Why consciousness fools philosophers -- (& neuroscientists)

Another post from the Critical Psychiatry Network

The really challenging thing about consciousness that fools more philosophers and psychiatrists than is healthy, is that it is 100% fluid. Trying to define it, is like trying to define a pint or a litre of water –- it sounds feasible, but makes no sense in practice.

The same with the mind. Neither is concrete, which of course is what makes them so invaluable.

They are also 100% SUBJECTIVE, so people who still fancy themselves as “scientific” with aspirations to a Single Universal Theory, supposedly ‘Scientific’, leave themselves flailing when talking about minds and consciousness.

All you need do, is ask a soi-disant philosopher – “Do minds exist?”, and they lose themselves up their own verbiage.

I was rescued from all this confusing banter by a single lecture in Part II English, in 1957, in which the innovative lecturer reversed Descartes dictum – not ‘cogito-ergo-sum’, which seems to give some so much indigestion – but sum-ergo-cogito. I.e. “I am, so I can think”. This, he explained was the reversal in priorities that Existentialists  aimed for – and bully for them, I say.

We exist first, and then, with whatever is left over, we think, or cogitate, or exercise our infinitely indefinable consciousness.

This at last, releases us from the strictures of supposedly tight verbal definitions – (? scientific definitions??) — live first, then see how much you can capture at any one time – I guarantee it will invariably be less than 100% – and we all need to learn to live with that.

By the way, The Economist has a regular bon-mot, and one which relates to our chosen profession, hit me the other day –

We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.--John Updikes

If only more could accept this social basis for sanity – we’d all thrive so much better.

Rock on

Bob