Intelligence in Nature - Jeremy Narby [54]
Having a self corresponds to most peopleâs most basic experience in the world. We refer to ourselves as âIâ or âme,â and do not doubt our own existence as such. Yet some contemporary philosophers and neuroscientists posit that the unitary âIâ is actually an illusion concocted by our brains. They justify this stance by pointing out that research has failed to reveal a centralized spot in the brain where the self exists. According to this view, we are at best a bundle of selves associated with many different brain configurations. They see the unitary self as a âchimera,â an entity âdevoid of self-nature.â In this view, the feeling I have of being a self is in fact a series of systems formed by billions of neurons that merely feels like a self.
Philosopher Colin McGinn points out that this argument âassumes that we know more about the brain and the self than we really do. Our current knowledge of the brain does indeed reveal no unifying physiological principle to correspond to the idea of a unified self, but that is equally interpretable as showing that our knowledge is very limited, not that there is no unified self.â It does seem hasty to conclude that we ourselves do not exist.
I do not doubt that I exist. As I sit here typing these words, watching my fingers move over the keyboard, I know I am somewhere inside my body. Since the beginning of this book, I have been choosing the words. I can hear them ring in my mind before my hands type them out. I have conducted this inquiry from my point of view throughout. And you, when you read these words, you know that you are reading them. But all this does not change the fact that we still do not understand the nature of the self.
The problem may stem from a confusion of explanatory levels. The brain is the physical underpinning of the mind, but the two should not be confused.
Having a healthy brain certainly helps having a wholesome sense of self. People who have sustained brain injuries can lose their sense of self, or feel they are in the wrong body, or believe they are several people at the same time. But this does not dissipate the mystery. Though most people with healthy brains feel sure they have a self, nobody really knows just what a self is.
Progress so far in neuroscience has been compared to the accomplishment of the Wright brothers, who flew the first airplaneâif the goal were to reach the moon. When Orville Wright first took off in 1903, he flew one hundred and twenty feet. It took sixty-six more years before humans walked on the moon. Research on the brain and mind is in its infancy.
Being gelatinous and highly malleable in its functioning, the brain is unlike any known machine. The activity of neurons, as currently understood, does not explain how we see images in our heads. We know neither who we are as knowing selves nor how the mysterious sense of self emerges in a biological organism. Understanding the human capacity to know is only just beginning. For the moment, no one really knows how mind and knowledge spring out of the gray, fleshy matter inside our skulls.
Chapter 11
CHI-SEIAND KNOWING NATURE
Nature uses signs, many of which escape our eyes. A sign is something that stands for something else. The DNA and RNA molecules contained in living cells can have several functions, one of which is to stand for the sequence of amino acids in proteins. DNA and RNA signs carry information according to an arbitrary system in which every âwordâ has three âletters.â Science has only recently begun to study signs in nature.
Shamans have long said that nature uses signs and communicates. Taking their insights into consideration could improve scientistsâ understanding of nature.
Individual cells communicate using protein signals and other