Added cover image to O.P.
Here's the opening of the final chapter:
Quote:
Watching the River Flow
Oh, this ol' river keeps on rollin', though,
no matter what gets in the way and which
way the wind does blow,
and as long as it does I'll just sit here
and watch the river flow.
– Bob Dylan
What is it to be conscious? As you read this are you aware that you are reading? Can you feel your toes? Are you aware of your heart beating, your breath? Do you notice these things singly, individually, sequentially or as part of a mosaic of awareness?
Where do you think ‘you’ are? In your brain? In your chest? Or maybe just behind your eyes. Close them. Are you still there? Are you still in the same place or have ‘you’ shifted? When you touch something with your fingers, feel the texture where are ‘you?’ Is it ‘you’ feeling the texture or ‘you’ knowing that you are touching/feeling the texture under your fingers? Or is it both? Are you the water, the river or are you just sitting there contentedly watchin’ the river flow?
As you might know already, philosophers have had a field day with this topic since at least the time of Descartes and his famous ‘I think therefore I am’ bifurcated the mind and brain; certainly not just with those words but just as certainly as the church bifurcated body and soul. We’ve struggled ever since to return to a rational view of the mind and consciousness. Why?
Mostly it’s from our anthropomorphic centrism which continues to rear its head from Copernicus to Hubble, Freud to Jung, and Newton to Schrodinger. We all want to feel and be special. We want our place to be special, our thoughts to be special. Oh sure we are each unique, each with our own quirks, crooked smile and mannerisms, but this is a deeper sort of ‘special.’ We each feel as if we will go on forever as a unique individual -- even when sleeping and we perchance to dream we still are ‘ourselves.
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