An Introduction to Philosophy by George Stuart Fullerton (bookreader TXT) 📖

mental phenomenon can belong. It cannot, as we have seen (section 35), occupy any portion of space or even have a location in space. It is equally true that no series of mental changes can occupy any portion of time, real time, or even fill a single moment in the stream of time. There are many persons to whom this latter statement will seem difficult of acceptance; but the relation of mental phenomena to space and to time is of the same sort, and we can consider the two together.

Psychologists speak unhesitatingly of the localization of sensations in the brain, and they talk as readily of the moment at which a sensation arises and of the duration of the sensation. What can they mean by such expressions?

We have seen that sensations are not in the brain, and their localization means only the determination of their concomitant physical phenomena, of the corresponding brain-change. And it ought to be clear even from what has been said above that, in determining the moment at which a sensation arises, we are determining only the time of the concomitant brain process. Why do we say that a sensation arises later than the moment at which an impression is made upon the organ of sense and earlier than the resulting movement of some group of muscles? Because the change in the brain, to which we refer the sensation, occurs later than the one and earlier than the other. This has a place in real time, it belongs to that series of world changes whose succession constitutes real time. If we ask when anything happened, we always refer to this series of changes. We try to determine its place in the world order.

Thus, we ask: When was Julius Caesar born? We are given a year and a day. How is the time which has elapsed since measured? By changes in the physical world, by revolutions of the earth about the sun. We ask: When did he conceive the plan of writing his Commentaries? If we get an answer at all, it must be an answer of the same kind—some point in the series of physical changes which occur in real time must be indicated. Where else should we look for an answer? In point of fact, we never do look elsewhere.

Again. We have distinguished between apparent space and real space (section 34). We have seen that, when we deny that a mental image can occupy any portion of space, we need not think of it as losing its parts and shrivelling to a point. We may still attribute to it apparent space; may affirm that it seems extended. Let us mark the same distinction when we consider time. The psychologist speaks of the duration of a sensation. Has it real duration? It is not in time at all, and, of course, it cannot, strictly speaking, occupy a portion of time. But we can try to measure the duration of the physical concomitant, and call this the real duration of the sensation.

We all distinguish between the real time of mental phenomena, in the sense indicated just above, and the apparent time. We know very well that the one may give us no true measure of the other. A sermon seems long; was it really long? There is only one way of measuring its real length. We must refer to the clock, to the sun, to some change in the physical world. We seem to live years in a dream; was the dream really a long one? The real length can only be determined, if at all, by a physical reference. Those apparent years of the dream have no place in the real time which is measured by the clock. We do not have to cut it and insert them somewhere. They belong to a different order, and cannot be inserted any more than the thought of a patch can be inserted in a rent in a real coat.

We see, thus, when we reflect upon the matter, that mental phenomena cannot, strictly speaking, be said to have a time and place. He who attributes these to them materializes them. But their physical concomitants have a time and place, and mental phenomena can be ordered by a reference to these. They can be assigned a time and place of existing in a special sense of the words not to be confounded with the sense in which we use them when we speak of the time and place of material things. This makes it possible to relate every mental phenomenon to the world system in a definite way, and to distinguish it clearly from every other, however similar.

We need not, when we come to understand this, change our usual modes of speech. We may still say: The pain I had two years ago is like the pain I have to-day; my sensation came into being at such a moment; my regret lasted two days. We speak that we may be understood; and such phrases express a truth, even if they are rather loose and inaccurate. But we must not be deceived by such phrases, and assume that they mean what they have no right to mean.

39. OBJECTIONS TO PARALLELISM.—What objections can be brought against parallelism? It is sometimes objected by the interactionist that it abandons the plain man's notion of the mind as a substance with its attributes, and makes of it a mere collection of mental phenomena. It must be admitted that the parallelist usually holds a view which differs rather widely from that of the unlearned.

But even supposing this objection well taken, it can no longer be regarded as an objection specifically to the doctrine of parallelism, for the view of the mind in question is becoming increasingly popular, and it is now held by influential interactionists as well as by parallelists. One may believe that the mind consists of ideas, and may still hold that ideas can cause motions in matter.

There is, however, another objection that predisposes many thoughtful persons to reject parallelism uncompromisingly. It is this. If we admit that the chain of physical causes and effects, from a blow given to the body to the resulting muscular movements made in self-defense, is an unbroken one, what part can we assign to the mind in the whole transaction? Has it done anything? Is it not reduced to the position of a passive spectator? Must we not regard man as "a physical automaton with parallel psychical states"?

Such an account of man cannot fail to strike one as repugnant; and yet it is the parallelist himself whom we must thank for introducing us to it. The account is not a caricature from the pen of an opponent. "An automaton," writes Professor Clifford,[2] "is a thing that goes by itself when it is wound up, and we go by ourselves when we have had food. Excepting the fact that other men are conscious, there is no reason why we should not regard the human body as merely an exceedingly complicated machine which is wound up by putting food into the mouth. But it is not merely a machine, because consciousness goes with it. The mind, then, is to be regarded as a stream of feelings which runs parallel to, and simultaneous with, a certain part of the action of the body, that is to say, that particular part of the action of the brain in which the cerebrum and the sensory tracts are excited."

The saving statement that the body is not merely a machine, because consciousness goes with it, does not impress one as being sufficient to redeem the illustration. Who wants to be an automaton with an accompanying consciousness? Who cares to regard his mind as an "epiphenomenon"—a thing that exists, but whose existence or nonexistence makes no difference to the course of affairs?

The plain man's objection to such an account of himself seems to be abundantly justified. As I have said earlier in this chapter, neither interactionist nor parallelist has the intention of repudiating the experience of world and mind common to us all. We surely have evidence enough to prove that minds count for something. No house was ever built, no book was ever written, by a creature without a mind; and the better the house or book, the better the mind. That there is a fixed and absolutely dependable relation between the planning mind and the thing accomplished, no man of any school has the right to deny. The only legitimate question is: What is the nature of the relation? Is it causal, or should it be conceived to be something else?

The whole matter will be more fully discussed in Chapter XI. This chapter I shall close with a brief summary of the points which the reader will do well to bear in mind when he occupies himself with parallelism.

(1) Parallelism is a protest against the interactionist's tendency to materialize the mind.

(2) The name is a figurative expression, and must not be taken literally. The true relation between mental phenomena and physical is given in certain common experiences that have been indicated, and it is a unique relation.

(3) It is a fixed and absolutely dependable relation. It is impossible that there should be a particular mental fact without its corresponding physical fact; and it is impossible that this physical fact should occur without its corresponding mental fact.

(4) The parallelist objects to calling this relation causal, because this obscures the distinction between it and the relation between facts both of which are physical. He prefers the word "concomitance."

(5) Such objections to parallelism as that cited above assume that the concomitance of which the parallelist speaks is analogous to physical concomitance. The chemist puts together a volume of hydrogen gas and a volume of chlorine gas, and the result is two volumes of hydrochloric acid gas. We regard it as essential to the result that there should be the two gases and that they should be brought together. But the fact that the chemist has red hair we rightly look upon as a concomitant phenomenon of no importance. The result would be the same if he had black hair or were bald. But this is not the concomitance that interests the parallelist. The two sorts of concomitance are alike only in the one point. Some phenomenon is regarded as excluded from the series of causes and effects under discussion. On the other hand, the difference between the two is all-important; in the one case, the concomitant phenomenon is an accidental circumstance that might just as well be absent; in the other, it is nothing of the sort; it cannot be absent—the mental fact must exist if the brain-change in question exists.

It is quite possible that, on reading this list of points, one may be inclined to make two protests.

First: Is a parallelism so carefully guarded as this properly called parallelism at all? To this I answer: The name matters little. I have used it because I have no better term. Certainly, it is not the parallelism which is sometimes brought forward, and which peeps out from the citation from Clifford. It is nothing more than an insistence upon the truth that we should not treat the mind as though it were a material thing. If any one wishes to take the doctrine and discard the name, I have no objection. As so guarded, the doctrine is, I think, true.

Second: If it is desirable to avoid the word "cause," in speaking of the relation of the mental and the physical, on the ground that otherwise we give the word a double sense, why is it not desirable to avoid the word "concomitance"? Have we not seen that the word is ambiguous? I admit the inconsistency and plead in excuse only that I have chosen the lesser of two evils. It is fatally easy to slip into the error of thinking of the mind as though it were material and had a place in the physical world. In using the word "concomitance" I enter a protest against this. But I have, of course, no right to use it without showing just what kind of concomitance I mean.

[1] "First and Fundamental Truths," Book I, Part II, Chapter II. New York, 1889.

[2] "Lectures and Essays," Vol. II, p. 57.