Locating Meaning

Where is meaning? Where is it located? This is a good question, because not easy to answer; maybe answering it would give us some idea of the nature of meaning. Is it in the external world, or in the mind (conscious or unconscious), or in the soul (immaterial substance), or in the body (behaviorism), or in the brain, or in the community, or in the abstract Plato-Frege realm, or somewhere else entirely? Or is it in many places, or none? People talk about whether meaning is “in the head” (the skull, the brain, the inner ego?), but that doesn’t exhaust the location question; we should approach the question more broadly and comprehensively. To that end, I will consider an alternative intellectual history with some echoes of recent discussions; this should help us gain a better perspective on the issues.

Consider a group of Cartesians firmly convinced that the mind (the soul) is an immaterial substance having neither extension nor location. They accordingly believe that meaning resides in this substance along with anything mental. So long as the substance remains unaltered it will contain the same meanings, even posthumously. You can change the body, the brain, the environment, or anything external to the soul thus conceived and you won’t change meaning. It all depends on the internal make-up of the immaterial substance. They are savagely “internalist”. Now a renegade comes along, call him “Mantup”: this chap has come up with an ingenious thought experiment he wants to try out on his colleagues, involving a place called Twin Earth. You know the story from Mantup’s Earth counterpart (H. Putnam), so I won’t repeat it. Suffice to say that it shows that meaning is (partially) determined by the environment in such a way that “water” has a different meaning on Earth and Twin Earth. This goes against the prevailing immaterialist internalism. Mantup’s argument is found persuasive, but disturbing, for two reasons. First, it undermines the entrenched semantic internalism: “Meaning just ain’t in the soul!”, people exclaim. Meaning is in the world, the physical environment, a matter of causal interactions with physical things, at least partly. So, meaning seems to be an amalgam of the inner and immaterial and the outer and material—a metaphysical hybrid. But how can meaning be both material and immaterial, extended and not extended, located and not located? This goes against everything they believe—and yet it seems true. The resolution breathlessly proposed by some members of our imaginary group is that the soul cannot be immaterial! I know, crazy right? But they have an argument: it’s the only way to avoid metaphysical absurdity—because we can now say that meaning is uniformly material, extended, and located. That strange furrowed organ in the head (they have no name for it) actually plays a role in the formation of mind: it is the mind, or at least is vital to the mind’s powers. Who would have thought? They are now externalist materialists where once they were internalist immaterialists. Quite a volte face. If meaning has a location after all (a region of space next to a planet), then so must the mind have a location—right where the relevant part of space is. The correct theory of meaning has led to a revision in the metaphysics of mind. Meaning turns out to be physical and located in the brain. Syntax was already ensconced in the brain (no Twin Earth cases for syntax), and now semantics follows suit.

Now let’s go back to Earth and our own intellectual tradition. When we say that meaning is in the head, or deny this, what do we mean by “head”? I think there are three possibilities: the conscious, the unconscious, and the brain. Either meaning is in the conscious mind, or in the unconscious mind, or in the physical brain. What is the truth? I don’t think it is plausible that meaning is a creature of consciousness like sensation; it has a partly submerged nature. We don’t consciously assemble complex meanings from an array of simple meanings; our unconscious does that for us (compare seeing an object). A lot of linguistic processing goes on unconsciously—that is a truism. Yet meaning is not completely divorced from consciousness; consciousness comes in at some point—as when you consciously hear what someone says or carefully construct a line of poetry. This unconscious level is affected by external factors, as in Twin Earth: “water” differs in meaning in the unconscious minds of speakers on Earth and Twin Earth, as well as in their conscious minds. The physical environment forces a difference of reference in the two places, and this conjoins with the unconscious and conscious content of the speakers’ mind. In fact, I would say that the unconscious existence of meaning is aptly described as “physical”: not that it is reducible to physics but that it is “of the body”.[1] It operates at a subconscious cerebral level, like the subconscious processing of visual data. Moreover, the unconscious semantic level is larger and more important than the conscious level (as with phonetics and syntax). If so, meaning is mainly located in the unconscious physical world—the world of space, extension, and spatial location. The external component is clearly physical (water impinging on the senses) and so is the internal component in so far as it is unconscious (which it preponderately is). In short, meaning is (mainly) physical and located where matter is located. It is “bodily” in the way vision is. It is true that meaning can appear at the conscious level, and perhaps necessarily so, but it must also have an unconscious existence, as revealed in its combinatorial powers. As in all human skills, there is a vast reality of unconscious know-how lying behind any complex skill, from walking to talking. We only catch glimpses of it at the conscious level. How much of the child’s grasp of language is consciously represented? Not much. Does the child consciously know what he is doing when he speaks? Of course not. Meaning is located in the brain below conscious awareness (except when it reaches consciousness). Control of the larynx and other vocal organs is clearly unconscious and clearly body-directed, hence “physical”. Really, the whole contrast between “mental” and “physical” is out of date; the important point is that meaning is something that has a reality outside of what we can introspectively report. What we call “language mastery” is something wider than what crosses our conscious minds as we speak and understand. Indeed, I myself would happily say that meaning is not “in the mind”, though it is mainly “in the head”, because it is fundamentally “in the brain”, i.e., “physical” (it isn’t caused by non-physical supernatural agencies). Where is meaning? In the physical (biological) world, both internal to the organism (spatially) and also external to it. Thus, I am a kind of “physicalist” about meaning—not in the reductive sense but in the sense that meaning is a matter of actions of the brain. It is a sensorimotor skill. It isn’t like thought in this sense. That is why we don’t really introspect meaning: it isn’t a content of consciousness but a congeries of habits governed by the brain, though habits of a high cognitive order. It isn’t an attribute of an immaterial substance and it isn’t a bunch of qualia; it’s a body-involving sensorimotor skill of a specific kind. Thus, we may as well describe it as “physical” in the weak sense I have gestured at. It is not a divine disembodied attribute of something immaterial but a biological capacity rooted in the brain. Meaning is located in the head-world nexus.

Some theorists have contended, not without reason, that externalism extends beyond the semantic into the psychological. But this point can be overdone. Beliefs can be de re and so can meanings, but there are reasons why psychological externalism is less immediately appealing than semantic externalism: for language is clearly more tied to the body than mind is. We speak but we don’t do anything analogous with thought and belief—we don’t have bodily organs that are dedicated to these activities. We refer to things in speech publicly, but we don’t do the same with our thoughts. We don’t warm to “use” theories of thought, but we do for language. Languages vary from place to place, but thoughts don’t; thought is more universal. Words are more tied down to things than concepts are, more local. Language is public but thought is not. In other words, there are reasons to adopt an externalist conception of language that don’t apply to the mind. Language is more “outside the head” than thought is, though thought can be de re and hence environment-dependent. Calling thought “physical” is more of a conceptual strain than describing meaning this way. And remember that the language capacity is largely independent of other cognitive capacities like rational thought (or irrational thought). A behaviorist theory of language is marginally less repellent than a behaviorist theory of thought (though still repellent). Meaning is closer to behaving than thinking is (a statue called The Speaker would not portray him with his head in his hands completely silent and immobile). So, let’s not exaggerate the externalism of thought, ignoring the differences from language.[2]

[1] See my “Truly Physical”. Actually, we discovered in the nineteenth century that the mind was physical—as opposed to divinely (or devilishly) ordained and supervised. We discovered too that mental illness is not possession by evil spirits but an organic disorder. This is a type of “physicalism” in a perfectly good sense.

[2] There are ways of being an externalist about meaning but not about thought, such as being a causal theorist about words but a description theorist about concepts. Not that externalism about thought is a false doctrine; it is just not a simple deduction from externalism about meaning. Intuitively, meaning is embedded in the world in a way that thought isn’t (it is more inward). Language is all about hearing and speaking, but thought is more removed from the senses and the body.

Lolita’s Tennis

I make it a habit (a ritual) to (re-)read a chapter of Lolita every Christmas day. Yesterday was no exception; I chose chapter 20, in which Lolita’s tennis game is lovingly described. Here we are told of “the indescribable itch of rapture that her tennis game produced in me—the teasing delirious feeling of teetering on the very brink of unearthly order and splendor” (230). The chapter is a moral turning point for the enraptured Humbert and deeply moving. But that is not the topic of this brief essay: I was struck by the clear expertise Nabokov reveals about his own tennis game. I knew he was a player and sometime teacher of the game, so I decided to google the topic. To my delight and amazement, I was informed that he was actually an excellent player with professional ambitions at one time (playing in the Davis cup for Russia before the revolution—sadly thwarted). He was admitted to top clubs in Berlin in the interwar years based purely on his skill and performance. The boy could play! He was an enthusiast and accomplished with it. How I wish I could see his backhand! The man was a genius! Now I will play the game with renewed dedication and religiosity. I made a point of hitting yesterday against the wall, working on my left hand. If only I could meet him on a tennis court and hit some balls! I wonder how hard he could hit. Lolita, we are told, had a first-class game—skilled and graceful—but her will to win had been destroyed by her relationship with her stepfather. That tells you a lot about Nabokov’s compassion for his divine creation.[1]

[1] As it happens, a tennis friend of mine, Paul, a Rumanian, was at the wall too, teaching his granddaughter how to play. She was about Lolita’s age and having her first lesson, patiently and devotedly given by her grandfather. He was doing what Humbert signally failed to do, as he ruefully acknowledges. The symmetry was positively Nabokovian.

Administrative Expertise

I never fail to be impressed by university administrators. They are so wise, so knowledgeable, so insightful, so virtuous. And all without any formal training. Not only do they know about a wide range of academic subjects, they are experts in interpersonal relations—psychology, psychiatry, the ways of the human heart. They are also skilled in criminal investigation, correct legal procedure, and the art of judging. They know all this while mainly functioning as janitors and petty bureaucrats. No wonder they are paid so much. As I say, impressive. For example, they can tell when a relationship crosses into the zone of the “romantic” or “amorous” and hence should be reported and appropriate action taken. This is not just a simple matter of whether there is sex or not but can occur in the complete absence of any physical contact and declarations of love. No kissing required, just an inscrutable vibe they are uniquely equipped to detect. They even know better than the participants: these hapless individuals might sincerely believe that their relationship is not “romantic” in any clear sense, but the administrator knows they are wrong—he or she can just tell. On the basis of this they can initiate disciplinary proceedings and even dismiss the offending parties. Marvelous! What insight! What wisdom! And the administrator might only have formal training in geography or chemistry. These are remarkable people all right. What really impresses me is their ability to reach large conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence. They really have an almost uncanny ability in this regard. They just jump to the correct conclusion! As to the heads of colleges, these people are really astonishing: flawless, omniscient, Solomonic. They are a breed apart, not mere mortals—and so pure in their motivations. Politics and self-advancement never enter into it. One can only stand back in awe and thank God for their existence. And have you noticed that they never make a mistake? When was the last time you ever heard a university administrator admit he or she might be wrong? It never happens. They are infallible. Amen to that.

Brain Perception

I am going to adumbrate a new theory, quite an eye-stinging one. It says that you perceive your own brain. To be more specific, pain is the perception of C-fibers firing. It isn’t C-fibers firing itself but the perception of that.[1] The relation between pain and C-fibers is like that between seeing a dog and the dog: they are numerically distinct and yet closely entwined. The sensation of pain has a perceptual object and it’s in the brain. And not just pain: visual sensations too are perceptions of brain states (perturbations of the occipital cortex). When you see a dog, you also see your brain, or a bit of it. In fact, all consciousness is brain perception. Even thinking about philosophy is perceiving (sensing) your own brain. This isn’t because all consciousness is a brain state; it’s because all consciousness is brain perception. To put it with maximum provocativeness, consciousness is brain awareness—awareness of the brain. All consciousness is consciousness-of… the brain. This can be stated as an identity theory: mental states are identical to perceptual states of brain awareness. I don’t say only such awareness; rather, they are brain perception plus awareness of other things (if they have intentionality, that is). They have a kind of double intentionality: of the out-there and the in-here. You sense your environment and you sense your own body in the person of the brain. You have a dual awareness. If your mental states are states of your brain, then we can say that your brain senses itself: pain, say, is a state of your brain that is identical to a perception of your brain. On the other hand, if pain is a state of an immaterial substance, then it is a state of an immaterial substance that is identical to a perception of your brain. Thus, your mind has a relational structure: it stands in the relation of perceiving to your brain—as well as to other objects. If you have a tactile relational perception of an external object, you also have a tactile relational perception of your brain (the tactile part of it)—you touch your own brain, to put it crudely.[2]

You might sense an obvious problem with this theory: people can have minds without knowing much if anything about brains. For surely, we don’t perceive anything as a brain when we enjoy ordinary experiences. I don’t feel that my C-fibers are firing when I am in pain. But that is not what the brain perception theory says; it says only that I am aware of my brain not that I am aware that my brain is doing such-and-such. The awareness is de re not de dicto: it is true of my brain that I am aware of it—not that I am aware of it under a brain description. Perceptual statements have a de re/de dicto ambiguity, and the brain perception theory endorses only the de re reading. You can be conscious of something x that is actually F without being conscious that x is F. Compare ordinary visual perception: you can see (be looking at) an object that is in fact a block of atoms without seeing it as a block of atoms. We are aware of collections of atoms all the time but not as collections of atoms. We can be aware of objects that satisfy all manner of descriptions without knowing these descriptions or otherwise mentally representing them. This is a commonplace point about the logic of perception: the referential transparency of de re perceptual statements, as it is known in the trade. Thus, the brain perception theory is only claiming that we have de re perceptions of our brain states; it isn’t that we get mental images of our brain whenever we have an experience—or that our brains even cross our minds. You can see your brain in the de dicto sense if you look at it in a mirror, but that’s not what’s happening in the normal course of events.[3]

But why should we say that the relation between mind and brain is one of perception? What positive reason recommends the theory? Sure, we can say it, but should we want to? One reason is that we get a nice uniform account of the nature of the mind: all mental phenomena are perceptions of the brain—this is what they are(the essence of the natural kind). Okay, cool. But second, and more subtly, it is part of the phenomenology of experience to sense an inner reference: we feel that our mental states are somehow inner. We certainly don’t feel them as outer, and I don’t think we are neutral on the question; we feel that they belong with us, internally. I don’t think my mental states might be outer; they strike me as definitely inner. But what kind of inner? It could be inner to an immaterial substance—the Cartesian ego. If that were so, we would be in a perceptual relation to the states of such a substance, according to the perceptual theory of the mind. But we have discovered that it is the brain that houses and services the mind, so that entity is a better choice of perceptual object. If mental states are perceptions of something internal, as they seem to be, then the brain is the best candidate. But why suppose that these objects are perceived? That turns on what perception is, a question hitherto left dangling. The answer, I suggest, is that perception is basically a matter of a response to a stimulus—an action of registration or tracking or indicating. The mind is tracking the brain, recording its doings; the two are reliably correlated. The mind, we might say, senses the presence of the brain; not de dicto, to be sure, but de re. The brain causes the mind to respond in certain ways, such that you can read one off from the other. The mind perceives the brain in the sense that it is sensitive to what the brain is up to—as the senses are sensitive to what the environment is up to. To a well-informed intelligence, the mind would provide information regarding the brain. The mind senses changes in the brain, but only as changes in something internal, not as neurological changes—which they actually are. Also, once this idea has sunk in, it seems very natural to speak of the mind as perceiving the brain; it is keeping tabs on the brain, resonating to its activities, albeit in a sort of code. Consciousness acts like a secret code for the brain, a kind of translation. The brain is encoded in the mind, as the external world is encoded in sensory experience. Thus, it is natural to speak of mental states as perceptions of the brain—ongoing (partial) reports on it. Pain is the code word for C-fibers firing, if only we could crack the code.[4] If one day we manage to decode the code, we will naturally think of our experiences as messages from the brain; and we might become very adept at this and regard consciousness as we now regard vision in relation to the environment. The concept of perception is fairly elastic, so we might find ourselves happily using it to talk about our states of mind (“I felt my frontal cortex to be unusually active this morning”, “My hypothalamus feels slow today”). We might even become able selectively to attend to certain regions of the brain, as we can with our senses. Presently, we are like a blind ignorant worm with respect to our ability to sense our brain, but we might become more sophisticated as neuroscience develops. The humble worm has very de re senses with little in the way of de dicto mental content, as we have only a primitive way of sensing our brain activity. Still, we are both sensing something de re about which we know very little de dicto. Use of the perception locution is thus not out of place here.

How are we to think of a mental state? It is not a simple thing. It is many things. It points in several directions. It points to the external world—this is intentionality: there is a dog over there. It points to the internal world of the brain—this is brain perception: my C-fibers are firing. It points to behavior—this is action: I am about to throw a ball. The mind is about things, it is brain-sensitive, and it is functionally active. Two of these features are very familiar to us. I am adding a third feature: it is brain-perceptive. These are all important features, but none is all-encompassing. I find it fascinating that the mind is a window onto the brain, another way to “see” the brain. When I see a tree, I can sense my brain fizzing away just below the surface (or I fancy as much). I feel that I can focus on it, get to know it better. I feel closer to my brain now, less alienated from it. My phenomenology has shifted. I have become more brain-centered, existentially.[5]

[1] It should be noted that this theory is compatible with materialism: the act of perceiving C-fibers firing could be a brain state distinct from C-fibers firing. Pain would then be the brain state of perceiving the brain state of C-fibers firing—a kind of combination of the two.

[2] I say “touch” because a tactile sensation is arguably sufficient to qualify a sense as the sense of touch; you don’t need a physically touching body.

[3] You could, in principle, see a brain state and internally perceive it at the same time—two very different modes of presentation of the same reference.

[4] We could devise a code in which causing you a (mild) pain acts as a sign that there is danger nearby. In terms of information theory, pain carries the information that one’s C-fibers are firing (makes it more probable).

[5] It is interesting to ask, in a science fiction spirit, what human life would be like if we knew the brain state corresponding to a given mental state, for all mental states. It would make our consciousness pretty jammed, I’m sure; maybe we are lucky not to perceive our brain in the de dicto way. It’s really best to minimize the content of consciousness for all practical purposes. There might I suppose be a brain pathology in which someone did have sensations of his brain when he experienced anything (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Brain).