Acknowledge Consciousness!

I recently finished reading a book by Stanislas Dehaene titled Consciousness and the Brain. This was the third book bearing a seductive title that had disappointed me to the point of anger. The other two are The Mind’s I by Douglas Hofstadter and Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett.

Each of these three books bludgeoned me with information about brain function and about how one or another kind of electrical stimulation creates this or that conscious feeling. Researchers have used all kinds of fancy technology to map the active part of the brain or plot brain waves and correlate these data with the experiences reported by the patient. The implication is that feelings and ideas and the subjective sense of self are not the stuff our consciousness is made of; they are nothing more than electrical impulses beeping around among neurons and dendrites and synapses.

 

The Brown Jacket, Oil, 1965, 32 x 24

The conclusion, which each author holds off until the end, is that consciousness is just an illusion. And they’re so smug about it!

Let’s assume for now that these three eminent scholars are using the word “consciousness” in the same way, referring to that subjective sense of awareness of self. This is a difficult thing to name; all the standard English terms are ambiguous. “Consciousness,” “awareness” and the like are most often used to describe mere wakefulness, and so are insufficiently clear for the purposes of this discussion.

There are terms that do work. The best among these, because it cannot be hijacked by folks that don’t understand it, is atman, a Hindu term. “Witness,” as used by the followers of Gurdjieff, is also clear, but only so long as we agree that we are speaking in terms of The Fourth Way. There are other possibilities, but let’s stick with atman.

If I can call an item “mine,” then it is not “me.” (Forget grammar for a moment.) “My” car is not me. I say “She ran into me” when another driver collides with my car, but she didn’t hit me. My clothes are not me. My body is not me. It’s an object I drag around but it’s not me.

More subjectively, I have feelings but they are not me. They are my feelings. My ideas, my thoughts are not me. I observe them. If I claim them, I am objectifying them.

Finally, my mind is not me. It is mine. “I have a good mind.” “I’m losing my mind.” Spending some time in silence, I sit and watch the mind cavort, tug at my heartstrings, worry me, chastise me. That mind is not me.

There is something that is truly I that watches what the mind and perceptions present. Well, I can’t really call it watching, because this atman does nothing, feels nothing, thinks nothing—just witnesses. That whatever-it-is is always the very last stop on any journey to the depth of introspection, but I can never get there, because even if I convince myself that I am identifying with atman, it is actually atman that is observing my mind thinking about identifying with atman.

Everything in our world could function just the same without atman witnessing. These days especially, with ever advancing technology of artificial intelligence, we can imagine a world of mosquitos and dogs and people programmed to do what they do, even to think about what they do, even to think about thinking, and yet never have this sense of “I-ness.”

And that is what these three authors are claiming is happening. They present the scientific evidence that the mind and feelings are brain functions, as if the brain is an extremely complex computer and no more. Well, maybe it is, and this research is profound and fascinating. But they go too far, inferring that since every feeling and idea can be theoretically explained in electrical terms, with no reference to an atman, then that must be all there is.

They conclude that consciousness—atman—is an illusion.

Look, I don’t know how or why this well-oiled human machine comes with atman, such an ineffable connection. I read books like these in the hope that someone else brighter than I has some insight into this difficult problem, but to say there is no such thing as consciousness, that it is an illusion?

“Illusion: an unreal vision presented to the bodily or mental eye” (Webster). Right, so to whom is the illusion presented? I know! Atman! Consciousness! The mere mention of illusion negates their entire argument.

These books just pissed me off.

I think they were written by robots.

Be Strong!

There was a saying circulating in high school: “Small minds talk about things, average minds talk about people, great minds talk about ideas.” I was annoyed by that. First of all, it was a statement about people, and therefore the product of an average mind. Then what did that author know about great minds, or ideas for that matter?

I do not claim to have a great mind. It is a little nasty of me to be bored by most conversations, but I cannot help it. Once I have figured out how the brake pads fit into the calipers on my truck, I don’t care to discuss how other pads fit into other calipers, unless there is something revolutionary or ingenious about them. Sports talk, celebrity talk—I've just never been able to get into it. I feel a little inadequate on the fringes of such conversations, but there is absolutely nothing there for me.

Like everybody else, I want to join in the human celebration. But the stuff I find fascinating  does not interest that many people. In fact, some take on an attitude of superiority, and derogate cerebral activity and those who engage in it. But I have no shortage of very dear friends and a darling family, so I truly have no complaints about all that.

It’s just that I want to share some of these odd thoughts that float around in my head all the time. And so I started this blog. What a great device! I’m having a ball and can barely stay away from the computer.

And then I find myself allowing myself to get into more and more esoteric material (actually I've only just begun), and I realize that the ratio of blog readers who are interested in this stuff is likely the same as the ratio of people on the street who are interested. And then I find myself thinking this stupid thing: maybe I should write about more popular stuff so more people would be willing to read it. Maybe my own friends are tired of it already.

Now that, dear lonely reader, is exactly my dilemma and my downfall. I have done this to myself many times, with writing, with painting, with socializing. It is so easy for others to say, “Don’t worry about what other people think! Just do your own thing.”

I am quite positive that the people who say that do not find their minds awash in metaphysical ponderings over quantum mechanics in the brain. Perhaps they imagine I am debating over painting a tree or a car, when I am devising color relationships so subtle that critics think I have no color sense at all. It’s easy to tell me to wander off alone, but I am not that strong.

Still not complaining, not really.

Now I am going to complain. Those criticisms stop me cold. Please do not misunderstand. My complaint is not with the critics, it’s with me!

I wrote a book, a memoir, about the many canoe trips I have taken with my family. The book is finished but for two or three cosmetic amendments that would take me one afternoon.

Several people have read it and claimed to enjoy it. Some have offered suggestions and I have implemented a few of those and ignored others. But then there came a criticism with a rather unkind delivery, by a person who had slapped a template over the book. My memoir did not fit with this person’s dogma about what a book should be. Clearly my critic had made no effort to understand what my book was about—and didn't care. That person was as right as a teacher.

What did I do? I did not touch my manuscript again. I read three manuals about writing that troublesome material, and even though the guides said that there are different types of story, and that the book I had written fit one of the forms just fine, still I let my work lie. It remains untouched; even though I know I could easily finish it and send it off to Kindle.

The concepts I have been presenting in this blog are right close to the center of everything worthwhile that I do. Those ideas drive my painting, my memoirs (I've got four in various degrees of completion), my favorite activity (canoeing), and, most of all, my friendships with and love for other people.

I have to stay strong and keep on. I cannot take the advice of some of my friends and say “who cares what people say or like?” That attitude is just not in me, whether it “should” be or not. Instead I will say, “I hope there are many others who, like me, enjoy thinking about this stuff!”

I hope there are many others who, like me, enjoy thinking about this stuff!