Reading this statement in the context of his other writings, however, I get a different impression. Descartes was troubled by what is referred to as the “mind-body problem”: Namely, how does a conscious mind arise from the physical matter of the brain? From this perspective, it seems he was attempting to push rational skepticism to the breaking point, so in my view what his statement really means is, “I think, that is to say, a subjective experience is occurring, so therefore all we know for sure is that something—call it I—exists.” He could not be certain that the physical world exists, because all we have are our own individual sense impressions of it, which might be wrong or completely illusory. We do know, however, that the experiencer exists.
My religious upbringing was in a Unitarian church, where we studied all of the world’s religions. We would spend six months on, say, Buddhism and would go to Buddhist services, read their books, and have discussion groups with their leaders. Then we would switch to another religion, such as Judaism. The overriding theme was “many paths to the truth,” along with tolerance and transcendence. This last idea meant that resolving apparent contradictions between traditions does not require deciding that one is right and the other is wrong. The truth can be discovered only by finding an explanation that overrides—transcends—seeming differences, especially for fundamental questions of meaning and purpose.
This is how I resolve the Western-Eastern divide on consciousness and the physical world. In my view, both perspectives have to be true.
On the one hand, it is foolish to deny the physical world. Even if we do live in a simulation, as speculated by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, reality is nonetheless a conceptual level that is real for us. If we accept the existence of the physical world and the evolution that has taken place in it, then we can see that conscious entities have evolved from it.
On the other hand, the Eastern perspective—that consciousness is fundamental and represents the only reality that is truly important—is also difficult to deny. Just consider the precious regard we give to conscious persons versus unconscious things. We consider the latter to have no intrinsic value except to the extent that they can influence the subjective experience of conscious persons. Even if we regard consciousness as an emergent property of a complex system, we cannot take the position that it is just another attribute (along with “digestion” and “lactation,” to quote John Searle). It represents what is truly important.
The word “spiritual” is often used to denote the things that are of ultimate significance. Many people don’t like to use such terminology from spiritual or religious traditions, because it implies sets of beliefs that they may not subscribe to. But if we strip away the mystical complexities of religious traditions and simply respect “spiritual” as implying something of profound meaning to humans, then the concept of consciousness fits the bill. It reflects the ultimate spiritual value. Indeed, “spirit” itself is often used to denote consciousness.
Evolution can then be viewed as a spiritual process in that it creates spiritual beings, that is, entities that are conscious. Evolution also moves toward greater complexity, greater knowledge, greater intelligence, greater beauty, greater creativity, and the ability to express more transcendent emotions, such as love. These are all descriptions that people have used for the concept of God, albeit God is described as having no limitations in these regards.
People often feel threatened by discussions that imply the possibility that a machine could be conscious, as they view considerations along these lines as a denigration of the spiritual value of conscious persons. But this reaction reflects a misunderstanding of the concept of a machine. Such critics are addressing the issue based on the machines they know today, and as impressive as they are becoming, I agree that contemporary examples of technology are not yet worthy of our respect as conscious beings. My prediction is that they will become indistinguishable from biological humans, whom we do regard as conscious beings, and will therefore share in the spiritual value we ascribe to consciousness. This is not a disparagement of people; rather, it is an elevation of our understanding of (some) future machines. We should probably adopt a different terminology for these entities, as they will be a different sort of machine.
Indeed, as we now look inside the brain and decode its mechanisms we discover methods and algorithms that we can not only understand but re-create—“the parts of a mill pushing on each other,” to paraphrase German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) when he wrote about the brain. Humans already constitute spiritual machines. Moreover, we will merge with the tools we are creating so closely that the distinction between human and machine will blur until the difference disappears. That process is already well under way, even if most of the machines that extend us are not yet inside our bodies and brains.
Free Will
A central aspect of consciousness is the ability to look ahead, the capability we call “foresight.” It is the ability to plan, and in social terms to outline a scenario of what is likely going to happen, or what might happen, in social interactions that have not yet taken place…. It is a system whereby we improve our chances of doing those things that will represent our own best interests…. I suggest that “free will” is our apparent ability to choose and act upon whichever of those seem most useful or appropriate, and our insistence upon the idea that such choices are our own.
Shall we say that the plant does not know what it is doing merely because it has no eyes, or ears, or brains? If we say that it acts mechanically, and mechanically only, shall we not be forced to admit that sundry other and apparently very deliberate actions are also mechanical? If it seems to us that the plant kills and eats a fly mechanically, may it not seem to the plant that a man must kill and eat a sheep mechanically?
Is the brain, which is notably double in structure, a double organ, “seeming parted, but yet a union in partition”?
Redundancy, as we have learned, is a key strategy deployed by the neocortex. But there is another level of redundancy in the brain, in that its left and right hemispheres, while not identical, are largely the same. Just as certain regions of the neocortex normally end up processing certain types of information, the hemispheres also specialize to some extent—for example, the left hemisphere typically is responsible for verbal language. But these assignments can also be rerouted, to the point that we can survive and function somewhat normally with only one half. American neuropsychology researchers Stella de Bode and Susan Curtiss reported on forty-nine children who had undergone a hemispherectomy (removal of half of their brain), an extreme operation that is performed on patients with a life-threatening seizure disorder that exists in only one hemisphere. Some who undergo the procedure are left with deficits, but those deficits are specific and the patients have reasonably normal personalities. Many of them thrive, and it is not apparent to observers that they only have half a brain. De Bode and Curtiss write about left-hemispherectomized children who “develop remarkably good language despite removal of the ‘language’ hemisphere.”9 They describe one such student who completed college, attended graduate school, and scored above average on IQ tests. Studies have shown minimal long-term effects on overall cognition, memory, personality, and sense of humor.10 In a 2007 study American researchers Shearwood McClelland and Robert Maxwell showed similar long-term positive results in adults.11