A large variety of complex biological systems exhibit consciousness. A research paper posits that the USA as a country is conscious

The United States of America is a country of 331 million people. Individuals are often highly specialized; they do their own things, but together, they work like a conscious superorganism. A person in the country doesn’t have an overview of what’s going on in their hive. They are concerned about what’s important to them, like earning a living, raising children, loving or hating each other. Culture, laws, currency, and religion glue them together.

The head of state is the President of the United States. He has a somewhat better overview of the state. He, the Congress, and the Senate participate in the decision on how to respond to the outside world and everything that capricious fate throws at the country, like, let’s say, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and market meltdowns. The President can only grasp so much of what’s happening in the country of hundreds of millions. He is not aware of each individual life. He only receives some overview data, such as how much budget he has. He can, for example, watch his country or other countries in the outside world on a computer monitor via cameras and satellites, which also helps in making decisions regarding how to act as a superorganism - the USA.

A conscious human is a superorganism of about 30 trillion highly specialized cells. Each of them doesn’t have an overview of the whole body and only does what it’s programmed to do. This is similar to how it works in hives of ants, where individual ants perform only simple tasks without awareness of the whole superorganism. Not all cells are attached, forming continuous tissues. Around 70% or 20 trillion are red blood cells that don’t even have a cell nucleus with DNA. They transport oxygen from the lungs to all body parts and float in the blood.

Even though we have the impression that we are one, our brain is made of around 86 billion neurons. Other specialized, supporting cells in the brain are also crucial during thinking and making decisions. Furthermore, we have two brain hemispheres that are two separate minds glued together. We also have other subminds within. When we see something, we really see a three-dimensional representation of the outside world, similar to 3D graphics on the computer screen.

This is created by the same part of our brain that creates dreams, but when we are awake, this dream is created with inputs from our senses

This submind that has some overview is you. You watch a film - your life, presented to you by other specialized subsystems of the mind. This is consciousness, and it evolved because forming a 3D representation of the outside world in our mind and watching it by another submind within helps the superorganism to respond better to the challenges of the outside world. Similarly, the culture of the USA developed to have a President who has some overview of what’s going on. It organized itself this way so that responding to the outside world is more efficient. Large groups of humans are superorganisms glued together by their culture

This is how conscious humans come to be, and they, in turn, are a tiny part of the superorganisms of humanity that achieved something no other form of life ever achieved on Earth. We can build spaceships, perhaps colonize other planets in the future, and spread life to different corners of the Universe. This fascinating superorganism evolved on our beautiful blue planet in the Milky Way Galaxy.

The question was: What is consciousness?

Footnotes

Here

are

the top 10 possible ways to explain it:

1. Consciousness is the state of being aware of one's surroundings, thoughts, and feelings.
2. Consciousness is the subjective experience of being alive and aware of oneself and the world.
3. Consciousness is the ability to perceive, process, and respond to stimuli.
4. Consciousness is the product of brain activity and neural networks.
5. Consciousness is the feeling of having a sense of self and a unique identity.
6. Consciousness is the result of complex interactions between sensory inputs, cognitive processes, and emotions.
7. Consciousness is the ability to introspect and reflect on one's thoughts and experiences.
8. Consciousness is the foundation of human cognition and creativity.
9. Consciousness is the key to understanding the relationship between mind, body, and the external world.
10. Consciousness is a fundamental aspect of human existence, and its nature and origin remain one of the great mysteries of science and philosophy.

"Consciousness" refers to several related phenomena, which is why people have such a difficult time agreeing about what it is.

Here are some specific phenomena that fall under the larger umbrella of consciousness and also "the mind":

Awake state -- What is different about someone who is awake vs. someone who is in dreamless sleep? In both cases, the brain is highly active and functioning, but in only one case is the individual able to interact with the world and report experiences. Dreams and other altered states of consciousness may lie somewhere between these two extremes. Other variants of non-awakeness include general anesthesia and "persistent vegetative state" (related to coma).

Perceptual awareness -- What is going on when you are aware of something vs. when you aren't? In binocular rivalry, two conflicting images are shown to each eye. The information about both images enters the brain, but only one image is seen at a time. Which image is seen changes periodically and spontaneously. There are other examples of information being processed "subliminally" without being perceived "consciously". In stage magic, what is perceived is different from what is actually happening. What is the difference between sensory signals entering the brain, and something being perceived "consciously"?

Subjective (first-person) point of view -- Consciousness is private, subjective and experienced from a particular point of view: yours. What accounts for this point of view, for the unique "interiority" that gives the feeling that you exist inside your head somewhere? Is your version of the color red unique to you or the same for everyone? If a machine was conscious, would it have a first-person "experience"? As philosophers would say, is there something that it's like to be a computer?

Unity of experience -- Consciousness feels "whole", indivisible, and irreducible. There is the sense that the world is experienced instantaneously in complete, integrated, and meaningful detail. Hundreds of scientific experiments show that this unity is an illusion (change blindness, attentional filtering, attentional blink, visual illusions, timing errors, split brain patients, mental disorders, various neurological syndromes, ...). But the illusion is so powerful it takes a real force of will to be skeptical of it. When consciousness becomes fragmented, as with dissociative drugs, brain damage, split-brain surgery, or divided attention, has consciousness been degraded?

Personal identity (existence, self, ego) -- One unique aspect of the human experience is the sense that we exist -- that there is an "I" in there somewhere, looking out onto the world. Why do all our experiences come from our body and not someone else's? Does our uniqueness as an individual come from a "soul" that is somehow attached to the brain, or is it a construct generated by the brain? If someone wakes up with amnesia, or has dementia or dissociative disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder), has their conscious self ceased to exist, even though they seem conscious?

Self-awareness -- Also uniquely human is our ability to "introspect" onto what is going on in our own mind. Descartes famously said "I think therefore I am." One complaint about the idea of consciousness in a computer is that a computer seems incapable of answering the question "what is it like to be you?". If you can't reflect on your own inner life, are you still conscious?

Personal agency -- In modern society, an important distinction is made between voluntary action (doing something"intentionally") and involuntary action (accidental behavior). To do something "consciously" is to do it with forethought and purpose. In Tourette's Syndrome, people make intentional-seeming actions involuntarily. This ties into the tricky question of "free will" as well as the legal concept of mental competency and the insanity defense. "He was not in conscious control of his actions" the defense might say.

Some scientific models of consciousness: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Models_of_consciousness

Related:
What are some of the current neuroscientific theories of consciousness?
Does the mind give rise to consciousness or does the consciousness generate mind?
Where is our consciousness, and is it a thing that has mass/matter?
What defines the conscious vs. the unconscious parts of the brain?
Is consciousness an emergent property of the brain or a fundamental property of matter? Isn't saying that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain just as much a non-explanation as saying it is a fundamental property of all matter?
How many neurons are needed to create a conscious entity? What's the minimum number of neurons to trigger that consciousness?
Is there such a thing as the subconscious?

From the realms of sheer darkness, when you wake up early in the morning, slowly, you become aware.

Initially, you see the light, the objects in the room, and then you realise that you are alive. And seeing all this, you realise your present circumstances, what you are as a personality? What this day means to you? What this morning means? You realise the estimations and expectations from the day and life. You feel your body, any minor or major discomfort like pain irritation in the throat. Quickly you establish an identity of “I” inside the physical body who is dealing with this world. You add a deeper meaning to mere stimuli.

Your mind automatically connects all the memories, thoughts, circumstances, experiences, notions, feelings together in a complex net and you feel the world in a unique way.

“Being alive and the feeling that I am alive is consciousness.”

The ability to experience this world through the combination of our senses, mind, subconscious repository, judgements, thoughts and the ability to realise that we are experiencing something combined is consciousness.

The unique perspective and thought process you have while interacting with the environment, how you uniquely you perceive things and situations, based upon your mind, emotions, memories, biases, is your consciousness.

Realising that you inside a body is reacting in a particular way to a particular situation is consciousness; reacting is not consciousness even robots and bots do that. Pbserving your reactions, realising that you are tea ting, bringing emotions to reactions is consciousness.

More you are aware of your surroundings, life and environment, the better your consciousness.

The essence of consciousness may be similar but, the depth and operational ways are different in people.

For example, when someone shouts at us, some of us would take it as an offensive behaviour and react accordingly, others would take it as nonsense and ignore, some would identify the reason why that person is behaving in that way, “he is frustrated because of that bad incident.”

You are seeing movie in a theatre.

Experiencing the story, visual scenes is consciousness

Being aware that it's a movie is also consciousness.

Seeing yourself interacting in a particular way with this world and its stimuli is also consciousness. The understanding of your identity as “I” and who and how “I” is, is also awareness.

Receiving stimuli through senses and realising what they mean and reacting is not just consciousness; being aware that your body has received stimuli is also consciousness.

Connecting past, present and future and then understanding and decoding an experience is also consciousness.

We don't perceive everything we receive. We receive a lot but accept some. Our focus and the ability to switch focus from one thing present in the environment to the other is also consciousness.

Being aware if the reality of the world in a particular way determine by your way of life and thought process is consciousness.

Experience & Awareness

While sleeping, if you dream, you are still conscious; there's a dream world created out of thoughts and past experiences from the endless repository of your subconscious. The level of consciousness is different and low from the present state of your body and the real world, but you are still conscious and active in that dream world; the limitation is lack of actual stimulation.

If you are in a light sleep or resting and trying to catch a deep sleep, you are still conscious and realise that you are trying to sleep.

In a deep sleep, no dreams, you are unconscious, and when you wake up, you feel as if you never slept because you weren't conscious.

Consciousness is not one state but a scale of awareness, higher awareness or lower awareness and any point in between.

Consciousness is being aware about yourself and the external world and the connections between both.

To be aware of what's running in and occupying one’s own mind, to observe one's own thought process and thoughts. If you see a relative, and instantly smile and feel good, you realise that you are feeling good about seeing that person, youare conscious of your love and emotions for them.

Each individual’s and each group’s definition of what world and life are also defines our consciousness, ithighlights the uniqueness (flaws or depth) of consciousness we have and share with fellow humans.

Subjectivity in experiences influenced by mind, memories, subconscious, emotions, senses and thought process is also consciousness.

Consciousness is caused by life, and consciousness sustains life. Even in animals which aren’t as intelligent as humans and enjoy much limited consciousness, still, they are conscious enough to realise their hunger and other needs and safeguard themselves from threats. You would have seen a not so smart animal mourn for the death of a child or parent or one of the members of the herd. There is enough consciousness in every living being to support and sustain their life, although it’s restricted like the demo version of an expensive software. However, the license of premium version comes at the cost of being a human. ”Higher Consciousness”

Without deep consciousness, our human life would filter all the meaning away and leave behind simple robots acting as they have to. Robots don't experience; they act how they have to. They don't see everything as a part of a bigger story. They won't connect countless thoughts and experiences to reach to a subjective conclusions. We, humans, are subjective beings.

The depth in our actions, the reasons, the visions we have in mind, the correlation of our past, present and future, involvement of emotions is consciousness. We simply do not just keep acting best on the stimulus given to us.

It's consciousness which makes this world, this nature, and every bit of it relevant and lively. Without consciousness, there is complete darkness.

Have a lot to say, but I would limit my words here.

Consciousness in truth is merely a weak attempt to name the unnamable. Consciousness is identical with Being. Consciousness is existence, it is “is-ness.” But again these descriptors also fail to capture the mystery of the Witness. Consciousness is limitless, all-pervading, absolutely simple (i.e. has no parts or divisions), devoid of qualities, unchanging, and eternal. If one wanted to be particularly cheeky and esoteric, we could say Consciousness is everything and nothing. I find the Advaita Vedantan understanding to be the most phenomenologically accurate, Consciousness is the Self. The Witness who appears to be both one and many. Consciousness is Reality, and the apparent manifold appearing and disappearing within its embrace, are none other than temporary distortions of this one Reality arising and passing away within the mind of the un-illumined.

It is kind of an infinite brain and power that originally has no form, it is pure energy that has limitless potential in creating form and ideas linked to forms it creates. It is one energy, but infinitely large. It is composed of infinite nodes or nexus points called souls (Atman). All these fragments called souls are collectively called the Supersoul or the Paramatman. In the recent narrative of contemporary spiritual discourse, the Supersoul is called our Higher Self, which contains all the knowledge of everything created and all phenomenon in existence. Consciousness has an external energy called Shakti or it's creative ability. This in contemporary spiritual discourse is called manifestation. Whereby, we as fragments of consciousness (souls) can create a life experience within one of our realms of creation, we are currently in a material realm (universe), and we exist currently on one planet within the material realm called earth.

This is a basic explanation of consciousness, hope this helped you 🙏

I see two approaches to this issue and will introduce them by briefly describing the context and development of each, showing how one leads into the other. I have endeavoured to keep this as simple and concise as possible for a subject of this depth.

1) Naïve Realist Approach
Naïve realism is a cognitive habit operating in each moment of awareness that causes the mind to assume that the subjective objects of experience are in fact objective external objects. See John Ringland's answer to What is naïve realism?

Thus when I see a chair in front of me I simply assume that this is because there is a chair in front of me. I do not question the perceptual forms that arise in the mind, nor the conceptual categories that I habitually associate with those forms. Hence this form of realism is called naïve, because it is an unconsidered and merely assumed epistemological position. When it is expressed as a consciously held philosophical belief it is called direct realism.

We then look out from this perspective of "being me" upon an "external physical universe". It may turn out to be true, but at this point there has been no evidence whatsoever. There has only been the accumulation of beliefs arising from naïve realist assumptions about the contents of subjective awareness. Thus the mind conforms to a self-reproducing closed loop of hidden assumptions.

This keeps the cognitive and cultural discourses unwittingly bound within a naïve realist framework. This forms into an all pervasive unconscious paradigm. See

• John Ringland's answer to Do we have a collective paradigm? Else, is it fragmented?
• John Ringland's answer to Can it ever be said that Scientific realism takes off from the springboard of commonsense or naive realism? and
• John Ringland's answer to Has science become too dogmatic?

What Is Consciousness?

From this stand point we claim that we are physical organisms and that the brain implements consciousness via neural activity. Then we ask ourselves "What is consciousness?"

From this perspective it is known to science as the Hard Problem of Consciousness, because nobody really has a clue how to answer it or even how to work towards an answer. There are many working on the 'easy' aspects, such as how do neural networks function and so on. But nothing from these fields can address the 'hard' problem of experiential awareness.

“The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field.” (David Chalmers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness)

Furthermore, the whole underlying paradigm is beginning to fall apart. For instance, each attempt to locate and study 'matter' has proven it not to exist. See What is matter? and Does matter exist?

"Let us now return to our ultimate particles and to small organizations of particles as atoms or small molecules. The old idea about them was that their individuality was based on the identity of matter in them... The new idea is that what is permanent in these ultimate particles or small aggregates is their shape and organization... They are as it were, pure shape, nothing but shape; what turns up again and again in successive observations is this shape, not an individual speck of material..." (Erwin Schrödinger)

“[Thus] modern philosophical materialists attempt to extend the definition of matter to include other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space. However this opens them to further criticism from philosophers such as Mary Midgley who suggest that the concept of 'matter' is elusive and poorly defined.” (Wikipedia, Materialism)

“To some degree skepticism manifests itself in the scientific method, which demands that all things assumed as facts be questioned. But the positivism of many scientists, whether latent or open, is incompatible with skepticism, for it accepts without question the assumption that material effect is impossible without material cause.” (The Columbia Encyclopedia)

Empirical science only claims

"that a good theory need only provide an empirically adequate description of observable phenomena" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Rationalism vs. Empiricism)

It doesn't claim to be able to ascertain any kind of truth but rather it only claims to have phenomenological adequacy regarding descriptions of our perceptions of things. This means that empirical science is fundamentally unable to address any questions of ontology (what actually is) and it can only address questions of phenomenology (that which appears to the human mind).

“Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Rationalism vs. Empiricism)

Because of this reliance on the objects of sense perception, which are unquestioningly assumed to be external objects, empirical science has succumbed to naïve realism and subtly devolved into Scientism.

This is because empiricists did not question the nature and validity of sense experiences, or of the mind that is having them, but merely took them as being representative of being a person in a physical universe. See John Ringland's answer to Can it ever be said that Scientific realism takes off from the springboard of commonsense or naive realism?

Naïve realism itself has been challenged by philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, and now quantum mechanics has proven beyond all doubt that naïve realism is a false epistemology that provides false knowledge of reality.

The Stern-Gerlach experiment in particular drives this point home. See John Ringland's answer to In simple terms, what does the Stern-Gerlach experiment imply about the nature of quantum systems and observable phenomena?

Thus there is a paradigm shift happening!

“There is a major ’dangerous’ scientific idea in contemporary physics, with a potential impact comparable to Copernicus or Darwin. It is the idea that what the physics of the 20th century says about the world might in fact be true.” (C. Rovelli, THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006)

And quantum physicists are making startling claims that are backed up by undeniable evidence.

“We have no satisfactory reason for ascribing objective existence to physical quantities as distinguished from the numbers obtained when we make the measurements which we correlate with them. There is no real reason for supposing that a particle has at every moment a definite, but unknown, position which may be revealed by a measurement of the right kind... On the contrary, we get into a maze of contradiction as soon as we inject into quantum mechanics such concepts as carried over from the language and philosophy of our ancestors. . . It would be more exact if we spoke of ‘making measurements’ of this, that, or the other type instead of saying that we measure this, that, or the other ‘physical quantity’.” (Edwin C. Kemble)

“ “[W]e have to give up the idea of realism to a far greater extent than most physicists believe today.” (Anton Zeilinger). . . By realism, he means the idea that objects have specific features and properties - that a ball is red, that a book contains the works of Shakespeare, or that an electron has a particular spin. . . it may make no sense to think of them as having well defined characteristics.” (P. Ball, Physicists bid farewell to reality?)

It is not just particles and atoms that are governed by quantum mechanics.

“Quantum mechanics is increasingly applied to larger and larger objects. Even a one-ton bar proposed to detect gravity waves must be analysed quantum mechanically. In cosmology, a wavefunction for the whole universe is written to study the Big Bang. It gets harder today to nonchalantly accept the realm in which the quantum rules apply as somehow not being physically real. . . Quantum mechanics forces us to abandon naïve realism.” (Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness: Bruce Rosenblum, Fred Kuttner)

“If there is anything to be learned from the long history of the epistemological debate, it is that the issue is by no means simple or trivial, and that whatever is ultimately determined to be the truth of epistemology, we can be sure that it will do considerable violence to our common-sense view of things. . . In science, irrefutable evidence triumphs over incredibility, and this is exactly what gives science the power to discover unexpected or incredible truth.” (Steven Lehar)

And then there is also undeniable evidence coming from rigorous experiments that "suggest that consciousness itself, unaided by known physical mechanisms, can influence physical reality.” (PEAR Orientation) And the “results are unlikely by chance to the order of 10^−12 (one in a trillion).” Which is more rigorously proven than many commonly accepted scientific 'facts'. (R. G. Jahn and B. J. Dunne, "The pear proposition",Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 195-245, 2005, http://www.scientificexploration...)

The experiments were conducted by the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research PEAR lab for 28 years, using quantum random event generators (REGs). It was shown that consciousness creates a field of ambient 'coherence' that drives quantum processes away from randomness and towards order. This can also be focused as intentional influence.

Clearly the old paradigm cannot explain these phenomena. Thus science is forced to shift away from a naïve realist, empiricist, materialist foundation. Thus a new paradigm is needed! See the question What do the results of the PEAR GCP ICRL experiments say about consciousness and how can we scientifically explain them? and also Now that naive realism has been disproven by quantum mechanics, how will this impact our collective paradigm?

2) Non-Naïve Realist Approach
From a non-naïve realist perspective, one remains staunchly sceptical (open enquiry, without assumption or prejudice). What can be known for sure from this perspective?

“In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the 'I' and the 'mine'... you are not this, there is nothing of yours in this, except the little point of "I am", which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream. "I am this, I am that" is dream, while pure "I am" has the stamp of reality on it.” (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I am That)

When "I am seeing a chair in front of me" this is because I am and the content of awareness consists of perceptual forms that the mind has come to associate with the idea of a chair. Thus there is the interplay of sensory experiences and associative (memory) experiences.

If I remain quiet and simply observe the contents of awareness I find that there is ceaseless activity. If this activity is identified with then awareness is carried off on some sequence of thoughts. By bringing awareness back again to the space of awareness I can notice that during that sequence, I was not aware of the space of awareness, but only of the thoughts. Thus I was not aware of my self.

I can observe the structure of the contents of awareness and note that some are associated with ideas such as me, body, mind, world, chair, etc. As an experiment I can then cease bringing awareness back into the space of awareness and I let it be carried off on one sequence of thoughts after another, identifying with and participating in the story of me, body, mind, world, chair, etc. This is the most common "everyday" state of mind.

During this process I am wholly absorbed in the story of myself as a person with a body and a mind, living in a world and sitting on a chair. During this process I am not aware of the space of awareness; the "I am", which is the only true certainty. Thus I have lost sight of certainty and entered into a world composed entirely of identifications with sensory phenomena and memory associations which are interpreted through the lens of a “person in a world”.

"The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing. Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain and creating an illusion of continuity. A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of 'I' and the person acquires an apparently independent existence.” (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I am That)

There are other experiments that one could conduct as one's degree of detachment increases, such as keeping awareness within the space of awareness whilst the contents of awareness go through various different processes (states of mind such as moods, ideas, sleep, dreams, personalities, etc). In all these cases the contents of awareness can change significantly, however the space of awareness remains entirely unchanged. Just as a digital image leaves no trace on a computer screen after it has gone. All kinds of phenomena can play across the 'screen' of awareness, but awareness is not influenced by the content.

"Go within, go beyond. Cease being fascinated with the content of your consciousness. When you reach the deep layers of your true being, you will find that the mind's surface-play affects you very little... A ray of awareness illumines a part of our mind and that part becomes our dream or waking consciousness, while awareness appears as the witness. The witness usually knows only consciousness. Sadhana (path leading to realization) consists in the witness turning back, first on his conscious, then upon himself in his own awareness. Self awareness is Yoga (union with existence).” (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I am That)

What Is Consciousness?

By bringing awareness back to the space of awareness I can now ask "What is consciousness?"

Whilst identified with the story of me, body, mind, world, chair, etc it seemed as if consciousness was the mind with its personality, perception, memory, intellect, etc.

However from the perspective of awareness within the space of awareness, I realise that these are the contents of awareness and that consciousness has its root in pure awareness, which I am, and it unfolds through myriad complex systems of perception, memory, thought, etc into an elaborate cognitive memeplex that we call the mind.

This however is not a form of solipsism, because although the only thing that I am certain of is “I am”, at this level of awareness there is a passage through to an expansiveness of universal awareness. At this level of consciousness there is only one consciousness, but its not 'mine' in a solipsist sense (the ideas 'me' and 'mine' are just contents of awareness) it is a universal consciousness.

"When this supercontemplative state is reached, the Yogi acquires pure spiritual realisation through the balanced quiet of the chitta (thinking principle). His perception is now unfailingly exact (or his mind reveals only the truth). This particular perception is unique and reveals that which the rational mind (using testimony, inference and deduction) cannot reveal. It is hostile to, or supersedes all other impressions. When this state of perception is itself also restrained (or superseded) then is pure Samadhi achieved." (Samadhi Pada, 47-51, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali)

To recap I'll summarise with a quote from the Lankavatara Sutra.

"So long as people do not understand the true nature of the objective world, they fall into the dualistic view of things. They imagine the multiplicity of external objects to be real and become attached to them and are nourished by their habit energy. Because of this system of mentation, mind and what belongs to it is discriminated and is thought of as real; this leads to the assertion of an ego-soul and its belongings, and thus the mind-system goes on functioning. Depending upon and attaching itself to the dualistic habit of mind, they accept the views of the philosophers founded upon these erroneous distinctions, of being and non-being, existence and non-existence, and there evolves what we call false-imaginations...

False-imaginations rise from the consideration of appearances; things are discriminated as to form, signs and shape; as to having colour, warmth, humidity, mobility or rigidity. False-imagination consists of becoming attached to these appearances and their names...

The five sense functions and their discriminating and thinking function have their risings and complete ending from moment to moment... By setting up names and forms greed is multiplied and thus the mind goes on mutually conditioning and being conditioned. By becoming attached to names and forms, not realising that they have no more basis than the activities of the mind itself, error arises, false-imagination as to pleasure and pain arises, and the way to emancipation is blocked...

By the cessation of the mind-system as a whole is meant, the cessation of discrimination, the clearing away of the various attachments, and, therefore, the clearing away of the defilements of habit-energy in the face of Universal Mind which have been accumulating since beginningless time by reason of these discriminations, attachments, erroneous reasonings, and following acts. Getting rid of the discriminating mortal-mind is Nirvana.

But the cessation of the discriminating-mind cannot take place until there has been a "turning about"' in the deepest seat of consciousness. The mental habit of looking outward by the discriminating-mind upon an external objective world must be given up, and a new habit of realising Truth within the intuitive-mind by becoming one with the Truth itself must be established... With the ending of pleasure and pain, of conflicting ideas, of the disturbing interests of egoism, a state of tranquillisation will be attained in which the truths of emancipation will be fully understood..." (Lankavatara Sutra)

How long will it take to get free of the discriminating mind?

“It may take a thousand years, but really no time is required. All you need is to be in dead earnest. Here the will is the deed. If you are sincere, you have it. After all, it is a matter of attitude. Nothing stops you from being a gnani (knower of Supreme Knowledge) here and now, except fear. You are afraid of being impersonal, of impersonal being. It is all quite simple. Turn away from your desires and fears and from the thoughts they create and you are at once in your natural state." (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I am That)

Only then will you truly know what consciousness is. The answer is not a description in words and ideas (which are just the content of awareness) but a process by which to taste it and know it as your own subjective space of awareness. Only then will the question “what is consciousness?” be answered for you.

One cannot just play with the 'contents' of awareness and thereby come to a deep appreciation of consciousness. So don't just look at these words and think about them, also let them direct your attention to yourself and let that perspective inform you.

So what can be said about consciousness? In words I can say that consciousness is the ground of being from which all manifestation arises. It is both universal and personal, and it enlivens and animates all systems, including those thought to be 'inanimate'.

“That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman – that thou art.” (Adi Shankara)

"The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know that death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment. The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death." (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I am That)

"What is it that had birth? Whom do you call a human being? If, instead of seeking explanations for birth, death and after-death, the question is raised as to who and how you are now, these questions will not arise... The body is born again and again. We wrongly identify ourselves with the body, and hence imagine we are reincarnated constantly. No. We must identify ourselves with the true Self. The realised one enjoys unbroken consciousness, never broken by birth or death - how can he die? Only those who think 'I am the body' talk of reincarnation. To those who know 'I am the Self' there is no rebirth. Reincarnations only exist so long as there is ignorance. There is no incarnation, either now, before or hereafter. This is the truth." (Ramana Maharshi)

How can this be scientifically understood? A useful analogy is virtual reality simulation, where a single animating source creates worlds of virtual phenomena, where evolving sentient minds experience themselves as individual beings in a world of objects in space and time. The animating thread that runs through all systems is the “I am” awareness. All virtual phenomena lack a fundamental self-nature, they are ephemeral forms without permanent substance, they are 'sunnyata' (empty of self-nature). For more on the subject of simulated reality see:

• John Ringland's answer to The Big Philosophical Questions: Is the Universe a Simulation?
• John Ringland's answer to What can be learned from video games that is hard to learn any other way?
• John Ringland's answer to What is sentience?

Quantum mechanics is compatible with this simulation analogy, for example:

“if we accept the quantization of space and time as a basic fact of the structure of our universe, then we may go on to consider how both of these properties happen to be intrinsic to the operations of a computer” (Ross Rhodes, Cybernetic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics).

Also see John Ringland's answer to What is light made up of, particles or waves?

By thinking of quantum mechanics in this way the seemingly paradoxical aspects of quantum mechanics are seen to be common features of information processes and virtual worlds. For example, the Planck frequency (1.859 x 10^43 Hz) is analogous to the “frame rate” of a simulated virtual reality.

“Wheeler labels the individual quantum phenomenon an elementary act of creation. We as observers play a significant role in this process since we can decide by choosing the measuring device which quantum phenomenon is realized. Still, we cannot influence the specific value obtained through the measurement. Finally, since we are part of the universe, the universe, according to Wheeler, creates itself by observing itself through us. .. (Quantum mechanics has) gradually brought the role of the observer into the center of our discussion, a role which is expressed by Clauser in his joint analysis with Shimony of the present EPR-Bell situation as follows: "perhaps an unheard tree falling in the forest makes no sound after all". ” (Anton Zeilinger, On the Interpretation and Philosophical Foundation of Quantum Mechanics)

In this paradigm all systems are observers and have experiential awareness, without which they could not interact; this is a form of pan-psychism, in particular pan-proto-experientialism, Russellian monism, Type F monism or Neutral monism (Google Russellian "Type F" "Neutral monism"). These are the view that consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of reality.

“On this view, phenomenal or proto-phenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of physical reality, and in a certain sense, underlie physical reality itself.” (The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind)

Also see John Ringland's answer to What is it like to be a quantum computational process?

However just as there are degrees of complexity of 'outer' forms, there are also degrees of complexity of 'inner' processes. The simplest systems have only a simple stream of pure awareness by which they experience and interact, they are not aware that they are aware, they are just aware. However then there are systems such as ourselves, with extremely complex internal feedback loops (e.g. brains), that have come to know that they know that they know.

So whilst the mind and personality are a product of bio-socio-memetic evolution, the innermost awareness within all systems is the universal animating process.

For some brief comments and many quotes see Virtual Reality Analogy Alongside Science and Mysticism. For a detailed philosophical, theoretical and mathematical discussion see The Objective Information Process & Virtual Subjective Experiences Hypothesis or just the mathematical aspects System Science of Virtual Reality. This work develops from first principles the foundations of a mathematical science of information systems and virtual reality simulation. Within this context it re-derives the foundations of quantum mechanics and discusses naïve realism and the 'hard' problem of consciousness, which becomes an easy problem from this perspective because the naïve realist tendency to ignore subjective experience from the outset is avoided from the outset.

Consciousness is the energy, matter, information and qualities that we receive and that forms in us when we connect to the general collective volume of information.

There are forces that we receive from outside of us, and these forces form the picture of our world. If we connect in a balanced manner to the information outside of us, then we experience a state of peace and harmony. On the contrary, if we fail to connect in a balanced manner to the forces outside of us, we experience imbalance and disharmony.

We should thus not consider how we receive information from the outside, but how we connect to the general collective information field. The the extent of our balance or imbalance with the external field is responsible for how we feel the world, whether pleasurable or painful.

The quality of the general informational field outside of our perception is that of love and bestowal. If we wish to create the same quality within ourselves, then we connect to it and start sensing its information without any interference. We then achieve a state of total peace and harmony, a complete understanding and feeling of nature, the creation and the universe. In other words, by balancing ourselves with the quality of love and bestowal that exists outside of us, we become as eternal and perfect as that quality, i.e. as nature itself.

On the contrary, our inborn desire to separate, assort and compartmentalize distances us from the eternity and perfection of nature. It gives us a transient and incomplete perception of the universe. As a result, we experience an accumulation of suffering throughout our development, which is necessary to prod us to a point where we will desire to undergo a fundamental transformation of our paradigm: to wish to exit our detached perception and sensation, and enter into a balanced, harmonious and peaceful connection with the general informational field.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Hologram” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 28, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Recent findings offer insight into the neural circuitry of some of the building blocks that contribute, if not lead, to consciousness. Needless to say, the emerging picture is far from complete.

Summary of findings (updated references with additional notes at end of this answer that I keep adding as new findings are published)

• Experimental observations of mammals including humans have revealed a navigation circuitry that uniquely encodes memory of a visited location. Neurons called “place cells” uniquely encode memory of locations.Figure 1 [1,2,3,4,5,6,19,21]
• The encoding of this memory is quite rich - it is not limited to just a memory of the location but the entire spatiotemporal context , that is, the sensory and motivational experience at that location (landmarks, objects, people, smell, reward etc.) including the temporal sequence of that experience.Figure 2 [1,7,8]
• While the encoding is rich in terms of the entire context being encoded, the encoding of each concept (e.g. the Simpsons, Jennifer Aniston) that is also stored in the same anatomical region where locations are stored is sparse, in that only a small set of neurons encode the memory of a concept. For example, a picture of "the Simpsons" will cause the firing of a small set of neurons. This memory, while sparse, is multimodal - a written or spoken word of “the Simpsons” , will, in addition to neurons that process auditory input, also cause the firing of the same set of neurons that fired when seeing a picture of the Simpsons. This memory is also invariant to some degree - different pictures of the Simpsons in different sizes and viewing angle will still cause the same set of neurons to fire. These sparse clusters of neurons that represent concepts are also linked to or intersect with related concept clusters, creating a semantic graph of neuron clusters. For example, some of the ”Jennifer Aniston” neurons may also fire when shown a picture “Lisa Kudrow” (a co-actor in a series "Friends"). Figure 3,Figure 6 [9]
• The encoding of memory at a location is not just a sequence of events/concepts, but also the time of the events and the intervals between them. An internally generated flexible timer mechanism stores the temporal order of events along with the time intervals (seconds to minutes) between them – the details of this timer are being studied.[10,11,12,18,23]
• This storage of experience can then be reactivated when a person later recalls that experience, even when not in the location where the experience occurred. The same neurons that fired when the experience was first encoded, fire again when free recall is done. This recall is made possible by internally traversing these memories, without the need for any external sensory input. The actual mechanism of this internally initiated playback or recall of encoded memories is being studied - it has been observed in humans and rats.Figure 4 [13,14,20,22,24]
• Evidence indicate this ability to mentally replay past experiences may be the same mechanism used to plan for the future (e.g. places to go back to find food, remember how long it is that seeds were stored away so as to decide if they are spoilt). Figure 5 [15,16]
• The neuronal mechanism of humans to "mentally travel" completely independent of any spatial context is not known yet (e.g. abstract logical thought process to derive a mathematical proof by a recall of first principles/axioms). It is also not known if the “navigation based circuitry” is involved in encoding abstract memories that do not have an anchoring location, though there is speculation that the navigation circuitry may be part of a more general engine for memory.[17]
• The representation of a location and the experience at that location, combined with the circuitry to navigate this memory or state space without any external sensory input enables free recall, mental travel, and future planning – perhaps some of the signature elements of what constitute consciousness.

Figures

Figure 1. Place cells mapping in two different enviroments (a) Stepwise increase of grid spacing at successive dorsoventral levels of medial entorhinal cortex. Spatial autocorrelograms for four example cells (one per dorsoventral module). (b) Remapping of hippocampal place cells in two environments Memory, navigation and theta rhythm in the hippocampal-entorhinal system, Nature, 2013

Figure 2 Two forms of navigation and their relationship to semantic and episodic memory (a) Path integration (also known as dead reckoning) is based on self-referenced information by keeping track of travel distances (time elapsed multiplied by speed) and direction of turns. Calculating translocation relative to the start location allows the animal to return to the start along the shortest (homing) path. (b) Map-based navigation is supported by the relationships among visible or otherwise detectable landmarks. A map is constructed by exploration (path integration). (c) Episodic memory is 'mental travel' in time and space referenced to self. (d) Semantic memory is explicit representation of living things, objects, places and events without temporal or contextual references. Semantic knowledge can be acquired through multiple episodes with common elements. We hypothesize that the evolutionary roots of episodic and semantic memory systems are the dead reckoning and landmark-based forms of navigation, respectively. Memory, navigation and thetarhythm in the hippocampal-entorhinal system, Nature, 2013

Figure 3. Example of a neuron that with multimodal invariance
Concept cells: the building blocks of declarative memory functions, Nature Neuroscience, 2012

Figure 4. Activation and recall of single neuron of an episode of the Simpsons. A single-unit in the right entorhinal cortex was activated during viewing and recall of an episode from the TV series The Simpsons. (A) Cell responses to a selection of 48 different episodes (movie clips) presented to the patient in three different viewing sessions (parts 1 to 3). For each clip, the corresponding raster plots (six trials, order of trials is from top to bottom) and post–stimulus time histogram (500-ms bins) are given. Vertical dashed lines indicate clip onset and offset (5 s apart); 5-s blank periods were presented occasionally within groups of successive clips and were used to calculate the baseline firing rate, denoted by a gray horizontal line. Red boxes indicate sustained responses. (B) Trial-by-trial response of the neuron. Order of clips is for the purpose of illustration; more intervening clips separated successive Simpsons clips in the actual experiment. Spike raster plot and instantaneous firing rate (spike train convolved with a Gaussian of the full width at half maximum of 1200 ms) are displayed together. (C) Free-recall session that followed the third viewing session (part 3). (Bottom) Sound amplitude of patient voice; (top) a spike raster plot and instantaneous firing rate; gray dashed line denotes the average firing rate during the recall session + 3 SD; numbered dots denote onset time of verbal report of recall events, corresponding to clip numbers in (A). Note the distinct elevation of firing rate just before the patient reported the recall of the Simpsonsclip (red arrow). (D) A 50-s window around the Simpsons recall event [blue area in (C)]. Patient’s words are below the bottom panel. Note that the cell’s firing rate rose significantly above baseline 1500 ms before onset of verbal report of the Simpsons clip and returned to baseline after more than 10 s.
Internally generated reactivation of single neurons ... [Science. 2008]

Figure 5. Cell assembly sequence, space and time tracking (a) During physical travel, successive assemblies of neurons (1 to n) respond sequentially owing to the changing constellation of environmental landmarks and/or proprioceptive information from the body (top). During mental travel, sequential activation is supported by self-organized patterning[14] Memory, navigation and theta rhythm in the hippocampal-entorhinal system, Nature, 2013

Figure 6. Semantic graph made up of overlapping sparse collections of concept cells
Concept cells: the building blocks of declarative memory functions, Nature Neuroscience, 2012

References
1. Neural Activity in Human Hippocampal Formation Reveals the Spatial Context of Retrieved Memories, Science, 29 November 2013
2. Grid Cells and Neural Coding in High-End Cortices, Neuron, October 30, 2013
3. Space Bats: Multidimensional Spatial Representation in the Bat, Science, November 2013
4. Direct recordings of grid-like neuronal activity in human spatial navigation, Nature, 2013
5. What are the major differences between grid cells and place cells?
6. A map of visual space in the primate entorhinal cortex, Nature, 2012
7. Context Prediction Analysis and Episodic Memory, Behavioral Neuroscience, October 2013
8. The global record of memory in hippocampal neuronal activity, Nature, 1999
9. Concept cells: the building blocks of declarative memory functions, Nature Neuroscience, 2012
10. What makes us tick? Functional and neural mechanisms of interval timing, Nature, 2005
11. Time finds its place in the Hippocampus, Neuron, 2013
12. Integrating what and when across the primate medial temporal lobe,Science,2011
13. Internally Generated Reactivation of Single Neurons in Human Hippocampus During Free Recall, Science, 2008
14. Internally generated cell assembly sequences in the rat hippocampus, Science, 2008
15. Memory, navigation and theta rhythm in the hippocampal-entorhinal system, Nature, 2013
16. The evolution of episodic memory, PNAS, 2013
17. Homeostatic regulation of memory systems and adaptive decisions, Hippocampus, 2013
18. A neural substrate in the human hippocampus for linking successive events, PNAS, 2010
19. Grid Cells and Neural Coding in High-End Cortices, Neuron, 2013
20. Hippocampal place cells, context, and episodic m... [Hippocampus. 2006]
21. Path integration in mammals, Hippocampus, 2004
22. Play it again: reactivation of waking experience and memory, Cell, 2010
23. Theta Phase Precession in Hippocampal Neuronal Populations and the compression of temporal sequences,Hippocampus,1996
24. Retrieving Memories via Internal context Requires the Hippocampus ,Journal of NeuroScience,2004

Updated additional references

1. A recent lecture (Feb 2017) on the neuroscience of consciousness. Has many references embedded in the video that may be of value.

2. 15 April 2018. A recent talk by Yoshua Bengio, where he discusses the notion of a “consciousness prior” which is a low dimensional representation layered on top of a high dimensional substrate (created from sensory input), with an attention mechanism that focusses on a particular subset of the low dimensional representations. The inspiration for experimenting with this form of architecture was drawn from our current understanding of consciousness - where we can only consciously remember about seven things despite the enormous memory capacity of our brain. It seems to imply while we have rich high dimensional substrate of memory/experience extracted from sensory input, layered on top of this, is perhaps a low dimensional layer with an attention mechanism focussing on a subset of them.

Verbatim summary of his talk on disentangled representations

One of the main challenges for AI remains unsupervised learning, at which humans are much better than machines, and which we link to another challenge: bringing deep learning to higher-level cognition.

We review earlier work on the notion of learning disentangled representations and deep generative models and propose research directions towards learning of high-level abstractions. This follows the ambitious objective of disentangling the underlying causal factors explaining the observed data. We argue that in order to efficiently capture these, a learning agent can acquire information by acting in the world, moving our research from traditional deep generative models of given datasets to that of autonomous learning or unsupervised reinforcement learning.

We propose two priors which could be used by an agent acting in its environment in order to help discover such high-level disentangled representations of abstract concepts. The first one is based on the discovery of independently controllable factors, i.e., in jointly learning policies and representations, such that each of these policies can independently control one aspect of the world (a factor of interest) computed by the representation while keeping the other uncontrolled aspects mostly untouched.

This idea naturally brings fore the notions of objects (which are controllable), agents (which control objects) and self. The second prior is called the consciousness prior and is based on the hypothesis that our conscious thoughts are low-dimensional objects with a strong predictive or explanatory power (or are very useful for planning). A conscious thought thus selects a few abstract factors (using the attention mechanism which brings these variables to consciousness) and combines them to make a useful statement or prediction. In addition, the concepts brought to consciousness often correspond to words or short phrases and the thought itself can be transformed (in a lossy way) into a brief linguistic expression, like a sentence.

Natural language could thus be used as an additional hint about the abstract representations and disentangled factors which humans have discovered to explain their world. Some conscious thoughts also correspond to the kind of small nugget of knowledge (like a fact or a rule) which have been the main building blocks of classical symbolic AI.

This, therefore, raises the interesting possibility of addressing some of the objectives of classical symbolic AI focused on higher-level cognition using the deep learning machinery augmented by the architectural elements necessary to implement conscious thinking about disentangled causal factors.

3. What is Yoshua Bengio's new "Consciousness Prior" paper about?

4. The consciousness prior Yoshua Bengio

5. What is consciousness, and could machines have it?

6. 20 Jan 2019 An informative conversation by Alex Friedman with Prof. Tomaso Poggio where he responds to the question “will intelligent systems of the future ultimately need to be conscious?”

7. 8 July 2019

Two recent videos - covering work by Jeff Hawkin’s recent work.

Those of us who read Jeff Hawkin's book (On intelligence 2004) may think his interview with Lex Fridman is a rehash of the same ideas and skip it(I almost did). It has useful new information. Worth watching to the very end - entire 2+ hours of it. His team has made some findings recently some of which (at least the core ideas) is very likely(directly or indirectly) to be part of the next wave of AI in some form. Even if it doesn’t it would still be a contribution to how our brains work. Take for instance the very simple fact ( this has been known for a while) that every single organ's wiring in our brains has both sensory and motor connections - we learn and create world models concurrently by sensing and acting upon sensed input using the motor connections. Our current state of art models like Convnets or even the recent XLNets/BERT are all just about doing one half of what our brains do - just sensing and not both sensing and acting in a continuous way in a changing environment. Even though sensory and motor connections in each organ may make our brains look like a reinforcement learning model, our brain is more like a very smart RL model - we learn not to crash a car without even crashing a car once unlike current models that have to crash a car, at least in simulation, many many times, to learn not to crash. His teams work suggest small individual functional units in our neocortex act as mini models that have both sensory and motor connections in addition to some position information cells (like grid cells - there is some literature evidence suggestive of grid cells like code in neocortex) for reference position (this position could capture relative physical position in 3d space or could represent position in an abstract thought sequence). Each functional unit creates its own model of the world(e.g. auditory version of a word we hear along with the visual version of it when we watch a video) and all of them vote to create our percept of the world. Other contributions his group has made recently is the demonstrating the power of sparsity in simulations - both sparse inputs and sparse weights - that not only disentangles features but make it robust to noise (accuracy of current deep learning models drop rapidly with increased noise). There seems to many insights in their latest work that seem to intersect with Yoshua Bengio's work on sparse disentangled representations and Jeff Hintons capsule networks ( capsules have striking commonality to Jeff Hawkings work on cortical columns as self contained processing units with position information in a reference frame built in using grid cell like cells potentially) The philosophical questions in the end are just gravy to the already highly informative interview - but that also adds to making the whole video one of the best interviews by far by Lex.

The interview with Lex Fridman

This is a more detailed dive into their work on cortical columns functioning as self-contained models with grid like cells functioning as reference point in some some space (physical or abstract logical space).

This video goes into detail of the function of individual cells (pyramidal neurons) and the functioning of different layers, including the speculation of grid cell like elements being present in each column. There is some recent fMRI work that is suggestive of such gird cell like elements in cortex, but this is still remains highly speculative.

Mapping of a non-spatial dimension by the hippocampal/entorhinal circuit

Representation of space in the brain

A map of visual space in the primate entorhinal cortex.

Human entorhinal cortex represents visual space using a boundary-anchored grid

Organizing conceptual knowledge in humans with a gridlike code

Space and Time: The Hippocampus as a Sequence Generator

11 December 2019

A recent talk by Prof. Yoshua Bengio where he expands on his work on the consciousness prior (see video above by Prof. Bengio). Essentially current machine learning models are good at fast unconscious learning (system 1 tasks) and lack the ability to perform slow (sequential system 2 tasks) conscious reasoning that our brains do. His hypothesis is that the brain has a large substrate of unconscious learning and attention mechanism facilitates a very low dimensional representation (sparse factor graph) to picked from that high dimensional space which then also plays a role in subsequent system 1 computation. Language is a bridge between system 1 and system 2 in that it is a low dimensional representation and is used to verbalize unconscious thoughts.

—————-

20 Jan 2020

Machine learning models inspired by conscious task solving are an active area of research now. Deep learning beyond 2019

Blessings,

… metaphysically speaking, in the sub-quantum world: humans beings are holographic fractals of Supreme Source experiencing itself as a Singularity which has been reduced and cymatically capsulized into form which is intrinsically infused with the attributes of said Creative Source. Additionally, being holographic, each presumed (unawakened) singularity carries within itself the entire spaciousness and infinite knowingness of Source, as well as its infinite permeation of the ether (aka: Akashic field, unified field, Higgs field, et al). This vast consciousness is holographically instilled into the fractal’d being and is carried throughout form/body via what is called the nervous system which then carries awareness to the brain and the body’s sensory fields and modalities. We call this vastness awareness consciousness.

Namaste’

MLji

I’d say consciousness is the processing of data which is relevant to possible action by the entity being conscious. There are different levels of this. Most basic is simply evaluating immediate knowledge of the environment and acting on it. A bacterium swims toward food. At higher level there is memory and the ability to learn and act on it. Then there is having foresight in which the conscious entity must simulate possible future scenarios. in which it is a player. in order to evaluate actions. This is a kind of self-consciousness since it means modeling oneself. But this has another layer for a social animal (like humans). The social animal must consider how it appears to the others of it’s society. So it must model how it’s actions will influence the conscious thoughts and valuations of other.

The most scientifically accurate answer to the question “What is consciousness?” would be: we do not know.

Now, at this point we need to clarify that Consciousness and Soul are two entirely different concepts. The understanding of the former is the Holy Grail of Neuroscience and the only accessible way to define, identify and locate it is by studying the brain. The salvation of the latter is the focus point of Theology and, at least in the Orthodox Christian Theology, the Soul is considered to contain the entire body and not the other way around.

Having clarified that, it is also essential to also clarify that any religious or mystical notions of panpsychism or Universal consciousnesses have nothing to do with Science - not even if they may appeal to some scientists. Scientists are still humans and we each have our own metaphysical questions and biases. And, unless one does not allow this to cloud his Scientific understanding, it is hardly a problem. Otherwise Science devolves into Scientism.

Consciousnesses may be something very familiar to most of us, we lose it every night when we go to sleep, and regain it when we wake up - and yet it is still a very slippery concept when we try to define it.

However, even if we cannot yet agree on its definition, very few still doubt that consciousness is located in the brain. And the brain’s main tissue is made of neurons and neuron-supporting cells, forming vigintillions of possible circuits, through 100 trillion synapses, each sliding up and down in effectiveness, based on its experience. The number of potential circuits in a single human brain is indeed greater than the number of atoms in the Universe. Let that sink in for a minute and then appreciate just how chaotic this extremely complex system we all have between our ears is.

So, what is Consciousnesses?

Is it the ability to hold the concept of oneself, not only as a distinction of everything else as non-self but also as an individual entity? There is I.

Is it the ability to create the illusion of linear Time? Before, now and after.

Is it the ability to place the concept on oneself onto the illusory arrow of Time, trichotomizing our existence into past (memories), now (senses) and future (imagination)? I was, I am, I will be.

Is it the ability of different brain regions to synchronize their function, feeding each other information and anchoring this shared experience to a self? I exist and I perceive.

I am afraid the answer is still the same: we do not know.

actually - this can be VERY short - and when reading it - this popped up in my “internal system”

CONSCIOUSNESS IS PRIVATE - EVERY HUMAN BEING IS DIFFERENT and so is EACH CONSCIOUSNESS.

Nobody perceives LIFE THE WAY YOU DO - only you - and that is also WHY AUTHENTICITY goes ALONG with consciousness.

And then i “browsed”:

There you see - it is in TUNE.

Now - what is consciousness truly?

IT IS YOUR INNERMOST PERCEPTION - unruffled by anything else - only by yourself - consciousness in turmoil - no - that is ruffled - like water after a thunderstorm with heavy rains - you no longer see the bottom of the “normally clear” river.

:) your mind can “ruffle” you pretty bad, too…

Regarding Consciousness - there are so many “opinions, ideas, whatever” - some speak of 6 consciousnesses - some of 8 - some of 9 (below you find the nine)

And here you understand WHY it is YOUR consciousness - all you find in the list - is your “impression” - your perception.

What you now do with all these - IS YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS

Happy Travels!