Materialists present us with the rather stark picture of the human individual as a manifestation of purely ordered structure. It is fashionable to assert that the human individual is (as we have heard) an ordinary object - an object made of flesh and blood - made of essentially the same atomic material as other natural objects such as trees and oceans. Further, it is modish to assert that the curious 'goings on' inside our heads - our mental activity - is merely physical activity in another guise; that our present perplexity about the nature of death and the self, say, is really a special kind of description of rather complex physical events taking place in our brains. That is, it is fashionable to hold that the human individual can be reduced to descriptions of various kinds, but that each kind indicates objectivity either in fact or in principle.
The human individual is divided (if it can be said to be divided at all) into a physical body - an electrical and chemical machine - and an abstract but nonetheless objective corpus of psychological features which depend upon the body. What we are presented with is a monolith; a union of mind and body; a union in which the body, in the form of the brain, is the mind at one level of description, and the mind is the brain at another level of description. The individual, therefore, is an object which is capable of being encompassed in principle by a sufficiently sophisticated and complex 3rd person description, in much the same way the 'behaviour' of complex parallel distributive processing and neural networking might be so described.
If this picture of mind/brain identity is correct then clearly death has to be the end - the end of consciousness as far as the individual is concerned. To be sure there are some popular modern death denial fantasies which seek to circumvent the end of a consciousness: cryogenics and nanotechnology, for example. The cleanest and most pleasing prospect is that of our brains' contents being read into immortal computers which will take us to the stars and provide us with the time needed to figure out all our perplexities. But these fantasies do not negate death; they merely postpone it indefinitely. If mind/brain identity is correct then death is simply the end. There is no beyond.
What I want to suggest in the next few minutes is that although mind/brain identity is a most plausible position to hold, it is, in fact, fundamentally flawed because it denies the coherence of subjective experience as manifested in the 1st person perspective.
To this end I wish to point to a distinction between objective self-consciousness and self-consciousness, and then suggest another form of death denial which ties in with the Neoplatonic notions of Nous and the Ultimate Being or One.
Objective self-consciousness: this I take to be the consciousness the individual has as a particular self/person in the world. Such consciousness is characterised by the whole body of psychological contents which make this body me, viz., NL. This body of contents is not fixed but changes by degrees, both minutely and dramatically over time to the extent that it makes sense (after Parfit) to talk in terms of psychological continuity and connectedness. In this parlance we might say that survival is a matter of
degree; it is a matter of whether or not there are sufficient relations of continuity or connectedness operating between selves. Survival, therefore, is not absolute: selves come and go according to the durability of their relations, and this may occur within the confines of a single physical body. Clearly if objective self-consciousness is all there is, and mind/brain identity is correct, then death of the body entails death of consciousness.
Subjective self-consciousness: this I take to be the 'I' of the subjective sense of existence which is to be distinguished from the 'I' of personal experience, i.e. the 'I' which is NL. The former is logical whilst the latter is contingent.
I might put this another way by saying that I wish to differentiate awareness per se and the contents of awareness; that is, what I am aware of.
Hume was simply wrong. When you introspect you search around and find a multitude of impressions, but never an 'I'. Whenever you try to focus on the 'I' it somehow eludes you and fades away. This much is true. But it does not follow that the 'I' does not therefore exist and that what I call 'my self is no more than a series of impressions. The 'I' is elusive because it is not part of the contents of consciousness. It can be experienced but not 'seen' as a thought of "a pint of Guinness" might be 'seen'. The 'I' as observer is prior to all conscious content.
There is, therefore, a duality of consciousness: there is awareness itself and there is content, and the dynamic which results issues in coherence of self - a unity of self.
This duality, however, is usually denied. Dennett is quite categorical. What he calls the 'Centre of Narrative Gravity' produces a rather spurious sense of a unitary self.
A self according to my theory, is not an old mathematical point, but an abstraction defined by the myriads of attributions and interpretations (including self-attributions and self-interpretations) that have composed the biography of the living body whose Centre of Narrative Gravity it is.
My contention is that if we proceed phenomenologically then we progressively leave behind all characteristics which would normally be taken to be constitutive of a person (i.e. the specific and characteristic contents of consciousness). Ultimately a point is reached where there is no content and only awareness remains.
So what is the status of this 'sense of existence'?
Awareness is something apart from that of which I am aware. The contents of my mind are grounded in awareness. A thought, or impression, or desire, or sensation, say, appears in awareness, and then eventually disappears. Awareness is, then, the ground in which all experience appears or grows. However, if I make any attempt to describe this ground then I am reduced to talking about what grows or appears in it; that is, I end up talking about the contents of consciousness.
At this point it is tempting to assert that either awareness in itself does not really exist or that it is merely to be equated with the contents of consciousness. But to do so would be a mistake. Again, introspection shows that the contents of the mind are constantly shifting; that the self, in objective terms, is in a state of constant flux. Yet the unitary value we place upon the flux can only stem from the observer of that flux.
Consider the following experiment (after Deikman):
Look straight ahead. Now close your eyes. The rich visual field has disappeared to be replaced by an amorphous field of blackness, perhaps with red and yellow tinges. But awareness hasn't changed. You will notice that awareness continues as your thoughts come and go, as memories arise and replace each other, as desires emerge and fantasies develop, change and vanish. Now try and observe awareness. You cannot.
Awareness is not an object of observation because it is in itself the act of observation. And this is why Hume could never catch himself.
Since awareness (subjective self-consciousness) is not an ordinary object (it is a metaphysical object) we can say of it only what it is not. It is featureless and formless. It does not exist in space. [temporality is a problem] Sensation, emotions, ideation, memory - these things can all be objectively characterised, and although they are all non-spatial, they are certainly temporal. Awareness has no feature and is utterly formless in this sense; it has no intrinsic content.
What I am suggesting here is a form of dualism. I am not suggesting a dualism of mind and body but a dualism of consciousness. There is awareness and there is that which is grounded in awareness. Everything which is grounded in awareness can be said to be part of the objective world; but the foundation, the act of observation, is not part of this world and indeed is prior to it. There is the person, an object in the world which can be described from both the 3rd and 1st person point of view, and there is the transparent centre of being which stands behind and beyond, making possible such descriptions. But what stands behind and beyond cannot itself be included in any objective description. Awareness in this sense is the metaphysical principle of differentiation: how else could I tell your thought from mine?
For objections to this duality of consciousness see Searle (theory of emergence) and McGinn (notion that the duality is apparent rather than real).
There is talk of the 'illusion of the mind's I" (Flanagan).
What appears to be the subjective self is really no more than unprojected consciousness; the amorphous experience of background content (Evans).
These objections are based on positivist prejudice; that is, if a phenomenon cannot be objectively encompassed then it is either non-existent, illusory or the physical under a different guise.
On the other hand mysticism testifies to the reality of the dualism. Hindu Samkhya philosophy differentiates the witness self (purusa) from everything else.
Niall F. Lambkin - Personal Identity, 'I' and Awareness Philosophy Conference: University of Wales, LAMPETER.
Buddhism: When all lesser things and ideas are transcended and forgotten, and there remains only a perfect state of imagelessness where Tathagata and Tathata are merged into perfect Oneness... (a Buddhist Bible)
St. John of the Cross: That inward wisdom is so simple, so general and so spiritual that it has not entered into the understanding enwrapped or clad in any form or image subject to sense.
The difficulty for the Western mind stems from the fact that awareness and content are so combined as to be difficult to see the distinction. We are always aware as such and such a person; but it does not follow that I am what the person is, in the subjective sense. See the game of 'Who am I?' (If I lost my arm I would still exist; therefore I am not my arm. If I lost my hearing I would still exist; therefore I am not my hearing. If I lost this thought, this desire, this predilection, this sensation etc. I would still exist; therefore I am not this thought, this desire...)
Ontological upshot: awareness and subjective self-consciousness are one and the same. It is publicly expressed through the special logical use of the term 'I'. The 'I' and awareness are therefore identical. !E If awareness is non-local then so is the 'I'. 31 If awareness lies behind and beyond personal experience (an objective phenomenon) 11 then so does the 'I'. If awareness is behind and beyond objective reality then so is the 'I'.
It is the possibility that the logical-I of awareness is not part of objective reality which suggests the death denial 'fantasy' I have in mind.
Neoplatonist speculations: The 'I' is not identical with the monologue by which it is !E absorbed so often and in its more restful moments observes. However, it is not easy for the logical-I to disentangle itself from the confusion of images generated by the self-creating narratives of objective existence. But once done it is easily done!
Consider, then, the following metaphysical picture:
Plotinus seeks to answer the question as to how the one becomes the many by positing the existence of an Ultimate Being, or One, which is supernatural, incorporeal, self-caused, absolutely free and absolutely good. Because it is absolutely good it extends necessarily its goodness and power into all lower beings. So, without any loss of its own essence it projects itself into lower stages of itself to form lower and weaker beings. The first stage of this projection is Nous or Mind which itself projects to form the second stage which is Psyche or Soul. All life-forms and corporeal beings are souls and as such they are in a state of becoming and are dependent upon Nous for the fixed order of their being. The one therefore becomes the many through the necessary extension of the One into the lower and progressively weaker multiple phases of itself. The many always seeks to return to the one, for all natural things seek to return to the higher unity from which they sprang.
Nous, if you like, is the direct line to the One and becomes the 'I' of awareness by distinguishing itself from the contents of the soul. In this sense I can attend to the quality of my own attention and thereby become immediately aware that I am not identical with the numerous narrative voices which make up my objective self and compete from second to second for that attention.
The contents of the soul (objective self-consciousness) are embedded in nous but exist in the objective world and will perish with the objective world; that is, when the conditions for objective' experience cease to hold - when the brain dies!
If 'the mind' is a complex of swarming memes and menewomplexes, then we need another expression...for the light or space within which these complexes take shape. (S.R.L. Clark)
The revelation I am left with is that I am something more than the myriad introspectibilia which pass my view. Is this what Descartes was getting at?
'Every man is double, one of him is a sort of compound being and one of him is himself:' (Plotinus)
Death Denial 'Fantasy': Objective self-consciousness consists of all objective descriptions which can be made with respect to any given individual. Qua centre of objective self-conscious being the individual lives in and is dependent upon objective reality; that is, it is dependent upon physical reality.
Materialism is right in so far as it maintains that mental being on this level is dependent upon the continuity of the brain. When the brain dies then so dies the person and the wealth of memories and predilections and projects etc. that we in this material realm hold dear. When my brain dies then so dies NL!
Survival of the soul; the resurrection of the body; the idea that there is an afterlife which is a perfect form of mundane existence - all this is specious and incoherent.
So we are left with what?
There is a residue: awareness itself; the logical-I, which transcends physical and psychological continuity. This 'I' of awareness is featureless and is no more than the ground in which NL. is planted or sustained. This identity is non-personal and absolute; it contributes nothing to the characteristics which make me NL. It merely provides the matrix in which NL. subsists.
This leads to the speculation that the logical-I is a 'piece' of an undifferentiated 'something': the source from which the many springs; the One. That is, the residue is part of some universal Nous.
If there is a common reality within which all persons live their lives as objective beings is it possible that there is also a common reality in which all transparent centres of subjective being exist? Might not the brain be a temporal conduit between the world of awareness and the world of personal existence?
Death could then be described in something like these terms: objective self consciousness (person) could be considered a node of connection between the objective world of physical reality and the reality of universal mind. When the body (brain) dies then the connection is severed. On this view NL. did not exist prior to conception and ceases to exist on the death of the brain (because everything which makes NL, unique is so dependent on the biography of the brain). But the ground in which NL grows and subsists is not limited in this sense. In so far as I am constituted by that ground then I existed before conception and will continue to exist after death.
The matrix in which objective self-consciousness is grounded is undifferentiated. This means that what grounds NL is essentially the same as that which grounds some other person.
'I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience but taking note of it, and that is no more than I or you.' (Thoreau)
Can it be the ease that the Self which becomes aware of itself in me, in this particular life at this particular place and time, is the very same Self which becomes aware of itself in you as well?
REFERENCES
Armstrong, A.H. 1988. Tr. Plotinus Enneads London & New York: Heinemann, Loeb Classical Library.
Clark, S.R L Minds, Memes, and Multiples in :Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 3.1 (1996) 21-28.
Deikman, Arthur (1982), The Observing Self: Mysticism and Psychotherapy (Boston, MA; Beacon Press).
Evans, C.O. (1970), The Subject of Consciousness (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.).
Flanagan, Owen (1992) Consciousness Reconsidered (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press).
John of the Cross, St. (1953) The Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, Vol. I (Westminster: Newman Press).
McGinn, Colin (1991), The Problem of Consciousness: Essays Towards a Resolution (Oxford: Blackwell).
Searle, John (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Thoreau, H.D. (1990), Walden. London: J.M. Dent