Philosophy, Schmilosophy!

  You've already been introduced to my son David, for I've linked to two of his songs elsewhere in this blog [1,2], and he wrote a guest posting praising the LSD-induced creativity of the 1950s-1960s Bay Area [3]. 

  Recently, David has seen several of his friends' fathers die.  More acutely aware of the inevitable, he has suddenly increased the frequency of his visits to me from London.  It's a gesture that has deeply touched me.  Still, I feel like any or all of the Jewish mothers in this venerable joke:

Mother 1:  "My son is an entrepreneur, starting companies left and right, but—bless him!—he writes to me every day!"

Mother 2:  "Huh!  My son runs a big multinational company, yet he finds the time to call me each day from all parts of the world!"

Mother 3:  "That's nothing!  My son, as busy as both of yours combined, spends an hour a day just talking to his doctor about me!"

(Joking aside, I should here also thank my architect daughter Abby, who calls me almost every evening—from all parts of the world!—to chat and wish me good night.)

  On his most recent trip to California a few weeks ago, David and I explored our very different views of the universe.  My universe is random at its core and is without any transcendental meaning.  His has a cosmic unity of which everything is a related part, so he sees the whole and his place in it as having an ethereal purpose.  Although neither of us is religious in the practicing sense, I think our contrasting world views roughly register the difference between two of the faces of the Jewish God that I earlier discussed: Elohim and Adonai.  The former, the Creator of the universe, lets it unfold in chaotic ways and cares not a fig for us mortals as we wend our way through His maelstrom.  The latter acts as an agent who transforms the chaos of creation into order and sanity, representing our striving to make sense of our existence.  I relate to Elohim; I believe that David would more likely cleave to Adonai.  Of course, since the central precept of Judaism is that God is One, a true believer must accept the whole of this Janus-like deity, a position I think neither of us can accept.

  Our differing viewpoints sometimes lead us to loggerheads.  David holds that I am denying a vital link to a spiritual mind-essence unifying all of creation.  (I believe philosophers would call him a panpsychist.)  I can't fathom this: I point to my head and insist, "What I am is only what's in here, no more, no less!"  On the other hand, he cannot understand my passive acquiescence in an underlying dominion of chance.  Since our universes are so different and each is so much a matter of metaphysical axiom, I often try to bring our discussion to a close by using Wittgenstein's admonition, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."  I see no point in arguing about axioms.

  On a more mundane level, though, our disagreement is a study in irony.  I, believing in the suzerainty of disorder, have striven to establish localized order in my minute corner of the cosmos, an attempt I liken to the possible but vastly improbable spontaneous rushing of all air molecules into one corner of a room.  He, convinced that there is a oneness in all of existence, is unconcerned with random dislocations and anomalies, which he thinks will work themselves out as a matter of karma.  So here's the paradox: I try to construct a preternaturally orderly life in spite of universal turbulence, and he—who is unconcerned that life is buffeted by turbulence—calms his mind, almost as a Buddhist, with a sense of cosmic unity and peace.  Starting from such incompatible foundations, we seem to have arrived at similar places, each with its own sort of equanimity.

 

  Are our lives therefore that much different, given the polar philosophical axioms from which we start?  Except for a 35-year difference in age and therefore a generational difference in outlook, and very different financial statuses, I'd say "No."  We share the same concerns about inequity and iniquity in the world, the same worries about the environment, the same political outlook, the same moral code.  In a word, our vast difference about the grand question of the nature of the universe seems not to reflect itself all that much in how we conduct ourselves in it.  We should be on different channels altogether, but it seems we operate instead mostly on the same one. 

  Does that not say something about the value in everyday life of philosophical disputation?  The old New York Jew that I am wants to say, "Philosophy, schmilosophy!"

The Self

   I recently mentioned in this blog how awed I am when I see a baby becoming aware of its unique self.  Yet, what is the Self?  That question has been examined for millennia.  Historically, the answers have been all over the map.

  Christianity identifies the self with a God-given soul, separate from the body and surviving it.  Buddhism denies the existence of a distinct, permanent self, positing only an ever-changing consciousness, which on death can be reincarnated into another body.  Aristotle argued that the soul does not have an existence independent of the body. Descartes viewed the soul as immaterial and distinct from the material body, though oddly regarded the brain's pineal gland as the place where they interact.  Hume saw the self not as a discrete entity, but as a bundle of sensations, perceptions and thoughts, perhaps even rejecting the concept of the self altogether.  Modern neuroscience may have a more coherent story to tell … then again, it may not. 

  Our brain has about 100 billion neurons, almost all present at birth.  They are not directly responsible for the functioning of the brain; that role is assumed by the staggering number of synaptic interconnections that are formed among them.  Under genetic control, the embryo's and infant's brain makes tens of millions of interconnections per minute, forming primitive neuronal networks that await further sculpting.

  In early life that sculpting is mostly under the influence of sights and sounds.  For example, during a critical period for activating one primitive network, optical data from the eyes drive the development of the visual cortex, the site where those data are increasingly translated into recognizable geometric and chromatic patterns.  In another critical period, the sounds of one's native language are learned and categorized, leading to the formation of a language cortex.  In a word, the neurons in our brain are driven to form very specialized networks by a constant barrage of sensory information arriving from the outside world.

  More than influences from raw sensory data are involved.  We are social creatures, so most of the behavior of our Self is impressed on our neural system by interacting with others.  As babies, we realize early that smiling elicits attention.  As we mature, we mimic others' behavior as a way of becoming part of the social networks of home, school, workplace, etc.  We learn what is expected of us and discover what is considered offensive or immoral.  We share emotions.  We respond to others' opinions of us.  We find out what others have thought by reading and listening.  We acquire skills that are necessary for our lives and jobs.  As this interaction with the outside world proceeds from infancy throughout our life, the neuronal network in our brain reformats itself constantly.

  So what in fact is the Self?  In The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity, experimental psychologist Bruce Hood argues a viewpoint close to Hume's.  Self, he contends, is no more than a mirroring of all the external influences we have experienced throughout our lives, as filtered by and instantiated into the mass of increasingly networked neurons in the brain.  He doesn't deny the nature side of the nature-nurture dichotomy, just asserting that our intrinsic properties express themselves in interactions with the social world that defines us.  It is an illusion, he says, for us to try to distinguish anything about the Self that is independent of the mirroring of the outside world reflected in the neuronal network.

  To get a fuller understanding of Hood's reasoning, it's worth while reading an interview with him by Jonah Lehrer, the author of the book Imagine that I discussed in my posting Neurons and Creativity.

  Hood's representation of the Self may seem compelling until one notices a big fly in the ointment:  If the Self is illusory, so free will must be.  Hood claims that even now, as I type this very sentence, I am not exercising free will.  Any choices I think I have made, he says, "must be the culmination of the interaction of many hidden factors ranging from genetic inheritance, life experiences, current circumstances and planned goals … play[ing] out as patterns of neuronal activity in the brain. … We are not aware of these influences because they are unconscious and so we feel that the decision has been arrived at independently."  Hood is not at all alone among contemporary neuroscientists in holding this doctrine.  Sam Harris has just published a short tractate Free Will that makes the same case, as do others.  They paint a disconcerting picture of humans as self-programming automata that develop only under the influence of the social matrix in which they are embedded, with no vestige of free will.

  In short, Hood and Harris come down firmly on the side of Spinoza, who said, "Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are determined."   But, if Hood and Harris are wrong, if there is free will, their model of Self lacks an extremely important component.

  In supporting their position on free will, both writers cite a few EEG and fMRI experiments that purport to show that the motor cortex of a subject's brain exhibits activity a half-second or more before the subject senses a decision to move.  Hood, however, points out that such results are prone to misinterpretation.  The subject is both the observed and an observer, passively awaiting an urge to act while simultaneously actively trying to detect consciousness of a decision to act, both in the same neuronal network.  Interaction of these activities may distort the results.

  Aside from these scant and questionable neurophysiological results, Hood's and Harris' main case against free will is based on proof by fiat: it's so because I say it's so.  Their very definition of Self—i.e., no more than a mirroring of our lifelong interaction with the outside world, instantiated in a neuronal network that runs autonomously—is taken as an axiom. They then conclude that the Self ipso facto cannot contain an independent free will, since free will is not part of the axiom.  As Harris says, "Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind.  What else could they do?"  This seems to me to be a classic case of circularity, of begging the question.  It doesn't pass the smell test.  Dare I say that it is illusory?

  Despite their insistence that there is no free will, both authors are pragmatic.  Hood points to data showing that believing in free will leads to better performance in, and enjoyment of, life.  Harris says that "for most purposes, it makes sense to ignore the deep causes of desires and intentions—genes, synaptic potentials, etc.— … when thinking about our own choices and behaviors."  I agree, and more than just as a way of avoiding the issue.  Until neuroscience can provide a much more complete understanding of the subject, I believe that free will will remain in the domain of philosophy and religion.

  Meanwhile, I will continue to believe that I wrote this posting because I intended to do so of my own free will, not because of the firings of autonomous and anonymous neurons.