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

may regard familiarity as a definite feeling, capable of existing

without an object, but normally standing in a specific relation

to some feature of the environment, the relation being that which

we express in words by saying that the feature in question is

familiar. The judgment that what is familiar has been experienced

before is a product of reflection, and is no part of the feeling

of familiarity, such as a horse may be supposed to have when he

returns to his stable. Thus no knowledge as to the past is to be

derived from the feeling of familiarity alone.

A further stage is RECOGNITION. This may be taken in two senses,

the first when a thing not merely feels familiar, but we know it

is such-and-such. We recognize our friend Jones, we know cats and

dogs when we see them, and so on. Here we have a definite

influence of past experience, but not necessarily any actual

knowledge of the past. When we see a cat, we know it is a cat

because of previous cats we have seen, but we do not, as a rule,

recollect at the moment any particular occasion when we have seen

a cat. Recognition in this sense does not necessarily involve

more than a habit of association: the kind of object we are

seeing at the moment is associated with the word “cat,” or with

an auditory image of purring, or whatever other characteristic we

may happen to recognize in. the cat of the moment. We are, of

course, in fact able to judge, when we recognize an object, that

we have seen it before, but this judgment is something over and

above recognition in this first sense, and may very probably be

impossible to animals that nevertheless have the experience of

recognition in this first sense of the word.

There is, however, another sense of the word, in which we mean by

recognition, not knowing the name of a thing or some other

property of it, but knowing that we have seen it before In this

sense recognition does involve knowledge about the Fast. This

knowledge is memory in one sense, though in another it is not. It

does not involve a definite memory of a definite past event, but

only the knowledge that something happening now is similar to

something that happened before. It differs from the sense of

familiarity by being cognitive; it is a belief or judgment, which

the sense of familiarity is not. I do not wish to undertake the

analysis of belief at present, since it will be the subject of

the twelfth lecture; for the present I merely wish to emphasize

the fact that recognition, in our second sense, consists in a

belief, which we may express approximately in the words: “This

has existed before.”

There are, however, several points in which such an account of

recognition is inadequate. To begin with, it might seem at first

sight more correct to define recognition as “I have seen this

before” than as “this has existed before.” We recognize a thing

(it may be urged) as having been in our experience before,

whatever that may mean; we do not recognize it as merely having

been in the world before. I am not sure that there is anything

substantial in this point. The definition of “my experience” is

difficult; broadly speaking, it is everything that is connected

with what I am experiencing now by certain links, of which the

various forms of memory are among the most important. Thus, if I

recognize a thing, the occasion of its previous existence in

virtue of which I recognize it forms part of “my experience” by

DEFINITION: recognition will be one of the marks by which my

experience is singled out from the rest of the world. Of course,

the words “this has existed before” are a very inadequate

translation of what actually happens when we form a judgment of

recognition, but that is unavoidable: words are framed to express

a level of thought which is by no means primitive, and are quite

incapable of expressing such an elementary occurrence as

recognition. I shall return to what is virtually the same

question in connection with true memory, which raises exactly

similar problems.

A second point is that, when we recognize something, it was not

in fact the very same thing, but only something similar, that we

experienced on a former occasion. Suppose the object in question

is a friend’s face. A person’s face is always changing, and is

not exactly the same on any two occasions. Common sense treats it

as one face with varying expressions; but the varying expressions

actually exist, each at its proper time, while the one face is

merely a logical construction. We regard two objects as the same,

for common-sense purposes, when the reaction they call for is

practically the same. Two visual appearances, to both of which it

is appropriate to say: “Hullo, Jones!” are treated as appearances

of one identical object, namely Jones. The name “Jones” is

applicable to both, and it is only reflection that shows us that

many diverse particulars are collected together to form the

meaning of the name “Jones.” What we see on any one occasion is

not the whole series of particulars that make up Jones, but only

one of them (or a few in quick succession). On another occasion

we see another member of the series, but it is sufficiently

similar to count as the same from the standpoint of common sense.

Accordingly, when we judge “I have seen THIS before,” we judge

falsely if “this” is taken as applying to the actual constituent

of the world that we are seeing at the moment. The word “this”

must be interpreted vaguely so as to include anything

sufficiently like what we are seeing at the moment. Here, again,

we shall find a similar point as regards true memory; and in

connection with true memory we will consider the point again. It

is sometimes suggested, by those who favour behaviourist views,

that recognition consists in behaving in the same way when a

stimulus is repeated as we behaved on the first occasion when it

occurred. This seems to be the exact opposite of the truth. The

essence of recognition is in the DIFFERENCE between a repeated

stimulus and a new one. On the first occasion there is no

recognition; on the second occasion there is. In fact,

recognition is another instance of the peculiarity of causal laws

in psychology, namely, that the causal unit is not a single

event, but two or more events Habit is the great instance of

this, but recognition is another. A stimulus occurring once has a

certain effect; occurring twice, it has the further effect of

recognition. Thus the phenomenon of recognition has as its cause

the two occasions when the stimulus has occurred; either alone is

insufficient. This complexity of causes in psychology might be

connected with Bergson’s arguments against repetition in the

mental world. It does not prove that there are no causal laws in

psychology, as Bergson suggests; but it does prove that the

causal laws of psychology are Prima facie very different from

those of physics. On the possibility of explaining away the

difference as due to the peculiarities of nervous tissue I have

spoken before, but this possibility must not be forgotten if we

are tempted to draw unwarranted metaphysical deductions.

True memory, which we must now endeavour to understand, consists

of knowledge of past events, but not of all such knowledge. Some

knowledge of past events, for example what we learn through

reading history, is on a par with the knowledge we can acquire

concerning the future: it is obtained by inference, not (so to

speak) spontaneously. There is a similar distinction in our

knowledge of the present: some of it is obtained through the

senses, some in more indirect ways. I know that there are at this

moment a number of people in the streets of New York, but I do

not know this in the immediate way in which I know of the people

whom I see by looking out of my window. It is not easy to state

precisely wherein the difference between these two sorts of

knowledge consists, but it is easy to feel the difference. For

the moment, I shall not stop to analyse it, but shall content

myself with saying that, in this respect, memory resembles the

knowledge derived from the senses. It is immediate, not inferred,

not abstract; it differs from perception mainly by being referred

to the past.

In regard to memory, as throughout the analysis of knowledge,

there are two very distinct problems, namely (1) as to the nature

of the present occurrence in knowing; (2) as to the relation of

this occurrence to what is known. When we remember, the knowing

is now, while what is known is in the past. Our two questions

are, in the case of memory

(1) What is the present occurrence when we remember?

(2) What is the relation of this present occurrence to the past

event which is remembered?

Of these two questions, only the first concerns the psychologist;

the second belongs to theory of knowledge. At the same time, if

we accept the vague datum with which we began, to the effect

that, in some sense, there is knowledge of the past, we shall

have to find, if we can, such an account of the present

occurrence in remembering as will make it not impossible for

remembering to give us knowledge of the past. For the present,

however, we shall do well to forget the problems concerning

theory of knowledge, and concentrate upon the purely

psychological problem of memory.

Between memory-image and sensation there is an intermediate

experience concerning the immediate past. For example, a sound

that we have just heard is present to us in a way which differs

both from the sensation while we are hearing the sound and from

the memory-image of something heard days or weeks ago. James

states that it is this way of apprehending the immediate past

that is “the ORIGINAL of our experience of pastness, from whence

we get the meaning of the term”(“Psychology,” i, p. 604).

Everyone knows the experience of noticing (say) that the clock

HAS BEEN striking, when we did not notice it while it was

striking. And when we hear a remark spoken, we are conscious of

the earlier words while the later ones are being uttered, and

this retention feels different from recollection of something

definitely past. A sensation fades gradually, passing by

continuous gradations to the status of an image. This retention

of the immediate past in a condition intermediate between

sensation and image may be called “immediate memory.” Everything

belonging to it is included with sensation in what is called the

“specious present.” The specious present includes elements at all

stages on the journey from sensation to image. It is this fact

that enables us to apprehend such things as movements, or the

order of the words in a spoken sentence. Succession can occur

within the specious present, of which we can distinguish some

parts as earlier and others as later. It is to be supposed that

the earliest parts are those that have faded most from their

original force, while the latest parts are those that retain

their full sensational character. At the beginning of a stimulus

we have a sensation; then a gradual transition; and at the end an

image. Sensations while they are fading are called “akoluthic”

sensations.* When the process of fading is completed (which

happens very quickly), we arrive at the image, which is capable

of being revived on subsequent occasions with very little change.

True memory, as opposed to “immediate memory,” applies only to

events sufficiently distant to have come to an end of the period

of fading. Such events, if they