Metaphysics
Consciousness and its metaphysical matter
Eduard I. Sorkin
Russia
Russian Philosophical Society
If we interpret metaphysics as a way of philosophical thinking, it becomes necessary first of all to define what thinking is as such. Known is the following wording of the concept: thinking is the highest product of matter organized in a special way, which is a brain. What is the peculiarity of this organization which allows one type of matter to be able to reflect the properties of a matter of other type, for thinking is considered to be an active process of reflecting the objective material world in notions, judgments and theories. In this process of reflection realized is man’s comprehension of the objective world and of his own existence. But can we, from the viewpoint of natural science, counterpose two types of matter that differ only by their organization and that are engaged in subject-object relations? As we look at a red rose, neurons are induced in the visual center of our brain by electrochemical signals coming from our eyes, to form a mosaic picture of nerve cells interconnected through numerous contacts. The visual analyzer - a complex of neurons of a higher level - decides that the sight is that of a red rose. But what is the principled difference between the organization of the biological tissue of flower petals, on the one hand, and nervous tissue, gray matter of the brain, on the other hand? Plant cells also react to external impacts, to information coming from outside. True, the exchange with electrochemical signals taking place in nerve cells does not compare to the intensity, speed and diversity of physiological processes that occur in the cells of plants. But there is no principled difference between the interaction of cells, say of the sunflower turning its «head», its inflorescence in the shape of a basket, in the direction of the sun, and a man enjoying the fading sunlight. Except for one thing: the man is capable of thinking that the big red sun setting down behind the horizon means good weather tomorrow...The sunflower is not capable of that, it has no consciousness, it cannot manifest or realize its attitude to the world and to itself, similarly to animals. So what is happening in neurons, in the gray matter of the brain, when a person sees the same red color of the sun or of a rose? After all, in the human brain there do not appear any neurons painted in red color, there is no homunculus, which evaluates, analyzes or responds to this or that combination of nerve cells excited by external signals. In other words, through what and how is perceived information coming from sense
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organs? This question was posed a long time ago by Democritus. Feelings, according to Democritus, give us qualitative determination only, for example -- color, taste, temperature and do not give ideas of atoms as such and of their connection in empty space. Things sweet, bitter, warm, cold, or colored are only claimed to exist, the reality being just atoms and emptiness. Sensual experience is devoid of objective truth, it provides but only a dim notion of reality. As to the true cognition of atoms, inaccessible to the perception of our senses, and of empty space that is as much concealed from us, this can only be provided to us by our thinking alone. But thinking itself, cognizing the truth of all things, is nothing else but motion of atoms, and thus it is homogeneous with perception. Here Democritus concludes as follows: thinking, similarly to perception, presupposes penetration into the body of physical images from the external world.
The science of the Modern Age has progressed considerably from the ideas of Democritus about separation from things of small particles, which penetrate into our sense organs and set in motion atoms of fire, contained in the sense organs.
This motion is in fact the feeling which supplies the «bodily image». But the idea of Democritus about the emergence in human brain of a mirror image of the external world has survived until modern times.
Hardly anyone writes now, of course, that people’s feelings and ideas represent mirror images of things.
A reference book written in the 21-st century, explains: the formation of sensory images, as convincingly shown by psychological and neurophysiologic information, not to mention abstract notions, can in no way be interpreted in the spirit of mirror reflection. Sensation is a substratum of perception, which actually is the beginning of reflection of objective reality. Now reflection is interaction of material systems, in the course of which process there arises for one of these systems («the reflecting one») an opportunity to acquire and use certain information about another system («the reflected one»). During the process of interaction one interacting system may cause in the other system some changes, traces, imprints, which will be in certain conformity with the properties of the active system. This is potential reflection which may become actual reflection, if the system in which the changes are caused, is capable of utilizing them as information about the other system. This use may manifest itself in some kind of activity, reaction or orientation of the system’s semblance with regard to the active system. When you read about two systems, about changes, traces, imprints reflecting the impact of one system upon the other one, everything looks convincing. But this is followed with all the same words about conformity of a copy to the original, of a model to the original... Now the other author of the same reference publication writes: the seeming presentation to the outside of the visual perception is explained by the fact that perception presents an internal reduced model of the external objects and of visible parts of our body, between which the scaling correlation are kept.
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A contemporary philosopher dealing with the theory of consciousness writes that in the course of evolution there develops the ability of producing information about information (this primarily is true about forming behavior programs). There emerges a new level of integration of information processes, typical precisely of psychic reflection and psychic control of the wholesome organism. Even most simple manifestations of subjective reality, such for example as perception of red color, are resultant from integration of numerous products of analysis and synthesis of information, carried out in the retina of the eye and then in numerous structures of the brain. Here already the author is not talking about «the image of object» in the brain. But the thesis -- information about information – resembles very much the formulation:
«I know that I know something», which you can extend to «I know that I know that I know something», and so on to reach stupid infinity... There is also another approach, which can be described as functionalism: consciousness represents some subtle physical-chemical processes in the nervous cells of the brain.
But, to provide an example, the well-known physicist Roger Penrose writes that the activity of the mind is not in any way connected with the processes taking place in the physical brain. And although turning neurons «on» and «off» resembles operation of a computer, human mind, endowed with consciousness, just can’t work like a computer, in spite of the algorithmic nature of many components of our mental activity.
Why, when electromagnetic waves affect retina and then are discriminated and categorized by the visual system, are we experiencing something like the feeling of red, for example? - asks D. Chalmers, a famous philosopher and author of many works on the problem of consciousness and brain.
After all, in order to understand the result of such impact and organism’s reaction caused by it, sufficient would be a functional explanation, without the need to engage a subjective «accompaniment» (i.e., it is sufficient to use some adequate methods employed by psychophysiology and cognitive sciences - E.
S.). Here we have not the explanation a gap between the functions (we mean functions of individual systems, providing both for perceptions and for the mental activity of the person as a whole - E. S.) and the subjective states, writes D. Chalmers, and we need an explanatory bridge to negotiate the gap. Such an explanatory bridge can be provided by the words of Russian philosopher and theologian P. Yurkevich :
«If a physiologist observes for an indefinitely long time, even eternally, the changes, the processes taking place in the sensory nerves, even with the help of the most perfect microscope, he will spy no feeling, no thought, still except for the physical or chemical changes in the nerve». The philosopher adds: «Even if we should agree that the cause of this irreconcilable duality of these phenomena lies in the nature of our knowledge, and not in the nature of things, all the same we thus would only open up the field for metaphysics and yet we would be forced to refuse from the imaginary claim to have a fact where the natural research procedure actually refers us to a metaphysical thought, because here we meet in a most obvious way with a phenomenon inexplicable by the laws of mechanics». P. Yurkevich is certain that nervous
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processes can not be the cause and the source of psychic phenomena, it is not a matter of electrical current in the nerves, not a matter of the fat and phosphorus contained in the brain, not in a definite and particular circle of animal life, but in something else - that exists in the integral content of the world. What can the
«metaphysical thought» be contained in? May be, indeed, in the connection between consciousness and the «holistic content of the world»? Leibniz once spoke on this theme in the work «Reflections on Metaphysics». He wrote that the concepts of size, shape and movement are not so distinct as we imagine, and that they include something imaginary and relating to our perceptions, although not to the same degree as color, heat and similar properties, regarding which we may feel certain doubt as to if they actually exist in the nature of things found outside of us. And further on Leibniz explains: in strictly metaphysical sense, there does not exist, except for the one God, any external cause which would affect us, and He alone communicates directly with us by virtue of our permanent dependence on Him. Hence it follows, that there is not any external object which would touch our soul and excite our perception directly. So in our soul we have ideas of all things only due to the continuous actions of God on us. God alone is our direct object outside of us, and we see all things through Him. And as the view of God is always true, our perception is also true, and it is our judgment alone that is ours, and it deceives us. In addition, each substance (i.e., human being - E. S.) is something like the whole world and the mirror of God, or the mirror of the whole universe, which every substance expresses in its own way, similarly to one and the same city looking differently depending on the various stations of the observer. Any substance expresses, though vaguely, everything that happens in the universe - its past, present and future, and it is a bit like the infinite perception or knowledge... We would add to the words of Leibniz even more: this is somewhat similar to the principle of holography, when any piece of photographic plate with a hologram contains the image of the object photographed, but with a lower resolution. When this fragment is lighted by a reference beam, the object image can be viewed from different sides.
The holographic model we suggest assumes that there is some object of global scale (let's call it «a model of the creation»), reflecting the «signal» radiation onto a surface, on which the «basic» (reference) radiation is directed. Appearing on this «surface of the creation», as on a photographic plate, is an interference picture, a dynamic hologram which encodes the entire information about the creation.
Can the information in the hologram be compared with the Word that «was with God» in the beginning (John
1:1)? Since «All things were made through him (the Word)…» (John 1:3), does it mean that Word contained the entire world information? But if we proceed from this symbolic model, then we must understand what should be taken for the «signal» and what for the «basic» (reference) radiation. The first is the primordial light; the second is the procession of divine grace. This is of course just an allegory, however the origin of our Universe from the singularity -- a mathematical point or from a «bubble» with a diame-
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ter of 10 -33 см, containing the entire mass of the Universe -- does it not look allegorical? In fact, scientists still cannot explain what physical factors launched the inflationary expansion and why it ended.
May be the super-heavy «bubble» carried the hologram - the original of the primordial interference picture of the world? This assumption is not so fantastic: scientific research results are available showing that the development of the fetus in mother's organism from the fertilized egg occurs in accordance with the preemerged holographic image of the future body. Then the fertilized ovule is also a carrier of the hologram.
If we imagine that every human being's mind is a programmed computer encoding by signs («hieroglyphs») the figurative and verbal information in the form of an interference picture, and this «picture», illuminated by the ray of divine grace, serves as source for the emergence of dynamic images, thoughts, and feelings, then such a «holographic» model or allegory has a lot to clarify the existence or nonexistence of matter which is able to cognize itself.
But if human being is a holographic particle of the «mirror» of God or of the universe, what of the freedom given to him by the Creator? The answer is given by Leibniz: the decision of God consists in letting human being do permanently, although freely, what he sees as the best for him.
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