Death, Consciousness, God, Time, Afterlife, and This Life: 

Consciousness

The only thing we truly know is consciousness, our experience of self and world. Neuroscientists say that I see a red flower because molecules in the flower reflect red light (i.e., light with a wavelength that scientists have labeled “red”), which then lands on cells in my retina, which send electrical signals to regions of my brain that stimulate other regions of my brain to cause me to say, “I see a red flower.” But what are these things that we call flower, eye, brain cells, light, molecules, electrical signals? My natural tendency is to assume that they are an internal mind-picture that accurately reflects a reality outside myself, that they are objects in space that “look” the same even when I am not there. But that is false. The “objects” are thoughts – experiences in what I call my mind. What I call “the red flower,” for example, includes much more than the representation in my mind. The “actual” red flower may have what our scientific procedures conclude are ultraviolet or infrared patterns on its petals, patterns that bees see but that are invisible to me. Furthermore, congenitally blind people may identify a flower by tracing it with their fingers. The flower that they “see” is very different from what I “see.” Yet they, like me, will naturally assume that the flower they “see” exists as they “see” it, even when nobody is there. We are all wrong.

Consider another perspective: a phone photographing the flower employs chips using digital code (zeros and ones) to take “information” – whatever that is – from the flower to produce information that our eyes perceive as a remarkably accurate representation of what we call “the red flower.” But another camera could photograph “the red flower” in infrared or ultraviolet and give a completely different representation. All these cameras process only zeros and ones. They do not “see” red. Nevertheless, they may enable us to “see” what we think is the same “red” that we see when we look directly at the flower.

Although the thoughts presumably produced by molecules, light, brain cells, etc. are not true representations of whatever “the red flower” is in “objective reality,” the thoughts nevertheless explain certain regularities in my experience of what I call the world. The thoughts point to something that is not me and provide enough information about the “not me” entity to enable me to interact with it. For example, I can bend down and pluck a petal from the red flower.  

Thus, if I say that my consciousness results from certain patterns of neurons relaying electrical signals, I am trying to explain experience with experience, for neurons and electrical signals are merely ideas in my mind and the minds of others, who themselves are ideas in my mind. That to which those ideas point may be something other than my mind, but it is not the concepts in my mind, i.e., atoms, molecules, neurons, light, electricity, etc. I delude myself if I think that the hypothesized entities resemble the ideas or “pictures” of “matter” in my mind and reveal what the world “is.” I have no idea what so-called material things are in themselves. As in a virtual reality fantasy, bits of information cause a conscious being to "perceive" a world. But the underlying reality, i.e., the bits of information, bears no resemblance to the perceptions. At heart, reality is a mystery.

In today’s intellectually impoverished world, few have heard of the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato. According to Plato’s formerly famous allegory of the cave, chained humans face a blank wall of a cave. On that wall they see shadows cast by a fire shining on entities behind them. The people in the cave mistakenly think that the shadows they perceive are reality, but those shadows are merely a projection of a reality that they cannot see.

Even Plato’s cave analogy underestimates how mysterious the objective reality is. The mysterious entities, what we call “reality,” cast shadows that may not at all resemble the hidden reality. The reality to which the shadows point may be mind, or it may be something different from mind that gives rise to mind, something that we call “matter” without truly knowing what “matter” really is. We simply do not know. Given how many brilliant philosophers over the millennia have debated such issues without resolution, perhaps we cannot know with certainty, at least not in this life.

All we can be sure of is that we are conscious, that we experience. A vital aspect of that experience is what we call “I,” that is, self-consciousness. “I” is like a searchlight that, when directed at an experience, results in what we could call the experience of that experience. While I have been typing, my searchlight was focused inward as my mind reached for words that would correspond to the not-yet-verbalized ideas emanating from regions of my mind that are too deep to perceive directly. While I am concentrating on writing, I also experience a myriad of things that I call “the computer screen,” “the hum of the air conditioner,” “the floor,” etc. As I name these things, the searchlight of “I” briefly focuses on them and elevates them in my experience, i.e., I experience the experience. I categorize these things as “material,” but I know all of them only as experience, as things in my mind. What they are in themselves forever eludes me.

Even the “I” that I call myself is a mystery. Does “I” exist when I am in deep sleep? If not, is “I” reborn each time I awaken?  That would seem to suggest that “I” is an illusion, a function of  mind rather than an entity? If “I” is an illusion then everything and everyone I love are also illusions. I stagger in a dizzying horror of nothingness, for if my “I” and the “I’s” of my loved ones don’t exist, “I” is nothing, all the “I’s” I love are nothing, and nothing is worth nothing. 

Seeking a way out of nothingness, I look to memory for the sense of continuity we associate with “I.” I remember being a little girl playing catch with a neighbor. I call that person “me” because “I” recall the memory, and because a mountain of other memories link that little girl and me. These memories seem to be important in defining who “I” is. But the memory explanation is inadequate because there are forms of amnesia in which personal biography is lost, but the amnesic person still speaks of “I.” I could forget my entire past life, but I would still refer to myself as “I.”

Some religions distinguish between the sense of “I” and the self, or soul. The soul is reputed to be objectively real. It exists apart from that which we call matter. This is a comforting idea, for the soul may exist beyond death. But when I look inside, where is my soul? All I seem to perceive is the “I” that ceases to exist when I am asleep or unconscious. 

Furthermore, I cannot rely only on my introspective explorations. “I” exists in a social world. If I had been adopted as a baby, an “I” that is not my current "I" would inhabit that which I today call “my body.” Looking inward, the adopted me would see a different “I” than I see today because its interpersonal history would be completely different. The people I love and who love me, my memories of where I grew up, my hidden fears, my yearnings, my regrets, my goals, my philosophy of life, my name – all would be different. But that “mind” would be in this body. Would that “I” be “me”? Or would the “I” that I today call “me” not exist? Would that adopted “I” in this body have a different soul? The same soul, but a different “I” and history? Again, is “I” an illusion? Or is it real?

The illusion interpretation appeals to many neuroscientists and is consistent with Advaita Hinduism’s view of self, the Atman, which dissolves at the end of a long, reincarnated journey, at which point the Atman realizes that all of phenomenal reality is illusion and that the Atman is the One, i.e., Brahman. 

“Dizziness seizes me as “I” tries to understand the nature of “I.” Every time “I” seems within my grasp, it eludes me, like trying to capture a tiny fruit fly in my hand. 

Thus, there is mystery whether we look inward at “I” or outward at the world. All we know for certain is that we are conscious and that only a tiny portion of that of which we are conscious yields to our will. This is the heart of the mind-body problem. How can mental processes of mind influence and be influenced by what we call “the physical world,” by “bodies”?

Perhaps there is no mind-body problem because, as idealist philosophers have maintained, there is only mind. However, only a minute part of that mind is what I can call “I.” Most of the elements of mind I experience belong to what I call “the world,” including the experience of “my body.” 

These experiences have order. I look through what I call a telescope and everything that I point it at looks bigger than it does when viewed with what I call my eye. The beautiful ringed-planet Saturn, which I claim to see through my telescope, is not what I see. What I see is an experience. What I claim to see is beyond my grasp, a mysterious thing-in-itself that I cannot fathom.

Suppose, however, that I travel on a rocket ship to the entity that I call Saturn. When I arrive in orbit above my destination, I am awed by the beauty of the planet’s rings, I watch its many moons circling the planet, I take in the brightness of its atmosphere. “Surely,” you may say, “you see Saturn now!” I beg to differ. I now have the experience of seeing what I call Saturn up close. I see details associated with the concept of Saturn that I didn’t see before. My experience of what I call Saturn is richer, more differentiated than it was when I viewed the planet through a telescope. But it is still an experience. The thing in itself, what I call Saturn, is still beyond my grasp, as are the elements of the thing associated with what I call Saturn – its rings, its atmosphere, its moons. All is experience. I perceive only the shadow of reality.

Nevertheless, Saturn, whatever it is in itself, is not me. So what is it? We normally would say that it is part of the material universe, which is distinct from the mental universe of mind. But what I call “material” exists only in my mind. Matter is functionally a category of mind. 

Is my conscious experience all that exists? Am I locked in a solipsistic cave? “But,” you may object, “what about the countless comets and dead stars that no observer has ever experienced but that reason and scientific evidence say must exist and may be discovered in the future?  Do they not exist if they are not perceived by a mind?” 

Some might answer this question in the affirmative. They may analogize to the double-slit experiment in which light waves going through two slits produce a wave pattern on a screen, unless an “observer” records the waves as they pass through the slits, in which case a particle pattern is produced. In a sense, the particles do not exist without the observer. Similarly, material entities may not exist without a perceiver, an “observer.” In this view, a tree cannot fall in a forest without observers, for the tree cannot exist without being perceived by a conscious being.

The idealist philosopher Berkeley rejected this perspective. He considered the material world, perceived and not perceived, to be the “mind” of God, who sustains, who “perceives” and interpenetrates the universe that He created. When I was a child, my mother would hold me and dance as she sang a song that I now associate with Berkeley’s idealism. The song was called, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”  When I am acutely aware that the things we call “matter” are shadows in Plato’s cave, I close my eyes and look inward to try to apprehend things in themselves. In this state, I seem to touch the mystery of God immanent, of the immaterial God who sustains the so-called material world, holding in His hands the mysterious entities, the shadows that we call matter. 

God holds me in his hands as I walk along the beach. God holds in his hands each of the grains of sand that I pick up. God holds in his hands each molecule, each atom, each subatomic particle, within each grain of sand. The singularity in a black hole is in God’s hands.  He created and holds in His hands the spacetime and quantum fields that become ineffable inside the black hole. 

Human minds and what we call matter, then, are not so different. God, who is neither matter nor human mind, creates and sustains both. The duality that seems so stark to us becomes one in his loving hands. The Brother Sun to whom St. Francis sang rests in the same hands as the sun that the astrophysicist describes as matter and energy.

If God is immanent in the so-called material universe, there is, in fact, no thing-in-itself, for nothing in the creation has any independent existence. All that exists rests in God, and God is within all that exists. When we perceive something, then, we participate in a trinitarian experience: An “I” perceives a “thing” that, like the “I,” has no independent existence because it rests in and with God. My experience of a “thing,” then, is the conjunction of a mysterious “I,” a mysterious “thing,” and a mysterious God, who sustains and interpenetrates the “I” and the “thing.” 

The myriad of unperceived star systems do not participate in such a trinitarian relationship with us until we perceive them. Until that time, however, they exist for God. He’s got the whole world in His hands.

For intelligent creatures like us, this immense firmament, if we relate to it with wonder, gratitude, and reverence, declares that “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” 

This is good news! The existence of a God who is eternal, transcendent, and immanent gives us hope that oblivion is not our fate, that our consciousness will continue after death, even if in a state that we cannot now imagine. The Christian beliefs that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ and that Jesus rose from the dead amplifies this hope of a life beyond the grave. By becoming a man in Jesus, God demonstrated that He is loving, wants to have a personal relationship with each of us, and extends to us the hope that, like Jesus, we may one day be resurrected. 

But if there is no God, or if He is conceptualized as an impersonal abstraction, that hope disappears. Pantheism, for example, elevates theism’s immanence of God by identifying God with what we call the material universe. God is not transcendent. God is the universe. In a sense, pantheism rescues the regnant philosophy of materialism by de-materializing the so-called material universe. The things that we call atoms, protons, quarks, etc. – the fundamental things that constitute reality – are perceived only through our minds but are in themselves forever unknowable. Nevertheless, the “material” patterns and regularities that our minds detect indicate that the self at the center of all our experiences is created by entities that are not the mind. Those ultimately unknowable entities are fundamental, not what we call matter, not mind, and certainly not what we call “I.” When other minds perceive the thing that I call my body exhibiting changes that we call death, I have ceased to exist. The alpha and omega of my existence is fixed in the pantheist god. I will never re-awaken.

I will never reawaken, unless, some maintain, the elements of my mind have been downloaded into a computer. This is the potential immortality that researchers have pursued for years and that finally appears to have consummated with the mind download of Veronica Scott and, eventually, privileged people who have the money to pay for what they think is immortality.

But did Veronica Scott become immortal? When her brain was terminated, did her consciousness end or did it gain a new life in a computer? 

The computer that copied her memories and personality may seem like a continuation of her consciousness. In my opinion, however, it is merely a simulation. Such computer entities may be analogous to an intricately detailed hologram of a human body. Do the computer “minds” see red flowers as we see them? Do they feel anger or joy as we feel? Perhaps they merely reproduce the information patterns that scientists call “seeing red flowers,” “feeling angry,” or “feeling joyful.” Illusion melting into illusion, nothing resting on nothing.

Furthermore, even if their analysis of selfhood were correct, mind downloads do not achieve immortality. Destroy the computers and program backups and the “immortals'' cease to exist. Moreover, eventually the so-called material universe will reach a point of heat death, or will encounter what some call the "big rip," when the accelerating expansion of space will tear apart even elementary particles. Or, the universe may close in on itself in a “big crunch,” perhaps to give rise to another big bang. Whatever the future of the universe, computer “minds” will cease to exist, even if billions of years must pass before they meet oblivion.

Mind download research is pursued so zealously because immortality is an abiding desire of human beings. We don’t want to die. We want to be conscious forever. Our society dulls this desire by ensuring that we live healthy, busy lives full of pleasure. People today have been socialized not to think about or at least not to dwell on death. They conform to the social pressures that impel them to find a vocation and pursue pleasure. Most people, then, can happily avoid thinking about death until it is close, at which time they can quiet their fear with drugs and/or a virtual termination fantasy that transports them calmly, if not happily, into oblivion.

But the downloading of minds changes things. If consciousness arises from and depends utterly upon that which we call matter, whatever it may be in itself, machines may be the next step in evolution, and humanity may be nearing its final, desolate day of destiny – unless, of course, God and souls exist.

Next Essay: God