Descartes' 'Ghost in the Machine' : To What Extent is it a 'Category Mistake' (Gilbert Ryle)?
As many people on the forum are interested in the understanding of consciousness, I read various writers on the philosophy of mind, trying to think the issue through carefully. Currently, I am reading Gilbert Ryle's, 'The Concept of Mind', which focuses upon the idea of the 'ghost in the machine', which was particularly apparent in the writings of Descartes. He criticises the way in which the mind was seen by Descartes and others
as 'shadowy' and argues,
'both Idealism and Materialism are answers to an improper question. The "reduction" of the material world to mental states and processes, as well as the "reduction" of mental states and processes, presupposes the legitimacy of the disjunction, "Either there exist minds or there exist bodies (but not both)" It would be like saying, "Either she bought a left hand and right hand glove or she bought a pair of gloves, (but not both)."-
That is the basis of Ryle's idea of the category mistake. He argues that, 'the hallowed contrast between Mind and Matter will be dissipated, but not dissipated by either of the equally hallowed absorptions of Mind by Matter or of Matter by Mind, but in quite a different way'.
It is likely that many have gone more in the direction of physicalism, such as Dennett. Even some Zen Buddhists argue for 'no mind', which is likely a rejection of the literal concept of the metaphor of the ghost in the machine. It is likely that many on the forum have read Ryle's work, so to what extent does his critique throw important light on the mind and body connection? Also, to what extent is Ryle's thinking compatible with nondualistic philosophy perspectives?
as 'shadowy' and argues,
'both Idealism and Materialism are answers to an improper question. The "reduction" of the material world to mental states and processes, as well as the "reduction" of mental states and processes, presupposes the legitimacy of the disjunction, "Either there exist minds or there exist bodies (but not both)" It would be like saying, "Either she bought a left hand and right hand glove or she bought a pair of gloves, (but not both)."-
That is the basis of Ryle's idea of the category mistake. He argues that, 'the hallowed contrast between Mind and Matter will be dissipated, but not dissipated by either of the equally hallowed absorptions of Mind by Matter or of Matter by Mind, but in quite a different way'.
It is likely that many have gone more in the direction of physicalism, such as Dennett. Even some Zen Buddhists argue for 'no mind', which is likely a rejection of the literal concept of the metaphor of the ghost in the machine. It is likely that many on the forum have read Ryle's work, so to what extent does his critique throw important light on the mind and body connection? Also, to what extent is Ryle's thinking compatible with nondualistic philosophy perspectives?
Comments (56)
In some ways the whole phenomenon of experiences of altered states of consciousness, including psychedelic experiences, could throw back the understanding of mind in the direction of idealism, such as Bergson's idea of -'mind at large', or the brain as a 'filter of consciousness', which may also be relevant in thinking of the nature of mind.
It can be asked to what extent is the brain and the conventional experiences of sensory reality the most 'real' and underlying perspective of reality, or the possibilities of any others. It may relate to the nature of concepts and the nature of reality, conceptually and metaphysically. In some ways, it may come down to what is the fundamental nature of reality? Is the idea of the 'ghost in the machine' one which is to be abandoned completely?
At the moment, I am finding the ideas of Ryle very helpful, and I am happy to share with you and anyone else who is interested. I nearly put the ideas onto the one on the poll on materialism, idealism and realism, but as it such a popular one, even though it started as a poll, I decided that the ideas of Ryle would probably get lost there entirely. My own reading of Ryle is that it raises the question of what is 'mind' in a fundamental way and the conception of consciousness itself.
Ryle traces the emergence of the idea of consciousness. He says,
'When the epistemologists' concept of consciousness first became popular, it seems to have been in part a transformed application of the Protestant notion of conscience...When Galileo and Descartes' representations of the mechanical world seemed to require that minds should be solved from mechanism by being represented as constituting a duplicate world, the need was felt to explain how the ghostly world could be ascertained, again without sensory perception.'
Ryle goes on to speak of how Locke understood inner states, and called this,
'supposed inner perception "reflection"(our introspection), borrowing the word "reflection" from the the familiar optical phenomenon of the reflections of faces in mirrors. The mind can "see" or look at it's own operations in the light given by themselves. The myth of consciousness is a piece of para-optics'.
In this way, Ryle is calling into question the idea of consciousness itself, especially in relation to what inner experience means and its significance in understanding the nature of 'reality', with the division of inner and outer being an important interface. He is questioning the nature of knowledge and how it connects to self-knowledge, which is such a crucial link in the interplay between subjective and objective understanding.
I think Descartes was right that the only thing we can't doubt is that we exist (and that is based on us being conscious of our self.)
The external world is only a perception that we try and explore we cannot get behind perception and minds to some kind of perception free pure access to reality so everything we are exploring is some form of conscious state.
I think this favours idealism and solipsism but consciousness denial is the least plausible of all theories.
In his book "The Concept of mind" Ryle is very annoying and tiresome in his attempt to reframe of redefine words we use to describe mental states. Mental states are the only thing we have immediate infallible access to because we are directly a mental states all the time and they are private and subjective and immediate.
If we are debating whether something exists there should be really good grounds to doubt its existence in my opinion.
The problem with mental states is that they are private and subjective so there seems to be no public objective way to analyse them.
I didn't realise consciousness was a thing until I was in my early twenties. I can't remembering anyone using the term consciousness throughout my childhood.
It is hard to think about something without a vocabulary or without a discourse being started. It doesn't mean I wasn't consciousness before I had the terminology. In a way science and philosophical investigation and language discovers what is already there (as opposed to limiting what can exist)
Funnily enough, I don't think that I reflected on the term consciousness that much until I began using this forum about 2 years ago. But, I was probably a dualist, and have questioned this, for better or worse. It can lead to tangents but I am hoping that reflection of such matters also leads to greater self-awareness, even though that idea may be open to philosophical speculation in it's own right.
I replied to your second post and see that, in the first, you describe how you have read Ryle's work and found it frustrating. I am finding it more helpful than not, mainly because so many writers I have read, such as Dennett, Pinker and B F Skinner seemed to dismiss introspection entirely. I came across Skinner during 'A' level psychology and have felt that so many psychologists dismiss introspection, which may be the fundamental seat of self-awareness and self-knowledge.
Is it fair to say the Ryle is attempting to conceptually synthesize matter and mind? In what way does this differ from "embodiment" (something with which I am quite familiar)?
Regarding inner-experience or the experience of consciousness itself, my own experience of that is clear and compelling. Your mileage may vary. I have no trouble at all when people claim there is no such thing as consciousness; speaking for themselves, I am sure they are correct.
Yes. Introspection is subjective, hence not subject to empirical verification. Which makes it debatable, as in Philosophy, rather than established, as in Science. Ironically. established Science evolves as a new Paradigm succeeds an older worldview. Yet Materialism is still a common belief system, long after its classical atomic presumptions were turned into mental mush by Quantum Science. That's why the role of Consciousness in quantum physics is still debated, long after the practical applications of quantum queerness have become routine. :smile:
Ryle's criticism is valid in saying that Descartes' division of 'mind and matter' has absurd consequences by proposing 'res cogitans' as a literal 'thinking thing' with no extension - how then can it contact or interact with extended but mindless matter?
But the downside of Ryle's criticism has been the tendency to dismiss the concept of mind altogether, which you see in its most extreme form in Daniel Dennett (who incidentally studied under Ryle at Oxford.) This has lead to the 'post-Cartesian' attitude prevalent in much English-speaking philosophy which tends toward materialist theories of mind, i.e. that mind is a product of brain, itself a product of evolutionary biology, itself a product of undirected physical laws, and so on.
When considering Behaviorism, I think it is helpful to decouple what Descartes claims from how he proceeds. The mind/body distinction he develops happens because of the conversation he is having with himself. Developmental Psychology diverged in many different directions because of different ideas about personal agency and whether this talking to oneself was central to the events or a byproduct of some kind. That is a different starting point than wondering whether a given self can 'introspect'.
In that regard, the antithesis of Skinner is not given by the likes of William James but from LS Vygotsky. Vygotsky looked at how children talking to themselves changed in relation to being able to talk with others. Vygotsky did call for methods other than introspection to investigate the phenomena. But the limits of 'self-reporting' was a discovery made during the investigation, not information as Skinner assumed was the case before making his claims.
What exactly do you mean by "nondualistic"?
Quoting Jack Cummins
I think it had been decisively dismissed back in the 17th c. by Spinoza's dissolution of Descartes' MBP (substance dualism). Most philosophers have been in denial of this for almost three centuries even despite the ascent of cognitive sciences and methodological physicalism in the last several decades. It's been decades since I've read Ryle, but I recall appreciating his analytical deflation of "mind" and "consciousness" which probably inspired Dennett's methodological elimination of "qualia" from prospective empirical inquiries into the nature / mechanisms of 'phenomenal metacognition' (or consciousness).
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I read Descartes' "Cogito" as demonstrating nothing more than this: 'when doubting, one cannot doubt that one is doubting' (i.e. I thnk, therefore thinking exists.) :chin:
So, more of a closet one is stuck within than a theater with a show.
Pardon me. I was contrasting the minimum of what was acknowledged as you described it with the grand scope of possibilities discussed afterwards by Descartes.
Ryle's critique reframes the mind/body debate. As you may know, Ryle was part of the ordinary language philosophy movement which included other luminaries such as Wittgenstein and Austin. As Ryle points out in his introduction:
To give a sense of what this might entail, here is one of Ryle's examples of a category mistake:
Ryle points out that the foreigner's puzzle arose from his inability to understand how to use the concept of 'the University'. Note that there are at least two different ways the foreigner may have gone wrong here and, together, they demonstrate the hold that the 'Ghost in the Machine' metaphor can have on us. If the foreigner can't see the university, then perhaps it is something unseen - the ghost. That doesn't seem right, so perhaps it is reducible to the buildings he does see - the machine. So the foreigner may exorcise the ghost, leaving just the machine. But when that turns out to be unsatisfactory, the ghost soon returns to haunt the machine. And so the puzzle remains unresolved.
The solution is to recognize that these are false alternatives. Instead the university is the way in which all that the foreigner has already seen is organized. That is, the university is something we can see by virtue of being creatures with minds.
I definitely see links between Ryle's understanding of the link between mind and matter and the nature of embodiment. In the last few months I read a few works in the phenomenological tradition and embodiment as expressed here does seem to be about such a fusion. I guess the other side of the issue is whether there is any possible separation, which goes back to Descartes' own thinking. Of course, a dead body is a dead body but I have heard anecdotal stories of people sensing a spirit leaving the body, but what that represents is open to question.
But Ryle is creating a straw man because no one thinks like that.
In the UK we have The Open University where you study from home.
I think most people understand that a University is more than just a collection of buildings and that it is not just one building but a learning institution with a wide reach.
It is not synonymous with the problem of squaring mental states with brain states and physicality with non physicality.
It is like Ryle is pulling the wool over peoples eyes to convince them that consciousness is somewhere among all the physical things we are acquainted with if we look at them in a different way. But it isn't.
Things you think are physical must be mental entities because they are within your consciousness.
Really strong sensations such as pain are only in the mind because it doesn't make sense for pain to exist outside of mind? What form would pain outside the mind take?
When you are deeply unconscious like I have been you are not aware of anything. Even the smallest most inconsequential seeming entity must be accessed by a mind.
The Physics picture of matter is apparently largely empty space, fields and mathematical entities.
I guess that I am interested in questioning the various perspectives on the mind and body question, as it is such a perplexing philosophical issue. I am not sure that I completely agree with his approach on introspection but I can see that he presents a valid argument. Self-knowledge through introspection is limited and open to doubt. I am sure that others' views of me are probably different from my own thoughts. Others' perspectives may be important as there are so many others, although those viewpoints would probably not be identical. But, with self-knowledge although it may be useful to know others' perceptions, including one's own blindspots, I have more time to devote to knowing myself. For that reason, I like to, as far as possible, be my own therapist.
The fact that we all view everything with our own minds is a central aspect of philosophy. Mind is inherent in all thought and I believe that Thomas Nagel argued this in, 'A View From Nowhere'. It makes the issue of objectivity itself problematic.
I find information to be an illustrative analogy. Information can be encoded in any number of ways, so in some sense, the nature of the information is entirely independent of the nature of its encapsulation. Form versus substance. On the other hand, consider analog computers. In them there is a functional relationship between the nature of the information encoded and the physical form and the function of the information encoded - the embodied form of that information. Analog computers can be very efficient and very effective at doing specific things. They can instantly parallel-compute the solution to complex problems, as in fire-control systems, for example.
I come from the perspective of reading Dennett's ideas, which are so different from my own and that is why I think about it a lot. When I had a few out of body experiences on the borderline of sleep and on the two occasions when I took LSD I definitely had the sense of a separation between body and mind. This may have been a chemically induced illusion but it was certainly what I experienced.
Apart from the actual experiences the reason why I took acid a second time was I did feel that I had not got back into my body properly. At the time, I was starting my nursing training and others did notice my coordination difficulties. Also, I have always felt a little out of my body and it is as if I have to get into my body in order to do tasks. A couple of managers' queried my slightly delayed reaction times at times and it was extremely difficult to try to explain that I had to get into my body properly!
I had never thought of it as information until I read a couple of threads on this site on consciousness and information. To some extent, that perspective works, but what seems to be missing is both sentience and narrative identity in the construction of an autobiographical sense of self identity.
I think Ryle, (and certainly I,) would prefer to say that the university is something that we do together; if the building is lost, and the library burns, we can meet under a tree for a tutorial on whatever we can remember of the course. The ghost is the transient interaction that takes place in the machine of the facilities, which are there to facilitate the educational and researching goings-on, that constitute the university.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I think Ryle would say that talk of mental states and brain states is also confused talk. A brain that is in a state is a dead brain; a living brain is a brain that is interacting with itself, its body and its environment, and it is these interactions that constitute the mind.
It is an unfortunate locution for his thesis that the solution to the problem of the ghost in the machine can be easily formulated as "machines are real and ghosts are not." This is clearly not the conclusion he wants us to reach. To discover the real university is to join the university, not to do a tour of the buildings.
I see the husband and the wife, but where is their marriage?
Not just information, though, embodied information. Substance is meaningless without some kind of form, form without some kind of substance. I see information as a constituent of consciousness, but I wouldn't reduce consciousness to information.
I haven't read Yglotsky but I did begin reading Skinner's philosophy while I was studying psychology 'A' level. If anything, it seemed that he underplayed the role of inner experience, especially reflective self-awareness. We can question our own motives and look at these, which makes the whole issue relevant to that of free will. Behaviorism may be compatible with determinism, and it may come down to the actual reflective moment of choice. In some ways, the reflective element could be seen as connected to previously learned responses. On the other hand, it may depend on the level of self creation in the process of intentionality.
Giving Up on Consciousness as the Ghost in the Machine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8121175/
Skinner certainly "underplayed the role of inner experience." He denied that it caused any outcomes. But it is not a 'determinism' because it is possible to change the environment that produces behavior.
Vygotsky saw the development of the individual as dialogical process. The capability is a cause that is interwoven with experience but not an agent that exists independently as a Cartesian ego before experience occurs.
I know that you think that Spinoza's understanding of substance dualism is important. However, you seemed to agree with me that his writing is not the best place for this. So, which authors do you think offer a good overview of his approach?
The article which you provided a link to is a good overview. I certainly don't dismiss neuroscience as it does provide such a useful perspective. The article does bring in varying approaches because it is likely that these may be all useful. I am actually fairly interested in neurolinguistic programming because it may not explain consciousness itself but my help work with the subliminal aspects which affect the experiences of consciousness.
Yes, Skinner's perspective is complex, because although he did deny reflective consciousness, he did come up with potential modifications for life, in, 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity'.
I didn't think that you would reduce consciousness to information, but there are probably some people who do.
Yes, I may have mixed up various post discussions which I have had with you. However, I do believe that the philosophy of Spinoza has been particularly influential in your thinking, and thought that was in connection with substance dualism. I did read some of the thread on substance dualism about a year or two ago. It is interesting and, at some point, I would like to read further on the topic of substance dualism, as it may be important in connection with the materialism vs idealism spectrum.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/561804
The cognitive neuroscientist Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error and Looking for Spinoza are quite good at demonstrating how "mind & body" by conceived by Descartes as separate "substances" is completely inconsistent with what experimental sciences of the human brain show thereby vindicating much of Spinoza's insight.
Skinner did not deny it existed, he said it did not cause change.
I only brought it up because you mentioned it. The theory is as dumb as a bag of rocks.
Ryle's purpose there was to illustrate what is meant by the phrase "category mistake". Not to argue that people make that mistake with respect to universities.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Of course.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Well, that's the issue at hand. As you note, we are unlikely to be confused about universities. But, as Ryle says:
After giving an outline, he goes on to say:
Ryle says "the University has been seen". But yes, if the university didn't have buildings, then one would say something different, as you have done.
My usual example is "three ducks in a row"
duck, duck, duck.
There are the ducks, and there is the row. When you have seen the ducks, you have seen the row. But there are not four things. Yet the row is no ghost.
Nice example. There can be three ducks in a row, in a pond, in danger. All recognizable, yet categorically different, ways for things to be.
Just refresh my memory about what Ryle said was the correct view of the matter, if this is the incorrect view?
Mind is not a thing but a relation, a pattern, an interaction, an event, a movement.
[quote=J.Krishnamurti] You only exist in relationship.[/quote]
Not a brain state, but a(n embodied, active) brain's relation to the environment. The university is what the people do in the buildings. If people are not studying, the university has died, or is asleep at least.
The difficulty, as I see it, is that we tend to fall into, is that even starting with this clarity, that consciousness is the relationship between an embodied brain, and the environment, taken as two 'things', even as I lay out the categories of things and relations, I am establishing a new relation between consciousness and itself, the understanding of which tends to establish it as another thing. And I am back where I started with the wretched thinking thing. Hence meditation, to try and stop that circle of self-concern.
The reference to fuhrership was particularly odious, considering the way Edmund Husserl was treated by the Nazi regime, and his onetime student Heidegger. But its an accurate reflection of Ryles personality, according to the article, by the biographer of Wittgenstein. (He comes across as a bit of a prick, to express it in the vernacular.)
He was a prick. And it is the nature of a prick to misunderstand himself when right as supporting himself when wrong. He was right about category errors, and the notion is important for disentangling some of the muddles of philosophy. But in characterising mind as the 'ghost in the machine' he paved the way for a reductionist mechanistic thesis that still permeates much of the West.
Because nobody believes in ghosts, right? And philosophy runs on slogans more than arguments.
But we believe in 'measurements' like anything, don't we? And measurements are relations between the thing measured and the thing measuring. So the mind of man is the measure of all things, we might better say.
Perhaps a reconsideration of Ryle might even bear some fruit in the way of a rapprochement between the analytic and continental schools?
In the Introduction, Ryle says:
While Ryle's anti-Cartesian goal is obvious, his theory cuts across both dualist and behaviorist theories. For example, to act intelligently doesn't necessitate internal processes (per dualism), but doesn't preclude them either (per behaviorism). Activities such as thinking and imagining, while private in a conventional sense are not private in the radical Cartesian sense. We can give voice to our thoughts, identify the motives and intentions of others, and so on.
So for Ryle, the dogma that we're ghosts in machines is in error. But so is the symbiotic dogma that we're machines. That is, to reflexively reallocate mind terms to the brain (or eliminate them altogether) is just to veer from Scylla to Charybdis. As Ryle notes in a later essay:
Quoting Thinking and Saying - Gilbert Ryle
Ryle's positive goal is to direct our attention to the contexts that our language and activities arise in. As he says:
Yes. Some theories of Consciousness as a form of Information (e.g. Integrated Information Theory) attempt to construct Self-Awareness by adding-up bits of encompassing environmental information until the aggregate seems to automatically point inward toward the Observer. This is a Holistic concept, but reductive analysis will miss the essential element that binds isolated parts into functioning wholes : a complete circuit. Metaphorically, the light goes-on when the circuit is complete.
Self identity is relative to the larger system of which one is a component. So the missing element is what causes material objects to integrate into a hierarchy of systems within systems (entanglement). I call that Causal Cybernetic*1 Information : EnFormAction (Energy + regulation + feedback). It's the internal feedback loops that provide self-knowledge back up to the observing Mind. The whole system is not just internally integrated, but globally coherent. In other words, both independent Whole and interdependent Holon*2.
Yet, to be useful, the Self must be distinguishable from Other, as-if a thing-unto-itself. And that's a whole 'nother story. :smile:
*1. Cybernetic :
A communication system in which Information flows both top-down and bottom-up. Like a program with a circular flow of data, beginning with original intention and enhanced via feedback (metaphorically, self-knowledge)
*2. Holon :
An individual is autonomous, but also part of a family, which is part of an extended family, which is part of a community, etc.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/holon
Note : a Holon is a whole/part : it is linked upward & downward within the system
Our naive concepts of physics are more folk than folk psychology. We feel that we know a lot about the external world through experience prior to science. But scientific discoveries have revealed a hidden physical world like cells and DNA and sub atomic particles not perceived through naive perception.
I think Ryle was trying to reduce or dilute mind to naive physical behaviours not to particle physics which is a bit ridiculous when you think about.
He puts a lot of emphasis on observing behaviours as some how replacing the need to access a mind. But observation requires a mind (which is unexplained) and behaviour requires interpretation (which is unexplained and takes place in a mind)
I think people often take for granted how much information is transmitted in language (which is symbolic) and that far less is transmitted via observation. Science is communicated by language and symbols.
That is not to say observation isn't a rich source of information. But I think we mistakenly think of science as shoring up our naive "physical" perceptions and undermining our hidden mental states.
Maybe Science itself is stuck in this paradigm (naive realism?).
I had a read of your debate with Hanover. It showed how intricate the distinction is between substance dualism and property dualism. I think that it may be because the various historical figures, Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein had different underlying frames of reference. At least, in the twentieth first century there is at least a common frames of the neuroscience of the brain which gives some underlying basis for clarity about the nature of 'mind'.
I believe that I read something by Damascio, but not sure if it was the one you mentioned. I will look out for the one on Descartes, especially as Descartes' shaped so much of current thinking of the mind body/relationship. I had a friend who told me that Pink Floyd's,'The Division Bell', concept is based on the mind/body connection, but I don't know if this is true, or whether it was my friend's personal interpretation.
Thanks for your thoughts on information and it does lead me to think of systems theory. I can remember how when I was studying biology, it made so much sense of everything by seeing the integral links. This did involve the connections between the mind and body, such as how the vague nerve, in response to stress leads to an increase in blood pressure, as well as the whole process of homeostasis in the body. The whole processes of minds or minds also make sense in the cybernetic theory of Gregory Bateson.
Descartes proposes substance dualism and Spinoza a few of decades later countered with, for all intents and purposes, property dualism. Remember: Spinozism was almost completely suppressed for over two centuries after Spinoza's death while Cartesianism (via Kantianism) has been all but celebrated since the mid-17th c. I guess most contemporary neuroscientists like Damasio find experimental agreement with property dualism and reject substance dualism (which has become a Cartesian-folk philosophy that thinkers from Witty, Dewey, Ryle, Dennett, Churchland & Churchland ... to the Buddhist neurophilosopher Thomas Metzinger refute).
It is indeed interesting that Spinoza's ideas were suppressed, while Descartes ideas were mainstream. I wonder if it has a political aspect with Descartes' dualism being more compatible in the way in which life after death could be backed up according to Cartesian dualism.
Unfortunately, when I refer to the feedback loops in Mind & Nature, in terms of "Holism", I get negative feedback -- as-if the notion is anti-scientific. Even when I switch to "Systems Theory" the scent of New Age Consciousness theories remains. Bateson's ideas and terminology were quickly adopted by New Agers, so he is also sometimes tarred with the feather of pseudo-science. Yet Consciousness has always lingered just beyond the reach of Reductive Science. So, I'm willing to give Holistic (Systems) Science a shot at understanding the "difference that makes a difference", along with the connections that make a conception. Bateson referred to his Holistic worldview as an "Ecology of Mind". :smile: