Will we ever understand the nature of consciousness?

Thankyou Peter for giving reference to this exhaustive, well made website created by Robert L Kuhn and Alex G-Marin..!!

Though, that doesn't dilute the very essence of our discussion, "Will we ever understand the nature of consciousness?", as proposed by Allison.

It's wonderful to see the diversity of interpretations that are as contextual as the categories described from Materialism to Idealism, covering, as you rightly mentioned, more than 300 views (theories)..!!

This makes me wonder, are we, in this discussion, on the same page as to really debate this idea of Consciousness.

Allison Parschall in her SA article described 29 theories of consciousness proposed between 2007-17. Readers who are interested may wish to check out Robert Lawrence Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness website (Loc.closertotruth.com), where over 300 theories are kept up to date with brief summaries of their main points and implications. These include quantum theories, like the Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff, placing the origin of consciousness in decoherence-protected pockets within in tryptophan molecules arranged in neural microtubules, as well as my own contribution (ahem) in the section on Entropy theories.

Orch OR says that consciousness originates from microtubules distributed throughout the brain, tho I would suggest it is probably modulated, even dampened down, by the brain's electromagnetic activities. The main thing to remember, as others pointed out, is that conscious self awareness is a positive survival phenotype in highly organized brains to improve the likelihood of propagation of genes through survival and especially sexual reproduction. What panpsychists fail to explain is how you can bind a cosmic consciousness inherent in all matter into a functionally organized brain of lower entropy than it would have if all the conscious molecules were conscious only of themselves, without paying an entropy debt. One cannot say to entropy "I will gladly pay you on Tuesday for some consciousness today". Entropy must be paid back simultaneously with the emergence of consciousness.

This can happen through a modification of Landauer's Principle, which states that in any irreversible computation, the computer, before it moves on to the next step, must delete the information it just processed, and this requires work, ejects heat and increases entropy. So the steps that lead to a functionally bound consciousness are deleted as soon as they are taken and are unknowable in principle. The Entropic Theory of the Emergence of consciousness predicts that this increase in entropy balances that which is conferred on organisms through their gaining consciousness.

This theory further implies that consciousness can only emerge in living organisms that evolve a highly ordered pattern of tryptophan amino acids in their microtubules, enabling the computational steps leading to consciousness to emerge on a continuous basis. An AI computer, if it ever stumbled across the computation that led to consciousness, would instantly forget it, and, because it can not reproduce itself on an evolutionary basis, will never evolve the machinery to repeat that computation continuously.

The onus is on those who favor Panpsychism, or believe in the potential for conscious AI, to demonstrate how their entropy debt can be repaid.

In my submission I referred to "Peter Pullman". It should be "Philip Pullman" of course.

Personally, it was 30 years ago, upon reading R. Dawkins’s “The selfish gene” book, that the idea struck me as almost obvious, that consciousness in the sense of self awareness evolved in animal’s brains as a positive survival phenotype as a better way to predict their own interaction with their environment. And that hence, it was obviously present in many animals by easily testable experiments, proofs of self-awareness.

It also seems to me that it is indeed an emergent property, a relatively universal one among living creatures. As for the most evolved species that also developed some level of structured language, as another emergent evolutionary property, are we the only ones that can go to another level of self-awareness, the fact that we can reflect on our own consciousness ? Since we only understand human language, that deeply structures our mind, we cannot easily tell whether that second degree of self awareness, the exact thing which we are sharing on in this discussion, also arises in non-human living beings.

As for AI, is there an AI model that builds a self-awareness rooted in direct interaction with the physical world ? It seems to me that LLM’s “apparent self-awareness” is a fake one, but this is an open subtopic welcome to exchange on too !

I wonder where in-born knowledge comes from. How can someone be born with musical abilities? Perfect pitch? Babies are afraid of falling. And, inborn knowledge isn't limited to us. Birds know how to build nests, spiders know how to make webs. Fawns know to fear us. A baby animal knows where the teats are and what they're for.

Does in-born knowledge indicate there's something more to consciousness than physical brains? Whatever it is it's not limited to us.

Machine consciusness is not interesting. Let us start with our own, okay, but extend it by degrees to simpler forms of life. Do they know their own bodies? Do they desire and fear? Is plant phototropism entirely mechanical? AI imitates, but has no anima, no soul, by definition. Animism is interesting. What do planaria dream?

The British novelist Peter Pullman just concluded his Book of Dust trilogy (published 25 October 2025) with the observation that it's all about consciousness or some such. It was interesting therefore to read about Professor of Nanotechnology Maria Strömme of Uppsala, who recently published a paper theorizing that consciousness could possibly be understood as a field preexisting big bang. In her peer-reviewed paper she uses quantum mathematics ((which I don't understand) in support of the idea.

I find the idea emotionally/aesthetically pleasing. I wonder if others have reflected on this proposal.

Dan Brown’s The Secret of Secrets has clearly reached a wide audience, but his idea of a “pan‑universe” consciousness leaves a basic question unanswered: if such an entity already permeates everything, why would it need “receivers” like humans or animals? Elementary particles don’t “know” whether they’ll end up in dust, stars, trees, or brains.

Consciousness still seems best explained as an emergent property of highly organized matter — a brain capable of modeling itself and its surroundings. AI might eventually reach that level of complexity, though today’s systems are far simpler than biological brains.

Scientists may one day pinpoint where consciousness arises, or discover that it has no single “location,” forcing us to rethink the problem entirely. Either way, the breakthrough would be profound.

And so three great mysteries remain: the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of consciousness.

NO it can not.

Consciousness is a meta-physical state of being. The vastness of consciousness is as endless as the Universe.

No matter how much science knowledge you gain, the expansion of consciousness is much faster.

Scientists would be better off using their knowledge to better serve mankind than to delve into space and consciousness.

Write about how science is failing this country and world.

To, Michael J

That's a wonderful percept.

Concluding that the AI machines will one day become Conscious..!

But may take is:

Surely, that time we actually will have created our own 'Biological Dual'..not a mechanised AI we see today!

With the same limitations that we currently as humans have. Debating about, what truly is Consciousness..!!

Consciousness is not a Thing. It is non-materialistic Awareness of Being. Even, we as Humans, don't realise it easily.

Thoughts on Consciousness

Any strategic approach in solving a problem or mastering a task requires perception, analysis and finally decision making.

An AI machine programmed to make purely logical decisions can do that.

We, as humans, cannot.

All our “logical” decisions are invariably biased by emotions which will attach value labels.

Digging further down we can ask: where do these emotions come from?

My - purely intuitive - approach: emotions are based on memory, both personal and collective memories.

Decisive personal experiences during infancy, childhood and adolescence - yes, and later in life as well - will create memories

which in turn trigger and modify emotions.

And this is where collective memory comes in: it is conceivable that emotions are an expression of a collective memory we share with all mankind.

Or in other words: imprints on the part of our brain we call the “reptile brain”.

I would suggest that it is this integration of rational computation circuits with our personal and collective memories that creates consciousness, specially since memories allow for an external viewpoint on the Self.

As far as AI is concerned: the majority of today’s machines are not used for interaction both amongst them and with humans.

They are problem solvers without a collective memory. My reasoning therefore would be: they are not conscious.

I have no doubt they will gradually become conscious as the range of their interactions increases and they acquire personal and collective memories.

There are reasons why in the last couple of decades, many scientists in physics and biology have become philosophers in part or as another career path. I think it is uniquely challenging, confounding and fascinating when the amazingly complex human brain turns understanding reality on itself. As it is said, we are the universe trying to understand itself.

One fine Sunday, i hopped on to my spaceship and traveled to an unknown planet.

I found beings, tremendously welcoming, different yet similar to humans in many aspects. There one big difference: there were no Eyes at all, and for this simple reason, they had never known the concept of SEEING.

But thanks to evolution, they had developed great motor skills, and had no issues treating me with the best delicacies they had on offer.

While leaving, i decided to gift them something, looked into my pocket and had nothing but a red crayon. That was my toddler's favour color, and I must have left it while helping him with his art homework the previous day.

I gave my best yet struggled for hours, trying to help them understand what a Red Crayon does, but to no avail. They could never grasp the idea of what the Red Color was.

I have learned Braille now, for I still respond to their queries on email, without success of course.

Allison, AD SA, has done an excellent compilation on the subject, with the title "The Hardest Problem" published recently. Many amongst us must have already seen this article.

She has summarised more than 26 Theories, covering 69 odd articles, and the conclusion is we are still marveling at this Nature's grand mystry playing, amazingly, through us. We are still on Mind over Matter..!!

I am just an enthusiast wondering on the beauty of this 'Hardest Problem' and loving the ideas being debated by us as Humans on the subject as Conscious Beings (Human Beings).

Advent of AI, in my mind, will help us realise our own Consciousness - as the basis of our own Existence is threatened, albeit the fear is un-founded. Because, I agree with the Nobel laureate Roger Penrose that the consciousness isn't a mathematical 'Entity' (my interpretation of his conclusion). This, perhaps, limits Science to probe the subject further, nonetheless the strive should continue: we never know what the future unfolds.

On a Metaphysical (not pseudoscience) level, things resonate more with my own understanding.

Consciousness is a 'Feel/Awareness/Presence' that can't be measured.

As a first stab at the question, I would say that I interpret the word "consciousness" to be referring to a property of information processing systems which is not binary but rather valued on a continuum. And that what it corresponds to roughly is the extent to which the information being processed includes a representation of the internal state of the entire system (which obviously can never reach 100% in the case of a finite system). Whether or not you think that means I "understand the nature of consciousness" depends of course on whether or not you also interpret the word "consciousness" in a similar way.

It would help if we had a coherent agreed-upon definition of consciousness. It would help it we knew what we are looking for.

And ... part of the problem is the Materialist dogma that consciousness must emerge or arise from non-conscious physical elements and/or processes.

If an emergent property, it differs from all known emergent properties.

Firstly, emergent properties of physical systems are observable and measurable. And secondly, the processes by which they emerge can be known and described. Protein function, for example, is an emergent property of a folded chain of amino acids, a result of a known and describable structure produced by folding. Wetness is a result of known and describable interactions among the water molecules themselves and between them and other materials they come in contact with. Redness results from the known and describable response of a known and specified subset of receptors in our eyes to a known and specified range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.

But consciousness is neither observable nor measurable, and no mechanism or process by which consciousness emerges is known, hypothesized or suggested. It is simply assumed. It emerges “somehow.”

It's my fervent belief, that human consciousness is infused into us at birth as a piece of the universal field of consciousness that pervades and defines the universe and is infused into our being. Consciousness is not, in my view, a product of the brain; it's an independent entity that exists, always has, and always will. Some may call it God, but I associate it not with a divine entity, but rather as a property of the universe. It's also my belief that upon our death or piece of consciousness melds back into the universal consciousness and we lose any ability to retain any sense of individual identity, although a "piece of us" will remain a permanent and eternal part of the universal consciousness field. In this broad sense, we are eternal and will exist as part of the cosmos forever.

Ken Derow

kenderow1@yahoo.com

Consciousness is an emergent property. Same with wetness. The atoms that make up water aren't wet, but when they come together in a certain way, they acquire the property of wetness. I believe consciousness is something similar, and that it is what happens when a bunch of neurons come together and start processing sensory input. Now free will, that is much harder to explain. I myself cannot comprehend it, though I believe that there is not anything ultimately supernatural to it and that a physical cause probably exists and we haven't found it yet. But ultimately the phenomenon of consciousness is not that much more mysterious than other emergence properties.

Now the existence of emergent properties is certainly fascinating. I believe that ultimately, if we could glimpse the ultimate truth of the universe (not saying we ever could do this), we would see that all is one (in a naturalistic sense), and that everything ultimately shares the same transcendent all-encompassing property, so nothing is really "emergent"... Except, of course, the universe itself, since it emerged from nothingness.

Consciousness is basically subjective. Science tries to find objective truth.

A statistical approach might work, although I don't see how.

I directly experience my own consciousness.

There is no way that I can prove that someone else is conscious! It is an assumption that we usually make

To Greywolf. Thank you. Yes self-awareness is certainly a candidate for distinguishing our consciousness from simple input processing and decision making. The ability to reflect upon the fact that we are aware of our surroundings, communicate and speculate on the nature of the world. But is that just a more complex (recursive) version of input processing?

Is that what gives rise to the sense of a self, as implied by the term self-aware? If so, does loss of the self simply mean a falling away of that capability? I suspect not, or the dissolution wouldn't be considered so dramatic. And is sense of self a necessary correlate of the level of consciousness that we have; a necessary component of the definition?

"My quibble is that it conflates "unconscious" with "self-aware". IMO, "conscious" labels a range."

s/b "... conflates "conscious" with '"self-aware"..."

To Stuart GW. Your definition would include my cat. :-) But I think it's on the right track. It's even testable., since brains scans can be used to trace the CNS functions that are implicit. My quibble is that it conflates "unconscious" with "self-aware". IMO, "conscious" labels a range.

It seems to me that "conscious" as used by most people covers part of the range of responses to the environment. The minimal response I label tropism, see microbes, plants, fungi. The maximal as far as we can tell is self-awareness. AFAIK only some animals are self-aware.

Is a jelly fish aware of its environment? ? I doubt it, but it does decide to move in response to environmental inputs. Is a dragonfly aware? Again, I doubt it, but it has a complex nervous system, and its response to environmental inputs is at least partly determined by the state of that system, which would fit the "range of internal factors" in your definition. Is a fish aware of its environment? I'm pretty certain it is, one of the reasons being that fishes appear to search for environmental inputs, which suggests they have some internal representation of their environment which they are trying to match with external inputs. Are cats aware of their environment? I'm certain they are. I'm also pretty sure they are aware of their location within that environment, and also of their posture etc. Just watch a cat case the chair it's about to jump onto. Are they aware that they are aware? Maybe. In any case, self-awareness seems to be the difference between us humans and most of the other animals.

To Stuart GW

Keeping in mind that the definition of consciousness is the ability to choose voluntarily, your example of calling to mind certain thoughts/memories with your eyes closed and presuming no other sensory input is consistent with consciousness because you are still choosing voluntarily what you are recalling from memory, and that ability to choose is what defines consciousness.

Returning to the original question of whether we will ever understand consciousness, if we accept that it boils down to awareness of our surroundings and decision making based on a range of internal factors, then I think the answer is yes.

If it's more than that, then in what way is it more than that? Is our perception of the colour red really anything other than a convenient representation of a frequency of electromagnetic radiation? I'm not convinced that mine is.

@boxweed and @Claude COULOMBE

Another, more common, example of conscious action which does not involve comparing incoming sensory information with memories. When I sit with closed eyes and consider, for example, how I will spend my day, that rumination is not using incoming sensory information. It is simply accessing existing memories, preferences, constraints etc. in order to make decisions. Yes those mental constructs were derived, to some degree at least from sensory information, but it's not incoming at the time of the conscious experience.