KARL JASPERS FORUM

Target Article 32

CONCEPT-DYNAMICS AND THE MIND-BRAIN QUESTION
by Herbert FJ Müller
October 2000*, posted 28 November 2000

[1]
SUMMARY

Some difficulties of the relation between thinking and brain function can become more easily comprehensible through an examination of the relevant concept-dynamics. This concerns mainly the transcendence of experience by concepts, and following from here the subject/object split (of ontological or functional type), development and functions of static metaphysics ("realism"), and further the concept-surpassing (encompassing) property of experience. Momentary ongoing experience is the nucleus of thinking ("consciousness") and must not be neglected in the study of this question. It is "given" (ie, not invented by us) but it is structured by us in its entirety.

[2]
Whatever can be said about the brain and its functions uses concept-structures which are made by us within given experience. But it is not possible inversely to derive ongoing mind-and-nature experience from objective knowledge, nor can experience be reduced to it. Thinking does not come from the brain, the brain comes from thinking. Experience is neither identical with objective brain functions, nor with a publicly accessible "self"; both suppositions imply an erroneous assumption of a primary (ontological) subject/object split. The correlation of public subjective and objective data can be examined (eg, in time), but ongoing experience encompasses all data. A belief in mind-independently structured reality blocks the access to the question about this process. On the other hand, metaphysics can become functional in the form of working metaphysics, and in this way the encompassing aspect of experience remains evident.

[3]
INTRODUCTION : A NON-TRIVIAL QUESTION

Around the question of the relationship between mind and brain - which on first sight may appear trivial - much scientific-philosophical activity, in the form of many publications and meetings, etc., has developed in recent years. One may take this as an indication that although this topic is at present popular, it may also be less simple than one might at first think. Indeed, some have concluded that this is a difficult or even unanswerable question. Other authors have suggested that the thinking "subject" is an unneeded fiction, which should be abandoned in favor of objective findings of brain activity, of descriptions of behavior, or of language activity and products, etc. Still others try to address it by referring to mystical entities such as universal consciousness. This leads to the question whether the presence of such somewhat confusing and in part counter-intuitive opinions can be explained with the help of a reduction to common factors. The present study makes a proposal how this can be attempted.

[4]

CONCERNING CONCEPT-DYNAMICS

Before a further examination of this situation itself [50ff], it is of interest to discuss some properties of the concepts which are used in this connection. This does not mean ascribing new properties to concepts, but to describe some of those which have always been present, with the aim of better understanding their effects. These considerations concern mainly two aspects, transcendence and encompassment, which will here be discussed in a somewhat "technical" sense, but with the implication that the more usual (eg, ontological or existential) meanings of these words stem from there.

[5]
CONCEPTS AND EARLIER STRUCTURES

In the meaning of the word concept which will be used here, a concept is the result of coupling a word to an earlier formation of sensation or thinking. Words are exclusively human products, while animals too produce and use the earlier structures of experience. ("Earlier" and "later" refer here to the ontogenesis of the individual as well as the phylogenesis, and the development of specific concepts in an individual as well as in society.)

[6]
Earlier forms include gestalt-formations of visual, auditory, tactile type, and less sharply circumscribed formations (which are sometimes called "qualia", because they cannot be easily quantified) such as sensations of color, smell, taste, balance, pain. But because the formation of experience-structures takes place inside each individual's (animal or human) experience, phylogenetic considerations are not relevant in the context of the principle of structure formation, even though for instance in an objective view the receptors and structure-formations are biologically pre-determined, and structures can to some extent be followed in phylogenetic comparisons.

[7]
Concepts can in many instances help to make aspects of experience better com"prehensible" or graspable : they become better defined (stabilized and standardized) and easier to transmit, and simultaneously they are momentarily lifted above the remainder of the experience, and to some degree isolated.

[8]
Conceptual thinking pre-supposes concepts. This may cause difficulties in understanding insofar as we ourselves produce the concepts : either we have done this previously or we do it on the spot (or else we accept those made by others). This is a bootstrap operation, in which a fixed initial scheme is used ("posited") as when starting a computer, and if this works, further forms can be developed from there during the function (or some already formed ones are added from storage in memory). A religious version of this is "in principio erat verbum". This concerns individual conceptual thinking as well as communication by language.

[9]
Here may also be a further difficulty of understanding. Experience itself is pre-supposed, "given" - we do not invent it. In contrast, the structures of reality are not given. All structures which are, and must be, used in experience, and which determine (define or structure) it, are made or invented by us (individually and collectively) within experience. The elaboration of given experience happens with the help of self-produced structures : this is creation of structures, and not interpretation (or "re-presentation") of an already pre-structured world. This process concerns pre-conceptual as well as conceptual, animal as well as human, intentional as well as unintentional structures, and includes in particular also the difference between subject and object (see [25ff]). But the forms can be created ad libitum only within the functional limits which stem from the requirement that they must prove themselves within given experience. If that is not the case they will sooner or later be replaced by others.

[10]
The concepts thus have the following origin, position, and function : (a) experience is "given" or "found", not made by us (ie, not invented). (b) All structures of experience (pre-conceptual as well as conceptual ones) are in contrast made by us within experience; they are not given or found, even though beside their practical success other objective (eg., genetic) factors largely determine which structures are developed. (c) Concepts are combinations of words with pre-conceptual structures, and help with communication and stabilization. (d) Experiential structures (for self-and-world) are accepted (provisionally-heuristically, through belief, or via knowledge as strong belief which is often well supported by practical success). (e) Extrapolation, starting from accepted concept-structures, enables enlargement of the experience (with the help of fantasy, tales, theory, techniques, etc.)

[11]
ORIGIN OF STRUCTURES

The origination of structures of thinking, self, and nature from within non-structured experience may be called zero-derivation (0-D). This does not mean that in practice thinking takes place without structures, nor that one would have to, or even could possibly, start with an unstructured experience - a la "tabula rasa" - nor also that all structures have to be always created anew. They are stored in individual and collective memory (eg, in books).

[12]
0-D means, in contrast, that structures (both pre-conceptual and conceptual ones, and including the difference between subject and object), are neither "given" in a pre-formed manner, nor are they copied from inner or external schemes (eg, so-called "referents"). They all imply the activity of a subject, without pre-given patterns. Without such activity no thought-structures exist, not in humans and not in animals. (Here one has to avoid the notion that for instance objective receptor-configurations should be understood as given schemes : this would be an objective, ie., secondary consideration.) Both the "self" and the "nature" (including for instance "the brain") are constructed inside experience, and this is why they appear in thinking.

[13]
Both the early (pre-conceptual) and the (verbal-) conceptual formations can be considered from two sides : from a (scientific-) objective one, where for instance chemical stimulator molecules fit into receptor shapes, or where electromagnetic waves of differing frequency stimulate retinal elements to specific activity, followed by subcortical and cortical activity of specific type; or one may describe behavioral, language, or social products in a more or less objective manner. Objectively we have to say that ultrasound and ultraviolet light exist, even though we do not perceive them directly. Objectively, thinking is entirely dependent on brain processes, and the study of brain function is as such of considerable importance. And further, genetic or social studies for instance are of great practical interest. Such considerations pre-suppose an already developed arsenal of tools of objective thinking.

[14]
And then there is a subjective side, sensation, action, and thinking phenomena, which are to a large extent, even if not entirely, independent of what the agent (animal or human) knows of the objective events. Birds fly, using their sensation and motor control apparatus, but they do not teach aerodynamics. Subjectively, we can structure ultrasound and ultraviolet only with the help of specific tools, else we know nothing of them; they are not directly understood as sound or light, only indirect-objectively by means of other properties (eg, their frequency, their effect upon animals, or in analogy to other phenomena, etc.). That thinking and sensation structures can be shown to depend on objective physico-chemical, biological, and genetic mechanisms, does not change the fact that they occur in individual experience, and that our first access can only be from there. We all, including those who have an exclusively-objectivist point of view (such as Th. Nagel in his book "The View From Nowhere"), are caught inside experience. All objective considerations start as specializations from within (subjective self-and-nature-) experience.

[15]
For all (animals and humans) the undivided and unstructured experience is the only available entrance to any sensation or knowledge (including objective knowledge). This entrance can be neither circumvented, jumped over, nor even neglected, without producing an error which makes understanding difficult. We are all caught in our (self-and-nature) experience, it is not possible to start somewhere else. All structures, the pre-conceptual ones as well as scientific and all other (word-) concepts, are later than experience itself. Concepts too are caught inside experience, and only from there are they comprehensible.

[16]
Even from this consideration alone it is an error to want to explain experience itself objectively (in physiological or any other terms). Objective (scientific and other) concepts, as well as pre-conceptual structures, are elaborated (and stored for re-use), starting from within their origin (the given ongoing experience). (In the case of collectively accepted theory structures, "revolutionary" events [Kuhn] occur at times.) Knowledge and science are specializations within experience. On the other hand it is not possible inversely to find ongoing experience within already structured entities; those would first have to be "de-constructed".

[17]
Words (including numbers) are human products; we ourselves make them. And for this reason we know them well, in contrast to knowledge about nature-itself which is not available to us in this way. In his non-Cartesian theory, Giambattista Vico proposed that "verum factum est", "scire est facere". (In his conclusions, directed to PM Doria : " … etenim habes verare, & facere idem esse … : atque Deum scire physica, hominem scire mathematica … "). One may add that this does not concern only mathematics but concepts in general (which are all made by us with the help of language). Concepts are (as are also all of the above mentioned [6] earlier formations) our self-made tools, which help us to structure and handle experience. Such a principle can avoid the conceptual problem of the res extensa (without having to agree with all of Vico's conclusions; for instance, "God" is here presumably a default or fall-back option, used to deal with the inaccessible nature, as well as probably a precaution against church censorship.)

[18]
COMMUNICATION AND SECURITY

The addition of a word to the earlier thought-structures has initially the purpose of communication, but results then also in a better prehensibility and structuring, stabilization (fixation, definition, standardization) of experiences. Concepts function as a sort of skeleton for communication and thinking (only that this skeleton is in part modifiable). Initially, the social (communication) function is probably in the foreground, the stabilization (for communication to others and for certainty in communal and individual use) is at first a bonus.

[19]
TRANSCENDENCE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The words have a further effect, which may however be easily overlooked. More clearly than the earlier structures, (word-)concepts go beyond the momentary situation, that is, they transcend the presently ongoing experience. The word and the concepts "stone" mean not only a stone which I hold in my hand at present, but all ever possible stones, anywhere and at any time. This is probably due to the prominent communication function of words; because I can only communicate something to others if it goes beyond my own present experience, ie, if it is also valid for them. This results in a certain general validity of concepts. "Objects" are therefore mostly more easily communicable than "qualia", where the subjective aspect may predominate.

(The word "transcendence" is also - perhaps more commonly - used in a different sense : that some experiences go beyond ordinary (subjective or objective) experience, by re-introducing the encompassing aspect of experience, which is commonly omitted or even denied. The ordinary experience is in that sense incomplete, one may even call it defective. This meaning of transcendence is I think also quite valid but it is different and has to be distinguished from the transcendence of ongoing experience by word-meanings, which is intended here. In effect, one has to specify what transcends what.)

[20]
And furthermore, the word includes in principle all aspects of the stone, whether or not I study it now further (cf. Merleau-Ponty). Because words are only used by humans, this trans-momentary effect of structures becomes evident more clearly in humans. This transcendence-effect (that is, the transcendence of ongoing experience by word-concepts) is inevitable, whenever one uses concepts. It has an asymptotic quality insofar as multiple experiences can approach the meant word-content but they cannot become entirely identical with it.

[21]
Here also a remark about "possibilities" : what is, or is not, possible, is decided on the basis of (transcendence and subsequent extrapolation from ongoing and remembered) experience. Possibilities, potencies, dispositions, are not ontological givens.

[22]
But although this transcendence has an important communication function, the latter may become neglected in favor of the fixation- and security-role of the concepts. The transcendence is mostly at first neither intended nor expected, and often not even perceived. But perhaps just because of this, its effects are often strong. Because when this is noticed later on, it can have surprising consequences.

[23]
The Pythagoreans were so impressed by the transcendental quality of numbers (general validity and usefulness, together with their simplicity and combinatorial power) that they worshipped them for a time. Similarly, Plato ascribed to concepts (ideas, forms) - which he saw as unreachable but nevertheless also as absolutely real and true, even as the basis of reality and truth - for a time a higher life of their own. ("Idealism" follows this view more or less, while in my proposal ideas are seen as tools.) Anselm of Canterbury wanted to conclude from the concept of God that he existed in person, and Kurt Gödel still tried to formalize this ontological proof of God (see Dawson; cf also [49]). Thus, transcendence was sometimes erroneously seen as equal to reality and permanence.

[24]
STATIC METAPHYSICS AND THE SUBJECT/OBJECT SPLIT

Here, in the transcendence of momentary experience by the meaning of (word-)concepts, is the formal cause of the traditional fictitious static metaphysics including ontology to be sought. It was declared by Kant and others to be "needed by reason". But one may ask how reasonable such an assumption really is when it implies ontology and not only the use of a tool for a purpose (Kant himself has apparently later on - in his opus postumum - changed his opinion). Instead of such an assumption, metaphysical structures can be "rational instruments", without ontological status (see below [34ff]).

[25]
The first effect of a belief in word-transcendence-reality is mostly that (for instance in the terminology of Descartes) one makes a primary distinction between res cogitans and res extensa (ie, not only as a practical method but as ontologically given.) Such an assumption were of no concern if it did not have some difficult consequences : once one has accepted such a distinction as being primary (either explicitly or only implicitly, which further complicates matters), it is difficult to find the way back to the origin. This tends to make this step irreversible, and even discussions about it are sometimes impossible.

[26]
Secondly, one is then faced either with a dualistic-hybrid situation, which is probably always unsatisfactory. Of this type are not only explicit dualisms (eg, Dilthey), but also attempts to accept experience as basic, but nevertheless to attempt to explain it with the help of physiological or other mind-independent objective ("truly real") mechanisms. (This means a salto mortale of reason, from phenomenology to objectivity, without announcement, perhaps even without noticing it).

[27]
Or on the other hand, if one wants a uniform point of view, there is only a choice between two impossibilities : either "the subject" is the only reality, and nature is only fantasy (but such an ontological solipsism is so absurd that it is rarely taken seriously). Or else "the objective nature" is seen as exclusively and mind-independently real, and the subject disappears or at best it is demoted to an "explanatory postulate". (And despite the equal absurdity of such a position, many pro- and anti-metaphysicists have tried without success to follow this reasoning, presumably because nothing more suitable seemed to be available.)

[28]
THE DEAD END OF MIR-BELIEF

The static-metaphysical, mind-independently already pre-structured reality and truth (MIR) thus starts in part as a consequence of a language by-product, which explicitly or implicitly becomes fixed by belief. In natural science, MIR-belief with exclusive objectivity is still the most common view, with the result that the mind-brain question is stuck in a blind alley.

[29]
MIR-formulations are a 2 1/2 thousand year old problem, which was re-activated but not solved by Descartes. He thought he was able to replace the then usual theistic basis of certainty by a kind of Archimedean point - although he personally maintained a theistic backup - chiefly by means of the res extensa. This led to the "modern" MIR-belief of objectivity.

[30]
As mentioned [25], a jump into such an imaginary transcendent word-concept-reality can easily have the consequence that the point of origin is forgotten. The access to an understanding of the development of MIR becomes thereby blocked. It has often been attempted to do without metaphysics, but this resulted mostly in relapses, because the question of why (both the conceptual reasons and the motivations) for the belief in metaphysics was not asked : one is beside oneself and cannot come back, not even with cool reasoning. One looks for instance for objective "theories of everything", which ignore the subject (this could at most become a "theory of all physical objects").

[31]
So long as one is committed to an MIR-belief, there exists a barrier against ideas and means to try something else. One does not try to search outside of MIR - specifically by including subjective experience, in addition to nature. Indeed many feel uncomfortable with such proposals, and consequently are defensive against them, in particular if they have invested much effort on formulating, or accommodating, a static-metaphysical system, be it objective-realistic or of other type. This is largely because if one identifies with some view or mental attitude, it provides the structures of one's thinking and indeed of oneself as a person; it is then difficult to see it from a distance.

[32]
A further reason for the strength of objective MIR-belief is, however, also that it can have a survival function, because in most practical and theoretical situations it is sufficient. It is simple and immediately at hand, while more complex considerations require more time, and may even prevent action (as for instance in thorough skepticism). This may also be understood as a phylogenetic maintenance of the immediate reactions of animals, for whom - due to the lack of language - conceptual considerations with their advantages and disadvantages do not arise. The structures, gestalten and simpler forms, are used by them as reliable tools - although one can show, for instance in the laboratory, how they evolve, and that they may lead to errors.

[33]
CONSTRUCTIVISM AND WORKING METAPHYSICS

An interesting new development is constructivism, which starts from the idea that humans and animals build their own thinking structures, and thereby their own worlds (Jean Piaget, Jakob von Uexküll, Heinz von Foerster, Ernst von Glasersfeld, and others). Personally I know about the constructivist group only recently (first from v.Glasersfeld's paper, 1991-9). The theoretical significance of a thorough constructivism is in my opinion in part that other opinions can be derived from it, but not vice versa. (Like with all epistemological positions there is for constructivists a practical danger of relapse later on into a static MIR-belief - as it has happened to some of the authors - or conceivably also into a static solipsism. Erroneous developments of this type can here, as in general too, probably only be avoided by means of a prevention or correction of the belief in a primary subject/ object split [25-27].)

[34]
The constructivist principle fits well with what I am proposing here. One can understand the structural facts (or also "fictions" : this word points to the double meaning concerning their "reality") as technical tools (comparable for instance with scaffolding, or else with asymptotic lines which cannot be reached). This view replaces the one of absolute "pre-formed" entities, such as they are suggested by traditional metaphysics. In this way it is explicitly confirmed that metaphysics is needed for thinking, but at the same time impossible in the traditional ontological style. From this follows a working metaphysics (or working-MIR, as-if-MIR) which renders metaphysics functional (Müller 1997, 1998, 2000).

[35]
In this case the metaphysical (and also the other) structures are treated as if they were real, but with the simultaneous knowledge that one deals with (sometimes-permanent-) temporary tools. Hans Vaihinger has written of such as-if-fictions, but his proposal was incomplete (Müller 1997). This is supplemented by a functional, methodological, or working solipsism, which consists in recognizing the inevitable centrality of experience, but without declaring that the subject is the static-ontological sole reality. The two "working" positions belong together and are used simultaneously, once the unity of the starting position has been recognized. In this way the erroneous alternative between the two impossible static positions (only subject or only object) is avoided. We structure self and world, and the difference between them, simultaneously, and they serve thinking as "as-if ontological structures".

[36]
THE ENCOMPASSING AND RATIONAL THINKING

The concepts are used, among other things, to define parts of (and from within) ongoing and remembered experience. As a side-effect, these parts are isolated from the remainder of experience. This means of course that many other aspects of the same overall experience are not included in the used concept. If one talks about a stone, its color is for instance not automatically included, even if it is experienced; for this one needs a further concept, such as "black". (The "black"-concept itself transcends of course again the momentary "black"-experience.) But there is always much left over of the experience, which is wider than all used concepts, and which would not be completely grasped by any possible number of concepts used successively or simultaneously, and thus experience encompasses the concepts.

[37]
Encompassment and the encompassing are therefore a built-in property of experience, or more precisely : a result of the relation of ongoing individual experience to the utilized concepts. This is just as inevitable - and not only facultative - as the transcendence of concepts. Here too one observes an asymptotic relation, because concepts can grasp experience to any desired degree, but never completely. (Mainly Karl Jaspers has emphasized the importance of the encompassing, but it appears also otherwise, under many names.)

[38]
Here a quotation from Paul Feyerabend's "Conquest of Abundance" is of interest, which points to a problem of formed logical thinking : " … if discourse is defined as a sequence of clear and distinct propositions (actions, plans, etc.) which are constructed according to precise and merciless rules, then discourse has a very short breath indeed. Such a discourse would be often interrupted by "irrational" events and soon be replaced by a new discourse for which its predecessor is nonsense pure and simple. If the history of thought depended on discourse of this kind, then it would consist of an ocean of irrationality interrupted, briefly, by mutually incommensurable islands of sense" (see van Fraassen).

[39]
These "irrational events" come out of the unformed and always encompassing background (the plenitude, abundance) of experience. Because this experience is the origin, the apeiron, of the formed structures (of the "islands of sense"), for instance of traditional static metaphysics, MIR. And it always comes to the fore, even if its existence is denied. Feyerabend's view agrees in principle, it seems to me, with Vico's : we know the conceptual products of our thinking, and use them as tools to handle the given but not-structured experience. This does not necessarily require that different tools harmonize with each other, although this tends to have practical advantages, as for instance a computer with its printer, or theories of inheritance with theories of gene function. In other words : that islands of sense are isolated does not always interfere with their usefulness.

[40]
But the structures all have a common ("irrational", ie, not-conceptually-structured) start-point, and it is always possible to show the way from there via 0-D. They are limited to the already formed instrumental region. (But Feyerabend's statement about the pure nonsense needs a modification : in some cases, for instance in scientific theories, an earlier narrower theory is a specific case of the later and wider one.)

[41]
The structures which are made by us are in principle compatible with their unstructured matrix (the encompassing experience). In case they are not adequate for present tasks, the unformed experience may once more come to the fore. It may then be called "irrational" because it does not fit into the rational forms which were built earlier, and then new rational forms are produced in order to deal with the task.

[42]
"Abstraction" is (in this context (Feyerabend, van Fraassen), but also in general) a somewhat misleading expression. It is not a question of taking something away from objects, as might be suggested by the word "abs-trahere", but of an aspect of the transcendence of the concept-tools, which becomes evident mainly when these tools are considered in isolation, outside their use in momentary structuring activity. Examples are pure mathematics, pure logic, and concepts as pure concepts (for instance Platonic ideas).

[43]
It is a conceptual error of systems of thought - as in naïve realism, widely used in objective science and also elsewhere, or also in more precisely described positions (such as the Principia Mathematica of Russell and Whitehead), and equally of some positive political doctrines - if they claim to be able to provide a complete thought and reality system by means of already fixed formations. Rational systems are always incomplete. On the basis of this error, the encompassing experience is neglected, and sometimes even expressly denied. The situation is similar for religious dogmas, unless they permit mystical experience which may go beyond the promoted doctrines.

[44]
From there follows also the paradox that the widest possible "theory" is the encompassing itself, although it is itself not structured (and thus is not a theory). This agrees with the quote from Feyerabend [38]. The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths. Of course this is a self-contradiction, but it says nothing against the correctness of this sentence. Logic is valid within structures. Like all structures it ends when one reaches the encompassing unstructured - which overrides accepted structures as well as their logic.

[45]
Human thinking has a weakness : because it is more variable and adaptable, and less determined by biological mechanisms than the corresponding functions of animals, it is less stable. For this reason one tries to find structures for the always still open, not yet conceptually structured encompassing, in order to guarantee stability and security, and this is an important part of the motivation for belief in (static) MIR. Something of this type is offered by religions and by other thought- and belief- systems (including some types of positivist scientism).

[46]
But here is a fundamental difficulty : positive truths are offered, and often thought of as absolutely valid, which does not stand up to critical thinking. The problem is that all positive existential concepts are posited and not found. This is so, among other things, also for the "cogito ergo sum" - it is used in a bootstrap-operation. Hume and Kant could not convince themselves of the reality of the "I", because it was not a solid encounterable object - but this under the erroneous impression that objects are "given" (ie, found) as such in pre-structured form.

[47]
If this is admitted, absolute truths are impossible; they are then instead assertions, maybe battle-cries. Absolute belief-systems are therefore absurd by definition, as Tertullian had already remarked, but they can nevertheless have great importance as practical guidelines - and more easily so without than with insight into their genesis. This is because belief determines the certainty, truth, and reality of both ontological and functional views, for the individual as well for the community (and knowledge is a strong form of belief). There is no opposition here between as-if and reality, except in the sense that an uncritical belief in ontological reality is usually stronger than a functional belief in our self-made structures - but this way of thinking is probably not available when thinking is founded upon MIR-belief.

[48]
Functional scientific statements are of the type "if one does this, that result is to be expected with such a probability"; existential statements can also be formulated in this way, eg, : "if one assumes the Big Bang, it follows that … ", or "I am (positing myself as) so-and-so, and therefore … " Ontological statements can in this way be functionalized with a gain in possibilities of thought, while inversely functional ones can be made ontological only with a loss. One might for instance compare an ontological statement like : "the earth is flat" with the functional one : "In order to draw a plan of the land on which my house is built, I can act as if the earth were flat, since for this I do not have to consider the limitations of flat geometry".

[49]
Anselm of Canterbury and Kurt Gödel [23] tried in effect to combine the transcendence of any possible overall experience by the concept "God" with the widest possible, and thus complete, encompassing experience. Wide concepts do encompass narrower ones, but this attempt must nevertheless fail due to the limiting properties of all concepts, unless the experience which is meant by the concept is so wide that it includes everything. But in this case the concept no longer "grasps", and the definition no longer "defines". In that case the meant becomes identical with all-encompassing (including for instance mystical) non-structured experience, which can however evidently be neither conceived nor communicated via structures in doctrines or other systems of thought. The widest experience is wider than all possible concepts and concept-systems. (Paradoxically, Gödel himself had demonstrated the incompleteness of the Russell-Whitehead system earlier on; was he perhaps not convinced of the general validity of his results ?)

[50]
THINKING AND BRAIN FUNCTION

How can thinking come from the brain ? (Or more generally : how can consciousness emerge from matter ?) The problem is often formulated in this manner. But this cannot be answered, because it is the wrong question. It is the reason for the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" (Chalmers), an artifact which results from an erroneous exclusively-objective point of view. One faces here the effect of non-consideration of the situation discussed above in [24]-[30].

A short answer is : thinking does not come from the brain, the brain comes from thinking. A little more elaborately : for our objective knowledge of the world, including the brain and its functions, we are exclusively dependent on our structures of thinking, and these can only arise within momentary overall (ie, self-and nature-)experience. But the same also applies to subject-structures like "self", "I", "soul". This implies that neither "objects" of any type, nor "the subject" in one or another formulation can be identical with ongoing experience.

[51]
Active (ongoing) encompassing and not yet structured experience is on the other hand the essence of "thinking", "soul", "mind", or of what in this context is often called "consciousness". This point is often neglected, and instead one expects an eventual success in demonstrating the "emergence" of experience out of various objectively describable events, such as neuro-physiological or quantum-mechanical processes. This fails because experience is not, and cannot become, objective, nor can it be reduced to objective events, or secreted by them. The "proper" question thus is : how does knowledge (for instance about the brain) arise within experience ? And this can be answered. (In quantum mechanics, some events can no longer be understood in the naïve MIR frame, as it was still possible in classical physics. This complicates the situation of objective science as a whole, and it is probably one of the reasons why some particle physicists – and others too – in recent years want to explain consciousness by quantum mechanics. But this is usually in effect a complicated way of trying to make the subject objective.)

[52]
Concepts must in principle intend the whole of experience, both interior (self) and external (environment, world), though each of both to varying degree. Neither naïve or explicit ontological objectivity nor ontological solipsism are for this reason able to ask the proper question concerning the mind-brain relation. Both imply erroneously a primary subject-object split. This also means, among other things, that the commonly used distinction between "third-person" and "first-person" description cannot help much, unless the question of encompassing experience is included in the discussion as a central point.

[53]
Many scientists are, despite the conceptual difficulties, still committed to an exclusive objectivity metaphysics (in the form of naïve or explicit realism, materialism, empiricism, naturalism, positivism), ie, to the existence of mind-independent reality and truth. But if one insists that objectively-describable processes are the only reality, the subject disappears automatically when it becomes thematic (cf. Crick, Nagel, and others). From here stems the inability of these views to deal adequately with the question of the relation between thinking and brain activity. In that case there is a blindness for a subject-inclusive explanation, and sometimes for the possibility that the mind-brain-relation has a conceptual aspect at all. But even attempts to free oneself of MIR usually end in relapse into traditional MIR, probably because no evident alternative is seen as being available, except for an even more absurd static solipsism. This is clear from the history of western thinking (Müller, 2000).

[54]
A part of this problem is that the structural difference between subject and object is understood as primarily given [25ff], and this is, perhaps even more than the MIR-belief itself (which results from it), a cause for conceptual difficulties with the mind-brain question. If this is pre-supposed, one can only think in terms of two impossibilities : either MIR, or in case MIR is denied, ontological solipsism. This subject-object distinction is however on the contrary secondary, the result of one of the earliest active structurations within the originally unitary experience. (This differentiation is needed for practical purposes; difficulties arise in case it is ontologized because of the transcendence of experience by concepts [24].) The mind-brain problem thus is thus largely a consequence of belief in a (for instance Cartesian) primary subject-object split. But instead of trying to eliminate either the subject or the object, in order to deal with the conceptual problems, one can return to the early undivided experience, and follow the structuring process from there.

[55]
As mentioned earlier [34], an alternative to the traditional static metaphysics or MIR can be found in functional "working metaphysics" (in generalization from "working hypothesis") or "as-if-MIR", combined with working (as-if) solipsism. The difference between static and functional positions is mainly that the latter treat both MIR and the subject as purpose-oriented tools and not, as in the traditional version, as already-structured ontological "given facts". They can then be understood as auxiliary constructs, similar to a skeleton, or perhaps better to scaffolding that serves purposes which are in principle temporary even when the task is of very long duration (life-long). To want to simply abolish either metaphysics or the subject would be an erroneous aim, because everyone uses them, and has to use them, constantly (this would be like trying forbid the use of asymptotes because they cannot be reached), but they can become functional in the described manner. The traditional static metaphysics (ontology) remains of value in its useful range, but probably best with a back-up of working metaphysics (Müller 1998).

[56]
CAUGHT WITHIN EXPERIENCE

For the relation between thinking, subject, and the brain this means that all thinking structures, both for the outside world (eg, objects like brain and brain-functions) and for the internal experience (such as I, subject, self, soul) as well as the split (the difference) between them, are built within ongoing experience – and remain there. To talk about mind-independent reality can help in thinking, but one ought to acknowledge that it is fiction.

[57]
Simultaneity is one of the means which can help to study the connection between subjective and objective events ("time" and "space" are also our conceptual tools). One can for instance conclude that there is such a connection on the basis of "public" reports of one’s "private" visual activity. It is correlated (for instance "in time") with activity in the retina, subcortial, and cortical structures, as they are "publicly" demonstrable with help of electro-physiological tracings or with various types of functional scans of brain activity. The simultaneity (of "publicly subjective" with "publicly objective") is one of the methods at our disposal.

[58]
But the subjective ongoing experience (and thus "thinking", "consciousness") remains inevitably different from structured public and also private events. In particular too is the "published" (verbalized or otherwise formed) subjective report not identical with the momentary presently ongoing undivided self-and-nature experience (which is characterized by its encompassing, not formed aspect, although it uses forms as tools). At the same time we remain, and all science remains, caught, within our bootstrap operation and the tools which are built upon it, within this encompassing experience. It is the only starting and reference point, and this cannot be changed by anything.

The resulting impossibility of explaining the mind by something else produces conceptual problems which are sometimes referred to as the "riddle of consciousness". The main practical point is that one needs to change thinking habits, from static metaphysics to working metaphysics.

The present description of the mind-brain relation is offered for discussion. Due to its central role one may presume that an adequate access to the mind-brain relation question can serve as a criterion for the general value of epistemological views.

----------------------------

REFERENCES

Chalmers David J, The Puzzle of Conscious Experience. Scientific American, 273, December 1995, pp. 80-86.

Crick Francis, The Astonishing Hypothesis. The Scientific Search for the Soul. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1994.

Dawson John W Jr, Gödel and the Limits of Logic. Scientific American, June 1999, p.76-81.

Fraassen Bas van, The sham victory of abstraction. Review of Paul Feyerabend’s posthumous book, Conquest of Abundance, edited by Bert Terpstra, Univ. of Chicago Press. Times Literary Supplement, 23 June 2000, p.10-11. (The quotation is from Feyerabend‘s book, p. 32-33.)

Glasersfeld Ernst von, Knowing without Metaphysics : Aspects of the Radical Constructivist Position. Karl Jaspers Forum, http://www.mcgill.ca/fdg/kjf, Target Article 17, 1991 / 4 May 1999; und Diskussion.

Jaspers Karl, Von der Wahrheit (1947). Pieper, München-Zürich, 1991, for instance Zweite Einleitung, 3c.

Kuhn Thomas S, (1962) The structure of Scientific Revolutions. Second edition 1970, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Merleau-Ponty Maurice, Phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard, 1945, p.381.

Müller Herbert FJ, Is the Mind Real ? Karl Jaspers Forum, http://www.mcgill.ca/fdg/kjf, Target Article 1, 27 Juni 1997; and discussion.

Müller Herbert FJ, Limitations of the Ontological Method. Karl Jaspers Forum, http://www.mcgill.ca/fdg/kjf, Target Article 11, 7 Juli 1998; and discussion.

Müller Herbert FJ, Concept-Dynamics and the History of Reality, Subject, and the Encompassing. Karl Jaspers Forum, http://www.mcgill.ca/fdg/kjf, Target Article 24, 7 Maerz 2000; and discussion.

Nagel Thomas, The View from Nowhere. Oxford University Press, 1986.

Piaget Jean, L'épistémologie génétique. Presses Universitaires de France, 1970-1996

Vaihinger Hans, Die Philosophie des Als Ob, Leipzig: F. Meiner. 1911, 7&8. Aufl. 1922.

Vico Giambattista, De antiquissima Italorum Sapientia (1710). Indici e ristampa anastatica. (ed. Giovanni Adamo). Firenze : Leo S. Olschki, 1998 (I am indebted to Ernst von Glasersfeld for drawing my attemtion to Vico‘s work).

Walther Helmut, Metaphysik gegen GUW (denkunabhaengige Wirklichkeit). Karl Jaspers Forum, http://www.mcgill.ca/fdg/kjf, Target Article 24, Commentary 29, July-August 2000. (I have discussed some of HW’s points in this paper.)

-------------------------

* (translated with a few minor changes from the German original, "Begriffs-Dynamik und die Denk-Gehirn Frage", published in "Aufklärung und Kritik" (Nürnberg), October 2000) (This paper is in KJF as R17 of TA24, pp.114-129. Also availble at

-------------------------

Herbert FJ Müller

Associate Professor of Psychiatry, McGill University.

EEG Department and Memory Clinic, Douglas Hospital, Montreal, QC, Canada, H4H 1R3.