A Crisis of Consciousness, Part Three

Posted by yseult on Jan 27, 2007 in Philosophy, The Human Mind | 1 comment

Part three of my critical analysis of Steven Pinker’s latest highly acclaimed article in TIME.

I left off in my last post with the following question regarding Steven Pinker’s style in his latest article: Why? Where lies the reason for the continuous omissions of critical questioning of modern neuro-research findings? I will add another one here: What is he trying to accomplish?

The double-minded agenda - Steven Pinker is pursuing a hidden agenda of his own with the Time.com article. One that I hope will not just disappoint me – as someone who had always appreciated his efforts – but also every philosopher that identifies him-/herself enough with their work in philosophy to follow a certain code of honour in their work and their publications. So far I have not come across any reaction to Pinker’s article from professional philosophers, let alone critiques. All I have encountered is baffled awe by lay people at the so-called results Pinker depicts.
My critique of a double-minded agenda behind “The Mystery of Consciousness” is based on the following:

Whatever the solutions to the Easy and Hard problems turn out to be, few scientists doubt that they will locate consciousness in the activity of the brain. For many non-scientists, this is a terrifying prospect. Not only does it strangle the hope that we might survive the death of our bodies, but it also seems to undermine the notion that we are free agents responsible for our choices–not just in this lifetime but also in a life to come. (…)
My own view is that this is backward: the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul.1

First, let me point out the obvious: when stating “few scientists doubt…” it is clearly suggested that there are scientists that would contest this. Who are they? Again, there is a total absence of reference to follow up on.

Second: since when has physical reductionism been accepted? Or let me rephrase: the biological side of consciousness is just the physical side of the phenomenon. This is exactly when John R. Searle states that even tough conscious states and beliefs can be traced to certain brain patterns, it is not automatically clear that they can be reduced exclusively to this biological phenomenon. Science simply does not permit this. While biologists will simply talk about the biological aspect of consciousness, the philosophers throughout history have been talking about the soul. Does it mean that they have been talking about two different things? No. It simply means that they addressed an issue from several, different and distinct sides. Reducing one aspect to another will certainly not be the way to a better understanding of consciousness in particular or the human mind in general.

Third: Based on the second point, how did the undying soul come into the equation all of a sudden? (This is where I start to get a philosophical hiccup that will very well turn in to nausea in a moment.) When Arabic interpretations of Aristotle’s work arrived in Europe, they sparked a huge commentary tradition – largely due to the unclear passages of Aristotle’s texts themselves, but also because namely Averroes and Avicenna had adopted Aristotle’s ideas about epistemology (De anima) in a way that would do exactly what Steven Pinker hopes for neurophysiology: they endangered the idea of an undying human soul. And without an undying soul, there is no afterlife. Based on Aristotle’s description of the soul as eternal, undivided and immaterial, Averroes concluded that the intellect could not be located in the human being himself (since it is material), but rather that the human being – while having an act of intellection – would be linked to the only eternal, immaterial thing in the universe: God. This of course would annihilate any idea of a personal, human intellect and thus was a hard nut to crack for the Christian world view.

While in the 12th century the human soul and thus immortality was endangered by making intellection purely godly, now again it is tried to be annihilated, but by making it purely physical. For a specialist in the theories of intellection, this borders the comic relief. As to the question how Pinker can be completely unaware of the parallels in history, well, maybe it’s the idea that a colleague calls the good trait of amnesia of the history of philosophy in analytical philosophy. (How he manages to stay earnest and actually mean it, is beyond me…)

Not enough that Pinker actively ignorant of any critical points of views on his project of reducing consciousness to mere brain function, not enough that he doesn’t feel ridiculed by ignoring over 800 years of philosophical discourse, he manages to top it all off with a nice punch against religion:

And when you think about it, the doctrine of a life-to-come is not such an uplifting idea after all because it necessarily devalues life on earth. Just remember the most famous people in recent memory who acted in expectation of a reward in the hereafter: the conspirators who hijacked the airliners on 9/11.

And now, I guess we all get the greater picture at last. This is not an article to show us the latest research in neurophysiology or the sciences. This is not a philosophical pleading for reductionism, against the pseudo-problems of metaphysics or even different ideas about consciousness. This is simply a personal vendetta against the idea of an undying soul, an afterlife and religion, motivated by a political agenda that in my view has no place in philosophy of mind.

All that remains for me to say is this: Steven Pinker is another 9/11 casualty. A walking wounded of a conflict that he doesn’t have the means to address (nor does he seem to have any will to address it in it’s proper terms), a philosopher lacking the basic decency of respect for anybody else’s beliefs, a professional engaging in simple partisanship.

We see it happening every day. Seeing it here – where a brilliant philosopher is concerned – is a tragedy.

1. Steven Pinker, “The Mystery of Consciousness”, Time.com; Jan. 19, 2007; p. 6.