Boris Sidis

“ In opposition to the metaphysical view that there exists one consciousness and a separate content, James in his article "Does Consciousness exist?" flatly denies the existence of such a consciousness. He lays stress on the fact that such a consciousness is of a purely hypothetical and speculative character. Psychologically speaking all there exists is thought, experience, while an abstract undifferentiated consciousness may as well be omitted from the scheme of things. All we deal with is mental facts. ”

“ Energy in psychology cannot be used if the same sense as the physicist uses the term in the case of kinetic or potential energy. One cannot take the mass of the idea and multiply it on the square of its length. Such a procedure is meaningless, it is therefore idle to talk of consciousness as potential energy. Energy is used in mental life as a figure of speech, as an illustration or substitute taken from physical life, but energy and consciousness can not be identified. ”

“ We do not understand the streams any better by assuming differences which really amount to the differences of matter and mind, or of matter and consciousness.
James on the one hand is too metaphysical and on the other hand he wishes to eliminate the inactive, impassive consciousness of the idealists and of the Neo-Kantians. He is metaphysical in assuming a pure experience which is both material and mental and which in its purity is neither mental nor material. His true psychological sense tells him that an inactive, passive consciousness is a useless, futile assumption. ”

“ Recently students of animal life have made violent efforts of merging psychology into biology. There is no doubt that motor reactions, adjustments, adaptations, behavior must be taken into consideration in the study of psychic facts, but motor manifestations are of psychological significance only in so far as they lead to an interpretation of the inner subjective facts, facts of consciousness. ”

“ When however he begins to speculate on unitary stuff and pure simple experience which is both objective and subjective we must part company, for he leaves the domain of psychology and enters the domain of metaphysics. "My thesis is" he writes "that, if we start with the supposition that there is only one primal stuff or material in the world, a stuff of which everything is composed, and if we call that stuff 'pure experience' then knowing can only be explained as a particular sort of relation towards one another into which portions of pure experience may enter." ”

“ The chemist does not put his ideas into his chemical compounds, and the psychologist does not subject his mental states to chemical tests. It is only in metaphysics that the fundamental difference of mental states and physical objects can be explained away in one unitary experience. ”

“ Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks; mental water is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a mental fire. Mental knives may be sharp, but they won't cut real wood. . . ." In short, James himself strongly contrasts the two sets of experiences. That is all that the psychologist requires. The rest of the speculation,―the identification of the two streams in one unitary, primitive stuff-experience does not belong to psychology as a science. ”

“ James differentiates the fire that burns from the fire that does not burn, the water that is really wet from the water which is not wet, the motion that obeys the laws of mechanics from the motion that does not obey Newton's laws. In order to constitute water the chemist does not mix oxygen with his thought of hydrogen; in order again to constitute the idea of water the psychologist does not require tubes, retorts, so many volumes of gases of oxygen and hydrogen. ”

“ We can fully realize the non-psychological attitude when we find writers like Watson who wish to eliminate ideas or kindred mental states from psychology, or who like McDougall define psychology as a science of animal behavior. ”

“ For whether accurate or inaccurate, the attempt to balance the account of thought and thing, that is, to distinguish psychical from physical, is concerned with the problem of ultimate reality, not with the explanation and description of observed facts, and is therefore metaphysical, not scientific in character. ”

“ When we say that an argument is clear, we do not mean that there are no particles of dust in it, or that we can use it as a medium through which we can see objects distinctly; or when we say of a stupid person that he is dense, we do not mean that he has a high specific gravity. ”

“ Of late years vigorous attempts have been made to eject the term consciousness from our vocabulary, but, in my opinion, these efforts, though richly significant, are metaphysical, not psychological, since all are mainly concerned to overcome the dualistic opposition of psychical to physical. ”

“ James draws a sharp difference between internal and external experience. "We find that there are some fires that will always burn sticks and always warm our bodies, and that there―are some waters that will always put out fires. ”

“ Potential Energy is defined as work. The C.G.S. unit of energy is, therefore, the erg." If mental states or consciousness be potential energy of the physicist, the neo-realist should define it in terms of physical work. ”