Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind

by Annaka Harris

Though many people wonder: If the most basic constituents of matter have some level of conscious experience, how could it be that when they form a more complex physical object or system, those smaller points of consciousness combine to create a new, more complex sphere of consciousness? For instance, if all the individual atoms and cells in my brain are conscious, how do those separate spheres of consciousness merge to form the consciousness “I’m” experiencing? What’s more, do all the smaller, individual points of consciousness cease to exist after giving birth to an entirely new point of consciousness? This is referred to as “the combination problem,” which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes as “the hardest problem facing panpsychism,” noting: The problem is that this is very difficult to make sense of: “little” conscious subjects of experience with their micro-experiences coming together to form a “big” conscious subject with its own experiences. . . . The idea of many minds forming some other mind is much harder to get your head around (so to speak).4 For many scientists and philosophers, the combination problem presents the biggest obstacle to accepting any description of reality that includes consciousness as a widespread feature. However, the obstacle we face here once again seems to be a case of confusing consciousness with the concept of a self, as philosophers and scientists tend to speak in terms of a “subject” of consciousness. The term “self” is ...