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Thinking with the Fingers

It is misleading then to talk of thinking as of a ‘mental activity.’ We may say that thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs. This activity is performed by the hand, when we think by writing; by the mouth and larynx, when we think by speaking; and if we think by imagining signs or pictures, I can give you no agent that thinks.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, p. 6

I found this passage interesting because it ties into Polanyi’s idea of ‘indwelling.’

There is an odd dualism that runs through much of the modern ‘scientific’ thought I’ve encountered that portrays the brain and body as strangely at odds. For example, the idea that one must have a ‘fully functioning’ brain in order to have a meaningful existence. The oddness of such a view is particularly striking because this viewpoint is held by the very same people who would maintain that thinking itself is really only a physical process. I will go no farther with that line of thought.

I do not see how anyone can dispute the fact that we think with more than the brain. Philosophers will continue their debates over the nature of the mind as an entity, wholly the same as, or different from, the brain; but at least this much is clear: we think with our fingers and mouths as much as we silently contemplate conundrums in the ‘pure mind.’

Just this past Lord’s Day, as I was preaching on Judges 9, I found myself learning new things about the text as I preached. I was not deliberately engaged in a silent chain of reasoning. I was thinking with my mouth. As I spoke, so I learned. This happens fairly regularly. And now, as I type, it is debatable whether the words form in my mind or in my fingertips, as I do not consciously decide to write before the words appear before me and I become a spectator of them.

Perhaps the modern thinkers do not emphasize the physicality of the mind too much; Perhaps they emphasize it to little. The Word becoming flesh matters.

Savoir and Connaitre (Surprised by Laughter)

Lewis defined the two experiences or ways of knowing with two French verbs: savoir and connaitre. Savoir is to know about something – to examine it, study it, analyze it. Lewis wrote: ‘But I have an idea that the true analysis of a thing ought not to be so like the thing itself. I should not expect a true theory of the comic to be itself funny.’

Yet the contemplation of an object, its savoir, is only one epistemological way. The other method of knowing – connaitre – is to enjoy an object, to become acquainted with it intimately, to experience and taste it.

-Terry Lindvall, Surprised by Laughter, p. 8

I’ve been familiar with this distinction for several years, but I appreciated Lindvall’s discussion of it. As a preacher, it is something that I want to remind myself of constantly. My goal is not to simply help people analyze the gospel, but to help them have a sense or feeling (experience) of it. And as an individual, I need to make sure that this is the case in my own experience.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say something to the effect that we spend too much time preaching about the gospel and not enough time actually preaching the gospel. That is true of the preaching we perform in, and to, our own souls as well. We need ‘to experience and taste it.’

The Inward Compulsion to Stand

In [commitment] a person asserts his rational independence by obeying the dictates of his own conscience, that is, of obligations laid down for himself by himself. Luther defined the situation by declaring, ‘Here I stand and cannot otherwise.’ These words could have been uttered by a Galileo, a Harvey or an Elliotson, and they are equally implied in the stand made by any pioneer of art, thought, action or faith. Any devotion entails an act of self-compulsion’…

…The freedom of the subjective person to do as he pleases is overruled by the freedom of the responsible person to do as he must.

Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, pp. 308, 309

It is not merely objective, detached reasoning that produces beliefs or convictions. The point is that it is inward compulsion, not external pressure, that causes people to take stands.

 

Faith Seeking Understanding

As the right order requires us to believe the deep things of Christian faith before we undertake to discuss them by reason.

– St. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo

This is built upon Augustine’s famous “Believe, so that you may understand.” That is, faith seeking understanding, or reason within the bounds of religion.

  • If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority (John 7:17).

I Do Not Know What I Do Not Know (Augustine)

How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off the force of the question). “He was preparing hell,” he said, “for those who pry too deep.” It is one thing to see the answer; it is another to laugh at the questioner–and for myself I do not answer these things thus. More willingly would I have answered, “I do not know what I do not know,” than cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed–and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer.

Rather, I say that thou, our God, art the Creator of every creature. And if in the term “heaven and earth” every creature is included, I make bold to say further: “Before God made heaven and earth, he did not make anything at all. For if he did, what did he make unless it were a creature?” I do indeed wish that I knew all that I desire to know to my profit as surely as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made.

-Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 11.12

I was having a casual conversation with a ‘secular’ teacher today and I made a passing reference to Augustine. He told me that he often uses a quote by him in one of his classes. ‘What quote?’ I asked. His response: ‘I do not know what I do not know.’

I had never heard that one before, so I asked him where it came from. When he said that it was from the Confessions, I was taken aback. I’ve read Confessions, and made all sorts of notes on it, so how could I have missed such a gem? He gave me the exact reference (book 11, section 12) so I checked it as soon as I got home this evening. I found that the translation I own, the Penguin Classics edition, translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin, does not contain the phrase. I then did a quick Google search and found that the exact phrase is found in Outler’s translation (which is the version available at CCEL; see above).

The Penguin edition puts the phrase in question like this:

For in matters of which I am ignorant I would rather admit the fact than gain credit by giving the wrong answer and making a laughing-stock of a man who asks a serious question (p. 262).

In other words, Augustine was not afraid to admit that he didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Those are wise words, and, though I cannot read the Latin, the English is particularly loaded. I see at least a double meaning in the phrase (as it is in English). On the one hand, it can simply mean admitting your ignorance. On the other hand, it can mean admitting your ignorance to your ignorance. Not only are you ignorant (there are things you do not know), but you are also ignorant of your ignorance (you don’t know the depth of your ignorance, and how that ignorance affects your knowledge. In fact there are times that, since you don’t know what you don’t know, you actually don’t know that you don’t know). That’s quite profound, and it is a true expression of, and call for, intellectual humility.

Selfism in Technology and Religion (Personal Knowledge)

Only as we become divided from the world, can we achieve a personhood capable of committing itself consciously to beliefs concerning the world…

We may see two people facing each other on either side of a picture, or alternatively, a vase standing in the middle of the picture. The eye may be able to switch at will from one way of seeing such a picture to the other, but cannot keep its interpretation suspended between the two. The only way to avoid being committed in either way, is to close one’s eyes. This corresponds to the conclusion reached before in my critique of doubt; to avoid believing one must stop thinking.

-Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, pp. 313, 314

I’ll write more on this below, but I want to be absolutely clear that nothing, zero, zilch of what I write here has anything to do with the modern condition which is called ‘autism.’ I am using the words of Michael Polanyi relating to the context in which he used them; his words, and this post, have very little bearing on any specific psychological condition. I have replaced ‘autism’ with ‘selfism’ wherever possible (out of sensitivity), though I think that actually hinders the point I am trying to make. With that said, let’s go:

The above quotes come from a section on ‘commitment.’ Polanyi is at pains to emphasize that science cannot exist apart from the personal commitment of the scientist. The scientist is not a computer; he is committed to looking at his subject from some vantage point whether he admits it or not.

Interestingly, Polanyi uses the word ‘autism’ here to describe an infant-like way of looking at the world that cannot deduce where its own part ends and its surroundings begin. He used the term ‘autism’ without reference to our modern notion of it as a disorder. The idea is that in the earliest parts of life, an infant is not able to distinguish itself from its environment. This is ‘autism’ – literally, ‘selfism.’ Everything becomes a part of my world, and I become a part of everything, without being able to make the distinction between myself and everything.

I think this idea of autism, as self-ism, divorced from its psychological-specific meaning, is helpful on a couple of fronts. First, it is helpful for thinking about technology. If we cannot divide ourselves from our technology, we will never have a true knowledge of it. It is easy for us to see our phones, tablets, laptops, etc. as extensions of ourselves rather than as distinct from us. The same is the case for specific applications of those technologies: my Twitter is indistinguishable from me, my Facebook profile is actually me in some sense.

The PBS Frontline documentary Digital Nation points to evidence that children (and adults in some cases) can hardly distinguish virtual reality from real reality. You make a virtual video of a kid swimming with Killer Whales at SeaWorld, and show it to the child, they’ll think they actually did it. My daughter has a Sesame Street book we had made in which she is one of the characters. And so, at one point, reading this book made her think she actually took a trip to Sesame Street. They, and she, could not distinguish themselves from the technology. Virtual reality has become blurred reality, or no reality at all. That’s my applying of Polanyi’s principle of autism to technology. Until you can step back and think about things as distinct from you, you will never have any type of depth in understanding about them (or you).

This also applies along religious lines. A while back I had a moment with our children’s Sunday School class. We were talking about the Apostles’ Creed and I began by having them repeat, ‘There is a God and I am not Him.’ I told them that was the first thing they must get straight. I tell my own children the same regularly. So long as we cannot distinguish ourselves from God we will never be able to understand anything of God. The problem is that we are all, by nature, idolators that are prone to make ourselves into gods. Once we’ve made that fatal jump, we will never be able to know the true God.

Many of the great objections against Christianity are derived from precisely this point. The Atheist says, ‘I cannot believe in a God who would send people to hell.’ In reality, this person cannot distinguish himself from God; and since he would never send anyone to hell personally (even though that’s probably a lie), then God must not be God. That is, in Polanyi’s sense, spiritual autism (self-ism).

The great irony here for the Christian is that we are called to be ‘selfless’ and Polanyi demands that we be able to distinguish ourselves from our surroundings and willfully commit to whatever it is we believe in. It is only by recognizing the self, in contrast to other things, that we can actually fight against self-ism. This corresponds to John Calvin’s structuring of the Institutes concerning the knowledge of self and the knowledge of the Creator. He says that we cannot know God without knowing ourselves and that we cannot know ourselves without knowing God. Polanyi’s idea makes perfect sense of this: by knowledge we mean being able to distinguish one from another: I am me; I am not God; God is God; God is not me. If you want to become selfless, you must figure out who you are in distinction from everything else.

The mind that blurs the lines between itself and other things, whether it be technology or God, is infantile. The adult mind always begins by making distinctions. If it is not making distinctions, it has stopped thinking.