If one removes the possibility of God, is the consciousness of man the highest consciousness possible? What could be higher?
Must consciousness be either human or Godlike? Might there not be something in between? Intermediate?
Fechner thinks so.
Born in 1801, he lives to be 86 and spends 70 of those years in the same city – Leipzig. Despite passing medical exams at 21, he’s inexplicably pulled to the physical sciences, and throws himself wholeheartedly into intensive study. Ten years struggling in poverty pass as he grows in knowledge, and finally he’s granted the license to teach. To earn money, he translates and writes volumes on physics, chemistry, pharmaceuticals and electricity, philosophy, poetry, essays on literature and the arts, half-humorous musings. However, overwork causes a partial nervous breakdown at age 38, and he suffers a mental condition which magnifies unbearably all his sensations – visual, auditory, tactile. After three years on the edge of insanity, he miraculously recovers – and feels compelled to explain the faith that saves him.
What does Fechner believe?
First, he feels the gravest error of the times is to view the spiritual as the exception, rather than the rule. Extrapolating using analogy, he realizes that he has built his home; something or someone else had to have built the world. He moves his body through the influences of his will; something or someone else has to move the sea, the wind, the celestial orbs. He lives and changes day by day; someday he shall live beyond, and still change.
God must have a body, he concludes, but the mistake is to make too close an analogy. Yes, He has a body, but it does not necessarily have to be a body exactly like ours, only greater. With a vaster order of mind comes a vaster order of body. And such a vaster mind necessitates a vaster consciousness. What is immediately greater than ourselves? Why, the earth, the moon, the sun and stars. Might these have some type of consciousness which we cannot comprehend?
Perhaps we are but sensory inputs, in some way we cannot truly fathom, to the earth, which in turn is a sensory input to the sun, leading up to a chain of larger and greater and vaster consciousnesses, until God is reached as the Sum of it all.
How can the earth possess a “consciousness”? The earth is developed from within, like a man is, without being deliberately acted on like a piece of clay in the hands of a creator. The earth differs from every other celestial body, much the same way as you or I differ from every single other human being. Again, the analogy is not perfect; it is not meant to be. Fechner is talking about a different, higher type of consciousness.
He thinks deep and hard about different types of consciousness. Early on he publishes a book describing what he believes may be the inner life of plants. Man has a central nervous system which unifies sensation and brings order out of them. Since plants have none, it is assumed they have no consciousness. Other various types of life activities take place in plants: respiration, nutrition, etc. Why not a lower form of consciousness? Perhaps a lower form but one unencumbered by higher states, therefore free to be deeper, richer, more vivid, more lively. Could you even imagine what such consciousness may be like?
In our minds, there is something greater than the sum of all sensations brought into it. We have eyes that bring in visions, ears that bring in sounds, fingertips that being in tactile stimuli. Imagine if, for a moment, Fechner is right, and we are the sense organs for the earth consciousness. What then, is that something greater that is more than the sum of all its sense stimuli?
And what happens when your eye, viewing a beautiful sunset, closes? Why, the memory stays in our mind, to be recalled whenever we wish, and its related to other images in our consciousness. Now, what do you think happens to us when we die, when our lives close, when we are no longer capable of yielding stimuli to the higher consciousness? Think of the memory analogy, and you have Fechner’s theory of immortality.
You may think the man a little off-kilter – maybe that mental breakdown was not a hundred percent repaired. You may think him the great-grandfather of all tree-huggers, a pagan, an idolater, or a genuine full-blown kook. You may say whatever you want about him, but one thing he is, according to William James: He’s thick. Not dense, not stupid, but thick, as opposed to thin, or scanty, or underdeveloped, or shallow. Aquinas and the medieval theologians are thick in this sense of the word. Hegel is thick. And Fechner is, too. His thought is original, deep and well-reasoned, much more creative and eye-opening than my ignorant short summary here can do justice.
Think about that next time you order a salad.
Must consciousness be either human or Godlike? Might there not be something in between? Intermediate?
Fechner thinks so.
Born in 1801, he lives to be 86 and spends 70 of those years in the same city – Leipzig. Despite passing medical exams at 21, he’s inexplicably pulled to the physical sciences, and throws himself wholeheartedly into intensive study. Ten years struggling in poverty pass as he grows in knowledge, and finally he’s granted the license to teach. To earn money, he translates and writes volumes on physics, chemistry, pharmaceuticals and electricity, philosophy, poetry, essays on literature and the arts, half-humorous musings. However, overwork causes a partial nervous breakdown at age 38, and he suffers a mental condition which magnifies unbearably all his sensations – visual, auditory, tactile. After three years on the edge of insanity, he miraculously recovers – and feels compelled to explain the faith that saves him.
What does Fechner believe?
First, he feels the gravest error of the times is to view the spiritual as the exception, rather than the rule. Extrapolating using analogy, he realizes that he has built his home; something or someone else had to have built the world. He moves his body through the influences of his will; something or someone else has to move the sea, the wind, the celestial orbs. He lives and changes day by day; someday he shall live beyond, and still change.
God must have a body, he concludes, but the mistake is to make too close an analogy. Yes, He has a body, but it does not necessarily have to be a body exactly like ours, only greater. With a vaster order of mind comes a vaster order of body. And such a vaster mind necessitates a vaster consciousness. What is immediately greater than ourselves? Why, the earth, the moon, the sun and stars. Might these have some type of consciousness which we cannot comprehend?
Perhaps we are but sensory inputs, in some way we cannot truly fathom, to the earth, which in turn is a sensory input to the sun, leading up to a chain of larger and greater and vaster consciousnesses, until God is reached as the Sum of it all.
How can the earth possess a “consciousness”? The earth is developed from within, like a man is, without being deliberately acted on like a piece of clay in the hands of a creator. The earth differs from every other celestial body, much the same way as you or I differ from every single other human being. Again, the analogy is not perfect; it is not meant to be. Fechner is talking about a different, higher type of consciousness.
He thinks deep and hard about different types of consciousness. Early on he publishes a book describing what he believes may be the inner life of plants. Man has a central nervous system which unifies sensation and brings order out of them. Since plants have none, it is assumed they have no consciousness. Other various types of life activities take place in plants: respiration, nutrition, etc. Why not a lower form of consciousness? Perhaps a lower form but one unencumbered by higher states, therefore free to be deeper, richer, more vivid, more lively. Could you even imagine what such consciousness may be like?
In our minds, there is something greater than the sum of all sensations brought into it. We have eyes that bring in visions, ears that bring in sounds, fingertips that being in tactile stimuli. Imagine if, for a moment, Fechner is right, and we are the sense organs for the earth consciousness. What then, is that something greater that is more than the sum of all its sense stimuli?
And what happens when your eye, viewing a beautiful sunset, closes? Why, the memory stays in our mind, to be recalled whenever we wish, and its related to other images in our consciousness. Now, what do you think happens to us when we die, when our lives close, when we are no longer capable of yielding stimuli to the higher consciousness? Think of the memory analogy, and you have Fechner’s theory of immortality.
You may think the man a little off-kilter – maybe that mental breakdown was not a hundred percent repaired. You may think him the great-grandfather of all tree-huggers, a pagan, an idolater, or a genuine full-blown kook. You may say whatever you want about him, but one thing he is, according to William James: He’s thick. Not dense, not stupid, but thick, as opposed to thin, or scanty, or underdeveloped, or shallow. Aquinas and the medieval theologians are thick in this sense of the word. Hegel is thick. And Fechner is, too. His thought is original, deep and well-reasoned, much more creative and eye-opening than my ignorant short summary here can do justice.
Think about that next time you order a salad.
No comments:
Post a Comment