What is introspection?

[BaalChatzaf]

What is introspection above and beyond remembering what one was doing or thinking at a particular time or occasion?

How does one validate introspection empirically?

How can tell if one's visit to the "basement" is for real or just a reconstruction made to order?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Peter]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

What is introspection . . . ?

end quote

Quoting a definition is too easy, unless one were a brain scientist who knew the stuff from which dreams are made. fMRI’s can view introspection as an experience represented on a machine’s screen. I know it when I do it. You knew it when you asked the question. But, if one has an imaginary friend is that introspection? Is a Schizophrenic hearing voices or seeing hallucinations practicing introspection? I would guess yes.

Peter

[BaalChatzaf]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

What is introspection . . . ?

end quote

Quoting a definition is too easy, unless one were a brain scientist who knew the stuff from which dreams are made. fMRI’s can view introspection as an experience represented on a machine’s screen. I know it when I do it. You knew it when you asked the question. But, if one has an imaginary friend is that introspection? Is a Schizophrenic hearing voices or seeing hallucinations practicing introspection? I would guess yes.

Peter

The reason I asked is that I cannot get beyond remembering what I thought or did at some specific time, place or happening. That is all I can come up with. Oh yes... I can sometime remember what I felt (as in emotion) --- sometime, but not all the time.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

What is introspection . . . ?

end quote

Quoting a definition is too easy, unless one were a brain scientist who knew the stuff from which dreams are made. fMRI’s can view introspection as an experience represented on a machine’s screen. I know it when I do it. You knew it when you asked the question. But, if one has an imaginary friend is that introspection? Is a Schizophrenic hearing voices or seeing hallucinations practicing introspection? I would guess yes.

Peter

The reason I asked is that I cannot get beyond remembering what I thought or did at some specific time, place or happening. That is all I can come up with. Oh yes... I can sometime remember what I felt (as in emotion) --- sometime, but not all the time.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The key question of introspection is "why"?

--Brant

[Peter]

Ba'al Chatzaf asked:

What is introspection . . . ?

end quote

Brant answered with a question:

The key question of introspection is "why"?

end quote

It can’t be stopped, because of the nature of our conscious brains after about the 26^th week of gestation. Forget religion. It cannot answer the “Why” question with any verifiable evidence. “Why is introspection a reality” is rooted in evolution.

Back to the “What is introspection” question. Let me start with some examples. Introspection is a cross between causal direction as when we are hunting or fleeing and hear something suspicious and think about it, and strictly, volitionally raising our level of thinking. It is daydreaming, or the absent minded professor. Wrapped in his thoughts Einstein forgot where he was on the Princeton Campus and asked a coed, “Do you know where I am supposed to be at this time?” Sometimes introspection does not require overt personal direction, yet then it is not daydreaming. We may not talk to ourselves and say, “Think about this!” but we do have sub-vocal feelings of interest, and implied direction leading us to a path of thought.

Peter

Let’s ask Roger. Roger what do you think introspection is?

From: AchillesRB@aol.com

To: atlantis@wetheliving.com

Subject: ATL: Are mind and will an illusion?

Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 11:58:31 EST

Introduction

Many determinists and others question that humans have a mind and/or a will that is some kind of entity that is distinct from the human nervous system and that does things other than what the nervous system is doing. To some of us, this is simply Aristotelian common sense: only entities exist, and the mind and will are the capacities of human beings' nervous systems to be conceptually aware and to direct our awareness. As a result, we are sometimes accused of also holding that mind and will are in some sense "unreal" or "just an illusion," since our ~experiencing~ them as entities able to do things is at odds with the reality that they are not distinct entities, but instead are attributes of the human organism. What I want to do in this brief essay is to explain how Leonard Peikoff's brilliant explanation of the reality of sense data can be applied fully well to the problem of the metaphysical status of mental data, such as our inward focused, introspective data of our mental process and choices.

===========================================

My position on the nature and functioning of the mind is completely analogous to the Objectivist position on the nature of sense data. As Peikoff has lucidly explained in various lectures and writings, sense data (colors, shapes, sounds, etc.) are just as ~real~ as the entities that produce them in interaction with our senses and nervous systems. This view is often referred to as "perceptual realism," and is the acceptance of the reality of the effects of causal primaries, whose reality is not questioned. It is proposed as the corrective to naive "scientific realism," which holds that what is real is not sense data, but the measurable entities, attributes, and actions that interact with us to ~generate~ the sense data. In other words, on the view of naive scientific realism, all that is real is what O'ists call "intrinsic" phenomena, whereas an enlightened scientific realism should allow that phenomena arising from the form in which we are aware of entities, etc., are real, too.

Now, whether you call these interactive phenomena "objective" (as per O'ism) or "intentional" (as per Thomism and ontological atomism, among others), they are just as ~real~ as the things that are interacting, but they have a different ~status~ which can best be thought of as interaction-dependent. (I want to avoid quibbling over the Thomist distinction between real vs. intentional, by which O'ists would mean intrinsic vs. objective. Veatch, it should be noted, acknowledges the fact that intentional phenomena are, in some sense, real; that acknowledgement is enough to convince me that he would concur with the present discussion.) That is, sense data, which are objective, intentional, interaction-dependent phenomena, are just as real as the physical objects and conscious living organisms that interact to produce them. But the sense data are ~not~ independent "third things" in the world, but instead the ~form~ in which we independent things (the party of the second part) are aware of other independent things (the part of the first part). (So to speak.) That is what objective, intentional phenomena ~are~, the essence of their real nature.

Thus, Peikoff's discussion of the metaphysical status of sense data is an important contribution to the reconciliation of perceptual realism and scientific realism in regard to sense data. What I want to do here

is to sketch the parallel application of this view to the metaphysical status of mind and consciousness. My position (and one which, obviously, I think should be O'ism's) can simply be referred to as "mental" (or "introspectual") realism. The mind is not an ~intrinsic~ phenomenon, like the brain and nervous system, but an ~objective~, ~intentional~ phenomenon. It is the form in which we are aware of our conscious functioning, and the form in which we are aware of our capacity to engage in such activity. And by "we," I do not mean anything ethereal or mysterious, but simply ourselves, the conscious living organisms that we are. That is, the mind is the form in which a conceptually conscious being is aware of its conscious capacities and functions -- and the will is the form in which a conceptually conscious being is aware of its regulating of its concious functioning, and its capacity to regulate that functioning.

If this much follows from the parallel assumption of mental realism, the next question is: what is the mind ~dependent~ on? What things interact in order to ~produce~ the mind? Obviously, it must be two parts of the conceptually conscious organism--most likely, two parts of the brain. And by ~parts~ I do not necessarily mean an easily localizable chunk of the brain; instead, I think it is more likely that a network of sensitive brain cells work together in interaction with whatever ~other~ brain cells are involved in a particular thought, emotion, etc. And I doubt strongly that it is the ~same~ network of cells involved from one occasion of brain part/brain part to the next. There my speculation has to pause, since I'm not a neurologist and don't know much specific detail about the makeup and capacities of our grey matter! But this, I maintain, is the nature of introspection, the general pattern of how it works. And for me and everyone else who wants to know what makes our brains tick, I can't think of a better specific mystery to crack than how, physiologically speaking, introspection actually works.

And in general, I am interested in knowing more than just a ~functional~ explanation of what the brain consciously does, i.e., of its various processes and how they interact. I would also like to know specifically how each process is situated or based in the brain, and how brain circuits are laid out for each process, so that we understand how the brain gives rise to cognition and behavior. In other words, not just cognitive neuropsychology, but cognitive neuroscience.

The chief relevant differences I see between us and animals are: (1) our "adaptive control structure" (ADC) benefits by our unique possession of a conceptual faculty, which allows the human ACD to process information that is not bound to the concrete, here-and-now, and thus "frees" us from the relative limitations imposed on creatures who possess only a perceptual faculty, and (2) our ACD benefits by our unique ability to introspect, i.e., to monitor the functioning of our conscious brains, which adds another layer of organismic self-regulation to that which animals possess. Just as conceptualization arose to help humans cope with the information overload on the perceptual level, so introspection arose to help us cope with the information overload on the conceptual level. Since I regard the will as the form in which we are introspectively aware of our (brain's) capacity to regulate the conscious actions of our brains and our bodies, I do not think of other animals as having a will. It is a specifically human phenomenon. All animals (and plants) engage in self-direction and are thus (relatively) autonomous centers of biological activity. But while this is an important kind of freedom (freedom from domination by external forces), animals with their consciousness and locomotion have an additional kind of freedom (freedom from "blindness" and immobility), and humans are freest of all with our conceptual faculty which gives us freedom from the limitations of the perceptual level. But beyond this, I cannot yet--perhaps never--go, to regard our choices as free from determination by our thoughts and values. I literally do not know how to get free of my thoughts and values, and I don't think anyone else does either!

[Mikee]

Internal simulation of future experience.

[Dennis Hardin]

What is introspection above and beyond remembering what one was doing or thinking at a particular time or occasion?

Introspection is not memory--it is the process of looking inward, of being self-aware of one's own internal experience.

How does one validate introspection empirically?

Vaildation pertains to verifying that which is not available to direct experience. Direct experience requires no validation--it is directly available to you.

In this respect it is comparable to sense perception.

How can tell if one's visit to the "basement" is for real or just a reconstruction made to order?

Ba'al Chatzaf

By developing self-trust through self-acceptance. By refusing to fake internal reality. By deciding that you have nothing to gain from self-deception. By recognizing that you cannot wipe a thought or emotion out of existence by declaring war on yourself.

Just look inward and greet whatever you discover there with open arms.

[BaalChatzaf]

The key question of introspection is "why"?

--Brant

For some things, there is no "why". Some things happen and some things are thought and no cause can be determined. A cause may very well exist but it eludes detection and determination.

How about you. Suppose you "why" yourself to the bottom. What makes the bottom the bottom and not a further step in a regress?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

By developing self-trust through self-acceptance. By refusing to fake internal reality. By deciding that you have nothing to gain from self-deception. By recognizing that you cannot wipe a thought or emotion out of existence by declaring war on yourself.

Just look inward and greet whatever you discover there with open arms.

The human eye is built to look outward and receive inbound photons. What could "look" possibly mean? Basically that is a restatement of my question.

And what do you do to bound and limit an infinite "why" chain? How do you know when to stop?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Introspection in More Detail

> Introspection is not memory--it is the process of looking inward, of being self-aware of one's own internal experience. [dennis h]

> Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. [wikipedia]

> an examination of one's own thoughts and feelings [dictionary]

I find the simplest way to wrap one's head around this is from the Latin roots - extro: outward, intro: inward. It refers to the object of our awareness and thus to the form of awareness. We extrospect when we look at things outside or physical. We introspect when we look at things inside or mental.

Rand captures it in extremely precise and formal language: "Extrospection is a process of cognition directed outward—a process of apprehending some existent(s) of the external world. Introspection is a process of cognition directed inward—a process of apprehending one’s own psychological actions in regard to some existent(s) of the external world, such actions as thinking, feeling, reminiscing, etc. It is only in relation to the external world that the various actions of a consciousness can be experienced, grasped, defined or communicated." [iTOE, p. 29]

The genus is "process of cognition." But extrospection vs. introspection is almost never either-or or a hard, absolute boundary: Consider the mental process involved If I want to reflect about the merits of living in suburban Southern California vs. Manhattan, I am neither extrospecting or introspecting exclusively (except in the sense that while thinking about this I'm looking at the facts and memories which is stored in my head). I consider data derived from extrospection: what the places are like, images from magazines, tv programs. And I consider my own deepest needs for types of people, etc. (In fact each one of those objects of attention was itself a combination of extrospective and introspective parts.)

Baal asks a very good series of questions from the hard-headed point of view of a physical or empirical scientist. {I suspect these sorts of 'measurability and objectivity' questions are what led behaviorists and cognitive scientists to claim introspection as such is unreliable, subjective or personal, unscientific.] ==>

1. How does one validate introspection empirically?

2. How can [one] tell if one's visit to the "basement" is for real or just a reconstruction made to order?...Suppose you "why" yourself to the bottom. What makes the bottom the bottom and not a further step in a regress?...How do you know when to stop?

3. The human eye is built to look outward and receive inbound photons. What could "look" possibly mean?

Let me take #3 first. "Look" means awareness of any kind. Since our "best-loved tool" and our primary source of acquiring knowledge is seeing with our eyes, that is the metaphor for other methods or processes of awareness: look at the facts, look inside yourself and see if you really love her, look closely at this physics problem, take a close look at how the ancient Greeks lived. Clearly mental processes (ways of 'looking') extend far beyond that of vision or sensation.

As for #2: This is the philosophical problem of certainty or proof, only applied to internal matters. In some cases it's direct perception. Often only you can tell if you are fearful, happy, angry. And it's direct awareness. Can you prove it objectively, scientifically to others in a laboratory? Probably not, but so what? You -can- identify objectively if need be the chain of causes, the things that would probably make a normal person angry or sad. Now if Baal's question is can you get to the bottom of why you are seething with anger all the time, that might involve many things. It can be non-obvious and complex, just like determining every reason why the golden age of Greece had a certain sense of life or pinning down with total precision all the reasons why you love someone. It's just the way it is. You know "when to stop" when you have reached great enough precision for your purposes, just as you know when to stop in trying to un-Heisenberg the exact position and velocity, the exact spin and charge and momentum of a subatomic particle.

As for #1: Well, if you mean -particular- cognitions, it depends. Some facts or states or memories are direct perception-like. I remember what the house I lived in in high school looked like and what the school looked like and my Geometry teacher. Some you may need to support with other date or with further reflection.

[BaalChatzaf]

Thank you for your responses. They were on point and useful.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[anthony]

That's a good round-up, Phil.

Self-exploratory introspection is also one's last line of defence against

self-deceit and evasiveness: "now why did I say that, feel that, want to do that, not do that..."

When to stop? Why stop, it's fun.

[Dennis Hardin]

By developing self-trust through self-acceptance. By refusing to fake internal reality. By deciding that you have nothing to gain from self-deception. By recognizing that you cannot wipe a thought or emotion out of existence by declaring war on yourself.

Just look inward and greet whatever you discover there with open arms.

The human eye is built to look outward and receive inbound photons. What could "look" possibly mean? Basically that is a restatement of my question.

"Look" is a metaphor in this context. It means directing your awareness internally.

And what do you do to bound and limit an infinite "why" chain? How do you know when to stop?

Ba'al Chatzaf

I have no idea what the question "why" has to do with introspection. It's like asking 'why open your eyes?' To see, of course.

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Introspection in More Detail (continued)

One important question I didn't think of in post #10: We are not always fully in touch with ourselves and make mistakes of looking inside all the time. Humans have psychological problems or difficulties. "What explains introspective errors or shortcomings?"

These fall into two very broad categories, errors of commission and omission (this is true more generally of thinking errors and in fact of all sorts of errors, oversights, mistakes.) There are many ways to go off track. You can err in what you do or by not doing anything or not doing enough or by taking action of the wrong type or in the wrong way.

The biggest problem is probably the relative "murkiness" of introspection. Compared to the relatively sunlit nature of extrospection, it is less easy to see or find all the material. Reminiscence requires us to dredge up things from the past which may have been half forgotten or never correctly identified. Emotions can be scary or threaten our self-esteem so we may have buried or suppressed them in a way that we don't do with the memory of an extrospective phenomenon such as a dog biting us.

Also, our skills at looking inside at mental content or processes are less developed. Psychology, unlike extrospective disciplines is not yet a fully developed science, either theoretically or practically/clinically/selfhelp-wise. Just as one example, on another thread, we are still debating the nature of emotions, what causes them, and even what is a list of the fundamental ones. Imagine the state of physics if we were still imprecise or unsure about the forms of a primary area of study such as energy, if physicists were still debating if electrical, chemical, thermal, mechanical, and nuclear energy are different or about the laws and the causal chains involved.

Looking at an extrospective phenomenon like the color of a sunset or what happened in a physical event such as the game of tennis we had yesterday is often more 'solid' to us. Compared to whether one is feeling sadness or in a bad mood over something hard to unearth exactly, It is brightly lit, what happens doesn't fluctuate so often and isn't so 'subterranean'.

Related is the fact that it can be more difficult to identify a process than a discrete event or thing. And much of our mental content that it would be desirable to introspect about is a process. Feeling sad or angry or joyful (emotions) or confused or certain (cognitions) is not just an event, it is often a sequence of steps starting with an observation, followed by an evaluation what evidence you have or whether something is for or against you and how much so, and often integrated or related to other experiences and history.

So, introspection is not self-evident. It is hard.

And often we don't do it at all. Or do it inaccurately. (Clearly, none of this is to suggest that extrospective perception or thinking is always direct, accurate, or obvious. Or to suggest that there are no easy or 'self-evident' cases of looking inside yourself and perceiving that you are angry or surprised or puzzled or in doubt.)

[BaalChatzaf]

And often we don't do it at all. Or do it inaccurately. (Clearly, none of this is to suggest that extrospective perception or thinking is always direct, accurate, or obvious. Or to suggest that there are no easy or 'self-evident' cases of looking inside yourself and perceiving that you are angry or surprised or puzzled or in doubt.)

I avoid introspection (beyond recall of events and facts). I have an innate difficulty in recalling feelings and emotions. I do not like going into the cellar or the attic where the broken and moldering stuff is strewn about.

Besides, the most interesting things in the Cosmos are happening outside my skin.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dglgmut]

I don't think the self can be objectified. This is the reason it is so easy to control one's emotions when one becomes aware of the source.

The objectification is realization. When we understand the reason we do the things we do, we understand the difference between ourselves and our circumstances. Our circumstances are objective, we are not.

The non-objective self we attempt to look within is self-created. Like we define ourselves with our actions, we create ourselves with our purpose.

I believe the paradoxical nature of existence is our nature as well. We have to be without a choice, and we have to choose without a cause aside from our own existence.

Introspection, as it is normally meant, is not looking within, but more carefully drawing the line between what is the self and what is not. The self is the freedom of choice, everything else is circumstance.

[anthony]

I don't think the self can be objectified. This is the reason it is so easy to control one's emotions when one becomes aware of the source. The objectification is realization. When we understand the reason we do the things we do, we understand the difference between ourselves and our circumstances. Our circumstances are objective, we are not. The non-objective self we attempt to look within is self-created. Like we define ourselves with our actions, we create ourselves with our purpose. I believe the paradoxical nature of existence is our nature as well. We have to be without a choice, and we have to choose without a cause aside from our own existence. Introspection, as it is normally meant, is not looking within, but more carefully drawing the line between what is the self and what is not. The self is the freedom of choice, everything else is circumstance.

Digging deep, Calvin.

Some original, and - um - introspective thoughts, here, I think.

(Can we objectify ourselves? Possibly not, entirely - nor should we have to, essentially.

After time, though, one might find one is building up a 'picture' of what one is, a sense of self - all

from habitual introspection.)

"We have to choose without a cause aside from our existence" is interesting phrasing. What better cause is there?

You could develop a whole morality from this alone.

But, with a few quibbles, I agree with your post.

[i just looked up "introspection" on the Ayn Rand Lexicon, and saw some

fresh stuff I hadn't read. You might find it stimulating.]

Tony

[Dglgmut]

Can we really create a picture of ourselves? If we take a picture of a landscape, we can take that picture with us and have a reference to that scene without having to literally relive it... but we had to experience it first hand at one point, or else we wouldn't have been able to take the picture.

A picture of ourselves can't be created without some sort of first hand exposure. We cannot get that. We can only extrapolate our own existence, as well as qualities of our nature, from our exposure to otherness and our observations of the impact we have.

Rather than a picture of ourselves, what we have is an outline.

But what's outlined is our freedom, nothing else. Not our memories, not our thoughts or feelings, not our histories or our actions... none of that is really us.

Can we look inside freedom? Can we objectify it?

They say that none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. I agree, but what about those who are free and hopelessly believe they are enslaved?

If purpose is the source of action, then knowledge of one's freedom is the source of purpose. Knowledge of one's freedom is self-knowledge... everything else is knowledge of one's circumstances. (Simply: We create purpose when we know we have the option of choice, we deny purpose when we believe we have no choice.)

I guess a good question to ask determinists would be: Do you consider freedom a circumstance? (We cannot choose to be free... or can we? Is freedom a passive condition, or is it something that is actively created?)

[BaalChatzaf]

I guess a good question to ask determinists would be: Do you consider freedom a circumstance? (We cannot choose to be free... or can we? Is freedom a passive condition, or is it something that is actively created?)

Freedom is a minimization of constraint. Since we are beings in nature we can never be free of natural constraint. So freedom is more like the minimization of or absence of unnecessary and un-natural constraints. Absolute freedom is an empty abstraction. Be we ever so intelligent and good we cannot get away from the conservation laws of nature. We cannot make something from nothing, and nothing we have or do can be completely annihilated. We can never completely escape the natural consequences of what we do.

What we -can- do is not impose any more constraints on our doings than nature requires.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

Unlike running (which also has to be learned, in fact) introspection is not natural. We learn it. As a species we first learned it perhaps only about 8,000 years ago, maybe less. The "ushapti" statues of the Egyptians suggest that people needed an external focus to express their inner states ("thoughts").

If you have a voice in your head, you might find it strange that others do not. But they do not. Millions, perhaps billions of people, never develop introspection. They function well. My last graduate class was "Ethics in Physics" and one of the physics grad students said that he understands people when they refer the voice in their heads but he has none. Yet, he managed quantum mechanics well enough...

Myself, I was never aware of a voice in my head until I was about five. I was running around the house and my mother stopped me to ask me what was in my head. ... until that moment, apparently, not much... Later, she taught me to focus on a single point and to block out all other peripheral sight. It was part of the process of mental development, learning to concentrate on school problems, etc. In my early 20s, like others in my generation, I took an interest in meditation that still continues.

I believe that literature has been the primary mode by which we discovered ourselves. I mean that in both senses. First, that in literature, we discover the inner selves of others. But for that to happen,the author must first be introspective. For centuries and millennia only poets and mystics had these insights. It is why religions fail to change behavior - (aside from the unreal parts that cannot be instantiated). "Do unto others" requires that you first identify yourself.

Ba'al would like an external validation of those internatl states, some kind of MRI or PET or whatever, that will demonstrate to an outside observer that introspection exists. It is an interesting point.