Yes, it may look like a very small jump, but the difference is essential, i.e. the mind’s I, the subject calling Itself I, that want to KNOW the object, whatever the object is/may be.
Essential means: WithOut it, there is no subject, no object, no knower, no knowledge…..
So, it can be said that the mind is the instrument “used” to differentiate, basically, in the beginning, in two different parts/quanta/pieces/bits/bites/data, you name it, which thereafter/subsequently are integrated again in the form of Knowledge. Which is, btw, mathematics, the “hardest science we know is all about: differentiate and integrate… in this Order……………………
Human individuals think/believe/assume they are the subject I and not the object the want to know what it is. Obviously this is an illusion. There is no I IN the body that controls the body or whatever the object is. Or the mind-body problem isn’t a problem at All! Wanting to know what is = the problem, as long as the illusion “exists”, that it must be possible to solve the problem or to know HOW to end this illusion, which is simply IMpossible.
A problem that can not be solved, without a solution isn’t a problem AT ALL🤔😉😃
You write that “the real action takes place silently, instantly, and without any sense of “talking to ourselves.”” What you describe is technically not action but an effect; an action has to be intentional and must involve a choice that is not determined by the priori state of the world, otherwise it is just things happening to you, not you ‘doing’ things. I nevertheless agree that this is the most common mode of behaviour in human beings, and the sole mode of behaviour in animals.
You also write that “I do not have a running commentary in my head”. This is surprising to me because I do, and it is almost continuous, often as a second voice in my mind arranging what I am about to say out loud while I am still talking half a sentence back (but i find it tiring, so i prefer to write). In critical, time constrained situations, I do resort to ‘automatic’, conditioned behaviour. Our automatic, conditioned behaviour may also be influenced by conscious action, carefully evaluated and chosen. We have the capacity to condition ourselves, intentionally, animals do not.
Crucially, I consider the ‘real world’ of objects to be also a form of language, a more primitive language. When we ‘perceive’ things or physical properties we recognise them as instances of common meaning, in the same way as we recognise words in a natural language, But whereas the ‘real world’ is an ‘object-language’ (in the logical, structural sense), our spoken language is a meta-language that ‘is about’ the object-language, plus it allows for abstract terms that signify the presuppositions of language itself. So when anything involuntarily ‘happens to us’, our perception of this happening is still a kind of language.
The running commentary in the head is superfluous, the notion that it is necessary simply sets up an infinite regress, which is not explanatory. What you call "automatic, conditioned" behaviour is the actual level of decision-making; the "head chatter" comes after the decision to do something.
I choose my actions but I don't have to talk to myself about them. The tennis player, the boxer, the cook cutting food, the surgeon at work, they don't have this chatter yet what they are doing is willed. Your suggestion that spoken language is a metalanguage tends to support this. We can live in the real world quite comfortably.
We have been led astray by people like Chomsky on the role of language in human mental life. I think in images but I'm aware the images come after the actual decision to do something. In Theories in Psychiatry (pub. 2024), Chap. 4, I put a case that conditioning doesn't exist, it is an artefact.
On this view, we have no choice, we can intentionally ‘do’ nothing, ‘will’ is inconsequential, because everything only happens to us, determined ‘from beyond’. This implies that there is some meaningful/identifiable source of meaning beyond the realm of meaning (consciousness), therefore meaning that is not meaning, therefore identity without identity, therefore non-sense.
The infinite regress need not arise. It suffices to locate choice/agency in the inner voice, where all decisions are made, and the outer voice is merely a realisation of the decisions already made internally. When I speak i think internally, this is the inner voice (sometimes images), the real me, and I pay little attention to the sound of my outer voice, which reproduces the inner speech automatically, if the decision to speak out loud has also been internally made. The interesting question is how do the inner thoughts/voice arise, and it is logically impossible for them to come from beyond consciousness: the idea of ‘beyond’ is also an idea, part of consciousness. It is rather our idea of individual consciousness that is insufficiently developed to account for the ‘emergence’ of thought. I consider consciousness as intrinsically a reflexive multiplicity (a matter of logical necessity), where each instance of consciousness depends on being mediated by others, and it continuously attempts to grasp itself, but by grasping itself it inescapably alters itself, and as such is essentially incomplete. Emergence of thought is then an internal process of consciousness attempting to grasp itself, to complete itself but means of the meaning shared with other instances of consciousness, which includes physical reality.
Another way, every instance of consciousness (individual Self) is logically incomplete and unstable in its self-ideation, and seeks to stabilise itself by relating with other selves. Whenever instability/discontinuity in self is identified, a though arises to compensate for it, to maintain the tentative integrity of Self.
F.J.M.
Yes, it may look like a very small jump, but the difference is essential, i.e. the mind’s I, the subject calling Itself I, that want to KNOW the object, whatever the object is/may be.
Essential means: WithOut it, there is no subject, no object, no knower, no knowledge…..
So, it can be said that the mind is the instrument “used” to differentiate, basically, in the beginning, in two different parts/quanta/pieces/bits/bites/data, you name it, which thereafter/subsequently are integrated again in the form of Knowledge. Which is, btw, mathematics, the “hardest science we know is all about: differentiate and integrate… in this Order……………………
Human individuals think/believe/assume they are the subject I and not the object the want to know what it is. Obviously this is an illusion. There is no I IN the body that controls the body or whatever the object is. Or the mind-body problem isn’t a problem at All! Wanting to know what is = the problem, as long as the illusion “exists”, that it must be possible to solve the problem or to know HOW to end this illusion, which is simply IMpossible.
A problem that can not be solved, without a solution isn’t a problem AT ALL🤔😉😃
You write that “the real action takes place silently, instantly, and without any sense of “talking to ourselves.”” What you describe is technically not action but an effect; an action has to be intentional and must involve a choice that is not determined by the priori state of the world, otherwise it is just things happening to you, not you ‘doing’ things. I nevertheless agree that this is the most common mode of behaviour in human beings, and the sole mode of behaviour in animals.
You also write that “I do not have a running commentary in my head”. This is surprising to me because I do, and it is almost continuous, often as a second voice in my mind arranging what I am about to say out loud while I am still talking half a sentence back (but i find it tiring, so i prefer to write). In critical, time constrained situations, I do resort to ‘automatic’, conditioned behaviour. Our automatic, conditioned behaviour may also be influenced by conscious action, carefully evaluated and chosen. We have the capacity to condition ourselves, intentionally, animals do not.
Crucially, I consider the ‘real world’ of objects to be also a form of language, a more primitive language. When we ‘perceive’ things or physical properties we recognise them as instances of common meaning, in the same way as we recognise words in a natural language, But whereas the ‘real world’ is an ‘object-language’ (in the logical, structural sense), our spoken language is a meta-language that ‘is about’ the object-language, plus it allows for abstract terms that signify the presuppositions of language itself. So when anything involuntarily ‘happens to us’, our perception of this happening is still a kind of language.
Thanks for your comment.
The running commentary in the head is superfluous, the notion that it is necessary simply sets up an infinite regress, which is not explanatory. What you call "automatic, conditioned" behaviour is the actual level of decision-making; the "head chatter" comes after the decision to do something.
I choose my actions but I don't have to talk to myself about them. The tennis player, the boxer, the cook cutting food, the surgeon at work, they don't have this chatter yet what they are doing is willed. Your suggestion that spoken language is a metalanguage tends to support this. We can live in the real world quite comfortably.
We have been led astray by people like Chomsky on the role of language in human mental life. I think in images but I'm aware the images come after the actual decision to do something. In Theories in Psychiatry (pub. 2024), Chap. 4, I put a case that conditioning doesn't exist, it is an artefact.
On this view, we have no choice, we can intentionally ‘do’ nothing, ‘will’ is inconsequential, because everything only happens to us, determined ‘from beyond’. This implies that there is some meaningful/identifiable source of meaning beyond the realm of meaning (consciousness), therefore meaning that is not meaning, therefore identity without identity, therefore non-sense.
The infinite regress need not arise. It suffices to locate choice/agency in the inner voice, where all decisions are made, and the outer voice is merely a realisation of the decisions already made internally. When I speak i think internally, this is the inner voice (sometimes images), the real me, and I pay little attention to the sound of my outer voice, which reproduces the inner speech automatically, if the decision to speak out loud has also been internally made. The interesting question is how do the inner thoughts/voice arise, and it is logically impossible for them to come from beyond consciousness: the idea of ‘beyond’ is also an idea, part of consciousness. It is rather our idea of individual consciousness that is insufficiently developed to account for the ‘emergence’ of thought. I consider consciousness as intrinsically a reflexive multiplicity (a matter of logical necessity), where each instance of consciousness depends on being mediated by others, and it continuously attempts to grasp itself, but by grasping itself it inescapably alters itself, and as such is essentially incomplete. Emergence of thought is then an internal process of consciousness attempting to grasp itself, to complete itself but means of the meaning shared with other instances of consciousness, which includes physical reality.
Another way, every instance of consciousness (individual Self) is logically incomplete and unstable in its self-ideation, and seeks to stabilise itself by relating with other selves. Whenever instability/discontinuity in self is identified, a though arises to compensate for it, to maintain the tentative integrity of Self.