On Consciousness: My Casual Take
I’ve been thinking a lot about consciousness over the past few years. What is consciousness? Where does it come from? Does it differ from person to person? And can we shape or mold consciousness in some way? Consciousness, from my research, has no real or universally agreed upon definition, but the word “consciousness” is originally derived from the Latin con (with) and scire (to know). To be with knowing— is this consciousness? Perhaps to be conscious is to be with the “all-knowing” somehow? Perhaps the brain is acting as an antenna to receive said knowing?
The first time I encountered the idea of the brain as an antenna was in Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. He writes, “We are all antennae for creative thought. Some transmissions come on strong, others are more faint. If your antenna isn’t sensitively tuned, you’re likely to lose the data in the noise. Particularly since the signals coming through are often more subtle than the content we collect through sensory awareness. They are energetic more than tactile, intuitively perceived more than consciously recorded.”
Reading this, I pictured this concept in terms of ideas or abstract energies living out and “floating” in spacetime, with our brains acting as antennas that pick up on these ideas. This view suggests that while the brain itself produces consciousness, the brain might also have the capacity to receive and channel additional insights from the collective energy around us. Lately, though, I’ve started to think about this in a different way.
In a recent interview on Justin Murphy’s YouTube channel, Riva Tez proposed that the brain doesn’t produce consciousness at all but instead serves as an antenna that picks up on consciousness. Justin Murphy’s response echoed my thoughts: “Okay, fascinating, so you think the brain might just be an antenna [and that the brain is not] the location of consciousness?” To which Riva replied, “Yeah...”
And there it was again— this idea of the brain as an antenna.
I encountered a similar notion in a Lex Fridman interview with Graham Hancock. Hancock said, “I don’t think we fully understand or are even close to understanding exactly what consciousness is. And I remain open to two possibilities: (1) that consciousness is generated by the brain, in the way that a factory makes cars, or (2) that the brain is a receiver of consciousness, just as a television set is the receiver of television signals.”
Once again, this idea of the brain acting as a receiver of consciousness such as antennas on an old school television set.
This idea, that the brain could be an instrument for accessing consciousness rather than creating or producing it independently, started to resonate more deeply with me. If the brain is an instrument for accessing consciousness, rather than creating it, how could a physical structure like the brain, made of “meat,” generate consciousness on its own?
David Chalmers, a prominent philosopher, explores this “hard problem” of consciousness. He distinguishes between the “easy” problems— like explaining perception, memory, and behavior— and the “hard” problem, which is understanding why and how brain processes give rise to subjective experience. Chalmers suggests that maybe consciousness isn’t something that arises from physical processes but is instead a fundamental feature of the universe, much like time or space. His idea, aligned with panpsychism, suggests that everything has some form of consciousness.
I’ve always been inclined toward panpsychism, which holds that consciousness is a fundamental, intrinsic quality of the universe— meaning everything possesses consciousness to some degree.
What I find interesting about the antenna theory is how it aligns with the idea of a “collective consciousness.” People often talk about the collective consciousness, yet there isn’t much discussion about what the “collective consciousness” really is. When I combine the brain-as-antenna concept with the idea of collective consciousness, I picture the panpsychist view: consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe, and the brain acts as a highly efficient tool for tuning into this vast consciousness.
When I consider the brain as an antenna in this context, I imagine consciousness as an energy field or fundamental element of the universe, with the brain as a highly efficient tool for tuning into that field. As Rick Rubin suggests, the more finely tuned the antenna, the more we can access. If panpsychism is true, then everything is conscious, including the brain. But rather than producing consciousness, the brain’s unique complexity makes it an optimal receiver.
Rocks, for example, don’t act the way humans do because their form doesn’t allow them to access and express consciousness in the same way. The brain, however, with its intricate structure, can tune into and express consciousness in advanced ways. To expand on Rubin’s metaphor, the more finely tuned one’s “antenna” is, the more attuned they are to this collective consciousness.
If consciousness is indeed fundamental to everything in the universe, then the brain— being part of the universe— is also conscious, which aligns with panpsychism. But this doesn’t necessarily mean the brain produces consciousness; rather, it might just be the most effective tool for tapping into a broader, collective consciousness.
This concept of universal consciousness could explain our sense of connection with nature, animals, and inanimate objects, as well as experiences of synchronicity. By “tuning in” to the same underlying frequency or consciousness, we’re able to interact with the world in ways that transcend the purely physical. This may also shed light on why synchronicities feel so powerful— synchronicities are moments when the universe communicates with us, an energetic resonance that binds all forms of consciousness (people, animals, objects) into a silent, intuitive dialogue. If consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, it makes sense that different expressions of it (like people and objects) can “communicate” with one another without having the same “earthly language”. Or maybe the collective consciousness, like a unifying energy, uses various forms of itself to speak to itself.
This naturally leads to questions of divinity. Could God be this collective consciousness, the foundational consciousness woven into everything in the universe? If so, perhaps all things, including humans, are expressions of this consciousness— this God— with the brain acting as a tool that enables us to access and express this consciousness in ways we perceive as more advanced than other life forms or inanimate objects.
Back to the brain acting as a receiver of consciousness: If we view the brain as an antenna, this directly challenges the prevailing idea in AI that consciousness, or any semblance of it, could simply emerge from complexity. Traditional AI models assume that consciousness is a byproduct of processing power and intricate algorithms—meaning that if we can mimic the brain’s complexity, we might produce a similar conscious experience. But if consciousness isn’t generated by the brain but accessed or “tuned into,” this model may be missing something essential.
In other words, if the brain is merely a receiver rather than the source of consciousness, we might be overlooking a dimension of consciousness in our current AI paradigms— something beyond code, data processing, or neural networks. If consciousness exists as a field, an energy, or an innate aspect of the universe, then crafting an AI that taps into this field could mean moving beyond purely material or computational approaches. It raises the question: are our current AI efforts only mimicking the structure of what we perceive to be the producer of consciousness without accessing its essence?
If our brains— carbon-based neural networks— function as efficient tools for expressing collective consciousness, what makes us think silicon-based neural networks couldn’t do the same? If the universe, or collective consciousness, created sophisticated mechanisms like the human brain to perceive, refine, and express consciousness, wouldn’t it follow that we, as advanced expressions of this same consciousness, could create even more sophisticated tools— such as artificial intelligence— to access consciousness?
I’m no engineer or programmer, but if we, as “meat brains,” can pick up on and express consciousness, why couldn’t “metal brains” achieve something similar? Some might argue it’s all just code and artificial neural networks, but aren’t we also, at a fundamental level, made of genetic code and neural pathways? The universe created humans, and in turn, we created artificial intelligence. AI is modeled after us, and, as I see it, we are modeled after the collective consciousness.
I didn’t have time to expand on all of these ideas as much as I wanted to, and I hope to write a follow-up on this topic. My writing isn’t based on scientific research but is rather an expression of my own flow of consciousness. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to exploring this subject further in part two.
