This topic is actually intrinsically wrapped up in the first trait of all mental experiences, which itself is a prelude to controversy, I’m sure. That trait is, again, that all experiences occur unconsciously, even thought or the sense of self. Nothing could be farther from phenomenological reality. No one experiences their own minds as unconscious1. Therefore, it would be proper to explain exactly what I mean by this. I must, therefore, explain a concept related to mental models: the central-self. After going over this, I will introduce mental models.
These are two concepts I came up with long ago. And like the mind-matter theory, it’s a whole lot of speculation without a lot of evidence. Yet, the mind-matter theory depends on it. Why go to all the trouble of defending an enormously complicated construct by creating another enormously complicated construct? Even if it works, it’s a whole lot of speculation based on a whole lot more speculation, which can seriously threaten its merit. People aren’t apt to accepting more complication over parsimony. All I can say in my defense is that I came up with the central-self theory, and hence the mental model concept, way before the mind-matter theory, so this isn’t a case of coming up with a quick fix for a flaw in my theory. That flaw is only there for those who have never heard of the central-self theory or mental models. For me, it was never there to begin with. You see, one thing about coming up with an idea is that the longer you hold onto it and deliberate about it, the more certain you become of it, and moreover, the more common sense it becomes. So, yes, it is a hell of a lot of speculation, but I simply don’t experience it that way. In fact, I figure that the longer one can hold onto a view (all else being equal2), the more likely that view is to be flawless, because the longer you hold onto it, the more likely you are to discover its flaws. I’ve had the theory of the central-self for about 5 or 6 years now.
The impetus for this theory came to me over some confusion about how we human beings could watch catastrophes on the News everyday, live constantly knowing that there exists starvation and war in the world, and generally shrug it off without difficulty, admitting of course that these are horrible tragedies, but nonetheless saying “Whatyagonnado?” For the present purposes, how the central-self theory answers this question is not important, although I will inevitably have to show you how (which will implore me to express a disclaimer when I do). The theory explains one of the greatest dilemmas of the social sciences: are they genuine science? Furthermore, it even goes as far as explaining the route of this dilemma, which is probably the greatest problem for psychology (the route of all social sciences): what is the link between mind and matter? Now, I know my mind-matter theory attempts to answer this, but despite what you might think, the central-self theory makes an opposite statement: the gap can’t be explained.
I say that psychology is the route of all social sciences, and likewise that the mind-matter paradox is the route to the “genuine science dilemma”, for the following reason. All social sciences study phenomena after people, whereas the natural sciences study phenomena before people. Putting this another way, natural phenomena, unlike social phenomena, exists independently of people. In fact, social phenomena are necessarily reduced to natural phenomena. Therefore, I describe the relationship as nature coming before people, and social things coming after people, in the casual stream of things. But what is it that causes this transition? People? Yes, but what about people? The fact that people have consciousness! Somehow, it seems, nature built our biology such that conscious awareness would evolve, and thereafter all social phenomena arose. And it is psychology that takes on the task of studying the phenomenon right at this junction between nature and society (therefore, it might even be said that psychology is neither a natural nor a social science, but either a meta-natural or para-social science). But any behaviorist would tell you that the key difficulty with studying this phenomenon is that it fails to satisfy one of the most stringent criteria of the sciences: empirical observation. Consciousness, unfortunately, is not an objective object for all to see and agree upon. Oh, yes, it is very observable to the beholder, but that makes it only private, not public. Can psychology, therefore, be deemed a genuine science? This matter is actually quite controversial, and personally, I’m partial to the “yes” faction.
So you can see how psychology may be the route study of all social sciences, but how does this make the mind-matter dilemma the route of the “genuine science” problem? I mean, conceivable, one could contrive a philosophical explanation to resolve the mind-matter paradox, yet leave the property of subjectivity of consciousness to be a perpetual thorn in psychology’s side. This is where the central-self theory jumps in. It suggests that if we knew what links mind to matter, we would have ourselves something empirical to directly evince the nature, and existence, of consciousness. Here’s how it works: Where in the entire universe can an arrow point? Anywhere, right? Why not? But can it point at itself? Well, I’ll even permit the arrow to be infinitely flexible such that it can point anywhere on its own body. Still, it will never point at its own tip. So too with conscious awareness. We are like the arrow, our bodies and mind like the tail and head of the arrow, but our very consciousness is like the tip-it can’t be directed onto itself. Just as the arrow can point to any part of its body, we can look at any part of our own body, our mind or thoughts inclusively. This entails a multitude of implications, but first a bit of digression.
Why do I consider consciousness to be like the tip? That is, why not the whole head. Well, for one thing, you could snip off sections of the arrow, its tail, the ends of its head, and it would still be one and the same arrow. However, snip off the tip, and it is no longer a functional arrow. Similarly, I consider the self to be nothing less that what it is no matter how much physical, or even mental, appendages you severe. The only condition under which you can cease to exist is if your consciousness is extinguished. For this reason, I also think of the tip of the arrow as the arrow; the rest is simply a physical representation of itself just so we can visualize it. It is only the tip that makes possible its function of indicating direction or pointing. Another bit of reasoning behind this is that whatever point the arrow may be directed at, it is always directed at it as it moves closer to it until the tip passes it. But I also consider consciousness to be similar to an arrow’s tip in the sense that it has no dimensions. The only dimension I consider consciousness to exist in is time. It has no spatial breadth at all, and moreover it may not even exist in any point in space whatsoever. Thus, if we take any one moment in time, consciousness exists there at a single point. If we think of the whole human organism as consisting of body, mind, and self, it is the self that is at center of the whole apparatus. Self and consciousness are synonymous in this sense, for one is completely dependent on the other for existence. Furthermore, in order for body to produce mind, it must use consciousness as the medium. Therefore, the gap between mind and body is consciousness, or the self, and since this self is at center, I refer to it as the central-self, the solution to the mystery between mind and matter.
But is this a solution, really? Well, I can say it is, but I don’t have to say that this solution is necessarily conceivable. That is, what it means to understand this solution, is to understand what the self is. What are you, that you call yourself a “self”? What exactly is consciousness that you call yourself this? Why can’t we explain or conceptualize something that we are so close to that it feels necessary that we should be able to explain or conceptualize it?
This problem has to do with the problem of knowledge that many-a-philosopher like Lock, Kant, Hume and many others have grappled with. It also has to do with the function of the arrow, and what this translates to in terms of consciousness in our analogy. In our analogy, the function of the arrow is simply what it does: it points. So by correspondence, the function of the self is what consciousness does: to be conscious of things. And in order to do this, it must be able to behold whatever it wants to be conscious of, just as the arrow must point to whatever it wants to point at. But as we said, the arrow can not point at itself, and likewise consciousness can not be conscious of itself for the same reason: it is not observable to itself. This is similar to the Lockian tabula rasa, which says that in order for anything to be written on the blank slate called the mind, it must pass through the senses, and even if we consider the introspective eye as a sense, none of our senses can detect consciousness. Introspection can perceive thoughts and images, but I wouldn’t exactly equate these with the essence of bare consciousness. I would equate these with the activity of consciousness, that is to be conscious of things-in this scenario, to think of things-but I wouldn’t say that this sheds any insight onto what consciousness consists of.
So if we could empirically see the central-self just as we do physical reality, we would also be looking at the link between mind and body. This serves to justify, I hope, why the mind-matter dilemma is the route of the “genuine science” dilemma. In brief, as the link between mind and body, consciousness is not even conceivable, let alone empirically verifiable, and so psychology, with this as its main subject matter, is not a genuine science (which I contend with).
More needs to be said on the connection of the first trait of all experiences, the unconsciousness-of-experience, with this conclusion. When we say that consciousness is inconceivable to itself, it is like saying consciousness is unconscious of itself. I don’t mean exactly this though. It would be more accurate to say that consciousness is unconscious of what its own self is. It knows that it exists, but not through directly experiencing itself. How, then, does it know? I would speculate in the same way Descarte found out. It’s a very simple matter of logic: I think, therefore I am. Once the central-self comes to the realization that it exists, that it is a real person in the world, it has also come to realize that it has consciousness simply because this is just another way of saying the same thing as itself exists. Don’t presume too quickly that people are born with self-awareness. The concept of self could be a realization that one comes to very early on in life, due to the simplicity of understanding and realizing it. Don’t presume too quickly either that a simple cognitive schema such as the self that we acquire so early in life is one and the same schema as the more complex concept of “conscious awareness” that only some adults, and only the brightest philosophers, comprehend so thoroughly. When we speak of “conscious awareness”, we use a mental representation of the concept that we have created only in our more mature stages of development. The point I’m getting at, though, is that whether we’re talking about an embryonic idea of self or a sophisticated and complex one, neither of them are genuine perceptions of consciousness. Rather, they are mental representations, pictures or something similar that we make up in our heads in order to get the best conception of it that we can. These are mental models: constructs in our minds that we create that represent to the best of our ability an inconceivable entity. Other mental models include: infinity, transcendental realities, fourth dimensions, death, etc. Of course, we can never quite achieve a perfect mental model since they represent inconceivable entities (otherwise we wouldn’t need them).
So then what is it about our minds that are mental models? Pretty much everything. But at the same time, pretty much nothing. If the real question is “What mental experiences in our minds are really nothing but mental models?” I’d have to say none of them. All the experiences we have, emotion, sensation, and thought, are as real as they feel to be. But the key word there is “feel”, because if the question is phrased “What experiences that we think of are mental models?” instead of “What experiences that we feel…” then I’d have to say there is not one experience in our heads that escapes the status of just a mental model. You have to realize that out of the whole collection of experiences in our minds, thought is just another one among them. So if we want to think about our own experiences, this thinking experience, although it is about other experiences, is not felt the same way as they are. But can’t we still know about them? In a manner of speaking, yes, but such knowledge would not contain the essential qualitative aspect of the experience that defines it as what it really is. Because such knowledge would be thought, it could only possess the qualitative aspect of thought and nothing else. In other words, you could say such knowledge attempts to describe other experiences, but comes up short. In it, we can bring up a whole slew of factual points about other experiences such as “anger is unpleasant,” “vision is the most opaque sensory experience,” “thoughts can be broken down into memories, fantasies, and factual statement,” “sexual attraction is a pleasurable but longing feeling,” etc. However, because the experiences these statements are about are not being felt3, nor do these statements actually shed any light on what the experiences they are about feel like, they can only act as a representation of them, or in other words, as mental models.
It’s almost like we’re robots inside our own heads. That is, when analyzing the mind, we are quite capable of tuning out all subjective influences our own minds might have on us, and treating the subject matter as logically and rationally as possible. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, this means we must forgo all appreciation for what experiences really are. That’s not to say that we don’t understand what we’re talking about when analyzing mental content, because mental models are still thoughts, still experiences containing their own unique sense of meaning and sense that is. But should you try to empathize or “feel” for someone else in a moment of sorrow, you will have no other reaction than that of a cold and distant robot. That was how I figured the central-self theory resolved the confusion over why we have so much trouble sympathizing for people in catastrophic situations. Kind of dreary, eh?
Well, that’s why I thought I should state a disclaimer. Now-a-days I believe there are several other ways of sympathizing, ways that don’t exactly require directly experiencing another’s pain and agony. For example, having been through similar experience yourself, witnessing others in like situations could foment old feelings. The psychological mechanism responsible for this doesn’t even require full blown memories, just as long as the feelings you once experienced are recalled. Another mechanism might be more basic, or biological. Perhaps evolution molded us such that whenever we observe the suffering of others, automatic mechanisms in the brain get triggered resulting in feelings of sympathy. Whatever the dynamics, however, both the possibility of these examples and the implications offered by the central-self theory must play a roll, for even though human beings are quite capable of deep care, at other times more could be given, and I think the central-self theory is quite a plausible insight as to the reasons why this is not already so.
Before closing on this topic, there is one more loose end I wish to tie up. How could the central-self theory be reconciled with the mind-matter theory? I mean, on the one hand, consciousness is hopelessly beyond explanation, but on the other, it has already been done by the theory of mind and matter. The answer is simple. When you read throughout all my papers, ideas, and long elaborations on the theory of mind and matter, remember that all the while I am not showing you what consciousness is, but creating in front of your eyes just a very complex and novel mental model. And although the logical interweaving of it is consistent and intellectually satisfying, it only tries to explain the gap, but nothing can truly unravel the mystery of what mind consists of.
1. In another paper of mine, I make it clear that it is important to distinguish what one experiences from what is fact.
2. “All else being equal” means, in this context, everyone is equally clear headed, intelligent, and free from bias.
3. Even if they are being felt, these statements still exist as thoughts, and the way either thoughts or other experiences are felt has no baring on each other.
