Consciousness — What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?
- Kris J. Simpson
- Apr 11
- 8 min read
I was trance-like, staring up at the bright lights overhead, so I broke away and scanned the room. It was sterile white; the only colour was the blue linen placed on top of the steel table, displaying several steel tools, presumably to be used on me.
I could hear voices surrounding me but couldn’t understand the conversation. I had been given a strong sedative minutes before, and it was already taking effect. I felt the nurse gently touch my arm with her gloved hand. “We’re going to get started now,” she said calmly. I blinked at her to acknowledge, unable to get my words together.
Another doctor, whom I hadn’t met before, introduced himself. Again, I could barely comprehend, so I nodded, assuming he was just going through his procedures, and I was in good hands, so there was no need to ask any more questions. He was attaching a large needle filled with a liquid that looked like milk to the catheter placed on the top of my hand. And that’s all I remember. I was unconscious.
When I awoke, I was shockingly amazed at how quickly consciousness had been taken from me. It wasn’t ten seconds from the doctor depressing the syringe, and I was out. I reluctantly asked myself: Is this what it is like when you die? The lights go out, and you’re gone- no longer able to subjectively identify yourself, with no thoughts, no feelings — no you?
Humans have been trying to understand what David Chalmers, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, refers to as “the hard problem of consciousness” since 1500 BC, when early Hindu texts in India described “Atman,” or the nature of self, and “Brahman,” which signifies universal consciousness, explained as the pervasive creative force that connects everything.
The Greek philosophers continued to investigate and theorize about the soul and consciousness, particularly through the works of Plato and Socrates. This early exploration of the “hard problem” seems to have influenced the theology of Abrahamic religions, such as Christianity.
No significant advancements occurred in this field of study until the late 1800s, when there was a reemergence of interest in studying consciousness, particularly with William James, a philosopher and psychologist, who described consciousness as a continuous “stream”- a constant and ever-changing process, not a collection of separate, static elements.
The metaphor of water has been used throughout philosophy, noted by Heraclitus, an ancient Greek philosopher, with his famous quote taken from one of the fragments recovered from his writings: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. There is nothing permanent except change. The sun is new each day.” This references his ideas of the world of forms always being in a constant state of flux.
Science and philosophy are beginning to converge as the study of consciousness progresses. Many theoretical physicists, such as Sir Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, theorize that consciousness originates from the quantum process located in brain microtubules (you might want to look this one up — not an easy definition), while Christof Koch proposes that consciousness arises from quantum superposition (as Einstein would say — spookiness at a distance).
Donald Hoffman, a cognitive psychologist, isn’t searching for consciousness in brain matter. Instead, he, like others in the fields of psychology and philosophy, suggests that consciousness isn’t a tangible entity and that we’re looking in the wrong place. He uses a chicken-and-egg metaphor to illustrate the controversial viewpoint that consciousness causes brain activity, not the other way around, which is the commonly accepted view.
Similarly, Bernardo Kastrup, a philosopher and computer scientist who also worked at CERN, the site of the Large Hadron Collider, is developing the theory of analytical idealism. This theory suggests that reality is fundamentally mental or dependent on consciousness. Like that of many ancient philosophers before him, it challenges traditional materialism, which perceives reality as fundamentally physical, observable, and measurable.
This convergence of materialism and idealism was inevitable, as physics can only study what is observable. So far, consciousness cannot be measured; it is subjective and best described as “what it feels like to be me” or in Thomas Nagel's famous paper, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat.”
Therefore, a more expansive and holistic scope, incorporating philosophy, offers our best chance for making progress on this complex issue that has baffled neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers, and many other experts in both physics and metaphysics.
I do not intend to solve the hard problem in this article, as I am probably more confused than the experts and even more puzzled about why I feel so compelled to explore this rabbit hole, which will likely lead to infinity.
As I ponder during my daily walks in nature, reflecting on the insights of modern experts found across the wide world web, and the wisdom of the ancient sages from the Middle and Far East, with their wisdom recorded on their papyrus, the questions that arise for me are:
What if consciousness understands itself solely through all the matter in the universe, with humans being the most metacognitive form of matter?
This ability allows us to expand consciousness at a faster rate than any other form, such as another primate, a small mammal, a fish, a tree, or perhaps even a rock, as the Pantheists believe, all sharing the same consciousness energy, which is manifested and organized into their unique forms.
What if consciousness doesn’t know where it’s going? It doesn’t have a plan; therefore, we can guide it.
However, that might not mean it is working on our behalf, as the book that later became a movie, “The Secret,” proposes. This would imply that we are merely agents of consciousness, with its sole intention being to expand through creation and acquire more wisdom — through us.
We move through life like trailblazers, to explore and find meaning through new experiences, which would explain much of the pain and suffering that all living beings seem to experience while engaging in life.
I also wonder if God, whom I have identified in the past as the universal power of creation, is consciousness itself. This isn’t a common belief among monotheistic religions, which posit that God is conscious but not consciousness itself. These religions, from my viewpoint, seem to anthropomorphize God, which makes me suspicious that the human ego may have influenced their beliefs; hence, my exploration for nuanced thinking.
One of the most common critiques of religion and an overused mic drop for the modern atheist is: “If your God is a loving God, why does he allow so much suffering and evil in the world? Why does he allow for war, and why do innocent children die of disease, if he is the almighty, why doesn’t he do something to fix it?”
If I were to answer at this point in my journey of discovery, it would go something like this: “Well, if God is consciousness, and consciousness is always in flux, going in no direction per se other than expanding reality through duality and the tension of those opposites, using the resistance they create to manifest change, then God does not have any domain over us or any other thing within the universe.
To expand on what might cause some to charge me with blasphemy, God is the source of creation, the “sea of potential” from which all things [matter and form] emerge. It is no different than when a human creates something, releasing it into the world without knowing where it will go, what it will do, or how it will be used; for instance, will it be employed for good, or will it be used for evil?
God doesn’t know because it hasn’t manifested yet; it only reveals itself through the matter of things.
This places a heavy burden on us, for if this is divine truth, then we are accountable for reality. Every thought and every action has a rippling effect throughout the fabric of said reality, or, as scientists have described, spacetime, where the laws of physics enable the existence of matter.
What reality looks like, second by second, from minute to minute, is entirely dependent on what we create and the changes we implement to build on those creations year after year. This doesn’t only apply to creating material things; it also relates to our thoughts and beliefs, which are reflected in our actions. This is the essence of consciousness and what guides us, the movers of consciousness.
Hence, the importance of our thinking and beliefs, our values, our priorities, and our principles; all of these shape reality.
Of course, if the things we create — be they objects or ideas — do not align with nature’s reality, they will be rejected. Thus, there is a system of checks and balances in place that acts as a guiding mechanism to guide us in the right direction.
What appears to be established within nature, across all animated beings, is a paradox of competitiveness and cooperation. This duality is ubiquitous throughout nature, bringing suffering to us as we wrestle with it and to all living creatures, perhaps extending even to plant life, as we appear to have choices to make, responsibilities to take on, and sacrifices to bear.
Human beings, under the illusion of being separate from nature, through the construct of ego, compete for resources, security and reproduction, all driven by fear that stems from the feeling of separateness.
However, we must also cooperate with others, as nature has rules that prevent us from surviving alone. This same behaviour can be observed in other living beings, including mammals, reptiles, and avian species. All ecosystems appear to inherit this dynamic of competitive cooperation and the inherent tension that it produces.
It is also evident in vegetation competing for territory and resources within the soil, striving to outcompete other plant species while simultaneously collaborating with other plant and animal life for survival. Once again, it cannot survive independently, as the firm rules of nature enforce this reality.
All of this may have originated from consciousness, or what can be called God, the omnipresence. I stumble on the terminology, and I’m never quite comfortable with it, except the only term that best describes it: ineffable.
Language cannot articulate something that originates from it. Consciousness is an unexplainable subjective experience that perhaps is not exclusive to human beings but also shared by other life forms, albeit differently and presumably not as profound as our experience. This highlights the immense responsibility we bear within our domains.
In the book of Genesis, God instructed Adam to name all the living creatures, and “whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (Gen. 2.19). This symbolizes how we are the architects of reality and the importance of our role in developing consciousness; metaphorically speaking, we have the power to build dark places where no light can get in.
The only consequences we face may come from nature itself, with consciousness unable to change the direction of our fate, punish us, deliver us to heaven, or send us on a one-way ticket to eternal hell.
Therefore, the act and experience of love — the willingness to sacrifice for others — may have evolved through the complexities of reality, not necessarily from the Ineffable. Love exists within us; it can be repressed or expressed. If it remains unexpressed, its opposite, fear, will manifest instead, as we live in a world of duality, and expression is unavoidable.
Consciousness may only have one intention — to create and understand itself through the reality we shape.
If consciousness is, as the common metaphor describes, like a body of water, what we create will change its state and have a rippling effect throughout. Reality, as we perceive it as the animate things within the universe, is our creation, and therefore, they are our responsibility.
In conclusion, we haven’t solved the complicated problem of consciousness, but we may discover that we can indeed play a role in shaping reality. However, having it align with your needs and moulding it to suit yourself seems highly unlikely. In my opinion, this perspective appears somewhat egocentric, and although it might exist as an illusion, this type of manifestation will most likely be rejected by nature.
Through necessity, we perceive the world through opposites — contrasting elements and thoughts — so that there can be a future in which we create and implement changes. This implies that we can manifest both love and fear, and we collectively bear the responsibility to use these energies wisely, forming a solid foundation for the next generation to build upon. Highlighting the need for dutiful sacrifice for the future — learning to compete and cooperate within the bounds of nature.
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