A Causal Consciousness, Free Will, and Dualism

Consciousness is necessarily causally efficacious

It is widely believed by scientists and philosophers, and even the scientifically educated public, that all change in the world is wholly a result of unbroken chains of physical causes and effects. Voluntary behaviour will constitute no exception. More importantly, even the direction our thoughts take will also constitute no exception. But, at least in regards to our thoughts, this does not seem to me to be tenable. Let's see why.

If the scientists and philosophers are correct the direction in which our thoughts develop are not influenced by our consciousness, for they are purely a result of chains of physical causes and effects; presumably the underlying neuronal activity.  Consider, though, that one knows in the most immediate manner possible that oneself is conscious. This awareness, moreover, is not an instantaneous thing, it must be smudged out in time. Hence, one might entertain the thought, 'yes, I know for certain I myself am conscious', even if not expressed explicitly in words. Could this thought, this realisation, be purely due to chains of physical causes and effects without one's actual consciousness playing any role in the fruition of this thought? No, because this certainty, this thought, is clearly due to one's immediate and direct apprehension of one's own consciousness. In other words, it is simply incoherent to suppose one could be certain of one's own consciousness through physical chains of causes and effects alone.  At least in this instance, consciousness is an indispensable ingredient and cannot be causally irrelevant. 

But, once we have understood and agreed with this, the thesis that only physical causation applies in the direction of our thoughts, unravels.  We know that it is false.  For it is scarcely likely that consciousness plays a role in this one thought -- 'yes, I know for certain I myself am conscious' -- but purely chains of physical causes and effects are wholly responsible for all our other thoughts.  It is surely reasonable to infer consciousness is an essential ingredient in the direction of all our thoughts. 

What, though, if I speak out the words, 'yes, I know I am conscious'? Here, unlike my thoughts, I cannot have certainty. Perhaps my thoughts do not cause the verbal expression of such thoughts. That it is just a wholly unrelated fact that everything I think and mentally choose is reflected in the verbal and physical expression of such thoughts and choices. In other words, that I find myself in this body that, contrary to what it seems, I have no control over whatsoever, but nevertheless behaves exactly as if it does! Apart from the outlandish nature of this suggestion, we need to remember that unbroken chains of physical causes and effects were supposed to be universal. If my thoughts are not subject to such unbroken chains of physical causes, then presumably what those thoughts appear to directly cause -- namely the neural correlates and behavioural manifestation of such thoughts -- will also not be so subject.

The causal efficacy of consciousness is not compatible with materialism

The reductive materialist might claim there is no incompatibility between a causally efficacious consciousness on the one hand, and on the other, that all change is the world is characterised by unbroken chains of physical causes and effects. He justifies this by maintaining that conscious experiences, such as our reasoning processes, are literally identical to physical processes in the brain. If a train of thought is literally identical to some physical processes, and these physical processes have causal powers, then it necessarily follows that the train of thought has causal powers too.

So, he will claim that my argument is question-begging since I am assuming at the outset a position called dualism. Dualism is the idea that consciousness is not the same thing as a material process, even though it still might be created by such material processes.  Interactive dualism, in addition, holds that the body affects consciousness with consciousness, in its turn, affecting the body. It's the commonsensical position that we all tend to instinctively believe (even materialists tend to admit we are all instinctively interactive dualists). So, what if reductive materialism is correct. Does my argument still apply?

I have argued in various places elsewhere e.g. here, that I do not regard reductive materialism as being tenable. But, even if it were tenable, reductive materialism cannot circumvent my argument. Let's now see why.

Let's suppose that when we reason something through and reach a sound conclusion, we have the following mental chain:

i) a → b → c → d → e

And, simultaneously, we have the following correlated physical chain in the brain:

ii) A → B → C → D → E

The materialist claims that “a” is identical to “A”, “b” is identical to “B” etc. But, nevertheless, we have two different accounts of how a/A progresses to e/E. In "i", we have a train of reasoning which, when we attain an understanding of something, will have involved rational connections between thoughts. In "ii", we have a chain of physical causes and effects in the form of interactions of physical particles that can be mathematically described by the laws of physics. If any type of materialism is true, then everything has the ability to be explained in terms of the physical as exemplified in account "ii". Account "i" is simply not required since physical laws, which describe physical processes, make no reference to reasoning, nor indeed do they make any reference to intentions, desires, plans, or any other aspect of consciousness. But, it then follows that reasoning something through is causally irrelevant. Hence, identifying reasoning and the rest of our mental life with physical processes doesn't allow us to escape from the conclusion that our consciousness is causally irrelevant. However, as I’ve already explained, this is surely rendered false if we are not to undermine the complete certainty in the existence of our own consciousness.

As an aside, this constitutes an additional reason why reductive materialism could not be correct. Reductive materialism, by definition, only allows physical causation, therefore consciousness, in and of itself, cannot make a difference. But, if the above argument is sound, it must do so.

Various Objections

I do not believe my argument can be circumvented. But, for the sake of completeness, I shall now look at four of the commonest objections that have been advanced against interactive dualism.  That is to say, that have been advanced against the notion that consciousness in and of itself could be causally efficacious.

1. Conservation of Energy

People often assert that if consciousness causally influences the underlying neural activity, then the principle of conservation of energy must be violated. Imagine a billiard ball that starts rolling on its own accord without anything, such as another ball, impacting upon it. Then, if the rest of the world is unchanged, we would have an overall increase in energy that will equal the kinetic energy of the moving ball. Similarly, it is maintained that for consciousness to initiate any material processes instead of any antecedent physical causes, the total energy of the system will be increased. In both cases, conservation of energy is violated.

We need to take a step back here and remind ourselves that current science wholly leaves out consciousness in its description of reality (see a blog post by me). I think, though, that this will eventually be remedied and a theory will be dreamt up that will reveal consciousness to be non-reducible. However, this will be a radical break from existing theories since we are admitting into the domain of science that which is very different from the structure and function that it currently describes and investigates.

The important point is this: any such theory will have consciousness having an impact on the world. Will such a theory, therefore, entail an ever spiralling increase in total energy? Let's consider what is being said here. Essentially, they're saying, we have no idea how consciousness exists and what possible theory will accommodate it, but whatever that theory might transpire to be, a causally efficacious consciousness will result in an increase in the total amount of energy in the world. But, since we have no idea what form such a theory will take, how on earth can they know this? Why on earth can consciousness not use up energy that is matched by a corresponding depletion of energy elsewhere? I submit no-one is in any position to claim that this cannot happen. Certainly, at the very least, they must provide a justification for their allegation rather than simply stating it.

2. How can the immaterial impact on the material?

A related objection is that an immaterial consciousness is wholly different from the physical realm, so how could consciousness affect the physical, or indeed vice versa? I think the idea here relates to the fact that consciousness has no location, no mass, no physical properties whatsoever. So, how could it affect that which does have a location, a mass and other various physical properties? Underpinning this is the notion that all influences must be physical chains of contiguous causes and effects. So, how can consciousness, which has no location, no mass and so on, possibly influence the physical realm?

I suggest that the people who voice this objection have a certain view of reality where only certain types of regularity are permitted; namely a mechanistic view of reality where all changes are captured by such contiguous physical chains of causes and effects. Essentially, they hold the view that A influences B because there is some innate power in the world that travels from A to B and necessitates change in B.

But, why must reality be limited to such regularities? Why must causes be contiguous? What permits us to a priori rule out a reality that admits influences from consciousness, or indeed even mystical principles, or magic and so on? Note that in saying causes may not need to be contiguous, we are not contradicting any physical laws. Rather, we are contradicting the mechanistic view of reality, which at best is a presupposition of science, or at least it was a presupposition of science back in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Physics simply tries to model reality based on observations in the past to predict events in the future. We call these regularities physical laws. I do not believe we can impose a priori constraints on the patterns we find there, that is we cannot say reality must conform to contiguous causes. Empirical investigation should guide our beliefs rather than a priori presuppositions. Should we dismiss the phenomenon of entanglement because it contravenes such assumptions? And, if we don't, then the alleged universality of contiguous physical causes and effects is refuted. Where one exception is found, we can surely not be surprised if we find others. For an elaboration on this topic, I recommend people read this blog post by myself.

3. No influences apart from physical processes have ever been detected

It is often claimed that only material influences in the brain have ever been experimentally detected. The implication here if there were any influence from a non-material consciousness, then it would have been experimentally detected by now.

We need to bear in mind here that neuroscientists are almost exclusively materialists, and certainly, they will assume that only physical causation is at work in the brain. But, that strongly suggests that any influence from consciousness is simply not being looked for at all. Any firing of neurons will simply be taken for granted to have been caused by prior physical events. We also need to bear in mind that any influence from consciousness might well be minute since very small changes can cascade to larger and larger effects. In which case, even if they were looking, our functional MRI's lack the resolution to make any assertions in this regard.

4. Experiments by Libet et al

Experiments by the neurologist Benjamin Libet and others appear to imply that our conscious decisions do not cause our voluntary acts, rather it is the state of the brain immediately prior to the conscious decision that is the real and sole cause of our behaviour. Here is a youtube video briefly outlining Libet's experiment.

So, the experiments seem to suggest that instead of my thought, my decision, flexing my wrist, it was prior activity in my brain. In the original experiment, this prior activity occurred around a third of a second before the conscious decision. Libet himself thought that a role for the will was still present in the form of the veto, or what has been termed "free won't". This veto refers to the fact that even after the initiation of this brain activity, we still have the power to stop ourselves from flexing our wrist. Moreover, this veto is not likewise initiated by its own prior brain activity, hence seemingly representing a genuine power of consciousness.

There have been many objections made against Libet's experiment. I won't go into them here since, recently, there's been news of a claim that we have been mistaken in our interpretation of the significance of this prior brain activity. Go here. It seems, in a nutshell, that the prior brain activity held to cause the decision is largely an artefact of the methods used to analyse the data.

Free Will and Determinism

Having now established at the very least a limited role for the causal efficacy of consciousness per se, and, in addition, seen that the various objections to an immaterial causal consciousness have no bite, can we conclude that we have "free will"? One might think obviously yes, indeed I would count myself as one of them. However, it is frequently claimed that free will involves more than a causally efficacious consciousness. Why is this, and is this claim justified?

Consider the claim that our behaviour is purely the inevitable result of chains of causes and effects stretching back to the distant past. Such a thesis is referred to as causal determinism. Typically, these chains are regarded as physical chains. However, since I have concluded that consciousness plays at least some role, then this is untenable. But, what about mental chains of causes and effects, or a combination of physical and mental chains? Perhaps one's psychological state at any given moment compels all future psychological states? In which case, at least in principle, our behaviour will be just as predictable as that which pertains within the physical realm.

In fact, a great deal of our behaviour does appear to be predictable. For example, the vast majority of us, on spotting a wad of £20 notes on the ground, would stoop down, pick the notes up, and stuff them in our pocket. If someone is parched and water is available, then it is pretty predictable they will have a drink. It is predictable that I will argue against materialism, and not for it. More generally, the more we get to know a person, the more we will be able to predict his behaviour or the views he will express. Does the predictability of our behaviour entail we lack free will?

We need to be leery here of a logical fallacy called affirming the consequent. To give an example:

1. If the lamp is broken the room would be dark.
2. The room is dark.
3. Therefore the lamp is broken.

This is invalid. For example, the lamp might be switched off. Likewise, from the fact that physical processes, which lack free will, are predictable, we cannot definitively conclude that our behaviour, although also often predictable, also lacks free will. Further information is required: namely, whether the predictability of our behaviour is derived from the same type of causes that are responsible for the predictability found in the physical realm.

To cast some light on this question, let's consider the behaviour of objects as described by physical laws. They are typically regarded as being constrained to behave the way they do. In other words, they couldn't possibly behave otherwise than what they do. For example, if the Earth were to suddenly stop in its path around the Sun and start jigging up and down, this would be regarded as miraculous. It's not just the case that it would never happen, rather it seems it could never happen.

Does the same apply to our apparently freely chosen behaviour? Consider the case of ignoring the wad of £20 notes on the ground and simply walking on by. Unless one is rich, it would be irrational to do this and it would never happen, not even if we reran the Universe countless times. But, could it happen?

I think people are often confused here in that they conflate would never with could never. Simply because people may inevitably choose a certain action -- for example to quench their thirst if they are parched -- this does not mean that they could not do otherwise. There is nothing external to consciousness that compels people to pick up that glass of water. Rather the individual decides to do so. But at least he has the capacity to not pick up the glass, even though inevitably he will pick it up.

Further, the idea of a mental chain of cause and effect wholly accounting for the procession of our thoughts and decisions is suspect in any case. It is implied that such a chain will be similar to a physical causal chain, such as exemplified by a chain of dominoes falling on each other. However, in a so-called "mental chain", although the prior links in the chain play some role in one’s current mental state, that doesn’t seem to me to be the full story. Consider when we think something through. The path our thoughts follow in our chain of thought is not just dictated by previous links, that is it’s not just dictated by something already understood. It is also affected and guided by a contemporaneous unfolding understanding derived from our non-material selves.

In addition, we should also bear in mind that physical chains of causes and effects presuppose that there exist genuine impersonal forces in nature. Perhaps, though, something like gravitational force and the other 3 forces, simply do not exist any more than centrifugal force does (physicists do not consider centrifugal force to be a real force). I address this issue here. If indeed there are no impersonal forces that compel reality to behave as it does, then it may be that there is no explanation why reality exhibits the patterns it does – it is just a brute fact. The pertinent point here is that if we do not even know that the physical realm is constrained to behave the way it does, we can infer nothing about any alleged constraints on free will.

So, I conclude we have compelling reasons to suppose that the predictability of our behaviour stems from a differing ultimate cause to that within the physical realm. Hence, this causal determinism argument gives us no reason to doubt our free will.

Free will and not wanting what we want

There are those who have argued that one's desires or interests themselves are not amenable to one's control. In short, I cannot want what I want. For example, I am interested in various philosophical issues. But, I have very little interest in celebrities. I cannot instead choose to be interested in celebrities and uninterested in philosophy.

At least as an objection to the whole concept of free will, I regard this argument to be preposterous. If I could so choose to be interested in celebrities and not in philosophy, then I would be changing my essence, what I essentially am. It is no restriction on free will if it results in my self changing. In response, the free will detractor might then argue that one did not choose to be the self or essence one is. However, this seems to implicitly suppose we are purely material beings that came into being sometime between conception and birth, both of which I have argued against and do not accept. If my essence is non-material, then I am not a result of the accidental collocation of impersonal forces. Rather, I am self-defined, so to speak.

Nevertheless, this “not wanting what we want” argument does at least have a degree of merit. For it seems we could have more control over our wants and desires without it apparently impacting on our essence. For example, surely our free will would be enhanced if one could choose not to feel anger under certain circumstances? Or, if one could choose not to be addicted to unhealthy foods? These and countless other examples point to the fact that our free will is more restricted then we would ideally like it to be. But it does nothing to establish the notion that we wholly lack free will.

Conclusion

I do not believe my argument for the causal efficaciousness per se of consciousness can be circumvented. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness, I also considered the various arguments that have been advanced that contend our consciousness, at least if considered to be distinct from its underlying neural activity, cannot be causally efficacious. I do not believe they pass muster. Indeed, the first two arguments -- namely, the alleged violation of the conservation of energy and the impossibility of the immaterial affecting the material -- appear to be ill-thought-out, to say the least. So, we have good reason to suppose our consciousnesses are causally efficacious per se, and no reason, so far as I can see, to doubt such a conclusion.

Of course, such a causally efficacious consciousness does not manifest itself constantly. Much of our behaviour is on what might be labelled auto-pilot. When we're walking somewhere, we're not consciously thinking about putting one foot in front of the other. When playing tennis we do not consciously think of the type of stroke to return. But, we do decide to walk to a particular destination, and we do decide to play a game of tennis. And this is what is important. For it is scarcely any threat to our autonomy that we are not subject to the necessity of having to think of every step we take and every tennis stroke we make.

Finally, what about free will? Does a causally efficacious consciousness constitute free will? It is my consciousness and not any prior physical activity in the world that makes choices. But, of course, our behaviour is nevertheless often perfectly predictable. However, I have argued that this doesn't impact on our free will. I conclude that under any reasonable conception of free will that we have it.

Perceptual illusions show our minds construct reality

via GIPHY


This is Richard Wiseman. He's a skeptic of the paranormal. I think he's especially fond of perceptual illusions as they show how easily people are fooled. The message he's essentially trying to convey is: 'you think you've seen something weird? Look at how easily we're fooled!'

Perhaps so.  But I think it also shows that we might sometimes be unable to see the unusual and anomalous in our visual fields.  Allow me to explain.

We don't just passively see what's out there. All the light that enters our eyes simply gives us a flat 2 dimensional plane of various shades of colour. However, we seem to immediately see a 3D world with objects at various distances. How so?

The answer is that it's derived from our familiarity with the world. In our experience of reality, familiar objects have certain sizes and a certain appearance. The mind uses this background experience to quite literally construct what we see out there. So, even though only a 2 dimensional plane of colour is actually immediately given, we seem to see directly a world in 3D -- a world populated with familiar objects at various distances.

To reiterate, this construction crucially depends on what we're used to seeing. Hence, when we introduce an anomalous object such as an unusually large-sized drinking glass, our minds will be wanting to see it as a normal-sized glass. So, they will be a propensity to see the glass closer and smaller than it really is. However, other cues in the environment normally alert us that what we are seeing is an anomalously large version of a familiar object. But here, in this gif, those other cues are absent, so we naturally see it as a normal-sized glass that is closer than it actually is.

But, what's interesting is that if we were to see something unfamiliar to us, something we've never seen before, there will be a propensity to see it as something more familiar. The upshot of all this is that there might be more unusual and anomalous phenomena out there than we suppose, but we just can't see it.

I suspect it might also have implications for what we appear to see during something like a near-death experience. If our vision in an afterlife realm works anything like normal vision, then our minds with their implicit expectations will shape and mould what we actually perceive.

A similar post by me written a few years ago:  Are Perceptual illusions always necessarily illusions?

Reminiscing about Old Photographs

            Photo is of Ironmongers in Maidenhead in 1900


It is a sobering thought to reflect that in 200 years’ time, in 2219, we will all have been long dead. No-one alive at this future time will remember us. For the vast majority of us nothing we write is likely to have survived. It'll be as if we had never existed. Indeed, time eventually renders us all anonymous.

But, what if a photograph of us still existed? Even if people 200 years hence don’t know our name or who we were, they might reminisce and wonder what we were thinking when the photograph was taken, what our life was like, what it was like to live in the early 21st Century.

Likewise, when we look at old photographs, say from the late 19th or early 20th Centuries, we too may connect to the past. It may initiate an emotional response in us, a whimsical reflection in what it was like to live in those times, how they viewed the world, their preoccupations, what their day to day lives were like.

Perhaps they were worried about their jobs and how to get promoted; perhaps they worried about making ends meet; perhaps they worried about their relationships with spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, or work colleagues. All the everyday concerns that people have, which, when viewed from our perspective 100 years hence, seem no longer important. We are looking at a world that has now disappeared, we are looking at people together with all their preoccupations and everyday concerns, which no longer exist.

What were they feeling when their photograph was taken? Photographs taken back then will have been very few and far between, so they will have been aware their photographs might attract some attention. Perhaps it is even possible for one or two of them to have speculated that people in the future -- perhaps a 100 years hence -- are viewing them “now” just as the photograph were taken. A moment gone just as the shutter clicks, but yet a moment also captured that might last for hundreds of years.

Without photographs we would, to a large measure, be emotionally shut off from the past. Viewing old photographs, that frozen moment in time, allows us that emotional identification.

The Limits of Science

Why can't science tell us why the Universe exists and why physical laws take on the form they do?

Here's an analogy.

Consider the game of chess. Let's suppose one knows nothing about how to play the game. By playing against a chess computer one can gradually discover the rules of chess by trying various moves and seeing which moves the computer will permit you to make. But, discovering the rules of chess tells us nothing about why the pieces are allowed to move the way they do, least of all of who invented the game of chess and why. Nor do we know how the computer works. Why and how does it register certain moves as illegal?

Likewise, discovering the physical laws that describe or govern our physical reality tells us nothing about why physical laws are as they are. Nor can it tell us why there is a Universe at all. Such questions simply do not reside within the scope of science.

(The above is a slightly simpler version of my What philosophical questions does science answer?)

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.