Mind Hacks

The Wikipedia article on eliminative materialism has undergone a radical transformation since the end of January. It is now a clear and comprehensive introduction to one of the most important philosophical approaches to modern cognitive science.

Philosophers, unfortunately, have an image problem. Ask the average person in the street about what philosophers do and you’re likely to be informed that they try and work out whether God, reality or each other exist.

In reality, a significant number are involved in the cognitive sciences and are doing some much needed structural work on the foundations.

Philosophy of mind focuses on understanding and testing the foundations of psychology and cognitive science, and is now an essential partner in the bid to explain human thought.

The majority of theories about the mind make assumptions about the sort of mental states we have. Many of these assumptions are taken from everyday language and culture, and are usually described by ‘common sense’.

For example, the everyday concept of ‘belief’ features regularly in scientific explanations of the mind, despite the fact that this concept is often applied so widely in natural language as to be seemingly contradictory in places.

A school of thought called ‘eliminative materialism’ argues that these ‘common-sense’ concepts are like the ancient four humours theory of medicine – which said that the body and mind are controlled by levels of ‘blood’, ‘black bile’, ‘yellow bile’ and ‘phlegm’.

Although this theory was assumed to be true at the time, modern science hasn’t given us an improved explanation of the ‘four humours’, it has rejected the idea as completely ridiculous.

Eliminative materialism argues that everyday concepts like ‘belief’ and ‘desire’ will suffer the same fate because of their inconsistencies, and that theories that use these concepts are ultimately flawed.

Supporters also point to the lack of clear evidence that these everyday concepts are linked to any consistent pattern of brain activity. This might suggest that these concepts are also not supported by other, similarly intentioned, approaches.

If eliminative materialism is accurate, many past theories will have to be re-thought, and how we test, create and think about the mind and brain will change radically.

It is not clear, however, whether it is accurate, and the recently updated Wikipedia page gives an excellent and evolving account of the arguments.

Link to Wikipedia article on eliminative materialism.

Wired has some brief coverage of the USA Memory Championship, which was won by a journalist who entered as research for a book!

This was Foer’s first time competing, but he’d covered it as a freelance science journalist, he said. This year, he decided to experience things from the inside as research for a book he‚Äôs writing on memory, and was shocked at the results.

“I really did not expect to win,” Foer said. “I thought maybe I‚Äôd crack the top five.”

He practiced for the competition starting in July, and his techniques echoed those used by other contestants. He’d spend five to 10 minutes several times a week trying to memorize the order of playing cards in a deck. He also mentally linked integers from 1 to 100 with images and letters to help in remembering lists of numbers. Thirteen, for example, is his girlfriend, he said.

Link to ‘Flexing Brains: Feats of Memory’.

It looks like the statue of Winston Churchill in a strait-jacket (see previously on Mind Hacks) has been removed by the owners of The Forum – the library and tourism centre where the monument was displayed for three days.

There’s more information at the Rethink website, including a downloadable postcard of the statue!