On the function and evolution of consciousness as a complex electric field

How and why did consciousness evolve?

At its root, all behavior is either attraction (acceptance/desire/love) or repulsion (rejection/dislike/hate). These two options are binary at the fundamental level. But due to the analog nature of nature, the combination of many subsidiary levels of attraction or repulsion results in the many rich shades of experience that you and I enjoy.

Consciousness is, accordingly, based upon a fundamental binary or pseudobinary attraction-and-repulsion-behavior repertoire.

It is electrical (electric field) binding of the various constituents of consciousness in biological organisms that allows for a unity of attraction or repulsion to arise in each organism, in each moment. This unity of affect is also the basis for mobile unity in each organism, in each moment. How does any organism decide what to do at any given moment? The macro-decision about movement at the organismic level results from the summing of the various subsidiary desires and repulsions, working their way up the hierarchy of decision-making. This chain of decision-making can and does change dramatically over the course of time.

Electrical binding (allowing each component to become part of a unitary electrical field) is the most common physical mechanism for the combination of consciousness. Electrical binding occurs in its most advanced form in organisms with brains and other types of nervous system components. Electrical fields are complex and ever-changing, as measured by various types of EEG for over a century now.

While electrical fields have often been thought to be a marker of consciousness, or even an epiphenomenon (a causally unimportant spandrel or side effect), it has become increasingly clear that electrical fields are in fact the seat of human consciousness (and neuron-based consciousness more generally because neurons function primarily through creation of electrical fields).

It is the electrical field that allows for such fast actions to occur in organisms of all types, and particularly in animals with neurons. Electrochemical, mechanical, or purely chemical forces are no where near fast enough to explain the speed of effects in mammalian cortex and other types of minds. Electric fields, once propagated, can change their internal dynamics at up to the speed of light. And with such changes to the field the contents of consciousness also change, in direct proportion to changes in the field.

Electric fields, while being “physical” in themselves, are produced by more a substantial type of physicality, namely the biological matter of the nervous system — in organisms that have nervous systems. So while electric fields can and do change at the speed of light, the underlying physical substrate changes much slower, giving rise to various bottlenecks in the rate of change of consciousness. For example, human vision has a temporal resolution of about 1/18th or 1/20th of a second, based on the various bottlenecks between retinal inputs and conscious outputs.

These reflections allow us to offer an explanation for the function of consciousness. To a behaviorist or functionalist, explaining consciousness is a substantial challenge. It seems to be epiphenomenal. And yet, as human beings, we know rather intimately the veridicality and immediacy of consciousness.

If we reject the notion of epiphenomenal consciousness, what evolutionary function does it serve?

Consciousness is the leading edge of problem solving and thus survival. Consciousness allows, even in relatively simple forms, a feeling for the world around the organism and some type of modeling of potential futures for that organism. A shrew smells food in one direction but then smells a cat in the same direction. What to do? The shrew’s little mind can contemplate probably only a couple of possible futures in each moment. Should it wait and see if the cat moves away? Should it go for the food now?

Whitehead, as with many things, touches on this key role of consciousness, as described by Victor Lowe in his book, Understanding Whitehead (p. 53): Whitehead “advances a striking thesis about consciousness…Consciousness is how we feel [the] contrast between ‘in fact’ and ‘might be.’”

This ability to contemplate different futures has reached its apex, as far as we know, in humans. We can contemplate many possible futures in each moment. And fret about all of them. We are anxious creatures, we modern humans.

Evolutionarily, consciousness is the leading edge of problem-solving, performing that role until evolution achieves a way for subconscious processes to perform specific tasks. As each type of task is taken over by a subconscious entity it frees up the conscious mind to focus on more complex problems. This constitutes the march of consciousness as we scale the ladder of evolutionary complexity. The evolution of life is the evolution of mind.

The types of problems solvable by conscious minds have grown in magnitude as consciousness has grown in complexity and magnitude. A bacterium’s consciousness is, presumably, closely bounded to the present moment. Its ability to remember the past and project the future is likely quite limited. Thus its problem-solving abilities are proportionally limited. The cause of human anxiety is specifically based on our long memories and our long projected futures. Our expanded present moment, with its included memories and projected futures, is the cause of our anxiety.

Beyond problem-solving through projecting possible futures, which we presume to be present in even very simple consciousnesses to a limited degree, consciousness acts as a guide to behavior through its evolved pains and pleasures, based, again, inevitably on the fundamental binary of attraction and repulsion. These attractions and repulsions are always accompanied by affect. There is no attraction behavior without accompanying affect; no repulsion behavior without affect.

Life has harnessed the various information pathways in biological organisms because of their efficiency and speed. Electrical fields are the seat of complex consciousness because electrical fields can change at up to the speed of light, and can exchange information at such speeds at large distances. Electrochemical pathways perform key roles, but they are lower in the hierarchy of the machinery of consciousness specifically because they are so much slower than electrical field transmission.

So it is the infinite numbers of tiny pushes and pulls that, when electrically combined together in large numbers and through various levels of hierarchy, lead to the advanced type of consciousness that humans and other mammals enjoy.