Tuesday, July 24, 2012

'You are tricked into thinking that you are a you'


Daisy Yuhas' review of Bruce Hood's new book in Scientific American, with my commentary:

The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity 
by Bruce Hood. Oxford University Press, 2012 (29.95) 

"Self Illusion"? What could the author possibly mean? Oh, I hope this is not another one of those books that claims that the self doesn't exist...
When a newborn baby's eyes scan a room, Hood writes, the infant does not decide where to focus. Instead inborn cognitive mechanisms respond to the environment and focus the baby's attention. 
Of course the infant decides. A newborn lacks developed intellectual faculties, but he certainly has will and certainly carries out willful acts.

"Honey, that new machine in the crib is making that crying noise again. Could you get up and insert it a bottle into its intake orifice..."

Later in life, the child develops self-awareness and the conviction that he consciously controls his body and brain. Yet what if this belief does not reflect reality?
Who is it who "develops self-awareness and the conviction..."? Self-awareness and convictions are acts of intelligent agents, not acts of meat machines.

Note that the author can't even speak about mental acts without presuming a real self, even a real self to be deceived.
In The Self Illusion, Hood argues precisely that. After exploring various definitions of self--a soul, an agent with free will, some essential and unique set of qualities--he concludes that what we experience as a self is actually a narrative spun by our brain.
So the brain is the real self? Then we have a real self, embodied in neurons. And if the brain is not the  real self, just who is it that the brain deceives? Does the brain deceive the brain?

What gibberish.

Since we have no real self, I suggest that the publisher demand that Hood's brain, not Hood himself, sign the royalty checks.
To see why, consider an experiment in the 1980s by physiologist Benjamin Libet. He showed that neural activity reveals what an individual will do before that person becomes conscious of having made a decision.
Libet's experiments are fascinating. They suggest that our intentions to act are motivated by unconscious processes. Of course, most of our acts are driven in large part by mental processes of which we are only dimly aware. Are you aware of each muscle you are using at this moment? Are you aware of each muscle you use when you walk or talk or type or eat? Yet you are certainly conscious of doing each of these things.

The automatic nature of most of our routine acts is obvious. That does not mean that we are soulless automatons driven by electrochemistry and duped into believing we have selves.

It means that we are each an ensouled creature, a composite of soul and matter, with a complex intellect and complex will. Unconscious or pre-conscious acts make it possible to function in the world. If we had to consciously invoke each tiny thing we did, we would be incapable of efficient acting. That doesn't mean that we are robots, or that we don't have "selves".
Perhaps our sense of free will is just a way for our brain to organize our actions and memories, as Harvard University psychologist Dan Wegner has argued. Building on Libet's and Wegner's work, Hood proposes that our sense of self is an after-the-fact organizational trick for the brain.
Libet was a property dualist who, on the basis of his science, emphatically believed in free will. He noted that experimental subjects who demonstrated brain activity several hundred milliseconds before being consciously aware of a decision to act retained the ability to cancel the act. Libet's experiments substantiate free will, and support a dualist, not a materialist monist, understanding of the mind.

Many scientists and philosophers, usually of a materialist bent, misrepresent Libet's work. Libet had deep disdain for materialism.

As with a just-so story, our brain synthesizes the complex interactions of biology and environment to create a simplified explanation of who we are.  

So our brain is the agent deceiving us? Who is the brain deceiving? Itself? Perhaps Dr. Hood's brain is deceiving itself that it is deceiving itself? Double-deception. Maybe his brain is deceiving itself that it is deceiving itself that it is deceiving itself. Triple-deception!

Note to publisher: don't send Hood's brain the royalty check, either. It's not to be trusted.
Hood likens this fragile, malleable creation to a spiderweb being tugged in many directions at once. In the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, for example, college students transformed into brutal guards who abused fellow students playing inmates. A milder illustration comes from the questionnaires used to assess personality traits: respondents alter their answers when imagining themselves in different social contexts. Hood argues that our protean personalities allow us to adapt to new surroundings. 
Who is it who adapts, protean-personality-wise?

Although Hood believes the self may be the greatest trick our brain has ever played on us, he concludes that believing in it makes life more fulfilling.
On whom is the brain playing a trick? Who is it who believes the brain's 'trick'? Whose life is made more fulfilling? Does the brain trick the brain to believe the brain's trick?

I'm getting a headache. Or my brain is getting a headache, or maybe it's just tricking me that I have a headache, or maybe it's just tricking itself that it has a headache...
The illusion is difficult--if not impossible--to dispel. Even if we could, why deny an experience that enables empathy, storytelling and love?


Welcome to idiot materialism. I assure you, this is the best it gets. Materialist theories of the mind are all pretentious self-contradictory crap, moron philosophy dressed up like science.

Materialism is nonsense.

You are real. You have a soul. You are created and loved by God. 

47 comments:

  1. Michael,

    Well, since you didn't have the slightest idea what 'kin selection' is, thinking that a mother caring for 5 of her very own children being an example of kin selection ( it isn't), I feel safe in assuming that you don't have a clue about this book too. I'm going to at least read the sample Amazon provides before deciding whether to buy.

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    1. Hamilton's Rule invokes degree of relatedness as a measure of strength of selection pressure, as measured by fraction of genome shared, without respect to descent.

      The kin selection pressure for bacteria should be many orders of magnitude stronger than the kin selection pressure for sexually reproduced organisms with long reproduction cycles. Thus altruism should be many orders of magnitude stronger among bacteria than among humans.

      That is a "prediction" that this crap theory makes.

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    2. Oh, Mike, give it up already. Science ain't your thing.
      (*Facepalm*)

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    3. No, Michael, you don't have a clue as to what 'kin selection' is.

      A mother caring for her offspring is just normal natural selection. Go and read my longer final comment on the previous thread.

      Haldane said he'd sacrifice his life for two brothers, four nephews, etc. he didn't say he'd sacrifice his life for two offspring, but not for one (he actually probably would, human nature being what it is).

      That said, I'm actually skeptical about kin selection having any great role in evolution, not even in explaining altruism.

      My main objection is that most organisms wouldn't be aware of the degree of kinship. You'd have to be fairly intelligent to know who your siblings are, and sibling rivalry is much more common than cooperation with more than one offspring from the same mating.

      I also think that there are better, natural, causes of altruism. Cultural ones, due to group selection, for a start.

      Bacterial conjugation isn't kin selection either. It would occur even if the recipient bacterium received no, or even a negative, benefit from the process. It's just plain and simple natural selective benefiting the multiple genes producing the conjugation pilus.

      But, anyway, you don't have a clue as to what evolutionary biology states. You're just ignorant, plain and simple. I don't need to take much notice of what you think about evolution because you just don't know what you're talking about.

      PS I bought the book...

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    4. My main objection is that most organisms wouldn't be aware of the degree of kinship. You'd have to be fairly intelligent to know who your siblings are...

      That's misunderstanding number 3.

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    5. Troy,

      No, misunderstanding number 3 has nothing to do with my objection.

      Most organisms wouldn't have the slightest idea who in a herd were their siblings, either full or half, resulting from previous matings of their mother, let alone father. The misunderstanding refers to the inability of organisms to perform complex calculations of degree of kinship in order to decide whether it's worth doing something slightly risky,
      such as giving a warning signal.

      Richard Dawkins is a great acceptor of kin selection. I'm not so certain. I think that group selection is much more plausible in social animals (I admit I'm a heretic on this point).

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    6. bachfiend,

      Also see misunderstanding number 1, esp. Dawkins's point about Wilson.

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    7. Most organisms wouldn't have the slightest idea who in a herd were their siblings, either full or half, resulting from previous matings of their mother, let alone father. The misunderstanding refers to the inability of organisms to perform complex calculations of degree of kinship in order to decide whether it's worth doing something slightly risky,
      such as giving a warning signal.


      What's important for kin selection is the *average* degree of relatedness between altruists and recipients. Being able to recognize kin and preferentially direct altruistic behavior towards kin certainly helps to raise the average degree of relatedness, but it is not necessary. If juvenile dispersal from the natal area is limited, then the average relatedness to any random individual in your neighborhood will be higher than zero.

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    8. Oleg,

      He published it in 1979. Does he still believe it? I don't think kin selection includes parental care (and the Haldane quote indicates that he didn't accept it either). It's entirely sensible to regard kin selection being the process by which a individual ensures the passage of the individual's genes into the next generation in the bodies of the offspring of siblings rather than the individual's own offsprring.

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    9. Troy,

      So why isn't that group selection? Yeah, I know I'm a heretic, but I did read ' EO Wilson's 'the Social Conquest of Earth', and actually, it did impress me as being more plausible than kin selection.

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    10. I am sure he does. This excerpt explains why:

      Why should we treat parental care as special, just because for a long time it was the only kind of kin-selected altruism we understood? We do not separate Neptune, Uranus and Pluto off from the rest of the planets simply because for centuries we did not know of their existence. We call them all planets because they are all the same kind of thing.

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    11. Oleg,

      Pluto is no longer a planet. Has Richard Dawkins changed his mind about kin selection as he has also changed his mind (I hope) about Pluto being a planet too!

      But again, I don't accept one opinion, no matter how authoritative. What is the consensus opinion?

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    12. It hardly matters what you call it. The motion of Pluto is described by the same mathematics as the motion of Neptune, Uranus, Mars, and Earth. Parental care is the most obvious example of kin selection. Separating it into a separate category is (ahem) akin to saying that 0 is not an integer number.

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    13. He published it in 1979. Does he still believe it? I don't think kin selection includes parental care (and the Haldane quote indicates that he didn't accept it either). It's entirely sensible to regard kin selection being the process by which a individual ensures the passage of the individual's genes into the next generation in the bodies of the offspring of siblings rather than the individual's own offsprring.

      The kin selection view is more general than the individual selection view, but to some extent it's semantics.

      If there is some promiscuity by the mother, and the putative father or sibling can't be sure he helps raise his own offspring or sibs, then the kin selection view is clearly superior.

      In this study it is shown that promiscuity tends to prevent helping behavior.

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    14. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    15. Speaking of the consensus, a lively debate about kin selection and its place in the grand scheme of things (natural selection generally) has been kicked off by mathematical biologist Martin Nowak and E. O. Wislon. Carl Zimmer covered it here.

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    16. So why isn't that group selection? Yeah, I know I'm a heretic, but I did read ' EO Wilson's 'the Social Conquest of Earth', and actually, it did impress me as being more plausible than kin selection.

      You can consider it group selection if you want. Mathematically, kin selection models and group selection models are nearly always equivalent. It's just that the kin selection approach partitions selection in direct (own offspring) and indirect (relatives' offspring) fitness, whereas group selection partitions in within-group and between-group selection. The outcome is the same.

      It's just that kin selection is usually easier to model, easier to grasp intuitively, and easier to test (relatedness coefficients can be estimated with, say, microsatellite genetic markers). In my opinion and that of probably most evolutionary biologists.

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  2. Mocking those that disagree with you isn’t an argument. You’ve got nothing but your faith to support your position. Your religion tells you there’s a soul so there’s a soul. It really does seem like a strange position for a neurosurgeon; to think you’re actually messing with people’s brains while believing there’s a magical ghost in there that’s going to live no matter what you do is terrifying.

    -KW

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    1. [to think you’re actually messing with people’s brains while believing there’s a magical ghost in there that’s going to live no matter what you do is terrifying]

      Most doctors are theists and believe in the soul.

      To think that you consider atheism and materialism a litmus test for the safe practice of medicine is terrifying.

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    2. Most doctors are theists and believe in the soul.

      Like the good catholic Dr. Mengele.

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    3. Michael,

      'Most doctors are theists and believe in the soul'.

      So now you're arguing on the basis of popular opinion? If the majority of the population believed that the Sun orbits the Earth, it still wouldn't change the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun.

      I'm also medically qualified, and in all the years I sliced the human brain and examined sections I've never seen anything like the soul. Invisible and inapparent in this case is the same as non-existent.

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    4. I don’t care if my podiatrist believes in the soul. He’s not arguing that my feet are animated by magical forces that he can’t do anything about..

      -KW

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    5. Mocking those that disagree with you isn’t an argument.

      When you're dealing with incoherent, self-contradictory nonsense like the materialist eliminativism above, it's pretty much impossible to point out the blatant contradictions without mocking it in the process.

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    6. @the Deuce:

      You're right. To describe materialism is to mock it.

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    7. @bach:

      [in all the years I sliced the human brain and examined sections I've never seen anything like the soul. Invisible and inapparent in this case is the same as non-existent.]

      The brains were dead, bach.

      And did you see evolution?

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    8. Shorter Mike: "You kids get off my lawn!" :)

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    9. Michael,

      And have you ever seen the soul? Thinking that the soul 'explains' anything is wishful thinking. What evidence do you have that the soul exists?

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    10. Yeah, Michael, just because the claim that there is no soul is incoherent doesn't mean it isn't true! Don't you know that neuroscience has logically disproven logic! That's why bachfiend, KW, and oleg don't use it anymore!

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  3. Mike,
    My brain is tricking my brain into smelling TOTAL bullshit.
    Here in this thinking we see the product of a century of shallow minded materialist crap.
    In fact, I would say the very existence of such a paper/book being produced by the Oxbridge machine is an argument AGAINST natural selection.
    Clearly the weak DO survive.

    Having been digging into Lewis once again, I am compelled to inject: This 'trick' is the philosophy of the 'trousered ape'. Nothing new in what he is saying. Same old garbage.

    Reductionist, materialist, shallow, 'without chest', lowly, and without any redeeming quality.

    Mind numbingly simple and stupid.

    A roast well done, Doctor.

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    1. And if we evolved from monkeys, how come there still are monkeys?

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    2. Monkeys? Apes.
      Oleg, The expression is 'trousered ape'. It refers to a person who is 'below' the grade, not above it when it comes to the appreciation of life and reality.
      It was not directed at you, but at the monist who believes his individuality is the result of some chemical illusion performed for....who?
      It is the philosophical reductionist hiding behind science, law, and language who is too shallow to see the self refuting nature of his materialism.
      He is no more than an ape with trousers.
      In fact, every time I read or write this phrase, I feel a slight has been made against the apes.

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    3. Incredulity on top of mocking still isn’t an argument. Theists have apparently have nothing meaningful to say when it comes to the materialist view of mind.

      -KW

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    4. Don't use mockery against eliminativism! Pointing out absurdity doesn't count if you laugh at it! Use only abstract reason and logic, which according to eliminativism you can't since they don't exist and neither do you.

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  4. @crusadeRex,

    Clearly the weak DO survive.

    My brain was tricked by my brain to trick me to respond!

    My brain also trick me to really appreciate your Chrysalis metaphor of human nature in another thread.

    My brain is very tricky!
    ROTFLMAO!

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  5. @mregnor: I am beginning to appreciate your approach. Keep it up.

    -John Henry

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    1. Yes, a refreshing mix of Goebbels and Alinsky.

      -KW

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  6. Later in life, the child develops self-awareness and the conviction that he consciously controls his body and brain. Yet what if this belief does not reflect reality?

    So there is no him to be aware of himself, nor any himself to be aware of, nor anyone to have the belief that this reflects reality, but somehow he does those things anyway. I must say, he sounds quite capable for something that doesn't exist.

    Hood proposes that our sense of self is an after-the-fact organizational trick for the brain

    So there is no me to be tricked, but somehow this doesn't stop me from being tricked into thinking that there is a me to be tricked.

    "our brain synthesizes the complex interactions of biology and environment to create a simplified explanation of who we are."

    So there is no we to be explained to, nor anyone explaining it to us even if there were, but this doesn't prevent the brain from creating an explanation of us to us.

    The Self Illusion

    So there is no self to have illusions of anything, but that doesn't stop it from having an illusion of itself. I guess if your whole thesis is one big contradiction in terms, you might as well get people used to it in the title.

    The illusion is difficult--if not impossible--to dispel.

    Indeed. So much so that, as this reviewer repeatedly illustrates for us, it's impossible to even claim that it's an illusion without implying that it's not an illusion. Used to be that when a claim contradicted itself, folks would recognize that as an indication that it was incoherent and meaningless. But now we know that if we call it Science(TM) it doesn't have to make coherent sense. Thank goodness Science has freed us from magical flim-flam like logic and reason, otherwise we might have to (*shudder*) believe in God!

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    1. So, champion of logic and reason, I guess you can provide a mathematical proof that it's impossible for a purely material object to think and be conscious. I'd like to see that proof.

      An interesting corollary would be that your god is incapable of creating a purely material object that can think.

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    2. Give me your mathematical definitions of thought and consciousness, and perhaps I'll start on it. While I'm at it, would you also like a mathematical proof that the color purple doesn't taste like a triangle?

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    3. Not that this has much to do with the topic at hand. I pointed out / mocked the blatant, in-your-face absurdity of the author's eliminativism, and you responded by asking for a "mathematical" proof of the somewhat less blatant absurdity of "non-reductive materialism", which is a change of subject.

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    4. You said that the claim there is no soul is incoherent. Why don't you explain what you mean by that, so I don't have to guess what you mean and go off on a tangent.

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    5. The Deuce "While I'm at it, would you also like a mathematical proof that the color purple doesn't taste like a triangle?"
      I don't know about that, but the math behind the letter "F" tasting like sherbet would be fascinating.

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  7. Since we're on the topic of eliminative materialism (AKA, the materialism that doesn't even try not to look stupid), I think it's a good time to link to Ed Feser's roundup on Rosenberg for those interested: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/05/rosenberg-roundup.html

    Libet is in there, btw.

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  8. Egnor:"Materialist theories of the mind are all pretentious self-contradictory crap, moron philosophy dressed up like science.

    Materialism is nonsense.

    You are real. You have a soul. You are created and loved by God."

    The only thing that made sense in your last line was "you are real."
    The rest is EXACTLY 'pretentious self-contradictory crap, moron philosophy dressed up like science.'

    I mean, really. You go to such lengths to justify your faith. Actually resorting to creating a blog devoted to insulting anyone who doesnt believe what you do. And your 'proof?' The BIBLE??? Aquinas' five ways?? Circular. Completely.

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    1. I'm still waiting for an argument to accompany your insults.

      I make detailed arguments to back up my derision. You just have the derision.

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    2. I make detailed arguments to back up my derision.

      No matter how detailed you think you are being, a circular argument is still a circular argument. And that's all you've provided.

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