Thread:User talk:Tmtoulouse/Raymond Tallis/reply

I can't say that I have followed him very closely and haven't read the book. It seems very much a God of the gaps argument. I will be the first in line to criticize the way a lot of modern neuroscience is getting extrapolated out. I have spent the better part of the last 2 years working intimately with cutting edge analysis techniques of fMRI data, unfortunately, true analysis seems to be relegated primarily to methods papers and psychology and neuroscience are using extremely facile techniques and extrapolating well past what is reasonable. My primary area of study has been in computational modelling and the development of conceptual models for neural systems, and again, will be the first to admit that our models only offer the barest hints and analogies to the true functioning of real neural systems.

While the list of things we don't have a clean mechanistic explanation for is huge, there is still significant progress being made. The next gen technology for non-invasive neuroimaging is amazing and will be out the door soon, I expect to see exponential growth in our ability to trace "mind" to material processes. What it comes down to is every time we find an explanation for something its based in biology and mechanistic material actions. Claiming that the things we can't get explain, now that is where the "mind" lives is no different than the same ontological god arguments seen in every other area of science. How many gaps can we close till people stop shoving "mind" in every new gap?

On the issue of the difference between human and other animals I am a bit more conflicted. Obviously we are animals and everything is a matter of degree. But there are very significant unique elements to human psychology. We can actually trace these difference directly to anatomical difference in brain structure but that still related to the previous point. I have never been overwhelmingly impressed with the supposed examples of culture, language, art, ect. in other animals. While it is certainly there in some rudimentary sense, there is something uniquely different about what humans have developed, not merely a new iteration of the same theme.

This needs to be heavily qualified though. I do not believe that having truly distinct traits is unique to humans or that our development is some how making us superior to other animals. There are many examples of species whose evolutionary trajectory has lead to highly developed and distinct traits not shared by other extant species.

But back to point. None of his ideas are particularly new nor do I see anything compelling in his arguments to overthrow materialistic neuroscience as the premier paradigm for modern research into the brain and human psychology.