--| Human Consciousness |-----
Human consciousness is the stage upon which concept and observation
meet and become linked to one another. In saying this we have in fact
characterized this (human) consciousness. It is the mediator between
thinking and observation. In as far as we observe a thing it appears
to us as given; in as far as we think, we appear to aurselves as being
active. We regard the thing as object and ourselves as thinking
subject. Because we direct our thinking upon our observation, we have
consciousness of objects; because we direct it upon ourselves, we have
consciousness of ourselves, or self-consciousness. Human consciousness
must of necessity be at the same time self-consciousness because it is
a consciousness which thinks. For when thinking contemplates its own
activity, it makes its own essential being, as subject, into a thing,
as object.
(Rudolf Steiner, Philosophy of Freedom, Chapter 4).
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/science/prat-bra.htm
|
| John Eccles on Mind and Brain
|
| According to the prevailing scientific theory of the mind -- known as
| "identity theory" -- mental states are identical with physicochemical
| states of the brain. The brain is regarded as a supercomplex computer
| in which material processes in the cerebral cortex somehow generate
| thoughts and feelings. Distinguished neuroscientist and Nobel Prize
| winner Sir John Eccles rejects this theory...
|
| References: "The Understanding of the Brain" by John Eccles.
| His book *Evolution in the Brain* (1989) is an excellent, albeit
| quite dense, overview of changes in the brains of primates.
|
* ECCLES, Sir John Carew (1903- )
Physiologist, born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He studied at
Melbourne and Oxford, became director of the Kanematsu Institute of
Pathology at Sydney (1937), and was professor of physiology at Otago
University (1944-51), then at Canberra (1951-66). In 1968 he moved to
the State University of New York at Buffalo. A specialist in
neurophysiology, he was knighted in 1958, and shared the 1963 Nobel
Prize for Physiology or Medicine for work on the functioning of
nervous impulses.
Thus, current neuroscience supports Steiner's logical and philosophic
assertion that:
Materialism can never offer a satisfactory explanation of the
world. For every attempt at an explanation must begin with the
formation of thoughts about the phenomena of the world.
MATERIALISM THUS BEGINS WITH THE THOUGHT OF MATTER OR MATERIAL
PROCESSES. BUT, IN DOING SO, IT IS ALREADY CONFRONTED BY TWO
DIFFERENT SETS OF FACTS: THE MATERIAL WORLD, AND THE THOUGHTS
ABOUT IT. THE MATERIALIST SEEKS TO MAKE THESE LATTER INTELLIGIBLE
BY REGARDING THEM AS PURELY MATERIAL PROCESSES. HE BELIEVES THAT
THINKING TAKES PLACE IN THE BRAIN, MUCH IN THE SAME WAY THAT
DIGESTION TAKES PLACE IN THE ANIMAL ORGANS. JUST AS HE ATTRIBUTES
MECHANICAL AND ORGANIC EFFECTS TO MATTER, SO HE CREDITS MATTER IN
CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES WITH THE CAPACITY TO THINK. HE OVERLOOKS
THAT, IN DOING SO, HE IS MERELY SHIFTING THE PROBLEM FROM ONE
PLACE TO ANOTHER. HE ASCRIBES THE POWER OF THINKING TO MATTER
INSTEAD OF TO HIMSELF. And thus he is back again at his starting
point. How does matter come to think about its own nature? Why is
it not simply satisfied with itself and content just to exist?
The materialist has turned his attention away from the definite
subject, his own I, and has arrived at an image of something
quite vague and indefinite. Here the old riddle meets him again.
The materialistic conception cannot solve the problem; it can
only shift it from one place to another.
(Rudolf Steiner, Philosophy of Freedom, Chapter 2)
THOUGHT is the first line of observation
even for empirical science, for...
If one demands of a "strictly objective science" that it
should take its content from observation alone, then one must at the
same time demand that it should forgo all thinking. For thinking,
by its very nature, goes beyond what is observed. (pof-4)
What the naive man can perceive with his senses he regards as
real, and what he cannot thus perceive (God, soul, knowledge,
etc.) he regards as analogous to what he does perceive...
A science based on naive realism would have to be nothing but an
exact description of the content of perception. For naive
realism, concepts are only the means to an end. They exist to
provide ideal counterparts of percepts, and have no significance
for the things themselves. For the naive realist, only the
individual tulips which he sees (or could see) are real; the
single idea of the tulip is to him an abstraction, the unreal
thought-picture which the soul has put together out of the
characteristics common to all tulips.
Naive realism, with its fundamental principle of the reality of
all perceived things, is contradicted by experience, which
teaches us that the content of percepts is of a transitory
nature. The tulip I see is real today; in a year it will have
vanished into nothingness. What persists is the species tulip.
For the naive realist, however, this species is "only" an idea,
not a reality. Thus this theory of the world find itself in the
position of seeing its realities come and go, while what it
regards as unreal, in contrast with the real, persists. Hence
naive realism is compelled to acknowledge, in addition to
percepts, the existence of something ideal [i.e. 'conceptual'].
(pof-7)
--| WHAT IS A LIVING BEING? |---
beginning with a rock and a plant:
with the mineral substance, it does nothing without
the external action of some molecules upon another.
it generally follows the laws of entropy.
in the plant however - for whatever reason you may explain it, you
observe a different phenomenon -- for some reason or other, you have
GROWTH. in the plant, you observe a differentiation of the internal
structure, and the metamorphosed development of its growth. as does
not occur in the plant when it is dead, nor in the mineral substance
that is not a plant and is externally organised.
when a plant decomposes and dies, a certain organisation of this
structure ceases, and the organism disintegrates leaving only
inorganic mineral matter. the member of a plant (which we do not yet
ASSUME is has an electro-magnetic or physical basis) which opposes
this disintegration is what we may call the LIFE element. when the
LIFE element is removed from living substance (such as a plant), then
it no longer organises itself and grows -- rather it begins to
disintegrate. the LIFE element works counter to entropy.
--| two ways of considering |---
the human organism considered one way:
- physical body
- consciousness/soul
this is dualism, and much energy has been expended on
how this dualism may be resolved.
the human organism considered another way:
in addition to the inner-differentiation of the physical
body, and the activities of all the fluid, aeroform, and heat
within the organism being seen as a by-product of the processes
undergone by the physical components, we could investigate the
possibility that the: physical, fluid, aeroform, and heat within
a living being are inwardly differentiated and to be considered
seperate functions that work together cohesively in the activity
of a living creature. in this view, we would have:
- physical organism
- growth & metabolic organism (resides in the fluid organisation)
- passion & nervous organism (resides in the aeroform organisation)
- EGO organism / bearer of consciousness (resides in the warmth)
we can see the physionomic effect of an inner process
(say 'embarassment') expressed in the outer change in
say -- the heat organism -- the organism brings about
a change in configuration that is manifested as *blushing*.
the outer measurable effects (the blushing, and blood rushing
to the face) are a RESULT, and not a CAUSE. it is here that
we have a possible link between the two worlds of the dualist.
let us examine this line of thought a little further:
first we have: the MINERAL kingdom.
then we have the LIFE element - GROWTH.
then in animals, we come to not only growth, but PASSIONS and DESIRES.
when something that GROWS beomes filled with passion and desires, it
becomes MEAT.
a plant does not chase after its food, feel pain. it utters no sound
of expression from within itself. an animal runs after its food,
follows its desires. it lives by instinct, and its growth and form are
fashioned by the movements carried out by this instinct, desire, and
passion.
conciousness arises when within the LIFE substance,
death is continuously overcome -- this is what actually
gives rise to CONSCIOUSNESS.
unlike plants, animals also have passions and desires.
they experience *sensation* -- animals have: a physical body,
ii) growth, and iii) desires/instincts/passions (that these
are built-up from physical processes is a theory we will not
yet conclude).
if we think of the human as differentiated along these lines:
we have mineral substance -- a body that we can touch. then also
like plants -- we also grow. like animals, we have passions and desires.
but consciousness is not yet self-consciousness...
there comes man - he begins to reflect, to THINK, to INVENT
devices for his own purposes - and he begins to fashion his own
purposes. then there is thinking or self-consciousness.
so we see that humans too: we have mineral substance that we can touch.
like plants, we also grow. like animals, we have passions and desires,
and finally we have *thinking* -- of which the human brain is the
instrument in which this activity occurs.
the complete and living human being is not merely a dualism of
i) physical body, and ii) consciousness. but rather encompases
a progression as follows:
- mineral: physical organism
- growth & metabolic organism (resides in the fluid organisation)
- nervous organism (resides in the aeroform organisation)
- EGO organism / bearer of consciousness (resides in the warmth)
this is offered in contrast to
the dualistic system that only reckons:
- physical body
- consciousness.
and has no idea of how they can possibily be connected.
--
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updated: july 24, 2001 (orig: march 1, 2001)