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Drawing on and stealing concepts from a variety of different disciplines with the subsequent adaptation and integration into neuroscience Neuroscience as heterogenous amalgam Methodological reductionism: Intertheoretic reduction (Churchland/Bickle) to the empirical domain Methodological iterativity: Iterative matching between concepts from different disciplines across their different different domains
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Philosophy and the Brain – Do we need a Non-Reductive Neurophilosophy?
Can Neuroscience and Philosophy marry successfully? For that non-reductive neurophilosophy is necessary!!
Concept of neuroscience: Heterogenous amalgam of different disciplines rather than a homogenous purely scientific discipline
Theological concepts
Economic concepts
Philosophical concepts
Sociological concepts
Neuroscientific concepts
Drawing on and stealing concepts from a variety of different disciplines with the subsequent adaptation and integration into neuroscience
Neuroscience as heterogenous amalgam
Methodological reductionism: Intertheoretic reduction (Churchland/Bickle) to the empirical domain
Methodological iterativity: Iterative matching between concepts from different disciplines across their different different domains
Current relationships between philosophy and neuroscience I
Methodological reductionismNarrow reductionism: Unilateral inference of
philosophical concepts from neuroscientific facts (Churchland, Bickle); Wider reductionism: Unilateral
adaptation of the former to the neuroscientific context (Searle), or multilayered model with
empirical basis (Craver)Methodological parallelism
Philosophical concepts and neuroscientific facts are about different domains, natural/truth vs
logical/sense worlds, (Bennett/Hacker), empirical vs epistemic (McGinn, Nagel), making any direct
interaction impossible
Current relationships between philosophy and neuroscience: IIExplanatory mosaic (Craver) Integration between different fields (‘interfields’) and levels (‘interlevels’) by explanation in terms of mechanisms and causality
– Causal mechanisms and explanation as bridge between different levels and fields within
neuroscience: No need for either reductionism or parallelism
Problem: remains within the natural world and presupposes observation as sole and single methodological standard – linkage of different contents within neuroscience but no linkage between different methods and thus between philosophy and neuroscience
Can imaging reveal the neural mechanisms underlying our self? Can philosophy get a grip on what our self is? Or do both neuroscience and philosophy of the self must operate in parallel? Technological/Empirical versus Epistemic Limits?
Development of Non-Reductive Neurophilosophy as distinguished from Reductive Neurophilosophy
Against Methodological Reductionism: Method of neurophilosophy can neither be reduced to the logical-argumentative method of philosophy nor to
the observational-experimental method in neuroscience
Against the Metaphysical alternative between mind-brain reductionism/monism and non-
reductionism/dualism: metaphysical dichotomy is not empirically, e.g., naturally plausible
Georg Northoff (2014) Minding the Brain. A Guide to Philosophy and Neuroscience (Palgrave McMillan)
Empirical domain
Method: Observational-experimental investigation
Reductive Neurophilosophy
Phenomenaldomain
Ethical domain
Epistemological domain
Neurophilosophy
Metaphysical domain
Neuropheno-menology Neuroethics Neuroepistemolog
y Neuroontology
Neurophilosophy
Phenomenaldomain
Ethical domain
Epistemological domain
Metaphysical domain
Empirical domain
Spectrum of methods
Conceptual analysis
Phenomenal analysis
Rational arguments
Observation and experiments
Non-Reductive Neurophilosophy
Thesis I: Intrinsic linkage of neuroscience with philosophy: Bilateral and iterative dependence of the facts in neuroscience on the concepts in philosophy
From Facts to Concepts: Concepts enter unavoidably neuroscience since there is no concept-
free neuroscience; Concepts are relevant for neuroscience in testing for conceptual plausibility of
neuroscientific findings
Our concepts like self, consciousness, etc. were originally developped in the context of the logical
world and its logical standard as in philosophy: Need for linkage between logical context of concepts and
natural context of facts
Logical world: Logical conditions
Natural world: Natural conditions
Philosophy
Neuroscience
Neurophilosophy
Border between logical and natural conditions as the ‘location’ of Neurophilosophy
From Concepts to Facts: Facts enter unavoidably philosophy since there is no relevant fact-free
philosophy of the natural world; Facts are relevant for a naturally relevant philosophy in testing for empirical
plausibility of philosophical concepts
If facts are neglected, one would presuppose a purely logical world (as in Logical Positivism or Logical
Behaviorism). That though must fail because logical conditions/sense only overlap in part but are not
identical with natural conditions/truth
Thesis II: Intrinsic linkage of philosophy with science/neuroscience: Bilateral and iterative dependence of the concepts in philosophy on the facts in neuroscience
Kant (Critique of pure reason: A51/B75): “Thoughts without contents are empty, intuitions
without concepts are blind” (= “Philosophy without Science is empty, Science without Philosophy is
blind”)
Necessity of the Intrinsic Linkage between Concepts and Facts: Kant and Whitehead
Whitehead (Process and Reality, p.5):“The true method of discovery is like the flight of an
aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation (as in science); it makes a flight in the
thin air of imaginative generalization (as in philosophy); and it again lands for renewed
observation (as in science) rendered acute by rational interpretation”
Theological concepts
Economic concepts
Philosophical concepts
Sociological concepts
Neuroscientific concept
Translation
Pedagogic concepts
Concept-concept conversion
Domain matching
Data-hypothesis –concept matching
Evidence
Methodological iterativity between Concepts and Facts
Falsification
Experimental data
Experimental variable
Hypothesis-Generation
Operationalization
Experimentalization
Neuroscientific hypothesis
Neuroscientific facts
Factualization
Concept-data transformation
Data-fact inference
Predominant philosophical concept of self (Descartes and others)
Example of self: Methodological iterativity between neuroscience and philosophy
Self as entity or substance: Self as mental entity
Self as self-consciousness: Self exists only in and through consciousness
Self-Non-Self distinction: Categorical with All-or-Nothing
Theological concepts
Economic concepts
Philosophical concepts
Sociological concepts
Pedagogic concepts
Neuroscientific concept
Translation
Concept-concept conversion
Example Self: Conversion of the philosophical concept of self into a neuroscientific concept of self
Example of self: Conversion of philosophical concept into a neuroscientific concept
Self as entity or substance: Self as mental entity
Self-Non-Self distinction: Categorical with All-or-Nothing
Self as self-consciousness: Self exists only in and through consciousness
Self-specific brain regions as distinguished from non-self-specific regions
Distinction between pre-conscious, conscious and reflective self
Self as neural entity within the brain rather than the mind
Distinction between Self and Non-Self: Cortical midline structures and domain independence
Neuroimage 31: 440-457, 2006
Cortical midline structures as neuroscientific facts of the self?
[Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2004, 2008]
Empirical plausibility of the philosophical concept of self as (neural) entity (midline regions), categorically distinguished from Non-self (self-specificity of midline regions), and self as consciousness (Judgment)
Example of self: Generation of a neuroscientific hypothesis of the self
Self as neural entity within the brain rather than the mind
Self-specific brain regions as distinguished from non-self-specific regions
Distinction between pre-conscious, conscious and reflective self
Activation of cortical midline regions during the judgment/awareness of self-specific stimuli when compared to non-self-specific stimuli
But: Our brain is not as simple as our concepts
Neuroimage 31: 440-457, 2006
Doubt about the self-specificity of cortical midline structures: -Familiarity (Gillihan/Farah 2005) or some general evaluation process (Legrand/Ruby 2009) may underlie recruitment of neural activity in midline regions during judgment of self-specific stimuli- Other functions involving non-self-specific stimuli like mindreading also recruit midline regions- Self-specific stimuli also recruit regions other than midline regions like subcortical regions
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
Ventral striatum/N.accumbensRight amygdala
Tectum
RR
(A) Self-Relatedness: Positive correlation
High selfMedium selfLow self
What do these findings entail for the neuroscientific and philosophical concepts of self?
Neural activity in midline structures is not specific for self-specific stimuli since they are also recruited during familiar stimuli and resting state activity (DMN)
Are there specific regions for the self in the brain that clearly distinguish self- and non-self-specific stimuli?
Is the self neuronally really categorically distinguished from the Non-Self in an All-or-Nothing way?
Is the philosophical concept of the self as categorically distinguished from Non-Self in an All-or-Nothing way empirically plausible?
Mismatch between empirical data and philosophical concept of self: Conceptual implausibility
Self as entity or substance: Self as mental entity
Self-Non-Self distinction: Categorical with All-or-Nothing
Self as self-consciousness: Self exists only in and through consciousness
No self-specific brain regions: No clear-cut Self-Non-Self distinction on the neuronal level
Self as conscious: Neural activity during self-related stimuli also in vegetative patients
Self as neural entity within the brain: Brain is involved but the self may not be ‘within’ the brain
Theological concepts
Experimental data
Economic concepts
Philosophical concepts
Sociological concepts
Neuroscientific concept
Experimental variable
Hypothesis-Generation
Operationalization
Experimentalization
Neuroscientific hypothesis
Neuroscientific facts
Factualization
Falsification
Translation
Pedagogic concepts
Concept-concept conversion
Concept-data transformation
Data-fact inference
Data-hypothesis –concept matching
Evidence
Mismatch between facts and philosophical concept
Fact-Concept mismatch
Self as form or mode of neural organisation: Self-related processing as the brain’s relational coding of incoming stimuli
Manifestation of the self in value and emotions
Self as continuous process of neural organisation
Rejection of metaphysical entities
Rejection of higher-order cognitive determination
Concept of the relational self as neural organisation: Self as the brain’s input to constitute relation to the environment
Stimulus-induced activity: Complete and exclusive determination by the stimulus
Extrinsic view of the brain: Brain as Behavioral-Cognitive Reflex Apparatus – ‘Brain itself as “no say” in what happens in the brain’
Textbook: Philosophy and the Brain?
Intrinsic view of the brain: Brain as active players in its own neural activity – ‘Brain itself has a “strong say” in what happens in the brain’
Stimulus-induced activity: Result of Rest-Stimulus Interaction
Textbook:Philosophy and the Brain?
Self and Rest: Self-specific (vs non-self-specific) stimuli and the Default-Mode Network
[Consciousness&Cognition, 2010, Neuroimage, 2011]
Self and Rest: Does our Self consist in a specific Form of Rest-Stimulus Interaction? Novel Territory!
[Trends in Neuroscience, 2010, Progress in Neurobiology 2010)
Trends in Cognitive Sciences July 2012, Vol. 16, No. 7
Structuring and organizing stimulus-induced activity
Practice of such Transdisiplinarity II:
Practice of such Transdisiplinarity III: Kant and the Brain (instead of Kant and the Mind)
Random House/Irisiana, July 2012
The undisciplined Brain. What‘s
now Mister Kant?
Resting state: Decrease in temporal variance (ALFF) and functional connectivity (FC) in midline regions in vegetative patients
[Huang et al, Human Brain Mapping, 2013, Qin et al. 2010, Human Brain Mapping
Neural activity during self-referential > non-self-referential activity
[Huang et al, Human Brain Mapping, 2013, Qin et al. 2010, Human Brain Mapping
Resting state (ALFF) predicts self-related activity in vegetative patients
[Huang et al, Human Brain Mapping, 2013, Qin et al. 2010, Human Brain Mapping
Neural activity during self predicts the degree of consciousness in vegetative patients
[Huang et al, Human Brain Mapping, 2013, Qin et al. 2010, Human Brain Mapping
How are self and consciousness related to each other?
Philosophy: Self as self-consciousness – Reflective self (Descartes, Cognitive) or pre- reflective self (Husserl, Zahavi)
Neuroscience: Dissociation of self from consciousness – Self as structure (Freud: Ego). Predisposition of consciousness by pre-phenomenal self that structures and thus predisposes possible phenomenal consciousness?
Northoff 2013: Unlocking the brain. Volume I: Coding, Volume II: Consciousness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York
Resting State
Self-specificity
External stimuli
Rest-stimulus interaction
Consciousness
Consciousness of external stimuli
Consciousness of self = “Sense of Self”
[Northoff, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 2013
Does the brain’s intrinsic activity provide an input which first and foremost makes self and consciousness possible?
Theological concepts
Experimental data
Economic concepts
Philosophical concepts
Sociological concepts
Neuroscientific concept
Experimental variable
Hypothesis-Generation
Operationalization
Experimentalization
Neuroscientific hypothesis
Neuroscientific facts
Factualization
Falsification
Translation
Pedagogic concepts
Concept-concept conversion
Concept-data transformation
Data-fact inference
Data-hypothesis –concept matching
Evidence
Mismatch between facts and philosophical concept
Fact-Concept matching
Is this metaphysical reductionism? Reduction of consciousness to the brain’s intrinsic activity? Reductive rather than non-reductive neurophilosophy?
Brain’s intrinsic activity occurs in an ecological context that is within the world – Generation of neural activity by the encoding of the statistical frequency distribution of the stimuli in the respective ecological context – Encoding of the temporal and spatial structure of the world by the brain’s intrinsic activity
Brain’s intrinsic activity is not purely neuronal but rather neuro-ecological – this implies a non-reductive view of the brain and ultimately non-reductive metaphysics of the world-brain problem into which the mind-brain problem is transformed
How is the brain’s intrinsic activity and its input that first and foremost makes consciousness possible generated by itself?
Statistically-based virtual spatiotemporal structure: Phenomenal features of consciousness (unity, intentionality, self-perspectival, qualia, phenomenal time) are virtual spatiotemporal features between brain, body and organism that are instantiated during changes of the intrinsic activity (variability) induced either internally (dreams) or externally (usual)
Neuro-ecological/phenomenal view on consciousness: Encoding of the temporal and spatial structure of the world by by intrinsic activity of the brain – Brain as Predisposition rather than Correlate
Georg Northoff 2014: Unlocking the Brain, Vol I Coding; Vol II, Consciousness, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford
Number of stimuli
Number of active neurons
Relationship between stimuli and neurons
Many-to-one (sparse)
Sparse Coding
One-to-many (dense)
Dense Coding
One-to-one (local)
Local Coding
Figure 2 Different strategies of encoding stimuli into the brain‘s neural activity
Assignment of value: Natural statistics of exteroceptive target stimulus
Social context: Social statistics of co-occurring exteroceptive stimuli, e.g., persons, etc.
Cultural context Cultural statistics of associated stimuli, e.g., tasks, beliefs, etc.
Actual neural activity: Matching and comparison between natural,cultural, and social statistics determines neural activity in the reward system
Neural activity in reward system, i.e., Ventral tegmental area (VTA, lower/small voxel) and ventral striatum (VS, upper, bigger voxel)
Figure 3 Encoding of different statistics into neural activity
World and Culture
Brain: Neural activity
Psychological tendencies
Cultural tasks
Values and Beliefs ‘Enculturation of brain’
Explicit
Implicit
Necessary
Learning
Encoding
Affective/Sensorimotor functions
Cognitive functions
‘Embrainment of culture’
Transformation of the metaphysical mind-brain problem in philosophy (logical world) into a metaphysical world-brain problem within neurophilosophy and the natural world
Statistically-based virtual spatiotemporal structure between world and brain: Environment-Brain Unity as statistically-based – Neuro-Ecological Approach to the Brain (rather than a neuro-empirical approach to the brain)
Environment-Brain Unity: Statistically- and difference-based virtual spatiotemporal structure that accounts for a point of view (Nagel) and biophysically-based subjectivity as distinguished from phenomenally-based subjectivity
Natural World
World-Brain Interface: Encoding
Brain’s Intrinsic activity
Brain-World-Interface: Cognition
Lived Body
Intentionality and Consciousness
Encoding strategy
Neuro-ecological concept of brain
Necessary condition of possible consciousness
Intrinsic activity
Neuro-transcendental concept of brainSufficient condition of possible consciousness
Sensory, Cognitive Functions
Neuro-empirical concept of brain
Necessary condition of actual consciousness
Distinction from objective body
Neuro-phenomenal concept of body
Sufficient condition of actual consciousness
Figure 1 World, Brain, and Consciousness - Different concepts of Brain
Lived World
Theological concepts
Experimental data
Economic concepts
Philosophical concepts
Sociological concepts
Neuroscientific concept
Experimental variable
Hypothesis-Generation
Operationalization
Experimentalization
Neuroscientific hypothesis
Neuroscientific facts
Factualization
Falsification
Translation
Pedagogic concepts
Concept-concept conversion
Concept-data transformation
Data-fact inference
Data-hypothesis –concept matching
Evidence
Fact-Concept matching
World and Culture
Brain: Neural activity
Psychological tendencies
Cultural tasks
Values and Beliefs ‘Enculturation of brain’
Explicit
Implicit
Necessary
Learning
Encoding
Affective/Sensorimotor functions
Cognitive functions
‘Embrainment of culture’
Match between facts and concepts = Match between world and brain = Match between Method and Metaphysics: Avoid mismatch between methodological strategy and metaphysical target
Therefore: we need to consider the brain and its relation to the natural world rather than the concept of mind and its roots in the logical world
Minding the Brain
Georg Northoff (2014) Minding the Brain. A Guide to Philosophy and Neuroscience. Palgrave MacMillan
Example of self: Neural activity in midline regions during the own name in vegetative patients
[Qin et al 2010, in press, Human Brain Mapping
How is the self related to consciousness?
[Qin et al 2010, Human Brain Mapping
How are self and consciousness related to each other?
Philosophy: Self as self-consciousness – Reflective self (Descartes, Cognitive) or pre- reflective self (Husserl, Zahavi)
Neuroscience: Dissociation of self from consciousness – Self as structure (Freud: Ego). Predisposition of consciousness by pre-phenomenal self that structures and thus predisposes possible phenomenal consciousness?
Northoff 2013: Unlocking the brain. Volume I: Coding, Volume II: Consciousness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York