GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) O R I G I N A L A R T I C L E The Problem of Mind-Body Dichotomy: A Critique of the Cartesian Approach John Gabriel Mendie | Udofia, Stephen Nwanaokuo 1P.hD Candidate, Department of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Cross River State. 2 Department of Philosophy, University Of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Abstract: The mind-body problem is a perennial philosophical problem that seeks to uncover the relationship or causal interaction that exists between the corporeal and incorporeal aspects of the human person. It thrives under the assumption that the human person is made up of two distinct entities, that is, mind and body, which explains their assumed causal relation. As attractive as this may seem, not all philosophers agree to this feigned idea of interaction and bifurcation of the human person. One philosopher of note, who sorts to address this problem in the 17th century, is René Descartes. For Descartes, minds and bodies are distinct kinds of substance, where bodies are spatially extended substances (a res extensa) and minds are unexpended substances characterised primarily by thought (a res cogitans). But, if minds and bodies are radically dissimilar, how could they causally interact? This paper therefore attempts to examine the philosophical foundations of Cartesian dualism. It also articulates the major arguments adopted by Descartes through his methodic doubts to address the mindbody problem. The paper concludes by highlighting some fundamental criticisms of Cartesian Interactionism in the light of recent trends in parapsychology and neuro-scientific research. Keywords: Human Person, Mind-Body Problem, Cartesian Interactionism, Parapsychology, Neuroscience INTRODUCTION Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the French born mathematician turned philosopher, was chiefly concerned with the disharmony that pervaded the house of philosophy. This disharmony, to him, unlike in the exact sciences of physics, geometry and mathematics (his original background), gave audience to skepticism to hold sway over every position philosophers had hitherto advanced even before his arrival to the scenery of philosophical discourse. Descartes' diagnosis of the skeptical challenge was that the skeptical confront was apparently unassailable, because prior philosophies had been anchored on shaky foundations. If this is the case, it should follow, for Descartes that if a solid foundation can be found upon which an epistemological edifice can be erected, then the arguments of the skeptics will no longer hold any water. Upon critical reflections, and having employed the methodic doubt as his intrumentum laborat (working tool) Descartes concluded that what this indubitable foundation upon which a philosophy immune from skepticism can be built on, is the ego or mind. Thus, the fact that one is involved in a process of doubt, cannot be logically doubted. The certainty of the doubting and the doubter is, therefore, self-evident. The mind which is effecting this self-evident activity and all beliefs emanating from it, therefore, becomes apodictic and self-evidently justified.iFrom the indubitability of the subsistence of the mind, 45 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) Descartes was able, in a manner akin to the mathematical sciences, to deduce the existence of the physical world which he believes interact with the mentalistic world of the mind. It is this aspect of the Cartesian philosophical project of mind-body interaction that this paper seeks to appraise. Before cutting into the chase, it will be apposite to commence our discourse with a brief review of the idea of personhood. ON THE ONTOLOGY OF THE HUMAN PERSON IN TRADITIONAL (WESTERN) PHILOSOPHY Ontology, or the study of being qua being, is the aspect of metaphysics that critically reflects on that which exists in reality. The word ontology is used to refer to philosophical investigation of existence, or being. Such investigation may be directed towards the concept of being, asking what 'being' means or what it is for something to exist; it may also be concerned with the question 'what exists?', or 'what general sort of things are there?' It is common to speak of a philosopher's ontology, meaning the kind of thing they take to exist, or the ontology of a theory, that is, the things that would have to exist for that theory to be true. ii With respect to the 'human person', philosophers have been concerned about putting rational arguments forward in support of their respective views to what really constitutes human nature, as opposed to illusions and myths. These concerted efforts have yielded some relevant ontological questions such as: What is a 'person' made up of? Is a person a physico-chemical entity amenable to pure scientific analysis? Isa person a purely spiritual or physical entity, or a union of both spiritual and physical substances? A plethora of answers have been put forward by philosophers down the ages and across cultures to attempt these questions. Plato, for instance, argues for a dualistic understanding of human nature. For him, a person is made up of soul and body. The soul is in the body not like form in matter, but as a mover in a mobile body. The soul is to the body what a captain is to a ship, that is, the captain governs the ship, but the captain is a being that is ontologically distinct from the ship and can exist when not on the ship. Hence, Plato was an uncompromising spiritualist for he reduced human nature to a purely spiritual entity.iiiThis explains why he had often been charged with the error of existence for relegating and excluding matter from the economy of existence.Aristotle argues for a rather complementary position by positing that, although human nature is made up of a subsisting soul (form) and a corruptible body (matter), the soul is the life-giving principle (primum principiumvitae) of the body and the body is the principle of individuation through which the soul achieves its basic function of intellection. Both components are substantially and hypostatically united to make up a person. ivThomas Aquinas, borrowing from Aristotle, also argues for a hylemorphic understanding of the human person. In his view, a person is substantially a union of soul (μορφή) and body (υλή), which though distinct are not separate.v On his part, David Hume believes thatspiritual and material substances are evenly inconceivable. His idea of personhood or human nature is summed up in his bundle theory, which states that, the mind is nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other in an inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement.vi Thus, the human person is ipso facto nothing but a bundle of perceptions. In contemporary time, a laboratory analysis of a person's anatomy will only reveal that a person is nothing other than a physico-chemical entity. If this is the case, how come our ordinary language seems to endorse a contrary view that there is something else – fundamentally 46 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) different from physico-chemical properties – that make us up, say spirit, mind, an ego or conscious-self that is not amenable to scientific and laboratory analysis? This ordinary language refutation of the position that we are merely physico-chemical entities is also endorsed by religion with its attendant teachings of 'after-life', God, angels, and so on. The physico-chemical ontology of the human person, among many other criticisms, seems to imply that a human person is no different from other physical entities in nature and hence is amenable to the mechanical laws of nature. If man is amenable to the mechanistic and, consequently, 'deterministic' laws of nature, then there is no 'freewill' basis for his or her moral actions and choices. Other objections against the physico-chemical ontology of the human person is that of the data of phenomena like 'Extra Sensory Perception', 'magic', 'Psycho-kinesis', 'Telepathy', 'Witchcraft', and so on, that have been suggested by scholars and researchers like Albert Mosleyvii and Sophie Oluwole,viii among a host of many others. In light of the preceding, if it is true that these phenomena subsist then the human person is not only a physico-chemical entity. Before we conclude our discussion in this part of the essay, it is crucial to note that "the view that the human person is essentially a physico-chemical entity (with diverse formulations) is a version of materialistic monism. Another version of such formulations is that of idealistic monism. This latter view of personhood holds that man, essentially, is only a spiritual entity. We need not rehearse the difficulty in maintaining a view like this, since it apparently denies that we have no physical bodies – and by extension the corporeal world is unreal. Interestingly, one may ask, where René Descartes fits into all these, taking to mind his bent towards a dualistic ontology. In what follows, the paper, attempts this question with a brief retrieval of the central arguments of Descartes'ontology of the human person. DESCARTES' ONTOLOGY OF THE HUMAN PERSON: A RETRIEVAL OF THE CENTRAL ARGUMENTS Without prejudice to the title of this section, let us quickly bear inmind that throughout the Meditations, Descartes' primary concern is epistemology, so he never stops tinkering with his theory of knowledge. As such, in the final three meditations, he moves from the epistemological problem of certainty to metaphysical questions about reality. These include the existence of God, the existence of the physical world, and the mind-body relationship. ixIt follows from the above that the Cartesian ontology of the human person can only be understood if we first discussed briefly, his theory of knowledge. Descartes, it will be recalled, had commenced his philosophical career with his disillusionment that there was no certain knowledge in the discipline. But as an 'epistemic optimist', he was not merely content to accept this apparent conclusion. He thought it will be prudent to 'sift' every piece of 'knowledge' he had hitherto acquired before he will affirm this pessimistic conclusion that knowledge was impossible. To perform this pretty onerous task of sifting all his former beliefs, Descartes chose to employ the attitude of the skeptics – those who deny that objective knowledge of reality (in any guise) is impossible. This attitude has been called, by commentators, the methodic doubt. While employing this 'methodic doubt', Descartes concludes, first, that all his former beliefs that derive from common sense experience, cannot provide him with certain knowledge on two grounds: one, sense experience often deceive us (optical illusions, for example).According to him, is it not "prudent never to trust completely those who have 47 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) deceived us even once?"x Besides this, even if we seem so sure of ourselves as being conscious beings, Descartes is quick to remind us of the sheer resemblance of dream and 'real life.' In light of this fact, he rhetorically queries us again: how do we know for certain that this so-called present 'real life' is not a long dream from which we might one day wake up from? Second, and lastly, Descartes avers that the seemingly apodictic proofs and conclusions of the mathematical sciences are not immune from doubt. His justification for this rather startling supposition is that it is not impossible, logically speaking, to imagine that an evilgenius has hitherto been feeding us with perpetual phantasmagoria about the 'truths' of our mathematical conclusions. But, are all things then uncertain, Descartes wonders? Descartes' answer to this question is, No. To him, even if all things are uncertain, the 'subject' behind this 'doubting' (or thinking) must be real, certain. This 'I' or Ego that doubts (thinks) must, therefore, exist – cogito ego sum, simpliciter! In an apparent reversal of the denial that there was no certain belief, Descartes now maintains that there is at least one certain belief – that is, the 'I' or 'Ego' or 'Mind' which is responsible for this self-evident activity of doubting. To Descartes, therefore, "even though there may be a deceiver of some sort who bends all his effort to keep me perpetually deceived, there can be no slightest doubt that I exist."xi Like the rationalists before him, Descartes, having gotten this indubitable knowledge of the subsistence of his mind, subsequently erects a knowledge edifice on it. His 'deduction' of other apodictic beliefs, like the physical world and God, from the indubitable subsistence of his mind, simultaneously represents his position on the ontology of the human person. To this, we now turn our beam in the subsequent paragraphs. What encapsulates Descartes' ontology primarily is his dualistic view of the human person. This is clear in his avowal that in him is found an "intelligence" whose nature was distinct from his body. He writes: I find in myself faculties employing modes of thinking peculiar to themselves, to wit, the faculties of imagination and feeling, which I can easily conceive myself clearly and distinctly as a complete being; while, on the other hand, they cannot be so conceived apart from me that is, without an intelligent substance in which they reside...I observe also in me some other faculties such as that of change of position, if it be true that they exist, they must be attached to some corporeal or extended substance, and not to an intelligent substance. There is certainly further in me a certain passive faculty of perception, that is, of receiving and recognizing the ideas of sensible things, but this would be useless to me seeing that it does not presuppose thought. It is thus necessarily the case that this faculty resides in some substance different from me. And this substance is either a body, that is, a corporeal nature...xii As expressed above, we can draw a distinction between the body and mind by expounding their characteristics in the aforementioned enunciation. Body, for Descartes would be a substance characterized primarily by extension; defined by a certain figure; can be confined in a certain place; can be perceived either by touch, by sight, by hearing, by taste, or by smell; and can be moved in many ways by something foreign to it. While Mind, would be a 48 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) substance characterised primarily by Thought. With this in mind, it would be sufficient to say that Descartes considered mind and body as two distinct substances. In view of this submission, three quintessential questions can be raised regarding Descartes' ontology: 1. If the body is a material substance or entity with extension as its essential feature, and the mind is a substance too, with thought as its own essence, then, how can interaction, that is, the "union" and "intermingling," between such ontologically different entities occur? If mind is unextended and matter is extended, how do they interact? 2. The second question follows directly from the first: where does this interaction take place, even if the possibility of interaction was to be valid? 3. A third question rests on the supposition of substance as defined by Descartes; where Descartes understood substance to be "nothing other than anything which exists in such a way as to depend on no other thing for its existence."xiii By this definition, can we strictly call mind and body substances contrary to Descartes' aboriginal expression? The notion of mind occupies a conspicuous stead in Descartes' ontology of the human person. The mind is a substance in which thought immediately resides. Descartes preferred the word mind to soul on the ground that he saw the latter as not only ambiguous but as often applied to something corporeal.xiv The mind however is a thing that thinks; an intelligence, intellect or reason. It is also the "first actuality" or "the principal form of man" which must be understood to apply only in virtue of which we think. Although Descartes demeans the word soul, we still see an interchangeable use of it in reference to the intrinsic principle of thought in the human being (mind). Apart from thoughts, nothing else can be attributed to the soul. There are two principal kinds of thought: actions of the soul on one hand, and its passions, on the other. Of the first kind, Descartes calls volitions, considering that we experience them as proceeding directly from our soul and as seeming to depend on it alone. The passions constitute those various perceptions or modes of knowledge present in us. They are called passions judging from the view that it is often not our souls that make them as they are, but in turn receives them from the things that are represented by them. xv A further division of the volition gives us the first part, those which consist of the actions of the soul which terminate in the soul itself, while the other consists in those actions which terminate in the body, as in locomotion.xvi In Descartes, there is the power of the soul with respect to the body and the power of the soul, with respect to its passions. The former, within the limits of volition is strictly within the power of the soul, and can only be changed indirectly by the body. The latter are absolutely dependent on the actions which produce them, and can be changed by the soul only indirectly, except when it is itself the cause.xvii Descartes goes further to distinguish between two faculties or principal properties of the soul, namely: the perception of the intellect (the act of sensory perception, imagination and pure understanding) and the determination of the will (desire, aversion, assertion, denial and doubt).xviii In his argument for immortality of the soul, Descartes maintains that since the mind is distinct from the body, and since the human soul is in its nature per se entirely independent of the body, it is consequently immortal and incorruptible.xix Rebuffing the arguments of some ancient philosophers about the plurality of souls in human beings, Descartes argues that there is only one soul in human beings, the rational soul; for no action can be reckoned human, unless they depend on reason. The vegetative power 49 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) and the power of moving the body, which are called the vegetative and sensory souls in plants and animals, exist also in human beings; but in the case of human beings, they should not be called souls because they are not the first principle of their actions, and they belong to a totally different genus from the rational soul.xxWith this argument in mind, Descartes affirms that the essence of man is mind (thoughts). He writes: "I knew nothing clearly as belonging to my essence excepting that I know no other thing which pertains to my essence. I do not admit in myself anything but mind, therefore, I am a thing that thinks or a thing that has in itself the faculty of thinking."xxi Descartes' distrust therefore covers everything, including his own body, an entirely different substance. Since he has already defined that he is, a thinking thing, he therefore finds it necessary to reject other aspects of his perceived existence to add up to his thesis: Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore, I am). From the foregoing, it is clear that the essence of man for Descartes is mind; this indicates a systematic rejection of the body and its attributes in the philosophical corpus of Descartes. Descartes further writes, "of these things(the body and its attributes), I found none of which I can say that it pertains to me. I am, I exist, that is certain. If I ceased entirely to think, I should likewise cease altogether to exist, hence to speak accurately, I am not more than a thing which thinks, that is to say a mind or a soul or an understanding or a reason. I am however a real thing and really exist; a thing that thinks."xxiiThis implies that all those that relate to the nature of body are nothing but dreams (and chimeras) and there is no argument for him, which the existence of the body can be necessarily deduced. Having espoused the nature of the mind, the essence of man, the place of matter and other related themes in his ontology, the onus was on Descartes to explain the causal relationship or interaction of mind and body. To this, he writes: "I contented myself with supposing that God formed the body of man altogether like ours, in the outward figure of its members as well as in the interior conformation of its organs, without making use of any matter other than that which I had described...(therefore) God created a rational soul and united it to the body in a particular manner."xxiiiThis union or interaction takes place in what Descartes calls the seat of interaction: the pineal gland. This gland corresponds to his description of the existence of, a small gland in the brain where the soul exercises its functions more particularly than in the other parts of the body. What influenced Descartes' choice was his convictions via observation, that all the other parts of our brain, except the pineal gland, are double, as also are all the other organs of our external sense.xxiv We can easily understand that images or other impressions are unified in this gland by means of the animal spirits xxv which fill the cavities of the brain. But they cannot exist in this way in any other place in the body, except as a result of being in its gland. As seen ex post facto, despite the separate, irreducible, subsistence of mind and body, Descartes believes that they causally affect or causally interact with each other. The mind wills to sing and the mouth necessarily carries out the order. Similarly, the body, say nostrils, perceives the aroma of scrambled eggs and bread, and the mind starts to feel hungry, and so on. Essentially, "my mind is capable of putting my body into motion and vice versa."xxvi The obvious consequence of this position, which Descartes himself saw, is to ask exactly how an unextended, non-physical, mind can 'affect' (or 'interact' with) an extended, physical, body. And granted that they interact, exactly where is the location of this alleged interaction? Descartes' answer that the pineal gland, which is located at the base of the brain (effectively explains this how and where questions of interaction) – provokes further problems. Let us 50 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) suspend our critique of the Cartesian thesis of mind-body interaction till the next section of our discourse. In the interim, suffice it to say that the rationale behind Descartes' position on the of the human person is his background as a persona of faith (religion) and science. His catholic background privileges the doctrines of 'after-life' and freedom of the will, while his scientific background thrives on the assumption that all inanimate objects in the physical world (including man's body) follow a deterministic course. It was in a bid to reconcile these counter theses, which he found quite persuasive, that Descartes advanced his interactionist thesis of mind-body relationship. THE CARTESIAN PROJECT OF MIND-BODY INTERACTION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS The principal merit that can be adduced in favor of the Cartesian interactionist theory of psycho-physical dualism which our former analysis seems to have thrown up is that it preserves the notion of 'freewill (volition)' upon which the twin worlds of ethical theorizing and religious beliefs are founded. It also presents supplementary knowledge on the ontological status of the mind and its functional attributes. Beyond this, however, the theory throws up a plethora of insuperable difficulties. As earlier intimated, Descartes' position that mind-body interaction takes place in the 'pineal gland' is problematic. It is asked: is the pineal gland a physical or non-physical thing? If it is the former, then exactly how does a non-physical mind 'act' on it, and vice versa? Till date, this problem assails the staunchest protagonist of the view of Descartes. Until Descartes, or his adherents are able to show us "how a non-spatial (unextended) substance, which cannot thereby be in motion, can cause the motion of an extended substance, or how motions in our bodies can cause changes in consciousness,"xxvii his views will still be clouded in a penumbra of irreconcilable difficulties. On his part, Gilbert Ryle, writing in the 20th century, gave a sustained criticism of the Cartesian theory of interactionism. As a prelude to his own favored theory of mind which has been tagged Logical Behaviorism, Ryle took it as a necessary condition, the task of dismantling the Cartesian epistemological cum metaphysical edifice. According to Ryle, the Cartesian theory of mind-body interaction, which he calls the official doctrine, is guilty of a special charge, namely, the 'Category Mistake.' In submitting that the human mind is like a 'ghost in a machine,' Descartes, Ryle thinks, painted a fundamentally flawed picture of the human person because he "represents the fact of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category (or range of types or categories), when they actually belong to another." xxviii Hence: It is perfectly proper to say, in one logical tone of voice that there exist minds and to say...that there exist bodies. But these expressions do not indicate two different species of existence, for 'existence' is not a generic word like 'colored' or 'sexed.' They indicate two different senses of 'exist,' somewhat as rising has different senses in 'the tide is rising', 'hopes are rising', and 'the average age of death is rising.xxix To Ryle, the mind is not to be construed in terms of an occult entity but, rather, is to be gleaned from the actual 'behaviors' of a person. "The cleverness of the clown", Ryle states, "may be exhibited in his tripping and tumbling."xxxAgainst Ryle's criticism of Cartesian interactionism, Olatunji Oyeshile argues that, "it is... doubtful whether Ryle has succeeded in 51 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) explaining the mind-body relationship as well as the ontological status of the mind." xxxi The doubt Oyeshile is speaking of here, derives from the fact that Ryle's Behaviorist program of mind, fails to square with the data of acting or mimicry and other 'make believe' behaviors. Aside from Ryle's criticism of Cartesian interactionism above, there are pockets of other difficulties to note. For instance, some critics of Cartesian interactionism think its bifurcation of the human person into two parts (mental and physical) violates Ockham's principle of parsimony according to which we are forbidden from the postulation of many entities when it is unnecessary to do so.xxxii Also, it has been pointed out that Cartesian interactionsim apparently violates the principle of conservation of energy. According to this view, energy ought to be lost if indeed a bodily event produces (by way of an 'interaction') mental effects. Since there has been no report of any depletion in the amount of energy in the universe, according to energy scientists, it must follow that no such interactions take place.xxxiii Much worse for Descartes is his presumption that apodictic beliefs are derivable. Richard Rortyxxxiv and W.V.O. Quine,xxxv amongothers, dismiss Descartes' quest for an infallible epistemology as pseudo quest, for it ignores the facticity of man's fallibility. Cartesian interactionist thesis, a product of the 'infallible notion of mind,' seems to be an exercise in futility. This is the case because: It fails to properly investigate the essence of the whole foundationalist programme which is to argue against the fallibilists. Since man is fundamentally a fallible being, it can be very difficult to seek to establish that man can have an infallible idea (say, the infallible idea off an apodictic mind).xxxvi Richard Rorty, writing in his hugely influential work, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature(1979) also rejected Descartes' theory of mind-body interaction. According to him, "... the conception of the 'mind' as a separate substance in which mental processes are located, far from being a concept based on direct experience, is an 'invention' of Descartes, which has misled philosophers since his time."xxxvii In 'deconstructing' Cartesian interactionism, Rorty postulates a hypothetical world, "antipodea" whose inhabitants have no concept of mind. These antipodeans, according to Rorty, express their mentalistic feelings by referring, instead, to the neural states of their brains and central nervous system (CNS). xxxviii Of course, I am not unaware of the many criticisms that have been leveled against Rorty's ideas here. But what is worth stressing, with respect to our purposes in this essay, is that Rorty rejects Cartesian psycho-physical dualism and also clearly favors the scientific worldview of personhood. The 'problem of other minds', or solipsism, is another criticism that has been leveled against Cartesian interactionsim. According to advocatesof this criticism, one immediate consequence of Descartes' theory is that one can only have knowledge of oneself or selfenclosed world, while the external world and other people (or minds) being currently figments of imagination. If Descartes' position is rightly interpreted as solipsism, then the question that necessarily emanates from this is: Do not other persons also exist in the sense Descartes exist? If they do exist, then it follows that they too, like Descartes, have minds. If this is the case, then a more insuperable question that inevitably arises from this answer is: What are the possibilities of our having knowledge of other minds in the same way in which we also have knowledge of our own mind? This 'problem of other minds' that Cartesian interactionism engenders is not merely about whether other persons have minds but, more technically, about 52 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) how we know that they do have minds. As broached by J.L. Austin, "I may say I believe other minds exist but that does not mean that I know them all. (This is because) in philosophical discourse the existence of your alleged beliefs is not challenged, but the existence of your alleged knowledge is challenged."xxxix It is important to note that neither René Descartes nor his protagonists have been able to put forward adequate answers to these difficulties. Their various theories, for example the Analogical, Linguistic and Intuitive theories are all riddled with theoretical difficulties and as a result have made this problem, till date, seemingly unassailable.xl One last criticism of Descartes' theory of mind-body interaction that is worthy of note has been raised by Gabriel Vacariu. Vacariu thinks that "even if most people consider, ontologically, the mind as a physical entity, many of them do not admit the epistemological reduction of the mind to the brain."xli He argues that the 'error' of these ('reductionist') researchers derive from their belief in a mono-ontological world (or 'unicorn' world, as he calls it) when the reality is actually that of a 'multiverse' ontological world. In this erroneous belief in the subsistence of a 'unicorn' world, argues Vacariu, is both Descartes and (his chief opponents) cognitive neuroscientists. On the basis of Vacariu's sweeping rejection of the views of modern science, as well as Cartesian interactionism, he advances the view that the phenomena of 'mind' and 'body' (or brain) belong to 'Epistemologically Different Worlds' (EDWs). From the EDWs' perspective, states Vacariu, the phenomena of mind and brain exist separately and canonly be apprehended (or known) in different terms. The one is, internal and can only be had through 'representation,' whereas the other can be observed through the perceptual or laboratory mechanisms of positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI). Given this reality, therefore: It is not possible to locate epistemologically different ontological substances within the same world (as Descartes wanted). In this case, the position of elements must be preserved: new conditions of observation require new entities within the new worlds, but what kind of worlds? It is not about ontological, many, multiverse or possible worlds, but about "epistemological different worlds" (EDWs).xlii To this philosopher, therefore, the mind-body problem, an 'error' from Cartesian interactionism, is a pseudo-problem. So, is cognitive neuroscience (including psychology, psychiatry, and so on), as well as all versions of identity/materialistic theories (for example, Central State Materialism, Logical Behaviorism, Brain Process materialism, and so on). Mental states could only correspond to entities that belong to other EDWs; they are not identical, produced or supervene on states of other hyperontological status. With the EDWs perspective, we have to move from ontological and/or epistemological frameworks in analyzing different classes of entities to a hyperontological framework. Thus, the EDWs perspective rejects the Cartesian dualism, the identity theory and all the nonreductionist approaches.xliiiOther traditional theories that can also be pitched against Cartesian interactionismand its cognates includes: 'Psycho-physical Parallelism,'xliv'Panpyschism'xlv 'Actualism (phenomenism),'xlvi'Agnosticism'xlvii'Epiphenomenalism','Occasionalism' and 'Pre-established Harmony.' We will not discuss these positions in detail in this paper. Our justification for this deliberate desert is because, they all suffer, more or less, from the same defects that Descartes' own theory had– especially from the point of view of physicalism. 53 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) PARAPSYCHOLOGY, NEUROSCIENCE AND CARTESIAN INTERACTIONIST THEORY OF MIND. Parapsychology is the scientific investigation of paranormal and psychic phenomena including telepathy, clairvoyance, near-death experiences, precognition, psychokinesis, reincarnation, synchronicity, apparitional experiences and other paranormal claims.xlviiiPhilosophers of mind, or parapsychologists, researchers in the allied fields of neuroscience (scientific study of the nervous system) and artificial intelligence (AI), since the last century (and especially the present) have been able to put forward luminous statements of research whose theoretical coherence and experimental qualities now threaten the views of people like Descartes and other so-called 'religious philosophers (of mind).' In this circle of influence are personages like Gilbert Ryle and his theory of 'Logical Behaviorism' (that we earlier considered); J.J.C. Smart and U.T. Place and their theory of 'Brain Process Materialism,xlixand David M. Armstrong's 'Central State Materialism.' Others are Jerome Schaffer, Keith Campbell, Herbert Feigl, as well as Alan Turing and F.H. George in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).Interestingly, some of these recent trends, through their theoretical coherence and experimental qualities seem to advance a physicalist outlook to the mind-body problem. Physicalism, simply put, is the position that everything is physical. It is a thesis about the nature of reality. Contemporary philosophers, sometimes refer to physicalism, as expressing the thesis that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. l This could mean that everything, no matter how it appears to us, will ultimately be accounted for physically. In philosophy of mind, 'Identity theory of mind' represents a very strong version of a physicalist account of the mind. According to J.J.C. Smart, the identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain. Strictly speaking, it need not hold that the mind is identical to the brain.li As espoused by U.T. Place, Herbert Feigl and J.J.C. Smart, the identity theory of the mind, is sometimes referred to as, brain process materialism, because these philosophers, hold that sensations are identical with brain processes. The theory, denies the existence of any irreducible non-physical property of the mind. U.T. Place, in his Magnum opus, "Is Consciousness A Brain Process?"argues that the thesis 'consciousness, is identifiable with certain processes in the brain', and is a reasonable scientific hypothesis. Place, suggested, that we can identify consciousness with a given pattern of brain activity.liiThree years after Place' article, J.J.C. Smart published an article titled, Sensations and Brain Processes. In this article, Smart, defends Place' position and hopes to put the argument that, 'consciousness is identifiable with brain process', in a more nearly unobjectionable form. His basic claim in the article is that, "in so far as a sensation statement is a report of something, that something is in fact a brain process, sensations are nothing over and above brain processes." liii The identity theory (Central-State Materialism), as fleshed out by David Armstrong in his "A Materialist Theory of the Mind", maintains that mental states, beliefs and desires, are identical with the states of the central nervous system. Armstrong further argues that, if the mind is thought of as 'that, which has mental states,' then we can, on this theory (of centralstate materialism) say, that the mind is simply, the central nervous system, or less accurately but more epigrammatically, the mind is simply the brain.liv Mental states here are identifiable with physico-chemical states of the central nervous system. Suffice it to say here that all these permutations are direct responses to the undoing of previous dualistic (i.e Platonic and 54 GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Vol. 1(2) (2018) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3463785) Cartesian) attempts to factor out a dependable corpus in the herculean task of unearthing the ontology of human person. CONCLUSION We set out in this paper to discuss the Cartesian approach and contributions to the mind-body problem. In discussing this, the paper critically examined the central arguments of Cartesian interactionism and carefully highlighted some criticisms besetting Descartes' approach. The paper also identified some recent trends in parapsychology and neuroscientific research to stifle the Cartesian project. Admittedly, a relationship among self, mind and body in humans is still not clearly known in philosophy and science because of the absence of germane human data that adequately facilitates an objective explanation. Teachings connected to their relationship in religions have been given in general and subjective terms. Consequently, philosophers and scientists have been investigating to find objective proofs related to their relationship.lv Recent findings in neuroscience, by their physicalist approach, seem to construe the mind-body problem as a pseudo-problem. But, their monistic and materialistic account of human person fails to square with the data of phenomena like precognition (in dreams, for example), out of body experiences, near death experiences, telepathy and many other concerns. Given their inadequacies, Descartes ought to be credited for articulating foundational knowledge on the ontological status of the mind and its functional attributes. Beyond this, neither Descartes nor his detractors can be said to have adequately succeeded in offering an objectively reliable account of the human person. Thus, the project of personhood or the discourse on human nature remains a perennial philosophical mission. Endnotes 55 iKolawole Owolabi, "Edmund Husserl's Rehabilitation of Cartesian Foundationalism: A Critical Analysis". In Indian Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XXII, No. 1 (January, 1995), pp. 13-14. ii Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Routledge Publishers, 1998), p. 6199. iii Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy vol.1 (New York: A Division of Doubleday & Company, 1962), p. 232 iv Aristotle, De Anima, Translated by Kenelm Foster, Silvester Humphries and Ivo Thomas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951). 430a, 15-25 v Thomas Aquinas, SummaTheologiae, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. (New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1947). I, q.75, a.2 vi David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by Ernest C. Messner. (England: Penguin Books, 1969). Book I, Part IV vii See Albert Mosley, "The Metaphysics of Magic: Practical and Philosophical Implications". In Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy, vol. VII, Nos. 1&2 (Jan. & July, 1978), pp. 3-19. viii See Sophie B. Oluwole, "On the Existence of Witches". In Second Order: An African Journal of Philosophy, Vol. VII, Nos. 1&2 (Jan. & June, 1978), pp. 20-35 ix William F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy (Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth publishers, 2002), pp. 232-3. x W.F. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery, op. cit. p. 230. xi Rene Descartes, "Meditations on First Philosophy". In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 1985), p. 14. xiiRené Descartes "Meditations", in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 190 xiiiRené Descartes, "Principles of Philosophy" In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols., trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 210 xiv Ibid., p. 115 xv Cf. René Descartes, "Passions of the soul" In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols., trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 335. xvi Ibid., p.343. xvii Ibid., pp.343-345. xviii Cf. René Descartes, "Principles of Philosophy" Op. Cit, p. 204. xix Cf. René Descartes, "Replies to the Second Objection" In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols., trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 91, 103, 118 xxRené Descartes, "Reply to Regius" In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols., trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 182 xxi Cf. René Descartes "Meditations", Op. Cit., pp.149-157 xxii Ibid., pp.151-152 xxiiiRené Descartes "Discourse on Method", in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, Translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp.109-110. xxiv Descartes further affirms: "My view is that this gland is the principal seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed. The reason I believe this is that I cannot find any part of the brain except this which (...) is not double. Again, since it is the only solid part of the whole brain which is single, it must necessarily be the seat of the common sense, that is, of thought and consequently of the soul." Cf. René Descartes, "To Mersenne, 24 December, 1640" In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols., trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p.162. xxv Animal spirits consists "of a certain fine wind or rather a very lively and pure flame", which is found in the blood. This part of the blood without any preparation or alteration except for their separation from the coarser parts and their retention of the extreme rapidity which the heat of the heart has given them, cease to have the form of blood. These spirits enter into the cavities of the brain, passing from there into the pores of its substance and from these pores, into the nerves. Motion in the human body is therefore explained by Descartes with the firing of the animal spirits into the various parts of the body, through the brain. Cf. René Descartes, "Treatise on Man" In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols., trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p.100 xxvi W. Lawhead, The Voyage of Discovery, op. cit. p.232. xxvii Roger Scruton, Philosophy and Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy (London: University College Press, 1993), p. 86. xxviii Gibert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson House, 1949), p. 17. xxixIbid. p. 23. xxxIbid. p. 116. xxxi Olatunji Oyeshile, "The Problem of Mind". In K.A. Olu-Owolabi (ed.) Issues and Problems in Philosophy (Ibadan: GROVACS Network, 2007), p. 108. xxxiiIbid. p. 109. xxxiiiIbid. p. 107. xxxiv See Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). xxxv See W.V.O. Quine, "Epistemology Naturalized", op. cit. xxxvi K. A. Owolabi, "Edmund Husserl's Rehabilitation of Cartesian Foundationalism", op. cit. p. 21. xxxvii Kenneth T. Gallagher, "Rorty's Antipodeans: An Impossible Illustration?" in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 45, No. 3 (Mar., 1985), pp. 449-455. xxxviii R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, op. cit., pp. 70-72. xxxix Quoted in John Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy (New York: Basic Books, 1967), p. 463. xlSee H.H. Price, "Our Evidence for the Existence of Other Minds' in Philosophy, vol. XII (1938), pp. 425-456. xli Gabriel Vacariu, "The Mind-Body Problem Today" in Open Journal of Philosophy, vol. 1, No. 1 (2011), p. 26. Available online at DOI:10.4236/ojpp.2011.11005 xliiIbid., p. 27. xliiiIbid., p. 33. xliv Body and soul are complete substances which do not act upon each other. It holds that between the series of events in the soul (psychic events) and the series of events in the body (physical events) there is a perfect parallelism, so that whenever something happens in the soul, there is a corresponding occurrence in the body, and vice versa. This was thoroughly explicated in Malebranche's theory of Occasionalism. xlv Otherwise known as monistic parallelism, claims that body and soul are but two aspects of one fundamental reality. The basic stuff of reality, being, possesses two sides which always occur together: a psychic side and a physical side. If all reality possesses a physical and a psychic side, the Supreme Reality will not constitute an exception to this rule. Hence, God too must have some material, bodily, physical aspect. He must be extended in space. The greatest proponent of Panpsychism is Baruch Spinoza a Jewish-Dutch philosopher. xlvi Only the body is a substance; what is called "soul" is but a collection of psychic phenomena. Hume's statement on this subject matter is famous. Man he says is "nothing but a collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement...." Cf. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, part IV, Section VI. (William James held similar views). xlvii The soul may be a substance, but we cannot demonstrate this by theoretical reason. This is Kant's objection. He admitted that the human mind, following its natural bent, inevitably reaches the conclusion that the human soul exists as a substance. Yet the conclusion is false, and the reasoning which leads to it is a "paralogism of pure reason". xlviiiSchmeidler, G.R. 2018. Parapsychology. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Retrieved November 17, 2018, from https://www. encyclopedia.com/socialsciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/pa rapsychology xlix See U.T. Place, "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?" in The British Journal of Psychology, vol. XLVII (1956), pp. 44-50. See, also, J.J.C. Smart, "Sensations and Brain Processes" in C.V. Borst (ed.) The Mind/Brain Identity Theory (London: Macmillan, 1970). lStoljar, D. 2001. Physicalism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 10, 2016, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ li Smart, J. J. C. 2007. The Mind/Brain identity Theory. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved June 10, 2016, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mindidentity/ lii Cf. U. T. Place. 1956. Is Consciousness A Brain Process? British Journal of Psychology 47.1: 44-50. liii J. J. C. Smart. 1959. Sensations and Brain Processes. The Philosophical Review 68.2: 141-156. liv D. M. Armstrong. 1968. A Materialist Theory of The Mind. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. 73. lv Sung Jang Chung, "The Science of Self, Mind and Body" in Open Journal of Philosophy, vol. 2, No. 3 (2012), p. 171. Available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2012.


HYBRIS nr 47 (2019) ISSN: 1689-4286 ADRIAN MRÓZ UNIWERSYTET JAGIELLOŃSKI AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA1 [...] artists have a very specific responsibility: it is in the work of art that what constitutes the libido makes itself most purely visible. What is the work of an artist-say, a painter? To produce an eye. The eye is not simply that which is found in the eye socket in the skull. No more than the tongue is only in the mouth. The tongue [la langue], the organ that is in our mouth, is our tongue, not a cat's tongue [langue de chat], only inasmuch as it also produces language [la langue]. As for our eye, it is painting, sculpture, architecture, the entire visibility of that which has been seen by those who have seen it only to the extent that they knew how to bring it to sight, that weaves it into a noetic eye-and by which it transindividualizes itself. Just as the tongue/language [la langue] is constructed, the spiritual eye that visible works give us to see is woven by the hands of artists. Therein it appears that a noetic organ always forms a system with one or several other organs that are themselves as such noetic, and that what links them passes outside the body, through a social body that is woven by a tekhnē: the tongue with the hand of the writer, the eye with the hand of the painter, the ear with the hand and the eye of the musician, and so on -all of which is articulated by words, papers, brushes, pianos, and other instruments." (Stiegler, 2011, p. 227-228). 1. A General Description of Aesthetic Dissonance The state of violating preexisting mindsets concerning experience related to aesthetics-cultural conditioning concerning human relationships with art, sensation, sensibility, attraction and repulsion, 1 This article was presented at The Nordic Society of Aesthetics, Annual Meeting 2018 in Paris, May 31June 2, 2018. ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA pleasure and suffering, patterns of choice and preferences, judgements, practices, and emotional values, or "knowledge"-subsists in an existential state of discord between an experienced perceptual act and the expected aesthetic experience, which gives rise to something unforeseen or unexpected: it is perplexing, mystifying, and disorientating. This dynamic, which I will call Aesthetic Dissonance, is imperative to aesthetic responses and a relative of cognitive dissonance and sensory dissonance. Cognitive dissonance results from a conflicting worldview and concerns psychological stress of an individual performing an action, or confronted with new information, that is in disagreement with personal beliefs, ideas, values, or emotions. It is frequented by what Dan Ariely calls predictable irrationality, where an individual's formation subverts rationality by unconsciously adapting a behavior pattern, which alters preferences in spite of the availability of other options. This results in the act of an individual criticizing their object of desire as worthless, which is commonly known from Aesop's fable The Fox and the Grapes by the idiom of "sour grapes", which I can also see to be diffracted as a form of miswanting utilized by commercial marketing and advertising industries, objects of indifference and/or misery are cherished as valuable, which we might call "sweet lemons"2. Sensory dissonance, on the other hand, usually refers to musical phenomena; however, here I will adopt it as an expanded synonym for Fredrick Matthias Alexander's notion of "debauched kinesthesia" or faulty sensory appreciation3. According to him "All people whose kinaesthetic systems are debauched and delusive develop some form of perversion or abnormality in sensation" (Alexander, 1946a, p. 42). This 2 According to the Urban Dictionary "sweet lemons" is "an idiom that is roughly the inverse of 'sour grapes', though much rarer: insisting that something unpleasant is in fact desirable, esp. if it was actively sought for earlier." Example of usage: "I know the guy's miserable at work, but he keeps telling me he loves it. Sweet lemons, right?". See: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sweet%20lemons) 3 "I had proved in my own case and in that of others that instinctive control and direction of use had become so unsatisfactory, and the associated feeling so untrustworthy as a guide, that it could lead us to do the very opposite of what we wished to do or thought we were doing. If, then, as I suspected, this untrustworthiness of feeling was a product of civilized life, it would tend, as time went on, to become more and more a universal menace, in which case a knowledge of the means whereby trustworthiness could be restored to feeling would be invaluable." (Alexander, 1946b, p. 22). [2] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA relates to the unreliability of subjective feelings, since that what "feels right" or is habitually formed and comfortable, is in conflict with new experience, or what "feels wrong" or uncomfortable. Its fault lies in an instinctive form of misdirection, which results in a malformation of bodily sense that requires behavioral re-formation due to mislearned habits of psychosomatic sensation. The perception of the physical self is unreliable, thus humans must supplement themselves with external techniques, which subjectively feels "wrong" during the early stages of practice, yet in itself this negative feeling is a delusion in regard to any objectivity, since such feelings arise from relativity. The negative sensations have not yet become habitually internalized, both judgement and execution need to be synchronized. What feels comfortable, familiar, or "right" can switch places with that, which feels uncomfortable, strange, or "wrong", hence processes supersede products. This rests at the heart of acquiring knowledge in learning the know-how of different fields of producing art objects (such as musical performances and skills) necessary for the lovers of art, the amateurs4. Aesthetics is thought of as not only a theory of art or beauty, but also includes sensibility, experience, judgement, and relationships. It is regarded as widely as possible in terms of aisthesis (gr. α σθησιςἴ ). Aesthetic dissonance is the case of the mutual interaction between cognitive dissonance according to the cognition or reception of art objects and that of sensory dissonance in terms of the production of art objects. This implies the capability of what Stiegler refers to as the continuous reformation of aesthetics as a communal discovery of an alterity or otherness (fr. l'altérité) of feeling and in its becoming a promising future5. I would add that this consists in the quality of what is Other, the recognition of the other in its différance, whether ethnic, social, cultural, political, or religious. Sensory dissonance is a psychosomatic phenomenon that signals the presence of sensual otherness. Instead of intuitively resolving this dissonance, the trick is to take the step into the being with dissonance. In terms of art it could be said that it is approached with expectations formed on previous experience. Those expectations can be fulfilled, but they also could lead to surprise or offend presumptions and expectations. Techniques of 4 I would like to make a note that I use the term amateur in Bernard Stiegler's interpretation. See (Stiegler, 2017b). 5 « pour découvrir l'altérité du sentir, son devenir porteur d'avenir. » (Stiegler, 2005). [3] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA shocking anticipations result in art objects, which are among others funny, confusing, intimidating, or a maddening hot mess. The experience of sensory dissonance demands to take care of the cognitive dissonance that conditions comfort, attitudes, and habits. It demands to pause, break, and stop. It calls for a re-cognition of the object of art. This is especially true for the performance or production of art objects. Consider the situation of knowing-how to do something, but without being able to trust if you can-do it to reliably achieve it when you will it into being. Similarly, it can be thought that imagined knowledge about some action does not lead to producing desired aeffects 6. Or the opposite, the ability to do something without understanding or being able to put into words by the active intellect or nous (gr. νοῦς) about how it was accomplished. In my experience as a music teacher, I have encountered explanations by students that they know how to play a piece, yet can't reliably execute it, explaining away that their practicing at home was much more successful than the performance during a lesson. A slip into a narrow form of aesthetic dissonance has occurred on the level of the individual confronted with the violation of what is habitually felt as normal, and with what their beliefs about their actions are. It is an important signal. It prefigures intentionally giving yourself permission to take care of Other or unfamiliar and strange feelings, which arouse within the body. This psychosomatic feedback is an opportunity, which allows for the consideration and reflection on the acting upon the revelation of surprise or of unexpected information about the current set of circumstances. In the case of a music instructor, it is an act of engaging in the aesthetic sensibility of the other. I believe this phenomenon can be looked at on the level of the community, even a globalized one. If, instead, an art object comfortably reinforces previous patterns of behavior and thought, then it is what August Schulenburg calls entertainment, and what I would add, be part of a system belonging to the industries of producing culture. In my reading, Schulenburg continues by claiming that the force of cognitive dissonance brought into consciousness is transformative if we remain in the being with dissonance, which has the power to push an individual towards a reformation of cognitive beliefs. I claim that the same holds true for 6 As both affect and effect. [4] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA sensory dissonance, where the experienced friction necessitates a change of belief about what feels "right" on the somatic level. Schulenburg calls the act of forcing change of belief in regard to "uncomfortable truths in our minds" to be art and considers entertainment as the conditioning that reinforces prior belief. The criteria of distinguishing art from entertainment is dissolved, wherein the condition of cognitive dissonance that is produced by an art object within its deceptive pleasure is decided by cultural, social, technological, ethnic, political, and mundane contexts. The shifting contexts insist on what is art and what is entertainment. So, a singular art object is a singularity that manifests itself as either art or entertainment or both. So, cognitive dissonance is to values as sensory dissonance is to behavior. Their combined aeffects results in the experience of aesthetic dissonance, which has always been conditioned and mediated by nonexistent or imagined art objects. What we perceive is learned, conditioned by our environment in its totality as an external milieu and through the formation of the senses themselves, as can be observed in the differences in color perception across cultures, differences in values such as the relationship between the individual and Others, perceptions of emotions, perceptions of reality, and other aeffects arising from culturally conditioned pre-behavioral processes of perception and cognition. 2. A Reading of Aesthetic War and Symbolic Misery The major political question of tomorrow is, then, that of artists, who have a very important role to play in an aesthetic war that will be carried out with new arms-those of transindividuation. (Stiegler, 2011, p. 235). Bernard Stiegler's approach to aesthetics is at the same time an approach to politics, for him the separation of the artworld from policymaking and politics from the discipline of aesthetics is a disaster. Aesthetics in the widest sense of the word is concerned with general feeling and sensibility, within which the sense experiences of the Other are retained at the core of aesthetic objects, such as those created by artists. Politics in turn is concerned with sympathy (gr. συμπάθεια – sympátheia) or fellow feeling, which establishes affection or affinity, and [5] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA a relationship with the Other, or the circumstance-of and manner in which an individual is related to an-other. Politics conditions the ability to feel together, a degree of mutual feeling, within which concern and care are implied, a desire to reduce negative feelings the Other(s) experience(s), a sharing of emotion. A political practice is orientated towards unification for a desired common future, which is united through feeling and the capability of a collected ability to love, which is a sharing of the aesthetic, the sensibilities and feelings. In my understanding of Stiegler's writing, the act of severing such relationships, by something that "casts through" by means of calumniation, which malignantly and unjustly hurts and condemns the possibility of feeling together or sympathy is diabolic. The words symbol (sym-ballo, gr. συμ-βάλλω) and diabol (dia-ballo, gr. δια-βάλλω) are etymologically related. Particularly, that which brings together, forms community, a meeting, or union is a symbolon (gr. σύμβολον), whereas its etymological opposite can be called the diabolon (gr. διάβολον), which introduces division, estrangement, falling-out, and separation. I claim that just as symbols are the condition of eudaimonia (ε δαιμονία), diabols are the condition of ὐ dysdaimonia (gr. δυσδαιμονία7). Aesthetic dissonance is an experience, which can become either diabolical or symbolical depending on circumstances, relationships, devices and context. It leads to a re-formation of habits, beliefs, behavior, values, and institutions. The experienced violation of aesthetic expectations can be done in such a manner that it conditions 7 „The noun δυσδαιμονία and especially the adjective δυσδαίμων are common enough, and they are usually taken to indicate unhappiness or misery; hence, the translation of δυσδαιμονο σιν offered above has been "unhappy men." Yet, the reiteration of theῦ chiasmus of men and gods in the participle δυσδαιμονο σιν entails that the secondῦ compound, δαίμων, meaning god, has to be retained. And it has to be retained in a manner that brings the action in the participle to the fore. From one point of view, this makes the participle impossible to translate. And yet, simultaneously, it makes the participle a very accurate description of the ψος that characterizes the subject as itὕ becomes involved in the divine but without rescinding the human. From this latter perspective, the subject becomes an allegorical function. What differentiates the subject from the gods, as the presence of the prefix δυσindicates, is the presence of unhappiness, unfulfillment, incompletion. However, this "disaster" for humankind may not be so disastrous after all: for it is the absence of such a prefix that banishes the gods from good fortune, so that their misfortune (τυχίαν) is everlasting. For humans, on the other hand, there is an end point that can redeem them: the harbor of death. This point provides the interruption between the eternity of godly misfortune and the particularity of human unhappiness" (Vardoulakis, 2010, p. 99-100). [6] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA its aeffects, which is to say it is an aeffect of that, which grants significance, powers or authority to cults and religions, as well as to philosophers, healers, magicians, rhetoricians, and poets. The empowering, impactful, dangerous, and trans-formative pharmaka are not only remedies and poisons, but also a supplement, an antidote, a drug or narcotic, a sacrament, a source of intoxication, madness, ecstasy, and trance, or a device such as talismans, amulets, wine, cosmetics, paint, dies, perfumes, poetry, and in my conviction, music. The inability to feel with, or care about, the Other is diabolic. The role of aesthetic dissonance would be to take care and transform the diabolic into the symbolic. This leads us to Stiegler's question of symbolic misery. It is a shortage of symbolic exchange resulting in feeling of no longer being someone, being a nobody, a defective libidinal economy of desire. I understand this as analogous to time poverty. Time poverty results from the exploitation of free time, of Aristotelian schole (gr. σχολή), which is colonized by external efficient or productive ends that occupy the intrinsically good noble leisure, thus it occupies the condition necessary for eudaimonia, resulting in dysdaimonia, since such activities separate us from community and from the time needed to love oneself. Stiegler's idea of symbolic misery consists in a poverty of communal feeling, an underdevelopment of the aesthetic since, in his terms, it is originally "engaged" in the sensibility of the Other, or the sharing of sensory experience, cognition and feelings. Individuals don't feel part of a society or part of undergoing events of the world. Symbolic violence is ensued through a loss of individuation and participation in the creation of symbols. Such social isolation creates a mass case of collapse: the separation of individuals, for whom the experience of misery is universal, yet not shared. I believe this is signalized by studies that show the epidemical and shocking rise in depression, loneliness, or being in the state that Sherry Turkle called "alone together", and a general unhappiness or ill-being, which definitely is one of the greatest problems humanity needs to face in the 21st century. I think the aeffects of such isolation emerge through crises, violence, suicide, terrorism, or the general seeking redemption via the absolute form of interruption, which is through Death, since dys-daimonia cuts mortals off from the infinite immortality of spirits, who are plagued with everlasting misfortune. This sight is part of the field of aesthetic war. [7] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA The war is foremost a conflict of values, that of the market and that of "spirit". Marketing and advertising are a hegemonic force that fight to capture human attention and desire, which are fundamental for "spirit". Those suffering from symbolic misery, which is composed of humiliation and offence, are subject to aesthetic conditioning, which is segregating, alienating or diabolic, which replaces aesthetic experience and renders it impossible, decomposing it into drives. The aesthetic is dis-ordered. The aesthetic war is a stasis (gr. στάσις) that means political standing, faction, as well as civil war. Stasis sets humans against each other, a division rising from political standing with the nastiest of overtones. There is a struggle in contemporary society between domains of social life like family and politics. One case encompasses Stiegler's observation that an individual's sensibilities, the emotional and aesthetic dimension, have been functionalized to make a consumer. Such a process is part of an everlasting functionalization and defunctionalization process, which modifies the psycho-physiological sense organs and art, its history, artefacts, symbols, and works. Aesthetic power is shaped by the body, artificial organs composed of techniques, objects, tools, instruments and art, and by social organs of emergent institutions, which for Stiegler compose the key areas of study for his general organology. The origin of the struggle between market values against spirit values, human life and consciousness, has been dated to be in the early 20th century, with Edward Barnays' techniques of marketing overproduced 'sweet lemons', which developed an industrial aesthetic audiovisually mediated with the power to functionalize the aesthetic dimension of an individual so as to nudge them to behave as a consumer. A manipulation of desire to economically combat the problem of diminishing rate of returns on profits as described by Marx. This result in a loss of aesthetic attachment to singular objects, to symbolic misery, and an ill-being of desire and affect. The aesthetic experience is threated by the hegemony of lived experience within neoliberal hyperindustrial society, which has become calculable, and prevents people from creating affective and meaningful attachments to symbols in relation to our retentional apparatuses, technology and memory. The factors that make life worth living are replaced with emptiness that is overwhelming, instead of aesthetic [8] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA dissonance, we are left with aesthetic deprivation, the anesthetic or diabolic condition of symbolic misery. Such tension can be thought of as a dissonance between overlapping domains of social life, private and public. What can be learned from being with dissonance is that compelling, beautiful, and dramatic stories and narratives, as well as music, are invitations to experience it. A resolution is possible if we will to stay with it, the resolution of which is a narrative of hope or redemption. The formation of the aesthetic feelings and sense of curiosity towards dissonance bring to the unexpected, the uncalculatable and unmeasurable, a synergetic sense of wonder and awe in regards to being human and can be part of the artificial organs which develop mental stability and even courage, instead of fearing the unexpected and immediately resolving the tension of aesthetic dissonance with that, which feels "right" or has been culturally conditioned by competing entities for our desire and attention within the ramifications of aesthetic war, an arms race of behavioral nudges and cognitive heuristics. This is also a practice of loving oneself, since it asks for us to pay attention to and care for with our conscious presence any uncomfortable experiences, it is a re-cognition of values. This requires those in symbolic misery and artists to engage with suffering, as opposed to avoiding it through "debauched kinesthetics" shaped by the aesthetic conditioning of marketing. This opportunity is a lesson to learn the communal sharing of discomfort and ill-being, trans-forming the diabolic into the symbolic. To remain with silence, a busy mind, withdrawal symptoms or even an itch. A communal knowing of how-tolive can develop, of how-to-stay or return to conscious presence and attention in spite of tendencies to break the silence, write down our thoughts, reinforce addiction patterns, or scratch an itch. [9] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA 3. Aesthetics and New Media Art holds up a mirror to shifting attitudes. Initial tags of 'ugly' sometimes get forgotten as once-derided subjects become valued. Impressionism of the 19th century – now featured in blockbuster exhibits – was initially compared to mushy food and rotting flesh. When Henri Matisse's works showed in the US at the Armory Show of 1913, critics lambasted his art as 'ugly', while art students in Chicago burned an effigy of his Blue Nude in front of the Art Institute. The same institution mounted a major retrospective of his work a century later. Jazz and rock'n'roll were once considered 'ugly' music, threatening to corrupt entire generations (Henderson, 2016, para. 12). What develops through digital technologies and the networks they weave are associated technical milieus that allow a true symbolic life- and it is within this milieu that free software and the Linux platform could appear: the relations of industrial work formed here are not those of the division of labor and the social roles that nineteenth-century productivism and twentieth-century consumerism had imposed: they are associative and participative. (Stiegler, 2011, p. 233). The aesthetic community to come is formed by conflicts as processes of building sympathy, a new common sensibility of a transformed world. Breaks with tradition are points that insist on and discover a feeling, which is not shared by all. Historically the multiplying conflicts of aesthetics from the 19th century onwards, some of which functionalize the aesthetics and emotions of individuals for the admiration of power, recruitment of believers, or for free-thinking and exploration of the unlimited possibilities which make the body resonate are shared with Others, the world and its future aesthetical or artistic becoming. New Media is at once a diffractive mirror of us and a reflection of aesthetic dissonance. In it, conflicting experiences such as being bored and entertained at the same time are possible. They are persisting organs of re-functionalization that arouse antagonistic experiences, values, and behavior. They shape what feels "right" and what feels "wrong". New media can be a vehicle for creating aesthetic dissonances in regard to at least what is perceived as art and in general to that, which arises from encountering conflicting beliefs and feelings. It is a breeding ground of "fake news", conspiracy theories, and also of beneficial mass cooperation and community, of rebuttal and verification. It breeds antivaxxers, incels, and populism but it also brings together social institutions, grassroot movements, and is an [10] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA extension of an individual's biological eyes and ears through videorecording and live transmission. An opportunity for us to take responsibility for actions, consider the significances of our behavior and objectify imagined beliefs about social reality. New Media without proper care for the energies of symbolic misery become destructive pharmaka, and with proper care, tools such as the Internet, become magical artistic mediums of the amateurs in spite of the loss new technology inherently brings and supplements. New media is at once a medium of customizing aesthetic experience individually, however it is threatened by the practice of prioritizing calculability and modeling consumer behavior in favor of capitalistic effectiveness, ascholia or the state of being permanently busy, which results in the simultaneous categorization of an individual as a data point, punishing those who do not fit an algorithm's premises, which Cathy O'Neil has described in Weapons of Math Destruction and Marcus Gilroy-Ware in Filling the Void. Behavior, values and experience are shaped by New Media; however, a new knowledge needs to individuate like the way an athlete stretches or a musician practices scales. Bodily organs, artificial organs, and social institutions should preferably lean into persisting, insisting, and consisting aesthetic experiences for their exploration, developing a know-how in regard to stretching and being with dissonance rather than realizing impulsive behaviors, which are rationalized for the reclaiming of symbolic control. The aesthetic re-conditioning teaches not only exploration of presented dissonances and experiences, but also cultivates curiosity, increased compassion or sympathy, and develops the capability to distinguish the suffering of the other from our own. This can of course be accomplished with episodes of dissonance and resolution experienced through music, literature, fairy tales, and cinema. A holistic narrative that accents dissonance with its accumulative crescendo before its climax and resolution. Learning to generate art objects, such as to play music is practicing of dissonance. Conscious awareness and acute attention towards each articulated note precede later awareness of the overall coherence of action and aeffects. When faced with stasis, horror, misery, and suffering, emphatic response does not "feel" right, it is not "natural", speaking in terms of aesthetic war. These natural responses are pain avoidance and circumvention of the disagreeable or "ugliness", or what feels "wrong" in search for [11] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA comfort, calm, and tranquility. However, art does not emerge from mindless harmony, but is discovered with patience and after delving into the dissonances that are avoided. It makes us acknowledge and recognize emotions and their sources. Since new generations also spend over 10,000 hours playing video games before maturing into adults (Zimbardo, 2016), I would like to comment on ludonarrative dissonance. This device forces players of video games into discomfort, which these narratives foster. The most adored stories come from dissonant characters "as it is the surprise, the disturbance, the accident, the sacrosanct disruptive element, that justifies the very act of telling a story" (Seraphine, p. 8). Such a device is described as the violation of immersion, which is to say it is an emersion, since it draws players out of the work and violates a state of detachment and disinterested delight. Desire for the object itself is a condition of love, if not, then what we are left with is what Stiegler describes as cultural philistines or new barbarians, who only perceive art as "interesting", a consumable, and nothing more. Video games are new pharmaka: "Games players are also more likely than non-games players to participate in other forms of culture, especially through active participation (e.g., creating digital video, photography or animation or writing stories or poetry), but passive participation (e.g., attending cultural festivals) is also common." (Borowiecki, K. & Bakhshi, 2017, p.1). The Internet is the new gallery of art, and even art itself, at least according to Virginia Heffernan, where these works are published and with which individuals participate, share, and engage in symbolic exchange, what I would describe as one instance of symbolic fertility . [12] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA 4. Coda To arrive at an aesthetic experience was to be inscribed within a social process of participation that engaged one in a practice: this was not a consumption, but a sociation that was also a cultuality carried through practices, an active relation, compared with which cultural consumption had no meaning. (Stiegler, 2011, p. 233) In going to see an exhibition at the museum, in reading a novel, in watch ing a film in a non-consumerist manner, in opening my eye to expand my view (by means of my hands, from Lascaux to Cézanne, and after Cézanne, the hand is seized by the reproducibility set off by the fingers) -just as my tongue [ma langue] gives me access to language [la langue] as a process of individuation of a symbolic milieu, binding and unbinding, with my ears that heed it, with the tongue that is in my mouth-in going to see an exhibition and in reconnecting through all these paths works that I thus take care of while taking care of myself and of others, I participate in the weaving of the long circuits of transindividuation (Stiegler, 2011, p. 234). Art as a product of negentropy, however, can reconcile the entropy or dis-ordering of stasis in the fight against symbolic misery. According to Plato, music (μουσιqκή), especially enchantment by playing the aulos or kataulein) can be the cause of mania, which is rooted i.a. in fear, and at the same time its medicine consists in a reintegration of an individual within a group, counteracting fear. This was the ancient practice of mania of the Elysian mysteries and rituals of Dionysic cults of the Bacchantes or the Korybantes (Plato, 1967/1968, 791a-b). Music must save the world according to Stiegler, it is an art of creating protentions or anticipating, waiting, and making people behave a certain way. It is transformative and pharmacological. In the context of aesthetic dissonance, the exploration of the possibility of creating new sensibilities and re-cognitions, patience with conflict without seeking immediate resolution of tension, an opportunity for healing symbolic misery arises. This is not simply cognitive or behavioral, but an artistic act of mastery, or action, which demands patience, attention, and curiosity. It challenges the drive to turn away from the displeasing, discord, suffering and tension through the exploration of their nuances, and the possibilities they unfold. Aesthetic dissonance is not simply a state of arousal or conflicting feelings and emotions. It is a lens through which practices, behaviors, politics, psychopathology, and other issues can be viewed. It [13] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA is a condition of making insights on the role of aesthetic and cultural capital on our social behavior, as well as the result of mutual aeffects from the study of culture that expand understanding on the phenomenon of dissonance. Internalized standards from culture, society, and family and one's personal beliefs about themselves, create the measuring tools of cognitive dissonance, which has a tendency to lean towards the normative practice of marketing, nonetheless, a dissonant habituation in an individual's environment can also make participatory standards more accessible. [14] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, F. M. (1946a). Man's Supreme Inheritance. Retrieved February 10, 2018 from https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/content/ books/ebooks/mans-supreme-inheritance.pdf. Alexander, F. M. (1946b). The Use of the Self. Chaterson. 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(2011) The Tongue of the Eye What "Art History" Means. Ravindranathan, T & Geoghegan, B. (Trans.). In: Khalip, J., & Mitchell, R. (Eds.). Releasing the Image: From Literature to New Media. Stanford: California. Stiegler, B. (2017a). Kant, Art, and Time. Boundary 2, 44(1), 19–34. Retrieved February 10, 2018 from https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-3725845. Stiegler, B. (2017b). The Proletarianization of Sensibility. Boundary 2, 44(1), 5–18. Retrieved February 10, 2018 from https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-3725833. Stiegler, B. (2017c). The Quarrel of the Amateurs. Boundary 2, 44(1), 35–52. Retrieved February 10, 2018 from https://doi.org/10.1215/01903659-3725857. Symbol" and "diabolo" (devil) are two related words. (2013, September 13). Retrieved February 10, 2018 from http://en.antiquitatem.com/symbol-devil-symballon-diabolosdemon. Urban Dictionary. [Calenardhon]. (2009, February 14). Sweet Lemons. Retrieved February 10, 2018 from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sweet %20lemons. Vardoulakis, D. (2010). The Doppelgänger: Literatures philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press. [18] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA Zimbardo P. G. & Coulombe N. C. (2016). Man, Interrupted: Why Young Men are Struggling & What We Can Do About It. Newburyport, MA: Conari Press. [19] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA ABSTRACT Aesthetic Dissonance. On Behavior, Values, and Experience through New Media Aesthetics is thought of as not only a theory of art or beauty, but also includes sensibility, experience, judgement, and relationships. This paper is a study of Bernard Stiegler's notion of Aesthetic War (stasis) and symbolic misery. Symbolic violence is ensued through a loss of individuation and participation in the creation of symbols. As a struggle between market values against spirit values human life and consciousness within neoliberal hyperindustrial society has become calculable, which prevents people from creating affective and meaningful attachments to symbols in relation to our retentional apparatuses, technology and memory. Such tension can be thought of as a dissonance between overlapping domains of social life, private and public. New Media is a reflection of aesthetic dissonance, an experience such as being bored and entertained at the same time, between antagonistic experiences, values, and behavior. Moreover, new media is at once a medium of customizing aesthetic experience individually as well as the threat and practice of prioritizing calculability and modeling of consumer behavior in favor of capitalistic effectiveness, which results in the simultaneous categorization of an individual as a data point, putting those who do not fit an algorithm's premises at a disadvantage. KEYWORDS: Aesthetics, Symbolic Misery, New Media, Cognitive Dissonance, Faulty Sensory Appreciation, Behavior. ABSTRAKT Dysonans estetyczny. O zachowaniu, wartościach i doświadczeniu poprzez nowe media. Estetyka jest rozumiana nie tylko jako teoria sztuki lub piękna, ale także obejmuje wrażliwość, doświadczenie, osąd i relacje. Artykuł ten jest studium Bernarda Stieglera na temat pojęcia wojny estetycznej (staza) i nędzy symbolicznej. Przemoc symboliczna następuje w wyniku utraty indywiduacji i udziału w tworzeniu symboli. Jako walka między wartościami rynkowymi a wartościami duchowymi życie i świadomość ludzka w ramach neoliberalnego społeczeństwa hiper-przemysłowego stała się obliczalna, co zapobiega tworzeniu przez ludzi afektywnych i [20] ADRIAN MRÓZ AESTHETIC DISSONANCE. ON BEHAVIOR, VALUES, AND EXPERIENCE THROUGH NEW MEDIA znaczących przywiązań do symboli w odniesieniu do naszych aparatów retencyjnych, technologii i pamięci. Tego rodzaju napięcie można postrzegać jako dysonans zachodzący pomiędzy nakładającymi się na siebie dziedzinami życia społecznego, prywatnego i publicznego. Nowe media są odzwierciedleniem dysonansu estetycznego, takiego doświadczenia jak bycie zanudzonym i rozbawionym jednocześnie, pomiędzy antagonistycznymi doświadczeniami, wartościami i zachowaniami. Co więcej, nowe media są zarazem medium indywidualnego dostosowywania doświadczeń estetycznych, a także zagrożeniem i praktyką nadawania priorytetu obliczalności i modelowaniu zachowań konsumentów na rzecz kapitalistycznej efektywności, co skutkuje jednoczesną kategoryzacją jednostki jako punktu danych, co stawia w niekorzystnej sytuacji tych, którzy nie pasują do założeń algorytmu. SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: Estetyka, nędza symboliczna, nowe media, dysonans poznawczy, nieprawidłowe wrażenia sensoryczne, zachowanie [21]