As I was writing a recent story, the thought occurred to me
that one of my characters was asking that question, and I remembered several
instances where I’d encountered it in my reading: probably in something by
Oliver Sachs, Daniel Dennett or Steven Pinker.
The question was first discussed in Thomas Nagel’s 1974
article in The Philosophical Review,
in which he advocated the idea that consciousness and subjective experience
cannot be reduced to brain activity.
In "What is it Like to Be a Bat?", Nagel argues that
consciousness has essential to it a subjective character, a what it is like
aspect. He states that "an organism has conscious mental states if and
only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is
like for the organism." Nagel also suggests that the subjective aspect of
the mind may not ever be sufficiently accounted for by the objective methods of
reductionistic science. He claims that "[i]f we acknowledge that a
physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of
experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue
how this could be done." Furthermore, he states that "it seems
unlikely that any physical theory of mind can be contemplated until more
thought has been given to the general problem of subjective and
objective." (Extracted from a “Yahoo
Answers” forum online.)
The character in my story was trying to comprehend the
consciousness of whales—assuming, of course, that whales are conscious beings.
Since then, I’ve reflected on the general question addressed as the theory of
mind. We all behave toward each other as though their minds are to some extent
like our own. We can say we understand what someone means by what they express
only to the extent that we can imagine what we would mean if we expressed the
same thing. (That’s not to say that we would in fact express the same thing,
only that it makes some kind of sense to us.)
My dear, patient, understanding wife, Judith, is the human
being I feel closest to. She and I might have differences of opinion or point
of view, but when we speak to each other both of us seem to have the same
understanding of what our words mean. Therein lies sublime comfort.
We used to have a cat named Shawna whom I sometimes found
looking at me, our eyes connecting us in what felt like a profound way. The
question occurred to me: what is she thinking? What is going on in her mind at
this moment? What is it like to be Shawna?
In much of our lives, I suppose that we all assume that
there is some regularity, some common mental ground on which we tread. We could
not have built our civilizations without that assurance.
Maybe my stories all deal with the same theme. When I write
what a character is thinking or saying or doing, I’m projecting something of
myself into that character, even though in real life I might never say or do
the same thing. I often protest that I don’t know what he or she is going to
say before I’ve written it on the page. I almost never know how a story is
going to end until I’ve arrived there along with the characters. I’m
experiencing what it is like to be that
character. Sometimes it’s a real struggle.
Empathy is not the same as sympathy. I think of the first as
a precondition of the second. One has to recognize that another has a familiar
feeling before one can share in the feeling. Perhaps they are simply different
vectors on the plane of awareness of others. I’m certain that our cat was aware
of me not only as a fellow creature but as a recognizable individual. Was she
aware of humans in general? I can’t say. Still, I think that much of our
interaction with our pets assumes that they feel at least some things in common
with us. We often interpret their behavior and expressions on the basis of our
own—our personal theories of mind. “Anthropomorphizing” is how some put it,
projecting our own reality into (usually non-human) others.
As Nagel asserted forty-some years ago, "If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind
must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no
presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done." Those
in the neurological fields may by this time have some inklings—or at least
intuitions—that are closer to such a goal. We in the general population are
more interested in the personal ramifications. Getting inside the mind of a
whale or even another human in order to understand them doesn’t necessarily
require a theoretical examination of neuronal activity.
We learn by trial and error. An
infant learns first how to understand what the parent means by whatever signals
are given, and this understanding spreads to others in its environment. I
suppose that those who regularly work with animals come to understand at least
some of the clues given by those animals. Empathy comes by degrees, never
perfectly. Sympathy probably depends on the emotional capacity of the observer for
feeling, as well as for empathizing with the situation of the animal.
To say that we can never truly
know what is in the mind of another creature may be too much. I’m certain that
I’ll never know everything that Judith knows, no matter how long we live
together. Indeed, that’s part of the joy of being with her; the little
mysteries in our interactions are part of the charm of our relationship.
“Familiarity breeds contempt” puts it too strongly. What we have together is
never boring.
Still, it would be comforting
to know a little of what that stranger I meet might be thinking and feeling, or
that large dog I encounter on the street, or even that humpback whale who
displays her tail as she dives beneath the opaque surface of the ocean. And
I’ll probably never forget the seeming intensity of our cat Shawna’s gaze and
wondering what was going on in that pretty little head.
Perhaps, gazing into my eyes, she was thinking the same thing.
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| Shawna |
