Page 694 - Atlas of Creation Volume 4

The source of consciousness: the human soul

So far, we have proved that the ex ter nal world we per ceive con sists of a shad ow world that aris es with -
in con scious ness, and that we can nev er di rect ly ex pe ri ence ma te ri al ex is tence. In the light of these con clu -

sions, the con cept of “ab so lute mat ter” en vis aged by ma te ri al ist phi los o phy los es all va lid i ty. Yet we still fa-
ce an im por tant dif fi cul ty that needs to be ex plained. Peter Russell sum ma ri zes the ques tion:

They are ask ing how it is that a com plex net work of neu rons can give rise to con scious ex pe ri ence. How does
some thing as im ma te ri al as con scious ness arise from some thing as un con scious as the ma te ri al world? Is it a re -
sult of the com plex pat tern ing of da ta across the neu ral net? Is it due to quan tum co her ence ef fects in mi cro tu bul -

es with in the neu rons? Or is it some thing else?

. . . When we dis tin guish be tween the two re al i ties, the ques tion dis ap pears to be re placed by its op po site: How is
it that mat ter, space, time, col or, sound, form, and all the oth er qual i ties we ex pe ri ence emerge in con scious ness?
What is the proc ess of man i fes ta tion with in the mind? 105

This re al ly im por tant ques tion should be clar i fied. What is con scious ness made up of? What gives rise to
this whole viv id world in side con scious ness? This is a ques tion that 21st-cen tu ry sci en tists are still seek ing to

an swer, about which they write books and hold con fer en ces and seek to re solve—but which, for some rea son,
they are re luc tant to set tle. Hundreds of books and ar ti cles and anal y ses by count less sci en tists have fail ed to
pro vide the ex pect ed an swer to what the source of con scious ness is.
The sub ject of con scious ness is re gard ed as one of the great est mys ter ies of the 21st cen tu ry. Almost all
re search ers, writers and pro fes sors con cerned with the top ic have be gun by stat ing that the sub ject is as yet

un ex plained, and end by again em pha siz ing that in ex pli ca bil i ty.
One such ex am ple is these words by Jeffrey M. Schwartz:

. . . al though cor re lat ing phys i cal brain ac tiv i ty with men tal events is an un ques tion a ble sci en tific tri umph, it has
left many stu dents of the brain un sat is fied. For nei ther neu ro sci en tist nor phi los o pher has ad e quate ly ex plained

how the be hav ior of neu rons can give rise to sub jec tive ly felt men tal states. Rather, the puz zle of how pat terns of
neu ronal ac tiv i ty be come trans formed in to sub jec tive aware ness, the neu ro bi ol o gist Robert Doty ar gued in 1998,
“re mains the car di nal mys tery of hu man ex is tence.” 106

But is this sub ject re al ly im pos si ble to ex plain? Or does it sug gest a fact that sci en tists are un will ing to
see? Are sci en tists who de fend quan tum phys ics un der the in flu ence of the ma te ri al ism they have for so long
re gard ed as the truth? Or is some thing else pre vent ing them from see ing the truth?

Consciousness is very def i nite ly not in ca pa ble of ex pla na tion. The en ti ty that says “I see” the im age in the
brain, that says “I hear” the sounds in the brain, the en ti ty that is aware of its own ex is tence, is the soul be -
stowed on man kind by Allah. Materialist minds are un will ing for this to be known. They re frain from this

truth be ing no ticed. That is the ba sic rea son why ma te ri al ist sci en tists claim that the is sue of con scious ness
“has still not been re solved.” The ab so lute ex is tence of the soul, and the fact that it is Allah Who be stows the
soul on hu man be ings, ut ter ly over turn all their ma te ri al ist be liefs and claims. No mat ter how much they at -
tempt to brand the sub ject as “in ex pli ca ble,” it is the soul that is the source of con scious ness and that says “I
am me.”

In the Qur’an Allah has re vealed that He first cre at ed the hu man body and then breathed His spirit in to it:
When your Lord said to the an gels, “I am cre at ing a hu man be ing out of dried clay formed from fet id black mud.
When I have formed him and breathed My Spirit in to him, fall down in pros tra tion in front of him!” (Qur’an, 15:28-
29)

This is the most es sen tial fact that sci en tists in ves ti gat ing the sub ject need to ac cept and ad mit. William
Tiller, a Stanford University pro fes sor of ma te ri als sci ence and en gi neer ing, is one of those sci en tists who do
make such an ad mis sion:

In my mod el ing, the ob serv er is the spir it in side the four-lay er bio-bodys uit. And so, it’s like the ghost in the ma -

chine. 107
It is the human soul that can see without requiring an eye, can hear without needing an ear, and can think

without a brain.

692 Atlas of Creation Vol. 4