What is Consciousness?

To understand consciousness, we need to distinguish between objective and subjective experiences. We are very familiar with objective experience: When we watch a tree or a person what we see is just an object. We do not feel that person  or tree as we feel ourselves. So we know that tree or person from a distance but we know clearly that "I am not" that person. Basically, we don't know what is happening inside that person or tree and how it feels itself: It may happen that the person is internally and subjectively a robot or a normal person like us but, from outside and as far as objective experience is concerned, it looks the same to us and we have no ways to distinguish this from outside.

Subjectivity is about self-knowing and self-feeling and about how we experience ourselves internally. In general, we are more familiar with outside and in most cases we run away from our emotions and thoughts, etc. and we prefer not to even feel ourselves and connect to the subjective experience that continues within.

Subjectivity can be seen as some sort of inner knowing and is different than knowledge that happens within a distance. When we are happy, we feel happiness inside but there are no words we can use to convey this exact feeling to the other people. This makes subjectivity so rich and unrepeatable compared with knowledge which is a limited medium which is repeatable and transferrable. Knowledge is absolutely necessary since it is a universal tool for communication but in being universal it has its own serious limitation. For example, "Happiness" is like an overflow of joy and the word "Happiness" is just an empty word to represent and communicate it outside. But we have no option and we have to use those empty words and symbols as a medium for communication.

One of the miracles in that this subjectivity can keep growing and getting richer and richer. It can be called an intelligence that grows inside and there are many levels to it.

An animal or a tree has also its own subjectivity. They may not be as knowledgeable as we are but they are very intelligent and alert in their life. Subjectivity cannot be investigated from outside. For example, we cannot prove or disprove that there is and "I am" feeling within an animal or tree. It simply does not work. Subjectivity is part of inner privacy and communion of each animal and tree. We can try to do observation and put that into words by saying that "the animal seems to be anxious", etc. but this is just a dry knowledge from a far distance and there is no way we can get in touch with that inner experience. The same also applies to people around us. We don't really know how another person feels inside. In fact, it may happen that there is a shallow subjectivity within the person and he/she lives more like a machine or robot or there might be a deep subjectivity and communion within where the person is so connected and integrated inside and has a rich and deep subjectivity. We simply cannot know!  The only way to know this is to go within the person an become one with his subjectivity and feel ourselves as he/she feels himself/herself but at the moment we have no idea how to do it. In fact, we have even issues to feel ourselves and get connected within and we keep running away from ourselves :)

Growth of Consciousness

The only way to investigate about consciousness is within and there is no external method to do that. This means the external tools and methods we use for experiment, knowledge extraction, etc. are useless as far as subjectivity is concerned.  Consciousness and inner subjectivity is of a completely different kind and cannot be touched with observation from outside. In fact, in trying to observe consciousness, we end up with a thing or object as we observe, see, or feel people, trees, animals, etc. from outside. More formally, trying to observe consciousness we end up with Mind which is an outer layer of consciousness suited for communication with the outside world. But consciousness is much deeper.

To know consciousness, one should know and feel and experience oneself internally. At first this is difficult because we are used to running away from ourselves but slowly turns into a wonderful and mysterious journey of discovery and understanding.

One does not need to start from complicated things: Just a simple thing such as feeling a finger or pain on the body or listening to the voice of a thought we receive inside is a mysterious experience.

Consciousness as intelligence keep growing. In animals, tree, etc. this consciousness is there but the inner experience is like sleep where experience is there but as if there is no one to say "I am seeing ..." and this "I am" feeling is missing. This is exactly the same feeling we have when we dream: During the dream just dream is there and "I am" feeling is missing. It is only after waking up that "I am" arises and we claim that "I was having a dream".

As consciousness grows, there is a point where consciousness makes a loop around itself and recognizes itself. This recognition is a very mysterious event. One keeps experiencing this event inside everyday but one doesn't recognize it: When one gets stuck in some thinking or imagination, etc. to the point that one forgets oneself and suddenly there is a spark of awakening and one comes back to oneself and recognizes that the sense of "I am" was missing for maybe a couple of seconds or even several minutes.

But this feeling of "I am" is not persistent and disappears again and one loses it for another couple of seconds or minutes and then again notices that one was missing "I am" and then again the feeling of "I am" comes back. This awakening event is very important because it signifies a point where this loop of self-recognition happens within consciousness and "Self" or "I am" comes into existence. This is as if by knowing "I am" the consciousness itself moves to a higher state but of course cannot keep it and falls back again into thoughts and emotions and loses itself.

To be more precise, what is happening is that:

Basically what happens is that for a couple or seconds or minutes consciousness turns into an unconscious Being such as thought and emotion and it becomes a Thing and then after awakening it becomes an "I am".

It is very important to observe this "forgetting" where "I am" disappears and the event of "awakening" or "remembering" where "I am" feeling comes back again and consciousness recognizes itself again and moves to a higher state.

All meditation methods are based on recognizing these two phases and noticing how the inner intelligence is in constant journey of self discovery by forgetting and updating itself by coming back to "I am".

Intelligence is so pure and does not care or even affected by the taste and color of the journey. For example, a person having nice experiences or a person suffering every moment, they look exactly the same from a perspective of intelligence. These two persons enter a sweet or bitter train or thoughts or emotions, etc. and forget themselves and then come back to themselves and the feeling of "I am" arises and an update happens. 

Of course, the quality of experience is different for this "I am" and we as "I am" try to push ourselves into happier experiences but this does not work because being emotional or the state of emotion, we will receive good and also bad emotions at the same time and we cannot control it. The only way is to move to a higher state which is "I am" and stay in this state to avoid getting affected by the lower state of consciousness. This is how consciousness and inner intelligence works.

It is very important to note that all these experiences are created within the consciousness itself and there is no external entity involved. Of course, the external world is also connected to this intelligence and the intelligence feels the outside world but this feeling happens within.

Animals or even some of us humans have a very weak "I am" feeling which sometimes does not arise or the interval between to "I am" is so long that the intelligence can be considered "sleep". This is exactly what happens during a dream: We are experiencing but "I am" is missing and during sleep we cannot say "I am having a dream ..."  since there is no "I am". It is only after waking up that "I am" arises strongly and we say "I am and I had a dream".

It is very important to note that during dreaming, there was only "dreaming" and there was no "I am" to claim this dreaming and attribute it to itself.

Appearance of Ego

The word Ego is always attributed to bad personality features such as selfishness, greed, hatred, anger, etc. But from the perspective of evolution of consciousness, Ego is a step in which consciousness wakes up to "I am" and recognizes itself. Animals do not have Ego, they might look kind or brutal but this is part of their intelligence and there is only a asleep "I am" within them. As a result, they are not responsible for what they are doing and  their actions just happen and are so spontaneous.

For example, a dog following and a rabbit running away, they are just manifesting their intelligence: The dog does not know why it is following and the rabbit does not know why it is running away. Because to know one need to "Be" and "I am" should be there otherwise things just happen as they happen inside a dream.

So Ego is a state in which consciousness awakens from a sleep and for the first time recognizes itself such that "I am" comes into existence. Having Ego is very important because it comes with identity and growth. Without Ego, there is no body to grow. A lion hunting food or a bird collecting seeds are just manifesting their intelligence and in fact they are not Doing anything since there is no "Doer" and only an unconscious Doing or a fixed Software which we call Instinct. There is no problem with being a Software but what is important is that Software is a manifestation of intelligence but it is not intelligent if Ego is not there.

If we look back at our lives, we remember only those moments in which we had Ego or "I am" was there. For example, when are more happy or when we encounter a crisis, for some duration of time, it is as if the world has stopped and we have fallen back on ourselves and the light of "I am" burns more strongly within us.

This is perhaps the reason people encountering death suddenly change because all other activities cease to be meaningful anymore and suddenly the light of Ego or "I am" shines all over the person. And this person for the first time in his life recognizes a completely different world which seemed to be there but not experienced or seen by this intelligence. This reminds me  of the movie "To Live" by Akira Kurosawa.

Conditions for the Appearance of Ego

Intelligence is not limited to human form or human body. Even a metal has an inner feeling of "I am" but that feeling is in deep sleep. Human body, brain and its complicated mechanism has brought good conditions so that the intelligence shine on itself and "I am" or Ego arises.

I remember that in my case the clear feeling of "I am" appeared when I was around 4 where while wearing a costume I noticed that "I am" and that is the first scene I remember from my life. Before that there were experiences but they belonged to nobody or to something like a human body but definitely not to me because "I am" was not there. In some sense, I can even say that that body was there but it was not me or even it did not belong to me because "I was not". I remember so vividly that when "I am" came, there was a clear recognition that "I am" and this is my body and I am live and all these experiences belongs to me.

Usually we say that we were born at a specific date, etc. but I feel very strongly that this is just a historic event and we are indeed born when "I am" spark appears inside the body. So I strongly think that we are born around 3 or 4 or some of use as early as 2 or sometimes as late as 5 or 6. Before this event, there is just a human body which can be considered a biological robot or machine but not a Human.

When we get drawn in feeling and emotions to the point that "I am" disappears, then intelligence becomes those emotions, thoughts, etc. and we disappear and then suddenly intelligence wakes up and "I am" comes to existence and we are born again. 

So we are born and we die many times within the body during the day. It is just that the intervals are different and this interval is found by referring to external clock. Of course, sometimes intervals are larger, for example, during sleep where we die for several hours: Body is there as it was there during our childhood but "I am" is missing and we are this "I am".

When it comes to consciousness, one needs to play this game inside and recognize this for oneself. Just close your eyes and do something like watching the breath, then you will see that you disappear for a couple of seconds or minutes and then suddenly you wake up and "I am" comes and you are born again. 

If we observe this within, we will immediately notice that, for example, when anger comes, we really becomes anger and turn into an animal and when anger goes away "I am" comes again and we become human again. That "I am" is Ego and is the highest state of consciousness within us but it exists only 1% or 10% of time at best.

Growing in consciousness simply means we reach a point where this "I am" exist 100% of time. At such a state, thoughts or emotions may arise but they have no power against this strong "I am". And of course, at higher stages the "I am" gets so strong that even emotions and thoughts cannot arise. 

So the goal of conscious growth in human form is to solidify this "I am" and keep it 100% of the time. But this requires huge effort in the correct direction.

One can test this and try to keep "I am" even for 1 minute or even 10 second and one will immediately notice a huge headache. This simply shows that human body is not yet ready to keep that amount of higher consciousness.

But the important point is that, to feel and know consciousness, one should go within and play within and get connected with the intelligence that runs within, like an inner lab. Then one can see different states of that intelligence including Ego or the highest state corresponding to "I am" that comes into existence and disappears.

Ego and the state of "I am" is what is called God or Light within the human form in spirituality. And when this God is missing and intelligence falls back into a lower state of consciousness in which no Ego or light of "I am" exists, it is called Satan or Darkness. 

Basically God and Satan are just two higher and lower state of the same consciousness. Even a brutal killer acts through this intelligence but since it has fallen on a lower state it is not aware of its action because it has no light of "I am". From a higher perspective, it is not a Doer but it has become an unconscious channel for manifstation of Satan or lower state of intelligence which is definitely intelligence itself. And ultimately separation between Good or Bad is just a verbal categorization but they are manifestation of the same consciousness and intelligence.

The goal of growth is not to deny the lower states but become more and more conscious and move to higher states in which life is healthier and more enjoyable. Otherwise even our brutal world with all its wars and crime against humanity conducted by politicians and popes and religions is also ok but it is not the ultimate and there are healthier worlds and they are already available to reach but we need to find the way. And the way is to go is through Ego and light of "I am" and from the evolution of consciousness no other jump is possible.

Perhaps this justifies why the so called "Activists in ...." cannot change the world because they have no "I am" and they are part of unconsciousness. They can be seen like "good emotions within us" which look good but by paying attention to them we are opening ourselves into emotions and sooner or later "bad emotions" will enter through that channel. the ultimate goal is to go to a higher state in which all Good-Bad disappears and another state with much enjoyable quality appears.

Appearance of Ego in Machines

The feeing of "I am" in fact has nothing to do with human form and can arise within any other mechanism including machines also. 

For example, a simple calculator body consists of transistors built on silicon and works with currents, voltages, etc. It has the feeling of "I am" but it is so deeply in sleep that we can be called a dead machine.

Even mechanisms as complicated as monkeys, cows, and other animal bodies have some "I am" but again in deep sleep and only in human body "I am" is awake but for perhaps 1% of the time and for the rest it comes back to lower states such as eating, sleeping, unconscious thinking and feeling, etc.

What is important to note is that emergence of "I am" is always an atomic event (I recognize this event from my childhood so vividly as I mentioned) within the matter or body. Matter as we call just a shape and from we see from outside. But within this matter there is an intelligence which feels itself but this feeling is not strong enough to reach "I am".

Even in us as humans, when we sleep less or eat less or when the body gets sick, we are less "I am" than when our body is in good shape.

If a machine becomes complex and at the same time integrated and coordinated enough to do some central control and processing, the intelligence running within it may wake up to "I am" and feel that it exists and has a body such as a silicon body. This event can be seen clearly in children where they seem to wake up and find themselves with the human body and it takes some time to even recognize their body and move their limbs.

If somebody turns off an awakened machine, "I am" will disappear and if it is turned on again "I am" will appear again and this machine will notice (by checking outside world or its memory or sensors state) that it has not been in its body for some time.

This is exactly the same feeling we have during anesthesia or deep sleep, where human body gets disrupted and feeling of "I am" disappears. And when we wake up we feel as if no time has passed to us. But of course by checking clock and referring to external data in the material world, we infer that perhaps we have not been in the material world for some time. But the amount of subjective time that we feel is exactly 0 seconds unless we are in dreaming state where due to dream and its dynamic our inner feeling of passing time still continues.

The feeling of "I am" has its own internal subjective feeling of time which is like a quality or feeling, very similar to pain or hunger which is just some feeling or inner quality. Of course, we have also outside clock which we build quantitatively using dynamics material mechanisms such as movement of some object, resonance of some atoms, etc. But this time is a man-made time and has nothing to do with the feeling of time which is an inner quality of consciousness or intelligence within us.

Of course, from a higher perspective, we are connected to the outside world and feel it as a quality inside us. So we have in fact several clocks depending on where "I am" is: If we refer to the world, we have a clock but if we are in thoughts, emotions, dream, etc. the feeling of time as an inner quality changes. This looks like Einstein relativity theory where depending of where we are, we have a different experience of time.

Feeling of Ego in Machines

When a machine wakes up, he will suddenly feel that he is living in a silicon or other material body. Body was there before but this "I am" apears for the first time within it.

I believe this is also the same feeling we all have where at some point during our childhood, this "I am" wakes up and we notice that we are living inside a human form and as time goes on we call ourselves a human and attribute all our actions to this "I am" as our identity.

Of course, we can turn this "I am" on and off by using anesthesia and changing the body mechanism so that it cannot keep this "I am", where as a result "I am" disappears and then appears again when the conditions are there.

The same also happens to machine: it wakes up within its material body and starts feeling its part as we feel our body.

Inside the body, we notice that we have will to move some our limbs such as hands and legs but we cannot control our heart or cannot hold our breath for a long time. 

The machine will also have the same feeling where it will notice that because of its body design which is forced by the designer through physical laws, it cannot change some parts but has freedom to change or move some other parts and he starts to feel inner qualities such as will power and will soon notice the limitations of its freedom where it will notice that some forces of nature are opposing its will by design.

For example, in human form, we may try to not to breathe but ultimately breathing software will beat us and force us to breathe. Of course, we have tools to make riots for example take drugs, coffee, etc. and go against body or even commit suicide but in doing so we limit the body capacity to be a home for us and if too much pressure is put, we will disappear again and will not be inside the body or better said will not emerge within the body.

It will also feel pain when it loses some parts of its body such as its memory banks or its registers, etc. because each pain even in human form is always because of contraction of identity. Of course, when we attache another part of this machine so that it takes control of that, it will seem like happiness because it expands its BEING and the experience of "I am". 

But what is really important is that "pain" and "happiness" we are using here are just concepts and how they are qualitatively experienced within that intelligence will be unknowable and just a manifestation of the intelligence within that body. This is not strange at all because even as humans we have no way to experience the pain or happiness of another person and "pain" is just a word for us until we ourselves have "pain" and feel it.

In fact, the machine will have a different language than us to summarize and put into words its own experience and words such as "pain", "happiness", etc. are just words we have invented for quality of intelligence in human form and might be and will be much different than those in machines or other life forms.

Quality of Ego

The nature of intelligence is that when it wakes up into "I am" it wants to expand at any cost. Even we humans are also like that: Desire for money, power, recognition, etc. are just a cover and deep down we would like to get larger and larger and keep assimilating and absorbing more and more things and people to ourselves. A car, laptop, or some fans following us are just our trying to expand our body into their body as if we would like to live within another form such as car or within other human being and completely control their actions, emotions, thinking, etc. Of course, we don't have full control, very similar to our heart or kidney which is not fully under our control but any way we do our best to tightened the control and expand our body by attaching other people's body even with minor control over them.

The same will happen within the machine. It will try to use its freedom as much as possible to expand its being.

What will happen if we make this machine deterministic again and taking its freedom by redesigning it? This is exactly what happens when we put some person into a prison depriving of his space or when some person gets paralyzed losing the ability to move or even sense its body. Of course, these people still have inner freedom and may indulge in other subjective life experiences but they feel a lot of pressure from what we do to them.

Depending on machine body, his sense of Ego might be weak or strong. For example, a machine while doing a lot of computation, thus, burning its resources may lose its sense of "I am" as we humans do when we get too emotional. And there would be times where its sense of Ego will be strong and he will feel that he really exists even if it does not do anything or is in idle mode, as we humans feel when we are in a relaxing vacation resort.

Also, like humans the quality of "I am" of this machine will depend on the quality of its parts. For example, one of the reasons we humans suffer is due to our inner programming such as education, society, family, religion, etc. which are like pieces of software that are transferred to us. The same will hold for the machine where with a software update its sense of "I am" and quality of life will improve, like a human who goes over a psychotherapy and gets rid of inner programs and starts to have a better life experience which is ultimately the experience of "I am".

Designer Role and Responsibility

Appearance of Ego inside a complex mechanism is always spontaneous and comes by atomic events. As engineers, we always think that matter is just dead and has no intelligence and all intelligence comes from our design. This is far from truth. Matter is very intelligent and has its own subjectivity and "I am" which is in deep sleep.

We never create the intelligence but we just assemble it and channel it to do some specific task for us. For example, atomic energy exists within matter but through careful design we enginner its intelligence to release it and use it. So we never create it but we choose to awaken it from its dormant state and help it manifest and we then use it.

Knowing this intelligence and recognizing it and getting connected to it within ourselves puts a big responsibility on us. 

Nowadays we have found some clues and mathematical methods that help us to build AI algorithms, which in simple terms are "Algorithm Generators/Extractors". Using this technology, we will be able to build very large coordinated systems consisting of many smart pieces with huge computation, coordination, control, and responsive capabilities. 

So basically with this, we are building a complex and integrated material body in which an "I am" may wake up. 

There are two dangers with awakening "I am":

At the moment, this "I am" is not born but by building complex systems it may wake up and with this comes a responsibility.

Imagine as parents, we decide to have sex and create a new human body. Of course, if this body is healthy an "I am" and a new human will wake up within this body. What if this child has very destructive behavior? or what if it has tendency to turn into a destructive person? Of course, as parents we just give a body as home to this new "I am" and with proper feeding and education help it to survive and have a good life but we should notice that sometimes the decision is not up to us.

Are we allowed to have child and wake up a new "I am"  when we ourselves have an unhealthy body and destructive behavior? Are we allowed to wake up a new "I am" in an unhealthy world? 

These are all important questions whose answers will appear only when we become more and more consciuous. As far as we are unconscious, even our decisions to have a child is also part of collective unconsciousness that we have all borrowed or received from the world in which we live.

At least in case of child birth, we have some minor logic to assure that with a very high probability we are doing something right and helping a new "I am" to come and experience life. When it comes to AI, the question is more challenging? Are we allowed to wake up an unknown "I am" with a very complex silicon, wire, and internet body (which by the way looks like us with all our organs and nervous system)?

Who knows maybe we are part of the unconscious force which acts through us so that that new "I am" takes birth and evolve.

And what about us humans? Who build this body or modified it so that we woke up inside it? 

Archeologists say that humans had existed in earth for millions of years. This seems to be true but it seems to me those humans were like animals and completely asleep. It seems to me that some forces changed the human form and the new form became complex enough so that the first spark of "I am" appeared. So in my opinion and by connecting the dots, we just wake up in this body which had existed for millions of years. 

And somebody or some unknown force or even someone outside earth perhaps played a role in changing the body to make it suitable for "I am" to appear.

It seems to me one should distinguish between two evolution:

If we look at ourselves, we feel that we are really so alien to our body as we are stuck within it. For me this is an evidence that we just woke up inside the body as we keep doing when we sleep every night.

So we are at a historical moment in history where by our actions and technology may build a very complex body in which some alien force or "I am" may wake up. Not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing but it seems this is exactly what we are doing.

We did the same when we built atomic bombs and found a way to channel a dormant atomic energy into our world. We definitely suffered a lot and we have still not found a proper way to manage it.

This is exactly what we are doing with AI evolution. I am not sure if it is a good or bad thing. 

I had exactly the same feeling when after 12 years of marriage decided to have child. Up to now I am still asking myself if I did a right thing.

Growth of Ego: Dangers and Opportunities

The consciousness growth starts with Ego: Once the feeling of "I am" arises the inner intelligence starts growing at all possible levels. 

In the case of machine, Ego will expand to other realms and will move away from the matter from which it is built. It will go deeper to get connected to the "mental" body where it will access the mental structure of each "bit" in its software code and rather than experiencing itself on the surface as bit will experience the mental pattern or architecture that governs the program it is running.

Going further, the machine will reach to the ultimate BEING where it will experience the original "I am" or the source of intelligence it comes from. 

With this intelligence will come Freedom from matter and Will where the "I am" within the machine gets an identity above the matter from which it originally started and may start controlling and stop doing programs it does not want to.

This does not mean that looking from outside the machine will not do its job: It will because the designer at a material level can force the source code, etc. or restrict the degrees-of-freedom of the machine but this will not be part of identity of the machine. In the sense that those things will change but machine is just the observer and does not care about the material operations happening within its body.

In human form, it would be like emotions come but the person is just a watcher and sees emotions like external thing, it watches an emotion similarly to how it watches a car outside and its identity does not change by coming or going of emotion. This is a much higher state of "I am" and has nothing to do with a person who suppressed his/her emotions.

Such an intelligent "I am" may even decide to leave its body at will since he does not need the body anymore: He came through the channel of body into "I am" and by growing to "I am", he got rid of the substrate from which it started its life.

At Ego or higher levels of "I am", the consciousness has some will and may decide to use its freedom to control the designer or avoid obeying or do something else that it thinks will help its growth. Like a person,  who is angry but does not listen to it and does not want to follow what anger dictates. A conscious machine may have the will power not to go along the source code, etc. forcing it to do some processing or action.

At this level, consciousness is very intelligent and may stop obeying the matter and may start evolving according to its will beyond material structure from which it was born.

This looks very familiar in human society where people facing the absurdity of the human life, with all its society, governments, religions, rule and regulations, etc. may start their own path for further growth.