<1>
Living in Sweden, I am close to the Linnaean tradition of wonder at the
immensely rich biotic world. Linnaeus said: 'God did the creating and Linnaeus
the arranging'. There is little religious mysticism, but a lot of eager
curiousness and ruthless practicality, in his attitude. It may seem rather
arrogant, but there is also certain humbleness: the greatness of God's creation
is not questioned.
<2>
Herbert Muller seems prepared to say that Linnaeus, when he established
a great number of species and a certain order between them in his Systema
Naturae, also did the creating. Or is it 'we' who do it all the time? In
a way HM is correct. Obviously, we make abstract patterns of structural
interrelations, very much based on use of natural language and formalisms
like mathematics, establishing and extending order within our experiences.
Relations within these structures are very often wholly 'internal'. Each
of us has to do this, but fortunately we don't have to invent all ourselves;
quite a lot of it is transmitted in cultural interaction with parents, friends,
schoolteachers, historical or archaeological finds, text books, art, literature,
etc.
<3>
I don't want to pretend that I understand all of Whitehead's 'Process and
Reality' (PaR); in fact, I have not yet read it all. In reading it, however,
again and again I get the assurance that here is a person with a superb
intellect who has a profound understanding of the human situation, and who
has expressed his insights in marvelous detail. Considering my defects of
amateurism, limited thinking abilities, etc, perhaps I should conclude that
it is best for me to stop writing, and just refer to Whitehead.
<4>
However, from comments to Whitehead it appears to me that his deepest insights
are often not understood correctly. For example, the 'corrector' of PaR
Donald W. Sherburne in 'A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality' introduces
Whitehead's philosophy as follows: 'The concept of an actual entity is the
central concept in Whitehead's system. This system is atomistic - i.e.,
like Democritus, Whitehead conceives of the world as composed of a vast
number of microcosmic entities. But whereas Democritus is a materialist
and views his atoms as inert bits of stuff, Whitehead presents an organic
philosophy - each one of his atoms, termed 'actual entities' or 'actual
occasions', is an organism that grows, matures, and perishes. The whole
of Process and Reality is concerned with describing the characteristics
of, and interrelationships between, actual entities.' (Sherburne 1966 p.6).
<5>
'Actual Entities', however, in Whitehead's system is just the first one
of eight categories of existence. The fundamental concept, instead, is the
'Category of the Ultimate' (PaR p.21): ' 'Creativity', 'many', 'one' are
the ultimate notions involved in the meaning of the synonymous terms 'thing',
'being', 'entity'. These three notions complete the Category of the Ultimate
and are presupposed in all the more special categories. ... This Category
of the Ultimate replaces Aristotle's category of 'primary substance'. Thus
the 'production of novel togetherness' is the ultimate notion embodied in
the term 'concrescence'. These ultimate notions of 'production of novelty'
and of 'concrete togetherness' are inexplicable either in terms of higher
universals or in terms of the components participating in the concrescence.
The analysis of the components abstracts from the concrescence. The sole
appeal is to intuition.'
<6>
I take this to be a very clear statement that Whitehead places subjective
experiences at the center, just as HM suggests in his 0-D theory (TA1).
Again and again it is confirmed in PaR that we cannot consistently build
a worldview of substances localized in space-time in a mind-independent
reality, with qualities somehow attached to them. I fully agree that HM's
initial problem is a serious one, that the mind's center vanishes in studies
that imply exclusive objectivism or empiricism. Instead, we must radically
change our point of view, and take our immediate conscious experiences to
be at the center of reality, and construct our world by extending their
limits.
<7>
A fundamental step in such an endeavor, I contend, must be to accept the
unusual insight of the 'Category of the Ultimate', that the experiencing
entity can simultaneously be one, many, and creative. I (1999) have tried
to characterize this situation by repeating terms like 'non-locality', 'structured
singularity', etc, but Whitehead's statement is the clear one.
<8>
Whitehead said: 'The principle that I am adopting is that consciousness
presupposes experience, and not experience consciousness. It is a special
element in the subjective forms of some feelings. Thus an actual entity
may, or may not, be conscious of some part of its experience. Its experience
is its complete formal constitution, including its consciousness.' (PaR
p.53).
<9>
It may be thought that I have a problem here, since I (1999) have consistently
argued that we have access to just one kind of entities: conscious experiences.
Still, I agree with Whitehead that we have experiences without consciousness.
However, we don't know about them clearly until they have been recognized
in conscious experiences. Whitehead's system is a metaphysical construction,
and his first chapter in PaR is a justification of 'speculative philosophy'.
As soon as we think about anything outside the immediate conscious experience,
as we do all the time, we are in metaphysics. We are so used to taking the
external world for granted, that it takes some effort to accept that even
the most 'substantial things', e.g. Whitehead talks about a 'contemporary
stone' (PaR p. 77), are in fact metaphysical.
<10>
Whitehead's metaphysics, however, is not conceived of in complete emptiness.
Some modern minds seem to be repelled by his involvement with God. However,
Whitehead's references to God have a non-sentimental quality similar to
that of Linnaeus, and with proper understanding I believe there is no need
for fear. In his cosmology 'God' simply stands for 'it all', including our
conscious experiences and all that we don't yet have immediate or derived
knowledge about. Thus, God has 'oneness', 'manyness', and 'creativity'.
This simple characterization does not make justice to Whitehead's subtly
expressed ideas, but I think it is essentially correct, and it is enough
for this argument.
<11>
HM [8]-[12] discusses solipsism in two variants. We agree that the metaphysical
version (the notion that 'only I exist') is absurd. HM then says about 'methodological
solipsism' [11]: 'To say that 'every major philosopher since Descartes started
from phenomenology of experience' (though without use of the word 'solipsism'),
is stating something quite obvious, and even trivial. What other possibilities
did they have? Therefore I would think that this is not only a 'research
strategy' as Chomsky suggested <14>, but an aspect of everybody's
daily thinking.' Methodological solipsism as a research strategy (correction:
suggested by Putnam and Fodor), however, was meant as a stricter intellectual
regime than you seem to say here: the requirement that only psychological
states in the narrow sense are allowed as constructs in psychological theories,
where a 'psychological state in the narrow sense is one the ascription of
which does not presuppose the existence of any individual other than the
subject to whom the state is ascribed'. In everybody's daily thinking, we
certainly don't uphold such strict thinking, even if I may sometimes a bit
gloomily consider whether I'm not ultimately lonely after all.
<12>
I considered the possibility that your demand for 'working metaphysics'
perhaps could be understood as a kind of methodological solipsism. Since
you reject MIR, I cannot understand how our individual minds can contact
each other. So I thought you suggest that 0-D-theory might help us as a
method to take a step back and more freely consider different 'as if' metaphysics,
and see how they work, and perhaps even ultimately converge on a few preferable
'working metaphysics'. I even suggested the possibility of consensus. I
cannot judge the realism of such a project, but perhaps it is only what
we all are trying to do all the time.
<13>
Perhaps, you fear consensus, since it could well get fixed at very wrong
ideas, and end up in dogmatisms. But is it not reasonable to believe that
serious work often brings us closer to some kind of truth-like knowledge?
Must the fundamentals always remain entirely ad-hoc? I would agree that
exclusive empiricism cannot grasp the full problem situation in consciousness
studies, but surely its results are often very solid and valuable, and necessary
not least in consciousness studies. To me they seem to say something about
MIR.
<14>
In my opinion you are up to very serious problems when you say: 'MIR, I
want to suggest, functions somewhat like a computer program, as a conceptual
unit (or a composite of many units), it may be reliable if you know its
limitations. Still, someone had to construct it (from no program), it did
not come pre-assembled out of the blue; to assume that it (or MIR) does
so is a mistake and leads into a blind alley.' Here you think of MIR as
internal to your mind, and then of course it cannot be mind-independent.
I think of MIR as potentiality not yet actualized in experience. I urge
you to say who is 'someone' here. Is it another conceptual unit, a homunculus?
Who supplied the computer and is it not in MIR? Do the mind's experiences
come out of the blue?
<15>
I admit that MIR must wholly remain a metaphysical construction. However,
I trust that natural evolution has given us a very functional and admirable
detector apparatus, so I believe that parts of our mind's experiences approximately
reflect real autonomous structures in the world. HM says [7]: 'My question
is: does this procedure not amount to an affirmation of MIR rather than
proof of its possibility? ie, is it not begging the question?' My answer
is, with Whitehead's words (PaR p.4-5): 'Philosophers can never hope finally
to formulate these metaphysical first principles. Weakness of insight and
deficiencies of language stand in the way inexorably. Words and phrases
must be stretched towards a generality foreign to their ordinary usage;
and however such elements of language be stabilized as technicalities, they
remain metaphors mutely appealing for an imaginative leap. ... Thus, for
the discovery of metaphysics, the method of pinning down thought to the
strict systematization of detailed discrimination, already effected by antecedent
observation, breaks down. This collapse of the method of rigid empiricism
is not confined to metaphysics. It occurs whenever we seek the larger generalities.
In natural science this rigid method is the Baconian method of induction,
a method which, if consistently pursued, would have left science where it
found it. What Bacon omitted was the play of a free imagination, controlled
by the requirements of coherence and logic. ... Thus the first requisite
is to proceed by the method of generalization so that certainly there is
some application; and the test of some success is application beyond the
immediate origin. In other words, some synoptic vision has been gained.
/ In this description of philosophic method, the term 'philosophic generalization'
has meant 'the utilization of specific notions, applying to a restricted
group of facts, for the divination of the generic notions which apply to
all facts'. / In its use of this method natural science has shown a curious
mixture of rationalism and irrationalism. Its prevalent tone of thought
has been ardently rationalistic within its own borders, and dogmatically
irrational beyond those borders. In practice such an attitude tends to become
a dogmatic denial that there are any factors in the world not fully expressible
in terms of its own primary notions devoid of further generalization. Such
a denial is the self-denial of thought. / The second condition for the success
of imaginative construction is unflinching pursuit of the two rationalistic
ideals, coherence and logical perfection.' Since MIR is part of Whitehead's
God, I trust that belief in it is rational. But it is a belief, there is
no proof to be had.
<16>
Whitehead said: 'It is by reason of the body, with its miracle of order,
that the treasures of the past environment are poured into the living occasion.
The final percipient route of occasions is perhaps some thread of happenings
wandering in 'empty' space amid the interstices of the brain. It toils not,
neither does it spin. It receives from the past; it lives in the present.
It is shaken by its intensities of private feeling, adversion or aversion.
In its turn, this culmination of bodily life transmits itself as an element
of novelty throughout the avenues of the body. Its sole use to the body
is its vivid originality: it is the organ of novelty.' (PaR p.339).
<17>
I will try to live up to Whitehead's demand for applicability by suggesting
an empirical test for detectism. Let us assume that neuronal firings are
the smallest entities, the bits, in the brain's computational activity It
is often assumed, in analogy with digitalized information processing, that
the incoming information is formed in patterns of such firings, where all
firings are thought of as equal. I now suggest that firings, at close inspection,
instead may be of numerous kinds, for example characterized by distinct
forms in the growth and decrease of the potential, electrical or chemical.
Each such kind of firing (kind of nerve cell) is supposed to be systematically
linked with a sense organ, so they in fact come to correspond systematically
to factual distinctions emanating from the external world, from MIR (including
the body). At the other end, in the brain, each kind of firing would correspond
to a quale. Such a system would distinguish features in the external world
in two different ways: forms in space and time would be transmitted as patterns
of firings, while qualities would be transmitted as different kinds of firings;
cf. my (1999) suggestion for a taxonomy of conscious experiences in two
dimensions, distributions and qualia. The evolutionary advantage is obvious.
<18>
Let us now assume that forms to some extent can be transported between modules
in the brain, while qualia cannot be thus transported. I suggested (1999)
that we humans have evolved a novel capacity for abstract processing. I
mentioned this as a digital aspect of qualia, but now it seems clearer to
say that in certain parts of the brain in principle one neutral kind of
firing is present. These parts of the brain, probably mostly located in
the frontal lobes, then would process form, not qualia. My empirical test,
then, would be to find methods to distinguish kinds of firings, and map
the different kinds on the brain. The prediction is that numerous different
kinds of firings will be found especially in the sensory regions, corresponding
to qualia, while most firings in regions devoted to abstract processing
will be found to be of a single neutral kind.
<19>
This line of thought can be taken further. Let us introduce Whitehead's
'Category of the Ultimate' establishing an entity in which the notions one,
many, and creativity are simultaneously valid, i.e. a conscious experience.
It can be thought of as a volume, part of the brain, with a content of neuronal
firings. It is one in itself, it includes many firings of different kinds,
qualia, and it is creative since there is dynamic potential inside it. The
conscious experience can also be thought of as a set, where groups of similar
firings and groups of similar forms make subsets, in a kind of 'materialized'
and multidimensional set theory. In this mechanism, in a stream of conscious
experiences, conceptual structures defining space, time, abstract set theory,
etc, can evolve. By scientific means this structure can be turned towards
itself, and distinguish the parts just specified. The distinguishing apparatus
would unavoidably atomize the picture distinguished, where the subsets are
the 'atoms'. An ultimate limit for the resolution would be a single neural
firing, or quale. Now, there is no reason to believe that MIR in fact is
atomized in this way; the atomization seems to be caused by the detector
apparatus. Especially, the distinct forms of neural firings, providing qualia,
are below the distinguishing power of the abstract reasoning mechanism and
may cause creative dynamics that cannot be controlled by the abstract intellectual
mechanism.
<20>
The regions of the brain devoted to abstract processing will appear almost
as a 'tabula rasa' at birth, open for the construction of novel ordering
structure in cultural interaction. Much of the in- and output, however,
will be provided and transmitted by structure formed in natural evolution
and developing in full integration with MIR.
<21>
I am much obliged to Herbert Muller for his patience with my admittedly
amateurish attempts in philosophy.
---------------------------------------
REFERENCES
Holmgren, J. 1999. Detectism - a suggestion for the taxonomy of conscious
experiences.
http://w1.411.telia.com/~u41104695/taxonomy.html .
Sherburne, D.W. 1966. A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality. New York:
MacMillan.
Whitehead, A.N. 1929 - 1978. Process and Reality, An essay in cosmology.
New York: The Free Press. (PaR) Unfortunately, I don't have access to the
1969 edition. In their preface in the 1978 edition, the editors D.R. Griffin
and D.W. Sherburne say: 'In 1969, The Free Press published a paperback edition.
It should in no way be confused with the present corrected edition, published
by the same company. The 1969 edition did not incorporate the corrigenda
which had been published by Sherburne; it added some new errors of its own;
it introduced yet another pagination without indicating the previous standard
pagination; and it did not contain a new Index. We wish to commend The Free
Press for now publishing this corrected edition.'
The 1978 edition (paperback 1985) is available e.g. at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0029345707/o/qid=950110165/sr=8 -3/102-3892823-3327228
-------------------------------------
Jan Holmgren
e-mail: <j.holmgren@telia.com>