The Nature of Consciousness

Piero Scaruffi
(Copyright 2006 Piero Scaruffi | Legal restrictions - Termini d'uso )

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Bibliography | Class on Nature of Mind
The Physics of Consciousness
(These are excerpts from, or extensions to, the material published in my book "The Nature of
Consciousness")
A Critique of Neuroscience
Neuroscience of the 20th century was based on classical Physics. No surprise that it derived a view of the
brain as a set of mechanical laws: that is the "only" view that classical Physics can derive. No surprise
that it could not explain how consciousness arises, since there is no consciousness in classical Physics: it
was erased from the study of matter by Descartes' dualism (that mind and matter are separate), on which
foundations Newton erected classical Physics (the science of matter, which does not deal with mind). By
definition, Descartes' dualism predicts that "mind" cannot be explained from matter, and Newton's Physics
is basically an instantiation of Descartes dualism. Which means that Descartes dualism predicts that
Newton's Physics cannot explain the conscious mind. Neuroscientists of the 20 th century who were
looking for consciousness missed that simple syllogism: they were looking for consciousness using a tool
that was labeled "this tool does not find consciousness".
Neuroscience of the 20th century rested on the Newtonian principle that a physical system is made of
independent parts which interact only with their immediate neighbors and whose behavior over time is
deterministic. Within this paradigm, a mind is the product of a brain, which is one particular system of the
many that populate the universe. This is a useful paradigm for the study of many material phenomena,
but it is not what the Physics of the 20th century prescribed. It is what Physics prescribed a century earlier,
before it was showed to be wrong.
Neurological descriptions of the brain that are based on Newton's Physics are based on a Physic that is
known to have limitations at a small and large scale. 20 th century neurologists assumed that the brain and
its parts behave like classical objects, and that quantum effects are negligible, even while the "objects"
that they were studying got smaller and smaller. What 20 th century neurologists were doing when they
studied the microstructure of the brain from a Newtonian perspective was equivalent to organizing a trip to
the Moon on the basis of Aristotle's Physics, neglecting Newton's theory of gravitation.
Quantum Consciousness
If no theory of consciousness based on classical Physics is satisfactory in explaining how consciousness
emerges from the electrochemical activity of the brain, then maybe the problem lies with classical
Physics. Physicists began in the 1920s to advocate an approach to consciousness based on 20 th-century
Physics rather than classical Physics.

Loosely speaking, the point is that consciousness is unlikely to arise from classical properties of matter
(the more we understand the structure and the electrochemical fabric of the brain, the less we understand
how consciousness can occur at all). But, for example, Quantum Theory allows for a new concept of
matter altogether, which may well leave cracks for consciousness, for something that is not purely
material or purely extra-material.
Of course, the danger in this way of thinking is to relate consciousness and Quantum Theory only
because they are both poorly understood: what they have in common is a degree of "fuzziness" that
allows us to tinker with definitions.
The advantage of Quantum Theory, though, is that it allows for "non-local" properties and provides a
framework to explain how entities get "entangled", precisely the phenomena that electrochemical brain
processes are not enough to explain.
The unity of consciousness is a favorite example. A conscious state is the whole of the conscious state
and cannot be divided into components (I can't separate the feeling of red from the feeling of the apple
when I think of a red apple). Newton's Physics is less suitable than Quantum Theory for dealing with such
a system, especially since Bell's Theorem proved that everything is permanently interacting.
Indeterminate behavior (for example, free will) is another favorite, since Heisenberg's principle allows for
some unpredictability in nature that Newton's Physics ruled out. And, of course, the mind/body dualism
reminds Physicists of the wave/particle dualism. In fact, Descartes' dualism is less credible within the
framework of Quantum Physics because, in Quantum Physics, matter is ultimately not a solid substance.
Quantizing the Mind
The pioneer of "quantum consciousness" theories was the Ukrainian chemist Alfred Lotka, who in 1924,
when Quantum Theory was still in its infancy, proposed that the mind controls the brain by modulating the
quantum jumps that would otherwise lead to a completely random existence.
The first detailed quantum model of consciousness was probably the USA physicist Evan Walker's
synaptic tunneling model ("The Nature of Consciousness", 1970), in which electrons can "tunnel" between
adjacent neurons, thereby creating a virtual neural network overlapping the real one. It is, Walker claims,
this virtual nervous system that, according to Walker, produces consciousness and that can direct the
behavior of the real nervous system.
Walker based his theory on two postulates: 1. Consciousness is real and nonphysical; and 2. Physical
reality is connected to consciousness by a physically fundamental quantity. Walker believes that the
quantum tunneling effect satisfies both postulates. He can even write the equation for consciousness (the
number of electrons that, thanks to the tunneling effect, manage to connect two active synapses).
Following the Hungarian physicist Eugene Wigner, Walker proposes to add a term to Schroedingers
equation that would make it nonlinear and that would explain what causes the collapse of the wave: a
measurement of information. This term would disappear once the measurement is performed. Basically,
this term would signal the presence of the observer. By introducing the same "information term" in Diracs
equation, Walker derives another possible interpretation: reality is consciousness observing itself. Diracs
equation becomes simply the equation of an observer observing.
The "real" nervous system operates by means of synaptic messages. The virtual one operates by means
of the quantum effect of tunneling (particles passing through an energy barrier that classically they should
not be able to climb). The real one is driven by classical laws; the virtual one by quantum laws.
Consciousness is, therefore, driven by quantum laws, even though the brain's behavior can be described
by classical laws.

Later theories share with Walkers the view that the brain "instantiates" not one but two systems: a
classical one and a quantum one; the second one being responsible for the properties of mental life (such
as consciousness) that are not easily reduced to the properties of the classical brain.
The British neurologist John Eccles speculated that synapses in the cortex respond in a probabilistic
manner to neural excitation ("Do Mental Events Cause Neural Events Analogously To The Probability
Fields Of Quantum Mechanics?", 1986). That probability might well be governed by quantum uncertainty
given the extremely small size of the synapsis' microscopic organ that emits the neurotransmitter. Eccles
speculates that an immaterial mind (in the form of "psychons") controls the quantum "jumps" and turns
them into voluntary excitations of the neurons that account for body motion.
Drawing from Quantum Mechanics and from Bertrand Russell's idea that consciousness provides a kind
of "window" onto the brain, the philosopher Michael Lockwood advanced a theory of consciousness as a
process of perception of brain states. First he noted that Special Relativity implies that mental states must
be physical states (mental states must be in space given that they are in time). Then Lockwood
interpreted the role of the observer in Quantum Mechanics as the role of consciousness in the physical
world (as opposed to a simple interference with the system being observed). Lockwood argued that
sensations must be intrinsic attributes of physical states of the brain: in quantum lingo, each observable
attribute (e.g., each sensation) corresponds to an observable of the brain. Consciousness scans the brain
to look for sensations. It does not create them: it just seeks them.
There are also models of consciousness that invoke other dimensions. The unification theories that
attempt at unifying General Relativity (i.e. gravitation) and Quantum Theory (i.e., the weak, electrical and
strong forces) typically add new dimensions to the four ones we experience. These dimensions differ from
space in that they are bound (actually, rolled up in tiny tubes) and in that they only exist for changes to
occur in particle properties. The hyperspace of the USA physicist Saul-Paul Sirag, for example
("Consciousness - A Hyperspace View", 1993), contains many physical dimensions and many "mental"
dimensions (time is one of the dimensions that they have in common).
Bose-Einstein Condensates
Possibly the most popular candidate to yield quantum consciousness has been Bose-Einstein
condensation (theoretically predicted in 1925 and first achieved in a gas in 1995). The most popular
example of Bose-Einstein condensation is superconductivity.
The fascination with Bose-Einstein condensates is that they are the most highly ordered structures in
nature (before their discovery by Albert Einstein and Satyendranath Bose, that record was owned by
crystals). The order is such that each of their constituents appears to occupy all their space and all their
time: for all purposes the constituents of a Bose-Einstein condensate share the same identity. In other
words, the constituents behave just like one constituent (the photons of a laser beam behave just like one
photon) and the Bose-Einstein condensate behaves like one single particle. Another odd feature of BoseEinstein condensates is that they seem to possess a primitive form of free will.
A Bose-Einstein condensate is the equivalent of a laser, except that it is the atoms, rather than the
photons, that behave identically, as if they were a single atom. Technically speaking, as temperature
drops, each atom's wave grows, until the waves of all the atoms begin to overlap and eventually merge.
After they merged, the atoms are located within the same region in space, they travel at the same speed,
they vibrate at the same frequency, etc.: they become indistinguishable. The atoms have reached the
lowest possible energy, but Heisenberg's principle makes it impossible for this to be zero energy: it is
called "zero-point" energy, the minimum energy an atom can have.

The intriguing feature of a Bose-Einstein condensate is that the many parts of a system not only behave
as a whole, they become a "whole". Their identities merge in such a way that they lose their individuality.
It was thought that Bose-Einstein condensation could be achieved only at very low temperatures. In the
late 1960s, the British physicist Herbert Froehlich proved the feasibility, and even the likelihood, of BoseEinstein condensation at body temperatures in living matter (precisely, in cell membranes). This opened
the doors to the possibility that all living systems contain Bose-Einstein condensates.
He argued that electrical charged molecules of living tissues behave like electric dipoles. When digestion
of food generates enough energy, all molecular dipoles line up and oscillate in a perfectly coordinate
manner, which may result in a Bose-Einstein condensate.
Biological oscillators of this kind are pervasive in nature: living matter is made of water and other
biomolecules equipped with electrical dipoles, which react to external stimuli with a spontaneous
breakdown of their rotational symmetry.
The biological usefulness of such biological oscillators is that, like laser light, they can amplify signals and
encode information (e.g., they can "remember" an external stimulus).
Above all, coherent oscillations are crucial to many processes of integration of information in the brain.
Quantum effects at the level of the protein (which is, after all, a biomolecular information processing
system) were studied by Michael Conrad ("Quantum Molecular Computing", 1992), who argued that the
molecules inside each cell might be implementing a kind of quantum associative memory.
Quantum Self Theory
The British psychiatrist Ian Marshall ("Consciousness and Bose-Einstein condensates", 1989) showed
similarities between the holistic properties of condensates and those of consciousness, and suggested
that consciousness may arise from the "excitation" of such a Bose-Einstein condensate. In Marshall's
hypothesis, the brain contains a Froehlich-style condensate, and, whenever the condensate is excited by
an electrical field, conscious experience occurs. The brain maintains dynamical coherence (i.e., the ability
to organize millions of neural processes into the coherent whole of thought) thanks to an underlying
quantum coherent state (the Bose-Einstein condensate).
Furthermore, Marshall thinks that the collapse of a wave function is not completely random, as predicted
by Quantum Theory, but exhibits a preference for "phase difference". Such "phase differences" are the
sharpest in Bose-Einstein condensates. This implies that the wave function tends to collapse towards
Bose-Einstein condensates, i.e. that there is a universal tendency towards creating the living and thinking
structures that populate our planet. Marshall views this as an evolutionary principle inherent in our
universe.
In other words, the universe has an innate tendency towards life and consciousness. They are ultimately
due to the mathematical properties of the quantum wave function, which favors the evolution of life and
consciousness.
Marshall thinks we "must" exist and think, in accordance with the strong anthropic principle (that things
are the way they are because otherwise we would not exist).
Marshall offered a solution to the paradox of "adaptive evolution", discovered in 1988 by John Cairns:
some bacteria can mutate very quickly, way too quickly for Darwin's theory to be true. If all genes mutated
at that pace, they would mostly produce mutations that cannot survive. What drives evolution is natural

selection, which prunes each generation of mutations. But natural selection does not have the time to
operate on the very rapid mutations of these bacteria. There must be another force at work that "selects"
only the mutations that are useful for survival. Marshall thinks that the other force is the wave function's
tendency towards choosing states of life and consciousness. Each mutation is inherently biased towards
success.
His wife, the USA philosopher Danah Zohar, expanded on his theory. Zohar views the theory of BoseEinstein condensation as a means to reduce mind/body dualism to wave/particle dualism: the wave
aspect of nature yields the "mental" (conscious experience), whereas the particle aspect of nature yields
the material.
Zohar is fascinated by the behavior of bosons. Particles divide into fermions (such as electrons, protons,
neutrons) and bosons (photons, gravitons, gluons). Bosons are particles of "relationship", because they
are used by other particles to interact. When two systems interact (electricity, gravitation or whatever),
they exchange bosons. Fermions are well-defined individual entities, just like large-scale matter is. But
bosons can completely merge and become one entity, more like conscious states do. Zohar claims that
bosons are the basis for the conscious life, and fermions for the material life.
The properties of matter arise from the properties of fermions. Matter is solid because fermions cannot
merge. Likewise, she thinks that the properties of the conscious mind arise from the properties of bosons,
because bosons can share the same state and they are about relationships.
This would also explain how there can be a "self". The brain changes all the time and therefore the "self"
is never the same. I am never myself again. How can there be a "self"? Zohar thinks that the self does
change all the time, but quantum interference makes each new self sprout from the old selves. Wave
functions of past selves overlap with the wave function of the current self. Through this "quantum
memory" each new "quantum self" reincarnates past selves.
The Ubiquity of Consciousness
The USA physicist Nick Herbert thinks that consciousness is a pervasive process in nature.
Consciousness is as fundamental a component of the universe as elementary particles and forces. The
conscious mind can be detected by three features of quantum theory: randomness, "thinglessness"
(objects acquire attributes only once they are observed) and interconnectedness (John Bell's discovery
that, once two particles have interacted, they remain connected). Herbert thinks that these three features
of inert matter can account for three basic features of our conscious mind: free will, essential ambiguity,
and deep psychic "connectedness". Scientists may be vastly underestimating the quantity of
consciousness in the universe.
The USA computer scientist James Culbertson speculated that consciousness may be a relativistic
feature of space-time. He, too, thinks that consciousness permeates all of nature, so that every object has
a degree of consciousness.
According to Relativity, our lives are world lines in space-time. Space-time does not happen: it always
exists. It is our brain that shows us a movie of matter evolving in time.
All space-time events are conscious: they are conscious of other space-time events. The "experience" of
a space-time event is static, a frozen region of space-time events. All the subjective features of the
"psycho-space" of an observer derive from the objective features of the region of space-time that the
observer is connected to. Special circuits in our brain create the impression of a time flow, of a time-travel
through the region of space-time events connected to the brain.

Memory of an event is re-experiencing that space-time event, which is fixed in space-time. We don't store
an event, we only keep a link to it. Conscious memory is not in the brain: it is in space-time.
The inner life of a system is its space-time history. To clarify his view, Culbertson presents the case of two
robots. First a robot is built and learns German, then another robot is built which is identical to the first
one. Culbertson claims that the second robot does not speak German, even if it is identical to the one that
speaks German. Their space-time histories are different.
At the same time, Culbertson thinks that our consciousness is much more than an illusory travel through
space-time, and it can, in turn, influence reality. Quantum Theory prescribes that reality be a sequence of
random quantum jumps. Culbertson believes that they are not random but depend on the system's spacetime history, i.e. on its inner life.
The Implicate Order
In the 1950s the USA physicist David Bohm extended his ideas about the "implicate order" to the
conscious mind.
Quantum and Relativity theories may be very different, but they agree in denying the existence of single
static particles, they agree in describing the world as an undivided whole in constant flux (albeit in
completely different ways) in which all parts of the universe are constantly interacting; and those parts
include the observer, the "I". The universe is characterized by a "flow" that integrates everything:
individual forms are the equivalent of the still frames of an object in motion.
It turns out that we perceive the "flow" of reality through those static images, but those still images are
only a simplification of motion. By analogy, what goes on in our mind is a stream of consciousness, from
which we can abstract concepts, ideas, etc (forms of thought) that are mere instances of that flow of
thought. Thought is a kind of movement, and concepts are kinds of objects. Bohm believed that there is
just one flow, in which both matter and mind flow, and that this flow can be known only implicitly through
the forms (the still frames) that we can grasp out of this flow.
Bohm rejected the distinction between what we are thinking and what is going on, as well as the notion
that one part of reality (my conscious mind) can know another part of reality: it is wrong to separate the
thinker from the thought. The thinker is not separate from the reality that he thinks about, the thinker and
that reality are parts of the same flow.
The belief that thinker and the object of his thinking (between thought and non-thought) are separate
permeates our conscious life. This conviction is even built into the structure of language itself: modern
language is based on the pattern "subject- verb- object", that clearly separates the subject and the object.
But in reality the key actor is the verb, not the subject, and the verb unites the subject and the object in
one, undivided action.
At the level of the "implicate order", which is a sort of "higher dimension", there is no difference between
matter and mind. That difference arises within the "explicate order" (the conventional space-time of
Physics). As we travel inwards, we travel towards that higher dimension, the implicate order, in which
mind and matter are the same. As we travel outwards, we travel towards the explicate order in which
subject and object are separate.
There is an inherent affinity between consciousness and implicate order. For example, when we listen to
music we directly perceive the implicate order, not just the explicate order of those sounds.

Bohms quantum field contains "active in-formation" that determines what happens to the particle ("information" as in "give form"). Bohm interpreted the "active in-formation" of the quantum field that, in his
view, accompanies each particle, as the "mental" (proto-conscious) property of the particle. Every particle
has a rudimentary "mind-like" quality. Matter has "mental" properties, as well as physical properties. Information turns out to be the bridge between the two worlds. The two sides cannot be separated because
they are entangled in the same quantum field. At the lower level of reality, mental (conscious) and
physical processes are essentially the same.
The Mental State Of Particles
David Bohms quantum field contains "active information": the form of the field determines the energy and
momentum of a particle. Active information is information that is relevant to determining the movement of
a particle. This information is not an opinion: it is the objective aspect of reality. Bohm interpreted this kind
of information as the "mental" property of particles. Thus matter has "mental" properties as well as
physical properties.
A quantum level mediates between an underlying mental level and the physical level that we observe.
Bohm turns the table on supervenience: it is not the mental that supervenes upon the physical, it is the
brain states that are dependent on mental states.
On top of Bohm's theory, The Finnish philosopher Paavo Pylkkanen offered a semiotic theory of the
particle: the quantum field of the particle can be regarded as containing information about the
environment surrounding the particle. The form of the wave function reflects the form of the environment.
This form, in turn, determines the trajectory of the particle. The quantum field is a form of representation.
Semiotically speaking (and using Peirce's terminology), the quantum field is the sign, the environment is
the object and the trajectory is the "interpretant".
Tripartite Idealism
The USA physicist Henry Stapp elaborated on ideas already advanced in previous decades by John Von
Neumann and Eugene Wigner that, basically, consciousness creates reality.
Stapps theory of consciousness is grounded in Heisenberg's interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, that
reality is a sequence of collapses of wave functions, i.e. of quantum discontinuities. Of all interpretations
of Quantum Theory, this is also the closest to William James's view of the mental life as "experienced
sense objects".
Stapps view harks back to the heydays of Quantum Theory, when it was clear to its founders that
"science is what we know". Science specifies rules that connect bits of knowledge. Each of us is a
"knower" and our joint knowledge of the universe is the subject of Science. Quantum Theory is therefore
a "knowledge-based" discipline. This view was "pragmatic" because it prescribed how to perform
experiments, and it separated the system to be observed from the observer and from the instrument.
Von Neumann introduced an "ontological" approach to this knowledge-based discipline, which brought the
observer and the instrument into the state of the system. Stapp describes Von Neumann's view of
Quantum Theory through a simple definition: "the state of the universe is an objective compendium of
subjective knowings". This statement describes the fact that the state of the universe is represented by a
wave function which is a compendium of all the wave functions that each of us can cause to collapse with
our observations. That is why it is a collection of subjective acts, although an objective one.

Stapp basically achieves a new form of idealism: all that exists is that subjective knowledge. Therefore
the universe is not about matter: it is about subjective experience. Quantum Theory does not talk about
matter, it talks about our act of perceiving matter. Stapp rediscovers George Berkeley's idealism: we only
know our perceptions (observations).
Stapp's model of consciousness is tripartite. Reality is a sequence of discrete events in the brain. Each
event translates into an increase of knowledge. That knowledge comes from observing "systems". Each
event is driven by three processes that operate together:
The "Schroedinger process" is a mechanical, deterministic, process that predicts the state of the system
in a fashion similar to Newton's Physics: given its state at a given time, we can use equations to calculate
its state at a different time. The only difference is that Schroedinger's equations describe the state of a
system as a set of possibilities, whereas Newtons equations described it as just one certainty.
The "Heisenberg process" is a conscious choice that we make when we decide to perform an
observation. The formalism of Quantum Theory implies that we can know something only when we ask
Nature a question. This implies, in turn, that we have a degree of control over Nature. Depending on
which question we ask or not ask, we can affect the state of the universe. Stapp mentions the "Zeno
effect" as a well known process in which we can alter the course of the universe by asking questions (it is
the phenomenon by which a system is "frozen" if we keep observing the same observable very rapidly).
We have to make a conscious decision about which question to ask Nature (which observable to
observe). Otherwise nothing is going to "happen".
The "Dirac process" gives the answer to our question. Nature replies with an "observed" quantity, and, as
far as we can tell, the answer is totally random. Once Nature has replied, we have learned something: we
have increased our knowledge. This is a change in the state of the universe, which directly corresponds
to a change in the state of our brain. Technically, there occurs a reduction of the wave function compatible
with the fact that has been learned.
Stapp's interpretation of Quantum Theory is that there are many knowers. Each knower's act of
knowledge (each individual increment of knowledge) results in a new state of the universe. One person's
increment of knowledge changes the state of the entire universe, and, of course, it changes it for
everybody else too.
Quantum Theory is not about the behavior of matter, but about our knowledge of such behavior.
"Thinking" is a sequence of events of knowing, driven by those three processes.
Instead of dualism or materialism, one is faced with a sort of interactive "trialism", all aspects of which are
actually mind-like. First, the physical aspect of Nature (the Schroedinger equation) is a compendium of
subjective knowledge. Second, the conscious act of asking a question is what drives the actual transition
from one state to another, i.e. the evolution of the universe. And, finally, there is a choice made from the
outside, the reply of Nature, which, as far as we can tell, is random.
Stapp revives idealism by showing that Quantum Theory is about knowledge, not matter. The universe is
a repository of knowledge, that we have access to and upon which our consciousness has control.
The Illusion of the Body
Von Neumanns analysis of the collapse of the wave is also the basis for idealist theories that border on
Eastern philosophy. For example, the Indian physicist Amit Goswami criticizes materialism (the view that

consciousness is a material phenomenon, and that matter is the only substance) and endorses idealism
(the view that matter is a mental phenomenon, and consciousness is the only substance).
Goswami's idealism is based on a simple postulate: that consciousness collapses the quantum wave, as
Von Neumann originally claimed. Goswami claims that this brand of idealism has no problem with some
notorious quantum "paradoxes". Basically, the "oddities" of Quantum Mechanics are in our mind, not in
the world. For example, Schroedinger's cat could not possibly be both alive and dead in the real world,
but it can be in our minds.
Paul Wigner extended Von Neumann's meditation by asking: if a friend tells me what he observed, at
which point did the wave collapse, when the friend carried out her observation or when I carried out the
observation of my friend telling me the result of his observation? If one thinks that the friend collapsed the
wave, then the problem is that two friends observing the same phenomenon would both collapse the
wave, and possibly observe opposite outcomes. If one thinks that I collapse the wave when I listen to my
friend, then my friend's knowledge depends on her talking to me.
Goswami explains Paul Wigner's dilemma by arguing that there is only one consciousness, only one
subject, and not many individual, separate subjects. There is, ultimately, only one observer. He also cites
the non-locality of Quantum Mechanics as evidence that there is only one consciousness in the universe.
Goswami credits consciousness with a deliberate act of determining reality: consciousness "chooses" (not
just picks up) the outcome of a measurement.
Goswami thinks that a mind is made of ideas or thoughts, and he envisions these mental objects as fully
equivalent to the material objects (the particles) studied by Quantum Mechanics. Thus they must obey the
same Physics, i.e. the same theories about uncertainty, measurement and non-locality. He views the
brain as both a quantum system and a measuring apparatus. The possibilities of the quantum bran are
unconscious processes, and the equivalent of the physical observation is the one unconscious process
that becomes conscious. Consciousness "chooses" which unconscious process becomes conscious (just
like it "chooses" the outcome of any other measurement). Consciousness "chooses" its own conscious
experience.
The Illusion of the Body
The USA physicist Fred-Alan Wolf argued that the source of matter is conscious mind. The conscious
mind "invents" a fictitious body and then it starts believing that "it is" the body.
Wolf makes reality arise from the limitations that Quantum Theory imposes on the human mind: we
cannot ever know the exact position of a particle, therefore the particle is a purely mental hypothesis,
therefore it exists only because our mind cannot ever know all about it. If we extend this line of reasoning
to all matter, we reach the conclusion that the entire world that we perceive is an illusion, and that illusion
is due to the fact that our mind cannot know the world as it really is. Reality has to do with perception of
reality. If nobody observes it, it does not exist.
If reality is created by the observer, where is the observer? Wolf claims that the observer is not in the
brain. His conclusion is that the observer, by observing, becomes the body: the observed and the
observer are the same thing. After all, it is the observer who creates the physical world: that also includes
the observer's own body.
The many-verse model of Quantum Theory states that all possible alternatives of a quantum system
actually take place, one in each possible world, and that the observer splits in as many observers as
possible worlds. Each observer in each world observes only one of the many possible realities. The world

and the observer in it keep splitting as more possibilities arise. So conscious mind and matter get
intertwined into story lines. Each story line is a memory of a past. Everything is alive because everything
has a story line, which is both mind and matter. The story lines of a complex object form a "braid". The
braid of story lines in a human body is a "script". A script is the collection of all the stories told by all the
cells of the body. Bodies are scripts. Each cell is both matter and mind. The conscious mind is all over the
body.
Wolf does not believe that Darwinian evolution alone can account for the birth of life and the working of
natural selection. He believes that additional information is needed to start the mechanism of life, and that
information must be coming from the future. Based on the same ideas from Quantum Theory (that reality
exists only insofar as somebody observes it), Wolf claims that Nature produced the right organisms to
survive in their environment because information flowed back from the future to the present about which
organisms made sense. An observer can change the past by fixing the outcome of an observation: this
would determine the past events that led to that outcome. Every time we "fix" the outcome of an
observation, we force a certain past on the object of our observation. Our conscious mind can create a
past from all the possible pasts. (This is yet another variation on the "Zeno effect": the life of a particle
depends on how many times we observe it, because each observation changes its state).
Space, time, matter and consciousness are tied together by Relativity and Quantum Theory: Relativity
binds together space-time and matter, while Quantum Theory binds together matter and consciousness.
Holonomic Consciousness
Both David Bohm and the psychologist Karl Pribram advocated the hologram as a paradigm to explain
the unity and holistic property of consciousness. A hologram is another product of a quantum
phenomenon: it arises from information carried by a laser beam, which can be viewed as a particular kind
of Bose-Einstein condensate.
The brain stores information in a distributed manner that provides for fault tolerance and for "cue-based"
retrieval. It is fault-tolerant because damage to one portion of the information does not cause damage to
the information as a whole; and it is cue-based because information can be retrieved based on just partial
information.
Pribram believes that the brain organizes information by interference patterns just like a hologram.
Holography, invented in 1948 by the British physicist Dennis Gabor, employs coherent beams of light. A
hologram is a permanent record of the interference between two waves of coherent light. Each part of the
hologram contains each part of the interfering waves. This means that each part of the hologram contains
the entire image. The entire hologram contains more details about the image, but the image is present in
every part of the hologram. When re-illuminated with one of the original coherent lights, a threedimensional image appears.
It turns out that the storage capacity of holograms is enormous.
Pribram's "holonomic" model of memory relies on the fact that many properties of the brain are shared by
holograms.
In Pribram's opinion a sensory perception is transformed into a "brain wave", i.e. into a pattern of electromagnetic activation that propagates through the brain just like the wave-front in a liquid. This crossing of
the brain provides the interpretation of the sensory perception in the form of a "memory wave", which in
turn crosses the brain. The various waves that travel through the brain can interfere. The interference of a
memory wave and a perceptual (e.g., visual) wave generates a structure that resembles a hologram.

Pribram believes that the same equations used by Gabor to develop holography (Fourier transforms) are
used by the brain to analyze sensory data. He showed that all perceptions (and not only colors or sounds)
can be analyzed into their component frequencies of oscillation and therefore treated by Fourier analysis.
Quantum Brain Dynamics
The Heisenberg and Von Neumann tradition viewed the brain as a "quantum measuring device". But the
Japanese physicist Kunjo Yasue claims that brain substrates uphold second-order quantum fields, which
cannot be treated as mere measuring devices.
Yasue, building on the quantum field theory developed in the 1960s by the Japanese physicist Hiroomi
Umezawa and on his concept of "corticons" as more primitive than "neurons", developed a "quantum
neurophysics" to explain how the classical world can originate from quantum processes in the brain. He
showed that brain dynamics can be represented by a "brain wave equation" similar to Schroedinger's
wave equation.
Yasue thinks that several layers of the brain can host quantum processes, whose quantum properties
explain consciousness and cognition. Yasue presents the brain as a macroscopic quantum system. He
focuses on water mega-molecules in the space between neurons, which can combine to form extended
quantum systems, interacting with the neural networks. He focuses on the sensory system, whose
quantum field causes some special molecules in the membrane of the neuron to undergo Froehlich
condensation and cause, in turn, macroscopic coherence.
He focuses on structures such as microtubules which lie inside the neuron, and which contain quasicrystalline water molecules that again lend themselves to quantum effects. The function of this quantum
field could be cognitive: some particular quantum states could record memory.
Yasue focuses on a bioplasma of charged particles that interact with the electromagnetic field, an ideal
vehicle for a merge of the sensory quantum field with the memory quantum field, an ideal vehicle for the
creation of classical reality. He argues that classical order can continually unfold in this bioplasma.
Yasue shows how consciousness could arise from the interaction between the electromagnetic field and
molecular fields of water and protein. Furthermore, Yasue maintains that the evolution of the neural wave
function is not random, as would result from the traditional quantum theories, but optimized under a
principle of "least neural action". Random effects of consciousness are replaced by a "cybernetic"
consciousness that is more in the tradition of the self as a free-willing agent.
Yasue is not a connectionist. The fact that neurons are organized inside the brain is of negligible
importance in his theory.
Quantum-gravitational Consciousness
The British physicist Roger Penrose believes that consciousness must be a quantum phenomenon and
that neurons are too big to account for consciousness. The USA biologist Stuart Hameroff provided a
better candidate: the "cytoskeleton". Inside neurons there is a "cytoskeleton", the structure that holds cells
together, whose "microtubules" (hollow protein cylinders 25-nanometers in diameter) control the function
of synapses. Penrose believes that consciousness is a manifestation of the "quantum cytoskeletal state"
and its interplay between quantum and classical levels of activity. (Penrose implicitly attributes a special
status only to the microtubules that are in the brain, but they are also ubiquitous among cells in the rest of
the body and the same quantum argument could apply for microtubules in the foot).

Reality emerges from the collapse or reduction of the wave function. But Penrose makes a distinction
between "subjective" and "objective" reduction. Subjective reduction is what happens when an observer
measures a quantity in a quantum system: the system is not in any specific state (the system is in a
"superposition" of possible states) until it is observed, and the observation causes the system to reduce
(or "collapse") to a specific state. This is the only reduction known to traditional Quantum Theory.
Objective reduction is, instead, a Penrose discovery, part of his attempt to unify Relativity Theory and
Quantum Theory.
Superposed states each have their own space-time geometry. Under special circumstances, which
microtubules are suitable for, the separation of space-time geometry of the superposed states (i.e., the
"warping" of these space-times) reaches a point (the quantum gravity threshold) where the system must
choose one state. The system must then spontaneously and abruptly collapse to that one state. So,
objective reduction is a type of collapse of the wave function that occurs when the universe must choose
between significantly different space-time geometries.
This "self-collapse" results in particular "conformational states" that regulate neural processes. These
conformational states can interact with neighboring states to represent, propagate and process
information. Each self-collapse corresponds to a discrete conscious event. Sequences of events then give
rise to a "stream" of consciousness. Proteins somehow "tune" the objective reduction which is thus selforganized, or "orchestrated".
In other words, the quantum phenomenon of objective reduction controls the operation of the brain
through its effects on coherent flows inside microtubules of the cytoskeleton.
In general, the collapse of the wave function is what gives the laws of nature a non-algorithmic element.
Otherwise we would simply be machines and we would have no consciousness.
Penrose and Hameroff believe that "protoconscious" information is encoded in space-time geometry at
the fundamental Planck scale and that a self-organizing Planck-scale process results in consciousness
Basically, Penrose believes in a Platonic scenario of conscious states that exist in a world of their own,
and to which our minds have access. However, Penroses "world of ideas" is a physicist's world: quantum
spin networks encode proto-conscious states and different configurations of quantum spin geometry
represent varieties of conscious experience. Access to these states (consciousness as we know it)
originates when a self-organizing process (the objective reduction), somehow coupled with neural activity,
collapses quantum wave functions at Planck-scale geometry.
There is a separate mental world, but it is grounded in the physical world.
Consciousness is the bridge between the brain and space-time geometry.
The New Materialism: Naturalistic Dualism
The Australian philosopher David Chalmers believes that consciousness is due to "protoconscious"
properties that must be ubiquitous in matter and that "psychophysical" laws, not of the "reductionist" kind
that Physics employs, will account for how conscious experience arise from those properties. There is,
instead, nothing mysterious about our cognitive faculties, such as learning and remembering: they can be
explained by the physical sciences the same way these sciences explained physical phenomena.
In a sense, Chalmers changed the scope of the mind-body problem, by enlarging the "body" to include
the brain and its cognitive processes, and by restricting "mind" to conscious experience. Cognition

migrates to the body. Consciousness, on the other hand, is truly a different substance, or, better, a
different set of properties, and cannot indeed be explained by the "natural" laws of the physical sciences.
The study of consciousness requires a different set of laws, because consciousness is due to a different
set of properties.
Chalmers contends that mental (or, better, brain) activity is more than just conscious experience. States of
the brain cause behavior. For example, I drink because I am thirsty, I move my hands because I want to
grab an object, I buy a plane ticket because I believe the fare will go up. These "mental" states may or
may not be conscious. Chalmers therefore distinguishes between the conscious experience, that he calls
the "phenomenal properties of the mind", and the mental states that cause behavior, that he calls the
"psychological properties of the mind" (that is "cognition"). In other words, phenomenal states deal with
the first-person aspect of the "mental", whereas psychological states deal with the third-person aspect of
the mental.
Psychological properties have, by his definition, a "causal" role in determining behavior. Whether a
psychological state is also a phenomenal (conscious) state does not matter from the point of view of
behavior. What conscious states do is not clear, but we know that they exist because we "feel" them.
Mental properties can therefore be divided into psychological properties and phenomenal properties.
These two sets can be studied separately. It turns out that psychological properties (such as learning and
remembering) have been and are studied by a multitude of disciplines, such as Biology and Neurology,
and in a fashion not too different from physical properties of matter (given their "causal" nature), whereas
phenomenal properties constitute the "hard" problem. A psychological property causes some behavior, no
less than most material properties. A phenomenal property is a fuzzier object altogether.
Chalmers also distinguishes awareness and consciousness: awareness is the "psychological" aspect of
consciousness. Whenever we are aware, we also have access to information about the object we are
aware of. Awareness is that access. It is a psychological state that has a "causal" nature.
"Consciousness" is a term more appropriately reserved for the phenomenal aspect of consciousness (for
the emotion, for the feeling).
Chalmers is, de facto, separating the study of cognition from the study of consciousness. Cognition is a
psychological fact, consciousness is a phenomenal fact. Psychological facts, by virtue of their causal (or
functional) nature, can actually be explained by the physical sciences. It is not clear, instead, what
science is necessary to explain consciousness. To start with, Chalmers focuses on the notion of
supervenience.
Chalmers goes to a great extent to clarify the theory of supervenience. A set Y of properties supervenes
on a set X of properties if any two systems that are identical by properties X are also identical by
properties Y. For example, biological properties supervene on physical properties: any two identical
physical systems are also identical biological systems.
"Logical" supervenience (loosely, "possibility") is a variant of supervenience: some systems could exist in
another world (are "logically" possible), but do not exist in our world (are "naturally" impossible).
Elephants with wings are logically possible, but not naturally possible. Systems that are naturally possible
are also logically possible, but not viceversa. For example, any situation that violates the laws of nature is
logically possible but not naturally possible.
Natural supervenience occurs when two sets of properties are systematically and precisely correlated in
the natural world. Logical supervenience implies natural supervenience, but not viceversa. In other words,

there may be worlds in which two properties are not related the way they are in our world, and therefore
two naturally supervenient systems may not be logically supervenient.
Chalmers then argues that most facts supervene logically on the physical facts: if they are identical
physical systems, then they are identical, period. There are few exceptions and consciousness is one of
them. Consciousness is not logically supervenient on the physical.
Thus Chalmers concludes that consciousness "cannot" be explained by the physical sciences (more
appropriately, cannot be explained "reductively"). But Chalmers does not conclude that consciousness
cannot be explained tout court: only that it cannot be explained the way the physical sciences explain
everything else, i.e. by reducing the system to ever smaller parts. Chalmers leaves the door open for a
"nonreductive" explanation of consciousness.
Chalmers does not rule out "monism", the theory that there is only one substance; he only rules out that
the one substance of this world is matter as we know it with the properties we currently know.
Chalmers theory of consciousness is a variant of "property dualism": there are no two substances (mental
and physical), there is only one substance, but that substance has two separate sets of properties, one
physical and one mental. Conscious experience is due to the mental properties. The physical sciences
have studied only the physical properties. The physical sciences study macroscopic properties like
"temperature" that are due to microscopic properties such as the physical properties of particles.
Chalmers advocates a science that studies the "protophenomenal properties" of microscopic matter that
can yield the macroscopic phenomenon of consciousness.
Electromagnetism could not be explained by "reducing" electromagnetic phenomena to the known
properties of matter: it was explained when scientists introduced a whole new set of properties (and
related laws): the properties of microscopic matter that yield the macroscopic phenomenon of
electromagnetism.
Similarly, consciousness cannot be explained by the physical laws of the known properties but requires a
new set of "psychophysical" laws that deal with "protophenomenal properties". Consciousness
supervenes naturally on the physical: the "psychophysical" laws will explain this supervenience, i.e. they
will explain how conscious experiences depend on physical processes.
Chalmers emphasizes that this applies only to consciousness. Cognition is governed by the known laws
of the physical sciences.
Chalmers then turns to the relationship between cognition and consciousness. Phenomenal (conscious)
experience is not an abstract phenomenon: it is directly related to our psychological experience.
Consciousness interacts with cognition and that interactaction gets expressed via what Chalmers calls
"phenomenal judgements" ("I am afraid", "I see", "I am suffering"). These are acts that belong to our
psychological life (to cognition) but that are about our phenomenal life (consciousness).
Chalmers is faced with a paradox: phenomenal judgements, that are about consciousness, belong to
cognitive life, therefore can be explained reductively, but he just proved that consciousness cannot be
explained reductively. The way out of the paradox is to assume that consciousness is not relevant, that
we can explain phenomenal judgements even if/when we cannot explain the conscious experience they
are about, i.e. the explanation does not depend on "that" conscious experience, i.e. "that" feeling or
emotion is irrelevant.

Chalmers cautions that this conclusion does not necessarily imply that consciousness (as in "free will") is
irrelevant for behavior, but it surely does smell that way. If we can explain behavior about consciousness
without explaining consciousness, it is hard to believe that behavior requires consciousness.
Chalmers takes these facts literally: our statements about consciousness are part of our cognitive life, and
therefore can be explained quite naturally, just like any other behavior. I speak about my feelings the
same way I raise a hand. There is a physical process that explains why I do both. It also happens that we
"are" conscious, not just that we talk about it, and that part cannot be explained (yet). If we had a detailed
understanding of the brain, we could predict when someone would utter the words "I feel pain". So
Chalmers believes that our talk about consciousness will be explained just like any other cognitive
process, just like any other bodily process. This is not the same as explaining the conscious feelings
themselves, and it leaves open the option that feelings are but an accessory, an evolutionary accident, a
by-product of our cognitive life with no direct relevance to our actions.
Chalmers also offers an explanation of phenomenal judgement based on the theory of information. After
all, his definition of "cognition" is pretty much that of "information processing": cognition is the processing
of information, from the moment it is acquired by the senses to the moment it is turned into bodily
movement.
Information is what "pattern" is from the inside. Consciousness is information about the pattern of the self.
Information becomes therefore the link between the physical and the conscious.
Since information is ubiquitous, he also gets entangled in the question whether everything has feelings. If
experience is ultimately due to information, there is no reason why anything would not be associated with
"experience". Just like every other physical property that we know to be widespread in the universe, there
is no reason why "experience" (defined as the macroscopic effect of "protophenomenal properties")
should not be widespread. Objects that implement an information-processing system may well have a
degree of consciousness. Chalmers' "natural dualism" is therefore a close relative of "panpsychism".
Furthermore, if information leads to experience, there must be a lot more experience than we "feel"
because the brain processes a lot more information than we are aware of. But then parts of the brain may
have experience that does not travel to the "I". The "I" is not necessarily all that is experienced by the
brain. The "I" may simply be a chunk of coherent information out of the many that arise all the time in the
brain.
Ultimately, David Chalmers believes that it makes no sense to talk of pieces of consciousness.
Consciousness "is" the experience of being the subject, so, by definition, it is a unity: it is all of which I am
the subject at a certain time. This has implications for any theory of consciousness, because the
reductionist approach (splitting the problem into smaller problems) is, by definition, doomed to failure:
consciousness cannot be split lest you lose precisely consciousness, and then you are no longer
analyzing consciousness. Consciousness can only be studied as the state of being the subject, which is
fundamentally different from the study of what and how enables the brain to integrate different processes.
What is needed is a holistic approach to consciousness.
Panpsychism
The Roman philosopher Lucretius of the first century B.C. once observed that "every creature with senses
is made only of particles without senses". The paradox still stands. Descartes did not solve it by simply
separating "sense" (conscious mind) from "non-sense" (matter) and subsequent philosophers did not
solve it no matter how they looked at the relationship between mind and matter.

The solution to the paradox has always been around, and it only required accepting that our mind is
nothing else than a natural phenomenon.
For example, in the 1930s the British mathematician Alfred Whitehead argued that every particle in the
universe must be an event having both an objective aspect of matter and a subjective aspect of
experience. Some material compounds, such as the brain, create the unity of experience that we call
"mind". Most material compounds are limited in their experience to the experience of their constituents.
The USA philosopher Thomas Nagel reached a similar conclusion: that "proto-mental properties" must be
present in all matter, and, suitably organized, become somebodys consciousness. He believed in one,
common source for both the material and the mental aspects of the world. Mental and material are never
separated: there is never the material without the mental, and there is never the mental without the
material.
The Danish physicist Niels Bohr once suggested that the quantum wave function of matter represents its
mental aspect, that the wave of the electron is the equivalent of the mind of matter. Bohr suggested that
the duality of waves and particles could explain the duality of mind and matter. After all, the wave of
probability could be interpreted as expressing a "free will" of the electron, a primitive "mental life" of its
own. The dual aspect of body and mind within an organism would derive from the dual aspect of the
particles composing an organism, from the dual aspect of wave and particle.
Panpsychism (the notion that everything is conscious to some extent) is the simplest way to explain why
some beings (e.g., me) are conscious. After all we dont wonder why we are made of electrons:
everything is made of electrons, therefore no wonder that my body too is made of electrons. We wonder
why we are conscious because we made the assumption that only some things (us) are conscious. All we
have to do is remove that assumption and we have a simple theory of consciousness.
A General Property of Matter
The Italian mathematician Piero Scaruffi offered his variant on panpsychism ("A simple theory of
consciousness", 2001).
I am conscious. I am made of cells. Cells are made of molecules. Molecules are made of atoms, and
atoms are made of elementary particles. If elementary particles are not conscious, how is it possible that
many of them, assembled in molecules and cells and organs, eventually yield a conscious being like me?
Many attempts have been made at explaining consciousness by reducing it to something else. To no
avail. There is no way that our sensations can be explained in terms of particles. So, how does
consciousness arise in matter? Maybe it doesn't arise, it is always there.
No matter how detailed an account is provided of the neural processes that led to an action (say, a smile),
that account will never explain where the feeling associated to that action (say, happiness) came from. No
theory of the brain can explain why and how consciousness happens, if it assumes that consciousness is
somehow created by some neural entity that is completely different in structure, function and behavior
from our feelings.
From a logical standpoint, the only way out of this dead-end is to accept that consciousness must be a
property of the particles that make up my body.
When we try to explain consciousness by reducing it to electrochemical processes, we put ourselves in a
situation similar to a scientist who decided to explain electrical phenomena by using gravity. Electrical

phenomena can be explained only if we assume that electricity comes from a fundamental property of
matter (i.e. from a property that is present in all matter starting from the most fundamental constituents)
and that, under special circumstances, enables a particular configuration of matter to exhibit "electricity".
Similarly, if consciousness comes from a fundamental property of matter (from a property that is present
in all matter starting from the most fundamental constituents), then, and only then, we can study why and
how, under special circumstances, that property enables a particular configuration of matter (e.g., the
human brain) to exhibit "consciousness".
Any paradigm that tries to manufacture consciousness out of something else is doomed to failure. Things
don't just happen. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Consciousness cannot simply originate from the act of putting
unconscious neurons together. It doesn't appear like magic. Conductivity seems to appear by magic in
some configurations of matter (e.g. metallic objects), but there's no magic: just a fundamental property of
matter, the electrical charge, which is present in every single particle of this universe, a property which is
mostly useless but that under the proper circumstances yields the phenomenon known as conductivity.
Particles are not conductors by themselves, just like they are not conscious, and most things made of
particles (wood, plastic, glass, etc. etc.) are not conductors (and maybe have no consciousness), but
each single particle in the universe has an electrical charge and each single particle in the universe has a
property, say, C. That property C is the one that allows our brain to be conscious. It is not that each single
particle is conscious or that each single piece of matter in the universe is conscious. But each single
particle has this property C which, under the special circumstances of our brain configuration (and maybe
other brain configurations and maybe even things with no brain) yields consciousness.
Just like electricity and gravitation are macroscopic properties that are caused by microscopic properties
of the constituents, so consciousness may be a macroscopic property of our brain that is caused by a
microscopic property of its constituents. Just like electrical phenomena can only be reduced to smallerscale electrical phenomena (all the way down to the electrical charge of each single constituent), so
consciousness can only be reduced to smaller-scale conscious phenomena.
Property C has not been found by Physics for the simple reason that Physics was not built to find it:
Physics is an offshoot of Descartes' dualism, which strictly separated mind and matter and assigned
Physics to matter. Newton's Physics was built to explain the motion of bodies, and that is what it explains.
It did not find elementary particles and it did not find entropy. It was built to explain bodies. Relativity was
built to explain the constant speed of light, electromagnetism and gravitation. And that is what it explains.
It did not find quarks either, because it was not built to study atoms. Quantum Theory, on the other hand,
found quarks, because it was built to study the atom. But it did not find black holes, because it was not
built to study gravitation.
Scaruffis theory is neither dualistic nor materialistic. Like dualists, he admits the existence of
consciousness as separate from the physical properties of matter as we know them; but at the same time,
like materialists, I consider consciousness as arising from a "physical" property (that we have not
discovered yet) that behaves in a fundamentally different way from the other physical properties. So in a
sense it is not a "physical" property, but it is still a property of all matter. Mine is an identity theory, in that I
think that mental correspond to neural states, but it goes beyond identity because I also think that the
property yielding consciousness is common to all matter, whether it performs neural activity or not.
What made Descartes believe in dualism is the unity of consciousness. But electrical conductors also
exhibit a unity of electricity, and nonetheless electrical phenomena can be reduced to a physical property
of matter.

The main problem is the lack of an empirical test for consciousness. We cannot know whether a being is
conscious or not. We cannot "measure" its consciousness. We cannot rule out that every object in the
universe, including each elementary particle, has consciousness: we just cannot detect it. Even when I
accept that other human beings are conscious a) I base my assumption on similarity of behavior, not on
an actual "observation" of their consciousness; and b) I somehow sense that some people (poets and
philosophers, for example) may be more conscious than other people (lawyers and doctors, for example).
The trouble is that our mind is capable only of observing conscious phenomena at its own level and within
itself. Our mind is capable of observing only one conscious phenomenon: itself.
A good way to start would be to analyze why consciousness is limited to the brain. Why does
consciousness apply only to the brain? What is special about the brain that cannot be found anywhere
else? If the brain is made of ordinary matter, of well-known constituents, what is it that turns that matter
conscious when it is configured as a brain, but not when it is configured as a foot?
A Reductionist Theory of the Self
The "I" is the central problem of consciousness. Even if we eventually explain how conscious experience
arises from the electrochemical processes of the brain, even if we discovered some kind of "protoconsciousness" that gets combined to form emotions and feelings, we will still need to show how and why
that set of emotions and feelings becomes a "I".
That matter can feel emotions is a mystery enough. But what we feel is even stranger: it is not that each
part of our body, each molecule feels emotions. It is "I" that feels those emotions.
A body is made of parts that interact, and each one has its own life. But a consciousness is an "I" that
feels all of the emotions related to that body. My consciousness is not distributed the same way that
matter is distributed in my body.
Let us assume that everything is conscious to some degree. Every atom, every molecule, every tissue,
every organ, every being is "conscious". And that "I" is just what I am conscious of. If I were born a finger,
I would only be conscious of what a finger does. "I" happen to be born the part of the brain that is
conscious of what I am conscious.
In this scenario of multiple "consciousnesses", the "I" that is writing this sentence is not the conscious part
of the foot or of the nail, it is the conscious part of a part of the brain. I am not conscious of my foot's
consciousness, because "I" am the consciousness of something else (a part of the brain).
And I am not conscious of the consciousness of any other parts of the brain because "I" (the one who is
writing right now) am not those parts. "I" am the consciousness of a part of the brain, and it turns out that
"I" (this particular consciousness) receive information from several parts of the body and direct order to
several parts of the body. For example, it is likely that the "consciousnesses" associated with my fingers
are conscious of typing on the keyboard. They have to, because the brain tells them to. "I" (the
consciousness of that part of the brain) am only aware of sending them the order to type. Because of the
organization of the body, the brain controls other organs. Because each part is associated with a
consciousness, each part is aware of what it is doing. But "I", the consciousness associated with this part
of the brain, identify with the whole body.
"I" am actually not conscious of everything. There is a consciousness associated with my liver and one
with my intestine and one with each of millions of minuscule parts. "I" am not aware of any of those parts.

I cannot feel that I because "I" am not that I.

Evolution has decreed which parts are connected to the part of the brain that is associated with "I". "I" am
aware only of those parts. The main difference between "I" and other "consciousnesses" inside this body
is that "I" (or the brain part associated with that "I") can tell fingers to type this sentence, and can tell the
mouth to utter words.
Of course, there could be another consciousness (another I) that is conscious of parts of my body that I
am not conscious of. Maybe there is a consciousness (another I) that is directing me to think what I am
thinking and directing me to direct the fingers to type what they are typing. I cannot be conscious of this
"super-consciousness" or of any other consciousness associated with my body, because "I" am not it or
them.
The reason things do not get out of control is that the structure of "consciousnesses" must mirror the
structure of the body, so that an order issued by a consciousness cannot conflict with the order issued by
another consciousness.
Finally, in this scenario of multiple consciousnesses, it is not necessary that "consciousnesses" be truly
directing anything. Each consciousness could simply be the "phenomenal" aspect of a physical process:
any action by a body part also yields a conscious experience that presumes of being the cause of that
action. Whether it is consciousness that directs the body or viceversa is another issue.
The body is made of parts, each part being made of parts and so forth all the way down to elementary
particles. Each of those parts, all the way down to elementary particles, also has a phenomenal aspect,
i.e. its own "consciousness".
The consciousness that is writing this sentence is "I". There are countless consciousnesses that share
this body, each of them conscious of what one part of the body is doing. They may all be convinced of
having free will, just like I am. There may be consciousnesses that share this body and direct "I" to do
what "I" am doing.
In this scenario, "I" cannot feel any other consciousness than "I", because that is what "I" am.
Further Reading
Bohm David: WHOLENESS AND THE IMPLICATE ORDER (Routledge, 1980)
Chalmers David: THE CONSCIOUS MIND (Oxford University Press, 1996)
Culbertson James: THE MINDS OF ROBOTS (University of Illinois Press, 1963)
Culbertson James: SENSATIONS MEMORIES AND THE FLOW OF TIME (Cromwell Press, 1976)
Eccles John: EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN (Routledge, 1989)
Eccles John: THE SELF AND ITS BRAIN (Springer, 1994)
Gardenfors, Peter: HOW HOMO BECAME SAPIENS (Oxford Univ Press, 2003)
Goswami Amit: THE SELF-AWARE UNIVERSE (Putnam, 1993)
Herbert Nick: ELEMENTAL MIND (Dutton, 1993)

Lockwood Michael: MIND, BRAIN AND THE QUANTUM (Basil Blackwell, 1989)
Marshall I.N., Zohar Danah: QUANTUM SOCIETY (William Morrow, 1994)
Nagel Thomas: MORTAL QUESTIONS (Cambridge Univ Press, 1979)
Penrose Roger: THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND (Oxford Univ Press, 1989)
Penrose Roger: SHADOWS OF THE MIND (Oxford University Press, 1994)
Pribram Karl: LANGUAGES OF THE BRAIN (Prentice Hall, 1971)
Pribram Karl: BRAIN AND PERCEPTION (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990)
Pylkkanen Paavo: MIND, MATTER AND ACTIVE INFORMATION (Univ. of Helsinki, 1992)
Searle John: THE REDISCOVERY OF THE MIND (MIT Press, 1992)
Stapp Henry: MIND, MATTER AND QUANTUM MECHANICS (Springer-Verlag, 1993)
Von Neumann, John: DIE MATHEMATISCHE GRUNDLAGEN DER QUANTENMECHANIK/
MATHEMATICAL FOUNDATIONS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS (Princeton University Press, 1932)
Whitehead Alfred: MODES OF THOUGHT (Macmillan, 1938)
Wolf, Fred Alan: MIND INTO MATTER (Moment Point, 2001)
Yasue Kunio & Jibu Mari: QUANTUM BRAIN DYNAMICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS (John Benjamins,
1995)
Zohar Danah: QUANTUM SELF (William Morrow, 1990)