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Source: Human intelligence: have we reached the limit of knowledge?
Fascinating to ask, whether human capacity to understand things may always fall short of the big questions, like how our consciousness arises. I remember a quantum physicist saying in a documentary, how funny it should be that atoms have configured in such a way to think about themselves. I found this insight quite striking, humbing and yet also awe-inspiring.
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That’s right we are , along with everything else , a product of the big bang yet we have become , at least to some extent , aware of what’s going on. Consciousness is an amazing thing but self-awareness is mind blowing.
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I can only reiterate that statement, @flawedman: It is mind blowing and it recurringly does exactly that to me: It blows my mind. (And not in an excited, exhilirated way). I have to say that I can’t see self-reflecting awareness as a gift. I think it’s a cruel joke of the universe. But that’s just me. To each their own.
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Self-awareness means we judge our own actions and became moral beings as Freud put it ‘ we are at war with ourselves ‘. I believe intelligence when it reaches a certain level leads to self -awareness .
The universe is amoral it makes no decisions , only intelligent life can do that.
There are many scientists who believe we have no free will and so we do not choose and some go further to suggest the self is an illusion.
Sam Harris the well known atheist is in this group and like many who believe this it makes it difficult to see how we can possibly be responsible for our actions.
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Well, I think we feel responsible in equal parts to how whole we feel as that entitity which we usually refer to as our personal self, our persona. Some people will feel responsible not only for their own well being, but that of others’ as well (as a more or less direct consequence of taking good care of themselves). Other people will not mind as much about other’s wellbeing. But I think they’ll still manage to see how they affect the world around them, which I’d interpret as some kind of responsibility as well.
I’m not all sure I got your point 100%, though, and can only hope that my reply makes sense to you.
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Yes that’s about the size of it ; I like the word persona nicely put.
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