Chapter 3.                     Part G 

                          

 

                                                    Diagram of the human brain

 

                                 Diagram of a single neuron, showing its branching structure

   

            Of course, the last few paragraphs are only describing the dead ends that have been hit in A.I., but other sciences searching for this same holy grail – a clear, evidence-backed model of human thinking – haven’t fared any better. Neurophysiology and Behavioral Psychology also keep striking out. 

If a neurophysiologist could set up an MRI or some other similar imaging device, then use his model of thinking to predict in advance which networks of neurons in his own brain would be active when he turned the device on and watched the machine show its pictures of his own brain activities as he was studying them himself, in real time, then he and his colleagues could finally say that they had formulated a reliable working model of what consciousness is. But on both the theoretical and practical sides, neuroscience is not even close to being so complete.

Patterns of neuron firings mapped on one occasion when a subject is performing even a very simple task unfortunately can’t be counted on. We find different patterns of firings every time we look. A human brain contains one hundred billion neurons, each one capable of connecting to as many as ten thousand others, and the patterns of firings in that brain are evolving all of the time. Philosophers looking for a solid base for Empiricism are disappointed if they go to neurophysiology for that base. (12.)  

Similar problems beset Behavioral Psychology. The researchers can condition rats and predict what they will do in controlled experiments, but endless ad hoc add-ons and exceptions have to be made to their explanations of what humans in everyday life do.

In a simple example, alcoholics who say that they truly want to get sober for good can be given a drug that makes them violently, physically ill if they imbibe even very small amounts of alcohol, but that does not affect them as long as they do not drink alcohol. This would seem to be a behaviorist’s solution to alcoholism, one of society’s most intractable problems. But, alas, it doesn’t work. Thousands of alcoholics have kept on with their self-destructive ways while on disulfiram. (13.) What is going on in these cases is obviously much more complex than any explanation given by behaviorism’s best theories can account for. And this is but one simple example.

I, for one, am not disappointed to learn that the human animal turns out to be a very complex piece of work, no matter the model under which we analyze it.

            Empiricism, it appears at present anyway, can’t provide a rationale for itself in theoretical terms, nor can it demonstrate an unshakable reliability of its methods in material ways. Could it be another set of interlocking, partially effective illusions, like medieval Christianity, Communism, or Nazism once were? Personally, I don’t think so. The number of the achievements of Science and their profound effects on our society’s way of life argue powerfully that Science is a way of thinking and living that must be based in reality. Science gets results in the real world, even though its theories and models are constantly being updated and even though the way of thinking on which it is based can’t logically justify itself.

  However, it is true that sometimes models of reality given to us in some of our once most widely believed and trusted scientific theories – for example, Newton’s Laws of Motion – have turned out to be inadequate for explaining more detailed data drawn from more advanced observations of reality. The views of the universe that better technologies and bigger telescopes gave us by the mid-nineteenth century led astronomers past Newton’s Laws and eventually onward to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Newton’s picture of the universe turned out to be a naive one, that was still quite useful on our everyday scale. 

Thus, when we consider how revered Newton’s model of the cosmos once was, realizing that it gives only a partial and inadequate picture of the universe can cause philosophers and even ordinary folk searching for what is right to doubt the way of thought that is basic to Science. One can’t help but question whether Empiricism is trustworthy enough to be used as a base for a thing so desperately important as a moral code for the human race. Our survival is at stake here. Science can’t even provide a rationale which can explain Science itself.