Read “Loki’s Game” at WritersCafe.org.
It is finished! The final chapter in The Mentor, the Hero, and the Trickster is written, reviewed, and posted on WritersCafe. It is time for Samuel and Hope’s confrontation with the Deceiver. What is he planning, and what chance do our heroes have if they play his game?
Having just written the end of a story, I thought I might take some time to talk about the art of writing endings. What makes an ending satisfying? What is the difference between something like Persona 5, which ended in a train wreck; Kingdom Hearts 3, whose ending was so-so; and Avengers: Endgame, which was amazing?
Endings are hard. It is not enough to just wrap up the plot threads and stop writing. An ending needs to make good on all of the emotional promises made throughout the book. It has to take all of the themes, all of the interesting things that makes the story unique, and fill them out to their full potential. To write a good ending, a writer must remain in tune with the feeling of the story.
When outlining “Loki’s Game,” I made a list at the top of the page of all of the things that had been introduced during the previous parts and needed to make an appearance. Then I looked at the list, and figured out where in the story each entry needed to be. Some, I knew, had to happen at the climax. Some had to happen at important moments. Some had to be used as foreshadowing. And a few just needed to be put in wherever they fit best.
How did I know which was which? First, I knew that I had to include everything that made my story unique. This meant, of course, everything that makes the Unconscious Realms different from Reality and from magical worlds in other stories. This meant there had to be archetypes, symbolism, and magic, the characters had to travel to new realms, they had to use their waking eyes and return beacons, and all of that good stuff. For the climax, everything that gave the plot tension had to come to a height. This meant everything related to Samuel’s hand infection and its consequences, the themes present through the rest of the story, and of course, a chess match with the Deceiver with a big final confrontation.
The Well of Images is not over. Hope and Samuel will return to the Unconscious Realms in book 2: Mind and Mirrors.
The Mentor, the Hero, and the Trickster:
1. Pandora’s Gate
2. Where Secrets Lie
3. Limits of the World
4. The Fool’s Gift
5. Loki’s Game
You can also find links to other stuff I’ve written here.
If you like my stories and/or blog posts, or if you’re not impressed but you believe in the spirit of amateurs doing what they love, I would love to have your support on Patreon. Even a gesture of as little as $1 / month would mean a lot to me.
Friday, June 21, 2019
Friday, June 14, 2019
Mind-Body Dualism
Consciousness:
The Hard Problem
Dualism
Physicalism
Idealism
Identifying Consciousness
When asking what consciousness is, the first thing we tend to jump to is dualism, the idea that a person’s consciousness is something separate from their body, a soul or a spirit. Sometimes the soul is thought of as an indivisible object, unique for each person, hosting their personality, rationality, perceptions, memories, will, continuing self, and moral worth. Sometimes a soul is thought to be made of a fluid-like substance, which I like to call “soul stuff.” Either way, the soul is thought to be something fundamentally different from the other materials in the universe.
Do souls or soul stuff exist? To explore this, we first have to ask why so many people believe they do. There are two main reasons. The first is because they have been told it is true, by their parents, or religious leaders, or community folk knowledge. The second is because they feel like they are distinct from their body, which can be strengthened if they have had an out-of-body experience. I have had such experiences myself, the most recent of which was only a few months ago. Just as I was waking up one morning, I lifted my hand to scratch my nose, but I didn’t see it. I waved my hand in front of my face, but all I saw was the ceiling above me.
I could have jumped to the conclusion that my soul was moving around outside of my body. But a subjective experience is only evidence that the experience can be had. It is not evidence of anything mystical or metaphysical. Even while I was in the midst of my out-of-body experience, I remembered that the motor cortex in the brain is disconnected from the nervous system during dreams, and what I felt could be explained by the visual part of my brain waking up before my motor cortex, giving me the illusion that I was moving my arm when I was really not.
Of course, my answer is just a hypothesis based on stuff I’ve heard here and there, which is not sufficient evidence to rule out the possibility that I really was waving a spirit arm. So what would be sufficient evidence, either way? Some people believe the existence of a soul is a matter of faith, and it is not testable by scientific means. But does this claim make any sense? It is said that the soul is what makes decisions, controlling the body through the will. If this is the case, then it must exchange energy and momentum with the brain. Even if we grant the possibility that the soul itself is not detectable by any instrument we build, we would still be able to pick up on the bits of energy and momentum spontaneously appearing and disappearing as it exerts its control. Mind-body dualism can, in fact, be tested with the scientific method.
This brings us to a problem I have with the terminology. “Physicalism,” which we will discuss another time, implies consciousness is physical. “Dualism” implies consciousness is separate from physical reality. But if souls or soul stuff exist, and we detect them indirectly as I just mentioned, then scientists will expand the definition of “physical” to include it. The distinction between them is whether consciousness can be explained by what we already know about the universe or something else we haven’t detected yet, not whether it is physical.
There is one way that a soul might affect the brain without messing with its energy or momentum, and that is if we bring in quantum physics. I’ll put the usual disclaimer here: there are a lot of myths about quantum physics and consciousness, and all of them are false. Quantum physics is the study of things the size of atoms and smaller, nothing more. Nevertheless, I am going to talk about a possible way quantum physics and consciousness might be related.
At the size scale where quantum physics is relevant, particles behave probabilistically. Every possible interaction between particles comes with a specific probability, and conserves energy and momentum. We have no evidence to believe the workings of the brain involve quantum physics, but if they do, the soul may be able to exert willpower on the brain by changing the probabilities. Thus, it could control the body without having to worry about physical conservation laws.
This too, however, would be detectable. It would take more advanced technology, but in theory it could be done. If the brain uses quantum physics, we can run simulations to calculate the probabilities of events happening within it. Then, we measure what actually happens. If there is a significant deviation from the probabilities calculated, it is evidence a soul is interfering with them.
If neither of these pan out, there is one final option, which is truly impossible to detect by scientific means. That is if the soul is epiphenomenal, not affecting the brain at all, but just holding a copy of the brain’s perception and memory information. Because an epiphenomenal soul cannot affect the brain, it cannot house one’s personality, rationality, or will. These must instead be completely in the domain of the brain. However, this creates a big problem: if the soul cannot affect the brain, our brains should have no knowledge of it at all, and we shouldn’t be able to have this conversation! The fact that we can think and talk about consciousness suggests that whatever consciousness is, it does indeed affect the brain.
I do not claim to answer whether souls do or do not exist, at least not based on what we have talked about today. Rather, I claim that if souls exist and interact with the brain, then that interaction must be detectable by the scientific method. So much mental effort is expended by philosophers and theologians to hide the soul behind the veil of unfalsifiability, while at the same time insisting it must exist. Let’s stop with this magical thinking and open our minds to the possibility of using experimentation to determine the truth, whichever way it turns out to be.
The Hard Problem
Dualism
Physicalism
Idealism
Identifying Consciousness
When asking what consciousness is, the first thing we tend to jump to is dualism, the idea that a person’s consciousness is something separate from their body, a soul or a spirit. Sometimes the soul is thought of as an indivisible object, unique for each person, hosting their personality, rationality, perceptions, memories, will, continuing self, and moral worth. Sometimes a soul is thought to be made of a fluid-like substance, which I like to call “soul stuff.” Either way, the soul is thought to be something fundamentally different from the other materials in the universe.
Do souls or soul stuff exist? To explore this, we first have to ask why so many people believe they do. There are two main reasons. The first is because they have been told it is true, by their parents, or religious leaders, or community folk knowledge. The second is because they feel like they are distinct from their body, which can be strengthened if they have had an out-of-body experience. I have had such experiences myself, the most recent of which was only a few months ago. Just as I was waking up one morning, I lifted my hand to scratch my nose, but I didn’t see it. I waved my hand in front of my face, but all I saw was the ceiling above me.
I could have jumped to the conclusion that my soul was moving around outside of my body. But a subjective experience is only evidence that the experience can be had. It is not evidence of anything mystical or metaphysical. Even while I was in the midst of my out-of-body experience, I remembered that the motor cortex in the brain is disconnected from the nervous system during dreams, and what I felt could be explained by the visual part of my brain waking up before my motor cortex, giving me the illusion that I was moving my arm when I was really not.
Of course, my answer is just a hypothesis based on stuff I’ve heard here and there, which is not sufficient evidence to rule out the possibility that I really was waving a spirit arm. So what would be sufficient evidence, either way? Some people believe the existence of a soul is a matter of faith, and it is not testable by scientific means. But does this claim make any sense? It is said that the soul is what makes decisions, controlling the body through the will. If this is the case, then it must exchange energy and momentum with the brain. Even if we grant the possibility that the soul itself is not detectable by any instrument we build, we would still be able to pick up on the bits of energy and momentum spontaneously appearing and disappearing as it exerts its control. Mind-body dualism can, in fact, be tested with the scientific method.
This brings us to a problem I have with the terminology. “Physicalism,” which we will discuss another time, implies consciousness is physical. “Dualism” implies consciousness is separate from physical reality. But if souls or soul stuff exist, and we detect them indirectly as I just mentioned, then scientists will expand the definition of “physical” to include it. The distinction between them is whether consciousness can be explained by what we already know about the universe or something else we haven’t detected yet, not whether it is physical.
There is one way that a soul might affect the brain without messing with its energy or momentum, and that is if we bring in quantum physics. I’ll put the usual disclaimer here: there are a lot of myths about quantum physics and consciousness, and all of them are false. Quantum physics is the study of things the size of atoms and smaller, nothing more. Nevertheless, I am going to talk about a possible way quantum physics and consciousness might be related.
At the size scale where quantum physics is relevant, particles behave probabilistically. Every possible interaction between particles comes with a specific probability, and conserves energy and momentum. We have no evidence to believe the workings of the brain involve quantum physics, but if they do, the soul may be able to exert willpower on the brain by changing the probabilities. Thus, it could control the body without having to worry about physical conservation laws.
This too, however, would be detectable. It would take more advanced technology, but in theory it could be done. If the brain uses quantum physics, we can run simulations to calculate the probabilities of events happening within it. Then, we measure what actually happens. If there is a significant deviation from the probabilities calculated, it is evidence a soul is interfering with them.
If neither of these pan out, there is one final option, which is truly impossible to detect by scientific means. That is if the soul is epiphenomenal, not affecting the brain at all, but just holding a copy of the brain’s perception and memory information. Because an epiphenomenal soul cannot affect the brain, it cannot house one’s personality, rationality, or will. These must instead be completely in the domain of the brain. However, this creates a big problem: if the soul cannot affect the brain, our brains should have no knowledge of it at all, and we shouldn’t be able to have this conversation! The fact that we can think and talk about consciousness suggests that whatever consciousness is, it does indeed affect the brain.
I do not claim to answer whether souls do or do not exist, at least not based on what we have talked about today. Rather, I claim that if souls exist and interact with the brain, then that interaction must be detectable by the scientific method. So much mental effort is expended by philosophers and theologians to hide the soul behind the veil of unfalsifiability, while at the same time insisting it must exist. Let’s stop with this magical thinking and open our minds to the possibility of using experimentation to determine the truth, whichever way it turns out to be.
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