Philosophical Fragments by Adam J. Pearson

By Adam J. Pearson

Darryl S., a practitioner of a nondual spirituality which holds that awareness is the ultimate reality and gives rise to the physical universe, once told me that “the relative is made only of my [awareness's] brilliance. The relative is the experiential realm, and we have a birth right to experience it freely. This is the greatest shared human potential – to do so in conjunction with the [blissful] recognition of it.”

He went on to ask me, “What is prior to awareness if the name ‘awareness’ is an improper pointer to the eternal knowledge principle, for you? Note that I am not referring to ‘personal’ awareness – for that is the very mistake of incorrect association. My brilliance is Awareness’ brilliance for I am none other than That. Awareness is that in which the universe appears.”

My response was not as affirmative as he might have hoped. Here is the discussion that followed:

Adam: There is no such thing as an eternal knowledge principle, I argued. All knowledge is relative to impermanent organisms that live and die over time. Awareness is an emergent property of physical structures and a development made possible by the emergence of brains of a sufficient level of complexity and adequately developed organs for physical sensation (e.g. through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, etc.).

It is not that the physical universe emerges from awareness, but that awareness, a fleeting and impermanent phenomenon like the organisms on which it depends, emerges from the physical universe. The evolution of the physical universe gave rise to awareness, not the other way around. Awareness is not an “absolute field in which the universe appears.” Rather, the awareness of a given organism is the representation, built up by its brain activity and its brain’s processing of information from all of its senses, of its inner activity and external world.

Awareness is not some absolute reality. It is simply the property of physical organisms (and specifically, their cognitive and sensory systems) that allows them to be cognizant of phenomena within and around themselves. Far from being absolute, it is relative to particular mortal organisms. When a given organism dies, its awareness, which depends on a functioning brain and functioning sensory organs, dies with it.

Awareness in and of itself cannot give rise to any physical phenomenon; it is impotent, a passive interface through which an organism experiences itself and its world. It is a form of relation (between an organism and a stimulus) and nothing more grandiose than that. Awareness is the phenomenological interface through which organisms become conscious of things so that they can navigate their environments. It’s purely biological and not in any way spiritual at all. Those who treat awareness like an absolute Ground for Everything or a God or an Absolute Reality are going beyond the facts and falling prey to a fallacious and unjustified solipsism.

Adam: For physical organisms, awareness is very important because it is through their awareness that organisms come to experience themselves and their environment. In the vast sweep of the universe beyond the Earth, however, awareness is not important at all. Were all aware organisms to die out, the universe would continue its operations; stars would continue to be born in nebulae, galaxies would continue to form and cluster, and the cosmic dance of stars, planets, comets, and asteroids would continue.

Neither human awareness nor the awareness of any other creature is vital to the survival and persistence of the physical universe as a whole and we should not delude ourselves into believing otherwise. Awareness makes all the wonders of science, experience, and technology possible, but the existence of the universe does not depend on it. For us, it is vital, but for the distant galaxies and planets far beyond us, it could not be more insignificant.

Darryl: Your position is clear. In no way can I agree with it. Objects create sentience? By my own experiences of the universe appearing in me, of out of body experiences and of leaving the entire creation followed by witnessing it’s rebirth – without moving or changing one bit from this knowing sentience/awareness – I have absolutely no doubt that I am not confined to this body mind instrument. Rather, it is all known to me.

Adam: You talk as if sentience existed independently of particular mortal organisms. However, we never find it except in conjunction with a given living organism. It is humans that are aware, animals that are sentient, etc. Awareness does not exist on its own, nor does sentience; it does not exist anywhere except as tied to temporary, fleeting, impermanent organisms. When they die, it is extinguished with them.

Indeed, you are confusing your own representation of the universe within your consciousness, made possible by your functioning brain and structured by your senses, with the existence of the universe as such. Organisms die all the time, however, and the universe does not cease to exist in any objective sense when they die. What dies with them is their personal experience and picture of that universe, the picture of the universe built up by their senses and brains.

Your very knowingness, sentience, and awareness do not give rise to the universe, rather, they are made possible only by your physical body. They depend on it intimately and deeply. When your physical body dies, the awareness, sentience, and knowingness that are so familiar and intimate to your present experience, will come to an end. Without functioning eyes, there is no experience or awareness of sights. Without functioning ears, there is no experience or awareness of sounds. Without functioning taste receptors, there is no experience or awareness of tastes, and so on for all of the other aspects of awareness. Senses build up awareness; it is not the other way around. When the senses cease to function, so does awareness.

Darryl: ‎Awareness shines on the apparent elemental realm and awareness is experienced [as the appearance of knowing in relation to objects].  How can anything be known without the capacity to know it being present prior to it? Even scientists tell us that the universe [relative creation] is made of ‘space’ or ‘no tangible thing’ at it’s origin.

Adam: The capacity to know is present prior to any act of knowing. But we must also ask what must be present for the capacity to know to arise. That is, what are the sufficient and necessary conditions of the capacity to know?

Those conditions are physical in nature: to know you are seeing the colour red for instance, you need functioning physical eyes with working retinas, rods, and three types of cone structures. You need a working brain to interpret the stimulus. You need a language through which to process the concept of red and apply it to this sensory stimulus and you need a working memory from which to retrieve the label ‘red.’

The same is true for any other sensory experience and any other form of knowing. If you trace it back to the capacity to know it and inquire into what underpins this capacity or makes it possible, you’ll find a host of physical conditions. Without these, it does not arise. It depends on fleeting physical conditions and is, therefore, itself fleeting and impermanent.

Moreover, scientists do not say that the universe is made of “space” at its origin. The present scientific understanding says that the continuum of space-time only emerged at the Big Bang. What came before the Big Bang, we cannot say. We honestly do not yet know. There are multiple competing theories, but there is insufficient evidence to settle the matter.

I’ll summarize our positions so they are clear. Darryl, you hold that awareness is the ultimate ground of the physical universe, exists independent of the physical bodies of particular organisms, is powerful in that it gives rise to everything, is eternal and never arises or comes to an end, and that enlightenment is waking up to the realization that you are this awareness in which all appears.

In stark opposition to this perspective, I hold that awareness is a relative phenomenon that arises for individual organisms of a certain level of neural and physiological complexity; that awareness exists dependently on the physical bodies of particular organisms; that awareness is impotent in that it gives rise to nothing, is fleeting and arises as an organism develops and comes to an end when that organism dies; and that awareness is only a facet of what we are. I feel great wonder at the physical universe from which we spring and with which we are continuous and do not reduce myself to awareness, which is only an aspect of what I am.

Darryl: For the most part I agree with your summary.You say awareness requires objects. I say you are speaking of the ‘experience’ of awareness, which requires objects – but that awareness exists prior to such object based experiences of itself.

Adam:  I don’t see a difference between the ‘experience’ of awareness and awareness as such. Awareness is the phenomenological interface (the experienced medium) through which all experience happens, including experience the of awareness itself. That interface depends, for its very existence, on the physiological structures and functions of the physical organism from which it arises.

For this reason, I hold awareness to be dependent, relative, and impermanent in nature. It looks as though our perspectives are too conflicting for us to come to an agreement, but thank you for the stimulating discussion. It has helped me to clarify my own position and I hope it has done the same for you.