Сергей Гладков – The Human Being as a Multilevel System (страница 5)

Each simple explanation turns out to be useful, but incomplete.

And then the first question becomes more exact:

is the human being really arranged as he seems from the inside?

Perhaps the familiar feeling of one center is an important part of experience, but not its original cause. Perhaps unity is not simply given in advance, but is constantly maintained. Perhaps personality does not stand motionless in the depths, but gathers through memory, attention, language, meaning, body, relationships, and repeated ways of reacting. Perhaps when we say "I", we name not a hidden thing, but the result of complex work of coherence.

For now this is not yet a statement.

It is a direction of the question.

And in this direction the first chapter should stop. Not because there is nothing more to say, but because the next step requires a separate check.

If the familiar picture assumes an inner center, then we need to ask directly:

can it be found?

Not as a word.

Not as a feeling.

Not as a habit of saying "I".

But as a separate center that observes, controls, and remains unchanged behind all changes of experience.

This is the question that opens the next chapter.

Where is the inner center?

2. The Illusion of the Center

Why We Are So Sure

Before sleep, thought becomes especially audible.

During the day it is muffled by tasks, conversations, messages, movement, the need to answer, choose, and keep up. But late in the evening, when the light is already off, the body lies still, and external affairs let go for a while, the conversation inside still continues.

A person remembers what he said wrong. Imagines tomorrow's conversation. Argues with someone who is no longer there. Answers more strongly than he answered during the day. Corrects the past. Invents the future. Explains to himself why he acted exactly that way. Then he notices that he has gone into thought again, and tries to stop.

And at some point a strange question appears:

who is thinking all this now?

Not in the sense of a name, biography, or passport. That much is clear. The question is more subtle. Who is the one before whom thoughts pass? Who notices that a thought has appeared? Who says, "I am thinking about this again"? Who looks at the inner monologue as if it were unfolding before him?

It seems that the answer is obvious: I.

But if we stay with this answer a little longer, it stops being so simple. The word "I" does not explain here; it only points. It places a mark on the experience, but does not yet show what exactly has been found.

The feeling of an inner center is very strong. Sometimes it seems like the most immediate fact of experience. One can doubt one's memories, motives, decisions, or the judgments of other people. But it is hard to doubt that there is someone who doubts. It seems that deep inside everything that happens there is a point from which everything is perceived.

This certainty does not appear by accident.

First, experience is almost always given from some perspective. The world does not simply exist before us as a neutral map. It is given from here: from this body, this position, this history, this mood, this pain, this anxiety, this memory. Even when a person tries to be objective, the attempt itself happens from some point of experience.

Second, language gathers scattered processes into the form of the first person. We say, "I thought", "I felt", "I noticed", "I decided". Language does not have to clarify each time exactly which level of experience took part in the reaction. It creates practical coherence. But this coherence gradually begins to look like proof of an inner center.

Third, memory creates a line of continuation. In the morning a person remembers that in the evening he thought, doubted, and worried. He links these states into one story. It seems to him: if all this happened with me, then there must be someone who remains the same through all these states.

Fourth, attention creates the impression of observation. When a person notices a thought, the thought seems to become an object. And if there is an object, it is easy to suppose a subject-observer. A thought is seen, so there is someone who sees it. An emotion is noticed, so there is someone who notices it. The body is felt, so there is someone who feels the body.

This is how a simple and very convincing picture is formed: inside there is a center that observes, chooses, holds itself, and controls what is happening.

In ordinary life, this picture works well enough. It allows a person to speak in the first person, answer for actions, plan, remember, admit mistakes, promise, and explain himself to others. This is why the book does not begin by rejecting this picture as foolish. It would be too easy and too crude to say: the inner center is only an illusion, so there is no need to think about it.

On the contrary, we first need to recognize its force.

If the feeling of a center were weak, it would not have held our picture of the human being for so long.

But the strength of a feeling is not the same as proof of structure.

In everyday life, this strength appears almost invisibly.

A person says, "I made myself get up." This phrase already contains a hidden duality: who made someone do it, and who was made to do it? He says, "I did not let myself lose control." Again, there appears the one who holds back, and the one who needs to be held back. He says, "I observed my emotions," and it seems as if somewhere above the emotions there really is a separate point of observation. He says, "I made a decision," and the decision looks like the act of an inner ruler, although before it tiredness, fear, memory, habit, the expectations of others, bodily tension, and a random phrase heard in the morning may have been working quietly.

There is no need to forbid such expressions. They are convenient and often accurate for communication. But if we take them literally, language begins to suggest metaphysics to us. It draws a manager where perhaps there is a coherence of processes. It draws an observer where perhaps there is a change in relation to the content of experience. It draws an inner center where perhaps there is a temporary form of assembly.

This is precisely where the second chapter begins.

Where is the inner center?

Trying to Find the Observer

One can carry out a simple inner experiment.

No special preparation, complex technique, or special state is needed. It is enough to stop for a few minutes and look at what is found in experience.

There are thoughts.

They appear as words, images, broken phrases, inner remarks, plans, memories. Sometimes a thought looks like a sentence. Sometimes like an instant understanding. Sometimes like a repeating fragment: I should have answered differently, I must not forget, what if everything goes wrong, why did he say that, what is happening to me.

There are emotions.

Anxiety, irritation, tiredness, tenderness, shame, expectation, boredom. They may be clear or vague. Sometimes a person knows at once: I am angry. Sometimes he needs time to understand what tension is being held inside. An emotion may be strong, may be barely noticeable, may change the whole tone of perception even if the person does not name it.

There are bodily sensations.

Pressure in the chest, heaviness in the head, warmth in the hands, tightness in the stomach, breathing, pulse, posture, tiredness, the movement of the eyes under closed eyelids. The body is not simply a shell that a separate center observes from somewhere inside. It already takes part in how experience is given.

There are images.

Faces of people, rooms, routes, possible conversations, scenes from the past, versions of the future. Sometimes they arise deliberately, sometimes as if by themselves. A person may try not to think about something, but the image still returns.

There is attention.

It is held on the breath, then goes to an anxious thought, then catches on a sound, then returns to the body, then falls again into memory. Attention does not look like a fixed spotlight that someone confidently controls from the center. Rather, it distributes itself, gets captured, returns, slips away, and gathers again.

All this is found.

But where is the observer?

One can say: the observer is the one who notices all this.

Good. Then let us try to notice the observer himself.

A thought appears: "I am observing." But this is a thought.

A feeling of presence appears. But this is a feeling.

A sense of "I am here" appears. But this is a sense.

An inner silence appears between thoughts. But it too is given as a state of experience.

A direction of attention appears. But the direction of attention can also be noticed.

Each time it seems that we have found the observer, what is found is not a separate entity, but one more element of experience: a thought about observing, a feeling of presence, a bodily localization, a focus of attention, a feeling of continuity, the inner phrase "this is me."

This does not mean that there is nothing.