Consciousness Is the Ground of Being

By Stephen Hawley Martin

Consciousness is one of two mysteries that have captivated the human imagination for thousands of years. The first mystery is why the universe exists at all. Why is there something rather than nothing? The second is that conscious minds exist to perceive it. An ancient idea is that the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of existence are intimately connected, and so perhaps it should not be a surprise that a growing number of philosophers and scientists are beginning to take seriously the possibility that consciousness is the ground of being.

For many years scientists believed that the universe had always existed, as had everything else—that there was no beginning and there would be no end. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, cosmologists began learning a great deal about the early universe by analyzing cosmic background radiation and other phenomena. Using powerful telescopes they were able to see that there are many galaxies, and due to their shift toward the red end of the spectrum of light, that those farthest away are moving away from us faster than those in closer proximity. As a result, cosmologists were able to peer deeply into the past and infer the state of the universe in what is thought to be its first fractions of a second, which became known as “The Big Bang.”

This begged the question, “What existed before the Big Bang?”

Physicists have proposed that the spark of existence had its origin in a quantum fluctuation, triggering an explosive chain reaction, leading to the still evolving universe we inhabit today. This narrative, however, presupposes the laws of quantum mechanics. As British Biochemist Rupert Sheldrake said in a now-banned TED Talk, “[Scientists today say] give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.’ And the one free miracle is the appearance of all the matter and energy of the universe, and all the laws that govern it, from nothing in a single instant.” Suffice it to say that rather than explaining existence, current scientific theories of the origins of the universe have simply pushed things back to a point that raises the question asked above.

Consciousness or nothing?

Could it all have come from nothing? Although that is apparently what some scientists believe, it doesn’t make sense. As the song in The Sound of Music goes, “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.”

Instead of beginning with nothing, it seems logical that the challenge of explaining existence should focus instead on defining a self-existing ground of being for which no explanation is required. Physicists have proposed that the true ground floor of reality is the seething quantum realm of particles, forming in and out of existence. While this level of reality may exist, there is no clear reason why the primordial situation should be constrained by quantum physics. A deeper level of explanation seems to be required, and one possibility is that consciousness is the ground of being. How seething quantum particles or “strings” came to be the ground of being calls out for an explanation, but in theory, consciousness can explain itself. A unique feature of consciousness is that it does not appear grounded in anything beyond itself. The conscious self is self-producing insofar that it exists only in and to itself. As René Descartes [1596-1650] famously said, “I think therefore I am.”

Moreover, without consciousness, it would not matter if anything existed because no sentient being would perceive it. I am reminded of a question that my philosophy professor once asked on a test, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one and no thing were there to hear it, would it make a sound?” The answer is “No, for there to be a sound, someone or something has to hear it.” You can say the same about physical reality. Would physical reality exist if no one and no thing were here to perceive it? The same logic says, “No. Observation creates physical reality.”

In books I have written explaining the true nature of reality, such as You Are Eternal: Infinite Tomorrows Await You,I present evidence that this statement appears to be true. I do so by describing quantum physics experiments in which observation by a researcher apparently causes light waves to become physical particles known as photons. I do not have room to go into that here, and so I will focus on life and the universe and how they must have come about.

Let’s start with life.

Consciousness and life

In the mid twentieth century, just about all scientists believed that life happened by accident, as had everything else—that there had been a primordial soup containing the right chemicals that had been struck by lightning, and somehow life had been formed as a result. This hypothesis was supported by what is known as the Miller–Urey experiment conducted in 1953, which simulated the conditions then thought to be present on the early Earth. Life was not created by that experiment, but some amino acids necessary for life did come about.

Then along came the discovery that same year (1953) by James Watson and Francis Crick of the double helix, the twisted-ladder structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). This marked a milestone in the history of science, and it gave rise to modern molecular biology, which is largely concerned with understanding how genes control the chemical processes within cells. In short order, this discovery yielded groundbreaking insights into the genetic code and protein synthesis. During the 1970s and 1980s, it helped to produce new and powerful scientific techniques, specifically recombinant DNA research, genetic engineering, rapid gene sequencing, and monoclonal antibodies, techniques on which today’s multi-billion-dollar biotechnology industry is founded.

Because of this new knowledge, by the mid 1980s scientists trying to determine the origin of life had reached an impasse and there has been no progress since. There were many problems that caused this, but the most fundamental one was the discovery of the information-bearing properties of DNA and biomacromolecules. In 1957 Francis Crick realized that the chemical subunits along the interior of the double helix were functioning just like alphabetic characters in a written language, or the digital characters such as the zeros and ones in a computer code, and that they are what direct the construction of proteins and protein machines that all cells need to stay alive. In other words, digital information directs the construction of the crucial components of living cells. Therefore, to explain the origin of life, one would have to explain how this complicated processing system came about. So the big question became, “How can chemistry produce code?”

As a result, back in the mid 1980s, a number of scientists began to see that there had to be some sort of guiding intelligence responsible for the origin of life. It became apparent to them that information in the form of code—not unlike computer code—is the key.  Just how advanced and complicated is it? According to an article on the website of BBC Science Focus Magazine, the UK’s leading science and technology monthly: “The DNA in your cells is packaged into 46 chromosomes in the nucleus. As well as being a naturally helical molecule, DNA is supercoiled using enzymes so that it takes up less space. If you stretched the DNA in one cell all the way out, it would be about two meters long and all the DNA in all your cells put together would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System.”

How incredible is that! Think of the enormous amount of information packed into DNA. Here’s a link to the article just referenced:

https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/how-long-is-your-dna/

We know from experience that whenever we see information, and we trace it back to its source, whether it’s computer code, a paragraph in a book, or a computer program to simulate evolution, for example, there is always an intelligent input that accounts for that information. The inference, of course, is that intelligence is behind the origin of life, and for there to have been intelligence, there first had to be consciousness, which supports the theory that consciousness is the ground of being.

This is not a new idea. A book published more than forty years ago refuted the idea that intelligence, consciousness, and awareness came about as a result of random mutations and survival of the fittest, i.e., Darwin’s theory. Entitled Intelligence Came First, and it was compiled and edited by Ernest Lester Smith [1904-1992], a Fellow of the Royal Society—the prestigious scientific academy of the United Kingdom, dedicated to promoting excellence in science. The book caused quite a bit of controversy back then. The premise is that, throughout the eons of evolution, needs have preceded the organs through which they are fulfilled—eyes, ears, taste buds, hearts, kidneys, and so forth. Since each new organ developed in response to a need, why would the brain be an exception? Smith and his colleagues put forth a compelling argument that intelligence came first, quite able to function in its own realm.

This book has long been forgotten, perhaps by everyone except me, because scientists shouted it down with a vengeance, but think of the intelligence that would be required to design any one of those organs. Could they all have come about by chance, i.e., random mutations followed by natural selection? Who in their right mind would argue that? Yet back when the book was published, the scientific community did just that with the result that Darwin’s theory is still taught in schools and colleges as absolute truth.

Given the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which in plain English is that left alone, things tend to fall apart rather than become more organized, the complexity of DNA, and the many complicated organs required for creatures to have evolved that now walk the land and swim in the waters of this planet, it seems virtually impossible that random mutations and survival of the fittest form the sole mechanism behind evolution. Darwin may have been on to something, however, in assuming survival of the fittest plays a role in the adaptation of creatures to changes in their environment, even though there’s evidence that intelligence may guide that as well.

Here’s an example. If you’ve ever been to the National Zoo in Washington, you’ve probably watched the giant pandas eating bamboo leaves. They take stalk after stalk and slide them between thumb and forefinger, stripping them, then popping this mouth-watering high-fiber food in their mouths. You may have wondered how these big guys got thumbs since primates are the ones with opposing digits. Pandas belong to the family Procyonidae (raccoons, kinkajous, etc.) of the order Carnivora, one of the hallmarks of which is that all five digits on the front paw point forward and have claws for ripping flesh.

On close inspection you’ll find that the panda’s thumb is not a thumb at all but a “complex structure formed by marked enlargement of a (wrist) bone and an extensive rearrangement of musculature.” Not having the thumb needed to make bamboo eating easy, the panda took what he had to work with and evolved one of a makeshift variety. Could that really have happened by a series of random mutations? Of course not.

Traditional scientists apparently still are having a hard time accepting all this. This is because ever since the Age of Enlightenment came about in the eighteenth century, the basic tenet of science has been that nothing exists except material substance, i.e., matter. Some diehards continue to argue that given infinite time, anything can occur. This is the idea that a room full of monkeys with typewriters will produce War and Peace or the complete works of Shakespeare with no typos, given enough time. What argues against this is the Big Bang theory, which is believed to have occurred 13.8 billion years ago, and the realization that the earth is only about 4.5 billion years old.

Some scientists argue against the theory. They still think the universe has always existed but that it contracts and expands, and is now in a period of expansion. It seems to me, however, that whether the universe has always existed and contracts and expands, the result would be the same—it got off to a (perhaps new, after an infinite number of previous) start(s) 13.8 billion years ago. This is indicated by a broad range of phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), large-scale structure, and Hubble’s law, i.e., the farther away galaxies are, the faster they are moving away from Earth.

In summary, the chance-based argument is faulty for three reasons: 1) time works against the chemical synthesis of life, 2) there is a limit to the amount of time for it to have happened, and 3) the law of entropy—the natural direction of spontaneous change toward disorder—works against making and maintaining steady progress. In other words, entropy works to unwind or reverse progress, rather foster or encourage it.

Chance-based hypothesis does not hold water

Anyone who does the math will certainly come to the conclusion that the chance-based hypothesis doesn’t hold water. For example, consider a four-dial bike lock. How likely is it that a thief will be able to break the four-digit code? The odds will be against it happening unless he has enough time to sample more than half of the possible combinations. Since there are 10,000 possible combinations, to have a 50-50 chance, the thief would have to try 5,000 of them—and that’s with only four digits. Imagine how many there are in six and a half feet of microscopic DNA code.

Suffice it to say, life appears to be designed, and the universe also looks designed because the same long odds that it would be hospitable to life exist. Consider, for example, physical laws, i.e., the “universal constants.” If gravity were a little stronger or weaker, if electromagnetism were a little stronger or a little weaker, if the ratio between these forces were not what they are, life would not be possible. These forces are exquisitely fine-tuned, something like one in ten to the fortieth power, or more. An engineer will tell you, that’s an incredibly tiny, tiny tolerance.

More evidence has to do with the arrangement of matter, which is a separate issue from the universal constants. Think about this. Water is essential for life—it is, apparently, where life began. But if water behaved like most substances, aquatic life would not be possible in cold climates. Most substances in solid form weight more than they do when in liquid form. Not so with water. Solid water—ice—floats. If ice were heavier than water, which is true of just about every other type of matter, what froze on the surface would sink to the bottom. It wouldn’t take long for a body of water in a cold climate to become a solid block of ice—thereby making life impossible. It’s clear to me, and I hope it is now clear to you that intelligence came first and that means consciousness is the ground of being—since consciousness is essential for intelligence to exist.

Here’s something to put into your mental computer. According to Gary Zukav in a book he wrote explaining quantum mechanics called, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, “. . . the philosophical implication of quantum mechanics is that all of the things in our universe (including us) that appear to exist independently are actually parts of one all-encompassing organic pattern, and that no parts of that pattern are ever really separate from it or from each other.”

This being the case, it appears that we and other living things are concentrations of consciousness that exist within the whole. We, like everything else, are energy, and energy cannot be destroyed.  In his book, The Rebirth of Nature, The Greening of Science and God, Rupert Sheldrake quotes a woman, an art teacher, recounting an experience she had while she was walking on the Pangbourne Moors at the age of five. She put into words something I experienced when I had what is often referred to as a mystical experience:

Suddenly I seemed to see the mist as a shimmering gossamer tissue and the harebells, appearing here and there, seemed to shine with a brilliant fire. Somehow I understood that this was the living tissue of life itself, in which all that we call consciousness is embedded, appearing here and there as a shining focus of energy in the more diffused whole. In that moment I knew that I had my special place, as had all other things, animate and so-called inanimate, and that we were all part of this universal tissue which was both fragile yet immensely strong, and utterly good and beneficent.

There, you have it. We are all part of an “all-encompassing organic pattern,” the implications of which are huge. I explore some of them in books I’ve written, but will leave you now with one implication you may find to be life changing:

You are consciousness itself, a unique expression of the whole, and like the whole, you are eternal and only a small way toward your ultimate destination.

Let that sink in and see if it doesn’t change how you view your life and the world around you.

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