Is it possible to know what it is like to be an electron? On the face of it, the question seems ridiculous. Humans are far distant from electrons on the ladder of existence. We place ourselves at the top, and electrons near the bottom. As far as we know, there is nothing that it is like to be an electron. An electron does not have the self-awareness necessary for a sense of what it is like to be anything.

So logically it is impossible for us to know what it is like to be an electron, as impossible as knowing what it is like to be an atom, or a molecule, or a cell, or a blood vessel, or even an arm or a leg. There is nothing that it is like to be any of these things.

Yet we are comprised of all these things. There is something that it is like to be these things together. We are conscious of the combination into what we experience as a nebulous sense of self. And that self has a sense of what it is like to consist of separate components. We reach for things and appreciate having arms, hands, fingers. We walk and feel what it is like to have legs, feet, and toes. We experience pain when a part of us is injured. We are aware intellectually of cells, proteins, and the function of DNA. We are aware even of molecules, atoms, and quantum wavicles.

So why does our sense of self seem to exclude awareness of what it is like to be these separate things? How can it be that we are not aware at all of what it is like to be the things of which we are made?

The seeming hierarchy of awareness

We often think of awareness and consciousness as binary experiences. You are either conscious or not conscious, aware or not aware. But the metes and bounds of awareness and consciousness—what it is like to be something—may be as nebulous as our sense of self. Awareness is not constant and unchanging. There are different types of awareness, different degrees of awareness, and different moments of awareness that shift with circumstance.

We like to think that our nebulous selves have active awareness and control of our bodies. We stand and walk; we pull up a chair and sit; we think and write. Yet we know that active awareness and control do not extend to all physiological functions. Knees jerk without permission when a doctor taps the patellar tendon. We breathe without instruction. We can stop breathing for a while but eventually breathe anyway. Our active awareness has only partial control of involuntary action. And yet we watch and feel our knees kicking out; we experience air coming into our lungs and then out again; we feel our chests and bellies rising and falling. We are aware.

We have less active control of other involuntary functions. Blood flows automatically. We can’t stop it in the way we pause our breathing. Yet we feel our hearts beating; we see the blue and red vessels; we touch our wrists and count the pulses. We remain somewhat aware.

We are not aware continuously of all our organs. Yet we know when our stomachs and bladders are full or empty; we know when our skin is burned or pale; we know when an appendix causes pain; the same for a gall bladder or a pancreas. Our awareness is variable with time and circumstance.

We are not actively aware of our trillions of cells. Yet our nervous systems monitor cellular activities. Our immune systems look for unfriendly bacteria or viruses. We have physiological awareness of these activities, but no active awareness unless we feel tired, fevered, or ill. We are not aware of water, organic molecules, or inorganic ions in our cells unless we suffer from dehydration, malnutrition, or ion deficiencies.

We are not actively aware, nor even physiologically aware, of the subatomic particles that comprise the atoms and molecules of our cells. Yet we have intellectual awareness. We perform experiments to determine the properties of subatomic particles. We know they engage continuously in quantum interactions that enable larger particles to form and construct cells and organs. We know that we are products of these interactions.

We have only the dimmest intellectual awareness of the quantum fields that vibrate throughout the universe and generate these interactions. Yet we know that every particle and every physical thing is a temporary excitation of these vast and interconnected vibrating fields.

In this continuous hierarchy of levels of awareness, can we ever know exactly where our consciousness begins and where it ends?

Where do “we” begin and end?

We generally assume that “consciousness” extends only to the thin layer of experience of which we are actively aware. We define consciousness as limited to the bounds of subjective awareness. But what if the supposed border of consciousness is more porous than it seems? What if the assumed line of demarcation is entirely of our creation, constructed not on a foundation of biology or physics but only on our fuzzy, subjective experience of the nebulous self?[1]

We know that awareness is not binary, that we experience awareness in different kinds and degrees, that awareness is variable and dynamic. We know that humans can expand awareness. Athletes train themselves to be aware of physical capacities that most do not experience. Mystics and ascetics achieve voluntary control over autonomic body functions through meditation and breathing.

Is it possible that humans have actual or potential awareness of a broader range of physical experience than we usually include within the bounds of consciousness?

I am my body

It is a simple fact that I am a physical being. I am not a supernatural presence that inhabits my body. I do not reside in a magic place somewhere in my brain. I do not preside over a central control room where I oversee the rest of me. There is no physiological or psychological border where I end and the rest of me begins. This organic lump of clay—all of it—is me. All the way down to the quantum wavicles and fields that make me what I am.

I do not have the same awareness of every part of me or every level of my existence. But regardless of my degree of awareness, all these things are part of me. My consciousness includes what it is like to be a combination of these levels of awareness into one nebulous sense of self.

What if that feeling of being me unconsciously or subconsciously includes what it is like to be all of me? We know it does in a literal sense, because that is what “I” am. But what if my actual nebulous sense of self includes partly a nebulous sense of what it is like to be each of the parts of me?

I am what I am made of

I am my brain and arms and legs and heart and lungs and cells. I am the molecules and atoms that comprise my cells and the subatomic particles that comprise my atoms. I am the quantum fields that generate those particles.

Whether I understand it or not, I already know what it is like to be all of the parts of me. Perhaps the sum total of my nebulous sense of self includes a partial sense of what it is like to be a hand, a heart, a lung—what it is like to be a cell or a molecule—what it is like to be a subatomic particle or quantum field. Perhaps my sense of what it is like to be me somehow includes what it is like to be “them”—each of the parts of me.

There are those who believe that consciousness is fundamental to physical existence and that all matter has some consciousness associated with it. They view consciousness as a general property of matter, not exclusive to complex organisms. Others theorize that the ubiquitous process of quantum reduction generates moments of proto-consciousness that can be orchestrated into complex consciousness. They hypothesize that the “choices” made by electrons and the universe through quantum reduction create the foundation for consciousness. That what it is like to be an electron is part of what it is like to be ourselves. Because that is where consciousness begins. That is what we are.

I am my universe

The interconnectedness of the universe is rapidly becoming a truism. It is an accepted fact that the quantum fields underlying all things form a vast network extending across the universe. We are not ultimately separate from each other or from anything else. We are all temporary vibrations of the same quantum fields.

Spiritual philosophers, both religious and secular, talk about connecting with a deeper reality, a sense of “pure consciousness”. Do the quantum fields that comprise and connect all things constitute that deeper reality? Is pure consciousness an awareness of what it is like to be part of that vast interconnected universe? Is it the simple experience of what it is like to be?

What is it like to be an electron?

On its face the question seems ridiculous. But whether we realize it or not, we may already know exactly what it is like to be an electron.

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[1] Something like what Daniel Dennett calls a “center of narrative gravity”. Dennett (1991).