Consciousness: the explanatory gap

April 11th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Some of the papers on psychology and consciousness might be interesting. This from the abstracts:

This paper will build on work done by McGinn (1989) and others since, in identifying the explanatory gap that exists not between any proposed mechanism for consciousness and an adequate method for demonstrating the factual status of this proposal, but the gap between any such claim, however well authenticated, and the extent to which this explanation is experienced as ’satisfactory’. The philosopher of science JBS Haldane, speaking of certain aspects of 20^th century physics, famously remarked that ‘The universe may not only be queerer than we think, but queerer than we can think’.In making this remark, Haldane was not indicating that data could not be collected, hypotheses developed, tests carried out, and progress made in these difficult areas.Rather he was referring to the inherent difficulties in understanding the results of such processes in a way which was ’satisfactory’ or which had ‘intuitive appeal’. A significant amount of scientific knowledge that has accumulated in the last 100 years has been exactly of this nature, and it is an accepted fact of life that advanced theories in quantum science, astronomy, etc are likely to be non-visualisable, disembodied, and often counter-intuitive.Such theories and models Given this as a condition of advanced knowledge it seems extremely likely that any description of the mechanisms of consciousness are similarly disembodied.

McGinn, C. (1999). The mysterious flame: conscious minds in a material world. New York, Basic Books.

Haldane, J. B. S. (1927). Possible Worlds: And Other Essays. London, Chatto and Windus.

I was glad I made the effort to hear this one.

Posted in Conference Abstract, Consciousness, Haldane, J.B.S., Knowledge, McGinn, Colin, Philosophy, Physics | No Comments »

Metaphor and Copenhagen Interpretation

September 16th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The mathematician JBS Haldane famously observed that ‘the universe may not only be queerer than we think but queerer than we can think’. He intended this observation to apply specifically to the more esoteric aspects of the universe encountered mainly by astronomers and particle physicists, whose equations do indeed describe a world which is inconceivable in any literal sense, and which makes no intuitive appeal to the senses of even the most highly trained. As Richard Feynman put it, ‘if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t understand quantum mechanics.’

Haldane’s comment finds theoretical support and application within the so-called ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ of quantum theory introduced by Bohr and Heisenberg. Part of the application of this principle requires an attitude towards that application which recognises the distinctly partial ontological status of such theories. As Robert Anton Wilson colloquially put it, ‘the equations of quantum mechanics do not describe what is happening in the quantum world, but what structures of thought we need to create in order to think about that world’. Recent work done in the field of cognitive linguistics and cognate fields suggests that these ’structures of thought’ are largely built out of embodied metaphors, and it is these metaphors, grounded in concrete sensibilities of the body and the sensorimotor system, which give accessible form and order to the queerest aspect of the universe.

The attitude one must bring to the Copenhagen Interpretation has occasionally been referred to as ‘model agnosticism’: an approach to abstract theoretical constructs such as equations, models, structures etc, which recognises their usefulness whilst simultaneously also recognising their status as ‘man-made’ artifacts, rather than as material facts

Posted in Cognitive Linguistics, Copenhagen Interpretation, Embodiment, Haldane, J.B.S., Metaphor, Science, Wilson, Robert Anton | No Comments »

The Matter Delusion

October 8th, 2007 Fred McVittie

In the talk that Richard Dawkins presented as part of the Tedtalks series in 2006 he referred to physical matter as a ‘convenient fiction’. Our experience of the apparently solid table in front of us and the apparently solid wall around us is, he claims, a product of our brains interpreting the relationship between our (middle sized) bodies and the (middle sized) objects of the world. Physics determines that the relationship between two medium sized objects is generally one of non-penetrability, we cannot routinely walk through walls or pass our hand through the surface of a table. If we wish to avoid repeatedly banging into walls and other matter then the survival imperative of an evolutionarily determined brain requires that interpretation of this relationship dramatises this non-penetrability. We see and feel walls and similar objects as ‘hard’. This general principle applies to all substances, resulting in the various grades of hardness and softness we encounter without a second thought to their provenance. All matter, in this understanding, is a story told to us by our brain so that we might better navigate the world of the medium-sized.

This seems straightforward enough; ‘the world is’, to paraphrase JBS Haldane, ‘queerer than we can suppose without making up imaginary entities like solid matter’. This raises the question of what the ontological difference might be between the convenient fiction of matter and the equally fictional (although possibly less convenient) god? Why is believing in god a delusion whereas believing in matter is simple common sense? A posting on the Richard Dawkins website forum noted that the distinction is not between god and matter, but between god and the experience of matter that we call ‘hardness’. Whilst this refinement does shift both entities more clearly into the realm of abstractions, it does not explain the very different attitude we have to these concepts. ‘Hardness’ is one of a range of human interpretations of the properties of the universe; it is qualia familiar as common sense to (apparently) everyone and hardwired from birth. God, on the other hand, whilst it is also a human interpretation of the workings of the universe, and whilst some variation of the god concept seems to be a human universal and therefore also approaches the status of common sense, possibly even hardwired, seems to be less resistant to disbelief. Although god, as a concept, in some cases ‘won’t go away’, the presence of atheists in the world (and even in foxholes) demonstrates that he, she, or it can indeed be banished by an act of educated will. As Dawkins goes on to mention in the same presentation, the most determined efforts my Major Albert N. Stubblebine of US Military Intelligence failed to dissolve the hardness of matter by a similar act of will. A failure of organised disbelief that caused him to repeated crash into the wall he was trying to walk through.

These two delusional entities, the hardness of matter and being of god, may mark two points on a continuum of embodied imagination in which the impact of the delusion is felt to greater or lesser extents. The hardness of matter is felt at the surface of the body, the being of god, if it is felt at all, is felt in the mind. Both feelings are, in a sense, interpretations. ‘Hardness’ is an interpretation by the sensorimotor system of certain enduring and consistent laws of physics related specifically to the properties of substances; god seems to be an interpretation of a supposed unification of the big questions of life, the universe, and everything.

Posted in Dawkins, Richard, Evolution, God, Haldane, J.B.S., Sense, Substance | No Comments »