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We have talked about sensation and perception. One of the ways we can describe the difference between the two
is that, when we consider that perception is our interpretation of sensation, what is it that is doing the interpreting?
The conscious mind. Where did that come from? Do all sentient beings have it? Only humans?
Sensation refers to the stimulus of our sense organs by external events. What about internal events? Emotions?
Thinking? Conscious thinking, intuition, inspiration? How do these relate to what we can see on an EEG? The
EEG shows evidence of brain activity but it does not show our emotions or what we’re thinking, only that
something is happening in the brain. Is there a difference then between the brain and the mind? Where do our
thoughts reside?
Many of these questions have been raised by the likes of Plato and Aristotle and we have been questioning them
ever since.
Beyond these questions, though, what does our understanding of consciousness have to do with our use of symbols
and what does that, in the end have to do with our sense of the sacred?
CONSCIOUSNESS
What is consciousness? Jaynes: Many solutions have been proposed
1. Consciousness is a property of Matter
It is a fundamental property of interacting matter. If we look at matter as not as solids but as mathematical
relationships in space (particle physics), then, when I drop a piece of chalk on a table, the reason the chalk
stops is because it ‘knows’ the table and the table ‘knows’ the chalk. This is what Whitehead referred to as
prehension. However, what we are talking about here is not the interaction of matter in the environment but
the experience we have when we introspect.
2. It is a property of protoplasm
We look at lower organisms and can see their response to stimuli. From that we can and do extrapolate that
their reactions to stimuli, being similar to our own, imply consciousness. But this anthropomorphizing of
lower organisms is misleading. Motor nerves of the wriggling halves of a worm do not constitute
consciousness. We are talking about something different from that.
3. It is learning
We might say that when an animal modifies its behaviour through experience, then it must be having an
experience and it must have some memory of that experience, which means it must be conscious. But there
is a difference between learning and consciousness. Learning, for example, can occur through classical
conditioning. Often this happens in humans quite unconsciously.
4. It is metaphysical imposition
There is a chasm between the lives of lower orders and the lives of humans. “We build Chartres and
computers, write poems and tensor equations, play chess and quartets, sail ships to other planets and listen in
to other galaxies – what have these to do with rats in mazes or the threat displays of baboons?” (Jaynes,
1976:8) This suggests that there “has to be more to human evolution than mere matter, chance, and survival.
Something must be added from outside of this closed system to account for something so different as
consciousness.” (Jaynes, 1976:9) Kubrick in 2001 portrayed that outside influence well with the monolith.
Of course to suggest this (as Wallace did) is to move outside the realm of science, an explanation that does
not sit well with natural sciences.
5. It is a ‘helpless spectator’
Consciousness does nothing at all. Our actions are completely controlled by the wiring diagram of the brain
and its reflexes to external stimuli. In that, ‘consciousness is no more than the head given off by the wires . .’
But as William James suggested, it is not conceivable that consciousness should have nothing to do with a
business which it so faithfully attends. “If consciousness is the mere impotent shadow of action, why is it
more intense when action is most hesitant? And why are we least conscious when doing something most
habitual? Certainly this seesawing relationship between consciousness and actions is something that any
theory of consciousness must explain.
6. It is emergent evolution
Metaphorically, the argument is that just as wetness cannot be derived from the properties of hydrogen and
oxygen alone, so consciousness emerges at some point in evolution in a way underivable from its constituent
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7.
8.
parts. So with increasing complexity in evolution, consciousness emerged out of the interrelationship of
these systems. However, specifics still had to be answered. If it emerged, when did it emerge? What level
of complexity is required for it to emerge? The complexity of higher mammals? Until it could answer these
more specific questions we are left where we were with this theory.
It doesn’t exist (behviourism)
Behaviourism, though, is a method, not a theory and while the method refused to consider consciousness in
its concentration on observable behaviour, it did not make any satisfactory argument that consciousness itself
did not exist.
It is a Reticular Activating System
We have techniques to explore the brain. So, all we have to do is find those parts of the brain that are
responsible for consciousness and then trace out their anatomical evolution. A location has in fact been
proposed. It is a ‘tangle of tiny internuncial neurons called the reticular formation, which as long lain hidden
and unsuspected in the brainstem.’ (Jaynes, 1976:17) But in its relation to the evolution of consciousness, it
turns out to be one of the oldest parts of the nervous system. Further, our understanding of the brain is based
on what we first know about behaviour. Consciousness itself is not a behaviour, so there is no way for us to
study it in this way.
When we think about consciousness, there are a number of things that it is not:
1.
Consciousness is not a copy of experience.
Locke and the tablua rasa. But even our memories are imperfect. We invent a lot.
2.
Consciousness is not necessary for concepts
It is where concepts are formed. But concepts are simply classes of behaviourally equivalent things. Our
perception of tree is based on specific trees, and that collection of perceptions is the concept ‘tree’. When we
consciously think of a tree, we are indeed conscious of a particular tree, not of a conceptual tree.
3.
It is not necessary for learning
Consciousness is necessary for learning. Signal learning (Pavlovian conditioning) goes on without
consciousness. The learning of skills is not conscious. In fact, often you have to stop thinking in order for
the skill to work (Zen archery)
4.
It is not necessary for thinking
Word association. Automatic often, and as such not conscious
5.
It is not necessary for reason
The example of Poincare (see Jaynes, 43) and Einstein (44)
6.
It has no location
We think of it in our heads. Aristotle though located it in and just above the heart. He believe that the brain
was merely a cooling organ since t was insensitive to touch or injury. The out-of-body experience.
Consciousness can be in the upper corner of this room. ‘In reality, consciousness has no location whatever
except as we imagine it has.’
7.
It is not necessary
If it is not necessary for all of the above, is it necessary at all? Does it, as the behaviourists would have it,
exist at all? Is it possible for a race of men to have existed who spoke, judged, reasoned, solved problems
without consciousness? Jaynes suggests that they did exist until recently.
LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
There is a continuum of consciousness, ranging from the acute consciousness of a person about to be executed (see
Dostoyevsky) through to the unconsciousness of being in a coma.
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Controlled Processes: full awareness – there are various states of this as well (Dostoyevsky, noted above. A car
accident)
Automatic processes – requiring minimal attention – breathing, sometimes driving a car
Daydreaming – the interior – thoughts of other things.
Altered states – meditation, hypnosis
Sleep – of which there are five different stages that involve different levels of consciousness, including dreaming
(see next section)
Unconscious – blocked from voluntary recall (Freudian theory in which we place psychologically dangerous
thoughts into a mental place called the unconscious)
Unconsciousness – total unawareness and loss of responsiveness – trauma, coma, anesthesia. (Plotnik, 136-7)
William James considered consciousness as ‘a flux and system of relations’ rather than an entity or a thing.
(Durant, 511) In trying to describe it he referred to a ‘stream of consciousness’ (see James, 1963:148).
Consciousness is in a constant state of change:
“Now we are seeing, now hearing; now reasoning, now willing; now recollecting, now
expecting; now loving, now hating; and in a hundred other ways we know our minds to be
alternately engaged.” It never stops. It moves, flows, fluctuates and wanders.
Out of this developed an understanding of the workings of our minds that, in turn, developed into a new
understanding of the arts. ‘stream of consciousness’ writing such as James Joyce or the later Beat Generation such
as Jack Kerouac.
Molly’s Soliloquy.
DREAMS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS
For Freud, that stream could be harnessed, understood. And in understanding it we could tap into the unconscious
mind.
What is the unconscious?
Schopenhauer the 19th C. German philosopher considered consciousness as “the mere surface of our minds, of
which, as of the earth, we do not know the inside but only the crust.” (see Durant, 312-13). For him the conscious
mind was subservient to the ‘will’ “We do not want a thing because we have found reasons for it, we find reasons
for it because we want it; we even elaborate philosophies and theologies to cloak our desires. . . .[People] think
they are led on by what they see, when in truth they are driven on by what they feel – by instincts of whose
operation they are half the time unconscious.” (Durant, 312-3)
Freud pursed this idea further and tried to explore the unconscious. As Schopenhauer, he theorized that our
conscious thoughts are only a small part of our total mental activity. Our unconscious wishes can motivate our
conscious thoughts and behaviours. Assuming the unconscious exists, how are we able to reveal its content?
Freud suggested it could be done through free association or through dream interpretation because these processes
are the least controlled by our conscious mind.
Free Association – a patient spontaneously expresses thoughts and feelings with as little censorship as possible.
(see example of Mr. N., Weiten, 1997:422). These uncensored thoughts were thought to provide clues to the
contents of the unconscious mind.
Interpretation of dreams – For Freud, dreams are an expression of wish fulfillment, particularly those involving
sex or aggression. These wishes can only be fulfilled in dreams because to do so consciously would create too
much anxiety or guilt. Dreams are symbols of wish fulfillment. Often the symbols are sexual. For example, long
objects, like a cigar or a train are taken to represent the male genitalia, while circular objects, like a peach, or
cavities, like the inside of an elevator, are taken to represent female genitalia. It is the therapist’s job to interpret
these symbols. Of course there is controversy about that interpretation. There are other ways to interpret dreams
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though. For others, dreams are extensions of waking life and are used to work out problems rather than for wishfulfillment. Dreams, then, allow people to think creatively because they are not bound by logic or reality.
Still other psychologists believe that dreams are essentially meaningless being nothing more than the random
activity of nerve cells. The cortex tries to make sense of these signals by creating imagined movements or
perceptions that are called dreams. In themselves they mean nothing.
Many aboriginals such as the Inuit in northern Canada or the Aborigines in Australia, consider dreams to be a door
to the spiritual world. This is closer to Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious.
JUNG AND SYMBOLS
Jung disagreed with Freud about the interpretation of symbols. His interpretation derived from a different
understanding of the unconscious. For him there were two levels: the personal unconscious similar to Freud’s
notion of it, and, the collective unconscious, which is a ‘storehouse of latent memory traces inherited from
people’s ancestral past. These ancestral memories are called archetypes. These archetypes frequently show up in
dreams, as well as art and religion.
Symbols for Jung are a way of representing ‘concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend.’ (pg. 4). This is
why we see them so much in all religions.
“Man, as we realize if we reflect for a moment, never perceives anything fully or comprehends
anything completely. HE can see, hear, touch, and taste; but how far he sees, how well he hears,
what his touch tells, and what he tastes depend upon the number and quality of his senses. These
limit his perception of the world around him. By using scientific instruments he can partly
compensate for the deficiencies of his senses. For example, he can extend the range of his vision
by binoculars or of his hearing by electrical amplification. But the most elaborate apparatus
cannot do more than bring distant or small objects within range of his eyes, or make faint sounds
more audible. NO matter what instruments he uses, at some point he reaches the edge of certainty
beyond which conscious knowledge cannot pass.”
To move beyond that edge we can only use symbols and archetypes. As Jaynes would likely agree, these predate
consciousness in human development and they provide the means for understanding our place in nature and our
relations to each other and to the past.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
DURANT, Will. The Story of Philosophy. New York: Washington Square Press, 1953
JAMES, William. Psychology. Edited by Ashley Montagu. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publ., 1963.
JAYNES, Julian. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1976.
JOYCE, James. Ulysses. London: The Bodley Head, 1960.
JUNG, Carl. Man and his Symbols. New York: Dell Publ., 1968.
PLOTNIK, Rod. Introduction to Psychology (4th Edition). Pacific Grove, CA.: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.,
1996.
WEITEN, Wayne. Psychology: Themes and Variations (3 rd Edition). Pacific Grove, CA.: Brooks/Cole
Publishing Co., 1997. Chapters 4 (perception), 6 (conditioning), 10 (motivation), 12 (Freud and Jung)
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