How much of our consciousness and identity is physical? I've started thinking of this again recently, having recently read Galileo's Dream and The Unwind Trilogy as well as having this exact conversation with a friend recovering from a surgery. You hear about organ recipients having strange new memories or cravings that can be attributed to the donor. Somehow some part of identity of the donor got transmitted via a kidney or liver. This is not consistent with our western idea of identity and consciousness living in the brain. I have not heard discussions of what happens to the donor. Do they lose part of their identity? A friend recently had a gall bladder removed as well as part of some intestine. I asked her if she felt something missing. I personally couldn't tell you if I feel more complete because I have my gall bladder. Like most of my physical body parts, the better they function, the less I know they are there. You are not supposed to feel your kidney, or your knee ligaments. But what is it like to suddenly have something like that taken out? To intellectually know it is missing as well as to viscerally know. My friend talked about the surgery causing a feeling of being disconnected from herself, having several experiences of watching from outside of herself. However, she also admitted that this may not exactly be because of the gall bladder removal, but due to a series of surgeries and just not quite knowing how to process the massive change in her life.
Which leads to the problem with the question: How would a scientist quantify the physicality of consciousness? One way would be to follow the cult practices described by Christopher Paolini in his Inheritance Cycle books, where the priests of Helgrind would amputate portions of their body in sacrifice to the Ra'zac. More senior priests have more amputated parts and eventually need to be carried around. If we could interview these subjects about identity, we might get some clues. Or since this is just a fantasy novel, we might interview trauma victims who have lost body parts, or even organ donors. But the entire exercise is completely subjective. As a physical scientist, I might want to get an MRI brain scan before and after a donation. But that takes me back to relying on western thinking about consciousness, which presupposes that the brain is where we will find answers.
One difficulty is that the physicality of life is so massively complex (100 billion nuerons in the brain, many trillions of cells in the human body) that objective, physical-science, particle-by-particle determinism is not possible. So I will be satisfied with remaining fascinated by consciousness and the complexity of life. I will continue to be intrigued by the physical connection to consciousness and the implications for universe sized intelligence and artificial intelligences.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Ritual?
Another friend mentioned "I don't do ritual". My first response is to want to know more. What? Why not? No rituals? or just no religious rituals? What specifically are you avoiding? Is the blanket dismissal of ritual really based in some deeper philosophy of meaning and how meaning is demonstrated? Perhaps one reason this statement 'popped' in my mind was because I view myself in the same boat. But when I ask myself all the questions that I wanted to ask my friend, I realized that I am not really as much of a ritual-avoider as I thought.
For example, I have lots of rituals that I follow around sports. But in thinking about them, I put them on because you are supposed to have rituals around sports. The old don't-change-your-socks-all-season-for-good-luck kind of thing. These rituals are often good for team chemistry when they are corporate ritual, and good for mind-clearing when individual.
A second recent encounter with ritual was attending a funeral mass. I realized that this mass was 100% ritual. Four hundred people were in the room on a Thursday morning, all for a ritual. What is the value? I think that the passing of a loved one can be so painful that it is beyond our conscious ability to know how to process. You can't think yourself to acceptance or moving on. So you sit in a mass. You let your body participate and let your community do the work. In a ritual like this, there is no thinking necessary. And it becomes a way to be physically part of a process in time. Perhaps it provides the time for the sub-conscious to begin its work of healing.
In many ways, this use of ritual as a placeholder in time connects to the phrase "faith of our fathers". This means that if there are times when I do not have faith, I can rely on the faith of my ancestors, who modeled perseverance and belief. I will be able to trust in them, and that their faith will be strong enough for me. It gives me permission to believe solely because they believed, and it gives me time to doubt. So ritual is both an act of individualism and of community.
One final thought on ritual. As a pacifist, I have a deep belief in the wrongness of violence for any reason. And the most frequent questions about pacifism come in the form of crazy hypothetical situations that I will likely never encounter. "But what if someone was holding a knife to your child and you had a gun in your hand..." kinds of scenarios. My only response is that I don't know what I would do. But I can only practice nonviolence on a daily basis, hoping that if I ever find myself in such a crazy situation, that all my practice will result in actions true to my lifelong belief. This lifelong practice is yet another form of ritual. A daily ritual of nonviolence, in all of the ordinary and boring ways that such a ritual manifests itself - hopefully building confidence that under stress, reactions will follow that same ritual.
So I do ritual. But I also have a counter-cultural, non-conformist, obstinate streak in me that results in me refusing to participate in some rituals, perhaps just for the sake of being different. But that is for another post.
For example, I have lots of rituals that I follow around sports. But in thinking about them, I put them on because you are supposed to have rituals around sports. The old don't-change-your-socks-all-season-for-good-luck kind of thing. These rituals are often good for team chemistry when they are corporate ritual, and good for mind-clearing when individual.
A second recent encounter with ritual was attending a funeral mass. I realized that this mass was 100% ritual. Four hundred people were in the room on a Thursday morning, all for a ritual. What is the value? I think that the passing of a loved one can be so painful that it is beyond our conscious ability to know how to process. You can't think yourself to acceptance or moving on. So you sit in a mass. You let your body participate and let your community do the work. In a ritual like this, there is no thinking necessary. And it becomes a way to be physically part of a process in time. Perhaps it provides the time for the sub-conscious to begin its work of healing.
In many ways, this use of ritual as a placeholder in time connects to the phrase "faith of our fathers". This means that if there are times when I do not have faith, I can rely on the faith of my ancestors, who modeled perseverance and belief. I will be able to trust in them, and that their faith will be strong enough for me. It gives me permission to believe solely because they believed, and it gives me time to doubt. So ritual is both an act of individualism and of community.
One final thought on ritual. As a pacifist, I have a deep belief in the wrongness of violence for any reason. And the most frequent questions about pacifism come in the form of crazy hypothetical situations that I will likely never encounter. "But what if someone was holding a knife to your child and you had a gun in your hand..." kinds of scenarios. My only response is that I don't know what I would do. But I can only practice nonviolence on a daily basis, hoping that if I ever find myself in such a crazy situation, that all my practice will result in actions true to my lifelong belief. This lifelong practice is yet another form of ritual. A daily ritual of nonviolence, in all of the ordinary and boring ways that such a ritual manifests itself - hopefully building confidence that under stress, reactions will follow that same ritual.
So I do ritual. But I also have a counter-cultural, non-conformist, obstinate streak in me that results in me refusing to participate in some rituals, perhaps just for the sake of being different. But that is for another post.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
The hard question
I was sitting next to a relatively new friend the other day and he asked me if I was Christian. When I replied in the affirmative, he immediately responded with "Why?". This was not a challenge or a rebuke, but a true inquiry. I suppose I interpreted it as "Why do you believe the things you do?". I am pretty sure I didn't have a good answer. Partially this is not a casual, small talk kind of question. So, how you doin' today? What do you believe and why? It is not that I haven't thought about these things before, and it is not that I avoid these meaningful discussions. In fact, I love having discussions about meaning and belief. But what do you say in 20 seconds? How do you do the grand total of your thoughts on belief systems justice on the fly? I think I answered something to the effect of ... I was raised Mennonite and still believe 80% of what I was taught. So with one sentence I was able to demonstrate that my belief system was lifelong, specific (Mennonite, not "just" Christian), and statistically measured (by pulling 80% out of the air). It is not that I need a sound bite answer to the what do you believe question, but it did disturb me a bit that I didn't have one. In hindsight, it probably should disturb me more that I want one, or that I thought for an instant that a one was possible.
So why do I believe? That will likely reveal itself in the development of this discourse. What are the non-negotiables of my faith? What does it mean to be Mennonite? What is the purpose of church? Can you really be a skeptic and maintain faith? What does it mean to rely on the "faith of our fathers"? Am I existentialist? At least partially? Another friend once called me a biological determinist. What does that even mean? And am I one? Are their physical/scientific explanations for God? All in due time.
So why do I believe? That will likely reveal itself in the development of this discourse. What are the non-negotiables of my faith? What does it mean to be Mennonite? What is the purpose of church? Can you really be a skeptic and maintain faith? What does it mean to rely on the "faith of our fathers"? Am I existentialist? At least partially? Another friend once called me a biological determinist. What does that even mean? And am I one? Are their physical/scientific explanations for God? All in due time.
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