BUY AT LARGE:
A REVIEW OF MIND AT LARGE
By Jim Dunn

MIND AT LARGE, by Paul Levinson, Ph.D.; JAI Press, Greenwich, CT
1988;ISBN 0-89232-816-9

_Mind_At_Large_, by Dr. Paul Levinson, will likely prove an
academic "chaos attractor." In it, the critics of technology
will find their worst nightmare: a compelling explication of the
*necessary* relationship of people and the manipulation of
materiel. The champions of technology, however, can take
little comfort; to embrace Levinson, they must accept a degree
of ethical responsibility not usually associated with a blind
faith in the blind funding of R&D. Levinson is a rationalist, a
fallibilist, a humanist; one who develops an evolutionary
epistemology and shamelessly crowns human beings as the most
important things in the universe.

This is an important work because in it we find a lucid and
compelling explication of our relationship to what is around
us. Some may describe, _Mind_At_Large_, as a book about
technology, one among a host of contemporary volumes. This, I
think, is a mistake. While others describe the "hows" and
"whats" of technology, Levinson stands out as he addresses some
of the essential "whys." _Mind_At_Large_, may sell because
technology is a hot issue, but it is important because it
transcends popular fascination with machines and gets to the
heart, the human heart, of the technological phenomenon. In
short, it is good philosophy.

This book, more than most, will suffer (or enjoy) as many
different readings as there are strong positions. To be fair,
let me say that I am an environmentalist, and not a particularly
optimistic one. To wit, I recall that there once was a time
(two billion years ago) when oxygen was a form of toxic waste;
that early shift from photochemical to photosynthetic oxygen
production is the source of our "hospitable" atmosphere and the
cause of one of the first mass extinctions. I sense that we may
now be encouraging a similar shift, an atmospheric transition
which we may or may not survive. As the greenhouse effect,
ozone depletion, massive deforestation and population growth
remain unchecked, I have to wonder about the quality of life my
grandchildren will enjoy.

Levinson, by contrast, is imperturbably optimistic. He
looks to space flight as strong evidence that the species will
survive, barring our self-annihilation. And if mere survival is
the only criterion, then optimism may be warranted; even the
staunchest romantic must concede that each generation derives
its satisfaction and displeasure from the circumstance of its
day, in caves or in orbiting canisters. Whether or not some
future generation will have to step off the planet remains an
open question. But, no matter how much we deplore the spoiling
of the Earth, Levinson compels us to see that any response to
the current mess, from birth control to solar energy, is a
technological solution. In fact, all human activity, malignant
or benign, is essentially technological.

Levinson begins with the assumption of evolution. This is
the foundation of everything presented in the book. If you
accept the legacy of Darwin, then it is difficult to deny the
thesis of, _Mind_At_Large_ . If evolution does occur, then
there is an objective reality (something that some appear to
deny). This reality functions as a proving ground for
innumerable forms of life, each form consisting of a genetically
encoded "idea" about objective reality. Those organisms which
correspond well to reality will survive and enrich the gene
pool; those which fail are unfit because the information
encoded in their genes does not stand up to the test of
objective reality. In this process, Levinson finds a model of
human knowledge. In the human arena, Truth is much like
objective reality. Just as living organisms arise, confront
reality and either perish or propagate, so human knowledge is
generated, criticized and either forgotten or disseminated.
The "market place of ideas" serves the function of reality.

This is not to say, however, that because there is an
objective reality, there is also an objective Truth. Truth is a
human phenomenon, and humans can no more know unqualified Truth
than they can objectively know reality. That is, according to
Levinson, we can know that there *is* an objective reality, but
we can never *know* objective reality. Levinson subscribes to
the anti-doctrine of "fallibilism."

To the fallibilist, all attempts to explain the world are
conjectures, to some degree flawed or inaccurate. It is,
ironically, our inability to find definitive answers which
enables the growth of knowledge to occur; as Truth can only be
approached asymptotically, so there will always be room for
improvement. This is to say that all assertions are wrong, but
some are less wrong than others. Just as the shark has changed
little in millions of years, so "Thou shalt not kill" has lasted
throughout history; but, as goes Ptolomy, so goes the dodo bird.

How do we distinguish between the wrong and the less wrong,
the shark and the dodo? Rationality. Rationality is the key to
Levinson's epistemology. Rationality gives value to ideas, and
forms the basis of criticism, criticism serving as the "testing"
element analogous to reality, reality corresponding to Truth.
Levinson defends rationality on the basis of evolution. The
mind has evolved to correspond to the world. Levinson argues
insightfully that rationality, like vision, hearing and the
other senses, is a medium through which we perceive and
understand our surroundings. An irrational proto-human
would encounter the same difficulty as one that hallucinated;
neither would persist very long in the gene pool. Here Levinson
enters the debate between the rationalists and irrationalists.

The irrationalists have long frustrated rationalist with
the simple observation that the rationalist cannot justify
rationalism without a self-referential argument since
justification is a rational act. The non-rationalist can then
say: "Aha! Since rationality cannot be justified, you must take
it as an irrational leap of faith." Levinson deftly puts a
stop to this by again turning to evolution. Just as we have
first matter, then living matter, then dead matter; so we have
pre-rational animals, rational human beings, and then irrational
human beings. We cannot call a dog irrational any more than we
can call a rock "dead." Death is a state which occurs only after
living, and irrationality can exist only after rationality has
been expressed.

The foundations of Levinson's argument thus admit three
things, all of which derive from evolutionary theory: 1. there
is an objective reality, 2. we can never know the truth about
reality, but, 3. rationality is the faculty of mind which allows
us to get close.

From this base, Levinson synthesizes and modifies the
thoughts of Kant, Marx and Popper to develop his three
"T-Worlds," which comprise the cosmos. T-World 1, consists of
all materiel, living and non living, with the exception of the
human brain. T-World 2: the human brain. T-World 3 holds all
of the interaction between 1 and 2; in other words: technology.
Levinson's genius here is the recognition that far from
"inhuman," technology represents the materialization of human
ideas, it is the mix of mind and matter. When we create
technology we express, in material, our fundamental ideas about
ourselves and our world. Levinson then demonstrates how ideated
materiel (technology), follows the same evolutionary pattern as
immaterial ideas, and unintended life forms; that is generation,
criticism/selection, and dissemination/propagation. The history
of technology, aptly put, is the story of Mind at large.

Though many of us would like to change that Mind, would
like to see a different kind of materiel manipulation, I think
few can reasonably assert themselves as anti- technological.
Instead, we must call for a more rational ideation of materiel.

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author's note: Jim Dunn graduated from the University of
Chicago in 1986 with a BA in English Language and Literature.
In June of 1988 he received his MA from the New School for
Social Research in Media Studies.