I disregarded the yet-unfinished statistics assignment I had been working on in the library and focused instead on the bizarre scene before me. A plethora of equally unsettling questions was causing me much distress. How did I get to Bavaria!? Why am I in this farmhouse!? Is it the 17th century??! These manifested themselves into one short, irrational outburst of verbal confusion that I directed toward my companion:
“What are you doing here??”
I did not intend to display such poor manners, but I was beside myself with bewilderment. If this really was the Rene Descartes, why was he secluded in a house alone with all of these papers scattered everywhere? Before I had time to begin pondering any of these unknowns, Descartes responded to my previous inquiry with astonishing articulation,
“Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course in my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last…So today I have expressly rid my mind of all worries and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am here quite alone, and at last I will devote myself sincerely and without reservation to the general demolition of my opinions.”
I was confused, and still a bit too disoriented to express myself quite as elegantly.
“Wait,” I insisted, “you’re secluding yourself from society and demolishing your opinions? How is this going to help you establish scientific certainties?”
“Because,” Descartes replied, “only then will I be freed of all my preconceived opinions, and led away from my senses to re-examine corporeal nature. Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once. So I am searching for something absolutely certain beyond any reasonable or unreasonable doubt. This requires that I dismiss all that is evidenced by the senses—my hands, my eyes, the sky, the air, the earth, and all things external.”
“But wouldn’t that require you to deny the reality of yourself and all of existence? Our sensory perceptions, after all, are our sole method for perceiving the universe. If you denied all that is evidenced by them, then existence wouldn’t exist.”
Descartes eyes lit up before me. “Precisely!” he exclaimed, “which is why I can now say for certain that I exist, and that existence exists as well!”
I wasn’t quite sure I was following. “How does the hypothetical denial of your sensory perceptions bring you to the certainty of existence?”
“Because,” Descartes explained, “in doubting the existence of myself, the reality of my existence is proven through my capacity to doubt it. Even if all of my senses are constantly deceiving me, I must exist if there is an ‘I’ for them to deceive. My senses can never convince me I am not, so long as I think I am something. And if I think I am something, the reality of existence is undeniable, for where else would one find a conscious being besides in existence.”
“So you could be without anything perceptible to the senses—without your body, without the earth, without the sky—yet still exist, if you know you exist?”
“Yes,” Descartes replied confidently. But I didn’t understand. How could you be, if nothing is?
“Then what are you?”
Descartes paused. “Good question. It has been a major occupation as I have been meditating on these topics. Like I said: I am certain I exist. Doubting the truth of things reinforces my existence—rather than cease thinking entirely, I instead am able to conceive of a universe in which they are a delusion but I am still I. So what is this “I”? It cannot be my body, for I can imagine myself without it; nor can it be my sensory perceptions, for surely I cannot have these without a body. So what can I not have without I? My thoughts. For as long as I am thinking, I know I exist.”
“So you’re saying you are your thinking self, but not your body. Then what is the thinking self made of?”
“In essence, it is thoughts. But they are non-physical, and separate from the physical body.”
This struck me as highly doubtful. “If our thoughts are immaterial, and separate from our bodies, the two couldn’t interact.”
“They certainly do interact,” Descartes replied. “There is a small gland in the center of the brain, between the left and right hemispheres, called the pineal gland. Only humans, the same sole species to possess the capacity for higher thinking and consciousness, possess this gland. I have inferred that this pineal gland must be the center for communication between the mind and body. This allows us to control our body and allows the mind to interact with the sensory organs.”
Impossible. “No. If the mind is non-physical, your feelings of control and mind/body interaction must be delusional.”
Descartes seemed surprised. “Then how would you explain why I scratch my arm when it itches, or the reason I wince when I touch a hot stove?” he asked.
“There are a number of possible explanations,” I responded. “Maybe God pre-established our universe in a harmony that makes mental and physical events appear as if they are related.”
“If mental and physical events were the result of God’s will, our sense of self would be a falsity of His creation,” Descartes replied surely. “God is not a deceiver, and His goodness would not perpetuate an illusionary existence.”
“Then maybe mental and physical events simply occur simultaneously in the universe without being causally related. For all we know, this illusion could even be attributed to our physical configuration—one physical event produces a resulting specific mental event and a resulting specific physical behavior, but these two results are not actually related.”
“In which case any desires, decisions, or volitions would be delusional. Why would anyone embrace such a theory?”
“You must choose an alternative, for if you won’t concede your notion that the mind is incorporeal, you cannot claim the mind and body to be in a causal relationship. How could that which is immaterial manifest in a physical action? How do you explain the creation of substance-based, material movement from an incorporeal thought? The concept defies the laws of nature. Matter changes form, but it cannot be created or destroyed.”
“This would imply the mind to be a material entity if it is at all causally related to the body,” Descartes entertained. “You know, it is possible that the mind is composed of some mystical substance within the body that we are yet unable to recognize or measure. The body houses the mind, and the mind could still be non-physical, but its mystical substance communicates with the body through the exchange of energy.”
“But it has to be physical,” I responded. “Immaterial things have no energy to be transferred. Besides, you are violating the principle of Ockham’s Razor. You’ve created an additional class of ‘mystical’ substance and properties to explain something that can be understood in purely physical terms.”
Logically, Descartes then asked, “Then how do you explain the mind as a physical substance?”
“You admitted the possibility that we have not yet developed technology to observe or measure your ‘mystical substance’,” I began. “Isn’t it also possible that in the future, we will develop devices that can detect physical activity on microscopic levels in the brain? This activity could be nothing more than a series of tiny bio-chemical reactions, triggering the most miniscule subcellular changes. However, these reactions could begin a long chain of events that eventually stimulates sensory perceptions and physical movement.”
Descartes paused. I had presented a highly complex, nearly inconceivable theory of mind. Unsurprisingly, he was skeptical. “Even if a bio-chemical reaction within the brain could be measured, and somehow a specific physical response could be attributed to it, how can you prove that these two events have a causal relationship?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. My head was spinning. How could I possibly prove causation?
Just as I opened my eyes and prepared myself to respond, the room began to fill with fog. Descartes quickly faded into the distance…
(1991). The Conservation Laws of Physics. Retrieved February 18, 2007 from http://www.totse.com/en/technology/science_technology/conserve.html.
Churchland, Paul M. (2001). Matter and Consciousness. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Cottingham, John (Ed.). (1992). The Cambridge Companion to Descartes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Damasio, Antonio. (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: Penguin Books.
Descartes, R. (1986). Meditations. (J. Cottingham, Trans.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1619).
Wegner, Daniel M. (2002). The Illusion of Conscious Will. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment