Hierarchically Minded: Levels of Intentionality and Mind Reading

Article (PDF Available) · January 2013with439 Reads
Abstract
In "The Human Story: A New History of Mankind's Evolution" (2004) the evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar speculates on the development of some mental abilities exclusive to humans as they evolved from pre-human species. His account somewhat limits the role of language, and the main emphasis falls on another phenomenon associated to humanization: the development of so-called Theory of Mind, a term current in contemporary evolutionary psychology which covers some of the ground of what is called intersubjectivity in phenomenological philosophical traditions. In this paper I will argue that the theory of Theory of Mind needs further refining, and further dialogue with relevant disciplines of the humanities, in order to take into account the complex semiotics of human experience and communication.
1
Hie rarchic ally M inded:
Levels of Intentionality and Mind Reading
JOSÉ ANGEL GARCÍA LANDA
UNIVERSITY OF ZARAGOZA (SPAIN)
garciala@unizar.es
http://www.garcialanda.net
In
The Hu
m
an
S
t ory: A New Hist ory of Mankind
'
s Evolution
(2004) the evolutionary psychologist Robin
Dunbar speculates on the development of some mental abilities exclusive to humans as they evolved from
pre-human species. His account somewhat limits the role of language, and the main emphasis falls on
another phenomenon associated to humanization: the development of so-called Theory of Mind, a term
current in contemporary evolutionary psychology which covers some of the ground of what is called
intersubjectivity
in phenomenological philosophical traditions. In this paper I will argue that the theory of
Theory of Mind needs further refining, and further dialogue with relevant disciplines of the humanities, in
order to take into account the complex semiotics of human experience and communication.
Human experience takes place in an intersubjective space of communication, in which our thought
is constantly being intertwined with that of others; as a matter of fact much of what we call 'our thought'
consists, beyond the immediate cognitive response to other people's words and actions, in the
interpretation and hypothetical reconstruction of the thoughts of others. It is this phenomenon that
cognitive theorists and evolutionary psychologists refer to as
m
ind reading.
Somewhat like Professor X in
The X-Men
, we all live immersed in a constant process of reading other people's minds. To be sure, the
representation of other minds is also a central issue for literary theorists and narratologists.
1
In a paper on
cognition and language understood as
internalized interaction
(2007a), I have examined some aspects of
this phenomenon and the role it played in the origin of human intersubjectivity and of complex symbolic
communication as an evolutionary process of dialectical feedback.
Intentionality has been addressed in the philosophical field by phenomenologists, and Dunbar
briefly refers to this school. Phenomenologists used the term 'intentionality' to refer not just to intentions
or plans but to a number of mental states relative to consciousness and mental awareness: mental states
such as knowing, believing, thinking that, wishing, expecting, taking decisions, etc. For Dunbar,
intentionality has to do with reflexive consciousness"It refers to the state of being aware of the contents
of your own mind" (2004: 45), and in its intersubjective dimension it can be conceived as "a
hierarchically organised series of belief-states" (2004: 45).
One may partly disagree with some aspects of this account of the relationship between
intentionality and consciousness. For instance, on the levels of intentionality of computers and simple
living beings:
1
Some comments apropos recent theories may be found in my note "Leyéndonos la mente" (2007), and also a in a series on
articles on the concept of
topsight
or dominant perspective in the understanding of situations (García Landa 2009-2012).
2
Computers are zero-order intentional entities: they are not aware of the contents of their 'minds'. Some living organisms
such as bacteria (and perhaps some insects) may also be zero-order intentional beings. Most organisms that have brains of
some kind are probably aware of the content of their minds: they 'know' that they are hungry or 'believe' that there is a
predator under that bush over there. Such organisms are said to possess first-order intentionality. (Dunbar 2004: 45)
It may be argued, however, that (a) feeding (b) being hungry and (c) knowing that one is hungry
are three distinct types of phenomena. An animal that is merely hungry experiences a degree of
intentionality lower than that of an animal that
knows that
it is hungry; in the latter instance, we are
advancing one step towards conceptualization (the concept of hunger, for instance) and towards reflexive
consciousness. As regards the example of the predator, perhaps Dunbar would convene that there is
another relevant difference at work: believing that there is a predator around
because so
m
e signal of it s
prese nce has been perceived
is not the same as fearing that an invisible predator might be present
because
one knows
that predators often hide behind bushes. The second mental process is much more elaborate,
intentionally speaking.
Arguably, too, the degrees of intentionality are not as clearly defined not stacked through simple
insertion, as Dunbar's account may suggest. He proposes an account of complex intentionality based on
recursive embedding:
Having a belief about someone else's beliefs (or intentions) constitues second-order intentionality, the criterion for theory
of mind (or, as it is more often known in the technical literature, ToM). Jane
believes
that Sally
thinks
her ball is under
the cushion. Jane has two belief states in mind (her own and Sally's), so theory of mind is equivalent to second-order
intentionality. (2004: 45)
Likewise, Peter may want Jane to suppose that Sally believes that the ball is still under the cushion.
Sally's intentional state is first-order, Jane's is second-order and Peter's is third-order. We could say that
Peter has topsight or dominant perspective as regards this situation. Conventional wisdom, Dunbar
argues, points out that adult humans can manage a maximum of five or six degrees of usable intentional
levels: "Peter
believes
(1) that Jane
t hinks
(2) that Sally
wants
(3) Peter to
suppose
(4) that Jane
inte nds
(5) Sally to
believe
(6) that her ball is under the cushion" (2004: 46).
We get lost, which is only to be expected, according to Dunbar: most everyday situations have to
do with second-degree intentionality, and in practice people can normally solve problems up to a fifth
degree of intentionality; less than half reach the sixth degreewhile problems having to do with levels of
causality,
for instance, can easily be resolved up to the seventh degree. People suffering from
schizophrenia or depression, autism, or Asperger's syndrome have difficulties in dealing with complex
intentionality. So do men (i.e. males), who according to some satirically-minded feminists often suffer
from a dash of autistic-like cognitive deficiencies. "The psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen has argued
that, in reality, autism is part of the normal syndrome of maleness in our species, carried to extreme form
in a few unfortunate individuals but simmering quietly beneath the surface of every male mind" (Dunbar
3
2004: 52). Dunbar himself argues that women do have more finely-honed social and communicative
abilities, and are more sensitive to signs. It appears that they are statistically more capable of dealing with
second- and third-degree problems of the theory of mind (2004: 52).
These and other cognitive propensities can be explained from an evolutionary and sociobiological
viewpoint. Our peculiar cognitive makeup is a result of the heightened sociability of our species. Our
hypersensitive attention to the intentionality of others and our propensity to ascribe intentional states to
them may be one of the causes of religious feelings, of belief in spirits and in a world which is
intentionally organized, a belief typical of creationist myths of all ages. We continually construct
intentions and mental states behind other people's behavior, a requirement for, as well as a result of, this
heighened sociability; but then we sometimes get it wrong, and ascribe non-existent intentions to pseudo-
agents: to the sea, to the sun, to stormsand quite often we overestimate the intentionality of animals;
"Indeed, so natural it is for us to interpret other organisms' behaviour in this way that we even ascribe
mental states to the inanimate world." (Dunbar 2004: 53).
Mankind constitutes one exceptional case of extremely complex sociality among the higher
animalsan alien observer might easily characterize us as apes with some strangely ant-like propensities
for large and tightly-knit social groups.
2
But human cognition is socially constituted to a degree which
really has no parallel in either the insect societies or in our closer relatives, the apes. Beorlegui
characterizes the essentially social nature of human individuality and cognition from a standpoint which
combines the insights of hermeneutic philosophy and evolutionary biology:
In its interaction with the environment, the functions performed by human consciousness are similar to those of other
animals, but the most basic function of our consciousness is to guide us through interhuman relationships. Because it is
essential to realize that the primordial relationships of human beings are not relative to the natural environment, but to
conspecific fellow humans. Thus, the human mind was developed and was shaped in an interpersonal and social
environment. Thus, human inteligence is fundamentally, and to a greater extent, a social rather than a practical
intelligence. As such, it is oriented above all to understanding and interpreting the interiority and the intentions of
conspecifics rather than to solving and overcoming mere problems of survival, such as getting fed, dressed, escaping
from predators, or any other such problem. (Beorlegui 2011: 268, my translation).
3
2
The complex sociality of humans and social insects is compared from the standpoint of evolutionary sociobiology by Wilson
(2012). While Wilson is attentive enough to the consilience between science and the humanities (1998), he arguably
underestimates the peculiarities that human sociality derives from the complex cognitive abilities of human individuals.
3
"En el ejercicio de interactuar con el entorno ecológico, la conciencia humana realiza funciones parecidas a la de los demás
animales, pero lo más básico de nuestra conciencia es guiarnos en las relaciones interhumanas. Porque es fundamental ser
conscientes de que las relaciones primordiales de los seres humanos no se refieren al entorno natural sino al resto de compañeros
de especie. Así, la mente humana se formó y se configuró en un ámbito interpersonal y social. Y, por tanto, la inteligencia
humana es fundamentalmente inteligencia social antes, y en mayor medida, que inteligencia práctica. De tal modo que se orienta
en mayor medida a entender e interpretar la interioridad y las intenciones de sus congéneres humanos antes que a solventar y
superar los problemas de mera supervivencia, como el comer, vestirse, escapar de los depredadores, y cualquier otro problema de
esta índole." (Beorlegui 2011: 268)
4
These intersubjective and psychoevolutionary roots of religion and of belief in the supernatural are
further examined by E. O. Wilson, Adolf Tobeña, and other evolutionary theorists.
4
Wilson himself
concludes
The
S
ocial Conquest of Earth
with a speculation on the origin and role of religion as an
element of social cohesion, as an interpretation of reality, and as a generator of strong emotional
experiences of transcendence.
5
The objects of religious beliefs are illusory, but the experience of religion
turned out to be beneficial (for group selection, as argued by Charles Darwin or by E. O. Wilson) from an
evolutionary viewpoint at a given moment of social development, and religions keep on providing
societies with cohesion and with a source of values and purposeif we except rationalist minority groups
in modern societies.
Some aspects of machiavellian behaviour among apes and monkeys have led ethologists to argue
that they also have an elementary theory of mind, that is, that they are able to understand that other
individuals may have false beliefs, and on that basis they are able to manipulate those individuals for their
own benefit, or even induce those false beliefs through dissembling and thus prepare the ground for such
machiavellian manipulation. Dunbar reports numerous experiments without committing himself to a clear
answer on this issueand yet it would seem that many cases of complex social interaction among vervets
or macaques, not to mention chimpanzees or bonobos, do suggest an ability for the mental representation
of various levels of possible worlds contained in other minds. A capacity inferior to that of humans,
admittedly: between the ages of four and six, children develop an ability to understand the beliefs and
world-pictures of other individuals at a level of complexity beyond that of intelligent animals like apes or
dolphins:
Even allowing for the most charitable interpretation of these results, however, one thing seems clear: neither chimpanzees
nor dolphins perform anything like as well as six-year-old children, who most definitely do have theory of mind. Ans
whatever it is that apes can do, they are simply not on the same scale as adult humans in terms of the latter's ability to
cope with fourth- or fifth-order intentional problems. (2004: 60)
The theory of mind is an emergent cognitive ability based on a much more basic mental process:
imagination, the ability to detach oneself from immediate circumstances in order to construct a mental
model of something which is not present. In turn this involves the ability to manipulate memory traces.
Some animals do have complex memory systems, but they all have a severely limited ability to
manipulate memories: they live immersed in the here-and-now; they lack the ability to construct complex
plans and elaborate mental models representing the consequences of different lines of action (although
this ability does exist in higher animals in a restricted sense). It is in this ability of mental representation,
or imagination, that one should look for the major differences between animals and humans, according to
Dunbar. He notes that the section of the brain which has experienced the greatest development during the
evolution of primates is the frontal lobes, which account for most of the superior intelligence of apes and
4
See%Wilson%(1998,%2012)%and%my%note%"Programados%para%creer."
5
See my notes on Wilson's
The
S
ocial Conquest of Earth
(García Landa 2012).
5
humans: "There is a correlation between social group size and the volume of the neocortex in primates
which suggests that it has been the need to manage the complex social world in which primates live that
has driven the evolution of ever-larger brains" (2004: 72).
One of Dunbar's most original suggestions is that the development of the brain can be
mathematically correlated with the development of complex intentionality in our ancestors in order to
make informed guesses about the cognitive abilities of early humans and hominins based on statistical
data:
These suggest that third-order intentionality would have appeared for the first time with
Ho
m
o erectus,
around two
million years ago. Fourth-order intentionality, however, would not have made its appearance until sometime around
500,000 years ago when archaic
Ho
m
o sapiens
(our own species) came on the scene. Because brain size continues to
increase dramatically in the human lineage, fifth-order would have followed fairly quickly on its heels. (2004: 75)
%
The appearance of fully developed intentional ability is dated by Dunbar around two hundred thousand
years agowhich is the age at which most paleoanthropologists tend to situate the origin of anatomically
modern Homo sapiens.
In spite of the unquestionable interest of these suggestions, Dunbar's account may be
underestimating the role of language (which is after all a representational instrument, among other things)
as a part of the social universe of (early) humans, and as an driving force in the structing of the brain.
Conversely, Bickerton's insightful theory of the origin of language within this social universe may be
lacking a corresponding emphasis on the theory of mind whose development is necessary to account for
typically human social interactionthe kind of emphasis that we do find in Dunbar. A greater emphasis
on the cognitive role of language is placed by other evolutionary theorists such as Terrence Deacon or
Beorlegui.
6
Still, a more elaborate account of the complex dialectical structuring of intentionality in the
human world would have to take into account the work of philosophers such as Merleau-Ponty on the
phenomenology of experience (1945, 1993), a task we cannot undertake within the scope of this paper.
An interesting chapter of
The Hu
m
an
S
tory
is devoted to animal cultures. Dunbar reviews the
different varieties of gathering in ants, and the diverse abilities for tool use among chimpanzees,
depending on their population of origin. These are culturally transmitted developments, however
elementary they may appear to be. But advanced cultural development and its transmission necessitates
the existence of language and of intentional abilities higher than those of apes.
6
Bickerton (1990; 2009); see also my comment on Bickerton 2009 (García Landa 2010). Deacon's contribution on the
coevolution of language and the human brain (1997) has been highly influential. Beorlegui notes both a continuity and a rupture
between the cognitive worlds of higher animals and humans: "Hay una continuidad en el aspecto cognitivo, en la medida en que
la conducta animal y su capacidad para transmitir señales a sus congéneres están basadas en su específico nivel cognitivo,
situándose de todos modos el ser humano en estos campos a una distancia ciertamente apreciable. Pero se da también una ruptura
y un salto cualitativo desde el momento en que el lenguaje hablado que poseemos los humanos representa una distancia
cualitativa tanto en el aspecto fonético, semántico, sintáctico como pragmático" (2011: 281). My translation: "There exists a
continuity in the cognitive sense, insofar as the behaviour of animals and their ability to transmit signals to their kind are based
on a specific cognitive level, with human beings at any rate at a considerable distance in this respect. But there is also a rupture
and a qualitative break given that our human language is qualitatively distant in phonetic as well as semantic, syntactic or
pragmatic terms".
6
It is at this point that Dunbar introduces a Shakespearean example to show the way in which human
cultural understanding requires an elaborately hierarchical intentionality.
When Shakespeare wrote
Twelfth Night,
he
intended
[1] that his audience should
realise
[2] that the much derided
Malvolio
believed
[3] that his mistress Olivia
wanted
[4] to marry him instead of his being her servant (with the levels of
intentionality once again marked in numerical order). And in writing
Othello,
he
intended
[1] that his audience
realise
[2]
that the eponymous moor
believed
[3] that his servant Iago was being honest when he claimed to
know
[4] that his
beloved Desdemona
loved
[5] Cassio. Shakespeare's literary efforts were a fourth- or even fifth-order taskand fifth-
order tasks, as we saw in Chapter 3, are exacting and challenging even for humans of above average intelligence. Even if
a chimpanzee could speak, it would not be able to follow the convolutions of the plotdespite the fact that, to do so, it
would need one level of intentionality less thant the great Bard had required to write it. There is no evidence to suggest
that the more advanced levels of intentionality above second-order are anything other than a purely human preserve.
(2004: 162)
As noted above, it is unlikely that this account corresponds to the way things actually work out
even if we accept the analytic usefulness of the theory of accumulated intentional levels simply stacked
one on top of one another. Arguably, some instances of ape behavior as described by Dunbar himself
would seem to suggest a more complex intentionality than he allows forbut I will not go into this issue,
and will concentrate instead on the complexities of the intentional structure of literary works.
Dunbar's account of the levels of intentionality involved in literary communication is inadequate.
Intentional levels cannot be stacked or embedded in the neat way assumed here. Rather, intentionality
functions in the shape of complex packages, conventionally orchestrated through communicative genres
and situational schemata which are to a large extent ready-made. These structures organize cognition so
as to allow interactants to manipulate complex intentional structures without having to be consciously
aware, at any given moment, of each individual level of intentionality involved in the structure or
contained by itthe intentional levels come, so to speak, by default as part and parcel of the
communicative genre being used, or with the communicational frame assumed or negotiated for the
occasion.
7
Observe that in the case of
Twelfth Night
the situation is far more complex than Dunbar's
description would suggest. Maria and Sir Toby are preparing a trap for Malvolio so that he may come to
believe that Olivia loves him, and this scene is funny precisely because we see it both through Malvolio's
eyes and through the eyes of the plotters who control the scenesetting one perspective against the other,
and thus seeing Malvolio's "theory of mind" from their higher cognitive perspective
and,
at the same
time, because we are seeing the plotters from above as well, from a spectator's position designed by the
drama's presentational structure. So the levels of intentionality would multiply. One must suppose that the
audience enjoys seeing how Malvolio acts manipulated by a message he has found, one supposedly
written by Olivia. But the mere setting of that trap assumes the nesting of a whole series of levels of
7
Two useful accounts of frame theory can be found in Goffman (1986) and Tannen (1993). In (2008) I expound a theory of
social identity and subjectivity based on Goffman's account of the experiential managing of frames.
7
intentionality: the spectator
observes
how
Maria plans
that
Malvolio will believe
that
Olivia loves hi
m
.
Maria's acts also seem to be guided by a plan whose ultimate objective is not just ridiculing Malvolio, but
also seducing Sir Toby, so the full understanding of the scene has to take into account Sir Toby's
observation and Maria's calculations on the effect this will have on his appreciation of her abilities for
mischief and wit.
Viola's disguises give rise to even more complicated situtations. Shakespeare
designs
a dramatic
situation for the viewer to enjoy
watching
how Olivia
believes
that she is getting married not to Sebastian
but to Cesarioa situation which is amusing for the spectator because Cesario is
hiding
a secret identity
(that of Viola, sister to Sebastian)so that it turns out that Olivia's mistaking Sebastian for Cesario is not
only amusing as such: the spectator is also amused by what is
not happening
but Olivia believes
is
happening
luckily for her, because&otherwise&she&would&be&getting&married&to&a&woman…&or&a&boy&actor&
would&be&getting&married&to&a&boy&actor…&etc.
Because in this description of the intentional complications in Shakespeare, we are taking for
granted, and not even mentioning (Dunbar does not mention it, at any rate), the intentional structure of
any dramatic performance. The spectators are not seeing directly Viola disguised as Cesario, since they
are not in Illyria; they see an actor (or actress) disguised as Viola disguised as Cesario. The dramatic
performance presupposes yet another intentional level which goes unmentioned in Dunbar's analysis, and
is one of those intentional package deals we mentioned before: the proof that it can be taken as a package
deal lies precisely in the fact that there has been no need to mention it in order to analyze the work.
Moreover, given that in Shakespeare's theatre women's roles were orginally performed by boys, there is a
further intentional twist in the scene which gives rise to much sexual double entendre; Shakespeare's
comic dramatization and deconstruction of the gender roles reverts (through the ubiquitous "life as a
stage" metaphor) on the spectators' intentional positioning of the actors and of themselves as gendered
subjects.
Similar complexities arise with Shakespeare's elaborately poetical use of linguistic communication.
Language as used in everyday discourse is in itself a complex intentional systemall the more so when
we go into the complexities of deliberately artful and figurative uses of language, irony, indirect speech
acts, etc.which are not precisely lacking in
Twelfth Night.
Let us take, for instance, the conversation
between Viola (disguised as Cesario) and Feste on the subject ofa chevril glove? or whatever:
3. 1.
Enter Viola as Cesario and Feste, t he clown, with [pipe and] tabor.
Viola Save thee, friend, and thy music. Dost thou live by thy tabor?
Feste No, sir, I live by the church.
Viola Are thou a churchman?
Feste No such matter, sir. I do live by the church for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the
church.
Viola Thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar if a beggar dwell near him, or the church stands by thy tabor if
thy tabor stand by the church.
8
Feste You have said, sir. To see this age!A sentence is but a cheverel glove to a good wit, how quickly the
wrong side may be turned outward.
Viola Nay, that's certain. They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton.
Feste I would therefore my sister had had no name, sir.
Viola Why, man?
Feste Why, sir, her name's a word, and to dally with that word might make my sister wanton. But indeed, words
are very rascals since bonds disgraced them.
Viola Thy reason, man?
Feste Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false I am loath to prove reason
with&them.&(…)
The "cheverel glove" exchange becomes especially significant in yet another direction for scholars
who remember that Shakespeare was the son of a glover, or who take Feste as a theatrical symbolization
of players and entertainers generally, or of Shakespeare in particular, and so construct yet further levels of
private or reflexive allusions in the scene ("dallying nicely with words"). The complex linguistic and
cognitive intentionality of scenes like this one also goes unmentioned in Dunbar's account.
How many levels of intentionality, counted one by one, might we find in a single speech of
Twelfth
Night
pronounced by Viola-Cesario, or by a (here hypothetical) boy actor performing the role of Viola-
Cesario, if the speech contains figurative expressions? For instance, the speech (2.4) in which Viola hides
her feminine identity from Orsino in the very act of revealing it, by saying about a sister of hers who
supposedly pined away in love, and maybe died "I am all the daughters of my father's house, / And all
the brothers too; and yet I know not"a phrase which, although it is produced as an evasive answer to
Orsino's question about Cesario's "sister", is nonetheless
unintentionally
ironic, since Viola's twin brother
Sebastian has not drowned as Viola believes, and has already reappeared in the play for the audience's
benefit. Moreover, Viola is using her imaginary sister not just as a private remembrance of her brother,
but as a displaced image of herself pining in desperate love for Orsino. If we begin to count the boxings
and embedding, we may easily end up with twelve or fourteen levels of intentionality, depending on how
finely we describe the phenomenology of fictional playactingperhaps too much for a play.
And no doubt this is too much for a primate: it turns out that one of the greatest inventions of the
human primate has been the complex orchestration of intentionality through schemata,*frames,*genres…
in order to allow the navigation and managing of complex intentional situations and semiotic objects
without possessing a supernaturally enhanced consciousness, powerful and aware enough to deal with
onion-like intentional layers, or without developing a frontal lobe the size of a watermelon.
One standard case in which the possible complexity of intentional structures becomes visible, and
one which highlights the element of recursive embedding, is found in multiple narrative insertions, or
many-tiered metadiegetic narratives (Genette 1983). The nested intentional levels as described by Dunbar
makes us think of the archetypal cae of a story inside a story: narrator A introduces character B who tells
a& story&in& which&character&C& tells& a&story&in&which& character&D& narrates…& Her&we&soon& find&the& limits&
pointed out by Dunbar, in which only a few levels can be actively managed by conscious attention. But
9
these narratives also presuppose the complex intentionality of linguistic communication, and more
specifically of literary prose fictionwith an implied author and a historical author besides the
aforementioned narrators. Here the structure of literary communication is like a scaffolding on which the
complexity of the different narrative levels is played out, but this scaffolding which holds together the
complex intentional structure is, in turn, yet another complex intentional structure. There are literary
works which exploit multiple narrative insertion to great effect.
Don Quixote
may serve as an example,
and also the
Manuscript found in
S
aragossa
by Jan Potocki.
8
The intersecting narrative levels in this work
are difficult to follow, and the personal narrative of one character may be unexpectedly interrupted not by
his immediate audience, but by a speaker from a lower level of embedding, retaking a narrative frame that
we had forgotten for the time being. In
Lost in the Funhouse
John Barth takes this structural effect to a
parodic and grotesque extent in his story "Menelaiad"
.
Narrative insertion, by the way, is only one of the
ways in which an ontological level of fictionality may be embedded within another (see García Landa
1994).
A recent and successful film directed by Christopher Nolan,
Inception,
is based on a similar kind of
multiple narrative insertionin this case, dreams within dreams, but dreams which can be directly
accessed and experientially shared by the characters.
9
As in the case of the
Manuscript found in
S
aragossa
or "Menelaiad", part of the difficulty in understanding the film and following the plot consists
in keeping the various levels of insertion tidied up and well differentiated. It is a kind of mental
gymnastics which some artists offer to as as a game or a challengebut such constructs of complex
intentionality are built on equally complex intentional constructs, which are mistaken for solid ground as
we experience media and complex communicative events.
The human world we inhabit is made of shared intentionality, and in our experience there is no
solid ground to stand on, which is not already structured by congealed intersubjective intentions,
intentional social structures which frame and structure our action and actually constitute the substance of
the social world we inhabit. This is in part what Derrida meant when he said that
t here is no outside the
text,
we cannot see language or semiosis from without, nor reality unstructured by language and semiosis.
To conclude: in practice we often cannot distinguish clearly a first-level instance of mind reading
from a second-level one, because in the human world we are
always already
(to quote the
deconstructionist phrase) within an intentionally structured world, a world in which we cannot begin to
read other people's intentions, or stop reading them, because the very world we tread is already a mentally
generated, social, cultural, intersubjective world. The "external" world we appear to move through is a
mental landscape we take for granted, and for brevity's sake, or mistaken by a reality effect, we often refer
to it as a merely physical worldperhaps yet another way of making complex intentionality manageable.
Conversely, we travel through our inner world, our own thoughts and subjective experiences, by
forgetting it is a social world: we read our own mind as if it were merely our own, rather than the
8
See my essay on Potocki's novel (2010d).
9
See my review of
Inception
(2010c).
10
experience of a socially constituted communicative mentalscape.
10
There is more intentionality than we
tend to assume, in the human world of history, society and culturelayers and layers of it, and more
levels come to light the closer we examine any cultural artifact, or the mere workings of our own mind
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness :
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find ;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
(Andrew Marvell, "The Garden")
The& mind& contemplating…& itself?& another& mind?& Nature?& Rather,& a& mental& hall& of& mirrors,& or& a&
mentalized natural world, which reaches us already as an interactional mental space, shaped and infused
with human intentions, actions and values.
%
10
The argument for the inherent sociality of human experience put forward here can be likened to those put forward in other
intellectual traditions, for instance in Beorlegui (2011) who combines phenomenological hermeneutics and evolutionary theory;
in Bakhtinian dialogism (Bakthin 1981), or in symbolic interactionalism (see my paper on Goffman, 2008). A similar insight is
formulated in the language of cognitivist psychology by Mark Turner in "The Scope of Human Thought". See also my note on
the notion of language as virtual reality (2009).
11
Refe rences
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). "Discourse in the Novel." In Bakhtin,
The Dialogic I
m
agination: Four Essays.
Ed. Michael Holquist.
Austin: U of Texas P. 259-422.
Barth, John. (1968). "Menelaiad." In Barth,
Lost in the Funhouse.
New York: Doubleday.
Beorlegui, Carlos. (2011).
La singularidad de la especie hu
m
ana: De la ho
m
inización a la hu
m
anización.
(Filosofía). Bilbao: U
of Deusto.
Deacon, Terrence W. (1997).
The
S
y
m
bolic
S
pecies: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain
. New York: Norton.
Dunbar, Robin I. M. (2004).
The Hu
m
an
S
tory: A New History of Mankind
'
s Evolution.
London: Faber and Faber.
_____. (2007).
La odisea de la hu
m
anidad: Una nueva historia de la evolución del ho
m
bre.
Trans. Natalia Fernández Matienzo.
(Drakontos). Barcelona: Crítica.
García Landa, José Ángel. (1994). "Enunciación, ficción y niveles semióticos en el texto narrativo."
Miscelánea
15: 263-300.
http://www.miscelaneajournal.net/images/stories/articulos/vol15/garcia_landa15.pdf
_____. (2007a). "Internalized Interaction: The Specular Development of Language and the Symbolic Order / Interacción
internalizada: el desarrollo especular del lenguaje y el orden simbólico."
S
ocial
S
cience Research Network
(Dec.).
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1073782
_____. (2007b). "Leyéndonos la mente: Dos artículos sobre narratología cognitiva."
Vanity Fea
3 Oct.
http://garciala.blogia.com/2007/100301-leyendonos-la-mente-dos-articulos-sobre-narratologia-cognitiva.php
_____. (2007c). "Internalized Interaction: The Specular Development of Language and the Symbolic Order / Interacción
internalizada: el desarrollo especular del lenguaje y el orden simbólico."
S
ocial
S
cience Research Network
(Dec.).
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1073782
_____. (2008). "Goffman: Reality as Self-Fulfilling Expectation and the Theatre of Interiority / Goffman: La realidad como
expectativa autocumplida y el teatro de la interioridad."
S
ocial
S
cience Research Network
(April):
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1124990
_____. (2009). "La Caverna del cerebro: El lenguaje como realidad virtual."
Iberca
m
pus (Vanity Fea)
3 Sept.
http://www.ibercampus.es/articulos.asp?idarticulo=10852
_____. (2009-2012). "Topsight" tagged posts at
Vanity Fea
.
http://fonoteca.esradio.fm/2012-08-01/tertulia-de-federico-la-crisis-del-psoe-47332.html
_____. (2010a)."Review of Derek Bickerton's
Ada
m
'
s Tongue /
Reseña de
Ada
m
'
s Tongue,
de Derek Bickerton
. "
S
ocial
S
cience
Research Network
12 Feb.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1552065
_____. (2010b). "Programados para creer."
Vanity Fea
28 Feb. (On Adolf Tobeña).
http://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2010/02/programados-para-creer.html
_____. (2010c).
"Inception/Origen. "
Review of Christopher Nolan's film.
Iberca
m
pus (Vanity F ea)
21 Sept.
http://www.ibercampus.es/articulos.asp?idarticulo=13305
_____. (2010d). "Potocki: Formalization of Life Paths / Potocki: Formalización del trayecto vital."
S
ocial
S
cience Res earch
Network
5 Dec.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1720503
_____. (2012). "
The
S
ocial Conquest of Earth
." Notes on E. O. Wilson's book.
Vanity Fea
14 August.
http://vanityfea.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/the-social-conquest-of-earth.html
2012
12
Genette, Gérard. (1983).
Narrative Discourse.
(Cornell Paperbacks). Ithaca (NY): Cornell UP.
Goffman, Erving. (1986).
Fra
m
e Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience.
Foreword by Bennett M. Berger.
Boston: Northeastern UP, 1986.
Inception.
Film. (2010). Writer and dir. Christopher Nolan. Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Ken Wanatabe. USA:
Warner Bros. / Legendary Pictures / Syncopy.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1945).
Phéno
m
énologie de la perception.
Paris: Gallimard, 1945.
_____. (1992).
La Prose du
m
onde.
(Tel). Paris: Éditions Gallimard.
Shakespeare, William. (1994).
Twelfth Night, or What You Will.
In
The Oxford
S
hakespeare: The Co
m
plete Works
. Oxford:
Clarendon Press. 691-714.
Tannen, Deborah, ed. (1993).
Fra
m
ing in Discourse.
New York: Oxford UP.
Turner, Mark. (2009). "The Scope of Human Thought." Online PDF at
S
ocial
S
cience Research Network
19 Aug.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1457344
2010
Wilson, E. O. (1998).
Consilience: The Unit y of Knowledge.
New York: Knopf.
_____. (2012).
The
S
ocial Conquest of Earth.
New York and London: Norton-Liveright.

We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on ResearchGate. Read our cookies policy to learn more.