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Levels of consciousness

There is no need to assume the existence of anything but consciousness. Space-time does not exist in space-time. It exists in conscious experience. At first statements like this seem absurd. We have an innate sense of the objective reality of the external physical world. Equating everything to immediate awareness is not denial of objective reality. It puts that reality in a wider context.

Once we recognize the continuity of consciousness from the human mind to the simplest physical structure there is no need to assume anything but structured conscious experience exists. One can raise many questions about and objections to this assumption. We lay the ground work for the assumption in Chapter 1. We develop the assumption and deal with some possible objections in Chapter 2.

This assumption allows us to reconnect the abstract structure of science with meaning. In a sense this connection is trivial. Physical structures that are painful have negative value and those that are joyful have positive value. (We are talking about intrinsic value. Any experience can be positive because of what it leads to or how it helps someone change.)

The connection becomes nontrivial when we focus on the evolution of structure and thus the evolution of consciousness. Using our mathematical understanding of structure we can begin to understand the boundary conditions that are necessary for the creative evolution of a conscious universe. The universe is creative beyond understanding. Reproducing molecules have evolved to human beings with extraordinarily wonderful and terrible conscious experience. Mathematics suggests that we are at an infinitesimal fragment of the creative evolution that is possible.

Historically we have seen ourselves as the center of the universe and the center of creation. Science has repeatedly dethroned us from such positions. We may be at the leading edge of evolution on one small planet but we are not its end point or ultimate achievement. We like the life we have evolved from are a stepping stone to an ever expanding consciousness.

Completed second draft of this book

PDF version of this book