Neuroscience and “unknowable”
Recent neuro-scientific findings supporting
Bion’s view is abundant. We naturally believe in the existence of “I” or our
consciousness and free will. Since Francis Crick, who discovered the double-helix
model of DNA and they turned to the quest for the mind proposed his “astonishing
hypothesis” that ‘a person’s mental activities are entirely due to the behavior
of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make them
up and influence them’, we could not avoid coming closer to acknowledging that
his hypothesis was right. As Mat Ridley (2016) says “the notion that there is a
unitary piece of selfness somewhere deep within the grey porridge inside the
skull is plainly just a powerful illusion.” And this illusion is produced by
the activity of our neural network. There is no substance, but the activity and
the relationship within the networks which constitute our mind and the sense of
subjectivity. The mind is unknowable as it is merely the connection of billions
of neurons. It is humbling and sobering to realize that our will and our sense
of self are just a creation out of nothing. However, science tells that we need
to start from there. I consider that Immanuel Kant was right in saying that thing-in-itself (Ding
an sich) is unknowable, as the idea of something, with its description as well
as its perception are our brain’s creation and there is not essence in the
thing in itself, but the “appearance”, as Kant said. Yet Freud was not wide off
the mark as he suggested that unconscious dominates our mind, as our consciousness
is produced by what is not conscious (in Freud’s idea, it was
unconscious, and in our modern term, “neural network”, or “New Unconscious” (Hassin,R
et al., 2004)).
From neuro-scientific model, in the process of
knowing there is not any substance added or produced in our brain. It is a new
connection which is created in our neural network. When we learn that “A is B”
as our new knowledge, there is a new connection between a network representing
A and that of B. What is unknowable is a state of unconnected networks A and B,
(and C,D,E….) existing indifferently to each other but waiting for a connection
to be made among them. The new connections can be made in great majority of
time, in the state of “default mode,” where attentions are vaguely hovering on these
free floating networks. There are limitless networks in our brain each
representing any images, notions, memories, melodies etc., waiting for some
connection to be made to each other. In a sense our creative attention should
always be on these unknowns, as any known is already established, perhaps
closed to new connection to occur.
Matt Ridley (2016) TheEvolution of Everything –how
new ideas emerge. Harper Perennial. Hassin,RR, Uleman,
JS, Bargh, JA (2004)
The New Unconscious - Social Cognition and Social neuroscience. Oxford
University Press.
