Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Publicado el 21 de Septiembre 2013 por Ph.D. Liah Greenfeld(*) en The Modern Mind
Uno puede especular sobre el sistema en el cerebro que apoya la voluntad. Quizás,
se trata de neuronas similares a las que hacen posible en ratas la percepción de los
estímulos que requieren una reacción adaptativa, transmitiendo a otras neuronas
el comando: "hacer esto o aquello", neuronas cuya función es percibir los deseos
impuestos a los animales por sus genes, pero en nosotros culturalmente
construidos y mediados por la conciencia y las estructuras del yo (aunque no
necesariamente mediadas conscientemente: una persona no siempre es
plenamente consciente de lo que quiere). Cualquiera que sea el sistema cerebral, la
cultura determina los gustos y aversiones del individuo, programando el cerebro
según ciertas cosas, programar la voluntad, como la "voluntad" de la rata, es decir,
la rata, está programada genéticamente. La identidad presenta al individuo las
posibilidades para el tiempo histórico dado, ayudando a establecer su clasificación
subjetiva: porque eres lo que eres (un católico o un musulmán, una esposa o un
soldado, un miembro de la aristocracia o un demócrata registrado) debe esto y no
esto. Manda la voluntad de elegir y decidir. En cada caso específico, la voluntad y la
identidad están determinadas por la cultura. La gran mayoría de los registros o
representaciones en la memoria también están determinados por la cultura: los
contenidos de la memoria, por lo tanto, la materia prima de la imaginación, están
determinados por la cultura. Lo que se hace con estos registros en el cerebro (es
decir, cómo se manipulan) depende tanto del cerebro como de los principios de
organización del sistema o sistemas simbólicos en particular. Pero la selección
cultural, es decir, el éxito social de algunas imaginaciones y el fracaso de otros
depende exclusivamente del contexto histórico, es decir, de nuevo, de la cultura. Es
importante tener en cuenta que, a diferencia de la selección natural, la selección
cultural no elimina las imaginaciones no seleccionadas para el éxito en un
determinado momento histórico: no se matan, sino que se dejan latentes. En
circunstancias históricas cambiadas o en presencia de un genio, siempre existe la
posibilidad de que estas imaginaciones temporalmente no seleccionadas tengan su
momento.
Es muy bueno que esto sea así, porque las razones lógicas para la existencia de esta
estructura mental son menos obvias que las que nos ayudan a dar cuenta de la
identidad y la voluntad. Dado el carácter del entorno humano, ambas estructuras
son necesarias para la adaptación a este entorno y, por lo tanto, para la
supervivencia de cada uno de nosotros. Pero uno no necesita que el ser pensante
se adapte a la vida dentro de la cultura. Los perros, por ejemplo, parecen adaptarse
al entorno simbólico sin desarrollar necesariamente la capacidad de pensar. Y, si
pueden hacerlo, nosotros, presumiblemente, podemos hacerlo también. Se puede
argumentar, por supuesto, que una existencia totalmente humana sería imposible
sin ella, pero tal juicio cuantitativo es bastante probable que nos conduzca
finalmente a la conclusión inaceptable de que solo un genio (una condición
humana muy rara, por lo tanto anormal, que de hecho depende de el ser pensante)
puede ser completamente humano.
In several earlier posts I have presented a central argument of my recent book that the mind is
a process which is supported by the brain but cannot be reduced to it, since it is a process of
cultural, symbolic stimuli originating outside the brain in the specifically human, cultural
environment. In other words, the mind is culture in the brain. It is also individualized culture,
because it results from and assures the adjustment of a particular animal organism to the
cultural environment. The necessity of the human to adjust to the cultural environment (which
for us is also the intra-species environment, to which other animals are adjusted genetically)
and the specific nature of cultural, symbolic, environment in fact call for several interconnected
processes, performing different functions in this adjustment, which together constitute the mind,
and, since the mind, therefore, is not a homogeneous, but an articulated, process, one can
speak of the anatomy of the mind. The central processes of the mind are patterned or
systematic and can be seen as structures, by analogy to organs and organisms. The mind itself,
though a process, can be likened to an individual organism, which exists in a larger
structure/process, analogous to a species – a culture. Within the mind, culture, supported by the
imaginative capacities of the animal brain, transformed by the symbolic environment into the
specifically human, symbolic imagination, necessarily creates three such “structures.” These
structures are compartments of the self or of I and include: 1) identity – the relationally-
constituted self; 2) agency, will, or acting self, the acting I; and 3) the thinking self, I of self-
consciousness.
Identity in this sense is symbolic self-definition. It is the image of one’s position in the socio-
cultural “space” within the image of the relevant socio-cultural terrain. It contains and provides
information regarding one’s social status and one’s standing vis-à-vis non-human symbolic
presences, such as angels, ancestors, or the nation; one’s relevant others, mortal and immortal,
individual and collective, and the types of relations one is supposed to have with them, one’s
significant symbolic environment, including one’s immediate and more remote social and
cosmic worlds, expectations one may have of one’s environment and vice-versa, conduct
proper to one under various, likely to arise circumstances (i.e. foods one should like or dislike,
clothes one is supposed to wear, questions one is supposed to ask and issues one is supposed
to be interested in, emotions one may legitimately experience and ones of which one should be
ashamed, people one may befriend, marry, respect, despise and hate, and so on). In short,
one’s identity represents an individualized microcosm of the particular culture in which one is
immersed, with the image of one’s particularly significant sector in it (which may include God
and His angels, paradise and hell, or one’s immediate neighbors, colleagues, and fellow “Red
Sox” fans) magnified and highlighted.
Identity is a logical implication of the nature of human environment. Since the primary
environment for humans is cultural and since, above all, individuals have to adapt to the intra-
species environment of the human society in which they happen to live, a cognitive map of this
cultural social environment must be created in the brain. This cognitive map, which is the
representation of the surrounding culture, and the social order (always in relation to the cosmic
one), constructed on its basis, in the individual’s mind may be accomplished by something like
place cells which are responsible for the spatial representations -- maps of the changing spatial
environment -- in the brain of a rat. The individual’s identity is his/her place on this
multidimensional symbolic map. Like the indication of the rat’s place on the spatial mental map,
it defines the individual’s possibilities of adaptation to the environment -- or to refer to
specifically human reality, “powers,” “liberties,” and “rights.” Because the cultural environment is
so complex, the human individual, unlike the rat, is presented by the cognitive map with various
possibilities of adaptation which cannot be objectively and clearly ranked. They must be ranked
subjectively, i.e., the individual must choose or decide which of them to pursue. This subjective
ranking of options is, in the first place, a function of one’s identity.
As the cognitive map is configured out of the information derived from the cultural environment,
it is subject to change with some, but not all, of the changes in that environment. Only a most
dramatic change of the map as a whole as a result of the virtual transformation of the
environment is likely to affect one’s own place on it, that is, change one’s identity. This should
be so because, at first, cultural stimuli enter the new human’s brain as a jumbled mess: their
organizing principles must be figured out. As the child figures out the organizing principles of
various symbolic systems and begins to deploy the symbolic imagination, he or she also figures
out where precisely he or she belongs in the symbolic environment which is still in the process
of being constructed itself. The significance of other objects on the map is then assessed in
relation to that place. One’s identity organizes the mess and the cultural environment is
observed from its perspective. This means that, rather than being determined by our
experiences, the nascent identity ranks these experiences, storing those it selects for
memory in accordance with their subjective significance and forgetting most of them altogether.
Because of its essential ranking function, identity must start forming early. However, the
process of its formation may be long and is not always successful. Identity-formation is likely to
be faster and more successful the simpler is the cultural environment in which it is formed – i.e.,
the fewer and the more clearly defined are the relations that must be taken into account in the
relationally-constituted self. For instance, in an isolated village community, in which all the
denizens are practicing the same religion, obey the same authorities, speak the same language,
wear habits of the same kind, enjoy the same level of prosperity, it may be expected to form
easily and quickly. But in a large cosmopolitan metropolis, in which people of different religions,
political persuasions, levels of wealth, styles of life, and linguistic backgrounds mix, it would take
more time and for many people would never be complete, especially, if the metropolis is also
pluralistic and egalitarian, and therefore the cultural environment does not rank its different
populations itself, but leaves all the ranking to the individual.
As a representation of the environment, identity should force itself upon the brain as any
external stimulus. It as it were issues commands to the brain. Identity is a symbolic self-
definition, a relationally-constituted self, an image a human individual has of oneself as a
cultural being and a participant in a particular cultural universe. At the same time, it is clearly an
essential element of human mental – cognitive, emotional, and pertaining to social adjustment --
functioning and health. Changes in certain peripheral aspects of identity are possible, but any
change in its core (i.e., crises of identity, doubts about one’s identity, multiple identities)
translate into mental problems, affecting one’s ability to learn and commit information to
memory, the adequacy of one’s emotional reactions, and the degree of one’s social adjustment.
Identity mediates between one’s natural or animal capacities to learn, memorize, adapt to the
environment – the capacities of one’s animal brain – and one’s functioning as, in fact being, a
person, one’s humanity. Obviously, an individual endowed with different natural mental powers
from those of somebody else would learn, memorize, and adapt differently, but so most
certainly would an individual with equal natural powers but a different identity. Similarly, a
damage to one’s natural capacities (as a result of physical trauma or impaired growth) will
undoubtedly be reflected in one’s mental performance, but a damage to one’s cultural identity
(as a result of a traumatic experience, such as immigration or “loss of face,” or in consequence
of impaired formation) will alter mental performance as dramatically.
In this post I would like to continue the discussion of the central functions – or faculties – of the
mind, moving from the process of identity (or relationally-constituted self), discussed in the
previous post, to the process of the will.
Identity, which is the agent of a particular culture, does not issue commands to the brain
directly; it does so through the “structure” of human agency, will, or acting self, the creation of
culture in general. Human beings are carriers of will and discretion; they are -- each one of
them, if normal -- independent actors in the sense of being capable of action and not just
reaction, whose actions (except involuntary reflexes) are products of decision and choice.
This will is a function of symbols -- to operate with these intentional, thus arbitrary, signs, we
internalize the principle of their intentionality; the will, therefore, like identity, is logically implied
in the symbolic reality of the mind. When reacting to a cue, whether externally or internally
generated (for instance, the election of a new president or a spontaneously firing nerve that
triggers a memory-recall of an unpleasant incident at a doctor’s office), we are capable of
voluntarily interrupting the ensuing mental process, saying to ourselves, for example: “I don’t
want to think about this now,” “I do not want to react to this in such-and-such a way,” and
thereby of shaping our response. It is to this intermediate stage between stimulus and
reaction/action, in which, for humans, the nature of response is still indeterminate and must be
decided that the word “consciousness” is frequently applied.
Moreover, humans are capable of independently, i.e., at will, generating cues and starting
mental processes. For instance a person may say to oneself: “I want to remember such and
such episode” or “I want to begin thinking about such and such subject,” and thereby start the
process of memory recall or manipulation. Humans are not genetically forced to want almost
anything -- perhaps to evacuate and to sleep -- every other genetic imposition, including hunger,
sexual desire, and pain, can be resisted by the will. How do we acquire binding volitions, i.e.
desires which compel us to act?
The mind must include “structures” -- mechanisms capable of blocking the biological information
the brain generates, when this information interferes with the processing or creating symbolic
information. More generally, it must contain mechanisms which, for every event, select the
“operative logic” (or logics) appropriate to the context, while suppressing other “logics.” The will,
or agency, or acting self – that part of our mind that makes decisions, is such a structure or
set of mechanisms. What does the will do, specifically? It arbitrates in cases of contradictory
stimuli. Most often, such arbitrage is unconscious and involves no effort (of will) on our part: we
simply receive, and obey, an instruction to follow a particular logic. If a consciousness can be
equated with a particular symbolic logic, we all necessarily develop multiple consciousnesses
and, depending on the occasion, skillfully select among them the appropriate one.
But will’s arbitrage may involve a conscious effort, and it is for the cases when it does that the
language – at least, in the West – reserves the concept of the “will.” For instance, one may be
tired and wish to lie down, but have unfinished work, in which case the will will instruct the
organism: “You will pay no attention to your fatigue, but will be guided by the logic demanding
you to finish the work you have started.” Late in the evening, however, it will issue a different
instruction: “You will now lay down your work, though unfinished, and take care of your fatigue,
(because otherwise you won’t be able to continue your work tomorrow)”. Or, in the case of a
soldier fearing for his life, the will may declare: “The logic you will obey at present is that of a
collective military enterprise. Therefore, you will expose your life to danger and disregard the
survival instinct which instructs you to run away and hide.” It is in regard to such choices that we
talk of the “free will.” By definition, the will is free: it is always up to the human agency, to the
(acting) self to decide which symbolic tack to take. Everything else in a person may cry against
a certain action, and yet the person’s will, the agency, will impose itself and the person will do
its bidding. We refer to that will as a “strong” one, which systematically imposes on the person
the ‘logic’ considered to be more difficult to follow. Of course, what is so considered changes
with the context.
Symbolic imagination is travel over the links of various “logical” chains. Will, agency or
(acting) self is the mechanism for making choices or decisions. We are able to deploy our
imaginative capacities correctly, namely, in accordance with the appropriate symbolic “logic”
thanks to the arbitrage of the will, while the will’s arbitrage, much as our capacity to learn and
memorize, is mediated by identity (the relationally-constituted self). Clearly, it would be much
easier for a person unambiguously self-defined as a soldier to risk his life in the face of mortal
danger, rather than try to save himself; his identity will, in effect, screen the logic of self-
preservation from him, making him, so to speak, “single-minded” in his sharp awareness of the
dictates of proper soldierly conduct. A person unsure of whether being a soldier is really “him,”
in contrast, will be much more likely to hesitate and run for cover. Problems with identity impair
the will, making the person indecisive and unmotivated, while an impaired will interferes with
routine functioning of symbolic imagination.
The will/agency/acting self is the function of the autonomy of human consciousness -- i.e.,
the mind’s independence from the natural environment and from learning and memory related
to the natural environment, the mind’s being self-sustained, which makes possible a multitude of
desires -- and of identity (or relationally-constituted self), which represents to the individual
his/her options. Thus, it is the expression of subjectivity. There is no subjectivity in animals,
unless these are pets, even though, given the nature of learning and memory, every rat’s and
certainly every monkey’s brain is unique, and there is individuality in monkeys and rats. But
because monkeys and rats do not have choices, the uniqueness of every animal’s brain does
not give rise to subjectivity, and there is no need in agency, will, and self. However unique, the
knowledge and action/reaction of a rat or a monkey are objective (shared by others within the
species), making every rat or monkey a representative of all rats or all monkeys.
One can speculate about the system in the brain that supports the will. Perhaps, it is neurons
similar to those that make possible in rats the perception of the stimuli which require an
adaptive reaction, transmitting to other neurons the command: “do this or that,” neurons whose
function it is to sense desires imposed on animals by their genes, but in us culturally
constructed and mediated by consciousness and structures of the self (even though not
necessarily consciously mediated: a person is not always fully aware of what he or she wants).
Whatever that brain system, culture determines the individual’s likes and dislikes, programming
the brain to will certain things -- programming the will, like the rat’s “will” -- i.e., rat -- is
programmed genetically. Identity presents to the individual the possibilities for the given
historical time, helping to establish their subjective ranking: because you are what you are (a
Catholic or a Muslim, a wife or a soldier, a member of the aristocracy or a registered Democrat)
you must will this and not this. It commands the willwhat to choose and to decide. In every
specific case the will and the identity are determined by culture. The vast majority of the
records or representations in memory are also determined by culture -- the contents of memory,
thus, the raw material of the imagination, are culture-given. What is done to these records in the
brain (i.e., how they are manipulated) depends both on the brain and the organization principles
of the particular symbolic system(s). But cultural selection -- i.e., the social success of some
imaginings and the failure of others depends exclusively on the historical context, that is, again,
on culture. It is important to keep in mind that, unlike natural selection, cultural selection does
not weed out imaginings not selected for success at a certain historical moment: they are not
killed, but only left latent. In changed historical circumstances or in the presence of a genius
there is always the possibility that these temporarily unselected imaginings will have their day.
In this post, I am continuing the discussion of the anatomy of the mind we can deduce logically
from the nature of the cultural (i.e., symbolic) environment to which the human brain must
necessarily adjust. In addition to identity, or relationally-constituted self, and the will, or the
acting self, discussed in the previous two posts, there is the tremendously important structure,
the structure of consciousness turned upon itself, to which Descartes referred in his great
statement “I think, therefore I am.” This “I of self-consciousness” is the thinking part of us. In
distinction to all other processes and “structures” of the mind, the existence of the “I” of
Descartes is not a hypothesis. It is, rather, the only certain knowledge available to us. We are all
aware of it. We all know directly by experience that it exists. This knowledge is absolute; it is
impossible to doubt it.
It is very good that this is so, because the logical reasons for the existence of this mental
structure are less obvious than those that help us to account for identity and will. Given the
character of human environment, both these structures are necessary for the adaptation to this
environment, and therefore, for the survival of every individual one of us. But one does not need
the thinking self to adapt to life within culture. Dogs, for example, seem to adapt to the symbolic
environment without necessarily developing the ability to think. And, if they can do it, we,
presumably, can do it too. One can argue, of course, that a fully human existence would be
impossible without it, but such quantitative judgment is quite likely to lead us eventually to the
unacceptable conclusion that only a genius (a very rare, thus abnormal human condition which
indeed depends on the thinking self) can be fully human.
The logical necessity for the thinking self is of a different kind. While human beings can well do
without it, human existence without it would be impossible. It is a necessary condition for the
culture process on the collective level: what makes possible self-consciousness for any one of
us is precisely that which makes possible indirect learning and thus the transmission of human
ways of life across generations and distances.
Most of the circumstantial evidence regarding the mind comes from comparative history and
comparative zoology -- comparisons between different cultural environments (the simple fact of
their variety suggests the structure of identity, for instance) and between humans and wild
animals (the self-sufficiency of human consciousness and its largely inexplicit and emotional
character, symbolic imagination, and will or agency are deduced from comparisons between
our environment and its demands, on the one hand, and the environment of organic life and the
animals’ responses to it, on the other). Similarly, it is from comparative zoology we deduce that
to transmit human ways of life we need the thinking self.
Based both on the circumstantial and on the empirical (direct, introspective) evidence, there are
a few things we can say about the thinking self. Among all the symbolic mental processes, it is
the one which is explicitly symbolic; it is not just a process informed and directed by our
symbolic environment, but it is as essentially symbolic process as is the development of
language, or of a musical tradition, or an elaboration of a theorem – or as is the transmitted
culture, in general -- in the sense that it actually operates with formal symbols, the formal media
of symbolic expression. This is the reason for the dependence of thought on language, which
has been so frequently noted. Thinking is only possible if such formal media are available, as
they are in music, mathematics, visual art, and in language, above all. Our thought extends only
as far as the possibilities of the formal symbolic medium in which it operates.
This presents an enormous problem for neuroscience: how to account conceptually for the
perception, storage in memory, and recall of purely symbolic stimuli which may only acquire
sensual components in use, after they are conceived in the mind, and these components are
necessarily minimal (e.g. these words I am typing and you are reading acquire a visual
component only after I have thought them and you perceive them at once visually and in their
meaning which touches only your mind, but none of your bodily senses)? What is a perception
of an idea? What is perceived and which organ perceives it? The translation of such stimuli into
the organic processes of the brain, which must occur, because everything that happens in the
mind happens by means of the brain, is beyond the current ability of neuroscience to imagine.
However, we have all the reasons to hope for a development in the science of the mind similar
to that which happened in the biological sub-discipline of genetics which, called into being by
Darwin’s evolutionary theory, started to reveal the specific mechanisms of evolution through
natural selection some forty years after Darwin had postulated it. (See my previous
posts here and here),
Similarly to the process of breaking organic processes into its physico-chemical elements that
happens in the translation of organic stimuli, including the process of perception itself, into
physical and chemical reactions in the brain, a process of breaking (from top down) of symbolic
stimuli into its organic elements (reconstructing symbols as signs that are sensorily perceived,
for instance) must be responsible for such translation, which would differ from the bio-physical
translation only in degree of its complexity, i.e., quantitatively. We are capable of perceiving,
storing in memory, and recalling at will various aspects of our environment. It makes sense that
we would intuit – but intuition would break into perception – and thus perceive and recall a string
of information couched in formal symbols in the formal symbols in which it was couched, that is,
perceive and recall a word not sensually, but by its imaginary sound, a geometric shape by its
imaginary sight, and a melody by the imaginary sound and/or the sight of the corresponding
notation. Do we actually hear the words and melodies in our head? They are there, but the
great majority of words in our vocabulary we know from reading only, some of them we have
invented, and a composer hears the music before putting it on paper or trying it on an
instrument, and can do so, as the astounding example of Beethoven proves, even while being
physically deaf. This means that we are actually processing -- and experiencing -- unembodied
sounds, sounds that do not have any material and, therefore, sensual reality (though they can
acquire both these realities, when outwardly expressed or objectified in the course of the
cultural process). The experience is possible because the symbolic (meanings) naturally breaks
into the sensory (signs).
Our conscious recall of such non-sensual information would necessarily be an explicit recall.
The act of will, under different circumstances implicit and, as a result, unobserved, in cases of
recalling explicit symbolic information (human semantic memory) will be self-observed and
become a subject of self-consciousness. The opportunities for observing one’s consciousness
are numerous: we might recall stored explicit information for comparison with any new learning
experience with explicit symbolic systems in the environment, that is, with music, mathematics,
visual art, but, above all, anything at all in language, and then we might wish to recall and
manipulate and re-manipulate it again and again. Then not only the process of consciousness
and symbolic imagination, in general, which is largely unconscious (in the sense of
unselfconscious and inexplicit), but the process of thinking -- of talking to oneself in language,
mathematics, music, and explicit visual images -- becomes self-sustaining and self-sufficient. I
suppose this is what we mean when we talk about “life of the mind.” The thinking self, which
does not have to be involved in regular mental processes on the individual level (such as
symbolic imagination which is for the most part unselfconscious) in such cases is perfectly
integrated with and involved in them. It becomes an integral part of the mind as individualized
culture and of the person. But it is important to remember that this is not the essential function
of this mental structure, its essential function is to assure the symbolic process on the collective
level. It is enough that some humans develop an active thinking self for this process to continue
and for culture to be maintained.
Liah Greenfeld, Ph.D., is University Professor and a professor of sociology, political science,
and anthropology at Boston University, and Distinguished Adjunct Professor at Lingnan
University, Hong Kong. She is the author of Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture
on Human Experience (Harvard University Press, 2013) and other books about modern society
and culture, including the ground-breaking Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Harvard
University Press, 1992) and The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic
Growth (Harvard University Press, 2001; Donald Kagan Best Book in European History Prize).
Greenfeld has been a recipient of the UAB Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Award,
fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, the Woodrow Wilson Center for
International Scholars in Washington, D.C., the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem,
Israel, and grants from The National Council for Soviet & East European Research, and The
German Marshall Fund of the United States. In 2004, she delivered the Gellner Lecture at the
London School of Economics on the subject of "Nationalism and the Mind," launching the
research connecting her previous work on modern culture to a new perspective on mental
illness.