Naturalism, Evolution, and Reliable Cognitive Faculties

I'm wondering if R equivocates (giving the impression of inscrutability) because our cognitive faculties range from those employed in ordinary tasks (where the desk is flat) to those employed in science, philosophy and religion (where the desk is not flat). Presumably evolution would have made the former reliable enough (for practical purposes) whilst being indifferent about the latter; but it's because we'd expect the latter to be unreliable that science is based on observations.

It's not that the theory of evolution says that there is no God, but that it doesn't need to say anything about God; from which Naturalism follows via Occam's Razor.

So a problem for such anti-Naturalist arguments is that we don't seem to have perfectly reliable cognitive faculties: e.g. we naturally assume that solid objects are made of continuous stuff, rather than atoms; we naturally assume that space is Euclidean, rather than not; we naturally assume that objects are coloured in themselves, not by our eyesight; and some of us do believe in God or witchcraft, but half of us that we are like computers; some believe that infinity is like a big finite number, some that it is not such a positive thing; and so on and on.

Hi Andrew, sorry for giving the wrong impression... What we'd be getting wrong is stuff like, everything might be conscious, or created by a witch... not stuff like, that pebble over there is not going to move much, or that gingerbread is not poisonous? But science (e.g. the theory of evolution) is built out of repeated and obvious observations of the latter kind, where what is important is stuff moving or stopping, not such metaphysical stuff (perhaps it's the combination of R and C that equivocates; but maybe it depends on one's theory of propositional content).

As I said, I'm guessing that from there (such scientific theories) to the safety of Naturalism (with its lack of God) would be no further than the breadth of Occam's Razor... I hope you're right though (and I'm pretty sure that some argument in the region of EAAN must be right) but because beliefs would only exist in the evolved brain if some very persistent neurological structure had bothered to put them there, our beliefs would (given Naturalism) tend to be modest (i.e. of my latter sort) and reliable.

Andrew, my descriptions were probably inaccurate (I'm always too brief, as I don't like to be tedious) but I think they were accurate enough, which is in itself an example of the point I was making (like this table not really being literally flat, but it not being the case that I speak falsely if I call it flat in an everyday context... not just that it is good enough for practical purposes, to say that the table is flat, but that it is literally true, even though it is not literally flat, if you see what I mean... you could disagree with such analyses of propositional content, but a Naturalist would probably take a realistic view of such things, and Plantinga's argument is about the coherence of Naturalism).

Was the relevent part of what you said: "his ways of referring to things all involve definite descriptions that entail consciousness, so that all of his beliefs are of the form That so-and-so conscious being is such-and-such"? I reread what you said, but since I had read (and reread) it carefully already (of course) my reply is as above (perhaps I should similarly suggest that you reread my reply carefully, but I shall reword the relevent part instead, at the risk of being tedious, as follows).

I take this to be the problem: The hypothetical man's beliefs all entail falsities (so they are literally unreliable) but they would not otherwise affect his performance so (according to Plantinga) that man could have evolved as readily as anyone (and there are a lot of such possible men). My poorly written reply was that: (i) evolution naturally (since everything has its price) tends towards elegant solutions, so that such practically ineffective beliefs would not be very likely to arise (which relates to your (4)), and (ii) the practice of science (which gave rise to the theoretical reply of my (i)) would in any case tend to eliminate the effects of such false beliefs, were there any, because it concentrates upon those entailments that are, to put it very roughly, non-metaphysical (whence my (i) was not presupposing its own truth in an obviously circular way).

In a nut-shell (at the risk of being even more boring), according to Naturalism all our beliefs arise from belief-forming mechanisms in our brains, which evolved over huge periods of time. As they evolved, any mechanism not actually contributing to the persistence of the genes coding for it would be very likely to mutate into something more useful (since everything has its price). We might have systematically false beliefs (e.g. our simple Euclidean view of space) but not such a range of artificially complex examples as Plantinga's. And science can work towards eliminating the theoretical effects of the kinds of systematically false beliefs that we are likely to have (according to Naturalism itself) by following its own methodology (which Naturalism agrees with).

More broadly (at the risk of being off-topic), if I was defending myself against Plantinga I'd not bother explaining my science to him (if he wants to study biology properly he can), I'd just ask him how he would explain our innate false beliefs about space, given that God is no deceiver. Plantinga could try to argue that modern physics is false too, or he could argue that such false beliefs arose from our Fall. But if the former he really has his work cut out for him! And if the latter, would he recommend our believing in absurd testimony because it's absurd? But then, what if we found his arguments convincing? Should we then assume that he's wrong? (I believe that some believers do take just such an approach to theology.)

Hmm... I was misinterpretting more that I'd thought I was, sorry... Still, a brain full of beliefs such as (when faced with a tiger) that's a witch-created tiger would be making an error with the concept of witch (whence its unreliability), and while that might not matter in this case (as witches would not be encountered), in general it would be a problem. Most such errors (e.g. dog-created, cloud-attracting) would lead to reduced viability, so mechanisms preventing such sorts of errors would presumably be likely to evolve, whence (4). I think that we could expect that to be the case quite generally (e.g. the early Leibnizian, such an error with his concept of consciousness would surely be likely to cause him problems, unless compensatory factors were also present in his case, but such factors would themselves be likely to be of a kind that would be likely to reduce viability).

Hey Andrew,

A quick comment concerning (2) and (3). You wrote that the trouble with (3) is, "there could be creatures that are just as good at surviving as we are, but who systematically form false beliefs". Although this is true, I don't see why that shows that it is (2) is false. Much more needs to be said. Such creatures might be unlike us in important respects. That such creatures are possible gives us no reason to think that it is at all likely that such creatures would emerge or that there is some significant probability that we are such creatures. Fwiw, I think that conceding (1) gives the naturalist no reason for concern. (So far as I can tell, P(R/Theism) is low or inscrutable because P(R/Theism) is inscrutable, and I've never been tempted to say that the irrationality of theism follows from this.) What ought to concern the naturalist is:
(1*) P(R/N&E&C) is low.
I've never seen a good argument for that claim.

Clayton,

Not my area, but isn't (1*) supported by considerations of objective probability. Consider all the ways N&E&C might be. Only in very few of them R is true.

It seems prima facie likely that more mental complexity is needed to have beliefs of the form "there is a witch-created tiger" than to have beliefs of the form "there is a tiger". But it is, presumably, harder to get more complexity through evolutionary processes.

I've never understood the appeal of Plantinga's argument here. I mean, sure, we can dream up scenarios of evolutionarily useful cognitive faculties that are wildly unreliable. So I'll grant to Plantinga that it's epistemically possible that we ourselves are in such a situation. But so what? I don't see any reason at all to suppose that it's *likely* that we (or other creatures with perceptual and cognitive equipment in our environment that helps them survive) have evolved wildly unreliable perceptual and cognitive equipment. Am I missing something here?

Now, there is interesting work to be done with regard to particular epistemic propensities that we might have that could be useful but misleading. E.g., perhaps we have a tendency (because of the importance of having a Theory of Mind with regard to other people) to overanthropomorphize non-human animals and inanimate objects. That's the sort of thing that Hume speculates about in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and if evolutionary psychology backs up his speculations, it would give us good reason to be suspicious of some of our belief-producing mechanisms.

But I don't see how that sort of piecemeal undercutting would help to establish statement (1), or how to seriously undermines the usual case on behalf of statement (3)--that if beliefs like "Here is some food that's good to eat" or "there is a dangerous chasm ahead" or "I'm cold and I should put something on in order not to be cold" weren't generally right, we would have died off long ago.

Andrew,
I was thinking primarily of witch-created witch, and of how the standard concept of witch would not allow it to be so easily mistaken for God (so that such a subject would be behaving normally whilst in a state akin to scepticism or paranoia, which would require further adjustments etc.).

Both those problems would be worse in general for the typical sorts of mistakes thrown up by whatever mechanism threw that witchy one up (whence such mechanisms would be very unlikely, as unlikely as wierd eyes plus compensatory neurological processing, although those too would do the job day to day). Alternatively the mechanism could be very specific (a one off, just the witchy mistake) but then it would obviously be very unlikely to arise...

More unlikely than you might think, as even if such a mistake did arise, it would not serve just as well in the long run, because its underlying material structures could be used for something not so totally useless, probably (as mentioned above).

How are ‘belief-producing mechanisms’ supposed to work, and do they evolve too? Because science evolves, and it’s surely taken a while for humans to hit on the idea of evolution. There’s a number of suggestively entitled books: Thomas Kuhn’s ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’, Karl Popper’s ‘Conjectures and Refutations’, Paul Feyerabend’s ‘Against Method’. I don’t know if anyone here has read them but the Pope quotes Feyerabend.

Hi Andrew. I feel that maybe we're talking past one another here. Let's turn the tables: rather than having me explain why I think that the scenarios you outline don't disprove (3) (that's what I thought I was doing in my earlier comment, although I very well could have been unclear) would you mind explaining a little more why you think that they do? Maybe I'm missing something.

Anyway, let me elaborate a little more. You write:

But Plantinga has pointed out that there could be creatures that are just as good at surviving as we are, but who systematically form false beliefs. For example, instead of believing that "there is a tree", they believe "there is a witch-created-tree."

[Plantinga's own example cut]

Such creatures would have cognitive faculties that are not very reliable, but they would survive just as well as early hominids. So it seems that there is no basis for thinking that (3) is true.

I just don't see how the bolded conclusion is supposed to follow from the supposition that there could be such creatures. Enigman at 10:18, I believe, has similar concerns. Even if such a creature is possible, when you think of the train of coincidences that would have to be the case for that creature to thrive and reproduce, it seems to give us little reason to abandon (3)--which, remember, is the claim that creatures with reliable cognitive faculties are more likely to survive.

I think a core problem here is the definition of "reliable." The example you provide is "there is a tree" vs. "there is a witch-created tree." Why is "there is a witch-created tree" an unreliable belief, even if the "witch-created" part is untrue?

The question of "reliability" depends on the function of the belief. If the function of the belief is to avoid colliding into the tree while hunting for dinner, then "there is a witch-created tree" is just as "reliable" as "there is a witch-created tree."

A better example would be "there is a tree" vs. "that apparent tree is an illusion that cannot harm me." In this example, the latter belief is "unreliable" as well as "false," because it will not serve the function of avoiding a collision with the tree. Experience and observation seem to strongly suggest that this sort of unreliable belief gets weeded out by natural selection -- collide with the tree, and you die and leave no offspring.

Now, you can ask, isn't "witch-created" then superfluous to the belief in a material tree that can dent my noggin, and if so, wouldn't such a superfluous belief also end up on the Darwinian cutting room floor? But the "witch-created" aspect of the belief might serve some other psychological or social function. Perhaps a belief in witches supports a social order (shaman / chief / warrior / gatherer) that enhances the stability and survivability of the group. In that case, it is true that evolution selects for a false, but reliable for its purpose, belief.

But that doesn't mean every related belief the subject holds is false or that the subject's overall belief system is fundamentally falsified. It just confirms what we all intuit -- that Cartesian certainty is elusive.

All of this, though, gets at the nature of "mind," and on this naturalistic evolutionary theory is not unified. Perhaps the case made here weakens a strongly deterministic version of the evolution of mind -- if all beliefs are strictly determined by biology perhaps ultimately there is no possibility of any objective truth claims.

But many if not most proponents of evolutionary theory would hold to some notion of the emergence of mind in which mind is capable of exerting some downward causation on evolutionary change. If the human mind is an emegent property, then it might be possible for humans to step out of determinism and evaluate the "witch" claim more objectively. Perhaps this model resonates with the theological notion of the imago Dei and/or soul.

Andrew: ah hah--yes. (3") is closer to what I was thinking of, not (3'). But even (3") might not be exactly right--for we could probably jury-rig together some scenario where, for some creature in that scenario, that creature would be more likely to survive with unreliable than reliable faculties (or at least not less likely). But since what we're interested in is the evolution of species with various information-gathering, action guiding, and belief-producing mechanisms, I think the claim that, generally speaking, creatures with reliable faculties do better wrt survival and reproduction than creatures with unreliable faculties is all we need.

Andrew -- the case I'm referring to is the creature that believes "there is a witch-created tree." This belief is at least partly true -- there is in fact a tree. I'm assuming the concept of "tree" here includes properties such as rootedness and hardness. The "witch-created" belief might be false, but that has nothing to do with the reliability of the belief for the purpose of avoiding a damaging collision with the tree. The belief is "true enough" for its purpose.

Maybe the problem is that equating "reliable" and "true" is a category mistake. "Reliable," as it relates to survivability and reproductive success, might relate to different things depending on context.

For example, if we assume the physical properties of the material universe are a given reality for all organisms living in the universe, then beliefs about those properties that enhance survivability are very likely to correspond to that reality. Any large organism that runs through forests will have to know that "trees" really are hard and rooted in place -- an unreliable belief here results in fatal collisions and extinction.

In contrast, if the context is beliefs about social structure that enhance group survivability by reinforcing a social order, perhaps an ontologically "false" belief can be "reliable." For example, the "witch-created" aspect of the creature's broader belief structure about trees that contributes to group cohesion by buttressing the shaman's authority.

So, adaptation through trial and error (evolution) might sometimes produce "reliable" beliefs that are also "true," and it might sometimes produce "reliable" beliefs that are also "false." But with respect to an organism's physical interaction with the physical universe, it's likely that "reliable" beliefs will also be "true" -- you can either walk through trees or you can't.

Andrew, fair enough -- I should have been hip to your usage.

You said: There aren't such near-misses in logic. Maybe this will help. A belief that p is true if and only if p is true. In the case of the creature, the proposition that "there is a witch-created tree" is false. So the belief is false.

But you're putting two beliefs into one statement. p(1)"There is a tree" and p(2)"a witch created the tree." p(1) is true. p(2) is presumably false.

p(1) is the sort of reliable (using the technical term) belief that could arise through natural selection because it involves properties of the physical universe with which all organisms must interact.

p(2) is the sort of belief that might be produced by natural selection but be unreliable because it involves something other than properties of the physical universe with which all organisms must interact.

So, N&E&C could at least produce, and likely would produce, reliable beliefs of the type of p(1). If you run into a tree, it will break your head, whether you believe a witch created it or not.

But maybe I'm still missing it because of the rules of your logic game? I don't mean this to be snarky, but is it legitimate to combine two or more propositions into a statement and then assess the statement's reliability on a wholly true or wholly false basis? If those are the rules, the exercise seems pointless.

Ok -- but if the belief is that P-witch has properties Q, and Q includes fixity and hardness (because P-witch is really an apple tree), aren't the creature's beliefs still partly true and partly false -- "there is a witch" (false) and "the witch has properties of fixity and hardness" (true) and "I will hurt myself if I run into the witch" (true). It seems to me that the only scenario in which the creature's belief is wholly unreliable is if the belief is false about the tree/witch's harmful properties. In that case, the creature probably is less likely to survive.

Andrew, if "appletree witch is blooming" has to be analyzed only as single proposition, this just seems like an unrealistic language game to me. People / organisms simply don't form beliefs like this all at once.

"Appletree witch is blooming" includes at least the following beliefs that realistically would develop separately because they each have survival value in diffent contexts. They can be stated as separate propositions:

p1 there is an appletree
p1(a) appletrees have the proprty of hardness
p1(b) appletrees have the property of fixity
p1(c) if I crash into the appletree it will hurt me

p2 appletree is a witch
p2(a) witches have the property of protecting or cursing the clan
p2(b) witches ought to be venerated so that the clan is protected
p2(c) the clan needs a shaman to communicate with the witches

p3 appletree is blooming
p3(a) blooms have the property of emitting fragrance
p3(b) blooms lead to buds and fruit
p3(c) blooms have magical properties that the shaman can use to appease witches

So fine, "appletree witch is blooming," standing alone as a single proposition, technically is false. But who cares aside from the guy who wrote the logic textbook? p1 that I stated above confers survival value based on properties of the external universe and is reliable.

I'd suggest that Plantinga's argument works only if all of the beliefs subsidiary to the challenged proposition are also unreliable. Otherwise, the best you can say is that natural selection will produce some reliable beliefs because all organisms encounter the same physical universe, even while natural selection might also result in some unreliable beliefs.

Andrew, you said: But I can't see any reason to think that R-creatures are more likely to arise by naturalistic evolution than U-creatures.

Maybe it would be useful to distinguish beliefs that are direct responses to the physical universe from beliefs that are socially constructed. Searle's distinction between "brute facts" and "social facts" might be helpful here.

With respect to brute facts, it seems to me that R-creatures are more likely to arise because all creatures have to take the physical universe as a given. An unreliable belief about the physical universe is very likely to decrease the probability of survival because being mistaken about stuff like the hardness of trees and rocks often results in injury and death. I don't think this has anything to do with brain size or mental complexity. It's just a brute fact that trees and rocks are hard.

Maybe the arguments are different for social facts. As with the "appletree witch," an unreliable belief might have survival value if it holds together a useful social order.

Or even better, a critical realist approach ala Bhaskar might suggest that socially constructed beliefs about the witchness of appletrees emerge out of, but are not reducible to, ontological facts about the universe the creature actually inhabits. And ultimately, I think, this kind of critical realism with its concept of irreducible emergence (including the emergence of mind) holds the most promise against materialism.

I think this distinction between brute and social facts makes Plantinga's hypo impossibly unrealistic. If a creature believes "appletree witch is blooming" but has no other beliefs about the properties (hardness and fixity) of appletrees, that creature is likely to bang its head against a tree branch and the unreliable belief will probably die with it.

I think Alex's probabilistic argument is wrong because (a) it assumes the conclusion that U-creatures are just as likely to survive as R-creatures; (b) it assumes the genes / traits of U-creatures are just as likely to be passed on to succeeding generations as those of R-creatures; and (c) it seems to assume that the set of possible set of U-creatures is essentially unrestricted because any sort of unreliable belief is just as likely to arise as another. I don't think any of those assumptions relate to how nature actually is observed to work.

Hi Andrew. Yes, I think think what I'd want to assert is something like your (4), i.e.,

4) Evolutionary processes which produce creatures with cognitive faculties are more likely to produce creatures with reliable cognitive faculties than creatures without reliable cognitive faculties.

You note that (4) clearly supports (2), and say that "it is still quite plausible," but then add, "It's unclear to me, however, what the actual argument for it is."

Hmmm. Well, this probably won't satisfy you, but I guess I'd just return to the humdrum examples that I (and others) have been bringing up repeatedly of true beliefs being useful for survival and reproduction (by and large) while false one (by and large) would be less useful (or positively counterproductive).

To get to Alex's point, if you want a more a posteriori argument for (4), we should look to actual examples of how perceptual systems that gather information about the creature's environment arise and help guide its behavior actually operate (and how scientists think they arose evolutionarily).

Sure, you can describe U-creatures that are behaviorally indistinguishable from R-creatures, but how would they actually arise? It seems to me massively unlikely. You mean they'd happen to evolve massively unreliable beliefs, but ones that happened to be isomorphic to the useful reliable beliefs, in a way that never displayed itself in maladaptive behavior in a wide variety of environments, nor across different species that were part of that lineage? I think that burden of proof of proof is definitely on the advocate of Plantinga's argument here.

To carry forward Alex's point a bit more: even very small differences in creatures can make a big difference in the selection of traits. So it would take only a little bit of extra resources (in terms of energy) being wasted, or a little bit of behavorial maladaptiveness, compared to the rest of the population, for a trait to be selected against.

Hi Andrew, an interesting question, that I put on the back-burner for a while; now I think that the key to your question is that (given that N and E are true, as in the probabilities in question) all beliefs correlate with structures in the brain.

So the beliefs mentioned, involving witches (or God or whatever), correlate with structures that have substructures that resemble the structures in our brains that correlate to our concepts of witches or whatever (as otherwise the word "witch" or whatever would be inappropriate), even if the beliefs themselves arise only as whole beliefs. So although there could be all sorts of such structures (as you say, there are lots of U-creatures), there could be only finitely many (given finite heads), and furthermore parts of them would be doing no work (since they are not more viable than structures without such substructures).

Now, a modular brain-structure is very likely to be selected for because such structures are highly adaptable, which is very useful in a changing environment (and if evolution is occuring then the environment is changing) like ours. Therefore U-creatures are unlikely because their beliefs are not modular (ours seem to be, whence I thought that R equivocated in my first thoughts on this). (Variability is as important, statistically, as viability in the long-run, cf. sex!)

But also, even if U-creatures were not unlikely for that reason, the extra structure (the useless neurones) involved in making the more complex U-creaturely beliefs would be very likely to be used to do something else, as brains evolved, very probably under a hell of a lot of environmental pressure. That is, it is very likely that the neurones involved in the useless structure (even granted that the structure arose at some point, and stuck around for a while because it was viable) would at some point (due to natural variations) turn into something more useful (and then that new, slightly useful structure would be selected for in the usual way).

And I'm also thinking that (2) is probable insofar as one tends to believe N and E, and improbable or inscutable insofar as one tends to disbelieve or find incomprehensible N and E (I'm thinking that that depends on how one interprets the probabilities though).

Andrew, thanks for the nice questions (you make me think my comment was not so well-thought out after all though). I was indeed assuming that, for the "witch-created" bit, of that U-creature's beliefs, to have that meaning, there would have to be some similarity, in the underlying neurological structure, with the parts of our brains that give rise to that meaning (given N, E, C). Basically I don't see how else that meaning could get into the U-creature's beliefs. In the case of our beliefs, we have ostensive definitions and family resemblences and deference to authority and so forth, and anything as general as that bit of the U-creature's beliefs would not enter into our propositional beliefs, but be more like a mood. What makes a propositional belief propositional? Something to do with language-use? But this "witch-created" bit could not possibly be part of the U-creature's language-use (were it to use language, which is presumably possible for it if it has propositional beliefs). But I don't really know. Still, it may be that someone who believed in N, E, C could be justified in their additional belief (perhaps via a theory of truth) in R, in which case the probability ought to be high (really, whether or not others find it obscure).