Skeptical Inquirer attempts to explain why psi could not possibly exist.

Introduction:

I read the following article:

Why Parapsychological Claims Cannot Be True

It says:

The entire field [of parapsychology] is bankrupt—and has been from the beginning. Each and every claim made by psi researchers violates fundamental principles of science and, hence, can have no ontological status. 

We did not examine the data for psi, to the consternation of the parapsychologist who was one of the reviewers. Our reason was simple: the data are irrelevant. We used a classic rhetorical device, adynaton, a form of hyperbole so extreme that it is, in effect, impossible. Ours was “pigs cannot fly”—hence data that show they can are the result of flawed methodology, weak controls, inappropriate data analysis, or fraud.

This is pivotal to the impasse between parapsychologists on the one hand, and paranormal skeptics on the other. The latter regard psi as simply being impossible as they regard it as contravening what science has told us about the world. Hence, no matter how compelling the evidence for psi is, it cannot be what it seems.

But how exactly does psi violate science? They go on to say:

We identified four fundamental principles of science that psi effects, were they true, would violate: causality, time’s arrow, thermodynamics, and the inverse square law.

Okay, so let's see what they have to say about each of these.

Causality:

They say:

Effects have causes. Bridging principles identify the causal links for observed effects. The appropriate response to circumstances that lack such a mechanism is skepticism or an existential agnosticism—and, historically, this has been the case. Newton’s notion of gravity as “action at a distance” was considered suspect until rescued by Einstein’s relativity theory.
 ...

Within the study of psi, there are no causal mechanisms, and none have been hypothesized.

There are all sorts of issues here. But the most crucial one is that there is also no mechanism for the production of the very existence of consciousness itself, nor how it is able to affect the body in the case of our voluntary behaviour. Our current physics, dealing as it does only with the measurable aspects of reality, necessarily wholly leaves out consciousness in its description of reality. Indeed, given the immaterial nature of consciousness, no tinkering with current laws can be fruitful in this regard. This is why we have what has been labeled the mind-body problem, a problem that has been particularly acute since the birth of modern science in the 17th Century. We require a radically new theory that doesn't just deal with the measurable aspects of reality but has consciousness at its core.

The important point to make here is that if we have no mechanism or explanation for why consciousness exists, then, of course, we could not expect to be able to discern any mechanism for any possible abilities of consciousness, such as psi. However, if such a mechanism or explanation were to be found, it may be that we will come to understand that psi is brought about as a consequence of that very same mechanism or explanation.

My own view is that I regard it very likely that consciousness is fundamental in the same way that the elementary constituents of reality are (electrons and quarks? superstrings?). We normally explain the existence of something by reference to the parts it is composed of. But, what of the ultimate constituents of reality? Such things simply exist as a brute fact with the properties they possess existing as a brute fact too. So, if consciousness is fundamental, then psi might be such a property, as indeed might the causal power of consciousness initiating our voluntary behaviour. No mechanism for psi is then required, although of course we still do require a scientific theory that incorporates such a fundamental consciousness.

Regardless, the bottom line is that it is only if we have a scientific theory at our disposal that incorporates consciousness could we hope to infer what properties and causal powers it has. Hence, once we have such a theory we will be in a better position to stipulate whether we can expect consciousness to exhibit psi abilities and whether such psi abilities require a mechanism. But, at the present time, we lack any such theory.

I should point out that my response here has no relevance should modern materialism be true since it holds that consciousness is identical to some physical processes, or at least what those processes do. In which case we already know how consciousness is produced. In particular, it is tied to specific brains and arguably, if psi is to exist, we then have a problem in that we need some method of communication between brains. Possible mechanisms to explain such communication would seem to be thin to non-existent.

There are 2 points I should immediately make here:

1. To presuppose modern materialism is largely question-begging.
2. Modern materialism is incoherent.  See a blog post by me.

Largely question begging since most of those who accept the existence of psi will reject modern materialism, and indeed any form of materialism.

But, even if modern materialism were correct, I question whether we necessarily need to propose theoretical mechanisms, that is mechanisms that are not directly observable. They mention Newton's law of gravity and that the concept of a gravitational force was suspect. Then Einstein came along and replaced it with the more satisfactory idea of warped space-time. The idea here is that influences have to be contiguous. Gravitational force fails to fulfill this criterion since it acts at a distance. Warped space-time, in contrast, allegedly does fulfill this criterion. My own position is that the job of physics is merely to map, predict, and manipulate our environment via mathematical models -- a position which Newton himself subscribed to. Proposing that reality exhibits patterns as circumscribed by invisible mechanisms seems to me to completely ignore the underdetermination of scientific theories by data thesis. I briefly talk about this here. More generally, I think they're confusing metaphysics with science (although, to be fair, most scientists are just as guilty). For an elaboration of my views on this topic go here. Finally, I should mention that the phenomenon of entanglement pays scant regard to this demand for a mechanism.

Inverse Square Law:

Related to this issue over a mechanism the article states:

In telepathy, the distance between the two linked persons is never reported to be a factor, a claim that violates the principle that signal strength falls off with the square of the distance traveled.

Should modern materialism be correct this objection has more force than the demand for a mechanism. But what if one rejects materialism? Personally, I do not buy into this idea that each of our streams of consciousness are isolated, that is confined to our individual brains. I think that although our essences are individual selves, we also to a degree partake in a universal consciousness. Telepathy is not then a signal passing from one stream of consciousness to another, nor is there any transference of energy, that is simply an entirely wrong way of looking at it. Rather the ability to sense others feelings, thoughts and so on is innate since our separateness is not as absolute as we might suppose. Indeed, I suspect that communication via telepathy might be the natural state of affairs in an afterlife realm or realms. However, whilst we're embodied, the brain serves to inhibit or diminish such abilities.

Thermodynamics:

They claim that psi, at least in the form of precognition, would violate the conservation of energy. They say:

 Again, take precognition. If the future affected the present, it would violate the thermodynamic principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system. The act of choosing a card from a fixed array, a common procedure used in psi research, involves neurological processes that use measurable biomechanical energy. The choice is presumed to be caused by a future that, having no existential reality, lacks energy.

This is all terribly confused. Are they, for the sake of argument, supposing that the future exists or not? They initially appear to assume that it does, but then contradict this by saying it has no existential reality. If the future does exist (implying we exist in a block Universe), then it's not true that the future lacks energy. If the future doesn't exist, implying the past doesn't either, then neither the future or past have energy. But our memories influence present actions without violating energy conservation, so what is problematic for future "memories" doing likewise? In the final analysis, this objection seems to collapse into the time's arrow objection that we will now address.

Time's Arrow:

They say:

Within parapsychology time is turned upon itself, most glaringly in precognition.

Here they are thinking precognition would only work by the future actually existing and causally influencing the past. But, despite some parapsychologists favouring this notion, why assume this? Perhaps only the present exists. In which case, there isn't a future that is causally influencing the present. Instead, precognition might simply be an implicit awareness, similar to telepathy, of how present events will play out should no preventative action be taken. If this strains one's credulity I suggest it's because they have bought into the mechanistic conception of reality. But, as I previously intimated, we are in no position to dictate to reality how it can or cannot behave; specifically, we are in no position to demand that it must exhibit patterns as circumscribed by invisible mechanisms. We must rely on what our experiences tell us.

If psi effects were real

The authors say:

[I]f psi effects were real, they would have already fatally disrupted the rest of the body of science. If one’s wishes and hopes were having a psychokinetic impact on the world—including computers and lab equipment—scientists’ findings would be routinely biased by their hopes and beliefs. Results would differ from lab to lab whenever scientists had different aims. The upshot would be empirical chaos, not the (reasonably) ordered coherent picture developed over the past several centuries.

This implies that scientists' findings are not biased by their hopes and beliefs, and indeed what will be financially lucrative. Is there any good evidence that this is the case? I feel also that they are overstating the effects of psi. I've had a few psi experiences in my life, mostly in my childhood, but I haven't experienced anything that I would judge to be psi for a fair few years. Why do they think that if it exists it has to be operating all the time regardless of one's psychological states? And even if it is omnipresent, why can't the effects be very slight? Or why can't various psychokinetic effects from differing people cancel each other out? If I'm in a casino mightn't any very marginal psychokinetic effect from me wanting a certain outcome be cancelled by other people wanting other outcomes?

It's either science or psi?

They also say:

[P]arapsychology cannot be true unless the rest of science isn’t.

So, psi cannot exist otherwise we wouldn't be able to get to the moon? We wouldn't be able to make smartphones? We wouldn't expect objects near the earth's surface to fall at an acceleration of around 10 m/s^2? This is clearly preposterous.

There's this persistent misunderstanding -- and one that the authors, Arthur S. Reber and James E. Alcock seem to share -- that scientific theories describe reality both with complete precision and in their totality. So if there's some aspect of reality a theory fails to describe -- namely some phenomena that contravenes what we should expect from the theory -- then that theory is simply not correct and hence it cannot adequately describe any aspect of reality. But that's not what we learn from the history of science. The history of science teaches us that our old scientific theories are often perfectly adequate to describe a given domain, but break down when attempting to describe that which resides outside that domain. Also, it teaches us that our theories give approximations only even if those approximations might be very close. Thus, the science prior to relativity and quantum mechanics is, in a sense, "wrong", however, that does nothing to prevent the Newtonian mechanical description of reality being able to be used to get us to the moon and back. In addition, the classical mechanics espoused before the advent of Quantum Mechanics is perfectly adequate to describe the macroscopic realm even though it might be "wrong". Quantum Mechanics is only needed when we describe the microscopic realm.

It seems that our present science describes reality where consciousness is not involved to a very close approximation, just as classical mechanics describes the macroscopic realm to a very close approximation. But that it breaks downs when it comes to consciousness, just as classical mechanics breaks down with the physics of the very small. So we need a new physical theory that incorporates consciousness. Once we have such a theory we might be able to judge from the consequences of such a theory whether consciousness requires a body, whether it is causally efficacious, whether it has psi abilities. But, until then, we can only go on the evidence. And the evidence very firmly says psi does exist, not just the evidence from parapsychological research, but also the collective experience of humankind throughout history and across virtually all cultures.

Moderators sometimes abuse their powers

Let me say up front that I think a certain minimal amount of moderation of comments on the net is essential.  People threaten each other, or perhaps post something that is totally off-topic, or post links to sites that have nothing to do with the topic under discussion, etc.  Unfortunately, it seems moderation comes at a price; namely that often dissenting opinions are silenced, especially if the dissenting opinions are forthright and/or combative.

My own experiences very much reflect this problem as often I find my comments under various articles on the net are deleted, or indeed never appear in the first place should all the comments be moderated.  I'm also sometimes kicked out of Facebook groups.

For example, I submitted a comment on an article dismissing the paranormal. I reproduced my comment here. When another person became aware that this comment from me had been deleted (that she hadn't seen or read) and queried it, the author of the original article claimed I had been harassing him.  Of course, one could see I had done nothing of the sort if they only had access to my comment!  Not only that, even when months later I tried to make further comments on that article, I find they are simply not appearing.

And in Facebook groups too sometimes I am kicked out of the group.  The other day I posted a message in a group called "Philosophical Atheism (insiders)". I asked the following question:

Does anyone have the capacity to advance any reasons to suppose an afterlife is unlikely? 

I got many replies from many people, but only one person who actually addressed the question.  He mentioned the fact that our mentality is inextricably bound up with the brain, hence it is highly unreasonable to suppose that there could be disembodied minds.  OK, that's a good reasonable response -- although ultimately unconvincing as I explain here.  But, every other reply was simply irrelevant.  Probably most of the responses claimed that if I believe in an afterlife, then I must present the evidence. These responses implicitly suppose that the no afterlife hypothesis is the more reasonable one and if it is to be jettisoned then compelling evidence needs to be presented for an afterlife.  But it is this very presumption that I was questioning, that I wanted them to somehow justify.  Pointing all this out to them was futile though; I may as well have been addressing a brick wall.

Apparently, I constantly attack straw men, I constantly beg the question, oh yes, and one individual -- a moderator --  kept warning me in the various sub-threads that I am being "intellectually dishonest".  All these accusations bear not the slightest resemblance to reality.  But, it is being called dishonest that I particularly took umbrage with as I am generally loathe to lie about anything.  I'm not even sure what intellectual dishonesty means.  At a guess, that in reality I'm convinced that the arguments against an afterlife are compelling, but am pretending otherwise? And what arguments might these be anyway, they never gave any!  Of course, this accusation is preposterous.  I tried to ignore it, but then another moderator repeated the same accusation.  At this point, I said that if anyone else accuses me of being dishonest, I will be blocking them.  Then I was bounced from the group.

I mentioned at the beginning that it is correct to prohibit links to sites that have no relevance.  But often I link to my blog to a post that has direct relevance, and either my comment doesn't appear at all, or I get a message saying a moderator needs to check it.  But, even in the latter case, so far as I can recollect, my post never appears.  This is silly since my post is directly relevant to the issue, and there are no advertisments on my blog.

I tend to post on sites that hold contrary views to my own, and to be honest I feel that this is the most relevant factor here.  Frequently my comments are  deleted, comments linking to my blog where I explain in more careful detail never appear, or I get bounced from groups/forums etc.

So this is the downside to moderation.  Peoples' views that are consonant with the prevailing view of the group/forum/newspaper in question will rarely get their views censored.  What I find interesting is the question of why moderators find it so difficult to be objective and dispassionate.

16/05/2020  Edited to add:  Having more problems as I outline here.  

A Tiny Blue Marble

We all live on the surface of this tiny blue marble floating in an infinite sea of nothingness, a nothingness utterly inimical to any life. Everyone who has ever existed has lived their entire lives on this tiny blue marble. For all we know, this tiny blue marble might be the only place in this entire universe that has creatures who are conscious. And we are united in not knowing what the world is, why it exists, why we exist, whether there's an afterlife, and what it all means, if anything.

Despite this, most of us spend our lives on the trivialities of existence and conforming. Getting a job, making money to buy things, getting married, drinking, sleeping, arguing about nothing, and eventually dying. None of which appears to mean much, if anything, in the grand scheme of things.

Perhaps we'll find out what it all means when we die, or maybe we'll just enter into an eternity of nothingness. Perhaps we might wonder if everything is just a huge joke and our lives and the Universe are simply a fortuitous fluke and ultimately nothing means anything. But, even if our lives are a fluke, and we enter into an eternity of nothingness when we die, surely our lives and the human race, together with all other life on Earth, are still very special?

It is depressing, then, that the human race has devoted much of its time to killing others in wars and finding more efficient ways of doing so. And it is also depressing that people only care about their material comforts and pay no heed to environmental degradation to pay for those comforts. Is it really a great idea to seek short term gains to the detriment of the environment, and perhaps to eventually render this beautiful blue marble as uninhabitable for future generations? We all live in the same boat, or rather, we all live on the surface of the same tiny blue, beautiful marble. We desperately need to change our attitudes.

The BBC and Advertising

Just read this article:

BBC confirms plans to make over-75s pay TV licence fee

This article was linked to on twitter and many on there are saying the licence fee should be abolished and the BBC should show adverts. That people can skip the adverts or get a cup of tea, go to the toilet and so on during the adverts if they don't like them.

I think they're failing to grasp the bigger picture. If the BBC get paid for showing the adverts, then who is paying for these programmes?  It'll be the ones that finance the BBC, the companies whose goods and services are advertised. So where do they get the money from? They take a hit on their profits? Unlikely, I imagine they'll increase the prices of their goods and services to cover the cost. Meaning we all pay anyway, but on average more than the license fee (as the programmes AND the adverts now need to be paid for) and we have to suffer the adverts to boot!

And to what avail? The total amount spent on goods and services is unlikely to change significantly as a result of adverts, the money spent just gets shifted to those products that are the most heavily advertised. So other companies have to spend more on advertising to compete, resulting in higher prices still. It's all just so irrational.

The world would be much better if there were no adverts on TV and we just paid for it all directly.

Edited to add (30 mins after posting the above):

Someone mentioned to me on twitter that my misgivings about adverts are met by the fact that one can have either a free service with adverts, or we can pay for the service and have an ad-free experience.  He appeared to suggest that this happens with some apps on smartphones (I don't know since I don't possess a smartphone).

If this is true then we need to be aware that those who are paying for a service, rather than a "free" service with adverts, are paying twice over.  They are paying directly for an ad-free experience and they are also paying the same amount as everyone else for the goods and services that are advertised.  But, as I point out, the price of goods and services are inflated so as to allow companies to recuperate the cost of adverts.  

Russell's argument for the mind being created by the brain

Bertrand Russell (a famous 20th Century philosopher) once said:

"The mind grows like the body; like the body it inherits characteristics from both parents; it is affected by disease of the body and by drugs; it is intimately connected with the brain. There is no scientific reason to suppose that after death the mind or soul acquires an independence of the brain which it never had in life".

Something can be dependent on something else without being created by that something else.  For example, when someone is in a building their ability to see the sky is dependent on windows and the glass in them being relatively clean and so on. But such a dependence only applies when inside the building.  It doesn't depend on the window if they were to venture outside.  Their view of the sky would be, if anything, enhanced.

So Russell needs to say more to justify that the mind or soul couldn't have such an independence.  The mind-body correlations are insufficient in themselves to establish there is no afterlife.

Max Planck and Scientific Truths

Max Planck once said the following:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

I used to think this statement might have some element of truth, but that he was largely being flippant. I am now convinced that scarcely anyone likes having their beliefs challenged -- and this definitely includes scientists -- and scarcely anyone will fundamentally change their minds whether on an afterlife, political position, or whatever. They hold tenaciously to those beliefs no matter what. I now believe that presenting counter-arguments is largely futile. People don't want to hear, don't want to think. They'll seek out those people and views that confirm their existing beliefs.

I'm now convinced that what Planck said is mostly true.

18/05/19 Edited to add:

Rereading the above I think I might be conveying the impression that I'm bitter.  This is not the case at all! I'm not talking specifically about my attempts to convince people; it's rather a general observation about the way people are.  I've long been aware that peoples' minds are seldom changed, at least on the important issues.  But I'm now convinced that attempting to change peoples minds, at least by intellectual argumentation, is pretty much of a forlorn endeavour.  And I think that in itself is extremely interesting.  I think we only change peoples' minds by appealing to their emotions -- trying to get others to empathize with your view, utilizing humour, and so on.  And it almost certainly has to be face to face communication.  There is so much more conveyed in body language.

  

Are we born good and bad and everything in between?

Most people appear to believe babies aren't born good, or nasty, or anything in between. This implies they are blank slates at birth. How nice or nasty a person is as an adult is then determined entirely by how they are brought up, and more generally everything they have ever experienced. I can't say I agree with this. If that were so, then what ultimately grounded justification could there ever be for praise or blame? Everything we ever think or do would be down to what we have experienced.  So none at all.

This also presumably applies to other aspects of personality too. So, whether shy and introverted, or gregarious and outgoing, or bad-tempered, or mild-tempered, this is all simply determined by everything a person has ever experienced. And what about our interests? Would it truly be the case that if I had been brought up into a different environment, I perhaps wouldn't be interested in the ultimate philosophical questions such as what the world is, what we're doing here etc, but rather perhaps be interested in collecting stamps or coach/bus spotting, or -- heaven forbid -- celebrities?

I'm afraid I think this is all complete nonsense.

NDE’s, burden of proof, and Ockham’s razor

The other day I read the following Guardian article regarding peoples’ “spiritual experiences” near death.  I’m more interested though in the subsequent comments underneath the article.  A preponderance of the comments are dismissive with many of them claiming that those who are disposed to accept these experiences at face value -- that is those who regard these experiences as suggesting an encounter with an afterlife -- should bear the burden of proof.  Another common claim in the comments is that one should accept the simplest explanation, namely that it is the brain that is producing these experiences.

The Burden of Proof

 

The burden of proof is on those that are making a claim.  Immediately we encounter a problem here since although the author comes across as being sympathetic to the afterlife interpretation, he has not specifically claimed he accepts this interpretation.  Contrariwise, a preponderance of the commentators claim that the brain alone can explain these experiences.  So, it seems the skeptics ought to bear the burden of proof.

However, there is another strategy that skeptics tend to adopt, and that is to say the burden of proof rests upon those who are disposed to accept phenomena that contradict our scientific understanding of how the world works.  They further tend to say we know that science tells us that the brain produces consciousness justifying this knowledge claim by pointing out that the mind is profoundly affected and compromised by a dysfunctional brain e.g. as in dementia.  Hence, to suppose consciousness survives the permanent cessation of the functioning of the brain is an extraordinary claim, and those who make this claim bear the burden of proof.

In other words, those who are disposed to take these “spiritual experiences” at face value bear the burden of proof if, and only if, it is indeed the case that an afterlife contradicts what science has revealed about the world.  And what has science revealed about the world in this context?  According to skeptics it apparently has revealed that the brain produces consciousness!  But then to claim that those who are disposed to believe in an afterlife bear the burden of proof is to presuppose at the very outset that science has shown the brain produces consciousness.  It is therefore mere question begging.

But does science show, or at least strongly suggest, the brain produces consciousness?  I have written extensively about this in other blog posts, and the answer is emphatically no.  Indeed, on the contrary, not only has science not shown any such thing, it could not in principle do so.  See my Neither Modern Materialism nor Science as currently conceived can explain Consciousness.  Specifically, regarding a dysfunctional brain adversely affecting the mind read my Brains affecting Minds do not rule out an Afterlife.  So science doesn't say consciousness is a product of the brain, nor does it say it isn't.  Science, at least as currently conceived, can only be neutral on this issue.  It has nothing to say at all about how or why consciousness exists, least of all whether it can survive the deaths of our bodies.

Ockham’s Razor

 

So much for the burden of proof.  But in the comments there was also the claim that we ought to accept the simplest explanation.   This is to appeal to Ockham’s razor.  This can broadly be thought of as a rule of thumb that says that when you have two or more competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, in the absence of further evidence the simplest one is to be preferred.  Simpler in the sense it invokes the fewer number of assumptions than the competing theories. 

Now, the immediate problem here is that regardless of whether the brain produces consciousness or otherwise, we lack any theories either way.  Indeed, it is why we have had the mind-body problem for the past couple of thousand years.  But, the hypothesis that the brain produces consciousness has a special apparent problem in this regard since, as I explain in my Brains affecting Minds do not rule out an Afterlife, not only do we not currently have a mechanism whereby brain processes could produce conscious experiences, but there is no conceivable mechanism that could be revealed.  This is why many contemporary philosophers and scientists are reductive materialists since materialism circumvents this problem by identifying brain processes or their function with specific conscious experiences.  However, I have argued that reductive materialism is not tenable.  See my Why the existence of consciousness rules modern materialism out.

Of course we also lack a mechanism or scientific story of how a immaterial self or soul relates to the body, but unlike the brain producing consciousness thesis, this does not appear to be an intractable problem.  Even if it were, clearly the lack of explanations or theories for either possibility entails we can scarcely apply Ockham’s razor here.

If anything the onus should surely be on those who dispute that these experiences are indicative of an afterlife. After all, the most compelling argument for annihilation is that as we approach death our consciousness diminishes gradually until it reaches zero. But, for those who have NDE's, they often state they were more conscious than they have ever felt in their lives, and this at the threshold of death. Are we to imagine that at that moment their consciousness plunges to zero? This seems incongruous to me.  A similar point can be applied to terminal lucidity.  Such experiences have to be post-hoc rationalised away by the skeptic, often utilizing convoluted conventional explanations.  Then, of course, they have to face the apparent irreconcilable difficulty of explaining how the brain or the whole body could produce consciousness.

Conclusion

 

Whatever the specific issue that is being argued over I disapprove of either side declaring their position should be considered to be correct in the absence of their opponents proving their case.  One should not win by default. Moreover, often both sides will dispute who has the burden of proof, and who Ockham’s razor favours.  Since this is often not clear cut, and indeed, as I explain above, the appeal to such principles often presupposes one’s position, then the prospect of any fruitful exchange of views is a forlorn one.

My purpose in this post was not to argue that NDEs and deathbed visions are proof of an afterlife.  Although I do think that these phenomena strongly suggest an afterlife, there are problems with this evidence as I acknowledge in part 9 of my A Response to The Myth of an Afterlife. My task in this post was merely to dispute that those disposed to believe NDE’s suggest an afterlife bear the burden of proof, or that appealing to Ockham’s razor renders the afterlife hypothesis unlikely.  

At the very end

At the very end, what will we look back on that will provide comfort and satisfaction? What will we regret not doing? Are we likely to wish that we had worked longer hours, worked harder, made more money? That we had bought bigger TV sets, more expensive mobile phones? I doubt it.

That we had accomplished certain things? Climbed Mount Everest? That we had visited more places than anyone else? That we excelled at some sport? I still don't think these are all that important in the grand scheme of things.

I think the most important thing are those who you have connected with at a deep fundamental level. Those who you have laughed with, have bonded with, have loved.

Is it of benefit to know our Blood Pressure?

I read the following BBC news article concerning blood pressure and cholesterol.  It says:

People are being encouraged to know their cholesterol and blood pressure numbers as well as they know their bank Pin code - because it could save their life.

In respect to blood pressure this advice conflicts with a study* cited by a BMJ paper.  It states:

[I]f you are a hypertensive man you would minimise your chances of overall as well as CV-related mortality if you do not find out about it. If you find out, your chances of dying increases but according to this study, you should still not treat your [hypertension].

So according to this study it's best if we never have our BP checked in our lives, but if we do and our BP is high, we should not take any medication for it.  This is quite radical!

In addition the BMJ paper mentions that we do not know if high blood pressure (HBP) causes major coronary heart disease (CHD) rather than being a mere correlation. It may be, for example, that it is stress that causes major coronary heart disease.  Since stress also causes high blood pressure, it only appears that high blood pressure causes CHD.  The paper also mentions:

[I]t may be that with age some organ or body part malfunctions and that HBP is required to minimise the negative consequences of such malfunction, the same way that fever helps fight disease. Indeed, patients with CHD may have greater HBP to properly perfuse vital organs and a drop in BP could even precipitate myocardial ischaemia and a subsequent CHD event.

So high blood pressure might be your body's response to things going wrong in your body, in which case artificially decreasing BP without addressing the original cause could be deleterious to one's health.

If we have high blood pressure should we be concerned?  The following figure from the BMJ paper is of interest:

 


Regarding this figure the paper says:

[O]verall deaths related to HBP hardly increase until an SBP of around 175 is reached. But even if SBP increases to about 185, the number of deaths rises from around 15 to 28, an increase of 13/1000 or 1.3%. Only when SBP exceeds the 185 mark does the number of deaths start to increase steeply. In this case, the difference between normal SBP and that over 190 is 27 (15–42) extra deaths/1000, or 2.7%.

SBP standing for systolic blood pressure (the higher figure in a BP reading). It's the dashed line we're interested in as this tracks cardiovascular deaths. We can see that deaths don't start to significantly increase until one's SBP is over 180.

Incidentally, my average blood pressure using my own home monitor over thousands of readings is 131/90.  The lower figure, the diastolic, is slightly too high (it needs to be less than 90).  However, my average diastolic reading when I see my doctor tends to be 5-10 less than what my own blood pressure monitor typically gives.

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* Barengo NC, Kastarinen M, Antikainen R, et al. The effects of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension on cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in a community-based population control of hypertension. J Hum Hypertens 2009;23:808–16.

Brains affecting Minds do not rule out an Afterlife

The following essay is essentially an expanded and updated version of a previous blog post I've written called: Why are we all so convinced the brain produces consciousness?

1. The arguments for the thesis that the brain produces consciousness

To believe in an afterlife, at least in the form of a soul dwelling in some afterlife realm, is to suppose our consciousness can exist independently of our bodies.  However, there appears to be a crippling obstacle to holding such a view, namely the apparent dependence of our mental states on a properly functioning brain. For example, our capacity to understand written and spoken words and the capacity to speak are impaired or even eliminated with injuries to certain regions of the brain. Damage to the hippocampal and thalamic areas of the brain can destroy one's ability to store new long-term memories. More radically, injury to the brain can result in significant personality change; the most famous example here being undoubtedly Phineas Gage.  To top it all off, we could also point to the fact that drugs have a propensity to affect our emotions, attitudes, and dispositions. Indeed, even alcohol and caffeine do this. Taking all this into account, it seems more or less certain to many people that it is the brain that somehow or other gives rise to our consciousness – that is it is the brain that gives rise to all our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and so on.  Hence, how could our consciousness possibly survive the death of our bodies and brains?

In my experience, proponents of an afterlife appear to largely ignore these facts.  Instead, they counter with the evidence for an afterlife such as NDE’s, mediumship, recollections of alleged previous lives, and so on.  The problem here is that if it is indeed the case that the mind-brain correlations makes it more or less certain that the brain produces consciousness, then such evidence, no matter how apparently powerful, cannot possibly point to an afterlife.   Hence, for example, NDE’s, interesting as they may be, cannot possibly represent any sort of encounter with some afterlife realm.  They must somehow be hallucinations produced by the brain. 

2. Reasons to question this thesis

Let’s consider the following argument:

It surely must be obvious to everyone that eyeglasses actually create vision. Changing the lenses affects the vision in certain characteristic ways. One can make one's vision worse, or better. One can make one be able to see in the distance, but not close up; or conversely, to see close up, but not at a distance. We can invert peoples' vision. We can make people see everything in blue, or red, or green; you name it. Or all blurry. By painting the lenses black we can even eliminate one's vision completely! And all these effects are consistent across different people.

Of course, we know that eyeglasses don’t create vision. Indeed, we know in principle that eyeglasses could not create vision all by themselves since there is no appropriate mechanism, or conceivable causal chain, whereby vision could be created. Extra ingredients are required; namely eyes and the part of the brain dealing with vision.

Other examples apart from eyeglasses can be considered. Thus, consider a prism. The mixture of coloured lights obtained is not wholly produced by the prism all by itself. Something extra is involved, in this case, the white light that enters the prism. Or consider a TV set. The internal components all by themselves do not produce the programmes. Similar to the prism something else is involved, in this case, TV signals.

How can we be so confident that the relationship between our consciousness and our brains (and more generally our bodies) is not of a similar nature to these examples?  Perhaps our conscious states are merely affected by our brains?  Perhaps the brain merely either facilitates or inhibits the ability to perceive, think, feel, deliberate and so on, not creates them?  Is this plausible?

The unreflective view is that consciousness is supposed to come into being as the end consequence of material chains of causes and effects.  Such causes and effects are cashed out completely in the form of processes that we can measure; namely particles with physical properties such as charge, momentum, spin and so on.  Each link in the chain of causality follows as a direct result of these properties.  But, at the end of such causal chains, we get a sudden abrupt change, a radical disconnect from these measurable processes to subjective experiences such as the greenness of grass, the warmth of love, the smell of roses and so on.  These subjective experiences do not have physical properties, so we cannot, seemingly in principle, derive them from the prior physical causal chains.  

So, if consciousness is indeed produced by the brain, then it seems it just suddenly springs into existence.  I am not able to understand how this differs in any substantive manner from supposing eyeglasses could actually create vision rather than merely modifying it, or prisms actually produce colored light rather than merely modifying existing white light, or the innards of TV sets actually create the programs shown rather than merely modifying and changing TV signals.  Of course, in these other examples, we know how the end phenomenon comes about.  Yet, if we lacked this knowledge, we surely would not, for example, suppose that the innards of a TV set, all by themselves, could produce TV programs with their storylines.  It would be miraculous.  Why should the supposition that the brain creates consciousness be considered to be different, to be any less miraculous?  Why reject the more plausible alternative that consciousness exists all along, with the brain merely serving to facilitate or inhibit conscious states?  

3. The Materialist Option

People are aware of this problem of how the brain creates consciousness, or at least philosophers are.  By far the most common solution, at least amongst the scholarly community, is to adopt a position called materialism.   Modern materialism is essentially the position that science, or at least some ideal science, investigates the totality of reality.  Since science investigates reality via its measurable aspects, modern materialism holds that only these measurable aspects of reality exist.

In section 2 I mentioned that subjective experiences are supposed to come into being as the end consequence of material chains of causes and effects.  Materialism denies this.  Since modern materialism holds that only these material chains exist, there can be no additional facts in the form of subjective conscious experiences that we cannot measure. Instead, conscious experiences are typically either conflated with appropriate material processes within the brain, or conflated with the causal role that such material processes play.

It’s hard to get across how radical materialism is.  It is far more than simply saying the brain somehow produces consciousness.  Rather, strict modern materialism asserts there is only the brain and processes within it, and consciousness -- at least in terms of qualitative subjective experiences -- is somehow illusionary, that it has no real concrete existence at all.  I do not regard such a position as tenable and I go into detail why I believe this here and here.  However, even if one were to argue that it is tenable, why on earth believe it?  I have argued that although consciousness is affected by the brain, it is not necessarily produced by it.  In fact, it seems the only way it could be produced by the brain were if some variety of materialism is correct.  But we were never forced into supposing the brain must produce consciousness in the first place.  Hence, even if -- contrary to my own position -- it were possible to argue modern materialism is a viable position, there is no need to adopt such an uncommonsensical position.

4. An Objection

It is often argued that we lack any enduring nature since we change so much over time.  Hence our moods, demeanour, interests, intelligence, and so on change throughout our lives.  Compared to when we were children we now have a much increased intelligence, we have differing interests, we have differing memories, our emotional reactions are very different. Even during the course of one day, our moods can change significantly.  And just consider how much people change after a few alcoholic drinks.

This being so, if there’s an afterlife, what survives?  Myself as a child at 7 years of age, or as a young adult at 21, or when I’m an old man at 81?  Or some other age? When drunk or sober? Does the impossibility of answering this question suggest that the brain must somehow produce consciousness?

This issue pertains to personal identity.  What is it that makes me the very same person from one decade to the next, or indeed one day to the next?  If we cash out personal identity in terms of intelligence, interests, memories and so on, it seems we do not literally survive from childhood to adulthood.  This entails that not only is there no afterlife, but given that I’m now an adult, my 10 year old self has now quite literally ceased to exist.  And when we imbibe lots of alcohol our sober selves quite literally cease to exist, even if only temporarily. 

But why subscribe to such a radical uncommonsensical notion of personal identity?  Perhaps what constitutes the self is not my interests, intelligence, memories and so on.  Perhaps what constitutes my self is that sense of me-ness that has endured since I was a child, to when I'm drunk, to what I am now.  Consider a table.  Depending on what it is made of, it might acquire certain types of scratches as it grows older.  But, no matter how many scratches it acquires, it is still the very same table.  The scratches do not comprise the table, even though what the table is made of determines the type of scratches and how easily it acquires them.  In a comparative manner, maybe my interests, intelligence, memories and so on do not comprise my self even though my self influences them.  Going back to the eyeglasses, my vision can be altered in a variety of ways by trying on differing eyeglasses.  Nevertheless, that does not alter the fact that there is an unaided vision which remains unchanged throughout my life, even though we may never experience it.  It might be the case likewise for my self, and it is this self that survives should there be an afterlife.

5. Conclusion

It seems to me that the mind-brain correlations argument against an afterlife is significantly less compelling than people think.  If the afterlife hypothesis is to be regarded as an extraordinary one, then it is my position that other arguments or evidence, apart from the mind-body correlations, need to be appealed to.  However, I am not aware of any other such arguments. Of course, even if it is not regarded as an extraordinary hypothesis, it needn’t be true either.  Implausible that it might be, perhaps consciousness does suddenly appear with a functioning brain, even though we lack any conceivable causal chain as to how this could happen.  Philosophical speculation can only take us so far.  We also need to look at the evidence for an afterlife – NDE’s, memories of past lives, mediumship and so on – before reaching any provisional conclusions.

P.S. I attempted to get this essay published in a magazine called Philosophy Now.   It was rejected, moreover it was rejected within approximately 5 minutes after I had sent it.  I cover what happened here.

Why haven't we detected any aliens?

I'd say we haven't detected any aliens because:

1) Life in the Universe will be very uncommon given that a suitable star and planet are required.

2) Even on those planets where there's life, life as intelligent as us will be rare.

3) Yet rarer still will there be intelligent life with limbs and opposable thumbs and living in an appropriate environment so they can manipulate their environment (which rules out a life form similar to dolphins even if they are as intelligent as us).  

4) And extremely rare indeed will there be intelligent life with the appropriate technology to make their presence known. Consider the percentage of time that human beings have had the appropriate technology compared to how long we've been on the planet.

5) And then they need to have a desire to create technology and manipulate their environment. For example, other intelligent beings might just like to swim in their oceans and play. 

6) Aliens might have found something better than electromagnetic signals to communicate with.

Considering all the above I'd have been astounded if we had of detected any alien signals!  So why do the "scholarly" community think it is strange we have yet to detect anyone?

Capital Punishment

A member of parliament in the UK has called for the reintroduction of capital punishment.  See here.  Is this a good idea?  Before reaching any conclusions as to the desirability, or otherwise, of capital punishment, we need to be aware of a whole range of issues.

There's the issue of the purpose of executing. Is its purpose to act as a deterrent, or rather is its purpose an appropriate retribution or punishment instead?

Indeed, does it in fact deter? If it does, should we execute people if the net sum of peoples' lives are saved, even if we regard capital punishment as barbaric? Or if it does not deter, at least not significantly, is retribution or punishment enough of a justification for its reintroduction?  Regardless of whether the purpose is deterrence or retribution, how does the possibility of executing an innocent person effect our decision here?

What about the cost of keeping them in prison for many years compared to execution?

What about the issue of the ultimate origins of our behaviour? Are we mere meat robots whose behaviour is determined by physical laws rather than our conscious intentions? Even if, in a suitable sense, it is me that determines my behaviour, am I just purely a product of my environment? In other words are we born morally neutral?  If physical laws, or the environment, or both, wholly determines our behaviour then why would any punishment be justified?

 Alternatively, do we have free will and are we the type of people we are, at least in part, due to an innate component? That is say, do we self-determine to a degree how moral we are even though the environment and genetics plays a large role in influencing our behaviour too? 

Who should we execute? Anyone who illegally and with premeditation murders someone else? What about a woman who murders her husband as a result of being beat up by him day after day, year after year? Or murdering anyone who has made your life a living hell? What about murder due to a hopeless all-consuming jealousy?

Is executing, in fact, a greater punishment than spending many years languishing in prison? That also depends on what will actually happen to that person after death.

More on Stephen Hawking

I'm sick of hearing in the past few days that Hawking said that there's no role for God since the Universe can be explained by physical laws alone. How is his reasoning different from the following.

Let's suppose there were an experiment where a wad of £20 notes was placed on the ground outside.  We observe that every single person who see the notes stoop quickly down, put them in their pocket, and furtively look around.  So we can formulate a natural law that all human beings act this way.  There are certain patterns to their behaviour which always pertain.

Then a Hawking comes along and says we understand completely why £20 notes, initially lying on the ground, end up in peoples' pockets.  It's because of a law which says that when people see a wad of notes they will stoop down and place them in their pockets.  There is no need to appeal to any supernatural explanations -- that is there is no need to appeal to peoples' intentions, desires, motivations.

Obviously this reasoning is utterly asinine.  But it's *EXACTLY* the same as Hawking's reasoning! (as well as most scientists). 

Stephen Hawking's last book

In his last book Brief Answers to the Big Questions Stephen Hawking said:

"No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realisation: there is probably no heaven and afterlife either. I think belief in the afterlife is just wishful thinking.

It flies in the face of everything we know in science. I think that when we die we return to dust".

So his "profound realisation" wasn't some sort of mystical insight, or moment of enlightenment, but rather because science tells us there's no God or an afterlife.

It might be convenient here to repeat what I've said in other blog posts on this science rules out an afterlife and God contention (in this blog see relevant posts here, here, here, here, here esp part 7, here and in my other blog see here, here).  Science deals exclusively with the quantifiable or measurable (at least currently). Consciousness cannot be quantified or measured. Hence consciousness, at least as science is currently conceived, escapes the purview of science. This is regardless of whether consciousness is embodied or whether there is any possible disembodied consciousness. As it stands science simply has nothing to say about whether consciousness could survive the death of our bodies. To contend otherwise is rather like somebody operating a metal detector making proclamations regarding the existence or non-existence of plastic, wood and rubber.

As for a "God", clearly it depends on one's conception of God. However, the regularities ("physical laws") describing the Universe could not possibly explain the existence of the Universe. This is simply to misunderstand what science does. How so?

Think of a computer game. In order to play a 3D game proficiently, we need to know how the game environment changes when the character moves and behaves in particular ways. The character you control who presses buttons in the game environment will cause certain things to happen in that environment. Shooting at certain spots will cause other things, such as "killing" a bot. And so on and so forth.

One can become extremely proficient at a game. Yet, at the same time, one might know absolutely nothing about what makes the game possible to exist in the first place, and why the game environment changes in the characteristic way it does. In other words, one might know nothing about the computer software, CPU's, RAM, or anything else about the underlying machinery of the computer, even though one might be better at the game than anyone else.

I submit that our science, together with the technology it has spawned, is analogous to playing a computer game proficiently. I submit, that is, that science deals exclusively with the patterns discerned in reality and how the world changes with particular actions on our parts. Similar to the game, science tells us absolutely nothing about the underlying machinery of reality. Science tells us nothing about how or why the world exists at all and why it has the particular physical laws it does. That is what metaphysics deals with. In particular, science could not possibly shed any light on a suitably sophisticated God.

Reincarnation Research and Myths of Scientific Practice

Reading this article regarding research into reincarnation it says:

But what about the ‘scientific community’? Isn’t the fact that you probably never heard about this kind of research sufficient evidence that there must be something fundamentally wrong with it.

No of course not. They will dismiss "extraordinary claims" out of hand and assume there must necessarily be a normal explanation. I do likewise for any extraordinary claims. But, what I consider being an extraordinary claim does not necessarily coincide with theirs.

What constitutes an extraordinary claim? Well, a claim is deemed to be extraordinary if it is not consonant with our background beliefs about the nature of the world. The background belief to justify rejecting reincarnation out of hand is the conviction that consciousness is a product of brains.

The vast majority of scientists (if not philosophers) do not seem to have any awareness of the problematic nature of this brain produces consciousness hypothesis (see blog post by me). Even ignoring this problematic nature, there are profound counter-intuitive consequences. For example if the brain produces consciousness, it is difficult, if not impossible, to rescue the notion that our consciousness is causally efficacious. It also seems to imply the notion of an enduring self is an illusion. And it seems hard to reconcile anomalous cognition (telepathy and the like) with this hypothesis. Article says:

After all, according to a rather widespread assumption about standards of scientific practice, anomalies irresistibly attract scientists like light attracts the proverbial moth. For in order to be a ‘real’ scientist you are expected to constantly challenge your pet theories about how the world works, always look for refuting instances that may indicate you’re wrong, and follow the evidence wherever it leads and whether you personally like it or not. The more outlandish an anomaly reported by more than one qualified and critical observer, so the myth goes, the quicker it attracts other scientists, ultimately producing a true land-slight of opinion in the ‘scientific community’, which is then faithfully reflected on the pages of mainstream science journals and in textbooks.

As the article subsequently points out, this is sheer nonsense. Research which confirms established beliefs tends to be precisely that which gets approved and gets published. Generally, scientists simply will not accept research which goes against their beliefs. Any maverick stuff is subject to unremitting hostility and ridicule.

As Max Planck once said:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Why are we all so convinced the brain produces consciousness?

Most people seem to take it for granted that the brain produces consciousness and they surmise this because when the brain is damaged, the person’s mind is also damaged. Such damage not only can result in the diminishing of one’s mental capacities, it often seemingly changes the actual personality. The obvious conclusion is that the brain produces consciousness, otherwise why should the mind be affected?

Proponents of an afterlife almost invariably ignore this argument.  Instead they counter with the evidence for an afterlife such as NDE’s, mediumship, recollections of alleged previous lives, and so on.  It seems to me that implicitly, therefore, they are conceding to the skeptic that this mind-brain correlations argument is a very powerful one indeed and to be avoided. However, it is my contention that there is no need for the proponent to avoid addressing this argument head-on since, as I shall argue, it appears to be considerably less powerful than it is often thought. 

Let’s consider the following related argument: 

It surely must be obvious to everyone that spectacles (i.e. eyeglasses) actually create vision. Changing the lenses affects the vision in certain characteristic ways. One can make one's vision worse, or better. One can make one be able to see in the distance, but not close up; or conversely, to see close up, but not at a distance. We can invert peoples' vision. We can make people see everything in blue, or red, or green, you name it. Or all blurry. By painting the lenses black we can even eliminate one's vision completely! And all these effects are consistent across different people.

Of course, we know that spectacles don’t create vision. Indeed, we know in principle that spectacles could not create vision all by themselves since there is no appropriate mechanism, or conceivable causal chain, whereby vision could be created. Extra ingredients are required; namely eyes and the part of the brain dealing with vision.

Other examples apart from spectacles can be considered. Thus, consider a prism. The mixture of coloured lights obtained is not wholly produced by the prism all by itself. Something extra is involved, in this case, the white light that enters the prism. Or consider a TV set. The internal components all by themselves do not produce the programmes. Similar to the prism something else is involved, in this case, TV signals. 

So it cannot be that the mind-brain correlations all by themselves establish that the brain creates consciousness, for how are we in a position to rule out that the relationship of consciousness to the brain is not of a similar nature to the forgoing examples where there is an extra ingredient involved; namely what we would call a self or soul?  In fact, I would go further and maintain that the brain- consciousness relationship is indeed of a similar nature to these examples. That is to say, similarly to the complete implausibility of expecting vision to be created from spectacles all by themselves, likewise it is similarly implausible to expect consciousness to be created from brains and the processes within them all by themselves. 

Consciousness is supposed to come into being as the end consequence of physical chains of causes and effects.  Such causes and effects are cashed out in the form of processes that we can measure; namely particles with physical properties such as charge, momentum, spin and so on, and their interactions. But at the end of such causal chains we get a sudden abrupt change from these measurable processes to subjective experiences such as, for example, the greenness of grass, the warmth of love, the smell of roses and so on. It seems we have an unbridgeable yawning ontological chasm between the termination of such physical causal chains, and such raw experiences. There is no appropriate mechanism, or conceivable causal chain, whereby such qualitative experiences could be created. The sensible conclusion then is to surely suppose that consciousness was there all along, and the processes within the brain merely affect its manifestation.  Compare to the spectacles example.  Spectacles affect vision, they can even block our vision completely if we paint the lenses black, nevertheless the unaided vision exists all along.  The spectacles do not, and could not, create vision.

An Objection

 

It is often argued that we lack any enduring nature since we change so much over time.  Hence our moods, demeanour, interests, intelligence, change throughout our lives.  Compared to when we were children we now have a much increased intelligence, we have differing interests, we have differing memories, our emotional reactions are very different. Even during the course of one day our moods can change significantly.  And just consider how much people change after a few alcohol drinks.

But all this just means that if we should find ourselves surviving the death of our bodies, then it is the underlying self that survives. What constitutes my self is that sense of me-ness that has endured since I was a child, to when I'm drunk, to what I am now. The fact that our interests, intelligence, demeanour change etc, is ultimately no more significant than, for example, the fact a table acquires scratches as it ages. Or to use the spectacles analogy, it is the unaided vision that is comparable to the self and survives.

None of the foregoing entails that there is an afterlife.  But I do think that the mind-brain correlations argument against an afterlife is significantly less compelling than people think it is.

Why the existence of consciousness rules modern materialism out.

At the outset I need to stress that I specifically have in mind the reductive materialism that has prevailed in the West since the birth of modern science in the 17th Century, which in this post I shall refer to as simply materialism. My argument does not rule out the possibility of a more expanded sense of "materialism" which, in contradistinction to modern reductive materialism, includes the qualitative aspects of reality including consciousness. So my argument in this post in no shape or form entails that the brain does not somehow produce the mind or consciousness. Having said that, it was the birth of modern reductive materialism and, indeed, modern science that played a pivotal role in eroding belief in a soul. Hence, should modern reductive materialism be untenable, then it seems to me that we have little more reason to dismiss the existence of a soul than our forebears in the 16th Century and beforehand did.

How our mental states -- that is to say our experiences, thoughts, beliefs and so on --- are related to our bodies, is known as the mind-body problem. There are two general positions, materialism and dualism, and many varieties of each (although my own position is neither materialism nor dualism, but rather idealism).

What does materialism mean? It means broadly that the totality of all that exists is exhausted by both everything that we directly perceive through our five senses, and also what we can sense or detect through the use of scientific instruments. Such scientific instruments include microscopes and so on that simply extend the range of things we are able to sense or infer. 

Should materialism be true then this means we are purely material beings; that is, we are nothing but our material bodies. Hence, under this view, consciousness is typically considered to be a physical thing or process, or perhaps even purely illusory. This implies that ultimately we are merely sophisticated biological robots operating according to the laws of physics. If true this would seem to pretty much rule out the prospect of a soul residing in any type of afterlife realm.

The movement away from belief in a soul over the past 400 years or so can be laid squarely at the door of the ascendency of materialism. But what accounts for this ascendancy? Is it because materialism is obviously correct? I would argue most definitely not. Indeed, I and many others have made the argument that materialism cannot be correct. How so?

To understand why we have to go back to the scientific revolution in the 17th Century that heralded the birth of modern science. This revolution was precipitated by the concept of material reality that both Galileo and Descartes advanced. They proposed that the material realm is wholly quantitative. That is to say that the external world is wholly composed of things and processes that can in principle be detected by our measuring instruments and thus can be measured. The consequence of all this was that science could describe the whole of the external material world; no aspects of the external world lay beyond its scope. Once we have made all appropriate measurements of this material reality and then mathematically described the patterns found and codified them into the laws of nature, then nothing more need be investigated.

But, what of the qualitative aspects of reality such as colours, sounds, and smells? These aspects of reality are not detectable by our measuring instruments and hence are not measurable. The only option was to stipulate that they simply weren't part of the furniture of reality at all (note the word stipulated, this was in no shape or form a scientific discovery). Instead, colours, sounds, and smells were redefined to stand for those measurable aspects of reality which were deemed to cause these qualitative experiences. Thus, colours were redefined to refer to the respective specific wavelengths of light that objects reflect. Sounds were redefined to refer to rarefactions and compressions of the air. Smells redefined to refer to various molecules in motion. It was acknowledged that colours, sounds, and smells, as we experience them, still existed. But they only existed in the mind. Hence, an experience of greenness was a creation by the mind fashioned from the purely quantitative light entering the eyes. In short, from the birth of modern science onwards, the external material world, including our bodies and brains, was supposed to be wholly quantitative and devoid of anything qualitative. Thus a very much emaciated conception of the material external world was advanced. Compared to the commonsensical conception of the material world, this was a bare skeletal outline of reality denuded of the flesh of the qualitative.

I now need to stress that carving up reality in this manner seems to entail a form of dualism. The material external world was defined to be wholly quantitative and hence measurable. The qualitative aspects of reality -- colours, sounds, smells and so on -- were extracted from this external reality and were supposed to have subsistence only within the mind. But it then follows there are two different types of existent. On the one hand, there is the material world that is composed exclusively of the quantitative. On the other hand, there is the mind, which is responsible for both the qualitative aspects of reality as well as our mental states such as our experiences, thoughts, beliefs and so on. Note that even if the mind-brain correlations force the conclusion that consciousness is created by the brain, this still doesn't entail that consciousness is material -- remember, to be material means it has to be detectable, and we can only detect the neural correlates of consciousness, not consciousness itself.

Thus materialism seems to be ruled out. But, in that case, why did the birth of science lead to materialism rather than the obvious dualism it suggests? And why is it that today the vast majority of scientists and philosophers are materialists?

The answer is this. Science investigates the quantitative or measurable. Material reality had been defined as exclusively consisting of the quantitative. It then follows that science is the investigation of this material reality. Now, science has been astoundingly successful in furnishing us with knowledge of this material reality as well as being an extraordinarily fruitful one in terms of the manipulation of our environment and in the creation of our technology. So, a leap of “logic” was made. It was simply assumed that since science was so successful, it must describe the whole of reality, including the mind.

Since this is so important, let me put it another way. Material reality was stripped of all its qualitative aspects – colours, sounds, smells and so on. These qualitative aspects of reality were relegated to being creations of the mind rather than actually existing out there. This left material reality consisting exclusively of all the measurable elements that science could then successfully describe. Minds, on the other hand, could not be so described since they consist of thoughts, pains, emotions and so on, in addition to what were hitherto considered to be the qualitative aspects of reality such as colours, sounds, and smells. Hence the mind, by definition, did not come under the purview of science. However, since science has been so incredibly successful, it was supposed that it simply must describe the entirety of reality, including minds. In order to square this circle, the solutions advanced were to stipulate that consciousness is either illusory, or that it is one and the very same thing as a material process, or that it is one and the very same thing as the functions carried out by such material processes.

Here is a splendid analogy used by the philosopher Edward Feser to illustrate this type of reasoning. It’s as if someone were to declare that since metal detectors are so successful at detecting metal, they must detect everything that exists. Hence, anything that appears to be made out of plastic, rubber, or wood and so on, must somehow either be illusory, or really be metal in disguise. This is of course silly. But, in a similar way in which metal detectors are only designed to detect metal objects and have nothing whatsoever to say about the existence, or otherwise, of objects made of other substances, so too are the methods of current science limited to the quantitative aspects of reality, and cannot have anything to say about aspects of reality not amenable to this approach. And these aspects of reality not amenable to this approach are consciousness and the qualitative aspects of reality such as colours, sounds, and smells. So, appealing to the success of science is simply a complete irrelevancy.

As an aside, this tactic of declaring consciousness is one and the very same thing as a material process or thing, does not seem to me to be meaningful in any case. On the one hand, we have physical processes whose reality is wholly cashed out in terms of physical properties – mass, electric charge, velocity and so on. On the other hand, we have a conscious experience, perhaps a sensation of greenness, or of pain. There is no commonality whatsoever between such physical properties on the one hand, and qualia on the other, so it seems straightforwardly false to declare they’re one and the very same. Arguing over this though is to miss the much deeper point that we simply have no reason to suppose consciousness is a physical thing or process in the first place.


Edited to add:

I would just like to say a few words about a few counter-arguments made elsewhere regarding what I have written above. Namely:

a) Consciousness might indeed be measurable.

b) Consciousness is an illusion.

c) Modern materialism does, in fact, include the qualitative.

Regarding "a". I believe the person who made this suggestion wasn't saying consciousness is measurable due to the fact it is the very same thing as certain physical processes. Rather they acknowledge the reality of consciousness as a distinct reality, but claimed it might eventually be measurable.

Now, if consciousness can in principle be measured -- not just aspects of it, but wholly so -- this is to deny that consciousness has any qualitative elements. Instead, consciousness, like the rest of material reality, is wholly quantitative. Any experience can hence, at least in principle, be wholly conveyed by units of measurement(s).

This, though, seems transparently false. If we consider the experience of a particular shade of redness, then we can measure the wavelength of light that bounces off the observed object and enters our eyes. And we can measure the neuronal activity that the light precipitates. But at the end of this causal chain we have the raw experience itself. To suppose the raw experience itself can be measured is to suppose there is a third thing to be measured on top of the wavelength of light and all the activity in the brain. But anything measured in the brain would by definition be part of the activity of the brain. Moreover, whatever we measured, would be a particular reading on some measuring instrument. Such a reading can be ascertained from a 3rd person perspective i.e anyone can take the reading. The experience, on the other hand, is only known directly from the person having the experience. Hence to equate such an experience with a measurement simply ignores the facts.

Regarding "b" that consciousness is illusory and hence doesn't really exist. In this context there can be no distinction between real and illusory. Normally, with an illusory perception, I am not seeing what is actually out there.  But there is no such distinction within consciousness itself. For what conceivable difference would there be between such illusory experiences and real experiences? The fact is that we immediately have experiences such as redness. Claiming that it is "illusory" simply fails to convey anything.     Nothing rides on whether or not we label it as real or illusory; the point is that we are having an experience, it is qualitative, and hence escapes the definition of modern reductive materialism.

Regarding "c", namely that modern materialism includes the qualitative as well as the quantitative. Well, not as I have defined it, a definition that is held by most scientists if not philosophers.  But, of course, if materialism is defined differently then my specific arguments above do not apply.  For example, there is the various varieties of non-reductive materialism.  Also, there is the materialism endorsed by both Galen Strawson and Bertrand Russell who hold/held that material stuff is by no means exhausted by what physics tells us about it (see this essay by Strawson.  Also a response by Danial Dennett and a reply by Strawson might be of interest.  Go here). I should add, though, that this does not mean that alternative definitions of materialism are necessarily tenable.  For example, non-reductive materialism seems to entail that consciousness is causally inert, but I regard this as being untenable (see my blog post A Causal Consciousness, Free Will, and Dualism ).

But the more basic point is that if it is agreed that modern reductive materialism is untenable then the consequences of accepting this materialism also don't apply. A type of materialism might be still true, but not the type of materialism that the birth of modern science seemed to suggest.  And modern science doesn't appear to add support for these other types of materialism. Hence, it still remains the case that we have little more reason to reject the existence of souls and the like now, than we did prior to the birth of modern science in the 17th Century.