He who toes the party line will sometimes be kept from error. It depends on the party.
(Note on usage: one toes the party line; one does not tow it!)
Thinking for Oneself
Thinking for oneself, one ought eventually to arrive at the conclusion that so doing can lead one into a ditch as surely as thoughtlessly adhering to the dogmas of a sect.
Bull Meets Shovel: Could Consciousness Be A Conjuring Trick?
The following statement by Nicholas Humphrey (Psychology, London School of Economics) is one among many answers to the question: What do you believe is true though you cannot prove it?
I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable mystery. Who is the conjuror and why is s/he doing it? The conjuror is natural selection, and the purpose has been to bolster human self-confidence and self-importance—so as to increase the value we each place on our own and others' lives.
If this is right, it provides a simple explanation for why we, as scientists or laymen, find the "hard problem" of consciousness just so hard. Nature has meant it to be hard. Indeed "mysterian" philosophers—from Colin McGinn to the Pope—who bow down before the apparent miracle and declare that it's impossible in principle to understand how consciousness could arise in a material brain, are responding exactly as Nature hoped they would, with shock and awe.
Can I prove it? It's difficult to prove any adaptationist account of why humans experience things the way they do. But here there is an added catch. The Catch-22 is that, just to the extent that Nature has succeeded in putting consciousness beyond the reach of rational explanation, she must have undermined the very possibility of showing that this is what she's done.
But nothing's perfect. There may be a loophole. While it may seem—and even be—impossible for us to explain how a brain process could have the quality of consciousness, it may not be at all impossible to explain how a brain process could (be designed to) give rise to the impression of having this quality. (Consider: we could never explain why 2 + 2 = 5, but we might relatively easily be able to explain why someone should be under the illusion that 2 + 2 = 5).
Do I want to prove it? That's a difficult one. If the belief that consciousness is a mystery is a source of human hope, there may be a real danger that exposing the trick could send us all to hell.
Humphrey mentions the 'hard problem.' David Chalmers formulates the 'hard problem' as follows: "Why is all this processing accompanied by an experienced inner life?" (The Conscious Mind, Oxford 1996, p. xii.) Essentially, the 'hard problem' is the qualia problem. To explain it in detail would require a separate post. Humphrey offers us an explanation of why the 'hard problem' is hard. It is hard because nature or natural selection — Humphrey uses these terms interchangeably above — meant it to be hard. Her purpose is to "fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable mystery." She wants to fool us in order to "bolster human self-confidence and self-importance." How thoughtful of her. Of course, to say that she is fooling us implies that consciousness is not mysterious but just another natural occurrence.
Not only does Nature fool us into thinking that consciousness is mysterious, when it is not, she also makes it impossible for us to see that this is what she has done. But there may be a loophole: it may be possible to "explain how a brain process could be (designed to) give rise to the impression of having this quality," i.e., the quality of consciousness. By 'impression,' Humphrey means illusion as is clear from his arithmetical example. So what he is suggesting is that it may be possible to explain how brain processes could give rise to the illusion that there is consciousness, the illusion that brain processes have the quality of consciousness.
But this 'possibility' is a complete absurdity, a complete impossibility. For it is self-evident that illusions presuppose consciousness: an illusion cannot exist without consciousness. The 'cannot' expresses a very strong impossibility, broadly logical impossibility. The Germans have a nice proverb, Soviel Schein, so viel Sein. "So much seeming, so much being." The point being that you can't have Schein without Sein, seeming without being. It can't be seeming 'all the way down.'
The water espied by a parched hiker might be an illusion (a mirage), but it is impossible that consciousness be an illusion. For wherever there is illusion there is consciousness, and indeed the reality of consciousness, not the illusion of consciousness. If you said that the illusion of consciousness is an illusion for a consciousness that is itself an illusion you would be embarked upon a regress that was both infinite and vicious. Just as the world cannot be turtles all the way down, consciousness cannot be illusion all the way down.
In the case of the mirage one can and must distinguish between the seeming and the being. The being (reality) of the mirage consists of heat waves rising from the desert floor, whereas its seeming (appearance) involves a relation to a conscious being who mis-takes the heat waves for water. But conscious states, as Searle and I have been arguing ad nauseam lo these many years, are such that seeming and being, appearance and reality, coincide. For conscious qualia, esse est percipi. Consciousness cannot be an illusion since no sort of wedge can be driven between its appearance and its reality.
A French philosopher might say that consciousness 'recuperates itself' from every attempt to reduce it to the status of an illusion. The French philosopher would be right — if interpreted in my more sober
Anglospheric terms.
It is also important to note how Humphrey freely helps himself to intentional and teleological language, all the while personifying Nature with a capital 'N.' Nature meant the hard problem to be hard, she had a purpose in fooling us. She fooled us. Etc. This is a typical mistake that many naturalists make. They presuppose the validity of the very categories (intentionality, etc.) that their naturalistic schemes would eliminate. How could they fail to presuppose them? After all, naturalists think about consciousness and other things, and they have a purpose in promoting their (absurd) theories.
There is no problem with using teleological talk as a sort of shorthand, but eventually it has to be cashed out: it has to be translated into 'mechanistic' talk. Eliminativists owe us a translation manual. In the absence of a translation manual, they can be charged with presupposing what they are trying to account for, and what is worse, ascribing meanings and purposes to something that could not possibly have them, namely, Natural Selection personified. What is the point of getting rid of God if you end up importing purposes into Natural Selection personified, or what is worse, into 'selfish' genes?
So Humphrey's statement is bullshit in the sense of being radically incoherent. It is pseudo-theory in the worst sense. One of the tasks of philosophers is to expose such pseudo-theory which, hiding behind scientific jargon (e.g, 'natural selection'), pretends to be scientific when it is only confused.
A central task of philosophy is the exposure of bad philosophy.
Guns and Pensions
Thomas Sowell talks sense.
Victor Davis Hanson
A tip of the hat to one of the oldest of my blogger buddies, Bill Keezer. He keeps me hipped to the output of the amazingly prolific Victor Davis Hanson.
Galen Strawson and Nicholas Humphrey on Consciousness
Alex Kealy (Institute of Art and Ideas, London) writes:
I'm getting in contact from the Institute of Art and Ideas in Britain as we've just released a video I thought you might be interested in. Called "The Mind's Eye", the video is of a discussion that took place at our philosophy festival HowTheLightGetsIn last year. The panel includes philosopher of mind Galen Strawson and evolutionary psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, and the debate focusses on the nature of the consciousness, whether the term soul is useful and if — as Strawson alleges — consciousness is merely an unproblematic result of certain combinations of physical elements. I know that in the past you've blogged on consciousness / qualia and so I thought you might perhaps be interested in posting a link to the video on your blog (it can be found at http://www.iai.tv/video/the-mind-s-eye ), if you find find it of interest and think it might appeal to your readers.
I don't have time now to watch the entire video, but from the opening frames it looks promising.
The Advice of Others
Given how bad the advice of others can be, one is well-advised to keep one's own counsel.
Cathedral Rock, Western Superstitions, New Year’s Day
My hiking partner James L. begins the descent into Coffee Flat. The magnificent formation in the distance is variously referred to as Castle Rock (Tom Kollenborn) and Cathedral Rock (Jack Carlson). Left-click to enlarge.
Keeping One’s Own Counsel
Keeping one's own counsel, one realizes that sometimes two heads are better than one.
Nagel Again
I chose not to waste any words on the Leiter-Weisberg review of Thomas Nagel's 2012 Mind and Cosmos. Keith Burgess-Jackson discusses it here, and links to Ed Feser's critique:
Ed Feser criticizes the Leiter-Weisberg review. In reading Feser's critique, one grasps the utter shallowness of Leiter and Weisberg. They know just enough philosophy to be dangerous. They're drive-by philosophers!
Nagel is the real thing. Brian Leiter is a status-obsessed careerist and leftist ideologue. Leiter should show more respect for his elders and betters. I do admit, however, that Leiter's is the premier academic gossip site in the whole of the philososphere.
My series of posts on Nagel's Mind and Cosmos is here.
Argumentative Ammo
Firearms, Violence, and the Second Amendment: Some Articles. Linkage does not entail wholehearted endorsement. But these pieces are on the right track. If you care about your country and your own future, then you ought to inform yourself.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Early and Late
Early in the Morning, Peter, Paul and Mary. An inspirational way to start the day.
Early in the Morning, same title, different song, Vanity Fare, 1969
Early in the Morning, same title different song again, Eric Clapton. Can a white boy play the blues?
Early Morning Rain, Gordon Lightfoot. There are excellent covers of this great old tune by PP&M and others, but this may be the best version. Written by Lightfoot in '64.
Four Until Late. From Cream's blockbuster debut album, Fresh Cream, 1966. The 1937 Robert Johnson original.
It's Too Late, Chuck Willis, 1956.
It's Too Late, Derek and the Dominoes, 1970, with an intro by Johnny Cash.
It's Too Late, same title, different song, Carole King from her Tapestry album, 1971.
No, I will not link to the Poni-Tail's "Born Too Late" or to Bill Haley and the Comets' "See you Later, Alligator."
Intellectual Maturity
A mark of intellectual maturity is the ability to tolerate uncertainty without fleeing to dogmas that make false certainties of objective uncertainties, but also without falling into a self-vitiating relativism. The ideal is a love of truth that does not flag but also accepts no substitutes.
The Strange World of Simone Weil: God Does and Does Not Exist
In the chapter "Atheism as a Purification" in Gravity and Grace (Routledge 1995, tr. Emma Craufurd from the French, first pub. in 1947), the first entry reads as follows:
A case of contradictories which are true. God exists: God does not exist. Where is the problem? I am quite sure that there is a God in the sense that I am quite sure that my love is not illusory. I am quite sure that there is not a God in the sense that I am quite sure nothing real can be anything like what I am able to conceive when I pronounce this word. But that which I cannot conceive is not an illusion. (103)
What are we to make of writing like this? Contradictories cannot both be true and they cannot both be false. By their surface structure, God exists and God does not exist are contradictories. So, obviously, they cannot both be true if taken at face value.
Faced with an apparent contradiction, the time-tested method for relieving the tension is by making a distinction, thereby showing that the apparent contradiction is merely apparent. Suppose we distinguish, as we must in any case, between the concept God and God. Obviously, God is not a concept. This is true even if God does not exist. Interestingly, the truth that God is not a concept is itself a conceptual truth, one that we can know to be true by mere analysis of the concept God. For what we mean by 'God' is precisely a being that does not, like a concept, depend on the possibility or actuality of our mental operations, a being that exists in sublime independence of finite mind.
Now consider these translations:
God does not exist: Nothing in reality falls under the concept God.
God exists: There is an inconceivable reality, God, and it is the target of non-illusory love.
These translations seem to dispose of the contradiction. One is not saying of one and the same thing, God, that he both exists and does not exist; one is saying of a concept that it is not instantiated and of a non-concept that it is inconceivable. That is not a contradiction, or at least not an explicit contradiction. Weil's thesis is that there is a divine reality, but it is inconceivable by us. She is saying that access to the divine reality is possible through love, but not via the discursive intellect. There is an inconceivable reality.
Analogy: just as there are nonsensible realities, there are inconceivable realities. Just as there are realities beyond the reach of the outer senses (however extended via microscopes, etc.), there is a reality beyond the reach of the discursive intellect. Why not?
An objection readily suggests itself:
If you say that God is inconceivable, then you are conceiving God as inconceivable. If you say that nothing can be said about him, then you say something about him, namely, that nothing can be said about him. If you say that there exists an inconceivable reality, then that is different from saying that there does not exist such a reality; hence you are conceiving the inconceivable reality as included in what there is. If you say that God is real, then you are conceiving him as real as opposed to illusory. Long story short, you are contradicting yourself when you claim that there is an inconceivable reality or that God is an inconceivable reality, or that God is utterly beyond all of our concepts, or that no predications of him are true, or that he exists but has no attributes, or that he is real but inconceivable.
The gist of the objection is that my translation defense of Weil is itself contradictory: I defuse the initial contradiction but only by embracing others.
Should we concede defeat and conclude that Weil's position is incoherent and to be rejected because it is incoherent?
Not so fast. The objection is made on the discursive plane and presupposes the non-negotiable and ultimate validity of discursive reason. The objection is valid only if discursive reason is 'valid' as the ultimate approach to reality. So there is a sense in which the objection begs the question, the question of the ultimate validity of the discursive intellect. Weil's intention, however, is to break through the discursive plane. It is therefore no surprise that 'There is an inconceivable reality' is self-contradictory. It is — but that is no objection to it unless one presupposes the ultimate validity of discursive reason and the Law of Non-Contradiction.
Mystic and logician seem to be at loggerheads.
Mystic: "There is a transdiscursive, inconceivable reality."
Logician: "To claim as much is to embroil yourself in various contradictions."
Mystic: "Yes, but so what?"
Logician: "So what?! That which is or entails a contradiction cannot exist! Absolutely everything is subject to LNC."
Mystic: "You're begging the question against me. You are simply denying what I am asserting, namely, that there is something that is not subject to LNC. Besides, how do you know that LNC is a law of all reality and not merely a law of your discursive thinking? What makes your thinking legislative as to the real and the unreal?"
Logician: "But doesn't it bother you that the very assertions you make, and must make if you are verbally to communicate your view, entail logical contradictions?"
Mystic: "No. That bothers you because you assume the ultimate and non-negotiable validity of the discursive intellect. It doesn't both me because, while I respect the discursive intellect when confined to its proper sphere, I do not imperialistically proclaim it to be legislative for the whole of reality. You go beyond logic proper when you make the metaphysical claim that all of reality is subject to LNC. How are you going to justify that metaphysical leap in a non-circular way?"
Logician: "It looks like we are at an impasse."
Mystic: "Indeed we are. To proceed further you must stop thinking and see!"
How then interpret the Weilian sayings? What Weil is saying is logically nonsense, but important nonsense. It is nonsense in the way that a Zen koan is nonsense. One does not solve a koan by making distinctions, distinctions that presuppose the validity of the Faculty of Distinctions, the discursive intellect; one solves a koan by "breaking through to the other side." Mystical experience is the solution to a koan. Visio intellectualis, not more ratiocination.
A telling phrase from GG 210: "The void which we grasp with the pincers of contradiction . . . ."
But of course my writing and thinking is an operating upon the discursive plane. Mystical philosophy is not mysticism. It is, at best, the discursive propadeutic thereto. One question is whether one can maintain logical coherence by the canons of the discursive plane while introducing the possibility of its transcendence.
Or looking at it the other way round: can the committed and dogmatic discursivist secure his position without simply assuming, groundlessly, its ultimate and non-negotiable validity — in which event he has not secured it? And if he has not secured it, why is it binding upon us — by his own lights?
Why Do Societies Ossify and Decline?
Victor Davis Hanson, historian and classicist, puts things in historical perspective. His piece concludes:
History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.
So much wisdom, insight, and erudition can be found in the conservative commentary of men like Hanson, and so little in the febrile and adolescent outbursts of Paul Krugman and his ilk.
There is no wisdom on the Left.
The philosopher in me looks forward to dusk and the owl of Minerva's spreading of her wings. The natural man, however, hopes the end is postponed until after I make my physical exit. Meanwhile, philosopher and natural man live on, fight on, and do what they can.