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| Excavation De Kooning - 1950 |
Good Morning Christa…
One of the
points you make in response to Michael Graziano’s column, Are We Really Conscious? , is that personal impressions are valid. The subjective life is real. Consciousness exists because it is an
indisputable part of our experience. The
processing of input through the use of mental models does not necessarily make
conscious thought an illusion. Our minds
evaluate an apple’s color, flavor, aroma, depth and weight. The result is that the mind identifies the
object as an apple. This information is
of no practical value to our biological brains without next determining the
relevance of the apple to ourselves. We
don’t determine the importance of the apple without also providing further
knowledge of the self. Are we hungry? Is this item safe for us to eat? Do we like apples? Would we prefer eating something else that is
available? The process of absorbing
external world information also initiates self-knowledge, self-awareness. Deprive us of all sensory input for an
extended period and we may well lose in time the nature of our own
identity.
Consciousness
requires our being able to continually relate with the external world. Thus it does derive from the processing of
information. It also makes sense for the
mind to require preexisting mental models – bundles of information – if it is
to be capable of any meaningful evaluation.
Let’s return to our apple.
Of what use
is the apple’s color if our minds are not prepared to interpret the wavelength
it reflects? A wavelength is a physical
reality of the external world. It has
many properties associated with it. A
particular wavelength captured by the mind’s eye may induce a mental construct
we identify as the color red. There
would be no recognition of red without first a model to interpret that
wavelength. So it also holds true for
all aspects of the external world. It
isn’t enough to provide the biological equipment for hearing if there isn’t a
corresponding model in place to convert vibrations into sound. Sound is strictly a mental phenomenon, just as
is color, odor or touch. All of these
sensations have been created, modified and refined over many millions of years.
The mind needs to know only what is
relevant to survival.
A model produces
a rough approximation of an entity.
Graziano refers to its product as a mere caricature of the object’s true
properties. Our awareness of the color
white gives us no clue that it actually contains all visible colors of the
spectrum. We have no model for this
because the information has no relation to survival. Human reason enables us to acquire
information not directly processed by models.
What if it is true that consciousness is
illusion? Are we then little more than
an elaborate information processing organism?
How coldly material and mechanistic this would seem. It hardly depicts the human spirit as we know
it. The ongoing reasoned exploration of
all things physical continually changes our perception of reality. Copernicus destroyed the notion we were the
center of God’s creation. Darwin made a
pleasant fiction of the Garden of Eden.
It seems now that neurological scientists are diminishing the mystique we
hold for human existence. Are we to
believe all existence boils down to simple cause-and-effect mathematical logic?
I think not. It’s tempting for some to misinterpret the overall
significance of scientific findings.
There is no shortage to the mystery of existence. How do we explain the fact of existence at
all? There is simply no need for
anything to exist. Still we do. What is it we know of the underlying basis of
physical reality? That question actually
remains a mystery. Our explanations of
the physical world only unearth more thoroughly puzzling questions – questions
that challenge the very usefulness of reason itself. Imagine that.
The universe we know is extraordinarily complicated from beginning to
end – from light years in size to infinitesimally small material elements that
appear to travel through dimensions beyond our detection. Science has reached the point of being able
to scoff at the scientific validity of writings by ancient people thousands of
years ago. That’s nothing to brag
about. We actually have far bigger
challenges ahead when it comes to deciphering the nature and depth of our
existence. Chances are that if we have
to rely exclusively on the reasoning power of our present biological brains we
will never find the ultimate answers to the how and why of our being here. That’s reassuring to me. I’d hate to think existence is simple enough
for the human mind to thoroughly conceive.
What a sad commentary for all of creation.
Every line
of pursuit we choose to take ends short of our hopes. Big deal.
There are so many personal rewards along the way. Let us focus on living well. Art is a splendid topic. It isn’t caged within the narrow framework of
scientific or mathematical reason. It is
sensual. It stretches the vistas of
imagination. It brings to harvest our
many emotions. It is, best of all, just
so damned dependent on the qualities of human nature. Amen to that.
Tom
