How did your consciousness appear 'suddenly'?

Krishna: “And if I have no self and my consciousness did not exist before, how did it suddenly appear?”

It appeared because a group of cells called neurons - and their activity in the brain is a key component, and possibly the most important factor, in the appearance and development of consciousness. The group of neurons that are active during conscious states are referred to as the "neural correlates of consciousness". These neural events and structures are thought to be the minimum necessary for consciousness.

Earlier these groups of neural cells were just in a state of atoms and molecules that couldn’t act coherently. Only when they come together to work together as a unit in the brain, and their collective behaviour in a specific way makes a living being conscious.

Image source: Shutter stock

Scientists think (1) that although a single entity, such as an atom, is inert, once a whole collection of atoms are brought together, new phenomena emerge.

Let us take a lead atom, for instance, which is just a round ball, without any directional properties. Using quantum mechanics, we understand the properties of lead atoms quite well. However, if many atoms of lead are brought together, a new property emerges, namely the atoms spontaneously arrange themselves into a particular structure, a crystal of lead atoms. This crystal has new properties. For example, it can conduct electricity, it can conduct sound, etc. More strangely however, is the fact that if one cools this crystal to very low temperatures, a new property emerges: the crystal of lead becomes a superconductor. It can conduct electricity without any resistance. It can repel magnetic fields. Not all crystals become superconductors when cooled. So these properties that appear from a collection of objects that did not have that property, are called “emergent properties”. We cannot start with the equations of quantum mechanics that explained the atom, to explain superconductivity. A new theory is required.

Similarly, life is an emergent property of a very large collection of different atoms. If we are given all the atoms that are in a human being, for example, these atoms can be assembled in such a way that they will form a human being in certain conditions. What makes this possible is the arrangement of certain atoms in a certain way to behave in a specific way, controlled by other atoms brought together and behaving in a different way.

It is not just atoms that become life. It is their arrangement in a specific way, behaviour in a certain way that decides what form it takes, living or non living and how it behaves.

The group of atoms should have the power of self-replicating processes that can evolve under natural selection to become a living being.

A thing is usually called a living one when it can display these 7 biological properties: homeostasis (maintain a constant state), growth, replication, metabolism (converting food to cellular components), adaptation, organization and response to external stimuli.

When molecules, made up of atoms, become large and complex, they can interact in the right way and possibly give rise to life. It's not the atoms that make things alive: it's how they are put together, forming organic molecules, absorbing energy, undergoing complex chemical reactions, self-organizing into complex structures that can replicate that, ultimately, qualify as "living".

So, non-living atoms can become part of living beings and contribute to the living processes, when they are arranged in a specific way that dictates their specific behaviour of living beings.

We have to consider two things here (2): Does consciousness arise because of

1. Properties of matter? or 2. Interactions of matter?

Properties of matter decide interactions too. According to the scientific community, consciousness arises from the collective interactions going on in the particles that make up our “brain.” Therefore, there might be something about the properties of matter, as currently measured, that contains some “essence” of consciousness.

It is particular phenomenological groupings of sub-atomic particles that allow consciousness to arise. Science would argue consciousness arises from the structural nature of the “neuron.” Since not all molecules are replicant like DNA, nor are all cells “neurons”, the basis of consciousness is not implicit to the standard model, but explicit to a small set of the phenomenological groupings that arise from it. It is the way matter is arranged that decides about its consciousness.

So quantum action might be a precondition of consciousness, but not necessarily the only condition. Phenomenological groupings (like DNA and the neuron) exhibit behavioural perceptions unique to those groupings. The property arises from the shape of the grouping, not the components. A unified theory of physics will arrive at a point where matter has no properties except relative location on which an action principle works. So, consciousness would arise from phenomenological groupings, not from properties of matter.

Consciousness requires several steps up in order and complexity. That can be obtained only by way of interactions of specific groupings of molecules working in a specific way.

Although individual oxygen and iron atoms can become part of brain structure, contribute in some way with their properties, they themselves cannot cause consciousness. They alone don't cause consciousness in other parts of the body. Without interaction between specific-chemical-interaction-structured-neurons and their interactions with one another in a special way, there won't be any consciousness. Although nerve cells exist through out the body, only the specific collective interactions of neurons with the help of other neurons in the body in a brain causes consciousness. But other neurons help in the process. Only when other neurons send signals that your hand is injured, you become aware that your hand is injured when the specific neural process in your brain determines and fixes it.

So your consciousness came into existence because of some atoms and molecules in your body coming together as neurons in your brain and the specific collective interactions of neurons with the help of other neurons in a specific way resulted in it.

Then you became an I, me, and myself!

Footnotes:

1. Qs people asked me on science and my replies to them - Part 129
2. Qs people asked me on science and my replies to them - Part 121

(These are my own articles)