Friday, May 31, 2013

Brain or Mind?

What is the difference between the brain and the mind?

For most people the two are virtually identical. In common parlance people confuse them frequently.

What does the latest research in brain functioning have to do with the mind? Can cognitive neuroscience solve all of mankind’s problems or will it simply talk us out of our freedom?

Everyone is interested in the new research that is coming out of neuroscience laboratories. As often happens, those who seek funding for these studies tend to oversell them. They are now promising to find explanations for all of human behavior.

At that point, you can kiss your freedom goodbye. Or better, you can if you still believe that you have any.

Strangely enough, brain research has very little to do with mental functioning. Ultimately, that is not such a bad thing.

It is worth the trouble to take some time to try to understand how mind and brain differ from each other. I have posted about the topic before… here and here, for example. I will doubtless do so again.

Now Sally Satel has co-authored a book on the difference between mind and brain. It’s title: Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience. By way of an introduction to her book she has written a short essay on the topic for The Atlantic.

In some diseases, Satel writes, brain chemistry is the issue:

When scientists develop diagnostic tests or a medications for, say, Alzheimer's disease, they investigate the hallmarks of the condition: amyloid plaques that disrupt communication between neurons, and neurofibrillary tangles that degrade them.

We know well, Satel explains, that addiction has a decided effect on brain chemistry. Does that mean that the addict has no self-control and no responsibility for his behavior? Satel says that it does not.

In her words:

Thanks to heavy promotion by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, addiction has been labeled a "brain disease."

The logic for this designation, as explained by former director Alan I. Leshner, is that "addiction is tied to changes in brain structure and function." True enough, repeated use of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and alcohol alter the neural circuits that mediate the experience of pleasure as well as motivation, memory, inhibition, and planning -- modifications that we can often see on brain scans.

The critical question, though, is whether this neural disruption proves that the addict's behavior is involuntary and that he is incapable of self-control. It does not.

Continuing, she points out:

Yet to treat addicts and guide policy, it is important to understand how addicts think. It is the minds of addicts that contain the stories of how addiction happens, why they continue to use, and, if they decide to stop, how they manage. The answers can't be divined from an examination of his brain, no matter how sophisticated the probe.

Of course, addicts convince themselves that they have no self-control. They are persuaded that they cannot resist temptation. Thus, they absolve themselves of all responsibility, and persuade themselves to take drugs.

The scientistic idea that addicts have no free will works well to help addicts to stay addicted.

Naturally, defense attorneys have happily seized the neuroscientist excuse.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: His brain made him do it.

In Satel’s words:

The problem with these claims is that, with rare exception, neuroscientists cannot yet translate aberrant brain functions into the legal requirements for criminal responsibility -- intent, rational capacity and self-control.

What we know about many criminals is that they did not control themselves. That is very different from being unable to do so. To date, brain science cannot allow us to distinguish between these alternatives. What's more, even abnormal-looking brains, have owners who are otherwise quite normal.

As I and others have suggested, the end point of this logical train is the elimination of personal freedom and personal responsibility.

Respected researchers are moving in this direction:

Although we generally think of ourselves as free agents who make choices, a number of prominent scholars claim that we are mistaken. "Our growing knowledge about the brain makes the notions of volition, culpability, and, ultimately, the very premise of the criminal justice system, deeply suspect," contends biologist Robert Sapolsky.

To be sure, everyone agrees that people can be held accountable only if they have freedom of choice. But, there is a longstanding debate about the kind of freedom that is necessary. Some contend that we can be held accountable as long as we are able to engage in conscious deliberation, follow rules, and generally control ourselves.

Others, like Sapolsky, disagree, insisting that our deliberations and decisions do not make us free because they are dictated by neuronal circumstances. They say that, as we come to understand the mechanical workings of our brains, we'll be compelled to adopt a strictly utilitarian model of justice in which criminals are "punished" solely as a way to change their behavior, not because they truly deserve blame.

If no one deserves blame, no one deserves praise. If no one deserves the shame of failure, no one can earn pride in achievement.



25 comments:

n.n said...
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n.n said...
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n.n said...

Whether the mind (i.e. consciousness) originates or is expressed through the brain (i.e. physiological structure) is irrelevant and unknowable.

The concept of freewill is axiomatic. The personal responsibilities which follow from its recognition do not change with its disruption or immaturity, but does moderate the form of accountability.

Anonymous said...

If I want to disable the will (mental abilities) of an opponent the optimum strategy is to deliver a kinetic energy blow to the brain.

In The Varieties of Religious Experience the psychologist William James set aside theories he called "medical materialism."

This is the idea that there is a one to one (indexical) correlation between mental states and some measurable biological state.

Neural networks like the human brain are massively parallel information processing systems such that there is not a one to one correlation between the state of the adaptive brain and the perceptions the body generates from experience.

The mind recognizes patterns of human action and form judgments concerning those actions. The soil of morality, then, is a complex, natural, biological process.

The Bible refers to this natural process via an allegory: eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Later, it says, "He shall be eating curds and honey by the time he learns to reject the bad and choose the good."

Curds and honey are soft foods that would be eaten by the elderly living with fewer teeth among a tribe with no dentist.

Bobbye said...

"The concept of freewill is axiomatic." Not so n.n. There would not be such a discussion concerning "free-will" if it were self evident. Unfortunatly almost nothing is self evident. This keeps the philosophers (be they called neuroscientists, mathmeticians, or metaphysicists) very busy. Free-will is like a magic word which invokes a religious ferver amongs it's adherents. My dog sometimes gets into the trash-can for bones, even though she knows I disapprove. Is the dog exercising free-will? If free-will is only for humans then it is not simply about choice. What is it about? What we call ' moral agency? Now thats a whole different discussion about consciouness and the nature of the soul.

Anonymous said...

"The Brain, a Complex Self-organizing System, by Wolf Singer" is a nine page essay describing the basic scientific observations about nerve function, brains, perceptions, and behavior in lay terms. A keyword search should produce the URL.

Liberty may depend more on the spirit of forgiveness for human frailty than it does on the idea of free will. Corrupt regimes do not express much forgiveness but they do express rationalizations of punishment based on selective moral judgments.

JP said...

Standard issue human hypo- or monomania with respect to new discoveries.

There *is* space for some of this within the criminal justice system and there are good arguments that in some cases the punishments should be reduced.

This is why voluntary manslaughter exists.

It's pretty much an example of the brain/mind problem.

"Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender had no prior intent to kill and acted during "the heat of passion," under circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed. In the Uniform Crime Reports prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it is referred to as non negligent manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter is one of two main types of manslaughter, the other being involuntary manslaughter."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_manslaughter

JP said...

"If free-will is only for humans then it is not simply about choice. What is it about? What we call ' moral agency? Now thats a whole different discussion about consciouness and the nature of the soul."

People aren't prisoners of their own neurology like animals.

Animal plus increased frontal lobe minus many instinct restrictors = human.

It's the removal of instinct and it's replacement with culture/learning, that makes people different.

Free will increases to the extent that instinct declines.

You are replacing instinct with choice. Most of these choices are about habits, which is automatic free will.

Meaning that you created your own new instincts using free will.

It's a continuum not a binary.

Bobbye said...

JP says:"It's the removal of instinct and it's replacement with culture/learning, that makes people different."

Calvary horses were trained to go against the instinct to flee battle sounds, smells and sights. If they were trained then they learned, just like we teach a child to ride a bike. The horse must chose to stay in the battle. Until someone defines freewill and explaines to me how, acording to that definition, the horse chosing is different than a human chosing, I will not participate in the 'magic of freewill'. I absolutly know that humans are separate and special of all created beings, but that specialness is not revealed by 'free will'.

Anonymous said...

all is permitted.
no one is responsible.

sounds like a great plan for a criminal justice system.

or Benghazi.

JP said...

"Calvary horses were trained to go against the instinct to flee battle sounds, smells and sights. If they were trained then they learned, just like we teach a child to ride a bike. The horse must chose to stay in the battle."

People are the ones who are altering the horse's neurology.

Without people, the horse would never have gotten into battle.

Of course animals make decisions; however, these decisions are constrained by their neurology in a way that people are not constrained.

People do the same thing to dogs. In fact, the breeds of dogs were brought into existence because of their neurology.

People have childhoods.

Animals don't really have childhoods.

Perhaps if I say that people are partially prisoners of their neurology (say 50%), while animals are almost complete prisoners (say 98%).

In any event, people are qualitatively different than animals.

Just as animals are qualitatively different than plants.

n.n said...

Bobbye:

Freewill is a concept describing a causative force. We are incapable of distinguishing between a causative and directed force. The concept of freewill is therefore axiomatic. It is also because of our limited knowledge or awareness that we cannot distinguish between the freewill observed of an animal and a human being.

That said, freewill, as well as other distinguishing properties of the natural order and human beings, are articles of faith. However, until we know otherwise, it seems reasonable to assume (i.e. axiom) that we are, in fact, capable of causal actions.

There is no human being alive that does not explicitly or implicitly rely on articles of faith to order their perception of our world. The notable feature of science is not that it is capable of exposing truths, but that its insight is reconcilable and useful within a limited frame of reference.

David Foster said...

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: His brain made him do it."

And by the same logic....we, the ladies and gentlemen just sentenced your client to death. Our brains made us do it.

Anonymous said...

The thing that is missing in the use of addicts as an example is the withdrawal which constitutes real physical and emotional pain. This often constrains the addict from exercising his free will and allows him to continue to escape into a world seemingly more comfortable. Some addicts hate what they are doing but they are compelled either by some kind of mental block in their mind or some alteration of brain chemistry that requires the fix (after a period of abuse).
I do agree that ultimately people must be accountable to their actions, though. It is too hard to peer inside the mind and determine sick or even normal. I don't believe addiction is a "disease" , I believe it is a symptom of some other mental pain or problem.
All that said, there have been remarkable results for addicts quitting drugs like heroin, cocaine and alcohol using Ibogaine. The drug allows the user to escape a 3 or 5 day withdrawal but they undergo an intense 24 hour introspection (with some attendant nausea). It is said that some experiences cause the ingestor to face deeply hidden traumas and memories that may be the cause of their pain of which addiction to drugs is a symptom.
It is an interesting connection. The Ibogaine works by blocking receptors in the brain to interrupt the addiction but also can cause a revelation of psychological issues in the mind.
I haven't tried Ibogaine but have tried Ayahuasca and find the link between brain chemistry and thinking and action fascinating.

Bobbye said...

Sorry it's tomorrow when I reply but we lost power in the storm. The replies of most just confirm what I already knew: that free will is impossible to nail down. People, what is wrong with simply calling choice,choice? Why, why must it be called free will? Isn't it evident that we know so little of the world and the creatures in it that we should be humble in our attempts to explain it. n.n. is correct in saying "it seems reasonable to assume". Lots of things that seem reasonable turn out to be wrong. Everyone has opinions and everyone believes their opinions are correct; but they are opinions. I try to listen to all sides before forming an opinion and on freewill I am a hung jury. I have not seen a working definition of freewill even by the best philosophers. Perhaps I missed some enlightement. What does bother me is that so many just assume that invoking 'freewill' explains the situation.

Anonymous said...

I posted above at 8:37 and 10:56 AM.

Science is an expanding set of observations that alter judgment.

Some experiments show that choice is made first by the body and then later the self experiences the illusion of making a choice:

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

In scientific jargon we speak of the dependent variable and the independent variable. It may be that brain/body are making choices and generating the illusion that decisions are generated by some other "independent" process.

This model of conditional choice would explain more patterns of behavior (be more coherent with what I know) than the doctrine of free will.

n.n said...

Bobbye:

Freewill is the independent ability to cause an outcome. This is the opposite of a directed will, where outcomes follow through dependence. We are incapable of confirming independence, and therefore we are incapable of confirming freewill. This is an inherent limitation of existing inside the system which we hope to characterize. Our insight is necessarily limited by the parameters of the system.

The concept of freewill is a segue to the concept of individual dignity which is a segue to the concept of liberty.

The concept of freewill is an article of faith. As is the concept of individual dignity. Yet we assume that they are true, if for no other reason than respecting these concepts engenders a state of harmony between individuals generally and competing interests specifically.

Anonymous:

Science does not work with independent and dependent variables. It works with correlations, which are necessarily constrained to a limited frame of reference. Within that frame we can assume independence to estimate or model a phenomenon. The better correlation that we observe, the more confidence we can have in our initial assumption, and the estimates or models which follow from it.

Bobbye said...

n.n." The concept of freewill is an article of faith" You are the second person to bring up religion as concerns freewill, the other being anonymous (you sound like the kind of person worth knowing by name, even a fake one; just saying).Concerning freewill and faith I find myself more in agreement with Spurgeon. Freewill as a Christian doctrine tends to elevate man's sovereighty over God's sovereighty: that is it makes man to be god.(hint: Garden of Eden). AS far as faith goes, in the bible the word means 'persuaded'. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. It is confirmed by two or three witnesses, these being the Word, the Holy Spirit and the Church being in agreement with the Word and the Spirit. With this multitude of witnesses, faith is always reasonable.

n.n said...

Bobbye:

My faith is unreconciled. My reference to "articles of faith" is not in the context of religion, per se, nor to God, but to unscientific knowledge. That is knowledge which cannot be reproduced or tested within a limited frame of reference, specifically the frame where we are capable of sensing or even perceiving the absolute (or independent) nature of a phenomenon. Recall that science is a philosophy which is only valid within limited frames of reference. That is the material distinction between science and philosophy generally, including religion.

Anyway, the point of referring to an "article of faith" is to establish equivalence between those articles and axioms which are often required when proceeding with complex analysis. The articles of faith, as the axioms of, say, probability, form the foundation of a philosophy and provide coherence to its principles and evolving complexity.

As for elevating man's sovereignty over God's, that is also an article of faith. God is believed to exist outside of our universe, and is presumed to be omnipotent and omniscient within and perhaps without as well. Only the human ego would not recognize the scope and inherent limitations of our standing. I am not so arrogant to attempt to characterize something which is stated to exist beyond my capacity to sense and even to perceive its true nature.

n.n said...

Bobbye:

Here are my thoughts of the relationship between human and God's sovereignty.

Human beings were created in the "image" of God. They are animated by the spirit of God, but each a-tom of spirit (i.e. "soul") is independent from the other.

This description of a disjointed unity is similar to a computer network, where each node is independent, but comprises the whole; or, mathematically, it is a description of a curve, where each point is independent, and together contribute to its continuity, but do not necessarily ensure differentiability (i.e. "diversity").

n.n said...

you sound like the kind of person worth knowing by name

Thanks. I am happy to share my life and thoughts with people of like-mind.

JP said...

"Some experiments show that choice is made first by the body and then later the self experiences the illusion of making a choice:

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080411/full/news.2008.751.html

In scientific jargon we speak of the dependent variable and the independent variable. It may be that brain/body are making choices and generating the illusion that decisions are generated by some other "independent" process.

This model of conditional choice would explain more patterns of behavior (be more coherent with what I know) than the doctrine of free will."

I'm trust my brain/body to do things automatically without my input.

I mean, I'm thrilled that nanotechnology works as well it does.

I'm personally a fan of autopilot.

Anyhow, with respect to the issue of freewill/choice, freewill is choice.

Meaning that freewill means that somebody is free to will something.

In the case of the horse, the horse is obviously free to will itself saying in battle.

However, the horse, because of the limits of it's neurology would never will itself to organize a horse training system in the first place.

Freewill *is* choice.

However a *choice* implies a *chooser*.

The question with freewill is whether a *chooser* exists. A choice is only possible if there is someone who can choose.

"Freewill as a Christian doctrine tends to elevate man's sovereighty over God's sovereighty: that is it makes man to be god."

Last time I checked, I'm able to choose, but I'm only able to choose within certain boundaries.

"Calvary horses were trained to go against the instinct to flee battle sounds, smells and sights. If they were trained then they learned, just like we teach a child to ride a bike. The horse must chose to stay in the battle."

Yes, but their neurology was changed by people. A horse would never change it's own brain to go against it's own instincts to stay in a battle. A horse does not aspire to be a warhorse. Rather, it is trained by people to be a warhorse.

I'm personally not seeing that there's a problem if the horse makes a choice to stay in battle. It's never going to organize a warhorse training center.

JP said...

"n.n." The concept of freewill is an article of faith""

It's an a priori assumption about people and reality.

It can't be proven. However, if you want to assume that there is no free will, you are going to make dumb choices.

JP said...

"It may be that brain/body are making choices and generating the illusion that decisions are generated by some other "independent" process.

This model of conditional choice would explain more patterns of behavior (be more coherent with what I know) than the doctrine of free will."

In today's metaphysical lesson, we learn that people are capable of developing good habits and bad habits.

Which is also completely obvious and seems to be one of the points of this blog.

Anonymous said...

I posted above at 8:37. 10:56, and 11:21.


I agree with n.n. correlation is the basis of indexical science with measure of confidence that we call probability theory.

However in conventional science time is taken as the independent variable and correlated events are called dependent variables at each point in time. But time is just events which repeat with frequency such as day and night or motion of oscillation. There is no time in the perception of the eternal NOW.

Bobbye I agree with everything you say about animal and human choice not having to be based on the religious-like faith in free will.