Where is My Mind?
The Ghost is not in the Machine. The Machine is a Medium.
First, Some History...
What is consciousness? Where does it come from? How does it interact with the universe? Philosophers have asked some version of these questions for thousands of years. For the vast majority of human history belief in a soul was common. From an historical perspective, thinkers would be comfortable with the idea of mind being separate from the body.
That is of course until the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment certainly moved the world forward in many positive ways. Yet in science it was the start of a world view that became almost a religion.
Scientists of the period understood that mind was different from the physical world. They saw that they could describe the physical world with mathematics. Consciousness, they felt, lived outside of this endeavour. They understood that they could not study this with the methods of the physical sciences. They deemed it beyond the purview of mathematical description. Philip Goff, in his book Galileo’s Error, gives a good treatment of this.
In Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness Goff writes:
“Galileo took the mind out of matter, which was good for the science of matter but not so good for the science of the mind.”
Mind was never meant to be described by the same methods applied to physics. And yet, somewhere in the intervening centuries, the success of the physical sciences had an impact. Scientists began to believe that everything could be explained from the ground up. Somehow, the hubris became received wisdom. Science tried to push mind back into matter
At the end of the 19th century, scientists declared that the “grand principles were understood”. Only detail remained.
This was until explanation of various anomalies required the creation of quantum theory and relativity.
Having assimilated these shifts, science then settled into exactly the same pattern as the previous century. Everything could be explained through relativity and quantum mechanics. Until it couldn’t.
Hard Problem or False “Paradigm”?
And so back to consciousness...
Physicalism became so embedded in the standard view of science that it was an article of faith. Consciousness must have a physical basis. It could only arise from the brain.
Neuroscience viewed consciousness as an emergent property of increasing brain complexity. Every thought and action mirrored by some activity in the brain. And so began the search for neural correlates of consciousness.
The endeavour parked any larger philosophical questions about causation. The idea was to allow research to progress without having to address the ultimate root of consciousness. Francis Crick, one of the early advocates of this approach, was well aware that correlation does not equate to causation. By using the term “correlates” he hoped to keep the field ontologically neutral. Unfortunately, this reasonable view does not seem to have fully permeated the field.
Despite many attempts to build theories of how consciousness may arise from patterns of neuronal firing, this approach has been unable to to account for even the simplest of sensations.
This lead the philosopher David Chalmers to characterize this as the “hard problem” of consciousness. How does subjective experience arise from a physical system?
There are now many theories of consciousness. Some are somewhat vague, others bring a certain amount of mathematical rigour. They are, roughly speaking, split into local/materialist approaches and non-local approaches.
Materialists postulate that consciousness arises from physical processes (usually in the brain). Examples include Integrated Information Theory (IIT), Global Workspace Theory (GWT), various quantum and panpsychist approaches. Some of these do not insist that consciousness can only be instantiated in the the brain. IIT, for example, measures consciousness by the amount of integrated information and is substrate neutral. This has interesting implications for what might be conscious... which we will revisit in a later article.
Panpsychism postulates that consciousness exists to some extent in all things. Even elementary particles have a level of consciousness. But this then suffers from the “combination problem”. How do small fragments of consciousness combine into a coherent whole?
In non-local theories, consciousness is not constrained within the brain.
Dualist theories say that reality consists of physical stuff and mental stuff. Monist theories postulate that there is only one fundamental basis to reality. Everything, including consciousness, arises from this source. Idealism states that consciousness is the fundamental basis of reality and that everything arises from this. There are many flavours within these broad categories.
The Analytical Idealism of Bernardo Kastrup and the Interface Theory of Perception of Donald Hoffman are interesting approaches in this space. Donald Hoffman and his team are actively trying to derive the equations of physics by starting with interacting conscious agents and modelling how the states change over time.
Non-local theories have started to gain more traction recently. This may be since the 2022 Nobel prize brought quantum entanglement to the fore. Non-local effects were shown to be real. Suddenly, some topics were not as taboo as they had previously been.
At the same time that there is an an explosion in consciousness research, physicists are starting to assess whether space-time is fundamental or whether it emerges from a geometric, computational or information substrate.
Both consciousness researchers and physicists are reassessing their basic assumptions.
Is it time to admit that there is no “hard problem”, only an incorrect paradigm?
What if Consciousness Does not Originate in the Brain?
Is there any evidence for the non-local consciousness? There is much although, regardless of the amount of data collected, many scientists refuse to entertain the idea. Let’s take a look at some of the pointers to consciousness being of a non-local nature. Some of these are, of course, speculative but taken as a whole are fairly persuasive.
Anecdotes
Many people have had experience of what might be considered psi phenomenon. The phone call from an old friend just as you are thinking about them. The sense of unease at the same time that a remote loved one is in peril. The “irrational” refusal to get on a plane, train, etc. which is later involved in an accident.
There are many, many examples of these feelings or knowledge which defy explanation within a localised view of consciousness.
Ancient Wisdom & Mystic Traditions
Most Eastern religions and some of the esoteric branches of Western religions focus on the unitive experience. The separation of object and subject is considered an illusion. Indeed in most cases, what we see as physical reality is viewed as an illusion.
In Hinduism, for example, Brahman represents all that is, the universal consciousness, the ground of all being. Individual souls or atman are essentially Brahman self-reflecting from a limited perspective.
In a sense, the aim of all religions is to awaken to the unity and escape from the illusion of separation.
There is great commonality across these traditions. Aldous Huxley explored this in his book The Perennial Philsophy.
NDEs, OBEs & Remote Viewing
Near death experiences, out of body experiences and remote viewing all suggest that consciousness is able to access information not accessible to the physical body. There are many examples, often from doctors and anaesthetists, outlining experiences where patients have reported leaving their bodies and are able to describe situations which they could not have access to. In some of these cases, the patients were clinically dead at the time.
The US military took remote viewing so seriously that they ran the Stargate psychic spying programme for years.
Persistence of Memory
We all have a sense of self & memory which are continuous over time. And yet, every cell in our bodies is replaced many times over during our lifetime. If we are not physically the same individual over time, where does this sense of self live?
Beheaded Worms
In 2013, experiments were carried out with flatworms. The worms were trained and then beheaded. In about two weeks, they would regrow a new head and brain. The worms retained memory of the training, indicating that this could not be encoded solely in the brain.
Pointers from Historical Thought
Many great thinkers throughout history postulated that elements of consciousness extend beyond the individual physical self. Ideas of unity and self-similarity at different scales recur often.
Akashic Records
The Akashic Records are believed to be a vast, non-physical “library” containing every event, thought, emotion, and intention that has ever occurred for all beings throughout time. The idea was developed by the Theosophists in the nineteenth century. It has some basis in Hindu philosophy where Akasha is an energy field in which all things exists. It contains the memory of all events and actions. There are also parallels with the concept of a “Book of Life” found in various traditions.
Collective Unconscious
The collective unconscious is an idea introduced by Carl Jung. It refers to a shared, inherited layer of the unconscious mind which contains universal archetypes, images, and patterns of experience common to all humanity. Unlike the personal unconscious, which is unique to each individual, the collective unconscious is present in every human being regardless of culture or experience
Holographic Mind
The holographic mind theory posits that consciousness and memories are stored not in isolated locations, but are distributed throughout the brain and mind like a hologram, where every part contains information about the whole. This model suggests the unity of perception, consciousness, and experience – and implies that our awareness is connected with a universal or cosmic consciousness
Implicate Order
Proposed by physicist David Bohm, the implicate order is a deeper, hidden level of reality where everything is fundamentally interconnected. Every part enfolds information about the whole universe. The explicate order (the reality we see) unfolds from this deeper, more unified dimension, emphasizing wholeness over separateness.
Platonic Realms
Platonic realms refer to the “world” of perfect, abstract Forms or Ideas. For Plato mathematical objects, concepts and ideal forms existed independent of the physical world. What we experience as reality is a mere shadow or imitation of these timeless forms.
Morphic Fields
Morphic fields, a concept developed by Rupert Sheldrake, are hypothesized invisible fields that shape patterns of biological form, development, and behaviour by containing a kind of “memory” for how things are made and act. These fields link living things and may enable nonlocal influence and transmission of behaviours or forms across space and time. Studies have shown that some physical processes e.g. crystal formation are difficult to achieve the first time but then become easier. Sheldrake attributes this to the form becoming embedded in the morphic field. These effects are independent of distance. Similar effects have been demonstrated for training of rats in different parts of the world.
Scopaesthesia
Scopaesthesia is the sense of being stared at. Many of us have experienced this and turned around to see that this is actually the case. There have been scientific experiments carried out which have shown that this is a real effect. In the tests, subjects were usually in different rooms and being viewed via cameras.
Global Consciousness Project
In the late 1970s and 1980s, experiments were undertaken at Princeton to assess whether human consciousness could affect random number generators (RNGs). The research showed small but statistically significant deviations from chance. This suggests some sort of mind-matter interaction. The experiment has been repeated many thousands of times. The work developed into the Global Consciousness Project which aimed to continue the research on a global scale.
Psychedelic Experience
Under the influence of psychedelics, people report profound experiences. These are often akin to religious experiences of unity. Contrary to the idea that this is due to increased brain activity, the brain is actually less active under these conditions. Specifically, the default mode network, which is generally associated with executive function, quietens down. This suggests that the controller or filter of consciousness is switched off. At this point, perhaps people experience reality as it actually is. In the words of William Blake:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”
Children and Identity
Young children don’t have a sense of self. Until about the age of 2 or 3, they tend to refer to themselves in the third person. If the brain is just a filter or interface to the universal mind, perhaps it takes time for the shard to identify with the meat puppet?
Energy Usage
AI has given us some insights into ways of reasoning. Putting aside questions of whether AI is intelligent and/or conscious for future exploration, we can take a look at AI and humans performing similar tasks.
The energy that the brain uses for reasoning tasks is barely above its normal baseline level. In contrast, large language models uses hundreds or thousands of times more power on the same tasks. Now it could be that the brain is just wildly more efficient. Or could it be that there is no computation happening in the brain and it is just interfacing with the consciousness field?
Intuition
Many scientists and artists have described the moments when their best ideas have come to them. Often they say that these seem to come from outside or from nowhere. Perhaps highly developed intuitive states tap into something wider?
Modern Physics
Modern physics has embraced the reality of non-local effects - what Einstein referred to as “spooky action at a distance”. A number of groups now view space-time as not being fundamental. Some of the views echo those of earlier thinkers with information being fundamental. Holographic approaches are making a comeback. Stephen Wolfram is trying to rewrite physics as a computational at its core, deriving from simple rules operating on networked structures.
Where Does This Leave Us?
It seems that we are at a cross-roads. Although physicalism is still the dominant paradigm, it is no longer unquestioned as it has been for so long. Academic funding structures still make it difficult for people to pursue non-local theories of consciousness, but a growing number of scientists will now admit privately what they could never say publicly.
The failure of physicalism to be able to account for what it feels like to have any experience is telling. Sure, we can point to neural correlates of consciousness. But wouldn’t we expect to see exactly this if the brain was interfacing with a non-local consciousness?
AI passing the during test has given us insight that something can appear intelligent without actually being so. Even if AI is intelligent, is it able to feel anything? Can it self-reflect? The fact that we are able to imagine an entity which can act in all ways as though conscious, but not actually be so, suggests that maybe a purely physical explanation for consciousness is insufficient. This is what is known as the Zombie argument in philosophy of mind.
So we live in interesting times. On the one hand we may be seeing the emergence of Zombies and the much touted AI Apocalypse. On the other hand, if consciousness is non-local and we are all part of a cosmic mind and deeply connected at a fundamental level, how does this change our perspective and how we interact with each other? One would hope that it would lead to a more compassionate world. If it is possible for non-biological entities to be conscious - does this mean that we can have AI which is also compassionate? Would it be better for us if AI was conscious and not just intelligent? We know that consciousness does not automatically imply compassion, but maybe interconnectedness does?
Non-local consciousness has profound implications for how we view the world, other living (and what is life?) beings and each other. It implies a much richer universe to experience and raises questions around continuity beyond physical death.
The journey has just begun.