Page 156 - Darwin's Dilemma: The Soul

Darwin’s Dilemma: The Soul

ty—the reality we experience that is, not the reality of the noumena,
of whose nature we have no knowledge—is consciousness. Space,
time, matter, energy—the whole substantial world built up from our
sense perceptions—is created within consciousness. The essence of
this whole phenomenal world is not matter, but consciousness. 102
What we attempt to describe as reality is actually based on
consciousness. Color, sound, smell, taste, time, matter—in short,
everything that we perceive in the world is a form and feature
within consciousness. Thanks to our consciousness, we are able to
conceive all things in the universe.
But we cannot observe consciousness in the external world.
Peter Russell sets out the reason why:

The reason we do not find consciousness in the world we observe is be-
cause consciousness is not part of the picture generated in our minds. 103
As Russell states, the consciousness that perceives the outside
world is not inside the external world we observe. Therefore, it is
impossible for us to see and analyze it. Russell likens conscious-
ness to light reflected onto a cinema screen. In the story portrayed
in the film, there is no evidence that only light rays are being pro-
jected onto the screen. Human beings have direct experience with
only the image on the screen. The light itself, without which there
can be no image at all, goes unnoticed.
In the same way, consciousness possesses no tangible, visible
existence since it is not in the material world we observe.
Diane Ackerman has described consciousness in these terms:
The brain is silent, dark, and dumb. It feels nothing. It sees nothing.
. . . The brain can hurl itself across mountains or into outer space. The
brain can imagine an apple and experience it as real. Indeed, the
brain barely knows the difference between an imagined apple and
an observed one. . . . The brain is not the mind . . . [The mind is] Like
a ghost in a machine, some say. 104

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