Scientific Brain Model Chapter IV

 CHAPTER IV - How do concepts form?: The scientific method and how does the brain investigate how the world works

 * Finally, we arrive to the one million question: how does a (conscious) concept form?  

Now, you may have noticed that (for reasons that should not be too hard to guess) so far I have kept skirting round the very tough question of, what leads to the emergence of a (conscious) concept. Indeed, how or when does a concept form? How, when or why does it click on you, do you become (consciously) aware of, that, for example, there is something such as wrinkles, that hint on the advanced age of a person? Using my own terminology, how or when is a new entry created in the 'consciousness-accessible' knowledge base? What leads or when do you have such an aha moment? As a matter of fact, hopefully, you had not heard before about my trick to distinguish between fake and true smiles, and therefore you could shed some light on the question; namely, what happened inside your mind, how did it feel, as you awoke to the realization, that the appearance of little lines on the skin next to the outer corner of the eyes, indicate a true smile? Unfortunately, however,the test is flawed, since undoubtedly you were already aware of the concept of wrinkles. So, perhaps, the question should be turned to: what happened inside your mind, how did it feel, when you first awoke to the concept of wrinkles? However, if you are like me, probably you will not remember. Rather, as you grew up and encounter many different folks, little by little  your brain came to associate thin lines on face skin with advanced age, and it was only that, at some point, you learned (most likely someone told you) that those thin lines are commonly referred by the name of "wrinkles". 

There is indeed a reason why I have been skirting round this questions. Yes, they are reminiscent and take us back to the original inquiry of what leads to consciousness? After all this exposition, it turns out the key to decipher the enigma of consciousness resides in finding an answer to the not-less-difficult question of  what leads you to wake up to and become aware of a new concept? However, if you have put close attention to my argument, you may have felt, that my interrogation on the nature of your aha moments is in contradiction to everything I have been arguing so far. Indeed, the question presupposes the existence of a intelligent, decision-making agent. But how are we so sure that such a intelligent agent does exist? 

* The answer according to which a concept is formed when our brain's intelligent agent has an aha moment and becomes aware of it, not only is not scientific, but is nothing but pure magical thinking and, therefore, most absolutely useless.

Scholars in Human Studies adamantly reject neuroscientists' observation, according to which humans basically operate on autopilot. For some truly lamentable reasons, since the rise of monotheistic religions and still to this day scholars in Human Studies have always insisted to lecture scientists in the Life Sciences on how the world works. How could human beings possibly operate on autopilot?; that cannot possibly be correct, since humans' self-awareness is proof that there is indeed some pilot driving our choices and decisions. Now, if we assume and rely on the existence of a intelligent agent, it becomes much easier to explain even the most complicated and momentous phenomena. What led to the invention of farming?: well, someone somehow reasoned it out and everybody followed afterwards. Why did humans start building states?: someone's light bulb went off, obviously. How was writing invented?: Someone had such an aha moment, dah! If the vehicle turn this way and then that way; it is obviously because the pilot simply made those choices. 

Now, if such line of thinking is correct, then you would be most absolutely justified in cursing at me for having been tormenting you for hours on end with this convoluted theory of how consciousness emerged and the autonomous vehicle little by little became able of driving around without any physical pilot's intervention. Certainly, why the heck did I not just sum it all up by saying, that there is a intelligent, decision-making agent in each and all of us, and one day it simply, magically woke up, rose up and began walking. As a matter of fact, life would so be much easier for neuroscientists, as they could then conveniently shift the burden of proof to neurobiologists: namely, since neuroscientist cannot find neural correlates of any intelligent agent, it is left up to neurobiologist to explain how individual neurons dwell on problems until they finally take a decision.

* The fact that most inventions evolved in fits and starts constitutes evidence, that they were not the result of a series of aha moments; but the pattern can be better explained by a trial-and-error model (of the kind followed by a beginner chess player).

THe problem, however, is that the data simply nowhere provides any support for the physical existence of any intelligent agent anywhere. Indeed, contrary to what until now has always been believed, modern scholars in Human Studies point out , that prehistoric humans did not wake up one day and decided to start farming. Rather, for a period of a few thousand years, they were experimenting with agriculture. Yet, how could anybody experiment with 'agriculture', if one does not know 'agriculture' in the first place? Yes, our preconceptions are so pervasive that we constantly mould our reasonings to conform to their designs. Yet, all the evidence speaks against such proliferation of aha moments:

If all had been a matter of someone's light bulb going off, then the process of gradually developing and improving techniques for the production of food had obviously not lasted thousands of years. Similarly, contrary to what ancient historians narrated, today there is no doubt, that the Roman Republic did not come into being fully formed, as a result of any prodigious aha moment. Rather, it slowly unfolded in fits and starts over a period of hundreds of years. An even stronger case can be made on one of humanity's most extraordinary and remarkable enterprises: to the extent that we are still working on getting it right (and actually making quite a bit of a muck at the present time), there is no way anybody can reasonably sustain, that state formation was someone's glorious idea.

* Investigating how things work yields better results than asking what things are. 

With the development of writing, human knowledge flourish for hundreds of years, (arguably) ultimately reaching a climax with the rise of Greek philosophy. However, the end of the Classic era, gave way to a long period of stagnation, which lasted well until the middle of the second millenia, when the scientific method was developed. Incredibly enough, the whole problem resided in one single word, and it all got resolved as soon as it was replaced for another. Indeed, the critical breakthrough introduced by the scientific method consisted in the wording of our questions: all until then humans have started all their questions with "what"; empirical research will instead inquire "how" things work. This little detail fixed and the world would never again be the same.       

 

It is certainly natural to start our questions with "what". In fact, as little children we do not stop asking "what is this?" and "what is that?". Clearly, for obvious reasons, we are eager to know, and asking for intriguing pieces of information definitely appears as the fastest path to learning and wisdom. After all, there are good reasons to think, that some loving and caring adult will know the answer, and be happy to provide an explanation. However, it is not so effective to investigate on our own "what" is the nature or meaning of something. If there is only Nature to inquire, it is only foolish to expect Nature to ever open its mouth and provide an explanation. If only intuitively, it is easy to see, how we will be more likely to obtain a greater benefit, if we investigate instead "how" stuff works. It all makes sense, so long humans believed in gods, they persisted asking what is the nature of things. However, as the gods kept failing to provide any kind of useful answer, certain humans grew increasingly frustrated and began to look for explanations on their own.   

* The scientific method seeks to capture in a simple model the essence of how the investigated system works, so that testable predictions on the system's behavior can be made. 

It is certainly not a coincidence that the scientific method follows the same approach as the brain: it basically consists in the elaboration of a model, where we will try to capture the essence of the system or phenomenon we want to understand. In other words, the model is a simplified version of the reality; in that the minor details are left aside and only the important stuff is kept. THe whole point is (in statistical learning terms) to discover and extract the basic structure of the data - so that we can identify the data-generation model - or (in colloquial terms) what are the actual causes and reasons for the phenomena we observe. In short, how does the thing basically work? 

From our experience with the system under investigation we should be able to make an educated guess as of the principles that govern it, and are therefore responsible for producing the data we observe. If the theorized principles lead the model to reproduce the system's behavior, we will be justified in growing confident - but (importantly) by no means certain - of their accuracy; otherwise, we will have to re-formulate and implement them again in a new model. For example, from his observations of the environment, Newton postulated that, whenever a force 'F' is applied to a body of mass 'm', said body would accelerate at a rate of 'a'. This formulation in itself represents a very specific and unambiguous prediction on how bodies move, which (importantly enough) can then be unequivocally tested. For that purpose, a model is build implementing such law. Then, if the model reproduces the behavior we observed in Nature (e.g. any body subject to gravity falls at the acceleration rate predicted by the law), we can grow confident, that the postulated law applies, indeed. If, however, the model's behavior does not mimic the observed data, then we will have to go back to the drawing table.  

* The brain's non-logical probabilistic modeling yields more information on how the real world works than purely drawing logical inferences.

Now, crucially, contrary to almost unanimous belief, 'scientific' reasoning whatever that actually means) is not about thinking logically (you know, it is always only me who thinks logically and whoever does not agree with me is just being irrational). To begin with, learning in the brain does not follow the strict laws of Formal Logic. According to logic theory, it would not make any sense to say, that just because B follows A (A->B) it can be assume that A likewise follows B (B->A). Yet, the kind of associations learned by the brain does make such assumption. For instance, if we are able to establish that being intelligent leads to making a lot of money (Intelligence -> Money), eventually, unavoidably, we would start assuming that, if someone has a lot of money, in all likelihood, it is because that person is very smart (Money -> Intelligence). The key distinction is that, whereas logic functions in black-and-white terms, and therefore only understands true-or-false propositions; the brain is better suited to deal with all the uncertainty in the real world, because it operates with probabilities. Consequently, as illogical as it may sound, fact of the matter is our brain's 'illogical' probabilistic reasoning is actually better suited to make out how the real world works. As a matter of fact, if we are ready to accept, that, in the real world of ours, intelligence leads to wealth; then it is not really far out to believe, that whoever has a lot of money, in all likelihood, is very smart. In other words, what the brain actually learns is to estimate the probability that a wealthy person may be very smart as well, which in fact is much more informative than what pure logic will ever be able to tell us.

* Whereas philosophizing about things only produces respectable opinions; the scientific method - not unlike the brain - yields testable predictions, that we can then use to optimize our interaction with the world around us. 

Considering the benefits of the brain's probabilistic reasoning - to the extent that scientific research follows the brain's model - it becomes easy to appreciate the beauty of the scientific method. Indeed, the key advantage of asking questions correctly, is that it yields useful information; namely, if we learn how things work, we will be better able to optimize our interaction with those things, in order to achieve our goals. In stark contrast, if we only philosophize about "what" is the nature of things, all what we will get is nothing but opinions. Do not get me wrong, I have also been taught the propriety of always valuing to bits and expressing the most vivid interest for anybody's points of view; but just because all opinions are always respectable, it does not mean they are all coherent or informative. 

* Since it is strictly impossible to prove the inexistence of something, the mere hypothesis of the existence of a 'thing' does not add anything to our knowledge, but only leads to a meaningless sophistry contest.

Indeed, in the abstract world of theory, departing from a set of axioms, it is possible to prove by logical inference the validity of a certain proposition. . However, in real life, by pure logic, it is strictly impossible to prove that something will always be true, as well as it is strictly impossible to disprove that something will never be correct. Clearly, just because we have not yet found a counterexample, it does not mean that one day one will appear. Likewise, just because we have not yet found any case, where the argument in question is actually correct, it does not mean that one day one will appear. Now, since it is not possible to prove anyone absolutely right or absolutely wrong, all opinions are respectable. Then, since we all shape our arguments based on what fits our interests best, the philosophical debate degenerates into a meaningless sophistry contest, where reason and logical thinking are set aside, and personal loyalties come instead to drive the conversation: if you are with me, you will agree with and support my arguments, and, if you are with them, you will agree with and support their arguments.

* A definition of 'what' a thing is will only be of any use, to the extent that it provides some indication of how the thing works.

     

One excellent example of the futility of starting our queries with "what" is the perennial question on "what" is human nature. Needless to say, intellectuals have been arguing this issue for ages, some people think human nature is good and some other think human nature is bad, but we have never been able to reach any sort of convincing conclusion. Certainly, both sides have basis to make some really good cases, as human beings are obviously capable of the most wonderful, as well as the most abominable acts and conducts. Now, tellingly enough, those who most benefit from the System will typically credit it for everything good about humanity, as much as they will blame on evil human nature everything wrong about us; whereas those who hold the short en of the System's stick (or simply nurse a grudge against it) will conversely portray humans as innocent, loving and beautiful creatures brutalized by the ruthless, evil System (Notwithstanding, however, nowadays that Media has popularize the upper class' way of thinking and elite values and culture has permeated even the deepest levels of the society, we are all at last slowly getting convinced that human nature is definitely evil).

In fact, in the humanities and social 'sciences' scholars still mostly focus their efforts on finding the best definitions for the systems or phenomena they study. However, if it is so extremely difficult to define concepts such as civilization, state, power, love, intelligence or consciousness is because we do not have any clear idea as of how any of those 'things' work. Then, everybody proposes his or her definition. Clearly, we all want to be the genius, who gets it right and goes down in History as the one, who coined the term by which everybody knows the 'thing'. In actuality, all those definitions represent unconscious attempts to capture the essence of how the system or phenomenon in question works. For instance, what is a tumor? Well, the critical piece of information about tumors is that there are two basic types: benign tumors and malignant tumors, where the most significant distinction between these two types resides in "how" they "work"; namely, benign tumors are unlikely to lead to the patient's death, whereas the odds of a fatal outcome is significantly higher in cases of malignant tumors. Now, on the other hand, considering the remarks above on our brain's 'illogical', probabilistic reasoning, is it correct to define the thing we call 'Reason', as "the power of the mind to think, understand and form judgements, by a process of logic"? or does the Dictionary's definition reflect our misunderstanding of how the thing really works? 

Or, perhaps, we may need to consider a third, rather unsettling, possibility. Indeed, as Civilization has grown more and more invasive and the System has tighten up its grip over our minds, it has become often the case that the name given to a thing is chosen based on how they want us to perceive said thing. Clearly, the best way to define a thing is to specify how it works, and there is no more effective name for a thing than one that includes its defenition. Then, if they want us to love it, the name will define the thing works wonders; whereas if they want us to hate it, the name will explain how evil the thing is. For instance, for those who benefit the most of the system, there is no better name to give to the society's political system than "Democracy". On the other hand, anybody who they want us to perceive as our enemies will quickly receive the name of "terrorist". Evidently, the best evidence of the inexistence of any kind of logic inference engine in our brain is all the grotesquely illogical myths - still to this day - we continue falling for hook, line and sinker. For instance, - as the brightest light bulbs among us keep repeating - our so-called Democracy is not perfect, but it is better than nothing. Yet, is a bit of something bad better than nothing at all?, is a little piece of false information better than no information at all?, is a fake better than no fake at all? A good question here to ask is why is the educated elite so determined to have us believe our fake democratic system is an actual democracy? Be it as it may, forbodingly enough, as it turns out, all what it takes for the people to believe we live under a democratic system is the educated elite give the name of Democracy to the evil monster.  

* Neither the countless number of positive examples, the flaws of opposing theories, the authors' reputations nor the number of followers, - unless a definition specifies how the thing works - there is no principled objective method to determine the correctness of a definition.

Evidently, given that - unless we know how the thing works - there is no principled, objective mechanism to assess the correctness of a definition, eventually, in the battle for eternal glory, any kind of tactic is fair game and any argument can - and often will - be used. Probably the most obvious approach to boast one's theory' correctness consists in citing countless supporting examples. However, contrary to what may be intuitive, just because there are infinite examples consistent with a theory, it is still not possible to firmly conclude the theory will necessarily always be true. On the other hand, needless to say, another frequent, quite effective tactic is to attack someone else's definition. In this wild world of ours, if the winner is going to take it all, one may as well resort on misrepresenting the rival's definition. Clearly, it is much easier to point out flaws in an account, after it has been conveniently manipulated to state whatever one needs it to state. Worst of all, since we choose our loyalties based on, who we perceive is stronger, wiser or, all in all, is going to keep us better fed; at the end of the day, the adherence and following a given theory will be able to obtain will often be determined by the author's reputation, rather than the correctness and accuracy of the theory itself. Thus, as we shall see next, we should be cautious in taking as absolute truth the dominant expert opinion on a given subject at a certain time.

 

* The fitness of a scientific theory is determined by its simplicity and predictive power.

* If a scientific theory's prediction fails, the theory can conclusively be deemed proven wrong.

Considering these shortcomings, the crucial contribution of the scientific method is that it represents a principled, objective procedure, whereby a theory can either gain credibility aside of any subjective biases or be proven definitely false. Indeed, since the focus is set on explaining how things work, the predictions on the system's behavior raised by the theory's model can be objectively verified by further experimental data: if the behavior predicted by the model is not in accordance with the new observations, the theory will have to be corrected. In some cases it may be possible to solve the problem with some adjustments; but more often than not, the theory will have to be reformulated entirely. Importantly, since the cold data will never admit any negotiations for a change of the veredict, the scheme does not allow any room for prominent figures or arbitrary opinions.

* The myth of Science and "scientifically proven" facts: Since it is impossible to prove that something will always be correct, it is not possible to prove the absolute correctness of a scientific theory, nor is there anything such as a "scientifically proven" fact. 

Yes, it is of utmost importance to expose the obscene dishonesty behind the myth of Science and the so-called "scientifically-proven" fact. Of even greater relevance than a principled, objective method to conclusively prove a theory wrong, it is to understand, that the scientific method does by no means provide any mechanism to prove any theory right. There is indeed the very widespread and deeply rooted misconception (even among intellectuals and scholars in the humanities and social sciences), according to which there is something such as Science, representing humanity's accumulated well of wisdom, and there are certain facts, which have been "scientifically proven". Yet, nothing could be more misguided. Absolutely, the basic principle of the scientific method is that any theory can be deemed - but not be proven - valid, until it is proven false. Evidently, since the objective is to figure out how things work, if the theory's model's predictions fail, the theory is of no use and can be discarded. In other words, Science is not any kind of well of accumulated wisdom and there is anything such as scientifically proven fact, since how do we know, that some widely accepted theory today, will not be all of a sudden proven wrong tomorrow? For instance, we all thought Newton's (second) law was correct, until Einstein found it does not apply in all conditions. Now, in this particular case, since Newton's (second) law's predictions are basically accurate under regular circumstances, it is still widely used; but normally the theory would otherwise be tossed.

Given scientific research is deemed by most of us as the most reliable source of advanced information, the assertion that one's ideas have been scientifically proven is certainly powerful enough to justify any effort to give credibility to such a bogus claim. And, let there be no doubt about it, such an effort is and will be most absolutely made over and over again. As scientific knowledge has grown more and more detailed and complex, the actual, precise scientific evidence and data relevant to a specific question is not readily accessible, let alone comprehensible to the immense majority of the people. As a result, only a very reduced number of researchers is actually able to make himself or herself a well-educated, precise idea of the correctness of the rivaling scientific theories on any such specific question. Indeed, unless you are a climate scientist, who has read many scientific papers on climate change, how on Earth are you going to know if human beings are a major factor in climate change? Obviously, for the immense majority of us, the only realistic option is to listen to what the most eminent scientists on the subject has to say. But, how are we going to know who are said eminent scientists? At the end of the day, we just have to rely on what mass-Media says is the dominant scientific view on the subject. Yet, even if we are to daringly assume mass-Media's account does not follow any agenda and faithfully reflects the opinion of the most eminent scientists in the given question; there is no guarantee whatsoever, the dominant scientific view on any such question will be the correct one. Just because a majority of the scientific community shares an opinion, it does not necessarily mean such view must be at all well-taken. As a matter of fact, if we have to accept that the overwhelming majority of the theories are eventually proven wrong; then it follows that in the overwhelming majority of the cases the dominant scientific view is likewise eventually proven wrong. You see, it used to be that the most reknown scientists thought yogurt is the key to a long life; but later realized the reality is actually a little bit more complicated. It was not that long ago we were told Science warned about the dramatic effects the growing ozone hole in the atmosphere would have on life on Earth, and then we found the apocalyptic predictions turned out to be incorrect. Fact of the matter is that, as much as we may love to think our fake-democratic system is the best thing since peanut butter, democratically polling opinions (let alone fake-democratically polling opinions) is simply not a reliable mechanism to assess the correctness of a scientific theory. In fact, contrary to what is generally said, it is not really the big professors who have the most detailed and profound knowledge on specific problems. To the extent that they are put to work day and night towards their Ph.D. thesis, it is actually the Ph.D. students, who really rack their brains, scrutinize the data to the tiniest detail and, consequently, come up with the brightest ideas and have the most profound knowledge on the specific topic of their Ph.D. research. In contrast, the big professors are busy writing proposals and presenting their students' results, in order to obtain further funding for their lab's research projects. Then, given that human beings generally follow those ideas, which keep them better fed, it is easy to see how scientific research is often tainted by economic interests.

* The simpler a theory, the stronger it will be: namely, a very complex theory, which defines a specific case to explain every new observation, - as accurate as it is - will not have any predictive power and will therefore be of no use.

It is certainly reasonable to ask, if there is no mechanism to prove a theory right, how can we tell one theory is stronger than another? Indeed, if all theories can be  deemed valid until proven false, it should be reasonable to say that all theories are equally good, so long nobody has found any counterexample. Yes, I guess there are times, where we just cannot get what we want. Yet, while there is no objective mechanism to accurately measure and establish the fitness of a theory, the good news are it is still possible to make a fairly objective assessment of a theory's strength in comparison to another; namely, the theory's model should be as simple as possible. The key consideration is that we should not just build a model to replicate what we have already observed; but to generalize and predict what we will see in the future. Remember, we want to know how the thing works; don't we? In statistical learning terms, the objective is to replicate the data-generation model and so our model has to capture the structure of the data; rather than simply memorizing each and every data point (observation). If all what the model does is to take note of what should be the response to each of the examples it was trained with, the model is of little use. Indeed, if we "overfit the data" in such a way, the model will not generalize and, therefore, will not be able to make any prediction. For instance, there is little point in memorizing a multiplication table; if we do not extrapolate (generalize), replicate the data-generation model and are therefore able to multiply any two numbers.

      

As a matter of fact, if we are allowed to have a model as complex as needed, it is actually rather easy to come up with a theory, which very accurately replicates our observations: we just need to define a new case for each and every example we observe. I am sure you have also noticed how well economist are always able to explain what happend yesterday in the stock exchange markets (or, for that matter, anything that has been observed on any date in the past). It is just for some really unfortunate reason, that they are never able to reliably predict what is going to happen tomorrow; which is really what we want, isn't it?

In this sense it is useful to consider the theory of Intelligent Design, which is falsely alleged to be a scientific version of Creationism. According to Intelligent Design, life or the Universe could not have arisen by chance; but must have been designed and created by some intelligent entity. As it can be seen from its very definition, the theory is conceived in counterposition to some other ideas or set of theories. It is certainly a very widespread and deeply rooted misconception to believe, that trashing someone else's theory will boost one's own theory's credibility. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth: fact of the matter is that, even if Darwin's Theory of Evolution were to be proven false, it would not add the tiniest bit to the validity of Intelligent Design or, for that sake, any other theory.. Yes, I could not care less if the other guys' theories fail to predict the markets' behavior; if you expect me to buy your theory, I exclusively want to know how accurate are your own forecasts. Absolutely, every theory has to be assess in its own terms. Of course, nobody is ever going to be able to prove that some intelligent creator does not exiss. In general terms, it is strictly impossible to disprove the existence of something, whatever we may fancy this to be: . For instance, just because nobody has yet found any flying, pink elephant, it does not mean that one day one will appear. Yet, at the end of the day, the scientific value of a theory is determined by its ability to make accurate predictions. Thus, who cares if nobody has ever found the tiniest flaw in any of your explanations of the stock exchange markets' past performance?:; if your theory does not make any projection into the future, there is simply no use to your theory. Indeed, Intelligent Design limits itself to explaining how did everything come into being; but does otherwise not give the slightest indication, as of what may happen in the future. Now, on the other hand, my friend, if your model is consistently able to predict the markets' behaviors, I would definitely be more than interested to buy your ideas. 

* a theory that explains everything through the assumption of the existence of a intelligent agent inside our brain, not only has no scientific value, but is nothing but magical thinking.

To make a long story short, the simpler a theory's model is, the greater its scientific value. It should therefore be easy to see, why we should try to explain the emergence of consciousness, without the huge assumption of the existence of a intelligent agent. If there is some voice or inner feeling unremittingly chewing over stuff in our head, it is certainly intuitive to think, that there must be some animated thing somewhere in there pondering our choices and driving our decisions. However, it is important to keep in mind, that just because it feels as if there is a pilot, it does not necessarily mean there is actually a pilot. Perhaps, it is just an autonomous vehicle. Just because a nation keeps a relationship of friendship with another, it does not necessarily mean there is any kind of animated body within the nation feeling any sort of friendship for the other polity. It will certainly be impossible to prove the inexistence of a intelligent agent; but it will basically be as futil to go in search of it, as well.

Even in the very unlikely scenario, where someone may be able to find such a intelligent agent,  - as much as the theory's proponents will celebrate to be proven right - the discovery would be of very little help, as it would add close to nothing to our practical knowledge. As a matter of fact, the reliance on the existence of a intelligent agent to explain our ability to reason, amounts to little more than sweeping the question under the rug.. Indeed, the theory provides an easy explanation to the eternal, burning conundrum of the emergence of consciousness; however, when we then ask next what led our intelligent agent to wake up and have such an aha moment, most likely the only answer we will ever be able to find is, that it simply chose so. This is when our best thinkers set out to define and elaborate on all the different types of human beings: the French, the English, the Hispanic, the Russian, the Chinese, the Christian, the Muslim, the Jew, men, women, the homosexual, the heterosexual, whites, blacks, the conservative, the progressive, the rich, the poor, etc.. Needless to say, each of these stereotypes have their very own peculiarities and tendencies to make certain choices and act in a given way. Still, at the end of the day, - considering that the emergence of ideas and intelligent conducts relies on the freaking intelligent, decision-making agent's light bulb going off - since we do not have a blooming clue how the intelligent agent's light bulb works (let alone the nuts and bolts of the damn agent thing), we are totally left in the dark on, how we may be able to elicit intelligent behavior. Yes, let us be honest, would it not be cool to find the switch that turns on the freaking light bulb? Indeed, for thousands and thousands of years we have been wishing and praying to God to send us a king with a vibrant, happy-go-lucky light bulb, when we might as well have focused on what policies and recipes have shown to lead to the nation's prosperity. Not everything is lost, though; at least we have a pretty good idea of all the different types of "intelligence; namely, spatial intelligence, logical and mathematical intelligence, musical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, emotional intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence and so much more.  

To make a long story short, if Human Agency is a theory's only answer to why something happened, it denies the whole concept of Science. In other words, as bluntly and severely as it may sound, a theory that explains everything through the assumption of the existence of a intelligent agent, does not have any scientific value; rather it is nothing but magical thinking reinvented and revisited.