What is your take on what constitutes the human being?

I refer to the human being as consisting of three simultaneously existing, and yet vibrationally separate realms of energy. I list these as the physical body and brain; the MIND realm... composed of an energy too subtle for the physical brain and senses to perceive; and a Spiritual realm, which includes the Soul and its operational energy...Consciousness.

The reason I ask is.... if, as my experience lends me to believe, the MIND feeds the brain its thoughts, how can one "trust" that his thoughts are valid... as regards all things, and in particular, his MIND? What if part of the MIND's purpose is to prevent one from discovering the existence of his MIND?

Eric Replies: [Return to Reaction and Comments page] or [Return to Home Page]

I think that my opinions regarding what constitutes a human being are pretty much expressed in my web site. The Perceiving "I" article and the section on the Mind and Body Problem in the Nature of Truth article, cover the ground you are interested in, I think.

You say that the human being consists of three simultaneously existing, and yet vibrationally separate realms of energy. I'm afraid that I cannot accept your premise that the human being is composed of these three different states in combination. My reason is, it is unnecessary to propose such a tripartite existence, since the body and, in particular, the brain, are on hand as potentially adequate explanations for all that we are (together with our experiences, of course). What you seem to propose is that three aspects of something which is one in reality, should be separated. But why? What is the purpose of such a separation? And what do you mean by "vibrationally" different? What exactly does vibration have to do with it? And how did you discover this?

In my opinion, the mind is what it is to experience an operating brain from the inside, over time. This is not to say that we already know everything there is to know in this area, but I suggest that we can eventually find out (if not everything, as much as is humanly possible), using the material methods we have on hand, examining the physical organs we possess. In other words, I rely on science to provide us with whatever can be provided in the way of answers.

You speak of the mind as being composed of an energy too subtle for us to perceive? I'm not sure what you mean by proposing such an energy. The very concept of "Energy" is a logical fiction, which helps us to deal with reality. It works well, as a mental abstraction, in mathematical calculations, but it does not actually exist as something separate within reality. Energy is simply a scientific proposition to deal with matter in another form than the one we traditionally associate with matter (i.e., solids). The energies of the brain are electrical and chemical. These energies are initialised by the genes. After consciousness is established, a mind develops over time.

It would not be possible to have consciousness, if one where never conscious. The mind is conscious of itself through its past consciousness: its store of bygone experiences and what it thought about them. The ability to think in a human way is genetic. The genes establish the common tools of a shared human mentality, but what is thought is a matter of individual experiences. Of course, each genetic combination is unique, and therefore, we have genetic individuality as well as a common inheritance. This means that individual minds have particular strengths and weaknesses, due to the individual's genetic inheritance, and his or her subsequent experiences, which bring out the strengths and weaknesses (or in some cases, hide them).

We can be self-aware. Therefore, your contention that the mind is composed of an energy too subtle for the physical brain and senses to perceive is not required for an explanation of what we are. Energy is simply matter in another form. Or, if you prefer, matter is simply energy in another form. Either way, we are dealing with the same thing, always.

Finally, to your proposal that the mind might have its own purposes, and that one of them is to hide itself from us. If this speculation is correct, then we are all wasting our time talking about something we can never know. Frankly, this speculation appears to throw doubt on all empirical data, since we can only be aware of reality through the senses, which only result in perception through the operation of the brain/mind. If we go down this route, we become trapped with Descartes' demon.

In what sense can we validate our thoughts, save against reality? If the mind has it's own purposes then reality could be reinterpreted according to those unknown and unknowable purposes, and reality would not have the shared consistency and coherence it has for us. Inter-subjectivity would be impossible and there could be no such thing as language.

Of course, this applies to our shared interactions with the physical world of nature. It is true that we have another, social world. In this sphere, we may indeed have motives with roots we are never fully aware of. But if this is carried over into the sphere of science, reality will eventually set us right. Even in the social sphere, anyone consistently acting in an antisocial manner is likely to come up against an unpleasant social reality as a result, sooner or later, and will be forced to re-evaluate (though, not necessarily change).

This area of psychological interest appears in the last paragraph of your message, where you mention the mind feeding the brain its thoughts. Surely this is known as The Subconscious, a part of the mind, rather than the mind as a whole? If by this entity (the subconscious) we mean to describe an area of the mind of which we are normally unaware, and from which emerges motivations and impulses which influence our behaviour in the social sphere, then I agree that there is such an area of the mind, with which we are not familiar, normally. This being so, it is an art, rather than a science, to probe such an area in another, because each of us is a unique individual. Unique individuals cannot be subject to science save in the most rudimentary sense. Generalisations can mislead as much as help in such areas. The practice of probing the subconscious of another may well result in unexpected revelations, some of which may well have been best left hidden (I don't agree with Freud in this matter). Since, as I hope we agree, the subconscious is an unknown area, we cannot know if our probings have been helpful or unhelpful to the individual in question, save by an examination of empirical results. In other words, do they appear to be happy with what they have discovered? Does their new knowledge seem to help them to deal with antisocial or self-destructive impulses in a more constructive manner?

Perceiving "I" [Return to Reaction and Comments page] or [Return to Home Page] or [Return to Top of Page]

Sharon Ziebe Writes:

Here's a hypothetical question for you: If scientists made twin clones, both with the exact same genetic material, raised them separately in controlled environments which were exactly the same, gave them each the exact same life experiences, would they turn out to be the same person? What would make them different? If you asked them a question, would they give the same answer? If you exposed them to the same people, would they fall in love with the same person? In any given situation, would they react the same way? When two things are so perfectly duplicated in every way down to the molecular level, would it be enough to make their thought synapses fire exactly the same way at every moment? Would they have the same consciousness? Would their human uniqueness and individuality would be gone?

Eric Replies: [Return to Reaction and Comments page] or [Return to Home Page] or [Return to Top of Page]

It does sound, at first, as if an identical pair might be formed - at least, theoretically. However, a number of points spring to mind: the first, a logical one. As no two human beings can simultaneously occupy the same space, the kind of identical experiences you are suggesting appear to be logically impossible. I cannot have the same experiences as you, even if you are standing right next to me during the whole period of my life. The very occupancy of differing parts of space at differing times makes for an insurmountable difference between the experiences of any two people, however closely matched. I cannot see through your eyes, so to speak, nor you through mine.

Even the smallest differences in experiences could serve to initiate divergence in development, altering any parallel development that the controlling scientists attempted to promote. One clone trips and grazes his knee, say, and the other does not. From such small incidents, and our reactions to them, a part of our individuality is derived. The clones would inevitably diverge, I think, because their conditions could not be comprehensively controlled, which is required to guarantee an exact duplication of experience. One might say that our individuality is at least partly formed upon accidents and our reactions to accidents. But no two people can ever possibly have exactly the same accidents at exactly the same time, continuously, through their whole lives, however controlled the conditions, due to the very nature of reality (some degree of uncertainty is inbuilt and cannot be eradicated, due to the fact that reality is an ongoing process which we cannot get outside of, and therefore cannot have a perfect knowledge of).

Of course, this is not to say that our hypothetical clones would not be alike in many, many ways. But they could never possibly be the same person without occupying the same body, which would make them one person and not two.

If you asked them a question, they might well give the same answer, given the same education. They might very well fall in love with the same person or with similar people. They could not, however, have the same consciousness without ceasing to be two people. One consciousness does not occupy two bodies. Even if, for the sake of the argument, we allow the possibility of such a thing, how could anyone (even the twins themselves) ever possibly confirm it with any degree of certainty? We assume that those around us think in similar ways to us and, by sheer coincidence, we occasionally voice the same thoughts at the same moment, but we never take this to signify an identity between our own consciousness and another’s.

In the case of our hypothetical twins, I tend to think that, though the differences between them might be few (and some might argue unimportant), nevertheless there would be differences. The necessary separateness of human bodies in time and space makes this so.

Sharon Ziebe Writes: [Return to Reaction and Comments page] or [Return to Home Page] or [Return to Top of Page]

Some of the points you made were very similar to my thoughts when I had the chance to discuss this with my sister Laura, a biologist doing genetic research on corn. We didn't get into the discussion of whether or not the twins would have the same consciousness, though.

One thing we both agreed to do was ignore the fact this experiment would totally impossible to actually perform. As you pointed out, because the twins are not occupying the same space there would undoubtedly be differences in experiences which lead to divergence's in development. The nature of nature guarantees that! We went with the assumption that these three things were true: the clone twins had the exact same genetic material, were raised in the exact same environment, and had the exact same life experiences.

Laura argued that because those three things determine who we are as individuals there was nothing left that would make one twin any different from the other. From a biological point of view they would be exactly the same person.

I (who had physics and no biology when I was in school) started with the approach that life itself was a form of energy. I remember learning the theory that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but just changes form. I said maybe it's more than genetics, environment, or experiences that makes us individual. Maybe it's the way energy manifests itself within our beings as "life" that makes us unique.

Laura said the energy in living beings was chemical and electrical and there was nothing special about it.

OK, I retorted. Then why can't you create life in the lab with just the raw materials? Everything substance my body is composed of can be separated and stored in a little bottle (or something). Throw it all together in a test tube and zap it! Why do you need a tiny bit of something that already contains this "life energy"? It's synergy - the result has somehow become greater than the sum of it's parts. But how do you define that variance? What is it? And if there is some unknown factor in the equation of life, is it the same for each living being?

Eric Replies: [Return to Reaction and Comments page] or [Return to Home Page] or [Return to Top of Page]

I must confess that I am drawn to agree with Laura’s point of view. You may remember that I have dealt with my conception of the meaning of the term “energy” already, in replying to comments by James W Patterson (see above). I really cannot see that anything beyond our genes and our individual experiences is required to explain our individuality, or the development of the perceiving “I”. If both these elements could be reproduced exactly for our clones, then I can see nothing left to distinguish them, beyond the brute physical fact of their separation by space. They would be the same person in two places at the same time. I cannot conceive of a way that it could actually happen, and I therefore find it difficult to think about it beyond that.

Your point concerning the creation of life in the laboratory with just the raw materials, I cannot agree with. Life is not created with just raw materials. Life is developed within a body built by genes. These genes contain the recipe for the construction of the body. This recipe is the result of millions of years of natural selection.

The complexity of the body arises from the instructions in the genes being read at the right time and in the right place, which is triggered partly by the context of embryology. Genes work together to produce what is required where it is required (where a heart is required, the set of instructions for building heart cells are read and all the other instructions for building the rest of the body are ignored). In other words, the building of a body requires a set of instructions, which must be followed in the right order and which must initiate chemical actions which make use of the raw materials made available by previous chemical actions. This comes about because the genes work together as a team (not consciously, of course, but in effect). Each cell built has a complete set of genes, but the correct subset of instructions for the part of the body where the cell is situated are activated by the context of all the other genes and their actions. Your sister can probably explain this better than I can, as she has studied biology. The main point is, the raw materials must be manipulated in complicated ways, which requires a set of instructions: not a set of instructions from outside of the process, with a consciously guiding intelligence, but a set of instructions which are actually within the process and a part of the process. A set of instructions which have evolved. We cannot yet produce such a set of instructions from scratch, but we can use those available in nature.

I think that you are quite correct to say that the whole is greater than the parts, for the end result of all this building is an organism with all that is required for the development of a human consciousness, needing only experiences to awaken it and shape it. Which is wonderful and amazing!

When we experience consciousness, and develop the "I" we identify with ourselves as perceiver, we feel that this experience cannot be explained by pointing to various body parts. This is not surprising. It's rather like the taste of a cake in our mouths being explained in terms of a cookery book. If you had no knowledge of reading and writing, and had never seen a book, this kind of explanation of taste would seem incomprehensible.

Life is, indeed, a marvellous thing, but apart from the raw materials and the recipe, I do not believe that there is any more to us, save our experiences. However, I do not see that this must debase us, or make a human life any less valuable. Indeed, one could even argue that it makes every human life even more valuable, in fact.

Sharon Ziebe Writes: [Return to Reaction and Comments page] or [Return to Home Page] or [Return to Top of Page]

Yes, the comments you wrote to J. Patterson and the "I" article were what made me write you. Despite the fact that I always come to the same inevitable conclusion - that we are the product of our genes, environment, and experiences - I'm always looking for a new argument that will logically contradict it. My ego, which is something programmed into our human genes, I think, makes me believe there is something more to my existence than that. I just can't prove it to myself - yet!

I was trying to argue that we ARE more than our raw materials and experiences. I've become stuck on this idea more than ever after reading your definition of "logical fictions". What we perceive as "real" and "factual" and "true" are only those things within "the context of an agreed mental framework". This is true for mathematics, physics -- all sciences. Though I can't remember the details, I remember a math professor demonstrating, in a mathematical proof, that 1+1 is not equal to 2. (Will research this if you like - it was many years ago). The science of astronomy, for example, seems to always bring to light contradictions in scientific laws and theories. (Again, no specific details but can research.) Because the very foundations of our scientific truths are theories, or in essence, beliefs, I have to believe that what we know to be true is only the beginning of what we can learn. There is no real endpoint, no final conclusion.

You mention that we are different from the rest of the animal kingdom in that we have more than basic instinct, we have consciousness. Instinct of course, is part of the genetic package and evolves differently for every species, depending on what instincts are needed for the survival and propagation of that species. What role does consciousness play in human evolution? Why do we need this complex perception of our environment? Of ourselves? I'm guessing that you would argue that this type of perception is what leads to our ability to see patterns, to anticipate consequences, etc. (much as you say in the article), and that this very ability has allowed our species to survive and become the dominant life form on the planet. We have the ability to not just learn from our own experiences, but from the accumulated and constantly evolving experiences of our entire species.

Eric Replies: [Return to Reaction and Comments page] or [Return to Home Page] or [Return to Top of Page]

It really isn’t surprising that our Ego stimulates a feeling that there is more to us than the elements we have been discussing, but I tend to believe that such hopes and promptings are simply a sophisticated expression of the survival instinct. The truth concerning our Self can be pretty unpalatable, and can, in fact, lead to a dreadful despair in many who do not wish to contemplate such a truth - a despair that might even threaten the individual’s continued existence. It can be unpleasant to think that this life we are living is all there is, and that there is no great plan beyond it. But if you or I wish there to be more, it doesn’t necessarily mean there must be more, however much you or I may desire it.

It’s true that a belief in a god, or some great cosmic plan with a special place for Life, can be a great comfort to us. It makes us feel more secure and can give direction and purpose to our lives (particularly to hard lives with little to offer in material terms). Its appeal is entirely understandable and very widespread. Indeed, the vast majority of the human race still holds fast to such a belief, whether in a personal god, or some sort of cosmic plan ensuring the continued existence of something from the individual Believer. If you are looking for support for your view concerning energy, then one plank might be the fact that a similar sort of belief is prevalent throughout the world, expressed through different religions.

Your point concerning 1 + 1 is interesting to me. I’d like to hear more concerning it. I imagine that the argument might take the form of some variation on what follows?

If I say, “Here are two apples,” it might be argued that I am only showing you one apple and another apple. The “Two” we take as a result is a concept and not a physical, concrete fact. “Twoness” is abstracted byway of induction (an “essence” of Apple, derived from previous experiences of individual apples, is taken to be common to both the apples in our example, allowing us to place the problem within a previously established mental framework which aids our examination of reality). One can say, then, that grouping individual objects into sets perceived as similar is ontologically questionable (the groups are mental conceptions only), and perhaps does not give a “Real” result.

Our certainty regarding 1 + 1 = 2 arises from the context of a mental framework which presupposes and allows for the identity of similar objects in order to get started at all. In an argument criticising this assumption, the reality of the concept of number itself is being questioned, but to achieve this, the individuality of objects, by implication, must be emphasised, which is no more than another number (“Oneness”). How can one criticise the “Non-reality” of a numerical result, when the result of the undermining argument is numerical? (At this point, I’m laughing, hope you are too). Of course, we could always insist that reality itself is one, and that the mental groupings and divisions we apply are simply a way of dealing with it.

Rather like your point concerning “The whole being greater than the parts” with regard to the human being, numbers tend to become detached from individual, physical items and tend to almost take on a life of their own. Complex symbolic systems have an impetus, which seems beyond our conscious control. Similar things can happen in any large organisation, where, in spite of the best of intentions, things can come to pass which were not intended by the managers, and which appear to “evolve” as unintended side-effects. I think this might be explained in terms of the nature of large-scale co-operation, in combination with the uncertainty factor we previously mentioned as part of the nature of reality. The same point might be made with regard to genes and the development of individuality, don’t you think?

Things following instructions in an environment where the unforeseen can occur, tend to produce the illusion of something beyond the instruction-following things. In a biological environment, natural selection and mutation will tend to rewrite the instructions within genes, according to physical environment and success in reproduction. In this way, natural forces have gradually shaped us, over millions of years, into what we are.