The problem
of body and mind is one of the major questions the human intellect tries to
cope with since the down of the humanity, either in religions or in
philosophical terms. So what can be added to this subject after more than two
millennium of intellectual activity with the subject? Few decades ago with the
development of brain research, computer sciences, quantum physics and
understanding the material behavior on the smallest sub-sub-atomic scale of
individual electrons, the hard sciences joined the philosophers and started to
ask the question, what is consciousness, what is this "I", who is
always with me, what is mind etc. To start to answer this question we have to
try to go to the very start, and probably
begin with a provocative "well chewed problem; "To most of the
people it seems obvious what human body is, but they have clue what this soul
or what we call consciousness means". Yet if you think about a question,
how do you know about what you know, how do you know at all about anything in the
world around you and about yourself, you will come to the conclusion that it begins
with receiving through your senses data in form of sight (eye), voice (ear),
smell (smell), taste (tongue ), touch (whole your body, when parts are more
sensitive to your touch like tongue, hand, fingers, and parts are less
sensitive your back). This data the senses transfer to your brain, and there it
creates a complete meaningful picture, noise, feeling, etc. All this may be a deception.
Maybe it represents a hallucination or phantom reception of the senses (phantom
limb) or maybe it can be a deception because we all know when you see on a
table a glass of water, that looks to you as glass of water, when what actually
you have on the table is certain crystal form of silicon atoms containing H2O
molecules.
If you would
be a blind human whose sight miraculously healed or a new born baby just borne
with perfect eyes, still you couldn't comprehend what I see. But if you, or any
living creature, who is thirsty, you and every creature would know perfectly
well, that the water is there to eliminate the thirst. So what every living
creature sees is not the molecules in the micro scale and not the bowl filled
with water on the human scale, but the mental concept of water in a bowl perfectly
fine to help you with the thirst. This idea of water is an idea not learned,
but inherited in the genetic code. Viz. the example of new born turtle in the
lonely island who immediately after is born runs with all his strength towards
the sea. Yet when first time in my life i went to an Eastern restaurant I
wondered what taste this water like sup with all these lives in it will have.
Then my colleague washed his fingers in the bowl and my perception of the
reality, what is in the bowl changed. I was cultured. It means some mental
concepts are cultural.
So what we
have here? In the turtle case the water is obviously an inherited idea about the
function of the water. As to the new born baby, he was born with an inherited idea
of water too, but later he will acquire the capacity to learn different function of
the water, like its composition, etc. Exactly like me in an eastern restaurant,
when i had to learn the new function of water in the bowl.
The conclusion
is, our perceptions, even if seems to be perfectly coherent with the reality,
it represents a partial reality, that can change according to the situation and
can't be seen as an absolute objective reality.
So if we
don't see the objective reality what exactly do we see? We see a
comprehensive complex perception of a familiar object that fits into a
preconceived idea of the object with all its attributes, character and
functionality. These preconceived ideas, stored in our memory we can
arrange in a way, that we can at need find and use in a new concept whenever it
is needed. This stored memory, always present in your mind, ready to pump up
when needed, to create a meaningful thought, feeling, new understanding etc. is
the conscious mind.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
conscious mind is a huge reservoir of words, symbols impressions feelings,
shapes, or any other information or concept we as humans, continuously absorb
as pieces of information when interacting with the world external to our
consciousness. These pieces of information are stored physically probably in
very disordered way, yet they can be reached easily. It appears this
information preexist in certain meaningful form before it is
expressed.
The big question
is; can we prove pre-existence of meaningful thought before it's expressed and
the second question is, in what mental form is this information stored. Is it
in form of emotion, picture, smell, voice, etc?
To my
understanding the stored memory is not in form of concrete words interconnected,
but rather as a general idea, that has not been translated yet to verbal
expression. So what form this general idea has? Does it have a form at all? Or
is it kind of blurry feeling, that takes shape at the moment when the idea and
words are expressed?
I have
personally a problem to recite a poem, I can’t memorize poems at all, even not
those that I wrote myself. But still I do have in my memory one small German
proverb, my mother thought me at my young age. “When this wort when nicht were,
jeden armen were millioner”. (If this word if were not, every poor were
millioner). I have to admit my German is very poor, since haven’t spoken this
language for decades. Still when I try to express this sentence, it pops out as
words. Now if I try an other proverb “Morgen morgen nur nicht heute sagen alle
faule leute” (Tomorrow, tomorrow, just not today, that's what all the lazy
people say.) It is enough for me to express in my mind the word Morgen,
even without to make out of it a vocal expression, and the rest of the sentence
just pops to my mind. In this case the idea behind the sentence comes out after
a few seconds of act of cognition. I have to think what is exactly the meaning
of this sentence. "Ah that?". Since German is far from being my
strongest language, i use on daily basis four other languages very different
from German, it could explain my need to make a process of cognition after
expressing the sentence and before perceiving its meaning. Now i have to ask
what about single lingual person? Does he perceives the meaning of the words,
sentences ideas in the same way as multilingual person? Does his mind have same
properties as a multilingual? If he recites a poem out of memory, does he
perceives its meaning at the moment of the recitation? A singer when singing a
song, does he perceive its meaning, or rather he just feels the meaning or even
not that? I believe, definitely there can be technique of reciting poem without
to be attentive to its meaning at all. Probably a singer a piano player, an
actor does do sometime its performance out of his subconscious mind.
Now when I
decide to write the next sentence, which I hope will be meaningful, before
writing it down, do i have to think about the next word I am going to use, or
maybe it is pre-deposited in my mind before expressed. But do I have in my
conscious mind the sentence I am going to write? Definitely not. So what do I
have? A general concept, meaning a complete comprehensive idea. No words no
sentences. Just a general idea. It has no form of words, letters sentences.
Does it have a shape at all? Or it is rather a certain form of feeling,
intuition, etc.
So who
writes the words sentences that come up to a meaningful structure, when I don’t
know what will be the next sentence or words I am going to write? From where it
comes? How ideas get their shape, out of sentences. Are those phenomenon coming
from the territories we call feelings? But we, self conscious humans with
capacity of critical thinking know perfectly well, feelings, good or
constructive ( love ) or bad or destructive ( hate) are out of the reach of our
will. So can we speak about conscious mind with capacity to compile free will?
Your
physical brains controls your body most of the time unconsciously. The only
aspect of conscious control of your body is when you use your hands, mouth,
eyes, and legs, or in other word all your instruments of senses. The rest of
your body is acting autonomously. But if most of the times your thoughts and
your material body are autonomous from your will , your will has only very
little to do with your behavior. Then if not the will of the "I" is
the manager or the big boss, who is the boss? Is there any? At the end someone
has to control our behavior, otherwise it would be just too chaotic or what we
call mentally disordered. And if in normal state of our mind we do act out of
order, or in other words we are under control, then who is in control? Who is
controlling the boss
Hate is
strongly related to the feelings like fear, or desire for. And these are not
rational unconscious processes. To try to explain this feelings on rational
terms, like territorial fight, would need a big rationale decision maker, the
ultimate Will of the I. Is there any? We know very well, that our subconscious mind
activity governs our metabolism. The brain has direct connection almost to every
cell in our body. Otherwise we could not feel pain, whenever foreign material penetrates
or body. Conclusion, most of the cognitive activity of our brains is autonomous
to the will of the I. Then who is in control of our mind if not us? Is it
something some people like to call God?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ideas, sentences, words can be predefined before expressed, or can pop
out from nowhere. This pop out of ideas phenomena i like to call EUREKA. The
idea can pop out from nowhere, can be also result of long process of collected
and converted data, either as separate units of information, in form of words,
pictures, smells, voices, touches, that are joined together to a meaningful
sequences of experience, that later pup out as sentences, feelings, ideas. These
sequences when joined together create complete systems of ideas, understandings
and believes. The ideas as they develop become ideologies, and believes become
faith. On the other hand understandings become new forms of perceiving the
material reality in the world.
This process started with collecting words, impressions, feeling, etc. then
hierarchically joined to more and more complex ideas, until synthesized to
ideas that are in coherence to the belief
system the individual adopted at certain stage of his intellectual development.
Consequently this individual will filter the ideas contradictory to his faith. So
is created a complete comprehensive system of ideology, faith, or
understanding.
At the substance, ideologies, faith and understandings, (in other words
knowledge) are based on axiomatic sentences, and the following structure of the
knowledge can exist only if these axioms are commonly believed. And here we
come to the differences between the two different forms of knowledge, the one,
that makes the axioms to a dogma and these are the ideologies and faith against
the other form of knowledge the understanding. Those who are creating knowledge
out of understanding, are always ready to accept a process of verification of
the basic axioms, and when the findings and evidence of the verification
contradicts the previous understanding, they are ready to change it to a new
axiom and new understanding. As contrary to them, those who generate knowledge
based on faith in a dogmatic axioms, be it faith in extra-anthropic power, like
myths, spiritual connections, mystical experiences, will always oppose data in
form of words sentences or ideas that evidently contradict the axioms that lay
in the foundation of their belief.
We may think that the beliefs are all based on irrationality, but it is far
from the truth. Most of the modern ideologies and conspiracy theories are
rational systems of thoughts based on dogmatic axiom foundations, out of which
they derived rationally the conclusions. These theories always base their claim
on some partial information, perceived its meaning in a very deformed way and using
it out of context.
The major difference between those who follow the knowledge system called
religion and knowledge system of modern ideologies is that the religion has in
its substance a belief in an extra-anthropic, extra-terrestrial power, to whom
they voluntarily submit their will. The religion in its core accepts this extra
human reality power as supreme and in control of all or most of the human existence.
This makes the religious process a process of submission, in a very fatalistic way.
As contrary to it, the modern rational ideologies are based on illusion of
human capacity for full control of human destiny, particular events and
reality. The human need of controlling the events, be it daily events or
destiny is universal and comes out of the need to overcome the fear, that the
homo sapience lived with from the very beginning of his existence, since he was
completely at the mercy of the nature. The illusion of control is connected to human
need for perfect order, where everything has its exact place, and familiar character,
feature, etc.
The conclusion, while the religion is looking for submitting the control of
the human destiny to ex-human power, the modern rational ideologies look for
human control of the destiny. This modern ideological approach of putting the
human into the center of the control system, has in it core the arrogance, that
was applied in political systems of modern era. The historical consequences of
this arrogance had catastrophic historic consequences in the case of the two
major dogmatic modern ideologies the Communism and Fascism.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Those who can perceive the reality only as material one, I have to ask, "do
you feel you fully control your thoughts? ". Most probably if you
think sincerely about it, you will have to admit that the answer will be not. Most
of the time not only you don't have control upon your thoughts, but you are not
conscious of them. The words you are saying are not words that exist in your
mind before they are expressed. They come to the mind as if by themselves and
find their place in the general context of the speech. With written words it is
very similar. Only from practical point of view, you can correct the written
form by reading and rereading it and put the right wording into the context,
while the spoken word can't be corrected. The context is the only thing that
has pre-existence, before it is expressed. Not the exact wording. Then where is
this concept stored? In your brain, in your memory? Is it exactly and perfectly
formulated? In what form is it stored?
The thoughts are autonomous from the will and the body. The thoughts before
expressed are in form of preconceptions. When expressed they charge to words
explaining the concept. Some people have difficulty to translate concepts to
words even if fully understand the concept. These are the worst teachers, with
no capacity to explain the concept even if they can very successfully implement
it while in act. When a sentence is said, it is not pre formulated before said.
So it doesn't exist in the consciousness before expressed, it usually also
disappears after it is formulated, unless special effort is taken, like writing
down the idea, recording it. Some people may have talent to memorize words and
sentences, many times they use special techniques to do so, like rimes, music,
tempo, etc.
There is a difference between memorizing words and memorizing concepts.
Computer can perfectly memorize world, but not at all concept. To memorize
concept, human has to compile it through the process of understanding.
Understanding is tool for memorizing concepts.
What's the difference between understanding and memorizing words? Understanding
process of putting words or pieces of information in whole concept, or
connecting any other form of information to its network of pieces of
information that together they create a concept. The concept can be preexisting
in the consciousness or be created by gradual processing, and sometime in one
moment of comprehending the whole as one. This is the case of Eureka that in
some well know cases brought big leaps in human knowledge. But the Eureka
phenomena is not such a rarity as it may appear. Every student experiences from
while to while such experience, that for him is an Eureka, even if not for the
humanity.
Eureka is not just prerogative of scientists, composers, painters and all other
kinds of creative people. Their eureka or what is commonly recognized as the
capacity to create completely new concepts, that have evidently strong
connection to the reality external to them. But exists Eureka that is common to
every self conscious human being and this is the consciousness. Consciousness
is the ever present eureka that propels continually the mind and makes us
conscious about our surrounding and ourselves. It is the self-ignited continues
process of conceptualization. This what makes the humanity different from the
rest of the animal kingdom. (There are some who claim certain animals do have
capacity of conceptualization. Probably they are right, but it will be a
limited forms of conceptualization.)
To be conscious of yourself means understanding the I, as an interconnected
being networked with the surroundings. The surroundings is observed by the I
from inside out but almost never from out to in, (except if meditating). This
is why usually the human is more aware of the world out of the mind, than the
in.
Cognition is conceptualization, while the senses act mechanically. The
computer science successfully coped the capacity of the human to gather
information, but it has no tool for self creating cognition. The algorithm is a
tool of cognition implanted by human into the computer. Yet the algorithm even
if will have capacity for creating algorithm, will it have the will to do it?
Can we think about possibility that one day the computer wakes up with a cry
EUREKA.
