A necessary illusion.

Inner peace suppresses the very principle of existence, which is to establish hierarchies, desires, disgusts. Alain Bosquet

Hierarchy: order of subordination of things. The hierarchy of living beings, of duties, of sciences.

To explain and build the world, we must fraction time (which is however homogeneous and flows in duration) and distinguish persons, things and events from one another — even though they form a whole at the level of the species or the ecosystem.

At the level of the universe, human judgements are necessarily illusions — subjective and anthropomorphic illusions. What we think of the world therefore has no value for the cosmos as it unfolds. But for our species, judgement is essential. We must judge, hierarchise and compare things among themselves for there to be progress.

"God does not judge: through him, beings judge themselves." Simone Weil

 

A tool of construction

 

Creating hierarchies between things (large/small, short/long, strong/weak, good/evil...) is therefore a mechanism of evolution — an artificial separation, valid only at our scale. When we re-situate these things in the larger whole to which they belong, these distinctions lose their meaning.

Let us take an example. We often use valorising or devalorising attributes to designate an individual: large, small, fat, fast, clever, strong, weak and so on. These characteristics vanish — or more precisely dissolve — when this individual is understood within a sports team. The team will then become: strong or weak, good or bad. At a higher level, this team will designate an entire country. It will then be Ireland or Scotland that is "good or bad", strong or weak. And if one considers sport in general, its qualities become mechanisms destined to maintain humanity — to release negative energies, to connect countries with one another, to add lightness to existence and so on.

 

A ruse of reason.

 

The hierarchies we use to distinguish persons and groups from one another — better than... superior to... inferior to... — are necessary to elaborate humanity, but they are illusions. They are therefore a kind of ruse of reason of which Hegel speaks. They have allowed us to elaborate humanity to the point where it currently stands.

But the true meaning of hierarchy goes well beyond its everyday use. It is one of the mechanisms used by our species to attain its unity — the perfect unity which we believe to be the meaning and the obligatory destiny of humanity. To access universal peace and real fraternity. Once this unity is concretised, the principle of hierarchisation will no longer have reason to exist. Hierarchies will then have naturally disappeared.

Curiously, the hierarchisation of things has a double face. On one side it is a motor of human evolution, and on the other a brake on the fraternal ideal. Yet in the end, these two oppositions conclude in a human positive. This is why, at the historical level, the system of hierarchies continuously regresses. It becomes ever softer and more malleable — ever easier to work with and to horizontalise (one need only see the evolution of the problem of castes in India). And this dilution depends in large part on the progress of consciousness.

 

Reflection on time and consciousness

The various states of consciousness

 

 

Being and beings.

 

Philosophy is critical consciousness, the fundamental acceptance of this critical consciousness and as a consequence, the politicisation of humanity. Gerd Bornheim

According to our philosophy, all the diversities of creation are united behind a unity: Being.

Being is the creative principle — it is God. Everything is God, in sum. But to understand our world (and because it is our impression), we must distinguish the creative principle from its creation. We must double it, for example, into: Being and beings (the absolute and humanity — substance and its attributes — God and the world).

We can then separate a global and homogeneous mechanism (the mind) into several distinct parts (consciousness, will, impulses). This fragmentation then allows us to study what we call consciousness.

 

On consciousness

 

According to the most widespread definition, consciousness is the intuition (more or less complete, more or less clear) that an individual has of their own acts. Being conscious therefore encompasses several mental states. Generally, we describe them as "psychological phenomena" expressible by a conscious person. I am conscious of being at this moment in the library and of observing through the window the comings and goings in the garden. I can describe these observations and explain them to my neighbour.

Under this definition of consciousness, we can encompass dreams, memories, projections (anticipation). We can also include the sensations of our body (insofar as these phenomena are conscientised — in other words, consciously lived and expressible by the individual).

Conversely, would be considered unconscious those cerebral activities engendered by our mind autarchically. I injure myself. My entire organism will set in motion a system of care — anaesthesia of the zone, scarring and so on — of which I am not conscious.

 

What does it mean to be conscious?

 

Would be conscious in the ordinary sense of the term:

• The being receptive to its external environment (I see, I feel, I hear what surrounds me)
• The being receptive to its states of memory and projection (I remember or imagine this or that thing, this or that sensation)
• The being judging, analysing, comparing, reflecting, representing and so on
• The being capable of expressing what it feels (pain, pleasure, suffering, well-being, serenity, worry and so on)

Being conscious is therefore, in the broad sense of the term: being sensitive to the entirety of the phenomena that constitute our mental life in the waking state (Grand Dictionary of Philosophy) and in dreaming states.

 

Subjective consciousness and phenomenal consciousness

Within this global principle of "being conscious", contemporary thought seems to distinguish 2 great types of consciousness:

• Subjective and intentional consciousness
• Phenomenal consciousness

Subjective consciousness (which some, it seems to me, call "qualia") would correspond to the intimate, felt consciousness of things through our affects, our sensations, our emotions.

Phenomenal consciousness would be a kind of generic consciousness, empty of all judgement ("the epoché" of which Husserl speaks). It is an insensible and objective consciousness. I see, hear, imagine, think, analyse this or that thing without emotion, without sensation, without feeling (as a computer would perform a calculation, a camera would record images).

 

1/ The example of the rose

 

I observe and smell a rose. Phenomenological consciousness allows me to describe this flower scientifically — to analyse its fragrance and even to explain the sensations it produces in me.
But what I truly feel — what my body and mind "live" intimately in contact with this flower, the personal sensation linked to my history — will remain forever in the domain of the intimate. I will never be able to give my emotion to be lived by another.

Even if the 2 forms of consciousness generated by the rose overlap and seem to unfold at the same time, they belong to radically distinct psychic mechanisms. A little like breathing and swallowing cannot be lived at the same time — the epiglottis preventing swallowing and breathing simultaneously.

 

2/ The example of the wood

 

I walk through a wood. My intentional consciousness analyses everything I see, feel and hear. It examines the path on which I walk, the smell of the various tree species, their colours, the surrounding sounds. At the same time, the environment produces particular sensations in me. It gives rise to personal feelings — it affects my state of mind.

In ordinary life, these forms of consciousness are intimately linked. They form one and the same state of "normal" or "ordinary" consciousness. When we observe our own movements of consciousness, we have the impression of a perfect fusion between intentionality and sensitivity. The 2 states of consciousness give the impression of being in fusion, of forming but one. I have the impression of being able to reflect, analyse, write, think and feel at the same time.

While I write these lines in the library, I am attentive to my writing and at the same time perceive someone crossing the room; I hear a pen fall; I smell the perfume of a woman seated next to me; I feel happy to exist and to work, all while continuing to be concentrated on the lines I have just written.

The mind then leads us to believe it is possible to think and feel at the same time. In my view, this is an illusion. The two positions of consciousness can never overlap. These two states — sensitive (perceived in the flesh) and intellectual (relating to knowledge, understanding) — influence each other mutually without ever being able to fuse.

Year 2000