Memo from materialists: Science is over. Oh and, by the way, consciousness doesn’t matter
| February 25, 2012 | Posted by News under Mind, Neuroscience |
The multiverse physicists have announced that science is over. Now, philosophy prof Colin McGinn decides that consciousness is not only an insoluble mystery but not very important anyway:
In “All machine and no ghost?” (New Statesman, February 20, 2012), Colin McGinn writes,
Some modern philosophers pride themselves on their “naturalism” but real naturalism begins with a proper perspective on our specifically human intelligence. Palaeoanthropologists have taught us that the human brain gradually evolved from ancestral brains, particularly in concert with practical toolmaking, centring on the anatomy of the human hand. This history shaped and constrained the form of intelligence now housed in our skulls (as the lifestyle of other species form their set of cognitive skills). What chance is there that an intelligence geared to making stone tools and grounded in the contingent peculiarities of the human hand can aspire to uncover all the mysteries of the universe? Can omniscience spring from an opposable thumb? It seems unlikely, so why presume that the mysteries of consciousness will be revealed to a thumb-shaped brain like ours?
The “mysterianism” I advocate is really nothing more than the acknowledgment that human intelligence is a local, contingent, temporal, practical and expendable feature of life on earth – an incremental adaptation based on earlier forms of intelligence that no one would regard as faintly omniscient. The current state of the philosophy of mind, from my point of view, is just a reflection of one evolutionary time-slice of a particular bipedal species on a particular humid planet at this fleeting moment in cosmic history – as is everything else about the human animal. There is more ignorance in it than knowledge.
His summary of the various positions misses the mark on dualism: Dualism is focused – as a science should be – on how consciousness interacts with the environment. Other positions are focused on denying one or another aspect of the encounter.
16 Responses to Memo from materialists: Science is over. Oh and, by the way, consciousness doesn’t matter
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To his first comment, you’ve highlighted, where he expresses profound wonder at our ability to comprehend reality, I offer this:
To his second comment where he tries to belittle the wonder he expressed in the first statement to a ‘nothing more than’ nihilistic statement, I offer this quote I stumbled across yesterday;
As to Wigner’s worry that,,,
I think Dr. Wigner would be very pleased to see this recent development:
I think this is pretty neat. Scientists dig for centuries trying to reveal the basis of reality, and finally after all that struggle they find that, at the base level of quantum mechanics, consciousness plays a integral, even central, role in reality. This development is very reminiscent of this quote from Robert Jastrow about Big Bang cosmology:
Verse and Music:
McGinn’s naturalism leads to the conclusion that consciousness should not exist. We are after all just biological machines. But rather than acknowledge the obvious fact that his view of reality leads to absurdity, he presses on because the only alternative is to believe in the existence of an immaterial soul and in God.
Here is a sound argument that can solve all his problems.
1. We know what a thing is by observing how it acts.
2. The mind/soul acts to produce abstract immaterial concepts and rational arguments that no material entity can produce.
Therefore, the mind/soul is not a material entity, but must be immaterial. Furthermore, this tells us that not only is it possible for immaterial entities to exist, based on our own experience and reason immaterial entities do in fact exist and some form of dualism is true.
Consciousness, or we might say, thinking, is an essential part of what makes us human. Thinking is impossible apart from language. I M P O S S I B L E. All languages are, essentially, a set of symbols and a set of rules for organizing those symbols in various ways to create thought, or information, or ideas. These rules are not only arbitrary, they are contingent. This means that they are not driven or organized or created by or explained by reference to the laws of physics. This means that humans also have free will. Every time a person thinks they prove that they have free will because they arrange the symbols that they need in such a way so as to think and/or communicate what they intend to think and/or communicate. This also means that intentionality, the real, genuine article, also exists. If I did not intend to be writing this post I would not be writing this post. But I am writing this post. Therefore, I DO INTEND to be writing this post. This is not the fake Dawkins “appearance of purpose,” but real purpose. And how would he know the difference anyway??? How could he be aware of the fake if there were no real purpose??
Languages only work because people agree to use them and know them. If you don’t know the symbols and rules then you cannot think or communicate in that language. Physics cannot, IN PRINCIPLE, explain or account for the phenomenon of language. Physics can only account for, and indeed only claims to account for, the interactions of physical entities. But language is S Y M B O L I C. That means one thing stands for another thing. Physics cannot account for his. EVER. E V E R. Therefore, the naturalist/materialist attempt to provide an explanation for everything fails. Not only is naturalism false, it is not even possible for it to be true. Ontological naturalism, as a set of minimal intellectual commitments (to the causal closure of nature at least), fails to explain the most fundamental aspect of human beings. We think. That people still consider naturalism or materialism, if you will, a legitimate position astonishes me. It is patently false and this brief explanation shows exactly why. The Colin McGinn’s of the world will never “get it” because they don’t want to “get it.” They are, regrettably, in the very strictest sense of the word, and in so many ways, FOOLS.
I am always amazed by people like McGinn. Everything they write is loaded with an implicit qualification: “Except for me” If this were not so they would be forced to admit either (1) they are wrong; or (2) what they have written is literally meaningless.
David Berlinski writes about the vice and ladder to describe this logical contradiction
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/.....ng-of-Time
My question for him would be: Are lower animals(without free-will conscious minds) also able to reflect upon their own illusive consciousness, as he has just done?
Thanks TG for that well thought out post!
Barry also has a good point that falsifies everything McGinn has to say as well. You can’t get outside of yourself to study humans. You are under the same limitations and laws as every other human so you can’t really objectively study them because you are one of them.
“The current state of the philosophy of mind, from my point of view, is just a reflection of one evolutionary time-slice of a particular bipedal species on a particular humid planet at this fleeting moment in cosmic history – as is everything else about the human animal.”
What a dreadful, miserable worldview!
tjguy – first, thanks. Then “You are under the same limitations and laws as every other human so you can’t really objectively study them because you are one of them.”
Another way to say this is that we all have agendas. I don’t think it’s that we can’t be objective, it’s just that we can’t escape being what we are. The Law of Identity rules us even here. We necessarily bring our point of view (ultimately) to the table because we are what we are. That’s (one of the reasons) why the First Principles of Reason or Rational Thought are so important. They are, or should be, the starting place for EVERYONE as they try to figure out the universe they live in. People who start with an agenda other than an unshakeable commitment to reason, and evidence as interpreted and explained by reason, are doomed to end up like McGinn. A sorry excuse for a thinker who peddles intellectual sewage and probably is not even aware of it by now. He believes his own BS. A fatal flaw.
c hand @ 5
Would you please clarify the point you are trying to make? Thanks.
re Barry @ 4. EXACTLY.
re inunison @ 7. Worse, it’s false. Dreadful and miserable are sometimes true.
tgpeeler,
What would be really interesting is to construct or adopt a dreadful and miserable worldview that is also true.
I dare you!
I pass. It’s impossible. Christianity is true so the only way one can make that dreadful and miserable is to reject it. Sadly, many do.
tg-
I affirm “Cogito, ergo sum.” McGinn affirms cogito, but does not deduce “ergo sum” of the mind. Would he not also expect other (non-human) brains to engage “cogito” but stop short of “ergo sum”
What are the cognitive requirements of a mind( or brain) to be able to doubt its own existence?
This short talk on QM and consciousness is very good:
This quote from the video is a gem:
Further notes:
The argument for God from consciousness can be framed like this:
Verse and Music:
c hand @ 14 – “What are the cognitive requirements of a mind( or brain) to be able to doubt its own existence?”
To exist. That seems to me to be Descartes’ point. It’s a first principle. Identity (and existence). He takes an epistemological view but the ontological view is logically first. Sum ergo cogito. (If you can do that in Latin. I have no idea.) In English, I exist. Therefore I think. We can’t “get behind” our existence. If we are thinking, we exist. If we are thinking, we can doubt (foolishly) anything we want to doubt. If I understand your point… I may still not…
p.s. My basic math skills sure are improving…