Consciousness All Over The Place

Nature, 1978

The authors of this book have defied Monod's anathema. They have wandered freely over the borderland between science and philosophy, where knowledge and values are inextricably mixed. I believe they have brought back some insights which will be illuminating not only to scientists but also to anybody with a philosophical turn of mind who enjoys pondering over the mysteries of mind and consciousness. ((1) Finally, one can imagine chains of causation in World 3 that are logically independent of (though necessarily accompanied by) physical causation in World 1. For instance, two computers that are grossly *The speakers were encouraged to correspond with each other after the conference and this additional discussion is also included in the book.

DIALOGO, 2021

"This paper addresses the central idea of nonlocal consciousness: that all life is interconnected and interdependent, that we are part of a matrix of life, but even more fundamentally than spacetime itself arises from consciousness, not consciousness from spacetime. It is not a new idea. The excavation of burials dating to the Neolithic (≈ 10,200-2,000 BCE) has revealed that early humans had a sense of spirituality and some concept about the nature of human consciousness. It discusses the bargain made between the Roman Church, and the emerging discipline of science in the 16th century, one taking consciousness (packaged as “spirit”), the other spacetime, and how this led to physicalism taking root as a world view and becoming the prevailing materialist paradigm. It describes the emergence of a new paradigm that incorporates consciousness and lays out the four relevant descriptors helping to define what this new paradigm will look like. They are: • Only certain aspects of the mind are the result of physiologic processes. • Consciousness is causal, and physical reality is its manifestation. • All consciousnesses, regardless of their physical manifestations, are part of a network of life which they both inform and influence and are informed and influenced by; there is a passage back and forth between the individual and the collective. • Some aspects of consciousness are not limited by the time/space continuum and do not originate entirely within an organism’s neuroanatomy. "

This paper is a response to the commentaries in the Journal of Consciousness Studies on my paper "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness." I have written it so that it can be understood independently of the commentaries, however, and so that it provides a detailed elaboration and extension of some of the ideas in the original paper.

Consciousness for once and for all

In this abstract I try to explain consciousness from an existentialist point of view. This to encourage creativity and freedom and to distance ourselves from the questionable logic of claims that science can explain the conscious mind.

Advances in Bioengineering and Biomedical Science Research , 2021

This article attempts to theoretically outline the nature and origins of the consciousness field in Paul C. Mocombe’s theory of phenomenological structuralism (PS). The author posits that consciousness is an emergent force of the universe that is received by the brain and integrated by its electromagnetic field to constitute mind, practical consciousness, and the self in material worlds of the multiverse. As such, the consciousness field, once assimilated in the absolute vacuum, is an interconnected, endless, and nonlocal fifth force of nature, which, initially, emerges following matter aggregation and disaggregation in the multiverse. It (the consciousness field) is an endless assimilation of all past, present, and future information (practical activities and memories) of the multiverse recycled via the absolute vacuum (empty space in which elementa- ry particles, quarks, and constituents of matter and forces of nature have become one), which fluctuates as probability wave functions, to give rise to entangled and superimposed worlds, each with their own consciousness fields, with conscious beings.

A comment on Consciousness, 2022

The German-language interdisciplinary journal “Gehirn & Geist (G&G, Brain & Mind)” has chosen "consciousness" as its cover topic in the March 2022 issue. It is centered on a translation of an article by Emma Young and David Robson in the New Scientist and features also an interview with the neuroscientist Melanie Wilke and the philosopher Michael Pauen. From my point of view, a critical and progressive note should be warranted here. Below is the translation of a letter to the editors of G&G.

Routledge eBooks, 2016

Definitions of consciousness need to be sufficiently broad to include all examples of conscious states and sufficiently narrow to exclude entities, events and processes that are not conscious. Unfortunately, deviations from these simple principles are common in modern consciousness studies, with consequent confusion and internal division in the field. The present paper gives example of ways in which definitions of consciousness can be either too broad or too narrow. It also discusses some of the main ways in which pre-existing theoretical commitments (about the nature of consciousness, mind and world) have intruded into definitions. Similar problems can arise in the way a "conscious process" is defined, potentially obscuring the way that conscious phenomenology actually relates to its neural correlates and antecedent causes in the brain, body and external world. Once a definition of "consciousness" is firmly grounded in its phenomenology, investigations of its ontology and its relationships to entities, events and processes that are not conscious can begin, and this may in time transmute the meaning (or sense) of the term. As our scientific understanding of these relationships deepen, our understanding of what consciousness is will also deepen. A similar transmutation of meaning (with growth of knowledge) occurs with basic terms in physics such as "energy", and "time." 1 I have given a detailed critique of this aspect of Dennett's position that I do not have space to repeat here (see Velmans, , 2009 chapter 5) chapter 5); see also Zahavi (2007), Beenfeldt (2008). 2 See Gallagher, 2007, Zahavi, 2007 for recent reviews of European phenomenological approaches. Note however that classical Indian conclusions about the nature of consciousness arise largely from altered conscious states consequent on prolonged periods of meditation, and this can be an additional source of confusion when comparing Eastern and Western understanding of everyday conscious phenomenology. The pure, contentless consciousness said to be experienced in such states is, in various writings, thought to underly all of Nature, which makes this a claim about what in the West is sometimes referred to as "the ground of being" or, in Kantian terms, "the thing in itself," rather than a claim about the forms of "phenomenal consciousness," that are more usually investigated in modern consciousness studies.

What is consciousness? Is it some kind of magic or the gift which god provided to us for inducing life? Is it a special quality which belongs to only certain living beings or is it spread across the whole universe uniformly? In this paper we travel across the Universe and our thoughts and fathom the Consciousness

Consciousness being the very source of subjective experience is needed for our life experiences, for the working of our body, to perceive, to cognize, and to express. Agreeing to a fundamental approach for consciousness is more about embracing the true understanding of consciousness rather than avoiding it. Consciousness can, therefore, be located anywhere and everywhere, but in a form that we do not understand until it takes shape within the limits of our reality. Monism related approaches to consciousness are an act to run away from the problems associated with dualism and therefore the need of the hour is a holistic sense of consciousness. Holistic approaches to understand consciousness opens the doors to many versions of this unique ubiquitous feature that we possess; that we do not understand, and that which gives us the ability to go over and beyond emergence.