Materialism and Mindfulness: Science and the Sense of Self
Presented by Jeremy Beahan, Adjunct Instructor of Aesthetics & Philosophy, Kendall College of Art & Design
About the Speaker
Fundamentalist raised and educated, Jeremy Beahan graduated from Grace Bible College and Cornerstone University with a dual degree in social studies and religious education. While training for ministry Jeremy underwent a dramatic de-conversion as a culmination to many years of questioning.
Today Jeremy works to promote critical thinking and skeptical inquiry in his local community - he has been an active member of the Freethought Association (now CFI Michigan) since 2002. When not hiking on Michigan's beautiful trails and beaches Jeremy teaches college classes in Philosophy, World Religions, Biblical Literature, Aesthetics, and Critical Thinking at Kendall College of Art and Design/Ferris State University. Jeremy is also a co-host and producer for the Reasonable Doubts podcast and radio show which provides a skeptical guide to religion with a focus on counter-apologetics.
About the Event
Meeting Minutes for March 8, 2006; #203
Announcements
Visit our website for the most up to date information on upcoming events, links, opportunities for involvement, archived meeting minutes, other social gatherings and functions and much more. http://www.cfimichigan.org. Contact us directly at: .
Announcing the Explore Evolution Theme Semester Public Lecture Series on Wednesday evenings beginning at 7PM at the University of Michigan; Chemistry 1800. The series starts today, March 8, with the topic The Tree of Life: Is it really a web? This is presented by W. Ford Doolittle, Dalhousie University. On March 22 the topic will be Ageing and Evolutionary Medicine, presented by Linda Partridge, University College, London. The topic for April 5th will be Exploring Evolution of Darwin’s Finches, presented by Peter and Rosemary Grant, Princeton University, and on April 19 the topic will be Gene Organism and Environment, presented by Richard Lewontin, Harvard University.
The World Affairs Council of Western Michigan is having its lecture series Great Decisions, Mondays, beginning at 7PM at the Performing Arts Center of Aquinas College. On March 13 the topic will be Understanding Iran, presented by Dr. William Beeman, Brown University. March 20 is when Dr. Sharon Hrynkow, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health will present Global Health Pandemics and Security: Preparing for the Worst, and on March 27 the lecture will be Brazil: The long Road to Economic Stability. This will be presented by Ambassador Donna Hrinak (former US Ambassador to Brazil).The next Freethought Meditation Group meeting will be on March 12, at 6PM, at 1416 Wilcox Park Dr., SE, GRMI. Check the website for more information: http://www.cfimichigan.org/meditation or call Jeremy @ (616) 706-2033. March 19, April 2 and April 9 are the next upcoming FMG meetings.
For you “Movie Night” devotees check the next Freethought Movie Night will feature the film: The Devil’s Playground, 7PM at Jason’s house, 740 Lockwood St. NE. Send e-mail to: or check the website for more info. The following upcoming FMN get togethers will be on April 5 and April 19.
For you fairer freethinkers, March 18 at 10AM is when the next Freethought Women’s Group will meet at Jennifer and Amanda’s house; 736 Lockwood Street, NE. For details, contact Jennifer at or call (616) 706-2029.
A social event that is more than a good time is dinner for 8 on Saturday evenings for adults to get together for drinks, dinner, and good conversation. If you’re interested, please contact Jan via e-mail at . The next one is March 18. May 20 will be the following Dinner for 8.
Our next meeting at the Women’s City Club will be on the topic: Why Are We So Gullible? How Good Thinking Goes Bad. This will be presented by Dr. Gregory Forbes, Director of the Evolution Education Institute, Professor of Biology, GRCC.Should we teach about Unicorns in Zoology? What house is the moon in astrology? Are leprechauns Irish historical figures in world history? Should intelligient desighn be taught in Science classes? Today, Dr. Forbes is in Kalamazoo, MI to discuss the question: Should ID be Taught in Michigan Schools? He is joined by Mr. Malachi King of Creation Science Ministries, who will take the position that Bronze Age myths should indeed be taught as science in Michigan schools. This takes place tonight at 7PM at the Kalamazoo Public Library, 315 South Rose St. It is free and sponsored by the Kalamazoo Gazette, W. Michigan University, Kalamazoo University, ACLU, and Kalamazoo Trial Lawyers Assoc.
The very active Dr. Forbes will also be speaking two more times this month as part of his three part lecture (the 1st one was on March 5) at the Congregation Ahavas Israel, located at 2727 Michigan Avenue. The next two will be on March 12 and March 19, both from 9:30AM–10:45AM. The 3/12 lecture is on the topic of Science, Pseudoscience, and Just Plain Nonsense. On 3/19 he will present Intelligent Design: A challenge to evolution or an evolving challenge.
In recent minutes it was announced that Professor Forbes would be presented with the ACLU Western Michigan Branch’s Civil Libertarian of the Year Award for his indefatigable work in opposing Intelligent Design legislation and promoting Evolution education. The updated information on this is that this event will take place at a Bill of Rights Reception on March 16 at the Wealthy Street Theatre in Grand Rapids. The event will include a presentation by the engaging Dr. Forbes: Evolution—What’s all the fuss 4 billion years after the FACT? The general public is warmly invited to attend. Complementary hors d’ oeuvres, soda and coffee will be provided. A cash bar will also be available.
It was just learned that Dr. Forbes will also be featured in the Religion Section of the Grand Rapids Press regarding his work in combating Intelligent Design incursions in science classes, and the promotion of quality science education.
Our April 12 meeting will be our annual Freethought & the Arts presentation. This year’s format will be more fair-like. Visual artists, musicians, poets, filmmakers, performers and enthusiasts of all kinds are invited to participate in this event. It will provide a fine opportunity for our membership to share its creative side for the enjoyment of all. Please contact this FA Secretary, Charles LaRue, at for more information, input, or to be placed on the list of participants.
April 30 is the date for the FA Board meeting, 9AM at the Van Oosterhout’s home. All are welcome to attend. For directions and to RSVP contact . Plan on a truly fabulous meeting.Presentation
Our topic for this meeting was Mindful Materialism: Science and the Sense of Self. It was presented by Jeremy Beahan, an active FA member since ’02 and coordinator of the Freethought Meditation Group. He graduated from Cornerstone University with a degree in Secondary Education.
Jeremy began by defining terms and laying the foundation for the rest of his well thought out presentation. In philosophy, in which he is well-versed, materialism is the ultimate denial of the supernatural. In the same lineage of the epistemological family tree is its more fashionable and less extreme cousin, philosophical naturalism, which denies the existence of any realm above that of the natural world. The natural world pertains to energy, motion, and matter, and does not regard supernatural agency or agents (such as forces and entities that cannot be detected, tested or that predictions cannot be based upon). The philosophical naturalist believes in natural laws and the components of the natural realm, not out of faith, but rather out of intellectual necessity. Subscribers to philosophical naturalism believe that the only satisfactory explanations for phenomena have come from empirical investigation and logical analysis. For them, mythology and metaphysical speculation are demonstrably unreliable guides to truth—and even worse, they can perpetuate false and dangerous assumptions about reality.
Strong naturalism is seen by many American intellectuals as an emotionally impoverished and morally hollow perspective. Among the general public too, one will often hear that there simply must be something more than just matter and energy. There is the expressed need for there to be a higher power; and/or something spiritual, outside of ourselves and nature, that impels our best aspects and that drives nature in creative potency and design. If we are to have a space for morals, wonder and meaning, they assert, it will come from the supernatural, or places otherwise immune to scientific inquiry. Philosophical naturalists, Beahan noted, have spent a lot of time and energy in the public forum trying to dispel these stereotypes—arguing that a scientifically informed worldview can be a source of inspiration and conscience.
However, every once in a while, a materialist steps forward and publicly agrees with his or her critics. One such person is John Gray, professor of European thought at the London School of Economics. Beahan said that his book entitled Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Human and Other Animals (Granta Books, ’02), might have been better titled Bitter Soup for the Soul. In an interview, the author of Straw Dogs said: I don’t believe in belief. If one aims to see, then beliefs—especially spiritual beliefs—are just an encumbrance. Best to have none, if you manage it. End quote. A reviewer, Michael Standaert, wrote of Gray’s perspective: [It} might even be too skeptical for even the die-hard burlap and ashes skeptic. End quote. Later in his review, he says: [Gray] attacks any sense of false hope, belief in human progress, religious or mystical salvation…[and further] It is an attempt at an atom bomb retaliatory strike at the last two-thousand years of (mainly) Western thought at a total view of the world. But we must ask the question: Is there life after this holocaust? End quotes. Jeremy called it a most interesting piece of anti-inspirational literature; each of its small self contained mini-essays seems aimed, he continued, at discouraging the reader from any assumption of hope for a better tomorrow or any pretense of morality.
While not agreeing with much of what Gray lays out in his bleak book, Beahan found it beneficial for serving as a starting point for the moral and aesthetic inquiry he shared with us. One of the essays in Gray’s book, pertaining to free will, recounted some truly disturbing findings by the research psychologist, Benjamin Libet. Libet is the Professor Emeritus of Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco and member of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of CA, Davis. In his book, Mind Time, Professor Libet deals with findings in his research of a delay that occurs before any awareness effects how we view our mental activities; that is conscious awarenesses are preceded by unconscious processes. Freely voluntary acts are found to be initiated unconsciously before an awareness of wanting to act exists and this is deemed to be a discovery with profound ramifications for our understanding of free will.
The standard view, Beahan mentioned, is one where we think of ourselves in a subjective first person sense—as little actors inside our heads. We take in our surroundings, note our preferences, make a decision, and then we actually initiate the action. Libet’s experimental findings seem to turn all this on its head. If we could slow things down and look into our nervous systems, we could see our actions being performed before we ever consciously decided to do them. Making matters worse; this appeared to be the normal way of things. This view is called epiphenomenalism, which is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain but have no effects upon any physical events. T.H. Huxley espoused this view, making a memorable comparison with a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive. Modern epiphenomenalism traces back to a 19th century context, in which a dualistic view of mental events was assumed to be correct. Our presenter described it as the belief that what we experience as thinking through and making choices is really just an aftereffect of unconscious mental processes. We don’t cause choices by our deliberations. Deliberation merely informs us of the choices our brain made for us. He further explained that if one follows this train of thought to its logical end, Gray’s conclusion was blunt and to the point. Say goodbye to morality. You can cling to your ethics of you want to, but the entire enterprise is just one elaborate self-deception.
Jeremy reported his reaction to the implications of all this in an amusing fashion: Understanding that one of my core assumptions about morality had been challenged, I did what any calm, dispassionate critical thinker would do in such circumstances. I searched about frantically for a refutation of Libet’s results—any indication that his experiments were flawed, or that there were different conclusions one could draw from his research—anything would do! He continued by saying that eventually he found just such a sound and detailed critique of the author of Mind Time’s findings in Daniel C. Dennett’s book, Freedom Evolves. In it, Dennett provides an account of how we and our minds evolved, while calming fears that such an account presents a threat to the concept of free will. Still, Dennett’s critique was not quite the answer Beahan was looking for—at first anyway, but he summarized the critique by the author of such books as Consciousness Explained and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.
Libet’s results were derived from monitoring the brain activity of his subjects via an array of electrodes attached to their scalps. He asked the subjects to perform a simple voluntary action at a time of their choosing and had them pay close attention to a clock face, specially designed for the experiment, and asked them to recall precisely the exact moment that they consciously decided to perform the simple motor action. He then compared the reported time with the time that the monitor showed. From this he discovered a 300-500 millisecond disparity of time. Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, Dennett makes as the crux of his argument against these results that Libet relied entirely on the subjects’ own subjective reports of when the event occurred. A complicated series of events are put into place by even the simple motor task subjects were instructed to perform and reportage of volition that was asked of those subjects. Multiple streams of information are processed and various areas of the brain are activated, from visual, to the faculty of practical reasoning, to ones initiating motor response and coordination. A natural gap arises, therefore, between the light from the clock face reaching the retina and the processing in the visual cortex and when the subject gives a subjective self-report.
But even this realization of the diffusion of the process—one which erases the erroneous homunculus idea while not assigning a natural, material system into some mysterious otherness—brings its own concerns. Where are you in all this? Are you in the faculty of practical reasoning? Dennett points out that if so, then you have to wait several milliseconds for information from the vision center to be processed and sent off there, where a decision can be formulated. So are you—your essential personhood—then in the vision center? This only reverses the situation, since you have to wait for the faculty of practical reasoning to send the information for your decision, which only shifts—rather than eliminates—the problem… the moment of the decision to initiate the motor action now lags behind. So, again, where do YOU come into play in all this, in making choices and acting upon them? You have effectively outsourced the decision to a part of your brain outside your conscious awareness, and just accepted the judgment it returned to you, as Beahan summarized in a memorable phrase.
One way out of this is to assume a central command region where all the lines converge in the process and from which a conscious decision can emanate. The only problem is that no such central processing area exists. Our brains are complex biological systems composed of subsystems which are in turn composed of even smaller subsystems—individual structures, in some cases functionally specific, operating in parallel with numerous other systems. There is no central hub, around which all this activity moves. There is no place in the brain where it all collects to create you. Libet’s results said that I myself am not really making my choices, but at least with him one still retained a self. Dennett seemed to be saying that even this was an illusion.
Beahan said that when we ask where we are in all the multiple levels of processing and activated systems, we are actually asking a moral question. If we cannot even say how our individual selfhood factors into making a simple decision, then what does it mean when we say we are responsible for that decision? He made the cogent point that when one cannot make sense of personal responsibility, it casts doubt on one’s own life story, of the choices made, relationships formed, the beliefs and values one holds dear… What survives when one’s very sense of self is eliminated?
If one wishes for a philosophy of humankind that is empirically sound and takes in all the discoveries made and that are being made in modern brain science, it is no longer tenable to hold to the view that the mind is something separate from the brain; an unmoved mover abiding in a permanent fashion that is mysteriously able to make unconstrained free choices. A naturalistic view of the mind calls into question our deepest intuitions and, as Jeremy noted, this is not just a problem for the religious, but for secular humanists as well. In creating a rationally motivated ethical alternative to religion, Western enlightenment ironically swept much of what it sought to replace into its intellectual worldview. Our language, customs, ethical systems, moral sensibilities and governing institutions~our very culture—have all been influenced by convictions about what it means to be human, but these are beliefs that no longer hold under modern scrutiny.
As secular humanists, Beahan reminded us, we cannot exorcise ourselves from the Western conceptual matrix which we inherited. And would we even want to? We can, however, modify our beliefs and attitudes to be in better accordance with the evidence. Hopefully, we can also preserve at least some of the features of that older system that we rightly cherish. Using a mindful approach, we can construct a tenable, thoroughly naturalistic conception of what it means to be human. Jeremy asserted that it is not only possible—it is the great philosophical task of the next century.
Our speaker returned to the idea that while a thoroughgoing naturalistic philosophy is good at generating correct information, a naturalism that only satisfies intellectual curiosity will never leave the ivory tower to capture the minds of average people. He said that we need a philosophy that we can live with; one that not only informs but inspires a worldview that, after illuminating our situation, offers direction on how to live more fully in it. This, however, requires guidance. As noted previously, our Western intellectual heritage has left us unprepared to deal with the new and puzzling realities presented to us by modern neuroscience. This leaves outmoded dualistic concepts as a sort of default formula from which to interpret the world and our place in it; which, while no longer intellctually acceptable, remains more satisfying to many—including those who do,or at least should—know better.
If our Western traditions have not afforded us a proper vehicle for guidance in our modern reality with contemporary understandings, perhaps we should turn eastward. In the East, a very different set of religious and philosophical traditions took hold—shaping a different conception of what it means to be a person. Centuries before Rene Descartes looked into his own mind and declared: I think therefore I am, Siddhartha Gautama embarked on an internal quest of his own (much as Kung Fu Tse—Confucius—formulated the Golden Rule half a millennia before Christianity). Gautama, an Indian prince who would come to be known as the Buddha (The Enlightened One), articulated a very different conception of the mind and self—one that Jeremy believes reflects the discoveries of modern science far better than the Cartesian view. This is why he believes philosophical naturalists would do well to engage Buddhism seriously, since it marries modern findings—presciently—with an approach to life that is satisfying on other levels more accessible (once explored) to everyday people. And there is the added bonus (from a secular humanistic standpoint) that it does not countenance deities, nor embrace spirituality and other Western religious baggage. Beahan was quick to note that Buddhism does however have its own set of faith based perils that one would be wise to avoid, but, when critically examined, the doctrines and practices of Buddhism are not only consistent with, but complementary with the secular humanist worldview. Beahan picked up on these thoughts later in his presentation.
Thinking of the mind as something different from, apart from, and added to what the brain does was for a long time not only abiding in the world of the wishful thinkers among the lay public but was even held by the scientific community. This latter segment believed that it fell outside the domain of valid science; that it was empirically outside the scope of science, in the same way and for the same reasons that like angels and deities are. So, while deemed unsuitable for scientific investigation, the separate essence of the mind was upheld as a real phenomenon. There were early pioneers in human psychology that Beahan discussed, such as Freud and William James, who understood that they were going against the Cartesian grain (Descartes saw life in a mechanical light, so for him it was no more than disassembling machinery when one cut into the living flesh of a non-human animal, but the human mind—he believed—was too complex and wondrous to be explained in this way. So, rather than changing his views, he conferred upon the mind of humankind an extra-biological makeup). Freud and James, however, were sometimes painfully aware that when studying the mind scientifically they were doing so naturalistically—with the controversial assumption that the object of study was a wholly natural one.
Owen Flanagan makes the claim that this naturalistic assumption has been confirmed by the results of such study, with the wealth of knowledge gained in the 120 year interval since James asserted that for scientific purposes, determinism may be claimed. Flanagan is the James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy at Duke University who has done extensive work in the philosophy of the mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, ethics, moral psychology as well as Buddhist and Hindu conceptions of self. He evokes the difference between Regulative and Constitutive ideas, a distinction made by Immanuel Kant, the famous German philosopher, logician and metaphysician. A regulative idea, according to Flanagan is an idea that guides an inquiry, whereas a constitutive idea is the result of an idea so led. An example Beahan gave of this was that of Isaac Newton assuming that natural laws governed the motion of bodies in space (a regulative idea). Once he discovered and confirmed that such laws did in fact exist—they became constitutive ideas. To sum up: what was first just an assumption turned out to be true.
Dr. Douglas Kindschi, when presenting to us on the Grand Dialogue between religion and science, in a meeting last January, implied that this type of thinking is circular reasoning—at least, Beahan noted, when it calls into question some aspect of his faith. Yes, indeed—science began looking for naturalistic answers and surprise, surprise, it finds naturalistic answers! Contemplating the numbers of angels fitting on a pin or the soul’s role in homeostasis has not given us any new information or knowledge gain, while examining nature naturalistically has taught us all that we have ever learned about the real world. When a regulative idea leads to progressive research, to testable hypotheses, to clear/precise data and intersubjective reliability, we are not dealing with a tautology or circular reasoning. We have a constitutive fact, in which belief is justified. This is especially true when the alternative explanations contradict available evidence, or are riddled with logical inconsistencies and arbitrary metaphysical doctrines.
Beahan quoted Flanagan in saying that modern mind science regulates its inquiry by the assumption that the mind is the brain in the sense that perceiving, thinking, deliberating, choosing and feeling are brain processes. Discoveries made by the naturalistic approach always link one branch of knowledge to another, lead us to new areas of fertile research and are internally consistent with natural laws. The naturalistic assumption in modern times has led to an explosion of new knowledge in how the mind works. Jeremy spoke of a commentator who claimed that we have learned more about human psychology in just the past decade than we have in all previous eras of human history combined.
In this vein, Beahan referred to an article by Antonio R. Damasio (author of The Feeling of What Happens and many other books on neurology, psychology and emotion) on the achievements of modern neuroscience. Damasio is a physician and neurologist and is the Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Neurology at the University of Southern California, where he heads USC’s Institute for the Neurological Study of Emotion and Creativity. According to him, scientists can now directly record the activity of a single neuron or group of neurons and relate that activity to aspects of a specific mental state. Dr. Richard Restak, author of The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own, The New Brain, and Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, among many other books on neurological explorations, shares this view. Brain scans reveal the activation of specific regions of this organ when given tasks such as relating a word to an object or encountering a new face. The neurological architecture for the creation of memory is now being charted as well. We have learned that there are separate and distinct systems involved in learning different kinds of information. Damasio goes on to assert, in the referenced Scientific American article, that whatever mental function we consider, be it language, emotion, or decision making, it is possible to identify distinct parts of the brain that contribute to their production. While invoking an immaterial mind has led to no new knowledge and has connected no piece of knowledge already gained to any other; the assumption of naturalism has led to discovery after discovery with much more on the horizon. The mind, we now know without a doubt, truly is what the brain does.
Our modern state of knowledge in brain science makes a dualistic or supernatural formulation of the mind utterly unnecessary and calls the very existence of such speculative, evidence-free phenomena into question. Beahan conceded that he cannot prove that souls or incorporeal minds do not exist any more than he can disprove the existence of an invisible unicorn in his garage or any other of a whole suite of untestable hypothetical statements. But, he declared, this does not mean that we have to to be agnostic with regard to every conceivable hypothesis that we cannot show to be false. We can reject the existence of something that we cannot disprove by the principle of adduction, or the appeal to the best explanation, derived from a set of facts.
The monist looks at medical cases where a patient who has sustained damage to some portion of his brain, and then loses predictable, region-specific function, or displays changes in mood and affect as fairly straightforward. The dualist however, in an effort to save his cherished belief in immaterial substances and extra-natural effects, would explain this sort of phenomenon may be explained as the brain acting as a sort of interface for the mind to interact with the physical world through. This construct plays out as ideas of individuals who have sustained brain lesions resulting in aphasia (a form of speech disturbance), or prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces) or anterograde amnesia (the condition brought to cinematic light in the movie Memento—the inability to retain new memories), for examples—as still possessing all their faculties in their minds but not being able to display them in the natural world.
One may reasonably ask what good a fully functional mind is that cannot interact with the world, while residing in an impaired brain that presents challenges to its owner. Otherwise, assuming an immaterial mind essence exists, we also have to assume that it can be damaged via natural phenomena (lesions, brain trauma, cerebral anoxia, etc., etc.) in direct correspondence with the corporeal brain. And then we would sensibly ask what benefit is bestowed—or purpose derived—from such a mind riding along somewhere in the tissues of the brain. When trying to defend his account of the mind against evidence to the contrary, the dualist is forced, Beahan declared, into a world of absurdities. Adhering closer to William of Occam’s famous Razor, the naturalistic account is simpler, better accounts for the data, and requires no fanciful excursions into the unknown. In our day and age dualism should be of interest only to intellectual historians.
Yet Americans—those strange people who collectively believe at a frighteningly high percentage that the Genesis account of Creation is a literally correct one—when polled, were found to believe that humans are endowed with souls at a percentage between 70 and 96%! Harvard University Psychology Professor, who taught Brain and Cognitive Science, and author of How the Mind Works, The Language Instinct and The Blank Slate, Stephen Pinker, argues that the ghost in the machine belief is still a widespread phenomena in academia as well. He claims that this is especially true in the social sciences and humanities, where resistance to the idea that the brain possesses innate structures is high. Flanagan notes that even a few prominent neuroscientists have broken with the consensus of their peers and have publicly defended something like the Cartesian view.
Even though we inoculate against viral infection rather than seek exorcisms; we understand that chemical imbalances in the brain affect behavior; one hears in the common public vernacular about how testosterone or PMS or hormones are altering the mood of their jock boyfriend, female office coworker or adolescent son or daughter, respectively, etc., we still have an innate resistance to accepting a fully physical view of the mind. Like belief in ancient superstitions and myths, dualism has longevity in its favor. We believe most strongly those things which have been believed the longest. Just as many people draw comfort from the belief that an Unmoved Mover watches over us somewhere in the ether, the feeling that we hold within us something permanent that will survive physical death and that is the ultimate bedrock of our personhood, has a strong appeal, however bereft of evidence this belief may be.
The above belief also influences our thoughts on free will. A modern advocate of free will that Beahan quoted is Roderick Chisholm, an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, the philosophy of perception and—pertinent to this discussion—free will, puts it thusly: We have a prerogative which some would attribute only to God; each of us when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain things to happen, and nothing—or no one—causes us to cause those events to happen. End quote. While free will in the Cartesian formulation may seem too extravagant to modern sensibilities, the alternative of determinism does not seem to be a satisfying option either. Determinism says that if we were to replay any event, making sure that every variable is exactly the same—the resulting outcome must happen as it did, or in other words, for every decision you have ever made, every action you have ever performed throughout your entire life—you simply could not have done otherwise. This is a rather unsettling proposition for many. However, as Jeremy stated, in a physical world with physical brains operating in accordance with natural law there is no escape from causation. Everything happens because something caused it to happen. Every effect had a set of causes sufficient to produce it. We want to have our will unconstrained by naturalistic determinism, but if everything in the natural world is determined and all that we have experience with and exposure to (or any reason to logically hold to) is determined, then so is the state of our will.
He had previously touched on Eastern conceptions of the mindful experience in the natural world and Beahan returned to these when he wove together the strands of his presentation, but first he took us back to Daniel Dennett and in particular how he employed a construct he called the Tower of Generate-and-Test to demonstrate how a thoroughly naturalistic worldview can contain an authentic and meaningful conception of human agency. At the base of this tower we find Darwinian Creatures which are merely automatons, but ones which can acquire design modifications; good tricks, or smart moves, in Dennett’s terminology. These allow them to survive and reproduce better in their environment. This is accomplished, Beahan explained in his summation, solely via the blind process of recombination and mutation of genes. The best designs will survive, allowing for further modifications to be made in future generations. The tag: Darwinian Creatures follows sensibly, therefore, from this construction. It is hard to attribute the concept of agency to these beings existing simply to pass on their genes to the next generation.
The next level of this tower is inhabited by Skinnerian Creatures—named after B.F. Skinner, the most celebrated psychologist after Sigmund Freud, who introduced the concept of operant conditioning, where organisms operating in an environment encounter a special kind of stimulus called a reinforcer. Dennett’s Skinnerian beings have phenotypic plasticity, whereby aspects of their design can be altered throughout their lifetime. They have taken along the repertoire of tricks from their Darwinian Creature ancestors that they were selected from, but they are imbued with reinforcers that allow them to identify their smartest moves and favor those moves in the future. They can thereby be conditioned to perform certain acts that benefit them in their survival outcomes. While still a blind process, the Skinnerian Creature is afforded many more options than his Darwinian predecessor.
On the third level there dwell Popperian Creatures, with still more innovations, most significantly these beings may pre-select their moves more efficiently. Karl Popper, whom these creatures are named for, was a highly acclaimed philosopher of science who coined the term critical rationalism to describe his philosophy. He viewed the advance of scientific knowledge as an evolutionary process, saying that in response to a given problem situation, a number of competing conjectures or tentative theories are systematically subjected to the most rigorous attempts of falsification possible. This process of error elimination performs, therefore, a similar function for science that natural selection does for biological evolution. Popperian Creatures survive because they are able to make better than chance moves. They are thus enabled—due to having evolved an inner environment—with an internal simulation of the external world which they can use to judge the best course of action. They are, then, less blind than their predecessors, but like them, they are nothing more than elaborate biological machinery, completely obedient to deterministic laws. And yet they possess a primitive mind. Sir Karl Popper pointed out that such a design improvement permits our hypotheses to die in our stead. With the previous tier of creatures, the death of these forerunners before reproduction spelled the death of those advantageous traits they may have passed along as well; not so with the Popperian Creatures.
The stage is set for the final tier in this progressive tower. Those found to be scampering about on this level are referred to as Gregorian Creatures. The innovation of the internal environment will only help the Skinnerian Creatures if they can accurately represent the external world. This means the organism must have evolved the means to acquire vast amounts of information for it to use in its internal simulation. Better information leads to better representation, which leads in this concatenation to better pre-selection, which then, leads to a better chance of survival. Beahan, in his summary of Dennett’s construction, explained that what sets Gregorian Creatures apart is that the amount of information that they can acquire has been enhanced by the ability to use tools. These beings are named for the British psychologist, Richard Gregory, who once claimed that a well-designed artifact is not just a result of intelligence but also an endower of intelligence! The development of tools enables the Gregorian Creatures’ ability to find smart moves. While humans are not the sole possessor of the ability to use tools, we excel at it and have evolved perhaps the greatest tool of all: Language.
Language is a tool of the mind. It permits us to abstract features from reality, to hold them in our minds, recall them from memory, and use them toward our ends. As language itself evolves, so does our ability to represent our world in ever more subtle ways. As our inner environment becomes more refined—so too does our ability to make better choices. Language, in this way, transforms our brains into, in the phrase Dennett employed, virtuoso pre-selectors. Our language also allows our personhood~our thoughts and ideas; our emotional take on life and the value of our experiences—to survive not only apart from sexual meiosis but beyond the grave in a naturalistic formulation of the no longer valid dualistic formulation.
Flanagan states that what we really want is for our actions to be voluntary—to know that a wink is really something different from a blink. We want concepts such as self-control and rational deliberation to remain meaningful and applicable to our lives. We dread being turned into mindless molecular robots~that is—into purely Darwinian Creatures. Dennett’s Tower is a metaphor for how freedom can evolve in a realm where natural law reigns and causality is ubiquitous; where mindless automatons can become rational agents capable of knowledge, discovery, creation and deliberation. The rational basis for choice that emerges from this scenario depends on dense and numerous levels of causation. Determinism is a liberating influence, not a constricting one.
But then, who is making the choices and deliberations? If we are going to speak of agency, then wouldn’t it help to have an agent? Beahan queried. We looked again, in the context of these questions, at what the epiphenomenalist has to say. He (the epiphenomenalist) believes in determinism, but he does not allow anything like real choices, since he does not countenance the idea that the self is able to consciously direct action. While it is true that we are not able to consciously access the stuff of volition, emotion and perception out of the complex matrix of our neurological architecture, we are straying down a path of error to look for an occupant to provide agency for our inner environment, as the epiphenomenalist would have it. But we have a sense of not just having a body and sense of boundaries but of being inside our bodies. Our experiences create an impression over time that constitutes our sense of self.
Damasio explains our sense of self in terms of its underlying physiology in the brain. His model describes a series of overlapping levels of self-representation, each increasing in complexity—much like the creatures in Dennett’s Tower. It is sufficient to say—in the context of this presentation and summary—that our whole body, from chemicals in our bloodstream to the most recently evolved portions of our cerebral cortex, make some contribution to this overall process. Our sense of self is not a single phenomenon—and certainly not a homunculus or other occupant of one specific place in the tissues of the brain—but a multitude of separate neural and biological events acting in concert.
Our experience of reality is one of a seamless unity. We perceive ourselves as a single indivisible entity standing apart from the stream of consciousness and observing it. What we know of visual perception now shows us how that same integration of disparate pieces of data is likewise formed into one coherent whole that we experience. We are constantly focusing far and close and flicking our eyes dizzyingly over various parts of our environment, shunting visual data to various places in our brains for different processing to take place—adding mood, increasing or decreasing attention, triggering memories, etc. Our brain forces perspectives (both spatial and personal), adds definition to boundaries, takes visual cues and makes logical inferences of it to form a pictorial story—or version—of reality that works for us in order to operate effectively.
Optical illusions work because they present visual cues that cause our brains to interpret the data falsely, and upon discovering that we have been led down this incorrect path, we are mystified~much as we are when falling prey to a master of sleight of hand—we know we saw what happened but the outcome conflicts with what our eyes took in. Our visual reality should all be a hash and jumble—a visual form of cacophony—but we feel that seeing is a passive undertaking with no computations taking place from the various data streams in our brains, as if all is presented to our visual centers neatly pre-packaged and we just curl up before some screen in our skulls to idly view what we see as a seamless environment.
There is a self but it is the sum of all the processes; all our experiences and genetic contributions, not some singular entity in our heads; agency is found in this process. Flanagan calls our sense of self an abstract theoretical entity that we employ to describe certain stable patterns over time. While the epiphenomenalist would declare that we are out of the loop, Dennett counters (in Freedom Evolves) that, instead, we ARE the loop, going further to say that what we do and what we are incorporates all these things that happen and is not something separate from the brain. This view derails the erroneous view that we have unconscious activity commencing that we we eagerly await to capture and take note of consciously. All that had been discussed illuminates that the core question of finding an agent and its location was formed from the old hold-overs of the Cartesian ideas we are still steeped in in the West.
Selves are better understood as the stable patterns of behavior, thought and representation belonging to the system as a whole—not entities in their own right. Our choices are also products of that system—and as such they are determined by innumerable variables acting in accordance with natural laws. We are truly part of this world, not some supernatural realm; our brains are sculpted, and in flux, moment by moment with each experience and thought, altering our inner landscapes and they, shaped and given potential via genetics, influence our perceptions and how we interpret those experiences—in one continuous loop of interconnection.
Christianity and our perennial philosophy creates divisions between ourselves and the environment, human and non-human animals, the sexes, and, pertinent to this discussion—our minds and our naturalistic selfhood. When it is believed that we have total control over our choices (from an eternal, granted-by-God, immaterial source—separate from the naturalistic processes described previously) there are societal consequences that emerge. Some that Beahan mentioned include that we can more easily subjugate other out-groups, nature (both flora and fauna), and are more likely to feel that retribution and punishment are appropriate responses to criminal behavior, if after all, the criminal could have acted in another manner. Why would we consider a person’s life’s circumstances if something apart from him existed that was eternal and divinely given?
Since we are most familiar with what we are immersed in from birth, we may be excused for thinking that the worldview that is promoted by belief in the ensoulment of humankind and an immaterial mind existing apart from the corporeal body, is a necessary illusion—and that the alternative is even worse for maintaining a moral/ethical society, etc. But Jeremy reminded us that societies exist that have done so without requiring supernatural underpinnings for thousands of years. They have developed rich philosophical, moral and aesthetic cultures based on a view of persons and agency remarkably similar to the naturalistic account. Beahan was referencing here the beliefs and practices of Buddhism and this served as a segue into a second look at philosophies developed in the East, having covered more ground and fleshed out other thoughts presented previously. Beahan drew heavily at this point in his presentation from a book written in the 1950’s by the Buddhist monk and scholar, Walpola Sri Rahula. It is called What the Buddha Taught.
Buddhism has been classified as a philosophy rather than religion by some because there is no Supreme Creator in its structure. Rahula wrote that according to Buddhism, the ideas of God and the soul are false and empty. Therefore, there is no recognition in Buddhism of a spirit realm as opposed to a material one. The mind is considered only a faculty or organ like the eye or ear. This refreshing viewpoint includes consciousness itself, since ideas and thoughts are not independent of the world experienced by the five physical senses; in fact they depend on and are conditioned by physical experiences. This mirrors the physicalist’s view well. These understandings were developed long before modern brain science and our advanced scans and other means of detailed cognitive measurement existed to confirm them.
Beahan reminded us that Buddhim is not a fully materialistic philosophy however. It allows for something that exists of the person after death and is then reborn in another life—but it is not made clear what this is. The Western ideas of souls, the ego, some supernatural eternal essence are not subscribed to by Buddhists. Remarking on this in his book, Rahula says: What we call I or Being, is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together interdependently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect.. There is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence. End Quote. The sense of self emerges from combinations of a synchrony of meshings of physical and mental aggregates in what Rahula called a physio-psychological machine. There is simply no ghost in the machine according to Buddhism.
What are the implications for the concept of Free Will in this philosophy? Quoting from Rahula: This question does not and cannot arise in Buddhist philosophy, if the whole of existence is relative, conditioned and interdependent, how can will alone be free? Will, like any other thought is conditioned. So-called freedom itself is conditioned and relative… There can be nothing absolutely free, physical or mental. If free will implies a will independent of conditions, independent of cause and effect, such a thing does not exist. End quote. Jeremy notes that Buddhism has never needed to place human choices outside of the realm of cause and effect; volition and causation are entwined and compatible. He also points out that even the doctrines of Karma show that Buddhism’s moral realm is not governed by divine dictates but by an impersonal set of deterministic laws.
While not a Buddhist himself, Beahan sees great wisdom in many of its teachings—ones that are not only relevant to contemporary life and modern understandings of brain function and behavior, but having much to say to secular humanists who may reject gods, souls, and spiritual contributions to life, but are then left without philosophical alternatives that are satisfying and acceptable.
At this point Beahan explained that Buddhists are encouraged to approach their own minds with the attitude of a scientist; trying to carefully observe every sensation, every feeling, and every thought that passes through consciousness. Typically, Buddhists assert, most of us are so lost in thought that we fail to notice well—or appreciate fully—our environment as it comes to us through our senses. In working with the blind, this Secretary was made aware of what a small percentage of our visual experience we actually examine consciously. Blind individuals whom I would be accompanying would often remark on something in our shared environment that they took in through auditory means but which I had been oblivious to. Having only four senses, these had to come into play more fully to recreate the world around them. I began to self monitor more and noted that something that I heard would cause my eyes to flick to the source fleetingly, assign it to something of no interest or importance, and then it would be forgotten—not becoming part of my conscious awareness. If someone had asked me if I had just heard or seen that object/source a minute later, I’d probably state that I had not. It may not be, as some assert, that the blind are compensated by heightened remaining senses, but just that they attend more fully to what comes to them through those remaining sense faculties and do not assign so much to the fog of unconsciousness from their environment.
As an visual artist I am struck by utterly mundane things in and of themselves; a patch of light, a geometric form, repetition of shapes, the colors in shadows, the way a blob of floral hue seems to resonate with an inner light against a grainy greyscape of urban pavement juxtaposed to it, etc. When these everyday experiences are re-created, placed in rectangles and shown on a wall, it is a delight to see others share your experience, even though they may have passed by those same elements countless times without taking note of them. The subject in the painting is unimportant in itself—it becomes merely an armature for the shape and color combinations to coalesce around.
The experienced Buddhist, Beahan goes on to say, cuts through distractions and tries to maintain awareness at all times. Monastics as well as lay practitioners will spend hours sitting in one place carefully training themselves in the art of introspection. Through meditation, they deepen their ability to concentrate and familiarize themselves with their own mental terrain. They examine their own biases and resist the urge to label things as good or bad, and instead strive to see things as they are without interpretations. This non-judgmental/non-reactive attention to one’s moment to moment experience is called mindfulness (a term, by the way, that Jeremy has incorporated into the approach of the meditation group that he leads). The purpose of mindfulness is to transform one’s relationship to the world by seeing it as objectively as possible.
The world according to Buddhism is not stable or enduring, but one of flux and constant change. Again, this mirrors what modern brain science says about our own cognitive state moment by moment, with each experience making minute neuronal pattern shifts come into play, depending on what we are exposed to, relative stimulation, repetition of experiences, how we have been treated, etc. An eternal, unchanging soul would have less and less utility with each passing moment, as this Secretary sees it, in a non-static environment and with a brain which is dynamic and has bountiful built-in plasticity. The Buddhist does not become attached to the things in life, realizing that not only is everything changing (from relationships to the matter that surrounds us and is us) but nothing is permanent—including the life of the one tenaciously holding onto things.
Buddhists see this as the reason we suffer—that we try to hold onto ephemeral moments of joy—and then greedily pursue our next pleasure fix; without awareness that our endless quest for satisfaction is futile, based as it is on false premises. We will never be able to create the perfect set of circumstances in which to find contentment. Happiness cannot be found outside of oneself.
Buddhism does, however, claim to provide a way out of suffering—but unlike the forgiveness of sins preached in Christianity, or the freedom through progress promoted by humanism—the salvation Buddhism offers is a change of perspective. If everything is in flux, then what we consider to be negative emotions and sensations, such as pain, grief, or stress are as impermanent as any other phenomena. They arise and they will pass away. We do not need to identify them; sensations are just sensations. When we cease to label our experiences as good or bad, we rob them of their power to do us harm. When we decide that life does not have to be any other way than it is, we step outside of the cycle of suffering. Aided by wisdom, virtue and a disciplined mental life, the Buddhist stops clinging to what he owns and quits grasping for what he desires, and simply lives his life appreciating the richness of each moment.
Beahan cleverly titled the last part of his talk Buddhism and Naturalism: A Grand Dialogue? capturing the name given to a recent presenter’s symposium and title for his (Kindshi’s) lecture, which was allegedly to find common ground between science and religion. While not a Buddhist himself (as previously mentioned) Beahan derives a great deal of inspiration and guidance from Buddhist philosophy and cannot help but think that modern secularism might be better off had it evolved from the traditions and mindset of the East. For those of us, he says, who reject the supernatural in favor of a worldview guided by reason and evidence, who believe we are born of physical processes governed by the natural laws, Buddhism speaks more clearly to us than any other religious tradition. In contrast to the monotheistic religions which worship the unchanging, eternal and absolute, Buddhism celebrates impermanence in their art and culture.
In contrast to Buddhism, religion in the West is obsessed with immortality, rather than dealing with the reality of death. Life is temporary and we should not fear its end. Buddhist culture stresses interconnectedness over individuality, simplicity over affluence, and restraint over consumption. On point after point, Buddhist philosophy seems at odds with the prevailing attitudes in Western culture. It is however, he added significantly, in close harmony with many of the views and attitudes subscribed to by scientific realists, philosophical naturalists and secular humanists.
Human minds, Beahan stated, are natural and complex machines, they possess no permanent abiding self or soul. Human behavior can be volitional, but our choices and actions do not take place outside of cause and effect. Through sheer coincidence, this view happens to be more or less compatible with certain interpretations of Buddhism. Beahan next addressed a bridge between Buddhist concepts and therapeutic psychological treatment, showing real life practical applications of this merging of monistic scientific approach with Buddhist philosophy.
Psychologists Zindel V. Segal, John D. Teasdale and J. Mark William, authors of the book: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse,shift the focus from changing cognitions to the act of attending to them, finding that this process itself is healing. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapies are a hybrid of traditional CBT and mindfulness meditative techniques, with a rationale which is simple but fascinating. Traditional CBT often works without altering the content of the thoughts of patients, so the act of introspection itself—mentally noting thoughts and feelings in an objective impersonal way—may be providing the actual mechanism of therapeutic value.
Beahan quotes Segal in his explanation of the process: As a result of repeatedly identifying negative thoughts as they arise and standing back from them to evaluate the accuracy or adaptiveness of their content, patients often make a general shift in their perspective on negative thoughts and feelings. Instead of viewing thoughts as absolutely true or as descriptive of important self-attributes, patients are able to see negative thoughts and feelings as passing events in the mind that are not necessarily valid reflections of reality or central aspects of the self. End quote.
In concluding, Beahan said that Segal and his colleagues believe CBT works not by changing the content of thoughts but by changing the context by which we relate to our thoughts. This process known in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as distancing or decentering is exactly the same orientation towards one’s thoughts that is encouraged by Buddhism and cultivated by its practitioners during meditation. Recognizing this, Segal and his colleagues developed a secularized version of mindfulness meditation for use in therapy. They are among a growing number of psychologists in the field who are experimenting with such treatments on problems including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders and trauma. The initial results look promising—if Segal and others are right, mindfulness therapies have the potential to revolutionize the way we look at mental health. It is too early at this point to say for sure, Beahan cautioned, as there is much further research that needs to be done. But it is a possibility. As always we will have to watch and see how this one develops with both open-mindedness and skepticism.
During the Question & Answer period thoughts were raised regarding how biofeedback allows for an awareness of the mental state to influence what is going on in the brain in positive ways; the philosophical underpinnings of Stoicism and its relationship to matters covered in Jeremy’s presentation; related ideas raised in Sam Harris’ book The End of faith which is critical of religion while the author is an advocate of the benefits of meditation—associated often with some religious traditions and practices; thoughts raised by Tom Clark in his presentation to us on Naturalism; how the strong advocacy of free will is prominent in our area, with its accompanying lack of recognition of natural world influences on behavior, and many other interesting intellectual forays.
Secretary: Charles LaRue
