(Sorry, Dear Reader, I couldn't come up with a good title for this post.)
I hope I have shown that Heterophenomenology is not taking us Philosophers of Mind one step closer to the Hard Scientists, but actually one step further away. What could justify this regression?
I think that the major intuition that makes Heterophenomenology so appealing is that experiences are (supposed to be) Subjective, whereas the objects studied by physics, chemistry and biology are supposed to be Objective. I did my basketball experiments alone. No one else was watching, or at least, no one else was paying attention. But *in principle* others *could have* been watching, and those others would have seen the *very same* basketball that I saw. The entire Scientific Community could have been watching, in principle if not in practice.
I agree that this is a real difference between physics and phenomenology, a true difference between images of pencils and real basketballs. However, I do not agree with the conclusions that Dennett and the Heterophenomenologists draw from this difference.
In practice, the entire Scientific Community could not have seen my basketball, and in fact, the Scientific Community has no interest in *my* basketball. What the scientific community really cares about is the universal basketball. The universal basketball is intersubjective in exactly the same way that seeing double is intersubjective. The Law of Falling Basketballs is intersubjective in exactly the same way as The Law of Double Pencils is intersubjective.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
The Heterophenomenological Fallacy, Part 3: Are the College Students Really Necessary?
To make my point clear, I will return to the story of the diverging pencils, and retell the story so that it is close as possible to the basketball story. I will retell the basketball story, keeping all the details constant, swapping in the pencils experiment for the basketball experiment.
One day, I notice that pencils often produce diverging images when I hold them close to my eyes. I decide to study the phenomenon more carefully. I stand in front of a wall and hold a pencil vertically against the wall. I focus on the wall and slowly move the pencil closer to my face, between my eyes. Sure enough, the two pencil images diverge as the pencil moves closer to my face.
I repeat the experiment ten more times, and each time, the images of the pencil diverge. I seem to have stumbled on a Law of Nature, “When a person brings a pencil to his nose, he sees two diverging pencil images.” (This is not a fundamental law, of course, but it is a law.) I publish a paper with my findings.
Other scientists read my paper and get interested. But they don’t just take my findings on faith: they either see if they can reproduce my results, or if they are busy and lazy, they hope that others will try to reproduce the results. Ten scientists repeat my experiment, and they all get the same results: the images diverge every time. Satisfied, The Scientific Community arrives at Consensus: when a person brings a pencil close to his nose, he really, really sees two diverging images.
Interestingly, in the new story of the diverging images, the college students are nowhere to be found. This is as it should be. Real world experiments in hard science do not round up a simple random sample of college students to do the experiment; they simply employ how ever many experimentalists are practically necessary to carry out the experimental procedures and measurements.
As Dennett points out in "Intuition Pumps", when phenomenology was first proposed by Husserl and others, the college students were not part of the deal; the phenomenologists were writing about their own experiences. In my opinion, this is how it should be.
One day, I notice that pencils often produce diverging images when I hold them close to my eyes. I decide to study the phenomenon more carefully. I stand in front of a wall and hold a pencil vertically against the wall. I focus on the wall and slowly move the pencil closer to my face, between my eyes. Sure enough, the two pencil images diverge as the pencil moves closer to my face.
I repeat the experiment ten more times, and each time, the images of the pencil diverge. I seem to have stumbled on a Law of Nature, “When a person brings a pencil to his nose, he sees two diverging pencil images.” (This is not a fundamental law, of course, but it is a law.) I publish a paper with my findings.
Other scientists read my paper and get interested. But they don’t just take my findings on faith: they either see if they can reproduce my results, or if they are busy and lazy, they hope that others will try to reproduce the results. Ten scientists repeat my experiment, and they all get the same results: the images diverge every time. Satisfied, The Scientific Community arrives at Consensus: when a person brings a pencil close to his nose, he really, really sees two diverging images.
Interestingly, in the new story of the diverging images, the college students are nowhere to be found. This is as it should be. Real world experiments in hard science do not round up a simple random sample of college students to do the experiment; they simply employ how ever many experimentalists are practically necessary to carry out the experimental procedures and measurements.
As Dennett points out in "Intuition Pumps", when phenomenology was first proposed by Husserl and others, the college students were not part of the deal; the phenomenologists were writing about their own experiences. In my opinion, this is how it should be.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
The Heterophenomenological Fallacy, Part 2: Is Heterophenomenology Scientific?
At first, heterophenomenology sounds very clean and elegant, and most of all, scientific. But is it really scientific?
For comparison, let's take a toy physics experiment that we can compare with our toy phenomenology experiment. Let’s say I go outside with a basketball and throw it up in the air. Before long, the basketball comes down. Now I want to know: was the basketball’s return to earth some kind of happenstance? Do basketballs always come back down, or do they sometimes just keep going up?
So I throw the basketball up ten more times, and each time, it comes back down. I start to get excited; I seem to have stumbled on a Law of Nature, “When a person throws a basketball up, it always comes back down.” (This is not a fundamental law, of course, but it is a law.) I publish a paper with my findings.
Other scientists read my paper and get interested. But they don’t just take my findings on faith: they either see if they can reproduce my results, or if they are busy and lazy, they hope that others will try to reproduce the results. Ten scientists repeat my experiment, and they all get the same results: the basketball comes down every time. Satisfied, The Scientific Community arrives at Consensus: when a person throws a basketball up, it really really must come back down.
Let’s look at the basketball story from the point of view of philosophy of science. What is the explanandum? Is the explanandum (A) “Ten experimentalists threw basketballs up in the air ten times, and each time the basketball came down” or (B) “Ten experimentalists *reported that* they threw basketballs up in the air ten times, and each time the basketballs came back down”? I submit, Dear Reader, that it is A, not B. The explanandum is the event, not the experimentalist’s report of the event.
What is true of basketballs is true of all real experiments in physics, chemistry and biology, those that are being performed today and all those that have been performed since the invention of Real Science. Theorists try to explain the physical outcomes of experiments, not the reports of the experimentalists.
For comparison, let's take a toy physics experiment that we can compare with our toy phenomenology experiment. Let’s say I go outside with a basketball and throw it up in the air. Before long, the basketball comes down. Now I want to know: was the basketball’s return to earth some kind of happenstance? Do basketballs always come back down, or do they sometimes just keep going up?
So I throw the basketball up ten more times, and each time, it comes back down. I start to get excited; I seem to have stumbled on a Law of Nature, “When a person throws a basketball up, it always comes back down.” (This is not a fundamental law, of course, but it is a law.) I publish a paper with my findings.
Other scientists read my paper and get interested. But they don’t just take my findings on faith: they either see if they can reproduce my results, or if they are busy and lazy, they hope that others will try to reproduce the results. Ten scientists repeat my experiment, and they all get the same results: the basketball comes down every time. Satisfied, The Scientific Community arrives at Consensus: when a person throws a basketball up, it really really must come back down.
Let’s look at the basketball story from the point of view of philosophy of science. What is the explanandum? Is the explanandum (A) “Ten experimentalists threw basketballs up in the air ten times, and each time the basketball came down” or (B) “Ten experimentalists *reported that* they threw basketballs up in the air ten times, and each time the basketballs came back down”? I submit, Dear Reader, that it is A, not B. The explanandum is the event, not the experimentalist’s report of the event.
What is true of basketballs is true of all real experiments in physics, chemistry and biology, those that are being performed today and all those that have been performed since the invention of Real Science. Theorists try to explain the physical outcomes of experiments, not the reports of the experimentalists.
Monday, January 13, 2014
The Heterophenomenological Fallacy Part 1: Heterophenomenology Explained
I've written a lot about heterophenomenology (also known as "the third person perspective") and I'm going to write some more, so I decided to dedicate a post to explaining heterophenomenology in my own words.
Heterophenomenology is kind of like experimental psychology. You get a simple random sample of college students (of course a simple random sample of human beings would be better, but more expensive) put them in some well-defined situation, and ask them what they are experiencing.
As a toy example, take the following experiment. You tell the student to stand in front of a wall and hold a pencil vertically against the wall. Tell the student to focus on the wall and slowly move the pencil closer to his face, between his eyes. Ask him to describe what happens to the image of the pencil. (Hint: in this situation, the student should be seeing double, and the two pencil images should diverge as the pencil moves closer to his face.)
So far this is all very straightforward. The novelty of heterophenomenology is in how the theorist interprets the data gathered by the experiment. According to heterophenomenology, the data gathered by the experiment is the report of the experience, not the experience itself.
In the case of the pencil, the data collected by the experiment is the fact that the student *reported* seeing double, not that the student *actually* saw double. About whether the subject actually experienced what he reported experiencing, the theorist is meant to be agnostic, at least initially. A successful explanation must account for the fact that the subject reported the experience, but not the fact that the subject actually had the experience. In theory, the theorist is allowed to conclude that the experience report was accurate, if such a conclusion is warranted; but the theorist is not allowed to assume that the report was accurate.
Dennett compares heterophenomenology to anthropology. The theorist is like an anthropologist interviewing a tribe of hunter gatherers about their system of mythology. The anthropologist’s data is not the ghosts and goblins themselves, but rather the reports of the hunter gatherers about those ghosts and goblins.
In philosophical terms, the report of the experience is an explanandum, but the experience itself is not an explanandum.
Heterophenomenology is kind of like experimental psychology. You get a simple random sample of college students (of course a simple random sample of human beings would be better, but more expensive) put them in some well-defined situation, and ask them what they are experiencing.
As a toy example, take the following experiment. You tell the student to stand in front of a wall and hold a pencil vertically against the wall. Tell the student to focus on the wall and slowly move the pencil closer to his face, between his eyes. Ask him to describe what happens to the image of the pencil. (Hint: in this situation, the student should be seeing double, and the two pencil images should diverge as the pencil moves closer to his face.)
So far this is all very straightforward. The novelty of heterophenomenology is in how the theorist interprets the data gathered by the experiment. According to heterophenomenology, the data gathered by the experiment is the report of the experience, not the experience itself.
In the case of the pencil, the data collected by the experiment is the fact that the student *reported* seeing double, not that the student *actually* saw double. About whether the subject actually experienced what he reported experiencing, the theorist is meant to be agnostic, at least initially. A successful explanation must account for the fact that the subject reported the experience, but not the fact that the subject actually had the experience. In theory, the theorist is allowed to conclude that the experience report was accurate, if such a conclusion is warranted; but the theorist is not allowed to assume that the report was accurate.
Dennett compares heterophenomenology to anthropology. The theorist is like an anthropologist interviewing a tribe of hunter gatherers about their system of mythology. The anthropologist’s data is not the ghosts and goblins themselves, but rather the reports of the hunter gatherers about those ghosts and goblins.
In philosophical terms, the report of the experience is an explanandum, but the experience itself is not an explanandum.
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