Regress to Immortality
THE basic contention of this extremely important book is that, since the world is known by mind, we cannot give an account of it without involving ourselves in an infinite regress. The old-fashioned materialist thought to leave mind out of the cosmic account altogether. He held that a picture of the world "which contains no reference to an artist, ought to prove self-consistent and self-sufficient." Contemporary scientists and philosophers have realized this error. The mind that describes things must, it is obvious, be introduced on to the scene which is described. But we cannot, Mr. Dunne insists—and in the insistence lies the essence of his original contribution—stop there. For we find that we have on our hands not one mind, but an infinite number. To recognize the fact that the mind which thinks of the world scheme belongs to it, is to recognize also another mind which recognizes the fact " that the mind which thinks of the world scheme belongs to it." Now any attempt to insert this " other mind " into the world scheme must fail; or rather, it can succeed only if, by virtue of its success, it brings over the horizon yet another mind which, recognizing the success, must set about describing the world into which the " other mind " has been successfully inserted. We are thus faced with an infinite regress of observing selves.
So much the contemporary scientists and philosophers dimly realize. But since they do not know how to deal with an infinite regress, which they are inclined to treat with cir- cumspection as a sort of cosmic indelicacy, they shrink from
following out the implications of their realization. Thus," concludes Mr. Dunne, " there became established that picture, so popular today, which exhibits the universe as nothing more or less than an indifferently gilded execution chamber, replen- ished continually with new victims. The materialist was scarcely to blame : he was honestly myopic. But the philoso- pher was a politician."
But suppose that we are not afraid of the implications of regress. What follows ? First, the possibility of any final and complete world picture is ruled out of court. " Whatever the universe may be ' in itself, all sciences thereof must be regressive, so that we are faced with what is, for all empirical purposes, a serial world." Secondly, the succession of serial worlds involves a succession of serial observers with the infer- ence that, since the apparent abolition of one world does not affect the fact that the abolition is observed, the succession of serial observers is immortal.
The publishers assure us that The Serial Universe " is well within the comprehension of the ordinary intelligent reader," who, if he " skip the mathematical formulae " and reads all the text " in which these are embedded . . . will grasp the substance of the argument." If the inclusion of the book in two lists of current best sellers is any guide, the publishers' assurance is not entirely unjustified. People are buying the book, even if they do not understand it. Yet for my part I find it very hard going. I do not think that this is Mr. Dunne's fault. When, for example, he discourses on matters with which I have some familiarity I find him writing easily and clearly, and I hasten to pay tribute to an exceedingly brilliant philosophical survey—the main lines of philosophical development are traced in an Introduction of eight pages—a real tour de force, this—which no living philosopher could have bettered. But the main subject, the nature of regresses, is exceedingly difficult, and I suspect the publishers of undue optimism in supposing that it can be understood without the mathematical formulae, even, if it can be with their assistance. The clement of mystery in the Dunne doctrine, fathomable only by mathematicians, imposes upon non-mathematicians a corresponding modesty. It is venturesome to criticize, when one is not sure of having understood.
With this proviso, I should like to put it on record that
the alleged proof of human immortality seems to me to be lacking. Any view which disposes of the common-sense world of things facilitates the conclusion that the soul sur- vives, even if it is not immortal. For the world of common- sense things includes bodies, and if bodies are not what they
seem to be,. that is to say material, the main ground for belief in extinction, namely the obvious mortality of bodies, disappears. Thus by virtue of its simple declaration that matter is an illusion, idealism is congenial to the belief in survival. But it does not prove survival. ' Similarly with Mr. Dunne's theory of regresses. Its upshot is that there is not one but an infinite number of self-conscious observers, with the inference that the apparent elimination of one of them does not entail the elimination of the others ; nor could it, if their number is infinite. Conceded. But this does not prove that the observers are in fact immortal. And there is a real difficulty, which, I think, Mr. Dunne overlooks. Let 0 be object, S the self that observes 0, and Si the self which is conscious of S's observation. Now let us suppose that the view that S disappears at death is correct. What happens to SI ? Mr. Dunne appears to hold that Si survives, if only in order that it may be aware of S's disappearance. Knowlec'g Mr. Dunne insists, and rightly, involves a Subject- Object relation ; the mind must have something to know. But if the object of SI, namely S's observation of 0, is eliminated by virtue of S's disappearance, SI has no object left to observe. Now the only ground for asserting SI is that it must exist as the knower of an object, namely S, or rather, S's observation of 0. This ground having disap- peared, there is no longer any reason for asserting SI. Thus if S, the first self-conscious observer, is mortal, the theory of the infinitely regressive self does not entitle us to infer that some other self, namely SI, is not. This is not to assert that human mortality is a fact; merely that Mr. Dunne's fascinating analysis does not succeed in proving that it is not
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