Our simulations occur outside our awareness, yet some enter our consciousness and become our conscious experience. Any discussion about the human brain and our biological or physical being must involve the aspect of our being where we become conscious of something.
Consciousness remains one area of the human condition that is still open to debate. If we are to establish a grounded approach to the human condition, then it is essential that we define what it means to be conscious in the context of this work. So, what is consciousness?
Philosopher Thomas Nagel famously posed the question, “What is it like to be a bat?” In asking this, he was proposing that if the bat has a subjective experience then it is conscious. This is counterpointed by thinking of a mug or a rock and asking the question, “What is it like to be them?” It is almost certain the answer would be that the mug and the rock are inert and have no subjective experience and are therefore not conscious. The difference is the bat engages with and is subjectively aware of its environment and the rock is not. The bat has some sort of experience of being and a rock does not.
We can ask the question, “what is it like to be…” of many things. What is it like to be a dog? What is it like to be a glass? What is it like to be a worm? What is it like to be a human? What is it like to be a car? Each answer you give will tell you whether you believe that thing has a subjective experience or not.
If we can say a biological entity has a subjective experience, then we can also say it is alive and has some level of awareness and is structurally coupled with its environment. Clearly that experience will differ depending on the structure of the creature, but it will have some sort of subjective experience.
However, many would say that a bat may have an awareness of its world but is not conscious. They claim the human consciousness is special. This is a point of clear differentiation between those who study consciousness.
Central to this disagreement is one question. Is there an extra element to human consciousness in addition to our abilities of perceiving, thinking, and feeling, or is consciousness an intrinsic and inseparable part of being a creature that can perceive and think and feel?
If there is an added extra, then what makes human beings special? If there is not, then many of the issues surrounding an understanding of consciousness disappear as anything that is alive and structurally coupled with its environment has some degree of consciousness.
Much of the consideration about human consciousness has assumed that it is special, and we have a ‘mind’ possessed by no other creature. Over the centuries philosophers have taken a variety of stances that can be fundamentally broken down into two key ideas – dualism or monism.
In the 17th Century, Rene Descartes provided the most famous dualist approach, known today as ‘Cartesian Dualism’. This is the idea that the mind and the body (including the brain) consist of different substances. According to Descartes, the mind is non-physical and non-locational, while the body and the rest of the physical world are made of a physical and locational substance.
The trouble with this approach is obvious and has been debated ever since. How do the two interact? Descartes claimed the interaction happened in the pineal gland in the brain but did not explain how. We now know this is not the case, as we have identified the pineal gland as a producer of melatonin and not an interface between the mental and physical realms. There have been other dualist theories, but the issue of interaction arises in all of them without any definitive answer.
Yet, despite this basic problem, a large number of people hold a dualist view. It is the cornerstone of the major western religions and the idea we have a soul that is separate yet integral to our way of being is held by many. It is also central to the ideas of many new age ways of thinking that speak to the power of the mind that can act as a force on the physical world beyond our own biological being.
The dualist philosophy is also deeply embedded in our language. We talk of “my body” and “my brain” as though they are somehow owned by a separate ‘me’. This use of language is the trap that holds most people in a dualist view of consciousness and the human condition; one upon which they rarely reflect and do not see or acknowledge the interaction flaw of the dualist view.
Certainly, there is much that we do not know about our universe or the postulated multiverse for that matter. So, a dualist view of consciousness cannot be ruled out completely. However, for many philosophers and most scientists, the problem of interaction plagues any attempt to build a dualist theory, and so they reject all forms of dualism in favour of monism.
Those who favour a monist view of consciousness split into two camps – ‘Idealists’ and ‘Materialists’.
Idealists hold that consciousness is all there is, and reality is its creation. This approach presents its own challenge. Why do we all seem to observe a consistent physical world? Finding an answer to this question seems insurmountable and so an idealist view is held by few who explore the topic of consciousness in any depth.
Materialists hold that the physical universe is all there is, and that consciousness arises from the dynamics of matter and energy. They hold that there is no special addition to human consciousness and it simply arises from the human structure.
It is clear there is a strong link between the human brain and our conscious experience. Study after study of various drugs and damaged brains show their impact on our subjective experience.
However, the challenge remains for materialists to address what philosopher David Chalmers calls the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, which is why it arises in the first place. What gives rise to this subjective experience we have and that we assume others have? Some materialists disagree with Chalmers noting that the assumption he makes is there is more to consciousness than memory, perception, awareness and so on.
No matter which approach we take, there seems to be assumptions we will have to make. As this project is about building a deeply aligned approach to the human condition, it demands that we not fall too deeply into the trap of unfounded belief.
With that in mind, it seems the idea with the most grounding is a materialist view. Dualism and idealism always end up in the domain of unexplained belief in a soul or ‘inner me’, or a personal subjective experience that is explained as dualism or idealism whilst ignoring other possible explanations. The challenge in accepting a materialistic approach lies in accepting that there are aspects that remain unexplained. However, I assess that a materialistic approach does more effectively embrace what we know about our universe at this time.
To that end, we will pursue an idea of human consciousness in the context of something that inherently arises from the human condition. This means we can explore consciousness in terms of the domains of body, emotion, and language.