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The Definition of Consciousness
Me, I, My and Us, the MIMU of Self
BY LYNARD – SEPTEMBER 2021

On your journey to finding a definition of consciousness you should read Allan Hobson’s Conscious States: The AIM Model of Walking, Sleeping, and Dreaming . Before doing that however, consider the following science.

Hobson adheres to a scientific approach to defining consciousness. A scientific definition of consciousness by examining the brain for states of consciousness. Except in one instance, he jumps completely out of the scientific approach. In our effort here, w e endeavor to adhere to the scientific method on the way to defining consciousness. So, it was a bit of a shock when we encountered a very unscientific declarations by Hobson in his otherwise excellent and highly informative book.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica Homo Sapiens (“wise man”) is either 195,000 years old or 315,000 years old. During this time frame, according to anthropologists, the human brain has been about the same size for roughly 200,000 years, comprising 1.5 kilograms (about 3 pounds and 5 ounces) of adult body weight. Keep these scientific observations in mind as your read Hobson’s excellent exploration of the states of consciousness. And for the rest of your pursuit of a definition of consciousness, ponder the fact that human-kind, with the same brain, went from confabs around camp fires (possibly started by lightening) to landing a human on the moon in 200,000 years. Sure, the laer is rocket science, but 200,000 years? If the brain is the originator of consciousness–Decartes “I think, therefore I am”–why did it take 200,000 years for humans to reach for the moon? A question to be answered on our pursuit of a definition of consciousness.

If you want to get a rise out of scientists, point out the parallels between science and religion. The foundations of all modern western religions– Judaism, Christianity, Islam–can be traced back to Assyria, an empire occupying the “four corners” of the Mesopotamia world some four to five thousand years ago. (The basic tenets of these religions most likely go back much, much farther, perhaps all the way back to 200,000 years when lightening came from the sky).

Religion offers a rational, belief-based (faith) system appropriate for explaining everything under the sun. Along comes the recently enshrined scientific method–an empirical protocol for acquiring knowledge. There were plenty of scientists around before Copernicus and Newton and Galileo, but the scientific method is a relatively new approach to explaining everything. Experimentation and repeated validation. A blue-print method for evaluating everything under the sun. The key words here are exploration and evaluation, not explanation. But scientists, being scientists and human, sometimes are reluctant to use the four words that ultimately define the human condition: “I do not know.” For instance:

Me Myself and the Ocean Blue

Imagine you walk along a pristine ocean beach. From the sand, you pick up a single grain of sand, take a few steps into the water and drop the grain into the water.

Going all science on this beach stroll and seemingly causal event, we know the following.

*** 1 ***

The beach is composed of trillions of grains of sand and you have taken one grain away and tossed it into the ocean depths–or maybe just into the water to possibly have it washed ashore again. Based on a little probabilistic math, we can get a reasonable approximation as to the fate of the grain of sand. But the fact is we do not know with certainty where that grain of sand ends up. That is why we can say we can–if so inclined–make a probabilistic determination of where the grain of sand ends up.

*** 2 ***

We know the beach is minus at least one grain of sand and that the grain is somewhere in transit in the ocean–on its way to the bottom, being pushed ashore or out into the ocean. This knowledge however is conditional. We also know that the ocean is continually depositing grains of sand on the beach so this “minus-one-grain” of sand is not an absolute certainty.

Now, consider the things we do not know.

*** (a) ***

How many grains of sands are on the beach at the moment the one grain of sand is removed. We could build a machine that counts all the sand grains laying on the beach, going all the way down to bedrock. At the moment however, we do not have such a machine.

*** (b) ***

How many grains of sand are being deposited by the ocean or being removed by the ocean at the time you transport one grain of sand into the ocean.

Being scientists we know we can devise a means to count the number of grains of sands on the beach and determine with precision where the grain of sand ends up once in the ocean. We know we can do that. (After all, we did send a man to the moon).

As scientists, with logical constructs for every possible activity, both human and none human, we might pause to consider what exactly is to be gained by counting the number of grains of sand on a beach.

Are We There Yet

Now, let’s say the beach is the human population of the world. The grain of sand then becomes an individual who dies and the ocean is symbolic of the Great Unknown. To simplify, a member of the population dies and disappears into the nothingness of the Great Unknown. Now, what do we know.

*** (A) ***

The death of a life is entropy–organized energy dis-organizing. The physics of the universe is the stroller on the beach, moving a life from one state to another. Life to death.

*** (B) ***

We know there was once an individual with consciousness, a life force. That individual is no longer conscious and is now physically disintegrating to eventually return to dust. The life-force–breathing, walking, talking, expressing emotions and thoughts–has disappeared from our life spot on what we assume is the beach of life. Are we the beach? We must be because we remember a missing life, like a beach missing a grain of sand.

Now, for what we can scientifically say that we do not know

*** (1) ***

A life-force is born into the world. It is already a life-force when born but is not “acclimated” to the life around it. We do not know whether what we call consciousness is present before (biologically determined) or is an acquired attribute after birth (biologically and socially determined). With the incredible magnitude of bio-electrochemical activity of the brain, even before birth, it is more than possible that what we call consciousness starts before birth. But that is pure, speculative conjecture.

*** (2) ***

What happens to the dead individual’s consciousness–the signals emanating from the life-force. For a grain of sand, this is mass, a tiny electromagnetic force. For an individual, it is the biochemical-electrochemical activity of the individual. An empty spot on the beach, the absence of a life-force. We know that there are traces of the life-force present in those on the edges of the beach–memories of the individual– but the individual has disintegrated into the Great Unknown.

For the punch lines, consider these statements.

(Q1) The grain of sand tossed into the ocean no longer exists .

Is this true or false? If we follow the science, this is obviously false. Physical matter just does not disappear into non-existence. It can change into different matter or become energy, but it definitely does not simply cease to exist.

(Q2) When a human dies, physicality, physical form ceases to exist.

Is this true or false? If we follow the science, this is obviously true.

(Q3) Physically the deceased individual no longer exists. The life-force of their personality, their expression of consciousness ceases to exist. (Note that “consciousness” is really not defined here. We are merely designating physical attributes of life as “life-force” to include observably human behavior ).

This may be true or false. From a purely empirical standpoint, we simply do not know. It is really a number-of-grains-of-sand on the beach question. Even if the deceased is an infant who lived only an hour, they have left traces of their physical selves all over the beach and, if we had the tools to measure, even their bio-electrochemical footprints might be able to be traced to their absence. From the religious perspective of faith, of course, the statement is a simple false.

The Leap Beyond Science

When a scientist like Allan Hobson says that “At the moment of death, our consciousness fades forever”, we must take this as pure speculation even if we accept the brain as the progenitor of consciousness. There is nothing wrong with speculation nor accepting speculation as the corner-stone of a discipline of one area of science. But at some point we must stop and ask when does a consistent and coherent idea based on speculation differ from simple faith. This is then obviously followed by the question of whether it matters.

An Interlude in the Interlude

While I do not accept Hobson’s assessment of what happens to human consciousness at death–I have no evidence pointing to its cessation or continuance–nor can I accept his more fundamental contention that the brain is the generating hub of human consciousness. But Hobson wraps up the science of the brain-mind-consciousness conundrum in a uniquely comprehensive manner that no other scientist has managed to achieve. He achieves this enviable feat by adhering consistently to the brain as the seat of consciousness–a biochemical, electro-mechanical machine that responds both to itself and the external world. Note carefully that Hobson describes ‘conscious states’, not consciousness itself. There is a good reason for this.

A definition of consciousness must encompass the foundation of the hard problem. That foundation is qualia which is how we as individuals experience the world and the workings of our own brains. Hobson’s implied definition of consciousness seems to be careening toward the monkey-and-brain conundrum. This conundrum essentially is the science based (statistical) hypothesis that if you placed a thousand monkeys in a room with typewriters they would eventually produce a Shakespearean play. But, back up a moment. In fact, go back to the “beach”.

Monkeys have brains. So too do armadillos. Better still, elephants have brains. If we use Hobson’s working definition of consciousness, all these animals are conscious. The question however is whether these animals are aware of the animal beach? Maybe they are. Maybe they are not. The simple answer is that we do not know.

Hobson was a psychiatrist and died in July 2021. In the next interlude on this track toward a definition of consciousness, I will reference Hobson’s DREAMING: A Very Short Introduction. Like Conscious States: The AIM Model of Walking, Sleeping, and Dreaming, dreaming is an important and unique perspective on the subject that started my quest to define consciousness.

As I pointed out in A Short History of Memory, I wanted to find out where dream images come from. I think the answer is pivotal in definding human consciousness. The reason there is this pause in my quest to define consciousness is because I am trying to classify the four-thousand plus dreams I have recorded over the last forty-years. Spoiler-alert: there is nothing other-worldly about dreams. And to deflate one recently floated idea that dreams are influenced by a full-moon, of the four thousand of my dreams I have examined, finding 112 occurring on the date of a full moon, I could not find any significant difference in content of dreams occurring two, five, ten or greater days after and before a full-moon. I will have more to say on this in my next interlude to definding consciousness.

Finally, I should point out my faith-based position on human death.

I believe in reincarnation–the belief that I have lived before–and have believed such since I was around nine. There is absolutely no scientific, empirical evidence supporting re-incarnation. If reincarnation was a real thing, you would think that in 200,000 years there would some proof, some validation of the belief somewhere in the human experience. I have not found it.

While the belief does not dictate my ethical conduct, it does effect my approach to such questions as definding consciousness. It is a faith-based belief as opposed to an empirical conclusion. Do I need empirical evidence? It is not a rhetorical question.

In the next interlude in pursuit of a definition of consciousness, we take a look at dreams and we will get closer to answering the two significant questions asked here: why, with a brain that has not changed significant in 200,000 years, has humankind discovered the novelty of space exploration with rockets, and where exactly is this line between empirical evidence–the scientific method–and the mysticism of faith. Yes, we are about to get into trouble.

© Lynard Barnes, 2020