Brain, Mind & Neuroscience

[Touchstone]

prodigalson2011:

Nevertheless, I love your faith in a blind process to develop such intricate means of survival.

No faith deployed, or needed, not in the sense a theist would use “faith”. The most plausible, economical and empirically grounded hypothesis is a materialist hypothesis. It may not be correct, but it’s got more to commend it, by far, in terms of positive evidence, durability under critical, skeptical scrutiny, and economy than any competing hypothesis.

If it takes “faith” to designate the least faith-requiring hypothesis, then I guess I do have faith, but only the minimum possible.

There is as much evidence for the evolution of empathy as there is for voodoo. Not that I reject the possibility that empathy has a naturally explicable origin–point being, though, that you are putting faith in a metaphysical reading of science that has little to no objective evidence in its favor.

Science is metaphysically grounded. Science cannot get off the ground without the axiom of empiricism, the necessary metaphysical assumption that our senses and experience reflects extra-mental reality to some degree. If you buy that assumption, then you can do science, and adopt a scientific epistemology. And on those grounds, the evidence for human empathy, or greed, or love as the product of evolution is the same as the evidence for having five digits on your hand – it’s all the same animal.

For empathy in particular, if you ask a biologist, you will hear that even gender itself – dimorphic sexuality – is a predicate for empathy. Male/female pairing produces the context for collaborative raising of offspring, and this is the seed of empathy and altruism. This is a profound step away from the straightforward interest in one’s offspring. If you are part of a breeding pair, your mate has genes you are not interested (intrinsically) in propagating, but because of the advantages in “splitting childcare duties”, you now have a practical interest in the welfare of your mate.

Extending that out, species that have elaborate social constructs are much more efficient at raising a signal offspring to childbearing age; social species have bigger brains as a ratio of their body mass, and among them, monogamous species that have high social engagement have the biggest brains of all. Caring for others in your clan isn’t controversial as an evolutionary adaption. It works, and the more you review the various species, the more this dynamic is validated, empirically.

This is a pretty good scholarly work on the subject, if I were to offer just one to you to start with (it’s a large and deep subject):

Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy

From the abstract:

Empathy is an ideal candidate mechanism to underlie so-called directed altruism, i.e., altruism in response to anothers’s pain, need, or distress. Evidence is accumulating that this mechanism is phylogenetically ancient, probably as old as mammals and birds. Perception of the emotional state of another automatically activates shared representations causing a matching emotional state in the observer.

I have the PDF, but per the way that whole racket works, it’s not ethical for me to share it here, or with you privately. You can read an article by the same guy that covers a lot of the same concepts in a more informal way here:

sharpbrains.com/blog/2010/02/02/the-evolution-of-empathy/

You’re left with no ground at all. You’ve done nothing but provide an explanation for a fairly prevalent pattern of behavior; you haven’t given anyone a good reason to go along with it.

Don’t need one, and couldn’t use it if I had it. It’s wired into your brain, man! It’s not something you choose. It’s something millions of years of evolution has chosen for you – the only reason you are here to read this post is because those kinds of adaptations took hold in your lineage. If you didn’t have these “absolute morals”, you wouldn’t be here to read this, your ancestors many hundreds of thousands of years ago would have gone extinct for the lack of what you cannot (being scientifically unaware) see any reason to go along with!

The overflowing of prisons makes your assertion that people can’t go against their biology-given morality beyond laughable.

No, see above. The model doesn’t posit any of these moral imperative as invincible. They aren’t, and can’t be; in many cases they are mutually exclusive (e.g. the value of self interest/self-preservation vs. altruism). That criticism reflects a naïve misconception about human psychology. The values and impulses we have compete with each other, and the strength and prevalence of each varies from individual, as a matter of genetics and epi-genetic factors, but ALSO as a function of the social environment and experiences of the individual. It’s a very (!) complex equation between the base psychology and the real world actions taken, and by no means is the “greed impulse” or the “empathy impulse” the only factor, ever, or even a major/determining factor.

But none of that changes or diminishes the fact that these are the base impulses, the moral absolutes we inherit as part of our evolved psychology that drive and inform our behavior.

Not everyone is concerned with the well-being of the species, and given that, on your view, they have no long term stake in it, I don’t see them being very likely to become so. I think it’s worth noting that while not all atheists are nihilists, all nihilists are atheists.

I don’t think that’s true – I see Christianity as a subspecies of nihilism, but that’s a different thread. (Hint: eternity negates many of the meaningful aspects of life, just like some forms of secular nihilism).

That notwithstanding, everyone is concerned at a basic level with the well being of the species, or we would not be a gregarious, social species. As I said above, psychological aberrations do occur, and you don’t have to look far to find cases of psychopathy or anti-social psychologies. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. We cannot function alone, and must have social relationships, social trust, and social norms to function, to be happy, to reproduce and propagate the species.

Again, you are left with the large number of human beings who do not share your sense of “biological imperative.” And you guys say we live in a fantasy world!

I can only interpret this in light of the same problem I identified above, name the misconception that these ideals must be invincible or somehow insuperable. That’s a mistake, that’s not how humans work, and it can’t be because many of the impulses we have directly conflict with and negate the other.

Paradoxically, even and especially the “cheaters” in society have a profound interest in empathy and social trust. Without it, they’d not be cheaters – there’s nothing to exploit without a network of trust and empathy for the interest of others. There’s no “system” for “gaming the system”. Cheaters are parasitic on the system, but the parasite demonstrates the system. Again, the exception proves the rule, here.

But I digress. At least you admit it’s flimsy. Still, human experience betrays your notions of “facts and evidences about human beings.” Your “absolute imperatives from nature” are really nothing but a desperate clinging to certain accidental behaviors currently present in the human species.

It’s exactly as desperate as your clinging to the expectation that a rock dropped from your hand will fall to the ground below. Which is to say it’s nothing more than observing the world and building models that work in explaining and accounting for our experiences.

If we’re going to claim that morality arises from natural imperatives, consider that neighboring packs of chimpanzees often fight and kill one another over territory.

Yes, by all means. This is a point I’d like to marshal in favor of my argument here.

By your view, then, territorial war is perfectly moral.

It’s “perfectly moral” in the sense that it is thoroughly moral. It’s not “moral on human terms”. These are chimpanzees we are talking about, not humans, after all.

Lions kill the cubs of conquered rivals. None of this behavior threatens their survival.

This is evolution at work. By killing the cubs of conquered rivals, the genes of their own offspring are better off, or are more precisely more likely to propagate within the pride. Elimination of rivals is a “benefit” in an isolated sense, but it has to be balanced with the possible harm to the overal strength of the community the elimination of those individuals might introduce. In the case of the lions, such practices are advantageous – more benefit than harm for the overall propagation of one’s genes.

So the idea that we “cannot possibly detach from these ‘hardwired moral imperatives’” is, for want of a nicer word, naive. By your view, whatever particular course of action will ensure the survival of the species at whichever particular point of its development is “moral.” So, to throw out a current example, the Chinese policy of forced abortion to control overpopulation is perfectly moral in your view, right?

It’s “thoroughly moral”, yes, in the same sense as the chimpanzee reference above. But I understand your use of “perfectly moral” to be equivocal in that sense – pointing at some notion of “religious morality” that is a particularly cultural artifact, a product of human being moral beings, as opposed to “not being moral”, in the sense that a bacterium is perfectly non-moral, being a non-social organism.

-TS

 

[prodigalson2011]

No, I think you are confusing neuronal plasticity with the basic wiring plan for the human brain. With just a little thought here, you can quickly understand why this is so. If human neurology was — what word shall I use – “flimsy” in such a way as you suggest, such that empathy wasn’t a predictable/automatic product of the development process, humans wouldn’t HAVE that trait, predictably (by definition). This would mean disaster adaptationally for humans – same with the “flimsiness” of selfish impulses, sex drive, altruism, etc.

No, not at all. The thing is, empathy is not as “hardwired” as you are suggesting. The research simply doesn’t bear you out on this one. Empathy is learned. Selfish impulses (and I’ll lump sexual ones in there) will emerge in a human being regardless of upbringing. Empathy and altruism will not. Additionally, a study was published in Scientific American last year that reported a decrease in levels of empathy over the past 30 years, the extent of which indicates that it is not as “innate” as many thought (though the aforementioned fact seems to have given the lie to that assumption long before the study anyway.)

Humans have these features because they represent successful adapations to our environment over long periods of time. They are “designed” in, in an impersonal fashion, by the vagaries of our ecosystem, over uncountable generations. If they aren’t successfully, “baked in”, we wouldn’t be here, as we would not be gregarious, cooperative, jealous, paranoid, etc., and thus would not be able to survive as these adaptations have allowed us to.

Reasonable assumptions, but assumptions nonetheless.

It’s not conflation, but unification at the core. “Is” is “ought” at the core of human psychology. Humans have an objective, unchangeable impulse toward empathy baked into the design of their brains. “Ought” in the deontological sense is not a coherent concept at this level. There is only “is” – that’s what “baked in” means; it’s not a choice, it’s not a “value” in the abstract philosophical sense. It is a brute fact of our natural constitution that does not admit of any alternatives that “ought” would entail. “Ought” entails a phase space of values. Empathy (and the other biological imperatives I mentioned) are not subject to any set of such choices. Evolution has chosen them for us, and they are accomplished, unchangeable facts for humans. Fixed axioms if you like. Built-in “oughts”, that are only “oughts” because they inform our values. They are 100% “is” as a matter of biology, though.

Again, no they do not have such an impulse baked into the design of their brains. It is a learned behavior that must be instilled through relationships early in life. The failure to learn such is what creates sociopaths. This is what happens when you attempt to address every facet of reality through one discipline. It’s sloppy science.

You make a telling admission here: “is”, on your view, is all there is. There is no “ought.” Well, morality consists of “oughts.” Therefore, what you are talking about is not morality.

Regardless of all this, though, your claims about the evolution of human psychology is loaded with assumptions that are not borne out by any scientific evidence. To quote one of your fellow atheists:

“…how can we possibly obtain the key information that would be required to show the validity of adaptive tales about the EEA? …We do not even know the original environment of our ancestors…the key strategy proposed by evolutionary psychologists for identifying adaptation is untestable and therefore unscientific.” - Stephen Jay Gould

It cannot get off the ground without making value judgments. Science is predicated on the axiomatic value that performative models are “better” than less performative models. It assumes, metaphysically, without any a priori justification, that our senses reflect reality to some degree, and that the supreme value in human knowledge is developing models predicated on this assumption; better performing models are “better”, “truer”, more “valuable”, than less performative models. And all of this is based on valuing empirical correspondence metaphysics!

Correct. So metaphysics is okay so long as it is limited to supporting things that are not themselves metaphysical in your view. Duly noted.

Yes, but that in no way puts it beyond the domain of science. As above, the foundational values of humans (and gorillas, and dogs, etc.) are biological facts, and squarely in the province of science, and beyond the reach of theology, or (non-natural) philosophy.

They are not “facts.” While you can make a fairly convincing case for them as such, you must, in all honesty, stop short of calling them facts.

Weak in what sense??

Weak in the sense that they are merely descriptive and provide no persuasive reason for someone otherwise inclined to adhere to the “ethical code” therein.

I think that term can be fairly applied, as above. Man’s “moral grammar” is a brute fact of biology, as “absolute” as absolute gets. Empathy, for example, is a “moral absolute” at a fundamental level. This is a scientific proposition about human biology. If that isn’t absolute – unchangeable, independent of anyone’s desires, wishes, etc., universal in scope – I don’t know what you mean by the term.

Beating a dead horse.

That said, I’ve no problem calling human morality “relativist ethics ground in an fixed moral substrate established by our evolved biology”. “Moral absolute” does not commend itself, on its own terms, any more than “moral relativism” commends itself on its own terms. Calling either “weak” or “strong” like this is confused.

You will forgive me if I’m growing bored of going over these same points again and again. They speak only to a superficial physical reading of reality and are not very compelling.

I’m not claiming that these moral absolutes in human nature are invincible. Hardly the case. They often compete and conflict with each other. If selfishness and altruism are both basic values of the human animal – and biologically, they are – then one of those values will be defeated in case after case. Nevertheless, the absence of each is fatal to the species; Nature is the cleverest designer, enough to make YHWH green with envy, and humans are honed in the “wind tunnel” of time to have both of these competing impulses that interact in sufficient ratios and dynamics to support the survival of the species: humans draw upon selfish interests for motivation to work, act, create, destroy, etc., and also on their cooperative/social empathy to provide enough social cohesion and collaboration to support the benefits of group behavior (specialization, for example, and social trust as workflow optimization).

I take no issue with anything said here. Except your comment about YHWH. None of this precludes the possibility that all of these things were intended outcomes of the universe from the moment it was created.

Hold on. You are a theist, and you are calling the multiverse theory a “cop out”? I’m vexed by that. As a matter of parsimony, it’s hands down more economical than theism; it’s just more of the entity we already know can and does exist (a universe). Theism posits a whole different class of entity.

I am calling the multiverse theory a cop out because it is dubious science. Theism relies on philosophy and does not pretend to be open to scientific inquiry. One is honest about its position, the other tries desperately to maintain an air of scientific credibility. Further, the multiverse theory is hardly more parsimonious as it does nothing but move the goalposts. The multiverse is not self-explanatory.

Which is not to say that we have, or can have, empirical evidence for external universes. By definition, “empirical” would make whatever evidence we garnered part of our universe. But the theist cannot criticize that at all. His position is pathetic by comparison. It’s your prerogative to believe as you do, but you are a hypocrite in the extreme to throw stones at a multi-verse hypothesis, as a theist. That’s just crazy talk from a theist.

I disagree. To reiterate what I said above, theism is staked on entirely different grounds which are sound in themselves. The multiverse theory is beyond sketchy and speculative and yet claims to be scientific.

 

[levinas12]

Some of the discussion on this thread reminds me of the old issue of psychologism and logic.

Some philosophers in the past reduced logical necessity to psychology. There’s a long history here that stretches back to Hobbes and continues down through J.S. Mill to the 20th century.

The problem is that such a reduction leads to a “crisis” in the notion of truth.

If logic, mathematics and the hard sciences are based on psychology or the structure of the brain, then the attempt to get at objective truth may be undermined.

On the one hand, you would be asserting that the human psyche or the brain, by whatever scientific laws cited, “has” to behave in a certain way. But, on the other hand, this “necessity” would only be “relative” to that psyche or brain structure - it would not reveal the “truth” about the psyche or brain structure. Psyche or brain structure is used to explain necessity; but our access to that very same psyche or brain structure is obstructed. And we arrive at Kant’s impasse of transcendental psychologism.

All of this is reminiscent of paradoxes where one statement refuting another statement includes that statement, e.g., “what I’m saying is false”.

For more on this, see Husserl or Frege.

 

[tonyrey]

Some of the discussion on this thread reminds me of the old issue of psychologism and logic.

Some philosophers in the past reduced logical necessity to psychology. There’s a long history here that stretches back to Hobbes and continues down through J.S. Mill to the 20 century.

The problem is that such a reduction leads to a “crisis” in the notion of truth.

If logic, mathematics and the hard sciences are based on psychology or the structure of the brain, then the attempt to arrive at objective truth may be undermined.

On the one hand, you would be asserting that the human psyche or the brain, by whatever scientific laws cited, “has” to behave in a certain way. But, on the other hand, this “necessity” would only be “relative” to that psyche or brain structure - it would not reveal the “truth” about the psyche or brain structure. Psyche or brain structure is used to explain necessity; but our access to that very same psyche or brain structure is obstructed…

Coincidentally I have asked a question on the same theme on another thread:

Are your explanations the product of unreasoning events?

BTW There is no need to go into the details of your presumed explanation - which is a banned topic. A simple “Yes” or “No” will suffice to cast light on the coherence of your views…

 

[Touchstone]

No, not at all. The thing is, empathy is not as “hardwired” as you are suggesting. The research simply doesn’t bear you out on this one. Empathy is learned. Selfish impulses (and I’ll lump sexual ones in there) will emerge in a human being regardless of upbringing. Empathy and altruism will not. Additionally, a study was published in Scientific American last year that reported a decrease in levels of empathy over the past 30 years, the extent of which indicates that it is not as “innate” as many thought (though the aforementioned fact seems to have given the lie to that assumption long before the study anyway.)

Again, you are hung up on which of the competing impulses dominates. A selfish decision does not eliminate our sense of empathy, it simply prevails in the case of that decision, just as the decision of a small child to share half of her cookie with another child who didn’t get a cookie would be her sense of empathy and charity prevailing over her selfish impulses. The selfish impulse isn’t gone or missing, it just did not prevail in that case.

Also, I think you may be thinking of “empathy” in a more esoteric sense than is used in the literature. The child who shares a cookie is acting based on empathy, but empathy as a value/impulse is just the understanding of the experience of others, as analogous to our own experience. So we’re not looking for just “sharing cookies” to emerge, but a general awareness and concern regarding other minds, the state and condition of those around us. Even if we choose to keep the cookies all to ourselves, selfishly, and not share, we are still aware of the interests and mental states of those we did not share with. It takes empathy to be able to override it, in other words.

On the question of empathy being innate, here’s a passage from a book I have that covers this subject: Social and Emotional Development in Infancy and Early Childhood by Janette Benson:

In the 1970s Martin Hoffman provided seminal ideas that have continued to influence think about early empathy development when he proposed that the development of altruistic motivations arise from the synthesis of emotional responses and cognitive abilities that typically develop in the first years of life. The child’s emotional response to another in distress, or empathic distress, is the core feeling state of empathy. Hoffman argues that empathic distress is an involuntary, evolutionarily adaptive response to the suffering of another wherein the individual experiences the other’s painful emotional state. He and others have argued that such automatic distress responses to the distress of another reflect behaviors that evolved in mammals to support caring for the young of the species. Observing infants in the newborn nursery become vigorously distressed shortly after another infant began to cry suggested that there might be a reflexive component to empathic distress. Mimicry also contributes to the emotional
response tendency to experience the distress of another. Human infants begin to mimic or imitate facial, vocal,
and postural muscle movements of caregivers in the first weeks and months of life and the ‘afferent feedback’ (i.e.,
feedback to the central nervous system from the peripheral nervous system) resulting from imitating a distressed
caregiver may contribute to the infant’s own feelings of distress. In the first year of life, the infant may feel distress
globally in the presence of a distressed other (either reflexively, imitatively, or both) and the source of the distress is
unclear to the infant. In Hoffman’s theory, this global empathic distress stage reflects a self-oriented phase in
empathy development that is a precursor to more mature empathic distress.

That’s on page 130 in my copy of the book.

Back to Frans de Waal, whom I mentioned before, discussed at The Nerve Blog:

When it comes to how empathetic someone is, Frans de Waal, a Dutch primatologist and ethologist, believes it’s both nature and nurture. He says that a person’s empathy is “innate” – inherited through genes – but also that a person can learn to become more or less empathetic. That seems reasonable; depending on early experiences and education, someone may be more or less of a certain characteristic.

But how is empathy innate? Two NewScientist writers, Philip Cohen and Ewen Callaway, wrote articles discussing the areas in our brains called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the anterior insula (AI), which become active not only when we are in pain but also when others are.

Imaging studies, cited in their articles, found a positive correlation between a volunteer’s reported empathy for a person in pain and activity in the pain-processing areas of the volunteer’s brain. This has led Cohen to believe, “Humans are hardwired to feel empathy.”

For example, in a study led by Shihui Han and colleagues, “17 Chinese and 16 Caucasian (from the US, Europe and Israel) volunteers” were shown videos of strangers, both Caucasian and Chinese, in pain while their brains were scanned using fMRI. While their fMRI results suggested that they responded more empathetically towards volunteers of the same ethnicity or from the same country, their responses actually indicated they “[felt] each other’s pain about equally.”

(my emphasis)

There’s a lot more to throw out in support of this, but your internet connection works as well as mine, I’m guessing, so it’s there for the looking, if you’re interested.

Step back a moment, though, and note how your superstitions have handicapped you, intellectually, here. You now have a vested interest in NOT judging this on the scientific merits, and in discrediting any available science supporting the innateness of empathy as a fact of biology, because if that is a fact, then not only is your whole rationale for why materialist or secular ethics cannot get off the ground bankrupt, your basis for your ethics is obviated. No god is needed to endow humans with empathy if impersonal nature does this. So I understand you have a strong inclination toward motivated reasoning to deny, ignore and misrepresent the science out there, because it’s deeply problematic if features we believe superstitiously to be “God given” are just mechanical features of biology.

-TS

 

[prodigalson2011]

Step back a moment, though, and note how your superstitions have handicapped you, intellectually, here. You now have a vested interest in NOT judging this on the scientific merits, and in discrediting any available science supporting the innateness of empathy as a fact of biology, because if that is a fact, then not only is your whole rationale for why materialist or secular ethics cannot get off the ground bankrupt, your basis for your ethics is obviated. No god is needed to endow humans with empathy if impersonal nature does this. So I understand you have a strong inclination toward motivated reasoning to deny, ignore and misrepresent the science out there, because it’s deeply problematic if features we believe superstitiously to be “God given” are just mechanical features of biology.

-TS

Not at all. As I have repeated numerous times throughout this thread, I have no problem accepting that our behaviors themselves could have emerged biologically, because we still have them, so it doesn’t matter by what means we got them if everything that exists came from God anyway. You can call it an unnecessary hypothesis, but I find it a beautiful one. The laws of physics, as they stand, were bound to produce life in this universe. It was not a matter of chance. It had to happen. I find that pretty amazing.

My point has been that the science is not nearly as conclusive as you would like to think. Whether or not empathy emerged in such a way is of little to no consequence to me. I don’t base my faith on biology. But your “beliefs”, whether you want to admit it or not, contain a degree of metaphysical, unscientific interpretation. Evolutionary psychology is highly contested and not just by religious people. This is a matter of fact, not fancy. My only goal has been to show that your worldview is as subjective as mine.

 

[Touchstone]

Not at all. As I have repeated numerous times throughout this thread, I have no problem accepting that our behaviors themselves could have emerged biologically, because we still have them, so it doesn’t matter by what means we got them if everything that exists came from God anyway. You can call it an unnecessary hypothesis, but I find it a beautiful one. The laws of physics, as they stand, were bound to produce life in this universe. It was not a matter of chance. It had to happen. I find that pretty amazing.

I’m fine with your admiring it’s beauty (in your view), so long as you grant it as unnecessary. That is the key. Beauty does not reify a hypothesis.

My point has been that the science is not nearly as conclusive as you would like to think.

It needn’t be conclusive, or overwhelming, and I’ve not claimed such. It only needs to be more plausible and evidentially supported than the competing alternatives. Which it is.

Whether or not empathy emerged in such a way is of little to no consequence to me.

Well, it would have the consequence of invalidating much of what you’ve said in this thread. That’s a cosmic crisis, I understand, but your convictions about the alternatives for grounding morality in the absence of supernatural omni-God as moral lawgiver are quite mistaken, if so. The consequence of this would be that there are “moral absolutes” in our biology that ground our human values and ethical priorities. They would be actual, objective, and immutable for us, unavoidable as the “fixed frame” we being from as humans in forming ethical and moral frameworks.

I’d be happy to understand that dropping all of that bluster from you above would be of “little of no consequence” to you. From reading you, it seems you are deeply, fundamentally committed to that belief, over and above the contradictions that may obtain from science.

I don’t base my faith on biology.

Well, that’s a major problem, isn’t it? It’s evidence and knowledge to integrate into our beliefs. This, like the evidence and knowledge available in other fields, is what we base our beliefs on, if we want them to be informed and coherent with respect to the world around us.

But your “beliefs”, whether you want to admit it or not, contain a degree of metaphysical, unscientific interpretation.

I admit it freely, over and over on this forum. Science depends wholly on a naked metaphysical assumption: extra-mental reality is reflected to some intelligible degree by our senses and experience. This is not a proposition that is itself established by any a priori demonstration or warrant.

Evolutionary psychology is highly contested and not just by religious people. This is a matter of fact, not fancy. My only goal has been to show that your worldview is as subjective as mine.

‘Contested’ does not make it subjective. It’s a fantastically complex model that has to be built, and we are just at the very early stages of inquiry on this subject. It will continue to be ‘contested’ indefinitely, no matter how solid the objective evidence is in support of it.

Look, even on this forum, the age of the earth is “contested” – some here suppose the earth is just 10,000 years old, for cryin’ out loud. That doesn’t make the scientific dating of the earth’s formation any more subjective because of that. Same goes for any controversy around evolutionary psychology. The theory only succeeds if it makes novel and testable predictions that bear out under experimental evaluation. People will contest it no matter what – see your views that hold that theism provides the only basis for “ought”, and this bit of science portends a “biological ought” that not only refutes your “only basis”, but obviates the theistic basis, rendering it superfluous.

Of course that will be contested. It has significant and uncomfortable consequences for all kinds of superstitions. This pattern has been observed over centuries, and across all kinds of subjects on science, where science augurs against superstitious beliefs. That controversy does not make science subjective. It just proceeds according to its method, and the chips will fall where they may.

-TS

 

[levinas12]

Coincidentally I have asked a question on the same theme on another thread:

 

[levinas12]

levinas12:
Tonyrey, I thought I had a posted a reply but somehow it didn’t “take”.

Well, here it is again.

There is an interesting nuance in this discussion.

In one sense, the wiring of our brains plays a role in opening a space for truth and disclosure, and specifically, for logic, mathematics and science. But this carries a stipulation: it plays a role as long as the wiring is “transparent” to the way things actually are.

Once we say that logic, mathematics and science simply “reflect” the wiring, and nothing else, then you have a problem. If there is no truth or disclosure, logic, mathematics and science are destabilized. And, if these disciplines are destabilized, then any talk about the wiring becomes “destabilized”.

Here’s another shorter way to the same conclusion. Would different wiring really produce radically different “logics” (emphasis on “radically”)? Could you even imagine a world (outside Alice-in-Wonderland) where, e.g., the laws of non-contradiction, modus ponens and modus tollens are no longer in effect?

 

[Sair]

It needn’t be conclusive, or overwhelming, and I’ve not claimed such. It only needs to be more plausible and evidentially supported than the competing alternatives. Which it is.

An elegantly succinct statement of the allure of naturalism. Lovely to see you back on the philosophy forum, TS (or at least, the threads I’ve been following!)

 

[prodigalson2011]

I’m fine with your admiring it’s beauty (in your view), so long as you grant it as unnecessary. That is the key. Beauty does not reify a hypothesis.

Certainly not. The “hypothesis” is not a scientific one to begin with.

It needn’t be conclusive, or overwhelming, and I’ve not claimed such. It only needs to be more plausible and evidentially supported than the competing alternatives. Which it is.

You are operating on the faulty assumption that the bare facts suit only your preferred alternative. This is manifestly untrue. As difficult as it is for you to admit it, your evaluation of “plausibility”, et al., is largely influenced by your own cognitive bias and emotional psychological schema. I’ve observed your reproaches enough to know that you are far from an unbiased observer. You bring your own philosophical prejudice to bear on the scientific facts.

Well, it would have the consequence of invalidating much of what you’ve said in this thread. That’s a cosmic crisis, I understand, but your convictions about the alternatives for grounding morality in the absence of supernatural omni-God as moral lawgiver are quite mistaken, if so. The consequence of this would be that there are “moral absolutes” in our biology that ground our human values and ethical priorities. They would be actual, objective, and immutable for us, unavoidable as the “fixed frame” we being from as humans in forming ethical and moral frameworks.

It does no such thing. Again, you continually fail to understand the distinction between morality and adaptive behavior. One, by definition, adheres to principles of “ought” for the sake of “ought.” If there were biological “moral absolutes”, then everyone would either abide by them or at least be aware of them. The trouble is, they don’t and they aren’t, and the consequences of them doing so are quite often naught. Not to mention that the overlay of traditional morality and the “morality” prescribed by your evolutionary worldview contains some rather telling gaps.

But since you’re so enamored of this view, here’s a poignant quote from one of the foremost proponents of your pet theory:

“The question may be whether, after the new Darwinism takes root, the word moral can be anything but a joke.” - Robert Wright

At least someone is willing to admit the logical consequences of his ideas.

I’d be happy to understand that dropping all of that bluster from you above would be of “little of no consequence” to you. From reading you, it seems you are deeply, fundamentally committed to that belief, over and above the contradictions that may obtain from science.

Any contradictions are of your own creation. I understand you have a deeply seated abhorrence of Judeo-Christian tradition, so it makes sense that you would choose to read a contradictory view into the facts, which are very open to interpretation.

Well, that’s a major problem, isn’t it? It’s evidence and knowledge to integrate into our beliefs. This, like the evidence and knowledge available in other fields, is what we base our beliefs on, if we want them to be informed and coherent with respect to the world around us.

I meant specifically my faith in the existence of God. I certainly integrate the facts of biology into my understanding of the world and myself. Your consistent misconstruction (or twisting, I don’t know which) of my statements makes any honest conversation difficult.

I admit it freely, over and over on this forum. Science depends wholly on a naked metaphysical assumption: extra-mental reality is reflected to some intelligible degree by our senses and experience. This is not a proposition that is itself established by any a priori demonstration or warrant.

At least you admit that much.

‘Contested’ does not make it subjective. It’s a fantastically complex model that has to be built, and we are just at the very early stages of inquiry on this subject. It will continue to be ‘contested’ indefinitely, no matter how solid the objective evidence is in support of it.

Just because something is fantastically complex does not make it objectively true. The methodology of evolutionary psychology is shaky.

Look, even on this forum, the age of the earth is “contested” – some here suppose the earth is just 10,000 years old, for cryin’ out loud. That doesn’t make the scientific dating of the earth’s formation any more subjective because of that. Same goes for any controversy around evolutionary psychology. The theory only succeeds if it makes novel and testable predictions that bear out under experimental evaluation. People will contest it no matter what – see your views that hold that theism provides the only basis for “ought”, and this bit of science portends a “biological ought” that not only refutes your “only basis”, but obviates the theistic basis, rendering it superfluous.

The debate over the age of the Earth and the utility of evolutionary psychology do not even begin to compare. One is entirely religious, the other has very few, if any, religious underpinnings. Most critics of evolutionary psychology are not religious people, but scientists themselves.

Nevertheless, a biological “ought” is not a moral “ought”. Morality =/= survival. You don’t need evolutionary psychology to “obviate” theism, nor does it necessarily do so, it just provides an intellectual justification. I would argue that your prejudice precedes your philosophy.

Of course that will be contested. It has significant and uncomfortable consequences for all kinds of superstitions. This pattern has been observed over centuries, and across all kinds of subjects on science, where science augurs against superstitious beliefs. That controversy does not make science subjective. It just proceeds according to its method, and the chips will fall where they may.
-TS

“Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.” - Pope John Paul II

You’ll find no argument from me as far as science doing away with superstitions. But I will still claim that the facts don’t exclusively support your interpretation. You cannot escape subjectivity and bias. To quote Howard Zinn (which I am hesitant to do), “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.” You have a worldview and it is not shaped purely by scientific observation; yet it informs your interpretation of science. Deny it all you like.

But anyway, I don’t see this conversation really going anywhere, and seeing as we’re teetering on the brink of, or perhaps already marching through, the land of banned topics, I suggest we end it before we find ourselves permanent residents.

 

[levinas12]

Morality may be related to adaptive behaviors. Certainly, Catholic social teachings suggest that societies, which conform with the “natural law”, may tend to be more “successful”.

But more needs to be said.

The experience of moral necessity is different than other experiences of “necessity”.

For example, think of Newton’s law of gravitation. We do not say the apple “ought” to fall to the ground.

Or, think of the Pythagorean theorem. We do not say that the square on the hypotenuse “ought” to be equal to the squares on the other two sides.

This is why some of us distinguish “is” from “ought”.

As Wittgenstein might say, “is” and “ought” involve different language games.

 

[Viviphilia]

No, not at all. The thing is, empathy is not as “hardwired” as you are suggesting. The research simply doesn’t bear you out on this one. Empathy is learned. Selfish impulses (and I’ll lump sexual ones in there) will emerge in a human being regardless of upbringing. Empathy and altruism will not.

There is in fact a biological basis for empathy via “mirror neurons.”

“A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.[1][2][3] Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behaviour of the other, as though the observer were itself acting.”

When we see others crying or in pain, we feel a similar emotion, unless we have learned to suppress our natural empathy, or if we are born with a defect in the empathy system.

Additionally, a study was published in Scientific American last year that reported a decrease in levels of empathy over the past 30 years, the extent of which indicates that it is not as “innate” as many thought (though the aforementioned fact seems to have given the lie to that assumption long before the study anyway.)

What that suggests to me is that we are increasingly being taught to fight against our natural inclination towards empathy. Of course that is what one would expect with the rise of cannibalistic capitalism.

 

[tonyrey]

I am delighted to note there has been no response to the points made below:

Morality doesn’t appear in relationships out of the blue. The teaching of Jesus is the source of the moral values of modern civilisation based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Even granting this, it certainly does not follow that this ‘profound’ effect has been positive.

• d**ialectical materialism **being by any standards the most diabolical ideology.

What would be the point of establishing a community which could spread a pack of lies? Unless of course one is a psychopath or a criminal who foresees a golden opportunity for his descendants to profit from most people’s gullibility by teaching them to love and forgive those who trespass against them…

No response…

The credibility of Christianity is neatly disposed of by the argument from incredulity - although unfortunately it does cast doubt on the moral rectitude of those who use it.

The credibility of Christianity is disposed of internally by its claims to supernatural entities and to be a repository of “the” truth - even though the “one true church” has changed its mind on both social issues and items of dogma over the course of the development of modern civilisation.
The credibility of materialism is disposed of by its inconsistency in claiming that subnatural robots are capable of autonomy and the power of reason, let alone a conscience and moral responsibility. It has no mind or values to change whereas the Church has developed its teaching in the light of social changes and scientific discoveries.

And the church has profited immensely from people’s gullibility over the centuries, both in material terms and in the embedded social respect it has built up as an institution, since the time when it could force people to do what it wanted. What could be a more golden opportunity than to hoodwink, fleece and abuse people who are bound on pain of damnation to forgive you for doing so?

And the church has profited immensely from people’s gullibility over the centuries, both in material terms and in the embedded social respect it has built up as an institution, since the time when it could force people to do what it wanted. What could be a more golden opportunity than to hoodwink, fleece and abuse people who are bound on pain of damnation to forgive you for doing so?
Those who promote the doctrine that persons are mere animals have not only hoodwinked, fleeced and abused people by making them believe this life is nasty, brutish, short and terminated by death but driven them to despair, suicide and even the murder of their own families - not to mention genocide.

The aggressive hatred of religion manifested in posts on this forum by the disciples of Dawkins and Harris amply demonstrates the intolerance of those who would be the first to oppress and persecute believers if they were in a position of power and capable of doing so - like their predecessors such as Hitler and Stalin…

[/QUOTE]

 

[greylorn]

Can anyone here refer me to some books recently written that explains the difference between the brain and the mind? If I’m understanding the topic correctly, we are to believe that the brain and mind are entirely two different entities, yet, with the little I know about neuroscience, and I’ll admit, I know very little, this seems to be an impossibility. I’m trying to understand this and am doing a poor job of it.

Hey, if you know anything at all about neuroscience, you know more than most people. The reason why you don’t understand the distinctions between brain and mind is because you are trying to get your understanding from people who do not have one that works.

There is a book, mine, which explains the core differences between brain and mind. However you will not like it, do not need it, and should not read it.

The only part of it which will be helpful to you is that which addresses your question, thusly:

Psychology regards the mind as solely a function of brain activity, which fails to explain lots of interesting phenomena such as the split-brain experiments, hypnosis, telepathy, and ordinary thought. Try this variation of the Cartesian model:

• The soul is an entity which is capable of self-awareness, i.e. conscious thought.
• The soul is non-material but physical, and is therefore capable of interacting with some of the energy forms that comprise the physical universe. It is not a “spirit,” which was simply a term invented by those who lacked the information needed to do better.
• The brain provides several forms of memory complete with interactive associative capabilities, plus awesome sensory facilities and motor control capabilities.
• The brain runs the human body and provides a two-way interface to the soul. Part of this interface feeds pre-processed sensory information to the soul, while the other part allows the soul to control some brain functions. .
• Soul-level activity manifests clearly, if occasionally, as what psychologists refer to as the superconscious mind.
• The entire brain is the subconscious mind.
• Soul and brain working together comprise what we commonly refer to as the conscious mind.

 

[tonyrey]

There is in fact a biological basis for empathy via “mirror neurons.”
"A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.[1][2][3] Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behaviour of the other, as though the observer were itself acting."When we see others crying or in pain, we feel a similar emotion, unless we have learned to suppress our natural empathy, or if we are born with a defect in the empathy system.

What that suggests to me is that we are increasingly being taught to fight against our natural inclination towards empathy. Of course that is what one would expect with the rise of cannibalistic capitalism.

It is also what one would expect when materialism is the dominant mentality…

 

[Sair]

Fear of the consequences is not a moral principle but **selfish **expediency.

Are you saying that the desire for eternal life in paradise and the fear of hell, promoted by religious faith, are unselfish motivations?

Those who promote the doctrine that persons are mere animals have not only hoodwinked, fleeced and abused people by making them believe this life is nasty, brutish, short and terminated by death but driven them to despair, suicide and even the murder of their own families - not to mention genocide.

Oh, please - as if religious belief has not promoted despair, murder and genocide! The belief that a god has already determined our destiny, from a time before we were even thought of, let alone born, is a far more nihilistic doctrine than any form of unbelief; I hardly need enumerate the genocidal adventures of “God’s chosen people” in the Old Testament; and even Jesus advocated enmity towards one’s own family if they do not share one’s passion for the “truth” he peddled.

The aggressive hatred of religion manifested in posts on this forum by the disciples of Dawkins and Harris amply demonstrates the intolerance of those who would be the first to oppress and persecute believers if they were in a position of power and capable of doing so - like their predecessors such as Hitler and Stalin…

And your aggressive hatred for anything that is not recognisable as religious faith is far more apparent, only you don’t realise it because - in company with pretty much every person in Western society - you have never been schooled to unquestioning respect for atheism. (Unlike myself and many former religious believers, who still have to second-guess ourselves to make sure we are not being unduly offensive…)

 

[prodigalson2011]

Are you saying that the desire for eternal life in paradise and the fear of hell, promoted by religious faith, are unselfish motivations?

If that is the motivation behind one’s actions as a Christian, then one has very weak faith. The desire to do what is morally right becomes an act of love, not an obligation. You want to do it simply because you love the person you’re doing it for (God, in this case.) If you truly love God then, by extension, you will love his creation. To draw a comparison, does one stay faithful to his spouse simply for fear that she will divorce him? Does he do thoughtful things for her in the sole hope of getting more sex? If so, does he really love her?

Oh, please - as if religious belief has not promoted despair, murder and genocide! The belief that a god has already determined our destiny, from a time before we were even thought of, let alone born, is a far more nihilistic doctrine than any form of unbelief; I hardly need enumerate the genocidal adventures of “God’s chosen people” in the Old Testament; and even Jesus advocated enmity towards one’s own family if they do not share one’s passion for the “truth” he peddled.

You guys love distorting Christian teaching. Straw man after straw man! For starters, the idea that God has already determined our destiny has never been taught by the Catholic Church and is actually a condemned heresy. The arguments about genocide are old hat and have been amply refuted. Your last charge is a gross distortion of the context of Jesus’ words. He was not advocating enmity; he was warning his disciples that following Him would be a cause of trouble for them, potentially turning their own families against them. It would behoove you, like so many others here, to have a firm understanding of what you’re railing against rather than blindly throwing punches. The Dawkins School of Theological Tae Kwon Do is not highly accredited.

 

[Touchstone]

Hmm. The “psychological wiring” of human beings is very changeable. Incredibly so. You’re already on weak footing here.

I think you are confusing neuronal plasticity with the biology that enables neuronal plasticity. The human brain begins as human phenotype, wired for the very moral absolutes you locate in your superstitions. If we imagine a “Clockwork Orange” scenario where a young child is environmentally impacted in ways that suppress his empathic responses, well, too late! The point is there IS an empathic response to supress (or develop further).

And here you’ve hit the banana peel. I suppose one could believe what you just said, provided they were completely ignorant of history! But, even if we were to assume that what you say has any ground in reality, you are still conflating “is” with “ought.” I’ve spent more than enough time on the subject already, so I’ll invite you to reread my previous post if you need any clarification on the distinctions involved.

I suggest this is just a rote reflex from you. Look I was taught the same thing in my philosophy classes: you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is”. It’s a casual way of making the point that brute facts in general are not value-laden, so long as they are “brute”. But that general observation holds in only a general, and superficial sense. As soon as you start to include the facts of human biology, and consider morality as a human endeavor, not the abstractions of some disembodied mind, then the “can’t get an ought from an is” shibboleth becomes vacuous, and worse, just plain wrong. There’s no other source of derivation for a human that “is”.

Consider: can you derive an “ought” from an “is not”? Any ought must come from an “is”, transcendentally, else our oughts necessarily must be predicated on things that DO NOT EXIST.

This is just the price of casual and loose application of the idea behind the “ought/is” divide as it has been posed more formally, traditionally.

In general, though, it’s worth noting that philosophy, even much modern philosophy is notorious unaware and/or uninterested in integrating humans as biological realities into one’s thinking about morality. Your posts are a stark example of this,by the way.

Science cannot make value judgments.

Science can ONLY make value judgments. “True” as empiricists judge it, is a thoroughly prejudicial term. Ask any Thomist if you doubt this. Science begins with totally unjustified and unjustifiable value judgments about the world – the metaphyiscal valuing of sense experience as arbiter of “truth”, as a reflection of extra-mental reality.

If you aren’t making value judgements, you aren’t and cannot be doing science. Science is horribly, gloriously bigoted toward its own epistemology, pre-scientific value judgements which underwrite EVERY SINGLE SCIENTIFIC PROPOSITION.

Morality is a system of values.

Yes, so no problem. If humans exist as facts (are part of “is”), and morals (the “ought”) are grounded in the facts of human existence (biology/psychology), then morality is as much a scientific phenomena as RNA transcription or gravity.

At best you have a weak system of ethics.

Weak in what sense? It seems to me you have real (“is”) human beings with a real (“is”) psychological disposition that gives to various inclinations and dispostions on morals and ethics (“oughts”). There’s no magic. There’s no superstition. What’s weak about that?

On the other hand, if one has some intuition that morals obtain from an “isn’t”, an imagined supernatural deity, how strong would that be?

As it turns out, actually, still pretty strong, because the reality of human biology is a safety net, the facts of human biology provide a “box” that governs and limits human morality, so even wild superstitions can and do fall back on basic human impulses, and are “humanized” by their underlying biology. But the superstitious part itself is “oughts” from an “isn’t”.

Your “oughts” either derive from an “is”, or else they derive from an “isn’t”. Which is it?

What you most certainly don’t have is moral absolutes.

Why not? As above, I’m not hung on the terms, and happy to call it “moral relativism” if that’s more effective, but here we have real, objective, universal grounding for values, located in humans. How could that be more absolute?

People have this pesky thing called “self-identity” that tends to move their behavior in the direction of self interest.

Yes, and this is far more congenial to my understanding of human morality’s grounding than yours. This is part of human nature. It’s also part of “chimpanzee nature”, despite all the substantial differences human morality has from chimpanzee morality. This is biology at work, your physical nature grounding and informing your priorities and choices.

Some people could, doubtless, care less what happens to the majority of the human race so long as they and those they favor, if any, thrive. You cannot provide any objective reason for them to participate amicably in your social construct.

A “cheater”, someone who has learned or chosen to gain the system, still proves the case. He or she relies on the efficacy and ubiquity of the very thing you doubt in order to operate as they do: social trust and collaboration. In order for cheaters to profit, there must be social trust, empathy and reciprocal understandings that can be violated for gain. If there was not such a context for cheating, the base substrate of social interactions we derive from our biology as gregarious creatures, the cheaters, the anti-social exploiters wouldn’t have anything to cheat.

Nature is a game of numbers and statistics and probabilities. If everyone cheated or avoid acting altruistically or eschewed social trust, society would collapse and survival of the species would be jeopardized (or at least the tribe!). Societies profit from establishing so much gains in efficiency from highly trusting and empathic social arrangements that opportunities abound on the margins for the cheaters.

con’t anon…

-TS

 

[levinas12]

Would different wiring really produce radically different “logics” (emphasis on “radically”)? Could you even imagine a world (outside Alice-in-Wonderland) where, e.g., the laws of non-contradiction, modus ponens and modus tollens are no longer in effect?

Logic reflects the structure of Being itself. Logic is not adequately “explained” by invoking “survival of the fittest” and the “contingencies” of evolution.

Metaphysics (e.g., disclosure, cause, essence, accident), mathematics and theoretical science are like logic in this respect.

These “exercises” of rationality are not simply “survival” strategies. They reveal how it is with Being itself.