The following meanderings are not a denial of the world we inhabit. Our world is, after all, the only one we are all born into and know, the only escape being death. It’s very real and actual for us. These meanderings are to ask how accurately we see, experience and explain what is ‘out there’. There are hints and whispers which suggest major changes in how we see ourselves, the world and our relationship to all that is, is on the way, on the horizon, already happening. Do we live in a material world of matter and subatomic particles out of which consciousness magically arises or could it be some other way?

As I sit and drink my coffee I inhabit a space and there is time. My coffee cup is solid. If I drop it, it falls to the ground. Things are predictable. We can rely on the ground we walk on. Yet down in quantum field world there is nothing fixed and solid, It’s a weird place where observation appears to effect things. In the world of tiny objects, for example, a proton passing thru a slit acts like a particle when the slit is being monitored but like a wave when the slit is not being monitored.  It’s all about waves, not particles. Then, poof, take a peek and lo and behold, there’s particles. Look up Schrodinger’s Cat. His equation implies that the cat, in his thought experiment, is neither dead nor alive. It’s not one or the other until the hatch is opened. Paired electrons when flung far apart respond to each other, instantaneously. The ‘communication’ between them is not constrained by the speed of light. The realm within an atom is not only beyond my ability to grasp. It makes my brain hurt thinking about it. It’s weird.

Quantum and relativity theories have changed our lives as well as how we perceive the subatomic world and the universe. These theories have stood the test of time. Their mathematics work well and have given us much. However, there’s a problem. The quantum and relativistic worlds do not fit well together. In the quantum world time is universal and absolute. But in the relativistic world time is relative.  Years and years of work have failed to find a theory to contain them both. Some professors are now proposing space/time is ‘doomed’, is not foundational. It’s an emergent property arising out of something as yet unknown. The vivid and actual experience of me with my cup of coffee, sitting in space with time passing, is arising from, informed by, a weird world which ‘experts’ say, ‘if anyone claims they understand quantum physics, they don’t!’

In our daily lives there is something more relevant to us than quantum weirdness and that is consciousness. Without it, there is nothing – no experience, no knowing, no free will, just anaesthesia. What is consciousness?How do we become aware of experiencing or knowing anything? Nowhere in science is there an accepted theory of consciousness. There are plenty of ideas but no testable theories, well until now, maybe.

What are we conscious of? We can be conscious of what we see, hear, smell, taste; of touch, pressure and where our limbs are in space; inner sensations such as the need to pee, eat, drink etc. We can be conscious of categories like trees, animals, birds etc ie concepts that apply to groupings of objects or things. We can be conscious of abstract ideas such as mercy, justice, forgiveness and those inner experiences we call feelings, like sadness, happiness, joy, grief etc. We can be conscious of what we call thinking, whether it’s logical or irrational. We can also be conscious of experiences like attraction, understanding, insight, purpose, meaning and so much more. Oh! I forgot – there is that pesky sense of ‘I’. The me in there somewhere trying to control things! It all starts with us as babies interacting with the material world via our senses.

Light in the form of protons or waves arrives on our retinae. The optic nerve sends chemical impulses to the back of our brains. There our brains generate the amazing 3D world we see and experience, a reality independent of us, which we come into and leave up to a 100 years later, in which we move about and do things. It seems so clear, obvious and unquestionable. We used to think the world was flat, it seemed obvious. We used to think the earth was the centre of the universe. This seemed obvious too. It still does but we know it isn’t. How do we know? Because we’ve been told. Maybe our experience of the world, as being obviously out there and independent of us, isn’t how it is.

It’s beyond doubt that our eyes, ears and other sensory organs are tuned to a limited ranges of frequencies.  We know we don’t see all the waves of the electromagnetic spectrum or hear all the frequencies of sound. We don’t have the sonar system of bats or the eyes of hawks. If we had retinae sensitive to X-rays, we’d see skeletons walking about. If tuned to cosmic rays, we would not see solid things, as cosmic rays pass through all that is solid to us. The world we experience simply cannot be the totality of what is out there.

What we experience has to be, at best, a partial human-filtered view, which hopefully shows us our bit of the world accurately enough. It seems to do so, doesn’t it? After all we walk about and don’t bump into things. Well, unless we’ve had a drink or two too many or some magic mushrooms. Is our experience of reality an accurate and direct seeing served up passively to us, by our sense organs? 

Electro-chemical signals arrive in the brain from our sensory organs. Our brains turn these signals into the light, darkness, sensations, people, things, movement etc we experience. What we experience has depths, colour, movement, sound, smells, taste and so much more. It’s miraculous. It is extraordinary.

The in-puts to the brain from our sensory organs are electro-chemical impulses. The chemicals in the neuronal synapses are just chemicals. Like the dots and dashes of morse code, these chemicals and impulses carry no meaning, no images, no sounds, in and of themselves, unless the ‘receiver’ can construct the meaning of the ‘sender’, has the tools or code to know, for example, … – – – … means SOS. If you don’t know morse code … – – – … is just noise. If you don’t know what SOS means, it’s three letters with no meaning. If I don’t speak Greek, then a person speaking Greek is from my point of view making meaningless noises.

The brain receives impulses which like the 0s and 1s in a computer, or the dots and dashes of morse code require recognition, understanding or something which can make sense of them, construct what we end up seeing, hearing, tasting etc; and give us meaning. This is not a passive process. How does the brain perform this incredible operation of giving us this glorious experience?

We know, well some folk know, how a computer converts 0s and 1s into a movie, for example. We put a virtual reality headset on and, voila, we can play a game of tennis. The software engineers know the algorithms, the order of 0s and 1s, to place on the hard drive which will enable our brains to bring the game into our experience. A Tesla can drive itself from A to B, park itself. It has sensors and programmes which enable it to get somewhere and not have an accident. Can a tesla have a sense of humour? It could be programmed to make laughing sounds but can it get a joke? Is it conscious of remembering a journey, can it talk about what anything feels like? Can it be aware of meaning or purpose? Is it able to experience joy? Can it over ride its software? Decide to go a different way home. Does it have free will? To what extent are we operated by our past conclusions, narratives, subconscious drives and needs? And to what extent can we over ride our conditioning?

We do not experience our world directly. We can’t. It’s not possible. The eye and the brain are not working like a camera.  We experience a movie, a hologram or whatever it is constructed within our minds or our imagination. It’s a projection. The truly weird thing is we are walking about in a construction of our own making. Does this projected construction somehow fit around, in and or over what is out there? Yup, weirdness alright.

To emphasise and repeat myself, the light you experience isn’t sourced out there. It arises within you via an interaction of the meaningless ‘morse code’, sent from your retinae, with the code reader within. You light up your world. To make things even more disturbing, this must be true of all that we experience. ‘Morse code’ arrives in the brain and we see, hear, taste etc, and feel pain or not.  Are you ready for your brain to hurt? The brain and its neurones, which appear to be responsible for the movie, are, of course, part of the movie. They are within the projected construction. Whatever we experiment with and play in, is in the movie.

How can the projector of a movie be a part of the movie?  This does not compute. Major brain fart.

What is this movie made out of? I hear you ask. How can it be made of anything, I say, if it is just ‘imagined’, a projection, like a dream? For goodness sake, the things in it are solid. I am real. You are real. It’s actual for crying out loud. Things within it can hurt me. I get it, I say.  It is as real for you as it is for me. It is the only reality we all have. Yet I cannot get away from knowing that everything experienced via our sensory organs, is a construction, including our neurones. I know this but cannot make sense of it.

Quantum physics and relativity tell us things are not as they appear. Just because our movie appears to work for us, we don’t bump into things, doesn’t mean we are seeing the reality out there accurately, as it really is. It seems obvious that we do and that it must be so. But like the flat earth and the earth centric points of view, the view that we see reality accurately, as it is independently of us, is an assumption. It could be otherwise. It has to be otherwise. It could be a simulation.

Put on a virtual reality headset and suit with pressure sensor etc and have a game of tennis. We can feel and see the ball as we hit it. We can feel the racquet in our hands. We can pick the ball up. It’s a ball. We can hear things. Soon the virtual reality experience will seem as real as this one. And yes, we know the ball, net, racquets etc are not materially real. If we zoom in we will see pixels. If we are software engineers, we know this virtual reality game is all a matter of algorithms, electricity and circuits.  

Is our reality similar to a virtual reality game? Similar in the sense that the things which are real in the game, arise out of a reality which is nothing like the game, are totally different. What is out there prior to our perceptions of it? We assume things are pretty much as we see them. What we experience could be as different to what is generating it, as a virtual reality game is to the software, electricity and circuits which give rise to it. 

When racing a car, with a virtual reality headset on, hits a wall, the wall and car are solid to each other. When we zoom in we see pixels. When we zoom in on our reality, we find molecules, atoms, particles, waves and things yet to be discovered. These could be likened to the pixels in a virtual reality game. Soon children brought up with virtual reality headsets, will take their headsets off and ask, what’s the difference between virtual reality and this reality?

There is even more strangeness in the inner world of thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams and aspirations? Where do these exist? What are they?

We use the concept of mind and other terms to help answer these questions. We say we have conscious, subconscious and unconscious minds, for example. The thoughts we are aware of we say lie in the conscious mind? Those which operate us without our awareness, which we can become aware of, we say lie in our subconscious minds. Those which operate totally out of awareness, we say lie in our unconscious mind. 

Has anyone ever located one of these minds? Has anyone ever experienced one, been in one and can describe it? These concepts don’t point to any definitive objective reality. They are just convenient terms, short cuts, to help us chat with each other. 

Do you know what you are going to think or feel in the next moment? Thoughts and feelings arise. I fancy an ice cream. Better not because…. And on we go. One thought setting off another. Sometimes too many are firing off at once. Choices and decisions seem to be made by the thought or idea which has the most charge. I feel like killing him or her. Up come feelings and thoughts for and against, until one alternative holds more sway. If you are lucky, have a bit of training in logic, this may operate too.

You only have to stop and watch your own inner meanderings to see that they arise on their own from goodness knows where. You aren’t going into a library of thoughts and beliefs and selecting them. You aren’t where they arise from and you have no say in what springs forth. If you think you are where they are, where are you? It seems we have a choice to say yes or no. But is the choice we make just a thought with more charge. It’s claimed that decisions have been shown to be made before we are aware of deciding.  

Where is the locus of control? Is there one? It seems like there is an ‘I’ sitting in our heads, somewhere behind our eyes, independent of the movie, able to act in and on it, control things.

This ‘I’ has thoughts and feelings. It has experiences. It makes choices and decisions. It’s in charge. It can change its thoughts, feelings beliefs etc. This is how we think it is and wish it would be this way more often. Has anyone ever located an ‘I’? Any attempt to find the ‘I’ is like looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The more one looks the less and less substantial it is. Look more and at some point it isn’t.

Let’s assume the ‘I’ exists. Does it have access to the source of thoughts and feelings? Does it have direct access to memory? When asked a question, does it enter a place of memory or do memories like thoughts arise or not in response to a question? When you know, you just know. When you know you know but cannot access something, what do you do? Whatever memory tricks you use, in the end, the memory either pops up or it doesn’t. 

Thoughts, hopes, beliefs and aspirations and even our sense of ‘I’ don’t exist in physical space. They aren’t physical things with shape, colour or weight. They aren’t subject to linear time. We think we can control them, change them at will, but we have no way of getting our metaphorical hands on them. We can not locate them. We have no access to their source.  They are subjective. We can’t see, feel or touch them. We don’t know what they are. We experience them.

Much, if not pretty much all, of what we think and feel comes from past experiences. We end up operating with concepts, stories, theories and explanations. In the present moment these come into play reactively and automatically in response to what is. They help us effectively navigate the external world, drive a car, for instance. That they are from the past, means they may not be appropriate in the present and all too often they aren’t, especially when its to do with relating to ourselves and others. Here if we are not careful, they can bring forth chaos and misery.

There are rare glimmers or moments of what we might call insight and creativity ie new or original thought, not a product of the past. This is mysterious indeed. One day I was peeling some potatoes. My wife made a remark and I had a moment of sparkling clarity. Oh my goodness this is where I normally go into poor me and sulk. This was a moment of power and freedom. There was no reaction. Just a sense of wow. At this moment I couldn’t sulk, even if I wanted to. If I tried, it would have been a fake sulk. I have experienced allowing rage taking me into an intense love of my father. I have seen others allow the fullness of a ‘negative’ feeling being taken into understanding and liberation.

For any thing to be experienced, known, we have to be conscious of it. Whatever consciousness is, it is foundational to our experience. Without it, we’d not experience anything. And yet we have not the slightest idea about what it is. It’s not needed to learn – computers can learn to play chess and beat the masters. Do they enjoy learning?

Some scientists have a theory of what consciousness does . They propose consciousness perceives, chooses and has effects. This isn’t about what consciousness is. It’s about what it does. They are working on the maths. They are hoping to derive quantum mechanics, relativity, the theory of evolution etc from their equations of what consciousness does.

They are working with the idea of conscious units or agents and suggesting the entire universe is made up of networks of conscious agents which don’t exist in time and space, time and space emerge from the network of agents. Each agent, when in relationship with another, forms yet another agent, and each newly formed agent can combine with other agents and form more agents and so on forever. Each agent keeps its identity. If this is so, you and I are made up of zillions of them. Each of us is an agent with some level of free choice constrained by agents that make us up and by agents we are a part of. 

It might take a few years. Here’s hoping they are on the right track. If they are, then consciousness will be seen and known to be foundational – the material world arises out of consciousness, not the other way round. What the mystics have been saying for aeons may be so. Love is all there is. If this is so, we will inhabit a world of cooperation rather than the brutality of survival of the fittest.

The main lesson for me in all of this is our resistance to acknowledging our ignorance and self deception. We hold beliefs about ourselves and others which lead to suffering, family feuds, wars and may soon lead to nuclear annihilation. We fight for the beliefs, stories or narratives that limit and harm; and we deny and fight against what might well release us. In our deeds it’s clear we prefer competition to cooperation. We know next to nothing about consciousness, the very thing that allows us to knowingly exist and experience everything.

The formal definition of a conscious agent is minimal, but networks of agents can (one can prove) create learning, memory, problem solving, intelligence, and humour.
With best wishes, Don