Sartre's Question (Act Three)

When Sartre speaks of the question, he is referring to more than just an interrogatory statement with a piece of punctuation fixed to its tail.  He is speaking of an attitude of uncertainty towards being.  Although this attitude may only occasionally be expressed through a literal, explicitly outright question, it is nearly always with us, close at hand.  It is a fundamental part of our relationship with being.  It is the glance elsewhere.  It is the grounds for proposing otherwise.  It is the nexus, the crossroads of our creativity, our imagination, and yes...our freedom.

If it were not for the question, our consciousness would coincide perfectly with our experience of being.  It would become absorbed completely by being.  I would only ever find the thirteen dollars in my wallet.  I would only ever encounter being at my door.  Without the question, nothingness would never enter the picture.  In fact, there would be no sense in which we could discuss what was and what was not in "the picture."  There would only be the picture, and us smiling serenely at it, our satisfaction completely exhausted in it.  Without being able to question the picture, we would have no means of proposing other possibilities.

In such a case, determinist causality would simply work its way through our actions like a run of dominoes.  There would be a knock at the door, and we would inevitably answer it without even so much as speculating about who might be on the other side.  Action and reaction, we would fall as just another link in the chain.  We would respond to being without any means of considering that response.  So, we begin to see that the question is more than just another domino in the run.  It disrupts the dominoes.  It says, "Hey, wait a minute.  What if...?"  It holds up the show.  When the knock comes and we say, "I wonder who that is.", we immediately put possibility and choice into play.  "I hope it's not Tom.  I don't really want to see Tom.  Maybe I shouldn't open the door.  Maybe it's Jill.  Maybe I should open it!"  Now we begin to see that the act isn't merely contingent on the knock, as simple action/reaction.  It becomes contingent instead on the question, the possibilities raised by it.  We search ourselves for the grounds on which to choose our answer, and we act on the basis of that choice.  We decide it's Jill.  We open the door.  We decide it's Tom.  We hide in the basement.

Suppose being doesn't leave us in suspense.  Suppose we peek out the window and see that it is Tom standing on our doorstep.  The questions still present themselves, "Do I really like Tom?  Do I want to deal with him right now?"  Suspense may arise on other levels.  "I wonder what he wants?"  Again, our actions become contingent on what questions we pose and how we answer them for ourselves.  And yet, there seems to be no contingency for the question itself.  Under determinism, the knock should simply provoke a response.  You'll answer it, or hide.  Raising doubts and dilemma places the subject in an ambivalent position, requiring choice.  Causality is a very strict, definite thing.  Cause leads inevitably to effect.  There's no room for ambivalence and uncertainty.  It cannot, as Sartre says, "contain the tiniest germ of nothingness."  The question, on the other hand, requires a break with being, a nihilating withdraw, a distance from being in order to gain perspective on it and consider it's possibilities.  This break cannot be provoked by being, because, by its very nature, it is a transcendence of being, and therefore also a transcendence of causality.

In the determinist view of the world, we see everyone going through the motions like so many figurines in a vast, complex toy that is wound with a single key.  Bills come in the mail, and people pay them or fail to pay them.  The ice cream truck rolls through the neighborhood and the kids catch it some days, and some days they don't.  You can stand back from it all and see that this gear turned this cog, and it's all an incredible display of interlocking order.  The question is completely superfluous to this process.  What purpose does the question serve when the outcome is certain and inevitable?  How would this endless trip of dominoes ever give rise to uncertainty?  It seems that the question can find no gainful employment in the lock-step world of causality.  In fact, it seems that consciousness itself is superfluous to the determinist model.  What does these figurines need with consciousness when all their actions are set in motion by the winding of the key?

But it's not that consciousness arises from the question, but rather the question arises from the nature of consciousness.  The withdraw from being puts us in this position of uncertainty.  It provides the breathing room necessary for the question to be asked.  Consciousness is not the apple, but rather an awareness of the apple.  Therefore it can take an attitude of uncertainty towards the apple.  It can transcend the apple and consider its possibilities.  Consciousness steps back and considers these possibilities from the far hill, and once again it's able to transcend them to further possibilities.  There is nothing between consciousness and the apple, and yet it is precisely this nothingness which provides consciousness with a certain amount of leg room in its relationship with being, what Sartre calls the "decompression" of being. Consciousness slips back, gains firm ground, and poses the question to being, and from the question determines its own destiny.

To be clear, I am not, nor do I believe is Sartre, suggesting that causality has no bearing what-so-ever on human actions.  Free will is a transcendence of causality, not an exemption from it.  We are driven by causality, rather than determined by it, just as hunger might drive a person to seek food, or even in extreme cases, has driven people to resort to cannibalism.  Circumstances pushed people to these desperate extremes where these possibilities presented themselves, but these possibilities arose out of their capacity to question.  "Can we live with this?  Is there some other way that we might get food?  Can we hold out until a rescue party arrives?"  The circumstances provided the occasion for these questions, but ultimately the choices were made on the basis of the questions themselves.  The knock at the door drives us with the necessity to make the choice, but the choice is ours to make.

In this disparity between being driven and being determined, lies a world of difference.  In the next, final, two posts in this series we will consider the concepts by which Sartre explores this difference and the rather curious chasm between consciousness and being.

A Brief Interlude Where I Literally Leave You Hanging

Imagine that there's a very large rock poised precariously on the edge of a precipice.  Tremors from an earthquake shake the ground beneath it just enough to dislodge it and send it falling to the ground far below where it shatters into several pieces.  This is causality in nearly its most elementary form; basic physical interaction, the shaking ground disturbs the rock and causes it to fall.  But let's suppose for a moment that this rock was equipped with retractable claws or hooks which could be deployed to anchor it and keep it from falling.  We see a possibility of saving the rock, but of course the rock doesn't see this.  It's just a piece of inert matter, incapable at any rate of deploying the claws itself.  So, unless a second chain of causality reaches the rock by another path, and some other physical force interacts with the rock, say a smaller rock falling against a button on the rock that deploys the claws, then the earthquake will dislodge the rock just as it did before, and it will again fall and shatter.

Clearly this is a rock in need of a fighting chance.  The claws alone aren't going to do it much good without the means to deploy them.  So let's equip our trusty rock with a certain basic level of consciousness, say an animal consciousness, one that relies on instinct rather than intelligence.  We'll assume for the moment, hypothetically, that it's incapable of transcending these instincts.  Now the rock possesses its own internal means of deploying the claws, but it can only do so on the basis of its instincts, and unfortunately it's instincts only drive it to use the claws as a defense mechanism in the presence of dangerous predators.  So, unless there's a predator in the area when the earthquake strikes, the tragedy will unfold just as did before.  We've graduated to a more complex level of causality, but it is still causality nevertheless.

I'd say we've increased the rock's odds of survival to some degree.  Rather than relying on a small object to hit a certain exact spot on the rock, now all we need is a wild animal in the vicinity.  Still, it seems that the rock's survival is out of its hands, and beyond its control.  It needs a little something more to give it an edge.  So, instead of just consciousness, we're going to give it human intelligence as well.  Now the rock has the means to appreciate the predicament it's in.  When the earthquake hits, it should be able to take matters into its own hands...or claws...or hooks...or whatever.

When the quake hits this time, the rock is now capable of understanding the alternatives it faces: to hold on or to fall, to live or to die.  The question provides it with the means of understanding this, by enabling it to split the outcome into different possibilities which it can choose between.  So it deploys its claws and chooses life.  Seems like a fairly easy choice; one might even be tempted to call it an inevitable one, having every appearance of causality behind it.  The rock desires to live, therefore it chooses to hold on.  Simple as that.  But as the quake goes on, and the rock grows tired and weary, another desire comes into play: the desire to let go.  It grows in intensity with every passing second.  The choice the rock faces is a perpetual one, and the alternative begins to look more and more appealing.  It goes from alluring to downright seductive; a moment of sweet relief, then pain, and then the ordeal will be over.  Meanwhile, the desire to live is still there as well, burning like a desperate, ragged thirst.  But then there's the rock itself, not the physical thing perched on the edge of the precipice, but the consciousness which we endowed the rock with.  It views these conflicting desires as though from an eye of calmness in a chaotic storm.  It is not the the desire to live.  It is not the desire to let go.  It is...something else, something which is aware of these desires, something which can consider them as objects, something which can question them and consider their possibilities.  In short, it is something with a will of its own to choose between them.  So the rock chooses to live, and it throws the full weight of its will behind this desire, fanning it like a flame, and that will extends from the core of its consciousness all the way out to the tip of its claws which it digs in tighter with an even deeper resolve.  

But wait.  Surely, you say, there must be some causality behind this will, something which determines it to throw itself towards the desire to live with such abandon.  Ah, but you're forgetting that the choice is a perpetual one, and the struggle goes on.  Now, only a fraction of a moment later, the rock isn't the thing which threw itself behind the desire to live.  It is an awareness of this thing, and as such it can consider it, question its motives.  The rock is in control now, and it may even flirt with the desire to let go, loosening its grip ever so slightly, enticed by that thought of sweet relief.  Fortunately, the rock isn't the thing flirting with the desire to let go.  It's an awareness of that flirtation, and it can second guess it, and question the reasons behind its moment of weakness.  It renews its resolve and its fast grip.  But the rock isn't the thing that renewed it's resolve either.  The struggle goes on, and consciousness continually slips away, perpetually faced with the choice.  Second by second it has to choose to live all over again, and it constantly has to re-evaluate the reasons for making the choice.  The thing controlling the claws can not be locked down securely with causality.  It keeps falling back behind cause, splitting it into possibilities with the incredible fission of the question.  This may not lead to an atomic detonation, but it results in something every bit as cataclysmic.  It opens a tiny point of nihilation, releasing the "worm coiled in the heart of being", and providing the opportunity for Free Will.                      

Sartre's Question (Act Two)

At this point you may be wondering, "If it all comes down to our ability to question, then why this circuitous route through consciousness and nothingness?  Why even bother with Sartre to begin with?"  A fair question.  Well, as I said in the previous post, determinism builds its case entirely on the basis of causality.  So, any argument that wishes to challenge determinism must begin by establishing some human capacity to transcend causality.  Since free will is such a powerful intuition to us, we're almost tempted to argue this transcendence of the basis of free will itself.  It's tempting to push through out of frustration and declare, "But our actions obviously proceed from choices!"  However, since determinism refuses to grant credibility to this intuition and regards it as a delusion, then we're faced with a bootstrap problem where we're arguing free will on the basis of free will.  So, it becomes necessary to find some other foundation for this transcendence.  Sartre turned to the nature of consciousness itself, and began building from there.

Trying to argue a transcendence of causality is no easy task.  Causality is one of the most fundamental principles of science.  The idea of something being beyond or exempt from causality strikes some as a sort of voodoo or mysticism.  It strikes some as an appeal to the superstitious.  This is why the determinist tends to feel that they have science and logic on their side.  They reason that since causality has provided us with a better, more rational, explanation of the workings of nature, then it seems to follow that it would also provide us with a clearer understanding of how human beings work as well.  Their mistake, I believe, is in their assumption that causality is an unlimited commodity, a remedy for whatever ails you, applicable to any situation.

Consider a volcano.  Ages ago, when a volcano erupted, people took it as the explosive wrath of the gods.  Then science revealed to us the truth about tectonic plates, the molten rock in the Earth's core, and so on, and the superstitious explanation gave way to the causal explanation.  It was not the manifestation of a living being's wrath, but rather the blind forces of matter interacting with one another like the cogs and gears of a machine.  Or consider disease.  People once took it as punishment from a vengeful deity, displeased with their sinful existence.  Then science eventually discovered that it was caused by the spread of bacteria, and again the causal explanation dethroned the superstitious one.  Or finally consider the sun itself.  Long, long, ago people believed it was being driven across the sky by a divine charioteer.  Our ideas about the sun have undergone many transformations since then, but these days causality has expunged nearly every trace of the divine from our magnanimous fire in the sky.  It burns at the expense of its own nuclear power, rather than at the whim of any god.

My more quick witted readers may begin to see a common theme emerging here.  In all of these cases, prior to the causal explanation being given, these things were all ascribed to the will of a conscious being.  In other words, as explanations go, causality is an alternative to consciousness.  It stems the anthropomorphic tide.  It keeps us from projecting our own nature onto inanimate matter.  It grants us a means of understanding the mechanisms of non-conscious things.  This is how causality has gained its reputation as the exorcist of superstition.  The determinist has grossly confused the matter.  Rather than understanding that the superstition lies in ascribing a free will to things which don't possess it, the determinist has concluded that free will itself is a superstition.  The determinist says, in effect, "Well, we've outgrown the notion that earthquakes are controlled by something with a mind of it own, now we should outgrow the notion that a human body is controlled by something with a mind of its own."  You know...for science.

A compelling argument, I know.  Thank you.  But yet it's still not quite enough to completely establish free will, although I feel it does get determinism on the ropes at least.  Arguing for free will takes more than just undermining determinism.  It has to be established in own right.  And it's going to take more than just declaring that our ability to question transcends causality.  In fact, I suspect that some people may be largely unimpressed by that proposition.  If I had led with that, or I simply left this proposition from the last post to stand without further explanation, I would hardly consider it a compelling argument against determinism in its own right.  It requires further qualification.  It requires further explanation.  It needs to be tied in with Sartre's concepts of consciousness and nothingness, so that a complete picture might emerge.  This will be the goal of my next post.

(...to be continued.)                   

Sartre's Question (Act One)

When we first began this little existential adventure, I briefly mentioned the basic rudiments of the theory of determinism.  I said at the time that the theory seemed to be missing something, but that it was hard to put my finger on exactly what that was.  Well, I think that perhaps the time has come to go back and take a closer look at determinism, and see if we can't pinpoint the problem, and having perhaps pinpointed the problem, see how this all relates to Sartre's concepts which we have established thus far.

Determinism proceeds on the basis of causality.  Any human act, the theory argues, can be traced back to a cause, to which the action is the effect.  The theory draws on any number of sources for these causes, genetics, environment, condition & response, biology, and so on.  The particular recipe of these combinations of causes may vary, but it is the principle of causality which ties it all together.  Place any action under consideration, and a cause can be found for it, having every appearance of inevitability, and seeming to leave little room for the concept of choice.  If we shop at a certain store, it's because the store is the closest, or has the cheapest prices.  If we refuse to ride on an airplane, this can be traced back to factors of conditioning, childhood trauma, possibly even genetic makeup.  If we like a certain food, prefer a certain movie, listen to a certain type of music, the determinist is right there, ready to dissect the entire thing back to its causal antecedents.  Behind the "illusion" of choice there lies at every turn a cause which led us step by step along the path with no possibility of deviation.

We can certainly admire the thoroughness of determinism.  It leaves no stone unturned, and it's always there to trump free will with a causal explanation.  In fact, it's so comprehensive, that it seems almost like stubbornness and wishful thinking to try to resist it.  It provides a complete map of human behavior with everything accounted for.  Or so it seems.  There's still that nagging sense that something is missing.  Pressed for an answer we might say that this automaton proposed by determinism just seems so...mindless.  But what do we mean by that?  Certainly determinism provides for the fact that we have thoughts and passions and dreams.  It admits to the appearance of making choices; it just insists that there are strings underlying these choices, determining the outcome in advance.  It admits to our thoughts and passions; it just insists that these were preprogrammed in advance by factors behind our control.

So, where is this mindlessness?  Determinism leaves us with a thinking, feeling human being.  It's just that it leaves us with no control over what we think, feel, and do.  This is the part that seems wrong.  This is the part where something seems to be missing.  The determinist tries to assure us that we're merely holding on to our preconceived delusions of free will, but no...there's something really off here.  We look at this determinist automaton and we sense some fundamental lack of something we find in ourselves.  What is it?  The determinist insists that we stop questioning it, and learn to accept it.  And that's when it hits us.  That's what the automaton is missing: the ability to question; the ability, as it's being swept through these various illustrations on a river of a causality, to stop and turn and look up at us from the page and quietly ask, "why?"  It's missing that little vital spark.  That's what we mean when we say that it's mindless.

Let's take another look at our determined human being, and just consider one of the examples of determined behavior: which store we shop at.  If we look very closely, we begin to see that determinism has worked a certain sleight of hand here.  It has robbed its automaton of the ability to ask the questions, "Which store should I shop at?  Why?  Do I want to save money or stay close to home?  What matters most to me in my life?"  It has posed these questions implicitly, provided the answers in advance, given the appeal of these answers the weight of causality, and sent its automaton off to the store without further objection.  It does this time and again.  Everything it credits to cause implies a question asked, an answer provided, and an action taken on the basis of it, all without giving the automaton a say in the matter.  The alcoholic isn't allowed to ask, "Why must I have this drink?"  The business man is rendered incapable of standing back in wonder and asking, "What is the true value of money?"  Determinism prods us continually with the stick of causality and denies us the ability to turn around, to consider it, to question it, and in this questioning, to decide how to react and deal with it.

Determinism doesn't, of course, deny that we ask questions.  It just tries to sweep them under the rug of causality, along with everything else.  But if you press the matter, you find that it's not quite so simple.  You can pull the puppet's strings and walk him down to the store and back, but it's hard to imagine what string you would pull that would lead the puppet to question the sense and meaning of it all.  What string do you pull to make the puppet ask, "Why must I be driven by these strings?"  Once you give the automaton the ability to question, you've opened a real can of worms.  An automaton that asks why at every opportunity is really no kind of automaton at all.

You can try, as determinism does, to claim that these "why's" originate from a sub-routine in the automaton's programming, but these "why's" eventually transcend the program.  They have the ability to stand back from the program as a whole, and consider it as a subject does an object.  They slip away from any attempt by the program to contain them.  The automaton breaks loose and runs free.  The causalities of being try to hold it, but the question allows the automaton to distance itself from being, to place it under consideration, to break the link by link chain of causality.  Suddenly, this is all starting to sound quite familiar, isn't it?

(...to be continued.)                     

Behind the School Bus Mechanic

The other morning I was running some errands on my way home from work, and I was stopped at a red light behind a beat-up old work truck that bore a bumper sticker which read, "School Bus Mechanic."  It was a small and simple sign, black block letters against a yellow background, affixed to the upper left hand corner of the tailgate.  As I sat behind this truck waiting for the light to turn green and entertaining myself with my own wandering thoughts, I found myself strangely captivated by this sign.  I couldn't really figure out what purpose it served.  It wasn't just a sign designating the occupant's official capacity or the purpose of the truck.  A quick glance at the side door showed plainly that this was the truck of a private contractor with a business of his* own.  Besides, if this were the official "School Bus Mechanic" truck, then I imagine this information would be displayed more prominently than a small sticker on the back tailgate.  Clearly, this truck belonged to someone who was a mechanic first, and worked on school buses on the side...almost as an afterthought.

My first thought was that the bumper stick was there as a sort of calling card, under the assumption that if "School Bus Mechanic" looks good on a resume' then it would look even better on the back of your truck.  It's the sort of thing that could drum up business.  If the schools trusted the mechanic with the care and maintenance of the vehicles which safely conveyed all the children in the area, then he must be a pretty damn honest and dependable mechanic.  But then again, it seems like taking care of all those school buses would be a fairly full time job.  Plus, we're talking government contract here, he's already got to be making some good money.  Seems almost like the kind of nickel and dime business that the bumper sticker would bring in would hardly be worth his time.  Those buses have to out on the road at 8am!  He doesn't have time to poke around with your Chevy Tahoe.  I guess it all depends.  Is this guy A School Bus Mechanic or The School Bus Mechanic?

This line of speculation raised other issues as well.  If he stuck the bumper sticker on there to proudly display his acquisition of the local school bus maintenance contract, then where did he get such a sticker?  I'm sure you can't just walk in Bob's Bumper Stickers and get a "School Bus Mechanic" sticker, and if you could, that would defeat the whole purpose.  Any jackass with an old truck could pose as a school bus mechanic, although I'm not entirely sure why they'd want to...but who am I to judge?  No, the school must give them out.  But if they were for the purpose I was proposing, wouldn't they have a little more pizzazz to them?  Like maybe a greasy monkey in coveralls, winking and giving a giant thumbs up, and saying "Proud to be School Bus Mechanic", or something like that.  Maybe that would be a little much, but the sign seemed too utilitarian for that.

Well, maybe there was a utilitarian reason for it.  Maybe, as part of his contract, he had to display the sticker.  Maybe it was there so that the teachers and the school administration wouldn't freak out when they saw a rickety old truck parked on the school grounds.  The sticker was meant to be cause for a sigh of relief.  Oh, that weird guy poking around the buses is the mechanic!  Ah!  He's not here to cut the brake lines or install hidden cameras.  He's the official School Bus Mechanic for this district!  Wave kids.  That really made the most sense, although I have to hope there's more to their security than a bumper sticker.

Eventually, of course, the light turned green and the truck moved on, taking another one of life's little mysteries along with it.  Maybe the sticker was just there due to that old bureaucratic tendency to stick labels on everything they see for no purpose whatsoever.  Who knows?  Not me.   Of course, that leaves you with a mystery of your own: What was the point of this post?  Uhhh, I'm not sure what to tell you on that.