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World, Senses, Human Spirit: Extrapolating the Direction from the Past Through the Present and Into the Future

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World, Senses, Human Spirit: Extrapolating the Direction from the Past Through the Present and Into the Future International Tinnitus Journal, Vol.ll, No.2, 103-105 (2005) EDITORIAL World, Senses, Human Spirit: Extrapolating the Direction from the Past Through the Present and Into the Future or human life, time is a specific monodirectional The Roman philosopher Lucius Aenaeus Seneca F dimension forcing us into serial development (4 Be - AD 65) then defined the phrase nihil in intel­ and behavior. We are living in the now, but we [ectu, quod non erat ante in sensu (from Naturales know that we stem from yesterday and that we are fac­ Quaestiones; "nothing can enter into the intellect if it ing the future: our tomorrow. With respect to bodily ex­ does not first pass through the gates of the senses"). In istence, every human seemingly has only one life. The this, Seneca coined the essentials of humans' communi­ human life can be regarded as constructing a wheel : We cation with the world and fellow men within the world. can imagine that year by year we fit a new spoke into We can encode from our surrounding things, facts , pic­ that circular element, a wheel that we call life and that tures, smells, odors, and sounds only after they have rolls us in only one direction, the future. Through de­ been perceived by our senses. veloping the species for many generations of humans, This really was an important philosophical step in many of these virtual wheels have been linked serially, the description of how human spirit works. All our un­ one behind the other. On the basis of culture and civili­ derstanding within our "now" needs information that zation, many humans have formed swarms of such arrives through the senses. The encoding is performed wheels for sharing work and skills. Humankind is roll­ in chemical or physical dimensions and in pictures of ing forward, also with parallel constructs of wheels but the percept, which we have available from vision , hear­ always going in only one direction: the future. ing, equilibrium, taste, smell, and touch. Not only the lives of contemporaneous humans but In an incredible leap forward by mind and thought the lives of other animals, especially mammals, seem­ recording, some 10,000 years ago in lower Mesopotamia, ingly have a similar construct. More than 3,000 years humans began picture writing what they saw, heard, ago, the Greek philosophers defined the human as a lOon smelled, and touched, as well as what they thought, val­ politicon (i.e., a socialized animal) acquiring political ued, and understood. Their experiences now could be abilities. Humans living in epochs of millennia before saved and shared not only with other contemporary the appearance of Christ came to know that, distinct from humans but with future generations. This method of re­ other living beings-especially from the vertebrate ani­ cording served for planning, decision making, and de­ mals (and more especially from the mammals)-they velopment regarding the future. Even now, the self is not possessed something unique-a new, differentiated sys­ completely understood. Currently, the notion of "self" tem of symbolization and communication (i.e., tools, mostly has replaced earlier conceptions of the soul. artifacts, language, writing, and the like) . The famous European philosophers (e .g., Hume, Humans at that time already were known to be Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, Goethe), who represent the de­ equipped with spirit and soul, language, communica­ velopment of an empirical philosophy, basically followed tion, memory, planning, emotions, and will. They un­ the ideas of Seneca. However, after the Thirty Years' derstood that these capabilities were not found in ani­ War in Europe, sometime in the second half of the sev­ mals; yet the biological construct of humans, with bones, enteenth century, Gottfried von Leibniz added to the ob­ muscles, nerves, and inner organs, was very similar to servations of Seneca a second phrase, noted in the Latin that of mammals, as everyone knew. language: nisi erat in intellectu ante (" ... nothing may Many speculated about how the invisible spirit could enter your intellect .. if it is not there already")! This enter the human body and when it did so. The Holy Bible meant that a human can experience, think about, and used the picture of a bird, a dove-the Holy Spirit­ understand facts only spiritually; these facts enter penetrating into a newborn child and installing the so­ through the senses into the brain. This is added by called spirit, thereby allowing humans to know about Leibniz: if not there from conception, then the source God, the soul, human values, responsibility, and the like. of understanding already is innate within the brain. 103 International Tinnitus Journal, Vol.lI, No.2, 2005 Claussen The English philosopher John Locke (b. 1632, d. landmark work in the history of psychology. The work 1704 at Oates, Essex, UK) was an initiator of the en­ is devoted to three connected considerations: how we lightenment in England and France and an inspiration see or visually estimate the distance of objects from for the United States Constitution. His "An Essay Con­ ourselves, the situation or place at which these objects cerning Human Understanding" is an account of human are located, and the magnitude of such objects. knowledge, including the "new science" of his day, Berkeley's most famous work, "Principles of which finally led to the modern sciences. His essay, Human Knowledge" (1710), argued against the princi­ printed in four books, delineates how the realization of ple of Locke' s abstract general ideas. He thought that knowledge fundamentally is different from the phe­ some abstract ideas are impossible objects: They are nomenon of belief. However, Locke agreed that knowl­ not needed for either language learning or language edge typically is accompanied by belief. Knowledge is use. His theories implied that ordinary physical objects direct awareness of certain facts . Locke saw perception exist only if they are perceived. Berkeley coined the of some agreement or disagreement among things to be phrase, Esse est percipi! by which he implied that it is basic. Belief for him, however, consisted of taking essential that all sensible objects are capable of being some proposition to be true, whether or not one is di­ perceived. To his understanding, every physical object rectly aware of the corresponding facts. is just a collection of sensible qualities being perceived Locke regarded ideas as mental objects. He believed by humans. However, there is evidence that every sen­ that humans can regulate and govern our beliefs, form­ sible quality also is an idea. Therefore, physical objects ing capacities with a mental goal of getting things right. are just collections of sensible ideas; no idea can exist He also thought that the human mind at birth is a tabula unperceived. Berkeley argued further that no one can rasa (blank tablet). In book four of his essay, he conceive a sensible object that exists unperceived. He launched his famous attack on innate ideas and innate concluded from this that no such object can exist "with­ knowledge: To wit, the mind uses its innate capacities out the mind." to work on material presented to it by sensation and re­ When going back to only the important empirical flection . By the latter, he meant self-awareness. philosophers of the modern age, we cannot neglect ref­ The aforementioned famous German philosopher, erence to the Scottish philosopher, historian, econo­ mathematician, and political adviser Gottfried Wilhelm mist, and essayist David Hume (b. 1711, d. 1776 at Ed­ Leibniz (b . 1646 at Leipzig, Germany; d. 1716 at Han­ inburgh, Scotland). He is known especially for his over, Germany) formulated in his ontology: "Consider­ philosophical empiricism and skepticism. His most oft­ ing matters accurately, it must be said that there is noth­ cited works include "A Treatise of Human Nature" ing in things except simple substances and, in them, (three volumes, 1739-1740). In this treatise, he ex­ nothing but perception and appetite. Moreover, matter plained that philosophy "cannot go beyond experience; and motion are not so much substances or things, as and any hypothesis that pretends to discover the ulti­ they are the phenomena of percipient beings, the reality mate, original qualities of human nature ought at first to of which is located in the harmony of each percipient be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical." Hume's with itself (with respect to different times) and with treatise is very skeptical and tended to give us a notion other percipients." of the imperfections and narrow limits of human under­ Leibniz concluded that the basic individuals of an standing. He began his treatise by arguing that natural acceptable ontology are all "monads" (i.e., immaterial philosophers and scientists should explain how sensa­ entities) who lack spatial parts and whose basic proper­ tion works. He focused on those entities that are the im­ ties are a function of their perceptions and appetites. He mediate and only objects present to the mind. These he held that each monad perceives all other monads with called perceptions and identified them as two kinds: varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who per­ impressions and ideas. Hume initially suggested that ceives all monads with utter clarity. impressions are more forceful than ideas but that some The Anglo-Irish Anglican bishop, philosopher, and ideas (those of memory) do sometimes take on enough scientist George Berkeley (b. 1685 at Disert Castle in force and vivacity to be called impressions. These ideas County Kilkenny , Ireland; d. 1753 at Oxford, England) finally , then, cannot be distinguished from impressions. is best known for his empiricist philosophy, which The greatest German poet, novelist, playwright, holds that everything save the spiritual exists only inso­ and natural philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe far as it is perceived by the human senses.
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