Consciousness and emergence

Let me preface this post by articulating the fact that I don't view my following comments as a rigorous philosophical treatise on the topics of consciousness or emergentism. Rather, this post is more in the form of a random collection of my thoughts, which may or may not be right, on said topics.

Consciousness continues to present problems for any physicalist or materialist philosophy of mind. Theories like eliminative materialism, functionalism, and identity theory seem, by some, to fall short of accounting for the peculiarities of consciousness such as intentionality, qualia, and the "illusion" of free will. Some of these problems and difficulties have caused a preemptive adherence of materialists to another philosophy of mind: that of emergentism.

Emergentism, as a philosophy of mind, holds that properties, patterns, or realities of consciousness are novel qualities that emerge from the interaction and configuration of their constituents. These qualities are called "novel" because they do not exist--either in the same degree or even in the same kind--at the substrate level of their aggregate parts. An example of this emergence is given by the quality of solidity. That is, the table I'm currently typing at is solid and firm, yet this quality is not found, and least not at all in the same sense, in the particles and atoms that make up this table. In fact, it is said, the atoms are mostly empty space, and "solid" is one of the last adjectives we would use to describe them. Thus, the solidity of the table would seem to emerge upon the configuration of the constituents.

How does this help physicalism/materialism? Well materialists famously have trouble accounting for how compositions of particles, atoms, and neurons which are not intentional and conscious can produce qualities antithetical to those very parts. However, we see cases all around us, evident in the table example, of component parts generating emergent properties that the parts did not themselves possess. So, it is said, it might very well be the same with regards to the brain and consciousness. For if a set of aggregate parts X1 can produce an emergent quality Q in light of the fact that each element in X1 does not possess Q then it is at least in theory possible that consciousness and the qualities therein can emerge from mere particles and neurons.

Now while I admit the possibility of emergentism as a philosophy of mind, I don't at all find it to be persuasive, nor do I believe anyone has come close to demonstrating its validity. Let me articulate my reasons for the former. First, we've only discovered two reasons that a quality might emerge from certain constituents: 1) emergence from mere structure, or 2) proto-emergence. In 1) a quality is generated strictly from the arrangement or structural relation of its constituents. An example of structural emergence is a box that has the property of "containment". The pieces that makes up the box do not harbor this property, but when these pieces are arranged a certain way, we see the emergence of the ability to contain--and it is the structural relation that grounds this emergence. In 2) the qualities of the component parts produce the same quality, but to a higher degree, in the emergent property. An example of this proto-emergence is a magnetic field emerging from charged iron atoms. This is proto-emergence, and not structural emergence, since each iron atom is itself a little bit magnetic, and thus all of these magnetic iron atoms together generate a magnetic field.

So, why is the distinction above important? Well, it seems that if the qualities of consciousness are emergent then they would need to be either structurally emergent, or proto-emergent. But, and here's where the problem arises, we know that consciousness cannot be the result of proto-emergence, since particles, atoms, and neurons are not themselves conscious, or intentional, and do not exhibit qualia, and no amalgam of non-conscious constituents can generate a conscious property through proto-emergence. Thus, proto-emergence is not a possibility for the materialist. But what about structural emergence? This seems to be a dead end as well. For while there are many mysteries yet to be uncovered about the brain, it's structural physical arrangement and components are quite well known. Neurologists know all about the mechanics of neurons, axons, dendrites, synapses, and the like--the building blocks of the brain. And yet, there is nothing about the arrangement, structure, and pathways between these components that would yield the properties of consciousness.

Again, I don't want to stretch this too far as if what I've said is a knock-down argument against emergentism--it's not. But what we've surveyed so far does paint emergentism in an unfavorable light, and puts a burden on the one who wants to claim that the ontology of emergence can adequately account for the most pervasive human experience--consciousness. I'll end on a note from philosopher James Madden:

[T]here is absolutely nothing about the chemical processes occurring within neurons with which we are remotely acquainted that in any way explains the fact of consciousness. Of course ignorance of an explanation does not entail that there is no such explanation, but we should ask ourselves how likely such an explanation is given our general understanding of the world. The probability, as far as we can tell, seems to be exceedingly low.

The mind is what the brain does?

I recently ran across this post by neurologist Dr. Steve Novella over at his blog Neurologica. The post is basically a rebuttal to neurosurgeon Michael Egnor’s views regarding how memory is encoded in the brain; however, my agenda here is not to comment on this exchange. Rather, this current post of mine was sparked by comments made by Dr. Novella in his post regarding the nature of the mind. Here’s some of what he had to say:

As I have pointed out numerous times myself – mental phenomena are functional active things. They are based in the physical substance of the brain, but they are not just the physical substance – they are what results from the function of the physical substance. The mind is what the brain does.

I’ve heard this theory of mind put forward many times; that is, the theory that the mind just is what the brain does. Note that this is not the same as saying that the mind is identical to the brain, rather it simply says that psychological states just are the products of neurophysiological processes. This theory is simply a type of identity theory. Identity theory is a type of reductive materialism and is defined, by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, as the theory that “states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain.” And this seems to be exactly what Dr. Novella’s position is, for he says that “mental phenomena (including memory) do not simply correlate with the firing of neurons in the brain – they are the firing of neurons in the brain.”

The first step that most materialists take towards justifying identity theory—or really any variation of a materialist philosophy of mind—is to provide evidence from neuroscience that demonstrates that the brain and mind are intimately related. And needless to say this evidence is not lacking at all. We know quite well that altering brain chemistry and brain structure can subsequently alter personality, can create a “divide” in consciousness, and can even cause individuals to fail to recognize familiar objects or even loved ones. There is no doubt that this says much about the correlation between the mind and the brain, but does is say any more than that by itself? Not really. Philosopher of mind James Madden, in his book Mind, Matter and Nature, articulates:

Has neuroscience revealed an empirical identity between psychological states and brain states? It clearly has not, nor does it seem that it ever could. What neuroscience does is to provide us with ever more precise descriptions of the goings-on in our brains that are correlated with our psychological states[…] Correlation is a far cry from identity; two phenomena can be perfectly correlated, without being identical. (p. 108)

The point then is that identity theory cannot be justified solely by the correlation between the mental and the neurological. As is commonly said, correlation does not imply causation. Now I maintain that not only can identity theory not be justified by pure findings from neuroscience, but I maintain that it is rife with ontological problems regarding actually accounting for how it is even possible that psychological states just are, and are reducible to, brain processes.

Intentionality and Necessary conditions

One of the first problems that identity theory runs into is accounting for intentionality. In philosophy of mind, intentionality refers to the ability of something to be about, or refer to, or represent something beyond itself. When I think of my wife, my thought is about, and refers to her. Now the problem here is that physical things only exhibit derived or secondary intentionality. The written word “cat” only refers to a cat if a mind so interprets it that way. It could just as easily have been the case that we endowed the word and utterance “cat” with a completely different meaning, or that another group of individuals takes the word or utterance “cat” to mean love. This means that physical symbols only have extrinsic intentionality and derive their intentionality from a mind that already exists. Now note that psychological states that exhibit intentionality do not borrow this intentionality from somewhere else. That is to say, our thoughts are not intentional because something external to us interprets them, rather they exhibit intrinsic intentionality, and thus our mental states constitute intentionality that is completely opposite the physical.

Now this posits problems for any philosophy of mind that is primarily materialistic. For how can a physical process be that which grounds intentionality if the physical first needs a mind in order to have intentionality at all? The materialist, then, needs a mind in the first place before he can start talking of intentionality being present in the physical. But the mind is the very thing the materialist is attempting to account for!

Furthermore, things get even worse for the identity theorist than this. Let us imagine a scenario where I raise my arm to a certain trajectory T1. Now let us say that I intended to raise my arm for some specific reason—perhaps to greet a co-worker. Now an identity theorist would say that my act of raising my arm can be accounted for in specifically neurophysiological events which terminated in certain muscular events which caused the raising of my arm. We can call this physical sequence that leads to the raising of my arm X1. Note that X1, by itself, is a sufficient condition for the raising of my arm to trajectory T1. So, the raising of my arm is therefore accounted for in completely materialist terms right? Not necessarily. For now imagine that instead of the physical sequence X1 causing T1, we say that this physical sequence is altered by only one neuron to cause a slightly different trajectory in my arm raising. So we can call this different physical sequence X2, and this new trajectory T2. So now we can say that X2 is a sufficient condition for the raising of my arm to trajectory T2.

But this is where we run into problems. While X1 might be sufficient for raising my arm to T1, and X2 is sufficient for raising my arm to T2, X1 and X2 are not necessary conditions for raising my arm as an intentional act. That is, in order to raise my arm as an intentional act, I do not need X1 or X2, but could have some other physical sequence obtain. But this means that no specific physical act is necessary for explaining the intentional act of raising my arm! Rather, while physical processes are sufficient for explaining my arm being raised in a certain specific manner, they are not sufficient for explaining my arm raising as an intentional act. Now note that if psychological states just are neurophysiological processes (i.e. if the mind is what the brain does), then certain physical sequences would be sufficient and necessary conditions for raising my arm intentionally. And since this is not the case then it cannot be true that our psychological states just are processes in the brain.

Rationality

A second problem that confronts identity theory is that of rationality. When certain neurophysiological states in the brain are followed by other subsequent neurophysiological states, neurologists understand exactly how these states follow from one another. If S1 (a neurophysiological process) is followed by S2, which is then followed by S3, it is the electrochemical properties of the brain, ultimately grounded in physical laws, that cause this transition. Now imagine that I entertain the following line of thought: 1) John is usually late to class on Mondays, 2) It’s Monday, 3) Therefore, John will most likely be late to class. Now notice that, on identity theory, each thought (each psychological state) will correspond to a certain brain state (neurophysiological process). But this means that if identity theory is true, then the cause of me inferring 3) from 1) and 2) is simply the electrochemical properties associated with those brain states.

This obviously runs into problems. For my act of inferring 3) was due to the semantics associated with 1) and 2), and I simply saw logically that 3) follows. And, in fact, for any inference or conclusion to be considered rational, it needs to be caused by the meaning and semantics of previous thoughts, or propositions. But, again, this is not true on identity theory. On identity theory it is not the semantics of 1) and 2) that cause the mental state of 3), rather what causes 3) is simply the blind electrochemical properties of the neurophysiological state associated with 2), which was caused in the same way by 1). But this type of causation is purely blind deterministic efficient causation. That is, it is simply matter dancing to the tune of physical laws, and therefore cannot be called rational in any sense. Thus stated, on identity theory any type of “rational inference” is, upon closer inspection, only pseudo-rationality, and therefore rationality as such is only an illusion.

Note that these are not the only devastating critiques of identity theory (there are others that I've put forth here and here). But I believe they go a long way in demonstrating that this reductive materialist theory of mind—that the mind is what the brain does—is vacuous. Now let it also be noted that the arguments above are not soul-of-the-gaps arguments. That is, the arguments are not saying “this or that aspect of cognition is difficult to explain currently, so we need to posit the soul or some Cartesian substance to account for them.” Rather the above arguments are ontological and deductive. That is, they don’t argue from current scientific ignorance, but instead argue that the ontology of a materialist theory of mind cannot ever in principle solve these problems. These problems then are a sort of reductio ad absurdum of materialism, and thus findings in neuroscience are irrelevant here.

In conclusion, then, we see that identity theory rests on a conflation of correlation with causation, and faces insurmountable arguments that demonstrate that the mind cannot simply be “what the mind does.”

Semantics and the mind

Last week I posted an article devoted to articulating the famous Argument from Reason (AfR). This argument attempts (and succeeds, in my opinion) to demonstrate that if naturalism were true, then there would be no such thing as reason. The AfR goes about demonstrating this by first highlighting the nature of reasoning. Reasoning, according to David Bentley Hart, is “to proceed from one premise or proposition or concept to another, in order ideally to arrive at some conclusion, and in a coherent sequence whose connections are determined by the semantic content of each of the steps taken”. The AfR then contrasts this account of reasoning with “reasoning” on a naturalistic worldview. See, for the naturalist all that exists are material processes governed by the laws of physics. But, this means that the cause of “reasoning,” on naturalism, is not semantics and meaning, but only electrochemical properties in the brain—there’s more subtlety to the argument than this, this is simply a quick summarization. Thus, it is argued, there would be no such thing as reason on a naturalistic worldview.

After articulating this argument on the aforementioned post, a frequent and attentive commenter named Ray posted some of his objections in the comment section. One of these objections I found to be quite substantive, and thus I felt the need to write a post addressing it.

His objection was that the AfR makes a hidden assumption that needs to be supported. The AfR contrasts semantics and meaning (the basis of reasoning) with purely material processes, and it claims that the former constitutes reasoning and the latter does not. However, the naturalist believes that semantics and meaning themselves are also the result of purely material processes, and therefore the proponent of AfR is creating a false dichotomy. He makes it seem as if the naturalist must choose between a rational cause—grounded in meaning and semantics—or a non-rational one—both choices leading to a rejection of naturalism. However, if meaning and semantics are themselves the result of material processes then there is no such choice for the naturalist—that is, there is no choice between a process grounded in non-material causes and material causes, since on naturalism all causes are ultimately material in nature. Thus stated, the proponent of AfR needs to demonstrate that semantics and meaning are not reducible to material causes before the AfR can be valid.

I do believe that this is a good and valid objection to the AfR. So let us see if semantics can indeed be reduced to the material. Let’s begin with an example. Take the symbol “2”. What does it stand for? Well, it stands for the concept of “two”, derived from set theory to represent the set containing two elements (II). But, it’s important to point out that the symbol “2” does not contain this meaning intrinsically. If that were true, then the symbol “2” would necessarily have to have represented the concept “two”. But the symbol “2” is completely arbitrary. In fact, it’s quite possible that we humans could have designated “2” to represent the number “five” instead, or it could have represented the concept of “love,” as opposed to a heart, if we so chose to embed it with that meaning.

Another way to demonstrate this is by imagining a primitive tribe that actually does take the symbol “2” to mean “love”. Now, if this were a true state of affairs then we could ask the question, “What does ‘2’ mean?” And the answer would be that it depends. To us it means “two” and to the tribe it means “love”. All this means that the symbol “2” by itself is intrinsically nothing but a meaningless squiggle. Its meaning is only grounded in minds who impart meaning to it. And what’s crucial here is that we can say the same regarding any symbol.

Hence, symbols can only exhibit derived meaning, and thus their semantic value is of a secondary, and borrowed order. But, symbols are the only type of meaning that we’ve seen material things exhibit, and therefore our conclusions regarding the secondary semantic nature of symbols applies to the physical as well. Thus stated, we arrive at the following conclusions regarding the physical. First, the physical and material can only gain meaning from a mind. (This of course demonstrates that naturalism cannot account for the semantic content of the mental, because meaning already presupposes the mental, and it cannot therefore account for it without arguing in a circle.) Second, meaning is not intrinsic to the physical, but is only derived, or borrowed.

I maintain that all this suffices to show that the skeptic’s challenge has been met. It has been demonstrated that semantics and meaning cannot be reduced to the material. Therefore, since semantics cannot be reduced to the material, then the contrast between rational and non-rational causes that the AfR promulgates is valid. Thus stated, the AfR stands and refutes naturalism.

Moreover, even if the above demonstrations didn’t lend validation to the AfR, they would still land a fatal blow to any naturalist theory of mind. For, to reiterate, if the phenomena of the mental cannot be reduced to the material, then naturalism is in jeopardy. And I maintain that we have done just such a thing by demonstrating that semantics cannot be found in the material, but must be predicated of the mental alone. 

The argument from reason

Let us examine the following familiar syllogism: 1) All men are mortal, 2) Socrates is a man, 3) Therefore, Socrates is mortal. This syllogism is logically sound, and it can be reasonably seen why the conclusion follows from the premises. But, how exactly is it the case that we reasonably deduce the conclusion? Well, it’s the case because we understand the semantics behind every proposition in the syllogism. That is, we clearly comprehend what 1) and 2) mean, and we logically deduce the third proposition (the conclusion) based on the meaning of the preceding premises. This is the process of reasoning, namely, making deductions based on the semantic content of previous concepts, propositions or ideas. Thus stated, our deduction from 1) and 2) to 3) is based on meaning, semantics, and reason.

Now what is going on psychologically when we make our way, logically, through this line of reasoning? Well, we have a brain state and a mental state associated with upholding premise 1), and the same with regards to 2) and 3). The brain state is just what is happening electrochemically in my brain when I uphold a certain proposition or thought, and the mental state is the associated with the actual mental apprehension of said proposition or thought. (Note: even if one is an eliminative materialist and therefore doesn’t believe mental states exist, the distinction between brain and mental states is not crucial to my present argument, and would actually make the force of the argument stronger.) It should be obvious that brain states and mental states are different with regards to the different propositions we are upholding. That is to say, the brain state and mental state we have for 1), will be different from the brain and mental state we have for 2), and 3).

However, one immediately encounters a problem with the above promulgations if one is a naturalist. Why? Well, remember that a naturalist believes that all that exists is mindless matter, or energy, governed by the laws of physics. A corollary of this is that any thoughts (and, therefore, any mental states) are ultimately the result of physical processes swinging to the tune of physics. But, this means that the mental states associated with upholding 1), 2) and 3) are ultimately grounded in, and caused by, the electrochemical properties of brain states.  A consequence of this is that when the brain state associated with 3) succeeds 2), which succeeds 1), this succession was the result of only physical laws acting on the matter that makes up these brain states.

But, this completely conflicts with what we expounded above, namely, that is it the meaning and semantics associated with our syllogism that causes us to arrive at such a deduction. On the naturalistic account of the world, when one makes their way down the syllogism, it is not the meaning or semantics that leads one there, but, rather, purely  mindless electrochemical processes. But this means that, on naturalism, it is not reason-- making deductions based on the semantic content of previous concepts, propositions or ideas—that grounds our thinking. In fact, based on what we’ve discovered, there is no room for such a thing as reason on naturalism!

The naturalist position, then, results in a reductio ad absurdum. That is, if naturalism were true, then we could not reason, which means we could not arrive at the conclusion of naturalism, since to do so would require reasoning deductively. Naturalism, therefore, cannot possibly be true.

Is the brain a computer? Part IV

Let us conclude our series regarding the theory of computationalism. The last few posts (part I, II and III) have, at least to my thoughts, hurled some pretty devastating objections towards the view that our minds are simply some type of software program run on the hardware of the brain—different in degree but not in kind from a digital computer. These aforementioned objections have demonstrated that computers, even in principle, are simply unable to produce any of the defining characteristics that make up human mental experience. Yet, there is still one more aspect of human cognition that computationalism falls entirely short of accounting for: intentionality.

In philosophy of mind, intentionality refers to the ability of something to be about, or refer to, or represent something beyond itself. For instance, my writing this post exhibits a multitude of intentionality: I am thinking about the post and about the words I type; I am referring to many concepts beyond myself (e.g. intentionality); I have a desire to write this post etc. Seeing as how all cognition consists in a subject entertaining the presence of an object, and therefore of the subject having thoughts about said object, it should be apparent that intentionality is present in every act of cognition. In fact, intentionality has such an intimate correlation with the mental that Franz Brentano—the pioneer of addressing intentionality as such an important philosophical topic—labeled intentionality the “mark of the mental”. Now, if intentionality is such a crucial aspect of what constitutes the mental, then surely any worthwhile theory promulgated in the philosophy of mind should be able to, at the very least, account for such a phenomenon. So the question becomes whether or not computationalism can account for “the mark of the mental” (i.e. intentionality).

It might seem that computationalism can indeed account for intentionality. For computers seem to exhibit all types of intentionality. A computer might generate a picture of a lake, and surely the computer is representing something beyond itself, namely, a lake. Or, a computer could produce a game of chess, and surely the computer is now about something, namely, chess. Of course we could think of hundreds of more examples where a computer seems to demonstrate the aspects that make up intentionality. But, do these instances really exhibit intentionality on the part of a computer? No, they do not; at least, not the kind of intentionality that the mental exhibits.

For instance, picture a piece of paper with the word “bunny” written on it. We obviously know what the paper is referring to, namely, a bunny. Yet, does the paper really have intentionality as we would characterize it? Surely the paper is referring to something beyond itself, which is exactly what constitutes the intentional. However, I maintain that upon closer examination it can be demonstrated that no such intentionality is really going on. To illuminate this, let’s imagine that all humans on the face of the earth were suddenly to go extinct. Would the paper still refer to a bunny? No, the word “bunny” on the paper is now just a meaningless set of ink blots on a paper. The term “bunny” is a term that us humans invented to represent an animal. It is we who grounded the term “bunny” with its meaning and, therefore, its intentionality. Without human minds the term “bunny” is absolutely vacuous with regards to meaning.

However, it is still true that while the human mind grounds the semantics of the term “bunny”, the term does in fact still refer beyond itself. But, this intentionality is only valid if it derives its meaning from a mind—again, the term is meaningless apart from a mind that imparts such meaning to it. Therefore, the intentionality is not intrinsic to the paper or the term. What we have here is what John Searle calls “derived intentionality”.  And if we look around the world at inanimate objects that seem to exhibit intentionality, we will see that all forms of such intentionality are derived. The painting of the Mona Lisa only derives its representation, of the lady that was painted, from the painter. The number “2” that represents the mathematical concept of two only represents such a concept because we endowed it with such semantics. Thus, we see that any intentionality not constitutive of a mind is only derived intentionality; only the mind has intrinsic intentionality.

The points made above should demonstrate the obvious ramifications for computationalism. Computers only exhibit derived intentionality; any intentionality present in a computer is imparted to it by the programmers and users. The only reason a computer produces a game of chess is because the programmers have put “produce a game of chess” into its programs; moreover, a game of chess is only a game of chess relative to chess players. But this provides an insurmountable problem for computationalism. If computers can only exhibit derived intentionality, then they surely cannot produce any kind of a mind. For minds, by their very nature, exhibit intrinsic intentionality. So, a mind would already have to exist for a computer to even attempt to produce a mind. The computationalist, once again, has to presuppose what he’s trying to account for! Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

Once again, we see that computationalism is unable to account for the very characteristics that make a mind what it is, and therefore it is an unsuccessful theory in the philosophy of mind.

Lastly, as I similarly articulated in the post on rationality, the dead-end that computationalism runs into when trying to ground intentionality is no different than the dead-end that any naturalist account of the mind runs into as well. If the physical can only exhibit derived intentionality, then it cannot account for intrinsic intentionality; and therefore it cannot account for the existence of the mind. 

Is the brain a computer? Part III

Let us return to our investigation of the theory of computationalism. I feel that our next topic of contention is best introduced by returning to naturalist Richard Carrier’s quote regarding the success of computationalism: “there is nothing a brain does that a mindless machine like a computer can’t do even today, in fact or in principle, except engage in the very process of recognizing itself.” Carrier’s assertion is well received. There are many things human beings can do that (seemingly) computers are also capable of (e.g., playing chess, carrying on a conversation etc.).

However, the question is immediately raised regarding whether or not computers actually carry out processes, or whether they in principle ever could, in the same manner a human brain does. Does a computer really “play” chess or does it just seem to? Does a computer carry on a conversation or does it just seem to? (Does anybody really believe they are having a conversation with Siri on their iphones?) The foremost defender of the view that a computer does not function similarly to human cognition is the naturalist philosopher John Searle. His thought experiment that attempts to demonstrate this assertion is known as the Chinese Room Argument.

For those unfamiliar with the Chinese Room Argument, it goes something like this. Imagine a unilingual English speaking man in a locked room. The room has a small “in” slot and “out” slot. Through this “in” slot is slipped Chinese symbols. The man in the room has a rulebook that tells him, in English, which Chinese symbols to send through the “out” slot based on the symbols received. The rulebook does not tell him the meaning of the symbols; it only tells him that if he receives a symbol that looks like “such and such”, he should respond with the different symbol “such and such”. To native Chinese speakers it would seem that the man inside the room speaks and understands Chinese.  But, obviously, the man speaks no Chinese whatsoever.

So what exactly does the Chinese Room demonstrate about the nature of digital computers? Well, in the thought experiment the man is doing exactly what a computer does—though admittedly to a much more simplistic degree—namely, manipulating symbols in adherence with an algorithm in which only syntax is emphasized. But the man in the Chinese Room does not understand the semantics behind the symbols he is manipulating; similarly, if a computer is simply programmed to manipulate symbols based on pure syntax then how can a computer be said to understand the meaning behind said symbols? We have once again run into a problem of semantics—something that humans intrinsically possess and produce, but that computers do not. Edward Feser summarizes the consequences: running a program, of whatever level of complexity, cannot suffice for understanding or intelligence; for if it did suffice, then [the man in the Chinese Room] would, simply by virtue of “running” the Chinese language program, have understood the language.

So, once again, we see that digital computers constitute a difference in kind from the human brain. A computer runs syntactically defined programs and algorithms, yet does not develop any type of semantic understanding of the symbols it’s manipulating. In contrast, the human mind can run syntactically defined programs and algorithms, yet it maintains, throughout, a complete semantic comprehension—and much of this semantic comprehension is antecedent to any syntactical manipulation!

Let us return to Carrier’s comment above regarding the “abilities” of computers. While a computer can run programs that simulate and mimic human behavior, this does not mean that the ontology behind the computer is the same as a human brain. A computer can simulate the moves in a game of chess, but it is not “playing” in any relevant sense of the word. A computer can simulate a conversation with a person, but it is not really “conversing” in any relevant sense of the word. A computer doesn’t understand what a pawn does, nor does it understand what a person is saying to it. It is only programed to give a certain range (sometimes thousands) of syntactical outputs based on a certain range of syntactical inputs. This is not intelligence; it is a pure mechanical process of manipulation.

Not only do computers not think or reason, as we have seen, in any relevant sense, but they don’t really show any signs of intelligence at all. The whole endeavor of creating Artificial Intelligence is simply nothing more than a misnomer. University of Oxford philosopher Luciano Floridi states that, “we have no intelligence whatsoever to speak in terms of AI today as you would expect it from a cognitive science perspective.” I maintain that, in principle, we never will—at least not as long as the man in the Chinese Room is only a difference in degree from computers.

In the next post we will examine the question regarding whether or not computers exhibit intentionality—obviously one of the most important features of human cognition.

Is the brain a computer? Part II

I’m continuing my series on the pitfalls and shortcomings of computationalism—the view that the mind is a kind of computer software implemented on the hardware of the brain. Last post we identified the fact that computers have no semantic significance in and of themselves, and they only receive such significance in the presence of intentional consciousness. Any analysis of the semantic content of computers can only lead right back to our minds, where we began.

Yet, this is not even the worst objection to be hurled at computationalism. I maintain that computationalism suffers from an even greater handicap than the inability to explain the mind: the denial of human rationality itself. That is to say, if the computationalist theory of the mind is correct, then there is no ontological ground for human rationality. Let me explain.

Remember, from the previous post, that computers are simply big hunks of plastic and metal with electrical currents running through them. They are by themselves devoid of any intrinsic meaning and significance. Furthermore, recall that when one types “1 + 1 =” on a computer and receives the symbol “2”, this is only because we have endowed the symbols “1”,”+”,”=” and “2” with their meaning; moreover, this program is only run correctly because computer science engineers have programmed it to do such a thing—it’s possible that we could have programmed it to yield a different answer. But this means that computers don’t really “compute” at all; it is we who compute, only utilizing the computer as a tool. But this also leads us to the conclusion that computers don’t really “think” either. At least not in any sense of what we mean by rational thought—the act or process of forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences based on previous premises or propositions.

Yet certainly computers give the illusion of thought. Computers have been designed so complex as to be capable of beating chess masters, carrying out difficult mathematical computations, and at least behaving as if they were conscious. In fact the illusion is so great that naturalist Richard Carrier states that “there is nothing a brain does that a mindless machine like a computer can’t do even today, in fact or in principle, except engage in the very process of recognizing itself”. Carrier goes so far as to claim that there is no illusion, and that computers do in fact think and reason just like humans. However, I maintain that once we shed some light on what exactly is going on when computers “think”, we will see that there is no thinking going on at all; and I believe that we need only return to an example given last post to demonstrate this.

Recall that a calculator would still yield “2” after the input “1 + 1 =” even if we changed the meaning of “2” to mean “waffle”, so that the semantic content would now be equivalent to one plus one is equal to waffle. Surely this is an incoherent logical sequence. Yet, the calculator, devoid of intrinsic meaning, is none the wiser. The change in semantic content has no effect on the operation and computation of the calculator. We could even change the meaning of “1 + 1 =” to “please display the message of waffle”, and yet the calculator would still continue to display this seemingly “logical” sequence of symbols—I owe the insight of such examples to philosopher Edward Feser, expounded in his books Philosophyof Mind and The Last Superstition.

The above example demonstrates that a calculator fails to think in any sense of the word. If we can change the semantic content of the symbols in a logical sequence such that the sequence subsequently fails to retain coherency, then any medium capable of rational thought should thereby adjust its sequence accordingly. But a computer will not do this—unless reprogrammed to account for the semantic change--because its causal efficacy is not based on semantic content; rather, its causal efficacy is based purely on electrochemical properties, governed by physical laws. The meaning of a particular state of a computer seems to play no role whatsoever in yielding any subsequent states. Therefore, the reason a computer transitions from one symbol to another has nothing to do with the meanings of said symbols; it only transitions from one symbol, or state, to another due to electrochemical properties the computer scientists have programmed it to utilize. Thus, everything that makes thought rational—the act of proceeding from one premise to another based on the semantic content of each premise in order to arrive at a logical inference coherent with each previous premise—is completely absent from the behavior of a computer.

So, if the brain is simply a type of computer, different in degree but not in kind, then there is no ontological foundation for human rationality. Computationalism is, in a sense, self-defeating—the computationalist upholds his theory because he believes it rational to do so, yet if computationalism is true then the brain cannot exhibit rationality; therefore, any conclusions reached through logical inference, such as computationalism, are non-rational, and are therefore unjustified.

Let it be emphasized, through a quick digression, that the above objection against computationalism is not only efficacious against computational theories of mind. Rather, I maintain, it deals a fatal blow to any naturalistic framework that attempts to ground human cognition in any purely physical, mechanical properties. Therefore, even if a naturalist is not a computationalist, he still runs into the problem of explaining rational thought in terms of non-rational causes—a difference in quality, not quantity.

In the next post we will examine John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument to demonstrate that although computers can act like a human brain, the ontology behind the former is wholly different, in kind, from the latter.

Is the brain a computer? Part I

In modern cognitive science and philosophy of mind, it has become quite reasonable to regard the human brain as analogous to, or even identical to, digital computers. This might seem quite plausible from a prima facie standpoint. Our mental states can seem to be nothing more than functional, mechanical states of cause and effect, input and output. Moreover, our minds seem to exhibit “computational” and algorithmic behavior that could be compared to highly complex digital computers. In this view, known as computationalism, the brain is simply a piece of hardware whereby the mind acts as a kind of computer software embedded on it. Naturalist Richard Carrier is one adherent of such a theory (emphasis mine): Cognitive science has established that the brain is a computer that constructs and runs virtual models.

Although computationalism is a widely held view, though not as widely held as Carrier insinuates, I maintain that it is not without major defeaters. These next few posts will deal with the—what I view to be insurmountable—problems of computationalism, and exactly how these problems will most likely not be overthrown by any potential advances in cognitive science. That is to say, the problems with computationalism are metaphysical problems and, therefore, it is argued that no findings in cognitive science will ever resolve these problems.

_____________________________________________________________

The first objection to computationalism is the absolute dependence of computers on intentional consciousness for their meaning. David Bentley Hart, in his book The Experience of God, explains:

A computer does not even really compute. We compute, using it as a tool. We can set a program in motion to calculate the square root of pi, but the stream of digits that will appear on the screen will have mathematical content only because of our intentions, and because we—not the computer—are running algorithms. The computer, in itself, as an object or a series of physical events, does not contain or produce any symbols at all; its operations are not determined by any semantic content but only by binary sequences that mean nothing in themselves.

What Hart is articulating is that computers are not computers at all apart from our own intentional consciousness. The number “2” that appears on a calculator only represents the mathematical concept two because we have embedded it with such meaning. That symbol on the calculator has no intrinsic meaning in and of itself. Were all humans to vanish off the face of the earth, that symbol “2” would be rendered nothing more than a meaningless pixilated squiggle.

This point is upheld even with regards to programs and algorithms run on computers. When I type in “1”, “+”, “1”, “=”, and the computer yields a symbol of “2”, one might interpret this as the computer “thinking” in some sense. For hasn’t the computer itself added one and one to yield a correct answer of two? Well, yes the computer has yielded a correct answer, but this was not done by any “thinking” on the part of the computer. For if we, instead, decided to embed the symbol “2” with the meaning “waffle” then the computer would now still be running the same mechanical program, and yet the semantics behind the program would be incoherent! The original program of adding one and one to yield two only works because we have implemented such symbols, and therefore the program itself, with the correct meanings; but, without our own intentional consciousness grounding the meaning, the program, and the computer itself, are literally meaningless. Hart articulates once more that “[s]oftware no more ‘thinks’ than a minute hand knows the time or the printed word ‘pelican’ knows what a pelican is.” A computer only computes because we give it such a value. Anything could in principle be used as a computational device.

So, what exactly is the significance of the above objection? Well, philosopher Edward Feser articulates:

If computation is observer-relative, then that means that its existence presupposes the existence of observers, and thus the existence of minds; so obviously, it cannot be appealed to in order to explain observers or minds themselves.[…][I]t is computation that must get explained in terms of the human mind, not the human mind in terms of computation.

What Feser is demonstrating is that all computation is dependent on intentional consciousness. Therefore, computationalism, which attempts to explain the mind, and therefore consciousness, cannot provide the ontological foundation for consciousness since computation of any kind already requires consciousness in order to count as computation in the first place.  Computationalism is trying to account for the thing it already presupposes! Has a journey ever seemed so wrong-headed?

In the next post in this series it will be demonstrated that computationalism fails to account for human reason itself.

Contra Michael Shermer on Near Death Experiences

Ever since Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life, published in 1975, the subject of Near Death Experiences (henceforth NDEs) has been at the forefront of speculations regarding the nature of consciousness and the afterlife; in fact, before these experiences became widely publicized, all we could do, at the moment, was speculate. However, the nature of NDEs has brought new information and research to shed light on the aforementioned topics. While those who consider themselves mind-body dualists have zealously encouraged such information, those who consider themselves part of the skeptic community have been, well, skeptical.

One such well-known skeptic is none other than atheist Michael Shermer. Shermer believes that NDEs are nothing more than tricks of our brain, and that all aspects will eventually be absorbed into a materialistic worldview. Yet, before we examine Shermer’s supposed refutations regarding the validity of NDEs, we need to examine exactly what characterizes an NDE.

According to professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences are profound psychological events with transcendental and mystical elements, typically occurring to individuals close to death or in situations of intense physical or emotional danger.”  While the events experienced during an NDE vary, there are aspects that are common to many of them (the following list was formulated with assistance from Moody’s Life After Life):

1)      The ineffability of the experience

2)      A feeling of peace and quiet; pain is gone

3)      The awareness of being dead

4)      An out-of-body experience

5)      A tunnel experience

6)      The perception of an unearthly environment

7)      Meeting and communicating with deceased relatives

8)      Seeing a bright light or a being of light

9)      Experiencing unconditional acceptance and love

10)  A panoramic life review

11)  A life preview

12)  The perception of a border that cannot be crossed

13)  The conscious return to the body

There are other aspects reported during NDE’s, but the above are the most commonly reported. Now, it stands to reason that anyone who claims that such NDEs can be accounted for in naturalistic terms must be able to account, even in principle, for all of the above characterizations of NDEs.

Let us now see how Shermer attempts to evaluate these characteristics—all of Shermer’s contentions will be taken from his book The Believing Brain, of which he devotes a total of 13 pages to NDEs. Shermer begins by attempting to account for 1), 2), 5), and 8) by analyzing the findings of studies undertaken to fight g-force induced loss of consciousness in pilots:

[T]he majority of pilots experienced[…] brief episodes of tunnel vision, sometimes with a bright light at the end of the tunnel, as well as a sense of floating, sometimes paralysis, and often euphoria and a feeling of peace and serenity when they came back to consciousness.

 

 In order to explain the advent of the feeling of peace and serenity, Shermer claims (quoting a medical doctor and neuroscientist) that these “are likely to have been produced by the increased release of various neurotransmitters such as endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine.”

Shermer then brings forth scientific studies performed by Swiss neuroscientist Olaf Blanke, who was able to produce quite lucidly seeming out-of-body experiences—perhaps a potential explanation of 4). The patients of the studies claimed to be able to see themselves lying in bed as they floated towards the ceiling.

Moreover, Shermer looks to discoveries by neuroscientists whereby damage to the posterior superior parietal lobe--what is called the orientation association area (OAA)--can cause people to experience feelings of spiritual transcendence. The reason for this is that the OAA is responsible for orienting the body in physical space. Therefore, damage to the OAA makes it difficult for individuals to differentiate between themselves and something separate to them. Moreover, it leads to a “blurring between reality and fantasy, between feeling in body and out of body” Shermer claims.

Shermer’s last line of argumentation is to take a look at hallucinogenic drugs. Shermer lists a number of said drugs (e.g., MDA and DMT) and claims that they can produce effects such as the sense of floating and flying, out-of-body experiences, and the bringing back of long forgotten memories—perhaps accounting for 10).

Shermer has, no doubt, kept up with the scientific literature. He seems to have provided quite plausible explanations for many aspects of NDEs; and while many of these explanations only explain aspects of NDEs one at a time, it is not far-fetched to say that whatever is going on neurologically, these aspects could all be accounted for by one neurological process. Yet, this might only be the case if science could explain all aspects of NDEs, albeit even piecemeal. However, I maintain that Shermer’s findings have not done this—for at best Shermer has only accounted for half of the aspects listed above--and that Shermer has side-stepped the most cogent and compelling arguments in favor of the validity of NDEs. It is to these arguments, along with some qualms regarding Shermer’s contentions, that we now turn.

Let us begin with Shemer’s claims that the feelings of peace and bliss can be accounted for by neurotransmitters such as endorphins. While this might seem prima facie plausible, it turns out to be misleading. Cardiologist Pim Van Lommel explains:

Endorphins can indeed get rid of pain and cause a sense of peace and well-being. However, the effects of endorphins usually last several hours whereas the absence of pain and the sense of peace during an NDE vanish immediately after regaining consciousness.

So while Shermer’s explanation seems to be plausible, it has a very difficult time explaining why all the individuals who experience NDEs often retain none of those experiences (e.g. peace and bliss) after they have “been brought back to their body”, so to speak.

Let us now look at aspects of NDEs that Shermer ignored, and which provide the most compelling case for the validity of NDEs. I see no better place to begin than with, probably one of the most famous NDEs, the case of Pamela Reynolds. Reynolds was diagnosed with an aneurysm and underwent brain surgery in 1991. During the operation her body temperature was lowered to 50 degrees Fahrenheit and all the blood was drained from her head. The electrical activity of her brain was under full observation during the whole surgery, and there was no activity whatsoever. Cardiologist Michael Sabom explained that Reynold’s “brain was found dead by all three clinical tests.” Reynolds also had “clicking devices” put in her ears to help monitor the brain, and therefore could not hear even if she was, per impossible, conscious.

Now, during the operation Reynolds experienced an NDE, which began with an out-of-body perception. During the latter experience she witnessed the surgeons working on her and, subsequently, witnessed a drill that she described looked like an electric toothbrush , that was used to during the operation. Then Reynolds witnessed the surgeons discussing a problem regarding the size of her arteries, followed by the surgeons moving toward the lower half of her body to work. All of these experiences Reynolds witnessed were confirmed by her neurosurgeon, as well as a confirmation that it was simply impossible for Reynolds to have been able to see or hear anything she described during her surgery. Her neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Spetzler explains:

I don’t have an explanation for it. I don’t know how it’s possible for it to happen, considering the physiological state she was in.

These types of veridical experiences regarding NDEs are very common. In Pim Van Lommel’s book ConsciousnessBeyond Life--which was largely based on his own comprehension eight year study of Dutch NDEs whereby he investigated 344 patients, with controls, who had undergone cardiac arrest resuscitation--he describes case after case of individuals who had NDEs whereby they explained events during their cardiac arrest that were later verified. Moreover, in the book The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences, it was found that out of 93 reports of potentially verifiable out-of-body experiences, “92 percent were completely accurate, 6 percent contained some error, and only one was completely erroneous.”

Notice that the above hypotheses of Shermer fail to account for such facts. He claims to account for the experience of out-of-body perceptions, yet these hypotheses cannot explain how an extremely high percent of these experiences are veridical and have been verified by doctors and nurses et al. But NDEs have even more cogent evidence to put forth, namely, that of individuals meeting relatives that they had no idea were deceased, or had never met before.

Here are two accounts of individuals that had NDEs which were recorded as part of Lommel’s comprehensive study:

During my NDE following a cardiac arrest, I saw both my dead grandmother and a man who looked at me lovingly but whom I didn’t know. Over ten years later my mother confided on her death-bed that I’d been born from an extramarital affair; my biological father was a Jewish man who’d been deported and killed in World War II. My mother showed me a photograph. The unfamiliar man I’d seen more than ten years earlier during my NDE turned out to be my biological father.

At the age of sixteen I had a serious motorcycle accident. I was in a coma for nearly three weeks. During that coma I had an extremely powerful experience…and then I came to a kind of iron fence. Behind it stood Mr. Van der G., the father of my parents’ best friend. He told me I couldn’t go any further. I had to go back because my time hadn’t come yet…When I told my parents after waking up, they said to me that Mr. Van der G. had died and been buried during my coma. I couldn’t have known that he was dead.

These types of examples abound. A man from Holland, Evert Tabeek, had an NDE during cardiac arrest. During this NDE Tabeek had a panoramic life review and came across a woman and a boy, neither of which he recognized. Tabeek claims that they told him that he had abandoned them. When he was released from the hospital, Tabeek thought about the encounter constantly and tried to dig deep into his memory. Finally he recognized the woman he had seen; it was a woman he had had a relationship with long ago. He tracked down the woman and found her grave. Yet, he also found out something shocking: he had a son with this woman and didn’t even know it. Subsequently he found out that the son had been dead for thirty years. It was this woman and his son, whom he had never met nor even knew existed, that he claims he saw during his NDE.

Notice once more that Shermer’s hypotheses have no explanatory power regarding instances such as these. His hypotheses might be able to explain the “illusion” of meeting relatives and experiencing panoramic life reviews, yet such speculations say absolutely nothing regarding individuals who learn things during these NDEs that they could not possibly have known. However, we’re not done with Shermer yet, for there are still NDEs that are even more compelling than anything we’ve seen so far. Let us now turn to one of these.

Vicki Noratuk was born blind due an extremely high level of oxygen concentration in her incubator. This high concentration of oxygen caused Vicki to suffer atrophy of the eyeball and optic nerve. As a result, her visual cortex did not develop and, therefore, Vicki cannot see and cannot imagine, dream, nor hallucinate things visually. Vicki states, “I’ve never seen anything, no light, no shadows, no nothing…I don’t see anything at all. And in my dreams I don’t see any visual impressions.”  In 1973 Vicki was in a car accident and suffered a skull fracture which rendered her comatose. During this period she experienced a NDE.

The next thing I recall I was in Harborview Medical Center and looking down at everything that was happening. And it was frightening because I’m not accustomed to seeing things visually, because I never had before. And initially it was pretty scary! And then I finally recognized my wedding ring and my hair…As I approaching this area, there were trees and there were birds and quite a few people, but they were all, like, made out of light, and I could see them, and it was incredible, really beautiful, and I was overwhelmed by that experience because I couldn’t really imagine what light was light.

Vicki’s case does not stand alone. There have been numerous individuals that have had the same experience as Vicki. While cases such as this provide one with a sense of awe, they also put to bed hypotheses like Shermer’s above.

While Shermer has cited many scientific investigations demonstrating that people can experience different aspects of NDEs, his hypotheses lose all plausibility in the face of the above accounts. He tried to account for the vision of the tunnel. Yet, the tunnel vision is usually the first aspect experienced in his example of pilots going through g-force training, whereas the experience of going through a tunnel usually comes after the out-of-body experience in NDEs. Furthermore, while Shermer has given explanations regarding how out-of –body perceptions can be produced through scientific experiments and hallucinogenic drugs, his hypotheses cannot, even in principle, account for NDEs where people have veridical experiences, meet deceased relatives they didn’t even know existed, and where people without the cognitive faculties for visual stimuli nevertheless experience visual perceptions. So, while it might have seemed initially plausible that science might shed some light on NDEs, it seems, rather, that science is in the dark here.

So, while Shermer’s argumentation initially accounted for half of the above aspects of NDEs, we now see that Shermer has nothing to salvage any longer. His hypotheses are weak, and he simply ignores the most cogent lines of evidence regarding the nature of NDEs. Thus, we are free to conclude that we have warrant to dismiss Shermer’s contentions as untenable and illogical.

So, where does the skeptic go from here? Well, there are usually two options that will be favored by them: 1) dismiss the above evidence in favor of NDEs as pure anecdote, or 2) insist that science will one day be able to explain NDEs—this is Shermer’s last refuge: “just because we do not have a 100 percent completely natural explanation for all of the experiences that people have near death does not mean that we will never understand death, or that there is some other mysterious force at work. It certainly does not mean there is life after death.” Yet, both of these options rest on pure dogmatic naturalistic assumptions.

For there is a third option: admit the cogency of NDEs and adjust your worldview accordingly. However, this is the last thing the skeptic would ever consider. The skeptic, who prides himself as a catalyst of reason, is no more than an individual with a naturalistic presupposition, who will do anything to salvage said presupposition. When the evidence is overwhelming the naturalist does not change his point of view, but, rather, simply clings to his beloved science and hopes that all will be well in the end (and only the religious engage in wishful thinking?). Naturalists are stuck with a box that all their beliefs must fit in; yet, when beliefs don’t fit, they simply claim that such beliefs are illusory or, rather, that one day they will indeed fit in the box.