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Published: January 8, 2019
Tags:  History · Oligarchy · Philosophy



The book in...
One sentence:
A somewhat early mainstream attempt to promote what essentially amounts to primacy of consciousness.

Five sentences:
After introducing the main views as that of the materialists; the idealists; and the newest, behaviorists; Russell starts in with the assumption that man is not much different than a protozoa, physically or mentally. While his stance is generally against Watsonian behaviorism, he dances around outright rejection when discussing things like memory as being more than habit. Physics (physiology) are later completely removed from his psychology and he asserts that both mind and matter, which he insists is a logical fiction (pointing toward the quantum), are both made of the same, neutral, substance. There is also discussion regarding language -whether we think in words or not- and truth; the latter is tacked on almost as an afterthought. All of this leads, (ill-)logically, to the denial of causality.

designates my notes. / designates important.


Thoughts

Throughout the entire book we see constant references the academic cells, a term coined by Jan Irvine, Russell was a part of. Primarily there is a constant referring to William James’ work. Additionally there are several references, sometimes in half-hearted opposition, to John Watson’s behaviorism as well as the work of John Dewey. Finally there are one or two mentions of Wundt and Galton.

It is beyond the scope of this review, but these are some of the usual suspects when it comes to clandestine culture creation/manipulation.

The book, general speaking, lays a groundwork for discussing consciousness and the laws that may govern it. It begins with a short jaunt through a materialistic versus idealistic comparison and asking the question of whether there is one or two sets of laws governing the physical and mental worlds.

Interestingly Russell compares this work to building a whole skeleton from finding one fossil of a single bone. Is he making fun of the reader here?

Russell also makes the bold claim that morality is the enemy of science. While it seems true that a lack of morality would lead to faster scientific progress, at what cost would this come? Morality, in my opinion, is like a rudder; without it the individual or society in question is like ship out of control. It is as likely to crash on the rocks as it is to bring you, safely, to new lands.

Language-habit, which I believe is essentially S-R theory, is critiqued, but the alternative offered (a neutral material that which both mind and matter emerge from) is, in my opinion, at least as unpalatable.

To Russell’s credit he minces no words when he calls out Freud and Jung for being popular though unscientific in their treatments of the (un)conscious mystery.

Russell’s argument begins be asserting that man is not much different than a protozoa, physically or mentally.

Taking the view that we can understand ourselves best through introspection, but we can understand animals better through observation, many examples are given that are the same used in the works of Kostler.

Some of these include the cat in cage flailing about to get out to food. By chance it hits a lever that opens the cage. It soon learns to push lever to get out, even though the initial movements are random. There are several references to the ubiquitous mice in mazes experiments as well as the experiments showing baby chicks following not only hens but anything else that moves when they are young. Lastly there is a similar, but not exact, experiment done on the Ammophila wasp and its interaction with its caterpillar prey.

What is most interesting is that Kostler was using these same experiments as evidence throughout his works on creativity during the 1960s and 70s. The Ghost and the Machine, his last such work (I think) was published in 1979. This book was published in 1921.

Moving on, we see that Russell believes that desire, alongside psycho-analysis, is to be determined by observation rather than introspection. This feels quite Watsonian. An example: being hungry you might act to get food, thinking the end result, satiation, is your motive. In reality the prime mover is in fact hunger itself.

Do we believe that birds have the end result of mating in mind when building a nest, sitting on eggs, and feeding the babies? Especially the first time. The impulse comes from behind, the previous action, not from the front, the end result of mating.

This Russell calls a behavior-cycle. These cycles start with discomfort and end with pleasure.

Pleasure and discomfort are compared to pain: pain is akin to heat/cold while discomfort is the opposite of pleasure.

“The state of affairs in which this condition of quiescence is achieved is called the “purpose” of the cycle, and the initial mental occurrence involving discomfort is called a “desire” for the state of affairs that brings quiescence.”

“A desire is called “conscious” when it is accompanied by a true belief as to the state of affairs that will bring quiescence; otherwise it is called “unconscious.” All primitive desire is unconscious, and in human beings beliefs as to the purposes of desires are often mistaken. These mistaken beliefs generate secondary desires, which cause various interesting complications in the psychology of human desire, without fundamentally altering the character which it shares with animal desire.”

When discussing memory, Russel states that:

in attempting to state the proximate cause of the present event, some past event or events must be included, unless we take refuge in hypothetical modifications of brain structure.

our remembering is caused by- (1) The present stimulus, (2) The past occurrence.

Russell continues to look closer at stimulus, memory, recall as well as association and habit, which Russell asserts are basically the same after an experience a new quiescent point is set. His example is: “a burnt child fears fire.”

Contrast this example to dead matter. A stick can go in and out of fire with no experiential change.

Additionally, multiple stimulus together can be associated.

In this portion of the book, there is a clear attack on cause and effect. Bergson and Kant are both mentioned.

It is perhaps worth while to observe that mnemic causation is what led Bergson to deny that there is causation at all in the psychical sphere. He points out, very truly, that the same stimulus, repeated, does not have the same consequences

Before closing the lecture on memory, Russell wonders: do memories reside in the brain? It is necessary that the brain be in a particular state to give rise to a particular memory, but not sufficient, he claims. Do memories alter the physical structure of the brain? He thinks so but admits there is need for more evidence.

Chapter five is noteworthy because the entire chapter attempts to separate physics and psychology. Physics, Russell says, deals with all particulars grouped into a single object while psychology deals with each particular individually.

One example given is photographs taken of a star. Each photograph (one taken from every possible angle) is a particular that might look a certain way whereas all of the pictures taken together represent the object, star, as known to physics.

All in all, I think this is nothing but an early attempt to popularize the disconnect of reality and perception, to promote the primacy of consciousness over the primacy of matter. The chapter actual begins by saying the science has show there is no reason to believe in causation.

Chapter six doubles down on the primacy of consciousness (in a round about way), opening with the following:

ONE of the main purposes of these lectures is to give grounds for the belief that the distinction between mind and matter is not so fundamental as is commonly supposed.

He continues:

I contend that the ultimate constituents of matter are not atoms or electrons, but sensations…

To begin with the trustworthiness of introspection. It is common among certain schools to regard the knowledge of our own mental processes as incomparably more certain than our knowledge of the “external” world, this view is to be found in the British philosophy which descends from Hume, and is present, somewhat veiled, in Kant and his followers. There seems no reason whatever to accept this view.

Not only are we often unaware of entertaining a belief or desire which exists in us; we are often actually mistaken.

Even worse than Kant and Hume, Russell says there is a substrate that both mind a matter spring from and that is “often actually mistaken”! How bleak.

He then wraps back around to the star example to define perspective.

The appearance of a star at a certain place, if it is regular, does not require any cause or explanation beyond the existence of the star. Every regular appearance is an actual member of the system which is the star, and its causation is entirely internal to that system. We may express this by saying that a regular appearance is due to the star alone, and is actually part of the star, in the sense in which a man is part of the human race.

“… does not require any cause or explanation beyond the existence…” Again denying causality.

But, when viewing the star through a medium:

When the distorting influence of the medium is sufficiently great, the resulting particular can no longer be regarded as an appearance of an object, but must be treated on its own account.

Ignoring the vagueness of terms like “sufficiently great”, how am I to square this circle?

The appearance of a star at a certain place, if it is regular, does not require any cause or explanation beyond the existence of the star.

And

When the distorting influence of the medium….

How can something influence if all that is required is the existence of a star? Is the medium causing an effect? Why the need to explain this if there “does not require any cause or explanation beyond the existence of the star.”

Maybe I am misunderstanding Russell. Or maybe he is a master sophist.

Next Russell turns again to more discussing of Watson’s theories (though in disagreement), calling upon Galton for support.

Really, Russell’s works read almost like a whos-who of the then oligarchy.

Russell wants to believe that images and sensation can be reduced to the same thing. Does he mean he wants physiology to describe how images are conjured in the mind or does he want the mind to conjure reality? Or does he, falling back to the neutral stuff of both mind and matter, want to understand this aether?

In disagreeing with Watson, it seems, he might want reduction to consciousness. Or he simply wants a more elegant theory than the behaviorists provide. In his other (later) works on science and its potential future impact, it seems Russell favors the behaviorist view.

After a chapter on memory, language is covered. He claims that we think in language. This is not exactly true. In the 1940’s there was a survey of some of the “top minds” requesting how they think. Most said they thought in vague images that they then had to turn into language. Only one, Norbert Weiner, said he thought primarily in words. I found that result most interesting. I would think Weiner, a mathematician, would be more likely a visual/symbolic thinker.

Russell discredits Watson’s training of a child with a box to say “box” even when the box is not present (asking for it). The stimulus was not the box but the desire for a box (a box is followed by an armful of toys that go in it), but the behaviorists deny desire…

Next he asks an age old question: can we think in generals or only particulars? can you imagine “dog”. Not “a dog”, but “dog”?

Russell continues to contend that all thinking is done in words or images. This would be the particular dog, maybe a composite dog, but not the general idea dog.

I tend to agree with Berkeley that you can not imagine a generality, like the perfect form present only in a Platonic heaven.

A prickly lecture on belief follows. Whether through words of images, is belief the default position if a memory is not negated? Imagining a horse, do you believe it is real? What if you imagine in with wings?

This chapter (12) also feels like it is promoting primacy of consciousness to me, but I can’t put my finger on why.

The obligatory chapter on truth and falsehood offers little comment-worthy, except for this:

I do wish to suggest that the feeling of self-evidence in mathematical propositions has to do with the fact that they are concerned with the meanings of symbols, not with properties of the world such as external observation might reveal.

This is most agreeable to me. In out modern world we see, with the rise of such things as theoretical physics, an interchange between the map and the territory. Or should I say the MATH and the territory? People have forgotten, or been lead to believe, that the symbols of mathematics are not the real world and can only describe said real world, however imperfectly. The accuracy of a particular mathematical theory, within the human construction of mathematical language, has little to do with reality. That isn’t to say I am anti-math -far from it- but one must understand that our modern mathematics is likely incorrect, or maybe I should say incomplete, in some way.

Case-in-point: dark matter/energy. While this concepts work in mathematical theory, there is no evidence that they exist.

Nearing the end of the book, Russell succinctly states:

my main thesis, namely that all psychic phenomena are built up out of sensations and images alone.

And, at the very end of the book he revisits the idea that matter is a logical fiction (putting the MATH before the territory), concluding with:

VI. All our data, both in physics and psychology, are subject to psychological causal laws; but physical causal laws, at least in traditional physics, can only be stated in terms of matter, which is both inferred and constructed, never a datum. In this respect psychology is nearer to what actually exists.

Further Reading

Russell’s:

Other’s:

Follow Up Notes


Exceptional Excerpts

moral considerations are the worst enemies of the scientific spirit and we must dismiss them from our minds if we wish to arrive at truth.

Man has developed out of the animals, and there is no serious gap between him and the amœba.

THE traditional conception of cause and effect is one which modern science shows to be fundamentally erroneous, and requiring to be replaced by a quite different notion, that of laws of change.

ONE of the main purposes of these lectures is to give grounds for the belief that the distinction between mind and matter is not so fundamental as is commonly supposed.

I contend that the ultimate constituents of matter are not atoms or electrons, but sensations…

The appearance of a star at a certain place, if it is regular, does not require any cause or explanation beyond the existence of the star. Every regular appearance is an actual member of the system which is the star, and its causation is entirely internal to that system. We may express this by saying that a regular appearance is due to the star alone, and is actually part of the star, in the sense in which a man is part of the human race.

When you open your newspaper in the morning, the actual sensations of seeing the print form a very minute part of what goes on in you, but they are the starting-point of all the rest, and it is through them that the newspaper is a means of information or class=“important”>mis-information.

Galton, as every one knows, investigated visual imagery, and found that education tends to kill it: the Fellows of the Royal Society turned out to have much less of it than their wives.

I do wish to suggest that the feeling of self-evidence in mathematical propositions has to do with the fact that they are concerned with the meanings of symbols, not with properties of the world such as external observation might reveal.

my main thesis, namely that all psychic phenomena are built up out of sensations and images alone.

James–Lange theory. James states this view in the following terms (Psychology, vol. ii, p. 449): “Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions, grief, fear, rage, love, is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the contrary, is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion (James’s italics). Common sense says: we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other, that the bodily manifes- tations must first be interposed between, and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colourless, destitute of emotional warmth."


Table of Contents


· Introduction (1994)

page x:

· Preface

page xix:
page xx:

· 01: Recent Criticisms of “Consciousness”

page 2:
page 11:
page 15:
page 16:
page 21:

page 28:

· 02: Instinct and Habit

page 29:
page 30:
page 31:

· 03: Desire and Feeling

page 45:

· 04: Influence of Past History on Present Occurrences in Living Organisms

page 61:
page 64:
page 65:
page 66:
page 68:
page 70:
page 71:
page 73:

· 05: Psychological and Physical Causal Laws

page 74:

· 06: Introspection

page 87:

page 88:

page 99:

· 07: The Definition of Perception

page 104:
page 110:

page 111:

· 08: Sensations and Images

page 113:
page 116:

page 118:
page 120:
page 124:
page 126:
page 127:

page 129:

· 09: Memory

page 130:
page 138:
page 148:
page 158:

· 10: Words and Meaning

page 159:
page 172:
page 177:

· 11: General Ideas and Thoughts

page 212:

· 12: Belief

· 13: Truth and Falsehood

page 224:

· 14: Emotions and Will

page 237:

page 238:

page 239:

· 15: Characteristics of Mental Phenomena

page 255:
page 260:
page 262: