The Honorable Justice D.Hodgson on:   Folk Wisdom & Consciousness

 

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One of the premiere aspects of existence is what might sometimes be termed "arrogance".  It is a behavior integral with what we generally mean by "identity" and the self-relevance of Complexity's "complex adaptive systems".  In a simplistic sense we might call it the "inertia of being" . . . the tendency for an entity to remain what-it-is and true to itself, once other phenomena create it.  And that tendency is no casual process.  It is fiercely ingrained in everything.  It is the resistance to being destroyed.  In animals we see it often expressed as "territorial behaviors" . .  control of the lifespace, keeping harm and change at bay.   A very natural and normal dynamic in most circumstances.

Humans are prime examples of this dynamic, because we even display it in the most subtle ways . . . superiority complexes, social value judgements between competitive groups, and even the credoes of science.  I mention this now because I want to share with you wisdom of  D.Hodgson,  Supreme Court Justice of New South Wales, Australia.   His 1996 presentation at the Tucson II conference on consciousness studies was a plea and an admonition to consciousness researchers to avoid disinfecting and sterilizing the field, in their rush to find neurophysical and even quantum mechanical models of thought and consciousness.  There is an arrogance and self-centeredness implicit in modern science and its programs of rigorous criteria and proof.  It is a high-mindedness by which science is now guiding the world, and is epitomized by Gordon Kane's comment in his 1995 book "The Particle Garden":  "The most important thing to understand is that people had to invent the methods of science."

Now I remind you that I am a proponent and champion of science, but that kind of arrogance is to be abjectly avoided as human society transforms.   The Integrity Paradigm holds unequivocally that behavior dynamics -- if not exact mechanisms -- come from the bottom up in the universe.  Here that means that science is not some ivory tower achievement which never existed before.  It means that science as we know it today is a refinement and improvement of prior human behaviors and capacities -- which had value in their own right!!   Have value in their own right.

This is more than an acknowledgement of the roots of human conceptual being and consciousness, it's a message that our wisdom today could never have arrived if it wasn't built of real true wisdom in the past.  It is not a past to be cavalierly disregarded because it doesn't meet some biased standards..  It might harbor value that we overlook and may even need in the future.  Something that could be lost and thus limit our future potential.

As we explore how and why we think and conceive we must remember that all people do it  -- somehow, someway.  That means we have something to learn from every person, from every language, from every society.   And that means respect above all else. Courtesy in sharing the human condition. Every culture, informationally advanced or not, has survived to reach this day in history.   And that is no mean or trivial accomplishment.  On a planet where life forms struggle and compete for every morsel of haven and nourishment, that is achievement to be recognized and respected . . . and, to be learned from.  Science did not "emerge", it evolved. There are valuable understandings to remember, to learn, from our posterity --  the folk wisdom which pervasively survives in the world.   

I offer you here Justice Hodgson's notions -- his legal pleading to the court of science -- the abstract of his conference speech.  As science promotes a standard-of-intellect to the world, he promotes a larger and a wiser one. 

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"Towards a Science of Consciousness"  Conference
Tucson, Arizona            April, 1996

    Classified Abstracts 
                        CULTURE AND SOCIETY
                                                                        9.4 Ethics and legal studies

"Folk psychology, science, and the criminal law"
abstract #501

D. Hodgson

Supreme Court of New South Wales, Queens Square,
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

Criminal liability often depends upon proof of folk-psychological categories such as voluntary action, intention, ability to control one's actions, and so on: this is strikingly illustrated by the defences of insanity and sane automatism. These folk-psychological categories do not have any systematic scientific explanation and, particularly in their association with ideas of conscious subjects having freewill and responsibility, do not seem to sit comfortably with the mainstream scientific view of the world in general and causation in particular. Indeed, many scientists and philosophers (such as Blakemore, Dennett, the Churchlands, and Crick) contend that these categories are not intellectually respectable.

However, their arguments fall far short of refuting folk psychology, and there is no sign that the law will give up these categories. On the contrary, developing concern for human rights is tending to further entrench these categories in the law and to increase their importance: for example, in 1990 the Canadian Supreme Court struck down, as contrary to fundamental justice, a law which made conviction for murder possible in the absence of proof of subjective foresight of death or really serious injury. Expert scientific and medical evidence continues to be given about these categories; although where this evidence attempts to link mainstream science and folk psychology, it becomes awkward because there is no accepted framework of understanding which makes sense of both together.

This paper argues that it would greatly assist in dealing with important issues in criminal cases, and indeed in dealing with many social and educational problems, if neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychologists and philosophers could develop a comprehensive hypothetical framework which has a place for both folk psychology and the scientific view of causation. The paper concludes with some suggestions for such a framework, which postulate two overlapping types of causation, one involving the impersonal working out of universal laws of nature (with or without randomness), and the other involving choices by conscious subjects made for non-conclusive reasons.

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