The Human Question

Noe points out that the question, "How do you know that you aren't a brain in a vat?" has been used in order to undercut our tendency to take for granted that we have an immediate experience of and interaction with our environment. The expected answer, "I don't know," is supposed to lead us to conclude that our brain is directly aware only of internally produced representations while our body is a kind of vat that houses, nourishes, stimulates and responds to the brain. For if it could be a brain in a vat, then one two different stimuli may cause the same cognitive act; in which case it would follow that this cognitive act is not intrinsically ordered toward either of the possible causes. The most appropriate reply would be to show how representationalism runs into problems, regardless of any concern about brains, vats, and the like. But apart from those types of replies I might also argue that merely not knowing with 2+2=4 certainty that one's everyd...

He compares the meaning of words to the value of currency. Words that fall out of use can no longer be used meaningfully in conversation just like coins belonging to a currency no longer in use. This comparison underscores a point that he credits to Putnam: that we are able to use language meaningfully in part because we belong to a community of language users, including those who, perhaps unlike us, know how to apply the terms correctly. For example, says Noe, he can speak meaningfully about the difference between two kinds of trees (elms vs. oaks) even though he himself cannot distinguish one from the other.

"We bark at our children" to get them to school on time.

The proposal that Noe rejects is that we start with an individualistic grasp the features of our environment, and then use this as the basis for INFERRING the existence of other, hidden selves. The theory of mind is such an inference. The basis for this understanding of mind is that children around three make a transition from failing to passing the false belief test. The explanation commonly given for this transition is that in order to pass this test we must first acquire a theory of mind. He rejects this explanation. We initially fail this test, NOT because we lack a"theory of mind," but because we initially lack the ability to distinguish our own feelings from those of others. Prior to passing the false belief test, we are already comindful, coaffective and cooperative with another. To illustrate this claim he first points out that the "other" at this phase is typically the mother: as a child we feel loved by her; if she withdraws her affectionate gaze...

He points out that a patient in so-called PVS (permanent vegetative state) has markedly low global brain metabolism (like that of a person in slow wave sleep, or under general anesthesia). But what is remarkable is the fact that in the rare case in which such a patient recovers consciousness, they still show a reduced brain metabolism. In other words, a low brain metabolism is not sufficient to demonstrate PVS.

Out of Our Heads is a terrific book that thoroughly undermines the notion that our brain in some way forms a representation of the world. It does that by a kind of "enactive holism." First of all by regarding cognition as part of a whole--that whole being our interaction with our environment. From this vantage, one can see brain activity as part of the individual's interactivity with her or his environment. One no longer regards the brain in a homuncular manner, as a crane driver that directs and uses our body. The body no longer seems like an living vat that holds the brain while serving as a medium for transmitting messages to and fro. By avoiding a brain/rest-of the-body dualism, one also undercuts the need to posit representations within the brain. Rather, the brain is the point at which our interactions become focused and interrelated. Noe's holistic understanding of the human organism can account for the plasticity of the brain and may perhaps dissolve ...