Consciousness is a something which is perhaps the most debated topic in philosophy and now after the theory of quantum mechanics it is being debated in the scientific community also. It has been interpreted and explained in different ways in different cultures. So it is understandable that there is a lot of confusion and conflict about it. So here I will try in my own way to explain it to you. Understanding it will open up the mind to newer queries.
Suppose we take the color red as in a rose. If I ask you what color it is then you way say it is red. If I ask you why it is red then you will say it is a color of the light. A science fan will say it is an electromagnetic wave in the range of visible light frequencies; it has a frequency of around 450 terra hertz.
But is it so?
According to prevailing scientific knowledge an electromagnetic field is an electrical field and a magnetic field moving together in the space, while the strength of the fields oscillates in a certain frequency. Light is just a field exerting magnetic and electric force. By the way we do not see the light exerting force on magnets or electrical charges because the field is changing the direction of the force it exerts so rapidly that it practically cancels itself for objects on a large scale. However it certainly exerts force on the objects in the atomic level. But since light is essentially just forces of attraction and repulsion, where is the red. And if we slightly change the frequency of the wave then it will turn to blue which is a completely different experience from red.
Here some will say that the red and blue are not in the electro- magnetic waves but in the brain. The electro-magnetic wave is simply the trigger that activates through the mechanism of vision the experience of red or blue in the brain. So we can deduce from the above discussion that the experience is not the quality of the external world but rather it is inside the brain.
So now let us look for the experience in the brain. Let us take the example of a computer. It has a webcam, a CPU, a memory and a monitor. When the electromagnetic wave hits the camera, it sends analog electrical signals to the processing mechanism. The CPU transforms the signal to a digital code which is then stored in the memory. Later the processing mechanism retrieves the code from the memory and converts it in to electrical signals that reach the screen and are converted to electromagnetic waves. Can we say that the computer is experiencing red? Probably not.
The brain is not much different only it doesn’t have a monitor. The light hitting the eye turns it into electrical signals and sends it to the brain. There they are converted into other electrical or chemical signals which are actually various molecules of protein used for transferring the information in the neural channel. So where is the experience of the red or blue? Where is the taste, the pain, the love?
I hope you understand that there is nothing in this physical world that can explain the existence of experience. When we take a picture and save it in a computer it is stored in the memory, right? No, there is no image in the memory of the computer but a binary code consisting of a combination of zeroes and ones. All data whether it is picture or text is stored this way. Then how can we claim that a particular combination is a picture or text or music. That combination of numbers is neither a text or image or music, but just a code. A decoding mechanism is required to take the numbers and convert it into something else, in this case a picture. Without a decoding mechanism this combination of number is meaningless.
Similarly everything in brain, the electrical signals, the cells and neurons are serving as carrier of a code that will trigger an experience. But where is the decoding mechanism of the brain. Now the consciousness comes into play. Consciousness is like the decoding mechanism that makes the experience possible. The consciousness is the experiencer itself because there cannot be an experience without someone experiencing it. However the experiencer and the experience are different.
The consciousness is like a blank screen, and on it we project films with the projector that is the brain. The films are experiences like cold, hot, pain, love and even a picture. The viewer is the screen itself, anything projected on the screen is experienced by the viewer. The consciousness is decoding the code that is the film and experiencing whatever is projected.
Now let us look at some of the features of consciousness which can be found by self observation and logical thinking.
We cannot observe our consciousness because the consciousness is in itself the observer. It cannot observe itself as you cannot see your eyes. It can be said that the consciousness needs the mind in order to know itself.
Consciousness is constant and unchanging. As the consciousness is just like a blank screen therefore no matter what we project on the screen, the screen will not change. That means whatever we experience in life; our consciousness remains unchanged or not affected by it. The consciousness has no content of its own.
Consciousness is nothing that can become everything. When do we don’t have any consciousness – when we are in deep sleep. It is not that the consciousness is gone but just that no experience is being projected on the screen. It can be said that consciousness is nothing but a void. But it can become everything because here is nothing in this reality that is not an experience.
The human mind limits the experience of the consciousness. Our experience comes from three things- the five senses, the emotions and the thoughts. There can be other types of experiences but we don’t experience them because of the limitation of the mind. Some animals can see and hear beyond the frequency limits of humans, if we could do that then we could hear new sounds or see ultraviolet lights. Also we can only experience our inner world and not of others.
Everyone’s consciousness is the same. As consciousness is just like a blank screen so it is same for every human being and in fact for all living beings whether it is animals or birds. What distinguishes humans and other sentient beings is the structure of the mind and its content.
We are all the same. As the ‘I’ or the self is consciousness and all consciousness is the same for every sentient being of this universe so we are all identical. It is only the experiences that differ from one another. This causes the differentiation between me and you.
This was my small attempt to understand as well as explain consciousness to you.
Amazing