Statement on Consciousness

by David M. Petersen

(Version 1)

Consciousness (marked by the subjective experience of 'I') is a new completely balanced physical energy system, inside a balanced (around nothing) total energy system (the universe), that includes and transcends the subsystem that comes before it in the evolutionary chain: the brain.

It goes: big bang, quantum systems, atoms, molecules, biology (cells, bodies, brains), consciousness (minds), and beyond. As the universe cools and expands it's energy becomes more complex. Each of these systems are balanced around nothing and interconnected.

Energy and therefore the word "physical" are both just expressions related to balanced existence around nothing (energy is either positive or negative).

Each of these systems include and transcend the system before it; to say that biology merely reduces to molecules is an incomplete idea.

To say that consciousness merely reduces to the brain (biology) is therefore incorrect.

To say that consciousness is a characteristic of brain function like the 'wetness of water' is incorrect because it's like saying biology is just a characteristic of molecules.

These limited views understate the power and importance of this new emergent energy system: the system of consciousness...biological organisms can now understand, experience and alter their environment on a deep level.

Clearly, consciousness vibrates into existence from the brain into it's own "physical" space, which is comprised of balanced positive and negative energy around nothing.

The real question is how to actually measure it's true existence in time and space...

As usual, I find all the dialog on the subject by the experts overly analytical; I think to truly see how and why consciousness works you have to use "the other side of your brain" so to speak; you must try to visualize it in total, or at least start by doing this. It is a new energy system that is more complex than the brain. Of course it does something amazing, like embody a subjective sense of self! In other words, it's only a "hard problem" because you’re not acknowledging its true position in reality and you are trying to reduce it to something easily understood.