The Hard Problem of Consciousness

I am currently reading a book called Why Materialism is Baloney by Bernardo Kastrup.

The beauty of reading this book, for me, is clearly seeing the impossibility of Consciousness being generated by the brain. This means that I cannot possibly possess my own separate and independent Consciousness. This changes everything, does it not?

Seeing and understanding this clearly, is enough for the truth to gradually unravel itself over time...if not immediately. Our teachers give us many seeds to contemplate, but we only ever need but one seed to germinate all the way. This one seed is enough for every belief to eventually fall apart.

The current world view is based on the premise that I am a result of evolution and that Conscious awareness is dependent on the body and the world. We believe this because we believe Consciousness exists inside my brain. These beliefs go together. You can't have one without the other.

As a result, we believe that Consciousness comes and goes when we sleep, or when the body dies, but that the world and the universe always is. In other words, we believe that the universe is our reality.

But what if Consciousness is NOT generated by the brain's activity? Then literally everything we previously believed about ourselves and the universe can no longer be true. Literally everything we believe would need to be re-examined from a different point of view.

The other part of the book that was very interesting was the current scientific theory that is supposed to explain the current experience you and I are having now. According to science we are supposed to believe that the entirety of our experience takes place inside our skull (as a result of neural synapses firing) and that we never directly experience the outside world. Really!? Do you accept this explanation? Hopefully one day in the future we will laugh at ourselves. I say hopefully, because first we would need to somehow survive the current belief system.

Frankly, these concepts do not make sense when closely scrutinized by a brilliant scientific mind like Dr. Bernardo Kastrup. The laws of physics and nature will remain, but the context needs to be upgraded so that Consciousness is the medium of experience. In other words, it is everything.

Kastrup started his career at CERN and was a thought leader in Artificial Intelligence. I believe he was trying to build an artificial brain using neural networks when he realized the hard problem of Consciousness. In other words, he clearly saw the impossibility of trying to create subjective experience from matter. It was an eureka realization which caused him to pivot 180 degrees.

'The hard problem of Consciousness' is a familiar term. It refers to the fact that science has absolutely no explanation for Consciousness, however, they also recognize that it can't be ignored either.

What Kastrup helps a person understand, is that Consciousness is much more than any possible combination of things. No matter how many billions of years of sub-atomic particles (the supposed building blocks of the universe) banging and smashing around it will never create Consciousness or subjective experience (which in this context is the same thing). Nevertheless, this is the current and generally accepted theory despite zero evidence to support this belief. It is the religion of materialism.

Kastrup clearly understands the concept of believing the brain generating Consciousness is like believing the cloud generates the sky. Consciousness is the biggest part of our experience and what we call matter (the universe) is but a tiny piece in comparison. (Experiential understanding of this is the fun part)

It is actually quite amusing that very smart scientists are currently trying to solve the hard problem of Consciousness without ever questioning their deeply help belief that Consciousness is dependent on the body for its existence. It is too funny!! Thank you Bernardo, for challenging your colleagues and attempting to change the current paradigm / belief system / world view.

This book is a powerful seed because it is always easier to see what we are not, rather than trying to see what we are. If Consciousness is not a byproduct of matter or brain activity, then I must be open to the possibility that I am not what I always imagined I was...this is enough for a glimpse. As always, not-knowing what I am is perfect.

The truth is simply the removal of ignorance.

"There is nothing about quantities mass, momentum, charge, spin, in terms of which it could deduce the redness of red, or how it feels to have your heart broken " - Bernardo Kastrup