This New Truth

In an earlier posting I wrote about watching a kestrel hovering. The bird keeps its eyes in a fixed point in space by flying in to the infinitely complex turbulence of the on coming wind, adjusting its wings and tail in subtle instantaneous reactivity.  Doing this is way beyond any machine so far made by man. If the bird used conscious thought and decision to do this it would have a superior brain to us. We carry out equally complex tasks. Learning to ride a bicycle requires thought and attention yet once learned we can ride and think about other things. Down hill cycling offload can be exhilarating. Our consciousness undergoes a loss of self as our mind must use all attention to cope with the quickly altering and unpredictable terrain. Doing this kind of thing with conscious thought is impractical. Anyone who plays pool will know how thinking about it is a sure fire way to do it badly.
From this we see that our consciousness, the part we brag about, the bit we think puts us above animals in a hierarchy that only our particular species of narcistic primate believes in, is not even our best part. From dance to football, from playing violin to making furniture, from song to painting, our most special moments occur once we lose self consciousness.
The neurological studies on decision making that have shown decisions are taken before we are conscious of making them clarify something many have long thought. That we act then work out a narrative to explain our actions to ourselves. That the idea of a self, the mind body dualism, is not a true picture. The analogy some use of a man steering an unruly elephant is even too strong. We are more alike animals than even Drwin suggested. There is little difference between me and my dog. His decisions to go play, to look to be fed, to go walking out are no more than mine. Human consciousness plays but a melody on top.
The implications for this are vast. If there is no skree pilot of the skree body then I must accept that free will in many ways is an illusion. The drug addict is not responsible for his nature. Of course once ones nature is known then ones duty is to take steps to control its worst excesses. In my case a propensity to want to alter my consciousness through drugs and alcohol. I have a moral duty to curtail my worst excesses. For other deviances that a decent society can not accept; kleptomaniacs, paedophiles, rapists, must all be kept under control. If individuals are found to have sufficient neuroplasticity then they should be trained so there brains work differently. If they can not be changed then we must keep them at a safe distance. But we can not blame them for they are no more responsible for their nature than they are responsible for their gender or race.
The loss of self, a condition Buddhists aspire to, the state of flow. Gilbert Ryle, Candace Pert, Bruce Hood, Sam Harris, Malcolm Gladwell all are on to the same thing. Some come at it from old routes, Buddhism , yoga. Some from philosophy, the break away from descartes myth of the ghost in the machine. My personal journey to the idea came from believing first that making is thinking and secondly from my intuitive insight that I act then work out why I did it rather than the reverse that we grow up believing.
If we are this little in control it explains why many things re so hard. Why certain mental states appear to be so unavoidable. Why with some relationships, however much we endeavour to start again, we always return to pattern. Why, even though we know our actions are destroying our environment it seems beyond us to do much about it. It may appear fatalistic. Many turn away, preferring to remain under the illusion. But universal centrality, an idea blown apart by Galileo, being above the animals, a chosen beast of the divinity, these have fallen through revealing a far more wondrous truth. We must accept and learn. Reposition ourselves and think again.