Can
we become capable of doing things that we are currently unable to do, simply by
thinking of them, by imagining ourselves doing them? Is imagination an enabler
of action? Could I become capable of making a violin simply by carefully
imagining the whole intricate process? The answer to these questions should be obvious
but the underlying reasoning will require a certain amount of patient chiseling and shaping to be carried out beforehand.
Ten
years ago I decided to make a kitchen table. I knew I had all of the basic
skills necessary to start the job and I also knew that with a little research
and care I could acquire the further skills necessary to overcome any of the
foreseeable obstacles I might encounter. In short, I was certain that I could
make a simple table and this gave me the confidence to be a little daring and
attempt to learn on the job. The process was slow and I made many mistakes
(fortunately none that I couldn’t fix or replace) but eventually through many
unexpected twists and turns I completed what I still consider to be a handsome
piece of oak furniture that is in daily use. Buoyed up by this
success I decided to embark on the more ambitious venture of making a double
bed from cherry wood. Once again I made several silly but salvageable mistakes along
the way but eventually ended up with a simple but elegant piece of furniture
held together by 52 hand cut mortise and tenon joints. It’s a thing of pride
and an object I am obviously intimately acquainted with.
Neither
of these ‘projects’ would have been possible if I hadn’t already acquired the
skills (and tools) to at least commence them. However, even without those
skills I could easily have imagined what it would be like to make these objects.
But then, imagining is not knowing - and knowing, as we will soon find out, is
not necessarily the capability many people are inclined to think it is.
Around
the same time as I was chiselling mortise and tenon joints, Derek Melser, a
furniture-maker-turned-philosopher living in New Zealand, published a book entitled “The Act of Thinking”. The underlying
thesis is very similar to that outlined in Part XII of this series of blog posts,
and to that extent I think he has got it absolutely right: thinking is a species
of action. Nonetheless, there are several respects in which Melser’s theory
doesn't adequately explain the less physical of our actions – most especially he is
curiously vague on the subject of how imagined perceptions might constitute
actions. For example, what might an ‘actional’ visualisation consist of? Melser
writes: “To ‘visualise’ thing T is to
covertly token a certain visual perceptual behaviour.” To “token”, for
Melser, is to enact only a fragment of an action and in doing so the token
becomes a referent to the thing tokened.
The
argument that some inhibited tracking movements of the eyes, or some tokened verbal
descriptions of the things or experiences imagined are sufficient to explain
visualisation is unconvincing. So far as gesturing and speaking are
concerned I think Melser may be largely, if not wholly, right (I’ll return to
this presently). But as to his account of imagined perceptions, I think a more
expansive explanation is due.
To
be fair to Melser, he stages the different performances that comprise his overall
thesis with genuine skill and he directs the various actors expertly, making
them speak to each other and to us with close attention to nuanced argument and
overall coherence (which is to care for the audience with clarity – a commendable
thing in any philosopher). Where his workbench is a little shaky though is in its
incorporation and understanding of representation and representational
strategies.
Melser
takes the view that perception is achieved “when
and only when, […] an appropriate verbal act is performed” such as the
infant’s exclamation of “mummy!” at the appearance of her mother. Melser is
partly correct, I think, but he makes the mistake of overemphasising verbal
representation (or “concerting” as he
calls it) at the expense of other equally valid forms of representation.
My
son, who will be 3 very soon, is still learning to name colours. Does this mean
that he doesn’t perceive them? On Melser’s account we have no option but to
conclude that he doesn’t yet perceive colours but I can prove this is incorrect
with a simple experiment that I tried more than 4 months ago. I set up 5
different coloured objects and asked him to find others of the same colour. He
got it right every time. We have already encountered an answer to what is
happening here provided by Donald Brook’s theory of representation. Children
are able to select Matching and Simulating representations long before they are
able to speak their names.
I
agree with Melser that the ability to represent something is a precondition for
perception. But the skill of representation is by no means first acquired
through our entry into language. If a forthcoming paper by Donald Brook is
anything to go by, the capacity to represent, in rudimentary form at least, is
also shared by many animals and possibly some insects also (bees for instance)
which suggests that there must be a genetically inherited component at work. Furthermore,
if thinking is a form of covert
action, then who knows how many animals might be capable of rudimentary forms
of representation? This is a question only science can answer.
Melser
writes: “One of the main features of
imagining is that you can do it where real X-ing [seeing a ghost for example] is impossible.” This seems perfectly
right doesn’t it? I can imagine jumping to the moon but I can’t do it. But if imagining is a species of action
then what imaginary action could we possibly ‘do’ to visualise a ghost? The
problem is one that Melser’s theory simply cannot solve. However, if we expand
the conception of action to include representational action then suddenly the
whole difficulty evaporates. To Imagine a ghost is to imagine what a ghost
would look like i.e. how we would
represent a ghost to others, for example by cutting holes in a sheet or
doodling a white image on black paper or by wafting steam about etc.
So,
to return to the question posed at the beginning of these bloggy thoughts: Can
a capability emerge as a consequence of imagining?
If
imagining something is a process of representationally oriented action, then to
be capable of representing an ability is no guarantee of the capability of doing
it. The capabilities of Matching representation that involve bodily motion and
control (i.e. gestures, postures, facial expressions etc.) on the other hand are genuine proof of
ability. If I can mimic your dance steps, footfall for footfall, then there is
no question that I know how to perform
your dance. But if I can describe your dance, footfall for footfall, no matter the intricacy of the detail, there is no guarantee whatsoever that I can follow my
description. Different forms of representational ability presuppose capacities,
but most commonly these are capacities of representational action, not
of performance.
Imagination
is a form of what Ryle would call “knowing
how”. Too often people confuse the knowing
how to represent with the more practical capabilities of knowing how to do.
“A child who had never manifested in words, gestures, or play the working out of simple problems could not be said to work them out ‘in his mind’, any more than he could be said to know ‘in his mind’ the names of colours, if he was unable to say their names, or to point or to fetch the right colours when their names were called out. Thinking in ones mind (silent thinking, pausing to think) is not the most fundamental form of thinking, but instead presupposes thinking in play, work, or words.” -Norman Malcolm
