The Philosophy of Mind |
Knowing me, knowing you
We now turn to some implications of the mind/body problem, particularly those
that effect individuals in terms of their self-understanding, identity and
knowledge of other people.
Free will
Freedom
of the will is a major feature in the mind/body debate. If, as a materialist
or even a epiphenomenalist would claim, the 'mind' is simply a by-product
of brain activity, and if that brain activity, being part of a material world,
is, in theory, totally predictable, then there is no such thing as free will.
We appear to be free only because we do not understand the unique combination
of causes which force us to make our particular decisions. We are pawns of
fate - if all causes were known, we would have no freedom and no responsibility
for what we (erroneously) call our 'mental' operations. Clearly, if freedom
and morality are seen as part of what it means to be a human individual -
and are regarded as part of the human phenomenon - then it is impossible
to see the mind as 'nothing more than' a by-product of brain activity.
Disembodied consciousness
This issue covers two areas: life after death and 'out of body' experiences.
There is difficulty is getting firm evidence for these things, partly because,
from a materialistic standpoint, they cannot happen, and therefore the person
reporting them may be assumed - to be mistaken. That said, however, convictions
about them will affect the view a person takes on the mind/body issue, since
they imply a dualistic view. From the religious point of view, life after
death is linked to two areas:
1 A sense of appropriate compensation, good or bad, for what a person
has done during his or her life. All religious traditions have some element
of reward or punishment - whether externally imposed (as in Western religions)
or self-generated (as the 'karma' of some Eastern traditions).
2 The sense that human life somehow goes beyond the confines of a
fragile human body: 'This cannot be everything: there must be something more.'
Neither of these constitutes evidence for survival after death. What
they do show is the appropriateness of such belief for a religious person,
and the reasons why he or she might
hold to it in the absence
of evidence.
Quite apart from religious considerations, there are claims about the direct
experience of something which is believed to be connected with the dead -
ghosts, and
communication with the dead. Again, although there is a great amount
of evidence for strange phenomena in this field, such evidence is always
open to interpretation, and a person who takes a strictly materialist standpoint
will always find an alternative explanation for the experience. 'Out of
body' experiences are generally associated with times of personal crisis
or physical danger, while having an operation for example. Some people have
the sense that they have left their physical body 'down there' and are able
to move away from it, observing it as from a distance. About one in three
people who come near to death in this way reports a 'near-death
experience' - so it is not a rare phenomenon, and it is not limited to
people of any particular set of religious or other beliefs.
| An example I was in a great deal of discomfort and pain. Suddenly, the sounds of the ward - the nurses bustling about 'women laughing, the babies crying - all disappeared, and I just floated gently away from my bed - sideways at first, then up. I know it sounds extraordinary, but I knew that I was dying. It was extraordinary, because all the pain and discomfort disappeared and I was conscious of light surrounding me, and I was warm -it was a beautiful feeling. But then I thought of my mother, with whom have a very strong bond, and I remember thinking that I can't do this to my Mum. I made a conscious effort to return to my body, which I did - with a great jolt, as if I'd been thrown back. And immediately all the pain returned. Sunday Telegraph 30 January 1994, p.l1 |
Such experiences can be investigated to see if they can represent
a genuine spatial removal from the physical body, or if they are simply the
result of the imagination. If they were proved to be literally true, it would
suggest that the mind/body relationship is dualistic, and that - even if
related closely to the brain - the mind is not physically limited to the
brain. In all cases of unusual experiences, one test that can be applied
is that which Hume applied to the accounts of miracles
(see p.140): Which is more likely, that the event actually happened as
reported, or that the person reporting it is mistaken?
Knowledge of other minds
In a strictly dualistic view of bodies and minds, you cannot have direct
knowledge of the minds of others. You can know their words, their actions,
their writings, their facial and other body signals, but you cannot get access
to their minds. For a dualist, knowledge of other minds therefore comes by
analogy. I know what it is like to be me - I know that, when I speak, I am
expressing something that I am thinking in my mind. Therefore, I assume that,
when another person speaks, his or her words are similarly the product of
mental activity. From Ryle's point of view there is no problem. There is
no 'ghost in the machine' - what we mean by mind is the intelligent and
communicative abilities of the other person. If I know his or her actions,
words etc. then I know his or her mind; the two things are one and the
same.
| Returning to an earlier question What is the difference between an actor who is playing the part of a person in pain, and someone who actually is in pain? If I say that one really feels pain, while the other only appears to feel pain, do I not assume some non-physical self, existing over and above the actual grimaces and moans that lead me to describe the person as being in pain? |
But is it possible to know another mind
directly?
What about telepathy? Some neurophysicists study such phenomena. An
experiment carried out by Dr Jacobo Grindberg, of the National University
of Mexico, was outlined at a conference on science and consciousness in January
1994. He took a number of couples, some of whom had been in long-term
relationships, others who had more
recently
fallen in love, and had them look into one another's eyes without speaking
or touching one another Then they were separated and put in Faraday Cages
which isolates them from external stimuli), and wired up with a device to
measure the electrical activity of the brain.
He found that, when a stimulus was applied to one of the subjects, the other
one of the pair mirrored his or her brain activity - even though they could
have had no knowledge of the stimulus being applied to the other. Grinberg
found that this 'transferred potential' did not diminish, even when the couples
were separated by a greater distance suggesting that the information was
being conveyed not by any conventional means. One possibility here is that,
in some way, the mind is not limited to the brain and enclosed within the
skull, but is able to share and communicate stimuli between brains. Another
possibility is that, although the mind is directly linked to the brain, and
enclosed within the skull, it can communicate with other minds in a way that
science cannot yet explain. This second possibility would get round the problem
of conceiving a mind that is not limited to the brain, since the mind can
carry out many of the functions required by the dualist, through this as
yet unknown means of communication. The one thing such a mind would not be
able to do, however, is to survive the death of the brain.
| In other words Other minds can be known:
|
Knowing oneself is rather different, in that we are immediately
aware of our own thoughts, whereas the thoughts of others come to us via
their words, gestures and appearance. This has led some people to argue that
we can know only our own mind, and are therefore radically alone - surrounded
only by bodies in which we have to infer that there are other minds similar
to our own.
Such a lonely view is termed solipsism, and this is the fate of those who
think of the soul or mind as a crude, unknowable 'ghost' - thecaricature
that Ryle presented. In practice, we get to know other people by observation,
by considering what they say or write, and by judging how they deal with
life. We can question them, in order to clarify their likes and dislikes,
for example. But in the end, we still depend upon our own observation.
| An example I ask someone, whom I have invited to dinner that evening, if he likes strawberries. He replies that he does.
|
This is a simple example of weighing up the evidence for
a person's
private sensations. It would become far more complex if the question
were 'Did you have a happy childhood?' In this case; there are profound
psychological reasons why the immediate response may not be the correct one.
Indeed, such is the way in which the unconscious mind affects the conscious,
that the person may not actually know if he was or was not happy. Moments
of trauma may have been blocked off and unacknowledged. The whole process
of psychotherapy is one of gradually unpicking the things that a person
says, coupled with their actual behaviour and physical responses.
Knowledge of other minds is therefore a process of assessment, based on
observation. It is not instantaneous (if it were, most therapists would starve!).
It is constantly open for revision. I meet up with a friend whom I have not
seen for 20 years.
Notice the assumption that I make in all this - that I am getting
to know another person as a communicating subject. I do not explore his brain
or seek for any occult 'soul'. I simply recognise that he is a person who
has views, feelings, thoughts, experiences, and that he can communicate them.
That process of communication means that getting to know another person is
a two-way process. It depends upon my observation and enquiries, but it also
depends upon the willingness of the other person to be known. Without the
person's co-operation, even a very experienced psychotherapist would find
it extremely difficult to get to know an individual's mind. You can build
up a profile - this sort of person with those sorts of interests - but not
an actual unique individual. Psychologists advising the police can suggest
the sort of person who might have committed a particular crime, based on
their experience of similar people, especially in the case of those with
severe mental disturbance. But they cannot point to a particular
individual.
Contrast this with knowledge of yourself:
BUT:
In knowing myself, however, I have two advantages over others:
1 I have memory. This means that my own knowledge of
events and my response to them is more immediate and detailed than the accounts
given by others, although my memory may, of course, let me down, and (in
the case of traumatic experiences) things may be repressed because they are
too painful to remember. In such a case, for example of trauma in childhood,
another person may have a clearer memdry of what happened and of my response
at the time than I have myself.
2 I can deliberately mislead others about my feelings and responses.
Generally speaking, except for cases of strong unconscious motivation, I
do not mislead myself.
Personal Identity
There are many ways of identifying yourself:
At various times, each of these will become more or less relevant
fort he purpose of self-identity. Relationships establish a sense of identity,
and the closer the relationship, the more significant will be its influence
on the sense of self. Aristotle held that friendships were essential for
a sense of identity.
| An example Walking down a street in London, I am not likely to think of myself first and foremost as British (unless of course, I am near a famous building, and surrounded by foreign tourists). Yet if I travel to a far flung and inaccessible part of the globe, I might well say 'I'm British' as one of the first means of identifying myself.
|
In practice, identity is not a matter of body or mind only,
but of an integrated functioning entity comprising both body and mind. Of
course, once the process of analysis starts, it is difficult to find a 'self'
that is not at the same time something else - but that is exactly the reason
why identity is not a matter of analysis.
Identity is therefore a matter of synthesis, not of analysis.
You are the sum total, not the parts.
Reflecting on location
|
It is possible, in thinking about mind as the prime way of defining
a self or person, to ignore the importance of physical identity. Consider,
therefore, a world in which all were identical:
More than once in this chapter we have turned to the idea of
the actor, and the distinction between acting and reality. This is also relevant
for an understanding of 'persons'. For example, Aldo Tassi, writing in
Philosophy Today (Summer 1993) explored the idea of a persona or
mask that an actor puts on. The actor projects a sense of self - the self
who is the character in the play. In doing so the actor withdraws his own
identity. In the theatre, the actor can go off stage and revert to his own
identity. In the real world, Tassi argues, we create a character in what
we do, but we can never step outside the world to find another self 'off
stage'. He refers back to Aristotle, for whom the soul is the substantial
form of the body, but substance for Aristotle was not a static thing. The
soul is not super-added to the body in order to make the body a living thing
- rather the body gets both its being and its life from the 'soul' Tassi
says:
'Consciously to be is to project a sense of oneself, that is to say, to "assume
a mask".'
Personal identity, if Tassi is right, is a dynamic rather than static thing
- it is acted out and developed. It does not exist in terms of static
analysis.
| For reflection Frankenstein's monster takes on character as the novel unfolds. It is not there latent in the 'materials' with which he starts. |
There is much that can be explored in terms of 'persons'. In
recent philosophy this has been brought to particular attention by the work
of P F Strawson (b. 1919), a British philosopher known especially for his
work on the nature of identity, and for his exposition and development of
the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. In 'Persons', an article first published
in 1958, and Individuals, (1959), he argued that the concept of 'person'
was prior to and need not be analysed as an animated body, or embodied mind.
Rather, a person is such that both physical characteristics and states of
consciousness can be ascribed to it. The concept of a 'person' has many practical
and ethical implications:
Morality, therefore, depends on a sense of personal identity
and needs to take such issues into account.
Memory
If you feel pain, you may well do things to show it. These, as we have seen,
can sometimes be taken to be the real meaning of having a pain. But with
memory it is different. You can remember something
without giving any external sign of what you have remembered. Memories are
personal, and they are also influential. You are what you are because you
have learned from the past - and that learning depends on memory. A person
who has lost his or her memory finds it difficult to function, is constantly
surprised or bewildered by the response of others who claim long-established
friendship or hatred. Our responses are determined by our memories.
Hume saw memories as a kind of set of data, private images running through
one's head. It follows that, if I say I have a memory of a particular thing,
nobody else can contradict me, because nobody else has access to that particular
bit of internal data. But what if one thinks that one remembers something
and then is shown that it would not be possible - for instance I 'remember'
the Second World War, oniy to discover that I was born after it was over?
I would have to admit that my memory was faulty, or perhaps that a war film
had lodged such vivid images in my mind that I genuinely believed that I
had lived through it. I remember the image clearly enough, and am not lying
about it - but what I have forgotten is the origin of that image, the original
experience (on film, in this case, and not reality).
Memory errors can sometimes by countered by the idea that the person imagined
an event rather than remembered it - again, there is no doubting the mental
image, what is in doubt is the origin of the image. Arguments about the nature
of memory tend to be based on language: What does it mean to say that I have
remembered something? Does it make sense to say that I have remembered my
name every time I go to sign something? Clearly, there is a difference between
the body of information (from remembering my name and address to
knowing
that 2x2=4) to remembering -particular events: 'Where were you on the
night of August the 2nd, at the time when the murder was committed?'
Great feats of memory require sifting through the many facts and images that
are habitually available to us, to more specific events -remembering a place
leads to remembering a particular person who was seen there, leads to remembering
any suspicious actions that he or she may have made. The feature of such
memory is that it is revealed bit by bit - or, sometimes, that something
previously forgotten is triggered. In the reconstruction of a serious crime,
an identically dressed person is sometimes sent to retrace the steps of the
victim, hoping that it may trigger off a memory in a passer-by.
Memories are thus private; only we have them. Of course, they are frequently
of events, people, or information in the public domain and may therefore
form the basis of other people's memories.But once the events are remembered,
they become personal. John Locke made much of the memory as a way of giving
personal identity. I am the person I am because I have experienced and remembered
these things. Memory loss is also loss of identity.
But just because we may have privileged access to our own memories, does
not mean that we are infallible. Four people giving accounts of a dinner
party may all provide quite different versions of events. Our memories are
selective, providing us with recall of those sense experiences which are
deemed significant, and ignoring those that are not.
Memory also serves to develop the 'background' of our actions and thoughts
(to use Heidegger's term) - faced with a choice in the present, my memory
searches for similar experiences in the past, and the memory of them will
influence my choice in the present. In this sense, memory is an ever-growing
means of self-definition.
| In other words The mind/body problem is important for philosophy because:
|
A 'personal' postscript
The mind/body issue, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the problem
of the analytic and reductionist approach to complex entities. Frankenstein
got it wrong! The analysis and re-assembling of the components of a human
being, whether it be a crude autopsy to hunt for the elusive 'soul', or the
sophisticated attempt to reproduce the process of thinking with the aid of
computers, is, I am convinced, unlikely to produce more than a caricature
of a human person.
The experience of being a thinking, feeling and reflecting person is not
susceptible to analysis, because it is not part of the world we experience.
Wittgenstein was right in saying that the self was the limit of the world,rather
than part of it.
Neither is the self a fixed entity. Hume could never see his mind except
by the procession of thoughts that passed through it. From birth to death,
there is constant change, and our thoughts of today thape what we will be
tomorrow. Throughout life, however, we leave our imprint on the world around
us: words we speak, actions we perform, roles we assume. It is these that
form our changing story, and define our character from moment to moment.
Even our process of reflection, the most private of activities, is dependent
upon the outside world. It is extremely difficult to experience something
with absolute simplicity, for we immediately categorise it - our patterns
of thinking shaped by common language and culture.
Philosophers and scientists tend to think, to search around in the
mental jungle for ideas, concepts, theories and evidence. Hence their problem
in locating the self. By contrast,
those who meditate, who still the mind until it is gently focused
on a single point, become aware of something very different. The self becomes
empty, becomes nothing and everything at the same moment. There is no separate
'self'. Returning to the world of everyday experience, however, the 'self',
as we conventionally understand it, continues its ever-changing patterns
of thought, feeling and response; we can but watch and enjoy its
kaleidoscope.
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