International Awareness Awareness Day

I woke up this morning, aware that today is International Awareness Awareness Day*, when we should all be aware of being aware. And that we should all give thanks for the gift of awareness. 

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[A housefly has landed on the table next to my laptop. Is it aware? I'm sure it is. Aware of its surroundings, aware of potential threats, aware of where food can be found. It is, to a limited degree, aware of being, aware of existing. Conscious of being itself. But can it be aware of being aware? This I doubt.]

I'll be using the terms 'consciousness' and 'awareness' interchangeably as I jump off into the scientific and philosophical deep end... 

Consider the role of the observer in any experiment to establish the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. Without a conscious observer around to consciously observe the outcome of the experiment, the particle remains in superposition - a wave and a particle, spin up and spin down, at the same time. The presence of consciousness is therefore a necessary part of the experiment.

This is so counterintuitive that we still can't get our heads around it. Quantum mechanics has long been established in experiments in labs all over the world for decades, its predictions agree with outcomes of those experiments to 12 or more decimal places. Richard Feynman said it's like estimating the circumference of Earth to the width of a human hair. This makes quantum mechanics one of the most successful scientific theories ever.  Quantum mechanics underpins the IT revolution that has brought us such rich benefits as the internet, smartphones, cloud computing etc. But we still can't make sense of quantum mechanics philosophically. Maybe once upon a time we could have done so - but then, we would have been relying on our shamans and our myths to help us do so.

Lab experiments to measure empirically whether a conscious observer can steer the outcome of a quantum particle in superposition as it decoheres remain inconclusive. Rationalist materialists will criticise the experiments as being pseudoscience; I would argue that consciousness, immanent and fundamental, is ineffable in nature. Unwilling to allow itself to be measured - to be revealed - in a something as banal as a lab experiment.

But reveal itself to us it does - though only if we are sensitive to it. The cosmic consciousness is all around; we're bathed in it; our shamanic forefathers were highly sensitive to it, though they understood it poorly in scientific terms. Materialism has desensitised us. Pursuit of money to buy objects that serve to delight us, blunts our awareness, desensitises us to the wonders of the Universe. A simple, though comfortable, life, lived in quiet contemplation, raises that sensitivity.

Be aware of being aware; be grateful for being aware. Awareness of awareness at the meta-level.

* It is as of now. 21 August - International Awareness Awareness Day. I have deemed it thus. And Roman P. has suggested that the evening of 20 August should be International Awareness Awareness Eve - excellent idea.

This time three years ago:
Reflections on late-August

This time five years ago:
Conscious of a waning summer

This time nine years ago:
Plans for modernising the Warsaw-Radom railway line

This time ten years ago:
World's largest ship calls in at Gdańsk

This time 12 years ago:
Raymond's Treasure - a short story

This time 13 years ago:
Now an urban legend: Kebab factory under W-wa Centralna

This time 14 years ago:
It was twenty years ago today

This time 16 years ago:
By bike to Czachówek again