Slide 1 www.dreamhawk.com/ face.gif Opening image
Mind/Body Split and Digital Technology
Part 1. Introduction
[Slide 2] Show clip from The Matrix
[Slide 3] Read passage from Synners
[Slide 4] Show image of New Yorker cartoon
[Slide 5] The questions I want to grapple with in this lecture are these:
Where did we get the idea that the body is superfluous when working online, and
why, in a growing digital world, is it important to think of the body as a unified
entity rather than one separate from mind?
To answer these questions, we start with Plato, since he is identified as the
philosopher who laid foundation for Western views of the world, reality, the self,
and otherness.
Part 2. Problems with the Body
Plato’s Realm of Appearances and Ideas
[Slide 6] Plato (ca. 427 - 347 B.C.)
[Slide 7] Go through the “Allegory of the Cave”
What his model suggests is the possibility that body and mind can work
separately from one another. It also opens the door to the notion of otherness
caused by this separation, an otherness that is subjugated hierarchically to the
more privileged state of Mind.
Although Plato does not map his continuum to any religious viewpoint or talk
directly about who or what can make the journey to wisdom, he hints at a
gendered view in works such as the Timeaus.
[Slide 8] Read passage from Timeaus about the “fallen souls.”
As we will see, this thread was picked up ironically by others who found the
viewpoint in line with their own thoughts, despite the wide difference in religious
views.
Aristotle’s Cosmic Schema
[Slide 9] Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Philosopher, Rhetorician, Legal Scholar, Scientist, Metaphysicist, [Slide 10]
Aristotelian Cosmos his model of the cosmos became the view of the universe
for over 1000 years until others like Copernicus and Galileo finally proved once
and for all that the Earth actually circled the Sun and NOT as Aristotle claimed,
the other way around.
Working with the empirical data he had at the time, Aristotle also made claims
about biological differences of humans.
Read passage from Generation of Animals that talks about women’s immorality.
It is not that women were perceived as different from men––that is a given. But
what made his claims so problematic was the way in which he hierarchized the
cosmos once he laid out its structure.
[Slide 11] “The Great Chain of Being,” or Scala Natura (ladder of nature) , is a
combination of Plato’s Ideal Form and Aristotle’s hierarchical universe. Picked
up later by 17th and 18th C philosophers before being subverted by Darwin’s
ideas.
Aristotle claimed that “since the male is the most perfect form of any animal, the
male of any species will be higher on the scale of being than the female of that
species” (Tuana 19).
Summary
So going back to Plato’s continuum and applying Aristotle’s views on to it, we see
that the journey to wisdom is one that privileges Mind over Body. It is one where
the Body is a bother and actually interpreted later by Gnostics and NeoPlatonics, as not needed at all. [Slide 12] We also see that only men can
undertake the journey to Mind; women are destined by their biology to remain
stuck in the Realm of Appearances, fearful of shadows, influenced by mirrors,
and enamored of objects.
The Christian Separation of the Mind and Spirit
For the Greeks, Mind and Spirit were intertwined into one unit they referred to as
the Psyche. But the Christians who embraced the Platonic and Aristotelian
worldviews, continued to separate the various aspects of humanity as a way to
explain metaphysical notions of the afterlife, the Trinity, and Christ’s divinity, to
name a few things. This separation added to the growing list of possible
otherness that we continue to accept today. They also found it convenient to
map their religious views on to Plato’s continuum.
Add the Devil-God, Body-Woman, Man-Mind mapping
That Plato’s not-so-subtle hinting at woman’s moral inferiority and Aristotle at her
physical made an impact upon Christian thinkers long after the philosopher’s
deaths is easy to see in these passages:
[Slide 13] The Gospel of Thomas (200 CE) (57): Women can achieve heaven
only if she becomes man
Augustine (4th C), On the Holy Trinity, XII. 7.10): Woman is in God’s image only
in her position as wife in a marriage with man.
Gratian (12th C), Decretum, vol. 1col. 1254 (38).: Woman is not at all created in
the image of God.
[Slide 14] We also see it at work with the use of derogatory terms used for other
cultures: “Red Devils” for Native Americans comes to mind.
“European doctrine would, thereafter, place America's Indians in the same
category that DeSoto's people had: as pagan Devil's; non-humans incapable of
ownership. Beginning with news of Hernando DeSoto's death in the 1540's,
today's image of the Devil arose throughout Europe: our tall, red-skinned, bodyhairless, dark-eyed, spear-carrying American Indians with tails were
immortalized. American Indians were usually called "Red Devils" by European
settlers. That image, born in Spanish Conquest, survives to this day. It varies so
much from all previous "Devil" concepts that its use immediately following
DeSoto's death seems indisputable.” (Cherokee History Before DeSoto,
discoverkingsport.com/h-Cherokee-early.shtml)
[Slide 15] Descartes
DeSoto made contact with the Native Americans in 1540. Roughly 50 years later
Descartes was born. The Mind-Body split suggested by Plato, continued by
Aristotle and embraced by the early Christians thinkers looking to lay out a
Christian metaphysics was codified scientifically in the 17th by Descartes.
[Slide 17] See http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/tp4/top03.html Figure III.2:
Descartes' Solutions to the Mind-Body Problem
The mind-body split prevails through today and is seen in such phenomenon as
[Slide 18] Shopping habits (Women’s magazines)
[Slide 19] Mathematical and Scientific abilities (Engineering program ad)
[Slide 20] Gossip behavior (girls telling secrets)
[Slide 21] Sexuality (Mac truck naked girl)
[Slide 22] Housecleaning specialities (ad for toilet cleaners)
[Slide 23] Demonization of others (images of American Indians, Blacks,
Hispanics)
It has affected the way we handle Race, Class, Gender, Disability, Age, Sexual
Preference. And it makes it possible for us to rationalize violence against others
different than ourselves. [Slide 24] Lynching in Duluth
Part 3. Rethinking the Mind-Body Split
The fact is Plato and Aristotle were wrong. They couldn’t help it. They were
working with limited information. They did the best they could, but this limited
worldview has done an awful lot of damage today.
[Slide 25] Jon Benet
Scientific explorations of the brains have led to more updated views of the world,
reality, the self––and ultimately about otherness.
Molecular Biology—Unified View
[Slide 26] Ira Black, Molecules of the Mind
Unified View Stance: “The external world triggers the potential for change that is
already built into the system” (5). It is a feedback loop (8)
5 levels of organization of the neural “hardware.” Structure and function is
altered by the information that the neural system processes. These levels are:
genomic
molecular
synaptic
cellular
systems
Structure and function represent a “unity” (8).
Brain contains 100 billion neurons (or 1011) and 1015 synapses (10).
Learning comes about due to the changes in transmitter metabolism, expression
and communication, alteration of synaptic molecular architecture, and modified
growth and trophic factor action that constitute the biology of learning, memory,
and neurologic function” (11).
The neural system is a communication system (14).
The neural system can function in multiple states of reality simultaneously and it
seems to synthesize, in a combinatorial strategy, the astronomical amount of
transmissions made and received (17).
Aboutness: Representation in the brain that allows intrinsic information to refer
to external reality (183). He writes: “[T]he quality of aboutness is derived from
the function of interacting communicative symbols in the molecular, synaptic,
neuronal, network, and multisystems domains” (21).
Memory is present even at the molecular level and at the neural (18).
“Mental function is organized into ‘modules’” and these modules have a physical
reality in the mind/brain (19).
Structures (like the kidney) can communicate with receptive neurons. This
means that “aspects of communication with the nervous system are freed from
hard-wiring constraints” (34).
“Environmental information from a variety of sources regulates expression of
neuronal transmitter characters” (35). This explains briefly how environment can
influence us physiologically and psychologically.
[Slide 27]***So the answer to the question, Is it nature that forms us or nurture, is
that it is both, is this: The body is informed by mind and the mind is informed by
the body. Hence the name, “Unified View.”
“[C]ognitive molecular structures do the following:
1. serve a semantic, symbolic function, representing external or internal
reality
2. communicate, transmitting information among neuronal populations,
aggregates, and ensembles, thereby forming biochemical circuits of
information flow
3. govern moment-to-moment and long-term neural function, accessing the
neuronal genome, regulating neuronal growth, and more generally,
dictating the syntax of communication and representation in the nervous
system
4. constitute fundamental units in a more complex combinatorial system of
higher order structure (45).
[Slide 28] ENVIRONMENT –––>ORGANISM–––>NEURAL SYSTEM–––>BACK
(46).
Okay this means that we carry within us the code by which we decipher outside
stimuli, and the meaning of those symbols physiologically where the symbol
occurs, along with any other relevant data. This process occurs over every level.
...
Further, symbols don’t just relay information across systems but also integrate
information from outside to inside the organism (52).
Black cites a concrete example of an occasion where environmental change
“elicits a molecular alteration that persists and that changes cellular function”
(57). He then goes on to say that “environmental events may alter gene readout
by altering nerve impulse activity. In turn, alteration of gene readout changes
neural and behavorial function” (58). This means that no matter how human
behavior have been “gendered,” some of these behaviors have been learned
ones that can be unlearned—one example of how to read this information.
In the context of how our systems remember, we can define memory very
broadly to mean “a brain state” for “we may have to alter our conception of
memory, based on the elementary considerations of molecular mechanism and
cell biology in the brain” (65-6).
[Memory, we must remember is a building block of cognition.]
[Slide 29] Show Bloom’s Stages of Cognition.
Another interesting aspect of the way information is carried over and by neurons
is that speed becomes an issue of how the message gets read and its
instructions carried out (87-9). “Sensory processing of a stimulus occurs through
multiple, parallel pathways. In vision, for example, color, motion, and depth
perception are analyzed by different pathways that nevertheless result un
apparently unified perception” (101).
[Slide 30] He ends by saying that evidence points to the fact that the “dynamic
relationship among environment, molecular signals, systems, and behavior may
underlie aspects of learning and memory” (131).
Experiments on split-brain patients (of acute epilepsy) show that when the left
(verbal) side of the brain is indeed split from the right, the patients fabricate a
reality to explain the information seen by only one side of the brain (in this case,
the right) (137). He sums this up by saying that “gross hemispheric separation
has provided insight into modular organization that shapes normal and abnormal
mentation” (138).
Bring up OBEs
Article
[Our notion of reality is contingent upon one’s ability to perceive accurately.]
“Biology and behavior are one” (159).
[Slide 31]“The self . . . is a vast aggregate of functions distributed throughout the
brain and even the entire neuroaxis. Its component parts exist at multiple
anatomic loci, and within these loci at multiple levels from neuronal population, to
synaptic arrays, to symbolic molecules. Loci and levels are in continuous
interaction constructing subjective reality” (179-180).
[Slide 32] Body-Mind (-Soul, separated from Mind by early Church fathers
remains the purview of Metaphysics, of Religion)
Body as the basis of a living, breathing creature corrupts; Mind, informed by the
Body, goes with it. (Soul may or may not dwell on in the afterlife)
Body in terms of DNA lives on; does Mind also remain in some capacity? What
is the state of this corporeal existence?
Consciousness?
Part 4. Final Thoughts
If the Body and Mind are components working together as a unit to produce an
Individual and the Perception of Reality for that Individual, then what does this
mean for Otherness? How is Race affected by this change? Class? Gender?
Age? What happens when we embrace a model of cognitive development that
eliminates the mind-body split, that relies on both working together for learning to
occur?
In a nutshell, it means that we are not victims of biology, of environment, but
rather creatures in a feedback loop, affected by our particular circumstances.
Being old, for example, is not an indictment of incapacity to perform, for elderly
people can remain active depending upon their own circumstance. Women are
not relegated to taking courses in domestic science; rather, women have the
capacity to take degrees in physics, biology, and the like, depending upon their
own circumstance. And so on.
In talking about digital technology, what the scientific data shows us is that when
we go online, our bodies are needed in order to go online. There is no online
without the body. We may be able to hide our bodies temporarily from those with
whom we are interacting, but the things that make us an individual, that creates
the sense of self do not mysteriously evaporate when we touch our fingers to the
keyboard.
[Slide 33] The Matrix and Synners got it wrong. Neo, for example, remains
always Neo even if he himself is deluded by the technology. Computer
technology may enhance our lives, may augment our notion of reality, may
extend our perceptions of the world, but it does not divide us from ourselves. We
are who we are when we are online. Thinking otherwise takes into a deep hole
where wars are waged in the name of some God, people are enslaved because
they are perceived as inferior creatures. In the end, we make the world a lesser
place.
[Slide 34] I end with this image from the Dolce and Gabbana’s advertising
campaign that was to have taken place in Australia last March. It was eventually
cancelled because of the stir it caused for promoting violence against women.
Thank god.