A Contagion of Belief

Much of what academia teaches about Epistemology could be considered individual inquiry. Meaning philosophers sit back, close their eyes, and contemplate ideas using nothing but the power of their reason to discover some great truth about reality. I am no exception, sitting in a recliner, sipping coffee, and writing this post. However, philosophers are climbing out of their armchairs more recently and studying epistemology as a social inquiry.⁽¹⁾ Instead of using reason to formulate individual beliefs, they look at how larger groups develop beliefs. As one might expect, things tend to get a wee bit messy when comparing personal reasoning with social belief. If you want a first-hand experience of just how dirty things can get, I dare you to post anything on Facebook or Twitter about abortion, voting rights, or how to make a PB&J properly. The responses can be brutal. But this post is not about how individual inquiry differs from social reasoning. That is far too lengthy a topic. Instead, I want to shed some light on how reasoned information (and misinformation) spread through social networks like a contagion and what might be done about it.

None of us are perfect in our ability to reason. When engaged in individual inquiry, reaching a false conclusion is simply our fault, or is it? One can only reason about those things within their experience. It is doubtful I can invent something anyone else would care about without having some experience to prod a thought into my thick skull, and the ebb and flow of our thoughts do not pop into existence of their own volition. They are a result of some outside interaction. When contemplating an idea heard from a friend or read in a blog, or on tv, the newspaper, etc., we are often subject to the bias of whatever medium pushed the idea into our brain in the first place. That bias might prejudice our beliefs and make us reach a wrong conclusion, even if we reason clearly. This holds doubly true in a social setting. Individually, we can sometimes fight off the biases that creep into our reasoning. In a group environment, it is much more difficult. The question is, what can be done about it?

According to a theory called “conciliationism,” we should constantly adjust our beliefs in the direction of testimony that conflicts with our own intuition when confronted by an epistemic peer (semi-technical jargon meaning someone we believe can reason to a similar degree). Even though we might have a good reason not to believe our peers, the theory tries to control the inherent biases and emotional investment that tend to form as the righteousness of our own claims. People do not like to be wrong, so when challenged, the natural reaction is to defend one’s beliefs, even in the face of contradictory information. There are good arguments against consiliationism, but they all lean towards some methodology of correcting for self-doubt. They all go deeper into the individual issues to determine whether the doubt is rational, is there authority behind the belief, justification of the belief, and how to calibrate for evidence or guessing. These methods are undoubtedly helpful but simply impractical to apply to every piece of information that enters our brain. As a result, society tends to outsource a lot of their belief formation based on more general categories related to how much credence is lent to the believability of a claim rather than the scrutiny of a claim itself.

How much credence a belief attains can come from many places. The word credence is a philosophically loaded term for the processes of attributing probabilities to certain propositions. In the epistemology of credence, there again are methodologies we can use to determine how much probability we should assign to the sources of our information. In that sense, credence probabilism is a normative study. With proper consideration and correct logic, some philosophical calculus can be produced that tells us how we ought to consider our sources. But again, to quote the meme, “ain’t nobody got time for that.” Instead of considering probabilities, credence is often less about calculus and more about emotion, especially in a social setting. As one might guess, the emotions of a large group do not always lend themselves to rational thought.

I shan’t go into all the dynamics that might skew how we lend credence individually. Nor do I think there is room in a blog post to consider all the ins and outs of credence probabilism. However, conformity bias, where individual agents are more likely to espouse the beliefs of a social group even if they secretly disagree, plays a significant role. But so does the perceived authority of sources of testimony, the consideration of different types of evidence, and even evolutionary forces like agenticity (a theory of belief-dependent realism where what we believe determines our reality instead of what is).⁽²⁾ In all of this, I think it is fair to say that when emotions and not some more rigorous methodology rules the way we judge information, we tend to get things wrong … a lot. And when we lend credence to the wrong source of information, we mislead ourselves, formulate erroneous beliefs, invest emotionally in the rightness of that belief, and unintentionally mislead our peers … a lot. How do we know this? By using network-based epistemology models skewed for credence, it is well established that our beliefs spread more rapidly based on the credence they are given than their veracity.⁽¹⁾

Ok, now comes the damnable thing of it all … one might think that the way to battle lousy information in an epidemic of conformity biased, credence skewed, non-normative, evolutionarily influenced, emotion-driven beliefs would be to flood a social network with reasoned information disproving the belief. Of course, you would be wrong, but not for what you might think. Using our epistemology models of contagion, we know that when false information is lent credence in an extensive network of people, it spreads more quickly than truthful information can overtake it. As a result, social groups are more likely to internalize those false beliefs more quickly. Especially in large networks like social media, trying to combat inaccurate beliefs with a flood of well-reasoned beliefs is futile. This is because in a static contagion model, meaning one without using skewing for credence, there is little hope people will internalize the well-reasoned information before becoming emotionally invested in their false belief. In fact, according to the “Zollman effect,” the more groups with vast network connections communicate on any given topic, the less likely they are to reach a correct consensus.⁽³⁾

Things look bleak, but there is hope! Understanding how the contagion of false beliefs spread, the way to combat inaccurate information is to flood the network with data that skews the credence factors of the network, not the challenge the data itself. This sounds counterintuitive but bear with me … the factors that cause people to lend credence to incorrect information are the same factors that affect how people judge well-reasoned information. When a methodology is used to scrutinize a belief, the data that supports false propositions crumble and reduce the supporting credence. Happily, well-reasoned beliefs enjoy a bonus of having increased credence as the propositions tend to survive scrutiny. When applied to credence-skewed epistemic models, the spread of high-credence data has a doubling effect. Not only do skeptical recipients of well-reasoned data change their credence scores towards well-supported premises, but the agents offering highly credible data also increase how they view the credence of their own propositions, making them more confident in their own beliefs, which in turn more intensely effects the next skeptic they encounter. As the contagion of high-credence agents in a network skews towards good information, it skews the entire network towards more reasonable beliefs. Put bluntly, instead of challenging someone who holds a false belief with contradictory facts; it is more effective to challenge the credence of their belief by demonstrating that an alternative view is more righteously justified. Shake the confidence in their belief system, and maybe, just maybe, a contagion of credence will take hold allowing more reasonable beliefs to thrive.

Citations:

1.         Goldman A, O’Connor C. Social Epistemology. In: Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Internet]. Spring 2021. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University; 2021 [cited 2021 Aug 1]. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/epistemology-social/

2.         Grayling AC. Psychology: How we form beliefs. Nature. 2011 Jun;474(7352):446–7.

3.         What is the Zollman effect? [Internet]. [cited 2021 Aug 1]. Available from: https://jarche.com/2020/11/what-is-the-zollman-effect/

A Rebuke of Substance Dualism

It has been a while since I have posted, but this, well, more of an essay than a blog post, took longer to create than expected. Now that it is done, I intend to publish it for review by the greater philosophical community or anyone willing to read it. Look… this post is chocked full of philosophical jargon and is as dry as an old baguette. And while I think I make my point, I do it in the dullest way possible. If you are looking for a fun and pithy read, this is not it. Do yourself a favor, skip to the end and read the conclusion.

If I could not dissuade you from reading this by now, it all started when recently I was introduced to Richard Swinburne’s argument for the existence of a soul in his essay for “Substance Dualism” published in the Faith and Philosophy journal, and it activated my bullshit detector. ⁽⁶⁾ Swinburne proposes that humans are divided into a physical body and a non-physical soul. In his journey to support the existence of a non-physical soul, Swinburne asserts there exist different substances for both the physical and mental; a true substance dualism in the Cartesian sense. First, he logically separates the idea of physical and mental properties by the language we use to describe them. Next, he illustrates the differences between how we describe physical and mental events. Finally, he concludes that there must be a difference in the material substance of mental properties. It is that final leap into the realm of substance dualism and the argument that Swinburne offers for its possibility, not the soul itself, that I take exception with.

In this post, I will attempt to evaluate Swinburne’s arguments that separate mental and physical properties, events, and substances to determine whether or not he provides a reasonable explanation for substance dualism. Our journey begins with differentiating between mental and physical properties.

I. Mental Properties and the Eye of the Beholder

Property dualists like Swinburne are often set against those who contend mental properties are emergent properties of a physical brain. Property monists disagree. They argue that mental and physical properties are simply different logical aspects of the same physical property. ⁽⁴⁾ If we take some physical event, let’s say the brushstroke of a painting, there are several properties we can observe. Properties include the amount of paint transferred to the canvas, the width of the mark, the pressure that the painter applied, etc. Both Swinburne and his opponents characterize these types of properties as being physical. Other properties of the brush stroke might include a pleasing color, how the stroke felt smooth on the canvas, lighting effects, etc. Swinburne, along with his opponents, would also agree these describe non-physical properties. However, while these non-physical properties can be observed, they cannot be measured in the same way one measures a physical property. Non-physical properties are best described as experiences that are unique to the observer. It is the lack of measurability that Swinburne latches on to when he defines what he means by a mental property:

“I shall understand by a mental property one to whose instantiation any substance in whom it is instantiated necessarily has privileged access on all occasions of its instantiation, and a physical property one to whose instantiation the substance concerned necessarily has no privileged access on any occasion of its instantiation.” ⁽⁶⁾

With what seems to be an innocuous statement that physical and mental substances are different only in the case that mental properties require “privileged access,” Swinburne sidesteps many arguments about the causation of mental properties. Swinburne does not exclude the possibility that mental properties require a physical component, nor does he shut the door on the idea that mental properties could be emergent from the physical. Swinburne simply insists that the subject of a mental property has special access to understand the property by means of their experience. Effectively, Swinburne uses technical terms to confirm that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and “what it is like” to experience a mental property is not logically described in the same way as a physical property, regardless of how they were caused. This seems uncontroversial except perhaps for some philosophers like Keith Frankish. He would have us believe that mental properties or the qualia of “what is it is like” to experience some events are an illusion ⁽¹⁾, but I digress… Ok, fine. Let’s grant this logical separation of how we describe mental and physical properties and move on to mental events.

II. Mental Events, Qualia and the Scrutiny of Science

Assuming reality is not an illusion and having established the difference between who has access to mental and physical properties, Swinburne turns his attention to mental events. Again, he provides a clear definition:

“I shall understand by a mental event one to whose occurrence the substance involved in it has privileged access; and by a physical event one to whose occurrence there is no privileged access; and by a pure mental event one whose occurrence does not entail the occurrence of any physical event.” ⁽⁶⁾

Swinburne defends this definition by supposing that what makes pure mental events unique is the same “privileged access” used to described mental properties. For example, if I were to howl and hop on my left foot, one might surmise that something caused pain in my right. However, the subject of the pain has unique access to feel the pain that the observer does not. If no outside observer can have “privileged access” to the sensation of the subject’s pain, Swinburne surmises, “they must be distinct from brain events, or any other bodily events.” ⁽⁶⁾ This assertion is Swinburne’s first declaration to separate mental and physical events as different phenomena and perhaps a clever way to insulate his hypothesis from scientific scrutiny. Presumably, science cannot observe a mental event without “privileged access” to the subject’s experience. Does that mean mental events exist outside the physical realm? Swinburne might find an unlikely proponent in Frank Jackson.

The “privileged access” that Swinburne describes seems eerily similar to the concept of qualia. In Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument against physicalism, the idea of qualia is used to demonstrate that all knowledge is not confined to only that which can be described physically. Famously, Jackson created a thought experiment where a scientist named Mary somehow learns all the physical truths about the world from within a black-and-white room. When Mary leaves the room, she experiences the color red for the first time, or the qualia of red. Jackson concludes that despite having complete knowledge of the physical world, Mary could not have known everything about the natural world before her red revelation. Qualia, in other words, is something science cannot translate. It must be experienced. Jackson sums up his argument:

“The whole thrust of the knowledge argument is that Mary (before her release) does not know everything there is to know about brain states and their properties, because she does not know about certain qualia associated with them.” ⁽²⁾

Timing is essential here. For Jackson, the qualia of Mary seeing red was a mental event that no amount of scientific knowledge about the physical world could describe before the event took place, despite knowing everything there is to know about the physical world. Mary did not know the qualia of red before she experienced the sensation.

For Swinburne, the qualia of Mary seeing red is also a mental event that no amount of scientific knowledge about the physical world could describe during or after the event took place. According to Swinburne, without “privileged access” to Mary’s experience, science cannot observe the qualia of the mental event that took place.

The qualia of mental events that each philosopher describes stand outside the realm of what science can explain before and after the phenomena occur. If Jackson’s experiment is valid, then it can be argued that until the mental event of qualia is experienced, science cannot predict it. Along with Swinburne’s argument that qualia are mental events that science cannot observe during or after the phenomena, it would appear that mental events describe a process that indeed stands outside the scrutiny of science.

There are, of course, philosophers who might disagree with this sentiment. What is possible to observe between the objective and subjective nature of qualia and mental events has been described as having an explanatory gap, with no clear agreement among philosophers on how to build a bridge. ⁽⁷⁾ For an opposing view, Thomas Nagel speculates that we could develop a way to “permit questions about the physical basis of experience” but admits that it “seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective.” ⁽³⁾

Until a better explanation is offered to objectively describe mental events, it seems reasonable to surmise they might operate outside the realm of science. Swinburne’s assertion that mental and physical events are distinct therefore has merit. But does that mean the two can interact? It is one thing to determine that mental and physical events appear different in character but demonstrating that mental events lead to mental substances that interact with the physical world, as we shall see, is more complicated.

III. Mental Substances: The Stuff of Souls

Swinburne does not entirely discount the interaction of the mental and physical, acquiescing that “most pure mental events are caused by my brain events.” ⁽⁶⁾ However, when he tries to establish some mental events are caused by other mental events, he steps too far. He provides an example based on a subject having a thought about a math problem and then other thoughts about mathematical theories, equating the two mental events as having direct interaction. Suppose our privileged thought about a math problem constitutes a mental event, which interacts with other privileged mental events pertaining to mathematical theory. In that case, Swinburne surmises that the first mental event causes the second mental event. What is unclear from Swinburne’s example is exactly how these mental events interact. The reader is left to speculate whether an intermediate physical step takes place. Does the first mental event trigger an intermediary brain event that subsequently causes the second mental event, or is there a direct interaction of mental events without the need for a physical medium? Swinburne is setting us up for his assertion that mental substances (comprised of pure mental events) exist only contingently upon physical substances. Again, he again sets the stage:

“I define a mental substance as a substance to whose existence that substance necessarily has privileged access, and a physical substance as a substance to whose existence that substance necessarily has no privileged access, that is a public substance.” ⁽⁶⁾

In this definition, Swinburne crosses the line from thought experiments about mental properties and events to defining a mental substance as a material thing, somehow existing separated from physical substance. Further, it is also clear that Swinburne wants to extend the subjective “privileged access” that prevents science from observing mental substances. This leaves the reader in something of a conundrum. How can one believe a mental substance materially exists, capable of interacting with the physical world, yet simultaneously is not part of the physical world? To further complicate things, by defining the existence of a mental substance as only detectable to the “privileged access” of the experience itself, science can no longer observe or falsify its existence. As Swinburne hopes you will, one can only conclude that there must be a non-physical component to mental substances. Unfortunately, Swinburne does not offer an explanation about how mental substances, even contingently, exist outside the physical world. If they are not part of nature, how can one prove they exist at all? The next best thing might be demonstrating how they interact.

Swinburne emphasizes how the brain plays a vital role in the creation of mental events but goes on to distinguish how the function of the brain is only contingently necessary for the existence of mental substances. Without the caveat that there needs to be at least a contingent physical mechanism (presumably the brain) for mental events to occur, there could be no interaction of a mental substance in the first place. Which begs the question, how do they interact? Unfortunately, Swinburne seems to have dismissed this objection outright in a book written before this article, a stance he has not changed:

“I had indeed not discussed [this objection to substance dualism], for the simple reason that it seems no good argument against the existence of a causal connection which can be repeated endlessly at will, that we cannot explain how it works. That bodily events cause brain events and that these cause pains, images, and beliefs (where their subjects have privileged access to the latter and not the former), is one of the most obvious phenomena of human experience. If we cannot explain how that occurs, we should not try to pretend that it does not occur. We should just acknowledge that human beings are not omniscient, and cannot understand everything.” ⁽⁵⁾

This rebuttal is clearly unsatisfactory. Swinburne simply dismisses the question as credulous. Since Swinburne makes the bold assertion that mental and physical substances interact, he bears the responsibility to defend his claim for the argument to be taken seriously. Since we must already take a leap of faith that mental substances are undetectable and simply acquiesce to the idea that interaction with the physical world needs no explanation, it seems reasonable to dismiss the idea of a mental substance altogether.

IV. In Conclusion

Swinburne began his argument for substance dualism on safe ground. By explaining that mental properties and mental events require “privileged access,” he effectively sidestepped scientific inquiry. This led to the differentiation between mental and physical properties as a matter of qualia. As it pertains to qualia being a subjective enterprise outside the scrutiny of science, Swinburne finds himself in good philosophical company. While there is no consensus on the notion that qualia are distinct from brain states, there are compelling reasons to believe this might be the case, leaving the reader to weigh the evidence for themselves. Based on that evidence, one might reasonably conclude that mental and physical properties and mental and physical events are distinct.

However, when Swinburne makes the bold assertion that a mental substance exists outside of nature, he invites scientific scrutiny and assumes the responsibility of proving how they might interact. Swinburne clearly defines what he means by a mental substance but only asserts it without explaining how they might interact in the physical world. Hiding behind the veil of “privileged access,” Swinburne sidesteps the necessary component of scientific scrutiny that could prove (or more likely disprove) some new mental plane of existence. Instead, Swinburne would have us accept that mental substances exist based solely on the authority of his assertion, leaving the reader to simply believe him or not. I am reminded of a quip by the late Christopher Hitchens that applies here, “That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Until Swinburne can provide a reasonable explanation of how mental substances, if they exist at all, can interact with the physical world, one can only conclude that his argument for substance dualism, and by proxy the soul itself, remains unsubstantiated.

Bibliography

1. Frankish, Keith “Keith Frankish on the Hard Problem of Qualia,” Philosophy Bites Podcast, 2014. <https://philosophybites.com/2014/10/keith-frankish-on-the-hard-problem-and-the-illusion-of-qualia.html&gt;
2. Jackson, Frank, “What Mary Didn’t Know” Journal of Philosophy vol. 83 (May): p. 921-295, 1986.
3. Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a Bat?” Philosophical Review, 83, 435-456, 1974.
4. Robb, David and Heil, John, “Mental Causation,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/mental-causation/&gt;.
5. Swinburne, Richard. “The Evolution of the Soul” Oxford: Clarendon, 1986. Print.
6. Swinburne, Richard. “Substance Dualism” Faith and Philosophy Vol. 26 No. 5 Special Issue 2009
7. Tye, Michael, “Qualia,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/qualia/&gt;.

Demons and Determinism

Since this post is at its heart about determinism, an appropriate definition is necessary. As always, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy serves this purpose well:

“Determinism requires a world that (a) has a well-defined state or description, at any given time, and (b) laws of nature that are true at all places and times. If we have all these, then if (a) and (b) together logically entail the state of the world at all other times (or, at least, all times later than that given in (a), the world is deterministic. Logical entailment, in a sense broad enough to encompass mathematical consequence, is the modality behind the determination in “determinism.” ⁽¹⁾

… when an apple falls from a tree, the path it will take is predictable by observing and calculating the variables that dictate its motion. The physical properties we assign to the apple, such as mass, speed, friction, and gravity, can be plugged into mathematical formulas to determine the apple’s path from the moment it falls from the limb to the moment it hits the proverbial top of Newton’s head. This is the classical description of nature as it relates to the discipline of physics. According to classical physics, understanding the apple’s initial state and the mathematical calculations that describe its motion, the apple’s path is said to be determined. However, for the philosopher, there is some ambiguity in the definition of determinism that must first be unpacked. What is a well-defined state? What is necessary for something to be true at all places and times? What does “mathematical consequence” mean? Let us begin by examining the definition of determinism and its limitations.

As a thought experiment, in the spirit of Laplace’s demon (… am I the only one that pictures this demon as a monkey? …), if one were to hit a pause button on the universe, it would capture the apple in (a) well-defined state. Not just a well-defined state, but presumably during our Laplacian pause, a perfect understanding of all the material that makes up the universe as a whole is revealed. We gain a perfect knowledge of every planet, atom, quark, and so on. Our demonic observation provides somehow a magical knowledge of “all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the universe.”⁽¹⁾ This includes all physical properties that we might attribute to any object of reality, revealed with perfect precision. This perfect knowledge constitutes a more robust understanding of the universe than our definition of determinism demands, to which we will return. For the moment, stick with our abstract understanding of the Laplacian perfect state and assume that it over-fulfills the requirement of (a) well-defined state. How then can we describe this perfect state as being consistent with the (b) laws of nature such that it is true at all times and places?

Consider the math. Mathematics is the abstract relationship by which repeatable outcomes of physical phenomenon are predicted. Plugin the same variables to any mathematical formula, and the same answer is returned, every time, amen. The formula to obtain our apple’s momentum is mass times velocity (p = mv). Einstein’s famous equation that demonstrates mass and energy are interchangeable is E = mc². So, knowing the mass of the apple and the speed of light constant, its energy can be calculated at any moment in time. Hence, mathematics is the method by which we test the truth and consistency of our second premise (b) whether or not a law of nature is true at all times and all places. Though the laws of nature themselves might not hold true at all times and places, the mathematics that describe them tend to waiver less. To paraphrase Galileo, if the universe were a book, mathematics would be its language and the laws of nature revealed by its use.

It follows then, conceptually, that with perfectly precise variables to plug into our equations that repeatably describe the laws of nature, the requirements of our definition to predict a deterministic state of the universe are satisfied. The moment our Laplacian pause button is activated (a) perfectly defined state of the world is obtained. Using perfectly precise variables and the predictive power of math, (b) the truth of our laws of nature are revealed. It follows intuitively the conjunction of “(a) and (b) logically entails the state of the world at all other times (or, at least, all times later than that given in (a)” leaving no doubt that determinism is at least conceptually possible.

That word “conceptually” is the operative term though, isn’t it? The thought experiment we have constructed so far describes the possibility of a deterministic reality. Why then is it necessary to have the little caveat in the definition of determinism that our logical entailment is “broad enough to encompass mathematical consequence?” Why can’t science just provide it once and for all? Well, as Richard Dawkins put it, “Thought experiments are not supposed to be realistic. They are supposed to clarify our thinking about reality.” ⁽²⁾ The Laplacian idea of a perfectly deterministic world helps us clarify how to think about determinism, but it lacks precision. Precision is a bitch and the bane of most scientific inquiry. To explore the level of precision achievable in the laboratory, we must snap back to reality and deal with the imprecision of human observation.

Let us consider Newton’s apple again. To determine the apple’s speed, crudely, a measuring stick and a stopwatch would suffice to obtain the amount of time it takes the apple to traverse some initial distance. However, that would be an imprecise measurement as it would only be as accurate as the reaction time of the human clicking the stopwatch. A photogate would provide more precision. A photogate emits a beam of light that triggers a timer when the beam is interrupted. Two photogates at the top and bottom of the measuring stick would allow even greater precision to understand the apple’s change in velocity. Even so, the precision of our measurement would not be Laplacian-perfect. The amount of time it takes a photon to report back to the device that a break has occurred lacks a certain amount of precision. Nothing man-made can ever produce a Laplacian-perfect measurement. Even the world’s most accurate atomic clock can be off by 1 second every billion years. (3) No matter the sophistication of our instrumentation, there will always be some imprecision to our measurements. Without the ability to provide perfect variables to our mathematical equations, how can our predictions be deterministic? Simply put, they cannot.

As a philosopher, this is troubling, but scientists need not fret. There is no need to despair our imperfection. When it comes to measuring objects in our universe, our definition of determinism allows for some epistemological wiggle-room. The (a) + (b) logical entailment of mathematical consequence means that a sufficient level of precision, not perfection, must be obtained to allow for a deterministic outcome. Let me explain. If one wanted to predict whether the apple falling towards Newton’s head would hit him in the eye or the nose, a stopwatch and short stick might only be precise to within a few inches. Not enough to be certain. Using a photogate, the margin of error might only be within a nanometer, which is more than enough precision to produce a level of certainty about which part of the face the apple will contact. Because our definition of determinism does not require an impossible standard of absolute perfection, ‘within a nanometer’ provides more than enough mathematical consequence to determine the outcome with certainty.

So, where does that leave us? Philosophically, we still have our demons, staring at us disapprovingly in our inability to measure the universe with perfect precision. The idea of a Laplacian understanding of (a) well-defined state of the universe, by itself, is simply an impossible standard for scientific observation. Properties ascribed to physical objects are not themselves physically real. Properties of an object represent conceptual variables that are useful for plugging into mathematical equations. These variables allow us to make predictions about the future state of the real objects they represent. However, producing these variables of determinism is not a perfect enterprise. The precision of the variables used to determine the state of an object is itself determined by the precision of our observation. The precision of our observation is directly related to the sophistication of our measuring instruments, which are themselves imperfect. In classical physics (the problem is actually worse for quantum mechanics as the instruments become part of the system and impart energy into the calculation. For our apple, while no doubt the photons that are colliding with the apple to measure its speed impart some amount of energy, it is not enough to disturb the level of precision necessary to make some predictions, but I digress and perhaps the subject of another post). Either way, as more and more precision is required, the limitations of what can be measured reach the limitations of our instruments and, consequently, limits our ability to predict an object’s future state. Thankfully, not being able to have perfect knowledge of state of the universe does not mean that determinism is not true. Only that the level of determinism we can sure of is limited to the “logical entailment of mathematical consequence” necessary to make a prediction of the future “nearing unity.” This epistemological view of determinism, of imperfectly predicting the future, overcomes the imprecision of our observations. So, while science doesn’t contradict our demons, it does not confirm it completely either. As far as philosophy goes, that’s not too shabby…

Bibliography

1. Hoefer C. Causal Determinism. In: Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Internet]. Spring 2016. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University; 2016 [cited 2020 Aug 16]. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/determinism-causal/
2. Dawkins R. The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene. The Extended Phenotype. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2016. (Oxford Landmark Science).

Free will is not an illusion

Whether one has freedom of will boils down to a rather simple question. For any thought or action, could I have done otherwise? Dig into the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and you will find a couple of logical arguments that attempt to define free will in this way:

“Simple Conditional Analysis: An agent S has the ability to choose otherwise if and only if, were S to desire or prefer to choose otherwise, then S would choose otherwise.

… or …

Categorical Analysis: An agent S has the ability to choose or do otherwise than ϕ at time t if and only if it was possible, holding fixed everything up to t, that S choose or do otherwise than ϕ at t.”⁽¹⁾

There are a few others. All of them have merit and suggest that should an agent somehow have the ability to change their thoughts or actions, it would indicate the existence of free will. However, defining free will is not the issue. The issue is deciphering how, given the physical nature of the universe, could an agent change the inevitable outcome of their actions? This is where the SEP goes off the rails a bit. Rather than address the problem from a scientific standpoint, the authors attempt to square the circle in light of philosophical determinism. They offer up a rather weak view of compatibilism in light of phobias, and appeal to Frankfurt-style cases where mind control thought experiments poke at the idea of sourcehood …. it is an interesting read, but ignores the basic mechanics of consciousness and how, if at all, a physical account of choice might inform the philosophy.

Think about your thoughts. Where did the last one come from? Did you decide what to think or did the thought simply pop into consciousness from the void? There is a lot of controversy about how consciousness arises, but it seems clear that whatever the origin of our thoughts, we are not the author. Even the thought that we could control our thoughts is ultimately illogical. How does one consider a thought before they think it? The concept itself is circular and fails any reasonable explanation. And what about our actions? If we cannot control what we think, we can still deliberate and chose how we act, right? Well … give it a try.

Look around you and point to any object you see. Now consider why you pointed at that object and not some other object. You might say, it was the first object you saw … or that it was easiest to point at … or perhaps you didn’t point. Presumably, there was no constraint on the choice you made. If you pointed at all, there was no coercion to point at one object over another. The freedom part of the equation was there. What about the physical process? Your brain made some calculations, prepped for movement, and stimulated your body into action. If the conscious portion of what to choose simply popped into existence, why should you think the physical part enjoyed any more control? Could you have pointed at something different? If you think so, it means that if we rewound the universe to the time just before you chose what to do, you could have chosen differently. It is to say that cause and effect at the moment before that moment broke down and the next moment for whatever reason was not determined. Is that even possible? Well, perhaps. Perhaps the choice was not the outcome of cause and effect. Perhaps it was the effect of randomness. Consider the implications of that …

At the moment before the moment, perhaps some quantum state created a random butterfly effect on whether you pointed at object A or object B. Perhaps this time, you point differently. Was that free will? I don’t think so. To me, randomness is even further from free will than determinism. If the source of our actions are random fluctuations in quantum states, or chaos theory, or whatever flavor of random causation you prefer … the effect is not freedom to choose. Instead of having the explanatory power of cause and effect, randomness renders our actions truly inexplicable. There is no agency in neither determinism nor randomness.

Without agency, there is no freedom of choice. Does that mean everything we experience is just an illusion? Some philosophers would say so. In his compelling Ted Talk, Daniel Dennett agrees with much of what I just wrote but goes on to talk about the illusory nature of consciousness.⁽²⁾ I recommend watching it, although I disagree that consciousness is an illusion. If that were the case, it implies our witnessed experience is not our actual experience. Rather, it implies what we experience from moment to moment is some trick of consciousness fooling us into feeling like we have free will despite the mechanics of it. I would argue the illusion of consciousness is itself an illusion. It does not matter that it feels like we are in control, or even that our brains try to trick us into that sense of control. It implies that we are somehow an unwitting witness of our moment-to-moment experience. That doesn’t make sense either. To be a dupe of our own experience means that we are somehow separate from the illusion.

Similarly, David Chalmers describes experience as a movie playing in your head.⁽³⁾ He describes consciousness as though we are sitting in a theater of our mind, an agent separated from the movie itself, bearing hapless witness as our thoughts and actions unfold according to our fate. Chalmers and Dennett engage in heated disagreement on the nature of consciousness, but I think they share a commonality in their approach to free will that is flawed. Both men imply that we are an impossible bystander to our own experience, that we are agents observing our agency. To imply that we are somehow separate from our own experience creates an Inception-like trap where yet another level of consciousness exists, like a movie within our movie. This cannot be the case. It would be illogical to think our actual experience and our witnessed experience are separate streams of the same agency. Even if one of them were an illusion, only one stream of experience could be witnessed at a time. It also seems unlikely we are somehow separate agents, each with its own stream of experience, or even both witness to only one. If that were somehow metaphysically the case, when it comes to freedom of thought and action, every possible agent still falls victim to the physicality of the experience. All of them lacking the free will to control their thoughts or actions.

Crazy as it seems, in my opinion, the only logical conclusion is that we lack agency. At least in the sense of freedom of will. Free will is not an illusion, rather the idea that free will is an illusion is an illusion itself. There is no movie to watch. There is only the movie. There is only the experience. If I am right, and we lack the freedom to truly control our thoughts and actions, it seems reasonable to conclude we are not agents of our own experience at all. It may feel as though we are in control, but instead, we simply witness experience as it happens, in real time, helpless to exercise any control over our next thought.

Citations

1.         O’Connor T, Franklin C. Free Will. In: Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Internet]. Spring 2021. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University; 2021 [cited 2021 May 2]. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/freewill/

2.         Dennett D. Transcript of “The illusion of consciousness” [Internet]. [cited 2021 May 2]. Available from: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_the_illusion_of_consciousness/transcript

3.         Chalmers D. How do you explain consciousness? [Internet]. [cited 2021 May 2]. Available from: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_chalmers_how_do_you_explain_consciousness

a broken clock is always wrong

A little background … the tripartite definition of knowledge (or classical account of knowledge) defines knowledge as justified true belief (JTB).  Logically, it goes like this:

1. “S knows that p iff
2. p is true;
3. S believes that p;
4. S is justified in believing that p.” ⁽¹⁾

^{(S = subject | p = proposition | iff = if and only if)}

Roughly translated, for every belief one holds, in order for it to be considered knowledge, it must also be sufficiently justified and true at the same time.  For example, if one were to observe an atomic clock that read 8:01 UTC, they would be justified in the belief that the time is indeed 8:01 UTC.  In order for that belief to be true, it must actually be 8:01 UTC.  Meaning, it is not enough that one simply believes something is true for it to be true.  It must actually be true to count as knowledge.  To establish that truth, one must justify their belief.  In some sense, we take for granted the justification of our beliefs.  Admittedly, looking at an atomic clock is a reasonably sound way to determine the time. And when satisfying the JTB definition of knowledge, the ideas of truth and belief are fairly black and white.  The proposition either is or is not true; and we either believe it is true, or we do not. However, when it comes to the justification of truth, and our belief in it, things get a little messy.  Enter Edmund Gettier…

Gettier took exception with the tripartite definition of knowledge by demonstrating that one could satisfy the JTB definition but arrive at the justification in such a way that it was merely luck.  It was his contention that knowledge justified by luck is a contradiction to the JTB definition.  Keeping with our clock scenario, imagine observing a broken clock the moment it happens to agree with the atomic clock. Let’s say the broken clock on the wall says 3 o’clock.  If we observe 3 o’clock on the atomic clock and 3 o’clock on the broken clock, according to the JTB definition of knowledge, Gettier claims we have justified a true belief because the truth of the time is indeed 3 o’clock. However, Gettier claims that because our knowledge about the true time was obtained by luck, there is a contradiction in the definition.  By observing the broken clock at the opportune moment, Gettier claims our justification for knowledge is false.  This is commonly referred to as a “Gettier case.”

To get around the Gettier case, philosophers have often tried appending some additional parameter to the definition of JTB (sometimes called JTB+) to alleviate the contradiction. Notable additions include:

• “S’s belief that p is sensitive if and only if, if p were false, S would not believe that p.
• If p were false, S would not believe that p.
• If S were to believe that p, p would not be false
• S’s belief is not true merely by luck.” ⁽¹⁾

These are all well and good, and each with their own set of debates about whether or not they remove the proposed flaw in the definition.  However, instead of trying to modify the definition to accommodate Gettier’s claim, I allege that if the justification of the original claim was false, then we never satisfied all of the criteria for the tripartite definition of knowledge in the first place.  If I am right, knowledge was never established by the lucky observation, meaning there is no contradiction. If I am right, one might conclude there is no need to improve upon the definition, at least not to accommodate Gettier.  Let me explain…

Digging deeper into the clock example, when we observe the broken clock at precisely the time it agreed with the atomic clock, the justification for our believing the time rested on the belief the broken clock was in good working order.  However, as omniscient observers, we know this to be false.  We unwittingly justified the truth about the time by sheer luck.  Observing both a working and a broken clock when they agreed, established the false belief that both clocks were in good working order.  This false justification, lead to a false belief.

Imagine the same scenario, but one where the observer actually knows one clock is broken.  One could not knowingly observe a broken clock alone and claim knowledge of the actual time.  It would be unjustified. Even if a broken clock is right twice a day, the only way to claim knowledge of those moments would be to justify the belief against a working clock.  If such is the case, then we can establish that Gettier assumes an observer is allowed to be unaware that the justification of their belief is invalid.  Gettier would have us excuse this invalid justification and count it as knoweldge according to the JTB definition, and then claim a contradiction, rather than accept that observing a broken clock, even unwittingly, is an insufficient claim knowledge the first place. Gettier can’t have it both ways.

Breaking it down, to establish the justification of some proposition as being true, one must look at the preceding justifications that lead up to the mistaken belief to determine where in the causal chain our system of justification breaks down.  Consider this claim:

• (p1) a clock is in good working order
• (p2) therefore, observing the clock we can claim knowledge of the time

It is paramount that (p1) be true before we can claim (p2) has a reasonable justification of truth.  If (p1) lacks justification, and therefore knowledge, because the clock is broken, then we cannot establish (p2) as being true. In other words, the JTB of (p1) is essential to the justification of (p2).  If (p1) is not true, the justification of (p2) cannot be true, so we could never have claimed (p2) as knowledge in the first place!  Gettier wrongly insists that (p2) meets the definition of JTB, creating a contradiction.  In order to be a contradiction, there must be some scenario where (p2) is both true and false at the same time, but if (p2) never satisfied the definition of JTB, there is simply no contradiction.  Let’s continue the thought to ad absurdum…

Central to Gettier’s claim of a contradiction is whether it is reasonable to allow a claim of JTB if one simply believes their justification is valid, despite it being false.  Gettier wants to apply a double standard when it comes to truth, and the justification of that truth based on a false, or lucky, belief of justification.  Gettier argues that even if the agent is unaware their justification of truth is invalid, they can still claim to have acquired knowledge.  This is simply not true. If it is false to claim JTB when the truth of a belief is invalid, it follows that one cannot claim JTB if the justification of that truth is invalid.  It would be akin to knowingly observing the broken clock and the working clock when the times did not agree and claiming that both times are justified simply because we wanted to believe in it.  The justification of a truth claim being true is by definition necessary for the entire claim to be true. If the truth claim of JTB must be valid independent of the belief of the observer, then the justification of that truth must also be valid independent of the observer.  Without that valid justification of the truth, knowledge cannot be claimed.

I think it is fair to conclude, whether an agent is aware that the justification of their belief is invalid, or whether they are simply lucky in the justification of their belief, does not change the requirement that the justification of a claim must be true, despite their belief, in order to establish knowledge.  Gettier would have us conclude that knowledge established by luck, instead of justification, is sufficient to establish knowledge. Enough so to claim a contradiction in the tripartite definition. The truth is, there is no contradiction because a true justification is never established; and without justification, there can be no claim to knowledge.

Citations:

1.         Ichikawa JJ, Steup M. The Analysis of Knowledge. In: Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Internet]. Summer 2018. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University; 2018 [cited 2021 Mar 13]. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/knowledge-analysis/

Consciousness, Part 2

Some philosophers make an excellent case that consciousness is ultimately an illusion. I’m not talking about the kind of illusion where humanity is somehow deceived by God, or there is some sort of reality we cannot cognitively access. Science adequately dispels these myths. The type of illusion I am referring to is of our own making and forced upon us without our consent. If you are afraid this is a post about how evolution adapted the brain to trick us into survival, it is not exactly about that. It is more about how our brain interprets reality. It is about whether consciousness is aligned with truth. It is about the phenomenal properties of our experience. Consider this…

If you have studied philosophy of mind, you are likely to hear about David Chalmer’s theory regarding “the hard problem of consciousness.” In fact, it is less of a theory and more a brilliant observation. The hard problem of consciousness contrasts the phenomena of “what it is like” to exist with the more representational aspects of brain function. It takes the mind-body problem and separates it into questions that science can answer and those which are unmeasurable. Although the technology does not presently exist, science will ostensibly be able to answer questions that explain how consciousness arose, and what physical functions consciousness serves, and why choices are made. Despite the current technical complexity, these are the easy problems. An emerging field of Computational Theory of Mind is working on these issues. The hard problem seeks to answer questions like “what is qualia”; or Thomas Nagel’s, “what is it like to be a bat?”; or how Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum” equates to an external reality. These problems resist measurement and rely deeply on sensory experience. Philosophically speaking, the hard problem is a question of phenomenality.

Here’s the problem with the hard problem. Phenomenality is non-reductive. Now… whenever a philosopher hears something is non-reductive, they usually flip out equating it to non-reductive physicalism, which is the theory within the philosophy of mind where so-called mental states are not reducible to physical states. This is not that. Determining whether mental and physical states are the same thing is not in question (I contend they are representationally the same, but I digress…). What I intend to differentiate are mental and physical properties. I am contrasting the representational properties of experience with phenomenal properties.

There are still those who believe phenomenal properties are ultimately physical. To them, the “what it is like” questions of experience are somehow representable in the brain physically. If we could only stop time for a moment and take a snapshot of the brain, experimentation might reveal the phenomenal properties of consciousness. Essentially, they deny that there is a hard problem of consciousness. I disagree. I think that is a conflation of what it means to be in a physical state of something and what it means to describe the properties of that state. You see, phenomenality has no state of being. The qualia, or “what is it like” to be conscious is more like a description of a physical thing.

Descriptions are conceptual, and concepts by their nature are non-physical. Determining whether phenomenal properties are physical or not is a matter of conceptual vs non-conceptual representation. Phenomenal descriptions of consciousness equate to conceptual representation of thoughts (like mathematical concepts) and are different from the physical representations of sensory experience that is grounded in states of being. ⁽¹⁾ Look, I am not denying that consciousness itself lacks physical representation, quite the opposite. Without the brain, there is no consciousness. I am only observing that phenomenal properties are non-physical, and therefore irreducible to a physical state. This non-reductive phenomenality (it is unclear if I am the first to coin this phrase, but I can’t find it anywhere else…) is an important building block if the idea that consciousness is an illusion has merit. But wait a minute, how can consciousness be both physically represented and phenomenally illusory at the same time? Good question clever reader, allow me to continue twisting your noodle.

Here is where we make the big leap. There is an undeniable link between truth and reality. The often-used idiom “perception is reality” is a clever sound bite, but the real meaning is to convey that what one person believes is not necessarily true for another. Reality, therefore, has to include a shared representation of our conscious perceptions in order to determine its truth. What I mean is that more than one person’s perception must be corroborated to establish the truth. If that sounds like science, then it sounds right. The truth of scientific consensus relies on our non-conceptual representational of our shared physical reality. Phenomenality, on the other hand, cannot be similarly corroborated. The “what it is like” of conscious experience are the conceptual, non-reductive phenomenal properties that play out in our mind’s eye.

Consciousness undoubtably has a connection to the physical states of the brain, but the phenomenal properties of our everyday experience do not. The “what is it like to be you” representations of reality are based on the predictions the brain makes about reality, not reality itself. Sometimes it gets things right, sometimes it does not. There is simply no way to tell shared reality from personal illusion based on the phenomenal properties of experience alone. Does that mean all consciousness is an illusion? I think it is perhaps a step too far, except in the sense that until we corroborate our perceptions with the perceptions of others, we simply don’t know.

Citations

1. Van Gulick R. Consciousness. In: Zalta EN, editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Internet]. Spring 2018. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University; 2018 [cited 2021 Feb 13]. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/consciousness/

Some thoughts about Deontology, Particularism, and Killing Babies

Particularism is a way of moral thinking according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy where “there are no defensible moral principles, that moral thought does not consist in the application of moral principles to cases, and that the morally perfect person should not be conceived as the person of principle.”  To prescribe to the idea that there are moral rules one should follow, or some standard of moral objectivity does not make sense.  When justifying a moral obligation, particularism appeals to the ability of an agent to identify the reasons for action relevant to the current situation.

Deontologists view the world with a sense of obligation, of moral duty, that requires them to act in a certain way when making moral choices. Because deontology is normative in nature, meaning the obligations that it defends describe how a person ought to act, their idea of moral decision making adheres to moral principles that codify what is right and wrong. Because there is a right and wrong way to act in every situation, deontology appeals to authority of moral principles to determine if an action is good or bad.

So, the stage is set, a particularist believes there are no moral rules while a deontologist believes there is a moral rule for every situation. On the surface these two beliefs seem diametrically opposed. One could argue that while they approach moral dilemmas from vastly different perspectives, on the whole, both deontology and particularism are two sides of the same coin.  Let me explain …

Particularism holds the idea of moral principles suspect. Alhough it can be said that a particularist would agree there are some rules of thumb that make sense, they would be careful not to say there is no situation where a rule could not be shown to be wrong. Meaning even in the most seemingly uncontroversial situation, an exception could be concocted to make a moral obligation true or false. For example, “killing a baby is always wrong” seems to be an uncontroversial moral principle. However, a particularist could imagine a situation where that statement is immoral. Perhaps a madman has control of a weapon that could wipe out humanity if a baby is not sacrificed. In such a hypothetical situation, making an exception to what seems a universal principle makes a compelling case to kill the baby.

In contrast, the deontological idea of always appealing to a moral principle seems as though it would be a bit too restrictive in this case, but it does not have to be. Imagine a deontological book of moral principles that describe how to act in every conceivable situation. There are potentially an infinite number of situations, so this book of must also codify an infinite number of actions. Meaning there is likely a rule that dictates if humanity is ever threatened with extinction by a madman that requires a baby to be killed, one ought to kill the baby. Again, the impetus is to kill the baby, but this time by rule, not exception.

(Let’s not get off on the tangent here that both moral systems are assuming at a consequentialist outcome, that’s not the point of this blog, stay focused, you’ll see…)

The similarity between the two approaches becomes clearer when you determine that a particularist insists that for every obligation, an exception can be presented to break the rule; while a deontologist insists that for every exception, a rule can be made to create an obligation. In that sense, what good is it for a deontologist to insist that one prescribe to a set of infinite moral principles if there are infinite variations? At the same time, what good does it do a particularist to say there are no moral principles when in fact they would determine how a person ought to act based on an infinite number of exceptions? Both viewpoints allow for an infinite number of moral actions based on an infinite number of dilemmas. On the surface, it might appear as though this similarity constitutes enough overlap to grant a deontologist some amount of particularism, and vice versa. However, that does not mean that how they arrive at the same conclusion does not matter.  In fact, it makes all the difference.

Granting an exception for the first moral principle ever conceived, deontology appeals to historical principles to determine moral obligation. If a moral dilemma repeats itself, as they often do, the deontologist appeals to the last time that rule was invoked as a guideline for how to act today. The problem with appealing to historical principle is that what was appropriate at one time might not be appropriate now. Slavery was once thought of as being a normal part of life. In fact, several prominent figures shed volumes of books which reasoned why slavery was an inherent part of humanity. If one were to only draw upon the moral principles of the past, deontology might still agree with slavery. Granted most people are able to overcome historical precedent and view slavery for its immorality, but that has more to do with the agent than the moral system.  See the problem?  The point here is that deontology, because it is rooted in historical precedence, must rely on the agent to not use a deontological approach to see the immorality of a current dilemma.

In contrast, it would be difficult for a particularist to make the same mistake. The particularist line of moral reasoning is not bound by the precedence of past dilemmas. Particularist reasoning takes place in the present. The downfall of particularist reasoning is that it could fall prey to mistakes of the past that a deontologist might avoid.  However, there is also no obligation for the particularist to ignore historical principle if it seems applicable to the present. This should illustrate that the particularist line of thinking is quite different from the deontologist. Instead of appealing to a set of infinite principles with historical precedence, they make their own rules up, one at a time, according to the current situation.

These two views, though they may often arrive at the same moral conclusion approach moral philosophy from a vastly different schools of thought. One can conclude that despite the ability for both deontology and particularism to appeal to an infinite set of moral judgements, the approach to those judgements has consequence. The deontologist, with an infinite set of rules, uses a line of thinking that appeals to judgements of the past, making the progress of morality difficult. The particularist, with their infinite set of exceptions, begins each dilemma with a line of thinking that discards the principles of the past and ponders the problem anew.  While the particularism may still arrive at the same conclusion, there is no barrier to progress.

Consciousness, part 1

Consciousness … is probably one of the most difficult concepts to pin down in both science and philosophy. How does consciousness arise? How does one define consciousness? Is the conscious mind separate from the body? There are plenty of books and articles written on any one of those questions. I will probably spend some time on this blog talking about consciousness because I think it is a place where philosophy has a lot to offer. Consciousness deals with our direct experience of the world. It is deeply personal and often subjective. Only I know what it is like to be me and I don’t know what it is like to be you. Yet we share a common reality.

There are a couple of camps that separate how people view consciousness. The American Psychological Association likes to separate people in the materialist camp from those in the immaterial.⁽¹⁾ The APA differentiates these opposing views by describing immaterialists as “looking from the inside” while materialists are “looking from the outside.” For those more scientifically inclined materialism probably has a lot of appeal. The materialist (or physicalist) “look from the outside” describes the functional processes of the brain to explain how consciousness works. For example, if we burn ourselves, c-fibers are stimulated at the site of the injury sending signals to the brain to react with pain. Biologists might identify the damage of tissue with the electrical process that signals the brain to react. One might even say that the conscious state of being in pain equates to some triggered physical state of the brain. Materialists would argue that we can study the brain, the signals, and develop instrumentation to observe and measure these phenomena because they fall within the domain of science.

There is another aspect of consciousness that is not observable. The “look from the inside.” It concerns the very essence of what it is like to be conscious. It is perhaps the only thing any of us can be certain about. I think, therefore I am conscious, and that conscious self has internal experiences that cannot be observed by science. There is something that it is like to be conscious that is, perhaps, different for every conscious creature. In 1974, Thomas Nagel wrote an excellent paper describing “What Is It Like To Be A Bat?”⁽²⁾ In his famous Mary’s Room thought experiment, Frank Jackson describes what it might be like to experience the color red for the first time and how that differs from a scientific understanding of red.⁽³⁾ There is something about the first-person experience, unobservable, that is unique to consciousness. In philosophy, qualia is a term often used to describe the phenomena of experience (a blog post for another time). Personal experiences tend to be irreducible in terms of materialism, ruling out a scientific reduction to a physical state. However, we intuitively know what it is like to experience pain or the color red through introspection.

In my mind, these are not opposing viewpoints. It seems equally true that both science and philosophy have something to say about consciousness. Emotions and experiences are no doubt tied to our physical processes but the non-physical properties they display are equally undeniable. If consciousness is simply the product of brain states, there may come a time in the distant future when science can fully manipulate consciousness. I mean in the sense that we could actually implant in someone the experience of seeing red, or what it is like to be a bat. Perhaps in some distant future, conscious experience will simply be a matter of the right interface and Matrix-like programming. In fact, some distinguished philosophers have argued it is plausible we are already inside a universe sized brain-in-a-vat experiment. Oddly enough, these sorts of future-science-related issues are what some philosophers consider the easy problem while the hard problem of consciousness, coined by David Chalmers, has more to do with the irreducible aspects of experience. How do we explain a collection of particles and atoms coming together in such a way that mental states just “light up?”

For the philosopher, it can be fun attempting to bridge the explanatory gap between these material and immaterial viewpoints, always searching for some truth that might move the needle of understanding forward, if only a little. It is in that vein that I hope to write a bit more about different aspects of consciousness in the coming weeks.  Perhaps it will spark some interest.

———————————

Citations

1.         Consciousness – APA Dictionary of Psychology [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 1]. Available from: https://dictionary.apa.org/consciousness

2.         Nagel T. What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Philos Rev. 1974;83(4):435–50.

3.         What Did Mary Know? | Issue 99 | Philosophy Now [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 2]. Available from: https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Did_Mary_Know

I, Zombie in utero

In the philosophy of mind, more than a little time has been spent in the discussion of zombies. Zombies are a great conversation starter for philosophers when you want to discuss the idea of the mind, or consciousness as being something separate from the body. A philosophical zombie is not the same as you might imagine from the movies. They are just like you and me, except they lack any conscious experience … assuming one of us has a conscious. In other words, there is nothing it is like to be a zombie. Descartes described them as automata. Living, breathing, but unaware of experience. Horrifyingly, this is also how he described animals and other creatures we now know to be conscious.

As debates about zombies go, for those who believe they are possible, a zombie illustrates the idea that consciousness exists somehow separate from the body. Not necessarily physically separate, but at least contains different properties that cannot be described in physical terms alone. The physicalist who might challenge the idea that something exists outside of what can be observed will have a hard time refuting this idea because the idea of zombies is logically possible. I’m not proposing the fancy philosophical ‘conceivability argument’ that would try and trick you into believing that if something is conceivable, then it is possible. I’m talking about something more, well … physical.

This post is not meant to argue, one way or the other, for or against the idea of dualism. Only to inform that for a short amount of time, philosophically speaking, we have all been zombies. Despite a mostly functioning body during our fetal development, we do not really become conscious until after birth. This is due partially to endogenous sedation while in utero. In fact, we do not exhibit our first measurable access to consciousness until a few hours after birth. However, during our fetal development the brain functions without consciousness displaying access to the mental states of pain, memory, hearing, and smell. All of these brain activities take place in the absence of consciousness meaning there is nothing that it is like to be a human fetus.⁽¹⁾ Therefore, in utero (and for a short time afterward) we have all been zombies. Human automata lacking consciousness.

Citations

1. Lagercrantz H, Changeux J-P. The Emergence of Human Consciousness: From Fetal to Neonatal Life. Pediatr Res. 2009 Mar 1;65(3):255–60.

God’s Existence and the Burden of Proof

“Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat” is a Latin phrase that means “the burden of the proof lies upon him who affirms, not him who denies.” The idea comes from the 2^nd and 3^rd century and is attributed to the jurist Paul (Julius Paulus Prudentissimus) and later introduced into Roman law by Antonius Pius to establish the legal maxim of being innocent until proven guilty.⁽¹⁾ In a court of law, the burden of proof is initially on the accuser. In a philosophical debate about God’s existence, the party that bears the burden of proof is less clear. Often between atheists and theists, the atheist insists the burden proof is on the theist. After all, the theist is the one insisting that God exists, so where’s the evidence? Theists might point out that atheists are equally affirming that God does not exist, so where is their evidence? Let’s examine.

In philosophy, one or more propositions that entail a conclusion make up an argument. Generally, one would establish a conclusion’s soundness by determining how reasonable it is to believe the supporting propositions. Stated alone, “God exists” or “God does not exist” does not make an argument. There must be at least one statement that supports those conclusions. There are many forms of argument. For this example, let’s use modus ponens for simplicity’s sake where p → q. Think of it in your head as:

1. p implies q
2. p is true
3. therefore, q must also be true

Now, we make a slight adjustment to the age-old debate and state them in the form of two simple logical arguments, modus ponens.

• p → God exists
• p → God does not exist

Both statements now represent a valid argument. Establishing the soundness of each argument is based on establishing the truth of the premise (p). For instance, a theist might claim that miracles (p) prove God exists (q) and then provide evidence to support the claim. The structure of the argument is valid whether the premise is true or false.

The atheist might then be tempted to claim there is no proof of miracles (p); therefore, God does not exist (q). On the surface, both of these arguments simply appear to affirm the opposite claim. However, if observed closely, the theist makes a positive assertion while the atheist makes a negative assertion. The difference between a positive and negative assertion lies in how one logically establishes an argument’s premises. A positive claim can be established with a single evidentiary example (i.e., a video of someone turning water into wine … my personal favorite). “There is no proof of miracles,” on the other hand, is a negative assertion. A negative assertion has no evidence to establish the truth of the proposition. More formally, it commits the logical fallacy of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam or the appeal to ignorance. An appeal to ignorance is when one attempts to affirm that a proposition is true on the basis that it has not been proved false, or that it is false because it has not been proved true. The atheist insisting that the absence of evidence for God’s existence is in itself evidence of God’s absence commits this fallacy. As such, the atheist does not bear the burden of proof because his argument is invalid. However, this means shifting the burden of proof back to the atheist is also unreasonable. The theist may not argue that no evidence that God does not exist is reason to believe in his existence either. It commits the same fallacy.

So, in a (formal) argument about God’s existence, the burden of proof lies with the theist’s positive affirmation that God exists.

At least epistemologically speaking and using model logic, it does. Look, I’m not the logic police, and there is always some other theory in philosophy. Perhaps the next post will be about evidentialism and the absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

Citations

1.         Ei incumbit probatio qui [Internet]. Law Times Journal. 2019 [cited 2020 Dec 22]. Available from: http://lawtimesjournal.in/ei-incumbit-probatio-qui/