How seriously should we take "levels" of reality? I mean the parcellation of the universe into, say, the particle level, the chemical level, the cellular level, the organism, individual level, the social/ecological level etc?
Do levels interpenetrate?
Are these metaphysical matters or just pragmatic ones?
Stimulated by the great session on mental disorders just completed, hosted by @PessoaBrain , featuring Anneli Jefferson, @awaisaftab , @NicoleCRust , Alexey Tolchinky & @eikofried
@DrYohanJohn @PessoaBrain @awaisaftab @eikofried
Great question! Curious: @DrYohanJohn, what do you think?
As discussed in that wonderful salon, there’s a parallel conversation to be had around causality at abstract, nonphysical levels (eg insomnia “causes” fatigue). Many seem to be ready to buy into the idea that we can figure out causality purely at that level. The subtext is something along the lines of: it’s the level of emergent properties. I’m less sure, particularly when interactions become complicated. It certainly strikes me that we should not automatically port our concepts of causality from the physical to nonphysical without some thoughtfulness.
I mean they are psychological concepts. The research agenda (called network theory) proposes to investigate them independent of their biological correlates, eg: "In this approach, mental disorders arise from direct interactions between symptoms."
"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.20375
Here's a concrete example:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1312114110
It models mood state as the attractor state of a system defined by the interaction between 4 coupled differential equations for: cheerfulness, contentness, sadness, and anxiousness.
That, I presume, assumes that these 4 different emotions are in fact 4 different things (eg that cheerfulness and sadness are not one continuous axis).
@dcm @DrYohanJohn @PessoaBrain @awaisaftab @eikofried
Correct and important point: the proposal is not that some force in the universe other than the brain that mediates and produces the mind (like a nonmaterial soul). Rather, the proposal is that the mind can be understood at an abstract level.
I worry that we're getting into some (perhaps nonuseful) philosophical weeds here when we say that a neuron is not a physical concept. A neuron is physical. I can touch one. I can't touch insomnia in the same way.
Don't get me wrong: I work at the level of "algorithm" to understanding how "information" is transformed as it propagates from one brain are to the next. That's also not physical. (Hence my interest).
@NicoleCRust @DrYohanJohn @PessoaBrain @awaisaftab @eikofried I think that that terminology may be misleading, the distinction being best captured by talking of abstract vs concrete concepts.
'Neuron' etc are not physical concepts in the sense that they do not figure in generalisations and explanations in physics. I mentioned this because of your implied contrast between physical vs psychological concepts: many biological concepts cannot be touched either (e.g., species, function).
@dcm @DrYohanJohn @PessoaBrain @awaisaftab @eikofried
All appreciated (authentically).
As a practicing neuroscientist, I want to talk about the difference between causal chains in the brain vs the mind, like in the "insomnia causes fatigue" example. I suspect that anyone reasonably smart can understand what I'm talking about when I say, "while we all accept that statement, there isn't actually a physical thing in the world, insomnia, that causes a physical thing in the world, fatigue. Rather, that causal chain is mediated via physical events that happen in the brain: a lack of sleep leads to the brain state that corresponds to the mind state of fatigue"
I think it's important that we talk about these things in ways that everyone can easily grasp (so no mumbo-jumbo-jargon). But I don't want to mislead either. Do you have suggestions about good words to talk about this particular distinction? (No -ologies or -isms allowed 😉).
@NicoleCRust @DrYohanJohn @PessoaBrain @awaisaftab @eikofried I don't think all would understand that in the way you seem to intend it. It may look like you deny the existence of insomnia and fatigue; or think that they are nonphysical 'mind' stuff; or that they are just epiphenomena.
That statement moreover presupposes lots of debatable ontological issues, and indeed I don't really agree with it (though it certainly is a legitimate philosophical position to take).
Managed without isms! ;)
@dcm @NicoleCRust @DrYohanJohn @PessoaBrain @awaisaftab @eikofried
That's very interesting, but I need to think about exactly why.
Hmmm. Fascinating. Thanks for engaging with this. It's something I've authentically been trying to wrap my head around: Why isn't the conversation around the topic "are psychiatric disorders brain disorders?" laid out in a clearer way? The concepts aren't so complicated. It's written about in a way that strikes me (a brain researcher) as unnecessarily befuddling. What's that about? Is it differences in culture? Jargon? Something else?
From this conversation, I wonder if there's a difference in style of approach here.
I feel strongly that a huge factor holding back progress is the absence of clear-speak (aka I don't even know that You (grand, not you per se) are saying something interesting because you've hidden bits I can connect with behind such a jargony curtain).
I'm guessing that any general entry point related to brains and minds will presuppose some debatable ontology (agree?). I'm happy to take that hit. And from there, demonstrate that we should not think about it like "that" but instead like "this" ... (which I think speaks to your disagreement with the statement?). I'm also all for discussions about what the best accessible descriptions might be.
If I understand you correctly, triggering a conversation from a point of debatable ontology is a bad idea. (Even if the consequence is that it won't have an accessible entry point).
Does that resonate with you as the trade-off here? Accessibility vs generalizability?
In any case, I am convinced that there is an important thing to be discussed here that informs how science is practiced, how ever we decide to enter the conversation (I suspect you are too?)
@NicoleCRust @DrYohanJohn @PessoaBrain @awaisaftab @eikofried ok, actually (3/3)
Back to the -isms, I'm a scientific pluralist: I think that different starting points, assumptions and methods help us better understand things, but an ultimate unification of the sciences might not be feasible, either due to our cognitive limitations, a disunity in the world, or both.
So we may not reach a final answer to these issues, but some approaches may end up proving more fruitful than others
Yohan John 🤖🧠
Nicole Rust
Dimitri Coelho Mollo
Dylan Smith