Everyone admits writing is hard. How often do we feel there is an idea in our mind, but we struggle for the right word and sentence to convey it? Writing is hard labor, even though our mind flows with trains of thought, relevant or irrelevant, nonstop. In her famous TED talk, Elizabeth Gilbert humorously recounted the elusiveness of a creative idea—how it comes from "some distant and unknowable source" and disappears mysteriously if you do not grab it fast enough.
This everyday writer's experience supports the notion that our ideas are not literal. The elusiveness originates from subconsciousness, which is not directly accessible in our conscious mind.
In his book Philosophy in the Flesh, the American linguist George Lakoff states that language, including words, grammar, and structure, comprises the phonological symbols that must be mapped to our ideas and concepts. The language itself, even with the correct grammar, is meaningless. In the brain, the mapping is achieved by the neuronal connectivity across different brain regions. Moreover, linking language to ideas is similar to applying a math equation to the underlying concept. The equation itself is gibberish if the underlying concept is not understood or well constructed.
Lakoff further argues that the conceptual system in the brain is grounded in our sensory-motor experiences. It is stored in our memory and influences our future actions. In addition, the system is subconscious—we are unaware of it. In our daily lives, we think and act using those embodied concepts automatically. The way we communicate using metaphors is a critical source of evidence for what that system is like. Please refer to the previous newsletter with more detailed examples.
Given this, how much of our reasoning is, in fact, conscious? We live in a world full of dichotomies. Relating to our mind and how we understand the world, conscious or non-conscious, objective or subjective, absolute truth or subjective truth, have been at the center of philosophical debates for thousands of years. Yet, human civilization has made spectacular progress in science and technology over the past few centuries. Has rationale and objectivity diminished the chasm in those dichotomies? You would get different answers from different people.
Scientists and engineers would say their reasoning is primarily conscious. Artists, including musicians, visual artists, novelists, and poets, must admit that their muse mostly comes from unconsciousness, and they express the unconsciousness consciously. For example, language is one form of expression, and good novels and poems are abundant with metaphors. People are generally aligned on the idea that science is objective, and art is subjective.
If we compare a scientific paper with a novel, the difference in writing style cannot be more obvious. A science article demonstrates empirical facts and reason with abstract concepts in which metaphors are rarely seen. Conversely, a good novel leverages rich metaphors and vivid imagery descriptions to have readers' imaginations take the reign.
The distinction in writing also manifests a different regard for the truth. Scientists think a truth is absolute and independent of what we believe and how much we know. Artists also believe their work reveals the truth that is more real and makes perfect sense.
The rapid advances in science and technologies in recent centuries have proven that the physical world can be studied, measured, and changed beyond human sensation and experience. But we can't deny our senses, emotions, and movements endow us with the truth about ourselves, which is essential for human existence and survival for thousands of years.
So, how do we think about the dichotomies between science and art? Lakoff argues that the subject-object split is a mistake in the first place, and "what has always made science possible is our embodiment, not our transcendence of it, and our imagination, not our avoidance of it." The discoveries in neuroscience and cognitive science support his notion.
First, both parts of the dichotomy have the corresponding biological substrates in the same human brain. A scientist can be an artist at the same time, and an artist can think like a scientist. Although most animals have the two brain hemispheres symmetrical with identical structures, the human brain has significantly more degrees of asymmetry, particularly in the cortex. For example, the right hemisphere specializes in emotions and monitoring the whole body state; the left specializes in language, logical thinking, and building stories and narratives. These different brain modules coexist and develop in parallel since birth. The brain enables us to be subjective and objective at the same time. In many tasks, the two hemispheres work harmoniously, and we hardly notice it.
Second, as discussed in the previous newsletter, our mental models about the world are subconsciously grounded in our sensory-motor systems. The categories and concepts are stored in long-term memory. They are crucial for our day-to-day perception, action, language, and thought. Accumulated neuroscientific evidence confirms that concepts are flexible, distributed representations stored in distinct sensory and motor brain areas depending on specific sensory and motor experiences during concept acquisition. Our subjective experience is the basis of our reasoning and thought. The conceptual system connects our objective thinking with the subjective experience.
Given the above, conscious objective truth vs. unconscious subjective truth are just two operating models of our human minds. Which model should take the seat depends on the problem the mind tries to solve: the external world or the inner self. For studying the external physical world, conscious reasoning with objectivity is the best approach. To understand our inner selves, we need to look at ourselves subjectively and be mindful of our feelings and well-being.
Moreover, our consciousness operates upon unconsciousness. The latter is essential for human existence and survival as a species. Like a pre-programmed machine, unconsciousness is fully autonomous and acts without our awareness. It is efficient and fast, with many modules working in parallel simultaneously. However, consciousness cannot function without the content contributed by unconsciousness. Consciousness is more like an executive center. It uses attention and working memory to focus on one thing at a time to achieve a specific in mind. It is resource-intensive, slow, and single-tasking.
On the other hand, consciousness enables humans to be more flexible in choosing from multiple options to solve real-world problems and learn new skills. It is also the essential interface of the human brain for social communications and cultural interactions. Our consciousness connects the external world with our internal unconscious world. Our reasoning and thoughts, in fact, are the results of both consciousness and unconsciousness at work simultaneously. We humans do not feel that way because the latter is not accessible for awareness.
In conclusion, we are now in an era where we should reexamine the traditional philosophical dichotomy between object and subject. The emerging linguistic, neuroscientific, and cognitive evidence indicate that the two parts are not as divisive as philosophers thought. Instead, they play different roles at different levels while functionally interconnecting in the brain. In other words, consciousness vs. subconscious and object vs. subject are the brain functions working in unison to solve various problems more flexibly and effectively. The problems include our well-being, relationships with others, and dealings with the physical universe.
Throughout history, humans have triumphed in advanced technologies dealing with the physical universe. Ironically, technology has not made our earth more peaceful, and humankind continues to suffer from constant wars and upheavals of bad politics. On the individual level, we seek, more passionately than ever, the wisdom for happiness from the ancient West and East philosophies. Grounding our consciousness in our humanity and understanding ourselves is a critical challenge humans are facing. It is not about the philosophical debate of one over the other. Instead, it is about following human nature and gaining the balance between how we look at the internal and external worlds.