The Nature of Consciousness

Piero Scaruffi

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These are excerpts and elaborations from my book "The Nature of Consciousness"

Zero-point Consciousness

Another popular candidate for a quantum theory of consciousness, formulated notably by  the Hungarian philosopher Erwin Laszlo, is the zero-point energy, the energy of the vacuum, which, according to Quantum Physics, is not zero because fluctuations always occur. More than 99% of all physical "matter" consists of a vacuum, and this yields a huge amount of zero-point energy.  Laszlo believes that David Bohm's "in-formation" (an active form of information that shapes the informing agent) as the fundamental constituent of the universe expressed through a ubiquitous field that originates from the quantum vacuum. All universes originate in the quantum vacuum and evolve thanks to it. The vacuum generates a holographic field that encodes everything in spacetime. The Big Bang did not create it, but it amplified its fluctuations. Consciousness too is created by the quantum vacuum, and it too permeates the entire universe. Everything in the universe is interconnected thanks to that "Akashic" field. 

The holographic field not only connects things but creates coherence. The intensity of the connection (and mutual influence) between two things is proportional to how similar the two things are. We are "in-formed" more by other humans than by, say, trees; but, ultimately, we are in-formed by everything in the universe, and the holographic field created by the quantum vacuum is the mediator of such interactions. We are connected in a superconsciousness that evokes Bohm's "implicate order", Carl Jung's “collective unconscious” and Teilhard de Chardin's “noosphere”. Since the holographic field is a memory of everything in spacetime, it is also a memory of our selves. This means that our experience is eternal. Our experience becomes part of the universe, and in-forms others.

In general, the US physicist William Tiller postulated the existence of a class of natural phenomena called "subtle energies", beyond the four fundamental forces, which are supposed to act on consciousness.

 


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