Humans have reason; We therefore are a Mystery.

Humans have reason; We therefore are a Mystery.

“We are determined wholly by the neurological processes in our brain.” Lately I’ve encountered the former position all too often. Everyone I speak to is thoroughly convinced that one day neuroscience will be able to fully predict human behaviour. Their reasoning is, all our cognitive functions lie in our brain and so are determined by chemical interactions. Therefore, we just need to pin down these interactions to finally comprehend how humans work. Now, I am wholly ignorant of how neuroscience really works. Still, I consider it to discover empirical truths and not just be a fairytale.

The goal is a noble one. With such knowledge, more intelligent communities can be created. The tough problems of law, education, crimes will certainly be helped also. My problem is simple. I do not think this is a tenable view. Moreover I am convinced that upon further reflection, the neuroscientists will realize they cannot believe it themselves.

Under such a scenario, we are irredeemably empirical beings and nothing else. We are only affected by the empirical and can only respond with the empirical. Our brain is just a very complicated chemical reaction, and as such can only produce empirical and sensible consequences. So far so good.

Our knowledge will also be wholly empirical, because we ourselves are only sensuous beings. Clearly then, mathematics and the like will also be the result of empirical interactions. The supporters may claim we are endowed with a unique molecule which allows us to develop these rational systems, or something of the like.

Here I have to back track for one second. I point out that mathematics, logic, etc. have the characteristic of holding absolute truth. 2+2 =4, a+b>b, all these things are absolutely true. They are true if I am hungry, sad, angry, etc. So any account of them must describe them as absolute.

Initially, the neuroscientists may see no problem. They will argue our chemical make up is such that it will guarantee the truth of mathematics for all time. The problem is this claim is purely speculative. It has no foundation. Indeed, upon further thought we discover that solely empirical knowledge is in fact very limited.

This is because the empirical is necessarily contingent. Our senses cannot give us absolute truth. Think about it, how can you guarantee that what holds today can hold tomorrow?  If you only base yourself on experience, how can you guarantee that tomorrow the sun will rise? Unless you bring in some rational element, you cannot make this claim.

A good illustration is gravity. We all have experienced that things fall to the ground. We have never experienced an exception, and we therefore assume we have experienced causality. The truth is, we never experience the cause behind gravity, we only experience the effects. We let go of an apple and it falls, our senses only experienced two different events, the letting go and the drop. A physicist will object saying we do experience gravity’s cause because we experience its force field. This is false - a force field is an abstract rational construct, it is not an object of the senses. My senses can only feel the effect, i.e. everything falls to the ground. It cannot feel the force field per se.

In the end, after we think about it, we are only left with correlation. We see one event following another always, and therefore conclude one causes the other. The fact is, if our knowledge were solely empirical we could only make a claim to causality as correlation.

We therefore only see that two events have been conjoined up until this moment. But if this is our only base, we cannot extend this correlation to the future. Just because you saw two things happening in the past does not mean they will necessarily happen again.  And so we see that the empirical is very shaky. It is contingent.

All these arguments come from the scottish philosopher David Hume. My rendition is far and away less detailed and convincing as Hume’s is. If you still do not believe in the limitations of empirical knowledge, I urge you to read him. He will take care of you.

The empirical as contingent is extremely relevant to our initial discussion.  It implies that if indeed we are only molecularly defined, we can have no claim to absolute truth. Under no circumstances can we view anything as being absolutely true, because our molecular basis can afford no foundations for absolute truths.

The fact is, we use absolute truths all the time. Whenever we logically think about anything, we apply the rules of reason which are absolute. However, if we were only empirical we could have no access to math or logic as we know it. 2+2=4 could not be an absolute truth, i.e. it cannot mean 2 plus 2 always equal 4. It can only mean 2 plus 2 equal 4 the majority of the time, or something akin to that. The entire mathematical enterprise would crumble.

This last point is not just an abstract one. Its implications are very real and very dire. Not a single day goes by when we do not make some rational calculation. We always make these calculations supposing them to be absolutely true. We use rationality precisely because it is not contingent. The same applies to whenever you apply logic, or rationality in general.

Could we function in an only empirical world? A world in which we cannot say 2 oranges and 2 oranges are four? We probably could. It would be vastly different than what we presently experience, but I see no a priori way of excluding such a world. And this is where my argument ends. We have reached the axioms which underlie any body of thought. We only have two options to believe in. A world where we cannot reason absolutely, or a world where we have a rational part which speaks in its own terms. Because fundamentally reason must only speak in its own terms.

Though we cannot prove it, we are naturally inclined to believe we are partly rational. We do so because the alternative is a chaotic and contingent reality, a reality which contradicts what we intuitively know. Pythagoras’ theorem has not been disproven yet. Science has shown the universe can be understood rationally and be described absolutely. Of course, we are also empirical beings. We eat, we sleep and we grow. However, just as our sensible nature is self evident, so is our rationality. Us as partly rational is just a belief. But it is the only belief which makes sense.

The sharp difference between the sensible and rational within us is hugely problematic. It has baffled philosophers for thousands of years (literally). The explanations offered do nothing but get crazier. But at no point has anyone stopped believing in our rationality, no matter how impossible it is to explain. And to say we are the result of chemical reactions - no matter how complex these may be - directly excludes our reason, in the absolute sense.

Do cerebral processes affect they way we act? Undoubtedly so. Their effects on us probably go very deep. But it cannot be all we are. We can glimpse into unchanging and absolute ideas, we can understand the permanent in reality. We are far more mysterious than scientists want to give us credit for. Enjoy it.