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You're a Human Being—What's That?

The Scientific AnswerBy Frederick R. Bauer

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Frederick R. Bauer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-5290-5

Contents

A. Introduction: The Focus.............................................3B. Evidence: The Data..................................................11Section 1 The Thesis: Representationalism..............................13Section 2 Three Arguments For Representationalism......................23Argument One Non-Sensory Objects.......................................24Argument Two Language..................................................40Argument Three Sensory Objects.........................................61C. Four Conclusions....................................................114Introduction: The Question.............................................123I Mind-Body Theories As Answers To "What Am I?"........................125II The Five-Concept Model..............................................130III The Phenomenalist Answer...........................................141IV Materialism In General..............................................151V Materialism I: Radical Behaviorism...................................157VI Materialism II: Brain-Mind Identity Theory..........................171VII Materialism III: Epiphenomenalism..................................193VIII Berkeley's Idealism...............................................203IX Two-Substance, Sharp Dualism........................................207X Jamesian Quintalism..................................................228X-b Why This Last Is 'The' Scientific Answer...........................241Appendix A: Common-Sense Concept(S) Of Change..........................253Appendix B: Meaning Vs Concepts........................................261Appendix C: Time.......................................................273Selected Bibliography..................................................307

Chapter One

A. INTRODUCTION: THE FOCUS

Stated somewhat overdramatically, the object studied in this text will be ...

you!

Each one of us has something very basic in common, namely, that he or she is a member of that most interesting species, homo sapiens. What, though, makes us homo sapientes what we are? To understand some of the key parts of the full answer to that question is our goal. In other words, to understand some of the key elements in your own makeup. To understand you. In short, to answer a question you must ask and answer for yourself. That question is ...

What am I?

No other topic can compete with this in interest and importance. Its interest lies chiefly in the fact that there is nothing that is quite so close to us as our selves. Its importance stems from the role that our understanding of our selves plays, not only in how we should live our own lives, but in deciding what goals our generation should set for itself in preparing a world hospitable to future generations.

Another approach to this inquiry is to say we're seeking the scientific answer to the question, "What is the nature of a human being?" Of course, there are different opinions about what science is and about what is the scientific answer to the question, "What is the nature of a human being?" The author of this text believes his answer is 'the' scientific one. Otherwise, he'd change his opinion.

Then, too, reference to "a nature" raises large questions, such as, "Do natures or essences exist?", "Is there a nature common to all humans?", and so on. But questions about human nature can be broken down into other questions: "What things can be said of all humans?" "What do humans have in common with inanimate objects?" "What do they have in common with other living things?" "What is distinctive about them?" "What is their origin and ultimate destiny?" Etc.

The Western tradition. Perhaps never before has there been so much disagreement about humans' nature as there is at the present time. For most of the last two thousand years, Western culture was dominated by a view of humans that resulted from a synthesis of Greek philosophy and Judaeo-Christian religion. According to this tradition, humans were believed to be composed of two distinct principles or components, a material body and a spiritual soul. Because their soul gives them the ability to reason, humans were regarded as superior to all other creatures. In fact, according to the traditional view, the physical universe was thought to exist specifically to serve humans and their temporal needs.

This view was non-evolutionary. Though the body originated from matter, the spiritual soul, it was maintained, was created immediately by God who was himself purely spiritual in nature. This belief implied that each and every individual human soul was created according to the same general blueprint, was endowed with the same general potentialities, and was intended for the same general destiny, namely, an unending existence in the presence of the Creator after the death of the body. It was recognized, however, that individuals by their own free choice could frustrate that intention.

Attacks against the tradition. This sketch, admittedly a crude one, of certain ingredients of the traditional Western view of humans has come under heavy attack in modern times. None of these attacks is entirely new, but the reason why they have recently succeeded after mostly failing in the past is that they are now grounded on modern scientific theories generally accepted even by the traditionalists.

There are several prongs to the attack on the traditional view. One prong of the attack comes from Darwin's theory of evolution. To use the words of Calvin Hall, "before Darwin, man was set apart from the rest of the animal kingdom by virtue of his having a soul. The evolutionary doctrine made man a part of nature, an animal among other animals. Man became an object of scientific study, no different, save in complexity, from other forms of life." (C. Hall, 1954, p.11)

This attempt to demote humans from a position superior to the animals to the rank of simply the most complex of animals has been strengthened by the study of animals themselves, the study named "ethology." Traditionalists who argue that humans transcend the purely animal kingdom have claimed that humans alone are capable of tool-making and language communication, and of the symbolic conceptualization and the logical reasoning that these presumably require. (Cfr. M. Adler, 1967) However, recent investigations have led many to believe that not only are some animals tool users, but that they also display powers of generalization (conceptualization) in certain experimental situations and are capable of acquiring the power of language communication (the chimps) or even that they already possess such powers (the dolphins). Frans de Waal, a prominent researcher, has drawn attention to the unsuspected capabilities of animals.

The attack also comes from the newer sciences of biochemistry and biophysics. Whereas Darwin's theory of evolution allegedly traces human ancestry back, not to an immaterial Creator, but to more primitive forms of life, advances in modern biology have led many to trace life itself back to forces that are immanent in matter itself. Here again, the challenge is an old one, but it is recent discoveries that have lent a high degree of credibility to an older challenge. Processes within the living organism that were formerly attributed to a nonphysical life-principle or soul are now found to be describable as precise physical events occurring at the microscopic and submicroscopic level. This has been taken as evidence for the conclusion that, in the words of one scientist, the living organism and more especially the human organism "is a machine, but he is a very complex one." (B. F. Skinner, 1969, p.63) The work of Harold Urey and his graduate student, Stanley Miller, who synthesized some of the basic building blocks of life from completely inanimate material within the laboratory, taken together with later experiments in synthesizing cellular components inside the test-tube, have led many to agree with G. Simpson's assertion that "studies demonstrate not only the possibility but also the probability that life arose from the inorganic spontaneously, that is, without supernatural intervention and by the operation of material processes." (G. Simpson, 1949, p.340).

Additional ammunition for the challenge to the traditional view comes from those investigations that relate to consciousness. The theories of Sigmund Freud were heralded as a breakthrough in the effort to understand human behavior scientifically. Those who were reluctant to accept Freud's work as sufficiently scientific were offered an alternative in the theories and experiments of behaviorism. According to the foremost spokesman for this school of thought, B. F. Skinner, cited above, the single factor preventing us from predicting human behavior as accurately and as unfailingly as we can predict the behavior of other machines is the almost infinite complexity involved. His thesis is reinforced by contemporary research on methods of altering consciousness with drugs and with electrodes implanted in the brain.

Finally, research on the brain, neuroscience, has become the strongest challenge to traditional views of human beings. Dean Wooldridge sums up this view that sees humans as machines whose behavior is guided by electronic circuits in the brain: "All intelligence, whether of computer or brain, is the natural consequence of the powerful symbol manipulating capabilities of complex switching networks and therefore the ordinary laws of the physical sciences are adequate to account for all aspects of what we consider to be intelligent behavior." (D. Wooldridge, 1968, p.128) R. Watson, Descartes' biographer, is convinced that "When humankind finally faces the fact that the mind is the brain, that there is no independently existing mental soul to survive the death of the body, ... there will be a revolution in human thought the like of which none has gone before." (R. Watson, 2002, p.327)

Today, then, there is no unanimity of opinion, nothing that even approaches it, with respect to the nature of the human being. The clash between the traditional Western view and the conclusions drawn by many from modern scientific advances has produced increasingly diverse attempts to harmonize the facts. Whatever verdict one arrives at on the question, "What does it mean to be a human being?", therefore, can only be arrived at after much careful weighing and sifting of evidence.

Some practical ramifications. As mentioned earlier, the effort to answer the question is imperative. High stakes ride on the answer to the question, both for one's own life and for society as a whole. According to the traditional body-soul view, an individual's life has two aspects to it that, though they interpenetrate each other, are quite distinct. On the one hand, the physical body imposes on them a concern for adequate food, protection from the elements, and a measure of material conveniences. On the other hand, the intellect-endowed soul or spirit imposes the need to pursue a transcendent wisdom, to observe various ethical norms, and to establish a proper relationship to the Creator.

This dualistic view of humans contends that the demands of the body are of a temporary nature, whereas those of the soul have an eternal significance. This is because the soul will endure long after the body has gone to its grave, and its (the soul's) condition will be happy or miserable depending on how well the person will have attended to its needs during its sojourn in the flesh. Adherents of the traditional view may disagree with the precise formulation of these points, but it is obvious that their position regarding life's priorities will differ radically from those who believe that the body alone is real, that there is no soul and hence no existence beyond the death of the body, and that all higher wisdom and religion is illusory. If the latter view were correct, then humans' biological or animal instincts and their attendant pleasure would be the final criteria of what is important during life.

Similar radical disagreements on practical matters emerge when proponents of these different views discuss methods of dealing with neurotic, psychotic, and criminal behavior. The disagreement revolves not only about matters already mentioned, but also about the question of whether humans have the ability to choose freely or whether their choices are ultimately determined by their physiological makeup and their environment. Traditionalists maintain that the fulfilled, healthy person is one who recognizes and develops his moral and spiritual potentialities and that is it is within his power to do so. Orthodox psychoanalysts and behaviorists tend to look on such concerns as expressions of infantile, regressive, or simply meaningless tendencies. More than this, those who regard humans as free insist that they can surmount environmental and biological pressures and can actively mold their own future, whereas those who favor the "humans are machines" theory hope for nothing more than that individuals consciously face, with unrepressed self-awareness, the forces responsible for their behavior or, at best, submit to programs that will recondition their responses. With respect to criminal behavior, it suffices to refer to the debate as to whether the lawbreaker is responsible for his actions or is merely the victim of irresistible impulses.

The debate carries over into the social arena as well. Shall society be established on the premise that humans should be free to establish their own values, even religious, so long as they do not trespass on one another's rights, or are social institutions to be engineered with a view to furnishing human robots, devoid of freedom and dignity, with what is necessary to keep them biologically fit and content? The conflict and its vital importance can be appreciated by examining, not only the theoretical arguments put forward by the spokespersons for the opposing views but, perhaps even better, by reading and comparing literary works that paint vivid pictures of the results anticipated from the adoption of the differing social "recipes." Examples of the latter are B. F. Skinner's Walden Two and K. vonnegut's Player Piano.

Philosophy? Or Science? What, then, is human nature? What follows will undoubtedly be regarded at first as 'philosophy,' not 'science.' But the author realized, more than a quarter of a century ago, that all attempts to 'do' philosophy unscientifically or to 'do' science unphilosophically are absurd. Any so-called 'philosopher' who ignores what he or she regards as 'scientific facts' is ignorant, and any 'scientist' who thinks he or she is not building on a 'philosophical' foundation is self-deluded. Plato, the first great psychologist, didn't believe in such a distinction, nor did Aristotle who wrote the first psychology textbook.

Belief in the historically recent (and mythical) distinction that most people make between psychology and philosophy has become an enormous impediment to reaching the goal of a grand unifying system. Even though the amount of knowledge needed to become a well- educated person in this new millennium is unbelievably enormous, and even though it has become convenient, even necessary, to 'divide' knowledge up in order to allow some people to specialize in mastering certain 'slices' of the knowledge-pie and to allow others to specialize on other topics, it is essential to recognize that such distinctions are really imaginary. This text, then, will make use of whatever facts are important and relevant to answering the question, "What is a human being?" But, because of its special focus, a few words are in order to delineate somewhat the boundaries of the present work.

The primary focus is the individual human being, as opposed to groups (e.g., social, political, cultural, etc.) supposedly 'made up' of individual human beings. Beware of claims that sociology, anthropology, history, and politics autonomous sciences, as if they are not constructed on implicit theories about the nature of individual humans.

Yet, in referring to the individual, this should be taken to mean, paradoxically, "the individual in general," if it is permissible to use such a phrase. The goal is to understand better that which makes any individual being human, that which the individual has in common with other individuals, not the factors which make one individual human different from another, as for example, Tom Smith from Mary Jones. In studying humans, of course, it will be necessary to speak also of material objects, plants, and animals, inasmuch as, besides what makes him different, there are also things which he and they have in common.

Ontology? The focus can be further refined by stating that the focus is not everything that humans have in common, but chiefly what is often referred to as their "ontological" or "metaphysical" nature. Do not think of those as names for strange, esoteric inquiries. Not in this text, at least. The quest here will be different from such things distinguished, purely for convenience, as anatomy, physiology, and empirical psychology. For instance, it is left to specialists on anatomy to ask how many vertebrae are contained in the human backbone and to the specialists in physiology to determine the workings of the respiratory, digestive, or reproductive systems of humans. The lines between philosophical and empirical psychology are somewhat as follows. An empirical psychologist may study the relation between the ability to remember and the ability to perform on IQ tests, or he may inquire into the strength of pure retention (e.g., by the ability to remember nonsense syllables) as opposed to the strength of retention aided by association, or he may try to find methods for memory improvement. In all of these instances, the empirical psychologist can carry out his work without bothering to ask just what memory is in the first place. When he does ask this question, his question becomes what has traditionally been regarded as "philosophical." Is memory a function of the brain or does it reveal properties that can only be understood as somehow transcending matter and the brain? Are the things that we remember, i.e., memories, actual past events somehow surviving in the present or are they psychic images that refer to past realities or are they complex molecular formations or faint electrical potentials stored in the brain or are they none of these? It is these latter questions that will be asked in the present work.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from You're a Human Being—What's That?by Frederick R. Bauer Copyright © 2011 by Frederick R. Bauer. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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