What is the definition of consciousness? Why are consciousness, spirituality and quantum physics not often used in one sentence? Let's investigate...
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| This is where the consciousness is experienced, does it happen here too? |
What is the definition of consciousness and what is the definition of quantum physics? How does this affect spirituality?
Consciousness is another new buzz-word. It is thrown around and like so often, it tends to develop definition of its own. The same for the question of spirituality. The latter seems to have it's own definitions in every religion or school of thought.
My little contribution here is the issue of Consciousness AND quantum physics as these days the convergence between quantum physics and consciousness is getting very strong.
Definition of consciousness
The movie What the bleep do we know or just What the bleep, spends a fair amount of time on the definition of quantum physics, micro-biological responses to neurological connections and finally the question of what is spirituality. Sadly, it has time limits and does not spend enough time (not a criticism, just an observation) on the definition of consciousness.
In its crudest the definition of consciousness is merely medical i.e. am I awake and aware of my surroundings or am I not. One of the most intriguing questions about that is that the human brain is no more than whole bundle of wired synapses. Like a telephone exchange or the internet for that matter. It is just matter connection with other matter in a gazillion different ways, but it is just that. So as Deepak Chopra puts it: "We know where the command centre is, but who is the commander?". Somebody or something must be using the network of connections - manipulating it or directing it. Who is that and what is that?
The internet for example has (not as many) a lot of connections and is not conscious in itself (as far as we can tell). So there must be something OUTSIDE of the system governing the system? Consciousness is that observing entity that uses the gazillion synaptic connections to achieve something, have purpose, observe... So what is the definition of consciousness then? Through the ages humanity has always had the need to identify an external entity that has influence on their lives. Whether it is Mayan spirit (see Mayan civilization) or just an understanding that you have consciousness soul, there is always been this deep longing. We have such a phenomenal consciousness above any other species.
My interpretation of the question what is consciousness then becomes the following: Consciousness is singular and can be described as collective consciousness i.e. each of us don't possess a different consciousness - we all share access to a singular consciousness.
Scientists such as Stuart Hameroff (from What the bleep fame) are finding more and more explanations for how the consciousness process works. He explains says having a good definition of quantum physics (or good understanding thereof) is the key to understanding consciousness.
Here's a clip from Youtube with Stuart.
So what about consciousness and unconsciousness? There is difference between subconsciousness and unconsciousness. The former is the active process of brain activity and synaptic connections, but the absence of awareness thereof. Like when you are focusing on a conversation and you are not aware of the background noise - you are literally in a lower state of consciousness. You subconscious still experiences all of it, you are just not aware of it. Being unconscious literally means the absence of consciousness. This normally means that medically you are 'lights-out' either induced or by accident (hit on the head, etc.)
Stream of consciousness definition
Much has been said about the stream of consciousness. Stuart Hameroff has beautiful way of explaining that on a quantum physical level we have 40 conscious moments every second. So like a stream of consciousness these clips are experienced as a flow, much like we experience 50 frames per second on a TV as a flow of images.
Spirituality then becomes our emotional response to the awareness of our gaining access to this singular consciousness (spiritual moments), while at other times our consciousness is less heightened so that we are only aware of the impulses our senses gives us (sight, hearing, feeling, etc.).
We will continue to explore this topic ever further. I just remain fascinated that the internet do not have more content where spirituality and consciousness are used in one sentence. The link with quantum physics still need exploration and so does causality. Keep visiting as I will explore this shortly (subscribe to my newsletter below and I'll keep you up up to speed).
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