My suggestion regarding this matter is that our knowledge of the brain/mind is composed of what we know about it as an objective phenomenon and the subjective experiences that we have about the working of its components. This is not to say that these subjective experiences are not objective phenomena (things-in-themselves); this distinction is necessary to bring under focus the two different epistemological routes that we have to take for knowing the working of our brain/mind...No evolution is possible without the restructuring of the previous and the addition of new components to an existing phenomenon. And an organic realization of the need to restructure the brain/mind as a solution to our problems as a species, can act as the external pressure whose unconsciously realized needs used to bring about evolutionary changes in a species during all hitherto evolution.
The above ideas represent the gist of what I worked on during my association with the Philosophy Department of Sanjan Nagar Institute of Philosophy & Arts — a research organization based in Lahore, Pakistan. The basic purpose of this work was to develop a dynamic conceptual framework for the study of the human mind and to devise ways and means to restructure it, in the light of our understanding. For these reasons, instead of trying to understand the human mind as an extremely complex problem, we took the historical or the evolutionary route. Of course, the human mind is a very complex and hard to comprehend phenomenon; no one can deny this.
But our contention was that we must not be emotionally and conceptually overwhelmed by its current complexity. We must treat it as a normal and natural phenomenon, which has evolved to reach its present form. Thus, in our view, at the present level of our knowledge ("hard facts") about the working of the mind (especially its higher functions such as consciousness or the subjective experience of "I"), we have a better chance of obtaining a comprehensive view of the problem, if not its solution, by tracing the evolutionary history of the mind up to now and speculating about the course that it may take during its future evolution. The latter is only possible if we have a macro view of the process of the evolution of the Universe and the phenomena occurring within it. So that if the mind is a natural phenomenon, its specific trajectory of evolution cannot be outside the overall process of the Universe and the evolutionary direction it may be following. Sunday, February 12, 2006 Life worth living?! Studying Consciousness posted by Farrukh at 7:42 AM 0 comments Farrukh Mehboob Khan Location: Lahore, Pakistan
Invitation
With wind and the weather beating around me
With wind and the weather beating around me
Up to the hill and the moorland I go.
Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?
Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?
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