When Inside Becomes Outside
A Radical Scientist’s View of Consciousness
I’m something of a psychology nerd. I love to read and think about human nature and behavior, along with the philosophies, theories and disciplines that investigate these topics. For some time now, I’ve been thinking about this theory I came across a year ago by philosopher Riccardo Manzotti, titled “Mind-Object Identity”. It’s a wild theory that on closer inspection sings the same tunes as eastern philosophy, but in a language that a rational minded individual can understand.
The theory states that your consciousness is external i.e. the thing you call your mind is one and the same with the external physical object your attention is focused on. There are many reasons for his conclusion.
First is that he is a staunch physicalist, that is, he believes every phenomenon that exists is material and is manifested either as matter or energy, thus the concept of an immaterial soul, or an immaterial mental world does not hold for him.
Second, there is the gap between subjective human experience and the human biological processes. There is nothing in the human system that convincingly explains the existence of consciousness or the human mind; current popular theories are riddled with holes that can be prodded to make the explanations fall apart or collapse on itself.
Third and related to the above point, the most popular theory of consciousness is that it originates in the brain courtesy of neurological processes. However, neurological processes do not bear any resemblance to phenomenological experiences, and while they do play a part in facilitating consciousness, it is in no way clear or proven that they are its source.
His radical solution therefore is to assume that conscious experience is what it bears the most resemblance to: the object being experienced. In practical terms, this means that if you are experiencing a banana, that banana itself is your conscious experience. This premise takes the human mind from being an internal world in your head to an external space in the here and now; a real world in the real world, that is exclusive to your body alone. This premise also defines the “self” as the set of all the objects you have experienced and all the objects you will ever experience, in relation to your body (Note: though the term “body” represents your actual physical body, it can also be expanded to represent your unique perspective or point of view).
The radicalness of this theory is intense; anyone who hears it will experience a strong, intuitive disagreement and rightly so, after all, it flies in the face of everything we know. For example, if our mind is just a collection of objects in the real world, how do you explain dreams? How do you explain the sensation of being an I? Furthermore, how do we have the ability to choose what we focus on?
I’ll answer these questions one by one. However, since I myself am still trying to get a grip on the theory I can’t assure absolute clarity, I can only promise to do my best. Plus, I’m sure you all have questions that I didn’t mention or am not smart enough to think of, please, feel free to mention them in the comment section.
So, on the first question, how do we explain dreams? If our mind is actually out there and its contents are the objects we’re presently experiencing in the outside world, how do you explain the brain’s ability to create mental content in the absence of any objects? The answer is time.
Since everything is related, such a radical theory of human cognition will require a radical revision of perception tools, one of which is time. According to Ricardo Manzotti, our present model of time — seconds, minutes, hours, present, past, now, then — is faulty. It is useful for measuring things like rate of change, and for orienting ourselves in our day to day lives, but from an ontological point of view, this model can be scrapped. If you look at spatial perception, what we call now is never “now,” there is always a delay in perception that depends on the position of the object or event being experienced, the speed of light and our brain’s processing speed. The best example of this is when we look at stars: the lights we see in the night sky originated eons ago, however we see them “now,” showing that the label “now” is very subjective. This view can be applied to dreams and dreaming as well. Summarizing it thus, Ricardo Manzotti says:
“I note that, to the best of our knowledge, everything we dream or hallucinate is made of elements we have met before. Dreams and hallucinations can provide new combinations, but they do not concoct new elements. Dreams are made of objects and properties their dreamers have met during their lives. […] By nomological necessity, the external cause of everything that takes place in our brain is in the past. Such past can be relatively near or very remote as is the case for astronomical objects. Either way, though, perception is never instantaneous, and thus, any object is always at the beginning of a process spread over a time span and across a spatial extension.”
In essence, when we dream we experience objects that exist now; though the object or event was first encountered ages ago, the effects of that experience are still occurring; the object or event is still alive in our world, and thus it exists “now” for us. Time is meaningless from this perspective; for proof of this think of all the moments that make you feel and act like a scared 5-year old. (I’ll help you with an example: Public speaking)
On the sensation of being an “I”, Ricardo boils it down to a combination of the exclusivity of our experiences and social conditioning. The exclusivity of our experiences is quite straightforward: you have privileged access to your thoughts, emotions and sensations, plus most of your sense organs are located on your head, making it seem like you exist privately in your head. The social conditioning bit comes from constantly being identified as your body. When people talk to you they stare at the part of you they can see: your body, society attaches labels to your body in order to IDENTIFY you, when people see your body they call your name — all your life, you’ve been identified and referred to as your body, so it is only natural that your sense of self gets localized in it. However, it is not you, it may allow for your existence, but it is not you.
Answering the last question, will be a bit tricky, because I’m not sure I have a handle on this part, still here goes my attempt. Bodies are unique, more than that they are heavily influenced by the mixture of surrounding environments experienced during their developments. These conditions make it that, your body — as it grows and facilitates your existence — will be biased to certain objects that have for one reason or the other stood out to you. Its unique composition will cause some objects appeal to your sense of self over other objects and this appeal will over time, form your opinions and choices. So, it’s a case of you shaping your tools, and your tools shaping you, except in reverse: your world shapes your “I,” and then your “I” shapes your world.
I’m quite certain I did not do a good exposition of the theory, and I beg your indulgence, perhaps I’ll post a better, revised article here. In the event that my basal nature gets the better of me and I do not post shit, you can find a link to his paper on the theory here, and you can follow a series of discussions he had with author, Tim Parks here.
I really wish the title of this article were “10 Things I Learnt from The Mind-Object Theory” or that it had some profound piece of advice; posting it would feel a lot more justifying. But that isn’t the case, it doesn’t have any of that, it’s just me coming to share a concept I find highly interesting: you aren’t your name or your body, you’re the world your body experiences and lives in. It might not hold any useful connotations, but how would your self-image, be affected by holding this worldview? Would you be more selective with the objects you interact with? Would you choose your environments and companions more consciously? Would you be more aware when choosing how to phrase your experiences? I’m curious, tell me your replies in the comment section.
Also, if you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments as well, plus if you liked the article, then go ahead and tap that clap.
