Are we just machines receiving data and converting it into something that can be processed in our brains? Of course not. We also produce more data as a reaction to the data that comes to us. And what is the element in us that determines how we respond to our surroundings?

It was said that the information from our senses goes to our brains. But the brains can't be compared to a machine like the sensitive organs can. The senses work in a systematical way. They always do their job similarly. Of course they can get faults or they can wear out in time, but they have a certain task to do and they do it systematically and constantly. However, the brains both receive and output selectively. This selection is based on our consciousness.

Consciousness is what really makes us human beings. After all, we couldn't realize the flow of sights, sounds, smells and tastes without having a consciousness, not to talk about making decisions based on these.

Consciousness is being aware of things around, to put it very simply. This is what all animals have, though in variable quantities. An important part of consciousness is self consciousness, and sometimes when we talk about consciousness, this is what we mean. This is something that separates people from animals. Surely some animals have a limited self consciousness, but at least according to our knowledge they don't actually think about themselves as individuals like we do.

Some scientists believe that consciousness is just a result of a highly complicated flow of information in the brain cells, as if our brains were a very sophisticated computer. From this point of view it should be possible to build a conscious computer. This is hard to believe. Imagine everything that our consciousness is capable of doing. In addition to perception, learning and decision making it stores and develops a variety of emotions that build our personality. Could a computer be happy or sad? Could a computer love or hate, be ashamed, feel guilty, forgive? Hardly.

The consciousness of an individual can be called "mind". Mind is often divided into two parts; rational and emotional. The rational part is something more similar to a computer. It gathers and processes information and knowledge. It solves problems and makes logical decisions based on received information. The emotional part is something more difficult to explain. In it feelings towards other people as well as many other things are created and stored. It controls our social behaviour, our moods, our whole personality. It also affects the rational mind, for example because rational thinking is affected by our moods. The search for information and learning new things also depends on motivation, which in turn is strongly affected by our emotional balance.

It is not exaggerated to say that the emotional mind is much more essential to our life, to our growth as human beings. A proof of this is that a very ignorant and non-rational person can be happy and mentally healthy, while a very highly educated, logically talented person can't be happy without being in balance emotionally. And what is more valuable to us than happiness?

Unfortunately our society values materialistic values above the mental well-being of individuals, which is why we have a constant pressure to be productive, even with the cost of an unsatisfied emotional life.

Collective consciousness is something that enables a group of living beings to perform some activites or share experiences like being just one organism. It seems that the more advanced species, in terms of evolution, we are talking about, the less collective consciousness there is and the more individual or self consciousness.

Ants building their nests, bees collecting honey, birds flocking - these are examples of primitive animals actings as collective groups. Big herds of individual animals act as one entity, usually following some kind of leader. But even mammals sometimes act as a collective group. When for example a deer senses a threat, other deers in the herd catch this feeling and the whole group gets restless. When the beast attacks, the deers don't run randomly into different directions, but escape as a single group.

People are the most advanced species on our planet, at least in terms of intellectual and technological evolution. Thus we can assume that we have the least collective consciousness and the most self consciousness. Though this is propably true, it doesn't mean that we have no collective consciousness - or subconsciousness at least. We talk about "masses" behaving in some ways. What are these masses? Think about a big crowd in a pop concert. This is a fine example of a mass of people behaving collectively. The members of the audience is "unified" by the music and the feelings it causes. The thrill of this shared experience takes you with it and you can even forget your individuality.

In a way also unquestioned traditions and customs of our society, "social paradigms" control our behaviour in a way that makes us somehow a unified group. There are certain cultural, political and religional authorities both in national and international level that most people accept as absolute realities. Being a part of a mass that follows a set of certain behaviour and thinking patterns makes you have a sense of belonging, which in general has a positive effect to your self-esteeme. This phenomenon could be called "social collectivity".

Eventually, the deepest feeling of shared consciousness happens between two people that have a very strong emotional contact between each other. Lovers, for example can have a very strong sense of sharing each other's emotions and thoughts - in a way that they can momentarily feel each other as one being.

The funny thing about the previously discussed collective consciousness is that one doesn't notice it or think about it until one is separated from it - and propably in many cases even not then.

We are born into shared consciousness. A newborn baby is not conscious of itself as a separate being from its mother. As a child begins to realice his/her own individual existence, the connection to the parents and other family remains strong for a long time. Later the child becomes a member of the social consciousness, beginning from kindergarten and school.

Many things can lead to different levels of separation. Apparently damage to the natural social bonds in the childhood and adolescence is most influential to the delelopment of a collectively separated personality. Losing one's parents in early age or being physically or emotionally abused or ignored by them is a common factor to this kind of individuals. Also being rejected by brothers and sisters and other children in school can have a very strong impact. This rejection is usually a consequence of the child being signigicantly different from the average, either physically, intellectuclly, emotionally or even economically (coming from a very poor or rich family).

The separation, if not being corrected early enough, leads to many kind of difficulties in the personal life. You have difficulties adapting to the society, you find it very hard to make close contacts to other people, in many ways you are in danger of not finding your place in this world. Another side of this separation is that you are more likely to get interested in unusual hobbies and activities and being alone a lot gives you time to think and develope your understanding, in intellectual level, of things around you.

A "separate" can in worst case end up in a bad depression or other mental problems, which can lead to alcoholism, drug abuse, mental sickness, or even suicide. From a very hard situation one can also be "saved" by finding or being taken to a society that gives an alternative to social collectiveness, which normally means going through a religional experience. This can act as a "first aid", later helping the person also to find his/her place in the social world.

Separates that are above average intellectually or creatively can end up being scientists, researchers, philosophers, artists etc. They can find their life's task in their profession and also find social companions when getting into an environment with similar people. In this way they get out of their separation, becoming members of the scientific or artistic community. Yet, it is typical especially for artists and philosophers to suffer from mental problems throughout their lives and relatively many of them die an unnatural death as a result. Ironically, many of the most valued and famous artists and philosophers of our history belong to this group.

The fact is that the more isolated you are from the "masses", the more isolated you also are from their rules and customs. The more separated you are from the collective consciousness, the more open-minded and accepting (though also vulnerable) you are to "unorthodox" and revolutional ideas. It is an understandable result of questoning the generally accepted rules of the social world, to start wondering the purpose of our very existence and looking for it outside - and independently - of the everyday reality. The result of this "quest" can be eventually extremely awarding or extremely destructive...

Martin Keitel, 1998