Modern philosophy began around 1600 with the philosopher Rene Descartes. Descartes concluded that to know anything, it was essential to first know what we can be certain of. His answer, “I think, therefore I am” defined a starting point for his exploration. He was certain that he was thinking – that he was conscious.
What is not “conscious”, then, is “other than consciousness” – that is, extension in space or matter. The dualism inherent in this “Cartesian divide” established an enduring legacy in which internal consciousness (the “subject”) sits in opposition to external matter (the “object”). But what lies in between? Is there a boundary? If so, what is it made of? For Descartes, there is no boundary. It’s an “either / or” proposition – an unbridged divide.
With that as a philosophical framework, the question for every other philosopher and some scientists since has been, “How do we get from one side of this divide to the other?” In humans, the query translates to how the material structures of the brain give rise to consciousness. They appear to be entirely separate substances: internal thinking or conscious awareness vs. external space or matter.
But what exactly is consciousness? To begin to answer that, one might logically ask who or what would be thinking? That question might seem to be fundamental in that it at least offers a potential starting point for understanding this activity that Descartes linked to existence itself. Can a rock think? A log? Could it be matter, or space?
As far as we know, anybody who ever thought anything was alive when they thought it. “I think, therefore, I am alive.” Now we have something to work with. A living being is conscious – it is aware.
But what is it about consciousness that requires life? How are they connected? To answer that question, we must also ask, “What is life?”
Science has delivered important answers and insights into the question, “What is matter?” But “What is consciousness?” and “What is life?” The answers to those questions continue to elude us, and the Cartesian divide remains unbridged. Even as modern advances in microbiology, medicine and genetics drive an ever more fundamental understanding of the nature of molecules like DNA, RNA, proteins and the evolutionary past, we’re still left with the fact that all these fields of study only represent a deeper dive into just one side of the story – the nature of matter. The questions of consciousness and life – what are they? how are they related? – remain largely unexplored and unanswered.
This book proposes a solution to both of these questions. Simply stated, it is the proposition that awareness and life are one and the same.
If the brain evolved, why not consciousness? If life evolved, why not awareness? Awareness, whether conscious or unconscious, is built into the structure of life. Human consciousness (and perhaps that of many species) is evolved awareness – something that is present in all living organisms, from the unicellular to the multicellular. Neither life nor awareness are matter. We commonly understand these terms to describe characteristics that are apart from the material and physical structures associated with them. A living organism is fundamentally different from a dead one. In recognizing that, we implicitly acknowledge that these terms – “life” and “awareness” – describe a relationship to matter, one that we’ll refer to as “living awareness”.
The “consciousness-matter problem” reflected in the Cartesian divide is sometimes referred to as “the mind-body problem”. This choice of words is significant in that it points to our intuitive sense that life is somehow implicated in both the statement of the problem as well as its solution. Descartes himself concluded that living animals are machines, which ultimately forced him to admit that the human body – including his own – is also a machine.
This book is an exploration of life on its own terms. In equating life and awareness, it is also an effort to understand awareness as it operates on and within the context of matter to form a living body – something that is unique and apart from dead matter. A living body is not a machine – it is the outward manifestation of living, functioning awareness.
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