The Dual Mind Ó
Marty Monteiro
Chair Fnd. International Institute of Interdisciplinary Integration
At The Bottom Of Existence Few Words Are Needed
1 Social man: Mind and Matter
It is known from everyday practice that the physical-social environment of objects and subjects, gives a mental subjective experience and reverse, that intuition or thinking has an impact on behaviour, as the saying goes 'matter influences the mind' and the 'mind influences the body'. Those two opposite common sense notions have its scientifically drawback to the mainstreams in philosophy and science until now, known under the heading of 'materialism' and 'mentalism'. Materialism sees the individual as a passive person dependent on the environment. The mind can be explained from matter; by neural 'interactions' the mind emerges. Mentalism gives the argument the individual is an active person being able to change his environment. His mind is presupposed to exist to adapt to his circumstances; the mind gives birth to the body. From materialistic point of view, it is generally agreed that 'physical interaction' activates the mind, but the other way around, why not introduce from mentalism, the concept of 'psychical interaction' for the genesis of matter or (language) behaviour? Common sense tells us that mental contact and the exchange of thoughts and feelings between people give rise to mutual behaviour. Is it not the time to disclose the mind-matter issue not only from a subjective point of view but also from an inter-subjective frame of reference?
It is tried with the help of some examples, to approach the mind-matter relation, emphasising the concept of "interaction". Interaction is a universal phenomenon, not only confined to reciprocal behavioural repertoire between human beings, but also to a broader framework of entities, such as between particles, between molecules, between cells and so on. Interaction refers to the same level of processing, because in the framework of 'equal level of interaction' a new entity can come into existence. The "equality" principle of interaction is basic for (re)production; an intimacy between a human and an ape can never result in a birth, how lovely apes can be.
You are prepared to play tennis with your partner, as equally trained as you are and both of you decide to start a competition game. Because of your training in tennis, you are mostly aware of your partner's position in the field and how she is going to return the ball. You are not watching your own bodily movements most of the time. Your behaviour on the tennis-court is performed automatically and co-ordinated. The autonomous movements in tennis have to operate outside your awareness; otherwise, you could not play tennis smoothly. A feedback cycle consists on the one hand the sensing of your racket and on the other the motor responses.
To your behaviour, co-ordinated by the brain, sense organs are recording stimuli from the environment. These are directed to your brain to keep automatically in touch with your racket and the tennis-court. The physiological process preceding your tennis behaviour is built up of primary sensations as input stimuli having a nervous feedback to your motivation and motor responses to perform tennis behaviour. An interactive feedback loop exists between your sensation of a stimulus on the one hand and your nervous motivation mediated by the internal effectors on the other. The process of 'sensation of a stimulus' and the feedback of 'motivation of a need' is a causal cycle which operate autonomously at physical level without being aware of it.
BOX 2 Cognition of Structure and Perception of Information
When you play tennis, your behaviour does not move outside your consciousness the whole time, otherwise you could not evaluate, correct and anticipate your tennis movements. There are moments of spontaneous awareness of your own tennis behaviour. These moments of a sudden arousal of consciousness emerge when you hit the ball on return to your tennis partner. At that specific moment of hitting the ball, you become aware of your tennis behaviour. You feel with your body, hear with your ears and see with your eyes the hitting of the ball. At that very instant, you now become conscious of your field position and holding your racket and now you are able to evaluate your position. To return the ball adequately, you have to imagine several difficult or unreachable positions for your partner. You must anticipate the various conceptual positions of your partner to win the match. Therefore, what is important to you, is to represent a position to hit the ball in such a way to your advantage. The goal of the tennis game is to hit the ball in that direction that your tennis partner will not be able to return it. To choose the right position is a matter of imagination and a 'goal' for you in the tennis game.
Looking for a goal is a mental 'activity' carried out by you and emerges from interaction in the brain of your behaviour, your field position, holding your racket and the ball. It is your active mind choosing a conceptual position for your partner. Your cognition of a position is directed as an autonomous meaningless process because at that very moment you do not know, whether the conceptual position is right or wrong. This is only possible if it is linked to the perception of your partner's movement in the field the next moment and is tested when she hits the ball in return or not.
The moving of your partner’s position brings about the cycle of the emergence of the consciousness of anticipating the conceptual position and the secondary process of evaluation. By your partner's returning the ball and your hitting it, behaviour is tested in the subsequent cycle. Your cognitive goal position and perceptual outcome is being judged as right or wrong.
BOX 3 Sensation of a Norm and Motivation of a Value
After having played tennis together very often, you and your partner start liking each other. You think of each other frequently. At a surprising moment, a 'mental click' takes place and you two fall in love with each other. After some time your relation becomes stable, and you both decide to take a child. When the baby is born, you both will have to take care of the child, it will rule the activities of you both.
The mental contact between both of you is an event by
accident you cannot control. This mental interaction, however, is the basis
for the birth of a new creature. The conception is a natural biological
'fusion' of a male and female cell, followed by 'fission', a differentiation
of building up several organs. The new creature is a product of co-operation
between you and your partner; it is sensed as a reciprocal rewarding stimulus,
and you both see each other as normative and valued. Your relation between
you both is reinforced resulting in the willingness to take care of the
child and to each other.
The human processes, sensation-motivation, carrying respectively a stimulus-norm and a need-value are channels to build up more or less stable systems. The intermediate process of cognition-perception derives its function from structuring needs and values and the information to optimise stimuli and norms. Departing from the autonomous physical level of objects, a higher-order process, the consciousness and the social level of norms and values, emerge through interaction from their substratum. However, sensation of a social norm is basic for the formation of a new compound higher-order object, based on equal level interactivity. The formation and building up of a hierarchical storage system of elements is not just passive; an active process of needs and values can arouse. The storage and retrieval of elements conceived of as an internal environmental system is called: personality.
Needs and values can be retrieved and mediated by cognition as the active side of the personality. A need can consciously be satisfied in the framework of the social environment, although the other is not always physically present or the individual is not explicitly aware of the other. Mostly, needs are expressed to be satisfied immediately, especially standardised needs, but for optimising one's needs a deliberate problem solving procedure is followed. It is the way of weighing pros and cons between internal representations and external stimuli. Sometimes in abstract problem solving, things must be made concrete in order to produce products or speak concrete language. Therefore, a transformation must take place from higher-order compound objects into lower-order ones, as is the case of concretisation of abstract language. The interactive cognitive system transforming generalised values into concrete elements is called: attitude.
Language is a tool for communication of words or pictures
and intentionalised feelings and can play a role at various levels of abstraction.
One can speak concretely or one can speak formally and abstractly as in
scientific language. The process of transformation from concrete elements
into abstract ones is a creative interaction or 'fusion' between more or
less concrete stored terms. For instance, a Slazenger and a Montana racket
can both be denoted by the more general term 'racket'. Transformation can
take place at several levels of ordering. Man is not aware of this process
of generalisation. The process of forming compound elements is a natural
mechanism beyond consciousness. The causal cycle of cognition-perception
has finished. Cognition cannot be a spectator of its own birth. On this
basis only, by interactive fusion between two higher-order compound elements,
a higher-order cognition of creativity is generated and a new abstract
term will be uttered.
BOX 5 Attitude: Concretisation in Language
When one speaks abstract language, sometimes one must
concretise. To make an abstract representation concrete is not only essential
to communicate with other people, but also in order to make the link between
words and deeds. A feeling of hunger must be made more concrete by for
instance the imagination of bread. The representation of bread can now
be expressed in buying and eating bread. To keep in touch with his own
behaviour and that of other people, a transformation must occur, i.e. a
break down or fission from a general compound object towards a single object.
To bring about the process of making things concrete, we need another human
being externally or in the mind explicitly or implicitly, as for example
a housewife is shopping for her family, keeping her husband and children
in her mind. It is always a mental interaction, actually or conceptually,
with another individual basic for the genesis of matter or concrete (language)
behaviour.
It is common that man needs energy necessary to perform activities and that mental effort demands energy, for instance in problem solving activities. Besides food, man needs other human beings to give him mental energy, such as social approval and love. Between the individual and his environment, energy-transactions will be necessary for the maintenance and the functioning of mind and body. For the creation of common cultural products on the one hand and the formation of an individual personality on the other, a mental energy 'build-up' and 'break-down' of matter will therefore be necessary. In general, it is assumed that the output of energy is a ‘loss’ for the system. To safeguard the continuity of the system, an input of energy is needed as a ‘profit’. In the household of energy transaction within an individual and between individuals, the principle of 'optimising' is assumed. Interaction is set up from a 'surplus' or 'shortage' of energy.
Energy transaction takes place at different levels of processing between stimulus-norm and perception on the one hand, and between cognition and need-value on the other. The process of energy transaction between mind and matter obtains a substantial meaning, in the sense of 'transformation' of material energy into mental energy and reverse. Material energy inflow occurs from the bodily environment of stimuli-norms as cause toward perception transformed into mental energy to give a subjective experience as effect. On the other hand, a cognitive mental energy outflow from an element in the personality as energy reservoir will be transformed into material energy as value representation carried by motivation. Apparently, thinking can give the ignition to the motor of motivation and behaviour and the other way around, percepts get its subjective meaning. If energy transformation of matter towards the mind and vice versa is the case, a relation exists between mind and matter as a one-directed causal connection.
Because of the birth of your child, you and your partner
did not play tennis for a long time and now you both feel the need to stretch
the body. Your body gives therefore an interactive signal to your knowledge
of tennis as being pleasant. The need to play tennis is aroused by a relative
"energy shortage" (energy tension) of a bodily element (n—), but this cannot
be satisfied from the element itself but comes forth by interaction with
a second element with a relative "energy surplus", the positive knowing
of tennis (V+). The surplus element is also retrieved as a material value
representation (effect) to play tennis with your partner built up by your
mental cognition (cause). A state of equilibrium (energy tension reduction)
is brought about between your body as a stimulus (s+) with your partner's
commitment (N+), which is cause for your experience as effect. Within the
framework of relative energy shortage-surplus between two elements, there
will be an energy difference, inducing a process of mental object/subject-interaction,
which keeps life going on.
Is it real to see the human being closely entangled with another human being? Material and mental energy transference is not only a matter of an individual but always a social event par excellence. Interaction has nothing to do with the non-existing interaction between mind and matter, but it refers only as mentality between entities (panpsychism), Interaction between human beings is the reverse of interaction between objects within an individual. By the creative interactive development of the hierarchical personality as 'immaterialisation' on the one hand and the interactive system of attitude, basic for 'materialisation' on the other hand, the opposite mirror mechanism of interaction comes to the front. What is happening between people, mentally and behaviourally, has its reverse counterpart in the individual. We are lucky; we have a dual mind and are not alone in this world but carry always the other within us.