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Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality Trinity College, Dublin, 8th March 2002 Arranged by The Scientific and Medical Network with the support of the Templeton Foundation Report by David Lorimer - A CONTEMPORARY DEBATE
SPEAKERS
RESPONDENTS
CHAIR Around 90 people attended a highly stimulating event in the Walton Lecture Theatre of the historic and beautiful Trinity College, Dublin, where the famous Bishop George Berkeley became a Fellow in 1709. His portrait is one of many distinguished figures adorning the fine public rooms of the College. The Bishop would have been a vigorous contributor to our debate on religious belief, science and consciousness and, although he would not have agreed with any of the speakers, he would have had a good deal to say about perception in our context. After a short introduction from the Chair, Professor Alan Torrance addressed the question: does naturalism in the cognitive sciences constitute a crisis for theism? Before coming to theism he gave an analysis of what he saw as a challenge, if not a crisis, for the academy in the form of two mutually incompatible approaches:
The problem is a crisis of truth, which seems to depend on the proposition that something is true if everyone believes it. This leads to competitive propaganda campaigns. The humanistic or constructive approach, in contrast with naturalism, overplays human creativity. Professor Torrance regarded both these approaches as deficient when compared with theism. For him theism provided an epistemic base of considerable explanatory power. It explains why there was something rather than nothing, it enables access to truth, it provides an ontological basis for values which can be embodied by human beings, and it explains why the world is intelligible. This position gave rise to considerable debate later on - see below. He then went on to consider Jaegwon Kim's critique of non-reductive physicalism whereby a mental event M is thought to be responsible for a brain state P* which is its physical realisation. However the brain state P* is in fact caused by and antecedent brain state P, thus making M logically redundant. So physical accounts giving rise to mental descriptions are, according to Rockwell, 'somewhere between being shallow and being outright falsehoods'. Mental descriptions are in fact reduced to epiphenomena because of the physiological processes, so we are back to the problems associated with epiphenomenalism. So can mental events supervene on causal interactions? Kim argues that no emergent causation (such as downward causation) can exist at all: all causality is explicable in terms of the causal relations between the most basic, sub-atomic components. Causality on this account does not and indeed cannot recognise individual entities of any kind, conscious or non-conscious. Given this view, it is not surprising that Kim concludes his 1998 Philosophy of Mind by saying that consciousness and mental causation are two 'intractable problems'. Professor Torrance saw a possible third alternative to physicalism and Cartesianism in Nancy Cartwright's pluralistic universe as set out in her 1999 book The Dappled World. Here patterns emerge in physical processes which have genuine causal powers. We are part of a highly complex universe characterised by a 'patchwork of laws'. This position repudiates 'nomological monism' (as in Kim), whereby there is only one type of law governing all events - in his case causal connections between basic particles. Cartwright also rejects the fundamentalist assumption that 'all facts must belong to one grand scheme', which means that the world cannot be explained in terms of the operation of a single kind of causal law. All this will make eminent sense to those familiar with systems theory with its notion of distinct but interlocking levels. These considerations imply the fundamental question being addressed, namely 'where precisely are causal properties located?' Do they belong exclusively to physical objects? Perhaps the concept of a location to causal properties is itself a category error since causality is about relationships and the systems view implies a much more complex and distributed set of feedback loops than the original Cartesian idea of localised mechanical push. Professor Torrance concluded that academia is rent between the mutually incompatible fideisms of naturalism and creative anti-realism. He argued that theism can obviate problems associated with these views and that it sustains and justifies the academic search for truth. Physicalism in psychology cannot make sense of thought progression and epiphenomenalism logically hoists psychologists on their own petard. Nomological monism needs to be repudiated since we live in a complex world that is not wholly amenable to reductive, naturalistic explanations. Cognitive science points to the need to reject naturalism and the scientistic fundamentalism of Richard Dawkins. Christian Theism's explanatory power should not be underestimated. It recognises the complexity of selves as subjects not objects, subjects who are free, responsible personal agents who can reason and penetrate the intelligible structures of the world. Theism must also recognise physicality, that emotions can be chemically induced and that mental processes are subject to physical degeneration. This corresponds to a resurrection rather than an intrinsic immortality view, although Professor Torrance did not elaborate on this. DR. BRIAN GARVEY responded that he had no problem with nomological pluralism in higher level entities since this gave rise to a broader range of explanatory concepts. He argued, however, that physical laws were fundamental, as claimed by naturalism, and that beliefs and desires were physically explicable. Folk psychology gave us one level of insight, but philosophers like Dennett go beyond this while advocating positions that are continuous with the physical sciences. Dr. Garvey's position about causal powers was straightforward in that he claimed that mental states have causal powers precisely because they are physical. He proposed that the commitment to naturalism was, strictly speaking, methodological rather than ontological. He stressed the importance of continuity with the physical sciences in terms of their capacity to predict, explain and, crucially, to unify. Here he echoed the positivist agenda of E.O. Wilson's consilience. Dr. Garvey pointed out that literary criticism led to disagreement, not to say acrimony and was hence a divergent activity in contrast with the convergence of science - although there is plenty of disagreement in science as well. He concluded by maintaining that Nancy Cartwrights' position was in fact compatible with physicalism and therefore had explanatory power but only in that respect. DR. MAX VELMANS began by laying out the traditional positions on the mind-body problem. Both dualism and reductionist identity theory had problems explaining how we actually experience the world. His own view of reflexive monism (see his Understanding Consciousness ) overcomes these. He then posed a series of questions about the relationship between subjects and objects where false statements reflected erroneous positions that led the debate in the wrong direction. For example, physical objects as-perceived are commonly thought to be "physical" and separate from percepts of those objects in the head. However in terms of their phenomenology the physical objects as-perceived just are what we experience, and there are no additional percepts of those objects in the head (Later discussion questioned the framing of the questions). Dr. Velmans used a diagram of how we might understand our perception of a cat. Reductionist views maintain that the representation of the cat is only a brain state, while he argues that we should take seriously the subjective impression that the cat is experienced out in space - as critical realism would maintain. His view presupposes the irreducibility of everyday phenomenology. The perceptual projection is a real subjective psychological effect although nothing physical actually emanates from the brain as the ancients thought. Identity theory postulates that conscious experience are really brain states, but this position cannot be upheld logically since the most that one can ascertain is that such mental states correlate with or are caused by brain states rather than being identical to them. This is a crucial point that has come up in a number of our debates. We cannot access experience from the outside; the closest we can get is to establish the precise neural causes or correlates of conscious experience. Hence we cannot establish the equation conscious experience = brain states. The theoretical consequences of this view imply a non-dualist phenomenology of consciousness giving the primacy to experience and thence to intersubjectivity. Thus the world is psychophysical but within a critically realist framework. DR. RICHARD GRAY thought that reflexive monism rested on some dubious presuppositions. His main point was that it represented an internalist rather than an externalist view. Internalist theories maintain that conscious experience depends on brain states, while externalists say that the phenomenal character of experience is constituted by states outside the head. In Dr. Gray's view it is correct to say that there is a representation but not that it is projected. The object and perception of it (the percept) must be distinguished. As an externalist Dr. Gray argued that the properties of the physical object cause the character of our experience. In addition, he maintained, physical properties are first-order while psychological properties are second order and actually realised through physical processes. Consciousness then becomes a third-order property added to the first two. Professor Torrance began the discussion by pointing out that Theism is not necessarily committed to a radical critique of materialism - some theologians find the two compatible. The real issue is how to reconcile the diversity of the world with physicalism, for instance our capacity for argument or charity, or the genius of Mozart. On a naturalistic basis it becomes hard to advance a coherent account of altruism. He reiterated his point about the potential explanatory power of Theism. Dr. Velmans responded that his was a naturalistic view but that it was not strictly true to say that he was an internalist, as Dr. Gray had maintained. He actually distinguished causes, correlations and the nature of consciousness, and would agree that causal interactions were not entirely internal (see for instance experiments on inattentional blindness). Nor is it true that representations are wholly internal. Nevertheless the 'proximal cause' of experience is internal - for example the proximal causes of colour vision are in the brain: red has no observer-independent existence in the world, which consists rather of certain electromagnetic frequencies. Hence in a certain sense what we normally think of as the physical world is an experience that is a construction of the brain and for us the starting point of our knowledge is undoubtedly that experience. Observation requires an observer whether in science or everyday life. Questions Is there any evidence for the God presupposed by Theism? The questioner could not see any. Professor Torrance agreed that the existence of God was not demonstrated but had nevertheless been 'disclosed'. Moreover there is no proof for the non-existence of God. He admitted that evil and suffering create a problem of theodicy if the existence of a good and omnipotent God is postulated and that these problems vanish if there is no God: evil and suffering are just states of affairs. Dr. Velmans thought that the terrain was shifting towards experience and a more participatory model of reality as evidenced in mystical experience. This suggests a panpsychic view. Is energy a useful non-material category? The response here was that it may not be material but that it is nevertheless physical. This assumes that energy exists at only one (physical) level when there are indications that it may be more or less subtle in its manifestations. Should we think in terms of Deism rather than Theism? Deism is a precursor to more modern mechanistic conceptions of the world. However, if one argued that quantum space is both 'inside' and 'outside', then perhaps spirituality is inherent and the fundamental difference between physical and non-physical is overcome. Perhaps one is a denser form of the other. Dr. Velmans proposed a dual-aspect theory in this respect but asked how one could distinguish cultural associations from the evaluation of reality. He argued that the scientific testing process is not trapped in culture but is nevertheless conditioned by it What about Peter Singer's naturalistic account of reality? What is added by Theism? Professor Torrance: Essentially the causal stories are different. No one understands the mysterious act of God. More significantly, however, he argued that the moral 'ought' cannot be derived from naturalism, that there can be no objective moral values without God. Specifically, he added, values derive from God's love of persons and concern for others. Is it objectively true that people ought to give? Not for Rawls, who insists that it is important not to invoke Theism for his theory of distributive justice. The further point was made that meaning transcends explanation in that it relates to truth and the ground for values. These questions were of course not fully resolved or worked through but there was a very fruitful exchange on the origin and justification of values in relation to Theistic or naturalistic accounts of the nature of reality. Dr. O'Grady summed up the discussions and thanked both speakers and participants for their contributions. Issues related to the Project themes
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