The Mind/Body Problem and Freedom.

August 19, 2010 at 2:54 P.M. "Errors" inserted since my previous review of this work have been restored to the text. I will do my best to make the necessary corrections. I cannot say how many other writings have been vandalized overnight in the continuing frustration inducement effort.

This must be the tenth time that I make corrections -- including corrections of errors that are not found in earlier printouts of this same text -- and that I repost this essay. 11 intrusion attempts were listed today by Norton Security, along with two security spyware risks that were removed from my computer. May 5, 2007 at 4:29 P.M. Larissa, this is not how you engage in academic debate. Fictious name? Anne Milgram, Esq.? Input from "Hon." Sybil R. Moses? Ms. Naomi Wolf? Jennifer Velez?

In seeking out a debate with me -- if you are seeking such a confrontation -- should you not use your real name? Are you a lawyer or public official in New Jersey concerned that you will lose a fair debate with me on these matters? I think you have lost such a debate. Will defacing this essay make you feel better, Larissa? Do you not have the courage of your convictions? Will you not step out from behind my back to face me and acknowledge your actions? Jaynee? Sybil? Debbie? Anne? Don't be shy, ladies. I mean, "women." Is Liesl Schillinger, New York Times reporter, the real Larissa McFarquhar? Do you know Manohla Dargis, Liesl? If subpoaened to testify, will Liesl Schillinger identify "Manohla Dargis"? Would a New York Times journalist accept money (cash?) or favors from politicians to ghost write items appearing under a fictious name in "America's newspaper of record"? Is America's news media "independent and free"? Or corrupt? A little of both. Are the persons whose names appear as "authors" of newspaper articles the best writers in the nation? ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!" and "'The Reader': A Movie Review.")

Larissa McFarquhar, "Two Heads: A Marriage Devoted to the Mind/Body Problem," The New Yorker, February 12, 2007, at p. 58.
John P. Briggs & F. David Peat, "Karl Pribram and the Looking Glass Mind," in Looking Glass Universe: The Emerging Science of Wholeness (London: Fontana, 1984), pp. 257-290. (" ... mind is implicated in that whole process and is not localizable in the brain.") (pp. 288-289.)

I.

The mind/body problem has fascinated philosophers for centuries. The problem is experienced as urgent by many nonphilosophical persons well as theorists in the humanities and sciences. This alone is significant, since the persistence of this issue may be telling us something important about what persons are and always will be.

Some improvement has indeed been detectable in our understanding of this problem, but there has been no great progress towards finding a compelling answer. We seem to be no closer to a valid or universally acceptable answer (or answers) to the questions: "What is mind or consciousness? Are mind and brain identical? Is there really a mind/body problem, or is this difficulty only a philosophical illusion? What is the connection or relation between mind and body?"

I will discuss a recent New Yorker profile of philosophy's "Nick and Nora Charles in lab coats" -- Paul and Patricia Churchland -- who have devoted their professional lives to studying this conundrum and who are proponents of one popular answer, which (I think) is mistaken. The works of these thinkers are highly recommended, especially to those -- including religious persons -- who believe, as I do, that the Churchlands are way off the mark not only in their proposed solution, but in what they understand to be at issue in this controversy.

Arrogance and dismissiveness based on ignorance and underlying philosophical illiteracy will not help the reductivist cause. Certainly, no public official or judge should be affiliated with a news magazine or other publication while discharging responsibilities requiring neutrality on issues that may involve the media. Ms. Milgram, have you been involved in publishing articles in the news media under the name of others while serving as Attorney General of New Jersey? Jennifer Velez? ("Anne Milgram Does it Again!")

I would not, of course, censor or seek to destroy what the Churchlands -- or any philosopher -- writes. Would it not be nice if, for once, I were to receive the same consideration and tolerance from my adversaries? How about a little respect? So far, respect and tolerance have not been very plentiful in my life as a writer or lawyer (when I was a lawyer). Will I be "restored"? Is such a thing possible? I doubt it. Do you think you can "restore" me, Mr. Rabner? Do you believe that I will accept vague promises, Mr. Rabner? ("No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")

Many other persons in all kinds of places -- including some in other parts of the United States -- can say the same: censorship is real in America. Philosophizing and writing is an act of resistance and an affirmation of humanity. Writing is a form of opposition to oppression in which, I believe and hope, the Churchlands join me. My efforts to print items from my MSN group today leaves me with a blank piece of paper with the following address at the bottom of the page: http://view.atdmt.com/MSN/iview/msnnkhac001728x90xWBCBRB00110msn/direct/01 (NJ's OAE?)

The "Churchland's solution" to this philosophical chestnut says that the mind is "nothing but the brain thinking." This is called the mind/brain "identity theory." Eventually, we may do away with mentalistic language entirely -- according to the Churchlands -- describing the phenomenology of human experience exclusively in externalistic and objective scientific terminology, a position known as "eliminative materialism."

"How wonderful you look in that see-through black lace undergarment, my dear. I can feel neuron NC-5 firing and several synaptic explosions, not to mention a neurochemical 'rocket lift off,' as it were (forgive my apt metaphorical terminology!), as I contemplate a possible forthcoming exchange of bodily fluids."

"Thank you, darling. May I have a urine sample and a bit of your blood to test in order to determine whether these garments have produced the desired hormonal and chemical reactions in your male body?"

David Lodge's characters discuss this problem in similar terms:

"There is an old joke that crops up in nearly every book on consciousness, about two behaviorist psychologists who have sex and afterwards one says to the other, 'It was good for you, how was it for me?' ..."

Thinks (London: Penguin, 200), p. 42.

And they say romance is dead -- not in philosophy. The ostensible scientific "answer" is popular, then, with the affluent, educated middle class persons in First World countries who are, mostly, the available consumers of philosophy's "work-product." In other words, these are the people who read philosophy books. Furthermore, these are the people who presume to define and embody "normality" for the rest of us, enriching all of us with their "intellectually respectable" opinions and perspectives on all matters, even as the rest of us find few opportunities to be heard or published. Many brain-mind identity theorists also call themselves behaviorists. ("Behaviorism is Evil.")

I have been insulted and dismissed by these people, who often have read much less than I have, even as they cannot wait to instruct me concerning the "right view" of consciousness and other philosophical matters. I wonder whether Larissa visited The Philosophy Cafe at MSN? New Jersey? My writings are regularly altered and defaced, despite the protection afforded to them by the United States Constitution and copyright laws that we ask the world to respect, but which New Jersey regards as toilet paper. Is it possible that lawyers violate such laws, publicly, with impunity in America?

Part of the trouble with contemporary philosophy in America is insularity and a "club-like" atmosphere. This is unhealthy and a constraint on the possible achievement of new insights that are desperately needed. It behooves the rest of us to get a firm grip, in a manner of speaking, on what privileged people have to say and whether it makes sense. Often, these highly "normal" people do not make sense. However, they dress well and serve nice snacks when you visit them on the weekends. Mysteriously, they also write for mainstream publications -- like The New Yorker and The New York Times. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

No wonder these publications continue to suffer a decline in respect, prestige and readership. ("Incoherence in 'The New York Times'" and "Incoherence in 'The New Yorker.'") I guess if you know a politician, then your writing gets into these publications no matter how awful it may be. I wonder whether politicians in America insert articles in publications through "others" or by using fictitious names? No, it could not happen here. We have an "independent press" in America which is, strangely, silent about New Jersey criminality and my experiences of censorship. I wonder why? No Attorney General can write articles for the media under an assumed name since this is a "conflict of interest." Right, Ms. Milgram? Even less may a judge write for the media under pseudonyms. Would you agree, Judge Moses? ("Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Mafia Out of Control in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless.")

The Churchlands are important intellectuals and thinkers whose arguments certainly do make sense. This is true whether we accept or reject their arguments. It is best to examine philosophical ideas and arguments with great care, especially when they are presented by their ablest exponents. If there are serious difficulties in these articulations of science's alleged "answer" to the philosophical mind/body issue, then we may be sure that, in lesser hands, the "scientistic" answer will be even less compelling, or even incoherent. Notice that scientifically informed -- or truly "scientific" -- answers are always welcome.

The slanted presentation in this profile suffers from an inadequate appreciation of the currently available alternatives or the compelling theories and arguments opposed to this Churchland position. I find this inadequacy -- and some serious mistakes (Larissa, are you sure that David Chalmers is a "dualist"?) -- surprising in one of my favorite magazines. What happened to the famous fact-checkers and editors at The New Yorker? Chalmers' theory "would be a kind of dualism, Chalmers had to admit, but not a mystical sort; it would be compatible with the physical sciences because it would not alter them -- it would be an addition." (p. 66.)

Where and when did Chalmers "admit" to this alleged radical "dualism"? Why is dualism "mystical"? No reference is provided. "Dual-aspect theories" are not mentioned. The term "introspectionism" is not mentioned. "Social connectionism" is not mentioned. I think Larissa's confusion is due to her apparent assumption that "dualism" is the same as "property dualism." This is not the case, however, since "property dualism" is a term of art meaning roughly the same thing as "dual aspect theory." ("John Searle and David Chalmers on Consciousness" and "The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem.")

A property dualist -- unlike a classical or radical dualist -- does NOT believe that there are two entities "body" and "mind"; rather, a property dualist contends that there is one entity, a person, with two properties -- body and mind. Property dualism "allows for the compatibility of mental and physical causation, since the cause of [a person's] action might under one aspect be describable as a physical event in the brain and under another aspect as a desire, emotion or thought ..." The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, p. 207. (The same occurrence may be described as an event or action depending on the purposes of the person doing the describing.)

Thus, "property dualism" or "dual aspect theory," I believe, is a kind of monism. "Panpsychism" is inadequately understood and described by Larissa as "a little crazy" (says who?), even though Chalmers "found it appealing anyway." (p. 67.) This is panpsychism and it is not "a little crazy":

"Either the view that all parts of matter involve consciousness, or the more holistic view that the whole world 'is but the veil of an infinite realm of mental life.' (Lotze)."

Simon Blackburn, ed., Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 275-276.

This is a view derived from ancient Greece, by way of Neoplatonism, shared by Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Bradley along with many religious persons today. It is also a common view in Asian philosophies and quantum physics. Why are they all "foolish" and/or "crazy"? One billion or more people in the world did not attend Rutgers, so they must be stupid? (See my essay "Where are thoughts located?")

I am grateful for a discussion of these issues in a popular magazine. I sure enjoyed reading the article. Suggestions for those who wish to read more about the philosophy of mind and a list of sources will be provided at the conclusion of my essay. Nevertheless, this is not a persuasive articulation of what is at issue in the mind/body controversy. We are not offered any kind of plausible solution by the New Yorker's dutiful journalist (nor by the Churchlands) of this philosophical puzzle. The mind/body problem is still out there.

What follows is a journey that will make demands of the reader. I say this because some readers will not be able to devote the time, effort, and attention that I must request from anyone who wishes to make this journey with me. I will do my best to make the experience interesting and pleasant. I must not underestimate or deny the difficulties to be encountered along the way. Also, it should be clear that, if I succeed, I will only have pointed out some serious difficulties and suggested materials to be consulted. It is always easier to say why a solution does not work than to come up with a better one.

This philosophical issue may grip you, leading to a life-long engagement with the problem and many years of reading books dealing with it. Good legal minds should tackle this issue. Although it may be necessary for lawyers to abandon, temporarily, familiar styles of analytical thinking. For some lawyers this renewal of thought may no longer be possible, which is very sad. Many of them are judges, who are rather set in their ways. There are relevant texts, but no controlling authorities in philosophy. What is crucial is less advocacy skills than a clear understanding and articulation of a complex set of issues.

It is only after clarity is achieved that we should argue about our respective solutions to a philosophical puzzle. You cannot prevail in a philosophical discussion by pounding a gavel or your fist on the table. Deleting a letter from my essay will not help the befuddled Ms. McFarquhar. Is this a real name or an insult? Anne Milgram? You are not proven right if you beat up a philosophical adversary or prevent him or her from speaking. You are not proven right by defacing the writings of others or by preventing them from publishing their books. Do you agree Mr. Coviello?

You will not prevail in debate against me by torturing me or stealing from me (again) because you disapprove of my "ethics." Raping an adversary will have little bearing on the validity of his philosophical views. Efforts to run a scan of my system are obstructed as I write these words. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

A further point to bear in mind at the outset is that any proposed solution to this issue should be scientifically respectable. We should philosophize on the basis of the best available scientific information. When we write about ideas, science is important. I agree with the Churchlands on that point. Real science can only help in thinking about philosophical issues. However, even scientifically informed thinkers have developed rival positions to the identity theory, such as Hilary Putnam's "functionalism," which says the brain is like hardware and the mind is akin to software, each is "descriptively distinct."

I am certain that science cannot solve our most important philosophical perplexities because these puzzles are concerned with issues that go beyond the scope of scientific methods and objectives. Some of these philosophical concerns include the validity of science's knowledge claims and possible ethical limitations upon the scientific enterprise. Such concerns are and will always be philosophical, political, legal or sociological, not exclusively scientific. Often we will need religious sensibility and imagination even to approach the deepest mysteries of human life. Any psychological theory that denies this "subjective" aspect of human beings will be inadequate.
Science has been so successful in providing knowledge of empirical realities and factual information that it has become an "imperial discipline," too often falsely assumed to be the only means of knowing things. Imperialism is not attractive to me in international relations. It is also not very smart in coping with sets of issues like these mind/body "problems." Scientific clarity can be so beguiling, in fact, that it misleads investigators into confusing the sort of answers scientists can provide about nature for the kind of answers needed by people in their spiritual and philosophical lives. All of us will need to contribute to this discussion, in other words, which is related to our religious aspirations and wonderings. Mary Midgley says:

"[Scientism] is essentially the approach well described of late by the story of the man who is found looking for keys under a street-lamp and is asked whether that is where he dropped them. 'No,' he says, 'but it is much the easiest place to look.' ..."

Science and Poetry (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 2.

Science is properly concerned with "how" questions. Neuroscience tells us, for example, what specific cerebral operations are involved in the human action of lifting my right arm. Science cannot answer the ultimate why questions concerning my choice to lift my arm. Science is helpless when it is necessary to "interpret" my gesture, so as to decide what lifting my arm means. Suppose I lift my right arm in a salute in Nazi Germany in 1936: Is it the "same" gesture as lifting my right arm today to salute a friend riding the local bus? Biologically, these may be "identical" gestures. Still, their meaning is not the same.

Why are we led into paradoxes at this point? What are all of the possible "meanings" of a smile? Can they be known? Actors say: "What do you want the smile to mean?" What are the possible conscious and subconscious meanings or realities in any human situation, including the scientists' own quest for meaning and knowledge? Can science which seeks merely to describe and report events and processes "objectively" -- without distortions produced by human values or wishes and desires -- best address these subtle questions of meaning? I doubt it. I wonder whether Larissa knows S.L. Hurley? Sybil R. Moses? ("Metaphor is Mystery.")

Before delving further into this philosophical quicksand, let us be clear in stating the philosophical issues and concerns. It will be important to note that there is a centuries-old history of inquiry in this area. A major weakness in the Churchlands' approach is an excessively abrupt treatment of the relevant historical and narrowly textual philosophical authorities. Even a student will benefit from a good history of philosophy and of this controversy. A novel may do the trick -- try Rebecca Goldstein's The Mind/Body Problem.

I have said that philosophy is not law. There are no "controlling cases." Yet really smart people have thought about this problem for centuries. Ignoring their past solutions -- and possible interpretations of those solutions in light of what we know today -- may not be wise. Also, the conversation concerning these issues, and the concepts which have emerged, have been shaped by its history. Any entry into this conversation involves, among other things, an historical excavation. Michel Foucault's archeological method has its attractions. Few people have thought of Foucault in this context because he did not play with rats in a laboratory. This neglect of Foucault on mind/body questions is unfortunate.

In addition to scientific and philosophical materials, I will look (briefly) at art and religion. I believe that the scriptures of all the great world religions provide fascinating clues concerning where solutions may be found to the problem of consciousness. It is almost as if we were "invited" to search, think, and find these answers for ourselves. I wonder whether this "invitation" is itself significant? Lorenzo Albacete, S.J., comments:

"All I see is what is in this world. It is a way of experiencing this world as a sign [emphasis added] of a reality that is always beyond its limits. The cell mutation researched by a scientist, the social inequities confronted by an activist, the ladybug pondered by a child -- all of these point to this Mystery at the heart of all that exists."

Notice the conclusion drawn by this Catholic priest and scientist:

"Religious experience, therefore, is not an escape from this world; it is an affirmation of it. It is a way of standing before reality -- the reality that each of us encounters in our lives, our work, and our relationships each day -- and regarding it with a passionate curiosity. It is a contemplative posture before all that exists."

The works of Rene Dubos are enthusiastically recommended. And this is the crucial point:

"Scientists and the authentically religious, whatever their different conclusions, are on the same side of the battle against the suppression of reason."

God at the Ritz (New York: Crossroad, 2002), p. 27, p. 58.

After stating the philosophical issue with some care, I will suggest that there are difficulties resulting from the history of theoretical reflection on minds and bodies, also some gems to be extracted from that history. First, I read through this New Yorker profile, pointing out problems along the way. Second, I offer suggestions for alternative areas of inquiry leading towards a possible solution -- a solution that "works" (pragmatists are happy when solutions are said to "work"), if only for us, now.

I will only hint at a possible solution that may lead to something better -- that is, better for those who will study this controversy after we are gone. Yes, the controversy will always exist because persons will always be paradoxical. The philosophical solutions for which we strive, if we are fortunate, will work better tomorrow than they do today. (See my essay on "Magic.")

I wonder whether a philosophical solution that doesn't "work" -- in a "practical" sense, that is -- is still a solution? Besides, what does it mean to say that a philosophical solution "works"? I will leave those problems for another day. Karl Marx echoed Stendhal in claiming that he was "writing for the future." I think every real philosopher can say the same. To engage in philosophical thinking is to ask readers and posterity to correct our efforts. This may be a good time to insert another "error."

II.

Larissa gets off to a shaky start:

"It is not enough to imagine that the brain houses the mind (in some obscure cavity, perhaps tiny intracellular pockets), or gives rise to the mind (the way a television produces an image), or generates the mind (a generator producing current): to imagine any of those things is to retain the idea that the mind and the brain are distinct from each other. The trick is to remove the verb that separates them. The problem is not one of knowledge; the problem is our obdurate, antidiluvian minds [sic.] that cannot grasp what we believe to be true." (p. 60.)

What do you mean by "we," Larissa? Who says "we" assume it to be true that minds and brains are identical? How do you know this remarkable claim to be true? If this universal acceptance exists, then there would be no philosophical mind/body problem. We experience a difficulty in relating body and mind precisely because we discover a tension in different realms of discourse, empirical or causative (body) and interpretive and ideational (mind). Clearly, these different realms of discourse refer to a unitary entity, a person. However, neither realm can be reduced to the other. ("Donald Davidson's Anomalous Monism.")

Imagine that you are a young intellectual in Latin America or the Middle East, Africa or Asia. You read that your counterparts in America offer this spiritual diet: a rejection of spirituality, a limiting of the intellectually respectable to secularism and the language of the laboratory, with a rejection of both the "reality" of subjectivity and the mentalistic language of yearning and hope as "illusory."

Now consider that this same intellectual -- in Cuba, perhaps -- is a witness to the daily harassments of a tortured, impoverished, raped victim of American power who is denied, publicly, the very same Constitutional rights which America claims to defend and for which young Americans are dying, every day, in the Middle East. Fourteen Americans of all ethnicities and races died today in a helicopter crash, more deaths are expected in Iraq from separate incidents. Cuban-Americans seriously discuss "nuclear bombs" to be used against Cuba while endorsing the events at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. Does this contradictory and repellent picture of abuse of power and hypocrisy as well as censorship seem attractive to you? ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")

Does such a philosophy sound beguiling to you? It doesn't tempt me. I do not wish to see the American philosophical message reduced to this desiccated perspective on life. For one thing, as we will see later, it may lead to a dismal view of human rights as dispensable luxuries and to a "sanitized totalitarianism" envisioned by Aldous Huxley. More on this issue is coming up. If you do not know American philosophy, believe me -- "this ain't it." Huxley's Brave New World Revisited is more timely today than when it was written. Abu Ghraib and the Soviet asylums as well as Gulags are predicted in that book. Amazing. (Contrast "Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory" with "Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")

One of the things that pisses me off about this attitude in academia and among ostensibly educated people ("everything is reducible to evolution or sex") is the disdain for humanistic learning and the contributions of intellects of the caliber of, say, Kant or Sartre. Huxley? Orwell? People see a science program on the Discovery channel and, suddenly, they are beyond learning from Spinoza. Darwin is understood in simplistic and mid-twentieth century terms by the Larissas of this world.

The U.S. is and should be about freedom with equality for all men and women in the struggle to limit the power not only of government, but of all "factions" (Madison) in society in favor of the dignity of the individual. The American revolution is YOUR revolution if you are poor, powerless, yet demand the right to think and speak freely. If you insist on respect for your struggle to earn and share your daily bread with dignity, then the American idea is for you. (See the campaign speech of Senator Barack Obama on "hope" and Senator Clinton's remarks on "equality and community," as well as Senator McCain's advocacy of humane treatment of U.S. prisoners and President Bush's Second Inaugural Address.)

"Nowadays, few people doubt," Larissa writes, "that the mind somehow is the brain ..." (p. 60.) Oh, really? You could have fooled me. I think most people do not believe that their inner lives and minds are only illusions. Larissa is assuming the validity of one controversial solution to this issue -- which is at the heart of the cluster of philosophical problems involved -- while alternatives are dismissed as "garbage" (p. 61), usually by attribution to Ms. Churchland. This approach is not very persuasive. Neither is a description of rival philosophical views as "just plain stupid" (p. 66) or "a waste of time." (p. 68.)

Much more attractive for science worshippers is a form of "non-eliminative materialism" (which, I suspect, turns into something other than materialism), a position which acknowledges that our brains are essential to minds that "somehow" arise from cerebral processes. This certainly sounds like a "dual-aspect theory" to me. Look up "epiphenominalism." Besides, matter is not so material anymore, according to physicists. Who knew? ("John Searle and David Chalmers on Consciousness.")

I have no doubt that the brain is essential to produce the mind. We need a brain to have a mind or mental life. I also have no doubt that mental life or mind is different from, or non-reducible to, the brain. The experience of eating ice cream, loving a woman, thinking about consciousness and the cerebral activity that makes these "qualia" possible are certainly different. Take another look at my example of behaviorists in sexual situations. You'll see what I mean.

If I say that I am "wistful," then I am not saying "a particular neuron is firing in my prefrontal lobe," even if that neuron firing is essential for me to have the experience of wistfulness. For one thing, the word "wistful" is not located in my brain. It is shared with other people using the English language. Language-use is a social activity, so that David Braine and John MacMurray become relevant at this point. My reasons for "feeling" wistful will probably also depend on other people. The emotion may only be possible within a highly developed civilization. Larissa's error is the same as the Churchlands' flawed assumption -- it is an unacceptable and brutal REDUCTIVISM based on outdated physics and biology. A.O. Scott?

If some poor lawyers are trying to argue the opposite view for people like Sybil Moses or Debbie Poritz, I suggest that you study the literature on this topic first, then offer your two cents' worth. ("The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem.")

Those millions of people in churches, mosques, synagogues who believe in a soul and their private wishes, longings, loves and other subjective phenomena are simply deluded or pre-scientific, right Larissa? They are not graduates of, say, Brown University or some other comparable institution, who are permitted to write for elite publications. Hence, their views -- and those of theologians and philosophers who disagree on this matter -- are irrelevant or unworthy of serious consideration. This is because Larissa or the Churchlands -- and nice, clever people like them, in Westchester perhaps -- have placed all other opinions beyond consideration as "non-scientific verbiage"? Does this sound a tiny bit like an ideology? "Scientism," maybe? It does to me. Mark Leyner?

There goes Kant, Hegel, MacMurray, Finnis, Chalmers, McGinn, Fodor, Nagel, Braine and my grandmother, right out the window. Wait, it gets better. The Churchlands' view that brains are the "reality" in human life, whereas mental experience, subjectivity, the ordinary phenomenology of every day life, is only an illusion or merely a matter of some denigrated "folk" psychology -- the way it looks or feels to us "simple folks" -- is undermined by several considerations not adequately explored or just plain ignored in this article.

Larissa seemingly assumes that there is only one kind of dualism, which is the only alternative to materialism, and that materialism is the only kind of monism there is. David Chalmers is not a "dualist," by the way, but more like a "dual-aspect theorist." Donald Davidson's "Anomalous Monism" is inadequately or incompetently discussed in this essay. Larissa fails to appreciate her own descriptions of the Churchlands' lives together and why they are significant:

"But as time went on they taught each other what they knew, and the things they didn't share fell away. Their family unity was such that their two children -- now in their thirties -- grew up, professionally speaking, almost identical [sic.]: both obtained Ph.D.s in neuroscience and now study monkeys." (p. 60.)

People, unlike monkeys perhaps (this may even be true of monkeys!), have identities that are socially constituted. As persons, they live socially. Their "minds" -- which, again, are made possible by working brains and other organs -- are formed through languages and linguistic communites, by societies and systems of shared behaviors and meanings into which they are acculturated, by their familial or loving relationships -- all of these are kinds of languages or entanglements -- conferring identities. Professors Fodor and Chomsky are the obvious sources on this issue. (Compare the film "Nell" with "The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem.")

Minds are not "housed" exclusively in individual brains. You learn to be a person from others. This learning is essential to the acquisition and constitution of a mind. Mind is an abstract concept found in a system of concepts and pointing at a complex reality of interaction and movement by an organism living materially and spiritually, physically and culturally in an environment where both are changing all the time. A self -- like consciousness -- is a moving target. In a sense, Shakespeare's mind may be encountered in his poetry. This is to suggest that we share in that mind. ("Is it rational to believe in God?" and "Is this atheism's moment?")

Atheists will be upset and wonder whether I am suggesting that "God writes poetry." Yes, I am. You are that poetry. In less metaphorical terms, I am saying that you encounter what may be described, symbolically, as the "Mind of God" when you experience the universe. All of the laws of physics, biology, chemistry and knowing any truth or beauty point to what we may call God, if we are religious, or to the elegance and genius of nature, if we are not religious. These are interpretations consistent with what science teaches us about how empirical reality "works." You decide. ("David Hume's Philosophical Romance.")

An atomistic approach that isolates a brain, examines its functions, measures its neurochemical reactions will be insufficient and inadequate in understanding these complex subjective realities in mental life and human identity. The fact that Ms. Churchland was raised on a farm is not "in" her brain. Yet this "fact" is significant to the shaping of her mind, as much as her brain chemistry. Consciousness is a holistic phenomenon which can only be understood as time-dependent.

Consciousness and identity are a journey which must be measured in its totality, not something frozen at one moment and placed on a slide under a microscope. Interpretive rationality in discerning the "story-logic" of a biography may be more effective than atomistic analysis. The journey that is a mind or life-narrative is only partly geographical because it also MUST be cultural. This means both aesthetic and spiritual (not necessarily religious) aspects of human being-in-the-world are essential to what we mean by a person. Death will help people understand this observation. If you are a person, then you must have a cultural life of some kind. (Again: "David Hume's Philosophical Romance.")

Artists are highly suggestive and instructive on these issues. They teach us to see life and identity as a "story-arch," a kind of narrative. They instruct us to notice alteration and growth, as in the great Shakespearean roles and in the finest painted portraits -- which seem to escape time -- but especially in our religious stories, whose ambiguities and mysteries are deliberate invitations to "interpret." (See Robert Downey's performance in Restoration and Chaplin.) Paul Churchland mentions a sci-fi story by Heinlein that he read as a young man which haunted his imagination for years:

"Its moral is not very useful for day-to-day work, in philosophy or anything else -- what are you supposed to do with it? -- but it has retained a hold on Paul's imagination." (p. 62.)

"What you're supposed to do with it," Paul, is to allow art to open your imagination to new ideas. The lingering aspects of this story suggest that it is important to Mr. Churchland. He should simply reflect and "play" with the ideas in the work, which may lead him to new insights. "The symbol," Paul Ricoeur says, "gives rise to thought." You may begin to see the importance of religion at this point. Unfortunately, neither Larissa nor the Churchlands see that importance.

The symbol of the cross, Star of David, or other symbols hint at a unity of spiritual and material, mind and body, that is the Mystery of humanity as well as the hoped-for unity with God. Such a "hope" is not irrelevant -- not even in a secular society and intellectual discipline -- to our continuing efforts at understanding and integration. Such understanding and integration, with love, is what it means to "be."

A philosopher not mentioned at all in this article, whose work is much better (in my opinion) than what the Churchlands have to say is David Braine. Colin McGinn's work is also not discussed, though there is a vague allusion to philosophers who conclude that consciousness is an irresolvable "mystery" without an adequate explanation of why they believe this. Thomas Nagel gets casual treatment, then a dismissal. Larissa seems to be skating over the difficulties or missing them entirely. I might go on pointing out "difficulties" in this essay. Instead, I will focus on some disturbing political undertones in this piece which merit careful examination.

III.

Despite their interest in science, literary and other figurative language continually turns up at the most interesting points in the Churchlands' conversations. I wonder why that is? Paul Churchland comments on Heinlein's story:

"The story concerned how you treated people who were convicted [thank goodness conviction of crime is still deemed a good idea 'before' alteration!] by criminal trials. Either you could undergo a psychological readjustment that would fix you or, because you can't force that on people, [except in New Jersey, where no crime is necessary to do this secret forcing,] you could go and live in a community that was something like the size of Arizona, behind walls that were thirty feet high, filled with people like you who had refused the operation. The story was about somebody who chose to go in. What annoyed me about it -- and it would annoy you too, I think -- was that Heinlein was plainly on the side of the guy who had refused to have his brain returned to normal. He tells this glorious story about how this guy managed to triumph over all sorts of adverse conditions in this perfectly awful state of nature.'" (p. 68.)

America's Founding Fathers and Mothers would have agreed with that guy -- and so do I. So do several women I love. I don't want my brain to be "normal," whatever that means. I certainly like my mind, also, to be unique. Luckily, Paul and Patricia Churchland are thinking about these issues for the rest us. Someday we may not need to think for ourselves at all:

"You and I have a confidence that most people lack,' he says to Pat. 'We think we can continue to be liberals and still move forward.' [Forwards towards what, Paul?]

"'I'm not so sure,' Pat says." (p. 68.)

Neither am I, Pat. This pleasant and attractive, "well-meaning" couple are providing readers with a prescription for the Gulags and concentration camps of the twentieth century in a sanitized and scientific-sounding language of -- as Mark Green used to say and probably still does -- "noblesse oblige benevolence." The last time I heard Mr. Green use that phrase on a t.v. show, he added: "No thanks." Me too, Mark. Perhaps Mark Green's brain should, forcibly, be returned to "normal." (See the movie "Harrison Bergeron.")

I do not accept and I will not condone interference with my life, violations of my privacy or autonomy rights, suppressions or censorship of my expressions. This will not change no matter how many times you insert "errors" in my writings or prevent the publication of my work. ("How Censorship Works in America.")

The ambition on the part of lawyers and philosophers to "correct" persons and make them "fit" into philosophically perfect utopias is best approached -- by those who love liberty -- with garlic and a crucifix or any religious symbol, along with a copy of the U.S. Constitution. ALL totalitarian schemes, whether Marxist, Freudian, or fundamentalist (religion and fundamentalism are distinct) will fail in the United States of America. They should fail everywhere. By the way, this is something about which Mr. Green and Mr. William F. Buckley, Jr. agreed. None of this precludes people from adopting democratic socialist forms of government, whether derived from humanistic Marxism or other sources. ("Havana Nights and C.I.A. Tapes" and "Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba.")

This fact about the U.S. and the civilization inherited by Americans must not be forgotten, especially by us, no matter what criticisms may be expressed against governmental actions. Americans are a people who will not be ruled by any dictator -- not even by one wearing a lab coat -- and we are confident that others around the world are like us in this yearning for liberty. We are free. We hope that all others can be free, however this concept is defined by them. Americans believe that all of humanity will be free someday. Freedom means daily struggle for that freedom. Our freedom is part of what we are. We do not receive freedom as a result of a government program or concession. This is what persons everywhere in the world using the word "freedom" all-too-easily must ask themselves: "How much do you want freedom?"

Kant and the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, Jefferson and Thurgood Marshall, John Rawls and William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal, as well as Norman Mailer and Cornel West, Angela Davis and Judith Butler, not to mention our almost Mayor of New York, Mark Green -- all agree on this much: Human liberty, the inviolability of conscience, rights to personal autonomy and spiritual life are not gifts of the State. These things are not provided to us because it is convenient or deemed to be "for our own good." They are part of our endowment as human beings, anywhere and everywhere. These are our rights. They are not negotiable. All of us must stand with those asking for recognition of that freedom in Iran, China, Cuba, New Jersey today or anywhere where people ask to speak and worship FREELY.

Millions of men and women fought great wars to preserve these rights for all Americans. They will not be given away in any faculty lounge or in a courtroom that deserves to be called a "Court of Law." No one has the legitimate authority to "correct" others "spiritually" or to decide which persons, who have committed no crimes, deserve or need secret "values-correction" by some self-defined "elite." 1988-today, Terry Tuchin? Discussion, debate, scholarship are welcome; enslavement and torture or censorship are not desired by victims. This ambition to control others is "incorrect" and totalitarian. Such a yearning to correct others is unethical and criminal, as are all forms of secret censorship, and alterations or suppressions of speech. How does any Jew become Dr. Mengele? ("The Torture of Persons" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

Perhaps it is this yearning and need for freedom that explains or defines the mystery of consciousness, as revealed by so much of our art and religious wisdom. A solution to this puzzle for the future may be found, possibly, by returning to those rich symbols at the center of our civilization, both religious and secular symbols, as an inspiration to think again about what they mean for us and what they may mean for our children. As Eve once said to Adam: "Care for an apple?"

If you want to read more:

I recommend a work which seems to be neglected by scholars in this area:

David Braine, The Human Person: Animal & Spirit (Indiana: Notre Dame, 1992), especially pp. 345-397.
Daniel N. Robinson, Consciousness and Mental Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), entirety.

Compare opposing views:

Paul M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness: A Contemporary Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Mass.: MIT Press, 1984).
Patricia Churchland, Neurophilosophy (Mass.: MIT Press, 1986).

Philosophy is in the Streets.

Robert C. Solomon, From Hegel to Existentialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
Robert C. Solomon, Love: Reinventing Romance for Our Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988).
Robert C. Solomon, Continental Philosophy Since 1750: The Rise and Fall of the Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Robert C. Solomon, Entertaining Ideas: Popular Philosophical Essays 1970-1990 (New York: Prometheus, 1992).
Robert C. Solomon, "Existentialism," The Teaching Company, DVD/VCR, Audio Lectures.



I like Robert C. Solomon. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, which is a really good school that is actually located -- astonishingly enough -- in Austin, Texas. I have read several of Solomon's books and I am about half-way through his massive treatise on Hegel's Phenomenology, a book that I will finish before I depart this valley of tears.

Professor Solomon is that strangest of all philosophical creatures, an existentialist in a deconstructionist or postmodernist era. He is all about being "in the moment," but not above humor, sharing a laugh at the foibles of politicians and professors. He is "down to earth," as they say in the vicinity of Waco. Despite his many years in Texas, however, I doubt that he can be described, just yet, as "A Good Old Boy."

Professor Rick Roderick certainly can be so described, though he is now better known as the "Huck Finn of the Duke Philosophy Department." Do not miss Professor Roderick's lectures, which are also available from "The Teaching Company." If you tell them that I sent you, you will receive absolutely no discount whatsoever. They may even charge you more money for those tapes.

No one is better than my first professor of philosophy, Robert Seitelman. He lectured with humor and yet, with great thoroughness, guiding me through Plato's Republic, later leading me to Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, Marx and a few of the other "usual suspects." Along with a handful of other teachers, he will stay with me forever.

Solomon wears black turtlenecks (even in the Texas heat) and likes to write dialogues -- in the form of television interviews -- with the great philosophers. Solomon is very American, but also (like most of the best American thinkers) he is solidly grounded in the Continental tradition of thought, especially in the works of Kant and Hegel. Kant and Hegel are the unavoidable philosophers in the modern world. Whoever you are, you should have some idea of what these two guys were up to.

Some of the best philosophical work in the Continental tradition is being done right here, in the U.S., and some of the best teaching of the subject is also available here. One of Solomon's missions is the promotion of philosophical awareness and sophistication for ordinary people in everyday life, most especially in connection with our public lives, in politics, international relations and law. Solomon is one of those philosophers who has a tattoo on his forehead, metaphorically speaking, that says: "Philosophy is for everybody." I agree.

I was often astonished at how philosophically unaware people can be -- even successful or powerful people -- in positions of influence. The antiphilosophical are often ignorant of the implications of their own professed beliefs. If this sort of realization of pervasive philosophical ignorance is available to a student, then a highly philosophically adept person, like Professor Solomon, must see far more that is troubling when it comes to our chosen and blissful ignorance of theory in the United States.

A British friend reported on his shock at being told by a waiter: "Have a good one!" He answered: "A good what?" His skills with linguistic analysis did not help him in what is known as "an antiphilosophical setting." He was astonished at the lack of clarity or precision in speaking habits in New York.

When informed that Solomon is an existentialist, an editor from Vogue magazine wondered: "Isn't existentialism a little out of fashion?" This very American (or is it French?) tendency to think of philosophies and systems of ideas as fashion items that we acquire, try on for a while, then change with the passing of the seasons, a rise in our theoretical hem lengths or widening of conceptual lapel widths, can be grating on the nerves. Ideas aren't like that. Philosophy isn't like that.

Some of the best philosophers today are Platonists, for example, since there is a perennial attractiveness and appeal to the best thinking on subjects of concern to the human soul. Great ideas about art or ethics, politics or the nature of law are never untimely. By the way, some of those contemporary Platonists also happen to be famous scientists, like Roger Penrose.

Even more annoying is the failure to see that how we resolve questions of genetic engineering, abortion rights, boundary definitions between disciplines and their concerns, whether it is science and/or religion and theology or some other intellectual controversies -- that all of these are profoundly philosophical controversies, so that no matter how you try to avoid it, you will be taking a contested theoretical or philosophical position, if you grapple at all with these issues.

Politicians often philosophize on complex matters without knowing it. The same is true of judges. As a result, they do not philosophize very well. I see politicians contradicting their own theoretical foundations, as set forth in one speech, when delivering their next scheduled speeches and being unaware of it. Presidential candidates' speeches, for instance, should be subjected to "philosophical screening," in addition to the close scrutiny they already receive from legal experts.

Philosophy is nothing but thinking, sometimes for oneself and by oneself, but more often with others and for others. It is thinking about everything and anything. There are no bounds to this dilettantism. Indeed, philosophy is best not only when tempered with real life and about real life, but when it is real life, real life elevated to the realm of thought and reflection, real life digested and pondered and understood rather than simply lived through, or as some would say, experienced. But experience without philosophy, as one of our most famous philosophers has insisted, is blind. [Kant] Philosophy divorced from experience, however, is empty. Philosophy may be one of the necessities of life, but it is also not the whole of life. It is to be put in its place and its place is in the midst of things.

Here is one very good reason why philosophy matters, besides making your thinking on specific issues better, philosophy clarifies ideas, and --

IDEAS GIVE LIFE MEANING. They provide perspective and purpose and see through the phony obsessions of an overconsuming, status-conscious, and appearance-minded society. In these days of relative scarcity, we can't promise our students the jobs they all want; we can't quick fix the economy or force better programming into the television networks. But we can give them ideas and a broader point of view, a kind of satisfaction with life that mere acquisition and [material] success alone cannot provide. Ideas don't cheapen with inflation, they don't cause cancer, and they can't be taxed. They require no large monthly payments and neither rust nor break down nor lose their value before they're paid for. Sam Keen has often said that you can't get enough of what you never wanted in the first place. There is so much of what we really do not need and do not want, and what we need, when we come right down to it, are a few good ideas.

In striving to clarify and improve our ideas, it will be useful to increase communication between the various schools of Western thought, between Continental and Anglo-American branches of philosophy, but also to reach out to world philosophy.

There is an oft-told (and perhaps apocryphal ) story about two philosophical giants, Gilbert Ryle and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, seated together at a conference. "Aren't we after the same thing?" asked Merleau-Ponty. Replied Ryle, "I hope not." It is a scene that has been repeated thousands of times with lesser figures and less polite language, and, to correct a possible misimpression, the Europhiles are just as often as narrow and nasty as the analysts. Against the one side, there are the residual logical positivist charges of "gibberish"; against the other, there are more ponderous charges such as "the denial of death" and "ignoring the meaning of man." What is at stake on both sides are entrenched professional interests which have little to do with philosophy.

A defense mechanism when people are in over their heads in a philosophical discussion is to dismiss or insult an adversary. I was told that I am "too stupid to understand" ethical relativism by someone who was in the midst of a self-contradiction. "Latinos are not smart enough to be philosophers." Shortly after insulting me, this person stated incoherent metaethical views. I have now had time to reflect on this bizarre "Philosophy Cafe" episode in my life.

It is only one of many occasions when I have found my statements dismissed as "unworthy" of consideration, by people who seem to know much less than I do about the subject. I realize that assumptions are being made on the basis of my ethnicity ("Latinos are not smart enough for philosophy" has stayed with me). I continue to refuse the anonymity of the Internet. I also cannot be intimidated by threats or insults at this point in my life. I have been to my share of dark places and seen some evil. I think it shows.

I want to upset those assumptions about Latinos, if I can. I realize that anger or a response in kind is useless and frustrating. It only hurts those of us who face this dilemma on a daily basis. Even the U.S. Attorney General (Mr. Gonzales) does not seem to receive the respect in the media that is normally associated with the office that he holds. I wonder why?

Speaker Pelosi said to Charlie Rose that she "didn't know why Mr. Gonzales was attorney general in the first place." Well, Mr. Gonzales was a Texas Supreme Court justice and Harvard Law School graduate. Whatever one may think of Gonzales or Bush, this easy assumption that he was not to be taken seriously, or somehow laughable, trivial, a person to be insulted with impunity, denigrated, unworthy of respect -- like a Mexican waiter in a restaurant, perhaps -- is a feature of the daily lives of millions of Americans who will never escape such assumptions.

Many people in other parts of the world are subject to similar asumptions on the part of American politicians. Some of us "subhumans" believe that even Mexican (or Cuban) waiters are entitled to respect. Perhaps we should not destroy or alter the creative work of anyone, especially in violation of First Amendment rights. I wonder whether Ms. Pelosi attended Harvard Law School? Sadly, the revelations concerning Mr. Gonzales approving and colluding in torture have brought me closer to Pelosi's view President Bush's Attorney General. Despite my ethnicity, I would rather have Pelosi as Attorney General -- wherever she went to school -- because she understands that America cannot torture people, publicly.

Given recent protests over immigration policy, it may help people to realize that -- most fundamentally -- all people wish to be recognized in their humanity. Many of the "little people" (remember Ms. Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean"?), whose work is "what makes the world turn," would remind you that your grandparents survived by doing pretty much the same work that they, those "little people," do every day.

These immigrant neighbors are not stupid or ignorant, but they are reluctant to have a conversation with people who assume that they must be. I know the feeling. Of course, some form of legalization and citizenship track is necessary for people who contribute to the economy and get nothing in return from the government, except persecution. I am for amnesty for undocumented workers, those without criminal records who are gainfully employed or studying, should be permitted to apply for citizenship, after fulfilling all legal requirements. Family members (or persons who love each other, which is what I mean by "family") should be permitted to remain together. After all, the denial of this need for the presence of loved-ones only produces misery, intense and often lethal suffering is the result of such forced separation.

Would it help if we asked immigrants (like me) to attend the next protest dressed as Puritans?

If you are a young woman, who is African-American or Latina, coming out of a working class home -- yet reading Kafka and Kant, say, when no one is looking -- you will find that your opinions on issues that you know better than every other person in a university class, will receive dismissive and insulting non-consideration and/or trivialization.

When a vague or lesser version of that same opinion of yours is offered by someone else, ten minutes later in the discussion, it will be greeted with nods of the head by the professor. The person who will get those nods of the head, usually, from a professor -- including, surprisingly, minority professors sometimes -- will be the guy sitting in the front row in a pink shirt, with a tiny Polo player on his chest, wearing expensive denims and penny loafers, who graduated from Dartmouth, right before coming to law school or graduate school. Inevitably, this person will be known as "Biff" or Cliff," or something like that. He is almost always destined for a career in politics. (Stereotype? How does it feel?)

For minority men who manage to escape some kind of criminal record, a miracle these days, familiarity with almost daily humiliations at the hands of police, teachers, other authority figures, and the experience of insulting indifference to or destruction of one's work -- which is often much, MUCH better than what is rewarded and celebrated by the system -- leads to festering resentments and bottled-up rage. A major challenge for minority men is to cope with rage, fury and the temptations of violence. Violence is something modelled for them by the media as well as peer groups, but for which they will be demonized, if they succumb to it. Resist violence so as not to be what they want you to be.

More subtle forms of discrimination in the professions or academia amount to trivialization and condescension, leading the "successful" minority person to disappear into a constructed normality and to, quite literally, "whitewash" his or her writing or thinking, making that writing and himself as "normal" and "acceptable" as possible. This is also a kind of death. An intellectual suicide. You will see it all around you, in legal and medical, or other professional gatherings.

Among minority persons seeking to write or create art -- who often have very important things to say to a society desperately in need of hearing them -- the reality will be a closing of the doors. Creative freedom may require "silence, exile and cunning," as James Joyce taught us, but it also demands a holding on to that rage against ... not the dying of the light, but the withholding of the light, that is, systematic denials of opportunities to be heard or read, marginalization, censorship, silencing. My advice is use the rage to create your work.

Being ignored is another kind of death for a thinker and artist, but it is at least not a suicide. This denial of opportunities to be heard and lack of minimal respect is a kind of killing of the artistic and philosophical spirit in a person, or a people. If you want to know what that is like, then read the essays of James Baldwin. The genius of someone like Mr. Baldwin or Toni Morrison is not only a tribute to the human spirit, but a kind of miracle.

I need to be reminded of that miracle as I struggle against computer viruses and hackers, against insults based on ignorance, destruction and tampering with my work, even as rewards are given to the smiling imbeciles and crooks wearing judicial robes or holding high office in New Jersey and other places. Being plagiarized by writers appearing in The New York Times and The New York Review of Books is to add salt to the wound. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?")

The only way for attitudes to change is for people to encounter others in dialogue, whom they usually would not meet, but who seem to have some small talent for the subjects that interest them, like philosophy.

In law there is a subtle "ghettoizing" process that takes place beginning in law schools. It amounts to the belief that, you should be grateful just for being there. Hence, the message is that the really good stuff is "for us," and being too smart or writing as well as "we" do, is something that "we" will refuse to recognize and will even hold against you.

In the legal profession, minority lawyers -- except in the corners of the legal world where they practice, for the most part -- receive about 2/3 of the respect that their mainstream colleagues do (they are "two-thirds" of a legal professional), and are probably 10 times more likely to be disciplined than others, especially if they refuse to acquire what is known in the Garden State as "political juice." To act against these persons, shrewdly, docile minority members of the profession will be found to disarm critiques, and to go along with the violations of a targeted trouble-maker's humanity and civil rights. All of this is part of the immense hypocrisy that threatens to destroy so many more of us, every day.

We need more trouble-makers in the legal system, not more sold out minority lawyers. We need people to say: "I will not go along with violating someone's rights." Refuse to legitimate illegality or unfairness towards anyone. Do not serve as a frontperson for anything you regard as political oppression on the part of state tribunals and agencies in our worst jurisdictions, like New Jersey. Do not help to silence someone with whom you disagree. Despite the temptations, do not become what they are, the powerful hypocrites and biggots, who oppress and seek to silence us.

If you find yourself -- as a young professional -- in psychological pain and being overwhelmed, then you go to the authorities and tell them that you are experiencing trouble and let them do their worst. Never do favors for criminal politicians if they take your license away because you don't play along. ("What is law?" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

Perhaps we can expect no better from a legal system that is now tainted by big money. Although I refuse to give up, insisting on respect for Constitutional rights to notice and confrontation, to due process of law and equal protection, to free speech in an electronic age, when subtle technological means exist to silence pesky dissidents, dissidents who will be ignored by the mainstream press anyway, or be made the subjects of reprisals, such as anonymous slanders. (See "Chomsky's Turkish Publisher Jailed.")

I will do my best to make it difficult for people to ignore me. I will try to confront the powers that be, so as to show them what they have become. I will offer them a "portrait" that is a little different from the fawning attention they usually receive, because it is somewhat less flattering than the portraits for which they enjoy posing, while wearing their most attractive smiles. (An "error" was inserted in this last sentence since my previous review of this text.)

I will not be silenced or deterred from confronting those who deny human rights to us, "little people" and who then cover up their actions with the complicity of corrupt legal authorities and officials. The days of political bosses are numbered. I hope. If they are not, then we must oppose them anyway, or risk losing our Constitution. Philosophy, like democracy, law and art in a free society, must be in the streets. Philosophy must and will do better than this. In recent years, finally, traditions have come together:

... I see the battles between analysts and "Continental types" not as philosophy but as politics, not as intellectual positions but as excuses to limit one's thinking, refusals to leave the intellectual security of graduate-school dogmas.

No real progress will be made until we include everyone in the public conversation of our society, until we benefit from the insights of all. Our philosophical dialogues must return to the public square. Philosophy will always lead the way in this effort. Read, study and learn from Robert Solomon's books. He is one of the good guys.

"The Laughter is on My Side."

In yesterday's New York Times, scientists reported frustration at the failure to achieve any progress in diagnosing or treating psychiatric illness on the basis of ever-more sophisticated brain imaging technology:

"... the hopes and claims for brain imaging in psychiatry have far outpaced science, experts say."

Here is a bit of scientific wisdom for you:

"After almost 30 years, researchers have not developed any standardized tool for diagnosing or treating psychiatric disorders based on imaging studies."

Benedict Carey, "Can Brain Scans See Depression?," in The New York Times, October 18, 2005, at p. F1.

I do not have the heart to explain to these researchers that their efforts may be based on a "category mistake" (Gilbert Ryle), and doomed to failure. As Kierkegaard warned, over a century ago, "you will not find consciousness by looking down a microscope."

Of course, consciousness is dependent upon cerebral states, but it is not identical with those cerebral states.

You cannot discover the mind by dissecting the brain, just as you will not find dreams, hopes, wishes, fears or memories inside a blood vessel. No matter how many brains you dissect, the mind will escape you. The very hope for such a thing is a logical error. It is like asking whether your refrigerator is a Catholic or if your hunger is orange. It is, literally, absurd.

The mind is as much a cultural and philosophical artifact as the brain is a biological one. The brain is an organ in the body; the mind is an abstract concept that emerges from the acquisition of language within a cultural context. They are mutually dependent, certainly, but quite distinct. ("Mind and Machine" and "Consciousness and Computers.")

This is not to suggest that the mind is a ghostly entity, existing above or beyond the brain. There is no ghost in the machine. This need not involve acceptance of Cartesian dualism or any religion. You must have a brain to have a mind, to achieve consciousness, even if brain and mind are not the same thing. ("John Searle and David Chalmers On Consciousness" and "Robert Brandom's 'Reason in Philosophy.'")

We can take pictures of brains, but no one has a picture of consciousness, except for works of art or books, whose reality leads us to infer the existence of conscious and intelligent beings who must have created such things.

If I see a film, for example, then I may conclude that conscious and intelligent beings made it -- unless it is a "Three Stooges" movie.

Yet mind is indeed something different from brain: mind is linguistic and cultural; mind is social as much as it is individual. Thus, two persons with identical (or "normal") brains will develop very different minds or mental lives based on such factors as the languages they learn, the historical epochs in which they live, the educations that they receive, genders, races, sexual orientations, and so on. ("The Galatea Scenario and the Mind/Body Problem.")

As you read these words, you are in contact with my mind through its work, "my" writing these words. My brain, however, is not found splattered on your computer screen or on my keyboard. I hope. Yet I certainly need my brain in order to share the contents of my mind by writing and publishing my texts.

And yet, there is an added mystery in the mind/body debate resulting from the ways in which language functions in my absence. Think of Jacques Derrida's work. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

You may come to read these words when I am in the grocery store or taking a shower, a day or one year after I wrote them.

Nevertheless, I am still "present" in my words which are on the screen. I am present for you -- especially for you -- as you read right "now."

The metaphysical issues found in this foregoing paragraph may keep philosophers busy for years.

This raises the great difficulty with mind: Where is the mind located? In a sense, my mind is with my words, wherever you find them, you find me, or it; the mind is in its products. On the other hand, my brain (I hope) is located with the rest of me, physically, wherever I happen to be right "now."

Notice, once more, the magic word "now." Indexicals?

My now is different from yours. You are reading this sentence in your present tense; you are in your now. At the moment when you read this, I am perhaps shopping for books at Barnes & Noble, or buying tickets to a movie, or dreaming about the woman I love in my now. I may even be having sex -- ideally with another person, not just by myself -- now. ("Richard and I.")

Remember William Blake? "... infinity in an hour ..."?

Well, this is it. Right now. Each of us is in the present tense. Yet we may inhabit different moments in time. I'll have to devote an essay to McTaggart's proof for the unreality of time. Unfortunately, I am in a hurry and don't have the time to write it today. ("A Review of the T.V. Show 'Alice.'")

Our "meeting of minds" is taking place "in" language, in the Forest of Arden. The scientists cannot find that magical meeting place under a microscope, nor with a telescope in outer space. They can not see it with a CAT scan nor with an MRI machine, yet it sure is real. Best of all, it is a place where we can be safe. They can't hurt us there, here, where we are right now.

No X-ray will see us in the Forest of Arden. No salesmen show up and knock on the door. There is no IRS. No one can torture us in this psychic space. Your neighbor may be ... Madame Bovary or Audrey Henkel. You may bump into Myra Breckinridge or Hamlet at the grocery store or in the library.

I much prefer the Forest of Arden to what is laughingly known as the real world because I can find the person I am looking for here and say things to her that I need to say. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince.")

Kierkegaard's warning is more necessary now than ever before:

Don Quixote is the prototype for a subjective madness, in which the passion of inwardness embraces a particular finite fixed idea. But the absence of inwardness gives us on the other hand the prating madness, which is quite as comical; and it might be a very desirable thing if an experimental psychologist would delineate it by taking a handful of such [behaviorists] and bringing them together. ... If you meet someone who suffers from such a derangement of feeling, [a brain, but no mind,] the derangement consisting in his not having any feelings, you listen to what he says in a cold and awful dread, scarcely knowing whether it is a human being who speaks, or is a cunningly contrived walking stick in which a talking machine has been concealed. It is always unpleasant for a proud man to find himself unwittingly drinking a toast of brotherhood with the public hangman; [see the New Jersey Supreme Court's most recent death penalty decision,] but to find oneself engaged in rational and philosophical conversation with a walking stick is almost enough to make a man lose his mind.

I sympathize with Kierkegaard. I have had conversations with walking sticks. In America, many of them are lawyers. Worse, some are judges.

Now consider this letter sent by John Paul Sartre to R.D. Laing, appearing in Laing's study of Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason:

... what attracted me in your works was your constant concern to find an "existential" approach to the mentally sick. Like you, I believe that one cannot understand psychological disturbances FROM THE OUTSIDE, on the basis of a positivistic determinism, or reconstruct them with a combination of concepts that remain outside the illness as lived and experienced. I also believe that one cannot study, let alone cure, a neurosis without a fundamental respect for the person of the patient, without a constant effort to grasp the basic [existential] situation and to relive it, without an attempt to rediscover the response of the person to that situation, and -- like you, I think -- I regard mental illness as the "way out" that the free organism, in its total unity, invents in order to live through an intolerable situation. [Like being tortured and raped?] For this reason, I place the highest value on your researches, in particular the study you are making of the family as a group and as a series -- and I am convinced that your efforts will bring closer the day when psychiatry will, at last, become a truly HUMAN psychiatry. ("'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review.")