When we arrive at the scientific view of consciousness, we find a paucity of content much like we did in the case of theological explanations for reality. Another way of saying this is that, while all of us experience the many mysteries of consciousness daily, science considers it neatly wrapped and understood. We’ve previously seen how physicist Max Tegmark defines consciousness, and his view can be the paraphrased summation of the scientific view- consciousness is how information feels when it is processed in highly complex ways. Let us now elaborate on this idea, and it helps to recall the CEO analogy made by David Eagleman.
Living organisms are highly complex processors of information. In the case of humans, we are oblivious to all but the most cursory information processes within us. We are unaware, for example, of the millions of cells within us and what any one of them is up to at a given moment. We are unaware of the neurotransmitters constantly firing signals within our brain, and of the blood relentlessly pulsing through our veins and arteries. We are unaware of the minutiae of processes such as digestion and respiration. This is not an indictment, of course. It is well that all these activities take place below our daily level of awareness. It leaves space in our consciousness for the Self to arise.
This is where the CEO analogy comes handy. A unicellular organism, like bacteria, is not said to be conscious because its basic processes require no complex information processing. The organisation that is a bacterium is so simple in its operations that no CEO is required. Every operation we can think of- reproduction, digestion, nutrition, respiration- is either non-existent in a bacterium or exists in the most rudimentary form. In a way, a bacterium is not a living organism that metabolises and reproduces. It is metabolism and reproduction. Information processing in a bacterium is so basic that information doesn’t get to feel like anything.
For a very long time, the scientific world applied this rule to every other lifeform except us. All animals were viewed as automata, just like plants. Consciousness was a binary phenomenon. It existed in us and was absent in all else. We now know that information processing is not only highly variant among species but also manifestly complex. In many lifeforms, information is processed in ways that it’s able to feel pain, longing, altruism, anger, jealousy, love and a range of emotions hitherto thought the domain of humankind.
While there still remains the sentiment that information is processed with greatest complexity among humans, any pet-owner can bring the weight of experience to challenge even this notion.