|
Author
|
Topic: James Barham: Thoughts on Thinking Matter
|
Moderator
Administrator
Member # 1
|
posted 01. February 2003 22:36
Thoughts on Thinking Matter
by James Barham
Abstract-The word design is commonly used to refer to either a process of conscious reflection and planning, or the product of this process. Either way, it is essentially connected with thinking. In the process sense, design connotes the particular end that a thinking agent has in mind. For instance, my design may be to build a better mousetrap. In this sense, design is both intentional (directed toward having more dead mice) and normative (more dead mice is good). In the product sense, design refers to a particular organization imposed on matter by the agent as the means to an end. In this example, the new arrangement I come up with is the means embodied in matter for the fulfillment of the end of more dead mice. In this sense, design is teleological (more dead mice is its goal).
Like a number of problems in biology, design presents us with a chicken-and-egg sort of circularity. Mousetraps are designed by minds instantiated in brains, but brains themselves seem to be a lot like mousetraps. That is to say, to many, neurons seem to be arranged for the sake of thinking in much the same way that springs and levers in mousetraps are arranged for the sake of dead mice. But if that is so, then who or what designed brains? Perhaps human brains were designed by other minds somewhere else---say, in another galaxy or on another plane of being (this is the Intelligent Design position). But if these other minds are supposed to be instantiated in matter, then we have the same problem all over again. If not, then we are left with disembodied minds---which are even more mysterious than the embodied sort. To avoid both horns of this dilemma, a completely different approach is required.
To read the full paper, click here.
[ 01. February 2003, 22:37: Message edited by: Moderator ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Janitor@MIT
Member
Member # 125
|
posted 03. February 2003 14:23
Very well done, James Barham! Kudos
IP: Logged
|
|
RBH
Member
Member # 380
|
posted 04. February 2003 00:18
I have several misgivings about Barham's representation of the "Mechanistic Consensus," but I will reserve most of them for more extended commentary as (and if) I have time to develop them. However, I did spend some fair amount of time after reading Barham's essay puzzling over whether I am a member of the "Mechanistic Consensus." I have concluded that I am not, but not for the reason one might suspect, that I reject one or another other of the three pillars of the "Consensus" that Barham describes. Rather, it is because I do not believe his description of the "Consensus" represents anything like a consensus. In fact, I don't think it exists as a consensus, say nothing of a "Consensus."
To be sure, one can abstract sentences and even paragraphs from various writers (scientists, in fact) that illustrate all three pillars individually, but it is not obvious to me that the three pillars together characterize anything like a shared consensus among life scientists. That is, I suspect the proportion of life scientists adhering to all three is pretty small, making for a weak notion of "consensus."
I have particular reservations about the kind of reductionism Barham imputes to molecular biology in particular and by extension to biology in general. There may have been a time (for over-exuberant ex-physicists who became philosophers of science in their old age) when "to reduce" (in science) was taken to mean to completely explain phenomena at one level of analysis in terms of those at the next lower level of analysis, all the way down to particle physics where I reckon it was assumed that reduction stopped, having reached the ultimate foundational explanation. But that wasn't the version of reductionism I learned when I was in graduate school nearly four decades ago taking all the philosophy of science the university offered. Some scientists (again mostly physicists, I suspect) who haven't thought about it may still believe it, though (to my knowledge) I don't personally know any such. Those of us working at "higher" levels of analysis, in the life sciences, seem to operate in terms of a kind of 'percolating reductionism,' where we realize that knowledge and theories at lower levels may put constraints on what we hypothesize and on the kinds of explanations we offer (we can't postulate FTL information transmission, for example). But none believe, so far as I am aware, that we are merely marking time, just messing around until physics tells us the real explanation for what we are studying.
Auyang's quotation (page 19) in the paper, and Barham's conception of "material emergence" are akin to the kind of reductionism I learned years ago, though differences remain. However, the primitive and erroneous notion of the meaning of reduction as 'ultimate explanation by particle physics' that is attributed to biology pervades Barham's essay, and I think it weakens his critical position considerably.
Finally (for these remarks, anyway), Barham wrote quote:
In summary, the massive coherence and coordination of the parts of biological systems---all intricately correlated so as to support those systems in existence as organized wholes---must arise either by chance or by some ordering principle conforming to functional logic. Elementary considerations of statistical mechanics and probability theory suffice to exclude the chance hypothesis. Therefore, there must exist an ordering principle. Such a principle is logically prior to selection, since novel biological forms must already exist before they can be "selected." Indeed, all viable novel forms are always already entrained into a fully integrated functional system before selection occurs. Therefore, variations in living form are the cause of differential reproduction, not the effect. This means that the theory of natural selection tacitly presupposes the functional integrity and adaptability of organisms. Which is another way of saying that Darwinism begs the question of teleology.
I hope some knowledgeable philosopher of biology takes that paragraph on. It encapsulates the rhetorically simplistic and ultimately deceptive dichotomization that is inherent in virtually all of the "chance versus design" debates I have seen. It follows in no little part from Barham's rejection of historical narratives as contributing to explanations of current states of systems. Biological systems are historical systems, and their explanation resides in part in their histories. It also follows from (I think) an implicit conflation of "chance" and "equiprobable." That's one that deserves close examination, too, particularly in the context of the kind of percolating reductionism and constraints I mentioned above. Put simply, to say that something occurred by chance is not to say that what actually occurred along with all the things that might have occurred but didn't are equally probable in the context in which it occurred. Statistical mechanics can lead one far astray when an analogy does not hold. And that word "conforming" in the phrase "conforming to functional logic" is so inviting!
I believe (as I have seen Light Jaguar and Evan and (maybe) Janitor argue - to the extent that I can figure out what Janitor is arguing!) that there are potential approaches to the analysis and understanding of biological systems that are non-reductionistic, where "reduction" is understood in the radical sense I mentioned above, or perhaps even in a somewhat weaker sense. On the other hand, I don't take their argument seriously because of some disagreement with the rampant radical reductionism in the ranks of science, because I don't believe it is there to be disagreed with. I suspect that Barham's notion of a "Mechanistic Consensus" will be merely perplexing to most working life scientists.
RBH
[ 04. February 2003, 00:36: Message edited by: RBH ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
|
posted 04. February 2003 02:33
Unlike RBH, I think that most scientists, when questioned, would end up agreeing with the Mechanistic Consensus, given a generous interpretation of Barham's initial statement of it. (They might be wrong, but I think they'd agree.)
Unfortunately, it seems to me that fairly early on Barham starts placing too much significance on the fact that he is using the language he is using:
quote:
Every reaction in the cell is more than just a reaction, it is a functional action. Such an action constitutes a choice among states that are energetically equivalent so far as the ordinary laws of physics are concerned. Such preferred states are achieved, not by minimizing energy, but by doing work---that is, by directing internally stored energy here or there according to needs that are normative for the cell.
By italicizing choice, are we to believe that we can ignore Gibbs' Free Energy and do what we please? No--because work is required. Work, as in internally stored energy. Work that is achieved precisely by minimizing energy, albeit in a highly controlled fashion. If you release a motorless roller-coaster from the top of its run, it will make some fantastic motions along the way--but there is nothing physics-breaking about its motion. (One would hope, or else the engineers could give little assurance of its safety!) Much like a rollercoaster, biochemical reactions inside cells are constrained to a narrow track.
But by using words like "normative" here, we're immediately in danger of being misled. Does present-day physics and chemistry have the conceptual resources for a complete understanding of how living things work? Yes, as far as they go. It is inconvenient to use the language of physics and chemistry to describe systems of such complexity, though, so we use additional language. Barham seems to be implying that our use of additional language imposes some deep philosophical burden upon us.
If Barham is claiming that scientists think that the language of physics and chemistry is enough for a practical discussion of how living things work at all levels, then he is wrong. Nobody I know of who works with living things (myself included) would make such a preposterous claim. I would as soon describe Midsummer Night's Dream by the coordinates of dye molecules on paper. If, on the other hand, he is saying that the processes are not determined by physics and chemistry, using italics to claim normativity doesn't even address the question. Normativity is a higher level of description. When you look at the physics and chemistry, it all seems to work out as it ought.
So when Barham says
quote:
Open any cell biology textbook to any page, and what will you find? Talk of regulation, control, signals, receptors, messengers, codes, transcription, translation, editing, proofreading, and many other, similar terms. . . .these concepts are no less normative than those of everyday speech.
he is either making a point that nobody needs made, or is making the point too early; he should wait til the discussion of natural selection.
To return to my rollercoaster track analogy, natural selection is what is supposed to answer the "why is the track that shape" question; physics explains "how does the train stay on the track?" The (supposed) normativity arises from the shape of the track, not the mechanics.
quote:
According to the Mechanistic Consensus, the things that happen in organisms do not really happen for a purpose; it only looks that way. In reality, things just happen.
[Description of natural selection cut.]
It is assumed that this explanatory scheme gets rid of all the troublesome teleology in biology. But it does not. Natural selection provides only the appearance of reduction, not the reality, as may be seen from a number of considerations. To begin with, we may note that the notions of survival and reproduction undergird the entire Darwinian schema, and are not themselves explained by it. But these concepts already remove us from the terra firma of physical interactions and land us right back in the teleological soup.
Notions of energy and space and so on undergird the entire schema of physics, but I don't doubt the explanatory power of physics because it is mired in teleological soup.
When engaging in a philosophical discussion of this nature, it's important to keep separate the phenomenon we're describing with our concepts of the phenomenon. Barham has crossed over here, apparently suggesting that NS has to not only explain how life is selected for, but also to explain why we choose the words we do to describe it!
Furthermore, natural selection is not concerned with how it is possible that the universe is constructed in such a way that there is a (seemingly) coherent concept of "survival" and "reproduction". That's partially a linguistic challenge, and partially an origin-of-universe question. The existence of life as we know it is very heavily dependent on the physical laws of the universe, but that is another topic entirely. Rather, given that we understand the concepts of survival and reproduction, natural selection seeks to show us how those factors (and others) can lead to surprising diversity in the forms of life.
I will not address the restating of traditional "evolution can't work, the problem is too tough" arguments here. We have plenty of other threads and forums to cover that. There is a slightly novel addition:
quote:
Natural selection is said to act as a ratchet, locking into place the functional gains that are made, so that each new trait can be viewed as a small incremental step with an acceptable probability. But what Darwinians forget is that the way a ratchet increases probabilities and imposes directionality is through its own structure. In the present context, the structure of the ratchet is simply the functional organization of life.
This vastly overestimates what is necessary to have a ratchet. You only need variability in populations, descent with modification, heritable traits, and selection, and you can (theoretically) get all of that in far less than an entire bacterium.
Besides which, once you have a very simple bacterium, we've already agreed we have a ratchet, so everything past abiogenesis is certainly unaffected by this critique.
quote:
It is the software---the abstract logical relationships---that constitutes the normative thinking, not the clanking machinery of the brain per se. Brains are special only in that they are complex enough to run the right software for producing thought.
Unfortunately, the idea that patterns per se can have distinctive causal powers flies in the face of both science and our commonsense experience of the world. In the inorganic world, certainly, it is clear that the organization of matter arises from its physical properties, not the other way around.
Yes, but you can abstract the properties, model them on a computer, and get the same behavior in the computer as in the real world (to a large extent--chemistry is not a completely "solved" problem).
So there is no contradiction between noting that the properties of matter are critically important, and that the same properties can be modeled.
quote:
Manmade machines have functions only in a Pickwickian sense. They are merely tools that satisfy our needs. Their so-called functional organization is simply a pattern that we value. They themselves have no needs and value nothing. Cells, in contrast, evidently possess an inherent power of intelligent agency. No simulation in silico is ever going to acquire equivalent powers merely by virtue of the faithfulness of its mimicry.
This is a coherent and perhaps even eloquent statement, but there is no argument here. It is simply a statement of belief that cells possess a power of intelligent agency. Unfortunately, this seems to be the core of the argument. Personally, I have a different belief.
Perhaps I have missed the justification for this statement of belief, but I can't seem to find it.
quote:
What is important is to frame the problem in the right way. The question is, Does it make sense to explain the purposive and adaptive behavior manifest in all life forms (whatever we choose to call it) on the model of machines that have been consciously designed by brains? [Alternatively] Does it not make more sense to seek to understand the thinking power of brains as a modification of a general power intrinsic to life as such?
Maybe it makes even more sense to seek to understand the thinking power of brains using a model of physical laws. Especially since that's what most neuroscientists do--analogies with computers and the like are useful inasmuch as the analogy is accurate.
The general power intrinsic to life as such seems to have problems explaining the function of single neurons, much less assemblies of them. Biologists know plenty about what life can do; if there were many obvious parallels, there's a very good chance it'd have been noticed already.
(My training in biology (specialized in neuroscience) has exposed me to distressingly few examples.)
The final section on grounding normativity in nature is interesting. I simply view it as a set of intriguing alternative viewpoints, since I don't think a compelling case has been made that the "mechanistic consensus" is actually broken.
IP: Logged
|
|
Noel Rude
Member
Member # 516
|
posted 04. February 2003 16:51
James Barham zeros in on the fatal flaws of materialism and does so eloquently, though I'd quibble when he says, "It is not necessary to choose between mechanistic reductionism and Intelligent Design." Intelligent Design, if I am not mistaken, is advertised as a "Big Tent" friendly to all who might doubt or wish to challenge the "Mechanistic Consensus" -- this whether they be Judeo-Christian theists, pagan pantheists or animist New Agers. If James Barham's "Thinking Matter" is somehow fundamental, elemental, and prior, and not reductionist, derivative, or supervenient upon algorithms of necessity and the serendipity of chance, then we're talking Intelligent Design.
So often I read in media reports that ID refuses to get into the God issue -- as though in adherence to some separationist doctrine for scientific or political purposes. But this misses the point. There are many questions, and the question of design and the question of the ultimate source of that design happen to be separate questions. By asking the first question we put ourselves in the same camp as theists (who are not deists), animists, and any others who share the same skepticism of the Materialist Consensus. It is also appropriate to ask the next question, as James Barham does here, in regard to the source of the Intelligence in Intelligent Design.
James Barham's animism (if that's what it is) might ruffle the feathers of some in the creationist community, but in my opinion he comes as an ally from square in the ID camp.
James Barham's materialist critics may not like his characterization of the Materialist Consensus, but they obfuscate when they do not clarify that for them Design/Purpose/Mind is not fundamental but derivative and that -- though things are awesomely complicated -- chance and necessity is all there really is.
IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
|
posted 04. February 2003 17:58
For me, design/purpose/mind is not fundamental but derivative.
Is that clear enough?
However, I am completely willing to take it as fundamental if it can be demonstrated that design/purpose/mind is irreducible.
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 04. February 2003 18:17
James, I like your paper and would like to make a few remarks with regards to the classical mechanistic conception of nature. A presupposed pair of concepts required for it are 1) space and extension, 2) a mereology where the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts.
If those aren't adequate for a phenomena then so isn't mechanism. Others are that mechanism allows only causation by contact action, nonlocality is forbidden.
All of these are denied as completely adequate for our current basic theory of matter, Quantum Physics.
I have a recent e-mail from Basil Hiley indicating similar. He also responded to my question on "where" consciousness fits into this scheme of things:
quote:
Hello Basil and thank you for forwarding your e-mail detailing your and Bohms position. I can see how consciousness has a possible place in the orthodox interpretation but cannot see where it would go in Bohmian Theory. This is the issue of most concern to me and I would appreciate your thoughts on it.
quote:
I did not touch on this question because I was answering specific points raised by Henry.
You have to find out why this new quality of energy arises (the quantum potential energy). It has nothing to do with classical physics. It arises essentially because the quantum formalism is about non-commutative structures. Non-commutativity arises most naturally in activity and process. Not activity of things or fields in spacetime but in activity or process per se. From this process emerges not only fields and particles but space time itself. The quantum potential arises when we project the extended Heisenberg algebra into a phase space to display what is going on in that conceptual structure. Melvin Brown and I discuss this in quant-ph/0005026.
What David Bohm and I argued was that the quantum potential could be thought of as active information, that is information for the particle not for us as some people would have it. This information is used to organise the behaviour of matter in the phase space. But note the essence of what is going on is in the activity itself, not in its display in phase space or in spacetime.
Now thinking, feeling etc. are processes, which are not in spacetime either. What better place to see mind and matter as different aspects of
the same process, the same undivided totality. Not only do we display physical phenomenon in spacetime (recall Kant here and take the ideas
through to Fichte and Schelling). Thought, feelings and emotions are displays in the material process of the brain. So if I can be a little simplistic, I see the relation between mind and matter being revealed as we explore more deeply this fundamental underlying process. Bohm called this the implicate order, the explicate order being what can be made manifest in either material process or in spacetime. His ideas on consciousness follow from this line of reasoning.
For us quantum theory doesn't get anywhere near providing these deeper relationships. We have a lot more thinking to do. What I think quantum
mechanics does is to open a window through which we can begin to explore these deeper questions. Where I totally agree with Henry is the classical
physics will not get us anywhere.
I don't know whether this makes much sense to you but if you are interested you will find a lot more details of what we are trying to do on our web site.
We don't have causal closure either and consciousness in the orthodox accounts of quantum theory are causally efficacious. All this suggests a hierarchy of existential levels.
Now, here's a problem that may require another thread. These real phenomena may not be easy to work with conceptually. In otherwords they may go beyond rational thought. What I mean by rationalism is standard logical thought. So how to deal with them? Are standard forms of reasoning all that great? Can one deny the logical "law of non-contradiction" (i.e., allow true contradictions) without the consequence that doing so is logically "explosive" (i.e, implies or entails everything)? If "irrationalism" is real how does one positively engage it, instead of using the age old approach of hiding it or from it.
[ 07. February 2003, 16:53: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 06. February 2003 01:31
Here's Gregg Rosenberg with another refutation of materialism:
If we assume that physics tells us everything there is to know about the basic physical properties -- mass, charge, color, spin, flavor --all we know about these properties is that they are different from one another, and that they enter into certain patterns of effects and responses. That means the basic level of facts in our world is built on a circle of bare difference, and nothing else. Anything else in a purely physical world would have to be the kind of thing that could be constructed out of facts in a circle of bare difference.
We have observational knowledge about conscious experience that it contains certain kinds of qualites, like colors, sounds, pains, emotional tones, and so forth, that have a kind of content that is not just bare difference. This observational knowledge is not behavioral observation but observation of the the intrinsic content of experience itself. Successful explanation in biology does not touch the failure to explain experience because biological explanation explains behavior and form -- both are kinds of things that could be constructed from a circle of bare difference -- and the kind of observational information in experience is not information about behavior or form. It is about qualitative content. This is a failure of theory to account for observation, therefore physicalism is false.
If your interested in viewing this in the full and formal argument see it posted at:
http://ai.uga.edu/~ghrosenb/chptr2.pdf
IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
|
posted 06. February 2003 03:12
Rosenbergg's piece, while interesting, hardly begins to refute materialism. Rather, his arguments seem more to suggest that it is a logical possibility that there is not materialism, and that this logical possibility feels right, so let's assume it.
From his critical Premise 3:
quote:
The skeptic maintains that facts about bare difference [i.e. physical laws] are always consistent with the absence of experience because qualitative contents [i.e. sensations, qualia] are not merely structures of bare difference. . .our acquaintance with the phenomenal qualities yields information about them as contents occupying slots within these difference structures [i.e. bare difference].
This is, as far as I can tell, all there is to his argument (plus a lot of linking of stuff at either side). Rephrasing it, it goes: When I experience the color red, it is different from whatever happens in my eyes and brain and so forth; because what happens in my eyes and brain and so forth are facts, mechanisms, bare differences, while I experience red, and that doesn't feel like a fact, mechanism, or whatever.
Suppose that there is a mechanism that implements your sensation of red.
Oops, the argument no longer works.
This is the key insight that anti-materialists seem to have difficulty refuting: why is it not possible for there to be a mechanism that implements your sensation?
And even more critically, how do you do so in a way that doesn't also make you assume that other humans are simply machines, unconscious and unfeeling? (I.e. they try to use first person vs. third person perspectives in the argument of exactly the same sort that skeptics use to doubt the existence of any consciousness other than their own.)
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 06. February 2003 12:53
Rex, I passed your response onto Gregg and got this back from him.
quote:
Very quickly,
quote:
Suppose that there is a mechanism that implements your sensation of red.
What would it *mean* to make this supposition? A good ontologist (and we are trying to do ontology here, whether we are physicalists or anti-physicalists) has to be concrete about this sort of thing. Let ==> represent entailment as I use it informally in chapter two and then define it in chapter three. To put the argument in your responder's terms,
Premise: To suppose there is a mechanism that implements a sensation of red is to suppose (facts about mechanism ==> facts about phenomenal red).
But the argument establishes, not (facts about mechanism ==> facts about phenomenal red).
Therefore, the supposition is impossible.
Your responder hasn't questioned the argument against entailment, so I assume he accepts it. There are various ways and reasons for questioning the premise and that is what chapter three is about.
http://ai.uga.edu/~ghrosenb/chptr3.pdf
Also,
quote:
FWIW, I would say that Rex's excerpt from chapter two:
quote:
The skeptic maintains that facts about bare difference [i.e. physical laws] are always consistent with the absence of experience because qualitative contents [i.e. sensations, qualia] are not merely structures of bare difference. . .our acquaintance with the phenomenal qualities yields information about them
as contents occupying slots within these difference structures [i.e. bare difference].
Is not so much a summary of the argument as a summary of the conclusions with all the argument ("the linking stuff") snipped out.
[ 06. February 2003, 13:12: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Dan Smith
Member
Member # 656
|
posted 06. February 2003 13:40
I am struck by James Barham's take on reproduction. If he is correct about its being irreducibly normative, that puts normativity at the center of Darwinism. Notice Rex Kerr's response, posted on 2/4:
quote:
But by using words like "normative" here, we're immediately in danger of being misled. Does present-day physics and chemistry have the conceptual resources for a complete understanding of how living things work? Yes, as far as they go. It is inconvenient to use the language of physics and chemistry to describe systems of such complexity, though, so we use additional language. Barham seems to be implying that our use of additional language imposes some deep philosophical burden upon us.
Yes, that is precisely James' point. His respondents don't quite appreciate the depth of the burden. Perhaps it could stand further explication. I was missing this simple point myself until James' remarks hit me over the head with it yesterday.
Biological reproduction is an open ended, indefinable concept. It greatly transcends even the basic concept of copying, which is itself fraught with ambiguity. Just look at the concept of 'copy'. It is almost entirely normative in its meaning, unless taken in a purely abstract, digital context. And if taken in its most abstract form, you would then have to contend with the deep metaphysical issues surrounding Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles.
Does that mean that biological reproduction is metaphysical? Yes and no. Any particular instance of it could be perfectly physical or mechanical. But Darwinians are not talking about instances. They do and must appeal to a universal concept of reproduction. Evolution is not an instance of anything. If it is anything at all it is a very general pattern of inheritance.
Darwinians assert that reproduction, along with mutation, is the basic 'mechanism' of evolution:
Reproduction + mutation --> (cause) evolution?
But is reproduction a causal entity? Is it fair to say that hurricanes cause destruction? It is fair for a layperson to say that, but that does not make it a scientific statement. Hurricanes happen and destruction happens, and there is some correlation between the two, but that is not science: it is not cause and effect.
Darwinians claim to understand evolution. Biologists claim to understand reproduction. Let us grant that biologists do have a good grasp of many of the particulars of 'reproduction'. The problem comes when you subsequently attempt to employ 'reproduction' as as if it were an ontological or causal entity.
The most that Darwinians can legitimately claim is that reproduction happens and evolution happens, and the two processes seem to be correlated. Who knows where the causality resides?
I am a teleologist. From my perspective evolution causes and comes logically prior to reproduction. It is the primordial, metaphysical necessity of the Telos that causes and ultimately explains the emergence of biological and reproductive phenomena.
My teleological claim is just as much justified by the observed correlation between evolution and reproduction as is the Darwinian claim.
Darwinians appeal to our mechanistic and materialistic sensibilities. Evolution is alleged by them to be reduced to reproduction and mutation, both of which may or may not be further reducible. They postulate a hierarchy of phenomena where all the causation is mechanistic or 'upward'.
Is their claim just a 'facon de parler'? I think not. I think that they think they have worked it all down to the 'brass tacks', to the 'nuts and bolts'. There is nothing in the phenomenon of evolution to suggest whether the causes are upward or downward or both. The only thing to suggest otherwise is the Darwinian appeal to an illegitimate ontology of 'reproduction' and to many other emergent entities which are every bit as much epistemic in substance as they are ontic. As such they are neither physical nor mechanical and may not legitimately be appealed to as if they were, or even might be!
James Barham is pointing out that the Darwinians need to get serious about their logic and ontology, after a century and a half of very loose talk.
IP: Logged
|
|
Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
|
posted 06. February 2003 21:40
Mark, thanks for doing the relaying. I appreciate Gregg taking the time to respond, but I'm afraid I was too glib the first time for my point to be understood.
I am confused as to what Gregg thinks the arguments are in the section "Bare diference cannot entail qualitative content". They all seem to be examples of the statement, "Gee, they feel different to me."
It's not a credible material position that learning facts elicit the same sensations as experiencing something directly. I certainly don't hold to that, yet that's what all the arguments seem to be based upon. I'll quote a longer section.
quote:
The skeptic knows that we can catalog the differences between different colors and different tastes along relevant dimensions. If we do this, we can surely abstract out a content-free difference structure. The skeptic s objection is to the further move of analyzing conscious qualities into these abstract patterns of difference between them. Rather, our acquaintance with the phenomenal qualities yields information about them as contents occupying slots within these difference structures. Reification of the difference structure as basic ignores the grounding of those differences in each specific case and so ignores the content instantiating those structures.
Suppose there is a robot with a spectrum analyzer that runs through a bunch of processing--diodes, transistors, and so on--and eventually the machine talks to you about colors. You shine red light at it. "Oh, that's red," it says. You shine green; "That's different, that's green," it says. "How do you know?" you ask. Well, if the robot is aware of its entire mode of operation, it might give you a detailed mechanistic explanation, if that's what you were after. But if it doesn't have access to that information, all it can say is, "I know that they are different." Or, perhaps, "They feel different."
The robot is--by virtue of ignorance--forced to ground those differences the same way we are, it seems. (Even without ignorance, it might still have a module that produced a different input to its "feeling processor" when green came in than when red came in--and thus it would still say that they felt different.)
Now, either (1) no such robot could possibly exist, or (2) we can distinguish ourselves from such a robot in essential ways.
I do not know how I can distinguish other humans from said robots on the basis of human capabilities. I don't even know how I could distinguish myself, since I know I can't rely on my feelings given that if I were a robot I can't rule out that I would have feelings.
So this is why I might "reify the difference structure as basic". It is basic, in that if I can reproduce the structure, I can reproduce the experience. However, it is not basic in terms of my experience, because I do not experience the difference structure. Rather, the difference structure is the experience, and to understand the difference structure as anything else (such as the movements of particles, firings of neurons, currents through transistors, or whatever) I must have a different experience (that in turn has its own difference structure).
Ergo, the difference structure is ontologically basic but knowledge of the difference structure is not epistimologically basic. In fact, it is the difference structure itself--that is, the sensation--which is epistimologically basic. (Necessarily; it is all we have access to directly.)
With respect to Dan Smith's point, I'm afraid I don't even understand his objection. Perhaps it is because I don't understand why teleology is necessarily relevant. I can only hope that either on further reflection I will understand his point; or that my comments above will shed more light on my position, and Dan can (if interested) point out where in my analysis I need to get more "serious about [my] logic and ontology".
Edited to fix a typo.
[ 07. February 2003, 02:07: Message edited by: Rex Kerr ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Mark Szlazak
Member
Member # 391
|
posted 07. February 2003 11:21
Rex, Gregg's in for another round.
quote:
quote:
I am confused as to what Gregg thinks the arguments are in the section "Bare diference cannot entail qualitative content". They all seem to be examples of the statement, "Gee, they feel different to me."
The first step I make is to argue that feelings impart observational information about the things felt -- phenomenal information. This is argued for, not asserted. It is this information which ultimately needs to be accounted for. So this seems to be a place where I am making a move that Lex is not: I am moving from the happening of an experience ("having a feel") to the possession of intellectual information about the world ("having a fact"). It could be that Lex is an eliminativist about experiential facts, in which case he needs to answer the arguments earlier in the chapter that facts about consciousness are observables.
quote:
It's not a credible material position that learning facts elicit the same sensations as experiencing something directly. I certainly don't hold to that, yet that's what all the arguments seem to be based upon. I'll quote a longer section.
It is credible that learning facts is the acquisition of information about the world. The question then arises, "Can these physical facts account for the observational information acquired in experience?" That is a basic question.
quote:
Suppose there is a robot with a spectrum analyzer that runs through a bunch of processing--diodes, transistors, and so on--and eventually the machine talks to you about colors. You shine red light at it. "Oh, that's red," it says. You shine green; "That's different, that's green," it says. "How do you know?" you ask. Well, if the robot is aware of its entire mode of operation, it might give you a detailed mechanistic explanation, if that's what you were after. But if it doesn't have access to that information, all it can say is, "I know tha they are different." Or, perhaps, "They feel different."
This is a Dennettian kind of argument. It works OK if the target of explanation is just our utterances about consciousness. This is not what is targeted though: the target is observational information about experience that is gained from having experiences. It seems more and more clear that Lex is not going along with the move from having an experience to having a fact. That's obviously crucial though. If one does not believe there are facts about consciousness we get from experience, then one's theory of consciousness is going to look very different than mine and of course materialism isn't going to seem problematic: the facts that cause problems for it haven't been admitted as explanatory targets in the first place.
quote:
The robot is--by virtue of ignorance--forced to ground those differences the same way we are, it seems. (Even without ignorance, it might still have a module that produced a different input to its "feeling processor" when green came in than when red came in--and thus it would still say that they felt different.) Now, either (1) no such robot could possibly exist, or (2) we can distinguish ourselves from such a robot in essential ways. I do not know how I can distinguish other humans from said robots on the basis of human capabilities. I don't even know how I could distinguish myself, since I know I can't rely on my feelings given that if I were a robot I can't rule out that I would have feelings.
Again, this is all very Dennettian. The inference is: consciousness cannot be observed from the third-person, therefore there are no first-person facts to account for. This eliminativist move is addressed earlier in the chapter where I give an explicit argument that facts about consciousness are observables. Therefore, the fact that something *else* (like a set of utterances) might be explained without invoking phenomenal facts does not give grounds for eliminating the phenomenal facts.
quote:
So this is why I might "reify the difference structure as basic". It is basic, in that if I can reproduce the structure, I can reproduce the experience.
This assertion is just what is at issue. The question is, assuming this is true, why is it true? And the question I ultimately raise in the book is, "Can a pure difference structure exist at all (i.e, is it coherent to reify it)?" And I come down on the side of the skeptic's there, proposing what I call the Carrier Theory of Causation. So this assertion seems to me to beg all kinds of deep and interesting questions.
quote:
Ergo, the difference structure is ontologically basic but knowledge of the difference structure is not epistimologically basic. In fact, it is the difference structure itself--that is, the sensation--which is epistimologically basic. (Necessarily; it is all we have access to directly.)
This is an appeal to "Ontological sameness and epistemological difference" and it is reasonably popular. I have alot to say about it in chapter three. I ultimately reject it because, in order make it work, we would have to appeal to a concept of identity or necessity that is not meaningful.
[ 07. February 2003, 15:38: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
IP: Logged
|
|
Dan Smith
Member
Member # 656
|
posted 07. February 2003 11:37
Rex,
My previous point was that words ultimately have to refer to a reality, especially when used by scientists. They cannot all just be for convenience. This is just the assertion of scientific realism. It is that electrons and photons are not the only real things in the world. Theoretical entities in the special sciences also refer to real things.
I gather that you are a physicalist (yes?), in which case you would not believe in emergent properties in biology. The people who do, call themselves naturalists.
Physicalism is a viewpoint that is on the wane. Few people defend it these days. There are many good arguments against it. Naturalism is on the rise, as you may well know.
However, I also believe that naturalism is incoherent, just because emergent properties are incoherent if one does not not appeal to functionality and 'downward causation' and thus to teleology. But teleology easily takes one beyond the comfort zone of most naturalists.
This is why Jaegwon Kim, for example, argues against naturalism: it puts the naturalist on a very slippery metaphysical slope into a domain that transcends nature. But even Jaegwon admits that physicalism gives a very poor account of qualia.
This is just to outline my own perspective, which is pretty well covered on my website.
If you wish to pursue any of these issues I would be glad to oblige.
Dan
IP: Logged
|
|
William Brookfield
Member
Member # 565
|
posted 07. February 2003 18:50
Hi James,
I enjoyed your paper.
quote:
James
To begin with, we may note that the notions of survival and reproduction undergird the entire Darwinian schema, and are not themselves explained by it. But these concepts already remove us from the terra firma of physical interactions and land us right back in the teleological soup.
While I agree, I think that I would say “psychological soup” or perhaps “consciousness soup.” I have noticed that your article and an earlier one by Neil Bloom "What is Natural Selection?" PCID April-Sept. 2002 both seem to allude to a specific category error. Given that these allusions seem to lead directly to a theory of mine (Psychodynamics). I would like to try here to explain what I see as being behind these allusions. Hopefully this will also help to clarify this issue -- at least regarding "survival."
In order to have "a struggle to survive" at least two things are required.
#1. A *concept* of self as separate from inert matter and other selves
#2. A positive *valuing* of one's living self-structure (and a subsequent negative valuing of the death, destruction or loss of one's self-structure).
With these elements in place one will struggle to preserve one's self-structure due to its perceived *value.*
"Concepts" and "value judgments" however are *not* a part of the physical sciences -- they are instead fundamental concepts in *psychology*.
The human "struggle to survive" is likewise associated with consciousness. When driving a car, the "struggle to survive" translates into the “struggle to keep the car on the road” (or in the correct lane). Falling asleep at the wheel (loss of consciousness) represents the loss of “the struggler” -- and a very possible subsequent loss of life. Our familiar, commonplace "struggle to survive" is therefore driven by consciousness with its *concepts* and *value* judgments.
It is forbidden, by definition, for Darwinism (a physical theory) to be propelled by a psychological dynamic. Thus, the commonplace "struggle to survive" cannot be invoked as a causative agent.
In a physical theory, consciousness can at best only arise *secondarily* as a byproduct of physical process. Darwinism, being material, must conform to the physical ideal of Weinbergian pointlessness. That is to say, the Darwinian version of the “struggle to survive” must be entirely derived from a physical energy potential *not* from the psychodynamic value potential I have just described. To my knowledge, no such physical derivation has ever been accomplished.
“Value” = Weinbergian “tooth fairy”
When I originally embraced Darwinism, (earlier in my life) I did so because it seemed to make sense. It only made sense however, because I was mistakenly projecting my personal, psychology based, "struggle to survive" onto biological organisms. My experience in physics however has since taught me that assumptions about physical constituents of physical systems as "little people" with "little minds" are forbidden in *physical* theory.
I subsequently rejected Darwinism as a physical theory, embracing instead my own "Psycho-Darwinism" in which primitive organisms do indeed possess the "little minds" necessary to produce a basic psycho-dynamic “struggle to survive.” Psycho-Darwinism thus includes an essential psychodynamic *force* that drives evolution forward - a force that has no analogy in present Darwinian theory.
“Materialist” Darwinists who hijack my psychodynamic “struggle to survive” to propel their “physical” theory do indeed land themselves right back in the psychodynamic soup -- and by their own metaphysical doing. A physical car requires physical gas and physical evolution requires a physical propellant -- not a metaphysical psychodynamic propellant.
Thus, it is physical Darwinism’s lack of physical theoretic grounding that, I believe, keeps putting it (and its adherents) “back in the teleological soup.”
IP: Logged
|
|
|
Topic Closed
Printer-friendly view of this topic
