We all have voices in our heads. And I think I have four of them.
In my head, every thought is a conversation or an argument between two distinct voices. What they say may depend on the context, but they argue two sides to the case as it may be. Sometimes they work together, and sometimes apart, but each voice tries to pick holes in the other one’s arguments.
Their stance also depends on the context, and on how dysfunctional I am feeling at the time. That is to say, it is not always possible to classify one voice as being of one type and the other of another type and being so always. It could be that they are both cautious, or both rash and reckless, or any other sort in the middle, but they are never so to the same degree. There is a gap between their views, and this gap becomes the bone of contention. So for example, if I'm lying in bed and feeling lazy, then one voice will suggest that I order dinner. But the other will say, "you're just being lazy, get up and make yourself something to eat." And then an argument will ensue.
But since only one action can result from these thoughts, it is essential that there is a compromise. To arrive at a compromise, both voices appeal to a mediator, which is the third voice in my head. The role of the mediator, from what I can understand, is to listen to both sides and finally pick one as being more appropriate, or closer to the truth. The mediator also seems to make suggestions on where the flaws are in an argument and which voice is more convincing, and so to some extent guides its flow.
The third voice is definitely distinct from the other two. This I proved to myself when I found myself following a course of action that neither of the two main voices prescribed. That is, since the third voice is capable of independent thought, it must classify as a wholly separate voice. I have gone to bed hungry on occasion, fed up with having to decide between ordering and getting up.
For a long time, I thought I was inhabited by just these three. This was fine; after all, Freud had said this a long time ago (remember the id, ego and superego?) But then one day, in a particularly inebriated moment, I discovered a fourth, and things haven’t been the same since.
It is somewhat hard to classify the fourth voice, but I would say that it plays the role of an archive and commentator – a sort of fourth estate if you like. That is, it places the whole argument and subsequent action in context. It decides whether justice has been done; whether the action followed was a fair result of the two main arguments; whether there was a bias; whether the action taken was consistent and replicable, and so on. Had I ordered food earlier that week? Was ordering (or getting up, or even going hungry) consistent with previous behaviour? The fourth voice decides.
The third voice rules only on the basis of information presented to it at the time, abstracted away from everything else, but it is the fourth voice that places the verdict into context. Moreover, the ability of the fourth voice to contradict the third makes it an independent voice as well. This was admittedly harder to verify, but I think I’ve done it now.
So, anyway, I have four distinct voices in my head. I’ve known this for some time now. But last night a disturbing question arose: if I have four voices in my head, do ‘I’, being aware of this, become a distinct fifth voice, or am ‘I’ merely a manifestation of one or more of the others?
I asked some people this question. P’s answer was that it depends on whether any of the voices is aware of itself or only of the others, or whether there is a completely independent realisation of four voices. I asked A, and she said that I am just an observer. I may not be an objective one, but I am one that is willing to be ‘entertained by these voices’. Depending on circumstance, I may choose to relate or associate with one voice or the other, but essentially I do not exist independently from them.
Okay, so where does this leave us? Suppose for a moment that there is an independent fifth voice that recognises all others. If this is true, then either the fifth voice is self-aware, or there is some other voice that is aware of it. But then who recognises that one? This line of thinking leads us iterating indefinitely backwards, and there is no end to it.
This is an argument very similar to the one here, if you remember. There I supposed that quite as the term infinity was invented as an escape from endlessly continuing numbers, the term God too was invented as an escape from the endless backward chain of creation. In other words, both were ways to escape having to answer yet another identical question of what came after (or before). Now I don’t suppose I have an infinity of voices in my head, so this cannot possibly be it. Something has to just ‘be’.
One escape to this is the one that P suggests. He says that there may be only four voices, but none of which is self-aware. Each voice perceives only three others. Upshot: the composite of the four is what I call me.
This is a remarkable conclusion, if it is true, because if it is then it offers a possible solution to the backward chain of creation as well. As you go backwards down the ‘who created whom’ line, you will come down to some pieces of matter (or energy) that are not self-aware but are aware of each other, and depend on each other’s awareness to exist.
The lack of self-awareness to each constituent is crucial. If it is self-aware, then it must justify its existence to itself, and then you merely go one step back in the chain to what created it. On the other hand if it is not aware of itself, then it bypasses the issue, because the question of creation does not arise. But then if it is not aware of itself, then it follows that either it does not exist, or that something else must be aware of it. Remember the conundrum about whether a tree falling in a deserted forest makes a sound or not? This is analogous to saying that the sound needs a receiver in order to exist.
So if there is a set of all mutually aware bits that are not self-aware, then these must form the constituents of everything else. None of these pieces can ‘exist’ without each other; they exist only because others recognise that they exist.
If extended properly, this provides an answer to the creation debate, albeit an escapist one. Nothing came from anywhere, but something exists only because there is something else to recognise it. That other thing doesn’t independently exist either, but exists only because it is in turn recognised to exist. Nothing truly exists, then. In fact, the concept of existence itself might be misplaced.
Anyway, back to my head. If it is the interplay of four voices that gives rise to a composite identity, is it possible to think of each voice as being a frequency? And if they are all frequencies, then is this not analogous to an orchestra, with many different instruments playing at the same time, with each player only aware of all the others, but together producing a composite sound? Or if you prefer light, then is this not like many different individual colours coming together to form one composite hue?
This composite might then be played back to the constituents, enveloping them. It is what is exhibited on the exterior, with its precise shade varying according to the intensity of the constituent elements. This is what I think A was trying to say, in that the final shade is formed as a combination the others, and may be closer in shade to one or the other depending on the context.
And if this is true, and they are all frequencies of a sort, then theoretically it should be possible to transmit this information, shouldn’t it? It should also be possible to decompose the transmitted frequency (or colour) into its constituents. Perhaps we do it without thinking.
Our uniqueness as individuals depends on the variety of colours we can produce from our constituents. Our communication skills depend on how we transmit these colours. And our ability to relate to each other depends on whether we can interpret what we receive. If one of us cannot perceive the colours that the other transmits, or we cannot decompose them, then perhaps that is why, like non-superimposing sets, we may never fully understand each other.
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