An Even Harder Problem

/18 Comments/in /by

An Even Harder Problem

People like to talk about “the hard problem”, meaning the problem of consciousness. The phrase itself invites scrutiny: it contains the definite article and thus implies uniqueness, unlike “a hard problem”; and “hard” is an attributive adjective associated with cognate words, i.e., “harder” and “hardest”. So, we must ask: is the problem the only hard problem, and what problems is it harder than. I am concerned here with whether there are any problems that are harder than it: it may be hard but that doesn’t imply that no problems are harder; it might be, logically, that many problems are harder. It would then not be the hard problem singular, but just ahard problem among other hard problems, some of which are even harder. It might even be an easy problem compared to these, and certainly not harder than they are. In a ranking of problems, it might be somewhere in the middle—harder than some, easier than others. The really hard problems might sniff snootily at it and call it a doddle or other nasty names. It might even be terminal for human minds but still not that hard in the broader scheme of things that includes problems not soluble by any conceivable form of intelligence. If it turned out that the majority of problems were harder than this problem, it would be semantically correct to call it “an easy problem”, because to be a hard problem it would need to be harder than most problems, and it isn’t. The phrase itself begs many questions and may not be very helpful in the long run.

What other problems might be deemed hard problems? Many problems are hard relative to the capacities of chosen types of intelligence; they are all hard relative to some. Hardness is a relational characteristic, being an epistemic notion in its current use. For us humans now, we can list a bunch of notoriously difficult problems: the origins of space and time, the nature of gravity, the origins of life, the possibility of free will, the biological point of dreams, the workings of creativity, the nature of mathematical knowledge, the grounds of ethical judgment. What, by contrast, are the easy problems? I suppose we could list many of the problems of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology: the structure of the solar system (heliocentric), the basic laws of mechanics (Newtonian), the chemical composition of water (H2O), the origin of species (Darwinian). These problems have been solved and are thus ipso facto easy, unlike the list of so-called hard problems. In the case of evolution, we might even say that the problem is intrinsically easy, though it took a long time to hit upon it: it’s just a matter of differential selection applied to antecedent species (see Darwin’s Origin of Species). Our question must be: are any of the hard problems harder than the problem of consciousness?

There is one feature of the problem of consciousness that stands out: we know what it is. We have, as the old philosophers used to say, an “adequate conception” of it, a “clear and distinct idea”. We are indeed intimately acquainted with consciousness, nothing more so, since we live with it every day. We don’t say “Consciousness, what is that?” (compare dark matter, or even electricity). We don’t know consciousness just by its effects, or merely structurally, or purely functionally; we know it intrinsically, personally, as it actually is. It is therefore surprising that we are also so ignorant about it: you would think it would be an easy problem! You would think we would say, “Oh consciousness, yeah, I know all about that, it’s just XYZ”. You would think its relation the brain, which we also know about directly, would be perfectly transparent, intelligible, and long since figured out. But it isn’t so. The continuing puzzlement is itself puzzling. The point I want to make here is that the fact of direct knowledge suggests that other problems might be harder simply because we have no direct knowledge of their subject matter. Take the case of causation: ever since Hume we have accepted that causation is deeply puzzling, a mystery to the human mind. We believe in it but we don’t see it: we have no impression of the necessary connection in which causation consists; we don’t know its inner nature. We are acquainted with constant conjunction and individual events but not with the causal glue that binds them. The case is precisely unlike the case of consciousness, with which we are intimately acquainted. This puts causation on a different level from consciousness: we are not even in the know about what it is—we just have a word for we-know-not-what. This might well make the problem of causation harder than the problem of consciousness in the end; at least we can test theories of consciousness against our ordinary knowledge of its nature, which is what we can’t do with respect to causation. How could we verify or falsify a theory of causation? We perceive consciousness in ourselves whereas we don’t perceive causation anywhere.

I am softening you up for the really interesting case, which I hesitate to unveil. Is there anything about the mind that is also unseen and unperceived but which raises similar problems to consciousness? Is there anything that stands to consciousness as dark matter stands to matter? If so, it might well present the same problems as consciousness and then some—it would be an even harder problem. Would it be the hardest problem of all? That would be a bold and reckless conjecture, but it might well be a lot harder than the problem of consciousness—it might be really really f***ing hard. The question is worth asking, even if it is impossible to deliver a definitive answer. I am thinking, of course, of the unconscious—of the part of the mind that lies beyond the reach of introspection.[1] We might call it the “unknown mind”—the mind that is merely postulated not perceived, hidden not apparent. What are its characteristics? We don’t know—it’s hidden from introspective knowledge—but we can responsibly speculate. It is mental after all. First, it must surely have intentionality: be about things other than itself, representational, symbolic. Second, it must be similar to the consciousness with which it interacts and which it parallels; it may even slide into consciousness occasionally. Take unconscious perception: sub-threshold perceptions of color, say, must have a nature similar to supra-threshold perceptions. That is, they must have a phenomenology; there must be something it is like for them to exist—though we are not consciously aware of it. Aren’t pains we are not currently aware of also pains? Suppose this is so: the unconscious mind is both intentional and phenomenological. Then we can say that it has these characteristics without benefit of conscious awareness of them (as dark matter is presumably extended, though not visibly so). So, it is unlike consciousness in not being a datum of awareness; we are not directly acquainted with it. Yet it presents much the same explanatory problems as consciousness without such direct awareness. We have no “adequate conception” of it, knowing it only by inference, structurally, functionally. We really don’t know what we are talking about. So, the hardness of the problem is multiplied: it has the problems of intentionality and phenomenology but without our having any real grasp of the subject matter of the problems. This makes it harder than the hard problem of consciousness; the unconscious is the really hard problem of the mind. Sure, consciousness is hard (a lot harder than evolution), but it isn’t uniquely hard (that “the”), and it isn’t even the hardest of the hard problems concerning the mind. The not conscious mind is arguably harder, more recalcitrant. In linguistics finding an adequate grammar of conscious language is pretty damn hard, but discovering the grammar of the unconscious aspect of our language is even harder, because it is hidden away in the unconscious part of the mind. What is the generative grammar of the unconscious language of thought? That is a problem even harder. When the mind operates unconsciously it becomes even harder to understand than when it is open to view.

And what is the hardest problem of all? I don’t know. We have quite a few to choose from. The problem of consciousness is hard (harder than many problems); the problem of the unconscious is harder still (arguably): but what problem puts these to shame in the competition for supreme hardness? My money is on the origins of space and time, because I have absolutely no idea where you might even begin with this problem (or pair of problems); they certainly didn’t evolve from earlier species of space and time, or from bubble gum, or from God stuff. I don’t even think we have much idea about what they are. It’s a hard problem what the hardest problem is, but probably not the hardest problem.[2]

[1] I write about this in “The Mystery of the Unconscious” in Philosophical Provocations (2017).

[2] I think “the hard problem” is a phrase that appeals to people who don’t know much philosophy, or much science for that matter. Philosophy is full of hard problems (compared to animal husbandry, say) and science also faces many unsolved problems. It is hardly illuminating or informative to call the problem of free will or the problem of skepticism “hard problems”—of course they are, they have been around for thousands of years. They are hardly “easy problems” compared to other problems already solved. The phrase is more of a meme than an insight. It is an outright banality—junk thought. People think they are being profound when they say it; in reality, it is platitudinous at best.

Share

Ethics and Other Minds

/9 Comments/in /by

Ethics and Other Minds

There is a close connection between ethics and the problem of other minds, which I have not seen remarked (though it is obvious). Belief in the latter supports commitment to the former; skepticism undermines it. If you don’t believe in other minds at all, you can have no morality worthy of the name (except self-directed duties). An obligation to someone is an obligation to them qua mental entity—person, sentient being. One is not morally concerned about zombies. Contrariwise, if you feel a strong commitment to ethics, you will have a firm belief in other minds—this might even override philosophical skepticism. Ethics might be so important to you that you dismiss such skepticism without a second thought. If you were born with morality in your genes, you would be born with belief in other minds in your genes. This reason is independent of the explanatory uses of this kind of belief system (“theory of mind”). But of course, other minds are not a given, not like your own mind; there is no Cogito for other minds. Suppose there were: then morality would have a firm foothold in your mind, other things being equal. It would be as solid as prudence, epistemically. If, per impossibile, these were inverted, then prudence would be as vulnerable to skepticism as other minds are now, and morality would be as firm epistemically as prudence. That is, one’s own self would be as epistemically remote as other selves, and others would be epistemically close. As it is, however, the problem of other minds hovers over the authority of morality, so that it faces an uphill battle. Any reason to doubt other minds is a reason to doubt morality.

We humans do not have a solid general grasp of other minds, some of us less than others. Some people, apparently, don’t really believe in other minds as they believe in their own. They are called narcissists or psychopaths or autistic. None of us grasps animal minds as well as we grasp human minds. We tend to grasp the minds of those close to us better than the strange and distant. There is a pronounced proximity effect or similarity variable. This weakens our sense of moral obligation, empathy, concern for others. The more remote or alien a mind seems to us the less we feel moral sentiments regarding its possessor. And any cognitive deficiency in our conception of other minds will affect our moral attitudes. A consequence is that intelligence will tend to be correlated with moral attitudes and actions: the greater the intelligence, the greater the virtue (ceteris paribus). Very dumb people will not be morally responsible. Any culture that underplays the reality of other minds will weaken moral rectitude. Thus, we need education in the existence of other minds if we are to secure a sound morality. De-personalizing others must be discouraged and deterred. An anti-realist behaviorism about other minds must be strongly resisted. Tendencies towards solipsism must be fought against. T-shirts saying “Other Minds are Real” should be commonplace. Remedial therapy should be state-sponsored. It doesn’t much matter if people doubt the external world, because inanimate objects don’t suffer, but doubting other minds can easily lead to barbaric behavior. This is why political persecution is always accompanied by claims of psychological inferiority or attenuation (“They can’t suffer like us”). We need to be firmly convinced that other people have souls just like us (animals too). A political party should have in its manifesto the principle that other minds are real—“We are the party of other-minds realism”. Its platform is that other people (and animals) are not just bodies or numbers or behavers. They pullulate within.[1]

But it is a good question what the right conception of other minds should be in order for morality to be best served. What is the best way of thinking of other minds such that morality naturally follows? How do we make the best fit between the two? What is the best theory of other minds from a moral point of view? A natural first thought is that we must think of other minds as literally our own mind in someone else’s body; then we will pay it the proper respect. One can appreciate the motivation here, but it is surely misconceived: it is quite impossible to believe that your mind is literally possessed by everybody (unless we go for some kind of universal-mind view of reality). So, let’s relax this to require only similarity between one’s own mind and other minds. That’s better but is also far too strong: we don’t want to rule out moral concern for beings quite different from us psychologically (animals, children, aliens). This is why theorists retreat to such universal features as sentience or the capacity to suffer; but these tend to be too weak and don’t allow for gradations. I think we are in the presence of inherent vagueness, multi-dimensionality, borderline cases. Pragmatically, I think the best formula is something like this: regard others as reacting as you would react to what affects them (shades of the golden rule). If a certain kind of treatment would lead to pain and suffering in you, take seriously the possibility (or obvious actuality) that they will react in the same way and act accordingly. View them as reactively similar to you. If it would hurt you to have your foot stepped on, assume that it would hurt a dog or monkey to be similarly stepped on. Don’t think it’s just reflex behavior in them if it is more than that in you. The reason this is the best fit morally is simply that morality is largely about how others should be treated, so focus on reactions to treatment. Conceive other minds as centers of psychological reaction. Consider how they are affected by things. Not how they behave, save as signs of what goes on inside them. Consider the stimulus not the behavioral response. Think: “That would hurt!” And don’t underestimate the amount of hurt or its quality. Be a realist about psychological reaction: pain, trauma, sadness, depression, grief, suicidal tendencies—as well as pleasure, joy, and happiness. Morally speaking, the mind of the other is a center of value-laden reaction—affective effects. What are the effects of your actions on the affective life of others? This is what morality is all about, fundamentally. So, your conception of other minds needs to incorporate that dimension if it is to serve the purposes of morality. And the belief must be strong, unqualified, unbiased—you must really believe in the existence of other minds. You can ponder the other minds problem in your epistemology class, but don’t carry it into the market place—act promptly and decisively. Act as if there is no skeptical problem about other minds; for morality depends on it. We may regard this epistemic predicament as unfortunate—sometimes veryunfortunate (what kind of God would allow it?)—but that is the way it is, and the stakes are high. You don’t want to end up making a mistake about it and other minds are as real as your own. Think of it as a matter of faith if that helps. True, there is the risk that solipsism is true and all your moral sacrifices have been pointless (they were all zombies after all); but it is a much greater risk that other minds are real and you have spent your life doubting it and acting unethically. In practice this never happens, fortunately, but it’s good to be aware of the possibility. It does seem likely that many people are semi-skeptical (or ignorant) about other minds (or act that way), and not just the psychopathic narcissists; it takes a vivid imagination to recognize the full reality of minds other than one’s own. It would be salutary periodically to ask yourself, “Be honest now, do I really believe that other minds are as real as my own?” It can be convenient to underestimate this and act callously or insensitively, so it is wise (ethical) to be vigilant about it. When was the last time you treated someone as if he or she approximated to a zombie? Look deep into their eyes, feel their interiority—I guarantee you will be a better person for it.[2]

[1] Doesn’t it sometimes seem as if the human belief in other minds is only just strong enough to sustain a tolerable morality? If we believed it only a little less, morality would be in big trouble. After all, it is not as if the existence of other minds is easily demonstrable; and we all know how easy it is to make mistakes. You can’t tell simply by looking. Perhaps we are lucky we do as well as we do in forming this belief. Morality hangs by an epistemic thread.

[2] Do animals and young children have a properly formed sense of the existence of other minds, and hence satisfy a necessary condition for possessing a moral sense? Do adolescents? I rather doubt it: they just go by behavior without any thought of interior realities. Does the lion have any idea of what it is like for its prey to be held by its throat in the lion’s jaws? I doubt it. It probably never gives a thought to other minds and the impact of its actions. I suspect, too, that the individualistic self-advancement gung-ho culture of the United States erodes the natural human sense of the reality of other minds; but that is another story. It is why Americans are so easily taken in by simplistic psychological theories. Then there was slavery, a massive denial of the reality of other minds.

Share

“Baby, I Love You”

/2 Comments/in /by

“Baby, I Love You”

The first thing I did after waking up from a twelve-hour operation on my neck was to vomit into a plastic bag (a normal reaction to all the anesthetic, I was told). I was semi-delirious on a gurney. The next thing I did was feebly sing the chorus to the song “Baby, I Love You” by the Ronettes[1] to my nurse Shannon, to whom I had just been introduced. I had been working on the song the previous week and it popped into my mind as I regained consciousness (along with my usual anger). They wheeled me up to the recovery room with an array of tubes poking out of me, including a catheter. I had the distinct feeling of not-being-dead. It was 9pm (I had arrived at the hospital at 6am with my girlfriend Morella). There was no way I was going to sleep that night, except fitfully. The song kept going through my head. I asked Shannon if she knew it and she played it on her phone. I was still memorizing the lyrics and would sing parts of the song to her throughout the night and the next day. It got me through the ordeal and she knew that. Whenever I sing that song now (this was two years ago) I think of that recovery room, and Shannon, and vomiting into a plastic bag.

[1] Amazingly, a cover of it was made by the Ramones, but the original is much better. Opening lines: “Have I ever told you, how good it feels to hold you? It isn’t easy to explain”.

Share

William James on Mind and Brain

/4 Comments/in /by

William James on Mind and Brain

In chapter VI of The Principles of Psychology William James writes: “The ultimate of ultimate problems, of course, in the study of the relations of thought and brain, is to understand why and how such disparate things are connected at all. But before that problem is solved (if it ever is solved) there is a less ultimate problem that must first be settled” (177). This is finding the “minimal mental fact whose being reposes directly on a brain-fact”. He concludes the chapter with these words: “nature in her unfathomable designs has mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other’s being, but how or why, no mortal may ever know” (182). To the modern-day mysterian such as myself these words have a remarkable prescience. First, James has hit upon the metaphor of a flame to capture the nature of consciousness, contrasting this with the clay of the brain—how does fire spring from clay? (My book is called The Mysterious Flame.) Second, he is more than willing to entertain the hypothesis that the mystery is irremediable: no “mortal” (aka human) may ever know, though a superior intellectual being might be able to resolve the mystery. If only he had seen that this carries no implications about the naturalness of the elusive connection! No compromise with ontological rationalism needs to be contemplated. No spirit, no soul, no divine intervention. Still, I am impressed.

Share

South Park

/0 Comments/in /by

South Park

South Park has thrown down the gauntlet: expect more of this or come after us. I don’t see that MAGA has any easy options, so this could be one of the most potent political moves so far. I don’t know what will happen, but it is a serious challenge in today’s world.

Share

The Deep Problem of Consciousness

/2 Comments/in /by

The Deep Problem of Consciousness

In The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890, William James quotes from Charles Mercier’s The Nervous System and the Mind (1888): “But why the two occur together, or what the link is that connects them, we do not know, and most authorities believe that we never shall and never can know” (p.136). He is speaking of conscious states and brain states. He asserts both “the absolute separateness of mind and matter” and the “invariable concomitance of a mental change and a bodily change”. James comments that this “’concomitance’ in the midst of ‘absolute separateness’ is an utterly irrational notion”, going on to say that “the whole notion of ‘binding’ is a mystery”. Nevertheless, “there must be a ‘reason’ for them [the correlations], and something must ‘determine’ the laws”. He remarks on the “pitifully bounded horizon” of our “common-sense”. This is the deep problem of consciousness, clearly recognized as such and declared a mystery, probably terminal. Neither author expects this position to be much contested. Thomas Huxley had already stated in 1863 that the emergence of consciousness from the brain is like the emergence of the genie from the lamp, i.e., unaccountable, remarking “But what consciousness is, we know not”. In 1868 John Tyndall stated, “The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable” even if we had detailed knowledge of the concomitance, adding that “the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding fact of consciousness is unthinkable”. There would appear to be a consensus about the nature of the problem, which can be put in the form of an antinomy: consciousness is demonstrably of the brain but is also clearly notof the brain. There exists a kind of magical (mysterious) “binding” whereby two things are one, or one thing manifests itself as two. The problem is held to be impossibly deep, quite beyond us, a total head-spinner. The assumption is that classical dualism and modern materialism are quite inadequate to deal with it—the former failing to acknowledge the physical foundations of consciousness, the latter failing to acknowledge the transcendence of consciousness over the molecules of the brain.

Now skip ahead and survey the present intellectual scene. I can’t help noticing that it is almost exactly one hundred years between Charles Mercier’s 1888 statement and Colin McGinn’s very similar statement of 1989 in “Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?”, which was prefaced by Huxley’s genie analogy.[1] I knew nothing of this history then and was surprised to discover it later. It was as if it had been intentionally blotted out in the interim, completely lost sight of; I might almost say regressed from, forgotten, suppressed. Nowadays, however, we have quite a roster of mysterians of one description or another: myself, Thomas Nagel, Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, Steven Pinker, Martin Gardner, Roger Penrose, Ed Witten, Sam Harris, and no doubt others. We see the point those eminent Victorians were driving at (and before them various Renaissance thinkers—Locke, Hume, Leibniz, and others). What happened to occlude this eminently reasonable position in the interim? In particular, why did a simple form of materialism gain such traction until quite recently? This is something of a mystery—the mystery of why the mystery was not recognized during this period.

I have a theory. Not long after these Victorian insights (the Victorians weren’t all bad) a new school of thought hit the ground running. It annihilated everything in its wake, in psychology and philosophy. I refer of course to behaviorism. The mind was abandoned in favor of the body—the moving reactive body. It was all stimulus and response now. The body is physical: you can see it, touch it, measure it, photograph it. That’s all there is (all that science can observe). There is no deep problem of the “concomitance” of the mind with the brain: it is all one uniform physical system, a well-oiled machine. Accordingly, people stopped thinking about the mind from its own perspective: they adopted a third-person point of view. They pictured the mind physically, as a mobile body. Psychology became a branch of mechanics, in effect. Pain became pain behavior that can be seen and touched. The whole conception of the mind underwent a radical transformation; the mind proper disappeared from view for decades. Any remnant of the old conception was ruthlessly eliminated (Ryle was a kind of exterminator). And it wasn’t all bad, because the mind is inextricably linked to the body and its actions. Deeds are not irrelevant to mental acts. The mind is adaptive and biological. Physiology matters. But eventually the behaviorist creed wore thin: for it neglected the inner, the internal, the intermediary (“intervening variables”). The black box must have something in it; it wasn’t just mush in there. What? The brain, of course. Thus, “central state materialism”. This wasn’t that much of a departure from behaviorism, as it happens. You can trace muscle contractions back to efferent nerves and their busy neural impulses—aren’t they the direct expression of so-called psychological states? But then, these stem from deeper within, going back the brain, specifically the motor cortex. Techniques for investigating cortical activity were developed (implanted electrodes, etc.): scientists could obtain recordings of brain behavior. The brain acts, responds, does things: it is a zone of physical behavior. So, we could preserve the spirit of behaviorism while jettisoning its dogmatic focus on the gross body. We could be sophisticated behaviorists—neurological behaviorists. We shift focus from the whole body to a vital part of it but preserve the metaphysics of mind presupposed by old-style behaviorism. The next step was obvious enough: identify mental states with brain states, or mental actions with brain actions. Not bits of overt behavior or dispositions to same but internal behavior—cerebral behavior. We are still thinking of the mind as the old behaviorists taught us to, but it has been shifted inward. Materialism is behaviorism internalized. True, brain states seem more alien to the mind than ordinary bodily behavior—not how we normally think—but they are still on the same level as behavior (as atoms are like macroscopic bodies). We have retained the third-person point of view (the point of view from a distance). Hence the occlusion, the abandonment, the suppression of the mental as viewed from the inside.

But this revised physicalism (the body as the paradigm of the physical) could only maintain its hold for so long. Someone was going to point out that the mind is essentially conscious, that consciousness is real, that it cannot be neglected. The mind came rushing back in its pre-behaviorist form, where it had been left dangling since the late nineteenth century. And with it the old mind-body problem asserted itself—the problem of “concomitance”, the problem of “binding”. When that happened it was a short step to the rediscovery of the mystery, which had not been advanced one jot. Modern mysterians are just the reincarnation of those stiff bearded Victorian mysterians in black and white photographs. We are taking up where they left off after a misguided interregnum. Metaphysical behaviorism is dead, external or internal, bodily or cerebral; we need a new metaphysics—whether we can come up with one or not. The deep problem is back, baby.[2]

[1] Don’t worry, I haven’t taken to referring to myself in the third-person; I just couldn’t resist the alliteration. I note also that Mercier was a British psychiatrist; I was originally a British psychologist. We have both studied the mind empirically in some depth and from many angles, unlike your typical philosopher. We know it’s a tough nut to crack. I like to imagine meeting Charles Mercier over a coffee.

[2] It is always a good idea to have a look at the history of a philosophical problem in order gain a better understanding of the problem. It is easy to get locked into a set of contemporary assumptions that are not compulsory. People in the past were pretty smart too. And they weren’t trained out of thinking clearly in graduate school.

Share

Against Identity Theories

/2 Comments/in /by

Against Identity Theories

Would it shock you to learn that so-called identity theories are not identity theories? If so, prepare to be shocked (I was). Proponents of these theories called them identity theories, but they were mistaken about their true import. This puts them in a new light. Consider the following statements: “water is H2O”, “heat is molecular motion”, “light is a stream of photons”, “gravity is curved spacetime”, “air is a collection of gases”, “genes are DNA molecules”, “colors are dispositions to produce color experiences”, “thought is inner speech”, “sensations are brain processes”. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that these statements are all true. The question is what do they say—their logical form, semantic analysis, conceptual content. The standard view is that they are identity statements like “Hesperus is Phosphorus”, “Clark Kent is Superman”, “lifts are elevators”, “I am Colin McGinn”, “Tuesday is the day before Wednesday”, “hombres are men”, etc. These can all be paraphrased by inserting “identical to” after “is” or “are”. They all have the logical form “A = B”. You can invert the flanking terms and preserve truth. They are typically a posteriori but can be a priori. They obey Leibniz’s law. They are not explanatory or explicative: they don’t purport to tell you the nature of anything. They are not theoretically interesting or speculative. The “is” in them is the “is” of identity not of predication or composition. They form the class of identity statements, expressing a distinctive type of proposition (this is identical to that). The question is whether the list of sentences I first mentioned belongs to this class: do they say, and say only, that this is identical to that? Let us first pay attention to a curious linguistic fact: we don’t usually invert the terms in the sentences in question. We don’t normally say “H2O is water” or “molecular motion is heat” or “inner speech is thought” or “brain processes are sensations” (when was the last time you heard somebody say “C-fiber firing is pain”?). It sounds a bit off, a bit point-missing; yet true identity statements permit it smoothly. The reason for this is not a mystery: such statements are intended to say that something already identified has a certain nature. You designate a specific stuff or kind and then say what its nature is—its essence, its underlying reality. You don’t say “the nature of H20 is water” or “the nature of brain processes is sensation”. These statements are asymmetrical specifications of nature or essence, not (merely) statements of symmetrical identity. The “is” is the “is” of explication, essence-specification. It is not logically required that the kind be identical to its essence; indeed, it sounds funny to say “water is identical to its essence H2O”. It hasthat essence but it isn’t that essence. Does the essence or nature of water come out of taps or form lakes? We have discovered the nature of a certain kind of thing and we give voice to such discoveries by enunciating sentences of this form; we are not merely announcing a discovery of simple identity. We aren’t reporting that two modes of presentation converge; we are saying what the nature of something is. Even if the proposition in question entails a correlated identity proposition (which I doubt), the main point of the statement is to say something not merely informative but explicative—illuminating, penetrating. The chemist or physicist is not just assembling a list of brute identities but a series of substantive theoretical discoveries. We should therefore not describe these as “theoretical identities” but “theoretical explications”. The scientist is not saying anything like “water is aqua” or “heat is thermal” or “thought is cognition” or “pain is suffering”. Nor is it a mere matter of a posteriori discovery like Hesperus and Phosphorus: we could have two names for heat that have different senses, thus allowing for an a posteriori statement, but that is not the same as discovering the essence of heat by scientific investigation (using a microscope etc.). I suggest giving up labeling the discoveries in question “theoretical identities” and replacing it with “theoretical explications”; it aids clarity. The statements in question really mean “the nature of X is Y”, as in “the nature of water is H2O”.

Why does it matter? First, it is quite wrong to say that brain scientists have discovered an identity between mind and brain; they have discovered a correlation which philosophers claim to be an identity. It isn’t at all like discovering that Hesperus is Phosphorus or Clark Kent is Superman, in which you can trace the object through space and time and observe its different appearances. But second, and more important, once we see what the claim really is its plausibility tends quickly to evaporate. Suppose I assert “the nature of pain is C-fiber firing”: that bold claim is apt to be met with a resounding “No, it’s not!”. There is something mumbo-jumbo-ish about “pain is identical to C-fiber firing” (only a philosopher would say it), whereas “the nature of pain is C-fiber firing” is creditably straightforward—there is no hanky-panky going on. We know just what is being claimed, and it is not remotely symmetrical (“the nature of C-fiber firing is pain”). In the case of water and heat such statements are clearly true, but in the case of pain this is not so—we have been given no cogent reason to accept that the nature of pain is C-fiber firing. Is the nature of thought neural activity in the pre-frontal cortex? Is that its real essence? Hardly. The so-called identity theorist needs to put his cards on the table so that we can see what he has, and when he does his hand looks decidedly weak. We know what he wants to say—what a genuine materialist believes—but he cloaks it in talk of “theoretical identities” based on misdescriptions of what goes on in science. He derives spurious support from this sketchy maneuver. Better to come right out with it in plain language—“sensations have a neurological essence” or “thoughts have an axon-dendrite nature”. Then at least we know what exactly is being claimed. And we are apt to respond with incredulity, since we intuitively suppose that pain’s essence is a certain type of feeling (and we definitely don’t naturally take to the idea that feelings have a molecular nature). When the position is stated in terms of identity, we easily fall into the picture of two modes of presentation of the same thing, but that model does not work in the present case (since the appearance of pain is pain). So-called identity theorists have traded on these confusions for a long time; they would serve us better by owning up to the actual content of their doctrine, viz. that consciousness and all its contents have a bodily-physical essence involving biological cells. That sounds preposterous to most people, while the corresponding claims about water, heat, gravity, color, thought and inner speech, etc. seem eminently reasonable. The truth is that there is no such thing as the identity theory: that is a misnomer for something else entirely, i.e., a claim about essence or nature. By all means carry on saying “heat is molecular motion”, but don’t gloss this as “heat is (strictly) identical to molecular motion” while thinking the while about the model of “Hesperus is identical to Phosphorus”.[1]

[1] If I were to make a list of all the types of “is” I would say: the “is” of predication, the “is” of identity, the “is” of composition, the “is” of essence or nature, and the “is” of definition (there may be others). Part of the problem has been that philosophers have only thought about the “is” of predication and the “is” of identity (sometimes adding the “is” of composition); but sometimes we use this little word to convey what we have impressively discovered (or think we have) about something. If anything, this is the “is” of predication. And it is really not plausible that we have discovered materialism to be true of the mind, as we have discovered atomism to be true of matter. It’s a philosophical theory not a scientific fact.

Share

Composers, Singers, and Instrumentalists

/9 Comments/in /by

Composers, Singers, and Instrumentalists

These three occupations are not commonly combined. Opera singers don’t compose and play an instrument as well as sing. Lead guitarists usually don’t sing as well as play. Composers are rarely performers of note. There are exceptions, but the demands of each occupation are liable to encroach on the other occupations. Has anyone ever been a great composer and a great singer and a great instrumentalist? Each of these is difficult enough, requiring specialized skills, so combining them is beyond normal human capabilities. There has to be a division of labor: writing, playing, singing. It is reasonable to suppose that doing all three will detract from achievement in any one of them. One will usually dominate. In particular, songwriters are not usually great singers, nor singers great songwriters. Excellence in each of them competes with excellence in the others. How many ace drummers are fine singers or songwriters (Buddy Rich?).  Does Celine Dion write her own stuff and accompany herself on piano? Did Leiber and Stoller ever perform their own songs? That’s the rule. People specialize, as they do elsewhere (has anyone ever been a great athlete, musician, and intellectual?). There is a psychological law at work here: to succeed you have to specialize. You have to beone thing or the other, single-mindedly, exclusively.

You might reply that there is a notable exception to this law: the Beatles. There are partial exceptions: people who successfully combine composing, singing, and playing an instrument (Elton John, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Prince). But the Beatles seemingly succeeded in being preeminent songwriters, tremendous singers, and gifted players; in particular, they managed to be outstanding performers and brilliant songwriters. Perhaps they were the best ever in this combination of talents. And yet, laws are laws: everyone is subject to them. So, we must ask: did the Beatles suffer from under-specialization? Did they try to do too much? Did they stretch themselves too thin? I fear the answer is yes. They notoriously wrote songs to deadlines, failed to become master instrumentalists, and didn’t develop real singing chops. Oh, they were good at all three, no question, but could they have been better if they had limited themselves? My suspicion is that they could have been better songwriters had they not performed so much and so well. I don’t think their later songs are as good as their earlier songs, though they are often excellent. It feels as if they are doing a job not responding to an inspiration. I think No Reply is much better than Norwegian Wood, for example. Songs take time to appear and develop; they can’t be forced. That’s why people often write only a few great songs, or even just one (e.g., Hang on Sloopy). The Beatles suffered from songwriter’s fatigue; John was notoriously dissatisfied with many of their later songs. Yes, Lennon and McCartney were great songwriters, but they could have been better. They needed more time and focus. There are occasional gems (Strawberry Fields, In My Life), but often they are fairly routine ditties by their exalted standards. George latterly produced some outstanding songs, but he had more time to do it. I wonder whether when the Beatles broke up, they were half-consciously aware of the problem: how could they keep on advancing musically given the pressure of three different forms of musical ability? They needed to Get Back, but there was no way back. Certainly, their post-Beatles output shows signs of fatigue. Their first couple of albums were free of this problem precisely because they did not compose all the songs. They were trying to do the humanly impossible. Imagine asking Pavarotti to compose his own operas, sing them, and perform the musical accompaniment; it won’t happen. The Beatles were just plain overworked.

Speaking of myself (excuse the bathos), I don’t sing and play the guitar at the same time—the singing is hard enough on its own. And when I am writing a song, I am not thinking of performing it; just writing it is a difficult task in itself. These are separate abilities, one not entailing the other. I always think I am really a drummer: that’s where my main talent lies—the rest is amateur hour. I actually think Lennon and McCartney were mainly composers; performing was secondary.[1] Ringo, however, is a born performer—and George was an enigma.

[1] When they sang covers, they were selecting if not composing: they chose according to their own musical tastes. And they also had to compose a way of covering the song—so they were partially composing. Arranging is a type of composing. I would particularly cite Anna, Twist and Shout, and You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me, among many others.

Share