Conscience and consciousness.

I asked BINGchat: “what is the relationship between human conscience and consciousness?”

BINGchat says:

Consciousness is the state of being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts, and emotions. It is the quality or state of being conscious1. On the other hand, conscience is an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior2. While both terms relate to a state of awareness, they refer to different things.

The relationship between human conscience and consciousness is that consciousness is what allows us to be aware of our surroundings and our thoughts while conscience is what allows us to behave in this world in morally and socially acceptable ways3.

Words that describe the metaphysical.

We register all thoughts and feelings in our minds. The scientific jury is still deliberating on the quest of whether our minds are the creation of billions of cells in the brain, or our minds exists beyond space and matter. The Consciousness Podcast is a fascinating series of 42 interviews with experts on all sides of this debate hosted by a man who lost his son to suicide and wondered why.

No scientist has ever measured a thought or feeling directly. They have sought to do so indirectly by surveys and sophisticated instrumentation, but their direct access remains elusive because they exists in the realm of the metaphysical.

God is also metaphysical.

The idea of God arouses thoughts and feelings in each individual that are entirely the unique experience of him or her. That idea is culturally dependent in so far as the traditions and beliefs of one’s immediate community inject strong influences.

There are 193 countries in the world that are home to over 8 billion individuals and about 4200 religions that each possess some variation on the theme or our Creator. Every one of those people have lived lives that are unique to them and possess minds that have been shaped by their personal experiences.

Thought experiment.

Now, close your eyes and picture the Earth as a huge globe wrapped in a cloak of the ideas and feelings of everyone on the planet. Your picture is necessarily “metaphysical” because it is a manifestation of YOUR mind as you imagine how the COLLECTIVE mind may be represented. Your imagined picture may be similar to the one shown and captured by the person who produced it, or it may be entirely different and manifest as a composite of past images you’ve seen and that your mind has retained.

Now, contemplate the words Consciousness and Conscience as you hold that image in your mind and seek to understand its ramifications to your understanding of Reality.

One question that may arise is: “Is the earth real (i.e. exists in time, space and matter) or is it a figment of my imagination existing in my mind and in the collective mind of every “being of consciousness”?

I will leave you with that question to ponder.