Friday 30 March 2018

Against Daniel Dennett's Heterophenomenology




This piece is a critical account of the 'Heterophenomenology' chapter of Daniel Dennett's book, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools For Thinking.

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Daniel Dennett sums up his project with his own neologism: “heterophenomenology”.

Dennett's very own kind of phenomenology

is the study of first-person phenomena from the third-person point of view of objective science”.

Since phenomenology was originally seen simply as a (to use Dennett's own words) “catalogue of phenomena”, then there's no necessary reason why it should only be a first-person study of first-person mental states, experiences or consciousness. Instead what is studied is “first-person phenomena from the third-person point of view”.

Dennett goes into more detail when he adds that heterophenomenology

exploits our capacity to perform and interpret speech acts, yielding a catalogue of what the subject believes to be true about his or her conscious experience”.

Again, this isn't a “catalogue” of conscious experiences, pains, mental states, qualia, etc. "in themselves". It's a catalogue of the “speech acts” about these things. That is, speech acts, physiological responses, physical behaviour, "verbal reports", etc. are the subject of heterophenomenology - not consciousness, experiences or mental phenomena. However, by using this neat bifurcation, I am, of course, begging the question against Dennett (i.e., already assuming the truth of my own general conclusions).

Since phenomenology was originally seen to be the study of phenomena (again, according to Dennett) “before there is a good theory of them”, then how does this work in the case of third-person (scientific) accounts of first-person mental phenomena? After all, Edmund Husserl and other phenomenologists saw their own phenomenology as being “presuppositionless” and non-theoretical. Not only that: it was an attempt to provide a basis (or grounding) for science.

Now can it also be said that Dennett's own brand of phenomenology is presuppositionless, non-theoretical and a basis for – rather than a part of - science? Of course we can't. So, yes, it's indeed the case that studying any kind of phenomena can be seen as phenomenology. However, studying any kind of phenomena as a project in science (with its own presuppositions and theories which will be applied to that phenomena) surely can't be classed as phenomenology. That's unless Dennett is simply assuming that his own heterophenomenology isn't really phenomenology at all. However, if that's the case, then why use the suffix “phenomenology” in the first place?

Dennett's Arguments

Daniel Dennett makes a distinction between

(a) conscious experiences themselves”

and

(b) beliefs about these conscious experiences”.

Basically, to the behaviourist and verificationist Dennett, it's all about the latter. And in order to make us understand that, Dennett asks us this question:

Should we push on to (a) in advance of theory?”

He then states the following:

First, if (a) outruns (b) – if you have conscious experiences you don't believe you have, then those extra conscious experiences are just as inaccessible to you as to the external observers.”

The words “if you have conscious experiences you don't believe you have” must surely be rhetorical in nature. Or, more strictly, an example of a false inference.

Dennett is failing to make a distinction between experiences we don't make statements - or have beliefs – about (or even think about in any great detail - perhaps not at all), and having “having experiences [we] don't believe [we] have”. Clearly that latter phrase is constructed precisely in order to make it seem (or be) self-contradictory. How can a person have experiences that he doesn't believe he has? Nonetheless, it's actually the case that a person might have had experiences which he had no beliefs about when he actually had them. He simply might not have had “second-order” thoughts or beliefs about those experiences. That is, because “beliefs” weren't (as it were) attached to these particular experiences when they were first experienced, Dennett concludes that such a person must now have “conscious experiences [he/she doesn't] believe [he] has”.

So “conscious experiences themselves” (or at least some of them) do indeed sometimes “outrun[]” our “beliefs about conscious experiences” in the simple sense that they might originally have occurred before we had any beliefs about them. It's also the case that such experiences weren't originally accompanied by any second-order thoughts of any kind. It certainly doesn't follow from this that people “have conscious experiences [they] don't believe [they] have”. They might have had conscious experiences which came before any beliefs about them and which weren't accompanied with experience-regarding beliefs (or by any second-order thoughts).

Past and Present Experiences

It's not entirely clear if the “conscious experiences” Dennett refers to are past or present experiences. In the latter case, his position becomes absurd. Or, rather, Dennett is attempting to make other people's positions on these questionable experiences seem absurd. That is, if a person is currently having an experience, then how is it even possible for that person to also believe that he doesn't believe he's experiencing it now? Dennett, therefore, wants this position to be absurd. But that's because he's taking an absurd position on what he takes to be an absurd position.

So what about using the past tense?

If we use the past tense, then all this changes. That is, a person can't believe that he had conscious experiences which he now doesn't believe he once had. Dennett seems to believe this simply because those past experiences weren't accompanied by beliefs. But that's not strange at all. There are many experiences people have which aren't accompanied by experience-identifying beliefs (or by any second-order thoughts).

Now it's this very possibility that people are supposed to have experiences (or they claim to have experiences) which are unaccompanied with experience-identifying beliefs (or verbal expressions/reports) that Dennett has a problem with.

There are two main behaviourist and verificationist problems here:

i) These experiences occurred in the past.
ii) These experiences were unaccompanied by experience-identifying beliefs, verbal reports, or by any high-order thoughts.

Thus, in Dennett's book, these experiences are like Wittgenstein's “idle wheels in the mechanism”. (Wittgenstein himself was referring to such things as sensations.)

Dennett again fudges the issue when he says the following:

... if you believe you have conscious experiences that you don't in fact have...”

This is ridiculous. And, of course, Dennett also believes it to be ridiculous. However, it's only ridiculous if people really do have consciousness experiences which they don't in fact have. Or, more accurately, it's only ridiculous if people claim to have experiences that they don't believe they have had.

Again, is this a past-tense or present-tense problem?

It's obviously bizarre if, at this present moment in time, a person is having a conscious experience which he isn't in fact having. This is ruled out by Dennett's behaviourism and verificationism anyway. Indeed how could a third person, on the other hand, know either way? And how could the first person himself believe that he's having an experience that he isn't actually having?

So this scenario fails in both first-person and third-person terms. That's because it's a the position of a straw target.

What's absurd isn't that a person believes that he's having an experience which he isn't having. It's absurd that Dennett claims that someone would claim (or simply believe) such a thing. Similarly with the earlier case. It's not absurd that people have conscious experiences which they don't believe they have. What's absurd is Dennett believing (or simply stating) that there are people who believe (or state) this.

Again, these fictional subjects/persons appear to be straw targets manufactured so that Dennett can make his verificationist and behaviourist points.

I've stressed the big difference between beliefs about present experiences and beliefs about past experiences. Obviously it's absurd to argue that a person can have conscious experiences that he doesn't believe he's having. It's also absurd for the person himself to believe that. However, a person can have beliefs about past experiences which, at the time, he had no beliefs about – as already stated.

Thus Dennett argues that if a person had experiences which were unaccompanied by beliefs, then that same person having present beliefs about those past unaccompanied experiences won't thereby make those past experiences kosher from a scientific point of view. To repeat: Dennett must be arguing that present beliefs about past experiences (which weren't accompanied by beliefs when originally experienced) won't help make those past experiences acceptable to Dennett. That basically means that Dennett must also be arguing that there are no conscious experiences which aren't (or weren't) accompanied by beliefs and/or by overt expressions (i.e., verbal reports) about those experiences.

Dennett's position is that such “conscious experiences themselves” (as already stated) are idle wheels in the mechanism. Indeed Dennett himself (more or less) states this many times and in many places.

Ineffable Beliefs and Pains

Strangely enough, Dennett does seem to relent a little when he asks this question:

What if some beliefs are inexpressible in verbal judgements?”

I used the word “seems” for a good reason. It's of course the case that Dennett doesn't accept even the very notion of inexpressible beliefs. At least not (like his earlier views on “conscious experiences”) as they are "in themselves”. Instead, such inexpressible beliefs are actually accounted for by (later) “verbal judgements” or by physiological tests (depending on the particular case).

Take an inexpressible belief about a toothache.

According to Dennett, this is fully (or perhaps only partly) accounted for in terms of physiological “galvanic skin response[s], “heart rates” and “changes in facial expression and posture”. More fully, these things aren't responses to pains in themselves: they're responses to a test in which the subject

can press a button with variable pressure to indicate severity of pain”.

In other words, just as “conscious experiences themselves” were factored out of the equation earlier; so now Dennett also factors out what he takes the subject to believe are inexpressible beliefs. Or, rather, they aren't factored out in the sense that the tests for behavioral and physiological responses do all the work instead. What is factored out is the “inexpressible” itself; just as belief-free conscious experiences were factored out earlier.

In the specific case of a toothache, we no longer have a “ineffable residue[]” of experience (or qualia): we only have tests and physiological responses.

Studying a Person's False Beliefs

Dennett puts the icing on the cake by arguing the following (to paraphrase):

Sure, it's okay to accept that a person believes that some of his beliefs are inexpressible and that he also has belief-free experiences. However, what's not okay is to accept conscious experiences in themselves, beliefs that are truly inexpressible, and pains which entirely run free of behavioural expressions and physiological third-person/scientific data.

In other words, a subject's verbally-expressed belief that some of his other beliefs are inexpressible is indeed a fit subject for both science and philosophy. Or, as Dennett puts it, the statement

S claims that he has ineffable beliefs about X.”

is okay. It's an acceptable datum of science. What's not a datum of science is the actual ineffable belief (or pain/experience) itself. Indeed Dennett believes that it's an interesting and fit subject of science to explain why there are such beliefs and why people deem them to be “ineffable”. Again, what's shouldn't be a subject of science - and philosophy! - is the ineffable itself.

What Dennett Gets Right

Now it's certainly true that “pure experiences" are problematic from a verificationist or behaviourist point of view. (Indeed it can also be said that they're problematic from any point of view!) It may also be problematic to accept “conscious experiences” which completely “outrun” what Dennett calls “beliefs”. However, it doesn't logically follow from all this that certain conscious experiences can't be unaccompanied by beliefs and which are later referred to in some way. It certainly doesn't follow that people have consciousness experiences they don't believe they have. Dennett is attempting to turn his philosophical problem into a logical problem. It isn't.

As just stated, we can accept the verificationist and behaviourist problems a scientist or philosopher may have with “conscious experiences themselves” and with ostensibly inexpressible beliefs about experiences or pains. However, all of these things (e.g., conscious experiences themselves, inexpressible beliefs about experiences/pains, etc.) may still exist without their behaviourist or verificationist clothing.

To put all that in a more abstract way.

Because Dennett has a deep philosophical or scientific problem with x, he claims that x doesn't exist. Or, at the very least, Dennett argues that x doesn't serve any purpose. (Could that mean that x doesn't serve a purpose even if it does exist?)

Consciousness: a Third-Person Thing

What if speech acts, physiological responses, behaviour, verbal reports, mental functions, etc. - at least when taken collectively - literally constitute (or are) consciousness? And is that why Dennett's defenders say that he doesn't “deny consciousness”? Or, at the very least, if we accept Dennett's definition of the word 'consciousness', then we simply must conclude that he doesn't deny consciousness at all!

Thus it's not a surprise that Dennett sums up the virtues of his heterophenomenology by saying that by using it we

obviate the need for any radical or revolutionary 'first-person' science of consciousness, and leave no residual phenomena of consciousness inaccessible to controlled scientific study”.

A moment ago it was said that Dennett's supporters say that he doesn't deny consciousness at all. And that's why Dennett himself says (in the just-quoted passage) that we

leave no residual phenomena of [my italics] consciousness”.

That is, he doesn't say:

We leave no residual consciousness.

In other words, this may not be a case of “consciousness erased” or “consciousness denied” (as many people put it). It's more a case of this:

consciousness = that which is described by third-person/scientific data

Or:

consciousness = overt expressions, behaviour, verbal reports, mental functions, tests of physiological responses, etc.

Now if consciousness literally is all these things, then how on earth can anyone claim that Dennett “denies” or “explains away” consciousness? Nonetheless, Dennett does indeed see consciousness in a way which is radically at odds with the way the vast majority of people see it. Then again, Dennett wouldn't deny that. He'd probably say: Yes; so what?

Thus, with extreme facetiousness, it can now be concluded that Dennett's position is a little like this very-odd (fictional) theist's position when he states the following:

No! I'm not an atheist! I believe in God - just like you. However, unlike you, I take God to be that large lump of blue cheese which is now in my fridge.



Monday 26 March 2018

Roger Penrose on Brain & Mind: From the Quantum Scale to the Large Scale (1)




i) Introduction
ii) The Quantum Scale and the Large Scale
iii) The Brain and Quantum Gravity
iv) Daniel Dennett's Quantum Car
v) Microtubules

Throughout Roger Penrose's writings on the brain, consciousness, physics and cosmology, the issue of the link between the quantum scale and the large (“classical”) scale is constantly broached. Indeed all this strongly links in with Penrose's attempt to tie general relativity/gravity and quantum mechanics together.

Penrose's own individualistic position on the relation between the quantum scale and the large scale is expressed in the following:

I am not concerned so much with the effects that quantum mechanics might have on our theory (Einstein’s general relativity) of the structure of space-time, but with the reverse: namely the effects that Einstein’s space-time theory might have on the very structure of quantum mechanics.”

This is (as Penrose himself puts it) “an unconventional view-point” - or it was in 1990!. It's

unconventional that general relativity should have any influence at all on the structure of quantum mechanics!”.

More basically, Penrose believes that “the problems within quantum theory itself are of a fundamental character”.

In terms of the brain and mind, Penrose concluded – again, 28 years ago - by saying that

any putative quantum gravity theory would surely be very remote from the phenomena governing the behaviour of brains”.

Nonetheless, the following is the crux of Penrose's current position:

i) Quantum gravity (or the “structure of space-time”) may have an impact on quantum mechanics.
ii) Therefore quantum gravity may affect the nature of the brain and mind.

At the most basic level, gravitation and general relativity aren't integrated into quantum theory. That alone makes Penrose's views on the brain, mind and consciousness speculative. 

In terms of the brain and mind/consciousness, most neuroscientists and many philosophers believe that quantum phenomena (or quantum events/effects/conditions/etc.) have very little affect on the brain and therefore on the mind/consciousness as a whole. Or, at the very least, that the differences they do make don't really make a difference.

The Quantum Scale & the Large Scale

As stated above, Penrose notes the micro-macro situation in ways which don't directly relate to the brain and mind. In the following, for example, he notes the contextual (i.e., micro or macro) nature of the notion of randomness (or probabilities). That is, Penrose notes how randomness is a consequence of scientists observing quantum effects/events/conditions/etc. at the “classical level”. In Penrose's own words:

Since randomness comes in, quantum theory is called probabilistic. But randomness only comes in when you go from the quantum to the classical level. If you stay down at the quantum level, there's no randomness. It's only when you magnify something up, and you do what people call 'make a measurement'. This consists of taking a small-scale quantum effect and magnifying it out to a level where you can see it. It's only in that process of magnification that probabilities come in.”

This can be deemed to be an epistemic problem, rather than an ontological one. That is, the probabilities (or randomness) arises not from the ontology of the quantum world, but from our epistemic access to it. (This conclusion, at least as it partly applies to quantum indeterminism, dates back to Albert Einstein and was elaborated upon by such people as David Bohm.)

The other point that's worth making about Penrose's position (as quoted above) is that it goes against the stress on quantum indeterminism as it's often used in reference to the brain and mind/consciousness. In other words, Penrose (at least in this context) is de-stressing the random (or indeterministic) nature of the quantum realm; whereas many others (at least in the debate about mind) play it up. (“Quantum indeterminism” is particularly stressed as one explanation of free will.) Of course it must be said here that the words “random” and “indeterminate” (or “randomness” and “indeterminacy”) aren't exactly synonyms. Nonetheless, in the debate about the “quantum mind” (as it's often put), these words are indeed often treated as synonyms (or, at the very least, as near-synonyms).

If we now return to the quantum scale and the large scale.

On a much broader level we can also take Brian Greene's (a Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University) general point about this micro-macro distinction:

It's not as though the universe comes equipped with a line in the sand separating things that are properly described by quantum mechanics from things properly described by general relativity. Dividing the universe into two separate realms seems both artificial and clumsy.”

This position seems to back up Penrose's previous points about how different levels of description (which are brought about by the effect of “measurement”/observation) determine Greene's “line in the sand” between the quantum realm and the “classical” realm.

And, yet again, Penrose notes these different levels when he talks about Newtonian mechanics, relativity and quantum theory. He stresses the compatibility of these different levels of description/application and their respective “limits”. He says:

Current physics ideas will survive as limiting behavior, in the same sense that Newtonian mechanics survives relativity. Relativity modifies Newtonian mechanics, but it doesn't really supplant it. Newtonian mechanics is still there as a limit. In the same sense, quantum theory, as we now use it, and classical physics, which includes Einstein's general theory, are limits of some theory we don't yet have.”

In the above we can see that rather than measurement (or observation) splitting the universe into two realms, Penrose stresses the respective “limits” of these realms instead.

The Brain & Quantum Gravity

Roger Penrose was - and still is - deeply aware of the arguments against his central position on the brain and mind/consciousness. Indeed when he wrote The Emperor's New Mind (in 1990) he didn't have an original position on the quantum nature of the brain. Specifically, microtubules aren't mentioned in this well-known book. And even neurons and neurotransmitters only get four mentions.

This is what Penrose also had to say (in the same book) on the opposition's position on the brain, quantum mechanics and consciousness:

... they would argue that on a scale relevant to our brains the physical effects of any quantum gravity must be totally insignificant! They would say (very reasonably) that although such physical effects might indeed be important at the absurdly tiny distance scale known as the Planck length — which is 10 35 m, some 100000000000000000000 times smaller than the size of the tiniest subatomic particle — these effects should have no direct relevance whatever to phenomena at the far far larger ‘ordinary’ scales of, say, down only to 10 12 m, where the chemical or electrical processes that are important to brain activity hold sway.”

In fact Penrose went further by saying that his detractors would claim that not even ordinary gravity (as it were) can affect the brain. He wrote:

Indeed, even classical (i.e. non-quantum) gravity has almost no influence on these electrical and chemical activities.”

Penrose concluded with the following sceptical words. (At least as he then believed that they'd be expressed by his opponents.) He wrote:

If classical gravity is of no consequence, then how on earth could any tiny ‘quantum correction’ to the classical theory make any difference at all? Moreover, since deviations from quantum theory have never been observed, it would seem to be even more unreasonable to imagine that any tiny putative deviation from standard quantum theory could have any conceivable role to play in mental phenomena!”

Thus, at this period in Penrose's career (in the early 1990s), his position squared perfectly well with Murray Gell-Mann's later position when Gell-Mann wrote:

... what characterises [Roger Penrose's] proposal... is the notion that consciousness is somehow connected with quantum gravity – that is to say, the incorporation of Einsteinian general-relativistic gravitation into quantum field theory. I can see absolutely no reason for imagining such a thing.”

And all this brings us to Dennett's quantum car.

Daniel Dennett's Quantum Car

Daniel Dennett put this micro-macro quandary very well. He argues (to paraphrase):

Sure, there are quantum happenings in the brain or neurons. Then again, there are quantum happenings in your car, watch and computer.


Most biologists think that quantum effects all just cancel out in the brain, that there's no reason to think they're harnessed in any way. Of course they're there; quantum effects are there in your car, your watch, and your computer. But most things – most macroscopic objects – are, as it were, oblivious to quantum effects. They don't amplify them; they don't hinge on them. Roger thinks that the brain somehow exploits quantum effects...”

We will now need to know why “quantum effects” don't transfer – or apply - to the brain as a whole. Or, more specifically, we need to know why they don't cause (or help bring about) mental phenomena or consciousness. That is, why is there such a sharp dividing line between the micro (Dennett's “quantum effects”) and the macro (the brain or mind/consciousness)? Surely there can't be such a neat and tiny cutoff point between these two worlds. (Then again, it's not logically absurd to argue that there is indeed such a cutoff point.)

It's true that in order for Dennett's watch/car to be a watch/car, it doesn't depend on the quantum effects which are occurring inside it. However, why should that also be true of the brain and its relation to mind/consciousness? The nature and functioning of a car/watch is very different to the reality and functioning of the brain and mind/consciousness. A car/watch is oblivious to the quantum effects inside – though only if it isn't treated qua car/watch! However, it's of course the case that a car/watch can also be analysed as a medium of quantum effects (though not, again, qua car/watch). Then again, it is strictly true that a car/watch - qua car/watch! - doesn't depend on quantum effects/events/conditions? Surely it does so in the simple sense that if there were no quantum effects/events/conditions, then there would be no car/watch either. And, yes, it's true that this applies to literally all other natural objects - and artificial objects as well.

Despite all that, according to Penrose, quantum effects/events/conditions do indeed have an effect on the large scale. He makes that plain here:

The very existence of solid bodies, the strengths and physical properties of materials, the nature of chemistry, the colours of substances, the phenomena of freezing and boiling, the reliability of inheritance — these, and many other familiar properties, require the quantum theory for their explanations.”

However, even though it's true that these “solid bodies”, etc. may “require the quantum theory for their explanations”; that doesn't also automatically mean that such quantum effects are in any way substantive. It simply means that quantum mechanics is a part of the whole picture. So, in the sense of supplying a complete picture of such “bodies” and “materials” - then, yes, of course quantum theory will be required.

Ironically enough, Dennett himself does accept that quantum events/effects/conditions/etc. influence (or affect) the large scale. He says that quantum mechanics is

stunningly successful at predicting and explaining many phenomena, including everyday phenomena such as the reflection and refraction of lights, and the operation of the proteins in our retinas that permit us to see”.

Of course it may still be the case that because

quantum mechanics can “predict and explain” (remember that Penrose also used the word “explanation”) such things as “the reflection and refraction of lights”

that this doesn't also mean that

quantum mechanics has an (causal) impact on these things.

.... Then again, surely it does mean that! 

And if all this is true of the aforementioned light and protein molecules, then why can it also be true of the brain and consciousness? Of course the parallels between

quantum mechanics and the reflection and refraction of light

and

quantum mechanics and the brain and mind/consciousness

may not be parallel (or equivalent) in every respect. However, surely that wouldn't matter too much in this case. What matters is whether or not quantum mechanics is having an impact on the brain and therefore on the mind/consciousness. It doesn't need to be the case that quantum mechanics does so in precisely the same way in which it impacts on (to use Penrose's words again)

solid bodies, the strengths and physical properties of materials, the nature of chemistry, the colours of substances, the phenomena of freezing and boiling, the reliability of inheritance”.

To repeat: perhaps the quantum-mechanical explanations of these phenomena are at a different level to actually arguing that quantum-mechanical events actually bring about (or cause) such phenomena. Again, is there a difference between 

quantum mechanics explaining consciousness 

and 

quantum-mechanical effects/events/states causing (or bringing about) consciousness? 

Surely if quantum mechanics can explain the mind/consciousness, it can only do so because quantum-mechanical events/effects/conditions also bring about (or cause) the mind/consciousness.

Microtubules

Having said all that, it's of course the case that Penrose is fully aware of the need to explain this micro-macro link. The following is just one example of him doing so:

For my picture, I need this quantum-level activity in the microtubules; the activity has to be a large-scale thing that goes not just from one microtubule to the next but from one nerve cell to the next, across large areas of the brain. We need some kind of coherent activity of a quantum nature which is weakly coupled to the computational activity that Hameroff argues is taking place along the microtubules.”

So Penrose acknowledges the need to tie the quantum scale to the (to use Penrose's own term) “large-scale”. Basically (as with Dennett's car/watch), there are indeed quantum effects/events/conditions in microtubules – as there are everywhere else. So how can we tie these microtubular quantum phenomena to the large-scale? That is, how can we tie them to nerves and indeed from “one nerve cell to the next, across larges areas of that brain”? In a sense, if quantum effects/events/conditions are happening at the level of microtubules, then (as stated) they must also be happening at the level of nerve cells and indeed across large areas of the brain. But, again, are these nerve cells or large areas of the brain in the same position as Dennett's car/watch? (The one obvious difference is that the former are biological and the latter aren't.)

In the quote above (at the least), Penrose doesn't offer us an answer to these questions. The questions are simply raised. Indeed to use Penrose's own words:

We need some kind of coherent activity of a quantum nature which is weakly coupled to the computational activity that [Stuart] Hameroff argues is taking place along the microtubules”.

In basic terms, the quantum effects/events/conditions which occur in individual microtubules need to be “coupled” with the quantum effects in other microtubules. This coupling, according to Penrose, is achieved through “quantum coherence” and “quantum superpositioning”. Clearly these ideas take us beyond neuroscience.

So isn't all this mere speculation?

Whatever the case is, Penrose's positions will require both quantum theory and neurobiological detail to stand their ground. That is, the quantum leap from the neurobiological quantum scale to the brain and mind/consciousness needs much quantum-theoretic, neurobiological and philosophical defence.

*) To Follow: 'Roger Penrose on the Brain & Mind: Microtubules' (2)


Wednesday 21 March 2018

Paul Austin Murphy: Facebook Philosophy Debates (3)


   Evolutionary Theory, the Big Bang and Tests




        The Constants & the Laws of Nature



              "Reductionism" is a Dirty Word


             Determinism & Predictability



                 Eternal Physical Laws?