This here is an excerpt from chapter 5 of Robert Anton Wilson's excellent book "Quantum Psychology". Posted here because it really hurts my brain and I'm hoping transcribing it will bring a sense of clarity. I am in the midst of quitting my nicotine addiction for what must be the 10th time and I'm working out a few kinks. I tend to blog alot whilst in this mode of thought. On to the excerpt:
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"Borrowing a joke (or a profundity?) from Bertrand Russell's Our Knowledge of the External World, I will now demonstrate the reader has two heads.
According to common sense, and the consensus of most (occidental) philosophers, we exist "inside" an "objective universe", or - to say it otherwise - the "objective universe" exists "outside" us.
Very few people have ever doubted this. Those who have doubted it have arrived, inevitably, at highly eccentric conclusions.
Well, then, avoiding eccentricity and and accepting the conventional view, how do we know anything about that "external universe"? How do we perceive it?
(For convenience, I will consider only the sense of sight in what follows. The reader can check for himself, or herself, that the same logic applies if one changes the terms and substitutes hearing or any of our other senses.)
We see objects in the "external universe" through our eyes and then make pictures - models - of them in our brains. The brain "interprets" what the eyes transmit as energy signals. (For now, we will ignore the data that shows that the brain makes a gamble that it can interpret these signals.)
Again, very few Occidentals have doubted this, and those who doubted it all arrived at strange and incredible alternatives.
So, then, we live "inside" an "external universe" and make a picture or model of it "inside" our brains, by adding together, or synthesizing, and interpreting, our pictures or models of parts of the universe called "objects". Then, it follows that we never know the "external universe" and its "objects" at all. We know the model of the "external universe" inside our brains, which exist inside our heads.
But we have not arrived at Solipsism, remember. We still assume the "external universe" from which we started. We have merely discovered that we cannot see it or know it. We see a model of it inside our heads, and in daily life forget this and act as if the model exists outside our heads - i.e, as if (1) the model and the universe occupy the same area of space (as our map that tries to show "all" about Dublin would occupy the same space as Dublin) and (2) that this space exists "outside".
But the model and the universe do not occupy the same space and the space where the model exists can only be located "inside" our brains, which exist inside our heads.
We now realize that, while the universe exists outside, the model exists inside, and therefore occupies much, much less space than the universe.
The "real universe" then exists "outside" but remains unexperienced, perhaps unknown. That which we do experience or know (or think we know) exists in local networks of electrochemical bonds in our brains.
Again, if the reader cares to challenge any part of this, she or he should certainly try to imagine an alternative explanation of perception. It will appear, or it has always appeared to date, that any and all such alternatives sound not only queerer than this but totally unbelievable to "people of common sense".
Well, to proceed, we now have an "external universe", very large (comparatively speaking) and a model of same, much smaller (comparatively speaking), the former "outside" us and the latter "inside" us. Of course, some correspondence or isomorphism exists between the "external" and "internal" universes. Otherwise, I could not get up from my chair, walk to the door, go down the hall and accurately locate the kitchen to get another cup of coffee from something I identify as Coffee Maker.
But where does our head exist?
Well, our head obviously exists "inside" the "external universe" and "outside" our brain which contains the model of the "external universe". (This is where my brain starts to melt - Tommy)
But since we never see or experience the "external universe" directly, and only see our model of it, we only perceive our head as part of the model, which exists inside us. Certainly, our perceived head cannot exist apart from our perceived body as long as we remain alive, and our perceived body (including head) exists inside our perceived universe. Right?
Thus, the head we perceive exists inside some other head we do not, and cannot, perceive. The second head contains our model of the universe, our model of this galaxy, our model of this solar system, our model of Earth, our model of this continent, our model of this city, our model of our home, our model of ourselves and atop our model of ourselves a model of our head. The model of our head thus occupies much less space than our "real" head.
Think about it. Retire to your study, unplug the phone, lock the door and carefully examine each step of this argument in succession, noting what absurdities appear if you question any individual step and try an alternative.
Let us, for Jesus sake and for all our sakes, at least attempt to clarify how we can have two heads. Our perceived head exists as part (a very small part) of our model of the universe, which exists inside our brain. We have already proven that, have we not? Our brain, however, exists inside our second head - our "real" head, which contains our whole model of the universe, including our perceived head. In short, our perceived head exists inside our perceived universe which exists inside our real head which exists inside the real universe.
Thus, we can name our two heads - we have a "real" head outside the perceived universe and a "perceived head" inside the perceived universe, and our "real" head now appears, not only much bigger than our perceived head, but bigger than our perceived universe.
And, since we cannot know or perceive the "real" universe directly, our "real" head appears bigger than the only universe we do know and perceive - our perceived universe, inside our perceived head.
The reader might find some comfort in the thought that Bertrand Russell, who devised this argument, also invented the mathematical class of all classes that "do not contain themselves". That class, you will note, does not contain itself unless it does contain itself. Also, it does contain itself if and only if it does not contain itself. Got it?
When not busy crusading for rationalism, world peace, common decency and other subversive ideas, Russell spent a lot of time in the even more subversive practice of inventing such logical "monsters" to bedevil logicians and mathematicians.
Returning to our two heads: Lord Russell never carried this joke, or this profound insight, beyond that point. With a little thought, however, the reader will easily see that, having analyzed the matter this far, we now have three heads - the third containing the model that contains the "real" universe and the "real" head and the perceived universe and the perceived head. And now that we have thought of that, we have a fourth head...
And so on, ad infinitum. To account for our perception of our perception - our ability to perceive that we perceive - we have three heads, and to account for that four heads, and for our ability to carry this analysis onward forever, we have infinite heads...
A model of consciousness which does arrive, very rigorously and with almost mathematical precision of logic, at precisely this infinite regress appears in The Serial Universe by J.W. Dunne, who uses time instead of perception as his first term but still arrives at the conclusion that we have, if not an infinite series of heads, an infinite series of "minds".
Like the Zen teacher, I have just led you to the door of the Law and slammed it in your face. But wait. We will eventually discern "light at the end of the tunnel." If we can only open that damned door...
Alfred Korzybski, mentioned here several times (and a strong influence even when not mentioned), urged that our thinking could become more scientific if we used mathematical subscripts more often.
Thinking about this one day, I came up with the following analog of Dunne's argument without even using his infinite time dimensions:
I observe that I have a mind. Following Korzybski, let us call this observed mind, mind1.
But I observe that I have a mind that can observe mind1. Let us call this self-observing mind, mind2.
Mind2 which observes mind1 can in turn become the object of observation. (A little experience in Buddhist self-observation will confirm this experimentally.) The observer of mind2 then requires its own name, so we call it mind3.
And so on... To infinity, once again.
Of course, having mentioned Buddhism, I might in fairness add that the Buddhist would not accept "I observe that I have a mind." The Buddhist would say "I observe that I have a tendency to posit a mind.".
But that, perhaps, allows the felix domesticus to escape the gunnysack, as Mr. Fields would say."
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