Human Consciousness and Conscience

Human Consciousness and Conscience

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious Most Merciful

     Two of the many great blessings which many would have but would not realise are having consciousness as well as conscience in mind and self. Interesting, the whole issue of consciousness and conscience has aroused many intellectual talks, experiments, debates and research in multiple fields such as philosophy, neuroscience and psychology to try to explain these two inter-twined things human being have. These two values, abilities or whatever we want to call them dictate the significance of self and significance of life for us as human being.

     This writing is not intended to explain exhaustively about what each two really means but more of trying to invite readers to think about the essence of these two, how they are inter-connected, how we view from philosophical, medical and neuro-scientifical perspectives and eventually bringing the issue into the context of how Islam views the issue. Consciousness generally speaking means the state of wakefulness, alertness and awareness. While it can be defined as those, consciousness indeed exists in a continuum rather than discreet. Somebody can be awake but not necessarily sharp in awareness or alertness. Somebody can also shut down to the extent he loses his wakefulness, alertness and awareness. From medical perspective, often we talk about alteration of consciousness that can occur with complex seizures where patient does not necessarily lose his full consciousness but alteration that he loses the understanding, memory of what is going on. In anaesthesia, we also talk about degrees and levels of human consciousness and how deep should we induce the level of unconsciousness in our patients. Many Research enlighten us with the discovery of level of consciousness.

                                                Alert and Oriented

                                                       Fatigue

                                                       Stupor

                                             Locked-In Syndrome

                                            Minimal Conscious State

                                                       Coma

                                             Persistent Vegetative State

                                                    Chronic coma

                                                   Brainstem Death

Decreasing level of consciousness moving down the diagram( with exceptions in some respects)

      The state in each level is very interesting. Locked-in syndrome for instance is a state where a patient is fully awake but lose motor control of the body making it possible to be physically perceived as unconscious. Patient is locked in the body in not being able to walk,talk, move and others but the primary vegetative function such as heart beating and respiratory function. Here is where we can throw in or out a debate to consider whether it is a state of conscious or unconscious. Again, that is why from medical perspective at least, consciousness exists in a spectrum. Glasgow Coma Scale which was initially invented to gauge the extent of traumatic brain injury which was then modified and used as a means to measure conscious level of patients, explains well the existence of consciousness in a spectrum.

    Let us bring this to another step. We know neuro-scientifically, reticular formation via reticular activating system is what controls variety of functions including cardiorespiratory control, pain modulation, sleep and wakeful cycle, somatic motor control and habituation. Reticular formation interacts with various aspects of cerebral cortex to alter our perception of things around and our consciousness as well as interaction with optical circuit to provide body with circadian rhythm. SubhanAllah, cerebral cortex also sends signals down to reticular formation to allow good control of tone, balance, coordinated movements through central pattern generators, etc. These two brain parts interact with the body via spinal cord. This designates beautifully how mind and body actually works and how mind will be affected if body is affected and vice versa.

                                                 Human brain

     We understand biologically the basic about how human gets his consciousness. This is only a foundation to consciousness in the context of human psychology and socio-culture. Consciousness when discussed in other areas means more than just this. Consciousness brings the meaning of being aware of your very self, who you are and many other questions we encounter in philosophy. I believe that consciousness is the essence of philosophy and it is the essence that dictates how we define ourselves, the others, and how we function in our lives. To make it more interesting, when we understand this, we know that we can be biologically conscious but spiritually unconscious. We can be biologically conscious but culturally and socially unconscious. We can indeed be an unconscious being that walks in this world and we can also be consciously unconscious in our dealings everyday.

     In Islam, we have this saying that those who do not know themselves shall never know their God. In the holy book Quran, Allah mentioned about people who live in this world but in real fact dead in their inner-selves, nauzubillah. Everything in this life has its trigger. Nothing happens without reasons, and nothing is co-incident in nature. Charles Darwin and the evolutionists might not agree when they adopted the evolution theory basing creation and universe existence as co-incident. This is the basis that differentiates divine religions with agnosticism and atheism. Divine religions exist on the basis that creation and universe were created and nothing occurred as co-incidence. Science over time repeatedly shows that there are process to things. Water is only made when Hydrogen atoms bind with Oxygen molecule. Such a ruling will certainly sound absurd without specific design and rules determination. Co-incidence does not create beauty, haphazard work does not create a beautiful design to this universe. The same goes to consciousness, it is not co-incidental. It has its trigger. It maybe difficulties in life, it maybe after going through decades of wasted life or anything that makes people gain the sense of consciousness in any respect of their lives. This includes the very first question everybody needs to ask themselves, why am I in this world, what is my purpose of life? We also need to remember that to not answer this means to actually have answered it ourselves.

     From Islamic perspective, Allah the Almighty innumerably mentioned in the holy book about people who ponder over, people who think, people who contemplate, people who remember. Islam emphasizes the need for this as the key to everything else. Having the verse that asked the prophet Muhammad saw and the muslims to read links very well with the urge to contemplate. It is by reading and by contemplating that human being in general get the message, the realisation and receive the consciousness. Islam also talks about roles and responsibilities having had the consciousness to deliver the message of Islam and to establish justice and peace between human being.

     Let us talk a bit about conscience. What is conscience? It is also a term discussed from many angles and perspectives, from religion to atheistic, secular and science. In general, it is the realisation and the feeling of what is right and what is wrong. It is what generates guilt when doing “bad”. It is also what generates the feeling of good and integrity when doing “good”. Biologically, I personally think that we don't have a specific lobe or area generating this. I do think that it is an integration of multiple lobes which function to generate this higher level function yet being part of the essence of human quality. This is because the conscience which informs our moral judgment can be influenced by upbringings, religions, cultures, social dynamics and values which all require brain perception, memory, judgment, etcetera to eventually formulate the feeling. People won't feel guilty if they perceive what they are doing as right!

                                                       cartoon picture

     Understanding what conscience is, let me the share how Islam perceives conscience. It is interesting to first analyse the fact that consciousness and conscience are very close and inter-related. With conscience, people feel when they are doing bad or good. Consciousness makes people use their conscience when doing things. Also true is when people have conscience, it inculcates consciousness when they are doing things. In Islam, the centre of change is the heart( qalb). It is the centre that perceives good and bad based on common human values and commandments of Allah the Almighty. Islam values conscience very much and it is the action  having this conscience and inspiration of right and wrong that dictates whether the heart is purified or dirtied. When a believer follows his conscience based on what is commanded, then he is indeed answering to the call of God and bringing himself into God's peace and vice versa. Islam also recognises the two whispers that are all prevailing in human being, one calling for evil and the other calling for good. This is what creates tension in human being, and jihaad as often being misquoted is the very value that help to self-control and defeat the evil and violence in oneself. Conscience in Islam is also related to the concept of asking forgiveness and salvation. Conscience is a value, feeling or attitude, but many times human being go against their conscience out of failure to control and master themselves. Islam opens the door to salvation and forgiveness widely, provided believers realise, asks for forgiveness and have the intention of leaving the mistakes. The salvation in Islam is also about not losing hope in God, and it is for believers to do their best, and leaving what is beyond their control to Allah, the God Al-Mighty.

Let us value our consciousness and conscience, insyaAllah( God Willing)

Abu Asr

27/12/11