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Introduction
The meta-dualist conceptions of both Scybernethics and Varela’s cybernetic dialectic have significant consequences for how the mind-body problem is understood, ultimately reframing it as a “mind-mind” problem centered on the scientific observer-actor. Both approaches move beyond the traditional Cartesian dualism of mind and body and the limitations of a third-person perspective to reframe how we understand consciousness.
Consequences for the Mind-Body Problem
- Rejection of Traditional Dualism: Both Scybernethics and Varela reject the traditional dualistic view of mind and body as separate substances or properties. Instead, they propose a more integrated, dynamic, and participatory understanding. This is not only a theoretical position, but a “mutation of experience”.
- Emphasis on Process Over Substance: Rather than viewing mind and body as static entities, these approaches emphasize the dynamic processes and activities through which they emerge. The focus is on how mind and body are enacted and how they mutually constitute each other through a “structural coupling”.
- Embodied Cognition: Both approaches highlight the importance of embodiment in understanding cognition. The mind is not seen as separate from the body but as arising from and being shaped by bodily experience and action. The body is not a mere object, but also the “locus and origin of the process of objectification”.
- Beyond Physicalism: Both challenge physicalist views that reduce the mind to brain processes. Instead, they view the mind as a higher-level pattern of activity that emerges from the complex interactions of the body with its environment. The relation between mind and body is not a simple one of cause and effect, but of “tangled dialectics”.
- The observer-actor is part of the system: Scybernethics and Varela’s cybernetic dialectic recognize that the observer is not separate from the observed system. Therefore, scientific inquiry must include the observer’s role in shaping knowledge. This is a key element of second-order thinking.
Reframing as a Mind-Mind Problem
- Focus on the Observer-Actor: The move to a “mind-mind problem” is a recognition that the challenge is not simply understanding the relationship between mind and body, but understanding the relationship between the scientist’s own mind and the object of study, which is also a mind or a cognitive process. The problem becomes how to reconcile subjective experience with objective observation.
- Self-Referentiality: The “mind-mind problem” acknowledges the self-referential nature of consciousness studies, where the act of observing a mind is itself a mental act. This leads to the recognition that the observer’s mind inevitably influences the observations, requiring a “second-order” approach.
- Epistemological Implications: The “mind-mind problem” highlights that the challenge is epistemological, not just ontological. It challenges traditional scientific methodologies that assume objectivity and separation between the observer and the observed.
- Need for Self-Transformation: Both approaches suggest that understanding the mind requires a process of self-transformation on the part of the scientific observer. This involves acknowledging one’s own biases, assumptions, and the influence of one’s own experience on the way scientific problems are formulated and interpreted. This also means to accept the “groundlessness” of the pathway.
- The Limits of Traditional Science: The traditional scientific approach struggles to account for the subjective “view from within”. The “mind-mind” problem shows that science needs to integrate the first person perspective into its epistemological framework to properly understand the nature of mind and consciousness.
- Critique of Functionalism: The “mind-mind” problem challenges functionalist methodologies often used in cognitive science, which treat the mind as a kind of input-output system, neglecting the role of the observer and the subjective experience.
Scybernethics and the Mind-Mind Problem
- Scybernethics as a Response: The Scybernethic approach, with its emphasis on the observer-actor, is a response to this “mind-mind problem”. It is a “second-order” approach that integrates the “view from nowhere” (third person perspective) with the “richness of lived experience” (first person perspective).
- Ambijective Gesture: Scybernethics uses the “ambijective gesture” as a way of acknowledging that any act of objectification also has a subjective dimension and vice versa. This is a lived first-person cycling gesture between first and third person perspectives to achieve a co-determination of knowledge.
- Experimental Epistemology: Scybernethics also uses computer simulations as a way to explore the “mind-mind problem” and to understand the observer’s role in shaping knowledge. By designing models of artificial cognition, Scybernethics tries to understand the interaction between the observer and the cognitive process.
- Emphasis on Ethics: Scybernethics stresses that the “mind-mind problem” is not just an epistemological challenge but an ethical one. How we understand the mind has implications for how we relate to ourselves, each other, and technology.
Summary
In summary, the shift from a mind-body problem to a mind-mind problem, as a result of the adoption of meta-dualist perspectives, recognizes the crucial role of the observer-actor in the scientific process. It calls for a radical rethinking of scientific methodology, emphasizing self-reflection, and the integration of subjective experience in the quest to understand the mind. Both Scybernethics and Varela’s cybernetic dialectic contribute to this shift, albeit with different emphases and practical strategies. While Varela’s approach emphasizes a change in the logical framework, Scybernethics also provides a practical methodology for transforming the scientist, and uses computer simulations as a tool for experimentation on the self.
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