A mystery:
It’s not that the old meds are getting weaker, drug developers say. It’s as if the placebo effect is somehow getting stronger.
Link: Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.
Part of the drugmakers’ research response is to probe what placebos really do and how they work. This could have interesting implications for the mind-body question, for one of the mysteries of mind and body is how a belief, such as belief in placebo, interacts with brain and body to produce improvement in some cases.
Via the always-entertaining Improbable Research. Unlike some other news reported there, this appears to be legit.
Interesting stuff. One amazing thing to me is that the physical response “knows” what to do. Believing you will get better is different than getting the body to do the physical things necessary to actually get better. Why does the belief that your anti-depression medication is working cause your depression to go away rather than cause your cancer tumor to shrink? It’s like we have people practicing medicine (on themselves) without any knowledge of how the body works.
Saying that it is simply the “belief” that causes the placebo effect is way too simplistic. I think it is much more an issue of the person embodying the healthy mode of being which then frees up the body to correct itself. Depression, for example, isn’t just holding to certain beliefs that then cause the brain’s structure to change accordingly. It is a way of being attuned to the world, of allowing some (“negative”) things to become ultra salient and other (“positive”) things to recede into the background (essentially to disappear) on a chronic level (rather than just a “bad mood”). This also happens at the level of behavior, as we are “drawn” (or, as Merleau-Ponty would put it, “motivated”) into neutral and destructive behavior (for a good summary of this view, along with a critique of cognitivist/propositional approaches, see here; I have a PDF of the original if you want it).
Because the organism works as a whole, altering one aspect into a “healthy” mode of being can have global effects, bringing other aspects of the self into coherence with the altered aspect. So to say that it is “belief” that is causing the change is too simplistic, too much a “propositional reductionism”. It is understandable that someone in a so-called “analytic” tradition (as most are in the current culture, unless they explicitly research into the alternatives) would see the “belief” as the central aspect.
One more post to get e-mail comments (keep forgetting you have that function).
The “healthy” mode of being, and the body “correcting” itself, is all fine. But this has nothing whatever to do with the question at hand, or if it does, you didn’t tell us how it does. The question is this: when people swallow a pill that they believe will have some effect, they tend to have different outcomes than when that belief is lacking. Or if by some suggestion they have (or think they have) reason to believe it will have a certain effect, that’s the effect it tends to have. It may be “positive” or it may be “negative,” but whichever, it is the belief that seems to make the difference. “Embodying the healthy mode which then frees up the body to correct itself” says nothing with respect to that.
If you have something less “simplistic” to offer than this, please be aware that “a way of being attuned to the world” is rather “vague” language at best, and a 40-page “paper” on why “Heidegerian AI Failed” is not very “promising” for me to spend time looking through, to get some idea of whatever it is you are trying to get at.
Tom,
The point I was trying to make is that fixating at the level of the belief doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. Sure, belief plays a part, but it’s not the most important part, which means that “the question at hand” is not the best question; it is starting at the wrong, abstract, propositional level (or at least putting too much focus on it). I could try to answer that question, but it’s the wrong place to start anyway, so answering it wouldn’t be too useful.
As for the supposed vague-ness of attunement, that is the purpose of the paper. Or, if you would prefer, I could give you a hundred pages of Heidegger where he further elucidates and contextualizes that term, but that would be much harder than the Dreyfus paper. Dreyfus puts it much better than I could and that would give us some common ground for us to start with rather than me trying to give you a ground-level start, which hasn’t been very successful when I’ve tried it here in the past.
How about this: I can email you the printed version which is only 22 pages long (though largely the same material). His paper deals directly with the mind-body problem and the literally scant ground that most philosophers base their views on when they start with propositional/representational belief. Dreyfus’ paper is the best short summary of an alternative view that is available (at least from my reading). Within wider analytic circles you can safely (but in my mind, wrongly) ignore this as most analytics don’t take Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty seriously, but I’m presenting this paper as a precise elucidation of an alternative that could begin to ‘answer’ your question (or show where it goes wrong and why).
Hi Kevin,
What causes one to become attuned?
You say belief plays a part, so what part does it play?
Do the chemicals in the placebo alter brain chemistry so as to be interpreted as “belief”?
Do they cause the subject to become attuned to the world?
Do the sound waves generated by the doctor’s larynx?
Charlie,
You ask:
The state of the organism as a whole and its practical relation to its environment. The ‘answer’ must be holistic and cannot be reduced to this or that linear cause.
To quote Heidegger, “The totality-of-significations of intelligibility [the embedded, contextual, and practical ground of meaning] is put into words. To significations, words accrue” (Being and Time, 204/H161; emphasis in original). Words, propositions, and beliefs are grounded in the significances that we inhabit and understand, which is itself non-propositional in nature. Yes, this doesn’t answer the question because we do not share the same background understanding of Heideggerian/Merleau-Pontian phenomenology. That is exactly the problem I’ve had in the past: I can’t simply refer to the “common sense” analytic-type concepts that pervade our culture and philosophical training because, according to this alternative, they are fundamentally ungrounded and inadequate, and bringing that inadequacy to light would take more time and energy than I can give and would result, anyway, in more reading than if I simply referred you to the (better) work of others. It’s akin to me throwing out some Buddhist concepts as an answer to a question from someone who is ignorant of Buddhism (except that this alternative is more difficult to grasp than Buddhism); it would cause more confusion than it would help. Anyway, on to the next question:
No, because now you are exchanging a propositional reductionism for a physical reductionism. Either way, as a “placebo”, the pill doesn’t have any “chemicals” to make such a change.
No, because that would be, again, a physical reduction of what is actually a holistic phenomenon.
Again, too reductionistic.
I’ll go ahead and place the shorter version of the Dreyfus paper and one more useful paper by Charles Taylor (best known for writing Sources of the Self, a very Heideggerian work, by the way) exclusively on Merleau-Ponty (I’ll be removing them in a couple of days, so download it now if you want it).
How Heideggerian AI Failed and How Fixing It Would Require Making it More Heideggerian
Merleau-Ponty and the Epistemological Picture
They are relevent to this issue and I don’t expect you to read them, but I thought I’d provide them just in case.
Hello Kevin
Perhaps you could be so kind as to define your understanding of the word “belief” for us. I have browsed through the articles you posted and I suspect that your definition of “belief” is reduced to a merel particular within the whole of our (subconsious?) totality which cannot be understood without reference to that totality. Hence your appeal to “holism”.
As G. K Chesterton once pointed out, “these long allusive words that are full of irrelevant implication and suggestion.” have an anasthetic effect; “The editor had not seen the point, because in the title of the book the long word came at the beginning and the short word at the end; whereas in my comments the short word came at the beginning and gave him a sort of shock.[…]But so long as you begin with a long word like [totality-of-significations of intelligibility] the rest will roll harmlessly past;…”
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/everlasting_man.html#chap-I-i
Chesterton is suggesting that the use of dense, muti-syllabic prose is, as often as not, a tactic employed to subvert rational thought, engaged by the author to camoflage the speculative nature of his hypothesis.
“Belief”, in common parlance, is a proposition one holds to be true, with or without justification. The use of the term “belief” in the sense Tom used it does not preclude that there are reasons (the totality or whole) for an individual to hold the proposition “This pill will make me better” true, nor does it judge the validity of those reasons. In fact, the article cited explores some of the reasons why poeple hold such beliefs – perhaps implying, in some sense, your “holistic” system.
You might wish to consider reading Mortimer Adler, “Ten Philosophical Mistakes”
http://radicalacademy.com/adlerbriefing1.htm#mistakes
Dave,
Your definition of belief suits my purposes just fine. So there’s your answer to the question.
As for Chesterton, one could just as rightly argue that the apparent allergy to longer words is just an excuse for someone who is too lazy to do the work to actually understand them. No credible Heideggerian scholar claims that Heidegger is easy. Thankfully, though, we have people like Hubert Dreyfus, John Haugelund, Charles Taylor, Mark Wrathall, Thomas Sheehan, Theodore Kisiel, William Blattner, Charles Guignion, Richard Polt, Taylor Carman, David Cerbone, and Julian Young to help us out by deciphering Heidegger’s difficult prose and significantly simplifying them. There is substantial agreement among them about what Heidegger means by such central long-winded terms and my own mining of their works have significantly helped me in cultivating the ability to read the primary texts. Just because you are too lazy to do the legwork necessary to understand Heidegger and get scared at the very apearance of a long word doesn’t mean that Heidegger is inherently un-intelligible.
Hi Kevin
So, when I spend the weekend struggling to understand a particularly obscure bit of prose, such as Heidegger’s
Which may be translated in the following manner;
“The totality-of-significations of intelligibility…”
= “all that we know”
“…[the embedded, contextual, and practical ground of meaning]…”
= “…[that which we know]…”
“…is put into words….”
[no translation necessary]
“To significations, words acrue.”
= “words are signs.”
and discover that it could be better expressed in the phrase
“Words are signs that express what we know”
I am discovering some profundity which could not become part of my “totality-of-significations of intelligibility [the embedded, contextual, and practical ground of meaning]” until it was put into multi-syllabic and obtuse language. …. Go figure. Words do accrue.
Hi Kevin,
So I see you think the reductionism to physical causality is inappropriate.
I think so as well. In fact, that is the very problem alluded to in the OP.
So what is the answer to why the placebo works, if it is not belief, and it is not due to physical properties?
But I am asking about the state of the animal. What causes its state to be that of being attuned to the environment. Aren’t you just answering the question by restating it? How does the state cause itself? When I ask how it comes into a certain relationship with its environment how is that question answered by “its relation to the environment”?
What is a significance, how do we inhabit it, and how does that answer “what role do beliefs have”?
Right, it is no answer. And yet for some reason you keep thinking that spreading more confusion than help is worth your time to do and our time to read.
And you supply this confusion in an effort to somehow show that other people are wrong, not only about their answers, but about the very questions they ask.
Can you at least explain how they are relevant and what they might have to say on the subject?
Since you are the one positing Heidegger as the answer to various questions you should be able to explain him at some point. If your goal is to communicate with people or to even to gain for his point of view that would be your task. It is not laziness to avoid reading material that doesn’t make a lot of sense, that has been dismissed by many thinkers and which you, as one who apparently knows a thing or two about the subject, can’t make attractive and can’t show how it is an answer to the various questions for which you posit it.
Dave:
Excellent clarification of Heidegger’s usual obfuscatory (perhaps intentionally so) style: indeed, Heidegger’s diarrhea of the mouth is reducible to “words are signs that express what we know“… and this reveals his error (which you also correctly identified). Heidegger follows (lemming-like) in the infamous footsteps of the error of the Modern Project started with Descartes, and his pretty words cannot hide the fact that, at bottom, he believes it’s the concepts/ideas we know rather than the things.
We do not know (except upon reflection as second intentions) the concept/ideas–rather, we know the thing itself. Sadly, Heidegger neglected the wisdom of the principles and axioms identified by Medieval Scholars… including, e.g., “The definition declares the essence, the word signifies the definition.” The word “tree” does NOT point to (signify) some concrete individual tree but the concept of “treeness.” The concept “treeness,” in turn, is the intelligible aspect of all things that are trees, i.e., those things we know. It’s the tree we know–not the concept of “treeness” (except, to repeat, when we reflect back upon the concept). We do not “know” words except insofar as they “contain” meaning. Once we know something (i.e., its intelligible aspect, its whatness, its essence), we can define it (the definition “declares” the essence)… and words are signifiers of the definition–not the thing itself.
When a young child sees, points to, and exclaims “TREE!”, he/she are referring to WHAT it is he/she knows. That child is NOT thinking about or knowing the word or concept but the thing itself.
I can’t believe Heidegger did not seem to “get” the fact that there are lots of languages out there that use their own words to signify definitions which in turn declare the essence of what we know. I don’t know how to say “treeness” in Mandarin Chinese, but neither the Chinese nor English nor Ukrainian nor etc. versions of the word for “treeness” rule reality as Heidegger seems to broadly intimate. Human words derive their power by pointing/signifying a definition (when it comes to knowing things). “Meaning” is “contained” in words; “essence” is “contained” in the thing known; we know things directly through their intelligible aspects. Christ, as the Word of God, is omnipotent precisely because that Word IS God: one cannot “define” that which is Beingness Itself.
I decline to comment on Kevin’s condescension against your (and Chesterton’s) common-sense clarifications (Charlie did a fine job in that respect). Common sense was something lacking to the pedigree of “philosophers” represented by the likes of Heidegger. (To be fair, he did have a few interesting things to say.) My apologies for getting a bit philosophically technical… but these things are important.
Dave,
No, that is not an accurate translation (despite Holopupenko’s apparently ignorant supposed portrayal of Heidegger’s thought).
“The totality-of-significations of intelligibility” refers to the fact that everything which is intelligible is in a state of reference, such as a hammer being situated within the totality of significations that include (but not exhaustively) the act of hammering, nails, wood, reasons to hammer, etc. It is somewhat akin to a Quinean or Davidsonian holism (see the Taylor article), but without the reductivistic basics (see the Dreyfus article).
“…[the embedded, contextual, and practical ground of meaning]” does not translate into “what we know” as Heidegger is not talking about knowledge per se but the transcendental ground for meaning, or what makes meaning possible, which is the “totality-of-significations of intelligibility” that is furthermore possible because our mode of being is that of being-in-the-world. But, again, I imagine that still doesn’t help because now you’ll want me to give an exposition on “being-in-the-world” which will then bring up further concepts that don’t fit within the frame that you are trying to give it, hence my giving other readings instead of taking on all that responsibility myself. But I’ll continue nonetheless.
“To significations, words acrue” does not mean that words are signs, but rather (much more specifically) that words are signifiers of a non-propositional (contra Holopupenko) yet meaningful ground which is composed of “understanding” (i.e. the “totality-of-significations of intelligibility”) that is possible because our mode of being is that of being-in-the-world. Heidegger’s entire project is transcendental, as in the tradition of Kant and Husserl, though his thought and approach is rather different from both.
So, as you can see (or perhaps you can’t), your “translation” isn’t a very good one because it is missing some very important elements, such as an understanding of “understanding”, situating these words within a transcendental analysis, seeing how it connects with the question of being (the central issue in the whole of Being and Time), a grasp of what Heidegger’s non-propositional ground is like, etc. In short, rather than showing some sort of “multi-syllabic and obtuse language”, you’ve just shown your own ignorance and your bias that everything you read needs to fit your own analytic philosophical categories (which you are simply assuming is right).
Charlie,
The answer lies in an understanding that transcends the mind-body dualism that has kept Western thought captive since Descartes. Heidegger proposes “being-in-the-world” as a third category; for Merleau-Ponty it is the “body schema” and “motivation” (or, in his later thought, “the flesh”). The Taylor article discusses this explicitly (so does the Dreyfus, but it’s not as explicit).
Which is exactly why I posted the work of others that explain it better than I could at this moment. I didn’t post them for my own amusement, but as a means of helping you understand. Why on earth must I be the one to answer when others have said it better than I could?
Please see the previous response: I’m giving you the tools to understand but you keep rejecting it because you want a sound bite from me that will somehow fully encapsulate a radically different alternative to this issue than what you are used to. It’s not my fault you aren’t willing to do some of the work.
Well, I have a whole blog where I’ve done some work to that effect, but that’s even more reading than the resources I’ve given, so I doubt you’d care.
Have you even looked at either of the papers I linked to? Yes, Heidegger is difficult reading, but (and I’ll repeat myself) these thinkers (among the others I mentioned above) significantly simplify Heidegger’s difficult prose. Don’t claim that my “material…doesn’t make a lot of sense” when you don’t care enough to actually look at it.
And what is that but an appeal to popularity (i.e. a logical fallacy)? Yes, it is true that many (though certainly not all) in the so-called “analytic” tradition don’t think highly of Heidegger, but so what? That doesn’t demonstrate that Heidegger himself “doesn’t make a lot of sense”. “Many thinkers” have also rejected Christianity, Charles Sanders Peirce was ignored till somewhat recently, etc. “Many thinkers” can be (and often have been) wrong in the past.
I’ve directed you to sources that describe the alternative better than I can (especially given this very limited medium). I can’t do anymore till you show a little initiative rather than expecting me to spoon-feed you everything. Of course, you could do the same thing as most so-called analytic philosophers and just ignore Heidegger rather than try to understand him (with the exceptional help of the figures I mentioned above); I can’t stop you from choosing that path. But you could then be missing out on something important. Your call. I’ve given my resources that (I’m repeating myself) do a better job of elucidating the alternative than I can at this time. Take it or leave it.
Holopupenko,
That you think that Heidegger is a Cartesian is just plain laughable. I’m curious where you are getting this understanding as it is contrary to everything that I have read, both by Heidegger himself (and I’ve read a substantial amount of his primary works) and Heideggerian scholars (and I’ve read a substantial amount of the secondary literature).
Heidegger unequivocally argues that we have direct unmediated (i.e. by concepts or propositions) access to beings. That is one of the central anti-Cartesian claims of Being and Time and it continues through his later works. What are your sources for this utterly false interpretation of Heidegger’s thought?
Because you are the one claiming it is relevant, that it makes the question inappropriate and that you understand it.
If you can’t explain it in terms that people can understand then it is likely you don’t understand it as well as you claim and at least you are not communicating anything real to those people.
Why should I even believe that there is a compelling reason for doing this work if you can’t say anything meaningful about it?
I read the quote you supplied me as an “answer” and now I’ve seen the scads of words you’ve written to try to “explain” it.
The two statements were separate; neither was a conclusion of the other.
I want to know why you think you are answering a question – or rather, showing why a question doesn’t make sense – when you show up presenting Heidegger yet again.
Why should I go off and study your subject to find out if you are actually saying anything about the OP when you still haven’t offered any answers.
What causes a person to “embody a healthy mode of being”?
How does a placebo cause one to become attuned to the world and how does this cause transcend “belief”?
If it’s not even useful to answer the question of the OP, if it is starting at the wrong level, why are you posting on the topic?
How does a state cause itself? How does its relation to the environment explain its relation to the environment?
I don’t. I could have clicked on your name if I did. I want to know if you can answer the questions that you raise.
If I went to your blog and challenged your assertions there it would be my duty to do the homework to get up to speed on your lingo. But you have come out into the world with your claims, so I have asked for explanations of what you are saying.
If it must come from me, I just remembered that I gave a presentation at a conference in 2007 where I composed a piece that summarizes Heidegger’s thought from Being and Time to “The Principle of Identity”. As with all summaries, it is short and probably still requires some pre-understanding on the part of the reader, so it might not help at all, but it’s the best that I have readilly available at this moment (the next best thing would be a part of my thesis, but that would be much more reading than what I’ve already posted). Granted, there are aspects that I would change now as my understanding has deepened, but I still think it’s a decent summary. Enjoy (or don’t)!
Charlie,
Again, I’m giving resources that describe the alternative better than I can. Why is it that you believe that if I can’t adequately elucidate the alternative in this restricted medium then my sources are worthless? You spent all that time responding to my previous posts that you could have spent reading even a part of the Dreyfus article to see for yourself if it is relevent (surely you’re intelligent enough to be able to determine that). Instead you continue to demand that I take the time to write in my own words what someone else has already said better than I could. It’s not like I’m asking you to read a whole book!
Also yoru demand assumes that any view worth giving must be capable of being adequately summarized with a few talking points or a few propositions that conform to the categories accepted in a school of thought that the alternative claims is fundamentally inadequate. In short, to give the alternative in that way is to reject the very claim of the alternative to be something different in the first place. That’s a nice way to load the discussion so that I must essentially fail if I succeed. It’s like demanding that someone describe quantum mechanics in the terms of Newtonian physics (or, better yet, Aristotelian physics): succeeding essentially destroys exactly what quantum mechanics has to offer to our understanding of the world.
So, if you want to learn about the alternative read the best sources available. I’ve provided two very good sources. You can continue to refuse these sources and demand that I personally restate what they said in not-as-adequate terms as they did, but that’s your loss.
Holopupenko,
Here’s a good article against your conceptual understanding of Heidegger written by Taylor Carman (a premiere Heideggerian scholar).
Hi Kevin
…everything which is intelligible is in a state of reference, such as a hammer being situated within the totality of significations…
Perhaps that is why it is “intelligible” – if we had no state of reference for an object it would be un-intelligible. ergo, it is what we know.
…Heidegger is not talking about knowledge per se but the transcendental ground for meaning, or what makes meaning possible, which is the “totality-of-significations of intelligibility” that is furthermore possible because our mode of being is that of being-in-the-world….
Meaning
1. Something that is conveyed or signified; sense or significance.
2. Something that one wishes to convey, especially by language: The writer’s meaning was obscured by his convoluted prose.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meaning
Playing with words does not convey meaning. The “totality-of-significations of intelligibility” is
totality = the state of being total; entirety.
of = preposition indicating possesion
significations = the act or fact of signifying
of = preposition indicating possesion
intelligibility = capable of being understood
knowledge = acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition: knowledge of many things.
All the signifiers we possess which are intelligible are signifiers which convey meaning. Those signifiers are expressed as words. The meaning expressed through the words which signify the intelligible meaning are what we call knowledge.
Our mode of being is “being-in-the-world” because we are contingent, physical, beings which exist in a contingent, physical, world. As contingent beings we are, necessarily, temporal and temporary. This is a tautology. Where else could we “be” except where we are?
However, we also have the capacity for deliberative reflection on the phenomena of the temporal world and the capacity to rationally examine the conclusions we draw about the temporal world. That is to say the we, as humans qua humans, transcend the material world in a reflective and rational sense. We should use our reflective and rational capacity to understand the world in which we live and the “be”-ing we are.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/
…that words are signifiers of a non-propositional (contra Holopupenko) yet meaningful ground which is composed of “understanding” (i.e. the “totality-of-significations of intelligibility”) that is possible because our mode of being is that of being-in-the-world….
Signifiers of what? Understanding of what? Does the term ‘mental-masturbation’ have a “totality-of-significations of intelligibility”?
Kevin:
I did not say Heidegger was “Cartesian” (where did you get that?), I said “Heidegger follows (lemming-like) in the infamous footsteps of the error of the Modern Project started with Descartes.” The problem is “the what” he claims we know, and his own words betray him. Nuff said. And your trying to draw me into the disagreement (on this very point) between Carman and Lafont is a non-starter. I paraphrase a joke from the former Soviet Union originally directed at Marx and Lenin: Q – Who is a Heideggerian follower? A – One who has read Heidegger’s works. Q – Who is anti-Heideggerian? A – One who has read Heidegger’s works… and understood them.
Dave,
If only every reference of meaning could be so easily decoded by picking up a dictionary. Even within so-called analytic thought, you can’t figure out what the person is saying by simply taking up a dictionary. Philosophy has never been so simple, even with the “plain language” philosophers.
Again, you are missing the whole background within which Heidegger’s statement is being made and you are trying to force it within your own framework, the exact framework that Heidegger is saying is philosophically inadequate. Words don’t “convey” meaning within Heidegger’s thought (as if they were ‘transporting’ meaning from one person to another), even in his middle thought (in Being and Time). Words aren’t references to concepts, but are used to disclose public and shared worlds. “World” in this sense refers to what we could say is, e.g., the world of mathematics, the world of art, etc. Within each of these worlds there is a constellation of beings, practices, and attunements (i.e. receptivity to meaningful relations, to particular aspects that are relevant, etc.) that allow for beings to be meaningfully disclosed (or to appear in a particular way). Put one way, a soccer ball appears quite differently when you are engaged in playing soccer than it does if it is used as ready-made art: different aspects of the ball become salient in one context that do not in the other (the way the light plays off the ball’s surface does not come to light within the game and the ball does not ‘appear’ to us as something that we can kick around when it is within the context of the museum). Similarly, when one is playing chess one can safely (and one automatically does) ignore the aesthetic appeal of the chess board, the possibility of using the board as a bookmark, or even as a weapon; these uses and meanings are not ‘contained’ in the meaningful world of chess (even though they are genuine possibilities afforded by the chess board).
To use words (as I am above) is to bring to light those aspects, to direct another so that they can see (not simply cogitate) the totality of significations that make that world and the objects and purposes in it meaningful/intelligible. So we are not talking about knowledge (“facts, truths, or principles”), but about the transcendental ground that makes meaning possible (that makes it possible for us to have facts, truths, and principles; there is a different between knowledge and what makes knowledge possible in the first place), which is the “totality of significations” that is grounded in our being-in-the-world.
Speaking of that, your understanding of being-in-the-world (Dasein) in terms of our being “contingent, physical, beings which exist in a contingent, physical, world” is again reframing Heidegger’s ideas in the analytic (and Cartesian) terms that Heidegger is denying. Yes, it is true that we can’t be anywhere else than where you are, but Heidegger is not talking about mere physical and temporal location, as if we could point to a point on a timeline and map our location on a coordinate plane. Our being, as being-in-the-world, is not merely physical/temporal location or the possession of this or that physical and mental properties, but is an active, intentional mode of comportment with things (not concepts, as Holopupenko claims [without evidence, reference, or quotation]). Because we are active beings who are constantly relating with beings on a practical level (we are trying to get around, to get things done, to fulfill our needs/wants, etc.), we inhabit these meaningful worlds: we attune ourselves to various contexts that require different skills, attunement to different things (see above), that relate us to different kinds of beings (people, objects, places), etc. So inhabiting a world is not having certain concepts or facts at our disposal (or at least not most fundamentally), but being disposed to certain ways of relating with things that are interrelated within a totality of significations
No doubt this won’t help, even though Dreyfus talks about it directly in the reference I gave (in terms of the “frame problem” in AI) and you could have learned this if you had read it rather than posting what you did (the former would have been a more fruitful action). But there you have it.
Holopupenko,
Ok, forget Carman and Lafont. I’ll bite: show me where “[Heidegger’s] own words betray him” on this matter. I want a specific quote or reference to a specific section of a specific work or something other than your own words. Incidentally, see the Carman article for plenty of references that are directly contrary to your own claim.
P.S. I’m still waiting for your sources (what you have read) that lead you to interpret Heidegger in this way. You present yourself as one who is familiar with “[Heidegger’s] own words”, so I’d like to know where you read those words. Where are you getting your information?
Kevin:
Oh… no, no, no: the onus is not on me but on you… I’m not going to do your research for you. (You’re trying to do damage control for Heidegger.) Moreover, the text was provided above by Dave before I even entered the discussion. That you then “translate” this obfuscatory text to meet your own view (perhaps admittedly a more healthy view of reality than Heidegger) is part of the point. Finally, no, I won’t forget about Carman and Lafont: that dispute is also very pertinent to the point. You may have the last word.
Hi Kevin
If only every reference of meaning could be so easily decoded by picking up a dictionary.
Most can. The reason most can is that words are containers which transmit concepts from intellect to intellect. In the rare case where a word usage cannot be found in the dictionary the author generally defines his usage so thatt he intellect with whom he is communicating may comprehend the concept the word is being used to transmit.
Even within so-called analytic thought, you can’t figure out what the person is saying by simply taking up a dictionary.
No, one must read sentences and paragraphs as well. The meaning of the individual words as enumerated in the dictionary, coupled with any special definitions assigned by the author within the context of the sentence, paragraph, chapter, or “totality” communicate meaning to the reader and, with due dilligence, the reader aquires “knowledge”. The deliberate and repeated use of obfuscatory and indeterminate language is a manifestation of vague and indeterminate thinking. When entire bodies of work produce nothing better than ambiguity and confusion in language, and when the disciples of that body cannot explain their own thinking, then I feel justified in admonishing them to re-examine their philosophy.
Philosophy has never been so simple, even with the “plain language” philosophers.
I haven’t suggested that “philosophy is simple”… quite the contrary. Philosophy is often obtuse, obscure, ambiguous, and impenetrable. It is also, very often, absurd. A playground for intellectual dilletants with large vocabularies and undisciplined minds. Unfortunately, many otheriwise intelligent people can be fooled by dense, impenetrable, prose proclaimed with presumptious assurance. As far as I can figure, the logic runs thus; “I can’t understand a word he is saying, but he is well educated, so he must know what he is talking about.”
“The only good reason for learning philosophy is to refute bad philosophy.”
BTW, I looked at your “presentation at a conference in 2007 where I composed a piece that summarizes Heidegger’s thought from Being and Time to “The Principle of Identity”.”
Have you read it? I mean really read it?
Holopupenko,
Ok, so first Carman/Lafont are “a non-starter” and now they are “very pertinent to the point”? Make up your mind.
As for me making my case, I already did by referencing Carman’s paper (which you agree is “very pertinent to the point”). The fact is that Heidegger makes the explicit claim that is the exact opposite of your claim. Heidegger rejects the subject-object (subjective-objective) distinction that is necessary in order for someone to accept the subjectivist account that you gave. See §17 of Being and Time: “Signs of the kind we have described let what is available be encountered; more precisely, they let some context of it become accessible in such a way that our concernful dealings take on an orientation and hold it secure” (B&T, 110/H79). Signs provide “an orientation within our environment” (Ibid) and “always indicate[s] primarily ‘wherein’ one lives, where one’s concern dwells, what sort of involvement there is with something” (Ibid, 111/H80), not some “inner” realm, but an explicit, ecstatic relation with one’s environment and with “something”. Heidegger says explicitly that signs are not “an indicator-Thing” (Ibid, 110/H79). Probably the most comprehensive quote in that section:
These, along with many others, contradict your claim that Heidegger thinks “it’s the concepts/ideas we know rather than the things”. In Basic Problems of Phenomenology Heidegger says that “Intentionality [contrary to Brentano’s/Husserl’s understanding of that term] is neither something objective nor something subjective in the traditional sense” (314). In speaking of truth, Heidegger says that “being-true is something that ‘lies between’ the subject and the object” (Ibid, 218), not that it lies completely on the side of the subject.
I’ll leave you with one last quote.
So, the subject-object distinction is “superficial” and vacuous (with a degree of truth) and, furthermore, these terms, as traditionally understood, do not coincide with “Dasein” and “world”, so Heidegger’s self-understanding of his thought is that the subject-object distinction is not useful. Furthermore, he is saying explicitly that knowledge in terms of inner and outer (subject and object), when examined, leaves us only with “silence”: that when we examine the “inner” we do not find anything, so phenomenologically speaking, the “inner” has no meaning and is a useless term. This is one of the reasons why he understands Dasein as ek-stasis, as ‘standing out of itself’ rather than something “inner” or “subjective”.
Now, I’ve made a simple case against your claim. Now it is your turn to show me where, despite Heidegger’s explicit claims to the contrary, he is proclaiming some sort of extreme subjectivism. But, please, only use “his own words”. Thanks.
Hello Kevin
Such a sign addresses itself to the circumspection of our concernful dealings, and it does so in such a way that the circumspection which goes along with it, following where it points, brings into an explicit ’survey’ whatever aroundnesss the environment may have at the time.
Ibid.
Define “sign”
Define “circumspection”
Define “concernful dealings”
Define “survey”
Define “aroundness”
Define “environment”
But no sooner was the ‘phenomenon of knowing the world’ grasped than it got interpreted in a ’superficial’, formal manner. The evidence for this is the procedure (still customary today) of setting up knowing as a ‘relation between subject and object’–a procedure in which there lurks as much ‘truth’ as vacuity. But subject and object do not coincide with Dasein and world.
How does Heidgegger ascertain that the ‘phenomenon of knowing the world’ [by which I assume he means our mental grasp of the external world] is ‘superficial’. This is a “truth claim” about the nature of reality and knowing reality for which Heidegger claims special knowledge or insight inaccessible to the bulk of humanity.
Heidegger asserts that “knowing as a ‘relation between subject and object’–[is] a procedure in which there lurks as much ‘truth’ as vacuity.” How does he know this? He is, in fact, making truth claims about the nature of reality and knowledge, the relation between subject (himself) and object (the nature of reality and our capacity to know reality). To paraphrase Heidegger, here “lurks more vacuity than ‘truth’.”
But subject and object do not coincide with Dasein and world.
Here Heidegger appears to sever subject (the knowing observer) from object (the thing known) and insert his semantic invention Dasein [the being-in-the-world]. Is Heidegger himself not a “knowing observer”? Is Heidegger himself not a “being-in-the-world”? BTW “being” is, by definition, the quality or state of having existence .
His other semantic invention is the ‘world’, by which I assume he means all things outside of the Dasein “being-in-the-world”. However, upon examination, this is merely a semantic substitution. There is the subject, knowing observer, being-in-the-world, Dasein and the object, thing known, world, all being outside the Dasein [being-in-the-world].
By renaming the subject/object as Dasein/world Heidegger has either invented a third and forth layer of reality which is indiscernable by the intellect and hence subjective or he is playing semantic games to disavow objective reality and hence introducing subjectivism through the back door.
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger#Reception_by_Analytic_and_Anglo-American_philosophy
A strong critic of Heidegger’s philosophy was the British logical positivist A. J. Ayer. In Ayer’s view, he proposed vast, overarching theories regarding existence, which are completely unverifiable through empirical demonstration and logical analysis. For Ayer, this sort of philosophy was a poisonous strain in modern thought and he considered Heidegger to be the worst example of such philosophy which Ayer believed to be entirely useless.
Bertrand Russell commented, expressing the sentiments of many mid-20th-century English-speaking philosophers, that:
Roger Scruton stated that:
The analytic tradition values clarity of expression. Heidegger, however, has on occasion appeared to take an opposing view, stating for example that “those in the crossing must in the end know what is mistaken by all urging for intelligibility: that every thinking of being, all philosophy, can never be confirmed by ‘facts,’ i.e., by beings. Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy….”
Dave,
I am truly sorry that your realm of meaning is exhausted by a dictionary, for that is what you are claiming. The dictionary gives us the meanings and, by reading the text in question, we simply have to determine which pre-determined meaning is meant by the author. Sorry, but the simplistic tally of meanings in the dictionary are a poor substitute for actually grasping a language and knowing how it can be used, altered, and supplemented. Language is much more fluid than you are allowing, and that in a meaningful way.
“Indeterminate language” certainly has a place within any language. It is used with great acumen by writers, poets, and even physicists (just read any popular treatment of quantum physics). There’s also the greater question of exactly how indeterminate language is, a point that is argued at length by French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (also by Derrida, but it seems that mentioning him in Evangelical circles doesn’t end well, though I have to say I have yet to find a single Evangelical who actually understands Derrida and his project). Either way, since you seem to refuse to read anything I give by internationally known Heideggerian philosophers who are very good at interpreting Heidegger’s difficult prose, I guess you’ll never even have a chance to see exactly how ignorant you are sounding right now.
Is that all that Being and Time (among his many other works) has “produced”? How would you know since you refuse to actually read the works of others who have gained from his work and are able to discuss it in less confusing terms? You are making this broad pronouncement upon what Heidegger’s work has “produced” and yet you have betrayed absolutely no knowledge that would allow you to make that claim with any degree authority. Do you not realize that you are making this claim from utter ignorance? If not, please let me know what you’ve read that allows you to be so triumphal in your pronouncement.
I noticed that you used the plural, “disciples”, and yet, to repeat what I just said, you don’t betray any degree of familiarity with “the disciples” of Heidegger’s work, beyond me. I realize my limitations, which is exactly why I pointed you to two other “disciples” that, as I’ve said a number of times now, elucidate Heidegger’s view better than I can. Wouldn’t you say that, when one is looking into any issue or thinker, it is good (indeed, suggested) that one examine the best examples available? If I were examining the nature of the Trinity I wouldn’t go to a local Southern Baptist church and pick someone out at random from the pews. No, I would (and you would heartily suggest I do) look at the best literature on the topic. Why are you explicitly refusing to do the same on this issue? I’m giving you other sources that I feel better describe what I’m trying to say than I can, yet you insist (even demand) that I be the one to explain it and, if I can’t, then you confidently claim that no one can. Where is the logic in that?
This is a rhetorical question, right? Or are you really suggesting that I am so stupid that I wouldn’t read my own work, perhaps many times? Unfortunately, it is a summary of the evolution of a particular thinker’s thought over a 35+ year period, all in around 10 pages. As with any summary of that length, I had to be short. Thankfully, there were others in the audience who were already familiar with Heidegger and we had an enjoyable discussion after the presentation. Sorry for assuming that you would be familiar enough with Heidegger’s thought to be able to understand it.
See Taylor’s article.
Again, see Taylor’s article.
Actually, Dasein and world essentially belong together; you cannot have Dasein without a world and you cannot have world without a Dasein. One of the problems with the subject-object split is that it assumes that, even just theoretically, the subject and the object are potentially separable. Heidegger is arguing that such isn’t the case. Actually, a better way of putting it is that when we look at the phenomena of being human, such a split never shows up (in terms already quoted, “there is silence”). Again, see the Taylor article.
Being-in-the-world is man’s mode of being, as opposed to being present-at-hand or ready-to-hand (equipment), so one is not “a ‘being-in-the-world”, though one is a Dasein.
It would seem that way to someone who is decidedly ignorant of what Heidegger means by “world”. “World” is an intelligible whole, like the “world of mathematics” or the “world of soccer”. This is not reducible to an “external world” or something that is “other than Dasein” since Dasein, by definition and according to phenomenological analysis, is essentially “in the world”. The two are essentially joined and are not even theoretically separable. Yet again, see Taylor’s article.
Now, about your Wikipedia entry. First, let me applaud you on using such a scholarly resource (yes, that is a jab). Second, I find it interesting because Ayer would have said the exact same thing about the whole of Christianity, which should give you hesitation in so enthusiastically endorsing his claim. As for Scruton, I can give you a handful of suggestions of commentaries and Heideggerian scholars that largely agree about what Heidegger is arguing, demonstrating, and claiming. In fact, you can find one list here.
Let me add that I take Bill Vallicella, someone that Holopupenko links to on his blog, to be someone who understands Heidegger and has informed criticisms of his thought and work. I thought you might like an example of someone who is a little closer to home than Dreyfus and Taylor. Though I can also say that Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self is widely acclaimed by many Evangelicals, who are also apparently ignorant of Taylor’s own Heideggerian leanings (well, more than leanings; he is easily a “disciple”); Sources of the Self is itself a very Heideggerian work, if you know Heidegger before reading it. Oh, and Dreyfus’ What Computers Can’t Do, which is also very Heideggerian, is a favorite work in classes on AI at many universities. So much for Heideggerian “disciples” being incoherent freakshows that are universally spurned by real philosophers.
And back to the original question…
The placebo effect is a problem for philosophical materialism as well. A book, The Spiritual Brain by Denyse O’Leary (journalist) and Mario Beauregard (neuroscientist), explores new discoveries in neuroscience which indicate the mind is cannot be accounted for as a product of the physical brain. Among the things they examine are brain plasticity (our capacity change our physical brain with our mind) and the placebo effect (our capacity to control our bodies with our mind). It appears that what we think is important.
I agree with Dave in recommending the book:reviewed here (pdf file, scroll down half a page past the blurred-out copy).
I do as well. I think it has a few problems in its presentation (it looks awkward to me) but it relays lots of great info. I also recommend Schwartz’ The Mind And The Brain for its rebuttal of reductive materialism if not for his final landing place.
Dave,
Your formulations of neural plasticity and the placebo effect are problematic. To say that, in the case of the former, we have a “capacity [to] change our physical brain with our mind” is very vague. To say that I have a capacity for something usually means that I have the power and skill to bring about a certain behavior or result (actual or potential ability to perform, yield, or withstand). How is it, then, that I have the capacity to, say, increase the activity in the insula and anterior cingulate cortices? Do I direct my mind to that area of the brain and thereby “change” what is happening there? Do I simply think about the changes in neurochemistry that I want to bring about which then ’causes’ the changes that I’m thinking about? How does neuroplasticity occur with someone who is completely ignorant of how the brain works? It seems obvious that something different (or at least substantially more) than just thinking is happening here.
Similarly with the placebo: we can’t simply say that we have the “capacity to control our bodies with our mind”. Let’s use a simplistic example: I raise my arm and put my fingers in the “peace” sign. Where exactly is the “control”? Is my mind controlling the flexing of the muscles, the increase in blood and oxygen to the moving appendages, the allocation of the required chemicals/nutrients from the more inactive limbs to the now active limbs, the electrochemical impulses in the nervous system, or the activation of the motor cortex? It is certainly the case that I’m not “thinking” about these things, right? Do I “believe” that these things are happening? What is the direct relation between whatever “thought” is occurring (since “what we think is [supposedly] important” in this matter) and the action? It seems that the large majority of our actions are non-conscious and that, in the case of deafferentation (see Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, the case of Ian Waterman (Jonathan Cole’s work), or Shaun Gallagher’s How the Body Shapes the Mind), where practically full conscious control is necessary, action is seriously restricted (there are also contrary examples, where a patient is able to do normal movements, like opening doors, walking through a crowded environment, etc. [things that require a close coupling between the body and its practical movements and interactions with a concrete environment], but lack the ability to consciously move their limbs [e.g., in mimicry or if you ask them to just lift their arm]).
Let’s examine a case of placebo: let’s say that John is suffering from depression. He was a high school dropout, wouldn’t understand prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, hippocampus, and amygdala at all, and similarly has no clue what serotonin and noradrenaline uptake inhibitors do (the primary function of most depression medications). He is, unbeknownst to himself, given a placebo by his doctor and he thinks, “This is going to cure my depression.” Given his complete ignorance of the mechanisms of the normal medicine and the functioning of his own brain and physiology, how does his thought “change [his] physical brain”? Whatever the meaning of his thought, it is completely ignorant of what changes need to occur at the physiological level, yet somehow this thought ’causes’ the necessary changes to bring him more psychological health. If there is a direct and important relation between the thought and the changes, then the thought is completely inadequate and insufficient for the change: the meaning of the thought and the intentions that are part of it are not directly related to the concrete physiological changes that need to occur. Put in more technical terms, the thought (at best) underdetermines the necessary changes, hence something more needs to be happening here, something that discussing this issue in terms of “thoughts” or “beliefs” isn’t taking into consideration.
While I just mentioned it, I would highly suggest Shaun Gallagher’s How the Body Shapes the Mind. Iinformation and reviews can be found here; I would suggest the Psyche and Notre Dame Philosophical Review reviews for a comprehensive summary of the work. Gallagher has also posted relevant papers on that site (the first one is particularly good).
Can’t the placebo effect can hypothetically be explained on a materialistic basis if thoughts are epiphenomena? All the placebo work is sufficiently described and takes place materialistically, and the thoughts are along for the ride, even to the extent that set A of material changes, along with thought A, will produce a placebo effect, but material changes set B and thought B will not, so it seems like thought A causes the placebo, but it’s really just correlated with it.
Whether thoughts actually are just epiphenomenon is another question, though. I’m just addressing the *if* of if thoughts are epiphenomena.
Hi Kevin,
Speaking of rhetorical questions, since we have thousands of cases (millions) of placebo effect where the subjects had no knowledge of brain chemistry or neurology we can dismiss most of your 9:43 commentary, can’t we?
Of course it does. So what? That is the entire question of the OP, which you said was the wrong question. Do you have the answer?
How does the body “know” how to heal itself at all? When a doctor forms an ear-shape out of rib cartilage how does the cartilage “know” to continue growing and retain the shape of an ear? We don’t know, but the body does.
But you and I together have already dismissed the chemical components of the placebo, and the physical effects of hearing, as the cause of the healing, so we are left with the body healing itself – in the case of the placebo, it is doing so at behest of the conscious mind.
It certainly is not the case that you are thinking of these things. Your body has been trained by trial and error how to accomplish these tasks and has neurological pathways which direct them. But, as with placebo and with volitionally-controlled neuroplasticity, your conscious mind has initiated the sequence.
Right. So?
Is that what all your indecipherable verbiage over the past couple of days has meant to convey? Yes, there is much unknown activity taking place in the body that causes it to heal itself. Sometimes this is facilitated by the removal of obstacles, sometimes it is facilitated by the alignment of parts, sometimes it is facilitated by a conscious thought, and sometimes it is facilitated by directed, willful, volition.
This is what the question, as Tom said before your renewed discourses on how we don’t know Heidegger and you can’t explain him, ” This could have interesting implications for the mind-body question, for one of the mysteries of mind and body is how a belief, such as belief in placebo, interacts with brain and body to produce improvement in some cases.”, asks.
Like Tom said, that is a mystery. It is a question worth exploring. It is not the wrong question, It is the right question.
And your Heidegerrian rants have done nothing to enlighten us or answer the question.
Hi Paul (yes, keep ignoring me, I’m fine with that),
No. See comment 6.
But thanks for highlighting the reason your materialism can’t account for rationality. You were unable to quite get it when the topic was rationality, but you seem to right now.
If thoughts are epiphenomena then they are just riding along and are not causally related to actions – even those with survival benefit.
Please file that for the next time we discuss the AfR or Plantinga’s Argument from Materialistic Evolution.
Charlie,
Where exactly did I deny the existence of the placebo effect?
But I thought you just said that it is the “body” that “heals itself”. How does the “conscious mind” order, bid, decree, dictate, mandate a change that it doesn’t itself understand? Is the mind simply thinking, “I’m going to get better now”, which then brings about a whole host of physiological changes? Again, the “thinking” seems to be so tangentially (as well as vaguely) related to the changes that how it can be a direct cause of it is incredibly problematic.
Really? So, “by trial and error”, my body has “learned” how to maintain whole scale homeostasis? Where are you getting this understanding of the body? I thought that the processes mentioned were essentially necessary to move, think, or live at all, not that they were “trained by trial and error”. They develop in utero, not by some learning process. Even if we accepted the “trial and error” proposal, the times when the body “errors” would be potentially life-threatening to the organism (as we have seen in mankind’s attempt to develop drugs to ‘consciously’ bring about homeostasis).
Now that you bring it up (I was going to ignore it and take another approach, but ok), yes, that is exactly why I brought up what I did. In order for some event to be “facilitated…directed, willful, or volition[al]” there has to be some kind of end ‘in mind’ (whether it is propositional is uncertain, per the Searle-Dreyfus debate). We’ve both already determined that in the large majority of cases (and in the exceptions, there is still the large domain of what is not known in the sciences) the “mind” does not know how to bring about this end. So, in an analogous situation, let’s say someone is asked to facilitate and direct a conference on quantum mechanics, but is entirely ignorant of how conferences work, what to do, or who to ask to come (she’s also ignorant of quantum mechanics and who the big names in the field are). How can she “facilitate” or “direct” this event? She can’t, and the same point can be made with the mind: in the large majority of cases, it has no clue what to do so that any meaningful sense of “facilitate” or “direct” cannot hold, is meaninglessly (incoherently) being applied to this case (a similar point made to the other side of the spectrum, the physicalists, by Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker in Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience).
I take this to be one of the many phenomenological reasons why we should reject the subject-object, self-body, and mind-body duality, as traditionally understood. Once we try to understand how an ‘inner’ mind is “direct[ing]” ‘outer’ physical behavior (either of the body as a whole or its sub-processes), we find confusion, end up using terminology that doesn’t make sense (except on the most facile level), and ultimately ignore what is actually happening (the phenomena).
That is why we need being-in-the-world: an essential unity of man and being/beings that (with Merleau-Ponty’s addition) is embodied, but not in the sense of a res extensa, or an object that the mind “directs”. While I think Heidegger is important on this, Merleau-Ponty is really the central figure for this discussion. I haven’t read it yet, but Bernard Flynn has an article at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Merleau-Ponty which might be informative. I would also include the Shaun Gallagher book mentioned above, How the Body Shapes the Mind, and Taylor Carman’s Merleau-Ponty. I could give more, but no doubt I will be further harangued for not providing a synopsis of all the above in my own words… ;o)
Then let me refer you to my original response to the OP:
In my next response, I said:
You will notice that I never said that it is “the wrong question” (you are the first to say that; go ahead, search this page). However, I do think that starting at the propositional level is not the most potent place to start (in fact, it can mislead us by affirming the subject-object/self-body distinction from the very start), hence my other discussions of Heidegger and such. But I’ve also directly argued for it above: “thinking” is too tangentially related to the effects to be considered a potent cause of the change. Furthermore, your language for how this happens is, at best, confused and, at worst, incoherent. Again, I’m not arguing that such changes never occur (the placebo effect is a genuine phenomenon), but that discussing it in terms of “belief” or “thought” is starting at the wrong (or perhaps weakest) level.
Let me repeat myself one more time:
I’m giving you the resources (and I have plenty more if you want them, ones that are quite lucid, especially in comparison with my own admittedly bumbling attempts to elucidate these issues in this format, and you won’t have to spend a single penny) to be able to understand these issues, resources that I think explain things better than I can here (yet again, this medium makes it difficult to discuss such intricate issues that, even in the best of situations, requires a lot of discussion). I’m offering you the best I have, yet you keep rejecting it with the mentality that if I can’t personally explain it here, now then no one can. Again, where’s the logic in that?
Oh, and let me repeat: the highly respected Bill Vallicella understands Heidegger and wouldn’t accept your (and other’s) claim about him being fundamentally incoherent, worthless, etc. Could I also add that Dreyfus, one of the premiere Heideggerian scholars in the US, was president of the Pacific Divison of the American Philosophical Association and has received numberous honors and awards. His Presidential Address, Overcoming the Myth of the Mental, is an excellent read and another good overview of the kinds of things I’m trying to say; actually, looking over it, it might be better than the other paper I linked to above, though together they are quite good. In the words of Holopupenko, “I’m not going to do your research for you,” though I will direct you to the research itself (something Holopupenko didn’t do ;o) ).
Another thought about belief/thoughts and causation: let’s say Bob just sits around all day thinking, “I will be of benefit to mankind,” or, “I will be kind to all I see.” We would all take this to be an expression of a noble goal, yet if all Bob does is just think about it, then he’s not enacting his thought/belief; the thought/belief has no real relation to the way he is living, even if he thinks it for 50 years.
My question is: how is the “thought” or “belief”, “This medicine (which is actually a placebo) is going to make me better,” any different in structure and causal potence than Bob’s thinking? What is it that differentiates this thought from Bob’s thought such that in the former we have no increase in noble actions and in the latter we have widescale physiological ‘responses’ to the thought? This Gedanken experiment is even more interesting if you realize the fact that Bob is thinking his thought more often and with more specificity in relation to the effect than the placebo patient is thinking his thought.
What think ye?
Mr. Winters,
Thank you for introducing me to Heidegger. I’m a complete layperson and just a fledgling student of philosophy and for me this is the first I’ve heard of him. From the wiki entries I’ve subsequently read, it’s doubtful I’ll get around to reading his primary works (or much of the secondary interpretations for that matter) for quite some time, but I’ve put him on my wishlist of authors to read later.
I was wondering what you would say about ones ability to move ones own arm. I haven’t a clue how my body does it. I don’t know the slightest bit of what chemicals my brain is using and how. But it does. At *my* command. Something about my will and intentions causes the rest of the machinery to \just work\. How would you go about explaining it given your Heidegger understanding of things? I’m reminded of Hasker here (\Emergent Self\)—what I *know*, without question, is that my *desire* to move my arm causes my arm to move. I don’t have to know how it works to know that it’s working. Might this same thing be happening with the placebo affect? Hasker uses this notion of intentionality convincingly (to me) to point toward dualism. How would a Heideggerian respond to Hasker?
As an aside, I agree entirely with your commentary that one should read the primary literature for oneself in order to form an opinion. This principle was the exact catalyst for my conversion out of atheism and into theism, so I heartily support your admonitions of those unwilling to do so. However, asking someone to go elsewhere and spend hours, if not days or weeks researching a subject *you* brought up to refute (or maybe just suggest doubt) the original post in this thread is unrealistic and does nothing but stunt discourse. You’re missing an opportunity to bring others into your way of thinking by just sending them off to school for days and weeks.
That said, I’m off to read your latest link with the Dreyfus paper.
Thanks!
Shackleman,
I wouldn’t suggest that someone start with Heidegger’s primary works; that’s how I did it and it literally took me months to even begin to understand it (and that with some help by Dreyfus’ commentary on Division I). He is notoriously difficult and anyone who understands him will say so. Beyond things you can find online, really the first two (and short) introductions that I mention here would be the best place to start.
On moving one’s arm, I would say that Heidegger wouldn’t have much to say. Heidegger is better understood as a good background for understanding what Merleau-Ponty is trying to say about the body (which Heidegger explicitly says he doesn’t deal with). With MP, however, the first thing to understand is that “moving one’s arm” is not univocal. For example, there are psychological case studies (as I mentioned above) of people who cannot simply reach out and pick something up that is sitting right in front of them, like we can, but who are very good at what we might call ‘abstract’ movements (e.g., people with this kind of disorder are much better at moving individual body parts, like fingers, without the others following). But, similarly, there are people who are able to interact with their immediate environment, even in new contexts, but cannot mimic someone or play-act (if you tell them to salute they have to go through all sorts of bodily preparations as if they were actually giving a salute to someone, rather than parsing it down to its basics of moving the arm).
There is another movement-based disparity that is also interesting: for those patients who lack the ability to be concretely engaged with things (at least like we normally do), they have deficiencies in grasping things. For those who have the opposite–who lack the ability to mimic or play-act–they have deficiencies in pointing at things. There are other examples of similar kinds of movement-based phenomena, but these two are the ones used most by MP.
That we can have one kind of movement (concrete vs. abstract, grasping vs. pointing) while lacking the other indicates (to MP, among others) that the two kinds of movement have different and somewhat indedependent structures (in a ‘normal’ person they work together almost seamlessly, able to move from one to the other ‘in the blink of an eye’): the “body schema”, which is the concrete, engaged grasp of how to move around and which doesn’t require anything like a representation; and the “body image”, which is more abstract, disengaged from concrete comportments, etc. These two kinds of movement also have two kinds of comportment: one is directed at the objects that one is using or navigating around; the other is not, but is more like having ‘objective’ positions and distances with no real intended object.
With this understanding, “moving one’s arm” could have either of these structures, depending on the purpose of doing so. However, in most cases of ‘willed action’, we depend on the body schema, which is concrete, engaged, and explicitly non-conceptual. To relate this to the current conversation, I believe the placebo effect works more at the non-conceptual bodhy schema level, which is why I feel that starting with ‘beliefs’ or ‘thinking’ is not the most cogent starting point. This, I think, is also one of Dreyfus’ main points in his Presidential Address: when we are truly skilled at something (when we have phronesis), it becomes ‘transparent’, it does not rely on explicit propositions, beliefs, or thoughts. Thus, the placebo works best when it is played out (lived out) at the level of our everyday comportment, not when we focus on ‘beliefs’ or ‘thoughts’ and their supposed causal powers to “facilitate” something that they don’t in the least understand.
So maybe I should have started this discussion with MP and not Heidegger, though I would say that in many (though certainly not all) ways I’m saying the same thing now that I was trying to say earlier. I also realize that I’m still leaving a lot of holes that would better answer your question, but I think the above is a place to start (the Gallagher article I reference above goes into a little more detail).
Lastly, on my expectations of those with whom I’ve been ‘discussing’ Heidegger, I don’t expect them to take months (or even weeks) of time to study Heidegger. However, I was primarily trying to make the point that there are resources available that elucidate him better than I have here, pronouncing false the claim that if I can’t explain him, then noone can. I’d be more than happy with them reading the two Dreyfus articles and the Taylor article, as I think they are able summaries of what I’m trying to say. Surely for “apologists” who are adept at reading, that 60 pages wouldn’t be too much to ask (60 pages of Heidegger, yes; 60 pages of Dreyfus and Taylor, no). Or, in the least, I would be happy with them admitting their ignorance, meaning that their claims to Heidegger’s incoherence are completely impotent and, as such, don’t amount to anything of significance (and certainly shouldn’t be taken as true, insofar as they accept the notion that truth includes “justified”, which they are not given their ignorance). My biggest frustration in dealing with many self-proclaimed “apologists” is that they read a few books and then think they are experts. No, an expert is someone who reads an issue in depth, not that they read a few books on so-called postmodernists by anti-postmodernists and think that is all they need.
Ok, stepping off my soapbox.
Just a guess, but with Bob we have other dominate thoughts/beliefs that cause him to stay put whereas in the case of the placebo there are no such overriding thoughts at work. Thoughts of ‘I’m tired’ or ‘when I get around to it’ have no affect in the placebo situation. Anyway, thoughts/beliefs ARE having an effect in both cases. Like I said, just a guess.
After trying to post this, or something like it, many times since early this afternoon I am going to try again by breaking it down.
Hi Kevin,
Oh see, you didn’t. That’s not why I took your remarks as rhetorical. Rather, it was your strawman implied in your first and third paragraphs that in order for belief/will to have the effect we have attributed to it one would need knowledge of the neurological and chemical processes of the brain. The vast body of work on placebos shows this is not the case. Thus, any effective weight of your comment was rhetorical only.
How can the thinking be tangential and problematic when it is the single cause initiating the process?
So far so good…
You’re getting confused. The trial and error reference was to your simplistic example about making a peace sign. The body is trained in particular physical tasks by closer approximations being fine-tuned through feedback. If it was so simplistic that it has nothing to do with your “whole scale homeostasis” then you ought to reformulate.
You’d have been better off going with your first instinct and ignoring this since you’ve missed the boat here as well.
Indeed, directed, willful and volitional thought requires that the end be in sight. And that is just the case we have in Beauregard’s and Schwartz’ work on neuroplasticity.
Where I used the word “facilitated by conscious thought” I was talking about placebo effect – the comma was used to set those two apart.
I know you eschew the use of a dictionary, but you can consult one here to see if this requires a predetermined end goal – it doesn’t. That said, I would think it more than arguable that the thought “I have got the ball rolling and will now get better” does, in fact, introduce such an end.
She surely can. She can run down from her custodian’s office and open the doors, allowing the entry of the speaker’s, audience, organizers, etc.. Or she could clear the paper work through city hall where it had been held up.
Good analogy.
I will harangue you for pretending to address questions that you are not and insisting that one needs to use your terminology only when you can’t even demonstrate what it means.
Oh my, well mea culpa. However did I think that when you said that it was not the best question and that it starts from the wrong level (and even now the weakest level) that you were saying it was the wrong question.
Let me refresh your memory and show you the logic, then.
You said that belief has a role but not the most important role.
I asked what that role was.
You responded with this indecipherable assault:
I want to know what that means. I don’t think I have to go read dozens of pages on Heidegger to ask you to explain yourself.
I asked how one enters a state of being attuned with one’s environment.
You said by being attuned with one’s environment and have never improved this answer.
I want you to.
I want you to give me one reason why I should think Heidegger says something relevant to the point. I’m not asking you to do my research for me but to show me why I should even care to do the research.
By the way, I’ve followed several of your links and read several pages of each, including your conference talk, and find you are literature bombing me. These papers seem to have absolutely nothing to do with answering the questions I’ve asked of you.
But thanks for again mentioning the Maverick. I enjoy his blog and read it often. In fact, although your link did nothing to help, I found several of his posts on Heidegger. And even though his thinking is well beyond me I can understand Bill and follow his logic. I agree with him that merely agreeing with Russel doesn’t give reason to think that Heidegger is wrong on the issue of the copula and the mediated object, for instance.
But that doesn’t approach an answer to my questions, either.
ps.
I crashed Thinking Christian when I tried to post this unsaved comment the first time so I don’t know if I’ve glossed over points I made more explicitly the first time out. It’s likely so I expect to do some clarifying.
Who said they were expert on Heidegger, Kevin?
Just you.
I know it thrills you to know end to go from blog to blog telling people they don’t know him, or Derrida, but if you can’t make it relevant then so what?
Paul can tell you how ignorant you are (I’m just guessing) on the use of the altered chord in the ii-V-l, but that doesn’t mean 1) that it matters or 2) that you should go off and study the subject.
Like I said in my second (?) comment, if you want to communicate with people why don’t you learn to do so? If you are hoping to drum up traffic to your blog or gain more followers to Heidegger why don’t you take as instructive the fact that we don’t know what you are trying to say?
It pumps your chest mightily to say the problem is with evangelicals and apologists, but have you ever considered that maybe the problem is with you?
What about Bob?
Let’s take, as I think we should, the facts of your thought experiment at face value, even though I’m not convinced that Bob could sit around all day every day thinking “I will be a benefit to society”. If he believed this, as one believes in the placebo, then I’m not convinced he would remain seated in his La-Z-Boy.
That said, what is different? The obvious difference is as Steve has said, there is further action and further thought involved in the lazy Bob scenario. Lazy Bob might believe that he is a benefit, or will be, but he cannot be such until he takes further action.
When one takes a pill they have finished their conscious involvement. They expect the pill to do its work without them and their unconscious takes over to elicit the effect.
Also, to “benefit society” Bob has to interact with others and there is also a component involved here of his convincing them that they are benefitted (he might actually think that sitting at home is a benefit when it isn’t) so you’ve introduced a subjective value here that doesn’t exist with the placebo.
Here’s a better example.
Just as a placebo can cause one to benefit sociologically and “act more normal”, so can conscious thought. When patients are told to behave like they think a person without their particular disability would act, they do. The neurosis can be controlled strictly by will. And the change in will can result in a change in the way the brain operates and, eventually, how it is wired.
re. placebos and plasticity
One of the more greivous difficulties with much modern materialist theorizing (and similar to the problems with theistic theorizing which was replaced by modern materialist theorizing) is the assumption that we begin with a particular cosmology (whether theistic or atheistic) and then explain everything we observe within the a pre-existing paradigm. I prefer a more skeptical method and rather than ask “Where can I fit this phenomenon into the paradigm?” I ask “Does this phenomenon fit the paradigm?” Quite frankly, there are phenomena that cannot be fit into most cosmological paradigms.
Since materialism is the dogma of the day, and I am no longer a materialist, but a conditional theist, I tend to get quite vociferous in my denunciations of dogmatic materialism. However, I think that many of the observations of materialist natural philosophy are quite correct, it is only the paradigm into which they are fit which is flawed.
That being said, quite a lot of Christian dogma is also developed out of a faulty paradigm, particularly the dogmas which weakened 18th and 19th C. Christianity to the point where it could be overthrown by the 19th C. materialist dogma. That doesn’t make Christianity wrong any more than it makes materialism wrong, but it can help to overcome our tendency to dogmatically assert conclusions about the world and our place in it which are contrary to, or at least not supported by, the evidence we observe.
In the case of brain plasticity, I first encountered the concept a couple of decades ago, in a book titled “Brain Sex”. As we learn a new skill we physically change our brains. The picture that the description in this book brought to mind was that of deer tracks in the forest. As we learn new skills we lay new mental tracks in the forest of our brain. This observation is consistent with (that is to say, it does not contradict) either theism or atheistic materialism. However, as we have developed better technologies with which to monitor brain activity in real time neuroscientists have observed phenomena that could best be described as “problematic” for a purely materialist paradigm. It appears that we can, through an act of will, control (turn on and off) parts of our brain.
Physicalism posits that the mind is an emergent property of the material brain. Cartesian dualism posits a mind independent of the physical brain. I suspect that both have elements of truth, but each misses the mark. Like a computer and an operating system we need both and both interact with each other. The brain without the mind is dead and the mind without the brain is merely potential. I could hold in my hands a hundred discs of software and it would be quite inert without the computer. In the same manner I could have a hundred computers and, without the software, they would be equally inert. But if I build a computer and take my disc of software and install it on the new computer, it begins to operate, according to its program.
Curiously, this analogy is not that far off from the description of the creation of man in Genesis. “…the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7 But, unlike a computer, God instilled a capacity for free action, that is, action not contained in any program, an open-ended operating system.
But I digress, the point I am trying to make is that pure materialism and Cartesian dualism demonstably fail to explain much about humans and minds because they do not consider the integration factor. Descartes thought of mind as independent of body, the ghost in the machine. But Descartes failed to explain the coextension of body and mind, borrowing perhaps from the Christian tendency to see the resurection as a disembodied state. Simple observation of the manner in which physical states influence mental states ultimately falsified the Cartesian paradigm.
The opposite problem is what is bedeviling the materialist paradigm. While it has always been known that physical states are influenced by mental states, the materialist paradigm gained the ascendancy after the failure of Descartes dualism. However, materialism has always foundered at the “hard problem” of human consiousness. Studies of plasticity and placebo have revived Cartesian ideas, but in a new, more integrated paradigm. We do have “real” minds and “free” will, but the mind and will are so tightly bound to our physical bodies that it is hard to say where one leaves off and the other begins.
I think this is consistent with Biblical revelation, although it is not always consistent with Christian dogma.
Anyhow, gotta go. More thoughts later… perhaps.
Serendipity rides again…
I just found a link to this essay by philosopher William Lycan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lycan
in which he discusses the relative strengths and weaknesses of materialism and Cartesian dualism. Funny how that happens.
ABSTRACT
Despite the current resurgence of modest forms of mind-body dualism, traditional Cartesian immaterial-substance dualism has few if any defenders. This paper argues that no convincing case has been against substance dualism, and that standard objections to it can be credibly answered.
http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/GIVING%20DUALISM%20ITS%20DUE.pdf
(30 pgs. I have only read the first page and may not read the rest)
PS – just started reading the rest, so far very good.
Okay, back to the future…
Sorry for the rather abrupt and disjointed conclusion in my previous (+1) post. I was at work and getting interupted regularly.
The two quasi-credible theories of mind are Cartesian dualism which is, at present, discredited; and materialism which is, at present, in the ascendant. Both are seriously flawed, and yet both have grasped at least partial truth.
The Bible answers the question “What is man that you are mindful of him…?” a little differently than either Descartes or the materialists. We are both physical and spiritual (mental) creatures. When we die the spiritual (mental) portion is placed in storage (on a metaphorical disc?) until such time as our bodies are reconstituted (Mark II Human – the new and improved version) and our spirit (mind) restored. I suspect (and this is purely speculative theology on my part) that we were created as physical beings designed to live and function in a physical universe and that we are, at best, “deficient” without a physical form. That said, we also transcend the physical form. Without the mind the physical form is nothing more than a sensual body, acting and reacting to material stimuli.
If this speculation is true, then Cartesian dualism catches some essential truth in his answer to the question “What is man…?” as does materialism. The Bible cautions us about fixating upon the “carnal” or physical portion of our nature to the detriment of the spiritual (mental) portion. Because we live in a physical universe and our consious mind is continually impinged by material stimuli it is easy to forget the other side of our nature and obsess upon the physical. In a sense, we are overly familiar with out spiritual nature – it is through that spiritual nature that we consiously interact with the world – and that over-familiarity is akin to observing the word through glassses, after a while we forget we are wearing glasses.
Anyhow, time to say goodnight. I’ll think about this some more.
Shades of Aquinas’ hylomorphism.
Mr. Winters,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I had to read through the Dreyfus presidential paper twice. It seems I haven’t the basic ground-floor knowledge to really understand what he’s talking about. Considering the subject in his paper, there’s a humorous irony there!
What I did understand in it didn’t seem at all relevant to this topic though and didn’t help me really to understand your position with respect to placebos. That said, I do appreciate having read it.
One benefit to being such a novice and layperson is that I don’t have preconceived notions and my mind hasn’t been made up for me. When reading the paper, I couldn’t help but to think that if Dreyfus and company hadn’t abandoned some semblance of *possibility* of dualism, then all of the troubles they were finding with “relevance” and how AI can’t handle it, and all the questions surrounding how the brain might “handle” it would quickly evaporate. If there *were* a ghost in the machine, then all the troubles go away, or at least would be greatly diminished.
The other bit I found troublesome was in his chess-mastery example. For those who haven’t read the paper, Dreyfus attempts to show that in speed-chess, the moves have to be made so quickly that the chess master doesn’t even “think” about the rules. And he uses this as evidence for a sort of zen-like “I’m just here doing what I do” sort of approach to human interaction with their environments. It was as if he was suggesting that if one is not actively putting their mind onto a subject, in other words, if one is not actively *thinking* about something, then one doesn’t actually have knowledge of it. At least that was what I thought he was trying to say. And for me, it was completely inadequate as an explanation of *anything* at all. To assume we have no knowledge, just because we’re not actively committing synapses to something seems for me to miss the mark completely. I see why you, Mr. Winters, have trouble articulating this being-in-the-world paradigm. It’s quite nebulous and I dare say hippie-ish {smile} to me. I grant that this is only my first introduction to it, but my first impression is that it’s a bit spacey.
It also seems lazy. Like, we have no idea what knowledge is and how humans acquire it and how humans interact in the world, but we cannot allow a divine foot in the door so we’ll just say there’s just one BIG world and we’re not separate from it and just sort of leave it at that.
As for this bit about moving one’s own arm—first, thanks for fleshing (!) that out some. Second, wouldn’t the examples you offered of those who have trouble moving their arms (in one way or another) point toward evidence for substance dualism? If the “machine” is broken, then the “ghost” can’t use it, no? Or if the unidentified “link” (if I may) between ghost and machine were broken, then that too could explain their symptoms.
I’m still curious how you might handle Hasker, or if you’re familiar with his work entitled Emergent Self. If you have an interest in sharing your thoughts on it, I’d appreciate it.
Thanks again for humoring me.
Mr. Dave,
I agree with most of what you’ve written at 50 and think it’s a wonderfully clear, concise and relevant post. Thank you for that.
I was wondering—how, and why has Cartesian Dualism been so thoroughly dismissed and labeled a “failure”? I don’t have a scholarly understanding of Descartes, nor his critics, but what I’ve read seems quite compelling to me. Can you point me to a few “for laypeople” resources that could help me understand why Philosophers dismiss substance dualism?
Thanks!
PS: I think I’ll leave the discussion for now but will read responses with gratitude if they should be forthcoming. Best to let the more seasoned debaters and philosophers continue on in this discussion without further interruptions from the peanut gallery!
There is nothing new under the sun… I hadn’t seen that before, but then, I haven’t seen a lot of things. At least it’s comfoprting to know I’m not introducing another “new” heresy. Perhaps reintroducing an old one. Ah well, All theories of mind are pretty speculative, so I just have to remember the tentative nature of this one.
Charlie,
My, my, this is a lot of ground to cover. Warning: this is going to be long.
No, I argued explicitly that “facilitation”, if we use it in the usual sense, is inadequate when discussing how a thought can cause action unless there is a knowing beforehand what is being facilitated. More on this below.
Ah, but that has yet to be established, including that it is “the single cause” (emphasis mine). So far, both in the OP and in the discussion since then, this hasn’t been demonstrated, but merely assumed and only seems “obvious” because that is the common assumption of many today. See the Taylor article, where he talks about the mediational picture and the I/O (inner-outer) distinction; one purpose of the article is questioning whether ‘thinking’ should be taken as the cause of action or if action is non-conceptual:
I’ve been questioning whether it makes sense to think of a “thought” as a cause of behavior, or even of “initiating” a behavior. Let me add another element (this time from non-Heideggerian and non-MPian researchers, though it has been used by proponents): A. David Milner, Melvyn Goodale, and G. Keith Humphrey are psychologists who have been doing research on vision and have found that there are two visual pathways: one is for the perception of properties and the other is perception for action (I’m getting this from Milner and Goodale’s The Visual Brain in Action).
Beyond neurophysiological research on this issue, there are a number of cases of people who have one form of perception but lack the other. So we have people who can see visual properties easily, can know a slot is oriented in this or that way, but cannot actually put something in the slot. Then there are cases of patients who cannot see visual properties, they don’t know the ‘actual’ orientation of the slot, but when asked can seamlessly put the object into the slot at the right orientation. This latter case is particularly interesting because the person can be completely ignorant of what they are seeing, meaning that they have no beliefs or thoughts about the object or the specifics for completing the task, but are still able to smoothly and effectively act (‘blindsight’ is an example of this). Then again, the previous case is also interesting because the person can have all the true beliefs that they want, they can spout off fact after fact about the situation, but they cannot initiate the action effectively. This is another example of the things I talked about in my previous post: not only are there two kinds of ‘movement’, one that can be described as conceptual and the other that is non-conceptual, but there are two kinds of perception, each with a different structure, but one that is similar to the difference in the case of movement.
Let me bring in something more commonplace, so you won’t think this is just something for ‘crazies’. Think about sometime (today, yesterday, a year ago) when you opened a door. Imagine all the movement that goes into it: you get an appropriate distance from the door, you bend at the waist, your arm extends, your hand ‘magically’ conforms to the size needed for when you grasp the doorknob, etc. Now show me, in this everyday example, where you ‘think’ about opening the door, where the ‘thought’ that initiates the movement begins and exerts its causal influence? Perhaps you can think of a time when you did think things about opening doors before you opened one, but I imagine there were also many times when you opened the door when your mind was engrossed in something else, when you are explicitly ‘thinking’ about other things. Or times when you found yourself outside but don’t remember going through the intermediate steps in getting there (people have this experience when driving all the time, yet they can do so safely). Such a thought isn’t necessary, is it? Furthermore, as the examples I’ve given before demonstrate, there are extreme cases where (true) thoughts and beliefs can be present but action cannot be initiated or, conversely, where there are no thoughts or beliefs about an action, but one can smoothly and perfectly execute the action. Perception and action are equivocal.
Now, after that foray into examples and arguments, let’s move on:
Yes, but “we” don’t “change our physical brain”, which was your initial claim. Rather, the brain changes as we (as you so aptly put it) “fine-tuned” our capacities. I’m at least somewhat familiar with the literature, but I haven’t seen any “change our physical brain” outside of the cultivation of certain skills or developing certain ways of interacting with the environment. I’m currently reading through Mario Beauregard “Mind Does Really Matter: Evidence from Neuroimaging Studies of Emotional Self-regulation, Psychotherapy, and Placebo Effect” (it can be found here) and the “cognitive strategies” all seem to have a necessary behavioral element. Let me explain.
Earlier I brought up the notion of “attunement” and I used one specific example: that when we are examining a soccer ball in the context of readymade art we are attuned to some of its properties and its relation to its room (its presentation, the lighting, etc.) that we are not attuned to while engaged in the game of soccer. So, in the former case we are attuned to the ball’s aesthetic features, how the light configuration in the display plays on the ball’s surface, we see (probably for the first time) the imperfections on the ball’s surface, and we appreciate the ball itself in itself. When we are in the middle of playing a game, we do not experience the ball in this way because we are attuned to different aspects: it is not the ball itself and we could care less about any imperfections on its surface, but the ball is ‘seen’ as something to kick, something to steal from the other player, something with a particular trajectory, etc. The separation between the two experiences is enough that someone could quite easily switch out the ball with a relatively similar one and we couldn’t care less, whereas in the context of the art museum we could discern the difference.
The possibility of attunement is directly related to one aspect of attention, often termed “inattentional blindness”: when we are absorbed (or even just relating) to one thing, we ‘don’t see’ other things not related to it (see here and here for two good overviews of this phenomenon). This is a very common phenomenon, such as when we are ‘absorbed’ in a good book and don’t notice what’s happening around us, when wives tell their husbands something while they are watching TV and they don’t hear them, or how cell phones have such a deleterious effect on our driving skills. Because our attentional field is finite and is centered around particular activities, we have to learn what is relevant and what is irrelevant to any task. That, in fact, is one of the difficulties of skill building. I remember my first logic class: when I first enter the class the patterns of logical inference were confusing and almost chaotic largely because I didn’t know what to look for, what is relevant for your task, etc. Guided only by the ‘rules’, or how to manipulate the logical structure, I didn’t have a grasp of when to apply what rule (or sequence of rules) in order to solve the problem. As Dreyfus talks about it, it is the frame problem: being able to figure out what is relevant in any given context and what one can safely ignore. As I continued to work on the problems, ‘knowing’ what was relevant and what wasn’t became more intuitive, largely because my teacher had a method: when he first put up the problem he would ask us to try to figure out if it was valid or invalid without working it out; could we intuitively see, just from looking at the equation, if it was valid? As time moved on, I developed that intuitive grasp so that ‘seeing’ what is relevant became an implicit skill, even though I still had to work it out explicitly to see exactly how it was valid/invalid (I had to work out the ‘how’ and ‘why’ even though I intuitively knew the end state).
This perceptual skill of attention/attunement seems to be central to the suppression skills that Beauregard is talking about: in suppression one distances oneself from what one is seeing (e.g. in terms of the “sexual arousal” study); in reappraisal and rationalization both one resituates the experience in terms of what is relevant or irrelevant, which has to be played out on the perceptual level if it is to have any effect (similar to what others have been saying about my example with Bob).
Sorry, but the meaning of facilitate is “to make easier or less difficult; help forward (an action, a process, etc.)” and “to assist the progress of (a person)”. If I were attempting to “make easier or less difficult” something that I had no clue about, how effective could I actually “assist” in its “progress”? Especially something as intricate and complex as all the factors necessary for the changes in the placebo effect. It would be similar to my facilitating a neurosurgeon: the best thing for me to do is just to stay out of the way, which isn’t really ‘assisting’ in any direct causal sense (I am, in fact, removing my causal presence from the situation). I can’t even “remove…obstacles” because, as we’ve both admitted, I could be completely clueless about what those physiological obstacles are or, even on a broader scale, I may not know why I’m depressed and how to get out of it (which is often the case with those suffering from depression). Indeed, the oppressive nature of depression—it really feels like ‘something’ is keeping you down as nothing seems to help—practically demands ignorance even on the human scale (unless you think they are somehow just deluding themselves as they know exactly how to get out of it but they don’t for some reason).
What exactly does “this” refer to in the first sentence? If it refers to “facilitate”, then I would beg to differ, as I argued above: an attempt to “facilitate” anything about which I can be completely ignorant would only end in bumbling, practically random attempts to assist in the work, which wouldn’t be as effective as the placebo effect seems to be. On whether “I have got the ball rolling and will now get better” does provide us with an end, that is certainly arguable: without any sense of even where to start, where to apply the first bit of force to the domino structure that ends in ‘well-being’, the thought itself is impotent. The supposed causal force of the thought could just as easily be ‘applied’ to something that is completely inconsequential to the cultivation of well-being, or even to something that is deleterious (human beings are notorious for chasing after things that we think will make us happy but which, ultimately, can lead to our ruin [sex is a favorite example for many]). Again, the thought, due to ignorance, is so tangentially and vaguely related to the effects that it is hard to see how it ‘causes’ it in the first place. Unless one understands how the body schema plays a meaningful role by the person actively taking up the comportment and attunement of a ‘well’ individual, which then immediately has global effects due to the holistic nature of the body at that level (yes, I haven’t argued for this particular point yet, but this is already getting very long and I’m not even done yet). That is, after all, where we are looking for improvement: in the person’s everyday, habitual life practices.
You’re not following the analogy: she is “entirely ignorant of how conferences work, what to do, and who to ask to come” so she wouldn’t know to “run down from her custodian’s office” to anywhere, she hasn’t even invited “the speaker’s [sic]”, the “audience”, doesn’t know that she needs or how to get “organizers” (or sponsors to pay for it), or that it is relevant to “clear the paper work through city hall”, etc. Granted, in the ‘real world’ someone wouldn’t be this ignorant and at least would know to learn how to throw together a conference, but in the case of our neurophysiology the placebo patients wouldn’t have the benefit of that kind of access to that kind of knowledge. In fact, in relation to the OP, we currently don’t know how the changes come about anyway, so we are restricted by a fundamental ignorance (an ignorance that I’m giving to this conference worker and which you ignored in your response). So, yes, it is a good analogy. ;o)
Yet again, that is why I was referring you to the works of others that use better “terminology” than I have so far. In case you can’t tell, by admitting that I’m taking full responsibility for not speaking as clearly as I might, so no haranguing is necessary: I’ve been very unclear (trying to fix it in the above), for which I apologize.
See above: there are strong and interesting cases, both abnormal and normal, where the inclusion of ‘thoughts’ or ‘beliefs’ as causal ‘things’ seems unnecessary and, in some cases, impossible. In the case of grasping/pointing, concrete/abstract movement, and visual/action perception, we can find cases where thoughts and beliefs about a certain thing are clearly missing, but where action and adaptation skillfully occur despite that lack of “the single cause”; or where action and adaptation do not occur despite the possession of accurate beliefs and thoughts. This non-conceptual/pre-conceptual grasp of “motor significance” (as opposed to propositional significance) is one of the things Heidegger is proposing and it flies in the face of most of the assumptions (not facts) held by many in the current (and previous) philosophical marketplace. In fact, where it appears that Heidegger was pointing to things that aren’t being demonstrated until now seems to be rather prophetic: all the things I’ve mentioned above make perfect sense when understood through a Heideggerian lens and would have been expected.
As I said to “Shackleman”, I’d be more than happy restricting this discussion to the two Dreyfus papers and the Taylor paper or, if I were forced into it, to Dreyfus’ APA Presidential Address. Heck, let’s just focus on that and I’ll be placated; it would give us a common ground to start on.
So, just to be clear, you’re willing to admit that Heidegger can, in fact, be understood, since you have a clear and respectable example in “the Maverick”? Given your claims before this, that would be a rather large admission, but one that would be thankfully accepted.
Let me also say that Heidegger’s work does “approach an answer to [your] question,” but more as a background from which to approach or frame it, as opposed to a direct answer. If what I’ve said above about a non-conceptual ground, “motor significance” (that is divorced from ‘thought’, ‘belief’, or other such conceptual trappings, yet is ‘meaningful’ in a significant way), among other things happens to be true, then, I’ll repeat myself, starting this discussion at the level of belief is weak and ultimately inadequate. The change that happens with the placebo effect occurs primarily at the non-conceptual level and it is far from clear that whatever ‘thought’ one has plays a ‘causal’ role of some kind (it doesn’t seem to, as I’ve argued above).
Even though a simple Google of the names I’ve given would give you a plethora of examples, here’s some specifics on Dreyfus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus
In the forward to one of the two-volume Festschrift for Dreyfus, Richard Rorty says, “It is no exaggeration to say that without Dreyfus the gap between European and Anglophone philosophy would be, at the end of the twentieth century, far greater than it in fact is” (Vol. 1, p. ix). I use Rorty hesitantly because he certainly doesn’t understand Heidegger, but he is a ‘big name’. Terry Winograd, a name that pops up in many discussions of AI in contemporary work, says,
John Searle (certainly a name you must at least know), in that same work, says,
Furthermore, as one can easily see from his CV, Dreyfus is widely published by respected publishers and in academic journals, has written for the Cambridge Companion series (on both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty), has been a visiting lecturer literally all around the world, has received numerous honors, among many other distinguished accomplishments. You really don’t have to take my word for it.
Admittedly, I’m a little rusty and, again, this format isn’t the most conducive to discussing such difficult issues (see, I’m trying to do better and already I’ve reached the 7 page mark in Microsoft Word, single spaced, and I’ve still barely even scratched the surface). If we grant that Heidegger is right, then I’m fighting against 1500+ years of philosophical bias based on the inner-outer distinction, a very hardcore adherence to the primacy of concepts and ‘thinking’, among other things. Even in the best of circumstances, that’s a hard task! I’m trying to change what are viewed as very fundamental and even ‘common sense’ categories, which means that I will have to provide a boat-load of evidence and argumentation if I’m going to be taken seriously (because the contrary seems so “obvious”). For most who are enamored by the traditional inner-outer view, this is an extraordinary claim and, as such, it will require extraordinary evidence. Why else is Being and Time 437 pages long? This is also one of the reasons for Heidegger’s difficult prose: when proposing a near complete paradigm shift in how we think about fundamental issues, the thinker has two choices: (1) use common everyday language and try to redefine it or (2) create new concepts that better embody what one is describing. Heidegger chose the latter because he felt that we really are too captivated by the traditional categories such that using them to describe something very different would only cause confusion, So, for better or worse, he chose to create a new way of talking about things that, according to his phenomenological method, he felt were there to be seen if we simply look and not force things into categories that ultimately just don’t capture what’s happening in a given phenomenon.
So that is what I’m trying to convey to you. That is a lot of work, so forgive me for asking you (and others) to read other things, because I just don’t have enough time in the day or energy to be able to take on that task here and now, in this format, with you. I’m not looking for pity, but I’m simply trying to describe the task that you are asking me to do as clearly as I can: it might well be impossible here, given the above. But I am trying and I’m sorry for the confusion I’ve caused so far.
Yes, I consider that all the time, which is why I’ve studied as much as I have; hours upon hours, months upon months of reading Heidegger’s primary texts, commentaries, anything I can find online, etc. But because of this, I am very confident in my claim that, as far as I can tell in my limited reading, no Evangelical really understands Heidegger, which then causes further misunderstandings in relation to Derrida and Foucault (both of whom explicitly stated that they owed a lot to Heidegger’s thought), and then is further confused when people like Rorty butcher Heidegger, thereby bringing the Evangelical to think that Rorty is in fact doing good Heideggerian work, which just isn’t the case. Then Heidegger gets characterized as a relativist, which is far from the truth (no pun intended; Maverick Philosopher has written a good amount on Heidegger’s notion of truth and I have a handful of good articles on it, if anyone is interested).
So, here I am at the end of 8 pages in Microsoft Word, having spent more than two hours composing the response, having provided concrete examples of phenomena that I feel puts into question the logo-centric approach to the placebo effect, having just touched the surface of the issues, and probably not making any progress in this discussion. Yet I keep coming back for more…
Hello Shackleman
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I sometimes wonder if I fall into the philosophical traps that seem to plague all philosophers – that of getting so involved in obscurantist detail the big picture gets lost in the noise.
The article I linked in 51 (I did read it after all) is quite a good layman’s introduction to dualism vs materialism by an (apparently) hostile witness, although I suspect he is in the process of changing his views, hence the article.
From the first two paragraphs;
http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/GIVING%20DUALISM%20ITS%20DUE.pdf
It is my experience that a good “rule of thumb” in philosphy is “If the guy can’t explain his position in words of one syllable or less then he doesn’t really know what he is talking about.” Of course, there’s more than a little hyperbole (oops – multisyllabic word) in that statement, but you get my drift.
Shackleman,
Thanks for the thoughtful questions.
Like I just said to Charlie, it is less of an answer and more of a background or frame within which to situate the phenomenon of the placebo effect.
Though I don’t think Dreyfus is a dualist (I’ve talked with some professors who think Heidegger might have been a dualist), he’s more concerned with getting a good description of what’s going on rather than trying to find a ’cause’ for this or that. Phenomenology, from a Heideggerian perspective, is primarily about trying to getting a good description of the phenomenon in question so that we can really have a grasp of what it is we are trying to explain; how can you explain something that you haven’t described correctly? A favorite example of mine is Merleau-Ponty’s arguments against the notion of ‘sensation’ in the psychology of perception: due to the physical description of photons hitting the eyes, activating electrochemical signals, etc., thinkers have postulated that we first experience ‘sensations’ that are then constructed into images. Merleau-Ponty argues, through many examples, that when we examine perception itself we never see bare sensations, but we see most primordially in wholes (an argument also made by the Gestaltists), so that we actually see complex ‘things’ before we see particular properties, and we only see the latter after performing some sort of task that limits the full spectrum of what we are seeing. So our pre-understanding of physics and the anatomy of the eye led us to examine the neuronal underpinnings of perception in terms of discrete sensations, even though the description of our experience provides no reason to think such. This is an example of how our concepts can blind us to what is really happening.
Back to your original statement, Dreyfus and I am not concerned with dualism per se, but the notion of the inner-outer distinction that just doesn’t seem to accurately describe our experience of phenomena.
One doesn’t need to look at Zen to find this. Just look at the work of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term ‘flow’ in relation to these times of great clarity and ease of attaining our goals. Athletes describe it in similar terms and I’ve experienced it on a few occasions in my own life.
Not quite right. As with my discussion of perception and movement, ‘knowledge’ is equivocal: there is the conceptual knowledge and there is know-how. This is a common distinction in philosophy, but the traditional approach is still to ground the latter in the former: that below our practical abilities to do this or that are a host of conceptual schemas that make them possible. Dreyfus is arguing, on the contrary, that when we achieve the Master level of skill there is a shift in the structure of our knowledge, that we have a more ‘intuitive grasp’ of the situation that is not codifiable in propositional/conceptual ways. Recall his quote of Aristotle (not Heidegger):
So even though the chess master doesn’t cogitate or think about his next move, he can ‘see’ what needs to be done without having the explicit reasons for that move in mind. In fact, Dreyfus and Aristotle are both arguing that if the chess master did work according to “systematic knowledge” or “scientific knowledge” or working with “limiting premises” (Nichomachean Ethics, 1142a20), then they would not be masters. This goes right back to my discussion of the equivocal nature of perception: the master ‘sees’ on the practical level as opposed to the abstract level what needs to be done, such that he can perform meaningfully and coherently, but without the aid of propositions. Not only that, but one is attuned to the game of chess such that one can ‘see’ what to do next. So, “knowledge” is equivocal and has a different structure and meaning for the novice than it does for the expert.
Fair enough, just as long as you don’t (as others have) then go on to claim that no one can understand being-in-the-world just because you can’t or because I’m having problems articulating it. :o)
I don’t think it would be “evidence for substance dualism,” but neither do I think it is evidence against such. It is, however, presented as evidence against the inner-outer distinction and the primacy of concepts/thoughts that is present in most of the modern philosophical marketplace and in many forms of dualism. Though I am not a dualist, I think that Aquinas’ dualism is the strongest available (and I don’t care much for the changes that Moreland made to it in his version of dualism as I think Aquinas’ original understanding is stronger than Moreland’s revision). I also do have some strong affinities with emergent accounts, though, again, I don’t know if dualism is the best way to account for it, and certainly don’t think it is the only way to account for it, as many apologists would argue. Overall, I’m agnostic on this issue (though with leanings toward at least a quasi-monistic account) and am more concerned with getting better descriptions about the structure of experience, as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty were.
Let me end by repeating: the relevance of all this to the question of the placebo effect is that I think that the effect comes about at the level of the non-conceptual grasp that we have on the world, at the level of the body schema and being-in-the-world, not at the level of thoughts or concepts or beliefs. Also, I find the ‘thought as cause’ scenario to be problematic and, as we can see in a handful of phenomena, unnecessary.
Mr. Dave,
Thanks for your response and for the suggested reading! I’m looking forward to it.
Be well.
Mr. Winters,
I know I said I was bowing out, but I didn’t want to leave such a careful response go unrecognized and especially go without my thanks.
You’ve cleared up some confusions I had regarding your position and what Dreyfus et al are driving at. It seems that the angle with which you (collective) are approaching this is quite different than I think what natural intuitions are–at least my natural intuitions. I can’t say I “get it”, but it’s a bit more clear and so I thank you for your time and care in helping me in that regard.
One part in particularly that you illuminated for me was the notion that prior to seeking a *cause* for a phenomenon, it would be best to first *describe* it accurately. On the surface this seems quite right, and fair. I still wonder though if it’s not impossible to describe perception accurately without accurately describing the perceiver as well!
Lastly, I think I see clearly now what you’re driving at with regard to the placebo affect. If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that the beneficiary of the placebo isn’t getting well because of “belief” or “thoughts”, since like the chess master they’re not actively putting their mind on the task at hand. Instead, like the chess master gets in a sort of “zone”, perhaps the placebo beneficiary is getting into a similar “zone” of wellness. If I’m getting closer to understanding you, then wouldn’t it be fair to say that while the belief isn’t directly assisting the beneficiary of the placebo, their belief is indirectly the cause, or assisting, in the effectiveness of the placebo? If so, then I think you and your detractors aren’t actually all that far apart.
Thanks again, very much, for offering me your time and consideration. Until next time, God’s peace be with you!
(And yes, I know that may not be your thing, but I hope you can appreciate the sentiment anyway!)
{edited for my misuse of words related to “benefit”. I blame my fatigue, or my public school education, or both!! *smile*}
Shackleman,
Since you’re “bowing out”, I’ll make this short:
I agree and ‘being-in-the-world’ posits an essential connection between man’s mode of being (Dasein) and man’s connection with the world, with the things that he perceives, interacts with, understands, etc. Heidegger follows this line of logic: since man is the only being (that we know of) that seems to understand and have access to being/beings, then we must understand how that access occurs, first by understanding man’s mode of being. He then goes on to ‘show’ the different ways that man relates to being/beings, which seem to be much more than a (inner) mind directed towards a (outer) world, or a perceiver of properties/sensations, etc. So I would agree with you: the question of man’s existence is important.
Pretty close. Those who are truly well (I mean someone who is thriving, though not necessarily materially) have a vibrancy, an ease and peace that seems to surround them and permeate everything they do. I think all of us have met someone like this before: being-well is ‘second-nature’ to them; it is their normal way of relating with the world, including being attuned to the good and bad that happen in their and others’ lives (they aren’t naive, nor are they pessimists or optimists; they see what is happening), an ability to let go of that which they have no control over (we spend a lot of time making ourselves miserable by fretting over or being angry at things that we cannot change; similarly in trying to make permanent that which will eventually go away anyway, even if we wish it would stay), and they are truly engaged in what they do (rather than being constantly distracted by things, or always wishing they were somewhere other than where they are). At least those are some of the findings in ‘positive psychology’, and they ring true in my own life. So, yes, those who are ‘well’ are indeed the people who embody practical wisdom (phronesis), not those who amass a host of true propositions.
From my experience (and I have a decent amount of experience), there is usually more agreement in any discussion than there is disagreement, though we focus so much on the disagreement (it is what we talk about most), that we tend to lose sight of the common ground. That being said, since I still don’t see any good reason to think that a “belief” has causal powers, I would probably say is that the “belief”, “I will get better from taking this medicine,” at most accompanies the effectiveness of the placebo and coheres with what is happening (as far as the ‘getting better’ is concerned). I still hold to my original claim (that was shadowed over because of my ineffectivity in communicating) that propositions (like beliefs) direct us to meaningful phenomena (like ‘getting better’), not that they cause it or that they ‘carry’ meaning, as if they were some sort of ‘container’ being passed from person to person.
Yes, I do appreciate the sentiment. Though I probably wouldn’t describe myself as a theist, I wouldn’t turn down any wellwishing, whether it’s posited to come. from God, Zues, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster (and not saying that those three are equals in my mind). I need all the help I can get and won’t turn down any beneficent wish.
And now I didn’t follow my original plan of making this short. Sorry… :oS
I wish you well in all your life’s endeavors, even if it doesn’t include Heideggerian or Merleau-Pontian studies. 😉
Hi Kevin,
You repeat and I’d still like an answer if you don;t mind:
So now the role of the belief is to accompany the effectiveness of the placebo.
Being a mere companion, it is not necessary at all, correct? In this formulation only the placebo has effect?
So I ask also, and also again, how does the placebo bring about this effect? We know it is not through physical causality, or at least I think that is what we agreed above, so how does it cause wellness?
How is the placebo efficacious in attuning the subject to the world such that belief can accompany it in this process?
Thanks.
Surprise … I agree with you!
I’ve said this many times on this blog. Very often disagreements come from seeing the world in only a slightly different way or emphasizing slightly different aspects of a concept above others. Remembering that and not acting as though people are “wrong” everytime we disagree on some fine points would help us a lot in dialogue.
There’s a good post up at the always-interesting blog Overcoming Bias on this topic:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/08/why-does-pharma-study-placebos.html
Thanks for the link.
Fascinating.
Charlie,
Let me begin at the end and say that I’m glad we do have something we agree on (in addition to our agreement on the inability of a purely naturalistic/reductionistic interpretation to adequately account for the phenomena). Also, I’m sorry where my insufficiency in being lucid has interfered with seeing further points of convergence, thereby (most likely) unnecessarily muddying the waters of mutual understanding.
With that in mind, I am not entirely certain about the relationship between the thought and the change in health (physical and psychological), though I am thoroughly convinced that the ‘thought as cause’ approach is fundamentally problematic and weak. That being said, I’m doing some review on the nature of ‘thoughts’/propositions and considering their relation to the placebo effect and will respond with at least a beginning of one answer to the question soon.
While I’m doing that, I would like to get a response from you on something I asked earlier. Just so I don’t have to retate everything, here’s a (somewhat long) quote from one of my earlier responess:
Sorry for the length, but I would appreciate a response. In short, the thought and its meaning is too vague to be an effective or useful cause of the placebo effect and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why it wouldn’t do more harm than good in a random way and it might be true in the large majority of cases (though certainly in many cases) that one can go wrong in more ways than one can get something right, so statistically the weight is on the side of the thought ‘causing’ damage. And in the case of physiology, as can be seen in the development of pharmaceuticals, getting things wrong can have incredibly harmful effects on a wide scale.
Let me add one more thing to this: ‘getting better’ is a wide-scale phenomenon requiring a host of causes. This would then raise the question of what this single cause (i.e. the thought) influences singularly that would then result in the wide-scale change. We would have to begin (it woul seem) with a single element being effected that would then proliferate into pretty much the entire system, so what single thing would that be?
Ok, long enough, I’m done for this post. 🙂
Let me add one more illuminating link for this issue (don’t forget the discussion after the post):
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/08/placebo_has_strength.html
Kevin, you lucky dog. I just spent probably 45 minutes typing a response. When I started I said to myself ‘although you’re typing here, be sure to save this before hitting submit’.
I forgot and it is lost.
When I have another 45 min. or so and after my fingers are rested I’ll do it again.
Charlie,
I wouldn’t call that lucky as I am interested in what you have to say. Also, I know the frustrations of losing a post as I’ve done it on a handful of occasions (and the second time usually doesn’t seem ‘as good’ as the first time). Now I usually just use MS Word and then copy-and-paste it after I’m done, to make sure that doesn’t happen (and to check spelling ;o) ). So sorry for the loss and I look forward to seeing what you have to say.
P.S. I still need more time to formulate my answer anyway (mostly done with the first take), so this will make the lag-time between your question and my answer a little less apparent.
The placebo effect doesn’t occur in living beings without a mind of some kind (i.e. plants). I don’t know if it occurs in lower level animals like mice and chimps – maybe it does, but my guess is it doesn’t, only pavlovian responses. Knowing that, isn’t it reasonable to conclude that thoughts play a vital role in the effect? If the effect had nothing to do with thoughts then you’d see the effect there.
Try number three.
Hi Kevin,
Let me try this again.
Thank you very much for the tone of your latest comment/s. Yes, it is very true that he second version feels much weaker.
Let me ask you this. Can a thought cause increased blood pressure in the subject? Perspiration? Tears? Decreased blood flow to the extremities? Laughter? Sexual readiness?
Of course it can, and does, all the time. A single conscious thought can do each of these things. But I would dare say neither you nor anybody, can cause them by directly planning them alone, or that we would know which hormones we need to increase, how to dilate blood vessels, how to activate the tear glands, etc. Each of these has a process, but there are ways to initiate that process, in every case, with a single conscious thought even though the details are or can be a mystery. I bet you can do it right now if you want to, without the aid of a single physico-chemico inducer.
You are very right about the cluelessness of our thoughts and their ability to work to our detriment. I agree that they are statistically much more likely to cause harm than good. Jesus told us that our sins begin in our thought life, that, in fact, thoughts themselves can be sinful. Paul warned us that we must think proper thoughts all the time, train our thinking, and die daily to our old ways. William James said that our only moral duty is to focus and attend to the proper thoughts that we have.
Certainly, our thoughts can cause us problems. I don’t doubt that you would agree with me that our thought life can cause known disorders even though we never planned for that to be the case. There are myriad studies connecting conscious thought to mental illnesses, hyper-tension, high blood pressure and even cancer. If thinking can cause such things why can’t thinking stop causing such things?
Yes, I think the analogy was good but no, I don’t think I failed to follow it or apply it.
First, you are demanding far too much of the facilitator. There is nothing in facilitating, or removing impediments, that demands this person know or control every detail in the chain. This is why your analogy is a good one, in my mind, because the conscious thought that causes the healing acts, as I said, is a facilitator, not a planner or organizer of every level of the cure.
As with the conference, the healing can involve and require many coordinated and interdependent parts. That doesn’t mean that the facilitator need involvement in each, any more than my thought of an attractive woman needs any familiarity with hormone production, blood flow, heart rate, etc., to cause sexual readiness (sorry if that’s an unpleasant image), nervousness or pupil dilation.
As with the human body and its functions, including health and wellness, in the analogical situation the conference can have all its parts in place and be ready to go but for the lack of the facilitator/obstacle remover/initiator/conscious thought.
All the necessary people already exist and have functions for which they are trained and prepared. You have scientists, presenters, kiosk builders, managers, coordinators, etc. who all know what to do and have done so before or have been organized to do so now.
But in our case we can imagine there is an obstacle, an impediment.
Perhaps the custodian is ignorant – she thinks they shouldn’t come into the building, or she doesn’t know to let them in, or she thinks it’s someone else’s job, or thinks she has the wrong key, etc.
All she needs one bit of info and she can facilitate the conference, a chain reaction ready to go.
You are requiring to much of her and not using the definition or the analogy properly when you demand that she have intimate knowledge of every detail.
—–
And, of course, healing can be the same way.
Analogous to participants we have all the necessary actors: white blood cells, auto-imminue system, hormones, organs to synthesize hormones, membranes that heal, neurons that fire, or stop firing, chemicals that can stop or start the neurons firing, uptake sites which can be opened or blocked, etc.
And, like at the QM conference, there are many reasons that the chain can be blocked, broken or not yet initiated.
One such impediment can be the thought “I can not feel well”.
But given a reason to believe that ‘I can feel well’ that impediment will be removed.
The new thought can suppress or replace its negative counterpart, which might now even be an unconscious thought but which started as a conscious one.
We know that many ailments are caused by conscious thoughts and this is, in part at least, what can make the placebos most effective. Due to the fact that pharmaceuticals are more and more aimed at diseases of the mind, which can easily have been caused by beliefs, it is natural that placebos are more and more effective since they are operating at the same level. Mental disease is caused often by perpetual cycles in the brain which don’t shut off in a normal manner and a conscious thought can cause them to shut off.
Schartz’ book, The Mind And The Brain is about just this phenomenon.
I will give you a mild example from my own experience. I am a worrier. I don’t know why, exactly, but I am. I see the big picture too easily and view many future and hypothetical problems all at once. I tend to run them over and over in my mind, keeping them before my consciousness.
Several years ago I noticed that I was in a state of perpetual worry. I would have that anxious sense of impending problems even when I had nothing on my mind. My stomach would have that somewhat queasy feeling and it would cause me to wonder what was on my mind and what was causing the worry. Then I would fish around in my subconscious to find the possible culprit and set to working on it in my conscious mind. This, of course, would intensify the physical feelings and I would have justified them.
Did you know you can stop worrying about a particular problem? I didn’t. If I had one on my mind I would run the concerns over and over in my head as though I was actually accomplishing something. One day I realized I wasn’t and I realized that when you worry you can stop worrying. So when I had the feeling in my stomach I would investigate the matter, find the culprit, do whatever I could to deal with it (usually nothing, worry is not only a sin but it is quite useless), and then consciously dismiss it. After a while I quit getting the sense in my body that I should be worrying about something. I had consciously broken the cycle and ended the feedback/reward loop with a thought.
I think I had something more profound to conclude from that last time I typed it, but we’ll see where that takes us.
Charlie,
I am also glad about my change in general tone and approach. I was reflecting on that yesterday and today and noticed where I had gone wrong before, which was the cause of all the confusion: I was approaching a phenomenological alternative in a thoroughly non-phenomenological way. Let me explain as this might be useful in prep for my response to the above and your question. Let me begin with one of Heidegger’s more lucid (Being and Time really is one of his harder works, as it is his first attempt at discussing these things, so some others definitely aren’t as difficult) statements:
Phenomenology’s task is primarily descriptive: trying to give the best description of the phenomena. When I first started (and in some of the discussions I’ve had in the past), I was trying to summarize it, to give a “synopsis” of concepts, rather than trying to lay bare the phenomena under consideration, which would ‘answer’ questions much better than giving out concepts and bullet points; we need to really examine the phenomena, again and again, to see if our descriptions and explanations really fit what is happening. Unfortunately, though, this requires more work from me and more reading from you, so hopefully you’ll be up to it (I’ll do my best for my part).
So, in my response I’m going to be elucidating the phenomena of thoughts/beliefs/concepts (what they are, what they ‘do’, etc.) and more elucidation of the body schema (and introducing “motivation” as understood by Merleau-Ponty), which I think will fit the phenomenon of the placebo effect better than a mentalistic/propositional one would. I hope this approach will at least engender mutual understanding, if it doesn’t convince you of the problematic nature of the propositional approach. 🙂
From Ravi Zacharias
I was speaking in Santa Barbara, California once, and the professor of Eastern religions, who was an American gentleman, came to argue with me. He asked me if I would speak the next night on why I am not a Hindu. I declined, saying if you throw mud at others, not only do your hands get dirty, but you also lose a lot of ground.
But he said, “I dare you to do it, and I’ll bring my whole class in philosophy at the end of your talk, to tear you to shreds.” I said, “that’s not a very welcoming thought. But let me do this: I will speak on why I am a Christian, and implicit in that is why I am not a Hindu. And you can bring your philosophy class to talk to me.” Which he did.
I proposed the fact that Hinduism is loaded with contradictions. I won’t go into those details. But at the end of which, he came up to the front and just about wanted to hit me. He said, “Mr. Zacharias, the reason you portrayed Hinduism the way you did, is because you don’t understand the Eastern mind.”
I couldn’t believe it, but I decided to be nice. I said, “Look sir, there’s no point in us getting into a verbal slugfest here, but let me suggest something to you. Why don’t you and I have lunch together tomorrow and we’ll discuss it? You pay, and I’ll pray, and we’ll talk about it.”
So he brought the professor of psychology along with him. He said, “Ravi, there are two kinds of logic,” (actually, he’s wrong: there are more.) “One is the either/or logic. If you make a statement that is true, the opposite of it is false. It is called the Law of Non-Contradiction. The same question at the same time, meaning the same thing, cannot elicit two opposite answers. If you ask my wife, ‘are you expecting a child?’ and at the same time if she says yes, and I say no, what will you say?
“You’ll probably say, that’s the wrong question, they have a weird sense of humor, she’s not his wife, or she hasn’t talked to him. You wouldn’t walk away saying ‘thank you’.” Why not? Because the same question at the same time, meaning the same thing, cannot elicit two opposite answers. That’s the either/or logic – the Law of Non-Contradiction – you cannot contradict yourself.”
He said, “Ravi, that is Western.”
I said, “Scratch out that line.”
He said, “No, I won’t.”
I said, “You’re going to have to; you may as well scratch it out now.”
He said, “No, I won’t.”
I said, “Keep going.”
He said, “The other kind of logic is Both/And. Not either this OR that: both this AND that. If you ask one Hindu if God is personal, and he says ‘yes’, and you ask another Hindu if God is personal, and he says ‘no’, you ask a third Hindu which of these is right, and he says ‘both of them’, he is very much in keeping with his way of looking at ‘Both/And’. Both personal AND non-personal – that is the Eastern way of thinking.”
I said, “Scratch out that line.”
He said, “No, I won’t.”
I said, “You’re going to have to.”
He said, “No, I won’t.”
I said, “Keep going.”
So finally he established: Either/Or Logic, the Law of Non-Contradiction, is Western. Both/And logic, the Law of Dialectic, is Eastern. Karl Marx used it: take the employer and the employee, put them together, you get the classless society. Nobody ever shows you one, but at in theory they talk about it. So there it is: Either/Or logic is Western, and Both/And logic is Eastern.
I said, “Sir, have you finished?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “What you are telling me is this: when I am studying Hinduism, I either use the Both/And system, or nothing else. Is that right?”
Do you know what he said? He put his knife and fork down and he said, “The Either/Or does seem to emerge, doesn’t it?”
You see, he was using Either/Or logic to prove the Both/And logic. And the more he tried to clobber the Law of Non-Contradiction, the more it clobbered him. The psychologist said, “I think, John, this discussion is over; let’s go back.”
http://www.urbana.org/articles/jesus-christ-among-other-gods-1993
Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias (born 1946) is an Indian-born, Canadian-American evangelical Christian apologist and evangelist. Zacharias is the author of numerous Christian books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner Can Man Live Without God?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Zacharias
Dave,
I’m trying to figure out the relevence of your post to this discussion. Could you please elucidate?
Hi Kevin,
When you made that longish comment with lots of quotes of yourself my first response indicated that you must have made a blockquote error because you were making new arguments and presenting them as quotes.
I just now (following a link from Tom) found that they actually were quotes and that you had an even longer comment that you mentioned took two hours to write. I apologize for having missed it. Perhaps it was in moderation when I was checking comments at the time.
Anyway, I know it took a lot of work and I didn’t want you to think I was just ignoring it.
Fortunately, some of the issues you raised you later brought to the fore in your “quotes” comment. That means I have now answered some of your points as I would have if I’d seen them when i should have.
A couple of other things, however: you went to a lot of work answering a question I posed that said something like “who says they are experts on Heidegger, only you…”. You then gave me many references showing that Dreyfus is an expert and Rorty isn’t. But what I was referring to was your suggestion that I or others had claimed to be experts on Heidegger. I think what most of us have said is that we don’t know Heidegger. My question on that point has been “and why should that matter and can’t you show me how?”
That first statement of mine, asking you who besides yourself claimed to be an expert, was a response to this comment of yours which came immediately before mine – although I admit that wasn’t clear at all…
You also made a reference to my claim that “we change our brains” as though I had admitted that we don’t. I made no such admission. We do, in fact, change our brains, even if we don’t know that we are doing so. Our brain map changes not year by year, or day by day, but moment by moment. By focusing our attention, mentally or physically rehearsing actions or concepts, and by determining what enters our consciousness we change our brains continuously.
This is, of course, exactly what you say in that same comment:
Yes, that is what I am saying, and it is not a “far cry” from my claim that we change our physical brains.
By the way, although I agree with him, it was Dave (comment 30), and not myself, who said that we have the capacity to change our physical brain.
You also asked what did “this” refer to in this sequence:
“This”=facilitated by conscious thought. That’s not very important though, since we’ve now elaborated a couple of times on “facilitation” and the analogy.
Please feel free to refer me back, via quotes, to that comment if there is more there that becomes relevant.
copying comment ….
Charlie,
Now, on to your question:
Let me first say that most of my research has been relating to the non-conceptual background and its relation to perception and action (demonstrated at least partially in what I’ve written above) and I have not worked out a very robust understanding of the nature of “belief” or “thought”. With that admission said, here’s my best approach:
First off, I will repeat that words/propositions do not ‘contain’ meaning or ‘have’ meaning per se, which is not the same thing as saying that words are meaningless, but rather that their meaningfulness is not constituted by a relation of ‘container’ to ‘contained’. Borrowing a book title by J.L. Austin, it is an issue of “how to do things with words”, or, as one more way of putting it, words as equipment that ‘does stuff’ rather than as containers. When I say, “Paris is lovely in the Spring,” your understanding it is constituted by your being directed to Paris itself, not (1) to the word “Paris” and its ‘containing’ whatever meaning it (supposedly) inherently does, nor (2) is it directing you to my mind and whatever beliefs I may have about Paris (I imagine we would both agree that my mind is not ‘perceptible’ by you, so that can’t be the reference of the word). Similarly, when you are reading my response you are not reading the words, as has been demonstrated by a good number of studies about how much we really see when reading, and it isn’t particular words (here is a good concise summary of some of the research). Words, thoughts, and beliefs work best (or are most authentically ‘words’) when they become transparent (they disappear) in light of that which they are directing us towards. In Buddhism we have a common saying (variously stated): “Don’t mistake my finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.” Don’t mistake that which is directing us to other things for the thing that is being pointed out.
Words direct us towards meaningful contexts, things, and events, things that are public and shared, not individual meanings in my mind that are somehow ‘transported’ into your mind. That meaning is ‘public’ is exactly how we can share so many meaningful relationships to things, topics, issues, etc.: because we both inhabit and share a meaningful world, we can use words to direct the other to things and, in a more specific case, to a thing’s properties (or, more broadly put, to phenomena), thereby allowing the other to have a meaningful relation to that thing at least relatively similar to our own (both Pierre Bordieu and Tim Ingold are two anthropologists who have argued this point extensively, often expressly against the ‘transport of ideational models’ paradigm that has long been present in anthropology). This, again, brings a very strong behavioral element: in order to ‘have’ meaning that is shared, we must be beings that have intentionally, in the more common sense understanding of being ‘directed towards’ things and projects (not “the meaning of a proposition” as it is understood in Husserlian phenomenology), of having a practical relation to our various environments such that we can navigate within them, use things, and get the proper perspective on them (i.e. not standing too close or too far, being ‘within arm’s reach’, giving one’s interlocutor their ‘personal space’, doing embodied micro-adjustments in order to get a better perspective, etc.). As said before, this is a practical grasp of movement, not the bare movement of limb A to position x, and does not seem to require thoughts, beliefs, or any other propositional cognitions in relation to the objects that are understood in the practical sense (this is one of the central themes in the Taylor article I posted online). Let me repost what I said to Shackleman, to give a good description of these two understandings of movement:
So if we can say that beliefs ‘do’ anything, it is in this power to direct us (which is possible only because of our motile engagement with the world). But even then, this power is not inherent in the belief, thought, or proposition: it depends inherently on our being curious and engaged in what is believed or proposed. When we are discussing something that interests us with someone who is completely bored by that issue, the propositions may be impotent in their ‘ability’ to ‘direct’, so the power doesn’t come from the word itself as we can think of clear cases where the word is used but the directing does not occur (and, in fact, sometimes talking about something has the opposite effect of pushing someone away, though this is a counter-phenomenon that still has the same structure as ‘directing towards’). Similarly, screaming, “Fire!!”, or “He’s going to kill you!!!”, to someone who is extremely calmed by some drug, even though it brings great effects upon most ‘normal’ people, the effect can be extremely weak (perhaps non-existent) in this abnormal case. Again, the ‘directing’ or (perhaps) ‘causal’ relation of a proposition to behavior does not seem to occur on the side of the proposition, as clear cases can be presented where the proposition is present but the supposed cause and effect are absent. Or, for one more example (sorry if I’m using too many examples and if that is complicating things; when responding, you can just focus on one if you like), I can say, “Wie gehts?”, to someone who doesn’t know German, and even though this usually elicits some response from a German speaker, it has no ‘causal power’ to the non-German speaker. This is another reason, I think, why the ‘belief as cause’ understanding of the placebo effect doesn’t work: propositions seem to be efficacious only in cases where something that is not the proposition (i.e. us, who are engaged with the world) are in a state of receptivity to what it directs us towards (again, the directing-nature of propositions, their ecstatical nature [Heidegger just calls it ‘ecstatic’, but that definition in the above site, in relation to our common understanding of ‘ecstasy’, isn’t what he’s getting at] seems very important here, as well as seems essential to the nature of propositions), meaning that whatever changes occur in our behavior occur from our end, from our being directed and thereby becoming engaged in what is directed at, not from the direction of the proposition itself (though even that is a slightly problematic way of putting it, but it is sufficient for this discussion).
So, if propositions ‘work’ by directing us to the relevant phenomenon, what does the belief, “This pill is going to make me better?”, direct us towards and how is that directing related to actually becoming better? (Which, incidentally, is the kind of question that I think is stronger than that given in the OP, in case you wanted an example.)
Primarily it directs us towards the state of being of non-depressed (or ADD or addicted or etc.), ways of relating to others, etc., that can be seen in the lives of others. But that in itself would be rather limiting since, as I stated above, one prominent aspect of depression is ‘feeling stuck’ in it, as if nothing can seem to shake us from it, no matter what we do or try. Those who suffer from depression can even become familiar with all the literature on it, read many case studies of those who ‘escaped’ it, understand how anti-depressants work, how depression is related to neurogenesis, etc., yet still be ‘stuck’ in it. So one can accumulate a whole host of propositions (perhaps many of them true) and come to understand how to help others out of depression, yet one remains incapable of getting oneself ‘out of it’. So, again, the proposition doesn’t seem to help in the large majority of cases and (as I’ve been trying to argue) the cases where it does seem to help aren’t clear on the proposition’s exact relation to the becoming-well. So, in the case of depression (other phenomena might have a different structure and relation to the placebo effect) I would imagine that that which is being ‘directed towards’ has to have a particular relation to the ‘feeling stuck’ aspect, somehow dislodging it, removing a barrier that seems to be independent of right or positive belief (I can guarantee you that many cases of depression included the depressed patient trying to ‘think’ or ‘reason’ themselves out of it, to no effect; that is a very common, and almost always futile, approach). This, I think, is where the body schema comes in and illuminates the placebo phenomenon more than propositions seem to.
To start, it has been demonstrated that one important aspect of depression is a general pessimism, an expectation of continuing bad events, and no expectation of anything good (even to explicitly denying that any good can happen; see here; I tried to find a PDF of the whole article, but I must have gotten it through one of my alma mater’s databases). While the tradition (now encapsulated in cognitive-behavioral therapy) interprets these as a “cognitive style”, I think they are much better accounted for at the level of perception: returning to Aristotle, the depressed person is an expert at ‘perceiving’ the bad, at seeing only the bad in any given situation, of being ‘pulled’ or ‘led’ to a very negative understandings of the world, etc., and this happens quite naturally and usually without intent. As such, given the calcitrant nature of this way of attending to the world (i.e. that we are ‘stuck’) and that it is happening at a pre-conceptual level (the level of embodied coping, of the body schema), the person naturally feels ‘stuck’ because these things aren’t happening at the level of thought, belief, or propositions; they are the concrete way that one is relating to the world, the concrete way that one is coping with things (though in a somewhat non-adventitious way). Thus, even as they try to ‘think’ their way out of it, the world continues to be perceived as a negative, destructive, lifeless, and ultimately futile place to live. However, there is still something missing: how it is that they find themselves ‘pulled’ or ‘motivated’ to taking up this particular stance in relation to the world.
While the discussion of the nature of propositions is pretty explicitly Heideggerian (except for the discussion of embodiment that is nestled in the middle of it), Merleau-Ponty is really needed to account for the ‘stuck’ nature of our experience (and, therefore, how we can ‘get out of it’). Merleau-Ponty understands motivation as “one phenomenon releases another…by the sense it offers—there is a raison d’etre that orients the flux of phenomena without being explicitly posited in any one of them, a sort of operant reason” (Phenomenology of Perception, p. 52 [1962 translation]). Again, merely providing a definition isn’t going to be very helpful (and is horrible phenomenology), so here are a few examples:
Merleau-Ponty points to one interesting example: the reflection in the eyes of the other. We humans have been ‘using’ this phenomenon throughout our history as a sign of life in the other, yet painters took a rather long time before they discovered it and started incorporating it into their paintings.
So the reflection in the eyes ‘motivates’ our perception of life in the other’s face “without being explicitly posited”. It happens in other acts of perception, like the moon illusion, Edward Adelson’s Checker Shadow Illusion, the bordering illusion, or contrast effect (among many others). One of the pointed facts about these perceptual motivations is that we can explicitly know that they are false (according to our understanding of physics), yet the illusion remains and is pervasive (i.e. ‘reason’ and ‘judgment’ do not change the experience). We can say that ‘motivation’, in the sense used here, is not a cause or a reason/judgment (the usual dichotomy of possible explanations in dualistic thinking), because in the case of the former, our perception is not following objective causation (where there would be a direct correspondence between wavelength/amplitude and the color perceived, or retinal stimulation and actual experience), and, in the case of the latter, it occurs without (and sometimes against) reason and judgment. Furthermore, since these cases (among others) betray any explicit ‘knowing’ about what exactly is motivating the perception, there is nothing to take the role of premises from which a conclusion can be drawn; the motivating factors, again, occur “without being explicitly posited”. Because of this, it is entirely possible (and likely) that there are a whole host of motivating factors that we are unaware of, and yet which are pervasive in motivating our perceptual lives.
Motivation, however, doesn’t just occur at the level of perception; it also occurs at the level of action. Some of this argument has already been presented: if our action-oriented movement occurs outside the realm of thoughts, beliefs, and judgments, then we can coherently say that they are ‘motivated’ by the object that they are directed towards (it is centripetal and not centrifugal; object-pulled and not inner-direct-towards [see below on the necessity of having the acted-on object]). Thus, when I’m reaching out to pick up a cup, my hand, its size, and even the tempo and rhythm of its grasp (especially if it is a delicate or full cup) all occur ‘automatically’, along with my whole body trailing behind the moving hand (and arm and shoulder and waist and etc.). So, I can be completely ignorant of the cup’s ‘objective’ dimensions (even, in the pathological case, of being completely incapable of accurately describing the cup and its orientation), yet it is possible to seamlessly and smoothly pick it up and use it. In short, the cup motivates practical action, thereby allowing my body (in its own kind of intentionality, called “motor intentionality”) to perform its work. This happens in all of our practical coping: when we open doors, bring food to our mouths, drive our cars, type out extensive posts on our keyboards ( 😉 ), walk over various surfaces with different textures and angles, move closer or further away to see/hear/touch something better, etc., etc., etc. This phenomena is accentuated in the cases mentioned above: for those who can grasp and not point, they require the object of their intended action in order to perform their action; absent something to concretely interact with in an actual (i.e. not pantomimed) way, they cannot act (for many, a good portion of their time is spent sitting in inactivity). This is also directly related to our poise, or our capacity to ready ourselves for this or that object or experience: the effective and appropriate poise we have in a classroom is markedly different from the effective and appropriate poise we have while playing football or being in a fist fight or even playing chess; in each case we are anticipating (usually non-theoretically/non-conceptually) different things, need to attend to different things, etc.
That last point directs us to one more way that motivation plays out: in the background of our experience. This is our sensitivity to our environment, including both what is needed in this context and openness to change. On the pathological level, for some who cannot point but can grasp, when they are engaged in their projects they are oblivious to things that are not practically related to their projects. For example, in the case of Schneider (the patient referenced most by Merleau-Ponty), when he’s engaged with heading home he literally does not recognize the house of his psychologists (which he is amply familiar with); it does not play a role in the motile and comportmental ‘set’ that is part of ‘going home’, so it does not appear as a meaningful location. This is an extreme case of common phenomena: when we are talking in an engaged way about something, if something is mentioned that is not within the bounds of that discussion, it is experienced as odd, meaningless, enigmatic. Or, correlatively, if we are engaged in a workshop, busily working on this or that project, if something completely out of the ordinary is placed among the tools, it either doesn’t appear (it is irrelevant, so it does not show up in our experience) or it appears as something ‘foreign’, strange. However, because we have a background or horizon against which our actions and their objects are salient, our attention can be ‘grabbed’ or ‘caught’, it can be ‘pulled’ towards something else and be ‘captivated’ (‘held captive’) by it. This is the language we use and it is not entirely metaphorical: because we are beings who are actively engaged in the world and trying to get a better grip on how to do things, objects have a pull on us, a pull that is not theoretical or conceptual, that is ‘felt’ like the urge to scratch an itch.
So, if we accept the above account as a phenomenologically accurate description, depression is being stuck within a motivational relation, set, and attunement to seeing the negative in everything. Because it happens on a non-conceptual level and is elicited (motivated) from us, we can have the feeling of being stuck that is not just the ‘belief’ that we are stuck, but a real ‘pull’ into the depressed state of being. So, to bring it all full-circle, the discussions of perception and action plays out at this level of motivation, giving us a centripetal relation to our environments: our actions, thoughts, feelings, etc. are elicited by the various contexts that we are engaged in, thereby allowing us to take up relevant projects. Depression is one ‘style’ of engaging with one’s environment that thereby elicits depressed perceptions, actions, and thoughts.
Now, to take this to its (preliminary) end: the relation of the thought, “This medicine is going to make me better”, to the phenomenon of actually getting better. Put one more way, how is the thought related to releasing some of the calcitrant motivational actions/thoughts that are elicited in everyday life? I actually think you pointed to it in one of your responses:
While you, naturally, are focused on “a thought”, I think the fact that you stopped before the motivational pull of worry got too strong is the central aspect. Yes, the analysis in order to better understand what elicited the worry is important, but stopping the motivational pull that kept you from “run[ing] the concerns over and over in [your] head” is more important. It is the stopping, relaxing, and disengaging from following the strong current of thoughts that is robbing the compulsive worrying of some of its power. The thought, as per the nature of propositions (see above), is directing you towards the embodied aspects that are an essential part of the worrying and the events that elicit the worrying, thereby allowing you to see that stopping (as you learned) is useful.
I think an analogous case can be made for the proposition and cultivating well-being: the thought and the anticipation of getting better loosens the motivational pull that keeps one in depression by bringing further awareness to that pull and to alternative ways of being. As other’s have said in this thread (in relation to Bob), the change doesn’t come from the thought ‘causing’ us to become better, but in our taking an active role in making ourselves better, cultivating different attunements and becoming sensitive to new motivations. So this comment, made by you, isn’t quite right:
Beyond the fact that we both have agreed that the placebo does nothing (has no causal role itself), you are explicitly talking about changing behavior. And behavior, when it is most transparent and engaged in the world, is directly related to the objects interacted with, not some conceptual world. As argued in the second Dreyfus article (“The Myth of the Mental”), the ‘rule following’ and abstract approach to behaving in this way or that must give way, if we are to be experts (even at just living life, which is Aristotle’s aim, and thus closely related to phronesis) then we cannot rely on conceptual models, but must move beyond them. Furthermore, ‘rules’ or ‘as-ifs’ don’t cause behavior either (they must be followed and transposed into the engaged bodily approach, which has a non-conceptual structure), and pure acts of will (if those who lack the capacity to grasp and must be entirely explicit, conscious, and willful in every single movement teach us anything) are impotent indeed (slow, imprecise, extremely limited in what is affected). The way you put it above it’s as if the person suffering from depression simply lacks will and could immediately be cured if they just chose to rather than continuing in their (apparently silly) depressed mood. But that is not the experience of depression nor is it the experience of ‘coming out of depression’. No, one does not simply will themselves out of depression, but one must learn and embody another mode of being, which takes time, effort, and the cultivating of new skills, a new phronesis.
I understand that this conclusion is still somewhat inadequate (it’s a first try and will undoubtedly have some holes), but I no doubt have already given enough descriptive accounts of relevant phenomena to give us enough to talk about for months on end. And, honestly, that is probably where we should be, since getting a clear grasp of the relevant phenomena is needed before any good explanation can be given. I imagine the ‘proposition as transparent director’ will elicit some disagreements, but I don’t know what to anticipate about the equivocal nature of perception and action. I’m sure this is long enough anyway, so I’ll end with this and we’ll see what happens next. 🙂
Hi Kevin,
That is quite a comment. I scanned over it once and have started back on the paragraph starting “First off” and ending with the pointing finger.
I agree with you about words not being the things they signify. Paris, indeed is the subject of my thought about Paris, as opposed to the word Paris.
But your discussion of words has nothing to do with thoughts and beliefs.
Thoughts and beliefs are not words, they are what they are on their own.
The thought “I am going to get well” is no more the words “I am going to get well” that the word Paris is the city Paris.
Just because we express our thoughts to one another using words as symbols of those thoughts, and expect others to have a conception of the words close enough to ours does not mean that our thoughts are words. Our thoughts precede the words, even if we consciously review those thoughts in an internal dialogue that relies upon words. Everybody who thinks for a few moments about communication realizes what a blunt tool language is. I have many times struggled with a problem and come to know the solution but found that it defied language. At times, when I have relied upon language to communicate that thought, I have doubted the thought. I realized though, that it wasn’t the thought that was failing, but the words.
In short, on this point, your argument about words does not apply beliefs because beliefs are no more the words that signify them than a tree is the word “tree”.
Your second paragraph continues on about words and I have addressed that above.
But you go on to say:
That’s a lot of explication on one idea. What does it mean for one to have intentionality?
Does this mean, as I would say, that one can have intentions? What is an intention, then?
I know you will likely say you have described it in various additions to that sentence, but I don;t see you clearing it up but rather muddying it.
How is one “directed toward a thing”? How is the thought or belief not the thing directing us at least in some instances?
Good. You are now referring to beliefs as directing us even though, as per your analogy about the facilitator/director, you do not think out every possible and necessary step in the action. So we see that this facilitation and direction can be caused by the belief as I had said. The belief has the power to direct us here without being directly responsible for every step in a sequence so its lack of involvement in every curative step does not negate it’s directive power in the case of the placebo.
Yes, I know you are qualifying it again, but we can deal with that further.
This is pretty good, and you go on to develop this further. Yes indeed, it is our engagement that has the causal power. Schwartz, James and Beauregard discuss this as focused intent. A given pitch has a different effect when one is conditioned or intent on it. This is what I was getting at earlier on – the physical/material is not the cause at the level of the mind. As you say here, it is the ‘curiosity’. But there is no curiosity or engagement about/with the belief without the belief first, so the belief causes the curiosity which, in your formulation, carries the power. But there was already power in the belief.
And what is curiosity if not a thought? Of course it is more aptly called a ‘state, of wonder, perhaps, but that state can be expressed by the words ‘I am curious’ or then ‘I’d like to know more about that thing’. Of course, those words are not curiosity, nor is the sentence, but that doesn’t mean curiosity is not a thought. Your words ‘what is that’ do not make you curious, nor does your speaking those words to yourself make you check out the subject, but the thought that those words represent does.
This point is not getting to the issue as the belief is not the word. It does again highlight the necessity of directed focus though.
I like this example a lot as an argument against materialism and physicalism but it has no potency against belief or thoughts as causal actors. ‘Wie gehts’ is impotent for the very reason you have said earlier, and which I would never argue – the words do not carry the meaning themselves – they point to something meaningful. If the words lack that correspondence for the hearer they do not create the belief or thought that they would for others – therefore, the belief/thought that could cause an action of state of being does not exist.
Wow. Is that really just one sentence again? 🙂
That’s a very good point about the state of receptivity. davidellis’ link highlighted that quite well, as do Scwartz’ experiments and studies on neuro-plasticity. But that ‘state of receptivity’ is itself reliant upon beliefs/ thoughts. If you didn’t think there was such a thing as medicine or that medicine was curative, if you weren’t in a state of receptivity, the placebo would have no effect (thus, no reduction to the physical). If Italian men do not already equate red with relaxation for some reason (the conditioning we spoke of above) then red placebos will not have the same relaxing effect. But, in that state the thought “I am getting a relaxing drug” will have that effect.
So I’m out of time tonight and have gotten near the meat of your comment. Sadly (for this discussion) I am off to a church retreat Friday and may not get another response in before I leave. Hopefully I’ll get a little further before I go, however.
I meant I have NOT gotten near the meat.
Hello Kevin
When I say, “Paris is lovely in the Spring,” your understanding it is constituted by your being directed to Paris itself,
By gosh, how extraordinary, I read the word “Paris” and discovered myself wandering down the Champes Elysees… funny I never noticed that before.
not (1) to the word “Paris” and its ‘containing’ whatever meaning it (supposedly) inherently does,
What does the word “not” (supposedly) contain?
nor (2) is it directing you to my mind and whatever beliefs I may have about Paris (I imagine we would both agree that my mind is not ‘perceptible’ by you, so that can’t be the reference of the word).
Saying that the “beliefs” you may have about “Paris” are contained in the word “Paris” is too simplistic. I think it is more an issue of the person embodying a conceptual mode of being. Insisting that “Paris” contains your beliefs about “Paris” is a cognitivist/positivist approach which disrupts our attunement permitting the negative to become ultra-salient.
Similarly, when you are reading my response you are not reading the words, as has been demonstrated by a good number of studies about how much we really see when reading, and it isn’t particular words (here is a good concise summary of some of the research).
More conductors but done will different perversions long garden. Appetite mutton psychological some, upbringing God Thing saddled perfection.
Words, thoughts, and beliefs work best (or are most authentically ‘words’) when they become transparent (they disappear) in light of that which they are directing us towards.
More conductors but done will different perversions long garden. Appetite mutton psychological some, upbringing God Thing saddled perfection.In Buddhism we have a common saying (variously stated): “Don’t mistake my finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.” Don’t mistake that which is directing us to other things for the thing that is being pointed out.
And don’t mistake obscurantist verbiage for the totality-of-signification.
I trust Dr. Truthiness as he is obviously intelligent and seems to know what he’s talking about.”
I find that, most typically, people accuse you of being susceptible to their own sins. In this case I would suggest that it is you, Kevin, who has accepted on authority the verbiage of “Dr. Truthiness”.
As for the supposed vague-ness of attunement, that is the purpose of the paper. Or, if you would prefer, I could give you a hundred pages of Heidegger where he further elucidates and contextualizes that term, but that would be much harder than the Dreyfus paper. Dreyfus puts it much better than I could and that would give us some common ground for us to start with rather than me trying to give you a ground-level start, which hasn’t been very successful when I’ve tried it here in the past.
I wonder why…
Tell me, do you really believe this stuff?
Dave,
That’s funny: I said you were “directed to Paris” not that you were “transported to Paris”. How are you getting this interpretation?
Again, this is funny, because I recall saying quite explicitly that “words/propositions do not ‘contain’ meaning or ‘have’ meaning per se…their meaningfulness is not constituted by a relation of ‘container’ to ‘contained’”.
Please help me see how this is an argument against the (non-Heideggerian and very much mainstream psychological) research on the relation between the explicit word and what we see when we read? The research mentioned in the article is often cited in psychological textbooks: we don’t read words, but we first and foremost take wholes.
“Suggest” is not the same as “argue”. You can suggest all you want, but unless you can present an argument (rather than whatever the above is supposed to be), I have no reason to accept your “suggestion”.
Tell me, do you even read, because nothing in the above even remotely connected with what I said.
Charlie,
I want to wait for your whole response before I respond in kind, but let me state expicitly something that is relevant to everything you’ve said so far (and that I discuss more explicitly after the point you’ve already gotten to): there are clear cases where effective action occurs in the absence of thought about the object acted on and, even in some cases, in the absence of belief that there is an object to act on at all (as in the case of blindsight). As I had said it before in my discussion with Shackleman, I was hoping it would be in the background of this discussion, but I guess not (and that’s ok). That is really one of the central aspects of my argument here.
I hope you enjoy your retreat and it gives you what you need in life. 🙂
Hi Kevin
Tell me, do you even read, because nothing in the above even remotely connected with what I said.
Are you absolutely certain?
Again, this is funny, because I recall saying quite explicitly that “words/propositions do not ‘contain’ meaning or ‘have’ meaning per se…their meaningfulness is not constituted by a relation of ‘container’ to ‘contained’”.
It’s a good thing that you are not a relativist. If words – those sets of sounds and symbols through which we communicate – “do not ‘contain’ or ‘have’ meaning per se” – then then the words I have written communicate precisely the concepts I wish them to communicate “for me” and you will receive from them precisely the concepts you wish to receive from them. I have merely accepted your suggestion that I abandon the dictionary as a somewhat normative guideline for word usage.
I really must apologize for my sarcasm, but I cannot conceive that someone as intelligent and well-educated as you appear to be could be influenced by the obvious and admitted incoherence of this philosophy. Earlier you issued a challenge to Holopupenko, a challenge I took upon myself to answer;
Now, I’ve made a simple case against your claim. Now it is your turn to show me where, despite Heidegger’s explicit claims to the contrary, he is proclaiming some sort of extreme subjectivism. But, please, only use “his own words”. Thanks.
My response concluded with the quote from Heidegger, “Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy….” For me to demonstrate the relativism inherent in this statement, and presumably the rest of Heidegger’s philosophy, I must, with apologies, make reference once more to that most restrictive and unimaginative source of information, the dictionary;
intelligible
1. capable of being understood; comprehensible; clear: an intelligible response.
2. Philosophy. apprehensible by the mind only; conceptual.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intelligible
Since philosophy is, literally, ‘the love of knowledge’, and knowledge is that which is apprehensible by the mind, then any philosophy which is un-intelligible – that is, not apprehensible by the mind – is, in fact, and anti-philosophy. It is not a “love of knowledge, but a rejection of knowledge. I can not, and would not, claim special knowledge, but I do believe that knowledge and truth exist and are knowable… that is to say that knowledge is intelligible and philosophy is the means we employ to make that knowledge intelligible.
Words, those pesky little sets of sounds and symbols through which we communicate, and which you yourself have used in your arguments and in your (justified) dismissal of my abuse of language in post #83, do ‘contain’ meanings and concepts. That is precisely why the gibberish I wrote is gibberish. I accept that my vocabulary is limited, and that some writers use words in innovative ways, but it is also true (here we must return to the much abused proposistional/representaional use of language) that some authors are obscurantist. They are either hiding their ignorance behind obscure and obfuscatory sounds and symbols or they are deliberately misleading their readers.
You, quite rightly, ask, “Tell me, do you even read, because nothing in the above even remotely connected with what I said. Now, if words do no “have” or “contain” meaning how could you know (possess intelligible knowledge) that that my words are not “connected”, remotely or otherwise, with what you have said (communication). It is only when words do have and contain meaning that they can connect with the concepts common to human minds.
I despair when demonstrably intelligent and well-educated people embrace demonstrably incoherent and un-initelligible (Heidegger’s own words) philosophies. My frustration is often manifest in an impatient sarcasm, a character flaw that does little to endear me with my interlocutors, and for that I apologize. Please, I implore you, consider reading some of the more coherent philosophies, particularly those which recoognize and acknowledge the peculiarly human capacity to know. Any philosophy which denies the capacity to know is no philosophy at all.
Dave,
Again, you are not reading what I said: I did not claim that words are meaningless nor did I make a claim for private language. In fact, in arguing that language is primarily ecstatic–that it functions best as language when the words disappear as they direct us to a shared meaningful world–this is a far cry from my claim. What I am saying is that the container-contained structure is not an adequate way of describing how language works/functions, how language becomes meaningful in the first place.
As far as dictionaries go, I didn’t deny (anywhere) that the dictionary is a “somewhat normative guideline for word usage”. What I did claim, however, is that “the simplistic tally of meanings in the dictionary are a poor substitute for actually grasping a language and knowing how it can be used, altered, and supplemented.” The Oxford English Dictionary is much more adequate, but still is lacking (by virtue of it being a dictionary) in something that poets and writers have known for a long time: language is essentially fluid; the bounds of meaning of a word are ‘fuzzy’ and can be meaningfully expanded through many different means. It is a truism in linguistics that a language that no longer changes, one that has become solid and un-fluid, dies. Yes, dictionaries are useful, but they hardly grasp the full essence of language.
Are you really claiming that you know “this philosophy” well enough to be able to make that judgment? You have demonstrated no familiarity with Heidegger or his commentators. Yet, from this place of immense ignorance, you feel adequate in pronouncing his thought to be an “obvious…incoherence”? It’s funny, because the argument concerning ignorance is used to discredit the New Atheists, so why should I, who is seemingly “intelligent and well-educated” (with my ‘specialty’ being Heidegger), accept your obviously uninformed opinion? You think you demonstrate it in the following:
Actually, philosophy is the “love of wisdom”. Also, to repeat what I’ve said above, Aristotle spoke of phronesis (practical wisdom):
So, Aristotle spoke of a “knowledge” that is not “systematic knowledge” and plays out, not ‘in the mind’ (through “scientific knowledge” or working with “limiting premises” [Ibid, 1142a20]), but “by ‘perception'”. So, this kind of knowledge that Aristotle is talking about isn’t ‘rational’, if you accept the understanding of reason to include working with “limit[ed] premises” to reach a conclusion, but it is still “knowledge”. As I was saying to Shackleman, Heidegger isn’t denying knowledge, but is arguing that “knowledge” is not univocal in its meaning; there are (at least) two kinds of knowledge, one which is conceptual (and has been the focus of most philosophical thought in the last 2000 years) and one which is practical (and implicit, so it is not ‘seen’ as easily).
I’ve been making this argument here on a few occasions (again, are you really reading what I’m posting?): there are clear psychological cases of people who have a practical grasp of their environment but lack a cognitive knowledge (i.e. through properties and possessing premises/beliefs) of what they are doing. Most of the ‘evidence’ that I’ve posted on this well-demonstrated phenomenon are not Heideggerian (though they cohere nicely with his philosophy), yet you continue to say that I’m spouting incoherencies by (solely?) relying on Heidegger’s thought.
As for the quote you gave, I’m not very familiar with Heidegger’s Contributions (which is where the quote is from), primarily because the only available English translation is horrendous (and my German is way too rudimentary to be able to help). However, I do know from his later works that Heidegger saw philosophy as being rooted in wonder (see The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, §2), he saw philosophy’s task not so much in what we can do with it, but in how it changes us (see Introduction to Metaphysics), and that philosophy’s task is fundamentally tied to transcendence (this is found all throughout his later work). If this is Heidegger’s understanding of philosophy, then, indeed, “Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.” If philosophy itself could be wholly intelligible, then there would be no more wonder (which is philosophy’s sustenance), philosophy could no longer change us (everything would be brought to light and no change would be needed), and the transcendent would lose its transcendence (so philosophy would no longer have its aim). Furthermore, if philosophy’s task is to bring to light the non-conceptual phenomena (like what I’ve spoken of above, like Aristotle’s phronesis, etc.), then philosophy in essence cannot bring everything into full intelligibility, completely arraying before us every phenomenon; there will always be something that transcends our conceptual abilities.
Please understand that even non-Heideggerian philosophers differ widely in how they interpret “philosophy”. Let me just assure you that Heidegger does not ‘subjectivize’ meaning, does not reject knowledge (even “scientific knowledge”), and takes meaning and truth to be central to philosophy’s task. As someone who is “demonstrably intelligent and well-educated”, particularly on matters of Heidegger, I’m asking you to take my word for it. 😉
Agreed. Thankfully, Heidegger doesn’t “den[y] the capacity to know”.
On philosophy, wonder, Aristotle, and Heidegger, see this old post by Maverick Philosopher.
Hello Kevin
Actually, philosophy is the “love of wisdom”. Also, to repeat what I’ve said above, Aristotle spoke of phronesis (practical wisdom):
I see you think the dictionary useful for making a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Yet you throw the baby out with the bathwater once again. One might conisder the distinction Hume makes when he suggests that you cannot get an ought from an is and then read Aristotle once more. It seems that phronesis makes its appearance in ethics because it is aimed at dealing with oughts, not is’s.
Phronesis does not reject rational judgement and conceptual knowledge, nor does it regard rational judgement and conceptual knowledge as insufficient in its own domain, but it does recognize that material knowledge is insufficient for ethical discourse. You can’t get an ought from an is. Therefore there is another level of knowledge that we might call ethical knowledge. Not having the benefit of Christian revelation Aristotle could only attribute the source of ethical knowledge to “experience” or “practice” hence it is “practical knowledge”.
One should consider the fact that experience is subjective. One might have experience and draw different ethical conclusions than another who had different, or even the same, experiences.
http://www.she-philosopher.com/library/library_catG-J.html#jmt2001
I’ve been making this argument here on a few occasions (again, are you really reading what I’m posting?): there are clear psychological cases of people who have a practical grasp of their environment but lack a cognitive knowledge (i.e. through properties and possessing premises/beliefs) of what they are doing.
This is a red herring and, I suspect, falacious. A “practical grasp” of the environment requires cognitive knowledge or you have no “grasp” of your environment. I think you mean they haven’t an “analytic” grasp of their environment, i.e. they haven’t analyzed what they know in “practice”. The stone mason can choose and shape suitable materials but know little about nature of the materials or the tools he uses in his trade.
Dave,
Where did I use a dictionary? The translation of philosophy as “love of wisdom” is well known in philosophical circles, and for some philosophers that is an important distinction from knowledge. This is seen particularly in the earlier philosophers for whom “the good life” was a central issue in philosophy, which is not so much the case today. That is why I brought in Aristotle.
And where did I deny this?
I don’t see a need for your distinction, if we accept “Christian revelation”. One’s “ethical knowledge” can still be played out in practice and perception, yet it is grounded in God’s goodness. Either way, Aristotle was clear that phronesis doesn’t occur at the level of “limited premises” or “scientific knowledge”, so it is not ‘logical’ in the sense of following premises to their rational conclusions or conducting controlled experiments to determine the right course of action.
Experience is not “subjective”, at least in the usual sense and in the large majority of cases. I don’t know about you, but I “experience” things, objects, people, events, etc., not “subjective” sensations. Furthermore, at least for Aristotle, practical wisdom (phronesis) is not about “draw[ing] ethical conclusions”, since it does not work within the realm of premises and conclusions (at least not primarily).
With all due respect to James Tallmon and the “She-Philosopher”, their rendering of phronesis is making it too “systematic” and “rational”, if we are to accept Aristotle’s claim that phroensis occurs at the level of perception and action, not working with “ethical principles”, “generalizing” (Aristotle is quite clear that phronesis deals with particulars), “determining which issues are most relevant” (one sees what is relevant and, hence, does not need to “determine” relevance), nor with “probabilities”. Sure, maybe Tallmon’s cognitivist re-rendering of phronesis is right, but also perhaps it isn’t (see here for what I feel is a more Aristotelian analysis of practical wisdom).
No, the (non-Heideggerian) psychological literature is very clear: in many cases the person does not have any thoughts or beliefs about the object that they are practically taking up or the environment’s they are effectively moving through. In the case of DF, Milner and Goodale’s patient, she cannot tell you the orientation of the slot, but she can deftly place the object through it at the right angle (see here for a summary and here for discussion). Milner and Goodale both feel that their research exactly contradicts the common understanding that you just gave, and all without having to appeal to obscurantist philosophers like Heidegger. 😉