Twishmay Shankar

Wrote this essay on consciousness as a child in 2005 when I thought too much about this problem. It is interesting to read this after decades. We are getting closer to understanding this interesting phenomenon which enables understanding itself. 

But its only the beginning.

If you are reading this then you are certainly gifted. Gifted, not just literally, but also in a fundamental way common to all of ‘us’. We think. More than that, we are aware of our very own existence. We know we exist! I often pity those brains who have not yet realized this remarkable gift which differentiates us from others. The realization about the very basic prerequisite of thought, that one exists.

All of us (normal) humans look at the world through our senses. What we see is what our eyes send to our brain. What we hear is no more fundamental than the workings of a microphone. It is possible to survive without external senses. Then, our only friend is our very own mind. The home of consciousness. That feeling that we exist. How would you ‘feel’ if your sense organs did not work? Or, how would you think? Would you?

Let me clarify the difference between consciousness and living. A living thing may or may not be conscious. You could well argue that your pet has feelings and is conscious. Some people push this further and say that even a bacterium is conscious. It strikes our common sense that non-life is not conscious. However I believe this statement is not justified or proven. In fact it occurs to me that there are a few arguments which justify the counter point.

If you feel lost after all this reading and still do not realize the meaning of the word, sit back and relax. Let your mind clear itself of all thought. Then, ask yourself a question. Any question. I could think of a million such enquiries but suggesting which is unnecessary, for the mere potential of asking yourself a question is what I want to pin point! See! You can talk to yourself. Take a robot for example. A robot can talk to you, but how do you know if it can talk to itself? How are you supposed to know? How are you supposed to know what talks to itself, in what kind of a language, and how!?

What I have been suggesting is not ‘life’ but ‘knowing if you exist’. Appreciating the wisdom of knowing thy existence, I wonder if I could figure out how it works as well. But maybe that would be as ridiculous as division by zero or even more distant from the realms of definitions and realizations. Regardless, shouldn’t we at least be aware of this?

Maybe give it a thought once or twice, for it is essentially what makes us different from mere machines. It is what makes us ask ourselves often: who we are, where we come from, and where we are headed. It is what has troubled you to understand the message I am trying to convey through this essay, meaninglessly, but with a definite purpose.

TS
18.12.2015