1> I think, therefore I am
This point is pretty well-known from the philosophy of Rene Descartes of course, though I've heard that the specific phrase cogito ergo sum doesn't actually appear in his work. When I was sixteen, wandering through the grounds of my school it occurred to me that The very act of questioning one's own existence begs the question "What is asking the question?" I didn't realise until some days later that this was merely a different expression of the catchier phrase above. The one thing which is absolutely certain for me, which I cannot even coherently question, is the fact of the thoughts which belong to me.
2> There are things outside my mind
I know that I exist, but what about other stuff? My mind produces all kinds of images of places, people and so on when I'm dreaming, most of which seem perfectly sensible at the time even when they're bizarre in waking memory. So how can I know that there's anything which isn't simply a product of my mind?
The first option is to simply assume it - call it an epistemic axiom, if you choose. Most folk don't ever bother trying to justify this belief, it's just taken for granted. No doubt that's partly because it's so very hard to justify even in part, let alone fully. I'm not a philosopher, but as far as I've yet encountered the only justification I can come up with is this: When I think, when I write or when I remember my dreams and so on, I almost always notice limitations on the speed, scope, depth and creativity of what my mind can do. But as I encounter more and more books, music, films and philosophy throughout my life, there seems to be far more than I could have even imagined previously. And what little I've learned about biology, chemistry, astronomy and physics seems to dwarf even those products of human creativity! This discrepancy between what I consciously recognise as products of my mind and what I encounter without knowing to be a product of my mind seems so vast and insurmountable as to cast serious doubt on any notion that it's all produced by my mind. This is not proof of course; but it's the only justification I can presently imagine for the presumption which we all share, that our senses generally reflect a reality which is not produced by our minds.
3> There are other minds
This is another point we all accept from childhood and is often presumed without much thought. My senses might be indicative of things which aren't from my own mind, but they can't detect any other person's mind at all. I have thoughts, feelings and so on, but I can never see or hear the thoughts or feelings of other people.
Belief in other people's minds is inferred by analogy, from observation of structure and behaviour. For example I'm told that my brother came into existence in a very similar fashion to me, right down to the same hospital and caesarian delivery, and I can see that his body is similar to mine - arms, legs, face and so on. Along with similarities of structure, both during childhood and in recent years of living with him I've seen that his behaviour is often quite similar to mine - complaining of hunger then eating, mentioning tiredness then sleeping, displaying signs of humour, anger and so on. From all of this I conclude that he experiences these things in the same way that I do, that he has a mind even though I cannot see it. I would say this conclusion given points 1 and 2 is more justified than point 2 itself is given only point 1. But it should be noted that while I have fairly good reasons for supposing that my immediate family have minds, it's a bit more of a leap in the dark to suppose that all humans have minds - though naturally I do believe that.
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I imagine that these are things which we can all agree on. But how uncertain, or how strong is the justification, even for points 2 and 3? And consequently, how much more uncertainty must attend any additional conclusions building on them? There's a school of thought which suggests that all beliefs should be justified by sufficient evidence, that without sufficient evidence it's best not to believe. I reckon that's a pretty useful principle, though it's worth bearing in mind that both what constitutes evidence and what constitutes sufficient evidence can be more or less arbitrary (and sometimes inconsistently applied) standards.
But with that in mind, it seems to me that many people - theists and non-theists alike - hold to a particularly curious view which as far as I know is neither necessary nor validated by any evidence or justification:
4? Most things outside my mind are not other minds, nor direct products of other minds
The word 'physical' is often used to describe this new type or state of being. We know from <1> that at least one mind exists and that it can produce images of people, places and events in the form of dreams or imagination. As far as I'm aware, <2> can only be justified by the view that my own mind is not creative enough to account for all that I observe. And <3> is our inference from such observations that there are other minds also, a belief which pretty much all of us share. But where does this notion of some things which are neither minds, nor things produced by minds come from?
Once again it must be recognised that my knowledge and experience is quite limited, but as far as I'm aware the only explanation for this belief probably lies rooted in our earliest developments of perception and interpretation as infants. For it seems to me that it cannot be possible to have a concept of 'self' unless and until we have a concept of 'other.' As I explained to FaerieStories recently:
- My working hypothesis so far is that these distinctions, and ultimately all the most intellectual differences in the theism/atheism discussion are rooted in the fundamental self vs. other dichotomy (love that word). What I mean is that a baby in the womb really cannot have any sense of a world; it has no sight, no taste or smell, little in the way of hearing or touch and no way to contextualise that little it does experience. After birth there'd be something of an explosion of experience so to speak, which I'd guess would be somewhat overwhelming at first, but over the weeks would begin to resolve into some familiar sights, sounds and sensations (such as the mother's face, voice and breasts), and some which change or remain unfamiliar. The development of any kind of reasoning cannot begin until those kinds of differentiations begin, and alongside the recognition that those things are different from each other there can be no sense of 'self' without the recognition that I am different from them.
In fairness what I've read about developmental psychology could probably be printed on quite a small business card depending on font, but I think the above makes sense
Following the recognition that the world is not like me, toddlers in a healthy environment will begin to recognise that parts of the world are like them, most obviously their parents with whom they interact in quite different ways than with chairs, toys and the like - and that is followed by the period in which the child seeks to impose its desires on others, rather than being imposed upon, the idiomatic 'terrible twos.' Now most internet debating veterans of an enquiring disposition will probably be familiar with the ages old problem of other minds: How can we really know that behind that face and in the darkness behind those eyes there are experiences like our own, since we can never see or touch them?
But what I consider to be an even more interesting conundrum is the question of other types of being, the sense of otherness which must necessarily precede a sense of self, and hence any concept of other 'selves.' Why, to what extent, and how can I know that the world is not like me?
The suggestion could be made (as FaerieStories did in that thread) that things like atoms, rocks, planets and so on can't be minds and can't have experiences like we do because we know what produces such experience (our brains) and these other things don't have it. But while I might infer from behaviour and structure (including presumably brains) that those close to me must have experiences similar to my own, that is obviously a weaker inference in the case of all humans, and weaker still in the case of non-human creatures with brains. I might argue that because a fish has some structural similarities to me, including a brain, and because it shares some behaviours with me, such as eating and reproducing, it probably has experiences in a mind that has at least some commonalities with my own. That's not a very strong argument, but not invalid either.
However it would be invalid to say that because there are obvious differences in structure between myself and a dog, and obvious differences in behaviour, the dog does not have experiences or a mind. We infer the presence of other minds by analogy, but analogy does not work in reverse like that. Thus we can only infer that brains produce or are otherwise associated with minds by increasingly weak inferences from analogy; and while we might be justified in supposing that the mind of a dog or fish is somewhat different from our own, and therefore that any hypothetical mind of a rock or planet would correspondingly be even more different from our own, we can't actually conclude that rocks and planets do not have minds - we can only presume it.
Moreover that's only half of the problem. In practice we do consider it acceptable to presume without justification that atoms, rocks, planets and so on don't have minds, and while that's treading on pretty shaky ground it may be nigh on inavoidable. But we also have no reason for supposing that they aren't produced by minds, like our own dreams or imaginations.
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Perhaps most importantly, the idea that the sensory world consists of 'physical' stuff, stuff entirely unlike our minds or their contents, leads to a very difficult and possibly unsolvable problem: Why then do we have minds?
A common religious answer - that minds or 'souls' are a type of thing more or less unlike the world we experience through our senses - is often, and I believe correctly, criticised as being unprovable and unnecessarily complicated. But that's as much a criticism for religious folks' uncritical acceptance of this 'physical' world as their acknowledgement that our experience is something distinct from it.
If we rule that answer out, it seems to me (and this is a question which I've raised numerous times on various threads) that suggesting the development, production or emergence of a mind or subjective experience from 'physical' stuff quite unlike it would be a huge claim, one without parallel as far as I'm aware. It would be the only case I know of in which a whole has properties which are not reducible to the sum of its parts at the molecular level (if not beyond).
What I mean is that while we can't observe another person or creature's thoughts or feelings (because they're subjective experience), it must be the case that the subjective experience is either there or it is not. We presume with some justification that it's there in the case of other humans, with less justification that it's there in the case of fish, and validly or not we generally presume that it's not there in the case of atoms, rocks or planets. But when subjective experience is present in a thing, the capacity to produce or be associated with it must be an objective property of the thing. But as long as we suppose that atoms, molecules and so on themselves do not have subjective experience, the property of the whole (person, animal, brain or whatever) is not reducible to the sum of its parts.
If we look for comparison and contrast at water for example, it might be suggested that its wetness is a non-reducible property. But wetness is merely the manner in which we experience and describe water; it's not an objective property of water itself. We would probably not use the term wetness in description of certain other liquids like molten iron or liquid nitrogen, for example. The objective properties of water are its temperature and consequently fluidity, both of which are reducible; in terms of molecules' energy, and hence the rapidity of their movement (heat), and hence the breaking of their strong inter-molecular bonds from the solid state.
Again with the caveat of my limited knowledge - and I'm certainly open to learning on this point - I have not yet encountered any other example in which a whole is said to have objective properties which can't be reduced to the sum of its molecular parts. Given that, not only do I have no justification or reason to imagine some type of stuff which is neither mind nor product of mind, it seems to me that I have quite a strong reason to consider it unlikely that such a thing exists, or at least that it could provide a basis for minds.
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So then, what is the most reasonable conclusion?
Obviously what I know is extremely limited by my own perspective, cultural context, experience and learning. I can't really claim any high degree of certainty about the minds of animals or folk I've never met, let alone the nature of reality itself!
But it seems clear to me that pending some kind of justification for an alternative view, it is most reasonable to suppose that the nature of reality consists of minds and their products; and given the general consistency of human observations across the globe and the centuries, we're probably talking about mind/s whose scope, depth and creativity far exceeds our own!
Is this the more reasonable view?
Or is there some justification - any justification - to suppose that an alternative is possible?
There is obviously a very significant difference between a hurricane and my subjective experience. But is the difference merely between my experience and the hurricane's experience (mostly anger, one would imagine), or is the difference that I experience things whereas the hurricane is part of some other/s' experience, or is the difference that I can experience whereas the hurricane cannot?
