Human Consciousness: Ontology and Psychology

A human being is a "consciousness " being, which means that the state of consciousness is sufficient enough to define an individual in any part of the world. Human consciousness comprises of three major entities,

• Intellect
• Aesthetics
• Ethics

The intellectual sense enables us to reason about an idea. The aesthetic sense allows a person to 'like' or 'dislike' that idea, while the ethical sense tells me whether that idea is morally 'right' or 'wrong'.

Intellect:

The goal of intellect is to 'know' something. Reasoning provides the ONLY way to achieve this goal. Human intellect can also be divided into two aspects

• Empirical Reasoning / Empiricism
• Metaphysical Reasoning / Rationalism

Empiricism is a state of mind which states that I can obtain knowledge only from 5 senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch). In this aspect, the faculty of the mind which is most influential is called intelligence. Human intelligence makes observations from these primary senses, performs some experiments and then makes some conclusions.  The observations actually define the extent of the so called "known" world (i.e. everything functional within earth, sun, stars, planets etc). This is what we call as the scientific domain.

Metaphysical reasoning is more about sensing the "unknown" (i.e. the things which can't be grasped by my primary senses e.g. God, angels, heaven, hell etc). Here the faculty of mind which is most active is called wisdom.  In contrast of empiricism, rationalism is the view that "regards reason as the chief source of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification". This means that reasoning is not dependent solely upon the input of my empirical senses. I call this the religious domain.

Aesthetics and Ethics:

You might have come across situations where your consciousness says that doing this isn't 'right' yet you're somehow inclined to do it, like the feeling of enjoyment while breaking the law! This represents a classic example of a paradox between ethical and aesthetic sense. The solution is simple, try to develop your aesthetic sense under the supervision of your ethical sense, not the other way around. This means that I should develop my consciousness in such a way that I 'enjoy' what I think is 'right' and vice versa. Easier said than done, huh?

Knowledge and Beliefs:

As mentioned earlier, 'knowing' something is the objective of intellect, while 'believing' something is the purpose of consciousness. The empirical aspect of intellect may play a significant role in acquiring knowledge but empiricism has nothing to do with beliefs. The innate nature of human intelligence is such that it wants to rule the universe; it is not interested in my well being! Stated another way, intelligence wants to grasp hold of consciousness, it is not interested in the present state of consciousness. This represents a critical situation due to which I suggest that one should prefer wisdom over intelligence when it comes to reviving one's consciousness.

Let's go deep into the process of belief making. What happens is that my intellect (metaphysical portion) gets inspired by an idea. Afterwards, that idea penetrates into my ethical and moral sense, in the resultant of which I fall into love with that idea.  This means that ideally, I should acquire my beliefs in the following sequence;

If the source of the idea is divine, then the consciousness gives birth to so called religious beliefs, but bear in mind that the initial seed of any belief whether divine or not, is sown in the human intellect. Summarizing, when my consciousness is inspired by an idea, it transforms that idea into a belief which is then reflected in my personality.  When 'I' interact within a society, what others perceive is actually my personality, which is nothing but a mere reflection of the current state of my consciousness.