By Promod Puri
What sets humans apart from inanimate objects like spoons, tables, stones, or anything else? Both are physical matters.
But we have consciousness, while others don’t. Or maybe they have it, which we don’t sense. Anyway, that is what distinguishes us from the “non-consciousness” objects.
How is this distinction created through consciousness, which directs the nature of physical matter to make it a mindful entity?
Now, let’s explore the two intriguing theories that attempt to explain the emergence of consciousness.
However, before delving into these concepts, let us define or get a practical understanding of consciousness.
The dictionary definition is “full activity of the mind and senses.” In that activity, knowledge gained through external or inherent factors stimulates the development of a conscious mind. Consciousness is both a biological and psychological phenomenon that correlates with each other.
According to Wikipedia, consciousness is an “inward awareness of an external object, state, or fact,” which could include perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. The word “inward awareness” suggests that it is already present.
Now, back to the theories:
The first one is called dualism, where consciousness is an import from an unknown source that plugs into the physical matter to make it conscious. That suggests consciousness is separate and independent from the physical matter. But together, they make a dual entity.
In dualism, the independent nature of consciousness is unseen. Its source is unknown unless the divinity factor is contemplated, giving soul to objects such as humans or animals. The moment the object is unplugged, consciousness disappears or might expire.
In the second theory, consciousness is already a built-in occurrence in the constituents of matter. That means every single particle, even the tiniest one, has an inherent awareness caused by consciousness. But consciousness residing in them is a very basic or simple structure. The latter is so elementary that it can’t be imagined as consciousness.
It is only when these particles come together through some complex process, which may include neurochemistry, that they constitute realized consciousness, such as human instinct.
Consciousness is thus created out of dormant or “non-conscious” materials present in physical matter. The materials are the small fragments of an object or its composing molecules along with their atomic and sub-atomic particles. This theory is called materialism, which means it is created out of materials.
However, believing all things have conscious quality, the term materialism has been replaced and is widely known and accepted as panpsychism. It is derived from two Greek words: “pan,” meaning “all,” and psyche, which means soul or mind. Nonetheless, to reach a human conclusion, panpsychism involves the construction of consciousness to the level where it can be humanly realized.
At what stage is the aggregation of “conscious” materials, from a human perspective, ready to be called or felt like a conscious object? As humans are limited in their perception, consciousness can develop and complete its process to form its own system, which, under human observation, is not noticed. In that respect, consciousness may already dwell in a spoon, a table, a stone, etc.
Or the particles may never combine to create the conscious system. Still, they are forever plugged into their own individual conscious orders. If that is acceptable, then panpsychism does merge with the dualistic concept, as there exists a duality of consciousness and matter.
The dualism theory is secure because it supports the widely believed existence of some divine utility responsible for supplying the power of consciousness. On the other hand, panpsychism offers some rational assumptions based on metaphysics in its understanding.
In panpsychism, the particles are already “divined” as part of the whole, with the concept that the entire universe is one whole conscious body. The whole is represented by individual physical parts like mountains, rocks, trees, humans, animals and other seen or unseen matters down to the atomic and subatomic levels.
The universe, in its continuum, is a conscious body of conscious parts, no matter how tiny or big they are. When the whole is conscious, its parts are conscious, too, just like a human body. When it is alive, every organ of it is alive as well. There are minds in the universal mind.
The ideological value of panpsychism lies in the conception that everything existing in the universe has consciousness. It can be inherent, created internally, or by an external source. All the constituents of the universe are fundamentally connected with each other as being contained in one big whole.
The Upanishadic wisdom in Hinduism ardently supports the connectivity concept. The unique mantra of Om Purnam Adah talks about the totality of the universe and the togetherness of its constituents: the trees, the mountains, the people, the birds, and the stars. However far away they may appear, they are all associated.
In this connectivity, the two theories of consciousness do meet in their divine orders.
Promod Puri.com 