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HE HUGE CULTURAL authority sci- what they say or do.

Too many have forgotten their


ence has acquired over the past century obligation to approach with due respect the scholarly,
imposes' large duties on every scientist. artistic, religious, humanistic work that has always
Scientists have acquired the power to im- been mankind's main spiritual support. Scientists are
press and intimidate every time they open (on average) no more likely to understand this work
their mouths, and it is their responsibil- than the man in the street is to understand quantum
ity to keep this power in mind no matter physics. But science used to know enough to approach

DAVID GELERNTER is a professorof'computerscience at Yale. His book Subjectivism: The Mind from Inside will
be published by Norton later this year.

Commentary 17
*^p

cautiously and admire from outside, and to build its intellectually bankrupt. He explains why Darwinian
own work on a deep belief in human dignity. No longer. evolution is insufficient to explain the emergence of
consciousness—the capacity to feel or experience the
BELITTLING HUMANITY. Today science and world. He then offers his own ideas on consciousness,
the "philosophy of mind"—its thoughtful assistant, which are speculative, incomplete, tentative, and pro-
which is sometimes smarter than the boss—are threat- vocative—in the tradition of science and philosophy.
ening Western culture with the exact opposite of hu- Nagel was immediately set on and (symbolically)
manism. Call it roboticism. Man is the measure of all beaten to death by all the leading punks, bullies, and
things, Protagoras said. Today we add, and computers hangers-on of the philosophical underworld. Attack-
are the measure ofall men. ing Darwin is the sin against the Holy Ghost that pious
Many scientists are proud of having booted man scientists are taught never to forgive. Even worse, Na-
off his throne at the center of the universe and reduced gel is an atheist unwilling to express sufficient hatred
him to just one more creature—an especially annoying of religion to satisfy other atheists. There is nothing
one—in the great intergalactic zoo. That is their right. religious about Nagel's speculations; he believes that
But when scientists use this locker-room braggadocio science has not come far enough to explain conscious-
to belittle the human viewpoint, to belittle human life ness and that it must press on. He believes that Darwin
and values and virtues and civilization and moral, spir- is not sufficient.
itual, and religious discoveries, which is all we human The intelligentsia was so furious that it formed a
beings possess or ever will, they have outrun their own lynch mob. In May 2013, the Chronicle ofHigher Edu-
empiricism. They are abusing their cultural standing. cation ran a piece called "Where Thomas Nagel Went
Science has become an international bully. Wrong." One paragraph was notable:
Nowhere is its bullying more outrageous than in
its assault on the phenomenon known as subjectivity. Whatever the validity of [Nagel's] stance, its
Your subjective, conscious experience is just as timing was certainly bad. The war between New
real as the tree outside your window or the photons Atheists and believers has become savage, with
striking your retina—even though you alone feel it. Richard DawMns writing sentences like, "I have
Many philosophers and scientists today tend to dis- described atonement, the central doctrine of
miss the subjective and focus wholly on an objective, Christianity, as vicious, sadomasochistic, and
third-person reality—a reality that would be just the repellent We should also dismiss it as barking
same if men had no minds. They treat subjective real- mad...." In that climate, saying anything nice at
ity as a footnote, or they ignore it, or they announce all about religion is a tactical error.
that, actually, it doesn't even exist.
If scientists were rat-catchers, it wouldn't mat- It's the cowardice of the Chronicle's statement
ter. But right now, their views are threatening all sorts that is alarming—as if the only conceivable response to
of intellectual and spiritual fields. The present problem a mass attack by killer hyenas were to run away. Nagel
originated at the intersection of artificial intelligence was assailed; almost everyone else ran.
and philosophy of mind—in the question of what con-
sciousness and mental states are all about, how they THE KURZWEIL CULT. The voice most strong-
work, and what it would mean for a robot to have them. ly associated with what I've termed roboticism is that
It has roots that stretch back to the behaviorism of theof Ray Kurzweil, a leading technologist and inventor.
early 20th century, but the advent of computing lit the The Kurzweil Cult teaches that, given the strong and
fuse of an intellectual crisis that blasted off in the 1960s
ever-increasing pace of technological progress and
and has been gaining altitude ever since. change, a fateful crossover point is approaching. He
calls this point the "singularity." After the year 2045
BULLYING NAG EL. The modern "mind fields" (mark your calendars!), machine intelligence will
encompass artificial intelligence, cognitive psycholo- dominate human intelligence to the extent that men
gy, and philosophy of mind. Researchers in these fields will no longer understand machines any more than
are profoundly split, and the chaos was on display in potato chips understand mathematical topology. Men
the ugliness occasioned by the publication of Thomas will already have begun an orgy of machinification—
Nagel's Mind & Cosmos in 2012. Nagel is an eminent implanting chips in their bodies and brains, and fine-
philosopher and professor at NYU. In Mind & Cosmos, tuning their own and their children's genetic material.
he shows with terse, meticulous thoroughness why Kurzweil believes in "transhumanism," the merging of
mainstream thought on the workings of the mind is men and machines. He believes human immortality is

18 The Closing of the Scientific Mind: January 2014


just around the corner. He works each case, sane persons are apt to
for Google. intervene before the plan reaches
Whether he knows it or not, completion.
Kurzweil believes in and longs for
the death of mankind. Because SUBJECTIVITY.
if things work out as he predicts, Subjectivity is your private expe-
there will still be life on Earth, but rience of the world: your sensa-
no human life. To predict that a tions; your mental life and inner
man who lives forever and is built W h e t h e r he k n o w s landscape; your experiences of
mainly of semiconductors is still a sweet and bitter, blue and gold,
man is like predicting that a man it or not, Ray Kurzweil soft and hard; your beliefs, plans,
with stainless steel skin, a small pains, hopes, fears, theories, imag-
nuclear reactor for a stomach, and believes in a n d longs for ined vacation trips and gardens
an IQ. of 10,000 would still be a and girlfriends and Ferraris, your
man. In fact we have no idea what t h e d e a t h of m a n k i n d .
sense of right and wrong, good and
he would be. To predict t h a t a m a n evil. This is your subjective world.
Each change in him might It is just as real as the objective
be defended as an improvement, w h o lives forever a n d physical world.
but man as we know him is the top This is why the idea of objec-
growth on a tall tree in a large for- is built m a i n l y of tive reality is a masterpiece of West-
est: His kinship with his parents ern thought—an idea we associate
s e m i c o n d u c t o r s is still
and ancestors and mankind at with Galileo and Descartes and
large, the experience of seeing his mm is like predicting other scientific revolutionaries of
own reflection in human history the 17th century. The only view of
and his fellow man—those things that a man with the world we can ever have is sub-
are the crucial part of who he is. If jective, from inside our own heads.
you make him grossly different, he stainless s t e e l skin, That we can agree nonetheless on
is lost, with no reflection anywhere the observable, exactly measur-
a nuclear reactorfor a
he looks. If you make lots of people able, and predictable characteris-
grossly different, they are all lost s t o m a c h , a n d a n IQ tics of objective reality is a remark-
together—cut adrift from their able fact. I can't know that the color
forebears, from human history of 1 0 , 0 0 0 w o u l d still b e I call blue looks to me the same way
and human experience. Of course it looks to you. And yet we both use
we do know that whatever these a m a n . W e have no idea the word blue to describe this color,
creatures are, untransformed men and common sense suggests that
will be unable to keep up with w h a t h e would be. your experience of blue is probably
them. Their superhuman intelli- a lot like mine. Our ability to tran-
gence and strength will extinguish scend the subjective and accept the
mankind as we know it, or reduce men to slaves or existence of objective reality is the cornerstone of every-
dogs. To wish for such a development is to play dice thing modern science has accomplished.
with the universe.
But that is not enough for the philosophers of
Luckily for mankind, there is (of course) no rea- mind. Many wish to banish subjectivity altogether.
son to believe that brilliant progress in any field will "The history of philosophy of mind over the past one
continue, much less accelerate; imagine predicting the hundred years," the eminent philosopher John Searle
state of space exploration today based on the events has written, "has been in large part an attempt to get
of 1960-1972. But the real flaw in the Kurzweil Cult's rid of the mental"—i.e., the subjective—"by showing
sickening predictions is that machines do just what we that no mental phenomena exist over and above physi-
tell them to. They act as they are built to act. We might cal phenomena."
in principle, in the future, build an armor-plated robot Why bother? Because to present-day philoso-
with a stratospheric IQthat refuses on principle to pay phers, Searle writes, "the subjectivist ontology of
attention to human beings. Or an average dog lover the mental seems intolerable." That is, your states of
might buy a German shepherd and patiently train it to mind (your desire for adventure, your fear of icebergs,
rip him to shreds. Both deeds are conceivable, but in the ship you imagine, the girl you recall) exist only

Commentary 19
subjectively, within your mind, and brain that "embodies" it. Yet the
they can be examined and evalu- brain's structure is different from
ated by you alone. They do not exist the mind's. The brain is a dense
objectively. They are strictly inter- tangle of neurons and other cells in
nal to your own mind. And yet they which neurons send electrical sig-
do exist. This is intolerable! How in nals to other neurons downstream
this modern, scientific world can via a wash of neurotransmitter
we be forced to accept the existence chemicals, like beach bums splash-
of things that can't be weighed Your m i n d is, ing each other with bucketfuls of
or measured, tracked or photo- water.
w a s , a n d will a l w a y s
graphed—that are strictly private, Two wholly different struc-
that can be observed by exactly be a room w i t h a view. tures, one embodied by the other—
one person each? Ridiculous! Or at this is also a precise description of
least, damned annoying. Your m e n t a l s t a t e s computer software as it relates to
And yet your mind is, was, computer hardware. Software has
and will always be a room with a exist inside t h i s r o o m its own structure and laws (soft-
view. Your mental states exist in- ware being what any "program"
y o u c a n never leave
side this room you can never leave or "application" is made of—any
and no one else can ever enter. a n d n o o n e else c a n ever email program, web search engine,
The world you perceive through photo album, iPhone app, video
the window of mind (where you enter. T h e w o r l d y o u game, anything at all). Software
can never go—where no one can consists of lists of instructions that
ever go) is the objective world. perceive t h r o u g h t h e are given to the hardware—to a
Both worlds, inside and outside, digital computer. Each instruction
w i n d o w of m i n d
are real. specifies one picayune operation
The ever astonishing Rainer (where you can on the numbers stored inside the
Maria Rilke captured this truth computer. For example: Add two
vividly in the opening lines of his never g o — w h e r e no numbers. Move a number from
eighth Duino Elegy, as translated by one place to another. Look at some
Stephen Mitchell: "With all its eyes o n e c a n ever g o ) number and do this if it's 0.
the natural world looks out/into Large lists of tiny instruc-
is t h e objective world.
the Open. Only our eyes are turned tions become complex mathemati-
backward....We know what is re- B o t h worlds, inside cal operations, and large bunches
ally out there only from/the ani- of those become even more so-
mal's gaze." We can never forget or a n d outside, are real. phisticated operations. And pretty
disregard the room we are locked soon your application is sending
into forever. spacemen hurtling across your
screen firing lasers at your avatar
THE BRAIN AS COMPUTER. The dominant, main- as you pelt the aliens with tennis balls and chat with
stream view of mind nowadays among philosophers your friends in Idaho or Algiers while sending notes to
and many scientists is computationalism, also known your girlfriend and keeping an eye on the comic-book
as cognitivism. This view is inspired by the idea that news. You are swimming happily within the rich coral
minds are to brains as software is to computers. "Think reef of your software "environment," and tfce tiny in-
of the brain," writes Daniel Dennett of Tufts University structions out of which the whole thing is built don't
in his influential 1991 Consciousness Explained, "as a matter to you at all. You don't know them, can't see
computer." In some ways this is an apt analogy. In oth- them, are wholly unaware of them.
ers, it is crazy. At any rate, it is one of the intellectual The gorgeously varied reefs called software are
milestones of modern times. a topic of their own—just as the mind is. Software and
How did this "master analogy" become so influ- computers are two different topics, just as the psy-
ential? chological or phenomenal study of mind is different
Consider the mind. The mind has its own struc- from brain physiology^ Even so, software cannot-ex-
ture and laws: It has desires, emotions, imagination; ist without digital computers, just as minds cannot
it is conscious. But no mind can exist apart from the exist without brains.

20 The Closing of the Scientific Mind: January 2014


That is why today's mainstream view of mind is chine) designed to run on any ordinary computer.
based on exactly this analogy: Mind is to brain as soft- (Hence von Neumannesque: the great mathematician
ware is to computer. The mind is the brain's software— John von Neumann is associated with the invention of
this is the core idea of computationalism. the digital computer as we know it.)
Of course computationalists don't all think alike. Thus consciousness is the result of running the
But they all believe in some version of this guiding right sort of program on an organic computer also
analogy. Drew McDermott, my colleague in the com- called the human brain. If you were able to download
puter science department at Yale University, is one of the right app on your phone or laptop, it would be con-
the most brilliant (and in some ways, the most hetero- scious, too. It wouldn't merely talk or behave as if it
dox) of computationalists. "The biological variety of were conscious. It would be conscious, with the same
computers differs in many ways from the kinds of com- sort of rich mental landscape inside its head (or its pro-
puters engineers build," he writes, "but the differences cessor or maybe hard drive) as you have inside yours:
are superficial." Note here that by biological computer, the anxious plans, the fragile fragrant memories, the
McDermott means brain. ability to imagine a baseball game or the crunch of dry
McDermott believes that "computers can have leaves underfoot. All that just by virtue of running the
minds"—minds built out of software, if'the software is right program. That program would be complex and
correctly conceived. In fact, McDermott writes, "as far sophisticated, far more clever than anything we have
as science is concerned, people are just a strange kind today. But no different fundamentally, say the compu-
of animal that arrived fairly late on the scene.... [My] tationalists, from the latest video game.
purpose... is to increase the plausibility of the hypoth-
esis that we are machines and to elaborate some of its I HE F L A W S . But the master analogy—between
consequences." mind and software, brain and computer—is fatally
John Heil of Washington University describes flawed. It falls apart once you mull these simple facts:
cognitivism this way: "Think about states of mind as 1. You can transfer a program easily from one
something like strings of symbols, sentences." In other computer to another, but you can't transfer a mind,
words: a state ofmind is like a list ofnumbers in a com- ever, from one brain to another.
puter. And so, he writes, "mental operations are taken 2. You can run an endless series of different pro-
to be 'computations over symbols.'" Thus, in the cogni- grams on any one computer, but only one "program"
tivist view, when you decide, plan, or believe, you are runs, or ever can run, on any one human brain.
computing, in the sense that software computes. 3. Software js transparent. I can read off .the
precise state of the entire program at anytime. Minds
BESMIRCHING CONSCIOUSNESS. Butwhat are opaque—there is no way I can know what you are
about consciousness? If the brain is merely a mecha- thinking unless you tell me.
nism for thinking or problem-solving, hbw does it cre- 4. Computers can be erased; minds cannot.
ate consciousness? 5. Computers can be made to operate precisely as
Most computationalists default to the Origins of we choose; minds cannot.
Gravy theory set forth by Walter Matthau in the film of There are more. Come up with them yourself.
Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. Challenged to account It's easy.
for the emergence of gravy, Matthau explains that, There is a still deeper problem with computa-
when you cook a roast, "it comes." That is basically how tionalism. Mainstream computationalists treat the
consciousness arises too, according to computational- mind as if its purpose were merely to act and not to be.
ists. It just comes. But the mind is for doing and being. Computers are
In Consciousness Explained, Dennett lays out machines, and idle machines are wasted. That is not
the essence of consciousness as follows: "The concepts true of your mind. Your mind might be wholly quiet,
of computer science provide the crutches of imagina- doing ("computing") nothing; yet you might be feel-
tion we need to stumble across the terra incognita ing miserable or exalted, or awestruck by the beauty of
between our phenomenology as we know it by 'intro- the object in front of you, or inspired or resolute—and
spection' and our brains as science reveals them to such moments might be the center of your mental life.
us." (Note the chuckle-quotes around introspection; Or you might merely be conscious. "I cannot see what
for Dennett, introspection is an illusion.) Specifically: flowers are at my feet,/Nor what soft incense hangs
"Human consciousness can best be understood as the upon the boughs.... Darkling I listen...." That was
operation of a Von Neumannesque' virtual machine." drafted by the computer known as John Keats.
Meaning, it is a software application (a virtual ma- Emotions in particular are not actions but states

Commentary 21
of being. And emotions are central to your mental life us, far more accurately than any scientist, what things
and can shape your behavior by allowing you to com- are like inside the sealed room of the mind. When sub-
pare alternatives to determine which feels best. Jane jective humanism is recognized (under some name or
Austen, Persuasion: "He walked to the window to rec- other) as a school of thought in its own right, one of
ollect himself, and feel how he ought to behave." Henry its characteristics will be looking to great authors for
James, The Ambassadors: The heroine tells the hero, information about what the inside of the mind is like.
"no one feels so much as you. No—not any one." She To say the same thing differently: Computers
means that no one is so precise, penetrating, and sym- are information machines. They transform one batch
pathetic an observer. of information into another. Computationalists often
Computationalists cannot account for emotion. describe the mind as an "information processor." But
It fits as badly as consciousness into the mind-as-soft- feelings are not information! Feelings are states of be-
ware scheme. ing. A feeling (mild wistfulness, say, on a warm sum-
mer morning) has, ordinarily, no information content
THE BODY AND THE MIND. And there is (at at all. Wistful is simply a way to be.
least) one more area of special vulnerability in the com- Let's be more precise: We are conscious, and
putationalist worldview. Computationalists believe consciousness has two aspects. To be conscious of a
that the mind is embodied by the brain, and the brain is thing is to be aware of it (know about it, have informa-
simply an organic computer. But in fact, the mind is em- tion about it) and to experience it. Taste sweetness; see
bodied not by the brain but by the brain and the body, turquoise; hear an unresolved dissonance—each feels
intimately interleaved. Emotions are mental states one a certain way. To experience is to be some way, not to
feels physically; thus they are states of mind and body do some thing.
simultaneously. (Angry, happy, awestruck, relieved— The whole subjective field of emotions, feelings,
these are physical as well as mental states.) Sensations and consciousness fits poorly with the ideology of com-
are simultaneously mental and physical phenomena. putationalism, and with the project of increasing "the
Wordsworth writes about his memories of the River plausibility of the hypothesis that we are machines."
Wye: "I have owed to them/In hours of weariness, Thomas Nagel: "All these theories seem insuffi-
sensations sweet,/Felt in the blood, and felt along the cient as analyses of the mental because they leave out
heart / And passing even into my purer mind..." something essential!' (My italics.) Namely? "The first-per-
Where does the physical end and the mental be- son, inner point of view of the conscious subject: for ex-
gin? The resonance between mental and bodily states is ample, the way sugar tastes to you or the way red looks or
a subtle but important aspect of mind. Bodily sensations anger feels." All other mental states (not just sensations)
bring about mental states that cause those sensations to are left out, too: beliefs and desires, pleasures and pains,
change and, in turn, the mental states to develop further. whims, suspicions, longings, vague anxieties; the mental
You are embarrassed, and blush; feeling yourself blush, sights, sounds, and emotions that accompany your read-
your embarrassment increases. Your blush deepens. "A ing a novel or listening to music or daydreaming.
smile of pleasure lit his face. Conscious of that smile, pie]
shook his head disapprovingly at his own state." (Tol- FUNGTIONALISM. How could such important
stoy.) As Dmitry Merezhkovsky writes brilliantly in his things be left out? Because functionalism is today's
classic Tolstoy study, "Certain feelings impel us to cor- dominant view among theorists of the mind, and func-
responding movements, and, on the other hand, certain tionalism leaves them out. It leaves these dirty boots
habitual movements impel to the corresponding mental on science's back porch. Functionalism asks, "What
states....Tolstoy, with inimitable art, uses this convert- does it mean to be, for example, thirsty?" The answer:
ible connection between the internal and the external." Certain events (heat, hard work, not drinking) cause
All such mental phenomena depend on some- the state of mind called thirst. This state of mind,
thing like a brain and something like a body, or an ac- together with others, makes you want to do certain
curate reproduction or simulation of certain aspects of things Qike take a drink). Now you understand what
the body. However hard or easy you rate the problem "I am thirsty" means. The mental (the state of thirst)
of building such a reproduction, computing has no has not been written out of the script, but it has been
wisdom to offer regarding the construction of human- reduced to the merely physical and observable: to the
like bodies—even supposing that it knows something weather, and what you've been doing, and what ac-
about human-like minds. tions (take a drink) you plan to do.
I cite Keats or Rilke, Wordsworth, Tolstoy, Jane But this explanation is no good, because "thirst"
Austen because these "subjective humanists" can tell means, above all, that you feel thirsty. It is a way of

22 The Closing of the Scientific Mind: January 2014


being. You have a particular sen- preferences, habits, and character-
sation. (That feeling, in turn, ex- istic moods. Is it possible to sup-
plains such expressions as "I am pose (just suppose) that he is in
thirsty for knowledge," although fact a zombie?
this "thirst" has nothing to do with By zombie, philosophers
the heat outside.) mean a creature who looks and
And yet you can see the seduc- behaves just like a human being,
tive quality of functionalism, and but happens to be unconscious. He
why it grew in prominence along Where does the does everything an ordinary per-
with computers. No one knows son does: walks and talks, eats and
how a computer can be made to feel physical e n d sleeps, argues, shouts, drives his
anything, or whether such a thing car, lies on the beach. But there's
is even possible. But once feeling and the mental begin? no one home: He (meaning it) is
and consciousness are eliminated, actually a robot with a computer
Bodily s e n s a t i o n s
creating a computer mind becomes for a brain. On the outside he looks
much easier. Nagel calls this view "a bring a b o u t m e n t a l like any human being: This robot's
heroic triumph of ideological theory behavior and appearance are won-
over common sense." states that cause derfully sophisticated.
Some thinkers insist other- No evidence makes you doubt
wise. Experiencing sweetness or those sensations that your best friend is human, but
the fragrance of lavender or the suppose you did ask him: Are you
t o c h a n g e and, in turn,
burn of anger is merely a bio- human? Are you conscious? The ro-
chemical matter, they say. Certain the mental states bot could be programmed to answer
neurons fire, certain neurotrans- no. But it's designed to seem human,
mitters squirt forth into the inter- develop further. so more likely its software makes an
neuron gaps, other neurons fire answer such as, "Of course I'm hu-
and the problem is solved: There 'A s m i l e of pleasure man, of course I'm conscious!—talk
is your anger, lavender, sweetness. about stupid questions. Are you con-
lit his f a c e .
There are two versions ofthis scious? Are you human, and not half-
idea: Maybe brain activity causes Conscious of t h a t smile, monkey? Jerk."
the sensation of anger or sweet- So that's a robot zombie.
ness or a belief or desire; maybe, [ h e ] s h o o k his h e a d Now imagine a "human" zombie,
on the other hand, it just is the an organic zombie, a freak of na-
sensation of anger or sweetness- disapprovingly a t his ture: It behaves just like you, just
sweetness is certain brain events like the robot zombie; it's made
o w n state.'(Tolstoy.)
in the sense that water is H30. of flesh and blood, but it's uncon-
But how do those brain scious. Can you imagine such a
events bring about, or translate creature? Its brain would in fact
into, subjective mental states? How is this amazing be just like a computer: a complex control system that
trick done? What does it even mean, precisely, to cross makes this creature speak and act exactly like a man.
from the physical to the mental realm? But it feels nothing and is conscious of nothing.
Many philosophers (on both sides of the argument
THE Z O M B I E A R G U M E N T . Understanding about software minds) can indeed imagine such a crea-
subjective mental states ultimately comes down to un- ture. Which leads them to the next question: What is con-
derstanding consciousness. And consciousness is even sciousness/or? What does it accomplish? Put a real hu-
trickier than it seems at first, because there is a serious, man and the organic zombie side by side. Ask them any
thought-provoking argument that purports to show us questions you like. Follow them over the course of a day
that consciousness is not just mysterious but superflu- or a year. Nothing reveals which one is conscious. (They
ous. It's called the Zombie Argument. It's a thought ex- both claim to be.) Both seem like ordinary humans.
periment that goes like this: So why should we humans be equipped with
Imagine your best friend. You've know him for consciousness? Darwinian theory explains that nature
years, have had a million discussions, arguments, and selects the best creatures on wholly practical grounds,
deep conversations with him; you know his opinions, based on survivable design and behavior. If zombies

Commentary 23
and humans behave the same way THE IRON ROD. Innerbook,4&-
all the time, one group would be sence of Mind, the novelist and es-
just as able to survive as the other. sayist Marilynne Robinson writes
So why would nature have taken that the basic assumption in every
the trouble to invent an elaborate variant of "modern thought" is that
thing like consciousness, when it "the experience and testimony of
could have got off without it just the individual mind is to be ex-
as well? plained away, excluded from con-
Such questions have led the A w o r l d t h a t is sideration." She tells an anecdote
Australian philosopher of mind about an anecdote. Several neuro-
i n t i m i d a t e d by s c i e n c e
David Chalmers to argue that con- biologists have written about an
sciousness doesn't "follow logical- a n d bored sick American railway worker named
ly" from the design of the universe Phineas Gage. In 1848, when he
as we know it scientifically. Noth- w i t h cynical, e m p t y was 25, an explosion drove an iron
ing stops us from imagining a rod right through his brain and out
universe exactly like ours in every 'postmodernism' the other side. His jaw was shat-
respect except that consciousness tered and he lost an eye; but he
desperately needs recovered and returned to work,
does not exist.
Nagel believes that "our behaving just as he always had—
anewsubjectivist,
mental lives, including our sub- except that now he had occasional
jective experiences" are "strong- h u m a n i s t , i n d i v i d u a l i s t rude outbursts of swearing and
ly connected with and proba- blaspheming, which (evidently) he
bly strictly dependent on physical worldview. W e need had never had before.
events in our brains." But—and Neurobiologists want to
s c i e n c e a n d scholarship
this is the key to understanding show that particular personal-
why his book posed such a dan- a n d art a n d spiritual life ity traits (such as good manners)
ger to the conventional wisdom in emerge from particular regions of
his field—Nagel also believes that t o b e fully h u m a n . the brain. If a region is destroyed,
explaining subjectivity and our the corresponding piece of per-
conscious mental lives will take T h e last t h r e e are sonality is destroyed. Your mind
nothing less than a new scientific is thus the mere product of your
revolution. Ultimately, "conscious withering, and almost
genes and your brain. You have
subjects and their mental, lives" no one understands nothing to do with it, because
are "not describable by the physi- there is no subjective, individual
cal sciences." He awaits "major t h e first. you. "You" are what you say and
scientific advances," "the creation do. Your inner mental world either
of new concepts" before we can doesn't exist or doesn't matter. In
understand how consciousness fact you might be a zombie; that
works. Physics and biology as we understand them to- wouldn't matter either.
day don't seem to have the answers. Robinson asks: But what about the actual man
On consciousness and subjectivity, science still Gage? The neurobiologists say nothing about the fact
has elementary work to do. That work will be done cor- that "Gage was suddenly disfigured and half blind, that
rectly only if researchers understand what subjectivity he suffered prolonged infections of the brain," that his
is, and why it shares the cosmos with objective reality. most serious injuries were permanent. He was 25 years
Of course the deep and difficult problem of why old and had no hope of recovery. Isn't it possible, she
consciousness exists doesn't hold for Jews and Chris- asks, that his outbursts of angry swearing meant just
tians. Just as God anchors morality, God's is the view- what they usually mean—that the man was enraged
point that knows you are conscious. Knows and cares: and suffering? When the brain scientists tell this story,
Good and evil, sanctity and sin, right and wrong pre- writes Robinson, "there is no sense at all that [Gage]
suppose consciousness. When free will is understood, was a human being who thought and felt, a man with a
at last, as an aspect of emotion and not behavior—we singular and terrible fate."
are free just insofar as we feel free—it will also be seen Man is only a computer if you ignore everything
to depend on consciousness. that distinguishes him from a computer.

24 The Closing of the Scientific Mind: January 2014


THE CLOSING OFTHE SCIENTIFIC MIND. coffee cups, they are re-smashing the sacred tablets,
That science should face crises in the early 21st century not in blind rage as Moses did, but in casual, ignorant
is inevitable. Power corrupts, and science today is the indifference to the fate of mankind.
Catholic Church around the start of the 16th century: A world that is intimidated by science and bored
used to having its own way and dealing with heretics sick with cynical, empty "postmodernism" desper-
by excommunication, not argument. ately needs a new subjectivist, humanist, individualist
Science is caught up, also, in the same educa- worldview. We need science and scholarship and art
tional breakdown that has brought so many other and spiritual life to be fully human. The last three are
proud fields low. Science needs reasoned argument withering, and almost no one understands the first.
and constant skepticism and open-mindedness. But The Kurzweil Cult is attractive enough to require
our leading universities have dedicated themselves opposition in a positive sense; alternative futures
to stamping them out—at least in all political areas. must be clear. The cults that oppose Kurzweilism are
We routinely provide superb technical educations in called Judaism and Christianity. But they must and
science, mathematics, and technology to brilliant un- will evolve to meet new dangers in new worlds. The
dergraduates and doctoral students. But if those same central text of Judeo-Christian religions in the tech-
students have been taught since kindergarten that you threatened, Googleplectic West of the 21st century
are not permitted to question the doctrine of man- might well be Deuteronomy 30:19: "I summon today as
made global warming, or the line that men and women your witnesses the heavens and the earth: I have laid
are interchangeable, or the multiculturalist idea that life and death before you, the blessing and the curse;
all cultures and nations are equally good (except for choose life and livel—yon are your children."
Western nations and cultures, which are worse), how The sanctity of life is what we must affirm
will they ever become reasonable, skeptical scientists? against Kurzweilism and the nightmare of roboticism.
They've been reared on the idea that questioning of- Judaism has always preferred the celebration and
ficial doctrine is wrong, gauche, just unacceptable in sanctification of this life in this world to eschatologi-
polite society. (And if you are president of Harvard, it cal promises. My guess is that 21st-century Christian
can get you fired.) thought will move back toward its father and become
Beset by all this mold and fungus and corrup- increasingly Judaized, less focused on death and the
tion, science has continued to produce deep and bril- afterlife and more on life here today (although my
liant work. Most scientists are skeptical about their Christian friends will dislike my saying so). Both reli-
own fields and hold their colleagues to rigorous stan- gions will teach, as they always have, the love of man
dards. Recent years have seen remarkable advances in for man—and that, over his lifetime (as Wordsworth
experimental and applied physics, planetary explora- writes at the very end of his masterpiece, The Prelude),
tion and astronomy, genetics, physiology, synthetic "the mind of man becomes/A thousand times more
materials, computing, and all sorts of other areas. beautiful than the earth / On which he dwells."
But we do have problems, and the struggle of At first, roboticism was just an intellectual
subjective humanism against roboticism is one of the school. Today it is a social disease. Some young people
most important. want to be robots (I'm serious); they eagerly await elec-
The moral claims urged on man by Judeo-Chris- tronic chips to be implanted in their brains so they will
tian principles and his other religious and philosophical be smarter and better informed than anyone else (ex-
traditions have nothing to do with Earth's being the cen- cept for all their friends who have had the same chips
ter of the solar system or having been created in six days, implanted). Or they want to see the world through
or with the real or imagined absence of rational life else- computer glasses that superimpose messages on poor
where in the universe. The best and deepest moral laws naked nature. They are terrorist hostages in love with
we know tell us to revere human life and, above all, to be the terrorists.
human: to treat all creatures, our fellow humans and the All our striving for what is good and just and
world at large, humanely. To behave like a human being beautiful and sacred, for what gives meaning to hu-
(Yiddish: mensch) is to realize our best selves. man life and makes us (as Scripture says) "just a little
No other creature has a best self. lower than the angels," and a little better than rats and
This is the real danger of anti-subjectivism, in an cats, is invisible to the roboticist worldview. In the ro-
age where the collapse of religious education among boticist future, we will become what we believe our-
Western elites has already made a whole generation selves to be: dogs with iPhones. The world needs a new
morally wobbly. When scientists casually toss our subjectivist humanism now—not just scattered pro-
human-centered worldview in the trash with the used tests but a growing movement, a cry from the heart. S*

Commentary 25

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