July 22, 2010
the irreducible mystery of human conscience
At the risk of starting a fight, David Bentley Hart’s review of Absence of Mind has a few salient points about contemporary regnant philosophical assumptions:
In the end, perhaps the most penetrating question Robinson asks in regard to all the modern schools of suspicion is, simply enough: why? That is, if purely material, purely selfish impulses underlie all those behaviors we mistake for selfless altruism or spiritual longing or magnanimity or self-outpouring love, why do they so utterly invert themselves in our conscious minds? Why do they dissimulate themselves as the very opposite of what they are? Let us assume that the conscious mind, with all of its ambiguities and mysteries and abyssal sense of identity, is nothing but the illusory and superficial epiphenomenon of some hidden, unitary, primordial, and amoral material impulse towards survival. Very well, then, but why would it have to hide this fact? Surely it would have no need to deceive itself so elaborately, or to conceal its own genetic interests from itself, unless it already possessed some kind of moral sensitivity to the shame of selfishness. What, then, is that moral self that is there “before” the Darwinian self, whose conscience must be appeased, needing to believe that it is moved by altruism or disinterested love?
The reductionist tendencies of physicalist explanations, incidentally, are precisely the reason I got bored with Radio Lab. Also: I apologize for writing “contemporary regnant philosophical assumptions.”
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Where’s Daryl?
I accept your apology.
I note here that the author attempts to subtly draw force to his argument by suggesting that the authority of symmetry has something to do with it. He begins with a logical ordering of narrow possibilities–and calls upon our desire for neatness to polish the edges. The first thing that comes to my mind, though, is the correlation of this argument with a question often posed about Christianity: why would God require humans to believe in and obey Him while setting news of it in such ambiguous form? The fact that many seek a physical explanation for much of what appears in the world around us is not really part of a yes or no proposition–it’s a matter of what course is more likely to produce reliable results, as in: should I go to the doctor–or just pray about it?
Ah shit. Daryl beat me to it. On the first point.
I can’t get behind anyone in particular on the ideas they present. One set of propositions is as easily torn down as the next, and then I see a lot of leaps to “therefore my original proposition must be true, W5.” I’m a pragmatist, which probably makes me ill suited for the study of philosophy. Someone just wake me when we have an answer that changes how I go about my day.
I agree that there is an impulse towards altruistic revisionism, but I don’t think that has to be evidence for some kind of deep internal moral philosophy.
Why can’t it just be a learned cultural norm?
I’ll forgive you for your heresy about Radiolab, Andrew.
P.S. I don’t believe that “parascientific pretensions” are any more prevalent than religious pretensions. Both realms rely on sets of assumptions about what may be known, and both involve ways of answering important questions–at least provisionally. Both sides present arguments aimed at supporting the powers of one set of assumptions over the other. When it comes to finding fault with one side or the other for attempting to “explain all things,” I would say that at worst it is a wash. And I still think exploring mechanism is much more interesting than riding mystic waves of personal certainty.
Specifically, how is the alternative to the quoted author’s position reductionist?
Either human consciousness is the product of a vastly complex and emergent system, whose faults are “smoothed out” with helpful illusions, or our consciousness is exactly how it appears: which is… what? Straightforward? Ordered? The evidence seems to suggest neither of those things.
As an aside, I agree that RadioLab is reductionist. Perhaps even more so than other popular science programming (Nova, for instance). Part of that is audience, part of that is time constraints, and part of that is that there are necessary compromises needed to push science into an interesting narrative. It’s entertaining, thought provoking, but not very informative.
Radiolab never responds to their e-mail. Someday when I am giving an interview about something, I’m going to air these complaints. Classily.
Exactly, Nick. Radio without narrative doesn’t compel you. Makes it downright uninteresting, even. Having been to a couple Deep Wireless radio festivals in Toronto, I’ve been subjected to “sound portraits” and whatnot which sound like the audio equivalent of a bunch of Post-It notes scotch-taped together. Duller than dishwater.
Sonically, though, Radiolab is amazing. Abumrad’s music degrees, I think, frame the show into something that sounds darned pretty.
It’s not Ideas (sorry, a CBC radio show up here, mostly pretty highbrow topics), but it never was supposed to be, as far as I can tell, but something more populist/popular. The show is about things its producers were curious about. The fact that they can put on interesting radio about such abstract concepts as randomness, as an example, is to me a solid accomplishment.
I, for one, will never forgive you for writing, “contemporary regnant philosophical assumptions.”
As a matter of fact, it’s going in your performance review. That’s right, it will be a part of your permanent record.
David Bentley Hart has a very specific perspective for sure and I wonder how much can be gleaned by his term “rhetoric” in the beginning of the article, for somebody who has not read his material. I say this, Dave, because I think he, too, is a pragmatist of sorts who would make a similar argument that you did about propositions. For him, the true is the rhetorically beautiful.
I promise you, Daryl, that the dichotomy of doctor/prayer you suggest is something that Hart would find laughable. That said, I don’t think I entirely follow your reasoning.
Nick, I was reading in the context of the paragraph before it. It’s hard for me to not see the description of his gripe as reductive in that context. I can see how it could be confusing, read outside of that.
It’s also worth-noting this is a book review that is trying to summarize a book that Hart says cannot be adequately summarized. So, I expect there to be a few gaps.
Regarding your p.s., Daryl, I think it depends on the culture you’re in. I’ll admit there isn’t really a good metric, but in the (intellectual) circles I float in, I’d say there is a greater weight on “parascience pretensions” that feels like it spills out into broader culture.
“For roughly a century and a half, Western culture has been falling ever more thoroughly under the sway of the prejudice that modern empirical science is not only the sole model of genuine truth but also capable of explaining all things. It is a strange belief, but to those who hold it sincerely, nothing is more intolerable than the thought that anything might lie beyond the probative reach of their “mechanical philosophy.” ”
or
“For roughly a century and a half, Western culture has been falling ever more thoroughly under the sway of the prejudice that religion is not only the sole model of genuine truth but also capable of explaining all things. It is a strange belief, but to those who hold it sincerely, nothing is more intolerable than the thought that anything might lie beyond the probative reach of their “natural philosophy.”
meh…machts nix.
the discussion remains within the same frame of reference, unable to break free, as though a FLIP vid was watching its own output and attempting to analyze it. we get nowhere – to my untrained eye – because our brains appear to be nothing more than electrical states that show a wide range of variances between individuals: where an individual’s deep and abiding faith can be clinically, impartially traced to their (usually damaged) parietal cortices, that same electrical grid denies the import of the discovery. the work persinger, newberg and others have done over the last couple of decades on this research, while not yet definitive, is beyond suggestive…
(at least, it is to this set of free floating neurons)
the ramifications are, as they say, fucking enormous.
But isn’t science (the application of reason and logic to the natural world) fundamentally dependent on our faith that the natural world is indeed a rational place?
I would perhaps say science is dependent upon reason and logic to discover and interpret the rules of the “natural” world. “Rational” is yet another construct we apply when we believe we know something: the universe – as we understand it – is rational, this despite our fundamental lack of knowledge concerning things like gravity…
to believe that consciousness is irreducible is to believe that, although we have made progress understanding the human mind, synapses, neurons, conscious and subconscious processes, at some point we will find ourselves at a line that cannot be crossed, at an understanding that cannot be had — and not in the way, say, we assume an ant’s consciousness, such as it is, can only extend to a certain point, and thus, beyond which, for an ant, at some point, the world is unknowable.
what I’m talking about is a belief that as we make scientific progress understanding human consciousness (which we have) — in order to believe it is irreducible — we have to believe that there is a point we will arrive at beyond which the scientific method cannot reach — and not because of human intellectual limitations, but because of some as yet undetected limit to the approach. if that is the case, I wonder if we think that gap also exists for other scientific disciplines — computer science, say, or botany.
W5 is “Which was what was wanted,” a tongue-in-cheek quod erat demonstrandum.
Andrew–perhaps your difficulty in following my logic results from my speaking of the ideas that Robinson considers and Hart paraphrases. Let me clear that duality out of the way, as I should have to start with, and speak of this central argument: If scientists promote a view of what may be known of Being that privledges only knowldge subject to empirical test or resulting from theory grounded in a a physical basis of exploration, why is it that they don’t acknowledge the fact that humans have always also sought knowledge by way of “spiritual” or mystic considerations? Here “spiritual” and mystic includes all of those things that persistently move us in ways that don’t lend themselves to quantification. This argument depends upon a view that the “whole” of nature may be perceived as a mixture of these two modes of knowing. Often a kind of equivalence or symmetry is suggested between these modes–particularly by the side that, at a given point in time, presents itself as embattled. Whichever side it is, the claim of symmetry is one that appeals rhetorically to a desire that willingly inflates to reach parity when parity may not otherwise be present. So–Robinson is making an appeal to a transparent knowledge of the whole of nature in order to show that a part of it is being neglected ( while not seeing that the same argument accounts for why part of it is being favored). Scientists, apparently, live outside of this “whole” view that Robinson has, when that whole view is precisely what they are after. Robinson seems to achieve this view with ease. But when one considers that scientists are quick to note that nature gives up its secrets grudgingly–how is it that this is not a problem for her? Maybe it’s because she’s seeing the scientific view of Being in terms of the other mode–that of the rather easily sustained assertion of the miraculous at work. Hence the irony I meant to suggest about non-believers wondering why, on the spiritual side, God would expect knowledge of Him while also making it so difficult to understand exactly what is expected.
What kinds of
evidence* things would need to come out of the mystery box of the brain to point convincingly toward either the spiritual/altruistic or physicalist/natural? Or even to move the line a little? How close are we to that line that Deron described? It feels like we’re close. Can we even imagine what kind of thing would convincingly explain where the line falls or if it exists at all? What does something like RadioLab’s whale expressing gratitude do to the line? For most of my life the line was drawn with animal on one side and human on the other, so the whale and other similar stories have done the most to move my line (or help me to re-imagine the line or erase the line altogether). But that change has come out of some more fundamental shifts that were long in the making. I can’t imagine what kind of story or evidence by itself would be convincing one way or the other. This seems like the the kind of thing that people can always understand and explain as they want, no matter what… which also seems to be true for most of reality.walt – I threw a couple Ideas episodes on to my iPod to listen to while I work today. Thanks.
*too weighted toward the physicalist explanation?
I used the word “line” too much and to refer to different ideas. Sorry.
The physical perspective includes the spiritual (along with an urge to not claim knowledge that can’t be demonstrated in codified ways), and the spiritual perspective includes the physical (along with codified limits on the kinds of questions that may be posed and the kinds of evidence that one may appeal to). It’s easy to see, in day to day situations, why people frequently switch between these perspective because of particular kinds of needs. If a child asks–”Mama, why did you give me the last of the food and take none for yourself? and the mother says “Because I love you”–that is a better answer at that moment than one that would have described genetically reinforced mechanisms aimed at species survival. Yet, if the child asks many questions about her world, and each time the answer is–”Because God made it that way”–a lack of satisfaction is going to appear and a strong desire to see what is hidden will begin. Because we want to know, we like to believe that a complete knowing may be reached: the physical perspective sees the path as one of incremental tearing down and rebuilding and adding to; the spiritual sees it as already present but dimmly perceived–each person a hole cut in dark fabric with the starfiled flickering behind it. In each of these perspectives problems arise (and will always arise) when the authority of a Complete Knowledge is drawn upon before it is possessed or can be compellingly demonstrated. But I wonder–what would we be when there was nothing left to learn? Here I come down on the side of Wallace Stevens, in “Sunday Morning”:
VI
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receeding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.
thank you, Daryl.
[...] Daryl Scroggins: If a child asks–”Mama, why did you give me the last of the food and take none for yourself? and the mother says “Because I love you”–that is a better answer at that moment than one that would have described genetically reinforced mechanisms aimed at species survival. Yet, if the child asks many questions about her world, and each time the answer is–”Because God made it that way”–a lack of satisfaction is going to appear and a strong desire to see what is hidden will begin. Because we want to know, we like to believe that a complete knowing may be reached: the physical perspective sees the path as one of incremental tearing down and rebuilding and adding to; the spiritual sees it as already present but dimly perceived–each person a hole cut in dark fabric with the starfield flickering behind it. In each of these perspectives problems arise (and will always arise) when the authority of a Complete Knowledge is drawn upon before it is possessed or can be compellingly demonstrated. But I wonder–what would we be when there was nothing left to learn? Here I come down on the side of Wallace Stevens, in “Sunday Morning”: [...]
What Daryl said up there somewhere about perceived dualism (or equivalent dualism) of material and spiritual realms of study: Very much that.
Andrew, reading the whole review carefully, I can see how one could describe the positions, as presented in the review, as reductionist. Having not read the original book (perhaps I’ll page through it the next time I’m in the book store), I can’t speak to how well the author articulated materialist perspectives on consciousness, but the reviewer presents materialist ideas extremely simplistically.
The reviewer–and perhaps the book he is reviewing–make the all-too-common leap from, “the scientific explanation for this phenomena is wrong” to, “science is unable to explain this phenomena.” For anthropocentric reasons, this logical leap is almost always made in regards to what we can know about humans and human experience, but almost never in any other field. I rarely hear the objection that physics is irreducible, but relativity and quantum mechanics are still unreconciled and each only provides part of a full explanation; That doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer, it just means that there isn’t an answer yet.
“What kinds of evidence* things would need to come out of the mystery box of the brain to point convincingly toward either the spiritual/altruistic or physicalist/natural?”
i feel the past experimentation persinger and newberg have conducted represents concrete evidence. i anticipate further, more narrowly defined research will confirm their preliminary findings: reality is in our head.
however…
i’ve no investment in any unifying theory; reality is simply what what i perceive. in the absence (choosing religion here for demonstration purposes only) of verifiable, quantitative evidence as to the existence of any deity, i am fully prepared to believe evolution/mutation brought about our consciousness and that we hold the electro-magnetic (or chemical) keys to our perceptual future, with all that implies – morality, art, music, legal systems, vegetarianism, Gong show-ism, religions, tribalism, caste systems, the whole of human constructs devised to reach a workable consensus based on our brains’ interpretations of our surroundings, can be, perhaps should be up for grabs.
conversely devout believers might respond – yes, reality is in our head and was given to us by a kind and just…
harking back to an earlier thread on perception/drugs/reality, even though nothing within the human experience is irreducible per se, I see very little reason for more than an academic fuss. our species’ attitude might be described thus – well, we’ve done just fine with this reality for the past few thousand years, why invest time, money and research into something that doesn’t need altering, or at the most just some new aluminum siding?
what would you accept as evidence one way or t’other?