Mind Games

31 Days to Rediscover Your Brain

Martin Cohen

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781444341485
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This original and innovative book is an exploration of one of the key mysteries of the mind, the question of consciousness. Conducted through a one month course of both practical and entertaining 'thought experiments', these stimulating mind-games are used as a vehicle for investigating the complexities of the way the mind works.

• By turns, fun, eye-opening and intriguing approach to thinking about thinking, which contains inventive and engaging 'thought experiments' for the general reader
• Includes specially drawn illustrations by the French avant-garde artist, Judit
• Reunites the social science disciplines of psychology, sociology and political theory with the traditional concerns of philosophy

Week 1

Influencing the Reptile Mind

Day 1

Words

Task

Spend all day trying to think for yourself

But already, we’re off to a bad start! These words you are now reading, whose are they?

Whose is that voice in your head? Yours or mine?

When you hear someone speak, the words remain theirs – to be ignored or disagreed with as you choose. But somehow to read someone’s thoughts is to allow them, however temporarily, to take over the language centres of your brain. For as long as you are caught up in what they say, the writer becomes your inner voice.

Does that mean that, for a moment, the writer becomes the reader?

Or does it mean instead that, for a moment, the reader becomes the writer?^*

Note

* All the tasks are discussed, explained and – just occasionally! – ‘solved’ in the Debriefing section which makes up the second half of the book. In this case, see p. 71 for a fairly brief contextual note.

Day 2

Identifying the Reptile

Task

Identify, and talk to, the reptile in your head

According to one French psychologist, G. Clotaire Rapaille, most of our decisions are not determined rationally at all, perhaps using philosophy or even economics, but are taken surreptitiously in the twilight zone of the brain. These are decisions taken by what he calls ‘the reptile mind’, operating in the background, without us even being aware of it.

Dr Rapaille slithered to this understanding while working as a child psychologist, dedicated to helping children who had trouble communicating and expressing themselves. He found that most of their problems could be better understood if it was assumed that our human minds develop in three stages.

The Theory

The earliest stage, the ‘reptile’ one, is simply concerned with survival. This is the stage in which we have to learn to breathe, to move around a bit, to eat. After a while, all this becomes unconscious.

The stage after this, which Dr Rapaille calls the limbic stage, is when children develop emotions and conscious preferences. It is when bonding takes place, for example between the child and its mother, and they develop affection for certain things – for home, for warmth and for apple pudding, say.

The third and final stage, the one so beloved of philosophers, seems to occur after the age of seven, and sees the development of the outer brain, or the cortex – the part that gets studied and measured extensively by neurologists and other important-sounding scientists. This is the part – the only part – that deals with words, with numbers, with concepts. But we learn many words before this stage.

Dr Rapaille observed, in some children, that certain words produced certain problems, and these problems were, he realised, not attributable to the rational mind normally in charge of handling words, but went back much further, to when the word was first learnt. The children’s difficulties were evidence, he decided, that each and every word we learn has a special significance. The word ‘mummy’, for instance, often claimed as the first one that baby ‘learns’, applies to just one person, who has a certain appearance and does certain motherly things. It is not just Mummy’s voice, or Mummy’s face, or even Mummy’s smell that baby remembers. The word itself is ‘imprinted’ in baby’s mind along with all the associations the word may have acquired: warmth, safety, love.

And the same is true for other less obvious words, such as coffee, car, or even cigarettes. ‘When you learn a word, whatever it is, coffee, love, or mother, there is always a first time’, Rapaille once explained, in a newspaper interview, adding: ‘There’s a first time to learn everything. The first time you understand, you imprint the meaning of this word; you create a mental connection that you’re going to keep using the rest of your life.’

Rapaille calls this a code, an unconscious code in the brain. Each word was introduced to us at some point, and when it was ‘imprinted’ on our minds, it was with various associations. Finding these associations reveals each word’s internalised, secret meaning.

The Practice

So now, let’s test the theory: what are the codes, say, for coffee, for cars or even for cigarettes?

Jot down your associations before you turn the page to see how they compare to the reptilian Doctor’s …

(Remember that these are not adjectives describing the thing but other things you link with it)

Coffee reminds me of:

1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The car reminds me of:

1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cigarettes remind me of:

1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When you’ve done that, pause a moment to admire your responses, and then turn to the debriefing section to see the answers.

Day 3

The Fallacy of the Lonely Fact

Task

Try testing someone’s sense of randomness. Offer them a little bet

You will toss a coin, say 20 times, and if in that run it comes up tails four times in a row, you win. If not they do. Of course, as such a thing is very unlikely, the wager will be in your favour: If you win, they must give you, say, a five zloty note – whereas if you fail to produce the run of four, you will pay them just one zloty. Such an arrangement only reflects the unlikeliness of getting a run of four tails in only 20 throws.

Suspicious types may accept the challenge – but only if it is swapped around to being a run of four heads! Of course, we can accept their bad faith. Because there are no tricks here.

Young people may prefer the wager in more saucy versions like ‘I’ll take off my shirt but you must take off ALL your clothes!’ or drunk Russian philosophers may want to play variations involving holding partially loaded revolvers to each other’s head. Equally, if you don’t find anyone prepared to gamble with you, you can bet against yourself. It’s safer that way. (But still not enough, I think, if playing Russian Roulette.)

Day 4

The Immortals

Task

Write (or at least start) a book

Science fiction writers have long battled with philosophers over ways of extracting people’s thoughts from their heads while alive and preserving them either in other people or merely in machines. And now neuro-psychologists have moved in on the scene to do...