Human Core Experience
Biologic life on our planet is, among other things, characterised by an animals capacity to be aware, to react and to reproduce. Humans have a high level of awareness which also entails the capacity to be aware of oneself. For example: I know that I am, I know that I know.
This capacity for awareness and self-consciousness makes it possible for us to focus deliberately on both outer and inner phenomenons, to be aware of them and to come to an understanding of them. All this is conscious experience. One part of this sphere of experience is the human capacity for logical thinking which helps us to approach an understanding of the difference between subject and object, between ourselves and that which seems to be outside of us.
With our antennas, our sense organs, we receive signals which we assume are coming from an an outer world, separated from us by the borders of our bodies. The effects of these signals within us will then create a feeling of difference between ourselves and this outer dimension. And so we believe that this outer world has an own objective existence. But the fact is that these signals which our sense organs send to our brain, and are supposed to create mental images in our conscious awareness, actually can’t be taken as evidence for the objective existence of something solid outside our internal experience.
Logical thought has given us the idea that if there is any way in which we instrumentally can measure phenomenons in a presumed outer world, and do this again and again with the same result, we have proof of the objective existence of this dimension. Modern science is resting on this assumption which of course has been a great success with regard to the material aspects of human life.
But this belief in the possibility to prove that there is something with existence and form outside our minds creates a paradox. We can’t get out of our bodies and from the outside check what our sense organs and instruments are telling us, that is quite clear. Every one of us is also a single unique being, so every signal from the ”outside” will come to an individuals subjective mind which has its own functions, its own mental filters and its own ways of interpretation.
Thus the supposed objective existence of outer phenomenons will always be a persons own image. Neither is it possible to escape this individual difference of awareness and imagination by instruments used in the search of the objective existence of an outer world. The messages these instruments can give us must also be noticed and processed by unique single minds.
This leads to the conclusion that no human can claim that she has an absolute and objective knowledge of existence, form or function of a dimension outside her mind. We can in fact not even be sure that there is such a world.
Only our own experience of existence and being, together with our personal reactions and interpretations, provide us with a more or less clear image of a world outside ourselves. But this image can, to a certain extent, be shared with others of our kind in order to reach an agreement on a common interpretation of our shared images. In this way a commonly accepted, but usually only temporary valid, ”truth” will emerge.
This far-reaching, but logically defendable, view of the difficulty to obtain objective knowledge of existing dimensions outside ourselves does not undermine the importance of searching for objective knowledge if we remember:
• that a human individual certainly has the certain experience of a physical body but is actually dependent on consciousness and awareness in order to experience herself and her world and that it, because of this, is not possible to demonstrate the objectivity of this awareness with technical methods.
• that logical thought is just one part of all the functions of the human mind,
• and that science in our time is mainly focused on the search for knowledge of the physical and material dimensions of life.
Conscious observation is therefore totally dependent on mental functions. We can register and measure the neuro-chemical processes of the brain but we are not able to prove that these processes are the real, or only, source of mental images. We could as well claim that they are are physical reflexes of mental functions. We don’t know. For lack of more precis knowledge it may be wise to accept also this assumption. If we nourish the belief that these truly human mental abilities, which make us different from other animals on this planet, only are the byproduct of some chemical reactions in the brain there will be a risk that both meaning of life and lust for life will be undermined in many of us.
It seems to be important to state that logical thought, in spite of its importance for the life and society of man, actually is just one of several mental abilities. But we have, contrary to other animals on earth, made ourselves to a great deal dependent on it. Other creatures live in the same world as we and experience it fully without our capability of logical thinking. And they are probably not burdened by constant demand for proof of the objective existence of their world.
We should be grateful to have this higher mental ability. But if we place too much confidence in its possibilities to make existence known and understood, we risk to reject phenomenons which only can be experienced but, so far, not be logically explained. Thus we may give a too restricted form to the search for, and understanding of, a possible greater reality. It is here that the acceptance of a human core experience has its place.
Individual experience of existence, and everything this includes, is an absolute personal and indivisible whole. We can try to share this with others but there are no physical means to let others see the whole content of our minds. So we will never know what the other person actually is seeing.
On this basis it is possible to state that mental core experience is the only really known reality for us, regardless of the origin of signals and impulses which we assume are creating our mental images. The supposed reality of body, world and universe, of heaven and hell, is in ourselves. But this totally private innermost experience drives us to seek more knowledge in many directions in order to understand the mystery of existence. In this search it is necessary to recognize the great difference between being a human individual, a subject which is aware of its own existence and world, and to describe this individual as an object among other objects using physical and statistical methods which look at things from the outside. This deep inner feeling of reality in everyone of us should not be sent to the dustbins of natural science only because we are not able to prove its existence with logical thought or measuring machines. And we should remember that logical thinking only will function on the basis of already imagined thoughts and knowledge, false or true. What is still unknown can perhaps be imagined but can in this stage neither be described nor be measured as an existing objective reality. We should not deprive ourselves of the hope that we may be an active part of a greater dimension.
Ancient observations of mental processes have for thousands of years triggered the study of deep mental experiences, resulting in theories and concepts which eventually have evolved into philosophical schools and religious doctrines, supposedly based on logical ”truth”, but without procedures and instruments to show this truth. This was once the only way to find explanations for the mystery of existence. But with the introduction of natural science there emerged a pronounced difference between the rather weak interest invested in mental awareness of existence and the very pronounced interest invested in complicated theories and technologies for measurement and logical calculation of the physical world.
A persons awareness of her existence is always an unique experience and is perceived as an indivisible whole within her. It includes everything that she in a given moment can ”see” within her. This does of course not guarantee that she in this moment can reach a logical understanding of what her mind is recording, something which everyone who has some experience of life knows. But this is the human core experience and the starting point for all assumptions about life, death, the universe and all that. What can be seen with our eyes, or experienced only in our minds, what can be measured or not, what can be understood or not, all this is included as a single whole in the totality of a persons mental awareness.
In this search for what we are, and where we are, it should be important to give the same value of interest to the understanding of mental awareness and mental experience as to the mainly physical and material exploration of the world. This could, combined with a great deal of humility instead of our common overconfidence in a supposed ”truth”, lead to a genuine ”human core research”. A science wich has the same respect for the mental part of human awareness as for that which we understand as fysikal and material parts of existence. This would help us in our search for a greater dimension of which we may be part but barely can imagine.