The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (red queen free ebook txt) 📕

(3) CAN WE OBSERVE ANYTHING INTRINSICALLY DIFFERENT FROM

SENSATIONS? We come now to our third question concerning

introspection. It is commonly thought that by looking within we

can observe all sorts of things that are radically different from

the constituents of the physical world, e.g. thoughts, beliefs,

desires, pleasures, pains and emotions. The difference between

mind and matter is increased partly by emphasizing these supposed

introspective data, partly by the supposition that matter is

composed of atoms or electrons or whatever units physics may at

the moment prefer. As against this latter supposition, I contend

that the ultimate constituents of matter are not atoms or

electrons, but sensations, and other things similar to sensations

as regards extent and duration. As against the view that

introspection reveals a mental world radically different from

sensations, I propose to argue that thoughts, beliefs, desires,

pleasures, pains and emotions are all built up out of sensations

and images alone, and that there is reason to think that images

do not differ from sensations in their intrinsic character. We

thus effect a mutual rapprochement of mind and matter, and reduce

the ultimate data of introspection (in our second sense) to

images alone. On this third view of the meaning of introspection,

therefore, our decision is wholly against it.

There remain two points to be considered concerning

introspection. The first is as to how far it is trustworthy; the

second is as to whether, even granting that it reveals no

radically different STUFF from that revealed by what might be

called external perception, it may not reveal different

RELATIONS, and thus acquire almost as much importance as is

traditionally assigned to it.

To begin with the trustworthiness of introspection. It is common

among certain schools to regard the knowledge of our own mental

processes as incomparably more certain than our knowledge of the

“external” world; this view is to be found in the British

philosophy which descends from Hume, and is present, somewhat

veiled, in Kant and his followers. There seems no reason whatever

to accept this view. Our spontaneous, unsophisticated beliefs,

whether as to ourselves or as to the outer world, are always

extremely rash and very liable to error. The acquisition of

caution is equally necessary and equally difficult in both

directions. Not only are we often un aware of entertaining a

belief or desire which exists in us; we are often actually

mistaken. The fallibility of introspection as regards what we

desire is made evident by psychoanalysis; its fallibility as to

what we know is easily demonstrated. An autobiography, when

confronted by a careful editor with documentary evidence, is

usually found to be full of obviously inadvertent errors. Any of

us confronted by a forgotten letter written some years ago will

be astonished to find how much more foolish our opinions were

than we had remembered them as being. And as to the analysis of

our mental operations—believing, desiring, willing, or what

not—introspection unaided gives very little help: it is

necessary to construct hypotheses and test them by their

consequences, just as we do in physical science. Introspection,

therefore, though it is one among our sources of knowledge, is

not, in isolation, in any degree more trustworthy than “external”

perception.

I come now to our second question: Does introspection give us

materials for the knowledge of relations other than those arrived

at by reflecting upon external perception? It might be contended

that the essence of what is “mental” consists of relations, such

as knowing for example, and that our knowledge concerning these

essentially mental relations is entirely derived from

introspection. If “knowing” were an unanalysable relation, this

view would be incontrovertible, since clearly no such relation

forms part of the subject matter of physics. But it would seem

that “knowing” is really various relations, all of them complex.

Therefore, until they have been analysed, our present question

must remain unanswered I shall return to it at the end of the

present course of lectures.

LECTURE VII. THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION

In Lecture V we found reason to think that the ultimate

constituents* of the world do not have the characteristics of

either mind or matter as ordinarily understood: they are not

solid persistent objects moving through space, nor are they

fragments of “consciousness.” But we found two ways of grouping

particulars, one into “things” or “pieces of matter,” the other

into series of “perspectives,” each series being what may be

called a “biography.” Before we can define either sensations or

images, it is necessary to consider this twofold classification

in somewhat greater detail, and to derive from it a definition of

perception. It should be said that, in so far as the

classification assumes the whole world of physics (including its

unperceived portions), it contains hypothetical elements. But we

will not linger on the grounds for admitting these, which belong

to the philosophy of physics rather than of psychology.

* When I speak of “ultimate constituents,” I do not mean

necessarily such as are theoretically incapable of analysis, but

only such as, at present, we can see no means of analysing. I

speak of such constituents as “particulars,” or as “RELATIVE

particulars” when I wish to emphasize the fact that they may be

themselves complex.

The physical classification of particulars collects together all

those that are aspects of one “thing.” Given any one particular,

it is found often (we do not say always) that there are a number

of other particulars differing from this one in gradually

increasing degrees. Those (or some of those) that differ from it

only very slightly will be found to differ approximately

according to certain laws which may be called, in a generalized

sense, the laws of “perspective”; they include the ordinary laws

of perspective as a special case. This approximation grows more

and more nearly exact as the difference grows less; in technical

language, the laws of perspective account for the differences to

the first order of small quantities, and other laws are only

required to account for second-order differences. That is to say,

as the difference diminishes, the part of the difference which is

not according to the laws of perspective diminishes much more

rapidly, and bears to the total difference a ratio which tends

towards zero as both are made smaller and smaller. By this means

we can theoretically collect together a number of particulars

which may be defined as the “aspects” or “appearances” of one

thing at one time. If the laws of perspective were sufficiently

known, the connection between different aspects would be

expressed in differential equations.

This gives us, so far, only those particulars which constitute

one thing at one time. This set of particulars may be called a

“momentary thing.” To define that series of “momentary things”

that constitute the successive states of one thing is a problem

involving the laws of dynamics. These give the laws governing the

changes of aspects from one time to a slightly later time, with

the same sort of differential approximation to exactness as we

obtained for spatially neighbouring aspects through the laws of

perspective. Thus a momentary thing is a set of particulars,

while a thing (which may be identified with the whole history of

the thing) is a series of such sets of particulars. The

particulars in one set are collected together by the laws of

perspective; the successive sets are collected together by the

laws of dynamics. This is the view of the world which is

appropriate to traditional physics.

The definition of a “momentary thing” involves problems

concerning time, since the particulars constituting a momentary

thing will not be all simultaneous, but will travel outward from

the thing with the velocity of light (in case the thing is in

vacuo). There are complications connected with relativity, but

for our present purpose they are not vital, and I shall ignore

them.

Instead of first collecting together all the particulars

constituting a momentary thing, and then forming the series of

successive sets, we might have first collected together a series

of successive aspects related by the laws of dynamics, and then

have formed the set of such series related by the laws of

perspective. To illustrate by the case of an actor on the stage:

our first plan was to collect together all the aspects which he

presents to different spectators at one time, and then to form

the series of such sets. Our second plan is first to collect

together all the aspects which he presents successively to a

given spectator, and then to do the same thing for the other

spectators, thus forming a set of series instead of a series of

sets. The first plan tells us what he does; the second the

impressions he produces. This second way of classifying

particulars is one which obviously has more relevance to

psychology than the other. It is partly by this second method of

classification that we obtain definitions of one “experience” or

“biography” or “person.” This method of classification is also

essential to the definition of sensations and images, as I shall

endeavour to prove later on. But we must first amplify the

definition of perspectives and biographies.

In our illustration of the actor, we spoke, for the moment, as

though each spectator’s mind were wholly occupied by the one

actor. If this were the case, it might be possible to define the

biography of one spectator as a series of successive aspects of

the actor related according to the laws of dynamics. But in fact

this is not the case. We are at all times during our waking life

receiving a variety of impressions, which are aspects of a

variety of things. We have to consider what binds together two

simultaneous sensations in one person, or, more generally, any

two occurrences which forte part of one experience. We might say,

adhering to the standpoint of physics, that two aspects of

different things belong to the same perspective when they are in

the same place. But this would not really help us, since a

“place” has not yet been defined. Can we define what is meant by

saying that two aspects are “in the same place,” without

introducing anything beyond the laws of perspective and dynamics?

I do not feel sure whether it is possible to frame such a

definition or not; accordingly I shall not assume that it is

possible, but shall seek other characteristics by which a

perspective or biography may be defined.

When (for example) we see one man and hear another speaking at

the same time, what we see and what we hear have a relation which

we can perceive, which makes the two together form, in some

sense, one experience. It is when this relation exists that two

occurrences become associated. Semon’s “engram” is formed by all

that we experience at one time. He speaks of two parts of this

total as having the relation of “Nebeneinander” (M. 118; M.E. 33

ff.), which is reminiscent of Herbart’s “Zusammen.” I think the

relation may be called simply “simultaneity.” It might be said

that at any moment all sorts of things that are not part of my

experience are happening in the world, and that therefore the

relation we are seeking to define cannot be merely simultaneity.

This, however, would be an error—the sort of error that the

theory of relativity avoids. There is not one universal time,

except by an elaborate construction; there are only local times,

each of which may be taken to be the time within one biography.

Accordingly, if I am (say) hearing a sound, the only occurrences

that are, in any simple sense, simultaneous with my sensation are

events in my private world, i.e. in my biography. We may

therefore define the “perspective” to which the sensation in

question belongs as the set of particulars that are simultaneous

with this sensation. And similarly we may define