Scientism &/or Naturalism?

Scientism can be seen as a position (or stance) on the huge importance of science to philosophy and - often more broadly - to just about everything else. Thus this position needn't be taken to be a philosophy which advances independent arguments or positions on philosophical subjects. Indeed if it did do such things, it would be like a position within philosophy (such as anti-realism or physicalism)...

Naturalism, on the other hand, is indeed a position within philosophy.

Scientism, therefore, can be deemed to be over and above naturalism.

It can be argued that one can be a philosophical naturalist without displaying strong scientistic leanings. Such a philosopher can be broadly naturalistic in his philosophy; yet not strongly scientistic. Indeed he may know little science and therefore not feel the need to consult the findings of science every time he tackles a philosophical issue. A scientistic philosopher, on the other hand, would argue that science must always be consulted when it comes to virtually every issue.

For example, if a philosopher is tackling the notion of an object or a person (or even if he's tackling whether or not there's a God who exists outside space and time), he must see what science has to say on this issue. Either that or he must use scientific findings as a tool to clarify the issue or help him find the answers.

In terms of self-described supporters of scientism, they'll carry lots of baggage about the relation between science and... well, everything else. As for those who're accused by others of being proponents of scientism (which happens a lot), I don't suppose they'll carry that much – or any – baggage.

Thus scientism, surely, requires an explicit and self-conscious commitment to science and its role in all subjects.

In terms of philosophers and scientism again.

A distinction has to be made between what philosophers actually write (or argue) and their general attitude towards science. What they write (or argue) can't itself be science; though they can still have an attitude towards science which people may call "scientistic". This was true of the logical positivists – and that's a point which they admitted to.

In more detail: the logical positivists - and Quine later - argued that science tells us “what is” (i.e., it provides our basic "ontological commitments"). That effectively means that science has the last word on what is. Nonetheless, what scientistic philosophers (as well as logical positivists in the past) do isn't itself science. It can be scientistic (as well as scientific); though it isn't itself science.

Criticisms of Scientism

Having said all that about the relation between scientistic philosophers and science, some would still argue that

“scientistic people tend to be less concerned about actually consulting scientifically sound theories and more about being arrogantly in opposition to whatever they deem 'unscientific' -- notably religion”.

Following on from that, others have argued (understandably) that scientism works against the “commitment to religious freedom as an integral part of democracy”. However, I could imagine even a hardcore scientistic philosopher still being committed to religious freedom. If I were that hardcore scientistic philosopher, I would be committed to religious freedom.... except when that religious freedom leads to a lack of other people's freedoms and even (I dare say) to the destruction of “evil atheistic secularism”. In other words, the freedom of a religion may bring about the denial other people's freedoms. Indeed such religions exist.

However, there's also a problem with coming at scientism from that angle: i.e., that scientism is automatically arrogant and even somewhat totalitarian. Sure, it could be... in principle; though that's true of all philosophical and non-philosophical positions. So I'm not sure why scientism should be singled out for displaying traits that most schools display and which nearly all religions and political ideologies most certainly have displayed.

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Comments on Quine's 'Observation Sentences'

When one first comes across a description of an “observation sentence”, it would seem, prima facie, that such a thing doesn't exist.

How does Quine describe them? In the following way:

“... a sentence is an observation sentence if all verdicts on it depend on present sensory stimulation and on no stored information beyond what goes into understanding the sentence.” (From Quine's 1969 paper 'Epistemology naturalised'.)

Firstly, there are indeed sentences which we utter that do depend on “present sensory stimulation”. They also depend on “stored information”.

For a start, they require the stored information about the meaning of words and our memories (amongst many other things).

However, Quine does qualify his definition by the final clause: “beyond what goes into understanding the sentence”.

That means that the two things I mentioned (i.e., knowledge of the meanings of words and memories of, say, the objects and events in the observation) can be classed as “what goes into understanding the sentence”.

So even though these things are included in a Quinian observation sentence, it's still nonetheless the case that the sentence is about a current observation. (It's about what a person is a present experiencing or observing.) Yes, other things are needed in order to understand the sentence (things which came well before the observation). However, that doesn't stop the sentence - or what we utter - being an observation sentence if the content of that sentence is only about a present observation.

(This isn't that unlike Kant's acknowledgement that even the knowledge of a priori statements requires the experience of what words mean, etc. - and that's obviously, in Kant's terms, a posteriori knowledge.)

The sentence

“There is a rabbit running before me.”

is about a current observation. Nonetheless, I require previous knowledge in order to make such a statement. Still, the sentence isn't about that past knowledge (or those past memories or experiences). The sentence is about the rabbit. The past knowledge is simply required to make the statement and understand the observation. It's not the subject of the sentence.

Quine himself talks in terms of “stored information”. He writes:

“The very fact that we have learned the language evinces much storing of information, and of information without which we should be in no position to give verdicts on sentences however observational.” (298)

Quine stresses his position on observation sentences by writing:

“... an observation sentence is one on which all speakers of the language give the same verdict when given the same concurrent stimulation.” (298)

All that accepted, there can still be an argument against Quinian observation sentences. Indeed don't Quine's various arguments for holism automatically work against the existence of genuine observation sentences?

Why Observation Sentences?

The naturalistic or scientific bonus of observation sentences – at least according to Quine - is their inter-subjective nature. (Therefore their scientific nature.) In other words, we've moved beyond the first-person pronoun of the aprioristic epistemologist.

As Quine puts it:

“.... the observation sentences are the sentences on which all members of the community will agree under uniform stimulation.” (299)

If inter-subjectivity is stressed, then we must also have moved beyond experiences, sense-data (in the old style) and other personal mental happenings and be focusing instead on the world (or on objects and events in the world). The very fact that there's an element of communal agreement involved when it comes to observation sentences (with a stress on the word “observation”) means that “subjective sensory states” become less relevant or not relevant at all.

Quine put it this way:

“The old tendency to associate observation sentences with a subjective sensory subject matter is rather ironic when we reflect that observation sentences area also meant to be the intersubjective tribunal of scientific hypotheses.” (299)

This alone seems to lead immediately to not only naturalism; but perhaps also to some form of externalism.

Rabbits - rather the experiences of rabbits - are now given priority. (Or at least it seems that way.) Of course the Cartesian/internalist arrived at rabbits via his experience of rabbits. However, the Quinian still arrives at rabbits from communal agreement on the experience of rabbits. So the experiences of rabbits must still be part of the story. It can be said that we've moved to what Roger Scruton calls (if in a different context) a “first person plural” in that it's the grand “we” that determines the nature of rabbits. No single mind can find the truth on rabbits by doing, say, some kind of Cartesian (or Husserlian) reduction.

Clearly we've moved a long way beyond the “Cartesian subject” here. Yet the Cartesian subject ruled epistemology from Descartes (17^th century) to the 20^th century.

Theories of Consciousness Must be Biological

According to neuroscientist and Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman, consciousness “can only be understood from a biological standpoint, not through physics or computer science or other approaches that ignore the structure of the brain”.

When did consciousness become a (fit) subject for science?

According to the science journalist John Horgan (in his book The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Science in the Twilight of the Scientific Age), it was as recently as 1990 — only 32 years ago! This is how Horgan put his case:

“In 1990, Crick and a young collaborator, Christof Koch, a German-born neuroscientists [] proclaimed in Seminars in the Neurosciences that it was time to make consciousness a subject of empirical investigation.”

Following on from that, it could be said that when consciousness became a subject of science; it then became acceptable subject for (at least some) philosophers. (Or at least for those philosophers with scientific credentials or who had a commitment to a strong science-philosophy relationship.)

The essential — and some would say obvious — point that the molecular biologist, biophysicist and neuroscientist Francis Crick made was that the study of consciousness must be a biological — therefore a scientific — study. That is, it isn’t about “arguing over psychological concepts and definitions” (which is what Crick believed philosophers do); but one of “lots of experiments”.

According to Crick, psychologists (as well as philosophers) have

“treated the brain as a black box, which can be understood in terms merely of inputs and outputs rather than of internal mechanisms”.

So consciousness is all about the brain.

In fact it’s even more specific than that in Crick’s case: it’s all about neurons.

As Horgan puts it, “[n]eurons must be the basis for any model of the mind”.

The biologist, neuroscientist and Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman (1929- 2014) is also said to have held the position that the mind

“can only be understood from a biological standpoint, not through physics or computer science or other approaches that ignore the structure of the brain”.

[Clearly all this chimes in well with the philosopher John Searle’s own “biological theory of consciousness” — see here. That said, the scientists mentioned in this essay will almost certainly have at least some problems with Searle’s philosophical positions on consciousness.]

To demonstrate his point, Edelman put the seemingly extreme position of “functionalists” (such as Marvin Minsky) who “say they can build an intelligent being without paying attention to anatomy”.

Two

There’s a simple reason as to why scientists and even philosophers must now concentrate of the brain when it comes to questions about the mind and consciousness. According to Horgan, it’s

“precisely because philosophical approaches to consciousness have all failed that scientists must focus on the brain”.

Indeed another way of putting that is to say that these philosophical theories of mind and consciousness all failed (if that’s truly the case) because they completely ignored the brain!

Perhaps most philosophers didn’t see the brain as being a fit subject for philosophy — or even for the philosophy of mind. Nonetheless, many 20th century philosophers certainly did utilise the findings of neuroscience; especially from the 1960s onwards.

The obvious reason as to why philosophical theories about consciousness — and perhaps the mind generally — are seen as problematic is that they’re all (according to Francis Crick) “untestable and therefore useless”. Indeed it’s been said that even highly-sophisticated philosophical theories of consciousness are in the same ball park as beliefs about the Holy Ghost. Or as the neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist Christof Koch (1956-) once put it:

“Why don’t you just say that when you have a brain the Holy Ghost comes down and makes you conscious!”

In fact he said that to the Australian philosopher David Chalmers! Chalmers replied to Koch’s rhetorical question. He argued that a belief in the Holy Ghost is “unnecessarily complicated” and that “it would not accord with his own subjective experience”.

Minsky's Solution to the Problem of Consciousness: Higher-Order Processes

There are philosophers and scientists who believe that “the problem of consciousness” is solved.

One example is Marvin Minsky.

Or, more specifically, in response to John Horgan's claim (in his The End of Science) that there are “those who doubted whether computers could be conscious”, Minsky claimed that “consciousness is a trivial issue”. Moreover, he said: “I've solved it, and I don't understand why people don't listen.” (184)

Minsky's definition of “consciousness” is very simple and very counter-intuitive. Or perhaps it seems that way simply because I've never really heard it before. That is, I've never heard anyone define consciousness is such a specific and peculiar manner.

Horgan says that Minsky's definition includes the idea that consciousness is “merely a type of short-term memory”. Minsky himself says that consciousness is a “low-grade system for keeping records”. And here's where Minsky's Artificial Intelligence comes in. Horgan says that

“computer programmes such as LISP, which have features that allow their processing steps to be retraced” are, according to Minsky, 'extremely conscious'” (184).

Prima facie, in Minsky's account there are two things which are either being correlated with consciousness or which are being said to actually constitute consciousness: memory and what philosophers call “higher-order thoughts”.

It's clear that memory is certainly part of Minsky's picture. After all, he talks about “short-term memory” and “keeping records”.

In a sense, higher-order thoughts (or at least higher-order processes) tie in with the idea of memory in that memories can be about prior thoughts, processes and experiences.

So, yes, computers “keep records” of their previous computations or processes (as do humans). More specifically, programs such as LISP are said to “allow their processing steps to be retraced”. And that, according to Minsky, makes them “extremely conscious”.

The first response to this is to say that memory and higher-order processes are aspects of consciousness. They don't actually constitute consciousness.

In other words, is Minsky making a claim here of numerical identity (or definition)? Is he saying? -

consciousness = memory and higher-order processes (thoughts)

Again, higher-order processes are accompanied by consciousness or occur “within” consciousness. Acts of memory too are part of consciousness. Not consciousness itself.

It may indeed be the case that I'm getting bogged down with metaphors and analogies here in that phrases such as “processes are accompanied by consciousness” and “acts of memory are part of consciousness” may not be conceptually appropriate. They may not even make sense.

Nonetheless, there still seems to be something wrong with saying that consciousness simply is memory or higher-order processes (thoughts).

If we move away from computers here and concentrate on persons or human beings, this would be to say that introspection is consciousness. Many philosophers have indeed stressed the importance of introspection and indeed self-consciousness. Though I don't recall any who've said that introspection is consciousness. Again, I would say that introspection occurs within (forgive the spatial metaphor) consciousness or that it is an aspect of consciousness. Not that it is consciousness.

As for the words “self-consciousness”: that sort of gives the game away. It is, after all, meant to signify consciousness of the self. Thus there are two things: consciousness and the self. That means that self-conscious and consciousness can't be one and the same thing. Or, in other words, it is the self which is aware of consciousness or the self which is aware of the self. Again, the self is something given in (another spatial metaphor!) consciousness.

Quantum Dualism, Quantum Free Will & Quantum Consciousness

John Eccles's Quantum Free Will

Quantum mechanics is so sexy that it even explains free will and, therefore, mind-body dualism. Or at least John Eccles (who won the Noble Prize in 1963) thinks so.

This is how free will actually works and, up to a point, the account is completely scientific/biological in nature.

The first question is: How does the mind or self affect the brain?

Firstly, the story is about the brain itself. More specifically, the story is about how brain-cells fire.

Brain-cells fire “when charged molecules, or ions, accumulate at a synapse, causing it to release neurotransmitters” (John Horgan's The End of Science, page 173).

However, that accumulation of charged molecules (or ions) at the synapse doesn't automatically result in the release of neurotransmitters. It depends. What “triggers the firing of the neuron” depends on something else; not only on the accumulation of ions (molecules).

In this state of molecular accumulation, according to Eccles,

“the ions exist in a quantum superposition of states; in some states the neuron discharges and in others it does not”.

Thus the mind/self must “exert its influence over the brain by 'deciding' which neuron will fire and which will not”.

If all this is utterly physical, can we talk about “deciding” at all? Is it the brain (or the neurons) which decides or the mind/self? Is all this tied to a conscious decision? Is it, indeed, a physical explanation of a mental decision? Indeed Is this a modern version of Descartes' pineal gland explanation of the mind-body problem/relationship?

Another way of putting all that is to ask this question:

Can all these physical things occur (i.e., the accumulation of ions at the synapse and even the “quantum superposition” of physical states) without bringing on board either the mind/self or the notion of a “decision”?

In other words, can we accept this quantum explanation and still leave the mind/self out of the picture? Or is this quantum story part of a theory which successfully explains the interaction of mind/self and brain? (In this case, the self/mind itself fires the neurotransmitters and that interaction itself can be explained in terms of a “quantum superposition” of physical states.)

Despite all that neuroscience (or physical theory), John Eccles still says: “We have no proof of any of this.” (173)

So perhaps what's truly motivating Eccles (as John Horgan suggests) is his aversion to what he calls “cheap materialism”. Indeed Eccles classes himself as a “religious person”. Moreover, he says that

“the very nature of the mind is the same as the nature of life. It's a divine creation".

Roger Penrose's Quantum Consciousness

Whereas as quantum mechanics explains free will for John Eccles and Karl Popper, so it explains consciousness itself for Roger Penrose. In fact the two theories tie together in a vague kind of way.

For Eccles, quantum indeterminism (or the superposition of physical states at the synapses of a neurone) is explained by the “action” of the self or mind. With Penrose, the self is kept out of the picture; though quantum indeterminism is kept in.

More specifically,

“Penrose conjectured that microtubules perform non-deterministic, quasi-quantum computations that somehow give rise to consciousness” (176).

What are microtubules? They're “minute tunnels of protein that serve as a kind of skeleton for most cells, including neurons” (176).

The obvious question is: Why do or would non-deterministic, quasi-quantum computations give rise to consciousness? Is it this argument again? -

i) Quantum indeterminacy is mysterious.

ii) Consciousness is mysterious.

iii) Therefore these things must be related?

Could it simply be that because there's no other answer at present that it's seen that this must be answer? If that were the case, then other outrageous things may be the answer too. Why is this quantum stuff more feasible than ghost stuff or outright dualism?