The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer [11]
That’s a supposition, Michael. Your starting point is that there can be nothing more than brain, so of course you arrive at that conclusion.
Well, yes, I suppose that’s true. But you have to start somewhere, so I start at the bottom, at neurons and their actions.
But the very choice to begin there is itself an article of faith, Michael. That’s not a scientific induction, that’s just a conscious choice on your part.
Sure, but why not start at the bottom? That’s the principle of reductionism that is such an integral part of science.
But if you go that route you close yourself off to other possibilities: top-down instead of bottom-up possibilities. You could just as easily start at the top with mind and work your way down to neurons, which opens up other possibilities.
Isn’t this just a roundabout way of explaining what happened to you as being something more than just a product of your brain—that there really is a source out there that knows we are here?
It is a different starting point of epistemology. Your conclusions are only as sound as your premises.
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By now I’m beginning to feel like a character in My Dinner with Andre, the 1981 Louis Malle film in which Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory converse for hours on profound philosophical issues in life, in which so much turns on how words are defined.
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Like what?
You say that the brain can’t perceive itself.
Yes.
Do you know who you are?
Sure, of course.
Then demonstrate it. Who is doing the asking? In terms of identity, someone is doing the perceiving in there. Who is the “I” doing the perceiving? For you, the mind is nothing more than the brain, but for me the mind is more than that. It is our identity. The fact that you know who you are means that the brain can perceive itself.
Okay, I see what you mean, but that can be explained by a neural feedback loop between a neural network that monitors the body, which is in the parietal lobe, and a neural network that monitors other parts of the brain, which is in the prefrontal cortex. So that’s still a bottom-up neural explanation for mind. You seem to be talking about something more.
I am. The mind is universal—it extends beyond human beings, which also includes any form of ET or God or the source or whatever.
How do you know that? With what premises did you start to get to that conclusion?
I begin with our capacity to understand. Where did that come from? From the mind itself.
I don’t understand. What do you mean by “understand”?
The mind perceives the mind. You perceive yourself in the act of perception. You are the subject and the object at the same time. We have the ability to perceive ourselves and to understand reality as it really is.
I think that this must be why I went into science instead of philosophy. You’re losing me here. Isn’t this just epistemology and the issue of how we know anything?
Yes, that’s what I love about logic and epistemology. Where does logic come from? Aristotle? Where did he get it? Ultimately it is the mind itself, which is universal. Logic, like mathematics, is a priori. We don’t create logic or mathematics. The syntax of logic and mathematics is invented, but the logical and mathematical principles were already there.
Einstein believed in logic and mathematics and the laws of nature, but he did not believe in a personal God or a supreme being of any kind. You seem to believe that in addition to logic and mathematics and the laws of nature, this universal mind also represents an intentional agent, a personal being who knows we’re here and cares about us. How do you know that?
Because it talked to me.
So it does come down to personal experience.
Yes, and that’s why I want to get past all this dialogue and debate about whether or not God or a higher power exists and bring it down to just three words: “Do an experiment.”
What experiment?
The SETI experiment—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
That’s already being done.
Yes, and I think we need to do more, such as