Not A Separate Matter

Perspectives on Consciousness From Multiple Hemispheres

i wrote the following essay as an entry to the Berggruen Institute’s annual “Prize Essay Competition”. Though i didn’t rank among the winners or honorable mentions, i’m proud of having made the time and effort to complete such a daunting project. Here i examine the origins of consciousness, language, and belief systems as well as the power of words, globally adopted perceptions of reality, the dogmatic nature of “Western” science, modern models of consciousness, and how all these things lead to metaphysical understandings that enhance our ability to discern what our shared reality is and envision what it could be. i hope you enjoy this deep dive into radical possibility. - KL

Consciousness gives us the ability to be aware of ourselves and our world in ways unlike any other living thing we know of. Humanity has attempted to understand the origins of consciousness and why it develops by searching in the dirt, gazing at the stars, and finding ways to look inside ourselves. Often overlooked in this quest is how similar “Western” science and “Eastern” spirituality are to one another. Whether through finding empirical evidence or seeking answers through spirituality, the “hard question” of consciousness still eludes a cohesive explanation. Throughout its search, humanity’s insistence on any approach being more “valid” or “correct” than another has been slowly painting us into a proverbial corner. The words we choose to describe our findings can greatly limit not only what we find but how we find it, and what we do with those findings. If there is any chance at reaching a suitable answer to the origin of consciousness, I believe there can be no demarcation between science and spirituality. In actuality, both of these approaches have been describing the same processes using different words all along.

The Co-Developments of Language and Consciousness

The curiosity of our species has been its defining trait since recorded time began. Before we started placing marks on walls, we communicated through sound and gesture-making to understand each other.¹ These noises were the precursor to formal language. Psychologist Julian Jaynes argues that consciousness itself is based on language, and that the misattribution of our inner monologues to that of external sources is the basis of religious practice and gods. He states, “The general rule is: there is no operation in consciousness that did not occur in behavior first.”² That is, before humans began to practice the worship of omnipresent gods they first began acting as though all of creation was worthy of reverence and awe, including one another.

For language to develop, humans had to have a reason to communicate. Starting with the creation of groups in the Lower Paleolithic era, humans evolved behaviors that fostered safety against predators such as tool creation and conflict resolution.³ Once there was a greater sense of protection fostered by staying together, that information was passed down generationally. “It is the group that then evolves.”⁴ As these groups learned to communicate, their verbal utterances and physical gestures became more complex. Our early ancestors learned to use physical signals such as eye contact, baring teeth, and screaming to tell one another how they felt.⁵ Eventually those signals changed into more nuanced verbalizations that Jaynes names intentional calls.⁶ Similarly to the variations of physical gestures from low to high intensity, the intentional calls varied based on how immediately relevant they were to the safety of one or more people in a group. Over time our declarations gained nuance, eventually giving way to modifiers, commands, and the greatest signifier of all: nouns. Once humanity gained the ability to communicate specific objects, places, and people verbally, we changed how we moved through the world with one another forever.

As the Earth progressed into its fourth Ice Age, verbal communication became an essential tool for keeping groups informed and safe.⁷ The complexity of our words grew rapidly to facilitate our survival, due mainly to the lack of sunlight hours available as humanity moved further north, away from the equator. The groups that were able to use these complex signals tended to be the ones that survived, and with survival came the passing down of knowledge.⁸

Developing the Inner Monologue

Though language was being developed between groups and people, this was not a naturally occurring process. Jaynes argues that such learned behavior must have been maintained through other means. He asserts this led to the evolution of auditory hallucinations.⁹ Jaynes implies that the human with developed language would have a considerable advantage in remembering a task that it wants to complete because the language used in their inner monologue would give them a structure to recall what the task is. Language would allow early humans to have an auditory hallucination about the task or the items needed to complete it. This is the underlying idea behind Jaynes’ theory of the bicameral mind: one half of the brain is “speaking” or having an auditory hallucination while the other half of the brain is listening to the inner speech.

Since nouns were already common by this time, Jaynes argues there could have been a development of nouns turning into names. As groups of humans began finding places to settle they were more likely to have longer lives. Emotional bonds would form and people would likely start to use nouns for individual members of a group. Understanding that a certain person had a word to use that was just for them meant the emotional bonds formed with that person would be stronger. This would give an evolutionary advantage to a group: maintaining their relationships with one another could enable greater safety and survival. Combine the auditory hallucinations of the inner monologue with names and you have a way for people to recreate each other using the voices in their heads.¹⁰ Jaynes explains: “...once a specific hallucination is recognized with a name…a significantly different thing is occurring. The hallucination is now a social interaction with a much greater role in individual behavior.”¹¹ Humans could not only recall what a specific person said but also have a convincing social interaction with that voice. Jaynes clarifies that auditory hallucinations at this time were still lacking consciousness to back them up, making the process passive and not active. As a result people would be hearing the voice of a specific person coming from their own inner monologue, convinced it really was the person speaking to them.

With names and a change in behavior comes the ability to invent where the voice or voices are coming from. Early humanity would not have understood that the voices were coming from inside of them. People would have been convinced that their own inner monologues were coming from somewhere else. This misunderstanding set humanity on the path to discovering or creating gods.

The Foundations of Worship

The Natufian people of the Mesolithic era are an often cited example of societal development.¹² At their inception they were like most other humans of their time: a band of roving hunter-gatherers that found opportunities for food and shelter as they moved throughout what would currently be known as Palestine. Not only were they highly skilled in survival, they had also developed various cultural practices. Natufians practiced cave painting and adorned themselves with jewelry made from sea shells and animal teeth.¹³ Most impressively, their dead have been found ceremoniously buried in individual graves with personal possessions. Evidence also shows that these peoples were building structures such as short walls to separate burial sites from other areas. Essentially, Natufians were some of the first humans on record to have built cemeteries.¹⁴

Why would nomads ever build something as complex as a cemetery? They wouldn’t, and Jaynes goes on to explain that over time the Natufians began establishing towns where upwards of 200 people might have lived. Along with housing and cemeteries, some of the first known evidence of agriculture has been found in these towns.¹⁵ From the perspective of societal development, one could extrapolate that a sense of individuality for people within the Natufian community was emerging. Jaynes insists this isn’t the case. Attaining a sense of individual consciousness would mean that the Natufians would have had a sense of self, an ego, to reflect on who they were. There is no evidence to suggest this. Instead he explains that they were signal-bound: more attuned to call and response within their group, driven more by their basic needs and assimilation into the whole for a sense of safety and protection.¹⁶

The Natufians, Jaynes contends, are the first people we have on record that worshipped the divine. For there to be gods there has to be a behavior that evokes them, and for the Natufians that behavior came from the exaltation of one of their leaders. For evidence of this we can look to the burial site of the so-called “king” of Eynan as the impetus for Natufian worship. The graves of the Natufian were already quite complex, but this “king” found still greater splendor in death. Since the “king” would have been using language to guide his people while he was alive, Jaynes argues his voice would have remained in the inner monologues of his followers. These auditory hallucinations, for which humanity did not yet have an understanding, may have influenced Natufians to do the bidding of a “king” who was no longer alive. Jaynes suggests, “...that the dead king, thus propped up on his pillow of stones, was in the hallucinations of his people still giving forth his commands…”.¹⁷ They buried the “king” and his “queen” next to one another. She wore an elaborate headpiece and necklace while he was positioned with stones to keep his head held high and pointed toward the peak of a nearby mountain.¹⁸ Some time afterwards the two leaders were surrounded by a complex tomb, a hearth built atop it.

Tribal and spiritual understandings like those of the Natufians still dominate our reality, and bicameral thought helps to reinforce those ideas.¹⁹ It’s easy to find the people in “Western” society whose inner monologue is obeyed as though it were divine. The dominating voices of our age are often repeated ad nauseum through our various devices and media. This results in Nationalism becoming a form of worship for many, often held in concert with other religious practices.²⁰ Is it any wonder people ascribe politicians an elevated status in their hearts when their minds may operate in a chiefly bicameral way? Many leaders try to ensure the misattribution of their rhetoric to that of the divine as a tool to ensure their dominance over a population.²¹ That people succumb to this isn’t necessarily their fault though it may be within their control. Humanity loves spiritual practices and, despite “Western” science finding a large amount of space within our world, “Eastern” spirituality still holds space within the consciousness of many of us whether we realize it or not.

The Power of Words

With gods having arisen from our own cultural practices and our inability to discern where the voices in our heads were coming from, we hadn’t yet developed theory of mind. In the age of signal-bound communication we were reactive. Now with theory of mind, we understand that each of us has our own feelings, desires, emotions, or thoughts.²² Before this definition we still didn’t know what thoughts were! We were learning about feelings and emotions through somatic signal interpretation when we spoke to each other. Our stories began to carry emotional weight whether through our cave paintings or our speech. When we used people’s names, described impressive feats of strength, or told one another about areas full of resources, we were learning the power of words. Enter semiotics and semantics, the respective studies of meanings in symbols and language. Both seek to explain how these tools convey information.

The earliest marks on the walls of caves and rock formations describe elaborate stories of hunts, gatherings, and celebrations. The information that these markings passed along were a way for other people to engage their world with curiosity while growing their consciousness at the same time. Semiotics, developed by C.S. Peirce, is the study of symbols and their meanings as communicated through their placement.²³ A signifier, once placed somewhere in the world, has the ability to communicate a signified meaning. If in the modern day there was a sign that consisted only of a flame and the commonly understood “NO” symbol (the red circle with a slash through it) over top, most people in the “Westernized” world would understand this means “no open flames in this area” or something similar. However the understanding of a sign is up for interpretation. The interpreter of a sign may not have the necessary foreknowledge of the “NO” symbol for example, and the signified meaning may be lost to them. Or further, the sign may be interpreted as something wholly unrelated to the signified, as Pierce makes clear that a sign may pass on unintentional meaning as well.²⁴

While cave paintings preserved our histories, spoken language was helping us build more stable futures. There is a science to studying and understanding the complexity of words and their uses. Developed by Michel Bréal, semantics is a rigorous means of exploring the rich histories of words through their adoption, development, abandonment, and sometimes reintroduction to languages. Bréal himself expanded semantics into a study of signifiers once he published Essai de sémantique: Science des significations in 1897.²⁵ Over time the meaning of semantics itself has changed dramatically, proving one of Bréal’s own ideas about language: how the historical development of a word may expand or restrict it based on the contexts in which a word is used.²⁶ Semiotics and semantics, interconnected through their ideas but outside of formality, teach us how the symbols and words we develop change with use and change humanity as a result.

Signals such as words and symbols give us the power to communicate information, the meaning of these representative forms that we can interpret. When symbols developed to be less abstract, becoming more representative forms of the words we spoke, we developed writing. Humanity started to communicate in a way that clearly implicated rigid meanings. We discovered that writing can defy, though not entirely negate, misinterpretation. Still, reading comprehension took years to develop through study, practice, and exposure. All of these pieces put together drove humanity to a fuller understanding of self through the developments of self-consciousness and theory of mind. We were learning that each of us, though physically separate, were individuals that had personal ideas and beliefs that could be shared between one another. We were ready to take what were once hyper-localized ideas of gods based on our group leaders to a new level. We developed complex belief systems, religions, to assign our inner monologues rigid understandings that could be shared between larger and larger groups. Religions were beginning to model a new kind of tribe which had the potential to overtake the world with a single system of understanding.

People all over Earth created their own understandings of the inner monologue, attributing their voices to different gods. Because of this, the consciousness in one area could be dramatically different from the consciousness of another. It’s possible this dissonance between thought processes, born from religions, turned into holy wars because of how thought varied when it was attributed to the divine. Since gods were discovered or born of the understanding of our experiences, the definitions of experience deemed valid or true shrank to fit what those who wanted power or dominance over others made their subjects believe.

Spiritual Information Becomes Scientific Knowledge

The “king” of Eynan became a lesson to humanity: leaders whose speech could dominate the auditory hallucinations of others would be seen as gods both while on Earth and after death. This notion became part of the foundation of power for those who have sought it through the ages. Organized religions developed as a way to give large groups of people a foundation of understanding about our world. Even after our consciousness grew and we began to understand ourselves as individuals, we still had a large part of our understanding being informed by how we interpreted the voices in our heads. There were voices we recognized as our own, but others seemed strange, without origin, or even from a god or gods. These voices might have driven us to lust, to kill, to steal, to flee! Our myriad desires and emotional lives were not understood as coming from within us but often from beyond us.²⁷ Humanity was developing some self awareness but we had no unified means of fully embracing it.

“Hinduism”, the “Western” interpretation of cultural and spiritual practices from India, and the Vedas, the oldest existing records of Indian spiritual thought, became an interest for those in the “West” who sought a deeper understanding of the origins of religious practices.²⁸ In “The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science”, Frits Staal describes how language is developed, transmitted, interpreted, and used in the Vedas. Staal explains that Vedic mantras define a critical point in language development and understanding. The Vedas, which were once a strict oral tradition, were transcribed into the developing written language of Sanskrit. Staal puts forth an argument that the transcription of the Vedas and its corresponding study constitute a human science, akin to what the “West” might consider a Humanities study such as Social or Political Science. The search for meaning using empirical evidence, Staal asserts, starts with the Vedas.

To make clear the different ideas he has about knowledge, Staal provides definitions for several variations of the term. His understanding of knowledge as a concept alone is complex. Staal explains the knowledge of how to perform activities as knowledge-how. There is also knowledge-that, or knowledge that xyz is the case when the knowledge corresponds to information. Continuing, knowledge itself comes from the interaction with and application of information. Staal asserts that knowledge about activities is innate, especially in animals. Lastly, while humans do have some innate knowledge most of it is passed down in explicit ways through gesture or communication. His thorough explanation sets a strong foundation for his arguments to come.²⁹

If human knowledge is explicitly communicated through teaching and some knowledge is innate, what constitutes learning? Staal gives the term picking up to describe a combination of teaching and innate knowledge that goes beyond their definitions. When one person performs an action, throwing and catching a ball between their two hands for example, and a second person who doesn’t know how to do this watches, the second person in Staal’s terminology is picking up on how to throw and catch the ball themselves. This shows that there are established rules or general principles, either from innate or explicit knowledge, that are transmitted from one person to another. Rules such as linguistics are complex but easily understood by children when they can implement, practice, and apply the rules while speaking, never being aware of the rules of a language. Staal calls this universal grammar and says that language structure over time has become innate, passed down so that in turn it is more easily picked up.³⁰

Using a framework of “Western” science, Staal explains that innate principles, or rules, come from gathered data.³¹ That data is assumed to be part of the underlying systems that follow those rules. It is from these otherwise invisible rules that we create a hypothesis to understand those systems. Staal uses this framework to define branches of human sciences rather than non-human sciences such as studies of nature or physics. Those peoples who developed the “sister sciences”, of ritual and language practiced both in what would currently be considered Southern India.³² Over time, Staal asserts, ritual and language have become innate but rituals are less likely to be changed by time or use. The rituals Staal focuses on are mantra, the orally transmitted Vedas.

The Vedas helped shape not only the thoughts and culture of Southern India but of a wide range of cultures across the greater region. Originally, Vedic mantras were kept using rigid practices done by Śiṣṭa, defined in translation as experts or sages. In order to be practitioners, sages had to memorize mantra with perfect accuracy. The vital importance of the sage was ensuring that the powerful tonalities and utterances of mantra remained unaltered. If there were any changes to the transmitted sounds, their power would be lost.

Vedic practitioners understood that reciting mantra and speaking with language were two different functions of humanity, though the two could sometimes share underlying sounds.³³ This caused contention amongst practitioners, with multiple schools of thought arguing whether there were innate meanings in the sounds of mantra or not. Staal explains that the form of mantra is what’s most important to their use since the guides for pronouncing the mantras are what survives. There is no preservation around the meaning of the mantras, if there ever were any. Mantra of the Vedas are instead “...readily available for what is their proper purpose – to be recited during ritual performances where their form is all-important and where meaning plays no part.”³⁴

Though there were arguments for and against mantras having meanings, what wasn’t contested by practitioners was that both mantra and language were divinely created and existed separately from humanity’s influence. Both were given to us by gods, they are expressions of eternity, and cannot be changed as a result.³⁵ While language is changed by space, every step was taken to ensure that mantra would not be changed. Sages used both dhyäya: recitation and prayoga: application to ensure accurate intergenerational transmission. Prayoga can also be interpreted to mean drugs or magic which connects directly to the Ayurveda, a system of medicine and treatments within the Vedas themselves.³⁶

To clarify the differences between transmissions humans use to share information, Staal gives us more terms and their definitions. He defines language as spoken, ritual as performed, and mantra as recited. Further, the Sämaveda is chanted as it is a version of mantra set to musical interpretation.³⁷ All these different forms of transmission serve unique, purposeful functions based on the information being shared. Speech is direct and fast, ritual is mindful and in service to higher powers and their magic, mantra is memorized and given form as a movement through a human body from higher powers, and chanting can give the Vedas a hypnotic, mesmerizing effect on those who listen because of the additional power of musicality.

Most languages that are in use throughout India, Europe, Iran, and the Americas come from Sanskrit and the subsequent languages that developed from it.³⁸ Mantra varies slightly based on phonetic transcriptions from languages surrounding their origins in Southern India. However Vedic mantra hasn’t changed insofar as other languages have not used replacement words whose tonality is similar to mantra sounds.³⁹ The oldest version of the Vedas on record was discovered in 1903. Called the Spitzer Manuscript, this version of the Vedas is composed of over 1,000 palm leaf fragments with Sanskrit written on them.⁴⁰ It is believed to be as old as 200 C.E. based on carbon dating and the physical composition of the leaves themselves. No complete version has ever been found.

Despite all of the reverence and respect around Vedic mantra by practitioners, using mantra is considered a ritual separate from the religion that shares its name.⁴¹ Mantra is understood in the “West” to be a religious act due to the circumstances of its use (often done in groups and recited or chanted by a single person, then the “West” interpreting this as a religious ceremony), but that is not the case. Though mantra is not part of a religion, it’s still a spiritual practice. Staal considers mantra to be a tradition instead.⁴² The altars and fires that are included in the rituals are part of the overall Vedic tradition, though the origins of all things we consider Vedic are also unknown. The best anyone has been able to ascertain is that all of the Vedas historically recorded were combined in various ways throughout their use and the migration of peoples who brought their oral traditions with them.⁴³

The heart of Staal’s argument is in defining the “science of ritual”.⁴⁴ He explains that there are orders and uses for specific mantra such as rituals for sunrise and sunset, but no one knows why certain mantra are used for such rituals or what the specific motivations for using some mantra and not others are. Many lines of mantra, as defined by “Western” study, are shared across different rituals. They’re repeated and placed in a specific order but with no known connection able to be discerned. The Vedic school of Prayoga remains some of the only written evidence of ordered mantra that exists within ancient texts. Written Prayoga guides only show the first tones used in each line of a mantra with the assumption that the orator using the guide would know what the full line is. After all, memorization of the oral traditions were the only way mantra were passed on before this. Some rituals such as those from the Baudhäyana are “...only intelligible when accompanied by a gesture.”⁴⁵ Staal uses an example of how the fire of an altar must be built while carrying the wood towards it. At specific heights and during specific tones being uttered, the wood is carried from knee to torso to neck as the orator recites the mantra. With exact information available for some Vedic books and vague information for others, it doesn’t seem like there’s a strong foundation for questioning and understanding the invisible rules of the Vedas. Not so according to Staal in his book The Science of Ritual, where he explains the complementarity between theories and facts: “Just as the same theory can be corroborated by different facts, the same facts can corroborate different theories.”⁴⁶ There are an infinite number of ways to prove the truth of a theory which is to the advantage of all sciences, human and non-human alike. To build his case for the “science of ritual”, Staal cites the Yajurveda. This Vedic school shares foundational texts with all others but has closer ties to a lone Indian origin. Other Vedic schools include influences from European or Iranian traditions.⁴⁷ Descriptions of the rituals and mantra of Yajurveda have so much detail that it can be used for historical conclusions as to its origins and the people that practiced it. Even still, these conclusions aren’t hard data like a written record or other archeological findings are. Everything that can be learned from the historical record of the Yajurveda are speculations, which Staal makes clear. The probability of historical events based on this information being true and the speculations that follow are not absolutely certain. The lack of certainty is what gives science the ability to question, theorize, and change with further data and information as it’s discovered, he imparts. Without that ability to adapt, no science would ever progress. If the facts of scientific research were to stagnate and solidify, they would instead be dogma. Science’s worth is in its ability to constantly question everything, especially the things everyone believes are true.⁴⁸

When it comes to understanding a scientific theory the layperson’s understanding is that there is a finality to it, that somehow a theory must be “the truth”. Here, in the confused intersection between truth and belief, the layperson brings their own quasi-religious understanding of science to the forefront. As we’ve established, theory can give rise to working models though they are by no means the absolute truth. The majority of the time they are another stepping stone in a long path that precedes them. Theories themselves are made up of the most probable parts of speculation, and those parts tested with rigor. Often those tests lead to application of the knowledge gained which, even still, does not prove a theory to be “true”. More on this later. For now, we’ll look at modes of inquiry that combine science and spirituality, and how they’ve affected the world at large.

Widely Adopted Modalities and Their Consequences

Over the course of the centuries, our languages developed in ways that imbued our cultures with meaning and gave structure to our humanity. As Sanskrit and the Vedas demonstrated, the meanings of our words can change or sounds may have no meaning at all. Language alters how we as social animals connect with one another and our world. The search for the origins of consciousness grew with many philosophical ideas and experiments which gave us pervasive systems of understanding. Two standouts that still affect the way much of humanity experiences reality today are Cartesian Dualism and the Tao Te Ching. These viewpoints, decidedly “Western” and “Eastern” respectively, have informed the understandings of human beings since their respective inceptions. The near-ubiquitous adoption of Dualism and the Tao within their regions has ensured they are foundational to people’s lives. Though general consensus around their relevance has changed over time, these modalities still have ways of informing the thought processes of people around the world.

Most of us in the “West” have a cursory understanding of Dualism. It’s the idea that the body and soul are separate parts that make up the whole of a person. Over time Descartes’ idea has morphed into the separation of body and mind, but that doesn’t give us an accurate idea of what he was suggesting. Descartes insisted in his Treatise of Man that the soul inhabited a real space within the brain itself, namely the pineal gland.⁴⁹ “Western” science had already disproven his idea before the Treatise was written and published, but that did not deter his theory.⁵⁰ Descartes took the view that the pineal gland was surrounded by arteries that filled the ventricles of the pineal gland with animal spirits.⁵¹ This, he thought, gave the gland the ability to engage the movement of the body, to experience sensation, and to create memories. All of these functions, according to Descartes, would combine to create perception. The process starts with the pineal gland taking in information from a stimulus. That information would create an image projected over top of the pineal gland from the imagination. This projection combined with the discernment of the gland would compile the information. Finally, the incoming information would be interpreted by the pineal gland and perceived.

Descartes was convinced that imagination was a physical manifestation experienced through the pineal gland, what we commonly refer to as his “seat of the soul”. The Treatise was not published until after his death, but some time after it was written Descartes wrote in letters explaining the pineal gland as the origin of the sensory faculties of a person. All of a person’s thoughts were formed there, he asserted. In his final work The Passions of the Soul, Descartes explains how the functions of the body that do not rely on conscious thought must belong to the body alone, but that all else is the property of the soul. Body and soul are linked through the pineal gland, are inseparable physically, but the functions of the two parts are mechanically separate.⁵²

When Descartes wrote the Treatise, he wrote about how the human body could be thought of as though it were a machine. He did this by not writing about humans directly, but about the concept of humans and models that could be thought to be equivalent to humans. This murky intellectual space allowed Descartes to reduce humans to concepts, and those concepts are what he wrote about. He explained that these not-quite-human bodies were “machines made of earth” that experienced the world mechanically. All bodily senses, the organs, and their functions were reduced to being strictly mechanical. This perspective implies that each system of the human body should only function in one way, like machines, otherwise any difference in function is a malfunction.

The consequences of this mechanistic view of the human body arising from Cartesian Dualism are still felt to this day. Though the human body, the brain, and the mind are all far better understood in modernity than in the time of Descartes, this reduction of the body to standardized functions has caused the dismissal and oppression of people worldwide. There is a massive difference between thinking of the human body and brain as machines and treating the functions of the body and brain as though they were machines. Again, language asserts its importance. Neither one is a machine, but there are predictable ways their systems may function in order to maintain homeostasis. The complexity that arises from the interactions between the systems of a single human body nearly guarantees that there will be deviation from any “norm” that is asserted by modern medical understandings. The insistence by “Westernized” medical practitioners that there must be a single root cause to medical or psychological issues can deter them from thinking more broadly about ailments, illnesses, and diseases, causing them to drill down into symptoms instead of pulling back to get a wider view. This practice of ignoring inter-systemic complexity can unnecessarily elongate a person’s search for diagnosis and subsequent appropriate care because the point of view of a medical practitioner, specifically those that are highly specialized within a single practice and its framework, will only ever consider an issue from within that one framework. This failure to consider more complex causes for illness and disease has driven “Western” thought in medical practice into a search for something to blame and destroy. This attitude is a pervasive one that permeates many disciplines, not just medical practice.

In comparison the Tao Te Ching, written in the 6th century B.C.E. purportedly by Laozi, is somewhere between a belief system and a philosophy that overtly influences politics, culture, and personal health practices alike.⁵³ The existence of a single author named Laozi is up for debate. Many accounts of the “Old Master”, as the name roughly translates, stated he was a confidant of Confucius, a court archivist, or perhaps never existed. The truth seems lost to time, but what is known is the power and influence the Tao has had on culture within China and far beyond it. Unlike Descartes’ Treatise which has affected the critical thought and deep understanding of the “West” through more covert influence, the Tao Te Ching has been obviously present in Chinese culture from its adoption as a classic text in 733 C.E.. Ancient emperors demanded court officials have a copy in their homes, the cultural elite throughout history have cited the Tao as an influence over their artworks, and Laozi’s birthday is still celebrated in some regions to this day since the possibly mythical figure has been elevated into divine being status.

There is a distinct separation of the Tao into two parts which enables it to have a wide influence on the world: daojiao, the spiritual practice also known as Taoism and daojia, its more philosophical and ethical understanding.⁵⁴ As a spirituality, Taoism encourages believers to be devoted to its teachings through virtuous action and non-action. Not unlike the Vedas, Taoist texts are used in rituals and can also be recited to music. As a school of thought, the philosophical understanding of Tao harkens back to some of the earliest philosophies in Chinese culture. It can also be considered a metaphysical text that reflects and analyzes the nature of reality. Tao is commonly translated to “Way” in English but the text itself insists that the word has an ineffable nature. The word “tao” is no more correct than any other word; tao as a concept is formless and undefinable and so is the word used in an attempt to define it. This gives the term infinite space for interpretation and usage.

Hundreds if not thousands of translations and interpretations of the Tao exist from both “Eastern” and “Western” sources, each one giving new life and understanding to the text. From ancient criticisms to 20th Century sci-fi authors, there is no shortage of sources by which someone can learn the lessons of Laozi. Some of my personal favorites include The Activist’s Tao te Ching: Ancient Advice for a Modern Revolution by William Martin which interprets the text as a loose framework and guide for people looking to shake up the status quo, and Lao Tzu - Tao te Ching by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Le Guin’s body of work remains a beacon of forward-thinking, feminist, and radical ideas that are incredible examples of what a more inclusive future can look like. One chapter of Le Guin’s translation of the Tao in particular keeps me coming back to it time and again: 65, which she titled “One Power”. Though only three stanzas long, the chapter talks about those who once ruled in accordance with Tao to keep people in unknowing. Leaders refrained from explaining too much about the mysteries of life and gave people the space to form their own spiritual understandings. Tao allowed people to search for their own understandings instead. When a ruler gives people strict definitions about how life under their rule works, people tend to listen and accept what they’re being told as though it came from a divine source. In turn, those that accept the definitions may take action against those who don’t. Rulers, as we’ve discussed through the work of Jaynes, can ascend to a god-like status by those that believe in what they say. People may act accordingly, fighting non-believers who reject the word of their political god. Le Guin opines in her notes below the chapter:

“This is a mystical statement about government – and in our minds those two realms are worlds apart. I cannot make the leap between them. I can only ponder it.”⁵⁵

We no longer need to ponder; the connection between the mystical and the ruling class is clear. When politicians have the power of belief on their side, people may act irrationally to uphold the status quo. The bicameral mind is easy to exploit by those politicians with questionable morality and ethics. Hayes’ analysis of Nationalism helps clarify the connection further still. Martin’s translation of Chapter 65 corroborates this:

“The first step toward freedom is ceasing to believe authority, inside or out. Then our nonbelief will open doors to the actual experience of life.”⁵⁶

No matter the point of view or beliefs of the individual, all people are capable of manipulating and being manipulated. Our consciousness, as it developed from our origins to now, has been coerced to hold particular understandings of self and other. Deep within us we still wrestle with understanding that no one person is greater than another. How does all of this understanding actually work? Several modern “Western” scientific studies on consciousness have pointed toward one underlying factor: language. We’ll explore some of these shortly. First we need to look at and understand the framework of “Western” science.

The Dogma of “Western” Science

“Western” science takes considerable steps to define itself with rules so as to formalize the way it is understood and used. Two of these rules are demarcation and induction. Demarcation differentiates “Western” scientific study from alternative understandings of reality such as metaphysics, spirituality, religion, belief, and even art. For information to be considered scientific, it must be defined by what makes something testable by the scientific method, to demarcate science from non-science. Induction, or making a series of observations and inferring a claim based on those observations, is not a viable means of prediction. Several logical leaps must be taken in order to make an observed conclusion “true”. Making a claim without observation reveals the claim to be a logical fallacy as it cannot be validly argued or induced.

To build onto this formalization, “Western” science uses demarcation and induction to create theories. Theories are not the final word on scientific understanding as we’ve learned, but the information we gain from research is still valuable. There is a strict way to define what makes the information we learn and the understanding that comes from it a theory according to “Western” science. The information in a theory must withstand scrutiny over multiple iterations of the same test, or experiment, to help verify what was learned. Those results must then be repeatable. The issue with trying to define a theory of how consciousness forms and works is that technically the forthcoming theories about consciousness fail to meet the aforementioned criteria. These studies and experiments conducted around consciousness cannot be considered theories by definition. Why? They are not predictable or testable to the point where results can be consistently repeated. Beyond this, demarcation and induction are philosophical issues. They also fail to meet “Western” scientific rigor. Despite this the following models of consciousness built by modern science are not considered non-science, though anyone with a cursory understanding of metaphysics will find that the proposed models to follow are among its ranks.

Further, who- or what-ever defines truth changes the validity of any scientific understanding. In her book Dismantling the Master’s Clock, author Rasheedah Phillips calls the rigid “Western” definition of truth that arises from scientific understanding scientism.⁵⁷ Phillips defines “Western” truth in part as reasoning and evidence based on observation, experimentation, and analysis. Data must be quantified and measured. “Truth, in this framework, cannot be determined by a single individual or authority.”⁵⁸ In direct contradiction to its own framework, the “Western” scientific method attempts to assert what the facts are. This information can come from anywhere, any time, and be molded and shaped into a fact. What “Western” science determines to be true is based on the gathered evidence it then asserts. Phillips borrows a definition from Professor Laura C. Jarmon to drive her point home: “...[truth] cannot itself remain stable in the environment of information mythically valorized as fact.”⁵⁹ Anything can be true as long as an authority tries to make it true. “Western” scientism tries to be the ultimate authority on “truth” and, as a result, becomes dogmatic like the other modes of inquiry that it purports to be different from. “Ultimately, under this system, the accuracy of a fact is determined by the strength and reliability of the evidence and reasoning that support it.”⁶⁰

There is no single, unified way to experience consciousness. Every human brain has adapted to what has been passed down to it genetically as well as the experiences it has undergone throughout its life. From physical development, emotional experiences, metacognition, cognitive development, exposure to different elements, chemicals, or other outside factors, the amount of unpredictable and nigh-unquantifiable possibilities that may affect a single brain means that every brain has a unique way of managing the world.⁶¹, ⁶² Physiologically not every brain is created equally. Subjective experience is decided by the interpretation of the person having the conscious experiences being observed by scientific experimentation. None of the models of consciousness discussed here can take subjective experience into account. There are far too many variables at play in the brains, minds, and consciousness of the people studied in experiments that are meant to test the ideas of “Western” scientists. Cartesian Dualism tries to force a machine-like system of understanding onto something that is not a machine, and once more it fails.⁶³ The lack of a consistent way for the human brain to work makes any studies about consciousness speculative at best. Though “Western” science continues to discover more complete understandings of the individual parts and functions of the brain, there is no cohesive foundation on which it can build a working model of consciousness. With that in mind, we can examine a few attempts to understand the origins and formation of consciousness.

Modern Models of Consciousness

Global Workspace Theory, or GWT, is among the most cited and studied models of consciousness in the “West”. When it was first developed in the 1980’s, GWT was a theory of cognition arising from psychology.⁶⁴ This idea developed over time into a deeper understanding of how the cerebral cortex and the thalamus are connected. These two parts of the brain form a circuit, a way for incoming information to be processed and understood. The cortico-thalamic or C-T system works together: the cortex as a unified whole specializes in many different modalities including executive functioning and defining a person’s personality, while the thalamus specializes in sensory and motor functions.⁶⁵ Despite their vast differences in specialization, GWT asserts that the C-T system is the key component of the brain’s “global workspace…a fleeting memory domain that allows for cooperative problem-solving by large collections of specialized programs.”⁶⁶ The term “global workspace” is borrowed from artificial intelligence, applying the foundations of what we know today as Language Learning Models or LLM’s to the human brain.

For GWT to function as a model of consciousness, it relies on “ignition”: information outside of the body is perceived and relayed into the brain. The example given to understand this in the paper “Global Workspace Theory (GWT) and Prefrontal Cortex: Recent Developments” is of a person standing outside at night staring at a star with a cup of coffee resting on a table nearby. The person focuses their attention on the sky with the coffee cup in their peripheral vision. As the person continues to focus their eyes on the star so they can see it as clearly as possible, the brain is taking in all periphery information even though the person doesn’t realize it. This causes what Baars, et al. term a Feeling of Knowing or FOK: a “tip-of-the-tongue…semantic and linguistic event…” that gives the brain a general understanding of its greater surroundings.⁶⁷ This FOK goes beyond what the person is solely focused on while the brain uses the words of languages it knows to identify objects in the landscape. As soon as the person stops focusing on the star alone and begins to focus on their surroundings, they move from a holistic to gestalt understanding: suddenly the person realizes the whole of their world is greater than the sum of the parts they were focused on. GWT asserts that the brain was processing multiple levels of gestalt at once. From the sky surrounding the star to the landscape directly surrounding the person’s view (including the coffee cup) and on to the person’s total surroundings, all of it was being perceived including what lay beyond their line of sight.

However, GWT is not restricted to external sensory events. The sensory experience of the words a person uses when they speak are just as powerful as other sensations being processed by the brain, though that’s often overlooked. GWT includes metacognition, or the brain reflecting on itself and its conscious experience, as part of the overall process of consciousness.⁶⁸ Metacognition can work both on conscious and unconscious levels. Our conscious minds are capable of thinking about our emotions and beliefs. We knowingly make decisions, we can conjure images, and we can even create and listen to our own thoughts. Even though we can create an understanding consciously, there is a process running in the background that reflects on events unconsciously as well. The unconscious process is one we’re now deeply familiar with: the inner monologue. Humanity has expanded its interpretation of the inner monologue from the speech of gods to an essential component of conscious experience. Even so, people who use belief systems can still validly ascribe their inner monologue to a deity or deities as part of their spiritual and/or religious experience. Even if one day GWT is considered to be the foundation for the theory of consciousness, “Western” science does not have the final word on how humanity understands and interprets reality.

The other “Western” approach to consciousness I found notable is Information Integration Theory, or IIT. Though IIT is similar to GWT in that it asserts that the cortico-thalamic or C-T circuit is essential to the generation of consciousness, it seeks to understand why some parts of the brain generate consciousness and others don’t. To facilitate that search, IIT defines consciousness as having two distinct phenomenological properties: differentiation and integration.⁶⁹ Differentiation measures how many available experiences there are to a conscious entity at any given time. Integration is a measure of the unification of those experiences – consciousness “...corresponds to the capacity of a system to integrate information.”⁷⁰ But how can consciousness be measured at all? Isn’t it a milieu of moments being defined without end? Not alone, claims IIT. Consciousness is quantifiable.

Information can change one’s conscious experience. We learned earlier that information becomes knowledge when it’s used in a process or action. This is a cause and effect relationship: information comes in through the senses, then changes the conscious experience of the person taking it in. IIT takes this causally effective information and assigns it a value, called phi. The way the brain experiences consciousness is determined by how it regulates the information it receives as input as well as what the brain does with that input. Whatever the initial cause of the information going into the conscious experience, and where in the brain that information is processed, determines the integration of the information. IIT states this is based on the phi of the information. Essentially the brain is constantly determining how valuable all of the information it takes in is and then decides where to send it for processing.⁷¹

Where the brain sends the information it receives determines how it’s integrated into the system. That information may not be processed by the part of the brain that receives it. Instead, the information is shared within a network of integrated parts performing individual tasks called a complex. Each complex determines the phi as measured against the other complexes that are processing the same information. This allows for the information to reach the complex that can best handle the information, integrate it, and create a conscious thought or physical reaction.⁷² This process seems to defy conventional wisdom, or at least what many people are taught in high school level science classes. Aren’t individual parts of the brain responsible for individual tasks? While there is some truth to parts of the brain being more adept with specific functions, we need to remember that these generalities cannot be applied to every brain every time.⁷³ Subdividing the brain into individual parts is something “Western” science does in an attempt to better understand the anatomy of the brain, but that does not indicate how the physiology of the brain works. IIT asserts that subdivision isn’t possible.⁷⁴ Rather, it’s impossible, for example, to separate certain elements of visual cue from physical reality such as colors from shapes or a true splitting of experience between the left eye and right eye. For those things to be possible, IIT claims the left and right hemispheres of the brain would have to be separated entirely.

“But then, such split-brain operations yield two separate subjects of conscious experience, each of them having a smaller repertoire of available states [of consciousness] and more limited performance.”⁷⁵

To summarize, the brain creates complexes composed of different areas. Sometimes different areas of the brain are part of separate complexes that overlap. Each complex determines the value of incoming information, the brain chooses which complex can best process and integrate the information, then once processed causes a reaction like a thought, memory, or physical movement. So is there any one place in the brain that can be considered “the seat of the soul” the way Descartes hoped?

IIT has found that the empirical evidence for a single place in the brain where consciousness comes from does not exist. So far the evidence of the C-T circuit being involved is the strongest evidence available, but there’s no one place in the cortex or the thalamus that does the work alone.⁷⁶ Instead there are sections within the C-T that specialize in specific recognition functions like colors, shapes, and more. Those specialized areas are multimodal, meaning the brain can reassign the function of a specialized area if it needs to.⁷⁷ Is there a sudden influx of color information coming in to be processed? Simply reassign more areas to color processing, then return the specialized areas to their baseline modalities once the processing is done. When it comes to the C-T the brain happily plays the part of a foreman, telling areas what to do and when to do it. The high degree of neuroplasticity available in the C-T makes it unlike most areas of the brain which only change modalities in extreme cases like damage or loss.⁷⁸ Areas of the brain that are not part of the C-T still pass information to it for processing. Visual and physical information as well as processes like language and cognition do pass through the C-T, but since the C-T and other areas lack anatomical integration (meaning they do not physically touch), they can only alter conscious experience a small amount. Ultimately, IIT defines consciousness and conscious experience as a potentiality within a system based on its capacity to integrate information.

“Western” Science Approaches Metaphysics

If consciousness is defined by a system’s ability to integrate information, does that mean that any system that processes information this way has consciousness? Potentially! IIT asserts that consciousness could have arisen from evolution because of the advantage processing information has to the life and sustainability of a system. On a long enough time scale, any and all biological systems that are capable of information integration and changes of state have the potential to become conscious since learning and adaptation are part of those experiences. Since consciousness exclusively depends on integration, then anything can be conscious “... whether or not it has a strong sense of self, language, emotion, a body, or is immersed in an environment…”.⁷⁹ This definition is strikingly specific and has incredible implications.

Over the course of this essay I’ve focused on sapience which is understood as the highest order of consciousness known to us. From a “Western” science perspective, humans are the only creatures known to have this level of intelligence and cognition. Some animals display facets of this level of consciousness such as octopus and dolphins, though they are not classified as sapient. Most animals are considered to be sentient, having a sense of self through subjective experience and the ability to feel changes in physical and mental sensation. But take another look at the definition of consciousness IIT provides; a sense of self and even a body are not prerequisites for consciousness! What exactly is this definition implying?

With such a broad definition of consciousness put forward by the author Giulio Tononi, “Western” science is now broaching metaphysical subjects. Concepts such as panpsychism, animism, and the Gaia hypothesis all have underlying ideas that overlap with IIT: all living things have subjective experience, are interconnected, and are capable of integrating information while forming bonds. Moving from highly localized areas, then zooming out to the Earth itself acting as a conscious entity, and beyond into understanding the universe as a unified body, IIT doesn’t limit the possibilities of anything developing consciousness. The paper itself admits the metaphysical implication outright:

“...At the most general level, the theory has ontological implications. It takes its start from phenomenology and, by making a critical use of thought experiments, it argues that subjective experience is one and the same thing as a system's capacity to integrate information.”⁸⁰

Ontology, a philosophical concept about the study of the nature of reality itself, is part of IIT. As a division of metaphysics, ontology specifically studies the things that make up our reality. Metaphysics studies the rules under which those things operate. That this specific term was used in Tononi’s paper is no mistake. His choice of word helps to shine light on an emerging truth: “Eastern” and “Western” modalities are beginning to converge. I don’t believe this is a coincidence.

Conclusion

Every instance of separation regarding modes of inquiry is superficial. From the demarcation between spiritual and scientific modalities to the “Eastern” and “Western” hemispheres of Earth, any idea that ignores our deep interconnection is holding humanity back. Looking at humanity’s beginnings reveals the truth: language has shaped our lives from the moment we began developing it. From choice to use, words work like magic. Ancient peoples knew that specific sounds and tones were powerful, that words described deep feelings that cannot be seen. They developed an understanding of interconnection that transcended their localities and cultures through the language they developed and used. The work of colonization tried to erase these understandings from history, to force a “one size fits all or else” mentality onto the entire world. Colonization’s failure opens up a chance for humanity to return to ancient understandings.

Language has the ability to create separation or connection. For centuries the prevailing “Western” language logic has been deeply analytical: studies are made to separate every part of every thing until the individual parts are fully understood. “Western” understandings have depth but lack breadth. Conversely, “Eastern” studies tend towards holistic approaches that take broader, intersecting information into account and move into gestalt understandings. “Eastern” approaches take the complexity that arises from interacting systems into account.⁸¹

To borrow an idea from IIT, the separation of our hemispheres from “East” to “West” has given us smaller repertoires and limited performance. This has given “East” and “West” unique understandings. Yes, each hemisphere is functional on its own. Yes, they’re capable of subjective experiences. But each hemisphere, considered separately, is less capable of reaching a more complete understanding of reality as it is.⁸² Instead, these two pieces of the same whole each insist that reality is how their peoples say it is. Language has been used in part to assert and dominate reality with modalities that run contrary to the way this planet functions. All things are in concert with each other. Because of forces humanity itself has created, this insistence that one way of living or understanding is the only “right” way, we are suffering global consequences at the hands of the very few. Like the individual parts of the brain, these [t]issues are not a separate matter.

At every level of my research, I have found that all of these seemingly separate modalities are instead part of one larger complex system: humanity and its place on Earth. The mind and the brain are interdependent. Modes of inquiry take inspiration and information from one another. Each hemisphere of Earth finds similar answers to life’s biggest questions using different words and names. Uniting “East” and “West” opens up possibilities that have never been considered. New ideas may be born from the complexity of the connections between all modes of inquiry, no matter the origin. If humanity is earnest in its search for understanding consciousness then it must be open to a modicum of discomfort. We can learn to accept that no idea is too outrageous to be considered. Finding paths forward to a more equitable and exciting future will be carved out of the acceptance of, and subsequent growth from, our interconnection on all levels. The words we decide to use and develop along the way will help determine the depth and breadth of our yet untapped potential. We may find the answer to the “hard question” by building a cohesive global community that honors each unique viewpoint and contribution. Our words will give us hope, purpose, and camaraderie. That’s the planet I hope to live on. Should we want not only to survive but thrive, the planet itself may accept nothing less.

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i’d like to give a special thanks to Amy C. Bonds, without whom this work wouldn’t exist as it does today. Her encouragement, editing skills, search for clarity, and generosity with her time taught me valuable lessons and helped me believe my work is worth creating and sharing with the world.

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2. Jaynes J. The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Mariner

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4. Jaynes. The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. p. 127

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6. Jaynes. The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. p. 127

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCW0zyDGuXc.

8. Jaynes. The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. p.132

9. Ibid., p. 134

10. Ibid., p. 136

11. Ibid., p. 143

12. Henry, D.O. From Foraging to Agriculture: The Levant at the End of the Ice Age. University of Pennsylvania Press; 2018

13. Barzilai, Omry, et al. “Early Human Collective Practices and Symbolism in the Early Upper Paleolithic of Southwest Asia.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 121, no. 51, Dec. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2404632121.

14. Jaynes J. The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. p. 139

15. Bar-Yosef, Ofar. “The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture.” Evolutionary Anthropology, vol. 6, no. 5, Dec. 1998, https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6505.

16. Jaynes J. The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind p. 140

17. Ibid., p. 142

18. Ibid., pp. 141-142

19. Ibid., p. 318

20. Hayes C. J. H. Essays on Nationalism, The Macmillan Company. New York; 1928.

21. Ibid.

22. Premack, David, and Guy Woodruff. “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 1, no. 4, Dec. 1978, pp. 515–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00076512.

23. Atkin, Albert, “Peirce’s Theory of Signs”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.).

24. Ibid.

25. “Essai De Sémantique : (Science Des Significations)” : Bréal, Michel, 1832-1915. Hachette, 1897, archive.org/details/essaidesmantiq00bruoft/essaidesmantiq00bruoft.

26. Wilkins, A. S. “Bréal’s Semantics - Semantics: Studies in the Science of Meaning. By Michel Bréal. Translated by MrsHenry Cust, with a Preface by J. P. Postgate. London: William Heinemann. 8vo. Pp. Lxvi, 342. 7s. 6d. Net.” The Classical Review 15.2 (1901): pp. 127–128. Web.

27. Tuske, Joerg, “The Concept of Emotion in Classical Indian Philosophy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/concept-emotion-india/

28. Staal, Frits. The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science. North Holland Publishing Company; 1986. pp. 261-262. Staal uses the term “Hinduism” as a shorthand initially but goes on to explain it is an exonym, a word placed upon any non-connective spiritual understandings within Southern India by the “Western” world. A more correct modern term to use is Vaidika Dharma for those who live according to the Vedas.

29. Ibid., pp. 251-252

30. Ibid., p. 252

31. Ibid., p. 5

32. Ibid., p. 254

33. Ibid., Pg. 254-255

34. Ibid., Pg. 266-267

35. Ibid., Pg. 255

36. Gk, None Yallappa, and None Jayashree Ks. “Ekamoolika Prayoga Mentioned in Sushrutha Samhita.” International Journal of Ayurveda and Pharma Research, Oct. 2023, pp. 31–39. https://doi.org/10.47070/ijapr.v11i9.2972.

37. Staal, Frits. The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science. p. 254

38. Ibid., pp. 260-261

39. Ibid., p. 261

40. Franco, E. The Oldest Philosophical Manuscript in Sanskrit. Journal of Indian Philosophy 31, 21–31 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024690001755

41. Staal, Frits. The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science. p. 261

42. Ibid., Pg. 262

43. Ibid., Pg. 268

44. Ibid., Pg. 268

45. Ibid., Pg. 268

46. Staal, Frits. The Science of Ritual. Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute; 1982. p. 39

47. Ibid., pp. 40-44

48. Ibid., pp. 40-44

49. Lokhorst, Gert-Jan, “Descartes and the Pineal Gland”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/pineal-gland/

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Chan, Alan, “Laozi”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/laozi/. I say “purportedly by Laozi” because the history of the book called Laozi and the man called Laozi have a deep and contentious history. There are multiple people attributed to the book that would become the Tao Te Ching, with different people attributed based on political, commercial, spiritual, and other beliefs or assertions. No one truly knows who wrote Laozi or why the name Laozi is listed as the author.

54. Ibid.

55. Tzu, Lao, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way. Shambhala Publications, 2019. p. 78

56. Martin, William. The Activist’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for a Modern Revolution. New World Library, 2016., p. 88

57. Phillips, Rasheedah. Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time. AK Press, 2025. p. 265

58. Ibid., p.264

59. Jarmon, Laura C. Wishbone: Reference and Interpretation in Black Folk Narrative. Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2003. p. xxxiii

60. Phillips, Rasheedah. Dismantling the Master’s Clock. p. 264

61. “Everyone’s Different: What Parts of the Brain Make Our Personalities so Unique?” Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), www.cheba.unsw.edu.au/blog/everyones-different-what-parts-brain-make-our-personalities-so-unique.

62. Mpfi, and Mpfi. “Early Life Stress Impacts Fear Responses Differently in Males and Females -Max Planck Neuroscience.” Max Planck Neuroscience -, 19 Feb. 2025, maxplanckneuroscience.org/early-life-stress-impacts-fear-responses-differently-in-males-and-females.

63. “Neuroscience Needs a New Paradigm: The Brain Is Not a Machine.” IAI TV - Changing How the World Thinks, 12 Aug. 2025, iai.tv/articles/neuroscience-needs-a-new-paradigm-the-brain-is-not-a-machine-auid-3338

64. Baars, Bernard J., et al. “Global Workspace Theory (GWT) and Prefrontal Cortex: Recent Developments.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, Nov. 2021, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.749868. p. 1

65. Ibid., p. 2

66. Ibid., p. 2

67. Ibid., p. 3

68. Ibid., pp. 4-5

69. Tononi, Giulio. “An Information Integration Theory of Consciousness.” BMC Neuroscience, vol. 5, no. 1, Nov. 2004, https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-5-42. p. 1

70. Ibid., p. 1

71. Ibid., pp. 3-4

72. Ibid., p. 6

73. Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. Penguin Books, 2007. pp.48-49. Dr. Wilder Penfield experimented on live patients in order to map where in the brain certain functions reside such as motor or sensory system functions. These conscious patients undergoing brain surgery were touched with an electric probe and the reactions of the patients gauged. If no physical reaction presented, Penfield would ask the patient for feedback. Sometimes patients explained the sudden return of memories thought lost or “dreamlike scenes.” Dr. Michael Merzenich took cues from Penfield’s research and studied brain maps further, concluding that “...these maps are neither immutable within a single brain nor universal but vary in their borders and size from person to person.”

74. Tononi, Giulio. “An Information Integration Theory of Consciousness.” p. 3

75. Ibid., p. 3

76. Ibid., p. 10

77. Ibid., p. 10

78. Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself, p. 97. Neuroplasticity, the ability for the brain to change itself, is present in all areas of the brain. While the C-T is more neuroplastic than most areas because of the high concentration of neuronal connections, all areas of the brain have the ability to change and adapt. However, when one area of the brain changes, other areas physiologically connected to it change in response. Dr. Merzenich again: “You can’t have plasticity in isolation...it’s an absolute impossibility.”

79. Tononi, Giulio. “An Information Integration Theory of Consciousness.” p. 20

80. Ibid., p. 19

81. Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself, p. 301

82. Ibid., p. 302