Moby Dick and the Question of Mind

Another entry from my masters journal. This one is from February 12, 2014. I had been reading/listening to Moby Dick and felt that there were some themes therein connected to the ideas of mind, brain, and the homunculus.

I’ve been reading Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville this week. Aside from it being fully deserving of the moniker “Great American Novel”, there’s a surprising amount of content in the book related to my question this semester, that is, the question of I-ness and being and self. For example, in a great line of dialogue Melville writes for Ahab, we read the following:

“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. (132.17)

While seeming to be completely absorbed and in agreement with the passion that drives him towards the whale and his inevitable downfall, Ahab wonders aloud what it is that drives him so. He feels separated from that which pushes him forward, feels some horror in it, (“recklessly making me ready to do what … I durst not”), and yet he continues to move forward. He feels helpless. That is to say, there is an entity Ahab refers to as self that is helpless in the face of that which drives self forward. Who, then, is the driver in Ahab’s quest? Being a Quaker, Ahab thinks he has an answer, and he rounds out his soliloquy with the kind of Calvinist helplessness New England Christians were so known for. How can he push back against that which drives the sun, drives the stars, and drives himself? He is no more able to resist that force than a winch on his ship can resist the manipulations of the attendant sailors. To him, then, his “self” seems to be merely an observer of the machine-Ahab run by an outside manipulator. The same manipulator that moves the sun and heavens. God.

What Ahab is discussing here is the idea of the Homunculus, the little man. It is the outcome of being able to, as humans, ponder what it is that is pondering; question that which questions; observe that which observes. In short, the homunculus is a result of humans trying to come to terms with the very real-feeling notion that the “self”, is an “other” and that referring to “I” feels very often like referring to a “you”. In a way, Ahab’s confusion is well-founded. It is true that the sun is powered through its machinations by an entity, if systems can be called entities. Nature moves in ebbs and flows in ways that can be described as patterns. Humans also are beholden to certain examples of these patterns: birth and decay, wake and sleep, thirst, hunger, sweating. There are thousands of machinations within the human body that are infraconscious (infra being the prefix meaning under/below). That is, below the ken of awareness, below even the subconscious realm of psychology. These are the things that are automatic. The movement of an arm, the twitch of a muscle, the feeling of an itch, breathing. All of nature contains these kinds of automatic reactions and proactions. The difference is – in as much as we can tell – that with humans, we are able to ponder them while they happen.

In other words, while the rest of nature seems “automatic” and beholden to a system, humans can give labels to that automaticity, as I did with my knee-jerk “infraconscious” above. It may be that other animals – primates in particular – have this meta-ability, but nowhere is it as obvious as with humans. Being able to observe ourselves creates an illusion that we are something more than what we observe. And we are, technically. We are what we observe and the observer at the same time. Humans are a self-aware self-corrective system.

What is it then that drives us forward into places that “we durst not” go on our own? I’m going to venture a guess and say it’s us. Being aware of the conflict internal to our conscious decisions is not the same as being driven by an invisible power. Fate is a concept Ahab has used to reconcile the discrepancy he feels between what he dares to do and what he observes himself doing. In reality, Ahab’s perception of what he dares to do is wrong. It is clear by his actions that he dares to do all that he is doing, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing it. Fate, though, is a natural and proper explanation because of his discomfort with his own rage, his confusion over what it is that drives him beyond what he thinks he’s capable of, and his Quaker upbringing: God has a plan for him beyond his own understanding.

So, then, the homunculus has taken many shapes over the years. That of gods, that of devils. It has appeared in psychology as the ID and the behavioral trigger. It could be described as a vision or power animal, as destiny, as a past life, as a hundred other personifications or animus-based motivators. In whatever guise it appears, it emerges as an explanation or companion when humans consider themselves outside the nature in which they live. In other words, when we are not integrated with the universe.

In Ahab’s case, he saw Moby Dick as a vengeful monster powered by the same kind of master as himself. He calls the whale a mask of that entity against which he seeks his vengeance. The whale is none of those things. He is a defender of himself in the face of combat. He is a member of his species. He is a subject of mythological exposition, perhaps. He has a memory of how to handle whalers, probably. As a whale, however, he cannot be vindictive. That is something preserved for the realm of humanity. If Ahab had understood that, he might not have sought vengeance, destroyed himself and his crew, and left his wife and young children alone.

Integration with the universe for a human means understanding that our ability to ponder our abilities, the meta-thinking that gives us the Linnean title of Homo sapiens sapiens, is a trait provided by nature itself. Monkeys have long, prehensile tails. Cheetahs can run in short bursts at extreme speed. Whales can dive deep and hold their breath. Birds can fly. Trees grow leaves. All of these flora and fauna exhibit traits that define them, but also that define their place in nature.

The prehensile tails allow monkeys to thrive in the jungles in which they are found. Great speed allows the Cheetah to catch up to the far more agile Antelope. The most nutritious and abundant food for whales is at the limit of their depth, and evergreens capture sun though ever-present leaves in the coldest and darkest climes on earth. So, too, are humans given a trait that allows them to thrive in their environment. Perhaps rather than asking why we exist, we should ask ourselves “in what environment am I suited for survival?”

Carl Sagan said that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” In other words, our self-awareness allows the universe to observe itself. Every cybernetic system has to have some way of making corrections, of self-preservation. If it doesn’t, entropy ensues. It could perhaps be that humans are an attempt by nature to be that self-corrective action. To be at least the messaging facility by which it becomes aware of what it’s doing.

If this thought had occurred to Ahab, perhaps he would have recognized his agonizing struggle as not a struggle against God, but as a warning that he was taking action in a way that was abhorrent to nature. He could have recognized that it was unnatural to hunt and kill whales in the first place. Imagine if that had been the outcome of Ahab’s struggle: the realization that it was against the laws of nature for humans to kill whales. In the end, Ahab’s sacrifice was for nought. Moby Dick destroyed his ship and crew, and humans have tried to curtail the act of killing whales in general. In the end, after all, nature won. It always does, because it’s all that is.

If we are to become more understanding and avoid the doom of the Pequod, then we must as a species begin to pay attention to the discord between our perceived selves and the perceived homunculus. This is not a proper argument between two sentient entities, rather, it is a sign that perhaps we are not taking an action that is in the best interest of nature. Perhaps, then, our self-awareness is a limiter to humanity, that it is how we know to make a correction to nature in order to perpetuate its health. Perhaps we are a way for nature to know itself and one of the means by which it self-corrects. Certainly we know that nature has other methods of self-correction, but which of them are beneficial to humans? The warming/cooling cycle? The release of gas from the bowels of the planet? The movement of tectonic plates? The only corrective measure the earth has that allows our own existence is that measure we take ourselves.

As with Ahab, nature has no reason to keep us around if we don’t understand or follow its methods. Being self-aware is a burden, but perhaps one that is more important than just knowing ourselves. Perhaps being self-aware means knowing our place before our self. Self-awareness is our prehensile tail, our burst of speed, our deep-dive, and the shape of our leaves. Without it, we are slow, tailless monkeys who can’t swim and freeze rather quickly.