Midnight Musings — What drives consciousness?
“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders
Usually I have so many things to say and all throughout the day I read about some amazing, some horrifying things, like a million dollar prize problem that has been unsolved for decades, the Hodge Conjecture, explained in a very simple way catered to non-mathematicans.
Then one very sad, gruesome yet true murder story about a child actress who was brutally murdered along with her mother by her own father, Judith Eva Barsi.
A bravery tale of one such cadet Amit Raj who gallantly rescued 3 children from a burning house but sadly succumbed to his own injuries with 85% burn.
But when I am sitting in front of my computer, with a notepad open and the cursor blinking, I don’t have anything to say save for the stories I shared. It makes me wonder why do people make certain decisions, choices in life. What goes behind the decision making process of brain. Given a set of choices — how does my brain comprehend that doing a certain event is better than others. Is this what is called consciousness? How does a person decides that murdering their own child and their wife is a good thing to do. I am certain that their decision is affected by external factors like alcohol, drugs, provocation. Or maybe they are just evil people. How does evilness comes from. Is it a state of mind or is it a disease?
