Can The Human Mind Truly Explain The Human Mind?
Limited. That’s the word that comes to mind when I think about the capability of the human mind. At least that’s how I feel after giving it some thought. Stay tuned as I walk you through my thought process, then you can tell me if you agree or not.
God made man in His image and likeness (many do not believe in creationism but for the sake of this thought experiment, please be open-minded). Man fell after disobeying and then, became separated from God. A lot of events transpired over many generations.
Time passes by and man seeks knowledge insatiably, making great leaps and bounds in so many areas; learning, evolving, and in a specific way, living up to the God-given ability to create, innovate, and invent.
A question popped up in my head. Why hasn’t man been able to do certain things despite millennia spent on earth? A befitting example is the study of the human mind; especially in its physical form; the brain. Also, why hasn’t man been able to replicate it in maybe the form of some sort of artificial intelligence or silicon-based consciousness.
This brings up another thought. Perhaps this is because in order to fully understand the human mind/brain, the study has to be done by an non-human entity. Isn’t objectivity out of the window and limitation posed when the brain has to be employed in the study of itself? This means that the extent to which a human can search and understand the mystery of the mind and reveal its many secrets is determined by existing knowledge gathered by another human whose knowledge is also limited, and the vicious cycle continues; and in order to create an artificial intelligence that could accomplish the task, humans would have to come up with a way to create something that will somehow be taught to learn and ultimately supersede human intellect while being guided by algorithms and countless lines of code written by humans.
Ingenious does not even begin to describe the mastery and design that God displayed in the creation of the human soul. Crafted in such a way that you would ultimately need the help of the manufacturer to crack the code. Could it be some sort of built-in fail safe mechanism to prevent us from self-sabotage? A way to remind us of our dependence on God even for discovering what our lives are supposed to be. This is why a question like “What is the purpose/meaning of life?” has no right, wrong or definite answer.
We like to think we can do anything, achieve anything or attain any height but consider this; if the brain attempting to study the brain (which I see as some sort of paradox) is enough evidence to the contrary, doesn’t this mean that all that we attain is simply because God permits it?