READING AGAINST REALITY: NOTES, LAST PART

 In the last couple of days I was able to finish the remaining portion of Donald Hoffman's CASE AGAINST REALITY. One reason is that it's both an easy read and just a little over 200 pages. But the other reason is that I could skip over a lot of Hoffman's fine points about tests of perception. This sort of slow case-building is necessary in science. But it wasn't strictly necessary for me to grasp his main thesis: the idea that all human perception is seen through the matrix he calls an "interface," as opposed to the common notion that "what we see is what there is." Hoffman's main concern is to demonstrate the superiority of his interface model, and for most of the book it appears he has no interest in inquiring into whatever aspects of reality that we, as products of evolution, are not privy to.

In the next to last chapter, "Scrutiny," Hoffman repeats examples from earlier chapters regarding creatures whose evolutionary instincts, which should promote fitness, may lead them down blind alleys. One prominent example is that of the Australian jewel beetle, which came near extinction because the males kept trying to mate with beer-bottles which resembled the markings of female jewel beetles. However, in an earlier chapter this was presented as no more than a comedy of mating errors. In "Scrutiny" the author goes a little further, claiming that fitness-conditioned entities as a whole cannot help but prefer "extreme" versions of normative stimuli, termed "supernormal stimuli."

Astute readers of this blog (or, more likely, of the works of Joseph Campbell) should recognize these two words. I believe Campbell first used the term in his 1959 book PRIMITIVE MYTHOLOGY, and he derived the phrase from ethological writings of his time. I printed a representative excerpt from said tome in my 2012 essay VERTICALLY CHALLENING. I'm not surprised that Hoffman doesn't mention Campbell, but his only footnote on the stimuli-subject is for a 2010 book that uses that very phrase for its title, SUPERNORMAL STIMULI. Maybe that book properly credits the ethologists of the 1950s. 

Now, Campbell did make a somewhat similar argument, that on some occasions certain creatures seemed to prefer the more "unnatural" stimulus. Hoffman, perhaps in line with his 2010 source, goes so far as to claim that ALL creatures do, including humans. "A male Homo sapiens doesn't just like a female with breast implants as much as a female au natural: he likes it far more." His footnote for this and similar assertions also cite the 2010 book, but whatever that work's data, I find the conclusion fatuous. I have no doubt that Hoffman embraces the notion because it supports his general theory regarding the limitations of fitness-based perception.

Only in the last chapter does Hoffman venture some thoughts about the excluded perceptions. I was sure that, even though he makes a brief reference to Kant, that Hoffman had no interest in either Kant's philosophical project or any of the religious systems to which Kant was somewhat indebted. What I did not expect was that his version of excluded perceptions would sound not unlike the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead.

The claim of conscious realism is better understood by looking in a mirror. There you see the familiar-- your eyes, hair, skin and teeth. What you don't see is infinitely richer, and equally familiar-- the world of your conscious experiences. It includes your dreams, fears, aspirations... the vibrant world of your conscious experiences that transcends three dimensions.-- p. 186.

And here's Whitehead writing about his version of "conscious experiences," almost a hundred years ago:

There is nothing in the real world which is merely an inert fact. Every reality is there for feeling: it promotes feeling; and it is felt. Also there is nothing which belongs merely to the privacy of feeling of one individual actuality. All origination is private. But what has been thus originated, publicly pervades the world.-- PROCESS AND REALITY.

However, philosophy is not Hoffman's metier, and he proves it later in the same chapter, when he cites this statement by Richard Dawkins:

Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.

Immediately after, Hoffman says:

I agree with Dawkins. If a system of thought, religious or otherwise, offers a claim that it wants taken seriously, then we should examine it with our best method of inquiry, the scientific method.

A little later, Hoffman claims that his "conscious realism" system might effect a "rapprochement" between the worlds of science and spirituality. But how could any detente be forged if science alone, even one based in Hoffman's "case against reality," is in the driver's seat? 

I understand that for scientists, religion's history of infringement upon "existence claims" like those of Galileo cast a long shadow. But if Hoffman really valued what he terms "conscious experiences," the hallmarks of a consciousness not yet explained by current science, then he might have seen that a religious "existence claim" is substantially different in nature from one of science. A story about humanity's origins in the Garden of Eden does not compete as an "existence claim" with the story of evolution. The latter is about viewing the universe as what Whitehead called "inert facts," allegedly objective evidence. The former is about the full range of subjective human feelings, extrapolated into a system of mythopoeic correlations.

And so Hoffman's case fails in the light of superior testimony by Alfred North Whitehead. But Hoffman's argument is at least less polarizing than that of science-worshipper Dawkins, and so the court of public opinion may see a better thinker come forth to forge the desired rapprochement.

READING AGAINST REALITY: NOTES PT 2

 I've finished Chapters 3 and 4 of Hoffman's CASE. I'm getting very strong indications that he's not concerned with disclosing aspects of the reality that human, fitness-oriented senses cannot disclose. His main concern seems to be for countering the dominant opinion that human senses endow their owners with a selective advantage. Future chapters may address what this does or does not alter about humans' place in the evolutionary chain of being.

Two interesting quotes I may use in the future:

The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual world as in the physical. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with with its power of resisting extinction by its rivals.-- Thomas Henry Huxley.

This accords with some of my perspectivist essays regarding the freedom to make choices depending on particular circumstances.

There is, as we have discussed, genetic drift -- the chance spreading of a neutral allele, which has no effect on fitness, throughout a population. This is more likely in smaller populations. Such drift, some claim, accounts for most of molecular evolution. It is possible that today's neutral drift might, as niches change, become tomorrow's game changer. -- Hoffman, p.71.

If one extends the principle of the "unexpectedly useful allele" to that of the "unpopular philosophical concept" or "obscure literary trope," one could make a good case for a scientifically supported take on "the stone the builders rejected."

 

 

READING AGAINST REALITY: NOTES

Though a lot of my philosophy-oriented posts read against simplistic conceptions of reality, whatever notes I make in this possible series are my responses to a 2019 book by cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman, THE CASE AGAINST REALITY. I don't know that I will finish the book, but after two chapters I already have some comments to record.

Roughly three centuries ago Immanuel Kant argued that human beings do not see reality "as it is," that they only see a series of "phenomena" which do not represent the conceptually known "noumenon" beyond human sense. Hoffman uses evolution to argue a theory that our perceptions are in large part an "interface," and that this interface came about in order to promote the fitness of the human subject.

Hoffman defends his thesis fairly well in the opening chapter, though of course I can't yet judge the full extent of his logic. But in Chapter 2, "Beauty," Hoffman seems to lose track of his own argument.

So there's nothing new about the idea that human genetics are responsive to socially and biologically determined perceptions of beauty. Like many lower animals, the humans in which all those genes reside often privilege various physical attributes, considering them indicators of good health and thus worthy candidates for mating. In Chapter 2, Hoffman focuses on just one indicator of both youth and good health: that of the eye. Apparently he either did detailed research on this attraction-factor himself or chose to focus only upon this single factor. But, given that in human culture there are a fair number of artifacts celebrating the beauties of the eye, it's a fair example.

However, though CASE is Hoffman's fourth published book, he throws out some unjustified statements. On page 30, he states that "a woman's fertility is not the same as her reproductive value." They certainly sound like the same thing to my ears, but Hoffman doesn't offer a solid distinction. He further remarks that a woman at 25 may be more fertile than she was at 20, but that at 20 her reproductive value was greater. What? Why? Is he assuming that the 25-year-old is simply going to turn out a few less offspring because she's five years older? That seems a reach.

On the same page he states the truism that older males who want offspring are more likely to seek younger females, rather than older ones, because of the former's superior fertility. So far, so expected. But then he makes the unsubstantiated claim, which he claims has been supported by "experiments," that "Men over twenty prefer younger woman. No surprise. But teen males prefer women who are slightly older." Hoffman supplies a footnote to a study that presumably supports this conclusion. But he himself does not explain the conclusion, or why he believes the purported evidence is relevant to his primary assertion that males select mates based on physical markers indicating fertility and fitness.

I can think of social and/or psychological reasons that "teen males" might seek older female sex-partners, and I assume anyone else can do the same. But Hoffman's trying to prove that sexual selection is determined by physical indicators, to support the genetic interpretation of how beauty is reckoned. He didn't even need to speak of what teen boys like to make his main point. My impression is that he knew of the cited research and wanted to reference it, but didn't realize that it was an unnecessary side-point.

That's my only note so far. More may be coming.

VERY NEXT DAY ADDENDUM: Though Hoffman does not mention Kant or his "noumenon" thesis anywhere in the first two chapters, the subject comes up in Chapter Three. There Hoffman quotes from correspondence he maintained with the famous biologist Francis Crick of "double helix" fame. Crick brings up the Kant conception as a way of illustrating the difference between what humans perceive, and the reality that may be beyond their ken. Not sure if Hoffman will pursue the comparison except to illustrate various scientific positions re: perception.

HOW NOT TO MOVE THE EARTH

• Give me a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth.-- variant version of Archimedes' quote.

To inquire into the substance of what has been observed
is possible in natural science only where there is an Archimedean
point outside. For the psyche, no such outside standpoint
exists—only the psyche can observe the psyche. Consequently,
knowledge of the psychic substance is impossible for us, at least
with the means at present available. This does not rule out the
possibility that the atomic physics of the future may supply us
with the said Archimedean point. For the time being, however,
our subtlest lucubrations can establish no more than is expressed
in the statement: this is how the psyche behaves.-- Carl Jung,
"The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales."

The comparative study of the mythologies of the world compels us to view the cultural history of mankind as a unit; for we find that such themes as the fire-theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero have a worldwide distribution--appearing everywhere in new combinations while remaining, like the elements of a kaleidoscope, only a few and always the same. Furthermore, whereas in tales told for entertainment such mythical themes are taken lightly--in a spirit, obviously, of play--they appear also in religious contexts, where they are accepted not only as factually true but even as revelations of the verities to which the whole culture is a living witness and from which it derives both its spiritual authority and its temporal power-- Joseph Campbell, PRIMITIVE MYTHOLOGY, p. 3.

When I re-read the Jung essay, I was once again struck by his point about how the human psyche possesses no "Archimedean point" on which an observer can stand upon, whereby to either move its substance or to analyze it.  

Of course, Jung has his detractors. That arch-Rationalist C.S. Lewis remarked of Jung's writings that "the definition of water should not itself be wet," which was Lewis' way of taking a shot at the psychologist who believed that all religions had their roots not in revelation but in psychological intuitions.  I imagine that Jung might have answered this criticism by saying that the psyche is not a substance which could be dispassionately observed "from outside," as the element of water is; thus Lewis' comparison is clever but meaningless.  It's also interesting that if one did not know Lewis' history, from that one remark it would be possible to imagine him an Empiricist of a particular positivist slant.

Empiricists, however, have been the current shapers of the reflective mode of thought, and those who have most consigned Jung to the periphery of science, like the remark I first reprinted here:

Post-modern critics have more or less dispatched Jung. At the same time his archetype concept has morphed into the more empirically testable prototype theories of cognitive linguistics and visual arts. Developed in the 1970s and 1980s largely by Eleanor Rosch and George Lakoff, prototypes reinterpret Wittgenstein's 'family resemblances' and basic-level categories, arguing that cognition produces a set of canonical categories (mental schema) that aid memory by producing somewhat abstracted or idealized feature sets of an object or object class (birds, for example) (Lakoff 1987).

I replied:

I believe I understand the appeal of this sort of science, particularly where its adherents believe it gives them weapons to knock down the idols of superstition and religion. But even if all of humankind's abilities to abstract and conceptualize *may* have arisen from cerebral attempts to conserve energy, that base fact does not define what the power of abstraction finally means, any more than the seed of an oak tress "means" the birds that nest within the tree.

It further struck me that this desire for an Archimedean point, from which one can imagine that one stands far enough removed from a given subject to analyze it, is common in elitist critics. Thus, though I wrote here that the appeal of Freud and Marx for elitists is founded in the appeal of a "reversal of values," I also noted at the essay's conclusion that such elitists did not prize revolution for its own sake. They want, as I concluded, "only one revolution, one story-- and sadly, just one truth." To accomplish that end, they attempt to give their analyses the pretense of psychological or sociological certainty, or, as I said in the above-cited "Dead-Alive Hand of the Past," following Freud and Marx because "Freud and Marx offer reductive paradigms which boast the rock-solid integrity of the physical sciences."

In passing I will note that the concentration upon supposed scientific veracity, or at least a "tough-minded" attitude comparable to the sciences, might also be the mark of what Northrop Frye calls an "Iliad critic," an argument I explored in my 2009 essay BREAKING OPEN MOULDY TALES.

In the quote above, Jung stressed the fact that we can only speak of the behavior of the psyche, and not of its substance. In doing so I believe he was trying to break out of the false positivism of his mentor Freud and of the psychological field generally, and present the experiences of the psyche as phenomenologically valid in themselves.   And in Joseph Campbell's above quote, he fundamentally agrees with Jung on this point, even though the two scholars approached the same material from very different orientations (Campbell being far less the Kantian that Jung was, for instance).

Nonetheless, when I encounter a remark from someone who believes that archetypes are somehow limiting, such as I referenced here, Campbell's quote proves instructive.  Campbell, like Jung, sees endless fascination in the productions of the psyche, even though they might reduce down to countless variations on a few limited themes. I repeat one phrase from the quote:

...such themes as the fire-theft, deluge, land of the dead, virgin birth, and resurrected hero have a worldwide distribution--appearing everywhere in new combinations while remaining, like the elements of a kaleidoscope, only a few and always the same. 

What might this mean to a subject aligned to science and reflective philosophy?  Presumably that individual would view such themes as restrictive because they might bind those who give them credence in the same way religious precepts have bound whole civilizations, at least according to the dominant "myth of religion" propounded by the more fanatical adherents of science. Such a reader would only see the words "always the same" and would assume that it was an attempt to convert others to a static, religion-based view of the universe-- and entirely overlook Campbell's emphasis on the "new combinations" that could spring "like the elements of a kaleidoscope," from those repeated themes.  And of course, that individual would conveniently overlook that supposed "scientists" like Freud and Marx have proselytized for their visions of the universe no less often than Jung and Campbell.  In fact, I've also sometimes suspected that the real popularity of Freud, Marx and all of their kindred is that a budding intellectual, by grounding himself in these doctrines, can safely ignore all the "speculative philosophy" that went before-- and a few representatives that endured into the twentieth century, such as Frye and Cassirer.  Certainly Edward Skidelsky, whose tome on Cassirer I began analyzing here, starts from the assumption that reflective philosophy has already won the day against the remnants of what I call "speculative philosophy."

On a side-note, I'm impressed yet again by the emphasis in Campbell on "combinations," just as I was upon finding a similar concept in Edmund Burke.  But any meditations on how Campbell relates to the combinatory-sublime will wait for a later essay.

NATURAL LAWBREAKING PT. 3

I'll have to put off further analysis of modern critics for now, but want to touch on Chapter 12 of Kauffman's book, in which Kauffman engages with the concepts of cognitive science.

Given Kauffman's opposition to reductionist paradigms, it's a given that he opposes the paradigm of cognitive science, though not without admitting that it has had some successes in the experimental realm.  In my few meditations on the paradigm, I've also admitted that cognitive science-- the science that investigates the human brain on the model of a "problem-solving computer"-- has had some limited applicability.  In LURKERS ON THE THRESHOLDS I said:

Ideological critics, by their nature, must depend on the narrow reductionism of Marxist aesthetics or of so-called "cognitive science." These tools are not without proper use within the total sphere of literary criticism, but they are useful only in limited sociohistorical circumstances, and are useless for understanding what Jung called the constructive or amplificative abilities of the human mind.

My distrust for cognitive science comes down to a simple philosophical disagreement rather than from an experimental stance.  To me, though there may be limited insights that may be gained from the brain-as-computer model, one cannot get around the fact that the brain is not a computer.  Any attempt to treat this paradigm as reality rather than as a limited model are based in the ideology surrounding materialism/positivism.

As one might expect, Kauffman's objections to cognitive science are more technically complex than this.  Again, I must admit that I do not have the expertise to accept or reject Kauffman's arguments, but I'll record some of them here for future comparison.

According to Kauffman, there are two "strands" of cognitive theory that have developed since Alan Turing's invention of the "Turing machine" in 1936.  One strand involves "attempts to understand symbol processing by the human mind" in terms of algorithms, while the second-- distantly derived from the 19th-century movement "associationism"-- is called "connectionism" and deals with the idea the "trajectories of states that flow through one another in sequence"-- that is, the progression of information along the body's neural paths-- are governed by "basins of attraction and attractors."  Kauffman then asserts that while both of these hypotheses are vital to cognitive science, they do not mesh:

The symbol-processing first strand... does not readily carry out the pattern recognition... that is natural to the connectionist view.  Conversely, the connectionist picture of basins of attraction and attractors has a difficult time accomodating the symbolc processing properties of the first computational strand.

It's possible that these competing paradigms are, as the saying goes, just different parts of the same elephant, whose entirety is difficult to descry through the dark glasses of reductionism.  In any case Kauffman's main purpose is to defend the complexity of the human mind, less in the terms of Jung-- whom I invoke above-- than of Wittgenstein. 

The end of this chapter looks forward to a new schema meant to incorporate quantum theory, as opposed to a schema based in the reductionist physics of Galileo and Company:

But must conscious mind be classical [i.e., "related only to classical physics"], rather than quantum or a mixture of classical and quantum?

When I finish the book, it may be interesting to mount a comparison between Kauffman's two models, "classical" and "quantum," and Kant's two species of imagination, "productive" and "reproductive." We-- or maybe just I-- shall see.