WHAT DO WE KNOW? We know but two things:
1. That we feel. 2. What we feel.
This is simple enough, but not quite so simple as it appears. Both items require some clarification. 1. It is beyond dispute that we feel (or think), but it is debatable as to whether or not we think. Thinking itself is undeniable. What may be questioned is the identity of the thinker. We speak from mere convenience and habit when we say that we think. Thinking is real, but "we" is an abstraction. We cannot say that thinking or feeling is an abstraction, but we can most assuredly contend that the idea of our individual egos, of our separate selves, is little more than a fabrication of words. As awkward as it may be to express it this way, it is nonetheless true that thinking is going on whether "we" want it to or not. I have made the argument before that the thinking that we sense going on inside our head is not truly ours at all. We do not prompt it, and short of suicide we do not stop it. It is going on even as we sleep. In my first book, The One Thing, I suggested that our brains are like riverbeds that simply provide the pathway for the dynamic that we call thinking. If feels like it's ours because it is travelling through the (very likely) unique pathway that is our brain. I further suggested that (just maybe) the thinking is a sort of universe transmission, and that our brains are merely its receptors. The brain receives the transmission of consciousness in the same way that a radio receives its own kind of signals. Here is the pentad (from the book) that briefly encapsulates the idea:
CONSCIOUSNESS
Through acts of sheer randomness, the One Thing has produced Human thinking with the Universe's energy, which flows through us like a stream. The flow is involuntary, inexorable - and not ours. Our brains are merely its receptors.
2. We are aware that we feel (or think about) certain things. There is no doubt about the "what" of our thoughts. We know, for example what we feel about God. The feeling itself is undeniable. What we do not know is whether the object of our feeling is real or contrived. This of course applies solely to abstract thoughts. I am in no way suggesting that whenever we think about a rock that there is a possibility that "rock" as an object may not be real. Only abstractions are questionable, things for which we have no supporting sensory data. Just because we happen to have a word for something, like "God," or, "love," does not mean that - ipso facto - the thing is real. So far as we know, "God" (or "love" or any abstract word you care to name) is only a word. We do not know (i.e., we have no knowledge of) whether it is anything more.
|
