Summary Normally, we make a distinction between mind and matter. Our mind, we say, consists of our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions (sight, sound, taste, smell and touch). Our mind seems to be located in our body, particularly in our brain. Our body and everything outside of it seem to consist of something totally distinct from mind, which we call matter. Many people consider this the 'scientific' point of view, with the implication that to deny this distinction is to be in some sense 'metaphysical' and unscientific.
In fact, it is easy to see that we have no way of determining whether any such thing as matter actually exists. The argument is very simple, and it is associated with the 18th century philosopher Berkeley. It is simply that we never actually perceive any such thing as matter. Rather, we perceive only the effect that matter supposedly has on our perception.
The reason we believe so strongly in matter is that the content of our perception is so vivid (compared to our thoughts) and behaves in a regular and predictable fashion. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, several people in the same 'place' will tend to agree about the content of their perception. This leads us to suppose that there must be something real and solid that is external to our perception and that is the cause of what we perceive. We give the name of matter or substance to this supposed cause. But there is no way of verifying whether such a hypothesis is true.
And at a deeper level, to be elaborated upon later, we don't really know what we are talking about when we postulate the existence of matter. In effect, our notion of matter might be called an imaginary shadow of our perception arising from confusion. That is, the concept of matter is like an illusory aura or emanation from perception, that exists in our minds only, due to confusion. (How ironical to consider that many materialists believe that consciousness is an insubstantial 'aura' or 'epiphenomenon' of the brain — the reverse of what is being claimed here!)
Stated differently, there is no way to disprove the possibility that all that we perceive is nothing but a powerful illusion produced in our consciousness by some god or demon. The fact that we share a common experience and perceive the 'same' world (each from his own perspective) can be accounted for by supposing that the god or demon is choreographing the illusion in that way. Our 'common sense' may resist such a notion, but a little reflection shows that God (if not the demon) is as plausible a hypothesis for the origin of our perceptions as the thing that we are pleased to call matter.
Alternatively, we may deny the need for any cause of our perceptions and assert that they simply exist. This would also amount to a denial of the existence of matter. However, there is no way to deny the reality of our mind or consciousness, which I will always take to include the categories of thought, feeling, and perception. The words 'mind' or 'consciousness' will always be used here as an abbreviation for any and all of these conscious experiences, for anything of which we are directly aware.
This key notion that only 'mind' exists is called 'idealism', and it has an ancient and controversial place in the history of philosophy. However, note that different philosophers may mean different things by mind. Some would restrict it only to thoughts, others to all conscious experience (as I have). Furthermore, some philosopher's notion of thought may not necessarily refer to the subtle and silent cogitations that we are conscious of in our own minds, but may instead refer to some other realm of 'thought', such as the Platonic realm of ideas (whatever that might be).
And if we use 'mind' or 'consciousness' in the sense of immediate awareness (and only immediate awareness), then the belief that this consciousness is all that exists is called 'subjective idealism', as developed by Berkeley. This is even more controversial, and it seems to be rarely held in academic circles, even those engaged in the study of religion and mysticism. However, I think it is undeniable that many mystical scriptures, especially those from the East, imply a belief in this doctrine on the part of their authors. I will eventually discuss examples of this on my website.
NOTE: I shall generally use the word 'consciousness' to denote what has here been called 'mind', since the word 'mind' is often restricted to the merely conceptual part of our consciousness. The mind or consciousness to which I refer is any instance of 'awareness' whatsoever, as discussed above.
OBJECTION 1: Violation of Common Sense
Your opinion is a gross violation of common sense. Any reasonable person knows that there is a world 'out there' (external to our mind).
Reply
So-called 'common sense' is neither an argument for nor against any given thesis. Nevertheless, we should try to understand why most people would feel this way. (To be honest, I feel that way most of the time, although I am slowly learning not to.) There are several reasons why common sense might be offended by the idea that everything is consciousness:
The idea is counterintuitive Our habitual thinking was developed by evolution to deal with what we call the 'environment' and not for philosophical analysis. From a practical point of view, it is convenient to divide the world of conscious experience into an 'inside' and an 'outside' — the inside being our thoughts and feelings and the outside being those perceptions that we are pleased to call our 'body' as well as the other 'objects' that we seem to perceive through the senses. This helps our rational mind to organize (passively comprehend) our flow of consciousness and to coordinate our responses. It is the legacy of our animal origins.
There are schools of philosophy that started with Kant and which say that the mind takes an active role in organizing consciousness in general and perception in particular, e.g. through the imposition of 'conceptual categories' on whatever is received from 'outside' the mind. Although I do not deny that our thinking plays a role in interpreting what we experience, I think that this is only in a mundane sense, e.g., when prejudice prompts us to incorrectly judge the intentions of another person. I deny that there is any 'noumenal' world (Kant's term to describe the supposed world outside the mind) upon which mind might impose its filtering activities in the first place. 'Noumenal' is only a fancy word for 'matter', whose existence I am denying.
Furthermore, there is an important qualitative difference between the thoughts and feelings of our 'introspective' mental life, on the one hand, and of our perceptions, on the other hand. The perceptions seem so much more vivid and intense than thoughts or even dreams, at least to most people. Also, there is a common (or 'consensual') agreement regarding the content of these perceptions (i.e. different people in the same 'place' see roughly the same things). This gives an impression of 'objectivity' or independence from the more 'subjective' or personal nature of thoughts and feelings, which vary from person to person. Finally, the perceptions follow rigid rules (the laws of physics) over which we seem to have no control. That is, if we want to change our environment, then we can do so only in accordance with those rules and not by simply wishing for something to happen. (At least, this is true for most of us.)
All of this induces a powerful impression that our perceptions must have a 'source' that is distinct from our consciousness. The rigidity and intensity of perception is in contrast to the more flexible and evanescent nature of our inner mind. We grow accustomed to thinking of this inner mind as a kind of blackboard on which we can entertain thoughts and feelings as we please. (Actually, we have less control over our feelings than we like to believe, and even our thoughts are largely determined by habit and society, but that is another story.) At any rate, it is the intensity, regularity, uncontrollability and commonality of perception that makes us draw a sharp conceptual distinction between our 'internal' mind, which we call 'ourself', and the 'external' world, which must therefore presumably be 'other' than ourself and which is believed to be the source of perception.
Of course, we often identify with our body and call that 'ourself' too. However, the mere contemplation of death easily shows us how misguided this is. Our identification with thoughts and feelings is a bit more insidious, and it may require some reflection to realize that this is no different than identification with the body. The question of whether we have any kind of self at all is subtle in the extreme, and the deepest philosophical and religious thinkers have (apparently) disagreed over this (e.g. Buddhism vs. Vedanta). We will discuss that later. For now, we are not concerned with the question of personal identity (i.e. how we should interpret mind) but with the refutation of the notion that there is anything external to mind.
However, the qualitative differences between thoughts and feelings, on the one hand, and perceptions, on the other, are nothing more than qualitative differences. We are in no way justified in jumping to the conclusion that any such thing as a 'source' or 'cause' of perception that is 'other' than or 'outside' of consciousness is in any way necessary or justified. This might be called a primordial non sequitur. All that we can say is that we have different categories of conscious experience, distinguished (in most people) by sharp qualitative differences, e.g. the intensity of perception vs. the evanescence of thought.
Now later, I may seem to contradict myself by arguing that we do require an ultimate 'reason' or 'source' for our consciousness, including our perceptions. This ultimate source must be conscious and intelligent and could be identified with the 'God' of traditional religions. However, I dislike this term due to various unsavory connotations, so I will refer to this principle as Consciousness. Indeed, this Consciousness is essentially the infinite consciousness which sustains our seemingly finite consciousness. This is not a contradiction with what is being argued here, namely, the denial of a material world that is external to our mind. This is discussed in more detail in Source of Reality, but let me present the basic idea.
Stated briefly, I simply cannot believe that the objects of experience, whatever they might be (mind or matter), simply 'happen'. They do require a source or cause, but this source or cause can only be of a divine nature, in some sense of the word 'divine'? In what sense? Well, this source must be uncreated, or rather self-created, and it must be conscious with a high degree of intelligence, in order for nature to manifest as it does. Basically, existence (now taken as conscious existence) clearly seems to me like a kind of miracle, and only the concept of a Dvivine Consciousness could account for this. If we are so spiritually jaded that we see no 'miracle' in our experience, nor any need to postulate a divine origin for this miracle, then it seems inconsistent to me to postulate the existence of matter. If we are so objective, rational, cold-blooded and supposedly scientific and empirical that we reject metaphysical explanations as a matter of principle, and postulate no entities beyond what our senses immediately reveal, then we are being equally 'metaphysical' and 'unscientific' in postulating the existence of matter. No one has seen that either. So we do need a Divine Source, but there is no need to postulate the useless, unverifiable and meaningless notion of matter. Our experience is nothing but consciousness, and Consciousness is the source.
However, the argument for Consciousness is more involved that this, and I shall leave the full discussion until later.
Note: Some spiritual thinkers loosely associate consciousness with 'energy', presumably physical energy. In this way, they try to bridge the apparent gap between mind and the world, while retaining both. Substituting the word 'energy' for 'matter' does not make any difference to the arguments presented here, even though energy may seem to have a more 'spiritual' nature than matter. By 'matter', I simply mean the supposed substance of the supposed external world. This substance might be matter or energy or anything else, without changing any of the arguments above. Of course, one can always borrow the word 'energy' to describe some aspect of consciousness, e.g. some intense spiritual experience. We should then see to it that our meaning is clear from the context. It is not correct to philosophize by using words in a vague and ambiguous way, except perhaps as a kind of inspired poetry.
Words are deceiving The main arguments against matter have been given. It is only necessary now to point out the powerful effect that words and habit have on our thinking. I suspect that most of us believe that matter exists simply because we are used to using that word all the time. Also, words like 'substance', 'cause', 'object' and so on are used in an instinctive and unthinking way by habit. This skepticism about the use of words has now become commonplace in philosophy, especially among people trying to deny metaphysical ideas in the first place! However, the skeptical analysis of common words can also be used in the service of metaphysics.
Failure to understand what is meant by consciousness Some people are confused by idealistic arguments (i.e. the notion that only mind or consciousness exists) because they restrict their definition of mind or consciousness to only thoughts (and maybe feelings as well). Of course, if we do that, then perception is clearly something else. And once we think of perception as 'something else', it is only a small step to identifying it with external objects. This is in fact how we normally think. We don't say, 'Here is a red shape caused by an apple external to our mind'. Instead, we say, 'Here is an apple'. So any failure to include perception within our definition of consciousness naturally leads to realism (the belief in an external world of objects). However, as stated in the summary above, I always take the words mind and consciousness to refer to anything of which we are conscious and aware, which clearly includes thoughts, feelings and perceptions.
The tradition in Western philosophy of equating mind with only rational or introspective thought seems to be due to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, as far as I know. He had a famous disdain for the perception of the senses, which he considered a lower form of reality — one that only imperfectly reflects the higher truth of his so-called 'ideas'. This disdain, in my opinion, had a spiritual origin, namely the fact that our attachment to our senses and to the desires associated with them often impedes spiritual progress. However, this spiritual problem should be kept distinct from 'ontology' (the examination of what really exists).
In summary, it seems clear to me that:
Solipsism is the notion that only my consciousness exists. If I deny the need for an 'external' material world as the source of perception — on the grounds that such an external world is unnecessary and has never been observed — then should I not apply the same logic and deny that any other conscious minds exist, other than my own (which surely exists since I am directly aware of it)?
Reply
There may be some logic to this argument, but it does not bother me in the slightest. It seems clear to me that this possibility is so improbable that one can simply dismiss it out of hand. How could I possibly be the only consciousness? The sheer arbitrariness of such a notion destroys it, in my opinion. Why me? The infinitesimal (if not vanishing) logical possibility that it might be true simply does not bother me, although it might keep others awake at night.
Furthermore, the arguments for Consciousness to follow Source of Reality, if true, weigh powerfully against it. Clearly my mind, in its present state, lacks some of the attributes of divinity. Not only do I lack omniscience and omnipotence, but I do not even always feel all that good!
We have such a powerful impression of being immersed in space. What is space, then, and how should we understand it? And what about other people? Perhaps all inanimate objects are indeed figments of my imagination, but by rejecting solipsism, I assert the existence of other conscious minds like my own. If they are distinct from me in some sense, then must we not all be contained in some kind of space?
Our powerful experience of space cannot be denied. Perhaps time is only internal to our mind, but what on earth is space? The answer is simple. Space is our perception of space; it is our actual experience of space and nothing else. In no way is the richness of this experience being denied. And of course, by 'experience' I mean a conscious experience. (What other kind is there?) The mistake we make is to conceptually postulate something other than that experience.
Like a Dream A graphic way of making this point is to say that our waking experience is in no essential way different from a dream. Of course, there are qualitative differences in terms of the intensity, behavior and perhaps even the 'flavor' of the experience. However, just as we can be fooled by a dream into believing that the 'objects' in the dream are real — i.e. that they are entities distinct from the consciousness dreaming of them — so also can we be fooled by our waking experience into making the same mistake about the objects of everyday life. In fact, we are more vulnerable to this mistake when awake, due to the vividness of waking experience and to the fact that our rational mind is then in control of our thought. This so-called 'rational' mind is programmed by nature into believing in objects distinct from consciousness, and our thinking is then locked into this mode of thought like a train on rails.
Geometrical Thinking is Natural In no way am I denying that we should think as though there were an external, geometrical space. This is a natural, simple and elegant way of comprehending perception, and we were evolved to instinctively think in this way, at least in our daily activities. But as philosophers, we should inquire more deeply, especially when concepts of matter have deep and insidious repercussions on our spiritual life, such as leading us to identify with what we think of as our body and brain. Ultimately, an enlightened person can be fully engaged in the geometrical illusion of life while never forgetting that it is fundamentally a dream, i.e. that the nature of everything is consciousness. In fact, actively engaging in the dream seems like a lot more fun to me. This 'idealistic' view suggests that life is like swimming through a big ocean of consciousness, whereas in the 'materialistic' view we are all beached whales trapped in the discrete, isolated, petty and dead shells that we call our bodies. Consciousness is unified and alive; matter is discrete and dead. (More will be said about the unity of consciousness later.)
In other words, to get back to the main point, experience can seem as 'geometrical' as ever, without forcing us to believe in a world external to mind. What we called space was consciousness all along. The vivid experience of space was always 'within' consciousness. Even jumping from an airplane or flying through the stars in a spaceship is just a conscious experience, no matter how vivid. We lose nothing by rejecting matter, except for a contrived, unwarranted, useless and occasionally dangerous concept.
Some may still object that it is so much more 'natural' to think of space in the traditional way. For example, think of looking at a flower. We imagine rays of light leaving the sun, traveling through space, striking the flower, reflecting into our eyes, and producing the perception of a flower. Isn't it much more natural to think of all this as happening in the ordinary, external space of common sense?
I maintain that this is only a natural way of interpreting the regularities and consistencies of our perceptions, which are distilled in the laws of physics. In other words, our perceptions are mostly beyond our control and behave in an orderly fashion such that it is quite natural to envisage scenarios such as the one just described for the perception of the flower. But this scenario says more about the order, regularity and coherence of our tissue of perceptions than it does about any hypothetical reality external to mind. Our perception is what it is, and it certainly looks geometrical to me. However, I am content to stay with just this direct, vivid, immediate experience, and I avoid jumping to unfounded conclusions. After all, I am a scientist, at least in spirit!
The key point to grasp is that space is within consciousness, consciousness is not within space.
Space is Subjective This helps to answer the question, 'Where are other people located?' The answer is that we each have our own space within our consciousness, that there is no 'enveloping' space in which our minds are located, and that it therefore makes no sense to ask where our minds are located.
However, as stated already, it is a salient and crucial fact of life that our perceptions are coordinated with each other and with those of other people. They obey the laws of physics. (At least, they always have in the laboratory, assuming that we can trust every scientist who publishes in refereed journals!) This accounts for the powerful impression of objective reality, i.e. the appearance of an external material world distinct from our mind.
Notice that when people say that they are in the same place observing the same things, this means nothing but the following. Several minds are each experiencing private, individual flows of perceptions that happen to have similarities. The differences are what we call differences of perspective.
Meaning of a Common World We can have faith that we are experiencing similar perceptions because of communication. Every act of communication is private, in that we never experience another person's perceptions, only our own. We communicate only with our perception of another person's body — what we call 'external appearance' — which includes sound as well as sight (and the other senses as well on occasion). Through the complicated process called language, we can interpret another person's words (and the ideas suggested by them) in terms of our own perceptions and experiences. By living a normal life, we have grown accustomed to a certain consistency between our interpretation of another person's words and our own experiences. There may in fact be some differences between our experiences and those suggested by the words of another, but they are minor and don't prevent normal living. (Actually, misunderstanding is a well-known source of conflict in personal relationships, but I am only taking about mundane facts and everyday experiences.)
Eternal Isolation? This notion that we are each locked into our own 'bubble' of consciousness, and that there is apparently an infinite chasm between our consciousness and that of another person, may arouse chilling emotions. Perhaps each of us might as well be a lunatic locked into our own delusions. Do we ever really know and love another person, or only our imagination of that person?
I am not troubled by this. Of course, it can be very difficult to really know someone, even someone with whom we are very familiar, but this was true even before embarking on metaphysical speculation. Over time, our experience of another person can acquire enough consistency that we develop faith in that person. And can we totally trust ourselves, even though we have direct and immediate contact with our own consciousness? This consciousness changes from moment to moment, and over a lifetime it may change drastically. (In most cases, we should hope that it does.)
DISCUSSION 2: Matter an Imaginary Shadow of Perception Arising from Confusion
One of the reasons that the concept of matter has such a powerful hold over our everyday thinking is that we imagine 'external objects' (i.e. external to our mind) to be 'colorless, odorless, tasteless' replicas of what we actually see. That is, we conceive of the material world as having the geometry that we imagine it to have, as well as something called 'solidity' that gives these supposed geometrical objects their 'substance' or 'mass'. The materialist may not be quite sure exactly what matter is, but he is certain that 'external space' and the objects in it exist and obey a 'Cartesian' geometry, at least on a local scale. (Cartesian geometry is the usual geometry of common sense. Students of physics know from the Theory of Relativity that on a larger cosmic scale, space is supposed to bend and distort, something like rubber, but we will not deal with that here.)
The key to undermining this powerful prejudice in favor of external, geometrical space is to invoke the principle already mentioned, namely, that space is in consciousness, consciousness is not in space. Once we fully grasp this idea, our gut-felt bias in favor of an external material world suddenly crumbles into dust. We then realize that our notion of matter is only an imaginary shadow of perception.
In fact, whenever we think of 'objects' in geometrical space, we think of nothing but an actual experience or perception of those objects in space, with some of the qualities such as color and texture 'abstracted' or removed. We may also simplify the shapes of the imagined objects into lines, surfaces, rectangles, circles, triangles, boxes, spheres and other simple forms often considered in geometry. Once we learn how to calculate properties of these shapes, such as length and area, we become impressed with the power of mathematics, which may seem elegant compared to the messy detail of actual perception. The 'abstractness' of mathematics may also seem (or perhaps 'feel') like a different kind of reality than perception. However, at no time has any of this 'abstraction' of qualities from perception resulted in something fundamentally different from perception, except in our mistaken imagination. We have simply stripped some of the qualities of the perception away in our mind.
When have you ever thought about geometry without imagining some shapes in your mind? You have not, because you cannot, although you may think that you can. It is true that by learning mathematics we can describe and calculate geometrical properties without actually imagining anything at all, just by following the rules of mathematics like a computer or robot. But when we consider the meaning of the mathematics — or at least those branches of mathematics that describe geometrical objects — we must return to a pictorial way of thinking. Those who do not feel this need have simply decided that they are satisfied with manipulating the mathematical symbols like a machine. They can entertain themselves doing this and are impressed with the results, and this is evidently all the 'meaning' that they need in order to be happy with their mathematics.
However, to me the symbols have no meaning except insofar as they refer to 'pictures', and these pictures are but abstracted copies of perception. This is one of my fundamental philosophical 'axioms'. Some might say that this is precisely my problem, that I have arbitrarily defined 'meaning' in such a way. I can only reply that at some point, in order to think at all, I have to calmly contemplate my experience and decide what seems most basic and self-evident. And this 'meaning of meaning' (as it pertains to geometrical objects) is one such case.
Some have been impressed by the fact that a single equation can describe many different instances of geometrical objects. For instance, the equation for the area of a circle in terms of its radius is valid for all circles. This may seem like a mysterious property, which may suggest the existence of an 'abstract' circle that exists over and above all actual circles. Such a circle would then be called a 'universal'. Plato believed that this 'idea' of a circle actually has more reality than the instances of circles perceived in perception, the latter being in some sense derived from the universal circle. However, I believe that this is a confused and invalid way of thinking. There is no mystery to me in the fact that an equation for a circle applies to all circles. All perceived circles simply have some properties in common, which is why we call them 'circles' in the first place. I see no need to invent the abstract and unperceived 'universal' circle any more than I see a need to invent the abstract and unperceived thing called matter. In this sense I am a classical empiricist, except when it comes to the subject of Consciousness. There are special reasons for believing in Consciousness, which is not too surprising or inconsistent considering what a special 'thing' Consciousness is. (My good friend Bishop Berkeley believes in the similar notion of God, and they call him an empiricist, as well as a subjective idealist. So an 'empiricist' is not necessarily anti-metaphysical or hostile to spirituality.)Another argument sometimes advanced in favor of an 'abstract' interpretation of geometry has to do with 'higher-dimensional' spaces. The mathematics of geometry can easily handle spaces with more than the three dimensions of perceptual experience. To some, this seems like an argument in favor of a geometrical 'reality' distinct from perception. However, we should first realize how the development of higher-dimensional geometries comes about. First, some rules are derived that correctly describe the 3-dimensional space of perception. The volume of a sphere is a simple example. These rules follow patterns that depend on the dimension. The patterns of these rules can then easily be modified for other dimensions, and this modification is purely formal. It is a matter of changing symbols and the rules to manipulate these symbols.
If we can understand and accept that our notion of geometrical objects is derived from our perception through abstraction of qualities, and has no meaning separate from this 'reduced' perception, then we can grasp why space is in consciousness (i.e. perception) and not vice verse. This fundamental realization leads to a profound conceptual and philosophical conversion that radically alters our view of the world. It then becomes easy to see why I say that matter is an imaginary shadow of perception and why the idea of an external geometrical space had such a stranglehold over our thinking.
We also realize that nothing of importance has been abandoned. Space is as rich an experience as it ever was. In fact it is richer, since we have discarded the empty notion of an abstract space that is separate from experience and retained only the vivid reality.
Modern neuroscience has clearly correlated many 'thought processes' (including feelings and sensations) with electro-chemical processes in the brain. Like it or not, this proves that mind is only brain (a material object) and that the material brain is the true reality. Furthermore, when the brain disintegrates after death, then we are gone for ever, and there is nothing that we can do about it.
Reply
There is clearly a very strong correlation between what we perceive directly in consciousness (thoughts, feelings and perceptions) and what occurs in the brain. In many experiments, it has been shown that when someone observes some object, a particular region of the brain experiences an increase in activity, as measured by instruments that record electromagnetic or chemical events (in particular the transmission of electro-chemical signals between neurons). Motor activity and even the intention to do something have also been correlated with brain activity. The same is true of thoughts and feelings.
Issue of Free Will Before analyzing this relationship, I must say something about the thorny issue of free will. As we will see, this 'problem' is closely related, in the minds of many, to the entire question of whether mind is reduced to brain. Clearing up some misconceptions regarding the nature and desirability of so-called 'free will' helps to avoid confusion later in our discussion of the relationship between mind and brain.
First of all, it is a matter of scientific discovery whether or not every element of consciousness is directly correlated to some electro-chemical brain process. By directly correlated, I mean that whenever that particular electro-chemical process occurs, then the associated element of consciousness also occurs, and vice versa.
Now, if every element of consciousness is thus rigidly correlated with electro-chemical activity, and if we neglect quantum indeterminacy, then it would seem that the flow of our consciousness cannot be other than it is, at least while we are in this body. This is because electric and chemical activity follows precise and rigorous laws of physics, except for the uncertainty of quantum mechanical 'fluctuations'. These quantum mechanical fluctuations are so weak that it is questionable whether they can have any significant influence on electro-chemical brain processes. If they do not, then it would seem that we have no 'free will', that is, we are programmed by the laws of physics to think what we think and to do what we do. Some would call this a refutation of any meaningful concept of mind as distinct from brain. They would say that not only do we vanish into oblivion when we die, but we are helpless puppets while we are alive. The body and brain are everything, and consciousness is at most a 'ghost in the machine'.
This view of ourselves is so convincing to many 'scientifically-minded' people that they even deny that the ghost (i.e. consciousness) exists! Only the machine (i.e. brain) exists. Such an extreme view is clearly lunacy to me. If there is anything that certainly exists, it is consciousness. However, we may wonder whether this consciousness can exist separately from the brain. There seems to be such a close association (correlation) between the two that we may indeed inquire whether our consciousness vanishes when our brain disintegrates.
This question of free will is very challenging, as are all important questions in philosophy. I will return to it later, but for now I can give an outline of my opinions. My inclination is to think that we are indeed controlled rigorously by cause and effect and that it does not matter. The alternative would seem to be chaos and unpredictability, and how is that any better? The phenomena in our consciousness are probably rigorously determined by the preceding phenomena in consciousness, as well as by stimuli from the 'body'. This scientific notion of causation is nothing but the observation that Event B always follows Event A. This rigid chain of phenomena may or may not be rigorously correlated with electro-chemical processes in the brain.
In my opinion, the anxiety over free-will is a philosophical 'red herring'. What is important is that we somehow become trained (i.e. 'educated' in the broad sense) to be good and happy people (whatever that might be). This training can occur through the love and care of our parents, teachers, spiritual leaders, or friends, and through the example set by other good people. It may occur through some combination of edification and discipline. Also, we may learn through our own pleasant and painful experiences, and through reflection upon these experiences. All of this 'spiritual education' is nothing but cause and effect in the psychological realm, and it is a good thing. How would we become better if there were no cause and effect, unless we hope for a divine miracle? (If you believe in the traditional notion of God, then there is evidently a profound reason why he does not simply make us good by fiat. We will return to that later, after discussing the existence of Consciousness.)
In brief, cause and effect is a good thing as it forms the basis for improvement. The alternative is chaos and unpredictability, which cannot be considered desirable, unless you like to gamble.
Mind-Brain Correlation Having disposed of the question of free-will, let us return to the idea that mind may be identical to brain. The empirically strong (if not absolute) correlation between conscious experience and brain activity may lead us to think that mind is 'nothing but' brain, and that the former cannot exist without the latter.
The key point is that none of this matters to our essential argument that only consciousness exists. What we call 'brain' is nothing but a subset of our perceptions, and these are clearly within consciousness. All of the arguments for denying any reality to a matter that is 'external' to perception apply with equal force to the brain, which is only a subset of this fictitious matter. The fact that our thoughts, feelings and perceptions are correlated with those perceptions called 'nervous system' only shows that some parts of consciousness are correlated with other parts of consciousness. There is nothing in this correlation that requires us to suppose the existence of a 'material' nervous system that is distinct from perception.
When a brain surgeon operates on a brain, the entire activity is nothing but a sequence of perceptions, no matter how graphic and 'tangible' these might be (opening a skull, seeing a gray and bloody gelatinous mass, inserting a knife into this mass, and so on). Likewise, when a researcher sticks electrodes into the brain of an animal or a human, everything is perception, as are the readings recorded on his instruments. Furthermore, our brain is not the brain seen by the surgeon. As discussed above in relation to space, we each have our own sequence of perceptions of a fictitious common 'object', which is no other that the similarities that exist between the perceptions of different people in the same 'place'. (In fact, 'being in the same place' means nothing other than the fact that several minds are having similar sequences of perceptions.)
However, this does not dispose of the question of what happens after death. Barring other observations or reasons, it may or may not be the case that those elements of consciousness that we call our 'internal mind' (thoughts and feelings) can exist separately from those perceptions we call body (and brain in particular). Discussions of the afterlife must be left until after we have discussed Consciousness and the purpose of this life.
Perhaps one day we will be able to show that the 'internal mind' cannot occur unless the (perception) of body is simultaneously present. This still would not mean that we necessarily disappear into oblivion after the disintegration of our present biological body. We may have a subtler 'psychic' body that we are not aware of through the perception of the (biological) senses. Furthermore, even though thoughts, feelings and imagination may disappear at death, upon the disintegration of the brain, they might still reappear later, when we have somehow acquired a new body. In other words, it is one thing to show that our internal mind can only occur if a body simultaneously occurs, and another to show that our internal mind can only occur if this body occurs. Since body is but a sequence of perceptions, we can even question what we mean by this body. The only way to prove mortality is to show that our internal mind disappears forever when the sequence of perceptions that we call our present body evolves into a state that we call biological death and decay. To prove this, we must first die and 'see what happens'. We might, however, believe in immortality based on metaphysical and spiritual considerations, to be discussed later.The possible disappearance of consciousness right after death in no way precludes later reappearance. After all, it seems to me that during sleep there are periods of oblivion without a trace of dreaming. Yet we are not surprised to wake up the next morning fully conscious. This is because of our faith in the body, which we believe to be the true reality persisting during absences of consciousness. This might even be an argument in favor of the existence of an external material body! However, the various lapses of consciousness that we sometimes seem to experience (during sleep, fainting or coma) do not argue against the notion that everything is consciousness, but only against the notion that our consciousness is necessarily continuous. (And I am not even sure that I ever completely lose consciousness during sleep. I may simply not remember certain periods. As an experiment I have tried to remain aware while falling asleep, but it is difficult!)
This line of thought can become quite intricate. Since I have said that space (and by implication time) are internal to consciousness, and that we each have our 'own' space and time, which are nothing but an aspect of our conscious experience, then it is not correct to think of a lapse of consciousness as actually occurring. That is, we should not think that there was a period of time during which our consciousness 'turned off'. That lapse of time did not exist for us, since our time is within our consciousness. The 'lapse of consciousness' only has meaning when we try to correlate our experience with that of others, as well as with the fictitious exterior material world that conveniently models our perceptions. From a practical point of view, our perceptions are 'explained' (conveniently modeled) by assuming that the hypothetical material world from which they supposedly originate continues to exist even while we are unconscious, just as it is convenient to suppose that a vast world exists outside the realm of immediate perception even while we are awake. Our perception behaves as though this smooth, continuous and coherent 'world' exists, and it is appropriate to think that way when engaged in everyday activity. In fact, the 'world' or 'universe' is nothing but this coherence and continuity of perception. We can smoothly interpolate and extrapolate between the gaps in our own perception, and we should do this, in order to 'live in the world'. It is only when notions of materialism impinge in a harmful way on our spiritual life that we should seek a deeper and more enlightened view of reality.
DISCUSSION 3: Subject and Object
The view that everything is consciousness would seem to deny the distinction between subject and object. Normally, by 'subject' we mean the conscious mind, and by 'object' we mean any of the material 'things' (including brain and body) that appear to exist in a world that is 'external' to our mind. If there is only consciousness and not a material world, then the distinction between subject and object appears to collapse. The logical implication is that 'I am the world'. Is this nonsense?
Note: Having rejected solipsism, I should also say that 'You are the world'. This seems self-contradictory. How could two different minds — yours and mine — be equated to a single third thing (the world)? Perhaps I should say that 'I am my world' and 'You are your world'. Such a distinction will do for now, but later, after having discussed Consciousness and after having equated him with our own consciousness, this implicit assumption of an absolute separation between my mind and yours will need to be reexamined.
Note: One might also consider the categories of consciousness listed above (our thoughts, feelings and perceptions) to be 'objects' in some sense. We may feel that there is a 'seer' that sees these 'objects' of consciousness fly by like images on a screen, yet remains distinct from what is seen. Or it may seem like semantics to distinguish between the seer and the seen (that is, between the seer and conscious phenomena, material objects having been banished from our consideration). This is a difficult and profound question that will be addressed in the following.Both points of view are expressed within Vedantic philosophy, often by the same philosopher, as well as within the Upanishads, upon which Vedantic philosophy is based. This apparent contradiction arises from direct mystical experience, but can be resolved at a 'higher level of thought', as I hope to show. Also, Buddhism technically rejects any kind of a self or subject, but even this may not be absolute, when the real intent of the Buddhist psychology is understood, as I also hope to show. Based on my limited understanding so far, both of these great Indian religious outlooks have much more in common than either might be willing to admit, notwithstanding semantical differences. I intend to examine this as carefully as possible on another page some day when I have the time.
To say 'I am the world' is nothing to be afraid of. We need not feel bewildered. It is like saying that there is no difference between a dream and the objects perceived in the dream. We would never attribute an independent reality to the objects in a dream, so why are we troubled by this in our waking state?
To be precise, I should say that in our waking state, we realize that the objects in the dream are not distinct from the dreamer. Now for some reason, we all feel quite convinced that our 'grip on reality' is more reliable when we are awake than when we are dreaming! So we should all have no trouble agreeing that the objects in the dream are not distinct from the dreamer. The next step, somewhat more controversial, is to apply the same insight to the waking state as we unhesitatingly apply to the dream state.In other words, how is the waking state fundamentally different from a dream? We have already seen that it is different in terms of vividness, regularity and other such qualities, but what fundamental difference is there? In both cases, a 'stream of consciousness' unfolds. The qualities and details of this stream are immaterial to the essential point that in both cases only the actual consciousness exists, and there is no need nor justification to invent anything beyond this consciousness.
My basic response, therefore, to the question of subject vs. object is to reiterate my primordial intuition that the stream of consciousness is what 'exists' and it is all that exists. All answers to philosophical questions must begin with the calm and silent (i.e. wordless) contemplation of this fundamental insight, which is nothing but a clear, simple and direct insight into reality as it is. Words are only allowed afterwards, as labels for observations made during the silent contemplation of actual consciousness. If we start by throwing words like 'subject' and 'object' around before engaging in this silent contemplation, then we are likely to be confused and misled by the words.
As mentioned before, schools of philosophy beginning with Kant have maintained that the mind shapes experience rather than just passively recording it. And as I said, this kind of thinking is based on the false notion of a 'noumenal' world, i.e. one external to the mind. The same arguments already given against matter apply to this so-called noumenal world as well.
And yet I sometimes sense that this is not quite the entire story. To begin with, I take it as rather self-evident that your stream of consciousness is different from my stream of consciousness. We do not think each other's thoughts nor feel each other's pleasure or pain (except perhaps through the seemingly indirect mechanism of sympathy). Nothing in my philosophy seeks to blindly refute the obvious. The denial of matter, for instance, is really quite reasonable, once you understand what is being said, and it is totally in accord with experience.
But keep in mind the parenthetical remark already made, namely, that once your consciousness and mine are separately equated (in some sense) to Consciousness, then this notion of an absolute separation between our minds must be reexamined.
So if by 'self' we mean this stream of consciousness vs. that stream of consciousness, then it seems pointless to me to deny that such a difference exists, at least for us in our present spiritual state. However, as explained in What is Space?, we must not be fooled by the words this and that into thinking of two minds as two discrete objects existing side-by-side in some kind of enveloping space or 'superspace'. A mind is only experienced 'from the inside' so to speak — i.e. each person experiencing his own mind.
Now let us concentrate on just one consciousness, say, yours or mine. Subjective idealism is now taken for granted, i.e. perceptions are just 'there' in consciousness all by themselves and do not refer to any external material reality. Can we nevertheless distinguish between a 'seer' which sees these perceptions and the perceptions themselves, which are the 'seen'? This is quite difficult, as I have said, and we must not be too hasty in coming to any conclusions. We must stretch our intuition as far as possible, which may not be easy.
Having reflected on this for some time, I would say that there is ultimately no difference between subject and object, for the reason given, namely that the fundamental reality is the 'stream of consciousness', and the words 'subject' and 'object' are just different words referring to this same stream of consciousness. For me, this fundamental intuition must always come before any words whatsoever arise in the mind. In fact, most philosophical confusion arises, in my opinion, from being 'addicted' to words as commonly used. Some prime examples are 'matter', 'substance', 'subject' and 'object'.
Are there then any reasons for thinking or inferring that there might be some kind of self beyond the immediate stream of consciousness? The Vedantins would say 'yes' and the Buddhists would say 'no', at least if they both 'go by the book' (or rather their book). If I am nothing but this stream of consciousness, then what enduring entity or identity is there that might be called a 'self'? (The denial of such a self would of course be the 'classical' Buddhist position.) The stream of consciousness can be seen as a continuous stream of 'snapshots' of consciousness, each of which lasts for only an infinitesimal moment, before disappearing into oblivion. The only reality is the snapshot of consciousness which exists at this moment, and it is extinguished as soon as it appears! (If it lasts for only an infinitesimal moment, can we even say that it exists at all?) Based on the simplest, clearest and most direct view of reality, the Buddhists would seem to be right. (The English philosopher Hume also had thoughts along these lines.)
For a long time, I agreed with the Buddhists, according to my perhaps imperfect understanding of their thought (assuming that they all agree in the first place on this fundamental issue). And yet...the Vedantins may have a point when they say that there is a permanent entity called the 'self' that underlies all consciousness. For them, it is the Atman or Self, the seer, the pure consciousness that sees all our experiences but is never seen. (This Atman is ultimately identified with Brahman or Consciousness, but that is another story.)
After all, do you not feel that it is the same 'you' which had some experiences yesterday or a year ago? Of course, much about you has changed, in both your body and mind. But can you really believe that the 'consciousness' or 'seer' that had yesterday's experiences is different from the 'seer' that is presently conscious? Perhaps this is like the illusion of matter, which so many people simply cannot give up. Maybe I have 'seen the light' on the subject of the non-existence of matter but remain deluded about the reality of a 'self' that endures despite the ever-changing flow of experience. Does not the Buddhist denial of the self have all the virtues of Occam's razor — simplicity, directness, self-evidence, and the refusal to posit anything that is not directly perceived?
At this point, let me voice an opinion about the Buddhist denial of self. We can revisit this in detail later, but for now I will be brief. Buddhism is primarily concerned, not with philosophy, but with the release from suffering and the attainment of 'enlightenment', as is Vedanta (and 'Hinduism' in general). All of these Indian religions see a major obstacle in our identification with, and attachment to, our senses, our desires, our body, our possessions, our social status, our beliefs, and anything else of an egoistical or impermanent nature. Perhaps this is the kind of 'self' that the Buddha meant to deny — the self that grasps at anything of an impermanent nature. Perhaps he was only saying, 'You are not your body or your possessions. You are not even your mind, in the sense of transitory thoughts, opinions, beliefs and emotions. You are pure spirit, and in this you must find your ultimate freedom and salvation.'No Vedantin would object to this. It is not at all clear to me, as some claim, that the Buddha would have necessarily rejected any notion whatsoever of a self, even at the level of 'pure consciousness'. True, it is a historical fact that Buddhists and Vedantins argued with each other, often vehemently, and perhaps for primarily political reasons, fueled perhaps by misunderstandings. At the same time, it is equally clear that they inspired each other and borrowed from each other. For example, I presently feel quite convinced that the Mahayana notion of 'emptiness' is essentially the same 'mystical' experience as the Vedantin notion of 'pure consciousness', although scholars and partisans may disagree. Also, the Advaita Vedanta seems to me to be quite close to the subjective idealism of the Buddhist Yogacara school, although many Advaitins (including Shankara) seem to reject the notion that reality is 'only' a dream or illusion. Actually, this isn't a fair statement of subjective idealism, nor of Shankara's view, but this is not the place to discuss this in detail. It is an interesting story that I would like to examine someday with some degree of scholarly detail.
How then might we explain this impression of an enduring self underlying the flow of consciousness? One possibility is to appeal to the powerful influence of memory. It may be only memory that produces the illusion of an enduring self. I seem to be the person that I was yesterday, because my present consciousness contains some memory, however vague, of yesterday's experience. My present mind introspectively perceives this 'photograph' of a previous experience and says, 'Oh yes! I am the same person who had the past experience of which the present memory is a reminder.'
If this view is correct, then it might be possible to give someone a hopeless identity crisis by somehow injecting false memories into his brain, assuming that these memories can be reduced to electro-chemical form. This may very well be true, but hypnotism can do the same thing. There is nothing new about the notion that we may be mistaken in our thinking, for whatever reason. Let us avoid pathological cases and consider only our usual understanding of ourself, when we are in a clear and normal state of mind.
I do not deny that memory enables us to 'remember who we are'. However, I do not consider this an argument against the notion that we may have some kind of permanent underlying self. The memory may in fact be a correct memory. I may feel like saying (and have some reason to believe) that 'Yes, I am the same 'seer' or 'consciousness' that had that experience in the past.' (I will avoid the word 'person' as being too complicated and loaded with connotations.)
So, for the sake of clarity, let us try to understand exactly what this notion of a permanent self underlying consciousness is. What exactly do we mean by it?