Consciousness and the Search for Meaning

One of the most important discoveries in the history of science is the discovery of the quantum nature of matter.  But this is more than a discovery that physical matter and energy always appear in discrete quantities known as "quanta."  Rather, this science of "quantum physics" tells us that the world of our senses deceives us.  The universe is not as we think of it; it is much more strange, and that strangeness may tell us something very important about the nature of life.

The discovery of the quantum nature of energy and matter has allowed us to understand atoms, nuclei and molecules.  It has also allowed us to understand the way that matter behaves in a wide variety of contexts.  Indeed, quantum physics can even tell us how an electron will behave when it is captured by exotic objects deep in space, such as when an electron is captured by a pulsar.  This relatively new science also helps us understand how stars form, evolve and then die.

Quantum physics led to the discovery of the transistor and integrated circuits, as well as superconductivity and many other things.  It is safe to say that we would not have modern computers without an understanding of quantum physics.

One can thus clearly see that no physicist will ever earn a doctorate if he or she does not have a good understanding of quantum physics.  But even the "old physics" was intellectually demanding, and quantum physics is much more difficult than that.  All of this combines to make modern physics a very challenging field of study.

Einstein's special theory of relativity grew and developed somewhat in parallel to quantum physics, although it really could be said to proceed it.  In all events, Einstein's ideas about space and time stunned the scientific world, and even today the average person probably does not understand even the elementary conclusions that can be drawn from Einstein's special theory of relativity.  Also, even those who do understand this theory may not be able to conceptualize some of the ideas that follow from it.

Our purpose here is to discuss human consciousness, so we will not be saying much about special relativity.  Yet, let us recognize that Einstein's ideas are quite unusual:  Not only did Einstein postulate that the speed of light is the same for all observers, but his theory can be used to prove incredible things.

For instance, with special relativity, one can prove that it would be possible for a mother to become younger than her children, if she were to fly away from the earth in a rocket ship at high enough speeds, and then return.  (The mother would never actually become younger; she would just not age at the same rate as her offspring, but this slowing down of aging would only occur while she was traveling in the rocket ship.)

So, the point is this: The idea that a mother can be younger than her children seems impossible to our common sense.  For instance, if a mother gives birth to her first child when she is twenty years old, then she would have to always be at least twenty years older than her children, or so we ordinarily think.

But the fact of the matter is that such a mother could venture off in a rocket ship and travel at high speeds, and time within moving systems slows down, relative to systems that are not moving.  So, by traveling off into distant space at high speeds, the mother could return and be younger than her children.

This is thus an example of how our daily concepts about time can betray us.  The universe is not always as it seems.

Yet, the world of quantum physics is even more strange, but this is not because atoms and molecules exist as quanta or particles, but rather it is because they don't always exist as quanta.  Instead, particles sometimes exist as "things" that are not quanta at all; they may go off in an infinite number of directions at once (as waves) and thus can be viewed as being quite divisible.  Yet, when a particle is detected, it is always found to be an indivisible bundle of energy.  Merely by detecting a particle, and by registering events within our consciousness, reality changes, or that is one very popular theory.

However, if we can change the nature of physical reality by "looking" or "not looking" at what we can perceive with our senses, then this suggests that we are all able to affect the unfoldment of physical reality.  Also, because our consciousnesses appear to change existence, there really can be no such thing as a completely objective observer.  When we observe the world, we change it.

So, not only is space and time relative, but so is the very nature of existence.  Yet, there are rules in this subjective universe, and people cannot do such things as control the whole universe with their minds.  Nevertheless, we are not disconnected from nature, and we are thus "participants" in a universe where no one can completely isolate him- or herself.  We are enfolded within the universe, and we have the ability to at least somewhat modify the course of nature.

But there is more to this: Our consciousnesses have the ability to make abstract things concrete.  For instance, we know that men and women can do such things as build bridges and make automobiles.  That means that abstract ideas in our consciousnesses can be creative by transforming the world around us.  The engineer gets an idea for a bridge, he makes drawings, and then those drawings become a real thing in the physical world.  This means that our consciousnesses have the ability to make abstract things concrete. This is how the abstract can become concrete.

How does consciousness relate to quantum physics, and how do these things relate to the individual?

The inquisitive individual seeks wisdom and knowledge about the nature of existence, and quantum physics allows us to understand reality at some very fundamental level.  But the individual naturally wants to understand things that affect him (or her).   So, there are intellectual pursuits, that might be interesting, but one might not think of them as important to one's life.

But our consciousnesses are important to each of us; ultimately our consciousnesses are everything.  Without consciousness, there would be nothingness; there would only be dreamless sleep.  It could therefore be argued that we have every reason to understand consciousness.

There is another aspect to this: Many people want to know if there is some sort of ultimate meaning to life, and that means that many people want to know whether or not their consciousnesses eternally disappear at the time of death.  But how can we answer such questions if we do not understand the properties of consciousness?  Such questions as the possibility of life after death, possibly in the form of reincarnation, thus require that we understand the very basis of sentience, and that requires understanding consciousness.

But let us pause here and remember that special relativity can be used to prove that a mother can be younger than her children.  As has been suggested, this tells us that our ordinary perceptions and our ordinary "common sense" are not always so correct.  And Einstein's special theory of relativity is not just an ordinary theory.  It has been tested again and again and again.  And it has been experimentally tested that time moves slowly in systems that are moving fast.  These are not mere ideas; a highly tested theory is involved.

So, since this rather strange idea about time is true, then what about the possibility that consciousness is something more than the bubbling of brain matter?  Or what about the possibility that our consciousnesses have ways of continuing on after death, in other forms of existence?

We know that our consciousnesses have the ability to make abstract things concrete, in the sense that an architect can have an abstract idea for a building and then turn it into a reality; the abstract building becomes a real building.  But how does that work?  How does human consciousness turn abstract things into concrete things?

In the world of quantum physics, physicists understand that the elementary building blocks of the universe have two kinds of existence.  They have an existence as waves, and they have an existence as quanta.  This is known as particle-wave duality.

But consider a stone dropped into a still pond.  The stone is dropped and waves go off in all directions at once.  We would not say, "Where is the wave?" And the reason is that there are many waves in the pond, and they are going in many directions at once.

Yet, we know that the elementary building blocks of nature, the various quanta, act as waves; and we even use wave equations to describe these waves.  But electrons and protons and atoms and molecules are tiny little bundles of energy, or at least they are this way when we observe them.  Yet, the wave equation that describes these particles shows that particles are divisible.

How could the divisible be indivisible?  That would not make sense.  If we broke a glass, we would not say that the glass is broken and not broken at the same time.  If we turn to the right, we cannot say that we are turning to the left at the same time.  A man cannot be both dead and alive, at least not if existence is to be logical.

This problem of particle-wave duality is well-known in quantum physics, and no one's ideas have been able to explain this to everyone's satisfaction, although many have tried.  However, when physicists try to explain this particle-wave duality problem, which is sometimes called the "quantum measurement problem," they generally try to do so without introducing something outside of physics.  They try to explain physics using physics.  Yet, there is a very critical exception to this general idea of physicists trying to explain particle-wave duality, and that lies with the ideas of the physicist von Neuman.  This will be discussed shortly.

We have two views of reality that seem irreconcilable.  There is the world of particles as divisible waves, and there is the observation that particles are never observed to be divisible.  But we never exactly see particles as waves.  What we see are the effects of particles whose behavior is precisely in agreement with wave equations.

Let us suppose that we have a particle that can only be in one of two states.  Perhaps the particle could be in either the "spin right" or "spin left" state.  According to quantum physics, the single particle will be spinning to the left at the same time it is spinning to the right, just as such a particle would go off in an infinite number of directions all at once, if it were struck by another particle.

When we observe the particle, we always see it spinning in one direction or another.  It is never seen to be spinning to the right while it is spinning to the left.  So what is happening?

Prior to observing the aforementioned particle, it was supposed to be spinning in two directions at the same time, and the equations of quantum physics prescribe this.  But, when the particle is observed, the particle state changes; it is observed to be spinning in only one direction.  It is thus reasonable to conclude that the act of measurement forced the particle into one state, excluding the other.  But if this analysis is taken to its extreme, then one can be led to conclude that consciousness must be responsible for this action.  In other words, the act of measurement is an act which changes physical reality, and the ultimate end to this action seems to lie with the consciousness of the observer.  This is von Neumann's idea.

If one accepts this assertion, then one has to assert that consciousness has properties that can dramatically change the very nature of physical reality, but only in a certain way.  Specifically, consciousness would have to have the ability to make certain parts of the abstract world of quantum particles become the real world that we see around us. But consciousness would have only limited ability to control and shape the nature of physical existence.  For instance, a man could not use his consciousness to lift a car or destroy a transistor.  Consciousness could only make things happen that are possible; it could not cause the laws of physics to be violated.

Yet, the fact remains that consciousness appears to be quite special and unusual.  We cannot necessarily say that consciousness is merely brain activity, as materialists are wont to do.  We must ascribe special properties to consciousness.

But let us remember that it is our consciousnesses that allow us to experience and know that we exist.  And let us note that if life is to have any ultimate meaning, then it must not be the case that our consciousnesses permanently vanish at the time of death.  So, for those who think that life may have some sort of transcendental meaning, then study of consciousness, and an attempt to understand it, should be imperative.

Earlier we discussed the idea of an architect having an abstract idea of a building and then turning it in to a real and quite concrete building.  This kind of idea is beyond debate.  Now we have the idea that the quantum world exists in a real state of abstractness, until consciousness brings that world into reality.

So, what is being asserted is that the universe is abstract and is made concrete and real via our consciousnesses, but it is also being asserted that the human mind can have abstract ideas and transmute them into changes in the physical world.  Thus, the properties of consciousness would involve at least two abilities, although they might be interconnected.

Apples Are Not Red, Sugar is Not Sweet

We have the idea that consciousness has some special property that changes the nature of the universe; when we are observing the universe we are actively engaged in creating a concrete reality that would otherwise be abstract.  This is quite profound, and many people either do not think this is possible or don't understand how it is even conceivable.  However, let us recognize that the intuitive view we have of the world does not have to always be accurate.  We assume that the universe is the same whether or not we observe it; but that appears to be just an assumption.  We also have the fact that Einstein's special relativity informs us that the universe can defy our intuition.

But let us recognize that very little is known about the nature of consciousness.  For instance, in physics there are no descriptions of pain or pleasure or hearing or sight.  These are things that currently lie outside of the realm of physics.  Yet, many people insist that physics is the ultimate science, just as they insist that materialism will someday be able to describe all that exists; they speak of "theories of everything."

But the typical materialist rigidly holds to these beliefs, that are based on intuition, and very possibly this will retard the development of alternative views for a very long time to come.  This is particularly true if it is the case that consciousness has some unusual properties that cannot be explained through materialism.

Let us now consider some ideas that will show us that our consciousnesses have some unusual properties.

Consider a red apple.  When ordinary "white" light is shone on a red apple, the colors other than red are absorbed, and the red light reaches our eyes, where we see the red apple.  But, in actual fact, the light that is reaching our eyes consists of photons that are described by an oscillating electromagnetic field.  So, photons are not red or blue or green; they are just particles.  The red that we see in our consciousnesses is thus not a property of an apple, as we would think.  If the lights are turned out, the apple is not red anymore, nor is it green or yellow.  Also, if we close our eyes, the red apple in our minds clearly disappears.

So, our intuition and the nature of our language fools us.  We think of the apple as being red, when the apple does not carry the color red around with it, nor does the color red  exist independently of our consciousnesses.  Indeed, were it not for consciousness, there would be no such thing as color.

Or let us consider the "sweetness of sugar."  We say that "sugar is sweet," but unless sugar is tasted, it only exists as a system of tasteless molecules.  However, even when we taste sugar, we are not tasting the sugar that existed before it transformed into the sweet taste in our mouth.  So, in the absence of our consciousnesses, and the experience of taste, sugar is not sweet.  Also, sweetness is not a "thing," but a process; it is the process of sugar dissolving in the mouth while it activates taste buds.

So, when we are not viewing such things as the moon, we think that the moon has the same kind of existence that it has when we do observe it.  Indeed, if we open and close our eyes very quickly, we always see the moon is there and it does not change. How could it be that the moon changes when we close our eyes?

But existence and nonexistence are concepts of the mind, and it is not being suggested that the moon has no existence when it is not being looked at.  Rather, it is being said that the moon and all of reality is different when it is not being observed; at such times it is abstract and can evolve in unusual ways; a particle can spin to the left and spin to the right; it can be in an infinite number of places all at once. Yet, when we observe nature, many of these states vanish, and we see the reality that is familiar to us.  The particle is at one location; it is not going off in an infinite number of directions all at once.  Reality becomes actualized; the apple is red; the sugar is sweet.

For each of us, there are thus two forms of reality: the reality that exists when we are not observing it, and the reality which exists at the point where it is being observed.  But the reality that exists when we are not observing it must be an abstract reality.  We can never observe it, and it appears to be described only by mathematical equations, such as wave equations.

As has been deduced, the nature of consciousness is to make abstract things concrete, and we conclude that in the absence of observation, reality is not as we think it is.

These ideas are at once perplexing and informative.  It is perplexing because our intuition tells us that reality exists in the same form, whether we observe it or not.  If we place a glass of milk on the kitchen table, and leave the kitchen, we think of the glass of milk as still existing in the same way it did when we were in the kitchen.  But when we stop looking at the glass of milk, there is no longer a white image in our minds, and that is the only place where the color "white" can exist.  Milk, by itself, is not white; its whiteness arises in conjunction with the observation of the milk.

In the quantum world, the white glass of milk consists of a highly structured system of waves that have been added together to make something that will (somewhat) keep its shape when we stop observing it.  But this "existence" for the glass of milk is in an abstract space, and is not the existence it has when we are observing it.

But how can abstract things exist?  We think of such things as not being existent; they are supposed to only exist in our minds.  And can it be that the moon does not exist when we are not looking at it?

A Revolution in Thought

When men and women are faced with dramatic new ways of looking at existence, there is often a revolution in thought.  As we have seen, Einstein's relativity forces us to view space and time as being intertwined.  Before Einstein, anyone who said that a mother could be younger than her children would be declared insane.  How could a mother be younger that her children?  "That is nonsense!"

Now we have the idea that the abstract equations of quantum physics have a basis in some sort of abstract reality, and that means certain things can exist that do not have a physical existence.

Let us recognize that we cannot have up without down, and we cannot have bad without good.  Up and down are defined against one another.  So, it is natural to assume that abstract and concrete have to also mutually exist.  Indeed, if it were not for abstract things, there would be no conception of other things being concrete.  Yet, it is not being suggested that abstract things have no existence; they must exist if we are to make sense out of the science of quantum physics.

Yet, we have not answered the question of how the abstract world in question can exist.  What holds and maintains this abstract universe?  The answer seems to be that abstract things exist in another form of consciousness, a consciousness that pervades all.  So, there are our consciousnesses, and there is the consciousness that conceives of the abstract world of quantum physics.  From this "super-consciousness" comes the universe of our experiences.  But those experiences also appear to be only within consciousnesses.  So, all of reality would involve a super-consciousness and our individual consciousnesses.  There would not really be such things as atoms and molecules; they would have a reality that arises in either the super-consciousness or our individual consciousnesses.  So, the basis of existence is consciousness.

Equation of a Circle

Many of the planets follow almost perfectly circular orbits, and there are also other equations that almost completely describe the motions of all of the planets.  In the spirit of what is being discussed, it is logical to insist that such equations have a real existence in an abstract space.

In this transformation in thinking, we must come to understand that materialism does not provide a complete way to describe existence.  But we must not think that our current worldview has no meaning.  There is utility in describing certain things in the world as material, and there is some truth in the idea that elementary particles combine to make larger systems, an intellectual process known as reductionism.  But there is also holism and connectedness within composite systems, and this holism seems not to be addressed by the materialist worldview.  Moreover, there is the abstract nature of the material world when there is no conscious observer, and there may be other forms of existence, as well.

But what is the basis for the existence of abstract things?  How can they exist and what sustains them?

The Conventional View of Existence

The conventional view of existence involves the assertion that particulate matter, in the form of brain activity, gives rise to consciousness.  Thus, just as water streaming down a mountain will give rise to a waterfall, so it is that the electrical activity of our brains is supposed to give rise to consciousness.  And the development of the human brain is supposed to be merely a blind product of natural activity among atoms and molecules; we blindly evolved from a chemical soup that existed four billion years ago, and before that there was the "big bang" which sent a semi-infinite spray of particles into space.  All forms of life are alleged to be accidents of nature, and all life forms are supposed to have come about as the result of random motion among atoms and molecules.

However, while this conventional view of existence is very simple, it is not a view that encompasses the fundamental nature of existence.  Indeed, as has been discussed, in the absence of an observer, the universe is not as we think it is; particles are not neat and tidy little bundles of energy that behave as tiny billiard balls.  Therefore, the picture of atoms and molecules randomly combining to make living entities is quite flawed; atoms and molecules are not little billiard balls.  Also, it is now known that at least some forms of chaos embody hidden forms of order.  So, when it comes to the origin of life, what scientists call "random activity" could actually involve deeper forms of hidden order.  Indeed, one could even surmise that hidden forms of intelligently-directed order assisted in the evolution of life.

In addition to this, the big bang does not have to be viewed as spewing out a semi-infinite spray of tiny little quanta.   Rather , the big bang could be viewed as a spray of "possibility waves" that spread out into space, and those possibility waves did not become a reality until consciousness appeared, if we are to believe that quantum waves require an observer to be actualized.

So, it could be that the big bang actually did not take place 10 billion years ago, but may have taken place retroactively, when a conscious life form was created.  When consciousness appeared, reality came into existence and not the other way around.  Yet, when we look backwards in time, reality appears to have evolved in a quite natural way, and that is because of the fact that reality is organized around certain principles that are embodied within the laws of physics.  In some sense, we create history when we view the world around us; the history of the universe is not exactly fixed.  This appears to be one of the properties of consciousness; it brings reality into focus and determines things that are indeterminate.

So, the study of history is also creating history.  Yet, very seldom can history be dramatically transformed via consciousness.  For instance, dinosaur bones that lie in the earth for many millions of years have a highly determined existence in an abstract reality.  In that abstract space, they have a tiny little bit of fuzziness about their nature, but it is mostly fixed.  Similarly, when the moon is not being observed, it continues to exist as a highly structured object that is free to evolve in only certain ways.

Yet, even with the moon, its very narrow structure, after it is observed, does begin to dissipate to a small degree.  Its wave nature begins to become very slightly manifested in the abstract space where it resides; the moon follows an orbit, but the orbit becomes a little fuzzy.

The conventional view of existence is materialistic and reductionistic; it is also quite mechanistic:  Blind and lifeless little bundles of energy randomly combine to make living things which exist in a universe that is viewed as quite mechanistic.  Such things as love and kindness are meaningless and are merely activity that is associated with preservation of the species.  Long ago, random mutations were supposed to have led to ways that allowed for biophysical reactions that we call love, for example.

Also, with the conventional view of existence, death leads to disassembly of the brain molecules that create and sustain consciousness.  Thus, since there is no conceivable way for that brain matter to come together again, death is believed to lead to eternal nonexistence.  Life is thought to be a meaningless journey into eternal oblivion, and all life is just the accidental byproduct of motion among atoms and molecules.

Moreover, if the universe consists merely of elementary and composite systems of particles, then it is very hard to speak of morality.  Indeed, just because atoms and molecules lead a man to rape a woman, how can that be wrong?  Can we blame atoms and molecules for such things?  And if atoms and molecules led Nazis to exterminate six million Jews, then how can that be wrong?

The Dilemma of Modern Man

It has not been made clear, but materialism and reductionism have been quite useful in mechanistically understanding the universe.  Indeed, this seems to be about the only way that the universe can be understood.  This is because the human mind can basically only do one thing at a time.  So, men and women need step by step instructions about how the universe operates.  Yet, within the universe, there are an infinite number of things happening all at once.  So it is clear that this "one step at a time" way of understanding is limited.

But modern man thinks that the only way to understand things is with the intellect.  So men and women theorize, and they write papers to document and explain their theories.

But when a person is being held in the arms of his or her lover, in a warm embrace, there is no need for rational thought; there is just the experience.  Similarly, if a man or woman is dancing to the sound of African drums, analytical thought ceases and the man or woman experiences something that arguably transcends logical thought; and such experiences can be enlightening and even "spiritual."

But modern man is stuck with his materialism and his analytical thought-forms.  He becomes detached from nature.  He sees a chimpanzee as a lab animal, and uses the chimp for his experiments, some of which can be quite cruel and frightening for the animal.  But the experimenter theorizes that the chimp is "just an animal," and the researcher theorizes that all animals are just atoms and molecules.  He does not think of the animal as a sentient being with quite deep feelings that include love and happiness and sorrow and fright.

We say that such men and women view the world "mechanistically."  For such men and women, there is no concept of connectedness with nature; nature is the place where they do their experiments, and animals are "things" that they use for their intellectual pursuits.

This separation of man from nature is sometimes known as the "Cartesian split," after the way that Descartes implicitly separated the observer from nature, using what is called the "Cartesian coordinate system."  This is the familiar x-y-z coordinate system of geometry and algebra.

The dilemma of modern man is thus one of disconnection from nature, but it is also a dilemma that stems from the fact that many philosophers have concluded that life is a meaningless journey into eternal oblivion.  However, as we have seen, modern man uses ideas that are known to be wrong, and that means that it cannot be properly concluded that life is a journey that ends in eternal oblivion.  Nor can it be known that raping women is not an immoral act that simply involves atoms and molecules. This is just what the intellectual theorizes, and does so with his very limited paradigms.

The Feeling of Love

When we think of the world as being merely atoms and molecules, we make it seem that such things as love have no real existence; they are said to be merely complex biophysical processes; a biochemical reaction.  But, in truth, the feeling of love is quite a bit more tangible than a theory about the nature of existence.  And a warm embrace can salve the soul in times of sorrow or loneliness.

It thus cheapens all forms of experience to say that they are all "just" biochemical reactions.  But this is what many modern men have done.  Yet, modern men value their theories and their laboratory equipment; and they do realize that their ideas and equipment give then pleasant experiences.

A philosopher might therefore say, "My ontological treatise is quite important."  But, using the logic of materialism, can't we conclude that his words are just scribbles on a piece of paper, or ideas in his head?  How could they be important?  And if life ends in eternal oblivion, then how can there be meaning in our lives?

If it were not for consciousness, we would not be able to experience love, and we would not be able to have theories.  The universe might somehow exist, but there could absolutely be no purpose in anything.  So, consciousness is critical.  But we know so little about consciousness; it is only an assumption to insist that consciousness is the excreted product of brain chemistry, and we have almost no idea how consciousness actually effects physical reality.
 

Unfolding Expressions of Meaning

The paradigms that stem from materialism eventually lead to nihilism: the belief in just about nothing.  We are told that almost everything is meaningless, but are not told exactly why.  Rather, for philosophers who espouse this view, the things they assume to be true are thought to be true without proof.  This then means that they assume their conclusions, and that is a quite bastardized way to make a proof.  Life is meaningless because they say it's meaningless; that's the "bottom line."

This manuscript is unfolding in a linear manner; the words come one at a time, and each sentence has certain syntax and obeys certain grammatical rules.  And for each sentence, there was an impetus that caused the sentence to be constructed.  There were ideas, and then there were words.  But the ideas arose in the author's consciousness in a meaningful context.  For instance, the author is searching for the meaning of life; that is why I am writing this essay.

So, such things as writing can have unfolding meaning that expresses ideas and feelings, and these written words can then have meaning for others.   It would thus be quite wrong to say that there cannot be meaning in anything; some things have meaning.  Words and ideas can answer questions, and they can help or hurt our feelings.  This is part of their meaning.

In each of our actions in life, there is thus some sort of contextual meaning.  A physicist wants to solve a physics problem, so he writes equations on a piece of paper and thinks.  A mother wants to teach her children good manners, so she explains the value of saying "please" and "thank you."  A young woman wants to be a tennis star, so she plays tennis every day.  Through these processes, and over a period of years, we shape and mold our lives; we define our character.  Hitler defined his character through his evil actions, as Mother Teresa defined her character through her selflessness.

So, character formation is an example of the unfolding expression of meaning, and this defines us as individuals.  Few people would argue with this.  But what about some sort of ultimate meaning in our lives?  This then begs the question, "Does death lead to eternal oblivion, so that life is ultimately meaningless?"

The Necessary Continuation of Consciousness After Death

We have seen that the abstract world of quantum waves has a reality of its own.  This tells us that certain abstract things have a real existence in another space; a space that is beyond our senses.  We can thus conclude that such things as the equation of a circle may also have a real existence in an abstract space that we cannot observe.

But, if all of this is true, then materialism cannot be a complete worldview; there must be realms of existence that are beyond the physical; an example being the space of possibility waves that exist in the world of the quantum particles.  But this cannot be the end of it, but must be the beginning.  Indeed, with modern man, we have a generalized consensus that says that materialism and reductionism will someday provide all of the answers to our questions about existence.  But our analysis of quantum physics tells us that this is not true.  Also, it appears certain that our consciousnesses play some vital role in actualizing the quantum world, and this means that we cannot so easily dismiss consciousness as being "merely" the activity of atoms and molecules.

This takes us back to the meaning of our lives.  Yes, we can quite legitimately talk about character development, but what about the ultimate meaning of our lives?  In a thousand years, will we all be eternally unconscious?  If so, then our actions in life will have had no ultimate meaning for us; whether we are good or bad, we would all end up in the same state.  Hitler and Mother Teresa would be equally nonexistent.

Thus, if our lives are to have any ultimate meaning, then there must be some form of continued existence after death, and that existence would have to involve the reappearance of our consciousnesses.  This is the only solution.

But, if our consciousnesses are to someday reappear, and if we are to understand how this is possible, then consciousness must have discoverable properties that allow for its reappearance after death.  This would then suggest that there must be a nonphysical space in which information, about an individual, can reside through life and after death, when the brain decays into total inactivity.  Or, stated differently, a man or woman must have something that could be described by the word "soul."  The soul would then be defined through the ways that we express ourselves in life, and it would regenerate the consciousness after death.

This is a somewhat mechanistic view of life after death; it does not invoke a "Prime Mover," except to argue for a super-consciousness in which abstract things exist.  Also, we have not tried to deduce how one's soul will cause a reappearance of one's consciousness.

What we have is a view where we have a soul that carries the seed of our consciousnesses.  We shape this soul by the way that we conduct ourselves in life.  Then, when we die, the soul continues to exist in an abstract space and later regenerates our individual consciousnesses.  Perhaps our souls regenerate our consciousnesses in another realm of existence, or perhaps they do so by reproducing us in the space-time realms from which we have sprung, in the form of reincarnation.

In all events, for life to have ultimate meaning, then there must be some form of existence after death.  This is well known in academic circles, but some academics dismiss the possibility of any form of existence after death; they say that this is wishful thinking and insist that people who have these ideas are ignorant.  Such academics thus conclude that life is a meaningless journey into eternal oblivion.

Analysis

There are many separate issues involved in what has been presented here, and it is not being suggested that these are ironclad ideas.  Yet, some quite simple ideas are beyond debate.  In particular, it is clear that, for the individual, life can have no ultimate meaning if there is not some form of existence after death.  And we cannot speak of life being fair or just if Mother Teresa and Adolph Hitler share the same fate.

But this then means that the search for ultimate meaning in life centers around whether consciousness eternally vanishes at the moment of death or if it exists again and again, so as to have eternal presence, even if it sometimes vanishes for long periods of time.  Thus, if one does insist that life simply has to have some ultimate meaning, then one is required to conclude that consciousness does not eternally vanish at the time of death.

But this then means that people who believe that life has ultimate meaning must reject materialism, and that means that there must be forms of existence that are nonphysical.

However, when the subject of nonphysical forms of existence is raised, many people will say this is nonsense.  To them, this smacks of talk about invisible forces.  Yet, we know that there are invisible forms of force, such as the gravitational force.  We can also conclude that the physical world exists in an abstract space until consciousness actualizes it.  From this, it is also reasonable to conclude that human consciousness has some properties that are not described by materialism.

So, we can quite legitimately talk of consciousness having special properties, and we can legitimately speak of nonphysical forms of existence.  These are steps that seem necessary if we are to conclude that we have such things as "souls" and will have reappearing consciousnesses after death.

But it should be recognized that this is not a proof that there is life after death.  Rather, what it establishes is a set of conditions that appear to be necessary if there is to be some way for information about our lives to be "stored" in a real and separate reality.

It is clear that materialism denies the existence of a soul, and materialists insist that consciousness is an epiphenomenona of the brain; the brain "bubbles off" consciousness, or at least that is the materialist's idea.  Yet, the results of quantum physics lead to alternate views of consciousness; one can conclude that consciousness must have special properties.  In the same vein, quantum physics can lead to belief in a real, yet abstract, reality that becomes actualized when we make observations.

But these seem to be the necessary ingredients for a worldview where consciousness does not eternally vanish at the time of death, and that is what must happen if life is to have some form of ultimate meaning.

Free Will and Materialism

The materialist's worldview involves a conception of all of existence as material, in the form of particles that have mass and/or energy.  These particles obey the laws of physics, and they also have randomness associated with them.  Hence, the materialist thinks of the brain as a bubbling system of particles that emits consciousness, and part of this is due merely to randomness.

But, if the materialist's view of existence is correct, then there cannot really be such a thing as "free will."  The properties of various particles, the laws of physics and randomness would all combine to dictate all that is; there would be nothing that any one of us could do to shape or mold our character; we would all be the product of natural events.

So, if we take materialism to its logical conclusion, then not only would death lead to eternal unconsciousness, but it would also be true that no one would be responsible for anything, for the aforementioned natural phenomena would determine each and every thought and action of every person in the universe.  With this view, we would be deluding ourselves about our ability to make decisions or "mold" our character.

Thus, with materialism taken to an extreme, life is totally devoid of meaning, and anyone who thinks otherwise is alleged to be completely wrong.  It would thus be impossible to talk about good and bad behavior, so it would make no sense to have rewards and punishments; nor would it be proper to judge anyone for anything; mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler would be equal, for example.

However, we can turn this argument around by asserting that each of us does have at least some degree of free will, and that would mean that materialism cannot be completely valid; it could only be partly valid.  This is very similar to saying that life must have some form of ultimate meaning, which then tells us that death cannot lead to eternal oblivion.

More specifically, by proposing certain things about the nature of existence, we can reach certain conclusions.  By asserting that life has some sort of ultimate meaning, we conclude that death cannot lead to eternal nothingness, and by asserting the existence of free will, we find that materialism cannot be perfectly true.

But we can go further: If we assert that there is such a thing as "free will," then that means that our consciousnesses must have properties that are not completely defined through materialism.  This would then mean that our consciousnesses do not have to be simply the excreted product of brain activity, and that means that a certain part of our consciousnesses would not have to permanently vanish at the time of death.  This opens the door for some part of the individual to survive death.

The concept of the individual and his (or her) free will, or lack of it, is thus bound up with the question of whether materialism is a completely valid worldview.  Also, life cannot have any ultimate meaning if materialism is perfectly valid.  So, while materialism does help us to answer many questions about existence, it is not the case that we should blindly embrace this view (in totality).  Indeed, the very nature of the human experience is linked to these questions.

Now, it might not be very "logical," but it nevertheless seems reasonable to avoid assuming that life is a meaningless journey into eternal oblivion.  It is thus reasonable to not fully subscribe to materialism.  So, while many people might be quite anxious to adopt materialism, wise men and women will question this.  Indeed, are we ready to say that murderers and rapists should have the same stature as a kind and benevolent person who does no harm to anyone?  And are we ready to teach our children that all moral values are meaningless.  The reasonable answer would seem to be "no."

However, the cynic is liable to say, "Well, show me your soul."  Or he might say, "It is ignorant to believe in things that have no scientific basis."  But could we also not say that it is stupid to believe that all of existence is meaningless?  And is there no place for intuition and common sense to play a role in understanding life?  Yes, it is true that intuition can sometimes be wrong, but intuition is also what leads to many important ideas and discoveries.

And is it not true that gravitational fields are invisible?  So, must we always trust in the view that things must be seen to be believed?  The answer is no; and with gravitational fields, Newton posited their existence (as an idea) long before their actual discovery.

Conclusion:  Articles of Faith

From quantum physics it can be concluded that consciousness has unusual properties, and our analysis suggests that the posited existence of free will would require that human consciousness not be described in terms of pure materialism.  We have also seen that life can have no ultimate meaning if death leads to eternal extinction of human consciousness.  Thus, there are reasons for believing that death is not properly described by the materialist.

Yet, a complete proof of what we desire is lacking, and that means those who want to believe that life has meaning must rely on intuition and faith.  But what we are not asking is proof for the existence of angels or other invisible beings; we are just setting forth the idea that faith in the meaning of life has a logical foundation.

But let us also recognize that many rational and very bright people fully believe in materialism, and it is true that the paradigms of the materialist do often provide us with many answers about the nature of existence.  Yet, materialism seems to be incomplete.

Robert W. Koontz
November, 1999