The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (best large ereader .txt) 📖

believe we are mistaken if we do so. Sensation is

the sort of thing of which we MAY be conscious, but not a thing

of which we MUST be conscious. We have been led, in the course of

our inquiry, to admit unconscious beliefs and unconscious

desires. There is, so far as I can see, no class of mental or

other occurrences of which we are always conscious whenever they

happen.

 

* Cf. Lecture VI.

 

The first thing to notice is that consciousness must be of

something. In view of this, I should define “consciousness” in

terms of that relation of an image of a word to an object which

we defined, in Lecture XI, as “meaning.” When a sensation is

followed by an image which is a “copy” of it, I think it may be

said that the existence of the image constitutes consciousness of

the sensation, provided it is accompanied by that sort of belief

which, when we reflect upon it, makes us feel that the image is a

“sign” of something other than itself. This is the sort of belief

which, in the case of memory, we expressed in the words “this

occurred”; or which, in the case of a judgment of perception,

makes us believe in qualities correlated with present sensations,

as e.g., tactile and visual qualities are correlated. The

addition of some element of belief seems required, since mere

imagination does not involve consciousness of anything, and there

can be no consciousness which is not of something. If images

alone constituted consciousness of their prototypes, such

imagination-images as in fact have prototypes would involve

consciousness of them; since this is not the case, an element of

belief must be added to the images in defining consciousness. The

belief must be of that sort that constitutes objective reference,

past or present. An image, together with a belief of this sort

concerning it, constitutes, according to our definition,

consciousness of the prototype of the image.

 

But when we pass from consciousness of sensations to

consciousness of objects of perception, certain further points

arise which demand an addition to our definition. A judgment of

perception, we may say, consists of a core of sensation, together

with associated images, with belief in the present existence of

an object to which sensation and images are referred in a way

which is difficult to analyse. Perhaps we might say that the

belief is not fundamentally in any PRESENT existence, but is of

the nature of an expectation: for example. when we see an object,

we expect certain sensations to result if we proceed to touch it.

Perception, then, will consist of a present sensation together

with expectations of future sensations. (This, of course, is a

reflective analysis, not an account of the way perception appears

to unchecked introspection.) But all such expectations are liable

to be erroneous, since they are based upon correlations which are

usual but not invariable. Any such correlation may mislead us in

a particular case, for example, if we try to touch a reflection

in a looking-glass under the impression that it is “real.” Since

memory is fallible, a similar difficulty arises as regards

consciousness of past objects. It would seem odd to say that we

can be “conscious” of a thing which does not or did not exist.

The only way to avoid this awkwardness is to add to our

definition the proviso that the beliefs involved in consciousness

must be TRUE.

 

In the second place, the question arises as to whether we can be

conscious of images. If we apply our definition to this case, it

seems to demand images of images. In order, for example, to be

conscious of an image of a cat, we shall require, according to

the letter of the definition, an image which is a copy of our

image of the cat, and has this image for its prototype. Now, it

hardly seems probable, as a matter of observation, that there are

images of images, as opposed to images of sensations. We may meet

this difficulty in two ways, either by boldly denying

consciousness of images, or by finding a sense in which, by means

of a different accompanying belief, an image, instead of meaning

its prototype, can mean another image of the same prototype.

 

The first alternative, which denies consciousness of images, has

already been discussed when we were dealing with Introspection in

Lecture VI. We then decided that there must be, in some sense,

consciousness of images. We are therefore left with the second

suggested way of dealing with knowledge of images. According to

this second hypothesis, there may be two images of the same

prototype, such that one of them means the other, instead of

meaning the prototype. It will be remembered that we defined

meaning by association a word or image means an object, we said,

when it has the same associations as the object. But this

definition must not be interpreted too absolutely: a word or

image will not have ALL the same associations as the object which

it means. The word “cat” may be associated with the word “mat,”

but it would not happen except by accident that a cat would be

associated with a mat. And in like manner an image may have

certain associations which its prototype will not have, e.g. an

association with the word “image.” When these associations are

active, an image means an image, instead of meaning its

prototype. If I have had images of a given prototype many times,

I can mean one of these, as opposed to the rest, by recollecting

the time and place or any other distinctive association of that

one occasion. This happens, for example, when a place recalls to

us some thought we previously had in that place, so that we

remember a thought as opposed to the occurrence to which it

referred. Thus we may say that we think of an image A when we

have a similar image B associated with recollections of

circumstances connected with A, but not with its prototype or

with other images of the same prototype. In this way we become

aware of images without the need of any new store of mental

contents, merely by the help of new associations. This theory, so

far as I can see, solves the problems of introspective knowledge,

without requiring heroic measures such as those proposed by

Knight Dunlap, whose views we discussed in Lecture VI.

 

According to what we have been saying, sensation itself is not an

instance of consciousness, though the immediate memory by which

it is apt to be succeeded is so. A sensation which is remembered

becomes an object of consciousness as soon as it begins to be

remembered, which will normally be almost immediately after its

occurrence (if at all); but while it exists it is not an object

of consciousness. If, however, it is part of a perception, say of

some familiar person, we may say that the person perceived is an

object of consciousness. For in this case the sensation is a SIGN

of the perceived object in much the same way in which a

memory-image is a sign of a remembered object. The essential

practical function of “consciousness” and “thought” is that they

enable us to act with reference to what is distant in time or

space, even though it is not at present stimulating our senses.

This reference to absent objects is possible through association

and habit. Actual sensations, in themselves, are not cases of

consciousness, because they do not bring in this reference to

what is absent. But their connection with consciousness is very

close, both through immediate memory, and through the

correlations which turn sensations into perceptions.

 

Enough has, I hope, been said to show that consciousness is far

too complex and accidental to be taken as the fundamental

characteristic of mind. We have seen that belief and images both

enter into it. Belief itself, as we saw in an earlier lecture, is

complex. Therefore, if any definition of mind is suggested by our

analysis of consciousness, images are what would naturally

suggest themselves. But since we found that images can only be

defined causally, we cannot deal with this suggestion, except in

connection with the difference between physical and psychological

causal laws.

 

I come next to those characteristics of mental phenomena which

arise out of mnemic causation. The possibility of action with

reference to what is not sensibly present is one of the things

that might be held to characterize mind. Let us take first a very

elementary example. Suppose you are in a familiar room at night,

and suddenly the light goes out. You will be able to find your

way to the door without much difficulty by means of the picture

of the room which you have in your mind. In this case visual

images serve, somewhat imperfectly it is true, the purpose which

visual sensations would otherwise serve. The stimulus to the

production of visual images is the desire to get out of the room,

which, according to what we found in Lecture III, consists

essentially of present sensations and motor impulses caused by

them. Again, words heard or read enable you to act with reference

to the matters about which they give information; here, again, a

present sensible stimulus, in virtue of habits formed in the

past, enables you to act in a manner appropriate to an object

which is not sensibly present. The whole essence of the practical

efficiency of “thought” consists in sensitiveness to signs: the

sensible presence of A, which is a sign of the present or future

existence of B, enables us to act in a manner appropriate to B.

Of this, words are the supreme example, since their effects as

signs are prodigious, while their intrinsic interest as sensible

occurrences on their own account is usually very slight. The

operation of signs may or may not be accompanied by

consciousness. If a sensible stimulus A calls up an image of B,

and we then act with reference to B, we have what may be called

consciousness of B. But habit may enable us to act in a manner

appropriate to B as soon as A appears, without ever having an

image of B. In that case, although A operates as a sign, it

operates without the help of consciousness. Broadly speaking, a

very familiar sign tends to operate directly in this manner, and

the intervention of consciousness marks an imperfectly

established habit.

 

The power of acquiring experience, which characterizes men and

animals, is an example of the general law that, in mnemic

causation, the causal unit is not one event at one time, but two

or more events at two or more times.& A burnt child fears the

fire, that is to say, the neighbourhood of fire has a different

effect upon a child which has had the sensations of burning than

upon one which has not. More correctly, the observed effect, when

a child which has been burnt is put near a fire, has for its

cause, not merely the neighbourhood of the fire, but this

together with the previous burning. The general formula, when an

animal has acquired experience through some event A, is that,

when B occurs at some future time, the animal to which A has

happened acts differently from an animal which A has not

happened. Thus A and B together, not either separately, must be

regarded as the cause of the animal’s behaviour, unless we take

account of the effect which A has had in altering the animal’s

nervous tissue, which is a matter not patent to external

observation except under very special circumstances. With this

possibility, we are brought back to causal laws,and to the

suggestion that many things which seem essentially mental are

really neural. Perhaps it is the nerves that acquire experience

rather than the mind. If so, the possibility