As I settle into and continue to explore the perspective that modernity is destined to fail, was never a long-term-viable idea, and therefore represents a giant blunder, I keep running into thoughtful writings about what exactly went wrong, at its foundations.
A recurrent culprit—and I tend to agree—involves human supremacism (anthropocentrism), connected to a perceived separateness from nature. This separateness relates to a dualism that began with agriculture, eventually finding full expression during the Enlightenment. Its Enlightenment framing, chiefly associated with Descartes, drives a wedge between mind and matter—as different “substances,” for instance. Thus, while not my main interest, I keep getting routed back to the question of “mind,” as it continues to be a sticking point in dismantling the dualism that is generally agreed to get in the way of appropriate ways of living on this planet.
So, this post is about mind and consciousness, offering my reactions. Now, I should be clear that it doesn’t really matter if we arrive at the Correct Truth on this issue, to the extent that the recommendations emerging from whatever framework result in better alignment to the living world. Any prescription that advocates humility, right-relationship, reciprocity, being part of a whole—fantastic! I may have suspicions and disagreements about the underlying metaphysics, but who cares, in the end? Surely multiple paths can lead to similar ends. Thus, I don’t want to die on that hill, or subvert migration to a better way of living in a crossed-arm philosophical sulk. Nor do I wish to see efforts that claim theirs is the only way, rooted in Truth. Who are we to demand knowing the ultimate truth, anyway? Why should we—or any creature of evolution—expect to? Humility, remember?
Indigenous cultures adopted a diverse universe of stories upon which their well-integrated practices rested, and that’s all for the good—even if the stories are not True in a modern sense. What matters is the practices and attitudes the stories motivate. I suspect that we can likewise tolerate a diversity of metaphysical underpinnings, to the extent that they allow compatibility with the community of life.
That said, I will now address what I see as an unfortunate tendency in the drive to abolish dualism. Maybe it can lead to similar, good outcomes, but I worry that it preserves a tinge of supremacy, while failing to destroy the chief horcrux of dualism. Be prepared to lose your mind, as I have done.
Beware the Shortcuts!
Let me start on what I hope is common ground. While mental representations are always shortcuts in some sense, I assume that most people motivated to read my material value at least some degree of critical thinking. Thus, I assume that most are attracted to explanations of rainbows, seasons, tides, biodiversity, etc. by routes other than “that’s how The Creator made it—end of story.” It’s totally fine to admit that we don’t or can’t know something, but let us please limit the impulse to “explain” complexity using facile shortcuts. Likewise, I suspect that even phenomena that are too messy to understand to satisfaction—like maybe charge separation in turbulent clouds to make lightning—are nonetheless assumed to have a basis in physics without supernatural intervention. Apologies if I am assuming wrongly: if so, the rest may seem like gibberish.
Why on Earth would our physiology be different? Complex? Absolutely. Forever beyond our means to fully explain? You bet. Is every sensation we experience exempt from having a material basis? I strongly suspect not. Are any sensations exempt? I’m not sure why they would be, without nurturing a dualistic worldview.
Obvious, but Wrong
For most of human history it was blindingly obvious that the sun, moon, and stars went around the earth. All one had to do was pay attention to confirm the illusion. Turns out it’s more complicated. It was likewise self-evident that a rock was completely solid, rather than mostly empty space, whose mass exists in the form of nuclei occupying 0.0000000000001% of the volume. While it sure looks and feels solid to our blunt senses, the truth is more complicated. Meanwhile, as Galileo, Newton, and generations of ever-more advanced scientists knew in their bones, space and time were distinct properties—never mixing, which is prima facie absurd. But yes, the actual universe is more complicated: much more than meets the eye. Now, ask virtually any human who has ever lived whether the phenomenon they associate with mind/consciousness is “nothing but” mechanics of neurons (matter interactions) and most will say that it’s obviously more than just matter and physics. After all, they feel it. What could be more convincing? But maybe what we feel is also complicated.
That we experience sensations produced in our bodies, like the feeling of consciousness, is not surprising. Can you think of any other sensations you have access to feel? Hunger, thirst, color vision? Everything we experience feels like something, to a physiological being interfaced to the world via an enormous complexity of stimuli and sensory inputs. It would be rather bizarre if we didn’t feel things, including a sense of self. After all, we have to maneuver our bodies through this world, which would be rather hard without a concept of self. Feelings are adaptive sensations that are basically inevitable products of evolution. (Note that language is infused with duality: “our bodies” suggests material bodies belong to some non-corporeal entity, making communication on this subject tricky indeed.)
The “blindingly obvious” reality of mind/consciousness (I’ll often use just “mind” as shorthand for both) blinds us to the possibility that it’s yet another convincing sensation contrived by our physiology that has adaptive benefit. Isn’t it practically inevitable that a creature capable of collecting sensory inputs, building mental models of the world to organize myriad stimuli, and navigating within it will develop some functional awareness of those mental models and of being a presence in the world? How, exactly, would we propose preventing awareness of our capacity to think or occupy space? And to what end?
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The purpose of this post is to ask you to genuinely confront, even if seeming outlandish at first blush, the notion that mind is yet another clever neural construct: a handle by which we have useful awareness of our cognitive capabilities and of the fact that we are entities on the planet.
Dualism
The speculative notion that we have a matter-transcendent mind has derailed the human project for a very long time. The crisis came to a head in the Enlightenment with that notorious wanker called Descartes. Apologies for the slanderous language, but really, I have yet to read anything likable about the guy, or his unhinged musings (Cogito, ergo loco). Taking the mind to be an unquestionable transcendent reality led to a formalized dualism that helped justify and amplify the millennia-old practice of human supremacy over all other nature: mind being a divinely-bestowed substance unique to humans that had no connection to insultingly-inert material substance, which of course had no difficulty making up all the animals and plants and rocks. Nothing good can come of that artificial schism.
As science progressed, it became ever-more clear that at least some aspects of mind had a neurological basis. This uncomfortable association paved the way for a materialist monism (matter is the whole, single story). But even today, strict monism is frequently rejected on the basis that it hasn’t or ostensibly can’t—even in theory—satisfactorily explain mind. Infuriatingly, it is often claimed that monism implicitly propagates dualism by its failure to account for mind and consciousness.
A brief rant: A) dualism is only kept alive by non-monists who posit that mind is inexplicable on a material basis; and B) a completely satisfactory account of the illusion of mind from first principles is likely forever beyond our capabilities, which is not the fault of the actual universe as much as the fault of our manifestly limited brains. Let’s not escape to unsupported conclusions just because something is hard to figure out.
So, we’re still getting tripped up on the very thing that led Descartes to his infamous dualism: mind as a non-material substance. I agree that we would do well to reject dualism. But as long as we can’t let go of “mind” as a transcendent phenomenon not possibly emergent from material interactions, well, we’re utterly stuck—like a classic monkey trap. Some react by doubling down and making mind “primary” over matter (idealism; panpsychism; matter is a product of mind; even en electron has some quantum of consciousness). In my view, that just drives the wheels deeper into the mud. For me, the resolution is like the spoon-bending kid’s advice to Neo in The Matrix: There is no Mind. Literally mind-blowing!
Reductionism
Idealists (opposite materialists) frequently characterize the materialist stance as being reductionist, robbing the mind of its obvious irreducible glory. What? To me, it is quite the reverse. I can understand, given a justifiable sense of awe over the amazingness of mind, that any attempt to “reduce” something so powerful and mysterious to neurons and inert electrons seems rather deflating and, well, mindless. A material explanation then comes off as insulting and “obviously” wrong. Thus the flame of dualism is kept kindled: yay?
“Reducing” humans to mere machines might seem insulting, but chiefly because the technological creations we call machines are pathetic: deliberately deprived of emergent awesomeness by both being piecemeal composites of basic ideas that emerge from limited human brains rather than a richly-storied ecological context, and because we intentionally stamp out unforeseen interactions that we call “bugs.” If associating a human (or an amoeba) with a machine is insulting, it’s only because our creations are insults to the intricate emergent complexity of stupendously-more fantastic machines such as the amoeba, crafted to near-perfection over deep time. Just because an amoeba is many orders-of-magnitude more subtle and sophisticated than our technological machines does not justify a categorical distinction as to the fundamental material basis. Too hasty.
While it is certainly correct that we do not possess an end-to-end explanation for mind/consciousness, asserting that a purely material basis is not possible—not even to be entertained—seems reflexive and unjustified. The idea is rejected out of hand for no reason I have ever judged to be compelling—certainly not resting on anything we would call evidence, but rather affinity, preference, impatience, and arrogance—as if we get to decide how the universe works. Mind and consciousness are effectively declared to be off limits to explanations involving mere matter interaction. Even attempting such reasoning is derided as a lack of fundamental appreciation for how the universe really works—or at least how we wish it to work, in our minds.
In fact, the primary argument for a real and separate phenomenon of mind appears to come down to the word: qualia. Translation: “I feel it!” Meanwhile, the materialists are unjustly held hostage: “Until a complete end-to-end material explanation is provided, we will not credit its possibility. Oh—and it’s pointless and misguided to even try.”
Materialist Expansivism
The “reductionist” label usually carries a derogatory connotation: akin to small-minded; narrow; unimaginative; pedantic; misguided; simpleton. To me, this flavoring reveals an enormous disconnect.
I find the notion that the experience of mind/consciousness ultimately rests on physics to be astoundingly unfathomable. It’s the opposite of small-minded: the full complexity is far bigger than our brains can manage (dwell on that for a moment). It’s the opposite of narrow, surpassing the scope of even the broadest thinkers. It’s the opposite of unimaginative, in that we do not possess sufficient imagination to flesh out the rich tapestry of interactions that make it all possible. You get the picture. The “reductionist” label grossly conceals an expansive reality behind a pejorative word. How’s this for an example of reductionism: try sweeping an enormous pile of unfathomable complexity under a rug labeled “mind” and pretend it’s a phenomenon unto its own—asserting that it is its own category apart from physics and neurochemistry. That’s some impressive reduction of an enormous tangle!
Opposite of stifling the wonder of our “mind” experience, the materialist perspective is, to me, inexpressibly awesome. It’s mind-blowing! It is unimaginably rich, deep, and inscrutable—which is not grounds for disqualifying something from having a material origin. It doesn’t remotely fit in our heads, unlike a facile label of mind, or consciousness, or a god can. Just as the real story of lightning is far more intricate, mysterious, and overwhelming than the cop-out of saying “God makes it happen,” the emergent complexity of mind from basic building blocks is far more wondrous than impatiently giving up and assuming it must just be its own thing. I am reminded of a scene from Galaxy Quest: “What I’d give to see what you’re seeing…you’re deep in the underbelly of the Omega-13.” The actual, complicated, incomprehensible universe is stunning to behold—always surpassing our limited imaginations.
A Quandary
Here’s a puzzle: if mind is not neurological in origin, what the hell are all those neurons busy doing? Why even bother? This gets back to the core problem of dualism: why carry both mind and matter as separate, non-interacting substances? Is the advanced degree of mind in humans somehow disconnected from the advanced architecture of our brains? Mere coincidence? Why is it that biophysical processes that interfere with neural function severely alter mental states or render us unconscious—like hallucinogens, anesthesia, or brain trauma? If the brain can take away consciousness, isn’t it the thing that creates it?
Is mind somehow separate from neurophysics, operating independently? Isn’t it far more likely that among the amazing tricks the brain can pull off after hundreds of millions of years of honing is a sense of consciousness and mind? Is the fact that we’re not clever enough to have connected all the dots somehow disqualifying to such a reality? Who are we to make demands? Is it arrogance? Entitlement?
What does insistence on mind as a non-material phenomenon really come down to? Obviously we have no firm evidence that the sensation of mind is not neurological in origin. Is it just unpalatable to believe that we might be lumps of matter in splendid arrangement? Is the gap too frighteningly big? Does the convenient attribution to “mind” act as a security blanket, in the same way that a deity might act for many?
The tables might be turned on me: lacking conclusive and complete evidence on either side, my preference for materialism might be equally attributed to wishfulness. What do I have against mind as a real, qualitatively separate phenomenon? I guess it comes back to aversion to dualism. Without dualism, the question becomes whether mind or matter is “primary” (a term that itself keeps dualism lit, implying a secondary). I find it far more plausible that mind can emerge from complex interactions of matter (as so many amazing phenomena do; and: what would prevent it?) than that matter somehow derives from mind. Physics, astrophysics, cosmology, geology, climate, erosion, thunderstorms all get by without life on Earth and without the rare, localized, transitory sensations of mind that naturally flowed out of evolved brains. It would seem an enormous (impossible?) undertaking to demonstrate that mind cannot arise from matter interactions. What could possibly stand up to scrutiny?
Illusionism
I recently read a series of papers (Frankish, Dennett) on the concept of the illusion of consciousness. I highly recommend these and associated papers. In his delightfully well-written piece, Dennett compares our mental construct of consciousness to stage magic—the art of crafting convincing illusions. Another useful analog is the trash can icon on a computer’s desktop. Dragging a file to the trash can is a symbolic representation of making the file disappear (which itself does not happen upon the action of deletion: the associated space in memory is just de-linked in the look-up table and is thereafter available to be overwritten at some later time). We know the computer does not have a literal trash can inside, but the handle is useful. Our perception of mind and consciousness may operate similarly: a handy construct that helps us conceive of something that in truth is far too complicated to piece together. Just call it mind and move on. It’s yet another mental model shortcut that is exactly what brains are built to do—thus true to form, without needing to be true to reality.
So, let your mind go. It might be the biggest leap imaginable: bigger than letting go of belief in a deity. After all, we’re intimately acquainted with our internal trash can—I mean mind. We’ve known it all our lives. We feel it! It’s familiar.
What’s left on the other side is far from nihilism—itself a symptom of the failure-of and overdependence-on mental models: a lack of imagined alternatives. Everything awaits on the other side: nothing real goes away when your mental model collapses. Reality is bigger and more expansive than you dreamed. It’s beautiful, mysterious, unfathomable. Maybe it’s scary to confront the unknown, but we can also delight in beholding the frontier. It’s awe inspiring. Your sensation of mind will never go away. It’s just a matter of saying “Hmm. That’s a pretty neat trick,” and appreciating the spectacular nature of the fact that it all works, somehow. Life is incredible!
Why Even Go There?
Given my perspective that modernity is a temporary phase poised to fail, why do I even bother poking into matters of mind? Well, as I mentioned in the introduction, it keeps coming up as I explore what others say about the core problem of modernity (dualism). It’s a perennial sticking point. It’s part of the monkey trap. It’s also connected to cognitive limitations in general.
In the last post, I elaborated a recent theme of mine: that brains are shortcut machines lacking the capacity for complete ecological context, so that modernity amounts to an unwieldy tangle of brain-farts. Clearly human brains were a huge factor in creating the unsustainable predicament we find ourselves in. It is therefore valuable to appreciate our brains—both in terms of limitations, and in terms of convincing illusions they create for adaptive benefit.
Here’s why it is important to me personally to carry a theory of mind that anchors it in the same framework as everything else we observe:
- We are part of the universe; made of the same stuff; connected; integral.
- Humility flows from this interconnectedness and kinship with all life and matter.
- Positing a separate mind is a shortcut that robs the universe and life of its customary splendid complexity.
- Recognition that even mind/consciousness is a mental model helps us appreciate that this is just what brains do, and that mental models are not required to be correct to be adaptive.
- Mind has supremacist leanings: wrenching the phenomenon out of the hands of the material universe so that we are the masters is a dangerous, self-flattering conceit.
Rather than being offended that I might be “reduced” to matter and its interactions, I can revel in it. I can humbly embrace my kinship to the whole universe, and my shared heritage with all life. From this basis in humility, I am prepared to give up on mastering all knowledge, and embrace any number of figurative stories and/or animistic framings that serve to ground us in right-relationship with the utterly amazing community of life. I worry that clinging to the special construct of mind keeps us at arms’ length from being part of nature—made of the same atoms and belonging to the world.
