awareness as such vs. "my" awareness
Been trying to get this post finished for several days now . . .
Many thanks to Patry, Karlo, and Edison for their responses to the previous post.
Karlo, of Swerve Left (which needs to be placed on my blogroll if it isn't hasn't been already), suggested that the angst-provoking contradiction -- between (indirect) knowledge of one's finitude and that solipsistic feeling that one's self-awareness couldn't possibly have a beginning or an end -- points us toward the realization that "consciousness isn't individual". Karlo writes:
. . . my "death" (or more precisely, "limitation") isn't the death of consciousness but the death of "my" consciousness. Actually, consciousness will go on. Experiences will take place. But the particular label of "Karlo" will no longer be attached to those experiences.
I suppose I'm inclined to agree -- I've made similar statements myself -- but all of a sudden I'm wondering what this statement can possibly mean to "me", to the individual self-consciousness who apprehends or makes it.
The conclusion I've come to is that it can mean nothing at all, if by "mean" we're talking about portraying the nature of some kind of experience (i.e., "what does one experience as/after one dies?"). In this sense, it amounts to little more than the "the world will go on without me."
Karlo points out, however, that the proposition consciousness isn't individual "must fundamentally alter our system of values." Again, I agree, on the surface -- and maybe more than superficially, especially in my optimistic moods (which are more frequent nowadays thanks to the miracle of SSRI's). Surely we wouldn't take a imperialistic and exploitative stance toward the Other if we ceased to believe that the distinction between Self and Other is illusory or at least doesn't "reach all the way down" to being itself. But in my more pessimistic moods, I sometimes wonder whether that realization might serve as a basis for war, etc. Those who believe that strict discipline is required to save one from oneself might look at imperialistic battles of will as an attempt to discipline the unruly self. "Though I call you other, I recognize you as a part of myself. Because I have seen that refuse to submit to my will, which is itself an expression of the will of God, I must attempt overcome you by force. Because we are, in essence, one, I will consider this action a means of bringing an ill-disciplined part of my own psyche into harmony with God. Moreover, if we were not one, I would have no interest in overcoming you -- for the question of whether or not you are in harmony with God's will would remain between you and God alone."
1 Comments:
This is an interesting discussion. I suppose much of the difficulty is that its difficult to discuss the topic without resorting to a tecnical vocabulary of some sort.
Re your comment: "Surely we wouldn't take a imperialistic and exploitative stance toward the Other if we ceased to believe that the distinction between Self and Other is illusory or at least doesn't "reach all the way down" to being itself."
I've recently been listening to a series of lectures on ethics in the Western tradition and am struck by the utter failure by Western philosophers to come up with a solid foundation for ethical action. All the reasoning makes sense up to the question of "Why do good?" We are then given explanations (rather than reasons) or if the philosopher is Christian, are told that God wants/commands us to and gives us rewards and punishments (in which case, our good actions, while intelligent, aren't really "good" since we'd be killing and torturing people if God commanded us to).
On the other hand, the intuition that consciousness is, in a fundamental sense, generic, leads us to a sense that consciousness has high intrinsic ontological value in opposition to the "self" which is extremely limited by time and mortality. I think this intuition is actually quite common. When a dying parent finds comfort in the fact that their children will live well, this sense of love and contentment is actually an intuition of a good that exist completely outside the self. Unfortunately, there has been a failure of Western religions in particular and religion in general to cultivate this tuition, but I think it's so innate to man that it keeps popping up anyway. Even avowed atheists like Carl Sagan seem to take a great joy in the idea that life will prosper and keep appearing after them.
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