Extended Consciousness and Strained Understanding by Prof.Bijoy H Boruha скачать в хорошем качестве

Extended Consciousness and Strained Understanding by Prof.Bijoy H Boruha

Imagine a spectrum of consciousness, with maximal light at one end and the light fading gradually towards the other end. The light is the light of cognitive apprehension. The two ends are represented by Region A and Region C respectively, with Region B representing the intermediate space in the spectrum between A and C. I take this as a heuristic as well as explanatory scheme for theorizing on the transparency and opacity of consciousness regarding the human ability, or the lack of it, to conceive of: X = what it is like to be another person, Y = what it is like to be another, non-human, creature, and Z = what it is like to be a tree. X, Y and Z are all enigmatic, but the degree of enigma increases, in this order, in the progression of consciousness from the one to the other. Since human response to the enigmatic reality of each is a human necessity, an existential exigency, the flexibility of human consciousness in eliciting the appropriate kind of responses to X, Y and Z in an increasingly deepened and ontologically extended sense reaches the limits of human possibility, which are the limits of human understanding. What can meaningfully be conjectured about these limits, and how does any such conjecture permit us to speak about the profundity or shallowness of our humanity? Dealing with this question, or rather building up the problem in such a way as to lead us to this interrogation, is what this paper is about.