Antonio Damasio’s Quest to Understand Consciousness reminded me of a contradiction that I first noticed when I discovered that my dog has nightmares. This seemingly mundane discovery was, for me, a revelation. Sleep usually goes hand in hand with a temporary lapse in the oddly inexplicable phenomenon of our perceived awareness of self and place and time, except for the occasional simulated consciousness that we experience during a dream. What is a dream if not an imagined, remembered, or simulated experience of the reality we normally perceive in our waking lives? And if we can recreate that reality inside our head during a sleep state, then we must also perceive a similar thing while awake.
In other words, if dogs can dream, then they must be capable of experiencing something like consciousness.
This may not strike you as a revelation. Perhaps it’s always been a given for you, but, for me, it has profound implications on my views on religion and spirituality, and perhaps it will make you think about yours as well. For me, it is a linchpin, when removed, allows the collapse of a whole series of beliefs. In my upbringing in the Catholic church, I was essentially taught that consciousness is the domain of man. For many Christians around the world, the Earth may no longer be the center of the universe, but humanity is most certainly the center of the spiritual universe, the pinnacle of life, the primary focus of God’s attention, the sole proprietors of the soul. (I’ve always struggled with this egocentric pride built into the world’s major religions, but that’s a topic for another day.)
The concept of the soul is closely linked to that of consciousness. What is it that religion promises will live on for eternity? What is it that fear the loss of at our death? Religion speaks of the soul. What man fears is the end of his self, that is, the permanent loss of consciousness. To the layperson, religion offers eternal survival of consciousness, an excuse not to fear death. I’ve never been able to accept this idea, and hence I have always struggled with accepting the major religions as truth. I tend to believe that if a soul exists, and it continues on when our lives end, then it would be extremely challenging for man to conceive what that actually means from the perspective of our everyday consciousness.
Consciousness itself is singularly difficult to define. The primary – no, the only – way in which we experience this life is through it, yet we cannot explain nor understand it fully. It’s so inherent to our existence, that it is essentially a given, an assumption that we cannot even fathom a reality without. From it, everything else is derived. Without it, reality as we know it is dissolved. How can one contemplate eternity when they cannot contemplate existence without consciousness? If the foundation off our experience is the ego, and without it is nothingness, how can this lead to anything but an atheistic or agnostic point of view?
If this hasn’t opened your eyes to new possibilities, then perhaps this will. Referring back to Antonio’s talk, science is starting to explain, and eventually will demonstrate very thoroughly, how consciousness is formed in the physical brain. And the same physical constructs, connections, and brain wave patterns are present in a variety of mammals, including dogs. The blunt conclusion is, of course, brain death equals ego death equals finality. But that ignores the subtler possibilities, the atheists antithesis to the layman’s interpretation of religious afterlife – i.e., oversimplification.
Explaining these possibilities is not my intent for this post. Showing that man is not supreme, not unique in this world as an animal is my goal. I hope this post helps to debunk the idea that consciousness and the soul are attributes of man and man alone.
Carrying this line of thinking a little further, we should address the idea of conscience – or the ability to know right from wrong. Catholicism tells us this sense comes from our connection to the Holy Spirit. I say that conscience is a natural aspect of the brain, an evolutionary advantage for animals that live in groups that will benefit from mutual cooperation. Consciousness is a prerequisite for conscience, but the converse is not true. Conscience does not necessarily follow from consciousness, but it is enabled, in the sense that it becomes possible. I think any pack animal, such as a dog, develops, through evolution, a sort of morality. Wild dogs among themselves have it – a social order ruled by dominance, which is very different from human morality, but nonetheless it is an inherited sense of the right way to behave, a conscience. Tamed dogs have a more human sense of morality with regard to humans. They instinctively know how to act – to be less aggressive, to trust us, to understand us, to aid us in hunting, to protect us, and so on, so that we care for them. This is conscience, and I believe it is not inherent just to mankind.
All of this isn’t an argument to stop eating meat or to give up religion. It’s simply an argument for open-minded debate and thought. What you’ve been taught and what you’ve believed your whole life might not be true. Think about it.
Have a red packet!
