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Reader comment on:
The Edifice of Pinkerism
in response to reader comment: Response to Dr Y

Submitted by Psychologist Y, PhD, Sep 16, 2007 22:35

First, don't take the McCarthyism thing too seriously - it was just a play on "Pinkerism" via a reference to the red-baiting senator whose surname you share - certainly nothing you've said here deserves any real comparison.

Anyway, I think perhaps we're approaching these issues from irreconcilable perspectives. I fully admit to approaching the issue of human mental functioning from a scientific perspective, with all that implies. I think your view of science leaves out probabilistic and other approaches which come to bear on these issues (and would allow me to tackle your pi challenge), but at the core you don't seem willing to allow for a scientific explanation of cognition, so I suppose you might as well describe science strictly as "numbering and measuring."

I don't want to write too much here, so let me just address the related issues you spent the most ink on - the inability to really understand the phenomenology of your patients regardless of scientific understanding of brain function, and the idea that "the inability to understand everything by some mechanistic process" is what allows us to show empathy to those under duress.

To be blunt, I find these to be utterly specious arguments. It simply does not follow that understanding the physiological basis for cognition implies that one can read another's mind or experience another's emotions. Further, it seems to me that empathy and compassion are traits that exist quite separately from scientific understanding. I mean, the physicians of the middle ages, with their belief in spirits and demons and what not, didn't feel more compassion for their patients than contemporary physicians with their "mechanistic" understandings of the human body, right? If I could look 500 years into the future (assuming science progresses as I'm positing that it will), and in one day gain a complete understanding of human cognition, I can't imagine it would make me any less compassionate or empathic towards anyone. I don't know why it would.

I don't want to get too philosophical, but to me our own shared humanity becomes more evident and more salient the more we learn about why we are what we are. From my perspective there's no magic to fall back on - no immortal soul, spirit, or god directing our action according to some divine plan we need not worry about. There's just other people. Just other consciousnesses embodied in transient, impermanent, and fragile tissue.

Finally, you seem to imply that somehow cognition can't be embodied because it would be too dangerous for us to know this (in your recent post), and that such a perspective isn't appropriate for "these times of terrorism, shaky world markets..." etc. (an earlier post). My response is simply this - if science is to be meaningful at all, we can't reject it because it tells us something we don't want to hear.

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Other reader comments on this article

Comment	By	Date
It has been about one year since we had our discussion on the 'mind'. And I suspect that Dr Y... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy	Sep 28, 2008 08:15
This is where 'facts' are really nonsense in disguise. If one has a hypothesis that cannot be proved or disproved... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy	Nov 12, 2007 06:42
The confusion of any philosophical science that has no heart What I find so alarming is that our most learned, our... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 27, 2007 03:21
Pinker's postulations still resonates with the 'soft innatism' and "cast of basic concepts" of a Longinian (Longinus) prefiguration of thought.... [MORE]	obrian worrell	Sep 24, 2007 16:25
Latin is figurative speech, right? Well just look up any word of Latin or Greek origin and you will get... [MORE]	Jean-Philippe De Lasalle	Sep 19, 2007 21:07
I think what has me so dismayed by rational science in regards to human beings, as we want to practice... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 19, 2007 05:38
We have heard of Evolution as "survival of the fittest," but I understand that studies of chaos and emergence give... [MORE]	John House	Sep 21, 2007 00:08
Pinker's verbal brilliance has been obscured by his inadequate theory and frequent misrepresentation of facts. I demonstrated this in an article... [MORE]	Bruce I. Kodish	Sep 18, 2007 12:59
adding "ism's" to authors (darwinism's, dawkinism's, pinkerism's) is lazy, sloppy and silly, please refrain. these authors have stated empirically verifiable... [MORE]	michael farr	Sep 14, 2007 19:49
I very much doubt that steven Pinker is the cognitive sicentist of our time. first and foremost he is a... [MORE]	charles leighton	Sep 14, 2007 06:18
I once attended a public lecture by Steven Pinker at my university. The event was so popular that I had... [MORE]	W. Dean	Sep 13, 2007 20:29
--- "But has any serious thinker actually held this form of innatism? No; it's at best a heuristic for actual... [MORE]	p. bourges-waldegg	Sep 16, 2007 02:56
Pinker's "sensitivity to subtle semantic distinctions" echoes Anatole France's maxim that "truth lies in the nuances." Basically, this is the... [MORE]	William Hoffman, Ph.D.	Sep 13, 2007 15:39
I haven't read the book, but from what examples are given here of the "cast of basic concepts," it seems... [MORE]	Marc Andre Belanger	Sep 13, 2007 10:27
I apologize for saying cognitive psychology has no merit. I don't mean that. But it does have issues that those... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 13, 2007 07:34
A very gracious apology Dr McCarthy as well as several valid points that clarify your position. I agree completely with... [MORE]	Laurie	Sep 13, 2007 17:58
John Locke is an eighteenth-century philosopher by only a hair's breadth. Locke died in 1704; his most important works appeared... [MORE]	R. Franklin Carter	Sep 12, 2007 20:00
Logrolling much? But yeah, Pinker is probably more or less on the same level as Roughgarden, though maybe a little... [MORE]	Martin Browning	Sep 12, 2007 15:53
Pinker making diffenence between mind and brain, really speaking all our thinking ,feeling, sensation, language born from brain. We know... [MORE]	Ramesh Raghuvanshi	Sep 12, 2007 11:32
It may sound impressive to detail a fundamental relationship with language and mind but first one must determine what is... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 12, 2007 06:48
A bit difficult to make out what Dr. McCarthy is going on about...over 500 words to express what seems to... [MORE]	Kyle	Sep 12, 2007 12:03
"Man is not measurable in words or in numbers and that is where the whole idea of cognitve psychology fails.... [MORE]	Laurie	Sep 12, 2007 18:47
Sorry, couldn't help it. First there's this comment, Dr. McCarthy:The problem is psychology is not a true science. It is not... [MORE]	Psychologist Y, PhD	Sep 14, 2007 22:01
I went to a university where psychology was in the school of Arts and Letters. I majored in psychology as... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 15, 2007 07:22
You are right in one aspect in that I did not clarify my thoughts in a more detailed way. Dr.... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 16, 2007 04:32
First, don't take the McCarthyism thing too seriously - it was just a play on "Pinkerism" via a reference to...	Psychologist Y, PhD	Sep 16, 2007 22:35
Dear Dr Y, I think you agree with me at one level yet do not realize it. You believe that science... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 17, 2007 18:27
Perhaps we're just talking about different things here. First, I am not a clinical psychologist. Like Pinker, I am an... [MORE]	Psychologist Y, PhD	Sep 18, 2007 09:37
I understand that you are in experimental evolutionary psychology. And I understand that you believe that cognition, whatever on this... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 18, 2007 18:25
This is why I say that what you will try to do 'scientifically' in regards to the self is never... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 20, 2007 04:01
Well I've given the whole idea of the relation between the mind and reality some thought and this is part... [MORE]	Jean-Philippe de Lasalle	Sep 23, 2007 09:15
Remember to keep categories/fields straight and don't forget fundamentals. Mathematics is much more than idea. It gives one a sense... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Sep 30, 2007 22:58
I know what I have said here is a bit upsetting to psychologists/ neurologists, to physicists, to mathematicians, to biologists,... [MORE]	Andrew McCarthy MD	Oct 7, 2007 06:34
The reason Pinker is difficult to refute is because his ideas and evidence are those of a chameleon. He... [MORE]	esya	Nov 6, 2007 15:42
Jerry Fodor is a philosopher.Yiddish is inherently funny.Etc. [MORE]	Fitz	Sep 12, 2007 06:41

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Reader comment on:
The Edifice of Pinkerism
in response to reader comment: Response to Dr Y