Being: Why It's Harder to Be Human than a Hamster or a Herring

This is an interesting and challenging book.

In their Prologue, father and daughter psychologists Rachel and Ross Menzies explain the following:

Between the ages of five and ten years the child will learn that all living objects... are destined to die and disassemble. Nothing is permanent; nothing is safe. Unfortunately, as the child's recognition of death grows, so does the emergence of an "inner voice"—an internal commentator that can create anxiety and worry even when there are no immediate threats.

They go on to state that in adulthood this inner voice "savages us with definitive statements" and is "horrible and mean spirited."

Do I have an inner voice? Yes, it's busy arguing with the authors throughout this book. Is it "savage" and "mean-spirited"? No. It is not telling me I am to blame for disagreeing with experts whose views are based on years of training, research, and experience. My inner voice is weighing the evidence and judging the way it is presented—which is authoritative, and uses emotive language in clinical anecdotes and easily digested fragments. I am enjoying myself.

What am I arguing about?

The authors proudly confess to being materialists. In their view "there is only matter, only brain tissue and nothing more." And they agree with cognitive scientist Guy Claxton's claim, "Mind is a designer language for the functions that the brain carries out."

Fair enough. That is their opinion. But they casually dismiss centuries of learned philosophical argument about what is known as "the mind/body question." They describe Descartes Cartesian Dualism (sometimes referred to as "The Ghost in the Machine" theory of mind) as "silly" and Epiphenominalism (another form of dualism) as espousing sensations and ideas that are like "the steam arising from the steam engine—they don't do anything or have any impact on us."

They wriggle out of discussing every other mind/body theory by claiming, "We see it as essential to react to the inner voice as if it were a separate entity to ourselves"; and that "only by reacting to the voice as if it were another creature can we achieve distance from it."

We, ourselves, are separate entities, unable to share the experiences of others, "psychologically and emotionally isolated" from them and unable to "connect with them in the way we connect with the self." "How could we cope with all the daily happenings on this planet if this wasn't the way?" We must remain "in our own bubble" and "this terrible existential isolation will challenge us across the entire course of our lives."

Oh dear! Is life really that bad?

What else do I question?

The clinical studies the authors quote to support their views are described too briefly for the reader to make a clear assessment of their validity. Six questions about worrying are offered in one example. Individuals are asked to indicate agreement or disagreement, on a scale of one to four, with statements that "Worrying helps me to... avoid problems in the future... remain organised... get things organised in my mind... cope... solve problems..." and "work well."

Any philosopher will ask, first, for a definition of "worrying." This is not supplied. Does worrying imply anxiety? Planning what to cook for dinner tonight might make me choose a four (four = agree very much) for several of these questions, but I am not anxious.

In another chapter, Ross Menzies, who did his PhD on phobias, describes an experiment on "fear of heights." Are phobias irrational? Panic on the lowest rungs of a well-fixed ladder may be irrational, but is it caused by our inner voice arguing with us to protect ourselves?

Babies, who according to the authors have not yet developed an inner voice, and cats, who may not have an inner voice at all, have been shown in many experiments to instinctively avoid apparent precipices. Certainly, as adults, we can use avoidance therapy to overcome our phobias, but if we ignore an uncontrolled visceral reaction to heights, spiders, snakes etc., having learned to "turn off" our inner voice, is that not dangerous? Where does instinct come in all this?

The "inner voice" underlies everything in this book. It is "not just loud, dominating our waking moments but it separates us from all others." It is responsible for our "existential isolation":

The phenomenologists are as correct today as they were a century ago. It is the nature of being human that we must spend our days detached from everything around us. After all, we are no more that a bunch of sense organs loosely connected to a stick we call the spinal column.

The search for self—"Who am I?'—is also driven by the inner voice, sometimes pathologically. One hypothetical clinical example offered is the case of "Scott," whose inner voice constantly tells him he is "an evil psychopath (albeit a poor excuse for one since he'd never taken an evil action)." Who was he really, and how could he ever know?

Scott's feelings and actions are vividly described, as are those of others in clinical presentations the authors have come across in their studies. These descriptions are fascinating and make the book interesting reading, but the application of clinical presentations to the lives of those who do not seek psychological help is questionable. Sometimes the therapies discussed, often with their historical origins and the results of clinical experience, are generally useful. Sometimes not.

A chapter discussing the need for meaning in life begins with a quote from Shakespeare:

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.

Macbeth at this moment in his life had a lot to deal with, and few of us will face the horrors he faced. However, we might well conclude, as he does, that life is "a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury," and we may wonder whether our days of routine, and our world of repeated wars and chaos, have any meaning.

It seems, however, the most important factor influencing our mental health is the presence of hope, and apparently "hope is a trainable psychological concept." It has been found there are "many benefits" to "teaching children about hope in the formative period of adolescence." Too late for Macbeth, but an encouraging prospect for those seeking to prevent existential angst and depression in later life.

Perhaps the most contentious chapters in the book are those on "The Lure of the Gods" and "The Illusion of Freedom." Both emphasize the domination of cause and effect on our actions.

The mood of the first can be judged by this statement:

Religion offers a handy solution to life's forks in the road, telling us how we should think, feel and act. But a strict guideline for all life can just as easily suffocate us.

The claims of the second ignore centuries of learned philosophical debate over cause and effect versus freedom of choice. Science now, it seems, has irrefutably proven "You are an electrical machine devoid of free will, playing out your hardware and software. You are no more and no less." Forget randomness, or the fact that scientific "truths" are hypothetical and are always open to disproof. "We are simply 'bags of atoms' that must obey the laws of physics," and, "It's our biological nature that ultimately rules out free will."

A couple of arguments against this view are presented and demolished, but the authors dodge many others by declaring their intention "is to explore the problems that seem to arise for some individuals when they face the possibility that they are no more than atoms in action."

They go on to discuss feelings such as anger, hatred, shame, regret, and especially fear of our own death, and to argue we should understand we are all "machines," and therefore such feelings are unnecessary and we should "smile at the decisions we've made," because "these were the only paths that we could have chosen."

It seems that words like "decisions" and "chosen" cannot be avoided.

So, what is the biological purpose of feelings, especially those powerful feelings of grief, angst, and despair? Why do we have them, and must we abandon biological explanations of evolution and the fight for survival and rely just on physics?

If we have no free will, can we choose to "conquer" those malevolent voices in our heads? Why are they there? Where do they come from?

What is the purpose of the arguments in this book that we should simply accept "being," as the Ancient Greek Epicureans and Stoics did, and focus our "attention and desire squarely on behaviors within our complete control," when we apparently have no choice in the matter?

If we have no agency, then the authors have wasted time and energy trying to convince us to accept (choose?) their view.

"It's harder to be human than to be a hamster or a herring." This makes a catchy subtitle, but if we are equally animals responding to our preconditioning in our need to stay alive, can this be true? And how could we ever know?

There is much to think about in this book. And much to argue about, too.