Wed, 21 Jul 2010
Mind Mirror
Any honest consideration of the nature of mind quick runs into paradox.There's a scene in Inception where one of the characters creates two mirrors face to face, which reflect infinitely between them. It's a metaphor for the movie's plot, but also for our usual understanding of mind. Does the mind perceive itself? Is it aware of its thoughts? It seems so. But, then, does the mind think? If the mind is not thought, but is aware of thoughts, and yet thinks, we have an endless regress. Awareness of thoughts requires a thinker, and a thinker who is aware of the thinker, and another thinker who is aware of both, and so on down the hall of fun house mirrors to infinity. And if the mind does not think, but merely holds thoughts the way a cup holds a drink, or a page holds text, in what sense could that be considered mind? And the same applies not only to thoughts but all sense perceptions. The idea that there's a little man in our head watching a television screen and pushing levers is naive, but is not very far from the felt sense of self that we all have. And if you look for a sophisticated, scientific explanation of the mind, you will see that what is being discussed is the brain, a very different thing. There's a self-censorship going on where no one looks too closely, like the blind spot in our visual field that is not seen because we too soon move our gaze.
