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    It is not easy to grasp the simple role of consciousness, because consciousness is wrapped up with every detail of our experience ; we therefore see distinctions between many different things, rather than unity in one.

     Philosophers have spent a good deal of time explaining exactly how the awareness of a stubbed toe is different from the memory of a stubbed toe in days gone by, or a dream (or even the dream of a memory or the memory of a dream), and how all are different from the reality of the stubbed toe itself ; not to mention the simple “feelings” which are our emotional response to things ; and again, our awareness (and feelings about) things that are not “things” at all : awareness of the ideation of meanings in words like Love and Justice, Hate and Evil.

     In the modern clinical laboratory, this philosophical complexity is compounded with the complexity of describing our observations of brain activity patterns associated with different conscious experiences, and hence, the areas of the brain which might be responsible for their production.

     How then, are we to study what is common to all consciousness (and hence what consciousness always is) ?

     One path towards this goal would be to study the unconscious state, to compare, to subtract, to identify what is present in the one and absent from the other.

     However, there is a slight problem here :

     There is no experience of the unconscious state.

       When we are truly unconscious we do not simply feel like somebody who can feel nothing ; there is no experience at all ; there is no “us” ; there is no “it” ; without present ; without memory ; without anticipation ; Nothing. As far as we are concerned, there is a complete void of existence, as though nothing — and nobody — ever had, or would exist.

     That is the whole point :

     All “experience” is conscious.

     So, might we settle all the world’s problems just by killing ourselves, the way a child thinks he can make the boogey-man disappear, by closing his eyes ? Clearly not. For we are not alone ; even if, as some people think, our conscious experience ends with death, the world marches on ; all of the other people are still alive and conscious, existence continues without us.

     And yet there would still seem to be many things that might truly be lost with death. Consider a very special conversation — of immense importance — between two soulmates : if it is not recorded ; if it has never been described ; if both parties are departed ; does it (did it) ever exist ?

     “Perhaps”, comes the thoughtful answer. Our thoughts and actions might be greatly altered in such a conversation ; its effects might be felt in all of our interactions with others. Great deeds, even children, might be the result. But, if, on the other hand, the conversation took place on a deserted island ; if both participants died beyond contact ; their bones never discovered by others ; all of their common experience lost : why should we even care ?

     The world is alive now. It is vast. There are billions of self-aware creatures experiencing and creating that life. What need does such a living world have of a specific memory– or any memory at all for that matter. Whatever is lost will immediately be replaced with something new. Perhaps it is better, indeed, to forget the past ; revel in the present ; enjoy the good ; erase the bad. Easy to forget — easy to forgive.

     But what if there were only one conscious mind remaining in the world ? If that mind is silenced, does the whole world then disappear into the pure annihilation of unconsciousness ? Does that world even continue to exist ? And if so, how does that existence differ from no existence at all ?

To be continued …

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Definition (abridged) from the Oxford Dictionary

“MIRACLE (noun):

An extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws …

Middle English via Old French from Latin miraculum ‘object of wonder’, from mirari ‘to wonder’, from mirus ‘wonderful’.

***

     An Apple, a Raging Sea, a Moonlit Path, a Baby, these are all extraordinary and (at least potentially) welcome events ; but none of them are miracles.

     Consciousness, however, fully satisfies the conditions stipulated.

     This is a most momentous fact, I submit, and one which has received nothing like the attention that it deserves.

     But what sort of attention can we usefully give, one might ask, to something which we have actually defined as immune to any explanation of a natural or scientific sort  ?

     Dare I respond ? : We might bring an attention (contemplation) infused with a proper sense of awe.

     Consciousness, I might add, positively invites such contemplation. In fact, contemplation, the very nature of consciousness in the act of contemplating itself, produces such a strong and pleasurable feed-back loop in experience, that countless generations of our best and brightest have attempted to seek asylum therein, entirely forsaking the natural and scientific, in the hopes of acceding to a “higher” plane of reality where consciousness defines nature, not the other way around.

     It would be impossible, I believe, to overestimate the loss sustained by human society through the voluntary withdrawal of such a high percentage of our natural leadership from the cares, and responsibilities of active life. There has been, however, this benefit from the constant presence among us of such mystically oriented drones : that we are at least reminded of the awesome power of consciousness, even if we are also reminded of the infinite dangers therein, just as we are aware of those concerning alcohol, pornography and drug addiction.

     We should not, however, be unwilling to fall in love, simply because we have come to despise pornography. Nor should we be afraid to explore the implications of consciousness, simply because we have seen (or experienced), the ravages produced through misplaced enthusiasm.

     It is frequently stated, moreover, that modern man is constantly searching for some meaning, to life, beyond the simple imperatives of our brutish animal existence. And consciousness, at the root of all experience, speculation, desire, memory — artistic exploration and expression — would appear central to any such discovery.

     But let us not burden ourselves, for the time being, with questions of what consciousness is or does. Let us permit ourselves, for a brief moment, to savor the mere fact that consciousness IS (at all), which is to say, the mere fact that consciousness exists.

    And to do that, let us return to the definition quoted above : We know that consciousness exists, because our experience is conscious — because we experience the conscious state.

And yet we also know that our consciousness is invisible to anybody else, possessing only natural and scientific means of enquiry to test us. And that is because consciousness has no physical product ; no physical signature ; no physical trace of its passage ; nothing detectable whatsoever.

Actually, the only test yet proposed for identifying the presence of consciousness is based on verbal reports, meaning, as Alan Turing expressed the problem : Can someone, or something convince me (knowing that I am conscious), that he, she, (or it) is conscious ?

But unfortunately, in answer to this question, we now have the evidence of a half century of evolution in artificial intelligence, notably demonstrated in the creation of IBM’s super platform Big Blue (roundly defeating all human competitors at the game of chess) which might lead us to doubt our ability to avoid being fooled by a mindless program during such an interview.

     Therefore, as defined : consciousness exists ; consciousness is (usually) experienced as a wonderful thing ; consciousness has no scientific explanation.

And that, in a nutshell, is the Miracle of Consciousness.

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     The thing about scientific knowledge, and discovery, is that they have real effects on what we believe, and how we behave. As people say, “Elections have consequences !” Well, so do scientific facts.

     But there is a great difference between the facts themselves and the ways we interpret those facts, which are the theories we devise to make sense of them.

     The legacy commonly associated with Isaac Newton allows us to predict the behavior of ordinary objects at our everyday scale. Knowing the dimensions of billiard balls, for example, and the force and direction with which the cue strikes the ball (plus resistance of the table-surface, angles, distances etc. etc.), we can in fact predict which shots will sink and which will not. And this knowledge brought on a wonderful change in human thinking : no more gremlins ; no more magic ; only reliable Laws of Nature. It is impossible to overestimate the benefits gained in that first Golden Age of Science.

     But over time, a new problem arose concerning the nature of the human mind, because, if the operation of the mind is dependent upon the brain (as it does appear to be), then our thoughts and actions would, in theory, be just as predictable as Newtonian billiard balls. In fact, they would not only be predicable, but “determined” : rolling reliably in harmony with present and past conditions — cause-and-effect — all the way back to the first whack of the Great Celestial Pool Cue.

     Unfortunately, as we shall see elsewhere, this view of reality has some very uncomfortable moral and philosophical implications which run counter to all that the human species has always assumed to be true. For as mentioned: what is believed to be fact has great consequences. And in this case, by a strict reading of the “facts”, the human being — and all the universe as well — was seemingly reduced to something akin to a giant wind-up toy.

     Einstein also, with his portrayal of time as a dimension equivalent to those of physical space, likewise encouraged the determinist view. The Universe, he suggested, could be described as a sort of eternal, multi-dimensional object, through which an ideal observer could progress, at will, backwards or forwards in time, just as we move back and forth in the three spatial dimensions ; that our experience of time, as an evolving narrative, was nothing more than a particularity of our mode of perception. In the end, then, popular interpretation of Newton, powerfully reinforced by Einstein, became a sort of intellectual bible (at or around the first quarter of the last century), and has not ceased to percolate into the public mind ever since, with often disastrous effects on the human psyche.

      For a long time, in fact, only the existence of consciousness, which has no physical signature – though largely ignored – remained to dispute this theory.

     Happily though, into this dismal circumstance, came the discovery that physical events on a smaller scale — that is the quantum scale populated by sub-atomic particles and their associated waves — can not be demonstrated to behave like Newtonian billiard balls, and therefore, do not conform (or at least do not necessarily conform), to Einstein’s idea of a perfect static whole.

     Now naturally, at this point, there has been a great temptation to cry “Aha ! the universe is not just physical after all” and all sorts of wild speculation has ensued. But we do not actually “know” these things. These, also, are only interpretations of fact, and not facts themselves.

     What we actually see, today, is a theoretical stand-off. On the one hand, we have people who would like to introduce (or re-introduce) all sorts of claims regarding the role of consciousness in the Universe (of which the present author represents a very cautious example), and on the other, we have a massive scientific consensus based mostly on prejudice, inertia — and fear of the unknown — many of whose proponents are extremely loath to abandon a (once) dominant world view which they were led to swallow uncritically with their first milk of knowledge, and which they have been encouraged to repeat (with the utmost confidence) ever since. Nonetheless, all must now evolve in an environment of competing — yet unverified — theories. It is therefore crucial to distinguish that which we know (observable fact) from that which we do not (theory)

     First, we know that real billiard balls will reliably fall into (or miss) pockets, on real tables, when they are propelled over short distances under known conditions.

     Secondly, we know that the sub-atomic wave-particles of which all our common objects are constituted, do not follow such rules : They are absolutely predictable in the aggregate, according to the probabilistic math of quantum mechanics, but, as far as anybody has been able to tell, individual quantum events have no explanation. Apparently, according to simple observation, reality is capriciously evolving as a series of tiny, statistically reasonable, chance events.

     And thirdly, beginning in the 1960’s with the mathematical descriptions of Edward Lorenz (and subsequent) it is becoming clear that inexplicable, individual, sub-atomic events will hugely influence even billiard balls over long distances (and whole solar systems over planetary stretches of time), not to mention hyper-complex processes in the human mind – and thus human behavior – right here, and right now.

     Therefore, as concerns the deterministic dimension of the intellectual stand-off described above, the debate is no longer equal : For, suddenly, after at least a hundred years of confident condescension, the burden is now upon the determinist, to tell us why he believes as he does !

     When Bell’s Theorem, for instance, reveals that reality is either non-local, or that information must be travelling faster than the speed of light (upsetting Einstein) – and when theorists arrive to speculate that an “absolutely determined” universe would explain these uncomfortable facts ; their adversaries may now respond in the same way that scientific opponents of unverifiable dogmas have always done : “Why should we believe this particular unsupported proposition rather than any other ?”

      Or, as common traditional wisdom would respond (to the claim that quantum entanglement could be explained IF the Universe were absolutely determinate) :

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride ;

And if turnips were watches, I’d wear one by my side !”   — anonymous 17^th

     Seriously, this is not a small thing. The role of consciousness has not been vindicated. Physical determinism has not been chased from the field. But these two interpretations are now at an equal disadvantage with regards to verified fact. And that, to use the sensational vocabulary of the twenty-first century, is a paradigm shift.

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     A free, indeterminate, future means that nothing has been definitely decided. We always have the benefit of the doubt. We can always make things better. We can always hope, and that hope will never be irrational.

     It is possible that we will not get the job, nor get the girl, nor live through the next 24 hours, but none of these negative outcomes is a certainty (assuming that we are not actually dying, or unsuited, to the one or to the other).

     An indeterminate future means that at one and the same time it is possible that we will get the job ; it is possible that the beloved will accept our suit ; it is possible that we will succeed in bringing the damaged sailboat safely back to land ; and it is also possible that we will fail, dismally or fatally, in any of these endeavors.

     I do not mean by this that the future is merely unknown, or even unknowable. It is not a question of being unable to predict the future.

     I mean, rather, that the future itself does not “know” what it will be. The future itself is multiple and in flux, without any but the ghostly being of probability, until all of those probabilities collapse into one real moment, which WE experience as a continuous narrative : our life, and the life of the world around us.

     This eternal moment of now, is the only “real” state of the universe ; while the past has the reality of present memory and forensic evidence ; but the future has no distinct reality at all.

     To live in a world where the future is irrevocably fixed – or to believe we live in such a world — is to live in anguish (or passive resignation) while waiting to “find out” what the future will bring.

     To live in a world where the future is undetermined, or to believe we live in such a world, is to leave a narrow dark cell to live in fresh air and light ; to breath freely ; to hope ; to plan ; to achieve ; to fail, certainly ; but always to begin again.

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     Chaos theory tells us that complex systems are critically sensitive to initial conditions, and are therefore impossible to predict.

     Simple systems (at least systems that appear simple to us) are not like that : A brick-laden cargo truck smashing into a stationary mobile home at 60 miles an hour will demolish that home. It doesn’t matter at all whether the truck is actually a brick or two short of a full load, the result will be the same. This dynamic is therefore NOT (critically) sensitive to initial conditions: there can be significant measurable differences in the weight of the truck and we can still “pretty much” tell what is going to happen.

     On the other hand, a couple of weeks from now, a particular afternoon may be sunny or overcast, and there really is no way to predict which it will be. That is because changes to initial conditions that are actually too small to measure will create gross changes in outcome. Pushing even one particular atmospheric atom, just a trifle to the left or to the right on the first day of June (the mere stroke of a butterfly’s wing, to employ that popular imagery), will not just mean that a sunny day on the Fourth of July will be “pretty much” the same, such a tiny change to starting conditions may result in a completely washed-out holiday.

     Therefore, given the complexity of the system prediction becomes impossible.

    BUT (as will object the typically determined Determinist), the inability to PREDICT a future event does NOT mean that the event is any less inevitable.

    Well… yes, it does actually ! Because this is where Quantum Physics intervenes.

     Quantum physics does not predict particular events ; quantum physics predicts only the PROBABILITY of a particular event occurring. In the real world, quantum physics is invaluable for predicting all sorts of simple things, because, as in the truck and trailer example, all we care about is the overall situation within a large margin of error.

     For instance, if we know the average size and weight of a brick, and the volume capacity of the truck (knowing also the speed of said truck), we can confidently predict the damage (Newtonian force at impact) sustained by the mobile home.

     However, in a complex situation like weather, EVERY detail counts. It is not enough to know what the probability of a butterfly flapping its wings is (and hence how many butterflies, overall, will be flapping at any given time), to predict the weather you would have to know exactly WHICH butterflies are flapping and which are not. To be perfectly clear : two butterflies can be sitting side by side, and if butterfly ‘A’ flaps her wings, then you had better board up your store fronts on a pacific island thousands of miles away ; but, if butterfly ‘B’ flaps, you will be able to go out collecting clams on a perfectly calm day ; and quantum physics cannot tell us which (if any) particular butterfly, of this pair, will flap.

     With reference to the truck, this would be like saying that if two bricks have a trivial difference in weight between them, and if the positions of those two bricks were to be reversed on the truck bed, the trailer would be destroyed in one case, but unharmed in the other (with no way of knowing which brick is where). THAT is the difference between a system that is “simple” and a system which is “complex” (under the sway of quantum probabilities).

     So, obviously, we will agree that a complex system, which is critically sensitive to initial conditions, (and that these depend on particular quantum events), will indeed be unpredictable. But quantum theory does not simply say that a specific quantum event is unpredictable. The dominant interpretation of these facts now states that there is no explanation for why such an event HAS occurred. In other words, as far as we know, there is no reason for the event to have happened. To the best of our knowledge, nothing CAUSED that event.

     Of course that is where our deep prejudices come into play, because everything has a cause, right ? Well… no, not as far as we can tell, (and as you may easily imagine, a great deal of work has been done trying to find some sort of “hidden” causes for quantum events — and this for the better part of a century — without any success at all).

     To take a simple example, radioactive atoms such as Uranium, decompose ; which is to say : their nuclei split into smaller parts which become the core of new and different (smaller) atoms.

     Quantum physics tells us the probability of any particular Uranium atom decomposing, and it tells us with great precision exactly what proportion of a larger Uranium sample will decompose in a particular time span. We possess no means, however, of either predicting which specific atoms will decay, or what is more, explaining why any particular atom DID decay. Again, as far as we know, there is no reason — no cause – for any particular decay.

     In fact, the whole idea of an “atom” is that it is absolutely identical to all other atoms of the same element. So there would seem to be nothing setting one off from another. And as for the atoms in a sample, so also for all the uranium atoms in the world (or in the universe) : We know that a certain number will decay, but we don’t know which ones (and to pose an obvious question that we will consider in another place : how do THEY know whether they should decay or not ? How CAN atoms on opposite sides of the universe know whether the over all probability curve will be respected if they decay, or if they do not ?)

     In any case, the point is simple : with each individual quantum butterfly making up the universe, there is no reason or cause for why, or why not, she will beat her wings. This means, that for any complex system like the weather (or the neural interactions in the brain, or the behavior of people in a group), outcomes are critically sensitive to initial conditions which are tied to events which have NO CAUSE. Which is the same thing as saying that the weather (not to mention human thought and behavior) have NO CAUSE that can be found in mechanical interactions of the sort described by Newton.

     There are, to be fair, three possibilities : 1) there may be physical reasons for quantum events that have yet to be discovered (although the likelihood of this becomes less with the passage of time, and ever more detailed observations) 2) reality may be determined and constrained by forces that are not open to physical examination (many religious people, like Calvinists and Muslims believe this to be true, and more will be said on this subject elsewhere) 3) it may be true (and this is indeed the inevitable empirical conclusion of the scientific facts cited) that the future is open and free.

     The articulation of this simple argument on behalf of an indeterminate future, relying on the interaction of Quantum Physics and Complexity Theory, represents a large part of the significance of the present work. I first arrived at this reasoning in, or around, 1997. I have never seen this idea advanced elsewhere. I have discussed this theory with several people possessing the relevant scientific experience and none has even attempted to argue seriously against it. I would be most grateful to anyone who might demonstrate an error therein. But in the absence of such demonstration, I must conclude that this proof is valid, and of the greatest importance to many of the foremost controversies in contemporary human thought.

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