This is a tale of how the brightness of neuroscience is
being misused by the dark side of Rationalism. Let me explain.
Rationalism, the reigning philosophy of the Enlightenment
and the modern age, is a topic to which we will have to return. For the time
being suffice it to say that, for all its strengths, there is a dark side to
Rationalism. Its inherent weakness—its nemesis—is its tendency to linearity,
reductionism, and imperialism.
Today I would like to make this case specifically in
relation to the misuse of one tentative conclusion of neuroscience. Given time
and need, I might be able to discuss concrete cases in many other sciences—such
as biology in fisheries development or agribusiness and even physics at the
service of nuclear power plants. The
general case of course is economics, where all three forms of the decease are
so rampant and blatant that they do not need to be restated.
Rationalism explores everything possible that stands in its
line of investigation, and many times it goes back and forth because it
discovers new—even contradictory—explications of the phenomenon under
investigation. While Rationalism is engaged in the noble pursuit of trying to
ascertain the truth of any proposition, at times it does not realize that it
has become blind to the reality of everything that surrounds its line of
analysis. If we conceive of life as a sphere, we realize how Rationalism, by
its method of analysis, can become naturally blinded to the richness of life.
This is not a set of hypothetical propositions. The mortal
combat between the forces of life and death—good and evil—into which
Rationalism is unavoidably and irresistibly locked becomes evident in the small
example of its sorry fall at Compiègne, where, allying itself with the fury of
French Revolutionaries, it justified bringing Carmelite nuns under the
guillotine; the stated goal was to give the nuns freedom to leave the convent.
In the large picture, we have seen this combat in the rationalizations of
Communism and Fascism: Both the right and the left of the political spectrum
equally fall victim to the rationalizations of Rationalism. The middle of the
political spectrum does not eschew the trap either: We saw it in the American behavior in Vietnam ,
when a town was destroyed “to save the town”—for democracy!
Rationalism is not always consistent in recognizing all that
it encounters on its line of investigation either. Due to the natural
narrowness of human nature, some rationalists are liable to reduce their
investigation to one point: their own point of view, their own
position—no matter how wrong either by themselves or by others
were they proved to be. That is the meaning of reductionism; that is the
reduction of the line to one point.
Just consider that the head of a pin becomes blinding as you
bring it closer and closer to the pupil of your eye. Evidently, the worst—and
all too frequent—case of reductionism is that controlled by ideology. Then the
minions come out of the woodwork to flood and confuse the discussion.
Let us meet the other half of our topic: the brightness of
science. Whatever true science touches, it illuminates. We have been able to
send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth, because of the prodigies
of science—science married to technology.
If that is somewhat removed and remote science by now, let
me extol the praise of the Internet. So long as its operations remain mostly
free and democratic, this marvel is going to make our lives easier and richer
in a myriad ways. I cannot imagine life without it; I can no longer live
without it.
Lest these be seen as highfalutin cases, let me mention
Clarence Birdseye’s development of the frozen food industry right here in Gloucester ,
Massachusetts
However, just because of its extraordinary power, science—as
the privileged daughter of Rationalism—is often tempted and at times falls prey
to misuse. The temptation is an old one: the desire to please power. Then
science degenerates into any of the variegated forms of scientism. Upon careful
consideration as we shall see in a moment, it appears that the fantastic tools
of neuroscience, our newly discovered ability to look into the behavior of the
brain, might be misused in a particularly important case.
Let us start at the beginning. The understanding of morality
today is in a sorry state of confusion. The latest nail in the attempt to seal
the casket of morality comes from a misuse of neuroscience. The attempt is one
of the latest unexpected consequences of the urge to reduce everything to
science, the urge to accept anything only when put under the microscope of
scientific investigation.
In this state of mind, the dark side of Rationalism pretends
“to elevate” morality to the status of science and expects morality to produce
steady and immediate results. Rationalism fails to find such results; hence, it
properly declares morality “unscientific,” and goes to the deep end of
declaring morality worthless as a guide to action.
What is going on? Much of the discussion hinges on the
confusion determined by the unwarranted leaning of Rationalism toward
imperialism. As a counterbalance to reductionism, this type of
corrupted science wants to cover the whole of life! To use Goya’s
expression, this is a dream of reason that produces monsters.
True science always recognizes its limits: Science is the
master of matter and energy; it knows nothing of matters of the spirit—unless
we get into the esoteric world ofscience of the spirit.
Matter and energy behave in predictable patterns; spirit is
free, creative, unpredictable.
No freedom; no morality. It is here that the issues of free
will and morality are joined at the hip. It is here that some neuroscientists
as well as some interpreters of neuroscience try to interject themselves into
the discussion and allow themselves to build a wedge between consciousness and free
will.
The 300 millisecond controversy. A modern
cannonade from the assault brigade against morality and the virtues comes from
the base of a discovery of neuroscience. For some, the understanding that there
is such a thing as free will has been destroyed by the scientific discovery
that there is a 300 ms delay between activity in the brain and our awareness of
this activity.
The brain rules; the material brain rules. Free will does
not exist. Case closed—at least in the more or less firm imagination of some
people like Benjamin Libet, Susan Blackmore, and Sam Harris.
One moment of attention, please. I would like to repeat a
number of well-known alternative explanations for this gap that, if singly or
jointly, are finally and unquestionably proved valid will restore free will to
its ancient glory (admittedly, an unlikely event since there are always people
who like to go over well trodden ground to stir up old controversies).
- Shoot first, ask questions later: Are we sure
that our jungle instincts do not fire up the brain automatically so
that our consciousness can become operative? I mean, as an action
that is wholly automatic and systemic, which wholly avoids the post
hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, because of this) fallacy. In
other words, are we sure that the reality is not the reverse, namely that
our consciousness does give a stand-by order to the brain to start
functioning ahead of its specific intervention?
- Another
possibility. Are we sure that our consciousness does not give an ad hoc
order to the brain that is physically imperceptible? In this case, the
chain of actions might be this: a. consciousness gives a physically
imperceptible order to the brain (an order, which would re-establish the
primacy of the will); b. the brain obeys; c. consciousness visibly
responds;
- Conversely,
are we sure of the content of the automatic action of the brain? I mean,
is the firing of the brain leading us to an action that is systematically
either in agreement or disagreement with our will?
- Also,
if there is such a thing are we sure of the direction of the automatic
action of the brain? I mean, is the firing of the brain leading us to an
action that is systematically either in agreement or disagreement with our
will?
- Is the
action taken by the brain immutable?
- Conversely
again, can consciousness trump the automatic action of the brain?
- Remain
within the world of physics. You start the engine of a car, and the engine
takes more than 300 milliseconds to start moving the car.
Equate engine with will, and you end up postulating the primacy of the
will as against the automatic action (=moving) of the brain. Briefly put,
is our consciousness simply too slow, sly, and sluggish (this certainly
seems to be a good description of “my” consciousness); and, if it is, what
does that mean?
Assume that all these and likely other objections are proven
to be scientifically wrong, what then? Assume that neuroscience establishes—not
just in a few persons, but in everyone on earth—the primacy of the brain, then
what? Are we all going to behave like robots, whether or not willfully injected
with some form of socially conforming drug? Are we all going to become zombies?
That is a distinctive possibility. However, I like to
believe in the possibility of alternative outcomes. Once we are controlled by
the brain, rather than free will, we will give some serious attention to the
brain. Surely we cannot be so simplistic as to assume that the brain will make
us all commit immoral acts—about which we shall rejoice and not feel culpable.
No, so long as we are left with a scintilla of
intelligence—read brain redux—there is no such thing as a morally neutral
action. No, there is no such thing as a psychologically neutral action. Vegans
have accustomed us to believe in the pain inflicted to animals. I am in full
agreement with them. In the age of brain-controlled actions, we will not be
able to eschew pain; hence, we will not be able to eschew morality.
But I am an ultra vegan. I tell you, if you hurt a stock of
wheat, the whole field of wheat feels pain.
And I have deep reasons to believe that through the
equivalence of matter to energy and to spirit even if you consciously hurt a
stone, the whole universe feels pain.
***
That is a whole area to explore: Will we ever integrate
feelings and thoughts?
***
Re: Theology. I am not a theologian and I am not going to
attempt to resolve the Pelagian controversy in a few strokes. I sympathize with
the attachment that secular humanists have for the preeminence of free will in
our human nature.
As a believer, I do not see the exercise of human free will
as a necessary denial of God’s will; I see interdependence.
Thus, I am free to say no to God; and when I say yes, I do
not destroy either the independence of my free will or the preeminence of God’s
will. To understand it, is a process of discovery—at times a very hard process.
God’s will is there for the asking; it is available every time to everyone
everywhere.
Mr. Gorga would like to acknowledge the invaluable
editorial assistance received from Peter J. Bearse and David S. Wise.
Carmine Gorga, a former Fulbright Scholar, is president
of The Somist Institute, a research organization in Gloucester ,
Mass.
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