The Inside and the Outside: Philosophy for the 21st Century

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Existence and the Human Mind

Author Stephen Gislason MD

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Dr. Stephen Gislason

Inside and Outside

The basic idea behind animal brains is to bring information about the outside world together with information from inside the body. Consciousness consists of monitor images of the inside and outside, a container for the representation of all experiences. The distinction between inside and outside origins for conscious experiences is irresistible. In Kant’s terms, phenomena are events out there in the world and noumena are conscious experiences that originate from within.

In the human mind, images of the outside tend to be detailed and explicit in consciousness. In contrast, monitor images from inside the body tend to be vague and variable. No one can see and understand their own heart, liver, kidneys and intestines. Without specialized training in anatomy, and physiology, no one understands how they work inside. Even physicians, with advanced training and daily application of anatomy and physiology, have difficulty visualizing and understanding their own organ function.

Generally, humans are ignorant of internal processes and invent all manner of imaginary and irrelevant explanations for internal events. Thus, human explanations for exoteric, outside phenomena are very different from explanations of esoteric, inside experiences.

noumena

Images from inside the brainbodymind are noumena. Representations of noumena are said to be subjective. The brain places samples of its inner workings into consciousness – ghost images, self-talk, dreams are all normal noumena. Hallucinations are abnormal noumena. Noumena can be divided into two groups:

1. Images that resemble phenomena but originate within the brain

2. Images that originate from within the body and represent body states.

Information originating inside the body is not clearly represented in consciousness. Inner senses belong to two groups - the most ancient chemical kind and an electronic kind. The more recently evolved electronic kind of sensing utilizes signals that travel along nerve networks that reach out to every cell in the body.

phenomena

Images of the outside that are detailed and explicit in consciousness are called phenomena. Representations of phenomena are said to be objective. The eye, for example, is a photon sensor that sends electronic signals to the occipital cortex and other regions of the brain that utilize visual input as information. The ear is a mechanical sensor that turns sound waves in the air into electronic signals that are processed in the temporal lobes of the brain.

Consciousness is associated with awareness and vigilance. The unconscious animal will not hear or see the predator approaching. The conscious and vigilant animal maintains a global awareness of the local environment. Sensory receptors are tuned to features of the environment that may satisfy drives or signal danger.

Events out there occur in great profusion. A complete account of a single moment of experience could easily consume hours of careful documentation. Humans tend to simplify and approximate what is really going on. We cleave the phenomenal field into discrete events and treat these cognitive objects as the contents of our experience. We focus our attention and ignore profusion by narrowing the apertures of our sensory transducers and filtering the information available, looking for data that fits our conceptual habits. We describe what we are used to describing and we decide and act upon recognition - literally knowing again.

Meshes are made of complexly interacting and continuously emerging events. We are nodes of consciousness in the mesh of the cosmos. Conscious nodes interact with the mesh, warp the mesh and form an integral part of the mesh.

As we view the history of life on earth, we recognize the continuous interaction of brainevents with worldevents, noumena with phenomena. We infer a slow, continuous convergence of brainevents with worldevents. If we look closely at the interface between worldevents and brainevents, we find the transduction of energy patterns in the world mesh into energy patterns in brains. The transducers are the sense organs and the brain patterns resonating with worldevents are the perceptions and sensations of sentient beings.

The out flowing energy patterns of brains are expressed as movement in the mesh. Animals move toward plants and other animals to ingest the energy others have captured. Animals are restless, needful creatures. Humans are animals.

The sun energizes worldevents. The great heat engine drives life. The sun's quantumflux of photons stream through the biosphere and energize the chloroplasts in plant cells. The chloroplasts make sugar that becomes the fuel for all life. Sun, sugar, life.

Animal forms move through the mesh of sun's photons, plant chloroplasts and ingest the plant's memory of photon happenings. The animal requires sensing, deciding, acting and remembering to navigate through the mesh and find food.

Some animal cells become specialized in sentient activity, tuning into worldevents and comparing worldevents with body events. Mind and body mesh with world events. The brain is the organ of the mind. We will build new words that portray the inseparability of body, brain, mind and universe. Mindbodybrainuniverse.