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of Consciousness?
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, researchers have made great progress toward identifying physical
activities in the brain that correlate with conscious experiences such as thoughts and other
mental activities. But, even if every known function of consciousness can be paired with
parallel matter-energy transfers in the brain, and those events detailed down to the level
of quantum processes, as scientists like Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are
attempting to do, will we really have explained consciousness? This essay questions
whether the results of such research can lead to a definitive explanation of consciousness,
and proposes an alternative approach as a complement to these efforts. While research
into the details of neurological processes and quantum brain dynamics is very
worthwhile, the parallel functions approach is an attempt to explain consciousness in
terms of matter and energy. It may well be that consciousness can never be explained in
this way. This argument is supported by evidence that consciousness is the ground of all
phenomena, rather than an abstract epiphenomenon of matter, and by showing that any
attempt to identify consciousness with specific physical structures leads to an infinite
descent that ends in logical contradiction.
In the formulation of the theory of relativity, for example, Albert Einstein spelled out the
assumptions of constant light speed and no preferred reference frame, but saw no need to
mention mind-matter independence. Einstein was certainly aware of this underlying
assumption, but to find his acknowledgement of it, we have to turn to his more general
writings. In James Clerke Maxwell: A Commemorative Volume, he said: "The belief in
an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural
science."
In the last ten years or so, an impressive amount of careful, detailed research has
successfully correlated many neurophysiological structures and complexes with processes
and experiences associated with consciousness. Certain features of physical reality at the
quantum level, revealed by Bell's theorem and the Aspect experiment, especially
nonlocality and complementarity, suggest to some researchers that the functioning of
consciousness can best be explained in terms of quantum brain dynamics. For example,
Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose, in their paper Orchestrated Reduction of Quantum
Coherence in Brain Microtubules: a Model for Consciousness, presented at the
conference, Toward a Science of Consciousness (1996, Tucson II), argued that quantum
processes, including the much discussed quantum-wave collapse, can affect larger-scale
physical structures, like the brain. They proposed the hypothesis that such effects are
found in the form of orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR) of cyctoskeletal
microtubules in the brain. They concluded that "Orch Or in brain microtubules is the
most specific and plausible model for consciousness yet proposed." This orchestrated
objective reduction, is thought to be based on nonlocal entanglement of quanta, resulting
in a quantum-level coherence that can sweep through the brain giving rise to a global
awareness, i.e., the functioning of consciousness.
It would seem that knowledge of the physical processes associated with consciousness,
from the firing of neurons down to the last quantum interaction, should bring us literally
to the "bottom" line. But does the identification of micro-structures and quantum
processes related to conscious mental activities really explain consciousness? Identifying
the connection between quantum processes and brain functions may yield valuable
practical applications in biology, medicine and psychology, but does it bring us any closer
to understanding what consciousness is? Or are we, in fact, still where Leibnitz was three
hundred years ago when he said that even if we could magnify a human being to the point
that we could walk inside and observe every moving part, we still would not find
anything called consciousness? Can consciousness be explained in terms of matter and
energy, or is there another way to approach the problem that may lead to a deeper
understanding of the relationship between mind and matter?
In the classical two-slit experiment, light is shown to have both particle and wave
characteristics. A barrier with two slits in it is placed between a light source and a blank
screen. When both slits are open, interference patterns are observed on the screen,
demonstrating the wave nature of light. By closing one of the slits, the experimenter can
cause the light to behave as particles, striking the screen one at a time, creating a single
patch of light, scattered around a point directly behind the open slit. In the delayed-choice
experiment, the solid screen is replaced by a venetian-blind screen that can be opened or
closed after an emitted photon has had time to pass the slits, but before it reaches the
screen. Two particle collectors are placed behind the screen, one in line with the light
source and the left slit, the other in line with the source and the right slit. If a photon is
emitted and the venetian-blind screen is left open, the photon registers in one collector or
the other, indicating a linear path through one of the slits. If the venetian-blind screen is
closed after the photon, traveling as a particle, would have passed through one of the slits,
the photon strikes the screen, contributing to an interference pattern developing there. In
this way, the photon is induced to act as a wave or a particle by a choice made after it has
passed the slitted barrier. Thus we can decide, after the fact, whether a photon behaved as
a wave or as a particle. This demonstrates the fact that elementary phenomena like
photons do not exist as localized particles or waves until they register by impacting upon
a receptor.
Schrödinger did not believe that the Copenhagen interpretation could possibly be correct,
and the purpose of this thought experiment was to show just how ridiculous it was. Now,
however, we know that the Copenhagen interpretation is correct! The problem of when
and how the quantum wave collapse occurs is even more critical if we accept John Von
Neumann's conclusion in his classic work, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum
Mechanics, that no logical physical separation is possible between quantum systems and
classical physical objects. If quanta do not exist until they register as effects on a
receptor, and we have no way of knowing of them until evidence of their effects is
received in our consciousness via a chain of quanta and receptors, how are we to know
whether they exist or not, without the presence of consciousness?
Current observations suggest that billions of years of physical evolution passed before
conditions favorable for organic life arose, and therefore, perhaps the universe did exist
without consciousness, and still does, in distant galaxies and lifeless planets in our own
solar system. This argument, however, is spurious because it assumes that the only
possible form of consciousness is that associated with life as we know it.
To assure the proper application of the scientific method, we must guard against closing
our minds to possibilities other than those implied by the assumptions of our current
paradigm. If we insist on staying within the current paradigm of scientific materialism,
we are stuck. The belief in the independence of the material world remains just that -- a
belief. But what about the converse? Can the belief that the material world IS NOT
independent of consciousness be turned into a scientific hypothesis and tested? Is it
possible that the physical universe and consciousness are interdependent?
Suppose, for a moment, that consciousness is the organizing agent that creates all
structure in the universe. Without it, the second law of thermodynamics, known to
operate in closed physical systems, would soon bring the universe to maximum entropy.
There would be no structure or order distinguishing any part of the universe from any
other part. If consciousness is the organizing agent behind all structure, then trying to
understand consciousness by analyzing the physical structure of the brain is like trying to
determine the meaning of a symbol such as the letter 'A', a word, or a mathematical
symbol by analyzing the physical properties of the ink and the paper upon which the
symbol is printed.
Nearly all physicists now accept Bohr's interpretation as the correct understanding of
quantum mechanics. Most, however, are not ready to admit that acceptance of the
Copenhagen interpretation necessitates acknowledging involvement of consciousness in
quantum processes. The logical ramifications of the Copenhagen interpretation, however,
force us to consider the possibility that reality is not consciousness independent.
This is the same logical contradiction discovered by the inner research of mystics as they
seek to discover the nature and location of the self. See, for instance, the teachings of
Ramana Maharshi. The mystic asks: Who am I? and where does this "I" reside?
Attempting to locate the perceiving self, one soon realizes that any part of the physical
body, the head, heart, brain, etc., identified as the location of the self, immediately
becomes an object perceived by the self, and the perceiving subject is therefore
something other than the structure. The conclusion, again, is that consciousness is
something beyond matter and energy.
What is the nature of this conscious non-quantum receptor? The great difficulty in
answering this question lies in the fact that it is, by definition, the very essence of
awareness, the principle that allows sentient beings to exist in such a way as to be able to
ask this question in the first place. We can begin, however, by identifying the basic
functions of consciousness: The primary function of drawing distinctions, first between
self and other, and then in what it perceives to be other than itself. The secondary
function of consciousness is to organize those distinctions into logical structure and order.
With Bell's theorem and the Aspect experiment, quantum physics has revealed that the
quantum level of reality exhibits the last three of these features.
At first it may seem curious that some of the features of consciousness are necessary
features of the physical universe at the quantum level. On the other hand, if
consciousness is actually the ground of all phenomena, rather than an abstract
epiphenomenon of matter, then this finding is perfectly natural and would have been
expected, if we had not assumed mind and matter, consciousness and energy, to be
separate in the first place. If we accept the similarity of the features of quantum reality
and consciousness revealed by empirical evidence and the logic of infinite descent to be
more than coincidence, we begin to see reality as a unified whole, something that
includes both subject and object, something that manifests as a spectrum ranging from
non-quantum consciousness to quantized energy and matter. This "something" is the root
of all phenomena, the ineffable potential from which all forms are selected by the
drawing of distinctions.
CONCLUSION