|
The Role of the Physical Objects of Perception
I have been speculating that an immaterial mind directly perceives an immaterial percept through the openings presented by neural activity. Many questions still need to be addressed about this “receiving end” of the process, but let us turn for a moment to the input itself. How do physical objects, even when conceived as crystallised spirit, manage to deliver these (uncrystallised, disincarnate) spiritual percepts in the first place? More specifically, how does a specific wavelength of sound, moving through the material medium of air, appear to the mind as middle C after stimulating the neural gate to open? Here we are led to propose that physical objects are, like neurons, a screen between the mind and the rest of the spiritual world, which is where various qualia have their actual existence. When a particular soundwave is emitted from a vibrating object, the physical reality from which it is constituted (vibrating air) is necessary to activate the physical reality of the neuron; but just as the neuron becomes an opening for the mind when it fires, so should we imagine the sound wave being cancelled out in meeting the neuron and thus leaving an opening to the spiritual reality that corresponds to it (for example, the sound of middle C). We may now revise our graphic representation, which omits for clarity’s sake the complexity of the inner ear:
Figure 2. Perception of a Sound
Perception of Imaginations
In discussions of the mind’s activity, it is rarely remarked that perception is also involved in imagination. The two faculties are usually treated separately. Yet one finds that imagining an object involves activity in areas of the brain similar to those involved in the object’s perception. Of course, our imagination generally lacks the vivid character of the world-perception, although sometimes the imagination can be quite powerful.
How would we have to account for imaginative activity if perception occurs in the way I have been speculating? And if the mind is essentially immaterial, why does this activity involve/require the material brain? Why can’t the mind manipulate spiritual substance on its own, if it is indeed composed of the same substance, and if the content of its perceptions are of the same substance? Here we need to make a reasonable assumption, namely that the mind is, under normal circumstances, so intimately oriented towards the brain, that it finds it very difficult to “turn away” from it, as it were, and contemplate/manipulate its spiritual environs directly. In fact, to do so would amount to a kind of loss of identity, since it is only through interaction with the limited, localized brain in the material world that this sense of identity and subjectivity can arise at all; a mind placed directly into spiritual environs -- wherein the possibility of perception is constant, omnipresent, and unlimited -- could never develop such a sense of subjectivity. As van Peursen puts it, our physical limitation is
the very condition without which mind could not continue, could not proceed. In his bodiliness, which offers just this set of possibilities, with these particular faculties of sense, man delimits the multiplicity of impressions, singles out this or that course for endorsement, imposes order, brings together, selects. If anything and everything were possible, nothing would be possible at all.[5]
Hence, in the act of imagination, the mind orients itself toward the brain, as is its habit from perception, and uses it (I speculate) as a kind of projector for its own imaginations. For example, if I am imagining a patch of colour, the source of this imagination is the mind, just as experience would suggest; but the brain is called upon to open (just as it would during perception) and reveal the colour. This colour exists, once again, only in the spiritual world, just as colours seen during world-perception exist spiritually.
Figure 3. Imagination
To the extent that I am adept at provoking my brain to open in the way that it opens during perception, so will my imagination be more or less vivid. In a case where I am looking at a colour one moment and closing my eyes and imagining the next, I am able to project a very vivid imagination indeed -- so much so that I could, with proper training, mix paints to a very good likeness by looking at and away from the colour in rapid succession.
The notion of an immaterial mind causing neurons to fire in this fashion may strike some as a violation of physical laws (e.g. conservation of energy). However, this is only a problem if we conceive of matter as something causally separate from mind (as is the case in dualism). If matter is merely condensed mind, we have here two different states of the same substance.[6]
It may have struck the reader that perception and imagination are equally “real” in that both involve direct perception of a spiritual world containing pure qualia. This is problematic in that our experience of imagination vis-á-vis world-perception is so different; even the most powerful imaginations fail to approach the vividness of reality, except in some cases of hallucination or with the aid of psychoactive drugs. Some of this discrepancy in vividness may be attributed to the mind’s inability to “open” sufficient neurons such that a vivid picture arises. But even very simple imaginations are as weak as the more complex, so a lack of ability on the mind’s part can only account for part of this effect. This leads one to suppose a double-gate system whereby a kind of semitransparent gate (or gates) can be opened only by external force or with the assistance of drugs, sleep deprivation, etc. Such secondary gates would have to exist in a kind of subtle body, an etheric and/or astral body (to use Steiner’s terminology). In the case of the imagination, the mind may be able to open a neuronal gate, but not a corresponding subtle gate; the effect is what appears as a faded sense perception:
Figure 4. Imagination as part of a two-gate system
Consider now the case of a melody that one “cannot get out of one’s head.” I do not know if this happens to everyone, but it certainly happens to me, especially when I am learning to play a new piece or if I hear the song first thing in the morning. In this case, just as in the case of an imagined melody, the tune lacks the strength of something actually heard; is it possible that the physical gates are opening of their own accord, without a corresponding opening in the subtle gate? This kind of automatism in the physical body may constitute a real neuronal memory a patterned sequence that requires only that the mind actively initiate it, after which the melody plays without any imaginative effort on the mind’s part.
We have dealt, up ‘til now, with very simplistic perceptions: bits of colour, musical notes. It is easy enough to imagine how these might present themselves as parts of larger wholes -- faces are, after all, only so much colour, and tunes only so many tones -- or are they? No; something is missing, a conceptual element independent of the world of colour and tone. Even though a perception or imagination of a face may always involve colour, there is an infinite variety of colours that may be used to depict that face (Andy Warhol’s portraits of Marilyn Monroe, with all their various colour schemes, come to mind.) The mind is forever connecting perceptions to concepts through its thinking activity.[7] By the same token, it creates for itself imaginative pictures of what it experiences as concepts. I say “experiences concepts” rather than “generates concepts” for a good reason: this characterisation accords with our experience. When we acquire concepts, we take part in a process that is very much like perception. Hence, it is appropriate that the language used to describe comprehension is taken from sight: we say “I see” and mean “I understand” a concept . The concept is not, however, “seen” by the eyes; it is seen by the mind. A child may therefore perceive a drill in action just as well as an knowledgeable adult, but will still fail to see the concept of the screw which makes the drill effective.
Given my exposition thus far, one may well ask: if the concept has a purely immaterial existence, does the mind use, or need to use, the brain in order to apprehend it? Recall that in my discussion of imagination, I noted how the mind is too habituated to working with the brain for it to imagine things without its help. I would not rule out the brain’s involvement in the apprehension of concepts, either, since such apprehension may, after all, be a looking or reaching through the openings caused by neuron firings; a concept’s existence remains just as spiritual in essence the qualia of colour, tone, etc. But whereas the mind is able to coordinate with the brain in the reception/projection of these qualia -- by virtue of the brain’s physical relationship with a world that is a material manifestation of them -- the purely spiritual, unmanifest nature of concepts makes it impossible for the mind to coordinate with brain in their apprehension. I imagine a colour with the brain’s help because I habitually perceive that colour through the brain and sense organs; but I have never perceived the concept of a triangle with my brain, for it is nowhere to be found in sensory experience. Of course, I will have encountered visible triangles with the help of the brain, but until I perceive the triangle concept with my mind, these perceptions must remain a mere aggregate of colour impressions.
|
