The cogito and time-delay

I’ve been thinking about how well Descartes’ cogito argument works given the following plausisble thesis:

1. Every perception, including introspection, has a time delay.

Consider:

2. I am in pain.

3. If I am in pain, then I exist.

4. So, I exist.

Supposedly, (2) is clear and distinct. But wait (!). By (1), I only introspect premise (2) with a time delay. In other words, by the time I introspect premise (2), the pain is over. It is one thing to be in pain—obviously, when I am in pain, I am in pain—but it is another to be aware that I am in pain.

In other words, at the present moment, if I am to stick to the indubitable, all I get to say is:

5. I was in pain.

6. If I was in pain, then I existed.

7. So, I existed.

Now, if eternalism or growing block is true, I still get to conclude that I exist simpliciter, but not indubitably so (since I need to rely on the arguments for eternalism or growing block).

But there is an even more serious problem. Once we accept the time delay thesis (1), we no longer have indubitability in our introspection of pain. For suppose the time delay from being in pain to being aware that one is in pain is a microsecond. But now consider the half-microsecond hypothesis that the universe came into existence, fully formed, half a microsecond ago. If so, I would still have the introspective awareness of being in pain—without having had a pain! The half-microsecond hypothesis is crazy, but no crazier than the evil demon hypothesis that Descartes cares so much about. So now we don’t have indubitability about (2) or (5).

And what goes for pain goes for any other conscious state, i.e., for anything that Descartes calls “thought”.

We might now want to deny the time-delay thesis (1), and say that:

8. Whenever I have a conscious state Q, I am immediately thereby aware of having state Q.

But a bit of introspection shows that (8) is false. For being aware is itself a conscious state, and so if (8) were true, then whenever I have a conscious state, I have an infinite sequence of conscious states of meta-awareness. And I clearly do not.

Indeed, introspectively reflecting on the states of meta-awareness shows that sometimes the time-delay thesis is true. Let’s say that I am aware that I am in pain. It takes reflection, and hence time, to become aware that I am aware that I am in pain. So the time-delay thesis is at least sometimes true.

Now it might be that we are lucky and the time-delay thesis is false for introspection of first-order conscious states, like being in pain. I am a little sceptical of that, because I suspect a lot of non-human animals are in pain but don’t even have the first meta-step to perceiving that they are in pain.

So let’s grant that the time-delay thesis is false for introspection of first-order conscious states. Now it is no longer true that, as Descartes thought, his cogito could be run from any conscious states. It can only be run from the ones for which the time-delay thesis is false. But it’s worse than that. Even if the time-delay thesis is false for some introspective perceptions, it is not indubitable that it is false for them. The claim that these introspections lack time-delay is far from indubitable.

Yet all that said, isn’t it true that even in the half-microsecond world, I exist? Even if I didn’t have the pain that I think I had, surely to think that I had it requires that I am! Yes, but I only become aware that I think I had a pain with a time-delay from my thinking that I had a pain, because the time-delay thesis is empirically true at all the meta-levels.

This is all very strange. Maybe one can save something by supposing that awareness of a conscious state Q is always partly constituted by Q, and even with a time-delay we have indubitability. Maybe in the half-microsecond world, I couldn’t be aware of having had a pain when I didn’t have the pain, because the second-order awareness is partly constituted by the occurrence of the first-order awareness, be that occurrence past or present. Maybe, but the partial constitution thesis seems dubitable. And once we get to some meta-levels it seems implausible. Couldn’t I be mistaken in thinking that I aware that I am aware that I am aware that I am aware of Q, while in reality I only had two meta-levels?

I am feeling disoriented and confused now.

Functionalism, causal theory of content and introspection

We should read functionalism as denying that mental properties like being in pain are neural properties. Rather, there are neural properties that realize mental properties. Thus, the property P of being in pain is the property of being an x that has a property N such that F_P(x,N), where F_P(x,N) is a predicate that says that N is a property exemplified by x that plays the pain role in x. The property N is a realizer of the pain property P in x. The materialist functionalist then says that the realizers of our mental properties are all neural properties.

The causal theory of content, in a functionalist context, identifies the content of a fundamental perception as the relevant cause of the realizer of that perception. Thus, perceptions whose realizers are typically caused by horses have horses as their intentional content.

Now among our perceptions, there are introspective perceptions of our own mental states. When I have pain, I often perceive that I have pain, and sometimes when I am puzzled, I perceive that I am puzzled. But now we have a problem. For the most plausible story compatible with the above about how we form introspective perceptions is that they are caused by the states that realize the mental states that the perceptions are of. Thus, if N is the neural state that realizes my pain, my perception of my being in pain is caused by N. But by the causal theory of content, that perception's content, then, is the neural state N. In other words, instead of perceiving that I am in pain, I perceive that I am in such-and-such a neural state. Yet although the neural state realizes the pain, it is distinct from the pain. The pain is a second-order property, while the neural state is a first-order property.

So, it seems that the causal theory of content plus functionalism predicts that our introspective awareness is neural states rather than of the mental states the the neural states realize. But surely our introspective awareness is of mental states.

But perhaps we can extend the causal theory of content to an explanatory theory of content. And while the second-order state of being in pain perhaps doesn't cause the realizer of the introspective awareness of the pain, nonetheless the state of being in pain explains either the realizer of the introspective awareness or the introspective awareness (a functional state) itself.

But I think this is implausible. For consider extra-mental functional stuff. Thus, green rectangles realize money. As children, we first see the green rectangles as such. Later we see these green rectangles as caught up in a great functional systems, and we come to see not just green rectangles but the money they realize. It is the physical stuff that is the first object of perception, and the perception of functional stuff is built on that. By analogy, then, we might predict that if functionalism and the causal theory of content are correct, then before children introspect to their pain, they introspect to their neural states. But that is deeply implausible. On the contrary, it is the introspection of the mental, not the neural, states that seems to come first, both chronologically and phenomenologically.

Introspection of judging

Consider the concept of a judging. A judging is a believing operating occurrently and consciously (this is stipulative). Sometimes, a judging comes at the beginning of believing: after weighing the evidence, I judge that p, and my judging that p is the beginning of my believing that p, a believing that soon slides from occurrence into dispositionality. Sometimes, perhaps, I have a belief dispositionally which I never acquired by means of a judging, but which belief comes to the mental foreground, and becomes a judging.

Let us suppose that for every believing there is a belief, namely a proposition that is believed. Then, since a judging is a kind of believing, every judging is associated with a proposition that is adjudged, a proposition that one might call the judgment. (Actually, "belief" and "judgment" are ambiguous in English between the proposition and the mental act; so I am here stipulating that I will use an "-ing" form for the mental act—e.g., "believing" or "making a judgment"—and "belief" and "judgment" for the propositional object of the mental act.) I shall also assume that a proposition, perhaps unlike a declarative sentence, is always either true or false.

Here is an anti-Cartesian thesis that I am going to offer an argument for, and then discuss whether one can get out of the argument:

1. It need not be possible to introspect whether a mental act is a judgment, and whether a mental act is a judgment is not an internal property of the mental act.

The argument is fairly simple. It is possible for me to judge that

2. Fred right now is not making a judgment that is true.

In judging (2), I might even be judging correctly—for instance, if Fred is asleep, or if Fred is judging that I do not exist. By exactly the same token, it is possible for Fred to judge that

3. Alex right now is making a judgment that is true.

Now imagine three possible worlds w₁, w₂ and w₃. These worlds are exact duplicates up to but not including t₀. In particular, prior to t₀, the distinctions between the three worlds are is not introspectible either to me or to Fred. Assume also that neither of us is within sensory range of the other at t₀. Now suppose that in w₁ at t₀, I make the judgment (2), and I am right, because Fred has just fallen asleep at t₀. In w₂ at t₀, I have just fallen asleep, and Fred makes the judgment (3), which judgment is thus wrong. Now, in w₃ at t₀, I have exactly the internal properties that I do in w₁, while Fred has exactly the internal properties that he does in w₂. But now observe that there is a very good argument that it is not the case that both I and Fred make a judgment at t₀ in w₃. For if I make a judgment at t₀ in w₃, it is surely the judgment (2). And if Fred makes a judgment at t₀ in w₃, it is surely the judgment (3). Let p₁ and p₂ be the respective judgments—the propositions adjudged. Then, plainly, p₁ is true if and only if p₂ is false, and p₂ is true if and only if p₁ is true. But that is a contradiction.

But introspectively, surely, w₃ at t₀ is just like w₁ for me, and just like w₂ for Fred. In w₁, I do make a judgment, and in w₂, Fred makes a judgment. Therefore, if I fail to make a judgment at t₀ in w₃, then whether I make a judgment is not introspectible, nor is it a matter of my internal properties, as I have the same internal properties at t₀ in w₁ and w₃, and hence (1) is true. Likewise, if Fred fails to make a judgment at t₀ in w₃, (1) is true. Since at least one of us fails to make a judgment at t₀ in w₃, it follows that (1) is true.

Can a Cartesian get out of the argument? I think the following are the main controversial premises (all of them purporting to be a necessary truth): (a) all judgments are propositional, (b) all propositions are true or false, (c) introspection depends on one's internal states, (d) one's internal states do not depend on what is simultaneously happening far away, and (e) if I or Fred make a judgment in w₃ at t₀, the judgment is (2) or (3), respectively.

If we're not Cartesians, perhaps we will happily embrace (1). But I think (1) has an unfortunate result, namely that it opens up the possibility of a sceptical hypothesis far more radical than any Descartes considers: the hypothesis that perhaps I am not actually making any judgments, and that this is true all the way down (I do not actually judge myself to be thinking, nor do I actually judge myself to be judging to be thinking, etc.)

The easiest way out for the Cartesian might be to deny (a). But then the Cartesian still has the unfortunate result that one cannot introspect whether there is a proposition that one is judging. That will, probably, be rather uncomfortable for the Cartesian, and the resulting sceptical hypothesis will still be nasty.

I myself am attracted to really crazy solutions, and in particular I think that each of (c), (d) and (e) is such that one can non-absurdly deny it.

As for (c), it might be trivially true. If it's trivially true, then (1) is less interesting. What is interesting is not whether we can always know by "introspection" whether we are judging, but whether we can always tell directly whether we are judging. The view under consideration would be one on which one has a non-natural way of recognizing what is going on far away, but perhaps one is unable to express it. This is weird, but not absurd.

The radical externalist will deny (d). The theist who believes in divine simplicity will have reason to deny (d) in the case of God. And one might have a weird non-naturalist view on which (d) is denied in our case. Again, not absurd.

As for (e), I think its denial is perhaps the most interesting option for the Cartesian. Spinoza thought all our judgments were true. A consequence of his view was that sometimes we can be unwittingly behaving as if we were judging that p, while in fact we are not judging that q. We behave as if we believed the stick in the water is broken. But in fact, what we are judging, according to Spinoza, is that our bodies are broken-stickly affected. It is only in the case, Spinoza insists, where we have conclusive and infallible evidence of the stick's being broken that we are judging that the stick is broken. This is weird indeed. But it may well indeed be where certain Cartesian thoughts taken to their natural conclusion lead. I do not want to go all the way with Spinoza to say that all our judgments are true, though I think his view can be defended more effectively than one might at first suppose. Rather, I want to focus on Spinoza's insight that the content of one's judgments may be belied by the words with which one expresses them, even in the case of someone who has mastered the language.