The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will contain,
With ease, and you beside.
The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.
The brain is just the weight of God,
For, heft them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.
-Emily Dickinson
The simple question:
Who am I? Who are you? It seems like such a simple question. But what makes you you? What makes me me? Is it a self? Is it consciousness? This basic yet fundamental question has vexed philosophers and poets since the beginning of time. It seems that no matter how we think about it, we eventually end up at the same place we started, a question.
Modern science has been able to dissect the brain, follow its intricate patterns of electrical activity from synapses to receptors, make three-dimensional computer maps of the brain, and devise cunning artificial intelligence programs to simulate thinking. Enormous strides have been made in behavioral science, psychology, medicine, philosophy, and scientists from all disciplines have prodded and poked, weighed and measured, tested and experimented endlessly on that two pound jumble of nerves and mush in our heads. But the questions still remains: Who am I? Who are you? What is consciousness?
As Daniel C. Dennett eloquently states in the introduction to his book, The Mind's I, "Consciousness is both the most obvious and mysterious feature of our minds." According to Dennett, "So far there is no good theory of consciousness. There is not even agreement about what a theory of consciousness would be like. Some have gone so far as to deny that there is any real thing for the term "consciousness" to name."
What could be more clear to us than the fact that we are conscious, that we have perceptions, that we enjoy feelings? But then what is it? Where is it? For some reason, the question of consciousness seems to elude science, which in one way is comically frustrating, but in another way makes us realize how little we really know about it.
"The mere fact that such a familiar feature of our lives has resisted for so long all attempts to characterize it suggests that our conception of it is at fault. What is needed is not just more evidence, more experimental and clinical data, but a careful rethinking of the assumptions that lead us to suppose there is a single and familiar phenomenon, consciousness, answering to all the descriptions licensed by our everyday sense of the term."
Inside/Outside:
Our concept of consciousness seems to be broken down into two separate ways of looking at the question. We have on one hand, an objective point of view "from the outside," and on the other, a subjective point of view "from the inside." Objectively we seem to have a pretty good grasp at describing whatever-it-is each conscious subject knows from the inside, but the problem lies in how to confirm any of this. What is it inside of us that confirms anything? Any discussion about this inner point of view, and any attempts to put a finger on consciousness leads us on a merry-go-round of unanswerable questions.
Rather than try to answer the question of self and consciousness, which so far in philosophical thought, hasn't gotten itself out of the parking lot when it comes to addressing the original question of "What is it?" it seems more appropriate to find ways to think about it in a different light. With this in mind, I will start by introducing the question of self and consciousness as raised by Descartes, then by Hume.
Seen as the "father of modern philosophy," Descartes is generally credited with starting the whole dualistic notion of a separation of mind and body. Descartes was concerned with how to order in some way, using the deductive analysis of mathematics, the vague metaphysics of self. He is in a way a subjective theorist, and in treating the subjective objectively, he created what we call the "mind-body problem." The mind-body problem continues to be a problem today, and is influential in the development of new scientific theories, artificial intelligence, linguistics, psychology, quantum physics, and of course any new theories about the idea of self and consciousness.
Hume however does not place so much emphasis on the analysis of the idea of spiritual substance. He focuses more on causal relations. According to Hume, all that we observe is "constant conjunction." We view nature in terms of cause and effect. When A is followed by B in secession, we place meaning or "cause" in the action. But it does not stand that B will always follow A. This casual expectation lies only in our minds. Nature just occurs. It has no "reason," but in order to understand natural processes, man puts "cause" to the events he perceives. By speaking in terms of "cause and effect" or "laws of nature" we have added expectation to the events in nature, and for Hume, causal expectation does not exist in the things themselves, but only in our minds. He hints that something exists in our minds, but dismisses as implausible any theory which presupposes an immaterial self or soul. With his causal connections, Hume eliminates the traditional metaphysical aspects of self as seen by Descartes, and as such can be seen as one of the forefathers of logical analysis. He is generally deemed the "father of modern empiricism" from which most reductionist scientific reasoning finds it root.
Focusing on this subjective/objective dilemma, and how it is crucial in how we view consciousness and self, I will touch upon the work of Thomas Nagel, who in his mind opening essay, "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?" asks how we can objectively know anything about the subjective. Nagel wants to know objectively what a subjective experience is like, and in posing this question, pinpoints the inadequacy of language as we know it. Interestingly enough, this is similar to conclusions Hume makes when describing perceptions as distinct existences.
Finally, I introduce the thinking of the ancient Chinese poet, Chuang-Tzu, who is credited as one of the founders of the Taoist religion. His views regarding the cosmos, and man's place within it, offer some interesting insights into the mind-body dilemma, especially towards the question of consciousness, the self, what is objective, and what is subjective. He also bemoans the inadequacy of language in discussing these affairs, but from an entirely different point of view.
Descartes:
With the rediscovery of man and nature during the Renaissance, there was a great need to reorganize man's ideas and beliefs into a more coherent system of contemporary thought, one based upon the methods that the new natural sciences were developing. Descartes is commonly regarded as the first of these thinkers who were trying to build a new philosophy from the ground up.
Descartes wanted to develop a precise and clear system of thought that was similar to the ways science was providing exact descriptions of natural processes. Concerning himself with what we can know, which he called "certain knowledge," Descartes argued that we cannot accept anything as true unless we can clearly perceive it. In order to clearly perceive anything, we must first begin with the simplest idea. From this idea we can then proceed to more complex ones, and further, develop a system of thought in which nothing was presupposed.
Descartes aim was to attain philosophical truth through the use of reason, and develop a system in which nothing would be presupposed that was not indubitable. "But since my present aim was to give myself up to the pursuit of truth alone, I thought I must do the very opposite, and reject as if absolutely false anything as to which I could imagine the least doubt, in order to see if I should not be left at the end believing something that was absolutely indubitable."
To reach any certainty, Descartes starts by saying that we must first doubt everything our senses tell us. To follow this line of thinking, me must subject to doubt any and all opinions in order to establish a base from which to develop a method of reasoning. By doubting everything, Descartes came to the conclusion that one thing must be true. He was doubting, and must therefore be thinking, and as a thinker he must be some kind of thinking being. This reasoning leads to his basic assertion "Cogito, ergo sum. (I think, therefore I am)."
By affirming the existence of himself as something which thinks, Descartes presumes that there is a "something" which exists separately from his body. "What then am I? A conscious being. What is that? A being that doubts, understands, asserts, denies, is willing, is unwilling; further, that has some sense and imagination." The "I" in "I think" is what is left when all else but thinking has been thought away. This "I" according to Frederick Copleston is "a concrete existing I which is apprehended, and not a transcendental ego; but it is not the I of ordinary discourse." Descartes is certain of his own existence as a "conscious being, not extended in length, breadth, and depth nor owing any other characteristics to the body."
For Descartes, man is a being that both thinks and exists in space, but his mind operates independently from the bodily functions. The two connect, or exchange messages through a small gland in the brain, the pineal gland, which is how one is affected by the other. Mind, in Descartes opinion is thought. Feelings and desires are related to extended reality, and are therefore bodily functions.
In examining the question of mind further, we see that the mind has natural abilities and capacities, namely intuition and deduction. "These are the two most certain ways to knowledge." Descartes goes on to describe intuition and deduction in more detail. Intuition is an intellectual activity which is so clear and simple that it leaves no room for doubt. "It is an indubitable conception formed by an unclouded and attentive mind, one that originates solely from the light of reason." Intuition is required in making deductions as we must clearly examine each proposition before proceeding to the next "link." Descartes describes deduction as "any necessary conclusion from other things known with certainty." These two natural abilities of the mind, intuition and deduction, differ in that "the latter, unlike the former, is conceived as involving a movement or succession; and is again unlike intuition in not requiring something evident at the moment."
Descartes has developed an extensive theory of the subjective idea of mind. Mind, self, thought, and "I," are all various aspects of reality. For Descartes there are two different "substances" of reality. Thought and extension. Thought is mind and extension is matter. The former is purely conscious and takes up no space while the latter is extension and takes up space. One is divisible, the other is not.
The statement "Cogito, ergo sum" also presupposes that the mind and self exist as an incomplete and dependent being. In doubting everything, he is certain only of himself as an incomplete being and of God. His existence "depends on [God] from moment to moment; so much so, that I am confident that the human mind can know nothing more certain or more evidently."
He concludes that he is aware of himself as a dependent imperfect being, and in being dependent and imperfect, there must be a perfect and independent being from which he receives this idea. Descartes also sees himself as "an incomplete and dependent being," and in doing so is presented with the idea of an "independent and complete being, namely God."
Moreover, this awareness of a perfect independent being could not have come from himself since he is imperfect. Therefore there must also exist a perfect being from which he has originated from. Further introspection reveals the need to prove the existence of a God who is perfect and not a "deceiver" in order for Descartes to be convinced of the unquestionability of his proposition.
In his third Meditations Descartes tackles this problem of an imperfect finite being presupposing the existence of the perfect infinite, and concludes that "from the mere fact that I exist, and have in me some idea of a most perfect being, that is, God, it is clearly demonstrated that God also exists." "When I turn my mind's eye on myself, I understand, not only that I am an incomplete being dependent on another, and indefinitely craving for greater and greater, better and better things; but also, at the same time, that he on whom I depend comprises all these greater things, not merely in an indefinite potentiality, but actually and infinitely, and therefore that he is God."
Descartes' idea of his self, once fully developed, is "a being that doubts, understands, asserts, denies, is willing, is unwilling; further, that has some sense and imagination." More interestingly, though, his idea of self is aware of its own imperfections in comparison the idea of something perfect, namely God. Descartes further states that it would stand to reason that God, as a perfect being, would have no imperfections, especially the ability to deceive his dependents, and as a dependent of God, Descartes could never be wrong.
But why is it then that when he focuses his attention to himself, Descartes becomes aware of his "liability to innumerable errors?" In looking for a cause to these errors, Descartes concludes that "I possess not only a real and positive idea of God, the supremely perfect being, but also what I may call a sort of negative idea of nothingness--of that which is furthest removed from all perfection. I am a kind of intermediate between God and nothingness, between the Supreme Being and non-being."
Self in this sense is a rational, thinking self, one that can distinguish between cosmic opposites, and in comparing itself with God becomes a sort of "intermediate between God and nothingness." So within himself on the most basic level, Descartes carries the idea of the perfect and the imperfect, which is manifested as God and Nothingness, and the thinking "I" somehow acts as an intermediary between the two.
Could we further postulate that consciousness, as evident in Descartes' "I," is the intermediating process of distinguishing between God and nothingness? In this light, consciousness exists as a functional relationship between God and nothingness, which is manifest in man.
This relationship can be made more apparent through this example: The way a lens renders an image as upside down. If we speak in terms of "right side up (Supreme Being)" and "upside down (non-being)," consciousness could be spoken of as the "point" where "right side up" becomes "upside down." The thinker in "I think," as it were, can be seen as the lens itself.
Essentially, "right side up" and "upside down" are manifestations of the same thing. But, once there is an "I" (the lens) added, an effect is set in motion, alternatives are born, and an intermediate process of distinguishing is established. Could consciousness, then, be seen as this intermediating process?
Before venturing any further, it would be wise to attack this question from a different angle, an objective point of view, namely Hume.
Hume:
Hume felt that the study of human nature is essential in understanding the world around us, as it is "evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature." We must first develop a science of man as a foundation for the other sciences to build upon, and this must be based on "cautious observation of human life." By using the experimental method, we can eventually come to understand man, and the essence of mind. "It seems evident that, the essence of the mind being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects, which result from its different circumstances and situations."
Hume proposes an inductive method to the study of human nature, starting first with empirical data. We must look closely at our everyday world of experience in order to better understand ourselves. Reasoning must be derived from empirical facts rather than by deduction. Descartes' basic affirmation "I think, therefore I am" is not solid enough ground to base a science of man upon. Hume dismisses "all this meaningless nonsense which long has dominated metaphysical thought and brought it into disrepute." As Copleston explains, "Hume wishes to derive our knowledge ultimately from impressions, from the immediate data of experience."
Perceptions and Mind:
"We have no perfect idea of any thing but of a perception," says Hume. Our world is a world of perceptions only. He states that the contents of the mind are derived from experience. Our mind is filled with "perceptions" which are divided into "impressions" and "ideas." "Impressions" are the immediate sensation of external reality and "ideas" are the recollection of these impressions.
For example: If I burn my tongue while drinking hot soup, the pain of the burn is an immediate "impression." Later when I recall that the event, it is called an "idea." The impression is more immediate and stronger perception than the idea of it. One is the original perception, while the other is a copy of the original perception, and diminished in its clarity. The impression causes the idea. The difference between them is in terms of immediacy and vividness. An idea can be seen as a 'copy' of an impression.
Further, both impressions and ideas can be thought of as simple or complex. According to Hume, man has the ability to form complex ideas when there is no event or object relating to it in nature. Griffins, goblins, angels, etc. These inventions are complex ideas which when broken down consist of simpler ideas. According to Hume, nothing is ever invented by the mind. The mind only assembles various impressions together into complex ideas.
Hume asks question such as: Where does this idea come from? What is the impression which caused this idea? What simple ideas create this complex idea? He develops a critical method for analyzing our thoughts, and opposes all thoughts that do not have a corresponding impression from which to be causally related. When looking at the question of consciousness from this point of view, we must first break down this complex idea into simple ideas, and the simple ideas must come from a corresponding impression. In this way of thinking, Hume treats spiritual substance in the same way as material substance.
Therefore, is consciousness material or immaterial?
Hume says that to question whether perceptions inhere in a material or immaterial soul is a meaningless question, since we have no idea of what is substance or inhesion. Hume asks "those philosophers who pretend that we have an idea of the substance of our minds, to point out the impression that produces it, and tell distinctly after what manner that impression operates, and from what object it is derived." This is a difficulty "peculiar" to the subject of mind. To have any idea of the substance of our minds, according to Hume, we "must also have an impression of it." And this is where the difficulty arises. If an impression were to represent a substance of mind, it must resemble it, but an impression cannot resemble a substance since an impression has no characteristic qualities of a substance. Causality at this point seems to have come to a dead end.
We could try and say that we have an idea of substance as "something which may exist by itself, but this could apply to everything we can think of, and doesn't help in answering the question. Now to speak of thoughts or perceptions as being present in a body, which he calls "inhesion," these impressions could be thought of as having a place, and by having a place, they would exist somewhere, and they would have a left side and a right side, etc., so we would be able to speak of love or pain as holding a spatial place and having an up and down, and a left and right, which just doesn't make any sense. Yet we do undeniably have perceptions. So an object can exist yet exist nowhere? According to Hume, yes, "the greatest part of beings do and must exist after this manner."
To further support his conclusion that the question regarding the materiality or immateriality of the soul is a meaningless question, Hume engages in a lengthy argumentum ad hominen, showing how we can follow both Spinoza's line of reasoning, that everything is a modification of one perfectly simple and indivisible substance, or we can follow a theological line of reasoning that everything is a modification of one indivisible immaterial substance. If we object to Spinoza's view, by all reason, we must also object to the theological view as well. Any argument against the belief that all objects are modifications of one substance will also work against the belief that all things are modifications of one immaterial substance, and conversely, all arguments for one will also work to the advantage of the other. In conclusion, Hume states "the question concerning the substance of the soul is absolutely unintelligible."
If, as Hume points out, there is no substance called soul, what is the "I" in "I am." How does he explain personal identity and the fact that we are conscious, subjectively thinking creatures?
The "I" complex:
For Descartes, the "I" in "I think" was the basic foundation of his philosophy, but for Hume, "I" presents us with a complex idea. Is the "I" of today the same as the "I" of yesterday? For Hume, "I" or "ego" or "soul" or "consciousness" was not as Descartes presented it. It cannot be so easily deduced. Our idea of self cannot be more that our perceptions. It must come from an impression. But Hume argues that we haven't the same impression of ourself as when we were children, or even from the day before. "Self or person is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, thro' the whole course of our lives...but there is no impression constant and invariable." Our idea of self is subject to constant change, just as our perceptions "never all exist at the same time."
Hume asks how perceptions "belong to self, and how are they connected with it?" He then describes how when he intimately enters into "what I call myself," he always finds some perception, "heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure." In the end, he concludes that the "mind is a kind of theater." Yet this theater is not a place, just a metaphor for the continuing appearance and changing of perceptions. Much like a motion picture is composed of separate frames, but when viewed in succession, creates a whole story. Our self-identity consists of separate passing perceptions.
Thus to answer the question of mind and consciousness, for Hume, it is a "kind of theater where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, slide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. Our consciousness is "nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." Our idea of self then is this collection of bundled perceptions. There is no "simplicity" in it, or "identity" behind it. Our mind exists as "successive perceptions" only, and these collection of moments is we call our personal identity. "Identity is nothing really belonging to these different perceptions, and uniting them together; but is merely a quality, which we attribute to them, because of the union of their ideas in the imagination, when we reflect upon them."
Still, why is it that we are aware of an uninterrupted existence throughout life? Couldn't this be considered consciousness?
To answer this question, Hume discusses the functions of the mind, most importantly memory. Once the mind has received an impression, it can appear again in two different ways. The more vivid reappearance is "memory," while the less vivid reappearance is "imagination." Memory can preserve simple ideas, and their order of appearance. My memory of a good evening out with friends means that I can recall what happened as well as the order it happened. I met George and Sally and Roger at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 19th Street. We went to an Indian restaurant, enjoyed three hours of conversation, food, and wine, then separated to go home. Imagination, on the other hand, is not held by this order of appearance. Imagination can freely combine ideas at random to create new complex ideas.
Memory is very important in that the mind groups these separate perceptions together, allowing the imagination to create a constant image of self. "As memory alone acquaints us with the continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions, 'tis to be consider'd, upon that account chiefly, as the source of personal identity." "Once given memory, our perceptions are linked by association in the imagination, and we attribute identity to what is in fact an interrupted succession of related perceptions. Indeed, unless corrected by philosophy, we may 'feign' a uniting principle, a permanent self distinct from our perception." If we had no memory, we would have no notion of causation or "that chain of causes and effects, which constitute our self or person." Memory in this light "does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by showing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions." It is then memory which is the source of our idea of self. Without memory we could not link our successive perceptions together.
Questions beyond this point, says Hume, cannot be decided, and is a grammatical problem rather than a philosophical problem.
Still, it is not satisfying to the reader to be left dangling in mid-air, and even Hume makes a disclaimer in his Appendix to the Treatise of Human Nature saying that he has found himself in a "labyrinth" when it comes to the question of personal identity. When asked to explain the principle which binds our perceptions together, Hume states that "all my hopes vanish when I come to explain the principles that unite our thought or consciousness."
Hume even asks us to consider what it is like to be lower than an oyster with only one perception. Can we conceive anything but that one perception, he asks? Do we have an idea of what self or substance is? If at this most basic level, we are unable to come to an answer, then the subsequent addition of perceptions would not help give a better idea. Hume at this point seems stuck in an objective/subjective dilemma similar to one the one that Thomas Nagle discusses in his article "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?"
If I Were...
According to Nagel, the usual arguments concerning mind and body do not give us any further understanding of the problem. We need to view it in a new light. "We have at present no conception of what an explanation of the physical nature of a mental phenomenon would be." Further, he states that it is the question of consciousness which makes the mind-body problem both an intriguing and hopeless affair.
For Nagel, there are no current reductionist theories which can apply to the question of consciousness. Most theories do not try to explain it. He suggests that a new "theoretical form" might be devised, but this "lies in the distinct intellectual future." He argues that conscious experience occurs in many levels of animal life, that it is a "widespread phenomenon." Additionally he states that consciousness must also occur throughout the universe. "No doubt it occurs in countless forms totally unimaginable to us, on other planets in other solar systems throughout the universe."
Consciousness is an experience present somehow in varied forms throughout the universe, and he further asserts that "the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism." And fundamentally an organism has "conscious mental states" only if there is "something that it is like to be that organism." This creates a interesting duality, requiring first a "someone" to wonder what it is like to secondly "be like" another organism. Apparently without this "something that it is like to be that organism" an organism possesses no consciousness, or none which we can be aware of, as we are not that organism. This perplexing question can also be applied inwardly to the question of our own consciousness.
Nagel points out that the current theories of reductive analysis do not "capture" this subjective character or "be-ness" and that "it is useless to base the defense of materialism on any analysis of mental phenomena that fails to deal explicitly with their subjective character." How can we use a reductionist approach which works only when there is no account of consciousness, and then try to extend it to include consciousness?
For Nagel, we need to first have an idea of what this subjective character of experience is before knowing what is required of any physicalist theory. How can we reduce something which we can't even define as a something in order to reduce?
The problem lies in the fact that subjective phenomena is connected with a point of view, and this single point of view is the same one we use objectively to examine the subjective. We must somehow remove the problem of "point of view" from the equation in order to better address the question of the subjective. We must remove the "I" from "I think."
To illustrate this point, Nagel uses an example "that brings out clearly the divergence between the two types of conception, subjective and objective." He asks the simple yet beguiling question, "What is it like to be a bat?" "I have said that the essence of the belief that bats have experience is that there is something that is it is like to be a bat." According to this line of reasoning, a bat has subjective experience in that we can say that there is "something which it is like to be a bat." There is a certain "be-ness" in being a bat, just like there must be a certain "be-ness" in being a human, if another species were to ask "What is it like to be a human?" As humans, we know we possess something which it is like to be human, and if a Martian asked the same question, he would be wrong to conclude that we had no consciousness. Therefore we cannot say that a bat has no consciousness. And in having a consciousness, we admit that there is something there which we cannot understand or possibly describe since we are not a bat. "The fact that we cannot expect ever to accommodate in our language a detailed description of Martian or bat phenomenology should not lead us to dismiss as meaningless the claim the bats and Martians have experiences fully comparable in richness of detail to our own."
Nagel wants to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat, but is "restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task. I cannot perform it either by imagining additions to my present experience, or by imagining segments gradually subtracted from it, or by imagining some combination of additions, subtractions, and modifications." This is remarkably similar to Hume's oyster dilemma, but Hume does not differentiate between what it is like to be an oyster, and what it is like for an oyster to be an oyster. The consciousness problem has now added a new dimension.
The experience of being a bat is unimaginable for us since we are not bats. We cannot conceive of what it is like to navigate by sonar or hang by our feet upside down to sleep. "It is beyond our ability to conceive," says Nagel. "And if there is conscious life elsewhere in the universe, it is likely that some of it will not be describable even in the most general experiential terms available to us. The problem is not confirmed to exotic cases, however, for it exists between one person and another."
Nagel reasons that there are facts "beyond the reach of human concepts." This is proven in our inability to understand or describe what it is like to be a bat. "Reflection on what it is like to be a bat seems to lead us, therefore, to the conclusion that there are facts that do not consist in the truth of propositions expressible in a human language." To deny the reality or the logical significance that there is something which we cannot understand or even describe is, for Nagle, "the crudest form of cognitive dissonance."
If subjective facts can only be known from a single point of view, then how can the "true character of experiences," the consciousness of a creature, be known by observing the "physical operation" of that creature?
Nagel wants to know if it is possible to find a description of consciousness or "be-ness" in "terms accessible to beings that could not imagine what it was like to be us." By illustrating the contradiction in this statement, Nagel tells us that he wants to find a way to objectively understand the subjective, but human language and reductionist theory is currently not developed enough to do it. It is possible that the idea of understanding the subjective is beyond the ability of the objective. "In order to understand the hypothesis that a mental event is a physical event, we require more than an understanding of the word "is."
"Does it make sense, in other words, to ask what my experiences are really like, as opposed to how they appear to me? We cannot genuinely understand the hypothesis that their nature is captured in a physical description unless we understand the more fundamental idea that they have an objective nature (or that objective processes can have a subjective nature)."
Nagel proposes a need to "form new concepts and devise a new method--an objective phenomenology not dependent on empathy or imagination." He concludes his article by stating that "it seems unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated until more thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and objective."
So where do we stand now when asking the question "who am I?" or "who are you?" Consciousness is a tough thing to pin down. We know it is there, but we cannot say how we know it is there. From what we have read so far, we know there is an "I" who is "a being that doubts, understands, asserts, denies, is willing, is unwilling; further, that has some sense and imagination" (Descartes), and we know that to question consciousness in terms of material or immaterial is a meaningless question (Hume), and that when consciousness is discussed in objective terms it cannot be discussed, and when discussed in subjective terms it cannot be known objectively, so therefore we need a new method of investigating the question (Nagel).
After four hundred years of intense philosophical thought and scientific examination, we have still gotten no further in our question of "mind" "self" and "I" than to utter another question. Language is somehow a problem. Hume said that questions about consciousness beyond perceptions became linguistic questions. Nagel says that we require more than an understanding of the word "is." But how is language inadequate? Does it create confusion by positing? Does it create alternatives? Rather than create another dilemma for ourselves, I would like to take this entire problem out of perspective, and go back in time 2300 years to ancient China. Maybe the ancient Chinese can shed some light on this problem.
Chuang-Tzu: The Taoist poet
I would like to focus my attention now on the writings of the poet/philosopher Chuang-Tzu (370-319BC) who in his stories of the "Inner Chapters" touches quite remarkably on the subject of man, his self, and his relationship with the world around him. Many of his concepts and beliefs, if viewed independently, may seem mystic and vague, but when viewed in light of modern Western philosophical thought, adds an important and poetic dimension to the question of self.
Taoist thinkers share some common ideas, "that, while all other things move spontaneously on the course proper to them, man has stunted and maimed his spontaneous aptitude by the habit of distinguishing alternatives, the right and wrong, benefit and harm, self and others, and reasoning in order to judge between them."
Did ancient thinkers like Chuang-Tzu accept the separation of mind and body?
They believed that man could achieve a certain "knack" or "spontaneous aptitude," a letting-it-go if you will, by learning to reflect on his situation and responding to it "with the immediacy of an echo to a sound." People who know what they are doing, for example, a fisherman, or a carpenter, proceed on what feels right and do not think about distinguishing between possibilities and alternatives. They react spontaneously with the fish, or with the wood, which is impossible to someone working by a set of rules.
As a wheelwright tells Duke Huan in a segment from The Advantages of Spontaneity, "If I chip at a wheel too slowly, the chisel slides and does not grip; if too fast, it jams and catches in the wood. Not too slow, not too fast; I feel it in the hand and respond from the heart, the mouth cannot put it into words, there is a knack in it somewhere..."
Chuang-Tzu also acknowledges the problem of language when discussing thought. "A thought is about something; what the thought is about is untransmittable in words." Furthermore he adds, "The visible to sight is shape and color, the audible to hearing is name and sound; how sad it is then that worldly people think shape and color, name and sound, sufficient means to grasp the identity of that!" The "that" he refers to is the Way, or Tao. "It is what patterns the seeming disorder of change and multiplicity."
Chaung-Tzu assumes that reason cannot lead to certainty. We must trust in the Way as an "organic process," and rely on our knack in doing things. "The myriad things have somewhere from which they grow but no one sees the root, somewhere from which they come forth but no one sees the gate. Men all honor what wits know, but none knows how to know by depending on what his wits do not know; may that not be called the supreme uncertainty?" This argument sheds another light on Hume's "Immateriality of the Soul." Hume comes to the same conclusion as Chuang-Tzu when asked to consider what creates these impressions, or binds them together into substance. Hume says that the immateriality of the soul is a mute point, an unanswerable question, yet at the same time he tells us that words are not enough to describe this indescribable "it" in which impressions must exist if there are to be separate events. Chuang-Tzu acknowledges the question from where myriad things come from as "the supreme uncertainty."
According to Chuang-Tzu we would be better off by abolishing all alternatives. "To discriminate between alternatives is to fail to see something," he says. He further states somewhat obscurely that "the greatest discrimination is unspoken." What Chuang-Tzu means is that language cannot express in words this "Way" which we are a part of. In this view, it is much like Nagel's call for a new science of the subjective. Nagel says that we are unable to know the subjective using objective thinking. Objective thinking is a reduction of things into alternatives, what can be divisible, measured, and sorted, yet to date, man still cannot answer the question of what is his self, any more than Chuang-Tzu, who was certain of this impossibility over 2000 years ago!
For Chuang-Tzu, only the sage has resolved these opposites by undoing himself from the world of analyzing and reason. He has in a way resolved the conflict of substance and immaterial, of physical and metaphysical. By abandoning reason "for the immediate experience of an undifferentiated world," and by personifying these opposites and treating everything as one, the sage lives within the Tao.
"Something cannot become something by means of something, it necessarily goes on coming forth from that which is without anything; but that which is without anything is forever without anything. The sage stores away in it."
"Without an Other there is no Self, without Self no choosing one thing rather than another." This formulation by Chuang-Tzu seems to point out what Nagel is trying to point out in his article, "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?" That we cannot objectively look at the subject of Self since Self is not objectively definable. By ignoring the concept of Self, we can come to terms with the objective world, and all things fit together, but we must start with the concept of Self first in order to define things objectively. Without the inclusion of Self in this formula, their would be no basis from which to form a formula from, but to include Self in this formula renders it inconceivable.
The experience of achieving without knowing how, living from moment to moment without knowing why, trusting to Heaven and to one's daemon, is crucial to the Taoist attitude. "When thinking and putting our thoughts into words we are behaving as men; when attending and responding, in ways which we can never fully express in language or justify by reasons, our behavior belongs with the birth, growth, decay and death of the body among the spontaneous process generated by heaven."
A meeting of minds:
Descartes and Hume might have been staring at self in the face when confronted with their unanswerable questions. From a Taoist point of view, one needs to be able to mirror heaven and earth. Descartes speaks in terms much like this, yet this does not seem to be the self he is basing his philosophy on. Hume reduces the concept of self to a succession of experiences which are somehow bound together and viewed, as in a sort of theater. This "viewing" could also be seen as the meeting place between external and internal. The point where natural phenomenon is perceived by the individual. This might very well be the focal point where man "mirrors heaven and earth," and could this not be where we are struck with the concept of self? Therefore self is something from which to gauge the other with? Now our thinking is taking a decided turn towards ancient China.
Chuang-Tzu states, "What is It is also Other, what is Other is also It. There they say 'That's it, that's not' from one point of view, here we say 'That's it, that's not' from another point of view. Are there really It and Other? Or really no It and Other? Where neither It nor Other finds its opposite is called the axis of the Way." Chuang-Tzu points out in this riddle or paradox, which if read superficially is just a play on words, but when read deeper smacks the slippery problem of defining the self on the head. If we choose to view "It" or "Other" from one point of view, say objectively, there will always be another point of view, for example, the subjective. Chung-Tzu asks then if there really are distinctions, or rather no distinctions. Seeing that he has no way to go with either argument (the immateriality of soul argument from Hume), Chuang-Tzu defines as the "axis of the Way," the indefinable intersection between It and Other.
Presupposing that there is a third point of view which is in theory the one point of view, Chuang-Tzu reconciles any physical/spiritual division of self or objective/subjective points of view by asserting that once the axis is found, objective and subjective have no limits. They are interchangeably one in response to the other. "When once the axis is found at the center of the circle there is no limit to responding with either, on the one hand no limit to what is it, on the other no limit to what is not."
When thought of like this, man, his self, being, mind, spirit, consciousness, point of view, is the constant interchange between subjective and objective. Self becomes apparent when we make a division between "Other" and "It." Our ability to consider both objective and subjective may in fact be the "consciousness," we are searching for, yet we neglect this "ability" as a mere relationship or causality, taking it for granted as perception, when in fact it might be the very definition of "self" itself.
Descartes hits upon this reasoning when he described himself as the imperfect vessel from which the perfection of God is reflected, but he passed over this fundamental point, not stopping to see it in his deductive search for an indubitable ground from which to base his philosophy.
Hume seems to have gotten to the same point, but dismisses it as a mute question. How can something both be and not be at the same time? Yet this contradiction is manifest in man by his ability to label with words and meaning that which he perceives, yet also compare it against what he cannot see, yet assumes must exist. Man supposes his own paradox when he is actually the very answer to the paradox. Our ability to distinguish between "It" and "Other," or in more technical terms, rationalize objectively and subjectively at the same time, is exactly the point where "It" and "Other" manifests itself. According to Chuang-Tzu this is the axis of the Way.
Self: A mirror between Heaven and Earth?
In my short examination of this question of consciousness, starting with the writings of Descartes, Hume and Nagel, and finally resting with the ancient Chinese poet, Chuang-Tzu, I have proposed that we must look at the question from a completely different angle.
Maybe we can define self, being, mind, spirit, and consciousness, that which so eludes us when we try to pinpoint it, as the constant interchange between the subjective and the objective. Descartes touches upon this in his reasoning that there exists a perfect being which is God. He states that, "I am a kind of intermediate between God and nothingness, between the Supreme Being and non-being." Descartes' self in this sense is one that can distinguish between cosmic opposites, and in comparing itself with God becomes a sort of "intermediate between God and nothingness." His thinking "I" acts as an intermediary between the two. If we accept the idea of self in this light, consciousness exists then as a functional relationship between God and nothingness. Can "God and nothingness" be thought of as 17th century terms for the "It" and "Other" which Chuang- Tzu expounds?
This also seems to be the very point where Hume starts to sound unsure of himself. He dismisses as nonsense the question of the immateriality of the soul, yet raises the question of something which exists yet exists nowhere, and further states that "the greatest part of beings do and must exist after this manner." We must exist in this manner because we undeniably have perceptions, and these perceptions must come from somewhere. "Existence" and "nowhere" could be thought of as 18th century terms for "It" and "Other." If this is the case, than all three thinkers are pointed in the same direction.
Nagle proposes that the problem of defining self stems from our lack of resources in understanding the term "is." We have to give more thought to the idea of "subjective" and "objective." Can it be then that "subjective" and "objective" are just 20th century terms for "It" and "Other?" If so, then we have a consensus, and all four thinkers are stuck in the same place!
Conclusion:
We see that the problem in defining self becomes apparent only when we make a distinction between "Other" and "It." In our minds, subjective and objective are separate things. It and Other are different. It is important to point out that our ability to reflect both objectively and subjectively is a crucial element in defining self. In one way, this ability is what creates the whole problem in the first place, and in another way, this ability might also be the very answer to our question. Our flip-flop nature of distinguishing between alternatives may in fact be the "consciousness" we are searching for. It seems that historically we have neglected this "ability" as a mere relationship or causality, often calling it perception, when it might be the definition of "self" itself.
If we think of consciousness as the ability to distinguish between two opposites, then in this light, consciousness exists as a functional relationship between an "Other" and an "It." An example of this functional relationship could be illustrated as follows: Imagine a lens which has the natural ability to render an image as being right side up or upside down. If we speak in terms of "right side up," and let this "idea" represent one aspect of our perception such as "objective," "existence," "It," or "Supreme being," and let "upside down" represent another aspect of our perception such as "subjective," "nonexistence," "Other" and "Non being," consciousness or self could be spoken of as the function of "right side up" becoming "upside down." The thinker in "I think," can be thought of as the lens itself.
Essentially, "right side up" and "upside down" are different manifestations of the same thing. Without a lens ("I"), there would be no distinguishing between "right side up" and "upside down." They are both the same thing, and this is what Chuang-Tzu tries to explain when he says, "What is It is also Other, what is Other is also It. There they say 'That's it, that's not' from one point of view, here we say 'That's it, that's not' from another point of view. Are there really It and Other? Or really no It and Other?" Using the lens example, we see that once an "I" (the lens) is involved, an effect is set in motion and alternatives are born.
The lens "creates" a duality. It "turns" things upside down. It makes us look at the image either "this way" or "that way." This ability of ours to consider both objective and subjective simultaneously may in fact be the "consciousness," we are searching for. "Self" in this light can be seen as the constant process of digesting and interpreting the world we live in. Self becomes a function, not a fixed point, a substance, or a spirit. It is the function of turning "right side up" into "upside down." It is the "lens" which changes subjective into objective. It is the axis of the Way where "It" becomes "Other." It is the mirroring of Heaven and Earth.
If we think like this, the "lens" also defines itself. Without the lens, nothing changes. It is easy to translate this in terms of man and his self. We "change" things, we "create" subjective and objective, we turn things "upside down." But man go one step further than the lens, we actually try to define ourself outside of this relationship!
The search for an explanation of self seems to be the very definition of self itself. Who am I? Who are you? What is consciousness? To answer these questions assumes fundamentally that we possess the facility to wonder, to doubt, and to want to prove or disprove that something exists. We are the lens which turns things upside down. We create our own alternatives. Without this process of creating alternatives, there would be no subjective or objective, there would be nothing for us to wonder about, or doubt, or want to prove that it exists. In a way then, we are both the question and the answer. Without self, we have no question, yet with self, we have no answer.
Bibliography:
Chuang-Tzu, The Inner Chapters, (London: Unwin Paperbacks), translated and edited by A.C. Graham.
Frederick Copleston, S.J., A History of Philosophy Vol. IV & V (New York: Image Books)
Rene Descartes, Philosophical Writings (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd), translated and edited by Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Thomas Geach. Selections from Discourse on the Method (4), Meditations on First Philosophy (2, 3, 4), Principles of Philosophy (1), and Rules For the Direction of the Mind (3).
The Mind's I, composed and arranged by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, (New York: Bantam Books). Selections from the article by Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, which first appeared in The Philosophical Review, October 1974.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books).
<< Previous Beijing loves IKEA -- but not for shopping | Next >>