Consciousness, soul, Atman (14-08-2019)

(First text published on Textup, sent by Daedalus )

 

You are familiar with handling trivial concepts such as "the soul", "the ba", "the Atman", "the neshamah", etc., perceived as the equivalent of a "higher self", as if there were a real separation between a "dominant self" and a "lower self".

 

Is this concept not the creation of an anguished thought in search of a reassuring form of "permanence"?

 

Does the "higher self"/"lower self" dichotomy exist intrinsically, or is it only an invention of thought?

 

In the same way: is the separation "body" / "spirit" or "material" / "spiritual" real, or is it simply an ancient abstraction based on the fragile foundations of a millennial intuition?

 

Start with what is before your eyes: is what is called the "soul", the "self", a spiritual, inaccessible and mysterious entity, or is it only an aggregate, an accumulation of memories, scars, selected identity traits, acquired conditionings, idiosyncratic tendencies, claimed successes, hidden failures, unsatisfied desires, etc.?

 

Does that "self" exist without this accumulation of information?

 

Would the "self", in this case, be only the illusory fruit of a simple recording medium similar to that of an optodigital disc?

 

What distinguishes the individual from the most sophisticated computer or from the subtlest artificial intelligence?

 

The answer is: consciousness.

 

 

Study the following point carefully:

 

What is "consciousness"? Is it only the reflection of a Mental process?

 

Is "thought" a Mental or a Material process?

Is not thought to the brain what a wave is to the fluid? Is it therefore radically different from matter?

The wave is NOT the fluid, just as thought is NOT the brain, but it embodies a new property that is born, or emerges, from matter.

 

That is why, taking up the elements discussed elsewhere and already shared, understand that the "Material" and the "Spiritual" are different facets of one and the same piece.

There is a law of complexification directed from matter towards the living which you may call "orthogenesis". Thus, from the laborious assembly of the elementary bodies that form matter, to the marvellous development of the most basic nervous system, there is a process of perpetual growth of Consciousness.

 

From the non-living protein mega-molecule to living protoplasm, there is a significant increase in the degree of "consciousness".

 

In reality, the unicellular organism gains in VISION. It perceives its environment (salinity, temperature, acidity of the medium...), unlike the protein, which is in turn much more complex in its arrangement than the water molecule.

The end result of this slow process is, as you can guess, the appearance of the nervous system.

 

On the surface - one would say at the "material" level - the nerve connections and the complex arrangement of the ganglia are totally correlated, in depth, with the degree of "consciousness", through a relation that can be described as mathematical.

 

Finally, if Consciousness is synonymous with Vision, does a robot or machine capable of perceiving its environment and processing information have "consciousness"?

The answer is yes, an "artificial" consciousness, but it is not, however, endowed with free will.

 

The final degree of the increase in power of "consciousness", "free will", is, like the wave for the fluid, the emergence of a new property for Consciousness.

 

What is "free will"?

It is neither more nor less than the capacity given to an individual to extract himself from his natural state, from his conditioning, from his appetites and other ancestral instincts; all the more easily to the extent that he perceives them authentically and understands them fully. "Free will" follows a relation of dependence on the degree of "consciousness/perception" of the individual.

 

In this respect, an artificial intelligence, however developed, cannot technically extract itself from its own software and be "free". The mathematical increase in vision-action of artificial intelligence may give the illusion of a form of freedom, but it remains, inevitably, within the straitjacket of its own program.

 

Is "free will" only a "tool" at the service of "my self"? If the "self" is not, is "free will"? Where does it come from? Is it divided, multiple? Should I speak of MY "free will"? Was it "already there" before? Does it still exist when there are no constraints, no servitudes, no choices to be made?