Does neurophilosophy signal the end of 'philosophy' as we know it ?

But this requires that we ascribe to eliminative materialism, which is a metaphysical position that requires justification.

The late lamented Tom Wolfe wrote a great essay on this very question, back in 1997, but it's still a great read - Sorry, but your soul just Died.

Quoting fresco

In short, the implication of neurophilosophy is that the vocabulary of philosophical issues, including terms like 'causality', and 'rationality' are being superceded by brain functioning terms, in the same way the old vocabulary of substances (earth, air , fire and water) were superceded by modern physics and chemistry terms.

But nobody except eliminative materialists believe it, and they're a very small clique of academic philosophers.

Besides, there's a strong argument against the very idea - which is that the interpretation of the meaning of neural data is itself a matter of judgement. You won't find anything like 'judgement' in the raw material of brain science, so you have to say what the data means. And so you're then back in the field of meaning again - semantics, semiotics, interpretation. Try saying anything without resorting to that.

Fresco. I cannot for one moment see how "neurophilosophy signal the end of philosophy as we know it". I think what we must bear in mind here right from the beginning is the basic difference between the two disciplines, science and philosophy. Where science, on the one hand, works "with" facts, i.e. finding new facts, attempting to proof them, connecting them to other facts. disproving old facts etc, philosophy, on the other hand, works "on" facts: this is what Wayfarer is saying, I think, when referring to "the field of meaning". So, yes, discovering new scientific facts indeed have implications for philosophy, but then on a different level: the level of "meaning". "Eliminative materialism" is an excellent example of this. In a broader sense it nothing else than the continuation of the old battle between mind and matter in philosophy. In this context it is an extreme materialistic theory. In philosophy of mind it is a form of "physicalism" and can be viewed as one of the latest attempts to reduce mind to physiological processes in human nervous system.

Quoting fresco

Neurophilosophy involves the application of neuroscience to philosophical issues like 'free will', and 'reasoning'.

My first reaction is to wonder if we need a new and detailed term: "neurophilosophy"? Neuroscience is throwing up many interesting avenues of thought, and it seems appropriate that philosophers should/will consider them. But isn't that just "philosophy"? Do we need to subdivide, so that neuroscience somehow gets its own dedicated branch of philosophy? If we did do this, wouldn't it prevent any cross-fertilisation between this and the philosophy of other (perhaps similar or related) topics?

If it's not a derail - and I'm sorry if that's what this note turns out to be :sad: - is there any advantage at all to separating out the philosophy of each and every topic, so that each has its own? I can't see one. Can you? :chin:

To all.

Okay, I'm semi sceptical myself, but the cross species research implies that if 'philosophy' is contingent on human language, there is a fundamental issue beyond mere problems of interpretation.

Science is pretty much a Platonic cave shadow of what the real, unknown laws of nature are. At best, science has an uncanny ability to resist experimental testing. At worst, it is just a citation carousel for which the corrupt, academic journals are so well-known.

That is no different for neuroscience. The human brain is not human technology, and its true construction logic is simply unknown. If you really understand it, then you can build it yourself. Neuroscience apparently can't. Hence, what they know, can only be much more limited than that. The proof is always in the pudding.

The assumption of several posters here is that neuroscience is 'reductionist' In the sense of 'explainable in terms of causal mechanisms'. The Churchlands deny this and point out that neural functioning resists isomorphism with, say,' logic circuitry' and seems to point to 'vector space transitions'. (Other modelling involving differential equations has also been suggested).
What comes to my mind here is that since 'causality' has a debateable status in both philosophy and science, it could be that neuroscientific models are attempting to move beyond what we normally seek as 'explanation'. Furthermore, once we take a step away from 'normal logic' the very notion of 'rationality' is up for grabs.
I apologise the vaguary of these ideas, but I am trying to imagine the scenario of 'pulling the rug' from under 'causal explanation', perhaps in a similar manner to that in which relativity pulled the rug from under 'time' as an independent parameter.

Quoting fresco

brain functioning terms

Well, yes, as more and more the brain correlations to qualia are getting tracked.

Karl Popper and John Eccles (a brain expert) wrote The self and its brain, pubd 1977. Popper claims he doesn't subscribe to "thinking substance" because he has problems with the usage of the concept substance. This is why Wittgenstein said philosophers should get day jobs, by which he means get really abreast of the sciences. I am a little surprised at Popper because he must have known by 1977 about half a century of research into new dimensions. Physics by no means excludes the "existence" in some sense of the word, of whatever does thinking, in intersection with those dimensions science is becoming familiar with, and by extension any not "discovered yet". Nor does it exclude that we are each individuals.

What Popper and Eccles both show is that nerve manifestations, sensory, motor and other, while often quicker than what is "consciously" conscious to our memory of it or our power to articulate about it, is not proven to be the original cause of our actions etc.

This is plain honesty about logic and honesty about science and about causes.

Russell (if Feser quotes him accurately) maintained that because physics doesn't tell us about causes, "physics proves there is no such thing as causes". Russell must have been the original of the drunk who never finds his keys anywhere else than under lamp posts. No wonder he didn't manage to ban the bomb!

I don't think Feser quotes Russell accurately, Russell being focussed on the symmetry of equations in which no 'time directionality' is involved. This has recently been stressed by Rovelli, in which the before/after dimension for cause/ effect are at best 'local', or related to observer reference frames.

Neuroscience like any other 'science', is about prediction and control. In that sense it may seek 'causal mechanisms' which you correctly report, fail to correlate with specific neural activity. However, the philosophical issue ensuing is NOT specifically about the viability of such a quest, but about the status of 'causality' per se in the Russell sense. Also it raises the secondary issue of the ethics of 'control' given that 'behavior modification' has many well established social functions.

Quoting fresco

The assumption of several posters here is that neuroscience is 'reductionist' In the sense of 'explainable in terms of causal mechanisms'. The Churchlands deny this...

The Churchlands are reductionists par excellence. Let’s see....quick google Churchlands neural reductionism....oh to hell with it, see for yourself. But their entire thesis is that ‘mind is the output of the physical brain’ and can be understood through the lense of neuroscience.

Tell you what - look at the Notre Dame review of Hacker and Bennett, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. The salient passage is this one:

In Chapter 3 of Part I - “The Mereological Fallacy in Neuroscience” - Bennett and Hacker set out a critical framework that is the pivot of the book. They argue that for some neuroscientists, the brain does all manner of things: it believes (Crick); interprets (Edelman); knows (Blakemore); poses questions to itself (Young); makes decisions (Damasio); contains symbols (Gregory) and represents information (Marr). Implicit in these assertions is a philosophical mistake, insofar as it unreasonably inflates the conception of the 'brain' by assigning to it powers and activities that are normally reserved for sentient beings. It is the degree to which these assertions depart from the norms of linguistic practice that sends up a red flag. The reason for objection is this: it is one thing to suggest on empirical grounds correlations between a subjective, complex whole (say, the activity of deciding and some particular physical part of that capacity, say, neural firings) but there is considerable objection to concluding that the part just is the whole. These claims are not false; rather, they are devoid of sense.

Wittgenstein remarked that it is only of a human being that it makes sense to say “it has sensations; it sees, is blind; hears, is deaf; is conscious or unconscious.” (Philosophical Investigations, § 281). The question whether brains think “is a philosophical question, not a scientific one” (p. 71). To attribute such capacities to brains is to commit what Bennett and Hacker identify as “the mereological fallacy”, that is, the fallacy of attributing to parts of an animal attributes that are properties of the whole being.

And speaking of Feser:

[quote=Ed Feser]the puzzle intentionality poses for materialism can be summarized this way: Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning. By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity. Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc. In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot possibly be identified with any physical processes in the brain. In short: Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.[/quote]

Reply to Wayfarer
It is not clear cut that the Churchlands were conventional 'reductionists' since they advocated eliminativism.

In the context of materialist understandings of psychology, eliminativism stands in opposition to reductive materialism which argues that mental states as conventionally understood do exist, and that they directly correspond to the physical state of the nervous system.

In short, for eliminativists, concepts like 'free choice' do not 'exist' in the sense of being 'functional targets for explanation'.This is not to deny ' the existence of free choice' as a functional concept in social relationships. Eliminativists seek 'bottom up' explanations by looking at simpler component 'vectors' , like 'gratification', but they do not seem to rule out 'emergence' of complex behavioral structures which have social significance.

But to dwell on the conventional explanatory merits, or failures, of neuroscience is to miss my point, which is that such disputes question the very nature of 'explanation' itself.

Quoting Wayfarer

Sorry, but your soul just Died.

Thanks for the link. Wolfe is always a good read.

Reply to PoeticUniverse

Well, yes, as more and more the brain correlations to qualia are getting tracked.

But the story on causation hasn't move an inch. There is no coherent story. Materialism hits a brick wall when it tries to explain how interacting matter can give rise to conscious experience.

Reply to RogueAI Again, you miss the point. What we call 'conscious experience' tends to be a nebulous hotchpotch involving language, images, and sense data. In our culture we distinguish it from 'dreams' and 'hallucinations', and neuroscience throws some light on the bases for those distinctions. The phrase 'gives rise to' is as premature as the question 'what gives rise to disease' asked in medieval times, since the concept of 'disease' was as nebulous then, as 'conscious experience' is now.

Now there are some, including myself, who are tempted by the conundrum, 'how can thinking think about itself ?', but that assumes we know, what both 'thought' and 'knowing' mean. Neurophilosophy throws those questions back at us.

Quoting fresco

Again, you miss the point. What we call 'conscious experience' tends to be a nebulous hotchpotch involving language, images, and sense data. In our culture we distinguish it from 'dreams' and 'hallucinations', and neuroscience throws some light on the bases for those distinctions. The phrase 'gives rise to' is as premature as the question 'what gives rise to disease' asked in medieval times, since the concept of 'disease' was as nebulous then, as 'conscious experience' is now.

Now there are some, including myself, who are tempted by the conundrum, 'how can thinking think about itself ?', but that assumes we know, what both 'thought' and 'knowing' mean. Neurophilosophy throws those questions back at us.

I don't think there is anything nebulous about "conscious experience". It's very clear what we refer to when we use that term. It's just difficlut to explain or define it using language. The same is true for "thought". We all know what thoughts are, it's just difficult to define using language. It's not that consciousness or thoughts are nebulous. It's the language talking about them that is nebulous.

"Knowing" might be different, because knowing is indeed a bit of a nebulous thing, floating around with "belief" and "guesses". But it's important not to confuse nebulous language with nebulous subjects.

Quoting fresco

'how can thinking think about itself ?'

The brain doesn't know the whyness of its thinking, which is why we often rationalize a reason for what comes to mind. All the brain has to go by is the product/result of its neuronal analysis, and so the brain qualia output serves a purpose.

I disagree. We 'know' what 'a behavior X' is, if we understand the function of X, and the essential components of X which contribute to that function. I suggest this is not the case for 'thought'.

Reply to PoeticUniverse
Yes. All,that matters, is what happens next, from a 'structural integrity' pov.

Quoting fresco

I disagree. We 'know' what 'a behavior X' is, if we understand the function of X, and the essential components of X which contribute to that function. I suggest this is not the case for 'thought'.

Thought is not a behaviour. Do you claim that you do not know what thoughts are? Your requirements for "knowing" seem to presuppose materialism, in that everything has a "function" and "components".

The claim that 'thought is not a behavior' implies that 'being animate' is not a necessary condition for thought. 'Thought involves 'brain activity' with or without overt bodily movement. In fact from the pov of 'embodied cognition' (Varela et al) both brain and body are both essential tor 'thought'.
The alternative is to advocate dualism.

Quoting fresco

The claim that 'thought is not a behavior' implies that 'being animate' is not a necessary condition for thought. 'Thought involves 'brain activity' with or without overt bodily movement. In fact from the pov of 'embodied cognition' (Varela et al) both brain and body are both essential tor 'thought'.
The alternative is to advocate dualism.

This all seems to presuppose materialism, that is that thought is a product of brain and body. But it's also possible that brains and bodies are representations of thought that only exist in specific kinds of thoughts. The actual substrate of thoughts might be something entirely different.

Reply to Echarmion Everything does have a function..that is what 'thinghood' boils down to.
Properties of 'things' are expectancies of potential functional interaction with them.

Systems philosophy proposes a completely different solution, biperspectivism, in which the mechanical (reductionist) perspective is appropriate from the external-scientific viewpoint, but cognitive descriptions are appropriate for the internal/introspective perspective.

Reply to fresco "Does neurophilosophy signal the end of 'philosophy' as we know it ?"

One might hope.

Philosophy certainly has its uses, but over the millennia various products of philosophy have superseded the parent. Physics, for example; literary and art criticism; psychology and neurology. The ur-philosophers are now 2500 years in their graves. It makes sense to return to the foundation--especially in religious thought and practice, but in studying knowledge?

Reply to Pantagruel Reply to Pantagruel
Hmm..the issue raised by neurophilosophy is what constitutes 'the problem', rather than 'the solution'.
That is why they reject Chalmers' 'hard problem' as a pseudo-problem.
But I agree that 'domains of discourse' (perspectives) can be useful for the larger picture of philosophy with the proviso that those domains are not mutually exclusive. For example, it is clear from a neurologifal pov that what we call 'the exercise free will' has its roots in 'unconscious processes'. But since 'free will' has social importance, and its exercise can be modified, (learning=restructuring of neural circuitry). The 'problem' may turn out to be 'ethical' rather than epistemological.

Reply to Bitter Crank
Yes. I agree with Rorty on that 'supercedence'...that 'philosophy' has nothing authoritative to say about epistemology(Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature)

Quoting fresco

Neurophilosophy involves the application of neuroscience to philosophical issues like 'free will', and 'reasoning'.

Think about what ‘an explanation of reasoning’ might look like. When you explain something, you give reason for why it is so; so how could any explanation explain explaining? The whole story with reductive materialism is extremely simple: the mind is not something amenable to explanation in terms of the physical sciences, therefore it must be eliminated. That’s all there is to it.

It exactly mirrors religious fundamentalism, but applied to science — ‘our dogma says that everything must be understandable in physical terms, so if the mind cannot be, then it can’t be real’. And the payoff is the release from the existential anxiety of dealing with an unknown.

Reply to fresco

Neurophilosophy involves the application of neuroscience to philosophical issues like 'free will', and 'reasoning'. The Churchlands, for example, have used the phrase 'eliminative materialism' to deconstruct issues like 'free will' in terms of combinations of neural processes such as 'gratification mechanisms' and 'neural pathway establishment', both of which are becoming well understood and are not species specific.

In short, the implication of neurophilosophy is that the vocabulary of philosophical issues, including terms like 'causality', and 'rationality' are being superceded by brain functioning terms, in the same way the old vocabulary of substances (earth, air , fire and water) were superceded by modern physics and chemistry terms.

There would be some value in listing the physical processes, “brain functioning terms”, and facts of biology involved in ideas such as “free will”, but it would make speaking and thinking about the topics utterly tedious, leaving the value negligent.

Reply to Echarmion

Good post.

Conscious experience is the most immediate primal thing we have. There is nothing nebulous about stubbing your toe or an orgasm. The materialist explanation (or lack thereof) of how neurons give rise to conscious experience is what's nebulous. The explanations are all terrible.

Quoting Echarmion

It's very clear what we refer to when we use that term. It's just difficult to explain or define it using language.

The only way I can reconcile the first (to me inexplicable) one of these claims with the second (perfectly reasonable) one is to hope that you mean to observe, merely, that we can easily enough find clear cases and clear non-cases of conscious experience, while quickly enough failing to find any sign of a dividing line... cases (perhaps less clear) close enough to non-cases to explain what makes the difference.

That would be cool, though. If we could agree some clear cases of both conscious and unconscious experience. And then discuss the less clear ones. We would have common ground, despite having apparently contrary philosophies.

But if what I suggest is of no interest to you, I would be curious anyway to know how you reconcile the two claims.

Quoting Echarmion

We all know what thoughts are, it's just difficult to define using language.

We might all know when we are thinking, but it doesn't follow that we know what thoughts are. Similarly, we know when we are digesting food, but that does not entail that we understand the process of digestion.

Reply to RogueAI The "most immediate primal thing we have" is the sensed world, especially other people and our bodily, emotional and linguistic interactions with them, of course including our own bodies and their sensations and feelings. What we might call "conscious experience" is only a tiny part of all that.

Of course any explanation is not what it explains, and remains merely an explanation, one among countless others, but some explanations are more comprehensive, more in accordance with our scientific and general knowledge and understandings. Philosophical worldviews and beliefs are luxuries, diversions, tacked onto everything else that matters.

Quoting bongo fury

But if what I suggest is of no interest to you, I would be curious anyway to know how you reconcile the two claims.

I don't see how these claims require reconciliation. Is an explanation using language constitutive for knowing what something is?

Quoting Janus

We might all know when we are thinking, but it doesn't follow that we know what thoughts are. Similarly, we know when we are digesting food, but that does not entail that we understand the process of digestion.

But thinking is the process of thinking. We don't know where the thoughts we experience as our thoughts ultimately come from, but we do know what a thought is, when we have one, and how one thought leads to another etc.

Reply to Wayfarer I see your point about 'existential anxiety', but is that any more significant than an atheist (like me) saying 'all religions are nonsense'?
As for 'the explanation of explanation', that may turn out to rest on a 'nested systems' approach, in which 'life processes as dissipative structures' (Maturana) can be applied at many levels, from the cell, to the society. From that pov, the languaging we call 'explanation' might be adressed at the level of 'co-ordination of co-ordination' between nesting levels. After all, without getting into formal systems theory, we are already aware that the language employed in 'individual thinking' has been socially acquired.

To All,

Thankyou for your thoughts over night (UK)
My question still stands...are we witnessing 'the demise of philosophy as we know it' ?
Or to put it another way, is 'neurophilosophy' any more iconoclastic than the issues raised by Wittgenstein, the Pragmatists, or the Post Modernists.

Quoting fresco

I see your point about 'existential anxiety', but is that any more significant than an atheist (like me) saying 'all religions are nonsense'?

Might be a different version of the same thing. Anyway, I think the idea that 'all religions are nonsense' is nonsense. Religion has been foundational to every human culture since 'neanderthal flower burials'. But I do know a lot of people believe the whole thing has been put away and don't want to revisit it.

Quoting fresco

As for 'the explanation of explanation', that may turn out to rest on a 'nested systems' approach, in which 'life processes as dissipative structures' (Maturana) can be applied at many levels, from the cell, to the society.

Not the point, though. Reason is sovereign. As soon as you try to explain reason, then you're engaged in a circular argument. Can't you see how that must be the case? What is 'an explanation' other than 'the use of reason'? So if you say 'well, really, reason can be explained in terms of neurobiology', then you must by necessity be begging the question, because you're appealing to the very faculty that you're purporting to explain. You can't set aside reason, or stand outside it, and say what it is, because to say what it is, you have to use it.

Reply to Wayfarer I don't agree that 'reason is sovereign'....'Life' is. What we call 'reason' facilitates that aspect of human life concerned with 'prediction and control'. Of course you might argue that this points to an infinite regress involving 'reasoning about what life is', but it seems there may be an ultimate backstop to this with the concept of life as an 'autopoietic structure'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis
It might be useful to consider this with respect to Von Glasersfeld's comments on circular language'.
http://vonglasersfeld.com/125.2

Quoting Echarmion

It's very clear what we refer to when we use that term. It's just difficult to explain or define it using language.

Quoting bongo fury

I would be curious [...] to know how you reconcile the two claims.

Quoting Echarmion

I don't see how these claims require reconciliation. Is an explanation using language constitutive for knowing what something is?

I would have thought it constitutive (or required) for being "very clear what we refer to". For being able to show examples of what we do and don't refer to. Which would be explaining and defining it, I would have thought. Ideally, as I say, finding a dividing line between what we do and don't refer to by the term.

Or, failing that, but still usefully, finding a common ground of clear cases and clear non-cases, and working from there.

Quoting Janus

We might all know when we are thinking, but it doesn't follow that we know what thoughts are.

But judging cases of thinking and not thinking would be a perfectly good place to start finding out what thoughts are.

Quoting fresco

My question still stands...are we witnessing 'the demise of philosophy as we know it' ?
Or to put it another way, is 'neurophilosophy' any more iconoclastic than the issues raised by Wittgenstein, the Pragmatists, or the Post Modernists.

:lol: Obviously no and no.

Quoting fresco

I don't agree that 'reason is sovereign'....'Life' is.

But that's a platitude, in the circumstances. The topic is 'philosophy of mind' and your post opens with a statement about 'the application of neuroscience to reasoning'. That's what I was talking about. I'm homing in on that particular statement as it is central to the question. And as this is a philosophy forum, then I would hope that respect for reason would be recognised here. (I mean, there's plenty of places where it isn't. By the way, I'm very familiar with Maturana and Varela, I read their book in 1992. You know that before he died, Varela took a lay ordination in Tibetan Buddhism? That he helped found the Mind-Life Institute of which H. H. The Dalai Lama is chair?')

Reply to bongo fury Not obvious to me! On the contrary, just looking at this forum, many threads appear to me to be little more than a bit of 'intellectual dancing'. Cynically, it could be argued that 'philosophy' is an intellectual hobby for those of us fortunate to have time on their hands.

The point about 'neuroscience' is that it tends to deflate 'thinking' as an epiphenomenon of 'neural activity'. We resent this, of course, but we cannot argue with some of the empirical research on which it is based. And it is that empiricism which sets it apart from other iconoclastic movements.

Reply to Wayfarer
Yes. I did know about the Buddhist connection but I put that down to the holistic, 'self ' dissipation ethos surrounding autopoiesis.
BTW. I don't think I placed this in the 'Philosophy of Mind ' section as I consider it antithetical to such a label. Nor do I agree that my usage of 'life' is a platitude since I am not playing the language game 'that's life', I am citing a particular concept of life proposed by the Santiago movement. This point would tend to displace 'reason' with 'rationality'.
(Note too that I did switch from 'reasoning' to 'rationality' in the opening paragraph )

Quoting fresco

epiphenomenon

Dualism worthy of Descartes.

Reply to bongo fury
No...'Emergence' worthy of levels of discourse in systems theory.

Quoting bongo fury

I would have thought it constitutive (or required) for being "very clear what we refer to". For being able to show examples of what we do and don't refer to. Which would be explaining and defining it, I would have thought. Ideally, as I say, finding a dividing line between what we do and don't refer to by the term.

Or, failing that, but still usefully, finding a common ground of clear cases and clear non-cases, and working from there.

The problem is that conscious experience is so basic that there is no way to give examples. If I gave you an example, like petting a cat, that example would only exist within your conscious experience. Everything I could refer to would be a conscious experience.

Quoting fresco

The point about 'neuroscience' is that it tends to deflate 'thinking' as an epiphenomenon of 'neural activity'. We resent this, of course, but we cannot argue with some of the empirical research on which it is based. And it is that empiricism which sets it apart from other iconoclastic movements.

People do argue with it, though. Where do you take the certainty that they must all be wrong from?

Quoting fresco

I am citing a particular concept of life proposed by the Santiago movement. This point would tend to displace 'reason' with 'rationality'.

Well, sure. But look at what the Churchlands are arguing - 'rationality is a product of the brain'. Think through the philosophical implications. I'm offering a philosophical criticism which I think undercuts that. You don't seem aware of the background.

Quoting fresco

I did know about the Buddhist connection but I put that down to holistic ethos surrounding autopoiesis.

I have Embodied Mind on my hard drive. The forward explains that the inspiration for the book was Varela's lectures at Naropa University, which was Chogyam Trungpa's teaching institute in Boulder. The book developed as a 'dialogue between Buddhism and cognitive science'. This is not a criticism of it, it's very much the kind of book that I have been studying; I'm re-reading parts of it again at the moment, and also Evan Thomson's recent book Waking Dreaming Being which carries forward many of the same ideas. Buddhism is and is not 'religious' in the Western sense - the principles are vastly different to Christian principles, albeit with many convergences on the point of ethics. But if you think it's not religious, that's also mistaken. The Buddhist analysis didn't grow out of theistic religion, so is not theistic, but it's also not atheistic in the sense that Western materialism is.

So I'm not criticizing you, or Maturana. But what is at issue is a specific point which actually has nothing much to do with Varela and Maturana and auto-poesis. I'm trying to point something out, a very specific point about philosophy of mind, in relation to the issue of 'eliminative materialism' of which 'The Churchlands' are emblematic.

Quoting fresco

The point about 'neuroscience' is that it tends to deflate 'thinking' as an epiphenomenon of 'neural activity'. We resent this, of course, but we cannot argue with some of the empirical research on which it is based.

Can, and are.

Because ‘arguing’ is a rational activity. You will never, ever see an argument in a neural image.

Quoting Echarmion

Or, failing that, but still usefully, finding a common ground of clear cases and clear non-cases, and working from there.
— bongo fury

The problem is that conscious experience is so basic that there is no way to give examples.

Not with that attitude...

Quoting Echarmion

If I gave you an example, like petting a cat,

Yes! Please! What kinds of cat-petting experiences are clearly conscious and which unconscious? Let's play...

Quoting Echarmion

that example would only exist within your conscious experience.

:sigh: Really? No common ground here.

To what extent do the objectives of neuroscience overlap with the objectives of transcendental
phenomenology?

In my opinion, if we are talking about a purely naturalised conception of neuroscience whose only objective is the description of the stimulus-response mappings of the brain of a third-person, then these objectives have nothing in common.

Wittgenstein in the Blue Book, briefly raises the tantalising idea of a solipsistic "first person" neuroscience in which the experimental neuroscientist and the test-subject are one and the same - for example by placing an electrode into your own scalp by using a mirror, whilst recording your thoughts and observations.


In my opinion, "Solpsistic neuroscience" cannot be expected to produce results that are commensurable or even consistent with standard naturalised neuroscience. I don't however, see how naturalised neuroscience can claim epistemological superiority, for that would be question-begging according to the transcendental phenomenologist.

Quoting fresco

But I agree that 'domains of discourse' (perspectives) can be useful for the larger picture of philosophy with the proviso that those domains are not mutually exclusive

Actually that is the main point of SP - the fact that there are structural isomorphisms between systems of different types itself represents a connection between apparently disparate domains.

Quoting bongo fury

Yes! Please! What kinds of cat-petting experiences are clearly conscious and which unconscious? Let's play...

If you are petting a cat right now, that's clearly a conscious experience. If you remember petting a cat, that memory is also a conscious experience, which may or may not be based on another conscious experience. If you remember dreaming about petting a cat, that's a conscious experience that may or may not be based on another conscious experience, or possibly on some form of unconscious experience, if dreams are actually experience, which I think is dubious.

Reply to Janus

The "most immediate primal thing we have" is the sensed world, especially other people and our bodily, emotional and linguistic interactions with them, of course including our own bodies and their sensations and feelings. What we might call "conscious experience" is only a tiny part of all that.

You're making some assumptions here. That there is a "sensed world" (I take it you mean "external world"?), that there are other people, and that we have bodies.

But even granting all that, to say conscious experience is "only a tiny part" A) isn't true (it's the most foundational thing we have. It permeates our every waking moment), and B) even a tiny bit of conscious experience has to be explained, and we're back to the same problem: how does interacting matter give rise to conscious experience?

Reply to Wayfarer I take on board your interest in embodiment, and I admit that I was over generalizing with my comment 'all religions are nonsense' (I should have said deism). It was stylistically useful to take a devils advocate stance when presenting the thesis, but other than scepticism, I don't think there is much that 'philosophers' can say against 'advances' in neuroscience, and I'm a sceptic myself !

Reply to fresco

I take on board your interest in embodiment, and I admit that I was over generalizing with my comment 'all religions are nonsense' (I should have said deism). It was stylistically useful to take a devils advocate stance when presenting the thesis, but other than scepticism, I don't think there is much that 'philosophers' can say against 'advances' in neuroscience, and I'm a sceptic myself !

Correlation is not causation. Neuroscience is great at finding neural correlates. But as to the causal explanation of why/how brains are conscious, we're no closer than we've ever been.

Well we can keep going round in circles here. Neuroscientists claim words like 'consciousness' are too nebulous to deal with. That claim is made on the back of historical advances in other sciences which have deconstructed 'folk concepts' like 'the humours' or even 'time'. It could all be merely a matter of optimism versus pessimism.

LATER EDIT: I Should have re-iterated that 'causality' may also be 'a folk concept'

Quoting Echarmion

If you are petting a cat right now, that's clearly a conscious experience.

Agreed, and it suggests several less clear cases that might be interesting. Like... me petting, or holding, the cat while drunk or asleep... or, Alexa the automatic cat-petter petting the cat... or, Alexa the autonomous neural-network machine self-trained to pet the cat... or, the cat's mother petting the cat.

Quoting Echarmion

If you remember petting a cat, that memory is also a conscious experience,

At least, it probably marks an occasion when consciousness happened, although not necessarily consciousness of the memory, except on the slightly question-begging interpretation of remembering as "recalling to mind". I might be trying and failing to identify the relevant word or picture (etc.) of the scene, or just curiously disturbed by an unconscious association with the scene or those symbols. But of course, my consciousness while petting the cat is not necessarily of the petting, either.

Quoting Echarmion

If you remember dreaming about petting a cat, that's a conscious experience that may or may not be based on another conscious experience,

Sure. Plenty of fascinating if potentially illusory data from introspection of transitioning into and out of "waking" consciousness. Man!

Equally, I desire to establish a common ground of agreed cases of non-consciousness. The project is compromised if you (or whoever) has pan-psychist sympathies... How about insects?

Anyway, thanks for at least humoring me by putting aside talk of the data "only existing subjectively" etc. Even if that gesture is only for the sake of argument... which I anticipate with (conscious, if ill-advised) pleasure.

Quoting bongo fury

Like... me petting, or holding, the cat while drunk or asleep... or, Alexa the automatic cat-petter petting the cat... or, Alexa the autonomous neural-network machine self-trained to pet the cat... or, the cat's mother petting the cat

What I originally said was that it's clear what "conscious experience" refers to. If I am drunk I am still conscious, but not when I am asleep. I am also not an automatic machine, or a cat. So none of these things are my conscious experience.

Quoting bongo fury

At least, it probably marks an occasion when consciousness happened, although not necessarily consciousness of the memory, except on the slightly question-begging interpretation of remembering as "recalling to mind". I might be trying and failing to identify the relevant word or picture (etc.) of the scene, or just curiously disturbed by an unconscious association with the scene or those symbols. But of course, my consciousness while petting the cat is not necessarily of the petting, either.

Right, but uncertainities of memory aside, while we "recall" it, we are certainly consciously experiencing.

Quoting bongo fury

Sure. Plenty of fascinating if potentially illusory data from introspection of transitioning into and out of "waking" consciousness. Man!

Equally, I desire to establish a common ground of agreed cases of non-consciousness. The project is slightl

I am not sure we can know when we are not conscious. How would we differntiate between not having been conscious and simply not remembering?

Quoting Pattern-chaser

Do we need to subdivide, so that neuroscience somehow gets its own dedicated branch of philosophy?

This is already done. Within philosophy of science we have philosophy of physics, philosophy of biology, etc. So you could call it neurophilosophy or you could call it philosophy of neuroscience. I would leave it up to the practitioners to name it. But I don't see it taking over all of philosophy in any case.

Quoting Echarmion

What I originally said was that it's clear what "conscious experience" refers to.

And I said, that doesn't fit well with the claim that attempts to define and explain it are futile. I proposed, as a way forward, clarification of the reference of the term, from agreed clear cases towards less clear but more explanatory ones.

I meant to welcome your example and merely cast a preliminary glance at possible refinements (less clear cases) ahead. I don't blame you for not being impressed with those off-the-cuff suggestions.

Quoting Echarmion

Right, but uncertainties of memory aside, while we "recall" it, we are certainly consciously experiencing.

Yes, and the goal for me is to describe that experience accurately. Rightly or wrongly I sense a need to persuade against a defeatism about that goal. Hence the need to agree common ground.

Quoting Echarmion

I am not sure we can know when we are not conscious. How would we differentiate between not having been conscious and simply not remembering?

By the same token, though, popular assumptions about the "integration" of consciousness might be questioned. (E.g. Searle's idea of consciousness as a "field".) Again, I am opposed to defeatism about the prospect of knowledge about such things, even based on introspection. Perhaps we can learn to become less oblivious of the gaps in conscious experience. (Have you tried staying conscious whilst falling asleep?! :nerd: )

Anyway, thank you for hearing my objection to your defeatism, as I saw it, about the feasibility of explaining or defining consciousness.

Out of interest, for my informal survey... roughly at what point, if any, are you prepared to assume complete unconsciousness of a creature/device:

Mammal
Fish
Insect
Plant
State of the art AI
Smart phone
Pocket calculator
Rock
Molecule
None of the above

Thanks

Quoting Echarmion

But thinking is the process of thinking. We don't know where the thoughts we experience as our thoughts ultimately come from, but we do know what a thought is, when we have one, and how one thought leads to another etc.

Quoting bongo fury

But judging cases of thinking and not thinking would be a perfectly good place to start finding out what thoughts are.

The question of what something is is a question of constitution, structure and function, though. We all know what a tree is in the sense of being able to recognize one when we see it, but very few of us know what trees are in the sense of understanding their constitution, structure and function. I'd say being able to know when you are thinking, or being able to recognize a thought when you have is just like being able to recognize a tree; it is just a first (of course necessary) step towards knowing what a thought is.

Quoting RogueAI

You're making some assumptions here. That there is a "sensed world" (I take it you mean "external world"?), that there are other people, and that we have bodies.

But even granting all that, to say conscious experience is "only a tiny part" A) isn't true (it's the most foundational thing we have. It permeates our every waking moment), and B) even a tiny bit of conscious experience has to be explained, and we're back to the same problem: how does interacting matter give rise to conscious experience?

For us there is definitely a sensed world external to our bodies. Whether there is a sensed world in any absolute or ultimate sense (which is what I guess you are alluding to wanting to know) is either unanswerable or not even a coherent question; take your pick.

To say that consciousness is foundational is just to interpret the situation from a certain perspective. To say that matter is foundational is to interpret it from another. Neither interpretation is, in any real sense, foundational.

We have an intuitive idea of what consciousness which may well be completely off the mark. Or there may be no mark to be off, and our idea of consciousness is just one of many possible ideas of what it is. The same goes for our idea of what matter is. The so-called "Hard Problem" arises in the context of certain conceptions of what consciousness and matter are, and does not arise in the context of others. I would say that in the context in which the HP arises, there is no possibility of an answer because of the incommensurability or incompatibiblity of the conceptions of consciousness and matter. If that is right then it would be better named the "Impossible Problem".