Where Is My Mind? (essay)
By Luke Labern
The issue of thinking about the mind races off in various directions depending on one's approach. For example, one might think of the mind simply in conversation (where everyday life would be the material explored); one might approach it from a neurobiological view or one might approach it from a philosophical view (and here, either in the strict academic sense, or the more literary approach I will be following here). Whilst studying the Philosophy of Mind at university, I was at first put off by the fetish analytic philosophers seem to have for defining things, naming them P, B1, P* and then creating neat propositions (which I find reductive, in many cases), using these in order to argue vehemently with someone else who is obsessed on a single tiny point and usually completely wrong. Yet the more I read, the more I began to get into the subject and ignore the errors of those writing, finding a comfortable place where I was able to use my particular background (as dual philosopher-artist, rather than straight philosopher) to bring some originality to the subject. A number of thoughts that arose, whilst I listened to my lecturer recite endless formalised arguments, struck me as not only interesting, but important. Here, I shall not try to explore the subject at any length, but simply state and explore some of the interesting little facts I think will be interesting to anyone remotely interested or fascinated but what's going on up there. Particularly one. As this is the case, I will simply state the major factor I think is really worth thinking about up front, as simply as I can:
Your mind isn't where you think it is.
Regardless of whether you think "the mind" and "the body" are two separate types of things, or whether you think "the mind" in some sense derived from "the body" (i.e. the brain), there is feature of being a human that we tend to forget—simply because we are so used to being vehicles of perception, rather than reflecting on how we perceive. Namely: your mind isn't where you think it is. In short, I guarantee that you think your thoughts feel (in some sense) as if they are "around the head". Am I right? I certainly feel that way. Whilst I am writing this, I can see not only my computer screen, but also my hands typing, and other objects in my peripheral vision. I am thinking—I know that much. And, I must admit, it certainly feels as though my thoughts are within—or at least near—me. This is my key point: thoughts are not inside our bodies. There is no place where the mind connects to the body. The reason why we think our mind is around or in our head is because vision is the dominant sense. That is, we believe our thoughts are in our head because that is where our eyes are: and our eyes completely dominate the way we interact with the world. (To add to this fact, we know that our brains are right behind our eyes—which, as it happens, is purely because our eyes need to be connected to the brain, and having them as close to the brain as possible makes a lot of sense, evolutionarily speaking.)
I hope that the initial idea is clear: I will try to expand on it. I am aware that it is very difficult to talk about concepts such as these, precisely because "thinking about thinking" is an awful muddle: the mind reflecting on itself is a complex idea to begin with. Regardless, what I want to say is this: if you are committed to thinking that your mind exists (and, amazingly, there are some philosophers who don't think we have a mind—don't get me started), then, on reflection, you should really accept that the mind (or the plane of consciousness) is not in any way physical. To put it dramatically: it is just as correct to say that your thoughts are five feet away from you as to say that they are where you are. The only reason we find this notion odd is because we know our sensual equipment (i.e. eyes, tongue, skin, nose, ears) is where our body is. But our senses are different from our mind. This matter is complicated when we realise that our sense-data (i.e. sounds, tastes, sights) is processed by our brain and turned into subject matter for our thoughts—but the two are distinct, just as their sources are.
If I have explained this correctly, then you will agree with me that the way we think of our mind (at least on an everyday level) is swayed by the way our body accounts for our senses. Like all the great philosophical questions, however, one cannot make even the slightest claim without stirring incredibly controversy. As such, I would like to turn to some of the ramifications of this discovery.
I expect that many of you will highlight your belief that the brain is wholly responsible for the mind. I agree with you. Whilst I am not prepared to go into the details of my beliefs on this point—purely because they fluctuate so often—I do think that if you have no brain, you have no mind. However, I do believe that you can have a brain and no mind—if that brain is broken in the relevant sense (e.g. people who lose their ability to store long term memory after an accident, and so on). That is, the brain is a necessary requisite for having a mind, but not a sufficient condition (a fully working brain is, however). I am sure many of you will argue: the reason why we think our mind is in our head is because our brain is. This, too, I agree with. Yet this view of ours does not address the difficult question of what, exactly, thought is. Though we agree on its source, there are many different paths we can take: some think the mind "supervenes" on the brain, with its various neurological processes, whilst others think that there really is a distinct mental realm. How this interfaces with the causally closed network as described by physics is a difficult, difficult question. (Impossible, even.) Another approach—and the one I lean towards at the time of writing—is that consciousness is somehow a component of physical properties. Some find this view absurd, but I don't see the criticism: no matter which position one holds, there is an almost infinite amount of work to be done to explain how we are able to have a seemingly physical and seemingly purely non-physical existence. I really believe that it is feasible that there is something unique about the combination of particles that make up a human brain that allow it to be conscious.
All of this, however, is to get far deeper into the deepest of territory. The real purpose of this essay is to encourage you to think about the nature of your mind. I do not intend to turn you on to academic philosophy—if anything, that is the last thing I would want you to do. Really, I want to address the everyday way we think about the mind. The key thought, really, is that we are at once caught up in a contradiction: the concepts of "mind" and "body" seem to be a dichotomy, where each represents a special kind of entity—and at the same time, we experience the world as total entity. We wake up, and our body aches. At the same time, we reflect on our dreams. We perform these complicated tasks at every stage of the day, and often the two converge: when our body aches, we then become conscious of our pain. Sometimes, we really do two things at once: experience immense physical pleasure, for example, whilst thinking of something completely unrelated.
What I have intended to do here is simply to highlight this amazing fact, and to postulate that if we are going to accept that we really do have minds—which I absolutely do—and that the mind in some sense stems from the brain—which I absolutely agree with—then we should at least try to think about what it is that our minds do. As you read this sentence, you use your eyes to scan the words: but where is the corresponding thought? I am quite sure that it is not in or around your eyes, and in fact has nothing to do with them. The thought may be anywhere, for all we know: it may not be in the physical realm at all. This is perhaps a little too mysterious for some, but it is a possibility. I can present no conclusive answers, but that matters little: I can stimulate these questions. I hope you, too, like myself and the Pixies, ponder the question:
Where is my mind?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCD14IrOcIs
Your mind isn't where you think it is.
Regardless of whether you think "the mind" and "the body" are two separate types of things, or whether you think "the mind" in some sense derived from "the body" (i.e. the brain), there is feature of being a human that we tend to forget—simply because we are so used to being vehicles of perception, rather than reflecting on how we perceive. Namely: your mind isn't where you think it is. In short, I guarantee that you think your thoughts feel (in some sense) as if they are "around the head". Am I right? I certainly feel that way. Whilst I am writing this, I can see not only my computer screen, but also my hands typing, and other objects in my peripheral vision. I am thinking—I know that much. And, I must admit, it certainly feels as though my thoughts are within—or at least near—me. This is my key point: thoughts are not inside our bodies. There is no place where the mind connects to the body. The reason why we think our mind is around or in our head is because vision is the dominant sense. That is, we believe our thoughts are in our head because that is where our eyes are: and our eyes completely dominate the way we interact with the world. (To add to this fact, we know that our brains are right behind our eyes—which, as it happens, is purely because our eyes need to be connected to the brain, and having them as close to the brain as possible makes a lot of sense, evolutionarily speaking.)
I hope that the initial idea is clear: I will try to expand on it. I am aware that it is very difficult to talk about concepts such as these, precisely because "thinking about thinking" is an awful muddle: the mind reflecting on itself is a complex idea to begin with. Regardless, what I want to say is this: if you are committed to thinking that your mind exists (and, amazingly, there are some philosophers who don't think we have a mind—don't get me started), then, on reflection, you should really accept that the mind (or the plane of consciousness) is not in any way physical. To put it dramatically: it is just as correct to say that your thoughts are five feet away from you as to say that they are where you are. The only reason we find this notion odd is because we know our sensual equipment (i.e. eyes, tongue, skin, nose, ears) is where our body is. But our senses are different from our mind. This matter is complicated when we realise that our sense-data (i.e. sounds, tastes, sights) is processed by our brain and turned into subject matter for our thoughts—but the two are distinct, just as their sources are.
If I have explained this correctly, then you will agree with me that the way we think of our mind (at least on an everyday level) is swayed by the way our body accounts for our senses. Like all the great philosophical questions, however, one cannot make even the slightest claim without stirring incredibly controversy. As such, I would like to turn to some of the ramifications of this discovery.
I expect that many of you will highlight your belief that the brain is wholly responsible for the mind. I agree with you. Whilst I am not prepared to go into the details of my beliefs on this point—purely because they fluctuate so often—I do think that if you have no brain, you have no mind. However, I do believe that you can have a brain and no mind—if that brain is broken in the relevant sense (e.g. people who lose their ability to store long term memory after an accident, and so on). That is, the brain is a necessary requisite for having a mind, but not a sufficient condition (a fully working brain is, however). I am sure many of you will argue: the reason why we think our mind is in our head is because our brain is. This, too, I agree with. Yet this view of ours does not address the difficult question of what, exactly, thought is. Though we agree on its source, there are many different paths we can take: some think the mind "supervenes" on the brain, with its various neurological processes, whilst others think that there really is a distinct mental realm. How this interfaces with the causally closed network as described by physics is a difficult, difficult question. (Impossible, even.) Another approach—and the one I lean towards at the time of writing—is that consciousness is somehow a component of physical properties. Some find this view absurd, but I don't see the criticism: no matter which position one holds, there is an almost infinite amount of work to be done to explain how we are able to have a seemingly physical and seemingly purely non-physical existence. I really believe that it is feasible that there is something unique about the combination of particles that make up a human brain that allow it to be conscious.
All of this, however, is to get far deeper into the deepest of territory. The real purpose of this essay is to encourage you to think about the nature of your mind. I do not intend to turn you on to academic philosophy—if anything, that is the last thing I would want you to do. Really, I want to address the everyday way we think about the mind. The key thought, really, is that we are at once caught up in a contradiction: the concepts of "mind" and "body" seem to be a dichotomy, where each represents a special kind of entity—and at the same time, we experience the world as total entity. We wake up, and our body aches. At the same time, we reflect on our dreams. We perform these complicated tasks at every stage of the day, and often the two converge: when our body aches, we then become conscious of our pain. Sometimes, we really do two things at once: experience immense physical pleasure, for example, whilst thinking of something completely unrelated.
What I have intended to do here is simply to highlight this amazing fact, and to postulate that if we are going to accept that we really do have minds—which I absolutely do—and that the mind in some sense stems from the brain—which I absolutely agree with—then we should at least try to think about what it is that our minds do. As you read this sentence, you use your eyes to scan the words: but where is the corresponding thought? I am quite sure that it is not in or around your eyes, and in fact has nothing to do with them. The thought may be anywhere, for all we know: it may not be in the physical realm at all. This is perhaps a little too mysterious for some, but it is a possibility. I can present no conclusive answers, but that matters little: I can stimulate these questions. I hope you, too, like myself and the Pixies, ponder the question:
Where is my mind?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCD14IrOcIs
Extract,
Published 26 January 2014
Published 26 January 2014