Homunculus

The problem with the homunculus solution was that the all-knowing little person would do the knowing for each of us but would then face the difficulty with which we began in the first place. Who would do its knowing? We,, another little person, of course, only smaller. In turn, the second little person would need a third little person inside to be its knower. The chain would be endless and this postponing of the difficulty, known as infinite regress, effectively disqualified the homunculus solution. This disqualification was a good thing, of course, inasmuch as as it emphasized the inadequacy of a traditional brain “center” account for something as complex as knowing. But it had a chilling effect on the development of alternate solutions. It created a fear of the homunculus, worse than the fear of flying, which eventually became the fear of specifying a knowing itself, cognitively and neuroanatomically. In short order, the act of knowing and self sent from being inside a little brain person to being nowhere.

The failure of the homunculus idea to provide a solution for how we know cast doubt on the very notion of self. This was unfortunate. One should, indeed, be skeptical of the homunculus-like knower, endowed with full knowledge and located in a single and circumscribed part of the brain. It makes no sense physiologically. All the available evidence suggests that nothing like it exists. The failure of the homunculus-style knower, however, does not suggest that the notion of self should or could be discarded along with that of the homunculus. Whether we like the notion or not, something like the sense of self does not exist in the normal human mind as we go about knowing things. Whether we like it or not, the human mind is constantly being split, like a house divided, between the part that stands for the known and the part that stands for the knower.

The story contained in the images of core consciousness is not told by some clever homunculus. Nor is the story really told by you as a self because the core ‘you’ is only born as the story is told, within the story itself. You exist as a mental being when primordial stories are being told, and only then; as long as primordial stories are being told, and only then. You are music while the music lasts. ~ Page 190/191

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Dinesh ^club

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus

5 years ago.

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