A Rational Cosmology: The Consistency of Life's Unity and Subjective Perception with Its Physical Nature

In his essay "Life," Mr. Reginald Firehammer claims that the unity of life and consciousness precludes them from being physical:

"Unity-this aspect also pertains to both consciousness and life, but is more apparent as a characteristic of consciousness. Any organism has only one consciousness and it is the same consciousness that perceives what is seen, what is tasted, what is heard, smelled, and felt. It is the same consciousness that feels the wheel of the car with the hands, the accelerator pedal with the foot, sees the light change from red to green, and hears the music on the radio all simultaneously. This aspect of consciousness is almost never recognized. It is one reason, for example, no computer or computer program will ever create consciousness. It would be impossible, at the physical level, to make all the discrete physical events required for detection of separate phenomena be a single event. Because consciousness is an aspect of life, however, which is not physical and not limited by physical attributes, such as discreteness, the same consciousness can be conscious of an indefinite number of things at the same time."

But Mr. Firehammer is mistaken here. What consciousness perceives is in fact a series of discrete physical entities and events! The fact that consciousness perceives them accurately by noting that they are simultaneous is no repudiation of its physical nature.

It is quite possible for a physical system to run multiple simultaneous processes in unison, for the creation of a single effect or result which integrates the work of all those processes. (Consider even a car wash, where the car is subject to multiple treatments at the same time, all, however, working toward a single result: the cleanliness of the car.)

Man's simultaneous awareness of multiple processes and external stimuli is a testament to the extraordinary complexity of his sensory organs and consciousness, but it does not refute the physical nature of his perception. After all, he continues to perceive all the different external entities and processes as distinct. They do not blend into a single sensation for him. He is always clearly able to distinguish taste from touch and a sound from a view; moreover, he can distinguish multiple entities or processes perceived through the same sense from one another.

Mr. Firehammer further writes:

"Subjectiveness-consciousness in all other creatures except ourselves is inferred, because consciousness is a subjective experience. There is no doubt that this inference is correct, but consciousness, itself, cannot be directly perceived, even in other people, much less other animals."

This is true in the sense that nobody can experience what another conscious entity experiences at the exact same time that it experiences it, without being that entity. However, as subsequent essays will show, it is indeed possible to know what another's consciousness is like and to objectively verify the validity of certain experiences.

Nothing, moreover, bars subjectiveness from being an emergent property as I had earlier described. The fact that a system is capable of directing itself, but in a way that no other external force is capable of directing it, means that the system must have some special and exclusive level of access to its own workings that no external entity or system can have. Subjectiveness is the manifestation of such a level of access, and may well logically follow from the fact that a spatially integrated system has a far greater ability to control its own functions than another system spatially remote from it.

Read other parts of "A Rational Cosmology" by clicking here.