And Lokshen listens to me laughing too—
laughing at your scratched-up torso,
the flakey skin beneath my nails,
the blood-flecked sheets,
and the curious ways you have
of making love.
FIVE PROSE WORDS
Five words need attending to. They are: What, When, Where, Who, Why.
The first three refer to the world outside us—to that which occurs; to the time(s) of its occurrence; to the place(s) in which it occurs. The last two (who and why) refer to the ways we are in the world—so as to accommodate the recognizing of the “who” that writes about the world, and looks for reasons (if any can be found) that bring our particular “who” to a juncture with the “why” that has us write.
There are clear young folk as well as some older wooly ones—who have no difficulty in answering “where?” with a “there!” Such “there-thinking” affirms the value of the place where the thinker may contingently be. “There,” they say, is neutral between any and no-where—a good safe place to hang out. But this affirmation of a “somewhere” can move (the rest of) us from the ecstatic uncertainty of free spirits to the analytic doldrums practiced by the sober and mature. The object for these latter, is to precisely find the “where” of their “there.” But there are those others (myself included) who doubt there ever is a “there” that will stay put anywhere.
Consider, as an example, the current mind-brain controversy: Where is the location of thought? Why, in the mind! But the materialist view locates this “where” within the structure of the brain—the thinking mind just is (in) the physical brain. Such a thesis, dualists counter, is of only elliptical help in this inquiry, for it illuminates a consequence of brain-language infatuation—a neuronal “there”—a place where the more sceptical “who’s” do not cogently—or comfortably—find themselves.
Views that propose multiple locations for cognizing existence do not include doubts that the brain is the structural arbiter of these locations—there is no brain-free (brainless) cognition. What is in doubt is the presumption that all our experiences can be located and explained by physical analysis (manipulation) of the brain, and its relevant language: It is a stretch too far, e.g., to find loving, hating, reflecting, hoping, etc.—embedded within discrete neuronal correlates.
The notion of “mind,” my argument goes, offers more linguistic room for affective, lived-life, descriptions: We are “mindful of,” “have a mind to,” are “in” or “out” of our minds, we do not know our “loved-one’s mind”—or the “mind of God.” (It seems evident that God has no need for a brain—if so, brainists must all be atheists). The dead had minds that once were full but now are closed forever to our asking—but not to our remembering. It seems that fussing with nerve-endings in their lobal locations—alive or dead—gives us neither answers nor memories.
The answers preferred by “who’s” —
at whatever place their “where’s” may be—
suggest themselves before the morning pee.
They then come to rosy bloom
abetted by the wines of afternoon—
finding their evidence in the hand-holds
and foot-notes of an early-evening.
Later, they fade into the darker dreams
and tangled glades of memory.
There are also more extravagant views, held by some mind-speakers, that offer to “who’s” who have no interest in their “where’s,” the comforting belief that they are free to not need a where—certainly not one located in the brain, and not even in the mind. This is the path to an ecstasy which requires that one be out of (one’s) mind—a venture that also seeks a where-free location. Such “where-less who’s” are, however, most vulnerable in the early morning hours—when, sitting on the pot, they find they do not entirely exist as fiction or spirit. But in other more fanciful times and places, they can avoid sharing the same modalities as do their more concrete selves, and so need not much bother with the evidence that upholds their actual existence.
There is a middle ground that has more general appeal to doubters of mind-brain identity, for it does not enirely reject the evident relationship between “who’s” and “where’s.” Instead, it offers a view of their communal co-existence in time and place—the belief that for an event to be characterized as an occurrence, it must be within a physical framework at a certain time in a particular place. Thoughts in the mind and actions in the brain, on this account, are described as simultaneous events—and through formal equivalence, can be considered identical. On a different level of relationship, however, these may not be causally related—little can be assumed about mental function by evoking future findings in the brain: (Post-hoc non ergo propter-hoc). What can be said—is that prior brain findings (a tumor, say) will probably result in certain mental behavior. Taken more generally, however, “mind” (everything we can think) is not (yet) an entity subject to a causal explanation through reference to specific brain-events. The expansion of neurological research would need further reduction—and regimentation—of what we consider mind-events in order for an equivalence with brain-events to be reached. I hope that this will not (again) become the “true epistemic path”—as it was, say, with logical-positivism. Otherwise, imagination is in trouble.
One argument supporting the dualistic view holds that terms such as “events” and “occurrences” are merely codifications—and thus, abstractions—of times past or future. There is no denying that in every time and place, we face a programmatic uncertainty about the nature and location of times and places—even to the point where such locutions as “each” and “every,” and “before” and “after,” presume a totality that does not reflect a more co-responsive view of experience.
One solution—of a religious kind—to such uncertainty, is to suppose that all variables and possibles come together in a mind—not yours or mine—but in an ideal mind which contains all the possible variations in existence—past and future. This thesis, among its other virtues, provides defense against anxieties about the threat of nothing—the fear that when the physical brain stops, the mind just ends. It is a comforting faith to believe that one’s individual demise is not a chance occurrence, but instead, a proper part of cosmic necessity—a necessity given its law (and reality) by the mind (not brain) of a necessary Deity.
Given this, we can look forward, when we die, to our small ripple rejoining the larger waves off shore—and so we continue to “exist.” But this remains a considerable “given.” Remember Kant’s assertion that “existence is not a predicate.”
The thesis of an ideal mind can also be found in a secular context—when it is considered to be—at least—co-extensive with a brain. Such a mind-brain reveals itself in the expansion of our (computational) efforts to encompass and encode the material processes of mental function. One aspect of such a program (the speculative aspect) would be to give us a this-worldly version of the transcendental mind: If we could get it all together—if we could put all the variables, past and future, that are implicit in experience, into one grand self-correcting scheme—we could then (progressively) grasp what knowing, and what knowing that we know (and so on)—finally comes to. In such a finality, there will be nothing left behind—or yet to come—that we do not, or cannot, know.
But we draw back from such improbability by saying that mind, like brain, is in a place—perhaps the same place. But the difficulties in locating “place” (more so—“same-place”) bring to mind the old academic verities where acceptance of an existential thesis was gained through mutual accord in a true belief about what there is. But this attempt to fix “place” and circumscribe “existence” founders on