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Consciousness is a fundamental quality of

the cosmos and what we call the material
world emerges from it

Both of the two great revolutions in twentiethcentury physicsEinsteins Theories of Relativity and Quantum Theoryrevealed that
observation played an important role. They
also challenged the assumption that there is
a material reality. Previously, it was thought
that the physical reality existed independent of our observation of it. Schrdingers
wave function and Heisenbergs uncertainty
principle revealed this was not the case. As
a result, several physicists of the timeEinstein, Bohr, Schrdinger, Eddington, Pauli
became interested in the role that mind and
consciousness played in the cosmos; but this
interest faded over time and few contemporary physicists seek to include consciousness
in their model of reality.
Most attempts to understand the world of
modern physics still assume that the primary
reality is the physical reality of mass-energyspace-time (whatever they might actually
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be). Consciousness is generally regarded as a

product of brain activity, that is, something
emerging from the physical reality. In this
paper, I argue that consciousness is a fundamental quality of the cosmos, and that what
we call the material world emerges from it.

There Is No Such Thing

as Consciousness

If we are going to be talking about consciousness, we should first define what we mean.
This is not easy, partly because we are using a
noun, which makes consciousness a thing.
In so doing, we set foot on the wrong course.
Whenever we add ness to a word, we turn
an adjective into an abstract noun in order to
talk about it. The suffix ness means the
state or quality of. Thus, happiness is the
state of being happy. Being happy exists as an
experience, but happiness as an independent
thing does not exist.
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Our experience of the world is a

representation of reality created by the brain

The same with consciousness; it does not

exist as a thing. What is true is that I am
conscious, as is each and every one of us. It is
an essential, ever-present quality of all experience. The noun consciousness simply allows
us to talk about the fact in a more generalized
way. In this respect, consciousness needs no
definition; it is self-evident. I am aware that
I am aware. This simple fact needs no argument, reason, or research. It is beyond doubt.
This distinction is essential to any study of
the subject. The use of the noun, consciousness, is symptomatic of the materialist approach, which seeks to objectify the world.
Consciousness becomes another phenomena
to be studied and known. This error is prevalent in most contemporary approaches to
understanding the nature of consciousness.
When I use the word consciousness, I shall
be using it in the sense of the quality of being
conscious, the knowing of experience, rather than as some phenomenon to be known.
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The Faculty and the Forms

of Consciousness

A second important distinction is between

the faculty of consciousnessbeing aware of
experience as described aboveand what we
are aware ofthe sensations, perceptions,
thoughts, feelings, and other phenomena that
arise in our experience. I shall refer to these
as the forms that appear in consciousness.
These forms are clearly dependent upon
brain processes. And I am happy to assume,
pending contrary evidence, that for every
subjective experience there is a corresponding state in the brain. It is commonly assumed that this implies that the faculty of
consciousness is likewise a consequence of
brain activity. This stems from a conflation of
two different questions: Does the brain create
the forms of which we are aware? And, does
the brain create the faculty of consciousness?
The so-called easy and hard questions

of consciousness. Later I shall argue that the

answer to the second question is No.

Representations of Reality

Our experience of the world is a representation of reality created by the brain.

Contemporary science has little problem
with this statement. In essence, the senses
respond to stimuli in their environment, pass
that information along to the brain, where it
is analyzed and processed, and a model constructed of the world out there. This representation of reality then appears in conscious
experience as the 3-D, full-color, surroundsound, touchy-feely world that we know.
Yet, the full implications of this construction process are seldom explored. We shall
see that it leads to a radically different understanding of the true nature of the world
out there, undermining the assumption of a
material reality.

The Representation Is Not

the Reality

We assume that the representation that

we experience is much like the world out
there, what Kant called the thing in itself.
But it turns out that the two are totally different. Take the color green, for example. In
the physical world, there is light of a particular frequency, but the light itself is not green.
Nor are the electrical impulses that travel
from the eye to the brain. The green you see
is merely the representation that appears in
consciousness. There is no green out there.
The same is true of our other senseshearing, smell, taste, touch. The phenomena we
experience do not exist in the world out there.
They exist only in awareness. Im not suggesting that the physical world does not exist; only
that it is very different from our experience of
it. We mistake the representation for reality.

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The deeper weve studied the physical

world, the less evidence weve found for
anything physical

Matter Is Not Made of Matter

The same is true of our concept of matter. Our

experience of the world includes that of solid
substance. Yet, physics has revealed that this
is far from true. More than a century ago, it
was realized that atoms were largely empty
space. The apparent solidity we experience is
due to the bonds binding atoms together in
molecular structures and the corresponding forces holding molecules together. The
strength of these bonds makes it almost impossible for one physical structure to interpenetrate another, which leads to the perception of solidity.
With the advent of quantum theory it was
realized that even sub-atomic particles were
far from being the solid particles we had
imagined them to be. They are more like fuzzy
clouds of potential existence. Whatever matter is, it is not made of matter.

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Nothing There

In trying to understand physical reality, we

take concepts derived from our experience
such as waves and particlesand imagine the
world out there is similar. We believe the
representation of reality we experience is like
the reality being modeled. But it turns out
they are completely different.
The deeper weve studied the physical
world, the less evidence weve found for anything physical. It sometimes seems as if theres
nothing thereor rather, no thing there.
The concept of a thing as a discrete object is
likewise derived from experience. We have to
conclude that physical reality is nothing like
we imagine it to be, or could imagine it to be.

A Non-homogenous Reality

So, is there anything we can say for sure about

the physical world? Yes. It is not homogenous.
That is to say, it is not all the same. The part

of the world I call my finger is not the same

as the air that surrounds it. One is solid; the
other gas. One is opaque; the other transparent.
Looking deeper, the structure of a nerve
cell is different from that of a blood cell. At
a much finer level, what we call a proton is
different from whatever it is that we call an
electron. We may not know what the cosmos
is made of, but we can say that is highly differentiated, at all levels, from quark to galactic cluster.

A Field of Information

These variations constitute information. We

cannot say what an electron is, for that would
again be projecting our experience back on to
the world. All we know is various bits of information. There are quantities we call charge,
spin, and mass. We dont know what these
actually arethe names are once again projections from experience. But we can measure

themor at least have information about the

probabilities of what we might measure.
Perhaps then, all we can say about physical
reality is that it is a highly structured field of
information. Mathematics describes the way
this field interacts with itself, and its unfolding over time.
There are currently seven or so different
interpretations of quantum mechanics attempting to describe what is going on, the
most popular of which is the Copenhagen
Convention. And then there is the school that
says, Shut up and do the math. We know
the mathematics and it works, whatever interpretation is laid on top of it.
The ultimate description of the cosmos
must be purely mathematical, devoid of any
interpretation drawn from human experience. If we ever do meet another intelligent
species that has made its own study of the
cosmos, their physics might look very different from ours. But, once we understood
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Matter, as we know it, is all in the mind. The

stuff of which matter is made is not physical
stuff, but mindstuffi.e., consciousness.

how they formulated their mathematics, we

would find ourselves in agreement.

Experienced Information

Our sense organs respond to changes in this

information field. The information is conveyed to the brain, where it is processed into
a flow of information that is a reflection of the
information in the world out there. This
flow of information in the brain then appears
as information in consciousness. These are
the forms we experiencethe colors, shapes,
sounds, smells, textures we are aware of. This
is simply how the information is translated
into an experiential formmuch like how
the information in the CPU of a computer is
translated into an image on the screen.
The information has been given form in
awareness. We could say, it has in-formed
experience. These forms appear to us as the
material world. But this material world exists
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ing sense of the information. A virtual reality

created by the brain.
Matter, as we know it, is all in the mind.
The stuff of which matter is made is not
physical stuff, but mindstuffthat is, consciousness.

Integrated Information

Why do some information processes in the

brain give rise to an experience, while others
have little effect? The new approach of Integrated Information Theory suggests that what
seems to be critical is that there is not only a
complex flow of information, but an integration of the information from many different
processes across the brain.
This integration is reflected in our experience. When I see a flower, I perceive its color, shape, movement integrated in a single
whole. However, this does not mean that the
integrated information gives rise to conscious
experience itself, only that the integrated in-

formation is responsible for the forms that

appear in consciousness.

The Hard Problem

The hard problem of consciousness still remains. Why is there awareness in the first
place? How do physical processes in the brain
ever give rise to something as immaterial as
consciousness? Why doesnt all this activity
just go on anyway, without our ever being
aware of any of it?
This is a huge conundrum for contemporary science. It is easier to explain how we
evolved from simple cells than it is to explain
why we are aware.
A test of any scientific theory is how well
it predicts the way things are. Yet there is
nothing in our current scientific worldview
that predicts that any arrangement of physical matter should ever result in an inner conscious experience.
The current materialist worldview is so

deeply engrained in our thinking that we seldom question it. Instead we keep looking for
ways to try and explain consciousness in material terms.

Where Do We Draw the Line?

Theres a second major problem with this approach. If consciousness emerges from insentient matter, then at what stage in evolution did this happen? Where do we draw the
line between creatures that are conscious and
those that arent?
We imagine our pets are conscious beings.
Why else would we give them an anesthetic
to make them unconscious before an operation? We assume they would experience pain,
much like we would. We would probably feel
the same about other mammals. What about
other vertebrates? A bird? Or a fish? Their
nervous systems are structured in similar
ways. Or an octopus? Or a spider? Or a worm?
Where do we draw the line?
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There must be a trace of consciousness,

however slight, in molecules, atoms, and
even elementary particles

The problem is that wherever we draw the

line, we find ourselves once more up against
the hard problem. How is it that on one side
of the line physical matter does not produce
an inner experience, whereas on the other
side it does?

No Line

Our continued failure to explain just how

consciousness arises from physical matter
suggests that we may need to question some
of the fundamental assumptions of the contemporary worldview.
It is assumed that matter itself is insentientit is totally devoid of any experience.
This assumption lies at the heart of the hard
problem. An alternative assumptionand
one that is being explored by a growing number of scientists and philosophersis that the
capacity for experience is present, to some
extent, in everything.
It doesnt suddenly appear out of nowhere,
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as if by magic, once some particular arrangement of matter has emerged. Experience is

there all the way down the evolutionary tree.
If so, then consciousness is not limited
to creatures with nervous systems. Even a
simple cell has a faint glimmer of awareness.
Nothing like the rich experience we know.
Nothing like a thought or a feeling. But not
nothing at all.
From this perspective, there is nowhere we
can draw a line between conscious and nonconscious entities. Consciousness per se is not
a product of evolution. The capacity for experience was always there. What has evolved
are the forms that appear in consciousness.

Consciousness Intrinsic to Cosmos

If there is nowhere we can draw a line, then

there must be a trace of consciousness, however slight, in molecules, atoms, and even elementary particles.
That may sound strange. But it doesnt

mean that atoms and molecules experience

the world like we do. There is probably no
representation of the world at this level. For a
representation to appear in awareness, there
needs to be some integrated processing of information. This probably does not appear until the level of cell, where the chemical systems that maintain the integrity of the living
system lead to sufficiently complex information processing.
In this respect, the emergence of life and
the emergence of experience are intimately
connected; they are two aspects of the same
unfolding. But we cant say there is absolutely no trace of consciousness at molecular or
atomic scales. Otherwise, wed once again
have to explain how experience could emerge
from that which has no experience.
If there is nowhere we can draw a line and
the capacity for awareness goes all the way
down, then that capacity must be an intrinsic
quality of the cosmos.

So, there is one more thing we can say about

the world out there. It is not only a highly differentiated field of information, but the field
has the potential to be aware.

Letting Go of the Physical

At first sight, this might appear to lead to a

dual-aspect model of reality. There is an external physical aspect of everything and there
is a corresponding internal conscious aspect.
However, the more we try to discern the
physical aspect, the more we find there is no
thing there. Could this be pointing to the
fact that there really is nothing therethat
there is actually no physical aspect?
Such a suggestion challenges a major assumption of the current paradigmthat
there is a real physical world. This assumption has been challenged for a hundred years
now by the advent of quantum physics; but,
so far, we have refused to consider where it
might lead.
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The entire cosmos is a vast field of knowing,

knowing itself, and creating for itself the
appearance of physicality

It does, however, satisfy Occams razor.

The dual-aspect model carries the assumption
that there is a physical essence to the world,
despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary. A monism of consciousness involves no
such assumption. And so, by the razor, would
be the preferred interpretation.
It also obviates any need to identify a relationship between the external physical aspect and the internal conscious aspect. There
is no duality.

A Knowing Field Knowing Itself

The monistic interpretation says that the information field is aware. And that is all there
is. Sufficiently complex structures in the
field respond to the information detected in
the field around them and, from that, create
their own representation of a physical world.
This then appears as a material form in their
awareness.
This is happening at all levelsfrom the
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simplest forms of life to the most complex.

Each has its own particular representation
of the information that it detects. Each experiencing its own particular construction of
a material world. The entire cosmos is a vast
field of knowing, knowing itself, and creating for itself the appearance of physicality.

Why Matter is Insentient

But, if consciousness is everywhere, and the

essential nature of everything, why dont we
see it that way? Why do material objects appear totally devoid of consciousness? Looking for consciousness in the world is a bit like
studying a movie, looking for the source of its
light. Nowhere would we find it. The light is
not in the movie. The movie is made of light.
All we know of the world is the picture of
it appearing in consciousness. The picture
could be said to be constructed from and in
consciousness, but the picture does not itself
include consciousness. Consequently, there

is no trace of consciousness in our experience

of a material world.
This is why it is so easy to assume that the
world out there is insentientand why the
hard problem arises. We imagine the world
out there is like our picture of it, that is, devoid of consciousness.
It would seem that the very opposite is true.
The world of our experiencethe only world
we directly knowappears to us as material
objects, with no trace of consciousness. The
thing-in-itself, which we never know directly, is not made of matter, but is aware.
Recognizing the fundamental role of consciousness turns reality inside out. The essential nature of the cosmos is mind not matter.

Implications

This is not a new idea. Several philosophers

and mystics have come to the same conclusion. However, it has never been taken seriously by modern science. But, what happens

if we do?
First, as with most paradigm shifts, the
findings of the current paradigm are included
in the new. Nothing that we have discovered
in modern science changes. Mathematics
works just the same. The laws of physics are
still valid. All our discoveries in chemistry,
biology, and other sciences hold true. What
changes is our assumption as to what the laws
refer to. They are not laws of the unfolding of
the physical world of space, time, and matter. They are the laws of the unfolding of a
self-aware field.
Second, it may provide new insights into
the perplexing problems in modern physics
in which observation seems to play a critical
role. We are currently trying to understand
these problems from a worldview that focuses on what is observed but does not include
the observer. A worldview that includes consciousness as fundamental, rather than seeking to explain it away as a consequence of
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My innermost essence is the essence of

everything. In the words of the Upanishads,
I am That.

brain activity, may offer fascinating breakthroughs in these perplexing areas.

Third, a monism of consciousness has no
problem with so-called paranormal phenomena. In a materialist worldview it is difficult, if not impossible, to account for telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, precognition,
and such. A worldview that sees everything
as the play of consciousness doesnt preclude
such phenomena.
And, fourth, it might offer valuable insights
into our own inner nature. Science and spirituality are often seen to be at loggerheads.
This is largely because we erroneously assume
them to be describing the same world. The essence of mysticism is the inner exploration of
ones own consciousness, a realm into which
science has not ventured. Time and again
we find that those inner explorers who have
delved into the nature of experience itself are
all pointing to the same conclusion. My innermost essence is the essence of everything.
130 Conscious Lifestyle Magazine

In the words of the Upanishads, I am That.

Peter Russell is a self-professed expert in
meditation and all things conscious. He is
an internationally renowned writer, speaker, mystic, and student of the divine. He is a
fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, The
World Business Academy, and The Findhorn
Foundation, as well as an honorary member
of The Club of Budapest. Peter studied mathematics and theoretical physics at Cambridge
University (UK). His various writings can
be found on his website peterrussell.com.
You can also access his online course on Effortless Meditation by clicking here.

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