Are We Conscious Despite Our Brains?

      

By Nassir H. Sabah

The nature of consciousness is examined at four successively higher levels, including near-death experiences. It is as if the mind belongs to a greater realm and the brain limits consciousness to what is important for our survival and daily activities. What exactly is meant by consciousness? As there is no generally agreed on definition of consciousness, it is more meaningful to consider the nature of consciousness at four levels. The first level is that commonly understood by consciousness: awareness of the environment and response to environmental stimuli. In the absence of this level, the person is said to be unconscious. This basic level is the substrate of all mental activities that one is aware of and is the only level of consciousness of babies up to the age of about a year. Animals do have this level of consciousness. The next higher level of consciousness is that of self-awareness, that is, identifying oneself with the physical form of the body. Children develop this self-awareness at the age of about a year to a year-and-a-half. When a child of this age looks in a mirror, the child realizes that the image in the mirror is his body image having head, eyes, arms, legs, fingers, etc. Do animals have this self-awareness? In 1970 psychologist Gordon Gallup let some chimpanzees play with mirrors. Then he anesthetized them and painted red spots on their faces. When they looked at themselves in the mirror, after recovery from anesthesia, they tried to rub the spots from their faces, which was considered evidence of self-awareness. Several animal species have since passed this mirror test of self-awareness, including elephants, dolphins, and magpies. The third and higher level of consciousness is the conscious self, which is at the essence of our human existence. As conscious beings we are aware of the world around us and of ourselves in this world as individuals having our own subjective worldview: our own ideas, beliefs, feelings, and plans. We have volition to make decisions and free will to choose between alternatives based on our judgement and past experiences. It is this conscious self that provides the unity of being and continuity in time that defines each human being as a unique individual. Animals are believed to have varying degrees of this level of consciousness, but nothing like humans. Most scientists advocate the materialistic view that consciousness is simply a phenomenon of the brain, in the same way as digestion is a phenomenon of the stomach. American philosophy professor Alva Noë finds this idea as fantastic as that of a self-playing orchestra.1 The musical instruments of an orchestra do produce the musical sounds, but the instruments are played by musicians, and the music is written by a composer; the instruments do not make the music by themselves. According to Noë: “After decades of concerted effort on the part of neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers, only one proposition about how the brain makes us conscious – how it gives rise to sensation, feeling, subjectivity – has emerged unchallenged: we don’t have a clue.” An alternative view is that consciousness belongs to the realm of the mind, which is something nonmaterial and quite distinct from the physical brain. This separation between the mind and the brain is known as dualism, advanced in the 17th century CE by the French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist René Descartes and held by many philosophers and some scientists today. The problem that dualism does not answer is what exactly is the nature of the mind as a separate entity from the brain and how does it interact with the brain? Understanding the nature of consciousness is both of scientific interest and practical importance. Some have long been musing about the creation of supremely intelligent machines, or robots, having their own will and ability to influence human affairs. In other words, they must have human-like consciousness. This cannot happen before the nature of consciousness is understood, and it becomes possible somehow to instill this consciousness in machines. Not only is this well beyond reach at present, but nobody has any viable ideas on how to go about it. The fourth and higher level of consciousness is that of enhanced consciousness manifested under certain conditions, the best studied being near-death-experiences (NDEs)2. These are reported by about 10% to 20% of people who come close to death because of serious injury in an accident, or during a life-threatening medical condition, such as cardiac arrest, major surgery, or complications of childbirth. Remarkably, NDEs share some common features, irrespective of the culture, religious beliefs, or age of the near-death experiencer (NDEr). The consciousness of NDErs is from a disembodied form outside the physical body, from which they feel quite detached. NDErs report: more vivid sensations involving sounds and colors not normally experienced; much clearer and faster thinking; a feeling of being outside of space and time; a sense of all-knowledge and of oneness with the universe; and overwhelmingly positive and intense feelings ranging from incredible peace and tranquility to joy and ecstasy. Scientific studies have shown that NDEs are not dreams, nor hallucinations, nor are they induced by physiological factors that come into play when death is imminent, nor by psychological defense mechanisms in reaction to trauma. A study concluded that NDE memories are stored as episodic memories of events experienced in a peculiar state consciousness.3 Nevertheless, NDEs remain essentially anecdotal recounts that cannot be objectively verified because they are subjective. However, no single neurophysiological or psychological explanation has been able to account for all features of NDEs. Some scientists believe that NDEs can be explained within the present scientific framework, others believe that they are beyond conventional scientific explanation. The spiritual or transcendental explanation of NDEs is that they are very real and provide evidence of a nonmaterial mind or soul departing upon death from the physical body to an afterlife that also exists. If real, NDEs support the existence of a higher state of consciousness and the dualist notion of the separateness of the mind and the brain. Some NDErs report encountering deceased family members and friends who have their own feelings and thoughts. The deceased appear to have consciousness and memory although they have been dead for a long time. Their bodies have decomposed, yet their consciousness and memory are preserved. How can that be? It has been suggested that the mind belongs to a greater realm and that the brain acts as a “filter” that focusses and limits the mind and consciousness to what is important and relevant for our survival and daily activities. As physician Larry Dossey put it more starkly: “We are conscious not because of the brain but in spite of it.”4 Considering that the mind belongs to a greater realm implies external influences, which is a completely different paradigm about the mind-brain problem. An English researcher, Rupert Sheldrake, postulated in the early 1980s the concept of what he calls morphic fields, as an extension and development of the idea of morphogenetic fields first proposed in the 1920s by embryologists as a hypothesis to explain some still unexplained aspects of morphogenesis, that is, the development of form and structure during embryonic growth. Sheldrake attempts to explain many phenomena associated with living organisms, including instinctive animal behavior, in terms of morphic fields and their interactions5. According to Sheldrake, memory is not in the brain at all, but in the morphic field, whose influence is not diminished by distance or time from the past to the present. Although most scientists do not accept this view, and it might well prove to be untenable, it does, nevertheless, present an alternative paradigm that invokes external influences on all living organisms, influences that extend over all space and all time from the past to the present. On the other hand, it only deepens the already deep mystery of consciousness, and raises more questions in attempting to provide answers. How little do we know!   Nassir Sabah is a neuroscientist/biophysicist and Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He has over 100 technical publications, mainly in neurophysiology, biophysics, and biomedical instrumentation and has authored four books on electric circuits, electronics, and neuroscience. This article is adapted from his most recent book Spirituality Rekindled: The Quest for Serenity and Self-Fulfillment (2023). He could be reached at his website https://nassirsabah.com   References Noë, A. (2009) Out of Our Heads, New York, Hill and Wang, p. ix and p. 64. Greyson, B. (2021) After, New York, St. Martin’s Essentials. Palmieri, A., Calvo V., Kleinbub J. R. et al. (2014) ‘“Reality” of near-death experience memories: Evidence from a psychodynamic and electrophysiological integrated study’, Front Hum Neurosci, vol. 8 pp. 429-455. Dossey, L. (2009) The Power of Premonitions, New York, Dutton, p. 191. Sheldrake, R. (2012) The Presence of the Past, revised and expanded edition, Rochester VT, Park Street Press.