In the Guy Ritchie film Revolver, I was treated to a compelling, if not mind-bending, commentary on one man’s journey to transcend the power and influence of the human ego. The movie itself serves as a training film for those who are serious about winning mankind’s greatest battle, and arguably the real “war to end all wars.”
The human brain is the seat of our ability to experience a distinction between the “seer and the seen.” With each sensory experience there is a biological imperative at work. Some may call it “dualism,” others, the “Principle of Complementarity,” or even the “Uncertainty Principle.” Whatever name best suits your philosophical profile, the process is the same.
When the human organism registers a sensation, the resulting psychic experience is processed on two fronts: one is objective and the other is subjective. And though we may speak as though these two modes of experience are separate, they seem to arise simultaneously – even from day-one. We need but to observe the young child. His behaviors suggest the presence an innate perspective dictating a sense that whatever he observes belongs to him. If he touches the toy it’s his alone, and any suggestion of sharing is initially met with disturbing results. (Then again perhaps it’s a bit naïve to equate this kind of behavior with only the young – it seems to be something all too human regardless of age.) As the child becomes molded by his culture and familial environment, he is able to recognize that just because the bedroom light goes out it isn’t a personal attack on his existence. His experience testifies that if he goes to sleep tonight, he will awaken in the morning. Our brains function in such a way as to make itself believe that it is the center of all that is surveyed. How does this happen?
What causes this ego-centric or self-centered perspective regardless of education or age? A moment of honest introspection as well as self-observation over time, shows us that any attempt at living a spiritual life is forever handicapped by this selfishness. Ancient philosophers and theologians have gone to great lengths to advise us of this self-evident fact. We function as self-conscious beings and require an experiential antidote to grow beyond this - dare I say it - innate, egoistic perspective. This is an easy thing to suppose, but how can we really understand it?
In order to explore this for ourselves let us first accept a simple premise or two: the brain is the field out of which our difficulties arise and that our self-centered perspective is hard-wired within that miraculous lump of grey matter sitting between our ears. From here we could begin our analysis with any sensate experience, but sight seems the easiest with which to relate, so let’s begin there.
When I look at any object there are two things that occur - at a speed so fast, I think it’s reasonable for us to say - at the same time. There is the object observed – in this case, let’s say a horse – and there is also an awareness of this “act of seeing” the horse. The awareness may not always be the focus of our conscious attention, but it is nevertheless always present, enabling us to focus our attention on it if we wish.
So without going too far out on a philosophical limb, I think we can say that the brain informs itself, simultaneously, of an awareness of action – “seeing” – and a static, pictorial representation of the object observed. Or stated somewhat differently; the brain registers a static picture, as well as the fluid process (action) in conjunction with this picture. Even if the horse is galloping through a meadow, the object is still a static, mental representation or ideation – though moving through space. The process of that seeing-moment, though not always the focus of our awareness, is a dynamic function juxtaposed to, yet part of, a static representation in what one might think of as a dualistic, mental symbiosis.
The brain, in conjunction with the visual sensory mechanism, registers and imprints the form we observe into memory while simultaneously, within a separate yet connected area of the brain, allows for awareness of that “action” we call seeing. Making this point may seem unnecessarily repetitious of me. However the salient point here is that the contingently arising connection between observing and the observation is more familiar to us perhaps as the seer and the seen.
To see the horse and to recognize the action within which that object arises, allows us to understand the process within which the sense of “I” is born. In the absence of the brains ability to reflectively re-cognize the result of its own act of objectification, the human psychological landscape would not be as we know it today. Neither the notion, nor the experience, of what we refer to as the “self” or ego, would be part of our mental or experiential world. The human organism would merely experience sense data, and never “own” or question the origin of that experience.
As it is however, when Bob says, “I see the horse” there is reason to suggest that the “I” references the brain which is doing the seeing. There is no seer; there is just a process of seeing (seeing and seen) which is co-registered; once as the object seen and also as the action of seeing. When the self-referential process of the human brain reflects upon the object of its own process – the appearance of an observation - the brain identifies the process as itself and the “I” is born. It is the mind recognizing its own process.
