In one of the other posts I wrote about certain experiences that I had. I was able to experience something that challenged my definition of consciousness. We think about consciousness as the inhabiting of a particular point, a perspective, in time and space, the experience of a subject. We experience time as the succession of events, the constant flux of change in our awareness of the environment. Our perspective is shaped by the filtering of this point of view through our senses, cognition, and awareness — a narrowing of attention.
There are theories that suggest consciousness reaches further than humans : to animals, living organisms, and inanimate objects. Because consciousness is not something we can measure and verify it remains open for interpretations. Here I will offer my interpretation.
We cannot experience a reality that is not in our perception. But “reality” might extend beyond what we can experience — and we can only speculate about that part. What we also can do is alter our perception, and in that way experience a part of reality that in day to day life for some specific reasons we can’t experience.
First and foremost : We cannot think about consciousness like we think about material. Forget about materialism. Experience we can only think and talk about. There is a part of reality, that is shared in our perception, but theres also a part of reality that is not physical, which is not accessible to our senses, non-causal relations, such as entanglement, such as qualia (experiencing the color red for example). Now comes the important part : our personal reality exists only in our perception. Reality for us doesn’t have an exterior and an interior. In the sense of consciousness it means that we can only assume that there are other consciousnesses, we cannot directly experience those. And now comes the question : If we have consciousness and we know that other humans have the same consciousness, can it be that consciousnesses are projections of each other ? is there a non-physical dimension where consciousnesses overlap and exchange experiences ? what would it mean to expand my own field of consciousness in that dimension ?
consciousness is made of experiences, experiences are made from what we sense but also from : dreams, imagination, memory, abstract thoughts, emotional states, intuitions, and also mystical / altered-state experiences (psychedelics, trance, deep meditation, rituals etc).
We can say we share many of the non physical experiences with other humans and products of our culture, art, language, knowledge, world feeling etc. In that sense we do share our consciousness with other people.
Do we share our consciousness with non humans ? maybe in two ways :
first, if that means that non human things exist in our consciousness and relate to our dreams, imagination, memory, abstract thoughts, emotional states, intuitions etc. then yes.
Secondly, if that means that non human things have hidden aspects that we can discover, through dreams, imagination, memory, abstract thoughts, emotional states, intuitions, and also mystical / altered-state experiences, than they can expand our consciousness to include experiences that we cannot experience through senses, but though other means.
You can try this experiment : try to think that the universe has consciousness. Now, try to realize that we exist as conscious being, to allow this cosmos to be able to look at itself. While looking at the world, the world is actually looking at itself through our eyes. You can read in many places about people experiencing that notion, I managed to experience the same in quite a late phase in my life, and it was a weird and wonderful sensation. I believe that you have to have these thoughts, to put it into use. Imagination, synaesthesia, and tapping into altered-states will help one getting that feeling.
self-awareness : complex subjective experience, abstract thought, language, memory, and imagination.
sentience: pain perception, problem-solving, emotions, social awareness.
But let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions. I know for sure that my pain exists, my “green” exists, and my “sweet” exists. I do not need any proof of their existence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is a theory. Later we find out that our perceptions obey some laws, which can be most conveniently formulated if we assume that there is some underlying reality beyond our perceptions. This model of material world obeying laws of physics is so successful that soon we forget about our starting point and say that matter is the only reality, and perceptions are only helpful for its description. —Andrei Linde
All physical elements have also phenomenal attributes, meaning qualitative properties next to their quantitive properties. Every object can be experienced. Experience becomes a property of matter. It is present in all material, sub atomic particles etc.
When we, as humans, interact with the world, we are also taking part in other interactions. Interactions have an exterior aspect – physical world, senses, and an interior aspects – quality, which takes part in consciousness.
The interiority of elements, are the non-physical aspect of their experience (objects interacting with other objects). While we cannot experience them directly, we can project them into our own consciousness, therefor take part in a shared collective consciousness.
One example that can help de-mystify the notion that every element such as sub particle has a kind a non-physical aspect to it can be expressed in the Entanglement or Wavefunction collapse phenomena. There is a non causal aspect to elements.
We are conscious. Were does consciousness reside ? were does it end ? does consciousness reside in our body, composed out of particles and cells ? are all micro-elements, organic cells, conscious as well ? Again, to de-mystify this notion, our cells form our senses and through those phenomena emerge – when we are conscious, we experience qualitative information through senses – color, warmth, smell etc’. Its is not only our bodies that take part in this qualitative experience, but also the objects and elements we come in contact with. We can say that all that part in consciousness.
Throughout the history of philosophy there was a clear distinction between the world of phenomena and noumena (Kantian definition : what exists beyond or behind appearances), different thinkers tried to outline where the two domains begin and end. Many types of relation exists between all types of objects, but they are not experienced in our consciousness. Some examples why these connections are concealed from us can be due to their far position in space or time, our attention which can block aspects and relations of objects, or our mind being programmed to view the world through a certain lens, for example physical, spiritual etc’
When we explain something we reduce it to something else. Reduction overlaps with the anthropocentric dimension of humans, we tend to think about other things in our own terms, a sort of projection, reduction. When we talk about a consciousness of other-than-human, we are left without explanation, without reduction. Knowledge in this case is also blindness, we can say something about things only because we ignore other aspects of them (reduce them).
Every revealing is also a concealing. — Heidegger
This echo’s modern philosophies : Phenomenology’s revealing-concealing, OOO’s object withdrawal, Posthumanism’s – Knowledge is not neutral; it’s an entangled, situated act.