Our friend Sheridan,
the quintessential atheist, posits that consciousness is a byproduct of neurons firing in the brain, like smoke is a
byproduct of fire burning. Randal informs his atheist friend that epiphenomenalism
isn’t so simple, and that it’s greatly complicated by “free will.”
Before I get into
chapter fourteen, “The Pastry I Freely Choose,” and Randal’s discussion on free
will, let us just take a moment to reflect on the fact that traditional epiphenomenalism
has largely been rejected. The
theory of mind and along with it the modern branches of cognitive science, including
neuroscience, have mainly evolved out of our desire to tackle and answer this question.
Meanwhile, free will is still nowhere near a given. At best, the existence of free
will is still an open-ended debate.
Furthermore, it
could be that both positions are mistaken, as the philosopher Daniel Dennett has
cautioned in his book Consciousness Explained, that both ideas of epiphenomenalism (i.e., the belief that
mental events are completely dependent on physical functions and, so, have no independent existence or causal
efficacy) and qualia (i.e., a term
used in philosophy to refer to the intrinsic nature of individual instances of subjective,
conscious experience, such as beholding the redness of a sunset) may simply be category mistakes. He rejects them
on the same grounds that the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle rejected the Cartesian
“ghost in the machine.”
Randal’s mistake
seems to be a continuation of the category mistake he seemingly made earlier where
he holds that understanding how a thing functions and the utilization of a thing’s
function are the same. As the car analogy showed in the previous chapter, understanding
how a car engine works doesn’t necessarily equate to knowing how to drive a car.
Once again, it seems that Randal is either unfamiliar with functionalism, or he
just doesn’t want to acknowledge it here because it would act as a defeater to his
premise about the mind and soul being independent of the body.
Functionalism,
or more specifically, homunculi functionalism,
is the idea that an intelligent system, or mind, may be thought of as the result
of a number of sub-systems performing more simple tasks in coordination with each
other. The subsystems may be envisaged as homunculi, or small, relatively unintelligent
agents. The example often used in comparison is a digital computer, where a battery
of switches each capable of only one binary response (on or off) can make up a machine
that can play chess, compete on the game show Jeopardy, and perform other complex functions.
Randal turns our
attention to Dr. Ferry, who enters the coffee shop and orders a cinnamon bun. Randal
goes on to say that we cannot account for Dr. Ferry’s desire for the cinnamon bun,
and adds that all the firing of neurons and motor functions amount to is the action
of achieving the goal of the desire, but do not explain the desire itself.
Randal says, “You’ve got to look to Dr. Ferry’s mental intention to order a cinnamon
bun because he wanted one.”
Randal is only
partially right. Desirism is a burgeoning area where moral philosophy and
modern mind theory intersect, and it is still an active area of discussion, but
it is my understanding is that there are and always will be numerous physiological
triggers such as hunger, or simply having a sweet tooth, along with reactions to
certain tastes and smells, our bodies’ reliance on things like caffeine, our
level of tolerance to pain, etc. which all impact our everyday desires.
In fact, desire
can be manipulated by physical changes in diet. For example, my strict vegan friends
have reported that after several years the smell of meat and cheese can become repellent.
Things like a juicy cheeseburger, a block of tangy red cheddar, or a nice carbonara
pasta which once made one’s mouth water in anticipation can become disgusting turn-offs
due to the change in diet and subsequent change in physiology.
Look at people
who are lactose intolerant. They may have less of a desire to consume dairy than
others since they have an underlying physiology which yields a negative physical
response to consumption of dairy products. The same can be said for those who have
other food allergies, such as being allergic to nuts.
Right now, this
very moment as I write, I desire a Coke. But this has more to do with my body’s
addiction to sugar and caffeine than some unmet inclination that wafts around in
the ether of some vague, imperceptible metaphysics.
Thus it seems that
either desiring to have a glass of milk or a Coke, for example, or not desiring
to have a glass of milk or a Coke, depends on pre-existing physiological conditions,
such as whether or not you are lactose intolerant or have a sweet tooth.
Regarding Dr. Ferry’s
ordering of the cinnamon bun, Randal informs us that
It’s because he wanted a cinnamon bun that a particular pattern of neurons
fired, causing his finger to tap the glass. And it’s because he wanted to express
this intention that more neurons fired, thereby causing him to vocalize the desire
to have one…
Again, this seems
to ignore the underlying physiology I mentioned above that gives rise to the craving
in the first place. Worse yet, Randal continues to speculate on unknowns which fly
in the face of our current scientific understanding. Personally, I don’t think Randal
knows what he’s talking about here, and I would take everything he says with a grain
of salt (another thing people often find they have an overwhelming desire for).
Referring to his
previous comment, Randal asserts, “So that’s two reasons to support the existence
of a mind or soul.” And if hasn’t sunk in yet, Randal states it one more time for
the record:
First, conscious experience is something more than the activity of the brain.
And second, our minds interact in the physical world. This means that we have at
least one example of a non-physical substance—mind or soul—that interacts with the
physical world.
Notice that in
a single sentence Randal has conflated mind and soul to mean basically the same
thing. Randal continues:
And if souls can exist and interact with the world then why not think that
God could be another non-physical substance that interacts with the world?
If the mind exists
as a metaphysical state and not a physical state, this doesn’t prove the soul exists
as Christians define a “soul” or a “spirit”. All it means is that the mind doesn’t
have a direct physiological or biological reason for existing—that is, it exists
apart from the natural world rather than as a part of it. Although this isn’t at
all clear, what is clear is that the mere existence of a metaphysically derived
mind speaks to nothing about the validity of the Christian concept of a soul.
Another way to
look at it would be to consider that if one day we discovered real magic beans with
magical properties, it wouldn’t automatically mean that man-eating giants live high
above us in cloud cities. But if you were going by Randal’s logic you would be
entitled to make that very inference, since according to him discovering a disembodied
mind would constitute evidence for things like the soul and God.
Without compelling
evidence, however, that’s all that needs to be said on the subject of souls and
disembodied minds.
