A Few Thoughts About Consciousness

By

John Wright

With the advances in the physical sciences in the past 200 years we have finally reached the point where we can't subject our theories in Physics about the beginning of the universe to any form of testing to prove validity. The present theory is known as the Standard Model, which basically means most scientists concur that it is most likely accurate. That is not good, for it bypasses the one thing that makes the validation procedure of the physical sciences superior to all other claims of reality, which is that it is evidence based in its own right. Yet our knowledge of science in other areas continues to grow by addressing areas of life and experience where we can actually advance, with evidence/proof, like genetic engineering.

A second area of life that has proven to be impervious so far to human efforts to understand is that of consciousness. I both laugh at our primitive efforts and moan about our ineffectiveness. I have stated elsewhere that philosophers get tongue twisted attempting to, once again, logic their way to knowledge while skipping the necessary experiments and failing to seek advanced theories/conjectures about the nature of consciousness that can be rigorously tested.

The elusive nature of consciousness is and has been most frustrating for scientists used to making other difficult discoveries. I recall some passage related to Einstein's theory of relativity that makes a lot of sense to me. It is that complex subjects, when properly understood, have amazingly straightforward and often simple explanations. In short, trust more the simple but hard to prove theory instead of tangled complex theories. That belief also springs from Richard Feynman's philosophy of scientific discovery.

So it is that I too ponder the nature of consciousness, starting with a recognition of the limited knowledge I/we actually have and hopefully arriving later at an understanding of how all conscious creatures have consciousness. Have I figured out anything I can prove at a physical level? No, I have not. What I have done is apply a more universal logic instead of looking in the wrong places for valid answers, in the hope that others currently involved directly in the physical sciences will move ahead. Let's proceed.

If you consider how widely consciousness appears across species, even down to some at low levels like spiders, it starts to become clear that the brain is not the place to look for the answer to the source of consciousness. What we humans and some other species actually have is simply a switch in our brains that we can operate to turn consciousness on or off, ergo sleeping without awareness of the passage of time, naturally or as a result of receiving a general anesthetic.

There is no reason to believe the human brain has anything more complex, for the moment we watch squirrels race to avoid predators, or figure out clever ways to steal our bird food, we conclude that they, presumably like us, must have something special in their brains to explain consciousness. It is pretty much bunk. All we demonstrate externally ... like some of the rest of the creatures ... is a switch to turn off consciousness through sleep or hibernation. Well, if the answer isn't inside us, all of we conscious mammals and reptiles, etc., then simple logic demands that the source of consciousness is outside of all forms of life, both here and at places like the moon. Ergo, we are looking at what is likely a universal phenomenon, not a locally constrained physical system.

Now we look for some forms of evidence to support the external cause conjecture. Later it will be necessary to attempt to disprove it regardless of how enticing it may be. Ultimately the only way we will know the truth of any assertion regarding consciousness is by uniformly proven tests/evidence. That means actually working with the phenomenon under various testing conditions to better understand what it is, how it came about, and what is our likely future use of the phenomenon.

One enticing area for research is the experiences of people who have died on the operating table and then been revived. A common part of the experience is the presence of a long tunnel with a light at the end, along with voices and greetings of friends and family long departed. There is a weak argument that the brain dies in a sequence that makes it possible the brain itself is the source of the experiences. But for everyone in the same manner? Has that argument been proven?

The uniformity of the experiences of those who come back from the dead suggests another form of existence for consciousness, one that may be immortal, but by no means related to conventional religious teachings. You may not have a soul, but your perception and experience of consciousness indicates that there is a solid connection between you and that phenomenon.

Okay ... given that I have a switch in my brain that allows me to sleep, there is an obvious connection between me and whatever consciousness turns out to be. To my way of thinking it suggests the answer to be a presently unknown physical state of existence, a force that likely spans the universe. In other words, something our physics or medical science have yet to detect. We lack, up to now, any tool to define what it is.

Now, what other life experiences appear to address the phenomenon of consciousness? Walking out on a limb I will even suggest that apparent telepathy in very limited circumstances can be a strong indication that our perceived contact with someone else may rarely be real, even down to the point of somehow knowing someone has died or is about to die or is in some form of terrible trouble.

One unfortunate part of that possible connection has been the propensity of devious humans to convince others of having supernatural abilities related to consciousness and to contacting the dead. The sheer volume of false claims drowns out the few legitimate and rare experiences that may have happened to a few people. In short, we sense that something important is up to now outside of our ability to control or understand, but we have very little proof, if any, about it.

Beyond that, the duration of a telepathic event appears to be very short, about the time it takes to think one thought in a flash, and then it is gone and does not return.

There is also a poorly understood and uncertain and temporary type of event called unintentionally reading another person's mind, or, thoughts. This may or may not extend to the sensing of whether or not an animal will attack, leading to some safety related action or to relaxation.

Let's guess that whatever consciousness is, that it has very momentary telepathic type events possible, and maybe, in the case of people dying, a rather more permanent form of joining other consciousnesses, in what one should only refer to as non-material life following physical death.

One thing is clear ... we have essentially no concrete basis for claiming telepathic reality, whether with dead people or live people, but we suspect something important is just outside of our ability to know what is going on.

Looking further we have the interesting phenomenon of some people at some times seeming to be prescient regarding coming events. Here there is a stronger argument that projection of future events can be the logical result of unconscious thought, for our brains work on problems as well as physical needs without us having direct awareness of that work taking place. But the interesting part is that our blindness to so much of the activity of our brains points to a strong need to perform research in that area, in which some link or absence of a link to consciousness will point us in a better direction to understand what is going on with consciousness.

I am not negating what I said earlier about the bunk arguments that consider only something within the brains of humans and other species with awareness of their environments. Yet we must better understand how our brains solve problems without our conscious awareness, and how the solutions suddenly become conscious thoughts.

The task then is for our physicists and our medical research scientists to conceive of some state of reality that supports the existence of consciousness, across all manner of creatures with many different levels of brain complexity. And we must look outward as well as inward.

I suggest the best place to start is the death and revival of humans and specifically the capture of the thoughts. Already we can detect electrical brain patterns/internal linking that can be interpreted fairly accurately as specific thoughts ... so what happens when we apply that testing to volunteers who agree to enter death and be revived? Do we see dying brain patterns that point to simply a death process or is there an extended period of experiences that involve no obvious set of connections/linkages within the brain?

At this point I conclude my thoughts, for I have nothing further to add at this time about the nature of consciousness. I do however have a strong sense of need for us to solve this puzzle to help us evolve beyond our present human mental limitations. That is what Destiny is all about!