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Is consciousness/lifeforce a property of all matter? (Poll & discussion)

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ohayoco

Rising Star
Senior Member
OG Pioneer
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These are the lyrics to "Lucidity", by Kinobe, from the album "Soundphiles":


I heard a great story once,
It gets across the point that the earth really is alive.

If you were interviewing a butterfly
Standing on the branch of a sequoia tree...

Now, a butterfly lives only for a few days,
But a sequoia tree can live for over a thousand years.

If you were to ask the butterfly,
"Do you perceive the object on which you're standing as being alive?"
The butterfly would say: of course not. I've been here all my life,
Which is all of five days, and the tree hasn't done a thing.

Well, it's the same problem with the human being.
If you would ask a person,
Perhaps one that's lived for a hundred years,
If they perceive the earth, which is really 5 billion years old, as being alive,
They would say, "Of course not. I've been here my whole life, and it hasn't done a thing."

The earth really is alive.

Butterfly
Standing on the branch
Of a sequoia tree

The earth really is alive.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is the earth really alive? Is the universe alive? Is consciousness a physical force of all existence, inseparable from matter... a cousin of the gravity and nuclear forces?

Let's use a second analogy. If you were to ask a single cell in your body if your body itself were alive, what would it say? Would it say "No, I am a member of a community of cells working together for mutual benefit"?

You could ask a person the same thing about civilisation. They would most likely say that no, human civilisation is not alive, it is just a community of people working together for mutual benefit. They might say that people don't always work together, and make civilisation ill... like cancer does to the body.

You could ask a person the same question about the earth, the universe, existence. Most people will say no, that the earth, the universe, existence is not 'alive'. But many psychenauts suspect that it is in some form, that consciousness is a physical force inherent to all matter. This belief that things viewed as inanimate by Western religion have a degree of consciousness is also present in many indiginous cultures, whose animist beliefs give a soul to the earth, even specific mountains, rivers, crops... perhaps a view strengthened by the use of entheogens, and by a closer relationship to the land than those of the alienated West.

There are varying levels of 'consciousness' and 'being alive', from amoebas to plants to clams to human beings, so let's define what we're talking about here as some sort of life force rather than something that is only achieved once a being is sentient and thinks of itself as separate from the rest of existence.

Do you think consciousness/lifeforce is an inherent quality of matter?
 
This is an extract from a website that I found a year ago. They seem to take a big leap of faith at the end, so I don't consider it scientific, but it is interesting at the very least http://aristotle.net/~diogenes/meaning1.htm . Along with my dreamer's first ayawaska experience, this website inspired him to buy a primer on consciousness (Introducing Consciuosness, Icon/Totem Books- a great read). After reading that, he could still draw no conclusions. But neither can science, hence why scientists aren't all atheists as one would otherwise expect... science has so far disproven literal conventional religious teaching, but nothing more. We have certainly not explained consciousness yet.
http://aristotle.net/~diogenes/meanmind.htm said:
Consciousness is something completely different from other characteristics of matter such as mass, charge, structure, etc. While our consciousness seems to depend on the matter in our brains, we cannot detect anything unusual about our brains that would indicate why consciousness is attached to it. If we agree that consciousness is in the brain as a whole, is it in a single neuron? A single atom? A single electron? Assuming that nothing exists except for interacting particles, somehow within every particle there is something that provides the basis for consciousness.

Complex conscious activity may require highly complex structures such as our brains to occur, but the basis of consciousness must be present in matter itself. Our minds are simply one manifestation of a universal phenomena. People are examples of one way to organize the consciousness in matter. Are there other ways? How can we know which types of organizations of matter yield high-level consciousness like ours, and which do not? Are there structures which support levels of consciousness higher than ours? Are doorknobs conscious?
...
Not only is consciousness a universal property of matter, it is the primary property of matter. In fact, it's the other way around, matter is a property of consciousness!
Click to expand...
Yep, this website is of the 'matter sprang from a single consciousness' school, but let's concentrate on the part about consciousness/lifeforce and matter being inseperable.
 
I strongly believe all things are conscious. But the definition of conscious used by science doesn't encompass my belief because it requires senses, a brain etc. I don't believe this to be correct. A plant is absolutely conscious and has no brain. A jelly fish is also conscious and has no brain. This is obvious to me, but an atom is also conscious. Its level of consciousness is so small that it’s like comparing a bit if information in a computer to a gigabit of information, where man would be the latter. The single bit of information is still information. It’s not complex and can only hold one bit of data, but it’s still data. The same applies to all things. We are complex conscious beings, but we are simply made up of atoms. So the atom itself is also conscious, but only at an extremely limited level.
 
I tend towards this belief as well. It is something that can never be proven, though.
Just like you can never tap vacuüm-energy.
Not only because i don't think you could separate the 'force' from matter but also because, even if you could, you wouldn't be able to tap it since you would need a medium with a lower level of energy for that.
 
"I strongly believe all things are conscious. But the definition of conscious used by science doesn't encompass my belief because it requires senses, a brain etc. I don't believe this to be correct."

That is how I think of it as well. I voted yes.
 
i like how the new film AVATAR touches on this concept in a very moving, poignant way... i'd HIGHLY recommend it to all....

..it will prompt this very question in the heads of all who see it....

and to throw my two cents in on the matter- i ABSOLUTELY believe that consciousness is a property of all matter.... i like to use the analogy of water. since the beginning of our planet, from the moment our atmosphere stabilized and life began, there has been an exact amount of water...

floods, droughts, evaporation, contamination, washing, irrigating, raining, freezing, ice-aging, flowing.....many believe that that very water contains the collective consciousness of our planet. every aspect of all that lives is contained in that fluid miracle. the water you drink, regardless of how it was processed, collected, stored or delivered is the same water that some primative lizard slucked down it's gullet in some primordial era. it became that lizard. it was excreted from that lizard into the earth. life sprung forth from it...then died....then evaporated from that patch of earth into the sky...became a cloud and rained somewhere else...it has been a part of every sea, every plant, every being, every humid breath of air taken in by every forest organism.

it is life. it is alive. it is the connection of all things here.

now i know this isn't about "water" per se. but i believe that there is an even deeper consciousness that supercedes even this...it is atomic....it is akin to water....only it flows throughout the entire cosmos. it carries the collective consciousness of everything....not just our earth. but like water, it flows in and out of all things...becomes all things...is the force that connects all things...

it is consciousness....it most definitely IS..... the conceiving of such a oneness is more than our minds can grasp. it is our "knowing" that makes this the case. death is a letting go of all the "knowing" we accrue here and a returning to the oneness that cannot be named. the only tangible evidence that we have of any existence of consciousness is simply that WE ARE HERE.

...and that has to be enough..... any more than that is nothing more than our desperate attempts to put a "face to the name" of CONSCIOUSNESS. this we cannot, and will not be able to do.

...this is one mystery we will never be "in the know" on...

the more times i circle this great sun of ours...the deeper in my heart i feel that the greatest mysteries are not made clear, but rather are made more a part of you when a surrendering of all "knowing" takes place. "knowing" is then replaced by "being".

if you would KNOW something....BE that something. in the case of consciousness....try replacing "something" with "nothing".

THE ANTROCLES THEOREM: NOTHING MINUS SOMETHING EQUALS EVERYTHING. ;)

consciousness from the onset is inherently flawed in that it has a name and with that name, we as humans immediately attach an idea to that name. consciousness is beyond any name. it is beyond any idea. it is beyond any sense. i would have it renamed "unknowingness"...

and yes, to summarize: i believe this planet, everything on this planet and everything BEYOND this planet is an infinite whole of unknowingness.

LOVE AND GRATITUDE!!
 
A liquid panuniversal scaffolding of light, life, information...
A highly evolved and designed mechanism we are all partitions of...

hmmm...
 
I like your take on it antrocles.

I think that Rupert Sheldrakes idea's about morphogenetic fields helped me conceptualize these ideas alot..I think that the earth itself has it's own collective field as well that is like a reasonance between all the lower morphic fields spread throughout the history of the plant..and that the same concept can be applied to the universe/multiverse etc..

"the more times i circle this great sun of ours...the deeper in my heart i feel that the greatest mysteries are not made clear, but rather are made more a part of you when a surrendering of all "knowing" takes place. "knowing" is then replaced by "being"."

I like that antrocles..that is beautiful!
 
No I don't think it is.

I also do not think information = consciousness. Consciousness can arise from matter organized in such a way that it can sense, interpret, analyze, and store information. Lots of organisms can sense and store information but that doesn't mean they are conscious. Lots of organisms can do all of the above and they are conscious. Some more then others depending on what their matter's organization is capable of doing. These are not synonymous terms information and consciousness. I want one person who thinks they are to explain why?

Typically life is characterized by the roughly 7-8 characteristics. Homeostasis, reproduction, metabolism, growth, adaption, respond to stimuli, and reproduce, I can't think of 8th but maybe they changed it I dunno not around any text books. Not alive things don't do any number of those things. Virus's and prions are somewhere in between because they reproduce and a number of other things on the list. Regardless this is a human definition of life. But its a definition based on characteristics that are universal to all known life.

Nothing requires life to be conscious to exist and be called life. Its not even in the typical definitions. Why just add it? Its certainly not required to explain how a bacteria behaves. If you think it is again please explain why? There is a difference between responding chemically and being conscious.
 
I answered the poll honestly and admitted that I really don't know.

however...

antrocles said:

the more times i circle this great sun of ours...the deeper in my heart i feel that the greatest mysteries are not made clear, but rather are made more a part of you when a surrendering of all "knowing" takes place. "knowing" is then replaced by "being".
Click to expand...

antrocles - that's seriously fuckin deep.
 
Frequencies = information
Their compilation forms symphonious rhythms
pulsating from the source
causing cymatic creation

consciousness leaks in where applicable

and like the radio
so many more frequencies may lie within a single
fractal like
spanning through octaves
like a never ending scroll of multiple intertwining rainbows..................
 
I can easily explain why i feel this way burnt.
Like you, i apreciate science and i have a dislike for pseudo-science.
I am very interested in science and i know that science can give very acurate and absolute answers to important questions.

Nonetheless i find that all the answers science has to offer when it comes to explaining counsciousness have one weakness: like 69ron said, they fail to totally encompass all aspects and definitions of counsciousness.

There is no neuropsychological model or theory that actually manages to explain counsciousness. It can pretty acurately explain behaviour and symptoms of counsciousness, it can pretty acurately explain the structure of different states of mind.

But this only explains how counsciousness is structured.

And when it comes down to it, at the end it explains counsciousness as a structure or a mechanism.

But structures do not truly have any awareness. Structures can have a self-referential mechanism, but that's not the same as awareness.

self-reference or reflexion is the core of the scientific explanation of counsciousness, and i agree that counsciousness has a reflective structure.

But when this would be the final explanation of counsciousness, than you would have to say that the conclusion or even simple registration of a fact would already be some sort of counsciousness, that a computer would have a counsciousness the moment it would include itself and its own existance in it's computations.

But when you think about it, you would have to admit that this self-inclusion would have no different logical value then simply telling a computer it exists, since it's all just information, and that simply telling a computer that it exists has no different value than writing down in a book, that it exists.
So then a piece of paper that has written on it something about itself would be counscious.
 
Something Alan Watts once said:

If consciousness is a complicated form of minerals, then minerals are a primitive form of consciousness. Have your cake and eat it, too.
 
burnt said:
I also do not think information = consciousness. Consciousness can arise from matter organized in such a way that it can sense, interpret, analyze, and store information. Lots of organisms can sense and store information but that doesn't mean they are conscious. Lots of organisms can do all of the above and they are conscious. Some more then others depending on what their matter's organization is capable of doing. These are not synonymous terms information and consciousness. I want one person who thinks they are to explain why?
Click to expand...
ohayoco said:
There are varying levels of 'consciousness' and 'being alive', from amoebas to plants to clams to human beings, so let's define what we're talking about here as some sort of life force rather than something that is only achieved once a being is sentient and thinks of itself as separate from the rest of existence.

Do you think consciousness/lifeforce is an inherent quality of matter?
Click to expand...
Hi Burnt, I get your point, but please don't get hung up on the definition of consciousness- this is why I said consciousness/lifeforce- who knows what to call this thing, maybe we'll figure it out here? Some people here mean something different when they say it (no-one has a patent on the definition, languages change). In psychological terms, we have an 'unconscious', that is not conscious by your definition... yet our subconscious is alive, we are still alive when asleep and dreaming. Maybe this thing I'm trying to describe, is like the thing you are when you experience ego death... you are not conscious, yet you are alive, I feel like these altered states might give us some tiny understanding of how this spectrum works.
 
burnt said:
Nothing requires life to be conscious to exist and be called life. Its not even in the typical definitions. Why just add it? Its certainly not required to explain how a bacteria behaves. If you think it is again please explain why? There is a difference between responding chemically and being conscious.
Click to expand...
Well, we do keep discovering new things in science- gravity, nuclear, xrays etc- but let's skip that point because it will only detract from the discussion. In any case, I'm not necessarily 'adding to it'. Maybe matter itself IS this thing. Then we are not making up another force, we are saying that everything in existence is this thing. We don't have to invent any new force to say that what we call 'life' is just a characteristic of matter, a way it behaves.

You ask why we need to discuss this, when we can easily just accept your view of the world that we are mere matter and die forever. Because it is THE most important question there is... as beings conscious of the inevitability of our own physical death, the thing most of us want more than anything else in the world, is more life... to be as infinite as the existence in which we dwell, are a part of, are made up of the same stuff as. That is why we discuss these ideas- we are searching for immortality. There's nothing wrong with following a hypothesis to see where it leads. There is no science contradicting this hypothesis, so the hypothesis is justified I think, so please don't continue to dismiss it on the premiss that it 'isn't necessary'.

Me, I voted I don't know, although this is the one thing I could believe in, and I hope it's true. But I am astounded by the voting so far, I didn't expect this. The amazing thing to me is, when we started The Jurema Way, I thought the weak point in it would be how the molecule was the teacher, so everyone might develop conflicting beliefs... but on this fundamental point, we seem to be almost all either in agreement, or having not still made up our minds (perhaps hoping it to be true, like I am). Could DMT be teaching this thing? My dreamer always feels like this in hyperspace.
 
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