I’ve recently found myself wondering about the nature of consciousness. What is it exactly? How does the electrochemistry of the brain result in this perception of reality that I experience? How much of that perception is reliable and how could I ever know when it wasn’t? Are objective observations possible and if it’s not how can we claim to really know anything? Is every reaction to stimuli an indicator of consciousness and if not how do we tell the difference? Is consciousness tied to the senses?

I don’t think I have anything near to an answer to any of those questions. That would be …. What’s a much stronger word for remarkable? Unbelievable? That would be unbelievable. And I very literally think anyone claiming to have answers to those questions should probably not be believed. But I would like to share some thoughts.

I saw a TED talk once called “Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality” given by Anil Seth. His central claim, as the title gives away, seemed to be that consciousness is a hallucination. The words ‘controlled’ and ‘uncontrolled’ were used to describe the difference between hallucinations that were shared among individuals and prompted by environmental stimuli as compared to those which were unique to an individual as a result of, say, psychedelic drugs. He also claimed that without a body one cannot have consciousness.

It was a really interesting talk and I highly recommend watching it. But it didn’t answer my question so much as frame it in a new light. Now I wanted to know: what exactly is a hallucination? Why, when light bounces off of the objects around me, do I have the experience of ‘seeing’ as opposed to merely responding to the sensation?

Presumably, that is the most efficient process (roughly speaking) by which a biological machine can make sense of that wealth of sensory data. I can only assume we’ve evolved the ability to functionally generate mental models of the world given sensory input because it was more effective than trying to process billions of individual stimuli.

Perhaps that’s obvious, I don’t know. But I do know that it seems to imply a primary function of consciousness is as a pattern-finding and model building tool. Or maybe that’s just a primary function of vision specifically? I don’t think consciousness requires vision, as animals that can’t see I believe can also be conscious.

Or perhaps consciousness isn’t an all-or-nothing type construct, but more a spectrum. Maybe organisms can exist anywhere along the spectrum. A tree for example responds to stimuli in it’s environment. They even form nutrient sharing networks with other plants and fungi in their immediate environment. Perhaps that counts as some level of consciousness?

Under that model vision might be something like a ‘facet’ of consciousness. Each sense which your brains electrochemistry can potentially support is maybe another facet of consciousness. That seems supported by Anil Seth in his TED talk’s claim that our consciousness is inherently linked to our bodies.

Why then are we so sure purely mechanical or digital machines have no consciousness? Is it the chemistry that sets us apart? And if so, what chemistry enables my hallucination, controlled or otherwise? And if someone has different brain chemistry to me, do they experience a different reality than I do?

This last question makes me quite uncomfortable. As a scientist I want to believe that some things are truly, objectively knowable. But all of science, all of observation, all evidence we have or could ever collect about our reality is dependent on the equipment taking those measurements. And at the heart of it that equipment differs from person to person.

We none exist in the same reality. Our experiences are truly our own. That’s empowering in a way. No one and nothing can invalidate your lived experience. It’s terrifying too. Is everything we believe we know about the world fundamentally based on what largely amounts to a majority rules assessment?

How much do we have very wrong? What have we left completely unexplored because only a minority perceive it? How much are we completely unaware of because the human mind, even coupled with all of it’s technologically enhanced perception, simply cannot support a particular facet of consciousness?

What even is reality? Perhaps, like math, a definition begins with simple axioms we must accept before we consider measuring or modeling it in any way. But then we’d better define the concepts carefully and well or everything we build on them, which is everything, is useless. And we must always be vigilant of the fact that they fundamentally constitute a collection of assumptions, which may well be wrong.