At a time when neuro-physiology takes giant strides the philosophy of the nature of consciousness remains stalled on the problem of qualia, that is all the qualities of consciousness we experience as mental phenomena. For example: what is greenness, is it different from the greenness of the green field where we had the sensation, does it exist but without dimensions, are there two categories of the contents of the world namely material objects and sensations or is greenness physical and does it remain both green and physical in memory? Nearly all sensory signals are visual so for reasons of clarity I shall, as in the example above, concentrate on these and assume similar observations apply to the remaining four senses of hearing, touch, smell and taste.
I have two suggestions. The first is a thought experiment. In order to think about the nature of consciousness I want to reduce experience to its simplest form. Imagine utter darkness. Remove all emotions such as fear and curiosity. Sever all linkage to past experience of any form of sensation and meaning (impossible you may rightly protest but this is a thought not a psychology experiment). I contend that complete darkness without thought, memory or emotion is the same as not having experience. Try disagreeing. It is not consciousness.
Now introduce a pinhole of light. The darkness as well as the light becomes conscious. Increase the complexity of light and dark to a photo negative and then to a black and white movie of all life from all angles. To this film our brain adds the colour markers, interpretation (and of course co-ordinates information from the other senses).
In this thought experiment all concepts have been reduced to light. With the exception of meta-languages, such as maths, which grew out of sense impressions and became independent, and the important exception of emotions (see later) all experience is light, (and the four other forms of sensation). The contents of consciousness is light.
Now that the contents of consciousness are evident the error would be to say that consciousness is awareness of light. An old conundrum pondered by Buddhist monks asks "What is the difference between the smell of a rose and awareness of the smell of a rose?" The novice, believing that awareness and enlightenment are the same falls into the error of distinguishing the two only to discover eventually that no such distinction can be either sensed, marred or maintained. We can never be aware of consciousness. We can never be an observer of our subjectivity. The proof of this not only results from trying to observe yourself thinking or imagining but results too from considering the infinite regress of observers observing observers that would entail. There is only consciousness going on. There is never contemporaneous awareness of it going on.
The body can respond to stimuli without conscious sensation. The heart and digestive tract function by responding to cues which never become conscious. We place certain creatures, such as virus, bacteria, limpets, perhaps ants, in the same category of reacting to stimuli without being conscious. If this is so, the limpet would have no experience, being alive and being dead - so obvious to the observer - would be indistinguishable to the limpet itself. But the limpet has quite a complex nervous system. So how does a central nervous system become conscious?
I believe the answer is astonishing and simple. It is colonised from without. It is of course not invaded by aliens from outer space but by the commonest form of physical energy in the universe and the same phenomena as that to which, as was earlier contended, all consciousness could be reduced. It is colonised by light.
By chance opportunity and through randomness, a system that co-ordinates inputs of light has self organised and developed. So that as I sit at this desk light information from all parts of the room networks and is stored in short term memory until classified by the chemical and electrical storage systems that it has colonised. It has been a mistake to assume the brain receives sensory signals and stores them entirely through its own mechanisms. As so often in biological systems it is light which in part causes the chemical and electrical change in the brain through photo sensitive tissue. The room is then assembled, interpreted and projected.
The storage system offers such fertile virgin territory to its coloniser. So abundant is its connectivity as to be virtually inexhaustible even by the vast train of impressions of a lifetime of being subject to light engenders. The original symbiotic partner, the central nervous system, gains decisive survival value as all the room of the world is assembled. Therefore natural selection favours the rapid growth of the cerebral cortex.
The linkage with the old brain is improved but the interface with the hippocampus, the so called 'crocodile brain', results in occasional flooding of the cerebral cortex so all inputs are stalled by rage or indulgence. Visual feelings and sensual sensations are the normal interface between the two systems. As the variety of light inputs is classified by language, intentions develop, that pay little or no attention to the original needs of the central nervous system, such as reading a novel, joining a political party or holidaying in France.
The purpose of this paper is to contend that light (and the other four sources of sensation) is the content, originator, controller and, through verbal classification and the emergence of the concept of self, the director of consciousness. It shares control of the body in uneasy partnership with the central nervous system which it has colonised.
Roger Farnworth