A Crisis of Consciousness, Part One

Posted by yseult on Jan 22, 2007 in Philosophy, The Human Mind | 0 comments

This is the first part in a critical analysis of Steven Pinker’s latest highly acclaimed article in TIME. In the following, I will try to give a better insight into the general field of discussions about consciousness in the philosophy of mind. This will serve two purposes: situate Pinker’s claims more clearly in the landscape of the current research and offer my own view on the article and it’s deficiencies.

Do I think or does my brain think? – Is my joy I feel while passing my exams only a bio-chemical reaction in my brain? – Is love only a matter of a chemical bodily reaction to another being’s scent? – Is my jealousy only due to a misconfiguration in my brain? – Is paedophilia just a question of the wrong neurons firing in the wrong place?

Since 1985, when Oliver Sacks published his now famous book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat1, modern sciences have planted a doubt to the mind of every living person involved in philosophy that our 20th century view on the consciousness and the brain are not as clear cut as we had come to believe since the founding texts by Freud and Jung. Then – some ten years later – came Antonio Damasio’s book on Descartes: called Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain2. Although the author did not succeed in his attempt to annihilate Descartes dichotomy of the res cogitans and the res extensa (mostly due to blatant errors and a basic misunderstanding of Descartes theories and vocabulary) he nevertheless mentioned a case study from the 19th century on how brain damage causes personality and character change: Phineas Gage. Suffering from a massive brain injury, Phineas Gage started to change into a completely different person: from patient to irascible; from balanced, caring and loving to a egoistic, sociopathic drunk.

With the technical progress in medical imaging processes and the advance in bio-chemical analysis the doubt planted, started to grow: what if concepts such as mind, character, memory, personality, consciousness etc. are just a matter of the physicality of the brain? Where before only philosophers had the vocabulary to describe human behaviour, suddenly natural sciences (neurophysiology or biochemistry for instance) claimed their place and given rise to new interdisciplinary fields – such as neurophilosophy or neurophenomenology – and masses of published materials.

Once in a while someone tries to step out of the technicality of this brand new, buzzing topic and offers an insight on some of the latest findings and their consequences on our theoretical concepts and the basis of our world. It’s in this spirit that Steven Pinker – probably the thinker that is most criticised, ridiculed and probably hated by his peers in philosophy – has started to publish popular books that, although they are written in technical language – are still accessible for a larger public than the odd philosophy journal article.
The Language Instinct3 started a small riot in the circle of well-meaning parents and teachers that had not yet come into contact with Chomsky’s Theory of Generative Grammar. A theory – even more criticised than Pinker, since it was not based on factual or practical evidence in any way – that claimed that grammar was innate in human beings and thus that language was innate. Nobody had made a bolder claim in a time where empirical theory had the upper hand in any scientific discussion (also due to the advancement in natural sciences), since Descartes started off the discussion about innate ideas for modern times – the quarell is in fact much older – that led in the end to two schools of thought (rationalism vs. empiricism). Chomsky however had no interest in vulgarising his work or making it more understandable for anybody. In fact I do know a few linguists who say that Chomsky’s articles on Generative Grammar and the subsequent theory on X’ are quite unreadable per se. It’s thanks to Steven Pinker that this all became a bit more tangible.
Another – highly controversial book – was The Blank Slate4 which has become a best-seller shortly after it came out. In a way it is Pinker’s best book since he was one of the first philosopher’s to contest the utility of political correctness based on the fear of inequality. His boldest claim was – at a time where teachers of the generation of ’68 had managed to indoctrinate every politician into believing that all kids had the same standards and that using traditional teaching methods was equal to cruelty – that not everyone had the same intellectual capacities and that thus the idea of the human mind as a ‘blank slate’ needed ot be overthrown without the fear of losing political equality.

“Political equality does not require sameness but policies that treat people as individuals with rights.5

Of course the possible moral consequences of such a claim is obvious: any murderer will give his genetics as a reason for his crime. But Pinker’s answer is even simpler than this attack to his idea. Genetics do not determinate current actions. If that were the case a murderer wouldn’t run from the police, since he knows the consequences of his actions. Foreseeing these consequences and deliberation before action prevail over any determination by genetics. (For other critiques of Pinker’s There is no such thing as a Blank Slate be sure to have a look at Louis Menand’s article in the New Yorker.)

Now, Steven Pinker is back. Not with a book, but with an article in TIME Magazine called “The Mystery of Consciousness”.
Like always Pinker writes in fashionable, easy accessible manner about some of the problems (natural and human) scientists have in explaining the consciousness. He has lost however – in my view – some of his edge when it comes to accurate description of theoretical complexities. (I will not address the fact that he does not offer any reference of the works he is citing, since this might also be to the on-line version of the article. However, I think it’s a real pain in case someone wanted to do some further reading. I will add the missing references as I go.) Again, he is trying to take physical evidence from natural sciences such as medicine, biochemistry etc. and shows the influences these findings have on our everyday morals, but also the field of philosophy as such. This has been Pinker’s modus operandi for years and it has worked. But I can’t help it, his conclusions are too rash in certain places.
For instance, speaking about the hard problem and the easy problem
about consciousness:

Although neither problem6 has been solved, neuroscientists agree on many features of both of them, and the feature they find least controversial is the one that many people outside the field find the most shocking. Francis Crick7 called it “the astonishing hypothesis”–the idea that our thoughts, sensations, joys and aches consist entirely of physiological activity in the tissues of the brain. Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.

While in The Blank Slate Pinker established himself as the master of pointing out a non-sequitur, here he seems to have fallen into the pit while staring at the wondrous sun shining from the natural sciences.
Since the early 90ies – when John Searle published The Mystery of Consciousness8 and The Rediscovery of the Mind9 – there has been an ongoing debate about scientific reductionism. In fact Searle was one of the first to address this danger within the field of Philosophy. And since then his assertion that just because natural science can explain that stimulus X can cause brain function Y(X) does not mean that this biochemical, neurological etc. explanation substitutes any theoretical philosophical explanation of epistemology. (cf. Searle’s theories on AI, the Chinese Room Argument et altera).
It is obvious why: if the Philosopher is not the one telling the Neurologist what he needs to look for, he wont know what he’s looking at in an EEG. Yes, my thought of green pastures does correspond to a neuronal fire ‘green pastures’ in my brain, but it is not reducible to it alone. Consciousness reduced to simple brain function. If that were the case we would have found the cure for 3 point Glasgow-coma-scale patients. Brain function can be reproduced, can be trigged. If consciousness was purely a matter of brain function, we wouldn’t have the explanation problems we are having.
These arguments are well known in the field and one can only wonder how Pinker manages to be so sloppy.

1. Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Duckworth, 1985.
2. Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, 1995.
3. Steven Pinker, The language instinct, Harper, 1994.
4. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Viking, 2002.
5. Steven Pinker, Keynote Address at Harvard University, 2005.
6. This terminology – the hard and the easy problem – was first introduced by David Chalmers in his article “Facing Up to the Problems of Consciousness” in Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3):200-19, 1995 and expanded in his response to critics “Moving Forward on the Problems of Consciousness” in Journal of Consciousness Studies 4(1):3-46.
7. Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search For The Soul, Scribner reprint edition, 1995.
8. John R. Searle, The Mystery of Consciousness, 1990.
9. John R. Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind, MIT Press, 1992.