Consciousness and the Brain

It occurred to me that I may have appeared to contradict myself in the course of the last several postings on this blog. On August 13, in a post entitled "Skin," I explained how the skin does not have to be viewed as the boundary between the self and the rest of the world. In fact, skin is one of the ways we reach out into the world, connecting with it, being in relationship with it. I went on to say that consciousness is not inside us, especially not in the neural workings of the brain, but all over the place, both inside and outside. The things of the world we are conscious of, such as birds and piles of sand, are also conscious, though not to the extent a human being is.

After arguing for this perspective, I proceeded to write several posts that detailed my recent experiences with antipsychotics. I related how getting off risperidone caused withdrawal symptoms that included anxiety. Anxiety is a mood that, like all moods, affects consciousness by causing us to focus on some things rather than others. Since these drugs affect the brain, and they clearly affect my consciousness, how can I claim that the brain is not the seat of consciousness? Wasn't my anxiety, which stemmed from losing the chemical input to my brain created by risperidone, part of my consciousness?

The answer to this question is "yes." The brain definitely affects my consciousness, and it must be in good working order for me to be conscious. But it is not sufficient. To be sure, I need a brain in order to be conscious, but I also need the sun, the air, food, and other people. All of these are necessary for me to be conscious, and without any one of them I could not be aware of anything.

Before we go much further, we should probably get our definitions in order. What does "consciousness" mean? Quite simply, it refers to being awake and aware of internal and/or external phenomena. The key word is "awareness." Are only humans aware? I don't think so. In fact, I suspect that not only are animals aware, but even inert matter has some degree of awareness. Panpsychists hold that such awareness is a constituent part of matter. It comes along with the electrons and protons and so on. 

There is evidence for this. Entities in close proximity to one another often sync up and begin resonating at similar frequencies. (See https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-hippies-were-right-its-all-about-vibrations-man/) How can they sync up if there is no awareness of each other? While a human being is obviously more conscious than a boulder, there is no reason to believe the boulder has no consciousness. As Descartes has shown, we are most intimately sure of our conscious ability to think, much more so than we are aware of the physical aspects of our body such as a heart beat. Since consciousness is closer to us than physicality, why wouldn't we assume that all other entities, and not just living ones, share it? It seems most basic.

In short, the mind/body distinction seems a lot stranger to me as an explanation of reality than does supposing that a degree of awareness comes with all matter.

Human consciousness stems from relationships to others—other people, the sun, the earth, animals, plants, the air, and so on. A brain is necessary for these relationships to exist. But for consciousness, we need a working brain and so much more. 

What happens to my consciousness when I take, or stop taking, an antipsychotic? It definitely changes. I am aware in a whole new way, and this is attributable to chemical alterations in my brain. But my consciousness would also change if the sun's chemistry suddenly altered, or the air's. I am dependent on so much more than my brain to be conscious. My consciousness would also change if I started spending time around a different group of people with values at odds with those of my current friends. I would start to focus and attend to things differently, my very awareness would alter, as I synced up with my new crowd.

As I pointed out in this blog last week, I am lucky that antipsychotics exist because they most likely allow me to function well in society. Without them, I may very well live in a psychiatric hospital. But I also pointed out that some aspects of modernity may have contributed to my having schizoaffective in the first place. Developed nations seem to have more acute cases of schizophrenia than developed ones. And living in a city, rather than a small town, seems to increase the severity of symptoms as well. So modernity has developed drugs that suppress symptoms that arise from the difficulties associated with modernity.

What might these difficulties be? I don't know for certain, but I can speculate. Alienation from the rhythms and processes of nature. Loud noises. The fast pace of life. Anonymity. Isolation. But these are just guesses. We don't know the reasons why modernity creates more acute forms of madness.

What I do feel confident asserting is that my consciousness has been formed and continues to be formed by myriads of things, of which my brain is just one small, but absolutely necessary, part.