by Steve Taylor, Ph.D.

We must realize that; we all have a radio sending and receiving set in our heads or brains. We are always sending and receiving, even though we are not conscious of it. ~ Ernest L. Norman, ICCC

Over the latest 20 years ago, the field of consciousness studies has become increasingly popular, partly because some scientists believe that consciousness is one of the last remaining mysteries. According to this narrative, we have now reached the point where we largely understand problems like evolution, the of life and the origins of the universe, so now it’s time for us to turn our attention inside and solve the problem of consciousness. 

“I’ll mention what I’ll call the “radio theory” of brains. Imagine that you are a Kalahari Bushman and that you stumble upon a transistor radio in the sand. You might pick it up, twiddle the knobs, and suddenly, to your surprise, hear voices streaming out of this strange little box. If you’re curious and scientifically minded, you might try to understand what is going on. You might pry off the back cover to discover a little nest of wires. Now let’s say you begin a careful, scientific study of what causes the voices. You notice that each time you pull out the green wire, the voices stop. When you put the wire back on its contact, the voices begin again. The same goes for the red wire. Yanking out the black wire causes the voices to get garbled, and removing the yellow wire reduces the volume to a whisper. You step carefully through all the combinations, and you come to a clear conclusion: the voices depend entirely on the integrity of the circuitry. Change the circuitry and you damage the voices. The Bushman might falsely conclude that the wires in the radio produce the voices by some unknown mechanism, because he has no knowledge of electromagnetic radiation and radio technology.” ~ David Eagleman, Incognito

It might seem natural to assume that consciousness is produced by the brain – as a scientist once said to me, ‘We don’t have anywhere else to look. If consciousness doesn’t come from the brain, where else could it possibly come from?’ However, this argument is strikingly similar to the arguments which were once commonly used to support the existence of God – “There’s no other way of explaining it, so it must be God!”

In fact, some philosophers have suggested that the assumption that the brain produces consciousness cannot possibly be true. The brain is just a soggy clump of gray matter – how could that soggy mass possibly give rise to the richness and depth of consciousness? To think that it could is a ‘category error’ – the brain and consciousness are distinct phenomena, which can’t be explained in terms of each other. As the philosopher Colin McGinn has put it, to say that the brain produces consciousness is like saying that water can turn into wine.

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.” ~ Nikola Tesla

Famously, the philosopher David Chalmers called this the ‘hard problem.’ Psychologists and neuroscientists can understand some problems fairly well – e.g. how the mind process information, how attention and memory operate, and so on. These are the ‘easy problems.’ But the ‘hard problem’ of how the brain might produce consciousness is much less amenable to explanation, and may be completely insoluble.

However, there are viable alternative ways of explaining consciousness besides through brain activity. David Chalmers’ own view is that, rather than produced by the brain, consciousness may be a fundamental force of the universe, like gravity or mass. In this way, consciousness came into being when the universe began, and exists everywhere and in everything. A similar view is put forward by the philosopher Robert Forman, who suggests that consciousness exists as a kind of field, outside the brain, and that the function of the brain is to ‘pick up’ consciousness, like a radio receiver, and then to ‘channel’ it into our individual organism.

To me, this model makes more sense than to continue hammering away fruitlessly at the brain for an explanation of consciousness. It also makes more sense than to explain away consciousness as an illusion – as the Daniel Dennett does in Consciousness Explained, for example (where he suggests that qualia don’t really exist, and that in reality there is no one ‘in’ our brains looking out at the world). The idea of consciousness as a fundamental force is strikingly similar to the outlook of many of the world’s indigenous peoples. Completely independently, many indigenous groups developed concepts of a fundamental ‘spiritual force’ which they perceived as pervading the whole of reality. In America, the Hopi called it maasauu, the Lakota called it wakan-tanka, and the Pawnee called it tirawa, while the Ufaina (of the Amazon Rain Forest) call it fufaka. The Ainu of Japan called it ramut (translated by the anthropologist Monro as ‘spirit-energy’), while in parts of New Guinea it was called imunu (translated by early anthropologist J.H. Holmes as ‘universal soul’. In Africa the Nuer call it kwoth and the Mbuti call it pepo. As these peoples perceived it, this force is not a personal being such as a deity, who watches over the world and requires human beings to worship it. It is usually seen as an all-pervading force or power, with no gender or personality.

“In this sense, omnipresent God would be the analog to the transmitter, the soul or mind would be the intangible signal, and the brain would be the receiver. The brain is a radio, a bandwidth receiver of microwaves, Hertzian, infrared. It was designed to be able to pick up waves, information, that extend all the way to Infinite Unknown frequency.” ~ Ramtha

This view of consciousness has a great deal of explanatory power in other areas. It helps to explain human compassion, empathy and altruism, for example. Altruism makes little sense from a materialist point of view, since we’re all individual beings enclosed in our bodies, and the primary aim of our lives is to sustain our own well-being. It makes no sense for us to put the well-being of others before our own, or to go out of our way to help strangers, or members of other species. But if consciousness is a fundamental force or a field, then in a sense it’s something we all share, or participate in. It’s therefore possible for us to be empathetic with other people, to experience their own sufferings as if they are our own, and to feel a desire to alleviate them. In a sense, other people’s sufferings are our own.

This model is also consistent with telepathy. Telepathy also makes no sense at all from a materialist point of view, which is why many materialists are so keen to dispute research suggesting that it’s a real phenomenon. But again, if consciousness is a fundamental force, we shouldn’t be surprised if telepathy is real. There is a fundamental connection between living beings—a shared network of consciousness through which information could be exchanged from unit to unit.

This ‘radio’ model also fits with an argument which is often used in favor of the idea that consciousness is produced by the brain: damage to the brain would still affect or impair consciousness, just as damage to a radio would impair its broadcast of programs.

So, in explaining consciousness, it may be that we literally need to think outside the box – that is, outside the brain. We are not just conscious – in a sense, we are consciousness, and consciousness is expressing itself through us. And in that sense, we all share the same access to that consciousness.

“…the brain cells present, so far as consciousness is concerned, the surface of one electrode which is attached to the subconscious or the Superconscious part of the psychic self. This electrode will, in turn, discharge itself into the frontal surface of the conscious self when proper relationships of frequencies are met in the perspectives of the immediate environmental situation. This is an oscillating process; but more important to realize, is the fact that these brain cells in themselves contain, as basic elements of their make-up certain characteristics which immediately relate them to definite and well defined spectra of energy wave forms as they manifest themselves from the subconscious to the Superconscious Self. This process can be likened to the various stages of amplification as it is contained either in a radio receiver or an amplifying device, which is necessary to transpose the extremely high rate of oscillating wave forms, called radio frequencies, into demodulated audio-frequencies which are heard and determined by the human ear. ~ Ernest L. Norman, Cosmic Continuum, Chap. 18.

“The “Father” of which Jesus spoke was the Superconscious Self which is within everyone and is the very well-spring of life for that person, just as it is in everyone. We all have the Father within; Jesus also referred to this Father as the Christ-self. It is linked up through frequency vibration just the same as in television or radio, to all of the Infinite Intelligence of the great God Mind.” ~ Ernest L. Norman, ICCC