What Is Consciousness?
by Noah Agrotes January 17, 2021The nature of consciousness has confounded humans for millennia. From the Ancient Greeks to modern scientists, we still have no common understanding of our own conscious nature. Dictionaries define consciousness as the state of being aware of and responsive to one’s surroundings or a person’s awareness or perception of something. Yet, something deep down tells us that consciousness is more than mere awareness and perception.
In The Temple of Consciousness, I consider consciousness within a part-philosophical, part-social commentary, and part-otherworldly context. Through this method, we can fully understand consciousness and use it to evolve beyond our basic, mortal understanding. Here is a glimpse, a sneak preview, of the book’s discussions on consciousness.
A brief history of consciousness
The Earth is an estimated 4.5 billion years old. Throughout this time, intelligent life has occupied only a very small part of it. Humans are estimated to have existed for around six million years, but these humans were not intelligent life and were almost nothing like the humans we see today.[i] According to archaeologists, an estimated 200–300,000 years ago, humans became the Homo sapiens species, who we still call “modern humans”.
At some point in the history of these modern humans, Homo sapiens developed language. Scientists cannot agree on the reason why this occurred.[ii] I argue that the implantation of consciousness was the reason why humans were able to develop language after so millions of years of silence and grunting like our fellow animals.
The burden of consciousness, the spark implanted in humans, only began to evolve in the last 10–12,000 years, which led modern humans to develop the first primitive foundations of civilization. This led to the societies and humans we see around us today. But keep in mind that this intelligent evolution was not uniform. It did not involve the overwhelming majority of humans, who remained stagnant and extremely close to animals despite having villages, towns, and eventually sky-scraping cities.
Indeed, the evolution of consciousness is an extremely slow process. Does this surprise you? Just think, if I had been born 100 years ago, it would have been impossible for me to write The Temple of Consciousness. In fact, it would have been impossible to write this book 50, 30, or even 5 years ago! In the human period of 6 million years of existence, it only became possible to write such a book now. The preceding period was utterly inhospitable to advanced levels of consciousness and perception. This is happening for the first time in human history.
The birth of consciousness
At the moment of your birth, you know nothing. You arrive on Earth with a unique supply of genetic cargo and the collective memories of the species you belong to. This collective memory drives the automatic, mechanical functions of your body and is embedded in what is known as the subconscious—just like every other species on Earth.
Do you understand that when you were born, you did not know anything and were like every other animal at the time of its birth? Your differentiation from the rest of the planet’s animals began when the burden of consciousness was stimulated in your brain.
Yet, the nature of human consciousness is not truly known to science. Scientists see consciousness as awareness of the self, the body, and the world around us. Some scientists estimate that we develop this consciousness very early in life, in our first twelve to fifteen months. Others suggest that new-born babies display a basic consciousness.[iii]
The two natures
According to science, we have only one nature as human beings: the material nature of cells, which are blocks of atoms of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and some others. Atoms are composed of particles such as protons, neutrons, and electrons. So to science, we are all children of the universe because we are all made from the same material or matter that was created in the various phases of life in the known universe over billions of years.
In mainstream science, this is the foundation of the anthropic principle. Accordingly, the material universe is composed of galaxies, stars, solar systems, and rock planets like Earth that develop life and intelligent life. The anthropic laws that stem from the anthropic principle allow the evolution of the species through natural selection.
My argument is that we have two natures, not one. Yes, our body has this material nature. But it also has a second nature: the nature of consciousness. I argue that consciousness is implanted in us after birth. In other words, we are not born with consciousness, nor do we develop it. This consciousness does not originate in the current material universe and does not belong to the matter of the material, known universe. Instead, it arrives in our brains as a colonist from the conscious, evolved universe.
In The Temple of Consciousness, you may witness this argument for the first time in human history.
Are you ready to evolve?
[i] Planets.org, https://theplanets.org/how-long-have-humans-been-on-earth/ (2020)
[ii] Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, How Did Human Language Evolve? Scientists Still Don’t Know (2018)
[iii] Hugo Lagercrantz and Jean-Pierre Changeux, The Emergence of Human Consciousness: From Fetal to Neonatal Life (2009) in Pediatric Research volume 65, pages 255–260