The Unexpected Comeback of the Conscious Universe - Pt. V

From a coarse-grained idealism to a multi-modal conscious universe

Thompson’s idea of biopsychism, or the CBC model and the CBE theory we saw in Part. II, and that I reviewed with a critical eye in Part. IV, while making a step beyond a reductionist paradigm, are still rooted in the worldview that, in my opinion, is going to die. Reber’s and Thompson’s approach remains rooted in a naturalistic worldview that will not lead us further in answering the deeper philosophical questions about life, the nature of the mind, and consciousness.

In fact, in a sense, these attempts to account for the impossible by resorting to increasingly complicated theories are reminiscent of the geocentric Ptolemaic conception of the universe. By refusing Copernican heliocentrism people had to resort to complicated epicycles to save the appearances that suggested otherwise. The Earth had to be maintained at any cost in the center of the universe with the Sun orbiting around it and, to account for the strange paths on the celestial sphere of the planets, they had to justify it with epicycles (circles twirling around other circles, and so on). Nowadays science behaves similarly. It places matter at the center of the universe. From matter emerges life—that is, life ‘orbits’ around matter. But from life emerges cognition as an epiphenomenon (the epicycle), complicating things, and thereby, science must add an epicycle around the circle of life. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there, because we must account for the emergence of another spooky entity that is consciousness.

Thereby, science is forced to add yet another minor epicycle around that of the mind, ending with a model of reality reminiscent of an attitude common in the prehistory of science.

On the other side, while Kastrup’s, Velman’s, Taylor’s, and Shani’s idealistic approaches that posit some sort of cosmic mind or universal consciousness, take a step further in the right direction, they still lack a coherent evolutionary perspective and, most importantly, are too coarse-grained theoretical frameworks. By ‘coarse-grained’ I mean that idealism is a still too low-dimensional representation of a multidimensional reality. While sympathizing with an idealistic approach, we must also be aware that reality is almost never black and white, and that the properties of the universe are rarely describable in terms of on-off or up-down dichotomies. This is what vitiates not only modern idealism but most of the Western philosophy of mind that, as the name already betrays, would like to reduce everything to mind, often conflating the notion of mind with consciousness. This latter aspect I already have discussed, and won’t deepen further here again, other than saying that we must go beyond this mono-modal thinking and discover a more sophisticated but also much more interesting and richer reality in us.

That is, I will propose an evolutionary and multi-modal metaphysics that starts from the first-person experience.

To show you how our worldview is strictly dependent on our way of seeing, we must first deconstruct some deeply rooted misconceptions and learn to use an introspective approach to reality that can be equally, and sometimes even more revealing than a strictly third-person scientific perspective. Before jumping to conclusions, let us proceed step by step.

An inquiry into the structure of reality from a first-person perspective

Science looks upon reality, the material universe, the nature of life, the mind, consciousness, and all that we are and believe to be from a third-person perspective. Life is seen as a machine because we look upon it from the outside, without reference to what we feel, perceive, and sense inside ourselves. Science investigates the functioning of our brain abstracting from the subjective nature of the mind. It asks wherefrom the internal first-person dimensions such as consciousness, mind, desires, and will in biology emerge, strictly analyzing it from an external third-person standpoint. And then it wonders why it is so difficult to reduce the former to the latter.

Thus, let us try to go in the opposite direction and ‘see’, not only with the eye of the (mainly physicalist) analytic and philosophical mind but also what we can gain from observing, perceiving, and experiencing ourselves—that is, from a phenomenological standpoint. To do so, allow me to invite you along for a psychological exercise. An exercise aimed at finding out all what we perceive, sense, think, and subjectively experience in us. The exercise could be summed up with a simple question: “What do you perceive, now, in this moment?”

Since we are all conditioned by the dominant materialistic culture, most of us will probably point out our bodily-sensorial experiences first. Such as hearing sounds, seeing things, smelling, etc. The first kind and quality of perceptions we apprehend or, as philosophers would call it, ‘qualia’, are of a material and physical type. Let’s call it the sensations and experiences proper to the bodily or “physical plane,” and characterize it as follows.

Physical plane experiences

All bodily sensory experiences (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, bodily sensation of pleasure or pain, etc.)

Most philosophers of mind stop there. You will find people discussing consciousness, defining it with Thomas Nagel’s definition of “what it is like to be” in some general psycho-physical state. However, almost everyone will restrict these to sensory experiences, such as seeing a red tomato (the subjective experience of seeing the red qualia), or the sensation of putting your hand in the fire (the subjective experience of pain). But do strictly physical sensations exhaust all the variety of conscious experiences we have?

What about emotions? When we experience fear, anxiety, love or hate, sadness, depression or joy, happiness or grief, etc., are these physical sensations? Of course, they can be quite strongly related to physical experiences as well. It is no coincidence that we talk of "emotions in my belly," “gut feeling,” "feeling knots in my stomach," etc. Phrases that emphasize the connection between emotions and the physical sensations they elicit. But what is the cause and what is the effect? If you look inward and take a first-person perspective you know all too well that sudden and intense emotions can arise without any external physical stimulus. Such as a vivid remembrance of a past experience or a simple thought that triggers a vehement feeling, etc. Physical sensations are the effect of, and the reaction to emotions. While they may cause physical sensations, they precede them and are not of physical nature. Joy, anger, sadness, fear, excitement, etc., aren’t a sight, a sound, a touch sensation, a smell, or a taste. They are constituted by a large spectrum but are of a unique and peculiar quality that isn’t physical. Despite being intertwined with the body, emotions have a special and unique quality and character that is quite different than any physical sensation related to the five senses. If we look at these from the perspective of a lived experience, we can see that physical experiences stirred by material processes, and emotional experiences are of a quite different nature. Do not try to understand this with the mind or begin with intellectual speculations. Step back and observe your emotions and feelings as a witness that does not interfere.

One might object that there is a difference between an emotion and a feeling and between a feeling and a mood. Here we get into a slippery territory where we might lose ourselves in an endless discussion about the nomenclature and semantics. Of course, there are differences and nuances, but, for the time being, let us avoid this rabbit hole and convene, at least provisionally and only to make the point I would like to make here, that also feelings and moods overlap with emotions as a mix of mental states linked to emotional sensations, and are not another category external to them.

Moreover, there is an aspect that is frequently overlooked. Emotions, such as desires, passions, excitement, etc. are frequently strongly evoked by a will to act, by a determination to set something into motion (the word ‘emotion’ comes from the latin ‘emovere,’ meaning to ‘put something into motion,’ ‘to stir up’). They are the effect of a will, an agency, an intention, a volition in the living being conferring it an active role. They are something common to all life, from bacteria to human beings, even though with different degrees of intensity and sophistication. The urge to act and the desire to reach a goal, the necessity to escape a painful sensation to reach a pleasurable one, the intentionality and volition that drives us all from the inside-out is something very specific and proper to life.

Thus, emotions, feelings, moods, will, agency, intentionality, and volition are something special that does not make part of the physical plane. An inert physical object does not possess these qualities. Let’s make this distinction that discerns these sensations and experiences proper to something we could call the ‘life plane.’ By the way, this lack of distinction has also led modern science to expunge vitalism from biology. Because scientists have lost the ability to introspect and, without any rational motivation dismiss something that has never been falsified (for an in-depth analysis of this aspect see also my paper here.)

From now on, when I use the word ‘life’, I mean it in a more general sense, and that transcends the material organic form, indicating the emotional, desire, and volitional dimensions. Let me summarize this with a table that lists the qualities proper to the life impulses.

Life plane experiences

Emotions: Sensations/perceptions/impulses of desire, passions, sentiments, affections, attraction or repulsion, polar perceptions of joy or anger, happiness or sadness, courage or fear, love or hate, etc.
Feelings: Thought about emotions, mental designation of (more or less subtle or intense) emotions (e.g., frustration, sadness, sympathy, compassion, shame guilt, etc.)
Moods: States of mind about a feeling/emotion (e.g., contentment, excitement, serenity, indifference, etc.)
Will & intentionality, agency: volition, want, disposition, force, action.

But we are not only material and emotional beings, we are also mental creatures. With ‘mental’ I mean the faculty responsible for our thinking, with all its thoughts and intellectual activities. The form of cognition so cherished by the Age of Enlightenment—that is, the faculty in us able of reason, rationality, logic, etc. But the mind is not merely an academic faculty. Also, animals can have some form of more or less complex mental abilities. The nonhuman animal behavior shows clearly that it also has inner representations of the environment, distinguishes between other harmless life forms or predators, has a memory, possesses at least some rudimentary associative logic, can anticipate, etc. Animals also have a ‘semantic awareness’ that allows them to understand, apprehend and comprehend things. To the surprise of scientists, nowadays we know that even plants and unicellular organisms possess some form of rudimentary ‘basal cognition.’ Even the simplest forms of life—namely, bacteria—have been shown to be able to sense the environment, actively move within it, target food, avoid toxic substances, and meaningfully change their swimming direction with a collective intelligence for problem-solving abilities to achieve a common goal.

Therefore, the mind in its more general and extended term, displays a continuous spectrum, it is not an on-off cognitive faculty and is present in all the living realm. Can we consider it something already inherent in reality and preexisting brain functions?

Before answering this question let us, again, resort to the introspective experience. Is the mind the source of the experience or is it something experienced? Are you the mind, or rather is the mind yet another plane of experience? Do not try to answer this question intellectually. Again, step back and observe your thoughts. You will easily realize that thoughts come and go, appear and disappear, in front of a background that perceives them as phenomena, occurrences, fleeting thought-events. They are perceived also, they are not the perceiving end. In a sense, we could say that thoughts are ‘mental qualia’ appearing to someone. Thoughts are also experiences and perceptions.

Let me make a list here also of all the qualities of the mind.

Mental plane experiences

Thoughts, reason, rational intellect, analytic & logical thinking, deductive & inductive reasoning. The mind structures sensory perceptions and translates them into representations, ideas, concepts, and meanings based on symbols, forms, shapes, and numbers. It interprets sense perceptions, analyzes data, judges, reflects on concepts, decides, discerns, selects, discriminates, and makes logical inferences. It is the intellectual instrument that allows the homo sapiens to think rationally and logically by an analytic and deductive thought process. The mind has ‘semantic awareness,’ i.e. it apprehends and comprehends mental states as concepts, ideas, images, imaginations, etc.

Once you have realized this aspect, the distinction between emotions and thoughts becomes even stronger. Sometimes people refer to emotions as a ‘state of mind.’ But are they? Is an emotion a thought? Are fear, anger, or love an abstract thought? Are abstract thoughts such as the number pi=3.14 or the notion of ‘existence’ an emotion? You can’t answer these questions other than by a direct subjective experience and by going inward approaching it from a first-person experience.

Thoughts and emotions are intertwined and interdependent but are different planes of perception.

Now, once having made the distinction between matter, life, and mind, a decisive question is: What or who is experiencing them? What or who is the witness of these physical, mental, and emotional qualia? Standing back as a witnessing observer, we perceive physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts as constantly mutable psychological and sensorial phenomenal events. Physical sensations, emotional experiences, and transitory thoughts come and go, in front of a witness who is immutable and observes all these like a film on a screen. This is consciousness. Thus, as we have already seen elsewhere, we should not be lured into the easy conflation of mind and consciousness. Consciousness relates to our unique subjective experience, the witness that has the feeling to exist and is the real knower of all phenomena. It is the witness consciousness.

Even though words are insufficient to define consciousness (because every definition relies more or less implicitly on a mental category, sensorial experience, or emotional phenomenon that is apprehended by consciousness itself) let me, nevertheless, list some words that qualify it.

Consciousness

Witnessing sense of existence, presence, and sentience, the knower who knows oneself, a self-existent reality, pure 'self-aware beingness' aware of the phenomenal world. It exists before any mental, emotional, or physical perceptions. It is that in which all experience appears and is known as pure and undifferentiated irreducible awareness and sense of existence which witnesses phenomena but remains unaffected by it. It is a changeless, silent, space-less, featureless, and immobile witness that stands as a pure and undisturbed background behind all our activities.

Yet, the physical plane, the life plane, and the mental plane do not exhaust the full experiential spectrum of the witness consciousness. Still, there remain a couple of domains that we perceive to exist but that we can’t directly relate to.

One is the subconscient plane about which modern psychology has written tomes. It is that kind of psychological dimension in us of which we are mostly unaware that, nevertheless, we feel and know that it can determine us to a large degree. It bubbles up in dreams, it conditions our thought patterns and emotional states, it can suddenly trigger in us intense emotions, and is the basis of trauma, unexplainable sufferings, and pains deriving from past experiences, more or less dysfunctional family environments and education, etc. There is something in us that registers, takes notes, and programs our instinctual reactions, thoughts, and behavior. How do you know this? Not because of a philosophical speculation, but because of our everyday lived experience. We know how there is something submerged and infra-rational in us of which we are only scarcely aware and that, nevertheless, conditions our life. It could be characterized as follows.

The subconscient plane experiences

The evolutionary basis with no waking conscious coherent thought, will, feeling, or organized reaction. A concealed and unexpressed consciousness below our surface consciousness. It is mechanical and insistent in its nature due to persistent, habitual, and repeated movements, behind the instinctive reflexes of the mind, life, and body. It is the source of our conditionings, habits, uncontrolled reflexes, religious and cultural dogmas, or educational imprints. It receives impressions and stores them in a subconscious memory which can emerge as instinctive mental formations or surge in dreams. It is uncontrolled by the mind but responsible for ‘sending up’ the automatic and old imprinted responses to the mind, body, nerves, and cells. It can support good or bad habitual actions and determine our character traits.

There is, however, a distinction we must make. There is also a large super-rational domain that escapes our ordinary waking consciousness that, nevertheless, has the opposite qualities of the subconscient. All of us had sooner or later experienced sudden intuitions, moments of deep inspiration, creative powers, and effortless deep insights. Where do these come from? From the subconscient? If you step back again and remember how you felt when having these moments of wisdom, creativity, and luminous discernment, comparing it with those moments of subconscious experiences, you can clearly perceive the difference. In both cases, their origin and making are beyond our conscious awareness, but those moments in harmony and wisdom, have, nevertheless, a very different quality than the obscure, sometimes even painful, and reactive nervous attributes of the subconscious experiences. And there is a difference between an analytic ‘intelligence’ and a profound ‘wisdom’ that is ‘vision’ also. These flashes of knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration that artists, musicians, and scientists, often talk about, are not subconscious but rather are superconscious phenomena. They have a completely different character and quality than the subconscient. This also is a typical conflation: we throw the superconscious knowledge and insight with the mechanical and reactive subconscient into the same pot. But, again, no abstract philosophical theory is necessary to become aware of the contrary. Just step back and compare how you felt when having a great idea or luminous intuition, and how you felt when subjected to sudden subconscient fears and anxieties. In both cases we are not aware of how and why they came about—both originated from beyond our ordinary awareness—but they clearly have opposite qualities and origin. Therefore, let me distinguish the superconscient from the subconscient as follows.

The superconscient plane experiences

Intuition, transrational cognition, creative, inspirational, extrasensorial, and subliminal perception. Direct perception of truth or fact, without any reasoning process, lightning-flash of cognition, the proverbial ‘aha-moment,’ intimate perception of a truth, beyond conception, a vision of things that carry with itself a sense of certitude that the mind can’t explain, a higher form of discrimination, an awareness of knowledge the intellect can’t understand or perceives only vaguely.

We have to make a clear distinction, not only between the mind and consciousness but also between the subconscient and the superconscient. Not because we like to multiply entities making friar Occam unhappy, but because these distinctions are lived experiences, psychological observational facts.

What cosmology might this introspective investigation suggest?

Thus, if we start from an experiential approach, we can clearly discern how our identity is not merely material but has a complex psychological organization. There isn’t just a body and a mind or, worse, only a body with all the rest mere side effects of its functions, but a multi-modal physical, mental, emotional, subconscious, supraconscious, and purely conscious existence.

Can these different planes of consciousness that we sense in ourselves tell us something about the universe as a whole?

We could pursue a different path if we don’t fall into the (nowadays almost irresistible) temptation to reduce all these aspects of our spiritual multi-layered reality to complicated neurological processes.

Let us see, how far we can go if, instead of placing matter at the center of the universe and blindly assuming that all that exists is its epiphenomena (the epicycles), we could go the other way around, and place consciousness with all its inherent qualities at the center of all that exists. We may not even try to explain the emergence and nature of life, mind, sentience, cognition, supercognition, will, agency, purposefulness, aim, and goal-directedness from matter. We may, instead, posit all these as qualities inherent in consciousness as the basic and essential substance underlying the universe. Consciousness as the fundamental primitive, with life, mind, matter, the subconscious, and superconscious as ‘planes of consciousness’—that is, concentric levels of reality that aren’t something other than consciousness itself. In this view, the mind is a ‘veiled’ or ‘involved’ form of consciousness, life a veiled or involved form of mind, and matter is a veiled or involved form of life. While, none of them is something distinct or separate from consciousness but rather different ‘modes,’ ‘states,’ ‘excitations,’ or ‘forms’ of the very same consciousness. To use an analogy, consider the various degrees of solidity or physical aggregation states of the same substance—say, water vapor, liquid water, and ice. They have three distinct phases (‘states’ or ‘modes’ ) with distinct physical and chemical properties and which can take different shapes and forms. Yet are all made of the same substance—H₂O molecules.

That is, by adopting ‘consciousness-centrism’ instead of materialism, we could place consciousness at the center of the universe, with the mind a ‘mode’ or ‘state’ of consciousness, life with its emotional desire ‘mode’ another ‘state’ of consciousness, and matter yet another state of aggregation of an ‘involved’ consciousness. In this view consciousness precedes its own self-modification we call ‘mind,’ with mind preceding life, life coming from mind later, and lastly, matter from life.

How so? Does it sound absurd? In fact, how could consciousness, mind, and life precede matter? How can there be life without matter?! This makes no sense, right?

It makes no sense if we assume that consciousness, life, and mind are only localized phenomena in cells, organs, and bodies rambling on some minuscule planet in an immense universe. But if we no longer look upon the individual consciousness, mind, life, the super- or sub-conscient as being confined in a biological bubble, but as universal principles that are active, or veiled and involved, throughout the universe, even in a rock on Mars, conceiving it as ‘universal planes’ permeating all of reality, then things may begin to make sense. There is not just the ‘Mind at large’ or the cosmic mind of the idealist, but also the cosmic life, the cosmic sub-, and super-conscient, with the cosmic physical—namely, what we ordinarily consider the physical universe studied by science. The physical universe is only one of the universal planes. While our mind is an individuation of the universal plane of mind, life in a living cell or body an individuation of the universal plane of life, and physical particles, atoms, and molecules up to our bodies, are an individuation of the universal physical plane.

A metaphysical framework where consciousness, life, and mind do not ‘emerge from,’ or are ‘produced by’ matter with some complicated machinery, but rather where consciousness is fundamental and ‘shines through,’ or ‘emerges in and through’ mind. Mind ‘shines through,’ or ‘emerges in and through’ life. Life ‘shines through,’ or ‘emerges in and through’ matter. And so on…

However, this might raise a question. If the mind is a localization—that is, the individual aspect of a universal mind—what then is the place of the brain in all of this?

The brain is a physical object that, obviously, makes part of the physical plane, but it is not part of the other planes. What it does is to serve as a connecting ‘interface’ between the other mental, life, and superconscious planes with the physical world through what we call our ‘bodies.’ Its function is more of a ‘transmissive’ character than a generative one. It does not generate or produce neither the mind or consciousness, but ‘channels’ and ‘transceives’ them through to the physical plane. Its main role is to put the physical into contact with what is beyond the physical. I have also shown in a paper how this aligns with neuroscientific findings (see also my talk given here.) The brain can be seen as a reducing valve of in contact with what Aldous Huxley called the ‘Mind at large.’ It receives and sends information from and to the universal planes. This metaphysical model does not contradict science but is very much in line with science.

However, the brain may have some fundamental cognitive functions as well. It is a sort of ‘physical/mechanical mind’ mainly preoccupied with physical things. It deals with physical facts and believes only in what can be perceived by the physical senses. It might well be a sort of ‘pre-processing’ unit with rational faculties applied to physical facts. Of course, it has also vital physiological functions of the bodily physical plane, such as the heartbeat, digestion, thermoregulation, homeostasis, motor-sensory information processing functions, pattern recognition, etc.) But it is not in charge of higher cognitive functions, let alone any superconscious activity. On the contrary, the brain is rooted in the subconscient plane as well. As we know all too well, it needs time to rewire, habituate, and reprogram the brain functions. The brain reflects much more the qualities of a mechanistic and repetitive form of cognition rather than that of the comprehensive and intuitive ones. Because matter and the subconscious are mechanical aspects of the superconscious planes.

So, we ended up with something more elaborate than the current theories of idealism, let alone the simplistic mind-body dualism of the orthodox dualist, or the one-dimensional mind-brain identity theory of the physicalist. Something that has its complexity as well but, is a much richer metaphysical framework that does not rely only on theoretical speculation, but starts from what we see, perceive, feel, and, ultimately know of and about ourselves.

The distinction here made between the different planes or ‘states’ of universal consciousness, should not be taken as a strict demarcation. The full spectrum that starts from a universal Consciousness and goes through the steps of a ladder of modes and states of itself, namely the superconscient, the mind, life, the subconscient, and matter, should not be considered as a system of precise classifications characterized by sharp boundaries, but rather as a continuous spectrum. As with the color spectrum, there is a clear distinction between the red, yellow, green, and blue colors, but where exactly one starts and the other ends is a matter of convention.

However, one may also wonder why we should distinguish between multimodal planes of reality in the first place. Aren't these mere semantic categorizations? Aren’t these nominal carvings of the totality of the world dependent on our modes of cognition in discerning our own phenomenology?

In a sense, that’s true. From the highest standpoint, everything is just an 'excitation' of and in consciousness and still boils down to the same ontology. Distinguishing between mind, consciousness, life, superconscious planes, etc. might sound like an unnecessary multiplication of entities. Why not adhere to principles of parsimony, use Occam's razor to cut away everything, and leave only consciousness, or mind as the fundamental primitive?

However, the categorization in 'planes of consciousness' does not boil down to 'nominal carvings', no more than consciousness itself is a formal designation (even though, this is what eliminativism claims it to be.) Because categorizations, names, and levels are mental reifications or symbolic juxtapositions we make with our intellect in consciousness already. For example, saying "this is a chair and not a table" is a cognitive process of 'carving out' a representation, sign, name, and form in the mind distinguishing one visual experience from another visual experience. While, for instance, the distinction between a thought and an emotion is, indeed, a discernment of our own phenomenology, it is not a mental designation arising from the same type and quality of experience. One is mental, the other emotional. It is an experiential discrimination between two ‘excitations’ of consciousness that go beyond the intellect itself and any mental formal distinction because they are inherent in existence itself independently of our mental projections, interpretations, and categorizations (even though we then label it with distinguishing words, signs, symbols, language, etc.,). To use a metaphor, one could say that the semantic categorization between water vapor, ice, and liquid water makes little difference, since the substance's ontology of H2O molecules remains the same. That's true, but if we ignore the fundamental distinctions of its physical states of aggregation and then would like to make sense of a world made of oceans, rivers, clouds, glaciers, and polar ice caps, we would confuse and conflate one with the other, without going very far. Whereas, recognizing and keeping in mind the different 'excitations of consciousness,' can help us make much more sense of the world, not only from a metaphysical but also a scientific perspective. Ultimately, the tendency and desire to boil down everything to one fundamental principle without allowing, or by ignoring, its ‘modes’ and ‘states,’ is a human mental instinct that is intrinsic to that analytic mind itself that is naturally inclined to conceive of a unity in uniformity, while feeling the unity in diversity as something incompatible or unnecessary. While, as we shall see, accepting multiform aspects of the one and undifferentiated Consciousness, acting on different levels of its own reality, furnishes us with a vision of a unity in multiplicity that has more explanatory power about fundamental unanswered questions regarding our true nature, psychology, life, the principles of evolution, science, the universe and, most importantly, ourselves.

At this point, the real question isn’t so much whether you should believe and embrace this model of reality. The whole point I wanted to make wasn’t to support yet another belief system or abstract metaphysical speculation, but that of offering an insight into our nature through an introspective investigation and see where it leads us. Because, how we look upon reality determines what we see and, eventually, discover. If an exclusively third-person science failed to furnish us with answers to the fundamental existential questions, let us see if and how a science that opens itself to the subjective experience, may potentially lead us towards a more fruitful direction.

In the next part, I will show how in this ‘spiritual cosmology’ also evolution can be seen from an entirely new perspective and might shed light on many aspects of life and evolution that, otherwise, remain inexplicable.

Or…

Thank you for reading my work!

Go to Part VI