One of the upcoming episodes of the Rationally Speaking podcast will feature author Jennifer Michael Hecht, a historian, philosopher and poet (yes, poet), who teaches at the New School in New York City. Jennifer is the author of Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson and of The Happiness Myth: The Historical Antidote to What Isn't Working Today, among other books.
I have read both of these, and I must say that they provide thoughtful readers with a lot to ponder. In the first one, Jennifer guides you through a breathtaking tour of skepticism in the broad sense of the term. Her history spans across millennia, but also extends far beyond western societies, with chapters on Buddha, Zen, Medieval thinkers, and ancient Judaism. But in what sense, exactly, is a scholar of the Torah, for instance, a skeptic? What is the relationship between skepticism and religious belief? If the latter is simply a particular type of superstition, isn’t a religious skeptic an oxymoron?
The Happiness Myth is another example of Jennifer’s iconoclasm, showing how the very concept of happiness has changed dramatically both in time and across cultures, to the point that it may make little sense to simply ask “are you happy”? There are chapters on drugs, money, our ever changing and complex relationship to our bodies, as well as on the importance of celebrations. Some parts of the book are skeptical, perhaps overly so, of the findings of science (for instance concerning eating and exercise habits), but again Jennifer manages to provide much material for reflection to her readers.
We are very much looking forward to chatting with Jennifer Michael Hecht, and we welcome your comments and questions concerning her writings, including of course her poetry.
"isn’t a religious skeptic an oxymoron"
ReplyDeleteIsn't a materialist skeptic equally oxymoronic?
We want to explain our consistent and orderly conscious experiences, so we posit that they are caused by a consistent and orderly physical world.
But then what explains the consistency and order of the physical world?
If the answer is "that's just the way the physical world is," then why not just make the same fiat declaration about our conscious experiences and judge the problem as solved there - without introducing all of the extra machinery of the physical world?
Why not just say: Our conscious experiences exist fundamentally and uncaused. There is no reason that they're orderly and consistent, they just are that way.
Forgive my schoolmarmish response, but since we are talking about a poet after all, I think it's worth noting that "oxymoron" wasn't supposed to mean "self contradiction." Linguistics makes it clear that you can't fight the current of usage, but I think we should build sandbars around words that are worth saving, words that don't have elegant replacements, such as "disinterested" which once meant "without self-interest" and not "uninterested." I mourn that word, because "selfless" just doesn't fill the void. A good word, now lost. So an oxymoron is a literary device meant to create greater meaning, not less. It has since been undone by the thrill of smuggling the word "moron" into your prose and jokes about "military intelligence." Parting with the original sense of "oxymoron" is such sweet sorrow.
ReplyDelete@Allen, if you are trying to argue for naive idealism, then I would encourage you to fully commit to that notion. Many religious/spiritualist apologists trout out this type of argument which is really about fundamental doubt (something that is intractable), but then they quickly dispense with their doubt and make all sorts of outlandish claims (i.e., Jesus is Lord, everything is consciousness). If you really think it's a productive world view that "conscious experience exist fundamentally and uncaused" then you should stay in that mental space and live the necessarily resulting meaningless solipsistic life. However, if you find yourself expecting the permanence of objects or want to rely on the advice of others, or even take other people's existence seriously, then you are actually admitting an external reality. Scientific Realism is an honest broker in this regard, and not a convenient use of doubt on Monday but not on Sunday.
ReplyDelete@OneDayMore: Place 'solipsistic' to the right of 'meaningless' with care. I am one of those apologists you cite, simply because to have it any other way is a form of human solipsism, i.e. the belief that humans are the be-all and end-all of ____-all.
ReplyDeleteJust as humans created stuff, humans were created, get over it. Whether it was a bunch of corporations with god-like powers or gods with corporate mentalities is a matter for debate. And to those who can bear to sprinkle a little Hegel on their evolutionary theory, it all sort of works out.
And its 'trot' not 'trout'.
@DaveS I don't understand your post. Are you saying that realism is "human solipsism"? You can't mean that, because realism is literally the opposite of solipsism. Secondly, are you suggesting that somebody holds that humans were not "created"? I don't know anyone who makes such a claim, except, perhaps, a naive idealist (of which there are no serious proponents). At any rate, I'm going to try to come up with a post that's actually on topic.
ReplyDelete@OneDayMore:
ReplyDeleteYou seem to imply that I have free will, and that I can decide to live a meaningless solipsistic life or decide to become a good scientific realist.
But any decision must be either caused or uncaused.
If it the decision is uncaused, then nothing more can be said about it. Things which have no cause have no explanation. If choices are uncaused, then they are just random. No free will.
If the decision is caused, then what caused the cause? And what caused the cause of the cause? And so on. The decision is a link in a causal chain which must eventually be traced outside the person making the choice. No free will.
Going further: But what caused that whole causal chain? Why that causal chain instead of some other? Why do any causal chains exist at all? Why not nothingness?
Ultimately, I think you have to conclude that there is no reason for anything. There is no explanation. And where there is no explanation, there can be no meaning. Only the *experience* of meaning exists.
This is the clear outcome of taking scientific realism seriously, isn’t it?
What caused you to be a scientific realist? And what caused that cause? Eventually we have to say that given the initial conditions of the universe plus the laws of physics (which may have a probabilistic “quantum” aspect), you had *no choice* but to be a scientific realist.
In this view, every belief you currently hold and every experience you have is a direct result of two, and only two, things: the universe's initial conditions and physical laws.
Once those were fixed, you were fixed - locked in place by unbreakable causal chains.
And this is just scratching the surface of what you get into when you convert to the religion of Scientific Realism. Wait until we discuss functionalism and multiple realizability. Also, you are aware of the issues that physicalism has involving Boltzmann Brains and the retrodictions of statistical mechanics when applying the Principle of Indifference to the universe’s current macrostate, right?
I suspect that you haven’t fully thought through all of the implications of your position.
I'm very excited that JMH is going to be on your podcast! I read both of her books mentioned when I was in college and I would say that, along with Camus, JMH is one of the greatest influences on my whole outlook on life.
ReplyDeleteI recently re-read both of the books mentioned and found them to be as thought-provoking upon a second reading as they were on a first. I also follow her blogging on Best American Poetry and Dear Fonzie and find that in addition to always making me think, she has an infectious joie de vivre! I hope to get my hands on her other books soon. I can't wait to hear the podcast!
@Allen These are all familiar arguments to me. Basic Christian apologetics punctuated with a flourish of what you suppose to be intimidating references.
ReplyDeleteSo, let's start with this. Should it be the case that Scientific Realism leads logically and inevitably to no meaning, no free will, and (I'm assuming you would add) no morality, then that would be, sorry to say, your problem and not mine. Just because we don't like where reason is leading us doesn't mean we get to avoid those conclusions. Most theists attack scientific realism by leading to an argument from ignorance. You've only partially presented the case, so what you have accidentally done is argued from distaste. Which helps me make my next point.
But, I would like to pause to reassure you that the scientific world is actually full of free will, morality and meaning, but you will only be able to understand that once you abandon some of your preconceptions about the role of logic in understanding that world.
If you want to marshal logic to attack realism, why do you not also use logic to attack your concept of God? (Or the ever permeating consciousness if you are a spiritualist like @DaveS) Why are you only content to get to a point of what you find to be an untenable conclusions with SR? This is what I mean about doubt on Monday but not Sunday. There are plenty of equally amusing logic games we can play with the notion of God. To me the most relevant would be:
Your rule: "Things which have no cause have no explanation." So God has no explanation. But God is the cause of everything, so everything has no explanation. Oh look, we're at the place you find so disturbing about Scientific Realism. And you've gotten there without all the wonderful things science can offer, like computers and medicine.
@OneDayMore:
ReplyDeletePoint 0: Like your disgust at the perversion of 'disinterested'. Similarly appreciate how 'religious skeptic' need not be an oxymoron using subtler, if unpopular, definitions of oxymoron.
Point 1: Agreed that by definition realism is the opposite of solipsism, but I do mean what I say because the definition of solipsism was twisted from a perspective of a single human to include all humans. I often do this when trying to explain some information flow as relates to humans and gods. Here, information is defined as the stuff we are all made of. Others call it matter, energy or some mixture thereof. Information as rollup for matter, energy, and other things thrives in a field some call digital physics. See Lloyd, Chalmers, Peake, Schmidhuber, Tegmark, and of course Wheeler for more info. As Chalmers likes to say, the ONLY thing you can say is real is your consciousness. One more argument that anything conceivable is possible. As both Tegmark and Wheeler said in an uncut version of their article in Scientific American Feb 2001, we need to think of the universe in 3 parts: (numbers mine) "(1) the object under consideration and (2) everything else (referred to as the environment). To understand processes such as measurement, we need to include a third subsystem as well: (3) the subject, the mental state of the observer" Tegmark is now saying that any mathematical structure forces the 'existence' of a corresponding physical structure. He has his reasons for saying this and if true, yet another argument for conceivability implying possibility......
Anyway back on topic, I guess....
Point 2: Not following what you are saying here. I was referring to evolution vs creationism. There may be a philosophical debate going on not readily apparent to me in this thread but creationism states that us life was created by a 'higher' entity or set of entities. Many are happy to 'square the circle' and allow evolutionary processes to coexist with creationism.
@CamusDude Now I'm looking forward to the podcast too. Is there a question you would have them ask her?
ReplyDelete@DaveS Thanks for your explanation. Personally, I don't find David Chalmers very interesting, and your paraphrase of him is the cogito plus a shrug. My overall point is that Scientific Realism takes the fundamental doubt that must come from our position in the universe (tiny parts of an immensely larger whole) and incorporates it, not only at the beginning of the project but throughout the entire process. All conclusions are subject to doubt at all times. All knowledge is provisional. Doubt is part of the compass by which science steers. As opposed to the idealist (I'm attacking the most artless form of idealism here, creationism) who says, "without God we cannot be certain" and then sails in one direction and one direction only without another look at the compass. I know whose ship I want to be on.
Similarly, spiritual idealists seem very eager to embrace esoteric theories as proof of what usually amounts to magical thinking. "Quantum mechanics is weird, ergo all is mind." Or "information appears to be a fundamental aspect of matter, ergo consciousness controls matter." What's wrong with that? Well usually the science is completely misrepresented and the conclusions drawn are just wrong. It's like saying, "science tells us that water is sometimes ice, sometimes liquid and sometimes steam, therefore we can choose to be liquid solid or gas." Seems absurd, but it's actually a fairly close analog to the reasoning that is being employed. You would be wise to ask our water spiritualist why he thinks we are like water. You could also ask him why he's ignoring all the things that science tells us about temperature and pressure in controlling the phase. Similarly, I would ask you to question whether or not the number of bits that can be contained in a given amount of matter really relates to your desire to feel that conceivability equals possibility.
@OneMoreDay: Perhaps I should have made it more explicit that I’m not arguing for a religious position. I am a realist about conscious experience, but nothing else.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I started as a scientific realist. But eventually abandoned that view due to the issues I’ve already mentioned, as well as others.
My problem isn’t with the scientific part of “scientific realism”, but the realist part. Which is to say that my problem isn’t with methodological naturalism, but rather with metaphysical naturalism.
I agree with DaveS in that the main problem I see with scientific realism is that it has no explanation for conscious experience.
While it seems entirely reasonable to me that the contents of my conscious can be represented by quarks and electrons arranged in particular ways, and that by changing the structure of this arrangement over time in the right way one could also represent how the contents of my experience changes over time.
However, there is nothing in my conception of quarks or electrons (in particle or wave form) nor in my conception of arrangements and representation that would lead me to predict beforehand that such arrangements would give rise to anything like experiences of pain or anger or what it's like to see red.
Thinking along these lines, about arrangements of matter and representation, is where you run into problems with functionalism and multiple realizability.
But, if someone can point out what I'm missing, I'm perfectly willing to change my views. But I don't find Dennett-style fiat declarations that "consciousness is an illusion" to be the least bit convincing. If consciousness is an illusion, then why isn't it correct to conclude that everything that I am aware of via conscious experience is *also* an illusion?
If consciousness is an illusion, then what I'm conscious *of* must also be an illusion, right? If not, why not?
Though, as I mentioned in my earlier posts, scientific realism has other serious problems as well. The point made in my first post for instance...if the physical world explains the orderliness and consistency of my conscious experience, what explains the orderliness and consistency of the physical world? You explained consciousness in terms of something which itself has no explanation. Well done.
And then there's my second post. If the general picture painted by scientific realism is correct, then our beliefs and experiences are determined entirely by the universe's initial conditions and it's physical laws (which may be probabilistic). Causality happens at the level of fundamental laws governing the actions of fundamental entities. Causality happens from the bottom up, in other words. There is no downwards causation, only upwards causation.
Since humans aren't fundamental entities (like quarks and electrons), and we certainly aren't fundamental laws (like electromagnetism and gravity), we have no causal role to play. Our conscious experiences are side-effects of more fundamental causal processes.
If this is true, you aren't even an actor in a play. Rather, you are a character. And like a character in a play, everything that you know, and feel, and discover is entirely a function of the script.
Which is fine. My own beliefs don't lead anywhere better. But, they don't lead anywhere worse either. And I think that's the point that you're missing.
The world is not "actually full of free will, morality, and meaning." It is full of the *experience* of these things. Full of the *belief* in these things. But morality and meaning? Where are those in the list of fundamental particles and fundamental forces? Show me.
And a final point: If the physical universe can "just exist", fundamentally and uncaused - then why can't conscious experience "just exist" fundamentally and uncaused?
@Allen Okay, NOW we have the argument from ignorance.
ReplyDelete@Allen:"there is nothing in my conception of quarks or electrons ...that would lead me to predict beforehand that such arrangements would give rise to anything like experiences of pain or anger or what it's like to see red."
Again, your problem not mine. Just because we don't have a sub atomic particle that accounts for consciousness (and we never will) doesn't mean you get to throw out reality with the bath water. I really think all these problems would be resolved for you if you looked at the sciences of embryology and evolution instead of quantum physics. Why do you so blithely jump over those? And in doing so, why don't you recognize that you aren't proving the irreducibility of consciousness, you are actually proving that it consciousness is, in fact, NOT a fundamental thing. It's even less important than you want it to be. Consciousness is to matter what music is to noise: inherently subjective. NOT fundamental. Remember, a conscious being is assembled neuron by neuron following self-assembly instructions which themselves have been assembled over millennia of natural selection. The interaction of reproduction and the natural world has shaped these processes. This is how the cake is baked. The final touch on the cake is consciousness. Now suddenly you want to claim the cake and the baking are not real and the icing is irreducible. And you would be right, there is no single "icing" quark. One wouldn't look at that level for icing. One would do better to look at the chemical level. Similarly with consciousness. The brain is the level at which one should look for consciousness. And that's also where you will find morality.
A question for Massimo or Julia to ask JMH - I honestly hadn't thought of that! I think I need some inspiration now to think up a really good question. We'll see in an hour or so if I happen to come up with anything! :D
ReplyDeleteWell, it's way more than an hour later and no profound questions that I would ask JMH. Maybe I'd ask her, and Massimo too, their thoughts on the works of Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, and Albert Camus - some individuals who's work I find insightful and inspiring.
ReplyDeleteWhere am I making an argument from ignorance? I am not asserting or denying the existence of anything based on lack of proof.
ReplyDeleteI am saying that physicalism doesn’t offer any explanation of conscious experience, and doesn’t seem likely to do so. Even if it did, asserting that a physical world explains consciousness doesn’t answer any questions, because every question I have about consciousness can equally well be asked about the physical world.
If the physical world can “just exist”, then so can conscious experience. If not, why not?
Further, speaking of logical fallacies, you are begging the question with your response. The question is, why do you believe that a physical world underlies our conscious experience?
Claiming that neurons and evolution form the foundation of your belief in an external world is begging the question, since neurons and evolution are both aspects of an external world. Without an external world, there can be no neurons or evolution...so they can’t form the basis of your belief in an external world.
I skip over embryology and evolution because in a Scientific Realist framework statements about embryos and evolution *must* reduce to statements about quarks and quantum mechanics. Right?
You said:
“Consciousness is to matter what music is to noise: inherently subjective. NOT fundamental.”
So that is exactly the question. Why would objectively existing aggregates of quarks and electrons *have* a subjective point of view?
How do you get conscious experience out of unconscious matter?
As for conscious experience not being fundamental, it is undeniably epistemologically fundamental, right? What we know, we know only through conscious experience. We have no direct knowledge of the world, only with our experiences of it.
So why can’t conscious experience be ontologically fundamental as well?
@OneDayMore
ReplyDeleteNo prob with Paragraph 1 of your July 07, 2010 5:09 PM post with its doubtfulness and provisionality, except you don't address the objective nature of scientific realism. That is what I am saying is bogus. Science has observers, and they count.
Another issue with Scientific Realism and pretty much any other non-informational philosophy in use today is that it tends to the human-centric side. Allen speaks of consciousness as if it is one person's alone, and this is how most classical students would approach it. But there is no reason we cannot look at two humans as a single 'live' physical unit, or any group of people or entities as a single live unit. Pick Scientific Empiricism instead, it will get you farther, and may even lead you to pancomputationalism, which is where I would hope serious thinkers about this stuff end up.
Morally and ethically, I'm with secularists and humanists, and say we have to build a better world for ourselves, even if you believe in no god and I believe in all possible gods on Tuesday, some of whom had to be replaced on Thursday due to LeBron James not going to Chicago where Obama wanted him.
In the 3nd paragraph from the same post, you say
Well usually the science is completely misrepresented and the conclusions drawn are just wrong.
This is so key. I would rephrase this to "Everything is always misrepresented to some degree, and that conclusion drawn are just drawn." They are neither right nor wrong.
Lastly and longly off-topic, while Shannon did great work - some of which I understand, my take on information has nothing to do with bits of information. I think that:
Sender ----> Information ---> Receiver
can coexist with the idea that all is information, the senders and receivers are contextual in terms of specific info being passed, but they too are information in some other context. E.g. if you say something to me then you are the sender, I am the receiver, and the info is what you said. But one molecule can be sending info to another molecule as well, one atom to another. Similarly, one family can pass information to another, one civilization to another...
If one indeed goes along with empiricism, not 'realism', and understands that all is simply point of view, then it stands to reason that everything that we perceive is not all from the seemingly real external world, nor are all our perceptions from within.
Unlike Tegmark's "All is mathematics", if one says "All is information", then we need to react to all known information about gods, aliens, voodoo, and you-name-it, much of which has been dismissed by right-thinking westerners but remains as information today, therefore it has value. Because we wrongly assign objective truth to stuff, we discount the relevance of gods, aliens, voodoo, and you-name-it. But lose that pesky concept of objectivity or reality, and you find a world where if something is true for you, that's good enough.
@Allen says, "...the main problem I see with scientific realism is that it has no explanation for conscious experience."
ReplyDeleteThis is the argument from ignorance. Just because science doesn't explain consciousness to your satisfaction doesn't mean that consciousness is all that is real. In fact, it could mean the exact opposite.
Look, there are a lot of things beside consciousness that are irreducible. There are no pun quarks, how does science account for puns? Do you also claim that puns are the only thing that are real? I think DaveS might.
"Without an external world, there can be no neurons or evolution...so they can’t form the basis of your belief in an external world." This is true. It is also absurd. It is a position that you don't actually hold. You behave as though there were an external reality every second of your life. Unless you intend to stay in that absurd place you have to make either the minimal assumption: there is something behind my sense data. Or you can make a preposterous and self serving assumption: "all is consciousness" "nothing beyond thought is real" "I am all there is" "I exist in God's mind," etc. In order to maintain any sort of idealist absolutism, you have to conjure up contrived stories: brains in vats, the plot of the Matrix makes some sort of sense, evil geniuses etc. Science, on the other hand, can build from that tiny grain of faith "there is something other than just this 'what-it's-likeness.' That's how you get things like the computer on which you read this. Pragmatically, scientific realism kicks everybody else's butt.
"I skip over embryology and evolution because in a Scientific Realist framework statements about embryos and evolution *must* reduce to statements about quarks and quantum mechanics. Right?"
ReplyDeleteNo, not at all. Embryos are built out of smaller things, of course, but that does not mean the smaller things equal embryos. Complexity is built up out of the parts. An atom is not a molecule or a crystal; a genome is not an embryo or a concert pianist.
"every question I have about consciousness can equally well be asked about the physical world."
I don't think this is true at all. I think you have only one question about consciousness: where does it come from? Other than that, you have no interesting things to say about the subject at all...unless you want to admit an external reality.
"Just because science doesn't explain consciousness to your satisfaction doesn't mean that consciousness is all that is real. In fact, it could mean the exact opposite. "
ReplyDeleteI know consciousness is real, because I have direct access to it. The existence of consciousness is the *only* thing that I can't doubt, as in Descartes Cogito argument.
If consciousness is an illusion, then why wouldn't everything that I perceive via consciousness also be dismissed an illusory? I made this point above.
The existence of conscious experience is a known fact. Not inferred. Thus, there is no argument from ignorance there.
I don't need science to know that consciousness exists - science just needs to provide an explanation for its *obvious* existence within the same framework that it uses to explain everything else. "Explaining" it by denying its existence is pretty weak stuff.
I think you frequently confuse "description" with "explanation".
As for puns, which depend on meanings of words, that brings us to the Symbol Grounding Problem.
I would say that meaning is just an aspect of conscious experience. There is no meaning outside of the conscious experience of it.
"You behave as though there were an external reality every second of your life."
We've already discussed this also. You are implying that I have free will. That I could "choose" to behave otherwise. But this isn't true of my position or of Scientific Realism. Free will is an incoherent concept. See previous comments.
"In order to maintain any sort of idealist absolutism, you have to conjure up contrived stories"
I don't have to conjure up contrived stories. Conscious experience is all that exists. It is fundamental and uncaused. It's not that complicated a concept.
Basically I'm just hypostatizing the skeptical view. Epistemically, the only thing we can be certain of is that our experience of this moment exists.
Therefore, ontologically, the safest conclusion is that only the experience of this moment exists.
"Science, on the other hand, can build from that tiny grain of faith"
Starting from a tiny grain of faith you can use reason to build all sorts of fantastical edifices. As Kant pointed out, the problem isn't that we can infer too little about the "underlying" nature of reality...the problem is that we can infer too much. Too many internally consistent but mutually contradictory frameworks can be fabricated...all of which involve some "necessary" or "self-caused" being (e.g., God, the Universe, etc.) bootstrapping itself into existence and then kicking the whole Rube-Goldbergian contraption into motion.
"That's how you get things like the computer on which you read this"
Again, if scientific realism is right, it's not man's scientific prowess that gave us computers. Our possession of computers would be due solely to the initial conditions and causal laws of the universe. In a deterministic framework, they were inevitable. In an indeterministic framework, we got lucky on the probibilistic rolls of the quantum dice.
We're just puppets, going through the motions that physics dictates for us in the form of fundamental laws acting on fundamental entities. As I said earlier, not even actors in a play, but rather just characters. Everything that we believe, experience, and discover is just a result of what's in the script.
"Complexity is built up out of the parts."
In a physicalist framework, things are the sum of their parts. No more, no less. Everything reduces to initial conditions and fundamental laws acting on fundamental entities.
You're trying to bend scientific realism into something that it's not.
@Allen You are at the bottom of a dark little well that only has the radius of the cogito. Cogito, cogito ergo what? And just like Descartes, you can't answer for even the "ergo." You hide in this well because you are afraid of the scientists who want to take away your free will and turn you into a puppet.
ReplyDeleteBut you don't need to be afraid. Your causality argument died with LaPlace. I don't understand why you insist on holding an 18th century view of materialism, and "initial causes." Try googling "chaos theory." Really, you can come out of that well, and everything will be just fine. We've got all sorts of cool things out here like other minds.
"The existence of conscious experience is a known fact. Not inferred. Thus, there is no argument from ignorance there."
Logically invalid argument: Science cannot account for consciousness, THEREFORE consciousness is all that is real. I'm sorry, I can't make it any clearer. The conclusion does not follow. It's logic 101.
However, if you are now making the EMPIRICAL claim that you have an experience of consciousness, then you must admit that consciousness is NOT a "known fact." Sense data are the known fact. The "I" part of your vaunted "consciousness" could also be an illusion of the evil genius. The "subject" of the sense data at this moment may not be the same one as a moment ago. But you do make the assumption that the "I" is continuous. But for no good reason you don't extend that courtesy to other "I"s. Of course, you can't, because once there are other "I"s then you have the possibility of science. In fact, if you even admit the continuity of the self, I would argue, you can have science. But you don't like science, because you've decided it makes you into a puppet.
"If consciousness is an illusion, then why wouldn't everything that I perceive via consciousness also be dismissed an illusory?" Consciousness is not the same thing as "sense data." You see, you probably don't experience ANYTHING "via consciousness." What you have is a complex of systems of neurons that are reacting to stimuli. This is what "cogito" is. Cogito is at least one synapse and a signal.
"Therefore, ontologically, the safest conclusion is that only the experience of this moment exists."
This is a nice little koan, but it bores the crap out of me. What's more, you don't actually conduct yourself with this being the sum total of your cosmology. That's your own business, but please don't use this as your license to make all sorts of claims about the actual world the rest of us live in.
And really, really don't say,
"You're trying to bend scientific realism into something that it's not."
After trotting out an archaic materialistic world view, and especially after making the utterly unfounded claim that
"Everything reduces to initial conditions and fundamental laws acting on fundamental entities."
This is a tired technique of spiritualist deception. It's the opposite of a straw man argument. It is what I call the "false test." You set a grandiose claim for what science aught to do, and then say science has failed to pass your test. That we do not have a fundamental theory of everything doesn't mean we don't know anything about the world.
@OneMoreDay
ReplyDeleteYou are knocking down Allen's arguments but as Allen says, you still do not describe the world, even after you expand the consciousness of one person to the consciousness of many.
Trying, but I see nothing in your posts that makes sense of the objective, or real things. This Scientific Realism is a moribund theory, and you cannot seem to defend it. It is as passe as skepticism precisely because it uses language like 'real', which also cannot be defended.
Forget what others say. Just give me a stronger argument for an arbitrarily bounded reality oblivious to the senses of all outside the drawn boundary.
"You hide in this well because you are afraid of the scientists who want to take away your free will and turn you into a puppet."
ReplyDeleteIf you actually read my previous comments, you’ll see that I’ve pointed out several times that neither your position nor mine allows for free will. So, I am not afraid of scientists trying to take that away from me.
"Your causality argument died with LaPlace. I don't understand why you insist on holding an 18th century view of materialism, and 'initial causes.' Try googling 'chaos theory.'"
Sigh. Chaos theory is the study of the behavior of *deterministic* dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. It has nothing to do with free will. Google it.
Also, Paul Davies on free will:
"Physicists often fire the opening salvo against free will. In the classical Newtonian scheme, the universe is a gigantic clockwork mechanism, slavishly unfolding according to deterministic laws. How then does a free agent act? There is simply no room in this causally closed system for an immaterial mind to bend the paths of atoms without coming into conflict with physical law. Nor does the famed indeterminacy of quantum mechanics help minds to gain purchase on the material world. Quantum uncertainty cannot create freedom. Genuine freedom requires that our wills determine our actions reliably."
Albert Einstein:
"I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper."
Gerard 't Hooft (Nobel Prize in physics in 1999):
"Why worry at all about a notion so flimsy as 'free will' in a theory of physics? Imagine you are holding a cup of coffee. I can't change my mind in an instant about whether to drink the coffee or hurl it across the room. My decision must have roots in brain processes that occurred in the past. As a determined determinist I would say that yes, you bet, an experimenter's choice what to measure was fixed from the dawn of time, and so were the properties of the thing he decided to call a photon. If you believe in determinism, you have to believe it all the way. No escape possible. Conway and Kochen have shown here in a beautiful way that a half-hearted belief in pseudo-determinism is impossible to sustain."
"Logically invalid argument: Science cannot account for consciousness, THEREFORE consciousness is all that is real. I'm sorry, I can't make it any clearer. The conclusion does not follow. It's logic 101."
You accused me of making an argument from ignorance. I pointed out that this was not the case. So, in response you are committing the logical fallacy of reductio ad ridiculum, the appeal to ridicule. Nice.
"This is a nice little koan, but it bores the crap out of me."
And...?
"What's more, you don't actually conduct yourself with this being the sum total of your cosmology."
I’ve already addressed this point twice. Remember? Free will? Just go back and re-read those responses.
"You set a grandiose claim for what science aught to do, and then say science has failed to pass your test."
There's the methodology of science and then there's your self proclaimed position of Scientific Realism. The two are not the same, but you keep conflating them.
Based on what you've said in this thread, I don’t think you understand either position.
DaveS
ReplyDeleteWhen someone like Descartes engages in systematic doubt, he's not doing it because he actually believes we are mistaken in our general understanding of the world, but because he wants to get to an Archimedean point from which to found his epistemology. You and Allen are taking this doubt not as a thought experiment but as a physics proof that nothing exists save some unaccounted for thing called "consciousness." I agree that science aught to account for consciousness, but I don' agree that whether or not it does (at this point) is important in any existential way.
DaveS You are right, I don't expand the world after I expand to other minds. I haven't worked it out stepwise, because I find the project tiresome. I think it's monumentally backwards. I am comfortable saying there seems to be other minds (including the mind I had a moment ago) and I can interact with them to create an expanding model of reality. Instead of turtles, it's science all the way down.
So, @Allen you are wrong; I don't conflate the methodology of science with Scientific Realism. The one leads to the other from the second you decide you are not everything. You are attempting to separate the inseparable. Such an odd world you live in where everything is consciousness but then you use the scientific method.
So, if I am an "I" there might be another "I". Including the "I" that I was. This basic assumption is so much more honest than what I think most consciousness worshipers do. Which is to throw epistemological sand in people's eyes so no one (often even themselves) will notice that they are stacking the deck to get to Deepok Chopra and Homeopathy land. The hubris of trying to extend your subjective experience until it fills the universe makes me gag a little.
@Allen you are right, I don't understand your argument about free will. First you say:
"Once those were fixed, you were fixed - locked in place by unbreakable causal chains. And this is just scratching the surface of what you get into when you convert to the religion of Scientific Realism."
But then you say " that neither your position nor mine allows for free will."
If it's a problem for both of us, what is your point? Because you only seem to bring it up when I make an argument you can't actually counter. At any rate, your quotes nicely make the point that the status of "free will" one way or another doesn't present a problem for scientists. If science leads to no free will than so be it.
@Allen You are also right, I don't understand chaos theory. If there is no conceivable LaPlace computer that could predict any outcome, then I don't know what determinism means.
So then, to your initial question:
"Why not just say: Our conscious experiences exist fundamentally and uncaused. There is no reason that they're orderly and consistent, they just are that way."
I would answer thus:
1) You are trying to smuggle the word "conscious" into an epistemological space where it does not belong. Only primitive sense data is unmediated and "just the this-ness." You don't even have the "I" of consciousness. If you are going to admit that you exist, then you only need to admit the possibility of someone else. Remember the word "solipsism" we all had to go look up?
2) One shouldn't "just" say that, because it's a nonsensical unproductive thing to say and one that no person including yourself actual believes. When I challenge you on this point you start talking about "free will." As though your inability to choose your behavior exonerates you from explaining it.
OneDayMore:
ReplyDelete"I don't conflate the methodology of science with Scientific Realism. The one leads to the other from the second you decide you are not everything."
If you just want to build better computers, all you need is the methodology of science. Scientific realism is a purely optional leap of faith that assigns ontological existence to the theoretical terms of the mathematical equations that result from the application of that methodology.
And it’s a leap of faith I’m not willing to make. Especially considering the strange implications you have to deal with when you land.
For instance, the issues that physicalism has involving Boltzmann Brains and the retrodictions of statistical mechanics when applying the Principle of Indifference to the universe’s current macrostate.
Scientific Realism is rife with conceptual problems...which, again, are only problems if you take that leap of faith.
I prefer Immanuel Kant’s view (articulated in the Critique of Pure Reason, 1781) that the fundamental laws of nature, like the truths of mathematics, are knowable precisely because they make no effort to describe the world as it really is but rather describe the structure of the world as we experience it. Math and science are certainly true of the phenomenal world, whereas metaphysics claims to instruct us about what "really exists" behind our perceptions.
Of course, Kant believed that there was something behind our perceptions, but he felt that because of the way we process sensory information, we can’t know anything about how things really are...we can only know about our internal models of the world.
And this is surprisingly compatible the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Well, maybe not that surprising, as Niels Bohr was quite familiar with Kant’s work. Google it!
If it's a problem for both of us, what is your point?
I don’t have a problem with free will. I’m fine with that. You asked, "Why do you act as if a real world exists, if you don’t believe that it does."
And my response is: I act the way I act. I don’t get to choose. There is no free will. Why don’t I act crazy? There is no reason - I just don’t (usually).
then I don't know what determinism means
Determinism is about certainty, not about predictability. There are some computer programs about which it is *impossible* to predict whether they will ever "halt".
The only way to know whether those programs will halt is to run them and see.
However, because they are deterministic, if a program halts the first time you run it, it will halt every time you run it. You can know that with 100% certainty, because computers are deterministic.
Chaos theory just deals with a class of systems that are extremely sensitive to initial conditions. Change the initial conditions a little, the result changes a lot. That’s it. Nothing else.
If the initial conditions are the same, the results will be the same. End of story.
Okay, I'm almost out of room.
In closing, I'll just reiterate:
I don't think you've thought through all of the implications of Scientific Realism, and I don't really think your criticism of my position is very well informed.
@Allen You are right. My criticism of your position is not well informed. You are the one who has attempted to inform me of it, and you got me, I can't make heads or tails of it.
ReplyDeleteYou've cobbled together a quantum-yet-deterministic-yet probabilistic cosmological argument about initial conditions. You assert that consciousness is primary yet we come by our consciousness through an inevitable causal chain. I don't think there is even an intelligible notion of consciousness in your world. What can subjective experience even be if everything is inevitable? And why am I, the scientific realist, arguing thusly? I mean, why on earth, would someone who doesn't like physicalism attack it from the starting point that we are all puppets to initial conditions? You win, I give up.