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Newsome poster James Gregory Public Lectures Future Programme: 1. October 28 -- Pauline Rudd: “Am I more than my Genes?” 2. February -- Colin Humphreys “Science and Miracles” 3. April 28 -- David Myers: “Psychology & Religion” Tom (NT) Wright at 1st Gregory Lecture: Recommended Book
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James Gregory Public Lectures Future Programme: 1. October 28 -- Pauline Rudd: “Am I more than my Genes?” 2. February -- Colin Humphreys “Science and Miracles” 3. April 28 -- David Myers: “Psychology & Religion”
RecommendedBook (On sale in foyer) by Malcolm Jeeves & Warren Brown
Mind: Brain or Spirit? Bill Newsome Stanford University
Science, Religion and the Causal Status of Mind
Religion and the findingsof science Religion and the assumptionsof science Causality, explanation and the brain
Tension can occur between religion and the working assumptions of everyday science, and in particular, when these assumptions are elevated to the status of all-encompassing ideology.
Science: experiment-based, precise, objective (transferable across communities and cultures). Religion: more holistic, greater dependence on intuition, requires commitment in the absence of proof. Why go there? Why not just stick with science? ….my colleagues ask me!
Importantly, the religious mode of thought and belief is a normal and necessary mode of evaluation and decision-making in real life—for ALL of us! The scientific mode, in contrast, is quite peculiar: it is applicable to a rather narrow range of experience and is generally practiced by a rather small community of professionals.
The most important questions in life are not susceptible to solution by the scientific method! The importance of a question tends to be inversely proportional to the certainty with which it can be answered.
Should I pursue a professional opportunity elsewhere in the country at the cost of uprooting my entire family, all of whom have their own independent lives?
Simply put, this is the human condition. It is life, and our most consequential decisions in life have little or nothing to do with science. This is true for everyone, including my scientific colleagues! For everyone, the real question is: Is there an ultimate source of meaning and value in the universe? If so, what is it?
Religious quest involves the same sort of reasoning as the marriage example. Sources of evidence are available: my primary experience in the religious community, the testimony of other seekers throughout the ages, the critical reflections of fellow pilgrims I meet along the way. In the end, the evidence is not compelling in a scientific sense. Faith, accompanied by commitment is essential. Stakes are high.
After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” — John 6:66-68 And we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” — John 6:69
From my point of view, there is no deep conflict between my religious faith and the actual findings of science. Tension can occur between religion and the working assumptions of everyday science, and in particular, when these assumptions are elevated to the status of all-encompassing ideology. What about the brain?
The central dogma of neuroscience: All of our behavior and all of our mental life—including our sense of a conscious, continuing self—is inextricably linked to the biology of the brain.
Criminal Responsibility Increasingly, brain scans are being introduced as evidence that defendants have diminished or no responsibility, so they deserve less punishment. This is not a new issue:
Charles Whitman’s Notes Several days before climbing the tower: “Lately I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts…. I consulted Dr. Cochrum at the University Health Center and asked him to recommend someone that I could consult with about some psychiatric disorders I felt I had.... I talked to a doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt overcome by overwhelming violent impulses. After one session I never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail. After my death I wish that an autopsy would be performed to see if there is any visible physical disorder." Courtesy Prof. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Duke University
Charles Whitman’s Notes "It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight....I love her dearly, and she has been a fine wife to me as any man could ever hope to have. I cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this…." Charles left another note with the body: "If my life insurance policy is valid please pay off my debts... donate the rest anonymously to a mental health foundation. Maybe research can prevent further tragedies of this type." Courtesy Prof. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Duke University
Bottom-up determinism The quantum brain Freedom = uncaused Self determination, or autonomy
Scientific explanation and “reduction” Quotes from Carl Craver, 2007, Explaining the Brain “According to the “classical” model of reduction (Nagel, 1949, 1961) from which [most current] models descend, reduction is a species of covering law (CL) explanation: one theory is reduced to another when it is possible to define the theoretical terms of the first with those of the second and to derive the first theory from the second…” “The metaphysical fundamentalist argues that nonfundamental things have no causal power over and above fundamental things. They believe, roughly, that everything has cause at the fundamental level (the principle of causal completeness of the physical) and that nothing has more than one complete cause (the principle of non-overdetermination). If so, it follows that no nonfundamental things are causes….”
(Bill’s) Problems with fundamentalist reduction Doesn’t work in real life. Doesn’t describe what neuroscientists actually do. Regression issue: whose “fundamental” level is actually fundamental? The most fundamental level is arguably acausal.
Bertrand Russell, 1913 “On the Notion of Cause”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 13:1-26, “In advanced sciences such as gravitational astronomy, the word "cause” never occurs. Dr. James Ward, in his “Naturalism and Agnosticism”, makes this a ground of complaint against physics: the business of those who wish to ascertain the ultimate truth about the world, he apparently thinks, should be the discovery of causes, yet physics never even seeks them.” “To me it seems that philosophy ought not to assume such legislative functions, and that the reason why physics has ceased to look for causes is that, in fact, there are no such things. The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.”
Problems with fundamentalist reduction Doesn’t work in real life. Doesn’t describe what neuroscientists actually do. Regression issue: whose “fundamental” level is actually fundamental? The most fundamental level is arguably acausal. Poverty of quantum mechanics (QM isn’t wrong; just impoverished).
Pat Churchland, 2002 Brain-Wise (chapter on Free Will) “Random, uncharacteristic behavior is not a paradigm for free, responsible behavior. Behavior that has internal causes, consistent with our history, motivations, preferences, goals, beliefs, etc, are properly considered “free”. Random behavior would convince me that someone is messing with my mind.” “Hume made the deeper and more penetrating observation that an agent’s choices are not considered freely made unless they are caused by his desires, intentions, and so forth.”
The central dogma of neuroscience: All of our behavior and all of our mental life—including our sense of a conscious, continuing self— is inextricably linked to the biology of the brain.
Toward an understanding of autonomy Key issue: what counts as a “cause.” Wholes are more than the sum of parts by virtue of the organization of causally interacting components. Wholes have causal powers that parts do not. Organization (in the abstract, information) is reducible in individual instances, but not in the general case. Fundamental laws (i.e. physics) constrain but do not determine the behavior of a complex system. Neuroscientific explanation is intrinsically multi-level.
Multilevel, mechanistic explanation in neuroscience Quotes from Carl Craver, 2007, Explaining the Brain “The systems tradition…construes explanation as a matter of decomposing systems into their parts and showing how those parts are organized together in such a way as to exhibit the explanandum phenomenon… Systems explanations involve showing how something works rather than showing that its behavior can be derived from more fundamental laws. ” “Mutual manipulability: a part is a component in a mechanism if one can change the behavior of the mechanism as a whole by intervening to change the component, and one can change the behavior of the component by intervening to change the behavior of the mechanism as a whole.” “Making a difference…”
Long-term spatial memory (explanandum) Mouse navigating a water maze Hippocampus generating a spatial map Neurons inducing long-term potentiation (LTP) NMDA receptor activating Genes producing more receptor molecules
What does all this MEAN? I lost track of what is at stake here! Self-determination, autonomy, responsibility Key issue: what counts as a cause? If we can find a way to talk meaningfully about nonfundamental causation (and I think we must), then we can take mental causation (and responsibility!) seriously. This is NOT to say that bottom-up causes are unimportant; explanatory relevance runs both upward and downward.
Pat Churchland, 2002 Brain-Wise (chapter on Free Will) “The absolutely crucial point, however, is that not all kinds of causes are consistent with free choice; not all kinds of causes are equal before the tribunal of responsibility. Some causes excuse us from culpability; others make us culpable because they are part of the story of voluntary action. The important question is what are the relevant differences among causes of behavior such that some kinds play a role in free choice and others play a role in forced choices. ”
[Genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. [Genes] are trapped in huge colonies, locked inside highly intelligent beings, moulded by the outside world, communicating with it by complex processes, through which, blindly, as if by magic, function emerges. They are in you and me; we are the system that allows their code to be read; and their preservation is totally dependent on the joy that we experience in reproducing ourselves. We are the ultimate rationale for their existence. Gene language Denis Noble -- The Music of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome (OUP 2006) Richard Dawkins -- The Selfish Gene (1976) —Courtesy, Dr. Ard Louis, University of Oxford
Bottom-up intervention: modify neurotransmitters, receptors Top-down intervention: change patient’s beliefs, patterns of interaction “Cognitive restructuring”
“Who was it that had really sentenced him to death?” “It was a system – a concurrence of circumstances.”
Understanding the nature of human freedom is the most important problem facing the neurobehavioral sciences. Important for obvious reasons of human dignity and social responsibility…. …but also for science itself!
If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. —JBS Haldane
