Cognitive Scientist seeks real physicalist - must love dogs

One of my favorite lines in any pop song, by the band Of Montreal, is "it's like we weren't made for this world - although I wouldn't want to me someone who was..." They're singing about a broken relationship, but in a certain way, this is a basic attitude humans have with their environment, about their lives, about a whole host of things. The traditional Christian notion that we are merely sojourners in this world takes this intuition and runs with it, as does most version of radical politics (although the latter is concerned with reshaping the world so that it is made for us.) 

This is an idea lost in much discussion of cognitive science these days. Recently on the blog "Immanent Frame," under a discussion of David Brook's op-ed the "Neural Buddhists", Edward Slingerland ("Let's get clear about materialism") argues what the real issue of cognitive science, and materialism in general, brings up, is that it contradicts what he calls our "deeply seated" intuition of a folk dualism. This dualism says that we are not our bodies or brains, that somehow we transcend the material world, and in so transcending this world we are "free" and "responsible" beings. Slingerland argues that one of the big problems with someone like Brooks is that he thinks somehow by saying that brain state X corresponds to something Y proves that Y is real. Brooks then goes on to say that religion is most likely going to be more compelling because of this, although the Bible may be on its way out. But Slingerland points out the problem with this. Saying that brain state X corresponds to Y does not prove anything. All it says is that there is a brain state X. Come on!

The real problem Slingerland highlights - and I would suspect a bunch of cognitive scientists (including the likes of Terry Pinker)-  is that correlating brain states to behaviors leads to the "my brain made me do it" argument. In other words, humans are no longer responsible for their actions, because humans are no longer free in a meaningful sense. Empirically, it seems, we are just material; and if we are, then this means the world causes our behavior just as much as it causes the behavior of mushrooms, dogs, and ocean waves (let's not even discuss that this is no "discovery" - Kant said the same thing qua natural law).

And so Slingerland ends with what he thinks will be the "real" challenge given the "consensus" from cognitive scientist community: "how to get our intuitive notions of free will and moral responsibility to peaceably coexist with a materialist conception of the person." 

But is there a real problem here? Do notions of "freedom" and "responsibility" depend whatsoever on a theory of the human person, materialist or what have you? Do you need to say that 'there is this faculty called "will," and only on this basis can you have responsibility?' I say no. There is absolutely no reason we need any such theory, because our practice does entail us holding each other responsible. We don't need such a conception of "person" because in living in any community we continually challenge each other in how we live up to that community's norms - which even Slingerland, who appeals to a "consensus" in the scientific community, realizes. 

Now, if you are not convinced, if you think that correlating brain states with "undesirable behavior Y" (as Slingerland says) does make a difference, there we have a fundamental disagreement as to who or what we are answerable to. What I mean is that by saying that somehow "free will" is an illusion because certain experiments show us that we justify our actions after the fact (such as the one Ben Libet conducted in the 70's - being told to push a button, they found that brain signals connected with pushing the button happened a half second before subjects were 'conscious' of doing it), or that certain mental states occur when such and such environmental factors are in play, is basically saying that we are answerable to the things in the world. Slingerland calls this "objective and measurable." The things in the world are then normative vis-a-vis our mental states, and apparently our ethical states as well (as some cognitive scientist argue). This conception of "answerable" owes much to the traditional analogy for knowledge as perception, "knowing" something is very similar to "seeing" something. E.g., "I know that there is gravity" is similar to saying "I know my computer is white." Both can be verified - one by experiments, the other by observation. 

But this analogy for knowledge is neither the only analogy, nor the most compelling analogy. A much better analogy - something that corresponds to the late 20th century "linguistic turn" - is the analogy for knowledge of "discursive practice." The hinge of this analogy is that knowledge is something that we can use as a premise or a conclusion in an argument (Brandom). In other words, the real importance of knowledge is not whether it matches some inert lifeless "fact" or "world," but how it plays out in games of inference, of commitments, and of judging. Ultimately this makes more sense, because instead of being answerable to an inert world, we become answerable to each other. This is more compelling, because this is more pressing, and indeed, this is a presupposition for any discussion on the topic. Even Slingerland, who talks of "undesirable behavior Y", presupposes these types of language games. Cognitive science can never show us what is undesirable, precisely because in taking "material" as what one is answerable to, all questions of 'desire' are moot. What would it mean to desire a cognitive process? It's just there, that's all.

Of course, this does not mean that somehow we have a mystical soul or spirit that is immaterial. There are not just two options here. One can eschew any theory of human nature if you want, and you'll do just fine. One can talk about narrative instead (which is what assuming a discursive analogy for knowledge would lead one to do). One can say that 'I am such and such a person,' or 'we are such and such a society,' based on history, based on how we have been, and how we are, with each other. Then, based on these notions, we can propose new projects, we can appeal to old memories, projects and memories that we call "ideals," notions of how we ought to be, and how to get there, without the illusion that we have always "been" only one thing. 

But this just means that we acknowledge that description of how we do things, such as cognitive science tries to describe, is nothing we really want to reconcile ourselves to. We are always fighting against this. And if one day, with the help of cognitive science, we finally reconciled ourselves to the way the world is, I doubt anyone would want to live here.