“Awareness”

My friend Jamal Al-Shaer invited me to speak before the Supreme Council of Culture about the role of the media in shaping society’s awareness, and with the respectful participation of Dr. Wassim Al-Sisi, and the presence of a group of members of the Council and its Secretary-General, Dr. Hisham Azmy.
I said:
Awareness, gentlemen, is a mental state through which reality and the facts that take place around us are perceived, through human contact with the environment in which he lives and his contact with it, which opens him up to opportunities for choice.
The ability to choose is the subject of the hour and the subject of the future. We can make every opportunity in front of us a problem and a crisis, and see and discover in every crisis that we face new opportunities that can be invested and developed through it, and this will depend on the way we are aware of all aspects of matters and our treatment of reality, which presents opportunities Multiplayer to move into a new era.
The ability to make the right and best choice, which takes into account the original values ​​that must be integrated into the conscience of the individual, the family and society as a whole, stems from the entrance of knowledge and the use of reason and the scientific method in thinking.
Consciousness gradually matures by perceiving everything that exists around a person through the outlets of awareness that are represented in his senses that transmit it to his mind, so he translates it, mounts it and comprehends it, and this is what serious education, high art and media builds.
And she went on:
One of the most important factors that shape awareness among the general public is the media. If the media is directed most of the time and at times to serve a specific interest, then the citizens will have a false awareness. As for the fair and honest media, it presents issues and events with absolute objectivity as they are. For this reason, one media outlet should not be satisfied with it; Rather, the news must be seen or heard from many media outlets in order for the complete picture to become clear, so what was hidden here will become clear there and so on.
Other factors that affect human consciousness in general are: education and religious institutions; As these institutions gather with each other to form a collective consciousness that may be false and may be real, educational institutions and religious institutions have the ability to hide facts and reveal other facts to overturn the scales and establish beliefs in people’s conscience so they do not know that they are driven and under the influence of parties that have specific agendas.
In this respect, we will not overlook the role of public and official institutions, art, intellectuals, writers, and scholars. All of these also contribute to shaping public awareness.
In line with the theme of the symposium, I was explaining to the young dreamers of tomorrow the origin of the fetus in the mother’s womb, and the progression of creation from two cells meeting to a multi-celled creature, then to organs and systems inside the body of the fetus with different functions.
And the dialogue was included about when this fetus becomes a human being, then when the soul enters it and where in all of that is the soul that the Qur’an speaks of, and it is, as we understand, the one that lives and dies.
I told them: It may be the body of the fetus and the trillions of cells in it, and its DNA, and these are the materials that we monitor their presence, and we understood many of them, one thing, and the spirit and the soul are another thing that we are still in the first stages of understanding.
They asked me about the relationship of that to awareness, and when does the fetus and child become aware?
I said: Consciousness is a mental state through which reality and the facts that take place around us are perceived, through human contact with the environment in which he lives, and his contact with it.
The greater the intellectual yield that the human mind contains, in addition to the different points of view that this mind contains, which are related to different concepts that center around life and living issues, the greater will be his awareness and awareness of himself within the framework of the assets and events around him.
So the fetus and the child at birth and beyond are not aware of this concept.
So the question becomes, are all other creatures conscious?
I said: Consciousness is a state that distinguishes man from other creatures. Awareness of something includes knowing what surrounds it and acting on it.
Consciousness may be false awareness, when a person’s thoughts, views and concepts do not match the reality around him.
It may be partial, when ideas and concepts are limited to a specific aspect or aspect and are not inclusive of all interrelated aspects, aspects and levels that affect and are affected by each other in the process of life development.
There is also the collective consciousness, which may control the individual’s self and make it part of an intellectual formation that he cannot escape from, such as religiosity in a particular religion or belonging to an ideological group, and may even refuse to discuss his independent self as long as it is within the framework of collective consciousness, whose influence increases with the increase in the numbers of this group. And the origin and repetition of his instructions and rites …
The German philosopher Hegel says that man is the only being who is conscious as an existent for himself. As for other creatures, they do not exist except in one manner, and they do not have the accumulation of knowledge nor the transfer of experiences that make their awareness comprehensive of other assets, different times, and accumulated experiences.
. A person always works to change things outside him because he wants to see himself as influential in making what is around him.
The French philosopher Descartes believes that it is doubt that makes us surround ourselves. Thus Descartes doubted everything, including his own existence. It was only made clear to him clearly that he could not doubt that he was thinking, since thinking is the only characteristic that has accompanied the self from the beginning. Based on thinking, we can intuitively realize the existence of the self; This is how Descartes was able to say: “I think, therefore I am.” The self and thinking are inseparable. When the self stops thinking, it ceases to exist.
We must not overlook that the creation of collective awareness of the importance of thinking and the use of the mind corresponds to the terrifying awareness of not recognizing difference.
For example, whoever calls for the punishment of the (different) one who breaks the fast.. is the one who incites the killing of the (different) hemisphere?
When ideas turn into false awareness when they come out of someone who has ideological or religious authority over people’s minds… they automatically extend to the heads of the recipients to be manifested in various forms of punishment (the different)?
The desire for the other to be a copy of us, or else we stigmatize him/harm him/kill him… creation