Core
controversy surrounding Consciousness
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However of origin of consciousness is
surrounded in controversy. Some say it preceded creation of universe while
others say that it came in to being in the course of progressive development of
nature and universe. Therefore, it is a horse and cart problem – whether the
horse is before the cart or cart is before the horse.
Matter is divided in to nonliving matter and
living matter. Majority of thinkers have held nonliving matter to be devoid of
consciousness and it is further held that somewhere along the path
consciousness crept in to matter to give rise to living matter or life. But
this view does not explain origin and source of consciousness.
Majority of religious philosophers have sought
to resolve this dilemma by drawing a strict line of distinction between soul
and body. They say that body is different and soul is different and accordingly
realization of this difference is one of the pious goals of human life. Almost
all the religious philosophies except Buddhism hold that soul is eternal,
different and separate from body even though residing in body and death means
soul deserting the body. Buddhists preach that soul has no separate existence
from body and it is all in the ensemble. However even Buddhist leave one
question unanswered “Who is the designer?”.
Lewes in the first volume of Problems of Life
and Mind (1874) endorsed the Buddhist view. He stated that regrouping of
physical motion of molecules in to chemical action lead to emergence of
novelties and the same is true of vital phenomenon, social phenomenon and
psychical phenomenon, there is regrouping, not the introduction of new
material, above all not a casting away of old. However I wish to point out that
mere regrouping is not sufficient to explain emergence of novelties (not
detailed).
However Hegel in The Phenomenology of Spirit
(1807) portrayed a self actualizing universe which came to understand itself
through the minds of conscious beings. Hegel noted that in human species mind
evolved through discontinuous, ascending perceptive levels.
Jain philosophy recognizes ascending perceptive
levels as ranging from organisms with a single sense to organisms with five
senses.
Sherrington explicitly described the core
controversy surrounding consciousness as two alternatives:-
“We
are once more at a crucial parting of ways. And I think at bottom it comes to
this. One route leads to the view that mind is emergent in the course of
evolutionary history. The other path leads to the view that mind is not
emergent. It is not an evolutionary stage in the natural history of the
psychical correlates of physical events. It enters the world endowed with an
original capacity for apprehending that world, with its several categories,
through the use of sense-organs and brains, evolved to that end in a manner
which it is for biologists to disclose. This apprehension is part of the mind’s
inherent activity which with the conduct it sub served, affords instances of a
kind of causality elsewhere not to be found in nature. The two views are
…irreconcilable.”
Therefore, which view is correct has to be
decided but direct evidence to decide the issues is inaccessible, since it is
not possible to travel backward in time to the conditions that preceded
creation of universe. Therefore, one has to rely upon the other two properties
of truth i.e. rationality and plausibility to determine and test the truth.
For any particle to keep existence, several
mandatory conditions have to be satisfied all the time. There are inherent
contradictions among these mandatory conditions which need to be kept resolved
all the time through appropriate tools, techniques, controls, mechanisms etc.
(Existential dilemma). Hence, for existence of any particle pre-existence of
appropriate tools, techniques, controls, mechanisms etc. has to necessarily
precede its origin/creation.
Therefore, if we assume for the sake of
discussion only that physical universe began with origin of photons, being the
simplest of particles, then we find that even photons in order to keep their
existence needed to conserve their energy against the tendency to energy flow
in accordance with 2nd law of thermodynamics. Therefore creation of
appropriate mechanism i.e. oscillating electromagnetic field and time lag to
onset of entropy had to necessarily precede origin of photons. This raises a
question about the agent responsible for origin of these mechanisms. The agent
responsible for creation of these mechanisms can only be consciousness or is
consciousness.
This view is plausible in its essence without
exception with the entire evolutionary progress of physical and biological
universe. It is not being detailed further herein for the sake of brevity. In
short consciousness is an original property of the world endowed with capacity
for apprehending the world, which is capable of resolving existential dilemma.
However as the consciousness has evolved, so has the physical world. Therefore
elevation of consciousness is the common thread to the evolutionary history of
the world.
Summarizing all above, consciousness had to
precede origin/creation of physical universe, is embedded in its material
creations and has evolved to the level of human mind in order to explicitly
realize itself.
Consciousness, since origin of universe up to
evolution of man has proceeded subconsciously or without self awareness as
hidden conditions behind things and events and has been described as
involuntarily consciousness, since its bearer has no control over its
activities but in man it has evolved to the level of awareness or voluntary
consciousness permitting not only self realization but also apprehension of the
world and individual control. Therefore, it can be readily seen that in
universe Involuntary Consciousness has played a much bigger role then Voluntary
Consciousness. Even Sachin Tendulkar can not explicitly calculate before
hitting a ball, it has to be in his subconscious.
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