Your consciousness – my consciousness – is what makes you, and I, unique. The 'feel' of me being me is something that I alone can experience; it's what makes me individual to me. What makes me individual to everyone else is my appearance and behaviour – judged objectively within others' subjective experiences of me. Personality is indivisible.
So – is each individual consciousness consigned to one biological body? Is that youness of you locked in your skull? Or is consciousness something that can transcend the physical? Can it facilitate communication with other consciousnesses (telepathy)? Can it allow one to see into the future (precognition)? Can it survive biological death? Can it resurface in a new biological container (reincarnation)?
British mathematician and cosmologist, Bernard Carr, talks of 'Big-C' Consciousness as operating across the universal level, while 'small-c' consciousness is what you and I experience subjectively. I see this is as a particularly useful metaphor that helps me construct my belief system, my way of looking at reality.
My big question is not so much whether, but to what extent, can our 'small-c' consciousness tap into and align itself with that 'Big-C' Consciousness, which as I wrote earlier in this series, I see as the Cosmic Purpose.
This brings me the concept of non-local consciousness. It challenges the current physicalist view that consciousness is solely a product of the brain, a by-product of biological evolution. The idea that consciousness may extend beyond the individual, transcending physical boundaries – even the limitations of space and time – sounds wild and heretical at first. It suggests a more interconnected and potentially universal nature of reality than that described by the Newtonian paradigm of cause and effect. A universe of billiard balls predictably colliding and predictably reacting.
Non-local consciousness suggests that consciousness might exist independently, beyond the human brain. Before the scientific revolution which began in the 17th century, such a concept would have been commonplace; animist religions would ascribe consciousness and agency to animals, plants, places and celestial objects. The scientific paradigm would describe such beliefs as primitive superstition. Yet the development of quantum mechanics a century ago started to nibble away at Newtonian certainty.
The phenomenon of quantum entanglement, where particles become interconnected and influence each other instantaneously regardless of their location (Einstein's "spooky action at a distance"), is seen as being a possible mechanism for non-local consciousness. However, for those less in need of a scientific explanation, philosophical concepts such as panpsychism, which suggests that consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter, align with the idea of non-local consciousness.
Did we humans once have greater powers to tap into non-local consciousness, powers that have atrophied as we came to accept materialist physicalism as the ground truth of reality? Quite possibly. Maybe the shamans that guided our ancestors to the best hunting grounds and called down rain to end droughts were more effective at this than science gives them credit for – above chance; your ancestors' tribes depended on it. They survived and reproduced successfully for over 380,000 years – something proven by your existence.
So – in summary: is there such a thing as non-local consciousness? It boils down to belief. My intuition is: yes, it is true, but weakly so. A cumulative succession of small, local miracles. A weak power, not something to attempt to quantify or to turn into data for scientific analysis, it just is. And, according to my intuitions about spiritual evolution, it will evolve over time.
A tiny percentage of humans may have extraordinary psi powers that amaze others. The more you believe, the stronger those powers become
One psi power you may wish to check out for yourself: scopaesthesia – the sense of being stared at. Take up a vantage point above a crowd and fix your gaze on the back of one person's head. Focus your conscious flow upon that person. See whether they start looking around to see who's looking at them. I've done this recently and it worked both times, surprising me with how effective this particular power is. What did it prove to me? Only that non-local consciousness is not something that can easily be dismissed. Below: "Can I make that person turn around and start looking for the person who's looking at them?" [Generated by Google Imagen 3.0]
Can you measure non-local consciousness using the scientific method? Many are trying, creating experiments intended to detect psi powers such as psychokinesis, precognition or telepathy. Check out Dean Radin (experiments into parapsychology) and Rupert Sheldrake (scopaesthesia and the four-friends telephone experiment); check out Ky Dickens' and Diane Hennacy Powell's The Telepathy Tapes podcast.
My personal belief is that such powers are not intended to be detected by (or within) the current paradigm of science. First, we need a paradigm shift as massive as the one from alchemy to science that began the end of the 16th century.
Tomorrow: the Ghost in the Machine, and is the Sun Conscious?
Lent 2024: Day eight
Spirituality for our (New) Age (Pt III)
Lent 2023: Day eight
A Universe into which life fits exactly
Lent 2022: Day eight
Body and Soul
Lent 2021: Day eight
Guilty of feeling guilty
Lent 2020: Day eight
Salvation - or peace of mind?
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