Against Scientific Materialism

[A Vestigial Mote]

So science isn't everything. So what? Wasn't that fairly obvious? Maybe I'm being dense here...

What I don't like, at all, is the attempt to pigeon-hole disbelief in things outside reality as relying 100% on "science". What the hell do I care, ultimately, if science can never bring us a good explanation for consciousness? Does that mean consciousness exists outside reality? No. Does that mean consciousness is supernatural? No again. Does that mean consciousness proves that there is some "realm" other than our reality? Sorry... it's a no again folks.

It just means we have an area of the known natural processes within the universe that we can't quite explain or pin down to facts. And this is supposed to be shocking? Should we go ahead and insert something into that gap anyway? Of course not.

 

[sayak83]

So science isn't everything. So what? Wasn't that fairly obvious? Maybe I'm being dense here...

What I don't like, at all, is the attempt to pigeon-hole disbelief in things outside reality as relying 100% on "science". What the hell do I care, ultimately, if science can never bring us a good explanation for consciousness? Does that mean consciousness exists outside reality? No. Does that mean consciousness is supernatural? No again. Does that mean consciousness proves that there is some "realm" other than our reality? Sorry... it's a no again folks.

It just means we have an area of the known natural processes within the universe that we can't quite explain or pin down to facts. And this is supposed to be shocking? Should we go ahead and insert something into that gap anyway? Of course not.

I agree with what you are saying 100%.

As I said in an earlier post in this thread

"In my view science should avoid metaphysical entanglements. If nothing fits for now, then nothing fits. In time as both science and our thinking advances, something may click spontaneoulsy."

 

[blü 2]

Let us assume we find a sophisticated information processing system floating around in deep space. What could possibly be the criteria by which we could ever say that "this set of physical processes occuring inside its system implies that there is an experiential component to what that system is doing, i.e. it is something like being this infomation processing system."

I don't know.

But I'm confident that scientific method is the only way likely to find the answer.

What alternative method of enquiry could explore such a question and yield results based on examinable evidence?

What would ever connect the phenomena of "having an experience" with "observed set of physical process" for any general entity in this universe?

That's the easy part ─ the biomechanisms of the brain, for want of any other candidates. The harder part is saying which and how, but we're working on it.

What we are doing for us is crude similarity analysis. Our brains have these "X processes" and they are correlated with these "Y experiences". But science works with universal laws that need to be predictive and verifiable. How would we go about building any such thing based on a specific crude correlation occuring within a very specific organic system in one specific little corner of the universe?

Why is it anything other than a very complex question of brain physiology, and why should we not persist with our present lines of enquiry as the only ones likely to find the answer?

 

[Jumi]

I think that assuming that WE are the WORKING of a certain amount of neurons, ergo that our conssciousness, feelings, love, etc, are ultimately reducible to physical processes and information theory, is much more parsimonious than postulating weird metaphysical realities for which there is no evidence.

You missed my point there completely. Where did I say we need to postulate weird metaphysical realities? You seem to think black and white on the topic.

No need for funny theories like the brain being a radio capturing metaphysical waves or similar nonsense, lol.

It is indeed funny to try to trivialize qualia into problems of the head. Though it doesn't make for much of a conversation, at least it tells us that you assume only functions that are "wrong" can produce qualia.

 

[atanu]

Truth is retrospective, not absolute. I don't constrain it ─ it constrains itself.

Truth constraints itself? You may be unknowingly correct, since that is what Vishnu does. He takes three steps to materialise the so-called truth -- the worlds of sleep, dream, and waking.

Put it this way: it was once true that the world is flat and the heavenly bodies go round it. Now it isn't; and seen from the 21st century the ancients were wrong. But they weren't wrong when they were alive.

And it used to be true that gravity was an instantaneous force. Now it's neither. Phlogiston once accounted for fire. No more. Light used to travel in the medium of the lumeniferous ether. Now it doesn't. The earth's crust used to be uniformly solid. Now it isn't.

Who knows what's true now ─ is the best opinion of our best brains ─ that won't be true in the future? The Copenhagen interpretation, perhaps, as Einstein wished?

Watch this space.

Which means that our knowledge of the phenomenal objects/world is never not tentative. (But I see a lot of know it alls who are sure of their knowing to be absolute truths).

But the main point. If the cognising awareness is also a phenomena, arising our of witnessed phenomena, then how do we know anything? Who are we fooling? Please consider this in light of the following query of yours.

Why is it anything other than a very complex question of brain physiology, and why should we not persist with our present lines of enquiry as the only ones likely to find the answer?

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

But the main point. If the cognising awareness is also a phenomena, arising our of witnessed phenomena, then how do we know anything? Who are we fooling?

I get where you're coming from, and I feel it is good to view things from this perspective and understanding at times. Too many people do not. But there is also the time to set it aside. For example - hunger is only a personal "phenomenon"... it manifests in you, and you alone. It isn't "real" just as you hint at our knowledge or awareness being these really elusive things that we may mistake for being concrete and completely trustworthy. You could also ask "how do we hunger for anything?", but that question doesn't feed you.

 

[atanu]

That's odd. I'd have said that all we know about human perception was the result of science ─ how our senses detect and report, how our brains respond to sensory input, how optical illusions arise, how to create OOBs in the lab, the reliability of witnesses, the nature of human responses to testing such that we've evolved our means of testing to have double blinds, and our means of opinion gathering to contain accurate-enough margins of error, and so on.

Actually I find that odd. Science itself has no cognising power. The given power of cognition and discernment allow us science. Why belittle that competence?

So, when you presume that the cognising power itself is arisen out of the phenomena that the cognising power brings to light, you have landed yourself into a circular reasoning.

 

[atanu]

... You could also ask "how do we hunger for anything?", but that question doesn't feed you.

But I do not ask that at all. I also know that a dream hunger can be satisfied with a dream bread.

 

[viole]

You missed my point there completely. Where did I say we need to postulate weird metaphysical realities? You seem to think black and white on the topic.

Guilty as charged

It is indeed funny to try to trivialize qualia into problems of the head. Though it doesn't make for much of a conversation, at least it tells us that you assume only functions that are "wrong" can produce qualia.

I say that when you have one hundred billions cells connected in zillion possible ways, we might have a machine that is sufficient to feel colors and stuff. Ofherwise, what a waste of complexity!

Ciao

- viole

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

But I do not ask that at all. I also know that a dream hunger can be satisfied with a dream bread.

I've dream-peed in a dream-urinal... only to feel moments later (still in the dream) that I was not relieved, and had to go "again." My body persisted in producing the "phenomenon" of feeling that I had to relieve myself for obvious reasons. These states of consciousness and the "phenomena" that occur within them are nowhere near "the same."

 

[1137]

Very good article. Unfortunately arguing against material is near identical to arguing against Creationism, or flat Earth. It was never valid or reasonable to begin with, yet you won't get through that strong faith. Bernardo Kastrup has a great book that discusses just how deeply ingrained in us materialism really is - "Why Materialism is Baloney"

 

[blü 2]

Which means that our knowledge of the phenomenal objects/world is never not tentative.

No, it means that truth is retrospective but never absolute, is always tentative, always a work in progress.

If the cognising awareness is also a phenomena, arising our of witnessed phenomena, then how do we know anything?

Self-awareness, response to sensory input, analytical and synthetic thought, memory, speech, survival and breeding imperatives, and so on, are all the product of our evolution, that is, we have them because of our genetics.

As for the potential of our understanding to be accurate, I mention again my three assumptions, that a world exists external to the self, that the senses are capable of informing us about it, and that reason is a valid tool ─ and that anyone who posts here shares those assumptions (well, the first two, anyway). So, right or wrong, we have a shared frame of reference, and it enables us to have conversations of this kind.

Actually I find that odd. Science itself has no cognising power.

Expressions like 'science shows' and 'science has found' are metaphors. It means that humans with expertise have applied scientific method in reaching their conclusions.

The given power of cognition and discernment allow us science. Why belittle that competence?

I don't belittle our power to reason and I don't belittle scientific method. It's the best means of answering the question 'What's true in reality?' that I know at this time.

So, when you presume that the cognising power itself is arisen out of the phenomena that the cognising power brings to light, you have landed yourself into a circular reasoning.

Your statement

you presume that the cognising power itself is arisen out of the phenomena that the cognising power brings to light​

is not accurate. It should start with the assumptions I set out above and be along these lines:

'A sets out to explore, identify, describe and explain the functions of the brain, using scientific method hence reasoning honestly from examinable evidence, demonstration and repeatable experiment.'​

 

[sayak83]

I don't know.

But I'm confident that scientific method is the only way likely to find the answer.

What alternative method of enquiry could explore such a question and yield results based on examinable evidence?
That's the easy part ─ the biomechanisms of the brain, for want of any other candidates. The harder part is saying which and how, but we're working on it.

Why is it anything other than a very complex question of brain physiology, and why should we not persist with our present lines of enquiry as the only ones likely to find the answer?

Look, this is a very subtle topic and I am not expecting you to accept wholesale what I, or the article is saying. Reflect on the things pointed out here from time to time, and I am sure, the significance of the points raised here will become clearer to you.
Very simply,the answers that will be gotten from pursuing biochemistry of brains will, while very very useful....will not answer the question as to the what and why of experiential qualia....what it will give rather is what sort of brain activity occurs when that said brain self-report that they are having these mysterious things called experiences.

 

[blü 2]

Very simply,the answers that will be gotten from pursuing biochemistry of brains will, while very very useful....will not answer the question as to the what and why of experiential qualia....what it will give rather is what sort of brain activity occurs when that said brain self-report that they are having these mysterious things called experiences.

As I said, I see nothing mysterious about qualia ─ it's simply a name for the manner in which we've evolved to respond to sensory input with our connotations as well as our denotations attached.

But the common ground we may have is this ─ if that's wrong, then science will be the method by which we determine it's wrong, and what is correct instead.


However, there does seem to be an elephant in the room ─ our author specifically rules out the supernatural yet offers no natural way for the argument to be correct. If our author's proposed gap between science and reality were itself real, and if our author were correct in saying it can't be filled by science, then it must necessarily be filled by magic, no?

 

[sayak83]

As I said, I see nothing mysterious about qualia ─ it's simply a name for the manner in which we've evolved to respond to sensory input with our connotations as well as our denotations attached.

But the common ground we may have is this ─ if that's wrong, then science will be the method by which we determine it's wrong, and what is correct instead.


However, there does seem to be an elephant in the room ─ our author specifically rules out the supernatural yet offers no natural way for the argument to be correct. If our author's proposed gap between science and reality were itself real, and if our author were correct in saying it can't be filled by science, then it must necessarily be filled by magic, no?

No. One can say that there are different fundamental modes of reality. The part covered by physics gives us that part of reality that has to do with events and causal structure. The part covered by math and logic provide insight into that mode of reality that is about abstract patterns and relationships. The part covered by information theory etc. describes that mode that deals with information, cognition, knowledge etc. Finally there is a part, not yet covered by any field that needs to describe the experiential mode of reality.
Where reality is understood in the participatory sense. That is reality is necessarily built with and through interactions, thus "point-of-view" aspect of reality is not a bug but an intrinsic feature.

 

[Jumi]

I say that when you have one hundred billions cells connected in zillion possible ways, we might have a machine that is sufficient to feel colors and stuff. Ofherwise, what a waste of complexity!

In my opinion it's an optimistic assumption that sufficient complexity spontaneously makes qualia emerge. I remember believing such about AIs in the 90s, today it seems researchers on that topic are better grounded, well except the ones who want attention from journalists... and feeling colors seems like switching inputs or outputs, not more complex or more simple. It seems like a lesser type of qualia to me.

 

[blü 2]

No. One can say that there are different fundamental modes of reality. The part covered by physics gives us that part of reality that has to do with events and causal structure. The part covered by math and logic provide insight into that mode of reality that is about abstract patterns and relationships. The part covered by information theory etc. describes that mode that deals with information, cognition, knowledge etc. Finally there is a part, not yet covered by any field that needs to describe the experiential mode of reality.

What element do you say it possesses that prevents its objective analysis?

Where reality is understood in the participatory sense. That is reality is necessarily built with and through interactions, thus "point-of-view" aspect of reality is not a bug but an intrinsic feature.

How does that differ from 'subjective'? Is science wrong to try and map the nature of the subjective and compare the results to the real?

As well, if not science, then magic, either maximizing reason or maximizing emotion, no?

 

[Jumi]

As well, if not science, then magic, either maximizing reason or maximizing emotion, no?

Do you think everything you don't like or prefer is magic or emotions?

 

[Koldo]

This is a very interesting essay on the problems inherent in the stance of scientific materialism as a comprehensive worldview. Please read it and comment or rebut. Would be a good starting point for a debate or discussion. I am quoting relevant section from the first part of the essay. The next part proposes their own corrective version, which we can discuss later.
The blind spot of science is the neglect of lived experience | Aeon Essays

Excerpts of interest:-
Definition of scientific materialism
Many of us like to think that science can give us a complete, objective description of cosmic history, distinct from us and our perception of it. But this image of science is deeply flawed. In our urge for knowledge and control, we’ve created a vision of science as a series of discoveries about how reality is in itself, a God’s-eye view of nature.

Such an approach not only distorts the truth, but creates a false sense of distance between ourselves and the world. That divide arises from what we call the Blind Spot, which science itself cannot see. In the Blind Spot sits experience: the sheer presence and immediacy of lived perception.

Behind the Blind Spot sits the belief that physical reality has absolute primacy in human knowledge, a view that can be called scientific materialism. In philosophical terms, it combines scientific objectivism (science tells us about the real, mind-independent world) and physicalism (science tells us that physical reality is all there is).

Problems with Scientific Materialism

To put it bluntly, the claim that there’s nothing but physical reality is either false or empty. If ‘physical reality’ means reality as physics describes it, then the assertion that only physical phenomena exist is false. Why? Because physical science – including biology and computational neuroscience – doesn’t include an account of consciousness. This is not to say that consciousness is something unnatural or supernatural. The point is that physical science doesn’t include an account of experience; but we know that experience exists, so the claim that the only things that exist are what physical science tells us is false. On the other hand, if ‘physical reality’ means reality according to some future and complete physics, then the claim that there is nothing else but physical reality is empty, because we have no idea what such a future physics will look like, especially in relation to consciousness.

Faced with this quandary, some philosophers argue that we should define ‘physical’ such that it rules out radical emergentism (that life and the mind are emergent from but irreducible to physical reality) and panpsychism (that mind is fundamental and exists everywhere, including at the microphysical level). This move would give physicalism a definite content, but at the cost of trying to legislate in advance what ‘physical’ can mean, instead of leaving its meaning to be determined by physics.

Objectivism and physicalism are philosophical ideas, not scientific ones – even if some scientists espouse them. They don’t logically follow from what science tells us about the physical world, or from the scientific method itself. By forgetting that these perspectives are a philosophical bias, not a mere data-point, scientific materialists ignore the ways that immediate experience and the world can never be separated.

Husserl, the German thinker who founded the philosophical movement of phenomenology, argued that lived experience is the source of science. It’s absurd, in principle, to think that science can step outside it. The ‘life-world’ of human experience is the ‘grounding soil’ of science, and the existential and spiritual crisis of modern scientific culture – what we are calling the Blind Spot – comes from forgetting its primacy.

Whitehead’s so-called process philosophy is based on a rejection of the ‘bifurcation of nature’, which divides immediate experience into the dichotomies of mind versus body, and perception versus reality. Instead, he argued that what we call ‘reality’ is made up of evolving processes that are equally physical and experiential.

Insights from Quantum Physics
For several schools of thought, quantum physics doesn’t give us access to the way the world fundamentally is in itself. Rather, it only lets us grasp how matter behaves in relation to our interactions with it.
Copenhagen interpretation of Niels Bohr, for example, the wave function has no reality outside of the interaction between the electron and the measurement device.
A relatively new interpretation known as Quantum-Bayesianism (QBism) – which combines quantum information theory and Bayesian probability theory – takes a different tack; it interprets the irreducible probabilities of a quantum state not as an element of reality, but as the degrees of belief an agent has about the outcome of a measurement. Advocates of this interpretation sometimes describe it as ‘participatory realism’, because human agency is woven into the process of doing physics as a means of gaining knowledge about the world.

In short, there’s still no simple way to remove our experience as scientists from the characterisation of the physical world.

Experience and Consciousness
There’s still no scientific explanation of qualia in terms of brain activity – or any other physical process for that matter. Nor is there any real understanding of what such an account would look like.There’s also the question of subjectivity. Experiences have a subjective character; they occur in the first person. Why should a given sort of physical system have the feeling of being a subject? Science has no answer to this question.
Philosopher William James (whose notion of ‘pure experience’ influenced Husserl and Whitehead) wrote in 1905 about the ‘active sense of living which we all enjoy, before reflection shatters our instinctive world for us’. That active sense of living doesn’t have an inside-outside/subject-object structure; it’s subsequent reflection that imposes this structure on experience.
More than a millennium ago, Vasubandhu, an Indian Buddhist philosopher of the 4th to 5th century CE, criticised the reification of phenomena into independent subjects versus independent objects. For Vasubandhu, the subject-object structure is a deep-seated, cognitive distortion of a causal network of phenomenal moments that are empty of an inner subject grasping an outer object.
To bring the point home, consider that in certain intense states of absorption – during meditation, dance or highly skilled performances – the subject-object structure can drop away, and we are left with a sense of sheer felt presence. How is such phenomenal presence possible in a physical world? Science is silent on this question.

What the Scientific Method actually Does
First, we set aside aspects of human experience on which we can’t always agree, such as how things look or taste or feel. Second, using mathematics and logic, we construct abstract, formal models that we treat as stable objects of public consensus. Third, we intervene in the course of events by isolating and controlling things that we can perceive and manipulate. Fourth, we use these abstract models and concrete interventions to calculate future events. Fifth, we check these predicted events against our perceptions. An essential ingredient of this whole process is technology: machines – our equipment – that standardise these procedures, amplify our powers of perception, and allow us to control phenomena to our own ends.

But experience is present at every step. Scientific models must be pulled out from observations, often mediated by our complex scientific equipment. They are idealisations, not actual things in the world. They are abstract mental representations, not mind-independent entities. Their power comes from the fact that they’re useful for helping to make testable predictions. But these, too, never take us outside experience, for they require specific kinds of perceptions performed by highly trained observers.

For these reasons, scientific ‘objectivity’ can’t stand outside experience; in this context, ‘objective’ simply means something that’s true to the observations agreed upon by a community of investigators using certain tools. Science is essentially a highly refined form of human experience, based on our capacities to observe, act and communicate.

So the belief that scientific models correspond to how things truly are doesn’t follow from the scientific method. Instead, it comes from an ancient impulse – one often found in monotheistic religions – to know the world as it is in itself, as God does. The contention that science reveals a perfectly objective ‘reality’ is more theological than scientific.
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For someone who has been a scientist, and a person outside of the West (India), the incompatibility of the scientific methodology with scientific materialism and the monotheistic theological superstructure of the basic idea has long been evident. I agree with most of the issues this essay and their authors raise. What do you folks think?

To say "everything that exists is physical" is vague and confusing to people unaware of the main point. The main point is that matter and it's correlates are the building blocks upon which the mind exists. The problem then becomes how to determine whether something is a correlate to matter. But this can be solved by being even more specific: Consciousness is not primary and does not exist by itself.

Does this position follow from science ? No. Is this position compatible with science so far though ? Yes. Why would one hold this view ? Because the sciences have been very successful in explaining our universe without making use of a model where consciousness is primary.

 

[sayak83]

What element do you say it possesses that prevents its objective analysis?
How does that differ from 'subjective'? Is science wrong to try and map the nature of the subjective and compare the results to the real?

As well, if not science, then magic, either maximizing reason or maximizing emotion, no?

If, by objective you mean observer independent, then science is not objective...as both QM and SR/GR are observer dependent.
Science is using experiences to find regularities and patterns within these and future experiences. Calling something real does not make it anything other than a set of experiences. We define something as unreal if it is incongruent with other sets of more frequent experiences, eg. dream experiences are incongruent with the larger set of waking state experiences...so dream experiences are labelled unreal to indicate their lesser value in terms of contunuity, predictability, utility etc. So if you think "reality" as anything other than a useful model to arrange and utilize the regularities found in a large set of experiences...then you need to justify such a move.

I define objective very simply.
A certain feature in the experience of any observing subject is called objective if it remains invariant when other background features of the experience the observer is having are identical.
For example we have the objective statement "water boils at 100 C at sea level" implies:-
That for every observer the experience of boiling is invariably cojoined with the experience of seeing a temperature reading of 100 C given other background features of the experience (being at sea-level, observing water, on earth etc.) are identical.