A Materialist Theory of Mind

It looks like this is on Ignore by the philosophers on here-

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I think the point is that if there are non-material aspects in the brain all sorts of things are then in play. There either are or there aren't. The materialist is committed to there not being and that all brain states are physico-chemical manifestations and thus manipuable.

This would then allow that religious ceremonies can be used to manipulate those states along with other things irrespective of what the religious beliefs are. What state an unmanipulated brain would be in is a difficult question as is how one could be acheived.

A battle for power between manipulators, who have manipulated brains themselves, ensues.

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Also, read the quote in this post. The writer comes out and says that remote viewing has been proven to the standards acceptable for any other type of claim, but because of the subject matter, the standards of proof are different.

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@spendius,

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It looks like this is on Ignore by the philosophers on here-

I don't understand how Ignore works on this forum. (Although I have a pretty good grasp of how it works in the real world. ) I am not going to get into a full-on argument about all this. I don't want to be the guy trying to prove PKI exists.The sole question I am asking is a philosophical one: if any such phenomena were found to be true, would they discredit materialism? That is the only thing I wish to establish.

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There is a title on Amazon by science writer Damien Broderick, called Outside the Gates of Science: Why it's Time for the Paranormal to come in from the Cold. The blurb says

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Broderick, best known as a science-fiction writer, returns to nonfiction (after 2001's The Spike) to evaluate various research programs investigating "psi phenomena." Divided into two branches, psi phenomena cover anomalous cognition, which includes telepathy, remote viewing and other forms of "non-material" communication; and anomalous perturbation, psi-mediated action or psycho-kinetics. Broderick remains analytical and objective throughout, reviewing the work of such laboratory programs as the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research group, the Science Applications Incorporated Corporation and the CIA-backed Stargate; recounting their experiments' designs, methods and procedures, Broderick then goes on to examine rigorously the resulting data. He concludes that while the evidence for various kinds of psi phenomena is strong, there are unknown (and possibly unknowable) factors that make classical, reductionist methods of testing it unpredictable and irreproducible (the reason, he suspects, that the CIA gave up on such research in 1995). Gratifyingly, Broderick connects the search for psi phenomena to larger philosophical questions while remaining skeptical and delightfully rational throughout.

My view is that flat-out denial of PSI is no longer defensible. I don't think James Randi has any cred. He is an ex-magician with no scientific credentials. Imagine if he was a spokesman for the FOR case. He would be laughed off stage. His 'million dollar' offer is just an easy out. Something is definitely showing up in all these tests. I think the rational approach is to consider models which accomodate them, rather than cling defiantly to one that says 'this can't happen'.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

The sole question I am asking is a philosophical one: if any such phenomena were found to be true, would they discredit materialism? That is the only thing I wish to establish.

That is an interesting question. If they were found to be true, then there would be something in the world that makes them true. That "something" would have specific properties, which could be inferred (and perhaps measured) from its effects. Such properties would include spatial extent (e.g. the distance over which telepathy is possible), temporal extent (e.g. continuous or intermittent), power (the degree of strength and reliability with which it acts on human minds), and changeability (or lack of it). By continual rigorous observation, we could build up a detailed description of such properties, including quantitative data, and formulate an explanatory and predictive theory. The result, I suppose, would be a kind of "materialism", but in a broader sense. That is to say, it would include "material" radically different from the atoms, subatomic particles etc currently known to science.

I think we should always try to investigate, clarify and systematize the nature of whatever exists. The alternative would be an unquestioning mysticism, an abandonment of our reasoning faculty.

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@jeeprs,

I have just read your post #4,181,992. Broderick's approach sounds reasonable. If the evidence truly justifies belief in the paranormal, that's fine. But I do start from a far more skeptical position than you. And whether paranormal phenomena exist or not, it seems clear that there are a lot of charlatans around, and James Randi is ideally qualified to expose them, since he is familiar with their methods.

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@ACB,

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I think we should always try to investigate, clarify and systematize the nature of whatever exists. The alternative would be an unquestioning mysticism, an abandonment of our reasoning faculty.

Of course. But these efforts have been going on for over a hundred years. There was 'the Society for Psychical Research' that set up in London in the late 1800's. Duke University set up a similar unit in the first half of the 20th Century. There are quite a few of them around. But they are generally still non-mainstream, on the grounds that this kind of research can't really be the subject of scientific investigation. Lewis Wolpert, a well-known scientific skeptic, refuses to acknowledge that any of the journals that are set up to report on the activities of these places are credible. And you won't find much in mainstream journals about it - if you associate yourself with it because it is a threat to your reputation and funding.

Some of the books I cited provide more details particularly the Chris Carter book.

I will agree, I no longer start from a position of 'scientific skepticism'. But I don't have any special interest in paranormal powers or the Gee Whiz aspects of it. It is just something to be considered. Armstrong mentions it in the book I started this thread with, as a threat to materialist theories of mind, but I think he is persauded that the data are unsound.

I don't believe James Randi is credible, but I don't want to get into a battle about that. There are a few anti-skeptic sites out there that have got plenty on him, and CSISOP which is his parent organisation.

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@ACB,

Here is an article on the Randi Prize

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Randi's main claim to fame is that he offers a million dollar prize to "any person or persons who can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability of any kind under satisfactory observing conditions". According to the James Randi Educational Foundation web site, "JREF will not entertain any demand that the prize money be deposited in escrow, displayed in cash, or otherwise produced in advance of the test being performed."

The conditions for the prize are set out on the JREF web site Randi challenge

The rules are conceived by a showman not a scientist, and make little sense from a genuinely scientific point of view. The introduction to the rules states, "All tests must be designed in such a way that the results are self-evident, and no judging process is required." Most scientific research, including research in particle physics, clinical medicine, conventional psychology and parapsychology, depends on statistical results that need to be analysed by experts to judge the significance of what has happened. Practically all serious scientific research would fail to qualify for the Randi prize. Contenders have to pay for their own travelling expenses if they want to go to Randi to be tested: Rule 6: "All expenses such as transportation, accommodation and/or other costs incurred by the applicant/claimant in pursuing the reward, are the sole responsibility of the applicant/claimant." Also, applicants waive their legal rights: Rule 7: "When entering into this challenge, the applicant surrenders any and all rights to legal action against Mr. Randi, against any person peripherally involved and against the James Randi Educational Foundation, as far as this may be done by established statutes. This applies to injury, accident, or any other damage of a physical or emotional nature and/or financial, or professional loss, or damage of any kind." Applicants also give Randi complete control over publicity. Rule 3: "Applicant agrees that all data (photographic, recorded, written, etc.) of any sort gathered as a result of the testing may be used freely by the JREF."

For many years this "prize" has been Randi's stock-in-trade as a media skeptic, but even some other skeptics are skeptical about its value as anything but a publicity stunt. For example, CSICOP founding member Dennis Rawlins pointed out that not only does Randi act as "policeman, judge and jury" but quoted him as saying "I always have an out"! (Fate, October 1981). A leading Fellow of CSICOP, Ray Hyman, has pointed out, this "prize" cannot be taken seriously from a scientific point of view: "Scientists don't settle issues with a single test, so even if someone does win a big cash prize in a demonstration, this isn't going to convince anyone. Proof in science happens through replication, not through single experiments." Randi's fellow showman Loyd Auerbach, President of the Psychic Entertainers Association, is likewise sceptical about this "prize" and sees it as of no scientific value.

Source

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@jeeprs,

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The sole question I am asking is a philosophical one: if any such phenomena were found to be true, would they discredit materialism? That is the only thing I wish to establish.

This is what Armstrong says very near the end of TMToM.

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The upholder of any scientific doctrine has an intellectual duty to consider very carefully the evidence that seems most likely to undermine his view. So the Central-state Materialist has an intellectually duty to consider very carefully the alleged results of psychical research.

But he also mentions what seems pretty obvious and that is that physico-chemical reactions are likely to give off radiations which are possibly detectable. Which I read as not discrediting his brand of materialism.

The book which is the subject of the first post on this thread answers your question above which is not the same question your first post asked.

I used the Armstrong quote given here to discredit the use of the Ignore function on a debate thread just last week.

The whole matter hinges on the acceptance or rejection of non-material states of the brain which is, fundamentally, a religious question. Rejection is the only position an atheist can have and then you can start with Pavlov, Watson, Skinner et al.

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@spendius,

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The whole matter hinges on the acceptance or rejection of non-material states of the brain

I am working on a metaphysic which does not accept the idea of any non-material things or states. It is a hard thing to articulate but it is along the lines that the individual mind is simply a particular manifestation of Mind which is latent throughout the universe. But there is no thing called mind. What modern people don't get is that they don't understand the limits of thinking, the way that thought can only proceed in terms of the laws of identity and non-contradiction, etc. Thought requires an object, therefore it tries to imagine non-material reality as some kind of state or thing. But there is no such object and any attempt to posit it will violate the laws of the excluded middle, because it is beyond 'is' and 'is not' distinctions. What we are dealing with is like a pure 'tendency to become' which is implicit in the fabric of the cosmos itself. This is why wherever the conditions are suitable, life will tend to become manifest: the individual mind is simply the actualization of the potentiality for consciousness. Such understanding cannot be found through discursive reasoning but only through meditation and non-dual awareness.

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@jeeprs,

I see your point jeepsie but how do we proceed with it at the political level? Politics is the art of the possible and has a "tendency to become".

Is what you're saying too severe a doctrine for humanity as we now know it? If it is it's a non-starter however correct it is. I might even say that it is incoherent from an evolutionary point of view.
The word mind, in Armstrong, is synonymous with brain, body and central nervous system.

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@jeeprs,

1. Most major scientific discoveries - e.g. the heliocentric solar system, relativity, quantum mechanics - were revolutionary in their time and widely disbelieved at first. But they gained general acceptance because the consistency of the data, and the coherence of the theories based on it, forced scientists to take them seriously. Even the most stubborn and conservative-minded had to acknowledge that there were no cogent counter-arguments. Why has this still not happened in the case of paranormal phenomena, given the amount of time they have been researched? Surely it is because they are insufficiently consistent and quantifiable to allow an explanatory and predictive theory about them. Physics produces rigorous mathematical formulae that make precise predictions; where is the equivalent in paranormal study?

2. Even if there are supernatural phenomena, it would be naive to think there are no fraudsters jumping on the bandwagon, many of them probably ex-magicians themselves. They just confuse matters, and the sooner they are exposed the better. Somebody who knows their tricks (even if not James Randi) needs to expose them.

3. If a non-materialist theory of mind is not based on rational thought and logic, how can it be tested and verified? It would require a quasi-religious faith, would it not?

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Just imagine shooting stars appeared once every thousand years and you alone experienced its arrival. Would it be credible without scientific investigation ? It is like trying to communicate with the American Indians nine centuries ago, they existed but not to us. Just because we have no way of securing evidence of an experience or believing in an unknowable, does not exclude the possibilities. Be skeptical but dont be so damned certain.

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@ACB,

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3. If a non-materialist theory of mind is not based on rational thought and logic, how can it be tested and verified? It would require a quasi-religious faith, would it not?

A non-materialist theory posits what we call "soul". Which is it easier to believe--

1-Whether this immaterial soul dies with the body.

2- Whether it doesn't. Both are beliefs.

If 2 I think religion is inevitable. But if 1 it doesn't exclude religion.

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@ACB,

All good points. Consider the following, though. Physics is mainly concerned with the motion of material bodies. It is orders of magnitude more simple than the study of human capacities. Even so, quantum physics has produced many conundrums which defy a strictly rational explanation to this day - and we're only talking about dumb stuff. We have built the world's most expensive apparatus to get to the bottom of it, and we're not there yet. I believe that physics itself has undermined materialism, and in fact that this was true when Armstrong wrote his book. Have a look at the Tao of Physics by Frithjof Capra. Important book.

The insistence that parapyschological phenomena observe what the scientific community regards as 'scientific standards' is quite artificial. Again it is culturally determined rather than actually scientific in nature. It is all about what science will and won't consider plausible. Mind-reading is up there with witchcraft, occultism and tarot as far as most people are concerned. But writers such as Broderick, Chris Carter and Dean Radin have got a pretty clear-eyed view of it.

And I absolutely agree that it is rife with fraud, wishful thinking and plain old-fashioned bulls**t. The attitude of the traditional religions has always been: we know these things occur, they become very apparent to the spiritually advanced who often develop capacities in these areas, but they are not to be sought or exploited for their own sake. There lies the Dark Side, Luke. Wink

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@spendius,

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I see your point jeepsie but how do we proceed with it at the political level?

One route is via the approach outlined in the ancient classic Small is Beautiful by E F Schumacher

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Is what you're saying too severe a doctrine for humanity as we now know it?

Well it is probably of little interest to consumer society, but we have practically eaten ourselves out of viability, so we might have to try a radical re-alignment of focus.

Besides, spiritual philosophy has always been a steep hill to climb. That is one of the reasons democratic liberalism abandoned it. But there are people who are really willing to learn it. The Vipassana Meditation training centers had more than 100,000 people go through them 2007. This is a 10-day silent retreat, and a very tough course to get through. But people are wanting to learn.

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@jeeprs,

One problem for any non-materialist theory of mind is that it needs to be compatible with neuroscience; the material and non-material aspects of consciousness need to fit together seamlessly. Even if the brain is not the ultimate cause of consciousness, it obviously affects it to a large extent at an individual level. Non-materialists need to consider exactly how collective and individual consciousness interact with each other and with the brain. They therefore need to keep themselves informed of the latest discoveries about the brain. Failure to do so could lead to direct contradictions, or explanatory gaps, where the metaphysical and physical realms meet.

An analogy is the relation between (some) religion and science. This often involves contradictions (e.g. regarding the age of the Earth) and explanatory gaps (e.g. regarding the nature and actions of angels, or the mechanics of bodily resurrection). I foresee similar problems in reconciling a non-material theory of mind with neuroscience.

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@ACB,

Quite right. I think the major conceptual difficulty in the past has been the question 'what kind of thing or stuff is mind?' And no matter how you try and visualize it or conceptualize it, nothing seems to make sense. The Cartesian approach of a simple dualism between mind-stuff and material-stuff did not really hold up. That is why I think the most promising approaches involve a non-dualist approach which incorporates some of the perspectives of the Eastern wisdom traditions. See for example the Mind and Life institute which hosts dialogs between scientists and the Dalai Lama, representing the Tibetan contemplative tradition. It has led to some fascinating new insights into how mind-training can actually change the structure and function of the brain.. This is a model of downward causation which a materialist theory of mind cannot really account for. It is part of a wholly new approach to understanding consciousness, informed by a tradition which has developed very sophisticated maps of the subject, over millenia.

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@ACB,

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I think we should always try to investigate, clarify and systematize the nature of whatever exists. The alternative would be an unquestioning mysticism, an abandonment of our reasoning faculty.

Looking at this again. Actually a very good post overall. But let me point out, 'mysticism' is not unquestioning. Actually it is extremely rigourous and very demanding. (Not the New Age variety, but the real thing.) The difficulty is that it is first-person knowledge. It is not objective, but it is also not subjective, in that, it is not peculiar to the personal, not a matter of opinion, of what I think is true. That is why there can be 'knowledge maps' of shared experience that help to navigate this space. I read a rather interesting title on it last year called Science and Mysticism: A Comparative Study of Western Natural Science, Theravada Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta, by Richard H Jones.

These disciplines are quite scientific, or anyway rigorous, but in no way comparable to physics and 'the hard sciences' because in these cases 'we are what we seek to know', if you can appreciate the difference.

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@jeeprs,

It is possible jeepsie to study those who study the subject herein and conclude that the weaving of strange words into symphonies of sophisticated sounds is really just a way of avoiding digging ditches and mending the roads and can be traced back to the invention of the steam engine (to keep it simple) which released large numbers of our fellows from the drudgery of providing the necessities of life with only muscle power and thus that something had to be done to prevent this surplus energy having nothing to release its build up of pressure and particularly with those whose natural and conditioned capacities are unsuitable for the usual mechanisms such as football hooliganism and goofing off with a six pack.

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A Materialist Theory of Mind

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