In 1974 philosopher Thomas Nagel famously asked, “What is it like to be a bat?”.[1] His question was meant to illustrate a point about consciousness, namely that a living thing is conscious only if there is something that it is like to be that living thing from the perspective of the thing itself. He said that humans cannot understand what it is like to be a bat because we can describe the bat externally, and we can imagine being a bat, but we can never describe the experience of a bat from the perspective of the bat. That is in large part what many philosophers call the “hard problem” of consciousness. In this view, consciousness is the subjective experience of “what it is like to be” something, whether a human or another living entity.[2] Consciousness requires a sense of self, something that creates a perspective on what it is like to be that particular thing. And that something—subjective experience—cannot be fully described from any external or objective perspective. Therefore, since humans cannot share the subjective experience of a bat, it is impossible to fully describe a bat’s consciousness.

Yet we have much in common with a bat. We are both carbon-based life forms that breathe air and consume organic material. We are both mammals. We both experience life and death as physical creatures seeking to survive, mate, and persist. More fundamentally, we are both composed of molecules, atoms, and smaller quantum particles or waves that emerge from quantum fields. Our momentary existence owes itself entirely to the ability of superpositioned quantum fields to generate discrete macroscopic events through a physical process known as quantum reduction. Humans, bats, and all the seemingly discrete things in the universe manifest temporarily as separate and distinct, but exist permanently as vibrations of infinitely connected and constantly interacting quantum fields. In other words, our objective physical existence is shared almost entirely with a bat. And the core of it is shared even with an electron.

Why do we define consciousness only by subjective experience?

We take pride, of course, in that sliver of identity that we consider distinctive. We relish being different, unique, or even superior to the rest of the universe. But is that veneer of difference the sole pillar of our consciousness? Should our understanding of consciousness be founded on subjective experience alone? Given the physical realities of existence and our profound connections to literally everything in the universe, is it realistic or even intellectually honest to suppose that consciousness is based solely on what separates us? Should we instead savor our temporary distinctiveness, without denying the reality that we are not truly separate, and the subjective experience we prize, our fragile sense of self, may be an illusion?

Is consciousness grounded on subjective experience an illusion?

That is precisely what many of our most prominent philosophers and scientists believe. They disagree with Nagel that consciousness is ineffable and “hard”. They offer objective, physicalist explanations for our sense of self, explanations that directly link consciousness to the physical substrate from which we emerge. They argue that consciousness and self are illusions, useful illusions perhaps, but nonetheless illusions. All that really exists is what lies beneath the illusion—the objective physical substrate of existence. Our consciousness and sense of self equate to the completely physical biological factors that create brain states, perceptions, and ideas, i.e., neurons, neuronal networks, and all the neural behavior that has evolved in living things over millions of years of natural selection.

Yet despite disagreeing with Nagel about the ability to describe consciousness objectively, physicalists almost invariably accept subjective experience as a defining characteristic of consciousness. They assume that subjective experience, as illusory or delusional as it is, is an essential element of consciousness. So, if the subjective self is an illusion, then consciousness also is an illusion. Consciousness cannot be real or objective because it arises from a subjective illusion. The obvious corollary is that objective experience is not sufficient for consciousness. Natural selection operating on the physical substrate can give rise to the illusion of consciousness but cannot give rise to actual consciousness.

Does objective consciousness exist?

The conclusion that consciousness does not exist, however, both begs the question and is inconsistent with physical explanations for the evolution of consciousness. It relies on an assumption that subjective experience defines consciousness, but if consciousness equates to the physical and biological factors that create brain states, then those physical factors and brain states are consciousness. It is not the illusion of the subjective self that comprises consciousness, but the physical factors and processes engineered by natural selection.[3] Those natural processes drive organisms to become aware of their physical existence and the biological facts that inform that existence. Millions of years of evolution give organisms the empirical experience of self-awareness and self-directedness. A biological organism, therefore, has an objective experience of something like consciousness, whether or not it experiences the illusion of subjective self.

That natural objective experience of consciousness aligns well with the ideas of many religious philosophers.[4] We humans have a long history of understanding consciousness as something other than subjective experience alone. Religious philosophers often agree with physicalists that the subjective self is an illusion. They argue that reality lies beneath the subjective experience of thoughts and desires. But beneath the illusion they see more than the absence of self and the presence of physical factors creating brain states. They also see an awareness that is deeper than the self and subjective experience. They see what some call “pure consciousness”.

Is there such a thing as pure consciousness?

Both secular and religious philosophers talk about learning to live without the reification of subjective experience. They talk about life without illusion, the acceptance of who and what we are as physical beings. Is that the deeper experience described by religious philosophers? Is it a state of calm and acceptance in which random thoughts and desires are quieted in the brain? Or is it more? Does it encompass awareness not based on the subjective self, but on direct objective experience? Is that “pure consciousness”?

Can humans experience objective consciousness?

Natural selection has given even simple organisms an objective, physical experience of self-awareness and self-directedness, even without the illusion of a subjective self. Is it possible, therefore, to know what it is like to exist without subjective experience? Is human consciousness, which we attribute solely to subjective self, also based partly on objective, physical experience? Does our complex consciousness incorporate the rudimentary consciousness common to all forms of biological existence?

Perhaps more fundamentally, if the rudimentary experience of consciousness is shared by even the simplest organism, is it a biological version of something more essential still? At its most basic level, is the objective experience of consciousness simply the experience of being a physical thing?

What is it like to be a physical thing?

We and all biological organisms are first and foremost physical things. We experience being a physical object every moment of our existence. It is what we are. It is all we ever are. If our consciousness incorporates the objective experience of consciousness shared by every organism, does it also incorporate the experience of being a physical object or mechanism? Does some part of us know what it is like to be a physical thing without subjective experience? Is it even possible for us not to know what it is like to be what we in fact are?

Is consciousness the opposite of a purely subjective experience?

There are both secular and religious philosophers who believe that matter in its most basic form consists of consciousness. That even electrons, as part of the core fabric of existence, contain a germ of consciousness. Should we view a theory such as panpsychism as an acknowledgement and affirmation that we are physical beings? That our consciousness is the consciousness of physical things?

If what it is like to be a physical thing is objective consciousness, that experience would encompass being a collection atoms, cells, and neurons, whether or not they generate an illusion of subjective experience. It would encompass what it is like to be a mechanism or a robot, with or without subjective sentience. It would include what it is like to be a stone, a molecule, or an atom. It would encompass even what it is like to be an electron.

What if Thomas Nagel and so many others are wrong about subjective experience and consciousness? Perhaps consciousness is not unique to our subjective point of view but the experience of something physically universal. Maybe the pure consciousness lying beneath our subjective selves is the simple experience of what it is like to be.

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[1] Nagel (1974).

[2] Nagel’s article assumes, without discussion, that only living things have subjective experience of “what it is like to be” something. From that perspective, there is nothing that “it is like to be” an electron, because an electron is not an organism and has no subjective experience of itself as a living thing. Other than animists, pantheists, and panpsychists, most philosophers and scientists today likely would agree that an electron, or any other non-living thing, does not have consciousness.

[3] What exactly has been happening over millions of years of natural selection, if not the evolution of some objective sense of consciousness with its basis in physical biological existence?

[4] Of course, many religious conclusions are dualist and supernatural in nature. But that is not the path that interests us here. And it is not the path taken by all our most prominent religious philosophers. See, e.g., the non-dualism of Advaita Vedanta.