Neuroscience and Dogmatic Reductionism

The term “neuroscience” is possibly one of the most abused terms in the lexicon of the Atheist philosophic community. The term might well refer to the discovery of new capabilities of individual neurons, or to the constant rewiring of the ever plastic brain. But it does not. The term neuroscience, as used in virtually all of the literature produced by Atheists, Naturalists, Philosophical Materialists and such, refers to the practice of using an MRI to track blood flow in the brain under cognitive stimulation.

This practice of tracking blood flow in the brain is used to declare that certain cerebral functions are located in certain areas of the brain. Then other things which are NOT known are inferred and extrapolated, and come be part of a false knowledge base, one that is perpetuated by worldviews that require such. Some of the false knowledge is based on the idea that the blood flow increase is the only activity in the brain that is involved in the processing of that particular input function, and another is that a certain area of the brain does only one function – that which is being investigated. Another is that all brains are materially the same, wired alike and ready for fully caused, predetermined responses based on their history of causation.

None of this is proven or even suggested by the blood flow in the brain under cognitive stimulation. Every stitch of the determinist conclusion is extrapolation beyond existing facts, extending toward dogmatic conclusions.

There is an article in the NewHumanist of the UK site by a neuroscientist, Raymond Tallis [1], who attacks this practice of iconifying neuroscience with false extrapolations into dogmatic philosophy.

”There is a huge gap between the community of minds and animal quasi-societies. The vast landscape that is the human world has been shaped by the activity of explicit individuals who do things deliberately. Uniquely, the denizens of that world entertain theories about their own nature and about the world; systematically inquire into the order of things and the patterns of causation and physical laws that seem to underpin that order; create cities, laws, institutions; frame their individual lives within a shared history that is recorded and debated over; narrate their individual and shared lives; and guide, justify and excuse their behaviour according to general and abstract principles. Neuro-evolutionary theorists try to ignore all this evidence of difference and have even requisitioned the pseudo-scientific notion of the meme, the unit of cultural transmission, analogous to the gene that ensures its own survival by passing from brain to brain, to capture human society for quasi-Darwinian thought. Just how desperate is this endeavour to conceal the Great Ditch separating humans from other animals is evident from the kind of items that are listed as memes: “the SALT agreement”, “styles of cathedral architecture”, “faith”, “tolerance for free speech” and so on.”

If we were not at a great distance from the kind of activity revealed in our brains and, indeed, from the kinds of aggregations seen in the natural world, then the voluntary adoption of social policies, influenced or not by the latest whizz-bang neuroscience, would be impossible; for there would be no outside from which policies could be dreamed up, judged and tested. Indeed, there would be no outside of the organic world. This is illustrated by the pseudo-science of neuro-law. Supposing, for example, we really could assimilate jurisprudence into brain science, on the grounds that it is our brains that make us criminals or law-abiding, then, since our brains are causally wired into the remainder of the material universe, we would have to look beyond the brain for the ultimate source of our actions. They are objects, not subjects. The plea “My brain made me do it” would essentially be that of “the Big Bang made me do it”.

There are attempts by the Atheist/Philosophical Materialist community to present free will as somehow bimodal, that all brain activity is fully caused by our genetics coupled with our environments on the one hand, yet that we still do obviously have the apparent capability of decision making even though it has to be an illusion. (Never mind that the illusion has created complex societies with complex accoutrements which do not seem to be illusions or delusions.)

Yet the arguments against free will, even when claimed to be against “contracausal” free will, devolve into arguments against free will of any type. If the mind is a physical thing, if physical things are subject to cause and effect, then every action of the (physical) mind has prior causes, going back to the Big Bang, just as Tallis demonstrates above. This premise, the physical, fully caused mind, requires this. There is no room in the “physical mind” concept for the mind to do something that is not caused by prior chains of causation. If it does something like that, then it must be an illusion. (What, we might ask, causes such illusions, especially those that are held by everyone at the same time? Are we fully caused to entertain common delusions? If so, why think at all?)

This leads us to understand that every contra-natural artifact which we think has been thought up by human minds, is also an illusion. Under such a series of premises, then, every physical improvement from the beginnings of agriculture to computers – every bit of culture, from the invention of clothing and language to the internet – it is all an illusion, created by the illusion of mental free will and the illusion of the freedom to invent something new. In fact, there can be no contra-natural existence, when viewed through the glass of Naturalism / Philosophical Materialism / Atheism. Every automobile, skyscraper, computer, newspaper, book, gun, everything is part of a natural progression of cause and effect, starting with the Big Bang. Thinking is an illusion, and so is consciousness and self; in fact, is there any reason to think that reality is not an illusion? We wind up at the brain-in-a-vat sort of denial of absolutely everything, despite our experience (empirical) to the contrary.

This requires an entire revamping of the concept of cause and effect. The old principle of cause and effect included the idea that the cause must be necessary and sufficient to produce the effect, meaning among other things that the cause must be more inclusive than the effect: in producing the effect there will be a loss, an entropic effect which moves toward disorder. So the cause is always bigger, more powerful, more of anything than is the effect; the effect is always less than the cause.

This idea, universal entropy, must be dumped or at least circumvented somehow, if full causation of mental activity is to be believed. It generally is ignored; the philosophers of "neuroscience" don't seem to be inclined toward science that contradicts the dogma.

The self-appellated “Skeptics” who cluster into skeptical societies are in no way skeptical of any of the extrapolations of “neuroscience”; these non-skeptical skeptics are all devout believers in the dogma of Atheism / Naturalism / Philosophical Materialism. So, are we non-believers in those dogmas entitled to be skeptical of Neuroscience, as presented under these dogmas?

Tallis concludes his essay,

”If you come across a new discipline with the prefix “neuro” and it is not to do with the nervous system itself, switch on your bullshit detector. If it has society in its sights, reach for your gun. Bring on the neurosceptics.

Notes:
[1] Tallis’ research was mainly in the area of geriatric and rehabilitative neurology. He is listed as an author, philosopher, and “polymath”, as well as a retired MD and researcher.

Addendum:
For another wonderful article by Tallis on this subject, go here. Would that I could write like that...