© 2013 Karuna Leys
© 2013 Association Francophone des Lecteurs du Livre d'Urantia
We are studying how the human being was created and why he was created. Or as Isaac Newton asked himself: “What is the use of a newborn baby?” So far we have seen that, like animals, we have a body to which are added five adjutants, five mental minds which constitute consciousness, allowing us to live our life on this planet. Then we said that human beings have two more adjutants. We have not studied them yet. Why are these two adjutants not present in animals and do not function in their life? There must be a reason. Yes, it is because a living and conscious being must first possess a personality before these two other adjutants can be added and function. The purpose of this first study of personality is therefore to enable us to grasp and feel the reality of personality:
This will be an introductory study. Later we will study personality in its functioning, and we will explore its meaning, i.e. what is it for?
As we did in previous lessons we will again respect the law that governs the functioning of human thought. Human thought functions efficiently and clearly when it is based on facts, on things that we can clearly see and observe. Thus we will avoid anything that is purely theories, dogmas, myths, fantasies, opinions, points of view, perspectives, or speculations.
Around the age of 2 to 3 years, parents notice and experience that in their child there is a free will, a free will, which emerges, which is clearly linked to the notion of the ‘I’. “I don’t want it! I want that!” If mom says ‘yes’, he says ‘no’! If mom says ‘no’, he says ‘yes’! The child becomes aware of his own little person and clearly wants to experience the effect that this has on other people. We can say that the personality begins to reveal itself, to show itself. But what exactly is this reality that we call “personality”?
When we ask psychologists, we will get almost as many answers as there are psychologists. Let’s take a few examples - a brief, non-in-depth overview of course. From the perspective of psychodynamic psychology we have Sigmund Freud (1856) who tries to explain personality by his theory of unconscious and uncontrolled drives that originate in bodily excitations and libido. He develops the concepts of Es (the Id), Ich (the Ego) and Uber-Ich (the Superego). And Carl Jung (1875) explains personality by his theory of the collective unconscious, and classifies individuals into archetypes, innate mental structures. Later, Erik Erikson (1902) will explain that personality is built through stages of identity development. In each stage a ‘crisis’ occurs that must be resolved by achieving a balance between opposing forces. In the behaviorism approach, Burrhus Skinner (1904) for whom the term ‘personality’ was not practical, spoke instead of ‘operant conditioning’. Albert Bandura (1925) developed his theory of social learning as well as the concept of self-efficacy. On the other hand, for Gordon Allport (1897) and Raymond Cattell (1905) ‘traits’ are the building blocks of personality. And psychologists of the humanistic approach seek unity between body and mind. Man is a psycho-physical being with free will. Everything is organized around a central core, the self. Carl Rogers (1902) emphasizes the relationship between the psychotherapist and the client. The psychotherapist must master empathic listening, authenticity, and non-judgment. Abraham Maslow (1908) emphasizes motivation, creativity or self-fulfillment and develops his “pyramid of human needs”. This brief, and very incomplete, overview clearly shows the complexity of these concepts, these theories and these perspectives. So let’s go back to the simple facts.
As we can see, the aspect of will, or free will, is the most striking, the most clearly visible aspect. When this will, this free will, rises (or emerges) in the being of our toddler, it is like a small plant that comes out of the earth and becomes visible. This means that underground there was something that was already present and that was not yet visible.
We must examine this in stages and hold each facet under a magnifying glass—so to speak—in order to be able to discern it clearly.
What more can we see?
In this same period we notice that at a certain point our child no longer says his own name to refer to himself — because until now every different thing had a different name, and every person had a different name. That was clear and distinct. But suddenly he begins to say “I,” just as his mother says “I,” and his father says “I,” and all the others say “I,” and yet they are all different. One word for different things? That is new! The word “I” does not represent a concrete thing. All men use this word for themselves. When the child now sees himself in a mirror, he grasps that it is he, himself: “That is me!” He recognizes himself very clearly in the mirror and he knows that all the others recognize themselves in the same way. The consciousness of “I exist, I am” emerges. He becomes aware of the fact that he is someone, someone who is different from others. The kind of symbiosis in which he lived with his mother is broken. Initially he only notices the external differences but later he will notice the internal differences. He becomes aware of his being. Self-awareness has emerged in his consciousness. We can clearly see this.
A student in England had chosen “Self-consciousness in monkeys” as the subject for her thesis. She had invented different tests, and had looked for a place where they would help her carry out these tests. She had even hired someone to film her entire research project. She carefully prepared each test, taking a lot of time to do and re-do the test in order to be sure of the result. But test after test the result was negative. She became more and more disappointed. At the end she even had tears in her eyes. She had been so sure that she would be able to prove that monkeys recognize themselves in the mirror. But a monkey does not realize that it is its face that it sees in the mirror.
But how is it that we become conscious of ourselves?
Self-consciousness is only possible when reason is present, which is also called the intellect, or the logos. This too we need to understand more deeply. Let us start with the notion of “intellect”.
Intellect comes from the Latin intellegere, composed of inter (among, between) + legere (to read): therefore read among or read between. This gives us 2 meanings:
Abstract comes from the Latin abs and trahere. Abs means “out, or taken out,” and trahere means “to draw.” What is drawn out of what? When a living, conscious being—we are talking about a living body and the first five adjutants—receives reason (or intellect), that being becomes capable of detaching the idea of a thing from the thing itself, or of taking the idea out of the thing and retaining it in its consciousness such that it is no longer necessary for the thing to be concretely present in order to be able to “see” it. That living, conscious being has received the ability to render concrete things into thought images to which words are attached, and to express the totality of those thought images at a later time.
In young children around 3 years old we can observe the moment when reason emerges in their consciousness. In the discipline called developmental psychology, this is called the developing semiotic function. Semiotics studies the functioning and meaning of signs and symbols. A word is a sign, a symbol that represents something. When developmental psychologists say that the semiotic function is awakened, they mean that the young child has become capable of telling at home in the evening what happened in class in the morning.
So, with all these varied ideas and the words that represent these ideas, different combinations can be made that are new. This is what we call ‘inventing’. Not only can all these new combinations of ideas be expressed in words, but these rational beings can also give material form to what they ‘see’ and invent in their thoughts, and thus be creative. All tools, all technologies were invented in this way: by combining ideas. But also commerce results from this ability of abstraction. Even in bartering we see how this abstraction allows us to estimate an equal value of different things. Only man barters and does business. No dog will exchange or barter bones with another.
So it is because we have been given reason that we grasp the abstraction of “I” and can be self-conscious. We can hold the image of ourselves in our consciousness. So we can not only reflect on things outside ourselves, but because we are self-conscious, we can also reflect on ourselves and study our own being. This power is given to the human being. It is through this gift of reason that we can do this study, that we can grasp these things of our own being. Would a monkey grasp what “self-consciousness” is? Can a monkey study its own being?
(to be continued)
Karuna Leys