Modes of Presentation of Mental/Brain Events?

It seems hard to accept that to Donald Davidson "talk about minds" is just an "idiom" or "mode of portrayal". One is tempted to think that there must be more to it than that. That is, then, that minds are different from brains; it's not only that we use different modes of portrayal for what is essentially the same thing.

Can we even say that mind-talk is a ‘mode of presentation’ and brain-talk or physical-talk is a mode of presentation of the same thing? What thing? The mind or the brain?

We can also say that the words ‘brain’ and ‘mind’ have different ‘senses’; though the same ‘referent’. What is that shared referent - mind or brain?

Surely we can't capture the mental events as they are described as physical events according to "strict and deterministic physical laws". Even if they are physical, the difficulty would be correlating them with specific mental events such as the perception of a red ball or saying ‘There’s a red ball’. The physical aspects of the brain can easily be determined in principle. What can't be done is to capture the correlations between specific mental events and specific physical events or brain-events. That is, if the physical correlations of mental events are in any way specific rather than holist, ‘distributed’ or even externalist!

The brain-events are law-governed. The mental events are norm-governed. What's the difference, then, between norms and laws? Norms are human creations. Laws are not. Norms are accountable to features such as the agent’s general - and supposed - rationality and conformity to epistemic principles. Thus a background of detail is required to interpret mental events which includes the normative.

Of course if the mental is intentional, then it has a feature - that of aboutness - that nothing physical, qua the physical, has. Mental events must take into consideration what they're about or other semantic features. Brain-events, on the other hand, aren't about anything. They have no semantic features whatsoever. It's precisely because ‘intentional psychology’ is intentional - or has aboutness - that it's classed as ‘folk psychology’ and not real psychology or genuine science. Real or genuine science doesn't concern itself with aboutness or semantics. That's why, essentially, the eliminativists what to eliminate intentional psychology because of its semantic commitments. That's why they want to eliminate folk psychology.

Richard Rorty, for example, once endorsed this ‘dual-aspect theory’:

"… Rorty’s view that ‘neuronal states’ and ‘mental states’ are names from two vocabularies for talking about the same items." (266)

Can two things that are so unlike really be the same thing? Is it really just about "two vocabularies for talking about the same items" (266)? Or is it really two vocabularies for talking about different items? Perhaps there's another reason for the different vocabularies – that the two sets of items are actually not the same thing.

Questions About Consciousness

The simple point about consciousness (or conscious experience) is that everything that happens in the brain could happen without consciousness. That is, why is consciousness added on top of all those physical- or brain- processes because the organism itself, it can be argued, could function, to some degree at least, without consciousness. David Chalmers writes:

"If all we knew about were the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems, there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of conscious experience. If it were not for our direct evidence in the first-person case, the hypothesis would seem unwarranted…" (David Chalmers, 1996: 4-5)

Consciousness can't be inferred or deduced from "the facts of physics, and even the facts about dynamics and information processing in complex systems". If anything, consciousness must emerge from the facts of physics, etc.

Why does it do so?

How does it do so?

The way that David Chalmers actually puts it is as if consciousness (or conscious experience) is simply not needed – it adds nothing to the organism except, well, conscious experience. Isn’t the mind or consciousness used to help us survive and get us around the world? Surely this is obviously the case. Unless there's a behaviourist or functionalist argument which states that we would act the same - that is, respond to inputs or stimuli - even without consciousness.

That can’t be correct because we reason about input and stimuli; whereas the lower animals, computers and machines do not. Reason is part of mind and indeed of consciousness. Mind or reason may still respond to input or stimuli; though it needn't respond with fixed output – at least not in the same way every time as is the case with the lower animals and computers or machines.

Chalmers say that "there would be no compelling reason to postulate the existence of consciousness experience" over above the physical facts. Who would be doing the postulating anyway? A conscious mind. Who would be asking these questions about the need to postulate consciousness? A conscious mind. We can hardly talk about "our direct evidence in the first-person case" for consciousness because it can hardly function as evidence if our minds or consciousness has never even been in doubt. You can't use something that is beyond doubt as evidence. At least it wouldn't be like everyday scientific evidence; just as one doesn't count anything as ‘evidence’ for the truth of 2 + 2 = 4. Talk of evidence doesn’t seem to the point in this specific context.

Jerry Fodor puts all the above in an even more rudimentary way:

"Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness." (Fodor, 1992)

Is this bald statement similar to how we once thought of the conundrum of how the organic (or the living) could arise from the inorganic or, as it were, the dead?

Perhaps it's also like the emergence of water’s liquidity from H2 O molecules or even light from a stream of photons. Perhaps there are a thousand cases of emergence - if the liquidity of water is emergence - in the world. The difference is that it is we who are conscious. So consciousness is something that's extra-special to us because we are conscious creatures. And consciousness, or mind, accounts for all these questions in the first place!

Perhaps Fodor’s questions (or rhetorical questions) are bogus questions.
 
Is something’s being conscious simply a causal question as to what causes consciousness? Or is Fodor asking us how matter causes consciousness? Perhaps the real question is why matter sometimes causes consciousness. Though why do H2 O molecules cause water or water’s liquidity? What do we mean by ‘why’ here? Is there even an answer to these kinds of why-question? What would an answer be like? Could there even be an answer? Can every question be answered? If we ask a question, does that mean that it can be answered or that there must be an answer? Perhaps, again, some why-questions are simply meaningless or bogus. Try to imagine what the answer would, or could, be like when we ask how matter can cause consciousness. Perhaps that's why, as Fodor puts it, no one "even what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious". That's because there may not be an answer because the very question itself is bogus or meaningless; just as question ‘Why is water H2 0?’ or ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ or ‘Why is gravity this rather than that?’ can be deemed to be meaningless.

'It's logically possible that...'

We hear a lot about logical possibility - as in "it is logically possible that…" - in contemporary analytic philosophy. For example, David Chalmers says that it's logically possible that, zombies could exist. What do these claims amount to? Do they amount to much and should we be put out by them? Bertrand Russell thinks not:

"No logical absurdity results from the hypothesis that the world consists of nothing but myself… and that everything else is mere fancy. But although this is not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is, in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our own life, than the commonsense hypothesis that there really are objects independent of us, whose action on us causes our sensations." (Russell, 1912:22.)

When I wake up, it's logically possible that I'm still asleep. When I wake up, instead, it's logically possible that all my family are now dead. When I move over to the tap, it's logically possible that poison - not water - could come out of it. If it is water, it's logically possible that I could choke on the water. Then I look out of the window. It's logically possible that the town I see it a simulation of what I saw the day before. And so on.

I could think of ten logical possibilities before each breakfast.

But what is the point, even from a philosophical perspective?

Perhaps there's a big difference between the merely possible and the logically possible.

It's the logically possible that excites the sceptics and philosophers like Chalmers. Should I conclude - from all these logical possibilities - in the same way as Russell above? Should I say that "although [they are] not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that [they are] true"?

Put simply. Something that's logically possible still may not be true. Indeed something that's logically possible probably won’t be true – won’t be the case. So why contemplate the logical possibility at all - even philosophically? Where will it get me?

Russell’s next point is that the logically possible hypothesis is (often?) "less simple" than the everyday one. He writes that "it is, in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our own life". In my examples, this means that it's a less simple hypothesis to believe that I'm currently dreaming. It's a less simple hypothesis to assume that all my family is now dead. It's a less simple hypothesis to assume that poison will now come out of my tap rather than water. It's a less simple hypothesis to assume that my window-view is a mere simulation of the facts.

However, perhaps it doesn't really matter if my everyday hypothesis - if it is a hypothesis - is simpler than the logical possibility. Simplicity may not equal truth. A logical possibility may not automatically equal a falsehood. Perhaps the simplicity or complexity of each hypothesis simply doesn't matter to that hypothesis’s truth or falsehood. Perhaps simplicity is only psychologically appealing – and that’s it.

This is interesting because simplicity - or the simplicity of theories or hypotheses - is given a lot of credence in science – or so many philosophers of science have told us.

Russell, however, thinks that the simplest explanation is the "best". Thus:

"We can then ask: what is the best explanation of these experiences? Russell answers that the simplest explanation is the best; and the simplest explanation is the commonsense explanation. So we know that there is an external world because we seem to experience an external world; and the best explanation of our seeming to experience it, is that we really do experience it. Russell’s argument is an instance of the form of argument known as abduction, or inference to the best explanation." (Chappell, 79)

Again, why is the simplest explanation seen as the best? Is there a necessary - or logical - relation between simplicity and truth? Certainly many philosophers and scientists have thought so. Why? Because simplicity is more aesthetically appealing? In that case, what is the logical - or necessary - relation between aesthetic appeal and truth?

The example of "the best explanation of our seeming to experience the external world, it that we really do experience it" (79) doesn't really seem like an explanation at all. It certainly doesn't seem like a philosophical explanation; let alone a justification of one’s belief that the external world really exists! The fact that I seem to be rich doesn’t make me rich. I seem to experience goblins when drunk; though that doesn’t mean that they exist. Indeed if I seem to experience goblins when sober, why should I assume that goblins really exist and not, instead, explain my experience in some other way? So, again, why is the simplest explanation the best explanation?

In addition, when we make an abductive inference, is it necessarily the case that it must be the simplest inference or explanation? That is: does 

abduction = inference to the best explanation? 

They're indeed often connected; though are they synonymous? Chappell gives his own example of why the simplest explanation may not be the true explanation:

"Suppose sixteen very similar murders occur in one city in one month. On the facts we have, the best (and simplest) explanation of the murders might well be that the murders were all committed by the same criminal. It obviously doesn’t follow that this explanation is true: there will be many facts that we are not explaining by this hypothesis, because we don’t know them." (80)

For example, eight of the murders might have been carried out by a "copycat killer" – or even fifteen of them. Perhaps two killers are working in conjunction. Perhaps because all the killings were done with a handgun, that may have something to do with the fact that a thousand handguns were found and sold in the city to a thousand people. Thus that’s why all the killings were handgun killings, not because they were all committed by the same person. 

Perhaps the fact that all the deaths were similar may turn out to be a false in the end. Someone who died of poisoning might in fact have gone on a mushroom hunt the day before.

What do we mean by "similar" as in "similar murders"? For example, aren’t many murders similar to each other anyway? For example, in New York I would guess that 90% of killings are done with handguns of some description. So all these murders will be similar. It doesn’t follow that they were all done by the same person. If there were no guns, perhaps most murders would be strangulations. Again, not every case of strangulation would then point to the same suspect.

Despite all these possible explanations, it's still the case that an inference to the best explanation may be, well, the best explanation:

"Inference to the best explanation is obviously a useful intellectual strategy, perhaps an indispensable one." (80)

Indeed the simplest explanation of every murder in every city in the last ten years would be that the same man committed all of them – all 100,000 of them! Actually, perhaps that wouldn’t be a simple explanation because we would need to explain how he found the time and the skill to kill 100,000 people! We could settle on the simple hypothesis that all these murders were carried out by the same gang. Surely that would be a simple hypothesis.

The problem with using inference to the best explanation as "a useful intellectual strategy" (80) - in these examples at least - is that innocent people may be convicted of murder simply because their committing the murders is the simplest explanation on offer. That doesn’t - or wouldn’t - mean that they actually did commit the murders! However, the simplest explanation may be useful in the sense that if this weren't an "intellectual strategy",  the detective - or indeed anyone in any walk of like - may be overburdened with data. Some of that data would of course be irrelevant or bogus. 

The problem, of course, is deciding which facts or data are irrelevant or bogus. Perhaps some complex pieces of data - or some complex facts - aren't irrelevant or bogus. Perhaps they're really explanatory or even true. Still, a detective - or anyone else - can't have all the facts. And even all the facts he knows can't be thoroughly accounted for. We need to select what we think is relevant. Perhaps the way to do this is to select the simple facts - or explanations - of the matter at hand.

Imprecise Linguistic Expressions vs. Precise Propositions

The popular and general Fregean (etc.) idea is that because no particular expression of a proposition is identical to that proposition, then a proposition must be distinguishable not only from a specific expression of it, but from all expressions of it.

The argument is usually that a proposition is distinguishable from a particular expression. However, perhaps the truth is that it is the sum of all possible linguistic expressions of it. That is, when all possible expressions of the proposition are in, then there's nothing left out. There's nothing else to say about it. And if there's nothing else to say about the ostensibly expression-independent proposition that hasn't been said by the sum of all its linguistic expressions, then perhaps there's no distinction between them at all. Thus abstract propositions may not even exist in the first place for them to be linguistically expressed.

Michael Dummett goes into detail as to why Frege believed that there is such a distinction between a proposition and its linguistic expressions – or, in Frege’s case, between a sentence and the ‘Thought’ which it expresses:

"[A thought is] not true for you and false for me, it’s not true at one time and false at another time." 

The idea being expressed here is that it may appear to be the case that a thought is true for me though false for you; or true now, though false tomorrow. However, that's only because its linguistic expression leaves something out. If expressions were more precise and more explicit, such things wouldn't be left out.

This leads us to the conclusion that the Fregean Thought itself is precise and explicit. It's strange that something ostensibly non-linguistic can be both precise and explicit at all. How can something abstract and non-linguistic be precise and explicit? What does it mean for an abstract thought or proposition to be precise and explicit? Surely only linguistic expressions can carry the requisite information that will allow a thought to be precise and explicit. How can it be precise and explicit without its – or any – linguistic expression? What would constitute its precision and explicitness?

I mentioned the expression’s lack of precision and explicitness. Dummett explains why this is the case:

"Those are sentences which contain indexical elements: “It’s very cold today” and so on. So he says rather vaguely, when such sentences are uttered, the sentence itself does not suffice to express the thought. The time of utterance, for example, enters into the expression of the thought." 

Why must we bring in thoughts or propositions into this argument? It is of course the case that my sentence

"It’s very cold today."

won't be true tomorrow. It may be hot tomorrow. So, yes, it's imprecise and not explicit enough. However, we needn't bring in a thought to make it explicit and precise. All we need to do is reformulate the sentence thus:

"Today, the 11th June, 2008, it is cold here in the Midlands."

That will be still true tomorrow. However, even then we'll be required to drop the word ‘today’ and write:

"On the 11th June, 2008, it was cold in the Midlands."

We don’t require a thought/proposition that's more explicit and precise.

Even if abstract thoughts do exist, who’s to say that they must be more precise and explicit that their expressions anyway? Perhaps the utterer simply didn’t think of the time, date and location of his utterance. Unless the thought has nothing at all to do with what the utterer was thinking at the time. In that case, why call it a ‘thought’ at all – simply call it a ‘proposition’? In that case, because propositions are often unequivocally seen as abstract, then they needn't be thoughts at all.

Here again, why must we automatically assume that the abstract expression (which is somehow expressed) is more explicit and precise than the expression itself? What on earth is making it more precise and more explicit if it has nothing to do with thought at all? How can it be precise and explicit without linguistic expressions and therefore the communication of information?

Dummett himself sees some of these problems. As Julian Baggini puts it:

"Dummett sees part of the difficulty in working out how we determine what the thought is, given that many utterances which express a thought are ambiguous." 

Are the expressions of the thought (if it exists at all) ‘ambiguous’, or do they simply leave elements out? This may be more an example of ellipsis than ambiguity. Pragmatically speaking, we always need to leave things out of our utterances.

For example, many people say "Thanks" rather than "Thank you"; "What?!" rather than "What was that?"; or "The train’s arriving soon" rather than "The trains arriving in ten minutes 45 seconds". There are numerous examples of this. Can we really say that they are ambiguous rather than just elliptical?

In any case, what does it mean to "determine what the thought is"? How c/would we do that? What would we be determining? If it's genuinely non-linguistic and abstract, how on earth can we translate it at all into something concrete and linguistic? People speak about the problem of mind and body interaction (or they did), what about the problem of the proposition-linguistic expression relation? How is that possible? How can such unlike things have any kind of relation at all? In addition, when we get the thought or proposition right (or wrong), how do we know that we've got it right (or wrong)? We may have something more precise and explicit than any given expression. Though have we still got the proposition (or thought) wrong or right? How would we know? What is it, exactly, that we're getting right or wrong? How do we know that our utterances are "ambiguous"; or, for that matter, that they leave vital information out?

Perhaps all this ostensible ambiguity points to the fact that there's nothing to be ambiguous about. If we're ambiguous at all, it's simply because we haven't expressed what it is that we want to express. It may have nothing to do with the fact that we simply haven’t got the proposition (or thought) right. If we can’t know that we have it right (without the help of a philosopher like Dummett), then how do we know that we have got it wrong? And if we can’t know whether our expression is either right or wrong, then to speak of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in the first place may be suspect (to use an idea of Wittgenstein). In other words, there may be no proposition (or thought) to get right or wrong. There may be no such things as propositions or thoughts. The only thing we get wrong is saying something unclear or saying something we didn't really want to say.

We can’t really use the phrase  "What we want to say" because that would presuppose the existence of a thought that we wanted to express correctly. Perhaps we only know we've gone wrong somewhere when we don’t communicate properly with either ourselves or with another person. That has nothing to do with the expression somehow matching the thought or proposition. If anything solves the problem of inadequate communication, it will be another linguistic expression, not a thought. That is, an expression which effectively communicates what it is we want to communicate.

What it is we want to communicate isn't a thought or proposition at all: it's a satisfactory linguistic expression. The fact that we've gone wrong is a fact about our linguistic skills: not a fact about not matching an abstract thought or proposition. If we match our failed expression with something, it will be with other linguistic expressions which manage to communicate something more effectively. These alternative linguistic expression won't achieve this feet simply by being faithful to an abstract proposition. They'll do so only if they help us effectively communicate with ourselves or with other persons.

We must apply Occam’s razor here and simply get rid of propositions – we don't need them. We shouldn't posit more entities than we require. The only entities we do require are other linguistic expressions: not abstract thoughts or propositions. Why over-populate the "ontological slums" with yet more abstract entities when we don’t even require them in the first place? If we require objectivity and determinacy of sense or meaning, perhaps we can achieve it by comparing sentences with sentences so as to adopt the sentences which do the jobs which we want them to do.

In any case, something abstract and non-linguistic can hardly do the job of giving us more determinacy and objectivity if - by Dummett’s own lights - it's "difficult to work out how we determine what the thought is". If that's the case, then why do philosophers believe that things that are hard to determine somehow miraculously assure us of (more) determinacy and even objectivity? If anything is objective, it's a linguistic expression itself and the concrete objects they're often about. Abstract entities like propositions or thoughts surely bring with them more indeterminacy, not less.

Not many people disagree with what the word ‘cat’ means. Not many people know what to make of abstract entities like propositions - let alone how we gain access to them. The problems we have had with Platonic Forms or universals should give us pause for thought. After all, these mysterious entities have given philosophers seemingly unsolvable problems for over two millennia. They explain a lot, sure, though only at the expense of our having to believe in mysterious abstract entities, which themselves were taken to secure truth (if not meaning), determinacy and objectivity. What the philosophers have offered us in order to secure objectivity and determinacy has come at a price. That price is a belief in mysterious non-spatiotemporal entities which somehow spread themselves across the universes and over time.