About Philosophical Plays

The Author/Editor

Copyright/Permissions

All Plays/Issues

> 

Latest Play

FAQ

News

DOWNLOAD a free PDF.

ORDER a printed copy.

REVIEW copyright & permissions.

< PREVIOUS (Scene XI) | NOTES | CITATION | NEXT (Scene XIII) >

SCENE XII. The Cartesian Theatre

1 CHRISTIANUS. I can certainly relate to that. Absolutely no problem! We can talk about those particular details some other time. In fact, be sure to remind me about my Okefenokee Monster story — it’s reasonably short, and easy to understand.

2 KATHERINE. Okee-dokee.

3 CHRISTIANUS. So for now, then, just think of my theory as some type of soul-body dualism, where the soul is the real living being who uses the body and the brain as an instrument, in order to interact with the earthly world.

4 KATHERINE. How do you mean?

5 CHRISTIANUS. In my theory the individual soul is the ultimate observer and perceiver of everything that is experienced. The individual soul uses the organs of the body to perceive things in the earthly dimension. For example, the soul uses the eyes, the optic nerve, and parts of the brain to process visual information. Similarly, the soul uses all of the senses and the brain as one big instrument to experience the human perspective, the human world.

6 KATHERINE. Well, it’s easy to say it, but why would I believe it?

7 CHRISTIANUS. Let’s talk about that. Be patient! Now, picture an astronomer who goes on a field trip and then, when he tries to mount his refractor telescope on his tripod to start his nocturnal observations, he accidentally drops it and smashes its front lens. Would we then say that the astronomer’s own consciousness also stops working?

8 KATHERINE. No. But I am sure he’s quite upset, especially if the night skies are clear!

9 CHRISTIANUS. Indeed! Or picture a biologist who is doing some last-minute research with a light microscope. But then her instrument suddenly stops working, and she doesn’t have a replacement microscope in her lab. Would we then say that her general ability to perceive things also ceases to be?

10 KATHERINE. No. But I am sure she’s quite irritated, especially if the deadline for her grant goes out the day after and she must continue using her light microscope to check a few more details for her report.

11 CHRISTIANUS. Certainly! And what would we say when a typical office worker’s main instrument, the computer, suddenly crashes?

12 KATHERINE. Microsoft Windows?

13 CHRISTIANUS. Well, we might say that, especially if that was her operating system. But another point, and perhaps slightly more relevant to the general theme of our discussion, would be to say that although the computer and its programs crashed, the office worker’s consciousness didn’t crash, or at least not crash as much.

14 KATHERINE. So, according to your theory, the general ability to perceive is not dependent on the brain? Are you saying that the general ability to perceive is some non-material, non-bodily thing or feature?

15 CHRISTIANUS. Something like that, yes.

16 KATHERINE. And how do you explain all the brain activity that the neuroscientists have proven?

17 CHRISTIANUS. Well, if you view the brain as an instrument through which all perception goes, then you don’t have to buy all those brain-mind identity theories that the neuroscientists are trying to sell you.

18 KATHERINE. But don’t they think, just like you do, that the brain is instrumental in regards to perception and consciousness?

19 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, but not in the same way as I do. There are, of course, many different materialist theories; but many of them simply boil down to the idea that there is nothing more to you and your personal consciousness than the sum total of all physical, chemical, and biological functions and interactions in the body. In those scenarios there is no soul that is the perceiver or observer of the perceptions in those scenarios.

20 KATHERINE. So who is the perceiver in those soul-less scenarios?

21 CHRISTIANUS. According to Dennett, who is one of the main materialist speculators in the philosophy of mind, there is ultimately no single perceiver; there’s just some complex, distributed machine processing. [54]

22 KATHERINE. And what about my own observation that I really feel like I am a single being who is perceiving things?

23 CHRISTIANUS. I think Dennett would say that your observation certainly is valid on some psychological level, and that many people are sensing the same thing as you do. [55]

24 KATHERINE. But?

25 CHRISTIANUS. But he would still claim that the feeling of a ‘Cartesian Theatre’ does not correspond to how human beings are functionally designed. And that your feeling of yourself as ‘an entity’ or as a ‘single person’ who is perceiving things from a single point or perspective, is nothing but an illusion. [56]

26 KATHERINE. That is hard to believe.

27 CHRISTIANUS. It certainly is.

28 KATHERINE. And how did your explanation go, again?

29 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I agree, of course, that there is processing going on in the brain-senses system. But since I regard the brain-senses system simply as a complex instrument that is being used by the real me, my conclusions differ.

30 KATHERINE. What’s the difference?

31 CHRISTIANUS. In my scenario the processing in the brain-senses instrument is no proof for that my general ability to perceive is produced by that brain-senses activity; for I am just temporarily using the brain-senses instrument to view the material world.

32 KATHERINE. Can you elaborate?

33 CHRISTIANUS. Well, on my view the processing in the brain-senses instrument just indicates that the observer’s ability to perceive the earthly world through his brain-senses instrument is dependent on the processing in his brain-senses instrument. But that is a completely natural, predictable and non-thrilling consequence of my original setup with the individual soul using a brain-senses instrument.

< PREVIOUS (Scene XI) | TOP | CITATION | NEXT (Scene XIII) >

Notes (SCENE XII)

[54] XII:21, no single perceiver: Dennett (1991, pp. 134–135) says: ‘The natural but naïve question to ask is: Where does it all come together? The answer is: Nowhere.’

DANIEL C. DENNETT (1991), Consciousness Explained. Illustrated by Paul Weiner. Boston, Toronto, and London: Little, Brown and Company.

[55] XII:23, many people are sensing: Dennett says: ‘But as we shall see, the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us — laypeople and scientists alike — even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcised’ (1991, p. 107). In regards to the second half of Dennett's statement (‘even after . . . ’), it is not impossible that Christianus, in his typical style, may have replied something like this: ‘The attempt to denounce X, or the attempt to exorcise X, or both, is no proof for that X is wrong. So, for example, one may try to denounce and exorcise dualism all one wants; it doesn’t prove that dualism is wrong. All it proves (if it proves anything at all) is that the denouncer and the exorcist wants dualism to be wrong.’

[56] XII:25, nothing but an illusion: Dennett says: ‘But isn’t there also a real subject, for whose benefit the brain must indeed mount a show, filling in all the blank spots? This is what Goodman seems to be supposing when he talks of the brain filling in all the places on the path. For whose benefit is all this animated cartooning being executed? For the audience in the Cartesian Theater. But since there is no such theater, there is no such audience’ (1991, p. 128; emphasis in original). Dennett’s idea, then, is something like this: ‘What Goodman overlooks is the possibility that the brain doesn’t actually have to go to the trouble of “filling in” anything with “construction” — for no one is looking’ (1991, p. 127).

< PREVIOUS (Scene XI) | TOP | NOTES | NEXT (Scene XIII) >

HOW TO CITE: Bo C. Klintberg (2008), ‘The Cartesian Theatre’ in Katherine’s Questionable Quest for Love and Happiness. Online edition of Philosophical Plays, 1 Jan. 2008. Retrieved [today’s date] from http://philosophicalplays.googlepages.com/pgKQQv1sc12.htm.

Latest Play | All Plays/Issues | The Author/Editor
About PP | Print Edition | Online Edition | Philosophical Dialogues?
News | Copyright/Permissions | FAQ

All published material in Philosophical Plays, both in the print edition
(ISSN 1654-6296) and in the online edition (ISSN 1654-6318), is
Copyright © 2007-2008 by Bo C. Klintberg. All rights reserved.
No part of these publications may be reproduced, or re-
published, or stored in a retrieval system, without
prior permission in writing from Bo C. Klintberg.

(click the W3C logos to revalidate
this page's code quality at w3.org)

Last updated: Wednesday, 27 August 2008, 22:18:17 GMT
Assembled by PPOBuild, rev. 2.022