Here’s the question for today: given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds?
Introductory Philosophical Winding Road
This question has a basic application philosophically. For me, I think, therefore I am. However, my subjectivity appears to only go as far as…me. I can’t see “your” thinking. I only see your actions. So whereas I know I am real by the basis of my mental activity, I can’t be so sure about you.
“You” might say you feel the same way about me, but there’s no way for me to verify that you’re actually having this thought process, or whether you’re not just saying that and behaving that way.
…This is a poor treatment of a complex philosophical question, of course, and there is, of course, spillover everywhere. For example, if we appeal to the brain, then we can find a lot of causal connections for things that happen. Different activities are associated with different patterns of brain activity. The issue is that even if we are able to map all of the behaviors and actions and whatnot to brain activity patterns, this doesn’t allow us to see the subjective aspect…the “what it feels like” aspect. In other words, it doesn’t allow us to see the mind and, in fact, sometimes appears to exclude the mind. With a perfect understanding of neurology we could make a creature that could act and operate and appear exactly like a human, but we would have no way of being certain whether that creature had a subjective experience. Whether it had a mind.
Anyway, this is still a poor treatment of even more complex philosophical questions (about zombies and qualia and materialism and whatnot), but please bear with me still.
I would imagine that most of “us” (and yes, I will say us) simply take for granted that there are other minds at some point in our development. I know that I do, which is why I feel comfortable in a pragmatic and every-day sense saying that most of us do this.
Can I justify this act of taking for granted other minds’ existence? I’m not really sure I can. But perhaps it’s the case that this belief is a basic belief — that it is one that doesn’t need to be inferred from other truths or concepts to be justified?
(To gloss over foundationalism, properly basic beliefs, and a whole host of other issues…I’d raise that other basic beliefs are things like the belief in an external universe [as opposed to solipsism, or the universe being like a persistent dream state], or that there is a past [as opposed to us being created now with falsified memories of a past], etc.,)
Anyway, this meandering road of handwaving over complicated philosophical issues gets us to the first pitstop. In reformed apologetics (such as that as advocated by Alvin Plantinga), one of the properly basic beliefs is that there is a god. In the same way we are rational to assume there are other minds (even without evidence to affirm), we are rational to assume there is a god.
I don’t — and haven’t — know what to feel about that extension. But hey…I’ve only handwaved through the issues rather than addressing them fully. This all has been a detour anyway…we are 500 words in the post and I haven’t even begun to talk about what I’ve wanted to talk about.
So what is the point of this?
A while ago, after reading a MetaFilter front page post, I became acquainted with sidian3 and introduced to Multiple Personality Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder. (P.S., definitely check out that MetaFilter post…since it has a lot of meaning to what I’m going to be talking about for this post.) I had heard of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), now called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), before…but I definitely didn’t know enough about it to have much of an opinion on it. I never saw or read the controversial books/movies regarding “Sybil,” and so I didn’t have any undue reason to be especially skeptical. And so I watched some of the videos from the MetaFilter post.
I started with sidian3’s video explaining the difference between personas and personalities. It seemed tame enough, but it seemed to make sense. There’s a sense that everyone has different “faces” to show in different social settings — how I act with my parents is different than how I act at work, and that’s different than how I act with my friends. But these different personas are all a part of one whole — me. I wouldn’t say that I have multiple personalities.
And so I continued with the MeFi post by watching the four videos where sidian3’s “alters” explain various aspects of their “system.”
And this is what my thought process was as I watched the videos…
First, I was pretty confused. Even though the various alters were trying to explain things about the system, I felt like I couldn’t put the puzzle pieces together. For one thing, while “Richi,” “Beth,” “Mimi,” and “Hari” were interviewed, some of these alters would also speak about “Cassie,” “Willow,” other “ghost alters,” and so on. I was confused when they mentioned “Tommy” as core personality, especially since “Cassie” was said to be the “leader” with certain powers over the other alters.
I thought some of the affectations were weird. So, Hari was supposed to be a little child…ok. And Beth is…English? OK.
However, what fascinates me now was the extent to which I generally granted that it was probably legitimate. And so my second thought was of intrigue. I thought it would be neat to have that — especially if you could develop a cooperative system as involved as theirs is. Yes, I do play too many video games and read too many fantasy novels, and that probably has something to do with that fascination.
…but then, I began to realize there was something underneath the surface that I hadn’t been getting before (because I was too busy trying to keep the alters straight). How had they been formed? What was the reason for their creation?
That’s when I realized the horror. Identity dissociation doesn’t just happen for fun. It is a reaction to really bad stuff happening.
This really came out when Tommy was talking about the stages of cooperation (have you been watching the videos from the MetaFilter post as I’ve suggested?) — about how the alters are born from pain, abuse, etc., and have to *learn* that there is both more in the world (e.g., it’s not all abuse…there are some people you can trust) and less in the world (you have to work…you can’t just make things appear, etc.,)
And on top of all of this, there are many people — like many psychologists and psychiatrists — who will suppose that in order to “move past” this disorder, the best option is for the “core” personality to integrate the alters. That’s the one video I’ll embed here of all of the videos I’ve been mentioning:
The Philosophical Fork in the Road
Here’s the thing. All of this fluff about other minds really comes to a forefront when you get to this point. If the multiple personalities are considered to be other persons, other minds within the same brain, then the choice to integrate has a considerably different set of ramifications than if those personalities are simply, as a commenter to the MetaFilter post put it, “exceptional well formed delusion[s] on the part of the sufferer.” One is execution. The other is enlightenment.
For me, I felt for not only Tommy, but for all the alters interviewed. I didn’t know how it came to be, and I’m still not sure about the diagnosis of MPD/DID in general (e.g., it seems to be extremely culturally bound), but that’s how I felt.
Looking back on the question of other minds and on gods, it seemed to me that the reason why I could accept one and not the other was because of interaction. I interact with other people on a day to day basis and so it’s easier to take for granted that there’s something going on inside there. Even though I haven’t met some people (like sidian3 or her alters, or any of you, my dear readers), it’s easier to trust that there is a person behind most of your words (I’m discounting the spammers. Spammers are totally fake.)
But to me, God just isn’t that accessible.
What does God have to do with multiple personalities?
But the juncture of sidian3 and her alters is where there are uncomfortable questions about God. For example, if I interact with a person who behaves as though she has a mind, I feel justified in taking her at her actions and her words. But I have to admit that it’s easier to swallow the one-to-one connection. One body, one mind. There’s one person there.
…but if I interact with a person who behaves as though there is more than one mind, or a mind split into several persons, then am I justified in taking her/him/them at their actions and words? Now, there is not a one-to-one connection between bodies and minds.
And finally, God. If God isn’t accessible to me, but I interact with people who behave as though there is a god, then am I justified in taking them at their words? If I can trust Tommy to tell the truth about her alters (although it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion that her alters are who she thinks they are), then what’s different about trusting people about the deities they believe in? Is the fact that the deity they posit is not claimed to be an “alter” of themselves sharing the same body a meaningful distinction? Is the fact that the deity they posit may not even have a body (depending on whom you ask) a meaningful distinction?
Questions
Given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds?
Wheat & Tares 
I think the internet is sometimes taken for proof that others do not have minds.
I know, it is a tired joke, but it is also the key to the answer of your question.
“Given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds?”.
What do you see in my behavior? What do you see in Kant’s behavior? I think we know others have minds.
I am not sure on MPD/DID. Has this been seen in other Cultures_in other Times? What did the Greeks have to say on MPD/DID?
I found that video interesting in light of a post I wrote some time back where I thought:
And, then — about having different “persons” that I am in different contexts, I had written in another post:
So I think that it’s reasonable to expect that others have that domain of properties, features, relations, laws, etc. that are fundamentally related to conscious experience [what we’d call “mind”] — because “mental” is really just an irreducible aspect of things that exist.
Meaning, if it exists, then it likely has an element fundamentally related to consciousness in a way that is unexplainable without reference to 1st person experience.
Human consciousness is not some fluke in the midst of boundless entropy and randomness. There can’t be an intelligent part of an unintelligent whole. So if you are reasonably certain that you have “mind” — then you may be reasonably certain that all other things which exist share in that aspect of existence [called “mind”].
#4: Justin,
So what you are saying is every living cell has a mind(?) That people are made up of millions of minds(?)
People are made up of many minds. Usually they are somewhat integrated. But the mindset of someone driving or eating or mowing the lawn often has different overlays.
Most multiple personalities are therapist created. On the other hand, some do exist legitimately as was the case of someone I represented in a large facility. They figured out her problem (after years of commitment) and apologized for not seeing it sooner, but it had been ten years since they had seen a case.
But it does raise some interesting points about how most people are a colony of minds with one self awareness and what it means when there are more.
All things are independent in the created universe where God has placed them, to act for themselves — as agents unto themselves — otherwise they do not exist.
“Mind” does not equal “brain” — it is not something that resides exclusively in your head — limited only to the neural organs of animals, or the neural organs of only human animals — or just my neural organ only.
As I said, “‘mental’ is really just an irreducible aspect of things that exist.“
Bob
Your question doesn’t go far enough — because a living cell is itself a mutual benefit society [like the organ it pertains to, the organism itself, the community of organisms, etc.] — wherein is contained literally millions of individual elements, representing tens of thousands of different molecular compounds.
I don’t know that we can really know that anyone else has a mind; however, we can choose to use that premise as the basis for the way we treat people. I know that most of my selfish and judgmental behavior depends on the extent to which I deny that other people have inner lives–that they, too, have a running inner monologue about the world and the things they see and do, and that it may well be different than mine. Thus, from a practical perspective, I try to remember the principle from Middlemarch, that people have “an equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain difference”.
Bob:
Scientific American’s companion magazine Mind had an article back in 2009 that explains in more detail what Justin is talking about: consciousness as an irreducible property of things — the way charge or mass are.
The article is only accessible to subscribers, but I did summarize it in a post in 2010 because it relates to some interesting statements in Mormon scripture.
http://www.wheatandtares.org/2010/10/08/the-spirit-of-the-earth/
#10: FireTag
Sorry FireTag, but Boas would kick your butt out of his class.
And the rest of you, (you know who you are,) are just like my Father -in-Law__I almost called off the marriage!
The mind is a total of many parts. There is not many minds making up one part. Cultures are now where information is being stored and mixed__not Human minds.
I’m going to go off in another direction on this thought. I had a friend many years ago who told me about a strange dream he had. He was trying to understand why the people in the dream (unknown to him in waking life) would behave the way they did. I pointed out to him that they aren’t real people – they are projections of his subconscious. He is the one driving the actions of people in his dreams through his own emotions. He really had a hard time accepting that the dream people were not “people” with free will independent of his own mind. I kept having to point out that he was the only one there, the only actual person involved.
Conversely, in our waking life, we assess other people and try to understand them as separate from ourselves, but our understanding is always colored by our own limited perspective. The more diverse and unfamiliar the person’s background (language, culture, race, political views, sexual orientation) the less successful we are at understanding them without having to fill in the gaps with conjecture, stereotype and self-justification.
So, do other people exist? If they do, does it matter anyway if we only comprehend them as an extension (or foil) of our own mind?
#12: Kawkgrrl,
Again, I did not invent Kant, and his mind is greater than mine__(maybe). How could my mind invent Kant’s mind?
Bob:
Difficult. I wouldn’t have enrolled in his class in the first place with that attitude. 😀
Bob – “I did not invent Kant, and his mind is greater than mine__(maybe). How could my mind invent Kant’s mind?” Your mind is not in a static state (or it would not be a mind); therefore, it can become greater than it has been through exploration and experience (creating new neural pathways). Can you comprehend Kant (or whomever) if you comprehend his mind is greater than yours? Or is it like the edge of a medieval map: “There be dragons”?
#16: Kawkgrrl,
I thought the question were there minds other than mine(?) If Kant’s mine is greater than mine, how could I have invented it?
How can you know his mind is greater than yours? Your mind has to comprehend that.
A human conceived of Charles Xavier — isn’t his mind greater than mine?
Is it the same to conceive that a mind greater than your own could exist (fantasy) and yet that mind not really exist because you couldn’t comprehend it in actuality? You cannot prove the existence of a mind greater than your own, even if you perceive it to be so.
Kawkgrrl,
You win! How could I ever have thought Kant’s mind was better than mine? I guess it takes a women to see this in me:)
I have not been very diligent in responding, but Bob, why are you referring to hawkgrrrl as Kawkgrrl?
Bob:
More seriously than my earlier joke, you are probably right that the main evolutionary driver for humans has/is switched/switching from biology to culture, but it is NOT obvious how culture can precede mind in development in history. So Justin has perfectly good reason to assume that mind arises VERY early in history compared to the development of human beings. If we imagine earlier times, it’s not demonstrated how simple things can be before mind vanishes, or what it vanishes into (if it vanishes at all).
1. The people you refer to as having MPD or DID refer to themselves as “multiples” (multiple people in the same body) or “medians” (somewhere between single-minded and separate), and call the others who share their bodies “headmates.” They write a lot about their experiences online.
2. Not all multiple systems are caused by abuse or trauma. Many people just discover that that’s how they are. I strongly recommend reading their experiences in their own words.
3. I’m personally a median. I’m what would be called a “trauma split,” meaning my system was created through abuse. I’m not consistent in who’s fronting, what pronoun we use to refer to ourselves, or anything else, because we’re both still getting used to this. We haven’t even decided what names to use yet.
4. We’re both very strongly against integration. We see each of ourselves as a separate person, even though we’re a median and have a shared consciousness. We do this because it makes the most sense to us.
5. The abuse that created us was strongly tied to the LDS church, and what behavior and feelings it deems unacceptable. One of us had to deal with all the stress, anger, sexuality, and other “unworthy” feelings. She’s stronger than she knows, and has helped me so many times.
6. We are also both spiritual, and the experience of prayer is different for us than talking to each other is. It feels like it comes from outside us, most of the time. Some of our experiences floored us, and/or saved our lives.
7. If you don’t experience contact with god(s), there’s nothing wrong with you. Some people are aspiritual, and don’t have the need or desire for contact. They sometimes become atheists, and mistakenly believe everyone else is like that deep down. Not everyone is, but it is okay if you’re not, even if your faith community won’t validate you.
8. If you need or want to talk to us more, our email address should be listed along with this comment.
#22: Andrew,
Thank you for pointing this out _really. My spelling is so bad, most of the time, I don’t even see it. I know people who can spell, don’t understand ( my wife_I never would have gotten thru college without her!).
hawkgrrl_ forgive me, “For I know not what I do”.
Bob:
Your “now” is a pretty important key — as Firetag [#23] noted. Consciousness is scalable — if human communities are now where information is being stored and mixed — then what was before that?
In human brains — which are communities of neural cells. Before that?
In cells — which are communities of molecular compounds.
Etc. Etc.
Making “mind” an irreducible aspect of existing things.
#26: Justin,
Our Cultures ‘now’ contain databases, written words, and the ability to communicate at the ‘speed of light’.
‘Before’ information was stored by a sage, folklore, the mouth to month passing of information. No longer do we reply on the thinking of a great minds __we Google it.
So we’ve gotten faster than transcribing AGAGGTGCT into AGAGGUGCU and then translating that into R-G-A for arginine=glycine=alanine and then watching that string of amino acids twist itself into this-or-that form.
Agreed.
But we are still dealing with the transmission of information using symbolic/alphabetic symbol-forms.
Feathertail, it was interesting how in your exploration of identity you came a cross the species of gryphons that are phoenix foxes.
This forms a core of Buddhism. Take sight, for example. At its essence, it is photons. The photons are converted to impulses once they hit the retina. These impulses are essentially run against a matrix of experiences, background, pathology, etc. to determine what we “see”. Problems can occur at each step along the process. And fundamentally, who is really “seeing” and what is really “seen”? Similar for the other four traditional senses. There are ways to “step back” and observe these steps. We can just “see” or just “hear” or just “taste”.
Buddha added a 6th “sense” to these – that of thoughts. Thoughts spontaneously arise in our minds, they interact with our experiences, etc. And they form patterns or ways of thinking, which leads to our actions.
It’s much more subtle than this simplification, but we can also learn to watch our thoughts, see this happen, and hopefully learn to modify the process before “destructive” thoughts lead to more.
Philosophically, it does lead to a profound question. If we are not our thoughts but they are a process that we can “watch” (like the mechanics of sight, etc), then “who” is watching? What lies beneath all this?
In the LDS faith, we might call it “spirit”. Buddha claimed it was actually nothing. He taught that things exist as a result of “dependent origin”, or as a result a universal web of cause and effect. This may sound foreign, but we see it around us every day in light. Light is an electric wave and a magnetic wave that each form the other and which are interdependent.
So, when we ask about other minds, it is this process gone bad. Just like we may get “double vision” from a corneal defect, we may get “double minded” from a “thought” defect. But there is the same thing (or nothing) beneath it all.
Re Andrew-
Re the first 500 words:
Yeah, I was really interested in these types of questions, though for me they revolve around AI. You and I have debated that before. For me I got really frustrated with the philosophy surrounding it. I would read various stuff on both sides of the story and feel convinced. It’s an unanswerable question as near as I can tell. And hotly debated which unfortunately fills it with polemics.
Re the last half of the post:
Ah, so you clearly did NOT listen to my Mormon Stories podcast ;-). My mother was diagnosed with DID (among a myriad other things). I watched her dissociate on many occasions with most definitely different personalities. And yet, when that diagnosis fell out of favor (quite controversial as you likely know) her symptoms seemed to go away. I’m not sure whether MPD or DID is real or not (again lots of controversy). But I do know I have witnessed it whatever it is.
I suppose for me (I probably won’t answer your questions but…) I tend toward the practical. Decartes showed we could think ourselves into hyperbolic doubt. But then what? Okay, so let’s admit we can’t know anything for sure. Now what do we do? I think when we pick up the pieces we start to draw generalizations, classify, categorize, develop rules, systems, etc. Are those guarantees? Nope. Are they a good foundation for living one’s life? I think so. And yet they’re so dangerous.
Regarding God, it’s tricky business. I don’t think it’s a given God exists. I don’t think it’s a natural foundational belief. OTOH, I do think it’s an evolutionarily motivated belief mixed with conditioning (and maybe that’s the best justification for beliving in God, I dunno). In Huxley’s “Brave New World” he provides a compelling case for exactly this. In the book, a really interesting point is made by Bernard Marx (the protagonist) that he doesn’t want to be happy if it means he can’t be miserable when he wants. He specifically identifies humanness with the ability to be upset, angry, ponder interesting questions, think, reason, as an individual rather than part of a collective social entity. He wants to embrace himself as he is.
Going back to the God question, I really believe that when we experience living we are embracing God/god. I think we discover God/god when we discover ourselves, when we live as humans embracing our full selves. From that standpoint, Andrew, I personally think you channel God/god very well and he/it/whatever is accessible to you because of posts like this. Believing in the anthropomorphic white bearded guy in the sky is an orthogonal concept based on evolution and conditioning. That may all be true too, but I think it misses the point.
@29 Ethesis: I am not familiar with other instances of these creatures and would appreciate references.
@31 jmb275:
I don’t think it’s a given God exists. I don’t think it’s a natural foundational belief.
I think you have to separate what’s natural for aspiritual people to feel, from what’s natural for spiritual people to feel.
For a spiritual person, a deity isn’t an abstract. It’s putting a name and a face to what they reverence, and what speaks to them in their prayers. Finding out how to meet the need for that contact is as natural for spiritual people as touching yourself is for sexual people (i.e. not asexuals). The best spiritual traditions, IMO, are the ones that help the people who have this deep need fulfill it, and that don’t turn it into a way to hurt them.
I personally feel that need very strongly. I tried prayer and spirituality when I couldn’t argue myself out of being an atheist, because I still had to fill my needs somehow, but it was like smelling food instead of eating it. And it wasn’t until I said “Screw this. I don’t care how she exists, I just believe that she does” that Inari revealed herself to me.
Some people like to say that “reality is that which does not go away when you stop believing in it,” but there are very real things that do. People and relationships, for instance.
#30 Mike S. great comment!
Regarding “and hopefully learn to modify the process before “destructive” thoughts lead to more.” We are managers and co creators of those thoughts we need not fear them once we can hear them.
Well, if you read any of Charlie Luce’s work in the very old days, he liked griffins, and posited a number of different kinds. So, rather than just the classic lion/eagle cross, species of griffins.
Fox/phoenix would be such a species, as would falcon/ocelot, etc.
But it is all frpg material, which you have written about, not classic mythical material.
I was impressed to see someone working in that area. My days of significant work in that industry are behind me, but that is life.
http://adrr.com/hero/ is kind of a gateway things, before I got sidetracked.
Feathertale:
“I think you have to separate what’s natural for aspiritual people to feel, from what’s natural for spiritual people to feel.” That is an interesting thought.
BTW, have you ever followed up with Greg Stafford? http://www.weareallus.com/spirit.html for example (Runequest, etc.).
We should be wary of defining things out of existence. I want to live in a world of red roses__ not ‘molecular compounds’.
I want my mind to be me__ not a collection of things happening around me. I think a well mind can make it’s own furture, if bad events don’t overtake it.
@35 Stephen Marsh: I don’t know who or what you mean.
@Andrew S:
Given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds?
I personally just accept it as an axiom that others have minds, not because I can prove it but because the world makes more sense to me once I do. There are a lot of other assumptions I make (“Inari answers my prayers”; “I am a kitsune otherkin”; “The scientific method works”) for the same reason.
You seem genuinely driven to know, and I hope that you find an answer that satisfies you.
P.S. I will get around to responding to comments more fully. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my folks since I graduated yesterday.
Andrew, I really expected some one to comment on how this is model for how some religions see oneness with God — as if we are all unintegrated alters of God who need to be unified.
#39:Stephen,
This all seems to me as some kind of Alchemy. Instead of seeing a world containing lead and gold__ people keep trying to think of as many ways possible of turning the lead to gold. I just seem to see links made between things__that are not there.
@39 Stephen: It’s my belief (based on Unverified Personal Gnosis, which Mormons would call “a Testimony” or “the witness of the Spirit”) that I am a part of Inari that was split off to possess this person, and that I will rejoin her once I’ve died.
I’m personally opposed to the idea of integration being seen as necessary for multiples, since a lot of them (like me) don’t feel it is. But in this case I felt like I couldn’t argue, because I wanted to be part of (what is for me) the source of all love.
Of course, according to some Inari’s a composite deity, which may include other kami such as Izanagi and Izanami. So there may be room for a more Godhead-esque interpretation of Inari’s nature, wherein the separate kami are “one in purpose” the way LDS theology holds that Jesus and Heavenly Father are. In that case, becoming a part of her would take on a different meaning, and would not necessarily involve having my consciousness subsumed into another’s.
I personally find it hard to imagine, sort of like I find it hard to imagine death. I just know that I like feeling her love, and would like to be as close to it as I possibly can.
When trying to understand “other minds”, perhaps the problem is that we are trying to understand other minds. Perhaps we need to just experience rather than always try to make sense.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu talks about this when he talks about appreciating “emptiness” as a way to approach problems like this: