ANTEATER: You would find that you could not do it in such a way that the triggering of new signals would make any sense. Nor could you, succeed on any lower level—for example, the ant level. Only on the symbol level do the triggering patterns make sense. Imagine, for instance, that one day you were watching Aunt Hillary when I arrived to pay a call. You could watch as carefully as you wanted, and yet you would probably perceive nothing more than a rearrangement of ants.
ACHILLES: I’m sure that’s accurate.
ANTEATER: And yet, as I watched, reading the higher level instead of the lower level, I would see several dormant symbols being awakened those which translate into the thought “Oh, here’s that charming D Anteater again—how pleasant!”—or words to that effect.
ACHILLES: That sounds like what happened when the four of us all found different levels to read in the MU-picture-or at least three of us did....
TORTOISE: What an astonishing coincidence that there should be such a resemblance between that strange picture which I chanced upon in the Well-Tempered Clavier and the trend of our conversation.
ACHILLES: Do you think it’s just coincidence?
TORTOISE: Of course.
ANTEATER: Well, I hope you can grasp now how the thoughts in Aunt Hillary emerge from the manipulation of symbols composed of signals composed of teams composed of lower-level teams, all the way down to ants.
ACHILLES: Why do you call it “symbol manipulation”? Who does the manipulating, if the symbols are themselves active? Who is the agent?
ANTEATER: This gets back to the question that you earlier raised about purpose. You’re right that symbols themselves are active, but the activities which they follow are nevertheless not absolutely free. The activities of all symbols are strictly determined by the state of the full system in which they reside. Therefore, the full system is responsible for how its symbols trigger each other, and so it is quite reasonable to speak of the full system as the “agent.” As the symbols operate, the state of the system gets slowly transformed, or updated. But there are many features that remain over time. It is this partially constant, partially varying system that is the agent. One can give a name to the full system. For example, Aunt Hillary is the “who” who can be said to manipulate her symbols; and you are similar, Achilles.
ACHILLES: That’s quite a strange characterization of the notion of who I am. I’m not sure I can fully understand it, but I will give it some thought.
TORTOISE: It would be quite interesting to follow the symbols in your brain as you do that thinking about the symbols in your brain.
ACHILLES: That’s too complicated for me. I have trouble enough just trying to picture how it is possible to look at an ant colony and read it on the symbol level. I can certainly imagine perceiving it at the ant level; and with a little trouble, I can imagine what it must be like to perceive it at the signal level; but what in the world can it be like to perceive an ant colony at the symbol level?
ANTEATER: One learns only through long practice. But when one is at my stage, one reads the top level of an ant colony as easily as you yourself read the “mu” in the MU-picture.
ACHILLES: Really? That must be an amazing experience.
ANTEATER: In a way—but it is also one which is quite familiar to you, Achilles.
ACHILLES: Familiar to me? What do you mean? I have never looked at an ant colony on anything but the ant level.
ANTEATER: Maybe not; but ant colonies are no different from brains in many respects.
ACHILLES: I have never seen nor read any brain either, however.
ANTEATER: What about your own brain? Aren’t you aware of your own thoughts? Isn’t that the essence of consciousness? What else are you doing but reading your own brain directly at the symbol level?
ACHILLES: I never thought of it that way. You mean that I bypass all the lower levels, and see only the topmost level?
ANTEATER: That’s the way it is, with conscious systems. They perceive themselves on the symbol level only, and have no awareness of the lower levels, such as the signal levels.
ACHILLES: Does it follow that in a brain, there are active symbols that are constantly updating themselves so that they reflect the overall state of the brain itself, always on the symbol level?
ANTEATER: Certainly. In any conscious system there are symbols that represent the brain state, and they are themselves part of the very brain state which they symbolize. For consciousness requires a large degree of self-consciousness.
ACHILLES: That is a weird notion. It means that although there is frantic activity occurring in my brain at all times, I am capable of registering that activity in only one way—on the symbol level; and I am completely insensitive to the lower levels. It is like being able to read Dickens novel by direct visual perception, without ever having learned the letters of the alphabet. I can’t imagine anything as weird as that really happening.
CRAB: But precisely that sort of thing did happen when you read “MU”, without perceiving the lower levels “HOLISM” and “REDUCTIONISM”.
ACHILLES: You’re right—I bypassed the lower levels, and saw only the top. I wonder if I’m missing all sorts of meaning on lower levels of my brain as well, by reading only the symbol level. It’s too bad that the top level doesn’t contain all the information about the bottom level, so that by reading the top, one also learns what the bottom level says. But I guess it would be naïve to hope that the top level encodes anything from the bottom level—it probably doesn’t percolate up. The MU-picture is the most striking possible example of that: There, the topmost level says only “MU,” which bears no relation whatever to the lower levels!
CRAB: That’s absolutely true. (Picks up the MU-picture, to inspect it more closely.) Hmm.... There’s something strange about the smallest letters in this picture; they’re very wiggly…
ANTEATER: Let me take a look. (Peers closely at the MU-picture.) I think there’s yet another level, which all of us missed!
TORTOISE: Speak for yourself, Dr. Anteater.
ACHILLES: Oh, no—that can’t be! Let me see. (Looks very carefully.) I know the rest of you won’t believe this, but the message of this picture I staring us all in the face, hidden in its depths. It is simply one word, repeated over and over again, like a mantra—but what an important one: “MU”! What do you know! It is the same as the top level! And none of us suspected it in the least.
CRAB: We would never have noticed it if it hadn’t been for you, Achilles.
ANTEATER: I wonder if the coincidence of the highest and lowest levels happened by chance? Or was it a purposeful act carried out by some creator?
CRAB: How could one ever decide that?
TORTOISE: I don’t see any way to do so, since we have no idea why that particular picture is in the Crab’s edition of the Well-Tempered Clavier.
ANTEATER: Although we have been having a lively discussion, I have still managed to listen with a good fraction of an ear to this very long and complex four-voice fugue. It is extraordinarily beautiful.