[Inquiry] Re: Examples Of Inquiry -- Discussion

Mon Nov 15 22:19:01 CST 2004

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EOI.  Discussion Note 17

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JA = Jon Awbrey
KM = Kirsti Maattanen

Re: EOI.DIS 16.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/001841.html
In: EOI.DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/thread.html#1707

KM: Thanks, Jon, for providing a context for bringing up Freud's Project. 

KM: In the main I can agree with the following: 

JA: I put Peirce and Freud in comparison as keen observers of 
    persistent psychological phenomena, with the speculative 
    power to anticipate explanatory mechanisms of a complexity 
    that many of our more reductionist thinkers hardly match 
    to the present day. 

KM: But why do you say "our MORE reductionist thinkers"?
    Do you consider Peirce a reductionist?
    Freud certainly was, but not Peirce.

Freud in 1895 was still reductionist, of the old Helmholtz school,
but already beginning his transition to another order of thinking.
But my point is this:  A criterion of scientific thinking is that
our theoretical models be adequate to the phenomenon in question.
Freud's 'Project' contains the seeds of many ideas that we do not
see prevalent in mainstream psychological and psychiatric thought
until after the cognitive revolution on the one hand and the rise
of object relations theories on the other.

KM: The main issue, however, is about the relationship between the
    mind and the brain, or psychological phenomena and neural processes.
    Freud explicates with admirable clarity his reductionistic aim and
    his devotion to the (outdated) ideals of natural science of his time
    in the introduction to the Project (see below an excerpt from the link
    you provided).

Once again, the feature of principal interest to me is whether the
theoretical models are adequate to the complexity of the phenomena.
It is the form and function of these models that gives them their
explanatory power, and not the labels that we pin to their parts,
whether we call them "physical" or "psychical".  The fact is that
Freud was articulating models of a recognizably cybernetic cast,
with neural structures that were complex enough to serve much
in the way that dynamic data structures do in current AI work,
that is, sufficient to the tasks of knowledge representation,
plus a markedly recursive analysis of psycho-social functions.

KM: With the following I cannot agree: 

JA: there are treasures yet to be explored in both 
    of these prescient but not pre-scientific lights. 

KM: I can't see any treasures following from Freud's aim
    to "represent psychical processes as quantitatively
    determined states of material particles" [= neurons].
    This is not what is valuable in Freud's work;  the
    treasures to be cherished are to be found elsewhere.
    (Unfortunately it's not uncommon to find the errors
    and limitations of eminent and famous scientists
    cherished as much or more than the treasures.)

Again, I do not care if a thinker thinks that all the cosmos
is made of water, or fire, or whatever -- it is the form and
the functioning of that substance that makes the explanation
explain phenomena, if it does at all.

I'll pick out some of my more
treasured nuggests tomorrow,
but I have to break for today.

Jon Awbrey

KM: As I see it, what Freud in his early work (The Project)
    wrote extensively, as well as what little Peirce did say
    on the relation between psychological phenomena and neural
    processes, need to be critically examined and, if they seem
    to serve some reasonable purpose, updated and reformulated.
    (The extremely rare occasions I have made an note "outdated"
    or something like that in the margins of CP have been with
    paragraphs dealing with the nervous system. Once or twice,
    if I remember correctly.)  Updating, however, I do not see
    anything like an easy task, main-stream neuroscience having
    not much to offer, especially in terms of a Peircean frame. 

You mentioned behaviorism when describing your studies in psychology. I'll take it as an example: Behaviorism is based
on the work of I.P.Pavlov. The founding fathers of behaviorism, however, took the notion of conditional reflex, isolated it
from its context, the general theoretical framework of I.P. Pavlov. They ignored the concept of dynamical stereotypes,
which for Pavlov was the neural correlate (this may not be an adequate term to use here) of a habit. On this basis the
behaviorists then developed their notion of habit, which became both predominant and popular, to the degree of being
ingrained in ordinary every-day western ways of thinking. Compared to the notion of habit in Pavlov's works, the
behaviorist variant is one-sided, skewed and simplistic. 

Here I want to add: 
Why I want to bring all this up in the list is not so just to give a response to Jon, but because - to my mind - the ways
Peirce's conception of habit has been understood and interpreted seems to be continuously muddled with the behaviorist
heritage. - This, of course, applies to what I'm familiar with. (Recommendations for further reading are welcome). 

Then, back to behaviorism and Pavlov: 

What behaviorism left out as well from I.P.Pavlov's theory was the basic approach of viewing the nervous system as a
whole. Exemplified in Pavlov's principle: Any pattern of activation induces a correlated pattern of inhibition in the system
(as a whole) One of the consequences - if this is accepted as a starting point - for philosophical considerations on the
mind-body problem (or its now popular reductionist variant: mind-brain problem) is that any attempt based on activation
of single neurons or bundles of neurons and linking them with -say- a mental image are futile. 

We all know that the activity of the nervous system is electro-magnetic activity. (c.f. Pavlov's principle above).
Approaches based on the idea of single neurons (then to be added up to bundles) take into consideration electrical
impulse passing (or rather hopping) through the neuron and its synaptical transmission to other neurons. - What is left out
of consideration, then, is the magnetic "side" of electro-magnetic phenomena. Quite unlegitimate use of Ockham's razor,
I'd say, no matter how common. 

I'm not sure I understood the following: 

          It may be that Ockham's razor will 
          always shave as close to the spinal cord as possible 

butif I did, I do hope it does not hold. (Pardon me for saying, but did you notice that your metaphor limps - "shaving"
sounds an inadequate here, isn't it a euphemism?) 

Anyway, it seems to me that the most common and long-standing misuse of Ockham's razor is that instead of carefully and
meticulously shaving the beard criss-crossing all over the essential features, it is used in a much simpler and quicker way:
to cut the throat. Not taking notice that if you cut the throat, you cut out life. By this I mean ways of philosophizing as if the
head with the brain inside were all that is essential in human beings, for epistemological purposes, for instance. E.g. all
epistemologies based on vision, that is: almost all through the modern era. It does not take very much caricaturing to say
that all that quite often seems to be taken as essential in human body is one eye (more specifically the dominant eye) and
the brain. Or, in modern neuroscience it is not uncommon to meet with explicit considerations of how "the brain interacts
with the world". Which is simply nonsense and in dire need of philosophical criticism. 

Well, well, well. It has been quite a while since I read Pavlov's Selected Works (in German translation). I was an
undergraduate student then, planning my master's thesis. By then I had read my share of behaviorism, as part of the
psychology curriculum, and I.P. Pavlov was familiar from those sources. I still vividly remember my astonishment when I
started to read his own writings, none of which was included in the curriculum. - And now that I came to think about it, I
don't remember having ever actually met anyone else who had read Pavlov's own writings, not even amongs the
neuropsychologists I've discussed with over the years. 

Now that I have dwelled this much on Pavlov's work, my anticipation is that some listers draw the hasty conclusion that I
am an adherent to his theory. That is not the case. I appreciate and even admire him as a devoted and original researcher
and theorist in his field, still unequalled in many respects. I took him up here as an example of a theorist in neuroscience,
whose treasures have been left behind, and a caricature passed on to future generations. 

To restate my main point here: 
There is no way out in philosophy of the trouble of taking into account in general outlines all that is essential in life. Peirce
was exceptional in his capability to do this, as well as minute work in logic, formal and informal. 

To end with a more casual key, I want to tell an story from the writings of Pavlov. He came to the conclusion that the
period of optimal activity in the brain occurs for some 20-30 minutes after waking up in the morning. He then bemoans
how people usually waste this precious time by getting dressed and brushing their teeth, whereas he always stays in bed
contemplating the most difficult and pressing scientific problems. 

Best regards 

Kirsti 

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