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discursive practices, showing how the rigid designations of the solipsistic barrier are actually
osmotic barriers at best. For now we need only consider the significance of material discursivity
as it distributes the responsibility of our physical, cognitive, and conscious processes into the
world and out of the intellectualist Cartesian box.
§2.5. Distribution of Responsibility
Here, I feel it necessary to establish a criterion for extension. Just as Descartes defined
his criterion for knowledge as something he can perceive clearly and distinctly in and of itself, I
define my criterion for extension as any relation between mind and body in which the
responsibility of some task is distributed between the subject and the tool or media form that lies
beyond the skull-skin barrier. Andy Clark and David Chalmers use this criterion in their
Extended Mind Theory, which I will examine closely in Section §4, but as they focus on the
mind extending to the body, and here I focus on extension of any sort (as in any alteration of the
body schema in relation to epistemology) I will tweak the wording to make the transition easier
on the ears. The distribution of responsibility can be seen as a distribution of “epistemic credit.
If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process, which, were it done [by
the subject alone], we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part”10
of the process, then that
part of the world is interwoven within our agency of the process. We have proven ourselves
extendable into the world through this criterion for extension. Now, I begin the work of proving
this new theory of extended consciousness, through extending the mind into the body, the body
into the world, and reuniting the subject and the world.
10
Clark, Andy; Chalmers, David J. 2000. “The Extended Mind.” Ridgeview: 59-74. (62). Clark and
Chalmers here actually define the distribution of epistemic credit here in terms of extending the mind into the world
through this criterion for extension, however for the sake of the argument as a whole I feel it better to have started
with redefining the body and brain, and setting out osmotic consciousness as the clear goal in order to bridge the gap
the long distance from dualism all the way to Immersionism.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/6f02fb52-48d5-4d4d-9d3c-679e6df70c38-160823224535/85/thesis-folder-final-perfect-17-320.jpg)
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notebook constitute a single cognitive system. Form the standpoint of this system, the flow of
information between notebook and brain is not perceptual at all […] It is more akin to
information flow within the brain.”29
There may be a phenomenological difference between
Otto’s actual visual perception of his “memory” and whatever neural proper neural phenomenon
occur in Inga’s brain as she remembers the address, but the causal relation of the metaphysical
beliefs can be considered the same in each case.
§4.3. Active Externalism
The other issue that the Extended Mind Theory faces is Putnam’s issue of Twin Earth.
The argument for the contingency of beliefs in terms of Otto’s notebook works to help Clark
prove that beliefs are not just in the head. However the normal example of H20 vs XYZ shows the
contingent nature of the environment itself. Clark uses this difference between forms of
Externalism, both the prior kind and what the active externalism under which we have been
functioning thus far, to add another criterion of the extended mind – an active environment. In
the XYZ case, Clark shows that “if I happen to be surrounded by XYZ right now (maybe I have
teleported to Twin Earth), my beliefs still concern standard water, because of my history. In
these cases, the relevant external features are passive” or what he also calls “distal and historical,
at the other end of a lengthy causal chain.”30
As opposed to the XYZ example, the external
features in the case of Otto’s notebook are active and present. In these cases “the relevant
external features play an active role in the here-and-now, and have a direct impact on
behavior.”31
This active externalism both accounts for our materially discursive nature – as our
subjectivity is extended equally with our agency and Body Schema – as well as the way the
present environment can have a causal role in our behavior and mental processes. What these
criteria do is qualify and solidify Clark’s account of the extension of beliefs, and as Clark says at
the end of his paper, “once dispositional beliefs are let in the door, it is difficult to resist the
conclusion that Otto’s notebook has all the relevant dispositions” of the Extended Mind.
29
Ibid. (74).
30
Ibid. (63).
31
Ibid. (72).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/6f02fb52-48d5-4d4d-9d3c-679e6df70c38-160823224535/85/thesis-folder-final-perfect-26-320.jpg)
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continued, hence we see a case of neural plasticity without perceptual plasticity. However, in the
Bach-y-Rita example, the neural pathway is unaltered while visual “perception” was created on a
more or less functional level. The latter example gives a case of perceptual plasticity without
neural plasticity. This alone may be statement enough against the brain-body material
reductionism, and Noë even goes as far as to call it “the key to our puzzle.” As “what makes
experience the kind of experience it is – is not the neural activity in our brains on its own; it is,
rather, our ongoing dynamic relation to objects, a relation that, as in this case, clearly depends on
our neural responsiveness to changes in our relation to things.”44
This account of our conscious
experience explains away many phenomenon that puzzle the current paradigm of brain-body
Dualism, as it accounts for our immersion within our environment.
§6.4. Completion Myths and Contextualism
A main issue of brain-body Dualism is the heavy responsibility we bear when assigning
such absolute significance to our neural firings. It opens itself up to an intellectualism that makes
it seem as though there is a status of “completion” or decontextualized mind that can be reached.
But there is no mind outside of context. In fact, distancing oneself from the context can often
hinder one’s mental performance. We see this very often in the difference between novice and
expert. It is a known fact that when you learn a new skill you pay careful attention to the
mechanics of what you are doing. But as any master will tell you, the more adept you grow at the
skill, the less and less you think deliberately about the mechanics. This has even been confirmed
in neuroscience, where experts of certain skills display less brain activity than their novice
counterparts. The intellectualist connotation of the brain-body Dualism implies that you could
theoretically remove a master from her context and she could “think” her way to perform a skill
perfectly, but “things are just the reverse when it comes to the expert. The expert’s performance,
it has been shown, deteriorates if [she] focuses on the mechanics of the task.” 45
The ancient Greek concept of flow comes to mind here. At a certain point the master is in
flow with her environment, her conscious experiences are not isolated to her internal thoughts,
44
Ibid. (59).
45
Ibid. (100).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/6f02fb52-48d5-4d4d-9d3c-679e6df70c38-160823224535/85/thesis-folder-final-perfect-32-320.jpg)
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her mind is not reducible to her brain, she is engaged with the skill within the environment. Our
processes and behaviors are extended – the same goes for language and information recall.46
There is a context-bound nature to the entirety of our conscious functions and experience.
This is precisely because osmotic consciousness cannot be removed from context, without a
context – a world – to interact with, no interaction arises. And with no interaction, there is no
consciousness. Our consciousness presupposes for its existence an environment with which our
brain and body can interact. Our habits of behavior depend on this assumption. Noë references
Adrian Cussins, before moving onto to his refutations and clarifications of osmotic
consciousness, who claims that “our lives depend on […] cognitive trails and other modes of
cognitive habits that presuppose for their activation our actual presence in an environment
hospitable for us.”47
§7. Refutations & Defenses of OC
Our understanding of our conscious experiences – of our role both in and of the
environment – has for some reason been misguided to think that we are separate or independent
of our environment. We need only look to our natural behaviors to see the multiple ways in
which we not only interact and intervene with our environment, but where the environment acts
upon us as well. The recalcitrance is not an interaction between two separate entities. It is far
46
Ibid. (100-104, 121-124). In the instance of language, Noë uses the example of multi-lingual cultures that
function with a context-bound understanding of language. Instead of the definitions and rules indoctrination of
language and translation, many people understand language as a way of understanding the world itself. As Quine
said, a different language constitutes a different ontological reality. In these cases, “such a conception of languages
as inter-translatable and documentable, the very idea of translating from one to another can seem as strange as
‘translating’ football into baseball.” In the following example, he shows how “even though a person in Zinder,
Niger, is likely to speak several languages – at home she speaks Fulani; in the market she speaks Hausa; she listens
to the news in French – the question of translating between these languages does not arise. Why would you speak
Fulani in the market?” (103).
He later emphasizes the context-bound importance of memory recall by examining our navigational skills.
Navigation is an interesting topic because it implies a certain relational awareness of one’s environment – possibly
reminiscent of our previous examination of the Body Schema. But Noë uses navigation mainly as an example to
show that a certain “familiarity” with one’s environment is not carved into one’s neurons, but instead a certain
acclamation with a familiar environment (121). The use of the familiarity – and the familiarity itself – only present
themselves when geared into the correct contextual environment. Language, navigation, and our cognitive processes,
can be considered complex “habits.” These habits are geared into the environment – they are world involving – and
our lives depend on them (123).
47
Ibid. (128).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/6f02fb52-48d5-4d4d-9d3c-679e6df70c38-160823224535/85/thesis-folder-final-perfect-33-320.jpg)
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given/interpretation distinction [problems] are vague and diffuse by comparison with those
which result from attacking the necessary/contingent distinction.”57
By refuting the
necessary/contingent distinction, Rorty argues that the hypothetical of alternate conceptual
frameworks is an impossibility derived from the error of the distinguishing between the world
how it is and the world as we understand it. There is only one world, and it is that world with
which we are engaged and entangled, constituted by our theories of it. .
§8.3. Untranslatable NON-Languages
To set out the problem, Rorty identifies the issue as one of meaning or truth. The truth of
our phenomenological experiences are constituted by our functioning a priori concepts – those
that some would call our widely accepted axioms of existence. These shared beliefs can be seen
as the natural laws that govern our universe, the conceptual frameworks negotiated by a priori
laws of causation and logic and natural order. However these frameworks, or ‘meaning
postulates,’ carrying such weight opens them up to the possibility of alternatives. Dissonance of
interpretation comes from “the notion of a choice among ‘meaning postulates’ […] the latest
version of the notion of a choice among alternative conceptual schemes.”58
These conceptual
frameworks are to be considered the accepted a priori concepts of functioning in the world –
those “concepts necessary for the constitution of experience, as opposed to concepts whose
application is necessary to control or predict experience.”59
In order to examine the hypotheticals
in which a person were to be functioning under different a priori concepts, Rorty examines Quine
and Davidson’s untranslatable language example.
The argument cruxes itself on the unrecognizability of a language being spoken that is
using a conceptual framework differing from our own. What Quine notes is that if one were to
search for the “meaning” of the speaker’s sentences, one would be unable to discern a properly
translatable language that did not translate into contradictions or false beliefs.60
Where Quine and
57
Ibid. (651).
58
Ibid. (651).
59
Ibid. (652).
60
Ibid. (653). The most extreme example of something like this would be “a foreigner all or most of whose
beliefs must be viewed as false according to a translating scheme that pairs off all or most of his terms as identical in
meaning with some terms of English” (653). Such that the case would be that if you were to translate his statements](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/6f02fb52-48d5-4d4d-9d3c-679e6df70c38-160823224535/85/thesis-folder-final-perfect-39-320.jpg)
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Davidson say that this language would be impossible to translate, Rorty takes it a step further.
For it is true that “if we can never find a translation, why should we think that we are faced with
language users at all?”61
Reflecting back on the example it seems more likely that if we were to
be exposed to such a foreigner, we would not want to even give him the credit of speaking an
actual language. He would simply be making random noises, with the same amount of
“meaning” or significance of the cries of a baby, the gibberish of the insane, the rustle of trees.
§8.4. Greeks, Galactics, and Personhood
Here, Rorty places us in the middle of a debate between the skeptic and the anti-skeptic,
both arguing for who shall assume the burden of proof in regards to the existence or non-
existence of alternative a priori concepts. The anti-skeptic seeks to prove that these alternative
concepts are not only unverifiable but impossible, while the skeptic seeks to prove that it is
impossible to prove their impossibility, and thus we are at any moment vulnerable to our entire
belief structure dissolving away to be replaced by entirely new axioms of reality.
The issue of proof here seems to lie in favor of the skeptic, for all he needs to do is
hypothesize some future society in which our understanding of physics and quantum fluctuation
have advanced so far as to completely alter our understanding of the world, our behavior in it,
and our explanation of it. This would insinuate a change in the language as well, which makes it
this example comparable to Quine’s untranslatable language. However Rorty is quick to answer
this hypothetical with a real world rebuttal. Just as the Galactic civilization of the future may
function off of entirely different axioms of reality, so did the Greeks compared to contemporary
civilization. If we use the allegory of Neurath’s boat to explain our a priori concepts at the
moment, the difference between the three civilizations vanishes. We can affirm that since the
Greeks, “many of the planks in Neurath’s boat have been torn up and re-laid differently. But
since (1) we can describe why it was ‘rational’ for each such change to have occurred, and (2)
many more of our beliefs are the same as Greek beliefs than are different […] we should not yet
you would get statements such as “I am not a person”, “these are not words,” “Even if I were thinking, which I am
not, that would not show that I exist.” &c. (654).
61
Ibid. (653).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/6f02fb52-48d5-4d4d-9d3c-679e6df70c38-160823224535/85/thesis-folder-final-perfect-40-320.jpg)
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“Truth” in the sense of “truth taken apart from any theory” and “world” taken as “what
determines such truth” are notions that were (like the terms ‘subject’ and ‘object’, ‘given’
and ‘consciousness’) made for each other. Neither can survive apart from the other […]
“the world” is either the purely vacuous notion of the ineffable cause of sense and goal of
intellect, or else a name for those objects that inquiry at the moment is leaving alone:
those planks in the boat which are at the moment not being moved about.68
‘Given’ and ‘Consciousness’ were terms made for each other, one cannot survive without the
other. And with the destruction of the last inaccurate arbitrary distinction, “we now know
perfectly well what the world is like,”69
for we are immersed in it.
§9. Immersionism
And so, the road not taken ends. From brain-body dualism to complete immersionism, the
conflation or the noumenal and phenomenal world (or the nihilation of the noumenal world)
completes the reconnection displayed in Figure 1. Having now laid out this new theory of
osmotic consciousness however, we must now look at its implications, or at least the questions
that now must be asked after endorsing such a radical theory that renounces the assumptions of
modern philosophy.
I have already touched upon this notion in previous sections, however I cannot stress
their importance enough. At the beginning of this thesis I issued a called for authenticity in the
sciences. Now that the inaccuracy of the brain-body material reductionism has been proven, it is
necessary for the sciences to account for out productive and performative role in developing the
world with which we engage. The detached Impersonalism of mind science ought to be replaced
with a framework that accepts the active externalism of our environment as well as the
responsibility of our material discursivity.70
Ergo: this framework. Embracing the implications of
Immersionism not only accounts for our own ontological mysteries, but also helps us account for
68
Ibid. (663).
69
Ibid. (662).
70
This call for authenticity in the sciences is proposed in Karen Bard’s work as well as Ian Hacking’s work
in his book, Representing and Intervening.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/6f02fb52-48d5-4d4d-9d3c-679e6df70c38-160823224535/85/thesis-folder-final-perfect-43-320.jpg)
Uploaded bySean Thomas Martin
thesis folder final perfect
This document is an introduction to Sean Thomas Martin's thesis on his theory of Immersionism, which aims to refute material reductionism and reconnect the subject to the world. Martin argues that Descartes' "Cogito" established mind-body dualism and the problem of other minds ("solipsistic barrier"), which modern science and philosophy have struggled with. Material reductionism attempts to solve this by saying consciousness is reducible to the brain, but actually just replaces one dualism with another. Martin proposes that consciousness emerges from the dynamic interaction of brain, body, and world, immersing the subject in experience and reconnecting them to the world. He outlines how later sections will develop this theory using ideas from philosophers like Andy
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- 1. 1 Submerged Selves Immersionism &the Refutation of Material Reductionism By Sean Thomas Martin ________________________________ Copyright © Sean Thomas Martin 2015 A Capstone Thesis submitted to Professor Russell Marcus Ph.D. of the DEPARTMENT OF PHILSOPHY In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of BACHELOR OF PHILSOPHY Φ At HAMILTON COLLEGE December 7th , 2015 APPROVAL STATEMENT: _________________________________
- 2. 2 “The key togrowth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.” – Lao Tzu
- 3. 3 Table of Contents ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………...….5 PRÉCIS……………………………………………………………………………………………6 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………….………………………………….. 9 2. MISCONCEPTIONS IN MODERN SCIENCE…………………………….……………….. 12 2.1. The Solipsistic barrier and mind-body Dualism…………………………………… 12 2.2. Impossibility of Impersonalism…………………..………………………………… 13 2.3. Agential Realism…..…………………………………..………….…………………15 2.4. Material Discursivity……….…………………………….……..………………….. 16 2.5. Distribution of responsibility………………………………….….…………………17 3. EXTENDING COGNITION..………………………………………………………..…….…18 3.1. Redefining the Body ……………………………………………………………….. 18 3.2. Physical to mental Externalism ……………………………………………………. 20 3.3. Three criterion of Osmotic Consciousness………..……………………………….. 20 3.4. Coupled systems………………………………………………………...………….. 21 3.5. Otto and Inga, the environment “in the loop”………………………………….……22 3.6. Pragmatic vs epistemic distinction………………………….….……………………23 4. EXTENDING THE MIND……………………………………………………………………24 4.1. Extended beliefs and desires…………………………………………….…………..24 4.2. Reliability criterion…………………………………………………………………. 25 4.3. Active Externalism ……………………………………………………………….…26 5. CONSCIOUSNESS AS EXTERNAL INTERACTION…………………….………………..27 5.1. Attributions of agency……………………………………………...…………..……27 5.2. Behavioral and biological frameworks ………………………….….………………27 5.3. Life as the lower limit………………………….….…………………………….…. 29 6. OSMOTIC CONSCIOUSNESS………………………….….…………………………….…..30 6.1. Defining consciousness………………………….….…………………………….…30 6.2. Life-appropriate minds………………………………………………………………31 6.3. Neural vs perceptual plasticity………………………….….……………………..…31 6.4. Completion myths and Contextualism ………………………….….…………….…32 7. REFUTATIONS & DEFENSES OF OC………………………….….…………………….…33 7.1. Refutations of the “Brain in the Vat”………….……………………………………34 7.2. Grand illusion of vision …………..……………………………………………….. 35 7.3. Context-bound world and perception………………………….…………………… 36 8. DISSONANCE OF INTERPRETATION………………………………….…………………37 8.1. Kantian Distinctions and misinterpretations...…………………………….………...37 8.2. Alternative conceptual frameworks………………………….….…………………. 38 8.3. Untranslatable NON-languages ………………………….….…………………….. 39 8.4. Greeks, Galactics, and personhood………………………….….…………………...40 8.5. Galactics or butterflies………………………….….……………………………..…41 8.6. Neurath’s Boat and Scientific Realism ………………………….….………………42 9. IMMERSIONISM ………………………….….…………………………….….……………43 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………….. 45
- 4.
- 5. 5 Abstract Modern Philosophy haslong been understood as having stemmed from the identification of the self. Descartes – “the father of modern philosophy” – put us in the hamster wheel back in 1641, and we’ve been running ever since. While his Cogito defined the self as “some thinking thing,” his criterion for knowledge allowed him to separate the body from the mind, and conflating the two cast us into the pits of skepticism all those years ago. While Descartes called it the soul, it is fairly agreeable to translate Descartes’ work in the Meditations to have identified the self as the mind – that thinking thing. However, the skepticism that arose out of the Cogito and the problem of other minds has piled higher and higher as the years have passed. Today, the dualism of the mind-body relation and the daunting severity of the solipsistic barrier have caused many philosophers and scientists to grasp towards a sort of physical determinism – or what I will call material reductionism – in which, to save themselves from the opacity of Descartes’ Cogito, they reduce the mind to the brain. In their overcorrection, however, material reductionists have failed to see how they have simply created a new form of dualism: now between the brain and the body. The “mind is the brain” theory essentially is redefining the ontology of human beings to a computing system – our bodies are simply robots our brains inhabit. The subject and the World are still just as separate as when Descartes, and later the distinction between phenomenal and noumenal world, first drove the division between them. In the following paper, I propose a theory of consciousness and the self I call Immersionism. The theory is developed out of Karen Barad’s Material Discursivity and Agential Realism, as well as the work of Andy Clark on the Extended Mind Theory and Alva Noë on interactive externalism in his piece Out of Our Heads (as well as other supporting works). By fully reconnecting subject and World, and immersing her in the produced and present phenomenology of Osmotic Consciousness, I hope to open up discussion about authenticity in regards to scientific methodology and our understanding of ourselves.
- 6. 6 Précis P1. What weconsider the self is the entirety of what we consider our conscious experience given around a central local – a particular body pairs to a specific mind within the world. P2. Mind-body dualism and the problem of other minds (solipsistic barrier) both arose from Descartes’ Cogito and have caused problems for theories of consciousness. P3. Modern science and philosophy attempt to answer questions of the self/consciousness that arise from the issues of mind-body dualism and the solipsistic barrier. P4. Material Reductionism attempts to solve mind-body dualism by transforming it into brain- body dualism and saying that consciousness if fully reducible to the brain. C1. Material Reductionism is wrong, or at least only solves part of the problem; consciousness is not isolatable or reducible to the brain. P6. The Cogito and solipsistic barrier is rooted in the fundamental assumptions of the sciences. P7. Scientists claim impersonal stance in experiments to guarantee “objectivity.” P8. Impersonalism is impossible both in theory and our pragmatic behaviors. P9. We are not isolated within our brains, our behavior and intervening constantly shows us this. C2. To strive towards accurate scientific accounts we must account for our externalism. . P10. Current rigid designations of mind and body and self are inaccurate and must be changed. P11. Current rigid designations fails to account for our materially discursive nature. P12. Our behavior shows, however, that our bodies are alterable and materially discursive. P13. Consider the body more akin to the body schema: a range of possible actions P14. Different examples of material discursivity use distribution of responsibility across agent and tool to justify externalism. C3. Extension becomes a matter of distributing physical and mental responsibility. P15. Making the jump from physical extension to mental means having to account for cognitive functions as well as beliefs and desires. P16. The brain is still very important, just part of three criterion of consciousness, not alone. P17. The environment and body must both be active and present in interactions of OC. P18. Cognitive functions pass through the skull/skin barrier due to our human tendency to lean on our environment for support.
- 7. 7 P19. Human beingsestablish coupled systems within the environment to aid themselves in pragmatic and epistemic actions in the world to aid in their cognitive processes. C4. We are extended in the environment and the environment is “in the loop” with us. P20. Otto and Inga example shows that biological memory can be replaced externally. P21. There is a significant reliability criterion to the extension of our memories and minds. P22. If we can show that Otto’s beliefs and desires are rooted in his external memory, than the rest of the mind can be shown as extended as well. P23. Otto’s beliefs and desires are contingent of his active and presently external memory. C5. So, in active and reliable behaviors and environments, the mind is extended. P24. Consciousness is not isolatable to the brain and is not fully extended outside the brain, it is the interaction between brain body and world together. P25. Consciousness is actually more like a success term: “something we do.” P27. For sake of argument the dynamic interaction of consciousness is conflated with mind. P28. The lower limit of consciousness is life: if you are a living creature you have a “mind.” P29. Biological frameworks handle this idea of life as the lower limit better than physics. C6. We must view ourselves with the proper theories in mind, biological and behavioral not physical and mechanical. P30. We embrace biological frameworks and attribute agency to objects whenever we question their intentions or a reason behind their unified actions. P31. We must concede that these minds that we attribute to living creatures other than human beings have minds appropriate to their lives. P32. Looking at humans as well, biology explains our behavior more than neurology. P33. Neurology supposes that the brain “runs the show” and controls all perceptual experience. P34. There is a dissonance between neural (physical) plasticity and perceptual (experiential) plasticity. P35. Neurology’s base assumption is wrong, we must explain more than just the brain. P36. Neurology also implies a completionism about rational intentional thought. P37. The novice vs master example shows that completion myths are also incorrect. C7. Our abilities are not isolatable to the brain, and are context-bound and geared into the environment – focusing just on the brain in both theory and action is folly. P38. The brain in the vat example embraces material reductionism to disprove immersionism.
- 8. 8 P39. But, thebrain in the vat example fails to disprove immersionism’s thesis. P40. The grand illusion of vision also works against immersionist theories. P41. But, the grand illusion of vision accounts only for the context-bound nature of our abilities. P42. These counter examples imply a sense of immaculate perception and completion that. P43. Human beings and their faculties are not perfect, or capable of being perfected. C8. It is only human hubris that provides these “scientific” counter examples which fail. P44. Reconnecting the subject to her world does not necessarily ring true for all possible worlds. P45. Kantian distinctions between the given/interpreted and the necessary/contingent show that there is a possibility of entirely different conceptual frameworks to backdrop our perception. P46. A new or alternative conceptual framework would constitute different a priori claims and natural laws and would produce an entirely different, untranslatable NON language to us. P47. We ascribe personhood to those who speak language and hold beliefs that seem reasonable to us. P48. If we ascribe personhood to past generations who differed in a priori concepts, and future generations that will, we must concede that a priori concepts are shifting. P49. Either we embrace shifting a priori concepts or embrace the possibility of an infinitude of alternative possible frameworks that we simply do not have access to. C9. The “world” refers actually to our currently unquestioned beliefs that frame working the backdrop of our perceptual experience. CT. The subject and world are once again fully connected via Immersionism.
- 9. 9 SUBMERGED SELVES Immersionism &the Refutation of Material Reductionism Sean Thomas Martin How strange it was. To look down And see feet other than my own. To See a world unlike this: unknown, Where another Sun - lines curled, Ripples, and waves, shown through Moving glass, distorted and separate. Oh, how I longed to pass through it. How I longed to dive into the World.1 §1. Introduction The bulk of contemporary research on consciousness in philosophy and neuroscience, as of today, rests heavily on a human ontology that is derivative of the Cartesian self, established back in 1641 by Descartes’ Cogito. However, while the theories of the self and consciousness have varied from Descartes’ time, the consequent of his thinking thing, i.e. the solipsistic barrier, has been a constant and pestilent weapon with which the skeptic has constantly prodded and undermined the accuracy of any philosopher’s assertions about our phenomenology. 1 Descartes, Rene. 2010. Meditations on First Philosophy. Seattle: Pacific Publishing Studio. (9). An epigraphical poem that I wrote in response to Descartes’ sentiment at the beginning of the Second Meditation, where he writes: “Just as if I had fallen all of a sudden into very deep water, I am so greatly disconcerted as to be unable either to plant my feet firmly on the bottom or sustain myself by swimming on the surface” (9).
- 10. 10 By the statement,“I think, therefore I am,” Descartes was able to satisfy his criterion for knowledge2 and prove to himself that he exists. However, this criterion for knowledge allowed him to perceive the actually conscious entity – the mind – as separate from his body. By this logic, the mind and body must be distinct and individual entities. And with some simple modus ponens, Descartes successfully shoved dualism down the throat of modern philosophy. Of course, because the only thing he was able to believe necessarily exists (besides God) was himself, Descartes then had to face the problem of other minds. This is no problem to a Christian philosopher who can explain any discrepancy “by the goodness of God.” But for the more agnostic thinkers such as myself, the problem of other minds and the solipsistic barrier pose a huge threat to the accuracy of our perceptions and the reliability of our own conscious experience. If we are trapped within the Cartesian box, we are equally trapped within our own subjectivity. This poses little threat to those who would jump on the relativist’s band-wagon, but there are greater issues at risk here than most contemporary theorists and scientific realists seem to believe.3 There are two major reactions to the solipsistic barrier that I wish to address. First, there are those who simply toss their hands up in reaction to our infallible subjectivity. We are simply doomed to never understand the world – or even ourselves – as it actually is or we actually are. Everything is filtered and second-hand at best, and any form of knowledge or truth comes with an asterisk attached to it. These skeptics, I refer to the natural sciences, in which we observe, experiment, and – which I will prove later on – even intervene in the world and claim to push towards some corresponding truth about it. If the skeptic buys into the subjectivity of the Cartesian self, then she must also accept that no scientific understanding is ever truly correspondent or accurate; for all interpretations of any data are always filtered by some experimenter’s subjectivity. While this trail of thought may seem logically sound, there can be 2 Ibid. (10-12). Descartes establishes his criterion for knowledge as something he can perceive (better translated as understand) clearly and distinctly in and of itself. He can clearly perceive his existence whenever he is thinking, deceived or not, because in order to think or be deceived one must exist to be thinking or be deceived. However he does not share this sentiment of affirmed existence with his corporeal body, which he perceives distinctly form his mind. In the Second Meditation he questions whether or not he can “affirm that I possess any one of all those attributes of which I have lately spoken as belonging to the nature of body? After attentively considering them in my own mind, I find none of them that can properly be said to belong to myself” (12). 3 The “greater issues at risk” here refer to the Myth and Reality of our understanding of Scientific Realism and the relationship between our own Subjectivity and our conceptualization of Objectivity, discussed later on.
- 11. 11 no greater formof apathy towards knowledge and truth, and I would go as far as to say that no authentic philosopher would ever support such a lazy hypothesis. However, the second reaction to Descartes’ solipsistic barrier, I argue is even worse. In an attempt to find some foot-hold of verificationism, many philosophers and scientists alike have embraced a form of material reductionism that isolates the mind to the brain. This type of physical determinism is meant to aid in their explanation of our phenomenological experience4 , explaining consciousness away as a series of neural firings elicited by certain electro-chemical inputs. What they fail to notice, though, is that reducing the mind to the brain – or consciousness to the brain – does not solve the problem of dualism. Rather, it simply reframes the issue from “mind-body dualism” to “brain-body dualism.” If we embrace this material reductionism, we embrace an ontology of ourselves that is parallel to our bodies being robots that our brains inhabit. We also get no closer to bringing down the solipsistic barrier, and the skeptic still has every chance he gets to undermine us as we try to solve the “easy problem” of consciousness by mapping the brain. Instead of these two unsatisfying options, I propose we embrace a different theory of the self – of consciousness – of the mind. I suggest a more realistic theory of what I am. I am not my mind, I am not my brain nor my body, I am a conscious thing, and this consciousness that that makes up my self is not reducible to the brain, but is the dynamic interaction between the brain, the body, and the world. I will call this new and enlightened self-consciousness Immersionism (as opposed to Dualism or Externalism) and in the following paper will show the step by step progression from the dark, locked box of dualism to the fully engulfed and interactive world of immersionism. The arguments of the paper will follow a progressive breaking down of barriers between mind, body, our world, and the world. But all in due time. Figure 1. A “roadmap” from Dualism to Immersionism DUALISM EXTENDED MIND OSMOTIC CONSC IMMERSIONISM m / b / w / W m-b / w / W m-b-w / W m-b-w m: mind, b: body, w: subjective phenomenal world, W: objective noumenal world, /: division 4 Consciousness, as I will handle it in the following pages, refers to the entirety of our phenomenological experiences. What I consider to be the self. Thus, after embracing my theory, it may seem more accurate to say, instead of “I am a human being that has consciousness,” that “I am consciousness shaped into a human being.”
- 12. 12 §2. Misconceptions inModern Science Dualism, as a consequence of Descartes’ cogito, has rooted itself in the fundamental assumptions of the natural sciences. Isolating the self to the mind, as Descartes did, separated the metaphysical self from the physical world and mystified the very notion of understanding our conscious experiences. Of course the mysticism of the unexplained carries a very negative connotation in the sciences, which seek to provide a comprehensive explanation of everything. The problem of other minds (our inability to reliably confirm the existence of other subjects of experience) and mind-body dualism have created a misguiding binary in the undertone’s of the scientific and philosophical community. This binary can be simplified to the skull-skin barrier. That is to say that, for the most part, scientists and philosophers have embraced a certain form of material reductionism that assumes that all aspects of what make up the self must exist entirely within the skull-skin barrier. All that is outside the barrier is not of the self. All that is not explained by singular physical processes does not exist or cannot be relied upon. The skull-skin barrier is the strongest example of how the solipsistic barrier still holds such a vice like grip on our fundamental assumptions. Instead of such material reductionism (or internalism), I propose a form of externalism that more accurately accounts for our phenomenological experiences. §2.1. The Solipsistic Barrier and mind-body Dualism As neuroscience is the most paradigmatic of my characterization of the solipsistic issue, I will focus most of my critiques refuting neuroscience’s consciousness-specific material reductionism. It may be an historic instead of philosophical point to make, but I believe that the natural trend of the sciences to embrace “discoveries” that are more materially reductive can best be traced back to Descartes’ Meditations and the first instantiation of mind-body dualism. The addition of the cogito to the fundamental assumptions of our sciences has lead neuroscientists down the wrong path in terms of explaining our comprehensive phenomenological experiences. Taking on what philosophers call the “easy problem” of consciousness (i.e. mapping the brain) they function under the assumption that explaining the entirety of the physiological phenomenon associated with our processing of our experiences actually gives us a complete picture of what consciousness is as a whole. By embracing the solipsistic barrier of this new “brain-body
- 13. 13 dualism, scientists haveover corrected from the problems of dualism to their inadequacies of material reductionism. This has lead neuroscientists to cast aside two essential parts of the dynamic interaction: the body, and the world itself. Scientists usually rely on the “Brain in the Vat” experiment to justify their narrowed focus on the brain, which I will refute later on in the paper. The more significant claim to be made here, however, is that the fundamental assumption of material reductionism is incorrect. We can see in many examples of our regular behavior and interactions that we are very much not locked within the Cartesian box. Scientist would have us believe that we are locked within our own subjective experiences, and that we must strive to escape these boxes to a neutral state of objectivity (the goal of all sciences). But the very impersonalism that the sciences claim to adopt in order to study the natural world in an objective light, is contradictory to their own goals. Impersonalism and the detached, “objective” stance that the sciences claim to be ideal is just one more of the multiple misconceptions modern day science and philosophy have embraced as a result of Descartes’ overly reductive cogito. §2.2. Impossibility of Impersonalism The notion of scientific impersonalism or detachment stems from the urge for sciences to reach some indifferent truth about the world independent of our experience of it. The separation between subject and World at a fundamental level comes from Descartes’ and the development of the self in contrast to the world that is known as the corner stone of modern philosophy. This desire to explain things separate of our experience for some reason has even seeped into our understanding of our experiences. We now – for some reason – seek to understand our phenomenological experience separate from that very experience. This is what leads material reductionists in modern sciences like neurology to strive towards impersonalism and detached explanations, viewing only the physical causes instead of the phenomenological experiences. However, assuming such an impersonal stance of something like consciousness or the mind proves to be impossible. Such impersonalism in regards to the mind of a subjective agent implies taking away the subjective agency of that mind. Once a mind becomes only a brain, it cannot go back. That is to say that the mind is not entirely defined as the brain. Solving the issue of mapping the brain does not solve the issue of Descartes’ problem of other minds. However,
- 14. 14 instead of thegoodness to God, there is an equally simple and fairly obvious justification for our beliefs in other minds to which we can turn. Alva Noë, a philosophical psychologist specializing in extended consciousness, may throw scientists under the bus when panning out this justification: The basis of our confidence in the minds of others is practical. We cannot take seriously the possibility that others lack minds because doing so requires that we take up a theoretical, detached stance on others that is incompatible with the kind of life that we already share with them. All this points to something paradoxical about the science of the mind; science requires detachment, but mind can only come into focus if we take up an altogether different, more engaged attitude.5 The impossibility of the impersonal stance which scientists claim to take makes sense when you consider that the very existence of a mind is contingent upon an interaction between a brain and world instead of just neural firings. By taking their so called “impersonal” stance and objectifying the mind to the material reductionism of the brain, scientists are actually solving only part of the problem. The mind as a whole is an extended entity between brain and body. And even the world – as we have proven that the body is no longer restrained within the walls of our skin. So, scientists relying on an impersonal stance of the “mind is the brain” reduction make it simply impossible to grasp at any real understanding of the mind. However, our understanding of the sciences and their goals depends heavily on our reliance on their impersonal stance. It is by this very detachment that the scientists claim to grasp – or at least get closer to grasping – the fundamental truth of the world, independent of our perception of it. Yet our perception of the world – our phenomenological experience – our consciousness is an always present interaction with the world. And so taking an impersonal stance is impossible by the very nature of perception, our consciousness, and the world themselves. It is impossible to explain our experience separate from our experience. Instead of these hubristically distant and pseudo-impersonal claims to objectivity, I suggest instead we examine a more authentic and realistic sense of our epistemology and the nature of the world which we perceive. This new epistemology calls into account new definitions 5 Noë, Alva. 2009. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness. New York: Hill and Wang, A division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (25).
- 15. 15 of body andmind, and the coming sections will lay out how the mind extends into the body, the first step in establishing a new and more accurate theory of consciousness. §2.3. Agential Realism Certain methodological changes must be accounted for if we are to embrace a more externalist set of fundamental assumptions in regards to our theory of consciousness. What Karen Barad calls agential realism, she describes through the frameworks of Bohr’s epistemology and Foucault’s theories on the productive nature of apparatuses of observation. This form of scientific realism can be considered a communal extension of our subjectivity, of our extended minds and bodies, intervening in our observations and experiments in the world. Barad raises the question poignantly: If a computer interface is hooked up to a given instrument, is the computer part of the apparatus? Is the printer attached to the computer part of the apparatus? Is the paper that is feed into the printer? Is the person that feeds in the paper? How about the person who reads the marks on the paper? How about the community of scientists who judge the significance of the experiment and indicate their support or lack of support for future funding? What precisely constitutes the apparatus that gives meaning to certain concepts at the exclusion of others?6 This kind of distribution over assemblages of agents and objects makes it difficult to see where our body ends and the impersonal tool begins. This is precisely because that barrier is no clear division – but an interaction in itself. We are extended through our tools, into our experiments, intervening and producing in the world at the same time we are perceiving and evaluating it. These points will be touched upon in greater detail later on, but the main conclusion to take from Barad’s agential realism is that our tools and experiments, and our interactions with and through them, are not just “instruments but are themselves complex material-discursive phenomena, involve in, formed out of, and formative of particular social process. Power, knowledge, and 6 Barad, Karen. 1999. “Agential Realism: Feminist Interventions in Understanding Scientific Practices.” The Science Studies: 1-11. (6). Barad, like other members of the field of philosophy which I like to call distributists, proposes the distribution of responsibility and agency among larger assemblages of minds and bodies, the extension of our subjectivities. These apparatuses and their productivity prove that the agency and responsibility of the actual observation – the actual result of the experiment, are distributed through multiple agents, tools, communal functions, &c. Another blow against the so called “objectivity” and impersonalism of the sciences.
- 16. 16 being are conjoinedin material-discursive practices.”7 These material-discursive practices provide myriad examples of how material reductionism is an inaccurate account of our interactions with the world. The world kicks back – the environment is brought into the loop of our cognitive process. We extended into the world on a regular basis, crossing past the skull/skin barrier constantly to interact and intervene in the world. We, our minds and bodies, are materially discursive and intertwined, extending into the world. §2.4. Material Discursivity Barad recognizes materially discursive practices as being “productive rather than merely descriptive. However, what is produced is constrained by particular material-discursive facts and not arbitrarily construed.”8 This theory of our extension by means of tool is further panned out in her later paper “Posthumanist Performativity,” in which she discusses the nature of material discursivity in terms of what she calls cyborgian cuts, or colloquially, “thingification.” She goes so far to say that this “thingification” – “the turning of relations into ‘thing,’ ‘entities,’ ‘relata’ – infects much of the way we understand the world and our relationship to it.”9 These cyborgian cuts extend into the world and distribute our agency within it, shaping and reshaping our fundamental concepts that make up the world as we understand it. We can see this through every day cyborgian cuts likes the use of a hammer to extend and enhance the force of our swinging arm, or even the use of our phones as an extended and more reliable memory. These extensions, when in the correct context, even have the potential to “produce,” in some way or another, our a priori concepts and fundamental beliefs. The importance of this epistemology will be discussed later in section §8. The so called “border” of the self is altered in this different materially 7 Ibid. (6). 8 Ibid. (2). Barad’s account of material discursivity also accounts for a realism about the way in which “the world kicks back” and stresses the “symmetrical form of interaction between knower and known” (2). Her account works perfectly with the Extended Mind Theory by Andy Clark that I will examine in the following sections, in which we see that our mental extension into the body and the world have a productive and not simply passive and observational quality to them. This is the most significant implication of Immersionism, as it is what calls for the severe alteration of methodology in order to account for Agential Realism. 9 Barad, Karen. 2003. “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” SIGNS: 801-831. (812-813).
- 17. 17 discursive practices, showinghow the rigid designations of the solipsistic barrier are actually osmotic barriers at best. For now we need only consider the significance of material discursivity as it distributes the responsibility of our physical, cognitive, and conscious processes into the world and out of the intellectualist Cartesian box. §2.5. Distribution of Responsibility Here, I feel it necessary to establish a criterion for extension. Just as Descartes defined his criterion for knowledge as something he can perceive clearly and distinctly in and of itself, I define my criterion for extension as any relation between mind and body in which the responsibility of some task is distributed between the subject and the tool or media form that lies beyond the skull-skin barrier. Andy Clark and David Chalmers use this criterion in their Extended Mind Theory, which I will examine closely in Section §4, but as they focus on the mind extending to the body, and here I focus on extension of any sort (as in any alteration of the body schema in relation to epistemology) I will tweak the wording to make the transition easier on the ears. The distribution of responsibility can be seen as a distribution of “epistemic credit. If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process, which, were it done [by the subject alone], we would have no hesitation in recognizing as part”10 of the process, then that part of the world is interwoven within our agency of the process. We have proven ourselves extendable into the world through this criterion for extension. Now, I begin the work of proving this new theory of extended consciousness, through extending the mind into the body, the body into the world, and reuniting the subject and the world. 10 Clark, Andy; Chalmers, David J. 2000. “The Extended Mind.” Ridgeview: 59-74. (62). Clark and Chalmers here actually define the distribution of epistemic credit here in terms of extending the mind into the world through this criterion for extension, however for the sake of the argument as a whole I feel it better to have started with redefining the body and brain, and setting out osmotic consciousness as the clear goal in order to bridge the gap the long distance from dualism all the way to Immersionism.
- 18. 18 §3. Extending Cognition Sections§3 and §4 will be spent making the step from the first box in Figure 1 to the second. To make the step the connection between mind and body (or brain and body if we are using the dualist’s terminology) must be proven as extended in a way that functions under my new definition of body. Andy Clark’s and David Chalmers’ “Extended Mind Theory” provides an account of what they call active externalism in which they stress “the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.”11 This theory both functions within my new definition of body and meets the Three Criterion of consciousness – brain, body, world – thus showing how there is a distribution of not only physical but also cognitive responsibilities. §3.1. Redefining the Body When attacking the problem of brain-body dualism, certain barriers and definitions are called into question. Such is the nature of this entire paper after all. I will first begin by redefining the term body. As Descartes defined it, a body can be understood as: Anything that can be comprised in a certain place, and so fill a certain space as therefrom to exclude very other body; that can be perceived either by touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell; that can be moved in different ways, not indeed of itself, but by something foreign to it by which it is touched (and from which it receives the impression).12 Such a rigid designation of the body will not do within this argument. And when consulting cognitive science, one may begin to see that the body should not be defined by such reductive borderlines. Considering different examples such as the phantom limb experiment, we can see that sensation and feeling can long outlive a severed limb. This of course does not work within Descartes’ definition of the body. To solve the problem, we must redefine the term body (at least our bodies, not all extended objects) to instead refer to the potentiality of involvement and 11 Clark, Andy; Chalmers, David J. 2000. “The Extended Mind.” Ridgeview: 59-74. (60). 12 Descartes, Rene. 2010. Meditations on First Philosophy. Seattle: Pacific Publishing Studio. (12).
- 19. 19 interaction with one’senvironment. Or, as Noë rephrases it in his book, Out of Our Heads, “our body is ours – the place where we feel and the means by which we act – insofar as the current of activity that flows toward the world passes through it.”13 We can examine the implication of the term means here as well as the opacity of the term place to understand the definition more clearly. Looking first at the term place, we can already extend the body past the phantom limb to see how we can feel things past the skull-skin barrier. Noë also considers the body schema when redefining the body, finally titrating his definition to “the body is present schematically as a range of possibilities of movement or action.”14 The body can be considered – instead of the rigid designation of the skull/skin barrier – as a center of gravity, a central local around which specific experiences are cultivated within a certain consciousness. This central local – this place – is malleable and adjustable, allowing for additions and subtractions that do not always coincide with our neural processes. To alter the conception of the body now seems far more fathomable, as we need only add or extend the body schema – our potentiality of movement. In order to alter or extend the body schema we need only look to our everyday dependence on – and dexterity with – tools. Here we can examine the term means by which we act in the world. In terms of neuroplasticity we can examine the use of tools as essentially the opposite of the phantom limb experiment. Where in the phantom limb example the body schema has remained the same while the actual physical body has lost the limb, with the use of a tool (say, a cane) one can, with enough practice and skill, change one’s expectations of movement and the way one interacts in the world. To explain in more detail, while in the phantom limb experiment we see the body schema is altered without our neural processes changing (thus showing that our conscious experience does not always match our neurology), in the cane experiment we can see the body schema being added to and letting our neural plasticity catch up afterwards to account for a more natural and masterful use of the tool. Following such an 13 Noë, Alva. 2009. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness. New York: Hill and Wang, A division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (76). This is Noë’s paraphrasing of Merleau-Ponty in which he notes that “the absence of your hand is not real until it fails to be at your disposal when you prepare to reach with it or stop your fall with it.” (76). The theory of body here emphasizes the usage and context-bound capabilities of our body (ex: a hand) to explain the continued sensations of a phantom limb – as its environmental uses and habits still exist without the capability. 14 Ibid. (77).
- 20. 20 extension of ourbody, Noë observes that as our “body schema changes, our relation to the world around us changes, and so how we perceive the environment changes.”15 Now, having established my new definition of body that coincides with our interactions with the world more fluidly, we can look at the ways we extend our body, and thus our minds, and subjectivity, into the world. §3.2. Physical to Mental Externalism The distribution of physical responsibility is such a common phenomenon that at first glance it would seem that it requires little reflection. Examining the use of a hammer as a cyborgian cut (the cut here being the defining line of our agential body being moved from the skin barrier of our hand outwards to include the hammer itself) and a distribution of the physical responsibility of blunt force seems like a logical enough conclusion. We often distribute our physical responsibilities with the use of tools, cars, &c. That alone is not sufficient to prove our extension. We need to prove how our cognitive responsibilities are distributed past our skull-skin barrier in this active externalism. These examples, instead of focusing on simply altering the Body Schema, will focus on the distribution of cognitive processes and responsibilities to show how the mind is extended not only into our body, but into the environment as well. It is very important to emphasize here, that after all of my brain-body dualist bashing I still do concede to and support the importance of the brain in the development of consciousness. It is still a very vital part of this external interaction. Osmotic consciousness should not be misconstrued for some extreme externalism which places the mind and consciousness entirely outside of the skull-skin barrier. It is simply a re-emphasizing and re-appropriation of responsibilities and functions within the brain, the extended body, and the environment, all in cohesive interaction. §3.3. Three Criterion of Osmotic Consciousness What I propose, instead of thinking that the brain is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness (which is a mistake that even material dualists make, like in the Brain in the Vat 15 Ibid. (79).
- 21. 21 example)16 , that thebrain is necessary, but what is equally necessary for consciousness to be present is an extendable body and an environment with which to interact, develop, and intertwine with. What I will call the Three Criterion for osmotic consciousness then, will be a brain as qualified earlier in this paper as continuously active in the production and interaction of consciousness, a body as defined previously as the potentiality of movements or actions within a central local, and a world – an environment with which these two entities can interact. I will flush out the implications of the term world later in section §8. These connected theories will do the work of solving the skeptic arguments against the reliability of our individual brain’s extension into the body, and our individually extended brain/body’s extension into the world. Justifying the reliability of our general immersion in the world will come afterwards. §3.4. Coupled Systems To emphasize the distribution of cognitive processes, Clark and Chalmers use the example of computers in controlled experiments to show how we often make the jump from using technology as an aid to our cognitive processes to having technology handle our cognitive processes for us. These examples will focus on the mind’s extension into the body (both having been redefined for the purpose of this argument). In these cases, where there is an active externalism into the environment via some media or tool we can actually see our extension at work. Clark and Chalmers begin their paper by providing three different cases of human problem-solving: (1) a person is asked to identify which geometric shapes fit into which socket on a screen and must do so by mentally rearranging them on her own; (2) a person is given the same task but can now either mentally rearrange the shapes or press a button to have them rearranged on the screen by the computer for her; (3) a person is given the same task but is given a neural implant which will rearrange the shapes as fast as the computer in the previous example, 16 The “Brain in the Vat” example, which I will examine in more focused detail later on, proposes that if an isolated brain, without an actual environment, is given the correct electro-chemical input or impulse, it will produce the effect of perception and experience “a world” within the brain. Material Reductionists use this hypothetical to justify that consciousness is reducible to the brain alone. However, even if this hypothetical accurately portrayed how our consciousness worked (which I will prove later it does not) scientists would still make the mistake of saying the brain is the only necessary facet of consciousness, for they are providing the second: the input (i.e. a world).
- 22. 22 but she stillmust choose which mental processes to use to rearrange the shapes (mental or neural implant).17 When examining these three different cases we see that both (2) and (3) “display the same sort of computational structure,” only in (2) the responsibility of the rearrangement “is distributed across agent and computer instead of internalized within the agent. If the rotation in case (3) is cognitive, by what right do we count case (2) as fundamentally different?”18 What Clark calls the “tendency of human reasoners to lean heavily on environmental supports” can be seen in the many different ways we casually distribute the responsibilities of our memories, navigations, computations, and thought processes. We establish what Clark calls coupled systems where we as human organisms are linked with an external entity in our heuristic and productive endeavors. In these systems, it could be said that as much as we extend into the environment, the environment extends into us, a “two- way interaction, creating a coupled system that can be seen as a cognitive system in its own right. All the right components in the system play an active causal role, and they jointly govern behavior”19 the same way cognition normally functions. This active externalism brings the Environment “in the loop” of our cognitive processes, and by distributing our cognitive responsibilities we distribute our minds with them.20 §3.5. Otto and Inga, the Environment “in the loop” Before making the leap from cognition to beliefs and the mind as a whole, I must first identify and qualify the necessary requirements of these coupled systems. When first tackling cognitive processes alone, Clark uses the example of Otto’s notebook and Inga’s memory to show how we can replace our biological memory with parts of the environment, thus establishing justified coupled systems. 17 Clark, Andy; Chalmers, David J. 2000. “The Extended Mind.” Ridgeview: 59-74. (60). 18 Ibid. (61). 19 Ibid. (62). 20 Ibid. (62). Here I feel it is important to again specify that the brain and our internal cognitive processes are still very important. These coupled systems do not undermine the vital importance of the brain, but simply say that it is not alone in its responsibilities. As Clark says, “In all these cases the individual brain performs some operations, while others are delegated to manipulations of external media” 62).
- 23. 23 The thought experimentis as follows: take Inga, a normal case of belief embedded in memory, and juxtapose her behaviors and cognitive processes with Otto, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and relies on information written down in his notebook, always by his side. The establishment of the coupled system here is very clear, as we can believe realistically that as an Alzheimer’s patient, Otto would always have his notebook with him – and at this point be naturalized to the processes of checking his notebook for information as if it was his memory. Some of course would attack the credibility or reliability of Otto’s notebook, but the Reliability Criterion of our mind’s extension will be discussed later. For now, we can assume that “for Otto, his notebook plays the role usually played by a biological memory.”21 In this thought experiment, Inga and Otto are both going to the Museum of Modern Art to see a visit and so must remember the location of the Museum, on 53rd Street. Inga recalls to her own memory and so goes to 53rd street, finds the Museum where she believed it to be, and goes in. Otto, instead of looking to his memory for the location of the Museum, has previously noted that it is on 53rd Street, and so looks to his notebook to find the location. He then goes to 53rd Street, finds the Museum where he believed it to be, and goes in. We can see that Otto’s extended memory functions in the same way the Inga’s biological memory does, and I will show later that they share a similar level of reliability in terms of accuracy, misinformation, and contingency.22 §3.6. Pragmatic vs Epistemic Distinction Look back at the prior two examples: Otto’s notebook and the computer systems. The computer examples are an over complication of the computer game Tetris, where players fit geometric shapes into allotted slots. The shapes often come in different positions and must be rotated to fit the ideal slots, and players can either mentally rotate them (as in hypothetically rotate in their “mind’s eye”) or use the buttons to rotate and see the different options as the pieces falls closer to the slot. Clark cites a study, done by David Kirsh and Paul Maglio, which showed that the physical rotation of the shapes by button takes about 300 milliseconds total, while the hypothetical mental rotation takes 1000 milliseconds. Their study goes on to show that 21 Ibid. (70). 22 Ibid. (70). I will account for errors in memory and contingency in section §4.2 where I set out the Reliability Criterion for extended cognition and mind.
- 24. 24 the physical rotationof the shapes “is used not just to position a shape ready to fit a slot, but often to help determine whether the shape and the slot are compatible. The latter use constitutes a case of what Kirsh and Maglio call an ‘epistemic action’.”23 These epistemic actions are to be distinguished from merely pragmatic actions which alter the world for the sake of function (i.e. putting cement into a hold in a dam). Instead, epistemic actions “alter the world so as to aid and augment cognitive processes such as recognition and search.”24 We can see how Otto’s memory also constitutes an epistemic action, as he has altered the world with his writing in the notebook in order to augment his cognitive process of recognition. There is a distribution of cognitive responsibility. Our cognitive processes at the very least are extended into the world, our body schemas alterable, and the environment is constantly “in the loop.” §4. Extending the Mind Our minds are composed of more than simply computations and cognitive processes. We must now show how beliefs themselves are extended. Again we can look at the example of Otto’s notebook to show that his behavior is justified by his beliefs, fleeting as they may be, and that those beliefs are justified by the information in his notebook. And what is more important, they are justified on the same level as Inga’s normal biological memory and internalized beliefs. §4.1. Extending Beliefs and Desires In order to show that Otto’s beliefs are equally justified as Inga’s, we must look to their behavior. Both, after retrieving the information from their respective sources, proceed to navigate their way to 53rd Street and enter the Museum because of their prior desire to go to the art show and their present beliefs that the Museum is located on 53rd Street. Where someone might say there is a difference in that Inga knows that the Museum is on 53rd Street and Otto is susceptible to misinformation or inaccuracy of his notebook’s information, they would be failing 23 Ibid. (62). 24 Ibid. (62).
- 25. 25 to account forthe inaccuracy of our own biological memories. Others might say that there is an issue of time in Otto’s case, where his beliefs are existent only after he consults his notebook and re-learns the information. But, “to say that the beliefs disappear when the notebook is filed away seems to miss the big picture in just the same way as saying that Inga’s beliefs disappear as soon as she is no longer conscious of them.”25 Both Otto and Inga function on the same assumption of the accuracy of their memory, their beliefs are justified by information that is stored by some cognitive faculty. As Clark says, “The information in the notebook functions just like the information constituting an ordinary non-occurent belief; it just happens that this information lies beyond the skin.”26 Clark uses the Putnam Twin Earth example here to show that for Twin Otto, who is the same as Otto in every way only that his notebook has the address written down as 51st Street instead of 53rd , to solidify his point. In the Twin Earth example, “Twin Otto is best characterized as believing that the museum is on 51st Street, where Otto believes it is on 53rd . In these cases, a belief is simply not in the head.”27 Of course with the Twin Earth example, issues arise and qualifications have to be made. Here is where the reliability criterion is helpful. §4.2. Reliability Criterion The main issues with Otto’s notebook are those of consistency and perception. Clark handles both of these issues rather quickly by establishing a Reliability Criterion for Otto’s notebook to sufficiently represent and extension of his memory. The criterion is that the form of extension in question must be present and “easily available in most relevant situations” of its use, and if so “the relevant belief is not endangered.”28 This handles the issue of consistency in regards to Otto’s memory (and one could imagine easier ways to simply impugn the consistency of normal biological memories, ex: intoxication, brain damage, sleep, attention deficit, &c). The issue of perception, where Otto’s beliefs are contingent upon his perception of the notebook, Clark claims in some ways begs the question. He clarifies that “Otto’s internal processes and his 25 Ibid. (71). 26 Ibid. (71). 27 Ibid. (72). 28 Ibid. (76).
- 26. 26 notebook constitute asingle cognitive system. Form the standpoint of this system, the flow of information between notebook and brain is not perceptual at all […] It is more akin to information flow within the brain.”29 There may be a phenomenological difference between Otto’s actual visual perception of his “memory” and whatever neural proper neural phenomenon occur in Inga’s brain as she remembers the address, but the causal relation of the metaphysical beliefs can be considered the same in each case. §4.3. Active Externalism The other issue that the Extended Mind Theory faces is Putnam’s issue of Twin Earth. The argument for the contingency of beliefs in terms of Otto’s notebook works to help Clark prove that beliefs are not just in the head. However the normal example of H20 vs XYZ shows the contingent nature of the environment itself. Clark uses this difference between forms of Externalism, both the prior kind and what the active externalism under which we have been functioning thus far, to add another criterion of the extended mind – an active environment. In the XYZ case, Clark shows that “if I happen to be surrounded by XYZ right now (maybe I have teleported to Twin Earth), my beliefs still concern standard water, because of my history. In these cases, the relevant external features are passive” or what he also calls “distal and historical, at the other end of a lengthy causal chain.”30 As opposed to the XYZ example, the external features in the case of Otto’s notebook are active and present. In these cases “the relevant external features play an active role in the here-and-now, and have a direct impact on behavior.”31 This active externalism both accounts for our materially discursive nature – as our subjectivity is extended equally with our agency and Body Schema – as well as the way the present environment can have a causal role in our behavior and mental processes. What these criteria do is qualify and solidify Clark’s account of the extension of beliefs, and as Clark says at the end of his paper, “once dispositional beliefs are let in the door, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that Otto’s notebook has all the relevant dispositions” of the Extended Mind. 29 Ibid. (74). 30 Ibid. (63). 31 Ibid. (72).
- 27. 27 §5. Consciousness asExternal Interaction Having discussed how not only our physical and cognitive responsibilities are distributed externally, but that the mind as a whole is actually extended as well, now I take the next step of my expansion and tackle the problem of consciousness as a whole. As I noted in Figure 1, I plan to move step by step from brain-body Dualism to complete Immersionism. The first of three steps has now been made as we have reconnected the mind and the body. This newly connected and extended entity I will refer to as Schemata. In the coming section I will show that the Schemata is interwoven in the world and environment through osmotic consciousness, where both the subject extends into the world and the world seeps into the subject. §5.1. Attributions of Agency In his book, Noë advocates for the adjustment for our theories to align more closely with our behavior and experience. Instead of skeptics and scientific realists who propose that our experiences and perceptions are actually just inaccurate and illusory, Noë suggests that we adjust our theories to better account for these behaviors. In a paradigmatic example, he cites our common asking of the “why” question to explain causation or intention to individual agents in the world. Whether or not we recognize these objects as fully subjective agents or not, we attribute – possibly even project – a certain amount of agency to them by implying a reason behind their actions or behaviors in the environment. This is a matter of framing what we are actually seeing in a non-neutral and pre-established way that completely contradictions the impersonalism of detached science. Instead, Noë looks to our usual behaviors and observations to show that we attribute agency, and therefore mind, to many things from people to animals to computers based on the implication of a reason behind their “behaviors,” even if we claim a detached viewpoint while asserting these descriptions. §5.2. Life as the Lower Limit An impersonalized subject is not a complete subject. Noë says that this detached stance can only help us explain some parts of what the mind is – what our consciousness is. There is
- 28. 28 only psychology andbehavior to an impersonalized subject. In fact that subject has been reduce to a mechanistic behavioral object. As such, she has been made mindless by the very impersonalism meant to help study her mind. Noë points out that “if we do take up the detached, mechanistic attitude to human beings, then it is impossible for us to view them as friends or even enemies; indeed, it is impossible to think of them as genuinely subjects of experience.”32 This necessary empathy or acknowledgement of agency of a mind is not exclusive to human minds either. Noë keeps the parameters for mind very simple. Life is the lower limit of consciousness. We take up the anthropocentric terminology of minds whenever we explain an acting organism with intentions. When we examine a bacterium moving in a direction of greater intensities of sugar, it “might seem to be geared into its environment in a machinelike way. But in fact, in thus describing the bacterium, we have already smuggled in a non-mechanical, nonphysical conception of the bacterium as, precisely, a unity, as one whose actions can be considered as actions, and in relation to which the question ‘why?’ arises.”33 The very need for us to justify the actions of an organism can be attributed to our recognition of a mind at work. Acknowledging the unity of the organism, instead of reducing all the connected mechanisms and processes in detached relation, implies that the bacterium “is not merely a process, it is an agent, however simple; it has interests.”34 The bacterium may not be a complicated example of mind; it is not self-aware nor does it understand or have control over its needs and functions, but nonetheless the bacterium “only comes into focus for biology as an organism, as a living being, once we appreciate its integrity as an individual agent.”35 32 Noë, Alva. 2009. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness. New York: Hill and Wang, A division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (38). 33 Ibid. (39). 34 Ibid. (40). 35 Ibid. (40).
- 29. 29 §5.3. Behavioral andBiological Frameworks This example of the bacterium is very helpful, because it shows how interwoven the organism is with its environment. It is, in a sense, geared into the world. Yes, there may be varying levels of complexity and awareness and autonomy within that geared-in status, but all life is in some way, shape, or form contextually geared into the world. Although Noë spends two chapters on this point and many examples more than that, his point is actually quite simple. He is emphasizing that, in terms of consciousness, the inclination of material reductionism to rely on physics to explain our experience is a categorical mistake: Physics does not catalog the existence of organisms or environments. For physics, there are only atoms and processes operating sub atomically: you can’t do biology from within physics. To do biology, we need the resources to take up a no non-mechanistic attitude to the organism as an environmentally embedded unity. When we do that – and how we come to my critical claim – we also secure the (at least) primitive mentality of the organisms. The problem of mind is that of the problem of life. What biology brings into focus is the living being, but where we discern life, we have everything we need to discern mind.36 Embracing physics as the framework of explaining our experiences would leave us with a vocabulary that describes us as clouds of atoms moving in directions, surrounded by atoms of a slightly different nature moving in different directions. Understanding ourselves through the scope of biology and evolution only makes sense, as we our animals of our environment at a very fundamental level. If mind is life, it is simply important to note that animals “have minds appropriate to their lives; they are not mere machines.”37 Having established life as the only prerequisite of mind, our human minds must be examined. In section §6, I will examine the different dynamics of human consciousness, of our extended minds, that shows that our alterable and extended schematas are boundary crossing and world involving. They bring the environment “into the loop” just as Clark says. Osmotic consciousness requires only a living schemata and an environment to express the interaction that is itself consciousness as a whole. Our consciousness 36 Ibid. (41). 37 Ibid. (46).
- 30. 30 – our minds– our agential processes, are simply specific to our schematas and the species specific interactions of brain and body with the world. §6. Osmotic Consciousness Extending Cognition and contingently the Mind, we can see how the brain and the body are truly connected and extended in the Schemata. This being the central local around which the interaction of osmotic consciousness takes place. Having looked at the connection between box 1 and box 2 of Figure 1, we can now look at the next division, between the Schemata and world. §6.1. Defining Consciousness In regards to osmotic consciousness, there is an important distinction to be made between the sum of the parts and the whole. While the three criterion are necessary for osmotic consciousness to be present, the phenomenon itself is not derivative of those brain, body, and world interacting. Osmotic consciousness is the very interaction itself. This theory is set forth by Alva Noë, in his book Out of Our Heads, where he establishes the three criterion and provides that analysis of what I call osmotic consciousness.38 Noë stresses that it is the interaction itself that we recognize as the phenomenon of consciousness, instead of something that can be simplified to three individual parts. There is a context-bound nature of this interaction, a presentism and ephemerality. In its most titrated form, Noë’s thesis is that “the brain is not the locus of consciousness inside us because consciousness has no locus inside us. Consciousness isn’t something that happens inside us: it is something that we do, actively, in our dynamic interaction with the world around us.”39 In this account Noë parallels the terminology of consciousness and mind – which I will do the work of connecting. But his parameters are simple enough: “mind is life.” §6.2. Life Appropriate Minds 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. (24).
- 31. 31 Throughout the bookNoë stresses the importance of the biological framework when explaining consciousness. The context-bound and developmental nature of our phenomenological faculties of experience prove why this biological framework is so accurate and important. We can see the developmental importance of the environment in regards to capabilities with organisms deprived of that environment. Noë points out that “the neonatal mammal, we learn, is plastic and open; in a very real sense the environment itself produces in us the conditions needed to experience that environment.”40 Here he cites certain cognitive science experiments of animals deprived of certain senses during their developmental infancy. For example: cats deprived of light during developmental infancy will never be able to see. Noë’s theory reassess our understanding of maturation within our environment. Autonomy becomes a far more vague term, as “maturation is not so much a process of self-individuation and detachment as it is one of growing comfortably into one’s environmental situation.”41 §6.3. Neural vs Perceptual Plasticity What is beginning to be panned out here is a dissonance between neural and perceptual plasticity. Where if the two were at all times the same, there would be no issue with the brain- body dualism I am combatting at the moment. However, if we examine the phantom limb case again as well as the Bach-y-Rita sensory substitution example, we can see that neural rewiring is not only insufficient for a change in the quality of experience, it is not even necessary.42 In the Bach-y-Rita sensory substitution system, a camera was wired to an array of vibrators placed on the thigh or abdomen of subjects. The system worked in such a way that visual information presented to the camera produced a range of tactile stimuli on the subjects’ skin. In somewhat amazing results, “by deploying the system, the blind person was able to reach out and pick up objects, and even swat at a ball successfully with a Ping-Pong paddle.”43 In the phantom limb example the neural pathways were altered (cut off) yet the experience of pain 40 Ibid. (50). 41 Ibid. (51). 42 Ibid. (56) 43 Ibid. (57).
- 32. 32 continued, hence wesee a case of neural plasticity without perceptual plasticity. However, in the Bach-y-Rita example, the neural pathway is unaltered while visual “perception” was created on a more or less functional level. The latter example gives a case of perceptual plasticity without neural plasticity. This alone may be statement enough against the brain-body material reductionism, and Noë even goes as far as to call it “the key to our puzzle.” As “what makes experience the kind of experience it is – is not the neural activity in our brains on its own; it is, rather, our ongoing dynamic relation to objects, a relation that, as in this case, clearly depends on our neural responsiveness to changes in our relation to things.”44 This account of our conscious experience explains away many phenomenon that puzzle the current paradigm of brain-body Dualism, as it accounts for our immersion within our environment. §6.4. Completion Myths and Contextualism A main issue of brain-body Dualism is the heavy responsibility we bear when assigning such absolute significance to our neural firings. It opens itself up to an intellectualism that makes it seem as though there is a status of “completion” or decontextualized mind that can be reached. But there is no mind outside of context. In fact, distancing oneself from the context can often hinder one’s mental performance. We see this very often in the difference between novice and expert. It is a known fact that when you learn a new skill you pay careful attention to the mechanics of what you are doing. But as any master will tell you, the more adept you grow at the skill, the less and less you think deliberately about the mechanics. This has even been confirmed in neuroscience, where experts of certain skills display less brain activity than their novice counterparts. The intellectualist connotation of the brain-body Dualism implies that you could theoretically remove a master from her context and she could “think” her way to perform a skill perfectly, but “things are just the reverse when it comes to the expert. The expert’s performance, it has been shown, deteriorates if [she] focuses on the mechanics of the task.” 45 The ancient Greek concept of flow comes to mind here. At a certain point the master is in flow with her environment, her conscious experiences are not isolated to her internal thoughts, 44 Ibid. (59). 45 Ibid. (100).
- 33. 33 her mind isnot reducible to her brain, she is engaged with the skill within the environment. Our processes and behaviors are extended – the same goes for language and information recall.46 There is a context-bound nature to the entirety of our conscious functions and experience. This is precisely because osmotic consciousness cannot be removed from context, without a context – a world – to interact with, no interaction arises. And with no interaction, there is no consciousness. Our consciousness presupposes for its existence an environment with which our brain and body can interact. Our habits of behavior depend on this assumption. Noë references Adrian Cussins, before moving onto to his refutations and clarifications of osmotic consciousness, who claims that “our lives depend on […] cognitive trails and other modes of cognitive habits that presuppose for their activation our actual presence in an environment hospitable for us.”47 §7. Refutations & Defenses of OC Our understanding of our conscious experiences – of our role both in and of the environment – has for some reason been misguided to think that we are separate or independent of our environment. We need only look to our natural behaviors to see the multiple ways in which we not only interact and intervene with our environment, but where the environment acts upon us as well. The recalcitrance is not an interaction between two separate entities. It is far 46 Ibid. (100-104, 121-124). In the instance of language, Noë uses the example of multi-lingual cultures that function with a context-bound understanding of language. Instead of the definitions and rules indoctrination of language and translation, many people understand language as a way of understanding the world itself. As Quine said, a different language constitutes a different ontological reality. In these cases, “such a conception of languages as inter-translatable and documentable, the very idea of translating from one to another can seem as strange as ‘translating’ football into baseball.” In the following example, he shows how “even though a person in Zinder, Niger, is likely to speak several languages – at home she speaks Fulani; in the market she speaks Hausa; she listens to the news in French – the question of translating between these languages does not arise. Why would you speak Fulani in the market?” (103). He later emphasizes the context-bound importance of memory recall by examining our navigational skills. Navigation is an interesting topic because it implies a certain relational awareness of one’s environment – possibly reminiscent of our previous examination of the Body Schema. But Noë uses navigation mainly as an example to show that a certain “familiarity” with one’s environment is not carved into one’s neurons, but instead a certain acclamation with a familiar environment (121). The use of the familiarity – and the familiarity itself – only present themselves when geared into the correct contextual environment. Language, navigation, and our cognitive processes, can be considered complex “habits.” These habits are geared into the environment – they are world involving – and our lives depend on them (123). 47 Ibid. (128).
- 34. 34 more accurate tosay that the interaction between the two entities is consciousness itself – the self is derivative of the three criterion as well. Clarifying osmotic consciousness in its different instantiations, we can see that we as a schemata are constantly geared into the environment as well. Just as the mind was connected to the extended body in the Schemata. That extendable body is connected to the active and recalcitrant world in a way that creates a two way, reciprocal, coupled system. And so the jump from the second to the third box of Figure 1 has now been safely made. §7.1. Refutations of the “Brain in the Vat” Having taken us all the way from brain-body Dualism to our current position at Osmotic consciousness, I would like to spend some time refuting two specific counterexamples to OC that Noë also focuses on in his book: The “Brain in the Vat” example and the “grand illusion” of vision. Both counterexamples, I will argue as Noë does, do not actually do any harm to OC as a theory and actually do more to show the categorical mistakes of vision science and material reductionists. My first defense of OC relies on Noë’s refutation of the “Brain in the Vat” counterexample. Any philosopher tackling the problem of phenomenological experience has spent his time in the ring with this though experiment, and for good reason. The idea of virtual reality – or providing a fabricated array of sensory inputs into an isolated brain in order to stimulate the sensation of experience, would be all the proof material reductionists need to prove themselves right. However, what the “scientists” in these experiments seem to forget accounting for is their own influence on the isolated brain. Just because we can produce some experiences simply by providing electro-chemical inputs to the correct neurons in the brain, it does not follow that all experience can be reduced to this. Also, the criterion of “removing the brain from its environment” is not even being satisfied here. The scientists’ inputs simply replace the environment. At the very best, we can say that “it would show that the brain plus the actions of the manipulating scientist are sufficient for the occurrence of hallucinatory events in consciousness.”48 In short, even a brain in a vat needs a body and a world with which to interact 48 Ibid. (174).
- 35. 35 – the scientistsimply provides substitutions of them for these experiments, instead of “removing” them as they claim to be doing. Neuroscience still can carry an active role in our examination of consciousness, but we must first accept that fact that we “are not merely recipients of external influences, but are creatures built to receive influences that we ourselves enact; we are dynamically coupled with the world, not separate from it.”49 I feel it safe to say now that by combing the Extended Mind Theory with Noë’s account of OC, we can see the fallacies behind brain-body dualism’s skeptical argument. The solipsistic barrier of the skull-skin denotation simply does not provide an accurate account of how our brains and bodies function in interaction with the world. We produce and react to our environment in a constantly shifting context-bound interaction. A give and take. The walls between the subject and her world have at last been broken down. As Noë says, “we are home sweet home.”50 §7.2. Hubris of Immaculate Perception Looking next at vision science, we must examine the idea of visual “representation” and our model of the world. Noë identifies what he calls the “old” and “new” skepticisms of visual science and shows how each actually goes about handling the mystery of vision in the wrong way. The “old” skepticism of vision science attempted to account for the fact that “we see much more than is given to us” as in our visual perceptual experience is far more extravagant than the light waves our retina are receiving. The “new” skepticism attempts to deal with vision in the opposite way, accounting for the fact that we actually do not build up a perfect and in focus representation of the world within our heads, even though we think we do.51 The actuality of how 49 Ibid. (181). 50 Ibid. (186). 51 Ibid. (140). This is the main point that Noë uses to discredit both forms of the visual skepticism. The claim that we even think that we perceive the world in sharp focus and its entirety is a false assertion. When accounting for attention deficit, peripheral vision and sensory attention, and our ability to shift our visual focus, we begin to see a different account of how the world actually shows up for us. Noë makes a pithy but important comment about how seeing is technically a form of time travel – that because of the fact that by the time my retina have interpreted the visual data and my neurons have created the image, the image is of the world nanoseconds prior. Our brain is actually not able to represent all the detail in consciousness all at once. It is not the case that we are under some grand, instead of vision is simply not immaculate (141).
- 36. 36 the world appearsto us is such: “The world doesn’t show up for me as present all at once in my mind. It shows up as within reach, as more or less nearby, as more or less present.”52 As Noë goes on to clarify, the fact that we are vulnerable to deception does not point to our deception as Descartes so irrationally feared. We are susceptible to deception in many forms of perception, not just the wax, but with sleight of hand, visual illusion, &c, &c, this “just reveals the context- bound performance limitations of our cognitive powers. It does not show that our cognitive powers are radically deluded!”53 §7.3. Context-Bound World and Perception To embrace Immersionism entirely we must account for our conscious experience as coupled with the environment. Especially using a biological framework to understand this new theory of phenomenological experience, it makes sense that such a constitution of experience would be incomplete by nature. Thus, our need to explain discrepancies or imperfections of our phenomenology is hubristic and fool hardy. We do not perceive perfectly, we do not do anything perfectly. Our being is contingent upon the world, and our understanding of the world is contingent on our being. The three way interaction between brain, body, and world is not only context-bound within our minds, but outside our skin as well. As I have said previously in this paper, it is better put to say that “I am consciousness shaped into a body” than “I am a human being that has consciousness.” However, this is only meant to describe the subject’s interaction with the world (phenomenal world – referring you back to Figure 1). To make the final step of the diagram, from osmotic consciousness to full immersionism, the last division between phenomenal and noumenal world must be confronted. 52 Ibid. (141). 53 Ibid. (142).
- 37. 37 §8. Dissonance ofInterpretation Yet, even though we have fully reconnected the subject with her world, there is some sneaking suspicion, some still lingering doubt. The Skeptic still has the issue of alternative conceptual frameworks. Osmotic consciousness may provide an account of how we are tied up in the world, but is it true of all possible worlds? Is our individual consciousness contingent of our individual perceptions and interpretations of the world? If so, reconnecting the subject and world has done little to nothing in terms of solving the issue of Intersubjective Skepticism. The Skeptic can still undermine our assertions by saying they are contingent at best – they are true only in the case of our a priori concepts, our axioms of existence. This skepticism stems from Kant’s work on the analytic/synthetic distinction and the given/interpreted distinction, and raises the issue of multiple interpretations of any fact-of-the-matter. §8.1. Kantian Distinctions and Misinterpretations The issue of misinterpretations stems from the given/interpreted distinction that came from Kant’s other categorical divisions. The division are as follows: given/interpreted; necessary/contingent, analytic/synthetic, a priori/a posteriori, and metaphysical/epistemological. Analytic propositions are true by their very meaning, and are thus necessary, and not subject to the fallibility of sense perception. Synthetic propositions are statements which are true by their relation to the world and so are contingent upon the world and our perception of it. This distinction can be paralleled to the a priori/a posteriori distinction. There is a noticeable weakness to the synthetic a posteriori claims, as they seem to rely upon an epistemological need to interpret the world to ascertain the truth value of the propositions. However, Kant makes another, more significant distinction here: the given/interpreted. There is a discrepancy between the inputs we are given and our phenomenological interpretations of them. Our sensory apparatus is rife with examples, such as light particles invoking color, air movements creating sound, &c. In this way, Kant made a distinction between the world as it is in itself and the world how we perceive and interpret it.54 This is what is 54 Wolff, Robert Paul. 1963. Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity; a Commentary on the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- 38. 38 referred to asthe noumenal world (the world in itself) and the phenomenal world (our interpreted world). The skeptic can continue to undermine the accuracy of Osmotic consciousness by trivializing it to the interpreted, the a posteriori, the synthetic and phenomenal world. §8.2. Alternative Conceptual Frameworks So, it would seem that even though we have reconnected the subject with her world, we have yet to connect the subject with the world. Here, I turn to Rorty’s refutation of these Kantian distinctions, as well as refer back to Karen Barad’s work on Agential Realism, to complete the immersion of subject into world. By showing that our understanding of the world as indifferent and unreachable is actually inaccurate, and that there is only one world that we not only reach – but extend into – I will show we are fully immersed in the world. Our world. To begin, Rorty attacks the given/interpreted distinction Kant makes in regards to our mental faculties. This distinction can actually be traced back all the way to Aristotle, who originally divided out mental faculties into the active and passive minds. However, Rorty points out that this distinction is illogical and unnecessary, as “there seems no need to postulate an intermediary between the physical thrust of the stimulus upon the organ and the full-fledged conscious judgment that the properly programmed organism forms in consequence.”55 There is another clarification Rorty makes that is important to the irrelevance of the distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal world. The notion of a priori Kantian intuitions regarding the reality of the phenomenal world, they are considered “ineffable” as they are “incapable of having an explanatory function.”56 We see now that the given/interpreted distinction makes little sense when considering the possibility of alternate a priori concepts as the intermediary between the given and interpreted is so subconscious and automatic as to not be in our control. What is more important, and more consequential in terms of our responsibility, is the distinction between necessary and contingent truths or a priori facts. Rorty goes on to qualify that “the 55 Rorty, Richard. “The World Well Lost.” The Journal of Philosophy LXIX, 19: 649-665. (650). 56 Ibid. (650). Rorty asserts – rather astutely I might add – that to say that there is some ineffable and unreachable causal world of which you can say nothing is essentially the same as considering that world not to exist. Such a concept serves no use to us in philosophy.
- 39. 39 given/interpretation distinction [problems]are vague and diffuse by comparison with those which result from attacking the necessary/contingent distinction.”57 By refuting the necessary/contingent distinction, Rorty argues that the hypothetical of alternate conceptual frameworks is an impossibility derived from the error of the distinguishing between the world how it is and the world as we understand it. There is only one world, and it is that world with which we are engaged and entangled, constituted by our theories of it. . §8.3. Untranslatable NON-Languages To set out the problem, Rorty identifies the issue as one of meaning or truth. The truth of our phenomenological experiences are constituted by our functioning a priori concepts – those that some would call our widely accepted axioms of existence. These shared beliefs can be seen as the natural laws that govern our universe, the conceptual frameworks negotiated by a priori laws of causation and logic and natural order. However these frameworks, or ‘meaning postulates,’ carrying such weight opens them up to the possibility of alternatives. Dissonance of interpretation comes from “the notion of a choice among ‘meaning postulates’ […] the latest version of the notion of a choice among alternative conceptual schemes.”58 These conceptual frameworks are to be considered the accepted a priori concepts of functioning in the world – those “concepts necessary for the constitution of experience, as opposed to concepts whose application is necessary to control or predict experience.”59 In order to examine the hypotheticals in which a person were to be functioning under different a priori concepts, Rorty examines Quine and Davidson’s untranslatable language example. The argument cruxes itself on the unrecognizability of a language being spoken that is using a conceptual framework differing from our own. What Quine notes is that if one were to search for the “meaning” of the speaker’s sentences, one would be unable to discern a properly translatable language that did not translate into contradictions or false beliefs.60 Where Quine and 57 Ibid. (651). 58 Ibid. (651). 59 Ibid. (652). 60 Ibid. (653). The most extreme example of something like this would be “a foreigner all or most of whose beliefs must be viewed as false according to a translating scheme that pairs off all or most of his terms as identical in meaning with some terms of English” (653). Such that the case would be that if you were to translate his statements
- 40. 40 Davidson say thatthis language would be impossible to translate, Rorty takes it a step further. For it is true that “if we can never find a translation, why should we think that we are faced with language users at all?”61 Reflecting back on the example it seems more likely that if we were to be exposed to such a foreigner, we would not want to even give him the credit of speaking an actual language. He would simply be making random noises, with the same amount of “meaning” or significance of the cries of a baby, the gibberish of the insane, the rustle of trees. §8.4. Greeks, Galactics, and Personhood Here, Rorty places us in the middle of a debate between the skeptic and the anti-skeptic, both arguing for who shall assume the burden of proof in regards to the existence or non- existence of alternative a priori concepts. The anti-skeptic seeks to prove that these alternative concepts are not only unverifiable but impossible, while the skeptic seeks to prove that it is impossible to prove their impossibility, and thus we are at any moment vulnerable to our entire belief structure dissolving away to be replaced by entirely new axioms of reality. The issue of proof here seems to lie in favor of the skeptic, for all he needs to do is hypothesize some future society in which our understanding of physics and quantum fluctuation have advanced so far as to completely alter our understanding of the world, our behavior in it, and our explanation of it. This would insinuate a change in the language as well, which makes it this example comparable to Quine’s untranslatable language. However Rorty is quick to answer this hypothetical with a real world rebuttal. Just as the Galactic civilization of the future may function off of entirely different axioms of reality, so did the Greeks compared to contemporary civilization. If we use the allegory of Neurath’s boat to explain our a priori concepts at the moment, the difference between the three civilizations vanishes. We can affirm that since the Greeks, “many of the planks in Neurath’s boat have been torn up and re-laid differently. But since (1) we can describe why it was ‘rational’ for each such change to have occurred, and (2) many more of our beliefs are the same as Greek beliefs than are different […] we should not yet you would get statements such as “I am not a person”, “these are not words,” “Even if I were thinking, which I am not, that would not show that I exist.” &c. (654). 61 Ibid. (653).
- 41. 41 wish to talkabout ‘an alternative conceptual framework.’”62 Our understanding of the world may have shifted or improved from that of the Greeks, but it is a grave to mistake to consider the a priori concepts of the Greeks to be of an alternate conceptual framework as a whole. If we are to recognize the “personhood” of the Greeks and their language, some of which we today still have trouble translating in terms of meaning and the accuracy of their beliefs, we must also recognize the “personhood” of the future Galactic civilization and their language. Or, more accurately, hope that they would recognize our “personhood” and language, as it would seem so foreign and barbaric to them, a “Galactic civilization of the future, which we may assume to have moved and reshaped 1050 planks in the boat we are in, whereas since Aristotle we have managed to shift only about 1020 .”63 Essentially the ascription of beliefs come with the ascription of “personhood” to these different civilizations. The question of alternative conceptual frameworks and untranslatable languages now becomes “is it a person with utterly different organs, responses, and beliefs, with whom communication is thus forever impossible, or rather just a complexly behaving thing?”64 We are pushed into the corner by this question. We either must accept that our understanding of the world – our a priori concepts – are simply not as absolute as we treat them as and are instead fluid over the millennia, and therefore can recognize both the Greek and Galactics as persons, or we must accept that our current conceptual frameworks is our only possible version, and thus condemn both our brethren to blabbering nonsense. §8.5. Galactics or Butterflies The alternative to our recognizing both our past and future counterparts, is instead recognizing anything else that makes noise in a remotely patterned way. If there are such things as untranslatable and unrecognizable languages, simply functioning off of alternate a priori concepts, then there is no concrete justification for the denying that the sounds of butterfly wings flapping are actually just a very complicated and untranslatable language that we cannot and will 62 Ibid. (655). 63 Ibid. (656). 64 Ibid. (659).
- 42. 42 never be ableto understand. Language is, after all, the ultimate framework through which we understand the world – and hence is the key to Rorty’s argument here. We either must accept the gradient of our a priori concepts in order to account for the alteration and adjusting of our fundamental beliefs, or must subsume all noise making entities under the category of “belief holding person.” 65 Rorty uses this “fork in the road” argument style to make a final distinction, ore more accurately, a final refutation of a final distinction: the debate over the correspondence versus the coherentism of truth. §8.6. Neurath’s Boat and Scientific Realism What is at stake in Rorty’s argument is our very definition of the world. As Figure 1 depicts, the connection between the subject and her world has already been established, and the final step now is to clarify the distinction between (w) and (W), the phenomenal world and the noumenal world. This is the distinction between coherentism and foundationalism (or the correspondence theory of truth). The latter asserts that truth is correspondent to reality independent from us. The first asserts that truth is simply our notion of truth that works within our currently standing beliefs. When we look at our behavior and our interactions with the world in those times, we can see that this is the case. In actuality, even the correspondence theory is eventually subsumed within coherentism, as the world itself “is just the notion of ideally coherent contents of an ideally large mind, or of the pragmatists’ notion of ‘funded experience’ – those beliefs which are not at the moment being challenged.”66 Truth, or the world and our understanding of it, is simply Neurath’s boat which we are riding on turbulent seas over the millennia, fixing and replacing boards as we go.67 We not only experience and perceive the world as we interact in it, but we actually help produce our own understanding of it as well. Rorty establishes a coherentism that fits perfectly within osmotic consciousness and even helps support Barad’s account of Agential Realism. As Rorty says in closing his piece: 65 Ibid. (659). 66 Ibid. (661). 67 Ibid. (662).
- 43. 43 “Truth” in thesense of “truth taken apart from any theory” and “world” taken as “what determines such truth” are notions that were (like the terms ‘subject’ and ‘object’, ‘given’ and ‘consciousness’) made for each other. Neither can survive apart from the other […] “the world” is either the purely vacuous notion of the ineffable cause of sense and goal of intellect, or else a name for those objects that inquiry at the moment is leaving alone: those planks in the boat which are at the moment not being moved about.68 ‘Given’ and ‘Consciousness’ were terms made for each other, one cannot survive without the other. And with the destruction of the last inaccurate arbitrary distinction, “we now know perfectly well what the world is like,”69 for we are immersed in it. §9. Immersionism And so, the road not taken ends. From brain-body dualism to complete immersionism, the conflation or the noumenal and phenomenal world (or the nihilation of the noumenal world) completes the reconnection displayed in Figure 1. Having now laid out this new theory of osmotic consciousness however, we must now look at its implications, or at least the questions that now must be asked after endorsing such a radical theory that renounces the assumptions of modern philosophy. I have already touched upon this notion in previous sections, however I cannot stress their importance enough. At the beginning of this thesis I issued a called for authenticity in the sciences. Now that the inaccuracy of the brain-body material reductionism has been proven, it is necessary for the sciences to account for out productive and performative role in developing the world with which we engage. The detached Impersonalism of mind science ought to be replaced with a framework that accepts the active externalism of our environment as well as the responsibility of our material discursivity.70 Ergo: this framework. Embracing the implications of Immersionism not only accounts for our own ontological mysteries, but also helps us account for 68 Ibid. (663). 69 Ibid. (662). 70 This call for authenticity in the sciences is proposed in Karen Bard’s work as well as Ian Hacking’s work in his book, Representing and Intervening.
- 44. 44 our lack ofObjectivity. Maybe accepting this more accurate ontology can even get us closer to a continual status of flow with the environment, thus reaching some form of symbiotic Objectivity. Embracing this new ontology also aids us in our account of intersubjective narrative. The issue of never knowing another person’s inner thoughts at least begins to fade away now, as we can see the potentiality for socially distributed cognition and extended minds into shared spaces of the environment. Communication and intention based semantics now fall back into the realm of helpful possibility – for the idea of shared recognition and intentions and complex systems of interwoven and pre-established functions aligns itself perfectly with this account of the given being necessarily tied to the conscious. We, at the very least, have silence the Skeptic once and for all of his annoying peanut gallery remarks. The last concept of my theory I would like to examine before setting you free, is the self. In terms of justification or argument, I have little to offer here. Immersionism provides an account of the subject and of the world that completely connects the two in an interwoven and dynamic two-way interaction. However the subject as a self is not clearly denoted. For the sake of barriers and metaphors, I find it best to define the self in fairly metaphorical terms. Much like Dennett’s account of the self as a narrative center of gravity, I propose that the self is a central local – specified to an individual schemata of course – within/near/around/out of which the interaction of osmotic consciousness takes place. In this way, the self is akin to an aura or some metaphysical local of possibilities and beliefs – an accumulation of the world within oneself and oneself within the world all at the same time. Noë uses his own poetic reference to convey a similar sense of the mind, when he prefaces his last chapter with Saul Bellow’s quote from Humboldt’s Gift. Bellow says that “at the center of the beholder there must be space for the whole, and this nothing-space is not an empty nothing but a nothing reserved for everything.”71 I follow suit here in similar poetic fashion, and would go as far as to say that immersionism carries serious ethical and deontological weight. All existential issues of the self and the other stem from a false conceptualization that we as individuals are separate. Immersionism refutes this false assumption and replaces it with the metaphor of ocean waves. Just as you may see a wave as an individual, a desperate whitecap reaching outward away from the blue stillness, it is still never separate from the ocean. We are all consciousness, all energy, merely shaped into different Schematas. After this fundamental fact, all else becomes simply a play of form. 71 Noë, Alva. 2009. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness. New York: Hill and Wang, A division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (171).
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