“Belief that a perceived phenomenon is self-authenticating
does not make it so.” – Peter Boghossian
Peter Boghossian is what I call a “power atheist;” sort of a
kinder, gentler militant atheist on the front lines of the New Atheism movement
(currently spearheaded by the usual suspects, i.e. Dawkins, Harris, etc.). Who
Peter Boghossian is is not particularly relevant to his quote I’m about to
criticize, but I felt like mentioning him by name because for the most part, I
think he’s a pretty smart guy. Still, we’re all guilty of saying silly things
at times. I do it perhaps more often than not, especially when I’m around my
cats. As the hand that feeds them, they respectfully remain silent when I err.
So he tweets the afore mentioned gem a few days ago, and it
brought to mind something I said about The Truth a couple of blogs back. I wrote,
“…there is seemingly no such thing as completely correct knowledge beyond the
self-evident truths of internal observations such as ‘I am seeing yellow’ which
I could easily dispute but won’t bother because such truths don’t mean anything
to anyone other than yourself anyway.” Now, you see how I said something silly?
I said I could easily dispute an internal observation. But can I?
Let’s say I say to myself “I am seeing yellow,” because I
am. I’m seeing yellow and the fact that I’m seeing yellow is
self-authenticating. Now, it may be the case that someone is prodding my brain
with an electrode which is in turn is making me see yellow, but the fact that
I’m seeing yellow cannot be disputed within me. The neuroscientist/asshole
prodding my brain may argue that I am not seeing yellow, not from his
perspective, but therein lies the rub: If, according to Sammy Scientist, I’m
not seeing yellow – which appears self-evident – how do I know Sammy Scientist
exists? I experience him as much as the yellow color I’m seeing, so if I’m not
seeing yellow, am I even experiencing Sammy Scientist? Regardless of the how
the stimulus is administered, the resulting internal observation cannot be refuted.
Even if I’m tired and in fact hallucinating a cup of coffee (a delusion since
it’s not there when I reach for it), I cannot deny that I saw a cup of coffee. This
is the route by which Descartes came to his conclusion that he, as a thinking
thing, exists. His conclusion does require an amendment, though. Even if
someone or something planted in Descartes’ ‘brain’ each words cogito, ergo, and sum so that the
thought appeared continuous, thus giving rise to the internal sentence “cogito
ergo sum,” it cannot be denied that something
– whatever I or Descartes may really be – is receiving data to record/perceive.
With that in mind (excuse the pun), we can
take up the issue of whether external reality matches internal reality. That
is, we can deny the external reality of an internal observation on
the basis of how a stimulus is given. That’s why I ended my particular quote
with “…such truths don’t mean anything to anyone other than yourself anyway.”
I’m sure – I hope – this was the context for Boghossian’s
quote. (So, maybe it’s not silly after all.) Boghossian’s quote was probably
given in the context of an argument with a theist who may have said something
to the effect that they know Jesus is real since they have experienced Jesus
within (felt Jesus’ presence, for example). And Boghossian likely responded
that such an experience doesn’t qualify as an external reality, as would I. One
cannot say they have felt Jesus and then claim – as a matter of necessity –
that Jesus exists external to one’s self. Our theist in this example simple
cannot be sure that even though they have felt the presence of Jesus, they
can’t be sure what triggered the internal observation; it may have been drugs,
an evil demon, or worst of all, simply an overriding desire to believe. That’s
why I get a little irritated when theists attempt to convert me; they think
they’ve overcome solipsism.
Of course, we all act like we’ve overcome solipsism, every
day, all day, with everyone we meet and know. Christ, we even allow anecdotal
evidence (eyewitness testimony) in a court of law! But you can’t take away from
someone what they’re experiencing inside. You can’t take away from me the fact
that I am seeing yellow when I am seeing yellow, even if I’m a robot being
shown slide after slide of yellow. (Great, now we can’t deny the internal
observation of robots.) You can’t separate me from the phenomenon even if you
know precisely what triggered the phenomenon. A disbeliever has no evidence
with which to contradict anyone’s internal observation. Even if Sammy Scientist
showed me an MRI of my brain as I saw yellow and said, “That blip right there
is you seeing yellow,” the blip and what I experience are not the same thing. Or
is it? Doesn’t seem like it; measuring something is not the something itself,
hence The Problem of Substance, or, The Problem of Mind, in this case. On the
other hand, I cannot expect to convince a disbeliever since they likewise cannot
share what I experience, not yet anyway. (God help us when technology makes
that possible.)
Update: Boghossian posted this quote last night from a discussion with
a gentleman we’ll call Nathan, because that’s his name…”Self-authentication
means there's no corrective mechanism (CM). If no CM then how is the perception
differentiated from a delusion?” Well, delusions
are what a disbeliever of your perceptions calls your perceptions. As I pointed
out above, there is no CM for a perception. Perceptions are the starting point
for all, more complex thoughts, be they axioms of reason or articles of faith. You can only argue for a delusion in the case
of complex thoughts, not lone perceptions. It surprises me that Boghossian
doesn’t understand this.
3 comments:
I am not a philosopher or trained logician, but I see a flaw in your reasoning. Here is what you seem to be claiming:
1. If I claim, "I see yellow," you cannot dispute this.
2. If I claim, "I see a coffee cup," that is equivalent to the above claim, so you cannot dispute this.
I agree with #1, but not with #2. They are not equivalent. Why? Because yellow is not an object. The key is this:
An image of yellow is yellow.
An image of a coffee cup is not a coffee cup.
Take a picture of something yellow, and your picture will be yellow.
Take a picture of a coffee cup, and your picture will not be a coffee cup.
(via a continuance of this discussion on FB)
Me: All you ever see of a coffee cup is its properties, not the coffee cup (the substance) itself. What is yellow? A property of something reflecting the yellow part of the spectrum. Same difference. What people seem not to understand about what I wrote is the difference between internal observations and external reality and the problems that arise from the difference, assuming there IS an external reality. Now, supposing you could get me to perceive that my coffee cup perception is wrong, what's to prevent your Corrective Method (giving me a perception to counter a perception) from being prone to a counter CM?
Scott: If the author of the article (is it you?) had claimed to see an IMAGE of a coffee cup, then I would agree with you. But he did not. Here is what he said:
"Even if I’m tired and in fact hallucinating a cup of coffee (a delusion since it’s not there when I reach for it), I cannot deny that I saw a cup of coffee."
I could dispute that he saw "a cup of coffee," because a cup of coffee is a real object that has mass, energy, form, and can be verified by other observers.
Again, I agree with him that I cannot dispute his claim of "I see yellow" because an image of yellow is still yellow. But it is not equivalent to say "I see a coffee cup" because an image of a coffee cup is not a coffee cup. The two statements are not equivalent.
Me: I understand what you're saying, Scott. But the INTERNAL observation of yellow or a cup of coffee cannot be denied. In that context, the statements ARE equivalent. If I never reached for the cup of coffee in my example, I would have never known it was a hallucination. (Was it a hallucination? How do I know the outside world isn't the illusion?) For the record, I authored the blog post, I think.
[Somewhere in there, someone yawned…]
I feel it necessary to clarify exactly where I dissent with Boghossian’s original and follow-up quotes since it isn’t clear in my original post. I acknowledge that I am at fault in that respect, so allow me to rectify the situation if I can.
It is my suspicion that Boghossian feels that perceptions – particularly ones regarding faith – are faulty. If we’re talking about how perceptions line up with an external world we suppose really exists, of course he has a point. Such a point is old news and has been since Descartes. My point is that a perception itself cannot be wrong internally and this leads to a philosophical problem. The disconnect with Boghossian’s quotes begins to occur when he invokes a Corrective Method (CM) for faulty perceptions – reason. Yet reason – that is, inferences – are based upon, ta da, perceptions. To illustrate what I’m saying, let’s consider the McGurk Illusion [click here and follow the instructions in the video’s description]. When you play the video, most likely you hear “da da.” Close your eyes and you hear “ba ba” indicating that something, somewhere is wrong. Or is it? The explanation (given by an external source we believe exists) is that our eyes and ears synthesize a perception different than what our ears alone perceive. But if you run this experiment by me and I tell you I heard “da da,” guess what, I did hear “da da” when I watched the video even if I get a different result – “ba ba” – when I simply listen to the video. You cannot tell me I actually heard “ba ba” even if additional input from my eyes fooled me. I wasn’t fooled. I heard “da da” when watching the video. So, the perception itself is not faulty. To been shown otherwise takes another perception, one that may just as well be faulty as the faulty one and there’s really no way to tell them apart. How, with reason? Okay, I conclude that I heard “ba ba” when only one of my senses were activated. Only now, why can’t I question that perception? How do I know hearing “ba ba” isn’t a faulty perception? If I was just shown a perception can be falsified, they can all be falsified. Isn’t that reasonable of me to think? Sure, at some point even the most annoying philosopher gives up for the sake of getting anywhere with philosophy, but any philosopher does not do so out of necessity. While I agree that perceptions can be faulty, sometimes people believe they’ve reached a point where their perceptions aren’t faulty, to which I respond that such people have no real business reaching that conclusion, for how do they know their conclusions aren’t arbitrary? That question poses a HUGE obstacle for the study of how we know anything; Epistemology. Of course, being a Determinist of any variety pretty much clears the obstacle, only, one could be a Determinist based upon faulty reasoning that is based upon faulty perceptions.
I hope this clears things up a bit.
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