I: Last time we established -- according to Logical Positivism -- or Logical Behaviorism -- some basic features of mind, which I will attempt to summarize. First, all of the components of mind -- of everything in fact -- are physical. Second, that mind-talk entities, like impressions, thoughts, ideas, judgments, feelings, speculations -- "meanings" -- and the like are nothing more than physical brain states --
LP: That is correct.
I: -- and thus that any talk of such would, on the Positivist account, have to consist, ultimately, of purely physical phenomena. "I have a stomach ache", "You don't like me", "That's stupid", "I am afraid of spiders -- or unicorns, or ghosts", "That appears to be a man lying there", "The arrow sign indicates we should turn left" -- all of these impressions, thoughts, ideas, judgments, feelings, speculations and meanings would have to be posited *entirely* in terms of brain anatomy and physical functions --
LP: That sounds stringent, but if you *don't* make that reduction, then you are left with at least some phenomena that are *non*-physical, which leaves us with the problem -- going back to Descartes -- of what that "other" matter is, and how it could possibly interact with physical matter. With -- well, lets start with physical matter, and energy and states of affairs. These interact easily and naturally and intimately with one another -- it is coherent to say that a bulb filament emits light waves, which are absorbed, or bounce off of, a physical object, then reach the physical eye, enter the lens, strike the retina, which generates nerve impulses, which are conducted along the optic nerve to the visual cortex, and then are further processed to generate a physical brain state -- a collection of neurons and axons and other "brain state" material reconfigured by the act of their reaction to the nerve impulse --
I: -- and these "states" -- purely physical -- become new objects in the interactive process of internal brain function. They are newly formed links in causal chains in the "thinking" process -- brain processes -- and take part in further physical interactions within the brain, or between the brain and the body, or other objects of the physical universe.
LP: That is correct.
I: No "ghosts", ectoplasm, spirits, disembodied entities, or the like.
LP: Yes, exactly.
I: Earlier I said that Aristotle and others long ago defined "physics" as "all that there *is*", not merely the basic matter of modern physics courses, apart from chemistry, astronomy, biology, geology, computer science, psychological, sociology, statistics and other subdivisions of modern science. Now it seems to me that "physical" and "existing" are two distinct concepts. The car you intend to purchase, which you may have already paid for in fact, but which hasn't rolled off the assembly line yet -- does not physically exist. On the other hand, the *meaning* of a yellow traffic light for an individual person: get ready to stop, or, speed up, perhaps -- what is that? Specifically, how does the dutiful Positivist or Behavioralist "reduce" the act of a driver perceiving a yellow light and slowing down -- or speeding up -- to the terms of purely physical states -- the light, the car, the foot on the brake or gas pedal, the restraining line at the intersection -- all of that -- to purely physical states.
LP: Colors again! you seem to be obsessed with color perception.
I: Well any sense will do. You could imagine the case in which while driving you hear a siren, or smell burning fuel, or feel a bee crawl up your sleeve, or taste something bad in the coffee you're drinking, or sense an imbalance in the seat cushion.
LP: In any event, this doesn't sound very much different from your "seeing red" case.
I: It isn't, really. In both cases we clearly have physical phenomena: light waves, biological bodies, physical reactions -- although in the case of the "red", we are talking about "experience" and "consciousness", which just might *not* be reducible on the Behavioralist account --
LP: You would have to --
I: Let me finish my point -- excuse me -- in both cases we have processes occurring. At least part of each case is purely and unproblematically physical in any ordinary sense of the term. At the very least, these parts of each case are reducible *to* purely physical phenomena, even if we may not *experience* them as purely physical phenomena -- or even experience them at all. We certainly don't feel, or observe, our rods and cones squirting out electrochemical impulses in reaction to being struck with photons. These processes are invisible to our bare senses.
L: Nor do you sense quarks regrouping in your nostrils when you sniff the kitchen air for signs of smoke --
I: -- and yet such phenomena -- on the physical level -- are part of the actual cause-and-effect chain. For brain states to emerge, or configure, or reconfigure in reaction to 7000 angstrom light waves striking the organ of the eye, all that is needed to give this account are the bare physical phenomena. None of it has to be "observed" by a conscious mind.
LP: Many people don't see this, because they are enveloped in the process of sensation and perception. One may receive a physical cut -- on one's finger, perhaps -- without being conscious of the cut occurring. The same is the case for brain state formation. Physical interactions occur along the entire route, from light bulb to brain state location, without the need to invoke *any* non-physical processes at all.
I: True, but to get back to the point I was leading up to, in presenting your Behaviorist reduction of "seeing red" to purely physical phenomena, you gave an account of the process of a brain state formation as the result -- the effect -- of sense perception of a particular beam of light.
LP: Which is what Logical Behaviorism offers.
I: Yes, but the question at hand is whether the reduction is complete, that is, whether the Behaviorist account of an act of perception covers all of the elements involved in that act.
As I see it, there are two potential sources of error. First, it is possible, as the mind-dualists -- who believe in mind and brain as separate and distinct entities, one physical, the other not -- maintain, that at least some parts of the perception process are non-physical, namely, consciousness of -- experience of -- the world, and one's own brain states -- and the meaning of and interpretation attached to brain states. If so, then Positivist "reduction" to physical phenomena *fails*, because not all components of an act of perception are reducible to physical phenomena, because some components of an act of perception simply are not physical.
LP: Positivism rejects that claim, and the entire "ghost in the machine" model.
I: It does, which does not entail that Positivism is correct. However it is not an unreasonable position, especially if we are broadminded enough to take the Aristotelian view, the view we find in many ancient Greek and Roman views, that "physics" is "all that there is", not in the reductionist sense that only physical entities "count as real", but in the inclusive sense that if a thing exists, it is by definition or default *physical*.
LP: Either way, the Positivist position stands: everything is reducible to the physical.
I: Well, that may be true, but I have no firm commitment to dualism *or* to monism -- the view that mind consists solely of physical brain states or whatever else the physical brain is constructed of, or that perception is a solely physical process whatever the perception process ultimately involves. As I see it, existence takes precedent over physicality, which I see as a 7000-angstrom light-wave herring. We could conflate "existence" into the notion of physicality, or vice versa. In any case, the spirit of Positivism seem to urge us to posit what is, or could be found on examination to be real, or existing, which is what Positivists and others seem to want from their appeal to "physics" --
LP: In other words, Occam's razor, closely applied --
I: For a clean shave -- I understand. But I am making a distinction between the monism/dualism issue, and what I feel is the more substantive issue, the issue as to whether the reductionist process is, or can be, carried out completely. If there are gaps or omissions or other faults in the mind-body reduction, then reduction fails, and consequently the Positivist schema for producing a physical model of the mind fails.
LP: Well if there is only physical being, then Positivist reduction of "mental" phenomena to physical phenomena automatically goes through.
I: It most certainly does not! Mind-body reduction is not a metaphysical fact of the matter about the way things are. To say that it is, is equivalent to saying that because there are prime numbers we can therefore determine which of all of the infinitely many number *are* prime, which is a patently false claim. For Positivism to claim successful mind-body, or mind-brain, reduction in a specific case, it must demonstrate that reduction by giving a physical account of all -- *all* -- so-called "mental" phenomena.
Now such a reduction may be possible for each and every purported mental phenomenon, just as it ought to be possible -- in theory at least -- to show that every rock and stone is comprised solely of atoms, but to allege that one can do this, and to actually *do* it are very different things. We have seen this problem -- the problem of proof -- in mathematics, namely the Incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel which demonstrate that not all true mathematical propositions are *provable*. The important thing to remember here is that we are -- I am at least -- concerned with *knowledge*. It may be the case that all mental activity may be fully and thoroughly explainable in terms of, say, superstring theory, but to say that this is possible is not to have done it.
And this sums up my second point: ultimately, everything that is, *is*, so that the question as to whether everything is "physical" or not drops out, replaced by the question as to whether everything falls into some more specific category of existence, such as atoms, or quarks, or putatively non-physical entities such as "numbers" or "verbs", or "relations" or "types" or "generalities". And in giving an account of mind -- that is, in establishing *knowledge* about general or specific mental processes -- the question is whether the explanation -- reduction or not -- is complete and correct.
Now Positivist "verification theory" seems to me to be something of a kludge -- an unartful device for attempting to ensure Positivist truth claims. the reasoning seems to be:
(1) We can give a full and verified (or verifiable) account of all physical phenomena.
(2) If mental phenomena can be fully reduced to physical phenomena, then we can give a full and verified (or verifiable) account of mental phenomena.
(3) Mental phenomena *can* be fully reducible to physical phenomena.
(4) (Therefore) we can give a full and verified account of all mental phenomena.

I take issue with (3), not out of a general prejudice against Positivism, or even from a rejection of (3)'s claim that mental phenomena *is* fully reducible to physical phenomena. Personally, I see no inherent difficulty with such a reduction, given a sufficiently broad, liberal and non-arbitrary view of "physics". What I do take issue with is what I and others feel is a hack-reduction that simply throws out what it cannot explain. It is like a jigsaw puzzle enthusiast tossing out the puzzle pieces that "do not appear to fit".
LP: You feel that Positivism is too Procrustean?
I: It should not be Procrustean at all. Whether Procrustes removes my entire legs, or merely my toes, I am still being mutilated in the process of being arbitrarily fit to my bed.
LP: Well, Positivism is a reaction to dualists who employ ad hoc entities out of thin air -- if even that! -- to explain -- if we can even dignify the process with that word -- mind. They come up with "seat of the mind', "soul", "consciousness", "self", "intuition", "ideas", "feelings", "attitudes", "guilt", "pride", "honesty", "moral turpitude", "evil", "sanctity" and the like ad infinitum and ad nauseum as if they were populating a new region of Middle Earth or Never-Never Land --
I: Well, one can certainly do a bad job of accounting for mental states, and it is anyone's judgment as to whether dualists or monist are -- well, we cannot call them "evil", can we? -- well, let's say, mistaken.
LP: Verification theory at least serves the purpose of screening out the uncertain and the doubtful --
I: It does, though what virtue is there in presenting an incomplete picture as the whole picture? It is simply a different form and source of error. And if we must leave certain areas of our map blank, that seems to be more illuminating than to make the bold claim that what is unknown does not exist.
LP: I understand your point, but the aim of Positivism was -- is -- to cut out the sort of empty speculation that hobbles theories about new and intractable phenomena. Democritus posited atoms: round and slippery water atoms, heavy and blocklike earth atoms, light and feathery air atoms, sharp and prickly fire atoms, not because there was a shred of evidence to show that the shape of atoms belied their properties, or even that there were exactly four kinds of atoms, but because it "sounded neat". So did crystalline spheres holding the planets in their orbits --
I: -- or ad hoc "ether" conducting waves of light from the Sun to the planets. Yes, yes. But this only means that we must be scrupulous in our investigation into the unknown, not to mindlessly -- no pun intended -- apply an epistemic principle whose justification is that it meets the expectations of its subscribers. In the case of the observation of mental activities -- the "verification" of mental claims -- in order to discern their existence, the presuppositions about what constitutes "evidence" of mind, of consciousness, intent, awareness, feeling and so forth actually serve to winnow out the very sorts of observational data that would support -- more than support -- reveal -- mental phenomena, whether that phenomena is ultimately physical or not.
LP: But if mental activity *is* ultimately physical, then why bother about the "mental speak"? Astronomers do not have to learn about the ancient legends behind the constellations in order to map out the star charts.
I: But -- at least in the beginning -- "constellations", whatever their ultimate nature, were how people *experienced* the canopy of stars. They experienced the stars as constellations, noticed that they held together in these albeit arbitrary groupings, and that the various constellations were "fixed" in reference to each other even as they revolved in the sky, how planets ("wanderers") and comets and meteoroids behaved very differently, wandering about willy-nilly, even falling to earth, and they began to derived inferences from them --
LP: Such as astrological forecasts.
I: Which proved, on further scrutiny, to be false. Astronomers also proved that the stars in so-called "constellations" -- "star clusters" -- were not truly associated with one another, only seeming to be "together" until the principle of "parallax" revealed that these compact images were actually many light-years apart, but their distances collapsed due to perspective foreshortening.
Look at original Behaviorism and its ineffective modifications. According to simple Behaviorism -- Identity theory -- the mind *is* the brain, and the brain is made up of -- among other things -- networks of brain states: cells, or groups of cells that possess a "state" -- whatever that means -- in virtue of their electrical charge or physical configuration or some other physical distinction resulting from neuron activity traceable back to the eye, or the nose or the ear, or central nervous system feedback, or input from adjacent cells. This explanation sounds very enriching until one stops to realize that the fact that a cell or cell group has a certain configuration -- like the configuration of a constellation, I might add! -- in no way entails any semantic content. What is there to say that a brain state *means* anything at all, much less this thing or that thing? And to what does the state mean what it does? The fact that three neurons are in a physical "state" does not entail that this group of cells contains a certain specific "meaning" that references the state of the eye, or the ear, say. Nor does the fact that there is a causal relationship between the state of the eye and some brain state entail that there is *any* meaning to be "read" into, or out of, that brain state -- however such "reading" is supposed to work -- nor who -- or what -- "does the reading". Nothing in Identity Theory overcomes the homunculus problem: the need for a little man inside the brain who reads the brain states form by the bigger man who has the perceptual experience.
LP: Well, if one looks at computer states as an analogy --
I: Just a second -- the infamous "computer analogy" model of the brain is over used, much abused, and actually serves more faithfully as a *contrast* to actual brain activity than a model of it. It also applies more readily to the somewhat more sophisticated "functionalist" model of the brain than to Behaviorism simple.
LP: Well -- I would disagree. A computer functions as "an electronic brain" that takes in sense data of various kinds, processes that data and produces output, just as a human brain does --
I: But it doesn't. A computer may be linked to a sensor that detects 7000 angstrom light waves -- even "patterns" of such light waves so as to form a space-time configuration of such light wave patterns, but it does not have the experience of "seeing red", "being rough and shaggy" or "appearing esthetically tacky".
LP: [laughing] How can you be sure?
I: Are you claiming that a computer *does* have these experiences, having emphatically and categorically denied that a person has them?
LP: I'm joking, of course. What I am serious about is the claim that what humans do in perceiving sensations is any *more* than what a computer does.
I: Well a very simple system consisting of a sensor linking to a CPU that merely changes a computer bit from a zero to a one when 7000 angstrom light strikes the sensor is such a system. This would be the equivalent of an amoeba flinching at a beam of light, but you would not argue on the basis of the existence such a system that an amoeba -- scarcely more complex or sophisticated than a single neuron -- had the capacity to "experience red" in the sense that humans do.
LP: If it is a matter of degree --
I: Well, psychologists speak of "thresholds" of complexity, or abundance of sense-data, minimality of cognitive workspace and such. I would appeal to the image of a driver pressing an on-off switch that results in his car starting up, driving safely to the market and back home again. It is too simple a structure to accomplish what it does. Furthermore, while a pocket calculator and a human being can both input "2", "2", and the "plus" operation and produce an output of "4", I believe it would be a mistake to assume that the same functions -- even the same methodologies -- are employed in both case. Computers, even the most sophisticated AI computers, merely "mimic" human actions. They simply lack -- for whatever reasons -- a phenomenological "self" that motivates and attaches meaning to the process.
LP: "The self in the machine"? Isn't it cheating a bit to assert the existence of your ghost without at least some sensational photos of the "geist" in action?
I: Only if it is subject to Occam's Razor, which was designed to eliminate superfluous entities -- ghosts that drive and operate the machine, but fail to serve as explanations for how and why the machine works as it does. Even a cat has a "self" that the most sophisticated computer today completely lacks. It is this self -- and I am by no means committed to a non-physical self phoning in messages to the pituitary gland from Out There -- that is *required* in *any of the Positivist models of the mind simply to "read" the brain states produced by external physical phenomena. And "reading" requires a *reader*, whatever such an entity specifically entails in its form and function.
LP: But a "reader is, as you suggest, a homunculus in disguise --
I: Positivists and Cartesian Dualists alike seem to think so. Monists claim that any such "reader", or "conscious self" must be non-physical, and hence cannot exist, while dualists argue from the same premise to the opposite conclusion: that the "self" -- the "observing subject" of all of the physical objects of the brain and the world -- *must* exist, since there is no "reading", or "observation", or "interpretation" of these physical entities without some sort of reader, observer or interpreter. Yes, you can raise the homunculus objection, and the "infinite regression" objection as well. But that line of argument -- even if it ultimately pans out -- does not explain the most important aspects of "mind": observance, meaning, intention and the like.
Just look at the sequence of Behaviorist theories -- bad as they are -- that freshmen philosophy majors are subjected to by rote: Basic Identity Theory, Type Theory, Token theory and their sterile permutations, and the ultimate dead end: Functionalism, which we are stuck with because phenomenology is not widely taught to college -- freshman for some inexplicable reason, at least here in the West.
LP: Shall we go through these theories, or simply dismiss them outright?
I: By all means, let us put each on trial. The result of this exercise is conspicuous in what it leaves out.
LP: Well, first, there is Identity Theory simpler. Your "mind" *is* your brain, just as your carry-around wealth *is* the cash and credit cards you carry in your wallet or handbag. The parts of your mind -- your memories, your judgments, your feelings -- all that is simply this or that part of your brain. The thought "I am feeling queasy" is simply some configuration of whatever brain states are involved in that "thought", just as a case of beer is the twelve cans or bottle of beer (plus the carton that holds them), and nothing more than that.
I: And the objection -- one of them -- to that model of mind is that when you, I, my cat -- everyone in China who drank from a certain bad lot of tea -- is that each of these beings who entertains the thought -- or the feeling -- "I am queasy" has precisely the same brain state -- even my cat. Suppose -- we don't actually know how such thoughts or feelings (if we may call them that) are expressed in the brain -- that in fact, the "mental thought": "I feel queasy" (or, "This carpet is red", or "This carpet is tastelessly garish") is -- *is* -- just some brain state. Let us suppose that a cluster of three neurons linked in a triangle with positive charges all around -- and a certain specific blend of serotonin, dopamine and other chemicals -- and any other specific conditions you like -- *are* what we describe to ourselves and others as the thought: "I feel queasy". We then look into my brain -- lord knows where -- and see or otherwise detect this triangle of neurons, accompanied by a well-choreographed flow of psycho-chemicals moving about between the axons -- all decked out like the cast of a Busby Berkeley musical number. The whole "object" -- or "event" over time if temporal changes are required -- *is* that thought.
Given this identity between mind-object and physical-object, the presence of this material configuration of neurons, chemicals and processes is a sure-fire guarantee that the possessor of this brain containing this brain state within it *has* the thought: "I feel queasy", no matter whether this -- literally -- piece of a brain is present in me you, my cat or everyone in China who had the tainted "budget blend" lot #3340192.
LP: Exactly! Nor is this at all unusual. Only the spurious introduction of "mind" concepts makes it mysterious. If you were looking for incidence of malaria infection rather than "queasiness", you would not look for intangible or vague or disembodied entities. You would look for the presence of a purely physical virus -- that would be your infection, not some "effluviance of 'bad air' ".
I: If only it were that straightforward for mental phenomena. We have been discussing type-type identity theory --
LP: Where a *type* -- or kind -- of mental state corresponds to a *type* of physical state. In your hypothetical example, "having a queasy sensation" corresponds to a neuron triangle in the brain. To have one is to have the other. And both the mental state and the physical "types" are kinds, so that "queasiness" may cover a commonly related family of sensations, from perhaps "a slightly icky sensation" to "intense nausea", and "neuron triangles" may consist of exactly three neurons, but a variety of proportions of neurochemicals associated with the triangle. Hence, type-type: a specific *kind* of "mental" state is really a specific *kind* of "physical" state.
I: But there are other possibilities, aren't there?
LP: Well, there could be type-token, token-token, and I suppose, token-type models, although you don't hear much discussion about that last model.
I: Is it weaker than the others?
LP: No . . . it's just that there are problems -- pretty much the same problem -- with all four models, and since the other three came up first and failed, there seemed to e little reason to suppose the fourth would be any more fruitful.
LP: For the sake of thoroughness, could you run through them for me?
LP: Sure. First, type-type, which we just discussed, draws a link -- or really an *equivalence* between an alleged mind state and an actual brain state. It is important to remember that there *is no* mental state, only our belief, our perception, that there is one. In actuality, there is only the physical state -- a neuronal triangle parked in some corner of the brain that *is* the sensation of queasiness. There may be an actual varied assortment of physical states all of which together comprise "queasiness" just as -- we know this -- there are some fifty to a couple of hundred distinct cold viruses, all of which produce the same -- or pretty much the same -- symptoms. So if you have any of the hundred-odd cold viruses, then you will have any of the varieties of colds going around, maybe a runny-nose cold, or a feverish cold, or a runny-nose and not feverish but very achy cold, and so forth. We group together related mental or experiential phenomena and link it - find an equivalence to a related group of physical states.
I: And token-token theory?
LP: Well it is important -- as I constantly remind my students --
I: --and I, mine.
LP: -- that "type" means "kind", that is, a "kind" of thing, like a *kind* of brain state or a *kind* of mental state or experience often consists of more than one specific state, but a collection of distinct states all of which have enough in common to justify defining a "kind". It's just like having green frogs and bullfrogs and red-legged frogs and spring frogs -- they clearly differ from each other -- but they are all definitely frogs, if you see what I mean?
I: Yes. So unlike type-type identity theory, in which one *kind* of mental state is in fact one *kind* of physical state -- all mental states of "queasiness" are actually physical groups of neuron triangles, that may vary in some specific details.
LP: And in token-token theory, well -- you can think of that as a more particularized form of type-type in which the "kind" of mental or physical state has only one member. Any difference from that particular state entails a different *kind* --
I: So whereas type-type theory is more broad and accommodating in lumping together distinct but closely similar states, token-token is more particular -- each distinct mental state is linked to a corresponding specific state. In the case of "queasiness", there would be -- I don't know -- perhaps 76 distinct possible mental forms of "queasiness", each of which has its own specific characteristics which it shares with all other like state of queasiness, and correspondingly 76 physical brain states, each corresponding to a different mental state of queasiness.
I should stress again - as people always tend to overlook this key point -- in Identity Theory, as opposed to Functionalism and other theories of mind -- the relation between the mental state and the physical state is *equivalence*. That is the strongest relation there is: A is equivalent to B if and only if A *is* B, if they are one and the same, just as Mark Twain is one and the same person as Samuel Clemens, no more and no less.
But to get back to token-token theory and the "queasiness" example, if there are 76 distinct types of queasiness, then they differ as to distinct and unambiguous characteristics, just as distinct varieties of frogs differ in their physical make up, down to their DNA --
I: When you say "different", do you mean different forms of queasiness regarded as mental states, or as physical brain states?
LP: Oh, both, of course. As the mental state is *equivalent* to the brain state, then any difference in the mental state entails a difference in the brain state, and vice versa. As mental phenomena, the range of "queasinesses" may range from very vague and mild unease down to acute and highly intense distress. As physical entities, the 76 possible "queasy" brain states may reveal their differences in their structure. Very mild queasiness (Q-1), may consist of a triangle of three neurons, while slightly more intense queasiness may also be a triangle of neurons, but in this case, two neurons on each side of the triangle for a total of six neurons. On the other hand, Q-76 queasiness -- hurricane-level nausea, reeling vertigo and the dry heaves -- may consist of a line of 76 interconnected neurons on each side of the triangle. Or maybe the physical configuration is something different and or interesting. Perhaps Q-1 is a simple triangle of three neurons, while Q-2 consists of six neurons arranged in a three-sided pyramid -- a tetrahedron --, while Q-60 is some kind of cellular "Bucky-ball" --
I: "Bucky-ball"?
LP: After the architect R. Buckminster Fuller, who came up with the geodesic dome home -- a shape composed of some sixty triangles in a rigid and sturdy and approximately spherical shape. I am speculating wildly -- but you can see the principle behind all this. The "mental" characteristics of a mind-state are related by a one-to-one function of the physical characteristics of a brain state.
I: And one-to-one relationships are --?
LP: A simple but important mathematical / set-theoretical relationship. Take the "Little Orphan Annie" secret code: A = 1, B = 2 and so on to Z = 26. This pairing up of individual letters with the first twenty-six integers is a classic example of one-to-one relationships. For each and every letter there is one and only one corresponding integer. And, for each and every number (from one to twenty six), there is one and only one letter of the alphabet. Actually, when the one-to-one relation goes the other way, it is called an "onto" relation, but no matter -- this is a feature of what are known as "equivalence" relations. Both type-type and token-token theories of mind are essentially equivalence relations between mental states and physical states. To be one is to be the other. Now the other two possible Identity Theories of Mind turn out to be somewhat weaker theories, that is, they fail to have a one-to-one relation in one of the two directions, and so the relation is no longer an equivalence relation, but something weaker.
I: Weaker how?
LP: Well, you know the logic examples: all poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles. More specifically, my Fifi is a poodle, but not all poodles are my Fifi, even though Fifi *is* a poodle. How does this apply Identity Theory of Mind? Well, when it come to mental phenomena, "identity" is really very tricky and often quite problematic.
I: How so?
LP: Well, once you introduce something "mental", above and beyond the physical brain state, you can no longer verify the claim that two persons have the same "thought", or conversely, that the "same" thought in two cases is produced by, or is "of" the same phenomenon. Type-token and token-type theory reflect this difficulty.
I: Explain.
LP: Take type-token theory. In this theory, any instance of a "type" of stimulus generates the same "token" brain state. For example, suppose that any of the many possible shades of "red" is represented in the brain as merely "red", signified by the same individual brain state whether one perceives maroon, crimson, brick, pink, or any other shade of red.
I: Well surely any sense-perception apparatus has its limitations. A yardstick can distinguish between the heights of two persons, one, say, five feet and three-quarters of an inch, and the other five feet one inch, but not between two persons, say, a sixteenth of an inch apart --
LP: Of course not. But that is not the difficulty. The difficulty lies in the introduction of mind and "mental" stuff into the process. According to dualists, there is a "mental" component to seeing "red" above and beyond having the "Red" brain state. The consequence is that one person may glance at a scarlet carpet and another at a burgundy carpet, and their brain states be the same. The reason for this is that both brain states are physical configurations generated by similar but *not* identical stimuli. This is unfortunate, but unavoidable.
I: That would mean that they "see" the same color -- "red" -- without any further distinction whereas if their brain states were different, it would suggest that they actually *perceive* different shades of red.
LP: Their having different brain states in response to seeing different shades of red wouldn't *suggest* that they perceive different shades of red -- it would *prove* it.
I: That's a rather strong claim.
LP: But unless you wish to introduce spurious "ghost-like" properties to color and to eyes and to brains, it has to be that way. Look -- if two people have the *same* brain state with respect to seeing two different shades of a color -- or two colors, for example, then they are in effect "blind" to any differences in the two shades. Yes, different colors generate the same brain state, but that is a misfortune of the limitations upon our sense-apparatus.
I: It *would* weaken the object-brain state relation, would it not?
LP: It certainly would. And that is the problem with type-tokenism. But token-type theory -- or Functionalism as it is formally called -- is even worse, though that has lately been the generally preferred option for sense-perception theory.
I: How would that work?
LP: Personally, I don't think it does, but the idea is this. Many theorists -- and rightly so -- raised an objection about basic token-token identity theory, in which a particular, specific stimulus generates in the brain a particular, specific brain state. The claim is that the same stimulus of -- take the case of our red carpet -- 7000 angstrom light waves will generate the *same* brain state, just as the same molecules -- hydrogen and oxygen -- produce water -- H2O. Simple and predictable and reliable cause and effect. The problem is that given the difference in the brains of individual people, to say nothing of the brains of cats, fish and Martians, it seems unlikely that the particular brain state in all of these different creatures is *identical*. After all, why should a guppy have the same brain structure as a human being. Such a fish *can* distinguish red -- back to behaviorism! -- just as some birds and insects and other creatures seem to be able to distinguish colors for practical purposes. But we *know* that the brain structures of these highly varied creatures are quite different, so it would be unlikely -- perhaps impossible in some cases -- for very different creatures to have precisely the same "red" brain states, despite all of them being able to "see" red.
Functionalism was inspired by the evolutionary nature of computers. All computers can, say, add 2 and 3 to get 5. But an abacus is made up of a frame, and rods and moveable beads, so the input (2, 3), the operation of addition, and the output (5) exists in the form of various quantities of beads in different positions on any of a number of rods. The addition process would consist of a specific temporal sequence of changes in abacus "states" -- still configurations of beads on rods.
But there are also "Babbage"-type calculators -- wheels and gears and cogs mounted on axles. Notches on the wheels indicate numbers, and the "addition" process consists of a specific series of turns of the interlocking wheels. Then there are computers with vacuum tubes, or transistors, or integrated circuits on silicon chips -- and a multitude of other media and algorithms -- all of which "function" as simple adding devices capable of receiving and outputting the exact same I/O, even while using different algorithms for addition. *Nothing* is the same in these various cases, except for I/O. Behaviorism would claim that identical I/O implies identical "mental" content -- at the very least, identical physical states, but the "functional" model permits wildly different internal states and processes. Computers consist of a broad range of "black boxes", each with its own internal mechanisms and algorithms, all producing *exactly* the same "cause and effect" relation. But the machine itself -- in Behaviorist terms -- is a mystery, hence the black box" moniker. It is the mysterious widget that is essential to the computational process that makes the cause and effect relation work. In the case of computers, thank goodness, we can open them up and examine the internal mechanism in order to verify the causal chain of computer I/O. But in brains -- well -- we cannot do that.
I: Is that because we have not completely fathomed the human brain's operations, or because there is more to a mind that one's brain?
LP: You have just restated the monist/dualist debate, very succinctly, I might add.
I: Yes, but -- well, what I'm getting at is that this monist/dualist debate, for all the heat and rancor and furor it has generated during the 20th century -- is it *really the source of the problem of minds? Or is it only a red herring?
LP: What do you mean?
I: Well, the monist/dualist debate -- it seems to be about what kind of substances comprise mind -- whatever the mind turns out to be. Now it is clearly important for monists that the "mind" be made up only of "physical" matter. This is because "mind" and "body" need to interact somehow, otherwise our minds would have no effect upon our bodies; our minds would literally be intangible, ineffectual ghosts in the machine of our bodies. Our, bodies would then be made solely of purely physical matter, driven solely by physical energy, possess only physical states, and -- well -- be purely determined by external physical objects and forces. The mind would play *no* part in our physical existence, save as a completely passive witness to our bodies' mechanizations, as if we were passengers inside.
LP: We certainly don't endorse *that* view.
I: Of course not. Therefore the mind must be *purely* physical. But what does this mean? What constitutes "the physical"? If you restrict the physical to the highly limited "modern physics 101" model, you over-reduce the "mind", you deny the existence of complex physical relationships that yield unconventional -- by the overly narrow standards of elementary physics -- objects and events that we encounter in our ordinary lives. If, on the other hand, you were willing to accommodate many of the most inescapable features of "mind": memory, images, judgments, reasoning, feelings, consciousness, selfhood and the like, I would expect you would have to broaden your notion of "physical" considerably -- and yet -- you would *not* have to, as you clearly fear would happen, invent non-existent entities ad hoc or ad libitum to patch up the holes in Behaviorism.
LP: But you could never verify the existence of even the simplest of these "mental" objects, states or properties. If I am thinking of a pink elephant, unless I *act* as if I am thinking of one, how could you ever prove it?
I: You could *tell* me you are thinking of one.
LP: That is hogwash. You could be lying, or mistaken.
I: Only if there were a matter of fact as to whether I was thinking of a pink elephant. Either I am or I am not thinking of a pink elephant. Verifiability is an epistemic matter, not a metaphysical one. Consider all of the bakers who do not -- actually -- know what yeast is, yet produce bread just the same.
LP: But you initial assumption here is that you are seeking a theory of knowledge on which to base your investigations into ethics.
I: Yes, and of what use is a theory of knowledge that rules that if the existence or nature of a certain entity of process is not "verifiable" by Positivistic standards, it therefore not only does *not* exist, it is also *meaningless*? That is a very severe, and not at all useful test for knowledge, is it? It errs too far on the side of skepticism.
LP: Isn't it better than going too far the other way? What good is belief in hypotheticals? You end up endorsing belief in improbables, impossibles -- even contradictories --
I: I know, I know. I'll be speaking with such people shortly, and I will have many bones to pick with *them*. Still, "two plus two is less than four" is hardly more correct than "two plus two is greater than four". Besides, by far the most critical and intractable "mental" stuff is not unobservable to *everyone* --
LP: Can you see *my* thoughts?
I: No, but I seem to be able to see mine -- some of them at least -- although there certainly is room in Positivism / Behaviorism for a generously large subconscious, or even an unconscious -- in fact -- and this is another fault with all of the type, token, type-token and all theories, and that is there is no account at all of a consciousness. No need for it, certainly no use for it, or even a mechanism that could possibly account for it, That is why you hem and haw at a account for "seeing red". Under Behaviorism, a human being is no more "conscious" than a vending machine. There is simply no need for it at all.
LP: There is no need for "awareness" or "feeling" in perception, or in human action.
I: Do you believe so? Do you really think so? Are you aware that you are exhibiting *and* professing and appealing to mental state in your debate with me? That is "bad faith", as Sartre would say.
LP: We are raised to behave as if we have "minds" as you describe --
I: In our "Skinner Boxes" as children, being fed data as if we were hard disks? Do you think that "consciousness" is *merely* an ad hoc concept, like "crystalline spheres" that are supposed to hold the planets in place, or "ether" that provides a medium for a beam of light to wave in?
LP: Those *are* ad hoc concepts --
I: Or "gravity", which is even less tangible that a crystalline sphere? Or "neutrinos", which were postulated to balance quantum theory equations -- "cook the books" so to speak. Most features of our "minds" -- as opposed to our "brains" -- are quite clearly and unambiguously presented to us. I cannot imagine *where* in my brain the next thought I express will be located, or what physical form it will be manifested in. Still -- and this is the thought -- *I* will be the witness to that thought every bit as much as you will be the witness to the color of this carpet.
LP: But does your behavior -- your assertion -- your [dryly] *promise* that you have this thought entail your having it?
I: If there is only one person in the forest, and a tree falls, does it make a verifiable sound? This is what concerns me. Two Positivists who claim that the red light went on when the oscilloscope line flattens out are taken at their word, despite the fact that "seeing red" is not a verified -- even a theoretically verifia*ble* -- even a defined --phenomenon under Positivism. There is this inherent dependence of Positivist practice upon the very "consciousness of phenomena" that it sweepingly rejects --
LP: Well --
I: There is, on the Behaviorist account, a complete severance between the purely physical "human eye receiving 7000 angstrom light waves and transduction of this energy impulse to biochemical electrical impulse reaching the visual cortex" description and "Oops! -- the red light went on!" There is no connection between the two. None. Consciousness may be a ghost in the machine, but it is "we" who turn out to be the "ghosts" --
LP: Well --
I: This seems to be the source of the apparent failure of Positivist reduction. The *objects* of Positivist investigation are unproblematic, but the *subject* of Positivist investigation -- the "observer" is completely absent. Everything is an object or process in an extended, fully determinist "cause-and-effect" chain. But there is no account given of the observers to this set of objects and processes of events. In short, there is no *knowledge*, because there is no *knower*.
LP: Well, of course there are knowers --
I: -- about which we apparently can know nothing. The subject of investigation is merely "assumed", taken for granted, as if there were nothing more to be said on the subject. As I said at the beginning of this discussion, half of modern epistemologists focus exclusively on the object of knowledge, ignoring the subject of knowledge -- these are the Positivists / Behavioralist -- while the other half focus exclusively on the subject of knowledge, ignoring the object of knowledge. Worse, each side seems to take its position in reaction to and to defiance of the other side.
LP: Well, maybe the "other side" can address your concerns more fully --
I: I doubt it. but we shall see. The question is why -- *why* -- does modern epistemology wage civil war between object and subject, when "knowledge, it seems to me, is a relation between subject and object. I can't think of any coherent view of knowledge that does not acknowledge and describe this relation, and take it to be central to the issue at hand.
LP: The issue of ethics? --
I: Of ethics, which -- and our discussion has helped me to isolate and frame this idea -- appears to be about people *as* subjects, not objects.
LP: I don't follow you --
I: Positivism, Behaviorism, Functionalism -- all of these treat people as objects of investigation. But "persons" -- entities that observe, think, and act -- are *not* objects of perceptioon, at least not solely objects, but *subjects* of perception, and action and will and awareness and experience -- all things even a Positivist must be to acquire knowledge.
LP: Good luck in your endeavors.
I: Thanks -- I'll need it.

I: The surety that Positivism offers seems to come at harrowing cost. Last time we spoke I had the impression that the Positivists not only did not subscribe to such familiar phenomena as *color*, but to -- well -- to *people*.
LP: Of course Positivists subscribe to people. Positivists *are* people.
I: That's not what I -- oh, well -- what I mean is, for example, when you were giving an account of the color "red", you dwelt on light rays and lenses and optic nerves -- and did your best to wriggle out of any description at all of the one *seeing* the color red, experiencing it, perceiving it. How can you have sense perceptions -- and knowledge -- without perceivers, and knowers?
LP: Remember "verification" -- which is not only an important element of Logical Positivism as it arose in the early 1950's, but of previous forms of Positivism going back to the 17th century. Knowledge claims are confined to either necessary truths -- like mathematical theorems, which are not dependent upon any particular state of affairs; they are simply and always true -- and to empirical observations -- non-necessary but actual, confirmed truths. We can observe people insofar as they are physical bodies subject to empirical observation. We can examine brain states as well as digestive contents -- and overt behavior - but that is it. I cannot tell if what you *see* is "red', only that you respond to an object as if it were "red" -- whatever that means -- and that owing to linguistic conventions, you use the word "red" to describe this phenomenon. By probing into your brain with a PET scan or some such device, I can tell if your brain has changed physical states upon "seeing red".
I: That sounds like the old analytical philosophical canard about "pain" being nothing more than C-fibers firing off impulses.
LP: That *is* what pain is.
I: Where is the *hurt*? Where is the suffering, the aversion to more C-fibers firing? Where is the association between my swinging a hammer, my C-fibers firing, my thumb reflecting light waves in the 7000 angstrom range, and my swearing up a blue streak at hitting my thumb with a hammer?
LP: In order: visual observation of physical phenomena, brain state activity, optic nerve impulses, overt behavior.
I: But that is *not* "all there is to the matter. As the "Peanuts" character Linus van Pelt exclaims to Charlie Brown, "Pain *hurts*!" We *experience* "red", we experience "pain", we experience all sorts of things that Positivism seems to simply *ignore*.
LP: Positivism does not *ignore* anything. It gives a full account of all that there *is*. There is light, there is electrical energy, there is bodily movement, and there is this or that brain state or process.
I: How can you *possibly* dismiss subjective experience?
LP: For the very reason that it *is* subjective. Remember my comments last time about "secondary properties" -- or qualities -- I forget which. Anyway, what there *is* is different, and to be distinguished from what we perceive -- or "experience", as you put it. We dream, we daydream, we see love in the eyes of our betrothed, we see a *beautiful sunset, "God's Grandeur" -- I think that's from Gerard Manly Hopkins -- a sad day for the losing basketball, cricket or soccer team or Labor party campaign, we see anger in a thunderstorm, "rosy fingered dawn" (Homer), joy in lambs bleating, design in a cavern, or in a winning lottery ticket, an award in a blue ribbon, and honor in a medal. None of these things -- viewed as truth claims -- are verifiable through a priori fact, deductive reasoning, or actual observation.
I: So is the experience of "red" a figment of my imagination?
LP: Literally, yes. "Figment" means made up, like a figure made out of children's play dough. A photograph is a figment of something, a dream is a figment of -- well -- nothing in particular -- it depends upon what causes the particular dream. The important thing to realize is that a picture or a piece of writing denoting something does *not* entail the existence or nature of the thing portrayed. Reports of "Bigfoot" or "Nessie", photos purporting to be of UFOs, and eye-witness testimony of Elvis's reappearance at The Ed Sullivan Theater do not constitute proof of the existence of the things alleged. These allegations may occur without the objects of their allegations existing. Even -- sad to say -- your claim that you see "red" when light bounces off of a carpet or an apple.
I: What do *you* see when you look at this red carpet?
LP: What I *see* and what is *there* are two very distinct things. Given a sufficient number of scotches, I am liable to see things you could not imagine, and that neither of us could demonstrate exist -- and for good reason. And before you protest that you and I both *see* red -- as opposed to *perceive* light waves in the 7000 angstrom range, I would ask you to demonstrate -- verify, according to Positivist methodology -- that the color I see -- experience -- is the *same* color as the color *you* experience. Personally I do not see -- no pun intended -- how you can do that.
I: But aren't you arguing that whatever we do not perceive does not exist?
LP: No, in matter of fact, I -- we -- are arguing that what we do not perceive we cannot say we know. The core issue here, as you say, is knowledge.
I: But Positivists -- the various schools of Positivism -- seem to agree on a very limited notion of "perceiving", don't you think?
LP: Well, there must be some limits on what constitutes knowledge. Hearsay, rumor, legend, mystic oracles -- these shouldn't count as sources of knowledge.
I: What troubles me is that human beings are central -- indispensable -- to any perception, gathering, evaluation of knowledge, and yet the Positivist account of persons is very poor indeed. Not only is there no account given of persons and their perceptions of the world, there is no acknowledgement of their mere existence. It is as if person, as subjects of observation -- our most basic and ubiquitous instruments of perception -- did not even exist. The Positivist notion of persons as gatherers of data, as formers of models of reality, is completely impoverished.
LP: That is because there are so many facts of persons -- as instruments of knowledge gathering and vetting -- that are so inherently unreliable. With the Individual Self, we have an imperceptible, hidden, unfathomable, unreliable "witness" to events. In the chain of data acquisition and evaluation and theory formation, the individual is by far the weakest link. Imagine forming a logical inference that includes a step like "I saw that --", or "It seems to me ...", or "I believe --", or "It looks to me like...". You cannot build up a structure of reliable knowledge -- on that sort of contribution. Doing so multiplies error beyond belief. More than that, it introduces new objects and phenomena without warrant. Look at the "constellations of the sky", or "eras in history", or "spirituality", or aesthetic theory, or religious or cultural practices, or political institutions. Metaphysical "phantoms" arise out of public opinion, like ghosts from the graveyard. People become embroiled in questions scarcely more substantial than the medieval question of how many angels can stand on the head of a pin. They raise questions that are essentially unanswerable, if not outright meaningless, as who won a war -- and who was on the right side of it, which artist was greater than the other artists, where political boundaries "really" lie", what a given culture ought to allow or to insist upon, how people ought to behave in their public and personal lives, what mankind's "destiny" is, what a person's character or mood or duties or entitlements are, whether a person's "reputation", or "soul", or "social influence" is in peril, to say nothing of "personal autonomy", "public image", "principles", "vices", "habits", states of mind, moods, "opinions", "points of view", "goodness", "badness" and all that rot --
I: Is the claim that people are good or bad, or, let us say, acting in accordance with social or ethical or procedural rules, or not -- er -- meaningful, as you would say?
LP: What rules are we talking about?
I: The rule that people should not cut ahead of others in line, lie, or harm one another --
LP: You can easily observe people acting in certain ways, lying, or telling the truth, cutting in line, or taking turns. Behaviorism is descriptive, and one can certainly describe the behavior of people. It would be messy -- human behavior is complex and hardly in conformity with any simple and coherent set of laws --
I: What about "rules"?
LP: Not laws, which are descriptions of nature's workings -- like Newton's three laws of motion -- but arbitrary and contrived rules, like "do unto others", and "don't cross against the light"?
I: Yes, rules that have -- as we say, a certain "normativity" to them. It is possible for a person to violate such a rule, while the rule still has an "oughtness" to it -- it still ought to be followed --
LP: I think you can see the contradictions right there. A law that need not -- well it is hard even to put it into words, much less find a reference to it in the world. It is like that bumper sticker: "Gravity: It's not just a good idea -- it's the LAW!" Laws are not subject to exception; they would not be laws then, would they?
I: But I am not talking about laws; I'm talking about *rules*.
LP: And what *are* they? To what in the actual world do they *refer*? The very notion of a "rule" is ridiculous. It has no being as such. Under the canopy of a "rule', is it actually possible for that rule never to be observed, and yet still be a rule. You may have a sign on a park lawn that says "Do not walk on the grass", surrounded by people walking all over the grass in flagrant violation of the sign's "rule". What does that even *mean*?
I: It seems to me that you would approve of any kind of behavior then, like setting fire to the Logical Positivist Institute, for example, or murder in the streets.
LP: Of course not. These are undesirable things --
I: By "undesirable" you mean --
LP: Actions that, according to Behaviorism, are observed to be objected to, and action taken against, like locking up arsonists, or posting police to prevent the slaughter of human beings.
I: What is an "arsonist", giving the behaviorist theory of mind?
LP: Well, I was not prepared to discuss human action theory -- although I could. I was prepared to discuss Positivistic knowledge. I would say that an "arsonist" is someone who sets fires in circumstances that others tend to react to by stopping the fires and taking certain actions against the arsonist, like locking him up, fining him or even executing him.
I: No consideration as to "intent" --
LP: What *is* intent, other than the manifestation of action? If a man sets fire to a building, he *is* burning it down.
I: Or trying to keep himself warm on a cold night --
LP: Well isn't "intention" like "rules". There is the plainly observed fact o the matter -- human action -- and this ad hoc "back story" appealing to mental states involving intention and obligation and "morality" and the like, none of which exists except as a delusional figment of the mind, divorced from any physical fact of the matter.
I: So there is no de facto case in which a man may be said to be obligated by some set of affairs not to burn down buildings, or pick my pocket --
LP: How would such a case manifest itself in the actual world? If a man burns down a building, picks your pocket -- and spits in your eye -- to what do you point to say "this is a violation of a rule", or even "this is evidence of intent". There is the physical act performed by the man, and his ongoing pattern of brains states --
I: Brain states are physical manifestations, are they not?
LP: Certainly. We have brains, and by inspection, we can correlate brain states with other states of affairs, such as lighting fires. This is all art of cause-and-effect, with humans, rather than other sorts of machinery, so to speak. Brain states have their causes, and in turn cause human actions, just as the states of other objects in the universe -- rocks balancing on top of mountain peaks, or accumulated underground pockets of flammable gases, take part in cause-and-effect events.
I: I seem to recall from somewhere that Positivists *completely* reduce mental activity to physical brain states --
LP: Well, in your sweeping view of Positivism, you tend to conflate certain views, and over generalize and oversimplify. I seem to recall earlier that you said something to the effect that Positivism -- including Scientific , or Empirical Positivism, was a purely axiomatic theory, a claim which many Positivists -- but not all -- would disagree with. For most of us it is sufficient that a fact of the world is true, even if contingent -- although I myself do not see any substantial distinction to be made between the actual and the necessary -- what is, is. But, yes, basically the view hews to the Identity Theory of Mind: the "Mind" *is* the brain, and nothing more.
I: Could you elaborate a bit -- I have always found this somewhat confusing.
LP: Probably because, like most people, you came into the Identity theory already thinking of "mind" as existing as a separate and distinct entity, and you found it difficult 'reconciling' your mental view of mind with the Positivist all-physical view of mind. To understand what we are claiming, it is very helpful to first drop all notions you may have of the "mental" -- and start "clean".
I: All right. I'll try --
LP: Good. The goal is to try to drop -- to eliminate -- or "reduce" if you like -- the so-called mental activity of "perceiving", or "experiencing" of perceiving the carpet to a purely physical, purely objective, totally non-subjective fact-of-the-matter process, like that of an icicle melting, or a rock falling. Now consider -- oh -- the red carpet we were discussing earlier.
I: Okay.
LP: We wish to do away with "mind-talk" -- talk about the Self as a separate, non-physical entity that is the "subject" of experience -- of the carpet in this case. We also wish to do away likewise with "ideas" as separate "things", apart from brain states. The reason for this elimination, or "reduction" if you will, to purely physical entities is that it is just these mental "entities" that are in question. If we can give a purely physical account of "seeing a red carpet", there is no need to conjecture the existence of very dubious purely mental objects. Why introduce a whole new metaphysics?
I: Like supposing "crystalline spheres" that hold up the planets?
LP: Exactly. Occam's razor at work.
I: Assuming it *does* work --
LP: Let's take the carpet, and reduction, and Identity theory all together, without "ideas" or individual "persons". With these out of the way, we are left with three components of a perception of an object -- our red carpet, say:
(1) First, we have the carpet itself -- the object of perception.
(2) Second, we have, as I outlined with the example of the sense-perception of "red", the causal chain of sense-data from object -- carpet -- to brain via the senses.
I: Which you already gave an account of in the example of the carpet --
LP: Yes. and finally:
(3) Third, and lastly, the resulting brain state produced by the causal chain of sense-data. From this point on, it is all neural activity -- brain states, and interaction between regions of the brain, and output in the form of motor response -- actions, speech, judgments (good or bad). and that's it. What people call "thinking", or mental activity is merely neural activity in the organ of the brain. "Ideas" and "feelings" and such are merely brain states resulting from neural activity. That and nothing more.
I: Are you *sure*?
LP: That is all that we can verify exists. The "mental" states are -- mirages. We may think we see them -- but like the mirage, the object seen does not exist.
I: How does a mirage work?
LP: Well, in the most common case, waves of hot air radiating from the ground surface reflect light, creating the illusion that there is a shimmering, waving layer of water in front of you.
I: And because there is no water, you say that there is no experience *of* water.
LP: Exactly.
I: But we *do* experience water when we see a mirage. We may be mistaken, but there is, in us -- in you -- the experience "this is a pool of water".
LP: But there *is* no water --
I: If there *were* a pool of water there, we would have the *same* experience. What does that say for your reliance upon "sense-data" for knowledge?
LP: Just that sometimes we need more sense data -- like dipping one's finger in the water, and not relying merely upon a look-see --
I: And if your finger is wet due to perspiration on a hot day, do we conclude that the evidence of *two* sense-data prevails? It seems to me that in defending the absence of mental experience you have undermined trust in all sense-data, which is not surprising. Sit through a magic act, and you will find all of your senses to be unreliable.
LP: I think I can help out here. In saying that there are no "ideas" or "feelings", I am not saying that such experiences do not exist at all -- I am -- we are -- saying that there is no mental substance above and beyond the purely material, physical brain, as I am sure you would agree --
I: I haven't taken a position on mind-dualism. I appreciate the fact that philosophers like Descartes -- and Plato -- hold that there is a separate but equal "mental substance" that comprises our thoughts -- made of what I cannot imagine. I am not arguing that, nor do I feel I have to. Whatever ideas, and feelings, and concepts are made of, I am maintaining that the Positivist view is flatly ignoring certain key -- properties, or features, or elements -- associated with physical states as they pertain to perception. As I have said before, you may provide an account of light waves ricocheting off of light reflectors, and carpet fibers and through lenses made of water and gelatin and undergoing all sort of transformations -- via neural network activity in the brain, resulting in brain states -- charged axons, or cell structures, or whatever. And all that is included in that account may be demonstrably true -- and completely satisfy Positivistic standards for knowledge. But -- when all is said and done, you end up with a brain *state* -- or a collection of states, or a temporal sequence of states -- that you claim is not merely a configuration produced by light emissions, but the sense of the "color red". And as I have said, look at that brain state, or process, or whatever this information is purportedly stored, -- and you will *not* find any *red* -- or room temperature -- what is it, seventy degrees in here? -- or extension of twenty by thirty feet, or shagginess, or dinginess, or ownership or estimated cost per square foot, or any of the other features of the carpet you would not dispute exists here beneath our feet. This model leaves out all that, and still claims to be a full and complete account of the carpet --
LP: I would take issue with ownership, and cost -- these are not properties of the carpet --
I: Then what are they properties of?
LP: They are properties of our judgment, perhaps --
I: Other brain states?
LP: Only in the sense that one would have brain states corresponding to propositions such as "this carpet is expensive", or "this carpet belongs to the building owners". But these propositions themselves are arbitrary judgments. They are not real -- they don't corresponding to anything in reality.
I: When you say that a brain state is of this carpet, and produced by patterns of light transformed -- the patterns that is -- into other media, you are referring to a kind of coding, are you not -- like written speech, or Morse code or DNA code?
LP: That would be a good way of putting it.
I: It is apt in the sense that the statement "Her love sets my heart on fire" is neither hot, nor contains a heart, or me, or her. It is a code to be "read", is it not?
LP: Of course.
I: By whom?
LP: By the holder o the thought, one would presume, or to whomever has access to that brain state.
I: So if my MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) operator scans my brain, and comes across the brain state that contains the proposition: "Her love sets my heart on fire" in axon complex 3478950376-A, along with brain states identifying her, and myself and any other interpretable components -- well, what does *she* experience? If she comes across my brain state of this carpet, she will not find "red" there, although she might find some brain state that is supposed to denote or signify "red" -- perhaps a row of six axons, two of which re in the "9" state -- whatever that may mean -- and the remaining four in the "0" state -- signifying "magenta" -- assuming my brain is configured in ASCII computer format. Assuming all of this -- all she can do -- on your account, is use her eyes -- or whatever senses available to her in probing my brain states -- and copying that information into her visual cortex -- either as "990000" or the flesh and blood brain matter equivalent of it. She does not experience "red" any more than I would, for that is all that there is, in my brain, and in hers.
LP: Well the issue is whether one needs anything *more* than that to produce the experience of "red" --
I: But you have not produced the experience of "red" *at* *all*. Your interpretation of sense experience is like that joke about the inmates at a prison who have heard all of the jokes so often that they number them and call out the numbers to save time -- "789" being the one about the traveling salesman and the farmer's daughter. One inmate calls out a number which causes the rest of the inmates to laugh especially loud, and a new inmate asks why. "Oh, that's because we had never heard that one before." -- which is ridiculous. There is an alternate punch line that also plays on the absurdity of this "encoding" of jokes, and other things. One inmate calls out a number and no one laughs. Why? Because that joke requires a really good German accent to get a laugh. Your razor, like the prison joke practice, is far too sharp -- it cuts out too much, either in physical reality, or in the "reading" of the symbolization of that reality, however the symbolization is constructed. You cannot understand prison humor, or carpet swatches, or professions of love without a *de-coding* phase. A meal may be translated into a recipe, but a recipe is not a meal. You have the steak, but where is the sizzle?
LP: Well, there are two ways out of this -- and as I do not pretend to be a Positivist extremist I would forgo the first way out. That is to assert that there is truly nothing more than the particular brain state produced by the sighting of a red carpet. That is, on seeing a red carpet, a particular portion of the brain, like a particular portion of computer memory, is configured -- or reconfigured. Literally, the biological analogy of a group of cells or other structures changing from "000000" -- black --or "999900" -- yellow -- to "99000" -- magenta -- as a string of molecules, perhaps. *That* would be what 'magenta" *is*, as the object of human experience, or perception, as it were.
I: Does that seem an adequate explanation -- to you? When the "999900" brain state forms in your brain, do you see yellow -- or laugh -- or both -- or neither?
LP: That would really depend upon your brain state -- how you are programmed to respond to the given stimulus --
I: If you mean a *behavioral* response, that would make sense. Hear a ringing bell and start salivating. And of course, associate salivating with hunger, and the desire to eat. But watch me glance at the rug. What response do I produce that will justify your claim that I *see* red?
LP: Well -- we can verify an appropriate change in your brain state -- theoretically at least.
I: But brain states are not *red*. Nor does the presence or absence of a brain state help us with the subject of this sighting -- *who* sees "red", or has the appropriate brain state? And, what is it that this person -- this being -- experiences? Look. Sometimes you see red --
LP [smiling]: How do you *know* that?
I: Are you being facetious?
LP: I'm being a Positivist. You may or may not make a distinction. In any case, one cannot *verify* that a given individual sees red or not. And since our discussion is about what we can and cannot know, that should be significant. And given your aim of trying to obtain "ethical" knowledge, which seems far more daunting a task, I think you are beginning to see that phenomena that require knowledge of "mental states", especially those purportedly "about" personal experience, or meaning, or interpretation, are very -- elusive. Perhaps they are, as some suggest, inherently "private". You are familiar with Ludwig Wittgenstein's analogy of the beetle in the box?
I: No.
LP: What you have to keep in mind is that the basic question is whether "mind' -- and mental stuff we allegedly "experience": thoughts, ideas, emotions -- is anything *more* that physical stuff: brain states, behavioral acts and so forth. Dualists -- like Descartes -- maintain that there is a separate "substance" -- mind stuff, apart and distinct from body stuff. Positivists -- like Wittgenstein -- maintain that this view is simply a mistake. It is much like early biologists that maintained that there is something "*more*" to physical life -- bacteria, badgers, Bolivians -- than atoms and molecules and body parts. They believe in "souls" and "anima" -- animating *forces* -- analogous to that observed by Volta when he made a detached frog's leg jump with an electrical current -- a sort of biological energy akin to but not reducible to physical energy: motion, sound, light, heat and so forth. Wittgenstein -- like most of the early- to mid-twentieth century Positivists -- took this problem -- this confused and arbitrary distinction between mind and body -- to be in part a matter of language --
I: *Language*? --
LP: Well, yes. We commit all sorts of abuses when we put words to things, and Positivism -- among other modern schools of thought -- attempts to expose and eliminate problems in language.
I: I don't follow you --
LP: Well, to take a very elementary example, we reify -- attribute actual existence to -- things that are often mere language entities and nothing more. For example, we speak of the "equator" as this line circumnavigating the Earth along a certain path, as if here were a thick black cord lying along the 0th latitude, as if it were a physical object with its own material and location and extension. But in this respect there is no such thing. If you travel to -- oh, Quito, Ecuador -- and walk a few miles north of town, you will not *find* the equator there. Likewise, there is no north or south "pole" jutting up out of the Arctic or Antarctic ice masses.
I: And Positivism refutes the notion of "mind" as a physical "line" or "pole".
LP: Well, here you are getting confused -- as people usually do. It is just the reverse. There *is* a physical entity which is *confused with* the "equator as a cord lying on the ground". The Earth -- a slightly squashed sphere -- rotates. The two points on the surface of the earth that do *not* change position during rotation are what we refer to when we use the curious phrases "North Pole and "South Pole". There is no "rod" -- physical or metaphysical -- poked through the Earth like a pine stick through a candied apple. Likewise, there is no "line" along the Earth's surface constituting the "equator". Instead -- if we are considered for a moment only the surface of the physical earth, two spots -- two points, or locations -- where the Earth's surface does not change position relative to the Earth surface at previous and future moments -- the "poles" -- note the scare quotes. Likewise, there is no physical "line" on the ground where the equator purportedly lies. There is only the -- uh -- maximal line, or path, along which the surface of the Earth is extended the greatest, and which moves faster than any other portion of the surface during rotation --
I: Now I m confused --
LP: Bear with me. The point is that when we talk -- using language of course -- of "the pole" or "the equator", we often, in our usage of these terms, confuse our linguistic imagery with what is actually, physically *there*. Look at the "Big Dipper" -- Ursa Major -- if you can. There are a group of stars at various positions which from our standpoint we take to be an "object" -- 'the big dipper' or the 'great bear'. But there are *no* such objects out there. All that *are* there are stars at various locations in three-dimensional space, and nothing more. In the case of the poles, or the equator, all that is *there* is a locus of points on a physical spinning spheroid. The analogy I am attempting to make is that "all that is there" -- mentally -- is the physical stuff that comprises the brain, the eye, the optic nerve and whatever other physical matter is involved in perceived a red carpet. There is "nothing more" than that in fact, even though we tend to interpret, make sense of -- experience -- this in terms of non-existent entities. We may speak of a "carpet" when in fact there *is* only the bundles of atoms, or quarks or strings or what have you that comprise the "carpet". And, there *is* only the sequential pulse of light waves of a certain frequency that generates nerve pulses in our brain, not "red". The mantra to keep in mind is "this and nothing more".
I: Our -- interpretations -- our experiences of things as this or that -- the "phenomena we experience as such", even if it misleads us -- there is no account of these in Positivism, or Behaviorism -- I'm not sure in which school of thought we are now in --
LP: I assume from the tenor of our discussion that you don't wish to parse out doctrinal differences between The Vienna School, the Positivists, the Logical Positivists, the Logical Behaviorists and all of their sects --
I: Lord, no! I am only trying to get at the basic principles of all of these schools, which have in a general way so dramatically influenced our society's general "knowledge" of the world.
LP: Good -- well -- we -- all of these groups, really, are trying to make the distinction between private experience *of* reality -- which may go off in all directions -- there are no practical limits to our imagination -- and What Is Really Out There. Are there really unicorns? If so, trot them out. Is there a "life force" -- a la Frankenstein -- apart from underlying physical energies and processes? Pump it into a "life-battery", or apply it to the animation of a tin can. Verify its existence, rather than merely assert it. Ursa Major has no fur, and does not belong to any species of bear. Now, *is* there "mental" *substance* -- a la Descartes -- as opposed to physical substance, perhaps in some as yet undiscovered or not understood form? Demonstrate this substance's existence. Isolate it, demonstrate its workings, verify its existence -- and -- nod to Descartes -- come up with a better explanation for the interaction between mental and physical "substance" than simply declaring that the two are joined at the hip -- or rather at the pineal gland in the center of the brain.
I: Tell me about Wittgenstein's "beetle".
LP: Well, the basic idea is this. Everyone has a small box. In each of these boxes is a beetle --
I: An actual beetle?
LP: Well, that is the question: what IS this *thing* in the box that each person possesses. We can see that everyone has a box -- that box is visible and uncontroversial. What is at issue is what is it that is inside the box -- if anything at all. Now the catch is while everyone can look at everyone else's box, no one -- except the owner of the box -- can see what is *in* that box. I can open up my little matchbook-sized box and take a peek inside and see that my "beetle" is in there, and what it is like, and what it is doing, and what not. But you cannot look *inside* my box -- you can only see that I have a box. Try as you might, you cannot see what is inside. Likewise, I cannot see what is inside your box, and make direct comparisons between your beetle and mine. Are they the same species of insect? Are they identical twins? Completely different insects? Complete different objects? Is there anything in the box at all?
Now people can talk about what is in their own boxes, and others can hear them and make judgments about these reports and compare and contrast them with what they see in their own box. And the word "beetle" comes to mean "that which is inside each of these boxes, whatever that may be". It is a peculiar analogy, but a clear one. The box is the brain. you can think of it as the "container" for the mind, or --
I: Henry Charlton Bastain put it this way in his 1883 book on the human mind: "The Brain as Organ of the Mind".
LP: An interesting image. I suppose it would be the analog of "The Heart as an Organ of the Circulatory System", or, "The Lungs as Organs of the Respiratory System".
I: The latter might be: "The Lungs as Organs of the Breath -- or Breathing". The former could be -- oh -- "The Heart as an Organ of Blood Flow".
L{: Yes, yes. You see the aptness of the metaphor. The individual mind is much like the contents of our beetle box --
I: The box itself being the brain --
LP: Which we *can* jointly perceive and examine and render informed judgments upon. The mind, on the other hand, has "privileged access" constraints --
I: A serious obstacle for your "verifiability principle" --
LP: Yes, it sets fundamental limits upon what we can confirm to be real. We can see the brain, and measure its activity. "Mind" is what is in the brain --
I: In other words, physical brain states -- biological switches opening and closing, receiving input and generating output --
LP: Exactly. The mind is not a separate, elusive, intangible, unreal, ad hoc "substance" --
I: I can see the spirit of Occam's Razor at work here. You don't wish to "invent" or imagine anything that is not real --
LP: Precisely --
I: But I object -- not to your goal of "physical reduction" -- you may be right. If you define "physical" as Aristotle and other Greek philosophers tended to -- as "all that there is", then your goal is trivial. If mind exists at all, it is "physical" by definition. It is only a question of how inclusive the Positivist / Behaviorist model of "physical" is.
LP: Well, to return to the beetle in the box analogy, we ARE limited to what is actually in the box --
I: No intangible, non-extended ghost-beetles?
LP: No.
I: Well, I can accommodate the Positivist insistence upon a "physical" beetle -- or "mind" -- in the sense that the mind (whatever it may be) actually exists, and can "interact" with our physical brains, and bodies. That seems to be essential to any coherent theory of mind. But I am not at all impressed, much less convinced, by the various permutations on "Behaviorism" as an adequate model of the mind.
LP: I think I know what you are getting at: type-token and type-type theory, functionalism, and so forth.
I: Yes, but it goes further than that. Remember, I am not looking only at mind as the mechanism -- the medium or vehicle -- for human response to external stimuli. I am also interested in human being itself -- what people are -- which leads us directly to the issues of ethics and morals, which as I see it, constitute the way in which people "cause" themselves to be what they are, as individuals and as members of social groups - more complex "group minds" if you will.
What concerns me most is that the model of the mind we end up with should give an account for what the spectrum of Behaviorists have traditionally discarded: private thoughts, intentionality, introspection, meaning, and so forth. We are about out of time for now, so I would like to come back to the various behavioralist attempts at describing "mind", and then to look at their deficiencies regarding the subject of my own inquiry -- ethical knowledge.