Summary

The Adventures of a Solitary Soul - H. J. Sharp

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Probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks is the use of the term "unconscious" for the deeper part of the mind, which we are normally unaware of. In fact the deeper part of the mind is more conscious than our ordinary mind. It is our lower mind that is unaware, unconscious of it.

The beginnings of the development of psychology and psychiatry in the West was not in the early 1900's with Freud and Jung, as most people seem to believe, but very much earlier. The development is characterised by much theft and plagiarism. It was in 1866 that Liebeault developed the ideas of treating neurosis by suggestion. His published material was very conveniently forgotten for some 20 years until Bernheim in Nancy took them up in 1886. Janet developed Liebealt's ideas further between 1889 - 98 with his "Psychology of Neurotic States". In 1893 we have Wundt's "Experimental Psychology". Wundt set up the Charcot School at Saltpetiere, Paris, specialising in psychotherapy. In 1894 Freud began to come to prominence. Freud had translated Bernheim's book, which is based on many of Liebeault's ideas. Freud got most of his ideas from this source. In 1895 Brewer and Freud published their "Studies in Hysterics". At this time Freud limited himself to what he called the Personal Unconscious, not daring to go further or deeper. Freud is remembered mainly for his ideas on sexuality. These titillated the public and so are remembered. The more important thing he said was that we are all driven by unconscious forces. This was too much for the public to accept and so was forgotten.

Consciousness is usually defined as 'Awareness', but this definition is based on a limited understanding of the word itself Consciousness means literally, 'knowing- together'. A development or increase in consciousness would therefore mean 'knowing-more-together', and so would bring about a new relationship to everything previously known. To know more always means to see things differently. When we introduce the concept of 'seeing', this leads us to another concept of consciousness, that of light. "A light that can illumine all dark places".

The light of consciousness can be directed to different areas that are, to us, in darkness, that we are unconscious of, and can also be changed in intensity, so as to increase or decrease our awareness of a given area. The quality of consciousness is dealt with in this way by Nicoll .

So the state, the inner state, that we are in at any moment is determined by which part of Mind, lower or Higher, that is illuminated. Note that the Mystics talk of 'illumination'.

But what does really modern Science have as a model of consciousness. Consciousness is an area very difficult to define and explain. One of the best in my view is that developed by Nicolas Humphrey and outlined in his book "A History of the Mind":

One of the most modern approaches to the origin of consciousness is dependent upon a practical understanding of the consequences of increasing distances between external information receptors and the developing central processing unit, the brain. The earliest sensors were an integral part of the cell membrane or the specialised skin surface of the early multicellular organisms. The sensor, when activated was locally reactive. It is of interest that the neurological structures of the present human, develop in the foetus from the same germinal epithelium, which also gives rise, to the external skin and the lining layers of the alimentary canal.

The next stage of development was for the sensors to become more sophisticated and linked to more central ganglia, and for the response signal travelling from the ganglion to the peripheral areas needing to respond. In humans the sensory signal from the receptor at the periphery of the physical body, skin, eyes, taste buds, nose, ear, and so on goes to specific areas of the brain where a response signal is immediately activated which then travels to whatever sites require energising for a useful response. In general these twin signals have a long distance to travel, during which both the signals undergo attenuation, In any case the whole sequence is completed in micro seconds. In the case of the typical unconditioned reflexes, such as the blinking of the eye, we generally have no conscious awareness that it has happened. Recent research based on the problems of phantom limbs, blind sight and so on, now indicate that there is now a secondary target for many of these responses and these take the form of a map of the whole physical body, spread over the superficial areas of the brain. So in many cases, in addition to the automatic response to the peripheral organs of reaction, there is another signal directed to the corresponding area of the map in the brain. The pathway for this signal is considerably shorter, and it in turn elicits a response on arrival at the relevant point on the brain surface map, thus producing an input signal to the original area of the brain. In this way a succession of signals, inputs and responses, is set up. Because the pathway is short, the diverted outgoing and new incoming sensory loops allow a stronger feed back effect, the original single signal from the peripheral receptor is followed immediately by a repeating signal of the short feed back loop. There is the minimum of attenuation and so the pairs of signals take time to degrade. It is this passing time span which gives us the feeling of awareness. In this way we live in a Life Simulator" and it is this "Life Simulator" that we are conscious of, have awareness of, not the "real" interaction of the surface of our physical body and our external environment. So here we have an explanation of the arrival of consciousness. Dependent upon the strength of the feed back loop signal, the degree to which it is energised to give increased amplitude, the experience can have a varying degree of so called "reality". This concept is dealt with in considerable detail by Nicolas Humphrey.