2
THE ANATOMY
OF CONSCIOUSNESS
At certain times in history cultures have taken it for granted that a
person wasn’t fully human unless he or she learned to master thoughts
and feelings. In Confucian China, in ancient Sparta, in Republican
Rome, in the early Pilgrim settlements of New England, and among the
British upper classes of the Victorian era, people were held responsible
for keeping a tight rein on their emotions. Anyone who indulged in
self-pity, who let instinct rather than reflection dictate actions, forfeited
the right to be accepted as a member of the community. In other
historical periods, such as the one in which we are now living, the ability
to control oneself is not held in high esteem. People who attempt it are
thought to be faintly ridiculous, “uptight,” or not quite “with it.” But
whatever the dictates of fashion, it seems that those who take the trouble
to gain mastery over what happens in consciousness do live a happier
life.
To achieve such mastery it is obviously important to understand
how consciousness works. In the present chapter, we shall take a step
in that direction. To begin with, and just to clear the air of any suspicion
that in talking about consciousness we are referring to some mysterious
process, we should recognize that, like every other dimension of human
behavior, it is the result of biological processes. It exists only because of
the incredibly complex architecture of our nervous system, which in
turn is built up according to instructions contained in the protein