About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Thursday, June 07, 2012

In defense of superstition?


by Massimo Pigliucci

These are interesting times for a philosopher. More and more economists want to tell us what to value and how much, and psychologists want to tell us what we should value and why — almost makes you want to become a neuro-economist! Take economics for instance. As Michael Sandel has argued in his recent book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, economics textbooks used to define their subject matter more or less this way: “the world of prices, wages, interest rates, stocks and bonds, banks and credit, taxes and expenditure.” More recently, however, economists have abandoned themselves to much broader statements, such as: “There is no mystery to what an ‘economy’ is. An economy is just a group of people interacting with one another as they go about their lives.” [Both quotes from Sandel, referencing actual economics textbooks; pp. 205-206]

As Sandel argues, this means that at least some economists see their sphere of influence expanded to the totality of human interactions and the principles that underlie it. Even though they deny it, economists therefore are embedding moral values into market considerations. While Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (co-authors of the wildly successful, if questionable, Freakonomics) say that “[Economics] simply doesn’t traffic in morality. Morality represents the way we would like the world to work, and economics represents how it actually does work” [quoted in Sandel, p. 213], this is simply not the case: talking about markets in this broader sense simply cannot be done without talking about ethics.

Sandel does an excellent job at deconstructing the current “markets are better at everything” craze, and clearly shows why there are some things that money cannot buy, and others that it shouldn’t be allowed to, thereby reclaiming space for moral philosophy at the high table of our conversation about what kind of world we want and how best to get there.

But this post isn’t about Sandel or Levitt and Dubner. It’s about an analogous trend from the cognitive sciences.* This trend has manifested itself in a variety of topics that we have touched upon repeatedly at Rationally Speaking, such as the denial of human volition (“free will”), the denial of the existence of consciousness, the rejection of morality itself, and even the recent conclusion by some physicists that the world isn’t made of things, but only of relations (relations between what, one would immediately want to ask?). A recent New York Times article captured this trend under the general label of “Can’t-Help-Yourself-Books,” but another piece in the same paper actually argued that we can help ourselves, and that one way to do it is to reject the stigma about superstition.

The piece in question is by Matthew Hutson, author of the forthcoming "The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane" (note the number 7 in the title, it’s a magical one...) One such “law,” according to Hutson, is that “people tend to put stock in: the idea that ‘luck is in your hands,’” i.e. that we can causally affect the universe by way of simple behaviors, such as rituals, or the sort of things we wear.

Indeed, Hutson cites research showing that said “law” of superstition works, in a sense. Not because knocking on wood really pushes away bad luck (whatever that would be), or because praying to higher powers will keep you safe from a terrorist attack. Instead, what happens is that people who, say, play golf with balls they have been told are “lucky” outperform players who have been given just regular balls (which, of course, are actually no different from the lucky ones).Or consider the case of Israeli secular women who cope better — in terms of stress and self-confidence — with the possibility of a suicide bomber compared to women who didn’t pray.

This is, of course, a type of placebo effect, which is also well known to work, within very restricted limits. And in fact it is precisely the analogy with placebos in medicine that I want to explore a bit further to understand why I have a problem with encouraging people to be superstitious.

To begin with, there actually is evidence that the way superstition works is precisely analogous to the placebo effect. Research carried out by Lysann Damisch, Barbara Stoberock, and Thomas Mussweiler of the University of Cologne (and which is detailed in my forthcoming Answers for Aristotle) did confirm a measurable effect of “lucky” vs. regular balls on people trying to accomplish a particular task. But their elegantly designed set of experiments was able to dissect the causal links underlying the way superstition worked, and the moral of the story is that the causal chain looks something like this:

You believe in superstition; You engage in superstitious behavior; This increases your level of self-confidence ; This in turns causes you to persist longer at the task; You are therefore more likely to succeed, other things being equal.

In other words, it is persistence at the task that is the active causal link, everything else is window dressing. Now, surely we can encourage people to persist at a task without having to invent fables, yes?

A related issue is that — again as in the case of placebos — the positive effects of superstitious behavior are likely to be limited, which brings up the question of whether it is worthwhile, simply in terms of practical value, to encourage false beliefs in exchange for a small return. Such encouragement becomes even more problematic because of another, closely related issue, which Hutson acknowledges in the NYT article: “[this] isn’t to say magical thinking has no downside. At its worst, it can lead to obsession, fatalism or psychosis.” Right, just like taking homeopathic “medicine” when one is affected by cancer can (and will) lead to one’s death. Not to mention that people actually hold a number of superstitious beliefs that actually make their lives worse (just ask any fundamentalist Christian who thinks he is going to hell just because he has “impure” thoughts about women — talk about stress!).

But, Hutson argues, “without [superstition], the existential angst of realizing we’re just impermanent clusters of molecules with no ultimate purpose would overwhelm us.” I beg to differ. I know plenty of people who are not overwhelmed at all by the realization of the fact that we are, as Monty Python famously put it, “standing on a planet that’s evolving and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, that’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power.”

How do non-superstitious people do it? Many, I would guess, simply don’t pay much attention to the big questions in life, because they are busy coping with much more immediate problems here on earth. For some, the consolations of philosophy are a good defense, though of course there is meaning in family, friendships, one’s contribution to society, and so forth. And there are martinis and Prozac, if everything else fails (the latter two, though, do have their side effects).

Hutson tells us that research shows that even skeptics are superstitious: “One study found that a group of seemingly rational Princeton students nonetheless believed that they had influenced the Super Bowl just by watching it on TV. We are all mystics, to a degree.” Well, that bit didn’t impress me. Obviously the “seemingly rational” Princeton students were not particularly good examples of skeptics, unless they were playing a trick on the experimenters (that’s the problem with using undergraduates for psychology studies: they are cheap, but they are prone to pranks, and they may be able to figure out what the researchers want, acting out accordingly).

Hutson’s second law of magic — just to give you another taste — is the belief that everything happens for a reason, i.e. belief in destiny. This particular superstition is supposed to help to give (a false) meaning to our lives, because it makes it possible to weave together a coherent narrative about who we are and were we are going. But all human beings — superstitious or not — engage in narrative construction about their lives, to the point that we are better understood as the story telling and rationalizing (as opposed to rational) animal. And these narratives can take a variety of forms, many of which do not rely on the idea of destiny at all (moreover, even decidedly non-superstitious people can believe in destiny, just ask my fellow skeptics who don’t believe in free will).

Hutson concludes that “to believe in magic — as, on some deep level, we all do — does not make you stupid, ignorant or crazy. It makes you human.” Well, that it certainly does, but one of the things that also makes us human is our constant striving for bettering ourselves, sharpening our tools to understand (and, to an extent, control) the world in which we live. Which brings me to the last objection I have to the glorification of superstition: it is ethically questionable, to say the least.

Generally speaking, we do not think that lying is a good thing. I’m not making a Kantian argument here: if the Nazis are knocking at your door searching for the Jew you are hiding in your basement, by all means go ahead and lie to the bastards. I am, instead, taking a Sandel-like virtue ethics approach according to which lying — except under extreme circumstances — is an indication of a bad character. If it’s bad to lie to other people, it is at least as bad to lie to yourself (not an oxymoron, contra what some may think), which is what you do when you indulge in superstitious thinking.

This is an old chestnut of moral philosophy, famously described by Robert Nozick in his essay on the Experience Machine (and made far more famous by the blue/red pill scene in The Matrix). If we find it acceptable to lie to ourselves in order to make our life more bearable, or even downright pleasant, why not hook us up permanently to a pleasure machine (here is an example of one), take the blue pill, or simply take a variety of drugs already available on the market? If you think that these analogies are a bit over the top, just remember Marx’s (not Groucho) comment about religion being the opium of the masses (and incidentally a great means of control in the hands of governments and “spiritual” leaders).

So life is such that you won’t always win at golf, and the Middle East really is a place where you could be blown up by some fanatic (who, incidentally, is extremely superstitious). Well, perhaps your focus would better be directed toward solving these problems (practice with your putter, or work toward peace in the Middle East) rather than lulling yourself by means of a fantasy world. There are movies for that, and The Matrix is a pretty decent one.

____

* I have noticed for a while now that the early 21st century seems to be characterized by a trend of individual disciplines clamoring to expand their role, aspiring to a totalizing vision of things, or at least a vision where they play a prominent role. Physicists, of course, have been trying for a while to come up with a “theory of everything” (which wouldn’t be any such thing by a long shot, even if it succeeded); some evolutionary biologists want to expand Darwinism to every possible nook and cranny of the human experience, and look pretty silly while trying; neuroscientists are beginning to tell us everything that is relevant to understanding the human condition; and economists think their discipline deals with nothing less than the universal principles of human interactions. What the hell?

78 comments:

  1. To be fair, the "theory of everything" is poetic license. Physicists do sometimes try to expand their discipline too much, but seeking a theory of quantum gravity is not an example of this! The term sounds "totalizing" in the trivial sense that it purports to explain everything, but it's not totalizing in the sense you seem to mean, which is to suggest that other disciplines should be absorbed or displaced.

    And the term is accurate in one sense. If an accurate theory of quantum gravity were produced tomorrow, it could potentially be used to resolve all outstanding questions *at the level of fundamental physics* about what phenomena occur and why, and in the reductionist sense this *does* also underlie all other fields of science (which seems to be true even when the reductionist view is not itself very useful). I think just about every physicist understands that this is what as meant. Treating the "theory of everything" as if it meant to "explain everything" in the colloquial sense is a product of popular science (mis)communication, not an actual trend amongst physicists (AFAIK).

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    1. Sean,

      fair enough, though honestly I do not get the same sense of intellectual humbleness that I get from, say Steven Weinberg, Alex Rosenberg (not a physicist) or Stephen Hawking. I am reminded of this exchange between Penny and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory:

      In “The Work Song Nanocluster,” Sheldon volunteers to help Penny make her new “Penny Blossom” business enterprise become as profitable as possible. A bit surprised, Penny asks, “And you know about that stuff?” Sheldon, slightly scoffing, answers, “Penny, I’m a physicist. I have a working knowledge of the entire and everything it contains.” Rather annoyed, Penny asks a question to test Sheldon’s hypothesis: “Who’s Radiohead?” This time skipping many beats, Sheldon musters, “I have a working knowledge of the important things in the universe.”

      ;-)

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  2. Minor correction. Steven Levitt's co-author is Stephen Dubner, not Dabner.

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  3. We instinctively believe in the efficacy of hope. Such beliefs have allowed us to take more risks than the more rationally cautious would have advised. And risk takers over time have more success than the cautious. Superstitions are cultural artifacts of the way we've rationalized our hopes to add some substitutes for substance, to coin a phrase.
    A better way might be to simply tell yourself that if you feel lucky, you will be lucky. And you won't be lying. Persistence, as Massimo has recommended, is no effective substitute for that feeling.

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  4. Massimo,

    I agree with your primary thesis here, but I would like to make a tangential comment re Virtue Ethics.

    You write: "I am, instead, taking a Sandel-like virtue ethics approach according to which lying — except under extreme circumstances — is an indication of a bad character."

    I just do not see how virtue ethics is a very cogent ethical position. Here's the logic:

    S desires to be virtuous and, except for the obvious instances to the contrary, lying is not virtuous. Thus, S ought not to lie if S wants to be virtuous (again, saving for those contrary instances).

    So, it follows that S does not value truthfulness per se but rather only insofar as it relates to being virtuous. So, S does not lie only as a means to some end: being virtuous. But when asked what, exactly, does it mean to be virtuous, S will respond, in proper Aristotelian fashion: "Well, to be virtuous is to do virtuous things (and be raised virtuously so as to do these virtuous things naturally, that is, not begrudgingly), such as truthtelling, charity, kindness, self-regard, etc."

    But this is incoherent: S does not value truthtelling etc. per se, but rather as a means to some end. Yet the end that S values is constituted by the multitudinous means, which he does not actually value.

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  5. Hi Massimo,

    Thanks for your thoughtful critique of my article.

    You make a number of good points (which I also make in my book): Damish et al show that feeling lucky works by increasing self-efficacy; alternative medicine is dangerous if it replaces the evidence-based kind; antidepressants work wonders; telling a story of you life can enhance meaning; it is often bad to lie to yourself; magical thinking can lead to religious fanaticism; the boundaries of superstition's benefits are unclear.

    Here I'd like to clarify a few of my arguments that I did not have space to expand upon in the Times piece.

    You note the difficulties in generalizing from one group of Princeton students. I agree! I could only mention one study there, but my remark that "we are all mystics, to a degree" is based on many more. Take the research on judgment of causality. If A happens before B, A is related to B, and there are no other obvious causes of B, we suspect A caused B. (Even if A is a silly superstitious ritual or even a thought.) This is just a fundamental aspect of the way the brain works. There's no reason to believe that skeptics, even though we make efforts to question our intuitions, don't have such intuitions to begin with. Much of magical thinking is based on fundamental cognitive mechanisms, and I would be surprised to see them lacking in any (neurotypical) individual.

    Even though you allow that it's sometimes okay to lie to other people (Nazis), it sounds as if you're saying it's never okay to lie to yourself (to take the blue pill). At the risk of demonstrating the naturalistic fallacy, I would suggest that if self-delusion had not been helpful to us evolutionarily, it would not be such an ingrained part of human psychology. In any case, rather than necessarily being an opiate, as you call it, it can sometimes lead to self-actualization. If you're a little bit overly confident in a given situation, for example, you might achieve more than you would have otherwise. And the illusion of free will has been very useful to us.

    Understandably, you also take issue with my claim that "without [magical thinking], the existential angst of realizing we're just impermanent clusters of molecules with no ultimate purpose would overwhelm us." We cannot fully grasp our material, temporary nature. If you try to picture what it will be like to be dead, for example, you're still picturing something that it is like to be. Further, we are intuitively Cartesian dualists. And so we have this sense that our consciousness (or "soul") continues beyond death. Granted, no one can be sure how we would feel if we *could* fully grasp death, but there's plenty of research showing that we have strong defense mechanisms to deny our mortality--by believing we are creating transcendent meaning with our lives, for example. I see the denial of death as a form of magical thinking.

    The big question I think you're raising is: Can we achieve magical thinking's benefits by other means? Some of them, sure. But that's like asking: Can we achieve the benefits of using our hands by other means? Some of them, sure. But your hands are already there, just as magical thinking is. Of course your hands can strangle people, but if you use them carefully they can also be quite helpful and convenient. Magical thinking is not inherently good or evil. It's just a part of our nature that can be used in multiple ways.

    Finally, you argue that bringing to light the research on superstition's benefits (what you call "the glorification of superstition") is "ethically questionable." I think it would be ethically questionable *not* to take such research seriously. I'm a big fan of rationality--even when it means rationally weighing evidence for the benefits of *IR*rationality. I hope you feel the same.

    Matt

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  6. Matt,

    In ironic fashion you purport to present a rational argument for why one ought to think / believe irrationally. What the practical ramifications of your view might look like is not at all clear. E.g., how might one retain the so-called benefits of certain beliefs if one knows or has good reason to believe said beliefs are false / irrational?

    Even so, certainly you do not deny that very many benefits have accrued because of our putting to bed very many irrational beliefs (e.g. that there are no demons who possess souls or that there are no witches who cast spells) even if at the time those beliefs were part and parcel of broader belief sets which conferred some measurable benefit at the time (or even now). So, why infer that the benefits of rationality do not as a whole outweigh the benefits of irrationality?

    In addition, but related, with W.K. Clifford, I hold that it is wrong every where and at all times for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence for many reasons, but one of which is that non-evidence based beliefs help contribute to a laziness of mind which, in the long run, serves to do more harm than good. Note the correlation between anti-vaccers, the deeply religious / spiritual, anti-evolution crowd, and conspiracy theorists.

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    1. I didn't catch any inference from Matthew's post that the benefits of rationality don't as a whole outweigh the benefits of irrationality. It seems to me that the argument is simply that it's rational to persuade yourself that the logically irrational may sometimes be effective nevertheless. And that persuasion is not self deceptive if your purposes are clear, and the results effectively predictable.
      Massimo of course does not believe that purposes are to be considered as relative to the chains of causation, but of course I do, and so I expect does Matthew.

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    2. Hi Eamon,

      Roy has it right. I make no claims about whether "the benefits of rationality ... as a whole outweigh the benefits of irrationality," and I'm not sure how such claims could even be evaluated. I do argue that there are rational reasons to occasionally be irrational. This fact, as you recognize, is one of the many ironies of life.

      Matt

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    3. Matt,

      Re: '"the benefits of rationality ... as a whole outweigh the benefits of irrationality," and I'm not sure how such claims could even be evaluated.'

      Really? So, you are not sure if evidence-based beliefs do not on balance lead to worse outcomes than not irrational counter parts?

      (I should add as an aside that I hold to the view that it is better to hold true beliefs by virtue of them being true and not false. So, if religious belief confers some benefit that atheism does not, so much the worse for the religious believer. A noble lie is a lie nonetheless.)

      Also, is it cognitively possible to believe one's beliefs are irrational / likely false and yet still believe them to be rational / likely true? You want to argue that there "are rational reasons to occasionally be irrational" but if one is aware of the irrationality of one's beliefs, can one still believe them?

      That aside, I can only imagine there is a non-negligible correlation between holding certain beliefs and holding certain others, as I mentioned in my initial reply. So, if I were to wager, I would say there is some correlation between certain types of thinking: climate change denialism, anti-vaccines, anti-science in general. So, if we permit one form of irrationalism in some more or less benign area, how can we expect not to contain that irrationalism to that benign area?

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    4. @Eamon, "I hold to the view that it is better to hold true beliefs by virtue of them being true and not false."
      How can you rationally determine that any beliefs are true by virtue of their being true?
      True believers are generally a bit nuts in my experience. But I'm not certain.

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    5. Re: "How can you rationally determine that any beliefs are true by virtue of their being true?"

      This is not what I said. I said that I value true believes per se. That is, I value holding true beliefs not because of any ancillary benefit(s) they may provide but rather because they are true; I value truth. Now, whether my beliefs are true or not is another issue entirely.

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    6. Hi Eamon,

      > you are not sure if evidence-based beliefs do not on balance lead to worse outcomes than ... irrational counter parts? <

      Correct. How do you weigh then benefit to humanity of rational behaviors such as deductive reasoning versus irrational behaviors such as falling in love? Apples and oranges.

      > if one is aware of the irrationality of one's beliefs, can one still believe them? <

      On some level, yes. Knocking on wood makes me feel better (some part of me "believes" it works) even though I know it's irrational.

      Matt

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    7. Eamon, if you value true beliefs, whether your beliefs are true or not is not the issue. It's whether you can tell if they are true or not to begin with. And if you can, you're the most accurate guesser ever.

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    8. Eamon,

      so, you think valuing truth is an intrinsic virtue... ;-)

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    9. so, you think valuing truth is an intrinsic virtue... ;-)

      I had the same thought.

      I also thought of what Owen Flangan calls "platonic hedonism", which he defines as the belief that "all else equal, we should try to harmoniously maximize the true, the beautiful, and the good."

      Whatever ancillary benefits there may be to pursuing platonic hedonism, above all I'd say that it either appeals to our values or it does not (or not as much as some other formula for living).

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    10. Valuing the truth has a virtuous purpose. It's the search for truth that has made us superstitious to begin with. Seeing the intrinsic virtue of whatever we have come to trust.
      Assuming we appreciate the irony that trust cannot exist without suspicion. We should logically distrust anything we trust completely.

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    11. Massimo,

      Yes, that's right, I myself value truth intrinsically, and as I understand it this is consonant with the moral of Nozick's Experience Machine though experiment to which you referred.

      I also think there is something to having a virtuous character. However, I construe a virtuous character as arising from doing virtuous things (reasoning well, charity, kindness, etc.), and it is these things which I value, not a virtuous character per se. Thus, I can avoid the incoherency evident in Aristotelian virtue ethics.

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    12. Eamon,

      I'm pretty sure Aristotle also said that a virtuous character arises from doing virtuous things, I don't see the incoherence, and it sounds to me like your distinction carries very little difference.

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    13. it sounds to me like your distinction carries very little difference

      I'd say it's more or less the same distinction as between an action and a disposition towards that same action.

      Sure, we all approve of virtuous actions (and disapprove of vicious ones), but it's the disposition towards such that we - as parents, educators, role models, etc. - have some control over with respect to our youth.

      I guess Aristotle knew what he was doing, after all. :-)

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  7. Eamon,

    > this is incoherent: S does not value truthtelling etc. per se, but rather as a means to some end. Yet the end that S values is constituted by the multitudinous means, which he does not actually value <

    Hmm, surely you realize that you will be in a minority if you accuse the entire virtue ethics exercise of incoherence. And I don't see how this is any worse than the "incoherence" of consequentialists, or of deontologists. This is not the place for a discussion on meta ethics (as you know, the topic has been touched at RS more than once), but it seems like you are looking for some kind of foundationalist starting point. I gave up on foundationalism since I've heard of Quine and co. It's okay for me to adopt an ethical system that starts with certain axioms, like in math or logic. Those axioms can be examined and defended or rejected, of course, but in some cases you get simply to the point of: "look, my friend, if you think lying right and left is a good thing, you don't belong in society with me."

    Matt,

    thanks for your comments, glad we can continue the conversation. A few observations:

    > If A happens before B, A is related to B, and there are no other obvious causes of B, we suspect A caused B. (Even if A is a silly superstitious ritual or even a thought.) This is just a fundamental aspect of the way the brain works. There's no reason to believe that skeptics, even though we make efforts to question our intuitions, don't have such intuitions to begin with. <

    Right, but that's got nothing to do with magical thinking. As you point out, that's actually a reasonable inference to make in a number of cases, and it becomes a fallacy only if one *always* infers causality from correlation. Which, I'm pretty sure, no skeptic would do.

    > If you're a little bit overly confident in a given situation, for example, you might achieve more than you would have otherwise. <

    I often hear this argument, but of course if one succeeds this by definition means that one wasn't "overly" confident, but reasonably confident. Nothing magical about it.

    > At the risk of demonstrating the naturalistic fallacy, I would suggest that if self-delusion had not been helpful to us evolutionarily, it would not be such an ingrained part of human psychology. <

    First, not necessarily, it could be a spandrel. Second, hour propensity for violence is also part of our natural endowment, but the point of education is to show us better ways to deal with each other... So, yes, that was a good example of the naturalistic fallacy!

    > We cannot fully grasp our material, temporary nature. If you try to picture what it will be like to be dead, for example, you're still picturing something that it is like to be <

    I don't think I have any problem at all grasping my temporary nature. And I don't try to picture myself dead, that would be silly, since there will be no "me" after I die...

    > I think it would be ethically questionable *not* to take such research seriously <

    I take the research seriously, I just don't want to push people further into superstition as a result of said research.

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    1. Hi Massimo,

      > that's got nothing to do with magical thinking. <

      It does if A is a thought and B is a bent spoon.

      > this by definition means that one wasn't "overly" confident <

      Let's say if you were to take an exam expecting to fail you would score a 60, but if you were to take the exam expecting to ace it you would score a 70. Being overconfident can help you achieve more than you would otherwise achieve.

      > So, yes, that was a good example of the naturalistic fallacy! <

      I do think the fact that a given feature has evolved is at least suggestive that the feature might be useful to us.

      > I don't think I have any problem at all grasping my temporary nature. <

      You can grasp it conceptually, but that's it; the mental simulation of nonexistence is impossible. And so many atheists still irrationally care about what happens to their bodies after they're dead, as if it could affect "them."

      > I just don't want to push people further into superstition as a result of said research. <

      A fair critique of my book (one I've heard from others) is that my argument might be too subtle, in that I argue that superstition is dangerous but then go beyond that to say it's not *always* dangerous. You and I take the dangerous part for granted but not everyone has gotten that far yet.

      Matt

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    2. Matt,

      >> > that's got nothing to do with magical thinking. < It does if A is a thought and B is a bent spoon. <<

      But you simply mentioned the ad hoc propter hoc fallacy, which has nothing to do with magic. People who believe in spoon bending will simply be disappointed when they keep trying and nothing happens...

      > Let's say if you were to take an exam expecting to fail you would score a 60, but if you were to take the exam expecting to ace it you would score a 70. Being overconfident can help you achieve more than you would otherwise achieve. <

      I think you are missing my point: this isn't a case of being over-confident, but just about rightly confident.

      > I do think the fact that a given feature has evolved is at least suggestive that the feature might be useful to us. <

      Again, there is a large literature in evolutionary biology about byproducts of evolution that are not adaptive. Moreover, it might have been adaptive in the past but not now. And finally, evolution is usually not concerned with ethics, we are.

      > You can grasp it conceptually, but that's it; the mental simulation of nonexistence is impossible. <

      As I said, I don't even try to imagine myself dead. What would be the point?

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    3. "I think you are missing my point: this isn't a case of being over-confident, but just about rightly confident."
      Shot from the hip on that one. It's about being confident that you can make your luck, no? When realistically that's not what we can do.

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    4. Hi Massimo,

      > People who believe in spoon bending will simply be disappointed when they keep trying and nothing happens... <

      Yes, bent spoons are rare, but occasionally we picture an event and it actually does happen, so, given the causality heuristic (A before B, etc.), our intuition suggests the thought had something to do with it. Suspecting that a thought has caused an event is (I believe) magical thinking.

      > this isn't a case of being over-confident, but just about rightly confident. <

      Perhaps we are using different definitions of over-confident. I will clarify. My original comment was: "If you're a little bit overly confident in a given situation, for example, you might achieve more than you would have otherwise." Revision: "If you slightly overestimate what you can achieve in a given situation, you might achieve more than you would have otherwise."

      > evolution is usually not concerned with ethics, we are. <

      That's why after the naturalism bit (which perhaps I should have just left out) I wrote: "In any case ... [magical thinking] can sometimes lead to self-actualization"--an outcome with ethical implications.

      > As I said, I don't even try to imagine myself dead. What would be the point? <

      If somehow you have lived this long without any recognition of your own mortality, I feel comfortable labeling you an outlier. :)

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    5. Massimo sees no purpose in imagining what it's like to be lifeless.

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  8. Massimo,
    I think it is fair to say the study of economics is the study of the impersonal relationships between people. And so economists can look at interactions between people at a fairly detailed level. We are animals and it’s right and proper for the sociologist, psychologist and the economist to look at the members of a society in such a detailed way. They can even look at people’s values and maybe discover some general characteristics about them. It doesn’t follow that just because scientists are doing this they are embedding moral values into their research. You don’t give us any evidence that economists are doing this. You seem to be saying, because they are looking at these impersonal (or economic) relationships in a more detailed way they must be embedding values. I don’t get it.

    Of course economists do embed moral values into their work. Naomi Klein's “Shock Doctrine” shows us an example of how the “Boys from Chicago” helped create what they thought was an "eminently sensible" and natural economy, that was put in place and kept in place via the brutal force of the Pinochet military dictatorship (it certainly wasn't "naturally" going to come about in any other way). The whole experiment impoverished the people of Chile and destroyed many lives. It’s how I imagine Sam Harris and others in the "skeptic community" imagining the science of morality catching on and one day making our lives better (and if not better at least free of religion).

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    1. Patrick

      you might want to read Sandel's book, where he argues (and shows data) that economics cannot be divorced from ethical considerations, if the scope of economics is as broad as modern economists think it is.

      > I think it is fair to say the study of economics is the study of the impersonal relationships between people. <

      That's far too broad, economics is supposed to look at the *economic* interactions among people, but many interactions are not economic in nature.

      > It’s how I imagine Sam Harris and others in the "skeptic community" imagining the science of morality catching on and one day making our lives better <

      I'm afraid Harris has lost any intellectual credibility in my eyes with his last two books.

      Delete
  9. Massimo, I believe the hyperlink to Sandel's book is incorrect
    (sorry that my first-ever comment is negative, but it is only because i usually just enjoy most of what you write:)

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    1. Shay,

      thanks for bringing it to my attention. It's fixed now. And that was a weird link...

      Delete
  10. Matt,

    > Yes, bent spoons are rare, but occasionally we picture an event and it actually does happen, so, given the causality heuristic (A before B, etc.), our intuition suggests the thought had something to do with it. <

    Again, I think you are confusing a general intuition (or cognitive bias) with a specific, bad, application of it. You can use belief in spoon bending as indicative of magical thinking, but not the broader cognitive bias.

    > Revision: "If you slightly overestimate what you can achieve in a given situation, you might achieve more than you would have otherwise." <

    I don't see how that helps. If you did achieve the result, you did not overestimate your capacities, not even slightly.

    > If somehow you have lived this long without any recognition of your own mortality, I feel comfortable labeling you an outlier. <

    Of course I recognize my mortality. But I also recognize that it will be definitive, so I don't see the point in imagining an afterlife that doesn't exist (or at least, for which I have no reason whatsoever to believe it exists).

    Roy,

    > Massimo sees no purpose in imagining what it's like to be lifeless. <

    And what, exactly, would the point of such exercise?

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    1. Hi Massimo,

      > I think you are confusing a general intuition (or cognitive bias) with a specific, bad, application of it. <

      Sorry if I've been unclear. The general bias is not magical thinking. But it is universal, and it is so broad that we apply it to situations where A is just a thought or a silly superstitious ritual. Application in those situations is magical thinking. Because the bias is universal, and we universally apply it too broadly, we all demonstrate magical thinking.

      > I don't see how that helps. If you did achieve the result, you did not overestimate your capacities, not even slightly. <

      I'll go back to the exam example. Let's say if you were to take an exam expecting to fail you would score a 60, but if you were to take the exam expecting to ace it you would score a 70. Overestimating what you can achieve can help you achieve more than you would otherwise achieve.

      > I don't see the point in imagining an afterlife that doesn't exist <

      I believe we are intuitive Cartesian dualists whether or not we make any effort to imagine an afterlife.

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  11. When your mind loses it's ability to asses the future, are there other elements of your system that are still reacting to the environment, and were those reactions anticipated by the processes that evolved to, perhaps, even make us fit to be eaten by other life. And is there any sense of bodily awareness involved that doesn't rely on our cognitive functions to assist in redistributing our elements, etc., etc., etc. Do our bacteria whose minimal awareness have been part of ours have any awareable regrets at our passing, and has their awareness been in any sense a survivable element of ours.
    Obviously our known 'minds' can't be expected to address those questions after they have ceased to function, so should they not be addressed at all, even if your curiosity extends to any of those areas? For all some of us know, it has been one of our purposes to be acquired as a habitude for bacteria. If bacteria have acquired any purposes at all, that is.

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    1. I meant to write 'assess' instead of asses, and 'habitat' rather than habitude. And maybe it was the bacteria that wanted us to taste better for their own purposes.

      Or potential organ recipients that the donors couldn't help but be concerned for? Naah.

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  12. Matt,

    > The general bias is not magical thinking. But it is universal, and it is so broad that we apply it to situations where A is just a thought or a silly superstitious ritual. Application in those situations is magical thinking. <

    I'm afraid that's fallacious. You are saying that Y is a subset of X, and that since Y is an example of magical thinking, therefore X also falls under magical thinking. It doesn't follow at all, and a simple Ven diagram would easily illustrate that.

    Besides, I'm not even sure in what sense belief in spoon bending is an instance of ad hoc ergo property hoc.

    > Let's say if you were to take an exam expecting to fail you would score a 60, but if you were to take the exam expecting to ace it you would score a 70. Overestimating what you can achieve can help you achieve more than you would otherwise achieve. <

    One more time: this is *not* overestimating anything. It is simply a case of someone trying harder and getting better results. Which, as I pointed out in my post, appears in fact to be a major mechanism behind the fact that magical thinking "works."

    > I believe we are intuitive Cartesian dualists whether or not we make any effort to imagine an afterlife. <

    I have no idea what this has to do with what we were discussing. We may or may not be intuitive Cartesians, but the question at hand is whether it is a good thing to - upon reflection - remain a convinced Cartesian. I don't think it is.

    Roy,

    I honestly have no idea what you posted above. But if this bit is indeed related to our discussion about imagining oneself after death:

    > When your mind loses it's ability to asses the future <

    then it isn't an "ability" since there is, as far as I can tell, no "future" in which I am dead and yet still somehow conscious.

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    1. Hi Massimo,

      > You are saying that Y is a subset of X, and that since Y is an example of magical thinking, therefore X also falls under magical thinking. <

      Nope, I never say that the general bias (X) is magical thinking. It's magical thinking when it's applied to things like mind over matter (Y). But we all have X, and Y is a natural consequence of X, so we all have Y (at least intuitively, sometimes).

      > I'm not even sure in what sense belief in spoon bending is an instance of ad hoc ergo property hoc. <

      Do you mean "post hoc ergo propter hoc" or is there a separate term I'm not familiar with? Anyway, if you think about a spoon bending, and then it bends, you might suspect that your thoughts caused the spoon to bend. (Which would be mind over matter and thus magical thinking.)

      > this is *not* overestimating anything. <

      I believe that to estimate that you will score 100 and then to score 70 is overestimation. If you disagree, then let's just leave it at that.

      > I have no idea what this has to do with what we were discussing. <

      In my original response I brought up Cartesian dualism as an explanation for some aspects of magical thinking.

      > the question at hand is whether it is a good thing to - upon reflection - remain a convinced Cartesian. I don't think it is. <

      Neither do I, which is why I do my best in the book to convince people of property dualism.

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    2. Matthew,

      Re: Trying to convince people of property dualism.

      Why would you want to do that? Property dualism is not a tenable position at all.

      In a nutshell, your central thesis as implausible: Insofar as 'belief' is a conscious propositional state, one cannot believe p is rational / likely true and believe p is irrational / likely false. Thus, one will view one's belief set as rational / held for good reason (the alternative is weird: One holding one's belief set to be irrational / held for no good reason).

      If you wish to make the probably true claim that the ignorant often live happier lives, fine; if one does not care if one's beliefs are false, one is at liberty to believe whatever one wants, but I suspect most, if not all, humans would rather have true beliefs (ergo the force of Robert Nozick's Experience Machine thought experiment).

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    3. Hi Eamon,

      > Property dualism is not a tenable position at all. <

      I believe matter exists. (Although I can't prove it.) And I believe I am conscious. (That I am sure of.) Therefore I am a dualist. I do not believe consciousness can exist without a material substrate such as a brain. Therefore I am a property dualist rather than a substance/Cartesian dualist. (I.e., I consider consciousness a property of the functioning brain rather than a substance that can exist independently of it.)

      Which of the above statements do you consider wrong, and not just wrong but wholly untenable?

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    4. Matt,

      Right, so we have the two following assertions: (1) Consciousness is a 'property of' brain states, and (2) Consciousness just 'is' brain states.

      (1) is problematic for two essential reasons:

      (a) In order to explain consciousness, you marshall in such ontologically obscure things as 'properties'. Now, commonly conceived, 'property' is a linguistic expression used to denote certain features of some object, whether a mathematical object or a physical object. It is not at all clear what a 'property' of the brain might look like if not like some physical feature of brain, in which case property dualism would devolve into strict physicalism.

      That said, I would further want to argue that concepts such as 'properties' merely explain the obscure with the obscure: We both know what the neocortex is, but we don't know what 'properties' are.

      One can claim that dualism fits better with how we use language and think about ourselves, but this merely highlights the dangers concealed in an uncritical acceptance of traditional habits of verbalization.

      (b) Per the physicalist view, consciousness (and all that it entails) is dependent entirely upon physical brain states. Thus, it is strict consequence of physicalism that physical manipulations of the brain result in alter states of consciousness or in the termination of consciousness. However, per property dualism, it is not at all clear why, let alone a strict consequence that, consciousness must be a 'property of' the brain, or some part of the brain, or some other physical object such as the heart, lungs, or nose.

      Thus, that we can alter consciousness via physical manipulations more stronger supports the physicalist hypothesis than any other dualist alternative.

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    5. Eamon,

      I use the phrase property dualism instead of physicalism or materialism because I think it makes sense to talk about phenomenal states (e.g., the sensation of redness) as being a different sort of state than physical states (e.g., the neural correlates of the sensation of redness), even though the former are completely dependent on the latter.

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    6. @Eamon:
      "-that we can alter consciousness via physical manipulations more stronger supports the physicalist hypothesis than any other dualist alternative."

      How do physical things manipulate themselves to alter their consciousness unconsciously? How do physical things DO anything without some awareness that they're doing it? How do they move at all without some non-physical initiative?

      You seem to feel that we use intelligence without intelligence. But then so do most materialists.

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    7. Eamon,

      I'm having a problem with your characterization of this issue, though I wouldn't use the word "property dualism" because of the generally negative connotations of the D-word...

      But, it makes perfect sense to distinguish between objects and their properties, and one loses a lot by not doing so. Which is probably why I have such negative reactions toward eliminativism.

      Take water, for instance (just to stay away from complex and controversial issues like consciousness). Nobody in his right mind, I assume, thinks that the properties of water are non physical, mystical, etc. (well, unless you are a homeopath). Still, it makes no sense to say that freezing at 0C (under certain physical conditions, such as a particular pressure) is *the same thing* as being the chemical H20. Freezing is a property of the chemical, it isn't the chemical.

      And this example does, perhaps, also make sense of what people like me (and, apparently, Matt) find objectionable about eliminativism: consciousness isn't *just* (the result of) a certain brain state, it also requires a proper environment, like all biological characteristics. So to say that consciousness *is* a brain state makes no sense, both because it confuses a physical thing with a property of the physical thing, and because - as a consequence of that confusion - it does not bring in other necessary elements (such as the proper biological and environmental milieu).

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    8. Matt,

      Two things. First, you did not address my points initially made. Second, you say phenomenal states (qualia) are a 'different sort of state' than a physical state, but this, again, merely attempts to explain the obscure with the obscure: What, exactly, are these so-called phenomenal states? Surely we can account (and do) account for them entirely in physicalist terms.

      Your view reminds me of a passage from Jack Smart's classic paper 'Materialism':

      It may be asked why I should demand of a tenable philosophy of mind that it should be compatible with materialism. How could a non-physical property or entity suddenly arise in the course of animal evolution? A change in a gene is a change in a complex molecule, which causes a change in the biochemistry of the cell. This may lead to changes in the shape or organization of the developing embryo. But what sort of chemical process could lead to the springing into existence of something non-physical. No enzyme can catalyze the production of a spook.

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    9. Roy,

      Re: "How do physical things manipulate themselves to alter their consciousness unconsciously? How do physical things DO anything without some awareness that they're doing it? How do they move at all without some non-physical initiative?"

      If you mean to ask the general question of how do physical systems like brains function so as to be able to become conscious, I haven't a clue; you must look toward the relevant science for that answer.

      If you are implying that non-physical "stuff" better explains consciousness, I can say that (1) I have have no idea what this queer non-physical "stuff" is such that it could or could not give rise to consciousness. So, you ask:"How does purely physical states constitute consciousness?" I will respond: "Not sure, but there are some good research programmes in progress and even better hypotheses from that quarter. But, that aside, how does non-physical 'stuff' create consciousness?" The dualist merely stipulates that it does & proceeds no further.

      If you mean

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    10. Massimo,

      Chemical properties do not exist per se. Rather, chemical properties (e.g., boiling points, conductivity, etc.) are linguistic expressions which highlight the behaviors of various arrangements of matter under given conditions. Likewise for all such properties.

      Furthermore, to say there is any *one* thing that is consciousness is wrongheaded. Conscious, I suspect, is a descriptive term of a series of brain states and behaviors. The primary issue here is an ontological one, and whilst I agree that we can maintain traditional forms of verbalization, when we are doing ontology (as we, ostensibly, are doing here) we must be much more careful than we otherwise would. To talk about properties in terms which indicate they exist in some ontologically significant capacity is not to be careful.

      Delete
    11. Eamon,

      aside from the fact that you pretty much avoided the substance of my example (really? you don't see any difference between H20 the structure and freezing the property?), your statement:

      > Chemical properties do not exist per se <

      sounds like an unsubstantiated metaphysical dictum to my ears. Please remember that I am a physicalist, but I have no problem allowing for a richer ontology.

      Take mathematical Platonism, for instance. Yes, I know, weird, right? And yet - at least according to Ladyman and Ross' "Every Thing Must Go," if you take fundamental physics seriously you have to agree that things (objects) do not actually exist, that the foundation of reality is made of relations - mathematical relations. How exactly does that fit with your view of ontology?

      Delete
    12. Massimo,

      Apologies for being less than direct. As I see it, the difference between the molecular structure of water and the property of water to freeze at zero celsius is this: the former is a physical object; the latter is the tendency of the physical object to behave physically under certain conditions (or, in another way, a report of the observed regularity of a physical object). Thus, whilst I do think talk of properties in science is economical, I do not populate my ontology with properties. Like Quine, I prefer desert landscapes :-)

      In this way I am far more sympathetic to nominalism, and the last stanza Henry Fitzgerald's poem Nominalist Things entertainingly encapsulates my view:

      Can you touch it?
      When you hit it,
      Does it make a 'ping'?
      If you answered 'yes', then, by golly, it's real:
      It gets to be called a THING.


      Re: Ladyman & Ross

      For a number of reasons I think their thesis is wrong, but in particular because I am not a scientific realist. I am an anti-realist (structural empiricist) pace Otavio Bueno, Steven French, and Newton da Costa.

      P.S. I am also not a mathematical realist either.

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  13. Massimo, I believe that you really don't have any idea what I'm talking about.
    We are considered dead by the living when our brains no longer produce a sign of what we have come to call our minds. When we can no longer, as we call it, think at all. But our body parts are still in a condition to be harvested, put on ice, and live on when reattached to another body with a working brain - that has a mind that allows these parts from a different working body to act upon this other body's intelligent commands. (Which neither you or i have any idea at all as to how or why this intelligence works or ever came to work.) So the mind that made your once and former "you" operate is dead, but parts of the body that it operated still live. Live because they respond to a different mind and brain, and the 'you' that they were once a part of has disappeared. Yet here are its parts in a different "you."
    And if you are an organ donor, you're wondering about their futures as we speak.

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  14. Matt,

    > we all have X, and Y is a natural consequence of X, so we all have Y (at least intuitively, sometimes). <

    Even that is incorrect, it would be true if Y *always* follow X, but it doesn't. Not all of us have "magical" thinking. And, again, just because Y is natural it doesn't make it a good thing.

    > if you think about a spoon bending, and then it bends, you might suspect that your thoughts caused the spoon to bend. <

    But when does that happen? When was the last time you thought about bending a spoon and it bent? This is different from say, wearing a red sweater and thinking that it caused your team to win the match. Because teams sometimes do win (even though that has nothing to do with what you are wearing), spoons never bend on their own...

    > I believe that to estimate that you will score 100 and then to score 70 is overestimation. <

    All that means is that people who try harder to better. Again, nothing magical about it.

    Eamon,

    no apologies needed, as you know I always enjoy our conversations.

    > the former is a physical object; the latter is the tendency of the physical object to behave physically under certain conditions <

    Okay, forgive me, but this seems to me an entirely semantical move: you call it a tendency, I call it a property. Potato, potato; tomato, tomato...

    > ast stanza Henry Fitzgerald's poem Nominalist Things entertainingly encapsulates my view <

    Except that the poem makes you sound like a logical positivist.

    Regarding Ladyman & Ross, I did not mean to imply that I buy what they say. I simply pointed out that even mathematical Platonism becomes a serious contender when we talk about the ontology of the basic constituents of the world. Which should at least prompt a bit of caution about a straightforward eliminativist metaphysics at any level.

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    1. Massimo,

      Re: "this seems to me an entirely semantical move: you call it a tendency, I call it a property. Potato, potato; tomato, tomato.."

      This is an entirely semantical move if and only if you do not grant "properties" or "tendencies" significant ontological status, otherwise I am deflating "properties" into a behavior of a physical object by use of "tendencies".

      Re: "Except that the poem makes you sound like a logical positivist."

      Correction: The poem makes me sound like a nominalist. Fitzgerald was never a logical positivist & logical positivists were not nominalists. (Even so, I have great sympathies for logical positivism.)

      Re: "... mathematical Platonism becomes a serious contender when we talk about the ontology of the basic constituents of the world."

      Yes, that's true.

      Any last words I leave with you; thanks for the exchange.

      P.S. For a Rationally Speaking podcast, maybe you could get Graham Priest to come by and discuss dialetheism, paraconsistent logics, and his take on theistic design arguments. Should make for a fun episode... just a thought.

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    2. Eamon,

      yes, I've been thinking about Graham for a podcast episode. I invited him last year to give a talk at NYC Skeptics, and it was a success. Stay tuned...

      Delete
    3. Hi Massimo,

      > Even that is incorrect <

      We all have this causality heuristic. It's a heuristic, which means we sometimes apply it when we shouldn't. Even if you and I are more likely than the average person to use critical thinking and say, "I should not have applied this heuristic in this case--mind over matter is not possible," there is no reason to believe the heuristic does not exist in you and me to begin with.

      I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. Do you think skeptics don't have heuristics? Do you think heuristics are never applied out of their domain (in which case they would not be heuristics)? Do you disagree with my definition of magical thinking--that an intuition or an implicit belief or the application of a heuristic can count as magical thinking?

      > But when does that happen? <

      As I said, the spoon was an extreme example. But research shows that the more one thinks about an outcome beforehand, the more one feels responsible for it, suggesting the causality heuristic is so broad that it's intuitively applied even when the purported cause is a thought. I know that conscious thoughts can't cause events. But that doesn't mean I'm not programmed to sometimes have the *feeling* that they do, a feeling I quickly discard.

      > people who try harder [do] better. Again, nothing magical about it. <

      I didn't say that was magical. I simply said people sometimes try harder when they overestimate their chances of success. (Just to be clear: also not magical.)

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    4. Of course conscious thoughts cause events. And conscious falsehoods cause events as much or more than conscious truths. They are inescapably sequential to change.
      Everything written here comes from conscious thought and changes the potential future of everyone who reads them as well as of everyone who will deal with that reader in that future.

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    5. Re: "... mathematical Platonism becomes a serious contender when we talk about the ontology of the basic constituents of the world."


      "Mathematical Platonism" would be a contender if it were conceptually coherent. The wave function of an H2O molecule is no more an intrinsic (non-relational) "constituent" than is mass.

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  16. @ Massimo

    > To begin with, there actually is evidence that the way superstition works is precisely analogous to the placebo effect...

    In other words, it is persistence at the task that is the active causal link, everything else is window dressing. Now, surely we can encourage people to persist at a task without having to invent fables, yes?
    <

    This is incorrect. The placebo effect is based on FAITH (positive belief). The nocebo effect is based on SKEPTICISM or DOUBT (negative belief). Faith can heal. This is a scientifically-established fact.

    "The placebo effect. is related to the perceptions and expectations of the patient; if the substance is viewed as helpful, it can heal, but, if it is viewed as harmful, it can cause negative effects, which is known as the nocebo effect."

    (source: Wikipedia: Placebo)

    "For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour." - Matthew 9:21-22

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  17. Attlee,

    > "Mathematical Platonism" would be a contender if it were conceptually coherent. The wave function of an H2O molecule is no more an intrinsic (non-relational) "constituent" than is mass. <

    Boy, I love it when people on this blog throw "incoherence" around as if it were a trump all card. There is nothing incoherent about mathematical Platonism, and the second part of your comment has nothing whatsoever to do with what Ladyman and Ross (who, by the way, are not math Platonists) are talking about.

    Eamon,

    the tone of some of the above comments is indeed unfortunate. That aside, perhaps here is what has been bugging me about eliminativism:

    > the eliminative materialist contends that there is no thing which corresponds to the word "self". <

    That is correct, but there is a sensation of self which, if denied (or reduced to an "illusion") feels a lot like denying the data. Could it be that a good compromise is to think of selfing (an activity / property / tendency, whatever) rather than of self as an object? Similarly, I think of "minding" as something the brain does, not of "the mind" as an object. Thoughts?

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    1. @ Massimo

      > Boy, I love it when people on this blog throw "incoherence" around as if it were a trump all card. There is nothing incoherent about mathematical Platonism, and the second part of your comment has nothing whatsoever to do with what Ladyman and Ross (who, by the way, are not math Platonists) are talking about. <

      Mathematical Platonism is unintelligible to extent that the Platonist attempts to place mathematical abstractions outside of a mind that abstracts.

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    2. Massimo,

      I think your suggestion does go a good bit toward the eliminative materialist position. If we can identify the neural bases for consciousness (I say 'bases' because consciousness is not a single, unified phenomenon) we can maintain traditional ways of verbalization ('beliefs', 'desires', etc.) but with the ontological-understanding that such verbalizations are useful fictions and instead, in a strict sense, what we are referring to when we employ such verbiage is and only is physical brain states.

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    3. Massimo,

      In a nutshell, then, in saying "I think of "minding" as something the brain does, not of "the mind" as an object" you are (ontologically speaking) eliminating the mind and instead construing mental activity as solely brain activity.

      This position of yours, I should like to add, removes you from the property dualist and the-mind-as-an-emergent-phenomenon camps.

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    4. Eamon,

      well, you almost had me there, almost. No, I'm not committed to abandon the possibility of emergent phenomena (about which I am neutral), because if they exist they are physical. You reject them because you decided to commit to reductive physicalism.

      As for minding, I think it as something the brain does, like the lungs produce breathing, or the heart produces circulating of blood.

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    5. You may be right about not being committed to rejecting emergent phenomena.

      That aside, why do you think eliminative materialism engenders such a hostile (and, it seems, violent) reaction from not only theists but also from so many skeptics?

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    6. re: "Boy, I love it when people on this blog throw "incoherence" around as if it were a trump all card. There is nothing incoherent about mathematical Platonism, and the second part of your comment has nothing whatsoever to do with what Ladyman and Ross (who, by the way, are not math Platonists) are talking about."

      Gardner's statement preens itself as the ne plus ultra of the thesis: “If all sentient beings in the universe disappeared . . . there would remain a sense in which mathematical objects and theorems would continue to exist even though there would be no one around to write or talk about them. Huge prime numbers would continue to be prime even if no one had proved them prime.” Is this what you mean to defend as coherent?

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    7. Eamon,

      funny, I had the opposite feeling: that too many skeptics / atheists are willing to take for granted metaphysical positions that they do not understand. I often detect a glee in people's confident assertion that consciousness and free will are illusions, you know the can't-help-yourself crowd...

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    8. Is there no end to the imperious flow of illogic? You just said that "science cannot disprove an incoherent concept like free-will because it's a question of logic" - so which is it?

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    9. Where did he just say that?

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    10. Attlee,

      Is there no end to your arrogance, or to your inability to actually read what I write?

      Delete
    11. No to the former, the latter is obviously another pretense.

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    12. The idea that consciousness is an illusion is unintelligible.

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    13. Actually, it was Matthew Hutson that wrote: "And the illusion of free will has been very useful to us." Because of course he was under the illusion that he was consciously free to say that. And Attlee is just under illusions, unconsciously.

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  18. @ the brain with no reference point

    > The eliminative materialist contends that there is no thing which corresponds to the word "self". <

    WARNING: "The Surgeon General has determined that eliminative materialism is dangerous to your mental health."

    This is the fallacy of eliminative materialism - the insistent that what is inherently subjective must be objective. And since we cannot objectively identify the self, the eliminative materialist arrives at the irrational conclusion that subjectivity does not exist

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    1. Well, you know what they've been saying. Conscious thoughts don't cause events. Because if they had any real substance, and were labeled either ists or isms, they'd have to. Consciousism. That hurts one's health to think about.

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    2. @ Roy

      The body influences the mind. But by the same token, the mind influences the body. They mutually condition each other.

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    3. My satire seems not to have been sufficiently ironic.

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  19. I would simplify the issue of magic and spirituality by saying that our base-state is belief. We aim at knowledge, and science continually fails in that aim because even in settled theories variations will be adopted according to the beliefs of proponents. Hypotheses are strictly conditioned beliefs.

    Religious texts are full of belief and little objective knowledge, sadly. Consequently, if our aim is knowledge, we must extend our beliefs more into hypotheses than spirtuality. The base of belief remains open to all, to drive accumulation of knowledge, but one becomes mature at a certain point.

    Nevertheless, Atheism is a fallacy. It is illogical to negate beliefs of the private individual, the universal driver. All that can be said logically about God is that He may be outside of knowledge, and if one believes to get knowledge, then to believe one way or the other about God is illogical or lacks Parsimony. One should allow both private beliefs and an objective public world, but value the public world and totally ignore private Gods.

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    1. PS. One constructs one's own awareness; it is not beamed in by Martians. It is one's construct and one has no right to say it is real except for oneself, but that is enough.

      With our construct we reason, and our reasoning tells us that the world corresponds in many ways to our construct. Light waves are accurately captured by eyes, and sound waves by ears, and we are suited by evolution to know the world around us.

      My awareness is my construct, but my construct informs me that I have good reason to say the world generally (only generally) corresponds to my construct. I should generally make the assumption that it does (until I stand in the witness box in Court against a skilled advocate).

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