A way out of illusion?

Paper presented at: –
Enactive Consciousness, Seventh Annual Conference of the Consciousness and Experiential Psychology section of the British Psychological Society, Oxford June 28-9 2003.
and (2004) Proceedings of the British Psychological Society, 12, 88-9


Abstract

Buddhism and the scientific study of consciousness both rely heavily on the notion of illusion; Buddhism in order to transcend or see through the illusion; science to understand it. Although their methods and objectives are different, the illusions they describe may be the same. I shall consider whether these two very different disciplines may help each other by considering two questions, with reference to enactive theories of vision.

  1. Can personal practice, such as the Zen practices of meditation or mindfulness, help one’s intellectual understanding?
  2. Can intellectual understanding, of such ideas as the Cartesian theatre and enactive theories of vision, help one’s personal practice.

With sufficient practice does vision actually come to seem like action? Is this a way out of the illusion?

Summary

One of the most exciting developments in consciousness studies is the meeting of two very different disciplines; Buddhism (I shall talk mainly about Zen) and cognitive science. These two have very different methods and aims. Buddhism is a way of living one’s life based on practices such as meditation and mindfulness, and its aim is to penetrate illusion and so transcend suffering. Cognitive science uses the empirical methods of science and its aim is understanding. Yet both rely on various notions of illusion.

An illusion is not something that does not exist, but something that is not what it seems. I shall explore the extent to which Zen and cognitive science are talking about the same illusions with particular reference to the idea that the visual world is a grand illusion and to enactive theories of vision.

The illusions found in both disciplines include the illusion of a persisting self, the illusion of someone who acts or decides or has free will, the illusion of the visual world, and the illusory nature of space and time. From the scientific point of view, the most ensnaring of illusions is what Dennett calls the Cartesian theatre; that mythical time and place in the mind in which everything comes together and consciousness happens. Cartesian materialism is the view that throws out Cartesian dualism and the observing homunculus, but still retains the idea of the CT. This is “the view that nobody espouses but almost everybody tends to think in terms of” (Dennett 1991 p 144).

This way of thinking is ubiquitous in consciousness studies, as is revealed in such phrases as “the contents of consciousness”, “entering consciousness”, “the moment of awareness” and many more. It underlies the search for the neural correlates of the contents of consciousness, and the idea of global availability or display in Global Workspace theory. It requires there to be a “magic difference” between those things that are “in” consciousness “now” and those that are not, and so gives rise to the hard problem. This view has to be wrong, but it persists because consciousness seems like that. In order to escape the illusion we may need to practice seeing the world in new ways as well as thinking about it in new ways.

The sensorimotor theory of vision is one of very few theories that entails no CT. According to sensorimotor theory, vision is not a matter of building up representations in the brain, but is a kind of action or interacting with the world. So could it provide a way out of the illusion?

I shall explore two questions about the meeting between personal practice and intellectual inquiry.

  1. Can personal practice, such as the Zen practices of meditation or mindfulness, help one’s intellectual understanding?
  2. Can intellectual understanding, including such ideas as the Cartesian theatre and enactive theories of vision, help one’s personal practice.

With sufficient practice does vision actually come to seem like action? Is this a way out of the illusion?