What's the biggest philosophical difference between neuroscientists and physicists?* I think neuroscientists are more averse to discussions of mystery and the limits of knowledge. They've spent so much time convincing the public that there is no soul - the ghost is just a side-effect of our vibrating machinery - that they are unwilling to let some immaterial presence back in.
Physicists, on the other hand, strike me as much more willing to confess their ignorance. Perhaps this epistemic modesty is just a result of time: physics is a much older field than neuroscience. Perhaps it's just a result of the strange discoveries of the 20th century: the multiple dimensions of string theory, the invisibility of dark matter, the stubborn chasm separating Einstein and quantum mechanics. Or perhaps it's simply a result of temperment. Perhaps physicists are simply more prone to philosophizing, more willing to ponder the metaphysical implications of their physical equations.
Take, for example, this paragraph from a recent article on dark matter:
But now has come the metaphorical morning after, and with it a sobering realization: Maybe the universe isn't simple enough for dummies like us humans. Maybe it's not just our powers of perception that aren't up to the task but also our powers of conception. Extraordinary claims like the dawn of a new universe might require extraordinary evidence, but what if that evidence has to be literally beyond the ordinary? Astronomers now realize that dark matter probably involves matter that is nonbaryonic. And whatever it is that dark energy involves, we know it's not "normal," either. In that case, maybe this next round of evidence will have to be not only beyond anything we know but also beyond anything we know how to know. hat possibility always gnaws at scientists -- what Perlmutter calls "that sense of tentativeness, that we have gotten so far based on so little." Cosmologists in particular have had to confront that possibility throughout the birth of their science.
In my experience, neuroscientists are much less likely than physicists to indulge in these sorts of mysterian musings. They are much less likely to concede that some questions are beyond the bounds of human knowledge. It's only a matter of time, neuroscientists assure us, until consciousness is solved, and our subjective experience is reduced into a few neural networks in the PFC.
Is this neuroscientific confidence justified? Or is it just the brash braggadocio of a young science? Why do we have more faith in our microscopes than in our telescopes?
*Pardon the gross generalizations. I do realize that both fields encompass a vast range of researchers and types of inquiry. I'm just hoping to spur a discussion.
Comments (8)
It's an excellent point, Jonah, and brilliantly stated:
Why do we have more faith in our microscopes than in our telescopes?
I think part of the situation is that the current state of physics depends on huge barely-ponderables like multiple simultaneous universes, time moving in both directions, and so on; whereas similarly awe-inspiring concepts in neurology -- when does neural activity become what we call consciousness or a "soul"? -- are still relegated to the margins, because they don't seem essential for, say, curing Alzheimer's disease. The book I referenced in a post a couple of weeks ago, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, about the intersection of neuroplasticity and Buddhism, raised these issues as huge open questions, but a huge open question is not the same as something like dark matter, i.e., something almost inconceivable that has become a standard reference in discussing how the ordinary universe works. We're still only 100 years away from phrenology -- which itself was more interesting than it's usually given credit for being. Oliver Sacks' writing is one of the few places in neurology where I see these huge open questions being addressed in the context of real human lives.
Posted by: Steve Silberman | March 14, 2007 12:41 PM