What is conscience?

Science of Conscience: that one may be very difficult to render comprehensible by anyone who is focused on tangible. Anyone focused on tangible repeatedly follows the line of looking first for an acceptable, approved existing definition, having nothing to do with his own life-experience, of what he "ought" to be seeing/perceiving BEFORE he will commit to "learning" anything. A simple example of ‘focused on tangible’ is this: Say, there is a course on how to bake bread in a bakery. Because the person registered for this course aspires to work in a certain bakery that uses, say white bread ingredients, with chemical additives (e.g. sugar, hydrogenated oil, and others, for taste and preservation), baked in an electrical oven, he has vested interest in finding out how this bakery operates and how his ‘knowledge’ will fit into job prospect with the bakery. However, if he is focused on tangible, his eyes will roll during any discussion of what makes a good bread, why whole wheat bread is better than white bread, the dangers of adding chemical additives, not to mention the long-term impact of electrical heating. In fact, such a person may not even last first few days, thinking this course is driving him crazy. He came here to ‘learn’ how to make bread in a bakery and he is being ‘lectured’ on nutritional values. He would be saying, “I need my job with the bakery, the heaven can wait. Just give me the ingredient of white bread, which setting the knob of the oven should be at and where is the timer button, …I didn’t pay all this money to ‘increase my virtue so I throw up next time I even eat white bread. This not a course on human health, man! If I needed such a course, I would go to medical doctor, not a Master Chef!” This down to earth example serves as a basis for first condition to increasing knowledge, you cannot be focused on tangibles and you cannot rush to find a number so you can just get back to your lazy lifestyle of robotic thinking. Other examples of this can be derived from: 1) Dessert making course; 2) Water engineering; 3) Food processing; 4) Pop-drink manufacturing; 5) Tobacco engineering; 6) Pharmaceutical Sciences; 7) Genetic engineering; 8) Fluid flow; 9) Materials and Manufacturing; 10) Building design and architecture. With a focus on tangible, every decision a person will make will be exactly opposite to what the decision should have been made based on true knowledge. Conscience is the driver of true knowledge.

Conscience is what an individual discovers by going with his own natural, unmediated reaction to events and surroundings, not assisted by or dependent upon any definition in some book somewhere. Even prophet Muhammad, the man believed to be the only person who acted on conscience all the time, did not get order from divine revelations on his daily decisions. He constantly took decisions based on conscience and some of them were later discovered to be incorrect. One such example is cited in Chapter 80 of the Qur’an. This chapter begins with

عَبَسَ وَتَوَلَّىٰٓ (١) أَن جَآءَهُ ٱلۡأَعۡمَىٰ (٢) وَمَا يُدۡرِيكَ لَعَلَّهُ يَزَّكَّىٰٓ (٣)
أَوۡ يَذَّكَّرُ فَتَنفَعَهُ ٱلذِّكۡرَىٰٓ (٤)
(1) He frowned and turned away (2) Because the blind man came unto him. (3) What could inform thee but that he might grow (in grace) (4) Or take heed and so the reminder might avail him?

Obviously, the prophet himself is being chastised for ignoring a blind man whom he ignored in favor of elites with whom he was busy discussing none other than ‘conscience’. This one shows, there is no escaping making decisions yourself. You cannot rely on other’s diktat and more importantly you cannot avoid responsibility of making decisions. You can never say, “This and that expert said, therefore I did it…My boss ordered me to do so…I wasn’t quite thinking at that time…” Not acting on conscience has no excuse. There is no such thing as pathological psychopath. Not even the Pharaohs would fall under this category.

Humans are born into society, into collectivities — family, followed by larger, different collectives — and this is where the sense of what's right and wrong becomes modulated. This cannot be taught. In fact, teaching anything, let alone ‘conscience’ is an absurd idea. You cannot teach anything to anyone. Thinking about one's actions and their consequences further strengthens and defines conscience. It is a fact of living in this world that many things emerge to challenge the individual who would let their conscience be their guide. For anyone familiar with Islam and the Qu’ran, one could say: this is where jihad (literal meaning being sustained struggle, as in continuously climbing uphill or swimming against the current) must enter the picture. Conscience is the origin of jihad. In fact, if there is no jihad, there is no act of conscience. In general, it is the same for everyone: anyone who has been normally socialized knows exactly when they have acted in violation of conscience. How the individual acts upon that realization — aye, there's the rub, as Hamlet says.

Again: the issue becomes an individual choice. We do not mean by this the individuality of the choice, which is a thoroughly American idea, but rather the pathway by which the individual's actions become linked to their thought-process, and whether the long-term is in command or something else. Such choices cannot possibly be guided by, say, some 'objective', allegedly true-for-all-circumstances-cases type of checklist of 'Good' versus 'Bad'. That’s why people focused on tangible are constantly looking for a list of ‘dos and don’ts’. They have no hope of acting on conscience. The individual, on the other hand, can have their own checklist, and, if it is based on long-term, and not short-term self-interest, such a checklist may even be valid at least in principle for other individuals who do not operate according to short-term self-interest. What there cannot be is any absolute checklist that works equally for those whose interest is based on short-term serving of self and those whose interest is actually long-term. THAT's a defining feature of the "science" of conscience. Thus, for example, Khan and Islam (2007)’s recent book on sustainability is part of science of conscience because its starting premise is that inherent sustainability, obviously based on the long term, is the only sustainability that matters. Same goes for Economics of Intangibles (Zatzman and Islam, 2007). None of this forecloses usingany or all the mathematics and other findings of science to date. Rather, it imposes the requirement that the first-assumption of one's chosen line or area of research is checked carefully before proceeding further with selecting the relevant or applicable mathematics and other modeling tools and deciding how far these are applied, etc.

So, what is the single most important criterion for judging if an action has been based on conscience? Have you considered long-term implications of the action. Long-term here means infinity. In fact, one can argue, it is the only one that an individual has absolute control over. He cannot have any control over his short term or anyone else’s short-term and long-term, without violating natural laws. Violation of natural laws is aphenomenal.

Anti-Conscience/Ignorance
Conscience/knowledge
Percentage of actions based on long-term
This figure shows true knowledge requires actions, including thinking, based on long-term. Without considering one’s long-term (which is the only one, one has the power to control), all judgments will be implosive, because they contradict nature. You cannot win a fight against Nature. (FIGURE NOT SHOWN)

Aknowledgements

Substantial contributions by Gary Zatzman in organizing the thought and writing the first draft is gratefully acknowledged.

References

Khan, M.I. and Islam, M.R., 2007, Handbook of Sustainable Petroleum Engineering Operations, Gulf Publishing Co., Houston, USA, 458 pp.

Zatzman, G.M. and Islam, M.R., 2007, Economics of Intangibles, Nova Science Publishers, New York, USA, 393 pp.