Prajna

Normative Program - First Considerations

2011-08-02T08:17:00.000+05:30

If Consciousness is our only certainty, the very least that we can expect of ourselves is to be aware of ourselves as conscious beings as much of the time as possible. For this is the one truth we can grasp at the very beginning - that we are conscious beings - and we have said that it is better to base the search for the summum bonum on a solid foundation of Truth.

But then, if this is a certainty, why should we be in addition aware of it most of the time? Especially when we have said that 'consciousness of consciousness is just consciousness itself'? It would appear from this that as beings endowed with consciousness, we are also aware of this always. But this is not the case. What we are doing here is drawing a distinction between 'consciousness of consciousness', a tautology, and 'awareness of consciousness', something that is accomplished with that portion of our being that is capable of this kind of awareness. The Masters, past and present, all seem to be agreed that it is best for all to exercise this faculty as much as possible. For awareness of consciousness speeds the journey to the ultimate good.

Clearly, it is far better to be tuned to the truth than to other things whose truth-value is doubtful, possibly false. There is no doubt that there may be other certainties that follow from the certainty of ourselves as conscious beings; but these things bear investigation of their truth. On the other hand, we have a certainty - that we are beings endowed with consciousness - the constant awareness of which is likelier to lead to further certainties than a focus on possible falsehood.

Hence the first step in our Normative Program is simply to strive to be aware of ourselves as conscious beings.

Beyond the Individual

2011-06-22T08:41:00.000+05:30

The Highest Good and Terrestrial Goods

2011-06-21T07:05:00.000+05:30

It is clear that the pursuit of terrestrial goods - money and the things it can buy, power and the security it can give, etc. - do not give the kind of lasting, unalloyed satisfaction, bliss, that we all would like to have. It is simultaneously clear that without terrestrial goods, bliss cannot be had either; for without the basic necessities of life, without food to sustain the body, without clothes to keep warm or ward off the sun, without shelter to protect, without a family to care for and to be sustained by... without these and other goodies of life, it is impossible to go about the pursuit of bliss - an empty sack cannot stand upright!

How to sum the count, then?

We each come into this world with no material possessions, and what we acquire during our tenure here we gain either by gift from others or by individual effort. We necessarily start with what accrues to us by gift - our families feeding us and protecting us; the education we receive, formal or informal; the love and security we receive from our care-givers in our formative years; etc.

It is our contention that with even a minimal turn towards that which is supra-mundane, these gifts are sufficient to launch us towards not only those further material goods that we can secure by our own efforts, but also, and more importantly, towards whatever it is that will eventually conduce to bliss.

A little reflection will show that in order to achieve both the material and the non-material, it is better to start with the pursuit of the latter. There are a number of reasons. The most important ones being that bliss by its very nature entails the accrual of the material also, and that the pursuit of bliss in the first instance starts one off on the proper foot, by which is meant that one is happy before the arrival of the material as well as after. This only goes to prove that the assumption that material convenience brings happiness is precisely putting the cart before the horse. The truth is that it is only a happy frame of being that can wholesomely win and enjoy the comforts of life.

And having put the cart and horse in proper order, it will become clear that loss of the material need not lead to losing the condition of bliss. For happiness was, is and can be there irrespective of the comfort of the presence or absence of material goods.

Just as we come into the world with a zero-balance under the 'Material' head, so we leave it too; what we enjoy here, however, is best enjoyed when it is enjoyed with an irrepressible zest for the higher, for the non-material...

It seems best to start by pursuing bliss then, and we will see that the perfect place to start is at whatever we can learn about consciousness, which we have said is the only certainty we really have.

Terrestrial Goods vs. The Highest Good

2011-05-31T07:35:00.001+05:30

The acquisition of any terrestrial thing requires the acquisition of another terrestrial thing. Material objects such as food require effort to gather, which in turn requires food for strength to go about gathering. This requires some terrestrial source, either in the form of a person who will initially feed the food-gatherer; or in the form of other means to secure food such as money, something to barter away for food etc.; or in the form of a bounteous Nature providing it. Almost all the material things of life - be it a car or a house or a vacation - require something with which to buy them, viz., money. There are other material wants which money cannot buy, but that nevertheless need further material things for their provision. A random example would be an out-of-season need for a kurunji flower that blossoms once in 12 years - no sum can secure the flower except in its time when the terrestrial conditions are appropriate for it to blossom.

Most terrestrial, non-material wants, likewise, are contingent on conditions beyond one's control. The emotional and psychological needs for love, recognition, sex or praise require other human beings for their fulfillment; the inborn need to know cannot be satisfied in the absence of any of the means to attain knowledge; the desire to dedicate one's life to the environment or to animal rights cannot be satisfied without an environment or animals in need of protection...

No preconditions attach to the pursuit of bliss, however. One may have or not have money, social acceptance, the fortune of favorable circumstances, but we do not think of these as deterrents to the pursuit of bliss. It must be added in the same breath that material goods can support the pursuit of bliss. A starving man or woman can for example not be the best candidate to pursue bliss, for health is necessary for the pursuit of anything. But such support in the pursuit of the supreme felicity is not a requirement; it is possible, and hagiographies amply attest to this, for anyone to pursue bliss no matter what his or her current terrestrial circumstances.

It is noteworthy that one can - some insist that one must - engage in both the terrestrial and the spiritual pursuits simultaneously, and that this is explained by the consciousness that characterizes us.... We will see how....

Bliss And Preliminary Spiritualist Considerations

2011-05-30T06:31:00.001+05:30

Clearly the first task before us is to refute the materialist, to go beyond his/her convictions that the highest good in life is the satisfaction of the wants of the senses and that nothing is real apart from what is perceived by the senses.

Assume for argument's sake with the materialist that nothing exists apart from matter. If this is so, the materialist is extremely hard put to explain life and its coming and passing. For what would remain to distinguish a lump of matter comprising the blood, flesh, bone, marrow, etc. of a corpse that was alive, talking, breathing, had feelings, etc. just five minutes ago? Certainly both the living person and his/her corpse, though comprised of the same matter around the instant of death, have a difference between them that is explained best in terms of non-material considerations. Therefore something beyond matter, something non-material, also exists as certainly as matter exists. We will see in due course that venerated opinion is that the existence of what is insubstantial has a far greater permanence than matter.

If there is something beyond matter, the question whether there is some good higher than the transient pleasures of the senses, and deriving from what is non-material, immediately presents itself for investigation. We will presently look into this in detail; suffice for now that the possibility of other goods than sensory ones coming from the contact of the senses with material objects exists.

At the outset, it is important to note that the kind of spiritualist that we want to identify with does not denounce the usefulness of the material. Matter has its unique role and function in the overall order of things, as does the joy and the sorrow that arises when we come in contact with material objects that impinge on our senses. Sensual pleasure is in fact vital to the growth towards bliss as we understand it. Our point is only that sensory pleasures cannot be what the materialist thinks it to be, viz., the raison d'existence of humankind.

So the problem we are faced with is to actively pursue the 'good' things of life without violence to our main aim, which is to maintain ourselves in a state of bliss. How is one to go about learning to enjoy food, music, poetry & philosophy, drink, money, power, prestige, etc. without losing sight ever of the one purpose of his/her existence, viz., attaining and retaining a blissful condition? How is one to experience the 'real' world while all the time absorbed in the pursuit of that bliss that is without a corresponding opposite? The answer, it will become evident, is in the fact that consciousness is the fundamental characteristic of our existence...

Bliss And The Materialist Slingshot

2011-05-29T08:12:00.001+05:30

It may seem that bliss itself is different for each of us. My experience of bliss, and therefore my idea of it, may for example be colored by my fondness for alcohol or other mood altering substance. So for me, bliss would be that state of mind characterized by permanent, unadulterated inebriation. And who is to say that my idea of bliss is any inferior to a yogi's idea of it? To any sensible and persuasive talk of my bouts of inebriation being punctuated by misery of over-indulgence, I could vainly counter that even the sage and the yogi are not perpetually in a blissful condition, that they too suffer misery. What would it matter, then, that I also suffer misery? So, my argument runs, my highest good is the intoxicated state and pursuing this ultimate end through all means available to me is the purpose of my life...

This line of thinking is clearly exaggerated, and deliberately so to highlight the contours of what we for our purposes may loosely call 'the materialist argument'. Without thinking about it, the vast majority of us believe in the usefulness of external, material goods in securing for us whatever we consider to be bliss. So we are constantly engaged in the pursuit of the things of the external world in the belief that they bring or will eventually bring us whatever we think bliss to be - things such as food, clothing and shelter; money and power and its appurtenances, etc. All that the hungry man needs for achieving bliss of a kind is a good meal. After several good meals, he can be satisfied only after he is shod and has a roof over his head. For a while this is sufficient. But very soon he needs to acquire the means to procure more food, clothing and shelter, and cannot rest until he acquires the means for this. Even assuming he becomes self-sufficient in these things for a life-time, new needs crop up: the need for emotional and psychological fulfillment, for ample rest, diversion, etc. These things satisfy for a while, but the continued search for them implies the need for more of the means to acquire them. So it is that the lives of a great number of us is a constant progression from phase to phase of want, satisfaction, more want and further satisfaction, each stage of satisfaction being for each one what he or she currently considers bliss.

The attitude of attributing primacy to the things of the world has philosophical and intellectual underpinnings in formal materialism. We need not be concerned with its details, but it is useful to know that for the materialist, there is no truth but matter - atoms, mud, concrete, flesh, blood, bones, air, water, fire, etc. all have reality; but beyond what is perceptible to the gross senses, nothing exists; not Spirit, nor God, nor the Divine, nor the Absolute, nor Soul. Given this intellectual backdrop, it is easy to see how and why the governing principle of the materialist's life is the pursuit of perceptible things and sensory pleasures.

Materialism of various kinds is not a modern phenomenon. Even in India, the land of spirituality, materialism had its heyday and came to its zenith in the Carvaka philosophy. Among other things it says:

That the pleasure arising to man

from contact with sensible objects,

is to be relinquished because accompanied by pain—

such is the reasoning of fools.

The kernels of the paddy, rich with finest white grains,

What man, seeking his own true interest,

would fling them away

because of a covering of husk and dust?

While life remains, let a man live happily,

let him feed on butter though he runs in debt;

When once the body becomes ashes,

how can it ever return again?

The materialists' practical and intellectual conviction is that the highest good in life is the pursuit of the sensible pleasures, for there is nothing else that is real. Bliss as we conceive it does not have a place in the materialist scheme of things. The burden of proving that there is more than meets the eye to reality, and that bliss as we understand it does exist, that it doesn't come from mere satisfaction of the sensory organs, falls on non-materialists of various persuasions who have fortunately held center-stage from time immemorial!

We have said that the chief characteristic of consciousness is existence itself. Our intent is that consciousness is something beyond what is perceptible to the senses, that this consciousness that marks existence itself comprises and is more than the mere aggregate of the atoms and molecules of our physical bodies. Nothing we have explicitly said has a bearing on the materialist's claim that there is nothing more to life than the pursuit of sense pleasure. There is enough we can infer from our claims, however, to deny the materialist and affirm with the non-materialist that bliss as we understand it is accessible and that its nature is not of sensory pleasures...

The Vocabulary - Words And Senses

2011-05-24T07:57:00.001+05:30

It is not possible to define as precisely as we would like in an inquiry like this such terms as 'consciousness', 'happiness', 'truth', 'enjoyment', 'sorrow', 'joy', etc. What we would like to be able to do, however, is to get an approximate sense of how we use these and related words for our purposes. Further, we would like to ensure that the senses we give to these terms for purposes of our discussion are aligned to the senses given to them by those who are directly relevant to our inquiry, viz., spiritual Masters of the past and contemporary writers on the topic. This is so that we can derive the maximum benefit from their investigations into human nature and happiness.

We can begin by outlining the broad senses commonly attributed to some of these terms and also what they specifically exclude. For a start, by 'consciousness' we mean that which is intrinsic to human life by virtue of its inhering essentially in us. So essentially that in its absence it is no longer possible to predicate existence of a person. We do not mean by this term the mere possession of powers of sensory or mental apprehension, or even of the power of experiencing emotions. Existence can be predicated of a person who for the time being is bereft of any combination of these powers, as is probably the case with persons who experience some kinds of NDEs (Near-Death-Experiences) at the time they experience them. We may broadly take 'consciousness' to indicate that which signifies existence itself. As we will see, this word has much larger connotations too. For we will have occasion to discuss consciousness in the context not only of individuals but also of groups - the consciousness inherent in the family unit, the professional collectivity, the nation, the state, the linguistic collectivity, the cultural collectivity, the racial type, etc. There is also the Universal Cosmic Consciousness which we will consider in the course of our deliberations, its nature and its aspects. The individual consciousness that we speak of, therefore, is closely related to a much larger reality signified by 'consciousness', and has little to do with the ordinary sense of the term captured in such sentences as 'He became unconscious at the sight of the bleeding soldier.'

The next words whose senses we would like to delimit are those such as 'happiness', 'joy', etc. What we are after is a word that can capture a state of unalloyed, uninterrupted, supreme felicity, and the term of choice, which is also ours, has been 'bliss'. This word is intended to indicate a condition beyond dualities, one that has no opposite. Such other related words as 'joy', 'happiness', 'pleasure', etc. come with their opposites 'sorrow', 'sadness', 'pain', etc. We will have much use for these words too; it is sufficient for now to note that we reserve 'bliss' for a felicity without an opposite, and the preceding words to signify states of mind that are protean in nature.

Finally, we have spoken until now as if the mind, body and the seat of our emotional faculty were neatly compartmentalized entities. The literature clearly indicates, however, that these parts of our being really form one continuum. We will follow tradition in so regarding the human being.

Clearly, not all the terms we will have use for have been described here. But we have what we need to begin a reasonably cogent discussion; we will leave descriptions of other necessary terms as and when they arise.

Our Summum Bonum

2011-05-23T07:36:00.001+05:30

On this there can be no dispute: that we all want happiness. When we think about it further, we naturally ask that the happiness that we get be uninterrupted by its opposite and as intense as possible in degree. It is a plain fact, however, that almost no one is uninterruptedly happy or as happy as one would like to be, and it is worth inquiring why this state of affairs obtains.

In the belief that getting the things we want and go after will secure happiness, we exert ourselves in every way to attain them - be it power and the position and prestige that it brings, be it money and the things it can buy for our pleasure, be it fame and the works of art, literature, philosophy, scientific and technological innovations, or other accomplishments that the quest for fame produces, or be it praise from one's fellows for a simple life well-lived - only to find that all too often even all of these things do not achieve for us that summum bonum of the as-intense-as-possible continuous happiness. This even after we attain what we set out to attain; something still seem to be lacking. We are all agreed on the highest good for each of us, and many of us launch our search for it on solid foundations of rational, ethical, even altruistic considerations. Why, then, does it very often turn out that we don't get what is the best thing to have?

Fortunately for us, our inquiry is not a virgin science, but amply informed by perhaps what has been human-kind's oldest preoccupation viz., the search after perennial happiness. The spiritual, philosophical and religious literature of the world abounds with insights into what goes wrong in the pursuit of lasting happiness. So extensive is it that one is quite at a loss to decide what insights are suitable for oneself and one's own nature, what insights are common and applicable to all of us, what tenets to accept and begin with in our journey to permanent happiness, etc. What we are faced with is, to speak in a contemporary way, information-overload. The need is for a reliable guiding principle for sifting through this enormous body of literature.

We have said that our sole certainty is our consciousness. The enjoyment of anything that we may acquire for our pleasure, for the sake of power or prestige, for the sake of gain, or for the sake of fame, is contingent on consciousness inhering in us - no consciousness, no enjoyment. Consciousness, or what is the same thing, our awareness of ourselves as beings endowed with consciousness, is a prerequisite, a necessary condition for happiness.

For a start, therefore, we may tentatively take it that anything in the spiritual-philosophical-religious literature that teaches ways to consciousness, or self-awareness, i.e., awareness of ourselves as beings with consciousness, provides useful pointers in getting started on the road to happiness.

One point needs to be noted. Just as there can be no enjoyment/happiness without consciousness, there can neither be pain without consciousness. So it is tempting to say: no consciousness, no pain! It may appear then that without consciousness there is neither enjoyment nor pain, and with it, both happiness and sorrow. If this is so, what good is it to say that it is necessary to have consciousness for the sake of enjoyment when it is equally necessary to have it to experience pain? Of what use then is consciousness in aiding our attempt to sift through the literature for what is useful on the path to happiness?

At this point, it is useful to fix terms. Up to now, we have rather loosely used words such as 'consciousness', 'happiness', 'enjoyment', 'sorrow', etc. It is necessary to bring our usage of these words in line with their intended meanings as used by the Masters both past and present...

What Good Is It?

2011-05-21T07:56:00.001+05:30

We have argued that our sole certainty is our consciousness; that whatever other certainties we may have are crucially contingent on consciousness inhering in us, whether these other certainties are certainties of past events, present circumstances/facts, present awareness of our consciousness, or future truths or facts. Grant that it is true that our sole certainty is our consciousness.

What good is this certainty to us? How does it help in the conduct of our everyday lives that our sole certainty is our consciousness? After the logic chopping to establish that consciousness is the only thing we can be immediately certain about, is all we are left with an academic conclusion that is of little value in day-to-day living? While it may be an interesting exercise to some to inquire about the status and nature of our consciousness, there is a real danger that divorcing the inquiry from practical application will render it entirely inconsequential for the person interested in ways and means to augment his or her overall felicity.

Spiritual Masters of the past, presumably from all cultures and civilizations, attest to the efficacy of self-cultivation in promoting one's own overall well-being and happiness. It is often claimed that there are as many paths to happiness as there are individuals, leaving us a welter of means, methods, creeds, systems, philosophies, religions, etc. to choose from in order to attain our ends, be they secular or spiritual. As in most things, the chief trouble one has is in getting started.

There is no one who acts against his or her own interests. The enlightened and altruistic saint or sage lives a life of self-denial in the belief that such a life is in the best interests of others and of himself/herself. Even the insane suicide is driven to take his or her life because he or she believes that it is in his or her best interest, no matter how preposterous that belief may be to others who believe that taking one's own life is contrary to (moral) propriety. For the vast majority of everyday people, certain interests may be taken as substantially common to all. The desire for happiness, for pleasure, for praise and human approbation, for fame, for monetary gain, for health, for satisfaction of all bodily needs, for emotional fulfillment, for mental equilibrium and exercise, for challenges, for enough rest, in short for abundance and balance in all the things necessary for a prosperous material and psychological life - this is what moves the normal person to seek what he or she seeks, do what he or she does. Every person strives for all or some combination of these, often without a clear conception of exactly the things one wants or a road-map to attain them.

If indeed there is some truth to the claim that our sole certainty is consciousness, and if this truth can indicate what things it is best for each one to want and the means to achieve them, we will be fully vindicated in inquiring into consciousness and its nature. It is best to build the foundations of any undertaking on what is indubitably true, if possible; failing this, to build on whatever approximates most closely to truth. Given that a great degree of certainty attaches to consciousness being our sole certainty, we may tentatively begin to look for the things - material, physical, psychological, emotional, mental and spiritual - that it would be best for us to seek and the means to attain them on the basis that we know it to be true that we are characterized by consciousness.

As will become evident, the usefulness of our knowledge that our sole certainty is our consciousness is that we are able to cultivate ourselves to the point that it becomes possible to intelligently found our life-goals and the best path to them on this truth...

Consciousness of Consciousness

2011-05-19T07:23:00.001+05:30

All our certainties past and present, we have argued, are contingent on our consciousness which we are endeavoring to show as our sole certainty. By its very nature, knowledge of the future is necessarily uncertain. Even our certainty that mathematical claims (such as 2+2=4) and logical claims that are tautologies (such as If (I am tall) then (I am tall)) will be certainties in the future have the same status that we have ascribed to certainty about past events that have occurred. For it may be true that a particular mathematical claim may be true a billion years hence when no humans may exist to apprehend this claim, but that is irrelevant to our position that consciousness has to inhere in someone before he or she can take cognition of such a claim. Just as something having occurred in the past doesn't militate against our claim that consciousness has to inhere in a person in order for him/her to apprehend it, the future certainty of something doesn't militate against our position that one must be currently possessed of consciousness in order to apprehend that claim. In short, whatever may have happened in the past or whatever may be taken as definitely true in the future, our point is that one has to be currently conscious in order to grasp these certainties at the time he/she grasps them.

Further, we have also seen that 'present moment' claims also are contingent upon consciousness inhering in us. Nothing is certain unless consciousness can be predicated of us, and in this sense it is true that our consciousness is our sole certainty.

But there is another kind of present moment claim that we have to look into, viz., that my consciousness of my consciousness is as certain as my consciousness itself. In fact, the iteration could go on indefinitely, apparently leaving us with multiple certainties. Fortunately, when we see that 'consciousness of consciousness' is nothing but consciousness itself, we do not have to yield our claim that our sole certainty is our consciousness. Even if we allowed such sentences as 'I am conscious that consciousness inheres in me' as a sensible and true statement distinct from the truth expressed by 'Consciousness inheres in me', the first would be true if and only if the second is true. Therefore consciousness would still remain our sole certainty (in our sense that without it no other certainty would be possible).

Our inquiry into consciousness has yet to progress to the point of asking whether there are different kinds of consciousness at the individual or other levels. But it is clear that mere awareness of our consciousness does not constitute a separate kind of consciousness. This being so, we can conclude that consciousness of consciousness doesn't multiply certainties - the only certainty we still have is our consciousness.

Certainty About The Past

2011-05-18T07:44:00.003+05:30

We have argued that consciousness is our only certainty; that as human beings, the mark of our existence is our consciousness. In arguing for consciousness being the sole certainty for us, we have excluded with good reason such other things as our thoughts, feelings, sensations etc. from the realm of our certainties. Even the certainty of those things that follow directly from the certainty of our consciousness, we have said, are certain only because of the primacy of the consciousness that inheres in us. Had consciousness not been the essential feature of our existence, none of our other certainties would be possible.

There remain however a class of certainties - those concerning past events - that we have yet to explore. That the sun set in the west yesterday, or that I expressed in writing a particular thought of mine yesterday, looks like a definite certainty that is independent of consciousness inhering in me or in anyone else. There doesn't seem to be a necessity for the existence of a being characterized by consciousness in order for certainty to attach to past events. The argument that the non-existence of any conscious being would prevent the certainty of past events from being apprehended does not apply - whether anyone apprehends the certainty of past events or not, what seems uncontroversial is that certainty inheres in past events. So, it may be argued, there are certainties that are not contingent on consciousness.

The fact that some things are certain whether or not beings characterized solely by consciousness exist is undeniable. Even if no humans ever existed, it is reasonable to suppose that many things are certainties. What we are driving at, however, is that no human apprehension of certainties, including certainties of the past, is possible without conscious human beings. The fact that I am certain that I expressed a thought in writing yesterday is crucially contingent on my being conscious.

When we say 'past certainty', we could possibly have two things in mind - that something that has already happened is a certainty in the sense that it is definite that it has happened regardless of whether humans have apprehended it; and that one can be certain that something has happened in the past if he or she is somehow able to bear sufficient testimony to that happening (e.g.: assuming that I have otherwise not been incapacitated since yesterday, I am certain that I expressed a certain thought in writing yesterday). What is interesting to us is the second of the two senses just mentioned, for we are interested in the relationship between cognition and consciousness. But, as we have pointed out above, certainty of apprehension of any fact other than our consciousness presupposes our consciousness itself; and this includes facts about the past that we can be certain of.

Our finding up to this point must remain unaltered: that the certainty of our consciousness is the sole certainty, in the sense that all of our other certainties are contingent on the certainty of our consciousness.

Why Is Nothing Else So Certain?

2011-05-17T15:00:00.002+05:30

Our tentative position is that our sole certainty is our being characterized by our individual consciousness. What we mean is that we as human beings are conscious in a very basic sense, that consciousness inheres in us. We may describe someone who has just had an accident as 'unconscious', but this is not to divest the victim of consciousness as we are using the term. For clearly even the medically unconscious person has awareness of some sort, and it is this awareness - of life, existence, one's thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, etc. - that we wish to capture by 'consciousness'. The aspect of 'consciousness' that we wish to emphasize is that essential feature of human life that, when removed, also abstracts life itself from a living human being.

All our other certainties, if there be any, seem contingent on our being conscious in this way since a person totally divested of consciousness does not exist anymore on our understanding of the word. So, it is reasonable to conclude that sans this essential feature of human beings, no certainties or beliefs are possible to us.

We have said that our tentative position is that our consciousness is our sole certainty. For what follows in this series, we need to be able to establish not only that our being conscious is a fundamental certainty, but that also it is the only certainty. The fact that there can be no other certainties without consciousness gives good reason to believe that consciousness is a certainty; but once conscious, what rules out other certainties? Such as that I have thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, etc.?

It is possible to argue for consciousness being our only certainty by considering the brain-dead person on life-support systems. All that he is 'capable' of doing is being laid down in his hospital bed. Assume further that his mind has become dysfunctional, incapable of any kind of thought or emotion. The question before us is: Can consciousness be predicated of this person or not? The fact that the patient is clearly distinguishable from a corpse should tell us all we need to know in order to answer this question, which clearly should be in the affirmative. For if we denied him consciousness, he would not only be incapable of all that normal humans can do, but also not have consciousness - something which we have said characterizes life, existence, call-it-what-you-will. He would then be dead, not a patient in a hospital ward. Now there is nothing that is a certainty for this patient except the fact of his consciousness. If he were to recover some day - body and mind becoming functional again - we would have to say that the only thread of continuity in his period of disability was his consciousness, which had it been severed at any point would have rendered him dead. We seem entitled to conclude that consciousness is not only a fundamental certainty of human life, but also the only one.

We are better able to understand what follows from the conclusions that consciousness is the only certainty that we can have in following posts...

The One Certainty?

2011-05-11T18:25:00.096+05:30

Welcome!

When you think about it, there seems to be only one thing that you can be absolutely certain about - that, as a human being, you are characterized by consciousness. The curious mind's first inclination is to see if consciousness is its sole certainty. Is it true that our only certainty is our individual consciousness?

Everything else that may have an air of certainty about it seems open to question - for example, the sensations your brain records as you read this blog, the 'fact' that the planets move around the sun and not in another way, that there is no present king of France, thoughts that these lines may provoke in your mind, the feelings that accompany your mental reactions to the thoughts expressed here... Nor does certainty seem to attach to such thoughts as 'I will die'. Who knows but that a time will come when humankind can indefinitely prolong life? It is not unknown that certain practitioners of occult arts can indefinitely extend their life span. It may appear that we can be sure about past events but that again is something that will have to stand scrutiny, as we shall see by and by.

All these and others are either contingent on external factors, or could be a figment of the imagination. Even what seems to be inalienable to you - 'your' thoughts, emotions and sensations - could well be the work of the proverbial 'evil genius' who could be manipulating your brain in ways that make you have these thoughts and feelings and physical sensations. There is no denying that these things - your thoughts, feelings, sensations - could in reality be yours. But what seems true is that there is no immediate certainty that attaches to this conclusion, in the way that it is certain that you are an entity characterized by consciousness.

So it would seem that nothing else is certain except that consciousness inheres in us. Suppose that it were possible to be certain of some other thing, too. For example, suppose that it is possible to also be certain of something that directly followed from the fact of our being characterized by consciousness such as our awareness of our being alive. However, this awareness of life and the 'certainty' attaching to it is itself a consequence of our being characterized by consciousness. In general, it seems safe to say that we can be certain of nothing without first being certain of our consciousness.

The skeptic could cite instances of people whom we would not normally want to attribute consciousness to who nevertheless are certain about some things. She could take the case of the brain-dead person who in all likelihood has some beliefs, even if he may not be in a position to assent to them given his inability to speak, hear, etc. Such a person is clearly certain about something though, it would seem, consciousness does not inhere in him.

But in depriving the brain-dead person of consciousness, the skeptic errs. In fact, we would say that it is precisely because the patient is still characterized by consciousness that the possibility of entertaining beliefs that he cannot articulate or assent to or dissent exists. Else what would distinguish our patient from a corpse which can also be hooked up to life-support systems? We may as well say then that the corpse also has some beliefs or other that it is currently incapable of assenting to etc.!

It seems uncontroversial enough that individual consciousness is the sole certainty that we have... What is to be investigated is its nature, its characteristic features, what it is possible to do with it, its modes of operation on us and the world in general, the principle of individuation, the ways in which one person recognizes consciousness in another, etc. Further questions bearing inquiry remain: Does consciousness inhere in groups? That is, are collectivities like families, communities, villages/towns/cities, countries, professions, etc. characterized by consciousness? What happens to it when an individual or group ceases to exist? And how does it happen to form itself around a person or collectivity?

For now, suffice it to say whatever consciousness may be, it is the only mark of existence that is certain for us.