A Rational Cosmology: The Consistency of Life's Unity and Subjective Perception with Its Physical Nature

Essay LXXVII

This is Essay LXXVII of Mr. Stolyarov's series, "A Rational Cosmology," which seeks to present objective, absolute, rationally grounded views of terms such as universe, matter, volume, space, time, motion, sound, light, forces, fields, and even the higher-order concepts of life, consciousness, and volition. See the index of all the essays in "A Rational Cosmology" here.

In his essay "Life," Mr. Reginald Firehammer claims that the unity of life and consciousness precludes them from being physical:

"Unity-this aspect also pertains to both consciousness and life, but is more apparent as a characteristic of consciousness. Any organism has only one consciousness and it is the same consciousness that perceives what is seen, what is tasted, what is heard, smelled, and felt. It is the same consciousness that feels the wheel of the car with the hands, the accelerator pedal with the foot, sees the light change from red to green, and hears the music on the radio all simultaneously. This aspect of consciousness is almost never recognized. It is one reason, for example, no computer or computer program will ever create consciousness. It would be impossible, at the physical level, to make all the discrete physical events required for detection of separate phenomena be a single event. Because consciousness is an aspect of life, however, which is not physical and not limited by physical attributes, such as discreteness, the same consciousness can be conscious of an indefinite number of things at the same time."

But Mr. Firehammer is mistaken here. What consciousness perceives is in fact a series of discrete physical entities and events! The fact that consciousness perceives them accurately by noting that they are simultaneous is no repudiation of its physical nature.

It is quite possible for a physical system to run multiple simultaneous processes in unison, for the creation of a single effect or result which integrates the work of all those processes. (Consider even a car wash, where the car is subject to multiple treatments at the same time, all, however, working toward a single result: the cleanliness of the car.)