![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 1 of 1. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by alexandra_k on March 28, 2005, at 3:26:54
(vii) Reductionism, Fictionalism, and Facts of the Matter
It is controversial as to whether beliefs and desires can be reductively explained in terms of levels of activity or activation of certain neurons or groups of neurons. While it is typically considered that beliefs and desires must be realised by neural activity plasticity of function and the fact that different people have different neural pathways challenge the notion that there may be such a thing as a ‘grandmother’ neuron (or group of neurons) that fire at a specific frequency when and only when one is thinking of ones grandmother. While this is controversial I think that neural activity will not assist us in getting any further ahead with respect to what specific belief and desire produces behaviour.
In the spirit of reductionism neuro-scientists attempt to find the correlates of intentional states in brain behaviour. In order to do this we must already have some way to determine whether the subject really was in a particular intentional state or not. If (a) we could determine what intentional state a subject is in, and (b) we found that it was correlated with something distinctive in the brain, then (and only then) could we use brain behaviour to correct our attributions of specific intentional states to assist us in determining what intentional state a given subject is in. The problem is that (a) is often indeterminate, in that multiple interpretations are possible, and there is also a problem in how we choose to operationalise intentional state terms (which would seem to me to be further grounds for indeterminacy). That makes (b) highly unlikely and (b) would always seem to be moderated by correlating brain behaviour with the bodily behaviour that we had to start with.
While there have been studies on the brain behaviour of DID subjects the data is hotly disputed. We have the bodily behaviour of systems and we are starting to look at brain behaviour of systems in order to assist us in explaining the behaviour of the system as a whole. A study was done where an fMRI scan was performed on a subject with DID when she switched between alters, and when she role-played switching to an ‘imaginary’ alter (Adler, 1999). While there were distinctive brain changes that were correlated with the ‘genuine’ as opposed to ‘fictional’ switch the significance of this finding is hotly disputed.
Suppose we grant that there were significant differences when the subject switched between alters. This finding still needs to be interpreted in order for us to decide on its significance. Most seem to agree that memories are contained within located modules in the cortex for the findings to have achieved such notoriety. If we grant this then we can argue about whether it shows us that some alters cannot access those memories, or whether they choose not to access those memories. All it shows is that some alters do not access those memories. Brain behaviour still needs to be interpreted and so it is hard to see how brain states can assist us in getting further ahead with respect to either specific intentional states, or the number of intentional systems. No collections of behaviour (bodily behaviour, physiological responses, or brain behaviour) will help us explain or interpret the significance of the phenomenon. But it is the significance or interpretation of the phenomenon that interests us the most and is the main subject of controversy. Typically what determines the issue still further and facilitates the discovery of ‘obvious’, ‘crucial’ data that decides which of the alternative theories is correct is the phenomena of theorists converging on a single theory. This seems to put the issue not so much in the ‘to be determined by science’ basket, but as well within the realm of conceptual analysis.
Despite my pessimism regarding the reduction of folk psychology I do not think that it is entirely accurate to write off intentional psychology as a mere fiction either. While it is indeed a matter of interpretation, the space of possible interpretations is restricted quite severely by reality constraints. There is the reality of the behaviour that we are seeking to explain and predict. There is also the reality of subsequent behaviour that may support or disconfirm our attributions. These reality constraints are obviously enough to render our predictions and explanations indispensable to us in our daily lives, but there is still a space of indeterminacy where multiple interpretations are possible.
I do not think that this indeterminacy counts against intentional psychology, particularly as one might consider that our rendering of essential properties and laws of nature is in the same boat. It seems plausible that there could be an indefinite number of ‘final’, or complete sciences that predict and explain all the past, present, and future nerve hits of mankind (Quine, 1960 p. 23); and it seems equally plausible that there should be an indefinite number of intentional state attributions that could predict and explain all the past, present, and future behaviours of any given intentional system. Such a consequence is not fatal to intentional psychology as it is not fatal to physics; such indeterminacy would seem to be inherent in any attempt that we make to predict, explain, interpret, and otherwise make sense of any given phenomena. This aspect of indeterminism, rather than being unreliable is what makes life interesting. It is the scope within which we carve out our own explanations, interpretations, and meanings, of ourselves, others, and the rest of the natural world.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Writing | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.