What Is Consciousness?
I like this quote from a Stuart Hammeroff, a medical doctor specializing in anesthesiology who has studied consciousness for the past 30 years:
Most people think that consciousness emerged over eons as a byproduct of random mutations and the inherent complexity of natural selection, but I look at it the other way around. I think a fundamental field of protoconscious experience has been embedded all along—since the big bang—in the [quantum realm], and that biology evolved and adapted in order to access it and to maximize the qualities and potentials implicit within it. . . I think that when you meditate and attain nothingness . . . it isn’t quite nothingness. You move more deeply into the basic fabric of the universe and actually become more consciously a part of it.
Comments
I think that implying that
I think that implying that these two theories must be mutually exclusive is fairly limiting. It is possible for things to occur simultaneously within a species as a byproduct of random mutation, and then concurrently be consciously be interpreted by members of a species who have had it embedded all along but maybe were not aware of the adaptive advantages.
Everything has an innate consciousness of the universe... but the ability to tap in to that consciousness will vary by species as well as within species. It is unfair and unrealistic to expect all living things to tap into their consciousness to their maximum capabilities, some people actively choose to live comfortably within limited consciousness and it is limiting to attach a value judgment to that.
First off, let's not be
First off, let's not be afraid of value judgments. It's no offense to suggest that the consciousness of, say, an ant, is less developed than that of a human's. And, especially when a it is causing harm, it is fair to make judgments on human consciousness as well. A worldview that argues, for example, that white people are superior to "colored" people, can and should be judged by people with wider and more inclusive worldviews.
That said, I don't think there is any value judgment in the quote above. I think the author is simply saying that the process of evolution is a move towards a greater consciousness that has always already existed from the beginning.
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