One big problem, as I mentioned here, and elsewhere, with ID as a hypothesis is that it is predicated on the idea that mind is “immaterial” (or at least “non-materialistic”) yet can have an effect on matter. That’s the basis of Beauregard and O’Leary’s book “The Spiritual Brain”, as well as of a number of theories of consciousness and/or free will. And, if true, it makes some kind of sense of ID – if by “intelligence” we mean a “mind” (as opposed to, say, an algorithm, and we have many that can produce output from input that is far beyond anything human beings can manage unaided, and can in some sense be said to be “intelligence”), we are also implicitly talking about something that intends an outcome. Which is why I’ve always thought that ID would make more sense if the I stood for “Intentional” rather than “Intelligence”, but for some reason Dembski thinks that “intention”, together with ethics, aesthetics and the identity of the designer, “are not questions of science”.
I would argue that intention is most definitely a “question of science”, but that’s not my primary point here.
What I’d like to do instead is to unpack the hypothesis (and it’s a perfectly legitimate hypothesis) that there is something that we term “mind”, and which is “immaterial” in the sense that it has no mass, and does not exert a detectable force, but which nonetheless exerts an influence on events.
Beauregard and O’Leary cite Henry Stapp, and say:
According to the model created by H. Stapp and J.M.Schwartz, which is based on the Von Neumann interpretation of quantum physics, conscious effort causes a pattern o neural activity that become a template for action. But the process is not mechanical or material. There are no little cogs and wheels in our brains. There is a series of possibilities; a decision causes a quantum collapse, in which one of them becomes a reality. The cause is the mental focus, in the same way that the cause of the quantum Zeno effect is the physicists continued observation. It is a cause, but not a mechanical or material one. One truly profound change that quantum physics has made is to verify the existence of nonmechanical causes. One of these is the activity of the human mind, which, as we will see, is not identical to the functions of the brain.
Well there is certainly some important unpacking to do here before we go any further. Beauregard and O’Leary appear to be saying that quantum effects are neither “mechanical [n]or material”. OK. In that case, I do not know of a single “materialist”! Nobody I know would claim that quantum effects do not exist. In which case, none of us are “materialists” and Beauregard and O’Leary have a straw man. I would also buy the idea that the brain itself is non-deterministic in a quantum sense – that what we do is not merely direct result of matter put into motion at the beginning of existence, but also fundamentally uncertain.
So I think that Beauregard and O’Leary have drawn their desired line in a very odd place. The difference between the people they dismiss as “materialists” and themselves is not that we “materialists” don’t think that quantum effects exist or are perfectly real. It’s between people who don’t think that these quantum effects have anything to do with intentional behaviour, and people who think that it’s where the leeway for “free” intentional behaviour resides. They go on to say (h/t to William for doing the typing):
In the interpretation of quantum physics created by physicist John Von Neumann (1903-1957), a particle only probably exists in one position or another; these probable positions are said to be “superposed” on each other. Measurement causes a “quantum collapse”, meaning that the experimenter has chosen a position for the particle, thus ruling out the other positions. The Stapp and Schwartz model posits that this is analogous to the way in which attending to (measuring) a thought holds it in place, collapsing the probabilities on one position. This targeted attention strategy, which is used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorders, provides a model for how free will might work in a quantum system. The model assumes the existence of a mind that chooses the subject of attention, just as the quantum collapse assumes the existence of an experimenter who chooses the point of measurement.
Firstly, I find the idea that because doing something intentionally (focusing attention, for instance) has neural correlates demonstrates that intention, and thus mind, has physical effects extraordinarily naive (and their claim that it was not until the nineties that neuroscientists considered that thought could affect brain structure even odder, given that Hebb, their own countryman, died in 1985, is regarded as the “father of neuroscience” and is most famous for “Hebb’s rule” that “what fires together wires together”, and that “Hebbian learning” is fundamental to the notion of neural plasticity). But more to the point, is there any basis for concluding that something that we call an immaterial, non-mechanical but somehow quantum-real mind can “hold” brain patterns “in place” and thus affect the motor output, i.e. the act that implements the final decision?
One source cited is a paper by Schwartz, Stapp and Beauregard, which goes into some detail. There is an interesting critique by Danko Georgiev of the Stapp model here, and a reply by Stapp here (link is to a Word document with tracked changes still turned on!). So I’d be interested to know what the physicists here make of the physics.
But my problem with the argument is more fundamental, and relates to the concept of intention itself. I’m going to define “intention” in the plain-English sense of meaning “a goal that a person has in mind, and acts to try to bring about”. And I will use “quantum mind” to denote the putative non-material, non-mechanical but capable-of-inducing-effects mind apparently postulated by Beauregard and colleagues.
If a person has such a mind, then her intention, according to my definition, resides within it it. Which is fine. And her capacity to act to bring about the intended goal has something to do with the muscles she possesses, and the relationship between her mind and those muscles, which presumably goes via the brain. And let’s suppose that this quantum mind brings about changes in brain state that can “hold in place” a particular neural pattern of firing, possibly until it reaches execution threshold, and outflow to the muscles begins.
This is actually quite a good model of decision-making, and something that my own research deals with specifically – how do we inhibit a response to a stimulus that requires one until we are sure that our response is going to be the appropriate one?
The problem it seems to me is when we try to address the question: how is that goal selected? For example, in many circumstances, the proximal goal (find a pencil) subserves a more distal goal (write down your phone number) which in turn serves an even more distal goal (so that I can call you back when I’ve found the answer to your question) and so on (so that I can help you solve your problem; so that I can feel good about myself; so that I can check “problem solved” on my worksheet; so that you feel good about yourself; so that your children will be able to get home from school; etc). And all these goals require information. Depending on the information, the goals may be different, and in the light of new information, goals may change. In other words, to form an intention, the quantum mind needs a goal, and to form a goal, it needs information.
Where does it get that information? One possibility is the sensory system. In fact it’s hard to know where the information can come from otherwise. In order to solve your problem I have to know what it is, and in order to prioritise my goals I have to know more about your problem. That means I have to listen to what you are saying, and my brain has to react to the vibrations that arrive at my eardrum.
And that information has to get to the quantum mind. What the quantum mind decides must therefore be, in part, an output from the input of my body and brain.
So my very simple question to Beauregard, Stapp, Schwartz, O’Leary et al, is: in what sense is your postulated quantum mind anything more than part of the process by which as a person (an organism) I respond to incoming information with goal-appropriate actions? If the quantum mind is adding something extra to the process, on what basis is it doing so? If on the basis of incoming information, why is it not a result of that input? If on the basis on no information, in what sense are the decisions it makes anything more than a coin toss?
And, to IDers generally: if a divine mind can alter the configuration of a DNA molecule by means of somehow selecting from quantum probabilities those most likely to bring about some goal formed on the basis of information to which we are not privy, how could we tell that the resulting DNA molecule is the result of anything other than probabilities that are perfectly calculable using quantum physics? And if those molecules violate those probabilities – DNA molecules suddenly start to form themselves consistently into configurations highly improbable under the laws of quantum mechanics – on what basis would we invoke quantum mechanics, or even a quantum mind, to “explain” it?
I don’t think you can use “quantum” as an alibi for “anything improbable that we can’t explain”. If Divine intention is smuggled in under the guise of quantum indeterminacy, then how could we detect it? And if your inference is that Cambrian animals must have been intended because they are otherwise unlikely, how do you explain that in terms of quantum mechanics? And if quantum mechanics won’t do the job, we are back to square one:
How does mind move matter?
Indeed! How do we know what we know? What way of gathering information about the World do we have, other than via our sensory inputs?
No, but they could reasonably use it as an explanation for “anything that, to a virtual certainty, requires intention to generate, but for which there is no apparent physical apparatus capable of so doing”. There could be an infinite number of things that we cannot explain, and only a tiny fraction of them might resoundingly appear to require intention to generate.
You might be able to test the biological power of intention at a distance this way: set up an experiment where you put different sets of scientists in charge of what they think are sound experiments concerning adaptions of bacteria in certain environments. Two set of scientists in different labs in the study believe they are, say, depriving bacteria of a food source and providing them with an alternate food source that there will have to be an adaptive change in order to utilize. However, unknown to one set, the bacteria environment doesn’t actually change – they are not actually deprived of their normal source of nourishment, nor is any new source introduced.
The experiment is set up in a way that those who are setting up the entire experiment do not themselves know which lab is actually depriving the bacteria and introducing a new, potential source of nourishment, but the know that one is, and one isn’t.
If the bacteria in both labs develop the same adaption, the answer might be that the expectations (intent) of those conducting the experiment is what caused the biological adaption by collapsing (at a distance) the necessary superpositions of atomic particles to arrange certain molecular results.
Dr. Julie Beischel and Dr. Gary E Shwartz have actually done some of this same kind of intentionality research in their mediumship experiments after they discovered that researchers with different expectations came up with different outcomes even though they followed the exact same double-blind protocols and used the same test subjects.
Well, first of all, if we use Meyer’s argument, we don’t know that anything “resoundingly appear[s] to require intention to generate” because we have no precendent for any intending agent doing anything absent the interface of a brain and body, and we have no evidence for either in this case. I guess you could say: this looks intended, but we don’t have any trace of an intender, so it must have been effected via some quantum mechanism we don’t understand.
But that’s just back to using quantum as an alibi for having no other link between intention and action. There’s nothing in quantum mechanics that I am aware of that would even start to explain how a DNA sequence could rearrange itself to produce an intended result, even if we accepted that intentional agents could operate via quantum effects. Stapp at least postulates the brain as an interface, but here we have no trace even of a brain.
Well, congratulations, William! Why don’t you suggest it to the DI? It’s a genuinely interesting experiment.
Do you have a citation?
WJM may have accidentally stumbled upon the IDiots’ next hand-wave, er, “scientific” explanation: Quantum Woo! I await Meyer’s next book How The Designer Moves Stuff co-written by Uri Geller.
Sounds like a perfect task for Axe and Gauger at the DI’s “Design” lab. Why don’t you forward your suggestion to them? Maybe they’ll list you as a contributing author when they publish.
How? Citation please. I found a few papers by them but nothing relevant to the experiment you’re suggesting.
Or, you could say, this looks intended, but we don’t have any trace of a physical intender, nor any expectation that one was present in this situation, so an appropriate course of action is to rule out currently known non-intentional causations (to the best of our ability) and then develop experiments to see if (1) intentionality can exist outside of a physical medium, and (2) if intentionality can effect quantum changes at a distance, and (3) if intentionality can effect quantum changes at a distance of the sort that support the hypothesis that the phenomena in question could have been caused by intentionality ordering changes at the quantum level from a distance.
The question seems to be, how does the unknown affect the known?
The only possible answer is, it is unknown how the unknown affects the known.
Given that, however, how do you know that the unknown exists? Obviously, I don’t mean how do you know that there are unknowns, which can be inferred from inadequate explanation, but how do you know that some specific unknown (like the mysterious mind that is not brain or its workings) exists? You don’t.
There just doesn’t seem to be much point in discussing how a “miraculous” non-physical mind would produce effects when we know nothing about this mind. In unknown ways, ok? Without further knowledge, that’s as good or bad as supposing that there is mind beyond brain in the first place, or a Designer whose intentions and actions are unknowns.
Glen Davidson
OK found it, I think.
That is a truly dreadful paper. It is absolutely full of holes. And I have to say, that every single paper I have read on psi effects has been comparably bad. If psi effects are real, then they should be dead easy to find. In this study, for some reason they chose only 8 “sitters” (people with deceased relatives), even though they screened 1600 potentials. They say that participants were chosen on the basis of their beliefs about the afterlife, without saying what criteria were applied.
They then, either by design or by accident, found that four of the “discarnates” (dead relatives” were parents and four peers. They then paired the sitters so that there was a dead parent and a dead peer for each pair.
In other words a big age difference. That ensured that any difference between the readings would tend to match either very well or badly.
Then they told the mediums the first name of the discarnate.. So you have massive leakage of blindness right there. Names are hugely correlated with generation.
And although 8 mediums only did two readings each (16 readings in total) the authors don’t report the raw data, even though the results for each reading would easily fit in a single table.
They then perform a t test on the continuous scoring of the readings, which is invalid, because of halo effects. Once you have decided that one reading is right and the other wrong, then your scoring of the one that you think is right will tend to be inflated, and the other downgrading. It would have been better if they’d had the option of “neither”, but that wouldn’t really rescue the study. They claim “dramatic” effects for three mediums but do not say what they were. If the participants were, as implied, chosen for their prior belief in an afterlife and in mediumship, again, confirmation bias is a major problem.
The only valid statistical test therefore is their binomial test on the students’ choice of reading (whether they chose the reading intended for them or not intended). They report 81% correct. This is moderately impressive if we assume that the mediums had no other information about the “discarnate” other than their first name. It is not clear whether the mediums also knew that half the discarnates were peers and half parents (why was this not reported? It is a very important piece of piece of information).
However, we know that the mediums knew the first names of each discarnate. Let’s suppose that the discarnate pairs were:
Linda and Megan
Donna and Brittany
Kevin and Zachary
Brian and Justin
And the mediums knew that of each pair, one was a parent and one was a peer.
How likely is it that the mediums, under the null hypothesis, will tend to pick Linda, Donna, Kevin and Brian as the parents, and Megan, Brittany, Zachary and Justin as the peers? And compose readings (even subconsciously) that reflect their assumed generation?
And how likely is it then that the sitters will be able to pick the right reading, given that one is for a person who died young and one for a person who died old?
81% seems quite consistent with that null, to me.
This is why psi research has such a bad name. There’s no reason not to do it right, except that when people do it right, they tend not to find effects.
And then we “materialists” are accused of a priori bias.
I don’t think so.
OK, so how are you going to operationalise “intentionality” in such experiments without circularity?
I agree that your proposal to have people allocated evolution experiments to see whether by exerting some intention over the experiments they can increase the rate of adaptation, say, has some merit, but the details need a bit of thinking out.
I couldn’t locate those particular papers by Beischel & Schwartz – I may have been mistaken about the author. Beischel & Scwartz have published a fairly large body of work derived from their mediumship and afterlife research.
Here is the citation for the work on experimenter effects in such research:
Boccuzzi, M. (2011, June). Three methods for examining experimenter effects in investigations of psychokinesis. 30th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, Boulder, Colorado.
Looking into this, something I found interesting is that outside of psi research, very little mainstream science is conducted using blind protocols, much less double-blind or triple-blind protocols (which Beischel & Schwartz use). I ran across a 1998 article by Sheldrake ( Experimenter Effects – Could Experimenter Effects Occur in the Physical and Biological Sciences? by Rupert Sheldrake The Skeptical Inquirer, May/June 1998) that says:
I imagine that if blind, double-blind and triple blind methodologies were used in some experiments involving adaptions and DNA mutations, one could not only determine if there was bias involved in reaching the conclusions, but also if the expectations of the experimenters themselves could be having a more direct, physical effect on the results, perhaps via quantum collapse effects.
Also interesting to note how materialist ideological commitments have influenced how the bulk of physical science research is conducted, as the only area where blind, double-blind and triple-blind protocols are stringently employed is that which doesn’t assume a materialist perspective – psi research. This leaves the physical science far more open to psychologically biased results as well as results that may be entirely skewed simply because their conceptualization of reality may simply be wrong, and even worse, their experimental model may only exacerbate the problem.
IF experimenter expectation actually can collapse quantum indeterminate phenomena along the lines of their expectations, can you imagine the problems this would create, and how current research protocols would be entirely unfit to correctly interpret experimental results that do not even have the humility to employ blind and double-blind methodologies?
Although I have to say, that the Uri Geller stuff isn’t my main point.
I’d be quite happy to accept, in principle, if there was any decent evidence, that people could move stuff with their minds alone.
The much more serious problem facing the immaterial mind/libertarian free will people is that if the decision is made in the absence of information then it is hard to call it a decision – you might as well toss a coin. And if it is made by virtue of information, then it is being influenced by that information and isn’t either free, or the prime mover.
Liz,
The question isn’t if any particular paper or research convinces you, or is in itself good science, but rather if there could be a good means by which to test whether or not intentionality alone can at a distance affect biological phenomena; and if there is a means by which one can research whether or not discarnate mind/intentionality is possible or supported by evidence.
There is much more research than just that conducted by Beischel and Scwartz that supports the latter – but once again, IMO, nobody can be convinced by anything. They must choose what to believe. I’m only pointing at materials that others, if interested, can look into. I’m not going to, and am not trained to, debate the merits of those scientists or their research and conclusions.
You asked how mind could move matter – I’ve given what I think is a reasonable hypothesis. You asked how such a claim could be tested or evaluated – I’ve offered what I think is a reasonable framework to test that hypothesis.
It is only possible “to test whether or not intentionality alone can at a distance affect biological phenomena” if you can operationalise, and devise a measure for, “intentionality”. If you can do that, it’s possible. If you can’t, you are rather stuck.
I profoundly disagree. Or rather, we can choose what we think is most likely on the basis of evidence, holding our conclusions provisionally, and altering them if we encounter infirming evidence. If you call that “choosing what to believe” then fine – but my choice will be provisional and based on evidence. If you don’t produce evidence, I am unlike to be convinced that your conclusion has merit. If you do, I may be.
And that is extremely clear. I commend your honest. What often makes me gasp is your blanket denigrations of views or conclusions that you don’t share, as being unreasonable or even dishonest. If you don’t understand the nature of scientific conclusions and inference, fine. Lots of people don’t. But that doesn’t put you in a position to critique them, which you frequently do.
It’s a framework, I agree. What would be your response if the evidence was negative? i.e. no effect of intentionality?
I’d like a physicist to weigh in here, but it has been my understanding that the reason we see observer effects in physics, is that we cannot observe sub-atomic events without affecting the events themselves.
In other words, concluding the observer effects are a bit like the observer effect we get when we observe that people in night-time photographs all have red eyes. The observation process interacts with the observed.
Then there’s also the fact that some phenomena, waves for example, can’t be precisely defined in both the relevant dimensions: we can know the frequency of an oscillation very precisely if we don’t care about when it oscillated; or we can know the time it oscillated very precisely if we don’t care about the frequency at which it did so. But we can’t know both. This just falls out of the math of oscillations and has nothing to do with the effect of the knower on the knowable.
So I’m not yet convinced that this observer business has much to do with minds anyway. But I’m more than happy to be corrected.
On interpretation of quantum effects is that all possible things do in fact happen, but one observer can only follow one path. But again, that wouldn’t be an effect of the observer on reality, but merely the fallout from the fact that as observers we can only recreate a single past, no matter how many possible futures we have.
In effect tests for telekinesis – the mind causing the intentional manipulation of matter – have been going on at gambling casinos all over the world for hundreds of years. Virtually every person who has ever bet on a roulette wheel or craps table has intended for his chosen numbers to come up. Yet with all those *billions* of samples the outcomes of the wagers have always shown the exact distributions predicted by normal probability theory.
Telekinesis, Psi powers, and all of the other paranormal woo are non-starters for ID unless they can demonstrate them in a controlled environment and show statistically significant outcomes better than random chance.
I mentioned this on the ”Meyer’s Money Shot” thread, but I will move the calculation here for convenience.
In order for quantum mechanical effects to be manifested at a temperature range of something like 288K to 313 K, there has to be some form of quantum coherence that will “phase lock” the wave functions of thousands to millions of particles. And that means that such a system will be in what is referred to as a “Bose condensation state” of particles for which there is a single wave function describing the entire collective behavior.
We have a number of examples of such systems. Superconductors consist of Bose condensations of pairs of electrons whose motions are correlated by interactions with phonons. Those pairs – consisting of two electrons with anti-parallel spins that result in Bose particles called Cooper pairs – condense into a coherent state in which they move through the lattice with no resistance.
Another example is super fluid liquid helium 4 that condenses into a coherent state that flows without resistance. There are still other examples of Bose condensates of atoms contained within an “electromagnetic bottle” formed by several intersecting laser beams.
No matter which system we look at in which quantum effects are manifested, the temperatures are very low; below liquid nitrogen temperatures of 77 K. Thermal motion increases the momentum of the moving particles thereby reducing their deBroglie wavelength. If the temperature gets too high, those waves no longer add coherently over distances beyond a few thousandths of an angstrom, and there is no chance for such Bose condensations to occur.
Besides, the particles must obey Bose statistics in order for any such condensation to even be possible at low temperatures. Electrons and protons obey Fermi-Dirac statistics, unless there is a mechanism that pairs them off with anti-parallel spins.
So the bottom line in all this is that quantum mechanical effects are not significant in the behaviors of atoms and molecules in the nervous systems of living organisms, except in the bonds between particles themselves. Everything can be described with classical physics and a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of particle states.
But this is not to say that classical systems don’t behave as a superposition of states. These are extremely common. The tones of musical instruments consist of a superposition of frequencies that identify the particular qualities (timbre) of the instrument. The mathematics for handling this happens to be the same as the mathematics used for the wave functions of the Schrödinger equation. That mathematics is called Fourier analysis.
The states of the brain very likely consist of hundreds of feedback loops and overlapping states that could, in principle, be broken down into some sort of superposition of states much like what is described in quantum mechanics or in the Fourier analysis of musical waveforms and the vibration states of oscillating systems.
But it is extremely unlikely that quantum mechanics is a significant contributor to the behavior of nervous systems at room temperature. As we already know from the phenomena of hypothermia and hyperthermia, nervous systems don’t work outside a very narrow temperature range. That in itself makes quantum mechanical effects very unlikely.
We can already measure forces at the nanometer scale of the cell using atomic force microscopy; and those are in the range of piconewtons. An energy gradient of 0.01 eV over a range of a nanometer is a little over a piconewton. Supernatural effects cannot escape detection here. Besides, Helmholtz already demonstrated back in the late 19th century that living organisms obey the conservation of energy.
Incidentally, Henry P. Stapp’s book Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics (1993) could easily be understood as a classical analogy to quantum mechanics. These early ideas about the brain came out before more recent studies with non-destructive probes of brain activity – such as with fNMR – became available. The only quantum mechanics involved in fNMR has to do with getting a handle on the spins of protons; and that means immersing them in very strong magnetic fields.
Thanks Mike.
And of course when we use electrophysiological measures, like EEG and MEG, we do exactly as you suggest – break down the oscillatory signal using fourier analysis, and construct time frequency plots of the evolution of frequency amplitude (and phase) over, say, the time that elapses following a stimulus. One of our own recent papers does just this, and I’m working on another right now.
I’d recommend Sean Carrolls intro to quantum mechanics for anyone who thinks QM helps with free will or how minds relate to brains (and thereby the world).
He explains why an observation does not require a conscious observer. He also explains what an observation is, at least under the Copenhagen interpretation that the authors quoted in your original post seems to be using. It is related to the irreversibility of the quantum collapse (he also discusses his problems with this interpretation of QM).
He explains the concept of decoherence which spreads an entangled state into the environment, so no experiment will show interference unless it involves every component of the environment which has become part of that entanglement (such an experiment is usually impossible). In material I’ve seen, quantum entanglement effects in the brain are often discounted because of decoherence.
My understanding is the the uncertainty principle is precisely that: a mathematical consequence of the (Schrodinger) wave function that is the basic description of reality according to QM. From the article:
Thanks!
Exactly. I get that. Just as when I choose my Morlet I can prioritise frequency precision or time precision, but the more precise I want the frequency the less precise I get the time.
Which is a real bugger when it comes to trying to figure out the time course of delta waves.
Or, for that matter, when you are trying to tune a double bass.
Whether there are empirically detectable quantum-mechanical effects in brains is one question; whether those effects tell us anything at all about “mental” phenomena is another. (Although whether the effects are empirically detectable depends on the level of technology.)
For one thing, it is completely unclear to me why we would expect an understanding of mental phenomena to be explained at the level of quantum mechanics. It seems to me like saying that a cathedral is beautiful because each stone contains ____ amount of beauty.
For another, the whole enterprise looks like a “fallacy of metonymy” — trying to explain why a system has the properties that it does by ascribing those properties to a part of the system. To avoid that fallacy is to refrain from ascribing mental properties (such as consciousness and intentionality) to the brain, insofar as the brain is just a part of the organism which is the bearer of those properties.
This is a fairly important point. It is not just the brain; it is the entire organism that is involved.
There is even a hint of what is involved from observing the effects of sensory deprivation. Sensory deprivation leads to hallucinating. Synchronization of neural activity with an external environment requires sensory input.
Even under very low levels of sensory deprivation, the inherent thermal noise in a system can lead to the brain imposing “meaning” in the form of voices, images, and touch sensations onto the baseline limits to sensation.
The recognition of the stochastic enhancement of sensitivity – whereby one introduces a small amount of white noise into a sensory system in order to enhance its response to low level signals – is an indication of the fact that much of the activity of the brain is influenced by whole-body sensory input.
Yes — it’s not even “just the organism”, but the whole organism-environment system which causally influences neuronal activity, and mental properties need to be causally explained in terms of the brain-organism-environment system. There’s a huge amount of work in this in philosophy of mind/neuroscience.
The only work in this area with which I am personally acquainted is Teed Rockwell’s excellent Neither Brain Nor Ghost: A Non-Dualist Alternative to the Brain-Mind Identity Theory, but there’s a whole ‘school’ called “4E cognition” (cognition as extended, embedded, embodied, and enacted).
Exactly.
At least if you mean what I think you mean. Repeatedly I read people accuse “materialists” (whatever that means which is unclear if “materialists” are supposed to not “believe” in quantum mechanics) of saying that mind does not exist, or is a “delusion” or an “illusion”.
It seems to me that they are making just that fallacy in a sort of reverse – claiming that because there is no part of the organism that has the property of the whole, then the property of the whole must reside somewhere other than in the organism.
I don’t think that mind, or consciousness is an “illusion” or a “delusion” any more than pain is an “illusion” or a “delusion” even if it comes from a phantom limb. We make models of ourselves just as we make models of the world outside our selves. Those models are mostly neither illusions nor delusions, although when they are maladaptive or misleading we may give them one of those names. And when people make a model of their own agency in which they ascribe control to some alien being outside themselves we do call that a delusion. A far more better model (makes better predictions; contributes to physical health and wellbeing) is to ascribe control to what we label as the self – ourselves as organisms. That is no more an illusion or a delusion than ascribing the cause of a road blockage to a landslide, or an explosion to a meteor. We regularly locate causes to relatively local events and phenomena, and do not feel it is “illusory” not to specify the trajectory of the meteor, its origin, whatever, right back to Big Bang.
And in the case of mobile organisms with brains we have better reason than ever to ascribe agency to other organisms and ourselves because such organisms, and humans especially, have this extraordinary capacity to envisage alternative futures and act in such a way as to maximise the chance of bringing about one future rather than another.
The fact that we know something about how that capacity works doesn’t make us any less agents of our own acts. It just means that we have, sensibly, attributed the locus of control to the decider, rather than to the events that contribute to that decision.
Lizzie,
There’s a very subtle difference between attributing and recognizing here, depending on whether one’s temperament runs towards instrumentalism or realism. I’d be happier saying that we’re pretty good at recognizing agency in ourselves and in others, and modelling causally explains our ability to recognize it.
OK! I’m nor sure I get the subtlety, but I’m happy with your wording.
I guess where I’m coming from is the idea that our only access to reality is via the models we make. And the model ourselves and others as volitional agents is an extremely good one. It works predictively as well as normatively. And because it works predictively, it’s as real/true as any other good predictive model of the world and the objects within it.
So saying that “materialists” don’t “really” believe in mind, is absurd. I do. Mind is a very good model, as is the self. At least as good as “the brain” which isn’t all that good a model in some ways, as brain function is highly dependent on other organs, and its boundaries are rather fuzzier, than, say, the boundaries of the organism.
You have me confused with someone else. I do not critique anyone’s science; I criticize their logic. I do not have to be proficient in science to recognize blatant failures of logic in an argument.
Why would I have a response? What difference does it make to me?
People frequently gasp when you try and do that too.
WJM:
You should fit right in here at TSZ.
Elizabeth Liddle:
What is “mind” a model of, and what is “the self” a model of, and where are these models constructed, and how can we test your claims empirically?
And how did you determine that “mind” is a “very good” model?
The rest of us critiqued Meyer’s “science”, the same garbage he’s presented in Darwin’s Doubt, Darwin’s Dilemma, Signature In The Cell and elsewhere. Problem is the self proclaimed Lover of Truth flat out refuses to discuss any of the many salient points raised. It’s obvious even the Truth Lover can’t defend the indefensible.
Alan Fox:
Epistemology.
Epistemology.
But that’s philosophy, and we all know what you think about philosophy, right Alan?
“I make no secret of the fact that I think philosophy is bunk. I just can’t take it seriously.” – Alan Fox
No reason to start now Alan. But don’t ask philosophical questions and not expect to receive philosophical answers.
Alan Fox:
Well gee, Alan, that’s squarely in the field of philosophy, which you think is bunk.
Alan Fox:
Your own philosophical answer to a philosophical question, disguised as a question.
Alan Fox:
Who is this “we” you speak of and how do “you” have access to “our” sensory inputs?
Skeptical much?
thorton:
So I guess Kenneth Miller is now squarely in the IDiot camp, according to thorton.
Has he been notified?
Glen Davidson:
The correct answer is, “what do we call it,” whatever “it” is? Let’s call them “factors” or “genes” or call it “gravity.”
thorton:
Did you use “our” sensory inputs?
I suppose you’ve read as many of Miller’s books against ID as you’ve read of Meyer’s books for ID. I’ll give you one guess as to which of the two resorts to “quantum woo,” as you call it.
You “skeptics” crack me up, you really do. One implies that the only source of knowledge is sensory input, and the next says I am making false statements, and the third puts it all down to “model making.” I have a bullshit detector and it’s going off.
Make up your models. Use your models of your self’s if you have them.
Elizabeth Liddle:
How are you going to operationalise “model making” of “mind” and “the self” without reference to intentionality and without circularity?
You believe in mind. Sure you do. You believe in mind as model. You believe with your mind. You believe as a matter of intent. What do you “believe” with, and “how and why” do you believe?
Define your terms, operationalize them, and subject them to empirical testing.
thorton,
You have or have not read Miller. Easy enough for you to say. Let me narrow it down for you. You’ve read Finding Darwin’s God or you have not read it.
If you haven’t read it, then you’re hardly qualified to say whether Miller resorts to “quantum woo” (as you call it) or not. And lacking that qualification, your claim that I’m lying is just so much ignorant posturing.
You’re a true skeptic. Lizzie would be proud.
thorton,
Guano.
Elizabeth Liddle:
Well, that certainly sets you apart from Alan Fox, who appears to believe that our only access to reality is “via our sensory inputs.” Hardly a coherent idea.
At least you both appear to believe that “reality” is something that exists objectively apart from “our” perceptions of it. But that’s philosophy. Which is bunk.
I didn’t claim you were lying Mr. Lover of Truth. I said you were confused and making false statements. You do do that an awful lot – twist people’s words without comprehending what was written. Seems to be your style.
Feel free to back up your claims that I think Miller says the Intelligent Designer uses telekinesis to move matter around.
Now are you going ever going to deal with all the critiques of Meyer’s boneheaded errors detailed here and in all the other Meyer threads? Or is it going to be yet another round of the discussion-avoidance Mung Mambo?
First Meyer’s achievements, now a succinct summary of everything you’ve had to offer in defense of Meyer’s IDiocy. You’re really on a roll tonight.
Kantian Naturalist:
Mike Elizinga:
But it’s the brain, really, right Mike?
Mike Elzinga:
You two could not be further apart.
So, thorton, you’ve read Finding Darwin’s God and Darwin’s Doubt?
Really?
How would you know?
Does “knowledge” just auto-magically appear with “skepticism”?
I’m sure you make Lizzie proud, thorton.
The same way everyone here knows Meyer’s latest IDiocy is the same rehashed stupidity he’s been peddling for years. Lots of empirical observational evidence.
Elizabeth Liddle:
How so?
Meyer:
Lizzie in the Meyer’s Money Shot thread quoting Meyer.
Meyer: “In fact, there is. The features of the Cambrian event point decisively in another direction – not to some as-yet-undiscovered materialistic process that merely mimics the powers of a designing mind, but instead to an actual intelligent cause.”
How about it Mr. Truth Lover? You want to take a shot at answering the question in the OP? How does the Intelligent Designer’s mind move matter?
Or is it still “not ID’s task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories” like Dembski claimed?
It’s worth pointing out again that this is a false statement. Unguided iterative processes involving imperfect replicators that use selection filtering as feedback and which carry forward heritable traits can and do produce “specified information” by any definition the IDiots wish to use.
Meyer’s whole claim is based on his faulty premise which makes his conclusion completely worthless.
Shorter Mung quoting Meyer.
“The Intelligent Designer did it but we aren’t claiming it’s the Christian God, oh no! We’d never do that! (wink wink nudge nudge)”
Meyer and the other IDiot charlatans have made a lot on money off the gullibility of those like the Lover of Truth here. But ID has never been about science.
Right on.
It is the historic christian interpretation that we are souls that are separate from the material world. We were created in gods image and God moves stuff without the need for a mind/brain.
We are like him. Yet we are connected to the material world in ways beyond mans investigation at this point or ever. Too complicated as it would be if true.
Its us to evolutionists etc to prove we are just a brain machine and so controled by the machine.
We say there is no evidence we have brains as the origin of thoughts.
The braing/mind is just a middleman between us and our bodies. Perhaps one day we could move things with our thoughts as we move our arms. Not yet.
The great point evolutionism need only make is show how our thinking could be disturbed by our brain/mind. One can’t disturb ones soul and thoughts we say and SO there is a potential experiment.
Being drunk, a baby, retarded, etc can all be explained away as merely triggering problems/interference with the memory.
Our memory is of the material world and why animals have good memories but are dumb animals.
Memory and thinking people are two different things.
thats why computers can do only things of memory.
lets science this up!!
Experiments please to show our soul can be affected by the material world directly. No middleman like the memory.
@ mung.
‘How do we know what we know’ is a scientific question that can be tackled by observation and experiment. And we learn from each other when we share experience. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. All has to go via sensory inputs, unless someone has an alternative.
I think it needs re-calibrating.