One Hand Clapping review: Provocative book sets out to solve the hard problem of consciousness

One-handed applause
Nikolai Kukushkin

Swift Press (UK);
Prometheus Books (US)

“If two hands come together and make a sound, what is the sound of one hand clapping? »

Meditate on this Zen Buddhist koan (a paradox used to train Zen Buddhist monks) long enough, neuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin promises at the start of his book, and the origins of the mind, and perhaps even human experience, will become clear.

But as many Buddhists also know, the path to enlightenment is long and difficult, even if ultimately rewarding. One-handed applause is no different.

First published in Russian, the book was translated into English by its author, now at New York University. Kukushkin explores the origins of life and its evolution along wonderfully diverse branches. He encourages us to think about origin stories, not in a crudely reductionist way, but in terms of what he calls ideas or essences of nature.

Knowing the nuances of these words, Kukushkin is clear: “Do not call it a idea if you think it’s too scary or unscientific, call it a essenceidea of ​​nature: a rational fruit of selection. He connects this to Plato, who called the idea of ​​nature eidosor essences.

Through this filter, hydrothermal vents (its prime location for the origin of life) are not only porous rocks and flowing fluids, but also patterns of activity that arise in nature. There is, for example, a tendency for humans to become more complex by drawing on more energy – a dynamic common in deep marine vents, photosynthetic cells, and humans burning fossil fuels.

Other essences highlight movement and freedom, or the distinction between wanting and loving. But I discovered that Kukushkin’s sea slug research Californian Aplysia provided the clearest example of their power, exploring how the humble slug created an abstract idea vital to its survival.

It takes a few pages in the book, but it involves the interaction of sensory and motor neurons, as well as muscles and the siphon, a key respiratory organ located on the slug’s back. Each of the neurons’ activities has “different meanings,” Kukushkin writes, such as “touching the tail” or “touching the body regardless of location.” As the slug learns where the danger comes from (and given that the siphon must always be protected), it uses the abstraction of “dangerous contact anywhere” to make the right choices.

Kukushkin explains that although the human mind is more complex, similar pattern finding and abstraction forms the basis of our thinking. In addition to these simple abstractions, we superimpose others that determine every aspect of our experience, from vision to language.

One-handed applause covers a lot of ground, which can make it feel like an entertaining lecture series, complete with amusing sketches. Some may find Kukushkin’s playfulness a little too much. But stick with it.

Modern scientists tend to be reluctant to attribute rationality or creativity to biological or chemical systems, as well as to notions of action or direction in life. Kukushkin reminds us that the ancients had no such problems. And recently, among some biologists, there has been a resurgence of the idea that evolution happens, in some sense, “on purpose.”

Scientists might worry that this looks like pseudoscience or “intelligent design” by religious groups. But we may need to revisit concepts that we find uncomfortable by association – especially when addressing existential questions such as the origins of life and mind.

We are made of the same stuff as the physical world, but there is something about subjective experience that seems profoundly different: the “hard problem” of consciousness.

For Kukushkin, the answer lies in the long arc of eidosfrom atoms to cells and brains, objective in the sense that they are “out there”. However, we tend to view abstractions as internal and subjective. “What if,” he asks, “the subjective was only a complicated form of the objective? What if all ideas…were essences?”

This is an interesting attempt to demonstrate that the objective and the subjective are two sides of the same coin. If you think about it long enough, Kukushkin assures us, the difficult problem dissolves. Personally, I don’t believe it: the phenomenal quality of conscious experience that links our senses, emotions, and thoughts makes more sense when reframed this way, but I struggle to see how it can fully bridge the gap between subject and object.

Maybe we’ll never solve this problem. But for now, at least, One-handed applause is a welcome koan, in which “the process of arriving at meaning means more than the meaning itself.”