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2. The Soul Theory Against the Brain Theory.
The Knowledge Argument
It is convenient to present the arguments
of dualists and materialists (supporters of the soul theory and the brain
theory) in the form of a dialogue.
Participants of the dialogue:
Mike – a physiologist who had made many postmortem examinations of human bodies and vivisections of
animal bodies and had never seen any such thing as a soul. So he thinks that the
soul is old women’s tale.
Helen – a philosopher-dualist who believes
that the mind cannot be something physical and that its materialistic
explanations (the brain theory) do not stand the criticisms.
Mike:
I am sure that there is no such thing as a
soul. I and my colleagues made millions of postmortem examinations and
vivisections, and no soul was ever found.
Helen: You talk nonsense. The soul is, by the very meaning
of the word, nonphysical – such that cannot be seen or touched. No wonder that you have not found it − you could not
find it, in principle. You can find only physical things, and whatever
you find cannot be a soul.
Mike: I think it is not me but you who is talking nonsense. You talk of something nobody has
ever seen or touched, something “in principle”
unseeable and undetectable by whatever apparatus possible. However, if
so, then there is no reason to believe that it exists,
and there “in principle” cannot be any such reasons. Your “soul” is a pure mystification.
Helen: It is not so. There are good reasons to believe that the soul
exists, and there is no mysticism in this. We know not only about what can
be seen or perceived by other external senses (touch, hearing, scent, and taste)
or detected by some physical devices. We know also about these sensations,
about our other feelings and emotions (pain, pleasure, grief, happiness, etc.),
about our thoughts, beliefs, doubts, and desires – as we subjectively
experience them and are
subjectively aware of them. Human subjective experiences and
thoughts cannot be seen, touched, or detected by physical devices; we know
about them not through observations of physical processes but directly by
introspection, for it is ourselves who experience and think. The fact that human
beings subjectively experience various sensations and emotions and have subjective
awareness and thoughts is something beyond the physical facts. Human selves,
capable of subjective experiences and awareness, are just as real as physical
reality. Such a self (≡ mental subject) is what is usually called “soul”.
Mike: Science has found out that our sensations, emotions,
and thoughts are nothing but physical processes in our nervous systems and
brains.
Helen: Science
has not found out any such thing and could not do this. All that science has found
out (and all that it can find out) is that our sensations, emotions, and
thoughts are closely connected with the processes in our brains and nervous
systems and that some processes in the nervous system can evoke some feelings
or some changes in processes of thinking. That is, science has found out that there
is a close connection between
processes in the brain and the mind. However, your contention is very different:
that processes in the brain and states (processes) of the mind are the same
thing. Your statement not only does not follow from the statement about a close
connection between the mind and the brain but directly contradicts it. If we
say that there is a connection between processes in the brain and the mind, this
means that the brain and the mind are not the same thing but different things.
Vice versa, if we say that the brain
and the mind is the same thing, then it is wrong to talk about a connection
between them. A statement about a connection between A and B
makes sense only if A is not B. It is wrong to say
that A is connected with B (or that A
causes B) if A is B.
Mike: OK.
I renounce the statement that our feelings and thoughts are connected with
processes in our brains. I think that our feelings and thoughts are
processes in our brains.
Helen: This
is your personal opinion, not a scientifically proven fact, and there are weighty arguments against it.
To begin with, physical processes in the
brain and states and processes of the mind have no common properties except
approximate simultaneity; therefore, they cannot be the same thing. The processes
in my brain are movements, changes of forms, compressions and expansions of
some physical bodies. It is something that we can (in principle, by means of some
device) scan and see. However, we cannot scan and see feelings and thoughts as
such, for they are felt and thinkable, not seen.
I never saw processes in my brain,
but I always know what are my feelings and thoughts are. Therefore, my feelings
and thoughts are not something that may be seen or touched; they are present directly
in my consciousness as something without physical properties.
Mike: I
think that this argument is mistaken. It is the same as to say: I know about colours,
sounds, heat, and so on, although I never observed electromagnetic waves and
sound fluctuations of air and did not measure kinetic energy and so on.
Therefore, colours, sounds, heat, and so on are not and cannot be
electromagnetic waves, air fluctuations, kinetic energy, and so on.
However, we all know (science tells
us) that in fact colours are properties to reflect electromagnetic waves of
certain frequencies, sounds are air fluctuations, heat is kinetic energy, and
so on. In the same way, feelings and thoughts are certain states of the brain,
and it is probable that science will once discover that pain is such and such a
physical state (structure) of the brain, pleasure is such and such another physical
state (structure) of the brain, and so on.
Helen:
Your objection does not take into account the important distinction (made in the
XVII century by Descartes and Lock) between primary properties, which belong to
things as they really are, and secondary properties, which belong to human subjective
perception of things (or of their primary properties). This distinction
explains how heat can be kinetic energy, colour – electromagnetic waves, and so
on. The explanation is very simple: electromagnetic waves of certain
frequencies are felt by a person as certain feelings-of-colours, kinetic energy
is felt by a person as thermal feelings (how-it-feels when it is cold or warm
or hot), and so on. However, this explanation already assumes the existence
of the mind as a realm of subjectivity − the existence of the mental
subject (self) who possesses the ability to feel (not in the sense of a behavioural
reaction but in the sense of subjective experiencing – how-it-feels). No
sensations of colours, thermal sensations, and so on would exist without
subjectivity, that is, without the mind (or the mental subject-self), although
frequencies of electromagnetic waves and values of kinetic energy would be just
the same.
Thus, given 1) physical bodies and
processes with their primary properties and 2) the perceiving mind (self), we can
easily explain 3) the existence of thermal, visual, auditory, and other
sensations. However, given only the physical processes, it is impossible to
explain the existence of the perceiving mind (self), and therefore, it is
impossible to explain thermal, visual, auditory, and other sensations.
Thus, the example with colours,
sounds, heat, and so on not only does not disprove the dualism of the mind and
physical reality – it serves as an illustration or manifestation of this
dualism.
Mike: However,
is not the mind (self) itself just a secondary property that is derivative from
primary, physical properties?
Helen:
No, it is not. All secondary properties presuppose the existence of the mind –
they exist only in relation to the mind. Therefore, the mind itself is not a secondary
property.
All secondary properties are relations
between two fundamental realities – the physical world and the mind (self).
The mind and the physical world are two “sides” of the relation of external-sensual
perception – a subject and an object. Because all secondary properties exist as
if “on the joint” of these “sides”, each of the “sides” is not a secondary
property.
Thus, the mind (self), as well as the
physical world, is not a secondary property; it is one of the two fundamental
realities that make the existence of all secondary properties possible.
Mike: However,
if we achieve the exact scientific knowledge of the correspondence between
processes in the brain and sensations, feelings, desires, and thoughts?
Helen: It
would only confirm that the mind is one thing, whereas the physical processes
in the brain are another. It is because to get such knowledge, we would need information,
on the one hand, about the mental states (sensations, emotions, desires, and thoughts)
of a person and, on the other hand, about the physical processes that occur in the
brain of this person when he has these mental states. To establish the correspondence,
we need information about the mental states of a person to begin with, and we
cannot get such information through observations of the processes in his brain –
we can get it only by asking the person what he feels, wants, and thinks. So, the
two sides between which we are trying to establish correspondence must be
really two sides – two different “things”, not one and the same thing.
The
Knowledge Argument
One of the most interesting arguments
against materialism is called the knowledge argument. It was advanced
in different forms by Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson.
The argument points out that different
subjective experiences have a specific qualitative character – how-it-feels
(how it feels when it pains, or when you are sad, etc.; what the feeling of
pain, sadness, etc. is like as a feeling),
and that this specific qualitative character how-it-feels cannot be captured
by whatever physical (or behavioural, etc.) descriptions. It is possible to
know all about the physical facts (processes in the brain) associated with a
certain feeling, without knowing anything about the feeling itself – what it is
like, how it feels. Therefore, the feeling is something nonphysical.
There is something such as how it feels
for someone when he is hurt, sad, etc. This how-it-feels
is a specific nonphysical fact. Such facts are so peculiar that they cannot
be communicated in language: it is impossible to explain to a person who has never
had some feeling (or some similar feeling), what this feeling is like (how it
feels). No amount of information about physical processes in the brain will
help. For example, if a person was from birth deprived of all olfactory sensations,
it is impossible to explain to him how this or that smell feels; no knowledge about physical processes in the nervous system
and the brain (responsible for this sensation) will help.
Another example is from Thomas Nagel’s
classical article “What is it like to be a bat?” Most species of bats have no
vision; some species have weak vision. Bats make their orientation in space mostly
by means of a very complex echolocation system. It seems probable (if we don’t
think, as Descartes did, that only human beings have minds, whereas all animals
are just complicated machines that subjectively feel nothing) that bats have
specific subjective feelings-experiences of echolocational perception; but it
is impossible for us, human beings, to know how it feels (what it is like to be
a bat). It is possible that the bat’s echolocational perceptions feel like our visual
perceptions. (However, if so, then how does it feel for those species of bats
which have both – visual and echolocational – perceptions?) It is just as well possible
that they are quite unlike any human subjective experiences; in this case, we are
quite incapable of imagining how it feels (what it is like to be a bat). We could
have whatever detailed, exact, exhaustive knowledge of all physical processes
involved in this perception; we could understand perfectly how the echolocational
system of a bat “works” at the level of physical processes of the brain; however,
all this knowledge would give us no idea of how it feels subjectively (what it is
like to be a bat). Nevertheless, it feels somehow. There is something such as how
it feels, what it is like to be a bat – and this something is outside the realm
of physical facts.
Likewise, bats, if they had powerful
intellect and highly developed science, could learn everything about the physical
facts having to do with visual perception; nevertheless, they cannot know how it
feels – to have visual perceptions. S. Law, following T. Nagel, proposes
to imagine aliens from some far-off planet who have no sight, but have instead
– as bats – echolocational perception. These aliens are very clever; their
science is much more advanced than ours. If they arrive on Earth and research
human visual perception, they can find out all physical facts that are associated
with it. They can know about all processes in the brain of a person who sees a
red flower or a blue sky. However, they will not be able to acquire any
knowledge of what it is like (how it feels) – to see a red flower or a blue sky;
what it is like to be a being with visual perception.[1]
The most well-known
and influential version-explanation of the knowledge argument is the thought
experiment of Mary’s black-and-white world, devised by the Australian
philosopher Frank Jackson.[2]
Let us imagine a woman by the name of Mary, who from birth lived in a room with
special illumination that makes all colours look as shades of grey (ranging from
black to white). She never got outside the room and never experienced sensations
of such colours as red, blue, green, etc. Mary became an outstanding scientist
who specializes on colour perception. She knew all the physical facts about perceptions
of green, red, blue, and other colours: the frequencies of the waves of light, the
physical processes in the nervous system, the brain, etc. One wonderful day, she
left her room and got into the world with normal illumination. Mary was struck:
now she knew what it is like – to have the sensations of red, green, blue, and
other colours; what these sensations are like. She did not know it before,
despite the fact that she knew all the physical facts about colours and
their perceptions.
Mary has learned something new, some
new facts: how it feels – to see the red, green, blue, and other colours. However,
even before this, Mary knew all the physical facts that have to do with colour
perceptions. Therefore, those new facts that Mary has learned are not physical
facts. This means that besides physical facts (facts about physical reality),
there are also other facts – facts about the specific character of various
subjective experiences, about the mind as a personal world of human subjectivity.
Therefore, physical reality is not the entire reality. Entire reality includes,
besides physical reality, minds. The mind is something nonphysical (non-material).
The
impossibility of acquiring knowledge about the character of subjective
experiences that essentially differ from our own is a direct consequence of the
fact that the mind of every person is a personal, private “world” with
exclusive access (only this person has direct access to it). In this respect, the mind cardinally differs from
the physical world, which is common, public,
and equally accessible to all minds. Even about other people, we can only guess
that their experiences are similar to our own corresponding experiences, but we
cannot check whether this guess is true. It is possible that you subjectively experience
red colour (the colour of blood) as I experience green (the colour of grass),
and that you experience green as I experience red. It is as well possible that
your subjective experiences of colours are unlike any of my subjective experiences.
The possibility of communication and understanding between people testifies that
different people have a common structure of relations between different sensations
and between the sensations and their causal sources. For example, for different
people, the sensation of the colour of grass (1) is stable, (2) is similar to
the colour sensations evoked by other things that are called green, and (3) is
not similar to the colour sensations evoked by things that are called blue or
red. However, the qualitative subjective character of every sensation may be,
in principle, unique for each person. Noone can get into the mind of another
person and experience how it really is for
him to experience the colour of grass, etc.
The knowledge argument can be
formulated as follows. However full our knowledge of physical processes in the
brain is, it tells nothing about what the corresponding subjective feelings-experiences
are like – how they feel, are experienced subjectively. The facts that they feel
in a certain way (and not somehow otherwise) are special facts that are beyond
the realm of physical facts. That is, everything that belongs to the mind
as a personal realm of subjective experiences and awareness (how it is experienced
subjectively – to have this sensation or emotion, to be aware of some fact, to
understand some statement, to wish this or that) is outside the realm of the physical,
matter. The facts about the mind are nonphysical facts – facts about nonphysical
reality. Therefore, the mind as a personal realm of subjectivity is a
nonphysical reality.
In further details, this argument is
discussed below in the form of a dialogue.
Helen: I propose
to discuss one of the most influential arguments against materialism.
Imagine that somewhere far away there
is a planet Zet populated with intelligent beings – let us call them zetians.
Their perceptions are a bit different from ours. They do not have perceptions
of some kind that we have; perhaps, they have instead perceptions of some other
kind that we do not have, or compensate the lacking perceptions with much higher
sensitivity of other perceptions. Though the perceptions of zetians differ from
ours, they allow to obtain the same (or even more precise) physical information
(about location, size, form, mass, temperature, etc.) as obtainable by human
beings. For example, zetians are deaf, but can very well communicate by means
of a highly developed gesture language and of writing; or they are blind, but
have instead, like bats, advanced echolocational perception; or they have
sight, but do not distinguish colours, see all colours as shades of grey... Let
us settle on such a version: zetians do not have olfactory sensations.
Zetians are very clever, and their science
is much more developed than ours. They have equipment that allows to scan any
processes in a human body, and to get any knowledge about the physical
structures of a human body and about physical processes in it.
Suppose that zetians have arrived on
Earth. They have learned human language and heard that human beings feel
smells. Zetians want to find out how it feels – for example, to smell the scent
of a rose. By means of their equipment, zetians can obtain any physical
information about processes in the body (brain) of a person who smells a rose.
But can they learn in this way how the aroma of a rose smells (feels)?
Mike: No,
they cannot.
Helen: But
how can it be so? On the one hand, zetians can obtain any knowledge about any
physical properties and processes. On the other hand, on having obtained all
physical information they want, they still cannot know how a rose smells, how its
aroma feels. The conclusion follows that the sensation of the smell of a rose
(as well as any other mental state) is not physical properties and processes.
Mike: But
zetians do not even exist, we have just imagined them!
Helen: This
does not matter. What does matter is that if they existed, then all physical
information having to do with smells and their perception by human beings would
not enable zetians to find out what olfactory sensations are like.
If you do not like zetians, you can
imagine a colour-blind physicist who knows everything about the physical
structures and processes of the human nervous-brain system that are responsible
for colour perceptions, but does not know what the sensation of red or green is
like.
Or you can imagine a woman by the name
of Mary. From birth, she wears on her eyes, never removing, a contact film that
makes her visual perception black-and-white. (Let us imagine that it is a
special organic contact film that grows together with her eyes. May be, Mary
knows nothing about this and thinks of herself as an ordinary colour-blind
person, but actually some scientists carry out an experiment on her to test an
organic monochromatic film). Mary became a neurophysicist who specializes exactly
on the physical structures and processes of the human nervous-brain system that
are responsible for the perception of colours. She knows everything about these
structures and processes. However, she does not know what the sensation of
red or green is like (how it looks for human beings, how it feels
subjectively), and she cannot know it unless she removes the contact film.
Mike:
But would she really acquire new knowledge, if she removes the film? Mary knows
that people have various colour sensations, she only “does not know” what they
are like (how they feel). If she removes the film, she would not be able
to report any new fact about colour perceptions, so she would not acquire any
new knowledge. Surely, in some other sense, she “learns” something
new, viz., what it is like to feel red
or green. However, I think that really it is not knowledge – it is a new
experience, which, from the point of view of materialism, is just some specific
physical state of her brain.
Helen: I
can propose two objections.
First, it is not the case that Mary has
merely acquired a new experience. She did not know before, and she knows now what
people mean when they talk of seeing green (the colour of grass) or blue (the
colour of sky) colour. Surely, they are talking not about the frequencies of
electromagnetic waves (the vast majority of people know nothing of them) and
not about physical processes in the brain (which they do not observe).
Now Mary will be able to identify the
visual sensations or red, blue, green, etc. when she has them again; so she now
knows what they are like, how they
feel.
We can modify the thought experiment
with Mary. Imagine that the contact film is not black-and-white, but changes
colours every day so that every day of week has its own colour. On Monday everything
looks black-grey-white, on Tuesday – lighter or darker red, on Wednesday –
blue, on Thursday – green, etc. Mary feels these differences and calls them “monday
sensation”, “tuesday sensation”, etc. However, she does not know that this is how
other people feel various colours, what they mean when they talk of sensations
of red, or blue, or green. Scientists who carry out the experiment do not tell her
about this; she has no means to investigate her own brain (to compare its
states with the brain states of other people when they have perceptions of
colours); there is no correlation between these her sensations and colour-relevant
descriptions by other people: people say that the grass is green, the sky is blue,
a rose is red, but for Mary, all the difference between the colours of grass,
sky, rose, etc. is that some things are darker and others lighter. She regards those
changes of visual sensation that happen with her every day as a strange feature
of her own mind, and does not guess that they have anything to do with what other
people call colours. She has experiences of colour sensations[3],
but she does not know what the sensations of red, blue, green, etc. are like – what it is like (how it feels) for
other people to see the earth as black, a rose as red, the sky as blue,
grass as green, etc., what do they mean when they say that the earth is black,
a rose is red, the sky is blue, grass is green, etc. Now, let us imagine that
one happy day some chemical got into Mary’s eyes and destroyed the film without
causing any injury to her eyes. Mary looks around and exclaims with amazement:
“What a miracle! Today is Friday, but the earth has suddenly became monday, a
rose – tuesday, the sky – wednesday, and grass – thursday?!” Suddenly, a guess dawned
on Mary: So that is what the sensations of black, red, blue, green, etc. are
like!!!
It seems that Mary has learned
something new after all, viz., what the
sensations of green, red, etc. are like, how
they feel. Before this, she knew only about electromagnetic waves and brain
states associated with these sensations, and now she knows about the sensations
how-they-feel. She happened to have read in books on neurophysics that the
sensation of red is such-and-such brain structure. However, the brain structure
is one thing, whereas how-it-feels is another. A sensation is how-it-feels.
Mary knew what physical processes
occur in the brain of a person when he has the sensation of red or blue. Nevertheless,
she did not know what those sensations are like (how they feel subjectively)
that people experience when there are corresponding physical processes in their
brains. In particular, she did not know that when the physical processes that
are described in some books on neurophysics as the sensation of red occur in the
brain of a person, the person’s subjective experience is like her tuesday
sensations, and likewise with all other colour sensations. It turns out, that the
specific qualities of various subjective experiences of colour
vision are real facts about the world (about minds, which
are parts of the world), and
these facts are not contained in the whole set of all physical facts.
All physical facts having to do with colour sensations are equally compatible with
any of the possibilities: the sensation (subjective experience) of red could happen
to be like Mary's monday sensation, or tuesday sensation, or saturday sensation,
or unlike any sensation (subjective experience) she ever had (as in the initial
version of the story about Mary – with a black-and-white film). That the sensation
(subjective experience) of red happened to be such as it is, not of some other
quality, is the fact that does not belong to the set of all physical
facts, for in the light of all physical facts, the sensation
(subjective experience) of red could happen to be any.
The second objection is that it does not
matter whether Mary has obtained some new knowledge or just had some new
experiences. What does matter is the fact that these experiences have a specific
subjective (phenomenal) character that cannot be captured by whatever physical
description. I hope you will not deny that there is something what it is like to
see a red-coloured thing or to feel pain? Would you deny that it feels somehow,
that every such sensation has a specific subjective (phenomenal) character?
Mike: No, I will not.
Helen: Then you must admit that
there are facts of how-it-feels and that they are beyond the realm of
physical facts. That is, they are nonphysical facts – facts about something
nonphysical.
Mike: For
a while, I do not see how to repel these arguments, but I still suspect that something
is wrong with them. Let us try to approach the problem from another side.
Let us suppose that zetians have
found out what processes occur in the nervous-brain system when people, on
their own evidences, feel pain and other sensations. Now suppose we ask a zetian:
What is the sensation of pain? The zetian can answer: The sensation of pain is such-and-such
processes in the nervous-brain system. She can also describe also the differences
between these processes and the processes that correspond to other sensations.
Suppose we ask the same question to an
ordinary human person. I expect that it would be difficult for him to answer. Probably,
the most that he can say is that pain is one of the sensations he sometimes feels,
and that it is an unpleasant sensation; however, he will hardly be able to
explain clearly what a sensation is and how exactly the sensation of pain
differs from other feelings.
If we compare these two answers, we
see that the answer of the zetian is more concrete, definite, detailed, and informative.
Are not we to draw a conclusion that the zetian, not the ordinary human person,
is the one who knows what feelings really are?
Helen:
The argument is interesting but, in my opinion, mistaken. One may give to any
question a concrete, definite, detailed, and informative answer that is wrong. On
the other hand, a less concrete, definite, detailed, and informative answer may
be right.
We, human beings, know what pain,
grief, or pleasure is, because we have these experiences. When someone says “I
feel sad” or “I am happy”, we understand the sense of it, although we cannot
explain it to someone who has never experienced sadness or happiness. The feelings
of pain, grief, and pleasure are basic experiences that are not reducible to
anything else; that is why it is impossible to explain what the feeling of
pain, grief, or pleasure is (what it is like) to someone who has never felt
them.
We all know what such words as “pain”,
“sadness”, “pleasure”, “happiness”, etc. mean. To know this, one need not be a scientist.
They are not scientific terms, but concepts of ordinary language, such that
everyone understands their meaning. The meaning of these words is what they
mean for an ordinary person. Of course, a scientist-physicist or a zetian can
use the same words in some other (in particular, physical) sense, but this
will not be those pain, sadness, pleasure, happiness that each of us sometimes
feels.
When we feel sadness, we know what
we feel, although we know nothing about the relevant physical structures
and processes in our nervous-brain systems. Vice
versa holds as well: If we observe the physical structures and processes of
the nervous-brain system of a person through some scanning device, this would
tell us nothing about what he feels.
Of course, we could learn these
things – in the first case about physical processes, in the second – about
feelings, – if we had a table of correspondences between the former and the latter.
However, such a table cannot be compiled on the basis of physical information alone
– it can be compiled only by comparing physical information with evidences of a
person about his feelings.[4]
Thus, we can know everything about
what a person feels while knowing nothing about the physical structures
and processes of his nervous-brain system, and vice versa, we can know everything about the physical
structures and processes of a person’s nervous-brain system while knowing nothing
about his feelings.
From this, it logically follows
that subjective experiences (sensations, emotions, etc.) are not physical structures and processes of the nervous-brain
system. For the same reasons, we should draw a conclusion that they are not any physical entities and
processes whatsoever; they are not reducible to the physical.
Variation. When
a person says “I feel pain” or “I feel pleasure”, he tells nothing about
the spatial locations, sizes, forms, movements of some physical bodies, that
is, he tells nothing about physical bodies, structures, properties, and
processes – communicates no physical information.[5]
Nevertheless, he tells about something! Viz.,
he tells about sensations and emotions. Hence, sensations and emotions are
not physical bodies, structures, properties, and processes.
Preliminary Summary
Materialism is based on the view that
it is reasonable to believe in the existence of only those things that can be
seen, palpated, or registered by some physical device – only what can be
observed (directly
or indirectly) externally
or what, on the assumption of its existence, allows to
successfully explain and predict externally observable phenomena according to the
laws of nature. Dualism, instead, appeals to the knowledge of a
person about his own subjective experiences that cannot be observed from the
outside but about which everyone knows.
It is a widespread (in particular,
among materialists) belief that science has found out that sensations, emotions,
and thoughts are certain physical processes in the nervous system and the
brain. However, this belief is mistaken: all the facts and observations to
which its supporters can refer are compatible both with the materialistic point
of view and with the point of view of dualism, according to which sensations,
emotions, and thoughts are subjective experiences of a person that may be caused or conditioned by physical
processes in the nervous system and the brain but are not these processes.
We should beware of the mistake that
is usual for materialists – the substitutions of the meanings of mental concepts,
such as “feeling”, “pain”, etc. Proceeding from materialistic interpretations
of scientific theories, their supporters often use mental concepts to mean certain physical processes in the
nervous system and the brain or certain behavioural dispositions or
functional roles for an organism. However, by doing this, they
merely substitute the ordinary meaning of these concepts (as they are commonly
understood) with another, very different meaning. It is the same as if I call a
cat “dog” and, on this ground, contend that dogs meow. In discussions about the
nature of sensations, we need to put aside for a while all anatomic theories
about them and address our own experience, experience of every person – for
example, the experience designated by the word “pain”. We all know from
personal experience, not from anatomic theories, what it means to feel pain. Most
people are not familiar with anatomic theories; they know nothing or nearly
nothing about structures and processes in the human body (brain) that are
responsible for the feeling of pain, but they all know very well what it means
to feel pain, what the feel³ng of pain is like. Modern scientists-anatomists
know about this exactly as much as a person who lived several thousands years
ago when anatomy did not exist yet. (Moreover, because many modern
scientists-anatomists confuse the meaning of the word “pain” with the content
of some anatomic theories about pain, in this regard, a person who lived several
thousands years ago when anatomy did not exist yet has a considerable
advantage.) Pain is how it feels when it pains (me or you), neither more nor
less. It is a specific (your or mine) subjective experience. The same goes
for any other sensation or emotion.
The knowledge argument shows that sensations
and emotions cannot be identified with physical processes in the nervous system
and the brain of a person: it is possible to know everything about the brain’s
physical processes responsible for a certain feeling but to know nothing about the
feeling itself, how it feels subjectively.
From within the knowledge of the physical,
it is impossible to obtain any knowledge of subjective experiences; and from
within the knowledge of subjective experiences, it is impossible to obtain any
knowledge of the physical. Any possible knowledge (information, statements)
about the physical, by itself (if there is no additional mediating knowledge),
does not tell anything at all about subjective experiences of a person. And any
possible knowledge (information, statements) about subjective experiences of
a person, by itself (if there is no additional mediating knowledge), does
not tell anything at all about physical objects and processes.[6]
Therefore, subjective experiences are
not physical objects and processes.
The
aforesaid can be illustrated with the following scheme:
From the point of view of
materialism, the human mind and its subject (the self) are identified with the
body (the brain), which is part of physical reality. This must mean that all
properties and states of the mind, that is, all subjective experiences, are
knowable “from within” the knowledge about physical processes; no additional
knowledge connecting subjective experiences with physical processes in the body
is needed. (Moreover, such additional knowledge is impossible: if all reality
is physical reality, then there cannot be any other knowledge besides the
knowledge about physical reality.) However, the fact is that “from within” the
knowledge about physical processes, without additional connecting knowledge, it
is impossible to get any knowledge about subjective experiences. Subjective
experiences cannot be seen or detected in some other way within the physical
horizon.
From the point of
view of dualism, the human mind (the self) is something
distinct from (although dependent on) the body and its specific subsystem, the
brain, as well as from the whole physical reality. That is why
knowledge about subjective experiences is unobtainable from the knowledge about
physical processes. We know about them directly through self-consciousness;
this direct knowledge is internal for our minds and external to physical
reality. We can also know about subjective experiences of other people: either by
their testimonies (based on their direct-introspective knowledge of their own
mental states) or indirectly – by observations of a person’s body complemented
with the mediating knowledge that connects appearances and movements of the
human body with subjective experiences. Likewise,
scientists would be able to know about the mental states of a person on the
basis of knowledge about his brain states complemented with
the mediating knowledge of what
mental states correspond to various brain states. Thus, on the above
scheme, the arrow between the self and the body (the brain) has a double
meaning: in the ontological respect, it symbolizes the interaction between the
self and the body; in the cognitive respect, it symbolizes the additional
mediating knowledge about the correspondences (that result
from the interaction) between mental and brain states.
The Mind and H2O
Mike:
May be, the situation with the mind and the brain is of the same kind as the
situation with water and an aggregate of H2O molecules? People
always knew about water, although they only recently have learnt about H2O
molecules. Thus, “water” surely does not mean “an aggregate of H2O molecules”;
nevertheless, water is an aggregate of H2O molecules. We may even
say that it is possible to know everything about water (its macroproperties)
while knowing nothing about H2O molecules, and it is possible to
know everything about H2O molecules while knowing nothing about
water.
Helen:
It is not so. The situations are entirely different. In the case of water, we
have certain stuff, and we know that it is divisible. It is possible to
separate very small parts of water, and it is natural to suppose that these
parts, probably, are divisible on even smaller ones. That is, our macrolevel knowledge
about water already tells us that it is an aggregate of tiny particles. The
statement that water is an aggregate of H2O molecules merely
specifies this knowledge. On the other hand, if we knew everything about some
concrete aggregate of H2O (for example, the one in the glass over
there) – all physical properties of these molecules, their quantity and
locations, the laws of their interactions, – then all physical macroproperties
of the water in the glass are deducible by logical-mathematical means from that
information. (Of course, we cannot obtain in this way the knowledge of “secondary”
macroproperties of water, such as taste or smell, because they are not physical
but mind-relational properties – properties to influence a human mind in a
certain way, to evoke certain sensations in it.)
An aggregate of H2O molecules
is water under a microscope. Do try to take any feeling how it feels and
scrutinize it through a microscope. If you succeed, do not forget to invite me
to look at this wonder. J
The Queer Logics of Hofstadter & Dennett
In the collection The Mind’s I, under the edition of and
with comments by D. Hofstadter and D. Dennett, the editors write:
“One broad highway leading to dualism goes through the
following (bad) argument:
Some facts are not about the
properties, circumstances, and relations of physical objects.
Therefore, some facts are about the properties, circumstances, and
relations of nonphysical objects.”[7]
I wonder why
the argument is “bad”. Where is it mistaken? Do Hofstadter & Dennett deny
the premise (that “some facts are not about … physical objects”)? No. In the
following discussion, they accept this premise. Do they deny the validity of
the argument (that the conclusion follows logically from the premise)? They do not
discuss the validity at all. Why? Probably because they find nothing to say
against it.
Indeed, if the premise is true, and
if we take into account that all facts are facts about something, then the conclusion
is tautologically true – like the
statement that all unmarried men are not married!
Any fact is a fact about something.
Something may
be either physical or not, that is, either physical or nonphysical.
Therefore,
any fact is either a fact about something physical or a fact about something
nonphysical.
Therefore, if a fact is not about
something physical, it is about something nonphysical.
However, let us consider the
explanation by Hofstadter & Dennett:
“What’s wrong with this argument? Try to think of examples of facts that
are not about physical objects. The fact that the narrator in Moby Dick is called Ishmael is a fact in
good standing, but what is it about? One might want to insist (implausibly)
that it is really about certain ink shapes on certain bound stacks of printed
pages; or one might say (somewhat mysteriously) that it is a fact all right,
but it is not about anything at all; or, waving one’s hands a bit, one might
say that it is a fact about an abstract object, – in much the way the fact that
641 is a prime number is a fact about an abstract object. But almost no one (we
suppose) is attracted to the view that it is a fact about a perfectly real
but nonphysical person named Ishmael.”[8]
Of course, it is not. However, this does
not indicate the “badness” of the argument at issue at all.
The argument tells
nothing about nonphysical persons;
it tells about nonphysical objects. If applied
to the case of Moby
Dick, it follows from the argument that the fact that the narrator in Moby Dick is called Ishmael is a fact
about (a) nonphysical object(s).
Actually, this conclusion is true.
The fact about the narrator in Moby Dick is a fact about the semantic
contents of the book Moby Dick. It is a fact about the novel Moby Dick – that it is said in the novel
that the name of the narrator is Ishmael. This semantic content (aboutness) is
nonphysical. (In more details, see Section 5 and subsection “The Theory of
Three Worlds” of Section 12, Book 2.)
The fact about the narrator in Moby Dick is a fact not about the book as
a physical object (about physical properties of the book) but about
something nonphysical – about the semantic content that this physical object
symbolically represents for the consciousness of a reader. The bound
sheets of paper with black marks by themselves, as physical objects, have no
meaningful content; they are not “about something”. They have a meaningful
content – are “about something” – only insofar as the writer “encoded” into
them a certain meaning, which he created in his mind, and other people
(readers) are capable to “decode”-understand it – to recreate it in their
consciousness.
Incidentally, “a fact about an
abstract object … that 641 is a prime number” is also a fact about
something nonphysical, namely, about an abstract object, the number 641.
My
Friend John and the Masked Man
Mike: I
have just read Stephen Law’s interesting philosophical story “The Consciousness
Conundrum”[9],
in which the knowledge argument is discussed. The author suggests that the
argument involves “the masked man fallacy”. I propose to discuss it.
Let us imagine
the following situation. I have a friend; his name is John. Yesterday, I heard in
TV-news that a masked man has robbed the Delta Bank. It seems that these two
facts are quite unconnected with one another. However, it may turn out that the
masked man is John, although I do not know this.
Now let us consider the following
inference:
My knowledge about John does not
contain any knowledge about the masked man. Therefore, John is not the masked man.
This inference is obviously invalid.
From the fact that I do not know that John has robbed the bank, it does not logically
follow that he has not robbed the bank.
The knowledge argument looks very
similar:
The knowledge
of physical processes does not contain any knowledge about experiences how they
feel. (And vice versa: The knowledge about experiences does not contain any
knowledge about physical processes.) Therefore, experiences are not physical
processes.
Does this argument not involve the
same “masked man fallacy”?
Helen: I
think that it does not. These two inferences look similar only on the surface. There
is a very essential difference between them that makes the first inference (with
the conclusion that John has not robbed the bank) invalid, whereas the second (with
the conclusion that the mind is nonphysical) is valid.
In the first case, we have some
knowledge about John and some knowledge about the masked man, and it
happens that the first does not contain the second. From this, indeed, no
conclusion logically follows as to whether John is the masked man or not.
In the second case, the situation is
very different. Here, we are talking not about merely some knowledge about
physical processes in the nervous-brain system, but about all such
knowledge. The contention is that even if we knew everything about
physical processes in the nervous-brain system, or even in the whole world, this
knowledge would not contain knowledge about
experiences how they feel.
If I could know everything about
John, and if John really is the masked person who has robbed the bank, the full
knowledge about John would contain the knowledge about the masked person who
has robbed the bank. For example, if I had a video on which John’s whole life
is recorded, then I could see on the video the masked man robbing the bank. Vice versa holds as well: If all
possible knowledge about John does not contain knowledge about the masked man who
has robbed the bank (for example, if the video records of John’s whole life
contain nothing about the robbery of the bank), then it logically follows that John
is not the masked man who has robbed the bank.
Mary knew all
physical facts about colours and colour sensations. However, whatever all
these facts were, the sensation of red could happen to be any. Having learnt
what the sensation of red is like (how it feels), Mary has learnt a new fact
that is not contained in the whole set of all physical facts having to do with colours and colour sensations.
Therefore, facts about sensations are not physical facts.
******
Stephen Law writes that it seems
to him that the knowledge argument involves “the masked man fallacy”; however,
he does not substantiate and does not explain this view, leaving it for readers
to think through.
S. Law’s suggestions about “the
masked man fallacy” are similar to the objections by Paul Churchland against
“the argument from introspection” (see the following subsection). Perhaps, S. Law
thinks that the knowledge argument is analogous to the argument from introspection.
I think that if there is some analogy between these arguments, it is rather
superficial and does not undermine the validity of the knowledge argument. The knowledge
argument is closer to the argument that can be obtained by “turning from head on
feet” the argument from introspection – to
the argument from the impossibility of
“extraspection”. The most influential (although, in my opinion,
unsatisfactory) objection against this argument and the knowledge argument is
given by the materialistic theory of representationism.
The Argument from the Impossibility
of "Extraspection" of
Mental States
One of the leading modern
philosophers-materialists, Paul Churchland, discusses and refutes an argument
against materialism that he calls “the argument from introspection”. Churchland
formulates it as follows:
“1. My mental states are introspectively
known by me as states of my conscious self.
2. My brain states are not introspectively known by me as states of my conscious self.
Therefore,
…
3. My mental states are not identical with my brain
states.”[10]
In such a form,
the argument from introspection turns out to be invalid. Churchland compares it
with such a reasoning:
“1. Muhammad Ali is widely known as a
heavyweight champion.
2. Cassius Clay is not widely known as a heavyweight champion.
Therefore,
…
3. Muhammad Ali is not identical with Cassius
Clay.”[11]
However,
actually, “Muhammad Ali” is the sports pseudo of the person named “Cassius Clay”.
After this,
Churchland considers another possible version of “the argument from introspection”,
which says not that we know by introspection but that it is possible
to know by introspection:
“1. My mental states are knowable by introspection.
2.
My brain states are not knowable by introspection.
Therefore,
…
3. My mental states
are not identical with my brain states.”[12]
Churchland
objects that a materialist can decline this argument by denying its premise (2.).
Instead, he can contend that we introspectively know about brain states, although
we receive this information under “mentalistic descriptions”:
“…if mental states are indeed brain states,
then it is really brain states we have been introspecting all along, though
without fully appreciating what they are. And if we can learn to think of and
recognize those states under mentalistic descriptions, … then we can certainly learn
to think of and recognize them under their more penetrating neurophysiological
descriptions.”[13]
On Churchland’s
view, the situation is the same as in the case of water: we can know as much as
we want about its macroproperties without knowing that water is an aggregate of
H2O molecules.
Is Churchland
right? I think that he is not. To understand this better, let us make a generalized
description of the situations similar to the situation with water and H2O.
I mean the
following. There is something about which we can know, so to say, at two levels
– superficial (water) and deeper (H2O). To each of these levels of
knowledge, its own form of description corresponds. Because at the superficial
level we obtain more general, undetailed information, this information does not
comprise the detailed information obtainable at the deeper level. That is why
we can know as much as we want about macroproperties of water without knowing
about its microstructure (that it consists of H2O molecules). That
is, the deeper is not reducible to the superficial; the detailed is not reducible
to the general. However, the superficial is reducible to the deeper, and the general
is reducible to the detailed – is contained in it. If we have full enough detailed
information about a thing (at the deeper level), it already contains all more general
information about the thing (at the superficial level). If we know much enough
about H2O molecules, from this information, it is possible to obtain
any knowledge about macroproperties of water.
The situation
in the case of mental states and brain states (neurophysiological states) is entirely
different. If the only difficulty were that the neurophysiological description
of the states and processes of the brain is unobtainable from our introspective
knowledge of mental states (is obtainable only by external observation via
complex equipment), it would not be a serious problem for materialism. However,
the real difficulty is different – it is that the knowledge that we obtain introspectively
is unobtainable by whatever external observations – neither directly nor via
whatever equipment.
For example,
from the observations of neurostructures and processes in a brain (if they are
not supplemented by some introspectively obtained information), it is
impossible to know that when certain processes occur, it is felt as pain
(it hurts), and that when certain other processes occur, it feels
pleasurable or cheerful.
Or let us imagine a person who sees or imagines a tree or a rose;
we do not know about this, but we can observe through special devices any
neurostructures and processes in his brain. Whatever we observe, we
cannot know from it what he sees or imagines. The same goes for
thoughts: from observations of neurostructures and processes in the brain of a
person who thinks about something, it is impossible to know what he thinks
about and what he thinks about it. (Surely, all this is impossible provided
that we have no additional knowledge that connects the processes in the brain
with mental states and that cannot be obtained by observations of the processes
in the brain, without introspective evidence about mental states.) All physical
information about neurostructures and processes in the brain (that is obtainable
by external observations) does not contain any information about feelings,
emotions, the contents of imagination, thoughts, etc. That is, all physical
information does not contain any information about mental states.
Thus, instead
of the argument from introspection, we can formulate the argument from the impossibility
of “extraspection” (external observation) of mental states:
(1) Brain states (states of a brain as a material,
physical system) are entirely knowable by external observation without
introspection.
(2)
Mental states are not knowable by
external observation without introspection.
Therefore,
(3) Mental states
are not brain states (states of a brain as a material, physical system).
We can draw an
analogy with Muhammad Ali – Cassius Clay. Let us suppose that we can know from
some source (for example, from his biography) everything about a person by name Classius Cai but cannot know from
this source anything about Alimmad Muhi. From this, it logically follows that Alimmad
Muhi is not Classius Cai.
(1) It is
possible to know everything about Classius Cai from the biography.
(2)
It is impossible to know anything about Alimmad Muhi from the biography.
Therefore,
(3) Alimmad
Muhi is not Classius Cai.
Several ways of objection against the
argument from the impossibility or “extraspection” of mental states can be attempted.
First, one can attempt to deny that
brain states are entirely knowable by
external observation without introspection – that is, to admit that there are
some brain states that are unknowable by external observation and are knowable only
introspectively. However, this possibility contradicts materialism (in the usual
sense) and presupposes property dualism (either in the panpsychist or the emergentist
version)[14];
to take this way means to admit that the brain has
not only properties (states) that are
eventually reducible to the dynamics (including its regularities) of changes of
spatial locations of physical bodies (down to the smallest microparticles) and,
because of this, knowable by external observation without introspection – that
is, material (physical) properties (states) in the usual sense of the concept
of material (physical)
but also properties (states) that are
unknowable by external observation (because of their principal irreducibility to
the dynamics of changes of spatial locations of physical bodies and regularities
of this dynamics) and knowable only introspectively – that is, nonphysical
mental properties (states) in the usual sense of the concept of nonphysical-mental.
Second, one can attempt to deny the
existence of introspection by appealing to arguments like those advanced by
John Searle in the book The Rediscovery
of the Mind. I think that this way is absolutely hopeless because Searle’s
arguments, in fact, have nothing to do with the existence of a special
cognitive capacity that does not involve external observation and by which we
know about our sensations, emotions, desires, thoughts (whether we choose to
call this capacity “introspection” or somehow otherwise). Searle’s arguments show
only that the seemingly presupposed by the notion of introspection (Latin for “look
inside”) analogy with vision can be misleading because the cognitive capacity by
which we know about our mental states is really not “a capacity modeled on
vision”, “just like vision only less colourful”. Of course “looking inside” is
a metaphor, and like any metaphor, it can mislead if one takes it not
metaphorically but literally. As Searle himself writes, “[t]he problem … is not
with the ordinary use of the notion of introspection, but with our urge as
philosophers to take the metaphor literally”.[15]
Third, one can attempt to deny that
mental states are unknowable by external observation without introspection and
to contend that we can know about mental states by external observation without knowing that this knowledge is about
mental states because the knowledge of mental states obtainable by external
observation is not under mentalistic but under physical or neurophysiological descriptions.
This objection corresponds to the influential materialistic theory of
representationism, which is discussed below.
The Same Thing Seen from Different Points of View?
Against
Representationism
Helen: We
learn about physical processes by external observation (mostly by sight and
partially by touch). Observable objects are characterized by size, form, and so
on – generally, by a certain spatial location and its changes with time
(movements). Unlike this, we know about mental states and processes – sensations,
emotions, desires, and thoughts – in an entirely different way called introspection.
We do not see, and we cannot palpate sensations, emotions, desires, and
thoughts. We merely know about them because we feel, experience, wish, and think
them. They have no size, form, and relative spatial location. It is nonsense to
say about a feeling, desire, or thought that it is of the square form and has the
size of 1 m×1 m or something of the sort. The mental states and processes
have properties that the physical objects do not have – for example, the specific
subjective character of sensations and emotions (“how-it-feels”) and the
contents of thoughts (their “aboutness”)[16].
And they have no physical properties – size, form, and relative spatial
location. Thus, it seems quite obvious to me that we have to do with entirely
different things – things of utterly different nature.
Mike: However,
is not it possible that the same properties are differently represented in the mind?
In one case, they are perceived through the “prism” of sight, in the other –
through the “prism” of introspection. The “prisms” are so different that “pictures”-representations
look entirely different, although the thing represented is the same.
It may be that in the case of the mind
and the brain, the same thing is merely perceived by us in two different ways –
introspectively and through external observation. The perceptions are
different, but they are perceptions of the same thing. Just as our perceptions
of colours are quite unlike to what physics tells about colours.
Helen: The
first point we need to pay attention to is that a thing and its representation are
not the same “thing” but two different “things”. It is so even in the cases of
physical representations or informational representations on physical carriers.
For example, a mini-model of a plane is a representation of a plane, but you
cannot fly on it from
Or let us consider the following example.
I have a folder on which cover the words “Muhammad Ali” are written. It
contains information about Muhammad Ali – his sports achievements, photos, and
so on. This folder is a representation of Muhammad Ali. Now, if someone
seriously contended and insisted that the folder is Muhammad Ali, I would think
that he went mad. However, this is exactly the kind of contention that materialists-representationists
make about the brain and the mind.
If we suppose that feelings are
subjective representations of some structures of the brain, this means that they
are something different from these structures of the brain; besides, they
belong to the mind, not to the physical world, because they have nonphysical
properties (and do not have physical properties).
The representations you were talking
about – whether visual or introspective – are not physical representations but mental, phenomenal subjective representations, which belong not to
physical reality but to the mind. If there is a mind capable of representing
things subjectively in different ways, then it is really possible that the same
thing (in particular, a certain brain structure) may be subjectively represented
in several entirely different ways so that the different subjective representations
will have no common properties. However, in physical reality – in particular,
in the brain – there are no subjective representations. There is only grey jelly
stuff that consists of microscopic material particles moving in various
directions. If you see or imagine a tree, there is a subjective
image-representation of the tree in your mind. However, there are no subjective
images in the brain – there are only various neural structures and chemical
processes. Of course, some of these structures can be regarded as a physical
representation of the tree in the brain, but this physical representation-structure
in the brain will have no common properties with the phenomenal representation-image
in the mind.
For example, if you feel pain, there
are certain structures in your brain that correspond to the feeling; thus, the
feeling of pain can be regarded as a representation of these brain structures.
Let us now imagine that someone (perhaps, you) sees these brain structures through a scanning device. Thus, he has (you
have) another – visual – representation of the same brain structures. However, both
these representations – the feeling of pain and the visual image of
the brain structures – are mental-phenomenal-subjective, not physical,
representations; they belong to the mind (the first – to the mind of a person
who feels pain; the second – to the mind of a person who visually observes the brain
structures) and have no physical properties, whereas the thing they represent –
the brain structures – is part of physical reality and has only physical
properties.
Visual representations, just as well
as introspective representations, have no physical properties. I see a table
with a rectangular surface of 1 m×2 m. However, the image of
this table in my mind is not another physical thing with a rectangular surface
1 m×2 m; it is not present in physical reality at all, and it is
nonsensical to attribute it, as well as any other mental state, with
geometrical sizes.
Thus, representationism cannot
possibly rescue materialism.
******
I think that the theory of “the same thing
seen from different points of view” can be consistently defended only be
idealists, not by materialists.
It is possible that our minds may
perceive the same thing in entirely different ways so that the knowledge we obtain
in one way does not translate into the knowledge we obtain in another way. However,
this would mean that the knowledge at issue (at least on one side, although
more consistently on both sides) is not knowledge about the thing but knowledge
about our perceptions of the thing – about subjective experiences
evoked in us by the thing.
Let us suppose that there is a thing A that we can perceive in two ways –
introspective I and external E. Let us designate our experience
of introspective perception of A as I(A)
and our experience of external perception of A as E(A). Because I(A) and E(A) are not “the same thing”, our knowledge of I(A)
and our knowledge of E(A) will be different in such a way that it is
possible to have the full knowledge about I(A) while knowing nothing about
E(A), and vice versa. However,
in such a perspective, there is no knowledge of A itself – there is only
knowledge of our experiences evoked by A.
A reader familiar with the history of
philosophy will easily recognize in the above account Immanuel Kant’s theory: our
knowledge is not about things-in-themselves but about their appearances, phenomena – the way things appear through
the prism of the basic (common to all mankind) structures of the human mind.
However, this theory is incompatible with materialism because in it, the
primary reality is the mind with its different forms of subjective perception, whereas
physical reality in-itself, if it exists, is unknowable.
If (as materialists contend) there is
only physical reality, the theory about “the same thing seen from different points
of view” is inconsistent. There cannot be different forms of subjective perceptual
experience; there cannot be subjective experience at all, for there is no mind,
no subject of experience (the self) to begin with. There is nothing but physical
space with bodies located in it, changing their spatial locations relative to one
another (moving) and influencing one another’s movements in certain regular
ways according to the laws of physics, without any – whether introspective or external-sensual
– subjective experiences and subjective awareness whatsoever.
Materialists and dualists (unlike Kant),
in the overwhelming majority, share the commonsense assumption that in the case
of external perceptions, our experience and cognitive capacities enable us to know
not only about our subjective experiences but also about those things and
processes that evoke these experiences while existing (occurring) independently
of them. That is, from the experiences of external observation E(A), we
can know about A itself. However,
from “introspective perception” I(A), where A is supposed to be some brain state, we
cannot know about A anything at
all.
Introspection
gives us knowledge about our
experiences but gives no knowledge about brain states (structures and processes).
However attentively you introspect some of your experience (e.g., the feeling of
pain), you cannot obtain any knowledge about the brain structures and processes
that underlie the experience. Even if we regard an experience I as an introspectively knowable mental
representation of some brain state A,
what is introspectively knowable is not A
but its mental representation – that is, the experience evoked by A in the mind. If A is some my
or your brain state (certain physical structures and processes in my or your
brain) and ²(A) is my or your experience evoked by this state (a mental
representation of this state in my or your mind), then A and ²(A)
are not the same thing.
In effect, we have returned to the earlier
discussed point about primary and secondary properties. On the one hand, there
is A – primary, own, physical properties of the brain – properties of the
brain in-itself. These primary properties are corresponded with secondary, relational
properties, which belong not to the brain in-itself but to the brain in its
relation to the mind – properties to evoke in the mind some subjective
experiences ²(A). However, this is possible only given the existence of
two “poles”: on the one hand, the brain in which physical processes A
occur that evoke experiences ²(A) in the mind, on the other – the mind (self)
that subjectively experiences ²(A) and knows it introspectively.
In principle, different perceptions of
the same thing may be so different that from one perception, nothing can be known
about another. But all perceptions belong to the mind (or the self) that is
capable of subjective experiencing and of being aware of its experiences – not
to the brain as a complex system of atoms that merely move and interact by the
laws of physics, automatically, having no subjective experiences and awareness.
(Other aspects of the issue “the same thing seen from
different points of view” are discussed in Section 4.)
A Strange Capitulation of
Frank Jackson
The most widely discussed version of the knowledge argument was proposed by
the Australian philosopher Frank Jackson. It is the mental experiment we have
discussed earlier – about the physicist Mary who lived up to mature age in a
room with special black-and-white lighting (for convenience sake, I have replaced
it with a contact film on Mary’s eyes; the “rainbow” version with changing colours
is mine), and now, she leaves the room and learns what it is like to have colour
perceptions. After a long discussion,
Representationism “solves” the
problem of Mary in the way we discussed in the previous subsection: “We have to
do not with knowledge about two different things but with two different forms
of representations of the same thing.” I think that this “solution” is good for
nothing. Of course, it can be said that there are certain brain states that are
“represented” for Mary at first by external observations, pictures of the brain,
scientific theories, etc., and then by her own sensations of colour. But how
can this rescue materialism? On the contrary, this reasoning in effect supports
dualism, because it leaves us eventually with “things” of two different natures
– physical and mental:
1)
the physical events of there being some structures and processes in the
brain;
2)
their mental “representations” (subjective states and processes):
2.1) black-and-white visual images and thinking-learning-understanding
of theories;
2.2) sensations-experiences
of colour perception.
If we choose to call subjective
experiences and thinking-understanding by the word “representation”, and if, in
some sense, they really represent some physical processes and states of the
brain, they do not cease to be subjective experiences and processes (mental
states) distinct from those physical processes and states that they represent.
Or may be these “representations” are
just some other physical events in the
brain? If you say so, you will just superimpose one physical representation
upon another but will leave out exactly what is at issue – mental
“representations” – those having subjective character. You will just lose sight
of the mental (subjective, phenomenal), instead of explaining it. You can
multiply these physical representations ad
infinitum, but on this way you cannot ever reach subjective experiences. If
the representations involved are but physical states and processes in the brain
(i.e., a huge multitude of atoms, which experience nothing, do not think, and have
no awareness, which are just located and moving and influencing one another’s
movements in some very complicated structured ways), there can be (physical) representations,
representations of representations, representations of representations of representations,
and so on ad infinitum, without any
subjective experiencing and awareness.
Self-contradiction of
Materialism as a Theory of the Identity of Mental and Physical States
Materialists often explain their
theory by the statement that human sensations, emotions, desires, thoughts,
etc. actually are physical processes (i.e., some spatial structures and
movements) in the brain but appear to us as subjective experiences
devoid of spatial properties. In other words, what appears to us as sensations,
emotions, desires, thoughts, etc. are merely mental “representations” of some
physical (or functional[17])
states. Materialists somehow fail to notice that such an explanation of the materialistic
theory is self-contradictory; it refutes materialism. In effect, this “explanation”
admits that besides the physical (functional) processes and states, that
is, in addition to physical reality, there is also the realm of
subjectivity – a sort of “phenomenal space” to which those “appearances” (what
appears-seems to us how it appears-seems to us), mental “representations”,
belong. This “phenomenal space” is the mind. Thus, the mind does not belong to
physical reality – it is something besides, in addition to physical reality. However,
this is the theory of dualism (in the most general outlines, leaving aside
specifics of various subdivisions).
The physical processes in the brain that
correspond to certain sensations, desires, thoughts, etc. cannot be the same thing as their mental “representations” (that is,
sensations, desires, thoughts proper) how they are subjectively experienced and
how we are subjectively aware of them.
The only possibility to defend materialism
consistently is to deny the existence of the realm of subjectivity – that is,
the mind proper (in the ordinary sense of this word, to be distinguished from the
mind’s behavioural manifestations and contribution to the functioning of the organism).
From
the Knowledge Argument to the Zombie Argument
Joseph Levine[18]
explains the existence and “unsolvability”
(in the sense of a satisfactory materialistic solution) of the mind-body
problem as follows. If we accept the materialistic thesis of the
identity of a certain experience (e.g., pain) with some physical processes in the
brain (e.g., with the excitement of C-fibers), we are unable to explain why
these physical processes have such, not some other, a qualitative phenomenal
character, that is, why it is subjectively experienced
as it does and not somehow otherwise (e.g., why the excitement of C-fibers
is subjectively experienced as painful, not as pleasant).[19]
The knowledge argument expresses this problem. However, David Chalmers rightly suggests
that this problem is not the most fundamental.
The knowledge argument shows that
specific mental facts – facts about a specific phenomenal character of an
experience (painful, not pleasant) – do not belong to the whole multitude of
all physical (in the wide sense) facts, are not logically determined by (contained in) the facts about
physical processes that correspond to these experiences.
However, there is a more fundamental
problem that concerns not the qualitative specifics of various mental states
(subjective experiences) but their existence qua mental, subjective states:
why something is subjectively experienced at all? In particular, why the excitement
of C-fibers is somehow (it does not matter how) subjectively experienced?
Thus, materialism
is confronted with two problems that are unsolvable for it:
1) The problem of the qualitative
specifics of mental (subjective, phenomenal) states: how to explain that when
having some specific physical states of the brain, we have those specific subjective experiences which we have, not some
other?
2) The problem of the existence
of mental (subjective, phenomenal) states: how to explain that we have subjective experiences at all (whereas
it seems that we could have no)? This problem, the most fundamental and unsolvable
for materialism, consists in the fact that we are beings who subjectively experience
and are subjectively aware, not humanoid phenomenal zombies who physically
do (in the sense of externally observable behaviour – movements of the body) all
the same things that we do, and in whose bodies all the same physical structures
and movements occur, but all this happens purely automatically
(mechanically), without any subjective experiences and awareness whatsoever.
In more details, we will discuss the problem of phenomenal zombies in the next
section.