The materialist worldview is one that I find particularly depressing. It basically states that consciousness is nothing more than a product of brain function, and it dies out when the brain dies. This is sort of the “lights out” approach to what happens after death. We just stop existing, end of story. But is consciousness attached to the brain? It doesn’t look like it.
As with so many things that once seemed scientifically absurd, quantum mechanics can help us understand how something immaterial like the mind can affect the physical body and even survive the body’s death. One tiny example is the fact that photons, for instance, act like a wave when they aren’t being observed. And as is the case with waves, the photon sort of goes out in all directions without a particular location. In this situation, several different possible realities can actually be present at once. The photon can be in multiple places at the same time. But once we observe the photon, however, it stops acting like a wave and starts acting like a particle, giving itself a specific location. The simple act of consciously observing this photon actually has the power to change it. It stops being a field of possibilities and changes into a specific, physical particle. This concept helps us sort of dabble with the idea that the physical things we see may be rooted in consciousness, not the other way around.
A physicist named Freeman Dyson once said,
Atoms in the laboratory are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances. They make unpredictable choices between alternative possibilities according to the laws of quantum mechanics. It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom.”
What Dyson says here is mind blowing. He is literally saying that atoms can make choices. He claims that the universe itself essentially has a mind. If everything has a sort of mind, then a lot more questions begin to make sense. For instance, most of us have heard that without the explosion of dying stars, which spew heavy atomic elements into the universe, we wouldn’t have the various elements needed to form our bodies. Without those events in the distant past, plus the miraculous formation of our own sun, and our own beautiful planet, the conditions would have never been right for our eventual births. All of these random events led to us. But was it all random? Or was there a mind behind everything? Was each atom of the universe acting with a collective mind to consciously create something out of infinite possibility? If the mind pre-dates us, and even possibly engineered our own conditions for life, then it’s easy to see that the mind can survive the physical death of these bodies we inhabit.
Another physicist named John Wheeler came up with a thought experiment that showed how conscious observers here and now can affect events in the past. His experiment shows us that when astronomers make measurements on earth, it can actually affect the path that light particles take from quasars billions of years before the observation actually took place. Wheeler suggests that the universe on the quantum level is a place where not only the future is undetermined, but also the past. We, as conscious observers, can help choose which sort of universe we live in, as well as which sort of past our universe had. He emphasizes that without factoring in consciousness, he can’t imagine a way to fully understand the universe we live in.
So what does this mean about things like prayer? Not only have studies shown positive effects from “distant healing,” or praying for someone’s health, but other studies also show that through prayer, people can affect other processes including plant growth, how well animals recover from anesthesia, the growth of animal tumors, etc. Our consciousness, though invisible to us, has the incredible power to affect many things outside of ourselves.
This also relates to the study of Near Death Experiences, or NDEs for short. Many near death experiences are absolutely wild. My favorite NDE comes from a woman named Anita Moorjani, who wrote a beautiful book called Dying To Be Me. Her case was very well documented and she reported that during her near death experience, she was not only able to see and hear what was going on around her body with the hospital staff and her family, but she was simultaneously able to see what her brother was doing on his airplane flight out to see her. She was able to give such specific information about what people were doing and saying during her NDE, that what she claimed was actually corroborated by those involved. This shows that not only did her consciousness survive death, but it was able to receive and retain information without the aid of the body or brain. It did this independently.
Thoughts On Nature Consciousness: The science uncovering the lives of trees is quite remarkable. Trees, it turns out, can talk to one another and are actually very dependent on this communication for their survival. When a giraffe chomps on the leaves of acacia trees, for example, the trees obviously don’t care much for this. They need their leaves to produce sugar for their own energy supplies and health, so giraffes are a big issue. Minutes after the giraffes start eating, the trees start producing toxic substances and send them straight to the leaves. Eventually the giraffes take the hint and move on to a fresh tree. But they do not move to the neighboring tree. Why? Because the neighbor had been warned. The tree enduring the threat (the tree being eaten) sends off a warning gas called ethylene that warns the neighboring trees about the danger. The trees who are in close enough proximity to receive the warning gas also fill their leaves with toxins to defend themselves. The giraffes therefore must move to trees far enough away from the original tree, in order to find leaves that have not been pumped full of toxins.
Trees also act in solidarity in the forest. Since the micro-climate of the forest is so sensitive, any negative alteration can affect the forest as a whole. For instance, if trees die, there will be openings in the canopy of leaves that shade the ground. If this happens, the ground below can become very hot and the soil can become dry. This is not something that is good for the forest as a whole, so every tree life matters. When one tree is sick or perhaps unable to receive enough water for itself, the trees who are experiencing abundant conditions transfer the tree-in-need the sugar and water it needs to survive. This is all done through the underground root system. Trees are able to communicate to each other where dangers are, they are able to communicate what they need, and they are able to transfer vital nutrients to other trees to ensure their survival. A tree knows it is only as strong as the forest it calls home. Trees literally have their own form of social security.
I mention this to show that trees do not have brains, and yet they are extremely “smart” nonetheless. They are conscious beings fully capable of communication, understanding, and lending support. This should lead us to consider the mysterious lives of other plants and grasses. The earth is overflowing with conscious beings and this consciousness all seems to be connected and important to the whole. This is one of the tragedies about humans causing such harm to the planet. We cause harm largely for monetary profit, but we don’t even fully understand what it is that we are destroying. There is hope though if you found John Wheeler’s theory to hold any value. Perhaps if humans wake up to the beauty around us, and we embrace our own consciousness and the consciousness of all life, maybe we can actually alter our own past and help cure the ills we’ve wrought onto this planet. Continuing to live in this materialist worldview needs to end. There is so much more to this life that we simply cannot see. Waking up to our own unbounded consciousness could be the most powerful thing we ever do.
Sources:
The Test: Stéphane Allix
Before: Jim B. Tucker
You Are The Universe: Deepak Chopra & Menas C. Kafatos
The Hidden Life of Trees: Peter Wohlleben
Dying To Be Me: Anita Moorjani
Very thought provoking. Rational without being preachy and dogmatic. This is a good read.