Intuitions About Consciousness and Panpsychism.
How do we get from ‘0’ to ‘1’? ‘1’ doesn’t exist – everything is in an incomplete state of existing between 0 and 1. We are the products of absolute truth – but are never realized. The present is an impossibility fine point where the polarities of past and future causation meet and pull being into reality. Simultaneously, the unfolding of consciousness is the result of the final cause itself being created in the moment which bring significance to prior and future causes, balancing causation – 0 and 1 become equally causal. The ‘final cause’ is a simultaneity of all ‘present’ that can exist. There is only this moment – the past doesn’t exist, the future doesn’t exist, and the present is an impossibly fine point and so also does not exist. As incorporeal as it all seems to be, there IS a way that it works.
‘Physically’, everything can be said to be energetically alive – the movement of energy. The Universe has a ‘panlifeism’ quality to it – it is fully alive, and nothing is separate from the whole. There is an ‘on/off switch’/ feedback concept analogy for consciousness at its most basic which is similar to electromagnetic/thermodynamic ‘life’. But, the ‘switch’ is turned always to the ‘on’ position – like a shark that must keep moving forward or it dies. There is nothing that stands still – everything is ‘alive’ and in the ‘on’ position. There is no ‘present’ where energy can exist. Time is the thing that is alive – all energy is uncreated, being stuck perpetually between 0 and 1. The present doesn’t exist. There is no place that consciousness can exist that is apart from time. No matter the location in ‘space’ (whatever space means) – motion is occurring, and is an instantaneous shift from past to future.
Are time and consciousness similar things? – the state of being in the ‘on’ position. Time upon reflection seems not to exist. At what speed is time moving? There is no past or future, the transition between the two is instantaneous, so where exactly is time occurring and what can possibly make it variable? Locating the reality of material world is like locating the self – there is no tangible position that one can locate because of this inconvenient absence of existence. Consciousness is clearly not tangible. Nothing seems to exist – yet evidently there is something, and it has no location. There is no ‘time’ for an object that does not exist and has no location.
In ‘reality’ the energetic/thermodynamic life of the universe is unified as a stream of causation that has a certain inevitability built into it. Conscious understanding is a purely logical veneer adhered to the fact of non-existence. Consciousness is what gives meaning to the physical logic – a quality of pattern recognition – and from an amorphous field, order making occurs and generates comprehensibility. This ordering probably has no limit.
Consciousness is much that same as light – stationary, timeless, ubiquitous. At the speed of light time stops – the beginning and the end become simultaneous. The beginning and the end of consciousness are connected and the significance of the unfolding of the universe only makes sense in light of the ‘final cause’ (a being in existence). The final cause is inevitable – it has already occurred and infused the universe with meaning and perfect order. The thermodynamic ‘life’ of the universe is infused with consciousness because it is part of the process of getting to the final state, which is at one with its beginning, both sides of that coin being equally as relevant. However, the connection between the two can not be found because there is no present. There are an infinity of presents between the past and future which equals an infinity of non-existence – an incomplete state that is conscious.
What is it like to be? Consciousness extends vastly. It is inherent to complex nervous systems. Awareness of the way things are is its core quality. Consciousness extends to our body, and receives a peripheral awareness from the sense organs. The distances our senses have access to, is the extent or our consciousness. But here are other tools for awareness – the internet, for example. All points of contact with the world through the tools of communication are the extent of our consciousness as well. All of these peripheral nodes or nerves are influenced by the nodes they connect to, and so there is an expansion of awareness infused within the collective. Our ability to have comprehensible awareness is predicated on our full history of conditioning. In addition to all the influence that we experience in life that change the reality of consciousness, there is every cause that preceded our fact of being. All of evolution. All accumulation has come from a totality of interaction and so, finds truth in the light of the final point. Consciousness reaches back to the ‘beginning’ in a very real way. Consciousness reaches to the ‘end’ as well. In order for anything to have significance it must have an event – ‘the final cause’. It is inevitable that the event has happened already. The finality that projects significance back through all causation which gives unity to time. The final cause is not an ‘end’ – it is the present, and it stretches across everything. The ‘end’ is one with the ‘beginning’ and, the ‘present’, which is a place that can not exist because of its impossibility. If one looks closely at what it is like to be, one will be looking at the vastness of all causation. At the centre of being one can witness it all. The phenomenal, unwilled, unfolding of Nature.
It doesn’t matter that consciousness seems to emerge from processes that seem ‘geologic’ in comparison to a computer, for example, because it doesn’t emerge that way. At all points, everywhere, there is an instantaneous transition from ‘past’ to ‘future’ – in this state between 0 and 1 we are given awareness of significance somehow. But sadly the question remains – ‘how do we get something from nothing?’ We don’t. We can never get to ‘1’. How do we get nothing from something?
How is it that a collection of matter without free-will could write such nonsense?
Everything is true – everything is purely objective because there must be a way that it works – everything is part of the process – even the confusions of our imagined subjectivity are manifestations of the process – perfectly ordered and at the same time unrealized – absolutely true and non-existent.
Obviously this is simple intuitive speculation.