As part my
research into my latest book, Exploring the Conscious Self, I came to an understanding of the connections between
Metaphysics, Consciousness and what we may refer to as the 7th Sense. While the 7th sense may have only
recently been introduced in literature, I think it’s a topic that begs greater
understanding. We can come to this
understanding better, I think, through the philosophies outlined in Metaphysics
and Consciousness.
For those who may
be new to the topics of Metaphysics and Consciousness, let alone how it’s all
connected through the 7th sense and beyond, I wanted to provide you
with some information. I’m going to use
a couple of different articles to explain the basis from which the concepts
shared here operate and I may stray a bit from the purely academic purview but
I have a specific reason for that or mission, if you will.
My mission is
to help with understanding.
Understanding is a key component of our evolution. To understand a thing transfers the fleeting
and obscuring perspective of mere “belief” to that of knowledge, in this
author’s opinion. So, I will go on
sharing some bits and pieces of wonderful articles and sources for your
perusal. Rather than list each citation
in a bibliography at the end of the article, I’m going to include the source
with a link after each quoted entry so you can immediately go to those sources
and review them for yourselves. I found
these sources more than informative and wanted only to share them for their
wonderful perspectives. Within each
source cited and included, there are numerous other sources for the truly
curious to explore and I hope that you do explore. Learning is an amazing capability humanity
holds and the more we learn the more we can expand from a limited little “c”
consciousness and move into a more awake and aware Big “C” Consciousness.
Each article is
titled as the authors so titled them and sub-headings were included along with
some commentary of my own. I hope you
enjoy this piece and that it brings you even more food for thought on
consciousness and its exploration through philosophy and metaphysics.
Peter van
Inwagen provides an indepth look into Metaphysics for The Standaford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He points
out in the very first paragraph that these words we toss about in conversation
are not so easily defined or understood.
Often times the word “Metaphysics” is confused with the fringe aspects
of esotericism or the New Age Movement alone.
Yes we have some souls that do end up being poster-children for the less
than perfect part of the drive-through spirituality aspects of the New Age. But they don’t represent the whole of the New
Age movement. Just to be clear. Metaphysics has been around for a while and
Philosophers have contemplated the concepts for a long time. Set aside any preconceived notions you might
have of Metaphysics or your understanding of Consciousness and explore from the
perspectives of those who have studied much in their respective fields. I’m grateful their work exists and that more
join the ranks daily to help us define this framework from which we live our
lives. Through definition and exploration,
we increase our knowledge and understanding.
In my view, it is of vital importance that we move away from states of
pure belief alone and seek to transfer belief or faith into something more concrete,
knowledge. With knowledge we are armed
with what we need to create for ourselves a better sense of well-being along
with a sense of intent and purpose for existing here right now. So, on with Mr. van Iwagen’s introduction to
his article on Metaphysics:
Metaphysics
It
is not easy to say what metaphysics is. Ancient and Medieval philosophers might
have said that metaphysics was, like chemistry or astrology, to be defined by
its subject matter: metaphysics was the “science” that studied “being as such”
or “the first causes of things” or “things that do not change.” It is no longer
possible to define metaphysics that way, and for two reasons. First, a
philosopher who denied the existence of those things that had once been seen as
constituting the subject-matter of metaphysics—first causes or unchanging
things—would now be considered to be making thereby a metaphysical assertion.
Secondly, there are many philosophical problems that are now considered to be
metaphysical problems (or at least partly metaphysical problems) that are in no
way related to first causes or unchanging things; the problem of free will, for
example, or the problem of the mental and the physical.
In his
article on Metaphysics, Edward Craig connects my favorite subjects, Metaphysics
and Consciousness and begins to outline some of the inherent challenges in
understanding them. But it is this
understanding we must begin to engage in if we have a desire to escape the
mundane drudgery of existence and realize there is a greater and more valuable
purpose to our existence. Life is multifaceted and I have come to find that no one discipline or approach is
enough to bring the fullness of understanding necessary for my vision and
mission. So, on with Edward Craig’s
article from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a
broad area of philosophy marked out by two types of inquiry. The first aims to
be the most general investigation possible into the nature of reality: are
there principles applying to everything that is real, to all that is? – if we
abstract from the particular nature of existing things that which distinguishes
them from each other, what can we know about them merely in virtue of the fact
that they exist? The second type of inquiry seeks to uncover what is ultimately
real, frequently offering answers in sharp contrast to our everyday experience
of the world. Understood in terms of these two questions, metaphysics is very
closely related to ontology, which is usually taken to involve both ‘what is
existence (being)?’ and ‘what (fundamentally distinct) types of thing exist?’
(see Ontology).
While the prior excerpts on Metaphysics are short, if you
visit the links provided and review, they look deeply into the topics, present
the facts, the challenges and the multi-faceted subdivisions in the
philosophies related to the topic and even enter the arena of Consciousness
which is all part of the equation for understanding. Below, I bring to you an article on
Consciousness from Robert Van Gulick, for the Standford Encyclopedia on
Philosophy. I’ve included several
excerpts from his article as they point to a specific aspect of my own focus on
Metaphysics and Connected Consciousness.
The author of this work points out many facts and various challenges in
pinpointing precisely what Consciousness is.
The fact that we can label only certain aspects in specific ways and not
the whole of it does not bar us from gaining understanding. Sometimes grasping the edges of a framework
is enough to move forward in transcending belief and moving into
knowledge. Have a look at Robert’s article
beyond just the limited segments of it that I’ve included. It’s worth a read if you’d like to better
understand what it is we’re dealing with when we contemplate Consciousness.
Consciousness
Perhaps no aspect of mind is more
familiar or more puzzling than consciousness and our conscious experience of
self and world. The problem of consciousness is arguably the central issue in
current theorizing about the mind. Despite the lack of any agreed upon theory
of consciousness, there is a widespread, if less than universal, consensus that
an adequate account of mind requires a clear understanding of it and its place
in nature. We need to understand both what consciousness is and how it relates
to other, nonconscious, aspects of reality.
The early
twentieth century saw the eclipse of consciousness from scientific psychology,
especially in the United States with the rise of behaviorism (Watson 1924,
Skinner 1953) though movements such as Gestalt psychology kept it a matter of
ongoing scientific concern in Europe (Köhler 1929, Köffka 1935). In the 1960s,
the grip of behaviorism weakened with the rise of cognitive psychology and its
emphasis on information processing and the modeling of internal mental
processes (Neisser 1965, Gardiner 1985). However, despite the renewed emphasis
on explaining cognitive capacities such as memory, perception and language
comprehension, consciousness remained a largely neglected topic for several
further decades.
In the 1980s and
90s there was a major resurgence of scientific and philosophical research into
the nature and basis of consciousness (Baars 1988, Dennett 1991, Penrose 1989,
1994, Crick 1994, Lycan 1987, 1996, Chalmers 1996). Once consciousness was back
under discussion, there was a rapid proliferation of research with a flood of
books and articles, as well as the introduction of specialty journals (The
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Consciousness and Cognition, Psyche),
professional societies (Association for the Scientific Study of
Consciousness—ASSC) and annual conferences devoted exclusively to its
investigation (Toward a Science of Consciousness, ASSC).
Problems of Consciousness
The task of
understanding consciousness is an equally diverse project. Not only do many
different aspects of mind count as conscious in some sense, each is also open
to various respects in which it might be explained or modeled. Understanding
consciousness involves a multiplicity not only of explananda but also of
questions that they pose and the sorts of answers they require. At the risk of
oversimplifying, the relevant questions can be gathered under three crude
rubrics as the What, How, and Why questions:
·
The Descriptive Question: What
is consciousness? What are its principal features? And by what means can they
be best discovered, described and modeled?
·
The Explanatory Question: How
does consciousness of the relevant sort come to exist? Is it a primitive aspect
of reality, and if not how does (or could) consciousness in the relevant
respect arise from or be caused by nonconscious entities or processes?
·
The Functional Question: Why
does consciousness of the relevant sort exist? Does it have a function, and if
so what it is it? Does it act causally and if so with sorts of effects? Does it
make a difference to the operation of systems in which it is present, and if so
why and how?
The three
questions focus respectively on describing the features of consciousness,
explaining its underlying basis or cause, and explicating its role or value.
The divisions among the three are of course somewhat artificial, and in
practice the answers one gives to each will depend in part on what one says
about the others. One can not, for example, adequately answer the what question
and describe the main features of consciousness without addressing the why
issue of its functional role within systems whose operations it affects. Nor
could one explain how the relevant sort of consciousness might arise from
nonconscious processes unless one had a clear account of just what features had
to be caused or realized to count as producing it. Those caveats
notwithstanding, the three-way division of questions provides a useful
structure for articulating the overall explanatory project and for assessing
the adequacy of particular theories or models of consciousness.
Causal status of consciousness
Perhaps
the most basic issue posed by any version of the Why question is whether or not
consciousness of the relevant sort has any causal impact at all. If it has no
effects and makes no causal difference whatsoever, then it would seem unable to
play any significant role in the systems or organisms in which it is present,
thus undercutting at the outset most inquiries about its possible value. Nor
can the threat of epiphenomenal irrelevance be simply dismissed as an obvious
non-option, since at least some forms of consciousness have been seriously
alleged in the recent literature to lack causal status. (See the entry on epiphenomenalism.)
Such worries have been raised especially with regard to qualia and qualitative
consciousness (Huxley 1874, Jackson 1982, Chalmers 1996), but challenges have
also been leveled against the causal status of other sorts including
meta-mental consciousness (Velmans 1991).
Both
metaphysical and empirical arguments have been given in support of such claims.
Among the former are those that appeal to intuitions about the conceivability
and logical possibility of zombies, i.e., of beings whose behavior, functional
organization, and physical structure down to the molecular level are identical
to those of normal human agents but who lack any qualia or qualitative
consciousness. Some (Kirk 1970, Chalmers 1996) assert such beings are possible
in worlds that share all our physical laws, but others deny it (Dennett 1991,
Levine 2001). If they are possible in such worlds, then it would seem to follow
that even in our world, qualia do not affect the course of physical events
including those that constitute our human behaviors. If those events unfold in
the same way whether or not qualia are present, then qualia appear to be inert
or epiphenomenal at least with respect to events in the physical world.
However, such arguments and the zombie intuitions on which they rely are
controversial and their soundness remains in dispute (Searle 1992, Yablo 1998,
Balog 1999).
Arguments
of a far more empirical sort have challenged the causal status of meta-mental
consciousness, at least in so far as its presence can be measured by the
ability to report on one's mental state. Scientific evidence is claimed to show
that consciousness of that sort is neither necessary for any type of mental
ability nor does it occur early enough to act as a cause of the acts or
processes typically thought to be its effects (Velmans 1991). According to
those who make such arguments, the sorts of mental abilities that are typically
thought to require consciousness can all be realized unconsciously in the
absence of the supposedly required self-awareness.
Theories of
consciousness
In
response to the What, How and Why questions many theories of consciousness have
been proposed in recent years. However, not all theories of consciousness are
theories of the same thing. They vary not only in the specific sorts of
consciousness they take as their object, but also in their theoretical aims.
Perhaps
the largest division is between general metaphysical theories that aim to
locate consciousness in the overall ontological scheme of reality and more
specific theories that offer detailed accounts of its nature, features and
role. The line between the two sorts of theories blurs a bit, especially in so
far as many specific theories carry at least some implicit commitments on the
more general metaphysical issues. Nonetheless, it is useful to keep the
division in mind when surveying the range of current theoretical offerings.
Metaphysical
theories of consciousness
General
metaphysical theories offer answers to the conscious version of the mind-body
problem, “What is the ontological status of consciousness relative to the world
of physical reality?” The available responses largely parallel the standard
mind-body options including the main versions of dualism and physicalism.
Specific
Theories of Consciousness
Although
there are many general metaphysical/ontological theories of consciousness, the
list of specific detailed theories about its nature is even longer and more
diverse. No brief survey could be close to comprehensive, but six main types of
theories may help to indicate the basic range of options: higher-order theories,
representational theories, interpretative narrative theories, cognitive
theories, neural theories, quantum theories and nonphysical theories. The
categories are not mutually exclusive; for example, many cognitive theories
also propose a neural substrate for the relevant cognitive processes.
Nonetheless grouping them in the seven classes provides a basic overview.
Rocco
Genarro also provides an interesting exploration into Consciousness within his
article titled “Consciousness” published online with the Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. This author underscores
the challenges quite common in defining consciousness within his article. Please do not stop at the limited segments
quoted for purposes of information below.
Take a moment if you will and review the more detailed discussion
provided by the author.
Consciousness:
Explaining the nature of
consciousness is one of the most important and perplexing areas of philosophy,
but the concept is notoriously ambiguous. The abstract noun “consciousness” is
not frequently used by itself in the contemporary literature, but is originally
derived from the Latin con (with) and scire (to know).
Perhaps the most commonly used contemporary notion of a conscious mental state
is captured by Thomas Nagel’s famous “what it is like” sense (Nagel 1974). When
I am in a conscious mental state, there is something it is like for me to be in
that state from the subjective or first-person point of view. But how are we to
understand this? For instance, how is the conscious mental state related to the
body? Can consciousness be explained in terms of brain activity? What makes a
mental state be a conscious mental state? The problem of consciousness is
arguably the most central issue in current philosophy of mind and is also
importantly related to major traditional topics in metaphysics, such as the
possibility of immortality and the belief in free will. This article focuses on
Western theories and conceptions of consciousness, especially as found in
contemporary analytic philosophy of mind.
Quantum Approaches
Finally,
there are those who look deep beneath the neural level to the field of quantum
mechanics, basically the study of sub-atomic particles, to find the key to
unlocking the mysteries of consciousness. The bizarre world of quantum physics
is quite different from the deterministic world of classical physics, and a
major area of research in its own right. Such authors place the locus of
consciousness at a very fundamental physical level. This somewhat radical,
though exciting, option is explored most notably by physicist Roger Penrose
(1989, 1994) and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff (1998). The basic idea is
that consciousness arises through quantum effects which occur in subcellular
neural structures known as microtubules, which are structural proteins in cell
walls. There are also other quantum approaches which aim to explain the
coherence of consciousness (Marshall and Zohar 1990) or use the “holistic”
nature of quantum mechanics to explain consciousness (Silberstein 1998, 2001).
It is difficult to assess these somewhat exotic approaches at present. Given
the puzzling and often very counterintuitive nature of quantum physics, it is
unclear whether such approaches will prove genuinely scientifically valuable
methods in explaining consciousness. One concern is simply that these authors
are trying to explain one puzzling phenomenon (consciousness) in terms of
another mysterious natural phenomenon (quantum effects). Thus, the thinking
seems to go, perhaps the two are essentially related somehow and other
physicalistic accounts are looking in the wrong place, such as at the
neuro-chemical level. Although many attempts to explain consciousness often
rely of conjecture or speculation, quantum approaches may indeed lead the field
along these lines. Of course, this doesn’t mean that some such theory isn’t
correct. One exciting aspect of this approach is the resulting
interdisciplinary interest it has generated among physicists and other
scientists in the problem of consciousness.
It
seems to me upon review of my two favorite topics that the theories are
seemingly endless and often remain theories with only bits and pieces found to
be empirical and the rest relegated to the land of the forever hypothesized or
a simple “Yes,” “No” and “Maybe” approach in terms of understanding. But this doesn’t prevent us from understanding. More and more disciplines are joining the
discussion to ask the questions and seek to ask and answer them from different
perspectives. But what if we are all
defining a thing from the outset with a limited starting point? What if it is language itself that prevents
our full and complete understanding?
What if Consciousness is as Freud intimated concerning the ego as that
part of consciousness that meets physical reality? What if it is a matter of a limited language
with which we are trying to define Consciousness to begin with? What if Consciousness is not a thing to
describe but is what we are and the varied and many striations of it exist in
the realms of the unconscious aspects of our existence and the multiple
dimensions beyond our limited 3rd dimensional points of focus? What if the “feeling” part of our inner-most
connected nature knows exactly what consciousness is? Maybe we cannot fully comprehend
consciousness with the mind and the words it create alone. Perhaps, the understanding comes through
another sense. The 7th sense. What if that observer aspect of our
consciousness as pointed out so well by Echard Tolle in his work, The Power of
Now, is an expanded portion of our Consciousness that remains ever and always
connected to Source and that Source is what promotes the motion of our being
and our impetus for existing and living or feeling our way through life? That “feeling our way through life” is the 7th
sense.
We
might as well begin to ask other questions from a deeper level than the
superficial of why do I feel (emotion) and why do I feel (intuition)? There seems to be a deeper and more
intangible aspect to consider and many have considered as you can conclude yourself
by researching the many academic and non-academic papers out there on these
topics. Our Consciousness is expanding
into a new and decidedly different experience of life on Earth through the
introduction of practices such as meditation and mindfulness. Why are these things having the impact that
they are? Why are they making us “feel”
different and often more connected and whole than just the superficial egoic or
little “c” consciousness of existence?
There is a purpose and there is a reason…call it a hunch but what about
that “hunch?” What about that inner
knowing that puts it into motion rising to the surface for further
exploration? What if we are trying to
think our way through a matter that can only be felt and I am not talking about
emotion. I am talking about an
all-together different sense…maybe it’s the 7th sense. Just some food for thought.
Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD, M.Msc., B.Msc., Author, Blogger, and Spiritual Counselor, Editor of the JMCC. See Bio section for more information.
©
2014 Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD (photo created by silkweaver)
