A Theory of Mind & Everything
Prompted by his sporting of the intriguing t-shirt shown above, a colleague & I recently embarked upon an intellectual journey deep into metaphysical realms, leveraging scientific, theoretical, speculative, and metaphorical frameworks of understanding as guides.
Our discussion was motivated by and centered around recent movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Oppenheimer, and Interstellar. These three films alone span widely across categories including temporal (Past & Future), historical (Fiction & Nonfiction), and theoretical (General Relativity & Quantum Mechanics), and all three of them probe at the core of reality’s formulation.
Since both of us are engineers, most of our discussion was framed around rational & verifiable concepts rather than mystical or spiritual phenomenon. However, the root of Philosophy cannot be extricated from the process of Science, especially when dealing with topics of Metaphysics and the potential implications of Modern Physics, so some liberty is warranted.
Physicists have not yet formulated a successful Theory of Everything.
In other words, we do not yet know everything, surprise surprise! Thus, we are still routinely well served by careful & deliberate informed-speculation. This mental process is at the heart of all hypotheses, which are central to important scientific pursuits.
Despite our desire to calculate & compartmentalize everything, my colleague & I drifted momentarily into contemplation of a controversial question:
Is consciousness just an emergent property of interacting matter & force?
Or is the inverse also true?
My colleague was understandably adamant in his assertion that consciousness is likely a product of the underlying interaction between elementary particles (fermions establishing matter and bosons carrying force). He rejected the hypothetical notion that consciousness is a distinct fundamental entity and likened it more to a property of certain natural (and possibly also artificial) entities.
Although I certainly don’t disagree with his perspective, I’m careful not to hastily believe this to be the only perspective.
I think, therefore I am.
Thinking more about the topic at home later, Descartes’ famous phrase began resonating in my mind, prompting me to write this essay.
It occurred to me that, as Descartes put forth, the existence of consciousness is provided self-evidence by its postulation in conscious thought. I think, therefore I am. Not only does consciousness exist self-evidently, but apparently we also exist self-evidently as conscious entities.
However, be careful not to mistakenly consider our conscious entities to be fundamentally distinct from that of other conscious entities. Remember, although we associate our individual bodies with our physical and personal identities, our bodies are in fact absurdly complex dynamic systems that exist within the mind-bending fabric of spacetime and are comprised of matter being pulled by various forces amidst a soup of surrounding matter & forces, all of which are incredibly & inextricably interconnected.
This is not a speculative or controversial description of physical reality, as far as I’m aware. It is theoretically, empirically, and rationally well grounded. Is is a valid perspective, I’m sure we’d all agree. But it’s not necessarily the only valid perspective…
What if we associate our individual minds with our mental and conscious identities but in fact our minds are actually absurdly complex dynamic systems that exist within the mind-bending fabric of spacetime and are comprised of forces pulling upon various entities of matter amidst a soup of surrounding matter & forces, all of which are incredibly & inextricably interconnected?
To my knowledge there is no theoretical or empirical basis to either affirm or dismiss this theory of consciousness. In contemplation, it is both magical and torturous to recognize how little we really understand about our self-evident consciousness.
Consciousness may indeed be an emergent property of matter & force, but so too might matter be an emergent property of consciousness & force. Perhaps force is really the most fundamental property of reality, with matter & consciousness interdependently emerging from it as life from nonlife.
