Evolution of Consciousness

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Mind in the Cosmos

• Evolution of Consciousness

Christian de Quincey, Ph.D.
University of Philosophical Research Institute of
Noetic Sciences John F. Kennedy University
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Session Four
Language, Energy, Consciousness
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Overview of Session 4

• How often have you heard people use phrases such
  as the energy of consciousness, or psychic
  vibrations, or fields of consciousness, or,
  more recently, nonlocal consciousness?
• In this session, we will closely examine our use
  of language to see if, we may be mistaken to
  borrow language from physics, which describes the
  outer cosmos, in our attempts to understand the
  interior cosmos of the mind. Perhaps, words such
  as energy, vibrations, and fields are
  useful metaphors for talking about consciousness.
  But do they help us if we apply them literally to
  describe the structure or function of the mind or
  spirit?
• Is such terminology a kind of physics envy, a
  hangover or conceptual habit inherited from our
  Newtonian heritage? What might be more
  appropriate language for talking about
  consciousness?
• Thats what were about to explore . . .

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Good Vibrations

• If you tune into someones vibrations, are you
  picking up some form of energy they are
  emittingperhaps something we might call psychic
  energy?
• It may be tempting to think so . . . to think of
  consciousness as a form of energy. But is it?
• What might be going on when we say we feel
  someones vibrations?
• Well, one possibility is that their brain or
  their body could be sending out waves of
  energysomething, perhaps, like electricity. If
  so, it must be far more subtle than any form of
  energy known to modern science because no
  physical instrument yet devised has detected any
  such energy.
• But even if the vibrations were subtle energy
  waves they would still be physical because they
  pass through space. Anything that moves through
  space must be located somewhere in space. And
  anything that is located in space can be
  measured. Thats what physical means It
  occupies space. It is objective. It can be
  measured.

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How Big is Your Mind?

• But no-one has ever measured consciousness.
  No-one has ever been able to pint-point it in
  space. If they had, questions such as How big is
  consciousness . . . is it an inch, a foot, a
  mile, a light-year? or Where exactly is
  consciousness? would make sense. But such
  questions baffle us. (Same applies to any
  contents of consciousness such as a thought, a
  feeling, a desire.)
• Even though it is absurd to talk about the
  size of consciousness, some people may not
  think it so strange to say that consciousness is
  located somewhere in the brain. But where? No-one
  has ever succeeded in finding any part of the
  brain (large or small) where consciousness is.
  Yes, it certainly seems to be associated, or
  correlated, with the brainbut it is not in the
  brain (not in the way your brain is inside your
  skull). Consciousness has a completely different
  kind of interiority.
• So if consciousness has no size, and has no
  location, what does it mean to say it is in
  space? And if it is not in space, what does it
  mean to say it is a form of energy?
• Before we take on this issue, lets pause for a
  few minutes to clarify what we mean by the key
  terms consciousness and energy.

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Consciousness

• The word consciousness was first used in
  European philosophy by John Locke in the 17th
  century, and since then the concept has undergone
  radical evolution. Today, its meanings are
  multiple, and a great source of confusion in both
  academic debate and ordinary conversation. Such
  confusion and misunderstanding hamper clarity and
  progress in consciousness studies. But the
  confusion can be avoidedor at least
  significantly minimizedif we pay attention to
  how we use the term.
• Consciousness, as we all know, is our most
  intimate realityyet, paradoxically, once we
  think about it, it is also our deepest mystery.
  Like all experience, but even more so,
  consciousness is ineffable. As soon as we begin
  to talk about it, it slides from our grasp like a
  slippery fish. Yet, using the net of language, we
  can go fishing . . . and with diligence, we may
  leave with something to fry (or to throw back).

John Locke(1632-1704)
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Meanings of Consciousness

• And as we move ahead, however, we should always
  keep in mind that beyond our explorations of
  language and ideas about consciousness, our
  venture will produce little but empty
  abstractions unless we also remember to pay
  attention to our own lived consciousnessunless
  we remember that we are also explorers probing
  our own inner world of direct experience.
• To give an idea of the journey ahead, Ill begin
  with a quote from a previous adventurer in the
  study of consciousness.
• Consciousness is a word worn smooth by a million
  tongues. Depending upon the figure of speech
  chosen it is a state of being, a substance, a
  process, a place, an epiphenomenon, an emergent
  aspect of matter, or the only true reality
  (Miller).
• When we try to define consciousness, we become
  like one of those figures walking on a
  paradoxical Escher stairway While it seems we
  are getting down to basics, we always end up back
  where we began.

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• In other words, we need the concept of
  consciousness to explain consciousnesswhich, of
  course, explains nothing very much. Consciousness
  is . . . well . . it is consciousness!
• With full-frontal tautologies like this we may
  well be excused for giving up any attempt at
  defining consciousness, and rest content simply
  with the unspoken experience itself. But then we
  would be very poor scholars of consciousness.
  Sitting in silence at home or in class, moving
  deeper into the experiential mystery of
  consciousnessenlightening though that project
  may bewill not produce sufficient clarity for
  thinking or talking or for reading or writing
  about consciousness.

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• So, as explorers, we will cover the ground and
  move on to new vistas. We wont get stuck in
  definitions. Instead, we will examine different
  uses and meanings of consciousness, and aim for a
  clearer and more coherent understanding of the
  kinds of pitfalls and dead-ends we are likely to
  meet along the way. Most of all, we will be on
  the lookout for distinctions in meanings to help
  orient the search.
• Because the word consciousness is notoriously
  difficult to define, and is frequently a source
  of misunderstanding, it is important to clarify
  some of its basic meanings. The following will
  include both a simple outsiders and a more
  technical insiders clarification. (By
  outsider, I mean someone relatively unfamiliar
  with the field of consciousness studies. By
  insider, I mean someone who has thought about
  and has read material concerned with this field.)

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Outsiders Meaning

• Simple meaning Consciousness knows
• Consider this simple equation The world, the
  cosmos, (everything that exists) consists of
  physical energy and non-physical consciousness.
  Or, more simply The world equals things and
  experiences of those things. The things are
  physical objects made of matter and energy (such
  as stones, and trees, thunder and lightning,
  houses and freeways) and experiences are what
  know those things.
• Thats what consciousness is Its what knows or
  feels or is aware of anything. Its what
  philosophers mean when they tell us the world
  consists of objects and subjects. Objects are
  made of energy or matter subjects experience the
  energy and matter. Thats it. Thats all there
  isin a glorious profusion of forms and
  manifestations.
• So, the world is made of stuffmatter-energy.
  Mind or consciousness is what knows, feels, or
  thinks about the stuff.

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Energy Flows, Consciousness Knows

• In my book Radical Nature, I emphasized the
  distinction between energy and consciousness in
  the phrase Energy flows. Consciousness feels.
  Consciousness is what feels the flow of energy
  through our bodies consciousness is what knows
  there is any energy at all.
• I like to help students grasp fundamental points
  in philosophy by catching the essence of key
  ideas in what I call bumper stickersso I tell
  them that at its deepest level, the world is made
  up of matter and mind, or energy and
  consciousness. Heres the bumper sticker Energy
  flows. Consciousness knows.
• Everything that exists is made of some kind of
  energy, and energy is always dynamic, always in
  flux, flowing from one part of the universe to
  another. But in addition to the objective
  things that flow, there is the subject that
  knows, or feels or experiences those
  thingsthats consciousness.

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Consciousness Knows

• Consciousness, therefore, is what enables us to
  feel, think, know, intend, attend, perceive,
  choose, and create . . . It is the source of all
  meaning, value, and purpose in our lives and in
  the world. It is interior, it is what enables
  us to feel and know who we are insidedistinct
  from our external, physical bodies.
• Now lets go a little deeper, and examine two
  important, though different, meanings from an
  insiders perspective.

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Insiders Meaning

• Technical meaning Confusion about consciousness
  among those already engaged in its study often
  arises because they use the word to mean
  different things. Lets begin, therefore, with a
  distinction that will help avoid what is probably
  the most common confusion whenever two or more
  people come together to discuss
  consciousnessthe distinction between the
  philosophical (or ontological) and the
  psychological (or psychoanalytic) meanings of
  consciousness
• For some people, consciousness means more or
  less being awake, alert, aroused, awareor,
  simply, being conscious as distinct from being
  unconscious. This is the psychological-psychoanaly
  tical meaning. It is the kind of distinction we
  each encounter every morningthe difference
  between being asleep and waking up. But if we use
  this meaning, how do we account for the
  difference between a sleeping person and, say, a
  rock (or a dead person).

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Unconscious v. Non-conscious

• It doesnt seem sufficient to say that both the
  sleeping person and the rock are unconscious in
  the same way. While it is true that neither the
  sleeping person nor the rock is awake, it is not
  true to say that both lack all psychic or
  sentient capacity. The sleeping person is
  unconscious, but the rock is non-conscious. The
  unconscious persons body still responds to
  stimuli, it still senses and feelsit still has a
  psychic lifebut the rock does not.
• In short, then, being unconscious is not the same
  as being non-conscious. Being unconscious, our
  lives can still teem with sensations, imagery,
  and dreams. Unconsciousness, therefore, has a
  form of consciousness of its own a form of
  consciousness never available to a non-conscious
  entity such as a rock. Psychological
  consciousness, therefore, is merely one variety
  (being awake) of a much broader and richer
  spectrum of consciousness.

At the end of this lecture, Ive included a
short monologue called The Philosophers Stone
on the topic of whether rocks have consciousness.
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• The philosophical study of consciousness deals
  with the broader meaningthat is, consciousness
  as a quality or state of being itself. The
  ontological meaning of consciousness refers to
  that ground of being without which there could be
  no such things as thoughts, emotions, desires,
  wishes, hopes, fears, or volitions.
  Consciousness, in this sense, is an aspect of
  reality itself. Most of the rest of this course
  will be concerned with the philosophical meaning
  of consciousness.
• Lets recap

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Philosophical Consciousness

• Philosophical meaning Here consciousness is
  used to mean an aspect of reality radically
  distinct from non-consciousnessthe total
  absence of any experience, subjectivity,
  sentience, feeling, or mentality of any kind. The
  lights are totally out. Theres nobody home.
  (Examples often used to illustrate
  non-consciousness are objects such as rocks,
  tables, thermostats, or computers. In contrast,
  any entity that is a subject that feels its own
  beingpossesses consciousness.)
• Consciousness, in this sense, means the basic,
  raw capacity for sentience, feeling, experience,
  subjectivity, self-agency, intention, or knowing
  of any kind whatsoever. It feels like something
  to be a being with consciousness. The lights
  are on, theres somebody home.

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Psychological Consciousness

• Psychological meaning Here, consciousness is
  used to mean a state of awareness contrasted with
  the unconsciousfor example, being awake and
  alert instead of being asleep or dreaming. The
  light of experience is always on, though the
  luminosity may vary from very dim to glaring
  brightnessranging from being psychologically
  asleep to full spiritual awakening.
• Even the psychological unconscious has something
  psychic or mental going on. To be unconscious is
  still to be sentient (worms and sleeping people
  still feel), whereas to be non-conscious is not
  (rocks and computers do not feel).

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Fundamental Meaning

• Clearly, philosophical consciousness is more
  fundamental because no form of psychological
  consciousness would be possible (asleep or awake)
  without at least some trace of philosophical
  consciousness being present. (Examples often used
  to illustrate being unconscious include sleeping,
  dreaming, a coma, and may include the normal
  living state of creatures such as worms,
  starfish, and plants. In contrast, psychological
  consciousness typically involves phenomena such
  as cognition, perception, emotion, or volition.)
• And just to confuse things, a third meaning of
  consciousness is often popular in New Age
  circles

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Spiritual Consciousness

• Spiritual meaning Here, consciousness is used
  to indicate a higher or more developed or
  more aware state beyond the ordinary awareness
  of day-to-day psychological consciousness.
  Phrases such as we strive to be conscious
  beings, or whatever you do, do it with
  consciousness use the term in this spiritual
  sense. But clearly, from the perspective of the
  philosophical meaning, we dont have to strive to
  be conscious beingswe are already beings with
  consciousness.
• This spiritual meaning of consciousness refers
  to a heightened state of self-awareness that
  involves increased ethical discernment. (Examples
  often used to illustrate spiritual consciousness
  include mystical experiences, unconditional love,
  purity of compassion, and egolessness.) Since, in
  this case, the lights are also always on,
  spiritual consciousness is really a version of
  the psychological meaning (perhaps we might call
  it psycho-spiritual meaning)where the light is
  approaching optimum brightness.

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Switched-on Consciousness

• So, another way to think of these different
  meanings is to picture philosophical
  consciousness like a light switch. Its digital
  either on or off. If flipped up, the light is on
  and consciousness is present. If flipped down,
  the light is off and there is complete darkness,
  no consciousness at all. Nobody home.

On the other hand, we could picture
psychological consciousness more like a dimmer
switch. Its analog can change gradually. Once
the power is on, you can turn up the brightness
(i.e. consciousness) from dim unconscious to
sparkling consciousness, or enlightenment (the
skys the limit). In this case, the power is
always on, its just a matter of turning up or
down the dimmer.
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Crucial Distinction

• When discussing consciousness, therefore, it
  helps a great deal if we are clear about what we
  mean Do we mean the fact of awareness contrasted
  with the complete absence of any mental activity
  whatsoever (philosophical meaning). Or do we mean
  a state of awareness contrasted with being
  unconscious (psychological meaning) or contrasted
  with low moral or ethical sensitivities
  (spiritual meaning)?
• The difference between the psychological and
  philosophical meanings of consciousness is
  crucially important. If we can keep this
  distinction in mind whenever a conversation about
  consciousness comes up, we will be well served in
  our search for coherence and clarity.
• So much for consciousness. Now lets shift to
  the meaning of energy.

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What is Energy?

• Energy, too, is a slippery creature. Try to pin
  it down and it disappears like the Cheshire cat.
  It remains elusive whenever we attempt to define
  it as a thing or substance. The best science can
  do is offer a functional, operational definition
  Energy is the capacity for doing work.
• Energy, then, is a capacity, a potential for
  producing activity, for applying a force. But
  what is it that carries the capacity or
  potential? And how can something as abstract as a
  capacity or potential (something that, by
  definition, does not yet fully exist) occupy
  space? (Remember, according to Descartes,
  anything physicalmatter or energyoccupies
  space.)
• But what is it? Einstein said Emc2energy is
  equal to the mass of an object multiplied by the
  velocity of light squared. So is energy equal to
  mass in some way? And since mass is defined by
  the curvature of space-time, energy may be as
  nebulous as warps or kinks in the matrix of
  space-time . . . whatever that means. But even
  so, how does energy get its dynamic character?

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Energy Flows

• Forced to give a definition, we may say energy is
  what is exchanged between atoms in their
  interactions, and the patterns of these exchanges
  are manifested in the structure of matter. Does
  that help? Not much. We are left with a vague,
  intuitive understanding of energy as a kind of
  homogeneous, primordial flux in which all that
  has shape in the world is just a series of
  fleeting vortices. The primordial flux is
  coextensive with the universethe physical
  universe is the total amount of energy. In this
  view, energy cannot be divided up into neat
  little pieces with nothing in between.
• As the flux converges here and there into
  vortices of concentrated packetsenergy quantait
  must diffuse elsewhere. Nothing can happen
  anywhere in this total energy matrix without it
  affecting the whole. The universe, it seems, is a
  cosmic quantum (within the universe as a whole,
  energy cannot be created or destroyed). From a
  thermodynamic systems perspective, energy may be
  defined as the flow of information or order from
  regions of high concentration to regions of low
  concentration.

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Universal Energy

• All the bits and pieces of the universe, from
  galaxies down to elementary particles, up to
  living beings, are systems of vorticesconcentrate
  d packets of energyall interrelated and
  interdependent. Every particle in the universe
  is a thread in the cosmic tapestryeach one woven
  by all the others. If we attempt to pull out a
  thread for close examination, we find the rest of
  the tapestry beginning to fray, and the pattern
  as a whole becomes incoherent. The universe must
  be considered as a whole, otherwise it loses
  meaning.
• Ultimately, energy is an abstraction, a concept
  we introduce to account for the universes
  capacity to do work, to account for the fact that
  anything at all ever happens. But how can the
  world of solid, material stuffof tables and
  chairs, of mountains and citiesbe ultimately
  made up of an abstract concept?

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Meaning of Energy

• It is very difficult, then, to be clear what
  anybody means by the term energy. It is similar
  to the word force in that it seems to explain
  something, but actually only disguises a deeper
  mystery. For the purposes of this course, we will
  use the physicists definitionvague though it
  iswhere energy refers to some physical quantity.
  It is something that can be measured, even though
  neither we, nor the scientists, really know what
  it is that is being measured.
• And since energy is a physical quantity, we
  should not assume that it is appropriate to use
  the term when talking about the nature or
  dynamics of consciousness.

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Energy Consciousness

• So, back to our earlier question If energy (or
  matter) is defined as stuff that occupies space
  and moves through space (remember thats what
  physical means), how could consciousness be a
  form of energy?
• After all, we know that consciousness has no
  size, and has no locationso what could it mean
  to say it is in space? And if consciousness is
  not in space, what does it mean to say it is a
  form of energy?
• Perhaps, then, consciousness is a form of
  non-physical energy?
• Lets look at this more closely.

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Energy Consciousness

• How are consciousness and energy related? We
  have three options
• (1) Consciousness is a physical form of energy
  (even if it is very, very subtle energy)
• (2) Consciousness is a non-physical form of
  energy
• (3) Consciousness is not any form of energy.

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Energy Consciousness

• (1) Consciousness as a physical form of energy
  If we say that consciousness is a form of energy
  that is physical, then we are reducing
  consciousness (and spirit) to physics. And few of
  us, unless we are materialists, want to do that.
• (2) Consciousness as a non-physical form of
  energy If we say that consciousness is a form of
  energy that is not physical, then we need to say
  in what way psychic energy differs from physical
  energy. If we cannot explain what we mean by
  psychic energy and how it differs from physical
  energy, then we should ask ourselves why use the
  term energy at all?
• (3) Consciousness is not any form of energy. Our
  third alternative is to say that consciousness is
  not a form of energy at alleither physical or
  nonphysical. Unlike energy, which is some kind of
  stuff that spreads out in space, consciousness
  isnt made of stuff, and is not located in
  space. If this is true, then consciousness would
  not only be different from energy, it would be
  nonlocated.

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Energy Consciousness

• This is not to imply that consciousness has
  nothing to do with energy. In fact, the position
  I emphasize (panpsychism or radical naturalism)
  is that consciousness and energy always go
  together. They cannot ever be separated. But this
  is not to say they are not distinct. They are
  distinctenergy is energy, consciousness is
  consciousnessbut they are inseparable (like two
  sides of a coin, or, better, like the shape and
  substance of a tennis ball. You cant separate
  the shape from the substance of the ball, but
  shape and substance are definitely distinct).
• So, for example, some spiritual traditions talk
  of kundalini experiences, where a meditator may
  feel a rush of energy up the chakra system . . .
  but to say that such energy flow is consciousness
  is to mistake the object (energy flow) for the
  subject, for what perceives (consciousness) the
  object.

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Energy Consciousness

• Note the two importantly distinct words in the
  phrase feel the rush of energy On the one hand
  there is the feeling, on the other, there is
  what is being felt or experienced (the energy).
  Even our way of talking about it reveals that we
  detect a distinction between feeling
  (consciousness) and what we feel (energy).
• Yes, the two go together, but they are not the
  same. Unity, or unification, or holism, does not
  equal identity. To say that one aspect of reality
  (consciousness) cannot be separated from another
  aspect of reality (matter-energy) is not to say
  both aspects of reality (consciousness and
  matter-energy) are identical.

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Energy Flows. Consciousness Knows.

• Consciousness, I am suggesting, is neither
  identical to energy (the worldview of monismboth
  materialism and idealism) nor is it a separate
  substance or energy in addition to physical
  matter or energy (the worldview of dualism). It
  is the interiority, the what-it-feels-like-from-wi
  thin, the subjectivity intrinsic to the reality
  of all matter and energy (the worldview of
  panpsychism / radical naturalism).
• I am proposing that it is a mistake to speak of
  consciousness as though it were a form of energy.
  Yet they cannot be separated. Wherever there is
  consciousness there is energy, and vice versa.
• As we said earlier Energy flows. Consciousness
  knows. Consciousness is the witness that
  experiences the flow of energy, but it is not the
  flow of energy. We could say consciousness is the
  felt interiority of energy/matter.

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Energy Flows. Consciousness Feels.

• To grasp this experientially, you might take a
  moment to pay attention to whats going on in
  your own body right now. The physical matter of
  your bodyincluding the flow of whatever energies
  are pulsing through youare the stuff of your
  organism. But there is also a part of you that is
  aware of, or feels, the pumping of your blood
  (and other energy streams). The aspect of you
  that feels the matter-energy in your body is your
  consciousness.
• We could express it this way Consciousness is
  the process of matter-energy informing itself.
  Consciousness is the ability that matter-energy
  has to feel, to know, and to direct itself. The
  universe is full of energy flows, vortices, and
  vibrations, but without consciousness, all this
  activity would be completely unfelt and unknown.
  Only because there is consciousness can the flow
  of energy be felt, known, and purposefully
  directed.

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Consciousness Talk

• So, to conclude Im suggesting that when
  discussing consciousness we avoid using energy
  talk, and instead get into the habit of using
  consciousness talk.
• This may be difficult at first because our
  language is riddled with metaphors derived from
  our two dominant sensesvision and touch. Our
  language drips with mechanistic metaphors related
  to colors, shapes, sizes, and to push-pull
  metaphors derived from our bodys kinesthetics.
  Energy and mechanism do dominate our language.
• But we dont need to stay stuck in energy talk.
  Our language also has many very useful words
  specific to consciousness itselfwords such as
  purpose, choice, intention, attention,
  desire, volition, sentience, value, and,
  of course, meaning. None of these words are
  reducible to mechanics or physics.
• Instead of mechanism and energy talk, Im
  proposing, we get used to exploring consciousness
  with appropriate consciousness talk, looking
  for explanations in terms of meaning rather than
  mechanism.

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Next Session 5Quantum Consciousness

• In the next session, we will look further into
  the uses of metaphors borrowed from
  physicsspecifically, we will explore the bizarre
  world of the quantum, and ask Can quantum
  physics enlighten us about consciousness?
• In looking for an answer, we will find out
  whats so special about the quantum.
• But first, as promised, Ill end this session
  with a kind of epiloguea short story of an
  experience I had teaching Consciousness Studies
  students about rocks and consciousness. For some
  reason, its an issue that always seems to touch
  a nerve . . .

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The Philosophers Stone

• It just doesnt feel right, she protested,
  unhappy at the suggestion that perhaps rocks
  dont have consciousness. She looked genuinely
  troubled, as I held up the stone.
• My job, as a philosophy teacher, is to get
  students to think outside the box, to become
  more conscious of how they think. This is not
  supposed to be an exercise in what to think, it
  is not about finding right ideas. I rubbed the
  rounded stone between my hands, feeling the
  paradox of its cool warmth.
• Donna, I said, Im not asking you to change
  any particular belief about rocks. If you think
  rocks or stone are conscious, thats fine.
  Though silently I wondered why it seemed to
  matter so much to her that lumps of granite
  pulsed with what she called vibrations. In my
  experience, rocksimmobile, inert, unresponsive,
  hard, and coldare the very epitome of something
  thats thoroughly non-conscious. Of course, I
  could be wrong. But how could we ever tell for
  sure?
• The issue isnt whether rocks really do or do
  not have consciousness, I went on, unconsciously
  stroking the stone against my chin, searching for
  the best words. There really isnt any decisive
  way to know. Theres no conclusive test for
  consciousness. I hesitated, knowing theres no
  kind of test at all.

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The Philosophers Stone

• Whether or not rocks, or anything else, have
  consciousness is a scientific question, and as
  things stand science cannot even begin to answer
  the question.
• But scientists would laugh at the idea of
  rock-consciousness, another student blurted out
  as a question, wouldnt they?
• Yes, I do believe most of them would, I
  agreed, and went on to explain how thats a good
  example of a metaphysical prejudice masquerading
  as scientific knowledge. Without having the
  faintest idea how to test such a belief, most
  scientists I know would insist that the idea of
  rock-consciousness is absurd.
• Its like believe first, ask questions
  later, the student mumbled to her neighbor.
• Thats not science, its scientism, I offered,
  still agreeing. Its bad science. Its confusing
  the how with the whatthe process of thinking
  with the contents of thinking.
• I could see that this last statement drew blank
  looks, so I tried to explain.

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The Philosophers Stone

• What youve just identified about so-called
  scientific thinking about rocks, serves as a good
  example of where Id like you to focus your own
  awareness. A rustle echoed around the room as
  students shifted in their seats.
• Notice how these scientists (whoever they are)
  engage in a form of thinking we might call
  jumping to conclusions. They believe that only
  creatures with brains could have consciousness,
  and since rocks dont have brains, therefore
  rocks couldnt have consciousness. That kind of
  thinking is called a syllogism. And its quite
  valid as stated. Yes, if its true that only
  brains have consciousness, then the conclusion
  logically follows rocks dont have
  consciousness. But thats a philosophical
  conclusion, not a scientific one. Science works
  by testing the ifs using experiments that yield
  tangible evidence. And theres no tangible
  evidence for consciousnessnot only in rocks but
  in human beings, too.

38
The Philosophers Stone

• Even philosophically the conclusion hinges on
  the truth or accuracy of the initial premise
  only creatures with brains have consciousness.
  Is that really true? The second premise, rocks
  dont have brains is not a problem. Plenty of
  people, including scientists, have split open
  rocks and nobody has ever seen a brain inside.
• But for the conclusion rocks cant be
  conscious to be true both premises would have to
  be true. And we simply do not know whether the
  first premise only brains have consciousness is
  true. To believe so in advance of testing the
  hypothesis is scientism, not science.
• Looking at the sea of faces, I could see Id
  completely lost them by now. How could I make the
  point more clearly?
• What Im trying to get at here is that science
  is about discovering what the actual world is
  really like, whereas philosophy is about
  exploring possible worlds. Science is interested
  in whether brains actually produce consciousness
  (and whether rocks really, actually, do have
  consciousness or not) philosophy is interested
  in, for example, whether its possible that
  consciousness could exist without brains, or if
  its possible that rocks could exist with or
  without consciousness.

39
The Philosophers Stone

• I was still struggling. So I turned to Donna
  again.
• When I asked you to think of something that
  didnt have consciousness I suggested a rock
  might be a good example of such a thing. But you
  didnt agree because you felt uncomfortable. It
  didnt feel right, you said. You may indeed be
  correct Perhaps rocks do have consciousness. But
  Id like you now to be open to the possibility
  that either you may be mistaken, or that in some
  other world its possible that rocks dont have
  consciousness. You dont even have to give up
  your belief, Id just like you to entertain the
  possibility. Can you do that?
• She squirmed a little in her chair and after a
  long silence, her face strained from some
  internal struggle, said No. I just dont believe
  its possible.
• Why wouldnt it be possible? I asked, trying
  to hide a growing impatience.
• Because it just doesnt feel right, she said.
  Wed come full circle.

40
The Philosophers Stone

• I searched frantically for a new tack. The clock
  was hungrily devouring the minutes, as the hands
  inched their way toward 945.
• Maybe it doesnt feel right to scientists to
  consider the possibility of rocks having
  consciousness. You would feel one thing, theyd
  feel the exact opposite. Whod be right? How
  would we decide?
• Donna thought for a moment Well maybe theres
  no right, she came back. Maybe wed both be
  right in our own way.
• Id lost.
• But I couldnt let it alone. How could the same
  thingour rockboth have consciousness and not
  have consciousness at the same time? Thats a
  contradiction. It doesnt make sense. Its
  incoherent.
• My frustration was beginning to show now, as the
  pitch of my voice climbed an octave. But her coup
  de grace was about to come

41
The Philosophers Stone

• According to your logic, maybe. Thats
  either/or thinking. In my way of thinking its
  both/and.
• At that point I gave finally gave up. I realized
  the truth staring me in the face.
• Then we cant communicate, I said. We cant
  understand each other. If you are talking from a
  world where you believe both/and logic applies to
  contradictory statements then I have no way of
  making rational sense of what you say. In my
  world, some statements do require understanding
  in either/or terms. The same thing (a rock)
  cannot be both in one state (conscious) and its
  exact opposite (non-conscious) at the same time.
  All meaning breaks down for me at that point.
• Capitalizing on her winning hand, she threw out
  Only if you are looking for meaning through
  reason and logic.
• Bingo. Thats it. Maybe I had an opening after
  all.

42
The Philosophers Stone

• Thats precisely what I am looking for, I said
  with a sense of desperation tinged with a flicker
  of hope. We are now communicating through
  language which is the expression of concepts. And
  for concepts to hang together coherentlyto make
  sensewe have to honor the rules of rationality
  and logic. Im looking for conceptual coherence.
  Im not saying that whatever fits together
  rationally is necessarily true in the actual
  world (after all, theres no reason whatsoever
  that reality should fit our concepts). Im saying
  that for me to understand what you say about the
  world I need to hear ideas that fit together
  coherently. And contradictory statements cancel
  each other out, they do not fit.
• Was I finally getting a foothold? I wondered.
  The ticking of the clock picked its way through
  the silence as I waited for her response.
• Well, if you want me to just think that its
  possible for a rock to be non-conscious, okay. I
  can do that. But it still doesnt feel right, and
  I dont believe its true.

43
The Philosophers Stone

• I was back in the driving seat. Thats all I
  wanted you to do all along. Engage in a thought
  experiment. Thats all philosophy is. Now youre
  beginning to think like a philosopher.
• After class, when the last student had left, I
  sat there with the stone between my hands,
  resting on my lap. I fingered its smooth curves,
  emptying my mind of all the days thoughts,
  absent-mindedly concentrating on the heft and
  solidity of the rock. Three or four billion years
  ago, this fragment of planet had been spewed out
  by some fire-breathing volcano. It cooled, and
  found its place among the Earths earliest
  ancestors. Some rocks got digested and
  transformed by primitive bacteria, and entered
  the steam of living systems. Others, like this
  one, remained as they had been, for millionsfor
  billionsof years.
• There was something very special about such an
  ancient, almost eternal, object. If only I could
  see the eons of changes it weathered, recorded
  somehow in its elements. I closed my eyes and
  held the stone lightly, feeling for its almost
  imperceptible grooves. For a moment, fleetingly,
  I could have sworn it carried a silent message .
  . .