Atheists fervently believe mind reduces to brain, That they physical brain produces the mind.For them all that the mind is can be summed up in brain chemistry, For those atheist who thrives on this notion it closes the possibility of they soul and thus eliminates the need for salvation,:God, the works. It also functions as proof that there is no 'supernatural" (as they mistakenly call spiritual things) and thus serves as scientific proof of phyisicalism. What follows is a section rom a book chapter I wrote on the overall problem of brain and min. The section is about six reasons why mind cannot be reduced to brain, These are from a couple of sources but are from a book Irreducible Mind by Edward Kelley (see fn 17). /they were all listed by Kelley and from peer reviewed scientific journals, I have preserved some of the original sources but for the most part used Kelley as the reference. I've kept the fn numbers the same as they are in the larger work. The larger article is seen in stand alone pages under "science" "Mind is not reducible to brain part 2."
There are, empirical data that imply that brain is not necessary to mind. One such datum is the humble amoeba. They swim; they find food they learn, they multiply, all without brains or brain cell connections.[12] Various theories are proposed but none really answer the issue. Stuart Mameroff (anesthetist from University of Arizona) and Roger Penrose, Mathematician form Cambridge, raise the theory that small protein structures called microtubules found in cells throughout the body. The problem is they don’t cause any problem with consciousness when damaged.[13] Nevertheless, the amoeba is a mystery in terms of how it works with no brain cells. That leads to the recognition of a larger issue the irreducealbity raises the question of consciousness as a basic property of nature. Like electromagnetism, there was a time when scientists tried to explain that in terms of other known phenomena, when they could not do so they concluded that it was a basic property and opened up a branch of science and the electromagnetic spectrum.[14] David Chalmers and others have suggested the same solution for consciousness.
The late Sir John Eccles, a neuroscientist who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1963 for his work on brain cell connections (synapses) and was considered by many to be one of the greatest neuroscientists of the twentieth century, was perhaps the most distinguished scientist who argued in favor of such a separation between mind, consciousness and the brain. He argued that the unity of conscious experience was provided by the mind and not by the machinery of the brain. His view was that the mind itself played an active role in selecting and integrating brain cell activity and molded it into a unified whole. He considered it a mistake to think that the brain did everything and that conscious experiences were simply a reflection of brain activities, which he described as a common philosophical view:
'If that were so, our conscious selves would be no more than passive spectators of the performances carried out by the neuronal machinery of the brain. Our beliefs that we can really make decisions and that we have some control over our actions would be nothing but illusions.[15]
'If that were so, our conscious selves would be no more than passive spectators of the performances carried out by the neuronal machinery of the brain. Our beliefs that we can really make decisions and that we have some control over our actions would be nothing but illusions.[15]
Top Down Causation
confirming irreducibility
Or downward causation, as seen in last chapter: “Top-down causation refers to the effects on components of organized systems that cannot be fully analyzed in terms of component-level behavior but instead requires reference to the higher-level system itself.” [16]
*problem of binding
There is a problem with understanding what it is that binds together the unity of a conscious experience. We have many different kinds of conscious faculty at work in the process of being conscious, symbolic thinking, literal thinking, sense of temporal, sense of reality, and physical perceptions. Somehow it all gets brought together into one coherent sense of perceptions. How are the individual aspects, such as color, form, the temporal, and united into a coherent whole experience? Unification of experience is not achieved anatomically. There is “no privileged places of structures in the brain where everything comes together…either for the visual system by itself or for sensory system as a whole ” [17] McDougall took it as something that physicalilsm can’t explain.[18] Dennett and Kinsbourne recognize the phenomena marking top down causation and acknowledge it, they spin it as undermining unity.[19] The old approach was to assume there must be an anatomical center for binding. Without finding one the assumption was that it couldn’t be explained. Modern explanations of unity are based upon a functional approach.
The essential concept common to all of them is that oscillatory electrical activity in widely distributed neural populations can be rapidly and reversibly synchronized in the gamma band of frequencies (roughly 30-70 Hz) thereby providing a possible mechanism for binding.” (von der Malsburg 1995). A great deal of sophisticated experimental and theoretical work over the past 20 years demonstrates that mechanisms do exist in the nervous system and they work in relation to the normal perceptual synthesis. Indeed Searl’s doctrine of biological naturalism has now crystallized neurophysiologically in the form of a family of global workspace theories, all of which make the central claim that conscious experience occurs specifically and only with large scale patters of gamma band oscillatory activity linking widely separated areas of the brain. [20]
In other words if consciousness was reducible to brain chemistry there should be an anatomical center in the brain that works to produce the binding effect. Yet the evidence indicates that binding mechanisms must be understood as functions of various areas outside either the brain (nervous system) or in different parts of the brain which means it can’t be reduced to just a physical apparatus but is systemic and that is indicative of top down causation.
* Projective activity in perceptual process
Our brains act as a sort of “word generating virtual reality system.”[21] That is the brain is constantly projecting and updating a model of the perceptual environment and our relation to it. Top down cross modal sensory interactions have been recognized as the rule rather than the exception, in perceptions, as several studies indicate (A.K. Engle et al, 2001; Shimojo and Shams 2001). [22] Evidence indicates that the ultimate source of projective activity may originate outside the brain. A great deal of knowledge is put into action for use in understanding language and in writing. Some researchers have advanced the view that the fundamental form of projective activity is dreaming.[23]
*Semantic or intentional content; word meaning and other form of representation.
This has been dealt with traditionally through reductionism. Representations were said to work by resembling things they represent. This was disproved by Goodman and Heil (1981). [24] In cognitive psychology there is a rule of thumb that meanings are not to be conceived as intrinsic to words, they are defined by the functional role they play in a sentence. The major approach to the problem used now is connectionism, from dynamic systems theory. The meaning of a given response such as settling of a network into one of its attracters or firing of a volley of spikes by a neuron in the visual cortex is identified with the aspect in the environment that produces the response. This account can’t deal with abstract things or non existent things. There’s nothing in the environment to trigger it. Responses do not qualify as representations nor signs as symbols. “That something,” as Searl so effectively argued (in 1992) “is precisely what matters.”[25]
*problem of Intentionality
Intentionality is the ability of representational forms to be about things, to reflect meaning and to be about events and states of affairs in the world. [26] The problem of intentionality has plagued both psychologists and philosophers. Intentionality is inherently three ways, involving the user, symbols, and things symbolized. Searl tells us that intentionality of langue is secondary and derives from the intrinsic intentionality of the mind. “Intentionality can’t be obtained from any kind of physical system including brains.”[27]
*The Humunculus Problem
The Homunculus was a medieval concept about human reproduction. The male was said to have in him little men just like him with all the basic stuff that makes him work that’s how new men get born. In this topic it’s the idea that we need in the mind another mind or brain like structure to make the mind work. The problem is it keeps requiring ever more little structures to make each one before it work; in endless regression of systems. Kelly and Kelly et al site Dennett’s attempt to solve the homunculus problem in the form of less and less smart homunculi until the bottom level corresponding to heard ware level end the recursion so it’s not infinite. (Dennett 1978)[28] Searl (1992) responds that there has to be something outside the bottom level that knows what lower level compositions mean. Cognitive models can’t function without a homunculus because they lack minds, as Kelly tells us.[29]
No homunculus problem, however, is posed by the structure of our conscious experience itself. The efforts of Dennett and others to claim that there is such a problem, and to use that to ridicule any residue of dualism, rely upon the deeply flawed metaphor of the Cartesian theater a place where mental contents get displayed and I pop in separately to view them. Descartes himself, James, Searl and others all have this right: conscious experience comes to us whole and undivided, with the qualitative feels, phenomenological content, unity, and subjective point of view all built in, intrinsic features. I and my experience cannot be separated in this way. [30]
Notice FN 19 he quotes Daniel Dennett who is sited in my note and his, Dennett is not only a major atheist philosophy and leader of the reductionists but IMS admires him.But he must be ignorant of science because said. Not only but he must be a theist because IMS claims all my sources are theists.
12] Science Research Foundation, “Science at the horizon of life,” independent charitable organization in UK 2007-2012. On-line resource, UFL: http://www.horizonresearch.org/main_page.php?cat_id=200 visisted 5/2/12
[13] ibid
[14] ibid
[15] ibid
[16] Mary Anne Meyers, “Top Down Causation, an Integrating Theme…” Templeton Foundation Symposium, Op cit. (no page number listed).
[17] Edward F. Kelley and Emily Williams Kelley, et al, Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Boulder, New York, Toronto: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Inc, 2007/2010, 37.
[18] Ibid. 38, referring to W.McDougall, Proceedings of scientific physical research 25, 11-29. (1911/1961)..
[19] ibid. 38 refers to Dennette and kinsbourne in Consciousness Explained. (op cit) 183-247
[20] ibid, sites C.Von der Malsburg, “Binding In Models of Perception and Brain Function.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 5, 520-526.
see
URL: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=fr&user=omhS3xgAAAAJ&citation_for_view=omhS3xgAAAAJ:hCrLmN-GePgC
also sited Crick 94; Dehaene and Naccache, 2001; Edelmon and Tononi, 2000;
Engle, Fries and Singer 2001;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11584308#comments
also in fn 20 cited is an an article by Crick of Wattson and discovered DNA I guess he's a theist and nothing about science,
W.J. Freeman 2000, Mesoscopics neurodynamics: from neuron to brain. J. Physiol. Paris 94 303–322. 10.1016/S0928-4257(00)01090-1 in Pub med http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11165902
accessed 5/8/16
see
URL: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=fr&user=omhS3xgAAAAJ&citation_for_view=omhS3xgAAAAJ:hCrLmN-GePgC
Auteurs
Christoph Von Der Malsburg
Date de publication
1995/8/31
Revue
Current opinion in neurobiology
Volume
5
Numéro
4
Pages
520-526
Éditeur
Elsevier Current Trends
Description
The development of the concept of feature binding as fundamental to neural dynamics has
made possible recent advances in the modeling of difficult problems of perception and brain
function. Major weaknesses of past neural modeling (most prominently its inability to work
with natural stimuli and its 'learning-time'barrier) have been traced back to improper
treatment of the binding issue. Signal synchrony is now seen as playing a major role in
binding. Inclusion of temporal binding in neural models has led to recent breakthroughs in ...
made possible recent advances in the modeling of difficult problems of perception and brain
function. Major weaknesses of past neural modeling (most prominently its inability to work
with natural stimuli and its 'learning-time'barrier) have been traced back to improper
treatment of the binding issue. Signal synchrony is now seen as playing a major role in
binding. Inclusion of temporal binding in neural models has led to recent breakthroughs in ...
Nombre total de citations
also sited Crick 94; Dehaene and Naccache, 2001; Edelmon and Tononi, 2000;
Engle, Fries and Singer 2001;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11584308#comments
See comment in PubMed Commons below
Nat Rev Neurosci. 2001 Oct;2(10):704-16.
Dynamic predictions: oscillations and synchrony in top-down processing.
Abstract
Classical theories of sensory processing view the brain as a passive, stimulus-driven device. By contrast, more recent approaches emphasize the constructive nature of perception, viewing it as an active and highly selective process. Indeed, there is ample evidence that the processing of stimuli is controlled by top-down influences that strongly shape the intrinsic dynamics of thalamocortical networks and constantly create predictions about forthcoming sensory events. We discuss recent experiments indicating that such predictions might be embodied in the temporal structure of both stimulus-evoked and ongoing activity, and that synchronous oscillations are particularly important in this process. Coherence among subthreshold membrane potential fluctuations could be exploited to express selective functional relationships during states of expectancy or attention, and these dynamic patterns could allow the grouping and selection of distributed neuronal responses for further processing.
also in fn 20 cited is an an article by Crick of Wattson and discovered DNA I guess he's a theist and nothing about science,
W.J. Freeman 2000, Mesoscopics neurodynamics: from neuron to brain. J. Physiol. Paris 94 303–322. 10.1016/S0928-4257(00)01090-1 in Pub med http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11165902
accessed 5/8/16
[21] ibid
[22] ibid, 40, he cites A.K. Engle et al, 2001; Shimojo and Shams 2001;
[23] ibid, 41-42 cites Rodolfo Llina’s and Pare’ 1996 Llina’s and Ribary, 1994.
[24] Ibid, 42 see Heil 1981
[25] ibid, 43 see Searl 1992
[26] ibid
[27] ibid, see also studies, puccetti 1989; Dupuy 2000 discussion of issue form opposing points of view).
[28] Ibid see Dennett 1978 and Searl 1992)
[29] ibid
A great deal depends on what counts as reduction, and on what counts as a mental state (or 'mind'). Those with functionalist leanings (like me) may be perfectly happy to agree that some examinations of cognition focus too narrowly on brains as brains, and not enough on brains as physical systems. With all respect to the late Marvin Minsky, perhaps the mind is not what the brain does, but what physical systems of a particular sort do. And perhaps we need to abandon not just substance dualism, but other dualisms as well that try to draw too rigid boundaries between thinking and unthinking things?
ReplyDeletebut what physical systems of a particular sort do.
ReplyDeletethat is top down causation or it could include it. that's an argument by my side against reduction to brain.
And perhaps we need to abandon not just substance dualism, but other dualisms as well that try to draw too rigid boundaries between thinking and unthinking things?
the phrase "perhaps" implies reasoning, awareness, the choice of more than one alternative as a co0nsequnce of analysis, all of which implies thinking, the distinction is there.
Yup. And I think the right kind of functionalism can do justice to both of those.
ReplyDeleteRelevant: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/opinion/consciousness-isnt-a-mystery-its-matter.html
ReplyDeleteI'll check that. thanks Eric.,
ReplyDeleteI view reductionism as a methodology, since one must reduce one's scope of observation and experiment in order to understand anything at all, since one cannot know and explain everything on every level at once. But taking in the world in smaller more isolated bites has taught us much more about how the world works than other methods seem capable of doing. By the same token, taking in the world in small bites does not mean that love or human values cease to exist once the camera pan backwards and we view things in increasingly larger and wider bites.
ReplyDeleteLet me put it this way, we may know much about single atoms, but adding atoms to make molecules, and molecules to make chain reactions, and chain reactions to make organelles inside cells, and cells to make tissues, and tissues to make organs, and organs to make whole systems of organs like the nervous system and endocrine system, and systems of organs to make a whole animal, and then considering that organism's total environment of interactions with other organisms and with nature, DOES eventually include love and other values. And no single atom can explain those higher level things because each individual atom is being yanked around and moved by the total dynamic activity of the whole organism and that whole organism's mutual interactions and understandings with other organisms and nature.
Read more here: http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2011/01/prior-prejudices-and-argument-from.html
And related articles on the brain-mind question: http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/search/label/brain-mind
I have no problem with reduction as a methodology but not as an ideology. it is not the only valid method. I think holism has been as successful. evolution can't function without emergent proprieties and that is a product of holism.
ReplyDelete