Posted on 05/05/2004 11:31:33 PM PDT by tpaine
This is all well and good, but how is a political system going to suceed where religion, who's main purpose is to "reign in" those parts of human nature we don't particuallarly care for, has largely failed? What does Pinker have to offer that the great religious traditions have overlooked?
Also, wasn't our political system based on values and beliefs fostered by mulit-centuries of Greco-Roman-Christian culture that both highly values individuals, but is quite realistic as to the true nature of man? Is it our political system that has formed us, or did we form our political system?
In other words, could it not be said that our Western political systems are better because we had a better cultural foundation upon which to build them?
This is all well and good, but how is a political system going to suceed where religion, who's main purpose is to "reign in" those parts of human nature we don't particuallarly care for, has largely failed?
Our Constitution, properly honored, can use the rule of law to enforce compliance. Religion can't.
What does Pinker have to offer that the great religious traditions have overlooked?
Perhaps a legitimacy to libertarian social policies coupled to constitutional restraints?
Also, wasn't our political system based on values and beliefs fostered by mulit-centuries of Greco-Roman-Christian culture that both highly values individuals, but is quite realistic as to the true nature of man?
Yep, and that system of prohibitionary laws has failed us. Decrees on enforcing morality do not work on free men, whether put forth by socialists or moralists. We must find a better way to control 'sin'..
Is it our political system that has formed us, or did we form our political system?
We definitely formed a unique free Republic with our Constitution. Now it is being violated wholesale at every level of government. Time to restore our original concept, imo.
In other words, could it not be said that our Western political systems are better because we had a better cultural foundation upon which to build them?
You bet. I have no argument with our religious culture, -- until it intrudes in politics.
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?
Pinker is promoting ideology under the color of science. It reflects poorly on him and it is bad science at that, because he has blinders on concerning math, physics and cosmology. All of the following are not considered in his narrow worldview:
The universe is inherently mathematical.
Earth exists in an extremely rare habitable zone in the universe.
Dark energy is not detected in laboratory conditions despite it representing over 70% of the mass of the universe.
Superposition (Schrodinger’s cat) and the presence or loss of information in singularities
The physical constants being just-so for the universe and life to exist at all
The unattributed origin for information in biological systems
Non-locality – the violation of Bell’s inequalities at distance.
Dimensionality and dualities as geometric transitions
Fulfilled prophesy and history (particularly of the Jews)
Personal responsibility - the rationale behind any rule of law
Philosophical/theological reasoning over the millennia.
Y'all will really be missing out if you don't read the whole thing. Here's the link: post 430
The environmental determination of human differences is the central cog of all Socialist rationalization. Once you realize that we really are all different, Socialism and levelling generally, cease to have any real appeal.
William Flax
For a discussion of this in more depth, see Racial Denial In America--Life In A Pavlovian Kennel.
The Atlantic monthly has an interview with Edward O. Wilson with additional links: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/bookauth/ba980318.htm
Wilson is an environmental wacko, but his research has dealt sever blows to feminism and those who believe in social engineering.
Betty casts Western Civilization as in opposition to Pinker and Pinker as a parvenu. In my opinion, Pinker is squarely in the center of the stream of Western Civilization, and Betty, and what she stands for, are out on the fringe. That's not necessarily bad, mind you. Western Civilization is now predominantly naturalistic; it has been moving in that direction for 500 years. It is also scientific and skeptical.
Her 'who is Steven Pinker argument' is (apparently ingenuously) adopting the very 'ghost in the machine' fallacy Pinker assails. Pinker is what Pinker's brain does. If we praise Pinker, that praise is what our brains do. Our brains make decisions about whether praise is warranted or appropriate; Pinker's decides if the praise is pleasurable for him. The idea of a homunculus Pinker sitting at the controls looking at the output of Pinker's brain is ridiculous on its face. A decision-making computer that can look at itself and decide that it is a decision making computer does not pose any logical problems.
She wrote: If I believed for an instant that this dude actually believed anything that came out of his own mouth, I’d be a moron.
No, she would most definitely not be a moron, regardless. But that is not the most insightful thing she's ever written. Impugning his sincerity is silly. He clearely believes strongly what he's written.
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….
Some functions are delocalized; others are very local indeed. I strongly recommend Luria's book for a careful mapping of specific fuinctions onto specific regions of the brain. And let me reiterate, as a scientist who does quantum chemical calculations for a living, that I find the idea of quantum fields having an important role in brain activity to be ludicrous on its face. The decoherence times are too short; the couplings too large. The brain is a classical object on time scales six order of magnitude shorter than the shortest time relevant to neural processing.
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.
And yet, from my point of view, who threw up a wall and made the physical brain a "safe zone" from physics which are otherwise applicable to the universe?
Obviously you imagine that, but I see him as an honest scientist who has marshalled a lot of facts, and came to some credible conclusions based on that evidence.
It reflects poorly on him and it is bad science at that, because he has blinders on concerning math, physics and cosmology.
That's an enormous supposition to make, imo..
All of the following are not considered in his narrow worldview:
There is always a beginning, regardless of the cosmology – inflationary model, many worlds, multi-verse, ekpyrotic, cyclic. The universe is inherently mathematical. Earth exists in an extremely rare habitable zone in the universe. Dark energy is not detected in laboratory conditions despite it representing over 70% of the mass of the universe. Superposition (Schrodinger's cat) and the presence or loss of information in singularities The physical constants being just-so for the universe and life to exist at all The unattributed origin for information in biological systems Non-locality – the violation of Bell's inequalities at distance. Dimensionality and dualities as geometric transitions In addition to these, he dismisses with a "hand wave" other evidence for the soul, spirit and consciousness being beyond material evidence: Changed lives Fulfilled prophesy and history (particularly of the Jews) Personal responsibility - the rationale behind any rule of law Philosophical/theological reasoning over the millennia.
Quite a list. I doubt that Pinker ever claimed to be writing a universal theory, so why do you say he should have considered them in his books/articles?
In conclusion, I appeal to betty boop's comment on another thread:
If they could just stick with Niels Bohr's elegantly restrained and rigorous epistemological model, all would be well. Bohr said (I'm paraphrasing) that if something can't be observed, then essentially it isn't a problem for science. He said science was about making good descriptions, not about philosophizing about "how" the natural world is, and certainly not about editorializing regarding the "nature" of things. Given those assumptions, one can't make too much mischief....
How deep. Yes indeed, if only we ALL could just stick with elegantly restrained and rigorous epistemological models, all would be well.
That thought and 99 cents will get you coffee at 7/11.
The overarching clue that Western science is missing the boat on the physical brain is the dimensional limitations of vision and thought. Our eyes and brains are wired for three spatial and one temporal dimension.
And yet from Kaluza-Klein to Vafa Cumrun, we are much aware of extra dimensional causes as the best explanation for myriad observations in these four dimensions.
Why the limitation? Why this choice of coordinates? What is physically "real"?
I can unequivocally assert she has not read Pinker's books.
Those would be? As I recall, Western science will not consider any notion of photons being a factor, superposition, geometry or space/time relativity in the functioning of the physical brain.
Of course photons are a factor; we radiate and absorb them in the infrared. 'Biophotons' are another matter. As I've explained, they appear to be chemiluminescence, a non-functional byproduct of chemical reactions. It would be fairer to say we've considered them and discounted them.
As for superposition, I've spent a great deal of time thinking about how some coherent states could last for relatively long times in organic matter. And I've concluded that there is no plausible mechanism for such persistence. In general, the sorts of collisional events that cause decoherence of quantum electronic, vibrational and rotational states do not obey selection rules, and therefore tend to be the means by which unusual long-lived, high symmetry quantum states decohere. And in the brain, which is condensed matter and mostly liquid, collisions happen on a time scale of picoseconds.
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