The Conscious Clan (Part 1/2)

Brain Consciousness

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I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.

〰 Max Planck 〰

Brainy Scientists In the Know

Beginning of December 2023 we were invited to a small gathering for a remote attendance of the Holberg Debate on consciousness. The Holberg Lectures are an annual event in Bergen, Norway. The organisers invite three scientists each year to give a brief presentation on a particular topic, followed by a discussion.

The theme of 2023 ~ Does Consciousness Extend Beyond Brains? ~ was presented by David Malone and discussed by Prof. Anil Seth, Prof. Taya Luhrmann, and Dr. Rupert Sheldrake ~ three experts introduced as ‘heretics’ among ‘consciousness-scientists’.

Does Consciousness Extend Beyond Brains?

Following the lead of (some) scientists many people assume that the brain, somehow, produces consciousness. Although no one has found out how this miracle happens, many experts (mostly neuroscientists?) cling to this hypothesis, as demonstrated by the title of the Holberg debate.

Cognitive scientists have established fairly recently that the whole brain is a neural plexus. The discovery supersedes the previous theory of the so-called ’triune brain’, which assigned distinct evolutionary stages to different parts of the vital organ in a human skull.

We also know, and can agree on the fact, that the brain is not the only neural plexus in the human body. Neurons and their plexuses extend all through the organism, fulfilling many vital functions. (See previous wordcasts Getting our Head around the Brain and Cognition at our Fingertips.)

If we assume that the cerebral plexus ~ this web of nerves which we call ‘the brain’ ~ generates consciousness, somehow, then it would make sense to conclude that the other plexuses in the body do the same thing. Therefore the question ‘Does Consciousness Extend Beyond Brains?’ would be a no-brainer.

Biologists and foresters/ authors Suzanne Simard (Finding the Mother Tree), Florianne Kœchlin (Chatty Tomatoes, Mozart and the Cunning Millet etc.), Peter Wohlleben (The Hidden Life of Trees), Merlin Sheldrake (Entangled Life) and others have explored plant consciousness for decades. Does their work qualify as ‘consciousness beyond brains’?

The German physicist Max Planck (1858 – 1947) said: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

Max Planck was a highly respected scientist. He thought and wrote about this stuff ± 100 years ago! Why are neuroscientists still so hung up on the ‘brain-producing-consciousness’ theory?

It must be a common phenomenon in scientific circles, captured in an offhand remark made by the great Max Planck himself: “science progresses one funeral at a time.”

Plant-Consciousness

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States of Consciousness

Viewed through the linguistic verbioscope, the English noun consciousness was born in the 17th century, first in the sense of internal knowledge, later settling on the meaning of 'state of being aware of what passes in one's own mind.'

The ‘parent’ of the noun was the adjective conscious [from Latin con = with, thoroughly + scire = to know]. A conscious person was originally defined as someone “knowing or perceiving within oneself, sensible inwardly, aware.”

About two centuries after the birth of the word in its original sense conscious took on a secondary identity. The sense of “active and awake, endowed with active mental faculties" (from 1837) developed in the field of medical science.

Unconscious, a sibling and counterpart of conscious was born soon after. Initially carrying the meaning of unaware it also adopted the sense of ’temporarily knocked out’.

As a noun the unconscious or unconsciousness (from 1876) became a key term in psychology. The adjective has been used in the psychological sense since 1912.

Subconscious (from 1886) was introduced within psychological terminology to describe “mental processes taking place without consciousness.” (This is confusing, I know... what is meant here by 'consciousness' is actually awareness!)

Here are the definitions of conscious, and its relatives in common use today.

The adjective conscious has 6 meanings

1 – awake, alert, being in charge of one’s mental faculties, not dulled by sleep, coma or stupor
2 – perceptive, noticing what’s going on around you
3 – aware of one’s own feelings and experience
4 – aware of others, aware of opportunities and details in your environment
5 – marked by critical awareness or moral conscience
6 – capable of or marked by deliberate thought or intention

The noun consciousness is used in 6 definitions

1 – the quality or state of being awake and alert
2 – the quality or state of being aware of objects or facts
3 – awareness of a situation, esp. social or political causes
4 – perceptiveness of one’s own sensations, emotion, volition and thought = mind
5 – the totality of conscious states of an individual
6 – the ‘upper level’ of the mind, in which a person is aware, in contrast to unconscious processes

The adjective unconscious can be used in 5 ways

1 – having lost consciousness (when in a coma or under general anæsthesia)
2 – not driven by conscious thought or decision
3 – coming from the so-called ‘unconscious part’ of the mind
unconscious matter
4 – marked by lack of awareness
5 – not deliberately planned, located in a blind spot

The noun unconscious is defined in Merriam Webster's dictionary as “the part of mental life that does not ordinarily enter the individual's awareness yet may influence behavior and perception or be revealed (as in slips of the tongue or in dreams)."

The adjective subconscious is used synonymously with unconscious in the psychological sense, referring to knowledge which exists within 'consciousness' but lies beyond awareness.

Likewise, the noun subconscious refers to mental activities which are hidden behind the veils of ignorance, oblivion, inexperience or repressed memories.

This brief overview captures the wide range of meanings (and also the confusion) which the word-clan of conscious represents in today’s language. Forced to play a considerable range of different roles, the 'conscious-words' have to spread themselves thin, which comes at a cost.

As conscious and consciousness slip seamlessly between different ‘states’ and environments, wearing an obscure array of diaphanous expressions, they are difficult to pin down. Coming from a vast infinite space, they have been forced to convey a restricted amount of human mental activity.

Consciousness, in English, has become synonymous with mind, awareness, wakefulness, alertness, responsiveness, sentience.

Conscious is used in the sense of aware, awake, alert, responsive, reactive, feeling, sentient, compos mentis.

Given the fact that Sanskrit has up to a dozen different words which can be translated as ‘consciousness’ we must consider the possibility that perhaps these verbionts are either overwhelmed or underwhelmed by the task.

1. Water Consciousness
   

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Conscience, the forgotten Ancestor

Long before conscious and relations came to life in English, a different word was born from the same combination of the Latin [con = with, thorough + scire = to know].

Conscience (adopted in English around 1200) was originally associated with Christian ethics in the sense of the ‘faculty of knowing what is right.’ In contrast to its more general descendant 'consciousness' as defined above, it was loaded with a sense of moral responsibility, fairness, justice and conforming with the ideal of goodness.

This was purely the English interpretation! The original Latin conscientia is far more neutral. It simply means knowledge, or ‘a joint knowledge of something, a knowing of a thing together with another person.’ Conscientia refers to knowing something well, thoroughly, or in depth.

Deep knowledge within oneself naturally leads to a sense of right and wrong. It is not a moral obligation imposed by a religious superior power. The parallel Old French conscience carried the meaning of innermost thoughts, desires, intentions and feelings.

The word science, another close relation, was adopted in English in mid 14 c. Without the prefix con- it simply meant state or fact of knowing, knowledge of something acquired by study, a body of human knowledge, or expert skill. The systematised knowledge of the physical world, acquired through a scientific method developed gradually through 17–18 c., originally referring to philosophy.

The current use of the word science in the modern sense of natural and physical science and restricted to the study of phenomena of the material universe emerged by the mid 19-c.

“The men who founded modern science had two merits which are not necessarily found together. Immense patience in observation, and great boldness in framing hypotheses.” Bertrand Russell wrote in A History of Western Philosophy in 1945. “The second of these merits had belonged to the earliest Greek philosophers; the first existed, to a considerable degree, in the later astronomers of antiquity.”

Star Consciousness

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