Page 30 - Foundations of Cognitive Psychology : Core Readings

Where Am I? 27

before one’s eyes. It does seem extravagant to suppose that in performing this
bit of mental gymnastics, they are transporting themselves back and forth.
Still their example gave me hope. If I was in fact in the vat in spite of my
intuitions, I might be able to train myself to adopt that point of view even as a
matter of habit. I should dwell on images of myself comfortably floating in my
vat, beaming volitions to that familiar body out there. I reflected that the ease or
difficulty of this task was presumably independent of the truth about the loca-
tion of one’s brain. Had I been practicing before the operation, I might now be
finding it second nature. You might now yourself try such a tromp l’oeil.Imag-
ine you have written an inflammatory letter which has been published in the
Times, the result of which is that the Government has chosen to impound your
brain for a probationary period of three years in its Dangerous Brain Clinic in
Bethesda, Maryland. Your body of course is allowed freedom to earn a salary
and thus to continue its function of laying up income to be taxed. At this mo-
ment, however, your body is seated in an auditorium listening to a peculiar
account by Daniel Dennett of his own similar experience. Try it. Think yourself
to Bethesda, and then hark back longingly to your body, far away, and yet
seeming so near. It is only with long-distance restraint (yours? the Govern-
ment’s?) that you can control your impulse to get those hands clapping in
polite applause before navigating the old body to the rest room and a well-
deserved glass of evening sherry in the lounge. The task of imagination is cer-
tainly difficult, but if you achieve your goal the results might be consoling.
Anyway, there I was in Houston, lost in thought as one might say, but not for
long. My speculations were soon interrupted by the Houston doctors, who
wished to test out my new prosthetic nervous system before sending me off on
my hazardous mission. As I mentioned before, I was a bit dizzy at first, and
not surprisingly, although I soon habituated myself to my new circumstances
(which were, after all, well nigh indistinguishable from my old circumstances).
My accommodation was not perfect, however, and to this day I continue to be
plagued by minor coordination difficulties. The speed of light is fast, but finite,
and as my brain and body move farther and farther apart, the delicate interac-
tion of my feedback systems is thrown into disarray by the time lags. Just as
one is rendered close to speechless by a delayed or echoic hearing of one’s
speaking voice so, for instance, I am virtually unable to track a moving object
with my eyes whenever my brain and my body are more than a few miles
apart. In most matters my impairment is scarcely detectable, though I can no
longer hit a slow curve ball with the authority of yore. There are some com-
pensations of course. Though liquor tastes as good as ever, and warms my
gullet while corroding my liver, I can drink it in any quantity I please, without
becoming the slightest bit inebriated, a curiosity some of my close friends may
have noticed (though I occasionally have feigned inebriation, so as not to draw
attention to my unusual circumstances). For similar reasons, I take aspirin
orally for a sprained wrist, but if the pain persists I ask Houston to administer
codeine to me in vitro. In times of illness the phone bill can be staggering.
But to return to my adventure. At length, both the doctors and I were sat-
isfied that I was ready to undertake my subterranean mission. And so I left my
brain in Houston and headed by helicopter for Tulsa. Well, in any case, that’s