Differences in perceptions among organisms and individuals

                In Thomas Nagel’s essay “What is it like to be a bat?” he thinks that every living thing is unique to something about that living thing, and there’s no way that we can get feel or experience of what that particular living thing experiences.  To prove this he used the example of a bat.  A bat use sounds to perceive their surroundings where a human who use eyesight can never experience of how a bat experiences. 

                The essay starts with the theme of “Consciousness,” where the author believes is what makes organisms so unique.  Consciousness, being the interaction of the mind and body makes up the complications for others to comprehend the feelings or experiences of things.  He says “I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. … I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task.”  The author wants to experience what is it like for a bat with wings and hangs upside down, to be a bat.  Despite how the author tries imagines what a bat experiences, he is unable to do so.  As human beings, our resources [our mind and body] are so limited and uniquely attached to ourselves only.  Given only these resources the author can’t experience what a bat experiences as our body are entirely different from what a bat has. 

                Consciousness is also unique among different organisms of the same species.  The author made a reference to a blind and deaf child.  He claims that the subjective character is not known to him.  The subjective character means the perception of the world around the character.  In the case of a blind and deaf child, the author simply cannot conceive the experience that the child conceives because he is different from the child as he is not blind or death.  The child however, can describe the experience of blind and deaf to the author, but the author would have a different perception of what it’s like due to the difference in subjective character.

                With consciousness unique to the body and the mind, the author believes that it is impossible to perceive how another being or organism perceives it.  My question is, given universal truths like 2+2=4, does the consciousness also differ from how different individuals’ own perception of how 2+2 is 4?

Am I really typing this?

Descartes, in his six meditation, examines the existence of corporeal things insofar as he is a thinking thing and his body is an extended thing. In order to prove the existence of material things, the mind seem to be of use through the imagination. For, in one's mind, a triangle must exist because of its arithmetic properties such as it has three sides but also through the imagination which seems to give a triangle the appearance of truly existing. For one can imagine the lines connecting the three angles and the space in between them.

However, when thinking of a chiliagon (a thousand side figure) one can not imagine the figure but simply understand it logically. Hence, Descartes is "aware that [he] is in need of a peculiar sort of effort on the part of the mind in order to imagine, one that [he] does not imply in order to understand" (p. 48). Meaning, that one does not need the imagination in order to understand external bodies for his logical mind can define them as existent through mathematics.

Therefore, it could be deduced that the imagination is part of the body, for it's images come from external corporeal. However, although one could live without the imagination and the body, one still feel “particular” sensations (i.e size of the sun) or “less clearly understood” thoughts (i.e hunger or thirst) but they still may be false. However, “by means of these sensations of pain, hunger, thirst and so on, nature also teaches not merely that I am present to my body in the way a sailor is present in a ship, but that I am most tightly joined and, so to speak, commingled with it, so much so that I and the body constitute one single thing” (pg 53). The evidence of the mind feeling bodily sensations indicate that the two are tightly related and must both therefore exist as a single thing.

Nevertheless, although body and mind are closely related they are each an independent thing of one another. It is evident through the fact that the mind could not be divided into parts while a corporeal thing can (even in the imagination). If a limb is taken off our body the mind does not alter and therefore is independent from the body. The second observation regards this idea of separation between body and mind, is that sensation occurs in the nerves and brain but only turn into action after logic is applied to them. The sensation of pain is not enough in order to stop it from happening. Instead, Descartes believes that the sensation of pain “provokes the mind to do its utmost to move away from the cause of the pain, since it is seen as harmful” (pg 57). Hence, considering that one is only a thinking thing, one still has a body. It is separated from the mind by its being a non-thinking thing while the mind (and oneself) is the source of our thoughts.

Prospect of Error vs The Faculty of Knowing and Faculty of Choosing

Descartes explains the prospect of error. Descartes thinks that how can he ever erred if he was created by a Supreme Being which whom he is referring to God, because God could never make any mistakes. Descartes states that “for error is not a pure negation but rather a privation or a lack of some knowledge that somehow ought to be in. Descartes then questions himself and almost questioning God’s creation saying “God’s always wills what is best. Is it then better that I should be in error rather than not? Mediations,37). Descartes seems a little confused and seems like he is questioning God’s creation of the human mind but then he comes up with two causes of why these errors might occur (1) knowing and (2) choosing.

Error only occurs only of the will and the intellect. According to Descartes no error is found in the intellect. If you know something and can perform what you know then there shouldn’t be any error. Descartes says “through the intellect alone I merely perceive ideas…I can render a judgment” (Meditations 38).  The next cause is the choosing which he refers to as your will, in its judgments, going beyond what the intellect clearly and distinctly perceives to be the case. Willing is being able to do or not do the same thing. So God gives him the intellect which there can possibly be no errors but on his own free will their can be errors? Descartes is basically saying only on knowing you can make a judgment but on will there are going to be errors because this process of free will was came upon on his own and not from God.

Intellect is given by God so it cannot produce any kind of error, its impossible, according to Descartes stating, he makes it ultimately clear when he states  “I got my power of understanding from God, whatever I understand I doubtless understand rightly, and it is impossible for me to be deceived in this “ (Meditations,39). So my concern to Descartes theory on error is if the evidence is in your sight that your intellect has deceived you, what you actually thought was true has now became not true what do you believe? Do you still believe that your intellect is by far true just because the Supreme Being has created you and they are not in right to make mistakes?

           

The Creations of God vs. The Creations of Man

          Descartes states that inventions made by the hands of god are far more amazing than anything created by man (Meditations 31). Prior to this, he proves that the spread of animal spirits is necessary within human muscles for internal passions like hunger to occur, without the control of will. Whereas, a machine made by man would not have so many movements within itself as does the internal functions of the human body. There are two ways that we can tell distinctly from a man and a machine that imitates and looks like a man (Meditations 32). That is, the difference in speech and the placement of their organs limiting their actions. Even the supreme of all idiots can re-arrange their words in multiple ways to express what is on their mind. As long as we recognize the two methods of differentiating man and robot we can't go wrong, "And we should not confuse words with the natural movements that attest to the passions... by animals" (Meditations 33).
           Say if one were to come across a mechanical robot that resembles all of the features of a human body, how would one be able to tell the difference if it were the real thing or not? Descartes explains that the machine does not respond with reason behind its words but that it utters words that fit into its actions. Using these two methods, one can also tell the difference between man and beast as well as animals (Meditations 32). Although they do have the same internal organs as human beings, they are still incapable to think of what they are saying. This is not simple because they have less reasoning than humans, but that they have no sense of reasoning at all (Meditations 32).
           Maybe a certain animal possesses a skill that is superior in one action than human beings, but that doesn't mean that they are smarter. Human beings excel in far more areas than any animal or machine can do. Descartes uses a clock as an example and says a man couldn't keep track of time, even with all of his patience and accuracy, better than a clock made up of wheels and springs, which was invented by man to do so (Meditations 33). This is because the placement of its organs only allows it to move in that manner and it isn't made up of nearly as much organs to make it act in such a way that is identical to humans, where reason is the basis of all actions (Meditations 32).
           After that, Descartes then says that when the difference between the soul of man and those of a beast is well understood, one can infer that the human soul is separate from the body and that it is immortal, whereas the body is not. One can only come to this conclusion, until he/she is fully accustomed to the existence of God. This makes sense because Descartes is concluding that if the human soul is separate from the body and therefore, is immortal, then a man made machine that resembles a human body doesn't have a soul and so it is mortal. In other words this is why the creations of God is superior to the creations of man, "I described the rational soul and showed that it can in no way be derived from the potentiality of matter" (Meditations 33).

Did I Post This?

            Descartes believes that all things can be doubted.  Each thing does not need to be questioned specifically, because all things are built from certain presuppositions that are uncertain (Meditations 13-14).   The first of these is the senses, which have faltered in the past and so cannot be certain in the present: “it is a mark of prudence never to put our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once” (Meditations 14).  Even when the senses seem to be perceiving an obvious truth, they are not proof of anything because those “truths” appear just as obvious when we dream (Meditations 14).  From here Descartes reasons that imaginary things are based in reality: they are built from the same universal truths.  Imagination is simply an imitation of reality; therefore, though corporeal objects that we come to know from the senses may be false, the simple things such as mathematics, which is unconcerned with the existence of the corporeal is not proven false by the weakness of the senses (Meditations 14-15).  However, that such things cannot be doubted by doubting the senses is not enough to make them certain.  It is possible that a malicious God has deceived us into believing that a square has four sides.  People falter in things they believe they know perfectly, so why not in this too (Meditations 15-16)?  Therefore, by this method, all things and even their forms are put into doubt.

            By doubt, Descartes means treating as false all that is not absolutely proven true.  This is not a courtroom in which a thing is proven if it is beyond “reasonable doubt.”  The smallest doubt is as much reason for rejection as the largest (Meditations 13).  In the case of doubting mathematics, we see Descartes go so far as to doubt that objective and permanent things such as “three” or “square can be known by our reason (Meditations 15).  This in particular is what leads Descartes to the realization that everything can and must be doubted.

            Doubting mathematics and similar things only by means of doubting our own abilities to perceive truth brings up a question.  Though Descartes doubts our abilities, he never doubts the permanence of the simple things.  What if the idea of a square is called into question?  Descartes notes that he may be wrong that a square has four sides because he has miscounted, but what if a square is sometimes four sided and other times six?  Does this change any of Descartes later conclusions on his own existence?

Free to Be You and Me ♥ (in accordance with the true word of God)

In the preface to his Treatise on Theology and Politics, Spinoza describes his desire to give his readers a way to interpret the sacred books in order to pick out the word of God and the natural knowledge revealed by it while ignoring the messages that were implanted in order to promote obedience. He thinks that the key to a free State is the ability of its members to assent to whatever beliefs they want as long as their actions reflect obedience only to God's desire for his followers to be just and kind, rather than being forced to adhere to a flawed doctrine of beliefs (Treatise, 7).

His first justification for this position is, as Sol described, that people resort to superstitions only when unusual things happen. Whether good or bad, events that trigger superstition are fleeting and therefore must be made of "affects" rather than reason because reason is constant (Treatise, 2). If reason is constant, the true Scripture and word of God actually are rooted in reason (Treatise, 6), superstition has no reason, and it was the cornerstone of the Church's teachings, we can infer that since each political leader points to a different supposed godly truth to attain the obedience of his people, they must all be doing so under the guise of something other than the true word of God, which is completely rooted in love, in order to keep their people afraid and basically subservient. True dedication to God's word would grant spiritual sovereignty to the body of people who followed it. Additionally, by heeding the clergy as upstanding citizens and rewarding them for this behavior with money it opened the doors for greedy people to make their move into the Church for less than admirable reasons. Corruption in the Church lead to public displays of excess which then overshadowed any resolve to reiterate the true word of God (Treatise, 4).

Leading a State with the Church's fundamentally flawed doctrines built into its infrastructure will, then, lead to a fundamentally flawed state. Instead, a State should be governed with the natural rights of its individuals in mind because they are the ones who give the State power when they hand over their obedience. At first glance these points seem to be contradictory- Spinoza first talks about freedom and natural rights and then adds that if a person gives his power of defending himself to someone else that he hands these rights over to them. (Treatise, 8) What he means by this is that if a person who is granted freedom of mind willfully hands over this power to defend himself, he would only be doing so to a State that reflects his own beliefs. If a just person hands over his power to a State we can assume that the State is also just and will behave in accordance with at least the fundamentals behind the word of God and act in the best interest of its people.

Does this last point follow? Will just individuals only hand over their power to a governing body that is just or would they sacrifice their ideals for the protection that would come with a militant State? Does this then mean that they weren't just in the first place?

Superstition: A Need for Control

Spinoza thinks that superstition is irrational; he believes that it is people’s fear and constant need to be in control that drives them to do and believe in things that rational people normally wouldn’t. When Spinoza says “…can only trust to luck, wobbling miserably between hope and fear. That makes them ready to believe anything that will calm them down” (Treatise 2) he understands that what makes people believe irrational things is their need for hope and control. It is extremely comforting to ‘know’ that everything that happens, good or bad, is caused by God/s and that it is in response to something one did (i.e. prayer) that caused the good or bad to happen. Spinoza is not against religion. He just disagrees with the superstitions that are so often attached with much of religion. Even though he wrote about superstition a few hundred years ago, much of his arguments still have relevance today. People let their fears and insecurities get the best of them all the time and will believe anything – no matter how unreasonable – so long as it comforts them.

Spinoza thinks that “superstition-switching” causes many outbreaks of disorder and war (Treatise 3).  He thinks that it causes disorder and war because he believes that people are unhappy and are constantly looking for new superstitions that have not yet deceived them. This constant search for something different causes disorder and chaos as people get fed up with one superstition, start cursing it and try to find something new. It causes disorder because switching ends up upsetting the leaders or followers of their previous superstition who are desperate for power and control. Throughout the history of this world, there has been much pain caused in the name of superstitious ideas and the desperate need for power and control of people’s beliefs.

What is it that keeps some people so attracted to superstitions that even though they are deceived by them, they will either continue to believe in them or simply switch to belief in another irrational superstition. Obviously, fear and need for constant control is part of what drives them to continue to be deceived by irrationality and superstition. However, I think that there must be something more to it. There are many things that deceive people and even if that thing is driven by something as strong as a need for control and hope, if one is deceived by it enough times they will come to accept that it is not true. What is it that changes when the deceiving belief is superstition?