A Crisis of Consciousness, Part One

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

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.

A Crisis of Consciousness, Part Two

Posted by yseult on Jan 25, 2007 in Philosophy, The Human Mind

This is part two of my critical analysis of Steven Pinker’s latest highly acclaimed article in TIME.

We have seen how Steven Pinker synthesizes the last decades of neurophysiological research and the theoretical problems philosophy has had with them.

While addressing the Hard problem of consciousness Pinker neglected to offer the side of John Searle who had addressed physical reduction conscious states to neuronal patterns for quite a while now. This is the underlying problem with Pinker’s article. He simply picks what he likes and leaves out 50% (read 90%) out of the picture.
I understand that everyone writing an article for a popular magazine needs to edit things and limit his scope to certain points. But – as I was taught when I was still working for a daily newspaper and then at University – there is no shame in telling your readers exactly that. “Sorry, limited space and all… I’ll keep to the basics.”
Instead Pinker offers the illusion of a clear picture of the actual and current state of research. Added to this is the fact that he very rarely criticizes the ideas offered by natural scientists. He rarely adds a possible doubt anywhere, or a even rises a possible objection to a dangerously short conclusion. I somehow feel betrayed. Steven Pinker is not doing his job. Or at least not the job I was taught to do, when I studied Philosophy. Let me offer an example:

Take the famous cognitive-dissonance experiments. When an experimenter got people to endure electric shocks in a sham experiment on learning, those who were given a good rationale (“It will help scientists understand learning”) rated the shocks as more painful than the ones given a feeble rationale (“We’re curious.”) Presumably, it’s because the second group would have felt foolish to have suffered for no good reason. Yet when these people were asked why they agreed to be shocked, they offered bogus reasons of their own in all sincerity, like “I used to mess around with radios and got used to electric shocks.”

What is wrong with this picture? The basis of this experiment is the following: I let a bunch of scientist physically abuse me. Even without a rationale, let alone a strong one like the advancement of science, it is clear that there is a moral problem wrapped up in the cognitive one. And Pinker – a philosopher – passes it by like a homeless person in the street: “Ignore it long enough and it will go away”. Is it possible that the people who did get the strong rationale for the experiment felt stronger because they knew that scientists (who are supposed to have higher morale standards) were inflicting them pain in order to advance their science? And would it be possible that the once with a feeble rationale simply felt that something was wrong being inflicted pain without any apparent reason? Once again, the experiment is the problem. Not just the execution. Without knowing it – I hope – the scientists were manipulating their own findings. And all of that because of an absence of moral consideration from their part. And why do we even pay ethical committees in universities?

Apart from the blatant ignoring of critical points in the physical theories he is synthesizing, there is something off in Pinker’s vocabulary.
While talking about consciousness for instance, he always seems to be referring to perception, as if perception was the only thing that made up our consciousness. In fact our consciousness is like a an ever changing picture that can be made up of various conscious states: remembering, reasoning, talking, intellection… thinking. None of them is a purely perceptive state in it’s proper sense, but they require consciousness in a very basic way (as in “I am awake”-conscious) and a more complex way where one conscious state triggers another one (as in “I see a blue car and it reminds me of my first car…”).
On a general basis it can be said that Steven Pinker in addition to ignoring conflicting attitudes to his favorite naturalistic explanations and having a vocabulary that is far from being precise, he also shows an impressively devious motivation. Yes, I dare call Steven Pinker a devious manipulator. Two elements push me towards such a harsh judgment. One is completely inherent to the field of current philosophy and the other is of a more general order. The two are nevertheless intricately linked.

The “I don’t see you, so you don’t see me…” style – The attentive reader will have had a doubt about this tactic from the moment I quoted John Searle’s book The Mystery of Consciousness in the first part of my article. Pinker chooses the same name for his article as one of the great books in the field of the Philosophy of Mind, but not once makes reference to it, probably because citing this book would contest some of his quick drawn conclusions. This tactic is repeated in enough places to just be a simple omission. For instance here:

Sure, you and I both call grass green, but perhaps you see grass as having the color that I would describe, if I were in your shoes, as purple. Or ponder whether there could be a true zombie–a being who acts just like you or me but in whom there is no self actually feeling anything. This was the crux of a Star Trek plot in which officials wanted to reverse-engineer Lieut. Commander Data, and a furious debate erupted as to whether this was merely dismantling a machine or snuffing out a sentient life.

The neat little pop-cultural reference cannot hide the fact that again he is staying quiet about half a library of literature on Zombies as an object of philosophical thought experiments. Since Thomas Nagel published several articles on the nature of philosophical zombies – the oldest dating back as far as 19701 (sic!) – there has been a line of texts treating Commander Data, Robots and what not as possible sources of explaining consciousness2. As for the “…what does is feel like…”, the same Thomas Nagel has started that discussion as well with his now famous article “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?”3 and the responses to it are numerous.

So the question at this stage is the following: Why? Cui bono? Where lies the reason for this style and the continuous omissions?
The answer is far more disappointing that anyone could have anticipated. Let me give you a little hint with Goethe: “… one feels the evil intent and feels displeased…”4

1. Thomas Nagel, “Armstrong on the Mind”, Philosophical Review, 79 (1970) , pp. 394-403
2. The latest in the line is Robert Kirk’s Zombies and Consciousness, Oxford University Press, 2006.
3. Thomas Nagel, “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” in Philosophical Review LXXXIII, 4, (1974); pp. 435-50.
4. J.W. Goethe, Torquato Tasso.

A Crisis of Consciousness, Part Three

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

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.

Matter and Consciousness

Posted by yseult on Jan 29, 2007 in Philosophy, The Human Mind

Apparently I am not the only one having problems with Mr. Pinker. In Science and Spirit, Susan Greenfield1 says this in her interview with the editor Chris Floyd (unfortunately there is no date provided with the article):

And there is another, perhaps more serious problem with attempts by Dennett and others to explain consciousness by purely mechanical processes, she says. “The problem is that he tends to conflate mind with consciousness. I think you can talk about mind being something enduring, something that involves the configuration of your brain cell circuitry. But we know that this personalization of the brain can be divorced from consciousness, because you can lose your mind and still be conscious, you can blow your mind and still be conscious. You can also go to sleep and become unconscious, but you haven’t necessarily lost your mind. So I think the two are separate. But as far as I know, Dennett has not really been fierce about those distinctions.”

No, Dennett certainly has not been as fierce as Pinker is now. But this quote shows two interesting things: a) the connection between personal identity, consciousness and the mind and that b) scientists are sometimes so much more philosophical than philosophers themselves…

1. Neuroscientist from the University of Oxford: her profile at wikipedia.