Consciousness: Metaphysical Speculations and Supposed Distinctions

Abstract

The human soul and consciousness are active in the world of nature as part of the origins of things and situations informed by human symbolism and propositionising. Therefore the soul introduces human creativity, relationships, reasoning, and imagination into a world of contingency and brute causality, turning it into a partly humanly constructed world. That transformation changes everything through a special kind of non-linearity in which human meanings inflect what happens in our adaptive niche and embeds us in symbolism, culture, and flows of life that transcend causal mechanisms and put human relationships and imagination at the heart of the world shaping us. We therefore become enchanted, storied beings realising forms of life that do not require mystifying varieties of metaphysics to explain their richness.

“And you, as trained man of science, believe it to be supernatural?”

“I do not know what to believe.”

Holmes shrugged his shoulders.

“I have hitherto confined my investigations to this world …”

“I see that you have quite gone over to the supernaturalists. But now, Dr Mortimer, tell me this. If you hold these views, why did you come to me at all? You tell me in the same breath that it is quite useless to investigate Sir Charles’s death, and that you desire me to do it.”