Ebook: Concept of Mind

The problem with this book is also the problem of philosophy in general: it lacks foundation in the material world. Reading Ryle's rebuttal of what he terms The Official Doctrine is like reading the work of a medieval theologian. We are in the clouds, discussing at the wrong level of abstraction the emergent properties of phenomenon that need to be examined in a completely different way if they are to be understood.

Philosophers, being utterly disconnected from tangible scientific investigation, tend to wander around in an abstract maze wondering why they can never touch the boundaries and work out where they are. A major problem is that they lack any practical understanding of how things really work. It is as if philosophers were to spend a thousand years discussing the "reality" of a Boeing 747 without ever once studying aerodynamics or propulsion mechanics or even getting onto a scheduled flight.

In Ryle's book the usual mistakes are recapitulated: mind is thought of as a total, rather than as a series of fairly discrete phenomenon. We experience ourselves as "whole" but this is an illusion. The illusion has been demonstrated multiple times over the last fifty years but people (including philosophers) are deeply reluctant to take this on board. The problem with Ryle's work is that he lacks all mechanical knowledge of how the brain creates the illusion of "mind" and therefore he is utterly unable to make any real progress in his discussion of it. We know that what we used to call "mind" is actually a complex series of interactions, built up in layers. First we have reflex, which is hard-wired. Thus we experience a massive adrenaline rush when suddenly exposed to unexpected shock (this is the basis of flight-or-fight). Then we have instinct, which is fairly hard-coded but can under certain circumstances be modified or rewired. Language acquisition is an example of instinct. After this we have emotion, which is controlled by our endocrine system. Most human behavior, it seems, is driven by a mixture of instinct and emotion. Lastly we have reason, but this is probably the least developed part of our brain and we flatter ourselves by imagining it to be the dominant card in the deck. A cursory glance at history serves to reveal how very small a role reason plays in the course of human events. Reason exists predominantly in the frontal lobes.

Treating these very different mental strata as though they were indivisible and equivalent is of course an error from which philosophy cannot recover. Like a logical proposition that commences from a false statement, the scaffolding is build on air and must therefore collapse no matter how elaborate the construction and no matter how great an effort is applied.

For people who enjoy reading medieval theology (how many angels can in fact dance on the head of a pin?) this book will provide charm and amusement. But for anyone wanting to know anything factual about the illusion of mind generated by the human brain, this book contains nothing but the dust of a pointless argument that has long ago been superceded by more adequate scientific knowledge. For any reader truly interested in what the mind is and how it works, a better text is The Birth Of The Mind by Gary Marcus (published by Basic Books), which at least begins in the right place and therefore can make some decent progress.