What is Consciousness?

By far one of the least successful areas of modern science is in trying to understand the concept of consciousness. This is what is currently known as the “hard problem”.  At the moment, materialists claim that consciousness is nothing more than brain activity. An epiphenomenon produced by the brain. It can be seen as a shadow, creating nothing but an illusion. They ask questions like, “how can a shadow change the object that it’s the shadow of?” Or, “How can unconscious matter inside brains generate consciousness?”

However, to ask the question of how consciousness or the mind arises from the brain, is actually the wrong question to be asking. That is because it is being presented in terms of causality and its variants (emergentism).  There is clinical evidence which indicates that our brain function and consciousness are in fact correlated. On the contrary, there is currently no evidence that shows that our brain is the sole source of our consciousness. So, consciousness would be better explained in terms of what it does, rather than what it is. 

The main function of consciousness is to process information, and it does so in a non-algorithmic way. This means that consciousness has a way of understanding the information that is coming through in a way that cannot be done algorithmically. As far as we know, there is no equation or calculation that can give us the answers to what consciousness is. Even with all of the fancy new technologies that are available today, we still have no way of looking at and analyzing consciousness. The reason being, is that consciousness is a nonphysical aspect.

Therefore, new approaches need to be made in order to study its existence. These new approaches require new perspectives and being able to look towards other fields of study such as philosophy, psychology, and quantum physics. Or yet, another concept known as pansychism. Science focuses on the objective, physical world by applying the tool of the scientific method. If science wants to know more about the makings and operation of consciousness, it needs to shift its focus inward, towards the subjective and nonphysical world. By changing this perspective, we can begin to explore the realms of consciousness and see what it is truly capable of and be able to uncover entirely new areas of knowledge.

David Chalmers, a cognitive scientists, thinks it is extremely improbable that scientists will ever be able to explain consciousness in neurological terms. This is because consciousness is within us, not outside of us. We cannot look at consciousness externally because it “does not seem to be derivable from physical laws.” Scientists should be looking for an alternative explanation, such as considering consciousness to be a fundamental property that is irreducible to anything more basic.

Chalmers also makes the point that in the 19th century,  physicists became aware of electromagnetic phenomena and realized that it couldn’t be explained in terms of their current knowledge. Therefore, they had to introduce the principle of electromagnetic charge as a fundamental quality of the universe. The same thought processes should be applied towards consciousness.

Quantum physics has opened up to us an entirely new world, one that is way more mysterious and complex than we had originally thought. It has made it pretty obvious that we can no longer assume we have a full understanding of how the universe works. In fact, the world as we perceive it, actually has very little in common with how the world actually is. We already know through quantum physics that we cannot separate the observer from what is being observed, meaning that our consciousness has an active participation in the world around us. It is not just a by-product, but rather, the observer is always interacting with the universe. We have the ability to change the behavior of particles simply through the act of observing them. One of the founders of quantum physics, Pascual Jordan, states that, “Observations not only disturb what has to be measured, they produce it.”

We know there is an increase in the number of books available that go into the historical, philosophical, experimental, and theoretical aspects that consciousness is indeed a fundamental part of our existence. One fact that I think we can all agree on is, without consciousness, there would be no “you” to experience the simple act of reading and conceptualizing this article.

Did you know?

Many of the founders of quantum physics, such as Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg and Nils Bohr, were/are actually mystics? They believe that consciousness is the primary reality of the universe, and the essence of all things, so that everything is interconnected. Max Planck stated “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I consider matter as derivative of consciousness.” Even David Bohm said: “A rudimentary consciousness is present even at the level of particle physics”. Because of their findings in the quantum world, they adopted a panspiritist point of view. What they found made them realize that the current view of materialism could not adequately explain the concept of reality. Their findings thus encouraged them to start investigating and adopting new ways of looking at reality.  

All of this suggests that our consciousness is entangled with the same nature as everything we observe. We not only participate in the world we perceive, but are also co-creators. Does this not give us a hint to the underlying workings of a fundamental consciousness? That there is a sense of oneness within the universe, where everything is connected? The fact that matter seems to evolve from something that is more fundamental than itself, as well as the fact that both particles and waves are nothing but expressions of the observer, leads us to believe that there is an underlying force of some kind. Would it really be too far off-based to say that this underlying force is a universal consciousness? Or perhaps a fundamental “spirit-force”?

Planck doesn’t think so. He wrote, “All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and hold this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume that behind this force, there is an existence of a conscious and intelligent Spirit. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.” If a quantum physicists is able to see how science and spirituality are interconnected, then we should be so wise to also accept that they are one and the same. They cannot exist without the other.