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of human health; animal magnetism: each of which may be said to give rather superficial understanding
of certain areas, but each of which has been demonstrated to be hopelessly inadequate or wrong. (And
those theories are among the more successful ones! History says far less about the less successful ideas.)
We have only made progress in answering the "How?" questions by means of very careful and honest
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Principles of Hypnosis (24) On the nature of consciousness
thought and experiment.
I have no reason to suppose that the human mind is much better equipped to answer the "What?"
questions. The a priori assumption is that it is worse equipped. The higher may understand the lower
more easily than the lower understand the higher. An adult understands a baby better than a baby
understands a parent. With my full consciousness I may understand the workings of a single cell: the
reverse can never be true. A biologist may begin to understand the workings of the fruit fly. The reverse
will never be true. How then can we be expected to understand clearly something which ex hypothesi is
much larger and more complex than we are?
There is a possible answer to this objection which can be summarised as follows. "The unaided mind is,
of course, unable to answer the `Why?' questions. But God (the `higher system' as you put it), who is the
source of human consciousness, is naturally able to guide it into the paths of truth, especially on the
important matters to do with the relationship of the lesser consciousnesses of His creation to His higher
one."
For what my opinion is worth I believe that there is some truth in this, but a truth that, like so many
others, can easily be misunderstood and misapplied.
SUMMARY
The important phenomenon of consciousness is considered in the context of asking the two important
questions, "How?" and "What?", which can be asked of any organic system. The former question
requires answers in terms of the functioning of subsystems. The latter requires answers in terms of the
place of the particular system within a larger context of which it is a subsystem. We have learned a lot
about the "How?" of the mind as a result of experiment and analysis of its subsystems. But such progress
will never, of its nature, begin to answer the "What?" questions.
Although we may conclude that to answer the question "What is consciousness?" demands a higher
perspective than the single human mind, the limitations of an individual mind can be expected greatly to
limit any access to that perspective. It is noted that all the world's religions claim that there is a larger
system within which human consciousness has its origin and meaning. The above reasoning leads to the
conclusion that they are at least looking in the right direction. On the other hand thinkers who are looking
to answer it by means which can at best only lead to an answer to "How do conscious processes work?"
are fishing for whales in a bucket.
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Principles of Hypnosis (25). Mathematics applied to Hypnotic Processes!
Principles of Hypnosis:
Chapter 25
Mathematics
This brief chapter points towards the way in which the analysis of Hypnotic phenomena promoted in the
body of the book could be developed in such a way that it would connect up with the large existing body
of mathematical theory of cybernetic and biological systems. A single very small example of
mathematical modelling is given in the hope that even the non-mathematician may get an idea of the
potential of such an approach.
NO MATHEMATICS has been attempted in this book so far. The formulae which have been presented
are no more than a form of shorthand. In this chapter I will simply point out directions in which any
development of the analysis might continue.
Central to our analysis of Hypnotic, and indeed organic, processes have been feedback loops. The first
mechanism which embodied a negative feedback loop is usually cited to be James Watt's flyball [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]