Michael
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 Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:49 am Post subject: critical review of neurophilosophy |
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The gist of the paper (Self-Representation in Nervous Systems by
Patricia S. Churchland, 10.1126/science.1070564) is to find grounds for
demonstrating that everything in this world has a material carrier, even
such an ephemeral thing as 'soul'. Patricia states: Descartes '…famously
concluded that the essential self--the self one means when one thinks,
"I exist"--is a nonphysical, conscious thing.'
As I see it, she barks up the wrong tree.
The issue is not whether 'soul' is physical or non-physical, but a
matter of what set of methods to apply in the quest: either used in the
so called 'scientific' type of research (e.g. Galilei>s paper on
velocity), or theology-like speculation where proponents openly claim
they operate based on beliefs, or ?.. We can put aside for now the
problem of how the so called scientific approach is different from a
religious one (i.e. per the number of beliefs/axioms each of them is
based on).
I interpret Descartes' vision as an appeal to use a different
approach to research 'soul' (by the way, this word as a term has a long
history), an approach different from the 'scientific' one. Now,
different in what way?
Being a formidable materialist myself, I am
begging to allow me to think of a special reality inhibited by notions,
ideas, concepts, and the like. We already have it de facto: this is the
area where we operate with all the ideas. The next step is to realize
what it is that we use. And here comes a problem, which creates the
first one we address: it lies in the correlation between the mechanism
ideas are communicated to other people and the way they appear to the
communicator.
From the communicator>s frame/stand: s/he just substitutes
whatever there is in his/her mind for symbols derived from any kind of
language, be it Maths, oral or written natural language, sign language,
actions, pictures, etc. The way these symbols are applied is directed by
the intentions (short/long term objectives) of the communicator.
The
thing is, that so far I do not see any restriction on connecting ANY
symbol to ANY idea; this means, that anything is possible: we can call
'a candy' 'a sweet', use 'soul' instead of 'mind', claim to be
materialists when we are not even sure what this means. This is to say,
that biologically our mind does not have a way to verify how true to the
real world an idea is before we relate it to a symbol of communication.
Quite recently, about 200-300 years ago, the human society developed the
notion of science to install some kind of a verification process, which
Karl Popper does not approve of. Anyway, this vision worked for at least
200 years and drove humanity into the technology era.
Further progress
has stalled, as we need some new visions to develop Humanities to the
same extent as Sciences are; and I mean such disciplines as politics,
finance, cognitive science, managing human resources, solving community
social problems, etc. This is why we have to answer these questions:
- what is the world of ideas?
- How the methods to handle it differ from the so called 'scientific'
ones?
- What is the verification process in this 'ideal' world?
As a conclusion:
In her effort to stand for materialism Patricia S. Churchland directs
her research in cognition onto brain as a physical object, which is O.K.
as soon as she is a biologist. The bad news is that she does not pay
attention to the difference between a physical object and a concept;
having confused an object with a concept she rejects the idea of
handling these two different thing differently accusing Descartes of
being an idealist. As I see it, the conflict materialism/idealism is
irrelevant in this case if we think of a different reality with laws of
its own where we can handle concepts.
regards
mike |
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