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The View From Nowhere
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IntroductionScience uses the scientific method, an objective approach to discovering the "How's" of nature. This objective method provides a distance and detachment from the subject that removes any personal prejudices and biases the observer may have. This method has proved invaluable in the pursuit of knowledge.
However, Nagel says not all of reality is best viewed objectively. For example, the objective approach cannot adequately analyze the effect of subjective consciousness. Materialist and reductionist (objective) approaches to understanding the world are ill equipped to understand consciousness or the subjective "I" and, therefore, have a tendency to dismiss both as meaningless and irrelevant.
But . . .
"Both the content of an objective view and its claims to completeness are inevitably affected by the attempt to combine it with the view from where we are."
The subjective view of reality cannot be ignored because it has real world effects on such concepts as perception of the external world, morality, freedom, the self, the meaning of life, and even knowledge. Not all of reality is objective reality.
"The subjectivity of consciousness is an irreducible feature of reality." Therefore, a truly complete understanding of the world demands not only an objective understanding of reality but a subjective one too.
(I think Nagel is saying subjective consciousness, no matter how much we try to eliminate it from our objective view, affects the way we see and understand things, and therefore must be taken into account to truly understand reality. Again, not all reality is objective reality.)
But how to do this?
Nagel doesn't know, but he has some ideas.
First, it cannot be done from a materialistic and reductionist perspective because subjective consciousness defies reductionism. Subjective consciousness, the "I" in our heads, cannot be explained by breaking down the brain into its basic constituent parts and then putting them back together again. When dealing with subjective consciousness, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Another method is needed to analyze the mind.
Nagel is not a Descartes dualist, and attempts to dismiss him as a creationist won't work, either, because he has a long history as an atheist who challenges the scientific community to ante up or fold. He believes too many assumptions about subjective consciousness are being passed off as facts by the scientific community. Scientism is masquerading as science when it comes to theory of the mind.
"At its most myopic it assumes that everything there is must be understandable by the employment of scientific theories like those we have developed to date -- physics and evolutionary biology are the current paradigms -- as if the present age were not just another in the series."
This dovetails nicely with Paul Feyerabend's argument that science has become too dogmatic, too resistant to new ideas or ideas that contradict current theories. (See Against Method). Dogmatic thinking holds us back.
I'm looking forward to Nagel making his case.
I think I get it, at least to some degree. But I need to ask you about that last passage you quoted, because immediately after that he says: 'Precisely because of their dominance (referring to scientism), these attitudes are ripe for attack. Of course...Too much time is wasted because of the assumption that methods already in existence will solve problems for which they were not designed; too many hypotheses and systems of thought in philosophy and elsewhere are based on the bizarre view that we, at this point in history, are in possession of the basic forms of understanding needed to comprehend anything.
I believe that the methods needed to understand ourselves do not yet exist. So this book contains a great deal of speculation about the world and how we fit into it. (9-10)'
Now, I understand that he wants to attack the certainty of scientism and/or justify his speculative approach, but to postpone understanding of ourselves into some point in the future seems...I don't know, it just doesn't seem right. Sounds too much like the abstract and non-sensical ideals of "'development" and "progress". It could be simply that he didn't think closely about the single word "yet" that I am contending with, but if it is a sincere part of his program, I would like to understand better what is meant by that.
If he were to say that the methods simply do not exist, not now and not ever, I would be more comfortable with that. But waiting for some accident or a golden-age of understanding is not my cup of tea.
Also, while I am generally in agreement about reconciling both internal and external views, or subjective and objective approaches, but when he says that 'the question is how to combine objective and subjective values in the control of a single life,' (8) do you also get the feeling that he is endorsing some kind of individualist project? That the task of reconciling subjective and objective has to be accomplished by the individual him/herself? Because wouldn't this project be easier if it were inter-subjective or interpersonal from the start? Each person's subjective would be the ideal for the other's objective. In other words, A's objective approach would not only try to understand B's subjectivity, but would also remind B of A's own subjective-ness. If that makes sense.
To illustrate this, I can use Thomas Nagel's own imagery of 'reality as a set of concentric spheres, progressively revealed as we detach ourselves from the contingencies of the self. (5)'
If we move from out and away from our own self into distant spheres that mark "reality", wouldn't we contend with the other as they, too, make that same movement and meet us out in this common sphere called "the world"?
Perhaps I am misreading all of this, or perhaps I am unnecessarily jumping ahead. I just feel that he should have mentioned the "other" in the introduction itself, if it indeed plays an important role in his approach. If it doesn't, that's another story then.
Ali wrote: "I think I get it, at least to some degree. But I need to ask you about that last passage you quoted, because immediately after that he says: 'Precisely because of their dominance (referring to sc..."
Hey, Ali!
I pretty much spit out to the comment section what I thought Nagel was saying. Except for a parenthetical comment or two, there is little -- very little -- of my personal commentary included. Having said that, I accept your challenge :-) and will attempt to add my thoughts to the issues you raise. But be kind and give me latitude. I make no claims of being a philosopher. I just like to think about these things.
Nagel is attacking scientism in the introduction, but I don't think this is central to his argument, except as background information for what he does intend to attack. Central to his argument is the shortcomings of reductionism as a scientific method for analyzing and understanding subjective consciousness. I suspect it will be reductionism that he attacks at different times, and not scientism itself, while making his argument.
Here is how I understand scientism: scientism occurs when experts in one field pontificate about a field they are not experts in. For example, an evolutionary biologist telling us how the mind works without any actual evidence that it works the way he says it does. He's relying on his credentials rather than science to make his argument. This comes close to the logical fallacy of the Plea to Authority.
But scientism also occurs, and this is what has Nagel all upset, I think, when a claim is made by an expert about something in his own field, and evidence exists to support his claim, but the evidence is insufficient -- too skimpy?, not enough research to feel truly confident? -- to make such a bold claim. For example, elsewhere (Mind and Cosmos) Nagel claims the evidence is too skimpy to make the bold claim that life originates by combining non-living matter, that somehow life pops out of non-life. I think Nagel is saying such insufficiently supported claims are being made about subjective consciousness.
To my way of thinking, the way to handle scientism is to listen to the science and not the scientist. SHOW ME.
Nagel is postponing our understanding, not of ourselves, but of our place in the world/reality because we have no method for determining it. But he believes such a method can be discovered, and I think he spends a good part of the book suggesting how to go about it. If he doesn't do that, or he is unconvincing, then I agree -- it's pie in sky talk. So let's see what he has to say.
Of course, Reductionists would disagree. They would say reductionism is the method and it is only a matter of time before it solves the subjective consciousness conundrum. But that is just another way of saying "YET." So there we have it. Two "YETS" making a claim neither can YET support with evidence.
And, no, I don't think Nagel would agree to an individualist reconciliation of the objective with the subjective. I think he will describe a methodology that attempts to objectively analyze the subjective. My head starts spinning when I think about that. Personally, I agree with you about one person's subjective being another person's objective. I like that, but let's see what Nagel has to say about it.
After doing additional reading and thinking about the introduction some more, I'd like to distill what I think Nagel is saying into more succinct statements. I often do this, write about something, and then do it again after thinking about it more. Unfortunately, my posts are often works in progress.-------------------------
Subjective consciousness is an irreducible feature of reality -- not all reality is objective reality -- and therefore cannot be minimized or dismissed like materialists and reductionists are wont to do. (The dismissal of the subjective by reductionists without sufficient supporting evidence to do so is a kind of scientism.)
There is an internal-external friction between the subjective and objective that we must reconcile if we are ever to truly understand reality. Unfortunately, there is no known method for doing this, so the remainder of this book will be devoted to offering suggestions on how to go about developing such a method.
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Ali wrote: "I think I get it, at least to some degree. But I need to ask you about that last passage you quoted, because immediately after that he says: 'Precisely because of their dominance (ref..."
Dear Xan:
Thank you for your response. And I apologize if what I wrote seemed like an attack/challenge against you. That was inadvertent since my intention was to challenge the author's presentation in his introduction.
And I am not a philosopher either, just a student who, like yourself, likes to think about things. So I am in no position to deliberately give you latitude because we are on the same page.
So yes, let's see how his argument unfolds and take it from there.
Chapter II, The MindCan the mind be objectively understood? How does our particular and personal (subjective consciousness) view of the world fit into an objectively comprehensible world?
Before attempting to answer this question, Nagel gives objectivity its due. Our objective approach to studying the world has been wildly successful in our understanding of it. Nothing in reality has a privileged position relative to anything else. In other words, our perspective of the world does not change even if our position in it does. This provides the stability and continuity we need to navigate reality.
Unfortunately, no matter how successful this approach is in understanding the world, it is incomplete because it comes at the expense of not including our own conscious, personal view of the world.
The problem is that mental phenomena such as perceptions, viewpoints, and ideas are not part of the external world and therefore cannot be analyzed as part of the external world. The existence of our consciousness challenges the idea that the physical world is the only reality -- again, not all reality is objective reality. Since one's inner world (thoughts, ideas, point of view) is not accessible to an objective analysis, how do we fit these mental phenomena into our objective viewpoint. Is it possible?
Nagel suggests we see ourselves as mental beings and not physical beings. We need to generalize the idea of mind, and then take the same approach as we do with the objective physical world -- look at our mental selves, this generalized mind, at a distance detached from ourselves.
Unfortunately Nagel admits to limitations using this method. Generalizing the idea of the mind eliminates those aspects of it that make us who we are as individuals. They are eliminated because they are so subjective and particular to our selves that no part of them can be objectively analyzed. It is not possible to completely understand another person's internal world.
To me this is a huge problem. If our personal consciousness is what gives us our privileged position in the world, and we don't include it in our view of reality, then what about our internal world have we contributed to our objective view of the world that changes it or adds to it?
Part 2 on Friday.
Contrary to the unprivileged, objective view of the world, my personal view is privileged. Everything in the world surrounds me, and I sit at the very center of it all. I experience it, and I experience it differently than others. We reconcile our privileged, subjective view with the unprivileged, objective view, by placing ourselves into the minds of others. This is something self-aware individuals do, and we are particularly good at. "I can feel your pain." "I can see what you are thinking."
We do this even though each individual's thinking, experiences, and point of view is different, and to some extent alien, to our own, by generalizing the mind around what's common between mental experiences. For example, even if you have had an experience I have not had, I can understand your experience, because I know what it is like to experience something similar.
We must do the same with point of view. I may not have your point of view, but I know what it is like to have a point of view, so I know what it is like for you to have a point of view too. And I can generalize this for everyone.
Nagel believes this process of generalization transforms personal experiences into events in the world.
What Nagel doesn't do, and I think he must do, is show us what these events look like and how they fit into the objective view of the world. At this point they seem to be some sort of hybrid event, neither totally objective nor totally subjective.
A point of view has a bias. By generalizing points of view, I think Nagel is suggesting bias is removed from them and they become just more events in the objective world. But that makes no sense to me. How can there exist a point of view without a bias? Isn't bias woven into the very fabric of point of view?
And if, instead, he means bias remains, but perhaps in a more generalized form, then how can points of view be reconciled with an objective view, when the very reason for the objective view is to remove bias (unprivileged)?
Lastly, For each of us, our memories, thoughts, experiences, and point of view have a personal character to them. Our very selves are wrapped up in our experiences and memories. They make us who we are, and I don't see how the one can be separated from the other. I can't help thinking we lose the very thing we are trying to capture by generalizing them and then rolling them up into the larger objective worldview.
Okay, so even though I completed the reading at least a couple of days ago, going from reading to saying something about the reading has felt like a large, overwhelming leap. Nevertheless, I would like to put down a few points that help make TN's argument somewhat navigable. And your overview, Xan, has helped in that regard.TN seems to situate himself against physicalism, a philosophical viewpoint that privileges the physical properties of things in order to understand the world. He explains this in "the physical conception of objectivity" unit:
"It is not the same thing as our idea of what physical reality is actually like, but it has developed as part of our method of arriving at a truer understanding of the physical world, a world that is presented to us initially but somewhat inaccurately through sensory perception. The development goes in stages, each of which gives a more objective picture than the one before..."
The problem with this approach has been that in the search for objectivity, a centerless view cleaned of any secondary qualities is presented as being a true picture of the world as it is. He describes this as a "bleached-out physical conception of objectivity...[which] leaves us with no account of the perceptions and specific viewpoints which were left behind as irrelevant to physics but which seem to exist nonetheless, along with those of other creatures. (14, 15)"
He is also against reductionism:
"The reductionist program that dominates current work in the philosophy of mind is completely misguided, because it is based on the groundless assumption that a particular conception of objective reality is exhaustive of what there is. (16)"
He is also against philosophical idealism - which I see as somewhat synonymous with subjectivism - and he tends to incline towards realism -which I see as somewhat parallel to objectivism. This is visible throughout his writing thus far since he continually refers to "the world as it is".
"It is true that recent developments in physics have led some to believe that it may after all be incapable of providing a conception of what is really there, independent of observation. But I do not wish to argue that since the idea of objective reality has to be abandoned because of quantum theory anyway, we might as well go the whole hog and admit the subjectivity of the mental... (16).
This shows his conviction that subjective and objective need to meet in some middle ground.
He deliberately takes a "scientific" or systematic approach and is bent on accomplishing a "unified conception of the world", which I, being somewhat of an anarchist and absurdist, find a little foolish. But I think it's because he is writing against or is addressing analytic philosophy/philosophers, and he is deliberately taking an approach that would be as inviting to them as possible, while in the meantime also criticizing them. That said, I admire how he says that "there is no reason to assume that the world as it is in itself must be objectively comprehensible, even in an extended sense. Some things can only be understood from the inside, and access to them will depend on how far our subjective imagination can travel...it should not surprise us if objectivity is essentially incomplete. (18)"
I also really admire how he is adamant to not privilege an anthropocentric reality, one that is given only to humans and is only shaped by them. TN takes a right jab at the old Protagorian proverb that man is the measure of all things.
"Though the subjective features of our own minds are at the center of our (emphasized) world, we must try to conceive of them as just one manifestation of the mental in a world that is not given especially to the human point of view (18)."
"We must think of mind as a phenomenon to which the human case is not necessarily central, even though our minds are at the center of our world. The fundamental idea behind the objective impulse is that the world is not our world"
It is because of this impulse to do justice to the "other's" presence in the world, and not only the human other, that we are going through this exercise to at once both extend our "objective understanding to as much of life and the world as we can", and also be aware of the fact that we cannot merely extend our idea of "what is immediately felt into other people's bodies...that will only give you an idea of having feelings in their bodies, not of their bodies having feelings" (20).
I find this fascinating indeed!
And I feel that if someone finds this interesting and worthwhile an exercise, then they should definitely read Emmanuel Levinas's work on intersubjective ethics, Totality and Infinity.
III Mind and BodyPart 1
Nagel recognizes we can't completely remove our subjective character from the objective view. But we still have to reconcile the one with the other. From here Nagel starts to move towards what I consider to be a basic form of Panpsychism.
Nagel rejects the soul as the carrier of mind and consciousness. The soul is incorporeal, and for all we know lacks energy too. We don't even know if it exists. Besides, our minds' relationship with our bodies is quite intimate. A lot of communicating and sharing of information is going on between the two.
So we should look towards the body, and not the soul, as the carrier of mind and consciousness.
There is nothing special about our bodies. They are made out of the same particles as is everything else in the world. It is the arrangement of these particles that makes a body a body and a bookcase a bookcase. So what is special about our bodies' arrangement that gives rise to consciousness? Or is consciousness more prevalent than we think? Certainly it is found in other mammals to a greater or lesser degree. What about lower order animals? Plants? Inorganic matter?
What if the mental and physical are different aspects of a single reality? That at some fundamental level of reality they are separate, but at our level of reality they have merged into a single substance, two aspects of the same reality. In other words, consciousness in some form can be found in all matter.
Nagel calls this Dual-Aspect Theory, but it is also called Dual-Aspect Monism. And it is this monism that seems to me to be completely compatible with Panpsychism, perhaps even its central premise.
We have mental states and brain states, and perhaps they share the same space -- that there is something about the brain's arrangement that permits it to make use of the consciousness aspect of reality, and it is from this that the mind and self arise. The evidence appears to support this. We could lose all or parts of our bodies and still keep our whole selves. But lose part or all of our brains and we lose part or all of our minds and selves.
Nagel detours to the self before returning to this monism idea. The self, ourselves, appears to be an island unto itself. There is the Cartesian theater about it: the illusion that the self, this separate mental entity, sits in a control room observing all that is happening and giving orders to the body to do this and that by pulling levers and pushing buttons. There doesn't appear to be any direct connection between the objective world and this self.
Should Nagel have discussed this before attempting to reconcile the subjective with the objective world?
End Part 1
Part 2 Friday.
Part 2I don't have that much to add.
Nagel explains the difference between contingent features and intrinsic phenomenological features. Physical objects like tables, rocks, trees, and us have contingent features like shape and location, while we, in addition to our physical being, have phenomenological features like pain, which, as far as we know, are not intrinsic to physical objects. Many physical objects don't have phenomenological experiences.
Nagel also toys with the idea of the mental being supervenient to the physical, but he isn't ready to buy into panpsychism yet. In fact, he criticizes it, and his criticisms have to be addressed.
First, Panpsychism has the feel of a theory invented in the metaphysics lab. It explains what can't be explained: how the mental exists in a physical world?
Panpsychism sounds nice; it fills the gaping holes in the dual-aspect theory, but where's the beef? As molecular biologists are fond of saying, where's the evidence?
Second, even if the mental and physical are two aspects of a shared reality, how are the particles arranged to give consciousness to us but not to a rock? How do we account for that?
Still, I don't see Nagel dismissing Panpsychism outright, because he has nothing better to replace it with. It may just be a matter of finding methods that can explore and explain this dual reality.
IV The Objective SelfThis should be interesting. Kierkegaard is turning over in his grave.
Nagel returns to the subjective consciousness he tried to generalize into the objective worldview back in chapter 2. Here he tackles the seeming contradiction of an objective world containing subjective view points -- the particular person you are with a particular point of view (pov).
An objective world is centerless. No object holds a position of privilege over another. But if I am an object in this world, and I am, then how can my pov exist, when, if it exists, it must exist in this objective, centerless world?
To fully understand the difficulty I (and you) present to the world, one must understand the power, wonder, and mystery of the self. How can I be me? What does it mean to be myself and not be someone else? Why is there a me and a you, when other objects like rocks have neither?
"It isn't easy to absorb the fact that I am contained in the world at all. It seems outlandish that the centerless universe, in all its spatiotemporal immensity, should have produced me, of all people -- and produced me by producing TN (Thomas Nagel). There was no such thing as me for ages, but with the formation of a particular physical organism at a particular place and time, suddenly there is me, for as long as the organism survives. In the objective flow of the cosmos this subjectively (to me!) stupendous event produces hardly a ripple. How can the existence of one member of one species have this remarkable consequence?"
How do we fit this "locus of consciousness," this self, into an objective universe? If the world is centerless, how can there be a pov? How can there be many povs? This is a contradiction.
"If the world as a whole really doesn't have a particular point of view, how can one of its inhabitants have the special property of being me (and having a pov)."
Unfortunately, in my opinion, TN expresses much greater clarity in posing the problem and its relation questions, than he does in answering any of them.
A discussion follows about the true self and other selves that I admit to not understanding. Yet somehow it is supposed to address the contradiction. It ens up sounding to me like TN himself has been hatching theories in the ye ol' metaphysics lab. So I gladly leave the explaining to anyone with a better understanding of this than I.
TN does get back to abstracting the generalized self out of the subjective self. He says you achieve this by "treating the individual experiences of that person as data for the construction of an objective picture. In other words, he throws the person, say, himself, TN, into the world in the middle of everything else and then asks "what the world must be like from no particular point of view in order to appear to himself as it does from his point of view."
It is a better man than I who can decipher that. Me? I'm going to 7-Eleven and buy a slurpy. After this my brain needs some freezing, and nothing freezes my brain like a slurpy.
As far as I'm concerned the conundrum I raised back chapter 2 is still alive and well. See above. Even TN admits this is an idealized approach, and it depends a lot on personal experiences, which are not objective. A personal pov is embedded in all experiences.
TN thinks if we by-passed our sense filters and just mainlined input into our nerves, we could somehow achieve a centerless view from our pov. I say nonsense. Even if we could by-pass our senses -- an awful thought -- there is more to the self and its point of view than our senses. Interpretation, reflection, and imagination are three features of our mind not sense related and yet have great influence on our point of view.
"The conception of the world that seems to leave no room for me is a familiar one that people carry around with them most of the time. It is a conception of the world as simply existing, seen from no particular perspective..." (56)."One acute problem of subjectivity remains even after points of view and subjective experiences are admitted to the real world - after the world is conceded to be full of people with minds, having thoughts, feelings..." (54)
"Each of us is the subject of various experiences, and to understand that there are other people in the world as well, one must be able to..." (20).
In statements like these and many others going back to the very first sentence of the book: "This book is about a single problem: how to combine the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an objective view of that same world..." (3), TN, is his attempt to come to a deliberately non-metaphysical merger of the 'subjective' and the 'objective', refers continually to this phenomenon: "the world". But what exactly is it, of that TN says nothing. He does say something about "the self", of which I am not entirely convinced but will try to go over that section again, but so far I have not seen him grapple with or supply some kind of description/explanation of this "the world" that he refers.
And it is all the more necessary, I feel, if it is supposed to be a centerless world without anyone having a privileged vantage point. Wouldn't saying that it is centerless allow me, in the very next instant, to collapse the categories of "self" and "the world", which would automatically solve the problem for me?
If it is centerless, then I can subscribe to a Zen Buddhist or Daoist conception of the universe and these two constructs, and I can spend the rest of my days in unitary harmony, without having to struggle with the problems of analytic philosophy.
And according to Zen, it is virtuous to freeze your brain. So...where's my Slurpy?
Sorry for being a day late. I think from this point on, I'll post once a day, each post covering a section of the book. And I want you to know that I write this with Slurpy in hand.Knowledge
Having discussed at some length the need to somehow capture the objective part of the subjective mind -- a neat trick -- TN now dives into how we can know if objective knowledge is truly objective. Another neat trick.
The trick is to detach ourselves from ourselves and view the world from a distance irrespective of pov. But, as TN admits, we can never completely divorce ourselves from our perspective, our point of view. No matter how hard we try to detach ourselves, some part of us will always remain tethered to our point of view. So what to do?
One approach is to apply tried and true skepticism. TN acknowledges a tight coupling between skepticism and objective knowledge. He reaches deep into his philosopher's toolkit and pulls out Descartes' method. We should doubt everything we observe and apply the rules of skepticism until we can show to our satisfaction the epistemological truth of what we are observing.
But here's the problem. Descartes' method is founded upon a God of good intentions. God is the foundation upon which all doubt and reason are based. That all doubt and reason are founded upon something that defies reasoning is problematic.
And we encounter the same kind of problem when we apply skepticism to our observations regarding a pov. All our doubt and reason are founded to some degree upon our point of view, and what is subjective is not objective.
Still, doubt is a powerful tool. It provides us with the rigor we need to rely "less and less on particular aspects of our point of view" (but can never eliminate completely). So, for all its limitations, skepticism is still useful, even necessary, in arriving at an objective view of the world. "[A] pervasive skepticism . . . is suitable in light of our evident limitations."
The best we can do is a kind of "self transformation," and that is to "form a detached idea of the world that includes us, and includes our possession of that conception as part of what it enables us to understand about ourselves."
Still, there is a flaw in this argument, I think, and that is that we can never completely detach ourselves from our subjective selves. No matter how useful skepticism is as a tool for revealing the objective world, it is always hobbled by a point of view that we can never rid ourselves of.
Tomorrow -- Self transcendence.
Not crazy about Slurpies, but I enjoy reading your posts.
Self-TranscendenceAn alternative method for determining the (truth of the) objective world. Any self-transcendent conception of reality must explain
1. What this world we live in is really like,
2. What we are really like,
3. Why do we see parts of our world as they are and other parts as they are not,
4. How do we arrive at such a conception. (TN suggests philosophers almost never do this one.)
Number 3 could be problematic. Is that a factual statement or an assumption? If it is the latter, then the assumption biases the results. Also, it is dependent on the results of #1 (and maybe #2).
Having said that, I think the kind of thing TN has in mind in #3 is primary (as it is) and secondary (as it isn't) properties of objects. For example, color is a secondary property because color is partially contingent on the environment in which the object exists. An object's color might change as it moves from sun to shade. However the object's shape (property as it is) is intrinsic, independent of environment. If it is rectangular, it is always rectangular.
TN claims understanding (truth?) has a hierarchal structure. Each level of the hierarchy inherits the properties of the levels below it as well as adds some new knowledge not known to the lower levels. At the apex of this hierarchy sits true (perfect?) understanding, which here I think means true objectivity. Each level has a greater understanding of reality than the levels below it. This is where the transcendence occurs. We transcend levels of understanding on our journey to perfection. Sounds a little Zen.
The trigger for creating a new level is an unsatisfactory explanation of reality at the current highest level. As long as the current level provides adequate understanding of the objective world, everything remains unchanged. But as soon as we come across something the highest level cannot adequately explain, we must construct a new level. The contents of that new level includes the properties of the lower levels plus new knowledge (properties), not known to the lower levels, that provide a satisfactory new explanation.
For example, if a new level is needed to satisfactorily explain a color change, that new level will not only inherit properties from its lower levels, but also add new knowledge needed to explain what the lower level couldn't explain. Perhaps how each color has a light wavelength, and how that wavelength changes as the object moves from sun to shade is the new piece of knowledge needed to derive a new satisfactory explanation. Another excellent example TN supplies is the difference between Newtonian mechanics and Relativity and between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Relativity includes Newtonian Mechanics plus additions and changes. It sits at a higher level of reality.
I could go on and on about this, as TN does, but I think it's time to bring this back home. This is a powerful method of organizing the world in which we live. But the question remains is this how the word is organized? Is it possible we have organized the world in a way that works for us yet has nothing to do with the way the world is actually organized? I think a good argument can be made that, since our organization of the world reflects how the world works, our organization is the actual way the world is organized. But none of this comes with 100% certainty.
But let's say we are better off with an inaccurate organization that accurately reflects the workings of the world than with no explanation at all. Fine. This still doesn't address the basic problem that no matter how we slice and dice this we still have a subjective point of view rampaging through our neatly organized world.
So is the question here, perhaps incorporating all four elements 1-4, that there is a legitimate search for an integrated view of the relationship between one self (pov/subjective) and on the other hand, things (objective? world). Let's for sake of argument say that it is a legitimate pursuit and that we can hope to have this higher level of understanding (the example of Quantum Mechanics) then I suspect we need to have a concept that is incorporates fully what it is to be a human being in this world (Dasein type of thing with Heidegger, throwness? Or Sartre's Being For Itself etc) and involves genuine free will and consciousness, aligned with the Natural Science's views of the world.
Somehow a purely subjective approach doesn't capture the stark reality of a world which does not bend to our will (there is an objective world and contemporary psychology/neuroscience says quite clearly that we are creating a reality that helps us understand this world) and too much objectivity (we are merely the products of evolution/Scientism etc) does not explain what it is to be a human being in this world, with moral choices and so on. A view which, arguably, diminishes what it is to be a fully functioning human.
It appears to me at least, that to fulfil Nagel's criteria, we need something of both. What that theory is, that higher level of understanding, hmmm? Over to you!
Ha! Welcome Jack. Have you read the book?I think that is the question, and I think you nail it when you suggest what is missing is an understanding of what it means to be human in the world. I don't think TN gives that all he's got. He seems more interested in protecting his flank from possible attacks from materialists and reductionists. He is better at asking questions than answering them, but to be fair he's come right out and said he doesn't have answers only suggestions.
Perhaps my problem is he spends, to my way of thinking, too much time trying to fit us into an objective world by minimizing or eliminating from that world that which makes us unique. The objective dominates the subjective.
Does an objective self exist? And if it does, is it separable from the larger self? He seems to think so. I'm not so sure the answer is yes to either question. (I do, however, think we are capable of making effective analytical decisions about our world.)
I would think that somehow our subjective being needs to be merged into an objective world without our losing that which makes us unique: our pov, our identity, our experiences. Otherwise what's the point? What distinguishes us from a rock? At the same time, if we are successful merging, then what is it we have?
Perhaps what we should be exploring and explaining is how it is a subjective consciousness can navigate objective reality without falling over itself. I suspect evolution has a lot to do with that. I think TN is on to something when he says not all reality is objective reality. But he hasn't done anything more than state that up to this point. He hasn't shown how the objective and non-objective parts work together.
Hi Xan, not read this particular text, but have ordered it. I’ve read other book by Nagel.I will have a read of the text itself, from what you have written it has got my interest piqued.
I would agree, and I think the view that all encompassing Scientism is sufficient to explain everything is deficient in the extreme!
Evolutionary Epistemology"Because self-understanding is at the heart of objectivity, the enterprise faces serious obstacles. The pursuit of objective knowledge requires a much more developed conception of the mind than we now possess . . . It requires that we come to understand the operations of our minds from a point of view that is not just our own." Or an objective view of our subjective point of view.
What's being described above, I think, is very much like something each of our subjective consciousnesses experiences in every day life. Every time we observe ourselves thinking and doing and take notes and self-correct we are transcending ourselves -- there is this meta-me (the transcendent me) who observes myself from a detached, dispassionate point of view -- an objective view of our subjective selves. I think you all know what I'm talking about. Perhaps this meta-me is the best evidence there is of an objective self?
This meta-me has many unsupported evolutionary explanations. TN warns of "evolutionary hand waving," that ability we all have of using the theory of evolution to explain away things without actually explaining anything.
Having said that, TN will now embark on a journey through evolutionary theory explaining along the way why it doesn't explain our advanced cognitive abilities or our "selves." I strongly recommend reading this section in its entirety. Talk about taking the path less traveled.
Evolutionary theory is a partial explanation for why we are what we are. It explains how selection chooses one path among many but does not explain the paths itself. In other words, "it may explain why creatures with vision and reason will survive, but it does not explain how vision or reason are possible."
We are capable of deep reasoning, of developing sophisticated mathematical proofs, of developing complex abstractions, and of understanding how the world functions at the sub-atomic level. Given the high premium placed on survival as a selection criterium, how does evolution explain any of this? Use skepticism to think about this.
No, something else is afoot, and it is here that TN questions whether all selection, all adaptations, have Darwinian explanations. There are more than a few heads turning in excess of 360 degrees.
"Why not take the development of the human intellect as a probable counter example to the law that natural selection explains everything, instead of forcing it under the law with improbable speculations unsupported by the evidence? We have here one of those powerful reductionist dogmas which seem to be part of the intellectual atmosphere we breathe."
Of course TN doesn't offer an alternative. He admits to having no alternative theory but also suggests that our cognitive abilities are so advanced over other creatures' abilities and so defining of who we are that they must be necessary or they wouldn't exist. If so, then to the extent evolutionary theories fall short of adequately explaining our advanced cognitive skills, they must be wrong. I see another level in the making :)
I must be enjoying this, My summaries are becoming longer than the chapters I'm summarizing.
RationalismTN considers himself a rationalist. Knowledge is acquired a priori because there is a logical structure to knowledge that reason can navigate. So, what about experience? It's very important but selective. Chance plays a role in what we observe, and since observation leads to knowledge, each of us will have knowledge others don't have. But our vast reservoir of knowledge should converge as we acquire more and more of it a priori. Thus our shared understanding of reality.
I don't have a lot more to say about Rationalism, or rather TN doesn't, except this: the other day I speculated that for beings with subjective consciousnesses we do quite well navigating an objective world, and we need to understand why. Well here is what TN has to say about that.
When we use our minds to think about reality, we are not, I assume, performing an impossible leap from inside ourselves to the world outside. We are developing a relation to the world that is implicit in our mental and physical makeup, and we can do this only if there are facts we do not know which account for the possibility.
I think he's pretty much saying what I said, which kind of makes me feel good. I didn't peak, honest.
See you next chapter.
Thought and RealityRealism
Realism: the world exists independently of our minds.
But TN goes further and suggests the world extends beyond the reach of our minds, and therefore beyond what we can know is in it and beyond what we can conceive is in it. In other words, there are parts of the world that are inconceivable to us. The reality we know is different from true reality.
(Surely our cognitive abilities are limited and, therefore, unaware of all of reality. We can only sense that which our sense organs can sense. Our ability to perceive the world is limited to what we can sense and what we can reason about what we can sense and experience. This in turn limits what we can conceive. We assume we sense and perceive all of reality, but how valid is that assumption?
It would cause us great trouble if our minds failed to grasp and recognize those things about reality that affected us, but we could get by quite comfortably not knowing of the existence of the parts of reality that don't affect us.)
If the purpose of objectivity is to improve our understanding of reality, but there are parts of reality that are inaccessible and inconceivable to us, what does that do to objectivity? Or as TN puts it, how can we reconcile the world as it really is (true reality) with the world that is revealed to us (the reality we know)?
TN contends that Human objectivity may be able to grasp only part of the world, but when it is successful it should provide us with an understanding of aspects of reality whose existence is completely independent our capacity to think about them -- as independent as the existence of things we can't conceive. Hmmm . . . and how are we to do this?
One way to achieve this is by slowly gaining knowledge through sensing, perceiving, and conceiving. We've pretty much been doing that since we fell out of trees. As explained in the previous chapter, we have the capacity to increase our understanding of the world by adding new levels to our hierarchy of knowledge as we learn new things. But we can never understand that which we cannot sense, perceive, or conceive.
Next: Idealism.
IdealismIdealists believe reality is inseparable from what we can sense, perceive, or conceive, and we cannot conceive of that which we do not know of or understand. "What cannot be thought of makes no sense," Attempts to do so "run up against boundaries set by the conditions of the possibility of thought." In other words, realists are wrong. Nothing exists beyond what we sense, perceive, and conceive -- to think otherwise is to think nonsense.
TN dismisses the idealist's claim with a simple argument. Suppose there existed another species on earth very much like our own, except they are blind and deaf. Having never experienced colors and sounds, this species could never conceive of color and sound. Yet our species would know color and sound existed. Now take this one step further. If colors and sounds exist beyond the blind and deaf's ability to detect and conceive of them, then we can imagine there being parts of reality that exist beyond the limits of our species's ability to detect and conceive of them. Thus, the existence of things is independent of a mind's ability to conceive of them.
So how far can we go in understanding the parts of reality our minds cannot reach? If we can understand it at all, we can probably do it by using that hierarchy again, this time a hierarchy of conceptions. The trick is finding the something new we need to add to an existing level to create a new, higher level of conception. One possibility is discovery. A new discovery might be the something new needed to create a new, higher level of conception, and extend our understanding of reality.
Yet it is still likely that there are concepts beyond the reach of our cognitive abilities to understand, and no discovery will change that. Is quantum mechanics an example? Can we observe it but never understand it? Sometimes, to this non-physicist, it seems so.
Looks like I went on vacation, and the the posts have been piling up in my absence. I don't know where I'll find the time to answer them all, so why don't I just ignore them and get on with it . . . Kant versus Strawson
(Now you know why I went on vacation.)
Kant's position on thought and reality is we can only know things as they appear to us and never as they actually are. Strawson objects. He believe things appear to us in a certain way at a particularly time -- possibly meaning particular frame of mind? -- and that appearance can change over time or with changing frame of mind. "the world that now appears to me in one way might come, as a result of procedures or corrective revision, to appear to me or to others like me in another way . . ."
In other words, Strawson rejects the notion that our "conceptual scheme" can't correspond with reality, while at the same time rejecting the idea that that same scheme must always correspond to reality. (Corrective action is not specified. Guess you have to read Strawson.)
Of course Nagel agrees and disagrees with both. He agrees with Strawson that we can know things as they truly are but agrees with Kant that there are also things we cannot know as they truly are because they transcend appearance and human conceptions.
So do we have a little bit of idealism mixed in with our realism?
Nagel goes on to explain his disagreements with Kant and Strawson. I'm not summarizing that, partly because it has already been done (primary versus secondary qualities of objects), and partly because I don't think any of it brings us any closer to what Nagel is trying to accomplish.
I think Nagel's point about living in a world that contains things we can know of, things we can conceive of but cannot know, and things we cannot conceive of, cannot know, and yet still exist, is the following:
"this acknowledgement of the likelihood [of our mind's] limits should be built into our conception of reality . . . It may be partly or largely incomprehensible to us not just because we lack the time or technical capacity to acquire a full understanding of it, but because of our nature . . . The world is not dependent on our view of it, or any other view."
Next: Freedom
I wonder then given Nagel’s position and when he wrote the book ( I have the book now and am reading it) whether we now need to look at these questions, such as Kant’s phenomena vs noumena, rational vs empirical and Strawson’s less skeptical view, through contemporary notions of neuro-science, e.g how we actually perceive the universe around us. It appears, rather like Kant’s view in fact, that our brains are constantly reorganising the reality around us to make sense of it, we are reality making machines, and there is a world there but it is one which would make no sense if we didn’t have these in-built capacities to comprehend the raw sense-data. It seems to make sense from an epistemological view, (and I suspect Nagel is not aware of these more contemporary views) but it does not answer the other questions of concern here, do we have a soul, dualism vs materialism, subjectivity/objectivity. Oh well, can’t solve them all!
Jack wrote: "I wonder then given Nagel’s position and when he wrote the book ( I have the book now and am reading it) whether we now need to look at these questions, such as Kant’s phenomena vs noumena, rationa..."Nagel's Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False is a more recent version of this, but more focused. It might be a good follow-up book to read.
I think our sense organs specialize in supplying us input in a form and structure most useful to us. I don't think this means our senses skew reality in a way that gives us a false understanding of the world. If they did that, they wouldn't be of much use to us and may even be harmful, and our perception of the world would be a warped view of true reality.
If we skew reality at the sensory input level, I don't think we can conceive of the world as it truly is. How could our point of view have an objective component like Nagel seems to think it does? How much do we truly know a priori?
I think if we skew the world at all we do at a higher cognitive level. Making sense of the world includes understanding cause and effect, understanding the relationships between objects in the world, and determining the meaningfulness of it all -- what's important, and what isn't. It is here our brain is fully engaged and developing a point of view. Our cognitive point of view of the world is probably quite different from our perception of the world, although based on it. Our cognitive point of view is the result of our attempting to make sense of the world, and by its very nature is species specific.
I would be interested in what neuroscientists have to say about this? Any recommendations? Gerald Edelman?
I said previously I think Nagel spends too much time justifying his ideas to reductionist and physicalist philosophers and scientists and not enough time just coming out and saying what he wants to say. The divide here is too great and too hostile to attempt accommodation. In short, he's not being audacious enough. I think he corrects this in Mind and Cosmos. You can tell from the reaction he gets from the reductionists and physicalists.
I wonder if this book wouldn't have more power if some of the chapters, like the last two, were left on the editor's floor? In some of these chapters I feel we've gotten a long way away from the main point: How do we account for the existence of subjective beings in an objective world? And what does it mean to be me and not you -- identity and self -- and to have a (nonobjective) point of view of the world?
Thanks for that response Xan. Yes the Mind and Cosmos looks like a useful follow up book. Agreed, there is a difference here between perception and cognition, with the cognition side being our subjectivity, I guess.Yes, Nagel’s view on finding objectivity from collective subjectivity is an interesting one. I’ve found ‘other minds’ by Peter Godfrey-smith a useful text to work with as well as, of course, ‘what’s it like to think like a bat’
I don’t have specific authors that I was thinking of on the neuro-science point, that was more or less a summary of eg Gestalt thinking and other generic reading I’ve been doing, though it is something that is in my hit list to research further.
Yes, the divide is a big one currently, I’ve dealt with the Science vs Religion/philosophy view recently in a blog: www.sophodos.life which is a related issue. Mary Midgley would be an interesting one to look at as well on this evolutive view/reductionist view.
FreedomNagel wishes to discuss Objectivity and Action as a prerequisite to discussing Ethics, and he doesn't waste time getting at it. He notes the strange thing about objectively analyzing an action is that the actor is often missing from the analysis.
We see this kind of thing in bureaucratic writing, especially when no one wants to take responsibility for what's being said or done. We receive a memo from the powers that be notifying us of an action being taken, but try as we might, the person or persons responsible for making the decision are nowhere to me found. It's as if the ubiquitous "They" did it. Blame them.
Er . . . I digress . . .
Anyway action viewed from an objective point of view misses the agency involved in the action, and that's kind of an important thing to ignore.
Agency is a psychological state that results in intentional actions. If a choice is involved, and the mind makes a decision, and an action results, that is agency -- the will to act or not to act. Making a choice, rather than having it thrust upon you, requires the freedom to choose. There cannot be agency without freedom and the will to act; there can only be action. Yet this is exactly what an objective analysis of action (or a reductive analysis of action) ignores: whether or not agency is involved. It is also easy to see how agency -- this freedom and will to act -- leads to a discussion of ethics.
Next: Autonomy and the problem of Free Will
Freedom ContinuedAuthority
Perspective matters. That action intentionally taken by me may, from the outside looking in, look like no choice at all. The actor may look like part of the action rather than the one choosing how to act. In other words it looks more deterministic. "Everything I do or someone else does is part of a larger course of events no one does."
But this ignores autonomy. Nagel's version of autonomy is that antecedent decisions, positions, etc. lead to situations where at least some future decisions are determined by the actor rather than causally determined. Those are a lot of words for saying that even in a deterministic world there are decisions to be made that are not hardwired into the structure of the universe. It's up to you, and your point of view will determine the choice you make.
But an external view of the world must ignore autonomy because in an objective world all effects are causally determined. There is no point of view. This looks to me like a good criticism of the reductionist belief that objective reality is true reality or a complete explanation of reality.
But Nagel points to the problem of bias. When we look at ourselves and our actions from the outside, we don't like the diminished self we see, so we subordinate that external view to the internal, autonomous one.
Responsibility
Same problem. From the inside it is easy to see ourselves as moral beings responsible for the actions we take. Agency has a moral component to it. But as soon as we view ourselves from the outside looking in, we look like we are part of the action instead of the actor.
"Yet we continue to compare what they do with the alternatives they reject, and praise or condemn them for it."
This is because we never completely exit ourselves to view the world or another's responsibility in it, or at least not for long. Instead we remain within or return to our ourselves and do something uniquely human: we project ourselves into this other person to understand what his thinking was. Oh, how judgmental!!!
We judge people based on their actions, but that judgement requires more than evaluating the consequences of one's actions. It requires understanding intentions. To do this we crawl inside the other person's mind to "see" the alternatives he or she chose from from his or her point of view, and then decide whether or not that choice was a correct or a moral one.
This requires understanding how others think and act -- the ability to place (project) one's self inside another's mind -- a fundamental ability of self-awareness (and philosophy of mind). But such judgments are prone to error and questioning from an objective point of view.
Next: Finishing Up Freedom
Finishing up FreedomNagel attempts to reconcile the external deterministic point of view of our actions with our internal agency-filled point of view of our actions. It is the second "I," the pilot and commander who objectively analyzes our thinking and actions and interrupts when it sees the need to set a new course. This "pilot" acts like an external observer. Nagel seems to believe that we can stand outside ourselves and make truly objective assessments of our actions. Nagel calls this "self-surveillance."
I would argue that any feeling we may have that self-surveillance mimics an external and objective point of view of the world is an illusion. Our pilot's assessment of our actions is only as objective as our experiences and memories allow. We don't just learn facts about the world; we learn from our personal experiences too, and what we learn from our personal experiences affect our pilot's assessment of the decisions and actions we make and take. (Our experiences record more than what happened in the external world; they also record our feelings about what happened -- the internal part of the experience.)
These experiences provide a constant feedback loop, and our pilot uses this feedback to hone our understanding of the world. And because we are always updating our understanding of the world through our experiences, our personal point of view of the world keeps changing. This is how we make sense of the world, but because experiences differ from person to person (including shared experiences), the world makes sense to each of us differently.
On the other hand, a truly external point of view only changes as our knowledge of the physical world changes. It is incapable of using experience to hone its understanding of the world because there is no one to experience the world and because it views all actions as deterministic.
Next: Chapter VIII Value
Philosophy
Books mentioned in this topic
Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (other topics)Against Method (other topics)
The View From Nowhere (other topics)
Schedule
June 10 Introduction 10 Pages
June 17 Mind 12 Pages
June 24 Mind and Body 26 Pages
July 01 The Objective Self 13 Pages
July 08 Knowledge 23 Pages
July 15 Thought and Reality 20 Pages
July 22 Freedom 28 Pages
July 29 Value 26 Pages
Aug 05 Ethics 25 Pages
Aug 12 Living Right & Living Well 19 Pages
Aug 19 Birth, Death, & the Making of Life 25 Pages