Consciousness, desire and the human imagination

By Steve Rensberry  

   The nature of human consciousness, reflected in the mind-body problem, has challenged philosophers and thinkers for centuries, from Plato, to René Descartes to David Hume and James Mill. But why exactly is such a personal, human characteristic as consciousness so difficult to pin down?
This essay will suggest an answer, but first let's review the landscape.
   Dualistic interpretations of consciousness make a fundamental distinction between the world of matter and the world of mind, or consciousness as it were. Each are treated as separate, irreducible categories within the realm of existence. Substance dualism considers the substances of mind and body entirely distinct whereas property dualism considers the properties or each—but not necessarily the substance—as distinct. A position known as predicate dualism asserts essentially that the words used to describe mental states or attitudes cannot be reduced to mere physical descriptions.
   Platonic dualism as conceived in Plato's theory of "Forms" (ideas) defines the abstract world of ideas as being the most pure and real, transcending the world of sensation and substance. Cartesian dualism, or Descartes dualism, holds the human soul or mind to be an entirely different, though interactive, substance than the body (centered in the pineal gland). See also: Fundamental property dualism, parallelism, emergent property dualism, neutral monist, property dualism, interactionism, occasionalism, non-reductive physicalism and epiphenomenalism.
   The position of the monist, on the other hand, is that matter and consciousness are combined into one vast, unified realm of existence, with monistic idealists picturing a realm that all is mind, physicalists positing one that all is matter and neutral monists arguing for an underlying reality or energy that is common to both. Physicalism credits brain activity exclusively with what has been traditional thought of as "the mind." Physicalism is distinguished from mere materialism in the inclusion of complicated non-material forces and particles that make up the physical world. Although Christianity and many other religions are generally dualist in their thinking, pantheism and panentheism are thoroughly monistic. See also: behaviorism, functionalism, empiricism, phenomenalism, non-reductive physicalism, anomalous monism, panpsychism, naturalism, identify theory and eliminativist.
   The Motor Theory of Consciousness considers consciousness primarily as an epiphenomenon or byproduct of delayed motor excitation. Author Ken Wilber argues for a multi-level form of consciousness which traverse a spectrum from lower to higher levels. The Integrated Informational Theory (ITT) of consciousness attributes the phenomenon to interactions among multiple, relevant reactions within the brain. . Quantum theories of consciousness, meanwhile, ascribe consciousness to characteristics associated with quantum physics such as superposition and quantum entanglement. Meme theory considers consciousness primarily as an illusion created in the brain by memes as a mechanism of replication. Electromagnetic theorists believe evidence exists to show that consciousness arises from electromagnetic fields produced in the brain. See: Consciousness Based On Wireless?
   Standford's encyclopedia entry on consciousness cites a number of other specific theories of consciousness and states: "Although there are many general metaphysical/ontological theories of consciousness, the list of specific detailed theories about its nature is even longer and more diverse." Listed are higher-order theories (categorized into higher order thought theories and higher order perception theories) representative theories, cognitive theories, neural theories, quantum theories, and non-physical theories.
   "The problem with minds and consciousness is that they remain so mysterious, so unlike anything else that we are familiar with, that it is altogether unclear what might count as relevant background information," author Ben Dupré writes. (50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know, Quercus Publishing Plc., 2007, pg. 47).
   Douglas Hofstadter, author of Godel, Escher, Bach, and I Am a Strange Loop (Basic Books, New York, 2007, pg 19), questions our human sensibilities altogether as to what creatures are even deemed conscious enough to have value, compared to those which are not. In I Am a Strange Loop, Hofstadter lays out what he calls a "consciousness cone," suggesting a hierarchy of things or creatures which humans implicitly attribute various degrees of consciousness to. From the least to the greatest, these are atoms; viruses; microbes; mites; mosquitoes; bees; goldfish, chickens, bunnies, dogs, mentally retarded, brain-damaged and senile humans, and normal adult humans. He admits the list is only suggestive and not meant to be exact.
   "By virtue of our might, we are forced to establish some sort of ranking of creatures, whether we do so as a result of long and careful personal reflections or simply go along with the compelling flow of the masses," Hofstadter writes.
   Where should one start in seeking an answer to the puzzle?
   I would argue that it may not be so much a puzzle as a matter of proximity. We are, as it were, both observer and the observed. We are like tiny cogs inside a massive clockwork trying to determine where precisely the hands on the clock are positioned.
   Within us lies the ability to create and build using the faculty of imagination. In the mind are spawned a near infinite variety of constructs and scenarios in a mash up of fleeting images and memories. Do we in actuality fly around the moon the moment we imagine ourselves flying around the moon? Do we live forever because we imagine ourselves living forever? Does the mind exist in a parallel universe of eternal values and permanence unlike anything else on earth? In the minds of a great swath of human throughout the ages, apparently so. But where is the evidence?
   Even those theories which have climbed aboard the quantum physics train have yet to venture much beyond the realm of the theoretical and speculative, as rational sounding as they may be.
   "I believe that we will not be able to understand the physical basis of consciousness without including the principles of quantum physics and a very new concept of what constitutes the action of observation," author Fred Alan Wolf writes. (The Dreaming Universe, Simon and Schuster Inc., 1994. pg. 74).
   Whatever you do, I would suggest resisting the temptation to chisel your viewpoint into a tablet of stone, or treat as sacrosanct the views of anyone else who does. Considering the vast cognitive differences there are among people in general, including the many altered state of consciousness on record, it just doesn't seem wise.
   In Who's Afraid of Schrödinger's Cat? by Ian Marshal and Danah Zohar (Quill, William Morrow, 1997), the authors give this description of the divide: "Even if various neural theories eventual provide scientific answer to these questions, we are left with a philosophical disquiet. There is too much clash between the objective, scientific paradigm in terms of which we understand the brain—mass, length, electrical activity, and so on—and the more subjective paradigm in terms of which we understand ourselves--self-awareness, phenomenal space and time, intentionality, free will, an such. As currently understood, the two paradigms seem like chalk and cheese." (pg. 234).
   But does the nearly indescribable, nebulous nature of the conscious mind justify leaping to fantastic conclusions? Does it trivialize the beauty and value of life? My answer is no, but where answers are uncertain and desires rule, the imagination traditionally takes over.
   Could it be that consciousness is simply much less complicated than it seems, that it only appears magical (or spiritual), in the way that electromagnetic waves and magnetism can appear magical? Is consciousness merely the active product of a biological organism whose primary, evolutionary advantage stems from being able to produce hypothetical constructs in the mind, in order to make half-reliable decisions in a complex world?
   John R Burr and Milton Goldinger, editors of Philosophy and Contemporary Issues (Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1972), write in the introduction to their chapter on knowledge and science about the propensity of human beings to subjugate facts to feelings. Their argument is primarily about science-based knowledge, but it can equally apply to our discussion of consciousness.
   A central point: Excitement, amusement, power, ethnocentricity, wealth, national security and a host of other immediate human desires things are routinely placed on a higher plain than is the honest pursuit of genuine knowledge.
   As stated by Burr and Goldinger: "The great majority of men and women tolerate science, admire it, or revere it only to the degree and extent science is a necessary means to various desired nonscientific ends. When science fails to provide the necessary means, people turn to kinds of 'knowledge' other than the scientific. Does scientific psychology look dubiously upon extrasensory perception, does it cast doubt on the claim those messages really came from beloved Uncle Max dead these many years? The, scientific psychology is dogmatic, materialistic, too narrow, at best merely partial knowledge. Astronomy won't tell us if we will be lucky or unlucky today? Then astrology will. Does science seem to make it difficult to believe God exists? Then our hearts inform us he does exist. Does science fail to prove convincingly that we should all love one another and stop hating? Then mystical insight will."
   The realm of ideas and inner experiences that make up the conscious human mind may indeed be subjectively real, may be something that people desire to be objectively real, but even after hundreds of years of inquiry there remains a dearth of evidence to substantiate the claim that a person's conscious mind is anything but confined to their own fleeting neurological network. More apparent still is the ease with which the subjective human mind can deceive itself, intentionally corrupting the criteria it uses to differentiate substantive knowledge from mere superstition and magical thinking.

For further reading

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Philosophy of Mind

Dualism (Philosophy of Mind)

The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness

Mind, body and emotion

By Steve Rensberry

 The essence and source of human emotions, like that of consciousness itself, is a complex phenomenon that has caused a great deal of bewilderment throughout history. Author and professor Paul Thagard makes an interesting observation in an April 15, 2010 blog for Psychology Today, entitled very simply, "What are emotions?"
   Thagard first appraises the dualist view as being weak on evidence and heavy on wishful thinking or motivated inference, then points to two main scientific explanations for how emotions arise. One is the cognitive appraisal theory, which suggests that emotions represent a reaction to how well we are achieving any particular goal, the result being happiness when we're getting closer and anger when we encounter obstacles. The second explanation argues that emotions are tied to physiological changes.
   "On this view, happiness is a kind of physiological perception, not a judgment, and other emotions such as sadness and anger are mental reactions to different kinds of physiological stages," he writes.
   Most intriguing is Thagard's comment that our current understanding of how the brain functions suggests that the two theories can be unified.
   "Visual and other kinds of perception are the result of both inputs from the senses and top-down interpretations based on past knowledge. Similarly, the brain can perform emotions by interactively combining both high-level judgments about goal satisfactions and low-level perceptions of bodily changes," he says.
   As for the physiological connection, research also points to a number of compounds and molecules in the body that appear to drive various emotional states. These include adrenaline, acetylcholine, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin, testosterone, estrogen, melatonin and oxytocin.
   When so many of these substances perform multiple functions in the context of a biologically complex, dynamic living organism, it's no wonder emotions are so difficult to quantify. In artificial intelligence, it remains to be seen if duplication of human emotional reactions will be worthy of broad-based emulation or perhaps something that is a little more on the level of sanity.

Mind, body and brain

By Steve Rensberry

The human brain interacts with the body by way of a complex network appropriately called the central nervous system. This itself is composed of functional units such as the brain stem, spinal cord and the matter which makes up the brain itself. Other functional units: the limbic system - associated with such things as anxiety - and the motor system - associated with such things as speech.

A series of membranes lying just under the skull effectively creates a blood-brain barrier that allows only a restricted range of substances to pass through to the brain. Beginning with the brain, the central nervous system extends through the brain stem, through the spinal cord and through a series of ganglia and peripheral nerves branching out throughout the body. The peripheral nervous system consists of nerves and nerve roots. The anatomic nervous system controls such things as heart beat and digestive processes.

Large bundles of nerves or conduits, themselves composed of millions of nerve cells and neurons, exist to help the brain communicate with other parts of the body. Scientists have identified more than 200 neurotransmitters.

The brain's primary source of energy is blood glucose. Also important are those nutrients which are necessary for the metabolism of glucose, such as magnesium, pantothenic acid, biotin, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and chromium. Vitamins B12 and B6, protein, copper, zinc, folacin and iron are believed to be essential in the creation of red blood cells, which are responsible for delivering oxygen to the brain. Other nutrients, such as potassium, assist in the transmission of nerve impulses.

What evidence is there that the human mind is anything more than a product of this complex, multi-functional physical organ we call the brain? Can the totality of mental phenomenon be adequately explained as a product of purely non-personal, physical and chemical processes? Can the conscious mind exist apart from what is generally understood to be the brain?

On my way to positing a theory, let me first note the following:

- At no time in human history has any human being ever been shown to have thoughts after their brain is removed or after it is denied oxygen for more than but a very few minutes. They have, however, been shown to have a very high propensity to decay, with barely the slightest sign of reconstitution.

- Split brain studies undertaken by Michael Gazzaniga, Roger Sperry and Joseph Bogen at the California Institute of Technology several years ago revealed striking differences between the two hemispheres, with the left brain (responsible for such things as invention and interpretation) appearing to have a substantially higher degree of consciousness than the right (responsible for such things as emotion, subconscious processes, vision and pattern recognition.) Dr. Robert Buckman, who wrote "Can We Be Good Without God? Behaviour, Belonging and the Need to Believe," points to brain research as suggesting that "supernatural experiences" are a uniquely right temporal lobe phenomenon.

- Dr. Paul MacLean, a researcher with the National Institute of Mental Health, suggests that conflict arises among the three, fundamentally distinct types of brains we all have, one being the reptilian brain centered in the brain stem and associated body organs; another being the mammalian brain, central to learning and memory; and the other being the primate brain centered in the frontal lobes and responsible for intellectual theorizing, higher reasoning and experimentation. The urges and needs of each are not always aligned.

-  The classic 1902 book, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," by William James argues that all humans share impulses belonging to one of two types: lower level, instinct-based impulses, and those involving higher, more cognitive processes. James claims that these two types of impulses, acting together, is what gives rise to religious experience. You'll note the assumption on my part that so-called religious experience or all experiences of the supernatural for that matter, are tied in some way to some measure of philosophical and metaphysical dualism, in the belief that a person's mind is a separate and living entity set completely apart from the physical brain within our skulls.

- While working on his doctorate in 2003 at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Clinical Psychologist Ben Hidalgo wrote a thesis entitled "The Utility of a Neuropsychological of Religious Experience." Included in the piece is a composite definition of religious experience, in which Hidalgo cites works by William James, Walter N. Pahnke, Roland Fischer and James B. Pratt.  See: http://www.psych.illinois.edu/~bhidalgo/litreview.htm  I quote:

"These characteristics can be present in any combination to identify a religious experience and have each been verified as characteristic of a religious experience through observation and self report. Together they address all known cultural expressions of religion."

He lists these characteristics: 1) Loss of awareness of discrete limited being, passage of time. 2) Obliteration of self-other dichotomy. 3) Visual, auditory hallucinations. 4) Feelings of bliss, ecstasy, transcendence, internal unity, cosmic union and consciousness, transcendence of space and time. 5) Sense of presence of a higher being or reality. 6) Sense of insight into the very nature of the universe. 7) Trance states. 8) Sense of sacredness. 9) Sense of ineffability. 10) A preoccupation with ritual.

- A growing body of evidence exists showing the two-way relationship between a person's mind and body. The body, using a variety of biochemical substances, can affect an individual's mood, attractions, appetite, alertness, and overall state of mind. Physical activity is known to cause the release of endorphins, working against feelings of depression and anger. Do we think about things such as intimacy with a loved one because the chemical in our bodies prompt us to, or do our hearts beat faster and our bodies become aroused because we tell them to? What I read seems to suggests that it's a bit of both.

- The placebo affect, as it relates to both mental and physical health, is well documented. Believe you took an antidepressant, and the sugar-pill you took may just have an effect on par with that high-powered pharmaceutical. Allow yourself to be convinced that a simple sugar-filled capsule contains a powerful narcotic and will eliminate your pain, and in some cases it does just that. Why? Because while our brains have the ability to direct the actions of our body at the same time that the body works its magic directly upon our brains using such biochemicals as endorphins, bombesin and vasopressin.

There's certainly something to be said for the feeling that some sort of dualism is at play within the universe and the mind in particular. Mental phenomenon can be exceedingly bizarre, throwing us into a world of self reflection and contemplation, unlimited by time and space, tradition or conventions, allowing us to conceptualize and  move nearly seamlessly from image to emotion to desire to conviction to deep, abstract analysis on a level unmatched anywhere else on earth. Humans are exceedingly unique and unusual. Plato described the body as a prison for the soul. Death preceded the life we live, therefore life must follow again once we die, he says. Sacrates argues for a soul that exists prior to birth because of what we appear to know almost instinctively upon birth. The invisible (Forms) outlasts the visible, thus the soul (mind) must outlast the body, he reasons. Hume, Locke, Descartes and many others have all weighed in on the issue of mind and dualism, but a good summation of the common flaw among those who believe in some sort of dualism, that mind can exist apart from the brain, was given by Nagel.

An entry on Dualism and Mind in the "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy" (Problems with Leibniz's Law Arguments for Dualism, (see http://www.iep.utm.edu/dualism/) written by Scott Calef, reads:

"Although each of these arguments for dualism may be criticized individually, they are typically thought to share a common flaw: they assume that because some aspect of mental states, such as privacy, internationality, truth, or meaning cannot be attributed to physical substances, they must be attributable to non-physical substances. But if we do not understand how such states and their properties can be generated by the central nervous system, we are no closer to understanding how they might be produced by minds . . . . Dualists cannot explain the mechanisms by which souls generate meaning, truth, internationality or self-awareness. Thus, dualism creates no explanatory advantage. As such, we should use Ockham’s razor to shave off the spiritual substance, because we ought not to multiply entities beyond what is necessary to explain the phenomena. Descartes’ prodigious doubt notwithstanding, we have excellent reasons for thinking that bodies exist. If the only reasons for supposing that non-physical minds exist are the phenomena of internationality, privacy and the like, then dualism unnecessarily complicates the metaphysics of personhood."

My take on it: Creativity, the ability to shape and suspend belief, to imagine, to dream, to rationalize and establish meaning on a purely subjective level, is one of the single most powerful human faculties that makes us who we are, that sets us above and beyond every other known creature on the planet, giving us a deciding advantage in particular when working in groups and in social formations. But almost by default it is a faculty without limits. The feeling of dualism, of a mind or soul that is categorically distinct from our flesh and blood bodies is thus, fundamentally, a matter of simply failing (or deciding not) to apply the brakes. We suspend belief in a naturalistic universe in the hopes that we are right, because we want desperately to be right. We imagine, pray, dream and desire to be unrestrained by the limitations of the human condition, willfully allowing ourselves to be sucked into rationalizing the existence of that which does not exist. Meaning and value are no less important to the good life, whether you presuppose they come from an invisible realm shared by mind and spirit, or from a singular earthly realm shared by neurons and synapse gaps. But there's pleasure in believing the magical realm is real, an evolutionary advantage perhaps .... in imagining a world beyond our own, in throwing the entire weight of one's cognitive devotion into a whole-hearted belief in the paranormal or the supernatural and the presumed permanence that comes with it.