A Beginnings on Consciousness

Consciousness remains to be one of the last mysteries in humanities quest for knowledge and understanding. Since ancient times people have speculated on the nature of the mind. To the contemporary person it seems obvious that the brain where the mind resides. Yet, this knowledge has come from centuries of inquiry and only recently been accepted fully. But wait! Let's step back and ask just what is mind? The New International Websters Standard Dictionary defines mind as: "consciousness or awareness of being; the intellect that comprises such elements as memory, original thought, and emotion; the ability to think". Humans having possession of the faculty of mind turned that faculty inward toward the examination of mind itself. Lost in Aporia is a blog about the meaning of life, it is about life affirmation; it deals directly with the human condition. What is the human condition? It is consciousness, it is the awareness of being in possession of a unique mind that is separate yet part an external world. An individual mind experiences self-hood, this phenomena of "I" which it distinguishes of all other things not "I". The idea of self-hood is the center of life affirmation, where questions of meaning arise. To engage in thought about life affirmation the concept of self must be explored. To begin let's think about the mind, of consciousness, for these are the filters through which experience is granted.

Since the modern era the pursuit of science has produced the most reliable collection of knowledge humanity for humanity to date. I say reliable because established scienctific knowledge has consistently proved itself to be true. The accepted scientific view of mind locates it to the neural activities of the brain. For many this view is common sense but there are puzzles which still remain. The mind-body problem is he most well known and debated issue in the field of philosophy of mind. Briefly, the mind-body problem is the question of how the mind and body interact. While is simple to think of the mind as the brain this would mean that the totality of who you are ( personality, memories, emotions) is just the activity of neurons firing. Now this physical description of the brain activity does explain how the brain works but can it explain all that it means to be a person? Isn't there something missing? Mind/brain physicalism lacks one important aspect: human spirit.

At some point in discussing the mind and consciousness the idea of spirit will come up. Indeed in attempting to treat the subject of meaning and how as humans we view it and attribute it spirit must be thought upon. But what is spirit? I won't pretend to have an answer. Yet, it can be differentiated by the idea of intentionality. Now I don't mean to say that spirit is intentionality per se but at the very least it is clear that they are closely connected. For this and further writings I may be understood to keep the concept of human spirit as an awareness of life as being a distinct living being and intending to do something with this life. This is not to say that other living beings are devoid of spirit but rather that spirit will manifest within these organisms differently that it does in humanity.

Locating the mind in the physical brain also brings up another problem which may not be immediately apparent. How do other brains experience mind? Or what is the mind of other organisms like? Humans needless to say are not the only creatures with brains. There is the question of what makes the human mind so different from those of other mammals. Is there not some kind of self-awareness in these other beings? They must have some sense of self-awareness for their behavior suggest this through the often great efforts them make for self-preservation. One may point to the idea of intentionality , humans plan for the future while other organisms do not. But this is neither self-evident nor conclusive since behavior in other organisms suggest some simple planning. It seems that the advantage humans have is greater neuro-development which has allowed us much more expansive depth of mind. This does not preclude an other organism in this planet from seeing the same kind of development. Not only that but this leads further to ethical questions regarding the justification of human treatment toward animals who may understand much more than we believe. Neuroscience largely looks at the processes of mind to be the interaction of the whole brain. The depth and richness of all there is to discuss requires further exploration for each part of the brain. Here the surface has only been skipped upon like a rock. I shall continue my dives into neuroscience in future posts to get as much information as possible.

The emphasis on the problem of mind can lead one to forget the topic of this post which is the idea of the human condition. Still, it is absolutely necessary to discuss the mind since it is the filter through which humans experience the world. Every experience by every person has occurred in mind. And this is tied to the next great question we ask here, the question of freewill. There are some common sense definitions of freewill such " doing what I want to do"; or not being coerced into doing something by another influence. People believe intuitively that they have freewill. This belief is confirmed by the feeling that no one is forcing us to make X or Y choice; our personal experience of "making a difference", depending on what say, do, or choose. The philosophical claim to freewill, then, may be stated as free agents being solely responsible for actions and as choosers of options, determine how their lives will develop. It is psychologically compelling to believe in freewill since we have some understanding of our own mental processes, such that we can monitor and somewhat control them. As always in philosophy things are not so simply acceptable including freewill despite what our experiences suggest. Let's examine some of the reasons we may question whether we truly have freedom of will.

Human experience is grounded in the idea that we are free agents and make our own choices in our daily lives. But is freewill merely an illusion? The scientific view of reality assumes that every event has a cause and this seems to be confirmed by daily experience (ask David Hume though!) since we observe every event that occurs being preceded by a cause. The problem? This leaves no room for genuine freedom. If reality is completely deterministic then, " choices are already determined by the time you make [them]. They are determined by the present conditions; that is outer conditions, such as environmental factors, events in your world, external necessities and inner conditions such as your genes, mental states, preferences, habits and so on" (Knierim 28 ). This view is known as hard determinism. Now we are not limited to the hard deterministic view; we can ease this to the soft deterministic view: that the scientific view of reality is correct to assume, that every cause has an effect; however, one of these causes can be "I", meaning that "I" can transcend or overcome the influences in our lives. Opposite to the hard deterministic view is that of libertarianism ( philosophical libertarianism not political) which takes human subjects to be the center of action and agency. Mind in this view is not fundamentally affected by any circumstance or influence. Essentially libertarianism is, "...viewing the same events from a perspective that emphasizes volition rather than external circumstance" (Knierim 32). This is an issue which will need to resolved if we are to discuss life affirmation.

In an attempt to resolve questions of freewill we can take a glance at nature. There are in-deterministic phenomena that exist inherently in nature, for example let's look at the realm of sub-atomic particles. This is not to imply that human nature is at all like that of a sub-atomic particle but there are some similarities suited for metaphor making. Truly mind blowing events occur at the quantum level. There is wave/particle actions of photons and electrons, which is to say that these particles interact with the world as both an energy wave and as a particle. Phenomena like action at a distance where electrons simultaneously and instantly correspond to the inverse of each others spins regardless of distance (something which seemingly defies the speed of light by travelling faster than it). The electron's "orbit" is not at all like that of a celestial body but a sort of popping into existence within a probable range of the atom's nucleus. All this is to suggest that not all things occur in a linear cause and effect manner. Building from here we may propose that in self-hood humans may be unpredictable as well. Among the many multitudes in our populations we experience different personalities, all growing from a unique and random experience. For my purposes here I take a compatibilistic view: the perspective that, " for any given situation, if one either has a different psychological disposition or if the external circumstances are different, then the outcome of the decisions will also be different" (Knierim 32). So, while there are factors which act as limits for the ability to choose freely and/or limiting the options available; humans still maintain freedom to choose what they want to do with those options. In taking this view focus must be applied to the immediate conditions of the environment and one's life, to be truly in the present moment and in this way one may begin to affirm their life.

#Consciousness #Philosophy #Knowledge #PhilosophyofMind #Neuroscience