Author: Altizen

(Note: This is part of the archive and was written c. 2022.)

Last year I read The Grand Biocentric Design, which to me was a modern follow up to older classics such as The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Building on replications of the (in)famous double-slit experiment in physics, and experiments which have been done since then that on a whole continue to confirm extrapolations such as “there is no true separation of subject and observer,” “observation changes the result” and “observation creates,” biocentrists in essence posit that consciousness itself creates life, creates matter.

This is not a new concept. Not by a long shot. However, one of the first questions raised is “what then is consciousness?” Biocentrists are quick themselves to state that they are not limiting the definition to human consciousness, but instead that it is “all of consciousness.” To which, the question remains.

Consciousness is often spoken of in synonymy with sentience, that consciousness means to perceive and/or to feel. Fine, but where to draw that line? Plants respond to external stimuli. They send messages to each other. Is this not perception? Communication? What about single-cell organisms? They too respond to stimuli and send messages to each other. See how bacteria communicate with each other. See how they share new defense mechanisms they’ve built, making each other stronger. Viruses — this is a taxonomy on which biologists oft disagree: “Life” has been defined by metabolism, and yet viruses do not metabolize. It is as if they are machines. That goal post has been moved by at least one group to state life is defined by reproduction, which is something viruses most definitely do.

Is life synonymous with consciousness? Take for example the person with a brain injury, said to be unconscious. Experience shows they still may be receiving information, perceiving it, on what we call an unconscious or subconscious level. In The Hidden Spring — A Journey to the Source of Consciousness, Mark Solms writes about a trip he took with families and their children with hydranencephaly to Disney World. Hydranencephaly is a disorder in which there is an absence of brain hemispheres, an absence of cortex, where most all of what are considered conscious processing centers lay. I say “conscious” because we know that in the brain stem are processed many biofunctional processes, e.g. temperature regulation, breathing, sleep, etc. — things done sans “conscious” thought. So these children are essentially considered to be in a vegetative state — unable to see, hear, recognize tactile sensations and more, and unable to consciously give responses.

What was the result of the trip? The children were delighted. They seemed to have a grand time, these unconscious, “vegetative” children. (It was noted that “It’s a Small World” was a favorite of the child group.) There are other experiences that gave the same result, such as when a hydranencephalic child had her baby sibling put in her lap and clearly showed an excitation response. Or how about a man without an occipital/visual cortex, thus “blind,” but who would navigate objects in a hallway he was walking down. When asked about dodging objects, he had no idea he was doing so. Or a person unable to make memories who was taught a new skill. This person could recall no knowledge of the training nor knowledge of the skill, and yet when tested, continued to develop ability in the skill along with the training. What’s remarkable about these is that they suggest that beyond our “normal conscious” experience is something that not only receives input but has an emotional and functional response to it. (Granted, neuroscience has shown that, at least with cortical zones, when one area is lacking, especially in early development, other areas of the brain can take on some of the missing functions. I have yet to finish Solms’ book, and look forward to reading what else he has to show.)

Where to draw the line?

Perhaps it is at the “raw” forces of nature, such as found in chemistry and physics — elements and compounds; valence and gravity; the thermodynamics of chlorine ice, cloudbursts of liquid iron and the hydrogen maelstrom of stars. Perhaps these are the non-conscious to which consciousness gives rise. (And by definition, consciousness would also give rise to itself.)

So hypothesis one: “Life, the universe, and everything” is created by Consciousness, which is Life (hello paradox), which itself is defined by a) that which metabolizes or b) that which replicates itself.

Scientifically, this is supported mostly by physics experiments (of which there are many, and replicated) that show different results and different states of being (e.g. matter vs waveform, and/or different pathways traveled) depending on, and modified by, whether or not the experiments are being observed.

The most obvious problem here is that Life as we know it came into existence after the Universe and Everything. What science gives us are biochemical development and a Big Bang. Beyond this lie mostly intricate mathematical excitations.

What the ideas we are exploring here imply is that “consciousness” is something that lies then beyond Life itself, in a place where the term “consciousness” is perhaps misleading, a la “The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.”

Let’s wax romantic for a tad and take a look at religion.

In the Old Testament of the Christian bible, God calls himself “I Am.” In Exodus 3:14 he instructs his messenger, “Tell them I Am has sent you.” This term is used over 300 times in the Bible in reference to divinity. The Tetragrammaton yahweh/yehwah/ יהוה appears itself to be derivative of the Hebrew verb “to be.”

I admit my imagination plays a scene in which one hears “I am,” and then bang! — really Big Bang.

And in Buddhism is the famous metaphor of the source of life, the ultimate Consciousness, being like an ocean, and the manifestations of Life, e.g. birds, fish, lizards, beetle, humans (or “hoomyns” as a friend calls us) are waves on the surface of the ocean. Forces give rise to the waves, which have their existence traveling in space and time, and then we ultimately run our course and return to the ocean, the Great Consciousness. Although the Buddhists don’t often use the word “consciousness,” which we have already seen can generate confusion. Translations of their texts frequently use the word “awareness.”

There is an imaginative space-time parallel to the ocean metaphor, that of bended space being the result of mass and matter. The mass of an object creates gravitational pulls and “bends” space, in turn potentially adding to mass and thus pull. It is fun to juxtapose the ocean with a blanket of space, and waves with space-bending mass.

The psychologist-monk Jack Kornfield in The Wise Heart — A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology discusses this topic of ocean-wave consciousness directly when he writes, “Buddhist psychology posits that consciousness is the condition for life, and that the physical body interacts with consciousness but is not its source.” The metaphor here, like waves of the ocean, is that the body is then a sort of conduit for consciousness, for the Great Awareness. The body itself is not consciousness, it is not awareness. Consciousness does not come from the body. The body is a way for consciousness to be, to experience. See: “I Am,” and “Bang!”

Bada-bing, bada-boom.

And you know what? I’ll take it. This is a philosophy of life rooted in both science and religion. It does not judge. It does not try to define “good” vs “evil.” (Relative terms if e’er there were ones.) It does create a sort of unification, where all of life comes from the same source, where all of being is familial — I, you, they all being nothing more than utilitarian terms outside of which practicality meaning breaks down and they are rendered inconsequential.

And if a seeker comes forth and plays Jeopardy on “42,” a la “what does it all mean?” Perhaps the answer is simply to be aware. Maybe just “to be.” Maybe it’s relative. Quite frankly being aware is a taller order than most realize, definitely something often taken for granted.

My interpretation?

1) We are all family. No question about it. That includes crazy Uncle Hitler, yes that sadistic schmuck, and it also includes sharks who bite limbs off surfers. (As many of us know, it’s our family who have the capacity to hurt us the most.)

2) We are here to be. If possible, to be aware. If possible, to feel. And if possible, to learn and to grow.