Using words one can find many suitable ways to frame an idea such as happiness or temptation however these descriptive explanations become tenuous when one attempts to probe them logically. We gain little further understanding of how we function as humans through these discussions and descriptions. Often people create more structured and logical explanations of their specific topic, such as temptation, which is equally unhelpful as it is not related to other areas, such as happiness, and cannot be used to learn anything about the other. It is somewhat like our understanding of physics presently; both relativity and quantum mechanics work in isolation but make no sense in combination.
To discuss any of the intangible faculties of the mind in a useful way I deem it essential to first construct a model for how the brain operates. By doing this each specific area under discussion may be affixed to this model allowing it to be understood best and provide greater inference to other aspects. To usefully discuss the human condition we need a "unifying theory" of consciousness.
Firstly I should like to differentiate the main two ways in which decisions are ultimately made by people, those being by reasoning and by emotion. Technically we could add in a third way of making a choice, being reflex actions to events like touching a hot surface but this does not come under the heading of consciousness, nor is it as poorly understood and so we shall not be looking at reflexes at any length.
When we consciously make a choice (ie not a reflex) we are influenced in two ways, one by logic and the other by emotion. Most choices we make will be a combination of the two influences however the variance in which factor is more significant is massive. Generally speaking the sooner we respond to an event the greater the influence of emotion is on our response. This gives rise to expressions such as "in the heat of the moment", which implies a choice has been made with little reasoning. The exact ratios of emotion and logic that go into any choice are not especially important for understanding my model of consciousness, we need only appreciate that both exists and that the ratio will vary for people from choice to choice for a number of reasons. Being tired, for example, often makes people act upon emotion more than they normally would, for the likely reason that the use of logic requires more mental effort, rather like trying to use any other part of your body that is low on resources - you would run a second marathon slower than your first if done consecutively! It is also observably true that the ratio of emotion to logic varies from person to person (if taken as an average across all their choices), some people are reserved and do not jump to conclusions while others are more impulsive. Emotion serves as both a crutch to support reasoning powers when they are struggling or as a tool to expediate the conclusions of reasoning.
I should like to propose as a fundamental element of my model of consciousness that each of our individual consciousnesses, or our self awareness if you prefer, is a sense organ much like the eyes or ears. We are affected by the things we sense, and generally we think of our senses as operating externally however this is somewhat of an illusion for we have many internal senses in addition to those that do operate externally (such as the classic sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste). The internal sense organ responsible for our feeling of self I shall call the 'self organ'. The self organ is capable of detecting certain goings on within the brain, mainly the areas of the brain responsible for reasoning which is based on the collated evidence of the senses, emotion, and also from the individuals memory.
As you may have noticed, I defined the way in which we use our brains to reason was based upon input from the senses, to which I have introduced a new member - the self organ. This would imply that the sense organ observes the reasoning being done and then transmits this information back into the system doing the reasoning thus creating an internal feedback loop. As a fairly woolly overview I would assert that this feedback loop allowed for the focusing of thought as an evolutionary advantage with consciousness a resulting side affect.
At any given moment each of our senses will be relaying information up a hierarchical system feeding towards the reasoning area or level of the brain. The information will be automatically filtered so that only the relevant bits of information are presented to the reasoning brain. During this filtering process of the sensory information, the reflex actions are instigated which totally bypass the reasoning area of the brain. I consider reflex actions to include both responses like blinking and the propagation of emotions.
I am able to consider emotions to be propagated by a pre-cognitive filtering subsection of the brain as I have introduced the self organ. This allows us to create an emotional response in the body by "thought alone". When we dwell on an event that made us angry we become more irritable or even angry again.
Although not all sensory information is passed all the way up the brain hierarchy to the reasoning area, nor are we able to recall all information from our memory, it does seem likely that a lot of the sensory input is retained in memory and therefore this must occur at a similar level to the filtering process and the reflex actions.
Below is a simplified flow chart of how information is passed about the various areas of the brain and nervous system in my model of consciousness.
My model must require some feedback into the filtering sections of the senses to work appropriately. The arrow with a question mark is a possible route in that past experience will make you more or less sensitive to certain things in certain situations such as knocking sounds when you are expecting visitors (assuming you don't have a bell). It seems reasonable that there may well be another arrow from cognitive reasoning area directly back to the filtering sections instead or in addition to the arrow from memory, which would serve a similar function.
I have used the word hierarchy a few times in describing this model as it is a good way of looking at the relationship between different areas of the brain. Each of the sense organs is effectively at the base of the hierarchical structure and each is in dependant of the other sense organs, the information they gain will passed up the hierarchy towards the decision making areas. Once the data has been processed at the top of the hierarchy the results will be passed back to the bottom of the hierarchy allowing each independent sense organ to act in harmony with the others.
This manner of feedback allows the in dependant operation of the individual areas of the brain while also allowing them to have more or less control and/or "processing power" depending on the conclusions of the cognitive area. The brain, much like the rest of the body, is made up of specialist, semi-autonomous groups or systems. These areas must do their job to maintain the functionality of the body while also relying on each other area to be able to perform their own task.
I personally believe that the self organ has evolved over time to be more powerful in humans and has hijacked the body taking significant a degree of control over the whole. This is not the only view my model allows for, it is possible that the cognitive reasoning area has maintained control and it is a mere illusion that the self has any. In other words it could be the case that although we feel like we made a choice to do something we in fact only observed that choice being made in a process of which we have no control over.
Assuming my belief is correct however, we arrive at a system where the body has a set of goals such as propagation and survival while the consciousness, what we deem to be us, has its own motives. The body attempts to control the consciousness with emotions and pain so that it acts in accordance with the goals of the body while not losing the benefits of reason. An antagonistic relationship therefore exists between the body and the consciousness of each person where both relies upon the other and cooperates only out of necessity. This could explains such things as why we get such a rush from dangerous pursuits as we are asserting ourselves over our body.
This model is a basic framework upon which you can hang ideas so that they may be related to one another. The model may benefit from refinement, and as with all science, is still a work in progress yet it can provide a useful start point for any discussion of the mind. I will undoubtedly return to these topics and either refer to this model in future essays or update it as I gain new insights.
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