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In 2011, I was invited to participate in a symposium at the London headquarters of the British Interplanetary Society. The subject of the symposium was the contributions of philosopher/science-fiction-author Olaf Stapledon. Instead of concentrating on the many technological projections in Stapledon's masterwork Star Maker, I elected to investigate...
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... next step is to consider what stars possess molecules and which layers are likely to contain molecules in these stars. Since this essay is designed for an interdisciplinary audience, this consideration begins with the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram, one of the basic classification tools of stellar astrophysics (Figure 2). To understand this diagram, look first at the left and right vertical axes. ...
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... 15 There are even those who posit the existence of a "protoconsciousness field" that extends through all of space, adding another dimension to the already prevailing confusion. 16 This brief recapitulation of some of the most popular theories of consciousness certainly is not an exhaustive coverage of the richness and diversity of the field of consciousness studies. The omissions are too many to recount. ...
The field of consciousness studies has been an area of active research for well over a century. Perhaps more than any other field, it has proven to be a magnet for numerous disciplines: from philosophy and religion to neuroscience and psychology, to social sciences and more. Even quantum physics has claimed to offer important insights that explain the mystery of subjective experience. Today, consciousness studies are a thriving area of research with numerous theoretical perspectives to its credit. Yet the “hard problem” of subjective experience remains unsolved. There is still no general theory of consciousness that would synthesize the extensive aggregation of theoretical perspectives and empirical facts.
The article offers an explanation for this obvious anomaly. It argues that the failure of one of the most active fields of inquiry is a result of the dominance of the anthropocentric tendency in consciousness studies. The article starts by offering a critical overview of the prevalent theoretical approaches in the field. It tries to show the pervasive influence of anthropocentrism. The article also outlines a new perspective that escapes this insidious influence. The focus of the new perspective is not on specific functions and aspects of consciousness, as in all currently dominant approaches, but on the process that has been involved in their formulation. The focus offers a possibility to view consciousness from the perspective that does not rely on mental constructs created by humans. The perspective also offers a critically informed point of observation that does not depend on human choices.
Key words: Consciousness, theories of consciousness, the “hard problem,” functions of consciousness, anthropocentrism, animal consciousness, equilibration/computation, and the process of creation.
... 15 There are even those who posit the existence of a "protoconsciousness field" that extends through all of space, adding another dimension to the already prevailing confusion. 16 This brief recapitulation of some of the most popular theories of consciousness certainly is not an exhaustive coverage of the richness and diversity of the field of consciousness studies. The omissions are too many to recount. ...
The field of consciousness studies has been an area of active research for well over a century. Perhaps more than any other field, it has proven to be a magnet for numerous disciplines: from philosophy and religion to neuroscience and psychology, to social sciences and more. Even quantum physics has claimed to offer important insights that explain the mystery of subjective experience. Today, consciousness studies are a thriving area of research with numerous theoretical perspectives to its credit. Yet the “hard problem” of subjective experience remains unsolved. There is still no general theory of consciousness that would synthesize the extensive aggregation of theoretical perspectives and empirical facts. The article offers an explanation for this obvious anomaly. It argues that the failure of one of the most active fields of inquiry is a result of the dominance of the anthropocentric tendency in consciousness studies. The article starts by offering a critical overview of the prevalent theoretical approaches in the field. It tries to show the pervasive influence of anthropocentrism. The article also outlines a new perspective that escapes this insidious influence. The focus of the new perspective is not on specific functions and aspects of consciousness, as in all currently dominant approaches, but on the process that has been involved in their formulation. The focus offers a possibility to view consciousness from the perspective that does not rely on mental constructs created by humans. The perspective also offers a critically informed point of observation that does not depend on human choices.
... All the evidence that we have at our disposal indicates that subjec1ve consciousness is manifest in the biota and that only the biota possess it in the fully fledged form we witness it. Notwithstanding the cosmic web, which has fractal similari1es to neural 1ssue (Vazza & Fele] 2020), and the hypothe1cal idea that some small stars might be conscious (Matloff 2016), the brain appears to be the most complex coherent system in the universe, as the cumula1ve manifesta1on of all the forces of nature interac1ng in consumma1on of their fractal interac1on on all scales, from cosmological symmetry-breaking, running through quarks, protons and neutrons, atomic nuclei, atoms and molecules, to molecular complexes such as the ribosome and membrane, to cell organelles, cells, 1ssues, organs such as the brain, socie1es of organisms and the symbio1c biosphere. We know of no other process in the universe, from black holes to stars and the gas clouds of nebulae, or even dark maaer, that cumula1vely complete the interac1on of the fundamental forces in this way. ...
Please download the work in full. The pdf is fully illustrated and live linked as a research resource of definitive impact on our survival as a species. The work, presents an augmentation of physical cosmology to admit subjective conscious volition acting on the physical world, invoking a biologically, psychically and cosmologically symbiotic universe, rising to conscious climax which resolves the central enigma of existential cosmology – the nature and role of subjective experience – thus providing a direct solution to the "hard problem of consciousness" and the problem of autonomous volitional will. This is essential for human ability to consciously affect the physical world, personal responsibility and scientific consistency with criminal and civil law on intent. The cosmology is thus entirely consistent with quantum cosmology and empirical neuroscience. Where it differs, is in refuting the assumption of physical causal closure in the brain which is scientifically unprovable in the quantum universe. Occam's razor then cuts in favour of the empirical experience of subjective conscious volition over the physical universe, confirmed by veridical perception of our own volition, eliminating pure materialism as inconsistent with everyday experience.
Symbiotic cosmology involves complementarity between the physical universe and the "mind at large", which is manifest in primitive forms in quantum uncertainty, edge-of-chaos dynamics, biogenesis, and procaryote excitability. Attentive consciousness emerged in a discrete transition accompanying the endosymbiosis between archaea and bacteria to form the eucaryotes, encapsulated in cellular consciousness in the excitable eucaryote cell mediated by social signalling molecules, later resulting in multi-celled organisms in the conscious brain as a coupled neuronal system, utilising the same palette of signalling molecules. The symbiosis in eucaryotes extends to sexuality as polarised genetic co-evolution and symbiosis with endogenous transposable elements comprising half the human genome. This extends to biospheric symbiosis, in which survival of the "fittest" by natural and sexual selection is actually survival of the most successful co-symbionts because, whether parasites, hosts, predators or prey, their individual survival is mediated by the overall survival dynamics of the biosphere as a whole avoiding boom and bust to achieve climax diversity.
In further sections, it overviews cultural traditions and current research into psychedelics. Because natural analogues of neurotransmitters in living species have proved capable of precipitating ego-dissolution and reversion to "primary consciousness", these gain a significance in consciousness research complementary to that of the LHC in cosmological physics. This process has pivotal importance for avoiding humanity causing a mass extinction of biodiversity and possibly our own demise, instead becoming able to fulfil our responsibilities as guardians of the unfolding of sentient consciousness on evolutionary and cosmological time scales. The panpsychic aspect invokes a deep relationship with animism as the founding cosmological view of Homo sapiens which later evolved to become the world religious traditions. Affirming subjectively conscious physical volition, via quantum indeterminate brain states, is the only point of divergence from the standard scientific world view, with all other aspects, especially the cosmology's evolutionary basis, following core scientific principles. Nevertheless its implications are radically transformative because (a) it opens the entire subjective realm of conscious cosmology to exploration and pivotally, (b) it invokes biospheric symbiosis as the climax cosmological condition of perennial survival in the universe, without which humanity will suffer a Fermi paradox extinction, through evolutionary and/or cultural instability. Biospheric symbiosis is the climax evolutionary manifestation of Symbiotic Existential Cosmology.
Because natural analogues of neurotransmitters in living species have proved capable of precipitating ego-dissolution and reversion to "primary consciousness", these gain a significance in consciousness research complementary to that of the LHC in cosmological physics. This process has pivotal importance for avoiding humanity causing a mass extinction of biodiversity and possibly our own demise, instead becoming able to fulfil our responsibilities as guardians of the unfolding of sentient consciousness on evolutionary and cosmological time scales. The panpsychic aspect invokes a deep relationship with animism as the founding cosmological view of Homo sapiens which later evolved to become the world religious traditions. Affirming subjectively conscious physical volition, via quantum indeterminate brain states, is the only point of divergence from the standard scientific world view, with all other aspects, especially the cosmology's evolutionary basis, following core scientific principles. Nevertheless its implications are radically transformative because (a) it opens the entire subjective realm of conscious cosmology to exploration and pivotally, (b) it invokes biospheric symbiosis as the climax cosmological condition of perennial survival in the universe, without which humanity will suffer a Fermi paradox extinction, through evolutionary and/or cultural instability. Biospheric symbiosis is the climax evolutionary manifestation of Symbiotic Existential Cosmology.
To fully cover all aspects of the evolutionary process leading to humanity's cultural explosion, the current edition fully expands the cosmology into an extended evolutionary synthesis, including gene-culture co-evolution, evolution of the human genome, sexuality and language and the impact of cultural evolution on societies, institutions, religions and world political responses to the existential crisis we all face. Social processes, including prescriptive religions, have brought about a paradigm of patriarchal dominance over woman and nature that has exacerbated the way technological civilisation and corporate processes, lacking a genetically stable paradigm, have caused sweeping deleterious impacts to the biosphere through human niche construction by agriculture, farming and urbanisation, causing habitat destruction and species extinction; energy resource demands, leading to climate and biodiversity crisis; and nationalistic militarisation, conducive to nuclear holocaust, so that gene-culture-biodiversity coevolution has become a sine qua non for human survival. It further discusses both Eastern and Western concepts of religious cosmology and the tragic consequences of failing to address naturalistic cosmological reality in the monotheistic religious tradition.