Objectifying the Fluid Mind

Objectifying the Fluid Mind

I have argued that our ordinary language and thought about the mind involves an alien imposition or intrusion originating in our concepts of the external world.[1] Here I will expand on this viewpoint, detailing the types of imposition involved and the nature of that on which they are impositions. The second task is much more difficult than the first. In what ways, then, do we apply external-object concepts to mental reality, creating an impression of object-hood in the mind? There are several. First and foremost, we describe the mind as intentional: that is, directed at objects in the external world—trees, rocks, animals, etc. The mind is said to be of or about such objects, and this is held to be essential to its nature. It joins up with the objectual. It has objects built into its fabric. This can lead to the extreme view that the mind is composed of objects, or has no nature apart from its intentional objects (as in Sartre’s idea of consciousness as nothingness). And certainly, the idea of objectless consciousness verges on the self-contradictory. In addition, if we ask ourselves what is left over when the objects are removed, no answer is returned and we stammer in consternation. If there is anything left over, it is deeply mysterious and suspicious. Second, the body: we like to link our sensations with body parts—pain in the foot, itches on the scalp, pleasure in the palate, etc. So, we are thinking of sensations as inextricably tied to the body-object, which shapes their intrinsic character. Third, and connected with the intentionality point, we are apt to conceive the mind’s ability to focus and attend as a kind of pointing: it is directed at something, oriented towards it. This is a physical concept in that our notions of direction and pointing are physical notions; the mind only does these things metaphorically. How else are we supposed to think of such mental acts (and this phrase also is tacitly body-inspired)? Fourth, we are prone to think of memory as a “storehouse”—a kind of library, perhaps, or crammed attic. We have no other way to understand its ability to hold (note the word) items we are not currently conscious of. Then too, we have colorful talk of corners of the mind, depths of the mind, layers of it, mental compartments, modules, theaters, blank slates, slabs of marble, private spaces, zones of emptiness. All these locutions are tinged (saturated) with images of the external physical world. It can seem as if we are desparate to think of something to fill the descriptive void, so we come up with almost anything to remove the conceptual discomfort. Some of it is reasonable enough, even essential, but some seems like pure poetry. No doubt about it, we are apt to objectify the mind—beyond what the mental facts warrant. Some find this repugnant and seek to fashion a mental vocabulary that dispenses with objectual language, placing their money on a supposedly pure subjective language modelled on the blooming buzzing consciousness of an infant or some such. This tends not to amount to much and smuggles in the objectionable vocabulary. It’s all stabs in the dark, basically.

This takes us to the nub of the issue: what is the mind independently of its objectual entanglements? Even when those entanglements are legitimate, as in intentionality, we still have the question of what is mentally involved apart from the objects of the intentional act. What is this of-ness? What is the mind in its pure unadulterated essence? The question is heady and seemingly unanswerable, but I think I may have an answer of sorts. True, it calls for a drastic revision of our conceptual scheme, a complete revolution in human thought, a step into the intellectual abyss—but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained and all that. Actually, it is not quite as startling as it might sound once you get used to it. The answer is this: the mind is a fluid. I don’t mean water or gin or the nectar of the gods; I mean fluid in a more general sense. The OED (bible of the bibliophile) gives us this: “a substance that has no fixed shape and yields easily to external pressure; a gas or (especially) a liquid; able to flow easily; not settled or stable”. We could paraphrase this as “a dynamic, ever-changing process; not a fixed and rigid entity”. To be fluid (and hence a fluid) is to be not a discrete solid thing but a continuous malleable flowing stuff. A Cartesian dualist might well assert that the mind is an immaterial fluid in this capacious sense. We already speak of the “river of consciousness”; well, the mind is fluidic not static, continuous not discrete, a process not a fixed entity. You see how the initial shock wears off? The mind has a fluid mechanics not a solid-state mechanics. It flows and changes; it doesn’t stand still like a dumb rock. It has a fluid metaphysics not a static metaphysics. Granted, we don’t know what this mental fluid is, but we do know that it is fluid—that it obeys the laws of fluids. It is a shifting, formless, flowing, buoyant, bubbly, energetic, fascinating, fluent…not thing, but “something”. It can speed up, slow down, go quiet, rage, and change its shape as the occasion warrants. It moves silently and rapidly. Consciousness, in particular, is a fluid being, flowing this way and that, changing its shape (but it has no shape): now it is perceptually awake, now it is dreamily asleep. It is protean and animated. The mind minds; it isn’t a static object awaiting an outside force to arouse it. It is all action, hustling and bustling. Don’t we experience a wave of emotion, a torrent of thoughts, a rush of memory? Doesn’t our experience sometimes wash over us? Isn’t the will liquidly mercurial? Aren’t our intentional objects like things floating on the surface of our consciousness? Aren’t some things submerged in the roiling psyche? Freud had a hydrodynamics of the mind, and wasn’t he onto something there? Isn’t consciousness phenomenologically liquidy and gassy? Not like other fluid things, to be sure, but ontologically in the same class. Consciousness courses, gushes, and surges. Aren’t we flooded with the stuff?

If so, we have an answer to our earlier question: we objectify what is really fluidic. That is obviously a bad idea on the face of it: fluids aren’t solid objects. Clearly, our folk fluid mechanics of consciousness is primitive, so we supplement it with more familiar concepts drawn from elsewhere. Thus, we get the mish-mash that now exists in our conceptions of mind: an intuitive sense of fluidity combined with a forced imposition of solidity. We are trying to solidify a fluid, to put it crudely. We are imposing an ontological scheme onto a reality that spurns it in its inner nature. We are not going with the flow but contradicting it. We are like people trying to describe colors by shapes. We are trying to reduce the fluidic to the static. And then there is the fact that the mind isn’t even spatial (as we experience it), so we are committing a double category mistake. That’s okay for practical purposes, but we should at least fess up to it. The brain doesn’t operate by principles of fluid mechanics (more electromagnetics), but the mind is all fluidity.[2] No doubt it needs its own mechanics; it won’t do to treat it as just like water. In any case, this picture enables us to give some kind of answer to the question that troubles us, viz. what the mind intrinsically is beyond its habitual description in objectual terms. I heartily agree that this picture is highly speculative, not to say fanciful, but (as Popper says) science proceeds by constructing imaginative theories that are then subject to falsifying test; you can’t just extract theories from the available data. And the more falsifiable the better. In this spirit, I claim that the fluid theory of consciousness (“fluidism”) has not yet been falsified.[3]

[1] See my “Concepts of Mind”.

[2] If we had opened up the human head and found an elaborate hydraulic system, instead of a solid brain made of chunky neurons, we would no doubt have been more disposed towards a hydraulic conception of the mind. As it is, we have only a vague introspective sense of the fluidity of mind; but it is stronger than any sense of the solidity of mind. The river analogy does not strike us as wildly wide of the mark; we don’t say “Oh no, the mind is nothing like a river; it’s more like a pile of dominoes or Stone Henge”.

[3] I actually think Popper’s methodology applies better to philosophical problems than scientific ones, precisely because in philosophy the data are so exiguous. There is a greater role for imagination in philosophy than in science, and philosophy is largely a critical discipline–that’s how it proceeds. Someone comes up with a wildly ambitious theory from nowhere and then other people attack it like a pack of rabid dogs. We call this “philosophy”.