Autonomy and Language
I guess there is something in autonomy which cannot be expressible by language or rather something which cannot be caught in the web of language. I think autonomy, if we think in Ned Block’s categories of consciousness, has its roots on Phenomenal Consciousness, where the very subjective experience resides. Access Consciousness on the other hand is more linguistic since it is where the information flow occurs. Of course information is a broad subject and there may be information theoretical aspects of the Phenomenal Consciousness. Nevertheless, Access Consciousness is more linguistic and Phenomenal Consciousness is more meta-mathematical. By meta-mathematical, I mean its Penrosean template, its non-computable nature.
Non-computable (quantum-like?) attributes of autonomy can then hence be explainable in the context of Phenomenal Consciousness. It is this consciousness where the subjective experience occurs and subjective experience is some kind of a nest for autonomy. “Hey, brother, do you know what is autonomy? You say autonomy autonomy but I bet you can’t even define it!” someone can say, to whom I will not try to give a definition. I can relate it to other concepts such as Self Consciousness, Phenomenal Consciousness, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems but yeah, I cannot note down a definition. “To be able to move independently” can be one of these definitions by the way where the concept is connected to the ‘independence’ notion, hence forming a semi-circular structure. Although such a definition is not wrong, I think autonomy is a broader concept.
Information theoretical aspects of Phenomenal Consciousness. Phew, what a title. But it’s attractive. Really. There may be computable sides of Phenomenal Consciousness and this can be a research area of Neuroscience. Experience itself is not fully non-computable and therefore it can be the object of modern science. To a certain extent. Non-computability, being related to non-computable quantities is even more exciting thanks to God. This non-computability, this very root of the autonomy is really more exciting and is the sole reason why I am awake at this time of the night, looking at the screen of my laptop, trying to organize my thoughts. The only lacking thing in this party is Dream Theater’s riffs and drums. Anyway, it’s late at night. Let’s not exaggerate.
One can claim that I am writing on autonomy and it has been three paragraphs which implies that autonomy is of course can be caught in a web of language. I reject this claim by saying that there can exist linguistic aspects of autonomy but my argument is that it cannot be determined by language completely. And please let’s note down the content, not solely the form of the writing. My writing is linguistic, is about autonomy, but this does not mean that autonomy is completely determined by the language. I am writing on the inexpressibility of autonomy by language. Doing this in the boundaries of language does not mean that the concept at our hand is covered by language. The limits of my language do not mean the limit of my world. My world, your world, his world and their worlds are of freedom, are of autonomy, are of ideas coming into the mind without language. How can this has solely linguistic limits.
Think of a mathematician and think of his sudden strike of the seeing some part of the proof a theorem. This moment I guess is far from the limits of the language. It is sudden, it is fast, it is implicit, highly self-referential and highly phenomenal. I see language around this experience, not at the root of it or even at the form of it. And I see something very autonomous at this event. Very free, very moving, very sudden. Thinking also transcends language, as we can see from this example. “But hey,” one can say “there is also cumulative part of that experience. The core idea can be brought to consciousness by a shadow of language. Language hence is there, too.” To this objection, I say, the cumulative effort of the mathematician in this case can have linguistic aspects and can contain linguistic entities, but the very moment of the ‘seeing’ and the cumulative experience behind it transcends the language.
Reasoning is also not completely linguistic. The form of reasoning can be linguistic but the very act of it, the subjective experience of it and the self of it transcends the language. The mathematical ‘seeing’ experience which I have talked of is not a result of a chunk of a syntactic operations. These syntactic operations exist; I do not deny it. However, the moment and the experience along with it is beyond language. Experience is the key here. If there exists such an experience and such a flash, then this indicates something beyond syntactic operations. “Feeling you say. Feeling is the proof of this transcendental experience? You are joking.” No I am not joking. That feeling, that sudden seeing part must be a clue about the nature of the process. I think these moments are examples of Penrosean contact of the mind with non-computable numbers. “The experience is the evolution’s move of protecting the syntactic operations carried out during thinking. There is nothing magical about it.” Hmm, ok, let me think on this one.
Sudden seeing. My claim is based on this one. That sudden seeing moment cannot be just a by-product of syntactic operations. First, it is too fast. Second, it is too dense. Third, it is too pure. It is related to language but is not caused by language. It is autonomous. There is a gap between the syntactic structures and the event itself. Let’s look at the potential objections. First objection: language can be fast, too. OK. Language can be dense, too. OK. Language can be pure? No. Not that much.
If we talk here in terms of causality, language in this case can be the effect; not the cause.
While researching on the subject I have seen the distinction of moral autonomy and personal autonomy. On the other hand, I have also seen the multidimensional approaches such as the ones belonging to Forst. Deep waters, one can say when he sees the detailed explanation of each and the connections to political autonomy. Most of my assertions here were about personal autonomy rather than moral autonomy but I see these things as feeding each other. One who has moral autonomy has the most personal autonomy and one who owns personal autonomy has the opportunity to be morally autonomous.
Moral autonomy can be seen more linguistic since it is related to seeing the normative rules and patterns. But the very act of behaving morally and autonomously again is beyond language’s boundaries, in my humble opinion. Because moral maxims resemble the axioms of mathematics and Penrosean Godel arguments apply here, too. So moral autonomy is also out of the web of the language we may say. Language has its own value while connecting the nodes of the moral laws but ‘seeing’ the right thing to do is beyond the arithmetic of language. It is analogous to seeing the right move to prove the theorem or seeing directly the theorem itself.