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The relationship between theory and practice across forms of life 353
awareness of the pitch (.6 seconds). 27 No batter can employ a grand theory
before every pitch. What would such a theory tell you since the action
would outpace – in real time – the conscious awareness of the pitch and
the swing? Yes: That’s right – the hitter has initiated his swing before he is
consciously aware of the fact that he has swung. 28 [Recall Cobb’s error.]
However, Fish has made a grand mistake about consciousness and
theorising. Baseball players, after 10 000 hours of playing and more, have
well-established pre-dispositional states that allow them to react more
quickly to novel situations than they are consciously aware. 29 They have
built-in theories that allow for extremely subtle adjustments to the pitch
headed in their direction. 30
However, it does not follow from the batter’s habitual – as opposed to
conscious – response that ‘theory’ plays no role in baseball. From pitch
counting (how tired is a pitcher likely to be after throwing 90 pitches, and
thus in less command of his repertoire), from watching his location (is he in
control or command of his pitches from the very beginning) to the batter’s
own self-awareness, a batter may walk about to the plate with a ‘feel’ –
an extremely well-informed feel – for what must be done. Fish is
absolutely, categorically wrong about the (lack of) existence of theory in
baseball. It exists – in an extremely refined fashion that proves of great use
to all of its practitioners.
But of course there is no time for conscious reflection as one initiates a
swing. We practise. We may reflect between pitches. We may take lessons
from one day and apply them to the next. But we still have to play – and we
play at our best after years of practice and ‘theorising’ about what works and
what does not. So pace Fish: We spend a career practising and theorising about
the game – the two work hand in glove to enable us to do what comes
27 The work of empirical psychologists Benjamin Libet and W Grey Walters has
provided a well-established framework for understanding delayed conscious awareness
of ‘unconsciously’ initiated action. See, eg, B Libet ‘The experimental evidence for
subjective referral of evidence backward in time: Reply to PS Churchland’ (1981) 48
Philosophy of Science 182; B Libet et al ‘Time of conscious intention to act in relation to
the onset of other cerebral activities (readiness potential): The unconscious initiation of
a freely voluntary act’ (1983) 106 Brain 623; Walters’ Presentation to the Osler Society
(1963) as reported in D Dennett Consciousness explained (1991) 167 - 171. Some readers
might want to know how would one explain the fact that while a baseball travels the 60
feet and 6 inches from pitcher to hitter in 0.45 seconds, Libet’s experiments seem to reflect
a much more generous period of 0.8 seconds between readiness potential and action. The
explanation is agent- priming. Constant habituation enables actors to shorten
dramatically the period between non-conscious intention and action.
28 See, eg, B Libet Mind time: The temporal factor in consciousness (2004).
29
See D Dennett Consciousness explained (1991); D Dennett Elbow room: The varieties of
freedom worth wanting (1984); Dennett Freedom evolves (2003).
30 See DJ Baars ‘How does a serial, integrated and very limited stream of consciousness
emerge from a nervous system that is mostly unconscious, distributed, parallel and of
enormous capacity’ in GR Bock & J Marsh (eds) Experimental and theoretical studies of
consciousness (1993) 282. See also S Dehaene & L Naccache ‘Towards a cognitive
neuroscience of consciousness: Basic evidence and a workspace framework’ in
S Dehaene (ed) Cognitive neuroscience of consciousness (2001) 1 9 - 12.