The Metaphorical Mind

What our language reveals about how we think and who we are

Christopher H. Ramey, Ph.D., is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Psychology at Drexel University, specializing in cognitive psychology. See full bio

July 28, 2008, Philosophy

Comments on "I finally got to be a homunculus part I."

I finally got to be a homunculus part I.

By Christopher H. Ramey, Ph.D. on July 28, 2008 in The Metaphorical Mind

Some children hope to grow up to be firemen, policemen, or astronauts. Some believe that being a pirate will be an acceptable vocation given a shift in global markets. Others altogether see a future in pinball wizardry. And then still others grow up and realize they can become homunculi.
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Unique topic

Submitted by Amanda on July 28, 2008 - 9:45am.

"Childhood dreams to become a homunculus". Hmm. I'm looking forward to it...keep up the interesting topics.

thanks. i hope you enjoy

Submitted by Christopher H. Ramey, Ph.D. on July 28, 2008 - 11:31am.

thanks. i hope you enjoy part ii, as well, when i post it.

no caps?

Submitted by shamrock on July 28, 2008 - 12:47pm.

ramey, what does the lack of capital letters say about you?

Capital idea

Submitted by Christopher H. Ramey, Ph.D. on July 28, 2008 - 12:55pm.

To paraphrase E.E. Cummings, sometimes I'm a lower case "i".

lol, I understand completely

Submitted by Shamrock on July 29, 2008 - 6:13am.

lol, I understand completely

If we are merely biochemical

Submitted by monicazir on August 4, 2008 - 10:36pm.

If we are merely biochemical machines as science dictates, then we have no free will. Under that assumption, how the body and brain react to the outside environment is dictated by the laws of chemistry, physics, and randomness. The search for a "homunculus" is the search for a "soul"(non-material). When you say "I" got to be..., which aspect of yourself are you referring to?? -- ego? subconscious? which of these, if any belong to "I". Or are "you" invested in words alone?

incomplete response with gratitude

Submitted by Christopher H. Ramey, Ph.D. on August 5, 2008 - 8:09pm.

thanks for posting a comment. i hope when part ii arrives, you'll be back. in the meantime, here are some incomplete replies: "If we are merely biochemical machines..." a lot rides on the word 'merely'. it suggests that there is something demeaning to being biochemical and/or machines. i take it that there is nothing too awful about the biochemical part unless one's ideal is some kind of noncorporeal Star Trek alien cloud. the rub is the mechanical part. i imagine. if machine means unidirectionally affected or responsive to the environment and that's it, then that is certainly an issue, if you're a psychologist. there's even a fair amount loaded into 'are'. if 'we' are reduced to machines, i think something is lost in the study of human beings. if we acknowledge the physical is a necessary component in studying the whole organism without asserting that a complete knowledge of the physical is sufficient to account for the whole of human psychology, then we are ok. "...the word as science dictates, then we have no free will." science as dictator is a very apt metaphor in certain respects. the scientific method, irrespective of its successes, is one of the most widespread indoctrination procedures in Western civilization. as for not having free will due to biochemical machinery, that need not follow. one can be made of nuts and bolts (and the nuts and bolts not having free will, of course) and still have free will. free will exists at the level of the organism, where the nuts and bolts are analyzed at the level of [insert natural science here]. this goes back to the mereological fallacy mentioned in part i of the being a homunculus post. parts and wholes are different. "... Under that assumption, how the body and brain react to the outside environment is dictated by the laws of chemistry, physics, and randomness." one of the most pervasive metaphors in Western philosophy and psychology is the internal/external dichtomy. it gets you your classic mind-body problem and your general skepticism of the world dilemmas. actually, to rephrase your comment, if everything is chemistry and physics, then it's all 'outside'. the universe would simply be a collection of external relations, a view from nowhere (i.e., no perspective). "... The search for a "homunculus" is the search for a "soul"(non-material)." that need not be the case, both to homunculi being a soul-search or the search for something non-material (or beyond the natural sciences, the super-natural). " When you say "I" got to be..., which aspect of yourself are you referring to?? -- ego? subconscious? which of these, if any belong to "I". Or are "you" invested in words alone?" i guess we'll see in part ii. hope you enjoy!

Which part of the dream am I; actor, director,audience,deux ex m

Submitted by Doug on August 5, 2008 - 1:20am.

Dr. Ramey says:
"Thus, it does not make any sense to say brains think or see or decide or that homunculi inside people consider or evaluate or perceive..."
If "WE" are not our brains, where do we invest our self-awareness and identity. We are unaware of our subconscious, but we admit that it belongs to us. What is the boundary of the self, and within that boundary who or what makes decisions. Isn't the decision-maker the person and the rest inconvenient tools? Requiring the "wholeness" to have an emergent identity is to require a new entity outside the boundary. Anything within the boundary cannot look at itself but only the rest unless switching identity. A "homunculus" would have to be outside the system unable to examine itself, a thing without a mirror but only an existence.

where am i?

Submitted by Christopher H. Ramey, Ph.D. on August 5, 2008 - 8:23pm.

thanks for posting. as an aside, regarding your second sentence, terminologically i don't use 'subconscious', but only to the extent that i refer to things going on outside my awareness as simply non-conscious processing (including breathing) or procedural (e.g., the 'how' i ride a bike moment to moment is not a series of decisions i make consciously). the term subconscious and unconscious gets you into a world of metaphors that are for another blog post in the future! i absolutely agree that the decision-maker is the person, but would stop short of saying the rest being inconvenient tools. i am fond of emergent processes, but what is emergent is dependent on certain necessary processes and capacities, without which the emergent process, etc. would not emerge. one does not step outside a 'boundary' but simply changes the boundary. you should look up a book by turner called the extended organism. (i will refrain from citing articles i have written on the subject.) organisms are defined by the dynamic boundaries they create and maintaining the give-and-take with their surroundings. also check out thompson's mind in life. (his book is easier to find than my review of it!) as for where the homunculus is and where the "i" is, that's for part ii, coming soon.

Great post!

Submitted by Maya, CVT on August 6, 2008 - 12:44pm.

This makes me wonder about where evolution fits in. For example, we cannot see without our optic nerve, which leads to our brain. Therefore although the brain cannot see, we need our brains for our eyes to "see". I had assumed this was true with all animals, until I learned that the horseshoe crab (very primitive, with several sets of eyes) had one set of eyes which could see without the use of its brain. I wonder what type of sight this could be - it's apparently significant enough that the poor critters are being studied for a blindness cure.

In any case, great topic, looking forward to part ii.

metaphors of vision

Submitted by Christopher H. Ramey, Ph.D. on August 6, 2008 - 1:23pm.

consider the metaphor "seeing is knowing" with respect to your crab example and also with respect to human beings. when someone says "i see what you mean" it is, of course, not literally the case that you see meaning. one mentions sight in the context of understanding another's intentions. imagine if we thought of knowledge or understanding not in terms of sight (cf. empiricism and believing something only when you see it with your own eyes) but in terms of another sense modality or something completely alien. bees or horseshoe crabs might see what we mean in a very different way.

part ii should be posted some time next week!