P: “It seems the best way to understand the philosophy of an epoch is by looking at what went on around those philosophers in their environment. They are using concepts from contemporary science to describe their philosophy.”
N: “Yes. That’s how I see it too. It may be incorrect, but it certainly is an appealing thought. Plato is looking for the unchangeable truth inside the changeable objects of reality …”
P: “… Perhaps inspired by Euclid’s ideal triangles which the papyrus versions were only allusions to.”
N: “Leibniz investigates the rational universe …”
P: “… In an era of mathematical beautiful laws guiding planets around the stars and falling apples alike.”
N: “Descartes is mechanistic …”
P: “… And so were many others living in an era where automatons were thriving. But that isn’t particular for Descartes’ age, though.”
It didn’t take a more than a day or two before Patricia had made a habit of calling Nell every night. Nell pretended to be in England and Patricia always slept until late before rushing off to some secret site of education. Nell didn’t even know where or why. Since she didn’t want to disturb Nell “back in England” after midnight or in the morning, she had formed the habit of calling between 2 AM and 4 AM corresponding to 6 PM and 8 PM in the actual home country. But Nell wasn’t back in the home country. She had to adapt to her own devious scheme.
P: “Whenever we discuss dualism, we let the pendulum swing between a predefined set of attitudes that are struggling to prevail. In the end it’s a matter of picking and choosing.”
N: “Go on …”
P: “Well, it just seems to me that either you love the idea of the »I« existing. So you sacrifice whatever is necessary to have that. Or your focus is on the scientific laws, which can exist without an I. Some in the latter group claims that the predictability and organisation of some object are manifestly existing in that object, i.e. the properties have their own real, actual existence. Others think these facts are part of a reason which isn’t in the world at all. They have their place during conversation, and after that, all is dissolved. Some are brought up under a formalistic natural science. They need properties to exist, but not the object those properties are tied to. Others want objects to exist, really exist. Some thinks that ’exists’ is again another mental act, so it doesn’t mean what the word necessarily implies. In fact, nothing is wrong with anything we can claim at all, because in the end, who knows if the truth of these claims doesn’t solely come from the fact that we claim them as a mental act where the word ‘claim’ is perfectly proper to use - it just happens to not mean anything at all. Humans say ‘claim’ all the time.”
N: “Everything is relative, is it not?”, Nell laughed.
Patricia sighed.
P: “I have come to realise how much I depend on solid ground to stand on.”
N: “Which is why natural sciences attracts a lot more people than philosophy ever will. The confidence that tangible experiments stand the test of time. They cannot be discussed to death. Dear friend. Let’s go slow, can we? You don’t evade the problems by throwing it all in the fire.”
P: “I would like to go back to Adam and Eve, but what it is worth? We know a lot more now thanks to neurology. Doesn’t that render Adam and Eve, or Plato and Aristotle, obsolete?”
N: “We have a tendency to view old ideas as quasi-religious and new ideas as getting rid of the mystical aspects. But I would be dubious about any conviction that we have moved beyond the mysticism of our own age. If it is obvious, it is dubious. I’m sorry, that’s how I see it.”
P: “No, thank you for being honest. Alright then, let’s proceed from there. I would love to read a lot of neuroscience with you, but for now, we will have to contend with the knowledge we have readily available.
Evolution, epiphenomenalism, interactionism or perhaps occasionalism?
The big concern: There is hardly a single mental process that cannot be influenced by physical changes in the brain. Instinctively that makes me conclude that the »mental« is just an illusion.”
N: “The counterargument is that clearly mental states exist. Why is that so? I mean, why have they evolved if they are of no use?”
P: “And the counterargument to that is that evolution blindly invents a lot of useless stuff.”
N: “I’m thinking… The absolute primary contribution to philosophy of the mind that neurology has brought with it is the Libet family of experiments which seem to indicate that our conception of self as an acting agent is an illusion. The brain forms the idea that we »wanted« to perform some action as an afterthought, later than the actual firing potential of the action had warmed up.”
P: “An illusion that works so damn well that it is terrifying.”
N: “And hence the argument: Why do we have consciousness at all? Why convince us that »we« exist?”
P: “Speaking against this illusion is so intensely unacceptable that people have been willing to postulate outrageous theories just to preserve the reality of the will as a primary source of motion. Such as occasionalism! Saying ‘we’ don’t exist is so absurd that we would rather postulate that God bridges the gap between every act of will and the motor areas of the brain initiating an action. Or parallelism! It makes more sense that the world of the mind have been synchronised with the world of the physical at the dawn of time and now they are simply two clocks following distinct but perfectly parallel beats.”
N: “Exactly. But I can’t blame them. As sure as I am standing here today … except if you ask Hume, there is not anybody here at all. Only a bundle of perceptions happening simultaneously. Now we’re back to neuroscience. The same master mind hidden deep in the Mariana Trench of the brain, which gave us My Will also gave us the Person, something over and above all the observations making up the human standing in front of us. Will and Person are mere concepts, but concepts exist as in ‘are real’. That’s what a properly functioning brain dictates. At least, if we remain within this neuroscience trail that you outlined at the beginning.”
P: “You’re not convinced?”
N: “I don’t know. I feel brain damaged from reading philosophy, frankly. You start to entertain outlandish thought experiments, and I’m not sure I like to relativise reality purposefully. Imagine that neurology was proven wrong due to some age-old error in method that had lied hidden for decades. Suddenly it surfaces and all the conclusions are useless. Hypothetically. Hypothetically everything can be imagined. So what? To some it really becomes a mandate to seek higher ground and fortify themselves with certainty. They end up sounding like Descartes who realises he can doubt anything and so on.”
P: “That’s what I mean! What I dislike about thought experiments is just that: That they encourage us to seriously vandalise our perception based on something which may even turn out to be proven impossible.”
N: “And we are left with a very misplaced conundrum: The fact that our perception can be shaken… doesn’t that prove that we cannot at all justify certainty? I mean try to picture the earth splitting in half every year and the upper hemisphere traveling one way around the sun and the other in the inverse direction. Would you still say that the earth is necessarily round? No you answer. Good, they say. Now imaging that what you imagined before was forgotten. But now you know that hypothetically the earth can move in two directions at once.”
Patricia had to deliberate for a while.
P: “On the other hand, I seem to have a soft spot for those moments when reality reveals that the world is not at all as we had expected.”
N: “Yes, you mentioned. You like the feeling of venturing into the unknown. You would probably be delighted if you ever had to turn back, only to discover that the familiar landscape had been replaced by an unknown substance.”
Patricia found Nell’s suggestions amusing and intriguing.
P: “Oh, Nell. You come up with such pleasing ideas. Imagine the realisation that a giant magical troll ran back and forth and changed the streets and everything each time you came around.”
N: “What a wonderful way to get your attention.”
P: “Yeah.”
Nell could hear from the silence that Patricia was brooding over her own idea.
N: “You know what struck me as funny?”
P: “No, what?”
N: “How ridiculously easy it is to live your life and let the days go by if you abandoned your belief in having a self. Not even Aristotle’s ‘self as a governing principle’ would you need. Life would be just as easy. It wouldn’t make a difference at all.”
P: “You’re right. If all there is is biology, we could leave the body to our behaviour and go to sleep forever. In that sense Hume was correct. All we are aware of is the words and thoughts that constantly take place getting through our daily life. No self. No agent doing the agency.”
Nell yawned.
N: “I’m sorry. I seem to be falling asleep whenever there’s a moment of silence.”
P: “Don’t apologise. It was so nice talking to you as always.”
They said goodbye and Nell prayed it wouldn’t be their last conversation. She dreamt of protecting Patricia. She wanted to shield her from harm.
•P•A•R•A•D•O•X•