In my reading, it is the substance of the pop neuroscience itself, with or without handwringing. Hardly a week seems to go by without New Scientist or Sci.Am. running an article on how Neuroscience Has Shown that we are mere automata, consciousness does not exist, subjective experience is an illusion (bit of a contradiction there, but this is pop science we’re talking about), and there is no such thing as morality, agency, free will, empathy, or indeed any mental phenomenon at all. When these things are not being claimed to be non-existent, consciousness is asserted to be nothing more than froth on the waves of neuronal firing, morality is an epiphenomenal confabulation papering over evolved programs of genetic self-interest, and motivation is dopamine craving.
That is, the more some people understand (or think they do) how people work, the less they tend to empathise with them—or, presumably, with themselves. The pop account of all explanations of mental phenomena is to the effect that they have been explained away. (This phenomenon is not unique to neuroscience: neuroscience is just the current source of explanations.)
This is the standard narrative on Overcoming Bias, where you won’t find any handwringing over it. Yvain’s recent postings here (the ones I’ve said I mean to get back to but absolutely do not have the time until mid-August at least) are, from my so-far brief reading of them, along the same lines.
You’ve likely read more pop neuroscience than I have. It’s elicited criticism from conservatives who fear that the fruits of cognitive science will be used to justify depredation and depravity, and eventually rob us of our humanity — or that this is already happening. Do you think they’re right about that?
I think that’s the wrong question. It frames the matter in terms of Science (hurrah for rationality!) vs. Conservatives (p*l*t*c*lly motivated bias, boo, hiss!), and suddenly the entirety of what might be said on the matter is condensed down into two isolated points ready-labelled as True and False.
Why conservatives, anyway? It’s just as easy to hand-wring it from a “liberal” point of view. (The quotes to indicate that I am not au fait with American political terminology and am not entirely sure what was intended by “conservative”.)
I was afraid the grandparent comment would sound too adversarial. Let me explain myself. Many politically conservative Americans (particularly in the Religious Right) are fond of making claims similar to the question Wei Dai asks in the original post — they claim that understanding the way people work in a material universe makes empathy impossible, or something. But I’ve never heard a convincing argument for it; most of these people are substance dualists.
On the other hand, many politically liberal Americans (particularly New Age types) are fond of repeating headlines of articles they read in Discover magazine and then saying that there’s no free will, no morality, no right or wrong, people are animals, etc. But as far as I can tell, they don’t take these beliefs seriously — they continue to be as nice as everyone else, they help their friends move, they don’t steal from stores (not a lot, anyways). They claim that morality is relative, and then make moral arguments without using the language of moral realism. The people from the previous paragraph say “Aha! These guys admit to being nihilists ungoverned by morality and with no respect for human dignity or the sanctity of human life!” But their fears are unsubstantiated, as far as I can tell.
In summary, both “sides” of the issue, outside of Less Wrong and similar havens, are insane. My own belief, so far, is that understanding the human mind is not dangerous. If that’s not true, I want to know. And I can trust you to give me an argument that is worth thinking about.
My own belief, so far, is that understanding the human mind is not dangerous. If that’s not true, I want to know. And I can trust you to give me an argument that is worth thinking about.
I think you just argued against that yourself—liberal Americans saying there’s no free will, no morality etc. They may not act on it, but they do say it—they really claim to be nihilists ungoverned by morality and so on, and in some cases actively preach that. (Two examples, neither of which I can track down specific links for: (1) the story, mentioned on LW, of a professor applauding a student for defecting on some game-theoretic roleplay exercise, and (2) an author blurb on Amazon by a poster to LW declaring that he doesn’t care whether his readers get anything from his economics textbook or not, he just wants their money.) And when I see someone compartmentalising self-avowed nihilist psychopathy from what they appear to actually do, I am uneasy about the strength of those walls, and the fact that they are preaching what they are preaching. Can they really expect everyone not to take them to be saying exactly what they are saying?
ETA: (2) is this book, and the passage is in the introduction, pp.3-4.
Naive Christians who suddenly start actually practising the official doctrine have always been an embarrassment to the church also.
Okay. I agree with you that the trend of interpreting the results of neuroscience as heralding the end of moral responsibility is a troubling one. Those who celebrate the death of value and responsibility are making a philosophical error that will have bad results whenever it is taken seriously.
I will continue to expect that those of us on the right path — framing humanist or transhumanist values in a framework of reductive materialism, in Less Wrong style — will not encounter the pitfall described in Wei Dai’s post. And I hope this will become mainstream.
This appears to me the primary result of the current trend in pop neuroscience.
This is the substance of most hand-wringing about pop neuroscience.
In my reading, it is the substance of the pop neuroscience itself, with or without handwringing. Hardly a week seems to go by without New Scientist or Sci.Am. running an article on how Neuroscience Has Shown that we are mere automata, consciousness does not exist, subjective experience is an illusion (bit of a contradiction there, but this is pop science we’re talking about), and there is no such thing as morality, agency, free will, empathy, or indeed any mental phenomenon at all. When these things are not being claimed to be non-existent, consciousness is asserted to be nothing more than froth on the waves of neuronal firing, morality is an epiphenomenal confabulation papering over evolved programs of genetic self-interest, and motivation is dopamine craving.
That is, the more some people understand (or think they do) how people work, the less they tend to empathise with them—or, presumably, with themselves. The pop account of all explanations of mental phenomena is to the effect that they have been explained away. (This phenomenon is not unique to neuroscience: neuroscience is just the current source of explanations.)
This is the standard narrative on Overcoming Bias, where you won’t find any handwringing over it. Yvain’s recent postings here (the ones I’ve said I mean to get back to but absolutely do not have the time until mid-August at least) are, from my so-far brief reading of them, along the same lines.
You’ve likely read more pop neuroscience than I have. It’s elicited criticism from conservatives who fear that the fruits of cognitive science will be used to justify depredation and depravity, and eventually rob us of our humanity — or that this is already happening. Do you think they’re right about that?
I think that’s the wrong question. It frames the matter in terms of Science (hurrah for rationality!) vs. Conservatives (p*l*t*c*lly motivated bias, boo, hiss!), and suddenly the entirety of what might be said on the matter is condensed down into two isolated points ready-labelled as True and False.
Why conservatives, anyway? It’s just as easy to hand-wring it from a “liberal” point of view. (The quotes to indicate that I am not au fait with American political terminology and am not entirely sure what was intended by “conservative”.)
I was afraid the grandparent comment would sound too adversarial. Let me explain myself. Many politically conservative Americans (particularly in the Religious Right) are fond of making claims similar to the question Wei Dai asks in the original post — they claim that understanding the way people work in a material universe makes empathy impossible, or something. But I’ve never heard a convincing argument for it; most of these people are substance dualists.
On the other hand, many politically liberal Americans (particularly New Age types) are fond of repeating headlines of articles they read in Discover magazine and then saying that there’s no free will, no morality, no right or wrong, people are animals, etc. But as far as I can tell, they don’t take these beliefs seriously — they continue to be as nice as everyone else, they help their friends move, they don’t steal from stores (not a lot, anyways). They claim that morality is relative, and then make moral arguments without using the language of moral realism. The people from the previous paragraph say “Aha! These guys admit to being nihilists ungoverned by morality and with no respect for human dignity or the sanctity of human life!” But their fears are unsubstantiated, as far as I can tell.
In summary, both “sides” of the issue, outside of Less Wrong and similar havens, are insane. My own belief, so far, is that understanding the human mind is not dangerous. If that’s not true, I want to know. And I can trust you to give me an argument that is worth thinking about.
I think you just argued against that yourself—liberal Americans saying there’s no free will, no morality etc. They may not act on it, but they do say it—they really claim to be nihilists ungoverned by morality and so on, and in some cases actively preach that. (Two examples, neither of which I can track down specific links for: (1) the story, mentioned on LW, of a professor applauding a student for defecting on some game-theoretic roleplay exercise, and (2) an author blurb on Amazon by a poster to LW declaring that he doesn’t care whether his readers get anything from his economics textbook or not, he just wants their money.) And when I see someone compartmentalising self-avowed nihilist psychopathy from what they appear to actually do, I am uneasy about the strength of those walls, and the fact that they are preaching what they are preaching. Can they really expect everyone not to take them to be saying exactly what they are saying?
ETA: (2) is this book, and the passage is in the introduction, pp.3-4.
Naive Christians who suddenly start actually practising the official doctrine have always been an embarrassment to the church also.
Okay. I agree with you that the trend of interpreting the results of neuroscience as heralding the end of moral responsibility is a troubling one. Those who celebrate the death of value and responsibility are making a philosophical error that will have bad results whenever it is taken seriously.
I will continue to expect that those of us on the right path — framing humanist or transhumanist values in a framework of reductive materialism, in Less Wrong style — will not encounter the pitfall described in Wei Dai’s post. And I hope this will become mainstream.