Thinking about [Thinking about Thinking]

As I’ve mentioned, I’m trying this summer to get a basic grasp on cognitive science (the study of how knowledge is represented in the mind, and how processes act upon knowledge to produce cognition). This is in preparation for a project I’ll officially begin next year, in which I explore cognitive science’s potential to inform literary theory. Yesterday, however, as I was walking down the street, I was struck by a sudden fear that the questions I’m asking might be too solipsistic.

Let me explain myself. To my mind, there are Big Questions and little questions (questions being any topic for thought). While there is nothing wrong with the latter (we have to address them to make intellectual progress/ make a living/ function), we should never lose sight of the former*. When it comes to academic inquiry, an especially pernicious class of little questions are those that are self-referential. While most little questions naturally point towards larger ones, these do not (or do so obliquely—see my note to the next sentence). The best example I can offer is that of metafiction**. Don’t get me wrong—I love metafiction. My favorite book is House of Leaves and I have an unnatural fondness for Nabokov’s Ada, both very metafictional. Despite this, fiction’s value lies in its ability to illuminate all aspects of human existence in a multitude of ways, most of which do not rely upon self-referentality. Furthermore, when one considers the amount of metafiction produced today, one sees that writing about writing has become a rather lazy way of finding something to write about (a professor I once had pointed out that in postmodern fiction, we find the hitherto ubiquitous messiah figure replaced by that of an author [or reader]). To cut to my problem, I wondered if the same issues might arise with regard to thinking about thinking. Wouldn’t a better way to address life’s Big Questions be to think about things in the world, rather than thinking itself? I am referring here specifically to the “philosophical” potential of fields like psychology and cognitive science, not their real-world applications—these, to be sure, need no defense. In order to clarify the above and move towards an answer, let me make explicit what I consider to be Big Questions:

1. What is the nature of the universe?
2. What is human nature?
3. What is our relationship to the universe?

It seems to me that the first question demands answers from the domain of natural science; the second from a synthesis of natural science and the humanities; and the third from philosophy (informed, perhaps, by the natural sciences and the humanities).

I consider these to be the three central questions under which one may organize all human inquiry. Like the ever-so-popular Trinity (best known for its appearance in Desert Book the Second), the three may be construed as one, but in this they lose much of their utility (I intend, at some point, to post my thoughts on Truth vs. Utility). This is more or less from-the-hip philosophizing; I freely grant that the selection of these questions requires an explanation and defense far more extensive than anything I’m prepared to offer right now. Nonetheless, they should have an intuitive appeal, and it is on the strength of this that I justify using them to help solve my cognitive science conundrum.

Assertion: cognitive science (and other fields concerned with thinking about thinking) need not be wary of solipsism as long as the ways of thinking that it attempts to illuminate remain general and diverse. This is because cognitive science tends to ask questions that address Big Question No. 2 in a more direct manner than metafiction, the sociology of academia, the free elaboration of mathematical ideas with no known real world or philosophical significance, etc. I don’t wish to imply that such pursuits are worthless, or incapable of leading towards insight about larger questions. Indeed, this happens all the time through serendipity or diligent efforts to bend such work back to the larger picture. I do wish to stress, however—and this is the point of all that has come before—that given a certain set of assumptions about what all intellectual pursuits should or do lead to (my three Big Questions above), thinking about thinking does not need to justify itself in the same way as writing about writing. Now, if cognitive scientists begin en masse to study how cognitive scientists solve problems, we’re in trouble.

Some postmodernists may cry that I am inserting my telos where it doesn’t belong, but if I answered every such critique I wouldn’t have the time to write about anything interesting. I am speaking naturally of implied critiques; I don’t have enough readers to elicit actual ones. In fact, if anyone does go to the trouble of posting an actual critique (question/ comment/ etc.), I can promise you a moderately thought-out reply.

I think that’s it.

Notes:

*A value judgment that I will not defend right now. This is the closest I will ever come to asserting a religious belief (even the comparison makes me uneasy), except in reference to Metal Gear Solid, the godliest series of video games ever to grace our screens.

**Many naive literary scholars attempt to magnify their own importance by positing absurdly that the nature of reality is, at some fundamental level, textual. Thus, writing about writing isn’t just about writing, it’s about everything! While inquiries into how literary texts act upon themselves and interact with one another can help us to understand certain elements of human thought (this is part of my project), they do so obliquely and they do not speak about the natural world as it exists independently of humanity. As in all domains, the conclusions that purveyors of metafiction (or their interpreters) present about the human condition should be contextualized and qualified in the name of intellectual honesty; this is as much my argument here as my assertion of cognitive science’s inherent value.

---------

PS: I am considering posting here a series of reviews of Italian sandwiches from various eateries. Is this something that would interest the reader(s?) of this blog? Please indicate Yes or No.