For the sake of argument lets grant that everyone has an equal capacity for moral reasoning; it doesn't follow that we'll all derive the same conclusions and/or that people are even capable reasoning in a disinterested way.  Also, what about people who spend their life times studying morality?  I.e., the professors in the top schools, the people with the Ph.Ds.  Why should the opinion of Joe Shmo--who hasn't even read a single article on morality and let alone explain one of the 3 main approaches to ethics--be given equal weight as Peter Singer's, an ethicist who has dedicated his life to the study of morality?  For Kant the answer is that they'll both come up with the same answer.  I think even the greatest defender of the Enlightenment would be skeptical of this claim (actually they wouldn't because that's one of its founding principles, but just sayin'...).

    At the end of the day we're sort of forced to chose between two imperfect positions (actually more, but I consider two so I can wrap this up...).  We can give up our autonomy and hope that there's someone really smart that worked things out for us and codified it into rules we can easily understand and follow; or we can hope that our fellow citizens take moral matters seriously enough to give them the disinterested consideration they require...and come up with maxims similar to our own.  I think people should consult philosophers....

What Can A Pain in Your Butt Teach You About Metaphysics?

This section of the sixth and final meditation is for me the most interesting and raises the most philosophical issues.  I still remember when I first encountered it 12 years ago in my second philosophy class.

Arguments For What My Senses Can and Can't Tell Me About the World and Myself

     There is nothing that my own nature teaches me more vividly than that I have a body, and that when I feel pain there is something wrong with the body, and that when I am hungry or thirsty the body needs food and drink, on so on.  So, I should not doubt there is some truth in this.

     The basic argument here is that sensations such as pain demonstrate that humans are a composite of Mind and Body.  The fact that we can perceive sensations that belong to Body in our minds is evidence for the Mind-Body hypothesis of humans.  We are not Minds that are merely present in a Body "as a sailor is present in a ship".  If this were the case we wouldn't feel any of the sensations we do.  A sailor doesn't feel pain when his ship bumps into a rock, he only perceives it by sight and understands what has happened via the intellect.  Yet we have in intimate awareness of sensations, that are not purely intellectual understandings, when we bump into a pointy object, for example.  The same goes for hunger and thirst which are not just intellectual concepts when we feel them.

     We are also aware that there are other bodies around us that produce in us sensations of heat, smell, sound, colour, taste, etc...  We also know that we have an aversion to some of these sensations, like the smell of rotten eggs; and we have attraction to others, like the taste of pizza.

     Of course sometimes what our senses tell us about the world can sometimes be false.  In this case I'm not talking about optical illusions and such, but that the way in which information about the world comes in through the senses shapes the way we think the world is structured.  Take for example the sensation of heat:  Is there actually a thing "heat" which I am perceiving?  It's kind of interesting to think about.  In everyday language we still say, "that's hot" but our scientific understanding of the world contradicts this idea.  

     This is where Descartes really got it right.  On the Aristotelian view, objects that were hot contained an essence, "hotness" (not the kind that some chicks have--another kind) and when we feel heat we are somehow perceiving a thing/essence "hotness".  Descartes on the other hand had a mechanistic view of the world.  Although the idea of heat as being average kinetic energy hadn't been discovered yet Descartes had an idea that was very close.  His idea was that the particles that made up a body were rotating very quickly and these particles interacted with nerve endings which sent a signal up the neural pathways to the part of the brain which was the interface with the mind.  For Descartes (and any modern person) we know that if I were to perform an autopsy of a hot object, I would never find any thing I could point to and call "heat".  As a general explanation it's quite amazing how close to being right he was.  

      So here's the cool part.  Suppose I stub my toe (again) on the "Gotdamned" chair again.  According to Descartes the pain I feel does not exist in my toe, but in my mind.  Of course it sure doesn't feel that way but again this is a case where the way our senses function to perceive the world causes us to draw false conclusions about the world.  Pain is not a property of Body.  Pain (a sensation) is a property of Mind, thus the pain is a consequence of an interaction with Body but the pain itself is not in mah toe.  If I cut the nerve route from my toe to my brain/Mind, I would have no sensation of pain.  Pain is really our brain/Mind telling us "there is damage to sector 7G".

     In the Aristotelian view the pain actually exists in the toe.  It's really there, just as properties of mass and shape are.  As an aside, I think it's kind of interesting that despite centuries of science we still speak of the world in the Aristotelian sense.  I guess you could make an pragmatic argument for speaking of the world in an Aristotelian way.  It'd be quite a mouthful if every time you stubbed your toe you said, "Got damn particles in that chair collided with the particles in my toe, which initiated a chain reaction to the part of my brain that is the interface with my mind and produced a sensation that I call 'pain'".

     The bottom line is that the purpose of sensory perception is not necessarily to tell us how the world actually is but to help us navigate the world by informing us what is beneficial and what is harmful.  I think this is a really important philosophical point and one that even everyday people misunderstand (say it ain't so!).  The issue is whether the world exactly resembles the way we perceive it.  Within philosophy of perception and epistemology there are some that say that there is no way to know because we can never step outside of what we perceive in the "theater of mind" and there those that says there is a one to one relationship...and as you might expect the bulk of people's opinion is somewhere in between.       

     Descartes answer is that our perceptions of Body resemble the modes of Body that are necessary (size, shape, extension, mass); however this is not the case in the other modes of Body.  In the case of the non-necessary modes of Body (eg., scent, colour, texture, etc...), there is something (structure perhaps) in the body that produces in us as sensation of a property, but the property we perceive doesn't resemble the property in the Body that caused it--although it is not ruled out as a logical possibility. 

     This is a little bit complicated but bear with me: Lets take colour for example.  Suppose I'm looking at a purple cup.  Is the cup actually purple (an essence) or is there something about the structure of the the cup that produces in me the perception of purple?  Does "purpleness" fly from the cup into my eye?  Probably not.  Descartes gets this right too:  We know that the surface atoms of the cup are structured in such a way as to absorb all wavelengths of light except purple; it's not really purple as in, the atoms are all coloured purple.   

     So, because of the structure of the cup, light of only 1 wavelength of reaches my eyes.  Now, is the light that reaches my eyes actually purple?  No, it's just light waves at a certain frequency.  It just so happens that when my eyes receive light at this particular frequency it produces a certain nerve impulse that produces in my Mind the (phenomenal) sensation of purple.  Had the light waves been traveling at a different frequency, it would have resulted in slightly different nerve impulses which would have produced in my Mind a different phenomena of colour.  

      Also, if my brain were structured slightly differently, maybe the wavelength that now produces in me the colour purple might produce in me the colour red.  This raises a tangential issue, which is that when it comes to these secondary modes there is no way to know if one person's experience "purple" isn't another person's experience "green".  The things is, it doesn't matter so long as we all make the same distinctions and call it the same thing.  

     Now lets try to relate this all back to our starting point, that our senses don't necessarily tell us about the world as it is but tell us instead how we should best navigate our world.  Lets go back to the subject of "pain".   Through faulty reasoning I may come to the conclusion that the "Got Damned chair" I stubbed my toe on has something in it that is "pain" that is now in my toe, or that a fire has something in it that is heat.  But fire is not made of any thing called heat any more than my toe is has something in it called pain.  Nevertheless, my sensory perception of my interaction with these entities tells me that I should avoid striking the chair with my toe and should not put my hand (or any part of me for that matter) in the flame--unless it is into the feh-laaaaaames of passion.

But If God's So Good, How Come Sometimes Our Senses Tell Us to Do the Wrong Thing?

     Descartes realizes he has a little problem if he is going to simultaneously hold that a) god isn't a deceiver; b) that he wired us (are there wires in clay?) in such a way were we can be deceived about the world; and c) sometimes it seems that our sense perceptions of the world lead us to the wrong course of action.   Descartes explanation is that although there are situations that can arise where our reaction to a stimulus isn't the best one, the fact is that most of the time it will be.  God wired us in the way that will bring about the best response to deal with situations that will most frequently occur.

     Here's an example:  Suppose you have a wound on your finger and you need to put some sort of disinfectant on it and this disinfectant stings upon application.  The problem is that your sensory system, whenever you put the disinfectant on says "ARUGA! ARUGA! ARUGA! We are sensing pain.  Begin evasive maneuvers immediately!"  Our sensory system is giving us a message that is actually detrimental to us in this particular circumstance.  

     Descartes would concede that this is true but that more often than not moving your limb away from things that cause the sensation of pain is a good thing and will preserve your life and health longer.  Therefore god's still a good guy after all.  I think this is a pretty good argument and if we substitute "natural selection" for "god" we have a good modern argument.  Ta! Da!