This is an old article, written in 2016, never published, and some of my thinking has changed/evolved since then, but the gist is there…
The Force (Awareness) of Awareness (Force)
What is ‘change’?
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal — Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
I also take it as granted that every created thing . . . is subject to change, and indeed that this change is continual in each one — Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)
Nothing endures but change — Heraclitus (535–475 BC)
Life seems to require change. But is there a difference, for example, between how you ‘know’ someone is at your door (‘knock knock’), lurching you from otherwise unchanging repose on your couch, and how an 8-ball, having been hit by a cue ball (smack!), ‘knows’ to lurch from otherwise unchanging repose on a pool table?
I ask that because at its most basic, there isn’t a difference. What happens on the pool table (‘smack!’) and what happens in your ears (‘knock knock’) is an application of ‘force.’
Modern physics defines force as the ‘instantaneous rate of change of momentum with respect to time.’ We could debate whether it is possible to experience an ‘instantaneous’ anything, but ‘mass times acceleration,’ as it happens, also works as a definition of force (F=ma, aka Newton’s 2nd law of motion). And certainly we can experience acceleration.
As all pool players know, when the cue ball smacks another ball, the other ball, in effect, smacks it back, stopping it or sending it rolling in another direction. Which is why physicists prefer the term ‘interaction,’ not ‘force.’ The thinking behind that preference is pretty much encapsulated in Newton’s 3rd law, ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,’ because in a closed system (no outside interactions) action and reaction will cancel, for a net force of zero.
There is, however, that interaction. And interaction can almost be thought of as a communication. A transference of information. Physics has a class of particle they call ‘gauge bosons’ which ‘carry’ interactions back and forth. The gauge boson for everyday matter is the photon. When an electron changes ‘orbit,’ for example, a photon gets emitted or absorbed.
Nothing happens until something moves — Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
Now, remember that knock on the door? We know you didn’t go to the door before you heard the knock, and we know that because of Newton’s 1st law, which states, ‘an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an external force.’ So, just like the universe can’t react to something that hasn’t happened yet, neither can you.
Force is a vector quantity, meaning it has direction; it comes from somewhere, and affects something. Change also always comes from somewhere. Even if the somewhere can’t be pinpointed, one way or another it’s certain that the change didn’t come from everywhere.
We could go on with the metaphors: ‘You move me.’ ‘Have you changed your position on the matter?’ ‘Leave.’
If it’s not yet obvious, I’m making a metaphorical argument equating ‘change,’ that thing that Heraclitus and so many others have observed as a necessary condition of life, to a mass getting accelerated. They are so much alike, maybe they are the same thing. That’s the argument.
People change and forget to tell each other — Lillian Hellman (1905–1984)
Ultimately however, and with apologies to Heraclitus, unless a living system’s response to change is deemed to be mere causation by another name, then it is not only change that living systems require, but awareness of change. To respond to change requires awareness of change.
The trouble is that we humans tend to examine our world through what amounts to a lens, variously called ‘mind,’ ‘being,’ or ‘consciousness,’ and understandably assume that only things examined through such a lens can be ‘known.’ That only we, the consciousness-card carrying citizens of the universe, can be ‘aware.’
But doesn’t it seem that it could be possible to be aware of a thing, without ‘being’ a thing that ‘knows’ that ‘it’ is aware of a thing?
I suppose that flowers, when they’re through blooming, have some sort of awareness of some purpose having been served — Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007)
Perhaps if we take awareness off the high shelf of consciousness, and think of it instead as a kind of elementary indicator (of something), unrelated to thought, then all life can be aware, even, maybe, each of those 30 trillion or so cells of your human body.
Scary?
Awareness, the term as I suggest we use it, at its most basic, is an ‘indicator of something,’ one that can exist outside of thought, so manifesting as a ‘feeling.’ Further, I propose that this ‘indicator of something’ is an indicator of a change in something. Since, in our kinetic whirl of a universe, change manifests as an acceleration (i.e. a change in momentum), to be aware, is to be aware of change(s) in momentum, specifically in an electromagnetic field.
Does that seem farfetched? To be aware is to be aware of atomic level interactions? It may even seem fantastical. Ridiculous! But consider this: by some estimates the human eye is capable of detecting as little as one photon. A single photon. Photons come from atomic level interactions. So our eyes ‘detect’ interactions in an electromagnetic field at the atomic level.
Is there a difference between ‘detecting’ accelerations in magnetic fields on an atomic level, and being ‘aware’ of accelerations in magnetic fields on an atomic level?
[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts — Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976)
On the atomic level pretty much everything has a magnetic field associated with it. So there are lots of accelerations going on, constantly. Which brings up a question, is all the universe ‘aware’?
As a metaphorical answer, consider the sentence: ‘… feel ….’ It isn’t really a sentence, true, and that’s the point, because that single verb, ‘feel,’ lacking both subject and object, describes nothing. No matter how often repeated, ‘…feel … feel … feel…’ has no focus, no direction — it isn’t an indicator of ‘something’ — so it isn’t an actual awareness. As such, accelerations in electromagnetic fields occurring outside the scope of an aware system would be more accurately termed awareness potentials.
As far as the ‘subject’ of the sentence ‘… feel …,’ we could ask, does an infant need to know it exists, as a prerequisite for crying from hunger? If we can agree that it doesn’t, then an aware system, whatever its nature, need have no ‘knowledge’ of ‘itself.’ But an aware system does require an object, a thing to be aware of. And that requires organization, not on the part of the object, but on the part of the aware system. Otherwise hunger, for example, is not ‘hunger,’ but simply an undifferentiated feeling that, by itself, generates no need of a specific response.
One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself — Lee Smolin (1955-)
Consider this, if a zero, and a one, can turn into the internet, can’t awareness of acceleration, and by implication lack of acceleration, turn into something other than what it seems on its face to be, too?
Even the geographical placement of the ‘bits,’ essentially a mapping element, might be inherent to the ‘coding’….
But while a computer can be used to accumulate, process, display or otherwise react to data — an aware system accumulates, processes, manipulates, responds to and experiences data. To an aware system, matter is not mere substance, but a medium, a means of ‘displaying’ life, and coding experience.
Life lives its data.
The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment — Bernard d’Espagnat (1921–2015)
In a world of ‘matter’ we are left, as conscious beings, metaphorically hanging by the thread of causation. What ‘caused’ us, and how; how did we become ‘conscious’; and do we have — and if so by what mechanism do we exercise — free will? However, if we are not purely matter, but awareness of changing matter … is our awareness of our ever-changing world itself ‘caused’?
It might seem that, yes, awareness is subject to causation simply because it is linked to electromagnetic force, to acceleration in a magnetic field. Which would seem to suggest that there is no real difference between existence as the ‘awareness of being a substance,’ and existence as the substance itself. But if we look at matter not as the basis of our existence, not as an ‘ashes to ashes’ thing which we are now and shall always be, but instead regard matter as a kind of equal partner in our existence as aware beings….
Equal? Yes, in the sense that without awareness of some type, there is no universe; there is but the potential for ‘universe.’ And yet, without the organization that matter can provide, there is no awareness either. Like flip sides of the same coin, they are separate things that yet cannot be separated: heads, awareness; tails, creation (matter). And the coin itself?
Life.
I propose that using the simple ‘feeling’ of acceleration in an electromagnetic field, and by using matter as a medium — an organizational tool for storing, sorting, quantifying, prioritizing, etc., awareness, and thus experience — an aware system can build itself from the bottom up, bootstrapping itself step by step, simply by seeking more ‘feeling.’
Matter, then, is the medium of creation life uses to compose the experience it has of its environment and itself.
In the beginning was an idea, and the idea was … a feeling.
True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: ‘I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live — Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965)
At its most basic, matter organization might take the form of an ‘aware function,’ an ordering of matter which generates a predictable causational ‘output’ for a given force/awareness ‘input.’ The complete process — input transformed to predictable output via the function — is ‘felt’ by the aware function.
From the point of view of the aware function, that feeling manifests as the ‘experience’ the aware function has of the input.
An aware function may appear indistinguishable from a standard causational mechanism, input ‘causing’ output. But the fact that the aware function ‘feels’ the process, allows the function itself avenues of control and even repair, i.e. healing, if things don’t ‘feel’ right.
How?
To answer that question, ask yourself this question: Have you ever changed your feelings on a matter? Do you even have the ability to change your feelings on a matter? Do you have free will? If you answer, yes, then, how?
How did you change your feeling on the matter? Because it’s not always easy. People don’t change their response behaviors willy-nilly. It can take thought, perseverance and real, physical energy to change your mind about something.
Awareness builds itself. To be aware is not simply to be aware of force effects in an electromagnetic field, but to ‘cause’ force effects in an electromagnetic field. Call it the force of awareness.
Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it — Pascual Jordan (1902–1980)
To be aware of a cat, and for simplicity’s sake let’s assume that your only sense is that of sight, your eyes must necessarily be subjected to force effects from electromagnetic waves (light) bouncing off the cat.
Which means that ‘cat’ is an interpretation of what, in terms of basic force effects, exists only in your eyes/brain. Certainly those light waves contain information, but they don’t tell you that they have bounced off a ‘cat.’ There is only direction and frequency information.
An aware system interprets the force events that comprise awareness of changes in its environment, I propose, via a complex set of individual aware functions, ordered over possibly millions of years of evolution, each function with its own ‘feeling’ (itself honed, or perhaps ‘tuned’ might be a better word). The self-interpreted awareness/response of a given force/awareness ‘input,’ comprises the ‘arc of experience’ that the aware system has of that input.
Since each arc of experience is self-generated, each necessarily contains within it an expectation of the nature of further awareness inputs (from the point of view of the aware system, its experience of a thing, is that thing). This expectation might allow the aware system to ‘fill in the blanks’ so to speak, for example in piecing together a complete visual field of awareness. Or, if further events contradict expectation, the aware system can hone the ordering of the functions, or the functions themselves, to be more predictive of continuing awareness inputs, simply by changing how it ‘feels’ about the input.
A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement — Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961)
The upshot is, an aware system is not doomed(!) to respond to inputs per a strict causational chain of events outside its control. Rather, an aware system uses matter, and the predictability of causation, to store organized, preset response ‘feelings.’
In short, for an aware system, causation is a tool, not a ‘master,’ and free will exists in the form of pre-programmed, self-programmed response to, and experience of, environmental awareness.
‘Pre-programmed’ free will would explain the findings of neuroscience suggesting that many of our seemingly ‘conscious’ actions are actually unconsciously initiated.
Memory may have developed as a way of comparing experience over time, and re-ordering or tuning to more efficiently/accurately reflect learned experience.
It also strikes me that sleep may well exist as an aware system’s opportunity to tune, repair, and/or ‘re-program’ its aware functions. Dreams may then be the experience of system testing, simulations, etc. (Sweet simulations!)
When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again. It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness — Eugene Wigner (1902–1995)
Which leads us to ‘consciousness.’ What is it? And, are all aware systems conscious?
I propose that to possess consciousness is to experience a world of endlessly connected objects, including oneself, overlaid atop the experience of an undifferentiated ‘field of feeling.’
It is, in effect, to add yourself as a subject to the sentence: ‘… feel ….’
‘I feel ….’
All aware systems possess a ‘feeling field’ which constitutes the sum of internal and external awareness/response. There is a feeling of cold, or hot, of the visual environment, of the ground under feet, etc., via touch, vision, etc.
As conscious beings we experience, in addition to our feeling field, an abstracted feeling, an overlay, parsing our world into a series of connected ideas.
A conscious mind ‘feels’ ideas.
Instead of simply an experience of ‘rushing cold wet,’ for example, we experience as well the idea ‘river.’
‘River’ is an abstraction in the sense that it is never the same, always flowing, and cannot exist apart from the land which it drains, and yet we can as conscious beings abstract the existence of ‘river’ — and indeed of all ‘things’ — apart from all other ‘things.’
With this ability to see ourselves, as well as all ‘things,’ as connected pieces, rather than as a more or less undifferentiated whole taking the sole form of a ‘feeling field,’ we can analyze, quantify, theorize about these ‘things’ while teasing each into smaller and smaller subsets. Additionally, the ability to encapsulate feelings into ideas, in effect ‘naming’ experience, as in a filing system, may allow conscious beings a more effective and longer-term memory.
How? What gives us this ability to experience our world as endlessly connected pieces?
Perhaps it is as simple as duplicating — copying — into our brain a simulation of our sensory aware function systems. This ‘simulation’ might then allow us to experience the functions themselves, even in parallel with the ‘feeling’ as we are experiencing it, but experiencing the idea of the feeling, as well as the feeling itself. Ultimately this ability allows us to experience life in the form of ‘I am hungry,’ as an example, instead of only as simple, stomach rumbling, ‘hunger!’’
That duplication of aware functions may, as well, allow us to analyze our aware function systems, honing techniques, changing programmed responses etc., even as we undertake them. Programming on the fly.
Although the whole of this life were said to be nothing but a dream and the physical world nothing but a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough, if, using reason well, we were never deceived by it — Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)
Being human is a serious handicap when it comes to thinking about the ‘substance’ of humanity. It’s like an actor on TV, striving to reach out and touch the inside of the screen on which she/he is appearing, as a way of finding an actor’s ultimate ‘reality.’
It doesn’t really pan out that way, does it? But the vision of it reminds me of Adam, striving to touch the hand of God, as painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The painted fingers aren’t actually touching. Is that because God and Adam live in different realms? Like TV and reality, the two can’t really ‘touch.’ Is that it?
That fresco is Michelangelo’s vision. But what is it that makes this mere ‘substance’ of which we are composed — the atoms of this material universe — subject to naught but mere ‘causation,’ formed into elementary elements, locked together into molecules, what makes them at some point burst into LIFE! Consciousness! Being! How is that done? Where is that link between the ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ substance that we are, and the existence we feel?
If, as we reach for it, we can’t find that link, can’t find that screen, can’t find that bridge across the gap between me ‘in the world’ and me ‘who I really am,’ maybe we can’t find it, because it’s not there to find.
Maybe, the creation we are is our awareness of ourselves; and the awareness of ourselves is our creation of who we are.
Maybe there is no difference between who we are, and who we are.
If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any farther than my own back yard because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with — Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz
May the force (awareness) of awareness (force) be with you!
