The Conscious Dimension

by Allan Chubb

The Relativity of Individual Consciousness

If it were possible to experience someone else’s consciousness directly and at the same time compare it with our own, I am sure that we would be surprised at the differences in individuals. You may ask whether there is any evidence for this. Well, there is, but not from directly experiencing other people’s consciousness but from the evidence we have from observation and psychological data.

Extroversion and Introversion

Jung is well known for his observation that people tend to be extroverted or introverted. Eysenck combined this observation with the Greek idea that personalities were usually sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric or melancholic, and from this developed a questionnaire known as the Eysenck Personality Inventory. He concluded that in order to explain the Greek classification of personalities it was necessary to plot the results of his questionnaire on two axes at right angles. One axis measured extroversion and introversion and the other non neurotic and neurotic.

The results of the questionnaire scores were plotted on the four quadrant graph as a point. Therefore a person was described as sanguine, or phlegmatic, or choleric or melancholic to some degree.

How did Eysenck arrive at his Personality Inventory, and what can we deduce about the relevant conscious experience? Eysenck performed many experiments and coordinated the results with the kind of answers which people gave to questions. If he thought the questions were diagnostic he included them in the Inventory. A good example of such an experiment was his illuminated cubicle test. The subject was required to remain in the cubicle for some time and was given a switch for the light so they could turn it on or off. Eysenck found that the typical extrovert would work to switch on the light while a typical introvert would work to switch it off. This interesting experiment demonstrates the difference between the nervous systems of the extrovert and the introvert.

We have already learned how the nervous systems of extroverts and introverts differ. It may be that it is not an all or none effect across all modalities since some extroverted people can feel the need for less heat than some more introverted persons. However the general classification of describing people on a scale from extrovert to introvert has proved a useful one, as has the plotting on a scale of neurotic to non neurotic. It should be noticed that persons with psychotic illnesses do not fall on these scales.

Sensory Differences

When it comes to sensory acuity different species of animals show considerable variation. Dogs are known for their sensitive sense of smell, deer for their acute hearing and hawks for their remarkable vision. Although the range in individual modalities in humans does not vary as in these species, there is still a range in sensitivity between people. There are also differences in quality in some senses even in healthy people.

The range of variation in the acuity of sight is fairly obvious and perhaps we should reflect on what a life with poor vision must be like. Vision is our main sense and here there are also differences of quality. People who are colour blind in some way are obvious examples but there seems to be some evidence that the way people see colour can vary. More remarkable than this is the case, shown on television, of a dress which many people see as black and blue but others see it as white and gold. We shall see later why this might occur. We cannot guarantee that all people see colour in the same way.

Hearing can vary in acuity also, with some people finding loud noises painful while others are not alerted to noise even by approaching vehicles. Smell and taste are usually considered to be closely related, particularly when we are eating. However, it is worth noting that women usually have a considerably more sensitive sense of smell than men, also the same is true of the sense of hearing, particularly in the upper ranges. Taste is one sense where the conscious awareness differs in quality, for example some people find Brussel Sprouts pleasant to eat while others experience them as bitter. Such variations may account for some of the differences in food preferences.

It is known that the pain threshold varies from high to low between people. This must obviously reflect in the quality of individual personal consciousness. It seems to be linked to our capacity to experience various forms of pain and discomfort. Some people are lacking in the capacity to empathise with other people. Adolph Hitler must have been a classic example. Inability to empathise with others is more unusual than might be suspected. Empathy is usually part of a person’s nature.

All these factors contribute towards our degree of intelligence. Teachers are well aware of individual differences in intelligence and capacities, and that individuals often learn more efficiently by one particular method. This can be modality related, such as when a person learns predominantly by seeing and reading. Some people find that hearing is a good way of learning while others benefit more by doing things. Different methods of learning are important in education.

Types of People

The shapes and forms of our bodies project onto the relevant areas of our brains, particularly in the form of bodily sensations and the things we can do. Male and female bodies obviously vary and body types, or somato types, are classified as endomorphs, mesomorphs and ectomorphs.

The endomorphic intellectual is one stereotype while the mesomorphs often excel in physical activities and sport. Ectomorphs can find physical activity difficult. All these factors impinge on our conscious awareness and help to make us the kind of people we are.

Sex Differences

For some time before the 1990’s it was commonly thought that men and women were fairly similar and apart from physical strength equally suited to do similar jobs. It was an age when equality in all respects was considered to be the case. With the increasing techniques for scanning the brain, it has become clear that there are significant structural differences. During life these develop and show themselves as variations of behaviour between male and female.

During the first eight weeks of the foetus the brains of both sexes develop as fantail brains, and the brains of females continue to develop along female lines. However, after eight weeks testosterone starts to influence the development of the brain of the male foetus. The hearing and communication centres shrink and the part which processes sex becomes twice as large. The part of the brain which controls anger also becomes larger in the male.

As the individual grows from child to adult these differences come to manifest themselves in behaviour. The larger communication areas of the email brain result in more verbal ability and the development of networking in various types of email groups. Males, less endowed with communication centres, will often spend more time sorting problems individually. In females the more developed activity of the communication centres leads to greater awareness of emotional cues which males find more difficult. It is a statistical fact that autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are much more prevalent in males. A further consequence of the more active communication areas of the brain is that women usually have a better memory for detail.

Evolution seems to have caused a divergence in the way males and females react aggressively. The larger aggressive areas in the male brain result in a tendency to quicker overt aggression. Females have both a smaller part of the brain devoted to aggression and a part of the frontal cortex where aggressive responses are considered before overt aggressive reaction. Taken together these aspects result in females often taking the lead in preventing or resolving conflicts. Interestingly enough, similar behaviour has been observed in female chimpanzees. That aggression is far more likely to start between two or more males is related to the greater relevance of the fight or flight mechanism in males.

During the life of a male there is a gradual rise and fall of the emotional led side of behaviour, but in females the cycles of their lives are controlled to a greater extent by changes in hormones. For example, there is the calm period of life before puberty, then the turbulence of puberty leading to the reproductive phase which ends in the menopause, and finally the mature brain. All of this is orchestrated by fluctuations in the level of several hormones.

How hormones affect mental states is a study in itself, but it is interesting that these variations affect the sensitivity to pain. Most of the time it appears the female brain is more sensitive to pain, particularly of the emotional kind. Another difference is that females have a greater incidence of depression especially at some stages of life. On the issue of empathy women score highly and this is first observed in babies in the creche being more inclined to cry in sympathy with another crying baby. It is obviously an evolutionary adaptation to the maternal instinct and caring generally. This probably explains why women excel in caring tasks. The reason why, statistically, men dominate the mathematic and scientific professions seems to be due not to differences in intellectual ability but to pursuing their natural interests. However, it is interesting to note that men and women process mathematical data differently, women using the visual parts of the brain to perform these tasks. This is slightly slower but still achieves the same results.

When all these factors, and perhaps others which have not been mentioned are combined it can show itself in various types of person. We would generally recognise them as different types of mind, such as people of action, or the reflective type including such persons as philosophers. Others excel at practical things while some have a well developed sense of caring and often enter the caring professions. Sometimes it is special abilities which shape the kind of people they become. Musical ability is known to be more developed in some and good auditory ability is important in this respect. In some individuals musical ability is combined with rhythm and motion and they excel at dance of various kinds. For others music may not be as important as their physical dexterity, and they may become gymnasts or excel at sport. Languages are another area where some people excel, involving good visual and auditory memory. This is not an exhaustive list but serves to show ways in which the human mind can vary.

When all these factors are taken into account, together with those aspects of the mind which are genetic and which we share, such as drives, we begin to see how the content of our schemata may develop. A little thought will suggest why an individual’s schemata might begin to drift in a certain direction. However, schemata are not totally rigid but dynamic and can vary, often suddenly being drawn to new interests.

When we consider all these factors: personality types, variations in sensory perception, sensitivity to pain, gender, our somato type and possibly other factors, we begin to understand that our individual consciousness varies. It is not just a case that we see things differently but rather that our individual consciousness experiences the world differently. Conscious perception of the world varies from person to person. When we begin to understand this it helps us to understand other people and relate to each other.