Jay Ingram. The Theatre of the Mind (2005) An exploration of what was known, hypothesised, and speculated about consciousness up to 2005. There have been a few advances and some additional knowledge since then, but the central thesis, that we still don’t know enough, and may never know enough, to give a good account of consciousness, still stands.
Ingram surveys the field, with his usual knack of explaining difficult ideas by lacing concrete examples into the abstractions of science. He illustrates the difficulties of the topic by reminding us that experienced drivers may well drive unconsciously for many kilometres, realising with some surprise that they can’t recall the last ten or twenty minutes of driving.
Some certainties have been established. For example, we know that most of the processing done by the brain occurs well below consciousness (why do we refer to “below” here?), and that consciousness consists of constantly shifting attention. It’s also pretty well agreed that language is somehow essential. Then there are the experiments that show that conscious awareness of a decision occurs many milliseconds after the chosen action has already begun.
There’s in my mind also no question that what we think of as our conscious experience is the result of major filtering, processing, combining, and recombining of data presented to us by our senses. It’s a fabrication, but one which is true enough to enable reasonably accurate predictions of future states of the world, and so makes useful choices and decisions possible. That process suggests why consciousness has survival value, despite its slow-as-molasses reaction to the environment compared to unconscious reflexes or conditioned responses.
As the title indicates, Ingram prefers the metaphor of a theatre, not one presented for the delectation of a single homunculus, but as a process of selecting and disseminating information to an audience of unconscious homunculi, who receive and process that information and pass on the results to many other modules. (But “module” is a misleading metaphor useful only with the caveat that the assemblages of neutrons implied by it are largely ad-hoc and temporary). This metaphor is in my opinion somewhat misleading. True, Ingram remarks that the audience and the actors change places, but I think it misses something. That something is expressed in Yeats’ question: “Who can tell the dancer from the dance?”
I think that consciousness is not the theatre but the play. It’s an improvised play, its action changes from moment to moment, the scenes change without warning as actors leave the stage and others enter or re-enter, but the play follows and keeps returning to certain central themes. Some of these are built in: we have human brains, after all, and not equine ones. Others are developed as we become Selves: the plot of the play, ephemeral and inconsistent as it is, is what we experience a “me”. That “me” is not fixed. We experience change in ourselves, we expect it, we often glory in it. But the thread of the story is somehow not lost. That thread gives us the feeling that we are the same person, no matter how many changes have been visited upon us.
Ingram’s book may be heavy going for people who haven’t acquired some background in brain studies, even though he tries hard to frequently bring us back to familiar experience. But I think the book is worth reading and re-reading. It’s also a pleasure. Ingram comes across a person who wants to figure things out, who wants us to accompany him on his journey of discovery. He’s not so much a guide as a fellow seeker. He's good company.
There’s a good deal more in this book than I’ve mentioned. ***½
