Essay on The Value of Consciousness

The following essay appears in my book A Model of Consciousness.


Consider your existence. You may be dissatisfied with the quality of your relationships, your job, your personality. There are as many reasons for dissatisfaction as there are possibilities for the pursuit of satisfaction. Regardless of your relative satisfaction or dissatisfaction, one fact remains universal: everyone suffers and dies. When you consider this fact, when you really feel it, you may wonder what’s the point. You may wonder why you regard any given experience as more or less valuable than any other experience.

Nature beguiles us into valuing some things over others. Instinctively we value survival and reproduction. We value comfort and pleasure. However, we lose every comfort eventually. Every pleasure passes away and fades from memory. The flesh inevitably suffers and dies.

We tend to remain “unconscious” of our mortality. We typically avoid consideration of the subject. The more self-conscious we become, the more unsettled we feel, the less we identify with the flesh and its values, and the more we tend to seek an alternative.

What is of value? How do we determine what is of value? We have instinctive values, instinctive motives to survive and to reproduce. We also have ideological values. Ideological values consist of the religious, political, economic and cultural values that we were raised in, the values we were educated with to apply to ourselves and the world.

Regardless of specifically how we assess value, consciousness is essential for accurate value assessment. If we aren’t conscious we cannot accurately assess the value of anything. Consider the commonsense distinction between being conscious and being asleep or dreaming. When we’re asleep or dreaming, our capacity to accurately assess value is impaired or entirely absent.

Within a dream, you don’t think to ask yourself whether or not you’re dreaming. You cannot accurately assess your situation. You don’t apply your mind critically in a dream so as to recognize the logical inconsistencies that abound in dreams. When you’re asleep you’re oblivious to the world. When you’re dreaming you don’t have recourse to a sense of being present, consciousness.

I’m defining “consciousness” here initially as consisting of critical thinking, retrospection and most importantly a sense of being present. Consciousness includes awareness of mortality.

In regard to value assessment, consciousness may be of the highest value because without it we lose the very means of measuring value.
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Besides instinctive values and ideological values, there are also moral values. For many of us, moral values remain ideological. Rather than appealing to our conscience we are told by our cultural and political and religious authorities what is right and wrong, and we are then coerced to conform to rules and codes of conduct enforced by threats and promises.

What I refer to as conscience is distinctly different than conventional morality. Conscience isn’t ideological. It isn’t contrived by thinking or derived from an external authority. Conscience is our innate sense of right and wrong. Conscience is a sense of justice, closely related to our sense of proportion, our sense of beauty. Conscience is closely related to our sense of being present. Conscience is the feeling of consciousness.

The feeling that is conscience is distinctly different than the emotional reactions of fear, desire and anger. The distinction between ordinary emotions and conscience resides in the relationship to consciousness, to one’s sense of being present. Ordinary emotions cannot persist within a sense of being present but only the feeling that is one’s true conscience.

Distinguishing between emotional reactions and the feeling of conscience is actually very simple and straightforward, despite endless attempts to complicate it. The relationship between conscience and consciousness, like the very sense of being present, must be felt directly to be understood.

This may at first seem hopelessly subjective. Consciousness is generally regarded as quintessentially subjective. Consciousness is typically defined as consisting of thoughts and emotions whose veracity can only be assumed based on subjective testimony. However, when consciousness is understood as the tacit sense of being present as an individual within the world, that is to say as a sense of conscious individuality, then we begin to recognize the correspondence between being conscious and objective. I’m emphasizing “consciousness” as a tacit sense of being present, a very distinctive sense of individuality prior to thought.

Our consciousness is the measure of our access to conscience and of our capacity to assess moral values. Moral values are by definition good. When we consider moral values we are considering what is good. And because consciousness is essential to our ability to assess moral values, consciousness is by definition good.

We are not always conscious. Consciousness seems to consist of degrees. This becomes obvious when we reflect on the distinctions between waking and dreaming and sleeping. By recognizing the relationship between consciousness and conscience and value assessment, we come to realize that increasing consciousness is a priority, in fact a moral imperative.

To understand what consciousness is and how it can be developed, we may begin by considering how we make moral decisions. Since conscience is the feeling of consciousness, by considering how it feels to be conscious, by appealing to conscience, we may better understand what consciousness is and how to develop it.

How do we make moral decisions? I’ve already distinguished between conventional morality and conscience. Conventional morality consists of external authorities telling us what is right. Conscience is independent of external conventional moral authority. A decision based on conscience is a decision made independently. Independence is a prerequisite for moral decision making. To qualify as moral, a decision must be made freely and not the result of threats or promises. A decision isn’t moral if it’s coerced. Threats and promises amount to coercion, a form of conditioning, programming. A programmed decision isn’t a moral decision.

Morality cannot be programmed. Regardless of what a machine may be programmed to do, when the machine carries out its program it isn’t making a moral decision to do so. A machine merely reacts according to programming. Only individuals can make moral decisions.

Remember my emphasis on defining consciousness as a sense of oneself, a sense of being present. What I’m describing as consciousness is not the absence of self. Nor is consciousness merely a succession of sensory impressions or thoughts. Consciousness is the distinct feeling of being an individual within a world of impressions.

I mentioned that only individuals can make moral decisions, and that independence is a prerequisite for moral decision making. Individuality means independence, freedom. Freedom isn’t the absence of individuality. Freedom isn’t oblivious. Only the conscious individual can be truly free. Moral decisions are only those freely made by a conscious individual.

Moral considerations are more than merely momentary. To be conscious one moment and then unconscious the next is hardly a sound basis for decision making. The exercise of conscience involves the consideration of extended consequences. The more conscious we are, the better we are able to appreciate the extended consequences of our actions. The more conscious we are, the clearer our conscience and the more accurate our value assessments.

To act on conscience, regardless of whether or not we possess the material means to do so, implies a conscious intention. The strength of one’s intention is commensurate with the extent of one’s consciousness. Feeling your sense of being present is an intentional act, what I refer to as “attention.” Paying attention is the exercise of conscious development.
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I emphasized the importance of independence in moral decision making. Independence implies objectivity. Objectivity, as I previously mentioned, is in fact a characteristic of being conscious. Objectivity is also a hallmark of the scientific process.

Science has proven very successful at accurately assessing material values and at modeling natural processes. In as much as Nature is systematic, methodical, regular and logical, Nature can be scientifically modeled. In the application of science to the subject of consciousness we discover a key to our conscious development. Like other natural processes, conscious development is systematic, methodical, regular and logical, and it can therefore be scientifically modeled. The scientific process itself parallels and reflects the very development of consciousness.

I define science as the systematic method of achieving a result that can be independently reproduced. Many of the terms used in this definition, terms such as “system” and “independence” and “reproduction,” are closely related to consciousness itself. Every facet of this definition of science bears significance in relation to consciousness and its development.

A system is a unity of arrangement. The systematic aspect of science involves grasping “the big picture” of a subject. Without considering everything that relates to a subject, our comprehension of the subject remains at best incomplete.

Our sense of being present, what I also refer to as “bodily awareness,” is “the big picture” of which we catch a glimpse whenever we exercise our intention to do so. What I refer to as the act of attention is the exercise of our intention to remain present, our intention to be conscious. Attention is the fulcrum of conscious development.

A method means regularity of procedure. The methodical aspect of the scientific process reflects the regularity, rhythm, logic and consistency evident in natural processes.

The exercise of attention is the essential method of conscious development. By repeatedly paying attention we discover a latent energy within us. The exercise of attention increases and accelerates this energy into conscious energy, what I refer to as the Force of consciousness. By persistently paying attention, by repeatedly touching base with our sense of being present, consciousness develops in stages.

The scientific method involves repeatability and reproducibility. A scientific theory must be susceptible to testing. This reflects the rigor with which a scientific theory is formulated. If a theory can’t be tested, if it isn’t susceptible to being proven false, then it isn’t scientific, it’s merely an opinion. Skepticism, doubt and formulating questions are important aspects of the scientific method.

Formulating questions is essential to conscious development. What I refer to as “self-enquiry” is the art and science of formulating questions to provoke insights. An insight is a heightened state of consciousness.

Self-enquiry involves formulating a model of consciousness. The model consists essentially of carefully formulated questions on the subject of self. These questions serve as a mirror with which to reflect ourselves, to inspire a recognition of ourselves that is consciousness itself.

A scientific theory, a model, is a reflection of a natural process. It explains something. It’s an attempt to establish a “constant” by which to accurately assess values. Strictly speaking, a value is a measure from a constant. A scientific model reflects the consistency of Nature.

The aim of the science of conscious development is full consciousness. Full consciousness is Constant. In the absence of full consciousness, the model of conscious development serves as a reference, a reminder to pay attention.

Science is a precise use of the mind. Critical thinking exercises the mind, making the mind more pliable and more susceptible to intentional self-control. Mastery of the mind is essential for achieving higher consciousness.

Science uses precise terminology and involves accurate measurement. Mathematics, for instance, is a language for accurate measurements.

The science of conscious development consists of rigorous self-observation and the formulation of a vocabulary of terms with precise definitions. The vocabulary of conscious development has a mathematical basis. Ordinary conversational English isn’t precise enough to serve the science of conscious development. Casual observations aren’t precise enough to penetrate the mystery of who we really are.

Casual observations of the night sky supported the formulation of the Ptolemaic model of the solar system according to which the sun and planets revolve around the Earth. That model proved to be inaccurate. More accurate observations eventually led to the adoption of the Copernican model of the solar system according to which the planets (including the Earth) revolve around the sun.

The Ptolemaic model, as an explanation of the orbits of the planets, was overly complicated with epicycles and retrograde motions. Nature favors efficiency. There’s a simple elegance to many natural processes. A scientific model shouldn’t contain unnecessary details. A good scientific model is efficient as the natural process it reflects.

However, while the simplest notion of planetary orbit is a perfect circle, the evidence of careful observation reveals that the planets orbit the sun in ellipses rather than perfect circles. Simple doesn’t mean simplistic.

Common logic doesn’t necessarily translate into the natural world with perfect accuracy. The shortest distance between two points isn’t always a straight line. Consider the Theory of Relativity and how gravity bends space.

In relation to conscious development, what constitutes scientific proof is not perfectly accurate representation but rather what works efficiently. That is, what inspires a recognition of the subject, consciousness.




Copyrighted by Michael William Bennett