Discovering the Philosopher in You: Part 9: Mind and Body: How Are They Related?

Continuing the Discovering the Philosopher in you series here with part nine of fourteen.  This lecture's unanswerable  problem is about the differences (if there are any) between the mind and the body/brain.  Like the lecture I'll try to layout the two (main) ideas, without commentary, then comment on the weaknesses and what I think about each side.

First dualism.  Made famous by (though arguably not original to him) Descarte came up with this idea and fleshed out the logical arguments behind how the mind is separate, distinct, and different than the body/brain (for the remainder of this entry when I say 'body' just understand that I'm [more than likely] referring specifically to the brain as the controlling organ of the body).  For one of his main arguments he used for dualism Descartes used identity property laws.  The essence of the mind is in thought, which isn't a measurable substance.  You can't measure the size of an idea or concept.  I am thinking of a white elephant right now (bet you are too) and you cannot tell me how big that thought is.  It cannot be measured in pounds or inches or any other system of measurement.  The human brain (head) is eight pounds (thanks cute kid from Jerry MacGuire) and even the electrochemical impulses in the brain can be measured using electroencephalographs and other tools.  Therefore based on the properties of identity, they cannot be the same thing if they are different essential characteristics.

Now materialism.  This is a much easier to explain idea because the idea of materialism is simple, the brain is all there is.  There is no mind-body problem, there's no such thing as the mind as a distinct thing from the body.  The reason we say 'mind' and other mind-related terms, is simply a difference in terminology.  Saying, 'mind' is the same as saying 'brain' and saying, "I feel angry." is the same as saying, "there's a certain state of chemicals in my brain."  The only dualism is in terminology.

Now, both have their problems, and to be perfectly honest I don't have any answers.  I feel that both sides are intractable and cannot offer all the answers.  For dualism the primary problem is in the interaction between mind and body.  If the mind is intangible then how does or how can it influence the body?  Is it a two-way street?  Is it a one-way?  Is there no interaction?  None of these seem possible.

On the other hand, materialism just kills all conception of the mind.  As hard as one might try, one cannot get rid of the mind, thoughts cannot be simplified to just chemical processes.  Even knowing that one's brain is mainly a complex system of electrochemical reactions to stimuli doesn't make me think of those processes while I'm thinking.  It seems to be obvious that thought is beyond just the chemical processes that go on inside your skull.

Really this discussion boils down to atheism and theism.  Either there is something more than just the material or there isn't.  If you believe there is no such thing as god, then there must be no such thing as the mind/soul/spirit.  If you believe there is something more than just the material, then there is some form of mind distinct from the body.

Here's my personal problem in this question, I think it's indubitable that there must be something more than just our bodies.  I'm a dualist (I'd say that any theist is and must be), but I have absolutely no idea how the two different parts interact.  From theology it's obvious that God is (in some ways) immaterial and spirit, akin to soul or mind, but man isn't God.  Now my theological answer is that God has made man in His image in that our souls can interact and influence the material to a limited extent like his Spirit is active in our lives and world.  I don't have any better answer than that.

Discovering the Philosopher in You: Part 7: Happiness and Right Action: How Are Morality and Human Welfare Related?

Continuing the series on discovering the philosopher in yourself.  While the last part of the series was about ethics and moral truth, the fact that there is a right and wrong and that we can know it, this entry goes further down the road of morality and its relation to happiness.

The first three-quarters of the lecture it seems like Prof McGinn is defending the idea of Utilitarianism, and how morality is linked to happiness like a sort of mathematical equation.  It seems like he's defending utilitarianism as the best way to describe right actions, but it seems obvious to me almost immediately that it's not going to work.

Here's how Prof McGinn describes utilitarianism: on the surface it seems like a very fair, no-nonsense system.  Because who doesn't like a system where the sole determination of right action is based on producing the most happiness?  So utilitarianism says that the right action is the one that will produce the greatest amount of happiness.  My first thought is how do we measure an amount of happiness, and  Prof McGinn says he'll discuss that concept later in the lecture.  He really doesn't say much about it, other than asking that same thing, how does one measure happiness?  So, the example Prof McGinn uses relates to choosing one charity over another.  The only criteria for choosing which charity to support is only determined by which charity will produce the most happiness.  This flies in the face of almost all other systems of morality, which is highly controversial.

It's an apparently egalitarian view and quite democratic.  Taxes, this system of morality says that all tax systems must be inherently designed to spread out wealth so that the most people gain the most happiness.  It's also democratic, because the best way to find out what makes the most people happy is to allow people to choose for themselves what makes them happy.  This system is purely mathematical.  There's no room for motivation or character.  It doesn't matter if a person has the worst (or best) of intentions.  It doesn't matter what your motive is, as long as more happiness is produced it's a good action.

There are many implications and arguments that have come out of utilitarianism, including (supposedly) abolishing slavery and arguing against animal cruelty.  The system isn't without it's shortcomings though.  Here's one that Prof McGinn points out: one innocent man knows the location of a billion dollars, and the happiness of ten wicked men can be greatly improved by torturing the one innocent man.  By utilitarian standards, that would be acceptable.  Here's another one, supposedly utilitarian arguments led to the end of slavery (at least in many parts of the world).  Here's my issue with that, if there are fewer people being enslaved and usually that's the case, hence minorities are typically the group(s) being enslaved, then utilitarian ideas say that it's right/good to enslave the few to improve the happiness of the many.  As long as the slaves are outnumbered by the enslavers, and their happiness is increased by the slavery.  Here's another one, murder or even mass murder, like the Nazi genocide attempts, are permissible under utilitarian morality as long as the group being exterminated is fewer in number than the exterminators and the extermination of the minority will lead to the happiness of those doing the killing.

In the end I'm not okay with a system of morality that can excuse mass murder, torture, and slavery.  I've said it before and I'm sure I'll probably say it again, any moral system that excludes God leads to moral relativism.  Utilitarianism cannot be a complete system because it leaves out too many variables that are inherent in morality.

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 6: The Basis of Ethics: What Makes Something Right or Wrong?

Continuing the series on the Discovering the Philosopher in You; part six, which is probably the most interesting lecture in the series so far.  Also, it's interesting to me that it confirms what I've thought for a while now, that is that I agree with much of Prof McGinn's views on philosophy.  However, I do completely disagree with him in a specific area as you'll see.

So ethics, obviously a difficult subject which Prof McGinn approached in a quite logical straightforward manner.  I totally recommend you listen to the audio recordings if you can his style is quite approachable and easily understood.  The first question (and one that I agree with Prof McGinn on) is about ethics being knowable.  That is, are ethical truths the same as truth as we discussed previously?  In case you missed that part of the series and don't want to read it, I'll sum it up...  Truth is objective based in reality.  You can't think something into falsehood.  Snow is white no amount of wanting it to be different will change that truth.  Now if (and I hold that it is) ethics is knowable truth then it is also not subjective.  Also, it must also be a priori as was discussed previously.  Again, I'll sum that idea up; a priori is NOT necessarily something that is known from birth, rather something that can be known without experience.  The prime example is mathematics, one can know that 1+2=3 but no one can point to a one, two, three, plus or equals (not the symbols, but the objects, which don't exist as we think of existence).  So one can know that murder is wrong without being able to see wrong or right in and of themselves.  So, knowledge of ethics definitely falls under the realm of a priori knowledge.

Well, there are many that dispute that claim.  The primary disagreement is that moral or ethical claims are merely emotive statements, in fact emotivists say they're less than that.  To an emotivist, saying, "murder is wrong," is the equivalent of saying "murder, boo."  Emotivism is just one of the many attempts to escape the reality of moral truth.  The most important thing to take from this lecture is about how non-cognitivists (those that believe morality is not knowable truth) are guaranteed to come away with moral relativism.  It's obvious, if saying, "rape is wrong" is equivalent to "boo, hiss" then what's the point of any moral statements?  They're all worthless.

Here's where I have some disagreement with Prof McGinn...  After talking about how he believes that moral truth is NOT subjective, that it's completely objective and just as trustworthy as mathematical truths.  So far, I can agree with him.  Then, he starts into a critique of divine command theory.  Let me first say, I'm not a fan of the divine command theory.  I've read the Euthyphro dialogue (granted, it was a few years ago in college) but I do remember enough to know that Prof McGinn seems to make a mistake, like the one he made when he retold the cave myth from the Republic.  He says that Socrates meets Euthyphro while walking around Athens, which is not true to the dialogue.  In the dialogue, Socrates meets Euthyphro on the porch of King Archon (steps of the courts) because he's on trial.  They strike up a conversation, and the so called, "Euthyphro dilema."  I've written about this before, Is something good because God commands it, or is something good commanded by God because it is good?  Euthyphro doesn't have a good answer, and as I've mentioned before, I feel that's mainly because of a misunderstanding of the nature of God.  The ancient Greek gods were very anthropomorphic and fallible.  God as He actually is, isn't fallible as a man, he's immutable, perfection, omnipotence, omniscience, among other characteristics, all of which are the furthest any being can be from humanity.  God is not the foundation of morality, God is the definition of morality.  Murder isn't wrong because God says it's wrong (per se) rather because it's against the very nature of God and morality.

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 5: Knowledge and Experience: Where Does Knowledge Come From?

Continuing the series on Discovering the Philosopher in You with Prof McGinn, lecture five is on Knowledge and Experience: Where Does Knowledge Come From?  Here Prof McGinn says that we're going to move on from the basic building-blocks of philosophy and getting to the more meat-and-potatoes questions of philosophy.  So here we are and where does what we know come from?  This is a question from epistemology (the theory of knowledge).  In the lecture Prof McGinn talks about two specific sides of this argument, the empiricists and the rationalists.

Before we cover those two sides of this issue, let's first talk about what we mean by knowledge.  It's not what you and I know.  It's more like how people attain knowledge in general.  One of the ideas set forth in different theories of knowledge is that we can and do know certain things without experiencing them.  Keep in mind this is not that you learned something without experiencing it.  Take math, you say you learned it from your teacher, which is a type of experience, but that's not what we are talking about because that teacher learned it from some other teacher.  What we're trying to get at, is where the first person learned math.  That's one way of looking at it; another is the idea that to know that 1+2=3 doesn't take experience.  Think about it.  How do you experience the numbers 1, 2, or 3.  The concepts of plus or equals?  It's not like you can experience these things like this cup of water I'm drinking.

The empiricists, notably all British, claim that knowledge can only be attained experientially.  One of the first things Prof McGinn mentions about the empiricists is one of the main things that makes me doubt their views and neutrality on philosophical questions.  He talks about one of the primary motives behind the empiricists was a desire to depart from religion.  If one starts out with a specific motive it's hard to stay impartial.  I know I'm not, but at least I'm honest about it, and I try to maintain impartiality in most things.  So, in order to get away from the ideas of revelation that religion relies on, which it does at least in some ways it relies on the idea that God reveals knowledge to His followers that is outside the realm of experience for those not involved in the revelation.  So to empiricists all knowledge comes from someone's experience.

The rationalists held an opposing view that at least some knowledge doesn't come from experience.  They don't deny experiential knowledge, that would seem counterintuitive.  However, they held that some knowledge is not derived from experience.  It's commonly referred to as "a priori" knowledge.  As opposed to "a posteriori" knowledge, which is experiential knowledge.  So, as opposed to the empiricists' claim that all knowledge comes from someone's experience, the rationalists claim that at least some knowledge is innate and cannot come from experience.  This other source of knowledge is often called "pure reason" hence Kant's writing The Critique of Pure Reason and a Critique of Practical Reason.

For this discussion I've always liked the example of the dark side of the moon.  Now I know astronauts have landed on and encircled the moon and they have experienced that in a way, but before they did.  Did we know experientially that there was a dark side of the moon?  No.  No one had ever experienced it or seen it or photographed it.  So at that time we knew from logical conclusions that if an object has one side it must also have another side, and even though we may have never seen it, we know it's there.

Photo Courtesy of: Blogs Voice of America News

Others argue that language is an a priori knowledge.  Most notably the famous linguist Noam Chomsky who argued that some form of grammar and linguistic ability is innate/a priori.  I tend to agree with this concept of a priori, except that it doesn't seem like it'd be knowledge as we typically think of knowledge.  More like skills or abilities, or even ways of thinking and pattern recognition, not necessarily knowledge.

One last comment...  The discussion of a priori (about which I had some interesting comments from a Google+ discussion) is NOT exactly like the debate of nature vs. nurture.  Also, genetically hardwired instincts technically don't fit with a priori knowledge either (sort of).  Whatever your view these are all very interesting questions about knowledge and while the debate isn't as heated as in the days of John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume (British empiricists) with René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Immanuel Kant (not all rationalists but mostly), it is still an interesting discussion in epistemology.

I love sushi!  And getting good sushi is easy here in Japan

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 4: Logic: What Is Valid Reasoning?

I'm sorry for such a long time between entries!  If you're following my series, or my blog in general, the last entry was on the nature of truth.  This lecture/entry is on logic and reasoning.  There's a few courses available on this topic available at Coursera.org.  As we've been discussion truth is objective in relation to reality, or as Prof McGinn says, "Beliefs are true or false; reasoning is valid or invalid."  So here we are discussion logic in relation to validity NOT truth/falsehood. The best classical example comes from Aristotle, All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.  The thing I like (and hate at the same time) about logic is the way it can be expressed somewhat mathematically.  The problem comes in knowing what the symbols mean.  I learned about this use of symbols in a class on logic but I haven't really gotten the hang of how to use all the symbols.  This simple lecture from Prof McGinn doesn't really go into all that but I feel it's worth mentioning here.  That classical example would be written something like:

∀ P ⇒ Q     All Ps are Q               All men are mortal

A ⇒ P        A is a P                      Aristotle is a man

∴ A ⇒ Q      Therefore, A is Q    Therefore Aristotle is mortal

If everything of a group has a certain property, then every particular part of that group also has that property.  Also, if one particular thing has a property, then something has that property.  I know it sounds silly and basic, but that's the way it's supposed to be.  Logic, for the most part, is straightforward and basic.

While Prof McGinn doesn't go over that symbolic logic, he does cover the three main classical laws of logic.  As I understand it, they were codified by Aristotle and the lectures refer to them as, "three traditional laws of logic: the law of identity, the law of excluded middle, and the law of noncontradiction."  I don't necessarily agree with this idea as common sensical as it seems, but Prof McGinn says that these laws of logic are inescapable and the even the concept of a universe where these rules don't hold true is inconceivable (you keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means).  The book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid seems to say that "kōans (公案)" are examples of mankind's ability to step outside this idea that logic is inescapable.  I don't completely agree with everything that book says but it seems that is the case.  One of problems I have is these sayings are just that, sayings.  They may indicate that mankind can think illogically, but that doesn't mean one can escape the rules of logic.

Take the law of identity, everything is identical to itself.  It seems to me that it's possible to conceive of a place where that isn't the case.  But, just because one can conceive it doesn't mean one can actually go to such a place or make something that doesn't follow that law.  Or the law of excluded middle, which says that everything has a given property or it lacks it.  Or the law of non-contradiction, which says that nothing can have a given property and not have the same property at the same time.  So, we can conceive of things that don't follow these laws, but we can't actually make things or find things that don't follow said laws.

Now that's a snake

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 3: Truth: What Is the Nature of Truth?

As I move through this lecture series by Prof Colin McGinn on discovering the philosopher in each of us and dealing with the big questions in philosophy, I'm liking this prof more and more.  As far as philosophers are concerned, he seems quite down-to-earth.

Today's topic has to do with truth and the analysis of truth.  In the last lecture, we used the word truth several times and now we're dealing with analyzing truth itself.  According to these lectures, there are three common theories behind truth, the coherence theory, the pragmatic theory, and the correspondence theory.  One thing I have noticed though is how Prof McGinn seems to make powerful claims when most other philosophy teachings I've heard don't make simple straightforward claims like Prof McGinn.  Claims like, how there are these three theories but how the correspondence theory is the correct one and that the others are just quaint ideas that we discuss almost out of hand just to be kind to the ideas because they're wrong and there's no two ways about it.  I find this approach to philosophy surprising and slightly refreshing.  Anyways, on to the different theories.

Coherence theory: leaves out the world in so many, potentially dangerous ways.  Basically it says that something is true if it is coherent within a set of beliefs or belief system.  If a fact is consistent with your other beliefs or a web of belief systems, then it is true.  A slightly more basic way to put this is, if something is consistent with a large group of people's belief then it is true, like if enough people believe something is true, then it is.  Of course this goes against one of the things Prof McGinn has said a number of times, that one cannot force oneself to believe something that isn't true.  Of course technically, in this concept of truth, it's completely relative to the person/people involved.  This concept has no grounding in reality, which I'm sure is why it's considered a poor theory of truth.

The pragmatic theory: this (kind of) leaves out the world as well.  The basic idea is that whatever is good for one is true.  Like if I jump off this tall building it will be bad for me, and therefore it's true.  While this at least relates truth to reality there's an important distinction to be made.  The example in the lecture is of living under a despotic tyrannic government.  In a place like that it would be good for one's health to believe the propaganda that the government is good and wonderful.  If you truly believe otherwise, the secret police would be knocking on your door.  But that doesn't change the truth of the evil tyranny you're living in.  (Not that all tyrannies are evil.)

Last but not least, the correspondence theory: this is the most simple, straightforward of all these theories of truth.  It's simple, the truth is what actually is.  The statement that snow is white, is true, not because it is coherent with what I believe about snow, or the fact that believing snow is white is good for me in some way, but because snow actually is in fact, white.  The truth of the matter has nothing to do with one's beliefs or wants.  It is subjective, that is, outside one's wants or ideas.  Well, this concept brings up the topic of tolerance to which the professor gives a very good response: "Tolerance is not a matter of allowing that everyone believes the truth, no matter how much they disagree; it is having the policy of not persecuting people for their beliefs even when they are egregiously false."  Stating that truth is subjective is not intolerant, it's a fact.  It's not putting people who believe otherwise down, it's simply stating a truth about how facts correspond to reality.  There's no such thing as something being "true to me, but not true to you."  That's not how this works, it's either true or not, those types of statements are faith statements value statements relating to one's beliefs, not to truth or falsehood.

One last thing to say on this topic, there are different types of truth.  This discussion has been about factual truth.  I'm sure that later discussions/lectures will deal with value statements and moral truth.  That will come later I'm sure, so stay tuned!

Discovering the Philosopher in You Part 1: Intro and Skepticism: What Do You Really Know?

I'm going to try something I've never done in this blog before.  That is, write a series of posts along the same vein.  This idea was sparked by a philosophy podcast from learnoutloud.com entitled "Discovering the Philosopher in You."  Well, the introductory podcast was very interesting, it's a series of lectures from a professor Colin McGinn about all the "big questions" in philosophy.  So, I've decided to write parallel blog entries for each of the lectures.  I downloaded the study guide as well, so I'm referencing that guide as well as the lectures. Without further ado, introduction and lecture one, Skepticism: What Do You Really Know?

By way of introduction I'll mention that these lectures and parallel blog entries are not in chronological order.  That's intentional, as Prof McGinn says, because all of the questions in philosophy are ancient questions that can't be answered.  It's not like we're coming up with new issues for philosophers to ponder over all the time.  Though I would say that doesn't mean that new problems don't come up every so often, but I'd say that these new issues are just new twists of old problems. Some of these questions include, what the ultimate nature of the world is, what the self is, whether we have free will, how our minds relate to our bodies, whether we can really know anything, where ethical truth comes from, what the meaning of life is, and whether or not there is a God.  These are some of the topics that I'll be covering over the next fourteen (or so) entries.

One thing of note in the lecture is how Prof McGinn describes Plato's famous cave parable.  The way it reads in the Republic is pessimistic.  It's like someone has chained the poor people in the cave and are manipulating their perceptions by walking behind them with stick-borne puppets making shadows on the cave walls.  The way Prof McGinn describes it is much more optimistic, that they aren't chained and that the people casting the shadows are just passersby.  I don't know the reason for his oversight, perhaps it's not oversight and that's the way it's described in other platonic writings.  I don't really know, but I thought that minute mistake, if it was one, was interesting.

The skeptical questions of what do I really know, leads down a long path ending with solipsism, and the other minds problem.  If you don't want to read those links, I'll summarize those ideas, solipsism is the idea that nothing else exists other than your own mental state.  There's also a temporal version of solipsism where we cannot know for certain that there was anything in the past or that there will be anything in the future.  All we can know for sure (sort of) is that we are knowing something right now.  The other minds problem is related to solipsism though more specific.  It's the idea that one cannot know that anyone else's mind exists.  We see others' bodies and actions and assume that they are analogous to our own minds but we can't know for sure that they're not just cleverly devised automatons or robots.  The problems that the skeptics, like Descarte raise, are many and there aren't complete answers to all of their questions, and on the surface it may seem like madness that can neither be proven nor disproven.  Prof McGinn talks about an interesting problem that skepticism can bring with its questioning all knowledge.  I'll try to summarize his points.

Suppose you had $10,000 in the bank, then when you check your balance, you suddenly find, without reason or expenditure that you actually only have $.10.  How would that make you feel?  Consider knowledge in the same manner.  We think we know so much, we think we have an intellectual bank account with 10,000 pieces of knowledge and with just a few jabs from skeptics we find that we actually only know 1 thing.  As Descarte argued "I think therefore I am."  Doubting is thinking, which is an action that only something that exists can do, therefore I exist.  But, with solipsism and the skeptical issues that's all we can know for sure.  Prof McGinn seems to say that these skeptical issues are detrimental to a one's intellectual wellbeing.

My personal views on this problem are a bit contradictory.  I love to play around with skepticism, but it's just childish play to me.  Are you reading my blog?  How do you know you're reading my blog?  How do you know you're not dreaming?  (Maybe because in a dream the writing would be better, haha!?)  The Matrix brings a scifi twist to skepticism.  How do you know that you're not plugged into some supercomputer that's feeding you all you think you're sensing?  Can you trust your senses?  Are you sure you're seeing red as I'm seeing red, or are you just calling purple red because that's what you've always been told?  These are fun but silly to me.  On the deeper issue of skepticism intellectually bankrupting people, I don't really see how it changes things or people for that matter.  I mean think about it, what if right now, the only thing that you actually know and can know, is your current thoughts?  So what?  Are you going to behave differently?  I presume not.  Therefore, if not knowing anything that you thought you knew doesn't actually change your life why worry about it?  I certainly don't and I hope you don't either.