Demonic illusions

Arizona Daily Wildcat Dutch scientist Tor Norretranders looks at how we retain information

The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (Viking, $29.95), by Dutch scientist Tor Norretranders, follows a path of scientific discoveries made since the death of Maxwell in 1872. Ultimately, Norretranders tries to figure out what Maxwell might have meant by "something greater than myself in me?"

The book begins with an investigation of Maxwell's theory about thermodynamics, specifically "Maxwell's Demon." Exposing a possible flaw in the second law of thermodynamics (order inevitably gives way to chaos), Maxwell's demon kept scientists busy for the next century. And some of the theories advanced to refute his demon have contributed to new theories about the human mind.

Stated simply, Maxwell's Demon is an infinitely observant and agile being who is able to produce energy at no significant cost. He does so by opening a small sliding door anytime a fast (hot air) molecule looks like it is coming toward it, but closing the door when a slow (cold air) molecule drifts toward it. Eventually, one room fills with hot air and one with cold. Order is created without work.

Scientists responded to Maxwell's theoretical monkey wrench with arguments for or against the possibility of such a demon. Their findings state that the demon would have to keep track of too many details, the result being a chaos of information.

The book switches gears at this point. Information becomes the subject of inquiry and Norretranders analogizes problems the demon has holding on to information with similar problems in us. Why do we not retain all the information we receive?

To answer this question, Norretranders offers a quote from Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception: "The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful."

What The User Illusion endeavors to prove is an independence of the I and the me, the conscious self and the unconscious self. Although this is a heavy subject and his sources are notoriously difficult to parse, Norretranders makes The User Illusion an easy read.

There is a surprising breadth of sources for his argument that there is an I who is aware of very little and a me who is aware of a lot. Woody Allen, Zeno, William James, Francis Crick and Victor Hugo are just some of the sources. When something can be explained with just a scientific word and a scientist's summation, he explains it again with down-to-earth examples.

The independence of I and me is best explained by hypnotist Ernest Hilgard. A hypnotized subject was asked to be aware of both reality and the directions he was given under hypnosis. The hypnotist then asked the subject to "raise the index finger of his right hand if one part of him heard what was going on. The subject lifted his finger and then announced that he wanted to come out of hypnosis. He had just felt his finger move on its own and demanded an explanation!"

In Norretranders's native Denmark, The User Illusion has sold more than 112,000 copies, more than six per square mile. Norretranders's book is an index of some of the finest Western thought, and puts science once again in the service of the mind. What we experience is only an interpretation of reality, Norretranders states, because the world is too complex to experience everything we experience. But retaining just one-tenth of the information he gives us is enough to inspire a deeper appreciation for how we appreciate the world.