Reason Observing Self-Consciousness as Thing: On Action, Deeds, And Pseudoscience

Reason Observing The Relation of Self-Consciousness to its Immediate Activity

Introduction

Self-consciousness has reached a milestone. In observing itself, a systematic account of self-consciousness has emerged. The seed began as the sense-certainty of a single self-consciousness has transformed, by logically following through each shape, encountering contradictions, and reconciling them, producing a new shape, and repeating said process. Each new shape presumes the totality of all that was explored in the previous shapes. In particular, we have reached a stage where self-consciousness is rational. It has reconciled its own individual changeable particularity, being confined to a finite physical body, with its universal unchangeability. This reconciliation has produced self-consciousness's instinct certainty of being the basis of all reality; a certainty that must be objectively and empirically verified by the passive observation of nature, and the passive observation of the interaction between self-consciousness and nature. The milestone reached is the following: self-consciousness observes the interaction between one self-consciousness and another. It discovers that self-consciousness is a social being.

In the previous shapes of self-consciousness, beginning as desire, developing into sexual relationshiops, proceeding to the relation between lord and bondsman, whence the stoic, skeptic, and unhappy consciousness emerged, self-consciousness too was social. Yet, this sociality was a negative relationship. It was primarily driven by self-preservation, i.e. fear. In particular, the sociality of self-consciousness in the previous shapes was driven by the fear of death. The fear of death is a desire for something to not occur. Self-consciousness does not want to die, and since it is confined to a finite body that dies in the flux of appearances, it views the objective flux of appearances as something utterly distinct from itself, since the flux of appearances can never perish.

Nature cannot die - it is unchangeable. This unchangeable aspect of nature is first discovered by self-consciousness as the stoic. By immersing itself in thought, and restraining its outward show of emotion, due to the fear of death, self-consciousness experiences the infinite, inexhaustible tranquility of thought. At this stage, self-consciousness cannot identify its own unchangeable, inner tranquility with the unchangeable tranquility of nature. Nature is dangerous; it may bring about the death of self-consciousness. This unchangeable being, that does not surrender in the struggle for recognition, and becomes lord, is also another self-consciousness. Self-consciosness fears nature and other self-consciousnesses, for both can bring about its death.

Nature, since it is a fluctuation of a play of forces, also changes. As skeptic, self-consciousness is pure change. Still, since self-consciousness fears death, it fears nature as a changeable thing, as well as other self-consciousnesses, for both can still bring about its death. As unhappy consciousness, self-consciousness is social, yet this sociality is a necessity. Self-consciousness cannot reconcile its changeable and unchangeable aspects, i.e. escape its unhappiness, without the help of others. The reconciliation of the two poles of unhappy consciousness cannot occur without the mediator, i.e. another self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness desires to reconcile both poles, for it learns not to fear another self-consciousness, but to unite with it. Thus, when the unchangeable incarnates into a physical body, the self-consciousnesses who witness this incarnate are engulfed in absolue fear in the presence of this divinity, yet are able to lay aside their fear because this divinity is universal thought, logos, made flesh. The unhappy consciousness learns not to fear other self-consciousnesses, and through work, not to fear nature. Laying its fear aside, self-consciousness emerges as Reason, being fascinated by the otherness of nature, and other self-consciousnesses.

Thus, self-conscious Reason has emerged as a social being which participates in life with other self-consciousnesses not because of a fear of death, but voluntarily. Further, when self-consciousness observes other self-consciousness, it observes itself. Thus, at this stage, self-conscious Reason seeks itself as an objective thing, which at this point is a fluctuating ebb and flow of deviant and conformist individuals presenting themselves to each other and themselves as individual self-consciousnesses with personality traits.

The personality derives its traits by means of its interaction with nature, i.e. the environment, and other self-consciousnesses. Each individual engages in a show of self, furnish those personality traits that others approve, and personality traits others do not approve. The self is thus a product of its interaction other individuals and nature; it is the social life of all ossified into the conscious experience of a single individual with personality traits. All individuals have personality traits. Those that identify the self with their personality traits become conformists. Those that recognize themselves as being more than their changeable personality traits become deviants, either criminals or reformists.

Self-consciousness is not engaging in probabilistic reasoning. It has achieved a view of itself and its relation to society that approaches certainty. Self-consciousness, however, is rational. Amidst this ebb and flow of conforming individuals with personality traits, with their source and sink in the deviant individuals, self-consciousness still seeks to verify its own certainty of being the basis of all reality by the use of universalizable, necessary, schematizable laws. Its primary concern is to establish this certainty by finding a law that identifies self-consciousness with itself, other self-consciousnesses, and nature (organic and inorganic).

The object that self-consciousness confronts is a society, an interaction of personality types both deviant and conforming. It includes both deviance and conformity in its objective analysis of society because it wants to remove contingency. An individual may choose to conform or deviant from the finite set of acceptable personality traits that a society may adopt at any given time. By removing contingency, it seeks necessity, it seeks to schematize this necessity, and universalize that necessary schema to find a law that relates single individuals to the collection of individuals in society. By finding this law, self-consciousness will be able to verify its own certainty of being the basis of all reality.

Individuals develop specific personality traits in accordance with two constraints. On the one hand, individuals refer to the approval or disapproval of other individual self-consciousnesses with personality traits. However, it need not take the approval or disapproval of others seriously, it may be a deviant. Regardless, it develops its own personality traits via imitation or innovation. The collection personality traits which it imitates, or those that it can derive from innovation, is limited. It can either draw from others, or from its own previous experiences and shapes of self-consciousness that transcend the limits of a single lifespan. We have seen that the kinds of personality traits that self-consciousness can possess are constrained by the environment, i.e. nurture.

The nature of the physical body that self-consciousness finds itself confined in is the second constraint to the kind of personality self-consciousness can develop. The personality of self-consciousness is constrained by its genetics, and thus is a product of law of fractal self-similarity. By finding a law that identifies the law of fractal self-similarity, which is the basis of nature, with a law that determines how an individual self develops its personality traits, it will find a union between self-consciousness and nature. Being certain that it, as self-consciousness, is the universal substrate of all reality, it expects to find the inverted law, i.e. that like becomes unlike, and unlike becomes like, demonstrating with certainty that self-consciousness is the basis of all reality.

Self-consciousness expects to find itself by observing the interaction between individuals and other individuals in society. Since every individual with personality traits, whether deviant or conformist, is a product of the genetics of nature, or the approval or disapproval of others, and since self-consciousness is confined to a finite physical body, making it impossibe to observe all society at once, it follows that self-consciousness observes society ossified into the personality of a single individual self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness Observing the Individual

The individual self-consciousness is confined and immersed in a physical, organic, and finite living body in the flux of appearances. Though he is confined in this finite space, it is not determined by it - it has independent free will. It interacts with other self-consciousnesses, also confined and immersed in finite physical bodies, yet are independent. An individual that has a real existence, i.e. the physical body to which its self-consciousness is confined and immersed, and is a self-consciousness exists in and for itself. It exists in itself  because it has an original, self-generated, determinate being of its own, i.e. its physical body. It exists for itself because it is a self-relating, independent, infinite, self-consciousness. Since it exists for itself, it exists for another, as was explored in the section on perception. The conformist exists for another, the deviant for itself. Regardless, as we saw in perception, being for self is being for another; thus, both conformist and deviant are in essence a free self-consciousness that have chosen to be one or the other.

Reason seeks to establish a lawful link between self-consciousness as a free activity and the physical body to which it is confined. This individual has a set of personality traits derived from its interaction with other self-consciousnesses; the society in which the individual spends its lifetime is ossified into the personality of the individual. However, no two individuals from the same society have the same personality. There is a third element present that these two individuals have in common, yet allow both to differentiate themselves from the other.

As a free activity of self-consciousness, each individual chooses to adopt a certain set of personality traits over others. The personality of an individual is a unique product of the individual's choices. Reason finds that a lawful link between the free self-conscious activity of the individual and his physical body can be established through observing the products of the individual's free choice: his personality, its interaction with his free self-conscious activity, and its physical body. Indeed, one of the choices which the individual engages in is what kinds of foods it will eat, and what kinds of physical activity, and in what amounts, it will engage in. The individual's choices has a direct effect, as far as its genes permit, on the shape of its physical body:

"His body is the expression of himself which he himself has produced; it is at the same time a sign...through which the individual only makes known what he really is, when he sets his original nature to work."

The body is a sign that points to the fact of the individual's free self-conscious activity. The formation of the physical body, which is an observable outer whole, belongs to and results from the inner activity of the free self-conscious individual. Once again, a distinction between inner and outer emerges, and once again, Reason seeks another lawful link between inner and outer. This time, the link involves self-consciousness as a free activity on the one hand, and its physical body on the other.

This link, if it is to be exhaustive, and if it is to avoid any further distinctions into major and minor premises requiring the presence of yet another middle term, must be expressed, once again, as follows: the outer is an expression of the inner. The inner activity of the self-conscious individual exhibits itself to observing Reason through the observable outer body. The exhibition of the inner activity of a self-conscious individual through the observable outer body of the individual is action.

The inner attains externality, it becomes empirically observable, through the outer by engaging in action. The outer acts only as an organ through which the inner is made visible. The personality of the individual can only be expressed for others to see by the actions of the individual. The different kinds of activity in which the individual wishes to exhibit his inner activity is alloted to different organs. The speaking mouth, the working hand, and, if you like, the legs too are the organs of performance and actualization. An individual's personality can be inferred by the actions he engages in.

The action of an individual is observed by other free, self-conscious individuals; how they are affected by said action, whether they will react in one way or another, cannot be known by the originator of the act. The action as a reality becomes separated from the individual who originated it; for example, the speech is heard by others, and each interprets the speech differently. In a word, the inner escapes the confines of the individual's body and is left at the mercy of someone or something other than itself. The personality of an individual, as it is in reality, and as the individual himself knows it to be, is lost when interpreted by others.

Once exhibited to other self-consciousnesses through the organs of the author of the action, the action puts itself at the mercy of another being, whether it be another self-consciousess or an object, that is immersed in the fluctuating play of forces. The spoken word and accomplished acts are susceptible to being twisted to mean something other than what was originally intended by the author. The speaking and acting irresistibly and immediately becomes the spoken and done, since every Now irresistibly and immediately becomes not-Now. Every action becomes a deed.

Reason finds that the deed, like the action whence it originates, is an outer externalization of the free inner activity of a single individual self-consciousness that is distinct and indifferent to the inner. The individual loses control of what the deed is supposed to represent. The deed no longer is a sign that points to the inner activity of the individual. Every action must become a deed, yet no deed expresses the inner activity of the individual who originated it. The outer is not the expression of the inner, and thus no lawful and necessary link can be found between the inner self-conscious activity of the individual, and his actions.

Yet, the actions of the individual must be expressed by means of the individual's physical body. The physical body is a product of the individual's choices. Further, the physical body cannot assume a shape that is distinct and indifferent from the inner activity of the individual self-consciousness. Reason is able to hold on to its conviction that the outer is an expression of the inner. The physical shape of the individual's body is an expression of the individual's free self-conscious inner activity. Reason engages in Physiognomy.

Reason Observing the Relation between Self-Consciousness and its Body, especially the Face: Body Language and Physiognomy

First, a word about physiognomy. 

Physiognomy is any attempt to infer the inner character and personality of an individual by observing his outer appearance, especially his face. Traditionally, specific personality traits are associated with specific features of the face. Two opposing spheres, the inner activity of self-consciousness and the outer shape of the body, in particular an organ such as mouth or hand, are related by a lawful link. Observing Reason, from the start, has been attempting to find a universalizable, schematizable, necessary link between two opposing spheres. The very act of observation is such a link, bringing together reconciled changeable and unchangeable character of self-conciousness with changeable and unchangeable nature, self-generated by the law of fractal self-similarity. Its observation is empirical and objective. Data is gathered from the observation of recurring patterns, distinguishing marks, are brought together by probabilistic inductive reasoning, and so on, all while being related to the universal rationality of self-consciousness - its certainty that it is the fundamental substrate of all reality. 

The same underlying dynamic is occuring when Reason engages in physiognomy. Thus, it appears to be authoritative and scientific. Reason relates inner and outer, and seeks to establish the lawfulness of this relation. The organ links the inner activity of self-consciousness with its deed. Both self-consciousness and the deed are active, yet the organ is in itself a passive shape that engages in subtle movements expressing the activity of the inner self-conscious activity of the individual, translating this inner unseen activity to an outer deed, which can be seen. The organ is both a passive and active being. Self-consciousness influences the organ. The inner activity of self-consciousness causes the organ to move, whether it be the mouth to speak, or the hand to work, or some other action set into motion by the organ that turns into a deed. 

The deed, as we have seen, separates from the individual inner activity of the individual self-consciousness once it is externalized. The organ stays with the individual; the mouth does not drift away from the face in the act of speaking. Yet, the organ is part of the living body of self-consciousness, and not self-consciousness itself. The former is distinct from the latter. The individual self-consciousness has a specific nature and an innate peculiarity, determined by the genetic material that fundamentally underly his physical body, as well as the result of the kind of cultivation and education he has experienced. The inner expression of this peculiar inner activity begins to make its external appearance with a mouth, hand, voice, handwriting, etc., that are peculiar to this individual. The individual, however, is not his mouth when be speaks, for example. Yet, the speech is an expression of the inner activity of the individual. There is a complicated relation between the inner activity of the individual and his outer expression.

In regards to the face, certain features of the face point to certain personality traits of the individual. The same organs which the individual uses to engage in actions and deeds, to express the inner activity of the individual, exhibit personality traits that the individual may not wish to exhibit. The face, just like the rest of self-consciousness' physical body, is a product of self-consciousness' inner activity. While the individual can choose to deceive others, and exhibit personality traits that he wishes them to see, the face cannot deceive. As the picture above shows, a deceitful individual can be found out just be examining his face.

However, the organ is distinct from the deed. A deceitful mouth is distinct from deceitful speech. The deed may originate from the organ, but once the deed is externalized and circulated in other self-consciousnesses, the organ through which the deed originated remains with the individual. Further, the organ, e.g. the mouth, is involved in movements, as in facial expressions or gestures, not at all involved with the action itself.

The individual observes and controls these subtle movements, and also reflects upon them. The thoughts that are produced from this self-reflection of his organ's movements may be distinct from the deeds produced by this organ. An individual with a deceitful face may engage in sincere speech. An individual with a deceitful face may engage in deceitful speech that appears to be sincere because he knows how to make his face look sincere. Conversely, a sincere individual, through reflecting on the subtle movements of his mouth and other facial expressions, may produce sincere speech that nevertheless appears to be deceitful - however odd this may seem. In sum, an individual can wear a mask; the countenance of the individual need not express the true inner activity of the individual.

The being for self of the inner activity of the individual is expressed for another through the organ. Yet, the relation between the two cannot be expressed lawfully. The individual may use his mouth to speak sincerely, deceitfully, or not at all; his free will allows him to choose which kind of action he will engage in. It is not possible to express free will using deterministic laws - both are mutually exclusive. The inner activity of the individual, therefore, cannot be observed by examining the external physical characteristics of the individual. The character of the individual is indifferent to his countenance.

The individual can freely choose what he will do, and how he will do it. Once the deed is done, however, it cannot be undone. The individual self-consciousness is an inner activity that expresses itself through action, which becomes a deed, regardless of how he looks like. The deed is accomplished by an individual. It is the stamp of his inner activity expressed for the all to see. Yet, the individual engages in a specific particular action - he cannot engage in universal action, since every individual is confined to a finite particular living body. Every deed emerges from a particular action, which in turn emerges from a particular intention of the individual.

The unobservable intentions of the individual becomes an observable deed through action. When the individual acts, his peculiar intention, recognized only by that same individual, becomes a univesal deed, recognized by all. The deeds of the individual, since they are observable, are regarded as the true inner activity of the individual externalized. After all, he did it. Therefore, he must have intended to do it. If the individual fancies that he intended to do something other than what the deed shows that he did, he merely deceives himself. An individual's true intentions is always expressed by the deed. There is a definite, necessary, universalizable, schematizable connection between the inner intention of the individual, and the external deed that expresses this intention.

Reason has found a lawful relationship between inner and outer. The individual intends to engage in some kind of action, and does. Now, observing Reason must show how the individual causes this transition from inner intention to outer deed. The inner activity of the individual must produce an effect on the outer body, qua cause, to enact a deed in accordance with his intentions. In order for a cause to produce an effect, both cause and effect must be made of the same substance. Since the effect is the movement of a corporeal organ, the cause, i.e. the inner activity of the individual, must also be corporeal.

The inner activity of the individual self-consciousness is infinite, self-differentiating while remaining in identity, movement. In other words, it is an unobservable self-relatedness that produces an objective effect, namely, a deed. At the same time, it is a corporeal self-related inner movement. This infinitely self-related inner movement must be located in a biological organ that causes other organs to move in subtle ways that allows the individual to engage in activities and produce deeds. Reason finds that the organ it is looking for that satisfies these requirements is the brain and spinal cord of the central nervous system.

All voluntary and involuntary actions are an effect produced by the brain and spinal cord, the cause, through the central nervous system. The brain, however, is not immediately observable without the help of technology. The brain is the seat of self-conscious activity. The seat of the brain is the skull. The brain, and thus self-consciousness, exhibits its inner character through the characteristics of the skull. Reason observes the skull, and in observing the skull, it observes the true essence of the self. Reason is engaged in Phrenology.

Reason Observing the Skull: Phrenology

Reason has arrived at phrenology, the science of character divination, faculty psychology, and what has been called "the only science of mind." It is based on the concept that the brain is the organ in which self-consciousness is seated, and that localized areas of the brain have specific functions. Aspects of an individual's personality can be empirically observed by observing the shapes of specific areas in the skull. The areas of the brain press against the skull and give the skull its objective shape. 

The brain is the inner being for self, the activity of self-consciousness, causally producing the activity of the individual. It is through the brain that the individual is able to translate intention into deed, and it is through the brain that the skull attains its shape. Reason establishes a link between the inner activity and intentions of the individual to the outer shape of the skull, the being for another of the activity of self-consciousness. The shape and size of the skull is determined by the shape and size of the brain, which in its turn is determined by the inner activity, the intentions, of the individual.

For every intention, there is a deed. Thus, Reason must be able to infer the deeds of the individual by examining the skull, just as it is able to infer the intentions of the individual by examining the skull. By examining the skull, Reason is supposed to be able to determine whether the individual is a poet, a murderer, thief, or any other kind of individual. All action, therefore, originates from the intentions of the individual determined by the rigid, inert skull.

The thoughts of the mind and the passions of the soul are ossified into the dead bone. Self-consciousness is thus no longer a fluid living movement, but a dead inert Thing. Reason confronts the self as a Thing in objective reality. Its intention was to establish its certainty that self was the universal substrate of all reality by relating the sphere of self-consciousness and the sphere of objective reality bereaved of self-consciousness, i.e. nature with laws. This law was supposed to be universalizable, schematizeable, and necessary. Reason found that nature was self-generating by the law of fractal self-similarity, and indeed, the skull too is self-generated by the law of fractal self-similarity. 

The skull points to the inner activity of self-consciousness, the brain; Reason can infer the personality traits and deeds of self-consciousness by passively observing, perhaps even measuring, the regions of the skull and brain. The skull is the perfect expression of the lawful union of self-consciousness and nature; observing Reason has found what it was looking for. Having arrived at phrenology, it has accomplished an activity - it has produced a deed that began as an intention. The intention was to empirically verify its certainty that the self is the universal substrate of all reality. All reality, the product of all the individual's thoughts, deeds, personality traits, indeed even the society in which he lives, as well as organic nature, inorganic nature, and the law of fractal self-similarity is gathered and ossified into the self-consciousness of the individual brain expressed by the skull.

There are no more gaps to fill. Observing Reason, qua observing Reason, having externalized its intention to itself, confronts itself as a dead thing, an empirical, observable, objective skull. The rigid certainty it sought is death. All fluidity, life, and activity has been lost. The skull has no independence, no free will. It is dead. Yet, it is the seat of the brain, i.e. self-consciousness. The skull bears the marks of the individual's living activity and his deeds. The skull also bears the marks of death. In uniting life and death, self-conscious Reason only finds death.

In confronting the rigid and inert skull, self-conscious Reason confronts its own rigid and inert certainty that self-consciousness is the universal substrate of all reality. In gazing upon the skull, an external expression of the inner activity of self-conscious Reason, Reason learns that its life of passive, empirical observation of nature is a living death. The life of a scientist is the life of a dead man who lives. Rather than find tranquility and satisfaction in this absolute self-communion, which all along it has sought, Reason finds itself in inner turmoil and dissatisfaction; Reason finds that it has not yet attained happiness. 

By observing the skull, Reason does in fact observe its own inner nature, the sum of its deeds, and the society in which it lives. It is dead. Yet, the skull is another  that Reason confronts. It is a thing with many properties. Reason learns that a self-consciousness is not a dead thing, but an infinitely living fluid movement, the essence of life. This essence, in and for itself, is utterly unobservable; nevertheless, the essence of life is knowable. The essence of life is, moreover, immediately knowable. Self-consciousness, in virtue of being a living Thing, not a dead Thing, is immediately aware of itself as a living Thing. The essence of life dwells immediately within self-consciousness. 

Reason finds that its certainty is not a passive, rigid, dead conviction of being all reality, but a living, fluid, active conviction. The essence defining self-conscious Reason's activity is no longer passive. Self-consciousness has assumed a new shape. It is active Reason.