The Parallax View - Now, with extra zombies (for all we know)!

Please note that a new comment policy is in effect. See sidebar. Now. To work. I'm supposed to review the new Zizek book, The Parallax View (short circuits), for The Common Review. (Adam K. groans. Hey, what can I say? They asked, I said yes.) Zizek is now writing about David Chalmers (who has a wonderful home page and even one of those new-fangled blogs.)

One of my colleagues looks over my shoulder, as I remark Zizek's foray into analytic philosophy. "He knows about Chalmers?" Can you imagine my response? But my question for you, dubbleyou, concerns Zizek on Heidegger:

So when David Chalmers proposes that the basis of consciousness will have to be found in a new, additional, fundamental - primordial and irreducible - force of nature, like gravity or electromagnetism, something like an elementary (self)-sentience or awareness, does he not thereby provide a new proof of how idealism coincides with vulgar materialism? Does he not precisely miss the pure ideality of (self)-awareness? This is where the topic of finitude in the strict Heideggerian sense should be mobilized: if we try to conceive of consciousness within an ontologically fully realized field of reality, it can only appear as an additional positive moment; but what about linking consciousness to the very finitude, ontological incompleteness, of the human being, to its being originally out-of-joint, thrown-into, exposed to, an overwhelming constellation? (p. 168)

Yes, yes I know - Chalmers stuff already messed up six ways to Sunday. Chalmers nothing like a vulgar materialist. More like a Spinozist, if you ask me. (People said Spinoza was a vulgar materialist, too, come to think of it. But there is just no dragging some people to philosophy. Also, I think it is rather sloppy form of Zizek to footnote only Chalmers' whole bloody book, The Conscious Mind, rather than - say - a section, page, or even chapter, so that the inquiring reader might inquire after the alleged vulgarity in moderately efficient fashion.) Ok, ok, I'll include a footnote about the Chalmers. You twisted my arm.

But first, what's with the Heidegger stuff? I want to make sure I'm not missing anything here. "Mobilizing the topic of finitude"? That means: talking about death, right? For Heidegger, 'finitude' is 'being towards death'. Right? We may not understand what Heidegger means, but whatever he means by 'finitude' is the same as whatever he means by the other thing. I'm just trying to be sure that there isn't some completely other, important topic of 'finitude' in Heidegger. So Zizek is trying to make some point about how, if consciousness is finite, i.e. mortal, then Chalmers cannot possibly be right with his gestures towards panpsychism. (And it looks to me as though the argument is: your conclusion is wrong, because Heidegger's conclusion is right, so your argument must be wrong.)

What about "ontologically fully realized field of reality"? This is not ringing any Heideggerian bells in my belfry. 'Fully-realized reality'? Sounds like - I dunno - Plotinus. Plenitude and emanations and degrees of reality. More Platonic than Heideggerian. It doesn't sound like Heideggerese, but please correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds as though what Zizek is getting at, anyway, is a sort of Berkeleyan argument that you cannot conceive of a consciousnessless reality. For tree falling in the forest-type reasons, basically. If a reality exists, and no one is there for it to disclose itself to, is it? Suggested answer: no. Yet the point isn't that, then, we subjects are the world-subject, in any transcendental way. Rather, we are still "thrown into, exposed to". I think I can sort of grok what we are supposed to be agreeing to here, though I certainly don't , but the phrase nags: "ontologically fully realized field of reality"? Why put it that way?

[Oh, wait, there's more stuff about Heidegger on finitude on pp. 273-4. I'll get back to you, but I still want to know aboout 'fully realized reality'.]

I must say I am sincerely disappointed that there is no discussion of Pakula's The Parallax View [Amazon] - on sale for only $6.99! It turns out that the DVD version is probably much better than the old VHS version, the only way I've ever seen it. Pakula goes for the flat, long-lens, middle-distance look - in Klute, or example. Very chilly. Composed. Good. I never thought Parallax looked as good as Klute, however. Now (from reader Amazon comments, admittedly an unreliable source) I learn that's probably because the VHS version messed it all up in some misbegotten attempt to fit my TV screen with pan-and-scan. Tagline: "He saw too much". Alas, I fear we did not see enough!

Zizek's book is in this new 'short circuits' series he's gotten MIT to give him. "'Short circuits' intends to revive a practice of reading which confronts a classic text, author, or notion with its own hidden presuppositions, and thus reveals its disavowed truth." Eh. 'Revive'? Isn't that rather presumptuous? Like the man sang, "Well, you know/We're all doing what we can." I notice that Short Circuit is only $5.99 (marked down 40%). It's got a loooong way to go. Still. It's relevant. Is not the event which number 5 undergoes some sort of important metaphor of 'thrown-ness'? As the summary puts it. "He develops self-awareness, consciousness, and a fear of the reprogramming that awaits him back at the factory. With the help of a young woman, Number 5 tries to evade capture and convince his creator that he has truly become alive."

Why is it these sentimental SF productions are always hung up about life being the issue? A carrot is alive. (Still, I do like the moment in The Fifth Element when the big turtle-y alien passes Luke Perry the key through the gap: 'time does not matter, only life matters.' I get all verklempt, if not entworfen.)

But say what you will about Republican 'incompetence'. At least they repealed the law that said every movie had to have Steve Guttenberg in it. (You see what I mean?)

My subconscious is telling me I stole that joke from someone, but now I can't remember. Maybe I've just used it before.

Now, Chalmers. If you don't believe me about Chalmers being sort of a Spinozist-y sort of fellow, read something like his "Consciousness and its Place in Nature" piece. The view that Zizek seems to be mistaking for 'vulgar' materialism - i.e. materialism that does not consider other possible views, hence has its face rocked by coincidence with idealism - is what Chalmers calls Type-F Monism. (He thinks that since C.D. Broad's day, the range of potentially defensible types of view of the place of consciousness/mind in nature has winnowed from 17 to 6 - A - F.) The view Chalmers' is tempted by (but doesn't decisively stump for, because there are other possibilities) which Zizek appears to be talking about in the passage is Type-F Monism. I report, you decide:

At the same time, there is another metaphysical problem: how can phenomenal properties be integrated with the physical world? Phenomenal properties seem to be intrinsic properties that are hard to fit in with the structural/dynamic character of physical theory; and arguably, they are the only intrinsic properties that we have direct knowledge of.  Russell's insight was that we might solve both these problems at once.  Perhaps the intrinsic properties of the physical world are themselves phenomenal properties.  Or perhaps the intrinsic properties of the physical world are not phenomenal properties, but nevertheless constitute phenomenal properties: that is, perhaps they are protophenomenal properties.  If so, then consciousness and physical reality are deeply intertwined.

This view holds the promise of integrating phenomenal and physical properties very tightly in the natural world.  Here, nature consists of entities with intrinsic (proto)phenomenal qualities standing in causal relations within a spacetime manifold.  Physics as we know it emerges from the relations between these entities, whereas consciousness as we know it emerges from their intrinsic nature.  As a bonus, this view is perfectly compatible with the causal closure of the microphysical, and indeed with existing physical laws.  The view can retain the structure of physical theory as it already exists; it simply supplements this structure with an intrinsic nature.  And the view acknowledges a clear causal role for consciousness in the physical world: (proto)phenomenal properties serve as the ultimate categorical basis of all physical causation.

This view has elements in common with both materialism and dualism. From one perspective, it can be seen as a sort of materialism.  If one holds that physical terms refer not to dispositional properties but the underlying intrinsic properties, then the protophenomenal properties can be seen as physical properties, thus preserving a sort of materialism.  From another perspective, it can be seen as a sort of dualism.  The view acknowledges phenomenal or protophenomenal properties as ontologically fundamental, and it retains an underlying duality between structural-dispositional properties (those directly characterized in physical theory) and intrinsic protophenomenal properties (those responsible for consciousness).  One might suggest that while the view arguably fits the letter of materialism, it shares the spirit of antimaterialism.

In its protophenomenal form, the view can be seen as a sort of neutral monism: there are underlying neutral properties X (the protophenomenal properties), such that the X properties are simultaneously responsible for constituting the physical domain (by their relations) and the phenomenal domain (by their collective intrinsic nature).  In its phenomenal form, can be seen as a sort of idealism, such that mental properties constitute physical properties, although these need not be mental properties in the mind of an observer, and they may need to be supplemented by causal and spatiotemporal properties in addition.  One could also characterize this form of the view as a sort of panpsychism, with phenomenal properties ubiquitous at the fundamental level.  One could give the view in its most general form the name panprotopsychism, with either protophenomenal or phenomenal properties underlying all of physical reality.

Then he starts in with the zombies. So I'll stop.

Comments

[Timothy J Scriven]

I wonder if Chalmers is aware of Zizek's discussion.

[jholbo]

I should email him.

[Cala]

I like the new comments policy. Anyhow, pretty sure it would be fair use, even if you made money on the t-shirts. You could call it parody.

[Jonathan]

How much Broad have you read, btw? I was wondering if I was the only person alive who'd read (or was reading) The Mind and its Place in Nature.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Is it even worth repeating once again the bit about how parallax doesn't make things look different, how it only makes them appear as if they are in a different position against the background, and how Zizek's entire metaphor about impossible gaps is therefore laughable? (If he was getting into neurology, you'd think he might have realized from the fact that anyone with two eyes uses parallax as a cue to distance perception that maybe this phrase wasn't doing the job he thought it was.) Or has this joined the bits about quantum physics (and, for that matter, short circuits) as scientistic garble that people don't even bother to attack any more, just using it as a marker for someone who doesn't know what they're talking about and doesn't want to?

He should have consulted a scientistologist first. I might have suggested that instead of "parallax" for dialectic, he could have used "dielectric". A dielectric, after all, even resists short circuits. Plus he could have gone on about polarization, permittivity, and displacement currents (that one sounds good).

[jholbo]

I've read quite a bit. You are certainly not alone. My neighbor, two doors down in the department, was teaching Broad to his undergraduates this semester.

[Dave]

Gals like cop-hypocrites, that's for sure. The J. Edgarism is hardly surprising; and the support for Squat K-mann--a real Troll, and plagiarist--is not surprising. What is slightly surprising is that great AP Holbeau did not address the real mis-rep issue of the spam-bot.

(ah suspect this will be deleted; since Holbo is all about bogus pride, and appearances and not about der ding an sich. Even a great raconteur like Zizek has a lil more integrity)

Phil. Tip of the day: on chalmers, think of the Kessler test. There are mental phenomena. And there are physical objects, including one's biological body. Does mental phenomena depend on biology? Drink a few shots of Kessler, then compare status of Kessler'ed mental phenomena to non-Kessler mental phenomena. You will note the phenomena, or sensation thereof, to be quite different. Thus mind--including higher cognitive functions--is at the very least dependent, and has some necessary relation to biochemistry. (and statutes against DUI would seem to give assent to mind as bio-dependent as well)

Back to the spam-bot. Holbeau allows a plagiarist bot to be posted shows his lack of an understanding of academic ethics. Some little bitter yapdawg (K-mann) goes about the web pulling some random quotes mostly from comment boxes devoted to chit chat, banter, and he assumes they have been written by the "Troll of Sorrow"--and not all of them are; creates some cheasy xml spam-bot (found on hacking sites everywhere), posts some quotes (of course leaving out many more serious quotes/sections), and also allows people to not only plagiarize and post quotes, but to invent ones, submit them, AS IF WRITTEN by ToS. Of course, that is a type of misrepresentation: someone starts a site, JOhn Holbeau.com, and then posts sheiet up there that he didn't write--you would say that is an ethics violation, even one of a fairly serious sort . But you have no interest in ethical consistency.

ah suspect this will be deleted shortly, by that great liberal thinker and progressive Holbo.
----

[Adam Kotsko]

If only there were some brief review of the book already available online, perhaps in some kind of non-academic publication, so that people could get a handle on the basic premise and arguments of the book before turning to John's more detailed criticisms....

I've also been comissioned for an academic review in the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, so maybe we can coordinate here? I can play like Zizek does with Badiou: "In John Holbo's (forthcoming) review of The Parallax View, he argues [x] -- but what if precisely the opposite is the case?" (I'm assuming that my review would come out first since it's an online journal.)

[jholbo]

And if only that brief review answered my Heidegger question, Adam. Alas, the world is a very imperfect place.

Speaking of which: Dave, what are you complaining about? I am not moderating my comment box assiduously enough? You find our company too bumptious and coarse for your tender sensibilities? YOUR stated view, may I remind you, is that it is categorically unethical to moderate comments in any way, no matter how offensive or abusive. I take it it is only on this theory that you are still here, against my expressed wishes.

This bot-project (in which I take no part) is very milk and cookies compared to the sorts of toxic, distruptive stuff you dish out, and expect mild-mannered blogfolk to swallow (apparently). Let me quote you: "Additionally, I dislike blog-moderation and feel it is proper to voice my opposition to moderation/censorship/deletion--perhaps you remember the old USENET chats where nothing was ever censored, even the most rude and obscene or violent posts--and there's still something to be said for that pure libertarian perspective."

I'm sorry other people have been giving you a mild lesson in ethical consistency - it IS mild. But only because you seem to be mistaking the lesson for an exhibition of ethical inconsistency.

Also, I think you are somewhat shaky on the concept of plagiarism. Plagiarism is saying that someone else's words are your own, not saying that someone else's words are that other person's. The technical term for saying that Smith's words are Smith's, or Jones' words are Jones', is 'quotation'. (This stuff is gold, you should be writing it down.) The thing you don't like is more like a quote-bot, therefore. (And even if the worst you say is true - namely, the quotes are invented - it is not a plagiarism-bot. If plagiarism is really what worries you: rest easy.)

I am not in a position to verify whether the quotes it pops out are the genuine article, but they all SEEM genuine, and I frankly don't care. I think people in the niche market for 'things like the ToS would say' will be happy enough with this engine. (I am not in that market myself, nor have I studied its peculiarities, so carpe diem.) But you'll have to take this up with the big brains behind the bot.

As to philosophy of mind: good heavens! Every philosopher of mind knows that alcohol makes you drunk. Most of them have actually drunk alcohol themselves, I suspect. (Of all the silly kids!) The only issue is HOW to explain the effect, not WHETHER to do so.

OK, let me try this. I'm modifying our comment policy AGAIN. And will presently update the sidebar accordingly. Anyone who leaves a comment to this site consents to any comment they have left to this site, or any other site, at any time in the past, being quoted with attribution on a coffee mug or t-shirt or any other product - said product to be sold, by anyone who cares to take the trouble, through café press, or any other suitable outlet.

Also, anyone who leaves a comment to this site consents to allowing anyone whatsoever to make a silly bot to recycle their comments - and even consents to the invention of new comments for the bot to spew, provided a reasonable person would regard the invented comments as consonant in tone and content with a significant body of real comments by that person. (It's true that we wouldn't want anyone's reputation to be damaged, unjustly.)

Also, all this stuff is probably fair use anyway, and none of this 'you must permit if you want to comment' is intended to imply that I think seeking permissions is even strictly necessary. No one owns 'college squid', I'll wager. All this obligatory permission granting, as a condition of commenting, is intended to make very clear that no one who chooses to comment at J&B has any grounds for complaints about bots. Crikey. (It's not my bot. Take it outside.)

I'll just put this up as a draft for now. Does anyone have any problems with it? It seems very liberal and even progressive to me.

[Adam Kotsko]

"This is where the topic of finitude in the strict Heideggerian sense should be mobilized:"

As a hypothesis, Heideggerian finitude is not just about death, it's about thrownness in general.

"if we try to conceive of consciousness within an ontologically fully realized field of reality, it can only appear as an additional positive moment;"

This part is not supposed to be Heidegger -- it's what he's arguing against, as evidenced by the "but" to follow:

"but what about linking consciousness to the very finitude, ontological incompleteness, of the human being, to its being originally out-of-joint, thrown-into, exposed to, an overwhelming constellation?"

Finitude is constitutive of Dasein. Heideggerian.

It's a sloppily written sentence.

Also, Spinozist materialism (such as Deleuze, etc.) is the main kind of intellectually serious materialism that Zizek opposes -- by vulgar, he mainly seems to mean "non-dialectical." Something like "vulgar Marxism" would be a brand of Marxism that is just sheer unilateral economic determinism.

[Moleman]

I think it's important to note that I misread a phrase as "Hiedigger on Infinite Crisis" initially, and got really irationally excited.

[David]

Also, I think it is rather sloppy form of Zizek to footnote only Chalmers' whole bloody book, The Conscious Mind, rather than - say - a section, page, or even chapter...

If only everybody could be as rigorous as Zizek. In a footnote to the first book of Logiques des mondes, the sequel to his magnum opus Being and Event, Alain Badiou writes that a certain section was inspired by the works of François Nicolas, and for those who want to know more Badiou suggests googling that name.

[Dave]

Alcohol, drugs, lobotomies, as well as brain science (say electrical stimulation of cortical areas resulting in various sensations) are non-trivial objections to any Cartesian dualism or non-material "idealism". The "how" of a shot of Kessler affecting human consciousness, including higher cognitive functions, is far more easily explained by biochemical means than by idealist or mystical methods/speculations. If there are some grounds for immaterialism, the immaterialist must first prove that these various biochemical and causal relations--alcohol, drugs, brain stimulation--somehow do not interfere with a remote or occult functioning of mind. At just a basic level, one's cognitive skills are affected by alcohol. If mind includes/is defined by cognitive functions, then mind is biochemical--at least to a very significant degree--and that biochemical basis does not preclude conceptualism or necessarily equate to behaviorism (remember Searle?). It is only anachronistic metaphysicians who think otherwise, anyways; or theocrats, either xtian, jewish, or mooslim.

[David]

Actually, I'm in Yahoo advanced chess lounge 8 right now, Dave (honestly; table 21 host:davidsneek), so if you want to take on my Platonism with your empiricism, this is your chance.

[bryan]

doing monkey dance, hoping for coffee mug stardom.

[Saheli]

Oh my god, I think I have to steal your comment policy!

[jholbo]

The comment policy is free for all, Saheli. Enjoy

Hmmmm, that's interesting Adam. But Spinoza actually ISN'T a materialist, whether one finds his geometrical method 'vulgar' or not. (It's true that he could inspire materialists, but that is something else. It's like 'Kantian vulgar materialism' that way. It sort of seems necessary to mention that Kant didn't ask for this.) Chalmers isn't a materialst AT ALL, so it is hard for me to see that he is a 'vulgar' materialist. also, I am not sure why someone who starts with 17 positions, and winnows then to 7 three reductionist (materialist) views, four non (including dualism and a couple flavors of neutral monism) is 'non-dialectical'. By contrast, Zizk just starts his big book by saying Lacanianism is obviously valuable/valid, because it produces such fruitful readings. Now there's non-dialectic for you, because we just have a tight circuit of self-confirmation. This is what people don't like about 'vulgar' Marxist, no?

That is, it really does seem pot calling the kettle black for Zizek to call Chalmers 'vulgar', and have this term index something about 'taste for dialectic.' (I'm not just being snarky about this.) There are many things you could say on Zizek's behalf - that he is brilliant at capering from point to point, high to low, that no one is his equal at philosophic pastiche. But that he engages is dialectic - i.e. seriously considers intellectual alternatives and attempts to resolve them philosophically rather than by fiat - does not seem a likely charge to lay at his door. He's a 'by fiat' man. He pretty much admits as much himself. He's also pretty 'vulgar', in the ordinary sense. There is actually a serious point here. Zizek attempts to posture as though he is upholding some sort of Hegelian high seriousness, against callow analysts like Chalmers (who are presumably just strayed, small-minded scientists or something). But Zizek isn't SERIOUS. He's clowning. That is a possible philosophic mode, but not one from which you can lob charges of 'vulgarity' with an air of superiority.

One last point: "if we try to conceive of consciousness within an ontologically fully realized field of reality, it can only appear as an additional positive moment;" I did realize this wasn't supposed to be Heidegger, exactly, but thought it was supposed to be the basis for Heideggerian critique, per the 'but' that follows. So I thought the terminology might correspond to some form of Heideggerese. But I guess not. That's ok, but I still don't get 'realized ... reality', so I'm not sure why Chalmers is committed to thinking in these obscurely plenitudinal terms.

[jholbo]

Does anyone see any potential problems with the new, proposed, more expansive, coffee cup-based comment policy? If not, I'm going to run with it.

[belle waring]

our new comments policy is teh r0xx0rz!

[Dave]

You're correctomundo on one point: Chalmers is no materialist, vulgar or not. He's no idealist, either, in Berkleyan sense (and I don't think one can definitely claim Kantian "idealism" as immaterialist, but maybe u know more about than I): more like strong dualism. The first objection is that there are no zombies of the type C. imagines: yeah they could logically exist, but they don't, any more than a flying pig--not logically impossible--exists. And that cog. science cannot presently account for all mental phenomena or experience (say why people feel a certain emotion hearing Chopin) does not at all mean it will always be unable to do so. Besides, as ah think Dennett argues, one can do all sorts of mind experiments (Descartes the most famous) which seem to prove the existence of a transcendental subject, but that is just how it seems, or appears: 1000mgs of thorazine and that subject IS zonked out.

But the game is already set up by idealists, or platonists, or Cartesians: simply object and you're in with the vulgar or potentially vulgar crowd, the skeptics, "English" , mere empiricists, marxist rabble. Ah think Hobbes had the same problems when he poked fun at Descartes' arguments. Descartes was Hobbes' superior most likely in terms of mathematics, but Hobbes the superior physiologist and inductivist in many ways.

And however vull-gar it may seem, a sort of Hobbesian materialism, which takes physiological cause for granted--i.e you don't eat, you starve and die, and life is over, including conscious, mental life--has hardly been refuted; indeed if anything Darwin confirms Hobbesian materialism nearly completely--(tho' not really accounting sufficiently for mathematical knowledge). Descartes could, if he so chose, quit eating, and think himself deceived about his own starvation; or he could, perhaps, drink a quarts of moonshine and think himself deceived about his drunkenness as he dies from alc. poisoning (tho' his thinking would be affected to any other observers), but to any non-subjective observer he will appear to have died. Yes very obvious: but what does a Chalmers say to this? That there is still a mental substance which was not at all affected by the starvation, or drunkenness? --and that this mental substance was innate, or preceded D's own early existence. Yet as D. dies by starvation, and loses the ability to speak, function or apparently think, there is a conscious res cogitans still functioning, somewhere, tho' not physically detectable? (the very small electrical charge of the brain is not at all enough to be a sort of construct). Strange and quite archaic mysticism. But materialism, whether biological, economic, and/or historical, has never been great for the philosophy bidness.

[Matt]

Your comment policy is going to make me want to post all sorts of things like "John and Bella make my snout wet" just in hopes of their ending up on coffee mugs or, even better, thong panties.

[jholbo]

New comment policy now posted to the sidebar. (There. That oughta hold 'em.)

[ben wolfson]

John and Belle make my snout wet.

[Adam Kotsko]

John, My apologies. I didn't read your critique closely enough.

With the Spinoza thing, Zizek is reacting primarily to Deleuze and Negri's reception of him, so... whatever. Maybe this Spinoza connection is a blind alley for this discussion in the first place -- I certainly can't follow up on it, anyway, since I don't care one way or the other about Spinoza.

Also, people I know who are heavily invested in dialectical thinking (among whom I would not count you, unless you're hiding something up your sleeve) consider Zizek to be a good example of it. So, I mean, there's that.

[Adam Kotsko]

Also, fully realized reality would presumably be a version of reality without the horizon of Being, meaning without the "ontological difference" between Being and beings -- thus a reality that was fuly self-consistent.

But Zizek himself probably explains that better... in the 100+ page section of The Parallax View in which he outlines his perspective on Heidegger, which is not identical to the standard reading, but is nonetheless based on decades of study on his part.