The whole is something greater than the sum of its parts
Aristotle
This blog is a little different than what you generally see being posted from our end. Not just different, it is something that is rather controversial. The thing we are gonna talk about is contentious. It has not been scientifically proven to be true. So, before we move any further there is one very important thing that we need to focus on; the conception that things need to be scientifically proven in order for them to be true itself is false. That can be backed by a lot of supporting pieces of evidence. Every other day scientists and scholars create new knowledge that was under question or used to be considered false. For instance, some years back scientists discovered evidence of Higgs Boson. But, if it exists it means that it has been there for millions and millions of years. It has always been true.
Let’s understand the feeling of universal consciousness and its importance in the 21st century.
What do we mean by ‘consciousness’?
There’s no uniform, scientifically accepted definition of the term ‘consciousness.’ I think consciousness means the ability to sense or to respond to what you sense in your environment, whether it’s your internal or your external environment. Imagine this example: You wake up a little bit late one morning and you decide to skip breakfast. You’re on your way to a meeting and you’re walking down the street, and you smell some freshly baked bread coming from a nearby bakery. The smell triggers a chemical response in your brain, which stimulates your appetite. You turn, you walk into the bakery, and you call for the bread. Similarly, when plant experience we don’t call it consciousness. Why?
Any living thing that can experience its environment, and that can respond to what it senses in its environment, is conscious. What about even really, really small things, like bacteria? Well, we know that inside your own human gastrointestinal tract, there are up to 1,000 different species of bacteria. And over the last 20 years, scientists have been discovering ways in which bacteria can signal and communicate with each other to coordinate community processes, ranging from maintenance of their population to resisting or aiding an infectious disease. But if these bacteria are signaling and communicating, then they too are conscious. If those bacteria are living inside us, and we are their environment, then we are their conscious environment too.
Universal Consciousness
Universal consciousness is a metaphysical concept, which suggests the underpinned essence of all being and becoming one with the universe. It is thought to be the purest form of consciousness (ie, the cosmic consciousness). The experience of mind being conscious is also the knowingness, the very element of knowing.
Right in the beginning of this blog is mentioned a famous quote by Aristotle:
“The whole is something greater than the sum of its parts.”
If I put in another way, I can say that everything that exists, exists both as a whole unto itself as well as a component of some greater holistic system.
Now, there’s a lot of evidence for this proposition. For example, we know that electrons are individually charged particles. But we also know that electrons are components of atoms. Atoms are components of molecules. Molecules are components of organisms. Organisms arise within systems and ecosystems. Ecosystems are located on planets. Planets are components of solar systems. And solar systems are components of galaxies, and galaxies are components of universes. So it does seem that everything that exists, exists both as a whole unto itself and as a component within a greater whole.
Now, organisms are, by definition, organized. And if we can see the organized properties of even very large systems, then it’s only really the culture that stops us from referring to very large systems as organisms. I believe that consciousness will emerge wherever and whenever complex organizing systems and forms emerge. But it will be a consciousness of a type that is relevant to that complex system or form. If consciousness plays a role in ensuring survival, then we should begin to question:
What role does consciousness play
The belief, that we are all part of one thing, is perfectly encapsulated by the Zulu word ‘simunye,’ which means ‘we are one.’ And this simunye hypothesis is one that is as old as philosophy.
It suggests that humans should understand ourselves within this organism to be semiautonomous, conscious, measuring agents of a complex adaptive system that is constantly adjusting and responding and adapting. If the universe itself is, as science might ultimately prove, a complex dissipative system, then not only would the universe have consciousness, but that consciousness would be as old as time, and it would envelop all other forms of consciousness within it, including yours and mine.