High-Level Comparisons between BrainsNow our question must be investigated in the case of brains. In this case, we
are asking, "Are people's brains also capable of being 'read', on a high
level? Is there some objective description of the content of a brain?" In the
Ant Fugue, the Anteater claimed to be able to tell what Aunt Hillary was
thinking about, by looking at the scurryings of her component ants. Could
some superbeing-a Neuroneater, perhaps-conceivably look down on our
neurons, chunk what it sees, and come up with an analysis of our thoughts?
Certainly the answer must be yes, since we are all quite able to describe,
in chunked (i.e., non-neural) terms, the activity of our minds at any given
time. This means that we have a mechanism which allows us to chunk our
own brain state to some rough degree, and to give a functional description
of it. To be more precise, we do not chunk all of the brain state-we only
chunk those portions of it which are active. However, if someone asks us
about a subject which is coded in a currently inactive area of our brain, we
can almost instantly gain access to the appropriate dormant area and come
up with a chunked description of it-that is, some belief on that subject.
Note that we come back with absolutely zero information on the neural
level of that part of the brain: our description is so chunked that we don't
even have any idea what part of our brain it is a description of. This can be
contrasted with the programmer whose chunked description comes from
conscious analysis of every part of the memory dump.
Now if a person can provide a chunked description of any part of his
own brain, why shouldn't an outsider too, given some nondestructive
means of access to the same brain, not only be able to chunk limited
portions of the brain, but actually to give a complete chunked description
of it-in other words, a complete documentation of the beliefs of the
person whose brain is accessible? It is obvious that such a description would
have an astronomical size, but that is not of concern here. We are interested
in the question of whether, in principle, there exists a well-defined, high-
level description of a brain, or whether, conversely, the neuron-level
description-or something equally physiological and intuitively
unenlightening-is the best description that in principle exists. Surely, to
answer this question would be of the highest importance if we seek to know
whether we can ever understand ourselves.
Potential Beliefs, Potential SymbolsIt is my contention that a chunked description is possible, but when we get
it, all will not suddenly be clear and light. The problem is that in order to
pull a chunked description out of the brain state, we need a language to
describe our findings. Now the most appropriate way to describe a brain, it
would seem, would be to enumerate the kinds of thoughts it could enter-
tain, and the kinds of thoughts it could not entertain-or, perhaps, to
enumerate its beliefs and the things which it does not believe. If that is the
(^382) Minds and Thoughts