Dr Stephen C Lovatt

Understanding the Psyche. Dr Stephen C Lovatt

The equations of Physics do not suggest that the present moves smoothly from the past to the future. Our basis for believing this is our personal conscious experience: we are always aware of our present ideas, including our present memories of what is past. Hence, it seems that "the consciousness" and "the now" are the same object of thought. Given the openness of Physics and the role which consciousness seems to have in determining the present, I suggest that consciousness is the combination of reverse-time causality and sentience. This implies that sentient beings - at least of a certain level of sophistication - will automatically be conscious. Moreover, I suggest that the purpose, function or significance of consciousness is to enhance the quality of thought; raising it up from the level of basic logic to that of insightful, gestalt, epistemic understanding. The conscience is supposed to be, in part at least, an intuition of right and wrong. Now, if right action is righteous precisely because it produces beneficial outcomes, and wrong action is heinous precisely because it produces baleful outcomes; then it would seem that conscience must be understood as providing some information regarding the future. I therefore suggest that the consciousness is an intimation of justice as the seat of "faith," "the conscience," and "epistemic knowledge"; and the explication of the idea of "free-will."