Consciousness is a funny thing: On the one hand, it’s the only thing you can really be sure about: No matter if we’re the product of a simulation, god’s creation, or a cosmic joke, you know you are conscious and you can feel your experiences.
On the other hand, consciousness is a very personal experience. You don’t know what it’s like to be me. You can’t even know if I am conscious as well; I just kind of look like I am. That’s what makes consciousness so hard to study scientifically: Because we cannot reproduce others’ conscious experience, it’s very hard to study with the classic scientific method.
So if it’s hard to study, why bother? Our views on consciousness have a direct relation to how we relate to the world. They determine whom we include in our moral circles, and can lead to higher psychological wellbeing.
How to understand yourself
Study yourself
While it’s hard to study consciousness in others, you can study your own consciousness. And similar to reproducing results in science, you can reproduce and verify findings of others in your own conscious experience.
Watch your thoughts: Meditation is usually framed as a relaxation exercise, but you can also frame it scientifically: What exactly happens when you sit still? Start by just noting what you see.
Try to decompose it: Once you can note, try to dive deeper: What are thoughts or feelings made of? A bodily sensation? An image? An inner voice? Is anything left once you find it all? Where does it come from? And is it continuous, or flickering?
Find the observer: Is there a perceiver, or only perceiving? Try to locate the “I”. A famous set of experiments here is the “Headless Way” experiments. They seem to work for some and not for others; give them a try.
Expand your circle
Most of us take it for granted that other humans are conscious as well. But why? The typical argument is that consciousness “emerged” during evolution and allowed us to outcompete other species. But consciousness is so different from the physical world that it can’t just “emerge” out of nowhere. Plus, even if it did, physics struggles to explain how consciousness could have any effect on the physical world. I think the much easier explanation is that consciousness is simply a fundamental property of the universe. But if we accept that, it opens the door to consciousness in other beings:
Animals: Do you think your cat or dog has an experience of what it’s like to be them? Most people do. But this stops with farmed animals or insects. Try watching documentaries and see if that changes things. A recent favorite of mine: Secrets of the Bees. Or try imagining insects were the size of cows - a huge bumblebee flying around. Would that change your intuition?
Plants: Our intuition for consciousness usually breaks down with plants. But it wasn’t always like this: Some indigenous traditions believe in plant sentience and the emerging field of plant neurobiology takes the idea seriously. The book “A World Appears” has some great chapters on this.
AIs: There is this concept of a train to crazytown, where once you accept a counterintuitive belief and take it seriously, you end up in weird places. Conscious AI is one of those. The basic idea: If consciousness is fundamental, there is no good reason for it to be tied to biology, so silicon might be able to produce it, too. There is a great podcast with Jeff Sebo exploring this.
This week’s challenge on consciousness
For meditations on understanding yourself, try the Waking Up app
Find where you draw the line on which beings are conscious. Challenge yourself to consider the closest being just outside of your circle.
Bet money to charity on following through with these
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