Introduction
This is a reflection on our place in the world—what part of it we are, what ‘being’ constitutes in respect of it. It is a rational insight in defence of the rational which is suddenly intruded upon by the deeply personal, the tragically emotional. The idea that our consciousness forms an integral part of the process and persistence of the universe, is tinged with a plea to the world to somehow mitigate our sometimes desperate sense of loneliness and isolation.
Reflection
This is how I see things: there is the world; there is consciousness of the world; there is consciousness of the world; there is the world. The world is, because of consciousness, increasingly coherent. Its movement is from incoherent and corrupted to coherent. As individuals, our movement is from coherent to less coherent. The movement is from one to another.
All of this has rational appeal—what I know I come to know ‘internally’ but I come to know it because of the world. The world will ultimately know me, at which time, I will be a fully integrated part of the world. As conscious beings, we are isolated from other conscious beings, but not from the world which is because we are. Ultimately, our isolation will be breached, but then, in exchange for the breakdown of isolation, we lose our individual identity. Being part of the world in this way is difficult to understand because its connections run beyond our mortal existence. As Whitman says, ‘and to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier’.
This is a rational process. For me, it runs from conscious and rational to incoherent. For the world, it runs from unconscious to conscious and coherent.
I am not concerned with the unconscious—it is irrelevant. Just as it is irrelevant to me what is going on in electricity, it does not matter to me what is sub-conscious. Reason is before and after—the unbreakable condition of the B-series—and everything must fit with this absolute condition. How can my insight be anything less than rational? It would be impossible because the B-series imposes the rational. I yearn for the permanence of the world, but I cannot claim it—it is impossible. If in Van Gochean style, I cut off my ear, and put it in an hermetically sealed vacuum, in a box and wait, the ear will change. Over millions of years it may not even be possible to see any evidence of it, but it must still be in the box. Where can it go? If we are physical, and our mind is a complex brain process, and we throw out all dualistic tendencies to spirituality, then not only must we still be in the box, but so must our consciousness of at least those conscious things that we were conscious of still be in the box. Where can we go? This does not mean that our thoughts persist—we no longer exist as what we presently are—but the contribution that we made by enabling some part of the world to be, persists. The B-series of before and after is a one-way, serial, cumulative system—there is no escaping from it. It is sad to lose our own ability to sense the world for us alone, but that is part of the condition. There is great rational coherence in the ‘persistence’ of consciousness like this.
If we are not physical, which I think is more likely, it does not matter, for in either case we are getting things wrong, sometimes badly wrong. We may never see reality beyond the cave, but that does not mean there is not reality beyond the cave. It is a step to feel sure that all is not as it appears. It is a greater step to realise that we are part of what appears and part of that which is not as it appears. It is an even greater step to realise that what is, both as it appears and as not as it appears, is because of our realisation of it and that, in that realisation of it, it includes us permanently in whatever it is.
As I write this, my only brother died suddenly yesterday—out of the blue, un-heralded. Now, there is isolation, there is a brutal depiction of loneliness, pitiable loneliness. We satisfy our sensual existence, and we get much joy from it, but it is short-lived, fragile and destined to destruction. What is real is the world and we are not only part of the world, but the world is because of us.
Revelation comes from confrontation with the world—action, doing—it springs through to us when we least expect it. We do not, or do not need, to construct conditions for its arrival in any particularly sophisticated way. Look at the world and the world will show itself because it can only show itself because we look at it. We need to be free and open to the possibilities the world makes available. Making room for thoughts is important, but the dynamic contrasts inherent in the interface between us and the world are more important. If we are receptive to that, then we see that.
Comments
Our presence as conscious, rational beings is deeply puzzling. When we make rational efforts to solve the riddle it presents, we can often come up with coherent solutions. The problem is that our experience of what it is like to ‘be’ often does not fit so neatly into the rational framework we design. It is one thing to construct a convincing framework, but another to be convinced by it. My attempt here to assert a place in the world for consciousness, is doubly threatened. First, the inner sense of knowing that we can properly never see anything of reality—that we are, against Plato’s best wishes, trapped in the world of corrupting shadows—is a stronger conviction than the rationale that by being conscious we somehow ‘count’ as a component of a world made real by consciousness. Second, the violating intrusion of strong emotion—loss of a brother—destroys the clarity of the rational as it shocks the consciousness of self with something more urgent, undeniable, powerfully real.
