Because it places us, in relation to our fellow human beings, in the same relation we are to ourselves in consciousness.
- Happy birthday.
- Thanks. Sometimes after passing through periods of your life when you hardly recognize yourself you wonder if it is your life you are leading and not a set of inconsistent lives going on under your name.
- Certain philosophers say that ego or sense of self is an illusion; we are in constant change; we are like a nation, citizens of which change constantly. What gives us an idea of self is no more than physical and mental continuity.
- And you believe that?
- No. You don't either.
- Then what do you believe makes a self, allows a life to have consistency, even in periods where your life hardly can be recognized?
- Consciousness.
- Consciousness comes and goes with sleep and accident, and has different degrees.
- Comes and goes, yes; no, different degrees. Degree reflects only how far consciousness has gone, or not.
- Explain.
- Computer scientists look for consciousness on the model of one part of the brain looking on and modifying another, but that's not it. Consciousness is a relation of rest to activity; a standing outside of time and space, looking down on the actions of the past.
- The "Knower of the Field", as the Bhagavad Gita has it.
- Yes. Unlike the self, which is nothing but a mix of experiences, perceptions, and desires, a special kind of consciousness, the consciousness of good, immediately reestablishes connection after a break.
- How exactly?
- You know Kant's way of founding morality?
- Remind me.
- Being moral is doing what we all, if we were rational, would agree to do.
- And why should we care to follow that rule?
- Because we want to more than anything else. Do you know why we want to? (This is not Kant anymore.) Because it places us, in relation to our fellow human beings, in the same relation we are to ourselves in consciousness.
- Again, explain.
- I'm not sure how much I can. You take over.
- You assume I agree with you.
- You do.
- When, knowers of the field, we're detached from desires impelling us to action, the world we see is beautiful, people's action good, statements true; such a world is like the universality of reason in moral judgment that is able to include everyone in its overview. Even in periods like the year I'm coming out of all can be brought together, even if it is related and included only by noting the love that conspicuously was lacking.
- Everything is brought together, seen under the sign of eternity.
- And that is where consciousness goes, when it lessens in degree? Into eternity?
- It comes from nowhere at the beginning of life and goes to nowhere at the end; why not travels also in the middle?
- Are there places of return in nowhere, and other places of no way back?
- 'Places in nowhere!'
- A strange combination of words, but maybe not stranger than the statement we can conclude with: that we are most ourselves when we are in agreement with all.
Further Reading:
Consciousness, Science, Perception
- Certain philosophers say that ego or sense of self is an illusion; we are in constant change; we are like a nation, citizens of which change constantly. What gives us an idea of self is no more than physical and mental continuity.
- And you believe that?
- No. You don't either.
- Then what do you believe makes a self, allows a life to have consistency, even in periods where your life hardly can be recognized?
- Consciousness.
- Consciousness comes and goes with sleep and accident, and has different degrees.
- Comes and goes, yes; no, different degrees. Degree reflects only how far consciousness has gone, or not.
- Explain.
- Computer scientists look for consciousness on the model of one part of the brain looking on and modifying another, but that's not it. Consciousness is a relation of rest to activity; a standing outside of time and space, looking down on the actions of the past.
- The "Knower of the Field", as the Bhagavad Gita has it.
- Yes. Unlike the self, which is nothing but a mix of experiences, perceptions, and desires, a special kind of consciousness, the consciousness of good, immediately reestablishes connection after a break.
- How exactly?
- You know Kant's way of founding morality?
- Remind me.
- Being moral is doing what we all, if we were rational, would agree to do.
- And why should we care to follow that rule?
- Because we want to more than anything else. Do you know why we want to? (This is not Kant anymore.) Because it places us, in relation to our fellow human beings, in the same relation we are to ourselves in consciousness.
- Again, explain.
- I'm not sure how much I can. You take over.
- You assume I agree with you.
- You do.
- When, knowers of the field, we're detached from desires impelling us to action, the world we see is beautiful, people's action good, statements true; such a world is like the universality of reason in moral judgment that is able to include everyone in its overview. Even in periods like the year I'm coming out of all can be brought together, even if it is related and included only by noting the love that conspicuously was lacking.
- Everything is brought together, seen under the sign of eternity.
- And that is where consciousness goes, when it lessens in degree? Into eternity?
- It comes from nowhere at the beginning of life and goes to nowhere at the end; why not travels also in the middle?
- Are there places of return in nowhere, and other places of no way back?
- 'Places in nowhere!'
- A strange combination of words, but maybe not stranger than the statement we can conclude with: that we are most ourselves when we are in agreement with all.
Further Reading:
Consciousness, Science, Perception
