What Things Are Conscious?

By RE CASTEL

There are things that act with significant freedom and things that do not have as much freedom to act and are essentially only acted upon. Put another way, there are things that have the freedom to choose and there are things that have less or have no freedom to choose.

And there are also the things that, in a manner of speaking, are merely "acted upon"...

Both of the first two types of things have some degree of consciousness because they have the input-process-output (i-p-o) capabilities. They are capable of receiving inputs, processing the inputs, and producing outputs – but only to the best that they are capable of.

The difference between the two main categories of things is that the things that act with significant freedom are capable of the more complex inputs reception, inputs processing, and outputs generation. But basically both types have the i-p-o capabilities which is the essence of consciousness.

Without the i-p-o capability there is no consciousness.

A particle has its i-p-o capabilities. An electromagnetic radiation has its i-p-o capabilities. A gravitational field has its i-p-o capabilities. And etc...

A wall is quite conscious – if you go bang your head on the wall for inputs to the wall, the wall will process the inputs as best it could and produce the outputs that a wall is capable of producing according to the degree of consciousness that a wall has.

There has to be the corporeality in order for the abstraction to occur. There has to be a functional body in order to have a functional mind. The body and mind apprehend/comprehend the corporeal and the abstract.

Consciousness is inherently connected to phenomena – i.e., mass-energy. Consciousness is inherently connected to mass-energy.

All phenomena have the i-p-o capability. Therefore, all phenomena have some degree of consciousness.

All phenomena have their degree of conscience and self-awareness – their sense of existential duty or social responsibility. They are bothered by the inputs, they are bothered by their internal states, and so they process the inputs and their internal states and produce their outputs to the best of their i-p-o capabilities.

On the other hand are the noumena – i.e., the abstracts. The noumena do not have the i-p-o capabilities. The abstracts do not have any degree of consciousness.

The abstracts are things that, in a manner of speaking, are merely "acted upon"...

Now, all phenomena (all mass-energy) are of the essence of motion. And it is evident that consciousness is inherently connected to the phenomena.

The motions in the body and the abstractions in the mind occur in unison. The noumena occur when the appropriate i-p-o processes in phenomena occur.

On a more religious note – according to the ideas put forth above, the spirit of man when it leaves the more tangible body of flesh and bones has got to be a mass-energy construct, no matter how ghostly and less tangible, in order to continue to function with some degree of consciousness...