Materialism and the inherent ignorance of atomistic knowing

[durangodawood]

A biologist might not do that. But, a chemist might. A physicist might hold that both are reducible to physics. Whatever the case, there are certainly live debates the possibility of such reductive approaches. One approach is to try and formulate "bridge laws" to make the appropriate connections between, say, biology and physics. But, I think, the "soft" sciences like psychology are more often the targets of a reductionisitic approach.

Reductionism in Biology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

How Psychologists Use Reductionism to Understand Behavior

Reductionism in the Philosophy of Mind | Encyclopedia.com

I can see pretty quickly that I'm not gong to be able to adjudicate these live debates. I guess the most I can say is that: If your links are any indication, many people on both sides of the issue are thinking this through rather than resting on assumptions. Isnt that the best we can ask for?

Meanwhile, almost everyone seems to acknowledge the need to study various fields at all levels from micro to macro. So while the philosophical debate rages, reductionism not the rule as a practical matter.

 

[public hermit]

I would strongly contest that any materialist finds reductionism a sufficient investigative strategy.

Paul and Patricia Churchland seem to come close to thinking it is a sufficient strategy for reducing mind to brain processes. Their eliminative materialism is notoriously reductive. Paul has even suggested we may one day replace our every day language about thoughts and desires once we have an appropriate reduction.

 

[public hermit]

I can see pretty quickly that I'm not gong to be able to adjudicate these live debates. I guess the most I can say is that: If your links are any indication, many people on both sides of the issue are thinking this through rather than resting on assumptions. Isn't that the best we can ask for?

Yes, you're probably right. I appreciate your engaging.

 

[public hermit]

I'm not sure how that fits. A PLC (or PC, for that matter) without software is just a doorstop.

It may not fit. My understanding of PLCs or interfaces is pretty much non-existent, so I was trying to fit it in a framework I kind of understand.

 

[durangodawood]

Paul and Patricia Churchland seem to come close to thinking it is a sufficient strategy for reducing mind to brain processes. Their eliminative materialism is notoriously reductive. Paul has even suggested we may one day replace our every day language about thoughts and desires once we have an appropriate reduction.

Do you think reductionism has ever in any instance been fruitful as a guide in a scientific investigation?

 

[public hermit]

Do you think reductionism has ever in any instance been fruitful as a guide in a scientific investigation?

I think an atomistic approach to knowing has been very fruitful as a guide to scientific investigation. I think there are areas where it has not born fruit, specifically in terms of consciousness.

I think the materialist is at a disadvantage if the assumption is that reality is ultimately explicable through a reductionist approach. Not all materialists are reductionist, say, when it comes to consciousness. Pansychism is starting to make inroads among some materialists. Galen Strawson would be a materialist who believes consciousness is just as fundamental to reality as matter.

Sorry about all the links. I just don't want you to think I am making it all up.

Why Can't Science Explain Consciousness?

 

[Sabertooth]

It may not fit. My understanding of PLCs or interfaces is pretty much non-existent,...

PLC hardware has only two functions,

• it reports the states of its sensors, and
• it carries out orders to turn on/off attached devices.

It does not make any decisions. It acts on the orders of its software.*

The human brain has only two voluntary functions,

• it reports the status of its various senses, and
• it carries out orders to activate/release the various muscles of the body.

It does not make high-order decisions. It acts on orders from one's consciousness.

*A thumb drive can hold a game of Tetris or a spreadsheet program and it will have no difference in "weight." That is because software has no mass; it is information. Likewise, consciousness has no mass, it is living information.

 

[zippy2006]

Definitions
Materialism: The monistic philosophical position that assumes all reality is, and only can be, matter. Matter is ultimately reducible to elementary particles as understood by our current scientific models.

Atomistic knowing: Knowledge gained by understanding the constitutive elements of things and events.

Post claim
Among materialists, there is a prejudicial preference for atomistic knowing. There is a tacit assumption that a thing or event is only really known if its constituent elements and properties are understood. Moreover, any other knowing must be reducible to this kind of knowing. For example, it is common among materialists to want to reduce human cognition/human consciousness to the constituent workings of the human brain. So, the assumption goes, if we want to know and understand the human mind, we need only investigate the human brain. However, atomistic knowing entails an asymmetric ignorance.

I can deconstruct a thing or event and understand its constituent elements and their properties. However, if all I knew were the constituent elements and their properties, I would not be able to reconstruct the thing or event.

Two Examples
Example 1: If all I knew (understood) were the respective properties of hydrogen and oxygen, I would not be able to guess the properties that would emerge when two atoms of hydrogen are bonded to an atom of oxygen. In other words, merely knowing the properties of those two elements would not enable me to foresee the properties of water (e.g. wetness, or its various states under various conditions). Moreover, simply knowing the properties of those elements would not enable me to foresee water's benefits and uses (e.g. the health benefits to living organisms, it's uses by humans, etc.). This example comes from C.D. Broad and I will post his quote and the source in the thread.

Example 2: The No-Driving Big Truck Mechanic
Imagine a big truck mechanic who knows every and all the constituent elements of a truck. She can tear down an engine and rebuild it. If something goes wrong, she is flawless in pinpointing the issue and being able to fix it. She understands every element the drive train, the exhaust system, the cooling system, the electrical system, the computer system, all of it. She is a top big truck mechanic.

However, she can't drive a big truck. She couldn't back a trailer if her life depended on it. She doesn't understand show to properly load a truck. She doesn't know how to drive a tractor-trailer in various weather conditions or in traffic. She has no idea what it is like trying to navigate a bunch of "four-wheelers" who think big trucks can stop on a dime.

Does this big truck mechanic know trucks? She certainly knows them in an atomistic sense, but does she really know trucks if she can't even drive one? To be fair, there are plenty of no mechanic-ing big truck drivers. So, we can also question their knowing. It would seem someone who really knows big trucks would have knowledge that entails both. Whatever the case, what the example is intended to show, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way, is the asymmetrical ignorance of atomistic knowing in that knowing the constituents of a thing does not entail knowing the thing, its emergent properties, its uses, and its value as that thing.

There is no doubt that an atomistic approach to understanding has greatly benefited us. But, it has an inherent blindspot. Materialists who have a prejudicial preference for this kind of knowing, by default, neglect a reality that is greater than its constituent parts. Reductionism, in particular, is simply wrong headed.

Good post! The issue you raise is very relevant to modern philosophy and science. I've referred to the position as "mechanistic reductionism," Edward Feser is wont to describe it modern philosophical mechanism as opposed to teleology, and Richard Connell in his (now out of print) book Matter and Becoming describes it as the contrast between aggregates and organisms, or between accidental wholes and organic wholes. In general it is a problem of the relation of the part to the whole in different kinds of wholes (i.e. artificial vs. natural wholes, such as the John Deere tractor vs. the doe). Here is Connell's definition of a mechanist:

In order to make perfectly clear the meaning of the term, let me say that by "mechanist" I understand someone who maintains that, in principle, all natural entities, living and non-living alike, can be satisfactorily explained as to their activities and movements by physics and chemistry. In short, he is one who views all non-elementary bodies as aggregates. (Matter and Becoming, 61)
​

The basic idea, it seems to me, is that all wholes are explanatorily reducible to their parts or the sum of their parts. That is to say that once we understand the parts we understand the whole; once we understand the constituent elements, we understand the aggregate that they constitute; and that if we desire to understand a whole we can do so by cutting it down into its parts and studying the parts in isolation from the whole. The logical equivalent is that analysis always trumps synthesis.

I'm curious, though, about your term "asymmetrical ignorance." Where does that come from and how do you understand it?

I'll close with some remarks concerning the tendency for materialists to reduce cognition/consciousness to the constituent elements and processes of the brain. It is common to hear terms like "emergent" and "supervenience." The idea is that if B is reducible to A, and B has properties that are not found in A, then the properties of B supervene over A. Or again, if B has properties not found in A, then those properties emerged from A in B. I consider words like "emergent" and "supervenience" to be working words that do no work. If you say, "Consciousness emerges from the brain," what have you really said? That they are related? That one somehow depends on the other? Okay, we all knew that. You still haven't explained anything. Words like "emergent" and "supervenience" are simply place holders for we-know-not-what.

Any thoughts?

I agree with this, too. There was a recent conversation on the same topic (also, this post). Actually, in my other thread we are talking about Gerson's negative conception of Platonism, but one of his first ways to describe Platonism positively is by what he calls "top-downism":

Platonism is essentially a top-down metaphysics. That is to say, all top-down metaphysical theories are versions of Platonism. By this I mean, roughly, that starting from the variegated being of the natural world, the principles for understanding that being must be supernatural in the sense that a principle must be other than the sort of thing it is a principle of. And insofar as such supernatural principles must ultimately be adduced for the solution to problems that are not "internally" solvable according to natural principles, supervenient or epiphenomenal properties can have no explanatory force. For example, whereas we can give a satisfactory explanation of natural phenomena given physical laws, either the existence of the laws remain unexplained or, if the laws are supposed to be generalizations from the behavior of things in nature, these behavioral properties (or at least some of them) are not explained as supervenient upon the nature of the things that have them. (Defining Platonism, 299)​

 

[public hermit]

I'm curious, though, about your term "asymmetrical ignorance." Where does that come from and how do you understand it?

I made it up, haha. I was trying to capture the idea that the knowledge an atomistic approach gives us only works one way (kind of like an asymmetrical relation) and that it gives us nothing going the other way. The ignorance in question is meant to be captured by C.D. Broad's water example. I admit to making the term up, just in case it's not very good.

The basic idea, it seems to me, is that all wholes are explanatorily reducible to their parts or the sum of their parts. That is to say that once we understand the parts we understand the whole; once we understand the constituent elements, we understand the aggregate that they constitute; and that if we desire to understand a whole we can do so by cutting it down into its parts and studying the parts in isolation from the whole. The logical equivalent is that analysis always trumps synthesis.

Exactly.

supervenient or epiphenomenal properties can have no explanatory force.

I really need to get this Gerson book. I spent a lot of time trying to grasp the intention of words like "supervenience" and "emergent" until I realized I was expecting more from them than what they were intended to give. I now read them as simple place holders like the variable x. Once I realized they had no explanatory content I realized what was up, so to speak.

 

[zippy2006]

I made it up, haha. I was trying to capture the idea that the knowledge an atomistic approach gives us only works one way (kind of like an asymmetrical relation) and that it gives us nothing going the other way. The ignorance in question is meant to be captured by C.D. Broad's water example. I admit to making the term up, just in case it's not very good.

Okay sure, that makes sense. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something.

I really need to get this Gerson book.

He is working on a book right now called Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy, which may be more to the point regarding that topic.

I spent a lot of time trying to grasp the intention of words like "supervenience" and "emergent" until I realized I was expecting more from them than what they were intended to give. I now read them as simple place holders like the variable x. Once I realized they had no explanatory content I realized what was up, so to speak.

I've come to the same conclusion regarding those terms, though folks like @FrumiousBandersnatch inevitably disagree.

 

[public hermit]

I've come to the same conclusion regarding those terms, though folks like @FrumiousBandersnatch inevitably disagree.

I was reading the exchange between you two and would be curious to hear more.

 

[zippy2006]

I was reading the exchange between you two and would be curious to hear more.

I was mostly just hoping to entice him into your thread.

I re-read some of it too. It's a complicated exchange and fairly hard to summarize in any neat way. There are a lot of interesting arguments there--probably too many. Since it is on topic, his claims about induction, correlational observations, and Humean constant conjunction do run up against a Platonic understanding of universals and the antiskepticism we were talking about in the other thread. In that case you have a sort of insufficient causal explanation (similar to what I wrote to Tinker here). In that case we have an effect of the whole (the universalizing act of the intellect) that cannot be explained by the sum of its parts.

In this post I made a sort of first attempt at illustrating your idea that "the idea of emergence does no (explanatory) work." More precisely, my ongoing question was, "How do we know that a putative instance of emergence really is an instance of emergence?" Or, "How do we know that the effect is emerging from the constituent parts?" Your question is slightly simpler and cleaner, and you might get more mileage out of it.

 

[durangodawood]

...Likewise, consciousness has no mass, it is living information.

Sounds a bit like what i think: consciousness is the activity of the brain.

 

[Tanj]

Any thoughts?

Long and clunky strawman you built to tear down. Not sure why. People like yourself are already convinced of your truths, materialists like me already know it is a bogus strawman.

Slow news day for you?

 

[public hermit]

Long and clunky strawman you built to tear down. Not sure why. People like yourself are already convinced of your truths, materialists like me already know it is a bogus strawman.

Slow news day for you?

It wasn't intended to be a straw man; although, it may be. As a materialist, how would you present a robust account of consciousness?

 

[Tanj]

It wasn't intended to be a straw man; although, it may be.

I am a a materialist, and a biomedical researcher, I know personally hundreds of materialists, and have interacted with hundreds more. I haven't met a single one that thinks reductionist methodology (which you are misrefering to with the inappropriate pseudo-philosophical concept of "atmoistic knowing") is the only or even preferred methodology.

To put it another way...

Among materialists, there is a prejudicial preference for atomistic knowing.

That is an outright lie.

There is a tacit assumption that a thing or event is only really known if its constituent elements and properties are understood.

And whilst that is often true, it's absurd and fraudulent reasoning to suggest that anyone thinks necessary == sufficient.

As a materialist, how would you present a robust account of consciousness?

I wouldn't, it's not my field, I don't have the required arrogance to think my opinion on the topic is worth anything. I will say the only person that think all you need to do is study neurons is you and your ilk.

Penultimately, as bad as the first part of your post was, you definition of emergence is worse.

Which brings me to the final part.

Please give an example of a complex system in which understanding the constituent elements is NOT helpful

 

[AvisG]

Among materialists, there is a prejudicial preference for atomistic knowing. There is a tacit assumption that a thing or event is only really known if its constituent elements and properties are understood. Moreover, any other knowing must be reducible to this kind of knowing. For example, it is common among materialists to want to reduce human cognition/human consciousness to the constituent workings of the human brain. So, the assumption goes, if we want to know and understand the human mind, we need only investigate the human brain.

But that's what philosophical materialism is, isn't it? It's a paradigm that demands that everything, including consciousness, be explained in terms of material processes.

It may not be possible to examine the individual constituent parts of the brain in isolation and explain how they generate consciousness, but isn't the typical materialistic approach to examine how the constituent parts of the brain work together to generate consciousness? It isn't just a focus on the individual constituent parts, but on both the individual constituents parts and how they work together to produce consciousness (or, as some materialists maintain, the illusion of consciousness).

I'm 180 degrees from a philosophical materialist, but it seems to me that if one is committed to philosophical materialism one has no other choice but to follow this approach.

To suggest that consciousness is a species of matter strikes me as nothing more than trying to preserve materialism through word games. By all that I have read, a more plausible explanation is that matter is a consequence of consciousness. Again from what I have read, this explanation is no mere word game but is consistent with the data from quantum physics. It's also consistent with Christian doctrines such as the spiritual nature of God an creation ex nihilo.

 

[public hermit]

Please give an example of a complex system in which understanding the constituent elements is NOT helpful

I'm not arguing that understanding the constituents is not helpful. That is a straw man. I said the opposite, that it has been of great benefit. I was arguing that if we understood only the constituent elements we would not be able to know the whole, and its emergent properties. That is not an insignificant observation. If knowing only the constituent elements does not give us second order properties, then they won't work as an explanation for them either.

I'll accept if my account of materialism is overstated or even unfair. But I'm not convinced that it is. I think your unwillingness to engage in a materialist account of consciousness is telling. Maybe you know the account you would give would be reductionisitic. So what? You act as if offering such an account is a bad thing. Why?

What's the bigger part of the picture of materialism am I missing?

 

[Tanj]

I was arguing that if we understood only the constituent elements we would not be able to know the whole, and its emergent properties.

That is the strawman. Noone is suggesting that is a good idea.

That is not an insignificant observation.

Since noone is advocating otherwise and everyone already knows this, I'd argue it is insignificant.

I'll accept if my account of materialism is overstated or even unfair. But I'm not convinced that it is. I think your unwillingness to engage in a materialist account of consciousness is telling. Maybe you know the account you would give would be reductionisitic. So what? You act as if offering such an account is a bad thing. Why?

Because it's not my area. Same reason I am not going to pontificate on how galaxies form or how to fly a jet. However, your continued insistence on misrepresenting my position by claiming motives which I have clearly and unequivocally stated are false is duly noted.

Ironically, I think a purely reductionist approach to an account of consciousness is bad for the same reason you do, or at least for the same reasons you have presented in previous posts.

What's the bigger part of the picture of materialism am I missing?

I'd have thought that was obvious by now, but the answer is you can still be a materialist and study a complex system beyond the atomic level.

 

[public hermit]

But that's what philosophical materialism is, isn't it? It's a paradigm that demands that everything, including consciousness, be explained in terms of material processes.

I think so. Pansychism is starting to "emerge" as an alternative for materialists, e.g. Galen Strawson.