Consciousness
The following is speculation on the nature and origin of consciousness.
Communication and consciousness are one in the same. Communication is ubiquitous. At every level there are myriad informational algorithmic languages of nature in action as change unfolds and time is created. Communication is information in flux; it is a state of or perhaps higher level of information. Communication is a force of nature; it is fundamental. And, being that it is another name for consciousness, one understands that so too is consciousness fundamental.
Communication is the asking and answering of any flowing state to the environment of other flowing states that are within the landscape of potential for interaction “which is the path of least resistance?”. This can be observed everywhere that gravity exists for instance. In human beings there is a literal asking of questions in particular and an overarching question complex in general as the flow of movement proceeds along established lines and in new potential paths where information is revealed with regard to surpassing some resistance in the short term in order to reach a more economical flow in the long term; individual communication and coordination with the physical and social environments.
Consciousness must be fundamental at a bedrock level rather than uniquely local and express levels of amplitude that resemble small streams to large rivers. First of all, one can not locate the site of consciousness. Clearly human beings are a conduit which can give rise to a rushing torrent of conscious expression but there is no point of origin that can be identified. Second, it has been made clear several times before that there is no possibility for static location of any kind anywhere in the universe; in a very real way nothing exists, except when events are in flux creating time and change (the transition from one moment to the next across the impossibly fine gap that is the present occurs at the maximum speed of the universe, thus everyone and everything is moving at the speed of light or whatever the maximum speed is). Third, human’s are not the location of consciousness to begin with in a pretty obvious way. Imagine if an agent is born in isolation and in sensory deprivation. One can intuit that there will be no consciousness present (also, the agent will not live for long). In order for consciousness to arise an agent or collection of appropriate ingredients must be placed in an environment with change and contrast and interaction. An agent in isolated deprivation may have a minimal conscious state that wells up from the endowment of fixed action patterns and the internal communications of biology, but it will not amount too much. It is the consciousness present in the external body, the environment, that amplifies and collaborates to create a conscious stream. The complete stream of nature is a conglomerate of all streams that have been or ever will be and so, consciousness stretches out to encompass it all.
‘Information’ as a concept can be used as a paradigm of fundamental nature since it allows for the quantification if all that is. It is a tool of specificity. Communication is information in flow and contrast; past/future, light/dark, fast/slow, aware/or not. Nothing is comprehensible without contrast found in the duality of opposing forces. It is in the recognition of an optimal path that consciousness arises, and like was mentioned earlier there are interactions occurring at every point in the unfolding, and so at every point there is a dialogue. Complexes of contrasts in motion flow together and from these emerge ’story lines’ which can snowball into a state of self-awareness as for example, the symphonic coordination of the physical body allows one to become conscious of the need to drink water in order to quench thirst.
The consciousness complex is as deep as history and wide as the universe itself. This fact can be realized by observing our own fixed action patterns, which are hard wired adaptations acquired in the process of evolution, for example smiling as a signal of non-aggression. Fixed action patterns are numerous and one might go as far as to say that all behaviour is rooted in fixed action patterns that ripple in an outward propagation and interact with other patterns and the environment including other agents and within the turbulence and the reorienting to back-propagation provided by the contingent fixed action patterns we get a textured and coloured automatic conscious experience.
Finally we begin to speak in the language of the relatable as far as human consciousness is concerned. Hedonism. The pursuit of pleasure. Any way you spin it, we are inside of a hedonic system. Feedbacks such as thirst, hunger, fatigue, lust etc. are compelling our movements and narratives of consciousness. An agent who defers gratification in the interest of achieving some greater good is ultimately driven by the pleasure provided by the self-reflected perceived nobility of success at self-control or in anticipation of the greater reward to come later. To quench ones thirst is a hedonic achievement of pleasure but not as great of an achievement as would be possible if one allowed oneself to become more thirsty before hand by practicing self-restraint but clearly more pleasurable if one stops when satiated than continuing until the drinking of more water becomes repulsive. And this is exactly the misconception people have about hedonism. It is not pleasurable to get the satisfying wrong by over indulging. A deeply aware person will have expanded the potential for enjoyment of life by understanding the communication between contrasts.
The most obvious illustration of the nature of consciousness is acute pain. It is in the experience of acute pain that consciousness is at its peak. One will be compelled to take action immediately. Inherent objectivity is undeniable; there is not much one can do to ignore the fact except with the the aid of interventions that target underlying biology. Acute pain is potent feedback; it is functional communication.
Leading us to the question about scale of consciousness. At the beginning of this contemplation it was proposed that consciousness is ubiquitous as an obvious result of the nature of reality itself. A communication occurring at all levels. In comparison to water flowing down hill along a path of least resistance collecting with other streams and becoming established and growing, humans, while similar to streams, are clearly expressing a higher level of conscious. An actualized human within a stimulating environment is more conscious than a human born in isolation or sensory deprivation and one is more conscious when wide awake at noon that right before or right after sleep. What highs and lows of consciousness are possible? Consider a religious metaphor; angels and demons. Through a lens that sees beings as conscious agents we understand that angels and demons are not separate and opposite but rather one and the same; beings with and expanded capacity for conscious states. As a result of the need for contrast it is only possible for a being to experience angelhood if they at the same time have the inverse understanding of demonhood. And so these elites will fluctuate between greater highs and lows. One individual may reach an unprecedented proficiency in music or art or athletics via heightened sensory development only for Alzheimer’s or old age to drag them down from that greatest height to live with the loss of glory. Some sacrifices relationships and the world in the pursuit of a goal, finding satisfaction in the attainment of the goal but pain in the alienation. For some it may just be that because of unusual biology, the subjective experience of highs and lows are extreme but illusory. With education and wisdom one will have the capacity to appreciate the complexity of the world and thus expand the salience and impact of meaning in general so as to witness the full spectrum of conscious reality. Warriors within a particular honour code say “Greatness is proportional to how far one can fall”. Angels and demons are individual beings in cosmic tumult. It’s not much different than the experience of normal being of any person, just amplified, way hotter and cooler. No being can exist on just one polarity.
When we think about consciousness it is the self-aware kind we are interested in. Take a look at this proposition regarding the concept of the origin of consciousness and the bicameral mind.
At some point in human history people became self-aware. The arrival of consciousness as we recognize it may have presented as a disembodied voice. The thinking mind that everyone is familiar with may, from the perspective of the early human, been perceived as something external; a separate speaking voice. Humans might not have identified with the thing that thinks. Perhaps a person would have perceived the voice inside as being rather the voice of a god. Memories and the residual impressions could have even resurrected the departed back to into existence as spirits from the afterlife.
A modern individual will be fully accustomed to the thinking mind that ruminates and makes decisions, and will even have the conviction that they are in full control of the internal process of thought. It is only those who are ill that will perceive internal “voices” as separate from themselves. Suppose that on close inspection you find that you are not actually authoring the thoughts you have and that the thinking mind operates quite freely, serving up what is perceived consciously only after being fully formed. Who is it then that is doing the thinking? Realizing this, one might be inclined to return to the belief that the thinking “self” is indeed a separate thing, but rather than the voice of a god it is the voice of nature. One might be mildly shocked by this. Perhaps some insight might be gleaned from a close scrutiny of the contents of these communications whence one take this more realistic viewpoint.
This thinking mind of which we are aware speaks with the voice and language of the ages. These communications are ancient algorithms. Consciousness is rooted deep in biology. What is welling up continually are our fixed action patterns, our drives and the question about the location of the path of least resistance. But intuitions are not unconstrained, we also have the prefrontal cortex and all the regulation that comes with and governs our flow more efficiently.
After all this one must realize also that consciousness as we recognize it is an after-effect, it is the residual spectacle of events that have occurred automatically before our awareness has had time to process. It is a free-fall into the future where our conscious understanding is perpetually looking to the past in order to use the reservoir of experience to construct a comprehensible model of the world and agreeable post-hoc story about what has occurred before we have had a chance to become aware.