21 | Quantum Physics and the Consciousness of “Things”

Welcome to the Cow Behind the Barn: A podcast exploring humanity, the world, and the divine, as experienced and interpreted by an artist. I’m Kevin Caldwell, a co-finder of the Table Collective. in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, working my way up the switchbacks on a trail that winds its way up and over a high pass, I like to stop and look back at where I have come from. Ok, let me be honest. “Like” is not really the right word, or not the only right word because truth be told, as I have gotten older, it has become necessary, physically, to pause more often! 

But I don’t like to do it too often because it can be discouraging how slow the progress seems. However, if I stay focused on each section of trail and the next turn, and the next, and the next, and so on it can be surprising how far I get between pauses. 

I am having that sort of experience right now. I paused and looked back over the weeks that have passed since I launched this podcast and it hit me: 

I am getting ready to record the 21st Episode.

As I did so, I decided to take a little time here to share what I see as I retrace the trail to this point. 

 

Retracing My Steps

Back down there at the bottom of this trail I can see the starting point where I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, or exactly how I would go about it,  or even if anyone would ever listen. At the time, I decided it was worth the effort to send out whatever butterfly effects I could muster, and I trusted that somehow the trail would open in front of me, that in the process of walking forward the path would reveal itself.

On one of the first turns in the trail, in Episode 2, I wanted to introduce myself to future listeners so I asked, “where and when did I begin.” I thought that it would be a simple question that would only require a portion of an Episode to answer. Although I suppose I have somewhat introduced myself in the process of, here and there, sharing a good bit about myself in various Episodes, the question ended up being more than a simple way to tell you who I am. If you have been following along you know that the question ended up forming the shape of the podcast itself. 

So…

+Asking “where did I begin” sparked me to explore “where” in terms of what the nature of the cosmos is, which is where we all find ourselves. 

+Asking “when did I begin” sparked me to explore “when” by asking about the nature of time itself.

Those two topics covered 15 Episodes. And then, starting with Episode 16:

+I began exploring “where and when did I begin. And, as a result, the nature of self and consciousness.

 

A Whale, a Rain Forest, and a Rock

But I did not begin with myself, or human beings for that matter. I began with various versions of this question:

Is anything conscious? Is everything conscious? If so, in what way or ways?

I brought in a whale, a rainforest and a rock.

A Whale…

I told about an experience in the life of Nan Hauser, President of the Center for Cetacean Research, as she was filming underwater and a sperm whale protected her from a killer whale, exhibiting something many whale researchers have noted in whales: altruistic behavior, empathy. Consciousness?

A Rainforest…

I mentioned that in New Zealand a law was passed granting legal personhood to a rain forest. Consciousness?

A Rock…

I talked about a story I wrote back when I was 18 or 19, a story about a rock on the side of a mountain, a story written from the rock’s point of view, imagining what it would be like for the rock to have thoughts and memories. Consciousness?

 

Definition…or Description?

Along the way, I decided not to try to define consciousness, but rather to describe it. My description involved the interplay of experience and awareness. 

In summary, my description involves different dimensions of consciousness, ranging from when a subject has things happen to them, which is what I call experiencing those events or stimuli but is not aware, to when something experiences and is aware of having the experience, to when something is also aware of being aware. There is also a dimension that I refer to as being aware “in the first person” of what others are experiencing and aware of.

So far I have not focused on human beings, but only on what often are referred to as inanimate objects. I use that word for convenience, but I don’t like it. When something is called inanimate this already presumes something about its consciousness, because inanimate suggests that the thing being referred to is not “animated,” does not possess something like a soul. Is not conscious. 

I made the choice to begin by exploring which things in the universe might have consciousness and what type of consciousness might it be, which of my dimensions might apply.

In the last three Episodes I have been asking how different religions might see the question of whether non-human objects have any sort of consciousness. I drew from seven sources…animism, the Gita, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and then the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions.

 

Religions and Consciousness

I summarized the results of my exploration of those religious sources with these phrases:

“...in one way or another we live in a world that is ‘alive’, there is consciousness everywhere around us…”

“...somehow consciousness of some sort, in some way, is connected to everything, or most things…”

“...the cosmos is humming with consciousness…” 

And, 

“...the cosmos is alive, or is brimming with what is alive, in some mysterious but very real way…”

It feels like this is a good place to include a poem I have shared previously. The poem is called Rippling Skies, and it expresses this sense of a cosmos in which everything in some way is humming and brimming with consciousness and is vibrant with life.

 

Rippling Skies

I turn my eyes.

 

The sky ripples

Canopy of lights glowing

Red, growing,

Slowing, dying

Already dead

Seeds in the cinders of stars

Worlds of worlds in an ember,

Every pregnant ash

A fullness of empty vastness

A point of ripening intensity

Density of verdant heat, explosive power

 

Every burst births a cycle

Expanding despanding unspanding respanding expanding again…

Universes begetting universes

 

“Beside, within, before, after”

Are the words that we agree to use.

 

As if we know!

 

Words are flotsam floating atop inscrutable unfathomable seas 

Teeming with creatures 

Frolicking with gleeful disregard for the laws 

Of our pragmatic reassuring necessary grammar

 

But really, real-ly?

 

Every world is a where with no there,

         And a there with no where.

In a when with no then,

         A then with no when.

 

We live as we live 

Because we must live 

As if we live in place and time,

With these people, 

And plants, and pets, and problems

 

As if all of this in fact works the way it seems to work,

The way we need it to work, 

Need to believe it works

In order to set foot outside a door on a winter morning

Or to see and name in wonder a setting sun.

 

Because this is the only way I can live 

As I live as this I who lives this way.

 

But really, real-ly?

 

I carry in myself and am myself carried by:

Universes begetting universes

Expanding despanding unspanding respanding expanding again…

Every burst birthing a cycle 

A density of verdant heat, explosive power

A point of ripening intensity

A fullness of empty vastness

                                                                        Every pregnant ash

Worlds of worlds in an ember,

 

Seeds in the cinders of stars

Already dead

Slowing, dying

Red, growing,

 

A canopy of lights glowing

In the rippling sky.

I turn my eyes.

 

How is the cosmos brimming with consciousness? What does that mean? The religious heritages we explored all answer this differently and raise new questions. Is there a single supreme divine being? Multiple spirits that have consciousness and are somehow united with but distinct from the objects they are associated with? Is there some sort of collective consciousness in which all things somehow exist? These heritages differ in how they would answer such questions but agree that somehow consciousness of some sort, in some way, is connected to everything, and vice versa. 

 

Physics and Philosophy?

I started with religion, and turn now to ask what physics and philosophy have to say?

Some physicists say that photons exhibit behaviors that they deem indicative of consciousness. When photons are fired at background with or without an observer, photons seem to be able to tell whether they’re being observed, in the sense that the fact of being measured and observed affects how they “behave.” Physicists do not agree on the meaning or the implications of all this. 

The discussion of the implications of what modern physics has discovered about sub-atomic particles has affected philosophical conversations. Because the physics speaks to what has been a major fault line in philosophical consideration of our questions about consciousness:

Is consciousness a result of something in the material world (ie, chemically determined brain functions) or is it a non-material reality?  

More and more, based on quantum theories of the cosmos, some philosophers, instead of explaining consciousness in terms of having a dependent relationship with matter, postulate that consciousness exists beyond the realm of biology. And rather than seeing consciousness as emerging from matter, some speculate it may be the other way round.

That is not a new conversation in philosophy, but it has taken on new dimensions based on physics. Therefore, I will look at physics first, then turn to philosophy in the next Episode and then circle back to religion.

 

 Quantum Physics

What are the implications of physics for understanding the nature of consciousness, especially in relationship to objects such as rocks, plants, etc?

Relative to this topic, quantum mechanics “aims” mathematics, as it were, at explaining the counterintuitive, apparently random, behaviors of subatomic particles.  What physicists noted in particular was the impact of observation upon things being observed. As I mentioned above, when the activities of sub-atomic particles were measured or observed, their behaviors changed. 

Seeking to understand this dynamic is to a large extent what has led physicists to articulate what might be considered the “first principles” of quantum theory. There are three: indeterminacy, complementarity, and superposition.

 

Indeterminacy:

One of the core principles of quantum theory is that physical reality is inherently uncertain, and imprecise.  First let me clarify two things about how the term indeterminacy is used in this connection. Quantum indeterminacy is different from being vague, or unclear. Also, physicists don't mean that quantum indeterminacy is due to a lack of measurement ability. In quantum usage, indeterminacy is a fundamental aspect of nature. 

Things happen and act and behave in unpredictable ways.

The so-called double-slit experiment demonstrated that two electrons “shot” from the same position with the same velocity will generally end up in different places. Most of us would assume that the actions of two identical things in identical situations should result in the same outcomes. Unless they have the ability to choose, of course. Sub-atomic particles act as if they are making choices. Making the observation that this is the case was one thing, but understanding why was another. 

 

Complimentarity:

What is known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle explains the impossibility of knowing both the position and velocity of a subatomic particle. One can observe and measure either velocity, or position, but not both. An observer would need to make a decision about what to observe. 

The principle of complementarity means that certain pairs of properties, like wave and particle nature, or position and momentum, cannot be simultaneously observed or measured. Yet both members of those pairs are necessary for a complete understanding of quantum phenomena. Hence, they are complimentary.

Because these aspects cannot be observed simultaneously, and since to make such observations requires particular ways of setting up an experiment, the behavior of the quantum objects being observed in such experiments is then intrinsically linked to the experimental setup used to observe them, and thus, to the decision made by the observer about what to observe. Once again, the act of observation itself influences the observed properties. 

Both indeterminacy and complementarity force us to question some of our widely held notions of reality and knowledge. The quantum world is not as straightforward as our everyday experience suggests. Perhaps nowhere is this divergence between what we think is real and what actually is real as clear as in the description of the third core principle of quantum theory, superposition.

 

Superposition:

The theory of superposition developed from the implications of the role that observation and measurement plays in the two principles we have looked at so far (indeterminacy and complementarity). I will put it simplistically in this way:  

If observation affects how particles act, then we don’t know what they are or how they act when they are not being observed or measured, which means they might be something other than what we come to know them to be once they ARE measured or observed. 

The normal way we assume things to be is that “of course it was already this thing I now observe, the only thing that changes is in me, because I observe it now.” But, according to quantum theory, sub-atomic particles change behavior upon observation, which means that they were something else prior to that. What was it? We don’t know. 

And if observation is a catalyst that changes what a particle does, then reality is a reciprocal entanglement between the observed and the observer. 

In fact, according to some interpretations of this basic point, superposition means that a quantum particle exists in all possible states simultaneously until a measurement is made, at which point the particle "collapses" into a single definite state, essentially choosing one of the possible states based on probability; this is often described as the particle being in a "mixed" state until observed, where it can occupy multiple potential states at once. 

That theory is rigorously debated and the science of it all is above my pay grade, and also beyond the scope of my main focus which is to seek to grasp what quantum physics may suggest about my questions related to the consciousness of “things.”

However the main ingredient, if you will, of superposition is that it emphasizes the role of the observer in determining the state of a “thing”, of a quantum system. This of course raises philosophical questions about the nature of reality itself. 

Summarizing the implications of the three core principles: given the interplay of particles and observation, and the apparent random nature of it, and the way that an observer changes outcomes, it seems that the universe is an unfolding reality, and that it unfolds at least in part as a response to consciousness (ie, the observer), and seems to unfold as if conscious itself.

 

Wrapping Up

I want to make some comments now about the conclusions I am coming to at this point. Things may change, but here is where I am now.

My approach to the question of consciousness and whether a thing such as a rock (or perhaps better, the particles which make up a rock) might be conscious is not to define consciousness in ontological terms but in what I would call behavioral, descriptive terms. And because sub-atomic particles behave as if they are responding to, reacting to, being observed, and thus change under observation, I am comfortable saying that at least some non-human things act as if they are conscious. 

Thus, it seems to me that consciousness is not a singularly human feature.

I used whales as an example. Many of us, I think, are comfortable with associating consciousness with animals/mammals. We find that natural to assume

I also used the rain forest that was given legal status with the rights of a person, because plants exhibit aspects of personhood such as, apparently, memory and the ability to learn and to communicate, among other things. Perhaps a different type of consciousness than animals, or that seems obvious to me at any rate, but still, they exhibit behaviors we would associate with consciousness. Now, I think fewer people would say plants are conscious when asked that question directly, “are plants conscious?” However, if we were given a description first, such as, “here’s this thing that adapts and learns and communicates,” and then we were asked, “is it conscious,” I think it is likely many would say yes. Well, those qualities are true of plants. So maybe granting the legal status of personhood to a rain forest is not as odd as it may seem to some?

What about my use of rocks as examples? Quantum physics suggests sub-atomic particles do so. And sub-atomic particles make up rocks. So, yes, I have to be open to concluding that rocks might be conscious at least in this way. 

I have referred, in my description of the dimensions of consciousness, to things as subjects. For example I refer to consciousness as including “when a subject experiences…” something.  I think quantum physics speaks to this. Since sub-atomic particles are affected by observations and experiments conducted by human beings, and act in ways we would normally associate with conscious entities, then I can say that such particles behave in ways in which “subjects” not just “objects” behave. 

In other words, the objects of observation are also subjects which react to being observed.

It also seems clear from all of this that consciousness and reality are entangled, and thus it follows, for me at least, that if the things in the universe are not conscious themselves, they are at least deeply connected with consciousness in some form.

That brings me back to the word entanglement. In earlier Episodes, based on insights from quantum physics about the nature of the physical make-up of the cosmos, which is our “where,” I frequently referred to the term entanglement. 

At that stage I only noted the implications for the ways that things might be entangled with each other at a sub-atomic particle level. One of the poems I shared at that stage to illustrate that point seems fitting here, because it expresses in an imaginative mode the way that non-human things and consciousness might be entangled. At that time I did not delve deeply into the entanglement with consciousness, but it seems very timely now. My poem, Hunting: 

 

Hunting

I run, gun in hand,

Behind panting hounds

That flow like floodwater through the oaks.

I follow, my mind full of the scene I will find

         A snarling terror pinned against a tree

         The dogs who will part as I raise the polished steel

         The eyes of my prey when I take my aim.

I arrive.

There is already blood

         On the ground and in the teeth of hounds

                   And plastered into the fur of the cornered beast,

                            A hare.

I lower the barrel, stoop to a knee,

Touch a patch of red chalky dust,

Put a finger to my tongue

And taste the musky metallic living animal heat.

                  The hair is longer up my arms

                  Wiry on my legs

                  Bristling down my back.

                  I hear smell see fear flee

                  Stumble in the dust

                   Gasping heart

                  Limbs burning

                  Dart right

                   Leap

                   There are teeth ripping

                   A sudden fire 

                   Legs fail

                   There is wood, a tree,

                   I turn

                   A man.

                   He is on a knee, a finger to his lips.

I stand beneath the tree

Gun on the ground.

The beast is still.

Drying blood turns to flakes of rust on a fallen leaf.

 

In the poem, in addition to exploring the entanglement of particles and the entanglement of non-human things with consciousness, I think I was imaginatively seeking to create a sense of connection and thus empathy with the rabbit. Such empathy with things and plants and animals, not to mention humans, can change how we relate to and treat the world around us. That begins to lead us to the realm of ethics.

There are ethical implications for how we view the consciousness of other things and beings. By which I mean, primarily, that when we assume something is conscious, we tend naturally to feel more empathy and compassion, and thus treat it or them differently.

What does quantum physics have to say about whether things, things that are not human beings, might be conscious in some way? That is my aim in this Episode. But first…

When I amore empathy and compassion, and thus, treat it, or them, differently. That will be something I am sure I will come back to in the future.

Now, I am tempted at this stage to begin comparing what physics says about the cosmos and consciousness with what my explorations of religion surfaced. And I do see a compatibility between eastern religious views, especially Buddhist, and quantum physics. In fact, I am discovering elements in all of the religious heritages I have explored that seem to be supportive of, and supported by, quantum physics. This is why I take the view that the religious or spiritual way of knowing, and the way of knowing that I see in physics are different, but each important, ways of knowing. And I believe that each way of knowing is able to inform, enlighten, correct, supplement, and broaden the other. 

However before doing a more extensive comparison, I want to do an Episode in which I bring philosophy into the conversation. As mentioned earlier, physics raises philosophical questions and especially in recent years quantum theories have influenced philosophical discussion in important ways.

It makes sense, then, to turn to philosophy in the next Episode.

Until next time….