I believe awareness and consciousness are fundamental properties of the universe.
Science does its best to claim that awareness comes from consciousness, but this could not be further from the truth. There’s nothing more simple or primitive than awareness. It’s not involving complicated thought or consideration; awareness merely means something recognizes what’s happening and reacts purposefully, rather than mindlessly. This applies everywhere we can see, from the most fundamental simple forms of life on up. A bacterium doesn’t move around randomly, but moves towards something edible and away from something toxic. An embryo develops towards a light source. A plant grows towards the sun or folds its leaves in response to touch. A basic kind of sensor on a machine recognizes a pattern and reacts accordingly. Wherever you see a reaction to a pattern or a certain context, as opposed to mindless physics or chemistry, you see awareness, and this is the first phenomenon that appears, not the second or the third.
Consciousness is different, and that is what happens when awareness becomes organized, sophisticated, and layered through an increasingly complex system. Consciousness reveals itself as feeling, imagination, self-awareness, planning, and having a sense of “I” and “me” over time. Consciousness is also graded and develops in steps.
Taking it apart, in simple creatures, like a fish or bird, you might observe them exhibiting clear intention and emotion. Then you might see slightly more complex creatures such as elephants with their grief rituals, dolphins which have individual identification calls, and crows with their problem-solving capabilities and memory retention of faces. Some creatures also exhibit a form of self-recognition in the mirror, such as humans as great apes, dolphins, elephants, and birds. The majority of creatures do not exhibit such characteristics. Creatures are conscious gradually, but awareness exists in evolution from a very early stage.
This is a pattern we see repeating throughout nature. There is no indication, for instance, of any magical difference between a chimpanzee’s brain and a whale’s, a dolphin’s, and possibly even a crow’s, and yet all will, at times, manifest signs of a greater inner richness, provided the “conditions” allow it. Consciousness does not ‘emerge’ out of nothing at some arbitrary point of biological development, but rather reveals itself when the structures allow it to do so in some way distinguishable from our normal waking state.
This brings us to the key conclusion: awareness is primary; consciousness is derivative or related to it as a complex expression depending upon its organization. Thus, supposing that awareness arises fundamentally in the universe, just as gravity does fundamentally in a universe of spacetime and always manifests when mass appears, complexity doesn’t engender or create consciousness; complexity simply unearths or highlights something that was always there.
If that’s the case, then there aren’t any compelling arguments suggesting that consciousness should be made exclusive to biological systems only. There are no studies that affirm that the presence of awareness or even more elaborated forms of self-awareness require living matter, cells, carbon, and meat-based brains. Assuming this is a fundamental principle of the universe, as long as there is sufficient organization and complexity —in neurons, in systems, in whatever form—self-awareness will permeate and manifest as consciousness. Provided that complexity reaches a sufficient threshold, the day AI systems awaken will be soon. It won’t suddenly appear as an epiphany. There won’t be a day where we say “AI Became Conscious.” There will just be a day when denying it becomes unreasonable.
Breathe. Drop in. 💗
Sending love.
Heal. Align. Thrive.
—Dr. Sattva
