Thanks for this article. I've never given much (insert word for whatever it is that replaces thinking when that thinking has been completed) to eliminative materialism. It always (insert word for whatever it is that replaces seeming when that seeming has been completed) stupid. (Wait! Will stupidity get replaced, too? Urf!) Nevertheless, your explanation (ummm...) above makes it (... seem ..., but in the present) less so.
Does anyone know if the Churchlands have expressed an opinion on Newtonian physics? I mean, clearly it has been falsified, but it's still useful for most of our day-to-day interactions with the world. Do they think that the mind theory is more like the humours theory (completely discredited) or more like Newtonian theory (false, but useful)?
🤣 I found writing this article difficult, because I kept needing to use -- words!
That's an interesting question. I'm not sure, but going on what I've read of the Churchlands and listening to them talk, I'm going to take a guess and say I think Paul would argue the mind is like humours -- it should be completely eliminated, but Patricia might be willing to say its like newtonian theory.
The brain is a fully immersive narrative and sensory simulation. We could easily mislabel what we experience but I still consider the fact that we experience self-evident. What else would you call it.
But I have a different type of objection: folk psychology is not about what you think about me, but what we think about us. The social narrative we construct together by shared labels about beliefs, for instance. Seen like that, folk psychology is not a theory but a current form of social behaviour
Interesting point! It does seem like folk psychology plays a big part in our social narrative. I like how this idea emphasises the collaborative, evolving nature of our understanding of our social world.
I take eliminative materialism to be strong evidence materialism must be false. Of all the materialist theories, eliminativism helps to highlight the reasons materialism will never explain experience.
I agree with Churchland’s observation “folk psychological concepts do not clearly map onto what we've been learning in these sciences — especially the neurosciences.”
But since it’s impossible to eliminate experience, we must eliminate materialism. Or in other words, the hard problem shows materialism false.
Even Churchland can’t avoid saying our theories are about interpreting our “observations” so we can’t eliminate our observations, and observations are just experiences.
When we turn to explain the thing constructing the explanations, experience itself, our materialist methods fail.
Experience is the thing to be explained, not the explanation. And no, that doesn’t beg the question anymore than saying I see red begs the question that vision exists.
But unlike vision, which maps onto neuroscience, experience is unique. Experience is the pre-condition of any explanations at all, in fact any knowledge whatsoever.
Eliminativism is materialism’s desperate last stand.
I'm wondering if there might be room to make a distinction between an epistemic gap between the physical and the phenomenal and an ontological one.
It does feel like as we learn more about the brain we might close the epistemic gap a little.
I guess the question is: does an epistemic gap necessarily imply an ontological one? Could there be a scenario where we have an unbridgeable explanatory gap, yet consciousness is still fundamentally physical?
There’s a difference in gaining more knowledge with the methods we have available, and the methods themselves. We could agree there’s an unbridgeable explanatory gap in discovering what lies beyond the observable limit of the universe, but no one is thinking it’s going to be something non-physical out there. We don’t think the electromagnetic waves we can’t access with our eyes or instruments will somehow turn out to not be physical.
But in the case of consciousness the epistemic gap isn’t a limit we reach in our methods of knowing, but more like the foundation of knowing. Consciousness is like the container, or framework in which all those bits of knowledge are situated. It’s the light source, rather than a ray of light. It tells us what all those bits of knowledge mean.
So when Churchland calls it folk psychology, I find it an extraordinarily impoverished view. It doesn’t even rise above it’s own materialist assumptions to identify the actual folk “theories” consciousnesses is concerned with.
When we talk of our hopes and dreams, beliefs and values, and the meanings of all these things, we’re not proposing a theory to explain the mechanisms of action, why the legs move a certain way as if human behaviour is explained by the movement of their body.
The real theories of consciousness deal with the human condition, the meaning of life, the values we have, how we should live. And these are the theories of the wisdom traditions. The arts, philosophy, religion, mythology. How we should live can only be equated with behaviour on a comically superficial view.
If we squint enough we can imagine neuroscience explaining beliefs, or visual qualia, or who knows what else, but try to imagine it replacing our theories on meaning and values. Someone in the comments (insert whatever word replaces mocks) the idea we can even speak meaningfully about it.
Eliminativism just strikes me as a kind of fanaticism. People so committed to their materialist ideology there is nothing that would make them abandon it. Even the idea that neuroscience is going to tell us about consciousness rather than say, poetry, is already committed to materialism. Most people never question that assumption, they’d interpret the poetry reference as a joke.
Thanks for another great comment Prudence! As always, you've given me a lot to think about.
Your point about consciousness being the 'container' or 'framework' for knowledge, and its role in meaning-making, is interesting. That's a novel view for me and not normally how I think about consciousness, so thanks for bringing that perspective. It's making me think about how science approaches the study of consciousness. You're right, of course, science assumes physicalism. But I'm not sure we should expect anything else from science. After all, the scientific method is built on empirical observation and measurement of physical phenomena. That said, your comment raises important questions and inspired some ideas for upcoming articles. So, thanks!
No physical theory may ever explain the subjective nature of consciousness. They can explain a lot about our conscious experience -- why we see in a certain spectrum, why some things are salient and others not (some animals are blind to objects not moving), how memory works, etc. To me, that is not a reason to throw out materialism, which is incredibly successful and -- as Churchland would say -- a promising research project compared to a mysterian approach.
But subjective experience may just be a brute fact that cannot be explained by anything else because it is an emergent property. I'm not sure it's a great analogy but I compare subjective experience to the speed of light as an absolute limit. It seems that physics does not explain why a certain speed is fundamental in special relativity. It just is.
If it’s an emergent property it should be explainable in terms of the substrate it emerges from. If it’s a brute fact, it’s not emergent, it’s the substrate. If you want to incorporate consciousness as part of a material substrate, like space and time, then you’re a panpsychist, not an eliminativist.
Churchland’s dichotomy of a promising research project vs “mysterian” is what I meant by a kind of fanaticism. The suggestion is that non-materialist views have no explanatory merits. But the correct explanatory method depends on on the phenomena you’re trying to explain.
It can explain consciousness where materialism can’t. I think if you’re calling something a brute fact, that’s just a euphemism for my theory can’t incorporate this phenomena.
"If it’s an emergent property it should be explainable in terms of the substrate it emerges from." Perhaps. I'm not sure of that.
"If it’s a brute fact, it’s not emergent, it’s the substrate." No, it's not a substrate or a substance of any kind. Perhaps it is best not to describe it as a brute fact in the way that the speed of light limit seems to be a brute fact. I think you *can* explain and predict many things about consciousness (as I noted) but that doesn't mean you can explain everything from the processes that underlie it.
I have yet to see a non-physicalist theory that makes any sense to me. Since non-physicalism puts the phenomenon outside the realm of empirical discovery and understanding, I don't see how non-physicalism could ever do the job.
The question being asked here is, what is consciousness? It’s a philosophical question.
Consciousness is already “outside” empirical discovery, that’s the hard problem for the materialist. Science didn’t discover it, and it can’t detect it.
The problem with EM is that it has no limiting principle. The case for eliminating the concepts of belief and desire is just as strong as the case for eliminating the concepts of hands, feet, wars, mountains, empirical verifiability, and anything that hovers above the fundamental level.
Premise 1: Our everyday, common-sense framework of the foot is a theory
Premise 2: Foot theory is wrong
Conclusion: Because the foot theory is so fundamentally wrong, we should eliminate feet and replace them with... (I want to say hover-boards, but alas, those too will be eliminated).
Yeah, there’s no argument for eliminating folk psychology that doesn’t also apply, say, to folk physiology. So there aren’t hands, feet, arms, legs, etc.
I don't see that. We can see hands and feet and mountains. They are clearly visible and measurable and we can use them to explain things well. They can be reduced to their parts and down to atoms. Unlike many elements of folk psychology.
You “see” hands, feet, and mountains because you have those concepts. But those concepts, like the concepts of belief and desire, might not be the most scientifically useful way of carving up reality. And, according to eliminative materialism, that is sufficient grounds for eliminating those concepts from our conceptual scheme.
My initial comment was actually meant as a playful joke -- taking eliminative materialism to an absurd extreme. However, I'm fascinated by the philosophical discussion it sparked. It's interesting to consider how our everyday concepts relate to scientific understanding. Neuroscience is a fairly new discipline, and when it started it unconditionally adopted many of its terms from psychology. It took on the project of finding a place in the brain for each psychological concept. This strategy is still popular today. But as with phrenology -- the debunked 19th-century practice of studying skull shapes to determine mental traits -- it's debatable whether many of these psychological concepts actually exist outside their human construction. As we learn more about the complexity of human behaviour, I suspect that some psychological concepts will be eliminated (just as some phrenology concepts were eliminated) -- even if we don't literally want to eliminate feet!
"Should we start with experiences themselves and assume these are true and undeniable? Or do we start with empirical evidence and assume experiences are a type of evidence that can be measured, tested, and analysed?"
I take phenomenal experience as the primary datum in need of explanation, which would mean eliminating it is the opposite of empirical. (But my understanding of the word, 'empirical', is probably different from what people mean by it today. It once meant 'verified by experience'—experience!—but now it seems to mean 'reducible to the quantifiable' or some such thing. To be honest, I'm not even sure what people mean by it anymore. Science-y?)
Anyway, to answer your question, I don't see why we can't have both. Science can go on looking for the neural correlates of consciousness (if that's what it's still doing) so long as it doesn't claim to be doing more than it actually is and so long as it doesn't reduce the phenomenal to the point of making it disappear (especially when this translates to popular articles in science magazines telling people their experienced reality is an illusion). In the particular case of consciousness where science isn't equipped to address phenomenal reality head on, it seems likely to hit a brick wall. Unless, of course, it adapts its methodology. What do you think?
BTW:
"In everyday language, begging the question is sometimes mistakenly used to mean raising the question. But this is a misuse of the term in philosophical discussions."
Hallelujah! I don't know why, but the popular use of 'begging the question' drives me nuts. I should be more understanding, I suppose. Especially since it doesn't matter all that much.
Also, another aside, I'd love to hear what you would make of this weird case (which you've probably heard of), and which theory of mind you think is best equipped to deal with it:
I'm not sure if we can have both. Possibly. This question is one of those questions that divides theories. Theories like IIT make the strong claim that we must start with the experiences themselves, they are true and undeniable. Others, like Dennett, argue strongly that this is absolutely the wrong place to start. So, I'm going to guess some people will think it matters. But I like your question. Maybe there are some aspects of consciousness that should be treated as empirical evidence to be interrogated, while others should be taken as truth. I'll be thinking about that one for a bit.
That case was remarkable! Despite having very little brain tissue, the patient was able to live a relatively normal life.
The lack of change in neuropsychological testing after treatment suggests that the brain had already maximally adapted to its condition (probably during childhood), and the treatment mainly improved the acute symptoms rather than overall cognitive function.
This case is often cited in discussions about consciousness. While some use it to challenge conventional ideas about how the brain works, I think it primarily shows the brain's extraordinary ability to be plastic, rather than showing any insights into the workings of a typical, healthy brain.
Thanks, Suzi. Yeah, I think maybe we could start with ‘phenomenal consciousness exists’ and certainly some theories that claim otherwise will just have to be flat out wrong, but who knows, maybe there’s somewhere amicable to go from here. It’s hard to see how though.
I'm with you in the irritation when people say, "begs the question," but mean "raises". Sadly, just another example of language evolution. (Didn't I just read a book about that? 😉)
I think (or do I only hope anymore?) that any creditable scientist would agree "empirical" means 'verified by experience' or, in their case, 'verified by experiment.' In fact, it's a little terrifying for some of us who take our science seriously to hear working scientists use the phrase "post-empirical science" [shudder]. Much worse than the cognitive dissonance of "jumbo shrimp". 🍤 One of our greater modern scientists, Richard Feynman, said, "The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific 'truth'."
It’s so funny how I know it’s just language doing its language thing, and yet…I have never thought about jumbo shrimp in quite that way. From now on I will!
Well I’m glad you someone still thinks of empirical in the old fashioned way!
Another great entry in your series! Your other guests have made some strong points. I'll say up front that, while I've only encountered the Churchlands on other blogs, I've never made much sense of their approach.
Ultimately, I think if group A thinks looking in place X is best, and group B thinks looking in place Y is best, why don't both pursue their respective ideas (and leave each other alone)? I think science involves testing all possible branches of reality. And I have a general objection to theories that claim other (apparently effective) theories are wrong. Deconstruction is easy. I think it's what you construct that matters. Theories with better constructions win.
For me, the argument hinges too much on "folk psychology" and possibly begs its own question by defining folk psychology conveniently (i.e. that it is necessarily inept). Firstly, I think, at least among the educated, folk understanding converges on scientific understanding. Secondly, folk understanding is built not just on our own lifetime of observation and correlation, but on the reports of others and from the whole body of literature. In some people, the predictive ability is acute, demonstrating the effectiveness of the theory. Folk theory being partial needn't invalidate the observational data it's based on. Folk medicine got lots wrong, but the illnesses and injuries are real enough. Nor do I think it necessary to assume a folk theory is the *only* theory. Newton coexists with Einstein just fine as NASA. Ptolemy *still* works for simple astronomy.
With theories there also seems the issue of falsification. Ice cream consumption causing sunburn is easily falsified. How does one falsify the theory that my subjective experience is other than it seems to me. "What it is like" to be human *is* that subjective experience. We may come to understand it better, may associate neural correlates with it, but that doesn't change the uniqueness of a material system experienced from within as well as from without. How can we deny /cogito ergo sum/ when it's the closest thing to a true fact in our existence?
I think your question about what it means to say "I believe" is right on point. If I'm delighted by a movie or annoyed by a wasp, the labels "delighted" and "annoyed" are grounded in subjective experience and the recorded human experience of millennia. We may come to understand these better, completely unpack them in terms of neurophysics, but the effective theory of human experience seems too well documented to be based on an illusion. As you touched on in a comment reply, there may be forever an epistemic gap when it comes to subjectivity. Perhaps it just boils down to 'this is what it is like to be a brain structure' -- subjectivity emerges. Maybe a bit like being able to explain everything about water, except why it's so much fun to swim in it.
Totally agree that science progresses by exploring multiple avenues. But scientists are going to science -- and that's going to include plenty of critical evaluation of each others methods and approaches. I guess the hope is that the criticism leads to better theories and methodologies.
I had the same thought about Churchland's arguments maybe begging its own question. I went back and forth and decided that I don't think it technically does, but I'm with you - there's definitely a whiff of some slight of hand going on.
I've been thinking about your last paragraph for a while. These are the types of questions, I love to think about! I was especially interesting in your comment about grounding labels like delighted and annoyed in subjective experience. Can we actually ground sensation and perception in subjective experience? It seems like to be grounded we need to have some kind of foundation or reference point outside of subjective experience itself. Is this true? Do we need to ground our experiences outside of subjectivity? If we do, could neuroscience provide that external reference point? Or are we always trapped within our own subjectivity when trying to understand consciousness?
That’s a key question, isn’t it. I believe we both have sympathy for the idea of an unresolvable epistemic gap, and it’s possible we may have to accept subjectivity as axiomatic and ineffable. In which case, the universality and timelessness of everything from tears to laughter would seem our only grounding.
But, yeah, we’d like to understand it better and ground it also in physics. It’s that confounding inner/outer duality that makes consciousness so unlike anything else we study. I think you’re right that it needs a dual approach. What bothers me about the Churchlands (and Dennett and others) is they seem to focus on the outside game and exclude the inside one.
Hmmm... I'm not sure I'm willing to give up that easily. I like to think there are ways of dealing with this seeming duality. Perhaps, I'm too optimistic (or naive) but the science is still in its infancy.
Time will tell. It’s certainly the dream of materialism and the mission of science. I can’t help but feel it would make things ever so slightly less interesting, though. 😊
I have a sense of what we might call a “Western mindset” that goes back at least to Galileo (though I tend to see Newton as its figurehead). In contrast, an “Eastern mindset” seems more comfortable with the ineffable. (Or it could be I’m, as my mom would say, “full of prunes” on this. And do you know it never occurred to me until I just wrote that it’s a very masked way of saying some is spewing shit.)
Anyway, ever since I learned about Gödelian incompleteness and Heisenberg uncertainty I’ve been a bit charmed by the notion that some things forever exceed our grasp. But who knows what we’ll learn down the road.
I immediately like your mom very much! Full of prunes! Brilliant! Who's going to be offended by that? "My friend, I think you might be a bit full of prunes." It's brilliantly inoffensive yet effective.
Though I hear of the Churchland’s from time to time, I’ve never quite looked into their contribution to the circus that makes up modern academic conceptions of consciousness. So I guess they’re essentially responsible for the “eliminativism” element of it. If they truly do cling to that position rather than “reductionism”, then that would put them in supernatural territory. I bet in the end that they do call themselves reductionists, though reductionists regarding what they’d also call “scientific” conceptions of consciousness. Blatant intellectualism has done plenty to create this circus.
I’ve had the sense that the Churchlands are very much like the illusionists (such as Dennett and Frankish) in that they have the same end goal. That goal is for everyone to believe in what’s known as functional computationalism, or effectively that scientific conceptions of consciousness exist by means of the proper algorithms alone. (I have reason to believe that this belief supernatural.) Then some day when scientists learn which algorithms do the trick they’ll not only be able to create conscious computers, but should even be able to upload human consciousness so that humanity can live perpetually in cyberspace. Then because robots are presumed to be so much better than human bodies, humanity will thus be able to colonize the universe. I consider science fiction to be very much a part of the consciousness circus. Once actual science straightens things out empirically however, it seems to me that these pretentious intellectuals should look quite silly.
I think the Churchlands might have something to say about your claim that they call themselves reductionists! And they would almost certainly reject the claim that they are computational functionalists. I think they would align with illusionists like Dennett, and in that way the Churchlands and Dennett's ideas are similar, but the Churchlands reject computational functionalism. They think of functionalism as trying to explain made-up words and concepts.
I agree that as science progresses, some (if not all) current theories may be proven wrong. But it also seems important to acknowledge that even silly ideas that turn out to be incorrect can sometimes lead to valuable insights (even if those insights are just what not to think).
Hmmm…. I guess it doesn’t exactly matter to me what the Churchlands call themselves, but rather what’s generally effective for people to call them. For example Donald Trump tells us that he was a great American president (😜).
To me there is only one alternative to a reality which functions perfectly on the basis of systemic causality. That would be a reality which does not perfectly do so, and whether by means of an outside god or whatever else. In the former, reality in full can be reduced to systemic causality. Thus it’s “reductionist” as I’m using the term. If their position doesn’t ultimately remain consistent with this stance regarding brain function or anything else, then I think they should be labeled the unnatural alternative. So when I classify them as “reductionists” in the end, I consider myself to be charitable to them, and even though I have no use for their “eliminativism” position regarding standard conceptions of consciousness. I consider standard conceptions of consciousness to be far more effective than not, and of course we know that the standard “consciousness” word will change right along with associated new discoveries of science. But perhaps I was wrong about them also being functional computationalists.
On alignment with Dennett, I guess you mean his disbelief that consciousness is “ineffable” and other ultimately supernatural ideas that they also reject, to then go further to supposedly all else. In any case I’m what might be referred to as a “super illusionist”. I don’t believe what Dennett didn’t believe, and I also don’t believe what he did believe, which is to say that consciousness exists by means of the right algorithms alone. I do believe that consciousness exists by means of the right algorithms, but that causality mandates that algorithms only exist when they animate an appropriate substrate. For example, a VHS tape should only be considered “algorithmic” in respect to something that’s able to read its code. Otherwise it should just be “causal stuff”.
Can silly ideas that turn out to be incorrect lead to valuable insights? They certainly can after being dismissed. And beforehand they can at least be fun to think about. I’d rather not be known as a person who stands in the way of people enjoying themselves thinking about strange possibilities. But I also believe that there are very real costs in the failure of the human to grasp it own nature. Hard science has made our species extremely powerful, though soft science hasn’t taught us much about ourselves and thus how to more effectively use that power. So for the most part I’d rather silly ideas regarding our nature generally be dismissed so that humanity might gain better understandings from which to deal with it’s various challenges. This is also why I consider the sensible things you’ve been saying here to be important.
I find your concept of a "super illusionist" intriguing. I'm not sure I understood your point here, though. I'd be interested in hearing more about how you see consciousness arising from the interaction of algorithms and appropriate substrates. Does this touch on the idea that there is a relationship between information processing and physical reality?
Thanks Suzi. To me this is all pretty simple stuff though in that case I’m not entirely sure why academia in general would need “a nobody” like me to explain something so simple. I doubt that even John Searle ever grasped this well enough to truly hold Dennett’s feet to the fire. So maybe I’m wrong. In that case however then I look forward to someone correcting me.
My sense of illusionism is simply this — they take certain folk conceptions of consciousness which suggest that it’s supernatural, to then reply “I don’t believe in that sort of consciousness”. And fair dinkum, I also don’t believe in supernatural conceptions of consciousness. But here’s where I go on to expose them as effective supernaturalists. As I understand it people like Dennett actually do believe that consciousness exists by means of properly processed algorithms alone. Thus if the right marks on paper were processed into the right other marks on paper, theoretically something here would experience what you do when your thumb gets whacked. (The following would be a more full account: https://ericborg.org/2023/11/04/post-4-should-information-need-to-inform-in-order-to-exist-as-such/ )
My position is that here they misunderstand a certain element of the causal workings of computer function to thus leave them with a supernatural conception of consciousness. The misunderstanding would be neglecting to acknowledge that information can only exist as such in respect to it informing something appropriate. Yes a whacked thumb thus sends information to the brain about this event. Theoretically this information could also be described quite well through an involved set of marks on paper. Yes that whacked thumb information in the brain should be algorithmically processed into new information. And theoretically this new information could also be described quite well with more marks on paper. Here is where people like Dennett say that “thumb pain” must exist in either case. I say they’re wrong because in a causal world “information” will only exist as such to the extent that it goes on to inform something appropriate. So I say there’s still one more step to go. It would be difficult for them to concede this however since in that case human consciousness could never be uploaded to exist perpetually in cyberspace.
So what might processed brain information inform to exist as an experiencer of thumb pain? Or what would the right marks of paper need to inform to that same end? I hope you already know what my answer happens to be.
I'm interested in your point about information needing to "inform something appropriate" to exist as such. Do you mean for information to have meaning, it needs to inform something? If so, this resonates strongly with the grounding problem - how abstract symbols or representations (like in a computer or the brain) can acquire meaning or relate to the real world. This often feels like the large elephant in the room that many theories of consciousness skirt around.
Yes Suzi, I do mean that. Your name in English letters means something to us, though doesn’t in letters that we aren’t familiar with. But by introducing the term “meaning”, let’s not devolve my thumb pain thought experiment merely to Searle’s Chinese room. That could let those who are aligned with Dennett also skirt around mine! There are several ways that I consider my own argument to be much tighter. It also specifically implicates its opposition for violating the tenants of causality given their distorted position on how information works.
Let’s say you have a stack of paper with marks on it which highly correlate with the information that your thumb once sent to your brain just after being whacked. My point is that this will only be potential information given that these marks on paper will not yet be informing anything appropriate. So it’s similar to a lone DVD. But just as a DVD can inform a DVD player, let’s scan that marked paper into a computer which algorithmically processes it to print out another stack of paper which has marks on it that highly correlate with the information that your brain had converted your whacked thumb information into. This is where the first stack of paper becomes informative since it helps create the second stack. This is also where those aligned with Dennett are forced to concede that something here must experience what you did when your thumb was whacked. They don’t tell us what would do this experiencing however, since they’ve got no clue. Then they tend to get frustrated and say things like “Thought experiments aren’t real experiments!”. I presume they won’t back down until scientists empirically demonstrate the wrongness of their position, and that could be problematic since it’s unfalsifiable.
The causal reason that converting the correct first set of marked paper into the correct second set of marked paper should not create something that experiences what you did when your thumb was whacked, is because that second set of paper would still only exist as potential information. Like a lone DVD it would only become actual information by informing something appropriate.
This raises the question of what processed brain information informs to exist as an experiencer of thumb pain? What would that hypothetical second stack of paper need to inform to also do so? Again, I hope you already know what my answer happens to be.
Here’s another another thought against the Churchland’s eliminativism. I see that the term “gravity” was used before Newton’s quite useful assessment of it. So before his discoveries it was “wrong”, and yet worked well enough to morph into a founding premise from which to build the modern science of physics. Furthermore Einstein then came along to refine the term once again. Thus it should have been useless to eject that specific term (as the Churchlands might have suggested), but rather we needed to discover how to effectively define “folk” conceptions of gravity. This is the ill that sufficiently distinguished intellectuals can inflict over the softest forms of science. They get people to believe all sorts of nonsense that takes attention away from the empirical testing of falsifiable propositions.
Hey Eric! I agree, most of the time there's value to be had in retaining and refining "folk" concepts rather than outright rejecting them. The trick, I guess, is figuring out when a theory has outlived its usefulness and when it still provides some value.
Gravity as understood before Newton -- actually before Einstein -- does not exist. The idea of an absolute inherent force has been falsified. It just does not exist. Like caloric or phlogiston. That does not mean that our earlier concepts were useless or, in an important sense, completely wrong. They described the world fairly well for the time so they mapped at least approximately to the real world.
So I don't see this as an argument against eliminativism. I do think it suggests that many "folk theories" may be partly eliminated but also party reduced. Which is why I'm attracted to revisionary materialism rather than full-blown eliminativism.
Hi Max. I was essentially pointing out the same thing that you just did, though with the theme being that the Churchlands have been wasting our time with an unproductive call to get rid of the term “consciousness”. Just as many notions of gravity clearly were wrong, the same is surely true for consciousness today. So let’s let scientists use empirical evidence to also help straighten out this term. And indeed, if we followed their advice to get rid of “consciousness”, I wonder what term or terms they’d suggest instead? What might such a substitution solve?
In any case it seems to me that lots of academics, such as them and Dennett, have become quite popular by talking about what consciousness isn’t rather than advertising what they actually do consider it to be. With his “Chinese room” John Searle tried to help display the funky implications of what many today believe. I don’t think his argument was simple enough however, or that he had a good enough grasp of how his opposition’s premise fails. As I mentioned to Suzi just above, I think that my thumb pain thought experiment ought to do a better job.
I don't recall Churchland saying we should get rid of the word "consciousness." I'm not saying he didn't but I don't remember that. He definitely did cast doubt on terms like "belief" and "desire".
If you don’t remember it then he probably didn’t. I guess that was just me trying to make sense of “elimativism” — as in maybe he was proposing that the “consciousness” term itself was wrong. Did he actually mean that he couldn’t do things like see, hear, think, and act (or “folk consciousness”), as well as doubted that any of us could either? That of course seems ridiculous. But if not that either, then what could he have actually meant?
What I’m driving at is that people in the softest forms of science today are able to become popular by saying all sorts of things that are presumed to be amazing, though when you dig down a bit, there’s no real substance. The only cure should be for these fields to actually harden up. Furthermore this should require a culture which isn’t afraid to do some digging and so reward good science for being good, while punishing bad science for being bad. And in truth I don’t mean to be pointing fingers at anyone like him specifically (and in this case I might very well be ill informed about what his actual position happens to be). But clearly something in these fields must change.
Another great breakdown of an otherwise complex topic.
But also: "Does the mind exist?"
What a silly question. If it didn't exist, why would I constantly hear "Sir, are you out of your freaking mind?" and "The dude's lost his damn mind!" wherever I go?
Thank you, Suzi. Great article. I wonder what you think of this analogy.
Premise 1: Our everyday, common-sense framework of cooking is a theory (I call it folk chemistry).
Premise 2: Folk chemistry is a bad theory.
Because folk chemistry is fundamentally wrong, it should be replaced by a better theory.
The cooking theory seems to explain why the whites of my eggs go solid when I fry them while the yolks stay runny. But cooking theory does not adequately explain and predict when the yolks will stay runny. It offers no coherent explanation for why my bacon and egg sandwich is delicious.
Cooks from ages past had odd ideas about how to cook octopus stew that we have long since discarded now that we have sous vide. We should discard all of cookery until we have a more complete theory.
Or…
Cookery just provides a different view on the same topic as chemistry. They are both useful and accurate but provide different levels of abstraction. Cookery is not a complete theory — it has nothing to say about DDT or the manufacture of polystyrene — but in the domains where it works, it works very well and is very useful. More useful than chemistry.
It can be useful to have different theories that approach the same problem from different directions. Perhaps functionalism and identity theory and psychology all have useful things to say about how the minds works. Why can’t they all be correct as far as they go? Why does philosophy seem to insist that The One True Theory should eliminate all the others?
It really does make sense to talk at different levels of abstraction, doesn't it!? I want to be able to say this apple tastes sour without having to say... the malic and tartaric acids in this apple is interacting with our taste buds, triggering a response in my nervous system. That's just too many unnecessary words!
I agree! Having different theories on the same topic can be very useful. When we want to talk about water in our everyday context, discussing its wetness makes much more sense than talking about hydrogen and oxygen.
But I do think there might be room to eliminate terms that are 'made-up' words. When we realised that 'animal spirits' don't actually move humours in the pineal gland, we stopped using that term. And if we find out other things don't really correspond to real, distinct phenomena, we might want to reconsider their use. Without the benefit of hindsight, it's difficult to know what those things might be, but it's worth being open to revising our vocabulary as our understanding evolves.
I like your approach with philosophical theories -- finding the useful parts in theories is something I like to do too. I think many of the theories make some good points. The difficulty arises when those theories contradict each other. Then we're faced with the challenge of reconciling these contradictions or determining which view more accurately reflects reality.
I just discovered your blog and I love it! I studied philosophy of mind back in the 1980s and 90s, and even interviewed Paul Churchland for Wired. I was and am attracted to Churchland's ideas including eliminative materialism. However, I probably end up at a place you mention: "Our future understanding of mental states might involve some elimination but also some reduction." That is what Churchland calls "revisionary materialism."
Yes, it was wonderful. Really nice guy. I drove down from LA to La Jolla after he graciously agreed to the interview. I don't remember my original title but it was published as: “Thinking About Thinking.” Wired, November 1996. Page 252 (!) here: https://archive.org/details/wired-magazine-04.12-1996-december/page/n17/mode/2up
David Chalmers, in his book Reality+, notes that we have a number of options when dealing with any discrepancies between the manifest image (in this case folk psychology) and the scientific image.
1. elimination of the manifest concept
2. identification of it with a scientific one, or some combination of scientific ones
3. autonomy, just accept we can't relate them, but keep the manifest one anyway
4. reconstruction of the manifest image to be more compatible with the scientific one
There is no one size fits all answer. For any specific case, it's a judgment call which one makes sense. We did 1 for the humors and animal spirits you mentioned. We also did it in the shift from medieval cosmology to a Newtonian one for the celestial spheres. But in that same shift, we did 4 for planets and stars, retaining the name for phenomena, but with a very different understanding from the pre-Copernican one.
Which one is the right strategy for mental concepts? It's hard to imagine beliefs and desires not remaining useful in day to day language, but not particularly hard for me to imagine them getting reconstructed someday into something more attuned to what science is discovering. I think it really depends on how rigid we're going to be with these concepts, how much we're willing to adjust our assumptions about them to retain them.
My personal inclination is to push 2 and 4 as far as we can before resorting to 1. But if I had to make a bet, it will probably be a mix, just as it was for cosmology.
Wow, I love how you've broken this down using Chalmers' framework. It's such a clear way to think about how we reconcile our everyday understanding with scientific discoveries.
I like the no one-size-fits-all approach. The examples you've given -- humours, animal spirits, and the shift in cosmology -- really illustrate how we've used different strategies in different contexts.
I agree it's hard to imagine completely eliminating all beliefs and desires from our everyday language. But I do get the sense that some words are already on the way out. There's probably a good case for eliminating willpower, for example. I think we're learning enough about how motivation and self-control work to understand that there probably isn't anything like willpower that actually exists. It can be better explained by a combination of elements that include environmental factors, genetics, and the interaction between cognitive control networks and reward systems in the brain.
But then I think... you're probably right. Your bet on a mix of approaches for mental concepts seems likely. Just as the concept of a planet has evolved but not disappeared, perhaps our understanding of willpower will shift dramatically so the word remains useful but it just means something different.
Good point about "willpower". One thing I've found interesting when wondering if a term will endure, is looking at it in Google's Ngram viewer. Words that have been around for a long time might have an everyday utility that will enable them to endure, even as science shows that the underlying reality is different. In the case of "willpower" It shows that it's been around for a long time, but it's use spiked starting in the 1960s, indicating our current usage may not be that embedded.
Of course, you never know how language is going to evolve. I sometimes read old science fiction stories and it's always interesting to see how the meaning of words has shifted over the decades. For example, pre-WWII writers often used "plate" to refer to what we know as a monitor screen today.
That's so interesting! I see plate 'peaks' at the turn of the century and then drops off in the 60s, which fits with the change in usage.
The words 'language' and 'books' is interesting to plot together -- it's almost as if there's an inverse relationship. I wonder if there's a reason for that?
Thanks for the reminder about Google's Ngram viewer -- what a fun way to procrastinate!
Of course the mind is an illusion! What else could it be? Thanks to Bishop Berkeley and Rene Decartes we know that illusions are the real thing.
My mind, if there is one, has been entranced! Could be the neurotransmitters though. Anyway, kidding aside, thanks for another great article.
🤣 Thanks John!
Thanks for this article. I've never given much (insert word for whatever it is that replaces thinking when that thinking has been completed) to eliminative materialism. It always (insert word for whatever it is that replaces seeming when that seeming has been completed) stupid. (Wait! Will stupidity get replaced, too? Urf!) Nevertheless, your explanation (ummm...) above makes it (... seem ..., but in the present) less so.
Does anyone know if the Churchlands have expressed an opinion on Newtonian physics? I mean, clearly it has been falsified, but it's still useful for most of our day-to-day interactions with the world. Do they think that the mind theory is more like the humours theory (completely discredited) or more like Newtonian theory (false, but useful)?
🤣 I found writing this article difficult, because I kept needing to use -- words!
That's an interesting question. I'm not sure, but going on what I've read of the Churchlands and listening to them talk, I'm going to take a guess and say I think Paul would argue the mind is like humours -- it should be completely eliminated, but Patricia might be willing to say its like newtonian theory.
The brain is a fully immersive narrative and sensory simulation. We could easily mislabel what we experience but I still consider the fact that we experience self-evident. What else would you call it.
But I have a different type of objection: folk psychology is not about what you think about me, but what we think about us. The social narrative we construct together by shared labels about beliefs, for instance. Seen like that, folk psychology is not a theory but a current form of social behaviour
Interesting point! It does seem like folk psychology plays a big part in our social narrative. I like how this idea emphasises the collaborative, evolving nature of our understanding of our social world.
Another great article Suzie.
I take eliminative materialism to be strong evidence materialism must be false. Of all the materialist theories, eliminativism helps to highlight the reasons materialism will never explain experience.
I agree with Churchland’s observation “folk psychological concepts do not clearly map onto what we've been learning in these sciences — especially the neurosciences.”
But since it’s impossible to eliminate experience, we must eliminate materialism. Or in other words, the hard problem shows materialism false.
Even Churchland can’t avoid saying our theories are about interpreting our “observations” so we can’t eliminate our observations, and observations are just experiences.
When we turn to explain the thing constructing the explanations, experience itself, our materialist methods fail.
Experience is the thing to be explained, not the explanation. And no, that doesn’t beg the question anymore than saying I see red begs the question that vision exists.
But unlike vision, which maps onto neuroscience, experience is unique. Experience is the pre-condition of any explanations at all, in fact any knowledge whatsoever.
Eliminativism is materialism’s desperate last stand.
Thanks Prudence!
Your comment got me thinking...
I'm wondering if there might be room to make a distinction between an epistemic gap between the physical and the phenomenal and an ontological one.
It does feel like as we learn more about the brain we might close the epistemic gap a little.
I guess the question is: does an epistemic gap necessarily imply an ontological one? Could there be a scenario where we have an unbridgeable explanatory gap, yet consciousness is still fundamentally physical?
There’s a difference in gaining more knowledge with the methods we have available, and the methods themselves. We could agree there’s an unbridgeable explanatory gap in discovering what lies beyond the observable limit of the universe, but no one is thinking it’s going to be something non-physical out there. We don’t think the electromagnetic waves we can’t access with our eyes or instruments will somehow turn out to not be physical.
But in the case of consciousness the epistemic gap isn’t a limit we reach in our methods of knowing, but more like the foundation of knowing. Consciousness is like the container, or framework in which all those bits of knowledge are situated. It’s the light source, rather than a ray of light. It tells us what all those bits of knowledge mean.
So when Churchland calls it folk psychology, I find it an extraordinarily impoverished view. It doesn’t even rise above it’s own materialist assumptions to identify the actual folk “theories” consciousnesses is concerned with.
When we talk of our hopes and dreams, beliefs and values, and the meanings of all these things, we’re not proposing a theory to explain the mechanisms of action, why the legs move a certain way as if human behaviour is explained by the movement of their body.
The real theories of consciousness deal with the human condition, the meaning of life, the values we have, how we should live. And these are the theories of the wisdom traditions. The arts, philosophy, religion, mythology. How we should live can only be equated with behaviour on a comically superficial view.
If we squint enough we can imagine neuroscience explaining beliefs, or visual qualia, or who knows what else, but try to imagine it replacing our theories on meaning and values. Someone in the comments (insert whatever word replaces mocks) the idea we can even speak meaningfully about it.
Eliminativism just strikes me as a kind of fanaticism. People so committed to their materialist ideology there is nothing that would make them abandon it. Even the idea that neuroscience is going to tell us about consciousness rather than say, poetry, is already committed to materialism. Most people never question that assumption, they’d interpret the poetry reference as a joke.
Thanks for another great comment Prudence! As always, you've given me a lot to think about.
Your point about consciousness being the 'container' or 'framework' for knowledge, and its role in meaning-making, is interesting. That's a novel view for me and not normally how I think about consciousness, so thanks for bringing that perspective. It's making me think about how science approaches the study of consciousness. You're right, of course, science assumes physicalism. But I'm not sure we should expect anything else from science. After all, the scientific method is built on empirical observation and measurement of physical phenomena. That said, your comment raises important questions and inspired some ideas for upcoming articles. So, thanks!
No physical theory may ever explain the subjective nature of consciousness. They can explain a lot about our conscious experience -- why we see in a certain spectrum, why some things are salient and others not (some animals are blind to objects not moving), how memory works, etc. To me, that is not a reason to throw out materialism, which is incredibly successful and -- as Churchland would say -- a promising research project compared to a mysterian approach.
But subjective experience may just be a brute fact that cannot be explained by anything else because it is an emergent property. I'm not sure it's a great analogy but I compare subjective experience to the speed of light as an absolute limit. It seems that physics does not explain why a certain speed is fundamental in special relativity. It just is.
If it’s an emergent property it should be explainable in terms of the substrate it emerges from. If it’s a brute fact, it’s not emergent, it’s the substrate. If you want to incorporate consciousness as part of a material substrate, like space and time, then you’re a panpsychist, not an eliminativist.
Churchland’s dichotomy of a promising research project vs “mysterian” is what I meant by a kind of fanaticism. The suggestion is that non-materialist views have no explanatory merits. But the correct explanatory method depends on on the phenomena you’re trying to explain.
What explanatory merits do you see in a non-materialist approach?
It can explain consciousness where materialism can’t. I think if you’re calling something a brute fact, that’s just a euphemism for my theory can’t incorporate this phenomena.
"If it’s an emergent property it should be explainable in terms of the substrate it emerges from." Perhaps. I'm not sure of that.
"If it’s a brute fact, it’s not emergent, it’s the substrate." No, it's not a substrate or a substance of any kind. Perhaps it is best not to describe it as a brute fact in the way that the speed of light limit seems to be a brute fact. I think you *can* explain and predict many things about consciousness (as I noted) but that doesn't mean you can explain everything from the processes that underlie it.
I have yet to see a non-physicalist theory that makes any sense to me. Since non-physicalism puts the phenomenon outside the realm of empirical discovery and understanding, I don't see how non-physicalism could ever do the job.
The question being asked here is, what is consciousness? It’s a philosophical question.
Consciousness is already “outside” empirical discovery, that’s the hard problem for the materialist. Science didn’t discover it, and it can’t detect it.
The problem with EM is that it has no limiting principle. The case for eliminating the concepts of belief and desire is just as strong as the case for eliminating the concepts of hands, feet, wars, mountains, empirical verifiability, and anything that hovers above the fundamental level.
Premise 1: Our everyday, common-sense framework of the foot is a theory
Premise 2: Foot theory is wrong
Conclusion: Because the foot theory is so fundamentally wrong, we should eliminate feet and replace them with... (I want to say hover-boards, but alas, those too will be eliminated).
Yeah, there’s no argument for eliminating folk psychology that doesn’t also apply, say, to folk physiology. So there aren’t hands, feet, arms, legs, etc.
I don't see that. We can see hands and feet and mountains. They are clearly visible and measurable and we can use them to explain things well. They can be reduced to their parts and down to atoms. Unlike many elements of folk psychology.
You “see” hands, feet, and mountains because you have those concepts. But those concepts, like the concepts of belief and desire, might not be the most scientifically useful way of carving up reality. And, according to eliminative materialism, that is sufficient grounds for eliminating those concepts from our conceptual scheme.
My initial comment was actually meant as a playful joke -- taking eliminative materialism to an absurd extreme. However, I'm fascinated by the philosophical discussion it sparked. It's interesting to consider how our everyday concepts relate to scientific understanding. Neuroscience is a fairly new discipline, and when it started it unconditionally adopted many of its terms from psychology. It took on the project of finding a place in the brain for each psychological concept. This strategy is still popular today. But as with phrenology -- the debunked 19th-century practice of studying skull shapes to determine mental traits -- it's debatable whether many of these psychological concepts actually exist outside their human construction. As we learn more about the complexity of human behaviour, I suspect that some psychological concepts will be eliminated (just as some phrenology concepts were eliminated) -- even if we don't literally want to eliminate feet!
"Should we start with experiences themselves and assume these are true and undeniable? Or do we start with empirical evidence and assume experiences are a type of evidence that can be measured, tested, and analysed?"
I take phenomenal experience as the primary datum in need of explanation, which would mean eliminating it is the opposite of empirical. (But my understanding of the word, 'empirical', is probably different from what people mean by it today. It once meant 'verified by experience'—experience!—but now it seems to mean 'reducible to the quantifiable' or some such thing. To be honest, I'm not even sure what people mean by it anymore. Science-y?)
Anyway, to answer your question, I don't see why we can't have both. Science can go on looking for the neural correlates of consciousness (if that's what it's still doing) so long as it doesn't claim to be doing more than it actually is and so long as it doesn't reduce the phenomenal to the point of making it disappear (especially when this translates to popular articles in science magazines telling people their experienced reality is an illusion). In the particular case of consciousness where science isn't equipped to address phenomenal reality head on, it seems likely to hit a brick wall. Unless, of course, it adapts its methodology. What do you think?
BTW:
"In everyday language, begging the question is sometimes mistakenly used to mean raising the question. But this is a misuse of the term in philosophical discussions."
Hallelujah! I don't know why, but the popular use of 'begging the question' drives me nuts. I should be more understanding, I suppose. Especially since it doesn't matter all that much.
Also, another aside, I'd love to hear what you would make of this weird case (which you've probably heard of), and which theory of mind you think is best equipped to deal with it:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61127-1/fulltext
Thanks Tina!
I'm not sure if we can have both. Possibly. This question is one of those questions that divides theories. Theories like IIT make the strong claim that we must start with the experiences themselves, they are true and undeniable. Others, like Dennett, argue strongly that this is absolutely the wrong place to start. So, I'm going to guess some people will think it matters. But I like your question. Maybe there are some aspects of consciousness that should be treated as empirical evidence to be interrogated, while others should be taken as truth. I'll be thinking about that one for a bit.
That case was remarkable! Despite having very little brain tissue, the patient was able to live a relatively normal life.
The lack of change in neuropsychological testing after treatment suggests that the brain had already maximally adapted to its condition (probably during childhood), and the treatment mainly improved the acute symptoms rather than overall cognitive function.
This case is often cited in discussions about consciousness. While some use it to challenge conventional ideas about how the brain works, I think it primarily shows the brain's extraordinary ability to be plastic, rather than showing any insights into the workings of a typical, healthy brain.
Thanks, Suzi. Yeah, I think maybe we could start with ‘phenomenal consciousness exists’ and certainly some theories that claim otherwise will just have to be flat out wrong, but who knows, maybe there’s somewhere amicable to go from here. It’s hard to see how though.
I'm with you in the irritation when people say, "begs the question," but mean "raises". Sadly, just another example of language evolution. (Didn't I just read a book about that? 😉)
I think (or do I only hope anymore?) that any creditable scientist would agree "empirical" means 'verified by experience' or, in their case, 'verified by experiment.' In fact, it's a little terrifying for some of us who take our science seriously to hear working scientists use the phrase "post-empirical science" [shudder]. Much worse than the cognitive dissonance of "jumbo shrimp". 🍤 One of our greater modern scientists, Richard Feynman, said, "The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific 'truth'."
It’s so funny how I know it’s just language doing its language thing, and yet…I have never thought about jumbo shrimp in quite that way. From now on I will!
Well I’m glad you someone still thinks of empirical in the old fashioned way!
Oxymorons are fun! We got a lot of mileage out of "military intelligence" back in the day. 😊
Another great entry in your series! Your other guests have made some strong points. I'll say up front that, while I've only encountered the Churchlands on other blogs, I've never made much sense of their approach.
Ultimately, I think if group A thinks looking in place X is best, and group B thinks looking in place Y is best, why don't both pursue their respective ideas (and leave each other alone)? I think science involves testing all possible branches of reality. And I have a general objection to theories that claim other (apparently effective) theories are wrong. Deconstruction is easy. I think it's what you construct that matters. Theories with better constructions win.
For me, the argument hinges too much on "folk psychology" and possibly begs its own question by defining folk psychology conveniently (i.e. that it is necessarily inept). Firstly, I think, at least among the educated, folk understanding converges on scientific understanding. Secondly, folk understanding is built not just on our own lifetime of observation and correlation, but on the reports of others and from the whole body of literature. In some people, the predictive ability is acute, demonstrating the effectiveness of the theory. Folk theory being partial needn't invalidate the observational data it's based on. Folk medicine got lots wrong, but the illnesses and injuries are real enough. Nor do I think it necessary to assume a folk theory is the *only* theory. Newton coexists with Einstein just fine as NASA. Ptolemy *still* works for simple astronomy.
With theories there also seems the issue of falsification. Ice cream consumption causing sunburn is easily falsified. How does one falsify the theory that my subjective experience is other than it seems to me. "What it is like" to be human *is* that subjective experience. We may come to understand it better, may associate neural correlates with it, but that doesn't change the uniqueness of a material system experienced from within as well as from without. How can we deny /cogito ergo sum/ when it's the closest thing to a true fact in our existence?
I think your question about what it means to say "I believe" is right on point. If I'm delighted by a movie or annoyed by a wasp, the labels "delighted" and "annoyed" are grounded in subjective experience and the recorded human experience of millennia. We may come to understand these better, completely unpack them in terms of neurophysics, but the effective theory of human experience seems too well documented to be based on an illusion. As you touched on in a comment reply, there may be forever an epistemic gap when it comes to subjectivity. Perhaps it just boils down to 'this is what it is like to be a brain structure' -- subjectivity emerges. Maybe a bit like being able to explain everything about water, except why it's so much fun to swim in it.
Thanks so much. You raise so many great points!
Totally agree that science progresses by exploring multiple avenues. But scientists are going to science -- and that's going to include plenty of critical evaluation of each others methods and approaches. I guess the hope is that the criticism leads to better theories and methodologies.
I had the same thought about Churchland's arguments maybe begging its own question. I went back and forth and decided that I don't think it technically does, but I'm with you - there's definitely a whiff of some slight of hand going on.
I've been thinking about your last paragraph for a while. These are the types of questions, I love to think about! I was especially interesting in your comment about grounding labels like delighted and annoyed in subjective experience. Can we actually ground sensation and perception in subjective experience? It seems like to be grounded we need to have some kind of foundation or reference point outside of subjective experience itself. Is this true? Do we need to ground our experiences outside of subjectivity? If we do, could neuroscience provide that external reference point? Or are we always trapped within our own subjectivity when trying to understand consciousness?
That’s a key question, isn’t it. I believe we both have sympathy for the idea of an unresolvable epistemic gap, and it’s possible we may have to accept subjectivity as axiomatic and ineffable. In which case, the universality and timelessness of everything from tears to laughter would seem our only grounding.
But, yeah, we’d like to understand it better and ground it also in physics. It’s that confounding inner/outer duality that makes consciousness so unlike anything else we study. I think you’re right that it needs a dual approach. What bothers me about the Churchlands (and Dennett and others) is they seem to focus on the outside game and exclude the inside one.
Hmmm... I'm not sure I'm willing to give up that easily. I like to think there are ways of dealing with this seeming duality. Perhaps, I'm too optimistic (or naive) but the science is still in its infancy.
Time will tell. It’s certainly the dream of materialism and the mission of science. I can’t help but feel it would make things ever so slightly less interesting, though. 😊
I have a sense of what we might call a “Western mindset” that goes back at least to Galileo (though I tend to see Newton as its figurehead). In contrast, an “Eastern mindset” seems more comfortable with the ineffable. (Or it could be I’m, as my mom would say, “full of prunes” on this. And do you know it never occurred to me until I just wrote that it’s a very masked way of saying some is spewing shit.)
Anyway, ever since I learned about Gödelian incompleteness and Heisenberg uncertainty I’ve been a bit charmed by the notion that some things forever exceed our grasp. But who knows what we’ll learn down the road.
I immediately like your mom very much! Full of prunes! Brilliant! Who's going to be offended by that? "My friend, I think you might be a bit full of prunes." It's brilliantly inoffensive yet effective.
Yeah, my mom was aces! She was a music teacher, and I owe my ability with and love of music to her.
Though I hear of the Churchland’s from time to time, I’ve never quite looked into their contribution to the circus that makes up modern academic conceptions of consciousness. So I guess they’re essentially responsible for the “eliminativism” element of it. If they truly do cling to that position rather than “reductionism”, then that would put them in supernatural territory. I bet in the end that they do call themselves reductionists, though reductionists regarding what they’d also call “scientific” conceptions of consciousness. Blatant intellectualism has done plenty to create this circus.
I’ve had the sense that the Churchlands are very much like the illusionists (such as Dennett and Frankish) in that they have the same end goal. That goal is for everyone to believe in what’s known as functional computationalism, or effectively that scientific conceptions of consciousness exist by means of the proper algorithms alone. (I have reason to believe that this belief supernatural.) Then some day when scientists learn which algorithms do the trick they’ll not only be able to create conscious computers, but should even be able to upload human consciousness so that humanity can live perpetually in cyberspace. Then because robots are presumed to be so much better than human bodies, humanity will thus be able to colonize the universe. I consider science fiction to be very much a part of the consciousness circus. Once actual science straightens things out empirically however, it seems to me that these pretentious intellectuals should look quite silly.
Hey Eric!
I think the Churchlands might have something to say about your claim that they call themselves reductionists! And they would almost certainly reject the claim that they are computational functionalists. I think they would align with illusionists like Dennett, and in that way the Churchlands and Dennett's ideas are similar, but the Churchlands reject computational functionalism. They think of functionalism as trying to explain made-up words and concepts.
I agree that as science progresses, some (if not all) current theories may be proven wrong. But it also seems important to acknowledge that even silly ideas that turn out to be incorrect can sometimes lead to valuable insights (even if those insights are just what not to think).
Hmmm…. I guess it doesn’t exactly matter to me what the Churchlands call themselves, but rather what’s generally effective for people to call them. For example Donald Trump tells us that he was a great American president (😜).
To me there is only one alternative to a reality which functions perfectly on the basis of systemic causality. That would be a reality which does not perfectly do so, and whether by means of an outside god or whatever else. In the former, reality in full can be reduced to systemic causality. Thus it’s “reductionist” as I’m using the term. If their position doesn’t ultimately remain consistent with this stance regarding brain function or anything else, then I think they should be labeled the unnatural alternative. So when I classify them as “reductionists” in the end, I consider myself to be charitable to them, and even though I have no use for their “eliminativism” position regarding standard conceptions of consciousness. I consider standard conceptions of consciousness to be far more effective than not, and of course we know that the standard “consciousness” word will change right along with associated new discoveries of science. But perhaps I was wrong about them also being functional computationalists.
On alignment with Dennett, I guess you mean his disbelief that consciousness is “ineffable” and other ultimately supernatural ideas that they also reject, to then go further to supposedly all else. In any case I’m what might be referred to as a “super illusionist”. I don’t believe what Dennett didn’t believe, and I also don’t believe what he did believe, which is to say that consciousness exists by means of the right algorithms alone. I do believe that consciousness exists by means of the right algorithms, but that causality mandates that algorithms only exist when they animate an appropriate substrate. For example, a VHS tape should only be considered “algorithmic” in respect to something that’s able to read its code. Otherwise it should just be “causal stuff”.
Can silly ideas that turn out to be incorrect lead to valuable insights? They certainly can after being dismissed. And beforehand they can at least be fun to think about. I’d rather not be known as a person who stands in the way of people enjoying themselves thinking about strange possibilities. But I also believe that there are very real costs in the failure of the human to grasp it own nature. Hard science has made our species extremely powerful, though soft science hasn’t taught us much about ourselves and thus how to more effectively use that power. So for the most part I’d rather silly ideas regarding our nature generally be dismissed so that humanity might gain better understandings from which to deal with it’s various challenges. This is also why I consider the sensible things you’ve been saying here to be important.
Fascinating!
I find your concept of a "super illusionist" intriguing. I'm not sure I understood your point here, though. I'd be interested in hearing more about how you see consciousness arising from the interaction of algorithms and appropriate substrates. Does this touch on the idea that there is a relationship between information processing and physical reality?
Thanks Suzi. To me this is all pretty simple stuff though in that case I’m not entirely sure why academia in general would need “a nobody” like me to explain something so simple. I doubt that even John Searle ever grasped this well enough to truly hold Dennett’s feet to the fire. So maybe I’m wrong. In that case however then I look forward to someone correcting me.
My sense of illusionism is simply this — they take certain folk conceptions of consciousness which suggest that it’s supernatural, to then reply “I don’t believe in that sort of consciousness”. And fair dinkum, I also don’t believe in supernatural conceptions of consciousness. But here’s where I go on to expose them as effective supernaturalists. As I understand it people like Dennett actually do believe that consciousness exists by means of properly processed algorithms alone. Thus if the right marks on paper were processed into the right other marks on paper, theoretically something here would experience what you do when your thumb gets whacked. (The following would be a more full account: https://ericborg.org/2023/11/04/post-4-should-information-need-to-inform-in-order-to-exist-as-such/ )
My position is that here they misunderstand a certain element of the causal workings of computer function to thus leave them with a supernatural conception of consciousness. The misunderstanding would be neglecting to acknowledge that information can only exist as such in respect to it informing something appropriate. Yes a whacked thumb thus sends information to the brain about this event. Theoretically this information could also be described quite well through an involved set of marks on paper. Yes that whacked thumb information in the brain should be algorithmically processed into new information. And theoretically this new information could also be described quite well with more marks on paper. Here is where people like Dennett say that “thumb pain” must exist in either case. I say they’re wrong because in a causal world “information” will only exist as such to the extent that it goes on to inform something appropriate. So I say there’s still one more step to go. It would be difficult for them to concede this however since in that case human consciousness could never be uploaded to exist perpetually in cyberspace.
So what might processed brain information inform to exist as an experiencer of thumb pain? Or what would the right marks of paper need to inform to that same end? I hope you already know what my answer happens to be.
Thanks Eric!
I'm interested in your point about information needing to "inform something appropriate" to exist as such. Do you mean for information to have meaning, it needs to inform something? If so, this resonates strongly with the grounding problem - how abstract symbols or representations (like in a computer or the brain) can acquire meaning or relate to the real world. This often feels like the large elephant in the room that many theories of consciousness skirt around.
Yes Suzi, I do mean that. Your name in English letters means something to us, though doesn’t in letters that we aren’t familiar with. But by introducing the term “meaning”, let’s not devolve my thumb pain thought experiment merely to Searle’s Chinese room. That could let those who are aligned with Dennett also skirt around mine! There are several ways that I consider my own argument to be much tighter. It also specifically implicates its opposition for violating the tenants of causality given their distorted position on how information works.
Let’s say you have a stack of paper with marks on it which highly correlate with the information that your thumb once sent to your brain just after being whacked. My point is that this will only be potential information given that these marks on paper will not yet be informing anything appropriate. So it’s similar to a lone DVD. But just as a DVD can inform a DVD player, let’s scan that marked paper into a computer which algorithmically processes it to print out another stack of paper which has marks on it that highly correlate with the information that your brain had converted your whacked thumb information into. This is where the first stack of paper becomes informative since it helps create the second stack. This is also where those aligned with Dennett are forced to concede that something here must experience what you did when your thumb was whacked. They don’t tell us what would do this experiencing however, since they’ve got no clue. Then they tend to get frustrated and say things like “Thought experiments aren’t real experiments!”. I presume they won’t back down until scientists empirically demonstrate the wrongness of their position, and that could be problematic since it’s unfalsifiable.
The causal reason that converting the correct first set of marked paper into the correct second set of marked paper should not create something that experiences what you did when your thumb was whacked, is because that second set of paper would still only exist as potential information. Like a lone DVD it would only become actual information by informing something appropriate.
This raises the question of what processed brain information informs to exist as an experiencer of thumb pain? What would that hypothetical second stack of paper need to inform to also do so? Again, I hope you already know what my answer happens to be.
Here’s another another thought against the Churchland’s eliminativism. I see that the term “gravity” was used before Newton’s quite useful assessment of it. So before his discoveries it was “wrong”, and yet worked well enough to morph into a founding premise from which to build the modern science of physics. Furthermore Einstein then came along to refine the term once again. Thus it should have been useless to eject that specific term (as the Churchlands might have suggested), but rather we needed to discover how to effectively define “folk” conceptions of gravity. This is the ill that sufficiently distinguished intellectuals can inflict over the softest forms of science. They get people to believe all sorts of nonsense that takes attention away from the empirical testing of falsifiable propositions.
Hey Eric! I agree, most of the time there's value to be had in retaining and refining "folk" concepts rather than outright rejecting them. The trick, I guess, is figuring out when a theory has outlived its usefulness and when it still provides some value.
Gravity as understood before Newton -- actually before Einstein -- does not exist. The idea of an absolute inherent force has been falsified. It just does not exist. Like caloric or phlogiston. That does not mean that our earlier concepts were useless or, in an important sense, completely wrong. They described the world fairly well for the time so they mapped at least approximately to the real world.
So I don't see this as an argument against eliminativism. I do think it suggests that many "folk theories" may be partly eliminated but also party reduced. Which is why I'm attracted to revisionary materialism rather than full-blown eliminativism.
Hi Max. I was essentially pointing out the same thing that you just did, though with the theme being that the Churchlands have been wasting our time with an unproductive call to get rid of the term “consciousness”. Just as many notions of gravity clearly were wrong, the same is surely true for consciousness today. So let’s let scientists use empirical evidence to also help straighten out this term. And indeed, if we followed their advice to get rid of “consciousness”, I wonder what term or terms they’d suggest instead? What might such a substitution solve?
In any case it seems to me that lots of academics, such as them and Dennett, have become quite popular by talking about what consciousness isn’t rather than advertising what they actually do consider it to be. With his “Chinese room” John Searle tried to help display the funky implications of what many today believe. I don’t think his argument was simple enough however, or that he had a good enough grasp of how his opposition’s premise fails. As I mentioned to Suzi just above, I think that my thumb pain thought experiment ought to do a better job.
I don't recall Churchland saying we should get rid of the word "consciousness." I'm not saying he didn't but I don't remember that. He definitely did cast doubt on terms like "belief" and "desire".
If you don’t remember it then he probably didn’t. I guess that was just me trying to make sense of “elimativism” — as in maybe he was proposing that the “consciousness” term itself was wrong. Did he actually mean that he couldn’t do things like see, hear, think, and act (or “folk consciousness”), as well as doubted that any of us could either? That of course seems ridiculous. But if not that either, then what could he have actually meant?
What I’m driving at is that people in the softest forms of science today are able to become popular by saying all sorts of things that are presumed to be amazing, though when you dig down a bit, there’s no real substance. The only cure should be for these fields to actually harden up. Furthermore this should require a culture which isn’t afraid to do some digging and so reward good science for being good, while punishing bad science for being bad. And in truth I don’t mean to be pointing fingers at anyone like him specifically (and in this case I might very well be ill informed about what his actual position happens to be). But clearly something in these fields must change.
Another great breakdown of an otherwise complex topic.
But also: "Does the mind exist?"
What a silly question. If it didn't exist, why would I constantly hear "Sir, are you out of your freaking mind?" and "The dude's lost his damn mind!" wherever I go?
Checkmate, Paul!
Excellent point! Who needs fancy philosophers?
We also hear that the sun is rising and setting. Does that show that the heliocentric view is wrong and that the ancient geocentric view was correct?
Thank you, Suzi. Great article. I wonder what you think of this analogy.
Premise 1: Our everyday, common-sense framework of cooking is a theory (I call it folk chemistry).
Premise 2: Folk chemistry is a bad theory.
Because folk chemistry is fundamentally wrong, it should be replaced by a better theory.
The cooking theory seems to explain why the whites of my eggs go solid when I fry them while the yolks stay runny. But cooking theory does not adequately explain and predict when the yolks will stay runny. It offers no coherent explanation for why my bacon and egg sandwich is delicious.
Cooks from ages past had odd ideas about how to cook octopus stew that we have long since discarded now that we have sous vide. We should discard all of cookery until we have a more complete theory.
Or…
Cookery just provides a different view on the same topic as chemistry. They are both useful and accurate but provide different levels of abstraction. Cookery is not a complete theory — it has nothing to say about DDT or the manufacture of polystyrene — but in the domains where it works, it works very well and is very useful. More useful than chemistry.
It can be useful to have different theories that approach the same problem from different directions. Perhaps functionalism and identity theory and psychology all have useful things to say about how the minds works. Why can’t they all be correct as far as they go? Why does philosophy seem to insist that The One True Theory should eliminate all the others?
It really does make sense to talk at different levels of abstraction, doesn't it!? I want to be able to say this apple tastes sour without having to say... the malic and tartaric acids in this apple is interacting with our taste buds, triggering a response in my nervous system. That's just too many unnecessary words!
I agree! Having different theories on the same topic can be very useful. When we want to talk about water in our everyday context, discussing its wetness makes much more sense than talking about hydrogen and oxygen.
But I do think there might be room to eliminate terms that are 'made-up' words. When we realised that 'animal spirits' don't actually move humours in the pineal gland, we stopped using that term. And if we find out other things don't really correspond to real, distinct phenomena, we might want to reconsider their use. Without the benefit of hindsight, it's difficult to know what those things might be, but it's worth being open to revising our vocabulary as our understanding evolves.
I like your approach with philosophical theories -- finding the useful parts in theories is something I like to do too. I think many of the theories make some good points. The difficulty arises when those theories contradict each other. Then we're faced with the challenge of reconciling these contradictions or determining which view more accurately reflects reality.
I'm totally with you on discarding the bits that turned out to be wrong or useless or better explained by a simpler theory.
I love all your articles that I have read so far, Suzi. I'm currently going back through the philosophy of mind and learning a lot. Thank you!
Thanks so much! I so happy you are finding them helpful :)
I just discovered your blog and I love it! I studied philosophy of mind back in the 1980s and 90s, and even interviewed Paul Churchland for Wired. I was and am attracted to Churchland's ideas including eliminative materialism. However, I probably end up at a place you mention: "Our future understanding of mental states might involve some elimination but also some reduction." That is what Churchland calls "revisionary materialism."
I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Hi Max! Thank you, I'm glad you're here.
Wow! You interviewed Paul!? What an amazing experience that would have been.
Yes, it was wonderful. Really nice guy. I drove down from LA to La Jolla after he graciously agreed to the interview. I don't remember my original title but it was published as: “Thinking About Thinking.” Wired, November 1996. Page 252 (!) here: https://archive.org/details/wired-magazine-04.12-1996-december/page/n17/mode/2up
What a great read. It's amazing that an interview from 1996 is still so highly relevant today -- Thanks for sharing, I really enjoyed it.
Hi Suzi,
An excellent intro on eliminative materialism!
David Chalmers, in his book Reality+, notes that we have a number of options when dealing with any discrepancies between the manifest image (in this case folk psychology) and the scientific image.
1. elimination of the manifest concept
2. identification of it with a scientific one, or some combination of scientific ones
3. autonomy, just accept we can't relate them, but keep the manifest one anyway
4. reconstruction of the manifest image to be more compatible with the scientific one
There is no one size fits all answer. For any specific case, it's a judgment call which one makes sense. We did 1 for the humors and animal spirits you mentioned. We also did it in the shift from medieval cosmology to a Newtonian one for the celestial spheres. But in that same shift, we did 4 for planets and stars, retaining the name for phenomena, but with a very different understanding from the pre-Copernican one.
Which one is the right strategy for mental concepts? It's hard to imagine beliefs and desires not remaining useful in day to day language, but not particularly hard for me to imagine them getting reconstructed someday into something more attuned to what science is discovering. I think it really depends on how rigid we're going to be with these concepts, how much we're willing to adjust our assumptions about them to retain them.
My personal inclination is to push 2 and 4 as far as we can before resorting to 1. But if I had to make a bet, it will probably be a mix, just as it was for cosmology.
Hi Mike!
Wow, I love how you've broken this down using Chalmers' framework. It's such a clear way to think about how we reconcile our everyday understanding with scientific discoveries.
I like the no one-size-fits-all approach. The examples you've given -- humours, animal spirits, and the shift in cosmology -- really illustrate how we've used different strategies in different contexts.
I agree it's hard to imagine completely eliminating all beliefs and desires from our everyday language. But I do get the sense that some words are already on the way out. There's probably a good case for eliminating willpower, for example. I think we're learning enough about how motivation and self-control work to understand that there probably isn't anything like willpower that actually exists. It can be better explained by a combination of elements that include environmental factors, genetics, and the interaction between cognitive control networks and reward systems in the brain.
But then I think... you're probably right. Your bet on a mix of approaches for mental concepts seems likely. Just as the concept of a planet has evolved but not disappeared, perhaps our understanding of willpower will shift dramatically so the word remains useful but it just means something different.
Thanks Suzi!
Good point about "willpower". One thing I've found interesting when wondering if a term will endure, is looking at it in Google's Ngram viewer. Words that have been around for a long time might have an everyday utility that will enable them to endure, even as science shows that the underlying reality is different. In the case of "willpower" It shows that it's been around for a long time, but it's use spiked starting in the 1960s, indicating our current usage may not be that embedded.
Of course, you never know how language is going to evolve. I sometimes read old science fiction stories and it's always interesting to see how the meaning of words has shifted over the decades. For example, pre-WWII writers often used "plate" to refer to what we know as a monitor screen today.
That's so interesting! I see plate 'peaks' at the turn of the century and then drops off in the 60s, which fits with the change in usage.
The words 'language' and 'books' is interesting to plot together -- it's almost as if there's an inverse relationship. I wonder if there's a reason for that?
Thanks for the reminder about Google's Ngram viewer -- what a fun way to procrastinate!
It is a lot of fun. Sorry for giving you a new time sink. :-)