on the basis of arguments, and its constituent neurons are intelligent, can estimate probabilities, and present arguments. J. Z. Young shared much the same view. He argued that ‘we can regard all seeing as a continual search for the answers to questions posed by the brain. The signals from the retina constitute “messages” conveying these answers. The brain then uses this information to construct a suitable hypothesis about what is there.’4 Accordingly, the brain poses questions, searches for answers and constructs hypotheses. Antonio Damasio claimed that ‘our brains can often decide well, in seconds, or minutes, depending on the time frame we set as appropriate for the goal we want to achieve, and if they can do so, they must do the marvellous job with more than just pure reason’,5 and Benjamin Libet suggested that ‘the brain “decides” to initiate or, at least, to prepare to initiate the act before there is any reportable subjective awareness that such a decision has taken place’.6 So brains decide, or at least ‘decide’, and initiate voluntary action.
Psychologists concur. J. P. Frisby contended that ‘there must be a symbolic description in the brain of the outside world, a description cast in symbols which stand for the various aspects of the world of which sight makes us aware’.7 So there are symbols in the brain, and the brain uses, and presumably understands, symbols. Richard Gregory conceived of seeing as ‘probably the most sophisticated of all the brain’ s activities: calling upon its stores of memory data; requiring subtle classifications, comparisons and logical decisions for sensory data to become perception’.8 So the brain sees, makes classifications, comparisons, and decisions. And cognitive scientists think likewise. David Marr held that ‘our brains must somehow be capable of representing … information … The study of vision must therefore include … also an inquiry into the nature of the internal representations by which we capture this information and make it available as a basis for decisions about our thoughts and actions.’9 And Philip Johnson-Laird suggested that the brain ‘has access to a partial model of its own capabilities’, and has the ‘recursive machinery to embed models within models’; consciousness, he contended, ‘is the property of a class of parallel algorithms’.10
3.2 Challenging the Consensus: The Brain Is Not the Subject of Psychological Attributes
Questioning the intelligibility of ascribing psychological attributes to the brain
With such broad consensus on the correct way to think about the functions of the brain and about explaining the causal preconditions for human beings to possess and exercise their natural powers of thought and perception, one is prone to be swept along by enthusiastic announcements – of new fields of knowledge conquered, new mysteries unveiled.11 But we should take things slowly, and pause for thought. We know what it is for human beings to experience things, to see things, to know or believe things, to make decisions, to interpret equivocal data, to guess and to form hypotheses. We understand what it is for people to reason inductively, to estimate probabilities, to present arguments, to classify the things they encounter in their experience. We pose questions and search for answers, using a symbolism – namely, our language – in terms of which we represent things. But do we know what it is for a brain to see or hear, for a brain to have experiences, to know or believe something? Do we have any conception of what it would be for a brain to make a decision? Do we grasp what it is for a brain (let alone a neuron) to reason (no matter whether inductively or deductively), to estimate probabilities, to present arguments, to interpret data and to form hypotheses on the basis of its interpretations? We can observe whether a human being, a person, sees something or other – we look at his behaviour and ask him questions.12 But what would it be to observe whether a brain sees something – as opposed to observing the brain of a human being when he sees something. We recognize when someone asks a question and when someone else answers it. But do we have any conception of what it would be for a brain to ask a question or answer one? These are all attributes of human beings. Is it a new discovery that brains also engage in such human activities? Or is it a linguistic innovation, introduced by neuroscientists, psychologists and cognitive scientists, extending the ordinary use of these psychological expressions for good theoretical reasons? Or, more ominously, is it a conceptual confusion? Might it be the case that there is simply no such thing as the brain’ s thinking or knowing, seeing or hearing, believing or guessing, possessing and using information, constructing hypotheses, etc. – that is, that these forms of words make no sense? But if there is no such thing, why have so many distinguished scientists thought that these phrases, thus employed, do make sense?
Whether psychological attributes can intelligibly be ascribed to the brain is a philosophical, and therefore a conceptual, question, not a scientific one
The question we are confronting is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. It calls for conceptual clarification, not for experimental investigation. One cannot investigate experimentally whether brains do or do not think, believe, guess, reason, form hypotheses, etc. until one knows what it would be for a brain to do so – that is, until we are clear about the meanings of these phrases and know what (if anything) counts as a brain’ s doing these things and what sort of evidence would support the ascription of such attributes to the brain. (One cannot look for the poles of the Earth until one knows what a pole is – that is, what the expression ‘pole’ means, and also what counts as finding a pole of the Earth. Otherwise, like Winnie-the-Pooh, one might embark on an expedition to the East Pole.) The moot question is: does it make sense to ascribe such attributes to the brain? Is there any such thing as a brain’ s thinking, believing, etc.? (Is there any such thing as the East Pole?)
In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein made a profound remark that bears directly on our concerns. ‘Only of a human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees, is blind; hears, is deaf; is conscious or unconscious.’13 This epitomizes the conclusions we shall reach in our investigation. Stated with his customary terseness, it needs elaboration, and its ramifications need to be elucidated.
The point is not a factual one. It is not a matter of fact that only human beings and what behaves like human beings can be said to be the subject of these psychological predicates. If it were, then it might indeed be a discovery, recently made by neuroscientists, that brains too see and hear, think and believe, ask and answer questions, form hypotheses and make guesses on the basis of information. Such a discovery would, to be sure, show that it is not only of a human being and what behaves like a human being that one can say such things. This would be astonishing, and we should want to hear more. We should want to know what the evidence for this remarkable discovery was. But, of course, it is not like this. The ascription of psychological attributes to the brain is not warranted by a neuroscientific discovery which shows that, contrary to our previous convictions, brains do think and reason, just as we do ourselves. The neuroscientists, psychologists and cognitive scientists who adopt these forms of description have not done so as a result of observations which show that brains think and reason. Susan Savage-Rambaugh has produced striking evidence to show that bonobo chimpanzees, appropriately trained and taught, can ask and answer questions, can reason in a rudimentary fashion, give and obey orders and so on. The evidence lies in their behaviour – in what they do (including how they employ symbols) in their interactions with us. This was indeed very surprising. For no one thought that such abilities could be acquired by apes. But it would be absurd to think that the ascription of cognitive and cogitative attributes to the brain rests on comparable evidence. It would be absurd because we do not even know what would show that the brain has such attributes. Just compare the behavioural repertoire of a bonobo chimpanzee, a fortiori the behavioural repertoire of a human being, with that of a human brain.
The misascription of psychological attributes to the brain is a degenerate form of Cartesianism
Why, then, was this form of description, and the forms of explanation
