Free will vs. neuroscience – a different analysis

The argument sometimes characterized as free will vs. neuroscience is the most recent form of the mind-body and, more generally, free will vs. determinism argument, going back at least to the ancient Greeks. It is relatively common of late for neuroscientists to discover something about what happens in the brain under various conditions, and then for someone else (usually not the neuroscientists) to say, “Neuroscientists have discovered that so-and-so is really nothing more than neurological process X occurring in structure Y of the brain.” The neuroscience is fascinating, but the interpretations are misleading and destructive. They essentially claim that people are nothing more than “meat machines,” and many have objected to them, but the objections have had little impact on the argument because the mind-body, free-will vs. determinism, issue has never been resolved. It hasn’t been resolved because, stated in that form, it can’t be. Accepting the fundamental division of a person into mind and body dooms us to endless and fruitless argument. This posting presents a different way to proceed, one that allows real resolution, and leads to affirming and appreciating the insights of neuroscience while avoiding the disastrous error of treating persons as unusual configurations of meat.

Starting again

As Tony indicated in a recent e-mail, we have decided to restart this blog, which focuses on DP and social neuroscience.   I’m reposting a much expanded version of a message I sent to the Society listserv last May 11, with additional content that is based on subsequent discussions with Jeff Evans, Tony Putman, as well as many e-mail exchanges with other Society members.

I’ve omitted the last point from my original posting, item number 7, which raised a question about the conceptual “place” of embodiment in DP.   Tony Putman has agreed to follow-up with a subsequent post addressing the issue raised by that item.

After this post, my intention is to return to “case studies” of specific literatures.

Once more, with feeling …

Sometimes we need to take a break from public conversation to digest what has already been said. This blog has taken such a break, but the authors have not. Significant focus and consolidation have occurred in the past few months, and we are ready to begin the dialogue here again. Look for a new Post by Ned Kirsch soon, some Posts over the next week or so summarizing the understanding we have reached, and the launch of a new round of dialogue.

The authorship of this blog has expanded to include Jeff Evans, Joe Jeffrey and Paul Zeiger, along with original authors Ned Kirsch and Tony Putman. Each author has committed to participating in the on-going dialogue here, which includes responding to Posts by other authors. These authors will be responsible for establishing the focus of the dialogues. Everyone else is invited to read the Posts, and participate through Comments.

Providing for, Part 2

A little over 30 years ago Joe Jeffrey set out to create a new community member at Bell Labs, where he was a member of the technical staff. He called the new member MENTOR. It was a person with a non-standard embodiment: a complex configuration of computer hardware and software. Bell Labs hired me as a consultant on Descriptive Psychology to work with Joe on the project. Together we designed and Joe built the first (by about 20+ years) functioning artificial person, and it was very successful. Details of what and how can be found in a series of papers in Advances in Descriptive Psychology.

The MENTOR project sheds a somewhat different light on the question of what it means for an embodiment to “provide for” behavior.

More about Persons and Capacity, Part 1

Please note that almost everything in this and the next post has already been discussed in my comment last evening in response to W. Schwartz and C.J. Stone.  I had prepared this two post sequence before submitting that comment, but I decided to comment anyway in the context of community discussion.  I’ll post the second part in the next couple of days.

Please click-through only if you’re interested in some more extended but now redundant thoughts on  ”Original Capacity.”

Some (semi-rhetorical) questions about capacity

BOP presents several ways to think about capacity that I’ll first summarize in order to get to my questions.  All of the quotes below can be found in BOP, pp. 82-86.

The rest of this post continues below the fold.

Starting at the top

The issue of core human competences was introduced by Tony Putman in an earlier comment.  One of the interesting related sidelights suggested by this idea is the concept of talents or powers.  My recollection is that Pete Ossorio referred to a talent as a competence that cannot be explained on the basis of prior experience.