A Trial of the Self

Nietzsche made a curious observation in a passage expressing his doubt as to the reality of the self. He noted that thoughts are rarely ever intentionally prompted, It is more often the thought that springs itself upon the thinker. Thinkers don't think thoughts; thoughts think thinkers.

If one reflects upon that stream flowing through one's consciousness, how many of the waves appear self-generating? One does not first intend awareness of perception and then categorize the perception. The perception presents itself. Even the more complex items of consciousness, the strands of linguistic thoughts often flow without any aid from the thinker. One sits in a waiting room, hears the sound of a woman scratching her arm, and is taken from thinking about dry skin to thinking about the American revolution. At the end of so many strands one wonders, "how did I get here?" How unruly are the contents of the mind! How often is a man's concentration broken by wandering thoughts? How easily does a train of thought become derailed! In all this, we are taken away from our "selves". In all of this victimization, we bare no responsibility. It was either a thought-object against our will or an unwilled thought-object that nevertheless took our field of consciousness over. How can there be a self that endures through the extent of one's life if there is not a unifier between a cross-section of one's consciousness? How can we proclaim the existence of a self when so much of what constitutes the purported self is involuntary and the self is fundamentally an agent (i.e., that which acts voluntarily)?

The unifier is the cohesiveness of the subjective experience. Every conscious moment contains a personal element. All of the contents of the mind, everything remembered of the reality previously experienced, and all the day-dreaming projections of the future, have the characteristic of being intuited in the same way. I can doubt the origins of a thought, but not that to be thought is the same--it is always something before me. Whether this "me" is a soul, self, mind, or body is a question for consequent investigation. At the moment of being thought, the quality of its being thought is the same.

How does one know there's something unifying one's life? One can never imagine a thought without thinking it, and thus stamps it with the characteristic of consciousness. The uniformity of consciousness is the evidence for a self.

Unseen Truth

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is near to hear it, does it make a sound? This is a hollow question. If an evil deed is performed and it is not punished, does it remain evil? Is there a more heart-rending question?! The possibility that an evil act unpunished is not an evil act is nauseating. What a horrible thing existence would be if there is no justice! Would not a sane, concerned, existing individual not snuff out her own life if it was certain that justice was a myth?

For justice to be a myth, it must not obtain universally. Human intuitions about justice include a requirement for absolute enforcement. A single act of injustice that slips by unnoticed, that tumbles into the past, and is forgotten totally and forever is enough to make justice a myth.

The desire for justice that so often resides in the heart does not entail that justice is real. The truth about existence cannot be bent by one's will (although one's will may be bent by it). Does the fact that people pine for justice make it suspicious, though? Is the appellation of 'wish-fulfillment' concerning its reality--if I may put it thus--justified?

A sense of justice need not be taught. However imperfectly, children know it and adults know it. Only sociopaths appear on occasion to be wholly devoid discerning judgment regarding justice. Every person not only knows something of justice, but wants justice to be done--at least when his or her case is in question.

The desire is so entrenched that it often is operative without one's notice. A man, finding faith completely repugnant, disavows all knowledge claims that are irrational. Accordingly, he refuses to assent to the notion that justice is real (i.e., universally pervasive) thinking metaphysics to be solely speculative and therefore irrational. Yet, how easily he takes offense when he has been wronged! When he is the victim of slander, how heavily he slams his fist on the desk and how loudly he demands satisfaction! What could be more satisfying than justice being done? To witness justice, to see an evil act derided for what it is, for merit to win the day: these events energize him. His heart acts on principles his mind rejects.

What could be more frightful than that one of humanity's highest ideals is proved an illusion?