If consciousness is an attribute of material reality, and all material reality is connected, must all consciousness also be connected? The logical answer is yes, a conclusion which we have accepted as a consequence of the connections between matter and energy in space and the existence of consciousness as part of the material universe.

The physical connections are obvious. Space is not empty but instead inhabited by forces and fields that surround objects throughout the universe, shaping even the progress of light and time. “Objects” are not themselves unique and separable, but intimately intertwined at the quantum level.[1] All material reality is connected. Once we accept that consciousness is a core component of material reality, the fact of connected consciousness is as obvious as the bending of light around large objects in spacetime. All consciousness is connected because all matter and energy are connected.

It is simple logic, but still an abstract theoretical conclusion. What does it mean practically? How do we experience connected consciousness?

Consciousness may be shared as matter and energy are shared

Consciousness is a component of physical reality and is built on a shared physical foundation. Atomic and subatomic particles of matter are the same across the universe. It does not matter what system the particles comprise; particles of matter, physical forces, and energy are the same elements regardless of the system. They share characteristics and are part of the same reserve of matter and energy that forms all material reality.

Logically, instances of consciousness may exist in different forms in different systems, but still must share some characteristics because they spring from the same reserve of matter and energy and the same entangled quantum microcosm that comprises physical reality. It may seem obvious, but consciousness does not appear to be unique to each conscious entity or each instance of consciousness; rather consciousness as an experience is shared in different forms among all conscious entities, with the primal desire “not to die” as perhaps the most fundamental shared feature of all consciousness.

Certainly human consciousness is not unique to each human being. At times it may seem vaguely plausible to imagine that each person experiences consciousness differently from others, but the proposition is nonsensical when weighed against the vast physical and mental similarities that allow humans to create overwhelmingly shared experiences such as language, culture, and civilization. Looking at the history and volume of shared experience and shared consciousness among our species, individual consciousness seems more a temporary loan from the group mind than an unshared, unique experience.

We know little about how other known species experience consciousness, but even apart from the desire not to die, we observe various forms of awareness and intelligence that seem both shared within the species and of a general nature that is not completely alien to our own sense of consciousness. We know even less about conscious entities elsewhere in the universe. But given the shared characteristics of matter and energy across the universe, and the assumption of consciousness as an attribute of material reality, it is not unreasonable to conclude that consciousness has some shared characteristics across all conscious entities in the universe.

To put it metaphorically, just as there is a lake of connected matter and energy that is shared across the universe and comprises all physical reality, there very likely may be a lake of connected consciousness that is shared across the universe as well.

Consciousness affects other consciousness

Consciousness has the ability to affect other consciousness. The actions and decisions of conscious entities have an impact on other conscious entities and material reality. Those effects cannot be removed or destroyed or assumed away. Consciousness is connected in that way, just as matter is connected to other matter.

Consciousness seeks and creates connection with other consciousness

We often think of connected consciousness as a form of mystical oneness. But at an empirical level, there are many ordinary, non-mystical ways that conscious beings create connected consciousness.

Conscious entities are known to communicate and form connections through communication, even to create language specifically for the purpose of connection. Conscious entities mate and reproduce, form simple and more complex societies, and create culture, all premised on some form of innate or constructed connected consciousness among a group. Desire for connection among conscious humans is so great that we have created a global hive-mind in which we share the minutest details of our lives with every other conscious being of our species. The connections between conscious humans are intense and pervasive.

Consciousness has the ability to experience intense connectedness

While the internet provides recent evidence of global connected consciousness, our species has more longstanding and fundamental means of experiencing intensely connected consciousness. Either due to natural selection or the core properties of physical existence, our species has experiences such as desire, empathy, and love—empirically verifiable experiences that connect conscious beings in deeply intense ways.

The existence and intensity of these experiences may be evidence of a capacity for connected consciousness that exists both in our species and in the universe. The experience of love may be premised on the ability of consciousness to connect with other consciousness—in other words, on the underlying reality of connected consciousness. Alternatively, even if love is nothing more than an illusion promoted through natural selection as a means of propagating the species, it is a shared illusion of intense connectedness. And a shared illusion itself may be a form of connected consciousness, possible only because all consciousness is connected just as all matter and energy are connected.

Is connected consciousness a daily reality as well as a mystical experience?

If consciousness is a core component of the physical universe, do we prove the existence of connected consciousness simply by communicating with other conscious beings? Does connecting with other consciousness through our intentional acts offer sufficient observed, empirical proof that all consciousness is connected? In fact, is interaction among a universe of conscious components the true definition of connected consciousness?

Perhaps the mystics are correct that conscious humans experience oneness through meditation by glimpsing a form of connected consciousness within the universe. Perhaps we also experience oneness directly—with more than a glimpse—simply by connecting with other conscious beings.

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[1] Even more than we can imagine or explain. Quantum entanglement, what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance,” although not yet fully explained, exists empirically and plays a more and more important role in quantum theory and mechanics.