What If Consciousness Is Fundamental?: A Conversation with Annaka Harris (Episode #404)

The 'strong assumption' is the belief that consciousness arises from complex processing, primarily in brains and central nervous systems, and that it doesn't exist elsewhere. This assumption comes from our human-centric view and the lack of communication with different types of systems.

Split-brain research demonstrates that different hemispheres of the brain can exhibit independent conscious awareness and opinions, even without the speaking hemisphere being aware of them. This suggests that what we perceive as a single 'self' or stream of consciousness might be an integrated illusion, with numerous other conscious experiences happening 'in the dark'.

Sensory substitution, like devices for blind or deaf people, allows the brain to adapt to new signals for perception. Sensory addition extends this to new senses, like feeling magnetic north. These technologies could lead to 'experiential science,' allowing humans to directly perceive and gain intuition about systems and forces we currently cannot experience, potentially transforming our understanding of physics.

Physicists have reached a consensus that space, as we perceive it, emerges from something more fundamental, rather than being an inherent fabric of reality. Theories like the holographic principle suggest that spatial dimensions can arise from more basic 'degrees of freedom', similar to how a 2D film can project a 3D image in a hologram.

Annaka Harris clarifies that 'fundamental' refers to the deepest, most irreducible level of reality where explanation stops. Many things are 'real,' like the sunrise or space itself, but they are emergent phenomena that can be further explained by more fundamental layers of physics, like Earth's rotation or underlying quantum processes.

The holographic principle suggests that the information contained within a 3D volume might be fully encoded on a 2D surface, similar to how a hologram works. This concept implies that space itself could be a projection or a mirage, and the true fundamental reality lies on a boundary, making space an emergent property.

Deep meditative states and psychedelic experiences often lead to a dissolution of the sense of self, space, and time, while conscious awareness remains intact. This subjective experience aligns with scientific theories that question the fundamental nature of these concepts, suggesting that our ordinary perception is an 'interface' rather than a direct view of reality.

Lee Smolin believes that time is fundamental and a central aspect of the universe. His theory of quantum gravity places time at its core, suggesting that reality unfolds through a sequence of 'views' or events, with new, unprecedented views being associated with consciousness.

Carlo Rovelli views the flow of time as an illusion, proposing that our experience of time emerges from various levels of approximation, including memory, expectation, and thermodynamics. He argues that fundamental physics describes nature in terms of interconnected events and processes, rather than objects evolving through a linear, universal time.

In Rovelli's view, the apparent directionality of time (past being fixed, future open) is due to the abundance of 'traces' from past events, which is a thermodynamical phenomenon related to entropy gradients. We connect with microscopic variables, which carry information about the past, making the future appear more mysterious due to a lack of such traces.

Minimal phenomenal experiences (MPEs) are states described by philosopher Thomas Metzinger, often encountered during meditation or under psychedelics, where the body, self, space, and time dissolve, yet pure, unified awareness remains. These states offer a challenging perspective on the nature of being and consciousness without typical sensory content.