"The Flying Man" and Types of Consciousness!

The writer: Bakr Abu Bakr

The philosopher and renowned scholar Ibn Sina considered self-awareness (the ego) to be a substance independent of the body: he formulated his famous thought experiment "the flying man" to prove that a person is aware of their existence even if completely isolated from their senses and body. In this regard, he divided levels of perception and inner (self) awareness into five faculties centered in the brain: the common sense, which is responsible for the five apparent senses; secondly, the imagination (or the image), which is responsible for preserving the images of the perceived after their absence; and the illusion, meaning the perception of non-physical meanings in things, such as a sheep's awareness of the wolf's hostility and a child's awareness of its mother's breast; the fourth is the imaginative (or the manipulative), which means the composition of images and meanings or the separation between them; and lastly, the memory (or the repository), which represents the storehouse of perceptual meanings.

As for modern times, we can look at awareness in the following way

1. Self-awareness: This is the person's ability to understand their feelings, thoughts, strengths, and weaknesses.

2. Social awareness: This is understanding the impact of a person on their human environment (the circles around the person: from the family circle, the friends circle, the work colleagues circle, the organization circle, and then the community, or according to how they arrange their circles).

3. Environmental awareness: Understanding the impact of humans on nature and the environment and feeling a sense of responsibility towards the earth, trees, and living beings in general, and then the planet.

4. Political and legal awareness: Meaning that a person understands their rights and duties within the state or their rights to liberation from exploitation (colonialism) and occupation, and understanding how systems of governance and leadership operate, as well as the components of society, laws, customs, and traditions.

5. Existential or cosmic awareness: This can be understood as philosophy, as philosophy is concerned with answering the big questions such as the values of truth, goodness, existence, and purposes, including the purpose of the universe.

The relationship of awareness with attention and perception

Let us illustrate the picture as follows: Let us consider that attention is the "gateway" or sieve or filter, as the brain is surrounded by thousands of sensory and non-sensory stimuli.

Attention highlights a specific stimulus over others, as it selects and chooses. When you pay attention to something (after sensing it), you bring it onto the stage of "consciousness". In contrast, distraction or loss of attention makes consciousness either absent or obscured from the details of sensations and the environment.

So, we first have sensation, then a gate or sieve that selects data or information or sensations, which is attention. Then comes the stage of interpretation of what has been attended to, which is the stage of perception.

Let's take an example: sensation is the first component, then with filtering and through the gate of attention, you can notice a specific sound, for instance, let's assume it is the sound of a "notification" from "WhatsApp". Here, perception plays its role to tell you (interpret) that this sound is a notification of an incoming message. In this framework, consciousness is the overarching umbrella that receives perception and blends it with previous experiences to understand the meaning.

Let us move to another aspect by thinking about relationships. The relationship between consciousness and knowledge is indeed close, as knowledge forms the raw material and stored files (information, facts, perceptions, theories, ideas...). Consciousness, on the other hand, is the processor of this knowledge. In other words, we can say that knowledge tells you what something is, and consciousness gives you the ability to critique this knowledge or process it, its consequences, and its applicability.

Let us take another step to see the relationship between learning and consciousness. You could say that science and learning represent the process of development and modification. When a conscious person goes through an experience (attention, perception, knowledge), they analyze it, which leads to an expansion of their view of the world. This change is the learning that occurs. Learning, in turn, feeds back into consciousness and broadens its horizons in a continuous cycle.

Footnote: The experience of the "flying man" (or the human suspended in air) is a mental thought experiment formulated by the philosopher Ibn Sina to prove that the human soul or spirit is independent of the body, and that self-awareness exists and is stable even if all senses and material influences are absent. The details of this thought experiment are

Assumption: Ibn Sina asks us to imagine a human being created all at once, who is complete in mind and form, but is suspended in the air or in complete vacuum so that he touches nothing. The absence of senses: It is also assumed that this human is blind and has no contact with the senses (he does not see, hear, smell, taste, or feel his limbs or body at all), and the result: Despite this complete abstraction from any physical or material sensation, this human will remain aware and certain of his existence and self (he will say "I"), and he will never doubt his existence. As for the philosophical goals and implications, they are

The independence of the soul from the body: Ibn Sina concluded that the soul or consciousness is something different and completely independent of the parts of the body, because a person proved his existence without feeling the existence of his body.

Innate awareness: The experiment confirms that the awareness of self is primary and direct, and is not necessarily derived from material senses.

Historical precedence: This argument closely resembles Descartes' famous statement "I think, therefore I am," which appeared about six centuries later.