The Problem of Self
The following exploration of the problem of Self has been written as a limited introduction. For further information consult the resource list at the end.
Terminology
Substance Dualism: the view, held by René Descartes (French mathematician and philosopher, 1596–1650), that the mind and the body are made of two different substances; the mind, therefore, being theoretically capable of independent existence. Also known as Cartesian Dualism.
Property Dualism: the view that while there is only one kind of substance - physical substance, that there are two kinds of property - physical properties and mental properties, and that mental properties are extra to physical properties.
Consciousness: it is very difficult to say what consciousness is. Descartes referred to consciousness as an awareness of our own mental processes, or self-awareness. Because wherever there is experience there is consciousness, consciousness may be referred to broadly as 'an experiential phenomena'.
Epiphenomenon: an incidental product of some process (in this context: brain function), that has no effects of its own.
The Issue
The question of self delves deep into who we are. The many specific questions raised include: What is the relationship between our body and our mind? Is mind what brain function feels like from the inside? Is our brain and mind the same thing or different things? If they're the same, how is the property of mind created? If they are different, how do they interact, and why have they evolved in parallel?
Descartes was of the view that the body was material and the mind was immaterial. He believed that although their substances were different, mind and body connected through causal interactions. The more common view, of Peter F. Strawson (British philosopher, 1919-2006) and many others, is that our mind, while appearing separate, is an epiphenomenon of the workings of our brain, and that our brain and mind are not separate - this is often referred to as the materialist position.
Some Argy-Bargy
In his Second Meditation 'On the Nature of the Human Mind', Descartes establishes that he is a thinking thing. He then differentiates between seeing, for example, which is physical, and having the experience of seeing, which is mental. Descartes separates the mechanism from the experience the mechanism facilitates, and sees the concept of 'self' comprising this duality.
There are a number of ways of approaching dualism, for example: Our brain is a concentration of nerve tissue in our head. It integrates sensory information and directs motor responses. It governs autonomic functions such as heartbeat and breathing; it controls balance and coordination, and regulates body temperature and other vital functions. Our brain is the control centre of our body. But attributing additional functions to the brain – especially functions that are very different from the ones listed above, such as thinking, reasoning, imagining, creating, self-awareness, and dreaming – is speculative. How can two things with entirely different properties really be the same?
It sounds reasonable. But how could this separate medium of mind have evolved? How could mind have suddenly come into existence - presumably in the higher animals? And if it didn't suddenly come into existence, are we saying that mind came into existence with the emergence of life? Why does the evolution of the mind so closely parallel the evolution of the brain? By what mechanism could the mind and brain communicate, especially if the mind is immaterial? A scientific principle is contradicted if a physical action does not have a physical cause. The question of how two things with entirely different properties can really be the same is a good one, but critics of mind-body dualism can raise many more.
In Self, Mind and Body, Peter F. Strawson wonders how a person can be both a mind and a body. He disagrees with the concept of mind as a separate thing, saying that it cannot be separate if it cannot be individuated; that is, if we cannot apply number to it (try counting minds and you'll find yourself counting heads instead) or identify it as the same thing from one time to another time (in what sense is my mind the same mind I had when I was younger?) Strawson claims that Cartesian dualism is an illusion that arises because the pronoun 'I' loses its meaning when applied to introspection (looking within; the observation and analysis of the processes of our own mind).
Another argument against dualism is: It has been shown that different areas of the brain are used for processing particular types of information; specific areas of the brain are active when observing something and imagining something. We also know that the brain is active during sleep, that there are different patterns of activity during different phases of sleep, and that the patterns we see when a person is awake are similar to the patterns we see when they’re dreaming. We also know that various drugs affect our mind; they can affect our mood and our capacity to think; presumably, this happens through their action on our brain. This supports the proposition that mind is a function of the brain and dependent upon it.
There are many additional arguments on both sides of this debate, but I conclude with an original and possibly testable support for dualism, which I call The Argument from Geometry, which supports substance dualism.
There is reason to believe that we dream in a different geometry to waking experience. It is possible to form a conception of how an additional dimension of space and an additional dimension of time would affect our experience, and this conception correlates with dream experience. To put it another way, the weird things that happen in our dreams are exactly the weird things we would expect to happen if there was an additional dimension of space and an additional dimension of time.
If this is correct, it leads us to the question, 'How could our brain dream in a different geometry to the geometry in which it exists?' The answer is: it couldn't. If the correlation between dream experience and the experience of additional dimensions is correct, it cannot be our brain that is dreaming. This leads to the conclusion that it must be our mind that is dreaming, and therefore that our brain and our mind are different. Further details can be found in The Argument from Geometry and the argument is made in full in The Atheist Afterlife.
And the winner is?
Before The Argument from Geometry the dualist position appeared weak on the balance of probability. On the basis of evidence it seemed the more reasonable position that the mind was an epiphenomenon of brain function. The Argument from Geometry, however, may keep Descartes' candle burning just a little longer - until confirmed or rebutted.
Resources
Rene Descartes' Second Meditation, 'On the Nature of the Human Mind'.
Self, Mind and Body - Peter F. Strawson.
Philosophy: The Basics - Nigel Warburton, Chapter Six 'Mind'. Available in the Bookshop.
The Philosophy Gym - Stephen Law, Chapter Thirteen 'The Consciousness Conundrum'. Available in the Bookshop.
The Atheist Afterlife - David Staume. Available in the Bookshop.
Reading Philosophy - Guttenplan/Hornsby/Janaway.