Are Minds Functional?

H/t Julian Baggini, The Ego Trick

René Descartes’s two substance dualism, which proposes that mind is a separate immaterial substance from body, has a number of conceptual problems that are hard to overcome, but it is in tune with many of our common intuitions about the way we are. It appears to us that there is a material world out there in four (or perhaps more) dimensions and it also appears to us that we have an inner world, comprising thoughts, memories, feelings and so on, that justify their own ontology but do not have any extension in space.

However, problems of interaction between these two substances are particularly difficult to overcome; Descartes himself threw up his hands at the problem when, in answer to the question "how can the soul be affected by the body and vice versa, when their natures are completely different?", he replied:

This is very difficult to explain; but here our experience is sufficient, since it is so clear on this point that it just cannot be gainsaid. This is evident in the case of feelings and so on.

A poor reply from the usually thorough Descartes. Julian Baggini sums up the objection to dualism through Gilbert Ryle's explanation in The Concept of Mind:

They [dualists] started from the correct idea that thoughts, feelings and sensations were not physical things. The category mistake was to conclude that they must therefore be a different kind of thing, a non-physical thing. But there is another, more plausible alternative: they are not things at all. Rather, thinking and feeling are what brains and bodies do. Mind should not be thought of a substance, but as a kind of activity. (from The Ego Trick)

So monist (one substance) ideas have become more accepted. Monistic idealism states that everything is at bottom derived from immaterial mind and monist materialism says that everything derives from matter. Idealism solves the interaction problem at a stroke, but also suffers from some of the other problems that plague advocates of the immaterial mind – problems of identity and other animals’ minds, for example. Materialism, or physicalism, has become the most favoured world view of late, but the task remains to reconcile our common intuitions with this physicalist view. By suggesting that thinking and feeling are what brains and bodies do, Ryle suggests a functionalist approach to solving this problem.

Advocates of functionalism argue that it acknowledges Cartesian intuitions about the mind but also allows for a materialist world view (although it’s not strictly speaking a materialist theory of mind since it’s also compatible with idealism). With other material theories of mind, problems have arisen when trying to accommodate the mental states with which we are all familiar with the material. Identity theories of the mind, for example, have contended that mental states are the same as brain states. This would mean that the idea of a red tomato, a mental state, is the same as a brain state. But it’s difficult to see how the grey matter that makes up our brain could be the same as the idea of a red tomato. It’s difficult to see how grey matter can be about anything, in fact, and this aboutness, or intentionality is a stumbling block for many materialist theories of mind.

So Functionalism proposes that the mind isn’t determined by what it is, but by what it does. That is, mental states are functional states. It proposes causal relations which are generated by sensory input (we see and hear stuff) and other mental states (we feel pain), which then cause behavioural output (we avoid obstacles), and other mental states (sadness, say!). Consciousness and intentionality, then, are causal relations generated by functional states. For example, if we are thinking about a red tomato, we see the red tomato, but then further, think we’re seeing the red tomato. This awareness gives us an advantage because we can then plan and revise our thinking about red tomatoes, and the world around us.

Some proponents think that this incorporates many people’s intuitions about our mental lives, per Descartes, but also gives an explanation of mental states that isn’t reducible to the physical, but can be implemented in the physical. Sidney Shoemaker, for example, says:

The view I favor is ...a radically ‘nonreductive’ version of materialism. Neither in the case of properties and states nor in the case of particulars will it hold that there is any neat mapping of our common sense mentalistic taxonomy on to the taxonomies of the physical sciences. In this it agrees with Cartesian intuitions. But the sense in which psychology (whether it be common sense psychology or scientific psychology) does not reduce to chemistry and physics is the same as the sense in which biology and geology do not reduce to chemistry and physics, and in which chemistry does not reduce to physics. No one doubts that the entities and phenomena that are the subject matter of geology, biology, and chemistry are ultimately composed of entities and phenomena that are the subject matter of physics. There is good reason to think that the same is true of mental phenomena. The philosophical task here is not to carry out a reduction but to make it intelligible that there is this compositional relationship. (from Warner, R. and Szubka, T. (eds) (1994) The Mind-body Problem: A Guide to the Current Debate, Blackwell, pp.55–60)

This irreducibility of functionalism, if that's what it offers, dispenses with the brain-mind identity problem, since the functionalist mind could be multiply-realised – if the mind is what it does, then whatever hardware can implement these mental functions could be the platform for mind. Functionalism also fits well with natural selection as a theory of speciation, since a brain function that provides a benefit would be preferred, and we can explore how brain function might have developed accordingly.

So, the upshot is that Functionalism is compatible with the notions that prompt dualism, that the brain is not identical to the mind, and also with physicalism, because brain functions can be implemented in the physical. However, some objections to Functionalism have been noted.

Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument highlights a major objection to functionalism. Imagine a person, Mary, in a room completely washed of colour – a black and white room. Mary could be taught everything there is to know about colour so that she functions as if she can see colour. However, when she emerges from the room for the first time, there is something new she will learn about colour – what it feels like to see red, for example. This suggests that functionalism does not account for qualia (colours, taste etc), because Mary was functioning fine without this colour knowledge. So we can see that there is something about redness that seems superfluous to Mary's adequate functioning. Why do we have this sensation if our minds are purely functional? If we could function without redness, why has evolution delivered that sensation, and how? There appears to be no advantage to operating with or without redness, if this thought experiment is to be believed, so it could not even be selected for.

Another argument that highlights this knowledge, or epistemic, problem is the inverted qualia argument; twins could experience colours diametrically opposite (one sees black as black, the other as white, one sees red as red and the other as blue) but these differences are in no way reflected in the functioning of each twin. They will both behave the same way with inverted qualia, which leaves us wondering what relevance the actual qualia experience has to function. What is the function of the colour qualia? And, once again, how can we explain the evolutionary benefit of different colours if they have no functional difference?

Ned Block also proposed the China Brain argument; he imagined hooking up the entire population of China to behave as neurons do. If this configuration functioned in a way that the mind does, but apparently without qualia, then, again, what is the functional value of qualia?

The functionalist could grasp the nettle and claim that it would have qualia. We intuitively reject the possibility that lots of people hooked up in the right way could form a mind like a human mind, so long as they functioned correctly. In this respect, functionalism comes over as too liberal; it doesn't rule out some apparently ridiculous candidates from being minds. However, that lots of atoms hooked up in the right way can act as mind doesn't seem so much more plausible than the China Brain, if considered in the abstract. No doubt supernaturalists would agree that both are implausible; should naturalists conclude that both are plausible?

Functionalists counter that qualia are functional too, so would deny that these thought experiments are valid, but it’s clear they have some work to do to back up this contention. Frank Jackson himself reflects the thoughts of many philosophers when he gave up his own Mary's Room argument, writing:

Most contemporary philosophers given a choice between going with science and going with intuitions, go with science. Although I once dissented from the majority, I have capitulated and now see the interesting issue as being where the arguments from the intuitions against physicalism—the arguments that seem so compelling—go wrong.

Jackson rejects the knowledge argument because he believes that the nature of colour experience is illusory:

...my argument will involve the claim that we are under an illusion about the nature of colour experience, an illusion that fuels the epistemic intuition. 

He accepts a Representational Theory of Consciousness, in short. He notes that qualia and so on are diaphanous - they are a little vague, variable and unclear:

I think, with the current majority, that ['experience is a representation'] is the right way to think of the lesson of diaphanousness. My reason is that perceptual experience represents. My experience as of a round, red object in front of me represents that there is a round, red object in front of me. I may or may not accept that things are as they are being represented to be, but I take it as axiomatic that each and every sensory experience represents that things are thus and so.

... but that is beyond this piece (and possibly me!).

Functionalism powerfully accounts for our common Cartesian intuitions about the mind while not falling into the problems that plague identity theorists. However, it is in danger of being too liberal as a theory, allowing too many examples of the operating mind than would seem plausible. And more work is needed to explain intentionality and qualia through the notion of mental states as functional states, to confirm the defeat of  knowledge arguments.

Bibliography (not otherwise linked):

Wilkinson, R. (1999) Minds and Bodies , Milton Keynes, The Open University

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As Good as Gnu

Julian Baggini has complained about new atheists before, saying:

In any case, my [negative] opinions are not so much about these books as the general tone and direction the new atheism they represent has adopted. This is not a function of what exactly these books say, but of how they are perceived, and the kind of comments the four horsemen make in newspaper articles and interviews. All this, I think, has been unhelpful in many ways. In short, the new atheism gets atheism wrong, gets religion wrong, and is counterproductive.

He goes on to attack new atheism because it is anti-theistic, and parasitic on god-belief, whereas he proffers an atheistic world view. It seems obvious to me that these two are not in conflict with one another, and Baggini is simply mistaking his distaste for new atheism's political goals with a pertinent point. Later he says:

The practices of religion may be more important then the narratives, even if people believe those narratives to be true.

But those practices are not more important than the belief that the narratives are true, as his own investigations have shown, in a piece called The myth that religion is more about practice than belief:

My own research shows that the vast majority of Christians appear to take the orthodox doctrine at face value.

But now he makes another tone attack on a certain type of atheist, and one can only conclude he means the new atheists, given his form. He cites this article by Jeffrey Myers, to illustrate how atheists protest about being called out for their tone, and then says:

Accusing someone of being aggressive, nasty or shrill can be a neat way of avoiding the meat of the matter while also appearing to occupy the moral high ground. That's true, but tone does matter, and it's often more connected with substance than it might seem.

But the linked piece doesn't say that tone does not matter. It says "Our tone does not matter". This is a vital distinction, and gets to the nub of how very wrong Baggini is on this issue. Myers points out that:

Because the reality is that our tone is NOT the problem. Our tone doesn't matter. Because it doesn't matter how polite we are, how eloquent we are, how articulate or respectful we are. It is not our tone that theists reject - it is our existence.

And Baggini and other accommodationists should know this, because they themselves are regularly accused of the same crimes as the new atheists - just read the comments section to Baggini's attempts to bridge the gap between theism and atheism in The Guardian. In this latest article, Baggini notes:

"Tone" actually crops up in two guises in this debate. It not only refers to the mode of argumentation but also to the alleged way in which many atheists are "tone deaf" to religion.

Fair enough, it is 'alleged'. But is it true that 'atheists' are tone deaf?

(And which ones? Is that a trait that they have as a group? As often when it comes to this sort of accusation, no evidence is linked to support Baggini's position. To be clear, I don't doubt that the occasional atheist might make a tone-deaf pronouncement. I object that atheists are characterised as a group with this clumsy stereotype, and I object that the four horsemen, and gnus, are too)

In fact, the opposite is true, is it not? It is many theists who are tone deaf to atheistic writing because they respond no differently to Julian Baggini's supposedly nuanced approach than they do to Richard Dawkins's supposedly tone-deaf approach. Consider these comments:

Julian Baggini
I think one of the biggest obstacles to progress here is your inability to resist your obsessive-compulsive desire to use space in your own articles to denigrate religious belief and instead use them to propound the primacy of your own atheist ones. A lot of religious people may draw from that that your claims of respectful discussion are somewhat akin to a wolf in sheep's clothing. CatholicAndy

The most troubling thing about this piece is the aggressive idea of 'acceptable' religion; as if giving an ultimatum to all religious believers. Baggini doesn't reveal which authority gave him the right to define how religion should be in the 21st century, nor does he give any consideration to libertarian values, like the freedom of expression or belief.
With this article Baggini, despite all his claims to occuyping a middle ground, has shown himself to be as intolerant and supremacist as the militant atheists he claims to descry. iphedia

And there are many more - there we have it in black and white.

Russell Blackford wrote an excellent piece on this a while back:

The problem is likely to be that a lot of discussion of tone is just not very intelligent - how many reviews of The God Delusion have you read that show a tin ear for Dawkins' control of tone? Many reviews don't show any sensitivity at all for the varied tones: the humour; the quiet thoughtfulness and introspection; or the comical intoxication with language itself in Dawkins' famous denunciation of the Old Testament deity. Generally speaking, the reviewers just don't "get" it. But the cure for that isn't less discussion of Dawkins' tone; it's more intelligent discussion of Dawkins' tone. A hackneyed adjective such as "strident" doesn't cut the mustard.

Spot on. Dawkins's writing and pronouncements are thoughtful and witty and insightful - maybe not as profound as some of our better philosophers, but he's not talking to academia. He's talking to the general public, and his tone is entirely appropriate for that. The cry from gnu atheists is not that tone is unimportant, it's that the tone argument is being used dishonestly and prejudicially against them.

The response to Baggini's own writing shows that to be true. Whether he likes it or not, he's as good as gnu in the eyes of many a theist.

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Merdophilia

Stephen Law linked to a curious review of his book Believing Bullshit in THE, by Martin Cohen. I've not read Law's book, but I may well do - I've enjoyed some of the snippets he's posted from it, and his blog is full of useful philosophy. So I was interested to read what Cohen, Editor of The Philosopher, the journal of The Philosophical Society of England, had to say. According to the Society's blurb:

The Society aligns itself with no particular school of philosophy, nor is it a cover for any political, ideological, religious or esoteric movement or interests.

Sounds good. The review presents Law's book as an uncompromising attack on religion, alternative medicine and anti-science. Doesn't sound too bad to me, but I'm aware that Law's philosophy is rarely so absolute, so it surprised me. Then he says that Law thinks the scientific method:

...was invented about 400 years ago and is this: "Scientists collect data by observation and experiment. They formulate theories to explain what they observe and where possible, subject these theories to tests." Now that's what I call bullshit!

Eh? It's a simplistic summary, for sure, but 'bullshit'? How so?

Cohen complains that there is no mention of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, and so the alarm bells start ringing. No doubt their contribution to philosophy of science is considerable, but is it possible the reviewer is in thrall to unworkable post modern social science theories? Then Cohen says:

Law is one of the militant English atheists, led by His Holiness, Richard Dawkins.

Oh boy, the hallmark of the shallow thinker; 'cleverly' equating Richard Dawkins with a religious leader. Ironically, in a review of a book about believing bullshit, we are given a stream of classic examples from Cohen:

Take homeopaths, for example. Law complains that they swap anecdotes with each other about people who got better after taking the little sugar pills. No doubt this happens, yet if homeopathic remedies work for some people, then why the censorship?

Is it possible that this is some elaborate ruse by Law and Cohen to manufacture a review that highlights the problems detailed in the book? I mean, homeopathy? No harm? To the story covered at that link, Cohen says:

An "undercover" BBC reporter once asked homeopaths if they had alternatives to malaria pills. And they did! Scarcely surprising nor, I would say, particularly culpable.

The prospect of people using pills that don't work instead of pills that do doesn't raise any issues of blame for any resulting illness? Bizarre.

Stephen Law comments on the review a few times, and unsurprisingly is pretty livid at what appear to be misrepresentations. Cohen makes a risible defence of his statements, which in no way supports his review. And during the course of one point, in which he defends his accusation that Law is uncritical of the theory of natural selection by quoting Law on the theory of evolution (!), he says:

I argue that Law's book is uncritical of the theory of Natural Selection, which there are good arguments for considering to be unsupported by the 'evidence', whatever one may think about religious explanations for the universe.

This prompted me to berate him for commenting irresponsibly, as an academic (the use of scare quotes around 'evidence'). Water off a duck's back. The evidence for the overall theory is legion, even if many details are still debated. Law posts a comment detailing Cohen's completely inadequate response:

In short, I am baffled how Martin Cohen thinks any of the above supports his bizarre characterization of my views. As others have already spotted, it *very obviously* doesn't.

... which even Cohen can plainly see, since he posts a feeble follow-up:

You say the quotes don't show that you consdier (arguments for) belief in God to be 'bullshit', but I think it is reasonable to read this in. The second quote clearly implies Dawkins' work to be 'intellectually rigorous' and the views of 'theists' to be silly = you use value=laden terms to lead the reader into dismissing the 'theists' as people who use 'immunizing tricks'.

The quote he refers to has had Law's questioning of Dawkins' argument removed! Anyone's ghast should be flabbered by Cohen's effrontery.

Cohen's entirely inadequate data collection does rather point to the problems of folk who don't think that data collection in support of a theory (the very basics of science) has any value. What a sorry state we would be in if scientists like, say, Simon Singh, Christopher French and Richard Dawkins never bothered to check their data, and simply wrote about the impressions they, somehow, culled from the world, just as Cohen wrote about the impressions he, somehow, culled from Law's book.

But according to Cohen, that would be fascistic. Yes, in a masterful piece of Godwining even before the writing starts, Cohen is partly responsible for the website Philosophical Investigations, on which a page called British Science Fascists is prominent. Why Fascists?

But do they deserve to be called 'Fascists', after the 20th century political movement? The term is bandied about carelessly elsewhere. But we use it very, ah 'scientifically', as these reactionary thinkers share with the original fascists:

• a superficial and ideological commitment to Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection, which they attempt to adopt for political ends
• an inappropriate and dangerous reverence for scientific 'progress', coupled with an unwillingness to accept an ethical dimension to science
• an objectionable version of the history of science
• an even more objectionable distinction between 'Rational Man' and 'irrational deviants', with an often vicious antipathy towards the latter.
• hair on their arms and legs

So far, so brainless (and so straw filled, apart from the hair on the arms and legs). Here are slagged off, in order:

Chris French: "In an article for... (where else) The Guardian he trots out merrily the usual scientifically ignorant and politically dangerous call for 'rational' thought to eliminate 'emotional' biases."

Ben Goldacre: "...when confronted with the self-evident notion that his belief system (clinical epidemiology, now pretentiously called 'evidence-based medicine' or EBM), a statistics-based hierarchy of facts, is exclusionary..."

Julian Baggini: "Baggini speaks down to the ignorami from his perch at... the Guardian."

Madeleine Bunting (!): "She has also argued that the Enlightenment is a ‘made-up’ pseudo concept, which it is. In fact, she doesn’t belong in this list, but just fell in her because of her popping up regularly to support her ‘colleagues’." (phew, that's better - didn't think this was right!)

Nick Cohen: "Columnist for the Observer... guess what! part of the Guardian newspaper group."

Richard Dawkins (about time): "Richard Dawkins has successfully combined his day job, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, with being the prophet of a new religion, the sole deity of which is Charles Darwin."

George Monbiot: "A columnist for the Guardian."

Simon Singh: "In a laughably bad 'investigation', Singh and others contacted homeopathic quacks, told them they suffered dangerous side effects from malaria tablets, and then asked what they should do? The homeopaths advised homeopathic treatments... Shame on them!"

Jeremy Stangroom (!): "Less influential, but tries to make up for it by the sheer venom of his pronouncements. Fails miserably."

Mark Lynas: "Guardian regular"

They don't like American scientists either! A number of themes appear. A paranoid distrust of science, so that one wonders how the compilers manage in everyday life. An antipathy to The Guardian! Well, it's not my cup of tea either, but I don't immediately consign its contributors to the bin. A slight obsession with CAM and climate change denial. They are keen to call into question the expertise of those mentioned, but it's not clear what expertise they have to talk about climate change, evidence based medicine and homeopathy. The website lists Samuel Hahnemann as a key thinker, for goodness sake!

All in all, the sort of sloppy thinking exemplified on the site plays out in Cohen's review and comments, as we see above. If this demonstrates the best thinking of the anti-science faction, then they are good examples of the unworkability of some theories of post-modernism and social science. I guess I'm in favour of science fascism.

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