Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs or heart are automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from the fact that reason is your means of survival.
Because although the automated processes of your body, your senses and sheerly autonomic functions, will tell you what you need, they do not automatically tell you how to meet those needs. My stomach can tell me that I'm hungry. But not what is poisonous or healthy to eat. My nerve endings can tell me that something is causing me pain, but pain itself does not tell me what course of action to take to avoid it in the future. Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses. It's a faculty that man has to exercise by choice.
When man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscious in a subhuman sense of the word, since he experiences sensations and perceptions. But in the sense of the word applicable to man—in the sense of a consciousness which is aware of reality and able to deal with it, in the sense of having not merely immediate sensory perceptions but of forming and weighing concepts and premises, a consciousness able to direct the actions and provide for the survival of a human being—an unfocused mind is not conscious.
A process of thought is not automatic nor instinctive nor involuntary- nor infallible. Man has to initiate it, to sustain it and to bear responsibility for its results. He has to discover how to tell what is true or false and how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking. Nothing can force a man to think, and nature gives him no automatic guarantee of the efficacy of his mental effort, only the necessity of pursuing it.
That which man’s survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice- I don't choose whether or not I need sustenance. I don't choose many of the unique situational and personal challenges that will arise in my life. What is open to choice is only whether we will seek to discover the answers or not. Man is free to choose harm over benefit if he wants, but not free to succeed with it in the sense of attempting to divorce actions from consequences. Man is free to choose not to be conscious, but not free to escape the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer- to consciously choose between his own harm or benefit. He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.
Originally Posted by Koshinn
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