{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_The_Analysis_of_Mind_Lecture_VII/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_The_Analysis_of_Mind_Lecture_VII","id":"wikisource_The_Analysis_of_Mind_Lecture_VII","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Analysis_of_Mind/Lecture_VII","summary":null,"tags":["Headers_applying_DefaultSort_key","Subpages"],"text":"In Lecture V we found reason to think that the ultimate\nconstituents of the world do not have the characteristics of\neither mind or matter as ordinarily understood: they are not\nsolid persistent objects moving through space, nor are they\nfragments of \"consciousness.\" But we found two ways of grouping\nparticulars, one into \"things\" or \"pieces of matter,\" the other\ninto series of \"perspectives,\" each series being what may be\ncalled a \"biography.\" Before we can define either sensations or\nimages, it is necessary to consider this twofold classification\nin somewhat greater detail, and to derive from it a definition of\nperception. It should be said that, in so far as the\nclassification assumes the whole world of physics (including its\nunperceived portions), it contains hypothetical elements. But we\nwill not linger on the grounds for admitting these, which belong\nto the philosophy of physics rather than of psychology.\n\nThe physical classification of particulars collects together all\nthose that are aspects of one \"thing.\" Given any one particular,\nit is found often (we do not say always) that there are a number\nof other particulars differing from this one in gradually\nincreasing degrees. Those (or some of those) that differ from it\nonly very slightly will be found to differ approximately\naccording to certain laws which may be called, in a generalized\nsense, the laws of \"perspective\"; they include the ordinary laws\nof perspective as a special case. This approximation grows more\nand more nearly exact as the difference grows less; in technical\nlanguage, the laws of perspective account for the differences to\nthe first order of small quantities, and other laws are only\nrequired to account for second-order differences. That is to say,\nas the difference diminishes, the part of the difference which is\nnot according to the laws of perspective diminishes much more\nrapidly, and bears to the total difference a ratio which tends\ntowards zero as both are made smaller and smaller. By this means\nwe can theoretically collect together a number of particulars\nwhich may be defined as the \"aspects\" or \"appearances\" of one\nthing at one time. If the laws of perspective were sufficiently\nknown, the connection between different aspects would be\nexpressed in differential equations.\n\nThis gives us, so far, only those particulars which constitute\none thing at one time. This set of particulars may be called a\n\"momentary thing.\" To define that series of \"momentary things\"\nthat constitute the successive states of one thing is a problem\ninvolving the laws of dynamics. These give the laws governing the\nchanges of aspects from one time to a slightly later time, with\nthe same sort of differential approximation to exactness as we\nobtained for spatially neighbouring aspects through the laws of\nperspective. Thus a momentary thing is a set of particulars,\nwhile a thing (which may be identified with the whole history of\nthe thing) is a series of such sets of particulars. The\nparticulars in one set are collected together by the laws of\nperspective; the successive sets are collected together by the\nlaws of dynamics. This is the view of the world which is\nappropriate to traditional physics.\n\nThe definition of a \"momentary thing\" involves problems\nconcerning time, since the particulars constituting a momentary\nthing will not be all simultaneous, but will travel outward from\nthe thing with the velocity of light (in case the thing is in\nvacuo). There are complications connected with relativity, but\nfor our present purpose they are not vital, and I shall ignore\nthem.\n\nInstead of first collecting together all the particulars\nconstituting a momentary thing, and then forming the series of\nsuccessive sets, we might have first collected together a series\nof successive aspects related by the laws of dynamics, and then\nhave formed the set of such series related by the laws of\nperspective. To illustrate by the case of an actor on the stage:\nour first plan was to collect together all the aspects which he\npresents to different spectators at one time, and then to form\nthe series of such sets. Our second plan is first to collect\ntogether all the aspects which he presents successively to a\ngiven spectator, and then to do the same thing for the other\nspectators, thus forming a set of series instead of a series of\nsets. The first plan tells us what he does; the second the\nimpressions he produces. This second way of classifying\nparticulars is one which obviously has more relevance to\npsychology than the other. It is partly by this second method of\nclassification that we obtain definitions of one \"experience\" or\n\"biography\" or \"person.\" This method of classification is also\nessential to the definition of sensations and images, as I shall\nendeavour to prove later on. But we must first amplify the\ndefinition of perspectives and biographies.\n\nIn our illustration of the actor, we spoke, for the moment, as\nthough each spectator's mind were wholly occupied by the one\nactor. If this were the case, it might be possible to define the\nbiography of one spectator as a series of successive aspects of\nthe actor related according to the laws of dynamics. But in fact\nthis is not the case. We are at all times during our waking life\nreceiving a variety of impressions, which are aspects of a\nvariety of things. We have to consider what binds together two\nsimultaneous sensations in one person, or, more generally, any\ntwo occurrences which forte part of one experience. We might say,\nadhering to the standpoint of physics, that two aspects of\ndifferent things belong to the same perspective when they are in\nthe same place. But this would not really help us, since a\n\"place\" has not yet been defined. Can we define what is meant by\nsaying that two aspects are \"in the same place,\" without\nintroducing anything beyond the laws of perspective and dynamics?\n\nI do not feel sure whether it is possible to frame such a\ndefinition or not; accordingly I shall not assume that it is\npossible, but shall seek other characteristics by which a\nperspective or biography may be defined.\n\nWhen (for example) we see one man and hear another speaking at\nthe same time, what we see and what we hear have a relation which\nwe can perceive, which makes the two together form, in some\nsense, one experience. It is when this relation exists that two\noccurrences become associated. Semon's \"engram\" is formed by all\nthat we experience at one time. He speaks of two parts of this\ntotal as having the relation of \"Nebeneinander\" (M. 118; M.E. 33\nff.), which is reminiscent of Herbart's \"Zusammen.\" I think the\nrelation may be called simply \"simultaneity.\" It might be said\nthat at any moment all sorts of things that are not part of my\nexperience are happening in the world, and that therefore the\nrelation we are seeking to define cannot be merely simultaneity.\nThis, however, would be an error--the sort of error that the\ntheory of relativity avoids. There is not one universal time,\nexcept by an elaborate construction; there are only local times,\neach of which may be taken to be the time within one biography.\nAccordingly, if I am (say) hearing a sound, the only occurrences\nthat are, in any simple sense, simultaneous with my sensation are\nevents in my private world, i.e. in my biography. We may\ntherefore define the \"perspective\" to which the sensation in\nquestion belongs as the set of particulars that are simultaneous\nwith this sensation. And similarly we may define the \"biography\"\nto which the sensation belongs as the set of particulars that are\nearlier or later than, or simultaneous with, the given sensation.\nMoreover, the very same definitions can be applied to particulars\nwhich are not sensations. They are actually required for the\ntheory of relativity, if we are to give a philosophical\nexplanation of what is meant by \"local time\" in that theory The\nrelations of simultaneity and succession are known to us in our\nown experience; they may be analysable, but that does not affect\ntheir suitability for defining perspectives and biographies. Such\ntime-relations as can be constructed between events in different\nbiographies are of a different kind: they are not experienced,\nand are merely logical, being designed to afford convenient ways\nof stating the correlations between different biographies.\n\nIt is not only by time-relations that the parts of one biography\nare collected together in the case of living beings. In this case\nthere are the mnemic phenomena which constitute the unity of one\n\"experience,\" and transform mere occurrences into \"experiences.\"\nI have already dwelt upon the importance of mnemic phenomena for\npsychology, and shall not enlarge upon them now, beyond observing\nthat they are what transforms a biography (in our technical\nsense) into a life. It is they that give the continuity of a\n\"person\" or a \"mind.\" But there is no reason to suppose that\nmnemic phenomena are associated with biographies except in the\ncase of animals and plants.\n\nOur two-fold classification of particulars gives rise to the\ndualism of body and biography in regard to everything in the\nuniverse, and not only in regard to living things. This arises as\nfollows. Every particular of the sort considered by physics is a\nmember of two groups (1) The group of particulars constituting\nthe other aspects of the same physical object; (2) The group of\nparticulars that have direct time-relations to the given\nparticular.\n\nEach of these is associated with a place. When I look at a star,\nmy sensation is (1) A member of the group of particulars which is\nthe star, and which is associated with the place where the star\nis; (2) A member of the group of particulars which is my\nbiography, and which is associated with the place where I am.\n\nThe result is that every particular of the kind relevant to\nphysics is associated with TWO places; e.g. my sensation of the\nstar is associated with the place where I am and with the place\nwhere the star is. This dualism has nothing to do with any \"mind\"\nthat I may be supposed to possess; it exists in exactly the same\nsense if I am replaced by a photographic plate. We may call the\ntwo places the active and passive places respectively. Thus in\nthe case of a perception or photograph of a star, the active\nplace is the place where the star is, while the passive place is\nthe place where the percipient or photographic plate is.\n\nWe can thus, without departing from physics, collect together all\nthe particulars actively at a given place, or all the particulars\npassively at a given place. In our own case, the one group is our\nbody (or our brain), while the other is our mind, in so far as it\nconsists of perceptions. In the case of the photographic plate,\nthe first group is the plate as dealt with by physics, the second\nthe aspect of the heavens which it photographs. (For the sake of\nschematic simplicity, I am ignoring various complications\nconnected with time, which require some tedious but perfectly\nfeasible elaborations.) Thus what may be called subjectivity in\nthe point of view is not a distinctive peculiarity of mind: it is\npresent just as much in the photographic plate. And the\nphotographic plate has its biography as well as its \"matter.\" But\nthis biography is an affair of physics, and has none of the\npeculiar characteristics by which \"mental\" phenomena are\ndistinguished, with the sole exception of subjectivity.\n\nAdhering, for the moment, to the standpoint of physics, we may\ndefine a \"perception\" of an object as the appearance of the\nobject from a place where there is a brain (or, in lower animals,\nsome suitable nervous structure), with sense-organs and nerves\nforming part of the intervening medium. Such appearances of\nobjects are distinguished from appearances in other places by\ncertain peculiarities, namely\n\n(1) They give rise to mnemic phenomena;\n\n(2) They are themselves affected by mnemic phenomena.\n\nThat is to say, they may be remembered and associated or\ninfluence our habits, or give rise to images, etc., and they are\nthemselves different from what they would have been if our past\nexperience had been different--for example, the effect of a\nspoken sentence upon the hearer depends upon whether the hearer\nknows the language or not, which is a question of past\nexperience. It is these two characteristics, both connected with\nmnemic phenomena, that distinguish perceptions from the\nappearances of objects in places where there is no living being.\n\nTheoretically, though often not practically, we can, in our\nperception of an object, separate the part which is due to past\nexperience from the part which proceeds without mnemic influences\nout of the character of the object. We may define as \"sensation\"\nthat part which proceeds in this way, while the remainder, which\nis a mnemic phenomenon, will have to be added to the sensation to\nmake up what is called the \"perception.\" According to this\ndefinition, the sensation is a theoretical core in the actual\nexperience; the actual experience is the perception. It is\nobvious that there are grave difficulties in carrying out these\ndefinitions, but we will not linger over them. We have to pass,\nas soon as we can, from the physical standpoint, which we have\nbeen hitherto adopting, to the standpoint of psychology, in which\nwe make more use of introspection in the first of the three\nsenses discussed in the preceding lecture.\n\nBut before making the transition, there are two points which must\nbe made clear. First: Everything outside my own personal\nbiography is outside my experience; therefore if anything can be\nknown by me outside my biography, it can only be known in one of\ntwo ways\n\n(1) By inference from things within my biography, or\n\n(2) By some a priori principle independent of experience.\n\nI do not myself believe that anything approaching certainty is to\nbe attained by either of these methods, and therefore whatever\nlies outside my personal biography must be regarded,\ntheoretically, as hypothesis. The theoretical argument for\nadopting the hypothesis is that it simplifies the statement of\nthe laws according to which events happen in our experience. But\nthere is no very good ground for supposing that a simple law is\nmore likely to be true than a complicated law, though there is\ngood ground for assuming a simple law in scientific practice, as\na working hypothesis, if it explains the facts as well as another\nwhich is less simple. Belief in the existence of things outside\nmy own biography exists antecedently to evidence, and can only be\ndestroyed, if at all, by a long course of philosophic doubt. For\npurposes of science, it is justified practically by the\nsimplification which it introduces into the laws of physics. But\nfrom the standpoint of theoretical logic it must be regarded as a\nprejudice, not as a well-grounded theory. With this proviso, I\npropose to continue yielding to the prejudice.\n\nThe second point concerns the relating of our point of view to\nthat which regards sensations as caused by stimuli external to\nthe nervous system (or at least to the brain), and distinguishes\nimages as \"centrally excited,\" i.e. due to causes in the brain\nwhich cannot be traced back to anything affecting the\nsense-organs. It is clear that, if our analysis of physical\nobjects has been valid, this way of defining sensations needs\nreinterpretation. It is also clear that we must be able to find\nsuch a new interpretation if our theory is to be admissible.\n\nTo make the matter clear, we will take the simplest possible\nillustration. Consider a certain star, and suppose for the moment\nthat its size is negligible. That is to say, we will regard it\nas, for practical purposes, a luminous point. Let us further\nsuppose that it exists only for a very brief time, say a second.\nThen, according to physics, what happens is that a spherical wave\nof light travels outward from the star through space, just as,\nwhen you drop a stone into a stagnant pond, ripples travel\noutward from the place where the stone hit the water. The wave of\nlight travels with a certain very nearly constant velocity,\nroughly 300,000 kilometres per second. This velocity may be\nascertained by sending a flash of light to a mirror, and\nobserving how long it takes before the reflected flash reaches\nyou, just as the velocity of sound may be ascertained by means of\nan echo.\n\nWhat it is that happens when a wave of light reaches a given\nplace we cannot tell, except in the sole case when the place in\nquestion is a brain connected with an eye which is turned in the\nright direction. In this one very special case we know what\nhappens: we have the sensation called \"seeing the star.\" In all\nother cases, though we know (more or less hypothetically) some of\nthe correlations and abstract properties of the appearance of the\nstar, we do not know the appearance itself. Now you may, for the\nsake of illustration, compare the different appearances of the\nstar to the conjugation of a Greek verb, except that the number\nof its parts is really infinite, and not only apparently so to\nthe despairing schoolboy. In vacuo, the parts are regular, and\ncan be derived from the (imaginary) root according to the laws of\ngrammar, i.e. of perspective. The star being situated in empty\nspace, it may be defined, for purposes of physics, as consisting\nof all those appearances which it presents in vacuo, together\nwith those which, according to the laws of perspective, it would\npresent elsewhere if its appearances elsewhere were regular. This\nis merely the adaptation of the definition of matter which I gave\nin an earlier lecture. The appearance of a star at a certain\nplace, if it is regular, does not require any cause or\nexplanation beyond the existence of the star. Every regular\nappearance is an actual member of the system which is the star,\nand its causation is entirely internal to that system. We may\nexpress this by saying that a regular appearance is due to the\nstar alone, and is actually part of the star, in the sense in\nwhich a man is part of the human race.\n\nBut presently the light of the star reaches our atmosphere. It\nbegins to be refracted, and dimmed by mist, and its velocity is\nslightly diminished. At last it reaches a human eye, where a\ncomplicated process takes place, ending in a sensation which\ngives us our grounds for believing in all that has gone before.\nNow, the irregular appearances of the star are not, strictly\nspeaking, members of the system which is the star, according to\nour definition of matter. The irregular appearances, however, are\nnot merely irregular: they proceed according to laws which can be\nstated in terms of the matter through which the light has passed\non its way. The sources of an irregular appearance are therefore\ntwofold:\n\n(1) The object which is appearing irregularly;\n\n2) The intervening medium.\n\nIt should be observed that, while the conception of a regular\nappearance is perfectly precise, the conception of an irregular\nappearance is one capable of any degree of vagueness. When the\ndistorting influence of the medium is sufficiently great, the\nresulting particular can no longer be regarded as an appearance\nof an object, but must be treated on its own account. This\nhappens especially when the particular in question cannot be\ntraced back to one object, but is a blend of two or more. This\ncase is normal in perception: we see as one what the microscope\nor telescope reveals to be many different objects. The notion of\nperception is therefore not a precise one: we perceive things\nmore or less, but always with a very considerable amount of\nvagueness and confusion.\n\nIn considering irregular appearances, there are certain very\nnatural mistakes which must be avoided. In order that a\nparticular may count as an irregular appearance of a certain\nobject, it is not necessary that it should bear any resemblance\nto the regular appearances as regard its intrinsic qualities. All\nthat is necessary is that it should be derivable from the regular\nappearances by the laws which express the distorting influence of\nthe medium. When it is so derivable, the particular in question\nmay be regarded as caused by the regular appearances, and\ntherefore by the object itself, together with the modifications\nresulting from the medium. In other cases, the particular in\nquestion may, in the same sense, be regarded as caused by several\nobjects together with the medium; in this case, it may be called\na confused appearance of several objects. If it happens to be in\na brain, it may be called a confused perception of these objects.\nAll actual perception is confused to a greater or less extent.\n\nWe can now interpret in terms of our theory the distinction\nbetween those mental occurrences which are said to have an\nexternal stimulus, and those which are said to be \"centrally\nexcited,\" i.e. to have no stimulus external to the brain. When a\nmental occurrence can be regarded as an appearance of an object\nexternal to the brain, however irregular, or even as a confused\nappearance of several such objects, then we may regard it as\nhaving for its stimulus the object or objects in question, or\ntheir appearances at the sense-organ concerned. When, on the\nother hand, a mental occurrence has not sufficient connection\nwith objects external to the brain to be regarded as an\nappearance of such objects, then its physical causation (if any)\nwill have to be sought in the brain. In the former case it can be\ncalled a perception; in the latter it cannot be so called. But\nthe distinction is one of degree, not of kind. Until this is\nrealized, no satisfactory theory of perception, sensation, or\nimagination is possible.\n\n{{reflist|1|refs=","title":"The Analysis of Mind/Lecture VII","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":3671}