What do you rate higher: senses or intellect? Or are they incomparable and both indispensable? Or is one more dependent on the other than the other is on it? Please don't mind that I may have brought up clichéd topics of empiricism and brain in a petri dish theories.
In addition, if you were forced to forgo one of your senses and you could choose which, then which one would it be and why, or is this impossible to answer :-) ? I mean let's say an evil alien leader came to you and said they were going to somehow take away one of your senses but that you could choose which one. Then what would your answer be?
I look forward to reading your views.
"How did humans get to life?"
9 years ago
14 comments:
Since senses have a relatively limited scope in comparison to the intellect, I would rate the intellect higher than the senses. Also, the intellect works at a much more abstract level than the senses. Of course, abstraction isn't something that our capitalist generation necessarily seeks, in our times of media overexposure and hype, but my views are not necessarily based on popular appeal. Moreover, the senses cannot exist without the mind, of which the intellect is a part.
If I had to forego one of my senses, I would choose taste. This is because I'm not very particular about the taste of the food that I eat anyway, as long as it is edible. Also, it relates to an activity that is performed only at certain specific times of the day, and not all the time.
However, I would rate intuition even higher than intellect. I am, of course, not referring to intuition that has been developed through experience, which helps us make judgements and form opinions based on perception, which is often speculative and nowhere near as precise as the intellect. I rate the intellect higher than this kind of intuition, but this is not the kind I'm talking about.
I'm talking about intuition that allows one to perceive things without the aid of intellect and experience - something that allows us to spontaneously perceive things beyond the senses. After all, if we go the root of intellectual reasoning, there is a point when intellect cannot explain things. Our human conditioning has made us too dependent on the intellect, so we have effectively ceased to work through intuition. This is expressed in our inability to reconcile ourselves to contradictions, since the rational mind likes consistency. My own experiences have shown me that the realm of intuition does exist and often provides us with clues or answers that we couldn't have arrived at through rational, sensory or emotional means. We only need to cultivate the ability to access the intuitive realm. Since there are many methods to do this, I won't go into the details, as these methods are readily available to anyone who is genuinely interested.
Personally, I would prefer to not have a body, and hence no senses at all, and perceive things purely at the level of ideas. I have to live with a body because my desires force me to, and all desire is eventually based on ignorance. My perception only extends to the dimension of ideas, and I'm presently unable to comprehend what lies beyond. As far as I know/believe, the whole of creation itself is an idea. Creation is a contradiction, because it makes us comfortable with a condition that is limited by profound ignorance, whereas it is not in our real nature to be ignorant.
That's an interesting reply.
My take on this is that although there is a school of thought similar to what you say, especially as per the Bhagavad Geeta etc, that senses are ranked lowest, and then the intellect and then intuition, senses and intellect are both dependent on each other, and work with each other to help us understand the world and concepts.
Why the senses are dependent on the brain is obvious and I don't have to get into any kind of explanation regarding that.
The brain, however is also dependent on the senses, in my opinion and this takes me to the 'brain in a petri dish' theory. If the brain is completely disconnected from the sense ciruitory- is it possible for it to have any knowledge or intelligence is the question. Imagine a creature born with a brain that's anatomically, and physiologically identical to a typical human brain of someone with average intelligence. Now pull out all the sense chords. Assume they were born with no sense at all. Will this creature have any form of intelligence? Kant believed in certain 'a priori' intelligence which people are said to automatically have, like the notion of time and space, but without any persception at all, what would the creature have as a frame of reference in time?
In addition, would the creature have any knowledge of what defines 'it' and what defines the world; would there still be any notion of ego?
Regarding the ability to think at abstract levels and percive pure ideas, is any idea possible with 0 knowledge? If the creature due to being disconnected from the envirnoment (due to unplugged sense chords) have any knowledge and any development of the right brain that engenders new ideas?
I fully agree that without the intellect the senses are useless as well and that unlike the senses the brain understands and generates 'ideas', but I think both are interdepedent on each other since at least for the initial bootstrapping process, senses are required- I mean, if instead of this disconnected-from-the-environment creature, a person who was absolutely normal; i.e., born with all senses, lost all of them somewhere along the way, during their life, it would be a different thing - they would already have some knowledge as well as some developed intellect which further on could facilitate grasping and generation of concepts and ideas too.
Now given the above reasoning, should senses and intellect be ranked equally or would senses rightfully be ranked over intellect? Reasoning for the latter being - many activities we engage in that take us to a completely spiritual dimension, and make us feel 'one with the universe', which I think is a superior state to be in , rather than states that are purely left brain oriented, rely on senses - like music or painting. Music certainly is capable of taking one to a differetn plane of existence, and wouldn't be possible without the sense of hearing. However the auditory system itself would again be useless without the brain.
So I think overall I rank both equally.
About which sense I'd forgo, coming up in the next comment....
Got to catch a bus now! :-)
OK continuing... :-)
I think I'd forgo smell, although taste is mostly for pleasure rather than for functional purposes, coz I enjoy good food. Small has more functional purposes. For e.g., if there's a gas leak in your house then you could die if you couldn't smell early enough. Assuming I will live a fairly safe life, I would choose to take this risk.
Sight is of course an integral part of learning and perception + I am a very visual person too, and a patron of the visual arts and aesthetics. Auditory - also contributes to a LOT of learning and understanding , + I enjoy music and am very cognizant of sounds and phonetic nuances, both of which I take a lot of interest in.
Touch - very very essential for safe living. It would be dangerous not to feel pain if for e.g. you get bitten by something poisonous, or are developing a disease.
Your comment reminds me of Stephen Hawking's assertion that an understanding of reality isn't possible without a model of reality, i.e., that reality cannot be understood on its own, without theories for the same. Of course, in that sense, senses are required to understand things that may pertain to aspects of mind way beyond the senses - e.g. music, mathematics, logic etc. As far as these things are concerned, I completely agree. I wouldn't be able to appreciate the abstraction in lattice theory or mathematical logic without the aid of sight that helps me read books or without the aid of ears that allow me to listen to a class lecture on these subjects.
Your question perhaps pertains to our bodies in the present state. I can even give an example of a person who was able to manage intense intellectual ratiocination and analysis after he had lost a good deal of sensory ability - Stephen Hawking himself. He had, of course, reached a certain stage of maturity of intellect, and hence was able to carry on even after his loss, so your point in this regard is sensible.
I, however, believe that there are some of us who are forced to live with all the travails of a body just for some petty desires, so in the end it is a pretty raw deal for us. I, for one, have this strong belief that but for my desire for emotional fulfillment, I wouldn't have really taken a physical form - I have everything else, and realise that emotions are much lesser than spiritual insight and bliss, but such is the nature of ignorance - it forces suffering upon you even without you wanting it. I have to be born just for experiencing emotional fulfillment, which, really, is silly nonsense when compared to the exquisite treasures of consciousness of spirit. Of course, in some sense I'm expressing my frustration, because I very well know that nothing in existence comes undeserved.
You are referring to the human conditioning where a child develops his notion of the world slowly with time, using his/her senses in the process. With time, these notions and sensory experiences develop into intellectual processes, and once the intellect reaches a certain stage of maturity, it begins to operate more or less independent of the senses. However, this is a conditioned existence - the human life. If we were to view ourselves as pure consciousness without the limitation of having to live a human lifetime, would your equation of senses and intellect still apply? When the Bhagavad Gita rates the senses as lower than the intellect, is it referring to the human conditioning, or to pure awareness? Think about it........
I dont think I can rate either of sense and intellect higher than the other- I cant imagine life without either. But I could probably call one more basic than the other- and that would be senses. This idea derives from the more fundamental idea that existence precedes consciousness as according to Ayn Rand. This philosophy is nicely summed up in the sentence "A consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms". Having said that then, correspondingly, senses precede intellect.
It is true that without intellect, senses cannot be of much use in our life: almost all of Science is based on INFERENCES based on sense data (borrowing Russell's term)for which u need the intellect. For eg: the very fact that the earth is round was not told to us by our senses- in fact our senses told us something quite different!(As an aside, I once read about a person suffering from a condition of the brain wherein although all his senses were perfectly fine, he could not identify objects as wholes: like, given a rose, he could tell its colour, smell, texture etc but could not identify it as a rose- he had lost the "Gestalt ability" if I can call it so)
However, what can u "intelligize" on, if u didn't have senses? What would be the raw material for the intellect? Descartes said "I think therefore I am". Where does the food for thought come from? Talking about abstractions, taking a raw example: U can imagine a red elephant- but that is only because u have seen red and u have seen elephant. The building blocks of all abstractions broken down to the most fundamental level would I believe, be sensory inputs.
Regarding the Kantian idea of a priori knowledge: While I agree with his statement " All our knowledge begins with experience but it does not follow that it arises from experience", I think a priori knowledge is just induction which again has its source in experience.
What come closest to pure abstraction without use of our senses are Mathematics and Logic. But these too, I would think have their origins in sensory inputs. Through the years they may have come to be the "formal sciences".
And ideas such as "the whole world is nothing but maya" dont seem very compelling since you're trapped in your Self (By Self I mean the sum total of your mind, body, soul.... and everything in between)- so you're bound to view reality as YOU view it. The Self is inescapable for each of us, so we have to accept as reality whatever it tells us- it would be futile to try to explore other worlds (like Plato's world of ideas, say). What you see (using the word 'see' loosely) is reality to u.
Coming to the second question: I'd forgo smell too- it seems to be the least functional for me.
As an aside, interestingly ironically, while 'sense' refers to the five senses, it also refers to the mind as in "making sense" :-)
yeah, I had thought of that linguistic digression as well. :) There is a reason for that. :)
And why maam would you not forgo taste? Like food is one of your priorities! :)
Oh... what would a life without corn and mushrooms be!!
Are you referring to the magic mushrooms of Kodaikanal? Well, I wouldn't exactly be looking for taste as the end result if I were to consume them............heh heh.
Interesting! Most interesting thread of discussion. I probably should read one more time to grasp the concepts and assumptions behind the arguments. I'll probably venture to give my opinion (if it is any different from the ones already presented) after my second reading.
@Dev -
I'm talking about intuition that allows one to perceive things without the aid of intellect and experience - something that allows us to spontaneously perceive things beyond the senses.
I'm sorry Dev, I couldn't quite understand the kind of intuition that you describe - I doubt that it exists in reality.
We only need to cultivate the ability to access the intuitive realm. Since there are many methods to do this, I won't go into the details, as these methods are readily available to anyone who is genuinely interested.
Dev - I would be happy if you could give pointers on this.
@dev - I am a little confused by the use of words, "senses", "mind" and "intellect" in the following sentence
Moreover, the senses cannot exist without the mind, of which the intellect is a part.
@sumi - I would put "brain" and "senses" together as a part of the same (perhaps larger) system, where senses are the input providers whereas the brain not only analyses the inputs but also gives commands in response to the stimuli received.
Now the above statement might describe the "measurable" / "observable" functions of the brain.
The "intellect" or the "mind", I believe, is not an observable / tangible function of the mind. I find it difficult to describe this function, maybe at best I could list some of the attributes of this funtion - thinking, reasoning, abstraction.
My own take on this (though it does not address the question asked):
If one is allowed to loosly describe the activities af the nervous system as a pathway, I'd say that there were 3 components:
a. collection of information (depends on the senses)
b. analysis of information (thinking, reasoning, abstraction, decision making conscious or unconscious)
c. acting out on the results of information analysis - the responses of the body and the organs.
For the complete system to be fuctional all the components have to be present and working.
Those that have defects (small or large) in any of the above components would be defective systems to the extent the defects affect the overall system.
I would put all aspects of the brain, viz. intellect, reasoning, wisdom, knowledge, experience etc. within the realm of the second component of the brain's function.
But at the root of all this one needs to get the basic inputs for any function of the second component to happen. I believe that all knowledge is learnt, and learning comes from the outside of the system through its sensory inputs.
A (sensory) disabled person develops only to the extent of the information (s)he gets while growing.
A paralysed person would be one whose components 1 and 2 are functional while the 3rd part is defective - Parkinson's disease.
To take the example of Stephen Hawking - I would equate his system to be very robust in the first and second components, whereas his motor system (or is it the musculature) is defective.
A person who is defective in the second realm would be a person who is 'mad' due to organic reasons or persons suffering from Alzheimer's, dementia etc.
As to which sense I would offer to lose - I'll go with smell. As it is humans are pretty impaired in smell and it doesn't really add much value by way day to day functionality.
And thanks to all for their views and to sumi for having stimulated my thinking and presenting this forum for discussion.
- A Random Visitor
Hello Random Visitor,
I am very happy to see your comment. Is that your blog in Tamil where you have this link hyperlinked? If so thank you for that.
You comment was very lucid and analytical. I will reply to it when I get a chance (will try to do so tonight).
Thanks again and hope to continue to hear your views.
OK, What I wanted to say was, that yes, it may be divided into the three functions that you mention. I am also thinking of an alternate view where the brain and the senses are both parts of the intellect. The senses being the input part and the brain being the processing part. This is what I was thinking of when I commented on the linguistic digression of the word 'sense' being used for reasoning (since it could arguably be thought of as a part of the intellect).
@Random Visitor, comment of June 30, 2008 12:21 AM:
>@Dev -
>I'm talking about intuition that >allows one to perceive things >without the aid of intellect and >experience - something that >allows us to spontaneously >perceive things beyond the senses.
>>I'm sorry Dev, I couldn't quite >>understand the kind of intuition >>that you describe - I doubt that >>it exists in reality.
Well, your doubt is in some sense natural, because it appears that most people have not had conscious personal experience of this dimension of awareness. My experiences have been perhaps different in this regard, so I feel more confident about the existence of the same. In particular, I'm referring to foretelling of future events - I could tell you more about it if you like.
>>We only need to cultivate the >>ability to access the intuitive >>realm. Since there are many >>methods to do this, I won't go >>into the details, as these >>methods are readily available to >>anyone who is genuinely >>interested.
>Dev - I would be happy if you >could give pointers on this.
Certainly. There are many institutions that teach yoga and methods of Self-Realisation, you can choose any one of them and target practices that aim to awaken the Agya Chakra, or the psychic centre in the centre of the eyebrows. This psychic centre is essentially the bridge between our manifest world and the unseen, unmanifest world. There are several yogic practices to develop the dimension of awareness that pertains to the Agya Chakra, such as Jala Neti, Trataka, etc. There is an excellent book titled "Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha", published by Bihar School of Yoga. It is usually available in bookshops that stock spiritual books, and this book would elaborate the exact techniques for these practices. Otherwise, you could simply google "Jala Neti" and "Trataka" and see what comes up!! If you're looking for a more systematic plan, simply pick up "A systematic course in the ancient tantric practices of Yoga and Kriya" by the same publisher, which is essentially just that - a course leading up to the practice of Kriya Yoga - pretty systematic and deep. In my perception, developing the Agya Chakra would also make you brilliant, but in a manner that may not be perceptible to common people - it may not make you sharper in the materialistic sense, but you'd realise that you perceive many things that common people simply pass by.
>@dev - I am a little confused by >the use of >words, "senses", "mind" >and "intellect" in the following >sentence
>>Moreover, the senses cannot >>exist without the mind, of which >>the intellect is a part.
Okay. According to yoga theory, the senses need the mind for support, otherwise the concept of "withdrawal of the senses" wouldn't exist. For instance, if you're lost, you may not understand what somebody says, even if you hear the words - this is an example to show that the senses play an auxiliary role to the mind - they report to the mind, in some sense!! Hence, the statement that the senses cannot exist without the mind. According to yoga theory again, the mind or Antahkarana as referred to in Samskrit consists of many things, which include the 5 organs of senses and 5 of action, the chitta or plane of awareness, the buddhi or intellect, and the ahamkara or the ego principle. (Note the usage of the word "principle" - it implicitly means that it is an illusion, because in truth there is only one Consciousness). So, according to this theory, these are the components of the mind, so the statement was made in that light. When I say "mind", I actually mean "Antahkarana", for there is no better word in English, and it is a lossy translation.
Hope that clarifies.
Thanks Dev for your reply. I'll look up the references that you've listed.
Having been trained in the sciences, with little exposure to the metaphysical and yogic domains, I am handicapped at understanding many of the principles that you've written about. I will however try my best to learn those aspects too.
Regards
Visitor
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