On this episode of Rationally Speaking, Massimo and Julia explore these questions with psychiatrist Sally Satel and professor of psychology Scott O. Lilienfeld, the authors of "Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience."
Scott's pick: "The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us"
Sally's pick: "Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious"
Hi Massimo,
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy Rationally Speaking podcasts and this was no exception.
However, as usual, I have one or two bones to pick.
I think it was Scott who said that neural correlates are so fascinating because they demonstrate that dualism is false, going on to profess a belief in monism as a result.
I don't think this is justified, at least not of my particular brand of dualism.
I am not a Cartesian dualist, but I do think the mind and the brain are distinct entities. It's analogous to the distinction between hardware and software. Microsoft Windows is a separate entity to my laptop, and yet there is an "electronic correlate" to everything that Windows does. This does not in any way mean that Windows is a physical object.
Windows and my mind are abstract objects made of structure and information. In other words, they are mathematical objects, and exist in the same way as all mathematical objects: Platonically.
Ok, so this position is clearly debatable. But I do think it constitutes a kind of dualism, and I do think that it is compatible with seeing neural correlates for all mental events. So neural correlates may disprove Cartesian dualism, but not dualism per se.
The point was also made that reductionists think that they can do away with neurology, psychology and biology and explain everything in terms of the laws of physics alone.
I doubt anybody seriously holds this position. Even if it were feasible to work by reducing all phenomena to particle interactions, this would in no way allow us to see what is actually out there. Working from particle interactions is as likely to explain the workings of fantastic nonexistent creatures which never evolved as it is the life we see around us. Much of nature is contingent, and as such cannot even in principle be extrapolated from the basic physical laws of the universe. Yet I am a reductionist, and have been called a strong reductionist by others, which I think is probably fair.
Finally, my two cents on the implications of behaviour-altering tumours. I really do think that this is a mitigating circumstance of a sort, in that the individual concerned could not but have behaved as he did given the state of his brain. But I also believe this is true of all of us. Moral responsibility is an outdated notion.
That doesn't mean there are no repercussions for transgression, but it means that punishment ought to be focused on rehabilitation, deterrence and physically preventing crime. It should not be focused on retribution and outmoded concepts of moral responsibility.
So even if an individual has committed heinous crimes, I believe that individual should not be punished at all if:
1) The individual was suffering from some transient circumstance which is not likely to be repeated (and so there is no likelihood that the individual will reoffend)
2) The individual was genuinely unconcerned about punishment at the time of the crime (and so deterrence was irrelevant)
Now, these two points may be very difficult or impossible to prove, so it might be best to punish anyway to ensure we don't allow a loophole to those who want to commit premeditated murder and then claim temporary insanity, or to those who, on discovering they have an operable brain tumour, think that this is the chance to first commit some crime before the tumour is taken out.
My point is only on the ethics of ideal punishment with perfect knowledge of the state of mind of the perpetrator.
Where individuals have to be locked up for life for the general safety of the public, I think those individuals should be treated as humanely as possible, (although we don't want to make incarceration too attractive for fear that people will deliberately offend so as to land themselves a comfortable jail cell).
@ Disagreeable Me
Delete> Windows and my mind are abstract objects made of structure and information. In other words, they are mathematical objects, and exist in the same way as all mathematical objects: Platonically.
Ok, so this position is clearly debatable. But I do think it constitutes a kind of dualism, and I do think that it is compatible with seeing neural correlates for all mental events. So neural correlates may disprove Cartesian dualism, but not dualism per se. <
Are your "abstract objects" (comprised of structure and information) immaterial? If so, this qualifies as hylomorphism (the Aristotelian/Thomistic duality of "form" and "matter").
Windows, iOS, Android, ... are not really abstract objects. When source code (in hard-disk drive files) is compiled and running, what there is are just electrons moving through logic gates (CPU, RAM, HDD, etc.) There is no such thing as "disembodied" computing.
Delete"Classical computationalism was the view that classical theory of computation (Turing-machine based, universal, and disembodied) might be enough to explain cognitive phenomenon. New computationalism (natural computation) emphasizes that embodiment is essential and thus physical computation, hence natural computation."
plus.google.com/u/0/+PhilipThrift/posts/75wGqqNPDnQ
Yes, abstract objects are immaterial.
DeleteReading over hylomorphism, I'm not sure that it really describes my views accurately. There's too much ancient baggage tied to the idea, such as the idea that beings are alive because they have a soul. In fact I would disagree with many of the positions outlined on that wikipedia article.
While perhaps my views could be construed as some modern variant of hylomorphism, I'd prefer not to identify myself as a hylomorphist due to all this baggage.
@Philip
DeleteI disagree with your view. If I'm running Windows, and you're running the same version of Windows, we're both running the same software, even though the electrons and logic gates are different.
The software is abstract, independent of any particular physical instantiation. It's just like mathematical Platonism.
In fact it is mathematical Platonism. An algorithm is a mathematical object, and software is algorithms.
Once again, I disagree with your view that code is of any significance. Code is just notation. It's the structure that is expressed that is of importance.
Platonism (mathematical or algorithmic) is too weird to me. Always has been since I can remember thinking about this (age 16, more or less). One can't prove it wrong, but it's unnecessary fluff. Better to stick to what's concrete.
Delete@ Disagreeable Me
Delete> While perhaps my views could be construed as some modern variant of hylomorphism, I'd prefer not to identify myself as a hylomorphist due to all this baggage. <
But hylomorphism ("hylo" = matter; "morphe" = "form") accurately describes your position. It is the form that gives structure to matter. Information in-forms - gives structure - to matter. In fact, this process of giving form to matter is called the "formal" cause in Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy.
Below is a link to a video interview between Frank Tipler (professor of physics, mathematics and computer science at Tulane University, also a proponent of strong AI) and Robert Lawrence Kuhn (host of PBS's television series "Closer to Truth"). In this interview Tipler discuses this view. In fact, he employs the same example (i.e. Microsoft software) that you did. I would suggest that you watch it. (It's only about 10 minutes long. Very interesting.)
"Is Consciousness an Ultimate Fact?"
@ Philip Thrift
Delete> Platonism (mathematical or algorithmic) is too weird to me. Always has been since I can remember thinking about this (age 16, more or less). One can't prove it wrong, but it's unnecessary fluff. Better to stick to what's concrete. <
There is a proof for mathematical Platonism. Take a geometric object - a circle. A perfect circle only exists as an ideal in your mind. It doesn't exist as a concrete physical object.
Hi Alastair,
DeleteThat was an interesting video, and I would agree with much of what Tipler was saying, but I would also disagree with some of it.
I do think that patterns can exist independently of material, which he denied. I also don't think the concept of a soul is particularly valid, unless construed as the mind. Tipler is clearly trying to find a scientific justification for religious concepts I would reject.
>But hylomorphism ("hylo" = matter; "morphe" = "form") accurately describes your position<
Perhaps etymologically it is apt, but as I say I would reject a lot of the Aristotelian and Thomistic baggage so I still don't think the term would apply to me.
@ Disagreeable Me
Delete> I also don't think the concept of a soul is particularly valid, unless construed as the mind. <
Tipler was explaining his solution to the mind/body problem. So, he was using the terms "soul" and "mind" as synonyms. (The soul is "the form activity of the body." Consciousness or mind is the computer program (software) running on wetware (a.k.a. the brain).)
> I do think that patterns can exist independently of material, which he denied.<
Then your dualism may be better characterized as Cartesian (or substance) dualism.
"A perfect circle only exists as an ideal in your mind."
DeleteI really don't know what you are talking about. That's just nonsense to me.
@ Philip Thrift
Delete> I really don't know what you are talking about. That's just nonsense to me. <
You don't understand the concept of a perfect circle?
Merriam-Webster defines "circle" as "a perfectly round shape : a line that is curved so that its ends meet and every point on the line is the same distance from the center"
So 'circle' like this (a concept):
Deleteghost - The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats.
@ Philip Thrift
Delete> So 'circle' like this (a concept):
ghost - The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats <
No, it's not like a ghost. You can see a ghost. You can visualize the "bodily likeness of a living person." You can't see a perfect circle. You can't visualize the image of a perfect circle in your mind's eye. It's pure abstraction. It's completely immaterial. That's what you're not getting..
What you can't compute*, you must refute.
Delete* 13th International Conference on Unconventional Computation & Natural Computation 2014
@ Philip Thrift
Delete> What you can't compute*, you must refute. <
The prospect of quantum computing hinges on the possibility of processing qubits (quantum information based on the quantum-mechanical phenomenon known as superposition - a pure mathematical abstraction).
Superposition can be expressed concretely as sums of Feynman paths:
Deleteen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_integral_formulation#Concrete_formulation
But you said mathematical abstractions only exist in the mind. But if qubits exist on an actual quantum processor, and the quantum chip is running a quantum program, how can superposition exist only in the mind? It's obviously existing in that chip.
@Philip
DeleteI really think people who think Platonism is just too weird don't get it. It's not at all like belief in ghosts, as I'm not proposing that mathematical concepts exist as some sort of non-physical substance, existing in some ethereal plane.
So saying that circles exist is not like saying that ghosts exist. Saying that ghosts exist is saying that there are entities that meet the description of ghost which physically exist and interact with other objects in the universe. No such claim is made for circles.
They exist only as concepts. Saying that circles exist is like saying that the concept of ghosts exists.
However, there's an important distinction between the concept of a ghost and the concept of a circle. A circle has a precise definition. It is entirely clear what constitutes a circle and what does not. The properties of circles can be explored and understood. Ghost is a much vaguer concept, and has no clear definition. Different movies and works of fiction present ghosts differently, with different properties and abilities. A ghost is a narrative concept, not a mathematical one.
If mathematics is the study of precise concepts and relationships, only mathematical concepts have precise definitions and so only mathematical concepts can be really said to exist abstractly.
Another example:
DeleteMathematical abstractions exist only in the mind.
Gravity in general relativity theory* is a mathematical abstraction.
Therefore, gravity exists only in the mind.
(* Einstein field equations:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_field_equations#Mathematical_form)
@Alastair
Delete>Tipler was explaining his solution to the mind/body problem. <
He was also quite keen to promote the compatibility of his position with religious concepts. I do think that religious belief is motivating him in part. I could be wrong.
>Then your dualism may be better characterized as Cartesian (or substance) dualism.<
No. Descartes believed that there were two kinds of substance which interacted in the brain.
To apply substance dualism to the software/hardware analogy, Descartes would be positing a component within a computer which somehow communicates with the software in order to get instructions and pass information. The abstract software would do all the interesting processing but this processing would have no physical correlate and would happen essentially by magic.
I do not think there is any interaction between the mind and the brain. I think the brain is a physical object which has a structure which is isomorphic to the mathematical object that is the mind. I do not think the mind interacts with the brain or vice versa. They exist in completely separate ways. From the perspective of the objective, physical world, the mind does not exist at all. From the perspective of the subjective world, only the mind exists and everything else is just sensory input.
Going by the Wikipedia article on interaction in the brain, my views would probably be closest to the diagram for parallelism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DualismCausationViews3.svg
However I don't agree with the description of parallelism which invokes God, proposing that God orchestrates the correlation of mental and physical events thus explaining the correlation with no need for interaction.
I think they are correlated because the brain is in some respects an instantiation of the mathematical object that is the mind, therefore behaving in the same way.
A computer program or mathematician carrying out an algorithm that prints out successive Fibonacci numbers does not interact with the Fibonacci numbers and yet the output remains correlated with them. No godlike entity artificially enforcing a correlation is necessary.
Epiphenomenalism is perhaps a better description of my views, but I do think that minds do Platonically exist even without brains, and I do think you can view mental events as being directly caused by mental events, in the same way that you can view software events being caused by software events.
I know of no better way to express my position than by the hardware/software analogy. From my perspective, the analogy is near perfect, and since we all understand the distinction between software and hardware it ought not to be too hard to grasp how I view the distinction between the brain and the mind. None of the standard models of dualism I've come across seem to adequately capture this view.
@ Philip Thrift
Delete> Superposition can be expressed concretely as sums of Feynman paths: <
It appears to me that this is a mathematical expression.
Quantum mechanics holds that reality is fundamentally dualistic - the much-noted and well-accepted wave/particle duality. The wave aspect is an immaterial realm of possibilities - represented by a mathematical abstraction.
> But you said mathematical abstractions only exist in the mind. <
Plato held that the Forms were in a transcendent realm that were accessible to the mind. But this is not relevant to the point I was making. The point was that there is evidence for mathematical Platonism - namely, the evidence accorded to you by your first-person, nonsensory perception of a perfect circle (an immaterial "ideal").
@Philip Thrift
Delete>Mathematical abstractions exist only in the mind.<
I disagree with this assertion.
@ Philip Thrift
Delete> Gravity in general relativity theory* is a mathematical abstraction. <
Both relativity and quantum mechanics reduces everything to mathematical abstractions - immaterial objects (if that is the right word. I probably should say immaterial structures and forms). Gravity is the curvature of space (an immaterial abstraction) and time (an immaterial abstraction). The point is that the immaterial really exists and exerts a causal influence. In fact, our prevailing scientific theories paint a picture of the physical world as completely ephemeral (in that sense, it is "ghostlike").
> Mathematical abstractions exist only in the mind. <
The belief that mathematical abstractions can exist independently of any mind is a view that I don't share. But that's a separate philosophical debate. The issue at hand is whether mathematical abstractions exist. And as you have learned, our minds can perceive immaterial mathematical abstractions (e.g. a perfect circle). Moreover, as you yourself have pointed out, "gravity in general relativity theory is a mathematical abstraction."
@ Disagreeable Me
Delete> He was also quite keen to promote the compatibility of his position with religious concepts. I do think that religious belief is motivating him in part. I could be wrong. <
That's irrelevant to the issue. The issue is whether or not your view is basically compatible with the Aristotelian concept of hylomorphism. At any rate, "digital physics" (which is what Tipler was advocating) is compatible with hylomorphism.
> I do not think there is any interaction between the mind and the brain. <
Then your nearly perfect analogy of software (mind) and hardware (brain) falls apart. Because software clearly performs some kind of interaction (at least with an operating system and input information).
> A computer program or mathematician carrying out an algorithm that prints out successive Fibonacci numbers does not interact with the Fibonacci numbers and yet the output remains correlated with them. <
A computer program processes input information and generates output information.
> but I do think that minds do Platonically exist even without brains <
What exactly do you mean by this? Because it really does sound to me like you're talking about a disembodied soul.
@Alastair
Delete>That's irrelevant to the issue.<
Well, I do agree with much of what he said. I'm just saying there are elements of what he said that I would not really be on board with. And in particular with Aristotelian hylomorphism.
>Then your nearly perfect analogy of software (mind) and hardware (brain) falls apart. Because software clearly performs some kind of interaction (at least with an operating system and input information).<
Not really, because what happens to the hardware can also be understood purely as the result of physical interactions without appeal to the software. You can see electrons whizzing about in accordance with the laws of physics and at no point does any immaterial substance intervene so as to magically change what they do - which is essentially what Descartes believed.
>A computer program processes input information and generates output information. <
I never said it doesn't. But it can correlate with an abstract concept or structure. My point is that this correlation does not mean an interaction must take place.
>What exactly do you mean by this? Because it really does sound to me like you're talking about a disembodied soul.<
I agree. It does sound like I'm talking about that. Believe me, it's not the same. Although explaining my views on this fully would take a book.
I'll attempt to summarize.
The mind is a mathematical object.
All mathematical obects exist, independently of any physical instantiation.
All possible minds exist.
All possible mind states exist.
It's different from a soul in that it has no causal connection with any physical event in the universe. It exists only abstractly. It's not a continuation of a life after physical death, nor is it a spiritual essence that is required to animate a physical body.
Minds exist as platonic abstract objects in the space of all possible minds. They exist in the same way that all possible novels of a fixed length exist within the finite set of character sequences of that length.
For one of those minds to actually be thinking and processing sensory information, it would need to have an environment and a way for that environment to interact with it (via something analogous to a body). All these can be mathematical objects, and do not need to physically exist.
The difference between my views and Tipler's then is that I think that if we run a simulation of an environment containing sentient beings, no new minds are created. That environment and those beings already exist, albeit in a separate universe. Our simulation merely allows us to glimpse that universe. (If we interact with them then it's a bit messier and it's probably best to consider them to be part of our universe.)
But then this ties into my belief that the MUH is correct. All possible universes exist, and thus within this set exist all possible minds. I think this universe is such a mathematical object.
And so minds don't need a physical basis because there is no such thing as the physical.
Ultimately, I am not actually a dualist but a mathematical monist. However, if we take a step back from this position and regard physical reality as something more than mathematical, that's where I would call myself a dualist.
This is the perspective as I see it of unconventional computationalists ("unconventional" is the word they chose*):
DeleteIt is not useful to talk about "mind" computing divorced from a physical substrate. Thus the conventional "computational theory of mind" (CTM) is wrong: It's the UCTM instead.
* conferences.csd.uwo.ca/ucnc2014/about.php
(Just as there are domain-specific programming languages, there are substrate-specific programming languages.)
@ Disagreeable Me
Delete> All mathematical obects exist, independently of any physical instantiation. <
How does a mathematical object become physically instantiated?
@Philip Thrift
Delete>It is not useful to talk about "mind" computing divorced from a physical substrate.<
Perhaps I agree that with this. But, whatever about computation, for consistency I must believe that the mind exists independently of the brain, because I believe the mind is a mathematical object and I am a mathematical Platonist. No other position is consistent with these views.
I think the position becomes a little bit less weird when viewed in light of the MUH.
@Alastair
>How does a mathematical object become physically instantiated?<
Well, perhaps it doesn't, but it does have physical representations or analogues. In this sense, a brain physically "instantiates" a mind. Ten apples instantiate the number ten, and so on.
@ Disagreeable Me
Delete> Well, perhaps it doesn't, but it does have physical representations or analogues. In this sense, a brain physically "instantiates" a mind. Ten apples instantiate the number ten, and so on.<
But you can't physically instantiate a perfect circle (or a perfect line, or a perfect right angle, etc.). Also, if the form or structure or confinguration of the fundamental constituents of matter are always undergoing change, then you have to explain how this changing configuration was first initiated. (This changing configuration could not have always been evolving because this would imply an infinite regress - a logical fallacy.)
> Ultimately, I am not actually a dualist but a mathematical monist. However, if we take a step back from this position and regard physical reality as something more than mathematical, that's where I would call myself a dualist. <
I believe your "mathematical monism" is untenable. If everything is nothing but mathematical abstractions, then there would be nothing physical. Form gives structure to matter. But we must presuppose the pre-existence of matter, or the creation of matter ex nihilo.
Hi Alastair
Delete>But you can't physically instantiate a perfect circle (or a perfect line, or a perfect right angle, etc.)<
Maybe you're thinking too literally. Writing the equation of a perfect circle, x^2+y^2=1, is an example of a physical instantiation. It doesn't mean we have to draw it. There are other ways to represent the concept physically.
>Also, if the form or structure or confinguration of the fundamental constituents of matter are always undergoing change<
I don't see a problem with an infinite regress in this case. A parabola is a mathematical structure with no start point. For every point on the X axis there is a defined Y axis. Given the Y value, the rate of change of the Y value (the slope) and the rate of change of the slope, the entire parabola could be extrapolated from any point on the X axis, stretching infinitely to the left (the past) and to the right (the future).
But I don't think all points in time are equal in the case of our universe. I think the Big Bang could be considered the origin. I suspect that if loop quantum gravity is correct, the Big Bang determines the state of the universe both before and after the Big Bang. The Big Bang was not initiated as that falsely assumes that the universe has not always existed as a changeless mathematical object.
Going back to the parabola analogy, I view the Big Bang as something like the point where the slope is zero.
>I believe your "mathematical monism" is untenable.<
I suspect most people would agree with you.
>If everything is nothing but mathematical abstractions, then there would be nothing physical.<
Indeed. And perhaps there is not. Perhaps we just perceive it to be physical because we ourselves are self-aware substructures of the abstract mathematical concept that is our universe, just as people within a simulated universe would perceive their universe to be physical. It seems physical from our point of view but the idea that it is any more objectively concrete than other mathematical structures is an illusion.
>Form gives structure to matter. But we must presuppose the pre-existence of matter, or the creation of matter ex nihilo.<
What I'm saying is that matter doesn't exist. Or at least, not as anything more substantial than mathematics. I'm arguing that only form exists, so I'm certainly not presupposing the preexistence of matter. This is pretty close to ontic structural realism as I understand it.
Physicists such as Sean Carroll have said that concepts such as electrons and other matter particles are really only useful abstractions, that reality is actually made of fields.
As for creation ex nihilo, not necessarily. That assumes there was once nothing. That's probably not true. Within the scope of this universe, perhaps the matter and energy has always existed. The universe itself doesn't need to be created because it's a mathematical object and all mathematical objects exist changelessly and eternally without creation by simple virtue of the fact that it is in their nature to exist - they can't help it.
But the universe is changing, right?
Only from our perspective. If you view our "time" as something like a numberline, then the whole structure already exists as a changeless whole. It only appears to change to us as we move through the time dimension. This is known as the B theory of time. Again, think of it like the parabola.
But now we have strayed very far away from the philosophy of mind and neural correlates, for which I apologise. I didn't really mean to get into a discussion about the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis. For most purposes, while discussing philosophy of mind, I call myself a non-Cartesian dualist (even though I'm actually a mathematical monist).
@ Disagreeable Me
Delete> Indeed. And perhaps there is not. Perhaps we just perceive it to be physical because we ourselves are self-aware substructures of the abstract mathematical concept that is our universe, just as people within a simulated universe would perceive their universe to be physical. It seems physical from our point of view but the idea that it is any more objectively concrete than other mathematical structures is an illusion. <
Well, if the physical doesn't exist, then there really is no physical hardware. There is only nonphysical software or information. IOW, you're undermining your argument that information is purely epiphenomenal. That it is merely an effect and not a cause.
> I'm arguing that only form exists <
I would say that you're arguing that only information exists.
> But the universe is changing, right? <
Information processing does appear to be happening. I cannot deny that my experiences are undergoing change.
> Only from our perspective. If you view our "time" as something like a numberline, then the whole structure already exists as a changeless whole. It only appears to change to us as we move through the time dimension. This is known as the B theory of time. Again, think of it like the parabola. <
It's called block time or the block universe. I don't necessarily disagree with this. However, if time is a subjective illusion, then subjectivity itself (consciousness) must be eternal. I call this idealism.
Something akin to block time was presupposed by early theologians.
"Augustine of Hippo wrote that God is outside of time—that time exists only within the created universe. Thomas Aquinas took the same view, and many theologians agree. On this view, God would perceive something like a block universe, while time might appear differently to the finite beings contained within it.[21]" (source: Wikipedia: Eternalism (philosophy of time))
Buddhist call the "block universe" the "Dharmadatu."
"In Buddhism, a special term Dharmadhatu is translated as 'total field of events and meanings' or 'field of all events and meanings.' Here the 'Block Universe' seems to be encompassing not only every possible event in the physical universe but also having a psychological component." (source: Wikipedia: Eternalism (philosophy of time))
> But now we have strayed very far away from the philosophy of mind and neural correlates, for which I apologise. <
Why the apology? I asked you some questions. You answered them.
@ Massimo
ReplyDeleteThe primary brainwashing that neuroscience is perpetuating here is the myth that the neural correlates establish mind-brain identification. It doesn't. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation let alone identification.
"The characteristics of brain states and of phenomenal states appear too different to be completely reducible to each other. I suspect the relationship is more complex than traditionally envisioned. For now, it is best to keep an open mind on this matter and to concentrate on identifying the correlates of consciousness in the brain." - pg. 19, "The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurological Approach" by Christof Koch
Your guests' invocation of "emergence" and "complexity" implies a belief on their part in non-reductive physicalism - a position in the philosophy of mind which clearly smacks of dualism.