Existing 3D Capture Techniques

From the analysis above, the other may be classified into two types or categories— the other that is divine and the other that is existential. The research shall analyze these two summarily. The other that is divine is logically and transcendentally prior to the other that is existential. The other that is divine represents God or Nous as typified or denoted by Heraclitus and many medieval Christian scholars. It can be considered here as the Absolute Mind or Universal Consciousness from which all other concrete or existential minds or consciousnesses share, participate or derive their origin and existence. Every being in the universe participates in the universal consciousness. None can be said to be self subsistent. Animate beings or inanimate beings— they all draw from and take part in the other that is divine.

In African ontology, especially as portrayed or illustrated by Placid Tempest, the other that is divine may be analogically interpreted as one who occupies the top most or upper echelon in the

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hierarchy of beings. It may be compared to the vital force from which all other lower beings in the hierarchy derive their life force. To be a conscious being, one must draw from the universal consciousness. Everything in the web is linked to the universal consciousness and sustains their support or continuous consciousness by remaining in the web or chain of life-force. All beings are regarded as conscious beings— animate or inanimate, sentient or non-sentient. So long they can be acted on or possess the capacity to act on others, they remain conscious beings. This may be diagrammatically¹ illustrated thus:

The first level here represents the place of the Absolute Consciousness (the other that is divine or God)

Flow of Consciousness

The second level represents the category of all conscious beings (animate and inanimate— persons, animals and the whole

environment and

everything therein)

The second category or level represents the other that is existential. This level is depicted by persons, animals, plants, trees, stones, mountains, rivers, computer and the environment as a whole. It should be noted that the inclusion of inanimate beings or objects in this second level do not in any way suggest that these objects possess consciousness as humans or persons do. There

1. Osemwegie, T. W. (2019). The diagram illustrates the level and flow of consciousness and depicts the relationship between transcendental and existential beings.

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are gradations or levels of consciousness. They belong to this second category by virtue of being able to act or acted upon. In other words, all objects and things that are capable of thoughts or can influence our thoughts have been classified here as conscious. Either they are capable of thought or consciousness as humans or persons, or they are capable of influencing our thoughts.

This is analogous to Newton‘s law of motion, the view that every object is capable of being acted upon. Stones, though they do not possess legs as humans, yet are capable of motions.

Strictly speaking, the other that is existential, refers to other persons, objects and things in general, including the environment that is capable of filling the void when a person relapses into an ―unconscious state‖ or ―vegetative state‖. Reiterating the point made earlier, when a person falls into coma, the continuity or the persistence of the self (due to the presence of constructive consciousness) may not be interrupted. Though the person at this moment does not remember or is unaware of his environment, this does not preclude him from being the same person prior to experiencing or falling into the unconscious state. When the person is able to come out of coma, the others reconstruct or fill his void memory through a process of narrative. By this, self is reconstituted— that is, the self prior to coma and the self after coma are re-linked or reconnected.

The narrative experience becomes part of the person‘s memory now and in the future. In this way, the person is still one and the same person, not another different person as Locke would have us believe.

It is therefore critical to affirm that it is erroneous to think that persons cease to exist when they are unable to reconnect with their past or previous memory or experience. It seems non-existence can only be applied to persons who are completely devoid or who suffer from dearth of consciousness. This is possible only through death. The fact that all beings are linked to the

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universal consciousness and so long death which is the only phenonmenon that is capable of permanently breaking or disconnecting one from the web or chain of life-force has not come into place, then even in an unconscious state a person is still conscious through others come to fill his/her memory subsequently when he has come out of coma or retain consciousness.

There is no gainsaying that this view will be seriously objected to by the atheistic philosophers and scholars who hold the belief that God does not exist and has no bearing and control directly or indirectly of things in the universe. To this group of thinkers, it may be arbitrary to associate or describe God as universal consciousness and more so to reason that He (God) is the Absolute Consciousness from which all other things in the universe share or participate and derive their consciousness. Though where the origin or source of life emanated from has been a serious debate among theistic and non-theistic scholars, more findings and arguments have naturally pointed to God as the origin and source of life. More so, in spite of scientific explanation and interpretation of virtually everything in the universe, it would be arbitrary to conclude that God is none existent.

The research‘s views and finding about the ‗other that is divine‘ draw inspiration from the religious interpretation of the universe and largely from the medieval Christian and Muslim thinkers. Philosophy, from ancient to contemporary time cannot be completely devoid of religious hermeneutic approach in the explanation of reality. Granted that the emergence of science has continued to pose serious challenge to the plausibility and the genuineness of transcendental and metaphysical interpretations of reality, it is apt to point out that its domain of

―operations‖ (science) is restricted only to the world of sensible objects or things. It is germane to note that reality is divided into two worlds— the sensible and the non-sensible. It is therefore

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arbitrary, illogical and one-sided to superintend or super-impose only the method of science on both the world of sensible objects and the world of supra-sensible objects. It is even more mind-boggling and irrational to conclude that, since science is unable to investigate the transcendental realm, it is therefore non-existence.

Importantly, the point being made here is that consciousness is crucial to defining self‘s identity and by extension the re-identification (rediscovery) of persons. This (consciousness) must be maintained if the self‘s persistence or numerical identity, from one day to the next, is to be achieved. Persons as conscious beings are not self-subsisting beings, so also is their consciousnesses. It is for this reason this thesis has categorized persons other than oneself as well as the environment as constituting ―other that is existential‖ and the self-subsisting consciousness as ―other that is divine‖.

In all, the research is of the view that the fact that a person can be analyzed or categorized as a unity of mind and body, especially from the analyses and views expressed in chapter four about persons, self and consciousness, in Western and African thoughts or world views, inevitably forms the basis of an eclectic approach as solution to the problem of personal identity. The next subchapter shall be focusing on the rational ground for proposing an eclectic approach or view to the problem of personal identity, instead of the either psychological or physicalism approach.

5.2.2. The Moral and Environmental Relevance of the “Other”/Constructive Consciousness