[FRIAM] Shorthands for Brain-stuff

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

That was great, Eric.  It leads me to try and figure out the minimum conditions under which I would accept neurological evidence in a courtroom. So, another hypothetical. 

 

Let it be the case that we have done studies of a thousand subjects arrayed with brain probes like an inverse porcupine.  We do a simple procedure in which we tell them to do an act, like “pick up a pencil” and then watch the brain activity while they are fulfilling the act.  And then over and over again with similar acts.  >From these studies, we learn that during that period of act-fulfillment, one particular region of hypothalamus, always goes “bling-bling.”  We name this location the “teleonucleus” (locus teleonomis). We now ask ten of the subjects to do their bit for science and come back for further studies.  We insert a deep electode in to l. teleonomis and find that by activating and inactivating the electrode, we turn on and .off the ability of the subjects to perform the simple request on command. So now we have good evidence that activity in l.teleonomicus is necessary to and sufficient for the formation of and action upon an intention.  

 

Now, unlikely as all that is, we get to the hard part.  We have to find some case in which sampling the activity of l. teleonomicus is easier than asking the subjects to perform simple commands.  Ok, I can think of one.  Jones is accused of a terrible crime which requires forming and acting on an intention.  The police bungle the arrest and jones is shot dead.   Jones’s wife sues the police, claiming the underlying crime could not have been performed by Jones because he was incapable of forming an intention.  Since Jones is dead, the simple test procedure cannot be performed. So Jones’s wife demands an autopsy, where it is found that indeed, Jones had developed a cancerous lesion in l. teleonomicus.  Judgment is made in favor if the wife.  

 

Possible, yes.  But so improbable that I still cannot understand the rapturous applause and millions of grant dollars that follow when somebody shows that activity of the brains is – wonder of wonders! – actually related to behavior. 

 

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University                                                                                                                                        

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com                                                                                                                                        

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Sunday, October 4, 2020 10:13 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Shorthands for Brain-stuff

 

During last Friday's meeting, there was a discussion about brains and behavior. We were somehow discussing murders and Bruce brought up an example of a friend who helps determine (using EEG and MRI) whether the behavior of the murder had an "organic" cause. People with an organic cause go to mental-health facilities, those would get the death penalty (roughly speaking, obviously there in-between scenarios). Nick quickly pointed out that was some variety of crazy dualism, because all behavior has an organic cause. A few back and forths revealed a two things that seemed worth capturing:

 

1) IF we are really talking about "does the behavior have an organic cause", THEN Nick is surely correct, and all the EEGs and MRIs are doing is telling us how obvious/easily-detectable-by-current-means the organic cause is. In some future world, where our instruments have much, much finer resolution, we will be able to find an "organic cause" for every behavior, which means the whole process as currently performed is just silly. 

 

2) However, if that talk of organic causes is just a useful shorthand of some sort, the process might be perfectly reasonable, just poorly specified. 

 

3) At some point Bruce said that we were trying to determine whether the person was capable of premeditation, and that seemed (to me) to create a window for a perfectly reasonable process, while still acknowledging Nick's point.

 

4)  IF we were interested in "can the person premeditate" and we had separate research showing that certain types of obvious (with current technology) EEG and MRI results were highly correlated with an inability to sustain behavior-directed-towards-a-goal, then we could reasonable use EEG and MRI results to abduct whether or not the person in question was capable of premeditation. 

 

5)  Of course, if we had a video of the person premeditating, none of the brain scans would be necessary or relevant --- this would be an example of the broader principle that, when asking questions about psychology, behavioral evidence beats anatomical evidence. However, absent such direct evidence, it is perfectly reasonable to look for known correlates of behavioral patterns, including neuo-anatomical correlates. 

 

6) Some weird things happen to our thinking if we forget that we are using the anatomy to make inferences about behavior-patterns. The whole process makes sense if the thing we are interested in is ability-to-premeditate, and we are using the neuro-anatomy to guess at that, because that keeps us clear that the neuro-anatomy is not itself premeditation or the lack thereof. The whole process is incoherent if we think some mass killers kill because of the way their brains are, but others mass killers kill and their brains have nothing to do with it. THAT SAID, it can be a useful shorthand to talk as if we are interested in the neuro-anatomy itself. The useful shorthand is not only much quicker in a conversation or in writing, it also adds a false sense of definitiveness to the scientific findings (which is useful to the scientist), which in turn adds a false sense of definitiveness to the legal proceedings (which is useful to the legal system). Challenging the shorthand therefore feels like a challenge to the basic functioning of science and the legal system that accepts such science. 

 

 

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