Please notice the usage “beast,” not “animal”: One does not wish to denigrate the honor and dignity of our animal brethren, these “other nations, caught up with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”
If only the people who populate my “bete noire list” could resonate to an idea like that. But if they could, then they wouldn’t make the list.
Just to be fair, I’ll name names from both sides of the “Wissenschaften aisle,” in no particular order, three from the natural sciences, and three from the humanities: Dawkins, Pinker, Dennett; Singer, McKinnon, Chomsky.
I might have been motivated to write a critical essay about any of these folks – maybe three months ago. But by now, I am so sick and tired of the “politics of pointing the finger of blame,” and the tactics of personal attack and character assassination that I could spit.
I wonder what is the point of adding more fuel to a public culture that already seems determined, and has the means, to immolate itself -- on the alter of irrelevancy no less? While Nero fiddles, Rome burns. Me, I’m heading for the countryside….
But Patrick, you did ask for an example, so I owe you one. I pick Pinker.
But first, Pinker’s distinguished bio: Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT; Director, McDonnell-Pew Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, MIT; author, Language Learnability and Language Development (1984), Learnability and Cognition (1989), The Language Instinct (1994), and How the Mind Works (1997). Here is his self-introduction at a very large and very famous public event in London, April 1999:
* * * * * *
Steven Pinker opens:
I’m going to discuss an idea that elicits wildly opposite reactions. Some people find it a shocking claim with radical implications for morals and every value that we hold dear. Other people think that it’s a claim that was established a hundred years ago, that the excitement is only in how we work out the details, and that it has few if any implications for our values and ethics. That is the idea that mind is the physiological activity of the brain, in particular the information processing activity of the brain; that the brain, like other organs, is shaped by the genes; and that in turn, the genome was shaped by natural selection and other evolutionary processes. I am among those who think that this should no longer be a shocking claim, and that the excitement is in fleshing out the details, and showing exactly how our perception, decision-making, and emotions can be tied to the activity of the brain.
Stephen Pinker closes (for now….)
* * * * * *
I feel sure Prof. Pinker’s project must be “exciting” in principle; especially as it is seemingly bent on finding ways to falsify and thus overcome the planted experience of the human race over the course of decades of millennia by now. But then as a wise man once said: “Some motives are beyond the reach of argument.”
Patrick, just try to scan the logic of the foregoing passages. Is this really a logical argument? Or is it an exercise in polemics, generated from an undisclosed motive, from a “hidden major premise?”
Let’s walk it through. Pinker begins by casting doubt on the rationality of his anticipated “opponent” (perhaps a “political conservative,” or “religious believer”). He goes on to suggest that the “breakthroughs” (precisely what kind of breakthroughs are not described) of the past one hundred years somehow obviate and render null the human existential experience of millennia, as articulated by the greatest thinkers of our race.
Western civilization, I gather, is simply expected to concede the floor to a parvenu who got a blueprint for utopia from Hegel or one of his epigones. Yet a scientist is expected to chart his course by evidence. It must be embarrassing to Pinker (assuming he could ever be embarrassed, which is highly doubtful – let alone feel shame) that there has yet to be any successful “utopia” in all of human history.
So I wonder why Pinker thinks he’s making any “selling points” here. Still, he urges us to believe that he, who claims to have some kind of warrant from God-knows-whom, (but I could guess) to consign human existence and human nature as mankind has experienced it for virtually countless millennia, to extinction so that a new beginning might be made, is completely justified in proclaiming the seductive, yet completely undemonstrated and yet-to-be-disclosed “virtues” of the “innovations” which lead to this result.
What are these innovations? First and foremost, there is the claim that consciousness is merely the epiphenomenon or by-product of brain activity.
If that is so, then how do we explain Steven Pinker? Are his public performances really to be understood as demonstrations of the virtuosity of his brain? When did a guy like Steven Pinker ever leave his ego to die, so that his omnicompetent brain function might live? When did Steven Pinker ever say that he could claim no credit for his public pronouncements – in academia, the press, the public forum – because such must justly be credited entirely to the optimality of his brain function?
If I believed for an instant that this dude actually believed anything that came out of his own mouth, I’d be a moron.
The brain is the single most complex living system known to man. There is not a single person on the face of this earth who understands what the brain is or what it does in all its complexity. We can study the organism. But even here, we get it wrong. For it turns out the brain is not a congeries of local organic sites, each dedicated to a specific, localized, dedicated purpose, such as interpreting “incoming” from sensory organs, such as the eye, the ear, etc.
Instead it turns out that the functions of the brain are not localized, but widely distributed throughout the brain; it appears this wide distribution of activity is carried by quantum fields and routinely involves the principle of non-locality….
If non-local effects are involved, then it seems this must mean that consciousness is BIGGER than the physical brain, MORE than the physical brain. Seemingly, consciousness takes place at a principal level of reality independent of physical brain function. Which in turn suggests that some principle must exist to coordinate such widely distributed activity – activity which, on Bell’s Theorem, may likely involve events so remote that they occur on the very edge, on the other side, of the universe….
Which is the polar opposite, the antithesis, of Pinker’s argument: That brain function is a local phenomenon, confined to tight processing units, mute, insensate…material, determined….
The critique could continue on other substantive points. But I think it would be good to leave off for now: Time for a time-out!
Dear Patrick, if you or anybody else out there reading this has further ideas on the present subject, I would seriously be most glad to hear them and think about them.
BB, you dazzle me. I ask for a name, I get not only that but a publishable pamphlet on the topic. Alas, I have no knowledge of Pinker's subject matter (Cognitive Neuroscience), so I can't contribute a thing to this conversation. But now I have a much better understanding of what this thread is all about. Thanks for taking the time to bring me up to speed.
If that is so, then how do we explain Steven Pinker? Are his public performances really to be understood as demonstrations of the virtuosity of his brain? When did a guy like Steven Pinker ever leave his ego to die, so that his omnicompetent brain function might live? When did Steven Pinker ever say that he could claim no credit for his public pronouncements – in academia, the press, the public forum – because such must justly be credited entirely to the optimality of his brain function?
Well said, betty. I would venture to say that Mr. Pinker probably thinks proudly of himself (notwithstanding the inherent irony of the aforesaid, as you have so elegantly pointed out) as one of those whom old Clive Staples Lewis disparagingly described as the "conditioners" in the Abolition of Man in which Lewis warns that that every power won by man over nature is a power over other men as well. Thus, (speaking of extinction, from the title of this thread) those who attempt to remake human nature end up destroying it. "What we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument." "Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man."
Steven Pinker opens:
I'm going to discuss an idea that elicits wildly opposite reactions.
Some people find it a shocking claim with radical implications for morals and every value that we hold dear. Other people think that it's a claim that was established a hundred years ago, that the excitement is only in how we work out the details, and that it has few if any implications for our values and ethics.
That is the idea that mind is the physiological activity of the brain, in particular the information processing activity of the brain; that the brain, like other organs, is shaped by the genes; and that in turn, the genome was shaped by natural selection and other evolutionary processes.
I am among those who think that this should no longer be a shocking claim, and that the excitement is in fleshing out the details, and showing exactly how our perception, decision-making, and emotions can be tied to the activity of the brain.
Stephen Pinker closes
I feel sure Prof. Pinker's project must be "exciting" in principle; especially as it is seemingly bent on finding ways to falsify and thus overcome the planted experience of the human race over the course of decades of millennia by now.
Sad you should think so Betty. I find that his ideas compliment our Constitutions principles, that free men should follow the ruled of law, -- not be ruled by the morals of the majority.
But then as a wise man once said: "Some motives are beyond the reach of argument." Patrick, just try to scan the logic of the foregoing passages. Is this really a logical argument? Or is it an exercise in polemics, generated from an undisclosed motive, from a "hidden major premise?"
You found a hidden premise? Where?
Let's walk it through. Pinker begins by casting doubt on the rationality of his anticipated "opponent" (perhaps a "political conservative," or "religious believer"). He goes on to suggest that the "breakthroughs" (precisely what kind of breakthroughs are not described) of the past one hundred years somehow obviate and render null the human existential experience of millennia, as articulated by the greatest thinkers of our race. Western civilization, I gather, is simply expected to concede the floor to a parvenu who got a blueprint for utopia from Hegel or one of his epigones. Yet a scientist is expected to chart his course by evidence. It must be embarrassing to Pinker (assuming he could ever be embarrassed, which is highly doubtful – let alone feel shame) that there has yet to be any successful "utopia" in all of human history.
Ah! His 'hidden premise' is advocating a utopia? Where did he say that?
So I wonder why Pinker thinks he's making any "selling points" here. Still, he urges us to believe that he, who claims to have some kind of warrant from God-knows-whom, (but I could guess) to consign human existence and human nature as mankind has experienced it for virtually countless millennia, to extinction so that a new beginning might be made, is completely justified in proclaiming the seductive, yet completely undemonstrated and yet-to-be-disclosed "virtues" of the "innovations" which lead to this result.
You sure we're reading the same paragraph, Betty? -- Again, -- where is all this said?
What are these innovations? First and foremost, there is the claim that consciousness is merely the epiphenomenon or by-product of brain activity. If that is so, then how do we explain Steven Pinker? Are his public performances really to be understood as demonstrations of the virtuosity of his brain? When did a guy like Steven Pinker ever leave his ego to die, so that his omnicompetent brain function might live? When did Steven Pinker ever say that he could claim no credit for his public pronouncements – in academia, the press, the public forum – because such must justly be credited entirely to the optimality of his brain function? If I believed for an instant that this dude actually believed anything that came out of his own mouth, I'd be a moron.
I think you may be believing a lot more about what you ~imagine~ he has said, -- than his actual writings Betty.
The brain is the single most complex living system known to man. There is not a single person on the face of this earth who understands what the brain is or what it does in all its complexity. We can study the organism. But even here, we get it wrong. For it turns out the brain is not a congeries of local organic sites, each dedicated to a specific, localized, dedicated purpose, such as interpreting "incoming" from sensory organs, such as the eye, the ear, etc. Instead it turns out that the functions of the brain are not localized, but widely distributed throughout the brain; it appears this wide distribution of activity is carried by quantum fields and routinely involves the principle of non-locality….
Quantum fields? Wow! Who's theory is that?
If non-local effects are involved, then it seems this must mean that consciousness is BIGGER than the physical brain, MORE than the physical brain. Seemingly, consciousness takes place at a principal level of reality independent of physical brain function. Which in turn suggests that some principle must exist to coordinate such widely distributed activity – activity which, on Bell's Theorem, may likely involve events so remote that they occur on the very edge, on the other side, of the universe….
Wow again! Same theorist Betty?
Which is the polar opposite, the antithesis, of Pinker's argument: That brain function is a local phenomenon, confined to tight processing units, mute, insensate…material, determined…. The critique could continue on other substantive points. But I think it would be good to leave off for now: Time for a time-out!
Dear Patrick, if you or anybody else out there reading this has further ideas on the present subject, I would seriously be most glad to hear them and think about them.
Betty? -- Have you read Pinkers books?
Interesting argument. I'm just now finally reading through another thread on Pinker as I intended.