If the idea of a universal consciousness is a challenge for philosophers and sages, it’s even harder for scientists. Consciousness remains unresolved, with no consensus theory to explain subjective experience—what David Chalmers famously called “the hard problem.” Despite advances in neuroscience, no one has convincingly shown how physical processes give rise to qualia: the felt, first-person texture of awareness.
Quantum physics, with its counterintuitive properties, has emerged as a speculative but intriguing domain for exploring consciousness. Faggin—a physicist best known for inventing the microprocessor—argues in his book Irreducible that science has it backwards: consciousness is not a byproduct of matter, but the foundation from which matter arises.
To illustrate, Faggin distinguishes between information (which can be copied and transferred) and qualia (which cannot). A computer might identify the chemical signature of a rose—that’s information. But it will never experience the scent of a rose. Likewise, when I say “I love you” to my son Solomon, the phrase conveys some data, for sure. But not the depth of the feeling behind it. That feeling—the qualia—is private, irreducible, and ineffable. Solomon receives the words and forms his own internal emotional response, but no amount of language can transmit the subjective experience of love within me.
To account for this, Faggin and physicist Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano propose Quantum Information Panpsychism: the idea that quantum information processes are linked to conscious experience. The privacy and indivisibility of quantum states (e.g., the no-cloning theorem) resemble the non-transferable nature of qualia. In their view, consciousness may be woven into the very structure of quantum reality.
Faggin goes further, asserting that free will is intrinsic to consciousness, a theme this book will return to later. For now, it’s enough to say that one serious theory—developed by a physicist of great technical credibility—posits that consciousness is not only real, but fundamental. And it aligns remarkably well with the framework we’ve been building.
A Purely Logical Approach
If you accept the existence of anything infinite—God, the soul, consciousness, heaven, hell, or otherwise—then it follows that there can be only one infinite thing. To posit two infinites implies that the first does not fully encompass the second, which means it wasn’t truly unbounded to begin with.
Now, you might argue that there can be multiple infinite things, as long as they’re infinite in only one dimension. For example, you can imagine a being that is immortal, and thus infinite in the dimension of time, but not in space or capability. You could imagine a being that is omnipresent, but fleeting. Or you could imagine a being that is omnipotent, but not omnipresent. But if something is truly infinite, it is unbounded and unlimited.
While this proves nothing about the existence of consciousness, it does add some plausibility to the idea we are exploring: if something like a soul exists, and if that soul is infinite, then it cannot be separate. It is part of one infinite thing – a universal consciousness. God. Two truly infinite things cannot coexist. If consciousness is infinite, it must be singular. And thus, if consciousness is real, I believe it must be shared.
Clarification
I believe that consciousness is fundamental to the material universe, not an emergent property of it. I believe consciousness is everywhere, and in everything. But this is absolutely not the same thing as saying that the rocks in my garden are conscious, as is the garden box and all the plants within it. Panpsychism is a close relative to what I am proposing here – consciousness is primary. But when we add the filter of indifferentism to this idea, we reach a perhaps more useful framework for consciousness.
There are very large rocks and very large animals, and oceans that make everything else look miniscule. All of these dwarf a human in the sheer volume of matter – ostensibly matter that is infused with consciousness. So, why do I not propose that such larger masses are more conscious than we are? In the spirit of focusing on utility, I am not able to answer the question of what the mechanism is to allow humans, at their best, to be seemingly “more conscious” than blue whales or elephants or mountains.
Let’s keep it to our own species for a moment: I have no idea whether Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein or the Dalai Lama are more conscious than each other, or than I am. But I’ll tip my hat to the Stoics here: I don’t care about the answer to that question. I can’t know if a rat or a dolphin, to use Douglas Adams’ top two earthly intelligences, is actually more conscious, self-aware, or attuned than a human can be. What I do know is that I can do better. And therefore, I should definitely try to do better. That’s the only thing that matters here – we clearly have agency, even if it’s imagined, to try harder. Why shouldn’t we?
I’d like to think that I’m adding an answer to the question “so what” that arose very naturally for me, when reading Harris’ or Faggin’s works. Why should their revelatory theories matter to me, personally, in the here and now? It turns out, I believe that the implications of their work are urgently important to putting out the flames that engulf us.