Translation of Freerk Huisken, Uni Bremen
Criticism of Bremen's "brain research":
Brain determines mind - errors, function and consequences 1
1. The results of Bremen's "brain research"
a. The Bremen brain research – associated with the name of the brain researcher Gerhard Roth – takes its starting point from experiences that people constantly encounter in everyday life. Good arguments fail to convince or are not understood; you can explain a matter to children countless times, they still don't grasp it; or they think they have grasped it, but are mistaken. Crystal-clear justifications are not accepted in certain social contexts, even though they are irrefutable; or they are accepted but not acted upon. And time and again, people justify their actions perfectly well, put them into practice, and then find that the desired change in their situation does not occur.
All these facts, which revolve around the connection between insight, understanding, learning, reasoned action, and its results, are undeniable. In the humanities, there are essentially three 'models' for explaining these phenomena. The first explanation states that, unfortunately, good arguments do not govern the world in this country, but rather interests and constraints; that learning is not about understanding, but about getting good grades; and that false thoughts are more suitable for presenting oneself as a respectable person in this world than correct ones. This approach has become rather unfashionable. The second explanation, however, is all the more prevalent: it explains all forms of failure in learning, the clinging to false beliefs and actions, entirely within the human mind, that is, psychologically. According to this view, people are miswired by early childhood experiences, irrationally work through frustrations, need prejudices to stabilize their behavior, or suffer from a lack of learning or insight capacity. According to this approach, the blame always lies with the individuals themselves if they fall behind in school, fail to advance in their careers, or are stigmatized as social troublemakers. This explanation invariably relies on the tautological construct that only what is inherent in a person as a characteristic, drive, force, or potential manifests itself. G. Roth and his colleagues represent the third, and most irritating, variant, which takes this error to a biological extreme. For them, it is natural processes—admittedly influenced by society in some way, but ultimately natural processes in the biological brain—that are supposed to explain every discrepancy between good reasons, desired insight, and behavior. This is irritating because it makes it easy to attribute any undesirable behavior to brain peculiarities or anomalies. Roth's question, to what extent the conscious self of people can actually be considered culpable in criminal offenses, or whether the natural brain is not rather responsible, leads, if followed to its logical conclusion—even if Roth would resist this consistent extension of his thought—to the scientific legitimation of lobotomy and euthanasia. 3
This also clarifies why I am involved with Bremen brain research, even though I am not a trained natural scientist. The lecture will further demonstrate that the theory under discussion is not biology at all, but rather philosophical and psychological judgments, for which biological data, experiments, and regularities serve only as material, not as scientific proof. This is hardly surprising, since Roth deals with questions of the mind, addressing subjects such as will, consciousness, and insight, which no biologist has yet discovered under a microscope or captured in a test tube.
b. The findings of the Bremen brain research can be summarized as follows: It is not people who determine their purposes, attempt to achieve them, fail all too often, and rationalize their failure due to societal obstacles as a blessing or a necessity, but rather the natural brain that supposedly accomplishes all this for them. For the brain, this natural component of nerves, blood, fatty tissue, etc., possesses, according to Roth, the ability "to carry out actions from inner motivation" (310). Humans, on the other hand, only imagine their free will; in this, they are themselves merely a "construct of a real brain inaccessible to them" (331). In our thinking, willing, and acting, it is claimed here, we are merely appendages of natural processes, and our concept of mental autonomy is itself pure fiction. The mind is determined by biological processes, says Roth. Therefore, one cannot rely on insight when it comes to processes of "behavioral change" - by which Roth means education - therefore, the good intention of ascertaining valid knowledge cannot be maintained, and therefore, the question ultimately arises whether one can hold the conscious self of people responsible for their actions, when these are the work of the brain, i.e., the work of biological processes.
c. What does this finding mean? Whether a person decides to become a brain researcher or a politician, whether they acquire a bicycle, a tank company, or a research laboratory with primates, whether they vote for the CDU/SPD/DVU or don't care about voting at all, according to Roth, they never have reasons for their decisions that they defend—right or wrong—that form the basis of their actions, and whose results they measure against their own goals. None of that. The brain, a natural process in the head, has always decided independently and caused the person to act. Whether one and the same person with one and the same brain decides to abandon a habit of thinking or certain judgments because they have recognized their flaws, whether they learn something new because they expect it to improve their job prospects, or whether they see mental work as shirking their responsibilities—never has a person consciously considered these decisions; the brain has always made them think this way. And when he reflects on his actions, when he considers what he did wrong, when he has once again failed to achieve his goals, he falls prey to the delusion, the delusion, that he himself is the master of this connection between reasoned purpose-setting, reflective action, and the theoretical evaluation of the results of that action. He, as a willfully acting being, simply cannot be held responsible for his thoughts and actions, is the logical quintessence of this theory. Consequently, one is powerless in the face of both the most loving deed and the most egregious brutality, since both defy any affirmation as well as any criticism. Conscious influence is simply impossible, since arguments against natural processes are, after all, ineffective.
Let me warn you once again against a potentially misleading misunderstanding: Roth by no means intends to suggest that the justification, pursuit, and evaluation of goals always take place within social contexts, that many freely chosen goals do not work out as desired for many people, and that many false explanations for the failure of freely set goals ("it's my own fault, I haven't done enough, I'm untalented...") ultimately point back to the structural principles of capitalist society. Roth does not, therefore, want to criticize the widespread misconception that existing society caters to everyone's interests; nor does he intend to point out the correct connection that while the free and democratic market economy allows for the free setting of goals, it also necessarily causes many people to fail in pursuing them because the prescribed means of pursuing interests in this country—earning money, accumulating wealth, buying goods, expressing opinions—do not actually serve the welfare of all citizens. This accurate critique of freedom and autonomy in bourgeois society is precisely not his subject. He ignores the social context in which every person thinks and acts. And this despite constantly discussing numerous social facts—will, insight, guilt, capacity for guilt, upbringing, etc.—which he categorizes as natural facts, as biologically determined things. He claims that natural characteristics are responsible for people's failures under the constraints of this particular society, for their helpless surrender to them, provided they freely choose to comply with them.
G. Roth therefore misses the point of his own theoretical engagement with it: social issues are conceived as biologically determined.
2. Paradoxes and their apparent resolution
a. Of course, such a theory about thought, will, and action can only claim validity if it can be applied to the scientific activities of the brain researcher Roth himself. If we undertake this attempt, we arrive at the following conclusion: It was not G. Roth who, during his studies, encountered theoretical problems and open questions in psychology or philosophy, but rather it was his brain that caused him to think these thoughts. And it was and is likewise not G. Roth who, with will and consciousness, with scientific interest and research policy intentions, built an institute, writes books, and gives lectures, for example, because he believes he must communicate something as accurate as it is important to the world; no, here too, his brain, driven by "inner impulse," compelled him to do and think all this. And Roth's awareness of his actions, his supposed reasons for these actions, every justification he gives for a new research project are nothing but the illusion of an autonomously grounded action. In reality, he says, some synaptic connection drives him, and he knows this, as he publicly declares - without, however, being able to explain how he can have any accurate awareness of his mental activity.
All of this, strangely enough, doesn't trouble the researcher Roth. Yet a person should actually go mad with themselves if, firstly, they constantly have to tell themselves: 'What I'm doing is never what I'm doing according to my free will. I may imagine I have certain reasons for my actions, but in reality, I'm driven by an alien, "inaccessible principle of construction" in my natural brain.' And secondly, when, scarcely having thus accounted for their imagined free will, they must also condemn this mental process itself with the same verdict: 'Once again, it wasn't me who realized that it's always my biological brain that gives me my judgments; once again, it's pure imagination if I were to attribute this finding about my imaginations to my free mental activity.' 4
This leads to the crucial question: how does Roth actually know that humans merely imagine their free will, how does he know that it is only the "construct of an inaccessible brain"—when, as a freely researching scientist, he claims to be inaccessible to the design principles of his brain? If he claims to actually know this, that is, to have ascertained accurate findings on the matter, then, as a researching subject, the "real brain" is accessible to him as a separate object of cognitive activity. Then he possesses knowledge about the functioning of the brain and about the connection between the brain and expressed will. But if this is the case, then this assured knowledge also enables him to grasp the "inner drive of the brain" itself; then, as a conscious researching subject, he would no longer be an unconscious appendage of the mucus lump beneath the skull, but its intellectual master. Consequently, Roth's insight simultaneously contains the refutation of his claim. For, based on the understood connection between brain and will or consciousness, man, in his volitional actions, is no longer a will-less appendage of the pituitary gland, the thalamus, the limbic system, etc. He would have a consciousness of himself as an appendage, and thus be able to distinguish between true instinct and imagined will. But this, Roth asserts in his central thesis, is precisely what man cannot do.
His theory thus contains an inherently irresolvable paradox and is therefore a false theory: If Roth insists that his assertion is true, that is, that it constitutes knowledge, then he could not have ascertained it at all, because the assertion implies the theoretical inaccessibility of its own object. However, if one adheres to the theory and applies it to Roth's own cognitive process, then it must also consist of merely imagined mental feats, which in reality are something that—in the strict sense of the word—one cannot know. If one maintains this position, then his "mental feats" are not worth the paper they are printed on.
To put it another way: A theory cannot be taken seriously if it excludes itself as a possible application. Either it is a theory about the brain, that is, about all brains, in which case the researcher's brain also falls under its purview. But if an exception is to be made for the researcher's brain, then the theory would have discredited itself, or rather, refuted itself. The theory would have to include an exception to the very claim just presented, one that falls entirely outside its own theoretical framework: G. Roth's theory applies to all brains, except for Mr. Roth's!5 What, for example, would we think of a physician who claims to have fully explained the function of the pancreas, yet insists that this explanation does not apply to his own gland? The conclusion is: If the theory claims to be correct, then it is not. However, if it assumes from the outset that no judgment can be made about its consistency, then there is no need to deal with it at all.
b. Roth himself acknowledges this paradox. He makes it his own topic and even announces its resolution within the framework of his own theory. He begins this with the classic confession of every skeptical philosophy: With regard to his intellectual achievements "per se" (!), he cannot "claim universal validity" (22f), since all "intellectual achievements" are those of the brain, which are "subject to the biological conditions of construction and function (of) the brain."6 Unlike those radical constructivists—to whom Roth does not count himself—who quite openly declare that it is the "greatest mistake" of radical constructivism to apply this way of thinking to itself, thus being aware of the self-refutation and therefore forbidding themselves from this thought, Roth proceeds differently. He belongs to those honest philosophers who do not participate in such (self-)deception. The paradox haunted him for so long that he believed he had solved it—and three other paradoxes resulting from his theory (21f): At the end of the book cited, he emphasizes once again that he has abandoned the claim to "proclaim objective truths," but on the other hand—and this is what he considers the solution to the paradox—he claims to have ensured that his presentation "meets high standards of plausibility and internal consistency" (363). 7 But what does he mean by this? What do plausibility and internal consistency represent? On closer examination, these two criteria are nothing more than methodological paraphrases of precisely that claim to truth which Roth actually does not want to make for himself. We are therefore dealing with a reformulation of the old contradiction, but not with its resolution: On the one hand, Roth distances himself from the claim to truth, on the other hand, he does not want to reduce his statements to mere articles of faith, to theoretical arbitrariness, to the results of unconscious brainwaves.
Let us examine more closely the content of these two standards that he claims to have applied to his judgments. The criterion of internal consistency makes sense, but only in connection with the plausibility test, since the absence of contradictions can also be established between assertions that are based on rather implausible facts.8 And plausibility means nothing other than that the author, firstly, wants to be convinced of his own findings and, secondly, wants to convince his readers of them: they should be logically sound. This, however, means that his findings cannot be refuted by other judgments or facts, that is, that the asserted connections are verifiable and cannot be marked with significant question marks by a scientifically trained reader after an initial examination, and so on. Thus, even a procedure that "merely" aims to establish the plausibility of a theoretical statement presupposes that the objects, the objectivity, of which this theory is concerned are also accessible to verification by a separately existing, independently thinking subject. But this is precisely what Roth denies. The paradox is therefore not resolved, but merely transposed to the next higher level of reflection on reflection.
With that, I've essentially finished examining the theory. However, I'm not quite finished. Firstly, because Roth is certain that his findings have far-reaching practical consequences, not least in the field of education.9 And secondly, because Roth himself—as is proper in scientific discourse—substantiates his claims and provides evidence for them, which must be examined in its own right; in doing so, a few clarifications regarding the relationship between brain and mind will be unavoidable.
3. Brain determines mind: Arguments and evidence by G. Roth
a. Psychological and philosophical brain research, which asserts the determination of the mind by the brain, regularly begins with the opposite observation: non-determination. Roth's findings also start with the observation that no one can conceive of the mind—feeling, imagining, remembering, thinking, willing, etc.—without the brain. This is where this research begins: no brain, no thinking. This is no more arguable than, for example, the statement that walking without legs is difficult to imagine.
If one interprets the relationship asserted in this statement positively, then it follows—and this is hardly a mystery—that the brain, with its neuronal and biochemical processes, is the natural prerequisite for all mental activity, just as muscles, tendons, and bones are the natural prerequisites for locomotion. Brain and mind stand in a conditional or preconditional relationship: the one, objective nature and its functioning, must exist so that the other, subjective mind, can operate—no more, but also no less. Nature is one thing, the material realm, and within it the prerequisite for mental processes, which are something entirely different, namely the ideal realm, the world of thought.
Humans regularly experience this specific connection between nature/brain and mind firsthand. They know that fatigue makes thinking difficult, and conversely, reading a book, solving a puzzle, or writing a presentation is easier when well-rested. This relationship of prerequisites thus encompasses two opposing principles: On the one hand, mental activity depends on the biological functioning of the brain. The example of fatigue illustrates this. When biological function is impaired, thinking becomes more difficult. On the other hand, this relationship also includes something like freedom of the mind from its natural constraints. Humans experience this firsthand as well: When intensely concentrating on, for example, a mathematical, economic, or chess problem, one sometimes forgets not only the time but also one's fatigue or a cold. This freedom, however, has limits, which are precisely those imposed by the aforementioned dependence of mental activity on nature: At some point, one has to sleep; at some point, fatigue can no longer be "forgotten."
With these definitions, the question of the "relationship between mind and brain" is, for the time being, answered—note, only the question of relationship. This says nothing more about the brain as a natural entity, nor about the content of mental activity. If one wanted to learn more precisely, then, on the one hand, the characteristics of the brain and its functioning, and on the other hand, the characteristics of mental activity, would have to be clarified separately. The first task falls entirely within the natural sciences, within medicine and biology. The second task belongs to the humanities. It would be their task to investigate the forms of the "subjective mind" (sensation, feeling, attention, perception, imagination, memory, thought, etc.) and their contents.11 And just as it is not a question for medicine to discuss, for example, the identity and difference of feeling and reason, so conversely, it does not fall within the purview of the humanities to gain clarity about types of neurons and the functioning of the pineal gland. Precisely because the relationship between mind and brain has been clarified, and their non-identity is a settled matter, both disciplines go their own way and have their own methods.
b. And yet, Roth and his colleagues keep the question of the relationship between brain and mind on the scientific agenda. What more is there to explore? If the non-identity of mind and brain, which they themselves assume, is established and brain function is positively defined as a prerequisite for mental processes, then every further question turns either to the individual characteristics of the brain or of the mind. But the Bremen brain researchers see things differently. In their very second step, they question their own starting point, the non-identity between brain and mind that they initially established. Although they begin with the conditional relationship, they arrive at the exact opposite, namely the assertion of a causal or determining relationship. With their conclusion, the construction of a will determined by the natural entity 'brain', they contradict their own starting point that nothing mental is possible without a brain, and arrive at the false reversal that therefore the brain is the basis of every mental process, consequently the brain determines every mental operation - and then the waking mind, consciousness, is merely an appendage of natural processes.
Roth exemplifies this flawed logic in his book 'The Brain and Its Reality'. His judgments about the relationship between brain and mind resemble a "balancing act": Using results from neurophysiological and psychological brain research, he first establishes a "close connection" (277), then a "parallel" (278) between brain and mind; later, the mind "originates" (306) from the brain, and finally, "the brain carries out actions out of inner motivation" (310).12 This arbitrariness in logic contrasts sharply with the assertion that the brain is the ultimately decisive authority. For Roth, the latter seems to be a given from the outset and is given a semblance of plausibility by neurological facts.13
c. His "evidence" looks like this. Three are highlighted as examples:
First, he states that every human mental activity—remembering, reading aloud, calculating, playing music, problem-solving, etc.—is measurable as neuronal activity in the brain. That much is true. But what does this prove? Roth argues that because a thought or idea can be measured as a neuronal process, neuronal activity is the reality of the mind. Consequently, because neuronal activity is the real mind, Roth continues, the mental experience itself—thinking, playing music, reading aloud, etc.—can only be the imagination of mind, merely "mind"—in quotation marks. This line of reasoning, however, relies on a fallacy: For if mental activity is measurable as neuronal activity, it does not follow that the natural process is the mental process or that it produces the mental process; just as a walk, which is also measurable as a result of muscle contractions, is not thereby dictated by them in terms of direction, pace, and purpose. Roth explains here that neuronal activity in the brain, which is the physiological course of the mental process, is ultimately its cause.
This can also be refuted by analyzing the experiment itself. Roth must always first ascertain from the subject the mental content whose neuronal activity he wants to record, or define a specific mental operation with them: Should a Goethe poem be read, a math problem solved, or the last vacation recalled? This is necessary because the content of the mental activity cannot be discerned from neuronal activity. Without such confirmation, nothing but the biological process could be derived from it, which cannot be perceived as a different mental quality, but only as a different neurophysiological quantity, and therefore can only be measured. If one only knows which thought or feeling occurs as a specific neuronal configuration because one has previously and separately acknowledged the mental activity, then it can neither be reduced to the natural nor does it arise from it. No neurobiologist would know which mental activity occurs as which neuronal activity if they had not first acknowledged the mental activity in itself and as an independent mental activity. And he must acknowledge it as the reality of the mind, otherwise he would not know what the neuronal complex represents. 14 To prove his theory, Roth must therefore presuppose that it is false: He must first register conscious mental action as an independent activity, that is, accept it as a specific, autonomous mental activity, if he subsequently wants to measure its neuronal representation. If the reality of the mind is presupposed for the entire experiment, then measurable neuronal activity cannot be its basis.
Roth attempts to resolve this contradiction—always presupposing as an independent activity of consciousness what he then identifies in the brain—by attributing qualities of consciousness to the natural entity of the brain itself: The brain "evaluates" all the experiences we have, thus creating a "memory of evaluation in which all our life experiences are stored." And this memory of evaluation controls all our behavior. His conclusion: "This means that the actual drives of our behavior originate from the 'depths' of our unconscious memory contents..." (307). So which is it? Is Roth talking about memory, that is, a conscious mental process called remembering—in which we are quite aware that it sometimes "fades"—or is he talking about natural processes? These, however, certainly do not possess any quality of consciousness. Or is he seriously suggesting—and this would be a complete contradiction—that we possess a dual consciousness: an unconscious consciousness called evaluative memory, and a conscious consciousness that, moreover, only imagines its own consciousness? In that case, science becomes utterly absurd.
Secondly, his favorite piece of evidence for the determination of mental processes by natural processes in the brain consists of references to brain measurements that have shown that in the limbic system, an act of will is already announced a short time before its execution in a "cortical process" as a result of measurable brain currents. From this, he concludes that the decision to act, discernible in the volitional action, is merely "an accompanying feeling" (308) of this action, but that the actual "decision to act" has already occurred long before in the limbic system, which is why it is to be regarded as the "actual cause of an action" (309). The appellate authority is the brain researcher Benjamin Libet with his experiments in which he found that – according to the interpretation – a “readiness potential” was recognizably activated in the limbic system approximately 500 milliseconds before the “decision of will or feeling of decision of will,” which then serves as proof that the actual decision of will must have already been “made” by the limbic system long before the decision becomes noticeable as merely a feeling.
Let's consider the experiment and examine its "plausibility." It becomes plausible if only those interpretations that fit the theory are presented. In this case, however, it's not plausible at all: If brain activity is measurable before the spontaneous decision to move the finger—it must be spontaneous because of the intended simultaneity of finger movement with the volitional decision—then the perceived volitional decision was not the actual one, but rather the actual decision preceded the perceived one. In other words: If there is no prior brain activity, then the perceived decision equals the actual one; however, if prior brain activity is measurable, then the perceived decision follows the actual decision, which is itself a product of the brain. Any other explanation for the previously measured brain activity is not permissible here.
And therein lies the rub: For if—assuming the measurement results are correct—a test subject is asked to spontaneously decide to perform a finger exercise, then, for example, the "readiness potential" activated by this will likely be measured as a change in electrical activity, just like the subsequent decision to spontaneously perform the finger movement itself. Furthermore, since it is completely unclear what specific electrical currents were measured by the EEG devices, as only a quantitative change in the curve is ever visible, the plausibility of this evidence is far from assured. Therefore, the meaning of the previously measured changes in brain activity cannot be deduced from them. (307ff)
Thirdly: Roth claims to have gleaned further evidence from our everyday experiences: "We try daily to convince others of our insights and to change their behavior accordingly. This often fails, even though our arguments seem crystal clear and irrefutable. It can happen that someone agrees with us, promises to change their behavior, but doesn't act accordingly. (When questioned, they often claim to be doing exactly what was asked.)" (Impulse 2/2000, p. 8) This, too, is supposed to make plausible the finding that "the linguistic-logical-conscious has little influence on the instances in our brain that ultimately determine our actions." (ibid., p. 11) Here, the cited evidence again relies on the fact that, firstly, any explanation outside the now sufficiently well-known alternative—either "the conscious self" (or the ideal that Roth imagines it to be) or the "brain" is the "big boss"—is not considered; and secondly, that "the linguistically logically conscious self" is conceived in a way that, incidentally, only manipulation theorists can achieve.
Such thoughts only arise if one views every "crystal-clear argument" like a Nuremberg funnel, that is, as a kind of automatic persuasion mechanism. He begins with the idealistic notion: If the argument is crystal clear—for me—then it should, in fact, convince—everyone else! Then follows the false converse: If, however, it is not convincing despite being crystal clear, then it can only be because our conception of reason as an autonomous mental entity is incorrect, and that the change in behavior is controlled by the natural brain. This is roughly how G. Roth must be thinking—entirely autonomously, freely, and incorrectly!
One must now understand which quite obvious explanations for the aforementioned facts Roth must ignore in order to cling to his alternative explanation: That anyone who is to be convinced of something must first absorb, understand, and grasp the consequences of each argument themselves; that they can therefore also misunderstand or fail to understand it; that they fear the consequences; or that they lack the means to implement the new insight, etc.—all of this is overlooked by Roth. 15 Furthermore, he fails to consider that convincing arguments are rare anyway and that persuasion is not the prevailing method of "behavior change" in this country, which is why simple argumentation without psychological manipulation, moral pressure, or the immediate threat of sanctions (punishment, laws, etc.) is not the rule but the exception—from child-rearing ("Stop that, or else!") to everyday adult life ("I'll report you!").
The fact that a desired "change in behavior"16 often fails to be achieved through persuasive argumentation can therefore have many causes: First, persuasion requires two willing individuals; second, convincing arguments; third, abandoning behaviors that may have become habitual; fourth, occasionally, the argument is transformed into a calculation with several variables, including precepts that are not based on arguments but on laws/force ("I understand this and that, but if I act accordingly, I'll get into trouble, perhaps ruin my future; which is why I'd rather not!"); and even the finding that a claimed change in behavior does not correspond to the desired one is often due to quite harmless circumstances: Either an argument is not understood, its implementation has failed, or agreement is simply feigned. These are all simple solutions, easily verifiable in each case, and all of which belong to the conscious, intellectual engagement with theoretical and practical requirements, even if one finds them completely distasteful—like hypocrisy or that kind of reason which sacrifices sound judgment to propriety. Roth, however, one might assume, fails to arrive at these simple explanations because he conceives of insight solely as a narrow-minded organ that must be calibrated to crystal-clear arguments. But if this is not the case, if Roth's invented organ of insight consequently proves discredited by the reality of a lack of insight or the socially demanded necessity for insight, then it simply does not exist as an autonomous quality. Any alternative explanation that contradicts this conclusion has no place in this theory!
c. The result of appealing to biological brain research ultimately amounts to the following: Because it is constantly discovering more about how and where mental processes physiologically occur in the brain, it is supposed to be self-evident that all mental processes are determined by physiological processes! Thus, the "without-that" logic becomes a "by-this" determination, a prerequisite becomes a condition, and the specification of "locality"—the "place" in the brain—becomes a "reason," meaning that a physiological fact is reinterpreted as a logical relationship. This Bremen brain research has left all these errors behind when it undermines the established relationship between brain and mind, transforms human will into an appendage of physiological processes, that is, into a natural process, and turns the consciousness we have of our will into an illusion. Thus, Roth arrives at his conclusion that we do not think, but rather the brain thinks for us. that we do not set ourselves rational goals, but rather our brain dictates our actions and even provides us with the illusion that our will is free!
4. "Brain research" and "spirit of the times"
a. The findings of the Bremen brain research, which ultimately amount to a simple fallacy staged with great effort, that declares the natural predispositions of the mind to be the basis of thought and will, and which claims to have determined the physiological brain by identifying the natural processes of certain mental activities, are currently enjoying a social resurgence. It is becoming fashionable again, for example, to assert that those segments of the population who are filtered out by competition, declared useless or undesirable, or who have gone astray, do not live up to their private aspirations for upward mobility, or that they cannot earn an income above the poverty line. Right-wing extremists are, on the one hand, now considered "conviction offenders," but on the other hand, cannot be convinced because their conviction is "animalized"17 and therefore resocialization efforts are superfluous.
The prevailing "spirit of the age" in the political and academic sphere doesn't need to find its own scientific explanation for this naturalization of societal exclusion processes. It can draw on the achievements of the liberal humanities. Humanities scholars don't require such political upheavals to succumb to naturalistic theories. In psychology and education, but also in philosophy and political science, it's a tradition to blame human nature for what politics and economics do to it. These branches of pluralistic thought then gain traction, become fashionable, and suddenly experience a public appreciation they had long lacked.
b. Some examples should illustrate this:
First: Gone are the days when advocating for a quantitative limitation of elite education based on the aptitude argument was considered a sign of outdated thinking in educational policy. When the first educational catastrophe was declared in West Germany and more high school graduates were desired to advance the "competitiveness of the economy" (G. Picht, 1964) through the accumulation of "human capital," educational thinkers who did not see the learning success of young people as limited by innate talent and genes, but rather focused on the environment and discovered in the fostering of innate talent the means to help them achieve the nationally desired leaps, enjoyed considerable popularity. Suddenly, talent was attributed to the ability to achieve it, and educational policy implemented the decisions advocated by this pedagogical approach. Later, the tables were turned. While the internal educational debates have always been, with proponents of both natural and nurture theories, and especially those who present material to suit every political climate and favor the nature-nurture theory, educational theorists immediately recognize that too many "untalented" individuals are crowding universities, creating "mountains of students" that are leveling the playing field for the national elite. They are then certain that there simply cannot be that many "gifted" individuals in a nation and that universities are being opened to "far too many young people with little aptitude for science."18 At this point, talent researchers don't need much persuading. After all, they've always maintained that only rigorous selection can separate the wheat from the chaff.
Gerhard Roth also has something to contribute to this debate. He has discovered that learning ultimately does not depend on the learner's will and effort, and that appealing to insight is futile anyway. As reported in the newspaper, the "Bremen-based scientist considers it quite hopeless when parents or teachers appeal to children's insight (!) in their upbringing. What is more important is to motivate – and motivation means nothing other than putting the child in a state of emotional turmoil (!)" (WK, January 25, 1997). Only in this way, he argues, can the "limbic system" in the brain be affected. Learning, therefore, is dictated by the brain and is not amenable to fostering it through thorough, insight-based explanations, which is why the limits of pedagogical efforts are ultimately imposed by the individual brain. All those who repeat a grade and fail at school, produced by teachers with their grades according to the quantitative requirements of the respective education policy, may then console themselves with the inadequacy of their nature over their life prospects destroyed by the state school.
Incidentally, the Bremen-based scientist, who doesn't distrust human insight based on experience but rather believes it has no power whatsoever in learning, agrees with all those who have always adhered to the old pedagogical maxim that those who won't or can't listen must feel, i.e., be thrown into "emotional turmoil." It's difficult to fully consider this idea of "emotional turmoil" without recalling all the techniques used to generate enthusiasm and devotion, heartache, concern, and contrition. Since corporal punishment is prohibited and jingoistic patriotism hasn't yet returned to fashion, influencing reason by circumventing rational argumentation is now done more "subtly." The focus is then placed on gut feeling, rational thought is denounced as "over-intellectualism"—very much in the style of the German fascists, who attributed only "corrosive" qualities to the intellect—and judgment is entrusted to feeling, based entirely on experience and action. Some education policymakers are now looking longingly across the Atlantic again, because even with this modern pedagogical suppression of reason, the "uproar" of emotions is still somewhat neglected. In certain civilized countries, by contrast, it has long been common practice to emotionally "stirr up" uniformed pupils every day before school with flags and anthems.
I want to emphasize that G. Roth might not even dream of such a thing. But he doesn't need to. His science is given social function by allowing others, who don't even consider such things, to see themselves legitimized by this "brain research."
Meanwhile, brain researchers are increasingly being quoted in the feuilletons of German newspapers, expressing their views on learning. Wolf Singer, director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main, for example, advocates the old adage, "What little Johnny doesn't learn, big Johnny will never learn!", but considers training to be the "opposite of neglect," although it remains unclear "whether structural complexity can be increased beyond the normal level through practice." This ultimately leads him to the postulate that it is "useless, perhaps even counterproductive, to offer content that cannot be adequately processed because the corresponding developmental windows are not open"—about which "little data is currently available." (FAZ, July 28/29, 2001) This can be used as a good argument—PISA sends its regards—for a learning-focused kindergarten. However, he will have to argue with those education policymakers who are now focusing on the patchwork biography, which is supposed to consist of a lifelong alternation of learning, work, and social services (i.e., unemployment). Others, like Detlef Linke, Neurophysiologists from Bonn warn against prioritizing learning in kindergarten. They believe that "goal-oriented learning... only makes sense from the age of six." (SZ, January 11, 2002) And for this to happen, "students should be released from school at 17, after having been exposed to intensive language (and mathematics)..." This would be very welcome news for the chambers of skilled crafts, on the one hand, and for university administrators, on the other, who would immediately translate the earlier start of studies into a longer working life for graduates.
The practical conclusions that Roth himself has recently drawn from his theory regarding learning sound extremely strange, by the way.19 He speaks of learning occurring more readily and effectively when the learner 1. believes that learning is worthwhile; that consequently, 2. learning must be perceived as a positive, enjoyable activity, which is why 3. the attractiveness of learning and school must be increased and the trustworthiness of the learning environment enhanced; 4. the students' prior knowledge must be taken into account; 5. a learning situation free of anxiety must be created; and 6. the assessment of learning success must be perceived as fair. This list is strange, firstly, because it represents a collection of pedagogical banalities. Who would have thought that students' prior knowledge plays a role when everyone is treated equally? Who, without the brain researcher, would ever have come up with the brilliant idea that learning should take place without fear? etc. But that alone isn't what makes these "factors" so strange: they are also a collection of learning conditions that don't actually capture learning itself. His question is: What conditions must be met for learning to be more effective? About what is supposed to be improved—the learning itself—we learn—again nothing. Finally, there's another oddity: he claims to have gleaned all these silly, outdated pedagogical notions from his knowledge of the brain: "Our brain is constantly checking whether the effort is worthwhile," Roth proclaims to the astonished listeners, who until now had assumed that this was their conscious calculation! Not at all, it works entirely unconsciously! Which, of course, is also surprising, because a clear awareness of all these calculations and learning conditions has been documented in educational literature for approximately 300 years. Finally, however, another peculiarity must not be overlooked: It is immediately apparent that Roth's catalog paints an extremely realistic picture of schools today, without, however, addressing the question of why students—for example, in secondary schools—eventually come to the conclusion that school is no longer worthwhile for them; why learning and school are so unattractive to many students; why the relationship of trust in schools is so severely damaged that extensive disciplinary catalogs have to be created; why fear occasionally reigns in schools, especially before report cards are issued; why the evaluation of academic performance is still perceived as "unfair" despite decades of criticism, and so on. That there might be reasons for this, rooted in the educational policy objectives pursued with schools in this country, is of less interest to the brain researcher. Consequently, he also does not ask...Are "his" ideal learning conditions actually in the interest of the school's inventors, administrators, and reformers? The narrow-mindedness of his approach culminates in the implicit logic that school reform must, of course, follow the laws of (brain) nature, but not the purposes that are unfortunately quite successfully and rather indifferently enforced through schools in capitalism—the rules of reason are not even mentioned. This latest interference in learning and schools is not harmless either—although his foolish advice is unsurpassed in its harmlessness. For the message conveyed is, without a doubt: The fact that things are the way they are in schools is not due to the goals of current education policy, but rather to the fact that educators have no understanding of brain functions. 21
Secondly: With poverty now reaching widespread proportions and the emphasis placed on order even more, it's no longer so clear whether "criminals" should be identified not—as was once the case—as carriers of a criminal gene. Where state support for poverty is reduced to the same extent that poverty increases, it won't be long before scientific racism, even in this country, discovers that this is merely the just treatment of a human nature that, due to its natural predisposition, could not achieve more.
G. Roth cannot completely dismiss this judgment. He, too, considers it possible "that criminal behavior is independent of experience and is genetically and organically determined by the brain."22 He does not address the question of how genes actually know which acts are considered "criminal" by the legislature of a particular society, how they determine what constitutes a "criminal act"—since, for example, what is perfectly legal for uniformed personnel in the course of their duties is considered an offense by private individuals—and how they can distinguish between states governed by the rule of law and states governed by injustice, especially since such distinctions are always the result of winning cold or hot wars.
He also finds the phrase "criminal behavior" scientifically unobjectionable, even though it doesn't judge people's intentions or actions, but merely applies the prevailing legal system as a standard for order and categorization. Why one person steals groceries without cash and another robs a bank, why balance sheets are falsified and taxes evaded, is of little interest to him, as long as he clings to the idea of a criminal gene as a "possibility of thought."
Where competition intensifies, where citizens must prove themselves, where more and more of them are pushed out of their familiar circumstances and fall not even into a "social safety net" but entirely into their miserable private existence, there science is needed that fabricates socially constructed exclusion as a matter of human nature. This once again lets the dominant mode of production off the hook, its wealth based on the poverty of those who produce it. But the victims, too, can do little about their "situation." They haven't even done anything wrong, for their nature has intended nothing else for them. Thus, everything is in a just order, because ultimately everyone is in the place where their nature dictates they belong.
When such "brain research" is used as a university flagship, then—from this perspective—it has nothing to do with any particular achievements of "brain research." It benefits from the "spirit of the times," which currently demands new/old theories of naturalization. If this spirit changes, then it becomes obsolete and sinks back into the intellectual quagmire of pluralistic academic freedom, consequently finding it difficult to attract external funding.
Thirdly: However, the possibility of this science rising from a producer of useful legitimizing theories to a discipline used as a guide for social sorting processes cannot be ruled out. For this to happen, a political legislature would first need to conceive and accept that certain deviations in the thinking and actions of citizens are indeed a matter of their brains, and secondly, it would need to declare these individuals patients who can be restored to socially desirable behavior through brain surgery—unless, of course, it immediately uses the judgment of a deviant nature as grounds for the diagnosis that only "extermination" will help. It doesn't even require fascism to implement inventions about the supposedly naturally determined will of humankind. Democracies can do this too. In this country, when it comes to "child abusers," there is already complete certainty that a mental illness is present. Because when adult men do with children what is commonplace in the (sado-masochistic) love lives of adults on TV—namely, understanding it as a field in which they can provide the crudest proof of their male superiority and derive their racist self-confidence from it—then it is no longer "creative sexuality," but rather brain damage. This is a point of agreement not only among those who frequent pubs, but also among legal professionals—who would also welcome the possibility of deriving personality profiles from genetic structures, by means of which "criminal characters" could be apprehended at an early stage.
G. Roth, who consistently follows his theory of the naturalization of social processes to its conclusion, also encounters—as indicated in the introduction—the question of whether punishment as atonement is truly effective if no individual perpetrator can be held accountable who consciously planned and carried out their act, but rather merely followed the commands of their brain. He asks: To which instance should "guilt" be attributed? And answers: "It would have to be discussed very carefully whether and to what extent it makes a significant difference, both in the case of punishment as atonement and punishment as education for the better, whether one punishes the self as a construct (if this is even possible), or the brain and its organism as an autonomous system." (330f; parenthesis in the original!) Roth thus asks himself who the actual target of punishment should be. If the self is imprisoned, then strictly speaking, it is the wrong target. Shouldn't one therefore actually punish the brain—but how does one "punish" a piece of nature? Through chemical therapy, through physical intervention, i.e., with electrodes, scalpels, or the like? It is by no means reassuring that Roth wants to "discuss this question carefully" first (331). For the scandal lies in the question itself. Punishment, that is, the violent restoration of the respective rule of law under attack by the offense, is declared a medical matter, and with the finding of guilt or innocence, a legal judgment is rendered on nature. Only the question of its execution remains open for him.
Anna Katharina Braun, a rat researcher from Magdeburg, investigates—following Roth's line of reasoning—how "early emotional experiences influence the child's brain" (DIE ZEIT 45/2002). She knows—from rat experiments "which she doesn't hesitate to let her staff conduct"—that "emotional neglect demonstrably alters the brain" and dreams that in "neglected children" who become "mentally ill" as adults, "it might one day be possible to intervene and turn the brain back to normal (?)." This cynical ideal, which assumes that the brain can correct undesirable social behaviors—for example, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)—which the researcher herself identifies as the result of societal destructive processes within families, can certainly cite precedents from unsuspected times and countries.
For example, the following was recently reported from Sweden: "Brainwashing with a scalpel. Swedish homosexuals and communists (in the 1950s) operated on without their consent. A Dr. Rylander reports that a lobotomy was performed on the brain of a convinced Swedish communist – without his consent (!). Afterwards, according to the doctors, the man lost all interest in the ideology." (SZ, April 8, 1998) The report does not mention what else he lost or what he still showed interest in. There is a connection, an intellectual affinity, between the cited case and the "brain research" pursued and supported by G. Roth, Braun, and others—a connection that G. Roth refuses to acknowledge because he only wants to envision ethically justifiable lobotomy.23 As with G. Roth, this case assumes that the determined will—in this case, the politically ostracized will—is not in control of itself, that humans do not set and pursue their goals according to their conscious judgments, but rather that the determined will/mind has its origin in the brain, in the natural conditions of the mind. Therefore, the will, which does not function as desired, is attributed to a dysfunction of the brain. Political exclusion—communists are undesirable, disruptive, destructive elements—is then carried out by force, by coercive medical intervention, because the undesirable action is declared inaccessible to conscious engagement. Instead of engaging with the social criticism of the communists, it is declared the product of a diseased brain, and the latter is operated on. Communists and homosexuals suffer from a brain dysfunction; on the one hand, they can't help it, but on the other hand, they can't be trusted when they claim to only want reforms and free sexuality, etc. Herein lies the fundamental logic of all racist thinking, namely the absurd, contradictory assumption of a "natural will." The resulting separation between the expressed will, which cannot be trusted, and the true (natural) will, which only the physician/psychologist knows, justifies both the use of coercive measures and the justifiable belief in wanting to help only a "sick" person. 24
c. Once again, G. Roth certainly wants nothing to do with the consequences of his own—erroneous—reasons. This may perhaps be to his credit as a moralist; however, he can be faulted for misunderstanding the role of science in capitalism. It is simply not true that he is not "responsible" for what is done with or in the name of his research. Firstly, he himself places great value on the applicability of his results. And since they are intended to gain significance not on the moon, but in the very society that funds the necessary research, it is part of his job to be clear about the societal purposes to which he, with all his professed innocence, is intellectually contributing. Secondly, his judgments are not misused at all when they are appropriated in a way that is "in keeping with the spirit of the times." Their legitimizing use for all sorts of unsavory purposes unfortunately follows the logic of this research entirely appropriately. Only for this reason does Roth occasionally have to resort to denial. And thirdly, humanities scholars should also have finally grasped that in a democratic society, freedom of research is structured precisely so that they do not interfere with the social machinery that, driven by its own self-interest, examines the products of free research for their usefulness for ideological and practical, political and economic purposes, utilizes what is useful, and leaves what is useless in the "ivory tower" of academia. Freedom of science in civil society means the freedom of scholars from the constraints of material gainful employment, and thus their freedom to concentrate solely on their pursuit of knowledge. Its flip side lies in the institutional separation from all interests that determine societal concerns. Consequently, their freedom in research is, conversely, the freedom of politics and the economy not to allow science to interfere in their affairs. It is precisely in the freedom of research from any political dictates that science is subsumed under the purposes of civil society. And it is precisely Roth's assurances that he ultimately only wants to help people, eradicate Alzheimer's, and improve learning (in a way that is appropriate to the brain) that reflect this relationship. Who would resort to the tactic of asserting that their research is ultimately intended to serve humane goals if they were in control of the ideological and practical application of their scientific work!
Theses on Gerhard Roth, The Brain and Its Reality, Chapter 12: Mind and Brain, FaM 1997 26
G. Roth denies the existence of "free will" in humans. He does not mean that under prevailing social conditions, the content of people's "free will" is predetermined—as, for example, in the desire to earn a lot of money—while at the same time, protected property rights prevent them from freely accessing money. Rather, he denies the "autonomy of human action" by referring to the functioning of the brain, that is, to human nature. We consider this finding inaccurate and Roth's "proofs" inconclusive. We question the rationality of the interest guiding this research and perceive a problematic direction in the initial attempts to apply this thesis in legal (p. 330) or educational contexts (see WK 25.1.97; cf., for example, also: B. Otto, Is Education Destiny?, Weinheim 1995).
1. "One conclusion from these investigations and findings could be: The autonomy of human action is not based on the subjectively perceived act of will, but on the brain's ability to carry out actions from inner motivation." (p. 310; all embellishments in original)
1.1. Roth turns the relationship between mind and brain on its head: Human action does not follow conscious decisions—however influenced—but is the result of an "inner drive" rooted in natural brain processes. Thus, human action is reduced to a natural drive. Yet Roth also knows that humans possess an awareness of their conscious actions. They can anticipate them, they are aware of their actions, and they can later comment on or discuss them. For him, conscious action now exists in two forms, as an immediate contradiction: as the result of a brain drive and as a "subjectively felt act of will," that is, as both nature and mind. This contradiction, which is not inherent to the subject matter but rather to Roth's theory, must somehow be resolved if he wishes to maintain his neurobiological theory of drive. For either his assertion about the astonishing capabilities of natural processes in the brain holds true, in which case the conscious act of will does not exist. Or it does exist, in which case the brain relates to it merely as a natural precondition. Roth's "solution" consists of equating mind with "neuron networks", i.e., with nature, and asserting that volitional, conscious action is merely the subjective "experience" of the mental process, but not the process itself:
1.2. It is "(within the framework of such a non-reductionist, physical methodology) ... possible to regard mind, on the one hand, as a state that can be grasped by physical methods and that occurs in very large, interacting networks of neurons, and, on the other hand, to accept that this state, 'mind,' is experienced by us as something completely different. This, however, does not distinguish 'mind' from the experience of light, the hardness of objects, or music." (p. 302)
Roth, referring to the mind (which is placed in quotation marks throughout the quote), argues that it is different from how it is experienced—it is, in fact, a state of interacting neuronal networks, but is experienced as a feeling, a thought, etc. A particular thought, for example, "G. Roth is a recognized neurobiologist," is thus, for him, merely the experience of simultaneously measurable neuronal activity. And because the thought is simultaneously measurable as a neuronal process, neuronal activity is supposed to be the reality of the mind. Consequently, Roth continues, because neuronal activity is now the real mind, the mental experience can only be the imagination of mind, that is, merely "mind"—in quotation marks. The argument relies on a fallacy: for if mental activity is measurable as neuronal activity, it by no means follows that the natural process is the mental process or produces the mental process; just as a walk, which is measurable as a result of muscle contractions, is not thereby dictated by these contractions in terms of direction, pace, and purpose. Roth, a fan of everything measurable, confuses the neuronal activity in the brain, which is the prerequisite for the mental process, with its cause.
His inherent contradiction, of course, hasn't disappeared: For the mind one wants to measure isn't grasped as such—as a sequence of logical thoughts (like this text), as a specific mental content (like a vacation memory), or as a feeling (e.g., disgust or affection)—but always as something else, as a neuronal process: What one measures, one simultaneously doesn't measure! Therefore, one must always first ascertain the mental content whose neuronal activity one wants to capture from the test subject. The content of mental activity cannot be discerned from neuronal activity; without such reassurance, nothing but the biological process can be deduced. But if one only knows which thought or feeling manifests as a specific neuronal configuration after having previously and separately acknowledged the mental activity, then it can neither be reduced to the natural nor does it arise from it. No neurobiologist knows which mental activity manifests as which neuronal activity unless they have acknowledged the mental activity itself. And he must acknowledge it as the reality of the mind, not as its subjective imagination, otherwise he wouldn't even know what the neuronal complex represents. To prove his theory, Roth must therefore presuppose that it is false: he must first believe in conscious action in order to measure its neuronal representation as the reality of the mind, from which the mental appellate instance is then subsequently declared to be imagination, a merely subjective experience.
1.3. But Roth becomes entangled in a contradiction in yet another respect: Where does he actually get his knowledge of the regularities of certain natural processes, such as those of neurons? According to his own assertion, he must have obtained them from the neurons themselves. For him, nature and the knowledge of nature coincide—at least on one level. Yet on the other hand, he constantly refers to the work of his colleagues, whose research results he checks for logical consistency and freedom from contradiction—as is only fitting for the theoretical sphere—and who, in fact, provide him with the very material that he subsequently interprets to justify this conflation. He repeatedly finds himself caught in the same logical circle: He must have already presupposed the existence of mind in order to then conjure it up as a reflection or result—the imprecise terminology is part of the theory—of neuronal activity.
2. However, Roth claims that this is due to his subject matter and shifts the contradiction to the relationship between the limbic system and the cortex:
2.1. "Since we are only consciously aware of processes that take place in the cerebral cortex, significant portions of our action control originate in parts of our brain that are fundamentally inaccessible to consciousness. The basal ganglia themselves are very closely connected to the limbic system. This system evaluates (!)—as we have heard—everything we do (!) according to whether it had favorable or unfavorable consequences, pleasure or pain, satisfaction or discomfort, success or failure, and stores (!) the result of this evaluation in memory, which is itself part of this system. The evaluative memory, in which (!) all our life experience (!) is stored, controls (!) our behavior. It decides (!) what I will do in the next moment, taking into account the respective stimuli from the environment and my body. This means that the actual drives of our behavior originate from the 'depths' of our unconscious memory contents and the associated feelings and motives." (pp. 306/307)
Roth views the relationship between mind and neuronal processes within the brain as follows: The limbic system (LS) produces the mind insofar as it evaluates separately from will and consciousness and subsequently controls the cortex. The LS, a biologically defined location in the brain, is endowed with attributes of mind, will, morality, and so on. It recognizes favorable/unfavorable, success/failure, etc.—categories that presuppose a consciously set purpose. (Whether, for example, a successfully executed bank robbery is favorable or unfavorable, a success or a failure, depends, as is well known, on whether one is a robber or a bank manager, i.e., on whether one wants to conduct business with money or acquire it by force.) At the same time, however, it is the opposite of the conscious, namely the unconscious, inaccessible to consciousness. This does not become any more logical if the biological LS is defined as a quasi-mental evaluative memory. For the evaluation Roth refers to is supposed to occur separately from the evaluating subject, who consciously relates experiences to their own purposes.
He reasoned that pleasure and displeasure, success and failure, act as a kind of natural driving force, without the pleasure or displeasure having any inherent content. (cf. p. 311: "...specific reward patterns must have developed in the LS, which make the achievement of certain (!) goals appear very pleasurable. It is completely irrelevant (!) which (!) goals these are...") Once again, the world is turned upside down. Action is not determined by specific intentions, the outcome of which is subsequently judged as "success or failure," but rather the individual is driven toward "success"—why not also toward "failure?"—without being interested in what is actually supposed to succeed. However, if they don't even know this, they also lack the criteria for judging success and failure.
2.2. How the LS, as a location in the brain, can possess criteria for evaluation seems initially inexplicable. Roth, however, offers a solution that appears plausible but once again undermines his theory. The LS is supposed to evaluate "our actions" and store these evaluations in a memory, which then controls these actions. If the LS itself is the system that evaluates the actions, then the question arises as to the causes and criteria of the evaluated actions. Conversely, if it is claimed that the LS only provides control based on stored behavioral evaluations, then Roth must again make the very assumption he denies. The concept of a memory relies on the fact that it must collect evaluation criteria because it does not possess them on its own. A curious entity, capable of evaluating but simultaneously required to store them, which, as the subject of its own evaluation, is also the object of itself!
2.3. The idea that a person with considerable "stored life experience" would completely discard it because it has just dawned on them that their previous standards of evaluation are worthless is not provided for in Roth's theory anyway - unless the memory is erased at death and rebirth:
"The memory system and the evaluation system, in conjunction with the prefrontal cortex as the center of conscious action planning, control our behavior. All three systems influence the subcortical centers [...] which then make the actual decision [...] Since this has been happening since birth [...], an enormous store of experiences accumulates in our memory. Besides the few strictly innate behaviors, these experience-dependent (!) memory contents determine our behavior. Based on this experience, we are then able to react, sometimes very differently (!), to the same environmental events." (p. 310)
Roth glosses over the fact that evaluating experiences presupposes standards by which they are judged, by presenting previously acquired experiences as the basis for evaluation. However, every experience, the first as well as every subsequent one, is consciously evaluated by the subject according to their own interests. According to Roth's logic, the limbic system is supposed to derive its standards from conscious experience, and yet not from it, but from a store of experience that has become independent of conscious experience and then, like a kind of natural decision-making organ, guides action. The fact that people "react differently to the same environmental events" is supposed—according to Roth's model—not due to the conscious evaluation of certain "environmental events" driven by differing interests, but rather to the fact that experiences about all sorts of things have accumulated in people over time. How, however, accumulated experiences about food and fashion trends, about transportation and drink, about family and Goethe, about stock markets and gardening are supposed to contribute—for example—to the evaluation of fascist attacks on foreigners remains unclear.
Conscious, intentional action is thus beyond action itself, that is, beyond the reasons for action, controlled by the conscious mind. What is to be distinguished in substance as brain and intellect, as thinking as content and as thinking as a (chemical) biological process, and which in itself is the object of cognitive activity—in the brain natural laws are discovered, the functions of the intellect are tested against reason and logic—is now transformed as the subordination of the inauthentic (experiencing, imagining) brain to the actual (unknowable) brain. Consciousness, free will, exists in the uninfluenceable conscious mind. The mind is the illusion of the impulse to act, for it is only the "individually experienced" sensation of being determined by the brain.
3. A piece of nature creates, brings about, the content of consciousness. Thus, the theory becomes the scientific and methodological pillar of a notion inherent in all racism: that will and consciousness have their content prescribed by nature. Certainly, Roth's theory does not claim, for example, that women belong in the kitchen and that the unemployed are lazy. However, regardless of any morally lofty intentions of the author, it provides a suitable epistemological foundation for such ideas. The idea that will is a natural product is promoted by Roth's theory—as is assumed in racism regarding the "industrious German," the "lazy Negro," "the technically inept woman," or the "parasitic Jew," who are not denied will, but rather in whom a "true will"—that is, what one wanted to do and did to them—was "discovered" as corresponding to their natural will, which could then be ruthlessly executed against their expressed "inauthentic" will. Always for the benefit of the victims, of course!
However, a difference from the logic of racism must be noted. No racist legitimation of politically decided and violently enforced sorting measures—natives and foreigners, men and women, the gifted and the ungifted, whites and blacks, Aryans and Jews, etc.—falls prey to the substance of racism. It only uses and implements it to the extent that it is politically or economically expedient, and withdraws it, replacing it with another, when it no longer suits the political climate (cf., for example, the official judgments on foreigners in 1960 and 1995, etc.). Roth's theory, on the other hand, asserts the existence of the natural will as a scientific fact, initially quite separate from any racist application. For him, it is not merely a tool for the ideological enforcement of highly hostile political sorting objectives. Rather, Roth maintains the finding for himself and asserts its relevance to practical application. This has consequences.
4. Roth's ultimate premise has thus become clear. Anyone who wants to trace the mind and will beyond their "experienced" subjective expressions is fundamentally distrustful of everything people offer as justifications for their actions, as the content of their interests, as the motive for their will. Roth's observation that the current state of research does not yet permit "a kind of 'mind-reading'" (p. 275) also points to the ideal at work here. Why does a scientist even consider mind-reading as a long-term scientific goal? Clearly, it is not enough for him to simply question people if he wants to understand their thoughts. He regards every expressed thought with fundamental skepticism. This skepticism does not pertain to the content of the thoughts; from his perspective, he is indifferent to that. It stems from the doubt as to whether the "experienced" mind is the true mind, whether perception might not be a deception and judgment an error. This standpoint also includes criticism of all positions that do not take such self-doubt to heart, but simply cling to their ideas as their own, if not insist on their validity. Despite all the rhetorical qualifications Roth makes, he is so convinced of his theory that he translates it directly into the morality inherent in skepticism, which is supposed to make us humans "more humble in our understanding of our place in nature." (Preface to: PM Churchland, *The Soul-Machine*, 1997, p. 3) This morality is extremely relevant today and not limited to thought. As we know, in understanding our place in the competition for resources, it boils down to "saving" and "tightening our belts"!
5. Regarding the application of this theory, the question of how to treat human beings as a result, the conclusion would actually be that human will could be influenced by acting upon its nature (= its brain). This suspicion is by no means far-fetched:
"The self is a construct that emerges as the brain and its experiential world develop...This has far-reaching consequences for the question of which instance within us (!) one should attribute "guilt" to...It would have to be discussed very carefully whether and to what extent it makes a significant difference, both in the case of punishment as atonement and in the case of punishment as education for the better, whether one punishes the self as a construct (if this is even possible), or the brain and its organism as an autonomous system." (pp. 330/331)
Roth suspects that, according to his own theory, he must put 'guilt' in quotation marks. Since he wants to stick to punishment, he wonders who the intended recipient of the punishment should actually be; if the self is imprisoned, then strictly speaking, it is the wrong person who is being punished. (See also: "The possible realization that criminal behavior is independent of experience, genetically and organically determined by the brain..." Foreword to: PM Churchland, The Mind Machine, 1997, p. 3) Shouldn't one actually punish the brain—but how does one "punish" a piece of nature? Through physical intervention, i.e., with electrodes, scalpels, or the like? Punishment thus becomes a medical matter, and with the finding of guilt or innocence, a judgment is passed on nature. It is by no means reassuring that Roth wants to "discuss this question carefully" (p. 331). The scandal lies in the question itself: for it does not even allow for the possibility that people can be granted reasons for behavior that is undesirable to the state. Rather, one must identify "genetic-organic brain deformities" and, if necessary, correct them surgically. (As with the "acid attacker"!?, cf. WK 21.1.98) And what does this ultimately mean for those people who are not "only" guilty of theft, but of whom it is claimed that they embody guilt as individuals (today "terrorists," until recently "communists," formerly "Jews"...)? Furthermore, Roth apparently no longer considers one question open: namely, that there is an "instance within us" that is virtually one with those state rules and norms that, as laws, ultimately determine guilt and innocence. Since Roth only has the problem of which instance is to be punished, he can evidently sleep soundly with the idea of the naturalness of the norms of valid state power.
From a pedagogical perspective, he becomes more specific: "The Bremen-based scientist considers it rather hopeless when parents or teachers appeal to children's insight (!) in their upbringing. What is more important is to motivate – and motivation means nothing other than putting the child in a state of emotional turmoil (!)." (from: "Is free will an illusion?", Weser Kurier, January 25, 1997.)
Education, therefore, means influencing the limbic system by exposing it to strong positive or negative stimuli. A skilled educator could certainly come up with a number of ways to "emotional turmoil," as the maxim "those who won't listen must feel!" is now scientifically vindicated. Thus, one can't do much with a child's insight; one must influence their brain, thereby creating insight as a natural process, without the child actually understanding anything. The will to learn, therefore, doesn't arise from an interest in the subject matter, but from the disposition of the child's nature. Consequently—this conclusion is inherent in the logic of the matter—the will expressed by the child is also worthless, as it is merely a felt, not real, and therefore not to be taken seriously. And if a child makes it clear in word and deed that they "don't understand something," then imparting insight would simply be a relapse into "overly intellectualized education."
This concept of education shouldn't even be judged by its practicality. Nevertheless, this advice on education can't be considered useless either: after all, it can be used to legitimize education as training. This isn't possible with humans, since every pedagogical instruction inevitably addresses the child's will, which is then judged and either complied with or refused by the child. But there is still a practical truth to training. This is what is being advocated—implicitly?—by this approach. It lies solely in the constant presence of the threat of breaking the child's will; which—incidentally—always causes a considerable "emotional upheaval." Where adults actually get the insight that children lack, given that they too are only controlled by their limbic system, remains a mystery.
Footnotes
1 The following text is a revised version of a lecture I gave in 2000 at the invitation of the AStA (General Student Committee) of the University of Bremen. My critique is primarily based on G. Roth's publication "The Brain and Its Reality" (FaM 1997). The page numbers in the text refer to this work. G. Roth's more recent work, "Feeling, Thinking, Acting" (FaM 2001), is not included.
2 See, for example, Impulse 2/2000, p. 8.
3 See also Part
4. 4 This game could and should actually be continued indefinitely, since every methodical statement about the relativization of mental activity would have to be followed by the next—if G. Roth were to apply his logic to himself.
5 Strictly speaking, one would, of course, have to include all readers and discussants of his theory in this exception as well. Why else would Roth want to explain his theses to an audience, seek their approval, and debate them?
6 Admittedly, he formulated the paradox incorrectly in this version, because it is not about the question of the "universal validity" of knowledge—which, incidentally, is an absurd question anyway, since it is always only about the validity/consistency of certain knowledge, but not about the universal validity of knowledge in general—but about the question of the knowability of a connection whose theoretical inaccessibility is claimed.
7 On the question of plausibility and consistency, see Sada's interview with B. Pörksen in: idem, Farewell to the Absolute, Heidelberg 2001, pp. 139ff.
8 Based on the assumption that foreigners are parasites of every state, the conclusion that they should be removed from their state is logically consistent for its administrators. There is nothing plausible about this, and not a word of it is correct.
9 Incidentally, he is not in the least bothered that he is once again in complete contradiction to the content of his theory. Practical consequences presuppose not only intellectual control over the theoretical context, but also the free allocation of means to practical purposes.
10 But beware of the reverse: being fully alert does not produce clever thoughts—this state is merely the prerequisite and not the guarantee or the reason for clever thoughts.
11 Indications of how to proceed and important results can be found in Hegel (Encyclopedia III).
12 It is true that in the humanities it is unfortunately all too common to arbitrarily exchange different determinations, to make reasons out of foundations, to subtly discover certain, e.g., causal, relationships in indeterminate contexts, to assert geometric quantities as logical ones, etc. The trained philosopher G. Roth should not really allow such things to go unchallenged. The same "inaccuracy" can be found in the interview with B. Pörksen. There, it is stated with astonishing candor: "Currently, no one knows..."how the mental is formed from processes in the brain." (p. 163) Then again, he is certain "that everything I perceive is constructed by a brain" (p. 144). Only to assert shortly afterwards: "The close correspondence between brain processes and the phenomenon of mind in no way corresponds to the thesis that mind and consciousness are nothing more than firing nerve cells. I would never say that." A close correlation between the neuronal and the mental does not imply identity, even though neuronal activity undoubtedly constitutes a necessary condition for states of mind and consciousness." (p. 159) Finally, it says again: I "show that the mental is most closely connected with physiological processes." (p. 164, Sperr.FH) So which is it? Close correlation or close correspondence, non-identity, necessary condition or most closely—or: We still have no idea. But that's how it goes when "no one currently knows (anything)," but the constructivist worldview is still to be clung to at all costs.
13 That brain researchers also view this connection quite differently could be gleaned from a report on the conference of the International Society of Developmental Neuroscience in August 2000 in the FAZ (9.8.00). It states quite naturally there: "Neurobiologists use the term plasticity to describe that astonishing capacity for change in the brain, which, among other things, makes learning possible (!). The physiological basis (!) is considered to be a phenomenon called long-term potentiation...."
14 It is not to be denied that research in this area will one day progress to the point where it can attribute a specific mental process to a specific neuronal activity without having to inquire about it beforehand. However, it does not follow from this that the former is the cause of the latter—especially since the research process that may one day yield the aforementioned result must always proceed from a previously clarified correlation between mental activity and neuronal activity.
15 Incidentally, one could also ask the reverse question at this point: what is the point if persuasion works?
16 This too is already a revealing term, borrowed purely from behaviorism! What behavior is to be changed, and above all, how? The educator here idealizes himself as a social engineer.
17 Cf. the Adriano ruling. (in: F. Huisken, Arsonists as Firefighters: The Right-Wing Extremism Campaign, Hamburg 2001, (p. 49ff)
18 So said former Chancellor H. Schmidt in a lecture at a ceremony at the University of Hamburg. (cf. HAB, 9.11.95)
19 From the transcript of a debate on the topic: "Does school spoil learning?" from 18.11.02 in the Bremen Parliament
20 Some of them even turn their frustration with school against themselves, others against the teachers or classmates,
21 However, how does a lack of knowledge for this, How a school system that has functioned for 50 years can be responsible is another riddle that G. Roth poses for us.
22 G. Roth, Introduction to: PMChurchland, The Soul Machine, 1977
23 Roth would naturally have difficulty with the otherwise customary phrase that such a thing would only be carried out with the consent of the "patient"—since our free will is merely imagined.
24 See also Thesis 3 in the following position paper regarding the affinity for racism.
25 The fact that, in the presentation of the usefulness of this research, diseases such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's are always mentioned in the same breath as the solution to social problems could ultimately give cause for concern. For the confusion between physiological dysfunction of the brain and social, political, or educational problems, which are to be addressed by intervening in or accessing the physiologically functioning brain, could hardly be demonstrated more clearly. For the brain researcher, both fall under the umbrella of dysfunctional brain activity—the Alzheimer's patient, the unwilling student, or the communist. The following theses are the product of lectures on constructivism and "mind and brain." These theses also formed the basis of a debate conducted with G. Roth. The preceding detailed lecture text of my own was written later. Therefore, any overlap in content is not coincidental.
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