CHIMPANZEES

We are told that we share over 90% of our genes with chimpanzees, our closest relative in evolution. It may indeed be 95% or even more. And we are usually given this information in an attempt to show that we humans are closer to animals than we have traditionally been taught and than we like to think now. This evidence deflates human pretensions to being a privileged species, to being demigods above the beasts in the great scheme of things.

There are two fenced off areas of land in the desert, each exactly an acre in size. Both consist of sand from edge to edge. They are identical in their make up not just to 90 or 95% but to 99.999% recurring. They are indeed as close to perfect identity as it is possible to reach. But there is one slight difference between them. And that difference lies in the fact that in one acre but not in the other lies a small key no bigger than your thumb. That key opens a padlock on a door that leads into an oasis, a walled garden where grow grapes, pomegranates and apricots, where fountains play and the grass around them is lush.

But unless light from the sun catches the tiny key you would never be able to see it and so  distinguish between one acre and the other.

FAITH

If faith is blind,
it is not blind from birth
but feels its way by handholds
remembered from its sighted days
to reach for destinations
barred to those who see.

A man steeped in knowledge of the plays of Shakespeare who has been enriched by their wisdom and subtle reflections on the human psyche reads for the first time Shakespeare’s last work ‘The Tempest’. He finds it disconcerting, odd to say the least; it doesn’t make sense to him in the way that earlier plays did; it lacks dramatic tension; he is not drawn into the sketchily drawn characters of Miranda and Ferdinand, the humour of Trinculo and Stephano seems strained; there is only spectacle where he expects to find insight into character. He thinks to himself that if he had read this play in isolation, not knowing it had been written by the same hand that wrote ‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear’, he might well have dismissed it as, apart from a few sublime passages, a work of little merit. But in the light of what he had already learned of Shakespeare, he considers that it might be the quality of his own appreciation that is at fault. In short, his long and detailed experience of Shakespeare persuades him to suspend his rejection. He is aware that his judgement may be too quick and allows the possibility that the great master of theme, character and stagecraft may have had a different agenda in his farewell to the stage, an agenda that is beyond the present level of understanding of his latest reader.

There is a sort of faith here based on experience. Could such an accomplished writer suddenly slip into his dotage and write a second-rate play? Of course, that is a possibility and one not to be forgotten. Even Homer nods, as the Greeks used to say. He does not, this reader coming to ‘The Tempest’ last, blindly assume that any work written by Shakespeare must by that very fact of authorship be of supreme quality. He simply holds back in his assessment of ‘The Tempest’, gives it time, allows that the problem may lie more in him than in the play.

I wonder if this experience might be a useful illustration of what is meant by faith. Faith is not blind, that is to say, it is not unrelated to what has been learned from past experience. It is not a leap into the complete darkness. But it goes beyond experience. It learns from experience and it extends and extrapolates.

MINDSETS

I understand a mindset to mean a set of interlocking beliefs that form a fundamental view of the world. It is the framework of deep assumptions of a universal nature against which we test new ideas and information.

The dominant mindset of this age is materialistic. At the most basic level is the unspoken conviction that reality is first and foremost physical, composed of molecules, atoms and whatever other sub-atomic particles are discovered by physicists. There may be an open mind about the possibility of there also existing that which is not physical but the non-physical does not pose a challenge to the physical in terms of a claim to ultimate reality.

It is in this ideological climate that questions about consciousness arise. Understandably, the first problem is to show that consciousness is even a problem, that it presents at the very least difficulties for the materialist world view. Indeed, it is not obvious to everyone what is meant by consciousness or that it is a subject worthy to be addressed at all. Isn’t everything we hitherto called consciousness explicable in terms of brains or behaviour?

Next, if it is accepted that consciousness is a difficulty within the materialist set of explanations, it is often not taken very seriously. It is seen as a temporary anomaly that will in due course, as science progresses, be assimilated within the greater system. Materialists see themselves as inhabitants of a great continent aware of a troublesome offshore island not quite within sight from the coast but for which plans are afoot to construct a bridge or at least an underground tunnel whereby it will be secured as part of the mainland.

And there may be a small number remaining who consider consciousness and the physical world as existing on an equal footing. And even a tiny minority who as regards the materialists take quite the opposite position. To them consciousness itself is the real, the given, the non-negotiable fact. For them the existence of physical objects independent of the mind presents the difficulty, the square peg in their universe of round holes.

Mindsets like habits and mountain ranges take a very long time to develop and once developed can endure. Changing mindsets like stopping smoking or the erosion of a mountain is very difficult and requires great patience. It is one thing to accept that your mindset may be open to challenge and even to appreciate that its justification is questionable but it is quite another to adopt a different mindset in the deep sense of replacing one fundamental framework with another.

After all for five hundred years we have known that the earth rotates around the sun but every day, to our senses and to our common-sense, quite the reverse seems true.

POLITICAL BRAIN SCANS

I heard a report on the radio about a new idea in American politics – brain scanning. From scans of people’s brains political scientists hope to be able to find out their views, opinions, wishes, perhaps their prejudices. In the report a British political commentator gave his response.

It could not work, he said, because people deliberately make choices which go against what their brain looks as though it is doing. If, for example, it were possible to read from someone’s brain that they desired chocolate, that person could deliberately act against that tendency and do the opposite. For this reason, he claimed, the whole notion of brain scanning to predict behaviour was doomed to failure.

I do not know whether or not at some time in the future it will be possible to scan brains and to find in them neural correlations to political views and attitudes. It may be or it may not be. In principle, if the correlations are shown to be regular, it seems at least feasible.

But what is perhaps more interesting and revealing is the response of the critic of the idea. For if there is a brain state that corresponds with my desire for chocolate and I were to make a choice to deny myself the chocolate, how would I go about it? I might, for example, have a strong desire also to maintain a no-chocolate diet. But if the desire for chocolate is represented by a brain state, is it not very likely that my desire to keep to my diet is also represented by a brain state? Presumably, that brain state will appear on the brain scan too?

How is it we can believe that the brain corresponds to some of our mental states and not to others?

MUSIC AND THE SCORE

The stand is in position at the front of the stage and on it, open at the right page, is the music score. Enter the maestro to warm applause. He bows, places the violin under his chin, raises the bow to shoulder height, looks down at the score and is ready to begin the recital.

Then there is music as the sonata passes through all its phases to the coda of the final movement.

The score consists of sheets of paper printed with staves and on and between the staves are crochets, quavers and a whole range of musical symbols. As the violinist looks down he reads the score. In an instant he plays the notes that correspond with the symbols he has just read.

And all through the piece the order remains the same: first, reading the score; second, playing the notes. The score determines which notes are played, for how long, at what speed, at what volume and so on. There is a precise, regular and complete correlation between score and music. Sometimes that correlation is obvious even to a non-musician as when, for example, the sequence of quavers moves from below the bottom line of the stave to the ledger lines above it and the music in response rises quickly from a low to a high pitch. Elsewhere, the symbols are obscure and only the trained musician understands them. But always the correlation is maintained: score read first, music a moment later.

The music, the actual sound made by the violin, is shaped by the score. The score is not affected by the sound. The sounds produced by the violin are correlated with the black symbols printed on the pages. But the sounds made do not change the score.

This relationship between score and music is a way of presenting another relationship, that between the brain and consciousness. Think of the score printed on paper as the brain and the music as consciousness. The score determines which particular sounds will be heard, their dynamics, duration and speed. The music follows the score, in every detail, step by step but the score does not manufacture or generate or create the music’s sound.

REASON

Plato, two and a half millennia ago allocated to the faculty of reason the top position in the mind of the individual. He thought that the mind comprised three parts: the appetites, the ‘thumos’ or spirited part and reason. The best life in a sense the happiest life – but happiness did not mean in ancient Greek thought what it means today – is one in which reason, which seeks the welfare of the whole being, is in charge, determines the direction in which the life is led and keeps the other parts in a subservient role.

Since the days of Plato philosopher after philosopher has lined up to agree or disagree about the role of reason. Descartes (1596-1650) would have been in sympathy with Plato but on the other side stand Hume (1711-1777) and in a later generation Nietzsche (1844-1900). To Hume reason should be the servant of the emotions, to Nietzsche of the instincts.

The case against the Platonic role for reason is easy to set out. Suppose I want to travel from Athens to Edinburgh. I can calculate the distance between the cities, ascertain which forms of transport are available and the comparative costs. Reason begins its work in this area of enquiry but note that it does not dictate the starting point and destination. These are given to it from some faculty other than reason. But now I have to settle on my priorities. Do I want the cheapest option? Do I want to go by land and sea or by air? Do I want to stop at other locations on the way? Is it a scenic journey I require? I can have any number of particular requirements. But once it  is clear which has been selected, then reason can determine the best option.

But the point about reason is this. It compares, measures, calculates but has no aims in and of itself. It is neutral. The objective comes from some other part of the mind, a desire or passion as Hume would have it or a drive or instinct in Nietzsche’s terms.b

If Mr Spock were purely a being of reason, in this sense then he would have no goals and be only an assistant to facilitate an aim external to him.

This view sees reason as a calculator, ruler, measuring jug, computer, dipstick, timepiece, objects we use as a means to achieve our ends.

But I fear that this role for reason outlined above may be too restrictive and too unsympathetic to Plato. It expresses too narrow a view of reason. Suppose I visit a doctor with a problem, say, a difficulty breathing. He or she will take the measurements, consult the literature, consider a range of treatments. There is a goal, implicit in my visit and the doctor’s procedures, namely my health, but it is so clear to both of us there is of course no need for it to be stated. Have you ever heard a doctor ask you why you want to be more healthy?

It seems that if there is a clear, given, fully agreed goal, then in achieving that goal reason taking the lead role, the Platonic position, is the best way to proceed. If, however, there is nothing in that position, the unarguable, the understood goal, and any goal is set by whatever different people separately or collectively desire, then reason is better fitted to be the servant.

And of course, in the background of this discussion is the contrast between two world views: 

1. there is a given purpose for human life, a position religions tend to hold 
2. there is no given purpose and humans determine their own purposes.

WHY DOES ANYTHING MATTER?

I visit a remote uninhabited island and photograph the cliffs. I return a year later and notice that in one area the cliff is reduced in size. Part of the rock face has collapsed and fallen into the sea; at the base of the cliff is a pile of boulders visible at low tide.

Erosion by the sea has had its effect, the displacement of sandstone from a high position to a low position or, to put it slightly differently, some pieces of matter have moved from one place to another.

But is this significant? Does this rearrangement of matter ‘matter’? Not much, we might reply, and add, not at all, if we recall the fact that the island is uninhabited, rarely visited and that the life of no person or animal is in any way improved or diminished as a consequence.

The implication is that an event ‘matters’ only when a human person or animal is in some way affected by it. And I think that we can be more precise in what is meant by a person or animal being affected.

Suppose one hair on my hand disappears in the middle of the night while I am asleep. The next day neither I nor any other person is aware of this change. Nobody notices, nobody feels any difference. An event has happened to part of my body but it is without any consequence as far as anyone knows. Does it matter? Again, as in the case of the falling rocks, I can understand no sense in which it does ‘matter’ in the slightest.

If a parallel universe were to exist consisting entirely of inanimate objects, of lifeless planets and stars and galaxies and if it had no impact on any other universe and if this universe were to explode, splinter, to disintegrate and even cease to exist totally, would its disappearance matter in any way. Again, in my view it would not matter, not matter at all.

For an event to ‘matter’, that event has to impinge on an experiencing, conscious being. For something to matter there has to be an impact in consciousness.

Nothing matters in itself. If something causes a sentient being pain, anxiety, pleasure, delight, then it matters to that being. There is no such thing  as mattering in isolation. Is there?

MORE ON HOT CHILLIES

Those who hold the view that consciousness can be brought into the fold of the scientifically measurable, of the objectively quantifiable, might not be put off by the argument presented in the previous post. They might well urge that the measuring process be taken a stage further.

Why measure only the chilli, the substance taken into the body? After all our internal bodily tasting system like anything else in the body is no doubt variable from person to person. Different people have different metabolic rates, different vocal chords, different blood pressure ratings, different responses to visual and auditory stimuli. Think of colour blindness and perfect pitch. It seems reasonable to expect that there will be differences too in the gustatory system, the way the body responds to taste stimuli.

So, let us suppose that, on the lines of locating the visual cortex as the region in the brain to which the eyes send information, we find within the brain a centre that deals with the data from the taste buds. We put volunteers in a state-of-the art scanning machine and give them chillies to eat. As they eat, the machine records changes in the neurons in that area. When the volunteers taste the habanero chilli, it might be revealed that there is more electrical activity than when they taste the cayenne chilli. Furthermore, when many experiments have been undertaken on a large number of volunteers, the difference may well prove to be a regularly repeated one.

Do we now have an objective measurement of taste, one that is much more reliable and scientifically acceptable than what seems in retrospect the cruder method of counting the number of capsaicinoids? In fact we are in no better position than we were before we took this extra step. For we still have no way of knowing that when two people agree that the habanero is hotter than the cayenne, their qualitative experiences are the same.

HOT CHILLIES

The Scoville Heat Unit is a measure of chillies: the higher the number of units the hotter the chilli. The unit is named after Wilbur Scoville who invented it in 1912. By this standard a habanero chilli is hotter than a scotch bonnet, a cayenne not as hot as a Thai chilli.

At first the measurement was based on the subjective judgement of the taste. People would report how hot the different chillies tasted to them; as a result of their responses the chillies would be ranked in order of hotness.

But asking people how they rate a taste on a scale is not a very scientific method of measurement. Better to have an objective test with the evidence in public, available to be checked by anyone who might doubt it and registered in documents in an official way.

That is one of the troubles with consciousness when considered from the standpoint of science. You cannot put it into a test tube, beside a Geiger counter, on scales to be weighed, alongside a ruler; you cannot insert a thermometer into it. You cannot actually measure the something-it-is-like quality of the taste of a chilli. So, since you need public measurements to meet the standards required for science, you have to measure something else.

What can be measured is the number of capsaicinoids present in the chilli. Capsaicinoids are a class of compounds found in plants in the capsicum family which includes chillies. 

But when the caspsaicinoid measurement has been taken and logged, do we now have a record of the taste, of how hot it actually is to the person consuming it? I don’t think that we do. And the  reason I would offer for this failure is the gulf between the physical, the quantitative and the non-physical, the qualitative.

We can certainly find a correlation between the number of capsaicinoids present in the chilli and the verbal reports of those eating them. But what any amount of reporting will not reveal is whether two people who, say, agree that a habanero chilli registers at point 8 on a hotness scale of 1 to 10, are actually having the same taste experience.

Consciousness does not seem to be accessible to any quantitative measuring. It is quite distinct from the things that are material, that are available in the public domain to provide public measurable evidence.

THE RADIO

Turn on the radio. Turn the volume control, now clockwise, now anticlockwise. The music is now loud, louder, now soft, softer. There is a precise correlation between the turning of the dial and the volume of the sound heard.

The dial is part of the radio, an artefact made of physical components. Turning the dial, then, causes changes to a physical object, to part of the radio, to something with mass, shape, size etc.

In complete accordance with how far the dial is turned in one direction or the  other, so varies the loudness of the sound experienced. But that sound does not have mass, shape, size etc. The dial turning exactly and regularly shadows the experience. How can this be? How can something with all the properties of the physical be in this constant relationship with something so different, so alien as conscious experience of sound?

The fact that experiences of sound correlate with physical changes in a radio in not the slightest way helps us to understand why, when sound waves meet the ear and part of the brain is stimulated, there is the actual experience of hearing in the first place. There does not seem to be any music out there. Bows drawn over strings and air blown through perforated tubes send waves through the air. But what have waves in air to do with what it is like to hear music. The music happens when the brain is stimulated by data from the ear, but, the same question again, what have brain changes to do with what it is like to hear a tune?