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the computer as a metaphor for consciousness

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Submitted by: mkamen@aol.com

Submit Date: 2004-10-04

We do not yet know what consciousness is. We do know that consciousness is one element of reality. This element allows us to relate to our inner reality, the world around us, and the cosmos. Different structures of consciousness will produce different perceptions of all these realities and different ways of acting on them. But we can never hope to know what these realities would be without our consciousness.

We often seek to define, and whenever possible quantify external, observable causes that we think are producing certain effects on our personal lives, our societies, or our economies. We forget that many of these effects result from particular behaviors and world visions that respond to our particular structure of consciousness. There is no phenomenon in our complex reality in which this invisible participant does not play a crucial role. It is invisible because consciousness cannot be separated from the observer studying and acting on this reality.

Inspired by a materialistic, deterministic philosophy, some scientists are researching the material bases of consciousness. They ask, for instance, how electrochemical signals come together as mental events. They seek to relate different structures in our brain with steps in our evolution as species. I prefer simply to see consciousness as an element of reality, trying to make it more comprehensible through pictorial representations and metaphors.

We all perceive that regulatory commands to our biological functions, certain behavioral impulses, and some knowledge about ourselves and our external reality come to us neither through our senses nor as a product of our will, but from a source that seems to permeate the totality of our body and spread beyond it. We call that source the unconscious of our consciousness.

It also is clear for us that knowledge, whether inferential or non-inferential, whether personally acquired or received from others, is stored somewhere in our consciousness for future retrieval. We call that "somewhere" the subconscious of our consciousness.

Finally, it is universally accepted that another part of our consciousness retrieves, interprets, and uses knowledge, influences behavioral impulses, and can even modify the usually involuntary commands that control certain biological functions. We call this operational part of our consciousness, the conscious of our consciousness.

The workings of a computer can be used as a metaphor for the roles that the three parts play in structuring our consciousness.

The conscious, which is the logical processor of external data, internal feelings, socially programmed values and beliefs, and unconscious messages, can be compared to a random-access-memory (RAM).

The subconscious is like a disk on which society loads programs of values, beliefs and behavior, and where self-acquired and transmitted knowledge is stored. All these bytes of information are recalled, as needed, by the individual operator when working with the RAM.

The unconscious can be compared to a read-only-memory (ROM) in which the creator stores operating procedures inherent to the condition of humans as creatures of nature.

Depending on our particular system of beliefs, we name this creator as god, nature, cosmic consciousness, or the universal spirit.

Mario Kamenetzky
From my book, The Invisible Player: Consciousness as the Soul of Economic, Social, and Political Life {Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, 1999)

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