I keep coming back to this, but the naive optimism with which people try to skirt the mind-body problem really frustrates me. This lecture by physicist/Buddhist B. Alan Wallace is yet another example. The talk contains some very interesting information on Asian contemplative science and an enthusiastic call for rigorous introspective methods to be integrated with contemporary psychology and neuroscience. A much needed call, and I love Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but it's a call that comes with some really troubling eliminations and contradictions that Wallace tries to skirt with some ugly old Cartesian footwork.
To Wallace, all is fine and well with the idea that brain processes cause mental processes, but he vehemently rejects the idea that brain processes are identical with mental processes. He quotes Christof Koch: "The characters of brain states and of phenomenal states appear too different to be completely reducible to each other" and says "Look at brain states - they don't have any mental qualities at all. Observe mental states - they don't have any physical properties." I disagree. Study an aspect of cognitive neuroscience for long enough and eventually you can feel it working in your head when you see, hear, smell, taste, recognize a face, structure a sentence, move or make a choice. Acquire an appreciation for the neurobiology of monoamines for example and you start to see how your evaluations and moods could be quantified. This does not mean we shouldn't use introspection in neuroscience, I think we should use it more often and practise the awesome introspective techniques Wallace mentions daily - put meditation in the primary school curriculum! Absolutely. But to say that the mental and the physical cannot be one and the same is rubbish and repression. They can, and if they are, then there are errors and lies at the core of the Western social and existential conception of what it means, and should mean, to be human.
Sometimes I think the iPlant is my way of calling attention to all this: an attempt to make people aware of their real reaction to the possibility that mind and brain are one and the same; a way of making them pay attention to what the consequences of that would be. But the iPlant only brings out a fraction of the preconceptions about the human condition that we would have to reject as completely and utterly false.
To Wallace, all is fine and well with the idea that brain processes cause mental processes, but he vehemently rejects the idea that brain processes are identical with mental processes. He quotes Christof Koch: "The characters of brain states and of phenomenal states appear too different to be completely reducible to each other" and says "Look at brain states - they don't have any mental qualities at all. Observe mental states - they don't have any physical properties." I disagree. Study an aspect of cognitive neuroscience for long enough and eventually you can feel it working in your head when you see, hear, smell, taste, recognize a face, structure a sentence, move or make a choice. Acquire an appreciation for the neurobiology of monoamines for example and you start to see how your evaluations and moods could be quantified. This does not mean we shouldn't use introspection in neuroscience, I think we should use it more often and practise the awesome introspective techniques Wallace mentions daily - put meditation in the primary school curriculum! Absolutely. But to say that the mental and the physical cannot be one and the same is rubbish and repression. They can, and if they are, then there are errors and lies at the core of the Western social and existential conception of what it means, and should mean, to be human.
Sometimes I think the iPlant is my way of calling attention to all this: an attempt to make people aware of their real reaction to the possibility that mind and brain are one and the same; a way of making them pay attention to what the consequences of that would be. But the iPlant only brings out a fraction of the preconceptions about the human condition that we would have to reject as completely and utterly false.
5 comments:
you know what I think are meaningful alternatives: dramatically increasing the quality and richness of life, achieving indefinite lifespans and exploring outer space. we'll need a lot more teamwork (and iPlants) to develop that kind of scientific capacity in our lifetimes, and that's another reason why I want to call attention to all this. if there are good reasons for why we shouldn't break the bubble then i want to hear them, i want that discussion.
you're right, but i'm not sure what to say about these things yet, i'm not even sure how to debate about values and actually believe what i say, talking about it like this is my way of working it out
If you found this book intriguing, you will definitely enjoy reading My Stroke of Insight - a Brain Scientist's Personal Journey" by Jill Bolte Taylor, and her talk on TED dot com about her stroke which is an 18 minute talk you Must Not Miss! (there's a reason it's been forwarded friend to friend millions of times!).
When you read the book and see the TEDTalk, you'll understand why this Harvard brain scientist was named Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People. Her unique experience, combined with her perspective as a neuroanatomist, and her sensitivity and awareness (not to mention beautiful writing style!) has produced something so powerful and so revolutionary that I think it's going to become a transformational movement in itself. Oprah also did four interviews with her (that I was able to download on the Oprah website) that are also worth checking out.
I am trying to share Dr Taylor's story with as many people as I can because I truly believe if everyone saw it the world would be so much better and people would love one another and no longer fight.
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