“I think it can be demonstrated that Steve and the folks at Triablogue are not critical thinkers. And by this I don’t mean that we merely have different control beliefs which cause us to see differerent things, either, since I realize reason so often is used in the service of our control beliefs. I mean they fail to grasp mildly complex arguments.”
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/
And I think it can be demonstrated that Loftus and the folks at Debunking Christianity are not critical thinkers. And by this I don’t mean that we merely have different control beliefs which cause us to see different things, either, since I realize reason so often is used in the service of our control beliefs. I mean they fail to grasp mildly complex arguments.
“The above is a case-in-point. Steve claims he caught exbeliever in an informal fallacy; that of a non-sequitur. He claims it doesn’t logically follow that if “the brain is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some aspects of a person's personality…” then “it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the brain is responsible for all aspects of a person's personality…” Exbeliever and I may be wrong about the brain, but the assumption is a reasonable one and it does follow from the premise itself. Nothing Steve said showed otherwise.”
An inference from “some” to “all” does not follow from the premise. Even if Exbeliever and Loftus were right about the brain, the inference remains invalid. Nothing they said showed otherwise.
“But Steve claims otherwise. Steve, why doesn't it follow in the absence of evidence to the contrary that the brain is responsible for all aspects of a person's personality, because we can prove the brain is responsible for some of it?”
i) This assumes the absence of evidence to the contrary. Given the numerous arguments for dualism, it is scarcely adequate to claim that there is no evidence to the contrary. Loftus is begging the question.
ii) Strictly speaking, we can’t prove that the brain is responsible for any aspect of human personality. Strictly speaking, we can’t even prove the existence of brains. A sophisticated idealist like Berkeley or McTaggart or Sprigge would have no great difficulty fielding evidence to the contrary.
iii) I’m a dualist, not an idealist. By I introduce idealism as a limiting case on arguments for materialism.
iv) All that Exbeliever has given us is a set of correlations. Correlations don’t prove causal dependence. There is a direct correlation between a music score and a musical performance, but the score doesn’t cause the music, and the music doesn’t cause the score.
v) For that matter, if you had a systematic correlation between mental events and cerebral events, then we would have as good a reason for claiming the brain’s dependence on the mind as vice versa.
vi) Indeed, we’d have better reason to affirm the primacy of mind since consciousness is a primitive datum and self-presenting state, unlike our knowledge of the external world. The only immediate object of thought is thought itself. Our knowledge of the world is indirect and mediated by an elaborate sensory processing system—assuming a scientific analysis of sensation, which is circular.
Continuing:
“Exbeliever says it's a reasonable assumption to make, and it is. Why isn’t it? Can the folks at Triablogue show us that the mind is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior? Can they? Can they clearly and demonstrably show this? No!...surely not in the same manner that the brain is responsible for some aspects of a person’s personality. Until they can, then it's not an unreasonable assumption to make. Such a scientific conclusion does follow from the results of scientific studies, even if Steve wants to disagree with it for religious reasons.”
There are a couple of things wrong with this statement:
i) To begin with, this is not the argument I was responding to. Loftus is in damage-control mode. He is now attempting to shore up the lacuna in Exbeliever’s original argument by swapping out the original engine and installing a new engine.
Exbeliever’s argument was not, what evidence do you, the dualist have, that dualism is true? Rather, his argument was, dualism is false because of certain correlations between brain function and manifest personality.
Now, it’s fine with me if Loftus wants to salvage the remnants of the original post and recast them in stronger form. But it’s no flaw in my reply that I failed to address an argument that Exbeliever failed to make.
ii) But since Loftus has issued a challenge, let’s take him up on the challenge. He asks: “Can the folks at Triablogue show us that the mind is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior?”
Okay, just for starters, how about this, John:
Where would I find your question in your brain? Where in the brain is your question situated? How would I recognize your question in the fine architecture of your brain? What does your question look like or sound like? How much does it weigh? What’s its chemical composition? John, point me to your question. Don’t tell me, show me. Does your question pop up on a brain scan?
Brain states are potentially public events, open to scientific scrutiny, but mental states are essentially private.
iii) If John’s question is equated with a brain state, then to what does his brain state refer? How can a brain state be about anything other than itself? Where does John locate the intentional relation? What is the physical appearance of the relation?
iv) Put another way, in what respect is a brain state true or false about something else?
More fundamentally:
a) If experience presents us with two evidently distinct orders of being: thoughts (acts of consciousness) and things (material objects), that supplies a prima facie presumption in favor of there actually being two distinct ontological orders.
b) If the properties of each domain are irreducible to the other, then that’s a strong supporting argument for the prima facie presumption.
c) And if our only point of access to material objects is via mental events (the mind of the observer), then the burden of proof is on the materialist rather than the dualist.
“Steve also fails to understand that he cannot make the exact opposite claim. He claims Bishop Berkeley made the exact opposite argument, that if the mind is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some…..then….it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the mind is responsible for all….. But Berkeley cannot make the same scientifically demonstratable claim. It can be shown that the brain is clearly and demonstrably responsible for some aspects of a person's identity, personality, and behavior…. This is what exbeliever did. Berkeley cannot do this when it comes to the mind, and neither can the folks at Triablogue.”
i) Loftus completely misses the force of idealism. For Berkeley, since our only access to primary properties is via secondary properties, everything would appear to us exactly the same as if or even if there were no primary properties. So how do we know there are primary properties? How do we know there is an external world?
Hence, idealism explains everything that Lockean empiricism explains, but on more economical terms.
And it could be easily retrofitted to cope with modern neuroscience. Indeed, modern physics has intensified the hiatus between primary and secondary properties—unless you subscribe to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which moves you in the direction of idealism.
ii) Appeal to a correlation between certain mental events and “apparent” cerebral events is impotent to undercut this thesis for it has no differential power to distinguish between appearance and reality. For appearances are all we have to go by.
iii) Keep in mind that a neurosurgeon does not directly perceive the brain. Rather, his brain is perceiving another brain.
iv) What is more, all he’s truly aware of is encoded information. The primary properties of the apparent brain are encoded in electromagnetic information which reaches the eye, and is, in turn, reencoded in electrochemical information. That would be a “scientific” analysis of sensation. And between the plaintext and the ciphertext there may be no direct or even indirect resemblance.
v) Science can’t prove the existence of matter. Matter is a presupposition of science. Loftus is confounding science with metascience.
Continuing:
“Hmmm, ever since Descartes said the pituitary gland was the place where the non-material mind made contact with the non-spiritual brain multitudes have abandoned dualism.”
Like Exbeliever, Loftus has no real grasp of the position he’s opposing. In dualism, there is no “place” where the mind makes “contact” with the brain. “Place” and “contact” are spatial categories. The mind is illocal. It occupies no corner of space. Loftus is confounding distinct domains.
Continuing:
“It’s one thing to reveal one’s own ignorance at being able to understand the arguments of another person. That’s one thing. But to revel in one’s own ignorance and to parade it around for all the viewers to see….that’s a horse of a different color.”
I couldn’t agree more. Loftus and his fellow rejects should keep their equine losers locked away in the stable—well out of sight of rational scrutiny.
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