Cosmic consciousness

Cosmic consciousness
Marinus Jan Marijs

The concept of cosmic consciousness, was introduced by Richard Maurice Bucke in 1901 .
Some modern psychologists and theologians have made reference to Bucke’s work. They include Erich Fromm, Robert S. de Ropp, and Abraham Maslow. Others who have used the concept of cosmic consciousness, as introduced by Bucke, include Albert Einstein, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Among life’s baffling properties, the phenomenon of   consciousness leaps out as especially striking. It’s origin is arguably the hardest problem facing science today and the only one that remains almost impenetrable even after two and a half millennia of deliberation (…) Consciousness is the number one problem of science, of existence even.”

    Theoretical physicist Paul Davies  (2019)

Philosopher David Chalmers has said 8: ”Consciousness, the subjective experience of an Inner self, poses one of the greatest challenges to science. Even a detailed  knowledge of the brain’s workings and neural correlates of consciousness may fail to explain how or why human beings have self-aware minds.”

General features

The ground of being

The ultimate

Outside space and time

Cosmic consciousness is an undivided whole

Consciousness is ­: An inner sense of awareness

Pure consciousness is difficult to define, because it isn’t composed of different elements which one can refer to.
One cannot measure it, nor quantify it
It is not even a process, which would mean a movement in time.
While consciousness reflects processes in time, consciousness itself transcends time.

Pure consciousness must be differentiated from the content of consciousness .
While that what’s within consciousness is temporal and in a state of becoming, consciousness itself is a-temporal, unchanging, like a mirror.

When people talk about consciousness they generally talk about the content of consciousness.
Pure consciousness is like a mirror which reflects, but itself remains unchanged.

Consciousness is an experimental reality, which seems to fall outside the methodological limitations of scientific investigation 

Consciousness is not reducible to anything else

Consciousness is not spatial

Consciousness doesn’t have any parts, it is not an assembly of different elements
Consciousness is not derived from the physical world, it’s not a property of matter

Consciousness is a unitary phenomenon

British philosopher of mind Galen Strawson: “Consciousness is the most certainly known fact, all our fundamental data is a matter of conscious experience.”

There is the problem of the role of consciousness within Quantum Mechanics. Quantum Mechanics, which can be understood as a form of perspectivism. Though the so called “Copenhagen Interpretation” is not unilaterally accepted and an exact mechanism in the collapse of the wavefunction remains elusive.
 

Theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg about consciousness:
“Of all the areas of experience that we try to link to the principles of physics by arrows of explanation, it is consciousness that presents us with the greatest difficulty. We know about our own conscious thoughts directly, without the intervention of the senses, so how can consciousness ever be brought into the ambit of physics and chemistry? The physicist Brian Pippard has put it thus: “What is surely impossible is that a theoretical physicist, given unlimited computing power, should deduce from the laws of physics that a certain complex structure is aware of its own existence.”  I have to confess that I find this issue terribly difficult.” – Steven Weinberg

“If we had the fundamental laws of nature tomorrow, we still wouldn’t understand consciousness.”
Theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg.

Properties of consciousness:
While pure consciousness has no components, structure or temporal sequences (See Erwin Schrödinger remarks) it has properties .
First order awareness
Fundamental
Irreducible
Not limited by space or time (Non-local)
Attention
Unity of consciousness
A universal quality that pervades everything
Qualia, to have emotional and other feelings .
 Manifests itself as subjective properties, inner awareness

Theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner :The very study of the physical world leads to the conclusion that the concept of consciousness is an ultimate reality
(Eugene Wigner received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 “for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles”).

Functions of consciousness:
The psychological functions that could only be performed consciously:
Consciousness integrates the mind .  
Second order awareness
Agency, the ability to affect, to order, to organise the material world
It actualises….
Free will
Focused attention
Responding in non-automatic ways
Initiate voluntary behavior
To mediate rational actions
To integrate information
Response to novelty
Decision-making, planning ,execute complex, learned, hierarchical functions .
Plan sequences during which sub-goals can be switched to find alternate ways of accomplishing these complex plans
The control of behavior
Memory: Remembering information,
Use of language (syntax, semantics)

Aesthetic appreciation
Introspection
Understanding / comprehension
Volition, purposeful / intentional behavior
Wilful intent, intentionality
Meaning (purpose and a sense of direction)
Having first-person experience, an internal perspective

——————————————————————————————————————-

Consciousness is not an algorithm, not an algorithmic process.

Consciousness reveals a deeper reality beyond the physical, a totally different category, subjectively, qualitatively, experientially
 
Consciousness is primary

The function of consciousness:
Without consciousness there is no meaning
Without consciousness there is no understanding
Without consciousness there is no free will
Without consciousness there are no qualia

Consciousness is profoundly fundamental, for example within Quantum theory, it is supposed that consciousness is one of the building blocks of the universe .

Consciousness is not the sum of its content .

Consciousness exists independently of matter.

Consciousness posed a formidable problem : consciousness has an irreducible subjective ontology .

Direct psychological data

Introspection

Personal consciousness  vs universal consciousness .
Personal consciousness  is a part of a universal cosmic consciousness .

The brain

Some brain activities correlate with consciousness, but correlation isn’t causation.

Neural activity is completely different in nature than conscious experience.

Consciousness exists apart from and beyond the brain.

Consciousness is not only irreducible but not explained by physical brain processes.

While the brain facilitate consciousness, it doesn’t generate consciousness.
The brain needs a non-physical substrate / component to manifest consciousness 

There are those who say that when there is a certain complexity within a certain physical system, that will give rise to consciousness, but some modern computers can make a billion operations per second without any trace of consciousness.
Nor does it have to do with processing speed, electronic systems work with nearly the speed of light and the electro-chemical signals within the central nervous system with a speed of 10 meter per second   

The Self:  
Individual self vs. universal self.
Personal identity vs. The witness.
Infra-subject vs. Supra-subject.
Finite self vs. The real self.
Ego  vs Spirit .
Isolated self vs Cosmic self.
Separated self vs. Timeless awareness.

A transcendent organising principle
 
If there is a transcendent organising principle beyond the universe, it must be conscious in order to be able to structure the different  elements that constitute the world and its interactions .
To integrate different aspects of reality.
To be the cause of the existence of the universe, consciousness is needed in order to guide and direct the complexity of the  processes of the world.

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man.” – Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein [

The co-discoverer of the evolution theory, Alfred Russel Wallace:
“…. Evidence of a Power which has guided the action of laws in definite directions and for special ends,” assumed: “An Overruling Intelligence has watched over those laws.”  

George Wald, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology:
“It has occurred to me lately – I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities – that both questions might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality – that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.”

George Wald, 1984, “Life and Mind in the Universe”, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology Symposium 11, 1984: 1-15.

 
Consciousness is
 
Timelessness. Changelessness, incorporeal

Consciousness isn’t the result of complexity, it is unitary, it is One

The Absolute

Pure consciousness is identical to the Absolute.

The simplicity of the Absolute:
That a transcendent organising principle must be necessarily complex has already been disputed: In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea can be stated in this way: The being of God is identical to the “attributes” of God. Characteristics such as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc., are identical to God’s being, not qualities that make up that being.

The Absolute is one without a second.

The Absolute has no parts.

The Absolute is not extended.  

The Absolute is present everywhere.

The Absolute has no intrinsic or extrinsic boundaries.

The Absolute is a pure unity.

The Absolute is perfectly simple.

The Absolute is in an eternal now which transcends time.

The Absolute is an abstract divine principle.

The Absolute is the foundation of all existence.

If one compares the “properties” of the Absolute with the “properties” of pure consciousness, one sees that they are identical. 

The Absolute is identical with (Cosmic) consciousness. That would imply that even normal consciousness would be direct contact with – and perception of the Absolute 
So the argument that one cannot explain the complexity of the world by postulating a creative force that is even more complex, is a logical fallacy: .

The laws of nature that govern the world are extremely simple (E=mc² and so on)
Furthermore Quantum computers have the potential to process exponentially more data compared to classical computers, function on the principle of non-locality.
Notably, quantum computers are believed to be able to solve quickly certain problems that no classical computer could solve in any feasible amount of time—a feat known as “quantum supremacy.”
So here the principle of non-locality which is also attributed to the Absolute, indicates that Quantum computers who have substantially less components compared to classical computers, deal with a greater complexity and some suggest even That the quantum computer can do GBS 100 trillion times faster than a classical supercomputer.
Philip Ball editor of the journal Nature: ”Quantum computers so far don’t have more than around 70 cubits or so to play with, but it’s a testament to how much power quantum rules give you that already quantum computers can do in seconds with just that number of qubits some calculations that would rake today’s classical super computers a billion years or so.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1O11kP6x1k 34.50 -35.20

The incredible potential of quantum computing shows that a system with only 100 qubits passing a single bit through a single logic gate would effectively perform over 633 octillion calculations.
The exact number is: 633.825.300.114.114.700.748.351.602.688.

And with human intuition, which is non-algorithmic, solutions don’t  seem to take any time lapse.

How did the Absolute create the world?
The Absolute as a transcendent organising principle:
The totality of the platonic world is pure consciousness which is identical to the Absolute. This is called the Logos within Christianity .
Within this platonic world are platonic forms. These are called “the Word” within Christianity

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

These are no spatio-temporal located (physical) structures, but eternal abstract non-localised forms.
When within the spatio-temporal world structures emerge and develop within time and at a certain point in time reach a certain similarity with a platonic form, then this platonic form will organise this emergent structures by resonance.
This form of “active information” is called platonic instigation. 

Consciousness and the collapse of the wavefunction,
   
One could ask if the Wave Function Collapse within Quantum mechanics is related to platonic instigation.
A Wave Function within the realm of possibilities, could be a specific platonic form within the platonic realm.
Both the Wave Function and the platonic realm are non-spatio-temporal, non-material.
Platonic instigation would be an interplay of possibilities, the interaction of potentialities.
When a measurement is performed the situation is brought in line with a particular platonic form and platonic instigation and in this case the Wave Function Collapse takes place.
There is also the question: Does consciousness causes the collapse of the wave function?
Does the consciousness of a human observer or another biological system generate the collapse the wave function?
While this position has been taken serious by many theoretical physicists, there are a lot of problems with this interpretation.
If consciousness is necessary for the collapse of the wavefunction, then consciousness must have been present at the big bang. This cannot be consciousness from a biological system, which was absent in the first 10 billion years.

Theoretical physicist John Wheeler suggested retro-active causality to solve this problem.
While there seems to be retro-active causality, John Wheelers theory seems to have a lot of internal contradictions and incoherence.
If the totality of the platonic world is a state of pure consciousness, that would be a fundamental fact in the explanation of the relation of consciousness with platonic instigation and with that the relation of consciousness with collapse of the wave function.      

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse

Roger Penrose about consciousness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlv8DVb6e0Q&list=PLFJr3pJl27pJKWEUWv9X56y_ut3xwFDv1&index=6
especially:  11.08  –  20.21
( The measurement problem: 13.40  –  20.21)

The roll of consciousness is a fundamental question within theoretical physics.  

Flow, intuition and inspiration have a non-computational character .

There are higher levels of consciousness in which one is in contact with a deeper reality  

OBE
In an Out of the Body Experience there is a state of enhanced consciousness and perception, and not a diminished consciousness. This challenges the concept that consciousness is localised exclusively in the brain.
See:
The Mystery of Perception During Near Death Experiences – Pim van Lommel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avyUsPgIuQ0

 
“We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul”.                        Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings.” – Theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger

In his 1989 book “The Emperor’s New Mind”, Sir Roger Penrose took a quite different approach. He questioned whether consciousness was indeed computation, as is commonly assumed. Penrose explained that computers lack understanding, and some additional non-algorithmic, ‘non-computable’ factor was required. That factor, he suggested, involved ‘collapse of the wave function’–an event in which quantum superpositions terminate by a particular type of state reduction due to an objective threshold in the fine scale structure of the universe (‘objective reduction’, ‘OR’). That last step is a big one, but as Penrose later said (quoting Sherlock Holmes) “when you eliminate the impossible, whatever’s left must be correct, no matter how seemingly improbable”.

Citations: “Roger Penrose professor of mathematics at Oxford, explained that his interest in consciousness goes back to his discovery of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem while he was a graduate student at Cambridge. Gödel’s theorem, you may recall, shows that certain claims in mathematics are true but cannot be proven. “This, to me, was an absolutely stunning revelation,” he said. “It told me that whatever is going on in our understanding is not computational.”

Understanding
Roger Penrose: “Understanding cannot be computational simulated,
and Intelligence requires understanding. …It doesn’t make sense to say that we do understand something without even being aware of it.”

The Hiddenness of God (Why isn’t God more obvious?)
This question gave rise to what philosophers and theologians have called “the problem of divine hiddenness”.
A conceptual solution for this question can be found in the fine-tuning which can be seen as a manifestation of a transcendent cosmic force.
A perceptual solution for this question  can be found in the realisation that consciousness is a manifestation of a transcendent cosmic force.

While the fine-tuning can be seen as an indirect manifestation of a transcendent cosmic force, consciousness is a direct (perceptual) manifestation of a transcendent cosmic force