My Writing Last Year And Today

Today is the 1 year anniversary of me posting the first section of 'Society's Implicit War'. That project was super interesting for me. Foucault's Discipline & Punish threw a major wrench into my thinking. He effectively blurred the line between peace and war, between physical violence and symbolic violence. Fortunately, a year later, I feel capable of distinguishing between the violence of peace and the violence of war. Questions about war and civilization, however, are still floating around in my mind. My exploration of violence is far from complete, obviously.

But just thinking that 1 year ago I was in the thick of the SIW project is really interesting. I feel much more removed from it now. After SIW I began the 'Art, Zen, And Insurrection' project. That one was pretty personal and I think did a lot for me. It really helped me with the frustration I felt at the changes going on in my life. The project spanned from September until about April. But to be honest, I really lost momentum after February, and I think the whole project should have ceased with the end of Part III.

Part IV was more like the launching of a new line of reading and thinking. I wanted to turn to more political matters. SIW demanded that I take politics and violence seriously. I wanted to find out if my work on aesthetics, expression, and life as an art form had any political implications. This was pretty challenging. And I wasn't able to pursue that question within the framework that I had established for Part IV of AZI. So I abandoned the project. I stopped writing it for a little bit. I tried to do some other stuff.

Then finally at the beginning of of June something clicked and I was able to begin a new line of thought. It occurred to me that I might want to try and frame all of my thinking, reading, writing, etc., in terms of 'relationships', using the word in the broadest possible sense. This means thinking about how minds interact with other minds. And somehow I started thinking about minds in terms of mediums. Nicholas Carr's The Shallows was the first book that really pushed me to think about mediums. And the question of mediums then fit in very nicely with the issue of habit.

Habit has been a philosophical issue for me for a long time, but I wasn't always able to use that word to identify that problem. For a long time I talked about 'auto-pilot', about 'default modes of thought', 'the everyday a priori imagination' and other similar phrases. I was fascinated by the idea that we walked around with a whole set of assumptions that unconsciously structured our behavior. This is why Foucault was so fascinating for me. He was engaging in historical-philosophical studies that were exposing the structures of our thinking. And for a long time I wasn't sure what it was that Foucault was doing (and I'm still not precisely sure what he was doing). But fortunately I have been able to tie Foucault's work with the question of mediums and the habits that they create.

This is in part thanks to Roger Smith's book Being Human: Historical Knowledge And The Creation Of Human Nature. The operative idea of the book is that knowledge of humans is inherently reflexive. By reflexivity Smith is communicating that there are consequences to "people being both subject and object of knowledge" (8). Namely, that "knowledge of what is human changes what it is to be human" (62). In essence, you cannot say that you are something without effecting what it is that you are. You cannot represent yourself without modifying yourself. Knowledge of humanity is reflexive, it changes what we are.

Smith acknowledges his debt to Ian Hacking's work on 'historical ontology'. And Hacking, in turn, acknowledges his debt to Foucault. The task for all three authors is to use history to understand the conditions for our existence. What is the nature of our being? Why do we live in the ways that we do? Why we do use these particular words and engage in these particular practices? According to these thinkers, these are questions that can only be by historical methods. And I am inclined to agree with them.

There are, however, two things that I think these guys are ignoring. The first is the issue of individual minds and their mediums. The second is the importance of politics, economics, and governments. It isn't true that they are really ignoring the political. It is just that I don't find it as explicitly addressed as I would like.

As for the issue of minds: I am completely attracted to theory of mind because I am completely fascinated with my own mind. There is something going on with minds and consciousness. I believe in free will. I believe that we are capable of exerting volition. So when people like Foucault reduce the role of consciousness and will, I have some questions for them. I have some problems. I think Foucault is correct to pay attention more to the structures of thought, to treat language as something to be studied in its own right without regard for the speaking subject. But I also think that his work is valuable only if it helps us understand individual consciousnesses. It cannot ignore the phenomenon of consciousness. There is something real about it.

And for mediums: Minds, however, are not something that work in a vacuum. They always work through a particular medium. Further, a medium that instills them with certain habits, that encourages them to behave in certain ways. Those are the questions my latest writing has taken up: the question of the mind as the medium. Mind is what mind, and mind only does with the help of the medium. Mind, therefore, is nothing but the medium through which it works. A history of mediums, is therefore a history of minds. And I believe that Foucault is basically writing a history of mediums. He writes a history of spaces, of languages, of economic systems. And those are the things that I believe I showed to be 'mediums' in the sense that Carr defines them.

So the historical ontological project, I think, could benefit by being united with theory of mind. Further, it seems to me that it could benefit from more explicit politicizing. And this is something that comes through in Marx. Because it seems that Marx's concern is also how people's means, how their mediums create them. Our minds are created by the political and economic mediums through which they work. There is something very political about minds and their mediums.

And this is what my current writing is working towards. I'm trying to understand how civilization (as a collection of minds) is constituted by mediums that are controlled by political factors. And I want to understand how political, economic, and educational reform can be seen as a process of creating a new constellation of mediums that would in turn produce a different type of mind.

It is all very confusing. But for me the reading is taking place primarily in the philosophy of history, habit, representation and other stuff. So, I'm going to finish Foucault's Archeology Of Knowledge, then I hope to read Deleuze's Difference And Repetition, and after that I hope to read Elaine Scarry's Thinking In An Emergency. All will help me out hopefully.

I'm going to Maine tonight. I am not going to bring my computer. So I'll be offline for the rest of the month. I'm hoping to have a fun trip filled family, reading, and reflection.

Peace out.

See you for August, Seattle.

Relationships And Mediums: Habits, Historical Knowledge, and Self-Creation

This is the introduction and the first section of an essay I have been working on. Things are changing in it. So I'll be updating it as I go along. But here is the tentative table of contents:

I. Of Minds: Empathic Versus Linguistic Interaction

a. simulation, or empathic interaction

b. theory-theory, or conceptual interaction

c. The need to historicize theory of mind

II. Of Mediums: Inclinations And Habits In Relationships

- So, we start out with mediums in general.

- I believe the notion of layers of mediums, and of almost everything down to the five senses being a medium is coherent.

- I think the best way to start the talk on mediums is Nicholas Carr.

- Talk about Gandhi and means as ends in the making - same idea.

- That stuff will establish the issue of medium as message, then we should give some real examples. Like the economic system, like Foucault and Claxton on the control of space and time and stuff.

III. Of History: The Creation Of Mediums As The Creation Of Human Nature

- In this section I think it would be wise to talk about implosive rationality. Because historical study would be a way of creating new habits, and thus a form of implosive rationality.

- We need to talk about choice and about compassion as they relate to history. Or do they relate to mediums? Maybe even the 4th section

- We need to talk about retroactive freedom too

- Human self-creation is the operative idea.

IV. Of Choice And Compassion

In this essay I am really trying to be free. In so much of my writing I think I am trying to be free.

Seeing as how this essay is supposed to be about relationships in general, I need to say a few things, and ask myself a few questions. When I say relationships I am trying to mean it in the absolute broadest sense. In one way or another, every person I have interacted with I have ‘had a relationship with’. I have a certain relationship with myself and my own thoughts and emotions. I have a relationship with my material surroundings and how I understand them. In many ways I am talking about relationships the way that Foucault talks about power relations: as omnipresent interactions with things, people, and myself. So, given that I’m talking about relationships in such a broad way, I have to ask myself: What is it about the quality of my relationships with things, people, and myself that makes me feel so unfree? What is it about me and my relationships that troubles me so much?

Well, right off the bat I’ll just say that my relationships often feel out of my control on a couple different levels. On the first level is my own thoughts, emotions, and reactions to people. I don’t really mean to think the way I do or feel the emotions that I feel. I just react. I just think and feel those things. I do my best to examine and understand my feelings after the fact, but in the moment it is too immediate for that kind of insight. Furthermore, I find that I have a huge amount of unquestioned assumptions, a huge amount of concepts that interfere with me just interacting with people.

These issues of my mind as an individual object, and the issue of mind to mind interaction in relationships, the micro reality of minds, will be the topic of the first section. I’ll be using the distinction between simulation theory of mind and theory-theory of mind to guide the discussion. But I hope to avoid those terms and talk more about the way that they point to a problem in relationships that I have experienced. This problem is that my interactions with familiar people feel very comfortable, empathic, ‘simulative. But my interactions with strangers, on the other hand, feel very distant, very theoretical, very conceptually-driven. It will turn out, I suspect, that this issue of minds and their different interactions cannot be handled through reflection or any phenomenological method. From here, therefore, the discussion will move to more macro issues.

The first macro level that contributes to the world of micro interactions that I’ll look at is the issue of habit. By talking about habit I want to try and hone in on the things that make my mental interactions problematic. I think that habit is one thing that potentially compromises our ability to be free in our relationships. We sometimes, I sometimes, default to my habits and then I don’t make actual choices. I don’t make conscious choices. I just run with the ideas and behaviors that are intuitive and habitual for me.

Raising this issue of habit, however, prompts more questions. Where do these habits come from? How do they develop in people? Why do they appear to be more or less uniform in certain times and places? These questions will bring me to the issue of mediums. I will be using the word medium in its most general sense as a means of doing something. Furthermore, I will be using Nicholas Carr’s work to discuss how medium’s implicitly contain certain inclinations, medium’s encourage us to behave in certain ways, they implicitly contain certain habits. I believe that the issue of habits and mediums will shed some light on the problem of relationships that I described above.

Asking questions about mediums, however, prompts further question about their origins and the possibilities for changing them. This is where the philosophy of history will come into play. Using Foucault, Collingwood, Smith, and others, I will claim that an understanding of history would provide us better knowledge of our own mediums and habits and thus give us a greater possibility of understanding and changing ourselves, thus hopefully improving the quality of our relationships.

I see this writing as collaborating with John Searle, and with my own work on the notion of the genealogy of the modern mind.

In his book Making The Social World: The Structure Of Human Civilization, John Searle argues that philosophy needs to create a sub-discipline known as the philosophy of society. He says that just as many contemporary disciplines did not exist in the past, we need to create a branch of philosophy that does not exist yet, known as the philosophy of society: “But the sense in which we know regard the philosophy of language as a central part of philosophy, Immanuel Kant did not have and could not have had such an attitude. I am proposing that ‘The Philosophy of Society’ ought to be regarded as a legitimate branch of philosophy along with such disciplines as the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language” (5). So, one concern I have in this essay is this idea of a philosophy of society. I think it is fair to say that if we are to have a philosophy of society we would need a philosophy of relationships. Searle’s work is a starting point for me in many ways.

I also see this essay as picking up on a line of thought that I initiated in August of 2010. In my essay ‘The Genealogy of the Modern Mind: Theory of Mind, History, And Self-Directed Neuroplasticity’ I tried to argue that theory of mind ins inadequate if it is ahistorically conceptualized. I tried to explain how Foucault’s method of genealogical history could be used to augment conventional theory of mind. My whole purpose for this historically augmented theory of mind was to try and explain how Foucault’s idea of personal transformation could be actualized. Or, as I put it then: “I believe that if we are to construct a theory of mind that is useful we need to draw both on scientific evidence to discover the universalities of the mind, but we also need to draw on history to illuminate the contingencies of the mind. Only through genealogical history could we create a theory of mind that could diagnose the present state of our own minds, and thus allow us to enact meaningful changes on ourselves through the study of the humanities.” I was unable to say, however, what types of historical information would be necessary to help us understand the state of our own minds and thus take a step towards changing them. That is one place where this essay is picking up. I think that by focusing on the issue of habits, and the way that mediums create those habits, and by claiming that habits and mediums can only be illuminated with historical study, I will be able to show how history is a necessary part of an adequate and useful theory of mind.

In short, I want to show that contemporary theory of mind is inadequate because it lacks a historical orientation and thus ignores the issue of habits and the way that mediums create those habits.

Onward to the first sections on minds.

I. Of Minds: Empathic Versus Linguistic Interaction

I want to begin this whole discussion with the issue of individual minds because it is the ground floor in which I (and everyone else) experience people. The level of minds is therefore the level of experience. And this can be the only level that truly matters to me. I want this type of thinking to make a difference in my actual relationships. I need my experience to change if I am to regard this writing as useful.

So what is the problem that I am having in my individual relationships? If I am writing about this issue of relationships, then clearly I see a problem with how my relationships function. I stated the problem above: there is a huge disparity in the quality of my relationships. With people I am close with I am (hopefully) friendly, caring, curious, interested, and involved in their minds. Ideally, there is a very serious engagement and give and take between minds. I feel that when I am close to someone I really enter into their mind, into their world, and I enjoy it. And hopefully when people know me they truly enter into my mind, get a sense of me as a person, and enjoy that immersion in my mental world. In short, with close relationships there is a serious attempt to enter the mind of another person. When I don’t know someone, on the other hand, interactions can feel curt, distant, and utilitarian. The perfect example of this is my interactions with customers. As a barista, people are interested in getting in and out of a cafe with the coffee and treats that they desired. This isn’t always true. There is a gray area. Some people are vaguely interested, or are simply polite. But there are definitely people that interact with me simply to get something from me. It seems that some people are interacting with me on a purely conceptual level. It seems that the only thing standing between me and them is bits of knowledge: they know that I have a defined role, and that if they tell me what they want that they will get it. That is roughly the problem. My close relationships feel empathic: they involved intimate mental exchanges, and a genuine understanding of the content of each other’s minds. While many of my relationships feel purely conceptual: there is no genuine attempt to access emotions or thoughts, but only an interaction that is meant to produce a certain result.

I would like to say again that this is by no means a clear dichotomy, it is a very gray and blurry area. Sometimes I have customers that are super fun to interact with, we joke and talk about stuff, but I might not know their names or anything about them. But there is still some sort of genuine engagement. Other times I talk to someone I’ve know for a while and things can proceed along these conceptual lines. So this is by no means a clean divide between empathic and conceptual interactions. But I think it is there enough to justify the analytical distinction.

So, this is the moment where I try to make hay of this problem. I need to try to parse and explain this qualitative divide in my relationships. I plan on doing this by drawing on two major schools of thought in American theory of mind: simulation theory, and theory-theory. I will generally be identifying this idea of empathic interactions with simulation theory, and the issue of conceptual interaction with theory-theory. I think that a quick summary of these two schools of thought will make this divide in my relationships more understandable.

I think that an understanding of simulation theory will make it clear that human beings have the potential to mentally interact in intimate and empathic ways. In philosophy of mind it is assumed that human’s are fundamentally minded creatures, meaning that we experience the world as one full of meaning, intentions, obligations, relationships, etc.. Further, philosophy of mind assumes that human interaction and relationships are always a matter of mindreading: of understanding each other’s mental states through different means. So the central question that theorists of mind grapple with is how do humans make sense of one another’s minds? How are we able to understand one another even though we only have access to our own thoughts (and perhaps we don’t even have that).

In Simulating Minds Alvin Goldman argues that humans understanding one another through empathy and extended forms of empathy, which can all be referred to under the umbrella category of simulation. This claim is justified primarily based on the existence of mirror neurons, and the existence of what Goldman calls the Enactment-imagination (E-imagination). Mirror neurons are motor neurons that are activated not only when an action is performed, but any time that an action is perceived. So when we see someone making a facial expression our brain activates the same neurons that are necessary for making that same facial expression. The brain then understands what emotion is being expressed based on what mirror neurons have been activated by the perception of a facial expression. Mirror neurons are also activated anytime we see someone grasp something. But the crucial point here is that mirror neurons are essentially the brains way of simulating the actions that it perceives, and thus its way of understanding other people around us. This is very similar to what Wolfgang Prinz called the ‘common coding theory’, which claims that “there is a shared representation (a common code) for both perception and action” (Wikipedia for common coding theory). Mirror neurons are the part of our brain that allow us to feel empathy for other people. So, mirror neurons demonstrate that simulation is one of the crucial ways in which we understand other people. The E-imagination is another neurologically documented phenomenon that shows the importance of simulation in social interactions. The term Enactment-Imagination refers to the fact that when we consciously attempt to imagine a certain experience we can enact certain qualities of that experience. When we try to imagine the pain we felt when a loved one died, for example, we can in part reconstitute the emotions that we felt at the time when that event actually took place. Or if we try to imagine what it would be like to have a spider crawling on our skin we can in some ways feel it on our skin. The existence of the E-imagination is evident not only in phenomenological accounts, but is also neurologically verifiable. Goldman does a good job drawing on the relevant science to show that there is neurological overlap between an experience and the imagination of that same experience. In any case, this notion of the E-imagination probably sounds very abstract. But think about when you have met a new person and they tell you about the time they broke their arm, and suddenly your skin crawls with the pain you imagined they felt. The E-imagination has the potential to be a very powerful component in our relationships with people. With both mirror neurons and the E-imagination we are engaging in forms of simulation. Both of them are a means to simulating and thus understanding other people’s thoughts and feelings.

These are two of Goldman’s major analytical pillars. But the heart of his theory is much more humane and emotional than I am able to convey in this short space. He wants to show that people engage with one another by really deeply entering into each other’s minds. That empathy is at the core of what it means to be a human, and that without it we have no hope of truly engaging with another person. And that what we are doing with all of this empathy is simulating other people’s thoughts and feelings in our own mind.

So this account of simulation theory is probably too brief, and probably too abstract. But I can’t bring myself to give a really good summary of simulation theory. I’ve written on it too many times. But what I want you to take away from this brief account of simulation theory is that there is empirical evidence that humans can engage in very empathic relationships. That there is a very real form of human interaction that is personal, empathic, and in technical terms, simulative. I believe, however, that there are other ways that people engage with one another. And I think that this other mode of engagement is captured in the notion of theory-theory.

I am very uncomfortable with my understanding of theory-theory. I have never read the work of a theory-theorist. I have learned about it primarily from Goldman’s summary of it in Simulating Minds. So I’ll just say that I am not confident in my references to it. But that I think that what I have learned about it, even if my understanding is misguided, will shed some light on the qualitative divide in my relationships that I am trying to address.

So what do theory-theorists claim? Well, they generally argue that mindreading is accomplished by the existence of tacit psychological theories. People supposedly use these tacit psychological theories to make inferences about other people’s behavior. In other words, theory-theory maintains that people understand each other much in the same way that scientists make sense of the natural world. The only difference is that we theoretically mindread people in a tacit or implicit way, and that science uses the same methods but in an explicit matter. Goldman quotes Fodor arguing that “When such [commonsense psychological] explanations are made explicit, they are frequently seen to exhibit the ‘deductive structure’ that is so characteristic of explanation in real science” (Fodor, 1987, quoted in Goldman, 2006). Goldman continues: “Fodor’s account of commonsense psychology posits an implicit, sciencelike theory featuring generalizations over unobservables (in this case, mental states). People are said to arrive at commonsense mental attributions by using the theory to guide their inferences” (Ibid., 96). So, as you can see, theory-theory believes that people operate like unconscious scientists, using tacit psychological theories to make logical inferences about what people behave the way they do. And, according to Goldman, these theories are presumed to be an innate human capacity. This ahistorical approach to mind is one major problem I have with theory-theory. But, again, I’m not at all comfortable with my knowledge of theory-theory. But at first glance it seems crazy to me.

I don’t want to dwell on the technical issues of theory-theory. Instead, I want to use it as a way to transition to the problem of relationships that I am trying to address. And I think the best way to do that is to use some personal reflections and anecdotes.

When I’m at work I worry about how people engage with me. Sometimes people will come up to me and will just mumble something and throw a dollar on the counter. Sometimes people will ignore all my attempts at saying hello or making small talk. People just spout orders at me, spout numbers at me. When this kind of thing happens I feel as though I have been denied some basic part of my humanity. I feel hurt when I go completely unacknowledged as a person. So how is it that people are able to engage with me in this way? How is it that people can approach me, buy something from me, and feel no concern or interest in who I am as a person? And how is it that I am able to interact with people in this way? This seems to conflict with the notion of simulation theory. There seems to be no attempt, or even need, to simulate one another’s thoughts. It seems that all me and my customers need to interact is labels and concepts.

And this is what it is about theory-theory that worries me. The Fodor quotation above shows that one of the crucial things about theory-theory is that it supposedly works in terms of generalizations as opposed to particulars. I have a big problem with generalization, categorization, and labeling. I think that they make things understandable by simplifying them. Once we have a label for something, once we have generalized it, there is no need for us to think very hard about what it really might be. This is especially true with people. Once we label someone ‘insane’, or ‘a criminal’, or ‘a barista’, for that matter, we don’t have to wonder about them. Their role, their essence, is already defined for us. And in the case of baristas, or any other service worker, they are functionally or economically defined. In short, I think that humans understand one another not simply through simulation and empathy. We can also understand one another through language, through classification and labeling. Both of these things, empathy and language, are innate properties for humans. And I think that they conflict with one another. I think there is tension between these two properties of the mind. In fact, I wrote about this in my essay of December 12th 2010, ‘Empathy And Language’.

I think that Zizek’s notion of the ‘violence of language’ can shed some light on the tension between language and empathy (between theory-theory and simulation theory). In Violence Zizek explains how there is an element of violence that is inherent to language. He refers to it as symbolic violence. He claims that every time we label something we disfigure it, we remove it from its natural and nuanced state and we reduce it to something else. He takes gold as an example. When we call gold gold we change it from being an ordinary mineral and we imbue it with all our economic notions of greed, desire, value, beauty, et cetera. I think that this notion of the violence of language holds true in many situations. When we label a certain group of people an enemy we do the same thing. We dull our sense of empathy towards them, because the label is enough. As long as we know that someone is ‘an enemy’ we don’t have to think very seriously about their thoughts, about their feelings, their experiences. The same thing holds true in more mundane examples. When someone is labeled as a barista, a server, a doctor, etc., we don’t have to think about them as a person. All we need to know is captured in that label.

This is what I worry about myself and my interactions. I worry that people just think of me as a barista, and if I don’t make them think of me in other ways, then they would be content to let me remain a mere barista. That is why I value small talk so much. It is an opportunity for me to assert myself as a personality, as a unique person, and not just as a barista. I resent those economic and social labels that make people think of me in those ways. I try to do my best to defy people’s labels for me and assert myself as a real mind that they have to think about. I refuse to be generalized about, I want to be thought of in particulars.

I’m grasping for straws trying to speak about this divide in the quality of my interactions. I am trying to understand how it is that with some people I have very nuanced and empathic interactions, and with other people my interactions are governed entirely by social and economic labels. This is why I chose to turn to the debate between simulation theory and theory-theory. It seems as though they do represent this divide within the human mind. Clearly we are capable of engaging with people in terms of simulation, in terms of empathy. But there is another side to our interactions with people that is characterized more by labeling, by concepts, by generalizing, by theorizing about people. And when I look around me I often feel as though this theoretical or linguistic interaction is far more common.

I’m not sure if it is entirely appropriate to frame this as an issue between simulation theory and theory-theory. I guess one thing I am suggesting is that simulation theory and theory-theory are both correct. That the human mind possesses both of those capacities, and that they interact with one another. It is possible for one to triumph over the other. In other words, it is possible that labeling could complete extinguish our capacity for empathizing with someone, or that our sense of empathy could completely negate our need to generalize about someone.

I’m really not happy with the way I have explicated this. But so far I have sloppily laid out the major problem them I am trying to address. I tried to use the divide between simulation theory and theory-theory to explain the divide in my relationships. Sometimes I have wonderfully empathic and simulative interactions with people, and sometimes I have interactions with people that are governed entirely by labels, that are completely lacking in a genuine connection with people. So the question from here is how to make sense of this divide. Why is it that my interactions are divided like this? How can a theory of mind possibly account for this contradiction? I propose that these questions can only be answered if we are willing to think about minds in their concrete historical actuality. I find theory of mind to be remarkably ahistorical. Goldman and others speak of minds as if they are completely ahistorical, totally generalizable things. But thanks to Collingwood, I believe that minds are only what minds do. There is no mind at rest, no mind beyond the flow of history. Theory of mind, therefore, needs to be augmented by historical study. Furthermore, I think that there are types of historical study that can help me answer this question about the qualitative divide in my relationships. This is what I now want to try and do. I have chosen the notion of ‘mediums’ as the central analytical concept for the next section. I believe that by focusing on the issue of mediums I will be able to explicate a historically informed theory of mind.

The Science and Art of Minds: Theory and Practice in the Social World

I fell apart at the end of this essay. There is so much to articulate here. But I'm so tired and can't muster my thoughts right now and want to be done with this one. I finished it. But there should be sub sections in each chapter, but I can't do that right now.

Table of Contents:

1.

Military Theory and the Relationship Between Theory and Practice

2.

Life and Decision Making as the Art of Minds

3. Theory of Mind as the Science of Minds

4. The Conflict Between the Art and Science of Minds

5. Uniting the Science and Art of Minds: Zen and the Creative Application of Principles

6. The Content of a Theory of Mind: Science and Genealogical History

7. The Application of a Theory of Mind: Theoretically Supported Study of Our Own and Other People's Experience

This essay has been prompted by my essay of 8/30/10 called 'The Genealogy of the Modern Mind'. In that essay I tried to argue that theory of mind needed to be conceptualized as a fundamentally historical project that should be focused on the study of the humanities. I tried to explain how history was essential to the construction of a theoretical body of knowledge about minds. I then tried to argue that this body of theory should be applied primarily to the study of the humanities with the goal of acquiring synthetic experience that would lead to an increased capacity for empathy and judgment.

I am now realizing that I can perhaps frame these difficulties in terms of science and art. Frankly, I think that these two terms are inadequate and are partially escaping my grasp at this point. But the general idea is that with theory of mind there is a noticeable tension between theory and practice. Theory of mind seems to amount to a body of theoretical knowledge that is constructed primarily out of scientific and philosophical evidence. But the application of that theory is not clear. So when I say the science of minds I am generally referring to the creation of systematic knowledge about minds. But I think that the real application of that theory can only happen through daily life and decision making, through the art of minds. And right here I am exploring the idea that daily life and social decision making can be considered an art of minds. If that phrase is appropriate. At this moment I sort of like it.

I suppose right now I'm not necessarily exploring the historical component of theory of mind. I do believe that I made some alright arguments about why history has to be incorporated into theory of mind. Interestingly, I think it needs to be incorporated at both levels – both in the construction of theoretical knowledge about minds and in the application of that theory to the study of the humanities.

But here I suppose I am more interested in exploring this relationship between technical knowledge (science/theory) and practical and creative living (practice/art). I want to explore this relationship both generally and specifically as it relates to theory of mind. First I am going to explain how military theory initially introduced me to the theory/practice, science/art dichotomy and the solution that I favor. Then I'd like to elaborate on this idea that theory of mind is somehow the science of minds, and that real living and decision making is an art of minds. After that I'll try to use zen to explain how the science of minds can be applied to the art of minds (i.e. how theory of mind can help us make better decisions in the social world). After that I'll attempt to more clearly restate the ideas that I first came upon in my GOMM essay. I'll try to explain succinctly how theoretical knowledge of minds needs to be constructed of both scientific knowledge about brains/minds and from historical knowledge that tells us about the contemporary states of minds. Lastly I'll try to explain more clearly how this theory of mind (which is both scientific and historical) should be applied to the study of the humanities with the goal of improving sensitivity, empathy, and intuitive judgment.

Military Theory and the Relationship Between Theory and Practice

So the conflict between theory and practice, and some solutions to the problem, have been highlighted by my work in military history. Military decision making has two traits that make it valuable in this discussion of theory and practice – it is a field that involves an overwhelming amount of practical decision making, and it has been subjected to a plethora of theorizing. This makes it a very useful field for gauging this relationship between theory and practice. Another important thing to note is that military practice is often about decision making. Because my main concern here is the theory and practice of social decision making, military history offers a nice lens for this focus on decision making.

There are two military theorists that I want to discuss, both of which I learned about from Jon Sumida, Alfred Mahan and Carl von Clausewitz. Both of these authors were concerned primarily with the education of command ability – they wanted to figure out the best way to train people to make difficult military decisions. Both authors were also concerned with how theoretical/technical knowledge could be used to train the decision making ability of commanders. The biggest problem in educating command with theory has to do with the role of language: theory relies entirely on language, while command decision making relies mostly on intuition, which is decision making without the aid of language and rationality. So the problem becomes bridging this gap between the strictly articulable nature of theory with the intuitive nature of command decision making. How to use language to train a form of decision making that doesn't rely on language?

Then the question for military theory becomes that of intuition. How is intuition trained? How do you train this creative and intuitive form of decision making? The short answer is experience. You need experience in order to get better at intuitive decision making. So then the crucial thing becomes the relationship between theory and experience: How does theory help describe experience? How does theory help us learn from experience? How does theory help us replicate/synthesize experience?

Mahan and Clausewitz both posed different sorts of answers to this question of how to best use theory to learn from experience. My understanding of Mahan is rough and only second hand from Sumida's book. My understanding of Clausewitz is a bit better because I have read large portions of his writing. That being said, Mahan believed that technical and theoretical knowledge could be used to help us learn more from actual experience. Further, Mahan also believed that history could be a source of experience that theory could help us learn from. Mahan believed that by learning the technical and theoretical aspects of command, and applying them to the study of historical and real experience, one could learn to exercise the art of command. So for Mahan the study of scientific ideas was meant only to improve your ability to exercise the art of decision making. Sumida compares Mahan's views on theory and experience to zen. Sumida says that zen similarly provides rules for conduct, but that they must be applied only loosely and leave room for judgment and creativity. I'll explore this comparison to zen more closely when I talk about theory of mind more closely.

Clausewitz also believed that theoretical and technical knowledge was useful only so long as it facilitated an education that was grounded in experience. Clausewitz, however, believed that history could not only help us learn from experience, but that history could provide an adequate substitute for experience. He believed that historical study combined with intelligent theoretical historical surmise could provide a synthetic experience of sorts. If we were to study history with the intention of reenacting/simulating the thoughts of past commanders we would be gaining access to the difficulties of high command and thus a synthetic experience.

So based on what Mahan and Clausewitz said about military theory I want to make a few things clear. 1. Military decision making is about the social world and therefore cannot be a matter of applying rigid technical or theoretical ideas, but rather intuitive decision making. 2. Because military command requires intuition it has to be trained primarily through experience. 3. Theoretical knowledge thus has to be directed towards either the acquisition of real experience or synthetic experience. 4. Because it is about intuitive decision making it is akin to an art form, the art of command social decision making.

So then, military theory offers me a model of how to conceptualize the relationship between scientific/theoretical knowledge and the art/practice of decision making. I want to import these general conclusions to what I am calling the science and art of minds. I'm trying to explain how there exists a similar gap between theory and practice with theory of mind. I think that decision making in the social world, like in the military world, has to be intuitive and creative. This means that experience is also a valued commodity in the social world just like it is in the military world. I will therefore argue that theory of mind has to be directed at the acquisition of real experience or synthetic experience. And I think that because social decision making is intuitive and creative, and because it revolves mainly around minds, can be considered an art of minds. So then from here, using this model from military theory, I'm going to talk about how to unite the science/theory of minds with the art/practice of minds. How to unite theoretical knowledge about minds with their practical engagement in the social world.

First I'm going to dwell for a bit longer on this notion of social decision making as the art of minds. Then I'm going to spend some time with this idea of theory of mind as a body of scientific knowledge. So I just want to really ground these terms art and science in theory of mind. From there I will explain the connection to zen more clearly. After that I'm going to rehash what this has to do with a genealogical theory of mind that is aimed at acquiring synthetic experience for the purpose of becoming more sensitive.

Life and Decision Making as the Art of Minds

So how is it that life can be considered an art form? Is it possible that all of life and decision making can be an art form? If so, can it be considered an art of minds? My sense for all of this is yes. Life can indeed be an art form, and it can be an art form that is executed as an art of minds.

I think there are probably two different things I want to talk about to make my case for this. I think this is probably weak evidence, but I'm very new to this idea that life is the art of minds. But I will talk about Foucault's notion of the 'aesthetics of existence', and then I'll talk about Collingwood and the few parts of The Principles of Art that I have looked at.

Now in The Use of Pleasure Foucault discusses ancient Greek sexual practices. He talks about how their major concern was not to master their desires, but to use pleasure. They were engaging in self-disciplined use of food, alcohol, and sex. This self-disciplined engagement with pleasure was meant to build a beautiful reputation. Foucault claims that they were engaging in this disciplined lifestyle so that they could have a beautiful reputation in their community that would then allow them to exercise political power with more authority, and it would allow them to leave a beautiful legacy for future generations. Foucault says that this can be called an aesthetics of existence. Why does art need to stop at painting, sculpting, or the other accepted mediums? Why can't life itself become a form of creative expression? Why can't life be an art form? The ancient Greeks provide some strong evidence that life can indeed become an art form, that it is possible to try and beautify your existence for yourself and for those around you.

Now accept for a moment that life can indeed be an art form. Accept that there is such a thing as the aesthetics of existence. Ask the question, How would this aesthetics of existence be actualized? Or how is any aesthetic affect realized? It would be realized in the mental world. How could this aesthetics of existence exist anywhere other than in minds? The art would be taking place in the mind of the individual that is trying to build a beautiful reputation and existence, and it would take place in the minds of the individuals who recognized that someone had achieved a beautiful existence. In short, based on this short line of reasoning I feel comfortable concluding that life can be considered the art of minds. It would be a way to produce a beautiful life both in your own mind and in the minds of others.

But I will corroborate this slightly with what I have read in Collingwood's The Principles of Art. Collingwood basically says that art has to meet two criteria: it has to be expressive and imaginative. I think that Collingwood also says that art has to be 'language' of some sort, which does not mean just words. Anything can be language. Now what is to prevent me from thinking that life and the decisions that are made in life cannot be both expressive, imaginative, and linguistic? Well, my essay On Creativity was a lot of fun to write and I really feel like I made a good case that all of life, language, and decision making could be creative. I also feel that life and decision making can be expressive, imaginative, and creative. I plan on reading The Principles of Art once I finish what I'm reading right now. But even my skimming seems to suggest that life itself can be an art in Collingwood's eyes. Furthermore, with Collingwood's emphasis on minds, I have no problem concluding that living and making decisions in the social world should be considered the art of minds.

I also want to point out real quickly that I have already said in numerous places that minds function intuitively. That the art of minds is not something that could happen deliberately or rationally. We have to learn to do this sort of expressive and creative social interaction on an intuitive level.

Now let me talk about how theory of mind is more so the science of minds.

Theory of Mind as the Science of Minds

Now here when I am talking about science I mean it in in its most general form. Even with that being said, I fear that the term doesn't quite apply to what I'm talking about here. But I'm talking about science as the production of a systematized body of knowledge that is supposed to achieve the full explanation of a phenomena, and often the prediction of that phenomena, and even prescription for action within that phenomena.

So is theory of mind really a science of mind? For one thing I can say that theory of mind draws primarily on scientific and technical information. Theory of mind typically uses the results of neuroscience or psychology, and also utilizes armchair thought experiments. But in any case, theory of mind is an articulated body of knowledge. Alvin Goldman does say explicitly that he is trying to create a comprehensive theory of mind. What that means, I'm not sure.

In this section I'm going to make a quick concession: I think this term is 1. eluding my grasp for the most part, and 2. probably inadequate for what I'm trying to talk about.

Basically I'm just saying here that theory of mind is an articulated body of knowledge that relies primarily on scientific evidence. And it is therefore in contrast to the actual practice of minds.

I think that calling theory of mind a science of mind will make more sense if I explain the conflict between the science and art of minds.

The Conflict Between the Art and Science of Minds

What I'm trying to talk about is how theory of mind is a clearly articulated body of knowledge about minds. It is always rooted in language, in articulation. And seeing that real interaction of minds functions primarily on an intuitive level (i.e. it functions without language), there is conflict between the theory and practice of minds. I am using the terms science and art to highlight the conflict between the theory and practice of minds.

Having established that engaging with minds can be an art, I want to figure out how to contrast that well. Mahan talked about the art and science of command. So I am talking about the art and science of minds. But I don't know if that makes sense.

But again, the point is this: theory of mind is an articulated body of knowledge that does not translate into real action in any clear way. Theory of mind is incapable of providing any kind of prescriptive action for the real world of minds. So there is a clear conflict between the theory of minds and the practice of minds. I want to specify the pragmatics of theory of mind more clearly. That is why these terms science and art are useful right now. Because I'm trying to explain how social decision making is an intuitive, creative, and expressive process that is akin to an art form, but that theory of mind is a systematized and articulated body of knowledge that has no direct connection to actual practice of minds, which is something like a science. So I'm using this dichotomy of science/art to explain how I want to turn theory of mind into a practical guide to daily living. I'm trying to unite the science and the art of minds. I'm trying to make it so that theory of mind can help us exercise the art of minds. I think this can be done. But it is tricky. I'm struggling with it, obviously. As I should be, right?

So generally the conflict is between theory of mind and the practice of minds: theory of mind is a clearly articulated and scientific body of knowledge, but the practice of minds is an intuitive process of social interaction that does not rely on language or reason. Theory of mind is like a science, while living in the world of minds is something like an art. Theory of mind does not lead to any obvious form of action. So I want to find a way to make this science of minds helpful in the art of minds.

I'm going to move on and try to clarify how I want to do this. I'm going to explain this unification of the science and art of minds in three sections. First, I'm going to scrape the surface a little bit with a reference to zen. Then I'm going to talk about how I want to reconfigure the body of theory that a theory of mind would use. Then I'll talk exactly about how I think it should be applied.

Uniting the Science and Art of Minds: Zen and the Creative Application of Principles

I only want to briefly compare this whole thing to zen. I haven't read nearly enough on zen, so I won't even try to make this clear or long. But I will say that when I read Jon Sumida's book on Alfred Mahan, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command, I was struck by the way that zen can be applied to this issue of the 'science' and 'art' of something. Sumida describes how Mahan's views on naval command were similar to the way that zen approaches formal propositions. Mahan believed that formal rules could not be rigidly applied to command decision making. They rather had to be used as a set of principles that allowed room for flexibility and creative judgment. Zen regards moral principles in the same way. Zen has a certain number of things that it holds to be true about good or proper living. But these rules are never to be rigidly applied to life. They are to be applied loosely, flexibly, and creatively. Judgment is supreme, and rules are only useful so long as they aid in the process of judgment.

I think that theory of mind should have a similar goal in mind. I think that theory of mind should come up with a series of propositions about the ways that minds work. It should explain as best we can how they work, and how we can interact with them. But theory of mind can never be prescriptive, so it needs to be an aid to judgment. The social world is about exercising judgment in relations of minds. But I bet theory of mind could be an aid to judgment in the social world, the world of minds.

But what principles should theory of mind use? Let me explore.

The Content of a Theory of Mind: Science and Genealogical History

I think that a theory of mind should consist of at least two elements that are somewhat distinct. The first is what theory of mind typically revolves around: scientific and philosophical evidence. Theory of mind typically draws on evidence from psychology, neuroscience, and general philosophical arguments. These traditional elements are crucial to theory of mind, obviously. The discovery of mirror neurons, neuroplasticity, all kinds of psychological experiments–all of this offers a lot to a theory of mind.

But I believe that a theory of mind also has to contain historical information. It needs to use genealogical historical methods to try and figure out what exactly is going on with minds in the present. It needs to figure out what minds in the past were like, and use that information to determine how minds have developed historically, and exactly how they are functioning in this historical moment. Culture has so much to do with minds, I don't see any way that a theory of mind could really function without historical study.

So I'm proposing that the content of theory of mind needs to be expanded to include historical information. I argued all of this in my essay 'The Genealogy of the Modern Mind'.

The Application of a Theory of Mind: Theoretically Supported Study of Our Own and Other People's Experience

So, I've told you in these last two sections that theory of mind needs to be regarded as a loose set of rules and principles that are to be intuitively and creatively applied in the social world as aids to judgment, and that a theory of mind can't possibly be adequate unless it uses historical evidence in conjunction with scientific evidence and philosophical argument. Now I just want to explain briefly how I think this theory of mind should be used as an aid to the study of our own and other people's experience. I think that the study of our own experience can be accomplished through mindfulness and reflection, while the study of other people's experience is to be found in the humanities and in social interaction. The goal with all of this talk of theory of mind is to make it so that theory of mind becomes part of our unconscious decision making apparatus. We need to make it so that theoretical lessons are absorbed into the mind at an unconscious level so that we can simply act those ways intuitively.

I think that the best way to absorb theory into the unconscious is by engaging in deliberate reflection on our own thought and deliberate simulation on other people's thoughts. In other words, we can't make our actions reflect our theoretical values unless we are willing to engage in mindfulness and empathy. Unless we take the time to really think about our own minds and think about other people's minds we won't be able to intuitively enact our moral values.

So we can use theory of mind to equip our minds with a conceptual tool kit that is both scientific and historical. We would learn about simulation theory, about mirror neurons and empathy, about social classifications, about the history of our thought. But that theoretical knowledge about minds isn't any good unless we can somehow transform it into the art of minds. It isn't any help unless it helps us live differently in the social world. We act intuitively in the social world, so we need to use it to transform our intuitive behavior. I think that is best done through reflection on our own experience and through the acquisition of synthetic experience from the humanities.

I'm so tired from starting my new job and from being stressed out and confused. I can't think clearly and want to publish this essay. I'm exploring fruitful things here. I'm articulating good stuff about how theory of mind needs to be reconceptualized both in terms of content and pragmatics. But I don't care to chase this post anymore. I want it to be done. I'll leave my original notes below. I'll stop here.

Original Notes of 9/1/10

- Theoretical ideas and being primed to learn from our own experience

- Mahan and learning from our own experience

- The humanities and synthetic experience

- Sensitivity

- Judgement

Zen and principles as guides to learning from experience. Principles as a means of creativity. These are some questions prompted by GOMM

This is really about the theory of mind. What are the propositions that theory of mind elaborates? And what are there use? What is the body of theory like? What is the use of that body of theory? Theory of mind has to be a zen like project.

Life is an art. Theory of mind is a science. But. Just like Mahan and Clausewitz, you can't have this type of theory for minds. You need a theory of mind that 1. helps you learn from real experience better and 2. helps you gain synthetic experience

The Inhibition of the Self as the Enrichment of the Self: The Encapsulation and Diffusion of Other Minds

So in this post I want to discuss some nuanced points about the nature of simulation and synthetic experience. In particular, I want to explain how it is that the simulation process can provide synthetic experience. Further, I want to try to show that the inhibition of the self required for an accurate simulation will ultimately lead to an enrichment of the self. I will be exploring this primarily through the notions of 'encapsulation' and 'diffusion' of other minds. The former term is Collingwood's, the latter term is mine. I plan on drawing on Alvin Goldman's Simulating Minds, as well.

This post is in direct relation to my post of 4/30/10, which argues for the importance of simulation theory of mind, and its ability to improve intuitive judgment by providing synthetic experience. So if you aren't familiar with the notions of simulation, encapsulation, or synthetic experience, please refer to that post.

This idea was prompted mainly by a discussion I had with Ryan Gleason after he read my post of 4/30. I spent a lot of time talking about Collingwood's notion of 'encapsulation' of thought, and Goldman's notion of a 'quarantine' of thought. In both instances we have to inhibit our thoughts, our biases, in order to accurately reenact/simulate another person's thoughts. Mr. Gleason, however, seemed to think that encapsulation/quarantine involved the 'destruction of the self.'

This couldn't be further from my view of it, so I want to clarify. The process of simulation is ALWAYS meant to enhance the mind of the person engaging in simulations.

It does, however, involve the inhibition of the self. You have to suppress your own thoughts, your own biases, your own beliefs that interfere with your ability to understand other people. The notions of encapsulation and quarantine are meant to communicate this inhibition of the self.

This post, therefore, will be spent explicating these terms, and explaining their effects. I am going to describe the process of simulating another mind as the encapsulation of another mind followed by the diffusion of that mind into your own mind. With the notion of diffusion I am trying to explain how after encapsulating another person's thought/experience, we can transform it into synthetic experience that effects our own thought and behavior.

In short, this is all about explaining how synthetic experience, acquired from simulations of past thought, which requires a degree of inhibition of the self, can ultimately transform the self by diffusing the encapsulated synthetic experience throughout your mind.

Collingwood on Encapsulation as the Enrichment of the Self

Well Collingwood's uses the term encapsulation to explain the process of reenacting past thoughts. When we have successfully understood past thought we encapsulate it in our own minds, in our present context. I experience the word encapsulation in a very visual way. It is an image for me, in which the mind is a space filled with a sort of substance, filled with thought. And the process of encapsulation literally forms a circle around this special type of thought we are thinking. It encases past thought inside our own minds. We can only understand history by subjectively recreating past thought in our own minds. We are attempting to understand other people's minds, and Collingwood (and Godldman and Searle) say this can only be accomplished by rethinking their thoughts for ourselves.

Thus encapsulation involves a certain amount of inhibition of the self. We have to suppress our own biases and make it so that our minds can adopt a highly specific form of thought within the context of our own thought. Here is a quotation from Collingwood where he explains how we have to change ourselves into understand history.

He says "the mere fact that someone has expressed his thoughts in writing, and that we possess his works, does not enable us to understand his thoughts. In order that we may be able to do so, we must come to the reading of them prepared with an experience sufficiently like his own to make those thoughts organic to it" (300). We have to craft ourselves in order to understand the past. In order to understand other people.

I believe that the process of inhibiting yourself, and thus enabling to make yourself think differently, can have very positive benefits. The three most important ones I can think of are 1. self-knowledge, and 2. an ability to transform your own thought, 3. increased capacity for empathy 4. it can help us exercise more freedom by freeing us from historical limitations of thought. Indeed, I have found four Collingwood quotations in which he says that reenactment of past thought can both provide us with self-knowledge, give us a chance to transform ourselves, and can make us more empathic. Thus, inhibition of the self as enrichment of the self.

In this next quotation Collingwood says that reenacting past thoughts is ultimately a form of self-knowledge. He says that the subjective nature of reenactment means it has a positive effect on the reenactor, by providing him with self-knowledge.

"And because this act is subjectivity... or experience, it can be studied only in its own subjective being, that is, by the thinker whose activity or experience it is. This study is not mere experience or consciousness, not even mere self-consciousness: it is self-knowledge. Thus the act of thought in becoming subjective does not cease to be objective; it is the object of a self-knowledge which differs from mere consciousness in being self-consciousness or awareness, and differs from being mere self-consciousness in self self-knowledge: the critical study of one's own thought, not the mere awareness of that thought as one's own" (292).

The self-knowledge described by Collingwood can also be seen in this next quotation. He says that the self-knowledge comes about by discovering the abilities and limitations of our thought. He also says, however, that we may be able to transform ourselves and overcome the limitations of our thought: "It thus may be said that historical inquiry revels to the historian the powers of his own mind. Since all he can know historically is thoughts that he can re-think for himself, the fact of his coming to know them shows him that his mind is able (or by the very effort of studying them has become able) to think in these ways. And conversely, whenever he finds certain historical matters unintelligible, he has discovered a limitation of his own mind; he has discovered that there are certain ways in which he is not, or no longer, or not yet, able to think" (218)

All this inhibition of the self required by reenactment can also lead to a great capacity for empathy. When we truly understand the thought of another person their actions should become more intelligible. If we really understand someone's thought we should be able to forgive them. This is very important to me. "[I]f we re-enact the past in our own thought, the past thought which we re-enact is seen in re-thinking it as valid.... The more adequately we re-enact the past, the more valid we see it to be: hence the differential result. What we judge negatively as error or evil in history is what we fail to understand" (470n). As I said, this quotation shows Collingwood believed that to understand someone's thought was to regard it as legitimate. History and pain. Think of all the terrible things that have happened that we need to accurately reenact if we want to understand. Ouch. But empathy, and creative empathy, is very important, and it flows out of Collingwood.

Further, Collingwood believed that all of this effort in historical thinking could help us construct our own lives with more awareness. He believed it would enable a greater degree of freedom: "sensation as distinct from thoughts, feelings as distinct from thoughts,.... Their importance to us consists in the fact that they form the proximate environment in which our reason lives, as our psychological organism is the proximate environment in which they live. They are the basis of our rational life, though no part of it. Our reason discovers them, but in studying them it is not studying itself. By learning to know them, it founds out how it can help them to live in health, so that they can feed and support it while it pursues its own proper task, the self-conscious creation of its own historical life" (231). Rational thought is supposed to create its own historical life. It is supposed to recognize its emotional and historical place and work within it to construct itself. Collingwood wants us to build our lives in light of history.

In short, Collingwood's reenactment, which requires encapsulation, and thus the inhibition of the self, can enrich the self in four ways. First, it can provide us with self-knowledge. Second, it can help us transform our own ways of thinking. Third, it can give us a greater capacity for empathy. Fourth, it can help us act with more freedom within our historical moment.

I'd like to say that although I am not using the word synthetic experience very regularly in this post, it is incredibly relevant. In fact, it is probably the most important thing. The process of reenacting another person's thought, encapsulating past thought, always provides a synthetic experience. This is one of the major sources of enrichment in all four of the ways I mentioned. This is all about synthetic experience.

Collingwood's notion of reenactment, therefore, is a process in which the encapsulation of past thought requires and inhibition of the self leads to an enrichment of the self. Next I am going to talk about Alvin Goldman's work Simulating Minds, and in particular his notion of 'quarantine' which parallels well to Collingwood's idea of encapsulation. After that I will explain my idea of diffusion. With the idea of diffusion I'm trying to explain how the synthetic experience provided by encapsulating thought can permeate our unconscious layers of thought. But first Goldman.

Goldman on Quarantining the Self in Simulation

Goldman is also trying to explain how understanding another person's mind is a process of simulating their thoughts for ourselves. Collingwood's notion of reenactment is primarily historical in nature, but Collingwood also says it applies on a general level. I believe that Goldman's use of the term simulation is meant to communicate the same thing as Collingwood's reenactment is: that in order to understand someone's thoughts we have to internally simulate their thoughts in our own mind.

Goldman's term 'quarantine' sounds to me somewhat similar to the notion of encapsulation. Similar enough that I need to explore the connection somewhat, if only to articulate their differences more clearly.

But anyways, Goldman says that simulating another person's thoughts properly often involves an inhibition of our own thoughts and knowledge. He draws on some experiments with children who have not reached the age in which they can inhibit their own self-knowledge. Children are told a story in which a person does not know where an object has been hidden in a kitchen, say its a banana under a bowl. The children, however, are told that the banana is hidden under the bowl. When asked where the person will likely look for the banana, the children consistently say under the bowl. The conclusion being that these children have not yet developed the capacity to inhibit their own perspective in understanding another person. I think these were three year olds. By the age of six or so children have gained the ability to inhibit their own perspective, and an thus understand other people's mental states in a larger range of situations.

So the important thing being that understanding other people's mental states (if done properly) always involves a certain amount of inhibition of the self. We can't understand people unless our mind is able to recognize that people don't think the way we do. Goldman, however, does talk for quite a while about 'egocentric' simulations, and how common they are. Basically that people tend to take their thoughts and emotions as the most important thing and they fail to understand other people because they can't move beyond their perspective. I have written about this a lot in my posts on the a priori imagination.

When we have successfully inhibited our own perspective and properly simulated another person's thoughts, Goldman says we have achieved a 'quarantine' of our own views that interfere with the simulation. It would only be select things we would be inhibiting. We wouldn't need to inhibit our views on gravity, or heat, or love to understand someone, but we may have to inhibit our views on religion, or politics, or other things. Goldman uses a visual representation to explain this idea of a quarantine. It helps me because, as I said, I already experience the idea of encapsulation very visually, lots of mental imagery in my conception of encapsulation and quarantine. But anyways I don't feel like recreating his image. But just imagine that in your mind you separate and encase all of your views that may not apply to the person you are trying to understand. You quarantine your views that interfere with simulating another person's thoughts.

In short, I think Goldman's notion of quarantine communicates the same thing as Collingwood's encapsulation: they both explain how you have to inhibit your own perspective in order to properly simulate and understand another person's thoughts. Goldman is less explicit about the possible benefits of simulation, and I think I am not as familiar with his work as I need to be. But still, given everything Collingwood, and given the similarities of these ideas, I think I have said enough that I can move on to how the necessity of inhibiting the self can lead to an enrichment of the self.

The Diffusion of Other Minds Within Your Own

Now as I have been saying, I am now going to explain my idea of the 'diffusion of encapsulated minds.' So, when we have successfully inhibited our own perspective, and have therefore properly reenacted/simulated another person's thoughts, we have accomplished an 'encapsulation' or a 'quarantine' of that mind.

We have successfully encased another person's way of thinking within our own mind. But how could this inhibition of ourselves lead to an enrichment of the self? The notion of diffusion is meant to explain how it is that these encapsulated minds can enter our unconscious. How encapsulating another person's experience can permeate our general experience and change us for the better.

This revolves mainly around the idea of synthetic experience. When we encapsulate another person's thoughts we are encasing their thought and experience. We are making their experience part of our own general experience. In order to really synthesize someone else's experience we have to inhibit ourselves. Once this inhibition has been done, and we have successfully encapsulated this other mind, what happens when we cease to pay attention? What happens to this encapsulated mind once we stop thinking so clearly about it and we enter our normal unreflective mode of life?

This is what I am trying to talk about with diffusion. Once we have encapsulated a mind it is going to maintain its form in some sense even when we stop thinking about it so explicitly. As I said, I experience the notion of encapsulation as imagery. So let me use a little imagery to conceptualize the diffusion that would take place post-encapsulation.

Well an encapsulated mind is a solid object, as far as I am concerned. Books, etc. we turn them into solid objects by constructing them in our own minds. Encapsulation is a solid, round object. Most thought, however, I like describing in terms of fog. Thought that is fog like is vapid, it is elusive, it is inarticulate, it is daydreamy. I think most thought exists in this fog like form. We don't usually have solid words to rest on for our thought. For me, at least, I experience my thought as a swirl, as a tornado of sorts. My mind spins with new concepts and ideas, and every now and then I am able to create solid objects. These essays.

Dealing with other minds is very similar. Starting a new book, meeting a new person, it can be like stepping into a space of mental fog. It is unclear how this person thinks or what they are thinking. But once we have understood another mind, we have managed to transform that fog into an encapsulated object. We have made it 'firmer' in our minds. I love these metaphors of fog and solidity. Collingwood discussed fog.

So, once we have turned a foggy mind into a solid object, successfully understood and encapsulated someone's thought, how does it interact with our general foggy thought? Well what I am saying is that once we have encapsulated that mind it will begin to exist as fog. We will have that person's thought accessible to us on an unconscious level, as well as on a conscious level.

Diffusion of another mind is allowing a mind to become fog. It is allowing deliberately encapsulated experience to permeate our thought on an unconscious level. Once we encapsulate that mind it will undoubtedly still exist within our thoughts on some level even when we don't explicitly think of it.

I think this is how synthetic experience ultimately permeates our unconscious thinking. It is the post reenactment reflection (as described by Clausewitz) that allows us to assimilate encapsulated minds, synthetic experience, into our own thoughts and experiences.

I think that once you encapsulate a mind you can let it diffuse into your own general thoughts. Fog. You create a solid object, an encapsulated mind, then it interacts with the fog of your general thought. I find fog to be a great way to think of my own thinking. So encapsulation and diffusion seems good to me.

I could explore this at much greater length. I could draw on Clausewitz to talk about this. But this is enough for now.

I am just saying that the inhibition of the self required by simulation leads to an enrichment of the self. This is because once a mind has been encapsulated it will begin to exist in our mind as fog as well. Fog being the unconscious content of our thoughts, the inarticulate contents of our thought. We work hard, we inhibit ourselves, we encapsulate another mind, and then we reflect on that mind in a daydreamy fashion. We let our mind engage with that other mind in a foggy space. This is diffusion. Turning a solid, encapsulated mind, into a fog that mixes with the rest of our experience.

The inhibition of the self as the enrichment of the self.

Done.

Original notes that I wrote when I began this on 6/16/10-

Ryan thought that simulation, and in particular encapsulation/quarantine amounted to a destruction of the self. Quite the opposite, it is the inhibition of the self that leads to an enrichment of the self. We have to inhibit ourselves in order to understand another mind, but once we have succesfully encapsulated that mind we let its experience blend with ours. It is encapsualted so it can properly turn into fog.