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Annaka Harris: Consciousness is fundamental

What physics shows us about consciousness

11th April 2025
| New York Times bestselling author of Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. She is an editor and consultant for science writers, specializing in neuroscience and physics, and her work has appeared in the New York Times.
3,062 words
Read time: approx. 15 mins

For decades, our best intuitions have told us that consciousness is a product of complex brain processes, creating the taste of coffee or the smell of a rose. However, New York Times bestselling author, Annaka Harris, argues this view has been shattered by modern neuroscience. In this exclusive, in-depth article Harris draws from her recent documentary, Lights On, taking inspiration from the work of leading physicists, like Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin, and explains why consciousness is the most fundamental thing in the universe.

 

 

I made the case in my book, Conscious, that the assumption that consciousness arises out of complex processing in the brain is likely false, and the reality may be that consciousness runs deeper in nature than the sciences have previously assumed. I believe the reason for such widespread confusion about the emergence of consciousness is in large part due to powerful intuitions we have about the mind and brain that give us an incorrect picture of the underlying reality. These false intuitions have been revealed to us time and again through modern neuroscience, but the culture has barely begun to grapple with their implications, both inside and outside the sciences.

One central problem the science of consciousness faces is that we can only locate conscious processes in nature through high levels of report and communication. This is one of the reasons we have assumed consciousness only arises in complex systems, rather than being something much more basic in nature, as it’s only in systems that are similar to us that we can find evidence (reports) of consciousness. But at the very least, the work with split-brain and locked-in patients should have radically shifted our reliance on reportability at this point. Ask split-brain patient Julie what she’s experiencing, and you’ll get the impression that none of the input to her right hemisphere is consciously experienced (which we now know is not the case). How could we even begin to guess whether there is a felt experience associated with a strolling snail, or the processing of the kidneys, for that matter? All we have to go on is an analogy to where we find reports of conscious experience, even within in a human brain. Yes, I feel that—okay that processing is conscious. No, I don’t feel that—okay, no felt experience associated with that processing. We’re on very shaky ground here.

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Most, if not all, of our scientific investigations of consciousness are unwittingly rooted in a blind assumption.

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Additionally, the sciences have always assumed that consciousness (feeling fear, pain, and all the rest) provides an advantage to living systems, giving us reason to think consciousness evolved in complex life forms. But modern neuroscience continues to give us pause here as well. Our increasing understanding of unconscious brain processes that take place “in the dark” expose the illusory nature of the feeling that our conscious experiences are the proximate cause of our behavior in many instances. In reality, our response to perceived danger, for example—the sight of a bear or the sound of a rattlesnake—is well underway before we become conscious of it, so the feeling of fear does not trigger the response in the way we assume it does. The conscious awareness of the bear, as well as the related emotions, come at the tail end of a stream of brain processing and physical response of the body. (Many people notice in emergencies that they have begun running for their life before they are conscious of what they’re running from.)

Annaka Harris
11th April 2025

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Bjarte Rundereim 23 April 2025

I am fascinated by the ideas and research of the biochemist Nick Lane, after reading his book 'Transformer' (2022). He suggests that life is dependent on electricity (like many) and that life is inextricably tied to the production of electricity in the cell. A cell without an electric charge is a dead cell. Dead cells revert to dust, which is part of the dead mineral life. So, I am obviously not a believer in the "Universal consciousness" of some believers.

My idea, inherited from Nick Lane, is that consciousness is based in living cells, and not just human cells, but all living cells. He has an eye opening story of the life-and-death fight between a stentor and a couple of amoeba, where the stentor, after being partially gobbled up by an amoeba, starts to fight (wiggle) its way out, and successful - leaves in a hurry. No brain, no blood, nothing like our senses or "mind", but still able to feel a threat, fight and run. I cannot help calling that a result of some kind of consciousness.

If Nick Lane (for one) is right, then we may be alone in the Universe, and also the sole source of consciousness. So, maybe consciousness really is - not a part of life - but an expression of life itself? Many talking about consciousness talk about sensing and thought, and other brain activities. What if consciousness is life itself, and the hindu definition (C. is the Light of lights.)(C. is therefore a prerequisite for sensing, but not part of sensing itself.)
I think Nick Lane is onto something.

Charles Reed 20 April 2025

sounds new agey to me.

Bee Levy 18 April 2025

Also, she states that her view doesn't perfectly overlap with panpsychism, but here's a criticism of panpsychism specifically. What delineates different consciousness systems if it is a fundamental property of matter? I asked about a rock and a black hole, as if they had distinct conscious systems. But why would a conscious unit have boundaries that respect either a matter type or a phase type?

This rock is in the grass, so the consciousness of the rock will constrain itself to only rock material - “the grass is clearly something different” observes the rock. No, that's absurd. If all matter has consciousness, matter would not respect the arbitrary categorization of humans, ie - we call this a rock, and that grass. Or “this is silica, but that's chlorophyll. And even though, again, everything has a conscious property to it, consciousness of course respects the doctrine of separate but equal.”

And along the same lines: different phases. That's solid; this is gas, so this is as far as my consciousness goes, because I can't mix! What about liquids that give off vapor? Same compound, but different phases. Consciousness is universal, but I still have to have limits, you see! Also an absurd boundary for consciousness that is universal, fundamental - a property of all matter.

So where does a conscious system reside? What if it's a solid with mixed composition? Or something like the brain that requires blood and had solid and liquid phases?

And if we're to concern ourselves with the suffering of conscious creatures - as Mrs. Harris's husband argues, and I agree with - am I performing a genocide when I cut my hair? Or nails? Or when we incinerate trash? The morality angle is immaterial to whether it's true of course. But there's also some sticky questions arising out of that universe.

So, why should a universe of panpsychism have boundaries separating conscious entities at all, rather than one universal consciousness? And doesn't a universe with Fundamental consciousness have the same challenges here?
Yet my consciousness isn't your consciousness. We have unique perspectives, not shared. Indeed, that seems to be one of the most universally accepted arguments of consciousness - that it's internal and unique and can't be expressed or related to another. Panpsychism doesn't seem to approach what we have here in our universe.

Bee Levy 14 April 2025

I'm not as steeped in this conversation as I'd like to be, so terms like change-blindness are new to me and that undoubtedly affects my understanding of Mrs. Harris's argument. But this Fundamental view seems at odds with much of what we experience and intuit about the world.

She disputes much of my take on consciousness, but I'd like to give it a go anyway, the experience from complexity angle. Consciousness in our human experience seems directly related to the brain. I suspect that the neuron is the building block of conscience, like the atom is of matter. It layers and deepens with diversity and size. We know that the blind spot in the human eye is a result of the optic nerve in the back of the eye not having rods and cones to perceive light. The neurons we lack diminish our conscious view. Doesn't it stand to reason that more neurons (properly evolved and attuned to the world) would enhance our consciousness?

Whereas, if consciousness is fundamental, what does the electron think? Or see? Or smell? No sensory organs. No neural network. Does it experience consciousness nevertheless as rich as a human (or is the fundamental view of consciousness tied to mass? Does a black hole have the richest experiences possible?) Is a rock hungry? Why do humans have such an amazing and complex brain that we know to be so powerful but remains so mysterious, but all of its contributions to our consciousness can be replicated in inanimate compounds of the micro universe? Our brains are quite mysterious, are they not? Why move to ascribe what their vast complexity has achieved (memory, consciousness) to the whole of the entire universe before we've figured out how they fully work?

And if consciousness is Fundamental, would the human blind spot still exist? Can't we just be conscious of the world without neurons? Can't I directly see the contents in the blind spot despite the optic nerve challenges? And couldn't we see beyond the visible light spectrum? Does fundamental consciousness see in ultra violet or infrared? Some animals can. How can humans get in on that fundamental action?

This sentence also seems to challenge the Fundamental argument “The conscious awareness of the bear, as well as the related emotions, come at the tail end of a stream of brain processing and physical response of the body.” Consciousness arises after a bunch of brain activity. One might point out that correlation isn't causation, but consciousness here isn't happening directly. It's in the wake of the subconscious brain activity. Fundamental consciousness seems like it should bypass the time delay filter and experience life directly. Consciousness seems to arise off the surface of the underlying brain activity, not directly, fundamentally experiencing the universe.

And given my claim and belief about the neuron being the fundamental building block of consciousness, I struggle to see the illusion of the self again. For a long moment, I had experienced it when I recognized that indeed there is no center where consciousness sits in the brain, as is contended here. But if consciousness scales with neural activity, it is simply the entirety of the brain that contributes to consciousness. Lopping off a section of brain decidedly impairs one's ability to think. And feel. But the intact section still functions. The whole is equal to the sum of its parts. So the whole unit is where consciousness sits. Just in the skull. With neurons running the length of the body to feel the rest of what's happening to the host. So “my body” is the host structure that supports my conscious mind. It's mine is as much as my brain controls it. And my brain produces my consciousness. So my brain is in the driver's seat, and I'm riding shotgun. And the self refers to me, the conscious mind in the passenger seat, the brain's shadow.

So the idea that there is no center where consciousness sits - imagine it truly was at the center of the brain. But now zoom out to encompass the whole brain. And now you've found the center.

I agree with the hard problem and welcome pursuing all avenues to try to understand its mystery. But fundamental consciousness and panpsychism just seem to disregard too much of what we know about our own experience. It feels like neuro poetry that I can't comprehend without jettisoning much of my understanding of reality. Maybe I'll need to. But so far, I'm not there yet.