Flowing and Stagnating

By Shozo Ohmori
Translated by Takenori Noumi,
Ben Peacock,
and Lisa Tomoleoni



Foreword


Chapters 1 to 15 were published serially in 'Asahi Journal' from autumn 1976 to February 1977. The title 'Flowing and Stagnating' is the same as that it had in 'Asahi Journal'. Originally, however, this title was intended for sociological problems and for the talk which Prof. Tsunehiko Watanabe, theoretical economist of Osaka University and I were to make. But since Prof. Watanabe suddenly passed away, I had to write my monologue and the subject also was transferred to philosophy. What I tried here was to bring philosophical problems or, I might say, philosophical embarassments back to the scenes of everyday life. Even under only one floor board of the living room or kitchen of our usual happy lives, philosophical problems or embarassments are flowing and stagnating. (Translator's note: There is a Japanese proverb, 'Hell lies under a floor board of a ship.' 'Itago ichimai shita wa jigoku.') I wanted to show this, by lifting a small peeping board of four thousand Japanese characters.
These four thousand characters were always focussed on the problem of 'body-vs-mind' or 'things-vs-heart' problem, because my interest was, and is even now, biased to this question. Chapters 16 to 21 added to them are also on the same line. These six chapters include many discussions already covered in the previous chapters, but I could not help it. In high jump, raising a bar a little higher, the jumper runs the same course each time. My philosophical trials also needed the same course when the bar was raised a little higher.
My intention was to break down the usually believed fundamental duality: 'the world and the conscience' or 'the world and I.' This duality has since ancient time bound philosophy with a spell. Not only philosophy. It has already penetrated into every corner of our everyday life. And because science has its origin in everyday life and that everyday life has been structured by this duality, modern scientists think, do experiments, and live in this duality.
However, I feel very strongly that this duality, at first to tear conscience off from the world and to double the two after that, is an illusion and misunderstanding. Ptolematic theory had once had a long history, had been said to be of good lineage, and had had a solid foundation of everyday life. But it was really, as it were, a trompe l'oeil and was not true. Like it, the duality 'the world and I' is, I believe, an illusion. People, believing that they live in this duality, don't really live in it. We usually think that we see the world through a screen of conscience, but in fact, we live unseparably with the world. We think that we enjoy or suffer only within our 'mind' indifferent to the world, as if in an air pocket of the world. But in fact the world itself enjoys or suffers at the same time. There are, in the world, things or matters that make us enjoy or suffer. The world not only show us these things or matters, but the joy or suffering itself is of the world. But we think of the world otherwise, being without sentiment.
Even I, however, find it very difficult to feel as I have just written. This is because the language we use has been constructed within this illusionic composition, and we usually think and express our sentiment, abuse or praise others, using this language. So in order to disillusion ourselves, we will have to refrain from using linguistic expressions made by this illusionic composition.
One other thing, very tough, hinges this trial. Modern cerebral physiology seems to support the 'world-vs-I' dualism with its astronomically huge mass of data, as if it tells us that we are living in the world seen through our brains. But this thought allows Descartes' doubt: Wouldn't this world be an illusion? Attacking this weak point, I tried in chapters 16, 19, etc. to show that this dualism itself contradicts the foundation of science. The result of cerebral physiology must be viewed under a different composition.
I must mention here a word about the Identity Theory which has been discussed these past ten years. What I have to say is that this theory is out of question. Its fundamental fault is that the meaning of 'Identity' is utterly vague and that it does not treat memory or question the past. The monistic composition that I tried to present in this book and by the previous 'Mono to Kokoro' (Things and Mind) has not yet been fully developed. I realize such myself. But I feel this is the right line, hope that you, readers, will agree with this orientation.
Lastly, I thank Mr. Takehiko Ezura who accepted to publish this book and Mr. Isao Kadokura of Todai Shuppankai who helped me in every way with the publishing.

1. Dream, Phantom
By Shozo Ohmori
Translated by Takenori Noumi,
Ben Peacock,
and Lisa Tomoleoni

'What is male?' can be answered by 'What is female?', someone said. It is true. To talk about evil is to talk about good, to talk about madness is to talk about sanity, and to talk about death is to talk about life. And so, if I want to talk about dreams and phantoms, it means that I want to talk about reality. Dreams or phantoms are a mirror reflection of reality and a story of a dream is a backstabbing of reality.
Some of you may say 'I sometimes have dreams, but I've never seen a phantom. I am too busy to see things that don't exist.' So let's define 'phantom' as a thing that doesn't exist. Then have we never seen a phantom? Oh, yes, we have. We mishear, we mistake. What we thought we saw first differs from what we saw later. What we thought we heard first differs from what we heard later. In other words, we hear and see things that don't really exist. And we overlook things. We see vacancy in place of some things. This vacancy is a kind of phantom. Can we not call it 'negative phantom'? So people with absent minds live in a phantom world, and magicians earn money by showing us a phantom world. And I add here that court judges realize very clearly how often people see phantoms. (For example see 'Truth in the Witnesses,' by Stockholm University.)
You may think that these phantoms are not real phantoms, they are so normal, so cheap. Then let's take examples of grandiose phantoms - ghosts. Why do we call ghosts 'phantoms'? Why don't we call them real things? We can see them -- their heads, their hands, their bodies, their feet. In Japan ghosts have no legs so there's a little difference, but anyway ... Why are they phantoms? Why aren't they real? Because we can't touch them -- with our hands, with our fingers. We can see them clearly, but we can't touch them. This 'can't touch', this intangibility, is the trademark of ghosts.
From this point of view, a mirage, a mirror reflection and the virtual image of a lens are half ghosts. But why do we use this criterion 'can we touch it?' to distinguish phantom from reality? Because 'to touch' is the core of reality. We can only eat things we can touch. No. 'To eat' itself is to touch things with the mouth, with the throat, with the stomach. Without touching, we can't bear babies. Without touching, we can't be hurt. Fighting and defending consists of touching and not touching. Touching is the question of life and death.

What are the things that we call reality? Reality are first of all the things that concern our life and death. And next is, so to speak, the state of being alive. For example, being pained or pleased, being in some mood or having some sentiment. The core of reality are the things that make us feel 'I am alive.'
So 'being hurt' is not a phantom. If you say to a person who is now in great pain, 'Your pain is a phantom. You don't really feel any pain.', it would be a most un-realistic statement. And so your grief, your pleasure and your anger are not phantoms. Even if you are pleased with phantom money which you think you got from a lottery, the pleasure itself is not a phantom. Even if you get angry with some phantom vision, your anger is not a phantom. Thus, pain, sentiment, etc. are not phantoms and to touch is not a phantom. These themselves are the things that we call 'reality'.
In contrast to those, we call ghosts 'phantoms', because they are remote from our life and death, not because they don't exist, not because they are imaginary things. A ghost exists just as the willow tree near it. It exists as a thing that 'we can see but can't touch'. We call it a phantom because we classify things that exist in this world into two categories: 'things that we can see and touch' and 'things we can see but can't touch'. So phantoms are 'untouchable' things but not 'non-existent' things. These are classified not as 'existent' or 'non-existent', but rather 'life and death related' or 'non-life and death related'. (Rarely, of course, someone may die of a heart attack after seeing a ghost. But it's too rare to be discussed.) By this method we divide reality and phantom, by this method we divide real and false. So this classification method is a very humanistic ... no, a very animalistic means of classification.
When we divide things into two groups, we must have at least one thing in each group. Otherwise the classification would be useless and have no meaning. The distinction 'sane and mad' would be useless if we were all sane. The distinction between 'good and bad people' would be useless if we were all good. But sometimes we forget this. Descartes did. As we know Descartes began his first discussion by saying, 'Isn't all our world deceived by the Devil?' But when we say, 'Our toothache, our headache, our heavy illness, our being angry or pleased, the things we eat or drink, aren't they all phantoms?', we are abusing the word 'phantom'. The result would be thus: we have phantom lunch paying phantom money and because of that phantom lunch, we have a phantom stomachache, and paying phantom money to a phantom doctor, we get phantomly angry.
We sometimes say, "All life is a dream." But if we take it just like that, it has the same result. The word 'dream' has meaning only when we can use the word 'awake'. And I'll add here that about dreams we have another point to consider. We can talk about dreams only when we are awake, just as we can talk about death only when we are alive, and just as we can talk about the past and the future, only when we are in the present. In other words, we have a 'there' which we can talk about only when we are not 'there'. Of course we can talk in a dream about a dream we have dreamt, but only about a previous dream, not about the present dream. We can talk about dreams only in the past tense. Only when we have awakened from a dream, can we say that we had a dream.
Therefore, a dream is decidedly at a disadvantage when compared to reality. It can be discussed only from the opponent's standpoint. The more a dream is discussed, the more blurred it gets. First of all we can't recall it clearly. We often discuss if it has any colour. Most people say dreams have no colour. They think they are like mono-chrome television or mono-chrome photos. But would they really say that their father, mother, or friends in their dream had grey lips? In your dream, did you eat your grey lunch, under grey sunlight? And in your dream, did you see grey fire? I can't believe it. I would guess that you just don't remember it well. (And I add here that even white, black and grey are colours, or kinds of colours.)
And people argue about the arbitrariness of dreams. I am now at the riverside, and next moment I am on top of a mountain. I am now walking with a friend who died two years ago, and the next moment he becomes my wife who is now alive. People are often amazed at these sudden appearances and disappearances. (Of course they aren't amazed during the dream. They are amazed after the dream.) But they are never amazed at the banalness and flatness and the too too monotonous ordinariness of this awake world.
Thus dream is unfairly compared to reality and is treated in the same way as phantom. (In Japanese we say 'yume-maboroshi', that is, 'dream-phantom'.) But suppose that we could recall our dream a little more clearly and systematically. Suppose that every Monday night we dreamt the next chapter of a weekly story. And suppose that the story every Monday night is far better than ordinary real life. Then don't we look forward to seeing the next dream? And won't the other days of the week become only time to wait for Monday nights? For the person who sees such dreams, doesn't Monday night become more real than other days? Doesn't the life in the dream of Monday night become more real than real life?
But such a good dream in this banal and flat real life may not exist. So we discriminate dream from real life. It doesn't concern our life and death. So we treat it as phantom, as non-real. In the dream we make a happy journey and make an album, but we can't bring the album to this awake world. In the dream, we earn a lot of money, but we can't bring it to this awake world. In the dream we borrow a lot of money, but we don't have to return it in this world. In short, our dream doesn't concern our awake world. And we define (so arbitrarily) our awake world as 'real life'. So we say that the life which doesn't concern our real life is non-real dream life. A few exceptions exist. We say 'The dream came true.' and 'The dream tells us our future.' There are also the dream interpretations of Freud. These are the few exceptions that connect dream with real life.
But here again I emphasize that the classification of dream and the awake world is not based on the idea of 'existent' and 'non-existent'. Dream and awake worlds both exist. We divide them into two, because we are animals, because we are living beings. The fact that we divide these into two means that we live, means that we are animals. Dream and phantoms are not 'non-existent'. They do exist, only we can't eat them. And often, we call the things that we can't eat 'non-existent'.

2. Probability and Life
A few years ago in Japan aeroplanes crashed on three occasions within a short period of time. After such an occurrence, people react in two ways. One reaction is 'The next plane will be OK because the bad luck must have run out,' and the other reaction is 'The next plane will also be dangerous because there is a streak of bad luck!' Actually, during that time the number of aeroplane passengers decreased for a while. If you were asked, 'Do you want to fly during such a situation?' what would you reply? You would be troubled. The feeling may be reasonable. Plane accidents can't be predicted only by counting them. So thorough investigation is done and the reason of the accident is pursued.
But how about coin tossing and roulette? We toss a coin and it comes up tails. This seems to be very simple compared with the crash of an aeroplane. But if the reason for coming up tails is seriously considered, it may contain many difficult aspects. As long as it is a proper coin, we know by experience that heads and tails come up approximately even. And so we can call into question only the numbers of heads and tails. It is well known that the theory of probability was first developed by Pascal, who used gambling as his example. By that theory of probability, even if a coin showed tails thousands and thousands of times in a row, the probability of showing heads at the next toss is fifty percent.
But the concept of probability originated in our life far before the foundation of probability theory. Similarly, we lived with numbers and figures far before the foundation of mathematics or geometry. And we are now far more logical than professors of logic. We may have not been able to live without the concept of 'probably' or 'perhaps'. And we had used the expression 'one in ten thousand' or 'one in ten' (In Japanese 'man ga ichi' or 'jicchu hakku' is a usual expression.), even before we had known the probability theory. Nowadays the word 'probability' is used very ordinarily, and it sounds too mathematical, too theoretical. And we are apt to think that it has some concrete definition and so we are apt to overlook the evasiveness that probability originally had. Let's look at this evasiveness of probability.
I am now going to throw a coin. What is the meaning of 'Its coming up tails has the probability of one half'? Here I emphasize that this probability is about the next toss only. It doesn't concern the next one hundred tosses. It doesn't mean that in the next one hundred tosses half of them will come up tails. It is about the next toss only! I toss the coin. It comes up heads. Can we say that the probability of coming up heads was one half? Of course not. Because we said the probability of its coming up tails was also one half. Even if we said the probability was nine tenths, it wouldn't be true. Because we said the probability of coming up tails was one tenth while actually it didn't come up tails. So if we prophesize even a small amount of probability of coming up tails, and if the coin comes up heads, we shall have to say that the prophesy was not good, because we can say that there was not any possibility of the coin coming up tails. Because in fact, it came up heads. The possibility of the coin coming up tails would be lost forever. This is similar to discussing freedom. I say I have freedom to go left or right. But if I go left, you could say that I didn't have the freedom to go right. And the prophesy using probability is talking about the degree of freedom of which way to go or which way to turn.
Summing up, using probability, we can't prophesize anything that happens only once. Even if we do, we can't argue about its veracity or its falseness. We say the probability is such and such fractional number. But we don't have any method of checking it if it happens only once. But in our ordinary life, when does the question of probability arise? It is usually when something happens only once. Will the weather be fine tomorrow? Will the stock price rise next month? Will the next batter hit or miss? Will there be an earthquake in this region next year? What colour and what number will the next card be? Will my client be in good humour tomorrow? Will the questions I thought about be on tomorrow's exam? These are the most eminent problems of our daily life. And if the probability of them is meaningless (because it happens only once), what on earth are we doing?
Mathematicians saying 'the probability of tomorrow's weather being fine is eighty percent' means that there were many examples similar to today's weather condition and that within these many examples the number of them that are fine the next day occupies eighty percent of the total examples. Yes, forecasters from the Meteorological Agency may predict tomorrow's weather with the above meaning. But for us, the weather of the past doesn't matter at all. For us, only the weather of tomorrow matters. The probability of it being fine tomorrow is eighty percent. The weather of the past is only a reference. When I say, 'How long will I live?' it means my life. It isn't the expectation of life. That is, the statistical (expectational) sum of the remaining life of the other Japanese of my age. Even if this number of years is shown to me, it can only be a reference to my remaining years of life. For physicists, a period of reduction by half of radioactive element can only be a reference when he investigates the collapse of some particular radioactive element.
So when we talk about the probability of some particular event which happens only once, what do we mean by it? It can't be meaningless. Because when we say, 'It will probably rain tomorrow,' we intend to convey something by it. My understanding is that it is not a proposition of probability but a mental attitude or a determination of the person who says it. 'Perhaps it might be fine tomorrow, but I will live based on the assumption that it will rain. I bet on it' is the meaning of 'There is an eighty percent chance that will rain tomorrow.' So we shouldn't argue about the veracity or the falseness of this proposition. We shouldn't ... no, we cannot. We cannot decide which is true and which is false between 'There is an eighty percent chance of rain' and 'There is a severty percent chance of rain.' Both state that it may rain and that it may not rain. Then what can we argue? I think all we can discuss is the quality (wellness and un-wellness of the way) of living when we say this. Suppose that when you say 'There is an eighty percent chance of rain,' you choose the way of living called 'A,' and that when you say 'There is a seventy percent chance of rain,' you choose the way of living called 'B.' A-style may be to carry an umbrella, B-style may be not to carry an umbrella. If it rains the next day, A may be better than B because A is more prepared. Usually in the case of weather and for the ordinary people, A is not so different from B. But for gamblers, for stock brokers, for generals or for invalids, the difference between eight out of ten and seven out of ten may be the difference between gaining and losing a fortune, between remaining alive and losing life.
Dr. Austin, a philosopher at Oxford University who passed away recently, clearly pointed out that there are many sentences in our conversation which we can't argue about concerning their veracity or falseness. For example, statements of promise or oath such as 'I won't fail to come tomorrow.' or 'I swear to god that I won't lie.' There is no point in arguing about the veracity or falseness of these kinds of statements. They are neither true nor false. Promises or oaths will only be fulfilled or not be fulfilled. What I claim here is that sentences with probability concerning things which happen only once are the same as promises or oaths. They can't be true or false as prophesy without probability which is expressed directly as 'This will be such and such,' or 'That will be such and such.' Prophesy with probability concerning things which happen only once is an expression of the disposition of those who say it. We can only say after the thing prophesized has happened or has not happened, 'Oh, you succeeded with that disposition' or ' How regretful. You didn't succeed with that disposition.' In a word, it is an expression of a bet in life.
A bet in life is not merely a future estimation. It is literally a bet, a gamble. And the thing bet on is my life, myself. Not a simple estimation as a third person, but a firm disposition against the estimated future as a first person singular. The probability attached to the estimation is an expression of attitude, of determination about the future. A doctor who thinks his operation has a ninety percent chance of success has a different determination toward the future from a doctor who thinks his operation has a fifty percent chance of success. And even if the result of the two operations was the same, the two doctors' reactions would be different. They would be differently relieved when they succeeded, and make different excuses when they failed. Betting is like sowing. Those who bet must harvest their results.
But this bet is not a rough-and-ready guess. We bet referring to past events, referring to past statistics. And probability theory gives us one method within many methods of referring to the past. And this method gives insurance companies ways to earn profit, gives old baseball players jobs as critics on television and makes the Meteorological Agency indispensable to our lives.
But the fractional number which probability theory gives to some event is not an evaluation of someone's determination. It is only a reference to the past. And even if we want to evaluate someone's determination, it will only be a very rough number. It must always be a first person singular.
By what should we be guided? Guided by probability theory? Guided by intuition or guided by Heaven's voice? We don't know what guide is the most advantageous. It is not known to us beforehand. If the answer is obvious, we don't have to gamble. We, human beings, who are now alive, are the existence that succeeded in gambling. Otherwise we would have disappeared long ago. But will we be alive tomorrow? We won't know until tomorrow.

3. About Memory

A scene that has passed long ago or a person who died many years ago sometimes comes to one's mind unexpectedly. Such a scene or a person remembered is thought to be some property left from the past, like an inheritance or a bequest. The real scene or the real person of the past never returns but something like a shadow is left to us and by this shadow-like thing (form) we are connected to the past.
We feel that the thing left to us is not the real past but a copy of it. The past is past and never returns. A copy of it is faintly left in our memory. This is our usual scenario concerning memory, and this idea that 'memory is a copy of the past' is so commonly believed. Don't we usually say, 'It is branded in memory', 'printed in memory', 'stored in memory', 'vivid in memory', 'fresh in memory, or 'to become dim in memory', 'to become faint in memory', 'to awake an old memory'. Aren't these expressions based on the analogy of photos? What we watched, heard, and experienced are first branded, printed by the human camera and stored in the album of the head. From the album of the head comes this photo or that photo. Some new and vivid, others old and dim. If it's too old, it is faint and we can't discern its colours or figures. Sometimes we look for a photo that should be in the album, but we can't find it. Other times a photo unexpectedly pops up and surprises us. Thus our usual expressions assert the analogy of photos. With this analogy, psychologists also tell us about memory images and memory engrams (traces).
No wonder cerebrum physiologists think that these engrams should have some mechanism or some substance. Long ago, (actually it was after World War Two, I believe, so it may not be long ago,) an interesting experiment was done on the topic. Some planaria (a lower species of animal living in water) was educated by electric shock to go where there was food. After the education was completed, they were eaten by some un-educated planaria, which in turn could find their way to the food without education. This experiment does not seem to have been confirmed. (It does not seem to have been repeated.) But if it really happened, we could become smarter by eating the dirt from under a smart man's fingernails. (In Japanese, we have a saying 'Tsume no aka demo senjite nome.' You had better boil his nail dirt and drink it (so that you may become smarter)). Joking aside, nowadays, due to the research on aphasia (loss of speech) and other memory troubles, nobody doubts that the brain plays an important role in maintaining or reviving memory.
But the fact that the brain plays an important role in memory has nothing to do with the theory that memory is a copy. I feel that there is a fundamental misunderstanding in this 'copy' analogy.
Take for example, the memory of some scenery, and suppose that it is a copy. Then one should be able to 'look at it'. A photo is a copy so we can look at it. A picture is a copy so we can look at it. A copy should have details to be looked at. Any small part of it should have some colours, or some degree of grey tone if it is monochrome. We should be able to fix our eyesight on any part of it. Now how about our memory? Does the 'copy' in our memory have a part for our eyesight to fix on? I recall my desk in my memory. I recall its right forward corner. But I can't fix my eyesight on it. I recall my mother, her face, her lips, their left corner. But I can't fix my eyesight on any particular part of her. I try to draw the desk or my mother's face in my memory as they are. But I can't. Of course, good artists can. But they can draw using their memory, depending on their memory, not by staring at the copy in their memory. It is not a sketching, rather a fancy drawing, so to speak.
A scene coming up in memory is not a scene to be viewed with the eyes. It can't be looked at. An after-image, an illusion or an idea-idee of the philosopher Yenshu may be the images that we can fix our eyesight on. But a scene being remembered is a different thing. It is just as the sound being remembered is not the sound heard at that moment. Just as the severe tooth pain of yesterday being remembered today, however vivid it is, is fortunately not at all the pain felt yesterday. A painful memory is not a pain, and a sad memory is not sadness. (So long as it doesn't lead to new sadness.) A delicious meal memory is not delicious, and a memory of ecstacy is not ecstatic. A melody heard in the memory is not heard now, and a scene seen in the memory is not seen now.
Recollecting a scene is not to see the dim and faint image of the scene with the eyes. If it is an image seen with the eyes, it must be somewhere in front of my eyes. Yet, what I see now is a table and papers, and I don't see any image of yesterday's conference superposed on the image of a table and papers. 'Recollection' is a thing fundamentally different from 'perception', such as to see, to hear and to taste.
Some of you will say that even if it can't be seen by the eyes, there must be something left over ... something ... it may be a bequest, it may be an engram, ... but anyway, something left over. Because, you will say, the scene itself is the past thing, now it is not here. This is also, I think, a misunderstanding.
Suppose, as you say, the scene which we recall is not the scene of the past itself but some engrams or traces of it. For example, I now recall Tokyo Station. Let this station be not Tokyo Station itself but a trace of it. The important thing is that I recall this not as a trace of something I don't know but as a trace of Tokyo Station itself. Even if it is a trace, I recall it as a trace of Tokyo Station. Then this Tokyo Station in the words of 'a trace of Tokyo Station' should be Tokyo Station itself. (Otherwise we would have to say 'a trace of a trace of a trace ... of Tokyo Station.'. and we wouldn't be able to stop using the word 'trace'.) Then (in my memory) hasn't Tokyo Station itself appeared? So why is it necessary to recall its trace?
I'll repeat the explanation. Let there be a photo here... an ordinary photo of Mr. A. If I recognize Mr. A in this photo, I must already know Mr. A himself. So if I recall a trace of something, I must already know that something itself. And if I know something itself, I don't have to recall the trace of it. I only have to recall that something directly. So when I recall Tokyo Station, I don't recall it by recalling the trace of it. I recall it directly.
Then you will ask, when I recall my friend who died long ago, if I recall him directly. I'll reply 'Yes'. I recall him directly as he was alive. He has been dead for a long time. But he who was alive appears directly in my memory. I can't 'perceive' him directly with my eyesight or by touching, but I can 'recall' him directly. And when I recall him, I don't recall his copy or trace but I recall my friend himself when he was alive. It is not 'A memory of him is faintly left now,' it is 'He himself is now in my memory.' We can say, in a way, that the past never passes, the past never dies. So the past doesn't need to leave us any 'trace'.
Then what is the 'trace' which I mentioned earlier? Aren't those 'traces' stored in the brain? My understanding is No. I may need some organ in the brain to recall my late friend. And if this organ or mechanism is broken, I may not be able to recall him. But isn't it just the same as when we see something, we need eyeballs and retina? We need these organs in order to see. But I don't have the image of the desk seen by me in the eyeballs. (A small image unpside down in the retina is not the thing I am now seeing.) It is just the same concerning memory. The organ 'brain' is indispensable in recalling something, but something to be recalled is never 'stored' in the organ. Of course if the organ becomes old or is damaged, the mechanism of recalling will not sufficiently work. Just like presbyopia (dimming eyesight due to old age) or astigmatism in the case of eyesight: gradually the memory becomes dimmer and it is lost forever.

4. Many Faces of the Truth
What is the real colour of a chameleon? Every one knows that no such colour exists. It is green when it is on the leaves, brown when it is on the rocks. Each colour in each location is true. We don't dare to define one of them as its 'true colour'. A hydrangea changes colours as its blossoms grow. So we don't choose some colour as its 'true colour'. But how about some thing which doesn't change its colour? You may think that it has a 'true' colour.
But take, for example, the cloth of a dress. Does it have a 'real colour'? It changes colour according to the situation: by whether it is day or night, near the window or in the corner of a room, under a fluorescent lamp or on incandescent bulb, or by the colour of the table on which it is placed and by the eyesight of the person who sees it. Within these colours what do we choose as 'real'? A jar of celadon porcelain or a sashband of jade changes colours according to the angle of our eyesight. Then what are their 'true' colour? In these cases as well, each colour of each scene is true. We can't choose as 'true' one colour in one scene and disregard their other colours in other scenes. Music fiends require the high-fidelity of stereophonic loud-speakers. High-fidelity may refer to how the loud-speaker reproduces the real sound of concerts. But the sound of a concert differs according to your seat. Then which seat has the 'real' sound? The seat with the highest price? No. You may hear better in the high-priced seat. But its sound is only one of the many 'true' sounds. The sound in the gallery is as true as the sound in the pit. We can't say the sound in the gallery is not true because it's cheap. Truth is not poor and partial. It is rich and impartial.
But we like to make truth poor and partial. If we don't make it poor and partial, we seem not to be at ease. For example, don't we criticize and label each of our acquaintances as a 'good' person or a 'bad' person? Don't we say, 'He seems unsociable at first but is really a very kind man,' or 'He seems kind at first but is really a bad man.' Judging from these sayings, we seem to think that a man has a 'real self' but that he wears various masks according to the situation. We have the expression 'see into someone's heart' (in Japanese 'hito o minuku'). This may mean to see through the mask which he is wearing. But is an unkind deed which a 'really' kind man showed you a false deed? In such a situation this 'really' kind man had to show you that unkind deed. Isn't this his 'real' character? A man must behave variously according to the situation. He may be kind to his subordinates but unkind to his bosses. He may lie to males but never to females. He may be cheerful to his friends and to his co-workers but gloomy to his wife and children. This varicoloured behaviour is our natural pattern of everyday life. If someone's behaviour takes the single colour of 'kind', or takes the single colour of 'cheerful', can we say he is a man? Isn't he a machine? So if we had to define someone's 'real' character, we should present this varicoloured pattern of his behaviour ... the sum of his behaviour ... red, yellow, blue, green, ... the total. A man who is usually very stingy gives you a treat. You are surprised and say that he wore a mask, and that he just played the role of a generous man. But it's not a play, it's not a mask. It was his pathetically sincere effort. It was the result of his 'true' character. Even if you say that you were deceived by him, you were not deceived by his 'un-true' deed. The deed was not 'un-true'. The deed was 'true'. Only you judged by his generous treat that he would treat you again, that he would be generous again. Your judgement, your statistical estimation was not good. That's all.
The Goddess of Mercy (Bodhisattva 'Kannon' in Japanese) changes her form variously to save mankind. For example, she appears as Six Kannons or Thirty Three Kannons. And the real Kannon is said to be Sei-Kannon (Saint-Kannon). Then are other Kannons all shams? False Kannons? No. They are all real Kannons. Each metamorphosis of Kannon is true, any one of them. Sei-Kannon may be defined as the fundamental form of Kannon, but it is not the only real Kannon. We, human beings, also change our form to help ourselves, to live in this world. (Unlike Kannon though, it is not to save mankind generally but only to save ourselves.) Each of our forms is true. Each is one of the many faces of our true forms. The truth of a man isn't hidden deep in his body. We don't have any place to hide it so. Truth is inevitably exposed on the surface. We can see fragments of the truth. (Each fragment is, of course, true.) So if we want to find truth, we only have to collect these fragments and multitudinous phases of life will appear. The truth of a man is at the depth of zero centimeters.
Figures of the world also appears to us as multitudinous. I look at a small stone. It changes its shape according to the distance from me, to the angle of my eyesight, to the weather, to the things next to it. It has many faces. No one face within these faces has the privilege to be chosen by me as the 'real' face. If my eyesight is damaged, it may be seen distorted. But the distorted figure of the stone is also a 'true' figure. It's not a 'false' figure. An uneven and distorted figure of the stone seen by the damaged eyesight has just as much the right to be chosen 'true' as a smooth and round figure of the stone seen by the normal eyesight. That small stone is the stone which is seen to be round by normal eyes and that which is seen distorted by damaged eyes.
In the dim light of an evening, walking in the mountain road, I came across a man standing at a corner up ahead. When I came near him, I found that it was not a man. It was a strangely-shaped rock. You may say that the figure seen first was an illusion, a phantom. There was only a rock. There wasn't a man. So the man seen first, you may say, was a man only in my mind, only in my heart. This, you may think, is a very natural way of thinking, and perfectly correct. But it is actually the dangerous first step into a crooked view of life and the world, i.e. the view of the schema (or analogy) 'the real world and the world seen by me', 'the real thing and its copy', 'only one real world and its various copies seen by people', or 'the only one objective world and various subjective worlds'. According to this schema, it is natural that the only one real world is seen differently by many people. Distorted figures will be seen if the lens or films are bad. Something will appear where there should be vacancy if films are not well-produced. We want to look at the real world but all we see is the mere copy of it. Thus the real world is intercepted - alienated - by the screen of 'the copy seen by us'. The terminology cerebrum physiologists and mental pathologists is based on the above analogy.
But isn't this analogy itself an illusion? This is my feeling. So let's go back to the first step of this analogy. The figure of a man was really at the mountain road when I saw it, wasn't it? At that time didn't the world really appear to me as such? In the daytime, the strangely-shaped rock undoubtedly appears to me as a rock. But in the dim evening it sometimes appears to me as a man. Shouldn't that strangely-shaped rock be described as 'A rock in the daytime, sometimes a man in the dim evening'? This situation is not confined to this strangely-shaped rock. All other things have multitudinous faces of truth. It is just as concealed pictures, Rorschach pictures or inverse pictures appear to us differently and that we can't say which is the truth. Witnesses in the novel 'Yabu no Naka' by Akutagawa Ryunosuke (filmed by Kurosawa as 'Rashomon') may have all said the truth, however different and contradictory each of them seems. (Ponza and Mrs. Flora in the play 'Right You Are! (If You think So)' by Luigi Pirandello may also have said the truth.) It is possible that the same case appears differently to each of the persons concerned. No, 'possible' is a weak word. Isn't it 'natural'?
Of course I admit that it was false that I judged it was a man. But here I'd like to repeat that the fact that I saw a man there is not false. The man really appeared there for a moment. The rock appeared as a man then and there. I'd say that my judgement was false because I judged that the figure of the man would last. I didn't judge that if I came near it, it would change into the figure of a rock. It is just the same mistake that I judged some person to be a generous man based on his first and last treat. This kind of 'false judgement' sometimes leads to a fatal result. At a dark wharf, a driver who judges the surface of the sea to be a road may lose his life, at an apartment a man who judges the room next to his to be his own may get into trouble. So these may be judgements that concern our life and death.
But even if one particular judgement is false, it is not falseness 'against' the truth. It is falseness 'within' the truth. From the multitudinous faces of truth, we define the things which guarantee our lives as 'true' and the things which lead our lives to danger as 'false'. So this classification is not 'the truth or false of the world' classification but animalistic and culturalistic classification. When we forget this and take this classification to be 'the truth and false of the world', we fall into the trap of 'only one objective world and its subjective copies'. We cannot directly contact the world. We can only see the world through the glass window called 'the world's subjective image.'

5. The Vehicle of King Milinda

You may have once read, 'The Questions of King Milinda', one of the classical Buddhist canons. There are some interesting dialogues in it. Here I'd like to discuss 'The Dialogue on a Vehicle'. In this dialogue Nagasena, an elder Buddhist priest, explains 'self-effacement (renunciation)', to king Milinda (Menandros), using the metaphor of a vehicle. He says that he is called Nagasena, but that he himself doesn't really exist and that the only thing that exists is the name 'Nagasena'. It is just as the vehicle which king Milinda rode to meet him doesn't exist and that only the name 'vehicle' exists.
Nagasena says, 'The wheel axles ... is this the vehicle? Then, a wheel? ... or the room of the vehicle? ... or a yoke? ... or a rope of the yoke? ... or a whip rod? ... is the vehicle?'
Milinda replies, 'No, Master, each of them is not the vehicle.'
Nagasena says, 'Then, King Milinda, the whole of these, that is, the shafts, the axles, the wheels, the room, the yokes, the ropes of the yokes, the whip rods, ... are all of these together a vehicle?'
Milinda replies, 'No, Master, they are not a vehicle.'
Nagasena asks, 'They are not a vehicle, you say? Then, King Milinda, does a vehicle exist apart from the shafts, the axles, the wheels, the room, the yokes, the ropes of the yokes, the whip rods?'
Milinda answers, 'No, Master. It doesn't exist apart from these.'
I personally think that King Milinda should at least once have replied 'Yes', when he was asked 'Are all of these together a vehicle?' But Nagasena's intention is clear. He wanted to say that the names which represent figures or features such as 'vehicle' are only names, that they don't exist in the world. If the 'vehicle' is only a name, of course 'wheel' or 'axle' is only a name. But this fact doesn't annoy Nagasena at all. Because he wanted to say that all the names of features are only names.
But we live surrounded by features. Our life is in the middle of features. The feature of a table, of a saucepan, of a house, of clouds. We are in the middle of thousands and thousands of features. Movements such as 'to run, to eat, to sit down, to rain' or states of things such as 'beautiful' or 'brave' are also features. Almost all the words that we use (except proper nouns and conjunctions) are feature words. Now, why does Nagasena say that features are all merely names?
Take, for the sake of illustration, a human face, as it may be the most typical 'feature'. The feature of an angry face, or the feature of a sad face. Where is the sad feature of a sad face? Of course it is in that face. But if something exists in some place, we should be able to point it out. We should be able to name the exact place where it exists. Now where does the sad feature exist in that face exactly? Near the eyes? Near the eyebrows? Of course not. Is the sad feature condensed to a mole? No. Is it scattered all over the face like freckles? No. It isn't the small parts of the face which can be integrated to be a sad feature. (In contrast to this, physical property such as length or weight has its small parts within the material object (body). It is integrable.)
Summing up, all the face at once has that sad feature. A small part or scattered small parts don't have it. A sad feature can't have another mode to exist. This is similar to the mode of existence of government or schools. I recall an anecdote (It is not so amusing, let me warn you beforehand): Long ago, a Chinese student came to study at Oxford University. A professor led him around on the campus and explained its facilities and buildings. After the tour was over, the Chinese student thanked the professor for being so kind as to have shown him the many colleges, libraries, and dormitories. Then he asked, 'But where is Oxford University?' Isn't this the Nagasena's question?
And I add here that in the existence of a feature, there is something ephemeral, something we can't rely on. A sad face gradually turns into a pleasant face. In this case, where has the sad face gone? Of course it hasn't gone anywhere. It just disappeared. (Alice saw a cat's smile even after the cat disappeared, but that is a story in Wonderland.) We can't preserve the sad face. We can only preserve it by taking a copy of it and freezing it and making a can of it named 'a photo', 'a picture', or 'a sculpture'. And the feature of 'vehicle' also disappears when it is destroyed. Thus the existence of feature is so ephemeral and helpless compared to the existence of things (the law of conservation of matter!), that Nagasena said only its name exists. And Plato also gave a strange existence mode to 'idea', which is the prototype of features.
But isn't this also one of the labyrinths we are apt to be led into when we think in the abstract? We tear off features from things and compare this torn-off feature with the things from which it was torn off. And we think that it doesn't have any real existence. Here is a man who is sad. We talk about his sad face. 'How sad he looks!' 'His sad face is touching.' And this 'sad face' begins to walk alone. We want to catch it but it doesn't have any concrete existence. It slips through our fingers. So we say that it is only a name. Feature comes up on the surface of things, flowing and stagnating there for a while, then disappears. We think of features as such. But nothing is stuck on the surface of the 'face', even the feature 'sad face'. There is only 'a face which is sad' there. Can we tear 'sad' off from the face and leave a flat face devoid of expression? No. 'A sad face disappeared' means 'a sad face totally disappeared.' It doesn't mean 'The surface of the sad face disappeared.' It must totally disappear and a pleasant face must totally appear in its place. We don't have any featureless face in the interval. The sad face only continuously changes into the pleasant face. Just like the blue sky continuously changes into the sky of the afterglow of a sunset.
No, the modern Nagasenas will say. No, the real existence is the molecules and atoms which constitute the sad face. 'The sad face' is only the feature, only the subjective image that is perceived by someone, perceived with someone's sensor organs. It's not the real existence. Most modern natural scientists seem to think so.
Here, let's return to our healthy, tenacious and stubborn ordinary life and observe the most simple example. I have a cup here. I am looking at it. Is what I see now not the real thing? Is it a copy? Is it a copy of atoms and molecules? I'll recede a step. Yes, let it be atoms and molecules. But the atoms and molecules are located at just the same place as the cup - at this hour, in this room, in my hand. (Note that generally a thing and the copy of it are located separately.) Yes, let me reiterate. These two - one is the cup, and the other is its atoms and molecules - live at the same place and in our ordinary life. It isn't 'One lives in the ordinary and subjective world and the other lives in the scientific and objective world.' These two live in the same ordinary life.
The same cup appears on one hand as an ordinary common-sense feature, 'cup', and on the other hand as a scientific feature, 'atoms and molecules'. This, my drawing room, can also be described in the above two ways. It is not 'this is the objective world, and that is the copy of it and its subjective world.' These are two ways of describing the same one world. And these two are mutually complementary and one can't be replaced by the other. It is natural that atomic physics can't be descibed by our ordinary feature language but it is also impossible to describe our ordinary feature language using the language of atomic physics. Can we explain music critiques by the language of atomic physics? Can they be translated and described by the language of atomic physics? So our usual language description is 'a kind of description' and the atomic physics description is also 'a kind of description'. And so social science descriptions and natural science descriptions are mutually complementary and both are kinds of descriptions. An event which political scientists describe can be (if it is requested) written in the language of natural science. For example, if it is a murder case, scientists describe the dynamic movements of some human bodies, firearms and bullets.
Thus the usual feature words and scientific language describe one and the same world. So if the feature words are only names, then atoms and molecules are also only names. And if atoms and molecules really exist, then feature also exists. Anyway when King Milinda finished his conversation with Nagasena and wanted to return to his house, he didn't have any doubt as to the solidness of the 'vehicle', I assure you.


6. About 'Logical'

The word 'logical' is, it seems, very handy and everyone uses it very easily. The other day a newly built building was commented on as being 'logical'. That is to say that it had a simple, rectangular form and that it didn't have any superfluous ornaments. Some languages are said to be more logical than Japanese. This may mean that the grammar is rigorous and that it's not convenient to be ambiguous. Sometimes I come across an interesting usage of the word 'logical'. Metamorphoses of insects are mystic. We even feel awe when we actually see them. In order to fulfill these metamorphoses, insects must secrete various hormones and enzymes with very particular timings. Yet a biologist said that it was a very 'logical' development, and orderly too.
This usage of 'logical' may be precise. I won't disagree with it at all. But the question I have is 'Is "logic" so "orderly"?' I feel that if the development is logical, it may not be orderly. I feel it may only be redundant (repeating one thing again and again). This redundancy is, I feel, the characteristic of 'logic'.
Modern symbolic logic clarifies that what we call logic consists of five easy words: 'not', 'or', 'and', 'all', 'is'. Logic is the usage rules of these five words. The rules are not difficult. Even three-year-old children obey them when they speak. Of course, the usage of the five words depends subtly on the person who uses them. So we have had to make a standard of usage for them. It is also very simple. For example, 'If X is A and B, then X is A.' 'If X is A, then X is A or B.' (Here I used, for the simplicity, 'if ... (then)'. This word can also be made by the above five words.) The combinations of such simple usage rules are logic. This is all there is to logic. Computers do very complicated jobs. But their principles are governed by the above usage rules. A difficult geometry theorem is a combination of simple axioms. And its combination rules are the above usage rules of these five words.
Now, the sentence 'Something is logical' or 'Something is logically true' means that this something is the combination of the above rules, that is, of the rules based on the proper usage of the five words. The combination of rules is also a rule. So this something is a rule. Therefore if something is logically true, then it is a rule based on the usage of the above five words. That is, it doesn't mention anything about fact. (Translator's note: Geometry seems to tell us many facts. But only 'If the axioms are true.' But geometry never asserts that axioms are true. If it should tell us so, geometry theorems can never be logically true.) The same thing can be said about criminal law (or The Compendium of Laws). However you try, you may not find any fact such as 'When and where someone stole someone's money.' Here is a sample of a logical theorem called 'the law of the excluded middle': 'Tomorrow, it will rain or it will not rain.' You will easily understand that this has zero information value as a weather forecast. (Note that if you insert in this kind of sentence something complicated and plausible, it may very well pass as the prediction of an election's results.) But even if it doesn't tell us anything about the facts, it is true whatever the facts are, however the world moves. This is the meaning of 'logically true'. This is what we call a 'logical veracity' or a 'logical inevitability'. 'Whatever happens, it will rain or will not rain tomorrow.' 'Oh, yes, what you say may be true.'
We say someone's way of talking is logical. 'This is such and such, so that is such and such.' or 'This becomes such and such, because that is such and such.' But if it is really logical, these sentences should be valid whatever the facts are. Then when is a sentence logically true? The answer is 'When the sentence obeys the above usage rules of the five words.' I'll take an easy example. 'All even numbers can be divided by two. And the number six is an even number. Then the number six can be divided by two.' This is logically true because it obeys the usage rule of the word 'all'. Every child knows this rule. I say to my son, 'All of these cakes are yours.' Then if I take one of them, he will get angry because he knows that I abused the rule.
Of course, in many cases, it is not as simple as this. In each case, in each topic, there are some particular words. The usage rules of these particular words are added to the the above usage rules of the first five words, but the newly added rules should still be expressed by the first five words. The total of the newly added words is said to be the axiom system of the topic. For example, the total of the words, 'point', 'plane', '(the point etc.) is on (the line etc.)' and so on are the axiom system of plane geometry.
But even in these complicated cases, the meaning of 'logically true' is the same. 'All of these cakes are yours.' Then 'This cake is yours,' 'The next cake is yours,' etc. etc. 'Logically true' means to say such kinds of things. You will feel by this example, that it is the repetition of the aforesaid proposition. You say, 'This cake is yours.' I say, 'Yes, of course. Because all of the cakes are mine.' I repeat the same thing already said. So it can't be untrue. So it is 'logically true.' To demonstrate a theorem or to prove a conclusion from a premise is to repeat, using the usage rules of the five words, a thing already mentioned in the premise. (There is total repetition and partial repetition depending on the situation.) The demonstration is to repeat, expressing in other words, the premise, totally or partially. Then and only then is the conclusion true. In algebra we transform a formula connected by the 'equal' sign. This is a total repetition. In Euclidian geometry, we demonstrate Pythagoras' theorem. This is a partial repetition. Thus to talk about things logically means to talk in other words about (to paraphrase) the aforesaid things without adding new information. If new things are added, then it is no longer logically true. So redundancy, to repeat things aforesaid, is the characteristic of 'logic'.
We say, 'B can be theoretically explained by theory A.' In this case also, B should be the repetition of A, partially or totally, because the explanation must be done logically. Take, for example, the law of universal gravitation: all material objects attract each other. Then this apple and the earth attract each other. This is a partial repetition of the law. If we add to this law a law of motion, 'All things that are attracted approach each other', then 'An apple cut off from the branch falls'. This of course is the partial repetition of the above two laws. So to explain the falling of an apple by the law of gravity and the law of motion is to partially repeat these two laws.
In saying this, am I trying to look down upon these kind of explanations or the genius of Newton? No. On the contrary, I am amazed at how he could find that an apple falling is the same motion as the rotation of the moon, the earth or other motions. This generalization is a thing only genius can find. This is the same genius as Galileo Galilei, who found the motion of a pendulum is the same as the motion of a ball which runs up and down a slope. Both geniuses had the eyes of generalization. If we explain this generalization of Newton in easy words, it becomes the above theoretical explanation. So the theoretical explanation is to draw something out from the theory, like a drawer, in order to show that something is stored in the theory.
In the case of Euclidian geometry too, there should be thousands and thousands of theorems, and all of these theorems are already stored and mentioned in the axiom system. But even if they are all mentioned in the axioms system, we can't discern them at first sight. Only God may be able to do it. All we, human beings, can do is to repeat the axiom system in different words (paraphrase the words), step by step. This tedious talk of the same thing, grumbling of the axiom system, repeating complaints of the aforesaid things are the steps of demonstration (proof). (Translator's note: In Japanese, 'kurigoto' means grumbling. But when it is divided into its root words 'kuri' and 'goto', it means 'repeating' 'words'.)
For the God-like intelligence, to be logical is to be redundant. But for us, to be logical is to be consistent. So for God, the metamorphoses of insects may be consistent redundancy.

7. Sound

Sound is ephemeral, it lasts but a short time. There is a saying, 'Time flies like an arrow.' Why don't we say that time flies like sound? Doesn't sound pass with time? Watches make the sound 'tick tock'. This sound marks time, but does it not also flow and pass with time?
Sound can't be saved like an arrow. Records or magnetic tapes don't preserve sound. They are devices which reproduce sound similar to the original. Not preservers of sound but simulators. We can't preserve our state of being sad or pleased, and we can't preserve 'time'. Just like these, we can't preserve sound. What we can preserve are 'things' only, and sound is not a 'thing' but an experience of the present time.
Nobody thinks, of course, that sound is a 'thing'. But don't we think of sound as a thing-like thing? Not of course, like arrows or stones, but perhaps a thing like wind? (Wind is surely a 'thing', like water.) We have these expressions in Japanese: 'Sound enters the ears,' ('koe ga mimi ni hairu'), 'Sound goes through a wall, ('oto ga kabe o tsutsunukeru'), 'Sound flies over the surface of the river', ('oto ga kawamo o nagare wataru'). Don't we think of sound as some 'thing' which 'enters', 'goes through' and 'flies over'? There are other examples. 'An echo returns', (kodama ga kaette kuru). Isn't this the analogy of a ball rebounding from a rock wall? 'Sound goes in the right ear and out the left'. ('migi no mimi kara haitte hidari ni nukeru,' -- means to listen absent mindedly) In short, don't we think that sound comes out of musical instruments, motors, or the mouths of human beings, then arrives at and enters into our ears? We sometimes even think it is too harsh to shut off as it manages to come through locked doors or closed ears? (In Japanese 'hito no kuchi ni to wa taterarenai,' 'we can't shut off sounds that come from the mouth,' means 'we can't stop bad rumours.')
No wonder that we take sound as such. Truly sound is something to be taken as a 'thing'. School teachers teach us that sound is the vibration of air. Take a bell ringing in a tight glass bottle. A teacher switches on an air pump and the air in the bottle becomes thinner. The sound of the bell gradually disappears. You may remember this experiment. Reinforced by such an education, the 'sound is air vibration' theory is firmly believed.
But it is a theory too soon believed. Here is a piano. I tap a key. Air vibration begins from a string, and the waves spread in the room. If air vibration is the sound, we must hear sound from every place there is a wave (the air vibration). But of course it doesn't happen. When an echo rebounds from a rock wall and returns, we must hear the sound throughout the entire journey of the sound. But since we don't, the 'sound is air vibration' theory must be our simple misunderstanding. Our eyes react to electromagnetic waves and sense colours. Then do the electromagnetic waves have colours? If so, we should be surrounded by many colours because there is light (some electromagnetic wave) and thereby unable to see anything. (Furthermore, if there is no light, we can't of course see anything.)
Therefore air vibration is not sound. Air vibration doesn't make sound. 'Of course not', you will say, 'air vibration is not sound. Only when it reaches our ears, is it sound.' If you say this, you have already abandoned the usual 'sound which enters or comes out, sound is air vibration' theory. But he who has abandoned this theory must face the following annoying question along with physiologists and philosophers: 'How does the wave that travels into the ear become sound?'
'What an easy question,' you may say, 'The air vibration enters the ear and is transmitted to the eardrum and the eardrum gives this signal to the brain.' The brain -- Father Poirrot's favorite phrase, 'the grey cerebrum cells.' So when the brain receives the signal, we hear sound. But isn't this troublesome too? According to this theory, doesn't sound seem to be made in the brain? Suppose then that you are now in a concert hall listening to a symphony. Can I hear the music you are listening to if I insert a stethoscope into your brain? It may not be deadly still, but however I try, I wouldn't be able to hear Symphony Number Five. Then do the cerebrum cells hear sound which the eardrum makes? But even if I put my ears close to your eardrums, I may not hear any sound.
'Don't you see your own fault?' you may say to me, 'Isn't it natural that you can't hear the sound another person hears? You can't hear a sound as heard by another's cerebrum cells. Whatever fine devices you may use, you can't hear it. What you can hear is the sound itself and not the sound as heard by the other person.' Then can I hear my heard sound? Can I hear, after some cerebrum operation, inserting a stethoscope in my brain, the sounds I hear? If that is possible, you should also be able to hear the sound heard by me using that stethoscope.
In short, the problem is the theory 'the cerebrum cells hear'. There is no sound sounding in the brain. It is the violin or the cello on the stage that is sounding. Sound is sounding not near my ears but is sounding on the stage. Not, of course, in the ears nor in the brain. But on the other hand it is true that if there is no air vibration or if there is no cerebrum cells, we can't hear.
Being at a loss as to how to explain, we are led to say that cerebrum cells make sound. In fact, someone said that not only sound but any other feelings or thoughts are 'secretions of the brain' or 'phosphorescence of the cerebrum cells'. Those who support this theory are labelled mechanistic materialists. But then did pure materialists explain this point clearly? I've never heard that they did. Returning to our subject, where in the brain must I push, I wonder, to make these sound? A violinist on the stage is scrubbing his bow on the strings. From there spreads the air vibration. I understand so far. But how does its sound come from the brain? How is its sound made by the brain? This I shall never understand. And would you say that the violinist is listening to the sound made by the brain and not to the sound made by the string and the bow?
Aren't modern physiologists saying this kind of thing? Physical stimuli such as air vibrations or electromagnetic waves come to the brain and these are 'data processed' by the cerebrum cells and our 'perception' is brought about. So are we told. Here, however, doesn't 'perception is brought about' mean 'perception is made'? (Mishearing sound is the best example.) Ordinary scientists (physicists, chemists etc.) wouldn't say anything concerning these kind of things on the pretext of being outsiders themselves. If they were obliged to comment, however, they would have to say basically the same thing.
The best way to pass through this labyrinth would be to return to our usual daily life. 'I hear a sound.' What an ordinary thing! Aren't we stilted if we need some explanation using air vibration or cerebrum cells concerning this? These scientific descriptions are, so to speak, silent films of usual daily life. So it's natural that however we try, no sound comes out from this silent film. So we ask our grey cells to enter into the scene to hear a sound. But our grey cells are also one of the characters (dramatis personae) of this silent film. So it's natural that he can't hear either.
Not only sound. Scientific descriptions have no sound, no colours, no tastes, no smells. (Translator's note: Colours are written in Chemistry, but if they are rigorously scientifically described, they'll be such and such wave length's electromagnetic wave, and no longer colours. The word 'sweet' may also be scientifically written. There is a definition 'such and such chemical structure has a sweet taste' and this 'such and such chemical structure' is not at all sweet. It is a thing.) In short, scientific description should be without eyes, without ears, without nose, without tongue, without body (touching) and without will (sense). (In Japanese, we call these six 'Rokkon'. This means 'six roots', a word originated from the Buddhist 'Tendai' sect.) Not just a cleaning of the six roots, but their removal. (In Japanese we say 'Rokkon Shohjo' (cleanse our six roots) when we are climbing a holy mountain.) It is a way of description that is valid even if there are not any human beings or animals. Three billion years ago on this Earth there were no living creatures that had sense organs. It is the way of description that can draw even such a scene. Since in that early time there were no living existences that heard sound or saw colours, it is meaningless to describe such. So the glow after the sunset was not red and the dropping of the rain had no sound. Only such and such wavelength's electromagnetic wave and such and such hertz of the air vibration existed. This is the description of natural science.
From such a description can we expect to hear sound or to see colours? No, never. Then how can we make sound or colours? It's easy. We only have to superimpose sound, only have to add colour, to this description. We don't need any explanation. We don't need any reason why. We just superimpose. We just add. We don't need to ask why when we add colours on a sketch drawn with a pencil. We don't need any reason when we add sound to a silent film. Physiologists feel it necessary to explain how sound comes out. Isn't it because they believe that the scientific description must thoroughly describe this world? Isn't it because they feel that the scientific description is sufficient to draw this world?
But don't we have to remember that in order to describe scientifically, we have intentionally disposed of sound and colour? Then when we need sound or colour again, why must we be annoyed at simply adding them? You may ask 'How?' The answer is ' Only experience teaches us.' It is natural because what we want is to describe the world experienced by us. The air vibrates, the eardrum vibrates, the cerebrum cells vibrate (electrically). Here there is no sound. And we simply add after that, 'And at the same time the sound is sounding on the stage!'

8. To See, To Think

We learn in geometry that a line is without width, a point without dimension. Have we ever seen them? 'No,' would be the answer too soon replied. The edge of a newspaper or the border between colours of a tricolor flag would have no width yet we can see them. The four corners of a newspaper are points without dimension, aren't they? But we can't draw (with ink) a line without width or points without dimension on a piece of paper. Corners or edges are the limits of things, and limit itself is not a thing. Therefore we can't make limits with things nor can we realize such geometrical lines or points on a piece of paper.
Yet we can do geometry on paper. Why? Because we 'think' about such points or lines. (Plato expressed this as 'Seeing with the inner eyes.') The lines of a triangle drawn on the paper to be seen with the eyes have, of course, some width. So the theorems of geometry don't hold with this particular triangle. There'll be some bias (deviation). But looking at this rough triangle as an illustration, so to speak, we 'think' about the geometric triangle. We make proofs about the 'imagined' triangle, not about the rough (drawn) triangle.
Roughly speaking, things appear to us in two ways. One is its perceived appearance as it is seen, heard, felt, etc. and the other is its imagined (thought) appearance. This classification is a very general one, but the contrast of these two appearances is, I think, very important. The above example, to do geometry using rough triangles, is an example of 'imagined' (thought) appearances.
The Japanese word 'kangaeru -- to think' has a slightly serious nuance. 'Kangae goto -- thing to think about' is some annoying thing the counter plan of which we must find. 'Kangaeru hito' is Rodin's sculpture 'The Thinker', and we have the image of holding our chin in hand, or the cross-legged pose of Miroku Bosatsu (Bodhisattva in Kohryuji Temple). But a housewife who goes shopping is 'thinking' about the dishes for today's dinner. An office worker on the bus who smiles, recollecting something, is also 'thinking'. 'A human being is a thinking reed.' When Pascal said this, he might not have meant the thinking of such ordinary things. But future things like today's dinner or past things like last night's pleasure can't appear to us in a 'perceptive' way. We can't taste now this evening's dinner or enjoy the pleasure of last night. The things which appear to us in a 'perceptive' way are only the things of the present. So the future and the past can only appear to us mentally (in a 'thinking' way). Every one of us always has something of the past or the future to think about. Therefore the human being is always 'a thinking being'. Pascal's saying is correct in this context as well. 'I will think about it' or 'I am thinking about it' are not words reserved for statesmen or government officials. (In Japan the above two phrases, 'kangaete okimasu' and 'koryo chu desu', are thought to be patented by these two jobs.) We all, every one of us, are constantly 'thinking'.
But, you may say, thinking about a meal is different from thinking about mathematical or philosophical problems. Yes, these two are different. But where is there the difference? You may say that one has some image, the other has no image. When we think about tonight's dinner, vivid images of meat or salad appear, and make our mouths water. When we think about mathematical problems, nothing appears. Instead, we see disturbing images that have no relation to the problems.
Yes, there is surely this difference. But note here that these images can't be heard or seen. They are not images that can be perceived. They are, so to speak, mental (thought) images. As I mentioned before (see 3. About Memory), they are images that can't be looked at. They are images that have no details to be looked at. Take a housewife thinking about beef steak for today's dinner. However she tries, she can't look at its right forward part, how it is shaped or how it is roasted, although not because the image is blurry. However blurry a photo may be, however misty a mountain scene may be, their details are completely clear. They are called 'blurry' only because their colour tone or their shade do not contrast sharply with other parts. Concerning the 'perceptive' way of appearing, there can be no real 'blurriness'. (Note that scenes blurred with mist can be very well sketched.) However, an imagined (thought) steak has no details to be looked at. This is the essential difference between the 'perceptive' and imgined (thought) ways of appearing.
Descartes made the example of a polygon with a thousand angles. (Locke remade it as a polyhedron with a thousand sides.) He used this polygon to explain something which I don't quite agree with. But I can use this to show the difference between the above two ways of appearing. Descartes says that when we imagine this polygon, we can't distinguish it from a polygon with 999 angles or one with 1001 angles. I disagree. Don't we actually distinguish them very easily? We don't create the image of the polygon, none the less count the angles of the imaginary polygon. We just 'think' about the polygon with 1000 angles. So it's really quite easy to find the difference between it and the polygon with 1001 angles.
What we think about is not, of course, confined to polygons. We are surrounded by things with three dimensions, although what we see is only their surfaces from the position of the eyes at particular moment when we see them. And do we judge them to be two dimensional things? No. We instantly understand their sides, their backs, or their interiors. Of course it depends on our knowledge of those things. But if we say that what we see is their surface, then we will have already known that they are not two dimensional. Because if not, we wouldn't be able to identify their surfaces. There is a man coming toward you. You understand that he has a back, sides of the chest, and has some contents in his body. You see him as such. We see in front of us a tiger doll. ('hariko no tora' The inside is empty -- in Japan, we use this as a metapohor of an empty threat.) We understand its back and its empty interior although we don't actually see them. We are thinking of them. Therefore we can't even 'see' things without the help of the action 'to think' of them.
Things too small to see and things too slow (or too fast) to see are also things which we can only think about. We can't see the movement of the hour hand of a watch. We 'think' that it is moving. The bottom of the Pacific Ocean is said to be moving at the speed of some centimeters a year and the Himalaya mountains are said to be rising. A beard grows one millimeter a day. But nobody sees this movement. We only think about it. On the other hand, when a historian thinks about a period in past, he thinks very hurriedly. If he thinks about one century at the same speed as the original, he will not be able to live through that time, so he can't do other things, and he can't earn a living. That is, he can't be a historian. Then does he think about history at some fast speed? For example, does he think an hour at the speed of one minute, and do all things move in his mind with that speed? No. If so, he would be dazzled by the movement of things. So he thinks hurriedly, yet calmly, about, so to speak, 'the essentials' of history.
We can only 'think' about very small things. Chemists and molecular biologists talk about the structures of molecules or chromosomes as if they have actually seen them. There are armful size molecule models made with plastic or wooden balls. Of course we can't see them in the original size. So it is also impossible to imagine them in the original size. Just as it is impossible to imagine the colour of an ultraviolet wave or the sound of ultrasonic air vibration. What we can do is only to think about them mentally. The electron microscope or other devices show us the enlarged images of minute things. But we can't see the reduced images of the enlarged images. A globe with a diameter of one micron can't be seen, it can only be imagined (thought about).
Natural science describes this world using elementary particles or electromagnetic fields, which can't be perceived and can only be imagined (thought of). Therefore the world described in this manner is the world that can't be 'seen'. Here I'll note that we can't see elementary particles, but not because they are too small. Even if they are of the size of a baseball, they can't be seen. We can't see an electromagnetic wave large enough to be the size of a ball. It is the same. Elementary particles or electromagnetic waves are invented or thought of as something not to be 'seen'. They are thought of as colourless, and untouchable, that is, as something that can't be perceived. In contrast to this, a housewife who goes shopping for dinner thinks of a juicy, spicy and well-done meat-coloured steak.
But a physicist and a housewife don't think about different things. They are thinking about this same world in which they both live. So when they eat steak for dinner, they are eating steak and at the same time they are eating atoms and molecules.

9. When a Robot Becomes a Man

What we, human beings, think about ourselves is the basis of all our culture and daily lives. It is the basis of what we think about: the future of our children, how married couples should live, what we should eat or what we should wear. It is also the basis of matters of broader scale such as governmental or judicial administration systems. It may not be able to be clearly expressed or even if it is expressed by someone, it may not gain the general approval of others. Nevertheless, it creates an undercurrent of how people should live, just as we live under the current of the atmosphere or under the effect of sunspots without being aware of them. What we think about ourselves forms our 'frame of mind'.
This 'View of man', what we think about ourselves, changed in Japan roughly three times: with the introduction of Buddhism in the Nara period, of Confucianism in the Edo period, and of European thoughts in the Meiji period. And it changed in Europe roughly three times after the introduction of Christianity: with the heliocentric theory by Copernicus, evolutionism by Darwin and the 'Sex-motivated mind' theory of Freud. Step by step our (human being's) position in the world seems to become more and more miserable. At first we lived downtown, in the Metropolis of this Universe. All the heavenly bodies, including the Sun, were rotating around us. But the heliocentric theory destroyed this vanity and since then we have been living in the outskirts of the Universe. But although we lived in an obscure place, we had pride in being Homo sapiens, the aristocracy among the animals. But evolutionism taught us that this pride is not well-grounded either. Nowadays nobody tries to make a false genealogy. The value of mankind doesn't consist in the address or the birth of good family. It is in our spirit. So we said and kept our pride. But Freud or Freudian propaganda destroyed this 'spirit' too. He said this 'spirit' is based on the instincts, the same instincts that cats and dogs possess, with the strongest being the sex instinct.
We, modern human beings, will say that we don't mind at all, and that even if it is true, Einstein or Mao Zedeng will not become an erotomaniac. (Note that this was written in 1977.) But the fact that we say such things is the modern 'View of man'. Without this 'View of man', the pornographic industry can't be maintained.
But do we really not mind what we are? Oh, yes, we do. We are not so strong. And if we are not so strong, we should be concerned, I think, about robots. Are robots which behave like men truly men? Or if we take the opposite standpoint, are men robots? We were degraded by Freud to cats and dogs, but should we really be further degraded to moving dolls? This is the question we are now facing. This is the question that succeeds heliocentric theory, evolutionism and Freud. And this is, I believe, the last question concerning the 'View of man'.
'Are robots men?' means 'Do robots have minds or consciences?' Does a robot who eats his dinner contentedly feel hunger? Does he have an appetite? Does he really taste the meal? Or does he only 'pretend'? Does a robot which groans on the dentist's chair feel pain? Doesn't he only pretend to be hurt?
But do we have any criteria to answer this question? We say to him, 'Are you really hurt?' Of course he replies, 'Oh, shit! What are you asking me for? Of course I am hurt.' (And at night he will write in his diary that he was hurt because of the discrimination he suffered from being a robot.) A lie detector will also show that he is not lying, although the reaction may be different from a human's. If we perform a surgical operation, we will find his nerve cells -- fine electric wires, clumsy though they may be when compared to our nerve cells, but anyway -- and will find that on them a pulse electric current is flowing. An intelligent robot will insist that they are his nerve cells. After all there is no criterion. It doesn't mean that modern science hasn't yet reached that stage but it means that it can never reach that stage. It is, in principle, impossible. 'To be hurt' or 'taste good' has nothing to do with nerve excitement or transmission of nerve pulse. Therefore to try and detect such by a physiological or mechanical method, from the start, misses the point.
But this problem doesn't stop here. What I mentioned now can be applied not only to robots but also to our friends and family members. Other persons than you, yourself, including your parents and friends, are situated in the same position as this robot. The difference exists only in material compositions. One person has a soft and juicy composition of protein and fat, the other has a hard and dry composition of electric wire or LSI (large-scale integration). But who can say that this difference is the difference of existence or non-existence of conscience? When a member of our family groans on the dentist's chair, we don't usually ask him if he is really hurt. But we can ask. And the answer may be the same as the robot's. And the situation that there is no criterion concerning 'He is really hurt,' or 'He only pretends' is also the same. 'Does a person other than you feel the same 'pain' as you feel? Does he see the same 'red' as you see?' We don't, in principle, have any methods to test this.
But is what we lack only the testing method, only the proof of whether others have a conscience? Then it would be easier for us. Even if we don't have scientific proof, we only have to believe. For the person who believes in God, the proof of His existence is not necessary. So for me, who believes in my son's toothache, the proof of its existence may not be necessary. But what if my son's toothache which I believe exists doesn't really exist? What if my son's toothache isn't really his toothache? In other words, what if what I believe exists does not only lack the proof of existence, but if it really doesn't exist? The actual situation is, it seems to me, just as I mentioned now. The 'pain' and 'red' that I know are the 'pain' and the 'red' that only I, myself, feel and only I, myself, see. Can I replant these things in another person? That is, can I suppose that people other than myself feel that 'pain' or see that 'red'? I believe it is impossible. To replant totally ordered relations (relation of 'any A can be compared with any B, and can be decided A is larger than B or B is larger than B') of real numbers into complex numbers is impossible. To replant checkmate or the movement of a bishop in chess to the game of 'i-go' or contract bridge is impossible. Isn't it the same kind of thing? For example, I'll suppose that another person is experiencing a similar experience to one I experienced. But in reality do I not suppose that if I were him, I would feel such and such, that if I were him, I would experience what I experienced. So even in the supposition, I am always me and never him. What I can imagine is the 'pain' that I would feel if I were him. It is not his 'pain'. Isn't it a play written by me, directed by me, and played by myself?
Many philosophers have tried to find a remedy to cope with this difficult situation. But isn't this problem similar to the proof of the axiom of parallel lines? Many mathematicians had tried to prove this, but it turned out to be an axiom, not a theory, to be proved by other axioms. Likewise the above-mentioned difficulty will not, I think, ever be solved. We will have to recognize this difficulty as a 'fact', an 'axiom', to understand mankind. This is my belief.
A man is crouching and sweating. He is in acute pain. But I myself don't feel any pain. None at all! But I worry. (In Japanese we say shin-tsu suru', that is, 'have heart pain.') But I don't imagine 'his' pain, because that's impossible. What I imagine is 'my' pain if I were him. I don't worry about 'my' pain imagined by me. (Because imagined pain doesn't hurt me at all.) I worry about 'him'.
This is a very strange situation, but this is the situation in which we usually say, 'He feels pain.' 'Imaginary I as him (the I that puts myself in his shoes)' flies over between him who feels pain, crouching and me who watches him, worrying. A meson flies over between a neutron and a proton, and it connects these two firmly. Likewise this 'supposed I as him by me' connects the real me and him firmly as two human beings. Therefore if this 'flying over something' disappears, he is no longer a 'human' for me. And I myself shall be called a patient suffering from the 'depersonalization'.
Fortunately I do not currently suffer from this disease, if only because I have lived with human beings since birth. (A wolf-boy wouldn't show the above attitude toward the pained man.) And if I lived a long time with a robot, and lived humanly, I would show the same attitude toward him. And then and there the robot is a 'human' for me and he is a 'man' that has mind and conscience.
This may be animism. No, it should be called animism. Everything, everyone, is mindless. A tree, a stone, a robot, or even a man has no mind 'as itself.' According to how I live with them, how I associate with them, they become men with minds or things without minds. By the same reasoning, I become a human being and a cultured man or a barbarian. And if I live in Tokyo or in New Guinea, there is no difference in this animism. But I may say that it is more partial and more discriminating in Tokyo than in New Guinea.

10. The Same Thing

A man can never put his foot in the same river twice. This is a famous saying of Heracleitos in the sixth century Before Christ. Everything flows like a river and never stops. But if I ride a boat and flow with the river, sit on its side and put my feet in the water, am I not putting my feet in the same river? And if I take a bath, am I not putting my body in the same water?
But is the man in the bath the same 'he' during that time? Yesterday's 'I' is a little different from today's 'I'. I sweat, I breathe, I eat and I excrete. And it is said that during a day, cerebrum cells decrease by 20,000. Apart from these facts, today's 'I' is a day older than yesterday's 'I'. It has added a day's history to yesterday's I. Then a man in the bath is getting older second by second, isn't he? He is not, rigorously speaking, the same man. Furthermore, water in the bath is adding its history and we can not say that it is the same. It may not get physically old but it inevitably gets chronologically old. In Buddhism, there is a thought called 'Satsuna-metsu (death in a blink)'. Everything in the world dies every moment and is reborn every succeeding moment. (According to modern physics, many elementary particles die in a blink.) In the above story, 'a man and a bath', does water follow this Buddhist thought? I am not sure.
But in our daily life, the words 'the same thing' are quite easily used. Time goes by and it is never the same. But a day is the same day, a month is the same month, a year is the same year. (We say, 'Two of us were born on the same day, the same month, the same year.) Sound is ephemeral. The sound a moment ago is never the same as the sound now. But the buzzing of an aeroplane is the same, the sound of train wheels is the same. The sound of drum, even if it is intermittent, is the same. My shadow, which leaps and bounds while I am walking, is the same the whole time. A letter on an electric bulletin, which is constructed by many electric bulbs in a line switched on and off, is the same letter. A wave crest, which is continuously succeeded by the water next to it, is the same wave crest. A streak of search light, which sweeps the sky, is the same streak.
In a word, our 'the same' is not strictly speaking 'the same'. It can change. It can change and can be 'the same'. Therefore a criminal is the same criminal for the police, however he repents his former deed, however he remakes his face by surgical operations. And a tree is the same tree, no matter how small it was when it was a seed, or how big it has now become several hundred years later. Above all, this world which consists of multitudinous things that perpetually move and change is always 'the same world'.
This is how we use the words 'the same', and the word 'different'. So there must be, we are led to think, some definition of 'the same', some conditions to be 'the same'. If the definition didn't exist, then how can we determine the weapons used in crime or imitations of famous pictures?
Yes, it is true. There must be some definitions, some conditions. But they can't be enumerated on like qualifications for an examination. In the first place, there are many kinds of 'the same'. The same sound, the same wave, the same shadow, the same colour, the same person. Many. In each case, there is some different definition applicable to 'same'. Each of them has a different 'the same. Secondly I said, 'In each case, there is some different definition.' But there aren't any definite enumerated conditions to be, for example, 'red'. 'Red' has been unspokenly defined in some cultures. 'Unspokenly' may be not a good word because people have said many times, 'It is red.' 'Red' has therefore been defined. So the 'red' has been, I would have to say, spokenly defined in some cultures. But the condition 'red' never existed beforehand. If the condition 'red' exists, it is only made by intentionally copying the above unspoken, or spoken definition. Physicists define that the electromagnetic wave from such and such wavelength to such and such wavelength corresponds to 'red'. When they are doing this, they are only copying the above unspoken definition 'red'. Here I explained the meaning of the word 'red', the same explanation for the word 'the same' is valid. It has been made unspokenly in some cultures. So if we want to fulfill the necessary and sufficient condition of something being the same, we shall have to copy the definition already made up by some other means. (Of course concerning some, it will succeed, and concerning others it will not.)
Hume claimed in his 'Treatise of Human Nature' that the identity of a tree or a man is 'fictitious'. He made a mistake. He counted 'the unchangeability' as the only condition for being the same. He fell into a fictitious world claiming that the identity of a tree or a man is 'fictitious'. Physicists defined 'ideal gas'. If we say that real gas which exists in this world is 'fictitious' because it doesn't satisfy the condition of the 'ideal gas', we would fall into a fictitious world. Hume did this, and made a human being 'a bundle of perceptions' like as a bundle of firewood.
On the other hand, 'the same' is ambiguous because of the fact that it has been defined unspokenly. We come across many cases where we can't decide if two things are the same or not. Just like we can't decide if the sun is red or yellow. According to the Buddhist thought 'the rebirth of Karma ('Rin-ne' in Japanese, reincarnation.), we die and are reborn as other animals, or insects or again as other human beings. Is the line of living beings in this case 'the same (person)'? Or are they relay runners succeeding each other? (In the Dalai Lama in Tibet's case, they may probably be succeeding relay runners. A baby who is born at the same time the precedent Dalai Lama dies succeeds him.) And is 1.999... the same number as 2? Or is it a recurring decimal which converges to 2? Because of the ambiguity of the word, we come across cases where we are puzzled if the two things are really the same, although usually we think of them quite naturally as the same. A future marriage party that a betrothed husband and wife look forward to is usually thought to be the same marriage party that the newly married couple remember as a past event, isn't it? That is, a future event that is anticipated beforehand is thought to be the same event when the plan is carried out. But is a future party in which there have not yet been any speeches or toasts made and which is only planned and supposed by the couple really the same party that has already been carried out? In this case what is the meaning of 'the same'? Very likely these two are quite different for the new couple. Speeches may have been long and tiresome, the alcohol, bitter. The only thing that was just as expected was their friends' bad jokes. Furthermore, it is also very likely that the party expected by the bride and the party expected by the bridegroom would have been different. Yet we usually say these are all 'the same' marriage party. (Heracleitos may have said that men can never expect, experience and remember 'the same' marriage party.)
The same (?) ambiguity exists in so-called history. Historians secretly wish to create the opposite of the history already believed. They want to make a new version of historical persons. But when the new date of an accident is discovered, how can it be 'the same' accident as before? The Great Sea Battle of the Japan Sea has been described in many ways. Are they all 'the same' battle? Is a cunning and strategical Ieyasu Tokugawa the same Ieyasu who is a fair and honorable statesman? Or if the War of Osaka in Summer and the War of Osaka in Winter were only the inventions of historians, then is the Ieyasu who attacked the Castle of Osaka the same Ieyasu?
This ambiguity also comes back to myself. I repent some deeds that I have done. Now I think that I shouldn't have done this, I should have done that. But if I hadn't done it, would I be the same I as if I hadn't? Of course I have done it, so the I that hasn't done it doesn't exist. But in my repentance, the I that hasn't done it exists in my imagination. And if the I that exists in my imagination differs from the I that is now imagining it, then what is the meaning of repentance? (And the meaning of 'if' in history.)
In the above, I discussed 'I' in the imagination. But what is the meaning of 'the same I' concerning the real 'I', versus the 'I' in the imagination? Yesterday's I and today's I are different. Drunken I and sober I are different. I alone and I with others are different. But it doesn't matter. I am I continuously. And being I continuously is the why I am 'the same' I. The material of my body will be totally exchanged over the course of several months by metabolism (eating and excreting). But like an eddy or vortex which is maintained by the continuous renewal of water, my body is 'the same' body. As long as my experience continues, I am I. But what if, for example, my brain is exchanged and my experience is cut off? One morning I wake up and a doctor at the side of my bed tells me that he has exchanged my brain. So then I know nothing of course about the ex-I. Someone may talk about him (the ex-me), but it has nothing to do with me. Someone whom I don't know has disappeared. That's all. And I remain myself. But who is that 'I'?


11. Body Movement, Hand Movement, Vocal Movement

We are all familiar with the flat and lifeless features of the person on the TV screen when we switch off the sound ... he moves his mouth but we don't hear his voice, or you may have seen an eight millimeter soundless film taken by an amateur. Your intimate friends or even your family members in the film look like features in a slide projector, don't they? On the other hand, radios, telephones and tape recorders, in which we hear voices without seeing the faces, don't seem strange at all.
Isn't it because the voice is a part of our body? Is it not like our hands, feet or face? When we see a mouth moving just as the voice comes out, but we hear nothing, is like when we see a human body and there isn't a head where it should be. Yet in the reverse case, that is, when a voice is heard but no mouth or body is seen, we don't feel strange. It is natural. Natural as when a head protrudes from a fence while the body remains unseen. A moving mouth without a voice is inhuman. When I hear my voice on tape, I feel embarrassed as though I am looking at my naked body. (Maybe its only me, or only middle aged men and not women. I don't know.) The reason for the embarrassement may be that an unfamiliar part of my body or myself is seen or heard.
'Objection!' you may say. 'Of course my voice comes from me, but it is not a part of my body.' But then you would be confining your definition of human to the 'solid' body only. Confining it to the part that can be seen by the eyes, that can be touched, that can be hurt. The human voice is not a solid thing like hands or feet. Nor is it liquid or gas like sweat or breath. But non-things, such as a look (as expressed by the eyes), body temperature or body odor, are parts of our body, aren't they? So the non-thing, the voice, should be included with them, shouldn't it? Can we subtract a sobbing voice from a person who is weeping? A man is complaining to you and is explaining minutely what has happened to him. Isn't his complaing voice 'he' himself? A stream deprived of its murmur, the sea deprived of its roar, lightning deprived of its thunder may become a different stream, sea, or lightning. So a man moving his mouth deprived of the sound may become some existence other than 'man'. The voice is not the excrement or trash of the body but a supple part of a human body actively living.
So when I am listening to someone's voice, I am being touched by him. People exchanging words are touching each other. It is sometimes a loving caress, sometimes a fierce fight. But usually it is the mild and mutual touching of daily life. We are connected with each other by this vocal exchange, just as we are connected by shaking hands, exchanging looks, or touching. It is not solid body touching but body touching none the less. So the animal's voice, that is, mewing of cats, howling of wolves, chirping of crickets, clucking of hens, is also their mutual touching, not just a signal for comunication. Isn't the praying voice also a wish to reach God, a wish to touch God?
In a word, the voice is a part of the human body, like hands or fingers. So vocal movement is a kind of body movement like 'breath movement (ke-buri)'. (In Japanese 'furu', 'furi' or 'buri' means to shake, to quake and to move. There are many expressions with 'buri': 'mi-buri', body movement, gesture, 'te-buri', hand movement, expression with hands, 'kowa-buri', voice movement, 'ke-buri', breath movement. More precisely this means, 'be going to do'. 'Ke-buri o miseru' means 'to show the imperceptible (like the breath) movement to do such and such things', 'Ke-buri ga mieru' means he seems to be doing something.) (Translator's note: The author uses these words as verbs. 'mi-buru', 'te-buru', 'koe-buru'. These are his inventions, his puns.) We move our voice just as we move our bodies. These two movements are both a kind of 'gesture,' a kind of body movement. Many of us want to speak beautiful Japanese. This is our wish to have a good 'vocal movement,' and it is no different from a wish to have a good 'body movement.' Vocal movement is body movement, and the trace of its special 'body movement' is called 'language.' Letters are only its clumsy imitation on the paper like a musical score. A score can't sing by itself. Similarly, letters can't move. They can't perform 'vocal movement.' They can only hint the vocal movement to us and with this hinted vocal movement they fictitiously touch the readers. Letters can't touch us directly. It is voice that can touch us. We learn how to use our language in two ways: one is how to write and read, the other is how to speak and listen. This latter part, to master how to speak and listen, is to master how to move the voice, how to touch another person with our voice. It is also to master how to move the body, the same as dancing, table manners or shaking hands. We master these things only by actual practice. Therefore we master how to speak and listen only by practice. We learn from adults how to move our voice just as baby birds learn how to move their wings from their parent birds.
Manners of voice movement, mastered in this way and commonly admitted by some society, are called the 'language' of the society. And these manners are also the manners of body movement of the society. So if we are shouted at to 'Get out!' we are pushed by the voice to the door. We are moved by the voice as if pushed by hands. We can stroke others with a flattering voice (In Japanese there is an expression 'neko-nade-goe', the voice of stroking a cat, a flattering voice), and we can beat others with a lashing (scolding) voice. We can attract others with the sweet voice of a siren, and we can drive back others with the deafening voice of thunder. Touching with the voice is not as lasting nor as heavy as touching with hands, but it has no less power to draw and push. Moreover, the voice can touch distant things which hands or feet can never reach.
But the functions of the voice are not limited to bodily manupilations, they go far beyond the functions of hands or feet. With my vocal movement, I can touch you and can make anything or any matter appear that I want. I utter the name of a far distant town or the name of a dead person, and at once this town or that person appear to you and me. Of course that is when you know the town or the person beforehand. But even if you don't know it or him, if my way of telling you about them was good, they will vividly appear or you will conjure them up. Thus voice can conjure up anything at any time and at any place. The voice is Aladdin's Lamp. But not quite the same, there are some differences. When the lamp is rubbed, it is always the same Genie that appears. But the voice can conjure up many things. It is not for just one single purpose, it is multi-purpose. One more important difference is that the Genie of the lamp appears in front of Aladdin. But, for example, 'Kremlin', the word of which I pronounce, appears not in front of me, but in a far distant place, 'Moscow.' And by the word, 'Nara no miyako', the old city of Nara is conjured up at the place of present Nara city. ('Miyako' is the old word for 'city.')
And the most important fact is that the things thus conjured up by voice are the 'real' things, just as Aladdin's Genie. My late friend conjured up by my voice is not a copy of him, it is the 'real' him, himself, when he was alive. The old city of Nara conjured up by my voice is not a 'copy' or a 'representation' of it, but the 'real' Nara of more than one thousand years ago. You may say, 'That's impossible, because it is a thing of the past. It doesn't exist now. How can it be conjured up? It can't be the thing itself, it must be its remains, its trace, recollection or souvenir -- not the thing itself but its substitute, like a photo.' But, no. Of course the past thing can't appear in a 'perceptive' way. That is, we can't 'touch' it or 'see' it. But it now appears in a 'thought-up' way. And just as the things 'touched' or 'seen' are 'real', so the things 'thought-up' are 'real'. The things conjured up in a 'perceptive' way are real and the things conjured up by a 'thought-up' way are 'real'. But since the 'thought-up' things are usually felt as a revival of the things once experienced perceptively, we are apt to think that they appear preserved, and accordingly blurred. So we call this a 'recollection' or 'souvenir'. (In Japanese there are words 'Omoi-de, coming up from thought, that is, recollection' and 'Omo-kage, a shadow of a face or thought, or recollected face'. So from these Japanese words, we are apt to think that we are looking at things perceptively that are drawn from memory.) But are the things recollected such as my late friend or old Nara city really so blurred? No, they are not blurred. They live now vividly, just as vividly as when they lived or existed in this world. And they are conjured up just as they lived or existed. That is, conjured up in a 'thought-up' way. I recall my late friend when he was a school boy. His cheeks are red. Vividly red. I recall old Nara city and its street. The pillars are blue. Vividly blue, aren't they?
Is that which conjured up by the voice confined to the present and the past? No. It conjures up the future too. Tomorrow's schedule, next year's journey, the future of our son, etc., etc. Expectations or wishes, anxiety or fear, are conjured up in a 'thought-up' way. And at the background of these all, 'death' is being conjured up steadily and silently. It stands there so steadily and unchangeably that we abhor ill omens that may portend our future death.
Voice conjures up not only the past, the present and the future of this world. It also conjures up imaginary or fancy things. Through lies, false reports, poems and stories, imaginary matters are conjured up. These imaginary matters are made intentionally or un-intentionally by the people who conjure them up. But even if they are imaginary, once they are made, they are 'real' things. (The author uses the word 'gen-butsu,' or real thing. And this seems to be clear by the following 'gold' discussion. But he may also claim the reality of three headed dragon or the sun rising in the west. Here 'real thing' means probably a thing conjured up by 'the thought' way in 8. To See, To Think. And this will be discussed again in 15. In the Heart.) The gold in the wrecked ship or buried by some daimyo is the same gold as the gold in Fort Knox. Density, colour, electric conductivity, etc. are just the same. That is, 'real gold'. It is conjured up as 'real gold' by 'the thought' method. Its only difference from the gold in Fort Knox is that it hasn't appeared in a 'perceptive' way, and that it will, to our great regret, never appear in a 'perceptive' way in the future either.
But the vocal movement doesn't discriminate phantom gold from real gold. For the voice movement they are the same gold. And so, poets or swindlers conjure up fearlessly gold by moving their voice.

12. Upside-down Glasses, Seeing through Open Legs

If you often use binoculars or zoom lenses, you must already be aware that enlarged scenes viewed through these optical devices are differently proportioned to the scene seen when we come near it. This is because the scene viewed through these devices is made by simply enlarging the scene seen from long distance, not by really approaching the scene. For example, from the outside of a house we look into a room through the window. As we draw back from the house, the part of the room seen becomes smaller. Here, let's use binoculars. The house and the window come closer to us, but the part of the room seen is the same. The surplus part which should become visible if we came near to the house is not seen. So the world seen through binoculars is different from the world actually seen close up.
This isn't confined to binoculars and zoom lenses. Any optical devices that are nowadays very popularly used are the machines which show us the world differently. They show us images which have different shapes, different colours, different extensions, different distances from reality. The things in those images are different from the 'real things.' Then what about the qualifications of these 'appeared images?' Do they really exist in this world? Ten meters ahead of you there is a house. And one meter ahead of you there is an enlarged and distorted house seen through binoculars. Do these two houses both exist in this world? Of course not. There shouldn't exist two houses. So we are led to say that the house seen by binoculars is only an 'image' of the house. If I wear glasses with red lenses, all things appear red. But this red is because of the red glasses. The world is not changed to red, you will say.
Then does the 'image' not exist in the world like a phantom? Oh, yes, it exists. We can take a photo of it, can't we? And if the 'image' is phantom, people with glasses live in the phantom world, don't they? Because glasses are binoculars of small magnification. Then you will say that this 'image' may not be a real thing but something that corresponds to the real thing, that the 'image' is literally an 'image as it appears', that it is not 'real.' Here we have reached again the same discussion of '3. About Memory' and '4. Many Faces of the Truth.' We are falling into the trap of 'only one objective world and its subjective copies.' We are classifying what we see into two categories: one is real and objective, the other is a subjective image that appears to each of us.
But once this classification is accepted, the second category can't be limited only to the cases of binoculars or coloured glasses. When we reconsider why we classified these two as falling into the second category, it is ony because we classified the case of our 'naked eye' as the first category. But our 'naked eye' consists of a lens, crystalized humour, retina etc., that is, a camera itself. An inborn camera, as it were. So it has some blurry part, it may vary the depth of focus, it doesn't sense ultra-violet or infra-red light, it has a special characteristic between wavelength and sensitivity. The difference from the usual optical devices may only be that it can't be easily taken off and that it is made biologically. So we don't really have any reason to give special favour to the naked eye. If the things seen by binoculars or glasses are only 'images', then the things seen by the naked eye should also be only 'images'.
What we learned in middle school about the images of lens also supports the fact that we can't discriminate between binoculars or glasses and the naked eye. If we place a convex or concave lens at some distance from a thing, an image (real or virtual) appears at some different place from the thing. You all must have experienced calculating the distance from the lens to the place where the image appears. Physics textbooks explain why the image appears at that place. But the explanation is not about the reason why but is limited to the way the lines of light go and how they gather (focus) at one point. They never state the most important part. That is, why the image appears at the place where the lines of light gather. In fact, there is a hypothesis tacitly understood beforehand. It consists of two suppositions. One is that if an eye is exposed to the same arrangement of the lines of light, the same scene is seen. About this, there may be no objection. The second one, which may not so easily be agreed with, is that if an eye is exposed without a lens to the thing itself or, more accurately, to the arrangement of the lines of light of a thing, the thing should appear at the real place where it is.
With these two suppositions, the explanation of the textbook is valid. Here I explain, using the above, why the image appears at the place where the lines of light gather. We place a lens between a thing and our eye. At the place where the lines of light of the thing gather an image of the thing is made. Then, disposing of the lens, we place the thing (correctly; its magnitude must also be calculated and adjusted) at the place where the image is made and look at it. These two cases must show us the same image of the thing. (Because of the first supposition.) And in the latter case the thing should be seen at the place where it is. (Second supposition.) Therefore the 'image' with lens should be seen at the place where the lines of light of the thing gather.
If this explanation is thought to be valid, it means we already admit that the thing seen by the naked eye is also an 'image'. That is, even when we explain the 'image' of the lens, we need the 'image' of the naked eye. If the 'I' in the mirror is an 'image', the 'I' seen directly by me is also an 'image.' 'Alice' goes through the mirror into the world of the mirror. Then the Alice in the mirror is the 'real' Alice, and she sees the 'image' Alice on this side of the mirror. But she sees also the 'image' Alice on the other side. That is, even in this case, Alice only sees the 'images.' Here I must remind you of the fact that these discussions are valid only when we admit the above two suppositions, that is, the tearing the images off the real thing.
But is it really necessary to tear the images off the real thing? No, not at all. On the contrary, this tearing seems to me a misunderstanding. Because it leads to the schema 'Objective real world and its subjective images', which I call the 'peeping schema of the world (a small glimpse).' 'Peeping,' because it is the schema that I am here, the world is there, and I see the world through a hole in a reed. (There is a saying in Japanese "Yoshi no zui kara ten nozoku,' which means, 'To see the sky through the hole in a reed.') We are in the middle of the world. We are not just looking at it as an audience. We are being pushed and crumpled in the eddies of this world. We have connections with the world directly, not by looking at a screen of the world but by looking at the world directly. But according to the above two suppositions, our world view must be reduced to the peeping schema. We can't have direct connections with the world. And so we don't have any method to test whether the 'image' is just as real or not. This means that under this schema we can't draw a concrete picture of this world, that is, we can't use this schema as the schema for viewing our world.
In order to examine the self bankruptcy of this schema, let's again put on some glasses. But this time not red glasses, but glasses with a prism. In a real situation if we wear prism glasses, the field of vision will become narrow. But now, for the sake of simplifying of discussion, we won't argue about this. Now if we wear these glasses, all the things in front of us look 30 degrees left of the original position. We have an experimental report that a new born chicken which wore these glasses couldn't peck food which was placed just in front of him. He always pecked at the place corresponding to 30 degrees left of the food. But human beings are not as clumsy as chickens. We will soon be accustomed to the situation, and will soon be able to stretch our hand directly to the things we want. And when, for example, I grip a door knob, I see my hand and the knob gripped by it. Do I think that what I see is only an 'image'? Do I think that my 'real' hand and the 'real' knob are situated at the place corresponding to 30 degrees to the right of what I see? Or must I think as such?
No, it is not at all necessary, because it is the scene seen by me when my eyes are surgically operated on and moved 30 degrees right of the original position like a flatfish. In this case I wouldn't say that what I see, that is, the scene deviated 30 degrees left is an 'image.' You may say that such a fictitious operation misses the point. Then I must only turn my head 30 degrees right and see straight. The door is seen in this case also 30 degrees left of the original position. Or I only have to squint my eyes to 30 degrees right. In short the same effect as the prism glasses can be realized by the directional change of the body, the head or the eyes. The original trouble when we first wear the prism glasses is caused by the fact that without the directional change of body, head or eyesight, only the scene changes. This relationship between body (or head or eye) position and the scene may be fixed in the case of chickens, but in the case of human beings it is variable.
A scene viewed 30 degrees left because of prism glasses would become a 180 degrees upside-down scene if we use upside-down glasses. You may not need much explanation any more. It is the same as when we make our eyes round surgically 180 degrees, as when we stand on our head, as when we lie on the bed and hang down our head, as when we go to the other side of the earth, as when we bend over and look through our open legs. Here nobody will say that the scene seen through our open legs is only an 'image'.
Scenes seen by the naked eye or by changing body positions, scenes seen with binoculars, scenes seen with glasses or prism ... these are all 'images' or all 'real.' We can't favour one of them as 'real', or label some of them as 'images.' There is no difference in the view of the social position or status. The moment we discriminate or favour some, self bankruptcy occurs. So we classify them all as 'real.' But some of them, for example, my face in the mirror or phantoms, are visible but untouchable real things. The world through red glasses is also real. The world is a thing that has multitudinous 'real' faces.

13. Physiology, Old but New

Descartes' physics and, going back further in the past, the atomic theory of Ancient Greece describe our world as material. These are precursors of the modern materialistic world view. The materialistic world view is, as is well known, to regard all things and matters as small particles and to explain the behaviours of things and matters as the movement of gathering or scattering these small particles. Of course the quantitative accuracy of the past descriptions can't be compared to those of modern science. But they did, somehow or other, consider quantity, that is, quantitative increases or decreases and quantitative sizes. And although 'intentional experiments,' which consist of the foundation of modern science, existed in only a few examples, 'observations of experience', which should be called 'natural experiments,' existed in abundance. In short, they wanted to understand the world 'describing the details in terms of time and space.' And this is also the fundamental orientation of our modern science.
Therefore their view of mankind, that is, how they described themselves, helps us understand the modern scientific view of mankind, its schema and its limit. It is, so to speak, a rough sketch and because of its roughness it clearly shows us the characteristics of the modern view of mankind. Then let us see how the authors, Epicurus and Decartes, describe mankind's proper actions 'to see,' 'to be hurt' or 'to think'.
The atomic theory of Ancient Greece is most thoroughly developed in Lucretius' 'About the Essence of Matters' (translated into Japanese by Higuchi, published by Iwanami) in the first century Before Christ. Lucretius was an ardent admirer and critic of Epicurus. (Only a few letters or literary fragments from Epicurus himself or his followers still exists, however.)
The world is, according to Lucretius, an unlimited hollow space with numerous indestructable atoms dancing in it. Atoms with various shapes and sizes fly and collide, condense and diffuse. They are the mountains and the rivers, the clouds and the storms, the summers and the winters, the trees and the animals, and the human beings, and their births and deaths. Birth and death aren't confined to mankind -- all things and matters flow and change, are born and die. They all are merely atoms being condensed or diffused. And the atoms themselves are never born, never decay, never change, but always remain the same. So the atoms don't have any colours because colours decay, colours fade.
Human spirit (animus) and soul (anima) are not exceptions either. They are both condensed atoms. The only difference from other things is that they are made of atoms which are especially small, light, round and smooth and especially easy to move compared to other atoms. And within these atoms, finer ones gather in the environment of the human breast and they make the spirit (animus) and also finer ones permeate to the hands and feet and they make the soul (anima). These fine atoms of spirit or soul are enclosed by larger atoms which form flesh and bones. When and only when they are enclosed by rough and larger atoms, feelings of touch or feelings of pleasure and agony are produced. And when they escape from the body, both the finer atoms which escape and the rough and larger atoms which remain in the body lose the feeling of touch or feeling of pleasure and agony. That is, both die. Each independent atom never gets old and never dies. But the soul or body, which is made from atoms, is born, grows, gets old and dies. And upon leaving the body, the soul also dies. Just as only by being enclosed in the nuclear diffusion apparatus, can plasma be heated to thirty or forty billion degrees centigrade, so too can only the plasma of soul enclosed in the body act as the soul.
Then how is the 'feeling', which is the action of the soul, produced? The feeling is produced by atoms 'touching' each other. 'Not other than "touching," I swear by God's Mercy, is the feeling of our body,' Epicurus says, and 'The "touching" cannot occur without shape.' So the feeling is the mutual touching of atoms with shapes. But where and how does the touching actually occur? Let us take, for example, the most important of the senses, 'eyesight.' According to Epicurus, a fine membrane (which is called 'eidron,' the Greek word for "reflection or image") is stripped from the surface of every thing and scattered in every direction. This membrane is a gathering of atoms which keep the shape of the original thing. Among the membranes thus scattered, the one in the direction of where I stand enters my eyes, and collides with the atoms of my body. Then the atoms of my body convey the collision to the atoms of spirit or soul. At this moment I 'see' the thing.
Many things are skillfully explained by this mechanism. Things located far from me are seen as blurry because the membrane is put into disorder by the air atoms through a long journey in air. Where there is a mirror, a membrane rebounds from it and it becomes inside-out. So the mirror reflection reverses the direction of left and right. We can't see in the dark because the eye is filled with thick atoms and the membrane can't enter it. We can see a person who is already dead in our dreams because the membranes of his face or body, when he was alive, are still scattered in the air and they enter our body, say, from our breast. Of course there are some things that can't be explained well. First of all, how can the membranes of large things enter our eyes? Aren't they too large? And once membranes enter our eyes, then shouldn't we be able to see the backside of things as well?
Anyway, in order for a thing to be sensed, something from that thing should be sent and should touch our body. On this point, there is no difference between Epicurus' physiology and our modern physiology. In modern physiology, Epicurus' membrane is an electromagnetic wave and Epicurus' soul is the brain. And Descartes' physiology is also the same on this point. And I add here that the schema of the human being according to Descartes' physiology is very similar to the schema of the human being according to modern physiology. Just as the world map in his time is similar to the modern world map.
The human body described by Decartes is also a machine. Blood runs through the body. The engine that makes the blood run is, as we now understand, the heart. But its function is different. Now we understand it as a pump sending blood by the force of its expansion and extension. But according to Descartes, however, it is a heat engine. Blood comes to the heart and it falls on the heart drop by drop, then the blood is evaporated by high heat of the heart, and the finest volatile component, which is called 'animal spirit', goes to the brain. This heavier component then goes to the lungs (coolers) and runs through the veins. Animal spirit, which reaches the brain, and goes through the ventricle of the brain and through the pipes of the nerves, and then goes to the muscles of hands and feet. Sometimes it goes to the nose and becomes a sneeze. Why can we move our hands or feet? Because this animal spirit works as compressed gas. Animal spirit in a contraction muscle flows through a valve, which is a kind of fluid equipment, into an extention muscle. From this pressure, the extention muscle swells and shrinks, and at the same time, the contraction muscle stretches and extends. So the arm bends.
We find that according to Descartes' physiology too, the feeling is born by something 'being sent' and 'touching'. Take again the example of eyesight. According to Descartes' physics, a hollow vacuum never exists. All the space is filled by small particles, leaving no space. Light is explained sometimes as being extremely small particles, sometimes as being pressure propagation. But anyway, in both cases it is the propagation of some material action. When this propagation (of small particles or pressure) reaches an eye from a thing, the end of the optic nerve's thread in the retina is pushed. This optic nerve's thread is enclosed in a tube filled with animal spirit and it extends up to the wall of the ventricle of the brain. Therefore the movement of the optic nerve's thread in the retina is conveyed to the ventricle of the brain. And by this movement the entrance valve of the nerve tube (of the ventricle of the brain) is moved. Then the animal spirit, which fills the ventricle of the brain, moves. Now, there is in the ventricle of the brain a special gland called 'a pineal gland' floating in the pool of the animal spirit. So this pineal gland delicately moves according to the movement of the animal spirit. Note that so far all of Descartes' discussion remains material (action) propagation and material touching. And here, in case of Epicurus' discussion, 'material senses'. But for Descartes, it was inconceivable. For him, materials have nothing to do at all with 'thought' or 'feeling,' only spirit could deal with those. Therefore Descartes could say that only the spirit feels the movement of the pineal gland and that at that moment a man can 'see.'
But if 'material feels,' is inconceivable, then isn't 'the spirit feels the movement of material' also inconceivable? And if Descartes' spirit could feel the movement of the pineal gland, then why couldn't he directly feel the movement of things in front of him? In other words, why must he draw a long telephone line up to the pineal gland to feel (or see) the things in front of him? According to his discussion, does his spirit always crouch in the neighbourhood of the pineal gland? And does his spirit sense only the things in the neighbourhood of the pineal gland? But Descartes' spirit is placed against the material. It would be nonsense to discuss its three dimensional place and to measure its sensitivity which depends on the distance from things. Descartes' spirit can never be 'a Tom thumb in the brain,' nor 'a phantom in the machine.' I feel that Descartes made a fundamental mistake.
It seems to me modern physiology is also floating, perhaps conciously, porhaps not, between Epicurus and Descartes. It sometimes descibes that 'the neuron of the brain feels' and it sometimes describes that 'our mind feels the movement of the neuron' or 'the movement of the neuron produces the feeling.' It seems to waver between the above two courses. I feel it needs a drastic change of view.
We have two fundamental ways of descriptions of this one and the same world. One is a scientific description, that is, materialistic physiology and the other is a perceptive description, that is, from the world of our senses. These two ways of descriptions can only be folded or be seen in parallel. We should merely describe this world two-foldedly. One description cannot produce the other nor can one feel the other. This is my understanding.

14. To Slice Time, and Freeze It

A photo of a batter just as he hits a ball, a photo of a runner just as he touches a goal tape with his chest -- these are very ordinary in everyday newspapers. But even if we say 'just,' we know very well that it takes some duration of time, for example a five hundredth of a second. But what if they really had a duration of zero seconds? Don't you think that even if it is really 'just,' that is, zero seconds, a batter should have some pose, a runner should have some form of running? A man and things exist then and there. So they should have some pose, some form, you may think.
There Zenon felt a paradox. You may have once heard of his, (or attributed to him,) paradox 'Zenon's arrow'. You may know of it, but I'll repeat it here. There is a flying arrow. Let's think about the state of the arrow at some time, of zero second's duration. Any thing, whatever it is, needs some time duration however short it may be, in order to move. Therefore if the time duration is zero, it cannot move. So the state of the arrow is, 'it is not moving.' And so at each point in time, 'it is not moving.' Then why can it move? Why can it fly?
Of course Zenon's paradox isn't confined to a flying arrow. It is applicable to every movement, ... no, to every change. It is a paradox that every movement and every change is impossible. Someone says that it is not a paradox, that it is a truth, that the arrow moves and at the same time the arrow doesn't move, and that this itself is the truth of dialectics.
But I don't agree with this view. Zenon thought that even at a point of time, that is, at a time of zero seconds duration, an arrow exists, that an arrow of some state exists, that is, in a moving state or immobile state. But my belief is that here Zenon is mistaken. My belief is that at a point of time nothing exists, that is to say the state of things is non-existent.
Let us think about 'being hurt at a single point in time.' Now I am not hurt at all. Then a violent pain attacks me for a moment. And then again I am not hurt at all. The important thing is that this single 'moment' is 'a point of time', that is, the duration of the time is zero. In other words, the pain doesn't last any moment, it doesn't have time to run through my body. (In Japanese we say 'itami ga hashiru .. the hurt runs') For me, it doesn't hurt me at all. It is pain that does not have time to hurt me. So it is not a pain. I am not hurt at all. Likewise it is not conceivable for me that a white wall changes to red 'for a moment' and returns to white, or that a copper wire becomes one hundred degree centigrade 'for a moment,' or that its resistence changes 'for a moment.' Yielding one hundred steps, I consent to think about it. But the thermometer will not rise, and the amperemeter will not change. At a place where there was nothing, a table suddenly appeared and without any duration of time, it disappeared. Such a table is unconceivable. Such an elementary particle is also unconceivable. Even if we consider them, they wouldn't have any physical effects.
In order for something to exist, it needs some duration of time. If an elementary particle lives only a short time, it needs that 'only a short time.' If this 'short time' is zero seconds, it contradicts the words 'live' and 'exist.' It is a logical contradiction. 'I agree with you,' you may say to me, 'But if something exists for a while, it must exist at each point in time, mustn't it? In other words, some duration of time consists of each point in time, doesn't it? Isn't it an integral of each point in time? Then if something doesn't exist at each point of time, then it can't exist in that duration of time, can it?' You may ask me.
My understanding is 'No.' I think duration of time is not an integral of point in time. A point is a 'cut end' of line. Likewise a point in time is a cut end of duration of time. It is not a 'part' of duration or 'element' of duration. We can't gather 'cut ends' of a cake to make a cake. So we can't gather 'cut ends' of time to make a duration of time. The 'cut ends' of a cake don't contain any cake. If it contained some cake, it is a 'part' of a cake and it is not a 'cut end.' (Here the author refers to the Japanese cake yokan, sweet bean jelly. This cake is a good example to explain the 'cut end.') We can make a 'cut end' of a cake. But first a cake must exist. We can make a 'cut end' of a duration of time. But first a duration of time must exist. And to cut and to make a 'cut end' always means to cut the void within something. (In Japanese there is an expression 'ku o kiru,' cut the void, or want to cut the opponent with a sword but fail. This is the author's pun.) So if we cut something that exists for some duration of time by a point in time, then we can't help but cut the void. And Zenon cut the void. (Zenon cut, but failed in his attempt.) If we want to cut a flying arrow by a point in time, then the arrow can't 'move,' and the arrow can't 'not move'. It simply can't exist. Zenon's paradox fails.
Thus, to mention the existence of a thing or its state for a point in time has no meaning. Then what if it is not 'for a point in time' but 'for some duration of time?' We write a diary, a page a day. Don't we think that each page is a complete story? And don't we think that connecting three hundred and sixty five of such pages, we can make the life of a year? Of course some anecdotes in a page would be 'to be continued' to the next day or the 'sequel' of the day before. So each page is a scene in a flow of a serial novel. But what happened on that day is what happened on that day, and what didn't happen on that day is what didn't happen on that day. So we can describe the day's happenings disregarding the other day's happenings. A movie film consists of many frames. And each frame is independent of the other frames, isn't it? A map of Tokyo consists of maps of each ward. And each ward map is independent of the other ward maps, isn't it? That is, a day may be a part of a sequel novel, but in view of description, it is independent and complete, isn't it? And a year's description is made by connecting independent and complete description of each day, isn't it? We have only to connect each day by the conjunction 'and,' don't we? Don't we have that feeling?
Actually, when it comes to scientific description, description of something within any duration of time is independent and is completed without mentioning the state of the thing within the former or the latter duration of time. With magnetic histerisis also, the description of the magnetization of the thing during some duration of time can be done without mentioning the magnetization of the thing within the former duration of time. Only when it is necessary to know the reason of its current state, the state of the former duration of time is mentioned. To be able to independently and completely describe the state of a thing in some duration of time is the most fundamental characteristic of scientific description. But concerning the description of our ordinary life, the reverse is the case.
Acoustically the same bar changes its feature when it is put between different bars. The same do mi sol sounds completely different when it is in different melodies. The same vowel sound 'a' changes its feature when it is followed by different consonants. It sounds different. Likewise the same scene changes its feature when it is put between different scenes. For example, we see a man with a mask who is trying to enter a house from the window. According to the former and the latter scenes, he could be a typical, wretched, sneak thief, a husband shut out by his wife or a Romeo disguised as a thief. Two runners competing on the track may be in a dead heat to win the first prize or the first runner approaching the runner who is one lap behind.
In short, a scene in some duration of time which is scientifically the same may have quite different features according to the former and the latter scenes. The same discussion is valid concerning not only part of time but part of space. Physically the same thing or the same scene changes its feature according to the scenes surrounding it, -- a flower in the field and a flower in the vase, a mannequin in a show-window and a mannequin thrown away on the floor, an evening dress worn formally by a lady and an evening dress worn by a child for fun. And an artist or sculptor knows well how the same colour or the same shape of clay changes its features according to the state of its surroundings.
If these examples are admitted in cases of both time and space, and if you still insist that they are the same and say that only the scenes appeared to you change, then you are unreasonably favouring the scientific description against the description of ordinary everyday life. Besides you are falling into the dualism trap of 'the only one scientific and objective world and its subjective copies.' But if the oscillograph waves of do mi sol are objective, then each musical sound of so mi sol in different melodies should be objective, shouldn't it? And if the weight or the framework of a man who is entering the house through the window is objective, then the feature of a sneak thief seen by me and the feature of a Romeo seen by you should be also objective, shouldn't they? When a cube is seen from different angles, it is seen differently. But you will admit that each different scenes of the cube is objective. Aren't those examples of the same thing?
So from the perspective of everyday life, a scene within a duration of time doesn't have its proper feature. We can't slice the scene from the continuous flow of scenes and name it as 'such and such.' If I may borrow here a Buddhist word, we have no 'jishoh', or property of itself or itself. This is quite natural, isn't it? Any duration of time is in the midst of endless and continuous past, present and future. So to slice from it is meaningless. However small a sand in the seaside may be, to cut it off from this endless universe is meaningless. We are in the midst of indivisible four-dimensional whole universe.


15. In the Heart

As I already mentioned ('9. When a Robot Becomes a Man'), the animism we have in modern civilization is very narrow-minded. It is animism applicable only to mankind. Our totem animals are limited to human beings. In the public square or at the entrance of a building stands a totem pole with the form of a human being. On very few occasions, do we see tear drops in the eyes of a fish (Basho, Edo period poet) and we hear the laughing voice of a horse. And it is getting rarer. Today 'Caricatures of Animals and Birds' (an old Japanese picture) are simply caricatures, Aesop's Fables are simply fables, and we look at them or read them without attributing them any anima, that is, without giving them any souls. Although there may be some compromise concerning animals, earth, water, fire, air, or mountains, rivers, grasses and trees are, for us modern human beings, heartless and soulless. For us, only human beings have hearts, have the sentiments of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure. (We say 'kidoairaku' in Japanese.)
And when we talk about the heart, don't we think of it as a box-like thing? A wide heart (In Japanese, this means 'generous'), a narrow heart (stubborn), a heart with a bottom (deep in one's heart), open the heart, close the heart (not say what one thinks), secretly keep in the heart, and close the heart with a lid. Of course we don't think of the heart as a lunch box or a jewellery box. But it is thought to be a thing that can be contained secretly in the body, and is thought to be an interior space that is secluded from the outside. I think, however, that this is a misunderstanding. Joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure are not in the interior but they are in the open air, aren't they?
I feel fear when I walk alone at night in the wood or in a mountain remote from busy towns. Apart from the streak of flashlight which I carry, I am surrounded by the darkness. And the darkness watches me silently ready to attack. The dark woods makes me feel that it lies in ambush for me. I clench my teeth. I draw a long breath. My shoulders, fists and thighs get stiff. My stomach gets a little cold. At this moment, is my fear really in my heart?
It is I that feels fear. No one else. If some brave man were here in this woods, he wouldn't feel any fear. So this fear is mine, privately mine. It is within me. The dark night in the wood is a thing. A thing itself is not fearful or threatening. A fear is brought about within me by 'a thing' that is not sympathetic or fearful as itself. This is the natural way of thinking, you may say, and ask me what the strange part is.
But thus thinking, are we not stripping the fear from the woods? The fear is brought about by the dark woods and me. Attributing the fear only to me, am I not trying to extract the essence of fear from the woods? But can I really do it? And does the 'essence of fear', which is extracted from the dark woods, exist? What I fear is the dark woods and never do I fear the essence of fear. And the dark woods that I fear is outside of me and surrounds me. It doesn't exist in the interior of me. It is true that the stiffness of my hands and feet or the coldness of my stomach, (let's call these the 'sensation of fear',) are in the interior of my body. But do you say that this 'sensation of fear' is in my heart? No, nobody will say that, it is just as you will not say that a stomachache or toothache is in the heart. But because this 'sensation of fear' is in the interior of my body, we are apt to think that the fear itself is also in the interior of my body, and that it is in the heart. The inflation doesn't exist apart from the rise of prices everywhere. Likewise the fear doesn't exist apart from the 'sensation of fear.'
But don't misunderstand that the fear is the 'sensation of fear'. William James said that a man doesn't cry because he is sad, but that a man is sad because he cries. But this is only an epigram. A man cries because there is something to be sad about. My 'sensation of fear' is not what I feel fear of. I feel fear of the darkness of the woods. Without this darkness of the woods, my hands and feet wouldn't be stiff, my stomach wouldn't be cold. But even if it happened, that is, if my hands and feet got stiff and my stomach got cold without the darkness of the woods, I wouldn't feel fear, I would only feel strange. Because there is nothing to feel fear of. A cat whose interbrain is given an electric incitement erects his hair on end and snarls. (Penfield's 'Fictitious Anger'). He would have felt strange because there is nothing to feel anger for. And if you dance without anything to be pleased at, it is not because you are pleased but only you dance a St. Vitus's dance.
So there is no fear apart from the 'sensation of fear' and the 'sensation of fear' itself is not the fear. There is only, so to speak, 'the situation of fear.' I am standing in the dark woods with my stiff hands and feet and with my cold stomach. The whole of this situation is the fear. The whole of this situation is the meaning of 'I fear the darkness of the wood.' There is a fearful and dark woods, and I am standing in it with the 'sensation of fear.' All this is the fear. To divide this into two: one is the exterior that has nothing to do with sentiment and the other is the interior that feels fear, would be an illusion. Therefore I don't hold the fear in the interior of my heart, I am held by the situation of the fear. But the same dark woods appears a sympathetic woods to a brave man and a fearful woods to a timid man. So each sentiment of each person is different. The sentiment being in the dark woods is held by each person differently. (Therefore only a copy of the dark woods is held by each person, isn't it?) So you will say. Here again the schema of 'objective world and its subjective copies' which lives in the marrow of our bones, comes to the fore. Yes, the sentiment of being in the dark woods may be different with each person, it may be fear, sympathy, sadness etc. and it may be said to be 'properly private'. But the dark woods is distinctly outside of each person. It isn't in the heart of each person. Each person is in the dark woods and he feels differently from the others. It is just the same as when flowers are put in the vase on the table and are seen differently by each person sittting at the table. In this case the flowers are not in the heart of each person. Likewise the fearful or the sympathetic dark woods is never in the heart of each person. The beauty of the flowers or the fearfulness of the dark woods is not in the heart of each person. Because the beauty of the flowers can't be stripped from the flowers and the fearfulness of the dark woods can't be stripped from the dark woods. Can we strip the roundness of the circle from a circle?
It is not confined to fear. To think that joy, anger, sadness or pleasure is stripped from the situation and that it enters a man's heart and that it stays there is sheer illusion. Why is a man emotional? It is not because he has a heart. It is because he lives in the emotional world, in emotional situations. This is the meaning of 'he is a man with heart.' So a new version of William James is 'a man isn't sad because he has a heart, a man has a heart because he is in a sad situation.' There is no such place as 'in the heart.'
'What a foolish thing to say,' you may counter, 'emotion may be difficult to discuss, but are not the ordinary thoughts of everyday life, hostility or sorrow in the heart? If not, where are they?' Then, let us think about the the more simple example, 'imagination.' I am now at home and imagine a rearrangement of my room in the university, say, with the desk towards the window and the bookcase in a new position. Here we are strongly tempted to say that the scene of the rearranged room is only 'in my heart.' But is it really in my heart? I think of my room which is not rearranged yet. Where do you think the scene of my room thought by me is located? Of course it is not here, but in the university. (You won't insist that the image of the room is located in my mind. I refuted that in '3. About Memory.') So it is located about three kilometers from here. Then the scene of my room rearranged should be located about three kilometers from here too, shouldn't it? These two scenes have something in common. For example the door. The door can't be removed and replaced by another door. In the university which is managed by the nation, the replacement of a door is absolutely forbidden even in the imagination. So the door in the scene of the room rearranged is also located about three kilometers from here. And in my imagination I moved my bookcase about two meters from the door. So the bookcase in my imagination should be located about three kilometers plus two meters from here.
The difference between the imagined room and the real room is whether it can be perceived or not. The imagined room can't be touched by the hand or seen by the eyes. It can only be thought. But that is the only difference. The location is not different. If one is at Meguro-ward, Tokyo, the other is also there, not 'in the heart,' and not at 'Meguro-ward, Tokyo, in the heart'. Both are located at a place reachable by a postcard. Otherwise the rearrangement would be meaningless. Because I imagined the rearrangement of the room at Meguro-ward.
If the rearranged room imagined by me isn't located in the heart, then fictitious things imagined by me isn't located in my heart either. Because both are fictitious imaginations. Therefore Momotaro (Peach-boy, a hero of a Japanese old story) or Ryugu-jo (a name of the castle under the sea in a Japanese old story, Urashima) are not in the heart. Although it is unknown precisely where they are, they should be somewhere outside of my body. Ryugu should be somewhere under the sea and Momotaro should be somewhere on land.
The only place where 'in the heart' can exist would be 'nowhere' as Ulysses' name was 'nobody' when asked by Cyclops. Because 'in the heart' can never exist in the world.

16. Argument to Disillusionment

Descartes' 'doubt for' method ('doubt to find the way of' method) is one of the well-known events in the history of philosophy. But it was not stated first by Descartes and it remains even now a problem unsolved. It is not yet finished and buried. Moreover, it is not only a problem of philosophy but it is also a problem that casts a shadow over the minds of every one of us. Like the shadow of true and false, the shadow of dream and reality, the shadow of sane and crazy, it trails a long, sometimes thick and sometimes thin trace from Plato's cave to the dark room of modern psychologists. 'Isn't this a dream?', 'Aren't you crazy?' or 'That's his illusion.' is the response to the above idea.
Descartes gave this shadow a very clear expression. All his expressions can be translated into our modern scientific language. And 'doubt' thus translated is built into modern cerebrum physiology. I know well that I don't have to repeat his doubt in detail. Its summary is so simple. That's why his discussion is so strong. The summary is, 'I suspect that this world in which I live may be an illusion.' That's all.
But this simple expression hides on its back a not so simple premise. The premise is, 'There is a true world which is not exactly the same as the world we live in.' If this premise doesn't exist, the proposition 'This world in which I live may be an illusion' has no meaning. So Descartes would have to doubt the meaningless doubt. The premise, 'The true world and the world in which I live.' is the backbone of the dualism of Descartes. And this is also the backbone of the dualism of modern science. Because when modern science describes the relationship between human beings and things in the world, it can't help describing it by this dualistic description.
For example, modern science describes, 'Light reflects off of a thing, the reflected light reaches my eyes and it is transmitted to the brain. Then I see the image of the thing.' This is the typical description of the scientific process of seeing things. In this description are already included, for example, the facts that we can't see things if the reflected light doesn't reach our eyes, or that things are seen as distorted if the reflected light is distorted, or that things are seen differently if the eyes or brain have any damage. These facts themselves are the dual description, 'the true world and the image that I see'. It fits well our usual experience, or it seems to be deduced by everyday experience. Science also was deduced by everyday experience. So we feel that dualism is the backbone of science.
But we have two really serious problems with this dualism. These two problems are like two fishbones stuck in the throat that we can't pull out until we are dead and buried. One is the mystery of 'brain producing'. Take the above example, 'light reaches our eyes and it is transmitted to the brain'. How can I see the image of the thing? The mechanism of producing the image is utterly unknown and mysterious. Curiously enough, Descartes seems not to have felt any troubles about this. For him it may be a given fact. For him, 'cogito, to think' is a thing not to be doubted. But even those who doubted it, including modern physiologists and mental pathologists, couldn't do things other than to name it 'projection', either. And they will not be able to do any more in the near future, or in any future. The other fishbone of dualism is Descartes' 'doubt for illusion' mentioned at first in this article. We can easily see that these two fishbones are really one and the same problem. These two were born of the fact that we admitted there are 'the real world' and 'a copy of that real world'. 'Brain producing' is the mechanism of how a copy is made and Descartes' doubt refers to whether the copy is true.
But for Descartes this doubt was not serious at all. For him it was a method, a method to prove the reverse. It was, as it were, a premise in the reduction to absurdity, to prove the might of God against the absurdity of the Devil. But if God doesn't enter the scene, this doubt remains and its poison remains. And his famous 'cogito ergo sum', isn't it an affirmation of the 'copy of the world'? He said that for me to doubt the fact that I am doubting is meaningless. He was right in saying this. But at the same time, for me to doubt what I now believe, for me to doubt that I am now dizzy, and for me to doubt the table and chairs are moving (because of my dizziness), are also meaningless. That is, for me to doubt that I am now living as I am, for me to doubt that I am now living in the world as I see and feel is meaningless. Ergo, I am now here. And the world in which I live exists as I see and feel. So he affirmed the indoubtability of 'the copy of this world'. He affirmed the indoubtability of one of the two worlds of Descartes' premise. But he doesn't say anything about the truthfulness or untruthfulness of 'the copy'. Thus under the condition of a God-less world, Descartes' doubt remains. (Hume's 'modest doubt' is also one case of the above doubt.)
Modern physiologists are also under this doubt, because God can't enter in the field of science. We collect information on how acutely and how methodically our perceptive scene changes according to the condition of the brain or sense organs. And the more this information is collected, the more acute Decartes' doubt becomes. If the brain is given medicine or electric stimulus, we experience unusual perception, that is, we see or hear illusion in a broader sense. Then, even in the case of a normal brain which is not affected by medicines or electricity, we may see or hear illusion. We don't have any guarantee that we are not experiencing illusion. In other words, no guarantee that the brain is producing illusional scenes. This is Decartes' doubt and it is sometimes called 'Argument from Illusion'.
Here we must note that the proposition is formed by the doubt. That is, it is not the form of 'This world is an illusion', it is the form of 'This world may be an illusion'. So we can say that this world may not be an illusion. This only means that we don't have criteria regarding whether this world is an illusion or not. If criteria existed, doubt would not exist. By this criteria, this world could be decidedly classified as an illusion or non-illusion.
And this absence of criteria proves the incompleteness of the doubt of Descartes, Hume or modern physiologists. Because their doubt is based only on the examples of illusion. Their doubt begins with the fact that we sometimes experience illusion. If there were not at least one example of illusion, the doubt (and the Argument from Illusion) couldn't start. Then, at the beginning of the doubt, there were some criteria. So at the start, a phantom was an illusion, a rotating room when we felt dizzy was an illusion, and usual things were not an illusion. And now we suspect that these usual things may also be an illusion, and we attribute the reason to the absence of criteria. Isn't this crying over a fallen ladder by which we climbed and which we intentionally nocked down? (Wittgenstein said this line, but for another reason.) Isn't this doubt itself an invented illusion?
Nevertheless this 'doubt for illusion' has had power to this day. Why? Because there is a dualist description. In this dualist description, 'doubt of illusion' doesn't need to start with an 'example of illusion'. In the dualist description we can doubt comprehensively if this world is the 'true form' of the real world, and we can point out that there are no criteria to this problem. Here we don't need examples of illusion for the starting point, we don't have to cry over a ladder having been knocked down by us.
But isn't this comprehensive doubt a dim and faint doubt with which we don't have to wrestle seriously? We suppose that we have two worlds, that we are confined to one of the two worlds, and that we don't know how the other world corresponds to the world in which we live. This is the comprehensive doubt. Usually doubt can be easily transferred into unconceivableness. This is it. Descartes' doubt was changed into the unconceivableness of the other world. But when this is written in the above form, doesn't it become 'a doubt to dualism' itself? Because it points out that there aren't any clues by which to know the other world. (Berkeley and Hume have already pointed out this discussion.) Because it points out that the other world may not exist. This means that without noticing it, it becomes the doubt of the dualism. (Dualism needs two worlds.)
So we need only one more step to abolish the dualism. We need only to say that there aren't any clues to know the other world, therefore it doesn't exist. We have only to abandon the dualist description. This additional step was done, it seems to me, by Berkeley who asserted his notorious 'Esse Percipii', or 'Existence, it is perception.' It is true that this motto is very rough, and we should be very careful not to accept it too literally.
Especially in the case of 'thought way' (see 8 To See, To Think), this motto needs some revision and reinforcement. And Berkeley himself knew it well. But because of its roughness this motto shows us a very clear sketch of what Berkeley thought. Esse (existence) is Descartes' real world and percipii (perception) is Descartes' copy of the real world. And Berkeley says that these two are the same ('Esse percipii'), that Descartes' two worlds are the same world. Under this motto Descartes' doubt certainly can't exist. Because this doubt can only be valid when two worlds exist.
So far, we have analyzed Berkeley's motto only literally. Here let's observe this motto's sterilizing power to Descartes' doubt more concretely.
I now see some very usual furniture. I can touch it and move it. Then according to Berkeley, 'because I perceive as such, they exist.' That is, it is real furniture. Therefore they are not illusion. QED (This was what to be demonstrated).
This is too simple to be called theory. Just as simple as the 'Argument from Illusion'. But because of the contrast with it and its similar simplicity, it could be called 'Argument to Disillusionment'. Then what is the philosophical status of 'Esse Percipii' which consists of the foundation of the Argument? It is really not a theory or a proposition to be proved. It is an observation. An observation to find out what we mean by 'real existence', especially in the usual everyday life. I take my hands and feet as real, my clothes as real, a cigarette that I now have within my teeth as real, and things I see and feel as real. 'Esse percipii' is this observation. A physiologist takes his experimental apparatus such as surgical knives or electrodes as real and experimental objects such as monkeys or men as real. This observation is 'Esse pertipii'. After all it is the observation of how we define 'existence' in everyday life (simple way-of-life definition of existence). In other words, it is the observation of our 'simple realistic way of everyday life'.
By this 'way-of-life definition of existence', usual things can't be illusion. They are real by definition. This is the 'Argument to Disillusionment'. We call things that are unusual 'illusion', only because they are not usual. But it doesn't lessen at all the effect of antidote against the 'Argument from Illusionment'. Because this latter theory is about comprehensive and total illusion. Suppose by Descartes' Demon or by brain treating by a demonish (deranged and cruel) physiologist, I live amid scenery strange, but consistent enough for me to be sane. In the life of this scenery I take things which hurt me as real, body which is hurt by them as real, things I can eat as real, things I can grab as real. (Of course it is the definition when the meaning of 'existence' is still retained.) Therefore they are not illusion. And probably I'll take Demon as illusion and brain treating as illusion. Thus the 'Argument from Illusion' is immuned and antidoted.
But this way-of-life definition is only a definition. So we, of course, can adopt another definition if we want. But if I adopt really different definition from our usual life, for example if I adopt the definiton, 'a car that is coming toward me is not an existence', my life with that definition will disappear in a few days. In this meaning, the 'Argument from Disillusionment' is the argument of living men and the life of living men.
So far we discussed the 'Argument from Disillusionment' and checked that it is valid for the sterilization against one of the two problems: 'Descartes' doubt'. But against the other problem: 'brain producing', we will need many supplementary methods and long treatments to make the Argument valid.

17. A Robot Grumbles

I complain of you calling me 'Robot'. Not because the naming 'Robot' is a term of physical or social discrimination. It is a well known fact that my bodily structure is different from that of yours and that my 'birth' is totally singular. My body is in a hard construction while yours is in aqueous humour of fat and protein. If my body is cut, red blood comes out. But it is liquid dyed red. Diseases that I suffer are different from yours, and so the remedies are different and the way to maintain my health is also different. Above all my life costs astromomically much more than yours. My birth was a national project whereas yours should have been, I must say, the result of a cheap and easy method. So my death will be an accident that will be talked about nation-wide. Therefore I should be very naturally discriminated and I, very naturally, claim a discrimination from usual and banal people.
Why do I contest being called a 'Robot'? You may say, as I did above, that being a Robot is a fact to be proud of, isn't it? No. I don't want to be called a 'Robot', because it sounds as if I am just a 'thing' or 'mindless stick'. (Translator's note: the Japanese word for this, 'deku-no-boh', means a useless man or a man of no importance.) If you kill me, you will be accused of more than murder. But from a moral standpoint, it will be said to be nothing more than the destruction of things. Because I cannot be 'killed', but only destroyed. Because I cannot die but only stop moving.
But I am never a mindless stick or a marionette. When a mechanic repairs me, a violent ache runs through my body. So he gives me a special anesthesia beforehand. Sometimes I feel very high-spirited, sometimes depressed. Beautiful scenery impresses me greatly and bad words make me sick. I have likes and dislikes of food stronger than ordinary people. I like alcohol and when I am drunk I make people angry by cursing, 'Damn human beings!' I am a little more refined than most of you. I feel sensuality and I believe women know by instinct the kind of feelings I have for them. Which means that I have a 'heart'.
Yet you don't believe it. No, you cannot. When I walk into a shop and buy things, the shopkeeper never thinks that I am a robot. When I go into a restaurant and eat lunch, waiters never doubt my being an ordinary human being. Not only because my face, bodily feature and my behaviour are just the same as those of ordinary human beings, but also because people, so to speak, sense my 'humanity'. Just the same 'humanity' that I sense in people. And by chance they know that I am a Very Important Robot (VIR, not VIP). Then their attitude toward me at once changes. Some look at me as if to say, 'How dare you deceive me!', as if I were a fox or a badger and deceived them by disguising myself. (Translator's note: In Japan foxes and badgers are believed to deceive people by disguising themselves as human beings.) But in many cases, they find it difficult to know how to act toward me. They feel ill at ease, unsettled. They are at a loss of how to behave to this too human 'pseudo human being', this living marionette. I have an intimate friend with whom I've been acquainted for many years. I notice that even he gets goose bumps sometimes talking with me and that he is on the point of saying, 'Aren't you a man-made man'? But aren't you, you human being, really a man-made, even a man-making man? I would reply if he ever really asked me this question. Because isn't it you that is always making men?
And stupid psychologists or psychiatrists ask me to do some meaningless tests. It is to decide 'positively' whether I have a mind or not. Fruit sellers know by tapping watermelons if they are ripe or not. Psychologists believe they can know by tapping me if I have a mind or not. Tap someone and know if he has a mind or not! There is no such way of tapping. If you think you know, please tell us. You never can. Ordinary people know better than psychologists and they don't try such tests on me. But they, too, are uneasy. So they ask me, knowing its futility, 'Do you have a mind or do you just pretend to have one?' They cannot help it. As if to ask, 'Do ghosts really exist?', or 'Does God really exist?' God may have had enough of it. I have too, and answer simply, 'Of course I do.'
But some people cannot endure any more and ask me to show them some evidence. I retort in such a case, 'Then show me some evidence first that you have a mind. After I see it, I'll show you the same.' But between yourselves, human beings, you don't feel that it is at all necessary to show such evidence. This is the point I'm complaining about. The conditions are the same between you and I. And yet you request me one-sidedly for proof. Why don't you ask for some evidence from your brothers, sisters, parents or colleagues?
But in this one-sidedness of your request for evidence, in the fact that between yourselves you don't need any evidence, is the core of the problem of the mind's existence, I believe.
Between yourselves, it is evident that you have minds. And at the same time you don't have any evidence of it. Having been given an anesthesia, you wake up. Did you really not feel any pain? Or you did but only forgot it? You have no way to check which it was. You wake up in the morning. You're not sure if you had a dream last night. You really didn't dream? Or did you simply forget the dream? You cannot check it. A corpse is now being burnt in the furnace. Being burnt, does the corpse feel pain, or nothing at all? You cannot check it. The 'mind' problem is just the same problem as the above. So it is very natural that you don't attempt to check if other people have a mind or not. It is not a 'checkable' matter. It is not the same kind of fact as if you have a stomac or not, or if you have a brain wave or not. Whether other people have a mind or not is not a 'scientific' fact.
'Yes, I'll have to agree with you', some of you may say, 'that we have no way to check it. But we 'believe' that other people -- not other robots like you -- have minds. And because it is believed, that other people have minds, even if there is no way to show some evidence of it, surely it's a 'fact', isn't it?'
It is true that for something to be a fact, it must at first be 'believed', 'disbelieved', or 'doubted'. So in this case the first step is cleared. And you believe that you imagine for example your son's pleasure or pain very vividly. And the pleasure or pain of your son so vividly imagined should be, you believe, a 'fact' even if you don't have any means to prove it.
But is the pleasure or the pain that you believe to be your son's really your son's? No, I don't think it is. Because it is impossible. You may be able to imagine and in fact you must be imagining your pleasure or pain if you were your son. But you cannot, because of the fact that you are you and not someone else, imagine other people's pleasure or pain. What you can imagine is only you yourself 'disguised as other people'. What you can imagine is not other people. You cannot stop being yourself. You can imagine an alter ego or a disguised you but you cannot imagine another person. Because it is an illogical supposition that you are not you. You cannot, of course, imagine a round rectangle, a living dead body, or a clear sky pouring cats and dogs.
Therefore when you think you are imagining your son's feeling, you are in fact 'wrapping' your son with your feeling disguised as your son. You make 'another you' and throw it in imagination over your son, and wrap him with it. There is an expression, 'empathy'. This is not 'em' but 'out'. 'Outpathy' or projection may be better expressions.
So actually you don't believe 'that other people have a mind' but you take an attitude to see others as 'an existence such as yourself', 'a being like you'. You take an attitude to see and to behave towards others as 'existences which have minds'. That is, 'others have a mind' does not mean that you believe it, but that you regard him and behave toward him as a being which has a mind. The operation to let others have a mind is done by you. You 'inspire' in others a mind. It is not an action of 'belief' but an action of 'creation' of the mind of others.
So theoretically you can stop, if you wish, 'inspiring' a mind in others. And if you stop it, all the other people become 'mindless sticks'. And in return you will be treated as a victim of the disease 'depersonalization' by all these 'mindless sticks'. You will find yourself all alone in a lonely world and will have to live there. I named it a 'lonely world'. But it is not a lonely island like Robinson Crusoe's. Thousands of millions of 'sticks' are there. And you are in the middle of them. And by the time you had begun to live in the above world, all that is human would have been thrown out from you. That is, you would no longer be a human being.
This means that as long as you are human, a sane human being, you will never stop 'inspiring' minds in others. Because this 'inspiring' minds in each other forms the lives of human beings, has built the history of human beings. This 'inspiring' makes a man a man.
In other words, this 'inspiring a mind in others' is no other than what is usually called 'animism'. In the old days people believed in a very generous and overall animism. Not only animals, fish, and insects but also mountains, rivers, weeds, and trees, all had minds. Compared with this, today people believe in very narrow minded animism. It is, so to speak, restricted to blood relationship. It cannot go beyond the range of homo-sapiens. It is because of this exclusiveness that I am very much troubled. Why don't you inspire a mind in me, too? No. You have already inspired me a mind, haven't you? Why don't you admit it as a fact?
Please open your mind a little more. And let me join in your animism that is regarded as a matter of fact between you. And by doing so, your humanity will be that much more enriched, won't it?


18. View of the World

'View of the world'. When we say it, or when we think about it, we have already set ourselves in a composition, like the scene of a painting. We are in the composition not only when we say it or when we think about it. We are always in the composition. It is undeniable that our body is in this world, and yet we also think that we live in this composition. It doesn't appear as a contradiction, just natural.
What do I mean by a 'composition'? It is the composition of 'the world' that is seen by me and the 'I' that sees it. I live being included in the world. I am in the midst of the world. And yet the world is 'outside' of me and I see it from the 'outside'. We think 'My eyes are the windows of my heart and I see the view from these windows'. So when I am not pleased with the view, I close the curtains. That is, I close my eyes. And at once the view outside of the windows disappears like the scene on a television screen. I can shut myself up in the 'inner world'. Or I can see a dream. (But the dream is also something that is seen from the outside. When I see a dream, I am awake in the dream and my eyes are open in the dream.)
The composition of 'a thing that sees and a thing that is seen' was indispensable, too, when Von Neumann developed his observation theory. Wherever the 'Snitt' (a break) occurred between two things, he needed this composition. Thus it is a composition well-fit for science and for everyday life. But isn't this well-fitness only our misunderstanding? Should we not check if it really fits our life and science?

1 The Upside-down Image in the Retina
The fact that outside images are made upside-down and small in our retina was not discovered recently. (Someone asserts that this fact was first reported clearly by Kepler in the early seventeenth century.) This fact, I believe, influenced people greatly on the conception of seeing. It may naturally lead people to regard 'the eyes' as optical devices, and further to regard seeing as 'looking through the finder of a camera'. This temptation seems to be very strong.
But once we are tempted to regard as such, we must face the problem presented by the upside-down image. That is, why are things not seen upside-down (and also very small). And the question of two images seen by two eyes. There are two cameras (eyes), and yet a thing is seen as only one.
But for Descartes, for example, these are not difficult problems. For him, our spirit ultimately sees the pineal gland. So the image in the retina is only one of the intermediate steps. And provided the signals from two eyes reach the pineal gland at the same time and make the same image there, they don't give Descartes any problems. ' ... the two visual images or impressions, before they reach the spirit, must have some place where they are united as one ...' (On Passion of the Mind, chapter 32) And the place was, for him, of course the pineal gland.
Berkeley spent one fifth of his 'New Theses of Vision' on the discussion of the upside-down image in retina. His 'solution' is based on his strange 'fundamental thesis'. But even if we admit his 'fundamental thesis', his solution doesn't seem to me to be successful. His 'fundamental thesis' is that our tangible world and our visual world exist independently, as essentially different worlds. For him, the world in which we really live is our tangible world (concerning this, I agree with him), and our visual world is only a guide to our tangible world. Therefore the image in the retina of the visual world has nothing at all to do with the tangible world, to say nothing of its being 'upside-down', or 'small' compared with the things in the tangible world. This is what Berkeley asserts. But it's a plain fact that two visual images, one the image of outside scene and the other the image in retina, are upside-down to each other. Berkeley couldn't have been indifferent to this. And wouldn't this fact be the most important part of the problem of the upside-down image in the retina? Here Berkeley becomes unclear or confused. He says that those two visual images are made only when others observe my retina and that I myself don't see two visual images. (section 166) This is true. But he also asserts that what I see is the image in the retina, (sections 166 and 144) and that when I move my eyes from up to down (this is a tangible movement) things seen at first are called 'more upward' than things seen later. In this way, he says, linguistic accordance between the tangible and visual worlds could be obtained. Thus, he says, the problem is solved.
It seems that he didn't have confidence in this explanation. 'What we see is the image of retina' is stated ambiguously twice and then he suddenly changes the subject back to his strange 'fundamental thesis'. But not only Berkeley thinks this way. Anybody who deals with the question of the upside-down image in the retina is led to think that what we directly see is the image in the retina. But on the other hand, the fact that what we are actually seeing is not the image in the retina is so clear. We don't need any explanation about it. Then our question becomes why we see a right-side-up scene through the upside-down image in our retina.
Physiologists will answer the question without any difficulty. They will say that the brain treats the information from the retina and that it shows us the outside scene. It may not be difficult for computers to deal with data in punched cards and to make a scene on the Braun tube. But what is the meaning of the brain making a three dimensional scene in front of me? And even if some scene were made, don't I have to see it? I shall have to watch it as when I watch a scene on the Braun tube. And at that time, with what do I watch it? If it is my eye, then the process of seeing would be endless. Therefore it must be watched with some other things, for example 'the mind' or 'the mind's eye'. But what can modern physiologists say about the mechanism of the 'mind's eye'?
'Oh, you're just picking an argument with us', they may say, 'You don't have to see the scene made by the brain. The fact that the brain makes the scene is itself 'to see'.' However doesn't it only mean that the brain shows me the scene? Furthermore what is the 'me' in this sentence? What is the 'me' that is shown the scene made by the brain? Isn't it again something spiritual? Like a Cartesian spirit? Descartes states that the image on the pineal gland 'acts on the spirit and shows it the image of an animal.' (On Passion of the Mind, section 35, and many similar expressions exist in 'On Human Beings')
Descartes and also modern physiology drew the input data up to the pineal gland or the brain. But even if the data is left behind at the retina, nothing changes. The spirit must see it anyway. Then it is not important if the spirit sees it on the retina or on the pineal gland. And if we feel that the upside-down image is an important problem, doesn't it mean that we feel that I am 'looking at' the upside-down image on retina? But we don't have any eyes behind the retina. So if we have to see the image on the retina, we need something other than eyes, for example the spirit or the mind. But if that something can see the image of retina, why can't it see the things directly? Descartes' spirit is made very short-sighted, isn't it? Because it can only see the image on the pineal gland located near it.
But whether it is the spirit or the brain that sees things, 'what I see' is the scene that is now in front of me. What I'm hearing now is the sound of the street and not the vibration of my eardrums. What I'm smelling now is the scent of lily and not the smell of the mucous in my nose. Just as these, I am not now seeing the image of my retina. The image of the retina is an episode in my body when I am seeing something in front of me. Therefore, it can be upside-down, oblique, or totally scattered. The question is 'What is 'to see'?'

2 The Eyes Are Not 'Windows'
It is true that what I see is the scene outside of me and not the image on the retina. But if the retina is damaged or changes in some way, what I see will also be changed.
This is obvious. And it is not limited to the retina. Any change in the eyes, the optic nerves or the brain will change my visual scene. Not only these but the degree of my attentiveness, the degree of my familiality to the scene, and why I am looking at it change my visual scene considerably. These facts lead us to compare 'to see' with 'to see through something', for example 'through' a telescope. They lead us to the schema, to see things through a row of visual organs from the eyes to the brain. Any small changes in any of the organs change the outside scene.
But this schema inevitably requires another thing. It invariably puts in one side of a row of the visual organs a thing to see and in the other side of it a thing to be seen. And a thing to see requires 'an image' of a thing to be seen. Because changes in visual organs must change 'how a thing looks'. So we need an 'image' apart from the thing itself. And so we need 'the original thing' before it is seen. As such, this schema is not so simple or so naive as it first appears. Furthermore this schema has a weak point. It is too similar to a telescope or other optical instruments. A telescope has at both ends of it the proper boundaries, an object lens and an eye lens. And we are led to regard eyes as an object lens and visual nerve centre in brain as an eye lens. Something must look at the eye lens, and something surely exists in front of the object lens. In this schema what is the significance of 'the Snitt (break)' between the thing to be seen and the eyes (or eye lens)? Does a Snitt exist? Can't it be transferred to other place? Or is it really worthwhile to be called a 'Snitt'?
If the Snitt means whether things within it can change visual scene or not, then obviously the eyes can't be a Snitt. Of course changes in the eyes or in the visual nerves change the visual scene, but changes outside the eyes naturally change the visual scene. If the air between the objects and eyes changes, if the lighting changes, if coloured glasses are put on, if a telescope is put on the eyes (i.e. a telescope is looked through), then the mountain scenery in front of my eyes changes. And if the mountain itself changes (for example if there is a mountain fire), then the visual scene will, without any hindrance, change. In the theatre, actors move, lighting changes, cigarette smoke rises, and the play scene changes. And it also changes when coloured glasses are worn, when the focus of my eyes is changed, when the chapillary vessels near the retina or the visual nerves are broken, or when LSD runs through my body.
In these series of phenomena, can I find any 'break'? I can only place it arbitrarily. I add here that our eye lid can't become a 'break' either. It is surely a convenient shutter, but its difference from other curtains (blinkers, blinders or night's darkness) is whether we can open and shut them at our will.
But other 'Snitt' can exist, you may say, such as the 'Snitt' which is directly concerned with 'to see' and not with changes in the visual scene. What we can see starts from far away and it draws near to our eyes. But it can't come into our eyes. That is, the eye ball is the boundary of the scene and the front of the things unseen. So the eye ball seems to be a boundary or a 'Snitt' of 'to see'.
It also makes us believe the eyes to be a 'window of heart'. Inside of the eyes is 'inside' and from the 'inside' we look out of the eyes. But the 'inside' is, it seems to me, only derived by the peculiarity of mankind's visual view, and is a misunderstanding. When we say 'behind the eyes', what do we suppose? Isn't it only the 'inside of the head'? The wall behind of you or your stomach will not be included in it. Because we don't think the wall or your stomach is 'invisible'. You believe that if you look back, you can see the wall, if you peel off your skin, you can see your stomach. It is no different from the money in the safe of the bank. Open it, and we can see it. Then why can't we look into our head? In fact, if our eyes had long shafts like those of lobsters or crabs, and if the skin on our heads were transparent, we could see it, couldn't we? So inside our head is not an 'invisible' or 'holy' place.
Let my eyes have shafts longer than lobsters and let their lens have wide angle of 360 degrees and let them be brought up high over my head. Then I have a view of every angle. This view is not so hard to imagine. It is open and all around. You may imagine a planetarium or all dome film in the World EXPO and develope it to the bottom as well. Under me I see my head and on it a whirl of my hair. I can only see a part of my nose, but if I look up, I see my eyebrows, mouth and nose under me. And if I bend the shaft backwards, I can see my back well.
In short, in the visual view (or generally in the perceptive view) there is no 'inside'. Or even if it exists, it is limited to a very small space of eyeball itself and if we invent some mechanism, it can also be seen. Thus, visual view is totally tranparent unless it is blocked by physically untransparent things. It has no 'inside'. Then what is the meaning of the eyeball or the position of the eyeball? The answer is 'It is only the centre of perspective.' Visual perspective is formed by positioning the eye as its centre. This is the only characteristic of the eyeballs. I talked about the 'centre of perspective'. I must add here that it is not restricted to the visual view. In the auditory view, the ears are the 'centre of perspective', in the olfactory view, the nose is the 'centre of perspective', in the tactile view, the body is the 'centre of perspective'. (But in case of the latter ones, that is, ears, nose and body, their characteristic as the centre of perspective is dim and not so vivid as in the case of eyes.) In other words, it means that the whole of my body is the centre of perspective. Or this centrality of perspective is the most fundamental characteristic of the position of my body. (Of course we must add to it, the centrality and the arbitrariness of the body movement.)
Admitting this characteristic, if we regard eyes as a 'Snitt' in our usual composition, the composition itself must decay. Because the eyes are not the beginning point in the row of visual organs but they are only the centre of that perspective. Things behind the eyeballs, that is, the retina, the visual nerves or the brain are also the scenes of the visual view just as the scenes in front of the eyeballs. Their ordinary lack of visibility is caused only by the lack of eye-shafts and untransparentness of our skin. (We can't see the back of our head for the same reason.) If we use the analogy of telescope, the telescope itself must be seen by the eye lens. Only the eye lens exists in the space and all other things are within its visual view.
Thus the schema of seeing 'through something' must decay. But in order to make sure, I'll discuss the other end of the row of visual organs in this schema.
As I mentioned earlier, this is the schema 'to see' things. Therefore we need something 'to see' at the end of the row of visual organs. We need something that sees the brain (or pineal gland). If there is nothing who (or which) sees, this schema only becomes a story: a bullet comes from outside, breaks the glass of cornea and thrusts into the brain sand-bag. And it is no more a story of 'seeing'. So let something exist there that 'sees'. Let it be Cartesian 'spirit', modern 'brain' or phylosophical 'subjectivity' or anything you like. But once you put something there that 'sees', the schema becomes redundant. Because it was originally the schema to clarify the action 'to see'. And if it needs something which sees at the back of the schema, what is the meaning of describing the schema at all? Take, for example, an explanation of 'What is bad?' An action A is bad because it leads to the set of actions B, C, and D, and because D is bad, A is bad. But if we don't understand why D is bad, this explanation doesn't help us. Thus to place at the end of the schema a thing that 'sees' makes the schema null and void. The only validity of it may be to postpone the due time of a bill a little longer.
Thus the schema of the telescope must go bankrupt. (See note at the last page.) The reason is that it is still drawn with the composition of 'the things to see' and 'the things to be seen'. If things to see exist here and things to be seen exist there, it will be only natural to insert something between the two. And it will draw things to be seen towards things to see a little nearer (to the retina, to the brain or to the pineal gland). But it plays no other role. The gap between thing to see and things to be seen still exists. Isn't this compositon of 'to see' and 'to be seen' itself our misunderstanding?

3 The Action 'To See' Doesn't Exist
Let's do a detour to show the misunderstanding. When I have a toothache, can I distinguish things which make it ache from things which feel the ache? Surely things to feel the ache exist. They are 'I'. But can I think about the ache felt by me by tearing it off from me? We say 'there is a toothache', but it is no different from 'My tooth aches'. We can't tear the toothache off from something that feels it. I eat something and taste it. In this case something in my mouth can be said to be 'tasted by me'. So I can take that something out of me. But the taste itself can't be torn off from the thing that tastes it, can it? Can I tear a thing that tastes it off from the taste that is now tasted? When I taste salt, can I tear the salty taste off from the me that is now tasting it? (There is an expression 'the taste of Kyoto or Paris'. That is another story.)
I am now listening to the sound of a cicada. In this case, that which is listening ('I') and that which is being listened to (the chirping of the cicada) surely exist. But can the sound 'ji, ji . . . ' itself of the cicada which I now hear be separated into 'things to hear and things to be heard'? Quick thought may affirm the separation. But isn't it the separation of another thing, not the separation of 'to hear'? I am listening intently to the cicada. This concentration makes me aware of my living in this world. Position of my head, direction of my face and stillness of my body, all these actions accord to the listening of the sound. The sound is heard some distance from here, in the small wood. Given this situation, the separation of 'I' that is listening and the sound of the cicada seems to be natural. But isn't this separation only a difference of positions? The position of my body and the position of cicada as a sound source? I am here and the cicada is there chirping. But I am not catching a ball thrown by the cicada. The sound is with me, not receiving. The cicada may be chirping even if I am not here, but the sound of the cicada that I am hearing never exists if I am not here. And this sound is not added to me as some supplement. So it can't be torn off from me. There is a sound of a cicada, that's all. There is no separation of a thing 'to hear' and a thing 'to be heard'. In case of 'to see', it is the same. The same misunderstanding leads us to separate things 'to see' and things 'to be seen'.
When I look at something, I strain my eyes and fix my eyesight. I must maintain the direction of my head, open the pupils of my eyes, refrain from distraction. I sometimes mumble or talk to myself about what I have found. Don't we consider these actions of my body as part of 'to see'? Don't we think that 'to see' is 'to do' something, and that 'for me to do' something? Surely I am doing something when I look at an object. But isn't this something not 'to see' but 'to aim' or 'to look at'?
'To see' or, to be more precise, 'to be seeing' is not an action but a state which I am in as long as I am awake. Even if I close my eyes, I see the back of my eyelids. Even if I am in darkness, I see the darkness itself. It is similar to 'to be alive'. I am always alive. Being in the state 'alive', I do various things, eating or moving etc. And here 'to be alive' is not to do something. We don't perform 'to be alive' as an action. It is a state. And separating things 'to live' and things 'to be lived' is, of course, impossible.
Therefore for people who are not blind, 'to be seeing' is a part of 'to live'. So far as I am awake I am dipped in the state of 'to be seeing' (and 'to be hearing' etc.) and I can't get away from there. (Or it is the 'I myself'.) Being in the state of 'to be seeing', I open and shut my eyes, stare to 'aim' something, cast a sidelong glance. But whatever I do, the state of 'to be seeing' never leaves me, and it is never an action. Therefore there is no composition of things 'to see' and things 'to be seen'.
If what I claim in the above is not a false, then what will remain in the problem of 'to see'? The compostion of 'to see and to be seen' disappeared, and the telescope analogy also disappeared. Nothing, absolutely nothing remains, you may say, except the very smooth and flat concepts 'to be alive', 'to be seeing' etc. I don't think so. What disappeared in my discussion was only a philosophical compositon rough and crude. Mountains, rivers, grasses, trees or many small things in everyday life remain just as they were before the discussion. So what remained after the discussion are not the smooth and flat face but a face simple and unpainted being washed of philosophical dirt.
But it is, of course, not the end. Because the aforesaid composition was not created by an easy misunderstanding that can be corrected with a single word. It rose to the surface while being 'alive' while being 'seeing'. So we have to describe without using this composition things it intended to explain and things it intended to answer. For example things we intended to explain by the telescope analogy. The fact that visual scene changes when visual nerves or retina receive some changes. The telescope analogy was invented in order to explain this fact. Then how can we explain the above fact without this analogy?

4 The Brain in the Scenery Open and All Around
We are apt to see 'visual scene' by the composition of 'to see and to be seen'. I am here and in some distance (over there) there are trees, houses or some men. There is some distance between me and those things, and so I and they 'confront' each other. This is what we usually understand. But as I pointed out earlier, the visual scene is open and all around and my eyes are only the centre of perspective. And this singularity, to be the centre of perspective, is the existence of 'I'. Without this singularity there is no 'I'. Far and near, open and all around is the visual scene and there is no 'here' and 'there', no 'confrontation'. And 'I' is this three dimensional all around visual scene with the singularity of eyes. To make my explanation of 'I' clearer, let the earlier mentioned grotesque image be even more grotesque. Let my eyes be 360 degrees all around fish lensed eyes and let their shafts be very long. Let the right eyes be situated somewhere at Paris and the left eye somewhere at London and my body be at Tokyo. In this case my centre of perspective exists at two points, in Paris and in London. In this London-Paris visual scene, where am 'I'? (In Japanese 'Ronpari' means wall eyed.) What is my address if someone wants to write to me? A letter should be read. So it must be London or Paris. But a telephone call must be made to Tokyo where my ears and mouth exist. I can see the Thames and from there in the distance of 100 kilometers I can also see the Eiffel Tower. At the same time, ten thousand kilometers from there my body is sweating, broiled by the heat of Tokyo. Yes, this is 'me', the centre of the perspective of visual scene in London and Paris, at the same time the centre of my perspective of auditory and tactile sense being in Tokyo.
On the other hand, we are too much accustomed to the visual scene of this Earth. Our usual scene is composed of the transparent air and non-transparent 'things'. It has a clear contrast. So we are apt to believe that what we see is the opaque 'things' and the air between our eyes and 'things' is not seen. This fact also leads us to the composition 'Here there is 'I' to see and there there is a thing to be seen.' Suppose that the air were not so transparent and had some colours and 'things' also were translucent and had not clear contours. And suppose that my fish-lensed eyes mentioned above were floating somewhere in this obscure scene. Then what is 'I'? 'I' should be all of this obscure scene open and all around.
Let's stop this strange image here and come back to our usual scene of the Earth. It is a perpetually changing scene. It's strange really but doesn't seem strange because of our being familiar with it. Let's observe this change of scene.
A bus stopped now at the other side of the road. Blocked by the bus, I can't see the shop which was visible before. Physics explains this that because the reflected light from the shop doesn't reach my eyes because the bus is in the way. Is this a valid explanation? We can't see things behind opaque things we see. Isn't this a logical truth in the visual scene? 'Things behind opaque things are not seen.' This is a tautology. (Because it means 'Things not seen are not seen.' Then is the optical explanation necessary? Yes, it is necessary. Only it is not the explanation. It is the description parallel to the visual fact. Parallel to the description: 'We can't see the shop at the back of an opaque bus', the optical description adds that the light reflected from the shop goes back again to the shop. 'Because the light doesn't reach us, we can't see' is not a correct description. 'When we can't see, the reflected electro-magnetic wave usually doesn't reach my eyes' is correct. It is an additional explanation. Likewise 'I see a bus because the electro-magnetic wave reflected from the bus entered into my eyes and the electronic signals reached the brain through the visual nerve' is not an explanation but only a parallel description. When I see a scene of the street with a bus, then the electro-magnetic wave reflected from the bus is such and such, the electronic signals are such and such.' It is an additional description. One is the description done with usual, everyday language, the other the description of the same scene by the non-usual physical language.
We are thinking about the 'change of the scenes'. Let's discuss another example. The street in Marunouchi office town changes its face on Sundays compared to the crowded street on week days. The change exists not only in the absence of the crowd. The faces of the buildings, streets, and traffic signals change completely as the town itself is animated or is dipped in deep silence. The traffic signals which are high-spirited and dashing on Mondays become as low-spirited and miserable on Sundays like the lamp of a lighthouse. Iron and concrete change their faces accordingly with the existence or non-existence of the crowd. But they don't change at all when we look at their physical description. And probably their images in our retina don't show the difference between on Sundays and on Mondays. But their images in our brain centre will show the great difference between a crowded street and a still street. Observing these facts, if physiologists say that because your brain images changed, your visual scene changed, they are mistaken. Here also physical or physiological description remain 'parallel description'. I must note here that this is not 'pararrelism'. Parallelism asserts that visual everyday life description and physical description are completely different and independent, but strangely enough they coincide (like two clocks) with each other. (Parallelism of body and heart). I don't agree with this. My assertion is that the visual everyday life description and physical description are two ways of describing the one and the same scene. So that these two are related very closely. If one changes, the other must change accordingly. It is not a 'cause and effect' relation. It is not such a remote relation. It is a relation close and intimate that can almost be said, 'A i.e. B'.
But there is one point on which it is very difficult to agree with me, you may say. If my brain suffers some changes, doesn't my visual scene change accordingly? For example won't the building at the other side of the street be distorted and change its colour? Yet not any physical action propagates from my brain to the building. (I note here that there is either no propagation of physical action in case of feature change of the building when coloured glasses, mist or smoke comes between my eyes and the building.) But remember the visual scene of Marunouchi street on Mondays and on Sundays. The street and the building change the feature according with the presence and absence of the crowd. And here almost no physical action propagates from the crowd to the building. We had in old Japanese New Year a game called 'Fuku-warai', in which we put on a blindfold and then place a paper nose, eyes, and mouth on a drawing of a woman's face lacking those features. When after having put on the elements of face we take away, for example, a nose from the face, then the face of the woman changes surprisingly. The change is not the absence of nose only. It extends to the feature of eyes, mouth, forehead and chin.
Thus, very ordinarily our visual scene changes without any propagation of physical action. No. It is not restricted to visual scene. It is the basic characteristic of perceptual scene. And of course physiologists will say that it is the change characterictic to our brain.
But as I emphasized earlier, there is no visual scene that 'confronts' me. It is, including the field that I don't see, the scene of this three-dimensional all universe. So there is no 'I' either that confronts it. The building over there stands on the earth and the earth extends up to the place where I stand. There is no 'break'. So the building over there and my hands, my feet, my stomach and my brain are one body. They all are part of one three-dimensional picture. And my nerve centre is like a nose in the face of Fuku-warai, one element of this picture. So if it changes, the whole of this picture must change just as in the case of the Fuku-warai. Why does such a change happen? There is no answer to this question. Except, perhaps, to reply that it is a fact of our life. Why does an absence of a nose change the face of Fuku-warai? Why is universal gravitation an attractive force and not a rejective force? And why is it in inverse proportion to the square of distance? Why is an electron's electric charge 'e'? We don't have any answer to these except that they are facts.
But it is also true that, within this single three-dimensional picture, my nerve centre or my body shows an exceptionally sensitive action or reaction in my perceptural scene. This is also a fact of life or a fact of my life. This means that 'I live'. So 'I am in this world' may not be a good expression. 'I am a navel of this world' may be better.

Note to page 6
Why does the analogy of a telescope go bankrupt? Because we suppose something (someone) looks into the telescope. Its characteristic of 'seeing through something' is valid. Or this is the most fundamental character of the visual scene. We understand this character by the coloration of the visual scene by wearing coloured glasses and the sheltering of the visual scene by non-transparent things.

19. Brain Which Dreams and Brain Which Is Dreamt

Natural science began by describing the 'world' that was observed by us human beings and it has developed aiming a consistent and comprehensive description of the 'world'. Such was the classical scientists' intention and such is now the modern scientists' intention. But when the step of development gets to a certain point, 'the world that is observed' will have to include 'the human being that observes', because we human beings are an element of this world and cannot help entering the scene of the scientific world description. But a human being is not a simple 'object to be observed' such as stones, trees or atoms. It is something that 'observes' this world. You will easily imagine the difficulty of consistently including something that observes amidst the construction of observed things. A painter would be troubled if he were asked to draw his sketching action in his canvas. So natural science first took human being into the description of the world not as an 'observing man', but as a 'man observed'. For example as protein, as addipose tissue, or as a congregation of atoms and molecules.
But scientific description of the world has developed so as not to let an indifferent look alone. The problem that arises is, as you already know, the 'observation problem' of quantum mechanics. This 'observation problem' has been dealt with by many prominent scientists, but none of their answers seem to be even conceivable. The starting point, the physical definition of the 'observation' itself seems already difficult.
There is, I feel, an 'observation problem' other than quantum mechanics. It is cerebrum physiology. But this is a problem not at all new like quantum mechanics. It has been annoying us with such titles as consciousness and existence, subjectivity and objectivity, heart and body, etc. Knowledge from neurotic physiology which has made outstanding developments in this century made the problem more concrete and more acute. It becomes not only the problem of philosophy that howls in vain against science but also of the science or of the interior of science itself. That is, the more we believe what modern cerebrum physiology has developed, the more we are led to the once believed notion of 'physiological objectiveness', which is, as it were, situated on the extention line of the modern physiology. Roughly speaking, and only roughly can we speak, we are driven into the belief that all my experience, my seeing, my moving, my touching, my thinking, etc. comes from the state of my brain. This is clearly a very coarse and even very grotesque belief. But I don't think that we have even succeeded in pointing out what is coarse and what is grotesque in this belief. I'll try in the following to amplify, so to speak, and to fix the position of the problem.

1
Stimulus from inside or outside of my body reaches the peripheral nervous system, and from there it is physically (mainly by change of ionic electric potential) transferred to cerebrum cells and causes a physical change in the nerve centre. Today we never doubt the fact. The main excitable places in the brain corresponding to visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile senses have now been determined (though roughly). Conversely, if some stimuli are applied to a particular place in the brain, there is a corresponding change in experience according to the role of that part of the brain. So if a particular part of my brain is excited by an electrode, my little finger may twich, I may recollect some scene of the past unexpectedly, I may feel numbed at the feet etc., according to the part of my brain stimulated. When anodyne or anesthetic affects my spinal cord or my brain, my pain is relieved or disappears. When alcohol, LSD or some kind of hormone acts on my brain, my perceptive view will change. (For example a whisky glass in front of me will be doubly seen.) Abnormal change in rotation of Broka or Bernicke is known to cause aphasis.
Nobody doubts these facts. Let's extend these to the normal case. Then we find that it is thanks to the normal brain that we can maintain normal experience. We cannot help admitting it. Because my visual scene now will surely be changed if my brain suffers abnormal stimulus. Examples of brain defects, external wounds, cerebral hemorrhages, and tumors, all show it. Regarding this, everyone agrees. And we recall Bergson's allegory. 'A dress hung on a peg falls if the peg falls.' That is, the brain is a peg indispensable for the dress named experience to be hung upon. And if the peg is unstable, while not falling, the dress may also be unstable. But Bergson stresses here that the dress is not a peg, and that the peg is not the dress.
But let's go one step further and do the following experiment. I cut my sensory and motor nerve in the middle and maintain by some operation the brain in a normal state. 'A normal state' can be a morning in my house in Tokyo or a night in Paris or sunset scene in Africa. In this way I may be in Tokyo one morning, in Paris at night or in Africa at sunset, and will have the corresponding experience.
This is of course a totally fictitious operation. The above stated brain-control will never be possible in a million years. But if Laplace's Demon calculated all the movement of all the particles in the universe or if Maxwell's Demon tried to refute thermodynamics' second rule dividing the fast moving particles and the slow moving particles, if these two demons have some meaning, my demon that, so to speak, 'tailors' the brain may not have any harm. And I'll name it 'Descartes' Demon' because it is a physiological application of his 'doubt in method'. The above imagination is, though it may look megalomaniac, an honest extention of what cerebrum physiology has shown us. If a part of my brain suffers some materiaristic change, a part of my experience changes accordingly. Then if all my brain is controlled by Descartes' Demon, my experience would change totally. And extending Bergson's allegory, if the make-up of peg is changed, then the dress hung on the peg will change its size and colours. It means that Bergson's allegory cannot work any more as an allegory. Instead of an allegory, a simple and wild saying becomes more appropriate, that is, 'the brain produces an experience'.
Here 'experience' includes all of what I see and hear, what I think and feel and it also includes the experience of my body movement: of my feet, hands, fingers, eyes, mouth, tongue, etc. So 'the brain produces an experience' inevitably means 'the brain produces the world'. In Descartes' case as well, 'demonic deception' meant 'Demon produces a pseudo world'. This is grotesque. But this apparently grotesque 'demonic deception', which was once called 'brain myth', is really an imagination not at all harmful if well considered.
I climb a mountain. Rain drops beat my face. I shiver of cold. I drink water from a canteen and eat rice balls. Now here if I say, 'I climb a brain-produced mountain with brain-produced feet. Brain-produced rain drops beat my face. I shiver of the brain-produced shiver because of brain-produced cold.', nothing changes. The steepness of the mountain doesn't lessen, nor does the coldness of the rain. My life isn't concerned at all with whether this mountain or rain is a creation of God or Demon, or a product of my brain. The situation is the same as that of any natural law, for example the law of gravity, the coulomb law etc., which aren't concerned with who made it or who orders it. And in the life of Descartes himself, 'demonic deception' ran idle. The nutrition of a potato that he ate shouldn't have been concerned with whether its producer were God or Demon.
Then is 'brain myth' not grotesque? Is the assertion 'the world is produced by the brain' not grotesque but only void? Or is it only a grotesque expression of a thing that is really void? No. It may be a conclusion hastily-drawn. 'Brain myth' may be an extreme exaggeration, but it is based on the experimental facts of physiology. So it cannot be totally void. In fact, the above example is the case where Descartes' Demon only moderately affected my brain. My brain worked as usual so my experience was also just as usual. But the 'brain myth' is based on the nerve physiologically of rather abnormal cases. Therefore in order to see the structure of the 'brain myth', we have to imagine a more pathological, more grotesque situation.
2
At first, suppose that Descartes' Demon, affecting the visual nerve of my brain, shows me a visual scene other than the one I now see. And here suppose that Descartes' Demon never affects other domains of my brain: the motor nerve, tactile sense, memory or language domains. This separation of domains may actually not be possible. This is purely a supposition. Now under this supposition, Demon shows me a phantom scene. I am now in my room in Tokyo, and Demon shows me for example a scene of a seaside. I look at myself, and find that I'm only wearing swimming pants. But I don't feel any sea breeze or smell anything that is characteristic of the sea. I only smell the smoke of the cigarettes that I have just smoked. I stand up and look at my feet. I find that they are bare and are on the sand. But I feel that they are in socks and are on wooden floor. I try to proceed to the door. But I only see the white crests of waves and the blue sky. I cannot but grope my way to the door. My situation is worse than that of a blind person. The scene of the seaside makes the search of the door more difficult than pure darkness. I close my eyes. But in vain. I still see the bright sea. Descartes' Demon makes me see the scene at the back of my eyelids.
Although this is a strange supposition, I think it is possible to imagine. It is an experience of being blindfolded with the scene of the seaside. Or, to express it more grotesquely, it is the case in which my eyes have very long shafts and my eyeballs reach some seaside while my body rests at my room. (Of course in this case my body doesn't exist in my visual scene.) Or it is the case in which I close my eyes and the back of my eyelids show me the seaside scene three-dimensionally.
The above is the case of an illusory visiual scene. We can also rather easily imagine illusory auditory, olfactive, or gustatory scenes. But we find extreme difficulty in imagining illusory tactile and motor scenes. I am now sitting on a chair, and Demon must deceive me to believe that I am walking. I feel that a pen is now in my fingers, and Demon must deceive me to believe that I am holding chopsticks. This is very hard to imagine. It is already a different 'I' that must be imagined. In the case of visionary or auditory illusions, the scenes that must be imagined were 'things that are outside of me'. But in tactile or motor cases, illusory scenes that must be imagined are 'things that are part of myself'. In other words, 'I' exists actually and a new 'I', other than the actual 'I' must be imagined. (Translator's note: The supposition that Demon deceives only my tactile and motor nerve and that other senses are normal leads to the situation in which I am now sitting and Demon makes me believe that I am walking while my visual scene doesn't move. It always remains the window of my room.) So let's suppose, in the following, total deception of the experience instead of the deception of tactile and motor nerve separated from other senses.
Now Descartes' Demon operates my brain totally. Here again there are two cases. One is that my memory is left untouched. The other is that Demon operates my memory too. At first let's treat the latter case. In this latter case I have another name, another birth date, another personal history, another body than I have now, and I live another life in another place than I live now. In short I experience another person' life.
Thus, I live another person's life. I dream it, and I don't know the original person by whom the dream is dreamt. I don't even know of his existence. He is decisively not 'I'. And by him I am now being dreamt just as Alice in 'Through the Looking Glass' was dreamt by the king of chess. She could, in the story, talk with the king. But this is a logical contradiction even in the world through the mirror. 'I', which was produced by Descartes' Demon, cannot meet with the original 'I', or cannot have at all any contact with him. For a person who is dreaming to invade in the dream which he is now dreaming as 'the person who is dreaming' is not possible because of the logical structure of dream. (Again an 'ad infinitum' structure). The king whom Alice met in the dream should at least be the 'dreamt king' in the dream of the dreaming king. It can absolutely not be 'the dreaming king' himself. Of course this analysis is valid only when 'dreamt someone in a dream dreamt by some other person' has any meaning at all.
But nobody could give it any meaning. Only 'I in the dream dreamt by me' has some meaning. But this cannot be other than a simple and banal statement: 'I am dreaming'. The supposition which I have been discussing is 'I that is being dreamt by another person'. That is: I am now living my life. But in fact I am in the dream of someone who claims that he is the original 'I'. I am now hurrying to the station, but in reality he that dreams of me is lying in bed. And my brain is 'the brain which is dreamt' by the brain of that somebody. I have an acquaintance, a physiologist by occupation, who investigates the brain. What brain? The brain that is dreamt by someone. Or, the physiologist himself is a 'dreamt physiologist' ... Now you can easily see the emptiness of the discussion. And it is just the same emptiness of 'Descartes' demonic deception'.
But let's think about it more carefully. Suppose you are at the place where my brain is operated by Decartes' Demon. Demon separates my peripheral nervous system from my brain and then maintains my brain in such a way as he likes. The other part of my body may die if he wishes, but let's suppose that by his mercy it continues to live. My body is lying very still on the bed after an operation. You are here and watch my body. And it is only my body. You don't see 'me'. I am not here, or there. The brain that was once 'mine' lives a life other than 'mine'. To that brain the life of another person appears. But this other person never appears to you or to your world. He appears, so to speak, to the dream of my brain that has suffered Demon's operation. ('Dream' is an inappropriate word, but I couldn't help it because of the emptiness of the subject.) But as I said above, 'dreamt someone in the dream dreamt by some other person' has no meaning. Therefore this other person must be dreamt by himself, not by 'me'. The result is that 'I' disappeared. Or at least I disappeared for a while in an unconscious state. When Descrartes' Demon began the operation, I lost my consciousness, and after some time if Demon re-operates me to be myself again, I'll recover my consciousness. This would be the report of my experience. I should not have had any dream. I was only unconscious for a while. The unknown person whom we thought Demon had created is void to me that had suffered Demon's operation or to you that had witnessed my being operated by Demon.
So if we want to imagine this unkown person's experience, we will have to shift the scene. That is, I, not being the person who was operated upon and am dreaming (again, an inappropriate word, but I cannot help it), must become the person who is dreamt by the operated person. That is, there is some poor person who was caught by Decartes' Demon (the question 'where is he now?' is also meaningless.) and was operated upon, and then I myself, my present life and my past memory appeared. But this is none other than Decartes' doubt. So it is, as before, an empty supposition.
Summing up, Demon's operation means: firstly if it is my brain's operation, it means my being unconscious for some time (or forever), and secondly, if I appear by the operation of some other person's brain, it is total nonsense. So I and the person who appears by the operation cannot stand on the same stage, and if separate stages are supposed, one is simple unconsciousness (or death) and the other is Descartes' nonsense.
Now, the logical defect of this supposition may lie in the fact that I should become a totally different person. So let's try a new supposition that ameliorates this defect. Suppose Demon operates my brain so that my memory heretofore remains untouchable, while my life hereafter changes completely. I remain 'I', or, I keep my identity.
Then, for example, I wake up one morning on the bed of a hotel in a foreign country. But I remember that I was in Tokyo yesterday and also remember my life in Japan until yesterday. So it is not the experience of amnesia. I was merely transplanted suddenly to other circumstances. But I may happen to, if Demon is kind enough, meet a good friend in that unknown foreign country. And, if Demon were more considerate, this friend of mine would console me and tell me that I flew to the country by plane and that I don't realize it because of a dementia. But I want to examine it. I borrow money from him, fly back to Tokyo, and go to my room in The Rene-Descartes Hospital. There I find a man who resembles me very much. He is unconscious. This is of course a story which pleases Demon, a scenario Demon wrote. Therefore what happened all the while in the reality of this world is merely some rearrangement in my brain in the room of the hospital. So the results of the rearrangement: 'the I that was in the foreign country', 'the plane that took me to Tokyo', 'the I that hurried to the hospital', and 'the man on the bed that resembles me' don't belong to the world in which I lived before the operation. They are all things I 'dreamt' with my brain in the hospital in which I was operated upon. (Not in the hospital where the person that resembles me lies). But isn't the situation created by this supposition the situation of a dream itself that we usually experience? So if you attend my re-operation of Demon, it must be 'the I that lies on the bed' not 'the I that flew from the foreign country to the hospital'. You cannot see or hear the 'I' that flew back from a foreign coutry. Because it is impossible for you or any person to meet with somebody in other person's dream. It is the logical impossibility attributed to the logical construction of the so called 'dream'. Because of the fact that you are you and are not any other person, you cannot see any men or any thing in other person's dream. Because of the fact that you are you and not any other person, you cannot feel another person's pain. To repeat, if you could dream some other person's dream, or if you could feel some other person's pain, it means that you are not you, it means that you are that other person.
Now having examined the Demon's operation, we found that the person in bed that resembles me is a dreamt man just as the 'I' that comes back from a foreign country. So the brain of the person on the bed is also a 'dreamt brain'. So the dreamt 'I' with the brain of the person in front of me is standing in front of that person. Does this have any meaning? Isn't it just nonsense? A pure nonsense from the beginning? Can it even seem to have some meaning?
In fact, isn't all this very simple and clear? The 'I' in the dream will simply conclude, 'I am now dreaming'. Of course, if we follow the thread of the Demon's scenario. But even if the above conclusion is not included in this scenario, the 'present I' that now tries to imagine the Demon's operation can easily conclude that this supposition is the state that I am dreaming. Descartes' Demon operates my brain retaining my memory, and I have a dream. This is the entirety of this supposition. Even if the dream is unusually vivid and contains reality.
In fact, suppose that I am re-operated to recover my original state after some time in that strange life. Then the I who recovered from that state must think just like Rip Van Winkle, Roshoh, or Urashima, 'I dreamt. But what a vivid dream!' But what if Demon does not re-operate? To answer this question I must suppose that I am already in a dream and that I shall never awaken from this dream. But isn't the 'dream that will never be awakened from' reality itself? The 'I' in my usual dream lives in the reality that will never awake. (Of course this can be checked only by using my memory. ... But my usual past, undreamed, life not in dream can also be checked only with my memory.) Originally the meaning of 'dream' is defined only after awakening. 'Dream' can be used only in an awakened state, and can only have meaning in the past and future tense: 'I dreamt' and 'I will dream', never in present (progressive) tense: 'I am now dreaming', except in the rare cases in a dream where I feel that 'I shall soon awake from this dream'. So the dream that will never be awakened from cannot be other than reality.
Therefore, to suppose that Demon makes me have a dream that will never be awakened from is to suppose that Demon makes me live another life than the one I have been living. I would be at a loss in that another life. But I shall, I believe, begin to think that my old life in Japan had been a dream, that I was born in that foreign country and was brought up there, but that some brain disease made me forget the past and made me see a long, long life in a country called Japan. I will have to think that. If not, I would be treated as some kind of fiend in the new life. I shall never think that I am actually in Japan and my brain in Japan makes me dream this new life in the foreign country. If I do, then I would fall prey to Descartes' nonsense. That is, I would be free, but it means that I am thinking nothing.
In short, Demon's operation is none other than two kinds of dream, one is the dream that makes the new life a dream, the other is the dream that makes the old life a dream. In any case, it is but a dream.


3
I am now in reality. I cannot be in a dream now, because, as I mentioned above, dream should be in the past or future, never the present. 'The present' is by definition 'reality'. To suppose in this reality that reality is produced by my brain is, as mentioned above, totally void. To reiterate, it means that the brain in my skull would also be the product of my brain. If on one hand the produced brain again produces reality, (it may again produce my brain) production continues infinitely. (Again an 'ad infinitum' structure.) This is absurd. If, on the other hand, the produced brain has no power to produce another brain and that only some other 'producing brain' has that power, then, like 'natura naturanus', the brain that produces this reality would be the divine brain with which I don't have any contact. Anyway, to suppose that 'the brain that produces reality' leads to self-reference which usually becomes the root of many paradoxes.
But reflecting again, I cannot doubt the close correspondence between the scenes I have (seeing, hearing or touching) and my brain. (The brain which I could see if my skull were opened, and it were reflected against a mirror, and which I could feel with my fingers.) And I cannot doubt the changing of the perceptive scenes (visual, auditory, olfactive, etc.) when my brain suffers some unusual change. I hear sound calling me without anyone around (mishearing). My brain, in such cases, may have suffered some change. If anemia of the brain happens, the perception of the world darkens, and if concussion of the brain happens, the world may spin. And we know that drugs change the world scene variously.
The above are the cases of somewhat abnormal states. But in the so-called 'normal' state, we have many such unusual correspondences. Scenery changes its features according to my disposition. Dark and complicated when of gloomy disposition, light and simple when of pleasant disposition. And while I feel such, some corresponding change must have happened in my brain. The sound scenery (environment) of some foreign language changes its feature greatly according to whether or not we have learned it. Scenery we are seeing for the first time and the same scenery after we have seen it several times look strikingly different. The olfactive and tasting scenery (experiences) change their features if we catch cold. In these cases, some corresponding brain change must happen.
In short, we cannot doubt that there is some correspondence between the perceptive scene and brain state. For physicists it is a matter of course. Electromagnetic waves etc. reach my sensory organs, go through nerve systems and arrive at my brain. This really happens and no one can doubt it, they assert. But for physiologists, these facts explain only the half of the issue. Physiologists will ask physicists, 'For us, the question is why such a state of the brain shows us such scenery and makes us hear such sounds'. For this question, physicists apparently have no answer, because there is no physical process that goes reverse way: from the brain to the outer world.
But isn't what this physicist said the whole of the matter, not just half?
Originally physicists started their study with the fact: 'Here is a scenery that we can see, hear, or touch.' The stone Galilei dropped from the Tower of Pisa, the apple Newton saw and the lens Newton used are all 'things in perceptive scenery', things that were seen and touched by some human being. Only these human beings, when expressing those things, didn't use usual vocabulary: red, soft or heavy. They used non-perceptive vocabulary: gravitation, mass, or refractive index. The difference is not the object itself that was observed, but the vocabulary that was used when expressing it. The situation is the same with modern physics. Things expressed with the following vocabulary: elementary particles, state functions, spin, etc. are the things (or space) in perceptive scenery. For example, they are the physical structure of the pen that I am now holding and electromagnetic characteristics of the light the pen reflects.
In short, what physics expresses are the things we see, hear or touch, only it expresses it with its specific vocabulary. Therefore, without our perceptive scenery, physical description cannot exist, nor can physics. My brain is also a thing in this perceptive scenery. I am now in my room. I see my desk, my lamp lighted. I hear a distant train. My chair is hard beneath my hips. Physicists 're-relate' this perceptive scenery with their difficult vocabulary. And in this physical description a part is occupied by the description of, say, electromagnetic wave that reflects from the desk to my brain.
Therefore, the question the aforesaid physiologists asked: 'Why does such and such a state of the brain show us the desk?' misses the point. If originally elementary particles and electromagnetic wave exist and that the state of them in the brain is such and such, and that because of that state we see something independently to the original state of elementary particles and electromagnetic wave, then the question of phygiologists is very natural. But in this case, the perceptive scene (i.e. I see a desk.) comes first, and then when described physically, it is, according to physicists, 'the elemental particles of the desk are such and such, electromagnetic waves are such and such'. Then the question of a physiologist: 'The brain being such and such, and why do I see a desk?' becomes the question: '(Elemental particles of the brain being such and such) and (why elemental particles of the desk are such and such and electromagnetic waves are such and such and the elemental particles of the brain are such and such?)' This too strange and ambiguous question wouldn't have been what the physiologists originally intended.
But physiologists can never be convinced. They cannot get away from the idea that the brain shows us or makes us hear perceptive scenery. (And I cannot, either.) And they reconstruct the question: 'My brain suffers an abnormal change, and shows me a phantom rabbit, a big white rabbit. Then what would physicists say?' But the physicists' description remains the same. The place where the white rabbit is supposed to exist is simply filled with the air, and the brain is described according to its abonormality. That is all. This is just the physical description of 'the perceptive scenery of a phantom big white rabbit'. And they may add the following supplemental explanation.
If a 'phantom' means a perceptive scenery that doesn't correspond to physical object (particles and electromagnetic field) in the usual meaning, physics has already dealt with 'phantoms'. It is an optical virtual image. Virtual images seen through lens or mirror-reflected images cannot be superposed on the physical things (desk or lamp) in the usual way. (Author's note: I found errors in the aforesaid virtual images. Lens refracted images have no distance descrepancies with the things seen. (See 'Light and Images (Hikari to Zoh)' in 'The Boundary between Philosophy and Science (Tetsugaku to Kagaku no Kaimen)', Asahi Shuppansha, edited by Ohmori and Itoh.) But this has no effect on the logical construction of the theme.) Because at the place where, by physical description, only air exists we see somone's face or a candle light. So these perceptive images are, according to the above definition, 'phantoms'. And the state at that time of the brain is physically similar to the state of the brain in front of which a real (not phantom) someone's face or candle light exists and lens or mirror doesn't exist. The difference between these optical virtual images and phantom big white rabbit is the existence or non-existence of a lens or mirror and non-existence of optical laws such as refraction or reflection in case of a big rabbit. But physicists don't think this difference is essential. Because, :
In case of a big rabbit, the brain is a lens or a mirror.
In fact in the case of usual optical images also, the system of lens or mirrors should include the brain. Without it, the sytem of optical images isn't complete. And in the case of a phantom rabbit, rays which are similar to those when there is no rabbit reach the brain and refraction (unknown to us yet) happens in the brain and we see a mental optical virtual image of a big white rabbit. Physicists have no reason to discriminate against the brain that is within the eyes in contrast with lens or mirrors that are outside of the eyes. For them, the brain is undeniably an optical system.
To this supplemental explanation, one more supplemental explanation should be added.
The above supplemental explanation given by physicists falls short of physiologists' expectations. To regard the brain as an optical system is the sum of the explanation and it doesn't tell anything about in what process we see a big rabbit. The effectiveness of their explanation is only that it showed the similarity of a big rabbit and a mirror-reflected image. Someone may say, 'No, it doesn't even show similarity.' A mirror-reflected image can be taken as a photo, whereas a big rabbit cannot. But it is a mistake. Is a photo of mirror-reflected image really a photo of the reflected image? There are no rays that come from the place where reflected image exists. It is not a photo of mirror-reflected image but a photo of the real thing. Rays that come from the real thing are reflected by a mirror and then arrive at the film. A mirror-reflected image cannot be taken as a photo just as in the case of a phantom big rabbit.
And physics does not or cannot explain why we see a mirror-reflected image just like in the case of a big rabbit. Physics textbooks of course deal with why we see a mirror-reflected image. But they only attribute the following. Rays reflected from the mirror are just the same as the rays that come from the real thing which is very similar to the reflected image and which is placed where the image existed before the mirror is removed. (Up to here the discussion is valid.) Therefore, we see in the latter case just the same image as in the former case. But in the latter case, that is, 'when the mirror is removed and the real thing is put there', why just at that place is the image just like the real thing seen? Why at the other place isn't a distorted image seen? In other words why does the visual image come to the same place where the real thing exists? Physics doesn't or cannot explain it. No, physics need not explain it. Because, as I have already mentioned, from the very beginning physics admits perceptive scenery and then relates it with physical terms. And when relating it, physics has already decided that the place where the lamp exists should be the place where we see it, and that its features should be the features that we see. So from the very beginning, the physical lamp has already arrived at the place where the perceptive view is. The real thing has already merged with the visual image. 'The perceptive view and the real thing' may not be a correct way to put it. We will have to define it as 'perceptive description and physical description'.
The above explanation is concerned with 'When the real thing is put there, why is an image like the real thing seen?' Concerning the question, 'Why is the image like the real thing seen in the cases of mirror-reflected images or lens images?', the same explanation is given although it may seem to many of you inessential. The explanation is, 'When rays reach our eyes in some way, we see such and such things', or, more completely, 'When rays reach our eyes in some way and that our brain becomes some state, we see such and such things'. In the same way, in the case of a big white rabbit also, the explanation is, 'When rays (of the scenery without a real rabbit) reach our eyes and that our brain becomes such and such state, we see a big rabbit.' That is all. When we compare the above two cases with the case when our brain is normal and that there is no mirror or lens, our experience in the above two cases may be said to be a little abnormal. The abnormality of experience would be explained (if in physical terms) by the abnormality of ray progression in the case of mirrors or lenses, and by the abnormality of the brain's state in the case of a phantom rabbit. If we regard ray progression together with brain state as one system, the above two cases are abnormal (contrasted with some so-called normal case) in this (combined) system. This is the reason why physicists regard the brain as a kind of lens. If strengthening the allegory a little is permitted, the brain lens is a variable lens which can change its shape and its refractive index. (Just like our eyeballs.)
Remember the question the physiologists gave. 'Why does such and such a change happen in the perceived scenery, when the brain suffers such and such an abnormality?' My answer is that 'why' is a question that misses the point. Physical description including the brain abnormality is a re-telling of perceptive description of perceptive scenery including such and such a change in the brain. The physical and the perceptive descriptions are the two kinds of descriptions of this one and the same world where we live, and the relation of these two is not a remote parallelism of physical world and our mind but a close 'that is' relation, 'A that is B'. Therefore a state of such and such brain abnormality is (or 'that is') a phantom big rabbit.

4
Hearing this, physiologists may resign the question 'Why the brain changes perceptive scenery?' But they can further continue the following question.
If the above two descriptions are in a 'that is' relation, we can change one by changing the other. In particular, if we artificially change physical description, we can change our perceptive view. That is, if we treat the brain in some way, the perceptive view will change. That is, theoretically we can control our perceptive view by treating our brain.
This assertion of physiologists may probably be right. In fact, I tried section two, Decartes' Demon, as an extreme example. And it turned out to be a 'dream', if we carry out the experiment within the boundaries of 'sense'. (Otherwise it soon becomes nonsense.) But if the abnormality is not so strong, it may remain in 'actuality'. The big rabbit in the above section is not in a dream. It is in the actual world just as is a ringing in the ears or the feeling of dizziness upon standing up. It is a phantom because it is in actuality.
But what happens, if this phantom becomes more and more actual? If not only can I see it but I can feel it or bump into it? But it must be restricted only to me, because of the assumption that abnormality comes to my brain only. In this case, can my phantom be restricted to the big rabbit? Can all other things remain unharmed? No. The rabbit will drag with it all the world into a dream.
I take off my coat and put it on the shoulder of the rabbit. If the rabbit is actual enough for the coat not to fall from its shoulder, then the coat must also be a phantom. Because for other people or for a camera too, the coat must fall to the ground. Then I lean against the rabbit, with such a body position that to the eyes of other people I shall surely fall. So I must have fallen. But if I could feel at ease while leaning against the rabbit, my body itself must be a phantom too. And if my body is a phantom, all must be a phantom. As such, even only one sole phantom in the tactile and motor senses cannot exist isolated with others. It makes all the other world 'phantoms' in a dream of chain reactions. And if all the world is a phantom, and that I am not dead, then I fall again in a dream. If I want to remain in the actual world, a phantom must remain as a phantom-like phantom. It must remain very thin and very blurred. That is, even if I may be able to manipulate perceptive view by operating my brain, I shall soon begin to dream if I am not careful enough. The permissible range (domain) of manipulating perceptive view, if we want to remain in the actual world, is surprisingly narrow. If manipulation goes beyond the permissible range, the brain operation becomes just as banal as soporific.
And a real 'phantom' (made by a brain operation, not in a dream) wouldn't be more than usual lens refracted images or mirror-reflected images. It wouldn't be more than visual abnormality. Do we call a visually-abnormal man 'a man who sees phantoms'? It is only a question of naming.
In short, the brain can make us see dreams, but can never make us see 'actuality'. But the brain can kill actuality by destroying itself.

20. The 'Heart-Body' Question, an Answer

Soul and flesh, heart and body, mental phenomena and physical phenomena. We have various expressions to discuss the relationship of 'heart-vs-body'. It is not merely a problem of philosophy, it is a problem that undeniably lies as the basis of 'How we live'. It lies under us whatever we are doing, whatever the time is, wherever we are, and even when it doesn't rise up as a 'problem'. Because we, human beings, are 'bodies and hearts'. So once it is taken up as a 'problem', it becomes a nuisance all the more annoying because it is so basic. Like 'time' or 'I (ego)', everyone knows what it is. And it resists hard when we try to fix it with language. Because language itself is developed on the fundamental ground of 'time', 'I' or 'heart and body'. They are made so clear through everyday experience that we don't need them to be expressed with words.
Nevertheless we still want to express them with words, again because they are the most basic things in life. When just 'to live' doesn't satisfy us, we want to grasp how we are living. Then we need a map expressed by words. A map of 'time', 'I' or 'heart and body'. (Curiously enough this map can't be made by determining beforehand the construction of the drawing and the degree of reducing scale. These two can be found only once it has been made.) To grasp how we are living is important for religion, sports, arts, philosophy, medical science and even for the 'observation theory' of quantum mechanics. So they duly need the map of 'heart and body'.
The following is an answer to the problem, although it may remain but a rough sketch.

1 Pointing out the Problems
First I point out the problems. The first problem is the general one: 'What is the relation between mental and physical phenomena?' I present as the answer to this first problem the monistic composition of material things and heart. Abandoning the dualism of 'physical, objective world and mental, subjective world', I present the composition of 'double descriptions': a physical description and a perceptual description of one and the same world. For this to be realizable, I reconstruct mental phenomena such as memory, imagination, feelings or will.
Within this comprehensive construction of monism that I presented as an answer to the first question, I submit two more local questions. Both deal with the case in which a change of perception is brought about without physical change. The usual explanation of such attributes the change of perception to a change in the brain. But it never explains why a change in the brain changes perception. I try to transplant this situation in the field of monistic construction.
The first local problem is the situation of 'coloured glasses'. When we look at a white wall wearing red glasses, it looks red. But the white wall hasn't changed to red. Generally speaking, if something changes between visual (or auditory) objects and eyes (or ears), the perception of the objects changes. But no physical change has occurred to the objects. Seeing this, we are apt to think, 'We see or hear the perceived objects not as they really are, because our brain undergoes some changes.' I assert that this is a mistake. We don't have to think so, and we must not think so. This is the answer to the first local problem. To make it valid I shall analyse a structural characteristic of the visual scene, that is, a 'see through effect'. I note here that the second local problem, which I analyse after the first, deals with 'an optical virtual image', whereas the first local problem deals with 'an optical seen-through image', that is, a change of image when it passes through an optical system.
The second local problem is an 'illusion'. Illusion is usually believed to be a product of the brain. I want to refute this generally accepted idea. Here the above mentioned 'double descriptions' plays an important role. With 'double descriptions', sometimes a discrepancy (in view of time or space) occurs between perceived and physical descriptions. I want to assert that an illusion is none other than this discrepancy. Along with it, I want to show that optical virtual images (mirror images, hologram images, mirages etc.) are the discrepancy corresponding to the meaning of illusion. By this, the harm caused by saying, 'Illusion is a product of the brain' diminishes to a degree of 'no danger'. And it also clarifies the meaning of 'the projection of the brain onto the outside world' which some physiologists assert.
But my answer to the first and the second local problems never diminishes the role of the brain. A change in the brain will affect the visual scene. This can't be doubted because of many facts discovered in the field of nerve physiology. What I present here is only a new way of looking at the brain mechanism to produce a visual scene. What I assert is that the cause and effect flow of producing a visual scene doesn't begin at the brain, or, in other words, that the visual scene is not produced by a mystic (or evasive) 'projection' of the brain but rather that the visual scene is a 'linked change' of the double descriptions between the perceptual scene and physical scene including the 'brain'. As such, the relation between the outer world and the brain comes closer than in the usual understanding because the brain is included in the physical scene and the two scenes (perceptual and physical) are connected by the conjunction 'i.e. (that is)'.
As you read the answers to these questions, you will find that the answer to the first question includes the answers to the first and second local questions. So the answers to the two local questions presuppose the answer to the first question and, at the same time, give shape to and reinforce it. Just as three questions form the three fundamentals of the 'Body-heart problem', the three answers to them form the three fundamentals of the 'monism'.
This monistic composition doesn't add any concrete information to the field of physiology or psychology. But it can function as a frame through which to look at the concrete information provided by physiology, psychology, psycho-pathology or psychosomatism.
Summing up the questions and answers,
1. Overall question ... 'Double description' of physical world and mental phenomena, the composition of monism.
2. Local first question, 'Coloured glasses' problem ... Understanding by 'see-through effect'.
3. Local second question, 'Illusion' problem ... Understanding by the 'discrepancy between the two descriptions in the double description', the same situation as the optical virtual image.

2. Temptation to Dualistic Composition
The dualistic composition of 'one objective world and different subjective world to each person', is, before it is a philosophical view, our everyday life view and the common view held by most scientists. Our everyday experience suggests this composition as obvious. There are many examples. Here I will point out three main ones.
First there is the experience of 'So many men, so many minds'. One and the same scene appears as ten different scenes to ten different people. The same hot water of a bath is felt as hot to some and cool to others, and even for the same person is hot at one time and cool at another time. The same food is tasted differently by different persons. Beauty and ugliness, likes and dislikes, or other aesthetic evaluations are especially dependant on the individual. So we are very naturally led to the contrast of 'one object and many impressions from many people'. And this contrast again leads us very naturally to 'one objective world and many subjective worlds of each person', that is, the above mentioned dualistic composition.
Secondly there is a phenomenon which the mind creates. Emotion, will or thought cannot be regarded as physical phenomena. They seem very obviously to be non-material phenomena. We recall things past that have already ceased to exist physically and we expect or intend things of the future that don't exist yet. And we fancy or imagine things that never did, do or will exist in this world. In short, things in recollection, intention and imagination are thought not to exist in this physical world. As such, things that the mind creates should belong only to the heart, not to the physical world. So the composition of the dualism seems to be inevitable.
Thirdly in the perceptive world, which can be said to lie between or mount on both the physical and mental worlds, there are phenomena called 'illusions'. 'Illusion' doesn't belong to the physical world just as the things in the imagination. Therefore it must belong to the 'mind', to the non-physical world. Then all other perceived scenes should also belong to 'mind', shouldn't they? We see a phantom under a willow tree. A phantom belongs to the 'mind'. Then willow tree can't belong elsewhere than in the 'mind'. Otherwise it must be a super-imposed scene of the mental world and the physical world. And one step further, isn't the willow tree also an illusion? So can we ask like Descartes. (Argument from illusion.) And in the perceptive world there are, apart from such grandiose phantoms, very usual, everyday-life phantoms ... a thing seen to be another thing, a sound heard to be another sound, a thing thought to be another thing, a fact reported to be another fact. These are all things or facts which really don't exist in this world, just as phantoms. So they would have to belong to the mental world. And so the composition of dualism very naturally arises from 'illusion' or 'mistakes'.
I pointed out three experiences that led us to the composition of dualism. These are quite usual experiences and the dualistic composition into which we are led by them seems to be quite usual and natural. But it is not so natural as to deceive our usual and healthy common sense. It may be true that the taste of food, beauty or ugliness are 'subjective', that emotion and imagination are non-physical and that illusion and things mistaken don't exist physically in this world. But nobody thinks, in everyday life, that furniture, family members, skies and seas exist only in our mind without existing physically in this world. We all think that these things exist just as we see, just as we feel, on the floor, on the earth. If someone says, 'No, they only exist in our mind', he is probably not an ordinary man. The composition of dualism covers the past, future and imagination, but it doesn't extend to the present scene or the action we are now doing.
But here science and philosophy enter on the stage and they force us to believe, so to speak, in unnatural dualism. First, many philosophers insist that perceived characteristics such as colours, heat, and smell which are called by Locke, 'secondary ideas (conceptions)', are not properly physical characteristics. And this is supported by scientists. 'In order to make us perceive taste, smell and sound, characteristics in the outer world such as forms, numbers and movements may still survive, but tastes, smells or sounds themselves will not exist any more. . . . Heat belongs to us, living creatures, only and it will only be a 'word' without us.' (Galilleo, 'Measurer of Gold' translated by Masakazu Yoshinaka in 'Creation of the Mechanical World' by Chuko Shinsho.) Moreover philosophers, for example Berkeley and Hume, point out that not only the 'second characters in idea' such as sound and taste but also 'first characters' such as figures and size would not exist without us either. Then, as if in response to these philosophers, physicists made theories concerning the propagation of light and sound, and physiologists gave us information concerning the perceptive organs such as the eyes and ears and also concerning the conduction of nerve excitement and cerebrum physiology.
All these facts in a bundle shake our foundation of common sense. Tables and stones, mountains and rivers, thunder and human voices, can be seen or heard only when physical action from these things operates our brain, and the things themselves are but a collection of elementary particles, electromagnetic waves and air vibrations. What we see or hear is only how it looks or how it sounds to us. What really exists is without colour, without taste, without smell and without sound. Thus we are taught the dualistic separation of physical things themselves and their appearance. Common sense need not or isn't qualifed to doubt it. It is a trifle in our everyday life. But once we come to think about the world view formally, we must take this dualistic composition for granted.
If this dualism is idola (idols) in the meaning of Francis Bacon, it is at least a merger of three kinds of idola: idola of the tribe (coming from human nature), idola of the cave (an individual view for each person), and to these two kinds of common sense, merge the third kind, idola of the theatre (coming from philosophy and science). As such it has three strong foundations. And each of the three is, at least independently, valid enough. But when we rearrange the three and take a view of them, the composition of dualism disappears and a composition of monism appears. So it means that choice of dualism or monism is not rigorous but weak and that we can choose freely. So the task left to us is to find on which foundation we can command a finer prospect and especially here when dealing with the body-heart question, which foundation is the most consistent. And at least concerning this problem, the composition of dualism hasn't been able to give us sufficient prospects since Descartes. The reason, I believe, is the following:
According to the composition of dualism, the objective world and the subjective world are separate things. And yet between these two, some very close relationship must exist. These two must move, as it were, isomorphically linked. But this close relation cannot exist because of the composition of dualism itself whereby these two worlds must be separated and any internal relation between them cannot possibly exist. So the remedies left to us may be, (1) Parallelism or Epiphenomenalism which is an easy response to the problem, (2) The naming of a 'Projection by the brain' which is too comprehensive to be concrete, (3) To assert that objective world is a logical structure of subjective world which is a kind of monism, (4) Skepticism or a naive confession of the externalistic (realistic) belief of Hume, or (5) Descartes' heart-body reciprocal action (one- or two-sided) which still is our common view of everyday life (guts, spirits etc) and in heart-body medical science. But this fifth answer may be too local to be discussed in the dualism problem as a whole. ( I don't say that it should be neglected. The answer given by monism should also find its rightful place within this fifth answer.) The present situation being as such, you will find it meaningful to bring the monistic composition to the surface.

3. Appearance
In the previous section I pointed out as the things which lead us to the composition of dualism: 1) 'the many impressions of one object by each person', 2) phenomena which the mind creates and 3) illusion. Here I take 'illusion' to be a clue to approach the problem of the composition of dualism.
Why is an illusion 'illusion'? Because it is not a physical substance, yet at the same time because it looks as though it were a physical substance. Take, for example, a visual illusion. In order for it to be an undeniable illusion, it must look as though it were an undeniably real physical substance. In other words, it exists visually. Here when I say, 'It exists', I take advantage of the elasticity or plasticity of the word 'exist'. With the same intention I use the word 'appear' to anything that is seen, heard, imagined or thought of by me. To repeat, I call 'appearance' anything that appears to me ... perceptively, recollectingly, imaginedly or mentally. That is, mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, Ryugu Jo (see 15 'In the Heart'), stocks which a swindler wants to sell you, Arabian history, Riemann geometry, Fermat's theorem, DNA and RNA. If they are actually perceived, remembered, imagined or thought of by you, then they are all 'appearances'. This total nondiscrimination of the word 'appearance' is similar to Fussel's 'phenomenalistic restoration', because it required us to put existence (Setzen) in brackets and to postpone judgment (epoche). And this meant a temporary suspension of discrimination between existence and fictitious things. So his 'restoration' and my 'appearance' are similar in their nondiscriminativeness. But my 'appearance' is not to put existence in brackets or to postpone judgment. Existence 'appears' as existence and fictitious things 'appear' as fictitious things. Fussel repeated in his argument that the world before the restoration (the 'natural' world) and the world after the restoration is one and the same. Then he shouldn't have, I believe, put its existence in brackets or postponed judgment. I don't know what my body is after putting its existence in brackets. But if it is not my 'natural' body, the world must change accordingly. So if his intention is to abolish discrimination, what he should have done is simple. He should have only abolished the discrimination. We can't change the colour of our skin by abolishing racial discrimination. Our main problem is abolishing the racial discrimination, not changing the colour of our skin. So Fussel's main problem should have been abolishing the discrimination, not changing the existence (Setzen).
Then is my new naming of 'apperance' only a naming? Yes, if I don't do anything beyond such naming. Then what is my intention? It is to throw away the usual classifications: heart and material, perception and thought, reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, and to surface a new classification by which dualistic composition will not be induced. What my new classification is and how it prevents dualistic composition will be shown by the following:
First I examine how we classify the appearance of a real thing and the appearance of an illusion. By this examination I want to show how impetuous it is to allocate real things to the objective world and illusions to the subjective world, and to show that this allocation is not valid. For example we allocate a phantom to the subjective world. But where does it usually appear? Usually it appears, they say, by a grave or near a wooden bridge. That is, it appears in an external space such as grave stones or a board of a bridge. It is in a position in space that can be surveyed. It doesn't exist in a position somewhere 'in the heart'. And yet why is it called an 'illusion'? Because it doesn't have the characteristics of usual things: touchable and having weight. It can be seen but not touched. It is an 'unusual thing'. But isn't it unjust to allocate its address to a place different from where the grave stones or a board of a bridge lie, just because of its being an 'unusual thing'? I don't say it is a mistake. But I claim that it is unjust, that it is not necessary. I claim that a phantom appears right at the place where usual things appear, only that it should be classified as an 'unusual appearance'. In fact, don't we regard the image reflected in a mirror as such? The image reflected in a mirror can be seen but cannot be touched. It has no weight. Like phantoms, it doesn't have any physical effect on other usual things. You may say that we can take a photo of it, but you would be mistaken. A camera doesn't receive light from the reflected image in the mirror. The camera receives the reflected light from the thing. So its photo is not the photo of the image reflected in the mirror but of the real (existing) thing by the reflected light. A reflected image can't be photographed just as a phantom can't. Following the same reasoning, the rays from the image reflected in a mirror aren't focussed on the retina, just as the rays from a phantom aren't. But we can draw a picture of the image reflected by a mirror just as we can of a phantom.
We shave everyday looking at the image reflected in the mirror. While we shave do we think that this side of the mirror is physical space and that the other side of the mirror is the mental space? Of course not. Then why do we need to give illusion another residential space? We don't need to at all. The space where illusions appear is the same space that real things appear. Regarding the appearance of illusion as such, we can avoid the dualistic composition that first surfaces. (Remember that dualistic composition begins first with the belief that illusion exists only in our brain.)
Things discussed in the above can be applied to all of our mis-seeing or mis-hearing. If you took a rope for a snake, you saw an illusion of a snake. If you took the howling of a dog for the siren of an ambulance, you heard an illusory siren. And here the snake appeared near your feet at the place where a rope was, and the siren of an ambulance appeared in the west side of the town, at the place where the howling of a dog was. We don't need any other place to allocate them.
But it doesn't have any public meaning, it only concerns the person who saw or heard the illusion, you may say. So the illusion belongs only to the subjective concience of the person concerned, you may conclude.
But here if the public meaning of experiences means the similarity of each person's experiences, each person's experiences cannot have public meaning. Because, as I mentioned already, they are essentially different from each other. So if having no public meaning leads us inevitably to put illusions into the jail of each person's concience, all our experiences must also inevitably be treated likewise. So what I want to show in the following is that even if experiences are different from each other, we don't have to put them into the jail of each person's conscience. Then illusions can also reject to be thrown into the jails.
We see things from some specific point. We hear sound also from some specific point. We touch things in some specific way: lightly, hard, with a finger, with a palm etc. Let's call these specific points collectively 'view points'. Human being's visual view points or auditory view points are situated in the limited places of our head. This fact is only an anatomical accident. If we had eyes at the tip of our big toes or ears on our back, we might have more than two 'view points' (one kind of clam has about sixty eyes). For the simplicity of the discussion, let me suppose that we have one view point.
Therefore any two people cannot have the same view point and any one thing cannot be seen or heard from the same view point by two people. By this mere fact, each person sees different scenery. This means each human being's perceptive experience is structurally different from each other's. In fact, a flower in a vase on a table appears in ten ways by ten people around the table. Here the difference of the appearance of the ten kinds is caused not only by the fact stated above but also by the differences of each person's life, likes and dislikes, disposition etc. And yet the same flower, the flower on the table, now appears to the ten people. It is true that these ten appearances to ten people are individual, that is, they cannot be co-owned. But do we have to say, because of that, that the appearance of the flower exists only in each person's conscience and that the flower itself exists in the objective world? If you want to say this, you must probably think about an analogy such as an analogy of 'a flower and its ten photos from ten different points'. This analogy is, however, too crude. The scenery that appears to me is a three dimensional dining room's scenery. If we compare it to a photo, it must contain three dimensionally all the things there, including my body. Is this a photo? No. It is the dining room itself, isn't it?
The same flower appears differently according to the view points and to its different viewers. How does it become necessary with this everyday fact to divide 'appearance' and 'the same flower' intentionally and to allocate them to different places? 'The same flower' doesn't demand us to have 'the same appearance'. Rather, don't these different appearances mean the appearances of 'the same flower'? The same trigonal pyramid appears differently at different points. To this mathematical example, nobody would say that the trigonal pyramid belongs to the objective world and that appearances from different points belong to the subjective world.
You may say that it may be true about a flower on the table but that in case of a phantom, a rope-snake or mis-hearing, it is not the question of difference but the question of existence or non-existence of the object concerned. No. First, if you admit the 'difference', then you must admit the 'difference of existence and non-existence'. Difference of age means the non-existence of some years of one person compared to another. Secondly, the 'same' grave appears to some with a phantom and to others without a phantom. This doesn't have any difference from the fact that the 'same' flower appears with a fragrance to one who has an acute olfactory nerve and to others without it.
So far has been a discussion concerning 'the illusion' and 'the many impressions of one object by each person' that tend to lead us to dualism. Next I shall investigate 'mental phenomena'.


4. Mental Phenomena (Recollection)
It was undoubtedly Descartes that formed at least formally the most thorough and consistent dualism. Descartes named cogito (mental phenomena) as the criterion to separate spirit from materials. Cogito includes all the works of the heart: perception, imagination, thought, recollection, will etc. So the most important problem in the 'Heart-body' question is how to understand the relation between these 'works of the heart' and the material world. In the following I examine mental phenomena item by item, that is, recollection, feeling, imagination, will, etc. These items have no bounderies and they invade each other's domain. I really don't consider psychology elementally. I just picked up some of the conspicuous activities of mental work and itemized them.
As for feeling or perception, I have already discussed them. Except for in Descartes' case, perception doesn't tempt us into dualism. In fact, we use monism in our usual everyday life. (See 2. 'Temptation to Dualistic Composition') Only when we want to adapt ourselves to physical and physiological information, are we led to or obliged to be led to dualism. I shall deal with this problem in the next section. From the historical point of view of philosophy also, Abenalius, Mach, Bergson, etc. had some successes incorporating the perceptive scene in their monistic views. But they all failed to arrange the scenes of recollection, imagination, intention or thought in their monistic view. So the first thing I must do is to examine these scenes item by item.
First, recollection. I am now recalling last year's mountain climb. To me, as it were at random, a moutain pass, a mountain stream, a forest, the sky and the clouds, sweat on my face and my heavy feet are appearing. Of course it is not perceptive appearance. I don't actually see or feel them. I can't look at the surface of rocks by the pass. I can't watch the clouds that float in the sky. There is no sweat on my face and my feet are not heavy. But things appear to me as something that I can report to you. How steep the pass was. How it curves along the mountain. On which toes I got blisters. Where in the sky the clouds got thick. Let's call this 'recollective appearance'. I can't do more than name it. I must leave what I mean to your own experience.
Here I must point out an important misunderstanding that is usually easily believed. When we recollect something, it is already gone from existence. So the thing recollected is said to be an 'image in memory', a 'remembered image' or a 'souvenir' of the past. Physiologists say that it is a 'trace memorized' in the brain. I think this is a mistake. What appears is not an 'image' or a 'trace', but it is the past itself, isn't it? To prove it, suppose that the appearance of the past is not the past itself but its 'image'. For example, the mountain pass that I am recollecting now is not the pass of the past itself but an 'image' of the pass of the last year. Does this pass not have any name? Does it not have any address? Does it not have any particularity? Oh, yes, it does. It is not a general mountain pass picked up at random. It is a pass of a particular mountain that I climbed last year, -- for example, 'Mt. Asama'. So let the pass that I am recollecting now be an 'image of the Mt. Asama's pass'. Here Mt. Asama's pass cannot be an image. Because if it is, then what I am recalling should be 'an image of an image of the Mt. Asama's pass' (ad infinitum). So it has no end. Therefore 'Mt. Asama's pass' should be exactly Mt. Asama's pass. More exactly, last year's Mt. Asama's pass.
So that when we say 'an image in memory of Mt. Asama', not only an image but Mt. Asama itself is also included. Without it the meaning of 'an image of Mt. Asama' becomes blurred. This can also be applied to a representation, an idea, a photo of Mr. A., a statue of Mr. A. etc. Generally speaking, it holds concerning all the ideas of copy.
Now when we recall Mt. Asama of last year, Mt. Asama itself must inevitably appear. Then do we need the appearance of an image of Mt. Asama in addition to the real Mt. Asama? Or do these two (the real one and its copy) in fact appear to me? No. (Of course in the case of physical copy such as TV screens, statues, models etc, both the real one and its copy can appear in some cases.) Then, in the case of recollection, if the appearance is not two but one, it must be a real one not an image. Because in order for an image to appear, a real one must inevitably appear. Thus, to talk about an image in memory is to talk about the real thing itself.
Then when we recall Mr. A. who has already died, do we recall Mr. A. himself? Yes, we do. Because 'the image of Mr. A. appears' means, by the above analysis, 'Mr. A. himself, not his image, appears'. If someone asks, 'Why can a man who has already ceased to exist appear?', he takes the meaning of existence to be very limited. Of course he is at liberty to define what existence is. But if he claims that only the existence in his limited definition can appear in my meaning of appearance, he would be mistaken. In fact, Mr. A. appears to me now with the figure he had during his lifetime. It is not his 'image', not his 'trace memorized', it is Mr. A. himself during his lifetime. As a simple fact, Mr. A. who doesn't exist with the above limited meaning now appears. I cannot of course speak to him or pat him on the shoulder. That is, he doesn't appear perceptively. He doesn't, in the present time, occupy any place in this world, but he now appears recollectively. He is now, for example, occupying the place on my right, at a particular restaurant in a particular ward in Tokyo seven years ago. At some particular time, at some particular place, Mr. A. now vividly appears.
Of course, in most recollections, the time and position or the shape of the appearance are more or less dim and blurred. But its being dim and blurred cannot be explained simply by its being past or by its being an 'image'. I know Mr. B. who is now alive. I recall him now. He is dim and blurred. I don't see what he wears or where he is now. Or I now see a glass on the desk. Behind the glass is dim and blurred. In short we can't say an appearance is the appearance of 'image' just because it is dim and blurred.
Thus things past appear directly. This is recollection. For this to be possible, I must surely possess some physiological functions 'trace memoried', as physiologists name them, at temporal lobe of the brain or at other places, just as we need retina or visual nerves in order to see things. But when we see things, it is outside of us not the image on the retina. So when we recollect something, it is at some place and at some time in the past, not an image in the brain. It is just as when my tooth aches, it is the tooth that aches, not the nerve in the brain.
As discussed above, recollection is an appearance of something that happened in this world. That is, this something past appears in the present time and in the present space. In the previous section we rejected reducing the present perceptive scene to our mental world. So we must also reject reducing the recollective past scene to our mental world. We could see in the previous section the present perceptive scene within the construction of monism. Therefore we can see also the recollective past scene within the construction of monism. To put it plainly, recollection is not a thing that happens 'in our mind' but it is a thing that happens 'in the outer world'.

5. Mental Phenomena (Feeling, Imagination, Will)
'OK, I understand what you say about recollection', you may say, 'but, how about to be sad, to be glad, to be angry, or to be happy? Aren't these things that happen in the mind?' No. I think that is your misunderstanding.
The clear moon in the sky is only a senseless astronomical body. Only when a man sees it, he bears in mind a certain feeling, or some feeling comes up in his mind. These expressions show a very fundamental sample of how we look at things. That is, things and scenes are an arrangement of senseless materials and men give them some human meanings. To be beautiful and to be ugly, likes and dislikes, economically valuable and valueless, linguistic meanings and our feelings don't exist originally in this material world, but they only exist in the world of the human mind. So the human mind is, so to speak, a floating oil drop on the surface of a soup named 'material'. It is an existence which exists amid the soup and cannot be mixed in it. But this way of looking is to me a complete misunderstanding. So let's take the example of fear.
I am now walking alone in a wood. I am afraid. The shade of the dark trees that can scarcely be seen, a sound that comes from where or what I don't know, something unknown that suddenly touches my cheek. I shrink. My feet shiver. I break out in a cold sweat. The pulse quickens. The body stiffens. Let's call these physical phenomena, 'fear phenomena'. Of course these fear phenomena are not my fear. I am not afraid of my feet's and hands' shiver or of my sweat. I am afraid of the dark wood that surrounds me. If you say that this dark wood itself is only a thing so that I am not afraid of the wood but am afraid of something in my heart, I am at a loss. The dark wood and 'fear phenomena', only these two are the 'situation of fear' for me now. How can I tear 'the fear in my heart' out of these two? I don't know how. I can't divide the dark wood into two: one is just 'the material wood', the other is the non-material fear itself of the wood, or the 'extract' of fear, so to speak.
No. This situation of fear is totally exterior. The dark wood is naturally exterior, but the fear phenomena, that is, my hands' and feet's shiver or sweat, are also the situation of the exterior world. I may have a wild fantasy such as a chimera wriggling in the wood. But it is not supposed to be in my heart. It is supposed to be somewhere in the wood. So it scares me. Were the chimera in my heart, I would not feel any fear. In short, fear is 'the appearance of a fearful world'.
The world appears to us inevitably with some colour tone of our sentiment: fearful, non-fearful, serene, sad, joyful, monotonous, tiresome, etc., etc. Their nuances and tones move very delicately just as in the case of colours. And just as in the case of colours which change their tone according to our physical or mental conditions, mental colours also change or drastically reverse their tones according to the situation or condition in which we are placed. And remember colour exists in the exterior world. Therefore sentiment's colour also exists in the exterior world. So 'I am sad' means 'a sad world appears to me', 'I am afraid' means 'a fearful world appears to me'. Not 'I am standing in a non-sad, non-fearful material world with a sad or afraid feeling in my heart', but 'the world including me is sad or fearful'. (Note that the world appears to ten people with ten colours.) Sentiment is not a 'heart phenomena' but 'world phenomena'. It is a situation not that of just the floating oil drop in the soup but of the whole soup.
So far, 'feeling'. Next 'imagination'. 'Imagination' here includes things in the past, in the present, in the future. Things in the past or present that are imagined may happen to have true counterparts in the past or present. Things in the future that are imagined have no true counterpart because time has not yet come to verify them. Falsely imagined things in the past and present had or have no true counterparts in this world. So false or future imaginations are appearances that can be said to be 'non-actual' things.
Here 'actual' means 'real', 'existing' or 'true', that is, 'it is a real fact' of narrow meaning. Compare this 'actual' with 'actual' in the following sentence: 'All appearances are actual.' The former 'actual' is a classified concept within the broader, latter 'actual'. Note that this classification is the most fundamental and the most indespensable in the field of usual everyday life and in the field of science. (See 1. Dream, Phantom) It is the classification of truth or falsehood, real or non-real. But in spite of its fundamentality it is not a classification of 'where and when'. In other words false appearance and true appearance appear at the same place and at the same time. The classification doesn't concern the question of 'where and when does the appearance live?', it only concerns the question of 'Is the appearance true or false?'
Take the example of Hikaru Genji. He appears in Kyoto where, at about the same time, Murasaki Shikibu appears. He never appears in a place in my mind or at a time in my mind. Because there in no such 'place' in my mind or 'time' in my mind, --- I can't even imagine 'place' in my mind or 'time' in my mind. Many old stories begin by 'Once upon a time there lived such and such person.'. Here 'once upon a time' means some time before the present twentieth century and 'there' means somewhere on this earth (or in this universe). Date and place are not fixed in particular, because in those stories they are not fixed in particular. Almost all of my friends now appear to me with their positions unknown though I may know their mailing addresses.
A fictitious appearance appears at the same place and time as the true appearance. This is easily confirmed by incorrect information --- in the newspaper for example. A shipwreck or a revolution wrongly reported appears to me at just the place and time reported in the newspaper. They never appear to me in 'my mind'. Although they are false appearances, they never appear in a fictitious place or a fictitious time. Because fictitious places or fictious times never exist. To repeat, a fictitious appearance appears to us at the same place and time as the real appearance.
An appearance of the future also appears at some point in future time and at some place on the future map of the earth. Tomorrow's weather imagined by me appears to me at the time of 'tomorrow' and located in the sky above Tokyo and its neighbourhood. A tunnel that is planned to be completed in ten years appears at the place planned and at the time in ten years. It never appears in my mind or in my conscience. Are you led to say, 'No, a tunnel not yet completed cannot appear now. It is only a blueprint, a copy of the tunnel planned.' Then please remember what I mentioned about 'recollection'. When we say a blueprint (a copy) of a tunnel in ten years, not a blueprint (a copy) but a real tunnel in ten years already must appear. 'Then let's meet at the statue of the dog Hachiko at two o'clock.' When we say or hear this, what appears is the real statue Hachiko at two o'clock and a date in front of it. It is not an image of a date with the friend or an image of Hachiko that appears. There is no image that is deprived of the real one. An image must always accompany the real thing.
Thus, on the same line of time including past, present and future and in the same position in space on this earth, appears a true appearance or a false appearance. On this same line of time and space, appearances are classified as true or false. Don't we usually think that we at first classify imaginative appearances as true or false and then accordingly allocate them to the 'mental world' or to the 'outer world'? In reality, appearances first appear, and then we classify. Imaginative appearances are also 'world phenomena' not 'mental phenomena'.
So far we have examined 'recollection', 'feeling', 'imagination'. Next 'will'. 'Will' seems, at first sight, to be theoretically different from the three that have just been examined. Recollection, feeling and imagination are all passive, yet 'will' is completely active and must always be accompanied with action. But as I mentioned first, there is no clear boundary between each mental phenomena as they are always mixed together. We are always recollecting something and at the same time imagining something. The world always appears to us with some feeling and with some will.
Being absorbed in reading, eating one's meal hurriedly, to be too tired to work, to knit by mechanically moving knitting sticks. These are situations which require some will just as when someone is making a fatal decision or hesitating to make the first step of such. The actions mentioned above are not vigorous nor conspicuous, but they are no doubt actions of will. They are, so to speak, continuous and stationary situations of will. Or, in my view, the essence of will can be seen more clearly in these inconspicuous actions. That is, not that actions are done by something called 'will', but that how an action is done shows 'will' or 'intention'. When I eat, I don't think all the while I am eating that I will eat. No. The action itself that I am eating is my will of eating. There is no 'will of eating' in addition to the action that I am eating. If such 'will' were necessary in order to eat, then 'will' would be necessary for each movement of my chopsticks. Wouldn't it be ridiculous? Each different will doesn't accompany each movement of my chopsticks. A whole series of these actions is itself the will of eating, isn't it? Inconspicuous actions of will go smoothly as if they were 'unwilled'. Actions that are routined go half automatically. So we usually call them not of will. But then let's look at the actions that we usually call 'willed': battles, boxing maches, judo.
They seem to be 'ordered' or 'commanded' by some will outside of actions. 'Now hit right!' 'Opponent comes left, you must pull in your head.' 'Now is the right moment to hit!' These wills or intentions must be precedent to the actions. Just as in a war, staff officers make plans and order commands, then soldiers move. But this 'order-submission' model is, in my opinion, utter misunderstanding. Order can be called 'order' only when non-submission is possible. This is the meaning of 'order'. Jaoler's orders, emperor's orders etc. are called 'order' because they have the possibility of not being fulfilled. If they had no 'non-submission', they are laws (like Newton's law) not orders. Then can 'will' be 'order'? I decided to stand up, but I didn't. Is this non-submission? No. I just decided not to stand up at the last moment. I just changed my mind. 'Will' was changed. And the last will is always fulfilled. This is the tautology of 'will'. And just as in the case of copy, the structure of 'ad infinitum' again surfaces. When I 'will' to stand, don't I need to 'will' the 'will'? And don't I need will to will that will? And suppose that there is possibility of non-submission against will. Then in order to refute the will, we need a 'will of rebelling'. Then in this case too the 'ad infinitum' structure surfaces. Because we may need will to will the rebelling, or we may need will to will the submission. In any case the 'order-submission' model doesn't hold. It is contrary to our common sense.
One day I decide to move house or to change my profession. From this point the world appears different to me from the world before. And I also shall have the appearance of intending to move or to change my profession which is different from the appearance that I'd had before the decision. This change of appearance itself is the (sustaining) will of moving or the will of changing profession. It is an appearance not passive nor of an outsider, but active and apparently 'willed'. And at the beginning of the series of these daily lives, there is a 'decision'. And in the series of these daily lives, there are appearances of will: daily work, getting up, tooth brushing and shaving, mornings with a hang-over, etc., etc. So 'the beginning of will' may exist and it may be a purely voluntary shot, and it could be called 'mental phenomena'. But its sustaining development and the maintaining of it is a 'world phenomena'. In this meaning 'will' is not 'mental phenomena' but 'world phenomena'. (Author's note: See 'Shin-shin Mondai', Ohmori et al. (Sangyo-Tosho) for slightly more detailed discussions concerning 'will' and others. Translator's note: In said paper, the author quotes the case of deciding to call someone you don't like by phone. If we observe carefully, it must inevitably accompany recollection, sentiment, imagination etc. And these are, as we have already examined, 'world phenomena'. Therefore the beginning of will must also be a 'world phenomena'.)

6 The Double Description: 'Common' and 'Scientific'
So far we have discussed recollection, sentiment, imagination and will. One important appearance is still untouched. It is the 'appearance of abstract things'. Mathematical or logical concepts such as numbers, the ratio of the circumferance of a circle to its diameter, Riemann Surface, the law of contradiction etc., and other universal concepts. For the discussion of this, we need some preparation and this is not the place to do it. So I will only make a rough sketch. Firstly, most appearances of abstract things are understood by means of a 'comprehensive' appearance of each world appearance. Secondly, even if it cannot be explained by the above, it is a 'neutral' problem concerning the confrontation between the composition of dualism and monism. That is, these appearances apparently independent from space and time can be explained with difficulty and at the same time with ease by both compositions.
Sidetracking this problem of 'abstract thing's appearance' for a while, I believe that I have shown the possibility of monistic composition. I mention here that, under this composition, separation or confrontation between the objective world and subjective conscience disappears, I mention that the 'spirit and matter' problem also disappears and that along with it the 'subjective-objective' problem in its epistemological meaning doesn't exist any longer. But I won't step into this subject here. (See Ohmori 'Shin Shikaku Shinron (New 'New Theory of Vision') 'Risoh' 1976, 1-4) So the 'heart-body problem' or more precisely 'heart-matter' problem that has arisen since Descartes disappeared as its original form. Because the frame of dualistic composition which the problem needed to describe itself as a problem was abandoned. The new problem left to me is to show how the dualistic composition abandoned in this way could be reconstructed in the frame of a monistic composition. Especially to be considered is how dualism would be common sensically reformed in the new frame.
What is modern common sense dualism? At one pole, exists the objective and materialistic world, as natural science describes being consisted of elemental particles and electromagnetic waves, and being vertfrei (without value). And at the other pole, exists the world subjective and with value: beautiful, ugly, sad or pleasant. It is the world with the subjective 'world view' of the objective world aquired through sense organs and with it accompanied by recollection, sentiment, imagination and will. It is easily seen that this common sense dualism is fundamentally isomorphic to Descartes' 'extention and cogito' dualism.
What I have mentioned so far is firstly that 'a perceptive world image' shouldn't be separated from the objective world and be treated as an 'image', although at first sight the facts 'illusion' or 'each impression for each person' are apt to lead us there, and secondly that 'mental phenomena' such as recollection, sentiment, imagination or will are 'world phenomena' of this time and space world, and that we must not seclude them to a small residence in the 'mind'. By means of this two points I have constructed a monistic composition.
To this one and the same world various appearances --- perceptive, recollective or imaginative --- appear clad in features with sentiment and will. These are the things which Joyce and Proust describe precisely and minutely and which we can describe only clumsily and roughly. They are expressed by the vocabulary of non-professional everyday life: colours, senses, hot and cold, pretty and ugly, happy and miserable, noble and honourable, etc., etc. Let's call it, 'common description'. It naturally contains the usual 'names of state': solid, liquid, gas, weight, length, and also 'names of things': gold, iron, tiger, cup, etc.
But what scientists describe is also these appearances. The earth and the sky, animals and plants, water and air, sound and light which we describe with usual everyday life words are described by scientists using their special vocabulary. Let's call it 'scientific description' as contrasted with 'common description'. Then usually any things or happenings in this world can be doubly described by these two descriptions. An iron chip that shines with black luster is described by scientists as crystal of iron atoms, thermo conductivity and strong magnetism at its resident place and time. A drop of blood taken from my ear is described by scientists as red corpuscule, blood plasma, hemoglobin and albumin.
Of course there are domains which everyday life's description cannot reach: microscopically small things, far away nebula, things of great age, the interior of the earth or celestial bodies. These can be described only by a 'scientific description'. On the other hand, there are domains which scientific description cannot reach: my various wild fancies, my hopes, the difference in appearances to me of, say, the same building clad in different feelings. Historically speaking, scientific description began based on common description, but it is also based on it epistemologically. In other words, it is superimposed on common description at the same time and at the same place. Various experimental and objective devices used in scientific experiments are described using common description. We cannot do without it. Or, measurements with any scientific devices (for example, the hands of various meters, Geiger counter, spectroscope, paper chromatograph etc.) are double descriptions superposed on common description. The objective and subjective worlds of the dualistic composition are doubly described scientifically and commonly.
Thus the 'heart vs. body' relation of 'real matter (objective world) vs, its image (subjective world)' or 'cause and effect' must be abandoned. In place of this relation, the relation 'that is (i.e.)' of double description enters on the scene. In the usual, so called 'scientific' explanation also, this 'that is (i.e.)' relation has already played an important role just as the relation 'cause and effect'. Most of the 'macro-micro' relations in science are based on this 'that is' relation. Pressure increases when the gas in a closed container is heated. This macro phenomenon is 'explained' by statistical mechanics: the movement of gas molecules increases and their momentum and frequency of collision against the walls of the container increase. This is not the 'cause' of the pressure increase. This explanation is a 'that is' explanation, not a 'why-because' explanation. Pressure increase is equal to 'the increase of the movement of gas molecules etc. etc'. The relation between geometrical optics and wave optics is also a 'that is' relation. Relation between usual everyday life's observation and its so called 'scientific' explanation is, without exception, a 'that is' relation. We see a rainbow varied with several colours ... that is, 'small droplets in the sky refracts the light and reach our eyes, etc.' 'I turn on the switch and TV is on' that is, 'Electric current flows in, starting the electron gun and Brown tube fluorescents'.
No. You may refute. No. These two are connected not by a 'that is' relation but by a 'why-because' relation. Because electromagnetic waves from the droplets or Brown tube reach our retina, we see the rainbow or the TV scene. But this 'why-because' or 'cause-effect' relation is destined not to be accomplished. The retina or the brain suffers such and such a change, and why then do we see a rainbow or a TV scene? We cannot constructively find the answer. I say 'constructively' because the flow of cause and effect is, in this case, one-sided, that is, from the rainbow to the brain, not vice versa. Physically, nothing comes back from the brain to the rainbow. The only possibility left is to understand this 'from the brain to the rainbow' not as a propagative (or near-sensing) 'cause and effect' operation but as some remote sensing operation, in a broader sense, such as the force of gravity, the jumping of elementary particles or the contraction of a wave packet of status function. In fact, with these examples in mind, physiologists defined this backward operation as 'Projection'. If we choose this possibility, all things in the world that I see or hear are things my brain produced. It is, in my view, too grotesque, and we shouldn't accept this possibility.
I see a rainbow in the sky. That is, droplets refract the light, it reaches my eyes, and operates my brain. It is not the 'cause-effect' relation but 'that is' relation.
Suppose 'a world diary'. At the left page of the diary there are 'common' descriptions, and at the right 'scientific'. Things described at the same line on the left and right pages happened at the same time and at the same place. There are some cases of course in which there is some description on the left while the right is blank, and vice versa. On lines where both left and right pages are filled, those two descriptions are connected by the relation 'that is'. Each one of the two descriptions, on the left or on the right, is a one-sided view seen from a particular standpoint. And the whole of these pairs makes a world diary. It is a diary and so it is a history which draws this four-dimensional world. And to us this four-dimensional world always appears.

7 Red Sunglasses and Illusions
Having mentioned the general composition, I shall examine two concrete examples: red sunglasses (2. Local first question. See page 3) and illusions (3. Local second question).
A white wall is seen as red if we wear red glasses. This is an example of common description. If we try to explain this fact by the 'cause' with scientific description, we would inevitably reach the above mentioned difficulty. But anyway let's try such an explanation.
The light coming from the white wall becomes an electromagnetic wave with a long wave-length through the selective filter of the 'red glasses'. This long-wave length electromagnetic wave affects the retina, and through the retina to the brain in the same way that an electromagnetic wave with a long wave-length without red glasses which comes from a red wall affects the brain. Therefore the wall is seen red.
This scientific explanation doesn't yet reach the last point. An electromagnetic wave with a long wave-length affects the retina, and why a red wall is seen? There cannot be an answer to this question as I mentioned before if not by 'that is' relation.
'When I wore red glasses, a wall looked red. (Common description.)' that is 'An electromagnetic wave with a long wave-length from the wall, etc., etc.' This is the fact that I have already mentioned in the previous section. But in this particular example there is an illustrative model using which I may be able to weaken the usually believed prejudice that every explanation must be a 'cause-effect' explanation.
Our visual scene has its proper structure: three-dimensional and having a centre point. By this, it has the characteristic of 'see through' effect: when a thing is put behind some semitransparent thing, it is seen through that, and of 'blocking' effect: when a thing is put behind an opaque thing, it cannot be seen. This characteristic is maintained whatever the physics or cerebrum physiology are, so long as it has a three-dimensional structure with a center point. So a thing seen through a semitransparent thing changes its visional feature when the semitransparent thing suffers some changes or is removed. Change occurs not at the place where the semitransparent thing is but behind it. So it is natural that the white wall seen through it looks red. Here the description concerning the white wall doesn't suffer any change. And in this case the 'cause-effect' flow doesn't go from the red glasses to the white wall. It goes the reverse way: from the wall to the glasses. What I assert is that we don't need and we don't find any explanation (propagative or 'cause-effect') to the fact that the wall looks red when there is no physical change at the wall itself.
'The see through' effect explains another example: mirage. When we see a mirage, let's put some small (point) things or a screen with some holes in front of our eyes. Then these small things or holes and the mirage must be seen straight in the line to our eyes. 'A line' is usually defined as 'a ray in homogeneous air'. But it should originally be defined as a 'see-through line'. We use a ray in homogeneous air as the definition of a line only because it usually happens to be a 'see-through line'. (Translator's note: In the mirror image's case, this 'see-through line' is bent at the mirror surface.) Now scientific description places the position of the scientific oasis at some different place from the now seen mirage, and it places the small things or holes at the same place as the now seen things or holes. (Double description of 'places') Draw a 'see-through line' from the small things to the oasis. And we see the oasis through the small things. ('See-through effect') (Translator's note: So we are not looking at a mirage. We are directly looking at the oasis. And a see-through line is usually straight, so we think that it exists at some place on the straight line in front of the eyes.) Just as in the case of red glasses, this result comes from the fact that our visual scene is three-dimensional and has its centre point. It never comes from the geometrical and optical explanation or cerebrum physiology. It comes directly from the structure of our visual scene. So the fact that we see a mirage at the tangential direction at the eyes on the curve of the ray from the oasis is a logical conclusion from the see-through effect. All other explanations are invalid or redundant to the above explanation.
The above discussion can also be applied to a mirror-reflected image. (Translator's note: A reflected image is actually not virtual. We see the object directly through the see-through line, which, here again, is bent. And as the see-through line is usually straight, we think the seen object exists straight in front of us.) Generally speaking, a so called 'optical virtual image' such as a mirage or a mirror-reflected image behaves just as its name implies, virtually or phantomly. It shows the discrepancy between common and scientific descriptions. We see an oasis mirage. The place it exists in common description is different from the place where it exists in scientific description. At the place where a mirror reflected image exists, scientific description draws something utterly different. As I mentioned already scientific description is done 'doubly' over the common description. And I add here that scientific description is constructed extracting only 'tangibles' from common description. Why is it so constructed? Because we, human beings, don't want to lose our lives: the reason is our animalistic motivation. (See 1 Dream, Phantom) I won't discuss this further, but the classification of truth and false, reality and non-reality is based originally on whether they concern our life or not. A holograph of a sharp knife which is seen and cannot be touched is classified as non-real, and that of steel which cuts our hand and makes us bleed is classified as real. Scientific description, which is made in this intention, sometimes has descrepancies with common description. An example of this are mirror reflected images, mirages and illusions.
As I have repeatedly mentioned, to explain a mirror-reflected image appearance by reflected light on the surface of the mirror as 'cause-effect' misses the point. We see that a mirror-reflected image (common description) is equal to 'light reflected at the mirror surface reaches our eyes, then reaches retina, and then cerebrum cells'. We see a red thing. We investigate the fact and find that at the same time, an electromagnetic wave of about seven thousand angstrom wavelength reaches the retina and has such and such an effect on cerebrum cells. To ask why giving such and such an effect on our cerebrum cells is to see a red thing is the same as to ask why universal gravitation and coulomb force fall off at the inverse square of the distance, is the same as to ask why the propergation of light has the speed of three hundred thousand kilometers a second. It misses the point.
As such, 'an illusion appears to me' is equal to 'I am in such and such situation and my brain is in such and such situation'. In the mirror-reflection case, a mirror exists and then a brain is in its usual state. In the illusion case, a mirror does not exist and a brain is in its unusual state. Allegorically speaking, the unusual state of the brain in the case of illusion plays the role of the mirror in the mirror-reflection case. From the optics point of view, the brain is one of the elements of the optical system. The bias in the brain is, in the view point of 'seeing', the same problem as a bias in the glasses or a bias in the air homogeneity. Things seen change their appearance according to mirage, mirror reflected image, or illusion.
So the research of brain physiology is, so to speak, an optical system research. It will find an answer to how a thing is seen with a given brain state. It will find the reason of how a discrepancy between common and scientific descriptions arises. But it always remains the research of 'that is' relation. It cannot deal with 'why something is seen'. And the development of research in 'that is' relation is none other than the development in double descriptions of common and scientific of this one and the same world.

21. The Past Does Not Disappear, It Only Passes By

We say 'the past passes by', but like what? Does it pass by like water in a river, or like a sound that soon disappears? The answer may be the latter. In the case of water in a river, we can, if we want, catch up with it by running after it. But with sound, even horses cannot catch up with it. This is because it just disappears, not because it is too fast. Sound dies when it is born, the time that it is being born being the time it becomes extinct, the time it is existent is the time it is non-existent. Sound that has disappeared is past sound. And don't things that were with the sound disappear with the sound? The streets or people look as if they continue to stay there. But it is only 'as if'. The scenery we see is being replaced from moment to moment. It is the same as the scanning lines of television or the frames of films in the movies. Then we would have to say that the elemental particles of some seconds ago or the electromagnetic field of some minutes ago are not existent any more at this moment. In short, the past doesn't exist now. What exists is now and now only. In order to cancel the past we need not float it on the water and let it go. (Translator's note: The Japanese idiom 'mizu ni nagasu' (to put something in the past by floating it on the water and letting it go) means 'to cancel or forgive something ill that was done by another person'.) The past has already disappeared. It is clearly seen when we watch things that move or things that change their features. The hands of a clock exist only at the present moment. They never show the past time. Then we will have to say that the world in the past has already disappeared. The world is, like sound, 'Existing-to-disappear momentarily'. (Translator's note: this is the translation of the Buddhist term 'satsuna-metsu', or existence that is disappearing moment to moment.)
But nobody regards the world as such. Nobody regards the past as non-existent and totally void. Because then we would have to deny our own life, we would have to regard human being's history as totally void. Because it means that what we promised, the money we borrowed or lent are now non-existent. Do we feel gratitude or vengence to things that we regard as void? No. And nobody thinks that history is the history of void, or that a diary is the diary of void.
But on the other hand nobody believes that a dead person is still existent, within the living features of when he was alive. We believe that a dead person is non-existent. But then aren't the deeds that the dead person did when he was alive also non-existent? And then aren't the deeds that a person now alive has done also non-existent? And then isn't all history also non-existent? We went round the discussion and came back again to our first step into the world of 'Existing-to-disappear momentarily'. And again we don't believe in it.
This circularity of the discussion doesn't show our indecisiveness or our errors. It may rather be our real (or actual) attitude toward the past, being ambivalent and double-valued. For us, the past sometimes exists and sometimes doesn't. This fact shows that we should not carelessly decide the existence or non-existence of the past but we should from the point of view of the past itself question the meaning of 'the past exists'. But we are apt to think that 'exists' means 'exists now'. This criterion leads us to judge that the past is only of 'doubtful existence' at most. And on the other hand 'memory' is treated as 'cash' of the past, because it surely exists now. And having admitted so, we are led to invent a relation between the past and the memory of it. The relation that underlies or that makes us use the words: recollection, memory image, memory representation, or memory engram. That is, the relation of 'copy', or the relation of 'present memory as the copy of the past'.
And we are led to believe that, narrowly owing to this 'copy', we can talk about the past. According to this belief, memory is like strata, fossils, ruins, excavations, or ancient manuscripts. Extinct animals and plants don't exist now, nor old castles and old cities. A document that has just been written doesn't exist now. Things that exist now are their dead bodies or their traces. Just like these things, memory is the album of the past, fossils, a list of dead people's names, mummies of the past. So, like these remains, memory can be preserved well or badly, and it may fade or decay. And the past is (and the future also is) "something that can only exist as 'the present', wherever it exists or whatever it is. ... And when the past is told as a truth, things that are taken out from the memory are not the past itself, but are words drawn from the mental image that was formed in our mind when some event, passing through, left traces in the spirit through our senses." (Augustinus, 'Confession' No. 11, Ch 18. Translated by Imaizumi and Muraji.)
But if we can talk about the past only through such memory or remains, the past that is talked about cannot be the past itself. Things that are talked about or can be talked about are again only a 'copy' of the past. The past itself has always totally disappeared. Then what we talk about or describe cannot be other than 'something that resembles'.
Why are we led to think thus? Because we think that memory is only a 'copy' of the past. Because we apply to it the coarse criterion of 'existent or non-existent'. We must return to the starting point. Let's not ask whether the past exists or not. Let's re-examine the thought: memory is a copy of the past. And when we are convinced of its being a misunderstanding, the past, I believe, will reveal its features a little more clearly to us. The fact that not 'the past rigorously exists or not, regardless or whether I live or I die', but 'the past is as I owe it' would, I hope, surface.

2
I am not discussing here the acquired memories of memorizing a song, gaining the speaking knowledge of foreign languages, or the technique of driving a car. I am discussing here the memory Bergson called 'dated memory', or more accurately 'recollection'. The date may often be unclear but it doesn't matter. What I discuss here is recollection of what happened on such and such a date, during some time lapse, or of an experience that happened only once in one's life.
Now I recollect unexpectedly a happening of a day in the distant past. I recollect a friend of mine who has already died. Here I am very naturally led to think that these are 'copies'. Things I am now recollecting are a 'copy' of the occurance of the day gone by, the 'copy' of my dead friend. In fact, I am not now blown in the wind of that past day, I cannot now talk with the friend. So the things I am now recollecting are not the real scenery with the real wind, or a real person who is alive. So they cannot be other than 'copies' of the past reality. And the aforesaid prejudice of, so to speak, 'the being present-ism of existence' accelerates and supports this 'copy' idea. A scenery or a person I am now recollecting is something that exists at the present moment. So it cannot be the scenery itself or the person himself of the past. So it cannot be other than a 'copy' of it. Thus we are inclined to think.
But this 'copy' idea is, I believe, although it may seem very natural, pseudo natural and an essential misunderstanding. When we recollect something, that something which is being recollected is, in my opinion, not a 'copy' of it but that something itself. To prove this, I will point out in the following, some circumstantial evidences, and will show that even if we admitted that it is a 'copy', how strange a copy it is. And after that I shall, by some logical analysis, show the emptiness of it in the role of a 'copy'.
At first, let's look at the tempo of a recollection. When we recollect something, whether it is a 'copy' or not, it takes some time. But in order to, for example, recollect thirty minutes' medical treatment at dentist's office, we don't need thirty minutes. To recollect an hour's musical performance, we don't need an hour. (Although, it is true, we may be able to take up an hour by whistling the whole piece.) Although we feel some exaggeration when someone says he recollected his whole life while he was falling from a cliff and was miraculously saved, it is true that we usually recollect a fairly long lapse of time in a short, or very short, time. And yet recollection is essentially different from the fast reviewing of video or quick motion movies. The tempo of recollection is thought to be the same as the tempo of when it really happened: adagio as adagio, one hundred kilometers per hour as one hundred kilometers per hour and the hard labour of thirty minutes as the hard labour of thirty minutes. The aforesaid person who fell from a cliff cannot have seen a full speed moving revolving lantern with pictures. Because, if so, nothing, colours nor sound, would have been discernible for him, and all would have been for him just the fast passing chaos of a few seconds. No. He would have, we should say, taken a glance, one after another, of his childhood, boyhood, manhood, each of which has its own length of years. Just as we see with a glance a piece of vast scenery, wouldn't he have taken a glance of each period of his past life? And don't we recollect, just like in his case, with a glance thirty minutes of medical treatment, or an hour of musical performance? Therefore, only a few seconds of recollection keep the tempo, don't they?
And here we usually say that something recollected is a 'copy' of some past happening or some period. What kind of a copy is this 'copy'? It cannot be a non-moving copy like a picture scroll. Because it is impossible for a non-moving picture scroll to copy continuous movement. A picture scroll cannot copy running cars or flying balls. Therefore the 'copy' must be a 'moving copy' like the movies. But 'moving' means to move in time. So it needs at least some time lapse. But at the first step, in order to replace the past, didn't we find it necessary to have something that exists at the present moment? Yet our consideration is that the 'copy' that exists at the present moment must 'elapse' some length of time. That is, this 'copy' must exist at the present moment, yet at the same time it needs some time lapse, perhaps thirty minutes. This may not be a contradiction, but it is at least a very unnatural, very inconceivable situation. We are at first very naturally led to the idea of a 'copy'. Where has this naturality gone? The first impression seems now to have been an illusion. Then what shall we do? I feel it most natural to abandon the idea of 'copy', and to think that we turn back and directly face the past. We climb up to the top of the mountain, turn back and face the path we have just climbed. Just like this, when we recall the history of thirty minutes of climbing, aren't we facing the history of the climb itself? We are facing the path itself, and it is the present path and it is a perceptive view. Aren't we facing the history of the climb itself, and isn't it the past climb itself and isn't it a recollective view itself? In both cases, things turned back are the real path and the real climb. They are not a copy of the path, nor a copy of the climb.
So far, 'tempo'. Next, 'substance' or 'material'. Things recollected are said to be 'copies'. Then what is the material of the 'copy'? The material of a photograph is a piece of paper or the light sensitive material on it. The material of a statue is marble or clay. Then what is the material of a 'copy' of the past that we recollect?
I am now recollecting a scene in the train I have just been in. What is the material of the train that I am now recollecting? The train itself is of course made of steel. But if the train recollected is a 'copy', what is the material of the 'copy' of the train? The 'copy' shouldn't be two-dimensional like a photo or a picture. It should have, as I mentioned above, time lapse and movement. So it should be three-dimensional, and should be something like a moving statue. Then what would be the material of this statue-like 'copy'? We usually feel that it is like a dim shadow or ether. But it should be a dim shadow of steel, not a shadow of some other metal, clay or paper, because it is a 'copy' of a train made of steel. But nobody understands 'diluted steel' or 'steel-like ether'. Therefore the 'copy' should not be the aforesaid phantom-like things, but should be steel itself, shouldn't it? A forest in the mist is dim and blurred, and looks like a shadow. But the forest cannot be other than trees. And the material of one of these trees cannot be other than wood. So something recollected can, however dim and blurred it looks, not change its material.
By the same reasoning, when I recall persons in the train that I have just been in, the recalled persons cannot be other than human beings, even if they were 'copies'. They are warm, three-dimensional, breathing, human beings. They are made of soft sinews and muscles, protein and fat. Then the material of the 'copies' that I recollect is steel and human bodies. After all, the 'copy' is literally a duplicate of a train or a human body, not a model or an imitation made of materials different from the original. Then the 'copy' is not like a usual 'copy', but perfectly like the original. We can say that, not 'an original and a copy exist', but 'two originals exist'. This may not a contradiction, but if we are faithful to our experience of recollection, we would not say that we are recollecting the 'second original'. What we are recollecting is the original real thing itself. Even if we force ourselves to regard it as a 'copy', if we want to make it more and more faithful 'copy', we will find that it comes closer and closer to the original. I have so far discussed 'copies' from the view point of tempo and material. In the following, I will examine the address of the 'copy'.
I recollect a town that I visited on a trip. Suppose that the town I am now recollecting is not the town itself but a 'copy' of it. Then where does it exist? We may be led to think that it is in my mind or in my head. But this 'copy' must also duplicate the address of the town, its position on this earth, including the distance between me and the town. This is because the town I am recollecting is not floating here and there like a picture post card. It is a copy of a town which has such and such an address. I recollect it as a town situated some hundred kilometers west of here. I am not recollecting it as a city mark on a map or on a terrestrial globe in my mind or head, but as a town which occupies some area, some hundred square kilometers. Nor am I recollecting it as a road-map of the town. It is a copy of the town at which I shall arrive by taking a train for some hours. After all, it cannot be situated other than the position where the town is, at the same position of the town at some latitude and at some longitude. It should occupy the same area as the town and should be three-dimensionally congruent. It should be, in fact, the original town itself.
As such, things recollected are in view point of tempo, of time lapse needed, of material and of address, not 'copies' but the past itself. But here we must be careful of an essential and very common point. Even if I say that we are recollecting the past itself, it doesn't mean that a past event that was once perceived is now being reproduced with a certain reduction of vividness. Recollecting being hurt doesn't hurt me. Recollecting a sound doesn't mean that I hear the sound even faintly. The recollection of a hot summer doesn't help in any way to warm my cold body in winter. Just as Augustinus said, we are not in joy or in sorrow when we are recollecting a joyful or sorrowful event.
In fact, this is the reason why we are led to regard recollection as a 'copy'. Being hurt minus the pain, being hot minus the heat equals the trash of pain, the mummy of heat. So they are not pain and heat themselves but are their shadows or their 'copies'. In this way we are led to the thought of a 'copy'. But if the pain were taken out of 'being hurt', and the heat were taken out of 'being hot', what would remain? Nothing. 'Being hot' without heat or 'being hurt' without pain don't exist. So their 'copies' don't exist either.
Then what are we recollecting when we are recollecting heat or pain? Of course we are recollecting the heat or the pain themselves. Then when recollecting, why aren't we hot or hurt? Because they are being 'recollected', not being 'perceived'. 'Recollection' is not a re-experience or a re-production of perception. It is not a blurred, shadow-like re-experience nor an under-pressured, antidoted, unharmed reproduction of perception. It is not, of course, to see, to hear or to feel. It is not even 'imitatedly' to see, to hear or to feel. It is the appearing of heat or pain in totally different mode. It is the appearing of heat or pain in the mode of 'recollection'. I used here the crude word 'mode', but it is an experience utterly commonplace. It is nothing but a mode of the 'past', 'I was hurt' or 'It was hot'. In the mode of the 'past', the pain itself of some minutes ago or the heat of last summer now appears. A fire of far away is not hot at all, but the fire is hot. The pain of another person cannot be felt by me as pain, but it is undoubtedly pain itself. Like these, heat or pain in recollection is, even if I am not hurt or hot at all, heat or pain themselves.
In the above, I ennumerated, so to speak, some circumstantial evidence of the idea that recollection is a 'copy'. Next, I'll try to prove internally the hollowness of the 'copy' idea. That is, to prove it by using the structure the 'copy' idea internally conceives.
When we use the word 'copy', we inevitably imply with it the meaning 'copy of something'. If the 'copy' is a photo, it is a photo of someone or something. If it is a conception or symbol, it should be a conception of something or a symbol of something. And if a copy works, then it means that we know of what it is a copy. This is clear when 'recollection' a kind of copy is concerned. There is no recollection such that we don't know of what it is. We may recollect a street of what town we may not know. But it is surely a recollection of 'some street'. Because a recollection must be the recollection of something past.
Here the understood something can no longer be a 'copy'. Because this something is the very something whose memory image is the 'copy' we are recollecting. It must be the 'real' something corresponding to the 'copy'. Then, when we are recollecting a memorized image of something, its 'real something' must also be recollected. If not, we are at a loss of what memory image it is, and so the recollected memory image is the memory image of nothing. But if, as stated above, whenever a memory image is recollected, 'the real something' is at the same time recollected, then what is the use of the memory image? What will be the role of the understudy of a hero who comes up with the hero to the scene of a play? Nothing. Before that, are we recollecting, when we recollect something, two things? A 'copy' and, at the same time, the 'real thing'? We are not. Then what we recollect is the 'real thing' not a 'copy'. After all, the idea itself of a 'copy' in recollection makes the function of 'copy' hollow. (The same can be said about the following conceptions: a representation, a symbol, an image.)
But when we recollect the past, the same past appears different at each different time. And the same scene of the past appears differently to different persons. Isn't this because a different copy, not the real past itself, appears at each time? But do we think that we are looking at a 'copy' of a building because this same building looks different at each different time? No. It is quite natural that the same building looks different according to the direction of our view point or to our mental situation. So it is also very natural that we recollect a thing differently depending on the time and the person who recollects it. This variety of disguise, to have innumerable faces and at the same time to be the same, is the fundamental character of things and events. (Fussel called this character 'oriented unity'.) The fact that recollection has many faces doesn't in any way prove that it is a 'copy'.

3
In spite of the above discussion, we are persistently led to think that recollection is a copy. Isn't it because of our narrow-mindedness or prejudice? Prejudice, that I name as 'present-ism belief', to think that 'to exist' is 'to exist now'? And the core or the fundamental of this present-ism belief is the perception: 'I see now' and 'I feel now'. By this present-ism belief we are apt to think that what we have already perceived, (that is, what we cannot perceive now), is something dead, something that has ceased to exist. We are apt to think that the end of perception is the end of existence. This present-ism surely has strong motivation. It is only the present perception and present sentiment that concern our life directly. Because only the present pain makes us hurt. Only the present pleasantness makes us happy. This is the reason why we cannot invent phantom pain or phantom pleasantness. On the other hand, the past pain or the past pleasantness doesn't concern our life. So we can forget it, with a greater or lesser degree of an aftertaste, as a thing past or as an event dead.
But we don't forget, no, we cannot forget, the past. Because if we forget the past, we cannot exist now. Even amnesia contains a memory of a long hollow past. What he suffers of is not the lost past but the blurred or transparent past. We owe our present life, perhaps too commonplace to say, to the past. And this past state 'exists' in the mode 'in recollection' or in the mode 'in the past tense'. The present pain, the pain I am now feeling, exists in the mode of 'perception', whereas the past pain, the pain that I have experienced and that I am not feeling now, exists in the mode 'in recollection'. You may say, "It is only an extention of the definition of 'exist'". No. This mode of existence of the past doesn't need the help of 'copy'. We needed a 'copy' to make it exist at the present. In my definition of existence of the past, the past doesn't need a 'copy', it 'exists'. To access the past, we needed one more step: 'its projection to the present'. Only after this step, could we admit the existence of the past itself.
But this mode of existence of the past cannot be independent of our way of living. Just as pain and colours can exist only by being perceived, the past can exist only by being 'recollected'. The far extended universe, which our perception can never reach, or the far distant past, which our recollection can never reach, can only exist by being connected with our narrow and short thread of perception and recollection. We are apt to think that what we perceive and recollect is only a small corner of this world that extends far and wide in time and space. But just the reverse of this is the fact. From the horn of a snail that perceives and recollects an 'existence' thread of cobweb extends to the end of time and place. Only by this extention of the thread, does the world exist. The world is an inference of the experience of each one of us.
So theoretically we can never be deceived by perception or recollection. Because deception can happen only by checking it against existence, and existence founds its legitimacy only on perception and recollection. An old rope was seen in the dusk as a snake. Here the snake is not a deception. To have been seen as an old rope is a fact, and to have been seen as a snake is also a fact. We are not deceived by either fact. The thing having been seen is something that is usually seen as an old rope and sometimes as a snake. It is something like Necker's 'inverse picture', 'deceptive picture', or 'double meaning picture'. Neither of two pictures seen in a single illusion picture used by psychologists is a deception. One of the two pictures seen by an illusion picture is called an 'illusory picture'. Is this a deception? No. Ordinary people can easily find this 'illusory picture' in an illusion picture. It is a normal and usual fact. So this picture is called an 'illusion picture'. Otherwise we cannot call it as such. Then why do we call seeing a rope as a snake 'mis-seeing'? It is not because the perception was deceived. It is because this perception got astray amid other perceptions seeing it as a rope. It is, as it were, a stray thread amid a cloth which many other perceptions weave. But it is the same kind of thread as other so called 'normal' perceptions, not a 'deceived' perception. A mis-seen something is not 'non-existent', but a thread that is classified as 'astray' amid other 'normal' thread that weave a cloth.
The same is said about the recollection. 'Mis-recollection' is not a deceived recollection nor deceived past. 'True past' is not other than gathering of various recollections and a story woven by them. No such 'true past' exists independently from recollections and their inference. Recollection is to look back of what we once perceived in the mode of past tense. It is to turn back what we once perceived in the mode of recollection. Then isn't it absurd to check it with the past perception and to say whether it is true or not? Because to have perceived something is one thing, and to recollect it is another thing. This is clear when we think about recollecting a dream. What does 'mis-remembering a dream' mean? It may happen that by recollecting a dream several times, we revise a recollection once made by another recollection. But we cannot revise it with 'the original dream now being dreamt'. Because 'the original dream now being dreamt' cannot exist. What exists is only 'a recollected dream', a dream looked back at in the mode of recollection. With the old rope and a snake, we checked it only by comparing each perception. In this recollection case also, it is only by comparing with other recollections that we can check a recollection.
And this is not just because dreams never leave concrete traces. It can also be applied to things that do. Because traces are traces only when we remember of what they are traces. I recollect the white wall of a building. I go to the building and find that its wall is not white but cream coloured. Then I am convinced that I 'mis-recollected' the colour of the wall. But this doesn't mean that the wall I recollected is a 'non-existent' or false wall. The thing usually seen as an old rope is sometimes seen as a snake. A tower whose top is rectangular is seen from some far distance as having a round-top. A wall with a minute pattern of black and white is seen in some distance as a grey wall. And a wall which is usually recollected as cream-coloured is sometimes recollected as white. It is a wall regarded as such. It is true that a wall perceived now as cream-coloured is in overwhelmingly many cases recollected as cream-coloured. And science testifies with overwhelming evidence that a colour, such as the colour of a wall, very rarely changes itself. (Here almost all of the evidence of science are recollection.) But these facts never exclude the fact that the colour of the wall is the kind that is sometimes seen by someone as white. Just as in case of perception where there are two kinds, in recollection also, there are two kinds: a large army corps of 'so-called' true recollections that march in ranks and some stray soldiers of 'so-called' false recollections. And these 'stray recollections' are called 'mis-recollections'. So it is not the classification of truth and false, but the classification of normal and abnormal. When this abnormality goes too far, it becomes a chimera. And it leads to the classification of physiology and pathology, sane and insane.
(This can of course be applied to this essay. I assert here that the thought of 'copy' is a mistake and an illusion. But the thought of 'copy' marches in ranks and it is the thought usually believed as 'normal'. What I am trying to do in this essay is to show you in detail this apparent 'normal' thought and to convince you to look at it in a different way from the orthodox view. And once it looks to you differently, I expect you to look at the thought of 'copy' as 'abnormal'. Just as an old rope having once been looked as an old rope, an aforeseen 'snake' looks afterwards to be an abnormal perception.)
The past exists in the mode of recollection. It exists in normal and in abnormal recollections. We usually think that the past stands apart from these recollections and that the past itself judges recollections as true or false. This is, I repeat, a mis-conceived belief. The past only exists in such recollections and in their inference. The past that can be said to stand apart from recollections may be classified as a kind of forgotten dream, or as a kind of so-called 'forgotten ache after the operation'. That is, the ache we say that we must have felt while under anesthesia, but that we had forgotten.
Burtrand Russell's paradox surfaces when we think that the past exists apart from recollections. His paradox is that the world didn't exist before five minutes ago. ('Five minutes' is not important. It can be 'some years ago' or any time lag.) The world was born five minutes ago, with the fossils, with the strata, with the ruins, with the ancient manuscripts, with the same oldness of now they exist, with people, with the age they have now, with the memory they had five minutes ago. Nobody can, Russell says, refute or assert this supposition. The core of the grotesqueness of this paradox is that our recollections and their inference about this world before five minutes ago can be all false. Regarding the past 'the world before five minutes ago was void' as true, the paradox judges our recollections by it and decides that all our recollections are false or that they can be false.
But no. As I repeated, the past only exists in recollections and in their inference. Russell's paradox supposes that the world before five minutes ago cannot be recollected by anybody. (Translator's note: This is because the world before five minutes ago is void whereas our memory contains other substantial things.) Therefore Russell's 'world's voidness before five minutes ago' cannot have any possible meaning. On the other hand, we recollect things and matters of ten years ago or twenty years ago. And then referring these things and matters recollected, we infer things and matter of some billion years ago. And at the moment we infer them, things and matters of some billion years ago 'exist'. This is the meaning of 'something exists'. So Russell's supposition cannot be accepted or refuted. It just has no meaning. At first sight it appeared to make some sense. Why? Because we thought the past could exist separately from recollections. The other of the twins of this paradox is Descartes' doubt for the method: this world is a false world deceived by Demon. This also has only meaning at first glance. 'False' has a meaning only when it is placed against 'non-false'. 'Fake money' can have a meaning only when 'real money' exists. To say that all this world is a false is just the same as to say that money published by The Bank of Japan is fake. It is simply nonsense. The reason of its having some sense at first sight is, just like in case of Russell's, that the classification of 'true and false' in this world could, we thought, be valid even outside of this world.
But if the past only exists in recollections (and their inference), then does the past go extinct when all the animals who can recollect are exterminated? We have no way to answer this question. The human being, although he may have the ability to recollect, doesn't have the vocabulary to describe such a past. The person who says that the past continues to exist even in some future time recollects using the word 'past'. This means that he supposes that he exists in that future time. This contradicts the supposion. (Translator's note: Here I don't understand the original text. This translation is the translator's version.) Our supposition is that even the word 'past' doesn't exist. Then about what past can we talk? None. Because it is like talking about 'death' using the words of 'life'.

Translator's Afterword

Takenori Noumi
Revised by Ben Peacock

'I am the first man in Japan who talked philosophy in the Japanese language.' This is the line Prof. Ohmori told me over some drinks thirty-seven years ago.
I told him this several years ago. 'Oh, what a bluff! How terrible!' was his reaction. But it must not be only me who will find his linguistic intention with his philosophical expression.
Western philosophy, finding new ways of expression, must inevitably take new points of view. Will the new cells planted within the organic body of the Japanese language grow into new flesh and blood for the mother body, or into a cancer? It can only be answered by history.
Can such a new point of view raised in new soil be replanted in the old soil of European language? I wanted to try this. This too can only be answered by history.
I thank Mr. Yoshimichi Nakajima who took the trouble to publish this English version.
(Until now, 17th April 2000, the publishing is not yet realized. T. Noumi)

1997 3 21 Noumi
1998 1 14 Ben