The Kingdom of Infinite Space
To philosophise is in part to defamiliarise
Aim to identify how we appropriate biological givens to philosophical ends
Trying to make us astonished tourists in that part of the world with which we’re most familiar.
Background in clinical neurology. Has written on NHS philosophy.
Takes exception to the belief that consciousness & mind is to be found in brains isolation, but bodies, environments and communities of minds are needed.
Identifying ourselves with our brains denies our extraordinary nature.
Darwinism YES, Darwinitis NO; opposes naturalistic/biologistic account; without invoking supernatural, see how we transcend biology
Busy head: Secreting, trafficking with air, communicating, sensing, growing/nourishing/repairing/rotting, thinking, world-building
“Our flesh surrounds us with its own decisions” - Larkin; while we think, our heads get on with living
The secreting head: saliva c.f. Sartre in “Nausea”, 30,000 litres in life. Aids mastication, articulation, starts digestion, protects against infection. Derived from blood plasma. De-salted, added potass bicarb, added mucus, all done by regulating blood flow to salivary glands. Regulated by enzymes. Maturity is not drooling.
Symbolism of saliva: Messiah, Isaiah. Spitter and spat on.
Cerumen (earwax), keeps the outer ear moist and clean and repels insects. Can use different types to track migration.
Tears: normative leaking (crying = ocular incontinence); emotional tears are richer in manganese than pain-induced. Humans the only creatures that cry emotionally. Laughing is normative panting. Arguably both express a difference between the way in which we find the world and the way we think it should be, just as washing tears are normative.
Laughter infectious (1962 outbreak of epidemic laughter in East Africa, starting with 3 girls). Outbreak lasted 2 years around eastern shore of Lake Victoria.
Laughter used to express norms: mockery, jibes. Deeper than justice or rules, infectiousness co-opts others judgements by implication by making them laugh.
They laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, I became a comedian. They’re not laughing now. - Bob Monkhouse.
Trafficking with air: over a dozen ins and outs. All those with biological functions are co-opted to cultural ends.
Interactive headwinding to mean meaning. Only humans mean meaning.
Speech gives us everything that is human. Perhaps only 40,000 years old. We can only do this because we have spare time.
Speech is the mother of the collective memory, shared memory, the self and the other.
But one still uses the mouth for eating, vomiting, kissing, smiling. And one can speak and eat! Vomiting has spawned so much humour, no bigger gap between is and ought.
“thought” as “windless speech”
www.vomiting.com records 400 synonyms.
sadness, anger, surprise, fear, enjoyment, disgust, content
3,000 of 10,000 possible facial configurations are meanginful
Blushing. The geology of a blush: aitch-haitch, which is complex: speech>writing>alphabet>spelling>letter names>pronunciation>is a shibboleth
Eyes indicate direction, blinking used for winking. Kissing: “Every kiss represents a conquest of repulsion”: Sartre.
Kissing is a biological scandal: it’s poor hygiene and delays “dishing out the DNA”, and a social scandal, bypassing all normal social discourse.
The head is a sensory room. Vision a privileged sense in upright animals. It’s the sense that has a continuous field; we see that things are concealed. A sense unique to humans at the root of scientific enquiry and religious belief. The gaze is central to our awareness of others and of ourselves in others’ worlds.
Innermost layer of cornea that pumps water is one sentence thick. Dynamic range is 100 million. One quantum of light is sufficient to activate a maximally dark-adapted eye.
Smetana wrote his greatest works plagued by tinnitus, one of his quartets using it as a motif.
Outline of head is laid down in 5-8 weeks in the womb.
We have curious and complex relation to our bodies, and we can see this in small by thinking about our relation to our heads.
Community of minds is a collective transcendence and we’re insufficiently astonished by it. Misanthropy is far too popular. But we’ve lifted ourselves above organic existence only by putting our heads together. We should be more astonished at the efficacy of our joint consciousnesses.
Doesn’t believe consciousness is located in the brain. Is it located in non-material processes? He believes the brain is necessary but not sufficient. “We start with a wrong ontology.”
Q. Given your emphasis on the importance of human bodies, environments and community to humanness, is it meaningful to talk about the existence of human qualities in other species, either on earth, where there are similarities, or beyond?
A. Lack of community of minds in other species. “Chimps are chumps”.
Sad, didn’t really answer my question, which was theoretical, not practical.
Although he read his speech, he was good extempore even if he relied rather on what sounded like rehearsed lines.
Last updated 2008/05/31