Sunday, January 21, 2018

An attempt to describe the origin and function of consciousness



Consciousness is one of the most discussed, but still, one that lacks a final consensus as to what is it, among philosophers, scientists, and psychologists! Likes to state here, that most of the confusion around ‘consciousness’ arise from our insistence in calling it ‘consciousness, not mind: we better be aware of the reason why we, especially Science, like to call it ‘consciousness’, a term very narrow and restrictive of all what man does with his emotions, thoughts, his sense of Reason, and the existential urges or drives he carries as a victim.      

It is better we call Science, ‘man’s spirit of open and objective seeking and thinking’, with the sole purpose of gathering more and more knowledge about the ‘biology’ of life and ‘physics’of ’cosmos. Her obsession for treating life ‘biological’ and the cosmos, ’physical’, in other words, her keeping them as her ‘universal- premises’, or as ‘referring point’ for all her further inferences, clouds all her knowledge pursuits. Better we avoid calling them ‘prejudices’ for her professional dignity’s sake.

But we can’t pretend to be not aware, that by physical she simply means, whatever the ‘whole’  we know as ‘existence’ would one day be explained by laws of physics. On the other hand, religions believe in phenomena beyond ‘physical’ too, as they think, the ‘whole’ of existence can not be explained by physics alone. So she believes, there exist ‘powers’ or ‘forces’ in cosmos beyond the explanations of Science.

We must know, even though we think that Logic is a universally applicable exercise to find the truth, it is feebly depended on some or other of our ‘universal’ beliefs, (axioms) or mother premises. Logic is our exercise of connecting our inferences with ‘consistency’ with such ‘universals’. If there is no premise like’ man is mortal’ ( the universal premise) there can not be any Logic in the syllogism, ‘ Man is mortal, Socrates is a man, so he is mortal’. It is mandatory in Logic, that there should be something already known as her referring point.  

It is the above ‘universal’ premise of Science,( everything that exists is physical) that compels her to stick on with ‘consciousness’ term. She wants to be consistent with her beliefs, that ‘consciousness’ is, after all, an ‘evolved’ property of physical matter, in the process of her attaining more and more ‘survival’ efficiency. Consciousness gives neurons memory, and this memory of past events helps the unit of life to deal with ‘survival’ task more efficiently.

But the inherent ‘sense’ of man murmurs to him, that something entirely physical cannot remain without a beginning in time, and without specific boundaries. Infinity of time and space are not terms compatible with any physical explanation.
  
Then, there is the nagging question of ‘what triggers what’ in the working of neurons; do thoughts trigger neuron-firing or neuron-firing triggers thoughts and other mental activities? Love to share with open minds, following links that delve deep into the question of whether existence is physical or non-physical: http://patternsofapproachtodiscoverreality.blogspot.in/2013/11/conversation-on-metaphysics-with.html



So, we can only stick on with a physical explanation of ‘consciousness’ simply as a workable model, but not as an ultimate ‘insight’ into what all that are attributed to the realm of mind. 


‘Consciousness’ ignores ‘existential drives’ that every person experiences within!

The moment one frees his mind from the narrow, restricted purview of the concept of ‘consciousness’, he could start looking at the following ‘drives’ that every person feels within, directing and guiding his behavior: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.in/2013/07/existential-drives-of-man.html

Now, this author would like to draw the attention of all open-minds to the contents of the following link, that fundamentally draws our attention towards certain well noticeable ‘features’ of our EGO, our ‘other’ oriented self-identity. ( How is our ‘self’ is ‘other-oriented’ a further link will explain)


To understand ‘consciousness’ at close angles, we must first accept that, consciousness pre-supposes a ‘conscious’ entity. It can’t be a ‘mirror’ like function, where there involves no conscious entity, a self.  Consciousness is always ‘consciousness’ of a ‘knowing’ entity, one who is ‘conscious’ of first, its own self, the one who is the owner of the experiences, and then what he/she experiences.  

Here is a simple Logic. If atoms can have a clear, specific structure based on it’s expected functions, why can’t ‘consciousness’ too? Yes, we are compelled to accept here, that it makes ‘sense’ to believe, the self of man also is subject to an Atom like structure and functional laws. It Nature has set sensible laws, how an Atom should work, she must have set similar, sensible laws for the phenomenon of SELF too.
  
Now let us have a look, what could be those smart structure and laws behind the emergence of ‘consciousness’?

The following link explains it well, so to avoid repetition, the link is given here for all open-minds: http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.in/2015/03/the-rationale-of-being-existentially.html

For additional explanation on the origin of human self, the ‘conscious entity’, the following link might help: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.in/2017/05/the-physics-behind-birth-of-human-self-i.html


It will become evident to those who have read all the above blogs, that the content of ‘consciousness’ has no direct relevance to existence. Its contents serve the purpose of only originating a ‘knowing’ entity. So, analyzing consciousness content is like analyzing the patterns of cloud in the sky; it has no specific pattern! Following blog-post on ‘thoughts’ might complement our insight on mental activities: http://hiddenobserveronthelimitationsofmind.blogspot.in/2015/01/an-attempt-to-understand-phenomenon-of.html

Hope it is evident now, that to understand the phenomenon of mind, we must first abandon the narrow term ‘consciousness’ The term was originated to limit the vastness of what mind-realm of man actually does, and restrict it as a part of the physical realm. 






Monday, January 26, 2015

An attempt to understand the phenomenon of human-thought !



"Like legs to body,thoughts are what make MIND to MOVE-AROUND, making realities In the course;More the distance it walk,returning gets tough"

(Tweet dated 16th Aug,2016)
"It makes much sense to understand 'thoughts'as the substance that circulate thru mind, like blood thru body: http://hiddenobserveronthelimitationsofmind.blogspot.in/"


An attempt to understand the phenomenon of human-thought !


The major questions this paper intent to take-up are:

1) To distinguish the act of thought from mind and consciousness
2) What precedes what: Neuron firing or thoughts?
3) Can we isolate thought phenomenon from its physical explanation? If we succeed, will it end-up identifying the physical realm, merely as the architecture/ structural realm of reality?
4) Can thought be an open-ended act, or is it restricted by certain design and laws?
5) Can it affect and alter the physical realm?
6) Identifying various mind-activities that we usually brand under the single umbrella of thought
7) Similar to work energy and thrust, can we identify and recognize 'thrusts' or 'inherent directions' that make us think and guide its directions?
8) Identifying thought with physical work; it builds-up, and accumulates as aggregate, in an irreversible manner, like work by hand and legs makes man move his location and environment.( your realities are there where your thoughts are!) If hands and legs that help the body to work and move, do thoughts accomplish a similar function for the mind ?
9 Another important question; if thoughts are not preceded by neuron firing, can we, or how could we attribute it to an unknown, unrecognized realm of reality?
10) Can a realm of 'silent-consciousness' ( without thoughts) is possible, as a desired ideal for dealing with life? 

1) To distinguish the act of thought from mind and consciousness

If this kind of a paper attempt to base the theme on the writings and opinion of past philosophers and thinkers on consciousness and thought, it will turn-up as another scholastic exercise, wherein the conclusions should derive from the pieces of evidence presented. If any new observation of the author is added, it will receive the attention of the scholastic world only if the author has some reputation as a researcher in some reputed university! Then, how can an altogether new approach to a given theme could be introduced to the world? It is really a tough task!

This author is an unknown researcher in the world. He was into free-lance experiments in Hypnosis from his age of 18, ( his college days) and he had conducted hundreds of experiments making his experimental subjects, his classmates, family members, friends and associates.

During these experiments, a very few of his subjects were found blessed with 'clairvoyance' faculty.( the rare faculty to see what is going on real-time at distant places in Hypnotic state, and also able to say correctly  in 9 out of 10 cases, what playing cards are there in a sealed envelop)

Such encounters with the hidden faculties of mind made him a mind-enthusiast from that young age, and this interest actively continued for 3-4 decades. It is continuing even today.

Though it is difficult to present citations for whatever is presented here in this work, the author realizes the importance of relating the theme to a contemporary work or controversy, for getting a touch of currency. Therefore, he wishes to relate, and address the 'hard-problem' lately introduced by David Chalmers.( See link: http://blog.ted.com/2014/03/19/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-david-chalmers-at-ted2014/)

Those who oppose the questions raised by him ( Dr.Chalmers) must come out with an equally sensible response, after also considering whatever this paper has brought-forth.  

So, let this paper be an altogether new approach to the phenomenon of thought and its relation with mind or consciousness.

Sticking on with 'consciousness' to denote and understand the much wider realm of thought is like sticking on with pre-Copernicus notions about solar-system! 

To end the confusion between mind and consciousness here, this paper will use the term MIND only in future references, for convenience. It is assumed that the Western thought system prefers to call whatever the mind realm does as attributes of 'consciousness' only because, it prefers to limit the realm of, apparently non-matter / non-physical aspects of reality, to some or other kind of raw function of matter itself. So, the purpose of limiting the vast activities and properties of mind to its minimum possible relevance was served by the usage of the term 'consciousness'. Here is an appeal to have a re-look at this practice, and be massively more open about accepting that, the existing notion of 'consciousness' is very inadequate, and even belittling about whatever is apparently non-physical ( by our inadequate definitions !) about life and existence in general!

First of all, the realm of thought is NOT a passive state, as the term 'consciousness' appears to sound. Without the rays of thought falling upon any object of consciousness, the act simply does NOT take place! So, a conscious or unconscious ( reflective) act upon the object in question is a must for having consciousness. On this very base and logic itself, the term 'consciousness' could be put to task, for its function-wise misconception.

Thought can be said to be like the concept of Big-Bang; from the moment consciousness emerges, it travels outward, in good speed. If the self does not care to control its wild-direction, it results in plain 'STRANDING' of the self at strange, remote locations! The entire responsibility of taming own-thoughts rests with the individual himself. If not controlled, the individual gets caught up in whirlwinds or storms, like what happens in massive uprisings in the world. During Hitler's regime, the entire people's consciousness got trapped in the storm that their leader had triggered, and here individual consciousness got diminished into a vacuum, and everyone got caught up in one singular ideological ( thought) whirlwind!

We can say with confidence that, in the matter of consciousness also, the contemporary world is caught up in a similar collective whirlwind, unable to stand-out to face more sensible truths about this most central aspect of life and existence! Modern man is caught up in the whirlwind of a media created, collective 'world-idea'! World idea has made his 'sense of self' around collective categories of reality. He is unable to realise his real core relation with existence today. Such a dimension of self itself non-existing today.

So, in the next para, we take up the necessity of the thinker, the core self of man.

Thoughts presuppose a thinker! 

Coming back to thought again, it originates from an equally non-physical source; ie. the 'self of man. The self of man is not confined to his body and brain activities. It has dimensions and features that out-perform body and the neuron-structure. It always shows features and characters beyond the routine objective descriptions. One of the most intriguing factors of such a 'self'  is that it is the originator of thoughts, something real to our routine conceiving tools, but we do not have a satisfactory explanation to its genus, energy phenomenon, dynamics and directions.

If the phenomenon of 'self' is derived from some kind of a 'pattern' formation of neuron-energies, it might be also represented by a corresponding special physical 'pattern' of neurons too, as thought/consciousness acts might always result in a, at least temporary, neuronic-'registration'. As we proposed earlier, the neuron-level 'registration' ( or physical manifestation) of thought takes place after the actual act of thinking !( thought precedes neuron-surge) Thoughts might be caused by some kind of an emission from the special circuitry 'field' of the self !

What we suggest is, as also did by Prof. Chalmers, we need not speculate that thought originates from the realm of mythologic spirits or God. It could have a sensible physical explanation, once Science opens-up on its base Dogma as to what matter is !  Science might be able to identify and master the new energy source, or the criteria that leads to the formation of self pattern, ( or field) and then, how this unique 'field' exercise its will to create thought emissions.

How does the self of man emerge, as an autonomous knowing entity exclusively from his social-interactions and ties- -an unbelievably smart and creative plan of nature- -is depicted in blog: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.in/2013/08/thinking-understanding-it-as-internal.html. 

This plan is akin to the equally unbelievable and creative design of the structure of atom, and how from its ever-wiggling electronic structure, the stability of material world has emerged ! ( please share blog post: http://patternsofapproachtodiscoverreality.blogspot.in/, that describes this great scheme of nature !)

This paper would like base its premises to the ground that, matter-realm is simply the structural realm of the ultimate reality, or its architectural realm.So, mind serves a similar kind of relation to thought, ie, serving the purpose of a structural or architectural realm to thought, though not exactly the way physical realm serves the reality realm, but only in the 'organizational' sense. Mind, as far as the range and reach of our scientific tools go, is not an observable or measurable realm, or an energy type. 

It was the 'word' there in the beginning, in the sense that, word denotes  thought, or thought always preceded the 'word'.This 'word'or thought was the most primeval-creative energy, that had opted for an 'organization' like the matter realm, and then, a sub-organization realm like mind, with all its architectural paraphernalia described in some detail at blog link; http://hiddenobserveronthelimitationsofmind.blogspot.in/.

For some better clarity here, one would say that the creative 'drive' or 'urge' to exist preceded the rest everything associated with it, like matter and mind. In plain human term, the most primeval thought realm was an 'emotional' realm, or a realm of a predisposition or predilection ! There was no law of any kind here in this realm or state, but only absolute and infinite freedom. This freedom had creatively 'chosen' a realm like that of matter, followed by an organization like 'mind' to execute the above referred creative thoughts. This most primeval creative thought realm opted to share the same kind of FREEDOM of creative choice for man too, in their role as independent entities on the surface of earth ! As these entities were basically synthetic,or manufactured entities, their so called freedom also was kind of synthetic, or in other words, they were allowed to have the sense of such a kind of infinite 'freedom' in their role as sub-creators of further realities in their habitat, the world !

It is obvious that, the base question at human-beings level, as to what is the stuff of the THOUGHT is immaterial here, as their ( human-beings') very concept of 'basic-stuff' itself was part of,or part of the synthetic stuff that the above ultimate 'choice' source had devised !

 So,the criterion for defining the ultimate stuff of man turns never applicable to the above most primeval realm. Human-kind does not possess any detecting or measuring devise,or concept to measure, recognize, or conceive any stuff that originally had constituted their own very realms of entities, meanings and realities !

Then, on what base, or with what knowing tool or faculty that we have presented the above speculations ? Does an unrecognized sense-realm exist that 'senses' realm such as that of thought?

Was the above contentions plain,blind theorizing ? The firm answer is no ! Please see details of our own, not yet recognized ( by the mainstream) knowing faculties that always existed, using what, man had fixed whatever was exact and reliable about our knowledge, about himself and the world. If nature has provided man sense faculties like eyes and ears to know about the physical world, it is safe to assume that She might have had provided similar faculties for knowing the deeper stuff also for knowing ultimate causes, and primeval organizational details about thought and mind realms. We do not have a collective understanding and recognition  about the existence of such inner faculties, hence many will find it extremely difficult to accept man's ability to speculate on such organisation level details about his essence, nature's organizational scheme around such stuff. If we had no such collective agreement about what eyes and ears provide, the data provided by these external sense organs also would have been met with similar dis-belief and despise !

Please share our most central paper on the special role and faculties of our inner organ of Reason, at link: http://philosopherskorner.blogspot.in/  

Here, what we have attempted above was, to distinguish 'thought' from our known realms of matter and mind.

2) What precedes what: Neuron firing or thoughts?

From the above description of the possible existential organization of man's realities, and the criteria for having such realities, it becomes evident that the structural realm,or the architectural realm of matter, say brain and its neuron-level manifestations,  always preceded by the mind and though realm. Neuron firing takes place only as a result of thoughts. At neuron level, thought get a material representation, or manifestation, as matter realm was very creatively chosen to manifest thought ( creative realm) in the original scheme of things. While man remains a slave of his matter-centered stuff and essence,(by his own ignorance) he has but no option to claim the reverse, ie, it must be the neuron firing first, that results in his thoughts and other mind-activities ! But very simple logic and common sense is enough to conclude finally that, thought realm exists independently of brain and neuron-firing, and it is the former that activate or trigger the latter !

It needs only simple imagination and sense to infer that, purely mechanical act of neuron firing can not be creative to give the out come of the highly creative ( or at times highly destructive,but still creative) thoughts !
If we conclude that it is neuron-firing that results in the thoughts of man, it would be a total negation of the creativity and spirit of innovation of man ! It is equal to concluding that that man is mere dead-matter bundle, while it is the mechanical, or the pre-designed brain-cells that deserve all the credit for whatever mankind had achieved on the face of earth through out history ! In his obsession to belittle mind, he belittle whatever is creative and innovative about him...

Science must exorbitantly open -up from Her dogmas about matter-centered-ness, and the 'zero-sum' valuation about human-life. She could now open-up, and attempt to build-up a separate science of thought and mind, and also about the 'organization' of human-'self' mechanism !

3) Can we isolate thought phenomenon from its physical explanation ? If we succeed, will it end-up identifying the physical realm merely as the architecture/ structural realm of reality as it appears to man's special perceiving-mechanism? ( the analogy of metallurgy to explain the futility of analyzing the physical structure of the world to understand the engineering marvels of cars ,or high-tech machinery )

If we stick on to explaining thought, mind etc. by the physical realm, with the typical argument of the need of 'information'( this informative needs met by the faculty of 'consciousness' of matter !) for energy conservation and optimum subsistence of the world, it will leave a whole lot of questions begging for answer, chiefly the following :

a) Upon close observation, it comes out to even the ordinarily intelligent that, nature does not depend much on the rational might of living beings to sustain itself, whether it is energy conservation oriented dependence, or the volition to mutate appropriately to meet the changing environment. We are familiar with the miraculous self-healing tendency of wounds and routine ailments in animals and man. Though man aids this tendencies of nature with supportive medications, wound-bandage etc, animals species simply wait for nature's own healing process, which happens as definitely as the coming of seasons. We know that due to excessive dependency of man on antibiotics, this naturally inherent immunity against diseases and infections is on the wane, and he is much more vulnerable today to diseases and infections than in the past ! This must reveal the weakening of nature's original capacity in preserving life instead of assuming that it was our intelligent action that was expected to help assist in the routine upward progress of nature.

b) If we look very closely at the evolution-theory based on natural selection, mutation etc, we will observe that,living-organism's will, effort or intelligent action has no role at all in the alleged evolutionary process.

The freewill of the individual members of the species has no role in this natural phenomenon, because such individual member, whether an animal, or a plant, is a helpless 'object' of various energies and strategies of nature. The 'member' can not ever wish, or will to 'mutate', so that a more developed offspring could come out of him/her. When the most developed species, man, can not wish to shed a heir on his body, or stop growing his nails, how can he be aware of his mutational needs to better and effectively respond to a mutation need ? 

 Hence, the entire responsibility to produce a better adapted offspring rests with the same NATURE ! The species are absolutely BLIND about the possibility of evolution. The hero, or the villain here is, the same 'nature', who acts at the individual cell level in the body,and simply mutate, without any involvement of the volition of the member of the species. Can the cell level act/interaction of a living being be considered and defined as the will-full act of the animal itself ? Cells and their various other higher organization in the living body ( like Tissues and different internal organs) act and behave independently, without any element of volition of the animal. 

This is serious philosophical question or issue that the evolutionists must address.  

Moreover, the above clear answer that, neuron-firing will always be preceded by thought, itself has isolated thoughts from a physical explanation. Neuron activity was simply a physical expression of thoughts that preceded thought. If some one insists that, no, thoughts are neuron-genic, it would be greater task to attribute the infinite possibilities and complexities of thought to them; such attributes if neuron-genic, we will have to  believe that, it carry a complex prior-programming that is capable of achieving the infinite creativity and complexity of thoughts, which is, by the degree of evidence and the simple sense of reason, is a more difficult intuition than assigning thoughts a precedent position.

If former was the case, thoughts would have to be believed as product of pre-conceptions and past experiences of man, that the neurons must have manifested as present thoughts.To prove this argument as wrong, the only way-out is to do real time experiments to ascertain whether thoughts or neuron firing takes place first. Such an experiment might not be difficult considering the highly sophisticated imaging techniques neuron-science has with them.

4) Can thought be an open-ended act, or is it restricted by certain design and laws ?   

Can man think in an open-ended manner, without any pre-set direction by nature,and ride-his horse of thought go any where ? The most sensible answer would be, yes ! Poets and fiction writers often indulge in such free-rides of their imagination, realizing clearly that, such thoughts are their products of imagination, created intentionally for artistic expressions.Creative thinkers like scientific-fiction writers said to have thought future possibilities, where science, at later stages in future, had actually laid their hands on.For example, space-travel had been first visualized by such science-fiction-writers.

  But, thoughts based on life and existence grounded around its stark metaphysical realities seems always stand restricted within certain bounds and patterns. The inherent 'Drives' restricts man ( see link:http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.in/) for keeping his life within certain set-directions and patterns. This must have been so, because, life's basic goals are met by man. While thoughts can ride-like horses, the horses have to return and settle at home every time at the end of the wild journey.

This observation is extremely relevant because, modern scientific speculators are thinking of having a 'hyper-hole' that runs through universes, so that when our solar-system shrink in future in the event of Sun turning a black-hole, mankind could escape through such 'hyper-holes' to other safe universes ! In such speculations, base meaning of life gets reduced to its survival levels, where it defined and understood at its chemical and physical meaning only, ignoring its metaphysical essence if nay, bestowed by nature. Here, man simply think as a competitor of Nature, where he think he could defeat her designs and grow beyond them. Such thoughts flows from the base-premise that life is merely a chemical and physical whole, like such attributes enforced upon existence as a whole.

5) Can the above thought-directions affect and alter man's physical realm ?

Definitely yes ! Every physical alterations happened to world, like its ever increasing concrete-structures rising in the sky-line, the ever decreasing forest cover,ever-increasing number of fast-moving surface and air crafts etc. are the result of some or other kind of 'thought' of man. So, it is safe to infer that, thought precede every human action. Present is the result of past thoughts manifested. Yes, it is thoughts that alter the physical realm of life of man.

As we have discussed in one of the above sections, thought travels non-stop, and where mankind stand today, with his ideological and scientific advancement is the very proof of this fact. It gets accumulated, often self-corrects its path even by means such as revolutions,wars and similar great tragedies ! Please refer to our earlier comparison of thought to the Big-Bang event; a static state, like what 'consciousness' makes it to sound, is unthinkable about thought when we compare it with ever speeding-out heavenly bodies after the Big-Bang ! Movement of everything is the rule. Static state is unnatural, and even non-existing. Like mankind is settled( static state) on the surface of a planet amidst the ever-moving heavenly bodies, man has thought-ways too, to achieve similar static states to attain static moments, hours, years and ages, to lead life !

Plato wrote, thoughts are internal conversation ! 

Yes..He was absolutely right, considering the direct (observational) evidence about it. Conversation needs two parties, unlike monologues. Here, who is the other party that converse with the self ? The answer is there at link: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.in/2013/08/thinking-understanding-it-as-internal.html.

How thoughts affects the physical realm will depend on the 'spirit' that self chooses as the 'other' within, to converse with. Whatever that 'other' ( spirit of the world-SPOW) the self chooses manifests itself as real, and then physical. Even the brain and the neurons might be getting 'circuited' into a certain peculiar-pattern so that, as a new aggregate, it could produce thoughts of a particular kind in future.

6) Identifying various mind-activities that we usually brand under the single umbrella of thought.

Every act of conscious-mind, or wake mind can be stated as a thought. Mind, like the tentacles of insects, extents to everything it does. It is the touch and feel organ of mind. Though we do not know the exact metaphysical classifications of the variety of thoughts as set by nature, we could make an attempt to throw some sensible light into this area:

When we attempt to have a broad classification of thought , by their effect-wise in the world or to the self, it could be:
1) Creative, ie. creation of new concepts, new explanation, or splitting of existing ideas, new possibilities etc.
2) Frequent tours through what has been already produced by mind ( reflection, day dreaming etc)

3) Destructive thoughts, ie. When the self fails to cope-up with the hostile features of the external, or even internally created thought habitat, mind creates negative or destructive thoughts, thus damaging, or even annihilating not only the self, but also men and objects in the external physical world.



So, thoughts can be compared to the constructive or destructive work of man's hands and legs; it can-build-up as well as destruct. Legs can walk-along to distant places, and at times run,or even jump-down from hills.

Now let us take-up some very familiar as well as unfamiliar varieties of thoughts, based upon the above 3 broad-classification.

a) Let us first get to know the most familiar act, the day dreaming, or the casual-thought act. ( that pertains to sr.2 of the above classification) Day dreaming is usually our shuttling between past events and past thoughts. This variety of thought is thought without any specific goal, except spending time. When man is free from any constructive work related thoughts, or even in the middle of work related thoughts can indulge in casual thoughts, or day dreaming. Building 'castles in the air' is also can be safely added to this variety of thoughts for convenience. We could also add our sexual fantasies into this realm, as they are also nothing but empty thoughts for its own sake.

The only difference here is that, when thought is concentrated on any particular subject, say sexual fantasies, it builds-up certain hardness, and it tends man into convert it into a permanent reality of a sort, that he is compelled to take real action to convert such thought into an objective reality in real world. Repeated sexual fantasies and its hardened reality compel one to actively seek sexual partners and full-fill his/her needs. Similarly, thoughts of hurt and humiliation suffered from some other, when engaged in repeat thoughts on the subject, gets hardened and the subject gets compelled to take revengeful actions.

We could infer that, any casual thought, when occurs in more regularity, hardens itself, similar to real objects build-up by hands, and becomes integral part of the mind sphere. Man is then compelled to take action, or at least consciously 'unwind' such build-up thought, to escape from its hardness.

In short, thoughts are very similar to the acts of hands and legs; it is extremely difficult to keep it stable or even passive, without some momentum. Hands and legs always tend to engage themselves in apparently involuntary acts like taping, moving,scratching, touching ears, nose and objects around. Similarly, thoughts too wander from palace to place, object to object, subject to subject and incident to incident every moment of the wake state, as well as in dreams.

b) Now, to try to identify thoughts of a very particular kind, we could observe that,thought follows where the sense-organs go.This particular mode of thought can not be classified under the above 3 varieties, as this is more a mode of thought than a category. For example, where-ever the eyes falls, thoughts too follow,and in case it observes something unusual or non-routine, it gets into an analysis mode, seeking to know its relevance to the self. So, thought always go parallel with direct sense-perception,giving 'sense' to them.

If the object is familiar, it gets converted into whatever way already identified objects treated- if man, then into words and language sense- and if animals, their own symbolic methods of identifying familiar objects and relations.If the object is unfamiliar, thought gets directed into inquiry and analysis mode.

c) The final classification is the most systematic of all thoughts, ie. the so called analytical variety of thought- the act of formally pondering or contemplating over any given subject, seeking to know more and better about it. The not yet recognized 'spectrum; function of our faculty of reason is availed here, and then the 'detecting' the order or consistency factor of the newly emerged facts with what ever was already known etc ( see following link for more details on this -not yet recognized by the mainstream world-functions and role of our faculty of Reason: http://philosopherskorner.blogspot.in/)

The crux is that, thought is a very real act like touching and feeling, and making sense of mind's objects.It is not like 'making lines on the surface of water', an empty act. It builds, as well as destroys. It moves man to remote distances from self, in certain type of lingering, same theme thoughts, making it extremely difficult to return to the previous position ! If un-checked, it leaves man STRANDED at strange realms of reality, from where a home-coming becomes extremely tedious a task, like getting stranded in think jungles of unknown lands ! The process of Psychiatry is fundamentally a job of bring-back the affected patients home, to the safer, routine realities of mainstream-life !

7) Similar to work energy and thrust, can we identify and recognize 'thrusts' or 'inherent directions' that make us think and guide its directions ?

While discussing about mind and thought, what makes the subject so complicated and miserable is the popular term 'CONSCIOUSNESS', as already discussed in the beginning ! The West is extremely reluctant to identify the realm of thought except as part of 'consciousness', that they want to claim as a property of matter. The entire realm is nothing but human-brain's faculty to be conscious about its surroundings, and act as per the needs of self-survival by conserving energy. They ridicule the inherent Drives of man, very similar to Newton's laws that guide the moment of physical objects, despite the fact that, every one could sense such Drives within, very similar to the urges of defecation, sex or hunger ! As we have a very specific post on DRIVES, instead of repeating it here, its link is provided here: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.in/

8) Identifying thought with physical work; it builds-up, and accumulate as aggregate, in an irreversible manner, like work by hand and legs makes man move his location and environment.
( your realities are there where your thoughts are !) 

 Thoughts, like touching by hands, seeing and hearing by eyes and ears, is kind of journey through new or old domains and planes, where self too follow, as if thoughts is the self itself. It is like body follows where hands, eyes, ears and nose journey...Thoughts really builds-up, create, and destruct, like the organs of body do ! One can not disown what thought does, similarly to what body does.Thought are not like lines drawn on water or air; they are real world creations, journeys and destruction. Hitler developed a hell lot of nasty and destructive thoughts, and he could transmit this thoughts to his country-men, and then the entire country got converted into a destructive machine, and had drawn the entire world into WW-2.

In one of the above sections, we have already discussed the phenomenon of GETTING-STRANDED in strange lands, if thought directions are not checked by every concerned individual ! Every thought gets accumulated in a snow-baling effect, and all further thoughts that emerge from this AGGREGATE would be peculiar to such unique aggregate. What we call NORMAL state of mind is nothing but one's following similar 'pattern' of thought of the mainstream society, whatever rational or irrational it might be ! In Hitler's Germany, ones who were opposed to his anti-semitic thought found it difficult to live peacefully among the majority who believed otherwise. Similarly, modern world is a kind of whirlwind, with a particular socio-political ideology, mostly based on science's dogmas, including Darwin's evolution theory.Hence, their realities are similar.

Reality for every human-being is the realm where his/her thoughts usually dwell !This is the reason for the never-ending debate on what is 'reality' in human society. Thought of each individual man gets initiated from different base premises, or mother generalizations, and then all subsequent thoughts follows from this base, most of the time logically, that is, 'consistent' with such base premises, or base generalization
( Universals) While man tend to infer his conclusions and attitudes often from 'localized', or the need-of the hour logic, his sense of Reason often rebels, and compels him to be 'consistent' with his base beliefs and premises ! If he doesn't oblige to such inherent compulsion of his sense of reason, it will result in the break-down of his moral and rational integrity ! Such men are many in modern world, as its ideological complexities are such that, no one can follow one's moral and rational base in normal-course of life. An animal way of life, more or less based on mere survival and self-sustaining mode, is today's best option.

9) One last question; if thoughts are not preceded by neuron firing, can we, or how could we  attribute it to an unknown, unrecognized realm of reality ?

Here we are back at our basic question; if thought is NOT having its base on physicality- brain and its neuronic functions, how could we account its source and energy-dynamics ?

We might have to reconsider our base dichotomy of matter-mind here ! We might have to be open to accept that, the emergence of the category of matter in our consciousness was due to the particular fashion in which our external sense-organs such as eyes, hands ( touch) nose etc.stood designed. Like now science is now ready to believe in 4th, 5th, 6th  or a multi-dimensional world, it could also be willing to accept that there would have, perhaps, many more 'categories' in existence other than that of sight, sound,taste, touch and smell.It is quite possible that, nature had opted, in a creative choice that, human-beings be allowed to have our particular world of reality,with our touch and feel 'category' of physical, with other few categories such as smell, sights and taste associated with it ! Life of species on planet earth was made to have their reality around hardness of matter, the stuff its realm of tangibleness !

Considering the stuff that provided 'tangibleness' was not needed to be considered as the ultimate stuff of the rest of realities about existence. By this logic, it could also be possible that, matter stuff was merely the tangibility achieving stuff that suited the chosen features of our sense-organs, while the ultimate essence of existence might be something other than this tangibility stuff. It could be merely, like the metal or allied stuff that enable a car to carry its essence,ie. its fuel and energy system that runs the car. Or 'matter' stuff could be similar to the hardware system that is exclusively meant to carry a software system-the 'essence' in comparison with mere 'structural' stuff of the hardware !

Can an intelligent alien species get to know the fuel and energy system of a car if it chooses to believe that the ultimate stuff of the car could be found in the metallurgy of the body, and that of other structural material of the car ? ( share more on this line of thinking from blog links: http://argumentsagainstscientificpositivism.blogspot.in/, and  http://patternsofapproachtodiscoverreality.blogspot.in/)

Here, the most sensible attitudinal change from the part of Science would be to have a serious re-thinking on the solidness, or the physicality ( with all its solidness image) definition of matter. Her image and understanding about matter could be more INCLUSIVE and OPEN, to accommodate the characteristics and known features of 'mind' ( or 'consciousness', if she is very particular to call it by that name!)also in such understanding. She can conveniently, or sensibly ignore the old dichotomy of 'matter-mind. Like we have 'space-time' as one stuff now in science after the entry of relativity theory of Einstein, matter and mind also could be united into one single stuff- 'matter-mind', to end the tussle between the two. She can accommodate the 'special laws of nature' in the working of the self/mind/thoughts into the realm of science, and be 'inclusive' and 'richer' a larger knowledge realm ! The formation of self,exclusively by the observable ( by the hidden sense organ that has been referred above, at Section-1) dynamics of the mutuality of human social interactions etc, could add-up to the existing physical theories of atoms and cells.   

  
10) Can a realm of 'silent-consciousness' ( without thoughts) is possible, as a desired ideal for dealing with life ? 

In the beginning of this paper, we alleged that the Western concept of 'consciousness' is grossly inadequate to include and explain all that the non-matter realm ( mind) of man routinely does in the usual course of life. Now, in this last section, we try to see, in what sense a mere passive 'consciousness' is acclaimed as the right-path of leading life in many non-western cultures and traditions. 

The intention here is to further proclaim that the sense in which the term ‘consciousness’ used by the West is totally inadequate, and even misleading to depict the multiple modes and roles in which the non-physical realm( of mind and thought) function. Let us examine how the orient traditions, especially their religious traditions look at ‘consciousness’ in a passive way, though very un-similar to the way the West mean by the term. The difference is more about the way both traditions look at life and existence, than a difference in the understanding of a particular psychology term.

This last section (10) is about the open nature of consciousness, like life itself, that could be lead, and the life-course defined and directed, the way one likes it.   

Many open minded writers and thinkers of the world now agree that, it was only a matter sheer 'chance' that the Greek-bundle of knowledge and philosophic systems reached European world through the Muslim invaders, and then the modern world and its current institutions got built-up predominantly on Western thought lines.

Mr. Marc Edmund Jones (in his Book ‘Occult philosophy’– ‘SAMBHALA’ USA), wrote in favour of the greatness of Eastern traditions by equaling it with the classic Greek tradition in every sense:
He writes: “Any effort to determine causal connections more than two millennia afterwards would be futile, but it must be remembered that developments in philosophy east of Indus, paralleled very completely to those among the Hellenic thinkers. It may as well have been pure historical accident as the circumstances of any particular genius, that led to the building of modern western idea upon the Grecian rather the Hindu Contribution”  

We better take-up the Hindu and Chinese traditions, and see what they have got to say on the silent-consciousness, ( without active thoughts)to lead an ideal way of life. 
In Hindu thought, the centrally advocated attitude towards life is 'nishkam karma', ie, doing one's duties (work) with the least expectation about its result. It is submitting to the truth of life and nature, and go on doing whatever duty comes one's way, with total detachment. One's ego is not at all a ‘participant’ while undergoing life this way. It is the way of passive 'consciousness', or leading one's life as if it is, in an act of blind-participation in the nature's ( of the Almighty's) intended ways. This view on life presupposes a ‘self’ other than the ‘ego’, or at least a transcended ego,( or a nullified ego) that undergoes the ‘experience’ of life.

A renowned Hindu spiritual Guru, Acharya Rajneesh ( popularly known as OSHO) preferred to call this way of leading life  'witnessing', ie. encountering life without any emotional participation or judgment.  In other words, leading life as if he is only a passive 'witness' to it ! He also liked to call it 'living without mind'. Here, mind for him is the instrument that create, and run on thoughts. 'Consciousness' is meant to be the mode of passively being  ‘conscious’ of  life that goes around one…

This central Hindu view of  life was not much different from the early Chinese thought. The ‘plane of the sage’, as per ancient Chinese thought was, that of an enlightened man who has achieved mystical union with the universe. The later developed 'Taoism' was the way of looking at nature, and learning its WAY, the TAO. The thrust was on acting 'spontaneously’, trusting the intuitive knowledge of every person. Taoism is interested in intuitive wisdom than rational thinking, rational thinking here means, the activity of the mind, or the tool of ego- the worldly self of man.  

In the Zen tradition of Japan, a mix of the vital essences of Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism, again the thrust is on experiencing life as it comes, without any ‘abstraction or conceptualization’. Zen asserts freedom from all fixed beliefs. This is true spirituality as far as the Zen-way  is concerned. 

If one look deep into the essence of Christianity, he will find that, Christ also had advocated a similar outlook on life, without any worry about 'what one eats or drink'. It is the God in heaven that looks after such needs of man. Look at the birds in the sky. They are not sowing, harvesting, or accumulating anything for future. It is the God in heaven that looks after them. Indirectly, the way of life advocated by Jesus Christ also is very similar to the spiritual ways advocated by the eastern traditions; that of leading life as it comes, with a certain oneness with existence and God.
Man’s provisions comes not exclusively out of his labour and effort, but it happens with the care and Grace of the divine.  

Leading life the above way calls for only a passive 'consciousness', without involvement of a rational mind. Life has a certain inherent sense, meaning and unity with whatever is the ultimate
Truth and reality. Having a ‘sense of time’ akin to one’s irrefutable relation and unity with one’s said origin and substance is what gets translated into this special, ‘live’ consciousness. It is rather about keeping a ticking consciousness about this sub-realm of eternal time, than having it around the nitty-gritties of ego’s synthetic( or the relative) sense of time.

This difference of the Western-world about the way they look at life and world is very evident from certain uttering of Francis Bacon, an early days champion of modern science: He called-on science to:  
Ø       ‘Haunt’ nature in her wanderings
Ø       She should be bound into service    
Ø       Made her a slave
Ø       Put her in constraint
Ø        Torture-out the secrets of from her
( words ‘haunt’ and ‘torture-out’ refer to old Europe’s witch hunting tradition )

The stark difference in the approach towards life and nature of the Orient and the West has come out clearly here.
The silent ‘consciousness’ that the Orient traditions appear to advocate is not to exploit nature with the intention of creating a culture and tradition of rational utilization of her resources. It is a Way, or Journey with nature, NOT seeing her as a commodity to consume.

The  way of the Orient appears to advocate that, it is possible to lead life with a ‘live’ relation with nature, or the subtle energies of existence. Man can be ‘conscious’ ( intuitively) about such WAY of nature, or existence, without any need of utilizing the rational ( or analytic) faculties of mind.

So, better we understand the way of the West and that of the Orient as TWO distinct modes of utilizing consciousness, or, two distinct cultures of letting the faculty of thought, defining life. Once let it ( thought) out to move, like a wild-storm, it takes many courses, sometime even beyond the control of the one who had let it go ! What lets one know the ultimate truth and reality may not always be the inquiry mode of thought, but a way of its ‘absence’ ! Eyes and ears do not toil to see or hear. They are un-closable widows towards the external world and its reality. Man is a passive receiver of various ‘categories’ ( or qualities ) of existence these sense –organs  provide. Similarly, man seems to have an intuitive faculty (or a hidden, internal sense organ, as once referred in a previous section of this paper ) that goes on  providing man with ‘sense’ and knowledge that is adequate for leading life.

In the Way of nature, and in the way of passive consciousness, while the subject- man- is actively engaged in the routine course of life, a silent awareness of the timelessness of the act is actively ALIVE in the background ! The conscious-mind takes-on life, in a reflective way, as if he is NOT separated from existence in any sense. The active mind is never felt required in the act, as it is the tool of another kind of entity, the ego. Ego is a social product, and it tend to consider each person, and each object in the surrounding as a potent threat to his life. In this mode, the mind is a tool exclusively of the ego, connected only with whatever the sense organs and the world have constituted as life. It has nothing prior, or nothing beyond the empirical, or the overt life. In the former model, the subject never open, or operate the ego mode. His belongingness is to a wider whole, that needs no definition for language-interpretation, like the newborn child does not ever need any defining act before seeking out its mother, or her nipples !

 It poses a very serious philosophical question, as to what model from the above two examples fits in leading a more contented way of life; whether the analytical and inquiring WAY of the West, or the not yet fully explored way of the Orient.   



 Author: Abraham J. Palakudy

contact him at: ajoseph1@rediffmail.com

Twitter: Voice of philosophy@jopan1

His brief profile: He is an ardent seeker and researcher of truth about human-mind, faculty of Reason, social and political institutions,spirituality, and metaphysical dimensions of life.. He was awarded a residential Fellowship by Indian Council of Philosophical Research during 1990. 

His books:1) 'Is reason a sense organ? A super-mind above the known mind' 2) Is democracy a fake-coin? 3) Funniest joke about modern-world; It is FREE&OPEN !4) Many doors of new knowledge that mankind yet to knock-at, all self-published at Amazon.com 

His research paper on DEMOCRATIC CULTURE was accepted for presentation at International Society for Universal Dialogue, Athens, Greece during 2012. He is West Asia coordinator for 'World Philosophy Forum;See link:http://www.wpf-unesco.org/eng/acthk.htm 

His research paper on 'police and human rights' was chosen for presentation in 2013 by Kalyani University, West Bengal. A similar paper on 'Indian Heritage' was chosen by M.S.University, Baroda (Gujarat, India) in January, 2014, for presentation during the 'National Education Summit' at Gandhinagar.









Monday, July 29, 2013

What is the mind stuff as schemed by nature ? A Post enlightenment era understanding

 What is the mind stuff as schemed by nature ? A Post enlightenment era understanding

This is an attempt to get to know the mechanism of mind as it was devised by nature, ie. its existential relevance and architecture, plan, purpose, components, their functions, and the various sense- originated and other inputs and energies that enter mind, and how does mind handles them. The paper also would attempt to put-forth its conclusion as to why mind was so inevitable in existence where matter was the first reality meant for, and accessible to mind, tangible and easily analyzable.   

This is not intended to be a scholastic analysis by quoting elaborately from the work of old masters and professionals, but to present every thing in a matter of fact, simpleton view of mind, as it appears and appeal to common intelligence. This common intelligence often acts like any of our sense organ, capable of observing objects and information as if they are ‘atomic’ propositions, ie. something directly in the range of any of our sense organ.

Scholars of philosophy might have to approach the paper with a blank mind, merely as truth seeking, virgin, uninhibited minds!

The approach of the author here is ‘get out’ of the mind first to look at it as an external phenomenon. For this, we must first pre-suppose that Nature had preceded mind, and while She visualized Mind, there should have been a sensible purpose and plan behind doing so. This would help us to look at our object of study with some kind of scientific distance and objectivity.


Rationale, and the inevitability of mind in the existential scheme

Nothing would have been known including matter, if there was no mind mechanism. Mind reveals matter, and everything else in existence to man, including his very ENTITY, and the mind itself ! Mind alone, as a knowing devise couldn’t have undertaken the task of knowing. A certain ENTITY was also necessary to own up the mind, and to then know and understand. Hence, the idea of originating knowing entities, the egos-men-, was an unprecedented creative wonder of nature!

While discussing matter and mind, most of psychology and philosophy literature ignore this central factor- the knowing entity-man, the ontology factor.  

Originating an independent entity from virtually nothing seemed the ultimate goal of nature, when She had worked on matter and mind. Its end result was what made me write these lines and share it with the world! In most of the discussion about mind, the ‘entity’ that holds the mind seldom comes-up for central scrutiny,as said above.  The category of the seeker is always taken for granted. Even our sciences ignores this central question as to who the knower and the seeker is, in her pursuits. It is, without doubt, bestowing all the confidence in one’s tools and probes ignoring the primary aspect of scrutinizing why and how the ‘knower’ has emerged on the scene, what his tools are, what knowledge they could provide him, its reach, accuracy and limits!

In the contemporary world, especially in the Western world, no talk other than that of the material reality of the world is entertained as sensible. Any talk of mind is ridiculed and laughed at. Mind, for them, is the bye-product of matter, equally mechanistic and determinable. Similar to any religious fanatic, average western man can not open his mind to anything ‘extra-physical’ about reality of world and life ! This particular fact about the world-view of western world doubles the relevance of a discussion of this type. 

We know that it was chiefly due to the old classic division of the realms of mind and matter by Descartes. He established the omnipotence of human mind, and concluded that whatever mind perceives 'distinctly and clearly' are unquestionable realities. 

It is self evident that it was not the knower that emerged first, but the known, the various objects and events in the world. It was all trees ,mountains, seas, rivers and valleys for millions of years, if the account of science could be believed. Life forms emerged millions of years later.

As no man, or his intelligence so far could recollect anything about a self-born SOUL in the antiquity of time, we should assume that, our entities as knowing beings was caused by an external agent. We routinely call this agent by the name ‘ NATURE’.

This nature, what we observe as a distinct entity independent of from us, evidently has certain directions, plans and programs, judging from whatever our known intelligence provided by the same nature. In this plan, if we endeavor to know it, obviously has set certain sensible relation between MIND and MATTER. We, the mankind, depended exclusively upon our intelligence mechanism provided by Her, are supposed to utilize it for our best-possible advantage, and even knowing further on her plan!

When our great forefathers in the jungle saw a bud on plant for the first time, it would have been impossible for them to understand that it is a flower in the making, and the flower carry a seed, and the seed carry another tree within. When they saw them selves a seed turning into a flower before their eyes, and the flower turning into flower and seed, and later into a new tree, he made his knowledge out of such experiences. Our modern science is a knowledge tree built-up on this route.

When we apply our known intelligence in the same way, we can not ignore the possibility of a sensible relation that mind and matter might have. This paper attempts to unravel what would be such sensible plan of nature behind having reality in mind and mater format.


Science and knowledge 

Science always mark a thick line at the boarder of knowledge where matters of ORIGIN, both for mind and matter comes-up, so that it starts its observable and measurable endeavors from thereupon .Stephen Hawking, the recently died, one of the greatest scientific minds of our times, puts it: (Book, ‘ a brief history of time’(1988)p.9,chap.1, Bentam Book,Berks, UK)

“This discovery (The Big bang theory of Edwin Hubble in 1929)finally brought the question of the beginning of the universe into the realm of science.. . If there were events earlier than this time, they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be IGNORED because, it would have no observational consequences….in the sense that earlier times simply would not be defined”.

This drawing of this thick line over knowledge between what could be imagined in scientific terms and what is before and behind it, ie. what is measurable in time and space, and what  is not, is NOT in the awareness of the common folk in the world. They  believe that matter, mind, and existence as a whole - -everything is within man’s knowledge range, and nothing is left unsolved by science.

Hence, all scientific men, and men who interact with the mainstream world including this writer, engage in the act of analysis and communication from the stand point of their EGOs, as entities that you and me know and recognize each other.

It is worth to be noted here that all major scientific figures of modern times had distinctly stood against strength of the purely materialistic view of reality. A few relevant quotes of such great minds are imprinted below:

1)    Sir Arthur Eddington (Essay ‘reality, causation, science, mysticism)
“the external world of physics has been formulated as an answer to a problem encountered in human experience…(as if) one might take up a cross-word problem encountered in a newspaper. His sole business is to see that the problem is correctly solved”

2)     James Jeans: (Essay ‘ some problems of philosophy’) The most we can say is that the cumulative evidence of various pieces of probable reasoning makes it seem more and more likely that reality is better described as mental than as material”

3)     Whitehead: (His essay ‘ Foresight) ‘ Unfortunately, our knowledge of scientific laws is woefully defective, and our knowledge of the relevant facts of present and past is scanty in the extreme…we are ignorant of that remote epoch when will be a second collision between the sun and a passing star,…and even ignorant of the term that has been set to our own existence’.

But despite all the above straight admissions of the top scientific minds,the influence of Cartesian division is still intact in the world about the mind-body duality. 

After the Cartesian division, what happened to science and its ardent followers was that their total dependence upon the physical realm for even attributing CERTAINTY for their own mind, consciousness and selves. They started finding the matter realm, with all its clock like certainty and accuracy, as the ultimate realm of reality, compared with the realm of mind that gives hallucination of all kinds at every time! So, they ignored the bad and uncertain mind to embrace the 'external world' as the ultimate reference point to relate themselves, including their minds !It gave them comfort in the thought that after all, mind is a product of the all engrossing matter!

Like an OPERATING SYSTEM of computers, these men had opted for and installed the 
matter-centric program in their minds to look at everything thereon.


The distinct realm of our 'collective' that individuals use as a canvas to draw the picture of their ‘selves’

This is our collective realm wherein we maintain a certain self-identity as our social-selves,
away and separate from our private entities known only to our inner selves. The way we interact as private persons is different from the way and manner we interact as social entities. We have languages that represent our collective objects, concepts and ideas; therefore communicate each other using these mutually agreed upon terms and concepts.

This in itself is a specific subject for further research. How central is the ‘spirit’ of the world in the making of man’s ego ? My self-analysis and prolonged studies hint that self in its ego identity, always require the ‘spirit’ of an external other, or the that of the world to address its thoughts and behavior to. I have put forth these thoughts in the following paper: http://selfandworldblogs.blogspot.com/2015/03/is-world-absolute-object-or-relative.html

Like what Kant had forcefully suggested that space and time are inevitable ‘modes’ of our sense perception, such a ‘spirit’ of the external is also a must ‘mode’, or ingredient for man’s social thought and behavior process. Every word he utter is a social product. Thinking, when it is done using words, always bring the ‘world’ too naturally into the act. One could confidently infer that most of the thinking process is an internal conversation between the self and the above world spirit within. Remember that the old Greek masters also had believed that ‘thinking’ was an internal conversation. Here we have now identified the two parties, or spirits who indulge in the conversation.

No conversation could be undertaken without two participants, whether internal or external. This author had already undertaken a specific paper depicting ‘super-ego’ as the said ‘spirit’ of the world, and how thinking process is a conversation between the ego and this said ‘spirit’ of the world within. (see blog link: http://anatomyofrealities.blogspot.com/2013/08/thinking-understanding-it-as-internal.html) Even for the formation of the self ( the ego) such a third party spirit representing one’s notion of the external world is an existential necessity as explained in the above mentioned paper.

Once man’s self or ego is formed, it inherently develop certain natural drives and urges, for man’s physical, psychological and spiritual, destined development as explained in the following paper:http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.com/2013/07/existential-drives-of-man.html 

The urge to express everyone’s ‘self’ is an inherent, extreme natural drive. Only through this act man could translate his self, and his special ideas and thoughts into tangible realities. What is unexpressed remains unborn, null and void. These ideas are explained further in this paper.

How egos (or 'the sense of self) are objective realities ?

So, origin of knowing entities was an inevitable necessity for nature, to know itself, and thus overcoming the existential issue of ‘existence’ remaining null and void! So, she schemed ‘egos’ to solve the above central necessity of having knowing entities. This base idea is explained in its minutest details at many junctures of this paper.

Egos originate when the sense-organs of a baby start  catching signals from the external world. When the new born baby see, hear and touch the objects, it doesn't know who he/she is, or what he/she is. The presence of its mother as an entity, and her communications with it enables the baby to realize that it too is an entity like others.  ‘You are, hence I am’ could have been the logic by which EGOs have born ! An entity emerged out of the blue; but definitely after the cleverest of creative plans of nature. The new entity owns up all its sensory inputs as its own, and gradually comes out as a knower, or unit of experience, in line with other entities around him in the world!

Nature has devised this plan of knowing-entities because, for tangible existence of anything, knowing entities are an existential necessity as once referred above. Without the knower, existence would be VOID! One can say, whatever is not known by some mind or consciousness, can not be said to be existing, or they are equal to non-existing! The millions of heavenly bodies and events in the un-observable corners of our universe are equal to non-existing for man, as we have no knowledge of them. Hence, for existence of anything, some sort of knowing entities are must. Plan of EGOs was nature’s smartest possible scheme to create tangible reality for world and life! 


The scheme Nature had devised to create 'selves' virtually from a vacuum is explained in the following paper: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.com/2019/06/concepts-of-self-realization-and.html

It is extremely difficult for man to disbelieve the existence of an external world independent of him because, he always forgets, or fails to remember that he is NOT an un attached, objective OBSERVER for everything outside of him, including the universe ! He simply keeps the dogma that he is a big eye, and whatever he see and hear is external to him, and has independent existence and reality without him ! We know that it is not the real fact: he is only a part and parcel of what ever he observe, and whatever he see and hear and experience is part of a scheme he has not devised. He is only passive RECEIVER of whatever his sense organs and mind experience, the way it was planned by the nature. He is not a gigantic eye before which what ever appears is independent reality ! Whatever he observe like objects in outside him are also are SUBJECTS like him, who too experience the world outside them as the total external reality. It is a mutual game of being subjects and objects simultaneously !

We are here in this act of intelligent communication on the very game of existence  is exclusively because we have been planted here, or originated here on the planet as EGO entities, made capable of knowing, communicating and interacting with each other. We are the products of certain plan of nature, to experience the phenomenon of life !

What is consciousness, deeper self and related stuff ? 

Most psychological discussions and literature are around the concepts of 'consciousness', 'deeper, or original 'self' etc. Better we attend to these concepts for a serious discussion and definition in this all covering paper. 

'Consciousness' will be much clearer to us when we first address the question whose 'consciousness ? Consciousness is often used by many as synonym for SELF. My consciousness means my self, is a wrong approach to understand the concept. In this paper we identify various points or locations/positions of self that a man could adopt in the course of life. 

At each of such point or location or position, he could be 'conscious' of the multiples of objects and events,and including that of the very nature of his own self. He can continue to hold-on with such 'consciousness' for as much time duration as he desire ! No deeper meaning need to be attributed this process, or ability of the self to be ''conscious' of anything that he wills or desire. 

Consciousness will always be the consciousness of some or other kind of self. When one goes through the various positions or locations of self that one could internalize in the course of life, the issue of the meaning and relevance of 'consciousness' would automatically subside. 

We have a specialized paper on 'consciousness' that attempts to make the concept simple and clear: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-crisis-of-human-consciousness.html 

 What we know, and do we how ?

The above paragraphs explained why we are here as knowing entities. We have accepted it because there is no other better sensible explanation other than the theory of random chance and accident, which is negating everything sensible and rational about human mind and his intelligence.

Now we will take up what we know, and how do we know.

We have seen above that sense datum (the known) always precedes the knower. Or, the known precedes the knower. As classic philosophy school unanimously agree, ‘ there is nothing in the mind that was not there in the senses first’, means, what ever man knows, it was entered the mind from the external world through his sense organs. So, the sense organs are the first devices in the scheme of knowing.  

It doesn't need any super-intelligence to realize and recognize that mere unrelated sense data, in the form of certain visual inputs that the eyes gather, and similar audio-in puts that ears gather, sensations of touch the skin gathers, and the sensations of taste that tongue gets can ever constitute any sensible knowledge. First and foremost requirement was the emergence of a KNOWER, the entity/self of man. We have seen how nature was able to manage this task, through the highly creative plan of the emergence of EGO entities out of the blue. Once an entity was in place to experience life and the external world, obviously this entity was pre-equipped with various EXPERIENCE buds, so that the entity could make sense of these assorted sense inputs. On 'experience buds', following blog might reveal a lo of information: http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.com/2017/11/what-is-human-experience-concept-of.html
   
For example, when the tongue receives various taste inputs, one of the first major sense input that a new born baby experience by way of its mother’s milk, if it was not pre-equipped with taste-buds to make sense of what it sucks, the connection and the experience wouldn’t have worked ! It is 100% certain that the mind of the new born baby was pre-equipped with such various ‘experience buds’ in the mind, so that it could make sense of what it see, hear, touch, smell and taste. What is good and what is not good for preserving life was available pre-set in the body-mind system by  nature, at least in its rudimentary form and sense. (then the freedom to choose one’s own path also was given to the new synthetic entity!) 

Hence, external sense organs can not be termed as empty openings towards the external world, but they are pre-designed to receive such RANGE of the respective sense data, that makes sense to the pre-arranged experience buds in the system. Ears obviously was pre-equipped to enjoy melodious sound inputs, (songs and music) eyes to enjoy pleasing colors, and fear or dislike unpleasant sights, nose and skin.. like wise to receive and enjoy such inputs that is good, and life-preservative, self-protective and developmental of life. In short, sense organs were efficiently pre-integrated with the mind-body system, so that the entity gets along well with its life process! We have a dedicated blog on this centrality of 'senses' in gaining knowledge: http://thesparkleofhumanreason.blogspot.com/2016/07/sense-organs-of-man-are-they-natures.html

It would be injustice to the great man Kant if we ignore his views on sense data and its latter getting converted into sensible perception. He thought ‘reason’ accomplish this task. He maintained that it was reason’s job to TRANSCEND the sense data into sensible knowledge forms, as it convert these raw data into various CATEGORIES, like quantity, quality etc. Here, our concept of ‘experience buds’ could act as a better explanation for the transformation of raw-sense data into sensible forms in the mind.

We have learned above that, what man gets to know through his sense organs are such knowledge forms that contribute towards his life process in every respect. Whatever he gets to know from the senses first go into constituting an entity- -ego, and this entity then absorbs further sense inputs into the mind, and it further process this raw data into various useful knowledge forms to aid the life process. Here Mind is better understood as a receiver and processor of various sense inputs, other internal inputs, or those aided by the structural design of mind ( as Kant had thought ) that process these data into various knowledge forms. Other internal inputs could include emotional and such other existential DRIVES and pre-dispositions that mind gets as inputs, in its processing act. The synthetic products from the world that re-enter the mind; like the inputs of news, values, myths, symbols etc. also should be considered as distinct inputs to mind. Inputs of Reason is also one of such prime internal inputs. We shall take up the internal input of REASON briefly in one of the next paragraphs. 

Does what mind gather through the senses are reality’ in itself ?

It was the great philosopher Kant who took up this famous question first. He explained to the world that the reality ‘in itself ‘ of other objects in the world is never knowable by the mind. Senses are designed to gather what they are pre-designed to know about these objects. What senses gather is only ‘phenomena’. Mind is pre-structured to receive these sense data into few life supportive ‘categories’, and these categories are designed to aid the life process. What things are ‘in themselves’, could be known to mind through intuition, but Kant did not specify what intuition is, and whether man could ever come to know reality in itself through this route. He left this area grey, and unexplained.

Any one who is deeply contemplative and analytical could easily realize the truth of what the great man had said. We, in reality, do not know what the objects in the world really are, or whether they have any special ‘in-itself’ reality other than what we gather through the sense-mind route ! When we see an elephant, what we get in the mind is not its exact photograph, but only a very subjective picture that our mind draws. Such picture drawn by each mind would be unimaginably different from one another, and this was what Kant had meant ! It is the same story for every knowledge our mind gathers. We draw pictures of objects, men and events that we encounter in the world in our own very special ways. Thus, we carry a world of our own making all the time, and the impression that we live in a good for all same world is merely an illusion, except that when we talk the same language, ie. the same sound representation for every object in the world, we tend to get the feeling that the world is same for all of us. When you hear world ‘elephant’ from the other person, though he refers to  his picture of the animal in his mind, and you get to see your picture of the same animal in the mind, for conversational and practical purpose, the arrangement stands good. But it never could refute the base reality of the very subjective worlds of each individual.


As Kant himself had clarified later, what ever the senses and the mind gathers is good enough for us, as they are destined to be practical realities destined by nature to enter human minds and make his day to day realities,(even for the realm of science) and to lead his life successfully.

Kant's dilemma on the 'in-itself' reality of objects is taken up for a discussion in the following paper: http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-sensible-was-kants-things-in-itself.html

The role of ego as a KNOWER in the scheme of existence

Nothing could be known without a knower as already explained at many places above in this paper. If eyes were not there, nothing could have been seen and found as reality. Hence, reality is a convergence that takes place between the sense organs and the external world. It is an interplay between these two realms; the sensing organs and their objects outside. Man, in the role of a passive, outsider consciousness, is only a third party observer, or a witness, as what is going on in this convergence ! He gets certain experiences and realities as a final result. He doesn’t know whether it was the smartness and uniqueness of his sense organs that captured the realities of the external world, or was there an external world as an independent realm outside him, and the role of his sense organs was only to reflect them, and making its reality known to his consciousness.

When inferred on the above lines, one would realize the central role of his primary entity that was instrumental in providing him with all these experiences. Though we have taken up this phenomenon in the beginning once, let us go a bit in detail.

We have already seen how did this primary entity take birth, at many places above in this paper. This is to get to know this important nature’s plan in more detail.

We, for example’s sake, suppose that there were both sense organs, as well as external realities. (objects and events) Who would feel, or own-up the resultant experiences ? Therefore, a middle link, some entity who would experience the synergy between the sense organs and the external world was an existential MUST necessity. Hence, it should be reiterated again and again that the role of man was an existential inevitability as a knowing, and experiencing ENTITY. An independent entity to know, experience, infer, like, dislike and judge what ever it see, hear, touch, smell and taste. It was here that nature had devised the role of EGOs, the entity mechanism, to own-up what ever it experience as synergy ( or unity) between the sense organs, and the objects and events at the external world ! 

The idea was a grand success: man, the synthetic entity, owns up everything that he intentionally does, as well as what happens to him without his will! He thinks, and construct artificial realities. He owns this thoughts, as well as what ever he thus constructs. He owns up all failures and set-backs too. Nature was totally successful in Her grand scheme. Knowing entities have come virtually out of the blue to own up a common world, as well as their individual selves!

Therefore, it is plainly evident to our intelligence that, origin of knowing entities, egos, was an integral aspect  of nature’s plan to have realities in the above seen ways, and in the role of intelligent beings as means to undergo this unique experience of life.

But how does Ego take birth, as the body of man’s mind? We have already shared detailed blogs-posts on this theme above, that explains its architecture, and how does it maintains itself with the help of super-ego acting as the spirit of the world, or the spirit of the other that incessantly interact with the ego in the act of thinking etc. (in a post Freudian perspective ) 

But, can the bland, unrelated sounds, sights and tastes would have meant anything to the ENTITY,the SELF, if he/she did not have certain pre-drives, pre-set experience buds etc to make proper sense and meaning to his/her experiences? We have already shared our blogs on 'experience buds' and 'existential drives' above. 



Role of Reason in the mind

Emmanuel Kant, the most profound thinker-philosopher of modern times had written that Reason is set in such a way in man, that it transcends raw sense data in to sensible perceptions first, and then further transcend it into knowledge forms, as we have already referred earlier in this paper.  He believed that mind has such structural design that transform or transcend sense data into pre-set ‘categories’, or forms of knowledge. These categories such as quantity, quality, number etc. help in transcending the raw sense data into sensible knowledge forms, that the entities could use them in the life process. But the great philosopher did not make any distinct differentiation between mind and reason. He often used it to mean as if both denote the same thing. He had not attempted to define reason as it is. As Prof. G. Williams of Lancaster University wrote in one of his papers, this lack of a distinct definition of reason by Kant makes it a ‘great interpretive task’ as to what he had really meant by Reason as such.  

If one checks-up every available definition and account of Reason in encyclopedias, dictionaries and scholarly books and papers, he will fail to get anything but round-about and vague description of man’s faculty of reason. All these definitions describe what reason does,(and NOT what reason as such is)  such as faculty of man to arrive at conclusions from available evidences and premises, while mixing-up it with words like Logic and reasoning. This author, after his dedicated and singular self-analysis, contemplation, studies and research of 3-4 decades in the direction of finding the right genus of human reason, has found that it could be nothing but man’s internal ‘SENSE ORGAN’ that detects or senses the ORDER content that lies between evidences and arguments and the respective conclusion that between causes and their effects, and finally, analogies and their respective object or event of comparison. This detecting of the ‘order’ (or unity) content is for contexts of formal deductive and inductive reasoning.

This indeed is an altogether new knowledge for our existing science of the mind, but very central to solve many unsolved problems of logical process.

Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest minds of modern age, who could also be considered an authority on matters regarding science of logic, had detailed the above referred un-solved problems of modern logic, in his ‘second lecture at Cambridge’ (1914) viz. ‘ Logic as the essence of philosophy’. This is a problem around logic’s main purpose of arguing on the basis of ‘observed facts’ to prove some ‘un-observed facts’. He admits that this could be “ done only by means of some known ‘relation’ of the observed and the un-observed”  ( page 291, essays in Philosophy, Russell, Edited by Houston Peterson- Washington Square Press, New York-1974) “ but the un-observed, by definition, is not known empirically, and therefore its relation to the observed, if known at all, must be known independently of empirical evidence”

After listing Mills remedies to solve the above problem one by one, Russell proves them all inadequate and fallacious. He concludes: (page 293) “Thus logical knowledge is not derivable from experience alone, and the empiricist’s philosophy can therefore NOT be accepted in its entirety” .

“ We must therefore admit that there is general knowledge NOT derived from sense, and that some of this knowledge is not obtained by inference but is PRIMITIVE” (page 309)

When Reason is understood and recognized as an internal sense organ, the source of such MYSTIQUE knowledge in logical exercise referred by Russell could be explained and solved permanently. That ‘ general knowledge NOT derived from the senses’ whose source who called ‘PRIMITIVE’  is in fact provided by the ‘sense organ of reason’. It is the mush required sense of ‘order’, or UNITY provided by our sense organ of reason, that exist between every cause and effect, every instance of inferring a conclusion from a set of evidences or arguments, and every analogy and its object of comparison. This is what fills-up the gap that Russell had named as coming from ‘non-empirical, primitive’ sources !

It is time for our modern age to add-up this important understanding on faculty of reason to our knowledge system. Time is now ripe to accept the newly found role and function of the sense organ of Reason !   

In the routine activities of mind in its day to day life, there arise moment to moment, automatic  intervention of the ‘sense organ’ of reason; mind always want to generalize on what ever data it has gathered through the sense organs from the external world. It usually makes sense of things and events based on the certainty derived from similar past experiences and events. A new sound now heard makes sense if the mind could relate it to something similar heard in the past. Sense organ of reason is what helps mind in this automated function of checking the ‘order’ element between the new sense input with its past, similar memory. When it gives OK, mind accepts it, and thus the new sense data gained ‘sense’ and meaning. Similar are instances of new touch, taste, smell and sight. Memory aids mind for NOT bothering reason every time a sense organ catches data. As all our sense organs are windows open towards world every moment except while in sleep, inputs, both new and the familiar ones, flow-in all the time. Reason and memory devices help he mind to handle this in-flow efficiently.

Mind often gets compelled to generalize over certain sense inputs and experiences that get continuously repeated. Their similarity may be quite evident at times, and vary a lot at times, but coming under the same class , or type of experience. Here, formal thinking to establish the similarity of such experiences comes to forefront. Mind engage reason is a more formal way to establish such not so well evident similarity ( generalization) between many past experiences, so that it could pass permanent judgment on them, as one and the same category of experience.

At some other time, mind will be asked by the entity (EGO, the man) to use its resources in very formal way, such as in scientific and philosophic investigations. Here, mind is asked not only to generalize on ready made sense inputs, but together with many already arrived at past generalizations and conclusions. It is not a simple task for mind. The order content ( or the UNITY content) between all those vast in-put of data and knowledge have to be processed at the same time, and look through the consistency (or order, or unity) factor in a logical chain of events and sub-events. The ultimate aim of the intelligent entity here is the same; that is to arrive at more complicated generalization, or laws of nature. Every arrived at past generalization and laws would serve the purpose of the ‘base material’ for inferring newer laws.

In such cases, the task of reason is NOT ONLY to sense the ORDER (or unity) content in what has been presented before it by the mind, but to work on each of them, to find out its every constituent sub-datum, sub-idea and sub-possibility! If any one has observed man’s reasoning process very closely, he will come to realize its two distinctly different functions:

1)     The simple function of checking the ‘order’ content in the data before it
2)     To use reason’s unique second function, the PRISMATIC function, ie. allowing each ray of thought to pass through it, and getting it automatically split, in a PRISM like function, into its every constituent sub-idea, possibility and form! It is a very creative function, and needs assistance of the mind to leave reason alone and aloof, for this contemplative process. When every possibilities thus reached split and arrayed, they become new evidence, or observed data, for arriving at new generalization, or law. In this unique function, mind is able to ‘create’ new knowledge ! Mankind thus owe all its present intellectual and technological heights to his faculty of reason ! Reason, in one of its other inherent characters, will not permit mind to omit any of the already found datum, or piece of evidence from reflecting on the conclusions arrived at.    


As Ego entity tend to store innumerable past memories, and give life a firm foundation and base platform, ego gets transformed into a new, and novel, unique  ‘aggregate’ of all past experiences. The grand-sum status of this aggregate gets altered every moment, as fresh sense data as well as every valued past experiences add up to it always. In short, the various, not yet fully understood inputs from the sense (organ) of reason also constitute as an important ingredient in the mind.

Reason's metaphysical links


One of such strange products that enters mind from the sense of reason is its metaphysical,or say,spiritual inputs. Every human being at some or other point of time gets exhausted of the directionless journey of own mind organ and tend to abandon it as a burden. Reason always insist for 'changeless' truths, especially about the essence of human personality and existence as a whole. When man attempts to find ultimate answers using his known mind, he comes to realize at the end of the such exercise that it could only run back and forth from what it knows. Like the pendulum inside a church bell, thoughts could only bang and forth within its enclosure. It is not able to find required answers as to where does he has come from, and where does he goes after death. Such intervals of exhaustion often lands-in naturally, and at times with unexpected tragedies and problems in life. 


When the mind and the known thinking mechanism is thus abandoned, insights and wisdom usually reach mind as if from nowhere. We now know that it is the intervention of Reason in its capacity as a super-mind. It often alter the canvas of consciousness from the ever-changing world to the metaphysical canvass of life: ie. placing the entity or self of man at the wider canvass of no-realm, or the unknown realm between birth and death. World is temporarily ignored by the mind. Such experiences often provide the troubled minds of man with some peace unexplained and stability.

Religions have emerged in the world from the above described experiences of man, and not out of the 'fear-factor' generally ascribed by science and psychology. Such universal experiences indicate that man indeed has roots other than that of the world of the known mind where the ego reside. 

We have a series of papers in the form of blogs explaining Reason as an 'internal sense faculty'. The link of these series is: https://isreasonasenseorgan.blogspot.com      

In addition to sense data, and important inputs from the sense organ of reason, there are other prime inputs also that enters mind; they are the inputs of emotions and existential DRIVES. We have already shared a blog on 'existential drives' in a previous part of this paper.  


Love to go into more details of these existential 'drives' in the next part of this discussion.

What are the existential drives and emotions that guides behavior of man ?

World is fairly familiar with the body related drives, such as sexual drive, hunger, thirst, drives for excretion as well as exertion and so on. These drives, we believe, make man act, for the body related needs. They are intended to maintain his physic fit and set. These drives expose the rather ‘mechanical’ features of man’s so called independent will. Man does not indulge in these routine acts after any serious  thought, or reasoning. These drives are built-in, and inherent. He simply has to follow their call. If the calls are not attended in time, body reacts negatively, and bodily and even mental issues (diseases) will follow.

Side by side, there are well evident mental drives too, intended to make man act in certain pre-destined ways of nature. Emotions are at the top of this list. Psychology is yet to fully accept that man’s various emotions are wicks that are destined to be kindled (or ignited)  at routine junctures of life, (like the rockets in a space-craft that fires at fixed intervals and make the space vessel to move ahead) to make the life journey move upward.


We could observe and confidently infer that, what makes a man’s experience realm rich and eventful is NOT the routine objects and events in the physical world, but his personal emotional encounters ! Emotional experiences are the chief contributors towards making man an ‘AGGREGATE’, or what he is moment to moment, a term that we have seen in the last chapters.

For example, the most central drive that we observes in man and woman, the urge to LOVE and to be LOVED, is so powerful that it sways even the sternest and the strongest of human beings ! It is probably due to the fact that, LOVE is closely related to the most fundamental urge of the very existence; that of the compulsion and urge to ‘EXIST’, or to BE, by making oneself  known to others !

We have already learnt about it in an above paragraph that dealt with the existential inevitability of ‘knowing entities’,  for the existence to know of itself. Without knowing entities, nothing could be tangible and could be felt real. Hence, the most conscious entity among all other creatures, man, suffers the most from this existential drive, the drive to make himself/ herself known to other persons and establish his/her ENTITY and REALITY.

In a romantic love relation, when two human beings know each other in unprecedented intimate ways, it is equal to taking births as ‘new persons’ in each other’s heart! Here each partner experiences the ecstasy of making himself/herself known in the heart of the LOVE partner, in ways and fashion that no one else in the world has let them known before ! It is full blossoming of these individuals, thanks to the central drive of love planted by nature, to make them experience the mother of all other experiences ! The lovers here share the most vital and central cosmic urge of nature, that of ‘existing’ by letting an other ‘knowing being’  knowing of it. Both experience the entities of each other in its fullest potential !

Associated emotions of this main DRIVE are that self-protection, self-glorification, urge for justice, beauty, ORDER etc. Urge for justice, beauty, morals and ethics etc. are different versions, or variations of man’s urge for ORDER. Needless to explain that justice, beauty and sense of morals are the highest forms and expressions of ORDER. We have already seen above how sense organ of reason is mad about ORDER and consistency, especially for including every piece of evidence and fact while arriving at conclusions and inferences, so that they turn logically correct. ‘Logical’ means here, simple adherence to the principle that the conclusion and the evidences, or argument, meet the consistency requirement. Conclusion should be naturally be deriving from the evidences. Reason does the most central job in the act, ie. sensing the ORDER ( or unity ) content between the presented evidences and its conclusion, as we have seen  once above, well explained.

No conscientious person can cheat himself by omitting any well present evidence, or any known truth from reflecting in one’s conclusions and generalizations ! This is also ensured by the ‘urge’ (for unity and order) of the sense organ of reason.

Reason not only seek inclusion of all evidences and known facts in conclusions arrived, but it also will fiercely compel man to seek more and more knowledge. In a non-stop process, our sense organ of reason go on urging us to split each of our existing inference into its all available possibilities and sub-ideas, so that we arrive at the purest and clearest form of truth, laws and generalizations.

These emotional DRIVES, like the well evident meaning and purpose of our bodily urges, should indicate and throw light towards the hidden purpose of existence and human life ! The planting of these emotions in man, evidently to attain certain set of behavior and actions, must help us to probe into the WHY question of existence. We are aware why body has its drives. It is to ensure the proper functioning of the physical system that carry the mind, and its emotional system. Hence, emotional drives also should be aiming at achieving the proper functioning of the ‘mental system’, so that the hidden goals of nature could be achieved.

It is evident from the above discussion that nature has set separate and distinct DRIVES for body and mind. While the drives of the body (the physic ) are mere structural in nature, the DRIVES of the mind reflects the chief themes (essence) of nature about life and existence. Body serves the purpose of providing tangible ‘mass’ for the mind. Who undergoes and experience life is mind. For the external sense organs, only physic is tangible and real, whereas as for the inner sense organ of reason we could say, only the mind is real. The physical system, it seems, was designed in such a way that it has been structured and exclusively meant for the external sense organs, to get it perceived in a preset manner. External reality, therefore, can not ever be a stand alone stuff away and independent of the sense organs and the mind. Reality as experienced by man and other living beings is closely interwoven stuff involving the mind and the physic. Attempts to view them as separate and independent of each other, hence, would be an unnatural exercise. It would result in false notions and inferences. 

Why negative drives and emotions ?

We should mention here the existence and role of the many negative emotions also, such as anger, rage, hatred, depression, jealousy etc. This paper dare to note here that, like the body’s getting diseased when its drives are not met,(hunger and thirst, sex, excretion and exertion) these negative emotions also could be symptoms of the diseased mind; caused by NOT meeting the positive emotional needs of the mind mentioned earlier. When there exist no avenue in one’s surrounding to express his urge to love and to be loved, expressing his selfdom for its proper projection and acceptance, or when his self-protection and dignity needs are not met, mind generate NEGATIVE emotions to get over the impasse. Lack of avenues for expression of the positive emotions and drives leads to serious conflicts within. These conflicts are essential for seeking out changes, and improving upon his individual as well as collective (social) living conditions. These conflicts might have other hidden goals too for nature, now unknown to man and his present knowledge.


As modern psychology believes and theorize, these emotions can not be due to the internal secretion of the now identified chemicals (special proteins) into the blood stream. Such excretions help only in physical manifestations of the assigned emotion, as emotions always precede these excretions. Obviously, when these special proteins are artificially administered into the body, mind would experience the respective emotion, but it is absolutely naive and a faulty logic to conclude that it was body that excreted these chemicals into the brain, to cause the respective emotion ! We are referring to the latest finding of medical science that drugs like Dopamine, Serotonin, Norepinephrine etc. have emotion altering properties. If this argument is meant to conclude that the source of human emotions are the random secretion of these chemicals in to the blood stream, or to the brain, it is equal to nullifying the identity and role of emotions in the life-process of man.
                                                                                                                           


Emotions are ‘in-itself’ inputs to mind, unlike sense data !

Another important feature of EMOTIONS universally experienced by man is that they are free of the ‘phenomena’ barrier of the known sense organs, as emotions do not reach mind through the external senses. Kant was very specific about the ‘impure’ status of anything that enters mind through the senses. He thought that whatever that enters mind outside the sense source should be treated as PURE knowledge.

As seen earlier, whatever knowledge reaches mind through the sense source can reach mind only as PHENOMENA, as mind is not able to know their ‘in-itself’ reality. As emotion reach mind Not through the senses, they have the ‘in-itself’ status, hence, could claim universally equal form for each and every person. In other words, unlike objects and events in the external world, that each person internalize in his own very subjective way and meaning, emotions are experienced by every person in exactly similar manner, except the difference in the intensity. Eg. Anger experienced by one person may be different in intensity and degree from that of a different person, determined by the difference in the emotional situation.

In short, emotions are important ingredients that reach mind besides the routine sense inputs. It is well known that emotional experiences make much more powerful impact in the mind of a person than the routine sense originated inputs and experiences. (like the trees, roads, building, an evening, the crowd in a street, table s and chairs at the work-place etc) Hence, they contribute much more to the net aggregate quantum of experiences of man. They drive man to actions, thought and behavior in a very higher degrees than the routine sense inputs, as sense-inputs act merely as aid and trigger for emotions in most of the cases. For example, sight of a beloved helps to trigger the emotion of love, or, the physically touching an enemy could heighten the anger in him, as he might take it as an act of intimidation.

Love to share here a blog readily available on emotions, to give more information to readers: http://unrecognizedobjectsofthemind.blogspot.com/2017/12/emotions-can-they-be-treated-as-another.html


Existential Drives

We could say that drives are what lead to, and often get resulted into emotional situation. Drives are more broader a term than emotion. While man does not directly experience Drives, he distinctly experiences emotion.

Drives are rather inherent ‘tendencies’ of mind like the laws of motion put forth by the great scientist Newton for physical objects. Those laws are tendencies of physical bodies as identified and specified in the form of certain laws by the great scientist, such as the tendency of bodies to remain in a state of inertia until another unstable body  disturbs this state of inertia and force it to move, and thus set in motion, the object will continue with the same speed and direction till some other unbalanced object stops, or redirects its course .

We can not locate these tendencies expressed anywhere in the physical structure of atom. Hence, this author strongly feel that such inherent ‘tendencies’ of matter as well as mind must be recognized by Science, as another distinct property, or category of reality besides matter and energy.

Drives get manifested into multiples emotions in the path of its fulfillment. Drives are better understood as directives, or predilections, or pre-dispositions of nature. We do not know where do they represented as specific neurons in the brain, but could observe its presence and extreme pull within us when we remain introspective. The newly recognized ‘sense organ of reason’ is what helps man to understand more about such inherent drives. It is a mystery sense organ, with many hidden, not yet recognized faculties, that may include ‘intuition’ like sources of direct knowledge on life, self and God. 

It would make better sense if we infer that all these drives like urge for up-keeping dignity of self, self-protection, self-glorification that manifested as creative urges, drive to excel etc. are manifestations of a one single drive; the cosmic urge of all living beings to BE, or to EXIST ! This is one most central and all controlling DRIVE that guides and direct life ! Evidently, nature as a whole also is guided by this all engrossing DRIVE, or existential energy, that, we could infer that She must have shared with all living beings too. One important, self-evident manifestation of this DRIVE is man’s fierce urge for SELF-EXPRESSION, or his urge to let himself known before fellow-beings ! In the paragraph describing features of Ego above, we have already seen how central is the existential scheme wherein something or someone could know of itself by making itself, or himself before ‘other’ beings. 

This fundamental ‘urge’ compel man to be social. In other words, this must have been nature’s central plan to make living beings adopt social ways. Inherently, each unit of life needs ‘other’ units around it to format its own self and being. Hence, this urge should be considered as the most primary and central existential drive. Like the heavenly bodies depend on neighboring other bodies to be in their respective orbits by the force of gravity and attraction, living beings too seem designed in a similar way. Every unit of life needs the other for self definition, identification, and even for the socially relevant ‘restricted’ freedom of moment and action for securing social equilibrium. Any unit of life exceeding such set limit of self-freedom of moment and action gets resulted in social upheavals. This opens up a great field of study in itself for both our future sociologist as well as for cosmologists !    

If we look at life with total openness, and with all our rational inferring might based on all available evidences and intuition, we will be forced to conclude that reducing this drive to mere ‘struggle for existence’ by Darwin was an act of belittling life and its inherent glory ! The grand drive to exist and to BE has much more depth and grandeur than the ‘struggle for existence’, and the ‘survival of the fittest’. 

What Darwin had done was to infer his theory from the obvious symptoms of the fundamental drive of self-interest that he had observed , without looking at a broader picture. As this author has pointed out in his papers titled   ‘PREDOMINANCE OF LOVE ABOVE SURVIVAL INSTINCTS’, and the paper titled  ‘major intellectual dogmas that rule the contemporary world’ 

(web links: http://lovepredominatessurvivalinstincts.blogspot.in/, and 

http://leadingdogmasthatruletheworld.blogspot.in/) 

parental care and love exhibited by mothers in the animal kingdom to make the off-springs survive the post-birth  period (of 0 to 2-3 years for animals, and 0 - even 18 years for human-beings) should be considered more relevant and more fundamental an aspect that ensure survival of the off-spring than the struggle puts-forth by the off-spring him self when it attains growth stages, fit for putting-up such struggles himself !  The inherent familial and social tendencies shown by many animal and insect species is more profound an energy and drive than the tendency to compete for resources and mates (survival struggle) that every living unit exhibits when it attains maturity. 

If a truly rational observation is put-in to this issue, it would become evident that, NATURE has provided units of life with more wholesome drives and energies to survive than the mere mutual competition for limited resources . As seen at one of the earlier paragraphs on EMOTIONS, we discussed the urge ‘to love and to be loved’ as a central, existential urge that drives man. Here LOVE should be understood and re-defined as the urge to ‘VALUE’ one self, and to share it with others too. This valuing of oneself is a kind of ‘self-glorification’ urge. If circumstances permit, every man exhibit his self-esteem, or a sign of his self value, and his natural tendency to VALUE his fellow beings too in the course of life. When one has ample self-esteem and self-worth, something naturally occurring to every one in natural conditions, he tend to VALUE the fellow beings too in the same degree of value and esteem. It is the ones who lost his self-esteem for ever who would struggle with others in neurotic effort to gain it back ! Even the most fiery animals exhibits tendency to respond to love and care provided to them in the same degree as seen from various experiments conducted in this field.  

What being attempted to infer here is that, the grand DRIVE that nature had originally intended for man to survive successfully was the central drive of LOVE, or the faculty to VALUE oneself, and valuing the other also in the same degree ! At the present stage of our intellectual evolution, this broader existential DRIVE could not have possibly been materialized in human societies, hence, past philosophers and thinkers had to arrive at conclusions based upon what they had observed during their time.

The man in the jungle, and later at the battle weary ancient cities and towns, man could never get an opportunity to be at peace with himself, and others. Hence, every man exhibited traits of aggression and self-interest. What our past thinkers and philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and others had observed was a bye-product, or a result of such antagonistic historical circumstances of human race during their time. The story of man’s discoveries and inventions so far shows that man is able to gain insight into nature’s secrets, step-by-step. Without doubt, it is time for mankind to have more insight into this central area of human knowledge, about the most central human drive that guides him through the life-process, ie VALUING his fellow-being in the same way that he values himself !

In short, it was the above singular DRIVE that got manifested as its various sub-drives, or symptoms of the same drive. When avenues for valuing one’s own self was absent at life-situations, man naturally developed negative symptoms, such as more aggressively expressed urges to EXIST, and to BE. When many units exhibit such negative symptoms of aggression at the same time, it naturally turns a struggle for existence and survival, as Darwin had seen it. Thomas Hobbes also had observed the same symptoms, and he professed his governmental forms based on POLITICAL POWER and AUTHORITY, to restrict such behavior of people, and bring order in society. He thought human nature is fundamentally ‘nasty, brutish and cruel’, and such society needs coercive governmental forms with great political power to mend these beasts.

These self-evident human DRIVES have to be accepted by our science with an equal interest that they do accord to matter and energy forms, to make their endeavor more wholesome. These drives are integral, observable aspects of existential reality exactly in line with the laws of physical matter.  

The synthetic products from the world that enters mind

When we call external world, and inputs gathered by mind from there, it should not be restricted to the trees, mountains, butterflies, rivers and animals. It must include the numerous synthetic objects that modern world produces through its media sources.

When man gathers sense date from the raw world, every man  turns a unique ‘aggregate’ of experiences as we have seen. Then he starts expressing himself in varied ways into the world, which, the others around  him picks up as unique sense products ! As senses are OPEN windows to external signals and inputs, no one can prevent it from entering the mind. So, every one’s acts of expression become the external sense puts of every other one.

When this act of self expression turns a mass communication act like in the case of world’s media channels ( news paper, tv channels, internet etc) what ever they produce at mass scale for the general consumption of people, it turns a chief in-put of man’s mind. This mass communication exercise, or industry we may call, often intentionally fill this realm with hidden values, myths, and view points that suits the interests of the current masters of the world ! ( political and corporate masters)

External Senses here act both as receivers,  as well as transmitters in a big way. What ever one produces as his self expression becomes the sense input of  others around, and what ever these mass media channels produce becomes the chief ingredient for man to constitute his mind, attitudes, values, judgments and conclusions. This new phenomenon of mass media is capable of cutting man from his original source of life and existence, and turning him into synthetic EGOs. What happened during Hitler’s time in Germany was a convincing example of this modern phenomenon. An entire people of a country was forced to internalize his mad ideology of hate and destruction, and history produced the holocaust ! When the strength of the external sense inputs cuts away one’s private rational and emotional inputs, man could turn a lifeless machine at any time.  This has been mentioned here just to warn mankind on the dangers of intentional mass communication devices, sources and channels.  

Sudden arrival of calamities, diseases and tragedies in life

No discussion on mind and life would be complete till it touches the most uncertain and the most painful of all the experiences that enters mind ! They are the sudden calamities like serious,life threatening diseases for self or loved ones, sudden accidents and deaths in the family, natural calamities like earthquakes, fires and floods. It is so common a factor that enters the mind of some people, at the most unexpected hours of life. 

Life a solid physical reality, with least sign of any doubt of unreal phenomena, these tragedies reach minds asking for appropriate reaction and a stand. Like emotions that we had recognized earlier as pure experiences sans the screen of sense organs, these experiences challenge every sense of rationality of the unfortunate victims. No cause and effect relation could ever be established for the arrival of these tragedies in any one's life except the ones described in the following blog post: http://thewhyquestionofexistenceanswered.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-could-we-explain-diseaseswars-and.html 

While many a lives perish on account of failed battles against such unexpected tragedies in life, many endure it with utmost patience, courage and hope. In many a cases, such pains and trauma goes away gradually as they had come, leaving the victims rich and wise in life experience ! Such tragedies shake man from his very root and soul, compelling him to seek enduring answers on the mystery of life. Such tragic events help man to seek out the very depth of the life as an experience, and compel him to seek ultimate answers. It often helps to transcend life and selves to different realms of life and experiences. 

Equally random are the arrival of unexpected good fortunes and pleasures in the lives of some others ! These pleasurable experiences and successes also could transcend men to different realms of aggregate, letting them experience life from new angles and perspectives from thereupon. Though such incidents are purely external events, it let fierce emotions to flood into the victim's mind to wreck or make them.  

Summary

To summarize, the salient features of mind and matter that we have discussed above are:

1)     Matter and its various manifestations would have been invisible and void without mind. Mind was an existential inevitability as far as NATURE was concerned. It was nature as MIND that preceded matter, hence She planned a MIND scheme similar to Hers, as knowing mechanism for the matter realm for all units of life.  
2)     Man’s sense organs were schemed to give him only such matter related realities, that was just enough for him to lead life.(phenomena) Each sense organ was devised to give him such limited range of the destined realities as was necessary for the life process. Eye can not see everything, but only such objects in its range of vision. Same was the case with ears, nose, tongue and skin. There could have been many other hidden ‘categories’ of knowledge other than sight, sound etc, but man has not been provided with sense organs to receive them !
3)     What mind produced as its first item was the ‘entity’ of man, the ego. It has taken birth on the principle that ‘ others are, hence I too am’. This entity acted as the OWNER of the mind, and whatever the senses perceived.
4)      He could produce intellectual products ( like inferences, conclusions and laws) also other than the raw data given by the senses by working on the sense data, and also from various EXPERIENCES he underwent in his relations with other egos around.
5)     Other than the sense inputs, various drives, emotions and instincts also were there as inherent inputs to his mind, to facilitate above processing exercise.
6)     The mysterious faculty of reason offered central help to the mind in distinguishing between right from falsehood. It helped in the reasoning process. It also helped with its ‘PRISMATIC’ function, to analyze any given ray of thought or idea into its constituent sub-idea, and possibilities. Reason also is doubted to be his hidden sense organ that might offer him knowledge beyond the phenomenal barrier of the external sense organs, about the final truth of his life and existence.  
7)     Like laws of motion in the matter realm are ‘tendencies’  for the movement of bodies, the well evident DRIVES in man such as his fierce urge for self-expression, to BE and EXIST, to survive and excel etc. should be treated by science in its effort to understand the physical and mental realities as one single realm of existence.

8)     Lastly, the paper attempted to show the danger of modern mass media agencies that do not always represent the ‘sacred realm of collective’ of man. The messages, values, and attitudes they produce at mass scale for the consumption of people have its distinct and absolute impact on minds of man, and then the way they lead their lives and live in existence.

9) From the above elaborate discussion on mind, one thing that comes out sublimely is a very central question: Can the mind ever encounter something that was not a product of itself? The answer is quite clear. While everything that enters mind from the external world goes to mind through the sense organs, it can not escape the pre-processing and pre-dressing of it by the sense organs. The ever new aggregate of the entity-man- could either heat-up such inputs or cool them down by adopting appropriate attitudes. But the dictum of reason that directly enters mind sans the sense-organ wall is very difficult to block or defend without consequences, like a clear reason provided evidences in intellectual inferences. A particular state of mind ( an emotion without any identifiable cause) that grips the mind from nowhere is also usually undefendable, as it has entered mind through an extra sensory route. Such experiences are common as far as life is concerned. Reason is supposed to be a mystique door for non-sensory inputs to enter man's mind.  

10) The discussion hopefully brings forth that the realm of ego is a totally cut-off realm from metaphysical essence of life: the realm of mind officially live upon the feeds from the sense organ, and its synthetically processed facts and truths by the mind. The entity-ego-when remain as an overt product of these external realities, its behavioral and thought outputs also would be squarely akin to the synthetic world. Reason routinely gives reminders and options to ego to switch over the canvas of life from the synthetic world to the wider and deeper realms of existence. Such 'transcended' realms of the ego is a plain reality, and it is such realms that man usually come to understand as his deeper self, or even soul. 
For more details on such possibilities of TRANSCENDING one's self, please share our dedicated blog: http://metaphysicsofthehumansoul.blogspot.in/ 




Authored by: Abraham Joseph
He is an ardent seeker and researcher in fields like 'Human reason', mind, emotions, human drives, nature of reality, self-formation, nature of human soul etc, besides his routine interest in Polity 

Contact him:ajoseph1@rediffmail.com
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Twitter: Voice of Philosophy@jopan1