Tam Hunt: Why is my consciousness here while yours is there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinite number of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, where we receive information about the rest of the world outside? Why are some things conscious and others apparently not? Is a rat conscious? A mosquito? A bacteria?
These questions are all aspects of the age-old “mind-body problem,” which essentially asks: what is the relationship between mind and matter? It has resisted a generally satisfactory conclusion for thousands of years.
The mind-body problem has undergone a major rebranding over the past twenty years. Now it is commonly known as the “hard problem” of consciousness, after philosopher David Chalmers coined the term in a now classic article and further explored it in his 1996 book, “The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.”
Chalmers believed that the mind-body problem should be called “hard,” compared to what he, ironically, called the “easy” problems of neuroscience: how do neurons and the brain work at the physical level? Of course, they’re actually not easy at all. But his point was that they are relatively simple compared to the really difficult problem of explaining how consciousness relates to matter.
Over the past decade, my colleague, psychology professor Jonathan Schooler of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and I have been developing what we call a “resonance theory of consciousness.” We suggest that resonance – another word for synchronized vibration – is at the heart not only of human consciousness, but also of animal consciousness and of physical reality in general. It sounds like something the hippies might have come up with – it’s all vibrations, man! – but stay with me.
All about the vibrations
All things in our universe are constantly moving and vibrating. Even objects that appear to be stationary are actually vibrating, oscillating and resonating at different frequencies. Resonance is a type of motion, characterized by oscillation between two states. And ultimately all matter consists of vibrations of different underlying fields. As such, all of nature vibrates on every scale.
An interesting thing happens when several vibrating things come together: often after a while they start vibrating together at the same frequency. They “sync,” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious. This is described as the phenomenon of spontaneous self-organization.
Mathematician Steven Strogatz gives several examples from physics, biology, chemistry and neuroscience to illustrate “sync” – his term for resonance – in his 2003 book “Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life” , under which:
– When fireflies of certain species gather in large groups, they begin to flash in synchrony, in ways that can still seem a bit puzzling.
Lasers are produced when photons of the same power and frequency synchronize.
– The moon’s rotation is precisely synchronized with its orbit around the Earth, so we always see the same face.
– Investigating resonance leads to potentially deep insights into the nature of consciousness and the universe in general.
Sync in your skull
Neuroscientists have also discovered synchronization in their research. Large-scale neuron firing occurs in the human brain at measurable frequencies, with mammalian consciousness often associated with different types of neuronal synchronization.
For example, German neurophysiologist Pascal Fries has explored the ways in which different electrical patterns in the brain synchronize to produce different types of human consciousness.
Fries focuses on gamma, beta and theta waves. These labels refer to the speed of electrical oscillations in the brain, measured by electrodes placed on the outside of the skull. Groups of neurons produce these oscillations while using electrochemical impulses to communicate with each other. It is the speed and voltage of these signals that, when averaged, produce EEG waves that can be measured at characteristic cycles per second.
Gamma waves are associated with large-scale coordinated activities such as perception, meditation, or focused consciousness; beta with maximum brain activity or arousal; and theta with relaxation or daydreaming. These three wave types, according to Fries, work together to produce or at least facilitate different types of human consciousness. But the exact relationship between electrical brain waves and consciousness is still up for debate.
Fries calls his concept ‘communication through coherence’. For him, it’s all about neuronal synchronization. Synchronization, in terms of shared electrical oscillation rates, ensures smooth communication between neurons and groups of neurons. Without this kind of synchronized coherence, inputs end up in random phases of the neuron excitatory cycle and are ineffective, or at least much less effective, at communicating.
A resonance theory of consciousness
Our resonance theory builds on the work of Fries and many others, with a broader approach that can help explain not only human and mammalian consciousness, but also consciousness more broadly.
Based on the observed behavior of the entities that surround us, from electrons to atoms to molecules, from bacteria to mice, bats, rats, and so on, we suggest that all things can be considered at least somewhat conscious. This may sound strange at first, but ‘panpsychism’ – the view that all matter has some consciousness – is becoming an increasingly accepted view regarding the nature of consciousness.
The panpsychist argues that consciousness did not arise at a certain point during evolution. Rather, it is always associated with matter and vice versa: they are two sides of the same coin.
But the vast majority of mind associated with the various types of matter in our universe is extremely rudimentary. For example, an electron or an atom has only a small amount of consciousness. But as matter becomes more interconnected and richer, so does mind, and vice versa, according to this way of thinking.
Biological organisms can rapidly exchange information through various biophysical pathways, both electrical and electrochemical. Non-biological structures can only exchange information internally via thermal/thermal pathways – much slower and much less information rich in comparison.
Living things use their faster information flows to achieve greater consciousness than what would happen with things of comparable size, such as boulders or piles of sand. There is a much greater internal connection and therefore much more ‘going on’ in biological structures than in a boulder or a pile of sand.
According to our approach, boulders and sand piles are ‘just aggregates’, just collections of very rudimentary conscious entities, only at the atomic or molecular level. This contrasts with what happens in biological life forms, where the combinations of these micro-conscious entities combine to create a higher-level macro-conscious entity. For us, this combination process is the hallmark of biological life.
The central tenet of our approach is this: the specific connections that enable large-scale consciousness – as enjoyed by humans and other mammals – are the result of a shared resonance between much smaller constituents. The speed of the resonant waves present is the limiting factor that determines the size of any conscious entity at any given time.
As a given shared resonance expands to include more and more constituents, the new conscious entity resulting from this resonance and combination becomes larger and more complex. Thus, for example, the shared resonance in a human brain that achieves gamma synchrony involves a much larger number of neurons and neuronal connections than is the case for beta or theta rhythms alone.
What about the greater resonance between organisms, such as the cloud of fireflies whose tiny lights flash in sync? Researchers believe their bioluminescent resonance is created by internal biological oscillators that automatically ensure each firefly synchronizes with its neighbors.
Does this group of fireflies enjoy a higher level of group consciousness? Probably not, because we can explain the phenomenon without using any intelligence or consciousness. But in biological structures with the right information pathways and processing power, these self-organization tendencies can, and often do, produce conscious entities on a larger scale.
Our resonance theory of consciousness attempts to provide a unified framework that encompasses neuroscience, but also more fundamental questions from neurobiology and biophysics, as well as philosophy of mind. It gets to the heart of the differences that matter when it comes to consciousness and the evolution of physical systems.
It’s all about vibrations, but it’s also about the type of vibrations and, most importantly, shared vibrations.
Tam Hunt, affiliate guest in Jonathan Schooler’s META Lab in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at UC Santa Barbara.
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