There is a dice on the desk in front of me now. On the upper side of the dice I see four black spots on a white field and on the front side two black spots. According to the classical yet extremely deep-rooted world view, the dice exists as a physical body and light reflected from its surface reaches my eyes. The optical stimulus is changed in my visual organs into electrical signals that travel along nerves to a certain portion of my brain so that an image of the real dice is created. Therefore it is not the real dice that I see now but an image of the real dice. Because it is an image the dice that I see becomes obscure or double if I have a squint in my eyes. For the same reason the dice appears to have another color if I am colorblind. This applies not only to the dice but also to the desk in front of me, the bed behind the desk, the shelf behind the bed, the wall behind the shelf, the curtain on the wall, my body etc. Because the whole world that I experience is a generated image like that of the dice, the whole world becomes obscure or double if I have a squint.
But on the grounds of my actual experience it is clear that this world view is not convincing at all. Who would think while gazing at his beloved that it was not his real lover but an image of the lover? Whoever would think while looking at an enemy combatant who is about to try to kill him on the battlefield that it was not a real soldier but an image of that soldier? In practice, most people live very soundly on the assumption that the world they experience is not an image of the real world, but the real world itself, that they are not being deluded by the classical mistaken world view. Yet they cannot only consistently and comprehensively explain their own experience.
When I carefully observe the world that I experience momentarily, I find one characteristic. It should be I who see the world, and yet my body itself exists in this world. I can see most parts of my body even under normal conditions. If I tried I could remove my right eyeball a little and see my left eyeball with it, or vice versa. Similarly, I could directly see my brain, too. So we can conclude there is a world in which my whole body exists, a world which is seen and perceived from the viewpoint or perception point of my body. This world is seen from the position of my eyes, heard from the position of my ears, smelled from the position of my nose. Its warmth and coldness are felt mainly in the position of my skin. This is how the world exists.
The word “qualia” is in fashion now. When the sensory organs of the human body receive an external stimulus and conduct it to the brain, a sensation immediately occurs. When light of a certain wavelength reaches human eyes, they see a red, blue, green or other color. When a person is hit on any part of the body with a stick, for example, they feel some pain. These colors and pain in themselves are called “qualia”. Not only color and pain themselves but also the various feelings that are associated with the color or pain, thought and will are called “qualia”. The question of how one should consider these qualia arises, but those prepossessed with the traditional world view repeat their irrelevant discussion on this issue, too.
When a dice and a subject are prepared along with an observer, and the dice placed in front of the subject under a bright light, it is easy for the observer to ascertain that light reflects on the surface of the dice and reaches the eyes of the subject, and that this stimulus changes in the subject’s visual organs into electrical signals which travel along nerves to a certain area of the brain. In this case most people who are prepossessed with the traditional world view would think that the qualia of the subject or an image of the dice arises somewhere in the subject’s brain. But the observer will never be able to find the qualia of the subject or the dice that the subject can see, because the observer is not the subject. When they see Mt. Fuji from the town of Gotenba, to the south of the mountain, they cannot directly see Mt. Fuji from Lake Kawaguchi, which is north of the mountain. This situation can be described as follows: There is a world that extends around the observer, who sees the subject and the dice from the viewpoint of his body. Unless they take the view of solipsism, they must think that there is a world simultaneously extending around the subject. The qualia that the subject experiences are no different from the world, or part of the world, that extends around the subject.
When a dice and a subject are prepared and placed in front of the subject under a bright light, it can be observed with certainty that light reflects on the surface of the dice and then reaches the eyes of the subject, and that this stimulus changes in the subject’s visual organs into electrical signals which travel along nerves to a certain area of the brain. However, it is not an image of the dice, but the world that extends around the subject as the center or perception point that exists through the process of light reflecting on the surface of the dice then reaching the eyes of the subject, this stimulus changing in the visual organs into electrical signals which travel along nerves to a certain area of the brain, or during this continuous process. That is to say, there is a world that extends around the observer as the center or perception point. It is one part or one aspect of the big world. At the same time there is a world that extends around the subject as the center or perception point. This is also one part or one aspect of the big world. The mistake of the traditional world or perception view comes from the attempt to find the world that is centered around the subject (or the dice within) in another world that extends around the observer as the center or perception point. This is like seeing Mt. Fuji directly from the Gotenba side and searching at the same time for the Mt. Fuji that is directly seen from the Lake Kawaguchi side.
It is the hitherto existing traditional world view that underlies every discussion and takes people’s eyes off the fact that is clear even for children. They think that there is a big world in which a lot of human beings with brains exist individually as a quite small part of it. Each human being receives through their sensory organs different stimuli from outside and has in their brain diverse qualia, namely colors, sounds, pains, and the awareness of thought, feelings and will. It is natural to have this idea. When we open our eyes in the open air, we see a lot of other human beings who have a similar body to ours. At the same time we notice that we have in ourselves different feelings, will and mental pictures, so that we naturally believe that other people also have in themselves similar feelings, will and mental pictures. Having understood in recent years that such feelings, will and mental pictures, or various sensations, are closely linked with certain areas of the brain, these people now believe that all sensory and conscious phenomena occur in the brain of human beings. Although this world view seems convincing, it is clearly wrong when I carefully compare it with my experience. According to the hitherto existing world view all human beings and things that I see must be not real ones, but their images which arise though the process of light reflected from real human beings and things changing into electrical stimuli and reaching certain areas of my brain. Although most people do not actually think so, their lovers and friends that they see must all just be images. If everything that they had seen, heard and felt since birth were not real but only images, how could they understand that there was something else beyond such images? Even if they could understand that there was something else beyond the images, how could they ascertain only through images that the real things and the images were similar? According to the hitherto existing world view my qualia or consciousness exist in my head. But where is my head? If they think that the mass on my trunk which I can touch with my hands is my head, the whole must exist in the part, because my head is a part of the world that I can touch with my hands. If they think that the round shape I see when I pull out my eyeball and turn it in the opposite direction is my head, the whole should also exist in the part, because my head is a part of the world that I can see.
In order to clear up these contradictions we need a completely new world view. That is to sey, there is a big world to which each human or living being belongs with its body as the viewpoint or perception point. Each human or living being creates a small world that extends around its body as the center or viewpoint and that makes up a part or aspect of the big world. The small world that each human or living being creates with its body as the center or viewpoint is an unsteady world which can change easily depending of the condition of the sensory organs and brain and which can therefore be considered the private world of each being. At the same time this world makes up a part or aspect of the big world rather than going on just as each being wants.
(Outline of world views)
I would like to give an analogy. A large object is standing in the dark. Countless tiny areas on the surface of the object are illuminated. When each illuminated area is observed carefully, a certain small part of the object is seen to move along with the illuminated area that extends around it. If the condition of the small part changes, then for some unknown reason the state of light around the small part and the appearance of the object that is illuminated change. The illuminated area becomes sometimes smaller and sometimes larger. The strength and color of the light change variously. Sometimes the light goes out and it gets dark. Many areas are illuminated, but the dark parts which are not illuminated at all are larger. Of course, this object does not exist by being illuminated. By being illuminated certain parts of the object’s surface appear optically. The parts that are not illuminated definitely exist but their optical attributes are not exposed.
My assumption ist that the world in which we live exists as this large object in the dark and the perception of each living being is like the light which is sent to a small part of the large object. Until now it has been usual to regard the perception as a passive function. Light or sound waves are received from an object via one’s sensory organs, then the stimulation is transmitted along nerves and various images created in our body ― people have regarded perception as such a function. British thinker John Locke expressed this opinion clearly. But can we really hold something else other than images, and if so, where is it in our experience? Can we from the beginning imagine something that has no sensory attributes? With no answers to these questions forthcoming, it was George Berkeley who stated: “Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived)”, or in other words, “There is nothing except that which exists through being perceived.” Because he still thought that perception was something passive, he therefore had to assume a god who was constantly perceiving the whole world and thereby guaranteeing its permanent existence. However, it is far more natural to think that there is always a world in which our bodies exist, independently of the existence of living beings, including ourselves, and their perception. The world where we live exists quite naturally and continuously as before and after we have slept and waked up. If we think about this fact, although the world changes in correlation with our body we cannot believe that the world also disappears when our body disappears. To put it more generally, it is much more reasonable to believe that the world would continue to exist even if all living beings became extinct rather than the contrary. Yet this world can only be described in an extremely negative way, that is, once living being with working sensory organs have emerged, the world appears at first as a certain shape centered around each living being’s body. To sum up, there is a world that always exists but cannot be described in a definite way, and when living beings with working sensory organs make up a part of this world in the form of their bodies, different parts or aspects of the world with colors, tones, smells etc. appear around each body as a center or perception point. It is not that we living beings allow the world to exist by our sensory organs. In the same way that light illuminates a part of an object in the dark and lets it appear optically, we influence with our sensory organs the world that already exists by itself and expose its sensory attributes clearly so that a part of it sensuously appears. Perception should be regarded as such a positive function.
When I open my eyes I see in front of me, for example, a friend. In this case I do not have to think that this is not my real friend but an image of my real friend. The world that extends in front of me when I open my eyes is a real world that exists clearly or is, as it were, illuminated by my visual organs. It can be nothing else. Because the function of my visual organs reaches the world, it sometimes becomes obscure or double and sometimes even disappears due to the condition of the sight-related parts of my body, even if nothing else changes elsewhere. When I light the way in the dark with a flashlight, the lighted way may sometimes become obscure or double and sometimes disappear depending on the light even if the way itself does not change at all. The above-mentioned situation can be compared with this fact. As the way may change in reverse independently of the light, the world that I see makes up at the same time a part or aspect of the big world and does not go just as I wanted, while they can say that it is my private world because it extends around my eyes and may change depending on my eyes, my brain etc. and can be experienced only by me. The world that extends in front of me is not a world that Homunkulus sees from my eye sockets. The assumption that there is in each human being such a thing as their core which perceives surroundings and has their images in itself ― this is an illusion that comes from the hitherto existing world or perception view. The real world simply extends in front of me with my body in it.
When my friend and I stand by each other and look at the same dice, the world that I let appear by my sensory organs and the world that my friend lets appear by his sensory organs cross partly around the dice, but the two worlds do not mingle together. If they mingled, a human being would be able to directly see the same thing at the same time from a different viewpoint, which is irrational. If I found in my friend’s brain under the same situation his qualia or the dice that he sees, I should be able to directly see the dice from my eyes and at the same time from the eyes of my friend. That is clearly irrational and not noticed by most people. Here is an everyday life example: it is easy to imagine two cars each with red and blue headlights approaching each other on the same road in the dark from different directions. By the road, halfway between the two cars, there is a traffic sign whose surface is covered with a special film which reflects light in the opposite direction. If the headlights of the two cars reach the traffic sign at the same time from opposite directions, they see a red signal from one car and at the same time a blue signal from the other car. If the headlights of one car go out, no signal can be seen from this car any more, but a red or blue signal can still be seen from the other car. In the big world in which we live there are similar cases to this example.
The world that each of us directly sees, hears and feels is not an image of a real world but a real world itself and there is not a real world anywhere else ― I believe this understanding is circulating gradually more and more among people in more ways than one. But they usually don’t explain why this world becomes sometimes obscure, sometimes double and why it disappears sometimes though the world that we see, hear and feel is a real world. The world that I experience easily becomes obscure or double or disappears depending of the condition of my brain and sensory organs. Must I say in this case that the real world itself becomes obscure or double or that it has disappeared? The world that I experience should exist independently of my life and at the same time be a world that my personal functions reach, otherwise I don’t think that we can correctly answer to the above question, but in many cases this point is insufficiently explained. If the world that I directly see, hear and feel is a real world (and I don’t take the view of solipsism) I must say that the world my friend beside me sees, hears and feels is also a real world. Both of these worlds must be at the same time a real world and belong to the same big world. How should we in this case regard the relationship between the two worlds? It is in most instances unexplained.
With the change of the world view we must also consider the change of the conventional meaning of natural science. In the physical world there are no tones, colors or smells, but these attributes first arise through the sensory organs of living beings, and the knowledge of the physical world is natural science ― this opinion is not correct at all. Unless they were gods, even Galileo, Newton and Einstein were born, grew up, carried out experiments, thought and wrote books in a world extending around their body as the center and perception point, just like us, and containing a multitude of colors from blues to greens to reds, and different sounds, feelings of cold and warmth, and a sense of touch. Galileo, who discovered the laws of motion of falling bodies, dropped many objects of different color, size and weight under different conditions. He did not carry out experiments in a different world without color, tone, warmth or sense of touch. He saw the perceived world from different viewpoints and experienced in a simulative way other small worlds that extend around the bodies of other human beings. Through that, he sought to find something regular what was valid irrespective of viewpoint and perception point, the result being that he made predictions about the relationship between objects and falling, namely that “all objects under the influence of gravity fall, independently of their mass, at a speed that is proportional to time if we disregard the influence of air”.
Until now I have written on the assumption that other human beings whom I meet in the world that I momentarily experience also experience, just as I do, a world that extends around their body. Is this assumption really valid? Does the other really exist?
If one thinks that one’s body is not fundamentally different from the body of another it is more appropriate than the reverse to assume that the other should experience momentarily a world which is similar to the world around me and extends around the body of the other. In general, it is more valid to assume that many living beings in the whole world should experience momentarily a similar world that extends around each one’s body, rather than to assume that they do not. However, there is no evidence from which such a conclusion may be drawn. When I try to judge only on the grounds of the world that I experience momentarily whether other people in this world experience a similar world as I do, I am unable to directly confirm it because I cannot experience another world so long as I am still myself. Countless living beings, including me, belong with their bodies to a sole world ― that is a big assumption that all of us have almost unconsciously made and the existence of the others is a part of this big assumption.
The world that I experience momentarily is always changing. That is to say, the world that people see in front of them gradually becomes different. If it was thought that such a changing world was a different world at each moment, the notion of “time” could never have arisen. Because people did not think that countless fundamentally different worlds appeared one after another, but rather thought that a sole world which was essentially the same changed gradually, they developed the notion of “time” as being like a long thread connecting many different shapes of the world.
In my opinion the notions of a unitary “world” and unitary “time” were created through the way that people thought that the world which we experience momentarily is fundamentally the same single world which has many different parts or aspects and which changes gradually. These notions were made on the grounds of a big assumption in order to better understand the world. I do not know whether this assumption is truly valid, that is to say, whether the world which we experience does not momentarily change to something fundamentally different without our noticing and whether the worlds that we see from different viewpoints are not fundamentally different from each other. Whether the assumption that we have made almost unconsciously is valid or not ― this can be confirmed only by the fact that we have managed to exist on this assumption until now and that we can survive on this assumption in the future.
I can still clearly remember the appearance and the bark of the now-deceased pet dog that I loved for a long time, and how good it felt to touch. Rather, one could say that I can not yet forget it. In the perceived world I can reproduce the appearance of my pet dog with a picture or sculpture though it would only be a rough representation. The appearance of my pet dog that I remember cannot be exactly explained, but we should probably say that it exists somehow. While I live in the perceived world my imagination runs free. I am sometimes excited, sometimes sad, sometimes afraid and sometimes angry, and I sometimes think logically. Psychoanalysis shows that there seem to be complex hidden feelings in myself which even I cannot exactly understand and which sometimes rise to the surface. I sometimes feel a drive welling up from inside which seems to be closely linked with my body in the perceived world and to move it to a certain action. The whole of my imaginations, feelings, drives, thoughts and so on, or the place where my imaginations, feelings and drives appear, a place so deep that my thoughts are hidden even from me, is very broadly referred to in daily life as the “mind”.
This mind has long been the theme of a variety of novels, while in the first half of the twentieth century Siegmund Freud analyzed the structure and characteristics of this mind in developing the new science of psychoanalysis. Recently, neuroscience has been precisely investigating the relationship between the workings of the mind and certain portions of the brain. When the observer and the subject are the same, that is, when the observer observes oneself, surely hardly anyone other than an extremely strange person would deny the existence of imaginations, feelings, drives and thoughts in themselves. However when the observer is not the subject, that is, when we observe someone else, strangely even most experts cannot answer, in spite of the enormous stock of knowledge about the mind, when asked whether the minds of other people really exist, and if they do exist, where exactly these minds are and why we cannot actually see or touch them. Against the background of the abstruseness of the mind there are people who insist that no mind exists. There are also people who earnestly insist that the mind and the brain are the same thing, even though the imaginations, feelings, drives and thoughts that I have are clearly quite different from my brain and its cells that could be seen by cutting open the head that is attached to my torso. Mostly they seem to be showing off their achievements in their own scientific field in order to try to state that fire is water.
This confusion or embarrassment comes essentially from the forced attempt to observe all events from the traditional world or perception view. According to the hitherto existing traditional world or perception view the mind of the subject exists somewhere inside the body or especially head, and yet cutting open that head and searching carefully does not lead to finding the imaginations, happiness, pain or the other people and things that the subject must have seen. There is only the brain of the subject and its cells. So first some people say that there is no such special thing as the “mind”, and others even say that the brain they can directly see is the mind.
According to the new world or perception view we can say that the mind of each person means, in the broadest sense, the private world extending around that person’s body as the center or perception point and, in a narrower sense, the entire different workings in that world that are closely connected with the perception of that person. Why can’t they directly experience the mind of another person? To this question we can only answer that it is because the world is constructed so. In other words, we have to say that the structure of the world is such that we cannot directly see Mt. Fuji from the Lake Kawaguchi side while seeing Mt. Fuji from the town of Gotenba. The world that extends around the body of each person as the center or perception point makes up a different part or aspect of the big world. In our daily lives, just as we cannot see one thing directly from two or more view points, so we cannot directly and simultaneously experience two or more parts or aspects of the one big world.
When I more carefully observe the world that I experience momentarily, I find other characteristics. One of them is that a function we can call “my judgement” reaches the perceived world. There is, for example, in front of me now a small round table and on that a notebook, other books, a mobile phone and a coffee cup. On my left there is another similar round table, on my right side there are three more similar round tables, and in front of me, a little bit further from me, there are a counter and four cane chairs. I do not regard this whole as a single surface on which different colors are mixed together. I regard the whole that I see as a space which extends not only right and left but also up and down and which also has depth. I do not regard the round brown color that I see in front of me as just a pattern but as an object on which we put something, namely a table.
That such a judgement is passed to the perceived world becomes clearer when we give as an example a reversible figure, which is often used in psychology. The same figure can sometimes seem to be two faces and sometimes to be a vase. Another figure can sometimes seem to be a rabbit and sometimes to be a duck. Yet another figure can sometimes seem to be a cube whose base is located at the front and sometimes to be a cube whose base is located at the back. It is difficult to see such reversible figures as a simple pattern or a spread of colors. It is more natural to regard them as something known. These reversible figures mean that a function we can call our judgement reaches the world that we experience. We regard certain parts of the perceived world as, for example, a “human face” or a “vase”, a “rabbit” or a “duck”, “something located at the front” or “something located at the back”.
Generally speaking, we classify the world that extends around our body into a lot of parts, some of which we regard as being the same. Also, sometimes parts are classified more than once. A small black mass that passes in front of us can be a “living thing”, an “animal” and at the same time a “cat”. Not to see simply the perceived world as a whole but to divide it into many parts and to regard some parts as the same is an active function of ours that has up to now been called “abstraction”. Regarding some things as the same, then grasping their characteristics and through that distinguishing them from others and giving them names, such as “man”, “woman”, “human being”, “dog”, “living being”, “table”, “chair”, “book”, “cup” etc., has hitherto been called “creating a general concept”.
The world that I experience momentarily is continuously changing. But how do I understand this change? Simply put, “change” means that something becomes different. In general there must be at least two things that can be compared in order to be able to say that something is “the same” or “different”. In other words, I should be unable to understand that the world has changed unless I can compare the world that I perceive now with the world that I perceived a short while ago. But the world that I perceived a little while ago no longer exists. So I am not directly comparing two perceived worlds.
The world that I experience momentarily is a world in which I regard something thin and transparent as a glass which is a little bit far from my body, something square and light-brown that extends around the glass as the upper plate of a table, something square that is a little bit bigger and is located by the table as a bed which is further away than the table, and something long that is located by one end of the bed as the door from the room. In other words, the world that I experience momentarily is a world on which various judgments of mine are passed. At a particular moment countless assumptions of mine are made about the world. I believe the way in which these assumptions remain somehow even though the world has changed. I compare all the ways of assumption about the world that I perceive now and all the ways of assumption about the world that I perceived a short while ago, and I understand that the world has changed. It is no wonder that our ways of assumption remain in some form. In our everyday experience, once we have learned to swim or swing a tennis racket, we can remember how to do it even after several years of not performing such an action.
To my mind the recollection of the perceived world at a certain past time is the repeat of the assumption method associated with that perceived world without actually perceiving the real world again. What happens at this moment is a recollection experience that we often have such as when looking at a picture. When we express in words our assumption that something is a glass, for example, we say “This is a glass” or “That is a glass”. Therefore we can also say that the recollecting the perceived world at a certain past time means storing countless sentences about that world.
A portrait drawn by a good cartoonist can sometimes typify the subject more than the subject in real life. And a good impersonator can sometimes typify the impersonated person more than that person in real life. When we see the face of a human being we recognize it by dividing it into several parts, schematizing each part and storing these schemata. We do not save an image of the eyebrows of a person like a camera does, rather we categorize them roughly as, for example, bushy eyebrows, crescent-shaped eyebrows etc. Likewise we categorize the eyes of a person as big and round, drooping or almond-shaped, the nose as aquiline, bottle-shaped or Grecian, the face as round or slender, and so on. So we schematize the face and its parts and store the various schemata. When we see a portrait done by a cartoonist or the performance of an impersonator we compare that portrait or performance with the schemata that we have already almost unconsciously made and stored. The work of a skilled cartoonist or impersonator can therefore seem identical to the person being drawn or impersonated.
We cannot simply say that “recollection” is the recreation of a perceived world or its image. It is a real perceived world that we have experienced once. We do not understand how and where that world is recreated in the world that we experience momentarily. This is clearer if we think that a real pain or a real itch we have experienced once is not recreated even when we remember the pain or the itch. Neither can we say that “recollection” is the recreation of an image like a drawing or a photo because a drawing or a photo is something perceived. We cannot understand how something that was perceived once is recreated elsewhere from the world that we experience momentarily.
There is even an extreme opinion that “recollection” does not have to do with the experience of a past perception at all because we can not think that “recollection” is the recreation of a perceived world or its image. According to this opinion “recollection” is the gathering of different propositions, and we obtain these propositions originally from the consistency of the propositions themselves, from a natural connection to our present perception experience, from agreement with other people’s statements, and so on.
This opinion could be valid in cases where nobody existed, such as in issues of the beginning of the space or events in antiquity, but it is not valid in the more familiar examples that I gave in section 8 above. Let me give a hypothetical example in which I sit at a table before an audience of 100 honest people with screens between them so that they cannot see one another. First I say “OK” loudly and at the same time place my mobile phone in the palm of my right hand. After a short while I move it to the palm of my left hand. I then ask the audience if they think the position of my phone has changed since the moment when I said “OK” and have them answer with a show of hands. The audience would undoubtedly answer that the position of the phone had changed. Furthermore, they would all undoubtedly testify that it was in my right hand when I said “OK”. The proposition “the mobile phone was in the speaker’s right hand when he said ‘OK’” would not be obtained from the consistency of the proposition, from a natural connection to the present perception of the audience or from agreement with other people’s statements. If they answered that it was obtained through the consistency of the proposition or through a natural connection to their present perception they could equally state that the phone was placed beside my hand when I said “OK”. Further, the audience could not be answering that their proposition through agreement with the statements of other people because they cannot see one other. In this hypothetical situation the whole audience would undoubtedly answer with conviction that the phone was placed in my right hand when I said “OK”. This shows that something associated with the perceived world of each audience member that they experienced when I said “OK” remains with them later at the time of my question.
Many modern philosophers observe the world based on a similar scheme or belief to the previously mentioned view of the world and perception. The scheme can be described as follows: On one hand there is the object or the real world that exists by itself. On the other hand there is the subject that perceives, visualizes and thinks. The subject receives stimuli from the object through the subject’s perceptive functions such as sight, hearing and feeling and creates an image of the real world. Therefore the world that we see before our eyes is not the real world but an individual phenomenon or image which appears to a subject.
In “Discours de la méthode”, French philosopher Descartes wrote “I think, therefore I am”, which he believed to be the most profound and important piece of knowledge. The meaning of these roundabout words cannot be fully understood without the above scheme. We subjects see, hear and feel the world in colors, sounds, smells etc. every day. However it is not sufficient evidence for the existence of the objective world, because the world that we see is not the objective world itself but only a phenomenon and could possibly be an especially realistic dream or our imagination. Yet even if it is only in a dream or our imagination that we think something definitely exists, we have to say, according to Descartes, that thinking in itself happens. So the existence of the subject that thinks cannot be doubted.
German philosopher Kant observed the world with the same scheme, too. He called the real world a “thing in itself” and thought that we must say it exists although we hardly know what kind of thing it is. We, the subjects, receive through our perception stimuli from a “thing in itself”, the object, and create a phenomenon with colors, sounds, smells etc. This phenomenon is the world that we see before our eyes. The materials of this world, such as colors, sounds, and smells, arise by receiving stimuli from a “thing in itself”. The subject combines these materials and makes an individual phenomenon according to certain regularities that are common to all subjects. In this way, we subjects can obtain infallible and generally accepted knowledge of the world that we see, sometimes not through any direct experience. For instance, although the law of universal gravitation was discovered by one particular person, Newton, it is valid in a world that everyone, not only Newton, experiences. The reason for this is, according to Kant, that each phenomenon is built by a subject itself according to certain regularities.
The above scheme remains clearly in the works of German philosopher Husserl who founded phenomenology. Of course Husserl believes that we should be fully aware of the assumption that the objective world exists by itself and that we should reject this assumption. In addition to this, we should narrow our view to phenomena that appear individually to us subjects and try to explain phenomena themselves without making assumptions. But we can only say that there is a world in front of us when we see a world before our eyes. Without the above scheme in which subject and object are believed to make through their workings a phenomenon that is different from the object, we cannot understand why Husserl says that the world we see is a phenomenon or an experience of the consciousness. In fact he believes that something appears in the field of the consciousness in which the subject acts. But this is unknown and the argument is futile, so we should apply ourselves solely to examining this appearance.
There is the object that exists by itself and the subject that perceives it. The subject receives stimuli from the object, through which a phenomenon differing from the object appears to the subject. ― I do not accept this scheme. The reason is not logical, but I believe it is sound enough. According to the above scheme it is not the real world that we see, but a phenomenon. When, however, I see flowers of various colors and trees stretching their branches in the park through which I pass every day, when I take a walk along the same riverbank and see the water flowing slowly alongside, when I see white clouds riding high in the sky, or when I see before my eyes a lot of people on a street near my home, I find it hard to believe that each of them is really only a phenomenon which appears to an individual subject and that similar phenomena appear to many other subjects at the same time. If we think about it deeply, the above scheme would result in us being in a very strange situation, as if we were watching a movie called “World” alone in a movie theater without windows. Why do so many famous philosophers observe the world according to the above scheme? The reason is, in my opinion, that they want to consistently explain the changeable world before their eyes, and that the enchantment of this motive leads them away from the reality of the world. The theories of these philosophers are still famous, although ordinary people do not fully understand the concrete details or their consequences because of the difficult terms and expressions, and the theories may even be highly rated just because they are not understood.
Within the above terms, the new world view can be explained as follows: First, we should reject the assumption that perception such as seeing, hearing and feeling is a passive function of receiving of stimuli from something from which an image or a phenomenon is created. We should regard perception as a positive function such as light illuminating something in the dark, exerting an influence on something and making it appear. The subject is originally a part of the object. Through its perception the subject partly exposes and illuminates the object, including the subject itself. Therefore the world that we see before our eyes and in which we live is the object itself which appears through our perception. There is only one object, and many subjects make up the object in the same way, so that the question of intersubjectivity, which is often taken up in phenomenology, namely the question why something is valid for two or more subjects, does not have to be taken up afresh. Husserl in his later life and existentialists such as Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, considered the successors of Husserl, believed that the world which we see and in which we live is something objective that is common to all subjects. However there is no convincing explanation for the world, hitherto regarded as an individual phenomenon, being in reality the objective world. Each person is not watching alone in a windowless theater a movie called “Life Space” that is similar to the movies watched by other people, but each person left the theater and is seeing the same world, together with other people, in the open ― this cannot be concluded only from intersubjectivity. I identify with the fundamental idea that many subjects experience the same object in itself. But although the world is practically so and the sole absolute mission of phenomenology is the detailed description of life space, I am dissatisfied that they do not explain from a wider perspective why such a world is possible, and I still feel that the idea of phenomenology is, while not flawed, unsatisfactory.
For a long time there has been the belief that a human being is a combination of mind and body. It is usually believed that the “mind” appears in the form of thought, feeling and will and controls the movement of the body. If a body as matter combines with a mind, a human being which moves actively around the world is born. The death of this human being means that its mind leaves its body and through that its body returns to pure matter. When a person stretches his arm for a newspaper in front of him, it is usually believed that he did it from a desire to read the newspaper and from the judgment that the thing before him was a newspaper, so that it is often explained that the movement of the person’s body as matter or the stretching his arm happened due to mental factors of desire and judgement. But at the same time it can be explained that excitation at a certain portion of the person’s brain traveled along nerves to the muscles of his arm and caused tension in them so that the movement of his body, that is, the stretching his arm happened. Is the real cause of the movement of his body a mental desire or judgement or a material condition of the brain? What relationship is there between mind and body? This question is so-called mind-body problem.
When we discuss the mind-body problem, we should first specify what is “mind” and what is “body”. Of course we do not have to describe the attributes of “mind” and “body” in detail from the beginning. But we must clarify what we call “mind” and what we call “body” so that no misunderstanding rises among the people in the discussion, otherwise they may just express their own images of mind and body and the conclusions from those images at their discretion. When there is an observer and a subject, the observer can specify the body of the subject without difficulty. When the need arises, the observer can even measure the height, weight, blood pressure and heartbeat of the subject with different instruments. But as long as the observer is prepossessed with the traditional world or perception view he cannot specify how and where something that he should call the mind of the subject actually is because he cannot find the mind of the subject inside and outside the subject’s body however hard he tries. Yet most people feel that there is something that they should call their mind when they observe themselves so that they cannot say that there is no mind. For this reason it is usually explained that the observer can see and touch the body of the subject but cannot see and touch its mind, for the natures of matter and mind are fundamentally different. But because people have failed to specify “mind” for this egotistic reason, discussions about the mind-body problem have been futile and they have been derided with the phrase “ghost in the machine” by a person who sought a more fruitful discussion.
According to the new world view we can say that the mind of the subject in the broadest sense is the world that the subject illuminates with his sensory organs and that extends around the subject’s body as the center or perception point because his thoughts, feelings and will at least appear in this world. Of course, the observer cannot directly see and touch such a world. But from the new world view we can clearly explain the reason for it. The observer sees the subject and the subject’s surroundings from the viewpoint of his own body. Unless we take the view of solipsism, we must think that there is a world that the subject simultaneously experiences from his body as the center or perception point. The world that extends around the body of the observer as the center or perception point and the world that extends around the body of the subject as the center or perception point are different parts or aspects of the big world, so we cannot directly and simultaneously experience them. Yet we can definitely specify for example the area of the world that the subject sees because it is the whole field of view from the eyes of the subject. At the same time we can think that the area where the sense of touch of the subject works is its whole body. The new world view enables us to think of the “mind” more clearly than the hitherto existing traditional world view that cannot specify the position of the mind at all.
Thinking over the mind-body problem according to the new world view, we can say the following in any case: Because the mind of the subject in the broadest sense is the world that extends around the body of the subject as the center or perception point, the body of the subject is a part of his mind so that there is a closely correlative relationship between them. If the condition of the sensory organs or brain of the subject change, the whole world that the subject sees could become obscure or double. The world could perhaps suddenly assume a sad or happy aspect. In contrast, an excitation would arise in different areas of the brain of the subject depending on whether he was to judge something in front of him to be a newspaper or a poisonous snake. In his book “La Phénoménologie de la Perception”, French philosopher Merleau-Ponty compared the body and the world around it with a heart and the whole human body around this heart. Japanese philosopher Ohmori Shohzoh wrote that there is a relationship of “together-changing” between a human body and the world that appears around this body in his book “Mono to Kokoro (mater and mind)”. Because a desire or a judgement of the subject is very broadly referred to as a certain condition of his mind, we can describe the condition of the mind immediately before the stretching of the arm for a newspaper in front of him and explain that the desire to read the newspaper and the judgement that the thing before him was a newspaper caused the movement of the body of the subject or the stretching his arm for the newspaper. Actually the observer cannot directly observe the condition of the subject’s mind and must guess through the behavior and words of the subject and by comparison with his own mind in order to give the above explanation. On the other hand the observer can exclusively observe the brain, nerves and muscles of the arm of the subject in the world that the observer directly sees and touches by using instruments. In such a way the observer can explain that an excitation in a certain area of the subject’s brain traveled along nerves to the muscles of the arm and caused the movement of the body or the stretching the arm for the newspaper in front of the subject. In modern times we expanded our knowledge of the human body, for example the brain, nerves, muscles etc., and made different instruments so that we can give this second explanation. But until the modern times people couldn’t do so and had to give at least the first explanation. While the first explanation stresses the world that extends around the body of the subject, the second explanation emphasizes the condition of the subject’s body in the world that the observer directly sees, namely the world that extends around the body of the observer. These two explanations differ widely from each other on this point but are in principle not wrong as explanations for the movement of the subject’s body or the stretching of an arm for a newspaper in front of the subject.
Should we say what the movement of the subject’s body fundamentally caused? We can scientifically explain that an excitation arose at a certain portion oft the subject’s brain and this stimulus traveled along nerves to the muscles of the arm and caused a tension in them but we don’t fully know why the excitation that caused the tension of the muscles of the subject’s arm occurred just at the time when the subject wanted to read a newspaper. Having a desire to read a newspaper and making the judgement that the thing in front of him was a newspaper, at the same time making an excitation at a certain potion of his brain and the movement of his body or the stretching of his arm after the stimuli travel along nerves to the muscles of his arm ― in my opinion we should think that the root cause of these occurrences is the force that the subject has as a living being. If we won’t use the word “force”, we can call it tendency to live that the subject has by nature as a living being. We living beings are in a world that is quite independent of our intentions. Our bodies are fundamentally very unstable and by strength maintain their existence against the world that constantly tends to be a stable condition. Each of us living beings remains for a certain period depending on our abilities and factors which have nothing to do with our intentions. After that we are, without exception, overcome by the strong currents of the world until we reach the stable condition of death and return to being lifeless things. Why do we exist within an eternally long time for a short period as living beings and then no longer? It would be more natural if there were no living beings from the beginning. Why is the world not so? I don’t know the reason for this. But we do live in this world and as long as we are living beings we will continue to exist and have the force to do so. By this force or as a phase of the tendency to live that each living being by nature has, we maintain the metabolism of our bodies and make the world around our bodies appear by our sensory organs. Through that we are able to better obtain food and guard ourselves from dangerous obstacles and enemies, while we can stretch our arm out for a newspaper before us in order to get the latest information.
How have we used the word “will” until now? A “will” is something that only living beings have, and no lifeless thing has a will. For example we don’t say that a stone is falling of its own will. The water of a river that flows in a gorge doesn’t have a will, either. We don’t say that the earth revolves around the sun of its own will or that the moon revolves around the earth of its own will. When the movement of a thing is completely dependent on external powers or factors, we don’t say that the thing has a will. On the other hand there has long been the belief that human beings are a combination of mind and body and that the mind can control the movement of the body. According to this belief people have called the function of the mind to move the body for a certain purpose a will. However the body itself is matter that moves completely depending on external powers or factors. So it is fundamentally superfluous and contradictory to suppose that the mind has a function to move the body. Something indistinct and impossible is hidden in the belief that a human being is a combination of mind and body and that the mind can control the movement of the body.
In the case of the former example a subject reads a newspaper before an observer and stretches out his arm for a newspaper in front of him. If we think according to the new world view and emphasize the world that extends around the body of the subject as the center or perception point, we can broadly describe that the subject stretched his arm for the newspaper from a desire to read the newspaper and from the judgement that the thing in front of him was a newspaper. However if the subject were to seriously judge that the thing before him was not a newspaper but a poisonous snake, the subject would never stretch out his arm for it. If the subject were to judge that the thing in front of him was a newspaper which a person next to him was reading, the subject would usually not stretch out his arm, either. If the subject were to judge that the newspaper before him belonged to a person next to him but the person had already left and no one else would read the newspaper, the subject would perhaps stretch out his arm fearfully and nervously. The movement of the subject’s body changes depending on the judgement of the subject or the condition of the world that extends around the subject’s body as the center or perception point. The movement of the subject’s body doesn’t change because of the subject’s mind but changes together with it correlatively.
To repeat my basic idea, it can be summarized as follows: We living beings are in a world that is quite independent of our intentions. Our bodies are fundamentally very unstable and try desperately to maintain their existence against the world that always tends to be a stable condition. Each of us living beings remains for a certain period depending on our abilities and factors which have nothing to do with our intentions. After that we are, without exception, overcome by the strong currents of the world until we reach the stable condition of death and return to being lifeless things. Lifeless things flow with the current of the world from the beginning while we living beings resist the current to a certain extent within the limitations of the matter of our bodies. This vital force or autonomy is the root cause of the movement of the subject’s body. In my example a subject exists due to this force with the observer in the same world and at the same time, and is sufficiently healthy to be able to stretch out his arm. Under this fundamental condition of his body the subject makes the world around his body appear via his sensory organs, classifies this world into a lot of parts, makes a horizon for each part and moves his body accordingly. This function is close to something that has to date been called “will”. We living beings maintain our existence by the vital force we exert against the current of the world and under this prerequisite condition we adjust the movement of our bodies little by little depending on our perception and judgement connected with our perception, although we have no clear consciousness of it, just as we have none of the metabolism of our bodies. In my opinion it is the best to regard this adjustment as a individual function and to call it will. To give an analogy, each living being is a ship with a motor that moves through the strong currents of a dark sea. This motor powers the rudder and the lights of the ship. We living beings sail by our vital force which is like a motor and make our own ship and the sea around it appear with the lights of our perception. Although we are disturbed by the current of the sea, we change our direction towards a better existence by our own will which acts like a rudder, in order to obtain food as best possible and to get the latest information in order to escape danger.
Suppose that there are two observers A and B looking at a stone in front of them. Observer A has regarded the stone as a treasure since childhood, whereas it is only an ordinary stone to observer B. Both observers see the stone from their bodies as a center and a perception point respectively. In the world that extends around the body of observer A as the center and perception point, the stone is classified into a different group than other stones. A special horizon is made for the stone so it is regarded as something that shouldn’t easy be destroyed, and is usually treated carefully. On the other hand, in the world that extends around the body of observer B as the center and perception point, the stone is classified into the same group as other stones by the roadside. A horizon is made for that stone similar to that for other stones, so it is regarded as something that can be hit or destroyed any time, and is normally treated carelessly. If observers A and B were natural scientists with an interest in the free fall of objects, they would ignore the color and the smell of the stone or their thoughts on the stone, while they would observe and measure its size, weight, falling speed, an so on by using different instruments. They would suppose simply and unhesitatingly that the stone exists independently of their existence. Based on this supposition they would observe and measure primarily the properties of the stone that they can observe and measure together using the same instruments or the same kind of instruments. The law of falling bodies (which states that “all objects under the influence of gravity fall, independently of their mass, at a speed that is proportional to time if we disregard the influence of air”) is a piece of knowledge that can be obtained through the above observation. Although neither the color nor the smell of the stone is written in the description of the law, the two observers may not subconsciously acquire any items of knowledge about another world or the physical world without colors and smells that exists behind the world in which they both live. The law of falling bodies is a piece of knowledge about a regularity that is valid from the aspect of the living world that both observers can view and measure together. This is similar to someone observing an actual house and through that acquiring a piece of knowledge about the frame of the house. The picture that can be drawn on the basis of such acquired pieces of knowledge is an outline of the house. Although neither stains on the exterior wall of the house nor damage to its roofing tiles are described there, the framework that is indicated by the outline does not exist outside the actual house. The so-called physical world is the aspect of the world experienced by us that two or more observers can observe and measure together. The way of natural scientists who primarily notice that aspect of the world experienced by us has enabled us to observe together different things in the world that we experience over a number of generations and to gradually accumulate our knowledge of them. The splendid achievements of natural science in modern times has caused great surprise and respect among some philosophers or philosophers of science, leading them to believe that there is no inherent area of philosophy which only has the role of analyzing and considering the meaning of the results of science in order to further clarify such scientific knowledge.
On the other hand the traditional European philosophers, who have been criticized by the philosophers of science for their ambiguous use of words or labored analogies, consider that the philosophers of science, who are proud of their clarity and logicality, do not know the wonder of the world and cannot see the woods for the trees, even though they actually live there. The above observer B cannot both observe and measure the red color that observer A experiences. Of course observer B can guess the color that observer A experiences through the color that observer B himself experiences. But that is fundamentally different from when natural scientists in modern times inferred the existence of molecule from Brownian motion, the seemingly random movement of particles suspended in a fluid. The latter was conjecture by logical deduction of the existence of an unknown thing from an occurrence that two or more observers could see and measure together, while the former is an analogy by observer B on grounds of the physical similarities between observers A and B. The same situation could also refer to tone, smell, touch, pain, happiness, sadness, anger, and so on. In other words, in the world that observer A experiences there is not only the aspect that two or more observers can observe and measure together or that people can infer from the results of observations and measurements by logical deduction, but also the aspect that only observer A himself can individually observe. How should we understand this aspect of the world that only each observer can individually observe, for example something sensual, feeling, thought, will etc.? How should we think about the mind where these things occur? How is the whole world in which we live not only within the aspect that two or more observers can observe and measure together but also within the aspect that only each observer can individually see? Answers to these questions have not been answered or attempted by natural scientists but fall traditionally within the realm of philosophers. Of course there are academic fields in which people examine the relationships between the elements that two or more observers can observe and measure together as well as the elements that only each observer can individually see, by combining natural science methods with analogy based on the assumption that humans who are physically similar should be sensually and mentally similar. For example they examine the emotional change in a person that happens when different chemicals are taken into the body or the electrical and chemical reactions in the brain when various intellectual tasks are conducted. But this refers mainly to examining the correspondence relationship between both elements. In these fields they do not put something sensual or mental in front of them and ask how they should fundamentally think about it.
There is a philosophical and psychological theory called the “ecological approach” that has been in the spotlight in recent years. According to this theory, which was developed in particular by American psychologist James Gibson, we directly perceive things that are real. The world that we see, hear and feel is not an image or representation of the real world but the real world itself. There is also no consciousness as an internal field in which images or representations of the real world appear. We living beings influence our environment and through that constantly regulate the state or movement of our body in order to better accommodate ourselves to the environment. Our psychological activities come into being as a part of these cyclic interactions between the environment and our body so they do not happen only in our body or brain. That is to say, we should think of our mind as extending over our body to our environment. Perception is the action of picking out necessary pieces of information from the environment in order to specify how the environment really is. To be more precise, perception is the process in which we direct our attention to a part of the environment and find out the differences between changeable and unchangeable things in order to get information about what is constant. This point is the essence of perception. Everywhere in our environment there are countless “affordances” or particularities that urge us to a certain behavior in order to make something happen. A piece of food in front of us creates the possibility of our eating it in order to obtain nutrients. A snake in front of us creates the possibility of our approaching it and being bitten by it. In an environment with these countless affordances, we living beings perceive different affordances in order to regulate our behavior, and regulate our behavior in order to perceive different affordances. So we continue to live.
The “ecological approach” theory is similar in some ways to the new world view but has a lot of problems. The idea that we directly perceive things that are real is called “naive realism” or “direct realism”. If this idea means that “the world that we see, hear and feel is not an image or representation of the real world but the real world itself and there is no other world than that”, then it is completely right. However, the ecological approach does not sufficiently explain why the real world sometimes becomes obscure or duplicated and sometimes disappears. When two people observe a book at the same time, the one with better eyesight can see one book while the one with weaker eyesight may see two books. The ecological approach does not consistently explain why such an occurrence is possible even though the world that each of the two people sees is the real world. According to the hitherto existing dual perception view it is possible because each of the two people sees an image or representation of the real book. The existing dual perception view has actually been developed partially with the motive of consistently explaining the whole phenomenon. But if it is so then everything that we see, hear and feel from birth until death, including our lovers and friends, must be images or representations. That is clearly different from our actual feeling. And it has to be said that we would be in a very strange situation, as though watching a movie called “World” alone in a movie theater without windows. However, even if we think that the world that we see, hear and feel, is the real world, we all ask different questions. If we think that we can see the same thing in different ways at the same time, the question naturally arises whether we must think that the world that we experience exists in essence independently of our life while simultaneously being a world that our personal functions reach. This question is not properly answered by the ecological approach.
The opinion that there is no consciousness as an internal field in which images or representations of the real world appear is completely right. We living beings partially expose and illuminate the real world, with our body as a perception point. Except for this fundamental occurrence there is no consciousness or mind. When there is an observer and a subject, the observer illuminates, with his body as a perception point, his surroundings and the subject while the subject illuminates his own surroundings with his own body as a perception point. In many cases the “consciousness” or “mind” of the subject is no more than a word for naming the world that the subject illuminates as seen by the observer. The observer thinks it is obvious that the consciousness or mind of the subject exists as he observes the world which he illuminates by himself. But because of the structure of the World he can not directly see and touch the consciousness or mind of the subject. So the observer considers the consciousness or mind of the subject that must exist but cannot be directly seen or touched at all as something mysterious that is completely different from the body of the subject that can be directly seen and touched. In the end, the observer can even hold the belief that the consciousness or mind exists forever even when the body no longer exists.
The opinion of the ecological approach that our mind extends over our body to our environment is also completely right but a decisive aspect is lacking there. When there is an observer and a subject, the observer illuminates, with his body as a perception point, his surroundings and the subject while the subject illuminates his own surroundings with his own body as a perception point. We can say that the mind of the subject extends over his body to his environment, but when viewed from the observer’s side, namely in the world that the observer illuminates, there is no happiness, sadness, pain, thought or will of the subject. Only when viewed from the subject’s side, that is to say, only in world that the subject illuminates, is there the happiness, sadness, pain, thought and will of the subject and the view from the subject. People who have heard the opinion about “the extended mind“, including me, have on the one hand some sympathy with it, but also some antipathy against it because they often change their position almost unconsciously, thinking about the opinion sometimes from the position of the subject and sometimes from the position of the observer.
“The action of picking out necessary pieces of information from one’s environment in order to specify how the environment really is”, or to be more specific, “the process of directing attention to a part of the environment and finding out the differences between changeable and unchangeable things in order to get information about what is constant” ― In my opinion it is not appropriate to say that this point is the essence of perception, or especially the sense of sight. The essence of the sense of sight is the critical difference between sighted people and blind people and is very broadly referred to as “experiencing light” or such a function or capacity, and the essence of hearing is “to experience sound” or such a function or capacity, and the essence of touch is “to experience the sense of physical contact” or such a function or capacity. “The action of picking out necessary pieces of information from one’s environment in order to specify how the environment really is”, or to be more specific, “the process of directing attention to a part of the environment and finding out the differences between changeable and unchangeable things in order to get information about what is constant” ― We should say that this is the most important thing we do with our perception, especially in connection with our physical behavior.
The discussion about whether affordances exist in the environment also arises from a perspective that is lacking in the ecological approach in my opinion. When there is an observer and a subject, the observer illuminates, with his body as a perception point, his surroundings and the subject while the subject illuminates his own surroundings with his own body as a perception point. If the subject is very interested in books and always finds out about the principles of life and behavior from books, various special affordances exist in a book in front of him within the world that he illuminates. But if, on the other hand, the observer is not interested in books at all, the only affordances that exist in a book in front of him are those of a stack of paper. In the world that we experience momentarily, a certain affordance can exist in something while not existing in the same thing at the same time, and conflicting affordances can exist in one thing at the same time. In my opinion the ecological approach does not sufficiently explain how such an occurrence is possible.
I have to say that the ecological approach is unsatisfactory as a philosophical theory. However, ecological psychology from which the ecological approach was developed advocates that there is a lot of regularity not only in the physical world but also in our perception and mind and is sufficiently significant as an individual scientific field.
January 20, 2012
Shin’ichi Shimokawa
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