Consciousness Theory Medicine and Man
| Self-awareness and awareness of our environment characterizes human consciousness. If we could better understand the basis of consciousness we might have a better assessment of the level of consciousness in seriously ill and disabled patients. We also might have a better idea of when fetal consciousness begins and the nature of consciousness in non-human animals. Underneath the science may also lie the answer to the very essence of our being. The fact that we can abstract external objects and incorporate them into our awareness is in many ways miraculous. While we have computers that can take in external data, images, sounds and environmental properties such as temperature and pressure is a reality but no idea exists as to how a circuit of neurons can convert this data into conscious awareness. Why should a material process give rise to a rich inner life? On the other hand we know that consciousness is simply alterable by drugs and anesthetics or by physical trauma to the brain or body. Even just sleep and dream states move beyond normal consciousness. As a physician one sees patients with neurologic illnesses such as stroke and Alzheimer disease where consciousness is altered in various ways. Decartes dualism will not work as an explanation but it may be that a new phenomenon emerges from a physical basis without any clear connection between the two. (Many people have or are looking at this problem from many different angles and these are too numerous to refer to here. However, an excellent discussion of the mind and how some famous writers had key insights prior to the neuroscientists recent discoveries is in- Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer 2007 Houghton Mifflin Co) Regardless of the explanation or lack of explanation of this mystical fact, once the human mind knows itself and the world around it the rules of human activity move beyond just the physical realm that underlies it. Without love the human child will not survive. Without love there would be no faith and all hope would turn to despair. The physical world is one of our masters; which leads to our aging, our susceptibility to illness accident and eventually death as well as to our physical pleasures. What emerges in consciousness; however, is our awareness of another master who calls forth our moral notions and responsibilities. Prayer, diety, devils and demons all arise. Also, from our mists arise saints whose self-giving actions are heroic and yet at the same time arise sinners whose self-worship paint grave tales. As we get a little better notion of this last vast frontier of medicine will we be able to make men better understand that for whatever reason, the individual mind, thinking and feeling, is an improbable machine which when working transcends its origin in the physical world? Man must find a way to obey the greater moral laws and respect and help every other conscious miraculous soul on this little planet despite all of our weaknesses, and different notions of spirituality. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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