Qualia And Mental Construct

A cut-away from the last edition - please leave your thoughts - some serious questions posed for contemplation esp in the world in which we are living through:

'Was there any meaning to this mess?’ he thought. ‘Did anything even matter? Any of this? For any formalized system there exists the Gödel sentence, which is unprovable in that system, but the key to the sytem that only a human mind can understand be true, and it is that truth that holds the intergity of the system togther. So, what was the Gödel sentence? What was the truth to the process of life’s unfolding? The myth, the mystery, the mental construct, where was the primordial understanding located? There were just too many variables. Was there even a being here at all or were we just information scattered across time from the extremities of existence? Was there even, for that matter a God?’ He began to clutch at straws in chaotic desperation. ‘If there was, he had abandoned all interest in my arduous life,’ He winced, his thoughts erratic.

He had been so accustomed to thinking in almost irrational terms in times of stress, from the time he was merely a boy, that he failed to question them any longer. ‘But God is a concept,’ he thought. ‘Whether it be the sum total of all existence or the spring to the well of consciousness itself, the concept had innate meaning for millions. It had power.’ He recalled his eyes welling with tears, on more than one occasion, choking with emotion at just the thought of the crucifixion of Christ, when the moment had enough impetus to dwell upon.

‘But Jesus Christ was not just a man that lived two millennia ago. The thought of him conjured power, perhaps the emotion of a collective consciousness that revered this man as God. The thought of him was much, much more powerful that the man. These of course were human constructs, like with all other mental models conjured up by the omnipotent consequence of the illuminating force of language,’ Amrit’s train of thought was now relentless.

‘Our advancements and refinements in communication and the intricate concepts they embellished, generation upon generation, created an entire universe of mental form, of cultural symbols, human mental constructs that form the basis of each and every object in the physical world around us, creating every idea, serenading every thought that had ever been. And culturally these constructs, these symbols take on their own innate meaning, without further descriptions being required.

We know what a tree is, as the word has been associated with the form for countless generations. No further description is necessary, unless you want to further define the specificity of the tree to which you are referring. But there is a chasm of difference between that which is, and that which is thought.

The thing that separates us from beast is not just language but its accompanying mental models, the constructs that have grown alongside the development of language and culture, of science and learning. Our mental world is now as rich and refined as the real world in which we live, for every object in reality is entwined with the idea of it, the story that runs alongside it, in a parallel universe of the human mind. And the language of that mind has become so cast together with the reality that we perceive that we no longer can comprehend the difference between the two distinct qualities.

Qualia or mental construct, the softness of a petal or the coldness of ice, the brilliance of a sunset in our mind’s eye, is that quality of the mind in which we retain the experience, as memory of that experience, and the thoughts, suppositions and refinements of those experiences, purely of our mind, known subjectively to us alone.

Language communicates these mental constructs crudely, if at all. It is most likely a uniquely human capacity to capture an image of passing reality in our mind, of experience lived, and reflect upon that image to define it, to make sense of it, and not just to be able to make use of that meaning but to imbue our material experience with persona, a human persona.

To give the mountain a name and then conquer it with a flag, so as to pride our ego to our forebears, to see all things as innately extensions of the human mind itself. Could a man be educated as to these fundamentals of the world?’ Amrit questioned further as he walked. ‘Or need he be awakened to the beating of this eternal drum by his own epiphany?’