Literature & Neuroscience: Virginia Woolf & Diverse Studies
Literature & Neuroscience
We, human beings have various characteristics. Story telling is one of them. It has been already reported that some animals are able to manipulate some languages to a certain degree.
However, as far as I know, I have never heard of any animals which write novels, except human beings.
WeII, I have been looking for some theses concerning stories and brain science. So I try to write it down to keep it in my memorandum.
Realization of a close relationship a stream of consciousness and 'me’.
When I casually read some novels concerning Virginia Woolf, the word 'a stream of consciousness' is often found in the context. A stream of consciousness is originally a concept which is advocated by psychologist, William James.
What we think simultaneously from moment to moment is very limited. No doubt, chained connection of this limited thinking indicates the real state of our consciousness. Let me explain 'a stream of consciousness' in my case at present.
I feel quite uncomfortable because my trousers are drenched in snow. I don't want to catch a cold. Oh! I'm just short of supplements ! I must buy them on my way home! I wish I could become healthier. WeII, but it's OK! Because I'm fine and can work every day!
This is an approximate explanation.
A certain type of stimulation received by one sensory organ causes various types of perception, recognition and memory and they form a stream. This state of consciousness is, what we call, a stream of consciousness.
When we read a novel which is written by an author who fully recognizes 'a stream of consciousness', we will soon find that the sentiments and the feelings of characters are written down one after another as if we traced their monologues and intangible stories come in a stream. The highest perfection of this type of novel is the work called 'The Waves' written by Virginia Woolf. 'Me' of each six different character is toId from childhood to the middle age only by chains of intangible inner dialogues and monologues in heart. McNickle (2014) explains what is 'me' in this work from the point of view of brain science in his thesis. When I summarize the contents and state what is regarded as most important in brief, my definition is that our sensory organs form 'me consciousness'.
Let us think by example.
You are looking at the sky at night standing in a field now.
Brilliance of the stars seen at night may cause some kinds of emotions and they may cause certain thoughts and actions.
Or voice of an owl which you hear may cause the same process. Some people have visual priority as they are more influenced by what is seen and others have auditory priority as they are more influenced by what is heard. How they sense the world varies according to a type of person. However, our senses emotion thoughts and actions come to have chained connection and naturally create a certain orbit to form a personality.
Neurophysiologist, Antonio Damasio states in his book that 'me consciousness' derives from combination of physical sense and emotion caused by it. The point is the work written by Virginia Woolf is a precedent of this idea.
Mrs. Dalloway and criticism of Pinker
As I stated previously, Woolf had created her original works to express 'me'. This cultural trends were called modernism flourished in a period in which she wrote her novels.
Then how psychologists interpret modernism?
There is a psychologist named Steven
Pinker. He had a keen interest in human beings and wrote down some books. He tried to figure out the reason of our existence to clarify it from the point of view of evolutionary psychology. This is literally a field of study which tries to figure out our mind by evolutionary context.
Then what is the principle to be advocated?
Generally speaking, it is defined as survival and breeding of an individual which has higher adaptability.
For example, let us imagine two kinds of persons. One likes gossip very much and another is not interested in it at all.
In this case, the former has higher adaptability because it is necessary to be constantly alert to violence and sex using an antenna for survival.
Therefore, those who are interested in human resonances and love affairs have more possibility to survival in a society. Consequently, they come to proliferate on the earth. The ability to improve adaptability for survival has been transmitted in our evolutionary history. Evolutionary psychologists advocate that this principle is applied to our psychological faculties without exception.
Then, when we think about the art in this context, do they play the role to improve adaptability? There are various points of views of evolutionary psychologists. According to Pinker's opinion, the arts are basically bonuses or by-products.
Let us take an example of literature. We, human beings Iike stories because their contents are naturally based on virtual reality. These stories seem to be something nice to fulfill our desire to gossip in excitement and expectation.
In other words, the ability to make stories and understand them can make our lives enjoyable, but it is nothing more. It is not necessarily indispensable in the evolutionary context. Becoming a great lover of literature does not lead to improve the possibility of survival directly. Steven Pinker also insists that modernistic literature, especially the works written by Virginia Woolf which result from dissolution to complicate the traditional form of stories are utterly useless. Pinker speaks ill of modernism considerably. Then, Park (2012) refutes Pinker's opinion from the philosophical point of view.
The Feeling of Knowing in Mrs Dalloway: Neuroscience and Woolf
Science is based on reductionism. Economical activities are reduced to consumers, enterprises and nations. Brain functions are reduced to a cerebrum, a cerebellum and a midbrain. However, we all live based on our experiences which are unable to be reduced. When we are bathed in the sunlight and we think that the experience is beautiful, the phenomenon is not a consequence of addition by measuring heart of the Sun, quantity of light and temperature. When I am moved to read a book, my emotion cannot be reduced to the dialogues, the characters and the stories.
Pinker thinks that the works by Woolf have subjective dialogues which are hard to understand, strange characters and intricate stories. However, Park refutes that the value of literature cannot be explained by dissolving into different factors as we often do in science. Pinker tries the value of the arts to be reduced to facts, yet our artistic experiences are still inexplicable. It seems that this expresses my intention to write the thesis.
People who are engaged in literature and psychologists have been speculating the works of Virginia Woolf.
Then, how are linguists influenced by them?
The role of a sense to grasp abstract concepts
Finally, I deal with what a linguist has written about Virginia Woolf. It does not mean that he has direct analytical approach. It is a thesis which begins a part of 'The Waves' written by Woolf. It is as follows.
'When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me, I am in darkness - I am nothing.'- Virginia Woolf, The Waves.
Words as social tools: Language, sociality and inner grounding in abstract concepts
The theme signifies that physical sense plays the important role to acquire abstract vocabularies. We remember and use numerous words. These words are categorized into two kinds approximately. Some are categorized as concrete vocabularies and other are abstract ones.
Those who study traditional linguistics have an idea that acquisition of words, especially of concrete ones are physical experiences.
When we throw a ball, receive, see and hear it bound, we come to acquire a concept and a word called 'a ball'.
It seems to me that a concept like a ball which is easy to understand can be connected with our physical sense without much difficulty. Yet he insists in his thesis that this kind of connection is very important as weII when we acquire abstract vocabularies like freedom or the right. Concretely, explanation about importance of oral kinesthetic sensation to acquire abstract concepts among various physical senses is given by a variety of studies which focus on both speech-impaired people and those in good health.
I would like to evade simplification to say that reading aloud is important.
But when I think back to my experience, it is easier to understand the context murmuring when I read books about intricate philosophy or theses on unfamiliar fields. Effect of reading aloud is probably true.
Summary
Various question have arisen by not only people who are engaged in literature but also psychologists, neurophysiologists and linguists.
It seems to me that everyone is tortured by an enigma of 'me' which does exist there in novels though each of them has various and different approaches. I have an impression that some who deal with higher brain dysfunction in a field of medicine may understand their feelings.
People who suffer from this disease including dementia experience dissolution of 'me' while people in good health take it for granted. Therapists try to reconstruct 'me' of patients by using senses, words and stories. They cannot solve any problems in mediocre ways. Probably, Woolf wished to indicate something which exists in an abyss of 'me' which is taken for granted in some ways other others. Scientists have different positions, but they also do their best to reach out the depth of 'me'. Their work corresponds perfectly to Woolf's research.
A fact is everything. This is a stance of science. Then, what is 'me' on earth who precedes any kinds of facts? I cannot be fully persuasive. So I introduce you a park of the works of Kenji Miyazawa entitled 'spring and Shura' edited by Blue sky book company (Aozora Book Company)
The phenomenon called I
Is a single blue illumination
Of a presupposed organic alternating current lamp
(a composite body of each and every transparent spectre)
The single illumination
Of karma’s alternating current lamp
Remains alight without fail
Flickering unceasingly, restlessly
Together with the sights of the land and all else
(the light is preserved…the lamp itself is lost)
These poems are a mental sketch formed faithfully
Passage by passage of light and shade
Maintained and preserved to this point
Brought together in paper and mineral ink
From the directions sensed as past
For these twenty-two months
(the totality flickers in time with me
all sensing all that I sense)
People and galaxies and ashura and sea urchins
Will think up new ontological proofs as they see them
Consuming their cosmic dust…and breathing in salt water and air
In the end all of these make up a landscape of the heart
I assure you, however, that the scenes recorded here
Are scenes recorded solely in their natural state
And if this is nihil then it is nothing but nihil
And the totality is common in degree to all of us
(just as everything forms what is the sum in me
so do all parts become the sum of everything)
