The nature of consciousness has been one of the most heated debates in philosophy. It has become a rather recent phenomenon. In his paper Communication and Consciousness, Friedrich Nietzsche puts forth the idea that human consciousness is "token, shallow, thin relatively stupid." He goes on to say that consciousness "is really only a net of communication between human beings". Thus, it is merely a part of "our social or herd nature". Nietzsche then concludes that consciousness makes it impossible to understand ourselves or others as individuals. In fact, consciousness is just language and language is superficial and full of generalizations (Nietzsche, 323). instead of taking a stand on Nietzsche's beliefs, I would rather analyze his statements and offer other arguments to support or not support Nietzsche.

Nietzsche believes that thought becomes worthless when it is reduced to language. Nietzsche makes the assumption that thought is, indeed, reduced. Isn't it possible that language is just a "translation" of thought? If Nietzsche is correct, then anything anyone has ever spoken, is not what they were thinking. Thus, Nietzsche's essay is not really his thoughts, since it contains language. I would find it hard to believe Nietzsche if he had told me that this was the case.

From Nietzsche's essay one would conclude that once a "feeling" is labelled, it is reduced. Benjamin Whorf would support this claim. In fact, he'd take it further and claim that it is impossible to know what a different person from another country is thinking, simply on the basis that since their language is different from ours, then their thoughts must be too (Whorf, 295). The idea of global understanding is swiftly swept aside by this, rather xenophobic, conclusion! However, anyone that has done any sort of travelling or had any form of contact with persons from a foreign land, would soon realize that it is possible to know what someone is thinking without language. Sadness, joy, anger etc... are emotions that you can spot on someone else. This idea brings about the idea that there is really only one universal "thought language", and our "spoken language" is just an interpreter. Steven Pinker would agree. He calls this universal thought language "Mentalese". An analogy is this: every single computer only knows how to "crunch" binary numbers. Any programming language, wheter i t be FORTRAN or Turing, it all just "compiles" ideas into 1's and 0's. Mentalese can be thought of as being the binary language that every computer knows, where as English, French, Norwegian etc... is just the compiler. Pinker observes justly, that thought always precedes language. Language in no way shapes or transforms thought (Pinker, 313).

By the very fact that languages are different, it would be silly to conclude that language makes us think the way we do. Take babies or uncommunicative people such as Helen Keller. They know no language whatsoever (in the case of babies, they haven't been taught words yet). It would wrong to conclude that they are incapable of thought, when in fact they do have thoughts.

Another important part of Nietzsche's argument is the reference to a "herd nature". That is, consciousness is just a web of communication between humans. In an extreme case, if there was one person left on earth, s/he wouldn't have consciousness because there would be no people to communicate with. Nietzsche even claims that there would be no reason for this person to have consciousness.However, you can bet that this person would have language. That is, s/he would give objects and actions labels. Ludwig Wittgenstein, would say that labels given to objects mean nothing. The label is nothing but a representation of an object or action (Wittgenstein, 281). Thus, it is possible to be one person with language and consciousness. Also, Nietzsche seems to claim that if we are a part of this "herd nature" then we have somehow reduced ourselves. This can't be true. Human nature is based on human interaction. It could be said that without human interaction, a human is not a human. Why does Nietzsche assume that human interaction is a bad thing? However, Nietzsche is correct in that we do have a "herd nature". This is not a good thing or a bad thing. It just is. However, it should be noted that it is possible to have human experiences without other human beings. Nietzsche believes that from this herd nature it is impossible to understand ourselves individually. Nietzsche doesn't explain this statement sufficiently enough as later in the same essay the following is said: "Fundamentally, all our actions are altogether incomparably personal, unique and infinitely individual; there is no doubt of that" (Nietzsche, 323). It seems that he has contradicted himself by making that statement.

The "herd nature" that Nietzsche refers to , is quite justifiably correct. I think that it implies that humans are connected and are meant to be social animals. This is fine. After all, animals in herds help each other, and it is important for every person to help each another person. But the implications of this "herd nature" is that humans will never be individuals, they will just be considered to be a part of one large group. Just a face in the crowd. I don't think that this is right. It is possible for humans to be individuals amongst a larger example. Take a network of computers for example. Although every computer is connected, each one is capable of processing information and running programs individually. Thus, consciousness doesn't necessarily have to involve others. It is best if you are among other people, but it is possible for an individual to pick themselves out of a crowd.

This conclusion about consciousness would not settle well with Nietzsche. He would claim that experience is unconscious, while language is conscious. I support this statement to a point. Although an experience in itself is unconscious, just by thinking about the experience (and as a result converting it to language) it has become conscious. Although Nietzsche sounds convincing with the above statement, it can be used to unravel his own argument. Take a hundred people and subject them to the same experience (i.e. a fireworks display). Although their experiences are the same (and thus their unconscious), their memories (hence conscious) would be totally different. When asked to tell about the fireworks, each one of them would give a different answer. If Nietzsche was correct, then there is no room for individualism, only one group experience. Believing this would be silly. Even Whorf would claim that there is no definite description of what reality is (Whorf, 291). So although, each of them had the same experience, their reality is totally different. To put it another way: everything is relative. Thus, if everything is different to everyone, everyone sees everything differently, and hence, each person's ideas or thoughts are totally individual to that person. From this, we can conclude that individuality can and does exist with consciousness.

Nietzsche's beliefs on consciousness, language and thought are extremely pessimistic. However, they do have interesting points that one can consider to be universal truths. I think that it is futile to argue that consciousness is shallow because it involves language, solely on the basis that you must use language (and consciousness) to even come up with such an idea. Surely, Nietzsche's ideas aren't shallow. It appears that, Nietzsche want to transcend language. But everything conscious is language. To think of communication without language is totally paradoxical. Also, if we lost our individuality, and became a group (not individuals in a group, just a group) that would be when consciousness would be shallow and useless. Fortunately we haven't reached that point. Yet.