Consciousness and Time

.
Two of the greatest mysteries are consciousness and time.  When combined together, they each have a lot to say about the other.  Indeed, in a sense, each is the other.

Just as it is impossible for us to imagine having no consciousness, so also is it impossible for us to imagine existing in a universe without time.  Therefore, consciousness of time is arguably at the heart of our sensations, along with consciousness of self, and consciousness of consciousness.

Thanks to Einstein, we now understand that space and time are one and the same.  Only our conscious experience separates space-time into two fundamentals.  Also, according to Einstein, energy and matter are one and the same, expressed in the iconic equation, E=MC²

Therefore, all of physical reality can be summarized into the apt acronym, STEM (space-time-energy-matter), the fundamental “stem.”

What this tells us is that our experience of reality is entirely (or mostly) subjective.  It is very unlike our physicalist mathematical models, such as those formulated by Einstein.  Add quantum mechanics (QM) to the mix, and our ordinary experience of reality makes QM seem the stuff of fairy tales by comparison.

Yet, the physicalist models wield enormous authority, thanks not only to abstract mathematics, but also, on the practical level of useful technologies.  Without Relativity and QM, none of our computerized communications systems, upon which modern civilization depends, would function.  That alone is enough to put the swagger into the objectivist, physicalist philosophy.

Despite all that, the physicalist models suffer one fatal defect.  They have been utterly unable to explain consciousness.  More specifically, they cannot explain our inward experience of consciousness—not only unable to explain it, but even to define it.  In the physicalist grand scheme, there is no place for inward awareness in the universe.  It is neither necessary nor predicted, and in physicalist science, if a phenomenon is not predictable according to the rules, then its existence is a nonfactor at least, a contradiction at most.

Any theory of consciousness must be inextricably intertwined with life and free will (volition).  Without life, consciousness would be static, and without free will, it would be passive, making us witnesses to our own lives, but not participants.

Physicalism fails to separate life from its chemical processes, equating them both to each other.  This equation fails to explain why all the physical constants of the universe seem intelligently designed to enable and support life, civilization and advanced technology, relegating this central feature of the universe to mere coincidence, or to an even less likely model, that of infinite universes.

More extremely, physicalism requires itself to rule out any possibility of free will.  In physicalism, every event is strictly determined by cause and effect.  Nothing is optional.  But the existence of free will, without which life and existence itself would be a meaningless farce, demolishes physicalism utterly.  Moreover, the existence of free will imparts accountability to our decisions.  While free will may not always be a factor (for example in reflexes), it is at the least the deciding factor in moral decisions.

Moral decision-making, in turn, requires the existence of moral standards—standards not set by fallible human reasoning, but by the infallible, supreme authority of the living God.

Physicalism has utterly nothing whatsoever to say about morality, (right or wrong, good or evil) except to deny that there can be any objective moral standard at all.  While physicalists as individual persons may set moral standards for themselves, or have personal opinions regarding the morality of actions by others, the physicalist paradigm rejects all that as nonfactual.

Returning to the topic of consciousness and time, Relativity seems to picture the universe as a static “loaf” of space-time, in which the past, present and future are already established and unchangeable.  This is incompatible with free will, and seems also to be incompatible with QM.

With free will, the future is in the realm of uncertainty, and is therefore alterable by our decisions (to however slight a degree).  In QM there is even the strange suggestion that the past itself is uncertain, and therefore, alterable.  An alterable past seems very peculiar, but it may not be entirely impossible.

That is because time and consciousness are closely linked.  Time, unless it is experienced by conscious, living, volitional creatures, is not the same as mathematical time.  In mathematical time, the past can be reconstructed according to formulas.  However, until that past is experienced (albeit indirectly by computation), it does not truly exist in the realm of certainty.  It is an uncollapsed cloud of probability.

Therefore, the age of the universe is of two dimensions:  one calculated, one experienced (by humans).  The calculated age of the universe is about 13.7 billion years, the humanly experienced age is closer to 6,000 years, more in accord with Biblical texts.

Consciousness of time is one of the dominant characteristics of the human experience, and incorporates two profound mysteries.  It is not a mystery we can solve, but we need not solve every mystery.  Some of them are better savored than answered.

-