Quotes from Patricia S. Churchland

What I can and cannot imagine is a psychological fact about me. It is not a deep metaphysical fact about the nature of the universe.

My caution kicks in when I encounter either one of two sorts of dramatic theories: those that claim to have found the secret of consciousness, and those that claim that the brain mechanisms for consciousness can never be found.

What I can and cannot imagine is a psychological fact about me. It is not a deep metaphysical fact about the nature of the universe.

Certainty is the enemy of knowledge.

It is tempting to believe that our conscience can be tapped to deliver universal moral truths, and that as long as we heed our conscience, our choice will indeed be the morally right choice. The uncomfortable fact that has to be reckoned with, however, is this: conscientious people frequently differ on what their conscience bids them do, and hence differ in their choices.

Heartfelt conviction is not, alas, a guarantee of moral decency.

I may long for certainty, but I have to live with doing the best I can.

Science itself does not adjudicate on moral values. When all available facts are in, we may still face the questions "What should we do?

Living in a community normally boosts one's chances of surviving and thriving. We can share food and huddle against the cold; we can organize to attack prey or to defend each other against invaders.

If our sociality motivates caring for others, it is also true that we are given to hate. We humans regularly derive pleasure from hating those we consider outsiders. We tend to find hating energizing.

The first and most basic evolutionary point is that the primary targets and beneficiaries of sociality are the offspring. Why? Because mammalian babies are immature at birth and will certainly die without care. Baby turtles, after hatching from their eggs, immediately dig their way up out of the sand, scuttle down to the water, and begin to look for food. No parents are anywhere close by, nor are any needed.

All animals must have the basic circuitry for self-care, or they will fail to survive long enough to reproduce. In the evolution of the mammalian brain, the range of myself was extended to include my babies .

Woolly as it is, the best advice is perhaps to allow yourself broad life experience and exposure to the human condition in all its beauty and horror. Do your best, but even then you will make mistakes.

Were I a solitary creature like a salamander, none of this would trouble me. I would have no moral conflicts, no social conscience. I would feed and mate and lay my eggs. I would not fret about other salamanders, not even those hatching from my very own eggs. I would see to my own needs, and care not a whit for others. But I am a mammal, and like other mammals, I have a social brain. I am wired to care, especially about those I am attached to.

Certainty about one's moral stance might be soothing, but it tends to blinker us to damage we are about to cause.

Martin Luther confidently claimed that the Holy Spirit writes the moral truths on our conscience. Free of all misgivings, Luther claimed that the assertions of the Holy Spirit "are more sure and certain than life itself and all experience." 9 Realism intervenes: different devout hearts often deliver opposite moral assertions.