Non-Biological Consciousness

 Where Is Consciousness?

It is commonly assumed that consciousness is a process of the brain, and that it is rooted in the physical, biological realm. After all, the brain is the central part of the body, and it controls our entire being. Yet, there is no evidence that consciousness takes place in the brain, or anywhere else in the body for that matter. The mind and its functions derive from the brain, but consciousness might be something entirely different.

Many scientists insist that consciousness comes from, or is identical to, electrical and chemical processes known to happen in the brain. However, there has been a lot of controversy and debate on the matter, caused by a large number of clinically dead hospital patients who claim to have risen out of their bodies and seen themselves from above. An image of a light at the end of a tunnel is also often reported by people who survive from such an experience.[1] Biologically, these happenings are impossible because a clinically dead patient has no brain activity. Therefore, if these experiences are in fact real, and not just tricks that the brain somehow plays on patients, then the core of consciousness must be somewhere else than in the brain. And, as inclined in the near-death experiences, the conscious experience might not disappear when a person dies. Presently, there are many studies and experiments investigating the validity of the claimed out-of-body experiences. Some experiments involve the playing of specific sounds which the patients will be asked to recall after reviving. Another method is placing several pictures in the patient’s room, which can only be seen from the ceiling; the patients will be asked to remember what was on the pictures after reviving.[2] If all of the patients say they left their bodies, but none of them can identify what was on the pictures, then it must be a fake memory; a trick or fallacy of the brain. However, if the majority of patients can recall what was on the pictures, then many scientists and others might have to accept that consciousness is not purely biological. In fact, recent results have shown that most of the patients did recall what was on the pictures or what music was being played in the room after the near-death experience. Although a lot of scientists are now accepting the fact that these events are real, many are still skeptical because the events are scientifically inexplicable. 

Artificial Consciousness

But if human consciousness is not local to the brain, then where is it? If consciousness is not biological, some inventors and futurists ask, then can a computer have a conscious experience? Today’s most advanced computers with artificial intelligence can build models of its own experience, and make decisions just the way a human does.[3] In this sense, there is no fundamental difference between a biological and a non-biological entity. But can these automatic processes have a conscious experience? Some would say that while a computer might have a mind of its own, acting just the way a human being does, it will never have the internal, conscious experience that humans have; it will never experience self-consciousness. Others say an entity does not need to be biological to be conscious. The problem is that, scientifically or philosophically, there is no way to prove that any entity is conscious.[4]

 Consciousness and God

Theories go further than technology, however. For example, some people believe that humans are made up of infinite consciousness, and that we are all one collective entity, but our physical separation has led us to believe that we all have an individual consciousness. They claim consciousness is God, singular yet everywhere. When a person says “I am this or that”, there is an assumption that they are limited, that the consciousness of “I am” has a boundary. In the Bible, God says “I am that I Am”, implying that he is not a limited thing; he is infinite, he is consciousness itself.[5] A helpful analogy given by a Vedic priest is that of a wave in the ocean. A wave is nothing but the ocean. A wave has no individuality of its own. It is in fact only the ocean taking the form of a wave, pushing up as a wave. There is not a boundary where the wave begins and ends. It is only the form which arises that suggests a wave is different from the ocean, and may cause the wave to think he is different; but in the end, water is water. In that sense, we are the waves, and we are part of the ocean which is consciousness.[6] Very few even insist that our whole universe is not real, that it is merely a picture painted by a single entity of collective consciousness. While these theories are very hard to believe and rather far-fetched, the belief of a connection between God and consciousness does seem to be becoming more mainstream.[7] Another theory which is slowly getting recognition is that the idea of God is simply a person’s consciousness. God is not a singular being; God is in each one of us. Hinduism says God is simply a different term for what is more commonly referred to as the self.[8] He represents the conscious experience of each one of us, and the canvas of consciousness that we paint on.

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