Celebrating a by-product?

 

There is nothing more real to a human being than the consciousness. One may never read a book, listen to any ideas, or learn anything, but even for that person, the real thing is his/her consciousness. How to define it? It is “the subjective experience of our feelings and thoughts” or “simply awareness of our own existing self and presence in the world”¹. Sam Harris gives a beautiful metaphor for the consciousness as “lights on”². 

Where does it come from? Even today it is one of the most fascinating frontiers of science. Undeniably, complex neurological activities correlate to all feelings, emotions, thoughts and actions³. For example, seeing a real predator in the eye creates a cascade of electrochemical changes in the brain and the body to make us run away. The entire process is a mere automated process for an evolutionary advantage: see the animal, run and ensure survival. Then what is the need of the feeling of fear here? Why is that subjective experience is coming while seeing the predator and running? If it is true that the entire process is a mere automated process, then it is almost equivalent to the falling of dominos⁴. What is the need for a subjective experience while dominoes are falling?

Even more complex and even long-term actions are again an elaborate cascade of electrochemical changes in the brain cells. However, a plethora of subjective experiences are also available with them, making the human life so-called ‘rich’ in experiences.

Then what is consciousness? The best explanation available today is that all the subjective experiences are unnecessary. Consciousness is a mere by-product that is unnecessary for the intended purpose of a primary event⁵. It is just like the sound energy created by the engines, while the intended purpose of the engines is to convert heat energy to mechanical energy. But many processes do not create sound such as dissolving sugar in water. In fact, almost 99% of things happening in our body, like regulation of heartbeat, kidney functions and digestion, do not create any subjective experience but only a few processes, like fleeing from a predator, do it.

However, we keep celebrating our feelings, emotions, subjective experiences and ‘conscious’ decisions vis-à-vis our free will as the driver of all our life. The realization that it may be an unnecessary by-product may deprive us of our cherished everything. But it keeps us humble and open-minded.

 

¹Libet, B. (1988). Consciousness: Conscious, Subjective Experience. In: States of Brain and Mind. Readings from the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience . Birkhäuser, Boston

²https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dC_nRYIDZU

³Arciniegas, David B., C. Alan Anderson, and Christopher M. Filley, eds. Behavioral neurology & neuropsychiatry. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

⁴Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow. random house, 2016.

⁵Morgado-Bernal, I. (2019). Is Consciousness an Epiphenomenon?. In: Matthews, M.R. (eds) Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift. Springer, Cham.