Quantum Drummer

Gustav Theodor Fechner was a 19^th Century German Medical Doctor, Philosopher and Physics Professor who was the creator of Psychophysics, or the relationship between psyche and matter. Most of his life, Fechner spent being a professor of physics at the University of Leipzig, in Germany.

The main element of Fechner’s philosophy is categorized as nonreductive materialism, providing his description of “life and consciousness as having an independent, original nature that cannot be further reduced to physical phenomena, or reduced to the “mechanics of atoms” presenting the nonreductive element, while he also believed that any change in the physical world as wholly explicable by the laws of nature, and any mental change having a corresponding change in the physical world, connecting mind and matter. These are the most important elements of Fechner’s philosophy, connecting the mind and matter realms, and getting “these two seemingly contrary tendencies of non-reducibility and materialism to harmonize.” (Heidelberger, 2004, p. 73).

This connection of the mind and matter realms in Fechner’s reflections of nature gives us an indication that he was approaching the analysis of these elements using a mindset similar to complementarity, showing the harmonization of “two seemingly contrary tendencies,” also, in his development of Psychophysics, Fechner distinguishes psychical and physical phenomena, and the difference between phenomena that are perceived only by one particular individual, and phenomena that are perceived by the individual and others as well. He provides the distinction of phenomena that are perceived by one individual as Psychical phenomena, and if they are perceived by others as being Physical phenomena. Another important element raised by Fechner is the issue with language and its limitations when describing the different phenomena, an issue that remains being of concern even today. Heidelberger (2004) presents Fechner’s analysis on the topic as follows:

“Ultimately, we can view the whole aforementioned thesis [that physical phenomena are extraneous phenomena and psychical phenomena are self-phenomena] as a generalized expression of our experience; but from a certain viewpoint, it can be seen as a mere clarification of how we customarily use speech.

Of the former we say: it is a common fact of experience that when we think of something as bodily, material, corporeal, or physical, we find ourselves either wholly, or in terms of a particular organ, capable of perception, really or imaginably, from an external standpoint; but when we think of it as mental, or psychical, we find ourselves at a standpoint of inner self-phenomena.

In the latter we say: we call something bodily, material, corporeal, physical, or mental, or psychical, depending on whether it appears to someone else or to oneself, but we call it that in such a way, that even these last expressions ‘appear to oneself’ and ‘appear to others’ according to linguistic custom refer to experience, whereby, naturally, a certain fixation of usage that allows for various idiomatic expressions is necessary for scientific stringency.” (pp. 77-78).

Fechner is categorizing the psychical as phenomena that is “inside a person, and the physical having an outer standpoint…the form of bodily-material expressions.” (Heidelberger, 2004, p. 79).

Fechner’s Body-Soul Relation

To arrive to Fechner’s description on the relation between body and soul, is important to understand first that for Fechner, the concept of soul does not have mystical or metaphysical implications, but for him soul is equivalent to mind. His definitions are: “Mind, or soul, means something that is comprehensible only in its appearance for itself, a unified being characterized only by self-phenomena and the rules of self-appearance; corpus, or body, is merely a system of external appearance, grasped via the senses, and characterized by relations and rules of external phenomena. Nature is the whole system of physical things, of which our bodies are only a small part.” (Heidelberger, 2004, p. 94).

The description provided by Fechner for the body ~ soul relation indicates that these two elements are identical, being “two different ways of saying that two phenomena are identical to each other, which is the concept that he identifies as an “identity view” claiming that body and soul refer to the same context of “one and the same identical thing,” and arriving to the following important conclusion:

“The whole world involves such examples; they prove that what appears to be a single thing seems – when viewed from two different standpoints – to be two separate things, and one does not make the same observations from one standpoint as one does from another. Applied to the body and soul, means that the phenomenon “body” and the phenomenon “soul” are to such extent “one single thing” – their appearances being so tightly interwoven – that we cannot really say they are two separate things, it only makes sense to say they are one thing, as it were: a ‘body-soul thing.’” (Heidelberger, 2004, p. 95).

This rationale is at the center of Fechner’s Psychophysics, connecting the mind and body elements into one single item. Without using the specific wording, we can see that Fechner is applying the concept of Complementarity in this situation, and the closeness to imply Complementarity, shows up even more in Heidelberger’s (2004) comment as follows:

“It is not simply one system comprised of two parts. We say a ‘machine’ is one single thing, although all of its parts are themselves things. But the relation that Fechner sees between body and soul is much closer. It is the relationship between the ways of appearing (classes of characteristics) that make up a single thing. We never simultaneously see both sides of a coin on the table (without using auxiliary equipment), no matter how hard we try. We have only one view from one limited class of possible views (i.e. one view from the class of views of the heads side, or one view from the class of views of the tails side). The views of one side of the coin are views from one way of appearing (or from one context). If we turn the coin over, another way of appearing (or, another context) is given, namely the class of views of the coin’s other side. Although we have never seen both sides at once (except indirectly in a mirror), we still say is one single coin. We do not claim to see at two different things, even though every aspect we observe about the coin can always only belong to one of two possible classes of perspective (or, ways of appearing).” (pp. 95-96).

The way that Fechner presents a view of body and soul as being “two different manners in which one and the same being appears, one way perceived from the inside, the other from the outside” (p. 97) is what he calls the identity view. This definition of Fechner’s “identity view” is a concept that closely resembles the principle of Complementarity which will appear later in the works of William James, raising the possibility of the exchange the ideas between Fechner and James. While there is no clear evidence of direct influence, it is a fact that James met Fechner when he travelled to Germany, and they maintained a long term friendship, including at least one visit by Fechner to James at his home in New Hampshire. In their exchange of ideas it is quite possible that Fechner discussed his “identity view” concept with James, as this was central to his psychophysics theory, and James himself indicates that he read Fechner’s book Zend-Avesta at least twice, later in his life. This might be another example of the power of the dialogues between different fields of knowledge, which was much less of a problem in the 19^th Century, particularly because Fechner and James where both involved in several fields of science and philosophy themselves. The central definition of Fechner’s Psychophysics, which very probably was shared with James, is described by Heidelberg (2004) as follows:

“The most general law is this: Nothing can exist, develop or move, within the mind, without there being something in the body that exists, develops or moves, whose effects and consequences reach into the present and future physical world. In short: All that is mental is borne by or expressed in something physical and by this means has physical effects and consequences.

Proportionate to the degree of similarity among mental circumstances, the same degree of similarity will be evident for the corresponding material phenomena. In other words: For whatever is the same or different in the mental realm, there is always something equally similar or different in the physical realm.” (p. 98).

It is quite interesting how Fechner works his concept of Psychophysics under a nonreductive, but integrative paradigm, which drives him to describe the otherwise thought pair of opposites mind ~ body as one same element observed from two different perspectives. This non-reductive (and non-dualistic) approach was not widely present in the traditional science of the time, or even for traditional science of most of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, which makes Fechner’s vision and philosophy quite remarkable and ahead of his time.

In James’s writings about Fechner and his works, we can observe James’s admiration, allowing us to imagine the influence that Fechner had on James. James writes that in reference to Bain, a definition of genius includes “the power of seeing analogies.” Analogies are to thinking what metaphor is to poetry – its inner life – but one must respect differences as much as samenesses. “Through his writing, Fechner makes difference and analogy walk abreast.” Says James,“ and by his extraordinary power of noticing both, he converts what would ordinarily pass for objections to his conclusions into factors of their support.” (Richardson, 2006, p. 502).

This description of Fechner’s way of thinking in noticing the power of differences ~ analogies, shows that Fechner’s mind worked under a complementary structured paradigm, which is a completely different approach than most scientists in the 19^th Century, and even later. Fechner’s indicated ability to use “objections to his conclusions into factors of their support” is quite uncommon in science, but it shows the power of integrating opposite views, as a complementary paradigm would do, providing a method of thinking that most probably had a positive impact on William James’s philosophy.