Explaining our natural tendency towards Dualism: the dual-channel hypothesis
Many agree that dualism is outdated. Yet, it remains a very intuitive notion, even amongst scientists and philosophers. The main reason for this strong intuition is likely to be our inner experience, what constitutes the very basis of what it is like to be a sentient being, what we often call “consciousness”. Indeed, how could my subjective experience be ever explained logically? Rationally? There must be something “extra” that cannot be understood intellectually. Something that goes beyond reason and will remain forever unreachable for modern science. This subjective-objective dichotomy is certainly the main reason for Dualism to still compete with monist theories such as Materialism, which are more in agreement with both modern science and the principle of parsimony. But why does this dichotomy exist in the first place? What is this distinction between “objective” and “subjective” that seems so fundamental that it makes us conceive the world as dual?
Here I will argue that, indeed, there are probably things that escape and will always escape what we commonly call rationality. However, I will further argue that this cannot constitute evidence for the existence of two fundamental constituents in the universe, and is therefore not a valid argument for Dualism. In other words, the statement “subjective experience cannot be explained rationally” does not necessarily imply anything regarding any fundamental aspects of reality, as it could be solely explainable through a thorough description of the relationship between the rational agent and its environment. Following the principle of parsimony, I finally argue that this apparent dichotomy is nothing else but the externalization of a dichotomy within ourselves.
1. Rationality as a high-level information processing tool
First thing first, what is rationality? Here the term is interchangeable with others, such as intellect, logics or reason. All these terms refer to some high-level information processing cognitive tools that intelligent agents can use to better comprehend their environment, mostly through the observation of regularities and the creation of internal inference models. Compared to lower-level information processing systems, such as direct experience through the senses, rationality allows for some degree of abstraction, which results in the ability to plan and anticipate. It has been traditionally seen as a characteristic unique to human beings. This ability for abstraction is likely to have contributed to the emergence of our capacity to collaborate in large societies, in opposition to small-scale communities for which lower-level information processing such as emotional responses could be enough.
2. The illusion of Self is what drives our need for externalization
Traditionally, humans have made an important distinction between rationality and spirituality, reason and emotions, Rationalism and Empiricism… In short, mind versus body. However, recent scientific progress would rather suggest that the mind, like the rest of the body, also relies on matter. Could it be then that this fundamental dichotomy does not reflect anything but our own bias towards a unified perception of ourself?
I would indeed argue that this illusion of dichotomy is caused by different, parallel and only partially overlapping ways of processing information within our own body, here referred to as channels. On the one hand, low-level emotional (or “sensorial”, no distinction here) information processing, on the other hand high-level rational information processing. The two channels have a similar purpose: processing information from the external environment in order to survive (or possibly another fundamental driving mechanism, such as the replication and complexification of information — will be further developed in another post). The main difference between the two channels is their degree of abstraction, which could also explain why rationality’s objects are often perceived as being part of some immaterial world of ideas (e.g., in Plato or Kant). However, it is rationality that creates abstraction, not its objects that are abstract per se (more on this below).
Coming back to our two channels, they sometimes overlap but rarely perfectly. Even when they do overlap, it is in their outcomes, and not in their processing routes. This creates an internal conflict (or competition) between the two streams of informations. We externalize and project this dichotomy on the outside world, like we often do with internal dissonances, in order to protect our integrity. The illusion comes then from our fundamental need to perceive ourselves as one singular entity, as a cohesive agent. But the dualism is within, not outside.
3. Multiple sources of information, one decision
An agent processes information from its environment (and/or information it retained in memory, and/or information that was passed to it through genetics) in order to make appropriate decisions and act. For one situation, there must be one, unified decision. Not having cohesive decisions constitutes a heavy disadvantage for an organism: just remember last time you faced a dilemna, and imagine each decision you make on a daily basis would be the same struggle. In other words, there are many inputs but there should be only one output. Therefore, decision-making needs to be somewhat centralized, and sources of information contributing to decision-making cannot all give birth to their own action, as they sometimes clash and contradict each other.
4. Human beings: a quantitatively distinct species
Importantly, our tendency to see rationality as something fundamentally different is also driven by our need to feel like a special species. Rationality is often perceived as being preferable over emotions or other lower-level information processing. Irrational decisions are often perceived as bad decisions, relying on ignorance or worse, pulsions. The animal within us. Rationality then becomes the extraordinary ability nature gave us, what makes us unique, and it must be qualitatively different from other information processing channels one can find in other animals or in machines. Culture mostly tought us that intellectual knowledge is primordial and that we should tame emotions, and this since Plato. This “channel discrimination” led to a drastic dichotomy, while both channels can often been combined to better apprehend the external environment and improve decision-making (e.g., through “intuition”).
This channel discrimination has been beneficial to society, but was it beneficial to us, individual agents? More and more people are willing to reconnect with the “here and now”, and this could be done through a better appreciation of other, less abstract, channels which link us more directly to the world surrounding us (this could be linked to the concept of meaning crisis some thinkers recently pointed to — see also section 5).
One could argue that (most) animals just follow their “instinct”: if something is pleasurable they will go for it, if it is painful they will avoid it. In this case, there is no clash: the immediate feeling dictactes how the animal should behave. Humans have a precious tool: rationality, thanks to which they can process more complex information. But in the end, this clash is mostly quantitative: humans are animals, and like animals they are input-output machines, which are part of their environment, with no strict frontier between them and the rest of the universe. This is a strong position that many will not share, but to me this is the more parsimonious view given our current scientific understanding. In other words, humans do exactly the same as other animals, but with some high-level abstraction that makes it look qualitatively different. Planning, anticipation and internal models are governed by the same rules : pleasurable vs painful. Rationality is a tool, not a drive per se.
Traditionally, human beings have preferred the rational channel over the emotional or sensorial channel. It has been very helpful in our endeavour to survive and flourish, but it led to a major misconception: this ability of abstraction and complex information processing does not have to tell anything regarding the external world. Rationality and logics are not something floating in the air, it is a way to process information within our boundaries, with a degree of abstraction that makes it difficult to track back to the original inputs (through long-term memory, information transformation, or even genetics). To make it clear and obvious: I would argue that Empiricism wins over Rationalism, as not being able to see the relationship between rational objects and the external, physical world is no evidence that there is something extra. You could simply explain it away by considering that most processing steps are not availabe to the conscious agent. And this explanation is enough, while respectful of the principle of parsimony.
5. Rationality is what gives us our sense of agency
We are even more attached to rationality as it gives us an extended sense of agency. Indeed, we are rational agents. Rationality is what gives us the ability to choose, it is our decision-making tool. It is what frees us from our pulsions and emotions and makes us able to exert our free will, enlarging the field of possibilities in comparison with other mammals. It might be the complexity within us that gives the necessary depth to feel as agents. In short, rationality is fundamentally intricated with our sense of agency, while emotions are often perceived as (caused by) external factors. It is why the two, the mind and the matter, must be different.
6. Rationality and abstraction
Another aspect of rationality that makes it look so different and that we evoked a bit earlier is its very nature: rationality allows us to reach more abstraction, to use abstract models somewhat disconnected from direct, accessible reality. Because rationality is associated with abstraction, not directly within our near environment, it looks fundamentally different, almost from another world. However, it remains a tool that processes information from our environment, it is just not as clear for us what happens under the hood because it relies on much more complex and less immediate mechanims, e.g., it is relatively simple to make the association perceived experience-reality such as “I have the experience of strawberry taste because I have just eaten those red berries” than “I decided to invest in food stocks because of a complex intricate of societal, cultural and familial influences, coupled with some genetics favorizing risk-taking”. However, if neuroscience keeps informing us on the underlying mechanisms of high-level cognitive processes, it is at least theoretically plausible to fully bridge the external-internal loop, or how rationality is just another way to process information from our environment to produce output actions. The relationship between rationality and matter is less clear to us, but it does not mean that it does not exist.
7. The experiential channel
The second channel I have been referring to as “emotions or sensations” has often, almost paradoxically, been referred to as spiritual. Paradoxically because spirituality is often seen as high-level information processing, an access beyond rationality. Currently, with the so-called meaning crisis, there is a come-back of emotions, sensations and direct experience of reality. From now on I will replace spiritual by experiential (understand as a more direct experience of reality). I prefer not to use the term spiritual because of its etymology and heavy reference to many different things that could resonate wrongly.
Opposing rationality and the sensorial world strengthens the wrong impression that “experiential” is special, mystical. We forget that we are continuously in touch with the extra-ordinary aspects of reality, the present moment, but it was overtaken by rationality and thoughts. As we often like to remind ourselves, it has mostly been observed in humans. Other animals are much more in the “experiential”, the here and now, the immediate, the “flow”. Traditionally, rationality has been perceived as superior to “lower-level” drives, for example pulsions. This was useful to collaborate as a society. As society develops, we are less and less connected to the other information processing channels, which could maybe partly explain recent mental health crises.
Paradoxically, the more direct access to reality, to the external world, became the “odd”, the unusual. We are so used to overprocess information rationally, through high-level cognition, that full information processing through emotions or more direct sensations became the special way to process information from (rational channel would be about) our environment.
8. The relationship between objective rationality and subjective emotions
If we want to go deeper into the characterization of this dichotomy existing within ourselves, we could argue that sensations and emotions constitute subjective experience, although they don’t have anything to do with rationality. Hence this discrepancy between rationality and emotions, and the one between subjectivity and objectivity, do not overlap perfectly. There then seems to exist two layers to Dualism, the rational-emotional and the objective-subjective, which we cannot reconcile. Well, maybe not. Maybe that consciousness, or subjectivity, is always a state that requires some sort of high-level processing or, at least, some level of complexity. Indeed, this very state of being aware is often associated with some kind of self-reflection, which requires some kind of complexification of the information processing stream, such as backward loops and feedback mechanisms. Many theories of consciousness involve some kind of information complexity, e.g., high level processing, recurrent processing, information integration. Therefore it is not implausible that subjectivity always involves some proto-rational state (very broadly speaking). Note that I would argue that we should review our definition of rationality in something that many animals share with us, although through quantitatively different mechanisms. Overall, subjectivity, like rationality, is a concept that would only hide behind our ignorance of its underlying causes.
9. Conclusion: dichotomy inside, not outside
Many have the deep conviction that Science cannot capture everything, that however precise the model, something will still be missing. And this might be the case! However, this is only because first-hand information people are talking about, the something that will be forever missing, is only accessible through other, more direct channels. The dichotomy is intrinsic, caused by the lack of overlap between the different information processing channels, while those are still part of a same system (the human body). This does not provide evidence for any dichotomy outside the realm of our body, it only informs us on our knowledge acquiring (or epistemological) system: multiple channels surveying our environment through different means. These channels have access to some information other channels have not. Science, which relies on reason and models, might not (never?) pinpoint the nature of first-hand experiential experience. However, this is in no mean an argument for Dualism: our epistemological system is fractured, not the outside reality. Subjectivity is one sub-part of objectivity which only makes sense within an incomplete epistemological system. Knowledge does not correspond to fundamental reality, it is a way for an agent to model its environment and itself, and it is done through some discretization of a (pseudo-)continuous reality.
In my view, it is much more parsimonious to bet on our dualist tendency to be relying on some psychological biases (some of which I briefly described above) than to be some sort of intuitive evidence there are two fundamental constituents in this universe, one of which we have never been confronted to using our state-of-the-art collective epistemological system, i.e., Science.
Us, humans, tend to externalize elements from our own psychology. This has been very useful for us to form communities and to communicate with peers, but there is a problem: we tend to be unaware of this process. We tend to believe that things we externalize from our own psychology are really out there. We have very complex concepts in our head so that we can communicate them with others: they must be out there. We project our internal duality onto our environment. The fact that the two major information processing channels do not perfectly overlap causes some dissonance that is difficult to integrate as a supposedly harmonious, cohesive (social) agent. In other words, the illusion of external duality is tightly related to the illusion of internal unicity, or Self. Dualism is the symptom of an even more deeply-rooted tendency: the one of externalizing what we do not like to hold within ourselves.
10. Final notes on implications: less biases, simpler theories
Why does all this matter? We are biased, then what? Our biases as individuals might have an impact on our scientific practice, and strong beliefs in the concept of “soul”, “free will”, “self”, or other such concepts might have extremely detrimental effects on various research disciplines, including neuroscience and A.I. research, but also quantum physics and our main theories on how we perceive reality, not as biased individuals, but as an informed society — I will develop these points further in a future post. New developments in A.I., which represent a (partly) external, hopefully unbiased information processing agent, might help us make progress on topics for which human beings are particularly biased towards one hypothesis, e.g., the one in accord with the traditional dualist view.
