What is 'Consciousness'?

thought i'd start a thread on this subject, since i mentioned something about it a moment ago in another thread. specifically about the ways the word 'consciousness' is used, both ordinarily and philosophically.

to kick it off, here are two really good threads about this subject from another forum:

consciousness and passage of time

why do we have consciousness

pay close attention to Rosa Lichtenstein's posts in these two threads... particularly the second thread (link).

Consciousness is juxtaposition of perceived divergence.
Mind is continuously juxtaposing mental abstractions.
It evolves to distinguish discriminate, offering the organism options, choices.

Time is a measure of change.
Man uses his own metabolic rates as the standard to measure change. He perceives time relative to his own organic processes, particularly his metal speeds.
Change is occurring continuously, as all is fluctuating, interacting.....but mind can only perceive it after-the-fact by how it manifests as divergence.
we age but we realize we've aged when the effects of attrition on out mind/body have reached a level our sensual acuity can perceive.

What we consider solid, or changeless, like metal, is only changing at a slower rate than what we can perceive.
In fact all is changing.
Solidity is what we interpret slow change, and faster speeds we call liquidity, or air, or energy.

Consciousness lags being because of the processing time required. So, we are always looking back to what has occurred - to a degree.
most of our interactions, as living organisms are automate....so we choose, and then justify our choices.
Retraining self, like in the martial arts, is this slow reprogramming of automatic reactivity - what we call second nature.
Civility, culture, is this retraining of preexisting reactions to stimuli.
An attempt to control and sublimate evolved automatic reactions, and promote desirable ones - relative to a goal, an ideal.

Rosa L. wrote:Well, when we look at how we use the word 'consciousness' (etc.) it typically appears in sentences like "The patient has regained consciousness, nurse", or "Mr Bloggs is conscious, doctor", which describe a medical condition, not a general state.

So, it would be misleading now to describe you as conscious unless we knew you had just woken up from say a coma, or an operation -- any more than it would be right to say of Usain Bolt, for example, that he is now in a 'state of winning', just because he got three Gold medals at the Olympics.

So, I deny that there is a 'state of being conscious', except in the medical sense noted above.

Rosa acknowledges the change of state from being unconscious to being conscious.
She considers that as a point-in-time phenomena. "I have woken up" as "I have won a medal".
Her metaphor is flawed because in the change of state between being unconscious to being conscious, there is a continuation of that state until it changes again.
Usain Bolt winning a medal is like pushing a spring. When you let it go, it returns to its original state. To win again it is required to press again.
A change of state from being unconscious to being conscious is more like flipping a light switch. At first there is dark, then a switch is flipped and there is light, and the light will continue to be present until the current is interrupted. One that becomes conscious remains conscious until he becomes unconscious again.
It is natural and instinctive for people to acknowledge that to be (become) conscious = to have state of consciousness = to have presence of self-awareness is a state, because it is a period in time in which one is able to narrate things to oneself.

As to say that consciousness is a thing, like soul is a thing, I would agree with Rosa that that's not the case.

The change is not of the patterns involved...but a change in how they inter-relate - thir configurations.
We are made of water, carbon etc....as are many other unities, but how these are configured the degrees to which they are represented in the unity, makes the difference.
A slight modification makes the difference.
A slight modification in cosmic balances would change all reality.....and make life impossible.
These subtle modifications in degrees and how thee degrees interact is what produces differences.

WD wrote:Rosa acknowledges the change of state from being unconscious to being conscious.

yeah i was looking at that analogy earlier, and trying to figure it out.

seems like she means that bolt can no longer be in a state of winning after he actually wins the medal. the state of winning, in her analogy, is synonymous to the state of waking from the coma. the athlete is only in the state of winning as he wins the medal... the patient is in, or reaches, rather, a state of consciousness upon waking... but isn't in a state of consciousness after he is awake. why? because there is no 'state' of consciousness. this is tricky and a bit confusing, but i think i see what going on here.

it depends on what we ordinarily mean when we say 'state'. i think she would agree that the statement 'joe is in a state of awareness' is meaningful, but she doesn't seem to equate consciousness with awareness. she gives an example of this somewhere else in that thread... for instance, one can be conscious but not aware they are stepping on your toe.

so we have no way of knowing someone was in a state of consciousness by observing their deliberate behavior... but we could know if they were in a state of awareness by doing so. if we can't know by observing behavior, what can we know by? ah, by observing them come out of a coma or awaken from sleep. joe comes out of both without deliberately doing so, but we know he is conscious because of how he is now acting. but remember, he doesn't have to be aware after he comes out of the coma or wakes up- he could very well stand right up and step on the doctor's without realizing it... and yet still be conscious.

so we can't know someone is in a 'state' of consciousness by what they deliberately do, only whether or not they are aware. there is nothing left to use as an indication of being conscious, other than that waking behavior.

joe is no longer in a state of consciousness after he changes from the sleep state to the awake state, like bolt is no longer in a state of winning after he has won the medal. see how this works: the indication of the state of consciousness is awaking, nothing more. after that moment, we observe him to be either aware or not... but not conscious or not... unless he slips back into the coma/sleep.

simply, a prolonged 'state' of consciousness cannot be observed if by consciousness we mean 'awareness', for the reasons stated above, just like there is no prolonged state of winning a medal.

We cannot know other, absolutely. We cannot even know self absolutely.
Self-consciousness is the discovery of self, as another otherness, and so Know Thyself is a necessary first step before we proceed to know otherness.
We can only know it by its behaviour, and distinguish it by its differences.

So what is life as opposed to non-living patterns?
That which is iterating and is informed by this iterating past - memory.
Past participates in the present. Past is stored as memory, and DNA.

What is conscious?
That which can direct its aggregate energies towards an object/objective, and not simply follow the path-of-least-resistance = Will.

All other patterned (ordering) and non-pattered (random) energies simply (inter)act...no will, no consciousness necessary.
Words can be used as tools, to represent this difference, so as to clarify, to make clear.
Using a word unconventionally when it already has a utility, exposes an ulterior motive, other than clarity.

An example would be 'love'....appropriated by Christianity to mean an idea - God.
The word must refer to an observable interactivity, a behaviour, otherwise ti refers to another word, or combination of words that may pretend to be saying something when it is saying nothing.
In the case of the word 'love' it refers to a behaviour...I use behaviour instead of interactivity, to distinguish it as organic, as belonging to living organic interactivity.
We witness this behaviour in complex organism that use heterosexuality, with a weening period, and evolved to take advantage of cooperative survival strategies.
So, now we know 'love' refers to an evolved behaviour facilitating reproduction and survival.

Then we may analyze it and discover that ti evolved to deal wit the pre-existing fight/flight mechanism.
Then we can proceed to discover all sorts of fascinating things, like how this evolves from genetic strategies into memetic contexts.
Entire books can be written on a single aspect of this adaptation, from gene to meme.

Yet, for the majority 'love' is a theoretical, idea, existing in some magical realm....romanticism....nihilism detaching words from their original utility are called 'divine'.
'Divine' refers to the noumenon that has no reference to the worldly, the earthly, the phenomenon.
It is pure idea(l).
At this point it can become anything...as it is entirely subjective, with no objective limitations.  

The desperate psyche feels this as a liberation from a threatening, indifferent world....as liberty from a determining past.

Zoot Allures wrote:
seems like she means that bolt can no longer be in a state of winning after he actually wins the medal. the state of winning, in her analogy, is synonymous to the state of waking from the coma. the athlete is only in the state of winning as he wins the medal... the patient is in, or reaches, rather, a state of consciousness upon waking... but isn't in a state of consciousness after he is awake. why? because there is no 'state' of consciousness. this is tricky and a bit confusing, but i think i see what going on here.

it depends on what we ordinarily mean when we say 'state'. i think she would agree that the statement 'joe is in a state of awareness' is meaningful, but she doesn't seem to equate consciousness with awareness. she gives an example of this somewhere else in that thread... for instance, one can be conscious but not aware they are stepping on your toe.

so we have no way of knowing someone was in a state of consciousness by observing their deliberate behavior... but we could know if they were in a state of awareness by doing so. if we can't know by observing behavior, what can we know by? ah, by observing them come out of a coma or awaken from sleep. joe comes out of both without deliberately doing so, but we know he is conscious because of how he is now acting. but remember, he doesn't have to be aware after he comes out of the coma or wakes up- he could very well stand right up and step on the doctor's without realizing it... and yet still be conscious.

so we can't know someone is in a 'state' of consciousness by what they deliberately do, only whether or not they are aware. there is nothing left to use as an indication of being conscious, other than that waking behavior.

joe is no longer in a state of consciousness after he changes from the sleep state to the awake state, like bolt is no longer in a state of winning after he has won the medal. see how this works: the indication of the state of consciousness is awaking, nothing more. after that moment, we observe him to be either aware or not... but not conscious or not... unless he slips back into the coma/sleep.

simply, a prolonged 'state' of consciousness cannot be observed if by consciousness we mean 'awareness', for the reasons stated above, just like there is no prolonged state of winning a medal.

One can be conscious but not aware that they are stepping on your toe, but that does not denote presence of absence or awareness or consciounsess, but of focus.
Wherever you direct the focus of your mind, you become aware of it.
Thus we can think of a state of awareness as the state in which one is able to direct focus.
However it is true that awareness, or focus, can't be observed, only experienced.
An experience that comes to my mind is carrying out an entire conversation with my sister thinking that she was aware of it, but she was not and has no memory of it, because she was sleepwalking.
Same goes to the mind, and to identity. We only infer that the mind exists because we can experience our own, and from there we make the calculated assumption that others do too.
Does that, then, mean that the mind, and the identity do not exist?
The mind, the identity, the focus of our mind, the awareness, and the consciousness, all are brain constructs. They are not physical, but they are produced by something physical. Just as a software operates within hardware. They can be damaged or erased by a blunt strike to the head.

I bet the atmospheric layering of Saturn, especially its Hexagonic North Pole, is a locus of much procreativity, of which life is a type.
It seems to be a matter of resources, mobility and lightning.

Jupiter, I assume, is full of such forms of which life is one. And a shitload of moons to move the currents around and gently stir the soup, or storm in this case.
The cosmos is highly economic. Its phenomena are rarely exceptions, but that isn't to say they don't sense themselves alone. We do not share the senses of Jupterites
taste, vision and sound yes, both apply in a gaseous pressure system, but touch, smell work differently. They'd be more united. There would a proper sense for pressure as well, I imagine. Maybe it is better to think of transformative apparatuses than of senses.

I just figure this because life takes hold under pretty difficult situations on Earth, as a result of which it has become so beautiful and strong, as to even become master of the planet, almost. I don't see that happening in Jupiter. Maybe thats whats going on anyway. But the bigger point is that we need to evolve to be as tough and beautiful as to be abel to live on Venus. It has both a hard surface with fluids, and an atmosphere rich in nutrients. If thats your thing, anyway. I don't think there is as yet lifelike procreativity on Venus, I think it would be radical and very awesome and we would have noticed it. Life on Mars doesn't make sense. Life in Mars does, in a problematic way. The universe is perfectly economic in making use of the possibility of moving itself around.

An then again maybe there is only life and lifelike procreativity on the Earth. It is surely the only type that matters to us. Earth First. How did it occur, life on Earth? Luck, which is necessity. We are the dice, God created the universe so he could play dice. Fool himself into thinking.

Perhaps thought is a condition of being of which life is but a form. That would explain the philosopher.

"taste, vision and sound yes, both apply in a gaseous pressure system, but touch, smell work differently. They'd be more united. There would a proper sense for pressure as well, I imagine"

No, this doesn't make sense. There'd be all different senses, vision and taste would be more united, the senses would be simply different ways in which an entity is able to engage smaller entities, "particles", and (thus) separate itself, maintain itself. Death means to reintegrate with the ground. Life means to stand separate of the ground. It is hardly imaginable that such things do not occur in big electrochemical masses the size of a million oceans if they do occur in oceans under thunderstorms.

Science is the establishment of what is impossible. Its laws are restrictions to possibility. Thus, virtually anything that isn't scientifically known to be impossible is possible, and what is not only possible but  known to be possible tends to exist.

It seems that we have to be able to imagine their workings before we can perceive things.
**workings, dynamics, locomotion, motivation**

A liar, and a cult leader, uses the unknown as an argument for what he cannot prove to be known to his followers.
The argument from the negative is often used by charlatans, and peddlers of mystical truths.
For example, he uses the fact that god cannot be proved, nor disproved, to argue that his version of God might be proved.

Using this psychological technique there is nothing that can be said to be absurd.
All is possible, when there is so much that remains unknown. We can argue any position based on what is unknown.
But science builds arguments on empiricism and precedent...not on projecting theories, and manipulating words and symbols.
It accumulates data, and over time establishes what is more and what is less probable.
It then tests them by making predictions.

The argument from the 'negative', that no absolute knowledge is possible therefore everything is possible, is a method hypocrites use to sell their absurdities to gullible minds that are desperate for any flattering and comforting explanation.
Word juggling is beneath a mind with integrity.
When it does not know it says...."I do not know".

Since a self valuing can not stand alone, to have a self means to share a great balance with the cosmos. One can only uphold the balance, or tao, by being proper to oneself. This means to know who is proper to oneself and to whom one is proper, or can be.

Therefore life consists of two main lines: the searches for what is proper to oneself, and for who is proper to that. The quality of life is determined by the degree of accurate knowledge here. Ethics is the game with the dissonance of never having a perfect state, and because we've formulated it as a game that allows us to "win", there is smoothness, philosophy, and the possibility of happiness, which is very rare phenomenon among humans, absent in many animals but common to quite a lot too, and abundant in flowers. Though there is terrible pain in some.

What we know of ourselves is only vanity. What we know of others can be quite meaningful to ourselves granted that we don't think so, or at least aren't aware.

Zen is the art of staring at a wall and liking it.
Why does one like it though? Because the basic condition of life, the certainty of uncertainty, is unobstructed by apparent certainties that cause dread because of their true uncertain nature shining through as death. Most humans live to remain as little conscious of this pale shine. Sages and Warriors see that the pale light is only a veil.  What the coward perceives as death is really himself.

Existence is maintained through thresholds. The Pathos of Distance.

Replacing 'love' with 'value, to then connect it to Nietzsche's Will, is what liars and desperate for acknowledgement narcissists do to fool the foolish.
Self-preservation is not a universal motive.

Oh great master-baitor.

Your word games will not work.
Romantic, triggering all sorts of imagery...but void of substance.
You've reinvented the old by renaming it.
So far the UrGod types will be your worshippers, oh great genius of the next millennium.

You did not invent selfishness. You did not invent self-love.
You are another clown desperate for attention and a miser coveting what he cannot be.  

But please...collect the garbage to clear out a space for me to sit and watch.

barracuda wrote:Science is the establishment of what is impossible. Its laws are restrictions to possibility. Thus, virtually anything that isn't scientifically known to be impossible is possible, and what is not only possible but known to be possible tends to exist.

this is one of the most mangled semantic knots i have ever seen. i have been staring at it for ten minutes now, trying to decode it. i even got up and stood to the left of the screen to get another angle on it. still, i got nothin'.

i don't think science 'establishes' what is impossible, or has any 'laws', or that laws restrict what is possible.

the statement 'virtually anything that isn't scientifically known to be impossible is possible,' is an obvious truism, while the statement 'what is not only possible but known to be possible, tends to exist' is an outrageous redundency.

are you trying to confuse me dude, because i don't appreciate it.

...

not a word, satyr. zip it. i got this.

"i don't think science 'establishes' what is impossible, or has any 'laws', or that laws restrict what is possible."

Lol, ok then. You certainly don't need my help being confused.  
Science does all those things, it doesn't do anything else in fact.

I don't read "Satyrs" "posts", as I assume you realize. I think your confusion may be due to drinking in his weak shit, and other shit weak like it.
Standards, you can't be anything without them.

Be someone Zoot. Set some priorities. Have some standards dude. Make some efforts. Your aloof kewl may impress hello kitty but not the pivotal thinker of this age.

science is an inductive method that attempts to explain why phenomena are what they are, and it doesn't have the authority to declare what is or isn't possible.

that's a job for logic. logic isn't science because it is not an inductive method, but rules of reasoning. science employs these rules, but science is not logic.

insofar as something might be 'impossible', it would be such because the concept is logically impossible; a circular square, a female man, an occupied vacuum, a reptilian wombat.

a scientific theory that these things are impossible employs no inductive method in reaching that conclusion; science is about advancing theories for why things are, not for why things are not. that is strictly a logical matter.

science has no 'laws', either, unless by that you mean the proper inductive form that it takes. but you didn't mean that. you meant something like 'gravity is a scientific law' or 'that time travel is impossible is a scientific law.' neither of these statements are true or false, but nonsense, because science doesn't make laws, it discovers ways in which nature works and then for the purposes of advancing further theory, assumes the uniformity and continuation of the truths of those discoveries.

and laws don't restrict what is possible. logic restricts, or determines, rather, what is possible or impossible. a law is not a statement about what is possible or not... just a statement of some general uniformity observed in nature.

so hopefully now you see how this:

barracuda wrote:Science does all those things, it doesn't do anything else in fact.

... is misleading. and, it certainly does do something else (because it can't do any of that stuff you said). what it does is observe data, prescribe causal relationships between phenomena to explain their behavior, and make predictions about future phenomena behavior.

that's about it. it's a method that employs the use of logic, and answers to it.

barracuda wrote:Be someone Zoot.

well i tried to be all i can be by trying to enlist in the army when i was eighteen, but they wouldn't take me. had some misdemeanor pot charges. thank goodness i had those charges, in retrospect. what a joke this country turned out to be.

barracuda wrote:Set some priorities. Have some standards dude. Make some efforts.

i have, i do, and i will.

if you only knew.

if we lived in the eighth century, they'd write epic poems about me after i died. for you, they'd write on a tombstone: here lies another philosopher.

and laws don't restrict what is possible.

Incorrect. A law such as "All swans are white" means that it is impossible for swans to be any other color. That's a restriction of possibility.

science is an inductive method that attempts to explain why phenomena are what they are, and it doesn't have the authority to declare what is or isn't possible.

I think that it is precisely inductive logic that has the authority to tell us what is empirically possible and impossible.

insofar as something might be 'impossible', it would be such because the concept is logically impossible; a circular square, a female man, an occupied vacuum, a reptilian wombat.

Yes, deductive logic can tell you what is possible and what is impossible but only in relation to some convention. For example, in Chess, we can deduce that it is impossible for the rook to move diagonally, even though we know that in reality anyone can move any piece of their choice any way they want.

andy wrote:Incorrect. A law such as "All swans are white" means that it is impossible for swans to be any other color. That's a restriction of possibility.

that's not a law, and even if it were a true statement, we couldn't know it was true, because we can't search the entire universe for swans. now if you insist on using the word 'law', you could call the statement 'not all swans are white', true, or a law, if you found one swan that wasn't white. you see that the negation of the original statement is the only thing that can be proved with positive evidence. only a falsifiable theory is a true inductive scientific theory, and therefore only negative evidence can establish a 'law' in science (if the theory is inductive). if a theory is deductive, it needn't be called 'scientific', but simply a logically true statement.

are we on swans again?

hyde, one of the prisons i was at, was located in a county called 'swan quarter', and rightly so. during the fall months, bevies of swans would pass by on their way south, and land in a lake that was not one hundred yards from the yard fence. they'd argue with the geese that were there at the lake. that's something to listen to; geese and swans shouting obscentities at each other. what a racket they made.

andy wrote:I think that it is precisely inductive logic that has the authority to tell us what is empirically possible and impossible.

i thought i just said that.

Zoot wrote:that's not a law

Could be. How about a statement such as "The apples fall down from the tree in my back yard and not up"? That statement implies that it is impossible for the apples to fall up from the trees in my backyard. That's a restriction of possibility.

and even if it were a true statement, we couldn't know it was true, because we can't search the entire universe for swans.

We cannot know that it is true with absolute certainty but we can know that it is supported by evidence. If every single swan within a billion of swans is white, we have a good reason to believe that all swans are white.

What's the problem?

i thought i just said that.

No. What you said is:

science is an inductive method that attempts to explain why phenomena are what they are, and it doesn't have the authority to declare what is or isn't possible.

andy wrote:How about a statement such as "The apples fall down from the tree in my back yard and not up"?

well 'up' is relative, anyway. if you were on the phone with someone in china, and said 'an apple just fell down from a tree in my yard,' would the statement 'an apple fell down in his yard' be true if he said it? the down direction for you is the up direction for him.

but no, that's not a law. apples falling up is logically possible, or even sideways.

andy wrote:We cannot know that it is true with absolute certainty but we can know that it is supported by evidence. If every single swan within a billion of swans is white, this gives us a good reason to believe that all swans are white.

What's the problem?

the problem is the existential quantifier 'all'. can you just say 'some' or 'many', please? i'm okay with that.

andy wrote:No. What you said is:

... and then i said 'that's a job for logic' right after that, didn't i?

Zoot wrote:well 'up' is relative, anyway. if you were on the phone with someone in china, and said 'an apple just fell down from a tree in my yard,' would the statement 'an apple fell down in his yard' be true if he said it? the down direction for you is the up direction for him.

"Up" means "toward the sky" and "down" means "away from the sky".

the problem is the existential quantifier 'all'.

You have to explain what's so wrong about propositions that have the form "All Ps are Qs".

I believe you have a problem with universal statements in general and I believe it has to do with the fact that we can never be absolutely certain that they are true.

What's strange is that you have no problem with memory. Memory isn't absolutely certain either.

can you just say 'some' or 'many', please? i'm okay with that.

I can't. These are particular statements. They don't allow me to make predictions.

... and then i said 'that's a job for logic' right after that, didn't i?

Yes, but you didn't say it's a job for inductive logic.

andy wrote:"Up" means "toward the sky" and "down" means "away from the sky".

if i dropped an apple in space, which direction would it go?

andy wrote:You have to explain what's so wrong about propositions that have the form "All Ps are Qs".

I believe you have a problem with universal statements in general and I believe it has to do with the fact that we can never be absolutely certain that they are true.

i have the same problem hume and popper had with such statements. you can't prove that all swans (P) are white (Q). you can prove that all the swans that you have seen are white, but those swans aren't all the possible swans in the universe. hence, the quantifier 'some', instead of 'all'.

are we really still talking about this, man?

andy wrote:I can't. These are particular statements. They don't allow me to make predictions.

but you aren't making any predictions about anything by saying 'some swans are white'. you're just stating a fact.

we aren't even on the same page anymore. every time this happens to me and some other forum member, i have a vision of wittgenstein laughing at me and shaking his finger, asking 'was i right or was i right?'

Down refers to the 'towards the centre of the planet's mass'; up refers away from the centre of the planet's mass.
if there is no centre of mass there is no up/down.
Then the mind adjusts and uses itself as the centre of mass, and redefines the concepts as towards and away.

It does the same with other concepts, like good/bad, matter/energy, positive/negative....and all dualisms.
Binary logic.

right, and in space, the reference point would be one's own body. but if an object moves away from the body, what direction does it move in? it depends on the trajectory. away from the head and above... would be up. away from the feet and below would be down. left and right... either side. the orientation of direction is based on the position of the body?

i got one for ya. you're having a phone conversation with someone in china. it's 9 o'clock there, and 3 o'clock here.

what time does the phone call take place?

discuss.

Time is a human construct referring to change.
So the standard can be you, the other, or a standard outside both of you, like World clock.

This is the issue with words.
They can refer to subjective criteria....or to external standards.

There is no such thing as time. Time is a word referring to change, change is a word referring to interactions experienced as diversity, which is how the conscious mind experiences fluid processes.
Mind juxtaposes snapshots and the differences it calls time.
Man's own metabolic rate, reduced to a median, is the standard.
Same goes for the word 'value'. it is meaningless outside its application to refer to utility in relation to a motive, or a measurement in relation to a standard.

But all words can be mystified.
we can say time times temporality, and pretend we are saying something to a moron who cannot tell time unless it's digitized.

I used love Ontology as an example of how any positive word can be mystified by detaching it from its reference in nature, in world.
Love has been mystified when it refers to a behaviour facilitating heterosexual reproduction, then evolving to bond parent with offspring to facilitate out of utero maturing - weening larger brained organisms - then it evolved to facilitate cooperative strategies, like social groups.
It's a psychosomatic, neurological way of dealing with the preexisting fight/flight mechanism.

Stress kept on reserve to improve reaction times - triggered by stimuli the organism reacts automatically, without requiring the mediating function of reasoning.
This, as you can imagine, was detrimental to copulation, where an oftentimes smaller female had to endure the approach and penetration of a larger male.
Mechanisms had to evolve to deal with the female's autoimmune system that considered the male sperm alien parasites, and the fetus an alien cancer.
Heterosexual reproduction had to evolve all sorts of self-deceiving mechanisms.

Self-deception is natural....because the organism's brain has not evolve for truth, but to aid the organism survive, or its genes.
What is threatening to the organism the mind deals with.....either directly or by numbing itself, by blinding itself, by forgetting what is too traumatic.
Brain is an organ evolved to aid in survival, and not necessarily to see world clearly or to evolve genius.
Genius is detrimental to survival.....as many geniuses can attest. Many never have children, some go mad, others are hampered by seeing too much, with too many variables to make a choice.
Brain has not evolved for sheltered, predictable environments....it becomes bored, it wants excitement, a release.....craves the extraordinary....danger....

Simple minds, like dogs, are happy chasing balls and licking their own.