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| Consciousness - Revealed
Wisdom and Human Investigation Naumana Amjad PhD “We are at the edge of an immense rotation, which is none other than the samsaric flow of phenomena, the current of forms.... the current of forms does not want us to escape from its hold".. Frithjof Schuon [i] What do we mean by consciousness? What consciousness are we talking about? The mind and its faculties which take into account the surrounding stimuli, register the sensory input, encode, categorize and store it and bring it back to monitor of working memory by turning on the attention light to a particular detail or aspect and acting upon that aspect? Hence we are referring to whole process of mental representation of reality as it passes through sensory receptors, is interpreted through perceptual network and processed and responded through cognitive system. What about the workings of mind which go on while we sleep and dream and get immersed in inner world as in meditative state? The so-called altered states of consciousness? Moreover cognitive process does not stop at representation, assimilation and retention of outer reality but creates an inner world of meaning and expresses these meaning in uniform mode of language – language grasped and understood universally. How far is that a conscious process? And self awareness, the perpetual transmission of information that we have each moment about ourselves - what kind of consciousness is that ? It seems that we are dealing with a very vast and complex domain here and the task is no less complicated by the inclusion of two poles- the rational scientific inquiry namely science and revealed wisdom embodied in religious thought.( I will not qualify the use of word “revealed “ nor present am apology for it. That is simply how the knowledge inherent in religious traditions is seen by vast a majority of ordinary people as well as scholars- a majority which far out numbers adherents of another point of view who see religion as a product of social and creative evolution of mankind). It would be safer for our sanity and good practical sense to mark the boundaries of this domain before exploration of what it contains. Hence the paper begins by a survey of the definitions and descriptions of the term consciousness as these are postulated by prominent contributors to this area of study .An over view of their main theoretical stance is presented and subsequently linked to preceding and following theories. The second part of the paper deals with exposition of religious or what I prefer as a much broader term, Traditional concept of consciousness along with a mutual comparison which proceeds logically as and when evoked by the nature of the argument rather than enforced through a pre-plan. I prefer contextual coherence over any other module. The third and final section of this rather lengthy piece of writing elaborates my own synthesis and humble ramblings. Pinker says that something about the topic
of consciousness makes people, like the White Queen in ‘Through the
Looking Glass’ believe six impossible things before breakfast. I would
say that the problem with topic of consciousness is that it is everybody's
playground; Physicists, Neuroscientists, Cognitive Scientists,
Neurologists, Philosophers and Psychologists. We are reaching across
diverse or sometimes overlapping disciplines and to make it clear from the
outset, I would start with contemporary meaning of the term. I am indebted
to Pinker for this clear-headed account. [ii] One meaning of consciousness is
self-knowledge or self-awareness. Second is access to information inside our
brain. We all now that some type of data inside our brain like memory is
accessible while other processes are not. Third is sentience, subjective experience
and phenomenal awareness. We will return to these three meanings of
consciousness from time to time. Philosophy is a good place to begin with
because it inherited the concern with the mind-body problem as a
discipline. The processes of memory, reasoning and perception described by
Plato and Aristotle foreshadows much of Islamic as well as early Christian
philosophy of mind and an inherent continuity is discernible beneath
apparently different uses of term soul and spirit. It is significant that
explicit treatment of consciousness as something which merited separate
explanation emerges much later and at the same time when second major
scientific revolution (Darwinian theory) had established ground for a
intellectual break from traditional worldview both about macrocosm as well
as microcosm. Descartes stands at the onset of this break because his
inquiry in the nature of consciousness combines the emerging scientific
attitude with hints of the “benign intentions of a Creator”. [iii] For
Descartes mind and body were two different entities separated by the
nature of their substance.” body is by nature divisible and the mind is
entirely indivisible. Each substance has a principal attribute and the
attribute of the body is extension (whereas) substance of the mind is
thought...some faculties like change of position etc. can only exist by
attaching themselves to some corporeal or extended substance while others
like imagination and feeling need an intelligent substance to reside in.
Then there is in me a certain passive faculty of perception receiving and
recognizing the ideas of sensible things but this would be useless unless
there is in me some other active faculty capable of forming and producing
these ideas”.[iv] This active faculty of Descartes does not reside in
him ( I apologize for slip of key board) does not reside in man because
ideas and impressions of reality are produced without conscious will, even
against will; this active faculty necessarily resides in some substance
different from the person who thinks, in a substance which contains all
reality of these ideas eminently or formally. Since God is not a deceiver
to make it occur to us that representation of reality is coming from real
corporeal objects and not to create those objects, the corporeal objects
must exist. Hence consciousness entails these things; the subjective
experience of pain, pleasure, hunger etc which contribute to conservation
of body and serve this purpose well, the sense perception and active
(cognitive) faculty which processes the sensory data, the emotions and
imagination. Even if the sense perceptions deceive us that there is an
objective reality, there is somebody who is deceived...somebody “who
doubts and understands, conceives, affirms, denies, wills, refuses which
also imagines and feels”. It is clear that all the functions of
conscious thought and subjective experience or sentience are proof of
individual existence. That is where rationalism takes a fundamentally
divergent or opposite turn to religious thought but I will not divulge
into this theme here. Assuming that most of my readers are familiar with
the ideas of Descartes, I have chosen to present them only very
selectively. In any case he is now used in science religion dialogues more
as a folly figure; one can start with him and errors of dualism are
illustrated with remarkable ease. [v] Descartes wriggled out of the
question his arguments themselves raised (actually posed by Princess
Elizabeth in 1643) as to how does mind move the body if it does not have
attribute of extension, by asserting that this question arises out of the
confusion between the notions of the soul's power to act within the body
and the power one body has to act within another and ascribing both these
powers to various qualities of bodies rather than to soul whose nature is
unknown. If we can conceive that gravity can move the body towards center
of Earth without mutual contact, it should help us conceive the way that
the soul moves the body. Descartes also attempts a description of brain
action or neural basis of soul. “There is a small gland in the brain in
which the soul exercises its functions so suspended between the cavities
which contain the spirits that it can be moved by them in different ways
according to sensible diversities of the objects and it can also be moved
in diverse ways by the soul...being moved it thrusts the spirits towards
the pores of the brain which conducts them by the nerves into the muscles
by which it causes them to move”. A somewhat crude account by modern
neuroscience standard but it can be rendered less tedious, for example, by
replacing spirits with neurotransmitters and cavities with synapse. Descartes had left in his wake the debates
about interaction of a non-physical mind with a physical body. From
psychophysical parallelism to epiphenomenalism there have been many
theoretical attempts to resolve the problem. The first of these (Pp p)
deserves our pity because most texts on mind/soul/human person add no more
than a historical value to it. [vi] However the theory that consciousness
is a mere epiphenomena, a byproduct with no apparent causal effect on
functioning of brain still receives explanatory responses from recent
neuroscience which will be discussed later after we have examined the
neuroscience evidence and interpretation of this evidence as it relates to
consciousness. Meanwhile lets return to philosophy. The emerging philosophy of mind now had to
contend with the question whether consciousness can be explained in the
same way as physical actions. The subjective nature of consciousness
makes it different from all other subjects of study in the natural
sciences. One-way to look at Consciousness as subjective experience is to
describe it's features. According to Bergson three important features are
memory, attention, and anticipation of the future. But what distinguishes
human consciousness from lower living organisms is the choice which their
complex brains are capable of. As we know the brain is the organ of choice
as compared to spinal cord which is organ for automatic response. Hence
further we descend the scale of animal series, the greater the fusion
between functions of spinal cord and brain, between choice and automatism.
The consciousness is synonymous with choice and as well as attention. Thus
Conscious processing diminishes as an action becomes automatic. Bergson
conjures up an image of the current of consciousness flowing against
matter throughout the process of evolution of life like an underground
channel and encountering resistance till finally finding its route to
surface by “piercing its way through and emerging in light” via line
of evolution which ends in man. [vii] From Descartes to Bergson, our discussion
has taken a gigantic leap, what happened to consciousness in the
intervening centuries? I would submit that my discussion has 'evolved' and
since evolution glosses over gaps, I will conveniently do the same because
it is my personal process of (un)natural selection. Darwin is what
happened to mankind during these centuries and all explanations of human
behavior were undertaken henceforth from evolutionary perspective. Here is
the official doctrine of evolution. Human intelligence and advanced verbal
ability evolved because natural selection favors these capabilities for
out surviving earlier ancestors. Apart from larger brain, erect posture
and other physical characteristics, our species homosapiens also differ in
behavioral traits, a list of which is provided by Ayola which includes
symbolic language, subtle expression of emotion, intelligence, creativity
and self-awareness as well as death awareness. The biological evolution
progressed into cultural evolution. Cultural inheritance makes possible
the cumulative transmission of experience from generation to generation,
knowledge, social structures, ethics and all that makes up the human
culture. [viii] As we have already seen Bergson describes the current of
consciousness erupting in the human form during process of evolution but
apart from this rather poetic description evolution does not explain how
consciousness evolved except that it serves a purpose and thus it was
favored by natural selection or because it has been favored by natural
selection it must be conferring an advantage. Humphry presents a
hypothesis which he calls a just-so-story about the adaptive value of self
consciousness. This advantage is the ability to understand others or
simulate other minds through what one knows about workings of one's own
mind. Social living makes natural psychologists out of all of us,
inferring motives and anticipating actions of others; and in this social
game of interaction an introspectionist with heightened self-awareness
fares much better than the behaviorist who relies on overt observation and
connections between events of behavior. In half jest he compares
behaviorists to unconscious ancestors who do not have the tool of
introspection to make their social living more efficient. [ix] Developments in science had brought the
Cartesian dualism under criticism. But dualism continued to find some
illustrious adherents. Eccles
a noble laureate and a neurophysiologist rests his discussion of
consciousness on the division of reality proposed by Popper into world
one, two and three. Brain is in world one and mind in world and the
dualist interactional model of Eccles suggest that they somehow interact
across the border, brain receiving from mind willed action and
transmitting back to mind conscious experience. He declares the
consciousness as “dependent on the existence of a sufficient number of
critically poised neurons...only then is willing and perceiving possible
but it is not necessary for the whole cortex to be in state of
readiness”. It is wrong to assume that brain does it all because unity
of conscious experience is provided by the self-conscious mind and not by
the neural mechanism of the neo-cortex; no such theory of brain function
explains so far how the immense diversity of brain events comes to be
synthesized and lead to unity of conscious experience, the .In the final
analysis he saw no other tenable explanation for uniqueness of psyche or
soul except a theological one; “ each soul is a divine creation”. [x] Not many scientific colleagues agreed with him though. This is an amazing combination because contrary to wide spread erroneous believe religious view does not support dualism in the modern sense. Eccles however rejected both materialism and reductionism, the trend to reduce all phenomena to simple underlying physical causes which had become the prevalent way of doing science. Popper's world needs some elaboration.
World I is the physical world, world II is the abode of mental states,
psychological dispositions, consciousness and unconscious states and world
III is the world of contents of thoughts and products of the mind, art,
culture, scientific theories, stories, myths, tools social institutions
and works of art. The world three objects are produced by the world two
(mental / conscious states) they can be unembodied like theories but since
theories have to be in words and words can only appear in books the world
two acts on world one through these products and world three objects may
belong both to world one and world two. Popper saw consciousness as
serving some functions in the service of purposeful behavior like solving
problems of a non-routine kind and performing some part in integrating the
activities of individual. The emergence of consciousness including
self-reflection and language was greatest of miracles, Popper says and
then tried to explain away the miracle. Consciousness was favored by
natural selection because it made possible the imagined or vicarious trail
and error behavior. [xi] This paper which did not exist till 25th of
August and if it did in some potential form in software of my brain it was
in such jumble that if it hadn't been for the mortal fear of Dr.Iqbal’s
wrath it would never have come out in embodied form as a world three
object. This illustrates how world one acts on world two which in turn
produces world three objects which belong both to world one and world two.
But wait a minute how do we know that Dr. Iqbal belongs to world one. My
mental world which is installed with faculty of representation of external
reality as well as with the capability of storing earlier impressions
received through representative faculty and comparing these dynamic
pictures from the library of memory to data on the visuo-spatial sketchpad
or screen of working memory tells me that such a person exists in embodied
form. When he is not present in my vision he is nevertheless in all
probability present somewhere else. He does not cease to exist when he is
not in the frame of my attention? As Huston Smith says “we live in a
world of invisible people”. [xii] I insist in persisting with my question; it
gives me an occasion to show how questions about consciousness can lead to
different directions and choice is open. So where does he exist?
Where does my child exist when she has departed with a lingering
soft kiss? She is out there but really she is also in my memory. If we
agree so far then is she and the picture I have of her two entities? Does
body have memory of a caress if not then why does thought of beloved cause
arousal? Ghazâlî says that memory is the custodian of imagination and
Khayal. Is it Khayal that conjures blue print of a paper on consciousness
for conscious deliberation and trims it with logical sequence? Apprehends
criticism and anticipates appreciation? Was it facilitated in its task
because earlier neuronal impulses traveled the same pathway and
established similar neural connections? Whatever we experience and know about world
comes to us from inside our brain. There is no way we can be out
there...touched object is already in that part of my cortex which
processes tactile perception before I know there is something to touch out
there. The question for philosophy would be, do we perceive as qualities
of matter what really belong to mind?
“These sensations are projected by the mind so as to clothe
appropriate bodies in external space. Thus the bodies are perceived as
with qualities which in reality do not belong to them, qualities which in
fact our purely the offspring of mind... a praise of the scent of rose and
song of nightingale should be actually an ode to human mind.” Whitehead
puts down this reasoning as the practical outcome of seventeenth century
characteristic scientific philosophy in consequence of which modern
philosophy has oscillated between three extremes, the dualism and two
varieties of monisn, those who put matter inside mind and those who put
mind inside matter. “In between lie the concepts of life, organism,
function, instantaneous reality, interaction which together form the
Achilles heel of the whole system.” [xiii] It seems consciousness also falls within
the Achilles heel as Whitehead expressly stated that eighteen century
scientific system neither presented any elements which composed immediate
psychological experience nor any theory for organic unity of the whole
from which the organic unities of electrons, protons, molecules and living
bodies can emerge. Some scientists have wandered into,
wondering about presence of consciousness in matter and amount and quality
of consciousness in animals. I am absolutely determined that I do not want
to divert my discussion in this comparative direction but I am tempted to
include a teaser here. Stream of consciousness or unconscious urge...takes
it as you want. Griffin argues it all depends upon how we define
awareness. “At one extreme it can be defined as any capacity or reaction
but this would allow the inclusion of all living organisms plus even a
simple mechanism as mouse trap. At another extreme one might demand the
use of written language or most complex level of understanding known to
human thinkers- the creative insights of Beethoven, Einstein or Whitehead,
for instance. But these requirements would eliminate many members of our
own species”. He cites many examples of communicative systems among
different species including the bee dance and suggests that instead of
seeing them as mechanical acts it will clarify to attribute intentions,
hopes and capacity for preference to these animals. [xiv] Psychology was concerned with explanation
of mind in the beginning of its career hence early psychologists such as
William James paid serious attention to consciousness. Later shifts in
emphasis moved it down the continuum of acceptable or respectable areas of
study and it was a taboo subject for almost four decades. James saw
consciousness as continuous, flowing and attentive. He also considered
each thought as part of consciousness. He is credited with giving us the
term stream of consciousness of which neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield found
evidence during his famous experiments on the cortical areas of waking
human subjects. He found that electrical stimulation of the interpretive
areas of the cortex occasionally produced what Penfield calls 'the
electrical activation of the sequential record consciousness, a record
that was laid down during the patient's earlier experience. The patient
're-lived' all that he had been aware of in that earlier period of time as
in a moving-picture 'flashback' “. Penfield was convinced that
understanding of the neural mechanism of higher brain-stem is essential
for understanding consciousness. According to him function of the highest
brain mechanism is to carry out the neural action that corresponds to the
action of the mind. The proof comes from the evidence that injury of
circumscribed areas in the higher brain-stem produces invariable loss of
consciousness. The function of the automatic sensory-motor mechanism is to
coordinate sensory motor activity previously programmed by the mind. The
function of the central gray matter is to recall to a conscious individual
the stream of consciousness from past time. Conscious attention seems to
give that passage of neuronal impulses permanent facilitation for
subsequent passage of potentials along the neural connections in the same
pattern.[xv] It is evident that research to date leaves
open the question of how far consciousness is in step with brain events.
So far what neuroscience has been able to do is lay down models for
understanding processes involved in vision, hearing, speech and motor
control and how these inter-relate, what to expect when damage is done to
one area, in put output connections etc. When more generalized capacities
like memory is under investigation, it is difficult to localize particular
sites. One can imagine how much more difficult it would be to find areas
supporting something like consciousness whose exact function and nature is
still not specified. Therefore it makes sense when a notable scientist
like Francis Crick offers no definition of consciousness and instead
suggests that a better approach would be to start with an area which can
be localized in brain and which contributes to total conscious processes.
He comes up with three observations about consciousness. 1. Not all the operations of brain
correspond to consciousness 2. Consciousness involves some form of
memory, probably a very short term one.( We have seen earlier that record
of consciousness can be reactivated through stimulation but not
voluntarily) 3.Consciouness is closely associated with
attention. His final approach is reductionist, in as
much as that he declares that we are no more than the behavior of a vast
assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. [xvi] Roger Sperry, a neuropsychologist and
another noble laureate (We are in excellent company it seems) rejects
reductionist and materialist approach. “ The conscious phenomena as
emergent properties of brain processing exert an active control role as
causal determinants in shaping the flow patterns of cerebral excitation.
Once generated from neural events, they have their own
subjective qualities and progress and act according to their own laws
which are different from and can not be reduced to those of
neurophysiology”. His approach has been labeled as non-reductive
physicalism. [xvii] David Oakley a neurologist gives a detailed treatment to consciousness. He divides awareness into (a) simple awareness which includes reflex systems association systems and homeostasis systems, (b) consciousness i.e. representational systems and (c) self awareness i.e. re-representational systems. The consciousness emerged after the evolution of the hippocampus and neocortex but when and how self-awareness evolved, is not clear. Self-awareness is a priority decision-making and action system which brings back information from representational system on the basis of the relevance to task in hand. He quotes what is now becoming a standard and favorite example of evolutionary scientists about presence of self image in chimpanzees; the mirror and recognition of a red mark on their eyebrow and earlobe. [xviii] I am reminded of something from Nasr.” The pontifical man has always been man... the presence of monkey is a cosmic sign, a creature whose significance is to display what a central human state excludes by its very centrality”. [xix] Two models for understanding consciousness
have been forwarded by psychologists namely the constructivist and
computational. A constructivist position states that most conscious states
are constructed out of those pre-conscious structures in response to the
requirements of the moment. These requirements are for example acquisition
of new knowledge and occasions where choices and judgments are needed
particularly with action plans. Conscious processes also play an important
function of troubleshooting thus relevant aspects of surroundings are
brought into consciousness when somehow automatic structures fail in their
function. This obviously has great practical value. Imagine a situation
when driving to work on the frequently taken route one is suddenly jerked
to attention by finding the road blocked and a detour sign in front. Only
those experiences which are constructed out of activated schemas reach our
consciousness. We are not aware of all that enter our sensory threshold
though we are generally aware of what goes on in the surroundings. [xx] Cognitive science is an area which has come
up with intriguing computational models of the working of mind. It is now
almost becoming habitual to compare short-term memory to a monitor and
mental concepts to software etc. Johnson-Laird, a cognitive scientist with
interest in language has emphasized that brain is a highly parallel
mechanism and we are unconscious of most of the millions of processes
going on at one time. Brain has an operating system similar to system of a
parallel computer which can control the rest of its functions and this
operating system is what corresponds to consciousness in the brain. It is
located at a high level in the hierarchy of brain. A suitable design is
one in which one processor monitors the operations of the others and can
over ride them in case of deadlocks and pathological state of affairs.
This design feature replicated at a large scale will produce an
architecture of hierarchical system of parallel processors. Jhonson Liard
argues that a hierarchical organization of the nervous system has support
from neuroscience. He says that it is possible for this operating system
to have a model of itself so that it can be aware that it is aware and so
on. Even conscious intentions are not problemetic. “What is needed is a
program that has a model of its own high-level capabilities....people
indeed know much about their capacity to perceive, remember, and act;
their mastery of this and that intellectual skill; their imaginative and
ratiocinative abilities”. Jackendoff also presents analogies between
brain and computer but makes a distinction between computational mind,
brain and phenomenological mind. The consciousness according to his theory
is derived neither from lower perceptual processes nor from high level
thought but from intermediate level. [xxi]
As we will see shortly this is not a novel idea at all. The meaning
in which consciousness is understood by cognitive scientists roughly
corresponds to the level where Ghazâlî has placed the common sense, and
estimative faculty. What is the highest mental function for modern science
may be intermediate according to religious science of soul. Ramachandran proposes that a new way to
study consciousness is to treat it not as philosophical but as an
empirical problem. He suggests narrowing down of scientific inquiry to
certain specialized brain circuits that carry a particular style of
computation. By giving examples from neurology and perceptual psychology
it is made clear that the vivid subjective quality of consciousness
resides mainly in parts of temporal lobe and a single projection zone in
the frontal lobes- the cingulate gyrus. The activity of these structures
must fulfill three important criteria of what he calls the three laws of
qualia. It should be a stable, finite and irrevocable representation in
our short term memory. The phenomena like blind sight-when due to damage
to visual cortex subject denies seeing something but can reach for it well
above chance- demonstrate that the visual cortex itself
is differentially placed vis a vis consciousness. The philosophers
who consider consciousness and qualia to be epiphenomena are basing their
argument on the fallacy that because something is logically possible does
not guarantee its possibility in the real world. If though an automaton, a zombie can be imagined who carries out brain
functions without sentience, “ there may be some deep natural cause that
prevents the existence of such a thing”. [xxii] Whereas brain structures responsible for
sentience and self awareness have yet to be specified, Pinker holds that
consciousness in terms of information access is coming to be understood.
Access consciousness has four features. First we are aware, to varying
degrees, of a rich field of sensation: the colors and shapes of world in
front of us the sounds and smells we are bathed in, the pressures and
aches of our skin, bones and muscles. Second, portions of this information
can fall under the spotlight of attention, get rotated into and out of
short-term memory, and feed our deliberative cogitation. Third, sensations
and thoughts come with an emotional flavoring: pleasant or unpleasant,
interesting or repellent, exciting or soothing. Finally, an executive, the
“I”, appears to make choices and pull the levers of behavior. Each of
these features discard some information in the nervous system, defining
the highway access-consciousness and each has a clear role in the adaptive
organization of thought and perception to serve rational decision and
action. [xxiii] Scientific view about consciousness can be
given a befitting closure by presenting Pinker's solution to enigmas like
sentience, consciousness, morality, self. “ Humanly thinkable thoughts
are closed under the workings of our cognitive faculties and may never
embrace the solutions to mysteries of philosophy....our minds are not
equipped to solve them...our psyche would present us the ultimate
tease...The most undeniable thing there is ,our own awareness would be
forever beyond our conceptual grasp”. And it is not an occasion for
pessimism but to be welcomed as natural. Mind should feel exhilaration
over its triumphs and marvels rather than gloat over its limitations-this
is the message. [xxiv] There are voluminous works on consciousness
mostly by those are able to grasp its peripheral and accidental aspect
only and one or two by those who really know the essential nature of
consciousness. My stance is
that what they describe are various manifestations of consciousness and
not consciousness itself.” Profane sciences is seeking to pierce to its
depths the mystery of the things that contains- space, time, matter,
energy-forgets the mystery of things that are contained: it tries to
explain the quintessential properties of are body and the intimate
functioning of our souls, But it does not know what intelligence and
existence are; consequently, seeing what its ”principles” are, it
cannot be otherwise than ignorant of what man is” [xxv] Fortunately we have another source we can
turn to. The difficulty with explaining Islamic concepts is their
inter-relatedness. One cannot simply isolate consciousness; a description
of soul is needed before you can start discussing consciousness and
concept of soul is inextricably linked to cosmology so has to be
understood in that backdrop. Then there is the problem of semantics and
vocabulary. Some terms are not simply unfamiliar they are incomprehensible
Latin to modern mind. It is perhaps a sign of times that some
words are banished from modern language since we are unsure what they
signify, allude to. If this disappearance from our vocabulary indicates
fading away of a practice or a concept, then existence of a word in a
language itself provides proof of the underlying reality this word stands
for? I will not delve into philosophy of language here, the point to
remember is that views of Islamic thinkers which will be presented now
have to stay within the garb of their own vocabulary specially if
translation in contemporary terminology can distort them. A writer like Ibn al-Árabi has to be read
with great care and in my case with great humbleness. The term under
discussion i.e. consciousness does not appear as such in Islamic texts on
soul. Since there is only general agreement about functions of
consciousness in science that should not be a problem. The term soul or
Nafs stand for many of the faculties we discussed under consciousness.
What follows is a continuous quotation from William Chittick as he
explains Ibn al-Árabi. Within the passages, quotation marks appear to
denote original text from Ibn al-Árabi, rest is Chittick speaking. There
is no commentary needed nor am I worthy of giving one, though in some
places my reflections are inserted. They are always given in brackets. In
the words of the author “My point is not to make the point, but to let
Ibn al-Árabi say what he wants to say in the way he wants to say it”. “For Ibn al-Árabi as for many other
muslim thinkers, the word ruh or spirit is more or less synonymous with
nafs, self or soul except where used in specific context and distinctions
have to be drawn. Other terms used in the similar senses are
“intellect” (aql), ”secret heart” or “mystery” (sirr), and
“subtlety” (latifa). The last is commonly employed in the expression
human subtlety which is equivalent to “rationally speaking soul”
(al-nafs al-natiqa). The root meaning of the word ruh is wind. Soul
derives from the same root as breath. The basic implication of these
derivations is that the spirit is or soul is itself invisible but visible
through the traces that it leaves in the body, like the wind that moves
the leaves of a tree. The root of every soul and every spirit is the
Divine Spirit (al-Ruh al-ilahi). The spirits born from the Divine spirit
are often called “partial” or “particular”. The partial spirits
become differentiated when God blows something of the undifferentiated,
Universal spirit into the bodies, which receive it in keeping with their
preparedness. According to Islamic beliefs, one of the signs of Last Day
is that the sun will rise from its setting place. Given that the human
spirit is the divine light, this belief can be understood on the
microcosmic level to mean that at death the soul rises from whence it has
set, that is, from the bodily configuration within which it is hidden. First Intellect is another name for the
Divine Spirit and it is only found in human spirit...” the first lamp is
not found in any sort of matter, and there is no intermediary between it
and its Lord. Nothing else has any wujud (existence) save through it and
the sorts of matter that receive burning from it such that the entities of
the intellects become manifest. All this is absent from the intellects, or
rather they have no tasting of it. How can that which has no wujud save
from a father and a mother perceive the reality of that which has wujud
without any intermediary?” The intellects are incapable of perceiving
the first intellect from which they become manifest. {Perhaps this explains why human beings
cannot understand their own sentience and I offer this humbly with
preparedness to accept my error}. Moving on we are told that the spirit's
basic attribute is life (hayat) inasmuch the Divine Spirit, which is the
breath of the All-Merciful, has been blown into everything in the cosmos,
it is sometimes called ”The sphere of life”. “God chose the Spirit above all the
angels because it is blown into every form, whether angelic, celestial,
elemental, material or natural, and through it things have life”. “The spirit is alive no doubt, but not
every living thing is a spirit”. In this case, Ibn al-Árabi seems to be
using spirit to refer to the invisible and absent force that “governs”
(tadbir) a body. The spirit's attribute of governance derives from the
inherent relation between spirits and bodies, high and low, heaven and
earth, effuser and receptacle. It follows that human beings can not sever
the connection between their spirits and their bodies. Sufis and
philosophers often describe the goal of disciplining
the soul by the term disengagement (tajrid), literally the
“stripping” of the spirit from its attachment to the body. Ibn al-Árabi
sometimes employs this term in the same context, but he maintains that it
is impossible for the human spirit to disengage itself totally from the
governance of a body. Governance goes on whether or not the spirit is
aware of the governance.” God says on the day when their tongues, their
hands, and their feet witness against them [24:24], that is what they were
doing through these [bodily parts]. They witness only as outsiders, for
their is no escape from some against whom they witness. {Again a humble offering...recall the
possibility that each structure might be having consciousness but it is
sealed from central operating system. The seal is lifted on the Last Day} To mention spirit is to mention by
implication a locus within which the spirit manifests its traces. This
locus is generally referred to as “body” (jasad, jism and badan). One
of the most common of the terms used interchangeably with body is
“form”, which is typically juxtaposed with “meaning”. Thus the
spirit is the body's meaning and the body is the spirit's form. Man'
specific make-up is the combination of governing spirit and earthy body.
It is this governing spirit that finds itself veiled from the absent
domains. Rational speech (nutq) is normally
considered the “specific difference” (fasl) through which human beings
are distinguished from other animals. Ibn al-Árabi disagrees partly
because the Koran often refers to the rational speech of inanimate
objects. If all things have rational speech this cannot be the specific
difference that makes human beings unique. Elsewhere he tells us that it
is only the fact of having been created in the Divine form that
distinguishes human being from others. There are three types of partial spirits,
vegetal, animal and human. Muslim psychologists differentiate among the
spirits by distinguishing among their faculties. “So the rationally speaking soul, along
with this bodily animal soul is no different from a rider on a beast
whether it be recalcitrant or docile”. Ibn al-Árabi points out that the spiritual
faculties despite their apparent eminence and nobility are utterly
beholden to sensation hence one finds God present not on the spiritual
level but rather in the actual sensory experience that many pious people
tend to disparage.” This is why God says concerning him among servants
whom He loves 'I am his hearing through which he hears and his eyesight
through he sees'....In reality the sensory faculties are the vicegerents
of God in the earth [27:62] of this configuration. Do you not see how He
has described Himself as hearing, seeing, speaking, living, knowing,
powerful, desiring? All these are attributes that have traces in sensory
objects and human beings sense from themselves that these attributes abide
within them but God did not describe himself as rational, reflective or
imagining”. [xxvi] The author of the paper returns to the
stage. Two Muslim thinkers who address the nature of human soul in detail
are Ghazâlî and Ibn Sina. There is great concordance on various
faculties of soul between these thinkers and Ibn al-Árabi hence I will
not discuss these faculties here. [xxvii] What concerns us is nature of
consciousness. As Ibn al-Árabi has mentioned, it is not clear how body is
intertied to animal soul, Ghazâlî uses the symbolism of light or
Light-being in the context of ruh. In his exposition of the Light Verse of
the Quran (24:35) Ghazâlî compares pure Being to the sun and the human spirit to
the elemental light. It is also a life force which imparts power to the
body comparing it to the radiation of light from a lamp which illumines
the body. [xxviii] Two
concepts in muslim thought present interesting parallels. First one is the
concept of five internal senses which process the data received from
external sense modalities; sensible imagination (Khayal), Estimation
(wahm), Common sense (in terms of sense communis), retentive /recollective
faculty (hafza/zakra) , imaginative faculty (mutakhayla) and thinking (mufakarah).
The last two are not distinct, from what I gather they take up different
roles according to the module which is using them. When animal soul is
served by imagination it helps in the acquisition of skills (something
akin to procedural learning) but when this same faculty is used by human
soul it performs the higher cognitive function like conceptual learning
involved in philosophical thinking and reasoning etc. Lets track the
process. The common sense makes ‘sense’ of the sensations received
from sense organs and organizes them as meaningful perceptions. It can
perceive pain and pleasure so in psychological terms it is responsible for
sentience. It cannot perceive abstractions but interestingly it can
anticipate both pain and pleasure. This obviously is crucial for welfare
of body that the ability to apprehend pain is linked to a common sense or
‘head of the perception department’. Cognitive Psychology divides process of
perception between sensory demons, feature demons and cognitive demon;
common sense does the work of all this demons. Khayal or sensible
imagination stores the perceptions and presents them to estimation. This
is the process of representation. Note that this is what Oakley calls
re-representation. It seems that there is no direct route from retentive
faculty to estimation; any reference that estimation needs is provided by
Khayal who ‘looks’ it up from retentive library and presents it to
estimation for current task at hand. But the networking is very complex.
Now this estimation (wahm) is where jugdements formulate hence it is
crucial that wahm be supervised by intellect (aql). The division of labour
is interesting. The recollective faculty extracts the abstractions hence
it retains meaning where as retentive faculty stores episodes. The
retentive faculty is custodian for Khayal i.e. sensible imagination
whereas recollective faculty is custodian for thinking. [xxix] The second
interesting concept is the analogy which Ghazâlî uses;
The human body and the emperor. Starting with emperor aql, he
assigns a role to every faculty, estimation serves reason and khayal
serves estimation, so does retentive faculty and so on. Now we know that networking with firing
pattern of various assemblies of neurons determine the message which brain
decodes. None of this networking is conscious. A distinction perhaps needs
to be drawn between consciousness and awareness here. We are not aware of
the brain processes or the details of the operation of five internal
senses, on this point traditional and modern psychology nod in unison.
That there is no need for the central mechanism to know the details of the
workings of its sub structures or sub-ordinate faculties also comes up as
a point of agreement; at some level some faculty (a deputy, a middle level
manager) is aware of the actions of the lower systems which report to it
and that serves the purpose. As mentioned earlier, if we look at various
'traces' of consciousness, self-knowledge, reflexivity, anticipation,
short-term memory and access to information, there isn’t much divergence
between Islamic and scientific views. But the traces are traces, only
manifestations, not the source. What is the source? If Divine breath was
blown into man then his consciousness is like a ray of the Divine
Intellect and he is theophany of Divine attributes of power, will, vision,
hearing, desire, life and speech. As Schuon states “The phenomena of
subjective (human consciousness) precisely comprises the proof of
spiritual substance from which matter and mind both emerged”. [xxx] Nasr states a similar point. “Self-awareness, from the point of view of traditional metaphysics, is not
simply a biological fact of life common to all human beings. There is more
than one level of meaning to ‘self’ and more than one degree of
awareness. Man is aware of his own ego, but one also speaks of
self-control, and therefore implies even in daily the presence of another
self which controls the lower self”. [xxxi] This central self is the
core of human conscious ‘I’. Man carries within himself many subtle
bodies (lataif) which he has to traverse before he can reach Self. [xxxii] Enough of cerebral talk. Lets get to
consciousness. An experiment in consciousness. Close your eyes and focus
attention on a word. Any word can be chosen for this exercise, wall, map,
computer, flower- the choice is open. Shutting off the eyes helps. For
some people who are not trained in blocking out external stimuli during
their waking time, some practice may be needed. How long can you hold it?
Does the word appear as an image or as written? Note that you can shift to
image from written word. Is there any difference in feelings which image
of flower evoke as compared to f-l-o-w-e-r? Now replace the original word
with light. Note the qualia /feeling which accompanies light. Is there a
visual for light? Doing consciousness is better than writing about
consciousness. “We are ceaselessly renewed on the ocean of existence, but since God has put Himself into this foam, it is destined to become a sea at the time of the final crystallization of spirits”. (Schuon) Reference: Chittick, W. C. (1998). The Self- Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Al- Árabi’s Cosmology. USA: State University of New York Press. Crick, Francis (1994).The Astonishing Hypothesis. New York. Touchstone. Malony. H.N,Brown.W.S & Murphy.N. (1998).Minneapolis,Fortress press. Naquib Al- Attas, S. N (1990). The Nature of Man and The Psychology of the Human Soul. Malaysia: Art Printing Works, SDN. BHD Murata. S .The Tao of Islam, New York, State University of New York Press.1992. Pinker, S. (1997). How the Mind Works. USA: W. W. Norton and Co. Ramachadran, V.S; & Blakeslee, S. (1999 ). Phantoms In the Brain. London: Fourth Estate Limited. Schuon, F, (1986) Essential writings of Frithjof Schuon, New York ,Amity house.p.392. Schuon, F. (1981). From The Divine to The Human. USA: Le Courrier du Livre. Smith, H (1996). Beyond The Post - Modern Mind (4th ed) USA: Quest Books Theosophical Publishing House. 96-118 Ramachandran, V. S..( 1999)Phantoms in the brain. London, Fourth Estate.p227-244. Skinner. M & Pickering .J (1990), London, Harvestor Wheatshief. I am indebted to editors of Readings on
consciousness- from sentience to symbols for bringing together in single
volume most the up to date scientific material on consciousness. [i] Schuon, F, (1986) Essential writings of Frithjof Schuon, New York, Amity house.p.392. [ii] Pinker, S. How the Mind works.p.132-132 [iii] Skinner. M & Pickering .J (1990)
.From Sentience to Symbols. Readings in Consciousness, England, Wheaton
press.p.9. Henceforth Readings. [iv] Ibid. p.10 [v] “The sterility of dualism is stressed repeatedly and it is now a classical introduction to a text on consciousness with Descartes playing the role of the straw man". Jean Delacour cf. Malcolm Jeeves ( 1998) 'Brain, mind and Behavior' in Whatever happened to the soul eds. Brown, W, Maloney.N , Murphy,N, , Minneapolis, Fortress press. p 90. [vi] For a historical overview please see Murphy, Maloney & Brown. Whatever happened to the Soul. [vii] Bergson. cf. Readings in Consciousness.p.104-107 [viii] F.J.Ayola ,What ever happened to soul. p38. [ix] Humpry.N. cf. Readings in Consciouness.p.101-107 [x] Readings.p.135-142 [xi] ibid.p.50-54 [xii] “The powers of life, consciousness and self-awareness are entirely invisible while being what we are mainly interested in. All our thoughts, emotions, feelings, imaginations, reveries, dreams, fantasies, are invisible...we are invisible ;we live in a world of invisible people” Smith, H (1996). Beyond The Post – Modern Mind (4th ed.) USA: Quest Books Theosophical Publishing House.p.59 [xiii] cf.Readings.p.49 [xiv] Readings.p.98. [xv] Readings.p.119-125 [xvi] Crick, Francis. Astonishing Hypothesis, p 15. [xvii] Ibid.p.146 [xviii] ibid.p131-135 [xix] Nasr.H.(1992) Knowledge and the Sacred. Lahore. Suhail Academy.p.171. [xx] Mandler.G.cf. Readings.p.166-168 [xxi] Crick.F. Astonishing Hypothesis.p.15-20 [xxii] Ramachandran.p.230-235 [xxiii] Pinker.p.132-135 [xxiv] ibid.p.562 [xxv] Schuon.F. Essentail Writings. P.396. [xxvi] Chittick. Self Disclosures of God.p.269-292 [xxvii] For a comparison of the concept of soul between three thinkers ,see Naquib Attas, The Nature of Man and Psychology of Human Soul. [xxviii] Amjad .N (1992).Psyche in Islamic Philosophical and Gnostic Tradition. In Quranic concepts of human Psyche .Lahore, International Institute of Islamic Thought.p.42. [xxix] Amjad.N (1997).”Shaksiat–nauiat or afa’al. Muslim Nafsiat key Khad o Khal.”.( Urdu book). trans. The nature and operations of personhood in An outline of Islamic Psychology. Lahore. Urdu Science Board. For a detailed discussion of Spiritual Psychology see Murata.S .Tao of Islam, New York, State University of New York Press.1992. [xxx] Schuuon.f.From Devine to Human.p.6-11 [xxxi] Nasr.H.(1993).The Need for a Sacred Science. New York. SUNY press. P.15. [xxxii] Ibid.p.16 http://www.kalam.org/papers/naumana.htm
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