I’m very drawn to this framing of consciousness as primary and life as its unfolding into increasingly complex forms of experience.
I do wonder how you see entropy in relation to this, since the physical world seems equally structured by irreversible processes of dispersal and breakdown.
It makes me wonder whether the “movement” here is not only toward integration, but also fundamentally shaped by loss, instability, and the temporary nature of all form.
Well, that's a good question. Using this definition: Entropy is a fundamental scientific concept measuring the disorder, randomness, or unavailability of energy to do useful work within a closed system. It describes how dispersed or spread out energy is, with higher entropy indicating greater disorder and lower energy quality. It is central to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that total entropy in an isolated system always increases or remains constant, there are several componants here.
In terms of randomness, they say the brain, in order to maintain consciouness must maintain something like 25% randomness in brain wave function. The more smooth or organized it becomes the more unconscious we become. That is kind of interesting.
Taking the planet as a closed system floating in space in the current state we find ourselves on it, what we see are beings that anticipate a 99.9% failure rate as I have mentioned in another article here: https://www.touchonian.com/p/plan-for-failure so we have to accept that life in the physical realm is brutal and unforgiving.
Everything falls apart. That is the nature of things, but is it just falling apart or is it changing states? Is it recycling itself? At the same time, it is continuously reconstructing itself from its own ruins, reassembling, regathering into new form. Eventually it will, no doubt become exhausted as a planet or destroyed by something bumping onto it or the sun will eventually die out. The whole physical universe will eventually collapse.
But again, it is just changing states. But for each of us that is of no ultimate consern, it is an in breath and an out breath. But that is the physical universe as we observe it and precieve it currently. We have only just begun to explore it. We don't know what we don't know and we can be sure everything is mostly, as yet, unknown and/or misunderstood.
We are also not taking into account other possible realms of existance we cannot physically experience or prove with science. There may well be and probably are many, perhaps infinite, other subtle realms beyond the senses. These might be spiritual realms or other such realms which some claim they have visited or experienced. Such things remain rumour except to those who directly experience them and are unprovable scientifically becuase science is not designed to study those things. Nobody can claim to understand the nature of consciousness or sentience for instance.
So this makes it a great area of exploration for artists.
My main argument is that consciousness is a pre-existing independant state imposing itself on matter as opposed to modern neuroscience which proposes that consciousness arises from complex brain activity, specifically through integrated information processing, global network workspace, or electromagnetic fields, acting as a high-level cognitive monitor and simulator for planning. To me, this is consciousness using the brain, not generated by it.
Thank you for this reply, I appreciate the way you describe reconstruction and reassembly from ruins.
I think what I’m still circling around is irreversibility. When something falls apart, it doesn’t seem to return as the same configuration — something is lost, not just redistributed.
So I wonder whether “changing states” fully captures that, or whether entropy introduces a more fundamental one-wayness into the process?
I realize I may be insisting on asymmetry and loss as real, not just reframed change — where each reconstruction carries traces of what can’t be recovered.
If the universe, seen and unseen, known and unknowable, is a singular being, which I suggest it is, then it is continuously manifesting as uniqueness. Every moment, every location, every being, constantly passing away with each moment and reestablishing itself in the next like a continuously unfolding symphony that never returns but always goes forward to the next moment. It is like us, as humans, constantly surrendering one breath in order to take in the next one. It is all irreversable, yet driven by trajectory - to move from where it was to where it is and from there to where it is going - carrying all of its tendancies, direction and purposes forward with it. Like with a symphony, what is carried forward are certain motifs and patterns constantly shifting and transforming subtly.
Everything everywhere is irrecoverably lost at every moment, but somehow something continues forward. Memory is probabl;y what helps things to seem continuous I would guess.
In a way, this is like karma, deriving from the Sanskrit word for "action," the universal law of cause and effect, where your intentions, thoughts, and deeds (past and present) shape your future experiences. We have a certain understanding of that word I think but I would say it is not so much about action as about trajectory which is more about what is carried forward through a complex series of actions.
Imagine a pile of leaves thrown into a river together. the current is going to carry all of them down stream but, based on circumstances, that pile will slowly drift apart or gather more closely together and pick up things along the way and let go of things. Sometimes radical things happen like going over a waterfall that forces everything to disperse into seeming chaos but some of it will come back together later in calmer waters, some won't.
As artists, writers, performers, etc. we are constantly dealing with managing this drift - drift of attention, focus, purpose - in order to do our creative work.
Ok, I see enough for a new article here. watch for that.
This is such a brilliant, comforting, and inspiring read, Cecil. I'm going to save it for whenever the Ah-what's-the-point-of-it-all blues strikes again. I'm so grateful.
Thanks Portia. I am trying to present a different, more beautiful approach to thinking about the universe we live in which, I would think, would lead to a new way of working that doesn't assume the universe is absurd, tragic, indifferent or merely conforming to worn out religious dogma.
This is a thoughtful piece. What it made me think about, though, is the problem that we are not outside the thing we are trying to observe. Consciousness is attempting to examine consciousness from within itself, which makes the whole exercise both profound and faintly comic. We are observer and instrument at once. That’s why I’m often drawn back to concrete moral messes rather than purely metaphysical serenity. In a piece on my Substack about moths, the interesting part turned out not to be the moths alone, but the fact that I was part of the system under inspection: nuisance, sentiment, violence, self-justification, all mixed together. So yes, I like this a great deal, but I also think the real complication is that
We are only ever a very partial and biased and hugely limited observer - and I am not sure we are actually observing much of anything - since we tend to be so dependent on our sense experience and identity as a physical being and we are all on a ‘need to know’ and ‘able to know’ basis according to circumstance and environment and internal state of clarity at any given moment. Consciousness itself however, is experiencing everything from every angle available through whatever state of being any being can offer unaware of being an instrument. But I am thinking that infinite consciousness might not be able to process in any kind of centralized way. It does seem kind of comical but also, in a way, kind of tragic or heroic. But my main point is I think it is what is generating life not a result of life like a neurologist might suggest.
This profound article is crammed with so much richness that it's worth reading several times over again. My mind was swimming through many different visuals and emotions as I read it. I follow some live animal videos on yourtube........not merely the cute homemade ones but the live cams that record animal's lives in nature, and I marvel at how they plan ahead (Bald Eagles getting the nest ready for laying eggs for example) and how they live in the present as well. Every living thing has their thing they have to do from insects and rodents to elephants, whales, and humans. To watch what drives us to do what we all must do is fascinating. Like the athlete that must run or climb mountains, an artist is compelled to create something that has meaning to them and communicates to others.........for me, to observe as much as I can is learning and absorbing and then it all becomes part of who I am.
What a beautiful contemplation.
I’m very drawn to this framing of consciousness as primary and life as its unfolding into increasingly complex forms of experience.
I do wonder how you see entropy in relation to this, since the physical world seems equally structured by irreversible processes of dispersal and breakdown.
It makes me wonder whether the “movement” here is not only toward integration, but also fundamentally shaped by loss, instability, and the temporary nature of all form.
Well, that's a good question. Using this definition: Entropy is a fundamental scientific concept measuring the disorder, randomness, or unavailability of energy to do useful work within a closed system. It describes how dispersed or spread out energy is, with higher entropy indicating greater disorder and lower energy quality. It is central to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that total entropy in an isolated system always increases or remains constant, there are several componants here.
In terms of randomness, they say the brain, in order to maintain consciouness must maintain something like 25% randomness in brain wave function. The more smooth or organized it becomes the more unconscious we become. That is kind of interesting.
Taking the planet as a closed system floating in space in the current state we find ourselves on it, what we see are beings that anticipate a 99.9% failure rate as I have mentioned in another article here: https://www.touchonian.com/p/plan-for-failure so we have to accept that life in the physical realm is brutal and unforgiving.
Everything falls apart. That is the nature of things, but is it just falling apart or is it changing states? Is it recycling itself? At the same time, it is continuously reconstructing itself from its own ruins, reassembling, regathering into new form. Eventually it will, no doubt become exhausted as a planet or destroyed by something bumping onto it or the sun will eventually die out. The whole physical universe will eventually collapse.
But again, it is just changing states. But for each of us that is of no ultimate consern, it is an in breath and an out breath. But that is the physical universe as we observe it and precieve it currently. We have only just begun to explore it. We don't know what we don't know and we can be sure everything is mostly, as yet, unknown and/or misunderstood.
We are also not taking into account other possible realms of existance we cannot physically experience or prove with science. There may well be and probably are many, perhaps infinite, other subtle realms beyond the senses. These might be spiritual realms or other such realms which some claim they have visited or experienced. Such things remain rumour except to those who directly experience them and are unprovable scientifically becuase science is not designed to study those things. Nobody can claim to understand the nature of consciousness or sentience for instance.
So this makes it a great area of exploration for artists.
My main argument is that consciousness is a pre-existing independant state imposing itself on matter as opposed to modern neuroscience which proposes that consciousness arises from complex brain activity, specifically through integrated information processing, global network workspace, or electromagnetic fields, acting as a high-level cognitive monitor and simulator for planning. To me, this is consciousness using the brain, not generated by it.
Thank you for this reply, I appreciate the way you describe reconstruction and reassembly from ruins.
I think what I’m still circling around is irreversibility. When something falls apart, it doesn’t seem to return as the same configuration — something is lost, not just redistributed.
So I wonder whether “changing states” fully captures that, or whether entropy introduces a more fundamental one-wayness into the process?
I realize I may be insisting on asymmetry and loss as real, not just reframed change — where each reconstruction carries traces of what can’t be recovered.
If the universe, seen and unseen, known and unknowable, is a singular being, which I suggest it is, then it is continuously manifesting as uniqueness. Every moment, every location, every being, constantly passing away with each moment and reestablishing itself in the next like a continuously unfolding symphony that never returns but always goes forward to the next moment. It is like us, as humans, constantly surrendering one breath in order to take in the next one. It is all irreversable, yet driven by trajectory - to move from where it was to where it is and from there to where it is going - carrying all of its tendancies, direction and purposes forward with it. Like with a symphony, what is carried forward are certain motifs and patterns constantly shifting and transforming subtly.
Everything everywhere is irrecoverably lost at every moment, but somehow something continues forward. Memory is probabl;y what helps things to seem continuous I would guess.
In a way, this is like karma, deriving from the Sanskrit word for "action," the universal law of cause and effect, where your intentions, thoughts, and deeds (past and present) shape your future experiences. We have a certain understanding of that word I think but I would say it is not so much about action as about trajectory which is more about what is carried forward through a complex series of actions.
Imagine a pile of leaves thrown into a river together. the current is going to carry all of them down stream but, based on circumstances, that pile will slowly drift apart or gather more closely together and pick up things along the way and let go of things. Sometimes radical things happen like going over a waterfall that forces everything to disperse into seeming chaos but some of it will come back together later in calmer waters, some won't.
As artists, writers, performers, etc. we are constantly dealing with managing this drift - drift of attention, focus, purpose - in order to do our creative work.
Ok, I see enough for a new article here. watch for that.
Thank you for engaging this, the sense of drift and what doesn’t come back is interesting to me.
This is such a brilliant, comforting, and inspiring read, Cecil. I'm going to save it for whenever the Ah-what's-the-point-of-it-all blues strikes again. I'm so grateful.
Thanks Portia. I am trying to present a different, more beautiful approach to thinking about the universe we live in which, I would think, would lead to a new way of working that doesn't assume the universe is absurd, tragic, indifferent or merely conforming to worn out religious dogma.
This is a thoughtful piece. What it made me think about, though, is the problem that we are not outside the thing we are trying to observe. Consciousness is attempting to examine consciousness from within itself, which makes the whole exercise both profound and faintly comic. We are observer and instrument at once. That’s why I’m often drawn back to concrete moral messes rather than purely metaphysical serenity. In a piece on my Substack about moths, the interesting part turned out not to be the moths alone, but the fact that I was part of the system under inspection: nuisance, sentiment, violence, self-justification, all mixed together. So yes, I like this a great deal, but I also think the real complication is that
We are only ever a very partial and biased and hugely limited observer - and I am not sure we are actually observing much of anything - since we tend to be so dependent on our sense experience and identity as a physical being and we are all on a ‘need to know’ and ‘able to know’ basis according to circumstance and environment and internal state of clarity at any given moment. Consciousness itself however, is experiencing everything from every angle available through whatever state of being any being can offer unaware of being an instrument. But I am thinking that infinite consciousness might not be able to process in any kind of centralized way. It does seem kind of comical but also, in a way, kind of tragic or heroic. But my main point is I think it is what is generating life not a result of life like a neurologist might suggest.
This profound article is crammed with so much richness that it's worth reading several times over again. My mind was swimming through many different visuals and emotions as I read it. I follow some live animal videos on yourtube........not merely the cute homemade ones but the live cams that record animal's lives in nature, and I marvel at how they plan ahead (Bald Eagles getting the nest ready for laying eggs for example) and how they live in the present as well. Every living thing has their thing they have to do from insects and rodents to elephants, whales, and humans. To watch what drives us to do what we all must do is fascinating. Like the athlete that must run or climb mountains, an artist is compelled to create something that has meaning to them and communicates to others.........for me, to observe as much as I can is learning and absorbing and then it all becomes part of who I am.
beautiful reply Annette